My 4th Bloggers Meetup

I was casually checking my e-mails when one particular one caught my attention. To my pleasant surprise, I was invited to a Bloggers Meetup by Jasmine. Jasmine had just joined the blogging scene a few months back and I must admire her courage in reaching out to us bloggers and organizing a meetup. So last Saturday evening, 8 of us met up at Edith’s place for a potluck party. The bloggers were:

1. Jasmine from the sweetylicious
2. Edith from Precious Moments
3. Josephine from Sugar & Everything Nice
4. Cathy from Cathy's Joy
5. Jess from Jess's Kitchen
6. Jean from Noms I Must
7. Wendy from Wen's Delight
8. Zhuoyuan (Me)

Maybe you wouldn't believe it, but I never had a potluck party until I attended my first Bloggers Meetup. Even if I was keen in the idea of a potluck party back then, I couldn't even bake or cook for nuts. Things are different now, for I have learnt to bake and churn out bakes presentable enough to bring to a potluck party.

Similar to my previous meetups, this is another potluck party where each of us bloggers would volunteer to cook and bake a dish or two. Sweet lovers would definitely find this potluck party particularly inviting as it promises a spectacular line-up of of sweet treats including mango swiss rolls, mango cheesecake, mango chiffon cake, brownies, lemon bars, lemon meringue tarts, macarons and three differently flavoured frosted cupcakes. As a sweets lover and a highly sweet-toothed guy, I am more than welcome to embrace them and satisfy my palate.

Chocolate macarons with lemon curd by Cathy

Dulce De Leche cupcakes by Cathy

Chocolate madeleines by Cathy

Lemon cream cheese cupcakes with honey lemon buttercream (Swiss meringue). Recipe for buttercream at end of post.

Rich fudgy brownies. I have to confess that this batch of brownies are less fudgy and firmer than the ones I previously made.

Mango cheesecake by Jasmine

Nian gao sweet potato rolls by Jasmine

Jelly heart cheesecake slice by Jasmine

Durian chiffon cake by Wendy

Durian swiss rolls by Wendy. Have I ever mentioned that I am a durian lover?

Lemon curd meringue tarts by Edith

Chocolate mayonnaise cupcakes with caramel butterscotch buttercream by Edith

Lemon bars by Jess

savoury meatballs by Jean

thai style pomelo salad by Josephine

Saturday evening was thus spent fulfillingly with a group of wonderful and talented ladies. With good food and the right company, what more can I ask for? Thanks to Jasmine for initiating and coordinating this meetup. I shall be looking forward to my next meetup. 

Honey Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream (recipe adapted from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan) 

Serving size: enough to frost 15 small sized cupcakes

Taste and texture: sweet and tangy, velvety smooth

Equipment and Materials:

1) Handheld mixer/ Standing mixer

2) Heat proof bowl

3) Wire whisk

Ingredients:

65g sugar

60g egg whites

150g unsalted butter, cubed and slightly softened but still cold

3 1/2 tbs fresh lemon juice, strained

honey, add to taste

1/2 tsp vanilla extact

Making the buttercream:

Dissolve sugar in egg whites - Place egg whites and sugar in a heatproof bowl sitting over a pan of slightly simmering water without the base of the bowl in contact with the water (double-boiler). Whisk the mixture constantly until the sugar dissolves completely. Rub the egg white mixture with your fingers to check if it is still gritty to test if the sugar has fully dissolved. Egg white mixture should be warm to the touch. Remove bowl from the heat.

Beating egg whites - Beat egg whites with an electric beater on medium high speed until whites are very stiff and glossy. Egg whites should form stiff upright peaks and will not budge when bowl is overturned. 

Incorporating butter - Add in butter to beaten egg whites in 3 additions and beat on medium speed. The mixture may become watery as butter is being incorporated. After the third addition, beat the mixture it becomes fluffy and firm, like creamed butter.   

Flavouring the buttercream - Add lemon juice and vanilla extract to buttercream and beat well to mix. Add in honey by the tablespoon to taste.  

