Carrot Cake

Cute little carrot, anyone?

Attempted Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, including these adorable little carrots which I made out of marzipan.

You can see strands of carrot here and walnuts. This is the first time I made a cake using cooking oil instead of the usual butter. Using cooking oil gives the cake a more crumbly texture. I think the cake would have done better aesthetically, if I added more cinnamon powder for a darker colour. But the cake did turn out moist and not too sweet, balancing well with the sweeter frosting. Frosting turned out a little more liquid than I would prefer, probably because I used more cream cheese than called for.

Since I had no lessons today, I made a raisin loaf again. This must be my nicest looking loaf so far, with that beautiful brown.

As I was making the carrot cake, I wish I was actually making a sticky date pudding! Oh well, that shall be my next attempt!

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Carrot Cake Recipe

Cake Ingredients:

Walnuts 100g

Carrots (grated) 340g

All Purpose Flour 280g

Baking Soda 1tsp

Baking Powder 1tsp

Salt 1/2tsp

Ground Cinnamon 2tsp

Eggs 4

Caster sugar 300g

Vegetable Oil 240ml

Vanilla essence 2tsp

Crushed pineapple 200g

1. Toast walnuts until lightly brown and fragrant.

2. Mix well flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon powder, and set aside.
3. Beat eggs until frothy. Add in sugar and continue beating until mixture is pale yellow in colour. Beat in crushed pineapple, oil and vanilla extract until incorporated.
4. Add in flour mixture from Step 2 and beat until well mixed.
5. Fold in carrots and walnuts using a spatula.
6. Divide batter into 2 equal portions, and pour into 2 identical sized and buttered pan of choice.
7. Bake at 180 degrees C for about 35 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

Unsalted butter 57g

Cream Cheese 227g

Icing sugar 230g

Vanilla essence 1tsp

Grated zest of 1 lemon

1. Beat butter and cream cheese together until well mixed.

2. Sift icing sugar and add in, mixing well.

3. Beat in vanilla essence and lemon zest.

If too liquid, refrigerate for a while in freezer so that it is thicker and easier to coat.

Assembly:

1. Make sure the 2 cake sections are flat. Slice to flatness if necessary.

2. Spread frosting above one section, and place other section above it.

3. Using remaining frosting, coat cake all around.

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Aston's + Marmalade Pantry

My toy still has yet to arrive, so here's some crappy pics again...

Had dinner at Aston's Prime at Centerpoint. Took the Ribeye with Brussels Sprouts and Jacket Potato. The brussel sprouts was very tender and tasty, because it was probably cooked in butter. The meat was flavourful and not tough at all. Last time I was here, I took the prime rib, which I think is less aromatic than this ribeye. Overall, a good steak, although I'm missing Hog's Breath's Blackened Prime Rib now.


Have never been to Marmalade Pantry; only tried its sister place at One Fullerton once before. Went there for desserts and decided to try their Sticky Date and Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Bean ice cream, which they are supposedly good for. I was also curious how it tasted like since I once saw Rachel Allen baking it on her show.

It was an interesting texture; it was fluffy, sweet and you could taste the hint of dates. It tasted more like it was steamed rather than baked. The pudding was served warm and went well with the creamy, cold ice cream.


We had ordered a Classic Chocolate Fudge cake right at the start as we saw some people eating it and it had looked huge and decadent. Somehow, they forgot to serve us the cake, and by the time we actually asked about it, they had all sold out. So, we switched to the Sea Salt Caramel Cheesecake.

The cheese was rather light and creamy, but not overly rich nor heavy. I could taste the sea salt, but the caramel taste was lacking. The biscuit layer deserves a special mention. Of all the cheesecakes I had eaten, you could taste the large crumbs of the biscuit layer. This was totally different. It was almost powdery in texture. While it doesn't crumble under your fork, it simply disperses in your mouth. Once again, this was a new textural sensation.

Have not tried Marmalade Pantry's main courses though, but I would sure like to if I have a chance, not to mention there seems to be a high number of pretty ladies at this place!

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Kazu Sumiyaki

Ha! Been waiting for cknewsstand to put up his review of this wonderful place.

