Chocolate Mousse Cake (Mousse without Egg)

Pin It Now!

This chocolate mousse cake is similar with early post. For this version I would say is easier as no egg is added. But the only problem is the cake can’t stay at room temperature for too long as the mousse filling and topping are easy to melt. Nevertheless the cake is great! Is great for special occasion :)

Snow Cheesecake

Pin It Now!

A friend of mine introduce me snow cheesecake. I have no idea what exactly it is. Without much hesitate I googled the recipe and find out. Basically it is frosted cake with cream cheese frosting and top with shredded cheddar cheese. There is lots of variation cream cheese frosting recipes and the only difference is the proportion of the ingredients.  I prefer my cake not overly sweet nor overly grease. So I tweak the recipe to suit my taste. 

Rich Chocolate Cake 浓浓巧克力蛋糕

Pin It Now!

Who can resist rich chocolate cake? After reading this post from Pink Lady immediately I baked and tried. Love the rich chocolate ganache between the layers. I found that the cocoa sponge cake is a bit dry. If happen to bake will use the sponge cake as in Chocolate Mousse Cake 

Chocolate Mousse Cake 巧克力慕斯蛋糕

Pin It Now!

I have made this chocolate mousse cake for my boy’s birthday. This layer cake is packed with chocolate deliciousness and is a great dessert for a true chocolate lover. The layers of creamy chocolate mousse just melts as you eat. Perfect showstopper for a special occasion.

Cocoa Sponge Cake with Whipped Chocolate Ganache

Pin It Now!

This is a cocoa chiffon cake recipe which I baked in round pan and decorated with chocolate ganache. Sometimes I have to find a way to clear stuff in the fridge and this time is whipping cream. Despite clearing whipping cream I have fun in making decorated cake too ^^ My kids are very happy to see and enjoy eating the chocolate cake.

Sponge Cake (Birthday Cake) / Chiffon Cake Method

Pin It Now!

I make this cake last week. This pink birthday cake is for my little princess :) She is now 1 year old. She still wakes up at night for meals. She still needs to be carried a lot as still can't walk without holding. To her brothers, she is a 'little monster' who likes to disturb whenever they are doing homework. She also keen to 'attacks' toys when they are playing. However her brothers still love her and tolerate with what she did. To them she just a 'baby' inside the house :D

I'm very happy as I manage to get my sponge cake baked without much or very little shrinkage! Thanks to Sonia for helpful tips. Basically this sponge cake is just baked chiffon cake in round pan. In order to get chiffon cake rise nicely in round pan and without much shrinkage after cooling, several things need to be taken care of. Let me highlight some of the points that I know.

1. The pan that you used should not be non-stick. The cake will rise with the help of side pan. Do not lined pan and preferable with removable bottom cake pan. It is easy to remove after cooling.

2. The egg whites should be beaten till stiff stage (十分发 / 硬性发泡). Do refer Egg Whites Beating Stage from Carol for the video on how and what the stiff whites look like. Practice make perfect. After master this you can have lots of successful cake that require beaten egg whites.

3. Bake the cake start with low temperature first. The low temperature will cook the cake through and rise slowly. Then finish baking by increase the temperature to brown the cake. This will avoid sudden rise and collapse of the cake. Do not skip the process of baking with higher temperature although the cake is cooked through. I baked at low temperature for the 2nd sponge cake till end. It has little crack compare with the 1st one which finish baking with higher temperature. However the brown surface becomes sticky and easy come out after cooling.

 

I hope with all the points that I highlighted can help you on getting nice, tall and beautiful sponge cake in your kitchen. Let me move to the recipe.    

Ingredients:
(A)
5 yolks
20g castor sugar
30g vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

45ml milk

(B)
60g cake flour

30g rice flour
*sift and set aside

(C)
5 whites
½ tsp vinegar (can replace with lemon juice)
60g castor sugar

 

Methods:
1. Whisk yolks and castor sugar till well combine. Add in vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Mix well.

