"Not-So" Recent Bakes

Aarrggh! Have been lagging in updating my blog, baking-related entries included. Oh well, better late than never, right? Anyhow, these are some of the by-products from my kitchen experiments...

From Left to Right: Coffee Walnut Cake, Multi-Treasure Pumpkin Tongshui and Gula Melaka Chiffon Cake.

Here's the recipe for the Coffee Walnut Loaf

Coffee Walnut Loaf (based on recipe from The Australian Women's Weekly)
35g toasted chopped walnuts (add more if you like)
125g butter, chopped
1 cup castor sugar (or substitute 1/4 to 1/2c with brown sugar)
125ml low-fat milk
2T Nescafe Gold
200g Self-raising flour
1/2t cinnamon powder (optional: add more)
2 eggs, beaten lightly
1/2t vanilla (optional)
* Whole walnuts for decoration (optional)
Method:
1. Combine butter, sugar, milk and coffee in a microwaveable bowl. Zap in the microwave until all is melted. Stir to combine evenly. Set aside to cool a little.
2. Sift flour and cinnamon into another bowl. Slowly stir in eggs, butter mixture, vanilla and chopped walnuts until just combined.
3. Pour the mixture into a greased and lined loaf pan. Sprinkle whole walnuts on top.
4. Bake in preheated oven at 160c for about 45 mins or until skewer comes out clean when tested. Cover top with aluminium foil if it browns too quickly.
5. Turn onto wire rack to cool completely.

Bitten by the 'L" Bug (Coffee Liquor Chiffon Cake, Chewy Chunky Choc Cookies, Multigrain Raisin Bread)

Yup, I have been bitten by the "L" bug; "Lazy" bug, that is. Haven't had much motivation to bake recently and partly due to that for the past few weekends, I have been attending birthday celebrations, pre-wedding gatherings, hen parties as well as wedding dinners. "Phew", September and November are such "hot" periods to get hitched.

So for the past couple of weeks, these are the only things that came out from my oven...

Coffee Liquor Chiffon Cake based on this recipe. I tweaked it a bit to use whatever ingredients I happened to have in my pantry. But anyhow, I used 5 whole eggs and as for the coffee liquor, I used Amarula instead of Kahlua. I wasn't overly satisfied with the outcome of the cake. Probably due to my substitution (i.e., quantity of eggs used), the chiffon cake was not as high as I would have like. Also, it was slightly "holey". Taste-wise, it was pretty alright. Coffee with subtle taste of the Amarula, it is more suited for adult tastebuds though.


One of my nephews, Clement had been bugging me to bake him some chocolate chip cookies. What my nephew wants, my nephew gets (ceh...). I used my current favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's chewy instead of crispy. Using chocolate chunks means that you will get melted chocolate puddles when you bite into the cookie. Like this......


After all the coffee, Amarula and chocolate, I must make something healthy, right? So out came this healthy Multigrain Raisin Wholemeal Bread. I bought the pre-mixed multigrain/seeds packet from Aunt Catherine (Best23) and followed the attached recipe. Only thing that I added some molasses sugar and threw in some raisins. Yum....

Sweet & Savoury (Cocoa Cappuccino Cookies & Savoury Egg Sponge Cake)

Cocoa Cappuccino Cookies (Recipe link)
Another cookie recipe worth trying, another batch of successful cookies worth to forgo any diet (heh,heh). Brownie-like cookies, it has a slightly crusty shell and soft chewy center. Coffee always provide a good contrast to chocolate. Using a good coffee powder makes it even better. You can reduce sugar slightly since it is rolled in sugar, but not too much otherwise the coffee powder may make it bitter.
Note: 1/2 recipe yielded about 20 cookies for me.


Savoury Egg Sponge Cake (aka Kai Tan Kou) layered with chicken floss and crispy fried shallots
I first fell in love with this cake ages ago at my girl friend's house. Her mom made this cake and I nearly gobbled up the entire cake. Imagine my delight when I saw a similar recipe at SeaDragon's blog (see side bar for link).
Result was nearly as good, except that my cake was slightly soggy at the bottom. Two possible reasons for this. First, instead of a stainless steel steamer tin, I used a normal cake tin lined with greaseproof paper; and/or I left the cake in the pan for a good 8-10 minutes before remembering to remove it.I was busy with something else!)
Anyway like previously, I nearly gobbled up the entire cake!

