Winner of Bakertan's First Giveaway

My first giveaway has officially come to an end. Thanks to all the participants for being part of this giveaway. I hereby announce that the lucky winner is..........

Congratulations to Hanushi for being the winner in this giveaway! You have the choice of either a pack of crunchy chocolate chip cookies or a baking/sharing session with me =]

Chocolate Log Cake 2

This is another chocolate log cake made for my younger brother's party. I was pretty glad that I get to practice on my rolling of swiss roll. This time round, I made sure that the sponge was rolled tightly and it there were no cracks after rolling. However, it turned out to be tightly rolled on one end but not so much on the other end. Nevertheless, it served as a good practice.

After slicing of about one-fifth of the original roll and placing it at the side of the main roll, this is how the log cake should look like before coating with buttercream (coating with chocolate ganache should work too).

There is lesser of a fuss when it comes to doing the frosting for the log cake as compared to that for layer cakes. There is no need for the frosting to be mirror-smooth. After doing the 'tree bark' effect using the tines of a fork, the surface willl look rugged anyway.

To ensure that the buttercream do not make a mess on the cake board, I chucked rectangular slips of baking paper under the log cake. After the frosting is done, the papers are carefully removed and the cake board remained clean.

As depicted in the above picture, the frosting did not make a mess on the cake board, saving the hassle to wipe away any frosting that has stained the board. This trick of using rectangular slips of baking paper picked up from Rose Levy Beranbaum is useful when frosting layers cake too.

Dust the completed log cake with snow powder/ icing sugar to give it a simple snowy feel. Alternatively, decorate it with xmas figurines, white chocolate curls or coloured dragees.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010)



Chocolate Log Cake ( Sponge recipe adapted from Elegant Swiss Rolls by Kevin Chai, chocolate buttercream recipe adapted from Chocolate Ephiphany by Francois Payard)

Serving size: 10 slices

Taste and texture: Cake base is soft, moist and *slightly chewy. Chocolate buttercream is smooth and chocolatey.
Equipment and materials:
1) 12 x 12 inch pan or 10 x 14 inch pan
2) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
3) Spatula
4) wire whisk/balloon whisk
5) Mixing bowls
6) Heatproof bowl
7) Wire rack
8) Flour sieve
9) Parchment/baking paper
10) Brush for oiling pan
11) Weighing scale
12) 10 x 10 inch square cake board
13) 10 x 10 inch square cake box

Sponge Cake:
250g whole eggs, room temperature (about five 55-60g eggs)
90g caster sugar
95g plain flour (cake flour will do as well)
20g cocoa powder
70g unsalted butter, melted

Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:
125g egg whites, room temperature
85g granulated sugar
225g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
50g cocoa powder (add more if desired to up the chocolate factor)

Making Cake Base:
Pre-preparation: Line the swiss roll tin with baking/parchment paper. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Combine dry ingredients: Mix the flour and cocoa powder together in a large bowl to ensure they are evenly distributed.

Beating whole eggs: In a mixing bowl, beat whole eggs with 90g caster sugar on medium speed untill eggs are well aerated and have expanded about 4-6 times in volume. The beaten eggs should be thick and fluffy. When the beater is lifted, the falling batter leaves a ribbon-like trail that does not level with the rest of the batter immediately (takes about 20 seconds before levelling with the bulk of the mixture). This is know as the 'ribbon stage'. Continue to beat the foamed eggs on low speed for abother 2-3 minutes. This is to stabilize the egg mixture.

Folding dry ingredients into beaten eggs: Sift one-third of the dry ingredients into beaten eggs. Fold using a balloon whisk, gently and gradually, untill the dry ingredients are incorporated. Repeat the same for the remaining two-thirds of the dry ingredients. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a flexible spatula every now and then to incorporate flour that is stuck to the sides and that which have sunk to the bottom. We want the beaten eggs to deflate as little as possible in the folding process.

Adding the butter: Scoop a small portion of the flour-egg batter and mix it with the melted butter in a medium bowl until smooth. This makes it easier to fold the butter into the main flour-egg batter. Add this butter mixture back to the main bulk of the flour-egg batter. Fold gently to obtain a evenly mixed foamy batter.