Note:

1) When piping the buttercream for frosting, heat from your palms may cause the last portion of buttercream in the piping bag to soften and separate/ melt. Simply chill the softened/ separated buttercream and beat it until fluffy. 

2) Buttercream can hold its shape well unrefrigerated. 

3) Make sure water is on low simmer and stir constantly, else the egg may coagulate.   

4) Do not omit the vanilla in the buttercream. It adds a depth of flavour and contrasts the lemony tang.  

5) Make 2.5 x buttercream recipe to make enough for frosting a 3 layered cake.

Three Cheers to Friendship and Rich Chocolatey Gooey Fudgy Brownies

The air was filled with love just the day before. So, what was the special ocassion? It was Valentine's Day! For me, it was more of a frienship day. Afterall, friendship is the love between friends who share weal and woe. For the past 26 years, I am glad that my path crossed with individuals who started out as strangers in my life but ended up as my treasured friends. Thank you all for the invaluable friendship, my dear friends.

My friends have always been supportive all of me, especially so when they know how devoted I am to baking. To reward some of them, I decided to bake some brownies for last evening's dinner. Chocolate treats are ever so classic when it comes to sharing them with your loved ones and youcan almost never go wrong with them.

These rich chocolate treats from Linda Collister worked wonders when I first made them. Naturally, they became the choice of treat to give away to my friends for Valentine's Day. Biting into a piece of these brownies, one will realise that it is pure chocolate bliss. They are rich, chocolatey, moist and gooey-fudgy. When eaten at room temperature, they are soft and gooey but with some chilling, they turn firm and fudgy. I would say that they are totally perfect eaten on their own or accompanied with a dollop of ice-cream.

 

I figure I might be baking more of these brownies to pass to other friends and possibly for a gathering over the weekends. Happy belated Valentine's Day and three cheers to all the frienship out there!

Rich Chocolate Brownies ( recipe adapted from Brownies by Linda Collister)
Serving size: about 20 squares
Taste and Texture: Rich chocolatey, soft, moist and gooey-fudgy.
Equipment and Materials:
1) 8 x 8 square tin
2) Flour sieve
3) Weighing scale
4) Measuring bowls
5) Measuring spoon set
6) Wire whisk
7) Baking/Parchment paper
8) Standing/handheld mixer
9) Wire rack
10) spatula / wooden spoon

Ingredients:
185g dark chocolate (55%-60%), melted and cooled
110g unsalted butter, softened
220g brown sugar
1/2-1 tsp vanilla (I forgot to add, but it still taste good)
200g whole eggs, lightly beaten
75g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
 
Making the brownie:
Preheat Oven - Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
 
Combine flour and cocoa - In a large mixing bowl, sift both plain flour and cocoa powder. Whisk well to distribute evenly.
 
Cream butter - Cream butter and sugar on medium speed for about 3-5 minutes. As there is a larger proportion of sugar to butter, the mixture will not end up being fluffy. Cream the butter until the volume increases noticeably.
 
Adding eggs to creamed butter - Slowly add in eggs by the tablespoon to the creamed butter, beating the mixture well before incorporating the next tablespoon.
 
Incorporating melted chocolate - Beat in melted chocolate and mix well. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often to ensure even mixing.
 
Adding dry ingredients - Stir in the dry ingredients with a spatula or wooden spoon to get a smooth batter.
 
Baking the brownies - Pour batter into a lined 8 x 8 inch square tin and level the surface. Bake for 23 -30 minutes at 180 degrees C. The top should be crusty and dull. When lightly pressed on the surface, the underneath feels semi-firm. Cool baked brownie in tin for 45mins before removing to cool on wire rack. Serve chilled or at room temperature as desired.
 
Notes:
1) Chill to get a firm brownie or eat at room temperature if a soft brownie is desired.
2) Add 80g of chopped walnuts or pecans if desired.
3) This recipe yields fudgy gooey brownies easily due to the low proportion of flour used as compared to the large proportion of chocolate. Most other brownies need to be slightly underbaked to obtain a fudgy texture.
4) Start checking the firmness of the brownie at 20 minutes or when the brownie surface starts to become dull.
 

