Neapolitan Iced Gems -- Children's Day Special

Most of us who grew up eating old school iced gems would be familiar with Neapolitan ice-cream too. We may not know the ice-cream by its proper name when we were happily enjoying the dessert as kids. But we have definitely eaten blocks of ice-cream that was served with 3 flavours side-by-side each other, and the flavours would always be chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. I am combining 2 childhood favourites into a teeny biscuit. Presenting my old school iced gems dressed up in Neapolitan flavours!

What I like about these is they look pretty on their own without the addition of extra food colouring (strawberry paste already contains some artificial red colouring). As I have a busy week ahead, I decided to prepare the biscuit dough the night before baking to save time. As a result, the biscuit dough is smoother than my previous attempts! Perhaps this is something you may want to try if you prefer a smoother look. The biscuit is still just as light and crisp with a hint of milk flavour.

I made these for my elder kid to bring to school to share with classmates.

Ingredients (makes about 96 biscuits using 2cm round cutter):
Biscuit dough
100g plain flour
14g icing sugar
a pinch of salt
1.25 tsp baking powder
35g vegetable shortening (you may replace with butter)
39g milk (plus more as necessary)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Royal icing*
220g icing sugar (plus more as necessary)
15g meringue powder
3 tbs warm water (plus more as necessary)
2-3 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 tsp strawberry paste

* You may want to use the traditional method of making royal icing from raw egg whites if you can't get meringue powder or royal icing premix (just add water type of royal icing). You may dry the iced biscuits in the oven at about 90 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes or so if you are afraid of serving people raw egg whites. Putting iced biscuits back into the oven helps to dry them out as well as "cook" the raw egg whites.

Steps:
1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt and icing sugar together in a large bowl.

2. Add shortening into the flour mix and use your finger tips to rub it in until the whole mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

3. Add vanilla extract into the milk. Gradually add milk into the flour mixture and use a spatula to mix until a dough forms. Add more flour if it is too sticky, more milk if it is too dry. I cling wrapped the dough at this point and let it rest overnight at room temperature. You may use it immediately too.

4. Roll the dough to a thickness of 3mm and cut out circles with round cookie cutter ( I used a 2cm one). Place the circles on a baking tray lined with baking sheet. You may place them pretty close to each other as they will not expand sideways.

5. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees Celsius (fan mode) for 13-15 minutes or until lightly browned.

6. Let the biscuits cool completely before icing them. Sift together icing sugar and meringue powder into a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to mix them well at low speed. Add water and mix them, gradually increasing the speed. Beat for 5-6 minutes or until stiff peaks form.

7. Divide the royal icing into 3 portions. Add vanilla extract, strawberry paste and cocoa powder into each of the portions respectively. You may want to add more water for the chocolate icing, and more icing sugar for the strawberry/ vanilla icing as necessary.

8. Transfer the royal icing into ziplock bags fitted with a star tip. Pipe stars onto the biscuits. To make the Neapolitan flavoured biscuits, push the remaining flavoured royal icing into the other corner of the ziplock bags. Snip off the corner and pipe the stars next to each other into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip.

9. Pipe the icing onto a baking sheet until you get a nice Neapolitan pattern before you start icing the biscuits. You may air dry the biscuits for several hours or in the oven for 25-30 minutes at 70-80 degrees Celsius. Store the cooled biscuits in an airtight container.

Kids sure love this stuff!

Update: please checkout my updated post for improvements in preparing the royal icing. It is better to prepare each flavour of icing separately than to divide a big batch into three as adjusting the consistency of the icing after adding extracts/cocoa powder is more tricky.


With love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

Superman Boxers Orange Chiffon Cake

This is a tongue-in-cheek creation I made for a friend (she's a v talented singer btw!) who requested this cake for her hubby's birthday! :D What does it look like? Her son picked out the boxers for his dad during their shopping trip together LOL!

I piped the Superman 'S' using the method similar to Spiderman chiffon cake but using an orange chiffon cake recipe. In addition, I have replaced additional cake flour with red yeast powder which acts both to colour the batter as well as to make it less runny for piping. Remember to invert the template for the Superman 'S'! You can do this easily in a program like Paint. Thank God for the timely reminder.

Orange Chiffon Cake for Superman Boxers (for 6-inch tray or bowl)
2 egg yolks
13g sugar
26g vegetable oil
27 ml orange juice
40g cake flour
Red yeast powder

Meringue for piping:
1 egg white
10g sugar
1/6 tsp cream of tartar

Meringue for cake
3 egg whites
30g sugar/ 30
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, water and orange juice (I omitted orange zest here so that the patterns will not be patchy).
3. Next add in sieved flour and whisk till no trace of flour is found. Scoop out 4 tsp for piping red and add 1/3-1/2 tsp of red yeast powder. Divide the remaining batter 2:1 for blue:yellow cake.
4: Whip up the meringue for piping and egg white. Scoop over 9 tbsp to red batter. Fold in gently, pipe superman 'S' and bake for 1.5 min.
5. Whip up the meringue for cake. Divide 2:1 for the blue:yellow batter. Gently fold in 1/3 at a time respectively.
6. Fill the spaces in between the red 'S' with yellow batter and the space outside the red diamond with blue batter. Fill the rest of the space with more red batter.
7. Gently tap the tray on table 3x to remove air bubbles.
8. Bake the layer cake for 15 min at 160°C.
9. Unmould after the cake is cool.

