Banana Cake

These cakes were made on last Saturday @ BITC as well. As I mentioned earlier, we have to make 2 types of cakes in one session. The menu for Last week was chiffon cake and banana cake. Me and my partner brought back home 2 banana cakes and one chiffon cake each. My hubby prefer banana cake over chiffon cake while I prefer chiffon cake. Anyway, both of them tasted great!

And here is the recipe for banana cake (make 2 cakes - size 4"x8")

Group (1)

• 3 Eggs
• Castor sugar 325g
• Banana (peeled) 220g
• Cake Margarine 150g
• Cake flour170g
• Salt 1g

Group (2)

• Plain flour 150g
• Baking powder 10g
• Bicarbonate of soda 1.5g

Group (3)

• Water 160g
• Vanilla extract -1tsp

Method

• Blend group1 on low speed using cake beater. Beat on high speed for about 2mins.
• Add in group 2 (sieved together) and beat for about another 1 mins.
• Finally add in group 3 and beat for another 1 -2 mins.
• Bake at 180 degree preheated oven for 35-40mins
• Remove from oven and leave it to cool. Ready to serve. Enjoy!
  

Orange Chiffon Cake

Yesterday session was the 4th session of BITC training and we had a chance to make this chiffon cake. In fact, I didn't make chiffon cake before. One reason is I do not have a proper tin to make this cake. Another reason is, due to its appearance. It is not appealing to me (I didn't try chiffon cake before as well) and thus I didn't bother to try it out.

However, after trying the chiffon cake which I made in BTIC, I realise it is a very delicious cake. The texture is moist , soft and it is just delicious as it is ,without adding any topping. I am sure that I will be making chiffon cake often.

Since it is a very soft and airy cake, the most challenging part is to un-mold the cake. We had to pay special attention on this part, otherwise the cake will have dents and it might even collapse. For my cake, I can un-mold nicely for half of the cake, but there was a big cut in the other side of the cake. Require more practises to perfect.

Here are the ingredients and methods, (make 23cm round cake)

Group1

• Cake flour 120g
• Plain flour 100g
• Baking powder 11g
• salt 2g

Group2

• Egg Yolks 9nos
• Sugar 100g
• Liquid 160g (water -140g, orange juice- 20g)

Group3

• Vegetable oil 150g

Group 4

• Egg whites 9nos
• sugar 210 g
• Cream of tar tar 2g

1. Sift group 1, set aside
2. Using electric mixer, whisk group 4 till soft peak form
3. Mix well group2 and group3. Add in Group1.
4. Fold in half of the group 4 into the flour-liquid mixture till combine. Gently fold in the balance.
5. Place in 23cm chiffon tin (do not grease it) and bake in 180 degree C preheated oven for 1 hour.
6. Once bake, invert upside down to cool before removing it from the tin.
7. Once cool, gently remove it and ready to serve. Enjoy!

Tempura Mushrooms

I’ve been busy these days and had no chance to write a post quite often as before. Last week was really tied up with the concert. No, I was not the performer, but my little sis was. Though I couldn't’t help her much, I was still busy following with her :D.( especially on Sunday, the whole day). As usual, my baking class was on Saturday, till 10pm. Thus, both of my day-off were past very fast with those 2 activities.

And here is another overdue post, Tempura mushrooms. Last 2 weeks ago, I went for a wedding lunch and this dish was served as one of the starters. The taste was quite good and I was thinking of trying it out at home. And here it is.

For my tempura mushrooms, I find it a little hard compare to the one I had in wedding lunch. It was not so crispy but just hard. I think I over added the amount of rice flour. The batter is home mix and I don’t think I am going to share the ratio as it was not so good. Next time, I shall use the ready made tempura mix. Will try to make it again soon.

Marble Cake (BITC version)

Last week was the 2nd week of training at BITC and we had to make 2 cakes, traditional pound cake and marble cake (using advance method). Pound cake means all the ingredients such as cake flour, sugar fat and eggs are having equal amount, which is 1 lb each.

