Cream Puffs (MasterChef)

These mini cream puffs are super addictive! After I had my first cream puff, I kept popping more into my mouth... then, I realised that I have been eating 5 cream puffs all within the last five minutes!

Both pastry and cream are very light in texture and they are very well balanced and delicious in combination. For an extra texture to my cream puffs, I have added crunchy toppings for more than half of my pastries and I think that they are even better than the plain traditional Choux pastry. In our house, the pastries with crunchy toppings were all gone first before the plain ones.

Both Choux pastry and pastry cream recipes are the basic recipes, published in MasterChef Australia, The Cookbook Volume One. These recipes are quite fail-proof and easy to follow but  I've spotted a typo error in Choux pastry recipe and I have corrected it as accordingly. So, no worries! 

Here I am killing two birds with one stone again... As I'm using the recipes from MasterChef Cookbook, I'm linking this post to two events, Bake-along (with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen wings) and Cook like a Star (MasterChef). 

Cream puffs made with basic recipes from the Australian Masterchef Cookbook

Making the Choux pastry

Making the crunchy topping

Piping the pastries

Baking the pastries

Making the pastry cream

Filling the pastries

Enjoying a bite of my cream puff...

Here are the recipes (with my modification in blue)

Simple Choux Pastry from MasterChef Australia, The Cookbook Volume One

Makes 24 profiteroles

50 g butter, chopped

3/4 cup (115 g) plain flour

3 eggs

Method

Preheat the oven to 210°C (190°C fan-forced). Line 2 large baking trays with non-stick baking paper. Place the butter in a large saucepan and add 3/4 cup (185 ml) water. Cook over medium heat until the butter has melted and the mixture comes to the boil. Sift the flour into the pan and beat with a wooden spoon over the heat for about 1 min, until the mixture comes away from the sides of the pan.

Transfer the mixture to a bowl and cool slightly, stirring to release the heat. Add the yolk (Typo error! - It should be egg) one at a time, beating well with electric beaters between each addition, until the mixture is very thick and glossy. To make profiteroles, drop level tablespoons of the mixture onto the trays, leaving 5 cm between them.

Bake for 20-25 mins until puffed and golden brown. Using a skewer, pierce a small hole in the side of each puff. Return to the oven, turn off and prop the door ajar. Leave to cool.

To fill the profiteroles, pierce a hole in the side. Fill a piping bag with simple pastry cream.

Note: Using this recipe and Wilton 21 piping tip, I can piped out 32 mini pastries and have 2-3 tbsp of excess batter as leftover.

Crunchy Profiteroles Topping, mostly adapted from a William Angliss short course that I attended

Makes 25 toppings

50g butter, soften

60g brown sugar

60g cake flour (mine has 8% protein content)

vanilla seeds from 1/4 of vanilla pod

Combine all ingredients together to form a dough. 

Shape the dough into a log. Wrap it with cling wrap and allow it to rest in fridge for at least an hour.

When ready to use, cut it into thin slices (about 2mm thick) and place each slice on top of the piped pastry. Bake pastry according to the above Choux pastry instructions.

Simple Pastry Cream from MasterChef Australia, The Cookbook Volume One

Makes about 1 cup (250 ml)

(to fill 12 profiteroles)

200 ml milk

1/2 vanilla bean, split

3 egg yolks

1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar

1 tbsp cornflour

20g butter

Method

Stir the milk and vanilla bean in a small saucepan over medium heat until almost boiling. Remove bean. 

Meanwhile, whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour in a bowl until thick and pale. Gradually whisk the hot milk into the egg mixture. Return the mixture to a clean saucepan. Whisk over a medium heat until the custard boils and thickens. Spread over a tray to cool rapidly. Cover the surface of the custard with cling film to prevent a skin forming.

When the mixture has cooled to 55°C, transfer it to a bowl and stir through the butter.

Refrigerate to cool completely.

Note: This amount of cream made with this recipe can only fill 12 cream puffs and so I had to make another batch the fill up the rest.

Happy Baking

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

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 27 Sep to 3 Oct 2012.

For our next bake-along, we are baking World's Quickest Yeasted Coffee Cake (Recipe from the book, Cake Keeper, Pg 39 which is to be posted on 8 October 2012. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake this cake and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 7 days.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, (Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out). Cheers!

