Cotton Soft Japanese Light Cheesecake

Love this recipe because I succeed the first time I tried. I thought for this Japanese Cheesecake, I would have to fail a few times before getting it right. Mum and brother love it so much till they asked me to bake another one for them.

It may be quite difficult if you were to read through my steps but trust me, once u did it, its quite easy and its worth it because of the taste you get. I got the idea of sieving the egg yolks mixture from Sonia (Nasi Lemak Lover) to get a smooth texture.

Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake
(Adapted from: Carol 自在生活 )
**Make a 7" Square Tin

Ingredients:
(A)
170gm Milk
200gm Cream Cheese
60gm Butter
30gm Castor Sugar
(B)
50gm Milk
20gm Corn Flour
50gm Cake Flour
4 Egg Yolks
(C)
 4 Egg Whites
100gm Castor Sugar
1/4 Cream of Tartar

**To prepare the cake tin, lightly grease the whole cake tin then line it with parchment paper. This way, the parchment paper will stick well and wont crumple up in the baking process.

Method:
For (A),
1. Cut cream cheese into small chunks and dissolve it into the milk using a double boiler.
2. Melt in butter and sugar while the mixture is still warm until all butter melted. Set aside.
For (B),
3.Stir milk and corn flour till well mix. Sieve in flour.
4. Add in egg yolks and whisk till incorporated.
5. Combine (A) and (B) and mix well using a hand whisk. Sieve the mixture into a bowl.
For (C),
6. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites till soft foam then add in 1/2 of the sugar and cream of tartar and beat under medium speed.
7. Add in the remaining sugar gradually and beat under high speed till soft peaks. 
8. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to the yolks mixture.
9. Fold in the rest of the egg whites to the mixture till no white streaks can be seen.
10. Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin and bang the tin on the counter to get rid of the air bubbles.
11. Bake in a preheated oven with a water bath at 160c for 15 minutes then lower the temperature to 120c and bake for about 50-60 minutes or till set.
12. Leave cake to cool with the oven door ajar for 10-15 minutes then unmould it.
13. Chill for 3 hours and serve.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Chiffon

No no. The post tittle is not a typo error. Wanted to bake another chiffon cake for the weekend so that we have something to munch on. Since my helper loves chocolate cake so much, i decided to bake us a chocolate chiffon.

So I really really need to finish my pack of Hershey's Milk Chocolate chips as I want to try the semi sweet ones. Been reading Rei's blog for a while on her chiffon cake tips. Very good read.. I read and study everything she wrote and finally got the hang of it.

But when i attempt her recipe, it doesn't turn out as nice as hers. The texture is just slightly better than the Blueberries Cheese Chiffon. Less holes and the chocolate chips do not sink entirely to the bottom, some are still at the middle. (Maybe because i did not bang the cake tin after pouring the batter in) It also does not crack as much.

I was just wondering, when u are not satisfied with the result of one recipe, do u attempt it till u are satisfied or u would go to the next one? For me, i prefer to go to the next one.


Double Chocolate Chips Chiffon
( Adapted from: All That Matters to Rei)
*Make a 21cm cake tin (I use a 18cm one)

Ingredients:
(A)
4 Egg Yolks
40gm Castor Sugar
1/4 Salt
40gm Corn Oil
25gm Cocoa Powder Dissolve in 140gm Warm Milk
(B)
120gm Cake Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
(C)
5 Egg Whites
50gm Castor Sugar
1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
(D)
80gm Chocolate Chips

Method:
1. Using a hand whisk, whisk egg yolks and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Whisked in Corn Oil and salt then follow by chocolate milk.
3. Sieve in (B) and mix well.
4. In a clean large mixing bowl, whisk egg whites till frothy with an electric mixer. Add in cream of tartar.
5. Continue beating till soft peaks and add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peaks.
6. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a rubber spatula till incorporated.
7. Fold the rest of the whites and chocolate chips into the mixture.
8. Pour the batter into an ungreased chiffon cake tin.
9. Bake in a preheated oven at 150c for 30 minutes.

Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffin

Hubby complained today asking me why i always HAVE to put in chocolate chips into my muffin. I told him i need to quickly use them up so i can buy another brand of chocolate chips or another flavour. He said it masked the original flavour of the muffin like the chocolate banana muffin.

Actually another reason is because i am afraid the muffins do not have taste in it so i added it chocolate chips so it would taste better and I was right! It has a very mild peanut butter taste but I still manage to chew on some chunky peanuts.

