Thai Milk Tea Crepe Cake

A crepe cake for my husband's birthday.Yay, finally made one. It was an impromptu attempt. I had no idea of what to bake for him this year. Made him a croquembouche tower last year, and had to find something to beat that, yikes. I finally settled with a crepe cake minutes before midnight, hoping the whole crepe-making process would bring me the same challenge. I know, to some, this is not a cake. Having those layers made it half into being a cake. But who cares. As long as I can stick a candle on it, a cake it is then. Well, I happened to sample a nice crepe cake in Japan. In Shin-Yokohama, to be exact. Somewhere near the Ramen Museum. Perfect weather; a slice of chocolate crepe cake partnered with a heart-shaped latte, and a well-behaved boy next to me, enjoying his hot chocolate.*wink* I gave chocolate some break this time, and pursued this cake with Southeast Asian twist-Thai Milk Tea. Stood up 30 minutes for that thin crepes. Love the quite joy I had while preparing those layers; drop a ladle of batter, quickly swirl the pan, let it dry, flip, remove and repeat. Without that particular kid's screaming, it was heaven and yeah, I'd probably do it again. As for the pastry cream, I'm not quite happy on how it turned out; it was me, not the recipe. Some of the ingredients were poorly substituted, resulting a bit lumpy texture, rather runny than my usual cream. But it escaped the bin and made it as a cake. The topping was crème de la crème! I can't even... It was so tasty I couldn't keep my finger off of it. Assembling the cake was easy. Made a time-lapse video of it. Watch it below. 

Thai Milk Tea Crepe Cake
Adapted from Iron Chef Shellie-Thai Milk Tea Crepe Cake

Crepes
4 large eggs
360ml milk
240ml water
300g plain flour
6tbs melted butter
Butter, for coating the pan

Pastry Cream
3 Thai Milk Tea tea bags
120ml boiling water
420ml milk
6 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
55g corn-flour
1 vanilla bean split (or 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
pinch salt
1 leaf gold strength gelatine

Drizzle Sauce
3 Thai Milk Tea tea bags
120ml boiling water
420ml milk
6 egg yolks
150g caster sugar
55g corn-flour
1 vanilla bean split (or 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste)
pinch salt

Assembly and To Serve
400g whipped cream
fresh mint, to serve

For the crepes:

In a blender, combine all of the ingredients and pulse for 10 seconds. Place the crepe batter in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. (This allows the bubbles to subside so the crepes will be less likely to tear during cooking.) The batter will keep for up to 48 hours.

Heat a small non-stick pan. Add butter to coat. Pour 2-3 tbs of batter into the center of the pan and swirl to spread evenly. Cook for 30 seconds and flip. Cook for another 10 seconds and remove to the cutting board. Lay them out flat so they can cool, you can stack the crepes, they will not stick to each other.

Continue until all batter is gone. After they have cooled you can store the crepes in sealable plastic bags in the refrigerator for several days or in the freezer for up to two months.

For the Thai milk tea pastry cream:

In medium bowl, whisk together 120ml Thai milk tea, egg yolks, 75g sugar, and cornstarch.

Transfer the remaining Thai milk tea to heavy medium saucepan. Scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and the seed and the pod to the pan and add the salt. Sprinkle the remaining sugar over, letting sugar sink undisturbed to bottom. Set pan over moderate heat and bring to simmer without stirring.

Whisk hot milk mixture, then gradually whisk into egg yolk mixture (this is called tempering). You want to do this slowly or you will have scrambled eggs.

Return to saucepan over moderate heat and cook, whisking constantly, until pastry cream simmers and thickens, about 1 minute. Remove from heat, discard vanilla pod, and whisk cream until smooth. Transfer to bowl and press plastic wrap or parchment directly onto surface. Chill until cold, about 4 hours. (Pastry cream can be made ahead and refrigerated, wrapped well with plastic wrap or parchment on surface, up to 3 days.)

For the Thai milk tea drizzle sauce:
Follow the steps as above for the pastry cream, except cook for a little longer to make it thicker. Be sure to keep whisking to ensure you don’t end up with lumpy bits down the bottom. I found whisking then transferring to a large mixing bowl, then back into the saucepan a few times to be really helpful.