Bitter Chocolate and Hazelnut Cake with Mixed Berries Coulis (MasterChef)

We love chocolate and of course, I'm not going to miss out baking this delicious fudgy chocolate cake...

This chocolate cake recipe originates from Gracie, a junior Australian MasterChef contestant in the year 2011. Being gluten intolerant and using minimal amount of gluten, Gracie had baked this almost flour-less chocolate cake during the MasterChef contest. According to the recipe, she chose not to fully-cook her larger cake and so her cake looked soft and gooey when she served it with her raspberry coulis. I prefer my chocolate cake not to be too soggy with the coulis and so I have fully cooked mine to a nice, moist and fudgy texture. As mentioned in its name, this cake is not sweet at all and is very delicious to eat with a little sweetness and tang from the extra mixed berries coulis.

We never say "no" to nice and moist chocolate cakes...

Making the cake

Baking the cake

Cooking the coulis

bon appétit

Here's the recipe from Australian MasterChef 
(with my modification and notes in blue)

Ingredients:

Cake
400g premium dark chocolate, broken into pieces
(I used the 70% cocoa one)
375g unsalted butter, chopped
9 eggs, separated
300g caster sugar
1/2 cup plain flour, sifted
60g hazelnut meal

Raspberry coulis
2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
(I used frozen mixed berries)
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice

Double cream to serve (I didn't serve my cake with this)

Method:

Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 26cm spring form cake tin with baking paper.

For cake, combine chocolate and butter in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once chocolate has melted, remove from heat and cool slightly.

Beat egg yolks with whisk and add 225g of the measured sugar until well blended. Fold into chocolate mix and stir in sifted flour and hazelnut meal.

In an electric mixer, beat egg whites and remaining sugar until soft peaks form. Fold egg whites gently but thoroughly into chocolate mixture. Pour into cake tin, and bake for one hour. (I realised that the cake will rise and has big cracks on its top when it is freshly baked. The cracks will not be obvious when the cake shrinks after cooling.)

For coulis, place raspberries and sugar into saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for approximately ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mixture starts to thicken. Press mixture through a fine mesh strainer, using a spatula to extract as much of the liquid as possible. Discard skins and seeds. Stir in lemon juice.

Serve slices of cake with raspberry coulis and double cream. I reckon that the cake will be extra delicious if it's served with double cream but we are happy enough to eat this with just the mixed berries coulis.

Note: Using 1/3 of the recipe and a 14 cm round loose-bottom cake tin, I baked my cake at 150°C fan forced for 50 min (with the tested skewer comes out clean).

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

Here are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, (Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out). Cheers!

Cinnamon Apple Walnut Torte

I would assume a torte is a cake. A cake that may be made with little or no flour. After removing my torte from its baking pan, I don't think it looks like a cake at all... It seems to be more like a warm apple dessert to me and I think most of The Home Bakers members felt the same too.

Before this bake, I was excited baking this recipe. First of all, there is no butter in this cake! - HURRAY! Secondly, there is lots of apples in this cake! - Double HURRAY! Thirdly, plus walnuts and cranberries! - Triple HURRAY! Then, when everything seems so perfect for this bake, the cake fell apart when I removed it from its baking pan... Ops! Maybe no much "HURRAY" now...

This cinnamon apple walnut torte is the ninth The Home Bakers bake.THB is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. With a group of gorgeous ladies, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book.

Apart from the disappointment that I had seeing the cake is actually not a cake, this apple torte is actually very delicious to eat. The recipe suggests serving this with Greek yogurt, ice cream or whipped cream and I think it is as good and comforting to eat as it is. With a slightly crunchy sponge top, this lighter version of torte is very delicious and also a less guilty dessert to enjoy.
 

Eating my apple torte in a bowl...

I'm using an Aussie Granny Smith to bake this torte...

Making the batter and assembling the torte

Before and after baking...

A very lovely and warm dessert to enjoy

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Jasline's blog, Food Is My Life for the detailed recipe of this bake.

