Preparing a Cheesecake Tin and Water Bath

Preparing the cheesecake tin requires some effort. Firstly, a piece of aluminium foil is placed over the base of the springform tin. The springform ring is then placed over the foil and secured onto the base, sandwiching the aluminium foil. 

Next, the biscuits are whizzed in the food processor into fine crumbs. Biscuits can also be placed in a ziplock bag and crushed into crumbs using a rolling pin. Melted butter and brown sugar are then added and mixed with the biscuit crumbs until well combined. The sandy mixture is then pour onto the base of the springform tin which was line earlier with foil. Using the back of a spoon, the biscuit mixture is flattened uniformly. Once the biscuit base is prepared, Freeze it for 10 minutes or until cheesecake filling is prepared for use.

After the cheesecake filling is prepared, the filling is poured onto the prepared biscuit base. The bottom and sides are then wrapped with two layers of foil. This is to prevent water from the water bath leaking into the cheesecake base. The prepared springform tin is placed onto a larger baking tray/tin and is placed into the oven. Hot water is poured onto the baking tray up to one-third the height of the springform tin. This is what is known as baking using a water bath.

A water bath helps to maintain a moist environment and uniform distribution of heat during the baking process. The resulting cheesecake will be creamier, without the presence of dry sides and surface. Waterbath baked cheesecakes are also less susceptible to big cracks upon cooling.

Where is the Cake?

Frankly, I have a confession to make. Over the weekend on saturday, I was in the midst of a battle in my kitchen in the wee hours. The cause that broke the peace at such late night ? An upside-down apple cake. It was'nt just any apple cake. To be exact, it was Rose's upside-down apple cake.

Who is Rose you may ask. She is none other than Rose Levy Beranbaum, a name I have learnt to remember by heart, an established baker and cookbook author. Among her works are The Cake Bible, The Pie and Pastry Bible and last but not least the highly acclaimed Rose's Heavenly Cakes.

Before the cake was done, I was expecting the cake to be good. When I took my first bite into the cake, 'good' was probably an understatement. It was mind-blowing. I was amazed at the ultra-light texture of the sponge and the caramel baked apple top. Lovely~! Once again, I forgot to include an ingredient this time - vanilla. The exclusion of vanilla did not mar my experience. Even without vanilla, the cake had tasted so superb. I helped myself slice after slice and stopped at my third serving. At that moment, I wish I had my camera around. Sorry folks! I will re-cake this soon.

Madeira Cake

It seems like I am on a baking spree this week, having baked for 4 days consecutively in a row. Since the mood of baking was present, I decided to make good use of it. From my tiny little library of aboout 30 bakebooks ( it is still growing), I lifted out this tiny handy booklet called Cakes and Slices and chose the Madeira cake.

When I first baked the Madeira cake, I thought it is just a lemon butter cake. After doing some reading, I found out that the Madeira cake is named after the Madeira wine.  The Madeira cake is a sponge cake commonly flavoured with lemon and is traditionally used in English cookery ( according to Wikipedia).

Based on my last experience, the cake turned out dry but has a nice buttery lemon flavour ( I forgot to man my oven and overbaked for 15 minutes, lol ). Hence, I tweaked the recipe a little and added 4 tablespoons of lemon juice instead. This resulted in a moist lemony cake with extra tang. The tang would linger in the mouth for a moment after the cake is swallowed. I was definitely too generous with the lemon juice.  

The cake did not brown nicely as compared to the previous. One reason could be the reduced amount of sugar and the shorter baking time. It was done in 45 minutes when the recipe stated one hour. My last cake was baked for 1 hr 10 minutes, hence the dry texture. 

One bite into a slice of the cake reveals a firm yet soft texture. However, the extra tang of the lemon juice has snatched the glamour from the butter. Next time I would reduce the amount of lemon juice to balance the butter lemon fragrance.

Madeira Cake ( recipe adapted from Cakes and Slices )

Serving size: 7 inch or 8 inch round cake, 10 -12 slices

Equipment and materials:

1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater or wooden spoon

2) Measuring spoon set
3) Flexible spatula
4) Mixing bowl
5) Wire rack
6) 18cm or 20 cm round pan
7) Flour sieve
8) Parchment/baking paper
9) Brush for oiling pan
10) Food grater for zesting lemon
11) Weighing scale

Ingredients:

180g butter, softened

175g castor sugar

3 eggs, room temperature and lightly beaten

185g self raising flour, sifted

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon (grated over the sugar and rubbed with sugar using hands)

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Method:

Preparing the tin: Line the base of a 18cm or 20cm round pan with parchment/baking paper. Grease the tin with oil or butter.