I outlined the Superman logo using a toothpick dipped in charcoal powder in water. This is the tedious part of the bake! Orange chiffon cake was used as the base chiffon cake so as to resemble skin colour. I have shared the orange chiffon cake recipe for 17 cm tin previously. It is still one of my favorites because of the orange zest! In addition, I baked another red layer chiffon cake (2 egg recipe like above) to make the lining of the boxers as well as a Superman belt at the bottom of the cake. All these were joined to the cake using melted marshmallows, including the boxers :). Ahh.. and I hid some marshmallows inside for the kids!

Thank God celebration was great though the waitress mistook the birthday "boy" for the little boy because it was Superman :p.

With love,
Susanne

Read More »

Earl Grey Iced Gems Biscuits - black, white and zebra

"Mama, can you make some black and white iced gems?" -- elder kid's request.

"Wow! Earl grey flavoured iced gems sounds exciting!" -- a friend who is a fan of earl grey.

My kids love the iced gems I made earlier this week and they are already requesting for me to make more after seeing the diminishing supply of biscuits! I have a friend who is keen on having some earl grey flavored ones so I decided to make some black and white earl grey flavoured gems! Don't worry, I am not feeding them too much caffeine. They are only allowed a little a day. Most of it will be given away to adults to enjoy :). I will have to make another kiddy batch when the time comes...

I followed my successful recipe closely but infused earl grey into the liquids used (milk for biscuit base and water for icing). I used 1 teabag to infuse in 50ml of hot milk for 5 minutes and 2 teabags to infuse in 50ml of hot water. I also added half a teabag's worth of earl grey leaves into the royal icing. For your convenience I will put the recipe here.

Ingredients (makes about 70-75 biscuits):
Biscuit dough
70g plain flour
10g icing sugar
Pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
24g vegetable shortening
50ml hot milk
1 earl grey tea bag
1/8-1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Royal icing
146g icing sugar
10g meringue powder
1 tbs warm water
50ml hot water
2 earl grey tea bags
1.5 tsp charcoal powder
Extra water or icing sugar as necessary

Steps:
1. Steep 1 earl grey tea bag in hot milk for 5 minutes (you may use 2 if you prefer stronger tea flavour). Squeeze the teabag to extract as much earl grey goodness as possible. Add vanilla extract to the milk. Set aside to cool.

2. Preheat the oven to 170°C (fan mode).
Line baking tray with baking sheet.

3. Mix all dry ingredients together and sift into a large bowl. (You may double the recipe since this is a small batch). Rub in the shortening with your finger tips until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

4. Gradually add in the milk until you can form a ball of dough. You won't need to use all 50ml of it. Roll it to thickness of about 3mm. Use a round cutter to cut out circles of about 2cm in diameter (or any size that you have).

5. Place the cut out dough on baking tray. They can be placed pretty close together as the dough will puff up and not expand much sideways. Press it down a little in the middle. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

6. To make the white gems, simply mix together half of the icing sugar (73g) and meringue powder (5g) with 1 tbs of warm water and use an electric mixer to beat it for 5-6 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Add more sugar if it is too runny and more water if it is too thick.  Transfer to piping bag (I used ziplock bag) fitted with a star tip and pipe the gems.

As rustic looking as ever!

Push leftover white icing into the other corner of the ziplock bag.

7. To make the black gems with earl grey flavoured royal icing, steep 2 teabags in 50ml of hot water for 5 minutes and squeeze the soaked up tea out. Let it cool slightly. Reserve one teabag. Follow step 6 except that you use tea instead of water. Add in half a teabag's worth of tea leaves into the mix. This is the natural color of earl grey flavored icing.

Can't see very well but it's light brown with black specs of tea leaves.

As my elder kid wanted black, I added 1.5 tsp of charcoal powder and a little more tea. Pipe out black gems in a similar way.

8. To make zebra gems (or any other color combinations that go well like red and white for Christmas), fill a piping bag with alternating black and white. To do this, snip the ziplock bags of white and black icing at the corner and pipe the icing in an alternating manner into the piping bag (I used a proper pastry bag for this but ziplock bags should do fine too.)

Pipe a few stars on a baking sheet until you get the desired zebra pattern before you start icing the biscuits.

9. Dry the biscuits for several hours or overnight before storing in airtight container. I sped things up by drying in the oven at 70°C for 25 minutes. (These biscuits are bigger than my previous attempt so I extended the drying time)

Looks like you can play some chess or board games with these ;).

Old school iced gems with a twist :). Earl grey fans will love these fragrant, crunchy but not-too-sweet biscuits with a cup of tea!

