Mogador - Who would have known it is de-li-cious

What is Mogador?....I didn't have a clue of what it meant. Perhaps it was the name of a city somewhere, I thought. I wiki'ed it found out it was an isolated city of Moroccan where the French Troop disembarked in 18th century. Nothing much related to the raspberry puree soaked cake I was about to make. (!?) If anyone knows, educate me please.

By the way, I doubt why the French named quite a few of their cakes after their cities? I know we have some city-named cake with description attached to the cake i.e. Boston creme pie or New York cheese cake or Mississippi mud pie but do you know how Paris-Brest or Mogador look like? Um....may be it was their tricks to keep our curiosity alive.

I searched the key word 'mogador cake' and finally saw chocolate mousse cake topped with jam. Not as fancy as I thought. Fine, I had to make this in class anyway.

In the demo class, Mogador was made with chocolate sponge. Good news, it's not quite an artery-blocking/buttery-buttery cake. There is no butter added in the sponge. The sponge itself is pretty dry but later will be soaked with tangy raspberry puree. Chef insisted repeatedly, more than 3-4 times in the demo that all of 130 ml of raspberry puree must go in to an 8 inch by 3/4 inch high round sponge cake. Wow...that was a lot. But you know what. She is right. All the good tangy-sweet juice m-u-s-t be there, or you won't get happy customers. Here is what I meant by soaking the sponge. Notice the color, the sponge was chocolaty before.

I live in the tropical. Raspberry is somehow a luxury kind of fruit (just like when I lived in Shanghai, my Durian-no-thanks is considered precious fruit of all times for Shanghainese durian lovers). The puree we used in class is of Boiron, of course, imported from France. Judging from fancy, nice, stylish packaging, I am sure it would cost me quite a bit to buy this finished product. After class, I swung by a wholesale grocer near by to check it out. I was wrong.

A pack of frozen raspberry costs me 1/3 less than Boiron. Imagine me making my puree at home i.e. boiling+ squishing frozen fruit, discard rough meat, then I would probably end up only 2/3 of what I bought. Which doesn't make much difference had I bought the fancy packaging puree, let alone the fussiness and kitchen cleaning at home. Well, don't bother, I buy Boiron then. Okay, soak them up ! zzzzchzzzz.

Oh, just in case if anyone is keen in making raspberry puree at home, here is what my chef suggested off the class.

Raspberry Puree (10% sugar)
120 g Frozen raspberry
15 g of sugar

Bring these two ingredients to a boil. Squish with mixer and strain into fine puree. Let cool completely before use.

Back to the cake. On top of the sponge, here comes dark chocolate mousse. Raspberry and chocolate are always paired up well together, believe me.

Here is the sad part. Sounds simple but stupid me I made lame mistake making split mousse in practical class. Yes, it split !!!. I saw meself hitting me head ('me head', sounds like cute reggae accent, doesn't it?) , didn't know what went wrong. Having lost my mind for 3 seconds, I wanted to scream but was conscious enough there after not to panick the class.

Chef Geraldine, the savior, walked around, saw my poor thing clumping up badly. She gave me a dry but encouraging smile and say 'you probably need to do that again so that we have good mousse in the cake." [I agreed]

You know what, almost all the ingredients in class (except eggs, milk, sugar and salt) are imported from France. Although this has been incorporated into my (reasonably high) tuition fee but I did feel guilty to waste the whole bowl of President creme and Cocoa Barry's 58% dark chocolate. Oh dang it, all the goodies.....I was then envisioning under-nutritioned children in the third world and that I was asking them to forgive me that I wasted this much of food.....unintentionally.

What went wrong: I did temper the ingredients by adding 1/3 of cold creme into warm chocolate but guess I didn't do it properly. Chef Geraldine guided that whipped creme was way to cold and it clumped up chocolate, especially when I put the whipped creme bowl over ice bath before the mixing procedure and that also made the bowl itself colder that it supposed to be. That's it. (!?) Well, I actually had a lame excuse to use ice bath...I fear that the creme would melt , that's why....silly me! :-P

I corrected the second batch by, of course, I threw away the ice-bath right away after I was done with whipping the creme. Then put 1/3 of whipped creme into (room-temp) chocolate bowl, fold fold fold until well blended. Then added the rest of creme into chocolate bowl. Happy ending. Thanks chef.