Very easy recipe as it only uses a hand whisk and rubber spatula. Minimum ingredients too. No pictures as it looks the same because i am using the same muffin cups again! Gotta go to the baking supplies shop and stock up already.


Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffin
(Adapted from: 孟老师的一百道小蛋糕 Teacher Meng's 100 cupcakes)


Ingredients:
2 Whole Eggs
50gm Castor Sugar
50gm Corn Oil
110gm Crunchy Peanut Butter
60gm Milk
100gm Cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder


Method:
1. Using a hand whisk, whisk eggs and castor sugar. Then add in corn oil and mix well.
2. Add in peanut butter and milk and whisk till liquid form.
3. Sieve in cake flour and baking powder and fold well with a rubber spatula.
4. Scoop the mixture into muffin cups.
5. Bake at 160c in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or till cake is done.

Blueberry Cheese Chiffon

While waiting for hubby to come home from work, knowing I have one whole hour to spare, I decided to bake this. Chiffon is the easiest to bake and use up a lesser time compare to others.

The cake did not turn out well. The blueberries sunk to the bottom and my cake did not turn out looking as a normal chiffon. It have large air bubbles and also rise and crack like a huat kueh!

See where my blueberries ended up?!

Funny how come it did not turn out well as I followed exactly to the recipe. Oh yes, I did banged my chiffon tin on the counter to get rid of the air bubbles. Hmm...

Look at the texture.. *sigh*

Blueberry Cheese Chiffon
(Adapted from: 孟老师的一百道小蛋糕)

Ingredients:
35gm Cream Cheese
30gm Castor sugar
70gm Milk
65gm Egg yolks (it's about 4 egg yolks)
35gm Corn oil
90gm Cake flour
1 tsp Baking powder

135gm Egg whites(about 5 whites)
60gm Castor sugar
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar

50gm dried blueberries

Method:
1. Using a rubber spatula, mix room temperature cream cheese and castor sugar till well mix.
2. Using a hand whisk, whisk in milk till no lumps. Then add in corn oil and egg yolks.
3. Sieve in cake flour and baking powder and mix well.
4. Put cream of tartar and castor sugar into the same bowl.
5. Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites till soft foam. Add in castor sugar and cream of tartar slowly and mix under high speed till stiff peaks.
6. Take 1/3 of the egg whites mixture and fold in to the cream cheese mixture.
7. Fold in the remaining egg whites and dried blueberries.
8. Pour the batter into a 8" chiffon cake tin and level it using the spatula.
9. In a preheated oven, bake for 10 minutes at 160c with top and bottom heat. Then turn to bottom heat, 150c and bake for another 10 minutes. In the last 10 minutes, turn back the heat to top and bottom heating and bake till cake is done.

Chocolate Banana Muffin

I bought some fresh bananas from pasar malam yesterday evening and i thought i should make something with bananas in it! Browse and browse and in the end, i came through Nasi Lemak Lover's recipe. Interested with it as there are chocolate chip and a piece of ripe banana in the muffin. Cooked bananas are always very nice as the flavour and sweetness of the banana will come out once cooked or baked.

I halved the ingredients and change some of the method to make things easier. LOL... I also afraid that we cannot finish the muffin and it have to end up in the dustbin.

The outcome are great! Although i may be too greedy and added in too much cocoa powder as hubby said he can't really taste the banana in the cake part.

Chocolate Banana Muffins
(Source: Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover)
Make 6 pcs 6cm x 3cm muffin cups

Ingredients:
65gm Butter
50gm Castor Sugar
75gm Cake Flour
1 Whole eggs
1/4 Tsp Baking powder
1/8 Tsp Baking soda
3 Tsp Cocoa Powder
50ml Milk
80gm Mashed Banana
1/4 Cup chocolate chips

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in the egg and mix well.
3. Sieve in flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder and beat till even.
4. Add in milk and fold through.
5. Fold in mashed bananas and chocolate chips.
6. Scoop the batter into paper cups till about 80% full and insert a small piece of banana into the centre of the cup.
7. Bake at 160c in a preheated oven for 25 minutes. (I baked mine 5 min longer as i realises my muffins are always wet in the middle)

I still haven't get the right technique to fill the paper cups till ngam ngam

See the hidden gem inside the muffin?