Baking the cake: Pour cake batter into lined tin and bake at 200 degrees C for 8 to 12 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted at the middle comes out clean. The top skin of the cake should be springy when pressed and moist and sticky to the feel. Once done, remove cake tin from oven and place on a wire rack. Cover the surface with a sheet of aluminuim foil or baking paper to maintain the moistness. Take care not to overbake the cake. It will turn dry if slightly overbaked.

Preparing the Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:
Dissolve sugar in egg whites: Place 125 egg whites and 85g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved (no gritty feel when rubbed with your fingers) and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting a finger). Take care not to scramble/cook the egg mixture.

Beating egg whites: Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.

Adding butter and cocoa: Beat in 225g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incoporated before adding the next. The mixture will be watery at one point in time. Just continue beating and the mixture will become sturdy, creamy and fluffy. Lastly, sift in 50g cocoa powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth chocolate buttercream.

Assembly:
Turning the cake out: Turn the baked sheet cake onto a piece of baking/parchment paper. Slowly peel off the attached baking/parchment paper from the cake.

Rolling the cake: Apply half the prepared buttercream over the surface of the sheet cake. With the shorter side/breadth facing you (if using 10 x 14 inch pan), roll the cake up tightly to form a swiss roll.

Covering cake with buttercream: Place swiss roll on a 10 x 10 inch square cake board. Slice one-fifth of the log and position this sliced portion at the side of the main roll. This is to give the log cake a branched shape. Chuck rectangular slips of baking paper under the log cake.

Apply a thin layer of chocolate buttercream over the log to seal in the crumbs. Cover the entire log evenly with chocolate buttercream. There is not need for the buttercream to be very smooth. Use the tines of a fork to scratch along the surface of the buttercream to give a 'tree bark' effect. Dust with snow powder/icing sugar and decorate as desired. Carefully remove the rectangular slips of paper.

Notes:
1) Store completed log cake in the refrigerator in a 10 x 10 inch cake box (with 10 x 10 inch square cake board). Allow it to soften at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.  
2) Decorate the log cake with xmas ornaments like santa claus, reindeers and snowman figurines; green/silver/golden mini christmas trees; red and green mini dragees/sprinkles, gold and silver mini/normal dragees; white chocolate curls etc. Most of these can be obtained from baking supply stores (Phoon Huat, Sun Lik etc).
3) I have reduced the amount of sugar by a lot. Do not be tempted to further reduce the sugar.
4) Use good quality cocoa powder like Valrhona for the best results.
5) Chocolate ganache may be used to cover the log cake instead. Alternatively, plain whipped cream may also be used.
6) 200 Degrees C ensures that the sponge sheet is baked at a short time while less water content is evaporated, keeping the cake moist. If sponge cake is overbaked and turns out dry, brush it with a simple syrup to moisten it. A simple syrup consists of equal mass of water and sugar.

Bakertan's Christmas Goodies - Chocolate Log Cake 1

I was in quite a hurry to get this log cake done and was rushing off to my first Christmas dinner of the month. Pardon me for the shabbily-taken pictures. Next time, I will take more pictures of the process if time permits and perhaps add some decorations to my plain looking log cake.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, making log cake is easier than you would imagine. Choose your favourite swiss roll recipe. It need not be a chocolate swiss roll. Blackforest, strawberry, matcha and coffee swiss rolls will also do the job. Roll the sheet cake tightly into a log as you would for a swiss roll. Nevermind if it breaks. Simply cover it with whipped cream or buttercream according to your preference and use the tines of a fork to 'scratch' the surface of the frosting along the length to get the 'tree bark' effect. There you have, a rustic homemade log cake.

For this log cake, I chose my chocolate swiss roll recipe and increased the amount of buttercream (reduced sugar as well) so that there is enough frosting to cover the swiss roll. The log cake may be glazed with ganache instead of buttercream.

Bakertan's Christmas Goodies 1 - Two Cookies and a Log Cake

Whew, last weekend was a tiring one! For the entire saturday afternoon, I was busy shopping for ingredients at Phoon Huat, Cold Storage and Ntuc. The ingredients I lugged back home weighed almost close to 7kg - flour, butter, cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, whipping cream etc... Luckily I brought my backpack along. 