Preparing the oven: Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.

Creaming the butter: In a mixing bowl, beat butter on low speed until it is creamy. Add sugar rubbed with zest into butter and beat until sugar is evenly distributed. Increase speed to medium and continue to beat until butter mixture is pale and fluffy. Refer to How to Cream Butter for detailed explanations.

Adding eggs and lemon juice to creamed butter: Add beaten eggs to butter in 3 portions. Beat each portion until incorporated before adding the next portion. The butter and egg mixture should be well combined. Next, add lemon juice and mix well.

Adding flour to egg-butter-lemon juice mixture: Add sifted self raising flour in 2 additions, beating the first addition until absorbed before adding the second. After the second addition of flour is absorbed, scrape sides and bottom of mixing bowl with a flexible spatula. Beat for a further 30s  to obtain a smooth and well combined batter. Do not overbeat at this point in time after adding the flour or the cake will be tough.

Baking the cake: Pour batter into prepared cake tin and bake for 45-60 minutes.

Cooling and unmoulding cake: Run a spatula along the perimeter of cake to unmould cake. Cool cake upright on a wire rack.

Notes:

1) Rubbing zest and sugar will release more lemon flavour into the sugar and cake.

2) The taste matures and is even better the following day.

3) To add moisture, the recipe can be tweaked by adding yoghurt, sour cream or milk.

How to Cream Butter

Creaming butter is one of the most basic techniques in baking. Most cakes and cookies would require the butter to be well creamed so as to achieve a tender fluffy baked product. Well creamed butter is especially important in cakes.

To cream butter well, the butter has to be first softened at room temperature. How do we know if the butter is soft enough? To test the softness, use a butter knife to cut into the butter. When the butter offers little resistance, it is soft enough to cream. Do not over soften the butter such that it turns oily. The butter will not cream well.

Butter is usually creamed with castor sugar. Castor sugar is used as it has fine grains and hence a larger surface area. When the butter is creamed with the castor sugar, the sugar grains cut through the butter and aerates it, creating air bubbles. These air bubbles help cakes to rise and maintain a light texture. Icing sugar is not recommended for creaming as it does not aerate the butter well. On the other hand, using coarse sugar will result in baked products with coarser texture.  

Firstly, beat the butter on low speed briefly so that it becomes creamy. Add in the sugar and continue beating on low speed to combine. When the sugar is evenly distributed, increase speed to medium and continue beating.

Initially when the sugar is added, the texture of the butter is somewhat sandy. As we continue to beat the butter, the sugar seems to dissolve into the butter. In the midst of the beating process, stop the beater and use a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to allow stray sugar and butter to be incorporated.

Further beating of the butter will result in an increase in volume and the butter will become creamy and less sandy. Notice that the colour of butter will start to pale.

Finally, when butter is properly creamed, the colour will be off-white. The resulting texture is thick and creamy like mayonnaise and is only slightly sandy/gritty since the sugar may not dissolve completely. At this point, the volume has increased noticeably. Do not continue to cream the butter or it may soften and all efforts will be wasted.

In recipes where the amount of sugar far outweigh the amount of butter, the thick and creamy mayonnaise texture would not be possible to achieve. The volume of creamed butter in this case would still increase but will be far more sandy rather than creamy.

Creaming of butter can be done with a wooden spoon, a handheld beater or a stand beater.

Useful References:
1) Baking911: Creaming Butter
2) Epicurious: Video on creaming butter

The Meaning Behind Baking Library

Baking Library was born on 12 Dec 2008. I was racking my brain for a name that represents me or my ideals. One thing I knew for sure is that the first word has got to be the word 'Baking'. After some deliberation, I decided on the name Baking Library.

Why Baking Library of all names? Since my birth month is in October, my horoscope is Libra, thus that making me a Libran or Librarian. At the same time, I am also a bakebook collector, trying to grow my library of bakebooks. Hence, I started out with my blogging persona as the Baking Librarian. As time past, the name changed as my friends started to call me Bakertan, which signifies who I truly am, a homebaker with the chinese surname 'Tan' and at the same time an aspiring baker/pastry chef =].

Most importantly, this blog was created to serve as a platform to impart and share knowledge with others. My idea back then was to transform this blog into a comprehensive library where readers can refer to for tips and techniques, preparation of ingredients and baking pans, things that can go wrong during baking and how to prevent them and an array of usuable recipes to select from.

