Spongey Banana Cake

It’s good. Soft, spongey, squishy. Why is it so yellow? you ask. It’s coz I’m trying to include turmeric in my diet. You can’t taste it but the color is so vibrant and pretty!

Spongey Banana Cake

6 bananas (ang ba jio)

190g plain flour

3.75 tsp baking powder

6 eggs (about 55-60g each)

100g sugar

6 Tbsp coconut oil or vege oil or melted butter

1/8 tsp turmeric powder

1/8 tsp salt

sunflower seeds, nuts optional

Whisk eggs and sugar together until ribbon stage. Then incorporate the rest of the ingredients 1/3 at a time.
Bake in a lined 8” square pan at about  170c  for about 45 min or until skewer comes out clean when tested in the middle.

Coconut Spongey Cake

At one time, I kinda stopped baking because nobody (apart from my mom) wants to eat my cakes. My cakes are nice. But I think everyone got tired of cake. Like there’s such a thing. 🙄These people! Tsk tsk.

Anyhow, recently, I found new audience. People who enjoy my cakes and are thankful. 😁 I think that’s what all we, home bakers, ask for.

This cake is mildly sweet. It’s soft and spongey and light.  So we don’t feel guilty about having more than a slice.

Coconut Spongey Cake

70g virgin coconut oil

6 egg yolks

100g white wholemeal flour

70g coconut cream

1/2 tsp salt

3 Tbsp desiccated coconut

…………………………………

6 egg whites

80 g sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Mix the first 6 ingredients until well blended. Leave it aside.

2. In another clean oil-free bowl, whisk the next 3 ingredients until softish stiff peak stage.

3. Patiently,with a whisk, blend the two bowls of batter together.

4. Pour into a lined 8″x8″ pan. Bake in a water bath, 150c for about 45-50 min or until when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

5. When the cake is done, take it out and drop it on the table. That helps prevent massive shrinkage.

 

Chocolate Spongey Cake

My friend made the spongiest cake. It was so spongey, I kept squishing it coz it was really fascinating. I’ve never met a cake so spongey! It was totally like a sponge! Ok enough with the sponge.

Anyhow, I got the recipe from her and I’m never one for following a recipe to the T. Of course I made changes. Of course, I made it chocolate.     💡Then when it was done, I thought to myself “I must ask her why hers didn’t shrink as it cooled…”. Then I remembered that I had no right to ask her anything as I had totally changed her recipe! Haha!

💡I found out later that upon taking the cake out of the oven, I need to drop the cake to prevent shrinkage. It only shrunk a very teeny tiny bit, so yah, this method works! 😃

Chocolate Spongey Cake (8″x8″)

6 egg yolks

90g oil

70g milk

25g cocoa powder

90g atta flour/ white wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp salt

---

6 egg whites

100g sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Mix the first 6  ingredients together until well mixed. The batter will be quite thick.

2. In another bowl, whisk the whites, sugar and cream of tartar until stiff peak.

3. Scoop a few large spoonful of the whisked whites into the chocolate batter to thin it out. Then incorporate the chocolate batter into the whisked whites with a wire whisk.

4. Pour into an 8″x8″ lined pan. Tap out the large air pockets by picking up the pan a little and dropping  it.

5. Bake in a water bath in a preheated 150c oven for about 45 min.

6. Leave to cool in the oven for about 1/2 hour, with the oven door ajar.

7. Cool before eating. Food tastes better when you have to wait. 😉

I like mine. It’s chocolate. Enough said.

 

Chocolate Chip Cup Cake

 

Wow! What an amazing alliterated title! haha

This is an easy I-gotta-eat-cake-now recipe.  No need to take out your electric beater.  Just one pot, one hand whisk and a plastic scraper to scrap off every last bit of batter.

Chocolate Chip Cup Cake (makes 8 )

185 g or about 1.5 stick butter (unsalted)

150 g sugar

3 eggs

175 g plain flour

3 Tbsp flax seed meal (optional)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter in a medium or large pot.  Leave till cool. Add in everything except chocolate chips and mix with a hand whisk till combined. Fold in chocolate chips.  Leave for about up to 30 min for the flour to absorb the liquid before baking.

Bake in a lined muffin pan, in a preheated oven of about 180c. Bake between 20-25 min or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

It’s buttery, moist, not too sweet.

