Cherries Butter Cake (樱桃牛油蛋糕）

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

I have not prepare butter cake for quite a while and suddenly I have a craving for it.

I searched the kitchen cabinet and found a pack of diced glazed cherries that was leftover from the preparation of Biskuit Dahlia or daisy biscuits. Immediately, it reminded me of the cherries butter cake that we used to eat when we are young.

When I was young, I can recall that diced cherry is a common item in bakes and usually comes in either green or red. It was even more popular than raisins and other nuts. i am unsure of the reasons but probably because it is much cheaper than raisins and other nuts.

I told members of a Facebook group that this is “an old man cake” because it is much denser than sponge and chiffon and it cracked like a “volcano”! Possibly because of my age and sex, I do prefer denser cake than those fluffier or airy cakes that require egg separation method …

However, ladies members are requesting for recipes and most have said that their spouse like this type of denser butter cake! In fact, it shocked me that there are still “markets” for this classic type of denser butter cake.. Ha-ha

Preparation is fast and easy. It is a very small cake prepared using only 2 eggs and the common creaming method. It is slightly different from the traditional butter cake as I have added some ingredients such as creams and condensed milk to enhance the texture of the cake. Traditional lemon glaze was drizzled over the cake to give the cake some lemony tanginess flavour.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: Prepare a 6” x 6” square baking tin

140 grams of self raising flour
125 grams of butter, at room temperature
100 grams of diced glazed cherries
80 grams of sugar
50 grams of fresh cream or fresh milk
50 grams of condensed milk
2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional)

Lemon Glaze (optional)

1/4 cup of icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 160 degree Celsius

Lightly grease an 6” x 6” baking tin preferably with a detachable base. Alternatively, line the baking tin with parchment paper.
Put one tablespoon of self raising flour on the dice cherries and coat it as evenly as possible.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add in the vanilla essence, eggs, condensed milk and use slow speed to “mix” until well combined. Eggs should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl.
Sift in 1/3 of the self raising flour and fresh cream and use the spatula to quickly fold in the flour.. Continue with the remaining 2/3 until all the flour and fresh cream are added.

Add the flour coated diced cherries, lightly and swiftly stir until well mixed. Transfer to the baking tin, level and bake in the oven (at the lowest shelf) at 160 degree Celsius at 30-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. The baking time is for your reference and depends very much of the size of baking tin. Skewer test is still the final test. Transfer to a rack for cooling.

For lemon glaze, stir the icing sugar and lemon juice until well combined resembling a paste and drizzle over the cool cake. If the glaze is too dry, add lemon juice DROP by DROP. If the glaze is too wet, add additional icing sugar TEASPOON by TEASPOON. Cut only when completely cooled.

CONCLUSION

There is nothing to shout about this butter cake. It is a rather classic butter cake with slight modification. In my humble opinion, I do not think that it is necessary for readers to go and buy cherries just for the cake unless you missed eating the cherries. You will have a hard time finishing the diced cherries as the packing can be rather big. Do feel free to change it to other butter cake like almond, walnut or even raisin butter cake..

Don’t worry about the sweetness and the recipe had been adjusted to take into consideration of the sweetness from diced cherries and condensed milk. However, if you are using other nuts rather than glazed cherries, you may want to add additional 10 grams of sugar to your cake.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 28 July 2014) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts.

You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.
If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

Guaishushu’s Report Card–Top 30 posts For The First Blogging Year From 1-5-2013 t0 30-4-2014

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Kenneth Goh

5 POSTS THAT I THINK IT SHOULD BE IN BUT NOT IN THE LISTING

These are posts that I believed should squeeze in the top 30 listing but probably not because of their late issuance or lack of promotion of the posts.

“40 Minutes Bread Roll” with Sarawak Butter Bun’s Filling (四十分钟快速面包和特有牛油馅)

A Cuisine With A Long Chinese History– Dongpo Meat (东波肉）

Hey, I have invented my own Sarawak Laksa Paste Recipe !!!……… An In Depth Analysis and Pictorial Procedural Description Of The Famous Sarawak Laksa (PART II)

Back To Basics–Modified Traditional Butter Pound Cake

Back To Traditional Recipe of 1egg：1sugar：1flour- Traditional Steamed Sponge Cake (古早味鸡蛋糕）

CONCLUSION

Guaishushushu have issued slightly more than 300 recipes last year and the above accounted for about 10% of the recipes. If you are interested to get more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here. Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 21 March 2014) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 1800 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes. Currently there are about 4500 members sharing various food photos . I would be more than happy if you can post in Groups for the recipes that you tried from Guaishushu’s blog.