Quite an adrenaline rush when you see the rest of the class was proceeding to decoration while I was still struggling with the mousse. Who cares, I got good mousse and I learnt how tiny detail could have spoiled the whole thing....of course I was so glad I made silly mistake. (Although it was very tempting to learn from mistake again, I will opt to do it right first time around).

So I piped out smooth chocolate mousse in the ring before filling it up to the top and flatted out surface. Sure, I needed to do it quickly before this little monster set up into a chocolate bar. I wondered if the practical room was way to cold that day or it was just me that worked at snail's pace....chocolate mousse did set up pretty fast.

Apologies that I cannot publish recipe from the class here. Indeed, these are not fancy things. I suggest you get chocolate mousse recipe from my hero's page Alton Brown. It would yield pretty much same good result. But be sure to use good quality chocolate though.

Decoration is something new to me. I always use this word to describe my lousy decoration...i.e. because it was 'new' to me which is why the deco is tilted here and there and etc. Well, it's how I sooth myself. Somehow I thought this is just a matter of god's gift , a bless to some people. I noticed many in the class are really talented at masking , decorating the cake and yes we are all started at the same point, zero. I envy them. I rally do. For me, I am sure am not gifted (shoot!) , I believe I just need one word..... practicing. I'll push myself a bit on that.

And here is the finish product of Chef Geraldine in the demo class. It's classy, isn't it. See, now you know what I meant by 'it just the matter of practicing'.

Bon Appetit!

Mini Tart - Fresh Blueberries

I have to say big thanks to Mr.Art who showed me the techniques and a step-by-step of how proper tart shells are made. The method he demonstrated was an original way using pastry blender. But those who has problem with cutting ice cold / hard butter into flour, food processor could be a really big help.

I did a little research on tart recipe with the same smearing technique. Some use whole eggs which I found out that the dough turn out to be too wet. Others use normal white sugar which does not provide neat final product as sugar does not dissolve and thus crystals appear on the tart shells.

Along my web-browsing, I came across a very nice and beautiful blog, Chocolate Shavings, who posted pretty photos of individual blueberry tarts. Thanks Chocolate Shavings for inspiration. I tried his pastries crème and it indeed is very mild and smooth. However, it did not set in the fridge and a bit too runny. So I did not use it finally.

Thanks Mr.Art again for tart shell recipes

Tart shells
400 g of all purpose flour
200 g of butter, cubed and chilled (or frozen)
60 g of icing sugar (Normal sugar is okay but you will see sugar bits in the final product)
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp of salt
1-2 tablespoon of very cold water (optional)

Be forewarned, this must be made in a cold cold and cold room. If your kitchen is warmer than 24 C, turn on the air-conditioner. If you don't have one installed, eh...I don't want to say this, but you can alter butter with other kinds of fat with higher melting point, like magarine. But of course, it doesn't taste as nice as butter.

Sift the flour, sugar and salt on in a chilled bowl, make a well. Put in the very cold butter. Incorporate butter into flour using pastry blades or pastry scraper until the dough clumps with the size of yellow splits peas, or even better, fine sand. You have to work quickly and ensure the butter does not melt. If it does, put the bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes and continue.

I prefer to use my tiny food processor that holds upto 2.5 cups of flour. It helps a lot especially if you are not ready to go physical with this task. I put 1/3 of flour mixture and 1/3 of butter and pulse for few seconds. Repeat for the rest.

Once the dough resembles small peas/sand, pour the flour on work surface, make a well in the center. Add eggs in the center; lightly fork around until dough comes together loosely. Then use both of your hand to form a pile of dough. If it seems to be too dry such that a portion of the ball falls apart, sprinkle 1 table spoon of very cold water, one at a time, until they come together. I would add probably up to, say, 2 tablespoons, not more than that. Or one might perfer, spray on the dough to distribute it evenly. But I wouldn't bother.

