Nutella Peanut Butter Chiffon Cake

Baked on 11 Aug 2014

Finally used my Chiffon pan to bake this Full Nutella Chiffon Cake and texture equally good.

Baked on 7 April 2014

It was amazing when I saw the cake coming out of the oven. After so many failed attempts baking a perfect chiffon cake, I finally made it!

I love the color of the cake using Nutella but I only have 100g of Nutella left, so I added 80g of chunky peanut butter, finger crossed to treat it as same content. Apparently, it came out fantastic and I could feel the chunky peanut in the cake. It is indeed a unique combination.   

This recipe requires the technique to beat the egg white until the correct stiffness and also folding it correctly. I was extra careful with the folding steps and my hard work paid off. The cake risen beautifully and the texture was excellent.   

Ingredients

100gm hot milk
100gm Nutella
80gm peanut butter
80gm top flour,sifted
5 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

5 egg whites
70gm sugar

Directions

1. Melt Nutella with hot milk, stir until smooth. Let it cool down.
2. Preheat oven to 180C. Prepare baking pan and line base with baking paper. Do not grease.
3. When the Nutella mixture has cooled down, mix the egg yolks, flour, and vanilla extract until it becomes a smooth batter.
4. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks and gradually add in sugar and beat until stiff.
5. Put 1/4 of the egg whites into the Nutella butter, with quick and gentle stroke, fold the batter. Repeat with another 1/4 of the egg whites.
6. Pour the Nutella batter into the egg whites, scrape the Nutella batter bowl clean and fold the final batter until no streaks of egg whites are seen.
7. Bake the cake for 40-50mins or until done.
8. Remove from oven immediately, and once the cake leave the side, use a butter knife to go round the cake. Place a tray on top of pan and over turn the cake to remove the pan, then place wire rack on top of the cake and over turn on wire rack (the base with baking paper will now be on the bottom).
9. When the cake has totally cooled down, use a cake board and over turn. Remove baking paper and ready to serve.

Light Cheddar Cheescake

Baked on 17 Aug 2014

I have bookmarked this recipe for a long time and finally today I have the chance to try it out. I have just learnt on the folding method for chiffon cake and now it is time that I put what I have learnt to practice. This recipe called for 6 egg whites and water bath baking. With strong determination to get it right, I think I have done it well. The cake baked to perfection with a nice colour top, soft texture and the right cheesy flavour. I felt great accomplishment and motivation to do folding method recipes moving forward.   

Ingredients  

6 slices of Kraft cheddar cheese (tear up)
100g fresh milk
100g unsalted butter
6 egg yolks
100g cake flour

6 egg whites (cold)
100g caster sugar

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 150 Deg C with water bath. Line the side and bottom of square tin.
2. Melt butter, milk and cheddar cheese in a pot over medium heat, stir constantly with a spatula till all melted and well incorporated. Set aside to cool before use.
3. Lightly whisk the egg yolks in a large bowl. Ladle spoonful of the cheese mixture into the egg yolks. Mix till all well combined.
4. Sift in cake flour into the mixture, mix well and ensure no lumps.
5. In a mixer, whisk egg white till foamy and gradually add in sugar. Whisk till stiff peak or close to stiff.
6. Add 1/3 of egg white mixture into the cheese mixture and fold gently with a hand whisk. Repeat the balance portion till all well mix.
7. Pour batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the surface.
8. Bake the cake for 50-60 mins at lower rack or till golden brown.
9. Let the cake cool in the pan before removing it and cool on wire rack.

Baked Fish Cheesy Macaroni

It's Singapore 49th Birthday today and how can we not celebrate for the country, so I made this Baked Fish Cheesy Macaroni for dinner. Everyone enjoyed the meal while watching the National Day Parade. 

Baking Mission

I always wanted to give my Kitchen an appropriate signage for all my beautiful bakes. When I first saw this in one of the shops in Malacca, I fell in love with it at first sight and from now on, this will be my Baking Mission for my lovely kitchen.

Almond Soya Milk Chiffon Cups

I had a special request from my Sister in Laws to bake this Almond Soya Milk Chiffon Cake again, so I decided to bake it in cups for easy consumption with no cutting required. I felt the texture was not chiffon but more of a sponge cake type. Nevertheless, I like this texture too. 

