Almond Crusted Butter Cake

This almond crusted butter cake is the chosen fifth bake for the event, The Home Bakers organised by Joyce, Kitchen Flavours.

As much as I wanted to be a retro-baker like my previous THB bake, I have given up the idea of using wooden spoon to mix this cake batter. Glad that I've used an electric mixer to do all the mixing because there is really lots of BUTTER in this cake!

This recipe uses 360g of butter to make a 10-inch Bundt cake and for me, this amount seems to be a lot of butter to used than most of my other cakes. Unlike most traditional butter cakes, this butter cake does not has the usual oily, fluffy or crumbly texture because it uses no baking powder or any raising agents. Yet, the cake still can raise while baking! It has a slightly crispy and nutty crust on its outside and compact with very-fine-textured crumbs at its inside.

Being different from most butter cakes, is this cake delicious or not? My answer is both! Although there seems to be so much butter packed in every bite of this cake, I feel that it is actually quite good for its well-balanced buttery taste. However, we don't really like its compact texture as eating this cake feel like eating "shortbread" with a cake-y texture.  

Getting ready to bake the cakes

Surprised to see the cakes raising in my oven

Here's the outsides and insides of this cake.

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Emily from Emily's Cooking Foray for the recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake:

• The cake flour that I used has only 8% protein content.
• I've replaced almond extract with extra vanilla extract.
• Using half the recipe, I've baked four mini butter loaves in 10 cm x 5.5 cm mini loaf pans at 150°C fan forced for 40 min.

Happy Baking

Wholemeal Date Scones

We love going to Lorne for weekend holidays and we are always at Lorne for at least once every year without fail. As part of our routine at Lorne, I will buy one wholemeal date scone for me and a couple of chocolate croissants or muffins for my husband and son from my favourite local bakery for our breakfast. No matter how much I love eating these scones, I never thought of baking these for just myself because my husband and son don't like and wouldn't want to eat these scones when we are at Lorne. When I know that Lena from Frozen wings, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and I are going to bake "Scones" for our Bake-Along, all I can think is to bake my favourite wholemeal date scones...

Co-incidentally, my husband and son had decided to go out on a Saturday morning. I knew immediately that I had seized this opportunity to bake these scones... solely for me. Here I was enjoying every single second and minutes baking these lovely scones and enjoying every single bite of the freshly baked scones... and this is what I called my "me-time" :D

These scones that I baked are from the book, Mix and Bake by Belinda Jeffery. They are fabulous and melt in my mouth when I had them. In fact, I reckon that they are even better than the ones that I had at Lorne :p

This is always my favourite, wholemeal date scone.

Making the scone mix

Baking the scones

With strawberries and fresh whipped cream... Yum!

Check out its melt-in-the mouth texture...

 

Here's the recipe from the book, Mix and Bake by Belinda Jeffery
(with my modification in blue)

1 2/3 cup (250g) wholemeal self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting

1 tbsp caster sugar (replaced with raw caster sugar)

100g cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks

150g pitted dates

100ml buttermilk

1 tbsp honey, slightly warmed

Preheat oven to 200°C (or 180°C fan forced) . Line a baking tray with two layers of baking paper and set it aside.

In a large bowl, sift all dry ingredients together, then rub in the butter, chop the dates and mix them in.

In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and honey. Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in the honeyed buttermilk. Mix everything to form a soft dough.

Lightly knead everything together and tip it out onto a floured chopping board. Shape the dough into long rectangle, flattening the top to form a thickness about 4-5 cm.

Cut the dough into fat little triangles with floured knife. Sit the scones closely on a prepared baking tray and dust them with a little extra flour.

Bake for 17 min or until scones are golden in colour. Leave them to cool on a wire rack for at least 10 min and serve while they are warm.

Note: Using half amount of the recipe, I can make 4 triangles scones.

Happy Baking and enjoy the scones!

Zoe's thought of the day - LOL!

For our next bake-along, we are baking Coconut Checkerboard Brownies (recipe from the book, Bon Appetit or here which is to be posted on 11 July 2012. Please join us and blog hop with us on 11 July 2012 or within the next 7 days.

 

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their scones baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 26 June to 2 July 2012. 

