Orange Frosted Sponge Cake - THB #15

For some of you whom are new to this THB - The Home Bakers, it is a group that Joyce had set up. By owning the same recipe book of Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas, you can simply join us in the wonderful bakes with the rest of the other bloggers. The rule of this bake is that only the host of the chosen bake can post up the recipe.

Should you like to have more details, please feel free to contact Joyce from The Home Bakers ^-^

This is another excellent recipe from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas. I had chosen this recipe as I personally preferred sponge/chiffon type cake, enjoying its ever soft & fluffy texture.
As I was preparing all the ingredients, I suddenly got worried as I thought I might had missed out the "oil" ingredient as usually, sponge cake will required oil. I read the ingredients once more, to make sure I hadn't missed out the "oil"... And I really didn't. I was rather surprised and wondered how the sponge cake will turned out.

As you can see from my picture below, I had used an 8-inch chiffon tin for my bake. My sponge cake did rise VERY well. I was really amazed with it... I thought this in fact was one of my few cakes baked in a chiffon tin that had gotten a nicely browned skin on the outer and sides of the cake... I was happy...:))

But after taking a bite of the sponge cake, I thought that my sponge cake tasted abit like the鸡蛋 糕. My colleagues and hubby who had tasted my sponge cake, had agreed that it did really have the 鸡蛋糕 texture and had a very mild orange taste, which I failed to detect it myself..  Strangely....

I have referred to THB post for the tips and read that everyone's gotten a excellent soft, fluffy texture of this cake... Something went wrong somewhere... I had then, realised that probably it was the plain flour and too little orange juice, and my accidentally overdosed the cake with additional 1/2 tsp of baking power... So just before posting up this recipe, I had to bake another one!!! This time round I had used top flour and increased my orange juice, and added 1 orange zest.
And YES!!!!
The sponge cake did turned out excellent, soft as everyone had mentioned. 

Instead of coating my whole sponge cake with the orange frosting, I had prepared 1/3 of the frosting and coated ONLY 1 slice of the sponge cake for photgraphy purposes.
By sprinkling some orange zest on the frosting made it even more tastier... I really enjoyed this great combination...Yum Yum...♡♡♡

Let us all share a slice of our Orange Frosted Sponge Cake by starting to bake yours now^^

Recipe as adapted from Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas

Ingredients:
(Makes one 10-inch cake: serves 16)
(With slight modifications to my own measurements)

1 1/4 cup cake flour (150g)

1 1/2 cup sugar (I used 150g, 100g & 50g)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

6 eggs, yolks & whites separated

1 tsp cream of tar tar

1/4 tsp cup orange juice (70ml)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 325F (165C).

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, 1 cup of sugar, salt & baking powder and stir to blend. In another large bowl, combine the egg whites and cream of tar tar and beat with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until stiff, glossy peaks form.

3. Add in the egg yolks, orange juice and vanilla  to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed for about 1 minute, scarping down the sides of the bowl once or twice. Stir about 1/4 of the egg whites into the yolk mixture, and then fold in the remaining whites until well blended. Pour the batter into an unbuttered 10-inch tube pan and smooth the top.

4. bake for about 50 minutes, or until the cake is golden, springs back when lightly touched, and a cake tester inserted int he centre comes out clean. Invert on a wire rack and let cool completely. Unmould and transfer to a serving plate.

Orange Frosting

3 tbsps unsalted butter at room temperature

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 tbsp thawed orange juice concentrate mixed with 2 tbsps of water

(As I do not want to coat the whole cake with the frosting for fear that my girls will not eat them...and I was absolutely right about it...!!! I had used 1 tbsp of butter+100g icing sugar+1 tbsp of fresh orange juice instead. I had also coated the orange frosting with the orange zest which actually enhanced the light tasted sponge cake.)

Method:

In a medium bowl, combine all the ingredients and mix until blended. Spread over the top and sides of the cake and let it set for about 1 hour. Cut into wedges to serve.

Do join us along in the wonderful bake with our co-founder, Joyce from The Home Bakers and also Kitchen Flavours, and do make sure to check out othe bloggers who had participated in this Home Bakers theme as well.
Have fun everyone...!!!!

Happy Birthday Curly Fries... Let's have a Toystory Cake♡

Happy Birthday Curly Fries...

Time had really passed by that quickly... I remembered she was just borned and it seems just like yesterday that she was still a little baby... 3 years had passed, and she is a little grown up gal.. A little gal with lots of imaginations, being very independent of her own...

