Profusion Roll 缤纷香卷

Thinking of whether or not to post this recipe as it did not turn out nicely. But finally I did it so as a record and reference for my future attempt.

This is my favorite childhood cake that baked by my dear mum. We always feel so impress whenever mum make this cake. Not only it looks pretty and also yummy as it's served cold.

We miss this cake over the years but mum said she already retired from the kitchen and she lost the recipe too. Oh dear, how can I figure out the recipe as my siblings keep begging me to make this as mum did. With my eye close and head bow over days and nights, trying to recall and imaging how mum did it when I was just 5 years old. Could you imagine how difficult to recall everything after 30 years? Oppss.. I've accidentally mention my age. Hehe....
With my limited baking knowledge and experience, I started to plan from the sponge cake with color using ogura cake recipe.

As for the cream, I knock my head and keep turning my tongue to recall which cream should it be sandwiched in the cake. I am glad that I able to recall the texture and start with experiment with swiss meringue butter cream.

My very first attempt on this cake is quite disappointed for me as I didn't assemble it as nice as mum did. The roll should be in very square shape and each colors inside the roll should be neatly arranged. When my mum saw the cake she knew what went wrong and that tips really help me for my next attempt. The cream between the gaps of each color cakes is too much. It should be half of the cream that I spread so that the color cakes looks more appealing not the cream.

Layer and stacking every strips of the colored cakes really not an easy job. The ogura cake is very light and soft to handle and spreading the cream on them has to be gentle too.

The cake doesn't look neat and nice that my hearts drop into deep sea. However, a little award from the texture and taste that won back a little smile on my face. Closing my eye to have every bite of the cake really feel like I'm eating mama' s wonderful cake. Now, I got to practice until it is well presented and serve my siblings and relatives with mama wonderful creation during Xmas.

Colored ogura cake 36 x 27 cm baking tray

(A)
Vegetable oil 45g
Full cream Milk 60ml
Salt 1/4tsp
Egg yolk 100 g
Whole egg 1
Cake flour 65 g
(B)
Egg white 200g
Caster sugar 65g
Tartar powder 1/2 tsp

1 teaspoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon green tea matcha powder
2 tablespoon raspberry puree

1. Line the base of a pan with baking paper. Divide three rectangular portion into about 12 X 27cm shape with baking paper. 
2. Mix together ingredients (A). Weight the batter and sperate them into 3 bowls with equal portions. 
3. Mix in the cocoa powder to a portion, green tea another portion and raspberry puree for another portion. Combine well and set aside.
4. Beat the egg whites until frothy then add the tartar powder. Gradually add in the caster sugar in 3 batches and keep beating until stiff peak foam. The meringue is slightly curd to one side when the whisk is lifted up and presenting smooth shinny texture.
5. Weight and divide the meringue into 3 portions and fold them into mixture (A) until well combined. 
6. Pour into the prepared pan each color a roll. Put a tray at the lowest rack in the oven then pour enough of hot water. Place the batter on the second lower rack then steam bake at 160C preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.
7. After baked, remove the cake from the oven and unmould and tear of the baking paper and then cool on a wire rack.
8. Once they completely cool down, cut the colored ogura cake into 3 portions and each strips is equally 2 cm thickness. Total is 3 green strips, 3 brown strips and 3 pink strips.ain vanilla sponge roll 38cm x 27cm baking tray

Unsalted butter 40g
Egg yolk 100g
Caster sugar 20g
Egg white 160g
Caster Sugar 75g
Plain flour 55g

• Prepare a baking tray lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
• Whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale in color. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until peak foam.
• Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the shifted flour.
• Pour some egg mixture into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter until well combine.  Pour back into the egg mixture and mix gently until everything well combine.
• Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly. Bake at 190C for 12 minutes. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediate when it out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

Swiss meringue butter cream

200 g sugar

120 g egg white

340 g unsalted butter, soft but not too soft

Mix egg white and sugar in a double boiler with hand whisk. Stir until the sugar dissolved.

Remove form the double boiler and beat with electric mixer until stiff peak foam.

Change to a K hook blade start beating at medium high speed and gradually add in butter a cube at a time until a smooth and spreadable cream.

To assemble the cake:

Place the vanilla sponge cake on a piece of cling wrap which is bigger than itself. The sponge cake brown side face up.