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

My ingredients list (which is 1/2 amount of the original recipe):

1 egg
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
18g cake flour
a pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
60g roughly chopped walnuts
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 tbsp caster sugar

Using this amount of ingredients of the above recipe, I have baked my torte in a 15 cm skillet pan at 160°C fan forced for 20 min.

Modifications that I have made from the original:

• I have reduced the amount of brown sugar from 1/2 cup to 1/4 cup.
• I have replaced all-purpose flour with cake flour.
• I have used only 1 large Granny Smith apple for my bake. Instead of dicing it, I cut it into thin slices. Instead of mixing in the apples into the batter, I spread half of my batter into the prepared pan, arranged the apple slices like a pinwheel and then pour the rest of the batter on top of the apples.

Before I end this post, I have something very cool and retro to show...

Check out my very retro cake whisk

I found and bought this retro whisk in an Op shop. I like this whisk so much that I even bought a matching Chasseur bowl to compliment it. Call me a "chicken" because I wasn't brave enough to use this to whisk the eggs and sugar in this bake but I hope to use this in my future THB bakes that require only light whisking.

.

Happy Baking

Chicken Paella (MasterChef)

Since young, I'm allergy to shellfish and prawns. For this reason, I have not tried cooking paella until now...

I am excited seeing this paella recipe in the kiddy version of MasterChef cookbook because there is only chicken used in this recipe. This recipe uses lovely legs which are drumsticks which have been skinned and part of the lower bone chopped off but I have replaced the lovely legs with skinless maryland. For my son. I have used more of the sweet Hungarian paprika and add the chilli flakes last for my husband's serve to reduce the heat of this dish. 

Not surprisingly at all, this is very flavoursome dish and look forward to cook more paelle in the future. As this recipe comes from a kiddy cookbook, we reckon that this recipe serves 4 young children but doesn't seem enough to feed 2 adults and 1 little child. Are we too hungry or too big in our appetite?

Junior MasterChef version of Chicken Paella

Making the tomato sauce

Cooking the chicken

Cooking the paella

Still cooking...

I can't wait to eat this serve of paella...

Here's the recipe from Junior MasterChef, Australia, Series 2 Cookbook
(with my modification in blue)

Serves: 4-6
(I think this amount is enough to serve 4-6 young children - LOL!)

1/2 tsp saffron threads
2 tsp sweet Hungarian paprika
(increase to 3 tsp)
2 tsp smoked Spanish paprika
(decrease to 1 tsp)
1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
(add last for only "daddy's" serve)
2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic
1 small red onion, quartered
1/2 lemon, juiced
2 tbsp olive oil
3 chicken 'lovely legs' 
(replaced with 5 small pieces of skinless maryland)
3 chicken drumettes
1 small red capsicum, cut into strips
150g green beans, trimmed, halved
150g arborio rice
1 (175g) chorizo sausage, thinly sliced
250ml (1 cup) chicken stock 
(required 1 1/2 cup to fully cook rice to tender stage)

Using a mortar and pestle, grind saffron threads until the strands are coarsely crushed. Add 1 tbsp hot water and leave for 10 min to infuse. Place the saffron and liquid, paprikas, chilli, half of the parsley, tomatoes, vinegar, garlic and onion in a blender or food processor. Add lemon juice, 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp black pepper, and process until smooth.

Heat oil in a 30cm (base measurement) paella pan or large, deep heavy-based frying pan over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook for 5 mins each side or until browned. Transfer to a plate. Reduce heat to medium, add capsicum and beans, and cook, stirring, for 5 min or until starting to soften. Add rice and chorizo and cook, stirring, for 1 min or until rice is opaque. Increase heat to high, add tomato mixture and cook, stirring, for 1 min or until bubbling and fragrant.

Stir in 200ml chicken stock and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low-medium until gently simmering. Place chicken pieces on rice in pan and cook, uncovered, for 55 min without stirring. Check to see if there is any liquid. If not, pour remaining stock around edge of pan. Cook for a further 5 min or until rice is just tender - it should still have a slight bite to it. Remove from heat, scatter with remaining 1 tbs parsley and stand for 5 min before serving straight from the pan.

Happy Cooking

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

Here are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, (Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out). Cheers!

