Chocolate & Orange Kue Lapis Legit

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When it comes to Chinese New Year, no matter how busy I am in baking my cookies, I will always allocate some time to bake Kek Lapis or Cake Lapis or Kue Lapis Legit. Having tried several flavours over the years, I decided to do a Chocolate & Orange Kue Lapis, a combination which I always like!

A recipe which I always fall back to is from Florence. In many kue lapis that I've ever attempted over the years, I modified from her recipe. I like her recipe very much because (1) it doesn't use an exorbitant amount of condensed milk and even I replaced it with whole milk and it worked fine, (2) the quantity of egg yolks and butter used is reasonably acceptable. These are in comparison with other recipes, though kue lapis cake uses a lot of butter and egg yolks in the first place! So here is my modified version.

Recipe for Chocolate & Orange Kek Lapis Legit
Makes a 21cm x 21cm square cake pan. Filled to the brim.

Orange Layers
Ingredients:
250g Liv Unsalted butter, room temperature
50g Caster sugar

10 Egg yolks
60g Caster sugar
1 tbsp Grand Marnier (or any orange liquor of your choice)
2 tsp Orange extract
1 large orange zest
2 tbsp Whole milk

66g Cake flour (I used superfine flour)
1/4 tsp Baking powder

5 Egg whites
30g Caster sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of tartar

Method:

1. Cream butter with sugar until creamy.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar till thick. Stir in orange zest, orange extract, liquor and milk.
3. Sieve flour and baking powder into an empty bowl.
4. Mix butter and egg yolk mixture well.
5. Fold in flour mixture in two batches and mix well. (I used the beater to mix in the flour.)
6. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites till foamy. Add cream of tartar into the sugar and mix well. Gradually add in sugar and beat till stiff.
7. Fold egg white into egg yolk mixture and mix well.
8. Set aside.

Chocolate Layers

Ingredients:
250g Liv Unsalted butter, room temperature
50g Caster sugar

10 Egg yolks
60g Caster sugar
1 tbsp Rum (or brandy)
2 tbsp Whole milk

40g Cake flour (I used superfine flour)
26g Cocoa powder (I used Belcolade)
1/4 tsp Baking powder

5 Egg whites
30g Caster sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of tartar

For method, follow Orange Layers #1-8 above.

To bake:

1. Using a laddle, scoop the orange layer evenly into the paper-lined and butter-greased cake pan.
2. Turn the oven to bake function at 180C.
3. Bake the first layer for 5mins. Switch to grill and continue to grill at 6mins.
4. Remove the pan from the oven and scoop the chocolate layer evenly onto the cake pan. Even it out.
5. Grill this layer for 7 mins.
6. Continue to alternate the layers and grill at 7mins.
7. After 3/4 of the pan, reduce the grill timing to 6mins.
8. After grilling the last layer, turn the temperature to 160C and bake the cake for 8-10mins to ensure it is thoroughly baked.
9. Remove from the oven and let it to cool in a wire rack for 10mins. Then remove from cake pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack.

Notes:

• I realised that each layer was slightly too thick to cook through. That was why there was a transparent layer.
• Possibility good to turn down the grill temperature to 160C, and grill up to 9 mins for each layer to let it cook through.
• Alternatively, I will have to reduce the quantity in each layer to make it thinner and easier to grill.
• Also, noticed the orange zest in the lighter layer.

Overall, the taste of this lapis legit cake was very good. The orange taste came through even though chocolate was more prominent. Orange taste was very subtle, but powerful! With the addition of the extra egg white, the cake was very soft. I like it very much.

I'm submitting this to: 

• Aspiring Bakers #27: Through Thick and Thin – Kue Lapis Classics hosted by Sam of Sweet Samsations
• Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.

Chinese New Year Goodies

This year, as Chinese New Year (CNY) was just right after Christmas, I didn't have the luxury to do many bakings. Therefore, I chose to bake the easier better ones. These were what I baked.

Pineapple Tarts
The recipe for the crust were from Zu's Kitchen. The pineapple paste were bought from PH, our local baking supplier. This year, their "premium" pineapple paste was really good, not too sweet, moist and tasty.

Bak Kwa Cookies
I decided to try this after seeing some online. Unfortunately, there was no recipe. So I came out with my own. Recipe can be found here.

Peanut Cookies
Last year, when I tried this, it didn't turn out to be melt in the mouth. However, this year's texture was good. It was really melt in the mouth kind. The recipe was taken from Wendy's blog.

Green Tea Almond Cookies
This almond cookies is a must every year. The recipe was extracted from my professional baking school previously. This year, I decided to add green tea to the taste. I think I have over baked it a little. 

Fruit Cake
I'm not a big fan of fruit cakes. However, since I started baking it some two years ago, I have started eating mine! I baked this for my in-laws and my spouse. The recipe was taken from Wen's Delight.