With love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

7-colour Pastel Rainbow Pinata Chiffon Cake

This is a 7-colour pastel rainbow chiffon cake I made for a very dear friend! Because her daughter is so dear to me, I wanted to make a special and an even better rainbow chiffon cake than before!

I made it 7 layers but doubling the batter for purple and using blueberry juice to paint the last layer as I wasn’t going to risk my meringue breaking down while working with too much complexity (and also less to wash up :p). Using the recipe for pastel rainbow chiffon cake, I scaled the recipe up to 6 egg yolks (from 5) and doubled the purple batter. Blueberry juice also helps to add flavour and moisture to the cake! It must be true as the cake was very well-received and her friends all commented it was very yummy :p. Thank God!

I made another rainbow chiffon cake in heart shape on top with some cute clouds and an arching rainbow to create sweet pink dreamland for the Hello Kitty toppers on top! It’s a piñata cake with hidden m & m’s as requested by my friend!

Happy sweet birthday to Mikaela!

With lots of love,
Susanne

Read More »

Apple Custard Buns

Imagine eating a soft bun almost bursting with apple pie filling and a crunchy crust on top :).

This bake came about because hubby loves cooked apples/ apple pie/ apple sauce and I still had some applesauce left. I thought that a tart apple filling combined with sweet pastry cream would be lovely wrapped with soft milk bread. And to maximize the amount of filling,  I decided to leave the tops of the buns open but with a lattice of cookie to keep the apple goodness in.

I used to be a firm believer in using the sponge dough method to make soft and fluffy bread. This method is undoubtedly the best if you want soft and fluffy bread but I think I have found the perfect straight dough recipe (simpler) that does not rely on huge amount of fat or condensed milk to make it soft. It contains little sugar and butter too. The best part is it remains soft even after 2 days! Quite a feat for homemade bread that satisfies all the above requirements. This recipe is an adaptation of the famous Wu Pao-Chun champion loaf recipe.

Ingredients (makes 16 mini buns):
Filling
160g applesauce** (refer to my previous post for the recipe)
160g custard** (refer to my old post for the recipe)

** You may wish to change the ratio of applesauce:custard depending on whether you prefer stronger apple flavour or custard flavor.

Cookie dough
25g icing sugar
50g butter
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Bread dough
225g bread flour
55g cake flour*
20g wheat gluten*
20g rolled oats (optional)
1 tsp instant yeast
10g sugar
240g fresh milk
15g butter
3g salt

*You may replace with plain or bread flour. The cake flour (low protein flour) adds softness to the bread and wheat gluten provides better structure to the bread and added nutrition. The dough passes windowpane test faster too with the addition of wheat gluten.

Steps:
1. Prepare the applesauce and custard before hand. They can be kept refrigerated. You may wish to use apple chunks instead of apple puree for more bite. Mix the two together thoroughly. Wrap into balls of 20g each with cling wrap and freeze the balls.

2. Prepare the cookie dough. This is actually a recipe for shortbread cookies. Mix everything together until a dough forms. Roll the dough to 2mm in thickness. Cut small strips of dough (about 4mm in width) to wrap around a frozen ball of apple custard,  latticed style as shown in the 2nd picture. Keep the assembly wrapped in cling wrap and frozen. You may prepare this up to a day or two ahead of time.

3. Prepare the bread dough. Mix all the dry ingredients except salt (first 6 ingredients) in a large bowl. Add milk and stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until a dough is formed. Pour out onto a non-stick mat and gradually knead in butter and salt. I didn't add the salt earlier to make sure that as little yeast is killed as possible. Knead for 15 minutes or until the dough passes the windowpane test. Alternatively, you may use a standmixer or breadmaker but I prefer a workout :).

4. Let the dough proof for 45 minutes or until double in size in a large greased bowl covered with cling wrap. Punch down the dough and knead a few times to expel any trapped gas. Divide the dough into 16 pieces of about 36g each. Rest for 10 minutes loosely covered in cling wrap.

5. Using a rolling pin, roll each ball of dough into a circle and place a frozen ball of filling in the middle. Use a bench scraper or knife to make 4 cuts as shown in the picture below (3rd picture in collage). Fold two opposite flaps up and pinch together (4th picture). Fold the remaining 2 flaps up and pinch seal (5th picture).  Place the bun in paper liner in a jumbo muffin pan. Brush the tops of the cookie dough with cinnamon powder (optional) (6th picture). Proof for 1 hour. Milk wash the buns (or egg wash if you prefer).

6. Bake in preheated oven at 170-180°C for 15 minutes or until the buns are lightly browned.

Best to consume it fresh but if you are not, do toast it before consuming the next day :).

It may seem like a lot of work to make these. But spreading the work over a few days make the actual baking really easy. I didn't make all 16 apple custard buns with this batch of dough but made other buns too :). There's corn custard,  tuna and cheese, ham rose and fruit n nut buns (not in picture) too :). We are all happy to have homemade buns for weekend breakfast at last !