After taking a short rest, I went to battle armed with my oven, mixer and my arsenal of firepower - flour, nuts, peanut butter, raisins, cornflakes and chocolate chips.  The entire battle lasted 7 hours in total before a truce was called. The battle trophies? 90 chunky peanut, chocolate chip and cinnamon cookies and 60 cornflakes raisins chocolate chip cookies. I have never made this much cookies in a single day in my life! Imagine having to shape all these cookies. Very tedious!

The battle continued on sunday and the battle trophy this time round was a chocolate log cake. I didn't do a good job with the rolling of the swiss roll and it cracked horribly after rolling. Nevertheless, I took it as a log cake practice and slathered chocolate buttercream over the cracked swiss roll. It covered up really well and I was rather pleased with my first log cake.

All the above bakes were meant for my first christmas gathering on sunday evening. It may sound a bit early, but we had no choice since most of us won't be around when it draws close to Christmas. Apart from serving its cause as an aftermeal dessert, the log cake also doubled up as a birthday cake (in advance) for one of my friends. Happy Birthday Queen!

After cutting the cake, the interior didn't look like it was badly cracked. I remember one blogger mentioning that log cakes are very forgiving. They are indeed!  

I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this log cake to my blogger friends Eelin and Sheryl since they are dec babies too. Happy Birthday ladies!

Unlike the same Christmas gathering from previous years, there is quite a bit of sweets and baked goodies going around this time. They are:

• peppermint candy canes
• chocolate almonds (made with valrhona, good stuff!)
• chocolate cream cheese brownies (my friend made it from my cookie book. I'm going to make this one day.)
• chunky peanut, chocolate chip and cinnamon cookies and cornflakes raisins chocolate chip cookies which I prepared.
• Christmas tree butter cookie

Christmas sure is a good chance and the perfect excuse to bake. I can already forsee that I will be making christmas goodies for at least 3 other occasions. Its going to be a bakeful month and more cookies, log cakes and perhaps brownies. I think I will probably do 6-8 different types of cookies for this festive season.  

The recipes for the two cookies and log cake will be featured in upcoming posts. Stay tuned...

Bakertan's Very First Giveaway

An idea struck me sometime back. I want to do something different for a change, apart from my routine of bakes and blog posts. A giveaway would be good.

The first thing that came to mind for the giveaway is to present my bakes for the winner. In my opnion, the reason why netizens read food blogs come from the very basis that they have an interest and love for food. Hence, a giveaway in the form of baked sweets would be well appreciated by my visitors/readers.

Another grander idea, something out of the norm, has been circling around my mind for a while. I remember catching a film titled "Pay It Forward" when I was a secondary school kid. It was nearly 10 years back since I watched the movie and I could hardly remember the details. One thing I do recall is the notion behind the phrase - pay it forward. It means doing a good deed for another person and having that same person do the same good deed for others.

Now I am going to apply this concept as "Bake It Forward". Instead of choosing to recieve a pack of baked sweets, participants in this giveaway may choose to have a baking-sharing session with me instead. Hopefully, the interest towards baking will be passed on to others after the baking-sharing session.

To clarify, I do not have a wealth of experience under me. Nor do I have a very well equipped kitchen. I can manage some simple baked goods though and share some useful tips and knowledge that I have picked up. The baking/sharing session is not meant to be a demo class or a baking class, but rather a simple session for baking enthusiasts or those who are interested in baking. No experience is required. For those who are keen to take up baking but have been comtemplating do to so, you might want to have a feel of how baking is like. I will be choosing a simple cookie recipe for this baking/sharing session.

Bakertan's Giveaway

• One winner will be chosen at random among all participants. To participate in this giveaway, simply leave a comment on this blog post. Your comment must contain the following codeword: "Merry Xmas!"
• Each participant is only entitled to one chance in this giveaway. Multiple entries/comments will be deleted.
• This giveaway will close at 12am (midnight) on 12-12-2010.
• This giveaway is only opened to residents in Singapore.  

The winner of this giveaway may choose from one of the following:

1. Either a pack of homemade crunchy chocolate chip cookies, OR
2. A baking-sharing session with me at my humble abode. All costs involved will be borne by me. The chosen recipe would be crunchy chocolate chip cookies. No baking experience is required.

