Banana Cake

Most home bakers would store a list of stuff that they plan to bake, and for me, banana cake has been one of the items that I have been wanting to bake. 

This was an impromptu bake. We had nothing for breakfast the next day and I bought a bunch of really ripe Del Monte bananas and got down to bake the cake after getting home from work.  Finally tried and got it off my "to-bake" list.

Hubby gave me a thumb's up after he tried the cake!  It was really yummy and this recipe by Wen's Delight was really good.  Cake was soft and moist.  All the banana cake lovers should really give this recipe a try.  


Banana Cake
Recipe by Wen's Delight (I made some variations to the original recipe)

2.5-3 Eggs (Room temp - Approx 150g) - I used 3 eggs and it weighed 160g
130g Sugar (Reduced, original-150g) - I used 110g
200g Banana (Ripe & cut into small pcs) - I mashed it with a fork
150g Top Flour (or plain flour/superlite flour/cake flour)
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Baking soda
100g Corn oil (or any vegetable oil except olive oil, if prefer richer flavour replace with melted butter but it may cover the banana fragrant)
1/8 tsp Banana essense (optional)

Preheat oven to 160 degree C.
Grease & line a 8" round tin with paper.
I mashed the bananas with a fork.

1. Sieve flour, baking powder & soda together. Sieve twice & set aside.
2. Whisk eggs, sugar & banana at max. speed till stiff/ribbon stage. (For Kenwood Chef - approx 10-13mins)

3. Fold in flour & mix well. (Can use spatular or hand to mix)
4. Add in oil & mix well till batter is shiny & flowing.

 

5. Bake for 40 - 45min.

Orange Chiffon Cake

A light and citrusy cake after all the heavy and sinful meals of these 2 weeks of festive holiday celebrations. Here we are, ushered into the brand new 2016.  2015 wasn't too bad for me, and I hope this new year will be a better one for me, of cuz for my hubby, my family and everyone! 

No. Don't be mistaken. I aren't on a chiffon craze. It just so happened that I have some oranges on hands and I wanted to bake something simple for breakfast, hence this chiffon cake came along.

Using the zests of oranges and freshly squeezed orange juice, you can expect a zesty orange chiffon cake.  I haved baked this several times and orange chiffon cakes never disappoints!

I always enjoy peeping into my oven and see how my chiffon cake "grows" and fluff up into a pillowy soft whole chiffon cake!

Finally some wait and my orange chiffon cake is finally cooled, unmoulded and ready to be tasted!!!

An effortless deco using my home grown mint leaves to spruce up the otherwise plain chiffon photo.

I love how the kitchen is filled with the orangey aroma halfway through the baking.  That almost always get me excited and can never wait to cool it down, unmould and slice a piece of that zesty chiffon to taste.  It really makes a yummy tea time treat.

Orange Chiffon Cake
Bakes in a 21cm chiffon tube pan

Egg Yolk mixture
5 egg yolks
75ml olive oil 
30 g castor sugar
115g plain flour
95ml fresh orange juice 
Zest from 2 oranges

Egg white mixture
5 egg whites
70g castor sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 160deg C.
2. Sift plain flour and set aside. 
3. Combine egg yolks, olive oil, fresh orange juice and sugar and mix well.
4. Add in sifted plain flour into the mixture and mix well till no lumps. Mix in orange zest. Set aside.
5. Beat egg whites till frothy and add in castor sugar in 3 additions, beat well in between each addition. At the last portion of sugar addition, beat egg whites till stiff peaks.
6. Spoon 1/3 of egg whites into the egg yolk mixture and fold in gently till no whiteixture is visible, taking care not to deflate the mixture.
7. Add in remaining half of white mixture and continue to fold in, repeat with last portion of egg white mixture.
8. Pour mixture into chiffon pan. Drop pan twice on tabletop to get air bubbles dissipate from mixture. 
9. Put to bake at 160deg C for 1 hour or till done. To check done-ness, insert toothpick into cake centre, cake is done when toothpick comes out clean with no sticky batter.
10. Remove and invert chiffon pan to allow cake to cool before removing to slice. 

Dragonfruit & Vanilla Greek Yoghurt Popsicles

Addicted to making popsicles and eating them, so I am making these yummy treats quite frequently.

These popsicles are definitely wat healthier than ice creams. No whipped cream and sugar. Are you in for popsicles??

Dragonfruit Vanilla Greek Yoghurt Popsicles

1 red dragonfruit, de-skin and cut into smaller pcs
3 tbsp Vanilla Greek yoghurt, for blending
Desired amount of Vanilla Greek yoghurt for swirling (optional)

1. Slice and place dragonfruit pcs and yoghurt into blender. Blend!

2. Spoon half tsp of yoghurt into empty popsicle mould. Spoon dragonfruit puree halfway into popsicle moulds. 

3. Add 1/2 tsp yoghurt and then top with puree. Do not fill to brim of mould as popsicle will "pop up" slightly when frozen.