This post is linked to Little Thumbs Up event organized by Bake For Happy Kids with My Little Favourite DIY & hosted this month by  I-Lost in Austen.

Baked with lots of love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

'Olaf in Summer' Pandan Chiffon Cake

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

This is a fun cake I made for my dear hubby’s birthday. I was actually looking to Phay Shing's yummy blackforest cake. However, being the loving dad he is, he suggested instead that I make an Olaf which is my son’s favorite character in Frozen.

"Do you want to build a snowman?"

Yes I do! These are what you will need: 2 cleaned egg shells, a paper cone, a small glass bowl and a 6-inch tray (for cutting out the feet), and a baby carrot LOL! Good way to get your kids to eat their vegetables :p.

Bake a vanilla chiffon cake in them (for your convenience I have repasted the recipe below):
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
39g vegetable oil
36 ml water
60g cake
1 tsp vanilla extract
Few drops of white food coloring

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Using the following baking times:

Egg shells/paper cone: 15 min at 160°C and 5+ min at 150°C
Glass bowl: 15 min at 160°C and 10 min at 150°C
Baking tray: 15 min at 160°C

Keep the cakes airtight until the base cake is ready!

The base cake is a pandan chiffon cake similar to Peppa pig chiffon cake. I filled the hole with hidden marshmallows under the Olaf because my daughter loves them! For your convenience I have also repasted the recipe below:

Pandan chiffon cake (17cm chiffon tin)
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
39g vegetable oil
24 ml coconut milk
11 ml pandan juice
2 ml vanilla extract
5 ml pandan paste
60g cake flour
A pinch of salt

Meringue:
4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Prepare fresh pandan juice by blending fresh pandan leaves (10-15 leaves cut into small pieces, omitting the tips) with 50 ml water. Strain with a sieve and press out all the liquid with a spoon.
2. Preheat oven at 160°C.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, coconut milk and pandan juice.
4. Add in sieved flour and salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
7. Scoop the batter into the chiffon tin.
8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles
9. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 30 min at 150°C.
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool
11. Unmould after the cake is cool (see Hand Unmoulding video tutorial).

Join up the vanilla cakes from head to bottom in the order of: egg shell + cone (head), egg shell (top body), bowl cake (bottom body), round circles (feet). Glue everything using melted marshmallows. Trim/cut the cakes slightly, especially the head cakes to fit into the chiffon and get the proportions right.

I painted on the facial features using charcoal powder in water. I happened to have spare black cake from another bake which I used for the buttons, but you can also just paint them on as well. And not forgetting the hands which are toothpick dipped in colored meringue!

The kids had lots of fun eating the cake! Happy birthday to my dearest hubby!!

With lots of love,
Susanne

Read More »

Old School Iced Gem Biscuits (as close as it gets to Khong Guan)

"Dad, try this! I think this is quite close to the Khong Guan type of biscuits!"

Dad took a plain biscuit and munched with a contemplative look.

"The taste is right but the texture is not quite like Khong Guan. This is the biscuit of the olden times. My neighbour (when dad was young) who owned a bakery used to give us biscuits like this."

You can't imagine how excited I was! I couldn't wait to ice the biscuits! The compliment that this tasted just like the biscuits of old is even better than it tasting like the mass-produced, supermarket version!! Presenting my old school iced gem biscuits! You can't find this recipe elsewhere on the internet.

Rainbow iced gems! I prefer pastel colours but I am doing a test for someone.

Although we are all familiar with iced gem biscuits, recipes that resemble what we had when we were kids are scarce. In my quest to find the recipe for the biscuit base, I have experienced a few failures. Some of them tasted good, like one which made a good homemade soda biscuit, but still not quite right. Butter based recipes, although fragrant, are obviously nowhere close in terms of taste like my first attempt earlier this year.

I went to check out the ingredient list on the packaging of iced gem biscuits at the supermarket and found it very basic and minimal. I managed to find a recipe that I could adapt from, which has ingredients that are similar to the one on the packaging. Although the recipe had butter, I thought it would be safe to substitute with shortening. The original recipe had no sugar at all but I decided to add a bit and a dash of vanilla extract as well to add to the flavor as butter is absent.

Ingredients:
Plain biscuit (Adapted from Dreamersloft)
70g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
10g icing sugar
A tiny pinch of salt
24g shortening (you may replace with butter if you prefer buttery taste. I am looking for authentic flavor :p)
27g milk (add more as necessary if dough is too dry)
1/8 tsp vanilla extract

Royal icing*
15g Meringue powder
220g Icing sugar
3 tbs Water plus more as necessary
Gel food colouring

Steps:
1. Sift flour,  baking powder, salt and icing sugar in a large bowl.  Set aside.

2. Add shortening to the flour mixture and rub in the shortening until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Take your time to get to really fine.

3. Add vanilla extract to milk and mix well. Add milk a little at a time and mix well with a spatula until a dough forms. Knead the dough into a smooth ball. The dough should not be sticky.  Add flour if it is too sticky,  more milk of it is too dry.