Spread about 6 cm wide of SMB on the vanilla sponge  at the left side then place a strips of brown ogura cake at the left side on the cream. Thinly spread some cream around the brown cake then place a strip of green cake beside the brown cake. Spread thinly with cream then place a pink cake on the side. Spread some cream around it. 

Follow the same way above make the second layer start from green, pink and brown then the third layer pink, brown and green. 

Spread evenly the side left, right and top of the layered cake then gently fold the vanilla sponge cake over from right to left. Press lightly and use little cream to seal the gap. Cling wrap the roll and keep refrigerate for overnight. 

Trim the side and slice the cake with a sharp knife straight away down. Do not saw the cake. It is best serve cold.

Milky Matcha Marble Bread

Ever since I got my bread maker, I have not make any square loaf of bread. Here comes a good excuse that the bread maker really do a good job for my daily bread really. I do miss square loaf, especially when I'm looking for square bread for my square sandwiches. Another reason that I bake this as I'm quite bored with a plain bread looking which fully produced from my bread maker. So, I try to squeeze in some time during  the weekend to make a bread manually with some marble effect. However, the marble effect doesn't looks outstanding but the texture is absolutely good. Very satisfy with the compact soft texture yet with nice structure. Although the green effect doesn't look appealing to the eye, the green matcha gives very nice smell on the bread indeed. It s good to produce bread manually by hands when I able to.

Recipe:

150g fresh milk
35g egg
25g caster sugar
5g salt
250g bread flour
4g Instant yeast
38g butter (unsalted)
1 teaspoon matcha green tea powder
1 tablespoon water

Place all the ingredients into the bread maker pan except yeast. Knead the ingredients at function 11 for 15 minutes. (Or knead all the dough with a dough hook mixeer)

Switch off and on again choose function 11 for the second kneading and add yeast this time. Kneading until 15 minutes finished.

Take out the dough divide 2 portions . One portion is 3/5 from the dough and another is   2/5. The large portion keep in the fridge with cling warp. The small portion add a teaspoon of green tea powder. Use hand knead a little then put it back to the pan to knead at program 11. Gradually add a tablespoon of water with two drops at a time until the color well mixed.
Bring the plain dough out from the fridge .proof together with the color dough for 60 minutes. punch out the air and rest 15 minutes. Wrap the small one in to big one to form ball shape. Then use a rolling pin to roll longish shape.. Roll them back like swiss roll then cut with knife into 3 equal portion. Place in a bread pan proof 60 minutes then bake at 190'C 25 minutes.

Baileys Cheesecake

Another cake I had prepared for a party recently is baileys cheesecake. The most easier cheesecake to prepare with lots of positive feedback especially for a cheesecake lover. This recipe already in my blog for few years but I like to jot it down again to keep a record for my future reference as the size of the pan and the baking method has a little different. Using the same amount of ingredients but baked in a larger 9 inches square pan. Of course, the amount of the the base ingredients is different as the pan is larger so the digestive biscuits need to be added more. I didn't bake in water bath for the cheesecake but steam bake meaning that a tray of water was placed at the lowest rack then the cheesecake place on the second lower rack. Baking times has reduced a little as the cheesecake is thinner than the previous one and finally the result is equally good as my previous one. Portion the cake into small slices look pretty nice for a party.

Ingredients for 9 inches square pan:

For the crust:

250g digestive biscuits
125g unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
500g cream cheese, at room temperature
100g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
2 large eggs, at room temperature

200ml sour cream
80ml baileys 
Method:

To make the crust:

1. Lined the springform pan with baking paper.
2. Mix the digestive biscuits crumbs with the melted butter together in a bowl. Layer the crumbs into the pan evenly. Place it into the fridge while you preparing the cheesecake batter.
3. Preheat the oven to 160°C and put a kettle of water on to boil.

To make the cheesecake:

1. Beat the cream cheese with sugar, vanilla and salt until creamier and sugar dissolve. 
2. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until just combine.
3. Mix in the sour cream and baileys. Give the batter a few stirs with a rubber spatula, just to make sure that nothing has been left unmixed at the bottom of the bowl, and scrape the batter into pan that lined with the digestive biscuits.  
4. Put a shallow pan at the lowest rack in the oven and pour enough boiling water into pan. Place the cheesecake batter in the second lower rack.
5. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour. Turn off the oven's heat leave the cheesecake in the oven for 30 minutes then with door ajar another 30 minutes.
6. Then, let the cheesecake come to room temperature on a cooling rack. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly with cling wrap and chill the cake for overnight
7. At serving time, use a hot knife to potions the cakes. Enjoy!

