Baking Thoughts - The Myth of Precision

Almost every baking book stresses the importance of measuring the ingredients carefully and accurately. And many bakers swear by using weight rather than volume to portion flour, sugar etc. This piece of advice caused much stress when I first started out baking. Every cup of flour was leveled with a knife, then sifted and weighed, and a little spoon used to scoop some flour in or out when there's a variance of one gram. Repeat for sugar, then baking powder and every single ingredient listed. Inevitably, I will come to the eggs, and the anxiousness starts. Large eggs? What's considered large, or small? Since American portions are usually bigger, are their "large eggs" larger than Asian eggs too? There was a time I stood at the supermarket aisle looking through the different brands of eggs, trying to figure out which eggs among the hundreds look the "largest".

Yes, my worries were extreme. All because of the advice - in baking, unlike cooking, measure your ingredients accurately

After many (failed more than successful) baking attempts, I now know better. Rather than stressing over the 5g differences, it's more important to know how to adjust the recipe when your baking results did not turn out the way you expected. How many times have you followed the recipe to the letter and find that it flopped?

If you have the time and money, the best way is of course to experiment and adjust the recipe according to your baking results. However, we rarely want to risk our costly French butter and imported vanilla beans on such risky ventures. Luckily there's an alternative, ie. do your homework (yes mummy!). There are thousands of different variations for each creme brulee, vanilla cupcake recipe, but which is the best one? In that respect, baking forums and recipe reviewers are your best friend. Here are two of my favourite websites:

www.chowhound.com
www.allrecipes.com

Both have lots of experienced cooks willing to share reviews and tips of their baking attempts.

So, stop getting all paranoid about that little teaspoon of flour that's causing the 3g difference. Instead, go through your recipe books, google the recipes online, read the reviews, incorporate the tips, and you are ready to get those electric beaters going.


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Cat's Tongue Cookies (Langues de Chat)

Someone brought a packet of Marks and Spencer Dutch Shortcake to a potluck gathering and I fell in love with it after the first bite. It has to be absolutely THE BEST cookie I have had, ever. Crumbly and buttery, with the added richness of chocolate on one end. Selfishly, I hid it away in the cupboard so I don't have to share it with the rest of family. Alas, the packet only lasted 2 days, and with the last one, I stretched it out as long as I could, savouring each little bite with half-closed eyes, till the last crumb is gone.

Unfortunately, there's no Marks and Spencer where I live so I went on a desperate quest to look for the recipe online. This is one of the rare times when Google failed me. There seems to be absolutely no such thing as a Dutch Shortcake recipe, it looks as though this is a name M&S made up. The closest physical resemblence is the Viennese Sable. After trying the recipe twice, I was terribly disappointed. The Viennese Sable is buttery, but has none of the crispness of the M&S version.

Despite the futile search, I discovered that there are amazing things you can make with just butter, sugar and eggs. The magic is in the proportions and good quality butter. So instead of pining for the M&S cookies, I switched my affections to these

Cat's tongue cookies aka Langues de Chat, ie. the cookie crust in Shiroi Koibito cookies, =  白い恋人, which is...

Ding ding! Did I hear the bell go off in your head? That's right, these are the famous Hokkaido cookies that you beg your friends and relatives to buy for you when they go. The creamy white chocolate sandwiched by delicious, melt-in-mouth cookies. I think I've got the cookies down pat with this recipe, just need to get some good quality white chocolate to go along and it will be perfect!

Recipe translated and adapted from Ytower. I halved the recipe as it already makes so many!

Ingredients
200g sifted low-gluten / cake flour
125g butter (use good quality French butter please, I recommend Isigny)
200g sifted icing sugar
150g egg whites (about 4 eggs)
Half vanilla bean (you can substitute with 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)

Steps
1. Let all ingredients come to room temperature
2. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C. Lay a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Cut open the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds out with the flat edge of a knife.
2. Beat butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy
3. Add flour and beat till combined
4. Add egg whites, one at a time till you get a gooey paste, add vanilla seeds.
5. Get ready a piping bag with a 1-cm flat tip (or a disposable piping bag and cut a horizontal hole about 1 cm across). Using a spatula, spoon the batter in.
6. Pipe a line about 4 cm long on the cookie sheet. To make a straight line, try to keep the tip close to the cookie sheet and hold the piping bag straight instead of at an angle. Leave a gap of at least 5 cm between the lines. These cookies spread a lot when baking so be sure to leave a big gap, otherwise you will have one big flat cookie.