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code
 
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If you are a fan of Jamie Oliver, don't miss out cooking or baking his recipes... I wouldn't. And, don't forget to join my Cook like a Star blog hop event. To join, all you have to do is to cook or bake any of Jamie Oliver's recipes from his cookbooks, magazine, app or websites and simply do a blog hop with me on the whole month of July 2012. For more details of this event, please see this. This event start on 1st July 2012.

Chocolate and Banana Loaf (Primrose Bakery)

Do you believe that you have to cook or bake with love to create delicious food? I do.

That's what I see in everything baked in Primrose Bakery.... Yes, I see lots of LOVE in their food. Primrose Bakery at London and started in October 2004 and they always have an objective of keeping their bakes simple, using good quality, seasonal and well sourced ingredients. It is nice to know that they treat all their bakes just the ones that they will bake for your own children, friends and family. Seeing the pictures and write-up of this bakery in the all British issue (June 2012) of Australia Gourmet Traveller, I'm inspired to create lots of lovely bakes for my family and friends and wish to own a bakery like this one day.

I have to stop dreaming now and start baking... Here I am baking this Primrose Bakery chocolate and banana loaf with lots of love. And, it is my pride and joy knowing that every single slice of this simple loaf is fully packed with beautiful ingredients. 

Every slice of this has lots of chocolate, banana and love :D

Wish that I can own a bakery like this...

Here's the recipe from the Primrose Bakery App

(with my modification in blue)

To make a 900g loaf:

250g plain flour

175g dark chocolate pieces (I use the 70% cocoa ones)

250g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

125g butter

4 ripe bananas

2 tsp baking powder

Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Grease a 900g loaf tin and line with baking paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Then add the vanilla extract and mix.

Sift together the flour and baking powder then gradually add to the batter and beat well.

Mash the bananas and beat them into the mix. Stir in the chocolate pieces.

Pour the mixture into the loaf tin and bake in the center of the oven for 50 min, until skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin to cool.

This loaf cake is best served warm. Keep any uneaten cake in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3 days.

Note: Using half of the recipe, I baked my loaf using a 8 cm x 17 cm loaf tin at 160°C fan forced for 45 min. I noticed that the "split" was not exactly in center of the cake. I reckon that this is due to the position of cake in the oven. The cake was baked with other items and was placed not in the center of the oven, causing the uneven heat to skew the "split" to one side. Despite its "imperfect" look, this cake is very delicious!

Happy Baking

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Black Vinegar Braised Beef

In the latest issues of Donna Hay magazine, there are lots of slow cooking recipes for our current cold wintery season. In particular, there are a few interesting ones that cook beef brisket and I'm keen to cook these for my meat-eater husband and son. 

For a start, I have chosen to cook this Chinese-style recipe from Autumn issue of the magazine. This recipe is slightly similar to the sticky Asian pork ribs that I have cooked previously but uses Chinese rice wine and doesn't use any ginger and cinnamon.

During our dinnertime, my family and I are usually very chatty at our dinner table. However, on this night, we were strangely quiet when were eating this dish with steamed rice and Asian greens. I was enjoying this nice and cosy silence in our house as I knew immediately that both my husband and son were "busy" eating these melt-in-the mouth braised beef.

Lucky that I can anticipate that my family would love this dish and so I cooked double the amount of this recipe and portioned them out into containers to freeze them for our weeknight dinners. Now, I'm thinking of eating this with Lena's wholemeal Mantou...

Ingredients that make this delicious braised beef

Here's the recipe from Donna Hay magazine Issue 62 Autumn 2012.

(with my modification in blue)

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) (or 160°C fan forced). Place 1 kg beef brisket in a large, heavy-based saucepan with 1 cup (250ml) Chinese rice wine, 1/2 cup (125ml) Chinese black vinegar, 1/4 cup (45g) brown sugar, 1 cup (250ml) oyster sauce, 4 cloves crushed garlic, 1 1/2 cups (375ml) water and 3 star anise. Cover and cook for 3-3 1/2 hrs or until cooked through and tender. Remove beef from the cooking liquid and use 2 forks to shred meat, discarding any fat. Strain the cooking liquid, place in a bowl with the beef and mix to combine. Serve beef with steamed Asian greens and rice. Serves 4. 

