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