Vanilla Apple Cake

Here's another challenge from Sweet and Simple Bakes and here is the recipe . I found the sugar content to be too high and reduced it by 50 g. As the batter I got was pretty stiff, I added about 4 tbsp of Irish Cream Bailey's before topping the batter with the sliced apples.

Here's sharing with you what I did .....

Ingredients:

250 g unsalted butter, softened
200 g raw sugar
4 eggs, beaten
250 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's
2 green apples, cored and cut into wedges
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Method:

Pre-heat oven at 180 degree C , greased and line an 8" round springform pan.

Beat the sguar and butter together till light and fluffy .

Add in the eggs, flour, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla essence and Bailey's and stir till a smooth batter is obtained.

Lay the cut apple wedges on the top of the batter and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar onto the apple wedges.

Bake for about 60 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake from pan and leave to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting the cake.

Keep cake in air-tight container and refrigerate cake if keeping it for about a week.

Please click HERE for this month's round-up.

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Here's another challenge from Sweet & Simple Bakes and the original recipe is given HERE .

I baked this for dh's simple birthday celebration at home and he liked it. I baked the sponge cake in a single 8" cake pan and sliced it into two instead of baking two sponges. I also added in a quater cup Irish Cream Bailey's for that special flavour.

Ingredients:

For the sponge:
175 g unsalted butter at room temperature
175 g caster sugar
4 medium size eggs, beaten
175 g cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder sieved together with the cake flour
one quarter cup Irish Cream Bailey's

For the fillings:
enough sweet strawberry jam to cover the cut surface of the cake.

Buttercream:
75 g unsalted butter at room temperature
175 g icing sugar
1 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's

Cream the buttercream ingredients together till you get a pale, fluffy and light texture.
There should be enough to cover the cut surface of the cake.

Method:

Cream the butter and sugar till the mixture becomes pale, light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs and the flour mixture a portion at a time till all are blended in.

Add in the Bailey's till well blended.

Pour batter into a lined 8" cake pan and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree for about 35-40 mins. or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake pan and cool for about 10 mins before removing the cake from the pan to cool further.

When the sponge is fully cool, slice it into two parts equally and spread jam first and then buttercream before placing the other half on top.

I added icing sugar on the cake surface to get the birthday prints and also added some red sanding sugar to make the cake more festive looking.

Please click HERE for the round-up.

Mascarpone Cheese Pound Cake

What can I do with my reconstituted frozen Mascarpone cheese? It would really be such a waste to have to throw it away as I can't possibly use it to make my tiramisu. I searched the net desperately for a recipe that made use of mascarpone cheese to bake a cake. There were not many but I did happen to chance upon one which I adapted it to make the cake you see here.

I also sprinkled some mozzarella cheese on top before baking and found that the cheese gave the cake top a rather crispy texture when the cake was eaten warm. However when I kept the cake in the refrigerator and microwaved it before eating , the cheese top became chewy. At a friend's suggestion I put the piece of cake for about a minute in the oven toaster after microwaving it for about 30 secs. This way gave the cake a crispy top as good as the day I baked it.
The cheese gave the cake a rather moist texture and it is also quite dense with the aroma of the cheese flavour. It definitely will go down well with a hot cup of lemon tea :-)



Ingredients:

250 g unsalted butter, soften
150 g raw sugar
50 g caster sugar
450 g mascarpone cheese
3 nos. egg, beaten
2 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's
300 g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
a handful of mozzarella cheese


Method:

Cream butter and sugar together till light pale in color and fluffy.

Add in the eggs, Bailey's , flour, baking powder and cheese in three portions and stir till well blended.

Pour batter into a lined 9" round pan and sprinkle some mozzarella cheese on the top.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C for about 50-60 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake from pan and cool on a wire rack.

Cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Mixed Fruits, Cream Cheese Buttercake

I came across this recipe from Yochana's Blog and decided to give it a try. I adapted it and the result was a less oily, moist and soft cake. This was what I did ....


Ingredients:

125 g butter
125 g cream cheese
185 g caster sugar
3 nos. eggs, slightly beaten
200 g cake flour sieved together with 1 tsp of baking powder

150 g mixed fruits of cranberries, golden raisins, orange peel, ginger peel soaked overnight in Irish Cream Bailey's

50 g chopped walnuts

Method:

Cream together butter, cream cheese and sugar till creamy.

Add in the eggs, one at a time together with a little of the sifted flour and baking powder.

