Orange Chiffon Cake

One of my favourite flavours, orange! The tang just feels.... awakening!
From Alex Goh's basic recipe, I adapted it into any flavour I want. As long as I maintain the ratio of ingredients.

Iris, hope this step by step Chiffon cake will be of help to you.
All the best in ur chiffon cake adventures.

Step-by Step Orange Chiffon Cake Recipe
Ingredients:(A)
115ml fresh orange juice
4 egg yolks
75ml corn oil
100gm sugar
150gm flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp orange zest

(B)
4 egg whites
90gm sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1. Combine egg yolks, oil, orange juice and sugar. Mix well.
2. Sift flour with baking powder and put into (1)and combine.
3. Stir in orange zest. Set aside



4. Place egg whites into a clean bowl and beat on low speed until it froths. Add in cream of tartar and continue to beat at high speed until soft peaks.


5. Put in sugar at 3 intervals and beat until stiff peaks.


Hmmm...not stiff at all


Stiff..... not not stiff enough


6. Lift up beaters.Ok.. see... It's stiff, very stiff and pointy. But the peaks are fat, not short and thin. If they are short and thin, you have overbeaten them, and you cake might fall out from the pan when you overturn it.




7. Put in 1/4 of egg whites into (3). Fold the egg whites into the batter. Repeat step (7).
8. Pour the whole of batter onto remaining egg whites and fold well.Please don't stir, must fold.



9. Pour (8) into a (22 or 25cm) ungreased clean tube pan. Lightly shake it left and right to level cake


10. Bake in a preheated oven at 170/180C for 40 minutes.


11. Invert pan immediately after removing from oven. Leave cake to cool down totally this way.


12. Overturn the cake.


13. Remove cake from pan. (Method in picture)

14. Overturn cake onto serving plate.


15. Cut cake with a sharp knife and serve.

Roselle Cake

Roselle, or some may call it Rosella or even Hibiscus. And some malaysians call it Ribena Flower, because it can be used to make a red coloured cordial that taste a bit like Ribena, due to the tartness. Roselle is from the same family as the Malaysia national flower (Hibiscus) and the okra, which is Malvaceae. And what is used here, is not the fruit, but the calyx. It's just like the green fingers that hold the rose bud, the green fingers form the calyx. What is in the roselle is the ovary or seed pod, and the seed pod is used to derive pectin, used in jams.

Mike's cousin bought 1kg of roselle at the Sunday Farmer's Market in Kuala Kangsar, so, I asked her for some. 1 kg is alot!!!!! I took about 18 roselles, and it was almost 100gm. Tried making some of it into a drink, and the balance, why not search for a rhubarb recipe and adapt to my roselles..... they're both tart and pink (roselle's a darker pink of course, almost red)

After tasting this cake, I found that baked roselles taste like dried sweetened cranberries. Hmm, maybe next time I'll use roselle to substitute cranberries to bake my white chocolate cookies, and roselle's much cheaper than cranberries here.


(A)
110gm flour
½ tsp baking soda
100gm sugar
55gm butter
1 egg
120gm yoghurt
½ tsp vanilla essence

(B)
2 Tbsp sugar
¼ tsp cinnamon powder

(C)
10 roselles
1 tbsp flour

1. Peel the calyx from the roselle. Discard seed pod. Snip into small pieces and mix with 1 Tbsp flour. Set aside.
2. Combine ingredients in (B) to make cinnamon sugar. Set aside.
3. Preheat oven to 170C(convection)/180C (conventional)
4. Sift flour with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
5. Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
6. Add in egg and combine well.
7. Put in vanilla essence and yoghurt. Mix well.
8. Fold in sifted flour into batter.
9. Sprinkle in floured roselles and give it a gentle mix.
10. Pour batter into a lined baking pan (that fills the batter at 1 inch height).
11. Sprinkle (2) onto batter and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.


The sugar topping is fragile after baked ..... Giving it a light crunch...

Fruit Ring Cake 水果圈蛋糕

My brothers and I usually celebrate Mother's day late, because on the actual day, eateries are crammed with families celebrating their mothers. We did it yesterday, and I made this cake for my mom.