Note: Using double amount of this recipe, I have slow-roasted 2 kg of stewing steak for 4 1/2 hrs. I have also reduced the amount of star anise to just 3 for my cooking.

Happy Cooking 

Caramel Macadamia Nuts Topped Brownie Cake

Happy Birthday to the man that I have known for more than half of my life! If you are guessing that this cake was baked for my husband... You are absolutely right! 

My husband and I seems to be together for ages and I'm kind of ashamed to say that I have not plan or do anything much for this celebration. This month of June has been crazy for me. I was so busy with my work, housework, my little boy and baking that I almost forget my husband's birthday is coming. On his birthday, I was desperate and had to make a last minute dash to buy some Koko Black chocolates for him and I was lucky that he likes it.

Despite all, I did try my best to bake a good birthday cake for him. In fact, this cake was chosen by my husband from my cookbooks collection. "I want this cake and I want it with macadamia nuts..." Fair enough that he said this and here's the birthday cake for him.

 

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Here's an announcement to make before proceeding to the recipe of this cake.

 

I'm Twitter-ing now! If you like to twitter and want to my latest baking and blogging updates, please follow me @ bake4happykids

Happy Birthday to the Big Boss of our house!

Making the brownie cake

Is the cake ready? It will have crumbs on the skewer!

Making the caramel

Assembling the cake

Not forgetting a little final touch... CHOCOLATE!

Here's the recipe from the book, Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.

(with my modification in blue)

For the cake
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda (replaced by baking powder)
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used the 70% cocoa one)
3 large eggs
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp light corn syrup
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
(replaced with vanilla beans scraped from 1/2 vanilla pod for 2/3 amount of recipe)

For the topping
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tbsp light corn syrup
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup salted peanuts (replaced by pre-roasted lightly salted macadamia nuts)

My chocolate sauce

25g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)

25ml cream

Place cream and chocolate together in the heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, stirring occasionally until both are just melted.

Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F (or 160°C fan forced). Butter an 8-inch round springform pan, dust the inside with flour, tap out the ex­cess and line the bottom of the pan with a piece of parchment or wax paper. Put the pan on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat.

To make the cake: Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together. Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the but­ter and chocolate in the bowl and heat, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients are just melted - you don't want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Re­move the bowl from the heat.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugars together until well blended. Whisk in the corn syrup, followed by the vanilla. Whisk in the melted butter and choco­late. Still working with the whisk, gently stir in the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. You will have a thick, smooth, shiny batter. Pour the batter into the pan and jiggle the pan a bit to even out the batter.

Bake the cake for 40-45 min, or until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out almost clean (you might find some moist crumbs clinging to the blade). Transfer the pan to a rack and cool the cake for 15 min, then run a blunt knife between the cake and the pan and remove the sides of the pan. During baking, the cake probably will have puffed to the top of the pan; don't be con­cerned if it sinks a little or if it develops a little crater in the center. Cool the cake to room temperature.

When the cake is completely cool, invert it, remove the base of the pan and peel off the paper. Wash and dry the springform pan, and return the cake to it right side up. Re-fasten the sides around the cake.

To make the topping: Put the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir just to combine the ingredients and then put the pan over medium-high heat. Heat, without stirring, until the caramel turns deep amber, 5-10 min, depending on the size of your saucepan and the intensity of the heat. As the sugar is caramelizing, wipe down any splatters on the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water. To test the color of the caramel, drop a bit on a white plate. Don't be timid about the colour - if it's too pale, it won't have much taste.

Lower the heat a bit and, standing back from the saucepan – the caramel will bubble and spatter - add the cream and butter. When the spatters are less vehement, stir to calm down the caramel and dissolve any lumps. Stir in the peanuts (or macadamia nuts), pour the caramel and nuts into a 1-quart Pyrex measuring cup or a heatproof bowl.

You've probably got more caramel than you need, but you want to get all the nuts on the cake, so spoon the nuts out of the hot caramel and onto the cake. After you've done that, pour or spoon on enough caramel to cover all the nuts. You’ll have a layer about 1/4 inch high (give or take a bit).

Allow the topping to set at room temperature for about 20 min before serving.

At serving time, you should be able to just run a blunt knife between the caramel and the pan and simply remove the sides of the springform. If this isn't the case, hit the sides with some hot air from a hairdryer or wrap the sides in a towel moistened with hot water.

