Banana Loaf

This is another great recipe using sour cream, which shared by Edith – Precious Moments. Actually, I was lucky to try it before I baked it :), that when Edith baked it on our last bloggers gathering.
And guess what ??? It seemed so fragrant and delicious that it was finished up first among the food items. :)

Recipe source: Small Cakes - Roger Pizey

Ingredients:
2 Bananas, mashed or puree
150 gr Unsalted butter
230 gr Castor sugar
50 gr Ground hazelnuts (I used ground almonds)
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
175 gr Plain flour
1 tsp Salt (I used only ½ tsp)
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
133 gr Sour cream

Method:
- Greased and lined a 18x7x8 cm deep loaf tin.
- Preheat oven to 170 degree.
- Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
- Add in ground hazelnuts and followed by eggs.
- Sift in the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and mix well together.
- Mix in the sour cream and finally add in the bananas.
- Pour into pan and bake for 30 mins or until cook.

Chocolate Chips Sour Cream Marble Cake



Maybe some of you familiar with this cake, right? Thanks to Honey Bee, who is sharing this wonderful recipe. I don't have any bundt pan yet, so I baked the cake using my wheel pan, which I used to bake Golden Raisin bread. The cake has been good reviewed and recommended by Bakericious, Passionate about Baking, Hearty-Bakes and Wen’s Delight. So, for you that have not try this ... what are you waiting for? :)

Chocolate Paste
3 tbsp cocoa powder
3 tbsp hot water

Cake Batter
1 cup (250 gr) Unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups (450g) Caster sugar (I reduced it to 350g)
4 large eggs
2-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups (210 gr) sour cream
3 cups (420 gr) all purpose flour
2-3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips (I used 100g)

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder and the hot water together to make a smooth paste.
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy. Blend in the eggs and then vanilla. Then add in the sour cream, and scraping the bottom of the mixing bowl to make sure it is evenly combined.
- Fold in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and blend well. Lastly, mix in the chocolate chips or chopped chocolate chunks into the batter and mix well.
Remove 1/3 of the batter and mix in the chocolate paste in to it.
- Spoon in big scoops of vanilla batter into the bundt pan and alternating with some spoons on chocolate batter as well to create the marble effect. Repeat till all the batter has been put in.
- Place in the oven to bake for 40 to 50 minutes, depending on your oven. Bake till golden brown and the tester comes out clean. If the top of the cake browns too quickly, cover with foil first until done.
- Once baked, remove from oven and let cool on rack for 15 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool completely.

Crunchy Chocolate Chips Cookies

I love making homemade cookies to give out as gifts for the christmas. When Bakertan gave away these cookies during previous bloggers' gathering, my family, especially my children simply just loved it. If you're looking for a crispy or crunchy cookie, this recipe is a very good choice. I would like to make and share with others, then decided to make half in chocolate chips and half with M&M. Wrapped it nicely and ready to give away .... to friends and colleagues :)

Source : Baking Mum and Bakertan

Ingredients:
125 gr Butter softened at room temperature
75 gr Caster sugar
60 gr Brown sugar
1 Egg, light beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
150 gr Plain flour
45 gr Cornflour
1/2 tsp Bicarbonanate of soda (baking soda)
pinch of salt
170g Chocolate chips

Method:
- Cream butter with both sugars until pale & fluffy. Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix well.
- Sift flour, cornflour, bicardonate of soda and salt together. Add to creamed mixture, mixing to a soft dough. Stir in the chocoloate chips until well distributed.
- Chill dough for 30 minutes to firm it up. Shape dough into a small ball and flatten with fork or spoon heaped teaspoons of dough onto lined cookies trays, leaving some space between cookies dough. **
- Bake at preheated oven 180C for 20-25 minutes or medium brown.
- Carefully remove to wire rack to cool.

NOTE :
** To prevent cookies from spreading, freeze shaped cookie dough for 10 minutes (with the cookie tray/s).

This is my entry for the Christmas Giveaway hosted by Swee San of The Sweet Spot. You may hop over to her blog for the details on how to participate.

