Kaka's Cake

Last Saturday was Kaka's 4th birthday celebration, and I offered to bring the birthday cake to the party which was held at Big Slide in Ferntree Gully. It was actually my first time to bake a cake for this boy, and so here it was!





The decor probably seems quite similar to Daan and Pip's cake - strawberry is cheaper this time and there is plenty around, so why not use it! I guess it is still a healthier decoration option compared to lollies!

The cake base used was from the Coles Layered Easter Cake  recipe; and I think it's a winner. Very easy too!
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Chocolate Cake with Coffee Cream and Chocolate Curls

It was a Sunday afternoon and I just finished doing some stuff around the garden... And then I felt the baking bug bite.... And so I had to bake something!

Recalling that a colleague found a recipe from the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, I fished out the clipping from my bag and thought it might be nice to make this - it was called an Esk Valley Chocolate Cake, from 50 Fabulous Chocolate Cakes edited by Rita Erlich - except I did have a minor tweak on the whipped cream by adding coffee liquer...

Anyway, this was made from

1 tbsp butter
1/2 cup cocoa (scant half a cup)
1/2 cup boiling water
3 eggs
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp bicarb
1 tsp cream of tartar
Whipped cream to fill (about 150ml singe cream whipped with about 2 tbsp of Kahlua, if you like)

Icing
1/2 cup pure icing sugar
1/2 tbsp cocoa
1 big tsp butter blended with 1 dessertspoon boiling water

Chocolate curls to decorate (details below)

Method
Pre-heat oven to 180c. Grese and line a 20cm cake tin
Melt buttere, cocoa and mix with boiling water. Let cool

Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy (around 5-7 minutes on high, the color will be pale and if you life the beaters it will leave a ribbon-like trail)' then add the flour sifted with bicarb and cream of tartar. Add cooled cocoa mixture and pour into well greased tin. Bake for about 30-40mnutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Set aside to cool.

To make icing, sift the icing sugar and 1/2 tbsp cocoa. Blend with butter and water. I whisked this over a very low heat until the sugar has melted and hasa pouring consistency.

When the cake has cooled completely, split in half horizontally and fill with whipped cream.







Top with other half, smother with the icing and top with chocolate curls.

To make chocolate curls - melt some chocolate (i used a combination or dark and milk chocolate, about 70g) and spread out evenly into a 2mm thick sheet (this is what the instructions said, i'm not sure if i made it correctly, hehe). Allow to cool until set but not to hard, then draw a spatula at an angle of about 40degrees (again, this is what the instructions said!) along the chocolate. Chocolate that is too cold will splinter, too warm it will not form proper curls. It does take a fair bit of practice - as you can see some of my 'alleged curls' look like shavings!





I also made some chocolate leaves by 'painting' the back of bay leaves with the melted chocolate.

Finished product!







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Cake-a-thon

One of my colleagues at work is preparing for a double marathon this year and he aims to raise funds for a cancer foundation. To help him raise funds we have scheduled a morning tea cakefeast where willing bakers from the office woud bring a treat or two and sell it to people at work.

My contribution consists of a lemon meringue pie which proved itself to be a crowd pleaser, a chocolate brioche which i have not done before (but you gotta have something with chocolate!) And for something different, a savory muffin - carrot, parsley and onion.










The savory muffins went down surprisingly well - the lemon meringue pie was pretty much sold out early too. Recipes to be posted later!

Carrot, parsley and onion muffins

Chocolate brioche, a Donna Hay recipe

Seeing double - one for guests (had some people over that weekend!) and one for the cake-a-thon

The outcome was we raised $165.75 from these plus date slices, chocolate swirly shortbread cookies, rocky road, healthy muffins and cheesecake from the other bakers!

To donate for Ed's cause click here


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Cakes Galore

Two birthdays, two cakes. These are from previously tested recipes, but still with some substitutions due to constraints in available ingredients from the pantry!