Monday's Breakfast: Mocha Raisin & Walnut Wholemeal Buns

Nice with a big cup of coffee! Mocha Wholemeal Raisin & Walnut Buns.

Recipe given by aunty:
310g bread flour + 40g wholemeal flour (sifted)
1/4t salt
1/4t Softpro
9g instant yeast
30g sugar + 20g brown sugar
40g softened butter
1tsp instant coffee diluted in 1/2 cup warm milk
1-2 T cocoa powder
1 egg (lightly beaten)
At the beep for adding fruits & nuts: Add 30g toasted walnuts and about 1/4c of raisins. (Add more or less to suit your taste)
Put everything in the breadmaker machine in order recommended by your breadmachine manual. Knead until dough is eleastic and not sticky. Take out and roll it out into a rectangular shape on a floured surface. Roll into a log shape and cut into 60g portions. Shape each portion into a ball. Cover and let rise until double in size. Brush top with water and sprinkle with some oats. Bake in preheated oven at 190c for 12-15 minutes or until nicely browned.

Blessing In Disguise (Banana Coffee Cake)

Recently, I bought a very large packet of over-ripe bananas for RM1. I've learnt that I can freeze these bananas for later use. For those who would like to attempt this, please be advised that they will turn all brown in the freezer (looking like rotten fruits) and the flesh is really mushy when taken out from the freezer and removed from skin. But otherwise, this is really a convenient way to have bananas on-hand and are really ideal for use in banana bread/cakes.

I have tried several banana cake recipes that I like but I was looking to try a brand new recipe. I was quickly drawn to a recipe for "Banana Coffee Muffins" on Jo's site. After all, I can never say no to "coffee" anything.

Instead of making muffins, I halved the recipe and turned them into a loaf cake. First disaster happened when I was making the coffee mixture. I managed to scooped the last 2 tablespoons out from my Nescafe Gold coffee jar. Minutes later, I accidentally spilled the coffee mixture. After a quick search in the pantry, the best I could do was a Nescafe 3-in-1 Coffee pre-mix in RICH. To make it strong, I diluted it in half of the recommended water portion and also reduced the sugar in the cake recipe.

2nd "disaster" happened when I got worried at seeing wet dough after testing the cake for doneness more than an hour since inserting the cake into the oven. Another 10 minutes later, I thought what the heck, and removed the cake. After cooling and slicing the cake, I found the inside to be rather wet/moist. But OMG, it was really delicious. So rich with sweet delicious banana bits, this cake was easily one of my favourite banana cake. However, the coffee taste was merely a hint, but I've kinda expected that.

Later, I discovered why the cake was so moist. The full recipe calls for 3 bananas. The "smart alec" in me wanted for a richer banana taste so I used 4 bananas but conveniently forgot that I was making 1/2 the full recipe. *lol* But since I liked the end result so much, wouldn't you say that it was a blessing in disguise?

Remedies for a Hot Day (Lemongrass Drink, Mocha Ice-blended, Special Agar-agar)

Twas a hot day. I agree when people say that KL's weather is turning topsy-turvy. It can rain buckets for a stretch of consecutive days; and then it could suddenly get so hot and humid (like yesterday). Busying in the kitchen, it was as if I have been to the gym.

To find some relief from the hot weather, I made:

Very Refreshing Lemongrass Drink
Recipe
About 9 stalks of lemongrass (washed and bottom part mashed)
About 5 pandan leaves
2L water
150g of rock sugar (or to taste)
Boil water with lemongrass and pandan leaves. Once it starts to boil, turn down heat and let it simmer (covered) for 30 mins. Add rock sugar (to taste) and let it boil until rock sugar dissolves completely.

Mocha Ice-Blended (Frappucino wannabe) with Chocolate ice-cream and topped with whipped cream


Special Agar-agar

(Bottom layer made up by rich & creamy coconut and egg custard layer. You can see the swirly bits of the egg at the bottom layer). Taste-wise, very nice indeed!