Bloggers' Gathering (NOV 2011)

Thanks Bakertan to be an initiator and Eelin for being a great host that we all were enjoying  this wonderful gathering. I found this time we had quite balance between sweet and savoury of the buffet spread this time.

Let’s look at the spread details :)

The Batter Baker : Green Tea and Pina Colada Cuppies

Baking Library : American Sandwiches and New York Cheesecake

Passionate About Baking : Roti John and Oriental Salad

Yummy Bakes : Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes

Baking on Cloud 9 : Cinnamon Buns

Busy Gran : Shepherd's Pie and Choux Pastry

Kohken69 : XO Sauce Fride Lo Shu Fan

HoneyBee Sweets : Dorayaki Ham&Cheese and Green Tea Red Bean

My contributin : Black Glutinous Chiffon & Steam Cake

Chocolate Cream Cupcakes

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: EnjoyCupcakes (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min’s Blog.

Ingredients:

70 gr Boiling water
25 gr Cocoa Powder
20 gr Sugar

4 Egg yolks
15 gr Sugar
50 gr Oil
75 gr Cake flour

3 Egg whites
50 gr Sugar

Topping:

150 gr Chocolate, melted

100 gr Buttercream

Decoration: Marshmallow (optional)

Method:
- Shift cocoa powder and sugar in bowl, then pour in the boiling water and stir well incorporated.
- Preheat oven 180 degree.
- Hand whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale. Add in oil & the cocoa mixture, mix well.
- Fold in cake flour until combined.
- In separated bowl, whisk egg white until foamy, add in 50gr sugar, whisk until stiff (soft peak).
- Pour 1/3 egg white mixture into egg yolk-flour mixture and mixed well, then pour this into the rest of the egg white and mixed well.
- Pour into cupcake cases and bake for 15-18 mins.

- Chocolate cream : mix the melted chocolate into buttercream, pipe the cream over the cupcakes, decorate it with marshmallow.



Black Bottom Cupcakes

Saw Hearty Bakes and I Love.I Cook. I Bake baked this too, here I'm submitting my version of these irresistable cupcakes to Aspiring Bakers#13: Enjoy Cupcakes (November 2011) hosted by Min.

Source : David Lebovitz's The Great Book of Chocolate via Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

Cream Cheese Filling:

227 gr Cream cheese, room temperature
65 gr Caster sugar
1 large Egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract

Chocolate Cupcakes:

195 gr All purpose flour
200 gr Caster Sugar (I used Brown Sugar)
30 gr Unsweetened Cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking soda
1/4 tsp Salt
240 ml Water
80 ml Vegetable Oil
1 tbsp White vinegar (I omitted this)
1 tsp Vanilla extract

Topping : Chocolate chips (optional)

Method: - Preheat oven to 180 C

- Cream Cheese Filling: Beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until creamy and smooth. Set aside.
- Chocolate Cupcakes:
- In a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl mix the water, oil and vanilla extract. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until nice and smooth.
- Evenly divide the batter into cupcake cases. Then spoon a few tablespoons of the cream cheese filling into the center of each cupcake. Sprinkle some chocolate chips on the cheese.
- Bake about 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling has set and the cupcakes feel springy to the touch (a toothpick inserted into the chocolate part of the cupcake will come out clean). Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Kuih Bingka Ubi

This is another Wendyywy’s kuih recipe that I baked for this month. I like about this kuih because of it chewy but still in soft texture. It may look like that very easy to make while you just combine everything in it then bake, however, when having to grate the cassava finely and squeezing the juice out, it may take a little effort for doing that :( 

Source : Wendyywy @ Table of Two or more

Ingredients:

900 gr grated White cassava /Tapioca/ Ubi kayu  **

200 ml Thick coconut milk
2 Eggs

250 ml Water
200 gr Sugar

40 gr Butter
Few pandan leaves

Few drops of yellow colouring

Method:

- Boil water, pandan leaves and sugar, melt in butter, leave it aside.
- Combine coconut milk with eggs.
- Combine grated cassava and starch water**, pour in the boiling sugar water, it should thicken slightly.
- Pour coconut egg mixture, add in yellow colouring, stir until well incorporated.
- Pour batter into a 8 inch round baking pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 170/180C for 1 hour ( I bake 1 hour 25 mins) or until golden brown.