Smear the dough - From the top of the pile, use the heel of your hand, smear it out completely onto the counter surface. It should take a spoonful at a time. This process makes sure the butter is well incorporated into the flour and makes the dough easy to work with. Once done, put the dough together into ball, it should be smoother and more pliable. If you see butter chunks in the dough repeat the process. This can be done up to three times. For those who have warm hands, work quickly as we do not want butter to melt.

Form it into 2 balls and press down to form discs. Wrap with plastic wrap rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour.

Pastry crème
4 eggs
100g icing sugar
4 tbsp (40 g) all purpose flour
4 tbsp (32 g) corn flour
600 ml milk
a few drops of vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

Cream the eggs and sugar together until really thick and pale in color. Sift and beat in the flour and corn flour and a little cold milk to make a smooth paste. Heat the rest of the milk and salt in a sauce pan until almost boil and pour on egg mixture, whisk well all the time. Through sieve, return mixture to the sauce pan, discard the curd left on sieve. Stir over low heat until mixture starts to boil. If you are not quick enough, makes sure the heat is low or the curd will form up at the bottom/corner. I normally switch between whisk and spatula, to ensure I reach around the corner. Add vanilla extract to taste and cook further for a few minutes. The consistency should be a little thick just like that of pancake batter. Before putting off from heat, be sure to taste if the flour is cooked through. If it tastes a little grainy on your tongue, cook further and stir constantly for a few minutes.

Cover and allow to cool completely before filling in the tart shells.

Bake the tart shells

Take the dough from the fridge. If it appears to be too hard to roll out, leave it out for a few minutes. Or massage it on the board with rolling pin. I read on a Recipezaar that someone actually shaves pie dough on the tart pan and press it on. Quite an interesting technique but I have never tried that as yet. Roll out the dough on a lightly-floured parchment paper. Press the rolling pin on the dough, start from the center. The idea is to spread out from the center, then extend to the edges

Do not worry if edges are thick and ugly, we will get there later. For me, the dough was really difficult to roll when it was cold; I pressed the center down, just to ensure I did not have to squeeze it out in later rolling. Then turn the dough less than a quarter, repeat rolling from the center. Again do not bother if you don't yet reach the edge. If needed, lightly flour the work surface on the dough if the it seems to stick to parchment paper or to rolling pin. Once roll for about 4-5 turns, roll from center to the edge. Turn the dough while you roll. Repeat until it the dough is about 1/8 inch thick.

Consistency check – cut through the edge with pizza cutter and check if there are any spots thicker than others. If there are, roll to spread out dough evenly.

Use cookie cutter to cut to desire size that fits individual molds/tart pans. Place the dough on molds loosely. With unused dough tapped with flour, press the dough against the mold. Use knife, slash out unwanted dough on the edge. Prick bottom of the dough with a fork a couple times. Place a small parchment paper (a little bigger than the mold) in the center of the dough and weight down with beans. Bake blind for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. When the shells are firm to touch, and turn golden pale yellow, remove parchment paper and beans. Continue baking around 2-3 minutes more to let inner shell dry out. Allow to cool completely before put in fillings.

Topping
Fresh blueberries
Jam of your choice.

Microwave jam in medium heat until just melt, press it through sieve. Letcool until warm to touch. Toss 1 tablespoon of jam with 1 cup of blueberry to coat. Set aside or wrap with plastic in the fridge.

Final assembly
Fill in 2/3 of tart shell with paster creme. Chill for a few hours. Do not place the blueberries right away or they may sink to the bottom. When ready to serve, put blueberry on top.

Ideas for decoration – garnish with little mint leaves or curls of orange zest on top.

enjoy !

Orange cake

I was obsessed with chocolate cake for while. Now it is time for light and fruity dessert. This one is really refreshing. It is also guilt-free as low in fat content.

Sponge cake (I use 7-inch oval-shaped non stick pan)

50 g of cake flour

a pinch of salt

2 eggs

50 g of sugar

3 g of melted butter, warmed at room temperature (you can omit this, but for me it really makes difference)

Sift flour and salt, set aside.