However, for utility cake, the amount of eggs were reduced and it was replaced by water. Same thing for butter, it was reduced to 71% instead of 100%. For all the cake, the ratio of the cake flour is always 100% and when I say 71% for butter, it means ratio of butter to flour. Method for utility cake is very simple. Just mix well all the ingredients and that's ready to bake.

Here are the ingredients (make 4 cakes, 2000g)

• Eggs -363g
• Water- 195g
• Castor Sugar- 531g
• Butter -396g
• Cake flour -559g (Prima brand)
• Skim milk powder- 34g
• Baking powder- 17g
• salt-5g

Method

1. Grease 4 cake tins (4'x8') and dust with flour. Set aside.
2. Place all the liquids into mixing bowl followed by sugar, dry ingredients and finally fat.
3. Mix 1 min on low speed, 5 mins on medium speed (or until ribbon like stage) and 1 min on low speed (this is to stabilize the air bubble). Scrap down after every mixing.
4. In a bowl, mix Cocoa power (36g )and oil (72g). Mix it well and combine with 1/3 of the cake batter.
5. For marbling effect, start with white batter first followed by choco batter. Repeat the step and finally must end with white filling. ( pls fill only 2/3 of the tin)
6. Bake in 170 preheated oven for 40 to 50 mins. Leave it cool on wire rack.

The cakes were turned out to be so nice at BITC. However ,when I tried at home, it failed for the 1st time as I reduced the oven temp to 150 degree (cos my instructor said, at home we should reduce oven temp by 20 degree). The cake was too heavy and it was underbake. Terrible! And I notice, I have some problems dealing with this superfine cake flour as well. It has been a few times that whenever I used this flour, the cake is very heavy. But this time, it was even worst with cooler oven temperature.

Then I tried one more time with higher temp ,which is 180 degree, the cake was ok. But it is still heavy and doesn't look so good as compare to the one I made in BITC. However, still acceptable. In BITC, they used really good/ professional machines which designed for mass production while mine is purely for home baking. And my oven is not so good for baking (It can be used as microwave oven as well). So, there might be a difference. I ll try one more time with all purpose flour (medium protein flour) and monitor the result. I hope it will be ok.

Here are some pics for you. If you happen to try out the recipe, pls do let me know too.

Homemade chicken sausages

Have you ever think of making your own sausages before and have no idea how to start? I hope this post can help you a little bit on your wish for making sausage. In fact I've been wanted to make my own sausages quite some times ago. However, I didn't know where to get the casing for sausage and I thought making of sausages is kinda difficult. But, I knew I was wrong after finding the sausage making procedure coincidentally in one of the blog. But, too bad that I couldn't remember the name and if there is anyone happen to know about the site, pls let me know. Luckily I still remember the sausage making procedures though I didn't note down.

It is very easy to make and we can make it without having any casing. And as usual, home made are better than store bought products as we can control the amount of fat, salt etc. I really had fun making them. If you have time, I recommend to try it out. Here is the recipe for chicken sausage ( You can replace with other meat as per your preference).

Ingredients

• chicken fillet 300grams
• 1 big onion (finely chopped)
• 3 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp of Marsala
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of seasoning powder ( I used Maggie chicken flavor)

Blend all ingredients till become a paste.

Roll them out in plastic wrap as below. Seal the end tightly.

Steam them for 10mins.

After steaming. Remove the plastic wrap and chill them in fridge overnight. You can fry or steam them as you wish. For me, I fried them and here it is. Enjoy.

Sardine Salad

I never think of making sardine salad until I saw the recipe in facebook fan page. I simply just didn't know that sardine can be transformed into delicious salad. I joined this page not too long ago and it really is helping me in my daily menu. Varieties of dishes can be found in the page and some of the dishes are really new and you might never think of making them before. I have to agree that the founder of the page , Ma Mo, is a really creative and talented chef. And all the recipe are in Burmese and it is good for us, however there might be a little difficulty for our non-Burmese Friends. Not to worry, I will try to post it here whenever I have a chance to try out her dishes.

And here the recipe for sardine salad.