4. Finally using a chopstick, dip into mould mixture and stir about slightly to create a swirl pattern.
5. Place into freezer.

6. When removing, wrap mould with a hot dish cloth / run mould (bottom part) under running water and carefully dislodge popsicles. Enjoy!

Mango Honey Yoghurt Popsicle

The unusually hot and humid weather is making me crave for anything cold to cool my body. Very unlike me, for I am one who is not into icy cold stuff. It is the same with my hubby! And so I thought it was about time I put my popsicle mould (I bought some 1 year back!) into good use.  Make some healthy fruit and yoghurt popsicle, will you?

I have got 2 ripened mangoes, a tub of yummy honey yoghurt, a blender and a popsicle mould, so let's do it :)

I got this from Japan Home.

We love this thick and creamy yoghurt.

A must have in our fridge.

This is a super fast and easy popsicle recipe. Seriously, it couldn't get any easier than this! Best of it all was that these are yummy and healthy sweet treats for yourself, and your littles ones :)

Fret not if you do not have a popsicle mould, you can do good even with paper cups, plastic cups or shot glasses for dainty icy treats. Spoon blended mixture into paper cups, cover with clingwrap and stick in centre of clingwrapped cup with a short straw or a snipped wooden chopstick for support of the popsicle.

Wooden chopstick would have been the better support option but I did not have them, so I used straws. It was quite okay too just that you would have to held it with more care :)

Mango Honey Yoghurt Popsicle

220g mango puree (I used 2 Thai Honey Mangoes)
170g Greek Honey Yoghurt

1. Slice and place mango pieces into blender. Blend!

2. Spoon in Honey Yoghurt into mango puree and blend again.

I filled the moulds with half of the mango yogghurt puree, then spoon in half a tbsp of honey yoghurt and finally topped it off with the remaining mango yoghurt puree. Use a chopstick and loosely stir the puree to create a swirl pattern.

3. Spoon puree into popsicle moulds or paper cups. Do not fill to brim of mould as popsicle will "pop up" slightly when frozen.
4. Place into freezer.

I had extra puree and so the remaining were poured into paper cups.

5. When removing, wrap mould with a hot dish cloth and carefully dislodge popsicles. Enjoy!

Chilled Creamy Mango Pomelo Sago 杨枝甘露

There is no other best time to make this dessert other than now! Yes, when mangoes are so in season now and are going cheap! So so sweet and yummy. This is like an annual thing, a once-a-year-must-make dessert.

Mummy gave me a pomelo which turned out to be very sweet and yummilicious. Mum then asked if I had plans to make the mango pomelo sago. I instantly knew I had to do this soon because Mum seldom have food requests. Hehe!

I searched the internet looking for a recipe that will give me a pot of creamy mango pomelo sago. I decided to come up with my own. It was not too difficult :)

My little brother asked for a second serving of it. He is quite picky and critical about food, so when he asked for more, I felt flattered lor. Hahaha.

I like the creamy tasty of both the fresh mango puree and evaporated milk mixed together. I never like diluted mango pomelo sago. Just indulge lor since we do not eat this dessert so often!

Chilled Creamy Sago Pomelo
(Serves 5-7)

500g mango (to blend into mango puree)
210ml evaporated milk
100g sago pearl
half mango, cut into cube bits
4 slices of pomelo, peeled and separated into bits (Add more if you like)

1. Put a pot of water to boil. Add in sago pearls, cover with pot lid and let it cook on low heat for about 15min or till sago turns translucent.

2. Pour cooked sago pearls onto sieve and leave in a bowl of room temperature water. This prevents the sago pearls from further cooking and turning soft, and this retains sago pearls chewiness. Remove refrigerate sago pearls till ready to use.
3. Blend 500g of mango and evaporated milk into puree.

4. Set mango puree into a big pot or mixing bowl. Add in sago pearls and stir till well mixed.
5. Add in mango cubes and pomelo bits and mix well.
6. Place in fridge and serve chilled.

Passionfruit Honey Drink 百香果蜜糖水

Mum gave me some passionfruits and I made some refreshing drink with the fruits.  Definitely a good time to consume this in our current hot and humid weather!

Do you know that passionfruit is loaded with Vitamin A, C, Potassium, Iron and dietary fibre? It provides us with a great source of antioxidants.

