1st Sesion with Baking Buddy: Blueberry Muffins and Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Earlier this August, I received a surprise e-mail from one of my readers, Stephanie. She came to know about my blog through Edith and had read up my post on finding a baking buddy. After some exchange of mails and sharing of our interests and experiences, we met up shortly and began to pass each other our bakes. 

We had wanted to indulge in a baking session together but somehow our schedules never quite matched. So, last friday was the perfect opportunity to realise the plan.

There wasn't much of a plan to start with. I only knew that I wanted to do blueberry orange muffins. After browsing through some books, we decided we would do a chocolate chiffon cake as well.

For the same amount of time we took to prepare the blueberry orange muffins and the chocolate chiffon cake, I would only have been able to bake one of the items. Everytime I bake, there is always tons of preparations waiting for me to carry out. Washing of equipment and pans.Weighing the ingredients. Melting chocolate. Lining the baking pan. Separation of eggs. The list goes on....  I am quite slow-paced and completing these tasks can take me about 30 minutes to 1 hour. With a baking buddy around, all these tasks seemed effortless. 

All went smoothly and it was the perfect note to end our first baking session. The flavour of the chiffon cake was well delivered, thanks to the magic of Valrhona cocoa. One thing that needs to be improved on though would be the mixing of the ingredients. Kevin Chai asked for dark chocolate to be melted with milk but the two do not blend together smoothly, resulting in dark streaks in the mixture and chocolate soil-like particles in the final product. After reading Bee Bee's post on her dark chocolate chiffon cake, I figure that I will avoid this the next time by mixing the oil and the melted chocolate together instead. Will be posting the recipe next time when I have made adjustnents.

It has been more than a year since I attempted making any muffins using the dry and wet method. I was'nt satisfied with the texture of my previous baked muffins. It seemed that they turned dense quickly upon cooling, losing that soft and fluffy appeal. Since then, that poor impression stucked with me for quite a while, until Anncoo's blueberry orange muffins recipe caught my attention.

The muffins turned out cakey with a buttery fragrance, almost as if creamed butter had been used (no butter was used). It was a pity the blueberries tasted quite bland. Nevertheless, the combination of yoghurt, olive oil and orange zests made up for it and contributed their share to the flavour. What I liked best was that the muffins retained their tenderness upon cooling. This is a clear indication that the recipe is a keeper.

That pretty much sums up my first baking session with my buddy. It was fun and refreshing! Definitely look forward to having another bake therapy and churning out more bakes with her.

Blueberry Orange Muffins:

Recipe from Anncoo Journal

Cheesecake Cravings

It has been a while since I had my cheesecake fix. Since there are two blocks of  philly cream cheese sitting in my refrigerator, I thought I would do a cheesecake today.

Without much planning, I headed for the supermarket to purchase the ingredients needed - lemons and digestive biscuit. All ingredients were ready and I eagerly proceeded to weigh them. While unwrapping my second block of cream cheese, something was amiss. The texture was crumbly and kind of powdery instead of creamy. That was not the case for the other block. I checked through the expiry date and it was 2 months before the date was up. These two blocks of cream cheese were bought while on sale sometime back.

I struggled for a moment before deciding that I would not let this mishap mar the ideal texture of my beloved cheesecake. Dragging my heavy feet along, I hurriedly made a second trip to the supermart to get a fresh new block of cream cheese. Lesson learnt. Never stock up on cream cheese again. It is just not worth the cost savings. In the end I suffered a lost instead. Argh! How unfortunate....

Aside from the little misadventure, everything else went fine. It was a breeze getting the Mcvities to fine crumbs using my food processor, which serves it purpose mainly for my baking escapades. I tweaked the recipe a little and omitted the flour. To me, the ideal cheesecake should be dense yet creamy and flourless. With that being said, I baked the cheesecake even longer this time round for two solid hours, making sure that the cheesecake would be dense to my liking.

Even after baking for 2 hours, the cheesecake was only moderately dense. Perhaps I would increase my baking temp to 160 degrees C next time and decrease the amount of cream used. Nevertheless, I am glad I omitted the flour. Cheers to no flour! 

Blueberry Cheesecake (recipe adapted from Cheesecake Seduction by Catherine Lau)
Serving size: 10 to 12 slices

Equipment and materials:
1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
2) 9 inch round springform tin
3) Baking tray large enough to contain springfrom tin
4) Food processor or rolling pin
5) Grater with fine holes
6) Measuring spoon set
7) Spatula
8) Mixing bowl
9) Wire rack
10) Aluminium foil

Biscuit Base:

200g digestive biscuits

2 1/2 tbs brown sugar

90g butter, melted

Cheesecake Filling:
500g cream cheese, preferably philadelphia cream cheese
140g sugar
40g butter, softened
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
4 tbs lemon juice, (about 1 1/2 lemons)
250ml whipping cream, chilled
4 eggs, beaten ( at room temperature, 60g each)
200g blueberry pie filling

Blueberry Topping:
200g blueberry pie filling

Method:

1) Prepare biscuit base as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin. Freeze prepared base for 10 minutes or until ready for use.
2) Preheat oven to 150 degrees C
3) Beat cream cheese,sugar and butter on medium speed until creamy.
4) Add in zest and lemon juice continue beating until smooth.
5) Add whipping cream to cream cheese mixture on low speed. Beat until smooth and incorporated. Do not overbeat else the cream may separate (due to excessive beating), resulting in a grainy batter.
6) Lastly, add the eggs and beat until combined on low speed.
7) Pour filling onto biscuit base. Spoon the blueberry filling randomly over the filling.
8) Wrap top and sides of spring form tin with aluminium foil as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin. Bake at 150 degrees C for 2 hours in a water bath.
9) When baked, allow cheesecake to cool in the oven with oven door ajar for 30 minutes.
10) Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
11) Place cooled cheesecake tin in the refrigerator and chill for 4-6 hours.
12) Once chilled, dislodge cheesecake from springform tin and discard the aluminum foil lining the base. Spread 200g blueberry topping evenly onto cheesecake and serve chilled.

Note:
1) To slice cheesecake nicely, wipe the knife after each slice with kitchen towel/s.
2) To smooth the sides of the cheesecake, dip a knife in hot water. Wipe the knife dry and run it around the perimeter of the cheesecake. Repeat the step if necessary.

  

Birthday cake for Eve!

This cake was baked for my friend's 23rd birthday. I was comtemplating between doing a blueberry cheesecake and a chocolate cake. Decided to go ahead with the blueberry cheesecake since it was easier to handle and I was confident the cake would look nice at least. From my experience with cheesecakee, they are quite easy to decorate. There is not need to bother with smoothing the surface and sides if proper lining is prepared.

The recipe for this cake comes from this book named Catherine Lau's Cheesecake Seduction. The cakes featured are mouth watering and the recipes work out quite well with minimum adjustments needed. I ran out of ideas when i tried to decorate the blueberry topping. Was pondering what would look nice on top of a dark purple background. In the end, I thought that the fresh redness of strawberries would add a nice contrast to the blueberry toppings.

Everything went smoothly. The cake was set, the toppings and decorations were decent. However, i find that the cake was a bit too soft when i was eating it. Not sure if it is because it has been left out of the refrigerator for some time or that i did not bake the cheesecake long enough. Or it could have been that i did not whipped the batter until it thickens. It took me 70 minutes to bake this cheesecake. This is considered long as i only take 40 minutes to bake a New York cheesecake of the same volume.

Perhaps next time i will leave out the cornstarch and beat the whipping cream before adding mixing. Hopefully that will help me get a texture i am satisfied with.