Ingredients

• 1/2 can of sardine (drain the puree)
• 1 thinly sliced onion
• 1/2 big tomato (sliced)
• a few chili padi
• 2 tsp of fish sauce
• 1 Tbsp of lime juice

Method is the simplest. Just mix all the ingredients (mesh the sardine while mixing) and it is ready to serve. Hope you enjoy it!

Balacan Fried Rice

Though I used to bake many cakes and cookies (yeah baking is my hobby and for those who visited my blog often know well about this) , I still prefer typical Asian food, especially our own Burmese food. Thus, western food has a very rare chance to appear on our dining table. We love to eat all sort of Asian food such as authentic Thai food, Indian food, Chinese food, Vietnamese noodle (Pho) and etc.

Here is another Asian dish for you, balacan fried rice. Inspired by ThuHninSee's post, I made this balancan rice for our lunch some time back in Feb. I didn't follow the exact recipe and did some modification to recipe instead. And here my own version of the recipe and thus it can be named "Burmese style balacan rice" LOL

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp of balacan paste
• 4 cloves of crush garlic
• 2 tsp of chili powder
• 1 big tomato (sliced)
• 200 grams of chicken breast (cut into small pieces)
• 1 tsp of seasoning powder
• 3 nos of chili padi (chopped)
• 1 tsp of light soy sauce (adjust to taste)
• 2 Tbsp of oyster sauce
  
• 1 Tbsp of cooking oil
• 3 cups of cooked rice

Method

1. Mix rice with soy sauce/oyster sauce and seasoning powder, set aside.
   
2. Marinate the chicken with salt/ seasoning powder and a little bit of chili powder.
3. In a frying, heat up the oil and fry garlic till fragrant.
4. Add in marinated chicken and fry for about 2 mins.
5. Add in balacan/ chili powder / chili padi / tomatoes and fry for another 1 mins.
6. Finally stir in the rice and fry for about another 2mins.
7. Dish out and ready to serve, enjoy!

Swirl Bread

This was my second attempt for swirl bread as the very first one was ended up as marble bread (not the recipe error, it was completely due to my careless mistake). Although not many chocolate layers were generated, it was a successful trail compare to first one, I suppose. Need more practices to perfect. Anyway, I am satisfy with the result. I've a learnt very important lesson from my first mistake, which is to read the instruction CAREFULLY.

Instead of milk loaf recipe, I used normal white bread recipe which I found in Cakes and bakes 500 recipe book. The bread was not too soft and sweet as compare to milk loaf. It is just normal, however better than store bought bread, I felt. For chocolate sheet, I used back the same recipe as I've written in marble bread.

Here are the ingredients for white bread loaf ( 9x 5 in loaf)

• 25ml lukewarm water
• 7.5ml instant yeast
• 15ml caster sugar
• 235ml lukewarm milk
  
• 1 tsbp of butter, at room temperature
• 5ml salt
• 450g of bread flour

Method

• Mix all ingredients until well combine and form a dough. Knead the dough (by hand) for about 30 mins or until the dough become very smooth.

• Leave the dough in a bowl. Cover with a cling film and let it proof for about 1.5hrs or until it rises double in volume.
  

Before proofing

After proofing

• Remove the dough from the bowl and punch out the gas. Roll out the dough into a rectangle on a lightly floured work surface. Place the chocolate sheet in the middle of the dough. Wrap both ends of the dough over to cover the chocolate sheet completely. Take note that the dough should be rolled long enough for both sides to fold over the chocolate sheet.

• Fold the dough into 3 folds. If you want more swirl, roll it out again make another 3 folds. Twist the dough and place it in the baking pan.

After baking for 30mins . Leave it to cool on wire rack before slicing.

Ready to serve. Enjoy.

Emulsified Swiss Roll and Conventional Sponge Cake

Yesterday was my first day at BITC for cake principle module. I was rather excited as this is a kind of new experience for me. Unlike my Uni time, the reason why I attended this course was solely due to my passion. I really was eager to learn about the theories of each and every single ingredients. Initially, I thought only ladies have much interest in this course as I've seen most the bakers (blogger) are ladies. However, to my surprise, half of my classmates were gentlemen. And most of the students are like me, first time attending the course (with home baking experiences). The duration of the class was 4 hours and we have do hands-on for continuous 4 hours. I must say it was really fun.