Mix 2 tbsp of the flour into the Bailey's soaked fruits to prevent them from sinking in the cake batter during baking.

Fold in the rest of the flour, together with the fruits and the nuts.

Pour batter into an 8" square cake pan.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C for about 45 minutes. or till the skewer comes out clean of the cake.

Remove from oven and leave cake pan to cool on wire rack.

Cut cake when the cake is cooled or refridgerate cake before cutting.

Banana Sourcream Cake

Since I had a couple of large bananas overripening, I baked this for teatime. Oh I really love this cos' it's so moist and soft. I adapted the recipe from HERE and used a tub of sourcream for the bake.

Ingredients:

180 g salted butter
180 g caster sugar
3 nos. medium eggs
250 g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda bicarbonate
100 g mashed bananas
1 tub Bulla sourcream

Method:

Cream butter and sugar till light , fluffy and creamy.

Add beaten eggs, mashed bananas and sourcream till all blended.

Add in the cake flour mixture with the baking powder and soda bicarbonate.

Pour the batter into a lined 8" round cake pan.

Decorate with sliced bananas if you like.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degree C for about 60 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Oreo Buttercake

This cake was baked for the Confirmation Camp participants to enjoy their supper with after their praying over. I used this RECIPE and then sprinkled into the batter half a packet of chopped oreos and another half a packet of chopped oreos for the decoration on the surface of the batter.

Ds J's Birthday Cake

Ds J will be celebrating his birthday this coming Monday. I had discussed with him the kind of cake he wanted.We came up with this Chocolate Creamcheese Cake covered with buttercream icing and had created the Patapon pics and wordings together using the Paint software. This PSP game is his favourite for now.

I had to order from Z the icing image specially made and collected it a week before. This piece of icing image cost me $10. Ds J was especially excited when he saw how the cake turned out in front of his eyes.

This is one of the easiest decorated birthday cake I ever made. Now will have to wait till Monday for the taste test with his cousins and grand parents.

Osmanthus Cake

This is the Imperial Osmanthus Cake which J created as her signature dish at Imperial Kitchen.
It's a cooling kind of jelly cake using water chestnut flour and osmanthus flower which gives the jelly cake it's distinctive flavour. However the osmanthus fragrance and flavour is an acquired one. When I first tasted this cake I liked it straight away, however my dd refused to taste it saying she didn't like the smell. LOL. I'm not sharing the recipe here as J is selling it.

Chocolate Creamcheese Cake with Choco Ganache

Baked and decorated this for my younger brother. He loves all things chocolate. I forgot that the cake should be flat for decoration and happily left it dome shaped with all the fissures there when I poured the chocolate ganache over....sigh. I think I need more practise decorating cakes again.

Cranberry Sourcream Loaf

Another soft and moist loaf using sourcream. I plumed up the dried cranberries by soaking them in Irish Cream Bailey's for about an hour before loading them into the mixture with the rest of the ingredients. The cranberries gave the extra zing to the loaf.

Ingredients:

300 g unsalted butter, soften
200 g caster sugar
3 nos. eggs, beaten
300 g plain flour
one and a half tsp baking powder
one quater tsp baking soda
75 g UHT milk
150 g dried cranberries soaked in 5 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's
one tub sour cream (200 mls)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degree C and line two loaf pans ( 8"x4"x2").
Sieve flour, baking powder and baking soda together.
Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add in the sourcream and mix till well blended.
Add in the sifted flour mixture and the beaten eggs and milk together in three portions.
Add in the soaked cranberries and the Irish Cream Bailey's.
When the mixture is well blended pour the batter into the loaf pans.
Bake for 55 minutes or till skewer inserted comes out clean.
Remove loaf pans from oven and cool them for about half an hour before removing loaf.
Cool loaf completely before storing.
Refridgerate loaves before cutting them.

Chocolate Sourcream Loaf

I noticed that when a cake uses sourcream as one of the ingredients, the cake tends to have a rather moist interior. So here I adapted the recipe for the Chocolate Loaf using the previous recipe of the Lavender Loaf. I have no regrets as the chocolate loaf turned out to be moist. I even topped a slice of the cake with lemon glaze and lemon zest when eating it. This gave the chocolate slice a zing to the tangy taste of the lemon glaze.


Here's sharing with you what I did ......