We wish her to have a happy & healthy life ahead of this year, and may she be smarter, more obedient, become more gentle...and what have we..., love us... XOXO

Mimi had requested for a Toystory Theme for her cake. And for me, I had long gave up my fondant cake as I reckon I wasn't a great expert in that... So this is what I made for her..

A normal cream cake, 5 different layers of sponge cake, topped with whipped cream, strawberries and Mimi's Toystory cake toppers. I hadn't had much ideas in decorating the cake as well.. So just a little simple one... I thought it wasn't made that beautifully, but I was glad Mimi was very thrilled about it, and she loved the cake...

Besides the cake, I made some chocolate cuppies, the "Aliens" from Toystory...

How do they look like? Do they looked like what they are supposed to be???
Initially, Mimi didn't want to eat it, but in the end she tried it, all because of the green gummies and chocolate chips on the cuppies:-p. As for Nat, she liked the "Aliens" cuppies very much.

There, our very own little party for Mimi's birthday...

Just the 5 of us, Daddy, Mummy, Nic, Nat & Mimi...

We had even bought the Toystory balloons for her, the paper plates, cups, napkins & hats.

Her little cheeky face...

And the great smile from her is what we wanted...:)
She was so happy with her little party...

And of course her favourite strawberries...:))

Happy 3rd Birthday my littlest Princess...

May all your wishes come true.

Love us... XOXO

Nic's Tea Party in School - Chocolate Names Cupcakes & Strawberry Fantasy Cake

Today is Nic's Tea Party in school for the Kindergarten 2 children. It is a pot-luck tea party. So all the parents will be preparing different food for the children. I decided to make some cupcakes and a cake for the teachers and children.

Chocolate Names Cupcakes

These chocolate cupcakes was prepared on Monday evening, and I just pipe the names on the cupcakes yesterday night. I think they all looked so pretty. I heard from my girlfriend that the children were very excited about these cupcakes as they had their names on it. Even Nat, I had made one for her, and she quickly finished her cupcake while I was preparing the cake. She too, was very excited about the name cupcakes... hahaha... These chocolate cupcakes are my girls' favourite, and mine as well!!! Even my girlfriend and her children loves it as well!!!
For the names, instead of using buttercream, I used whipped cream and mixed with strawberry paste for the girls' names and pandan paste for the boys' names.

These cupcakes simply looked so pretty... :-D

Ingredients:

55g unsalted butter

55g castor sugar

1 egg

55g self raising flour

2 tbsps cocoa powder

1 tbsp milk

Method:

Cream the butter & sugar until smooth & creamy. Add in the egg, mix well.

Add in the sieved flour & cocoa powder, fold in & mix well, followed by the milk.

Bake in a preheated oven of 180 degC or firm to touch.

I will be submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog

Besides the cupcakes, I had also make a strawberry cake for the teachers and the children to share.

Strawberry Fantasy Cake

I had to make the cake after I got back from office... Well, it is always the Murphy's Law... Some hiccups here and there while I was baking the cake last night. I think I had over beat the egg yolks batter, plus using the black round cake mould, my cake sunk and it was burnt on the bottom...:-p

So end up, I re-do another strwberry sponge cake, using the normal square tin mould. It turns out alright, but still, I wasn't satisfied with the sponge cake... Murphy's Law indeed!

This is simply an ALL STRAWBERRY CAKE...

1. Strawberry Sponge Cake

2. Strawberry Whipped Cream

3. Sandwiched with 2 layers of Fresh Strawberries

4. Topped with Fresh Strawberries

SIMPLY A STRAWBERRY CAKE!!!

hahahaha.....

The cake smells so yummy, wish I could try the cake too... :-D

I hope my effort for the time spent on this Strawberry Fantasy Cake had gone in vain, and hope that they had all finished the cake.

Hello Kitty Cake - Having fun with the Decorations:))

Ain't this Hello Kitty Cake CUTE???? 1 day, I just suddenly have a thought that I should make a Hello Kitty Cake. Because I remembered that I had bought a Hello Kitty tin mould some time back, and I did not use it at all... So here we have, the Hello Kitty Cake!!!!

This is actually the 2nd Hello Kitty Cake I made. It is much nicer & "prettier" than the 1st one... hahahaha....

In the picture below, you can see my HK tin mould, the HK sponge cake, and my 1st HK cake.

We realized that without the outline for the eyes, nose, whiskers & ribbon, it will looked even cuter & neater. :-p

Both girls can't wait to try the cake, no doubt it is jus plain strawberry sponge cake & cream... So they took a picture with the HK cake before the cutting ceremony....