4. Roll the dough until it is about 3mm thick and use a round cutter to cut out circles. Take note that the resulting biscuit may be slightly smaller in diameter but will be taller than the stamped out circle. Press the cut-out dough a little in the center as it will puff up quite a bit.

5. Bake in preheated oven at 170°C (fan mode) 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. Baking time depends on the size of your biscuits. Let it rest on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

Rustic looking....

Ice the biscuits only when they have cooled completely.

6. Prepare the royal icing. *(You may use the traditional method of using raw egg whites or royal icing premix. I usually use the latter but for this old school biscuits, I decided to prepare it the more conventional way of using meringue powder which is available at Phoon Huat. I am not comfortable feeding people raw egg whites.) Begin by sifting the icing sugar and mixing it thoroughly with the meringue powder. Add 3 tbs of warm water and use an electric mixer to beat for 5-6 minutes or until thick and glossy at medium speed. Add water a bit at a time if the icing is too thick. The icing should hold it's peak when you lift up the beater. If you are working with a small batch of icing, using a hand whisk may be easier although your arm will get a workout :p.

7. Divide the icing into small bowls and add gel food colouring. Someone is requesting for Christmas coloured iced gems for end of year so I am testing the bright colours out. You will end up with some extra icing so you may want to double the recipe for the dough.

8. To ice the biscuits in the traditional ruffle, hold a biscuit in one hand and piping bag fitted with a star tip in the other. Hold the tip above the biscuit and apply pressure to the bag. Let the icing spread at the base a bit then release pressure before lifting up the bag in a swift motion. You may leave them in the open overnight to dry completely but I prefer to speed things up by drying in the oven for 15 minutes at 70-80°C.

The biscuit and icing were both light, airy and crunchy! The low sugar content of the biscuit meant that overall the iced biscuits are not too sweet, unlike my first attempt. I personally prefer this old school plain biscuit to the richer buttery sweeter version. It compliments the sugary icing much better. This is a truly nostalgic bake made with love :).

We are so happy to enjoy these...

Do check out other exciting flavors and variations of this old-time favourite over here. Many of these are naturally flavored and coloured!

Update: checkout this post for totally naturally coloured and flavoured rainbow iced gems!

With lots of love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

Rilakkuma Orange Chiffon Cake

This is a beary happy and loving creation I made for a little boy who loves Rilakkuma! I love it so much myself too, so I was really happy to revisit Rilakkuma. I had made an orange ogura Korilakkuma cake (the gf) sometime back. The steps are similar but I have used a chocolate chiffon cake recipe (scroll down to the bottom) instead for a brown Rilakkuma. You can follow the steps but simply substitute the recipe for chocolate chiffon, scaled down to 2 egg yolks.

I wanted to Rilakkuma to look like he was hugging a pink heart pillow with his name in dreamland :). Hence I baked an extra white and pink cake (vanilla chiffon cake) for cutting out the heart and some white clouds.

The Rilakkuma is placed atop an orange chiffon cake (my favorite!) loaded with orange zest... with hidden marshmallows to add to the dreamy theme! I had shared the recipe previously so I won't go into much detail here :). I used melted marshmallows to glue everything together.

I was very thankful his mummy shared that the cake was well-received by all the kids! It was such as joy to make this. Happy birthday to Louis! :)

With lots of love,
Susanne

Read More »

Steamed Soft Cake (软糕) -- clearing leftover cooked glutinous rice flour post Mid-Autumn

This very simple "bake" serves two purposes - to clear off my cooked glutinous rice flour stock after all that snowskin mooncake making and for my family who loves this traditional Chinese sweet. We usually buy soft cakes from a nearby supermarket or from a shop that sells Chinese pastries and confectionary (大中国). I didn't know they were so simple to make until I saw Ann Low's beautiful post for QQ steamed soft cakes.

Although this is my first attempt and I improvised a lot from Ann's recipe, what with me not being willing to invest in ingredients that I don't have and don't normally use, the cakes turned out really good! Hubby who had this since he was young said that the texture is very good, soft and chewy. Softer than those sold in supermarkets but not as sweet! My little one kept asking for more. I am personally not a fan of soft cakes but I must admit that the texture is really good. Presenting my amateurish looking but yummy rainbow soft cakes!

Traditionally, soft cakes only have red colored swirls. I decided to have fun with my collection of 6 mini loaf pans and colored each cake a different color :).

I think the reason why the ones I made are so soft is because I used cooked glutinous rice flour instead of the uncooked version. The cooked version absorbed a lot of water so I had to add much more water than the original recipe for uncooked glutinous rice flour.