John, the neighbor, has a sweet tooth, so there was no other way but to go for chocolate. This was based on the chocolate mousse cake recipe, this time topped with tinned cherries, drained from its sauce save for maybe around 2 tablespoons worth and some sugar, where it was reduced until the sauce became slightly thicker.





Christy specifically asked for carrot cake, so I whipped out one based on an a previous carrot cake recipe, except that the available nuts were walnuts and cashew nuts, so i substituted these instead of the almonds. The frosting was made from a packet of cream cheese, 5 heaping tablespoons of softened buter and 2 cups of icing sugar, beaten together... It was highly spreadable, and i thought it would be a crowd pleaser... Well, the birthday girl was pleased, for sure ;)







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Chocolate Mousse Cake topped with Cherries

A rich, decadent, chocolate cake made of 4 different types of chocolate and just a tablespoon of flour,eggs, honey butter and a tiny bit more sugar. A crowd pleaser!

200 g dark chocolate
100g bittersweet chocolatr
100g milk chocolate
100g lindt chocolate with a touc of sea salt
150 g butter, cut into cubes
A good glug of honey
1 tbsp caster sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp flour, sifted

Grease and line a springform tin with baking paper and pre-heat oven to 220C.

Melt chocolate, butter and honey in a bain marie until well incorporated with each other. Set aside to cool a little bit.

Meanwhile, whisk eggs with sugar until pale and frothy. This could take a while (around 10minutes). It would have at least tripled in volume and would look very thick, leaving a ribbon trail. Fold in flour. Fold in chocolate and egg mixture, moving quickly so as not to loose the air. Pour to prepared tin and bake for 12-15minutes. Run a knife along the edge, and remove collar. Then let cool, and refrigerate overnight to set the center.

Top with berries, or cherries, like in this instance. I would have made a cherry coulis but I wasn't in the best form (was feeling a little bit under the weather) but I was informed that it didn't really need it this time - i guess adding a bit of milk chocolate decreased the richness compared to when i made this a couple of times before when i used more dark chocolate.

Recipe is a keeper :)

The cake was made for a colleague who celebrated his birthday and first month at work!

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Citrus Semolina Cake

need to adjust the brightness in this photo! ;p

Adapted from a recipe from the 'Baking Bible' - which was originally a Lemon Semolina cake with Orange Glaze







3/4 cup self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cups coarse semolina
1cup castor sugar
3/4 cup natural yoghurt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup canola oil
3 eggs
Grated zest and juice from 1 lemon
Zest of 1 freshly picked orange from the garden ;p it just happened to be lying around so I added this in!

Glaze
1/3 cups homemade grapefruit and ginger marmalade and 3 teaspoons honey


Mix dry ingredients together -instead of sifting it I like to whisk them in a mixing bowl. Mix wet ingredients and zest together in a separate jug. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour egg, yoghurt and milk mixture. Whisk into a runny batter. Pour into baking tin (i used a greased bundt tin) and bake for around 55 minutes at 180c or until top is golden.

Mix glaze ingredients and heat through in a small saucepan. Spoon over cake while still warm.

The recipe book said the cake is best served with a dollop of yoghurt mixed with some honey... :) this cake was served as it was, and was gone pretty quickly..!


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Today's Cake

... is for my brother, cousin, and colleague,who just celebrated their birthdays!

It was a chocolate cake base, topped with homemade plum jam and candied grapefruit peel. And some other stuff within reach like the star snide and cinnamon quill, just to make it prettier and smell nicer...

Unfortunately my bro and cousin won't be able to have a slice, as they are far away.... This cake was devoured in the office!

Nanay's Cake

It's Mother's Day! And while I have baked a lot of cakes for pretty much everyone celebrating something, I thought I'd make an extra special cake for my Nanay ('mother' in Tagalog)...

I had some pears in the fridge and remembered that I once made a poached pear cake. I thought it would be a really special cake, with my nanay in my mind the whole time I was cooking. She loves flowers, so the roses were meant to bundle in cake and flowers in one package!

I only used 4 pears and a small baking tin.