Chinese New Year 2011 and Nice Homemade Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year marks the start of a new year in the lunar calendar. When it comes to Chinese New Year, it is a time of reunion with family, relatives and friends. This is one highly-regarded festive occasion that is widely celebrated by all Chinese worldwide. 

On Chinese New Year Eve ( 除夕夜), Chinese families gather for a feasting over dinner which symbolizes reunion. This is known as the reunion dinner. The reunion dinner usually includes a mouth-watering spread of dishes including roasted duck, steamed chicken, steamed fish with gravvy and other restaurant-style delicacies offering lots of meat and expensive seafood such as abalone and scallops. Some families may opt for a steamboat dinner instead which involves less preparation.

It sure was a lot of feasting for me as I had three reunion dinners in total: one at home on the sunday before week of Chinese New Year, one at my elder brother's place during New Year's Eve and the last dinner at my grandma's place (paternal side) following my 2nd reunion dinner. The feastings did not just include the reunion dinners. Since there is always an abundance of food for each reunion dinner, the leftovers are warmed up and taken for lunch or dinner the following day.

Apart from the rich dishes that are present during lunch or dinner, there is also a wide array of tidbits and cookies. There are some goodies which me and my younger brother consider a must-buy for Chinese New Year, namely: Julie's Chocolate Love Letters, Da Fa Fish Strips, Ferrero Rocher, Hello Panda Chocolate-filled Cookies and Pineapple Tarts.

This is the third year that I am making pineapple tarts (closed versions) and I decided to attempt to make the pineapple paste from scratch using Wendy's recipe and method. Her instructions were clear and the proportion of pineapples and sugar were just right. I was absolutely thrilled at how good my homemade paste turned out. However, I had to constantly observe if the bottom of my pan was charring since it was a non heavy based one. Each time the bottom of the pot charred, I had to remove the jam from the pot, wash the pot and scrub the charred spot/s clean. For the final bit, I had to resort to using the mircowave to dry my wet pineapple paste instead of constantly frying to reduce the risk of ending up with burnt pineapple paste.

I made two batches of pineapple paste using two different varieties of pineapples - Honey pineapples and S&W sweet pineapples. Honey pineapples are much sweeter and could do with lesser sugar. Over in Malaysia, Honey pineapples are known by their variety name instead. The S&W sweet pineapples were quite costly - $2.90 for each weighing 1.6kg. Even though these pineapples were steeply priced, I would gladly pay for them again since they produce a fragrant fruity sweet-tart pineapple paste as compared to the Honey pineapples. 

I decided to be a little adventurous and tried out a different tart pastry recipe. My efforts paid off and it yielded tarts that crumbled easily with a melt-in-the-mouth experience. Excellent! My pineapple tarts were churned out in two different batches using different homemade pineapple paste. I was extremely pleased with my first batch of tarts for the texture and taste but felt that the second batch could be better improved on. 

For the second batch, the honey pineapple paste was sweeter and a little too fibrous for my liking. Next time, I would process the pineapples longer to break up the fibres. I also made a mistake by measuring my paste and pastry by 1/2 teaspoonfuls instead of going by the teaspoon (I used the same baking time even though my pineapple balls were smaller), something which I only realized afterwards! No wonder I thought my pineapple tarts seemed to be smaller. Foolish me, haha...  As a result, the pastry turned out to be firmer and more crusty.

Pineapple Tarts (pastry recipe adapted from Delicious Nyonya Kuek & Desserts by Patricia Lee)

Serving size: about 70 tarts, fills two small sized CNY cookie containers.

Taste and Texture: Crumbly and moderately melt-in-the mouth texture with sweet-tart fruity pineapple paste filling.