Kueh Lapis

Had always wanted to make this Kueh Lapis as my youngest daughter loves this very much. But due to the time consuming processes to steam each layer at a time, I was reluctant to do it until I found this simple step by step recipe from Kenneth Goh. 

After exploring this recipe, I managed to grasp some good tips when doing this Kueh Lapis.

1) I should add pandan leaves to the 500g water and boil it so the Kueh Lapis with have a fragrant pandan flavour.

2) I should ladle the equal amount of batter to each layer but I just estimated each layer of batter till I am not able to see the below layer.

3) I am not able to loosen out Kueh Lapis from my pan (after 2 hours) and so after going round the sides, I placed my hand beneath the base of the kueh to lift it up. Perhaps the correct way is to leave it in the chiller before attempting to take it out from the pan.

4) After releasing the Keuh lapis from the pan, I placed it on a tray and tried to cut with a greased knife but unfortunately it was so sticky and I am not able to get a nice smooth cut for every pieces. I would think the correct way is to place Keuh Lapis in the chiller for a few hours and it will be much easier to cut out nicely. 

  

Overall, it was a good try on this recipe :)

Ingredients  

(with my own modifications)

100g rice flour
350g tapioca flour
500g water (boil with Pandan leaves and leave to cool)
350g castor sugar
500ml of thick coconut milk (about 1 big packet)
Red food colouring

Directions

1. Put some water in the steamer and bring to boil.
2.Shift the tapioca and rice flours to a big bowl. Add in sugar. Stir well and make a well. Add in water and coconut milk. Use a balloon whisk to stir until well mixed and sugar are dissolved.
3. Lightly grease your preferred container and put the empty greased tin in the steamer. Let it steam for at least 5 minutes.
4. Open the lid of the steamer. Put 1-1.5 ladles of green/red flour solution in the tin. Steam for another 5 minutes. Repeat the procedure until all the green and red flour solution have finished. In the final layer, steam the whole cake for 15-20 minutes until the cake looks transparent. Rest for at least 1-2 hours before transferring for cutting.
5. Lightly grease a "sharp knife". Cut the cake in one knife. Do not saw the cake as the edge will not be smooth. 

Chocolate Cheery Cake - Orders (2014)

Very satisfied with this cake decoration and glad that my customer loves it too. 

Sunkist Huat Kueh

I saw this recipe in Facebook Baking Group and was attracted to the vibrant yellow of these Huat Kueh. So with great curiosity, I decided to give it a try and indeed, it came out with such a nice color and they were smiling beautifully. The taste was not orangy but soft and fluffy. Personally, I still preferred Ji Dan Gao more with a strong eggy taste and slight chewy texture. Good experiment though!

Ingredients

230g Orange Juices (fresh or in Sunkist bottle)
100g sugar
50g corn oil
250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

Directions

1. Mix orange juice & sugar till dissolved. Add oil mixed till combined.
2. Add in flour and mix well.
3. Spoon mixture to paper fillers up to 95%.
4. Steam for 15 mins at high heat.

Pork Floss Chiffon Cake

I can still remember clearly the 1st time I tasted this Pork Floss Chiffon Cake given by my friend and I love it so much. The unique taste of sweetness and saltiness was indeed an excellent combination. So now that I have learnt to make successful chiffon cake, how could I not bake this Pork Floss Chiffon Cake. Felt motivated to bake other flavored chiffon cakes soon.

Ingredients

5 egg yolks
20g sugar
70g canola oil
70g water
80g Cake flour
50g Pork Floss

5 Egg white (cold)
95g sugar
12g corn flour

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 160 Deg C. Shift flour and set aside.

2. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a big bowl and mix well with a hand whisk. Add oil and water and blend well. Add flour mixture and mix well.

3. Mix Corn flour to sugar. Beat egg whites until foamy and gradually add in sugar & corn flour mixture. Continue and beat until egg whites are glossy with stiff peak.

4. Gradually add 1/3 of egg whites into egg yolk mixture and mix well with a hand whisk. Continue with 2nd & 3rd lot of egg whites. Lastly add Pork Floss and use spatula to fold mixture well.

5. Pour batter evenly into ungreased chiffon cake pan (22cm). Gently bang the pan on the table top to release air bubbles.