Assemble the cake:
Soak gelatine leave in cold water for about 15 minutes.

Use the base of an 18cm cake tin as a template to trim the crepes to size. Then line the base and sides of the tin, ready for assembly.

Place one crepe in the cake tin. Spread one tablespoon of pastry cream evenly over the crepe. Lay your next crepe on the bench or a plate and spread evenly with one tablespoon of whipped cream. 

Carefully pick it up and lay it over the crepe in the cake tin, cream side down. Continue with pastry cream and whipped cream until the final crepe has been added. Or until around 13 layers high.

Squeeze excess water from the gelatine leaves, add to the remaining pastry cream and gently heat and stir over a stove until gelatine is dissolved. Pour this on top of the crepe cake and smooth the top.

Chill the cake for 2 hours or overnight to firm up.

The recipe is copied from Iron Chef Shellie's blog. Her Thai Milk Tea Crepe cake is seriously impressive. Click the link for more exciting recipes from her blog. :)

Thai Milk Tea Crepe Cake.🎂#mykitchentimelapse #whenifeellikemartha #feedfeed Recipe adapted from @ironchefshellie 😊 

A video posted by Faizah {Ribbon&Circus} (@ribboncircus) on Oct 18, 2015 at 5:27pm PDT

Pandan Chiffon Cake (with real Pandan extract)

   

Old-fashioned, soft and aromatic. 

Nigel Slater once wrote, "A single 'a' changes everything"-well, he was talking about getting a good custard with an easy addition of a single, or two ingredients though, but I could not agree more. Well, in my case, the 'a' means nothing more than swapping the usual pandan paste with the real pandan extract. Trust me, it brings a huge different to the whole awesomeness of this cake. I literally gobbled up four big chunks in a row. Ouch. I am sorry if you read this from any other parts of the world where pandan is gold. But if you are in SEA region, by all means, please use the real pandan extract. :)  

Pandan Chiffon Cake 

Recipe from The Little Teochew, original recipe from Indochine Kitchen

Make 1 cake, 22 cm in diameter, 8 cm tall. 

You need a 22-cm chiffon cake tin for this.

Ingredients A

7 egg yolks

75g coconut milk- I used freshly squeezed coconut milk. You can opt for fresh pasteurised coconut milk. Do not use packet coconut cream (Kara or Ayam Brand) because it's too rich. Your cake will spring out out of the pan while cooling.

Concentrated fresh pandan extract- I used 30 fresh pandan leaves + 1/2 cup water and blitzed in a food processor. Squeeze out the juice from the pulp and leave it in a glass overnight in the fridge. Use only the green stuff that settles at the bottom of the glass. Wendy of Table of 2.. or more shows us how it's done here. 4g or 1 tsp if you are using pandan essence.

150g flour

4g baking powder-1 scant tsp

95g sugar-can reduce to 75g

3g salt

83g vegetable oil-it's about 83ml

Ingredients B

- 7 egg whites

- 100 g sugar

Preheat oven to 160°C.

Combine egg yolks, coconut milk and pandan extract in a mixing bowl. 

Sift flour, baking powder and salt. 

Add flour mixture and sugar into the bowl. 

Add vegetable oil and whisk everything to combine.

In a separate and clean bowl, beat egg whites and sugar together till it forms soft peaks.

Slowly fold egg white into egg yolk mixture in 3-4 additions.

Pour cake mixture into an ungreased tube pan.

Bake for 45 minutes.

Flip the pan upside down against a bottle on kitchen counter.

Let cool for 25-30 minutes. 

Loosen side of cake with a knife. Eat!

Custard Chiffon Cake

Happy happy Friday peeps. I sincerely apologise for the silence. The whirlwind aftermaths of the general election had me hooked on all sorts of medias; FB, Twitter, TV, and so on. I'm no more near the election news now. The outcomes of the election, to me, showed how much the other half of the voters want that change to happen. No matter which party governs the country, let's just open up your eyes, mind and heart and make that change happen. The support will always be given to those who walk the talk. So walk the talk. Frankly, I'm a bit unpleased with some of the election outcomes, but life goes on. 