Note: 

The macadamia nuts were lightly salted and roasted at 170°C fan forced for 8 min.

Using 2/3 amount of this recipe, I've baked the brownie cake using a 14 cm lightly greased round cake ring, placed on a silicone mat. The cake was baked for 35 min until a skewer inserted in the center comes out almost clean with traces of moist crumbs on it. 

I actually prefer caramel to be drippy soft for serving and so I've warmed the cake ring slightly to allow the soft textured caramel and nuts dripping off the edges of the cake.

For a final touch, I've drizzled some chocolate sauce on top of the caramel topping to slightly reduce the sweetness of the caramel on the cake.

For 2/3 amount of this recipe, I had more than 1/4 cup of caramel as leftover.

Happy Baking

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Wintery Beef Stew with Onion Walnut Rye Scrolls

For the most of you who are living anywhere above the equator... you must be thinking that I must be crazy eating this stew and scrolls at this time of the year. True enough and sad to say that these are actually the nice and comforting wintery food that we are eating now all because of the reason that we are living at down-under (which is also known as upside-down of the world).

I must admit that I do feel good cooking these wintery food... First of all, it was nice to keep the oven on to warm up our chilly day while doing these slow-cooking. Secondly, I can cook a large portion of this stew, so that I can kept the leftover in the freezer to supplement any of my lazy weekday cooking. Lastly, nothing beat the enjoyment of eating these warm-tasting food on a cold wintery night.... Hope that you can feel the warmth too by looking at our dinner.

Our nice and warm dinner...

Making the simple beef stew

Slow-cooking the stew

Making the scrolls

Yum!

Here are the recipes (with my modification in blue)

Simple Beef Stew from the book, Epicure Winter 

by Stephanie Alexander, Brigitte Hafner and Jill Dupleix and this recipe is written by Stephanie Alexander.

Serve 4-6

1.5kg chuck or blade steak, cut into large cubes
60g plain flour
2 tsp Spanish paprika (replaced by Hungarian sweet paprika)
400g tinned peeled tomatoes (replaced with tinned finely chopped tomatoes)
1 glass white or red wine  
(I used Shiraz which is spicy, plumy and goes very well with beef)
2 onions, diced
2 cloves garlic, sliced (replaced with minced garlic)
1 stick celery, finely sliced
3 medium potatoes, cut into large chunks
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Roll beef in flour mixed with paprika (easiest to do in a plastic or paper bag). Put into an enamelled cast iron casserole dish that will hold all the ingredients comfortably with not too much extra space.

Whiz tomatoes and their juice in a food processor, or crush roughly with a wooden spoon ( I didn't do this because I was using the finely chopped tomatoes), and add to meat. Add remaining ingredients to casserole and stir. Press a piece of baking paper over contents and cover with lid. Cook in oven undisturbed, for 2 hr.

Taste for seasoning. Check if meat is tender and cook longer if necessary (I cooked mine for 2 1/2 hrs). Offer stew with a bowl of yogurt and maybe a small bowl of sliced pickled dill cucumbers. Or serve with simply cooked carrots or another vegetable alongside. And, I served mine with these onion walnut rye scrolls...

Rye Walnut Scrolls from Epicurious

1 medium onion, chopped (1 cup) (replaced with 200g store-bought caramelised onion)
1 tbsp salt, divided (I used only 1/4 tsp for the bread dough with half of the recipe)
1/2 cup olive oil (I used the extra-virgin one)
2 cups whole milk
2 tsp active dry yeast (from a 1/4-oz package)
1/4 cup warm water (105–115°F)
1 tbsp mild honey or sugar (I used honey)
5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and dusting
(I use a combination of bread flour and Italian OO flour in the ratio of 1:4)
1 cup rye flour
1/2 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup walnuts, toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped
1 large egg beaten with 1 tbsp water for egg wash (I used egg yolk with 1 tbsp milk instead)
1/4 cup nigella or poppy seeds (I used only a pinch of poppy seeds)

Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Cook onion with 1/4 tsp salt in oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4 to 5 min. Drain onions in a sieve set over a bowl, reserving onions. Stir milk into onion oil in bowl. (I didn't do any these step and replaced these onions with store-bought caramelised onion)

Stir together yeast, warm water and honey in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 min. Mix flours, pepper, milk mixture, and remaining 2 3/4 tsp salt into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms. Turn out dough onto a floured surface and knead, dusting surface and your hands with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is elastic and smooth, about 6 min.