I will be announcing the winner on 12-12-2010 at 12am and he/she would be required to email me.

Disclaimer: I do not conduct baking classes nor am planning to conduct any baking classes/sessions. Please do not email me to enquire regarding this. Thank you.

Log Cake Practice - Matcha Swiss Roll

Making Swiss Rolls have never been my forte. In fact, they were my nemesis among cakes. When I managed to get a pleasant looking matcha swiss roll with no cracks, I knew I have conquered them, at least for a moment.

The success in the making of this matcha swiss roll presents itself as a timely arrival for the yuletide season. Talking about Yuletide, Singapore doesn't experience winter. Well in fact, it is summer all year round here. That doesn't dampen our mood and excitement for the Chirstmas season however. We do have our fair share of countdowns and partying.

Log cakes are the choice of desserts when it comes to dining and wining in the month of December. Other sweet goods such as fruit cakes (slightly less preferred), panetonnes and puddings are less common in our culture. 

Actually, log cakes are swiss rolls formed and decorated in the shape of logs. Normally, I would associate log cakes with chocolate. For a change, it might be good to have a matcha log cake. Now that I am successful with my matcha swiss roll, all that is left is to add some red beans, coat it with a layer of frosting and dress it up. 

I am still contemplating on what log cake/s I should make. A chocolate log cake is definitely on the top of my to-do-list. Next up would be either a tiramisu, mocha or matcha red bean log cake if  I can spare the time. I am quite ambitious this december, hoping to make at least 5 different kinds of cookies (definitely includes chocolate chip cookies) and at least one log cake. It is going to be loads of baking.....Wish me luck!

Matcha Swiss Roll (Sponge recipe adapted from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷)
Serving size: 8 to 10 slices
Taste and texture: Cake base is soft and moist. Matcha buttercream is buttery and velvety.
Equipment and materials:
1) 12 x 12 inch pan or 10 x 14 inch pan
2) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
3) Spatula
4) wire whisk/balloon whisk
5) Mixing bowls
6) Wire rack
7) Flour sieve
8) Parchment/baking paper
9) Brush for oiling pan
10) Weighing scale

Sponge:
210g whole eggs, room temperature (about four 55g eggs)
20g egg yolk (about 1 yolk)
80g caster sugar
2 tsp matcha powder
80g cake flour
60g butter, melted

Swiss Meringue Matcha Buttercream:
60g egg whites
55g granulated sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
2-3tsp matcha powder (start with 1 tsp. add more if desired.)

Making Cake Base:
Pre-preparation: Line the swiss roll tin with baking/parchment paper. Preheat oven to 190 degrees C.

Combine dry ingredients: Mix the flour and matcha powder together in a large bowl to ensure they are evenly distributed.

Beating whole eggs: In a mixing bowl, beat whole eggs and egg yolk with 80g caster sugar on medium speed untill eggs are well aerated and have expanded about 4-6 times in volume. The beaten eggs should be thick and fluffy. When the beater is lifted, the falling batter leaves a ribbon like trail that does not level with the rest of the batter immediately. This is know as the 'ribbon stage'. This will take about 5-8 minutes depending on the type of mixer used. Continue to beat the foamed eggs on low speed for abother 2-3 minutes. This is to stabilize the egg mixture.

Folding dry ingredients into beaten eggs: Sift one-third of the dry ingredients into beaten eggs. Fold using a balloon whisk, gently and gradually, untill the dry ingredients are incorporated. Repeat this twice for the remaining dry ingredients. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a flexible spatula every now and then to incorporate flour that is stuck to the sides and that which have sunk to the bottom. We want the beaten eggs to deflate as little as possible in the folding process.

Adding the butter: Scoop a small portion of the flour-egg batter and mix it with the melted butter in a medium bowl until smooth. This makes it easier to fold the butter into the main flour-egg batter. Add this butter mixture to the main bulk of the flour-egg batter. Fold gently to obtain a evenly mixed foamy batter.

Baking the sponge: Pour cake batter into lined tin and bake at 190 degrees C for 8 to 12 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted at the middle comes out clean. The top skin of the cake should be springy when pressed. Once done, remove cake tin from oven and place on a wire rack. Cover the surface with a sheet of aluminuim foil or baking paper or a piece of damp cloth to keep the sponge moist.