I went Malacca on Friday, and arrived home on Monday, the day after the general election. It was my first time travelling without both Adam & Husband. Nope, my second one. But that was several years ago. It felt different this time. A whole lot of different. The journey felt... weird without his voice asking me this and that. Without his big voice singing and zikir-ing. A very quiet journey I'd say. And to make it weirder, I managed to finish the whole book "An Old Palace in the Village" in few hours time. I rarely finish any book these days- But most of that time goes to Adam and I'm indeed lucky. ;)

Next, photos in this entry. Honestly, I am a bit unhappy with it. Well, you know how the weather behaves lately. Sunny in the morning, and in just a blink of an eye, it changes! I took the "prep" photo (before the baking happened) at 11 am in the morning, and the cake was ready to be shoot at 2pm, you know, this kind of cake needs some time to cool down. The prep photos look good to me. But by the time I wanted to shoot the cake, the weather had turned gloomy. I wanted to use the flash but the thought of setting it up stopped me. Plus, I have no idea where my husband keep it. And that brought me to the ISO, my last resort. Sigh. Darling husband, where did you keep that flash? 

Now, to the cake. The recipe is from "Monday Morning Cooking Club" cookbook. I first discovered this cake almost a year ago through my Facebook timeline. It directed me to this touching video of Merelyn, making her mom's recipe, Custard Chiffon Cake. I was totally moved by Merelyn's story, and the cake... it was lovely. It's JUST a simple yellow cake, with a nice custardy scent. I don't know what, but the simplicity of this cake kindda WOW-ed me. It ranked right on top in my favorite cake list, to date. It's a big cake for the three of us, but poof, it's gone easily in less than a day. We had it for tea and keep the half chunk of it for breakfast. My picky Adam had more than two big slices, and that is enough to show you guys how great this cake is. :)

The recipe, adapted from MMCC cookbook. 

175g self raising flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

35g (1/4 teaspoon) custard powder

6 large eggs, separated

345g (11/2 cup) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

80ml (1/3 cup) extra light olive oil or vegetable oil

170ml (2/3 cup) warm water

1. Preheat oven to 180C. You will need an ungreased chiffon cake tin (not a non stick one as well). Do NOT grease it.

2. Sift the flour,1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and custard powder three times to ensure they are fully combined.

3. In an electric mixer, whisk egg yolks with 230g( 1 cup) of sugar until pale and creamy, then add the vanilla extract.Pour the oil and warm water into a jug. While the yolks are still whisking on low speed, add the flour mixture and the oil & water at the same time, whisking until just incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form, then add the remaining sugar & remaining cream of tartar and continue to whisk until the egg whites are stiff but not dry. Very carefully fold the batter into the egg whites with a metal spoon until just incorporated.

5.Pour mixture into the cake tin. Bake for 1hour or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into cake.- I baked it for 1 hour and 10 mins. (Note to self, reduce the oven temp to avoid the cracks)

6. After removing the cake from the oven, immediately invert it to cool by balancing the middle funnel onto a bottle neck. It is important for the cake to be inverted and suspended upside down until it is cool to stop it from collapsing.

P/s: The comment box is not working and I'm doing my best to fix it- FIXED! :)

Raspberry Vanilla Ice-Cream Cake

This is dessert at its very best. It is so simple, you could whip it with a blindfold on. Seriously, why use your oven during this unbearable hot days. Try this and you'll agree with me. 

You could switch raspberry to strawberry, or any other berries, if you want. Frozen raspberries are so scarce we don't even have one at our local store here. I was looking for them since last Dec. But thankfully, the fresh ones seem to be breeding in the shopping rack again. The cheapest I could get is at 5.99 dollar a punnet. Isk.

Anyway, this dessert definitely has a winning taste. It's unbelievably less sweet than I thought it would be. The raspberry's tangy flavour has acted brilliantly. Love, love, love it. 

I can't help it...it's a perfect dessert..  :) 

Raspberry Vanilla Ice-Cream Cake

(Resource: Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

1 loaf pound cake, sliced horizontally into thirds- I sliced them thinly. 