It's an orange chiffon cake with canned peach, fresh kiwi and strawberries. The fillings consist of the same fruits aranged in the same order.

Mom liked the cake.... well, my mom likes everything I bake for her. She loves all my bakes, just the way she loves all of me.

Cantonese Rice Dumpling 广东咸肉粽

It's almost Duan Wu Jie again!

This time I made the real Cantonese version of savoury rice dumpling.
Just the way Grandaunty used to make.
Cantonese Rice dumpling doens't use soy sauce in its rice, and neither it is fried.
If u want to make it easier to wrap, u can stir fry it a while to make it slightly sticky, but bear in mind, no soy sauces. It's fair and much softer than the Hokkien version of which the rice is stir fried, therefore, can be packed real tight.

(A)
2kg glutinous rice
2 Tbsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3 shallots , chopped
Half cup oil

Soak rice at least 3 hours, or overnight. Drain well. Fry shallot in oil until slightly golden and fragrant. Mix shallot oil, rice, salt and sugar together.

(B)
600gm peeled mung beans
2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar

Soak mung beans for at least 4 hours or overnight. Drain well and mix with salt and sugar. Leave to marinate for 1 hour or more.
** U can mix this with rice after marinating. Or use it on its own as filling.

(C)
1kg pork belly, no skin
1 Tbsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1 heaped tsp 5 spice powder
good dash of pepper

Mix everything together and marinate at least overnight. Best 2-3 days.

(D)
24 salted egg yolks, halved
48 pcs Chinese mushrooms, sliced
Soaked and washed large bamboo leaves
Soaked grass strands or cotton parcel strings for tying the dumplings

Method to wrap: Read my Bak Zhang recipe

This year din make gan sui joong with fillings, cos my mom just made a big pot of yummy kaya So I made plain ones to eat with "Mui Che Kayeang".

Video on how to wrap(updated 6/6/13)

Old Cucumber Soup 老黃瓜汤

My mom bought me a lot of dried octopus for my confinement, and there’s still a lot left. They’re really good in soups, I add in some every time I make soup now.
Pork loin taste much better than bones, so, less is used here. More for less…. But the meat will be dry and bland in the end, after all the simmering.

1.5L water
150gm pork loin, cut into cubes
2 octopus tentacles, plus a bit of the body (washed, cleaned and cut 1 inch lengths)
1 old cucmber, about the length of my palm
8 white peppercorns (smashed)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp light soy sauce (a tip from grandaunt on how to make this soup better)

Cut old cucumber half lengthwise. Discard 1 inch from top and bottom ends. Cut into chunks and use a spoon to discard seeds. Do not remove skin.

Bring water to a boil. Put in cucumber chunks, pork, octopus and peppercorns. Simmer on low heat for 2 to 2.5 hours. When time is up, season with salt and light soy sauce.

If u wanna know how good this soup is, ask Lydia.

Spicy Pan Fried Mackerel with Sauteed Onions 香辣大葱煎鲭鱼

A very fragrant way to do mackerel or stingray.
The sauteed onions lend a sweet touch to the spicy fish.

1 pc mackerel (this pc was abt 350gm, bigger than my palm)
1 heaped Tbsp fish curry powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 red onion, sliced
Oil for pan frying

Dry fish on kitchen towels. Rub fish with salt. Sprinkle the fish generously with curry powder. With dry hands, tap fish to press in curry powder. It should be heavily coated, and dry.
On a frying pan, put in enough oil to pan fry fish. Fry fish until golden on both sides.
Remove fish from oil. Put in sliced onions and saute until soft and fragrant.
Place sauteed onions on top of fish.

Followers Gadget

My dear readers,

I've just added the "Followers" gadget on my right panel.
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Thanx a lot!!

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Pandan Layer Cake 香兰蛋糕

Made this cake for my Mother in Law (MIL) for mother's day.

I first made this cake by experiment many many years ago, using green bean flour for the jelly and a packaged sponge mix for the cake. The green bean flour solidifies way too quickly for me to spread this evenly. So, this time I changed it to agar-agar with cornstarch. I think I put in too little cornflour as the mixture wasn't thick enough, and my cake floated (I assembled it upside down). Do double** the cornstarch if u want to try making this cake.

