Princess Cake

I have been very busy lately and have not had the time to write my blog. Sorry! This was the last baking spree that I did for my princess on her 5th birthday. She wanted a princess cake and I guess, I did make her wish come true. :) 

The Beauty, surrounded with chocolate banana cupcakes

Moist and chocolatey

Christmas Fruit Cake 2014

I like to have a slice of fruit cake once in a while. So, I thought of making one for Christmas this year. Hopefully it will taste good. It's now sitting in the fridge for the flavours to be macerated. Hmmmm....keeping my fingers crossed!

Ingredients

1 kg of mixed dried fruit - sultanas, raisins, cranberries, red cherries

90 g of orange peel 

250g of dried apricots-chopped

100g of strawberry jam

2 tbsps honey

60ml of brandy - I have used VSOP Cognac 

500g butter - softened at room temperature

400g brown / Demerara / Muscovado sugar

6 eggs

625g plain flour -sifted

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

1 tsp nutmeg (optional)

4 tsps allspice (optional) 

Round baking pan size - 25cm/10 inch pan

or

Square baking pan size - 22 cm/9 inch pan

Method

1. Mix together dried fruit, orange peel, dried apricots, strawberry jam, honey and brandy. Let the mixture macerate for about 1 week or longer if you like. This mixture was left in the fridge for 1 month.
2. Stir the mixture with a wooden spoon everyday.
3. Preheat the oven to 140 degrees.
4. Lightly grease your baking tin and line the base and side. 
5. Use a hand mixer or KA, beat butter and sugar till combined.
6. Gradually, add in eggs (one at a time) and beat well, after each addition.
7. The mixture may look curdled but it's normal.
8. Use a spatula and stir in sifted flour in 2 batches. 
9. Stir in the fruit mixture and mix well. It's a little hard to move the spatula around but do make sure you have mixed them well.
10. Scoop the batter into the baking tin and level the surface. Tap the tin several times to remove any air bubbles in the mixture.
11. Wrap the baking tin with brown paper/ newspaper around the outside of the tin and tie it with a brown string. 
12. Place the baking tin on several pieces of folded newspaper/baking paper - in the middle rack and bake for about 2-3hrs.
13. Use a skewer -inserted into the centre of the tin, to check if the cake is done or not at around 2 hours and periodically after that, if it's not done. The skewer should come out clean.
14. Leave cake to cool in the tin by covering the top with a piece of non-stick baking paper and foil.

Storage: When it's cooled down, remove from the tin, wrap tightly in greaseproof paper, then plastic wrap and aluminium foil and store in the fridge for about 1 week before serving.

You can freeze it for up to a year. 

ENJOY!

I have used a smaller sized baking tin (thanks to hubby) and with the extra batter, I have used individual foiled tins and baked them at about 1 hour. The big one was baked for about 2 hours only.

* How do you line the baking tin?

Grease the pan and line with a layer of brown paper first at the side and then 2 layers of greaseproof paper on top of the brown paper. Line with greaseproof paper at the base. Line with brown paper/newspaper on the outside of the pan and secure it tightly with a string.

Recipe is adapted from thescarfer.net and my own preferences.

Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies

The first time I tried this was 3 years ago. Hubby bought from a lovely bakery during his work trip. I saw this in one of the local supermarket's recipe booklet last week and thought it would be nice to taste it again. Hmmmmm... thumbs up!

Ingredients

150g butter at room temperature

150g flour

3-5 tbsps sugar

1 tsp bicarbonat soda

about 5 tbsps of raspberry jam filling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees.
2. Use a stand/hand-held mixer, whisk flour, sugar, bicarbonat soda and butter together to become a dough.
3. Roll it like a log and cut into equal pieces. About 18-20.
4. Roll into a ball and place each piece in a baking liner.
5. Create a 'hole' by pressing down in the middle with your thumb.
6. Fill up each 'hole' with raspberry jam filling.
7. Bake for 15mins.

They look lovely, aren't they?

Ginger Cookies

Assorted Designs

A box of love for my munchkins

My munchkins love ginger cookies. So, mummy has to set the baking mode on. Hope they like these 'sugar-minimized' cookies. Happy 1st Advent of Sunday! <3 <3

Ingredients
150ml water
320g sugar
100 ml light syrup
300g butter
1tbsp powdered cloves
1tbsp cinnamon
1tbsp powdered ginger

700-750g flour
2tbsp bicarbonate soda (sifted)
* flour and bicarbonate soda to be whisked together

Method

1. Boil up water and sugar.
2. Remove from heat.
3. Add syrup, butter and spices. Stir till smoothly combined. 
4. Add in flour and bicarbonate soda and stir till combined.
5. Dough is a little soft but it will harden when it's cooled down.
6. Divide the dough as you wish and wrap with clingwrap and keep in the fridge for 1 day before baking. ( I have divided into 4)
7. Preheat the oven at 200 degrees. 
8. Roll out a piece of the dough till to your desired thickness. 
9. Cut out the dough with your desired shapes.
10. Lay them on a piece of baking paper and bake for about 5mins. They burn very quickly, so do check on the time. 
11. Leave them to cool and store in air-tight container for freshness.

* The dough can be kept in the fridge for a few days. You can bake them in batches. :)

Marble Butter Cake

Yummm yummm

I haven't baked this for the longest time. I love the buttery and chocolatey taste. So sinful but super delicious. Had a friend over for coffee the other day and made this for her but unfortunately, not very moist. I wonder what had gone wrong. Nevertheless, the boss of the house ate it all up. Thank you! >_<

Ingredients

8 eggs-separated

230g sugar

340g butter, softened

255g flour

1.5tsps baking powder

1.5tsps pure vanilla extract

2 tbsps cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees. Line a cake pan (8-inch or a square one will do as well) with parchment paper. 
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
3. Use a stand/hand-held mixer and cream butter till light light and fluffy.
4. Whisk egg yolks with sugar till light.
5. Add this to the butter gradually and beat at medium speed till just combined well.
6. Whisk egg whites till stiff peaks form.
7. Use a spatula and fold in the meringue (in 3-4 batches) into the egg yolk mixture.
8. Add in the dry ingredients and combine well.
9. Ladle 1/4 of the batter into a bowl. 
10. Sieve cocoa powder into the batter and fold the mixture well.
11. Alternate between the two mixtures, pour the batters into the cake pan.
12. Start with the yellow batter and end with the cocoa mixture.
13. Tap the pan on the counter several times to eliminate air bubbles.
14. Use a long skewer and swirl around the batter to create the marble effect.
15. Bake for 40-55 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean from the cake.
16. Enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee.

 *Recipe is taken and adapted from www.thelittleteochew.com.