1 1/2 cups raspberries (6 ounces)-

1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened

Confectioners' sugar, for serving

Directions

1. Place bottom layer of cake on a large piece of foil or in a loaf pan of equal size. Sprinkle half the raspberries over cake, spread evenly with half the ice cream, and top with another cake layer. Repeat with remaining raspberries, ice cream, and cake.

2. Wrap with foil and freeze at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove cake from freezer about 30 minutes before serving. Serve dusted with confectioners' sugar.

RC Note: It's important to bring the cake out of freezer half an hour before you serve it. Or you gonna end up like my cake in above pics. See how messy it was. It takes some times for it to soften enough to cut. Trust me, it's definitely well worth the wait. ;)

Happy voting to all Malaysian! :) 

Blueberry Oreo Chiffon Cake

Yippee! My first Chiffon Cake. Some people said you can't call yourself a baker unless you've baked a Chiffon Cake..Hmm..really? It seem tricky, but they aren't that bad. I seriously enjoyed the whole process of making this cake.

The cake is so soft and moist. The sweetness level is just perfect, and the blueberry taste is quite prominent. I ate few slices in one sitting and my oh my, it was so gooooood. The cake is known for its lower cholesterol and fat content, so it make me feel less guilty eating it. 

As for the guys, Adam hates blueberry, so he only had one small piece of it (He used to love berries..sigh). Husband, on the other hand, had no idea why am I so happy over a piece of fluffy cake :P He he Let him be. He won't understand the art of making a chiffon cake. He just do what he's best at, which is eating and splurging me with kitchen toys :P

The recipe is from Bisous A Toi. Thanks K Rima for sharing this recipe :) 

Oppss..too much sugar! 

Btw, today is the first day of Rejab. So "Slamat Berpuasa" to those who're fasting today. :)  


Blueberry Oreo Chiffon Cake
Source: Bisous A Toi

(I half the ingredients to suit my 17cm chiffon pan)

Ingredients
6 egg yolks
100g blueberry yogurt
150g flour - i used cake flour
4g baking powder
100g caster sugar
3g salt
100g vegetable oil - i used canola oil

6 egg whites
1g cream of tar tar
100g sugar
50g of blueberry oreo - cut into tiny bits
enough blueberry paste or purple colour

Method
1. Preheat oven 150C

2. Whisk egg yolks with sugar till pale in colour.. add in yogurt and also oil.. add in ur sifted flour, baking powder and also salt.. lastly add in purple colour- set aside
3. In another bowl.. whisk egg white with cream of tar tar till foamy.. slowly add in sugar a little at a time and whisk till soft peak.
4. Scoop 1/3 egg white meringue and add to egg yolk mixture.. fold in gently. once combined.. pour ur egg yolk mixture into meringue and continue to fold in gently and lightly.. once mixed pour half of ur mixture into a 22cm tube pan.. sprinkle half of ur oreo blueberry.. pour the rest of ur mixture and lastly throw in the rest of ur oreo blueberry. [RC Note:Tap your pan one or two times]
5. Bake it for 50mins.. once baked.. turn ur chiffon pan and once its cool.. take it out of ur pan..

Eggless No Baked Mango Cheesecake

Yerp..I bought more mangoes and most desserts I made recently are based on them. You name it, mango pudding, god knows how many rounds of Thai sticky rice with mango, mango pound cake, and mango custard.. If it wasn't the cough I'm having right now, I would have turned some to mango sorbet. (I'm this close (showing a small gap between my thumb and index finger) to make them) 

I'd to admit that I'm not the biggest fan of cheesecake, but I do eat them once in a while, and that's why I took such a long time to make one. The last cheesecake I did was the Mahattan cheesecake, and they lasted like forever in my fridge. 

I browsed Foodgawker and stumbled on this pretty mango cheesecake in a cup by Edible Garden. The recipe is based on hers, but I made 'zebra patterns' on the middle part. Okay, barely a zebra pattern. I made one big 8' cheesecake with a nice thought of distributing some to my neighbors. Everything was smooth until I sliced the cake. The crust. It crumbled :( Cit. The thought of passing this 5/10 rated cheesecake to my neighbors has to hold.

