Banana Cake

My friend Helga posted this recipe she adapted from a cookbook to Facebook and I decided to try but I found I didn't have self raising flour so it checked for a recipe to make it.

Here is the recipe for the banana cake

To make self raising flour

1 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp fine salt 

1 tsp baking powder

Mixed together 

Other ingredients

250 gm ripe bananas ( about 2.5 bananas)

3 eggs 

40 gm melted unsalted butter

1 tsp baking soda

100 gm brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

Cut the bananas into smaller slices into a medium bowl and mix with the baking soda and set aside.

In another medium bowl, mix 3 eggs with the brown sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla till the sugar is dissolved. 

Add the prepared flour into the eggs mixture n mix thoroughly till no more white flour can be seen 

Then add the egg mix into the bananas 

Stir well and then add in the melted butter. Combine. 

Preheat oven to 180c.

I lined my loaf pan with baking paper with paper hanging over the sides of the loaf pan and pour the batter into it. This helps to remove the cake easily.

Place a few slices of bananas on the surface.

Bake for 35-40 mins.

Cool before cutting.

Before removal from pan 

11 slices ( I ate a piece)

Happy Baking!!

Honey Cake

This light textured as spongy honey cake recipe is from Pooh's Yummy Cookbook.

It is a simple recipe using 5 ingredients.

Well, 6 if you include some butter to grease the cake tin.

Recipe

3 eggs

80 gm sugar ( I used caster sugar)

90 gm self raising flour

6 teaspoons of honey 

1 pinch of salt 

Method 

Prepare 2 mixing bowls

Separate the egg yolks from the whites into the bowls.

Add the sugar and honey into the yolks n use an electric beater n beat well 

Mix in the flour spoon by spoon - I beat in with the electric mixer

Wash clean your beaters n dry them

Add a pinch of salt into the egg whites and whisk until stiff

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture

Preheat the oven to 180 deg celcius ( I used 170)

Grease a loaf tin or a round tin 

Pour into the cake tin and bake for 30 minutes 

I tented the cake with aluminum foil halfway at 15 minutes.

Remove and cook on wire rack.

Cut into 1 inch thickness n serve

Ingredients 

Egg yolk batter 

My girl helping to beat the egg whites until stiff

The yolks n the stiff white 

Before bake 

After bake 

Yummy honey cake!! You can't stop at one slice!

Dried Apricot Walnut Cake (eggless)

This is very fragrant and not so sweet. It is also eggless. I will not reduce any ingredients further as it will result in a very flat cake, I believe.I adapted this recipe from allrecipes Easy Raisin Cake. I have replaced with dried apricots n added milk. I used a smaller cake pan.

Recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup of dried apricots - cut up

It is actually one packet of Harvest Fields dried apricot ( original 1 cup raisins)

1 & 1/2 cups water

90gm unsalted butter

1 & 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda 

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup caster sugar (original is 1 cup)

In addition I used 1/2 cup milk

Method

Put the apricot n water in pot. On the heat and let it boil 10 minutes.

Off the fire and add in the butter.

Stir till the butter melts and coats the  apricot.Let mixture cool 5 minutes.

Grease a 7 x 7 inch square pan.

Preheat oven to 175 deg celcius.

Now add all the rest of ingredients into the pot. Stir all together.

You may find it increasingly difficult towards the end.

After all the flour incorporated, spoon the mixture into the pan and level it.

Bake for about 25 minutes. 

When you smell the cake, use  a aluminum foil and tent the cake in case it browned too much.

After baking , let stand in pan 2-3 minutes and then remove and cool completely on a rack . 

Dried apricot

Added butter

Before bake

After bake 

The underside of the cake

Nice square cake

Ready to serve!

Vanilla Butter Cake

Finally I got down to making this butter cake. This recipe received a lot of compliments from those into baking. The original recipe from Mrs S K Ng.

I googled n chanced upon a video tutorial by Baking With Mi. You can refer to the video to get a good picture of how to make this cake. 