焦糖葡萄干小蛋糕 Caramelized Raisins Cupcakes

See, I told u I am in a baking frenzy! I tried baking this Caramelized raisin cupcakes today and I don't really like it. First thing first, it uses too much utensils. I need to cook some caramel to coat my raisins with them. This is the first time I cooked caramel and I don't know the end product is a success or not as it's not sweet. I kept the flames low and the caramel hardens back after I added water! The raisins are suppose to stick together after cool but it did not. They were swimming inside the liquid.

I was also supposed to put the raisins on top of the cupcakes which doesn't look pretty after it was remove from the oven. So to prevent failure, I scooped in some Nutella spread as a filling. Dunno whether the Nutella cause the cupcakes to be wet in the middle. Sigh...

Good thing about this book is the recipe are all small portion. I only manage to baked 5 pcs of cupcakes with this amount of batter.

焦糖葡萄干小蛋糕 Caramelized Raisins Cupcakes
(Adapted from: 孟老师的一百道小蛋糕 Teacher's Meng 100 cupcakes)

Ingredients:
(A)
35gm Castor sugar
35gm water
35gm Raisins

(B)
70gm Butter
30gm Castor sugar (I use 20gm)
60gm Whole eggs
2 tbsp Milk Powder (I omitted this)
60gm Low Protein Flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder

Method:
1. Melt castor sugar in a pot above low flame.
2. When sugar turns to dark brown colour, add in water slowly and mix.
3. Add in raisins and mix well. Set aside to cool.
4. Using an electric mixer, cream sugar and butter thoroughly under high speed.
5. Add in eggs bit by bit and mix till even.
6. Sieve in flour, baking powder and milk powder and mix well with a rubber spatula till no lumps.
7. Scoop the mixture into cupcakes mould and sprinkle Caramelized raisins on top.
8. Baked in a preheated oven at 160c for 30 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when tested.

Notes:
I added some Nutella spread by pouring half of the batter first, the a little bit of Nutella then the remaining batter.

Baking Frenzy

I am in a baking frenzy. I bake and bake till i have 3 types of cakes ready to be eaten. I wake up everyday thinking what to bake and sleep everyday thinking what to bake.

I have only gotten my oven 2 weeks ago and below is a list of what i baked:

1. Mum's Butter Cake (x2)
2. Green Tea Chiffon Cake (x2)
3. Chocolate Chip Cookies
4. Coffee Chiffon Cake (x2)
5. 简易蜂密小蛋糕 aka Easy Honey Cupcakes
6. 焦糖脆皮小蛋糕 aka Brown Sugar Crisp Top Cupcakes
7. Pandan Chiffon Cake
8. Premix Japanese Light Cheesecake
9. Oreo Cheesecake (Which is still sitting in my fridge when i typed this)

Of all the above, the worst is the Premix Japanese Light Cheesecake. I bought it from House of Ingredients, Bandar Sri Damansara. Its where i usually get my baking supplies. I only need to add 2 eggs and 150ml  of water. The recipe asked me to baked it in a 9" cake pan. I baked in a 7" one and result in a cake that is 1.5cm tall. Its a bit sourish, powdery in the mouth... Not nice at all.

The best would be the butter cake and coffee chiffon cake.

I also bought numerous baking utensils like square and round cake tin, big square baking tin for waterbath, 2 mixing bowls, and a digital weighing scale. Before that, i bought a traditional analog baking scale but found out that i couldn't measure the ingredients properly.

oh and did i mention i bought over 50 eggs in 2 weeks? LOL.... sure kena high cholesterol.. 

Sibling Rivalry

Look what happened to Baby Samantha and Miki! I put Samantha on her tummy on my bed to let her practice crawling and Miki come bossing around...

Miki: Why are u on mummy's bed?
Samantha: Cannot ar? I am mummy's real daughter!

Miki: Come Down NOW!

 Samantha: NO

Miki: I said COME DOWN!
Samantha: Fai siii choi lei...

Mummy: *Slap Head*!

Coffee Chiffon Cake

My first chiffon cake is a Green Tea Chiffon Cake. It rises nicely but collapse upon coming out from the oven. It also drop down from the mould when i turn it upside down. After some google-ing, i found out that i should not grease the chiffon tin so that the cake would hold on to the sides while it rises. Learnt my lesson, baked another one a week later and the result is acceptable. Hubby said it taste funny. Well, i have since used up my green tea powder and don't think i would bake another green tea flavour cake any soon.

After the 2 attempts, i tried again today by baking a coffee chiffon cake. The result? it was perfect. So nice till i baked another one just now, at 12am so that i could let my mum try tomorrow. It has a perfect texture, flavour and colour!