Beat eggs and sugar until creamy/foamy and pale. Add butter, I don't directly pour melted butter as it will end up sinking to the bottom of the bowl. I scooped out 2 tablespoon of batter and whisk in butter, incorporate them well.

Then pour it back into egg mixture, fold in gently about 3-4 times, Don't over work. Sift in flour, in 3 portions, fold from the bottom to the top by moving spatua along the side of bowl. I do this from left side and alternate with the right. Rotate the bowl as you go. Some may suggest to use spatula cut in the middle of bowl and scoop up along the sides which is one of many's most favorite folding method. I found out that it tends to deflate the volume. You may try out a few times which technique suits you most.

Continue on....the batter will deflate a little, don't panic. Continue to fold from edge of bowl, while rotating. Make sure no lumps of flour left. Again, do not over work. Making basic sponge is not as simple as it appears. Believe me, this is just the matter of practice. After countless of disasters in the past i.e. lumps of flour all over the cake, I finally did it right.

Bake at 175 C for 15 min or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Wait until it completely cool. The cake will shrink from the side. Cool on the rack. Cut by half and apply jam of your choice. I used raspberry jam.

Orange glaze

150 g of water
50 g of concentrated orange juice (I used sunquick)
12 g of cornstarch
1 tbsp of sugar
a pinch of salt
10 g of butter

On low heat, put everything in a pot except butter. Stir constantly for 5-8 minutes. When the mixture is heated up, you need to stir more quickly to prevent the curd at the bottom, or remove the pot away from heat. I finished mine in 15 minute, on very low heat. The consistency should be thick, honey-liked. Stir in butter and stir well. Pour on the cake immediately as it will set at room temperature.

If the glaze is thick, you can set over very low heat and stir until it reaches pouring consistency. I actually waited until it was very thick and pour on cake in one go, with one direction. If you pour back and forth, it may leave ribbon trail or bumpy look which is not desirable.

I sliced in pieces, using serrated knife and here it is. For clean cut, clean the knife after each cut with clean towel.

Nectarine Strusel Upside Down Cake

What would you do if you cannot sleep at night? watching TV? reading?

Last week, I read a cook book at 10 pm. And as usual, instead of putting me back to sleeping mode, it woke me up. I wanted to strap on apron right after I read through the paragraph how streusel was baked. My CPU inside my head started to revolve at 65536 rounds per second. I bet, if there is 24-7 supermarket opened, I would have run out to buy 4 nectarines and eggs which I used up a few days ago.

The cake, baked with 10-inch pan, is big enough to serve 10 people i.e. one piece for each. But if your guests are sweet-toothers, you may need to sacrifice your portion. The cake is meant to be basin-liked, slope towards the center, which is how nectarines were arranged. The surface was pretty with the nactarin pattern, browned by butter and sugar. It was nice...just nice. I know if this is put for sale it may not look very attractive, but as I made this out of scratch, some how I managed to see it as a a rustic beauty.

The recipe also allows apples or bananas if nectarines are not available in your area or if they are not in the season. I love nectarines though. Their sourness goes really well with the cake. The streusels in the center are chewy and crumble. My only complain to this is that I prefer thicker cake batter layers.

I suggest you to bake streusel first as it needs to be cooled down completely before use.

Below is streusel recipe. I actually “doubled” these up as you can see thick streusel in my photos. You may stick to the original portion and see if you like it.

1/4 cup of almonds, chopped
1/3 cup of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of (packed) dark brown sugar
1 tsp of cinnamon1 tsp of ginger
1/2 stick (2 oz) of unsalted butter , cut into small pieces
1/2 cups of rolled oats (not instant)



Turn oven to 350 F. Toast chopped almond until golden brown. Mix flour and cubed butter with forks until resembles crumbs. Add brown sugar, nuts , cinnamon and ginger, toss a few times to mix in. Spread unbaked streusel onto the largest tray so that it won’t pile up and is cooked through easily.

