First and foremost, Selamat Berpuasa to everyone. Today marks the 16th day of the fasting month. Soon, it’ll be time to bake Raya goodies and hopefully that will mean more posts!

Before that though, it is time to reveal the Daring Bakers’ challenge.

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alasa or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

This month, I was introduced to brown butter and oh my, was I glad I signed up as a daring baker. Just the memory of the aroma of the brown butter is enough to make me salivate. On top of that, I had to overcome my nonsensical fear of making custard-based ice cream. I tweaked David Lebovitz’s chocolate ice cream recipe to churn out this marvelously creamy roasted almonds mocha ice cream to go into my bombe Alaska. Overall, this month’s daring bakers’ challenge was absolutely fun and a wonderful learning experience. Plus, I finally had a reason to invest in a blow torch.. Crème brûlée here I come!

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.
2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.
3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.
5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.
6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Almond Mocha Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop

2 cups heavy cream

1 tbsp unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 tbsp instant coffee powder

5 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup granulated sugar

Pinch of salt

5 large egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup lightly toasted almond slivers

Warm 1 cup of the cream with the cocoa powder and coffee powder in a medium saucepan, whisking to thoroughly blend the cocoa and coffee powder into the cream. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer at a low boil for 30 seconds, whisking constantly. Remove from the heat and add the chopped chocolate, stirring until smooth before stirring in the remaining 1 cup cream. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, scraping the saucepan as thoroughly as possible, and set a mesh strainer on top of the bowl.

Warm the milk, sugar, and salt in the same saucepan. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolk. Slowly pour the warm milk into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

Stir the mixture constantly over the medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the mocha mixture until smooth before stirring in the vanilla. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator. Remove mixture from freezer and whip to break large ice crystals. Repeat procedure at least thrice, adding the toasted almond slivers at the last step.

Meringue

8 large egg whites
½ teaspoon (3g) cream of tartar
½ teaspoon (3g) salt
1 cup (220g) sugar

Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high speed in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar gradually in a slow stream until stiff peaks form.

Assembly Instructions

1. Line four 4” (10cm) diameter tea cups with plastic wrap, so that plastic wrap covers all the sides and hangs over the edge. Fill to the top with ice cream. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap and freeze for several hours, or until solid.
2. Level the top of the brown butter pound cake with a serrated knife or with a cake leveler. Cut out four 4” (10cm) diameter circles from the cake. Discard the scraps or use for another purpose.
3. Make the meringue (see above.)
4. Unwrap the ice cream “cups” and invert on top of a cake round. Trim any extra cake if necessary.
5. Pipe the meringue over the ice cream and cake, or smooth it over with a spatula, so that none of the ice cream or cake is exposed. Freeze for one hour or up to a day.
6. Burn the tips of the meringue with a cooking blow torch. Or, bake the meringue-topped Baked Alaska on a rimmed baking sheet in a 500°F/260°C oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden. Serve immediately.

I’m in my final month of vacation and work will start in September. In the meantime, I am learning how to drive and boy does a manual car (stick shift) require good hand-eye coordination, which I think I might lack. Luckily enough, baking does not require any hand-eye coordination.

The fasting month will soon be upon us and for the first time in a long time, I will have ample time to plan and bake Raya goodies. And thus, being the forward thinking person that I am (not) I have been searching for new recipes to try. That was when I stumbled upon this recipe. The cookies looked cute and sort of resembled the rice cakes we serve during Eid. Mine turned out kinda wonky and the weird thing was that I did use a ruler to measure but that didn’t matter once you taste them.

And what do you do if you have extra dough pieces left behind? Roll them together and make black and white spiral cookies!

Checkerboard Cookies

From Baking Obsession

Makes 8 dozen cookies (I halved the recipe – boy, did i regret it)

5 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, at room temperature

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy before beating in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and mix to combine. Finish the mixing with your hands or a wooden spoon.

Divide the dough into 2 – I used the weighing scale just to be accurate. Knead ½ cup of cocoa into one portion of the dough. Divide the chocolate and vanilla dough in half. Form each of total four portions into a rectangle, wrap individually in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Take a portion of the chocolate and a portion of the vanilla dough and let them sit on the counter for about 15-20 minutes to soften slightly – in this hot weather here, 5 minutes ought to do it. On a lightly floured surface, roll one portion of the vanilla and one portion of the chocolate dough (separately, using a well floured rolling pin) into ½ -inch thick rectangles, with the sides about 12 x 5 inches long. Using a pizza wheel or a knife cut out a total of 9 ½ -inch wide strips from each dough. Handling the strips delicately, form two checkerboard logs alternating the chocolate and vanilla strips – there is a pretty awesome diagram on the original website. Cover with plastic wrap refrigerate until firm, at least for 2 hours.

