Apple Cheese Cinnamon Cornmeal Upside Down Cake

I've baked this cake before - the gluten free style, using recipe from Epicurious
You may view it HERE

This time I followed the recipe exactly from the book, Bon Appetit by Barbara Fairchild - with some additional ingredients, grated cheddar cheese and cinnamon powder - two which I always think go well together with apples
Slightly different recipe from the previous attempt I made, both do made me go hhmmmm... Really delicious dessert I couldn't stop munching on them!

The first one I made I couldn't really taste the cake itself due to the way too big pan I used also the gluten free flour mixture usage, it's almost feel like eating apple crumble, thus I enjoyed eating it with a dollop of ice cream

For this one, I split one recipe into 2 18cm square pans. It gave me short cakes which I prefer, for upside down cake :) And cos I could taste more of the cake this time, I could eat it on its own with no ice cream, it's just yummy!

The sweetness from the soft and juicy apples, the saltiness from the cheesy grated cheddar cheese, added with fragrant cinnamon in it, with soft fluffy cake with slight crunch from the cornmeal - everything mixed together in every bite, heaven!

What you need:

8 tbsps unsalted butter, room temperature
90g plus 115g caster sugar
4 apples (I used red NZ fuji) - peeled, cored and cut into wedges
110g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
50g yellow cornmeal
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk (I replaced with plain Greek yoghurt)
some grated cheddar cheese
some cinnamon powder

1. Preheat oven to 175degC. Butter 9inch round pan with 1 1/2inch high sides (I used 2 18cm square pan with 4cm high sides), line and butter again
2. Melt 2 tbsps butter in non stick skillet over medium heat. Add in 90g sugar and cook til sugar dissolves and mixture turns deep golden brown, stir occasionally, about 5 minutes
3. Add apple wedges, gently shake the skillet to distribute the caramel evenly. Cover and cook til apples release juices, about 5 minutes. Uncover and cook til apples are tender and caramel thickens and coat apples, stir occasionally, about 13 minutes
4. Transfer apples and syrup to prepared pans, spread evenly
5. Sieve flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt in a bowl, set aside
6. Beat butter and the remaining sugar til fluffy
7. Add in egg and vanilla. beat in flour mixture alternately with yoghurt in 2 additions each
8. Pour batter over apples in pans
9. Bake cake til golden and tester skewer comes out clean, about 40 minutes
10. Cool cake in pan for 5 minutes. Carefully invert cake onto serving plate and peel off parchment paper. Let cool, cut and serve

This post is for LBT challenge for the month of September, with theme Upside Down Cake :)

ABC September 2012 - Mile-High Vanilla Sponge Cake

I've baked sponge cakes before but this cake is a total winner in terms of softness and fluffiness
It's so soft, even softer than angel or chiffon cake! To me, this is not sponge cake, it's more to chiffon cake
Whatever it is, it's really nice in taste, and even though I read many reviews that it's rather dry, I didn't find it dry I could eat it plain, but of course eating it with sauce was even better :)
A little on the sweet side, but still aceptable


I have been trying to bake chiffon cakes but so far I couldn't make one with nice look, even though texture was fine
Even though this was not perfect, but it was the first one I could make a chiffon cake that can sit tall nicely :)

 

 

Extremely soft that it's not an easy task to cut a thin slice, and cutting with serrated knife is a must, it does make your life much easier :)

 

 

 

This is how my kids prefer to eat this cake - with Hershey's chocolate sauce :)
It indeed made the cake more moist and so delightful to eat :P

This is the bake of the month of September for Avid Baker's Challenge event hosted by Hanaa
Recipe is from the book The Weekend Baker by Abigail Johnson Dodge

Please hop on ABC's site to view other members baking this cake

 

 

 

 

Now I'm really keen in trying out the orange version or even pandan or chocolate :)



Encore: Sugar Cookies

Did this again with the kids
Some improvement in the decorating compared to the first batch we made, you may view HERE, but we still aim at better results :)
Recipe is from HERE

We made happy faces, bears, flowers, butterflies, pinguins, airplanes, cars
A little better, isn't it? LOL

The most important thing is, we had so much fun and these cookies are yummy, as always :)