6. Place cake on lowest rack and bake at 160 Deg C for 60 mins.

7. When cake is done, remove from oven and turn the pan over immediately.

8. Once cake has cooled completely, carefully run a knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it. 

9. Spread mayonnaise and sprinkle pork floss over the top.

Almond Soya Milk Chiffon Cake

I am extremely happy to see my 1st successful chiffon cake so beautifully done. Many thanks to my baking friends (Rachel, Jo, Elaine & Liz) who were so kind to drop by my place to guide me. We also learned alot of baking tips together and I would like to share them with those who want to start baking chiffon cakes.

Learning points:

1) No need to use electric mixer to mix the egg mixture. A big bowl and a hand whisk can do the job.

2) Mix corn flour to sugar (for adding to egg whites later). This will help to stabilize the meringue (the output of egg whites + Corn flour + sugar mixture).

3) You need to use a electric mixer to beat the egg whites. The result will be better if you used a hand held mixer but I only have a stand mixer, so I used a spatula to push the meringue to the centre to ensure all well mixed.

4) Add corn flour & sugar mixture gradually to the egg whites after it started to be foamy and continue to beat till glossy with stiff peaks (about 5-7mins) - this is the most difficult and important part for the success of chiffon cake. The meringue will not drop when you overturned the mixing bowl and it will have a firm tip when you scooped up as in the picture below. 

5) Use hand whisk to mix 1/3 of the meringue to the egg yolk mixture and fold well. Following with 2nd & 3rd lot of meringue and lastly used spatula to have a thorough mix before pouring into chiffon pan.

6) Always bake on the lowest rack at 160 Deg C (cannot be too hot depending on your oven temperature) for 60mins.

7) The cake should have a nice brown color when done.

(I failed many times due to under baked)

8) Immediately overturned cake and place higher with 3 cups to allow ample air circulation to cool the cake.

9) Use a knife to go round the side of the pan, lift the centre and go round the base of cake. Place a plate and release cake.

10) Chiffon cake will taste even better the next day. 

Ingredients

5 egg yolks
25g sugar
50g canola oil
100g Soya Milk Almond
2 tbsp Almond ground
100g Cake flour
10g Chocolate flavoured chips

5 Egg white (cold)
90g sugar
10g corn flour

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 160 Deg C. Shift flour and almond together and set aside.
2. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a big bowl and mix well with a hand whisk. Add oil and soya milk, blend well. Add flour mixture, mix well and fold in chocolate chips.
3. Mix Corn flour to sugar. Beat egg whites until foamy and gradually add in sugar & corn flour mixture. Continue and beat until egg whites are glossy with stiff peak.
4. Gradually add 1/3 of egg whites into egg yolk mixture and mix well with a hand whisk. Continue with 2nd & 3rd lot of egg whites and lastly using spatula to fold mixture well.
5. Pour batter evenly into ungreased chiffon cake pan (22cm). Gently bang the pan on the table top to release air bubbles.
6. Place cake on lowest rack and bake at 160 Deg C for 60 mins.
7. When cake is done, remove from oven and turn the pan over immediately.
8. Once cake has cooled completely, carefully run a knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it. 

Steam Egg Muffins by Rosalind Tan

Thank you Rosalind Tan for giving credit to my blog on her Steam Egg Muffins. Feeling great satisfaction and hope to see more people using the recipes in my blog which I have simplified the steps for busy mothers. It would be great if you could drop me a note and pictures of your bakes so that I could keep a record in my blog for my future reference.    

Fish Burgers & Teriyaki Chicken

Last weekends were fantastic for me, 

cooking nice meals for my family. 

Check out BeautyMe Cooking Recipes.

Fish Burgers

Teriyaki Chicken

Banana Cream Cheese Muffins

I saw this recipe from Kenneth Goh and was very curious about how good the combination of banana and cream cheese, so I decided to give it a try. As I was following the recipe instructions, I realised brown sugar and melted butter were not mentioned. So I took the initiative to add them after adding milk, followed by flour mixture and luckily the muffins turned out soft and moist (quite unlike muffins texture). Everyone in the family love this texture so did my colleagues when I brought for them the following day. Thanks to Kenneth for the excellent recipe (even though I did not follow accordingly to his steps). 

