Flourless Nutella Souffle Cake - Nutella week #2

Sometimes I am greedy.

I saw Nutella going ‘Buy 1 Free 1’ and so I grabbed 4 and paid for 2. I knew the expiry is in 4 month’s time. Usually this is a Fast Moving 'Edible' Good in my household so 4 jars is no big deal. But no no no! During Christmas season and then all the pre-CNY preparation has left these jars of deliciousness untouched in the cabinet. By the time I remembered them it was 1 month to expiry.

I had to bake with them in order to use them up ASAP.

This is my first bake with Nutella, no joke. Usually I am too scroogy to use this in bakes as Nutella is quite expensive. The Nutella Chiffon cake was baked a week after this cake.

Montebello Torte - Red Green Week # 2

Montebello is a pistachio and red berries combination created by the great Pierre Herme. I've seen some that goes with strawberries, some goes with raspberries. The combination is different for different things, for example, macarons are with raspberries and, confitures and entremets are with strawberries. Read more here.

Initially I wanted to do a tube shaped sponge then top with strawberries and kiwi fruit to form a wreath. But then come to think of it, it sounded too "cincai"(simply done). It's not about making up the quantity, because I intended a candy cane, a wreath and a Xmas tree. It's not about winning the giveaway, it's about winning over myself. I have to make something I feel excited about.

Chocolate Feather Bed for my BIL - Birthday Week #2

The 2nd cake of the week. Yes, I made 3 birthday cakes within 6 days. Lydia's 2nd cake will be posted on Friday. I'm finding time to get the pictures done. Not easy to squeeze time. Which is why my posts are rarely 2 weeks fresh. :p

I made this cake for my one and only BIL, Mike's younger brother Nic. He likes cream cakes, and last year I made him a not so successful Chocolate Banana Cake. His birthday and Lydia's is just 3 days apart :)

Orange Almond Cake

This is a nice cake for anyone with gluten intolerance. But good for anyone as well.

It is dense with ground almonds, but not like a butter or pound cake.
It is moist with the boiled orange, but not soggy.
And the only oil in this cake comes from the almond itself, no additional fats used.
I changed some of the instructions so that I don’t need to use the baking powder, but feel free if you want to use it.

I tried with navel, according to the instructions and found the orange flavour not so good like my other orange bakes that uses Valencia. I think Valencia might be better here.

Orange Almond Cake Recipe
Source: Taste.com.au

Ingredients
2 large navel oranges, (choose oranges with unblemished skins as the whole fruit is used in this recipe)
5 eggs
1 1/4 cups (250g) caster sugar (I used 200gm only)
2 1/2 cups (250g) ground almonds
1 tsp gluten-free baking powder* (I didn’t use this)
Pure icing sugar to serve

Method
1. Place the two whole oranges in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer, covered, for 1 hour, ensuring that the oranges remain covered with water. Drain and cool. Chop the oranges into quarters, discard any seeds, then place the chunks into a blender and puree until smooth.
2. Preheat oven to 160/180°C. Grease and line the base of a 8inch round pan.
3. Beat the eggs with the sugar until thick and pale. Take out 1/3 of the eggs and set aside.
4. Then add the orange puree, ground almonds and baking powder and mix well with whisk. After everything is well combined, put the reserved 1/3 of beaten eggs back into the batter and fold.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour (I only did for 50 minutes). Leave the cake to firm up in the pan for 20 minutes then turn out, remove the baking paper and turn over to finish cooling right way up.

This cake definitely mellows with a little time and can be prepared up to 48 hours in advance.* (According to the source)
To serve, sift icing sugar on top and decorate with orange zest and almonds.

*Note: If cake is not served on the same day, please keep in the fridge(wrapped or covered) because this cake is moist and is like a custard (set with eggs) it doesn’t keep that well at room temperature. My cake smelled weird after 36 hours at room temperature.

Sybil's Pecan Torte with Coffee Cream (Flourless)

This is my second encounter with pecans.(Hummingbird Cake jumped queue)

 I used to wonder what’s with the hoohah of pecans over at US. They love pecans more than so many other nuts (well, it’s featured in a lot of American recipes), well, may be due to it’s origin, Pecan is American. But now I know why. It’s just our bakery suppliers sell us inferior ones that don’t really taste and smell good, than I expected them to be. Or maybe it’s only the one that I frequent whenever I’m in KL.

My mother in law got me some Texan Pecans and boy, they smell so good when lightly roasted. Taste so good too. To me, it definitely wins over almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts, walnuts and cashews.
And now she has left us on a plane back to Houston to get me more pecans, here’s a Pecan Torte with Coffee Cream.

Pecan Torte Recipe (from Rose's Heavenly Cakes)
(A)
225gm pecans (I roasted 250gm, and took out 12 pieces for decoration)
50gm sugar
3 tsp Nescafe Classic (I prefer classic over gold when it comes to cakes)

(B)
7 large egg yolks (130gm)
70gm sugar

(C)
7 egg whites
¾ + 1/8 tsp cream of tartar
30gm sugar

1. Preheat oven to 175C (I did 160) and bake the pecans for 7 minutes. Leave to cool and blitz with sugar and Nescafe classic until fine crumbs but not pasty.
2. Beat egg yolks with sugar until pale and fluffy (about 5 minutes on high), then, with a balloon whisk, fold in (A).
3. Wash beaters and in a separate bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Put in cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks. Put in sugar and beat until stiff.
4. Put ¼ of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk mixture and fold. Repeat with another ¼ of the egg whites.
5. Pour the batter into the balance of egg whites and fold.
6. Pour batter into a ungreased tube pan(25cm) or a 9 inch ungreased round pan (must be 3 inch height, if not will overflow when baked, line with baking paper).
7. Bake for 30-40 minutes.
8. Let cake cool for 5-10 minutes and release cake from pan or you may want to try invert immediately upon removal from oven, and let it fall like mine.

Coffee Cream recipe
230gm whipping cream (or 1 cup 250ml)
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp Nescafe Gold (I prefer Gold over classic when it comes to creams)
1 Tbsp hot water
¾ tsp gelatin
1 Tbsp water
½ tsp vanilla extract

1. Melt Nescafe with hot water.
2. Put gelatin in a heat proof bowl and gently pour water onto it. Lightly stir with a toothpick.
3. Pour melted necsafe into gelatin mixture.
4. Double boil or zap in microwave for few seconds until gelatin dissolves. Set aside to cool down totally. Mix in vanilla extract.
5. Freeze mixing bowl and beater for 5 minutes.
6. Pour cold whipping cream into mixing bowl and beat until traces of the beater marks begin to show distinctly. Put in sugar and beat for 10 seconds. Add the gelatin mixture in a steady stream, whipping constantly until stiff peaks form.
7. Spread cream onto cake

My cake fell from the tube while cooling inverted. Darn!!!! I think since this is supposed to be a spongy dense cake, I could just remove it from the pan immediately upon removal from oven. Just like some sponge cakes that should be treated that way, so that they may cool down to a nice equally flat cake rather than with a depression. Actually it's just me being itchy to invert it. I should've just release it from the pan immediately after removal from oven.

This cake is very nice to eat, even though it has fallen…. Just like what it should be, moist, dense and spongy. I’ll try it again, some other time when mother in law comes back in 2011 with Texan Pecans.