Indonesian Fried Chicken With Crumbs (Ayam Goreng Kremes) & Giveaway Result

This fried chicken is extremely yummy. With the additonal yummy crumbs, it's just so finger licking good with a bowl of hot fluffy rice :)
I still need to master how to fry the crumbs properly. Mine was still shattered into small pieces. It should be cumbled together in one piece, thin and crispy with small little holes
It requires lots of cooking oil, right temperature and high level of patience to wait for it to be cooked and the precise time to take it out from the oil
Oh, and also please remember to clear the surrounding area, the oil will splatter everywhere!
As for the chicken, it's pretty straight forward

Recipe is from an Indonesian recipe book: "Masak Mudah & Lezat" by Sisca Soewitomo

Here it is:
(I used pressure cooker to make sure the chicken is soft)

1 free range chicken approximately 1kg, cut into 2parts
1 tbsp juice of a large lime
1 tsp salt
2 salam leaves (Indonesian bay leaves)
2 lime leaves
1/5 litre water
2 stalks of lemongrass, lightly pounded

Blend together:
10 cloves of garlic
8 candlenuts, sliced and fry without oil for awhile
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tbsp salt

For the crumbs:
25g sago flour
25g rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
900ml soup from boiling the chicken

For the chicken:

1. Wash chicken, brush with mixture of juice of a large lime and salt, leave for 15 minutes, wash and drain
2. In pressure cooker, boil chicken with salam leaves, lime leaves and lemongrass together with blended ingredients (use function: chicken)
3. After done, drain chicken, and leave the soup in the pressure cooker pot
4. In a hot oil, deep fry the chicken til golden brown, drain

For the crumbs:

1. Mix the chicken soup (while still hot) with sago flour, rice flour and baking powder - stir well
2. Spoon the mixture in a very hot oil over medium fire, add the mixture one spoonful at a time til the desired amount
3. Let it cook til golden light brown and holes start to appear, scoop out from the oil and drain
4. Arrange on top of the fried chicken

*Suggestion for sambal chilli that goes well with this chicken:

6 large red chillis
2 bird's eye chillis (you may add if you like it spicy)
1 tomato, cut small
1 tsp belachan
1/4 tsp salt
a pinch of sugar
1 tbsp oil

1. Heat oil, fry all ingredients til half cooked, off heat
2. Mash the mixture with potato masher
3. Let cool

Ok, now is the time to reveal the winner of my giveaway
I don't have any idea how to do the random pick gadget, so I asked my kids to pick one winner each
So, here are the two lucky ones...

Vivian Pang, picked by my boy - Ian

And coldkohmew, picked by my girl - Abby

 

Congratulations to two of you! Please email me with your mailing address. I have the moulds with me now, will mail out as soon as I receive the emails
Thank you all for participating :)

Remastered: Cinnamon & Choco Rice Pull Apart Bread

I baked this bread quite sometime back and it looked like an alien LOL
You can view the aliens HERE

This time, I got it right, even though still not as pretty as where I got the recipe from, the choco rice version still a little collapsed, but not too bad, way much better than my first one :)

This is the cinnamon version...

From the top:

From the side:

Look what we had in every slice:

The choco rice version...

From the top:

From the side:

Loaded with chocolate rice:

And this time, I did use the original recipe for the bread
The first time I did, I used my own bread recipe (perhaps that contributed the alien looking result hee...)

Recipe is from HERE

What you need:

For the bread:

405g cups of bread flour (original recipe used all purpose flour)
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp dried yeast
1/2 tsp salt
57g unsalted butter, room temperature
80ml whole milk
60ml water
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. I used my bread machine to do the job
2. Put in all the wet ingredients first except butter, followed by the dry ingredients
3. Start the dough function and after 5 minutes, add in butter
4. Let the machine do the rest of the job, about 1 1/2 hour

For the cinnamon filling:
(I modified a little)

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
57g unsalted butter, melted til browned

1. Mix all ingredients except butter. Butter is to spread before sprinkling the cinnamon mixture
2. After the dough is ready, take out from bread machine, knead for awhile to let the air bubbles out, shape into a ball. Leave it for 5 minutes
3. Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten them with rolling pin to a rectangular shape one at a time to a thickness of around 1/4 inch
4. Brush with butter and sprinkle - one with cinnamon mixture, one with choco rice
5. Cut each rectangle to small rectangles, pile them together into 2 stacks - one with cinnamon, one with choco rice
6. Arrange each stack in a greased and lined loaf pan
7. Let it proof til double in size around 45 - 60 minutes depends on the weather
8. Before baking, sprinkle the remaining cinnamon mixture on top of the cinnamon bread dough (I didn't do this, I should have)
9. Bake in preheated oven of 175degC for 35 minutes
10. Take out from the oven, remove from the pan, and let cool on wire rack
11. How you eat it? Tear them apart and eat each slive with a cup of coffee - yum! Best eaten warm