You see, sigh.. I wanted to make a thick base, so I added more Marie biscuits. And of course I added more melted butter. Apparently the butter is not enough...hmmm I always had no luck with the base part. Sobs. It was either too hard or too crumbly. I never got it right... Yet.

Anyway, it still good and most importantly, edible..(throwing a cheesecake? are you nuts?) The top and middle layer is really really tasty...top notch. The mango flavor is very prominent and I must say anything with mango is two thumbs up! :D

Eggless No-Bake Mango Cheesecake Recipe
Based on Edible Garden's recipe

What you'll need:
Cream cheese - 1 block (250gm, Philadelphia Cream Cheese)
Cream - 170 gm (I used Nestle)
Sugar - Half a cup
Mango puree - 3/4 of a cup
Gelatine - 1 Tbsp
Hot Water - 1/4 cup
Graham cracker crumbs - 1.5 to 2 cups (Depending on how thick you want the base to be)
Unsalted butter, melted - 75 gm (about 1/3 of a cup)

Way to do it:

1. Whiz the graham crackers in a food processor. Add melted butter and whiz again until the mixture comes together. Press into the bottom of an 8" springform pan that's lined with aluminium foil or use individual glasses. Refrigerate while preparing the rest of the cheesecake.

2. Mix the cream cheese, cream, and sugar in a bowl until well combined. You can do it by hand or use low speed on your Kitchenaid. An electric beater is not needed.

3. Add the gelatine to the hot water and stir till it completely dissolves. Add the mango puree and stir well. Keep half of this mixture aside and add the rest to the cream cheese mixture. Stir gently until well combined.

4. Pour on top of the graham cracker base. Return to fridge for another 10-30 mins. (RC Note: As for my case, I divided the gelatine and the cheese mixture into two. Pour half of the mango puree on one side and stir in the half gelatine. Add the rest of the gelatine into the next mixture. Alternate them to get the so called zebra pattern hihi)

5. Pour the mango mixture as the third layer. Do this gently so that the layers don't combine. If you use a springform pan, the top layer will be much thinner, as it should be.

6. Refrigerate overnight and get ready to serve a yummy dessert at your party that can be prepared well in advance!

Sunday- Prune Layer Cake

I'm going to keep this short. We're going to my MIL house any minutes now. :P I would like to wish all my blogosphere friends who celebrate Chinese  New Year a Gong Xi Fa Cai. Let's welcome the Dragon year with this Prune Layer Cake. 

A crooked layers cake to be exact :P he he 

Prune Layer Cake
(Adapted from Bisous A Toi)
Note: I doubled the ingredients and used 8x8 baking tin.

Ingredients
(A)
250g butter
80g condense milk
1 tsp mix spice
1/2 tsp vanilla powder (I added vanilla extract too)
80g golden syrup

(B)
15 egg yolk
3 egg white
120g castor sugar
80g superfine or HK flour
1 tbsp ovallete
20 ml cold water

(C)
a few drop of yellow colouring
150g pitted prunes (I used 250g hehhe)
Melted butter

Directions

1.Greased a 8x8x3 pan.. preheat oven 180C

2. Whisk A on high speed for abt 7mins or till thick and creamy.. put it aside

3. In another bowl.. Whisk B on medium speed for 10mins or till thick and fluffy

4. Add butter mixture (A) into egg mixture (B) and continue to whisk till well blended

5. Add in yellow colouring

6. Separate batter into 10 portions... abt 90g each layer

7. Spread a portion of batter evenly into pan

8. Tilt pan left and right to level batter or use back of ur spoon. Grill for 5 minutes or until golden.

9. Remove from oven and press cake layer to remove excess air. Brush layer with melted butter and spread another portion of batter over the cooked layer, tilt pan to level batter and arrange flattened prunes onto batter. Grill for 5 minutes or until golden.

10. Alternate step 8 and 9 until batter is finished.

11. Bake last layer using upper and lower heat for a further 

10mins .. (use aluminium foil to cover the top so as to prevent the top fm turning to dark)