Ingredients:
113g cooked glutinous rice flour or kou fen (糕粉)
30g wheat starch
11g tapioca or corn flour
95g sugar (I used 90g but some may think it is not sweet enough.)
210g water (boil a few pandan leaves in 300g of water and leave to cool. Or if you are lazy like me, just use 1 tsp pandan flavoring.)
1 tsp banana essence (I used 1/2-3/4 tsp of strawberry essence)
Liquid food coloring diluted in some water (about 1/8 tsp of coloring in 1 tbs of water)

Extra kou fen for coating the cakes

Steps:
1.  Sift flours into a big bowl and mix well with sugar.

2. Pour pandan water with essence into the dry ingredients and stir with wooden spoon to form a thick paste. Let it rest for 15 minutes before stirring until smooth and not lumpy (a couple of minutes of stirring will do).

3. Grease 6 mini loaf pans (2x4") or one 8" square pan with vegetable oil. Pour the thick paste into the pans. Smoothen out the tops of the batter by covering the surface with a cling wrap and pressing with your fingers (the paste is very sticky). Steam for 13-14 minutes.

4. Once removed from steamer, immediately brush on coloring.

Notice that red is missing? I wasn't sure that my experiment would work so I steamed one first. 

Let the cakes sit in the pans for 10 minutes before rolling into cylinder. Remove from pan.

5. Roll the cakes in extra kou fen. Coat evenly and shake off the excess flour.

6. Grease a knife with some vegetable oil and cut the cakes to thickness of your liking.

Store in airtight container. You may want to place baking paper between layers of soft cakes as they will stick to each other. To prevent the cakes from sticking, you may coat the cut surface with cooked glutinous rice flour but I didn't do that as I wanted the cakes to retain as much moisture as possible.

The cakes were still very soft the next day! Will update on whether it is still soft after a few days.

Update: According to Ann, you can spread a thin layer of tau sar instead of food coloring before rolling the cakes. In fact, you can experiment with any spreadable filling of your choice :). The cakes remain soft after 3 days but in Singapore's hot and humid climate,  it starts to get mouldy on the fourth day so do consume it within 2 days.

With love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

Two Minions Orange Chiffon Cakes

This was made for my good friend's son and his best friend after the super cute Minions from the hit movie! They look so happy together, just like the two adorable boys! 

The two chiffon cakes are orange flavored and the blue layer is baked into the cake just like in the pastel rainbow cake. The black goggles band is made of charcoal chiffon cake wrapped swissroll-style around the cake. I baked a vanilla chiffon cake and portioned the batter into plain (for eyes), grey (less charcoal, for goggles), and black (more charcoal, for band) and cut them out using round cutters. I piped in the eyes but they didn't come out nicely so I ended up drawing them on with charcoal paste :p.

I thank my friend for giving me the liberty to have a different design for Fred. Can you tell what his hair is made of? Yes, our favorite Pocky! :p

And for Albert, he had a round head with hair made of toothpicks dipped in black meringue! It's made of another orange chiffon cake in a round glass bowl :).

Recipe for orange "minion" chiffon cake is below:

3 egg yolks
20g sugar
39g vegetable oil
41ml orange juice
60g cake flour

Orange zest (from 1/2 orange - I reduced it so that they will not be so much "bits" in the exterior)

Orange paste/yellow gel food coloring

Blue gel food coloring

4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil and orange juice.
3. Next add in sieved flour and orange zest and whisk till no trace of flour found.
4. Scoop over 10 tsp into another bowl and add blue gel food coloring. To the remaining batter, add orange paste (and yellow gel food coloring) to desired colour.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Scoop over 20 tbsp meringue for blue batter. Gently fold in.

7. Fill the chiffon tin with the yellow batter till 2/3 of the tin, then scoop over blue batter at the top.

8. Gently tap the chiffon tin on the counter top to release air bubbles.

9. Bake the chiffon cake at 15 min at 160°C and then 20 min at 150°C and then 12 min at 140°C.
10. Invert the chiffon cake once removed from oven.
11. Unmould the chiffon cake by hand. Gently pull the cake from the sides of the tin at each angle and push the removable base up to unmould the sides. To unmould the cake from the base, gently lift up the cake from the base using hands, repeating this at each angle before turning the base over. (Watch The Baking Biatch for an excellent video tutorial on hand unmoulding chiffon cakes).

Thank God the cakes were well-received! My friend shared that the kids were thrilled and they taste very good too - light with a tangy refreshing taste! This is really the baker's greatest joy! :)

Happy belated birthday to Fred and Albert!!

With lots of love,

Susanne

Read More »

Apple Strawberry Chiffon Cupcake 'Apples'

After a couple of months busy with requests for cakes, mooncakes or cookies, I finally have a week free! Yay! Time to bake things on my to-bake list that have been sitting there for a long time! Ever since my first attempt at making apple look-alike cupcakes half a year ago, I have been contemplating trying them again with a different recipe that is less dense, more chiffon-like.

Can you tell which is real and which are cakes?

Now that I am more aware of other natural coloring options, I tried using a combination of them with a pinch of artificial red to achieve vibrant red apples. These are pretty quick and easy to make if you are making a small batch. Baking these in large quantities for parties would require a few rounds of baking as some "art and craft" with batter is required.

