Black Sesame Chiffon Cake

When I saw Swee San's post on Black Seasame Chiffon Cake, I realised I also have the "Okashi" book. I bought it a few months ago and it was still sitting in my cabinet. Sometimes, my recipe books can be sitting there for quite sometime before I "rediscover" them. Why? Because internet simply have too many good recipes to try. There are just too many good food bloggers out there, who are willing to share new recipes. Therefore, many of us also benefited. :)

Anyway, I decided to bake this cake for my boss since his birthday is end of this week. I hope he like this cake since it was my first attempt.

You can get the recipe here.

Black Sesame Healthy Bread

Lately, I'm into baking breads, or mantous (like what Reese said). Mainly because nobody wants to eat cakes or such. Breads, to me, is more practical as I'm a bread lover myself.  I also know that if I bake breads, my siblings will be more than happy to have them, compared to cakes, which I still have to coax them to bring home. :p

I bought some organic unbleached whole wheat flour from Jusco quite sometime back. I decided to use this flour to make my healthy black sesame buns, to make it more authentically healthy!

These buns weren't cottony soft. It's more of the dense type. Almost similar to artisan bread. It was probably due to the flour that I used. However, I like this kind of breads. I will continue to use this kind of flour, even though it costed more. So that I can eat my bread without feeling the guilt from the carbo.

Recipe for Black Sesame Healthy Bread, extracted from "Baking Code" by Alex Goh.
(Makes 21 rolls)

Ingredients:
A:
600g Bread flour (Organic unbleached whole wheat flour for breads)
45g Black sesame, toasted and grounded (I used instant ground black sesame)
10g Instant yeast
60g Fine sugar
6g Fine salt
25g Milk powder (I omitted this)

B:
120g Overnight sponge dough (I used 150g, all of it)
370g Cold water

C:
50g Butter

D:
30g Black sesame, toasted
30g White sesame, toasted

Method:
1. Mix A until well blended. Add in B, knead to form a dough.
2. Add in C, knead to form a smooth and elastic dough. Add in D, mix until well-combined.
3. Cover it with cling film, allow it to proof for 60mins in a warm place.
4. Divide the dough into 60g each and mould it round. Brush the dough with water. Coat it with black and white sesame, place it onto the flower-shaped mould*.
5. Allow it to proof for 50mins. Bake at 190C for 15mins.

* I proofed them in a 9" and 8" round cake pans, and 4 small tartlet pans (refer to below). The ones from the tartlet pans turned out quite nice, with a flower-shaped bottom.

Chiffon Cupcakes

I've been wanting to try chiffon cupcakes for a long long time. There had been many recipes from various food blogs. I've had them but just too lazy to dig them out. It happened that I had this recipe printed out with me, and so I tried it. I didn't want too complicated bakes, merely just want to bake! The cupcakes turned out to be really soft and nice and good! I love it lots! I made 12 of them using the original recipe portion. Do try this out-Clear Water Cake (Sponge Cake).



I baked a banana black sesame chiffon for my in laws last weekend. I hope they like it.

3 Chiffons and 1 Brownie

Have I mentioned that I've not been baking cakes for a long long time? The last was like...July? Goodness! Shows how lacking I've been! Anyway, my usual Saturdays were spent at my parents place. Last Saturday was an exception. My spouse was out for a seminar, I went BITC for my bread lesson, and decided to go home to do some baking since my children are home.

Not sure why I had so much egg whites in the fridge. Must be from my Cookie Art Workshops! Anyway, I wanted to do some sweet treats for my cousin, who had invited my family to her daughter's first year. So I decided on Egg White Brownies. As usual, I love this recipe. After baking, I just felt like having a piece, but I had to control myself from cutting it since it was going to be a gift!


Knowing I have enough time for the evening, I proceeded on to do Banana Sesame Seeds Chiffon cake. Most importantly because I saw the bananas hanging in the kitchen. I cannot, simply cannot resist bananas for baking...similarly for oranges! Hahaha... I just can't wait to convert them into something sweeter and nicer! So I made three different sizes of the chiffon cakes-7", 5" & 3", or termed as Do-Re-Mi.


I must have underestimated the timing for the bigger chiffons, they turned out to be slightly moist. However, the taste was really good. I added white and black sesame seeds to the cake. I like the look of black sesames on this chiffon. To me, it looked like ants on the cake...which I found it to be a little pretty! Hahaha...



Egg White Brownies, modified from Zu's Kitchen.