Another Alternative To Butter Cake–Cream Cheese Butter Cake (奶酪牛油蛋糕）

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

This is not a difficult bake but it produces a moist texture. Incorporating cream cheese to butter cake is rather uncommon but it help to moisten the cake. On the other hand, it did make the cake a bit denser..It is not the fluffy type of butter cake that you are looking at, it is a more compact type of moist butter cake.

I have really nothing much to write about this recipe. Again, it is my own recipe and from my own experimentation. I have experimented this at home and if the recipe succeeded, I will share it with readers and for readers to try out..

As the cake is very plain, I have decided to do some pattern with the cake, dusting some cocoa powder in between the cake. However, that is totally not necessary because it is for home consumption. the topographic effect will become more obvious if you divide the dough into 3 portions and have one colour for each portion.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: One 9” x 9” cake

250 grams of butter (at room temperature)
250 grams of cream cheese (at room temperature)
4 eggs
300 grams of self raising flour
100 grams of fresh milk
250 grams of castor sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional and not in picture)
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder for dusting (optional)

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius

Lightly grease an 9” x 9” baking tin preferably with a detachable base.

Cream the butter, sugar and cream cheese until light and fluffy, add in the vanilla essence and eggs and use slow speed to “mix” until well combined. Eggs should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl. Sift in 1/3 of the self raising flour and milk and use the spatula to quickly fold in the flour.. Continue with the remaining 2/3 until all the flour and milk are added.

Transfer one third of the batter to the baking tin, level and dust a tablespoon of the cocoa powder on top of the first layer. Add another one third of the batter on top of the cocoa powder, level and dust another tablespoon of the cocoa powder on top of the second layer. Pour the remaining 1/3 of the flour on top of the cocoa powder, level and bake in the oven (at the lowest shelf) at 180 degree Celsius at 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

If you noted the surface turning brownish too soon, lower the temperature to 165 degree Celsius and continue baking until the cake is cooked. It may take a bit longer and skewer test is still the final test. You can also turn off the top heat when you sighted the burnt, continue to cook until the last 15 minutes and on the top heat again.

CONCLUSION

Do give it a try and you will be surprised with the texture. To achieve maximum topographic effect, you can add some permitted food colouring and that will give you a cake that impress your guest…

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 10th February 2014) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 1500 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD. You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes.

Back To Basics–Modified Traditional Butter Pound Cake

Posted on December 14, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

This is not my first post on pound cake or butter cake, but this is the modified version of my one number baking ratio pound cake issued a few month’s back. (Basic Pound Cake). You can refer to the post to see the waves of dramatic discussions in that post. I found that I did not do justice to this recipe. I am preparing the cake based on the traditional recipe but with the inclusion of one portion of milk, the cake was moist and soft. I do not plan to elaborate further on the history of this cake and if readers are interested in how I come out with this recipe, please refer to the recipe link above.

It is not uncommon to hear complaints from elders that the butter cake in recent days are not as aromatic as the olden days. I do concur as I found that the current butter do lack of some traditional buttery aroma. Therefore, in this recipe, I have modified to include the use of a clarified butter (ghee) to boost the butter aroma.

Since one of my Facebook friend is requesting for a butter cake recipe that have no baking powder, I have used plain flour instead of self raising flour. However, I still used 1/2 small teaspoon of baking powder and the cake rose rather well. I seriously believed that even if I do not use baking powder, the number of eggs will be adequate for the cake to rise on itself. To have an even finer butter cake texture, I have resorted to the use of icing sugar instead of castor sugar. Yes, the cake is even finer.