Also, it is a fruit that helps treat cough and lessen respiratory tract inflammations. Great for detox too as it helps cleanse our colons and aids digestion.  Because of its high dietary fibre, this fruit helps prevents constipation, reduces fats and cholesterol buildup in our bodies. With so many goodness that this one fruit has, we gotta eat more of this fruit :)

Passionfruit Honey Drink

3 ripe passionfruits
2 to 3 tbsp honey (depending on sweetness of passionfruit)
1.2 l water (freshly boiled and cooled)
Ice

1. Cut passionfruits into half and scrap off seeds insides and spoon into a jar.
2. Add in 2 tbsp of honey. (You can always add more when you do a taste test and want the drink sweeter)
3. Fill jar with water, mix well and stir till honey is dissolved. Do a taste test and add more honey accordingly.
4. Place in fridge and consume when chilled or add ice and enjoy immediately.

Avocado Gula Melaka Smoothie 鳄梨椰糖奶冰沙

Are you an avocado smoothie fan? I sure am! I particularly like the avocado gula melaka smoothie sold at Alexandra Food Market, and would surely get a glass of it to ease my never-ending avocado smoothie crave.

It has been sometime since I last had my avocado gula melaka smoothie fix, and I thought it is about time I tried blending this smoothie at home. And so I went avocado shopping at the supermarket. Got 3 of the buttery fruits!

Honestly speaking, I have tried to replicate this smoothie drink at home for several times and have never got anywhere near the ones sold at Alexandra Food Market. This time, I decided to melt gula melaka with water and some pandan leaves. I did not do this the last few times when I DIY the smoothie at home. I merely used melted gula melaka, fresh milk and some condensed milk as per friend's recommendation, which did not turn out to my liking. This time, I "concocted" my own avocado gula melaka smoothie and I simply love it! Hubby who also adores this drink gave a thumb's up. Taste and smell of the blended goodness is so so near to the food centre's avocado smoothie standard.

I am gonna blend this yummy smoothie again! No need to travel that far for my favourite drink anymore! Yay!!!! =)

Avocado Gula Melaka Smoothie 
2 ripe avocados
140ml milk
3 tbsp gula melaka syrup
2 handful of ice cubes

Gula Melaka syrup
100g gula melaka
40ml water
4 pcs of pandan leaves, knotted

Place gula melaka, water and knotted pandan leaves into saucepan and let gula melaka melt. Stir well. You may use a spatula to gentle press down pandan leaves and stir about so that gula melaka syrup will be infused with pandan fragrance.

Pour gula melaka syrup through sieve to rid bits of residue. Ready to use.

Smoothie
1. Half avocados and scoop out fruit flesh using a spoon and place into blender.
2. Add in milk, gula melaka syrup and ice cubes. Place on blender cover and blend into smoothie. If smoothie is too thick, add in more ice and blend. You may do a taste test, if smoothie is not sweet to your liking, add in more gula melaka syrup accordingly. Blend well. Serve with or without ice cubes.

Papaya Soup with Dried Figs

I cannot stress how much I love soup, can I? I am always on the lookout for yummy soup recipes. Was flipping through one of my recipe book and saw this soup that looked healthy and good enough to give it a try.

Have you drank Papaya soup with dried fig before? This is a refreshing soup that nourishes the lungs and relieves phlegm, great for the humid weather here in Singapore where we get bad nose and throat so often. Okay, maybe that's just me. I get nose and throat inflammation quite often!

You gotta buy unripe papaya to make this soup. I love eating papaya, the fruit itself, but was not too sure if I could accept it when cooked in soup. I had doubts about whether the papaya will cause the soup to have that strong milky papaya smell, but fortunately no, the smell of papaya wasn't too overbearing. The soup will get to appear on my dining table again :)

Gonna keep this post short and sweet this time. Be back soon :)

 This post is linked to Cook-Your-Books #19 @ kitchen flavours

Papaya Soup with Dried Figs
Recipe by Patsie Cheong (Recipe book title - One Day One Dish | 365 Selected Home-Cooked Recipes)

Ingredients A
7 pieces dried fig (cut into pieces)
1/4 piece tangerine peel
2 tbp sweet almond
2 tbsp bitter almond

Ingredients B
500g spare rib
400g unripe papaya (peeled and remove seeds)

Seasoning
Sea salt

1. Put 3 1/2 litres of water in a pot and bring to a boil.
2. Add in Ingredients A. When it boils, turn to low heat and cook for 1 hour.
3. Add in Ingredients B to cook for 3 hours, stir in sea salt. Serve hot. (I blanched the pork ribs in a separate pot of boiling water to remove excess oil before adding it into main soup pot.)

Strawberry & Chocolate Buttercream Cake

Went back to Mama's place on Sunday and I brought a cake over to celebrate Hubby's and Sister's birthday.  They are the November babies so I took the easy way out to combine 2 birthdays with one cake.  Hehe!   

