Mango chiffon swiss roll

It's Mango season now in the down-under Australia. It is strange while everyone is cooking pumpkin and apples, we are having mangoes and cherries... I feel like we are constantly living in the opposite side of the world, always different from everyone else above the equator.

My family love fresh mangoes and bought lots of Kensington Pride for this marketing week. I wanted to make something refreshing to incorporate these sweet juicy mangoes and this is what I did.

This mango swiss roll has no oil or butter in the cake mix. The only amount of added fat is from a good layer of whipped cream and it was filled with lots of fresh mangoes. As my family and friends are so weight-conscious recently, everyone seems to love this cake knowing that it is so light and guilt-free. LOL.

Well, at least that I did good justice to these yummy mangoes...

For the next 2 weeks, my family and I will be away for a short sweaty holiday at Singapore. For this reason, this will be my last post before my holidays and I look forward to be back for more blogging especially counting down to Christmas. Bye for now...

Here's the recipe from a bilingual book, Elegant Swiss Roll by Kevin Chai.

(This was modified from an original recipe of peach chiffon roll).

4 egg white

125g caster sugar

4 egg yolks

125g plain flour, sifted

Filling 120g fresh cream, whipped

1 mango, sliced in stripes

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Grease and line 25cm x 35 cm baking tin  
(mine is 25 cm x 30 cm, so I had a slightly thicker cake roll).

2. Beat egg white until soft peak form. Add caster sugar gradually while beating until stiff peaks form.

3. Gently fold in egg yolks, then flour until just incorporated.

4. Spoon mixture into piping bag with star nozzle (mine was a round one) and pipe into tin in rows. Bake for 8 min and leave it to cool.

5. Turn cake onto a baking paper, spread with whipped cream. Place fruit on the cream. Roll gently at the narrow end using the paper to life cake and guide roll.

Happy Baking.

Donna Hay's Moist Chocolate cake

I have this Donna Hay's book, modern basic book 2 for years but didn't try making her moist chocolate cake because I was put off with the amount of butter and chocolate that she used. Recently, I bought a baby springform round pan and thought of giving myself a mini treat this time for my birthday. Just a simple and moist chocolate birthday cake would be nice...

As I was expecting the cake to be really moist as much as its claim, I was actually very disappointed to see crumbs everywhere after I cut the cake. Maybe my expectation was too high, but overall I would say that the cake tasted pretty good.

  

lots of chocolaty crumbs everywhere...

Here's the recipe from Donna Hay modern Basic book 2

300g dark chocolate
250g butter
5 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup plain flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup almond meal

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line the base of 23 cm round cake tin with baking paper.
2. Place chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat and stir until melted and smooth. Set aside.
3. Place eggs and sugar in a bowl of electric mixer and beat 8-10 min or until pale and thick
Stir in flour and baking powder over through almond meal and chocolate mixture. Pour mixture into baking tin and bake for 50 min or until cooked when tested with skewer. Cool in tin.

I use 1/5 of the recipe to make a mini 10 cm diameter cake and bake it for 35 min.

Happy Baking

Our favourite mushroom bake

This is always our family number one favourite dish at home. It is so easy to make and always get our thumbs up whenever I baked these mushies...

They are so good that the picture speak for itself.

Here is my recipe...


6 large Potabella mushroom, stalk removed and coarsely chopped, washed and peeled
1 can 425g tuna
1-2 tbsp Teriyaki sauce depending on the sauce used and taste required
(I use 2 tbsp Kecap manis + 1 tsp dark soya sauce)
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 cup grated tasty cheese
sesame seeds to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Season tuna with sauces and lemon juice. Add 1/4 cup of tasty cheese and chopped mushroom stalks into the tuna and mix until combined.
Place the tuna filling on the pores side of each mushroom, place the filled mushrooms on a bake proof dish.
place the rest of the tasty cheese on the filled mushroom and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
Bake for 20-25 min until cheese melt and brown on the top.

Happy Baking

Oreo cupcakes, simply good...

Like mother like son, my son and I are great fan of Oreo biscuits.

This simple Oreo cupcake is really delicious even it is just simply Oreo cookies in a simple cupcake mix. Thanks Jane for sharing this wonderful recipe. We loves these cupcakes...

Here is the recipe from Jane's corner
 
60g unsalted butter
35g Castor sugar
50g egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
60g fresh milk
40g buttermilk (replace with Yogurt)
105g plain flour
8g baking powder, sift together with flour
8 pieces Oreo biscuits
 
1. Soften the butter at room temperature. Add in sugar, beat using an electric beater till pale.
2. Add in egg and beat well.
3. Heat up the fresh milk and buttermilk till slightly warm, add into (2) and mix well.
4. Add in vanilla essence, followed by sifted flour mixture and mix well.
5. Lastly add in the coarsely crushed Oreo biscuits and mix well.
6. Bake at a preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes or until cooked.
 
