Basic Sponge Cake

The basic sponge is something I've always wanted to master. It is easy to make, versatile, and can be the go-to recipe for last-minute birthday cakes.

How to enjoy it?
- Simply on its own, for afternoon tea
- Fill it with jam and whipped cream to make the classic Victoria sponge
- Ice and decorate with basic buttercream if you want to give the cake a more presentable look

Ingredients
5 egg whites
70g caster sugar
(1 tsp vanilla essence, optional)

5 egg yolks
70g caster sugar

120g cake flour or 100g all purpose flour plus 20g corn flour, sifted twice to aerate
80g melted butter, cooled

1. Preheat oven to 180˚C. Like round baking tin with baking paper.

2. With an electric whisk, beat egg whites until light and foamy. Add caster sugar a little bit at a time. Whisk until stiff.

3. In another bowl, whisk egg yolks and caster sugar until mixture increases in volume and is pale in colour. Very gently fold beaten egg yolks into the egg white mixture.

4. Fold in cake flour a little at a time until mixture is homogenous. Take care not to overmix otherwise mixture will deflate.

5. Pour in melted butter and mix well.
** Melted butter tends to collect at the bottom of the mixing bowl so make sure all the butter is incorporated into the batter.

6. Pour into baking tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until wooden skewer comes out clean.
Invert tin and allow cake to cool before serving.


Sponge and chiffon cakes have a lot in common. They taste a little "eggy" and depend on the aeration of ingredients, instead of leavening agents, to help them rise. Once you master the folding techniques, they are really easy to make. So don't give up whenever you encounter failures. In the end it'll all be worth it :)

ps: Will post a picture when I bake it again in the future. Cannot stand iPhone quality photos.

xoxo

Molten Chocolate Cake

For my family when they came over to Adelaide

Okay one thing you should know about me is that I always have dessert after dinner :) Everytime I want to whip up something quick, this is the recipe I go back to, time and time again. It's not the PERFECT molten chocolate cake/chocolate lava cake, but for something you can make in 10 minutes (excluding baking time), you really can't expect any better.

Ingredients
100 g dark chocolate
100 g unsalted butter
2 large eggs
50 g caster sugar
30 g self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl in a microwave. Be careful not to burn the chocolate!
3. In a large bowl, whisk eggs and sugar until pale and frothy.
4. Pour melted chocolate and butter into the egg. Mix until just combined, then stir in flour.
5. Grease ramekins with melted butter and coat with cocoa powder. Fill up to about 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 10-11 minutes.
7. Remove from the oven and let cool for 1 minute. Loosen edges of ramekin with a knife and gently invert. Or if you can't be bothered, just eat it straight off the ramekin!

Enjoy!

Devil's Food Cake - Recipe

Sorry for the delay in updates! Been busy with assignments. Now that holiday's just begun, no excuses for not tending to this blog anymore I hope.

Found this amaaziingg recipe on this blog *click* and made a few changes, some accidental some not. The following is taken directly from the link, anything I did differently will be highlighted in red.

Devil's Food Cake

Ingredients
1/3 cup dutch-processed cocoa
1 tsp instant espresso powder
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup boiling water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 canola oil
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 jumbo eggs, at room temperature
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Note: Makes enough for two 9-in round cake pans

Lightly grease your cake pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, then grease again. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt onto a sheet of waxed paper. Set aside.

Set your cup of water to boil. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine the cocoa, espresso powder, and chocolate. Pour the boiling water into the mixture and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Stir in the vanilla extract. Allow the mixture to cool, then stir in the buttermilk.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and oil together until light and fluffy. Beat in the sugars. Then, beat in the eggs one at a time. Add one third of the reserved flour mixture, beating until just combined. Beat in half of the chocolate-buttermilk mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, before adding in another third of the flour mixture. Add the rest of the chocolate-buttermilk mixture, beating until just combined. Last, beat in the remaining flour mixture, beating until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans, and spread evenly. Pans should be about half-way full. Bake layers for 25-30 min, until a tester inserted into the middle of both layers comes out clean. Allow layers to cool.