7. Bake in the oven and check after 15 minutes. The cookies are done when the edges have a brown border of about 1cm. If not done, bake further. They burn rather quickly so be sure to check often.

8. Transfer cookies onto cooling rack. And repeat the piping and baking until all batter is used up. Store in air tight containers when cooled.

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Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce

The first time I had sticky date pudding was at Marmalade Pantry. We were with James' friends, a couple who are true Singapore foodies. We lost touch with them following our various moves. But we are reminded of them often because we "stole" their son's name for our boy. Actually, I think THAT was the reason we "lost touch".

This is quite a straightforward recipe. Just be sure to use good quality brown sugar, especially for the caramel sauce. I like to do pudding in muffin cups and serve them right out of the oven with vanilla ice-cream (Movenpick is the best!) or Ambrosia custard. If you have any leftover, store them in an airtight container in the fridge, and heat them up in the microwave just before serving. The caramel sauce will keep in a clean glass jar with tight fitting lid, for about 2 months in the fridge. The chilled sauce will separate but come together again once heated.

Recipe adapted from Australian Women's Weekly - Cooking Class Beginners. This recipe book was given to me by my mother-in-law year ago. (Yes, I got the hint mom :O)

Makes about 8 standard size muffin cups

Ingredients
Pudding
1 and 1/2 cups deseeded dried dates
1 and 1/4 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon baking soda
Cooking oil spray
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar (sift before using)
60g butter
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour

Caramel Sauce

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
100g butter, chopped
300ml cream


Steps
For Pudding
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, grease muffin cups with cooking oil spray
2. Put dates, water and baking soda into bowl of food processor, let stand for 5 minutes. Pulse until dates are roughly chopped
3. Beat brown sugar and chopped butter in electric mixer
4. Add eggs and beat until well-combined
5. Add flour until just combined, then fold in the dates mixture
6. Using an ice-cream scoop, divide the mixture into the muffin cups and place in oven.
7. Check if the pudding is done after 30 minutes. Gently press the top of the pudding with your finger, if it feels firm, it's done. To confirm, stick a skewer in the centre of the pudding, the skewer should be greasy when withdrawn but free of uncooked mixture. If it's not done, check after 5 minutes and repeat until cooked.
8. Remove from oven, do the caramel sauce while leaving the pudding to stand

For caramel sauce

1. Place sugar and butter in saucepan over high heat, stir in the cream.
2. Once butter melts, bring sauce to a boil. To prevent it from boiling over, either lower the heat or remove pan from heat for a moment.
3. Stir sauce constantly until completely smooth

Assembly

Remove pudding from muffin cup and place upside down on place. Pour some caramel sauce over the pudding and add a scoop of ice cream / custard. Serve while pudding is still hot.



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Chocolate Modelling

The cake decorating trend nowadays seem to gravitate towards using fondant. Fondant does provide a very pretty and vibrant look to cakes, and are especially popular in cakes for kids. Plus it can be easily stored and made in advance so there is less stress when it comes to assembly on the actual day.

Personally, I am not fond of the taste of fondant, so I was actively searching for alternatives and came across chocolate modelling. This is an easy and tastier tool for decoration. Similarly, it can be made in advance and store well in the fridge. I used a mix of milk, white and flavoured (strawberry, orange) chocolate to get the colours. There are some websites that suggest the chocolate can be coloured using powdered or oil-based food colouring so I think I will try that next time.