Then, the HK cake was left half, eaten & tested by the 3 testers... hahahaha!!!
The HK cake was gone by next morning...

And here, 2 cakes below, decorated by Nic,

And this one, by Nat.
Guess, we all had fun with the cakes & cream!!! Yipee!!!

A Very Simple Black Forest Cake

This black forest cake is simply wonderful.

Although it is made with simple method & ingredients, it tasted fantastic!!!

This time round, install of making a big cake, I had divided my batter into 2 smaller tins, so that I can make 2 cakes instead... Fun;))

Now, the cake is ready to be tested!!! Hahaha!!!

This slice is actually meant for hubby to try but Mimi grabbed it first. hahaha!!!

We all love this black forest cake very much, simple & yummy!

Pretty cupcakes with fondant for Nic & her classmates

It's Thursday again... I am going to prepare some snacks for Nic to bring to her dancing class.

I actually wanted to do just a strawberry sponge cake for her to bring to school. But Nic had requested for cupcakes with icing onto of it..

The cupcakes were done by Nic.

Of course, I baked the sponge cakes, rolled the fondant, and cut out the shapes.

Nic cut out the alphabet for her classmates' names and placed the fondant on the cupcakes and decorated them.

Nice??

And the 12 lil cupcakes all nicely packed in box of 6 each...

Hope her classmates like them:))

Nic said next time she wants to be a baker, just like me... hmmmm....

Chocolate Banana Cake 2 - Alden's Birthday

My colleague had asked me to make a cake for her son's 13th Birthday which is tomorrow, 4th August. She said her son loves chocolate, and I asked her if a chocolate banana cake will be fine.

And so here we are, the birthday cake for Alden.

The cake is sandwiched with chocolate buttercream and top with fresh bananas, covered with a thin layer of the balance chocolate buttercream.

Refrigerate the cake for about 30 mins before coating the cake with the chocolate ganache.

For the chocolate buttercream, I use half of the portion recipe, which is more than enough. :-D

Decorate the cake as desired.

Chocolate Sponge Cake Recipe:
(A) 4 egg yolk, 16g sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
(B) 4 egg white
(C) 100g sugar
(D) 84g plain flour, 16g cocoa powder
(E) 50g corn flour

Method:
1. Whip (A) until light and fluffy.
2. In a separate clean bowl, whip (B) till soft peak. Add in (C), continue whipping until stiff peaks. 3. Mix egg white mixture into (A) until well-blended.
4. Fold in (D), mix well till well combined. Add in (D) and mix til well-corporated.
5. Pour it into a greased and lined round mould.
6. Bake at 180 degC for 30 mins. Remove cake from mould immediately.

Chocolate Buttercream
Ingredients:

1/2 cup (95g) shortening

1/2 cup (120g) butter, softened

3 oz (90g) cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

4 cups (400g) icing sugar

3-4 tbsp milk
Makes:About 3 cups of icing.

Method:
Stiff Consistency: In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add cocoa and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use. For best results, keep icing bowl in refrigerator when not in use. Refrigerated in an airtight container, this icing can be stored 2 weeks. Rewhip before using.


Chocolate ganache
150g whipping cream
300g chocolate
40g butter

Method:
Cook whipping cream until boil. Add it into dark chocolate, stir until completely melts. Add in butter, mix until well combined. Leave aside to cool and set for overnight.

Terribly Irresitable Tiramisu

Well, it's dessert time again.... I'm don't deny, I am a dessert person, having a sweet tooth for any kind of desserts... But of course, there are some which are of my favourites....;))

One of the is TIRAMISU.... hehehehe, all time favourite!!

TIRAMISU

I had already set my mind on doing the tiramisu after I got home from work. I told hubby that I was going to make one and he said, "Ok, but don't make such a big Tiramisu..."

After dinner, I started my Tiramisu project.... Boy... It is quite a challenge...!!
Ok, making the sponge for the tiramisu was easy... But the preparation for the cream was abit messy... This is the 1st time that my kitchen was loaded with all the bakewares.... hahaha...

I made tiramisu in 2 types of containers.

Hubby got up at 2am to make milk for Mimi. After I fed her with her milk, I decided to get back into my kitchen to check my tiramisu, as the tiramisu calls for at least a 5hr refrigeration.

Here, the Tiramisu is ready... And of course, IT'S YUMMY!!!!

All the mess in the kitchen, the washing up is well worthed it!!!

I will post up the recipe soon. :))