Bake the streusel for 10-15 min 350 F stirring into piece after it slightly cool down


Topping:

1/2 stick (2 oz) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
3-4 ripe medium nectarines , each cut into 8 pieces

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F.





Pour melted butter over bottom of 10-inch pan wrapped with foil at the bottom (to prevent leaks). Sprinkle brown sugar evenly and arrange nectarines as shown in the photo. You can arrange clockwise and the other row as counter clockwise. Set this aside and prepare the cake.

The sponge:
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
1/4 tsp of salt (or 1/8 tsp of table salt, don't even think about omitting this tiny portion)
4 egg yolks
6 egg-whites
1 1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice

Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda together

Beat half of sugar, salt and yolks until pale and creamy, then whisk in vegetable oil and lemon juice (I actually replaced with concentrated orange juice and cut down sugar by ¼ cup). Do it gently but quickly until no oil streaks left. Don’t worry if the batter deflates. The recipe actually instruct to mix in 1 cup of flour into the yolk mixture but I think that would dense the batter so I fold in only 1/3 cup of flour then I turned to beat egg whites.

Beat egg white until fluffy, add a 2-3 table spoons of sugar, and continue beating. Gradually add sugar as you whisk. The whites should form light-foamy stiff/ shiny peak when it is ready to use. I whisked by hand and it took around 8 minutes.

Add 1/3 of egg white mixture into yolk mixtures; fold from the bottom of the blow with spatula quickly but gently. Do this in different directions such that you flip the batter up from left and next you fold and flip it up from the right. After adding the whites, batter will be runnier and ready for more flour. Fold in 1/3 cup of flour. Alternate between flour and egg whites in 3 batches until both ingredients are used up. Ensure there are no lumps left.

Pour half of batter onto arranged nectarine. Use spatula to spread out to cover fruit base. Sprinkle streusel evenly to make layers. Pour the rest of batter on top of streusel. Use spatula to spread evenly. I was tempted to cover up all the fruit so I mistakenly over poured the first batch and I almost had too little on the top to cover streusel. Don’t make the same mistake as I did.

Bake at 350 F, for 45-50 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. My cake browned quickly during the first 15 minutes (I wondered !!!), so I covered with waxed paper. It didn't help much and was and burning. Oh my gosh, I was devastated. I put a disc from removable pie pan onto the wax paper. Fortunately, at that time the cake was firm enough to hold the metal disc. And of course it stopped browning. phew...w..w..w.

Once done, be sure not to flip the pan right after or the topping will slide down. Let it set in the pan until warm to touch or until completely cool. The cake will shrink from the sides. I flipped it over when it was still warm. I was excited as I am always nervous when cooking with fresh fruits. What a pretty surface it had, I murmured to myself.

I leave the cake on the counter top for a few hours and it dries out a little. So, I put gelatin glace on it.

1 tsp of gelatin plus 30 g of cold water, let it blooms for 5-10 minutes.
30 g hot water, not boiling.

I let gelatin blooms in cold water then added hot water, stir well. Let it sit over the counter (room temp was around 15 C). When it started to form up as half jelly half liquid, with rubber brush, touch up nectarine surface. Let it cool in the fridge before slice.


The cake is best served the first 2 days it is made. Of course, with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream (imagine me running to the near-by Häagen-Dazs) The streusel filling was scrumptious. I will definitely make this again ! (soon!)

Cherry Cream Cheese Pie

When I was in college, I recalled my Sunday mornings started with a 4k jog. You know, every girls want to get tiny, including me. What I did after the regular jog was irregular. I drove to my favorite bakery house and had a piece of blueberry cream cheese pie. Oh no, don't judge me as yet, until you try this. Don't' ask me if I succeeded in getting slim. Well, I was not in a bad shape after all.

Prep time: 1hr and 2-3 hr to chill

Pie base
200 g graham cracker or cookie crumb
100 g butter, soften or melt it in to room temp liquid.