Nice and soft bread, tasty and stay fresh til the next day if kept in airtight container (I always do that after my bread is cooled)


Another reminder for my giveaway, it'll end tonight 00:00
Please view HERE and try your luck :)

Indonesian Style Rice Pudding (Bubur Sumsum)

A famous dessert in Indonesia, very simple to make and so yummy :)

Recipe is from HERE

What you need:

Pudding:
150g rice flour
1000ml coconut milk (I mixed 1/3 Kara coconut cream and 2/3 water)
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 pandan leaves

Syrup:
400g palm sugar
400ml water
2 pandan leaves

For the pudding:
Mix all ingredients in a pot, bring to boil, keep stirring til thickened like thick cream

For the syrup:
Combine all ingredients in a pot, bring to boil. Stir well til sugar dissolved. Sieve

Scoop some pudding on a serving bowl and pour over syrup
Serve chilled or room temperature


Btw, just a reminder about my second anniversary giveaway... It will end on this coming  Wednesday 00:00
Please view HERE for details :)

THB #8 - Sun Dried Tomato Pistachio Cornmeal Cake

This is the 8th bake for THB organized by Joyce and chosen by Yvette
Please hop over to her site for full recipe

A cake I almost decided not to bake, I never bake a savoury cake before
But I changed my mind when I read THB site - the Q&A part, many good reviews
I was curious how the taste like so I made half recipe
And, I was delighted I decided to bake this cake, it's delicious!
This is not cake to me, this is bread!
It's really like eating bread, not those soft fluffy type of bread, it's soft and a little chewy, cheesy, nutty, tangy, all combined perfectly
Unfortunately, I'm the only one in the family who enjoys eating this cake, besides my sister
Kids didn't get to try this cake yet as I'm writing this post now, we shall see tomorrow
I'll lightly toast it and let them try, I think my boy who loves savoury snack will like it, not sure about my girl
DH didn't really like it. He said, taste like 'angmoh' bread with weird taste and texture LOL
It's quite funny to find out he didn't enjoy it, cos he usually loves eating 'angmoh' bread with cream soup
But yes, usually he would choose those plain simpe kind like plain baguette
Perhaps this one is a little too much for him :)


If you see the pics below, the cupcakes looked darker in color than it's supposed to be
That is because....of my carelessness....again! *sigh*
So, I used the oven yesterday to grill something just using top heat, and I didn't change back to top+bottom heat
And today, I preheated it without checking, so in the end I baked these cupcakes using only top heat!
I wasn't aware of it until 10 minutes later I smelled something burning then in a second I remembered everything
I ran to the oven to see the blacky top of the cupcakes, I was like oh noooo...
I quickly took out everything from the oven, switching to top+bottom heat and while waiting for the oven to be ready, I tried my best to cut all the burnt parts on top
Even though I couldn't clear 100%, but they looked much better
All the pistachios and cheese on top were gone, so I sprinkled more cheddar cheese on top
I realized they were cooked already, so I only baked them for around 5 minutes to let the cheese melted and set
So lucky I still could enjoy them in the end phew....
I think I overbaked them a little cos of the incident, luckily I still could enjoy them soft in the inside and crispy on the outside :)

I baked half recipe using muffin pan and I got 7 cupcakes
I used cornmeal instead of polenta, but used sun dried tomatoes with the amount of one recipe, and i used Greek style yoghurt instead of low fat plain type
I mixed the cake with parmesan cheese, but sprinkled the top with cheddar
I used sun dried tomatoes in oil, so I omit the hot water, and added 1 tbsp of oil from the tomatoes
Oh and I chopped the pistachios, I shouldn't have done that if I wanted to taste the nuts in the cake even more

I guess this is an 'either you love it or hate it' kind of cake
I decided to give it a try and I love it

I baked them this afternoon and now only 2 left
I still have some sun dried tomatoes, enough for another round, should I bake another batch? Tempted.. tempted :)