The result.... taste, yummy.
Looks.. decieving! Cos the floated cake was hidden by the curve of the plate. kekekeke!!!!
BTW, my daisies are ugly! I seriously am thinking to take up a cake decorating course!

Sponge:4 large eggs (250gm shells on)
130gm sugar
100gm flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted
50gm coconut milk
80gm corn oil
1/2 tsp pandan paste.
Green food colouring

1. Preheat oven to 170/180C.
2. Beat eggs and sugar until thick and pale.
3. In a seperate bowl, combine coconut milk, pandan paste/green colour and corn oil. Put in sifted flour and mix.
4. Put a few table spoonsful of beaten eggs into (3) and fold. Repeat 3X.
5. Pour (4) into remaining beaten eggs and fold. Take care not to deflate the eggs.
6. Pour into prepare mould and bake for 30 minutes.
7. Remove cake from mould immediately when baked. Leave to cool (cake will shrink tremendously, but uniformly) and slice into 3 layers. Freeze (air tight and separate layers with baking paper) until use.

Pandan Layer
1. 2 cups water + 200gm sugar. Cook sugar until dissolved. Leave to cool down. Do this in advance.
2. Mix 50gm cornstarch (update : 75gm gives better results) and 1 tsp pandan paste into 150gm coconut milk. Set aside
3. Bring 2 cups water + 1 tbsp agar-agar powder to a simmer.
4. Pour in (2) into (3) and cook until mixture thickens and boils. Remove from heat.
5. Pour (1) into (4) and combine well.

To assemble:
It depends on the mould u use. If u want to assemble it upside down, then put 1/3 of the pandan layer in first, then cake, then another 1/3, then 2nd layer cake and the last 1/3 of pandan layer and last layer of cake.

If u want to do it upright, then cake in first, then 1/3 pandan, then 2nd cake and pandan and cake again and pandan layer.

Chill in fridge til cold and set. Decorate with some icing and dessicated coconut.








** I tried doubling, but it was too thick instead. 50% more will be good enough.

Orange Yoghurt Muffin Cake 酸乳橙蛋糕

Some cakes taste best when kept for days... This one is one of them.

It was a bit crumbly(when cut) the day I made it. But after keeping it(at room temp) for 2 days,and it turned moist and oh so nicely infused with the orange zest.
I reheated it in the oven to warm it up, and it tasted oh so good.

I intended the top to crack like Grand Canyon, but it didn't. It just had a shallow crack.


125gm butter
200gm sugar
3 medium eggs (180gm with shells on)
200gm plain yoghurt
60ml orange juice
1 Tbsp orange zest
250gm flour
3/4tsp soda bicarbonate

1. Preheat oven at 170C
2. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Mix in yoghurt, zest and orange juice. Sift in flour and baking soda. Combine thoroughly.
3. Put batter into 3 mini loaf pans and bake for 35 minutes or until skewer comes out clean

Chicken Stew

Went to Camp Cameron during my 1st year in Uni. It was a 3 weeks thing organized by SUFES, a Christian body. The camp cook made this chicken stew that was yummy, she named it chicken stew, but it tasted Chinese instead. Well, who cares as long as it’s yummy. I just wanted to recreate the taste, and it is similar.

½ onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 whole chicken leg, chopped small pcs
½ cup carrot, sliced 1cm
1 russet potato, diced
2 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1/3 tsp sugar
2 Tbsp cooking oil
water
Salt and pepper to taste.

1. Heat wok and put in oil.
2. Saute onion and garlic until fragrant, put in chicken and stir.
3. Lightly brown meat and put in carrot and potatoes. Stir fry for a minute.
4. Put in enough water to cover over chicken and potatoes. Put in light soy sauce.
5. Leave to simmer until potatoes are cooked.
6. Reduce gravy and cook until the potato thickens the gravy. Put in dark soy sauce, sugar and season with salt and pepper to taste.
7. Dish up and serve.



** do not put in salt too early as the potato will absorb it all, leaving the chicken bland and potatoes salty.