2. Whisk in the sifted flour and milk in 2 batches alternatively.

3. In other bowl beat the whites till foamy. Add in 1/2 the castor sugar and vinegar. Continue beat till glossy. Add in the rest of castor sugar. Beat till stiff form (十分发 / 硬性发泡).

4. Spoon 1/3 of the stiff whites into yolks batter. Fold to combine. Pour the yolk mixture into the remaining whites bowl. Fold till well combine.

5. Pour into 8” round pan with removable bottom (do not line with paper and do not use non-stick pan). Bake at 140C for 25 minutes. Increase the temperature to 150C and bake further 25 minutes.

As you see the side not shrink much after cool

6. Once cooked remove from oven. Immediately invert and leave to cool. When cake is cool, remove from mould. Deco the cake as you wish!

I'm sharing this post at: 

~Made with Love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior's Cookin w/ Luv

~My Sweet and Savory hosted by Chaya

~Cast Party Wednesday by Lady Behind the Curtain

Happy Birthday to Me!

Pin It Now!

    
Today is not a recipe post. Today is my birthday! Actually this is my 2^nd time baking birthday cake for myself. Like other home baker I choose to bake on my own instead of store bought. I will try to keep record of my baked birthday cake in future. Hope to see progress in my cake making and deco skills :)
 

This time I make my own frosting from scratch instead of whipped cream. It is definitely a new achievement for me. Thanks to Wendy for her detail explanation on how to make Swiss meringue buttercream! Since it is my 1^st attempt I read and read...read... and make sure I get it right! :D 

Now I know the difference among buttercream used by professional baker, simple buttercream, Italian buttercream, French buttercream and Swiss meringue buttercream. Sounds familiar to you? Do drop by Wendy's blog for the explanation. Sure you can get the answers.

I'm using 4 eggs chiffon cake recipe and bake in 8 inch round pan as the cake base. I find that my chiffon cake which baked in normal cake pan shrunk a lot after cooling. Do you have the same problem as mine? I'm using the same baking temperature as tube pan as the cake done beautifully without much shrinkage. But this not happened in normal cake pan. Therefore I added a teaspoon of baking powder. It did help.



This is how I place my cake pan for cooling. Therefore no 'mark' on my cake surface :)



Just after remove from oven



After cooling. A bit shrink at the side but not much compare to the cake without baking powder.

Thanks for reading I hope I did share something useful today. Have a nice day!

Fun with Angry Birds Cake ^_^

Pin It Now!

I'm not fans of angry birds but my sons are. After know the technique of picture transfer on decorating frosted cake I eager to try again. I can use the leftover piping jelly at the same time. The important thing is to cheer my kids :)

I look around the house for the angry birds picture that I can use. After some drafting and drawing (with melted chocolate) here come my frosted cake with these four famous angry birds. This time I baked in 9" round pan. So I can get bigger surface for the 'birds'. 

 

I like Carol's blog very much. She is one of my 'Sifu' (master). Her recipes and steps are very details. Today I try to translate her chiffon cake recipe into English. I will provide her useful video links as well. Hoping this can help those can't read and understand Mandarin. For those who want to learn more about chiffon cake do hop in her blog for useful lessons.

Adapted from Carol's plain chiffon cake.
Ingredient:
(A)
5 yolks
20g castor sugar
30g vegetable oil

½ tsp vanilla extract
45g milk
90g cake flour
 

(B)
5 whites
1tsp (5cc) lemon juice
60g castor sugar

Preparation:
1. Weight all the ingredients and set aside.

2. Use cold eggs. It is advice to use small bowl for the white separation. Only pour inside mixing bowl when the whites are clean from yolk. Any bits of water or oil in whites will affect the result of whites beating process.
* I used to drop 1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar into mixing bowl and wipe clean with kitchen towel before adding the whites.

3. Sieve the cake flour and set aside.

4. Preheat oven to 150C.
* I bake mine at 160C. Do adjust your oven accordingly.
 

Method:
1. Whisk the yolks and sugar till well combine.
 

2. Add in the vegetable oil and vanilla extract and mix well.

3. Add in the sifted flour and milk alternatively in 2 batches. Mix till well combine.

4. With electric mixer beat the whites till foamy. Add in the lemon juice and 1/2 of the castor sugar. Continue beating with low-medium speed till light and double in volume.