When I first started out baking, I realised that it is not easy to figure out the instructions on cookbooks and online references. There would be some baking terminologies which only experienced bakers would understand. After searching high and low for the answers online and from bakebooks, I learnt to overcome the knowledge barrier. With this in mind, I hope to be as precise as possibly when explaining the instructions for my recipes so that the occasional baker or first-timers would have an easier time to grasp. Do bear with me if I end up being long winded though.

However, with the level of experience I have at hand currently, I cant really impart but can only share my knowledge with others. The section 'Baking Tips and Techniques' was created recently for this purpose. In time to come, I hope that I will improve by learning from the online community and my valued readers. Do feel free to comment or provide advice along the way as I embark on this learn and bake journey.

Its going to be a long road ahead for the transformation. In a few years down the road, I hope to see my blog heading in the right direction. Pray that I dont lose my momentum for blogging in the meantime.

For any use of the pictures, recipes, instructions and information found on my blog, please give due credit wherever possible. Thank you.

Any queries or feedback may be forwarded to my mail at wings_heero@hotmail.com.

Hello! Pandan Chiffon Cake

Whew! I am finally done with my cheesecake order. Glad that my friend's colleagues and boss liked it. They mentioned that I can start selling it outside. That was a sign of relief and at the same time some encouragement to me. Even though I have a certain level of confidence in my New York cheesecakes, there was this concern circling me. They had to be at least decent tasting to others as I do not want to embarrass my friend. As to whether I would want to start selling it, it would be highly unlikely. Currently, the only orders I would entertain would be from friends and family members.

Now that the cheesecake baking marathon is over, it is time to bake stuff for my own consumption. Its been ages since I said Hi to my long time friend - the Pandan Chiffon Cake. This was the very first baked good that was produced by my oven after several failed attempts.  

Pandan is a common name known by southeast asians. It is also known as Screwpine to western countries, just like chinese sparsley is known as coriander or cilantro. In Singapore, we use it mainly to prepare Nasi Lemak, peranakan kuihs (colourful and dense chewy snacks), curry and not forgetting our signature green pandan chiffon cakes. Very often, pandan leaves are used in conjunction with coconut, just like the combination of rum and raisins. When the two are combined, a 'lethal' and highly addictive flavour is developed.

I came across a pandan chiffon cake recipe from Tested and Tasted and decided to try it out. The recipe was provided by Judy Koh from Creative Culinaire in the Sunday Times Lifestyle section. Something was puzzling me when I was browsing the recipe. It uses 4 egg whites but uses a 23cm chiffon pan. Previously, I have baked chiffon cakes which required 5 egg whites in a 21 cm pan and the size was just nice. The instructions also stated using a temperature of 190 degrees C which is much higher than what was expected.

Sticking to my instincts and experience, I baked the batter in a 21cm pan at 175 degrees C and reduced it to 170 degrees C. It rose to half the height of the pan, which was something I expected. Afterall, it could'nt have risen higher than a chiffon cake that uses 5 egg whites. Judging from the height of the finished cake, baking it in a 18cm pan would be more appropriate.

When the cake was done, I inverted the pan and rested its 3 'legs' on 3 round pans. Overall, the combination looks like a metal drum set. The cake turned out quite alright, except it sunk a little towards the inner perimeter, which was a first for me. Perhaps I should have stuck to 175 degrees C all the way. Looks like I have lost my mojo for chiffon cakes. Despite the slight imperfection, the cake was polished off in less than 3 hours. I ate three fifths of the light textured snack and my younger brother ate the remaining 4 slices in one shot just before he was tucking in to his takeaway economic mixed vegetables rice which was meant for dinner. So I inquired if he was hungry or the cake tasted good. He gave a unreserved reply agreeing to the latter - 好吃~

Pandan Chiffon Cake (Recipe slightly adapted from Judy Koh's recipe in Sunday Times Lifestyle section)
Serving size: 8 -10 slices
Equipment and materials:
1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
2) Measuring spoon set
3) Spatula
4) Mixing bowl
5) Metal bowl
5) Wire rack
6) 18 cm or 21 cm chiffon tin (oil-free)
7) Balloon whisk
 
Ingredients:
5 pandan leaves
3 tbs water
50g egg yolk (about 3 yolks)
30g castor sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tbs + 1 tsp corn oil
2tbs + 1 tsp coconut milk (I used packet coconut cream)
1/4 tsp pandan paste
55g cake flour
120g egg whites at room temperature (about 3 to 4 egg whites)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
40g castor sugar
 