Overall I am rather happy with the cake aroma and texture but i am unhappy with the “holes” on my cake. I am unsure how the holes come about but I believed it is due to the uneven mix of my baking powder during the sifting of flours. Hope readers can bear with me with these small holes . it never appeared in all my previous bakes as you can see in my earlier posts.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: 8” square cake

150 grams of butter, soften at room temperature
100 grams of ghee (or butter)
250 grams of eggs
250 grams of plain flour
250 grams of icing sugar or castor sugar (divide into 100grams and 150 grams respectively)
250 grams of milk
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

Note that you can either use whole eggs or eggs by grams (meaning 250 grams). I have used 6 whole eggs which worked out to be 300 grams, any excess eggs will be deducted from the milk volume, and my milk volume was 250 grams of milk minus (300-250) grams of excess eggs used = 200 grams of actual milk used. Instead of using 250grams egg, 250grams milk, I am using 300grams eggs and 200 grams milk. I prefer to use whole eggs since it is rather difficult to measure the eggs exactly, therefore, I reduced it from my milk volume.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius

Lightly grease an 8” x 8” baking tin preferably with a detachable base.

In a big mixing bowl, place your egg whites and beat using the machine whisk to whisk the egg whites until firm peak. Note that the bowl have to be extremely clean, dry and free of any oils.

When the volume expands, add in the sugar (100g) gradually, beat until thick and glossy and until all the sugars dissolved. Spoon the filling into a clean bowl and set aside for later use.

Change your whisk to a K beater (look at the second picture for the shape). Place your remaining 150 g sugar,ghee and butter, beat until light and creamy.Add in the vanilla essence and eggs yolks and use slow speed to “mix” until well mixed. Eggs yolk should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg yolk settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl.

Shift the flour into the mixing bowl, use the machine lowest speed to stir until well mix. Add in milk gradually until all milk were added. Take out the mixing bowl.

Fold in the egg whites as swiftly and lightly possible until all the ingredients are well mixed.

Transfer the batter into the baking tin and baked at 180 degree Celsius from the first 30 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 165 degree Celsius and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until the top turn yellowish brown and until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Note that this cake is moist and rather dense, hence, it is important to ensure that the cake is cooked. If it is not cooked, just extend the cooking hour and reduce the temperature by 10 degrees switching off the top heat.

Transfer it to a wire rack and let it cool for at least 1 hour before cutting the cake. It is best to let it rest overnight if time permits.

CONCLUSION

This a simple butter cake modified from the traditional pound cake theory. It will be a good choice if it was served during Christmas House gathering. Is it not good to revert to having some simple, traditional cakes during Christmas. Do give it a try. Characteristic of this butter cake is soft, moist and fragrant and please let me know whether or not if you like it. I would appreciate your comments.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

I am submitting this to the “Baby Sumo’s Christmas Recipes Collection 2013“ event which is hosted by Baby Sumo of Eat Your Heart Out.

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 400 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD

Another One Number Baking Ratio Adventures (7).. Sugee Almond Cake

Posted on October 8, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

UPDATED POST ON 4-11-2014

I have not bake this cake for almost one year and start to crave for this cake with unique texture.. I told my friends, I loved this cake, not a bit but a lot. It is slightly chewy and it is not as oily as those normal butter cake. I have decided to change my recipe to substitute plain flour with almond flour or almond meal. Therefore, this cake have no plain flour. Depending on the type of semolina flour that you used, if it is a product from buckwheat, this cake can be considered as gluten free.. If the semolina flour is produced from durum wheat, it will not be gluten free.

I also did not use baking powder for this cake, purely leavened by eggs . I love the dense and chewy unique texture. It is a cake good for festivals and you can use this as a festival cake by gradually infusing alcohol to enhance the moistness and flavour.. For kids consumption, I did not do intend to add in any alcoholic drink..

Please scroll down for the new Recipe 2 (without plain flour version).

INTRODUCTION

In Singapore, usually one package of semolina flour will weigh 500 g and costs less than SGD2 depending on the brands. However, being a Chinese, there are not many cuisines that use semolina flour as the ingredients. I have issued a post of Indian Short Bread Cookies – Nan Khatai that uses semolina flour and ghee, it was quite well received and a number of readers who tried the recipes still have lots of semolina flour left. They are asking what shall they do with the semolina flour? That recipe only called for 50 grams of semolina flour and effectively, they still have 45o grams of semolina flour left in their kitchen shelf. I have promised those readers that I will provide a recipe of SUGEE ALMOND CAKE, a traditional Malaysian Singaporean Eurasian festival cake that also uses semolina flour …

SUGEE CAKES DEFINED

Rather surprisingly, Sugee cake is included in Wikipedia’s explanation of Singapore’s cuisines, it was written:

“Sugee cake, a soft cake made with semolina flour and a high concentration of egg yolks; served in Eurasian, Malay, and Chinese cuisine.” (Source: Http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singaporean_cuisine)

Sugee cake is traditionally treated as a festival cake usually served in Kristang families both as a happy occasion cake (Christmas, birthdays, weddings) and sombre occasion such as funerals. In fact, it is also a type of cake for the Christmas. Kristang are local Portuguese descendent Eurasians in Singapore and West Malaysia. The popularity of this cake however has extended to other races such as Chinese, Malay and Indian households.