On a piece of parchment or waxed paper, roll the remaining chocolate (or vanilla) dough into a rectangle about 1/3-inch thick and measuring 12 x 6 inches. Place the firmed checkerboard log into the center and with the aid of parchment, wrap the dough around the checkerboard log pressing firmly to adhere. Roll the finished log from side to side to form sharp corners. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate well.Repeat with the rest of the dough and the second chilled checkerboard log to form another, opposite in colors, cookie log. Wrap, place in the fridge.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Cover a large baking sheet with parchment. Using a very sharp knife, slice the cookie-dough log into ¼-inch thick slices. Place on the prepared baking sheet leaving about 1 inch all way around them. Bake the cookies, in batches, for about 12 minutes until firm and golden brown on the bottom. Don’t let them bake for too long, or the color contrast between the chocolate and vanilla dough will be lost. Cool on the baking sheet on a rack for 15 minutes. Then transfer the cookies to the rack and cool completely.

It has been too long, non? Not that I have not been baking – just that I have not been baking anything different. I have dabbled with candy making but my homemade marshmallows flopped, literally – taught me the importance of the candy thermometer – and my torrone/ nougat came out just alright, not a good recipe to share. Today, I will be posting my first daring baker’s challenge!

The July 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Sunita of Sunita’s world – life and food. Sunita challenged everyone to make an ice-cream filled Swiss roll that’s then used to make a bombe with hot fudge. Her recipe is based on an ice cream cake recipe from Taste of Home.

We were given the creative freedom to choose the flavors of the roll and the ice cream. I attempted to make mint chip ice cream, cookies and cream ice cream, hot fudge and just the basic chocolate swiss roll with vanilla filling. Somehow, the mint chip ice cream did not set and I decided to not add it to the bombe so that I’ll be able to slice the bombe. Seeing that the mint chip ice cream did not set, I used my own recipe to make the cookies and cream ice cream. So, everything turned out black and white.

The recipe for the swiss roll, hot fudge and ice cream can be found at The Daring Kitchen website. The recipe for the cookies and cream ice cream is as follows (no ice cream maker required):

Cookies and Cream Ice Cream

2 cups milk (full cream will result in smoother ice cream, but really anything will do)

2 cups milk powder

1/3 cup fine sugar (according to your liking)

1/2 a roll of Oreo (just the cookies, about 7 or 8 cookies)

Whisk the milk, milk powder and sugar together until just combined. Pour into a refrigerator-safe container and place in the freezer for at least and hour. Take it out and using a fork, break the water crystals by mixing the milk mixture. Repeat the last two steps at least thrice. Crush the Oreo cookies and fold into the semi solid milk mixture and leave in fridge until set.

Have fun exploring different flavors!

It’s Father’s Day weekend here in Singapore and what’s a celebration without cake. What with the lack of temporary employment, the funds are low but time is in abundance. It has been some time since I last made something chocolatey and my father does have the impression that a good cake must be a chocolate cake. So out came the Complete Book of Chocolate and 200 Chocolate Recipes.

The recipe calls for just plain chocolate for both the Chocolate glaze and the cake but I substituted it with dark chocolate. It came out a tad too bitter for my mom’s taste but my father was alright with the bitter quality of the dark chocolate. Maybe next time I’ll just make the chocolate glaze using dark chocolate and plain chocolate for the cake.

Queen of Sheba Cake

adapted from “The Complete Book Of Chocolate and 200 Chocolate Recipes”

Makes a 9-inch round cake

Cake:

1 cup almond powder

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup plain flour

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

150 g chocolate, melted

3 eggs, separated

sliced almonds, toasted (to decorate)

Chocolate glaze:

3/4 cup whipping cream

225 g chocolate

2 tbsp unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Line a 9 in springform cake tin with parchment paper and grease. Dust the tin lightly with flour.

In a bowl, sift the almond powder over the flour. Stir to mix and set aside.

Beat the butter until creamy. Add half the sugar and continue beating until light. Gradually beat in the melted chocolate before adding the egg yolks, one at a time beating well after each addition.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peak forms. Add the remaining sugar and beat until whites are stiff and glossy, but not dry. Fold a quarter of the whites into the chocolate mixture, then alternately fold in the almond mixture and the remaining whites. Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared tin.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the edges are puffed but the centre is still soft. Cool in the tin for 15 minutes before inverting the cake onto a wire rack. When quite cold, lift of the tin base and the paper.