  

peel and core the  pears (william pears in this instance) but keep the stems intact

I used 4 small pears (one is missing in this photo!)

bring the following to a boil : 750ml of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, 

1 cinnamon stick, 6 cloves, 2 star anise and peel & juice of half a lemon.

poach pears in the liquid until the pears have softened. 

drain and discard liquid. let the pears cool.

meanwhile, make the cake batter

this one was made with 2 eggs whisked with 1/2 cup of caster sugar

when thick and foamy, trickle in around 1/3 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 

about 3 tablespoons of honey while still whisking the mixture.

when everything is incorporated, use a spatula to fold 1 cup of self raising flour.

pour onto greased and lined baking tin, and push the pears into the cake batter.
(this recipe is something that i just made up on the fly!)

bake in a preheated 180C oven for around 30minutes.

decorate however which way you would like

but it is best served warm!

Previous poached pear cake here.

My mom is back home in the Philippines but I do know one day I should be able to make something for her here in my very own kitchen, while she waits in the dining table, just like how I used to wait for her hot freshly cooked yummies!

Chocolate and Guinness Cake, again!

This cake is always a winner! First version here.

Cole's Celebration Mousse Torte

Last Friday we went out for a team lunch as usual, and stopped by Coles and found their Autumn magazine. After flipping through the pages I found a recipe for a Celebration Mousse Torte. It looked relatively easy, but looked indeed very pretty.

Follow the link above for the recipe but I took some snapshots (as usual!) when I made it, one early Sunday morning. It's just quite rewarding to see results :)

oreo biscuit base. i scraped the nice sweet white bits... don't ask where it went! 

melting milk chocolate + dark Lindt chocolate (85% cocoa in this case)

next in line - 1/2 cup cream, whisked into the melted chocolate after it was removed from heat;

and 4 eggs (separated); 

the yolks mixed into the chocolate mixture

the whites were whipped into stiff peaks with some sugar

...and folded into the chocolate mixture. 

it was poured on top of the oreo biscuit base.

then into the fridge to chill!

the ganache was bittersweet chocolate chips, smooth peanut butter, butter and water

melted over low heat

...and then dumped on top of the chocolate base.

I did this after just several hours of chilling.

had to smooth the top. not sure how to fully smooth it all into a level surface!

It's pretty good fun baking cakes from a photo and trying to make it look like the picture :) Just the previous Easter cake  (and yeah maybe Easter cake take 2)

Now I just need one good full day and maybe I can make Adriano Zumbo's macaron tower (I still have that magazine too!)

Easter cake is gone

I guess they didn't like it! :)

Layered Easter Egg Chocolate Cake - take 2

I wasn't too happy with the frosting on the layers on the previous cake, and I didn't have the heart to use all of the ganache and frosting in just one cake (it seemed a bit too sweet for my liking)

so I thought hey why not make another cake :)

Too easy hahaha.

Except of course I didn't have enough frosting and ganache to make the same number of layers, so I resorted to making my basic chocolate cake recipe, slicing it into two, and just sandwiching the remaining frosting between the 2 layers. There was sufficient ganache for a sexy topping, and some easter eggs left so I just followed the same approach to piling them on top. 

Now I can get over it, and move on to the next cake!!! :p

I originally made the cake for Sunday afternoon nibblies and bubblies with neighbors, so now I have another cake to take to office. I'm sure the office folks wouldn't mind having cake on a Monday. :)

Layered Easter Egg Chocolate Cake

I grabbed a copy of the Good Food magazine last week as the cover photo grabbed my attention. I especially noted the 'triple tested recipes' bit and thought maybe I ought to give that cake recipe a try....

I wasn't able to get the exact easter eggs for decor and I think my cake cutting needs a bit more practice!

the buttercream wasn't flush towards the sides too.

(no I'm not being a perfectionist....!) :p

to be honest I was just a bit impatient/too excited to finish this cake hehehe.

This one falls under the magazine's 'super easy' recipes!