Equipment and Materials:

1) Baking/Cookie pans

2) Flour sieve

3) weighing scale

4) Measuring bowls

5) Measuring spoon set

6) Pastry cutter/ two knives

7) Wire whisk

8) Baking/Parchement paper

9) Clingfilm

Ingredients:

360g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbs icing sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

220g cold butter, cubed

2 1/2 tbs hot water

400g homemade pineapple paste (click on link to reveal recipe and method)

1 or 2 egg yolk/s for egg wash

Making the pastry:

Mix dry ingredients - Sift flour, baking powder, salt and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Whisk well to combine and distribute evenly.

Rub butter into dry ingredients - Tip the cubed butter onto the dry ingredients. Use the pastry cutter to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Alternatively, use two knives in a scissor-like manner and cut the butter into the flour. Continue the process until the butter and dry ingredient mixture look like bread crumbs with a few large grains. If there is no pastry cutter or knives, you may use your hand to rub the butter into the flour mixture.

Adding yolks and vanilla - Beat egg yolks with 1 tsp vanilla extract. Add it to the butter-flour crumb mixture and stir gently with a folk.

Mix to a dough - Finally, add the hot water and stir gently until the mixture starts to come together. Knead with your hands gently to incoporate loose dough and bring everything together. Once the dough comes together, give it some further gentle kneading so that the dough is evenly coloured (there is presence of egg yolk). The kneading process should be as brief and as gentle as possible. Once the dough is done, wrap the dough with clingfilm and rest the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. 

Making the tarts:  

Portioning the pastry - Scoop out slightly heaped teaspoons of dough and roll into into round balls. Set aside.

Portioning the pineapple paste - Scoop out levelled teaspoons of pineapple paste and roll into into round balls. Set aside

Wrapping the pineapple paste - Flatten a ball of pastry and place a ball of pineapple paste onto the flattened pastry. Wrap the pastry over the pineapple paste evenly to get round pineapple tarts. You may need to add more pastry or remove excess pastry in order to get the desired thickness of pastry around the paste.

Baking the tarts - Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Arrange wrapped pineapple tarts onto baking sheets spaced evenly. Brush a thin layer of egg yolk over each pineapple tart. Bake tarts for 20 minutes. Allow tarts to cool completely on wire rack before storing in airtight containers.

Notes:

1) The pastry needs to be handled gently and minimally so that it will achieve the crumbly yet melt-in-the-mouth texture. Use a trusted brand of plain flour for the pastry.

2) Do not brush too much egg wash or the pastry will taste eggy. I brushed a lot of egg wash to achieve the golden effect but the taste is slightly compromised.

3) Do not overbake the tarts or the pastry will turn firm and crusty as opposed to being crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth.

4) Tart semi-ripe pineapples are preferred for the paste.

5) Do not discard core from pineapples. Use it making the paste.

6) You can control the wetness of the pineapple paste if it is homemade. Store bought paste tends to be chewy and dry.

7) The tarts will not turn out be yellowish like commercially available ones since there is no yellow colouring used. Instead the colour obtained for the baked tarts is slighlty cream/off-white.

8) Pastry recipe is for closed tarts. It may or may not work well for open tarts.

9) Chilled dough (30 mins chilling time) is relatively easy to handle since it is for closed tarts.

10) Try baking a few tarts as a test batch to get the desired baking time.

11) Use good quality butter for the pastry.

Almond Cookies

Finally! I finally managed to do some cookies Chinese New Year cookies. My idea is to work on either cashew cookies or almond cookies for a start and I settled on the latter. This almond cookie recipe requires no butter but uses oil instead. Hmm.. no butter? I normally wouldn't go for cookies that are butterless. No harm trying out the recipe since the dough seems easy to make with no creaming required. The best part about making it is that the dough requires no chilling at all!

It wasn't such a bad idea working on these cookies. Even though they lacked the buttery fragrance, the cookies tasted decently nutty and crunchy. After a few days of storage, they still keep their crunch really well. Neat! With the absence of butter, these cookies do not prove to be overly rich to the palate. I do find it a good change from the usual rich buttery cookies that are abound during the Chinese New Year period.