Pat dough into a 9-inch square and sprinkle with onions (I didn't add this) and walnuts. Fold dough over to enclose filling and pinch edges to seal. Knead to distribute onion (I didn't add this) and nuts throughout dough, dusting with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, about 2 min.

Put dough in an oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft- free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hrs. Note: Instead of kneading by hand, I've placed all my ingredients except the nuts and onion into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 1 hr. The nuts were added to the dough after the bread-maker "beeps" after its kneading step.

Punch down dough (do not knead), then halve. Roll half of dough on a lightly floured surface with lightly floured hands into a 12-inch-long log (keep remaining half covered with plastic wrap). Cut log into 12 equal pieces and roll each into a ball by cupping your hand and pushing dough against work surface as you roll in a circular motion. Arrange rolls 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Cover rolls with a kitchen towel. Make more rolls with remaining dough, arranging and covering them on second sheet. Note: Instead of shaping the rolls into round shapes, I've rolled my rolls into 20 cm x 20 cm square flat dough. I spread store-bought caramelised onion on the rolled dough. Then, I rolled the dough like a Swiss roll and cut each with 3 cm thickness. The scrolls were placed in a greased 20 cm round baking tin and covered with a plastic wrap for their final proving. Let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hrs.

Preheat oven to 375°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.

Brush rolls with egg wash and sprinkle with seeds. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through, until golden brown, 20 to 25 min. Transfer rolls to a rack and cool at least 20 min.

Note: Using half amount of this recipe, I've baked 7 scrolls at 180°C fan forced for 25 min.

Happy Baking

Maple Pear Crunchy Crumble

Knowing that Lena, from Frozen wings, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and I are baking this dessert for our bake-along, I can't stop thinking and relating this dessert to my maple-glazed apples which I have cooked with my buttermilk pancake post.

After enjoying the maple-glazed apples so much, I thought of making this dessert all according to Zoe's ways. Here are my concepts of transformations:

First is to infuse the maple flavours into pears as much as possible. To do that, I have to slow-roast my pears in maple syrup instead of cutting them into pieces and assemble them as crumble.

Second is to eat this dessert with nice, crispy and crunchy crumble. To do that, I had to bake my crumble mix separately from the pear mixture.

Third is not to hide these beautiful walnut from this dessert. Being part of core ingredients, I had roasted some intact walnuts separately so that they are prominently tasted as part of this whole gastronomic action. LOL!

Last and most important of all is the selection of pears. Based on Australian Pears, I am using Beurré Bosc variety which I reckon they are the best option for baking.

Here I am presenting Maple Pear Crunchy Crumble, all baked according to "Zoe's ways"... LOL!

Sweet maple-infused pears with crunchy walnut crumble

The variety that I used for this bake

Slow roasting the pears...

Baking the crumble...

Eat them all together...

Here's the recipe from the book, Bon Appétit Desserts by Barbara Fairchild

(with my modification in blue)

Topping

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup walnuts
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Filling

3 1/2 pounds firm but ripe Anjou pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
(I'm using Beurré Bosc pears, peeled, cored and halved)
2/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup raisins
2 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp crystallized ginger

Extras to serve

pre-roasted walnuts
sour cream (I didn't use this)

Make topping:

Combine all ingredients in processor. Process until walnuts are coarsely chopped and small moist clumps form. Transfer topping to medium bowl. Cover and chill until firm, about 1 hr.

(I didn't use a processor to mix my topping. I chopped the walnuts coarsely and mixed all together with a fork and didn't chill it before baking.)

Make filling:

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Place all ingredients in large bowl; toss to blend. Let stand 15 min.

Transfer pear mixture to 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking dish. Sprinkle topping over pears. (I didn't do that. Instead, I cover the pears with baking paper and then sealed the baking dish with double layers of foil.) Bake until pears are tender, juices bubble thickly and topping is golden and crisp, about 30 min. (I bake mine for 45 min. Remove baking paper and foil and bake for another 5 min.) Let stand at least 10 min - sauce will thicken and become glossy while standing. Serve warm with sour cream (or crunchy crispy crumble and pre-roasted walnuts).