To make the chocolate glaze, bring the cream to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add to the bowl of chopped chocolate and butter. Stir gently until the chocolate has all melted and the mixture is smooth. Cool for 20-30 minutes until slightly thickened, stirring occasionally.

Place the cake on the wire rack over a baking tin and pour most of the glaze over the cake to cover completely. Cool slightly before placing the nuts onto the side of the cake. Use the rest of the glaze for a piped decoration. Transfer to a plate and chill until ready to serve.

Bon Appetit!

What happens when you are craving for garlic naans and tandoori chicken and have too much time on your hand? You D-I-Y! As it is apparent on this site, I’m not fond of cooking. I prefer baking with its approximately precise ingredient quantities. Maybe it is just the way my mother is trying to pass down her recipes, what’s with the random throwing of ingredients into the pot.

Back to the food, naans and tandoori chicken are traditionally cooked in a tandoor – a cylindrical clay oven. Now, most of us will not have a tandoor in our kitchen – if you do, wow! So the chicken was cooked in the oven and the naans were pan-fried with the lid on. It might not taste 100% authentic what with the lack of the smokey taste but it is still “Yum!”.

Garlic Naan

adapted from allrecipes

makes about 15 small naans

1 (0.25 oz) package active dry yeast

1 cup warm water

1/4 cup white sugar (the naans were a tad too sweet for me – will reduce the amount of sugar the next time – oh yes, there will be a next time)

3 tbsp milk

1 egg, beaten ( I just realised that I forgot to add the egg but the naans turned out fine..hmm)

2 tsp salt

3 1/2 cups bread flour

2 tsp minced garlic

1/4 cup butter, melted (I love garlic so I added 2 cloves of minced garlic to the butter for a stronger garlic flavor)

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Allow to activate for 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise for approximately 1 hour or until double in size.

Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about a slightly larger golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until double in size, about 30 minutes.

Lightly grease frying pan and turn on to medium heat. Roll one dough out into a thin circle. Place dough into pan and cover the pan. Let cook for about 2 – 3 minutes. Brush uncooked side with butter, flip and cover the pan for another 1- 2 minutes, until slightly brown. Repeat until all dough have been cooked.

Tandoori Chicken

1 medium-sized chicken (~ 1 kg)

1 cup plain yoghurt

1/2 small onion

1 small shallot

2 cloves garlic

1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cumin

1 tsp garam masala

A hefty pinch of salt

Ground pepper to taste

2 crushed cloves

A pinch of turmeric

Red Colouring (optional)

Finely chop the onion, shallot and garlic, and add them to a glass bowl with the yogurt. Add the lemon juice, stir to combine, before adding the paprika, ginger, garam masala, salt, and pepper (also add the cayenne or red chili flakes if you’ve chosen to use them). If you want to simulate the smoky flavor of the tandoor, add the crushed cloves to the mix. Add the turmeric and the coloring (optional).

Stir everything together and then place the chicken thighs in the bowl. Rub the mixture over the chicken thighs, place the chicken in your fridge and let it marinate for at least 4 hours – the longer the better, I let mine marinate for a day.

Place the roasting pan and wire rack in the oven and preheat to 230 degrees Celsius. Cook the chicken for at least 30 minutes or until the juices run clear when the chicken is poked.

The garlic naan and tandoori chicken goes well with the chick pea chole/curry but I do not have the recipe for the chole because I didn’t prepare it. My mom did and she said she threw in stuff in the pot with a bit of curry powder and voila..chick pea chole.

Here’s another introduction to a more local kuih (malay cake). This is called Kuih Bakar Lauk (literal translation: Savoury Baked Cake). I love this little mini tart-like kuih. It consists of a mixture of egg, flour and milk with a filling made up of spiced minced beef, Chinese parsley, spring onion, chili and fried shallots. It has a slight custard like texture when hot and tastes oh-so-good.

It is usually “fried” in its flower like mould placed onto a gas stove. Lacking this special gas stove thing that my aunt uses to make this kuih, I baked mine in mini muffin trays in my humble convection oven.