Happy baking

Gingerbread kids

I made these mini gingerbread man or maybe... "gingerbread kids" for a couple of reasons...

Mainly...I wanted to have these little men to create a new look for my blog. Second is that I had this idea from observing the behaviour of my husband and my boy...(giggles)

I hope you will enjoy the comics strips that I created with these gingerbread kids as much as I did... LOL

Here's the recipe from the Australian Woman Weekly, Macaroons and biscuits cookbook

125 g butter, softened
1/2 cup (110g) dark brown sugar
1 egg yolk
2 1/2 cup (375g) plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda (I use baking powder)
3 tsp ground ginger (I use 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ginger)
1/2 cup (175g) golden syrup

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line oven trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, sugar and egg yolk until smooth.
3. Stir in sifted dry ingredients and syrup in 2 batches.
4. Knead dough gently on floured surfaced until smooth. Roll dough to 5mm thickness and cut accordingly to shapes as required.
5. Bake about 10 minutes. Cool on tray.

Happy Baking

Enjoy this rich chocolate cake with less guilt...

This chocolate cake is originally an angel cake with a sinfully rich chocolaty texture, originated from Hearty-bakes and followed by Ayu, Curlybabesatisfaction.

However, mine was an accidental mistake! In the midst of weighing the ingredients, I then realized that I didn't have 8 eggs white (280g) to make this cake. "Oh-uh"...That's what my son would say. Since I have weighed out the rest of the ingredients, I might as well making this cake with 5 egg white and add more yolk in this case. I have added 5 egg yolk to bulk up the volume of the cake batter so that it can fit into my chiffon pan. 

As expected, it didn't rise as high as it should be...but surprisingly, it was great mistake! It turns out to be a rich mud cake with less guilty ingredients. My toddler son loves the cake texture so much that he finished a large slice all by himself and was asking for a 2nd serve. My husband even commented that this chocolate cake is what people would pay in a good restaurant and I was like "really?" but deep down inside, I was smiling...LOL

 

Here is the recipe from Jessie (Hearty-bakes) (with my slight modification in brackets).

Ingredients:

(A)
60g Semi-sweet Chocolate
100ml Oil

(B)
80g egg yolk (I use 5 egg yolk)
80g sugar

(C)
160ml water

(D)
80g cake Flour
¼ tsp salt
80g Cocoa powder

(E)
280g egg white (I use 5 egg whites)
60g sugar

chocolate ganache glaze
75g Whipping cream (I use 100ml cream)
40g Butter (I didn't use any butter)
100g Quality dark chocolate (I use 100g dark chocolate)

Method:
1. Double-boil (A), stir till mixed. Set aside to cool.
2. Whisk (B) till pale in colour & stir in the chocolate mixture from step 1.
3. Add (C), whisk till combined
4. Sieve in (D)
5. Whisk white till medium peak
6. Fold in 1/3 white into the egg/chocolate mixture
7. Fold in the rest of white gently. The egg/chocolate mixture will be thick & creamy, hence fold in the white gently. Do not deflate the whites.
8. Pour batter into 21cm chiffon tube pan. Bake at 170°C for about 50mins.
9. Over-turn pan to cool cake
10. Double-boil whipping cream + chocolate + butter. Stir till melt and well-blended  
(I mixed both chocolate and cream together and microwave them in low power until the chocolate melts. I prepare the fresh ganache whenever we want to eat the cake.)
11. Pour ganache glaze onto cooled cake (I served the cake with warm chocolate ganache)
12. Cool to set
 
Happy Baking

Monsters Attack!

Halloween is here soon and I am getting imaginative, thinking if there is life beyond the stars. Anyway, I got this idea from the decorated cookie and made my own version of "cookie monsters"...

I've created a family of monsters, one super hungry monster and a monster murderous scene. LOL.

one family of monsters, one mummy and 3 babies

One hungry monster....

then one murderous scene...

The recipe for the cookies are from my previous butter cookies post.

Royal icing for monster faces and eyes

1 1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 egg white
red colouring for face and no colouring for eyes

Whisk egg white until soft peak. Add icing sugar and mix until required consistency. Outline the face first with a thicker icing, let it dry for 10 min and then fill in the inside with thinner icing.

After the icing dried up completely, I used instant dark chocolate icing pen (Queen brand) to draw the eyes and mouths of these monsters.  

Happy Baking and Happy Halloween.

The "Campbell" mushroom chicken rice bake

I got this idea of using Campbell creamy soup base to make baked rice from one of my friends. She made these for dinner and brought her leftover for lunch.

We simply loves this dish...my pictures can clearly tell how delicious it was. My toddler son loves it so much that he ate 2 serves of rice (each in typical Ikea plastic kid bowl). I loves the fresh mushrooms in the rice as well and I must say it is a great way to use left over cooked rice to prepare a quick dinner.