Ingredients:

240 g plain flour
60 g Varlhona dark chocolate powder
1 tsp baking powder
half tsp baking soda
220 g salted butter (Golden Churn brand)
220 g caster sugar
2 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey
4 eggs, beaten
1 tub sour cream (200 mls)
quarter cup UHT milk

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C and line two loaf pans (8"x4"x2").
Sieve the flour,chocolate powder, baking powder and baking soda together.
Beat the eggs and add in the salt and Irish Cream Bailey.
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add in the sour cream and stir till well mixed.
Add in the flour, egg mixture and milk in three portions and mix till well blended.
Portion the batter into the two loaf pans and bake for 55 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.
Cool loaves on a rack and remove cakes from pan to cool completely.
Drizzle the lemon glaze icing over the cooled loaf and sprinkle some lemon zest on top of the loaf.

Lemon glaze

3 tbsp of lemon juice
3/4 cup icing sugar
Stir the above two ingredients till well blended.

Lavender Loaf

Baked this over last weekend. It has the texture of butter cake with the fragrance of lavender. The loaf tasted even better when a slice of the cake was eaten with the sugar lemon glaze and lemon zest sprinkled over the slice.

Before baking this cake I had prepared lavender sugar and lavender icing sugar about a week in advance. I just sprinkled a tsp of the lavender flowers into each of the red cap cookie plastic bottles which I stored the sugars. This is to allow the lavender fragrance to infuse into the sugars. I used these sugars to bake the loaf and make the icing glaze.

Ingredient:

300 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
half tsp baking soda
half tsp salt
1 tsp dried lavender flowers
220 g unsalted butter
200 g lavender caster sugar
2 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey
4 eggs, beaten
1 tub sour cream (200 mls)
quarter cup UHT milk

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C and line two loaf pans (8"x4"x2").
Sieve the flour, baking powder and baking soda together.
Beat the eggs and add in the salt and Irish Cream Bailey.
Cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add in the sour cream and stir till well mixed.
Add in the flour, egg mixture and milk in three portions and mix till well blended.
Stir in the tsp of dried lavender flowers.
Portion the batter into the two loaf pans and bake for 55 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.
Cool loaves on a rack and remove cakes from pan to cool completely.
Drizzle the lemon glaze icing over the cooled loaf and sprinkle some lemon zest on top of the loaf.

Lavender lemon glaze
3 tbsp of lemon juice
3/4 cup lavender icing sugar

Stir the above two ingredients till well blended.
You may want to add a little purple color to make lavender color glaze.

Valentine's Day Cake

I baked this simple buttercake for dh before he left for his overseas assignment on Valentine's Day itself. It's his favourite recipe :-) As he was fighting a flu before he left we kept the celebration simple as in just gathering the family together to eat the cake before he left for the airport.

Chocolate Butter Cake

I received this recipe from a friend and adapted it to make a more moist cake. It's a good recipe if you like the butter cake kind of texture. Here's sharing it with you .....

Ingredients

250 g butter, softened
200 g caster sugar
4 nos. large eggs ( or 5 nos. medium size)
2 tbsp Irish cream of Bailey's
120 mls UHT milk
60 g Valhorna Chocolate/cocoa Powder
150 g Self Raising flour

Method

Sieve together the flour and the cocoa powder. Set aside.

Line a 9" round cake tin with greased proof paper.

Pre-heat oven at 180 degree C.

Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

Add in beaten eggs with Irish Cream and milk, a portion at a time.

Add in the sifted flour cocoa mixture, a portion at a time.

Stir till all mixtures are well blended.

Bake for 50 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove cake on wire rack and cool completely before cutting up and storing.

Blueberry Cake with Crunchy Topping

I baked this for my dad's birthday. The recipe was from Cindy's Kitchen published in The Straits Times sometime in November 2007.
It is a good and wholesome cake with fresh blueberry fruits and a macadamia nut topping.
I would definitely bake this again.

Here's sharing with you the recipe I adapted from Cindy's Kitchen ....

Ingredients and Method

Crunchy Topping
130 g flour
100 g brown sugar
100 g unsalted butter, chopped
100 g macadamia nuts, chopped.

Prepare the crunchy topping first by rubbing together the flour , butter and sugar till they look like coarse bread crumbs.

Lastly add in the chopped nuts and stir till they are well mixed.

Cake Layer
130 g unsalted butter, softened
130 g caster sugar
2 nos. eggs, beaten
1 tbsp Irish Cream Bailey's
250 g self-raising flour
120 mls UHT milk
one and a half packets fresh/frozen blueberries

Pre-heat oven at 180 degree C.
Line a 9 inch baking pan.
Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
Add in the beaten eggs, Irish Cream and milk in three portions.
Stir in the flour in three portions too till the mixture is well mixed.
Pour batter into the baking pan and place the blueberries on top of the batter.
Place the crunchy topping over the blueberries.
Bake the cake for 50 minutes or till inserted skewer comes out clean.
Remove cake from baking pan and completely cool before cutting and storing.