Since I only had my crappy handphone camera with me, I did not bother to take any pictures of the food, so head on to cknewsstand's review for his food pictures. All I have to show is the receipt - evidence that between the 2 of us, we devoured 30 sticks of yakitori, 1 sweet potato, 1 Sapporo Beer and 1 iced tea.

It had been more than a year since I last went there. The food is still as amazing, although perhaps my hiatus from the place partly contributed to that. My Japanese teacher once mentioned that only 30% of Japanese eating places in Singapore are 'edible' for a Japanese, so the presence of Japanese in this place ought to be a fair testament to its quality. I saw the Abe Hiroshi lookalike chef/boss there again, not to forget that we were served by a chirpy and cheerful waitress.

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Sloppy Joe's

I love Sloppy Joe's! Reminds me of the meat sauce on A&W's coney dogs, but this has a more barbecue flavour to it which is another flavour I love.

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Berry Tart

Been baking dull colour things, so here's a colourful entry! Berry Tart!!! Specifically, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, and pastry cream under it all, which is actually custard cream with flour added in and cooked at high heat.

Guess the addition of flour made the custard cream more gelatinous. In any case, I almost burnt the pastry cream, but it tasted real good, probably because I was added full-cream milk powder and was a little more generous with the vanilla essence.

Actually it was pretty easy to make - took less than 2 hours although I did make the dough overnight. Cost price: ~$20 and that's because raspberries are a little more expensive. Come to think of it, I could divide this into 6 slices, and each could probably sell about $5 at restaurants/cafes, which makes this worth ~$30, and giving me a $10 profit!

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Recipe:

Short Crust Pastry ingredients:
Cold Unsalted Butter 60g
Pastry Flour 100g
Sugar 1/4 tsp
Salt 1/8 tsp
Cold watrer 50g
1. Place flour, sugar and salt together and rub into the butter using fingertips, until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add in water and mix until you get a smooth dough.
2. Roll out dough to about 5mm thickness and cover a 20cm tin tart.
3. Bake at 200 degrees C for about 20 minutes.

Pastry Cream ingredients:
Whole milk 200g
Vanilla essence 1tsp
Egg yolks 3
Castor sugar 50g
Pastry flour 20g

1. Boil milk and vanilla essence.
2. Seperately, beat egg yolks and sugar until pale yellow in colour. Add in flour and mix well.
3. Stream hot milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture.
4. Bring the combined mixture back to heat, stirring constantly to prevent burning, until mixture is thick and glossy.

Assembly:
1. Gently beat the pastry cream so that it is light and creamy.
2. Spread cream into the tart. Place desired fruits on the top.
3. Dust with icing sugar if desired.

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Green Tea Sable Cookies

Sable is a classic French butter cookies originated in Normandie. The name Sable, comes from the French word for sand, because of their crumbly texture

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Recipe:

Ingredients:

Green Tea powder 15g
Flour 240g
Unsalted Butter 150g
Icing sugar 130g
Salt 1/2tsp
Egg yolks 2
Egg White 1


1. Sift green tea powder together with flour and set aside.
2. Beat butter, sugar and salt together until creamy. Add in egg yolks and mix well.
3. Fold in flour and green tea powder with a spatula.
4. Refrigerate batter for about 15 minutes so that it is harder and easier to mold.
5. Shape into logs of about 3.5cm in diameter, wrap in parchment paper and refrigerate till firm.
6. Cut logs into 7mm thick slices and bake at 150 degrees C for about 25 minutes.

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Bo Lo Yao & Japanese Curry Bun

I'm beginning to enjoy making breads, especially after successfully making a soft loaf last week using the water starter method. This week, from the same batch of dough, I made Bo Lo Yao and Japanese Curry Buns.


Ah..the Bo Lo Yao sure brings back memories. A warm bun with cold butter, and a hot cup of milk tea sure was a comforting breakfast when I was in Hong Kong, and I still miss the place. Shall plan a trip back some time. Only failed bit of it was the coating which cracked too much as the dough proofed and expanded, otherwise, it tasted great.

Japanese Curry Buns filled with potatoes and chicken.

The buns were okay as a whole, but not as soft as last week's. The only difference here was the lack of cream, and my starter did seem a little more watery than last week's. I guess next time I shall prepare the starter on the same day as baking.

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