225g self raising flour

275g brown sugar

250g unsalted butter, softened

75g dark chocolate, melted

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

50g cocoa

4 eggs 

ganache icing

1/3 cup cream

160g dark chocolate, chopped

buttercream filling

375g unsalted butter, softened

500g pure icing sugar

1/3 cup milk

easter eggs for decoration

(disclaimer : below is my quick-type version as lifted from the magazine so I may have omitted some words!)

Preheat oven to 180C or 160C fan. Grease and line 2 round cake pans.

Mix all cake ingredients together in a food processor and process until smooth. Pour onto prepared pans and bake for around 35minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in tin for about 5 mins then turn out to a wire rack to cool completely. (I used slightly less brown sugar in this instance, maybe 75g less)

To make the ganache, boil the cream then pour onto chocolate. Let stand for a couple of minutes then whisk until smooth. Set aside until cooled slightly and thickened.

To make the buttercream, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until as white as possible. Alternately beat in sugar and milk, starting and finishing with a little sugar. (I didn't use all 500g of sugar here, I just find it toooo sweet).

Using a bread knife split each cake into two layers. Sandwich together all four layers with buttercream. Top with ganache and decorate with Easter eggs. Serve.

**

Now this was my interpretation :

work hazard : blade licking

ganache in the making

buttercream frosting being beaten around

the big guns got good practice for this!

that really looked like buttercream to me!

layer 1

layer 2

fast forward to finishing all the layers!

top view

it smelled great... 

can't go wrong with chocolate!

Carrot and Sultana Cake

Although I would like to say that "due to a bit more spare time I managed to bake a cake"... that would be a lie because I tend to bake cakes on a busy week day anyway!

This one is an evolution of the tried and tested Carrot Cake   recipe... but since I ran out of almonds, I substituted 3 handfuls of sultanas... and instead of white sugar, I used 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, thinking that it would echo the deep complex sweetness of the sultanas.
I also used less than the quantity of white sugar in the previous recipe because the sultanas would be sweet by themselves...

Not quite sure yet what it tastes like... it's still cooling in its tin :) Might be taken to office tomorrow by him as I will be in Syd for the next two days...

Anyway...

This photo (as well as the one from the previous post were uploaded via my Blackberry, straight into blogger, and I'm really loving this mechanism. I'd still have to edit via the dashboard to insert the tags or to modify the position of the photo and to link previous posts, but I think it works really well for quick uploads!

That's my 'rave' review for this afternoon :)

Caraway Seed Cake

Late Thursday before leaving work I was informed that one of the developers will be celebrating his birthday on Friday. It seems that this guy is not the type who celebrates or announces his birthday. Nevertheless I set off to find a quick recipe to make one non pretentious simple cake. I've been doing a lot of chocolate flavored ones lately and while they were always a winner, I thought I'd do something else, maybe something 'intriguing'? :)

The last time I made a Lemon and Caraway Seed Cake a lot of people were not familiar with the taste of caraway. Maybe it's worth re-introducing to see if they remembered, because I think this fragrant and flavorful seed is fabulous and deserves to be known more. 

Caraway Seed Cake

175g soft butter

175g white sugar

3 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

225g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 teaspoons caraway seeds

Grease a square tin (or a springform tin) and pre-heat oven to 180C.

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. I think it's important to not rush this step. Old style 'wooden spoon' creaming works (i.e. you use a wooden spoon to cream the butter and sugar together until you rub a bit of the mixture in between your fingers and you can't feel any of the sugar anymore)  but if you got your gadgets, it can make this quickers of course!

Add the eggs one at a time, making sure it is well incorporated after every addition. Then add the vanilla extract, caraway seeds and fold in the flour and baking powder. Depending on the conditions the batter might appear too thick (and not a 'dropping consistency') - you can add a bit of water or milk at this stage before pouring into the tin.

Bake for around 45min or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool in the tin before serving. Best served with afternoon tea or dunked in milk!

I topped it with a basic frosting of 2/3 cup icing sugar, vanilla extract dissolved in about 2 tblspns of hot water and a tinge of yellow food color to make it a bit more festive. I also sprinkled some colored chocolate bits on top.

Hope the birthday boy had a good one :)