Note:

I've baked my dessert using 1/4 of this recipe. This amount contains about 500g of pears which is about 3 middle sized pears and used a 19 cm x 10 cm baking dish to bake this amount of pears.

Happy Baking

For our next bake-along, we are baking scones which is to be posted on 26 June 2012. Please join us and link your post with us on 26 June 2012 or within the next 7 days.

 

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their pear and maple crumble.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 12 June to 18 June 2012.   

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

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Jamie Oliver is appearing at Australian MasterChef tonight! I will surely be on time to switch on the TV tonight...

If you are a fan of Jamie Oliver, don't miss out cooking or baking his recipes... I wouldn't. And, don't forget to join my Cook like a Star blog hop event. To join, all you have to do is to cook or bake any of Jamie Oliver's recipes from his cookbooks, magazine, app or websites and simply do a blog hop with me on the whole month of July 2012. For more details of this event, please see this. This event start on 1st July 2012.

Pear Pinwheel and Hazelnut Cake

This is my first bake for the event, The Home Bakers organised by Joyce, Kitchen Flavours and I pledge to bake as much as I can like a retro-style home baker. LOL!

For this event, we are baking all recipes from one book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book. This book has 60 recipes and we will bake one cake in every 3 weeks.

THB started since 3rd Apr 2012 and I felt kind of ashamed of myself that I have missed out THB's first three bakes. Lucky me that THB is a free and easy baking club and glad that I have not been "kicked-out" of this club due to my absences.

For the 4th THB bake, I've chosen this recipe, Pear Pinwheel and Hazelnut cake. I think this cake is very interesting to bake. I realized that no baking powder is used in it and its overall flat look and nutty texture is more like a tart but a tart without any pastry crust or base. I've used a small amount of Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur instead of almond extract to enhance the taste of this cake. Unfortunately, I can't taste the difference with or without the added Frangelico and all I can say is that the cake is overall very moist and delicious.

For the fun of this bake, I was trying hard to be Zoe the retro baker, beating the cake batter using a wooden spoon and wanted to store this cake in one of my retro-style Tupperwave that was "pinched" from my aunt at my recent Singapore trip. Check out my Tupper-SEAL... this is quite retro and cute!

The pears that I used to bake this cake

My miniature Frangelico

Making this cake

Taste really moist and nutty. Yum!

I wish I am. LOL!

Being part the rule of this event, I can only include the recipe if I'm the host of this chosen bake and the host happens to be me for this bake.

And, so here's the recipe from the book, Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas
(with my modification in blue)

1 cup hazelnut or blanched almond (I used hazelnut meal)
2 tbsp unbleached all purpose flour
8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (reduced to 30g for half amount of recipe)
2 large eggs
1 tsp almond extract (replaced with 1 tsp Frangelico for half amount of recipe)
3 large pears (I used Bosc) peeled, halved and cored 
(only required 1 for half amount of recipe)
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar
1/4 tsp freshly grated or ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°F (or 160°C fan forced). Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan.

Scatter the nuts on a baking sheet and bake for 8 to 10 min, or until lightly toasted. If using hazelnuts, wrap them in a tea towel and rub to remove the skins. In a food processor, combine the nuts and flour and process until finely ground.(I used hazelnut meal, pre-roasted with flour at 150°C fan forced for 7 min)


In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar with a wooden spoon or an electric mixer until light and fluffy (I used the wooden spoon). Add the eggs, one at a time, and almond extract (or Frangelico) and beat until smooth. Mix in the nut mixture. Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Cut the pears into slices 3/8 inch thick and place in a bowl. In a small bowl, combine the confectioner's sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir to blend. Sprinkle the fruit with confectioners' sugar mixture, toss to coat, and arrange in a pinwheel on top of the batter.

Bake for 30 to 35 min, or until the cake is golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Place the pan on a wire rack and let the cake cool completely. Remove the sides of the pan and cut the cake into wedges to serve.

Using half the recipe, I've baked this cake in a 12 cm loose bottom round pan at 160°C fan forced for 30 min.