I know it is less than a week to Chinese New Year. I am still holding on to the possibility that I might be opening my 'mini pineapple tart factory' before sunday. Its either pineapple tarts or butter cakes, see how it goes... This might possibly be my final post before CNY, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year! Huat ar!

Note:  I will be attempting to improve on the recipe. Find that there is a little something lacking in its taste. Texture wise it is pretty good. Will try to either do a butter version or substitute part of the flour with same weight of ground almond to improve the flavour.

Almond Cookies (recipe adapted from Delicious Nyonya Kueh and Desserts by Patricia Lee)
Serving size: about 50 cookies, fills one small CNY plastic cookie tub
Taste and Texture: Crunchy-crumbly, nutty, non-buttery
Equipment and materials:
1) Mixing bowl
2) Flour sieve
3) Baking/cookie trays
4) Wire rack
5) Measuring spoon set
6) Baking paper
7) Wire whisk

Ingredients:
120g diced almonds, toasted
220g plain flour (try substituting some plain flour with same weight of ground almond for richer flavour)
100g icing sugar
105g corn oil
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt + a pinch more
2 egg yolks for eggwash

Making the dough:
Toasting the almonds: Place diced almonds in a single layer on a tray lined with baking paper. Toast the diced almonds at 160 degrees C for 20- 25 minutes until lightly browned. This will improve the fragrance of the almonds.

Prepare dry ingredients: Sift flour, icing sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix dry ingredients evenly with a wire whisk. Add in the almonds and mix well.

Forming the dough: Add corn oil to the dry ingredients. Gather the mixture to form a dough. Gently knead the dough to incorporate dough crumbs.

Shaping cookies: Roll cookie dough between 2 pieces of baking paper to about 1cm thick. Cut out cookies with desired cutters. Gather scraps and continue cutting out dough until dough is used up.

Baking the cookies: Brush eggwash onto cut out cookie dough. Bake cookies at 160 degrees C for about 20 minutes. Remove baked cookies and allow them to cool on wire rack completely before storing in air-tight containers.

Notes:
1) Try substituting some of the flour with ground almond for richer flavour. This may make the cookie melt-in-the mouth since there is less gluten due to less flour used.
2) Cookies taste better the next day.

Cream Cheese Marble Brownies

 

These days, most fellow bloggers seem to be busy with baking cookies for the coming Chinese New Year. In Singapore, you can find most Chinese households stocking up on tubs of cookies and goodies - cashew cookies, green pea cookies, almond cookies, sugee cookies, pineapple tarts etc. Among these goodies, pineapple tarts have to be the most popular. With all these goodies around and the usual Chinese New Year feastings, it is hard to prevent ending up gaining some extra pounds.  

I haven't quite started on any Chinese New Year baking yet and it is rather late to say, since Chinese New Year is approaching in less than 2 weeks time. There are so many goodies that I am itching to try out but I feel that I do not have the energy (or maybe because I am lazy..) to go on a baking spree. As each day pass, I remain clueless as to what goodies to churn out for the coming Chinese New Year. Maybe I will just keep it simple and take things a step at a time. If I do manage to bake anything, I will be participating in Aspiring Bakers Challenge #3.

 

I am glad to say that my momentum is coming back! Whew.. Time to get the momentum into swing and kick some ass in the kitchen, lol... Two days back, I made some cream cheese marble brownies. Baking brownies is a simple affair as compared to other bakes out there. There was once I made 3 different dark chocolate brownies consecutively in a week. An idea came to mind a few days back. These sweet treats will be great for Valentine's day as an alternative to chocolates.

I passed some of these brownies to my buddy K and my baking buddy Stephanie. Both gave postive feedbacks. K commented that its nice and not too sweet. Stephanie feels that its chocolatey followed by cream cheesey and its not sweet too. It was a bit soft for her though. For me,  I thought that the cream cheese taste came first followed by the chocolate instead. It was quite an obvious layered taste, where one taste came right after the other. The only part that I feel could be improved was the height of the brownies (only about 1 cm tall!). They seemed a little short. Looking at the amount of batter, a smaller pan would be more appropriate.  