Effectively, this is a type of butter cakes made using semolina flour and large quantity of egg yolks. It had a special texture, a big chewy and unlike cakes that uses the normal flour, it is denser. Though dense, it is easy to down the throat and in fact, both my wife and me have concurred that it is another way of appreciating the butter cake. Chewy, buttery, aromatic and moist.

There are many recipes of sugee cakes in the internet, some called for pan frying the semolina flour or soaking of semolina flour in butter, some called for use of brandy or other fruits alcohol, some used less eggs and some used lot of egg yolks.. However, I have adapted the recipe from http://sg.theasianparent.com/sugee-cake-recipe-award-winning/.

Since this recipe do not vary very much from my proposed “one baking number ratio”, I have made slight modifications so that it conform with my believes of using just one number in preparing the ingredients. If you are interested to read more about my “one number baking ratio” adventures, you can refer to the following posts – Basic Pound Cake, Peanut Butter Muffins, Fruits Dates Cakes, Zebra Patterned Pound Cake and Grapefruit Cognac Pound Cake.

RECIPE 1 (PLAIN FOUR VERSION) – please scroll down for recipe 2 (without plain flour version)

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from: AWARD WINNING SUGEE CAKE RECIPE from http;//sg.theasianparent.com

Make an 8’ square baking tin

250 grams of semolina flour

250 grams of plain flour (sift and set aside)

250 grams of castor sugar

250 grams of butter (at room temperature)

250 grams of eggs (use 6 eggs – see calculation below) – separated into egg yolks and egg whites)

250 grams of milk or less subject to eggs volume (balancing – see calculation below)

half cups of grounded almond

3 teaspoons of baking power (sift together with plain flour and set aside)

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence OR 1-2 teaspoons of brandy or whisky

Calculation of milks required based actual weight of this illustration:

In this illustration, 6 eggs weighed about 318 grams

Milk volume = 250 g of milk – Excess volume of eggs = 250 g – (318g – 250g) = 182 g of milk

Alternatively, you can use 6 eggs and 120ml of milk as in the original recipes. This recipe have about 60 g more milk which it moister.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Preparation

Pre-heat oven to 150 degree Celsius

Line a 8” square baking tin with parchment paper

Preparing the meringue (Beating of egg whites)

In a big mixing bowl, place your egg whites and beat using the machine whisk to whisk the egg whites until firm peak. Note that the bowl have to be extremely clean, dry and free of any oils.
When the volume expands, add in about 5 tablespoons of sugar gradually, beat until thick and glossy and until all the sugars dissolved. Spoon the filling into a clean bowl and set aside for later use.

Preparing the batters and folding of flours

Change your whisk to a K beater (look at the second picture for the shape). Place your remaining sugar and butter, beat until light and creamy. Add in the vanilla essence and eggs yolks and use slow speed to “mix” until well mixed. Eggs yolk should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg yolk settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl.
Once well mixed, put 1/3 of plain flours, semolina flours, ground almonds and fresh milk and use the slowest speed to let it “stir” for 2-3 cycles.

Repeat the same for the remaining two third dry ingredients and milks. Once well mixed, take the mixing bowl out.

Folding of egg whites

Once well mixed, use a big spoon or spatula and fold in the egg white swiftly and lightly until the batter are smooth.

Baking the Cake

Bake in the oven at 180 degree Celsius for the first 15 minutes and turn down the temperature to 150 degree Celsius for the remaining 45-60 minutes or when the skewer inserted come out clean. When you note signs of burnt, just use some metal to cover the cake tin.

Recipe 2 (Without Plain Flour Version)

250 grams of melted butter
250 grams of semolina flour
250 grams of almond meal or almond flour
250 grams of castor sugar
50 grams of milk (optional)
6 eggs (separated into egg white and egg yolks)
2-3 teaspoons of brandy or whisky (optional)

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Mixed the semolina flour with the melted butter. Let it soaked for at least 4 hours .