5. Add in the rest of castor sugar. Beat with high speed till become glossy and reach stiff peak. Refer here for video.

6. Take a big spoonful of beaten whites into yolks batter. Fold in and mix well. Refer here for the video.

7. Pour the mixed yolks batter into the remaining stiff whites bowl. Fold and mix well.

8. Pour the batter into 8" round pan. Smooth the surface with scraper. Give some taps to the pan to release big bubbles trapped inside. Bake in preheated oven 150C for 45-50 minutes. (Test by insert a tooth pick inside the cake center. It is done when came out clean. If not done bake further 5-10 minutes).

9. Remove from oven. Invert cake immediately and place on rack to cool completely. Remove the cake from the pan and proceed with cutting and decorate. Please refer here for other useful tips on cooling and removing chiffon cake from pan.
 
 

Happy Baking!



Younger Son 5th Birthday Cake

Pin It Now!

This is my younger son birthday cake. He is 5 years old now. He likes teddy bear especially small and cute one ^.^ So I create a bear on his cake. My drawing is bad and I definitely don't have the confident to draft the bear on the cake. So I copied and pasted! Then fill with coloured piping jelly. I learn this method from YouTube. My bear turns out not bad right? Ha..ha..:D
  

I'm using 8' cocoa chiffon cake as the cake body. Once cool completely I divide into 2 parts. Spread whipping cream in between and cover the whole cake. Then keep the frosted cake inside fridge to set for several hours.
 

As for the bear this is what I did. Place the baking paper (should be long enough to remove once place on cake) on top of the character (bear). Melt some chocolate and put inside piping bag (since the amount is not much, I use baking paper and shape into cone). Gently pipe out the melted chocolate on the baking paper and 'draw' the character. Once done place your 'drawing' on a cardboard (or something hard to support) and keep inside fridge to set (about 30 minutes).

Remove both cake (with frosting) and baking paper with chocolate 'drawing' from fridge. Place the character at the position you like by facing the chocolate 'drawing' against the frosting. Gently remove the baking paper and leave the chocolate character on the cake. Fill in the character with coloured piping jelly as your choice. 

Hope this will help those who like to make birthday cake with your favourite character on it. Have fun!

My Elder Son Turns 7th!

Pin It Now!

Today is my elder son birthday. He is 7 years old now! He likes sea creatures especially sharks :D He has many types of sharks in his toy collection. He request "shark" as his birthday cake. Well as what you see this definitely not a shark. I make him cake deco into little fish.

Son, I think you need to wait for few more years for your mum to master good cake deco. ^o^

Happy Birthday!

I’m using Carol chiffon cake recipe here. If you are interested on how to get chiffon cake ready for birthday cake do refer here.

Younger Son Birthday

Pin It Now!

Another birthday cake in February. This time is my younger son who turns 4 this year. Sitting beside the cake is his favourite company bed time stuffed toy...little pink teddy bear. This bear is actually given as free gift by a bank which is having promotion fare few years back. He keeps it since the day he saw it. That time he is around 1 year old plus. Now, he can't sleep without its’ company. This including bringing along whenever he travels. We did buy him bigger brown teddy bear. But he doesn't like it and keep aside. He only likes this little bear... The special about this bear is small and cute (according to him).

As you see he likes chocolate flavour. Here comes the chocolate sponge cake with whipping cream icing. The birthday cake might not look perfect to me. But for him this cake is perfect! He is happy to see his favourite teddy bear cookies with his name written on the cake. This makes me happy too. J 

My Elder Son Birthday

Pin It Now!

February month is birthday month in my family as my 3 heroes are celebrating birthday! Today is my elder son turns 6. I decorate his cake pink as he usually asking for. He just likes everything red or pink. : D

Nothing fancy, just a plain chiffon cake decorated with whipping cream. This time I use mini mash mellow for the topping. Both my sons enjoy the cake.

Here I like to wish my son a very happy birthday, 身体健康,快高长大‏.