Filling
250 g cream cheese, room temperature (I use Philadelphia, don’t use low-fat)
200 g sweetened condensed milk
75 g lime juice

Topping- 1 can of cherry filling. (I used up 350 g for topping)

9-inch removable pie pan or disposable foil pan

Put crackers in electric mixer, pulse until become fine crumbs or until sandy, set aside in a medium bowl. Soften butter in microwave under medium heat. It is okay if it melts, but try not to over heat it. Pour butter on the cracker crumbs, mix with spatula or if you don’t mid getting your hand greasy, feel free to play with it. Mix these thoroughly, ensure no big chunk of butter left.

Now, grab about ¼ cup of the mixture, squeeze it lightly in your palm and see if it holds together nicely. If not, add 10 g-15 g of melted butter. The ratio of butter: cracker I have here yields pretty good base. But again, it depends on crackers available in your neighborhood, if they have low fat content, you may add more butter. However, I find out that more is better than less. Imagine when you cut the pie and that the base falls apart in crumbs, that wouldn’t look very nice huh?



Press crackers in removable pie pan. I prefer to press firmly against bottom and sides. In a 9 inch pan, pie crust will be 0.5 cm thick and the sides are 1 cm high. If you use 8-inch pan, you’ll have a little thicker crust. Wrap with plastic and rest in fried until firm, around 1-2 hours.

Filling – I use Philadelphia cream cheese. which comes in a 250 g bar. Once, I tried the low-fat version. It turned out cream cheese batter was too runny. And no matter how long I refrigerated it, it was not firmed and could not hold the topping. Meaning?….cherry sank to the bottom and create bruise -looking pie.....which suits for Halloween.


Before you beat cream cheese, ensure it is soft enough to twist. I usually bring it out directly from the fridge and warm in microwave under low heat for 1 minute. I mixed with hand mixer for about 10 minutes until fluffy. Add sweetened condensed milk. Beat until well blend. Scrape the side and bottom of the bowl. Continue beating until there are no lumps.

Gradually add lime juice. My advice for those who don’t like sour taste is to add half portion, beat until just well blend and taste. For me, I would go for the whole 75 g (4 limes). I love tanginess. It goes so well with mild sweet cherry topping. So I didn’t scale back the lime. Note also that the sourness varies with seasons and locations. I made this a few times and it is difficult to keep it tastes the same every time. For me, I just trust my tongue, mix-in ¾ lime juices, then taste, and gradually add juice depends on my mood at the moment.


Pour cream cheese batter in prepared pie crust, chill until firm, preferably 2-4 hr. It is important to let it completely set in fridge, otherwise it won’t be able to hold cherry topping.

A few hours later, lay cherry topping softly and evenly. Refrigerate until serve.

This goody can be made one day ahead.

Cut into 10 pieces : 330 calories per serving . Meaning, my 4 k run is pretty much to make room for a small piece of pie....which is .......WORTH IT!

Strawberry roll with sweet coconut topping

The strawberry roll itself is really good. It is even better with the coconut crust. Ya, I've just made coconut cake a few days ago. I'd call it a coconut week.

Oh by the way, Last week was international women day. Salute to you all, ladies ! I know you are grabbing forks, but does anyone making tea? Come on dig in!

You know what, I never liked jam roll. It's not attractive. I have no idea since when I like it. But I've been making 4 pans of rolls within these two weeks. I think it is a real challenge whether or not I would roll it up nicely without breaking the sponge, let alone leave the brown skin in attached nicely on it. It really is.

Taste wise, the strawberry roll itself is good, not overly sweet given jam layer is extra thin. It comes to a surprise with brown coconut crust. Seriously, I haven't thought that a jam roll could be any fancier then putting butter cream on top .... but this brown coconut thing is interesting, don't you think?

Here goes the recipe

Sponge

150 g of cake flour ( I replaced 30 g with corn flour for milder texture)
6 egg yolks
80 g water
50 g sugar
2 tsp baking powder
100 g vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

6 egg white
50 g sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar ( I skipped this)

Filling - 1 cup of your favorite jam + 1 tbsp of lime juice.

Crust
100g butter, melted
60g sugar
2 eggs
120 g dried coconut flakes
30g milk
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Grease 9x12 inch roll pan

Sift flour and baking power, set aside.