The cake is light in texture n the height is marvelous but it feels oily to the touch. Personally I would prefer a sweeter version. The butter I used is Golden Churn brand. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJZ3rouKpA

The link above is the video tutorial

Ingredients 

230 gm butter softened

5 eggs separated into yolks n white (video recipe says 200 gm eggs without shells)

60 ml milk divided into 2 portions

150 gm sugar for butter batter 

200 gm self raising flour

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

50 gm caster sugar for the meringue 

Method

Prepare the butter batter

 

First cream the butter and caster sugar 150g, till the butter batter becomes twice its volume using the K-spade. Scrape down the sides after finish about 4-5 minutes medium speed.

 

Add the vanilla essence 1 teaspoon and incorporate it.

 

Add in the egg yolks one at a time and beat in. I scraped after every addition of egg.

 

Add in half the self raising flour. Beat for a while. While flour can still be seen at the sides, add in 30 gm of the milk and beat till incorporated. Scrape down the sides.

 

Add in the remaining milk and incorporate.

 

Add in the rest of the flour and beat a few seconds. Then use the spatula and mix the batter by hand. Set aside.

 

Prepare the 8 inch pan by greasing all round and line the base with parchment paper.

 

Prepare the meringue

 

Beat the egg whites on medium speed till the bubbles are very fine and slowly add on the caster sugar and beat till stiff peaks.

 

When you use the beater to lift up the meringue, the meringue stays on your beater.

 

I also inverted my bowl of meringue. The meringue will stay.

 

Heat the oven to 180 deg celcius.

 

Now, add half the meringue to the butter batter. I followed the video and used the spatula to fold in some and use the beater also.

 

Then fold in the rest of the meringue.

 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 180 deg for 25 minutes.

 

Then turn the temp down to 150 deg and bake for 20 minutes.

 

Open the oven door slightly and let the cake stay inside for 10 minutes.

 

Remove the cake and invert onto the wire rack with pan in place

 

After some time, when cool to touch, remove the pan and peel off the parchment paper.

 

Invert onto cake board and cut and serve slightly warm.

 

Batter with vanilla and eggs.

 

 

Batter with half the flour.

After all has been incorporated

Prepare egg white meringue 

Stiff peak meringue

Fold in the meringue into butter batter

Finish folding

8 inch pan greased all round n lined base only

Baked at 25 mins 180 deg celcius and then 20 mins at 150 deg celcius. My cake has a slight crack in the middle.

Cool upside down - with pan on - this photo taken after cooling

Cake inverted for cutting.

Lovely height!

Me n my cake!

Light textured butter cake for you!

Happy Baking!

Banana Cheese Cake

This is the last bake for 2013.  Still using bananas.
I had 4 bananas left and I didn't want to repeat the banana chocolate muffins which I did yesterday. I also had sour cream in my fridge.

I looked for banana recipes and bingo! About.com has this recipe Banana Cake with Cinnamon Glaze Recipe. It actually is a bit similar to yesterday's banana muffins and other banana bread I have done before but this cake is using a rectangular pan. 13 x 9 inch. Original recipe is from Peggy Trowbridge Filippone. I made a little adjustment by adding cheese.

Recipe
Dry ingredients
1.5 cups of plain flour (195gm)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (omitted because my children doesn't like them)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix the above using a whisk in a small bowl and set aside.

Wet ingredients
1 cup of caster sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil ( I used corn oil)
1 cup mashed bananas ( 2 large size bananas)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract ( I used essence)

Preheat the oven to 180 deg celcius (350 F)
Line the 9 x 13 inch pan.

Use a large bowl, beat sugar and oil.
Add bananas, sour cream, eggs and vanilla essence.
Beat for 2 minutes until thoroughly combined.
Using a large fork, stir in dry ingredients by hand stirring only until combined.
At this point, add in a handful of shredded cheese, I used Perfect Italiano Pizza Plus.
Combine in the batter.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes until lightly browned and top springs back when lightly touched.  Let cool to room temperature.

If you want to follow the recipe wholly, here is the glaze recipe.
Cinnamon Glaze recipe

1 cup confectioners' sugar or icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or cream

Whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and milk or cream.  Add only enough cream to make a spreadable glaze. Top cooled cake with the cinnamon glaze before cutting.

