Our annual bloggers gathering

A few of us would initiate a food bloggers' gathering once a year. This year, I've decided to initiate one, and to held it at my place. As it was year end and school holidays, the turn out wasn't very good. However, that didn't dampen our mood. We proceeded with our plan.

Being food bloggers means our potluck dishes were homemade. In fact, many of us had already knew one another. The gathering was a time to catch up and share our foods.

Have a good festive season my friends!

Fried Pumkin Bee Hoon & Oriental Salad - Jane
Cheese & Ham puffs & Falalel - Veronica
Fried Radish Cake and Kong Bak Bao - Meg
Maple Pork Balls and Fruit tarts - Bee Bee
Apom berkuah - Alan
Osmanthus jelly - Annie
Chicken Wings & Japanese mochi - Rei

Banana Cinnamon Cake

On my previous post, I mentioned about too much fruits at home, especially when my spouse was out for his business trip. Knowing that he was coming back on Friday, I thought I'd better quickly finished up some of the fruits, else he will start nagging why I didn't feed the children the fruits.

With some ripen bananas, I decided on baking a Banana Cake. Somehow, I just felt like adding cinnamon to it. The cinnamon overwhelmed the banana a little. Will try this again next time with lesser cinnamon, and maybe add some nutmeg or so.

Recipe for Banana Cinnamon Cake, adapted from Nigella.
(Makes a 9" square cake. Can use a 8" round cake pan to be taller.)

Ingredients:
100g LIV Unsalted butter, soften
80g Caster sugar
¼ tsp Salt
2 Whole eggs, room temperature
1 lemon zest (I omitted this)
1 tablespoon rum (optional)
400g Bananas (overipe - mashed. I used only 330g (4 med) and it was a bit dry)
1 tbsp Lemon juice
300g Plain flour
¼ tsp Cinnamon powder (optional) (I used ½ tsp and I think it overwhelmed the banana)
2 ½ tsp Baking powder
4 tbsp Whole milk (optional)

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add the eggs and mix well. Add the lemon zest, if using.
3. Add the bananas, rum and the lemon juice. Once the bananas are mixed in, you might notice the mix looks curdled. Don't worry, just continue mixing.
4. Sift flour, cinnamon powder and baking powder together. Add to the egg-flour-banana mix and combine. If the dough/batter seems too heavy, add milk. (If you don't have enough bananas like me, the batter will be very thick. Add more milk to make it smoother.) 
5. Butter the tin and pour the batter in.
6. Bake it at preheated fan oven of 160°C for 45mins or when it turned brown and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Note:

• This is a simple, but yet delicious cake.
• There must sufficient bananas to make it moist, even though the cake was light and fluffy.
• Original recipe includes 100g raisins soaked in rum and 150g nuts which you may want to add. 
• If you use a smaller pan, bake it for 60mins.

Pineapple & Coconut Cupcakes

My spouse likes to buy fruits to feed the family. Then he will made everyone eat. It's a good thing because by forcing my children to eat, it really build up their immunity. I must say, my children are quite healthy. They don't get sick very easily, thanks to their daddy.

This week, we bought a lot of fruits, but he were away for business trip. There were so much fruits at home - watermelon, apple, honeydew, pineapples, jackfruits and bananas! Gosh, we could not finish them within a week! So I decided to bake Pineapple & Coconut Cupcakes. The cupcakes were creamy, soft and fluffy. It's really nice, and I think it can be used as a basic cupcake recipe.

Recipe for Pineapple & Coconut Cupcakes, adapted from the hummingbird bakery cookbook.
(Makes 12 regular cupcakes)

Ingredients:
120g Plain flour
80g Caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
A pinch of salt
40g LIV unsalted butter, room temperature
120g Whipping cream
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tsp Coconut oil (optional)
1 Whole egg
2 slices Pineapple (fresh or canned), cut into small pieces
Some Desiccated honey coconut

Method:

1. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a mixing bowl.
2. Using a whisk, mix until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.

3. Mix the cream and the vanilla extract in a separate bowl, then beat into the flour mixture until combined.

4. Add in the coconut oil, followed by egg and beat well. Scrape down the sides and mix well.

5. Divide the chopped pineapples between the paper cases.
6. Spoon the cupcake mixture on top until two-thirds full. Sprinkle desiccated coconut on top.

7. Bake in the preheated fan oven of 160C for 20mins, or until golden.
8. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto the wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Hazelnut Bakewell Tart

This post is sponsored by Liv butter. Try Liv today!

After a super long holiday in Germany during October, it was quite difficult to get back to my baking. :p I can only salivate at all other food bloggers' good foods and bakes.

After thinking and browsing through the recipes, I finally decided to bake a simple tart - Hazelnut Bakewell Tart. I realised that hazelnut-related snacks are really cheap in Germany. They have abundant hazelnut snacks - chocolates, wafers, biscuits and what-have-yous. I also didn't hesitate to buy a packet of 200g ground hazelnut (crazy me). So for this tart, I decided to use all hazelnuts. I even used ground hazelnut for my tart crust. All in all, it's a wholesome hazelnut treat!

Recipe for Hazelnut Bakewell Tart, modified from Kitchen Corner.
(Makes a 9" tart)

Ingredients:
Use your favourite tart crust recipe.