Apple Tarte Tatin (MasterChef)

When I first turned out my tarte tatin onto a serving plate, I was really worried seeing it so dark in its caramel colour and kept asking myself, "Did I burn my tarte?"...

Then, I recalled the picture of the tarte at Australian MasterChef website and remember that the caramel of the MasterChef tarte is actually as dark and deep like mine. So, I embraced myself to take the first bite and it was surprisingly delicious. It was not burnt at all and both apple and pastry were very nicely cooked together.

This is my first time baking a tarte tatin. Based on this recipe, I thought that baking a tarte tatin should be easy and the description of the recipe in the Masterchef Australia Cookbook (volume one) is a little exaggerating but I was totally wrong...

The book wrote:
"Follow the recipe to the tee. Don't vary it, don't move it, don't do anything other than what the hell's on the recipe - Aaron (MasterChef season one contestant)"

Zoe: Really? (with my eyes rolled...)

The book wrote:
"...be careful not to cut your apples too thin"
" cutting each quarter at the core so it has a “flat” side"

Zoe: clueless... LOL!

The book wrote:
"When it's rested for ten minutes, you should be able to put your hand on the top of the tarte and spin it round. This is a really important part of the whole process. If it doesn't move, it's stuck - Gary (MasterChef judge)"

Zoe: Oh man! Mine is stuck!!!
Yes, my tarte was stuck to the pan but I was lucky enough to "poke" the stuck area off the pan. At this stage, I realised that baking a tarte tartin is really not as easy as I thought...

For an extra challenge, I have actually made my own puff pastry (in a rough form) and I reckon my pastry looks a little too thin and "brittle" for my 26 cm tarte but I was lucky again that most of the pastry on the tarte survive after the flip. Overall, it was a fun cooking experiment. I reckon that my thin but flaky and buttery pastry was in its right amount to compliment the caramel apples and the whole tarte was all gone in a flash. However, to be on the safe side, I will increase the amount of pastry slightly if I'm baking this again.

"Did I burn my tarte?"... Luckily, I didn't.

Making the pastry dough

Making layers in the rough puff pastry

Cutting the apples... in my "clueless" way :p

Cooking the caramel apples

Ready to bake the tarte...

Happy to see that my rough puff pastry was puffing up :D

Phew! Most part of my tarte survived!

Serving my tarte with store bought custard

We are enjoying this combination of flaky pastry and deeply caramelised apples with custard. Yum!

Here are the recipes (with my modification in blue).

Tarte tatin from the book, Masterchef Australia, The Cookbook (volume one) or  Australian MasterChef website
 
3 Golden Delicious apples 
(Golden Delicious is not available at the day of my shopping so I bought Red Delicious instead. Then, I realised Golden Delicious is not closely related to the Red Delicious. Ops!) 
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
20g unsalted butter, chopped
Ready-rolled puff pastry sheet 
(I made my own rough puff pastry, see below)
Cream, to serve (I served mine with store bought vanilla custard)

Preheat oven to 220ºC (200ºC fan-forced)
 
Peel apples, cut into quarters, remove cores (cutting each quarter at the core so it has a “flat” side) (I don't really understand this and so I cut my apples to eighths), and toss the apples in a large bowl with the lemon juice and 1 tbsp of the sugar.
 
Using a 20cm frying pan as a guide, cut pastry into a round slightly larger than the pan, prick with a fork.

Melt butter in a 20cm non-stick frying pan (Mine is 26 cm) over medium-high heat. Cover with the remaining sugar. Cook over medium-low heat, shaking pan occasionally to spread around any dark spots that appear, until a rich caramel forms.
 
Place apple into pan, rounded side down, arranging them around pan. Cut remaining apple to fill gaps. Cook the apples over medium heat for about 10 min until caramel is bubbling up in the pan, shaking pan occasionally to prevent burnt spots. (After 5 min of cooking, I did give my apples a flip to make sure that they are cooked evenly.)

Lay the pastry over the apples, tucking any protruding edges around edges of pan.

Place the pan in the oven, cook for about 25 min, or until the puff pastry has risen and cooked. The pastry should be dry and flaky. Stand tarte in pan for 10 min before carefully turning out onto a serving plate. Serve with cream (or custard)

Rough Puff Pastry from French Food Safari Book by Maeve O'Meara 

This is an easier version of puff pastry. It can rise almost as much as the classic puff pastry but without having layers of butter folded inside it.