Pre-heat the oven to 150 degree Celsius.

In a whisking bowl, whisk the sugar (leave 2 tablespoons for egg white) and egg yolk until light and pale. Add the brandy, milk, soaked semolina flour followed by almond meal. Stir until well combine and resemble a sticky paste.

Beat the egg white until soft peak with the 2 tablespoons of sugar.

Fold the egg white to the thick yolk batter in 3 phases. Transfer the batter to a greased 8” inches square tin and bake in the pre-heated oven of 150 degree Celsius for about 45 minutes or when a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Best serve after resting one night as the cake will start to get moister. If preferred, can further infuse more alcohol and can be used as a festival cake.

CONCLUSION

As it is a very dense cake (about 1.8 kg), a crack may be inevitable… Some international members have commented that a crack signifies that it is a “cake” with character…. It is such a consolation statement to me. The crack do become smaller after 8 hours of resting. Personally, to me that is rather irrelevant to me since the cake is very tasty. It is moist because semolina can better absorb more liquids and butters than plain flour. It goes well with icing or cream or just plain with a cup of coffee.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 15 October 2014) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit the blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE to keep abreast of my future posts.

You can also join the FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED FACEBOOK GROUP to see more recipes. Currently there are about 11,500 members sharing various food photos . I am posting my daily home cooked food in the above Facebook Group daily. I would be more than happy if you can post in the Group for the recipes that you tried from my blog.
If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me where there are more than 2600 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

Old Man Like Old Cuisines–Traditional Butterfly Cupcakes

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

Today is Children’s day, my kids are not schooling and they are sleeping now. I have the time to issue this short post which I have dragged for quite a while. The first batch of this butterfly cupcakes were made about 2 month’s ago and for the second batch of the cupcakes, I have prepared it 2 day’s ago for my girl to bring to the school to celebrate children’s day.

This is not a new and trendy recipe. This is a rather traditional recipe and some of my friends have said that they have prepared these cupcakes about 20 years ago when they studied home economics.. That shocked me! When I posted the images in a Google plus communities, some of the members are asking me for the recipe and the same when I posted up in Facebook Groups. Apparently, traditional baked products do attract attentions too.

As contrast to the trendy cupcake where it’s soft and fluffy decorated with beautiful fondant icings or whipped cream, this cupcake is dense and taste like butter cake. In my own Facebook timeline, I have written: It looked like the baked version of Chinese steamed sponge cake, it shaped like a muffin (see note below) and it tasted like a butter cake, fully of buttery aromatic flavour. The muffin shape of the “cupcake” was my mistake. As I did not have any cupcake cup with me, I have used the muffin cups and I hoped readers can follow the recipe to use the cupcake cups. This will double the number of cupcakes baked ….

As expected, the cupcakes were quite dense, unlike current trendy cupcakes, they were neither prepared by the egg separation method nor the creaming method, it is prepared by a simple mixing (followed by whisking) method of combining all ingredients together. This is one of the easiest recipe I have ever prepared but shall I say, the taste was awesome due to its rich aromatic buttery fragrance. Some traditional schools called for the cake to go with buttercream but this recipe called for the usage of whipped cream which is in line with the current trends of the health conscious society.

While I always think that whipped cream is part of decoration and optional, for these cupcakes, due to its dense nature, the whipped cream really compliments the taste and bring the palate to another levels of enjoyment. As the amount of sugar in this recipe is relatively less, the incorporation of strawberry jam was just right for a sweet tooth like me. In my humble opinion, it was very well thought of the recipe provider to incorporate both the whipped cream and strawberry jam in the cupcakes.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from : Butterfly Cakes from “The Essential Baking Cookbook” published by Murdoch Books in year 2000 page 40

Serving: About 24 cup cakes or 12 muffin sizes cakes

250 grams unsalted butter (softened)

320 grams granulated sugar

380 grams self raising flour

250 grams of fresh milk

4 eggs lightly beaten

4 teaspoons of vanilla essences

For decoration

1 cup of cream whipped to soft peaks

Some strawberry jam

Icing sugar to dust

STEPS OF PREPARATION

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.

Line 24 cupcakes cup in a baking tray. Alternatively you can use shallow muffin tins with paper cups. (note that in this illustration, I have used the muffin cups instead of cupcakes cups. But this is not advisable as it is slightly big in its presentation.)