Preparing the Matcha Buttercream:
Dissolve sugar in egg whites: Place 60 egg whites and 55g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved (egg white mixture should not feel gritty) and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting a finger). The egg white mixture should not feel gritty.

Beating egg whites: Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.

Adding butter and matcha powder: Beat in 125g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incoporated before adding the next. The mixture might turn watery when butter is added. Continue beating and the buttercream will firm up. Beat until the mixture is creamy and fluffy. Lastly, sift in 2-3 tsp matcha powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth matcha buttercream. Add more matcha if desired.

Assembly:
Turning the cake out: Turn the baked sheet cake onto a piece of baking/parchment paper. Slowly peel off the attached baking/parchment paper from the cake. Place a new piece of baking/parchment paper over the sponge. Invert the sponge again, carefully. Now, peel of the top piece of baking/parchment paper. The skin would be stuck to the baking/parchment paper and would be removed.

Rolling the cake: Make a few slits across the breadth of the cake at the side nearest to you with a knife. Apply buttercream evenly over the surface of the sheet cake. With the shorter side/breadth facing you (if using 10 x 14 inch pan), roll the cake up tightly to form a swiss roll.

Notes:
1) Add some sweetened red beans to the matcha buttercream before rolling to get a matcha red bean swiss roll. I omitted this because I could not find any canned red beans.

Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies

When it comes to cookies, who could resist a chocolate chip cookie? Nope, I can't bring myself to say no. Chocolate chip cookies are so widely accepted that they are thousands of recipes out there, each with its own unique characteristics. For me, the most memorable chocolate chip cookies would be those from Subway and Famous Amos, aptly representing the chewy chocolate chip cookie and the crunchy chocolate chip cookie respectively.  

I made these household favourites for the recent potluck meetup, choosing the crunchy chocolate chip cookies since they store rather well. This very recipe comes from Bakingmum. It's the first cookie I attempted  to bake when I first started out and to date, it's one of the best recipes I have encountered. The magic in these cookies lies in the presence of cornflour, giving the cookies their firm crunch.

Here I present to you, these simple yet fabulous cookies from Bakingmum (I omitted the nuts, added more chips and vanilla), which could possibly pass off as a not-too-shabby version of the Famous Amos cookie. When I passed a pack of cookies to one of my friends, she immediately recognized the recipe even before munching on it. The reason? She uses the same recipe too!  

Chocolate Chip Cookies ( recipe adapted slightly modified from Bakingmum)

Serving size: 40 -50 cookies
Equipment and materials:
1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater or wooden spoon
2) Flour sieve
3) Measuring spoon set
4) Spatula
5) Mixing bowl
6) Wire rack
7) baking trays/ cookie sheets

Ingredients:
125g butter softened at room temperature
75g caster sugar
60g brown sugar
1 egg, light beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (use less if using a good brand) or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
150g plain flour
45g cornflour
1/2 tsp bicarbonanate of soda (baking soda)
pinch of salt
170g chocolate chips

Making cookie dough:
Prepare dry ingredients: Sift plain flour, cornflour, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Stir to ensure they are evenly distributed.

Creaming the butter: In a mixing bowl, cream butter with caster sugar and brown sugar untill light, pale and fluffy.

Adding egg and vanilla and dry ingredients: Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix to get a even mixture.

Add dry ingredients: Next, add in the dry ingredients. Mix and stop once the flour is all absorbed. A soft dough should be obtained. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with spatula

Adding chocolate chips: Stir in the chocolate chips and ensure a well distribution.

Chilling and shaping of dough: Chill dough for 30-45 minutes to firm it up. Spoon heaped teaspoons of dough onto lined cookies trays, leaving some space between each cookie dough. Each cookie should have about 4 chips.To prevent cookies from spreading, freeze shaped cookie dough for 10 minutes (with the cookie tray/s).

Baking Cookies: Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Bake cookies for 20-25 minutes or until medium browned.

Cooling and storing: Allow cookies to cool on their trays for 2 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack. Cool cookies completely on wire rack before storing in air-tight containers.

Notes:
1) If the cookies do soften for some reasons, bake them for 10 minutes at 180 degrees C and allow to cool. The crunch will return.