Ingredients
200g chocolate
1/3 cup light corn syrup (eg. Karo)
Cling wrap
Icing sugar for kneading

Steps
1. Chop the chocolate roughly into 2cm square blocks
2. Heat the chocolate in the microwave at 50 percent power for a minute
3. Stir the chocolate. If it's not melted, heat it again for 30 seconds, keep repeating until all the chocolate is melted.
4. Add the corn syrup one tablespoon at a time and stir. Keep adding and stirring until it forms a thick ball. You may need to adjust the amount of corn syrup depending on the chocolate used.
5. Pour the mixture onto cling wrap and spread it with a spatula to about 5cm thickness. Wrap it up and put it in the fridge until it hardens.
6. When you are ready to use the chocolate, take it out of the fridge and break it into small portions. Spread some icing sugar on your hands and on the counter, knead the chocolate with your hands until soft and pliable. The warmth of your hands should help to melt the chocolate for easy kneading. If it's too hard, place it in the microwave and heat it again at 50 percent power for 30 seconds.

The chocolate dough and completed model can be stored in an airtight container for a month.



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Mooncake Cupcakes (Bean Paste Filled Cupcakes With Date-Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting)

In Singapore, Mid-Autumn Festival is when kids get to stay out late and play with lanterns. The best part is when someone's lantern goes up in flames, especially if that lantern looks better than mine. Nowadays most kids get those noisy electric ones that play some unidentifiable out-of-tune pop songs.

In Taiwan, people hang out along the streets outside their apartment / shopfront, with their little bbq stove and beer. No lanterns here, but there are firecrackers and fireworks!

I've been itching to try this recipe since I first saw it on Cupcakeblog. The blogger is really creative with the use of ingredients and flavours, and all her recipes are very inspiring. The bean paste takes a lot of work as it's not easy passing the paste through the sieve, I took at least an hour with short breaks in between to finally finish making it. The result is worth it though, fragrant and not overly sweet like the store-bought bean paste.

The cake is just the right sweetness for me (and my testers), but the cream cheese frosting is too sweet with the dried fruit. What I did the second time was use my own cream cheese frosting recipe and add in 1/4 cup chopped dates and 1/4 cup dried pineapple. Do not leave out the sesame seeds because they provide a nice balance to all that sweetness, and they look so pretty too!

Recipe from Cupcake Blog - Mooncake Cupcakes



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Cream Cheese Frosting

I always have a problem with grainy cream cheese frosting until I found this method through extensive googling. The trick is to use room temperature butter and cold cream cheese. I can't really bring myself to use 2 to 4 cups of sugar for the frosting so this is my own recipe using only 1/2 cup sugar.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sifted icing sugar
70g butter (room temperature)
8oz packet cream cheese (cut up into small cubes)
vanilla essence (optional

Steps:
1. Beat butter til soft and creamy
2. Add icing sugar and beat till fluffy
3. Add cream cheese and beat till mixed in

If the frosting is too hard to pipe, beat the mixture further or leave it at room temperature for a while and it will soften.


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Pavlova

One of the greatest recipe exports from Australia / New Zealand is the Pavlova. With a crisp exterior and marshmallow centre, topped with fresh berries, it has to be the best gluten-free dessert ever. My mother-in-law is an expert at making this and it tastes even more wonderful with the fresh fruit available in Australia.

The meringue is made from egg whites only and care needs to be taken to ensure no fats (egg yolks, grease) gets into the egg whites.

Meringue Tips

• Separate the eggs when they are still cold. Then cover the egg whites until they come to room temperature.
• Make sure that there's no traces of egg yolks in the the egg whites
• The whisk and mixing bowl should be free from grease, use a paper towel to wipe them down before using.
• Use a glass or metal mixing bowl instead of plastic, as plastic may still contain traces of grease on the surface.
• Try to do the meringue on a cool, dry day. Humidity may cause the meringue to shrink and become a sticky mess. Alternatively, turn on the air-conditioner.
• Use superfine (castor) sugar so it dissolves quicker, or process granulated sugar in the food processor until very fine.
• Use an oven thermometer to check the temperature of your oven. The temperature has to be very low for the meringue to dry out slowly. If the meringue turns brown too quickly, the oven is too hot. If your oven is like mine and the temperature doesn't go down below 150 degrees C, stick a pair of metal tongs on the door when baking. The slight gap will bring down the temperature.