 

 

 

Yeasted Cake Donut

 

Recently, it suddenly occurred to me that I have many chocolate cake and bakes recipes.  I’ve decided to categorize them under the following headings: Light & Airy CC, Dense & Intense CC, Easy Speedy CC, Creamy Cheesy CC and Steamed CC.  Lately I added another category: Yeasted CC. The key is as long as they are chocolatey enough, they are all good. My current favorite is this yeasted one that I came up with recently.  It’s easy too , just not very speedy.  But it’s worth the wait.  Unfortunately for me, I can only make 6 at a time as I only have one donut pan. *sob

Yeasted Chocolate Donut Cake (makes 6)

2 large eggs

100-125g sugar

100 plain flour

25g cocoa powder

1/2 tsp instant coffee powder (optional)

1 tsp yeast

150ml milk

1/4 tsp salt

70g melted butter

Melt butter.  Add in cocoa powder while butter is still warm to bring out the flavor of the cocoa. Let it cool till you can stick your finger in.  Add in everything else, leaving flour and yeast till last. Mix well. Leave it to rise for about an hour, until it is foamy.

Grease the donut pan well to prevent sticking.  Pour batter into the mold, filling up to the top.  Bake for about 20 min at 180c.

Leave it to cool in the pan for about 1/2 hr before removing.

It tastes like cake with a slight chew.  It’s chocolatey, not too sweet…  That’s about all I can say coz even tho I’ve made it several times, I only got to eat a grand total of one donut cake. And not all in one sitting.  But to quote my kids, they said it’s very yummy!  So must be good!

Steamed Coconut Muffins – vegan

 

I like simple cakes.  Satisfaction level from eating simple cakes (cakes made by one bowl, one spoon method) for me is about 80%.  Satisfaction level from eating elaborate cakes (involves electric mixer) is about 90-100%.  Given that the difference is quite little, all things considered, I think I’d prefer to choose to make simple cakes. Ha ha.

Steaming cake is another way of “baking” for those who do not own an oven.  Think of it this way: instead of using dry heat, you’d be using moist heat.

One doesn’t need a special electric steamer to steam food.  You just need a big pot.  Fill it to about an inch or two of water.  Put in a steamer stand or if you don’t have one, make do with a bowl and then a plate on top of the bowl.  That’ll work too. Steamed food is healthier too as baking is one of the cooking method suspected to cause cancer.

This steamed coconut muffin is local fare.  We call it huat (read as ‘what’) kueh.  It’s basically a steamed muffin with a characteristic split at the top. There are various varieties and this is just a rich coconut version I came up with over the years.

Steamed Coconut Muffin (makes about 4-5 muffins)

40-80g sugar

130 g self-raising flour

130 ml coconut milk

1 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp pandan essence/vanilla/coffee

A few drops of coloring

Mix everything together until well blended.  Then scoop batter into muffin cases.  Fill it up almost to the brim.  Then steam in rapidly boiling water for about 10 min.

It’s a really simple steamed muffin, easily put together with minimal fuss.  If you are craving for cake pronto, this is the one for you.   One bowl, one spoon and ready in about 15 min from start to finish.  Satisfaction level, 80%.

 

 

 

Sponge Cake In A Jar

I had better write this down before I forget.  This is the BEST sponge cake I have ever made.

The basic recipe for sponge cake is this: For every egg, it’s 25 g sugar and 25 g flour.  So if you have 4 eggs, that would be 100 g sugar, 100 g flour.  Raising agent is optional as an insurance.  So are other add-ons like fat, flavoring etc.  Then I found out that just by adding in a bit of condensed milk can make a whole lot of difference!

I had wanted to make jar cakes and I had finally accumulated enough little jars.  But I was half-hearted.  You know…  I really can’t eat any more junk food if I wanted to fit into The Dress for my cousin’s wedding… But I had already made  Chocolate Ice Cream  and technically, was half way there.  So dragging the recipe out from memory, I whisked 4 eggs with 100g sugar in my Kenwood Chef until fluffy. The KC does a really fantastic job of whisking air into eggs.   As an afterthought, I decided to scrap off the last bit of condensed milk leftover from making ice cream.  It amounted to about 1 Tbsp. Whisked that in. Then I folded in 100g of plain flour and drizzled in about 2 tbsp of oil (I didn’t even measure that). I baked it in a muffin pan and it turned out to be the BEST sponge cake I had ever had!  It was ultra soft, moist and oh so good!  All thanks to the addition of condensed milk.