Ingredients
250g Semi-sweet chocolate
100g Unsalted butter
2tsp Vanilla extract
100g Cake flour
220g Egg white
120g Fine sugar
100g Walnuts, coarsely chopped and toasted

Method
1. Microwave butter and chocolate. Mix thoroughly until the chocolate melted and incorporated with the butter. Let it cool.
2. Sift flour into chocolate mixture and stir gently till well combined and add vanilla essence, put aside.
3. Beat egg whites till foamly and slowly add sugar bit by bit and whip till stiff peaks.
4. Take 1/3 of the egg white and fold it into the chocolate mixture.
5. Stir in mixture into the balance 2/3 egg white and gently mix till well combined.
6. Pour 1/4 of the mixture into a 8x8 pan lined and greased, and add half the walnuts on the batter.
7. Pour the remainig batter into the pan.
8. Top batter with the remaining walnuts and bake in a 180C preheated oven for about 35mins (depending on your oven) or till a pin inserted into it comes out clean.
9. Once baked, leave brownie in the pan for 5-10mins before removing and cooling it on the rack.

BSBC stands for...

Black Sesame Banana Chiffon! This is a new discovery for me. Though not innovative nor creative, I found this combination seemed to be like a good combination!

I wanted to make a banana chiffon to bring for a meeting Wednesday. However, I thought it was pretty boring to have banana chiffon all the time. This time, I decided to throw in 7g of black sesame seeds to the chiffon. It looked like little ants or insects on the chiffons with its cute spots. Fortunately, it turned out to be a pretty nice combination. I like it very much actually. And it was very well received by my colleagues too!



On Wednesday, I taught my domestic helper on how to cook Curry Chicken. For the first time, I told her to blend candlenut, lemongrass, shallots and ginger together and add them to the curry paste. Then add 700ml of coconut and about 1.5 litres of UHT Full Cream Milk, and the curry chicken was really nice. Thick and rich, and healthy! Everybody loved it! Even though it was a bit spicy, my sons were eating the curry with french loaf, with perspiration sweating through their hairs, but they were enjoying!

Black Sesame Ice Cream II

I tried the black sesame ice cream again. This time, I used the custard method. Haven't get a chance to try the ice cream yet, hopefully it's thick and creamy!

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
100g sugar
250g milk

100g Grinded Toasted Black Sesame
500g Whipped Cream

Method:
1. Beat and mix together the egg yolks and sugar until thick.
2. Separately, pour the milk into a saucepan and scald it (bring slowly up to boiling point).
3. Pour the hot milk into the egg yolks and sugar mix whilst continuously stirring.
4. Then pour the mixture back into the pan and heat gently, stirring until the custard thickens - DO NOT BRING TO THE BOIL OR IT WILL PROBABLY CURDLE.
5. When you can see a film form over the back of your spoon it's time to remove the saucepan from the heat. Leave to cool.
6) Then chill the cooled custard thoroughly in the refrigerator, at least 24 hours.
7) Add black sesame into the custard.
8) Whip up the whipped cream and fold it into the custard.
9) Pour it into a container and freeze it.

If you prefer thicker ice cream, you may reduce the whipped cream to 300g.
[Afternote: It's creamy & yummy. Strong black sesame favour. Exactly what I like!]

Black Sesame Bread Loaf

I tried the black seasame bread loaft by Florence. Somehow, my 65C bread is just not successful. :(

Roll it up like a swiss roll.

Put both of them into the loaf pan for further proofing.

Baked. Fresh from oven.

Slice them up when they're cool. The bread looks very dense. :(

Recipe extracted from Florence, 65C Black Sesame Loaf.

Black Sesame Ice Cream

During my "maidless" venture, I did the coconut ice cream, which turns out to be very good. So now, I use the same recipe for my Black Sesame ice cream, with some modifications.

Sequence of making the mixture.

Mixed them up thoroughly.

Pour them into a container and freeze it.

This is how creamy & beautiful the ice cream turns out to be!

Original recipe extracted from Yochana's blog.

This is my modified version.

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
100g Sugar
45g Blended Black Sesame (toast before blending)
70g Coconut milk (I use KARA coconut cream)
180g Full cream milk
250g Whipping cream

Method:

(1) Whisk egg yolks and sugar till white and creamy.
(2) Double boil the egg yolk mixture and stir constantly. Pour in black sesame, coconut milk, full cream milk and continue stirring until mixture is hot but not boiling.
(3) Remove the milk mixture from heat and set aside to cool.
(4) Whisk whipping cream till fluffy and fold in the cooled milk mixture.
(5) Pour into container and freeze overnight or until firm.

[Afternote: The ice-cream is really nice, very creamy. But a little too much coconut milk. I wanted it to be creamy, but not so much coconut taste. I think can reduce the coconut milk to 30g, and upped the Full cream milk to 220g should be good enough.]