Overall, the recipe is not too shabby, yielding tender not too rich brownies that were neither fudgy nor cakey nor dry. The firmness could be altered by controlling the baking time, adding more flour or chilling according to one's preference.

Cream Cheese Marble Brownies (recipe adapted from Biscuit Code by Florence Tan)

Serving size: 20-25 squares

Taste and texture: Fudgy, cheesey-chocolatey

Equipment and materials:

1) 8 x 8 square tin or 9 x 9 square tin

2) Flour sieve
3) Weighing scale
4) Measuring bowls
5) Measuring spoon set
6) Wire whisk
7) Baking/Parchment paper
8) Standing/handheld mixer
9) Wire rack
10) spatula / wooden spoon

Chocolate Batter:
120g finely chopped dark chocolate (about 60%)
85g unsalted butter
95g castor sugar
100g whole eggs, at room temperature
85g plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tbs Kahlua/ Bailey's (optional)

Cheese mixture:
60g unsalted butter, soften at room temperature
180g cream cheese, softened at room temperature
55g castor sugar
50g whole egg, at room temperature
2 tbs flour
1 tsp vanilla

Ingredients:
Preheat Oven - Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Melt chocolate and butter - Sit a heatproof bowl over pan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be touching the water. Place dark chocolate and 85g butter in the heatproof bowl. Bring water in the pan to a low simmer to melt the chocolate and butter douber-boiler). Stir gently to combine. After chocolate and butter have melted, remove bowl from heat and allow it to cool.

Making chocolate batter - In a mixing bowl, whisk sugar and eggs with a wire whisk briefly to dissolve the sugar. Stir in flour and salt to combine. Next, add in the cooled chocolate butter mixture and Kahlua/Bailey's. Mix well to combine. Scrap sides and bottom of mixing bowl to incoporate stray flour and ingredients.

Making cream cheese batter - In a separate mixing bowl, beat butter, cream cheese and sugar until smooth and fluffy. Add in egg and beat well to combine, scraping sides and bottom of bowl when necessary.

Baking the brownies - Pour half of chocolate batter into a lined 8 x 8 inch square tin and level the surface. Spread cream cheese batter over the layer of chocolate batter. Scoop teaspoons of remaining chocolate batter randomly over the cream cheese layer. Use a toothpick or knife and swirl to create a marbling effect. Take carew not to over-swirl.

Bake for 30 minutes at 180 degrees C. The top should be crusty and dull. When lightly pressed on the surface, the underneath feels semi-firm. Cool baked brownie in tin for 45mins before removing to cool completely on wire rack. Serve chilled or at room temperature as desired.

Notes:
1) Chill to get a firm brownie or eat at room temperature if a soft brownie is desired

Oreo Butter Cupcakes

It has been a slow start to a new year where baking is concerned. For the past 3 weeks or so, I haven't been baking as frequently as I usually do. Consider it a little holiday or getaway from everything baking-related; baking, reading my bake books, blog hopping and blogging.

Thankfully, my baking momentum is returning slowly. Ought to grab hold of the opportunity to bake before procrastination sets in. To build up my momentum, I decided to do some Oreo Butter Cupcakes. The last time I did these mini cakes, all my cups overflowed. I was using mini cupcake liners for the first time and was too generous with the batter.

Learning from my previous mistake, I only filled these mini cupcake liners slightly less than the halfway mark. They rose nicely but turned out to be a little dry and were slightly compact, which was entirely no fault from the recipe but rather due to oversight on my part.

As I was unfamiliar with the baking times for these smaller sized liners, I had slightly overbaked my first batch of cupcakes. Maybe it will help to add a tad more milk the next time round to maintain the right moistness.

While I was adding the eggs to the creamed butter, the mixture curdled. The same thing happened the last time when I made these cupcakes. Previously, the mixture curdled when I added in the first egg. This time round, I added the eggs by the tablespoon but the mixture still curdled towards the end. Maybe next time I would ensure that each bit of egg added is well emulsified before adding the next addition.