Serves 24 to 36 servings, depending on cut size.

After 30 minutes 

This is about half the cake cut into pieces 

I think I will add some nuts next time as the cake is a bit thin but the taste is good.

Banana chocolate chip cake

 

After all the excitement of Halloween is over, I finally settled down to do other bakes not related to pumpkin.

 

It's been a long time since I used bananas and I tweaked this recipe and incorporated chocolate chips and cinnamon too for added fragrance to the cake.

 

The original recipe is from simplyrecipes.com.  titled Banana Bread Recipe

 

It is easy to do and you don't need an electric beater.  I chose to do this so that I can involve my daughter as well.

 

Recipe

Ingredients

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

I also added about 1 /3 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips and more for sprinkling on top

about 1/4 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

 

Method

 

Preheat the oven to 175 deg celcius. ( I used 170)

Use a wooden spoon to mix the melted butter with the smashed bananas in a large mixing bowl.

Mix in the sugar, egg and vanilla.

Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in.

My step - Mix the flour with the cinnamon and chocolate chips. Add in and mix.

Butter one loaf pan and pour the mixture in. Sprinkle more chocolate chips on top.

Bake for 1 hr.  I used about 50 minutes.

Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

 

 

 

Bananas and melted butter

My daughter mixing it up

 

 

Before baking

 

 

 After 50 minutes, crusty chocolate top

 

 

Yummy cake ready to eat!

 

Happy Baking!

 

Steamed Pumpkin Rice Flour Cake

Steamed Pumpkin Rice Flour Cake

This recipe is from thelazychef.wordpress.com

https://thelazychef.wordpress.com/2006/09/22/steamed-pumpkin-rice-flour-cake/

I have lessened the amount from the original recipe as I feared I may not be able to do a proper cake but it turned out quite right.  It can be improved by making the seasoning stronger, perhaps adding slightly more salt.

Original recipe Ingredients :

800 g pumpkin - after skin n seeds removed and sliced into thin pcs.

( I used only about 550g)

Batter Mix

500 g rice flour

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

6 cups hot water

Fillings

80 g dried shrimps ( I used only 50 g) soften with water and minced

2 Chinese sausages diced ( I omitted)

70 g preserved wax Chinese ham ( I omitted)

15 Chinese dried mushrooms (soften and sliced thinly) ( I used only 8 pcs)

1 tbsp salt

1 tsp pepper

Method :

1. Use a wok and steam your cut up slices of pumpkin and mash them while still hot and set aside.

After steaming on high for 10 minutes

After mashing

2. Mince your dried shrimps and shred the mushrooms. 

3.  Use 2 tablespoon of oil to fry the shrimp till fragrant and then add the mushrooms ( and also Chinese sausages/ham) together with the tablespoon of salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Fry for 3 minutes and set aside. 

4. In a separate wok, I used a deep pot instead, pour in your batter and add in the 6 cups of hot water slowly while stirring to prevent lumps from forming.

Looks like coconut milk!

5. Add in the mashed pumpkin and mix well. Add in the filling ingredients and mixed well.  

 Note :If you want stronger taste, please increase your salt.

6.  Turn fire to low and stir continuously until batter is dry and sticky.

Perhaps the mixture can go drier but I stir over in a pot and so it is still a bit wet.

7.  Prepare a square tin and line with plastic - I cut open a large plastic sandwich bag and lined the tin.  My square tin is 200mm x 200mm x 56mm. 

Other recipes online says can oil the tin. 

Pour your mixture in and steam at high heat for 1hr or more. 

 If the skewer comes out clean, remove from fire, cool it and then cut.  If you put in fridge overnight, it is even easier to cut.

Steaming the pumpkin mix.

After steaming for about 1 hr 15 minutes.

Last nite when I made it, I didn't cool it down sufficiently to cut it as I was eager to eat it!

This piece I cut today after overnight in the fridge.  Serve it with some fried shallots and soy sauce.  You can also dribble some sesame oil over it to eat!

Enjoy cooking!