Fruit Pound Cake

I realise that not many Asian appreciate fruit cake, I mean those butter cake filled with plenty of dried fruits that soaked with liqour for certain of time. However, my parent and siblings like this kind of cake and ask for more liqour to be added in their fruit cake. I only do it for them once a year as the cake need times to sit in the freezer and to be fed with liqour until mature enough to serve.

Japanese style of light fruit pound cake

This fruit pound cake wasn't mature enough as I did it in a rush for a party. The dried fruit was only soaked for a week and I didn't have chance to feed them more liqour at all. So this fruit cake had just a mild taste of rum. 

Not a traditional fruit cake bake with dark brown sugar but a light colour to present a colourful fruit cake

The method of making this fruit cake also different from my previous traditional baked fruit cake. It is a Japanese style of making pound cake which added with dried fruits. If you get into deeper study of pound cake making, the cake wasn't made from the method of separate egg whites and yolks but Japanese recipe did. They use to beat the butter, sugar, egg yolks then fold in the white meringue and flour alternatelly because they are much appreciate the light texture of pound cake just quite similar to the recipe I baked previously like Lemon Pound Cake and Marble Pound Cake.

This fruity pound cake is well accepted and  majority enjoyed in the party. Very glad they appreciate the texture.  My hubby wasn't a fruit cake person but he likes it this way.

a better way of baking fruit cake to serve in an Asian party

Recipe for pound cake pan 18 x 8 x 6.5cm

100g plain flour

30g ground almond

1/3 teaspoon baking powder

120g salted butter

35g caster sugar

2 egg yolks

2 lemon zest

2 tbsp homemade lemon juice

2 egg whites

40g caster sugar

120g mixed dried fruits (dried cranberries , dried apricot,  sultanas) soak with liqour either brandy, rums or cointreau for a week  or up to a year. Before use, drain and dry the dried fruits on a sieve and clean towel. Add a big handful of plain flour to coat the dried fruits and sieve away the access flour.

Grease and line the pound cake pan with baking paper. Shift the flour, baking powder and ground almond.

In a clean bow, beat the butter then gradually add in the caster sugar until the sugar dissolved into the butter and the mixture become fluffy and pale in color. 

Mix in the egg yolk one at a time and beat until just combine. Then  mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice until just combined.

In another clean bowl, beat the egg whites with a pinch of sugar until the bubbles appear then add 1/3 of the sugar. Gradually beat in the rest of the sugar until the egg whites become stiff peak foam. Gently fold in half the egg whites into the butter mixture, don't have to mix too much. Then mix in half of the flour ingredients and combine everything. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites then add the remaining flour ingredients then the dried fruits until just combined. 

Fill the cake pan with the batter. 

Bake in a 180C preheated oven for 15 minutes.  When the batter set and it start to expand, open the oven door and use a knife to cut a line at the center of the batter, lower down the temperature to 170C   continue to bake for 40 minutes or until and skewer insert into the cake and come out clean. Be careful not to over bake the cake as you dont want a hard dry cake. 

Let it cool down on a wire rack and keep in an airtight container either at room temperature  or in the fridge. 

For a mature taste of liqour, poke holes on the cake with a skewer, brush some liqour from the top then cling wrap the cake then another layer of aluminium foil. Place in the freezer. Take it out twice a month to feed some liqour on the cake until mature enough for your taste bud.

Chocolate Milk Bread

Trying out another recipe with my bread maker to fully produce a loaf of milky chocolate bread.   Very satisfy with the result and that's mean other than sweet potato or pumpkin bread, I have another option to let the bread maker to produce different bread. And yet, this is straight dough method which I don't need to steam the potato or pumpkin to bake a bread in case I don't have them at home. Still the same using the function 3 with my panasonic bread maker at medium crust setting to get it done in 4 hours 20 minutes.

The bread is bouncy soft which gives a nice texture. This bread has become one of our daily bread menu.

Replace chocolate milk to full cream or fresh milk to produce a white plain loaf. It is equally nice and soft.

Ingredients for Panasonic bread maker program 3 with medium crust setting. Process takes 4:20 minutes to complete. 

150g Dutchlady chocolate fresh milk (or fresh milk for white loaf)

35g egg

25g caster sugar

5g salt

250g bread flour

4g Instant yeast

38g butter (unsalted)