Curdling is something that rarely happens for me. Hmm, maybe I lost my baking touch.... Or maybe it is the premium butter that I am using. When I used other non-premium butter (bought from Phoon Huat), curdling doesn't pose as an issue at all.... I am quite sure that my butter and eggs were at room temperature.Weird..  

Even though the mixture curdled, the batter turned out smooth after the flour is added. However, all the creaming that is done to the butter has been in vain. I am going to be extra careful the next time round and see if this mishap happens again.

Lessons learnt/ points to note:

1) be careful when adding eggs. ensure each addition of egg is well incoporated before adding the next.

2) add more Oreo.

3) add a bit more milk.

4) check for doneness at 15mins.

Happy 2011 - Summer Berry Tea Chiffon Cake

 

Happy 2011! Its a start to a brand new year and I am sure it would be a great year ahead.

It has been nearly two weeks since I last posted. I was supposed to be busy with with my 2nd, 3rd and 4th round of Xmas baking during the last week of 2011 but they never quite materialized. For my 2nd round of Xmas baking, I attempted to make a blackforest log cake for my family but it was a total flop attributed by too many mistakes which snowballed into a big failure. Nevertheless, I managed to make chicken cordon bleu and a hawaiian pizza for my family Xmas lunch. I didn't manage to take any pics of them though, hence there was nothing to blog about...

For the 3rd round of Xmas baking, I wasn't in the mood to bake as I was preparing for a presentation. So, there wasn't any bakes and any entries either....When I was about to commence on my 4th round of Xmas baking, I was down with fever and flu. How unfortunate!   

Now that I have fully recovered, it's time to do some baking and get back to blogging. I have originally intended to submit this Summer Berry Tea Chiffon Cake as an entry for the 1st aspiring bakers in Nov but I wasn't satisfied with the outcome then. The flavour was very pronounced but the texture was overly moist. Furthermore, my chiffon cake dropped out of the tin the moment it was overturned for cooling. This time round, I decreased the amount of liquid and it came out nicely moist and fluffy. Flavoured tea leaves works wonders when it comes to flavouring chiffon cakes. I shall be experimenting with more flavoured tea leaves for chiffon cakes in time to come.

Summer Berry Tea Chiffon Cake

Serving size: 10 -12 slices

Taste and texture: Fruity, soft, moist and fluffy with a little crunch.

Equipment and materials:
1) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
2) Measuring spoon set
3) Spatula
4) Mixing bowl
5) Metal bowl
6) Wire rack
7) 21 cm chiffon tin (oil-free)
8) Balloon whisk

Ingredients:
2 x Lipton Craneberry,Raspberry and Strawberry tea bags
65g hot water
60g vegetable oil (corn, canola etc)
5 yolks, at room temperature (use 55-60g eggs)
35g castor sugar
100g cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
5 egg whites, at room temperature (use 55-60g eggs)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar (optional)
60g castor sugar


Making the cake:
Prepare Oven: Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.

Prepare dry ingredients: Sift cake flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Use a wire whisk to whisk the flour and baking powder to ensure even distribution.

Prepare tea liquid: Soak 2 sachets of tea in the hot water and allow the flavour to disperse in the hot water. Allow tea liquid to cool.

Preparing the egg yolk mixture: In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, 35g castor sugar, vegetable oil and tea liquid until combined. Add flour mixture to egg yolk mixture and mix until smooth and well combined. Cut open the used tea bags and add in the wet tea leaves.

Beating egg whites: In a metal bowl, beat eggs whites and cream of tartar starting with low speed. When the egg whites turn frothy, slowly increase the speed to high and beat until egg whites are soft peaks (egg whites form peak that is drooping). Add the sugar (60g) slowly at this point and continue beating until egg whites are almost stiff. 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. Take care not to overbeat the egg whites as they will become dry or may water out.

Incorporate egg whites into egg yolk mixture: 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.

Baking the cake: Pour batter into chiffon cake tin carefully and bake for 40-45 minutes.

Cooling and unmoulding: 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.
3) Feel free to experiment with other fruity flavoured tea bags.