For the fillings:

100g Ground hazelnuts

25g Plain flour

1 tsp Hazelnut extract

83g Liv Unsalted butter

50g caster sugar

1 egg

50g Halved hazelnuts, toasted

Some chocolate ganache, or Nutella

Method:

1. Prepare your tart crust and mould it into the tart pan. Place it in the fridge until ready to use.
2. For the fillings, cream the butter, sugar and hazelnut extract in a bowl until light and creamy.
3. Add in the ground hazelnut, plain flour and beaten eggs and mix well.
4. Place in the fridge to firm up for at least half an hour.
5. Spread the chocolate ganache into the tart crust. Then spread the hazelnut cream over the chocolate.
6. Arrange the toasted hazelnuts on the surface of the hazelnut batter, pressing them in lightly.
7. Bake the tart in the 180'C preheated oven for about 25 minutes. Remove tarts from the oven and leave it to cool.
8. Spread a layer of chocolate ganache on top, and refrigerated.
9. Serve chilled.

Tiramisu Birthday Cake

My elder sister just returned from her Italy holiday last week. She was very kind to host an Italian dinner for us last evening. She shared with us her truffles and porcinis. It was a wonderful family dinner!

To complement her Italian fare, I made a Tiramisu cake, also to celebrate my spouse's birthday. I remembered Annie had a tested and proven recipe on her blog, so I used her recipe. It was so good that everyone had seconds after that heavy dinner!! Even my mum who doesn't like coffees, had second piece. Ok, I shan't say more, you know how good it is now. This is definitely a keeper for me!

Recipe for Tiramisu, adapted from Annielicious.
(Makes a 8" square cake)

Ingredients:
8 tsp Instant coffee powder
8 tsp Caster sugar
15 tsp Kahlua (Coffee Liqueur) + 3 tsp Kahlua
500g Mascarpone Cheese
200g Chilled Whipping Cream (I used all of my remaining 245g)
2 large Eggs
1 large pack of Cantreau brand Savoiardi (Sponge Fingers)
Cocoa Powder (To sieve on top before serving)

Method:

1.   Mix 8 tsp instant coffee powder and 8 tsp caster sugar in a bowl. Add 15tsp Kahlua into the coffee mixture. Stir until coffee and sugar completely melted. (I added about 2 tbsp water to the mixture thereafter)
2.   Pour coffee mixture into a dish. Dish length must be longer than the Sponge finger.
3.   Whisk cold whipping cream till stiff. Once done, put the cream back to the fridge.
4.   Separate egg whites and egg yolks. Beat egg yolk till pale color.
5.   In another clean and dry mixing bowl, beat the egg whites till stiff peak.
6.   Add mascarpone cheese into a mixing bowl, add egg yolk and mix well.
7.   Add in whipping cream, egg whites and 3 tsp kahlua into the mascarpone mixture. Mix until everything is incorporated. Put the whole bowl of mixture back to the fridge for later use.
8.  Prepare a 8" square mousse cake ring.

Assembling: 

1st Layer – Dip sponge fingers (Sugary side) into the coffee mixture. Do not wet the sponge finger too much. Just dip in, count 1, 2, 3. And you will have to take the sponge finger away.  
Cut the sponge fingers to fit onto the cake tin (if required). Put dipped sponge fingers into the cake tin, sugary side up.

2nd Layer - Spread the creamy mixture on top of the sponge fingers. Sift some cocoa powder on top.

3rd Layer – Repeat step 1. Dip sponge fingers into the coffee mixture (non-Sugary Side this time). Put another layer of sponge fingers on top of the cream.

4th Layer - Spread the creamy mixture on top. Again, sift some cocoa powder on top.

5th Layer - Dip whole sponge fingers into the coffee mixture. (I wanted to use up the coffee mixture, so I dipped the whole sponge fingers into the coffee mixture). 

6th Layer - Cover the sponge fingers with the remaining creamy mixture. Place the cake ring on a cake container and keep it into the fridge for at least 8 hours. I kept mine overnight.

Finishing:

1. Using a spatula, loose the sides of the cake ring, Remove the cake ring from the cake.
2. Sift cocoa powder on top. Wipe away the cocoa powder at the side to give it a clean finishing.
3. Use the sponge fingers to place it at the side of the cake. As I do not have sufficient, I cut some into half.
4. Serve the cake.

Note: The Kahlua alcohol wasn't that strong after keeping it in the fridge for a day. As I am very sensitive to alcohol, I couldn't really taste the alcohol, which I really like. Therefore, it's good to make the day before you want to serve.

马来糕 Ma Lai Koh (Steamed Cake)

This post is sponsored by Liv butter. Try Liv today!

My transport mate was sharing with me that she liked the pau recipe from "Delightful Snacks & Dim Sum" by Agnes Chang. I told her that I also had this book and likes her recipes too. So this evening, when I decided to do a steamed cake, I thought of this book almost immediately. And so, I chose this Steamed Cake, 马来糕.

This recipe is very simple, and the result was a light, fluffy and custardy steamed cake. It was really nice.

Recipe for 马来糕, Steamed Cake, adapted from "Delightful Snacks & Dim Sum" by Agnes Chang

Makes a 8" round basket.

Ingredients:

(A)

120g Bread flour, sifted

90g Plain flour, sifted

1 tbsp Custard powder, sifted

(B)

200g Caster sugar

120g Liv Unsalted butter, melted

3 Eggs, mixed with 1 tsp vanilla extract, beaten lightly

180g Whole milk

(C)

3 tsp Baking powder

1/2 tsp Dark soya sauce

Some sunflower seeds (or other nuts)

Method:

1. Sift ingredient A into a big mixing bowl.
2. Add in ingredients B and mix thoroughly.
3. Add in ingredients C and mix well.
4. Pour into an 8" round basket lined with baking paper.
5. Sprinkle some sunflower seeds on top.
6. Steam with high heat for 35mins until cooked.
7. Cool, cut into pieces and serve.