In a big mixing bowl, put all ingredients marked together. Beat using electric beaters on low speed for 2 minutes and continue to beat at high speed for another 2 minutes until pale and light.

Transfer the batter equally into cupcake cups and bake in the oven for 20 minutes or until the skewer inserted come out clean. Transfer to rack to let it cool completely before the next step.

Use a sharp knife, cut shallow rounds from the top of the cupcakes. Cut the top into half. Pump some whipped creams into the whole and put back the two halves on top of the whipped creams.

Dust with some icing sugar and put some strawberry jam on top of the whipped cream. Best serve with a cup of hot tea or coffee as a snack or party items.

CONCLUSION

From the recipe, you will know it is a rather old schools of cupcake preparation. However, I have always treasure and respect these old schools of baking as it brings fond memories. While I have never tasted this before, but one of the members in a Facebook Group has kindly highlighted to me that there is a shop in Singapore that is selling this snack now. I am unsure where is the shop but it signifies that besides me, lots of people are fond of having traditional cuisines.

Be it muffins, cupcakes, cakes, quick breads, I am confused. What I can assure you is that it tasted nice and the simplicity in its method of preparation is really worth a try.

Have a nice day and cheers.

Updated on 26-April-2014

Today, my friends from Kuala Lumpur insist to meet up with me In Singapore. They called at the last minute and I have only 2 hours to prepare some hand gifts for them.

Therefore, I have used this traditional recipe and prepared some blackberry cupcakes for them. I have made the decision because it is one of the easiest and fastest cupcake recipe.

I have put a scope of tangy ready made blackberry jam in the cupcake, topped up with batter. After baking, I have put additional blackberry jam and sprinkle some chopped almonds.

Just sharing here that the recipe can be easy modified to meet our needs.

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 21 March 2014) here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .

1 Butter + 1 Sugar + 1Egg + 1 Flour + 1 Milk = Pound/Butter Cake-Guaishushu’s Version

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

INTRODUCTION

I am contemplating whether I should publish this post to share with readers. A 95% successful simple butter cake, after long thoughts and since some readers are requesting it, I have decided to share.

The next question is is it in this blog or its sister Facebook Page, Guaishushu’s Facebook Page, the answer is here because there are too many pictures to squeeze into the Facebook Page.

It followed by another question as to the name of the cake, there are so many versions of this cake floating over the net, I have decided to term it as Mrs. NgSK’s Butter Cake-Guaishushu’s Version.

Added On 14 August 2013

Subsequent to discussion with Ms. Wendy ( her blog is mentioned as follows), as the Guaishushu’s version is materially different from Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake as in her blog, therefore, I have decided to rename the cake as Pound/Butter Cake – Guaishushu’s version.

WHY THIS CAKE…

I have quite a detailed description of why I decided to make this cake including the recipe source and the reasons why it is called NgSK’s butter cake and you can refer here. Very briefly, Table for 2, a rather famous blogger in Malaysia is thanking a lady named Mrs. Ng SK for providing her a recipe that makes her butter cake with a flat top and crack less. You can read more from her blog here.

I have only followed her method of separate beating of egg whites and egg yolks, other than that volume of each ingredients is using my own traditional pound cake recipe. In addition, the steps that she detailed is also different from mine. Therefore, the name Guaishushu’s version were used.

WHAT IS REQUIRED

The uniqueness of my recipe is it is extremely flexible and easy to remember. Look at the ingredients and you shall concur with me that it is an easy recipe to remember.

250 g of salted butter
250 g of sugar (divided into 150 g and 100g for beating egg whites)
250 g of self raising flour – sifted and set aside
250 g of eggs or 5 eggs separated into egg whites and egg yolks
250 g of fresh milk
2 tablespoons of vanilla essence

Note:

For the eggs, it is rather hard to get exactly 250 g. It is absolutely okay with that. What you need to do is for any excess volume of the eggs, you just deduct the excess from the fresh milk. For example, one egg is 58g and 5 eggs will work out to be 290g. Therefore excess eggs will be 290g –250g = 40g. You milk will become 250-40g = 210g. Another way of expressing it will be eggs + fresh milk = 500 g where eggs shall not be less than 250g.