Ingredients:
Meringue
4 egg whites
1 cup superfine (castor) sugar
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/2 tablespoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Topping
300ml heavy whipping cream (at least 30% fat)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoon icing sugar (optional)
Bananas, passionfruit, kiwis and/or any kind of fresh berries


Steps:

To prepare the meringue

1. Preheat oven to 120 degrees C. Draw an 18cm circle on parchment paper and place it on a baking sheet.
2. Using an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, gradually beat the egg whites from low to medium high speed until they form soft peaks.
3. Add sugar one tablespoon at a time, until stiff peaks form. When you stop the electric mixer and hold the whisk up, the meringue should hold up stiff peaks and not droop. Rub a little of the mixture between your thumb and finger, if it feels gritty, the sugar is not fully dissolved. Continue beating until it feels smooth. Add vinegar, cornstarch and vanilla essence. Beat briefly till just combined.
4. Gently scrape the meringue onto the parchment paper. Spread it inside the circle with a spatula.
5. Make a slight well in the centre of the meringue for the topping.
6. Bake it in the oven for one hour and 15 minutes. Lightly tap the meringue with your finger or a chopstick, if it is still soft, bake it longer. It's done if it feels hard. Turn off the oven, leave the door slightly ajar to cool the meringue in the oven (If you used the metal tongs to keep the oven door ajar during baking, remove them now and close the oven door completely). Leave it for at least 2 hours or overnight.

To prepare the whipped cream topping

1. Prepare the topping just before serving. Whip the heavy cream with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Use the medium setting and do not overbeat.
2. Add the vanilla essence and beat briefly till just combined. If you prefer sweet whipped cream (chantilly cream), add the icing sugar and beat till dissolved.

Assembly

Remove the parchment paper from the meringue and put on a flat serving plate. Spread the whipped cream within the well. Top with fruit and serve immediately.



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Banana Coconut Streusel Muffins

The coconut streusel is a great addition to this moist banana muffin. Canola oil instead of butter is used in the recipe, so I can convince myself that this is a "healthy snack". The streusel is rubbed in by hand and the batter simply requires a hand whisk to mix all the ingredients together. It's a great recipe to do with kids and the results are so satisfying.

If you love coconut and crunchy streusel like me, double the streusel quantities so it completely covers the top of the muffin. Just be sure not to fill the muffin cups more than halfway, otherwise the streusel will fall off as the batter rises.

Recipe adapted from The Perfect Finish by Bill Yosses

Makes 9 standard size muffins

Ingredients
Streusel Quantities here are doubled the original recipe
1 cup dry grated unsweetened coconut
4 packed tablespoons light brown sugar
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus additional for muffin tin
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, sliced
Pinch of salt

Muffin
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup neutral oil I used canola oil
3/4 cup mashed overriped bananas, about 2 small, 170g
1/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg, at room temperature, lightly beaten


Steps
1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350F. Lightly grease nine cups of a standard muffin tin with oil or nonstick cooking spray, then dust them with flour, or use ungreased paper muffin cups.

2. To make the streusel, in a bowl stir together the coconut, brown sugar, flour, and a pinch of salt. Add the butter and rub the mixture together with your fingers or a pastry cutter until you have large crumbles about the size of a pea. Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining cup of flour, the granulated sugar, baking powder, and the remaining 1/8 teaspoon salt.

4. In a small bowl, stir together the 1.4 cup of oil with the mashed bananas, milk and egg until they are well combined. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

5. Using an ice cream scoop, fill the prepared muffin cups halfway. Top the muffins with streusel, diving the streusel evenly among the muffins. Fill the three empty cups halfway with tap water to prevent the muffin tins from warping. Bake the muffins on the center rack until they rise and are golden and bounce back when pressed, about 30 minutes. Let cool in the tin for about 15 minutes and serve warm.

Leftovers can be wrapped in foil and stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, then re-warmed in a 350F oven for 10 minutes before serving.


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Blueberry Cupcakes with Blueberry Frosting

This is the result of my first official baking experiment. An almost no-fail recipe, great for a beginner. The cupcakes are moist and tender, even with frozen blueberries. The frosting is a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, the steps sound complicated but is actually quite straightforward as long as you follow the instructions. It does take quite a bit of patience though especially if you are using a cheapie hand mixer like mine!

Recipe from How to Eat a Cupcake