In a big bowl, mix in yolks, oil,50 g of sugar, water,vanilla. Whisk until sugar crystals dissolve. Whisk in the flour lightly until well incorporated or until no lumps.




In another bowl, whisk egg whites, cream of tartar and 50 g of sugar until it forms soft but stable peak. Fold 1/3 of egg white mixture into flour+egg mixture, using whisk. This is to make flour mixture a bit runny so that it is easier to fold in the rest of the whites.

Fold in the rest of white, in 3 batches, using spatula. My technique is to cut in the middle and fold along side while the other hand is rotating the bowl. Do the cut-fold-turn quickly but gently. To check, drag spatula in the bottom of bowl if there are flour lumps. Again, do not overwork, as the cake relies on egg white bubbles to rise, folding too much will deflate them. Plus, overworking will agitate the gluten, the cake may turn a bit rubbery.

Once done, pour batter in prepared tray. Bake for 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from tray and cool down on rack. Do not leave this on hot tray as it continues to cook that way.

Flip and roll- cover cooling rack with plastic wrap. Now the flipping part, you have to be quick. One hand over the cake, flip, then lay the sponge cake on working table. Or you may cover the tray with plastic wrap, put the rack over the tray , then flip.

Now imagine you are about to roll up, arrange the long side (12 inch) facing you. Start rolling up by pulling plastic wrap and roll up firmly. You can see how to roll up the roll here. . What I did differently from the clip are that I rolled up from the long side while youtube clip started from the short side. And I used plastic wrap instead of tea towels.

Let it sit for a while about 1/2 hr, to let it curl up. Then, unroll it, spread jam thinly and evenly. Roll it back to shape firmly and wrap with plastic wrap. Set aside while preparing topping.

Preheat oven to 200 c.

For the Crust - mix everything in the bowl. Beat until well-incorporated.

Spread crust mixture over and on the sides. Return to the oven, place on the top rack, and bake until the crust turns brown.

Once done, it tends to loosen up a bit. Don't' worry, I just let it cool down until okay to touch. Then wrap it up firmly with plastic wrap to reshape it. I put in the fridge for a while until it cools down completely or until serve.

My kitchen smell nice for hours!

The roll is good for a few days in the fridge. Lovely is it?

Coconut Cake

I missed fresh coconut badly. If you happen to visit Thailand, do not hesitate to try one(s). I'm sure you'll get addicted to it, just like me.

Too bad I live in a city where coconut is considered an exotic fruit. All I have was dried young coconut meat I bought from Thailand. Nowadays I've seen quite a few bakery shops make this kind of cake, and of course they are so..o..o good. I tried to replicate one with vanilla sponge, filled with self-made coconut creme paste. Here is the recipe.

For the sponge

(A) Ingredients - The Dries

90 g cake flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

35 g sugar

1/4 salt

(B) Ingredients - The Yolks

4 egg yolks

32 g coconut milk ( I replace this with unsweetened condensed milk, or just milk)

25 g coconut juice ( I replace this with water)

32 g vegetable oil

(C) Ingredients - The Whites

4 egg whites

1/4 tsp creme of tartar

35 g sugar

Preheat the oven at 180 C. Prepare 9x12 jelly roll pan with wax paper, greased.

Sift together the dries (A). Set aside.

In another bowl, whisk together (B) ingredients, just to incorporate until sugar crystals disappear. Don't need to whisk until it gets fluffy though. Set aside.

Put (A)-the dry ingredients into (B) egg yolk mixture. Well, some prefer to do the other way around, by putting the wets to the dries as the flour won't dust up the counter top. For me I prefer to wet one bowl. Gradually whisk together make sure there is no lumps left.

In a big bowl, whisk 4 whites and creme of tartar together until it forms white foam. Gradually add sugar and beat until it forms soft peaks when you lift the whisk.