Kueh Lapis
Since I started making this, I've been making this every year for CNY. Sometimes, I make it into different flavours. This time, I decided to stick to the original flavour. The recipe was adapted from Do What I Like blog.

祝贺大家

新年快乐,

心想事成，

万事如意，

身体健康。

发啊！！

Chocolate Kueh Lapis

ecipes that are used once a year for festive seasons are quite a headache sometimes. Even if I might have baked them very well last year, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'll do well this year.

Take this kueh lapis recipe. I made them last year without much problem. However, this year, first try, the portion was wrong, completely wrong!! Even though I wrote a note last year, it wasn't that detailed. Instead of using using a 7” pan, I used a 10” x 10” pan because my note on it wrote “10” x 10” pan”, but I didn't write 2x recipe!! So in the end, my lapis turned out to be a shortie. Flat and short.

I didn't want the kueh lapis to be just the traditional one. So I added some chocolate rice between the layers. Overall, the lapis taste was really good with the addition of chocolate rice, except it was too short, too little. If I had stacked them up, they'll look picture perfect!

Catching up...

My posts are so outdated now! It's time to catch up on what I have baked lately. I have been baking CNY cookies to fulfill orders, so busy I really don't have the time to do any postings! :p So this is the time to catch up and update now.

Tried my hand at Kueh Makmur. I thought it was quite okay, but most of them said "Not Nice". I'll leave it at that comment.

Made these pineapple tarts for my family. They loved them very much and can't stop at one. One more compliment for me. :)


Baked these Valrhona Triple Chewy Chocolate Cookies as free gifts to my "customers". Some has no comments, but my children simply love them!


Baked my Kueh Lapis after I've finished baking my cookies to fulfill orders. A must have for my CNY. ;)


Finally, the cookies that I am selling and the goodies that I give. From left to right: Valrhona Triple Chewy Chocolate Cookie as goodie, Almond Cookies, Spicy Dried Shrimps Cookies, Chocolate Almond Cookie and Round Pineapple Tart as goodie.


Lastly, here's wishing everyone

新年快乐!
万事如意!
年年有余!
身体建康!

All These In A Day's Work!

All these are in a day's (Saturday's) work! I'm just too tired to elaborate. :p I shall elaborate more in a couple of days! Sorry folks!

In the morning: White Lotus & Sausage & Floss Buns



Lunch time: My version of Mee Goreng


After lunch: Orange Lapis Cake



Dinner time: Rosemary & Mixed Herbs Roasted Chicken with Chicken Rice & Kailan

Traditional Kueh Lapis

I laid awake on bed early Sunday morning. Thinking if 4hours is enough for me to bake a lapis cake for my dad birthday function next week. After counting the number of hours needed, I jumped out of bed and started on my preparation for the Kueh Lapis cake. As usual, I used Florence's recipe since I've succeded a couple of them with it. So I'll stick to her recipe whenever I wanted to bake the Kueh Lapis cake.

Since I was going to use a 10" by 10" square pan, I multiply the recipe by 2. That means, it's a whopping 20 egg yolks! Good grief! You see the amount of egg yolks and butter that goes into the baking, you'll probably not eat them after baking! That was what I thought initially! But after baking, I still took some try. Just can't help it, I simple love Kueh Lapis! :)

Recipe is extracted from Florence's blog.

Baking Weekend!

It is a baking weekend for me, starting from Friday since I didn't work as my children had no school for that day. As I had quite a number of eggs left from the week before, I tried Traditional Lapis Cake. The result was great!

Bake I: Traditional Lapis Cake

Quite a lot of preparation work for the batter.

Grilling the cake layer...

by layer by layers.

Testing the doneness of the cake by poking a pin into it.

My final Tradition Cake Lapis. Nice 10 layers.

Recipe adapted from Florence's website, Traditional Cake Lapis.

Bake II: Wholemeal Bread

Steps to baking the bread.

Fresh from the oven wholemeal loaf.

Whole lot of wholesome wheat & oats.


Recipe adapted from Florence's blog, 65C Bread, under comments.

Bake III: My Chocolate Delight!

I created this for my family on Saturday. Wanted to do chocolate truffles for them, but the chocolate ganache was too soft due to couverture chocolate. So I did this instead.

Brought the whole container to my mum's place.

What's in the chocolate delight?
1. Chocolate Ganache
->semi sweet choc, dark chocolate couverture, whipping cream, butter & Rum.
2. Chocolate Delight
-> cherry, grape, blueberry, chocolate ganache, almond nibs, pistachio nut, crushed digestive biscuits. Topped it up with chocolate ganache, then sprinkle with valrhona cocoa powder.
Verdict: Wholesome! Just right & enough!