Orange Almond Olive Oil Cake (Flourless)

I saw this recipe of a cake some years ago from the Straits Times and had made it once before. I was curious about the cake cos' it didn't use any flour in the ingredients. Instead it used almond meal. I made it again this time using a
10 inch glass pie dish and had enough batter to make another cake for a friend.

Since the cake uses almond meal, the texture of the cake is sort of nutty and smooth. It's pretty moist too due to the amount of olive oil used. This is indeed a flourless cake and it tastes great when eaten cold too.

Ingredients:

Grated peel from 2 oranges
Juice from 2 oranges
1/2 cup sugar
3 whole eggs
3 egg whites
3/4 cup olive oil
250 gm almond meal
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 190 degree C.

Grease and flour a 10 inch glass pie dish.

Beat egg whites till they form stiff peaks and leave a side.

In another bowl beat whole eggs with sugar till mixture thickens.

Add in the grated orange peel, almond meal, baking powder, salt, orange juice and olive oil.

Fold the egg whites into the mixture above till well blended.

Pour batter into the glass pie dish and another cake dish.

Bake for about 30 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool.

Store in air-tight container.

Durian Cake 2

This is the second durian cake of the year. I baked this for mum to celebrate her birthday. She doesn't like too much cream on her cake so you see minimum cream here. It's an 8 " sponge cake cut into two and sandwiching a layer of fresh durian puree. For decoration I just sprinkle snow powder over the template. Dd saw me decorate the cake and asked me to add some red color on the hearts. So I sprinkled some red sugar on them and she smiled and told me the hearts look better this way. Mum definitely liked the cake cos' she even rang me up to tell me that she liked this very much.

Durian Birthday Cake

Baked this for ds A and since he doesn't mind eating durians.... of cos' he ate it.
Thanks to L from IK for sharing her recipe. It is definitely a keeper. Now my fridge will be effusing durian aroma for the next couple of days with some left over slices since we couldn't finish eating the cake. If only I know what to use to absorb the smell of durian lingering in the fridge.


Since the cake had whipped cream frosting, some of it melted when I was distracted away from the camera while taking photos of it.

Click HERE for the recipe.

Fruity Cake

I got the recipe from HERE but modified it a little cos' I didn't have all the ingredients. The result was something which dh liked and he ate it for breakfast this morning and even packed two slices to work.

Here's sharing with you what I did .....using an 11" by 8" rectangular glass dish.

Ingredients:

200 gm cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
170 gm sugar
100 gm butter
2 tbsp yoghurt
1 tbsp Irish Bailey Cream
zest and juice from 1 orange
3 nos. egg
2 nos. peach, 1 no. each of kiwi, mango and 7 nos. lychees (seeded)
(slice fruit pieces and sprinkle with 1 tbsp of sugar and chill in fridge till ready to use)

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C.

Beat butter, sugar and yoghurt together till light and fluffy.

Add in the eggs one at a time and blend them well.

Add in the Irish Cream, orange zest and orange juice and mix well.

Fold in flour and baking powder.

Pour batter into the floured baking dish.

Place the slice fruits gently on top of the batter and bake for about 60 minutes.

When the cake top turns a golden brown, you may remove it from oven and cool it on a wired rack.

Refridgerate leftovers and they still taste yummy when eaten cold the next day.

Ds J's Birthday Cake

I baked this today to give it to him for photo taking cos' on the actual day, I would be at a gathering. Also, on the actual day his daddy won't be around to celebrate with him due to work commitment. So we had an early mini celebration today. He loves to eat MacDonald's double cheeseburger and so to MacDonald's we went to have lunch with him. I also allowed his friend living in the next block of flats to come and play with him. I have a feeling this friend of his will be coming to the house ....many, many times in the future too.

My ds J's latest favourite cake happen to be the spongecake in a cup shared by hugbear.
I got the taller muffin cups and baked the spongecake in them and then gathered them together to form some semblance of a round cake. I put his favourite football figures on the individual spongecake and decorated it with the flower crafts I did and shared with the pre-school kids on Mothers' Day. He looked at it and said ...."WOW".... and then started playing with the footballer figures....LOL. After taking some photos with his friend and family members, I'm sure he will be eating it for supper tonight. Right now he's still busy at the computer playing with his friend.