Fold in the whites mixture to the egg yolks mixture. But wait, the egg yolks mixture is thick and the whites mixture is thin. Folding these together all at once need more strokes thus deflate the batter. In order to get the same consistency, I scooped out 1/4 of whites in the the egg yolk mixture then use the whisk , stir lightly. Now the batter is a bit runny, fold in the whites ,in three batched. Use spatula to mix in each batch just to incorporate. Each time you add the whites, it is okay that the batter leaves whites streaks. Try to fold quickly but gently as possible. The final add should yield consistency batter with no lumps of flour or streaks of whites.

Pour in prepared pan, put in the lower rack for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the pan comes out clean.

Let cool completely on the rack.

Coconut filling

125 g of coconut creme (I used milk)

125 g of evaporated unsweetened milk (I used milk)

150 g of young coconut juice (I used water+2 tablespoon of sugar)

40 g sugar

15 g corn flour

1/4 salt
1-1.5 cups of young coconut meat

30 g butter

Topping

1 cups of White chocolate bits , melted

2 tbsp of milk

2 cups of Coconut flakes

Put everything in the pot except coconut meat and butter. Stir well. Put on double-boiling and stir continuously. The golden rule of making this, as most of you are well-aware, is to pay full attention so as to not getting it hard-cooked. I don't have double boiling, so I put the pot on direct heat on a very low low heat (unless you have quick hands). Ya...keep stirring. And no....don't pick up any phone calls, you can do that later. Once it is thicken remove from heat for a while, stir for half minute. Put it back to heat, it will be creme-liked. I tasted creme at this stage, while continue stirring to check the doneness. If you taste the floury / starchy taste in your mouth, put it back to heat.

Once done, stir in butter until incorporates well. Then stir in the coconut meat.

To assemble the cake, cut the 9x12 inch cake in half so that you yield two 9x6 inch cake sheets. While the filling still warm, spread it on the cake evenly. Put the other half on top, press gently.

To make topping, microwave white chocolate bits and milk in medium heat until they melt. Stir until they are well blended and have nice spreading consistency. Brush it on the top of of cake. Immediately sprinkle coconut flakes on top and press gently.

Leave until completely cool before you make the first cut.

Notes on coconut - Coconut meat I used in this recipe is of the young ones. If you go the the supermarket and see brown/hard shell coconut without its fluffy-spongy white jacket, it is an aged coconut. Its meat is used to for coconut creme which is high on fat content. The juice of aged coconut is not editble/drinkable.

If coconut is not avalilable in your area. You can whip up whipping cream and fold in flaky coconut. This is good for filling and topping as well.

Cocoa Fudge Cookies and Banana Oatmeal Cookies

Here are two no-fuss cookies from Nicole Weston's Baking bites I love how these are so easy to make... especially when I don't need to bother hand mixer to cream butter + sugar. Everything goes in the bowl, mix , scoop and then poof..f...f here come my babies.

My first baby, Cocoa Fudge Cookies, original recipe is from Cooking light magazine but my inspiration was from a handsome photo displayed on Nicole's website. Here is the recipe. Cocoa Fudge Cookies Recipe




I couldn't find dried tart cherry so I put in white chocolate bits from my last cookie batch. The dough, as seen above, came out just fine, not too gooey and was easy to shape. This recipe turns out to be a coffee mate, these two things compliment each other so well. If anyone has a coffee house, you can serve this cookie with espresso. I believe people would crave both (coffee + cookie) even more. However ,this maybe a little too sweet for those who are chocolate hard core'r like me. Next time I would use tard dried cherry as stated in recipe to cut sweetness.

The second no-fuss cookies, Banana Oatmeal Cookies. Oh I need to say, I don't know why lately I crave bananas. Am I transforming into a monkey or I'm becoming one , or I've become one??? Never before, that I like this fruit. Never mind, I bake this out of my love of cookies and bananas. :-> Again, inspiration is from Nicole's baking bites. Thanks Nicole for the recipe.

Here is recipe Banana Oatmeal Cookies





I baked these two black/white cookies, gave away to friends, spared half a dozen for myself in a ziplock bag. I was surprised how quick I could finish them in one day even though I thought they would last longer on the kitchen shelf. Obviously, I am a good planner but a bad implementor. Oh...my chewy babies don't you hide in that little zipbag!!! .