STEPS OF PREPARATION

The steps of preparation will involve:

Beating of egg whites
Creaming of butters
Folding of flours and egg whites
Baking

Preparation…

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius

Lightly grease an 8” x 8” baking tin preferably with a detachable base.

Beating of egg whites…….

In a big mixing bowl, place your egg whites and beat using the machine whisk to whisk the egg whites until firm peak. Note that the bowl have to be extremely clean, dry and free of any oils.

When the volume expands, add in the sugar (100g) gradually, beat until thick and glossy and until all the sugars dissolved. Spoon the filling into a clean bowl and set aside for later use.

Creaming of butter

Change your whisk to a K beater (look at the second picture for the shape). Place your remaining 150 g sugar and butter, beat until light and creamy.

Add in the vanilla essence and eggs yolks and use slow speed to “mix” until well mixed. Eggs yolk should be added one by one and scrap the bottom of the bowl to ensure no unmixed egg yolk settled at the bottom of the mixing bowl.

Off the machine and bring out the mixing bowl.

Folding of flours and egg whites…..

Use a big metal spoon or wooden spoon or a spatula, quickly and swiftly fold in fresh milk and the sifted flours. Alternate between fresh milk and sifted flours.

Once well mixed, fold in the egg white swiftly and lightly until the batter are smooth.

The Baking Process ……

Transfer the batter into the baking tin and baked at 180 degree Celsius from the first 30 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 150 degree Celsius and bake for another 15 minutes or until the top turn yellowish brown and until a skewer comes out cleaned.

Transfer it to a wire rack and let it cool for at least 1 hour before cutting the cake. It is best to let it rest overnight if time permits.

Note that the demo picture here have a slight burnt on top and if you want to know the reasons you can refer to this post where I have explained my eagerness to get my cake done by upping the temperature.

CONCLUSION

This cake’s recipe is based on the traditional pound cake ratio of one each for each ingredients. Therefore it is easy for the readers to remember the recipe.

The critical success factors of this cake is the separate beating of egg whites and egg yolks and the folding of flours and beaten egg whites into the batter. In the original recipe of Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake, Wendy the blogger advised that don’t be stingy with butter and her ratio of butter to flour is much higher than mine. My ratio is 1:1 whereas her ratio is 1:0.83. However, my ratio of milk to flour ratio is 1:1 whereas hers is 33%. Therefore, my butter cake is moister (in terms of water content) as compared to hers.

It is possible to achieve the flat top with no crack if readers adhere to what is written above. It is rather usual in the process of baking, the cake have a rise in the middle and that very much depends on your oven temperature. However, for this recipe, as the cake is very light therefore the centre is also easier to cook. It will drop to the same level after cooling.

With this process, I tend to agree with WendyinKK of Table of 2 that we are not jinxed to have a crack cake. It is the recipe that I previously used are not correct!

Cheers and have a nice day.

Results of second cake baked the days after

What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 2-8-2013

Posted on August 2, 2013 by Kenneth Goh

On 2-August 2013,

SIAMESE LAKSA

Today, we are having Siamese Laksa for dinner.

First of all, I have to clarify that Siamese Laksa is different from Mee Siam, another common noodle dish in Singapore and Malaysia.

This noodle dish is rather common in Northern Peninsular Malaysia near the border of Thailand. However, it is not common in Southern Peninsular Malaysia, East Malaysia and Singapore. I come from the State of Sarawak, East Malaysia, theoretically I shouldn’t know about this dish. However, it is such a coincidence that one of my secondary school teacher who is also a friend of my late mother is from Penang. She taught my mother how to cook this. Before my mother passed away, she cooked this laksa pretty often and I really love it. If you like Assam Laksa and Curry Laksa, it is something like a mixture of both, creamy and slightly sour and spicy. It is both tamarind base and coconut milk based.

As this dish is not popular in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, I don’t really ever eaten it besides those that were cooked by my mum. When I do a recipe check, I found out that the ingredients used are common ingredients that were also used by my mum, therefore, the taste should be quite close and similar. My wife who has never eaten this noodle dish before also concurred that the dish is delicious.