Which cookies do you prefer?
And do you have a favourite Christmas cookies to share?
I want to wish you all have a Happy Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011 :)

Crunchy Muesli Cookies

Two weeks ago I baked chewy cranberries cookies, this week I baked something similar, but crunchy. :)   Beside …... they are super easy to make, just mixing wet over dry ingredients and the results …...
simply great!
Here, I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas :)

Crunchy Muesli Cookies
Source : The Australian Women’s Weekly – Traybakes & Slices

Ingredients
1 Cup (90 gr) Rolled oats
1 Cup (150 gr) Plain Flour
1 Cup (220 gr) Caster sugar
2 tsp Ground cinnamon (I only used 1/2 tsp)
1/4 Cup (35 gr) Dried cranberries (I added 50 gr)
1/3 Cup (55 gr) Finely chopped dried apricot (I replaced with Golden sultana)
1/2 Cup (70 gr) Slivered almonds (I replaced with pistachios)
125 gr Butter, chopped coarsely
2 tbsp Golden Syrup
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tbsp Boiling Water

Method:
- Preheat oven 150C. Greased oven trays, or line with baking parchment.
- Combine, oats, flour, sugar, cinnamon, dried fruits and nuts in large bowl.
- Melt butter and golden syrup in small saucepan over low heat, add combined soda with boiling water. Stir warm mixture into dry ingredients.
- Roll level tablespoon of mixture into balls, place on trays 5 cm apart, flatten slightly.
- Bake cookies about 20 minutes. Cool on trays.

Colourful Jelly Pudding II

I made this pudding two months ago. However, after uploaded the photos to computer, I change my mind to postpone the post and wait until today. Why? I like this pudding cause it has the X'mas colour, don’t you think so?

I bought pre-mix Red Man’s Konnyaku Jelly package to make colourful jelly ball (made this one day in advance), add white dragon fruits in it and transparent agar-agar used to make the pudding. You may see here for the ingredients and the jelly ball mould pictures.

This jelly pudding will be my second submission to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010) hosted by Passionate About Baking.

Chocolate Cranberries Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies are really delicious and I think they would be great in the Christmas cookies exchange too. Thanks to Honey Bee for sharing these tasty cookies. Surprisingly it really have the chewy texture, very easy to get addicted to eat and almost non-stop hahahaha ….. You may also check on Wendy’s version, where she added some mixed nuts. I replaced cherries with cranberries, but I’m not too sure why my cookies spread out so much compare to theirs.

I am submitting these cookies to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010) hosted by Jane of Passionate About Baking

Ingredients:
227 gr Unsalted butter, room temperature
180 gr Caster sugar
200 gr Brown sugar
1.5 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Large eggs
225 gr all purpose flour
250 gr uncooked roll oats
1 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Baking soda
3/4 tsp Salt
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
150g Chocolate (70% cocoa), cut into small chunks (you can use chocolate chips)
100g Sweetened dried cherries (I used dried cranberries)

Method:
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and both sugars till creamy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add vanilla extract and beat well again.
- Sift the flour, salt, baking power and baking soda and cinnamon. Add it to the egg mixture. Lastly add in the oats and stir well.
- If using chocolate chunks and cherries, add in the cookie batter and stir well. Chill dough for at least 2hours.
- Preheat oven to 180C. Place a sheet of parchment paper on baking pan and grease it.
- Take about 2 tbsp amount of cookie dough, roll round and place on baking pan. Make sure the cookie dough is placed about 3" apart from one another.
- Bake cookie for 13 to 15 minutes. Do not over bake the cookies, it is meant to be soft and chewy.
- Allow the baked cookies to cool on the rack before storing in air tight container.

Bread Cake

When I saw Min’s blog on her beautiful bread cake two months ago, she really inspired me to try this out :) I found that this could be interesting .... in making & eating it …. and can try both bread & cake in one slice … what a greedy mouth I have hor … hahahaha … Instead of baking this in bread loaf, I baked in chiffon tin. The bread cake tasted good and still remained soft even on the third day. But, I guess I still need a lot of practice to produce a smooth and fluffy bread.

Here is the recipe with minor modification.

Bread material:
200 gr Bread flour
1-1/2 tbsp Cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Salt
70 gr Caster sugar
140 gr Water (can try on 120 gr first)
1 tsp Instant yeast
40 gr Butter (I used only 25 gr)

Method:
- Mix thoroughly bread flour, cocoa powder, sugar, salt, and yeast into a mixing bowl.
- Add in water and beat till it forms into dough then add in butter and continue beating till dough is smooth and elastic.
- Prove the dough for one hour.
- Divide the dough into few portions and let it rest for 15 mins.
- Roll the dough into 23 cm chiffon tin and let it rest until double.

Cake material:
A:
20 gr Bread flour
20 gr Top/Cake flour
30 gr Caster sugar
3 Egg Yolks
30 gr Oil
30 gr Water
Few drop of pandan paste

B:
3 Egg Whites
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
30g Caster sugar

Method:
- To make egg yolk batter: Combine egg yolks, sugar, oil, water and pandan paste in a mixing bowl. Fold in flour until forms batter.
- To make egg white foam: Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy, gradually add in sugar, beat at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold into egg yolk with egg white batter, mix until well blended
- Pour on top of the proved bread dough.
- Bake in the preheating 180C oven for about 30-50 minutes.