 

Here is my recipe...


1 can 420g Campbell soup
250g fresh cup mushroom, diced
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 cup grated tasty cheese
1/2 cup breadcrumb (wholemeal)
1/4 roasted chicken, shredded
cooked rice from 1 1/4 cup white rice (I cooked the rice yesterday and use the leftover for this dish)

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Place the soup base and mushroom in a cooking pot and cook over medium heat until mushrooms is cooked. Add rice and chicken and mix until combined. Add peas into the soup/rice mixture last and turns off heat after 2-3 min (so that peas will be cooked but will lose its colour). Spoon the rice mixture into a baking dish and top with well combined mixture of breadcrumb and cheese.
Bake for 10-15 min until cheese melt and breadcrumb turns brown.

Happy Baking

Lots of colours for Spring

I'm happy that Melbourne is starting to warming up. It has been a cold winter this year and I'm so glad that Spring is here...

As I was hanging out with my family at our front garden, we noticed that even our drought-tolerant succulent plants (aka "survivor series" from Bunnings LOL) are blooming with flowers. Nice!

The white and yellow flowers has inspired me to make meringue kisses with lemon curd. I doubled the amount of ingredients and made the extra batch into pink meringue kisses with strawberry white chocolate filling.

The "survivor series" flowers...

more flowers from the "survivors"...

Here is the recipe from taste.com.au
(with my modifications in blue)
 
1 egg white
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon curd

1.Preheat oven to 150°C/130°C fan-forced. Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
2.Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add caster sugar. Beat for 8 minutes or until sugar has dissolved.
3.Place mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 5mm fluted or plain nozzle. Pipe 2cm wide swirls of mixture onto prepared trays, allowing 2cm between each for spreading. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until meringues are firm. Turn off oven. Allow to cool in oven with door slightly ajar.
4.Sandwich 2 meringues together with 1/2 teaspoon lemon curd. Repeat with remaining meringues and lemon curd.

Accordingly to Australian Woman Weekly, Macaroons and biscuits cookbook, they bake their meringue at 120°C for 1 hr and so I thought of baking the meringue like what they did. In fact, this method works better accordingly to my taste because the meringue is crisper and melt in the mouth instantly.

I've added a few drops of red colouring into half amount of meringue and notice that the supermarket-bought watery colouring changes the meringue consistency and piping is not as pretty as the non-coloured ones. I was thinking that I wouldn't need that much of colouring and so I used the watery kind. I should have use the professional gel colouring instead.

The lemon curd that I used was bought from Safeway Woolworth. As for the strawberry filling, I cheated by making it the lazy way. Instead of pureed and sieving the fresh strawberry or raspberry into the white chocolate ganache, I melted 20g white chocolate and add 1 tbsp of weight watcher strawberry jam (less sweet)...Ta da..and it tasted ok!

Happy Baking

Footy wholemeal veggie roll

As you can see from the colours of my photo, our family are the St Kilda's supporters and we are very sad to say that we lost the AFL final...*sign* I made these on Saturday for the final but was too sad to post this until today.

These rolls has no the meat because I made these in the morning before going to the market and used whatever I can find in my fridge and pantry.  Just a simple wholesome footy finger food, more for kids...not for beer drinking blokes. LOL.

Here is the recipe for the rolls.

Wholemeal pastry (from my Breville Electric Mixer recipe book)
1 cup wholemeal flour
1 cup plain flour
150g butter (I use margarine)
1 egg yolk
2 tbsp milk
water (optional)

Using the electric mixer with flat blade, stir in the flour mixture into the butter. Add egg yolk and milk until combined. Lastly, add water until dough is formed.
 
Veggie filling
3 large potatoes, cubed (I use 8 baby ones, Red Gem)
1 large carrot, cubed
2 tbsp tomato sauce
pepper to taste
2 cup grated tasty cheese
2 eggs, hard boiled and cut into wedges

extra egg and milk mixture as egg wash (I use milk only)
sesame seeds to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 200°C and line 2 baking sheets with baking paper.
 
Cook potatoes and carrot in boiling water until tender, drain away the water. While the potatoes and carrot are warm, add tasty cheese and tomato sauce and pepper and mix well to combine, set aside to cool.
 
Roll pastry on floured surface about 30cm  x 15 cm in 3-5mm thickness. Spoon filling lengthways along centre of each rolled pastry. Fold 1 edge of pastry over and tuck in beside filling with some hard boiled egg wedges, then fold over other side to make a roll, pressing down lightly to seal. 

Repeat with remaining pastry and filling. 

Cut rolls into 3cm pieces and cut two small incisions into each roll to prevent splitting. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds. 

Bake for 35 minutes until the rolls are lightly browned and cooked through. Serve with sauce on the side. 

I didn't count the number of rolls that I have made but my son, husband and I ate almost everything and had only 8 pieces left after the footy game.

Happy Baking