(I used mini muffin fillers bought from Daiso- yield 27pcs)

Ingredients

150g cream cheese (softened)
80g icing sugar

150g ripe banana
3 eggs
20g milk
150g butter (melted in microwave)
120g brown sugar
200g plain flour
41 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
Additional bananas for toppings

Directions

1. Mixed cream cheese and icing sugar together (I used hand to mix together) and set aside for later use.
2. Mash banana till puree form, add eggs, milk, melted butter and lastly brown sugar. Mix till well combined.
3. Sift plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon together. Add into banana mixture and mix
well.
4. Fill half the muffins cup with batter, add a spoonful of cream cheese mixture follow by batter till 80% full.
5. Decorate top with banana slices and bake at 180 deg C for 30mins or till brown.

Love Cheesecake - Orders (2014)

My colleague ordered this cheesecake for her boyfriend. Hope he likes it as much as I do. 

As I have leftover batter, I baked it in cupcakes with smiley faces and rosy hearts. My kids were overjoyed to get to eat the Happy Cheesecakes. Indeed yummilicious!

Longan Agar Agar

As I had promised my colleagues, I made this Agar Agar with a can of Longan that I had in my kitchen storage. What a cooling dessert on a hot day!

Ingredients

1 pkt of Agar Agar (your preference of color)
1 litre water
100g sugar
1 can Longan

Directions

1. Pour the syrup in can Longan into a pot and add water up to 1 litre in total. 
2. Add 100g sugar and bring to boil, cool down a little and pour into preferred container.
3. Cut Longan into smaller bites and add half portion into the container (it will sink to the bottom).
4. Let it cool a lttile and sprinkle the balance on top of agar agar. Bring container to fridge and chill for a few hours.

Portuguese Egg Tarts (I)

This is definitely a must have recipe for me as I am a lover of Egg Tarts. Portuguese Egg Tarts come with flaky base and sweet creamy egg filing, just irresistible! And the good news is I need not have to make the pastry from scratch as they are available in supermarkets (I bought it from Phoon Huat). 

I came across this video recipe in Facebook but made a few modifications:

1) I did not roll out the pastry, just cut straight from the pastry sheet.

2) I did not have the chwee kueh mould, so I used my 12 holes muffin pan. 

3) I did not put the cut out round pastry shells in fridge at all.

4) I did not pour the ready egg mixture into measuring cup, just used a ladle to scoop into the pastry shell.  

5) Try to place your baking tray on higher level in oven, so the egg surface can be brown faster. 
6) I have increased the egg mixture by 1.5 times as I want to have more egg fillings.

Watch the video recipe link and try making your own Portuguese Egg Tarts today!   

(Yield 10pcs of Egg Tarts)

Ingredients

1 sheet of puff pastry
90g Milk
90 whipping cream (I used Enborg Whipping cream)
3 egg yolks
40g sugar

Directions

1. Dust rolling board with some flour and lay out a sheet of puff pastry. Use a 9cm wide opening cup to cut out round pastry. Lay the cut pastry in the baking tray.
2. In a large bowl, mix milk, whipping cream, egg yolks and sugar together until sugar dissolved. 
3. Use a ladle and scoop the mixture into the prepared pastry shells till 80% full.
4. Baked pastry at 200-220 deg C till the egg surface turned brown (I used about 35mins).

Soya Milk Almond Cake

I wanted to bake a pumpkin cake for my colleague (70th Birthday) but could not find any pumpkins for 3 days, so I decided to bake this Healthy Soya Milk Almond Cake instead. I have made a few modifications to this recipe and I am glad that it turned out nice. 

Modification made:

1) This is a chiffon recipe but I wanted to experiment baking it in normal baking pan and it turned out sponge cake texture - still soft and nice.

2) I replaced sesame seeds with chocolate chips and tasted yummy and the kids love it.

Ingredients

100g Plain flour
2 tbsp Almond ground
5 egg yolks
25g sugar
50g canola oil
100g soya milk with Almond (reduced sugar)
2 tbsp of chocolate chips

50g sugar
5egg whites

Directions

1. Sift flour and almond ground together.
2. With a mixer, combine egg yolks and sugar. Add oil and soya milk, blend well. Add flour mixture and mix till just combined.
3. Beat egg whites until foamy and slowly add sugar till glossy and stiff peaks.
4. Gradually pour all the egg mixture into the meringue at low speed and then stop machine. Use a rubber spatula and fold mixture well.
5. Pour batter evenly into baking pan and gently bang the on the table top to release air bubbles.
6. Place in preheated oven 165 deg C and baked for 35-40mins. Leave the cake in the oven for another 5 mins. 
7. Once cake has completely cooled, carefully run a knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it.