Wanting to practise rose piping again, I chose to use buttercream for the cake frosting once more.  I bought a punnet of strawberries and used them as part of the deco for the cake.  I "coloured" the balance of my buttercreamn to pink with some red dragonfruit juice.  Al natural! Glad that the cake was well received and that it was not too sweet and heavy for my family.

Well, I still suck at smoothing out my cake frosting OMG!!!  It was a good thing that I used buttercream frosting or else with the time spent on trying to smooth out my frosting, those in the bowl and piping bag would have melted and softened long long ago.  Guess it's gonna be a long way for me before I can try out other frostings.   

After xxth minute still trying to smooth out the sides, I cheated by using my palette knife to smooth the sides from bottom up to form a patterned sides.  I thought it looked not too bad keke.  At least they look much better than my not-smooth-and-even-at-all frosting.  Conclusion: Baking can quite bring out one's creativity for sure! :)

Not getting any better at rose pipings.

I will strive on!

Strawberry & Chocolate Buttercream Cake 
(6 inch cake)
3 egg yolks
55g cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
40g caster sugar
30ml canola oil
35ml milk
a pinch of salt

3 egg whites
1/4 cream of tartar
5g cocoa powder 

5 pcs of strawberries (washed and dabbed dry, stalk removed) 
chocolate shavings (I used a sharp knife and ran it down the sides of a bar of bitter chocolate)

Sugar syrup for brushing
1 tbsp sugar
2 to 3 tsp hot water
(Dissolve sugar in hot water and set aside for cake brushing)

1. Preheat oven to 150deg C.
2. Sift cake flour, baking powder and cocoa powder and leave aside.
3. Beat yolk and 1/2 tbsp sugar till sugar has dissolved and yolk mixture has turned pale.
4. Add salt and beat well before adding canola oil in 2 additions. Make sure yolk mixture is well beaten between each addition.
5. Add in milk in 2 additions and mix well before placing in sifted cocoa flour mixture. Use a spatula and mix well till batter turns thick and creamy. Set aside.
6. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites till frothy. Add in cream of tartar and continue to beat till soft peaks form, add in remaining caster sugar in 3 additions and beat till stiff peaks are formed.
7. Spoon half of white mixture into cocoa batter and fold in till well mixed. Repeat the process with remaining white mixture in 2 additions.
8. Pour folded in batter into 6-inch baking tin and drop it on a table top twice to remove excess air bubbles.
9. Place baking tin in oven to bake at 150deg for 60 min or till done.
10. Remove from oven and place it overturned on a cooling rack to cool. Prepare white buttercream frosting. (Refer to Buttercream Frosting Step 1 to 3)
11. Slice a little of the uneven cake top if top is domed shape, then slice cake to get 2 even pieces for layering.  I used 3 toothpicks to guide me with the even and equal slicing.
12. Place a slice of the cake on a cake board and set it on a turntable, brush sugar syrup all over cake. Slap on some buttercream and spread it evenly. Place the other cake on top of buttercream.

13. Brush sugar syrup all over cake, then crumb coat whole cake with a thin layer of white buttercream to seal in cake crumbs so they will not get in the way during final coating, you may freeze crumb coated cake for about 15min before doing final thick coating.

14. Layer an even coat of white buttercream round sides of cake. (I left out the top since I will be piping on pink buttercream roses.) OR use a palette knife to create desired pattern on buttercream on sides of cake.

15. Spoon pink buttercream (refer to Buttercream Frosting Step 4 for direction) into a piping bag with a star nozzle and pipe the roses on the outer ream of cake top. Place strawberries round piped roses. Lastly spoon chocolate shavings into middle of cake. Refrigerate.

I managed to sneak in a photo of a slice of the cake!

Buttercream Frosting
150g salted or unsalted butter, softened (use good butter pls! I used Lurpak salted butter)
50g icing sugar (you may add more if you want a firmer buttercream)

1.5 to 2 tsp Red dragonfruit juice (3 bitesize pieces, mashed, squeezed and put through sieve)

1. Place butter into a mixing bowl, cut into smaller cubes and let it soften a little before beating.

2. Beat butter and icing sugar on low speed. Turn up speed when icing sugar has been blended with butter.

3. Beat till butter is smooth, creamy and firm enough to hold its shape

when piped.

4. To make pink buttercream with the leftover buttercream, add in few drops of red dragonfruit juice and mix well with a spatula. If a darker pink tone is desired, add in few more drops and mix. (If buttercream starts losing its firm texture, add in some icing sugar and beat to get back stiff texture good for piping.)

I love this shade of pink!