There were two assignments per session. The very first one we did was emulsified swiss roll ( modern method for swiss roll). It used emulsifier and thus we do not need to beat eggs and flour separately. Just mix and beat all ingredients for about 4 mins. It was pretty easy to make and no special care was needed. Unlike my home baked swiss roll, it was so soft and really nice. I was quite happy with the out come.

Second assignment was conventional sponge cake, which did not use emulsifier and special care was required. This traditional method requires lots of practise to prefect. We had to beat the egg and sugar first (till ribbon like stage). Then flour was gently fold in (we really had to pay special attention in order not to deflate the batter). Unlike emulsified sponge cake, it has to bake immediately without any delay. This is very critical. The result was very nice for this cake as well. It is just delicious as it is without adding any topping.

Had attached some pics of my swiss roll and sponge cake for you to enjoy.

Parata Sausage Roll

I made these parata sausage rolls for our breakfast last a few days ago. As usual, most of my recipes refers to HHB's blog and original recipe is here. The preparation steps are pretty easy and I really enjoyed making them. The taste was great and it would be better if you use cheese sausage instead of plain sausage (mine was plain sausage).

Here are the steps.First, remove parata from fridge and leave it at room temperature for about 2 mins (or until the parata is soften enough to roll. Do not let it too soft, otherwise it will be very difficult to handle).

Then place the cheese and sausage on the parata.

Then warp nicely and roll it. I make some slits on top and bush with olive oil. Bake them in 180 degree C preheated oven for 30 mins.

Out from oven. Ready to serve. Enjoy!

Almond Cookies

As running out of cookies in my cookies jar, I made these batches of cookies last weekend. And I used the same recipe as green tea almond cookies with little modification. Just a drop of red coloring was added to the half of the dough for decoration purpose. (Sometimes it is quite boring to make same color/shape of cookies though). I find it's really fun to play with food coloring.

Ingredients

• All purpose flour 1 cup
• 1/2 cup of ground almond
• 1/4 tsp of baking soda
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 90 grams of butter (at room temp)
• 1/2 cup of caster sugar
• 1 Tbsp of egg white
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup of almond slice (store bought)
  

Method

1. Mix all the dry ingredients, set aside.
   
2. In electric mixer, beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract, egg white and beat for another 1 minute.
4. Add in dry ingredient mixture and mix well using spatula and form a dough.
   
5. Separate the dough into two portion and add a drop of red food coloring to one portion. Combine them back and shape them into 1.5" diameter ,9" long log.
   
6. Carefully wrap the dough in parchment paper and twist the end. Chill it in the fridge at least one hour or overnight.
7. Slice the dough into 10mm thick wafers and bake them in 180C preheated oven for about 12 mins.
8. Leave in the baking tray for about 5 mins before transferring onto wire rack.
   
9. Let them cool completely on the wire rack and store in air tight container. Ready to serve, Enjoy!

Stir Fry Prawns with Chili

This is not a new dish. As this is one of our favorite dishes, I cooked it quite often. To be exact once a week at least . Here are the method and ingredients. (I omit tomato for this time)

Ingredients

• prawns 300 grams
• 2 red onion (finely chopped)
• 3 cloves of crush garlic
• 2 Tbsp of cooking oil
• 2 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tsp of fish sauce
• 1/4 tsp of seasoning powder
• a few chili padi
  

Method

1. Remove the shell and clean the prawn. Marinate it with fish sauce , seasoning powder and chili powder for 5 mins.
2. In a wok, heat the cooking oil.
3. Add in number crush garlic and fry for about 2 mins. Then add the chopped onion and fry for about 5 mins (with lid on). Stir occasionally.
   
4. Add in the marinated prawn, chili padi and fry for about 1-2 mins only ( I don't like to fry the prawn too long as it will get harder . 1-2 mins is more than enough for me)
5. Remove it from the heat and serve.