 

Basic Sponge Cake (12-14 muffins)

4 eggs (room temp is better)

100 g sugar

about 1 Tbsp condensed milk

100 g plain flour

about 2 Tbsp vege oil/melted butter

Whisk eggs in sugar until fluffy.  Then whisk in condensed milk for a min.  Fold in flour and oil.  Spoon into muffin cups and bake for about 20 min at about 180c.

This is what I did to the sponge cake after baking and cooling.

I halved it and put 1/2 into the bottom of a jar.

Then I put in a dollop of whipped chocolate cream.

Another layer of cake and cream until you run out of space.

Let it sit in the fridge for a couple of hours to allow the flavors to meld.

It’s basically a simplified trifle.  It’s great coz it’s pre-portioned and easy to serve.  It can be kept in the fridge for a few days or in the freezer for longer.  If you run out of jars, an alternative is to use a cup.

If you don’t have cream, I think yogurt and fruits would be a good alternative too.  I’m going to try that next. 8D

Light Chocolate Cheesecake

There is this one Light Cheddar Cheesecake on the internet which uses sliced processed sandwich cheese.  It’s a very light, spongy cheesecake.  No strong cheese flavor, rather mild, in fact. It’s not very sweet either. Like a chiffon cake but more moist. And you will feel like you can eat the whole cake in one sitting. 😁

The recipe on the internet is regular cheese flavor. So (of course) I need to chocolatify it.  I chocolatify whatever and whenever I can.  One can never get too much chocolate.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before somewhere before.

Light Chocolate Cheesecake (8″ square)

6 slices processed cheese (or 125 g Kraft boxed cheddar cheese, grated)

100 ml milk

100 g unsalted butter

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 tsp instant coffee powder

6 egg yolks

100 g cake flour (or 80 g plain flour + 20 g corn flour)

6 egg whites

150 g sugar

Prepare an 8″square pan by lining it. Preheat oven to 150c.

Put the milk, butter and cheese in a medium pot and heat gently until everything is melted.  Then add in the cocoa powder and instant coffee.  Let it cool down first before adding in the egg yolks and flour. Mix till well combined.

In a really clean, oil-free bowl, whisk egg whites until foamy.  Then add in the sugar and continue whisking until stiff peaks form.  Usually I flip the bowl upside down to test.  The egg whites should stay put in the bowl.

Scoop out about 1/4 of the whites into the chocolate batter to lighten it.  Then pour the chocolate batter into the whites and mix well using a whisk.

Pour out into an 8″ square pan.  Give the pan a few taps to get rid of big bubbles if you are concerned about holes in your cake (like mine).

Bake, bain marie style,  in a preheated oven of about 150c for 50 min.

It will puff up like a pillow but when cooled, will deflate and give you a nice flat surface for frosting. *You must be wondering about the curtain clips. Haha.  It’s my Ikea stainless steel curtain clips.  I find that it is great for keeping the paper in place.

I didn’t frost it this time round but here’s a quick and easy way to make the frosting.

Frosting

100 g couverture chocolate

100 g cream/coconut cream

Heat up the cream.  When hot, add in the chocolate and stir until melted.  Cool it a little and then just spread on the cake.

This cake may be enjoyed warm or cooled. It doesn’t need to be chilled before you can dig in. I think that’s wonderful.

 

Wordless Wednesday – Jar Cakes

Banana Brownie

Here we go again. Chocolate again. You must be wondering…just how many versions of chocolate cake does she have?? Well…I do so like to include chocolate in my diet whenever I can and, imho,  there is no such thing as too many chocolate recipes.

I have had this recipe for years. It started off as a simple brownie recipe that is not overly sweet. Then one day, I decided to bring bananas to the party. If you have never tried bananas and chocolate, then it’s about time to try it. They make such a wonderful combination. Chocolatey… Bananaey… Chocolatey…

I was able to reduce the amount of white sugar used by 50g as the ripe bananas add to the sweetness of the brownie as well as help to keep it moist and fudgey.  I haven’t tried reducing more than 50g.  But I’m sure it’s doable.

Banana Brownie

185g unsalted butter

50g Cocoa powder

1/4 tsp salt

175g sugar

1.5 tsp vanilla essence

3 ripe bananas (about 175g)

2 large eggs

100g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

In a large pot, melt the butter, browning it slightly. Add the cocoa powder while the butter is still hot. Stir with a whisk to combine. Add in the rest of the ingredients according to the way it is listed, stirring with each addition. Pour out onto a lined 8″ square pan and bake at 175c for about 25 min or until the toothpick you insert in the middle comes out sort of clean.

Cool before cutting. If you can wait.