Kuih Bakar Lauk

Makes about 60 mini muffin sized kuih

Base:

300 g Plain flour

200 ml evaporated milk

4 eggs

600 ml water

1 drop of yellow food colouring/ A pinch of powdered yellow colouring

Salt to taste

Filling:

300 g minced beef/mutton

3/4 tbsp curry powder or briyani mix

Pepper and Salt to taste

2 bunches of Chinese parsley (chopped)

2 bunches of spring onion (chopped)

2 large chili (sliced thin)

50 g fried shallots (fried small onions)

Combine flour, eggs, water, milk and salt and whisk until well blended. To remove the bits of flour that remain after mixing well, sieve the mixture.

Sauté the minced meat together with curry powder and add salt and pepper according to taste.

Brush the muffin tray with vegetable cooking oil. Pour the yellow mixture into the mini muffin tray until about 3/4 filled. Add a teaspoon of minced meat, a sprinkle of parsley, spring onion and fried shallots and a small slice of chili.

Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius and bake for approximately 15-20 minutes (until the kuih does not jiggle when shaken)

The kuih is pretty versatile. In the end, I ran out of minced meat (since we only had about 200 g) and replaced it with sautéed curried prawns and it was just as good.

Do try it out!

I have been lazing around a lot these days. Temp jobs are hard to find these days and when there is time to spare, I tend to spend it in the kitchen. I have been meaning to try baking tarts – either chocolate or fruit- but somehow or the other I ended up with these egg tartlets. The dough for the tart was versatile enough that I could bake the remaining tartlets and fill them with dark chocolate ganache.

Sweet Dough

Makes about 15 egg tartlets and 15 empty tartlets. Double egg custard recipe to make 30 egg tartlets.

adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

230 g Plain Flour

57 g icing sugar

115 g butter (cold) cut into cubes

a pinch of salt

1 large egg yolk

Place the flour, icing sugar and salt into a bowl and rub the butter into the flour/sugar mixture  with your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the yolk and knead until it just comes together. If the pastry is not binding together, the yolk might not be large enough. Thus, add a little water or milk, a teaspoon at a time until it come together.

Turn out onto a lightly floured work surface and roll it out fairly thinly and cut out rounds to fit the tartlet tin. Prick the pastry bottom and place the tin in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before baking.

For empty shells:

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius and bake for about 15-20 minutes until nicely browned.

For egg tarts:

Remove tray from freezer and fill tartlets with the egg custard until nearly full. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree Celcius until tart is nicely browned, about 15-20 minutes.

Egg Custard

1 egg

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp condensed milk

1/8 cup water

1 tbsp sugar

In a small saucepan, boil the sugar and water until all the sugar has dissolved. Leave to cool to room temperature.

Strain the beaten egg through a sieve. Discard the remaining jelly like residue. Add the vanilla extract to the egg.

Whisk in the egg mixture into the cooled sugar syrup and add the evaporated milk, mixing well. Divide mixture into tartlets.

It’s time to go traditional people! These little green balls of pure fun is a traditional Nyonya kuih (cake) called ondeh-ondeh. It is basically balls of pandan flavored glutinous rice flour filled with melted palm sugar (gula melaka) rolled in grated coconut. The best way to enjoy it is to pop the entire ball into your mouth and enjoy the explosion of sugar as you savor the pandan flavor.

There are two variations of this kuih. I made the simpler glutinous flour balls while the other variety is a mixture of both glutinous flour and sweet potato. Both are just as good.

Ondeh-Ondeh

Makes 20 pieces

125 g glutinous rice flour

100 ml pandan juice (blend 5 pandan leaves in 110 ml water before straining mixture)

75 g palm sugar, finely chopped

100 g grated coconut

Mix the flour together with the pandan juice and knead well. Remove a piece of dough (approximately 50 g) and place in a pot of boiling water. When the dough rises up and floats, remove it from the water and place it back with the rest of the dough. Knead well until the dough is smooth and even. Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes.

Pinch a small piece of dough (about 1 inch round) and flatten it. Place the palm sugar (approximately 1/2 tsp) in the center and roll the dough into a ball, making sure that the sugar is properly sealed in.

Drop the balls into the boiling water and allow it to cook. Once the balls float, remove it from the water and roll it in the grated coconut.

Enjoy!

]]> http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/ondeh-ondeh/feed/ 0 bakeitis Ondeh-ondeh Ondeh-ondeh Ondeh-ondeh http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/opera/ http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/opera/#comments Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:00:10 +0000 bakeitis http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/?p=109 ]]>

April has not been a good month and I am pretty glad it is ending. One post? That’s it? What with all the thesis submitting, problem sets, tests and presentations, I’m pretty happy that I managed this one post.