Recipe from Guillaume Brahimi

Makes 1.25 kg
500 g (3 1/2 cups) plain flour
500 g chilled unsalted butter, diced
1 1/2 tsp salt
250 ml iced water

Mound the flour on a work surface and make a well in the centre. Add the butter and salt to the well and use your fingertips to gradually rub the flour into the butter. When the butter is in small pieces, giving the flour a grainy texture, gradually add the water. Mix until just incorporated into a dough. Shape into a disc and cover in plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for 20 min.

Place the pastry on a lightly floured work surface and roll it away from you into a long rectangle, about 20 x 40 cm (I didn't measure mine but definitely smaller than this size). Fold in one of the ends, going two-thirds of the way to the other end. Fold the other end on top, giving a stack of three layers like a folded pamphlet. Turn the stack so a short edge is facing you and roll out to another long rectangle, then fold into three again. Cover in plastic wrap and chill for another 30 min.

Repeat another set of rolls and folds (2 of each) and chill for another 30 min. The pastry is now ready to use. If you don't need to use all the pastry at once, it can be frozen.

Note: Using 1/4 of the recipe, I have made about 300g of pastry and used only half for making my tarte tatin.

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

Here are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, (Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out). Cheers!

Everyday Yogurt Cake

Sometimes, I wonder... Does everyday need to be the same? Why even the kiddy underwear sometimes come in a pack of seven for seven different days? Even wearing the same school uniform, I used to carry a different handkerchief everyday. 

For this bake-along, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen wings and I are baking this super-easy Everyday Yogurt Cake from the book, Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman. As mentioned in its name, this cake is really a plain low-fat cake and I wasn't expecting it to be as tasty as most buttery cakes. I'm actually surprised that the cake is quite good being a simple mix-and-bake low fat cake. In fact, the cake tasted pretty nice and spongy when it was freshly baked and wasn't as good on the next day. So, bake the cake only if you are eating it on the same day.

Even being an "Everyday cake", I reckon this cake can be plain or fun being as it is. So why not, let me enjoy a plain cake like this with seven different ways...

Here I am trying to imagine... what if I'm an everyday cake...

I like being plain and like to be seen being a good plain, so...

Monday is my simple day.

Tuesday is my busy day.

Wednesday is my reading day.

I'm having a headache on Thursday but feeling better on Friday.

I'm feeling a little glamorous on Saturday but how about Sunday?

Everyday Yogurt Cake

Making the cake batter

A slice of yogurt cake for everyday...

Thursday to... Sunday?

What about Sunday? Think, Zoe! THINK!!! 

I have an idea!... How about baking this cake in the form of Whoopie pies for Sunday? Since our last Whoopie pie bake-along, my husband and son have been pestering me to bake more Whoopie pies for them and so here I am baking this cake in the form of Whoopie pies for them...

Like I have mentioned earlier, these low fat Whoopie pies were nice to eat when they were freshly baked but became tough and dry on the next day. I guess that we must be too fussy with our cakes! LOL!

Yum !

Baking the Whoopie cake rounds

Nice to eat these on everyday too... but not on the next day! LOL!

Here are the recipe from the book, Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman

(with my notes and modification in blue)

Ingredients:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups sugar (reduced to 1 cup)

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt or low-fat yogurt
(I used the 99% fat free yogurt)

1/3 cup vegetable oil
(I used rice bran oil)

2 large eggs

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Confectioners’ sugar

Steps:

Preheat the oven to 350°F (or 160°C fan forced). Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch cake pan and dust it with flour, knocking out any extra.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Whisk together the yogurt, oil, eggs, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just moistened.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the top of the cake is light golden and a toothpick inserted into the center is clean, about 40 min.

Let the cake cool in the pan for about 5 min, invert it onto a wire rack, and then turn it right side up on a rack to cool completely. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, then slice and serve.

Store uneaten cake in a cake keeper or wrap in plastic and store at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Note:

Using half amount of this recipe, I've baked a 14 cm cake at 160°C fan forced for 35 min.