Ham & Cheese & Cinnamon Pastry

I came across a recipe on bread with ham and cheese rolls and the idea came to me whether I could make use of puff pastry to do the same. I decided to do an experiment and see if it really tasted nice. Indeed it was fantastic! It was easy to do the rolls and really tasted yummy with the crispy texture. Glad that my experiment was a success seeing everyone enjoyed them with a big smile on their faces :)

Ingredients

Puff Pastry
Hams
Sliced cheddar cheeses

Directions

1. Dust board with some flour and lay out a sheet of puff pastry.
2. Place ham and cheeses all over the pastry. 
3. Roll the pastry and slice out into small parts. 
4. Lay on tray lined with baking sheet and baked at 180 Deg C till golden brown.

* Same method for Cinnamon rolls - just spread cinnamon powder, sugar and raisins (according to your preference)

Heart Brownies & American Carrot Cake - Orders (2014)

Heart Brownies

American Carrot Cake

Very grateful for the orders coming in so I am able to practice my baking and decorative skills. 

Orange Cranberry cupcakes & Chocolate Blueberry Cake - Orders (2014)

Orange Cranberry Cupcakes

Chocolate Blueberry Cake

Thanks to Jeannie Wu for her orders on 9 July and 12 July 2014. Giving me the opportunity to test out my baking skills. 

Daisy Cheesecake

I want to compliment Hungry Happening for this wonderful recipe (Beth, please don't give up blogging. You have so many great ideas about baking). Not only was it a pretty design which my kids love so much but also a yummy cheesecake. This was my 1st time trying out graham crackers for cheesecake to see if the taste was as good as digestive biscuits but I still prefer digestive biscuits. It was indeed a good idea to use squeeze bottles for the colored batter, more control of the piping. Overall, I am happy with the final bakes.

You can check out Hungry Happening (see link below) for the detailed instructions. 

I would like to share some points which I did it my way:

1) I did not have a springform pan, I used a normal round pan and lined with 2 long stripes of baking papers (see below picture) so I could easily lift it up.

2) I have difficulty moulding the graham crackers up to the sides of the pan and I added more melted butter and I found it a little wet after refrigerated. I feel 80g of butter should be good enough to do the job.

3) The plain batter was too much to fill up to the edge of graham crackers, I had to pour some into cupcake fillers (without the graham crackers base).

4) I did not follow the quantity as specified for the color batter and I landed with quite a bit of batter left so I piped into cupcake (without the graham crackers base). I have estimated the quantity in my recipe and hope it will be the right amount.

Recipe adapted from Hungry Happening (with modifications)

Ingredients

1 pkt/200g graham crackers (crushed)
80g butter (melted)
3 blocks of cream cheese
225g sugar
3 eggs
250g sour cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
Food coloring - pink, yellow
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 170 Deg C
2. Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter, stirring until it looks like sand. Press the mixture into the baking pan (*below) and up the sides of the pan. Bake for 10-12 mins until fragrant and the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool completely.
3. Prepare water bath pan (*below) and place in the hot oven until ready to bake the cheesecake.
4. Beat 3 blocks of cream cheese until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Make sure there are no lumps in the mixture. 
5. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat until creamy. Add sour cream and vanilla till well combined.
6. Pour 60g of batter into a small bowl, color it pink and pour into squeeze bottle. Color 30g of batter yellow and color 30g of batter with cocoa powder and pour them into squeeze bottles respectively.
7. Pour the plain cheesecake batter into the baked graham crackers.
8. Pipe the outline using the cocoa batter, follow by yellow batter into the center circle and add pink into the petals. Pipe on a smiley face.
9. Carefully carry your cheesecake to the oven and place on top of the water bath pan. Bake for 45-50mins. The top will still jiggle but look shiny and set.
10. Remove from water bath, set on a cooling rack and cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours and remove from baking pan.

Cut 2 long stripes of baking paper 

and placed it cross as in the picture

so I can lift the cheesecake up after 

refrigerated. 

Place cheesecake on top of a pan
of water so it cover 1/4 way up the
sides of the baking pan