** Bought around 1.2 kg white cassava, peel and grate it. Since it could be slightly bitter, squeeze out the juice with cloth into a cup and let the juice sit until can see the starch settles on the bottom. Measure the cassava water layer and replace it with clean water (you may omit this step if you buy yellow cassava).

I am submitting this to the Aspiring Bakers #12 –Traditional Kueh (Oct 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker.

Kuih Tako

Seeing how easy Wendyywy recently made her tako, really attempted myself to try it at home. It’s true … it was really easy to make the tako, indeed I spent more time doing the tako casings from pandan leave than making the tako hahahaha ….   I couldn’t manage to get the mung bean starch, with Wendyywy fast replied & kindly clarification, then I decided to use mix of Hunkwe & corn flour to make it. But I'm satisfy with the result in texture and taste.

I am submitting this to the Aspiring Bakers #12 –Traditional Kueh (Oct 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker

Source: Wendyywy @ Table of Two or more

Pandan Layer:

25 gr Mung bean starch **
250 ml Pandan juice ++
60 gr Sugar
3 Water chestnuts, peeled and chopped

Coconut layer: 15 gr Mung bean starch **
125 ml Water
125 ml Coconut milk
50 gr Sugar
Very small pinch of salt

Pandan leaves for the tako casings (refer here for the full details)

Method:

- Prepare pandan layer. Mix everything together and cook on medium low heat until it looks transparent and thick.

- Spoon over prepared casings
- Prepare coconut layer. Mix everything together and cook on medium low heat until it thickens. Taste, it should no longer taste floury.
- Spoon over the pandan layer.
- Let cool down to room temperature and it will harden. Best served when chilled.

** I cannot find Mung bean starch, I replaced with half Hunkwe and half corn flour

++ I blended 15 gr Pandan leaves (cut into small pcs) with 300 ml water, strained to get the pandan juice.

Chocolate Bottom Banana Cupcakes

Finally I baked this popular Chocolate Bottom Banana Squares, there are two versions of the cake, butter version by Hearty Bakes and oil version by Cook.Love.Bake. Since left with only 2 ripe bananas on my kitchen, then I baked half recipe in cupcakes using the oil version. Texture was soft & fluffy, however I found lack of chocolate taste here maybe due to too much batter I took to mix with the chocolate powder.

Source : Cook.Bake.Love

Ingredients:

A.
35 gr castor sugar
1 large egg

B.
40 gr Oil
2 medium-sized bananas, mashed with a fork (about 110gr)

pinch of salt
20 gr milk
1 tsp rum (or ¼ tsp vanilla extract)

C.

65 gr plain flour
¼  tsp baking powder

¼  tsp baking soda

D. 1 tbsp cocoa powder ( can add upto 25 gr)

Topping : Chocolate rice / Chocolate chips.

Method:

- Preheat oven at 180C.

- Beat (A) till light and creamy.
- Add (B) and combine.
- Sieve in (C), mix till just incorporated. Stop once there is no traces of flour remain.
- Divide the batter into half. Sieve in cocoa powder to one portion of the batter and mix well. Add the cocoa batter to cupcake cases.
- Add the remaining plain batter on top of the cocoa batter. Sprinkle top generously with chocolate rice.
- Bake for 15-20 mins or until a skewer inserted in the centre and come out clean.

Assorted Cupcakes

Made these below assorted cupcakes for Children's Day Celebration at my eldest son's student care today.
Above cupcakes set .... breakfast for my colleagues :)

Chocolate cupcakes, I used my swiss roll recipe.
Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Wendy's blog. Thanks Wendy for your step-by-step instruction, that help me a lot on the preparation, and I just love the smooth texture & light taste of this buttercream:)

Nutella cupcakes, I used Busygran's recipe. Thanks Judy for the yummy recipe :)