What puzzled me now is why is it not popular in Southern Peninsular Malaysia as the taste is not uniquely special. In fact, there is not much information on this laksa’s origin. I am still contemplating whether or not I should share my own recipe. If on the grounds that as long as the food is delicious, whether authentic or not, recipe should be shared then I should share and may be shall I called it Guaishushu’s Siamese Laksa. Haha

Very briefly, fishes were boiled and flaked. After slow frying the spice mix (galangal, turmeric, lemon grass, shallots, ginger, garlics), fish broth , kafir lime leaves, daun kesom and rojak flower were added and bring to boil under high heat. Belachan, tamarind juice and fish meat were then added to the broth. When boiled, coconut milk were added. It was usually thick rice vermicelli served with julienned cucumbers, pineapples, beansprouts and garnished with mint leaves and lime.

SARAWAK BEAN SPROUT NOODLES

For lunch, I have cooked this noodle dish for my kids as it is easier to prepare and I knew they would like it. They like it because it is sweet and that is also the reason I like it…Haha

Sarawak have a very unique noodle dish called bean sprout noodles (豆芽面)。

The basic ingredients can be as simple as only yellow noodles, bean sprout, sweet thickened dark soya sauce, garlic. The thick sweetened dark soya sauce were made of dark soya sauce and nipah palm sugar (Gula Apong). Minced garlic was stir fried until brownish, add in dark sweet soya sauce. Stirred fried until well mixed, add in bean sprout just 1 minutes before you off the heat!

That is the simplest form we have and is called Tauge Mee Kosong (Plain Bean Sprout Noodles). However, with the affluence of the society and influence from West Malaysia, there are more and more variations of the noodles that include eggs, cockles, fish cakes and etc. It resemble the Penang Char Kway tiao. The only difference is that Penang char Kway teow is a savory dish whereas Sarawak Tauge Mee is a sweet noodle dish.

MRS. NGSK’S BUTTER CAKE

My third cooking adventure of the day is making a butter cake, or more precise Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake from http://wendyinkk.blogspot.sg. This name is rather funny right? Well, most bakers are not able to make a butter cake following traditional butter cake recipes that yields a flat top non crack butter cake. This rather famous blogger take the courage to ask one of her church members why every time her cake is so perfect, flat and without any cracks. Apparently, the church member (Mrs. NgSK) is very helpful and provide her the recipe. She followed the recipe and come out the perfect cake that she wanted. She therefore shared the recipe on her blog and requested this recipe be named as Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake. She concluded that:

“Obviously, I am not jinxed for butter crack cakes. It is the recipe, not me, LOL”

Early in the day when I looked at my friend’s timeline, one of my blogger friends mentioned about this Mrs. NgSK’s butter cake and the funny name of the cake caught my immediate attention. So, I goggled and find the above blog. I did not read in detail but what really impressed me is her cake, cake that is flat and crack less. I read the ingredients, nothing special and I want to try whether or not this preparation method can give me a butter cake that I admired.

In the afternoon, I start the preparation but I have chosen not to follow her recipe exactly. I alter the volume of raw ingredients used. I used the very basic traditional pound cake recipe of 1 butter: 1 egg ; 1 flour : 1 sugar. However, for the preparation method, I have follow her method by separate beating of egg whites and egg yolks. Everything look perfect even the uncooked batter. From my experience, it is going to be a good cake.

I send the cake into the oven and everything goes well in the first 15 minutes, then it suddenly start to shape like a volcano and with small cracks. The colour is perfect and I thought it is gone because I can’t get a flat top butter cake without cracks. I tested the batter, obviously it is not cooked since the middle is still very wet. As the middle is still uncooked, I make a wrong decision to up the temperature hopefully it can speed up the process of baking the cake. 5 minutes after when I looked at the cake, the cake was slightly burn in the top, I tested again and it is cooked.

I become very disappointed as I have wasted my half day’s effort. I took it out from the oven and in a matter of 15 minutes, it start to “shrink” and become a flat cake. I shouldn’t have increased the temperature. I am not confident enough that the cake will turn out good. Overall, the cake looks ok, I scrapped off some of the burnt skin and I have decided to share my simple recipe in Guaishushu’s Facebook page later. What do you think? Shall I share the recipe?

Cheers and have a nice day ahead.

GUAI SHU SHU

Guai Shu Shu is a "shu shu" that is "guai"….

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What I cooked today (家常便饭系列）- 2-8-2013

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TOP 30 POSTS DURING THE FIRST BLOGGING YEAR FROM 1-MAY 2013 TO 30 APRIL 2014

5 POSTS THAT I THINK IT SHOULD BE IN BUT NOT IN THE LISTING

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