This post is linked to The Home Bakers (8 Jun 2012). Due to my family commitment, I was unable to post this on 8 June 2012 and had brought forward the posting date to 7 June 2012. My apology for any inconvenience caused. To see the other THB members' bakes, please go to THB website.

THB with a retro look

 Happy Baking

Homemade Vanilla Extract

I was inspired to make my own vanilla extract after seeing this Barefoot Contessa recipe while browsing to cook or bake Ina's recipes for the event, Cook like a Star for May 2012. Essentially, all required is to soak 12 vanilla beans in a bottle of vodka and allow the mixture to sit at room temperature for at least a month. Isn't this amazing? As Ina Garten always says "How Easy Is That?

I would like to thank everyone for participating Cook like a Star with the theme, Barefoot Contessa for the month, May 2012. To conclude, there are a total of 33 entries for this blog hop and I hope everyone has lots of fun cooking and baking like Ina Garten. The next blog hop will be held in July 2012 and the star of the month is Jamie Oliver. To join, all you have to do is to cook or bake any of Jamie Oliver's recipes. His recipes can be from his cookbooks, magazine, app or websites and simply do a blog hop with me on the whole month of July 2012. For more details of this event, please see this. 

Back to the making of my own vanilla extract... As I was googling and shopping around for more information about vanilla beans and homemade vanilla extract. I came to know that there are two varieties of vanilla beans commonly used for cooking and baking and there are: 

Madagascar variety

Grown on the islands of Reunion and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, these vanilla beans have a very rich full-bodied woody flavour. They are the most frequently used beans because of their versatility and they are most commonly used to flavour ice cream, baked goods, chocolate and other sweets.

Tahitian variety

Native grown in Oceania, a cluster of islands in the Pacific Ocean, these vanilla beans are considered relatively rare and much more delicate than the Madagascan beans. These beans have light floral overtones and work optimally in dessert that don't require intense heat to prepare. For this reason, they are highly recommended to be used with delicate or fruit-based desserts, such as ice creams and custard.

The good new for me is I have managed to buy both kinds of these vanilla beans! *HAPPY* The Barefoot Contessa recipe sounds really easy and achievable for me but having a BIG bottle of vanilla extract with 12 vanilla extract seems to be too much for me. So, I've decided to use the recipe mostly adapted from Joy the Baker for my smaller consumption and more versatility.

I simply love observing the progress of  "extracting" these vanilla beans. It feels like watching "a child growing". I have taken lots of photo for all my observations and hope you will appreciate the transitions of these extraction as much as I do.

Here are my two bottles of homemade vanilla extract.

The vanilla beans that I've bought

This was what I did...

Then wait...

Finally after 2 months, both extracts are really to use.

Here's my recipe mostly adapted from Joy the Baker

Basically, I have made two types of vanilla extract:

One jar is filled with vodka and Madagascar vanilla beans.

The other jar is filled with rum and Tahitian vanilla beans.

These are the things that I need to make my vanilla extract:

Two good-sealing jars (1 cup capacity each)

Alcohol (vodka or rum)

Three vanilla beans per cup of alcohol

A dark spot to store the jars.

Two months at least - to achieve a optimal extract!

Use a sharp paring knife to cut lengthwise down the center of the vanilla beans, leaving about an inch at the top of the vanilla bean uncut.

Put the vanilla beans in a glass jar with a tight fitting lid. Cover the beans completely with alcohol.  Ideally, there should be 3 or more vanilla beans per cup of alcohol.

Tightly cover the jar and give it a good shake. Store in a cool dry place for two months. Give the bottle a good shake every week. By the end of two months, the extract will be ready for use.

Although the vanilla extract using vodka seems to be lighter at first but it got really darken after two months of extraction. Due to the sugar content in rum, the rum extract tends to look thicker and richer in flavours but I think both extracts are special with their own unique characters. The Madagascar one is more woody while the Tahitian one smells so sweet with nice floral tones. I can't wait to use these for my future bakes...

Additional tips: 

If the extract is running low, top it off with more liquor (preferably of the same type) and shake again. 

Every once in a while, I would continue to feed the extract by replacing the older beans with new beans if extract seems to get diluted and I will use the older beans to make vanilla sugar. 

The extract can sit at room temperature indefinitely... imagine keeping this extract "alive" for the next 10, 20 or 50 years! LOL!

Have fun extracting!