To bake Whoopie cake rounds, drop one tablespoonful of cake batter on a silicon mat and bake them either at 160°C fan forced for 14 min or 180°C fan forced for 10 min. Using the full amount of this recipe, I've baked 24 whoopie cake rounds and sandwiched them with Nutella.
 
Happy Baking

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

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

For our next bake-along, we are baking cream puffs which is to be posted on 27 Sep 2012. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake your favourite cream puffs and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 7 days.


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
 
Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Melting Moments Biscuits (MasterChef)

To be honest, I made these melting moments purely out of curiosity... To be honest again, I did have a nice moment enjoying these biscuits melting in my mouth...

This melting moments recipe originates from Julia Taylor, one of the Australian MasterChef season 4 contestants who is also known as the dessert queen of season 4. Using this melting moments recipe, she had won two challenges on this reality cook show and have lots of great feedback on these biscuits from the judges. Knowing that, I must be crazy missing out baking this wonderful recipe...

Unlike most melting moment biscuits, this one has higher proportion of custard powder which make the biscuits really melt-y but slightly more on the sweeter sides. And, they can be even sweeter when they are sandwiched with the jam and buttercream. 

So naturally, you must be thinking a health conscious person like me will reduce the sugar content of this recipe if I'm baking these melting moments again but guess what? I would not... First of all, I reckon that this amount of sugar is essential to preserve the fruits if the melting moments are to be stored at room temperature. Secondly, I believe that this jam composition gives the jam a good consistency which will not wet the biscuits too much when I sandwich it. Last but not least...

Melting moments are full of butter anyway so why not enjoy these sweet melting moments as much as it is... Enjoy!

Making the mixed berries jam

Baking the biscuits

Assembling the melting moments

The moment of truth... this melting moment is really melting in my mouth... Yum!

Here's the recipe from the Australian MasterChef

(with my modification and notes in blue)

Makes: 5 large sandwiched biscuits

Biscuits
180g unsalted butter
60g icing sugar, sifted
60g custard powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
180g plain flour

Vanilla buttercream
100g butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
(replaced with vanilla beans from 1 pod for every tsp of paste required)
1 cup icing sugar, sifted

Raspberry jam
250g fresh or frozen raspberries
250g caster sugar
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/2 tsp gelatine powder
(for half amount, I replaced this 1 gelatin leaf - see note)

Icing sugar, to serve

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line two oven trays with baking paper.

For biscuits, cream butter for 2 min in an electric mixer with paddle attachment. Add icing sugar and custard powder and mix until combined. Sift the baking powder and flour together then add to the dough and mix well. Roll dough into 40g balls, place on a baking paper lined baking tray and press each ball with a fork to leave an indent. Bake biscuits for 16-18 min or until light golden. Stand on trays 5 minutes to cool then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For buttercream, whisk butter and vanilla until smooth. Add icing sugar and beat until mixture
forms a paste, the consistency of thick icing. Spoon into a piping bag fitted with a small star nozzle (I used Wilton no. 18).

For jam, place raspberries, sugar and lemon juice in a small saucepan and cook for 20-30 min until thickened. Mix gelatine powder with one tbsp cold water together. Remove the jam from the heat, stir through gelatine mixture. Transfer to a heatproof bowl and cool in the fridge.

To assemble, place a spoonful of cooled jam on the base of half the biscuits. (I pre-warmed my jam a little before spreading onto my biscuits.) Pipe buttercream in circle onto the base of the other half of the biscuits. Gently press one of each biscuit together to form a melting moment. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Note: 

Using 2/3 of the biscuit recipe, I can divide this amount of dough to bake 15 smaller biscuits. The smaller biscuits were baked at 160°C fan forced for 13 min. I have made my butter cream and jam using half amount of the recipe and the amount made were more than enough to sandwich 7 of my melting moments.

The gelatin leaf was pre-soaked in water just before use. Excess water was squeezed out from the pre-soaked gelatin before adding to the jam mixture.

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out. Do you wish to be inspired by any of these "MasterChefs"? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe (from the contestants, judges or even sponsors) from any MasterChef websites or cookbooks (any countries) and blog hop with us for the whole month of September 2012. For more details, please see this.

Here are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.

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

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, (Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Anuja from Simple Baking and Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out). Cheers!