Genoise with Ganache Filling

Wikipedia: A Génoise Cake is an Italian sponge cake named after the city of Genoa and closely associated with French cuisine that does not use any chemical leavening, instead using air suspended in the batter during mixing to give volume to the cake.

I'm doing another run on this cake for my brother's birthday that's coming up this weekend.

This time i'm going to try to be a little more creative with the deco.




I still have a gazillion pictures of different cakes which I made over the past two weeks but haven't had time to post them up on the blog. Hopefully I'll get to do it soon.

Also, I'm doing a bake spree this week until Wednesday. Wish me luck!

Chilled Mango Cheesecake (Perfecto!)

Second run on the chilled mango cheesecake.


Mind the uneven sides. I'm thinking about wrapping the pan with aluminium foil the next time round to get it to be more even.


Came out with more than happy results. The amount of cheese and mangoes were just right. Whee!

Chilled Mango Cheesecake

First try out on chilled cheesecake. I normally make baked cheesecake instead. Mind the photos. I was in a hurry.

Got myself some good Indian mangoes which are currently in season (heard that it only comes around once a year). Indian mangoes are famous for their rich aroma and taste but might be a lil wasteful if you're using it for cake making. Technically, I got conned into buying it, so oh well.

Chilled Mango Cheesecake.

The mango puree gave my cake this light creamy yellow color addition to it. I also added in some mango chunks. Wicked.

I must say that the cake turned out quite well, but I'm going to try to decrease the amounts of mango puree the next time around. The cake was too "mango-y"? that it overpowered the taste of the cheese. I mean you could still taste it, but minimal though.

Packing up the slices.

Looking forward to doing another run on this cake, hopefully sometime this week.

Proper Butter Bundt Cake

Remember the bundt cake that I tried making and the unbelievably difficult mold to find? Well, I finally got it and put it into use.

In goes the batter.

The mold was silicon and also very flimsy, so I was quite skeptical as to whether it would work. My biggest worry, the entire mold melting in the oven.

Beautiful brown.

The obvious was that the mold didn't melt. Silly me for worrying. And best of all, the cake out so well. Shocking.

Shocking outcome.

Now that's what I call a proper bundt cake.

Pecan & Walnut Crunch Cake

Over the weekend, I made a butter cake with a 8" round pan. It was a full batter and the cake came out pretty well. Sorry for the lack of photos, I was in a hurry!

Sliced the cake into half and added a thin layer of vanilla whipped cream and then it was onto the cake decorations. Whipped some cream and made a mixture of sugared pecan and walnut crunch which was then scattered onto the cake.

Voila! I would say not bad for a first attempt?

Ingredients for the nut crunch is as follows:

1 cup Walnut/Pecan Nut
1 cup of sugar
2/3 cups of water

Directions:

Chop the nuts into small pieces and lay them on a parchment paper in a 10 x 12" pan. Melt the sugar with the water until the colour turns brown, approx. 8-10mins. Wait for the bubbles to subside and pour the mixture over the nuts. Let cool for 5mins before popping the pan into the fridge for 30mins. Break the crunch into smaller pieces and decorate as you wish.

Packed & ready to go!

Butter Cake

I did some baking experiments with the butter bundt cake recipe on different pans and quite interestingly, it came out with different results. Also, I modified the recipe a little to give the cake a softer texture (also cause I don't have a proper bundt pan at the moment).

Mind the crumbs.

The recipe is as follows:

120g of margarine
120g of sugar
4 medium sized eggs
40ml of milk
1/4tsp of salt
150g of all purpose flour
1 tsp of custard powder
1 tsp of baking powder

Directions:

Preheat the oven to approx. 170degC or 350degF. Sieve the all purpose flour, custard powder and baking powder together and keep aside. Cream margarine, sugar and salt until fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time until well mixed; followed by the milk. Gradually add in the flour and mix well. Check for a soft dropping consistency (mixture falling from the spoon when held downwards), if the batter is too stiff, add a tbsp of milk & mix the batter well.

Note: Remember not to over beat the batter (your cake will look like it has chicken pox on the surface after it is baked esp if you use the round cake pans)

I made 2 rounds of the same batter which was divided into 3 different pans; 1) loaf tin with 1 full batter and 2) 9" round cake pan & 3) 7" round cake pan, divided between 1 full batter. My verdict, 3 options, 1) the loaf tin works better as a casual coffee cake, 2) a full batter for the 9" cake pan (option of having filling or no filling) or 3) 2 x 7" round cake pans (only if you decide to have a filling for the cake, if not, do not bother wasting time with this).

Final outcome from the loaf tin.

The loaf tin requires a longer baking time, approx. 40-45mins whereas, the 7" round cake pan require approx. 25-30mins of bake time. The 9" round cake pan can be used as well with a baking time of approx. 35-40mins, but I strongly recommend that a full batter be used.

Butter Bundt Cake

Wikipedia: A Bundt cake is a dessert cake cooked in a Bundt pan forming it into a distinctive ring shape. Bundt cake is pronounced "bunt", the "d" being silent and comes from the german word bund for a gathering.

The biggest problem with this whole bundt cake idea was getting hold of the bundt pan itself, which seemed impossible. None of the bake shops had any idea what I was talking about. So, I finally found something or at least, I thought it did, that resembled a bundt pan & decided to make do with it. Two words, Bad Idea.

Will only be posting the exact measurements /ingredients when I perfect the cake.

The cake was not a total failure, but I overestimated the time it required to cook in the oven due to the size of the pan. If you have an idea on how a bundt pan looks like, you'll get what I'm saying. Bundt pans normally require a longer cooking time, but as for mine, the batter was too little for the large pan, thus the dark shade.

Looking more like a Christmas reath than a bundt cake.

It would have probably looked better if I were to decorate it, but I was too lazy and disappointed with the outcome to bother fixing it. Admist the dark shade, the inside of the cake was very yellow and it's texture was just about right. I'm going to be a little more adventurous and see if I can make the texture softer or more sponge like.

I'm doing a second run on this cake with another pan just to see if it works better. In the mean time, I'm still looking for a proper bundt pan. Please let me know if you have any idea on where to get one.