The recipe is adapted from any generic chiffon cake recipe with a flour to liquid ratio of about 65%.

Ingredients (makes about 6-8 cupcakes):
Egg yolk batter
2 egg yolks (65g eggs with shell on)
15g caster sugar
28g canola oil (or any vegetable oil)
34g applesauce
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinammon powder
A pinch of salt
40g cake flour

Food coloring/ flavoring*
1/2 tsp strawberry paste
1/2 tsp beetroot powder
1/4 tsp red yeast powder
1/8 tsp red color powder
Yellow gel food coloring

Meringue
3 egg whites
45g caster sugar
1/5 tsp cream of tartar

Steps:
1. Prepare the applesauce or you can use store bought ones. I made mine ahead of time for another bake. As it was quite coarse, I had to sieve it first. If you prefer bits of apple in your cake you can skip the sieving. The recipe for applesauce can be found here.

2. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Place 6-8 round-bottomed glass bowls (8.5cm in diameter, 6.5cm in height) on a tray.

3. Make the egg yolk batter. Whisk egg yolks and sugar together until it turns pale and sugar has dissolved. Add oil and whisk until thick and well combined. Add applesauce and vanilla extract and whisk until well combined. Gradually add in sifted flour, salt and cinnamon powder and whisk until no trace of flour is seen.

4. Divide the egg yolk batter into 2 portions. Add a tiny dip of yellow gel coloring into one. Add strawberry paste, beetroot powder, red yeast powder and red powder into the other. Mix well. *If it is difficult for you to get natural food colouring or any of the above coloring ingredients, just use whatever you have to achieve a desired dark shade of red.

5. Prepare the meringue. In a clean metal bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form and the bowl can be overturned without the meringue falling out. Gently but quickly fold in the meringue into each egg yolk batter in 3 additions using a spatula.

6. Fill the glass bowls in the following manner:

Begin with a teaspoonful of yellow batter at the bottom of the bowl. Add a teaspoonful of red batter on the left and right side of the dollop of yellow batter. Add a teaspoonful of yellow batter at the top and bottom of the dollop of batter. Spoon red batter around circumference of bowl and fill the middle with yellow batter. Fill the bowls until about 1/2-2/3 full.

7.  Dip a chopstick into the centre of the bowl and drag it radially outwards to create the pattern of the apple skin. Repeat until you have completed one round of the bowl. Drag the chopstick down towards the centre sometimes to create a more natural look. You can observe the marbling effect by looking through the glass bowl. Clean the chopstick before proceeding to the next bowl. Try to work quickly to prevent the egg whites from breaking down too much.

8. Bake at 160°C for 15 minutes followed by 150°C for 10-15 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Immediately invert onto cooling rack. If your cakes rise above the rim, cool upright first until they shrink below the rim, then invert to cool.

9. Carefully unmould by hand and place cake onto paper cupcake holders. Gently press the tops of the cakes down a little at the centre with your finger or a chopstick. You may want to pinch in the base of the cakes so that it doesn't flare out so much.

Insert a piece of cinnamon stick in the middle and you are done! Remember to store the cakes in airtight containers to prevent them from drying out if you are not consuming them immediately.

Update: my neighbour whom I gave the "apples" to said that the cakes were moist and soft :).

This post is linked to Little Thumbs Up event organized by Bake For Happy Kids with My Little Favourite DIY & hosted this month by  I-Lost in Austen.

With love,
Phay Shing

Read More »

Peppa Pig Chiffon Cake

As I type this, the cute "Peppa Pig" jingle rings in my head :D. This chiffon cake is made for someone who loves Peppa Pig. I was really excited to try this too because I think Peppa Pig is sooo cute!! My kids love it too and I totally dig their British accent hehe.

This is one of my most challenging cakes thus far because it involves a lot of free hand cake cutting and carving (my first being so involved). I baked 3 pink cakes (vanilla chiffon cake in bowl and layers) of different shades and cut out the face and facial features with a combination of cutters (where suitable e.g. eyes) and knife (for face, dress and hands etc. where no cutters were suitable). The ears were made my rolling the chiffon layer cake swissroll-style.

The Peppa Pig is standing on a green grass field made of .. you guessed it... pandan chiffon cake, the "original" chiffon cake! I used both fresh pandan juice (you must have this for a good pandan chiffon!) and store-bought pandan paste (for colour and flavour) for the chiffon cake.

Pandan chiffon cake (17cm chiffon tin)
3 egg yolks
20g sugar
39g vegetable oil
24 ml coconut milk
11 ml pandan juice
2 ml vanilla extract
5 ml pandan paste

60g cake flour
A pinch of salt

Meringue:
4 egg whites
45g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Prepare fresh pandan juice by blending fresh pandan leaves (10-15 leaves cut into small pieces, omitting the tips) with 50 ml water. Strain with a sieve and press out all the liquid with a spoon.