Chocolate Mousse Buttercream

Ingredients
6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tbsp dutch-processed cocoa
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
6 sticks cold unsalted butter (Note: the frosting will emulsify more easily if the butter has been allowed to soften just a bit)
10 oz semi-sweet melted chocolate

(1/2 or 1/3 the above recipe if you don't like to overload your cake with icing)

Fill a large saute pan with water, and set to simmer over medium-high heat. While the water heats up, whisk the eggs, sugar, and cocoa together in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Once the water is simmering, place the mixing bowl into the water. Whisk the egg-sugar-cocoa mixture constantly until the mixture becomes thick, and the sugar is completely dissolved.

Remove the mixing bowl from the simmering water, and return it to the stand mixer. Whisk on medium-high speed for about 10 min, until the bowl is cool to the touch. The mixture will be light, fluffy, and will just have reached the soft-peak stage. Once cool, lightly mix in the vanilla and salt.

While the egg-mixture is being whisked, unwrap the sticks of butter from their original paper wrappers, and rewrap them in plastic wrap. Beat them with a rolling pin until they become a little more malleable. Once the egg-mixture has been fully mixed, add in the sticks of butter, about 2 tbsp at a time, with the mixer at medium-high speed. The frosting will appear curdled at first, but keep beating until it becomes smooth and shiny. It may take some extra time for the frosting to smooth out, but keep going until the butter is completely emulsified. Once it has reached its proper consistency, add in the melted chocolate to taste. Fold it in lightly, until the chocolate is fully incorporated.

........................................................................

With this cake, I used Jumbo eggs (800g per dozen) because they're what I usually get, hence the fudgy consistency - which is nothing to complain about! But most recipes call for large eggs (600g per dozen) so it is definitely handy to have them in your fridge.

The amount of brown sugar used was reduced to 3/4 cups, which was the right decision as the cake turned out to be just the right sweetness with the already sweet buttercream frosting.

The recipe for the chocolate mousse buttercream I found had too much leftovers, even after I halved it so 1/3 the recipe would be best, unless you're one for loads of icing on your cake.

Other than that, this recipe's a keeper! Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

I'll be making a Tiramisu cake this weekend for my family when they come over so that should be up next :)

Devil's Food Cake

Made this Sunday night for a birthday. So chocolatey and fudgy, and with a hint of instant coffee granules.. It's heaven!

Frosted the cake with chocolate mousse buttercream. Very sinful, and because of it's richness, it is best to have just a small slice at once.

Recipe will be up in my next post! Stay tuned :)

Marble Cake

The last time I attempted making marble cake was a few years ago when I was still ignorant when it comes to baking and proportions. It was a random recipe I grabbed off a book that required 500 grams of flour for a loaf of cake. My mum got home and saw the cake, it was obviously dry and too heavy, and she immediately asked "How much flour did you put in there?". "500 grams, is that a lot?" -.- Omg *runs and hides* That was back in the days. Now I only trust recipes that get a lot of good reviews. Books? Not unless I know who the author/pastry chef is.

I was having a craving for marble cake not long ago. Remembering those days when the roti man would come around our neighbourhood every evening, and often I'd get a slice of pre-packed marble cake from the tower of breads behind his motorcycle for 50 cents.

This recipe is one I happened to chance upon while Googling marble cake, and it linked to the original blogger's site *click*. The marble cake seemed too good to be true. With a short trip to the grocery store to get some plain yoghurt, my sudden craving was satisfied that very day.

All in all, this cake was definitely one of the more moist and less buttery (without compromising its fluffiness) cakes I've made. Yoghurt in baking is something new to me, it does wonders to the cake's texture and taste!

Recipe adapted from House of Annie
(I've converted the measurements to the metric system for those of us who are more used to it)

340 g unsalted butter, softened
400 g sugar
6 extra-large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
360 g plain flour
1/2 cup plain yoghurt
1/2 cup milk
100 g dark choc
1 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Melt chocolate in 20s increments in the microwave.
3. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 20s after each one.
5. Add vanilla, mix well.
6. Sift dry ingredients into the mixture in 3 parts. Interspersing with yoghurt and milk. Stir gently.
7. Take out half of the batter, place in a buttered and floured baking tin. Mix the other half with chocolate and cocoa powder and add to the baking tin.
8. Twirl batter using a figure 8 motion.
9. Bake for 40 minutes in a loaf tin. Cool for 10 minutes, then invert!

For more detailed instructions, please check out Annie's site.