So, April is my dad’s birthday month. It’s a weird family thing. Our birthdays fall in separate months, one after the other. So we’ll have birthday cakes from December to April and no cake for the rest of the year! Yeaaah…

So, the opera cake is a type of French cake. It consists of layers of almond sponge cake called joconde in French, soaked in coffee syrup, alternating between layers of coffee  butter cream and chocolate ganache. What is there not to like?

Opéra Gateau

adapted from recipe on Foodbuzz

Sponge Cake

85 g  Ground Almonds

75 g  Powdered Sugar

25 g  Cake Flour

120 g Whole Eggs (about 2 medium-sized eggs)

80 g  Egg Whites

10 g  Sugar

30 g  Melted Butter

Mix together the almonds, powdered sugar and flour in a bowl. Add the eggs a little at a time mixing well after each addition.

In another bowl, whip the egg whites with the sugar until they form firm, glossy peaks.
Gently fold the flour and egg mixture into the whipped egg whites. Fold in the melted butter.

Spread the mixture about 1/4 of an inch (5mm) thick in the half sheet pan lined with parchment. (I only have a small convection oven. I baked my cake in a square cake tin in 4 batches). Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes (11 minutes for the square tin) or until golden and firm to the touch. Remove from pan and immediately peel off the parchment paper.

French Butter cream

250 g  Sugar

60 ml  Water

90 g  Egg Yolks (about 2 medium-sized eggs)

300 g  Butter, softened

3/4 tsp  Vanilla extract

1 1/2 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in 15ml water

Combine sugar and water in saucepan and allow to boil. Continue boiling until it reaches 115 degree Celsius (did not have a candy thermometer, winging it, I continued letting it boil for a minute after it first began to bubble)

While the syrup is boiling, beat the yolks until they are thick and light. As soon as the syrup reaches 115 degree Celsius,  pour it very slowly into the beaten yolks while whipping constantly. Continue beating until the mixture is completely cool and the yolks are very thick and light.

Whip in the butter a little at a time. add it just as fast as it can be absorbed by the mixture. Beat in the vanilla and coffee. If the icing is too soft, refrigerate it until it is firm enough to spread.

Ganache

The ganache was just one part bittersweet chocolate plus one part cream. Chop the chocolate into small pieces and bring the cream to a boil. Add the chocolate to the cream and let it stand for a minute before mixing to get a smooth shiny ganache.

Coffee syrup

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup syrup

3 tbsp instant coffee

Bring mixture to a simmer in a saucepan and allow to cool.

Assembling the Cake

Melt some chocolate to coat the bottom most layer of the sponge cake (to prevent the cake from sticking to the board). Soak the first layer with syrup before spreading a 1/4 inch thick layer of butter cream. Place the next layer of cake and soak with syrup before spreading a layer of ganache. After placing and soaking the next layer of cake, spread another 1/4 inch thick layer of butter cream. Place the final layer and soak it with syrup before spreading the final layer of ganache (I have replaced the opera glaze with the ganache cos I was running out of time – I was skiving off from studying)

Let the cake set for in the refrigerator before slicing off the edges of the cake to show the beautiful, delicious layers.

This cake is slightly more tedious and you should probably set aside about 2 1/2 hours or perhaps prepare the various components a day ahead. I let the cake set for about half a day to let the flavors mingle. It was worth all the effort when the first bite just melts in you mouth. Two birthday cake requests for this cake have been made. So do try it and tell me how it goes!

]]> http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/opera/feed/ 0 bakeitis Opera gateau Opera Cake Opera http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/matcha-macarons/ http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/matcha-macarons/#comments Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:03:02 +0000 bakeitis http://bakeitis.wordpress.com/?p=101 ]]>

It’s been more than a week since the last post. I’m actually still swamped with work although I only have 3 official school weeks left. It is as though the system is doling out as much stress in these last few weeks to make sure I get my money’s worth. I even considered taking a short hiatus from baking and posting but evidently I can only last slightly more than a week without touching my oven.

So I whipped out my macaron recipe and quickly mixed a batch of matcha macarons. Matcha, otherwise known as finely milled green tea powder, is rich in antioxidants and goes really well with azuki beans. Since I had azuki bean paste (red bean paste) lying around in my fridge having bought it 2 weeks ago, I was set to bake.

Matcha Macarons with Azuki Bean Paste Filling

Basic Macaron recipe here

2 tbsp of matcha powder (added during the macronnage)

There is no need for food colouring as the match powder gives the macaron its lovely shade of green. If the store-bought azuki bean paste filling is not of the right consistency, add a tablespoon of milk to make it creamier.

Enjoy!