2. Preheat oven at 160°C.
3. Beat egg yolks with sugar with whisk till pale yellow before stirring in oil, coconut milk and pandan juice.
4. Add in sieved flour and salt and whisk till no trace of flour found.
5. Meringue: Beat the egg whites with ¼ tsp cream of tartar till stiff peak, mixing in caster sugar in 2 additions.
6. Fold in the meringue gently into the batter 1/3 at a time.
7. Scoop the batter into the chiffon tin.
8. Gently tap the tin on table 3x to remove air bubbles
9. Bake the cake for 15 min at 160°C then 30 min at 150°C.
10. Invert immediately once out of the oven to cool
11. Unmould after the cake is cool.

My "green grass field", filled with marshmallows flowers for a hidden surprise!

All the chiffon cake parts were stuck on using melted marshmallows. That's my Peppa Pig on the grass field with her trademark lovely smile!

Thank God the cake was well-received and everyone liked it! :)

With love,
Susanne

Read More »

Mickey & Minnie Mouse Cookies (with minimal artificial colouring and icing)

A birthday boy would like some Mickey Mouse cookies to share with his friends so I made these cute vanilla and strawberry version for the kids :).

My previous set of Mickey and Minnie cookies were for teachers so they were earl grey flavored and had the imprints of Mickey and Minnie. I decided to try out a more kid friendly version with less fragile cookies (so that Mickey and Minnie's ears don't break off with not-so-gentle handling) and stronger colors. The good news is, most of it is colored naturally! While most Mickey cookies you see from the internet are covered in icing, this is a lower sugar version with the icing only appearing as white dots on the cookies :).

Ingredients (makes about 40 cookies):
Black dough
139g unsalted butter at room temperature
83g caster sugar
41g fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/8 tsp salt
3 tsp charcoal powder
300g minus 3 tsp of plain flour
15g corn flour

Red dough
47g unsalted butter at room temperature
27g caster sugar
13g milk
1/2 tsp strawberry paste
3/4 tsp beetroot powder (omit if you don't have but add more artificial colouring)
1/8 tsp salt
100g plain flour
5g corn flour
1/4 tsp red powder food colouring

Steps:
1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar by beating with a wooden spoon until pale and creamy. Take a few minutes to do this. You may choose to use an electric mixer for this but I prefer the control and workout :p.

2. Dissolve the salt in the milk and add strawberry paste/ vanilla extract. Dissolve the beetroot powder into the milk for the red dough as well.

3. Gradually add in the milk mixture and beat until well combined with each addition with a spatula.

4. Mix the corn flour and charcoal powder/ red powder with plain flour well. Gradually add in sifted flour mixture and fold in with a spatula. Roll the ball of dough between two sheets of baking paper and refrigerate for 30 minutes or overnight. Roll to a thickness of 1/4" (about 5mm) for the black dough and 1/16" (2mm) for the red dough.

5. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with baking sheets.

6. Use the Mickey mouse cookie cutter to cut out  black mouse-shaped cookies. Use a round cookie cutter of about the same diameter as the Mickey cutter to cut out red circles. Cut the circle into half with a bench scraper or knife. Attach the semi-circle onto the bottom half of Mickey. You may brush the cookie with a bit of milk to help the parts stick together. If the dough gets too sticky, you may add a bit of flour.

7. To create Minnie, add a bow onto the Mickey cookies. I don't have a ribbon/ bow cutter so I improvised with a jumbo straw and the smallest heart-shaped cutter that I have.

8. Place the cookies about 2cm apart and bake for 13-15 minutes. Because of the color of the cookies, it is tricky to tell if they look done. Usually I look out for slight browning at the cookie edges to tell if its done. I had to scrutinise the cookies to see the telltale browning. Cool for 5 minutes on the tray before transferring onto a cooling rack.

To rework any leftover dough, roll it out between baking sheets again and refrigerate until needed. I mentioned using 2 trays while working with the cookies is to minimize idle time while reworking the dough and baking. I find that it is not necessary to flour the surface for this batch of cookies as I am not making any imprint on the surface.

9. When the cookies have cooled completely, add white dots using royal icing and a Wilton #3 tip. I used the just-add-water type of royal icing mix. You may also make it with meringue powder/ powdered egg whites. Dry the iced cookies in the oven at 60-70°C for about 20 minutes. You may dry them out in the open but I prefer to speed up the process. These dry much faster than conventional Mickey iced cookies whereby the entire cookie surface is covered with icing.

10. Cool the cookies on the cooling rack again. Keep them in airtight container once they are cooled. I packed them in sealed bags once they have cooled.

All packed! 20 sets of Mickey and Minnie!

I used a ratio of 1:3 for red:black dough. It turned out that there was a bit too much red dough and just enough black dough. I would use a ratio of 1:4 in the future. If you prefer a lighter textured cookie, you may follow my previous recipe of half plain flour and half corn flour. These kiddy Mickey and Minnie cookies were designed to remain intact when the kids bring them home.

So what did I do with the extra red dough? My kids had fun with "playdoh" :).

Happy birthday Frederic!

With love,
Phay Shing

Read More »