Method:
1) Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.
2) Wash the pandan leaves and cut into thin strips. Blend with the water. Add more water if needed. Pass the pandan puree through a sieve and set aside 3 tbs of the pandan juice.
3) In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, 30g sugar, salt, corn oil, coconut milk, pandan juice and pandan paste until smooth and combined.
4) Sieve cake flour into egg yolk mixture and mix until smooth and combined.
5) In a metal bowl, beat eggs whites, cream of tartar and 40g sugar starting with low speed. When the egg whites turn frothy, slowly increase the speed to high and beat until egg whites are at stiff peaks. This is when the bowl is overturned, the egg whites would not budge. Egg whites form shiny and creamy upright peaks when beater is withdrawn.
6) Fold one third of beaten egg whites with a balloon whisk into egg yolk mixture to lighten and mix well. Incorporate the rest of the egg whites and fold gently to obtain a smooth uniformly coloured foamy batter. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a spatula to ensure batter is well mixed.
7) Pour batter into chiffon cake tin carefully and bake for 40-50 minutes.
8) Invert chiffon cake tin to cool before unmoulding.  

Notes:
1) Chiffon tin must be oil-free. Do not grease, line or flour the tin.
2) Metal bowl for beating whites and beater must be oil-free. Egg whites should be at room temperature. These are necessary to obtain maximum volume for beaten egg whites.
   

Say Cheese ~~~

  

A good friend of mine asked for my help in baking cakes for her colleagues as her internship is coming to an end. So I asked her what type of cakes she would like me to do. She replied cheesecakes and so the order is firmd up. I needed to bake 27 slices of New York cheesecakes and that would mean a total of three 9-inch round  cheesecake.

The baking of these cheesecakes would take a total of two days. Why two days? I only have one 9-inch springform pan, meaning only one cheesecake can be done at a time. The first and second cheesecake each took me about 9 hours including 45 minutes of preparation time, 1 hr 40 minutes of baking, approximately 1 and half hours or cooling and 4-6 hours of chilling in the refrigerator. It may sound daunting but do not be fooled by the long period of time needed to complete one cheesecake, most of it is actually waiting time. As I am writing this post, my third cheesecake is waiting in the oven.

When it comes to cheesecakes, I totally adore New York style cheesecakes. These baked goods are dense, creamy and vanilla scented flourless cakes. A good cheesecake needs to be baked in a water bath as the water bath helps to keep the baking environment moist and allow an even distribution of heat. The resulting cheesecakes would then not turn out dry at the top and sides, develop sunken centres or run risks of cracking while cooling off. As vanilla is the main flavour here, it is imperative to use a trusted brand of vanilla extract to give that rich full-bodied aroma.

New York Cheesecake

Serving size: 12 slices

Equipment and materials:

1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater

2) Measuring spoon set
3) Spatula
4) Mixing bowls
5) Wire rack
6) 9 inch springform tin
7) Baking tray larger than springform tin
8) Aluminium foil

Biscuit base:
200g digestive biscuit
2 1/2 tbs brown sugar
90g butter, melted

Cheesecake filling:
500g cream cheese, softened
40g butter, softened
140g sugar
280g sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs, beaten

Method:
1) Prepare biscuit base as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin.
2) Preheat oven to 160 degrees C
3) Beat cream cheese and butter untill creamy on medium speed. Add sugar and beat until combined.
4) Add sour cream and vanilla extract to cream cheese mixture on medium low speed. Beat until smooth and incorporated.
5) Lastly, add the eggs and beat until combined on low speed. Use a spatula to run through the filling in a zig zag manner to eliminate air bubbles.
6) Pour filling onto biscuit base.
7) Wrap top and sides of spring form tin with aluminium foil as mentioned in Preparing a Cheesecake Tin. Bake at 160 degrees C for 1 hr 40 minutes in a water bath.
8) When baked, allow cheesecake to cool in the oven with oven door ajar for 30 minutes.
9) Remove the tin from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
10) Place cooled cheesecake tin in the refrigerator and chill for 4-6 hours. Dislodge cheesecake from cheesecake tin. Serve cheesecakes 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.
3) This recipe uses only 2 eggs and it easily yields a denser cheesecake using a shorter baking time. Some cheesecake recipes with the same amount of cream cheese use up to 4 eggs and generally yield softer creamier cheesecakes.