For beginners, the chiffon cake may seem a bit intimidating but once u tried to do it, its really easy. That is why u can see a lot of chiffon recipes mushrooming up around the internet.


Coffee Chiffon Cake
(Adapted from: e's joie)
Make a 18cm chiffon mould



Ingredients:
(A)
2 Egg yolks
20gm Castor sugar
20gm Corn oil (I only realized its 20ml in the original recipe when i type this. I put in 20gm and the cake still turn our well)
40gm Self raising flour
2 tbsp Instant coffee powder
30ml Milk

(B)
3 Egg whites
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar
50gm Castor Sugar

Method:
1. Warm up the milk and dissolve the instant coffee powder in it.
2. Using a hand whisk, whisk egg yolks and sugar till well mix.
3. Add in the coffee mixture and mix well.
4. Put in sifted flour (i sieve mine twice) into the mixture and mix till no lumps. The consistency now should be paste like.
5. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites till soft foam. Add in cream of tartar and continue beating.
6. Add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peaks.
7. Take 1/3 of the egg whites and fold into the egg yolks mixture with light strokes.
8. Fold in the rest of the egg whites mixture into mixture 7.
9. Pour batter into an UNGREASED chiffon cake tin. Bang the cake tin several times. U will see some air bubbles popping up.
10. Bake in a 150c oven for 25-30 minutes or till skewer comes out clean.
11. Invert the cake pan IMMEDIATELY after bringing out from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.
12. Un-mould and serve when cake is completely cool.

Easy Honey Cupcakes 简易蜂蜜小蛋糕

Saw a recipe the other day and forgotten its from which blog. Since its easy and i bought some cupcakes paper mould, i decided to try them. The texture is fine and have a strong honey smell.
After googling around, i found out that its a recipe from the book - 孟老师的100道小蛋糕. The book is quite a hit among bloggers as i have seen many recipes from the book. i have since bought the book and cant wait to try the recipes in it.

In the oven...

I should make a point to clean the sides of the cupcakes, very ugly la..

Easy Honey Cupcakes
(Adapted from: 孟老师的100道小蛋糕 Teacher Meng's 100 cupcakes)


Ingredients:
20gm Corn Oil
30gm Honey
2 Whole eggs
20gm Castor Sugar
50gm Cake Flour
1/4 tsp Baking powder

Method:
1. Stir honey and corn oil in a double boiler with a spoon till well mix.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together from low to high speed until colour turns pale.
3. Using a spatula, check the consistency of the egg mixture. It should have a ribbon pattern and wont disappear. Beat for another 1 minute.
4. Sieve in cake flour and baking powder and pour in honey and oil mixture. Mix well with a hand whisk.
5. Pour the batter into cupcakes holder till 80% full then rest for 5 minutes.
6. Bake at 150c for 20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Notes:
I dont really understand what the book says in step 3. Thus i beat my eggs till about soft peaks.

Mum's Butter Cake

I have been longing to buy an oven for my kitchen a long time ago so that i can bake some cookies and cakes. Most importantly, to recreate my mum's version of butter cake. She no longer have the time or interest to make them so i will bake for her instead.

During my first attempt, i used a 8" springform pan. Used self raising flour and add baking powder into it. Needless to say, my cake crack and burnt on the top.

On my second attempt, i use 2 7" rectangular baking tin. I tried Nasi Lemak Lover's recipe of splitting the whites and yolks. Somehow, i couldn't taste the difference or maybe i didn't do it correctly.

After that, it was a smooth sailing journey. I baked another 2 batches of them and i loved them! It was similar to my mum's. The only problem is that i still do not know how to control my 18L oven temperature. The cake would crack sometimes and i couldn't get the golden colour skin on Sonia's butter cake.

Mum's Butter Cake
(Source: Yvonne's Mum)

Ingredients:
250gm Salted Butter at room temperature
220gm castor sugar
220gm cake flour (Use self raising flour and omit baking powder)
1 tsp baking powder
5 eggs
4 tbsp milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 150c.
2. Cream butter and sugar together using an electric mixer till pale and creamy.
3. Add in egg one at a time and mix well before adding the other.
4. Sieve Cake Flour and Baking Powder into cake batter and mix well.
5. Fold in the milk.
6. Pour the batter into 2 lined 7-inch rectangular cake tins.
7. Bake for 30 minutes, at 150c, top and bottom mode.
8. Bake for another 10-15 minutes using bottom mode.
9. When cake is done, remove from oven and let cool before removing it from the cake tin.