Sunday, November 22, 2009

South Island

South Island is one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited in my life. We drove from Auckland to Wellington caught a ferry the next day to Picton, drove to Nelson Abel Tasman, then to Fran Josef, to Wanaka, Queenstown, Te Anau, Milford, Bluff, Dunedin, Lake Tekapo, Christchurch, Westport, Kaikoura and back to Picton to take the ferry back to Wellington.

The drive all over South Island is just magnificent with the views of snowcap mountains everywhere and beautiful clear blue lakes and amazing greenery and dessert looking mountains.

Beautiful sky and sea at Marahau Abel Tasman, a great place to kayak!


The journey in the car:








Throughout the journey there were many signs by the roads reminding drivers to drive safely. I always enjoy reading them as they can be very creative like this:


At the Glaciers in Fran Josef:


One of my fav places was wanaka. It has a beautiful lake, quiet and I enjoyed their coffee and blueberry cream cheese scone I bought from one of their cafes!


Lake Tekapo where the water was soooooo blue it was unbelievable!


At Kaikoura we were told to try their crayfish by the side of the road on the way to the seal colony. There were 2 so we weren't sure of which was the nicer one but stopped by one that we saw. It was expensive and so delicious!


After eating crayfish we went to see seals - they were so smelly!


So, if there is one place to go back to I'll definately return to the south island! It's like another part of the world compared to the North!

Friday, November 6, 2009

Favourite date scone at the moment...with a twist of ginger

I brought my dear friend whom I met while working at World Vision to Ironquie cafe along Mt Eden road because I wanted their date ginger scone from there! I'm still very addicted to scones and I know it's a bad habit to have...Nevertheless here is the scone and it's just soooo delicious! It's not the usual date plain scone as it has a twist of ginger to it with dry crystalized ginger between the scone. As you bite into the moist scone you taste the chewy ginger and dates too which makes it a very nice 'different' taste and texture - It is definately for you if you want to be adventurous with your scone, and if you don't like ginger then I don't recommend it =)


Spread with butter:

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Going nuts for bananas!

Due to my sisters request and my mum wanting to finished her ripe bananas they have requested I make another banana cake that they so thoroughly enjoyed! This recipe is definately for keepers!

So here it is but this time I placed sliced bananas on top for decoration:





Cream Cheese Chiffon Cake

My pandan CHIFFON cake did not turn out like one when cut up although the taste was there and more like a pandan cake without the air in the cake. I was so disappointed as I always find it hard to make a chiffon cake with that rise!

So...I decided to make another chiffon cake but this time with cream cheese. I tried a few things different - I did not whip my mixture too much this time.

My cake turned up with cracks at the top but the cake was very spongy and soft to touch!


The cake did not rise as much but the texture was closer to a chiffon cake than my pandan cake I baked the other day!




I shall try again next time and hopefully have the cake rise more =(

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Pandan Chiffon Cake

I have always wanted to make chiffon cakes especially pandan flavour because I really love the smell and the taste of it! I finally bought a electric mixer and put it to use straight away! I can't believe I manage to bake all this while with just a fork and wooden spoon! Hence I've never really tried baking chiffon cakes, or anything to do with cream!

I was surprise and glad that my chiffon cake turned out well although it's not as high as I would like it to be but I'm glad that the cake did not overflow while baking.




I never knew that the egg white mixed with sugar had to be foamy and it was my first time seeing this infront of my eyes. Yes, that's how new I am to chiffon cakes or anything that consist of egg whites and sugar =)

I will try banana chiffon cake next time and hopefully improve in my steaming of cakes.
Ok, the cake smells so good out of the oven I can't wait to eat it now!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Japanese Cotton Cake

Ok so I told myself no more baking but I just needed to try something new or more like bake this Japanese cheesecake that I've got the ingredients for but have not dared to adventure into it.

To my surprise the end result smelt really nice but I was disappointment at the height of the cake. I used a very big cake tin so that's probably why. I will have to search for a smaller pan if I want my cake to rise more.

There were a few variety of recipe for Japanese Cottonsoft cake but below is one that I chose from a blog I read.

Here is the end result, more like a cheese pancake:


Jap Soft cheesecake

Ingredients:


125 g creamcheese at room temperature
20 g butter, soften
40 ml milk
65 g caster sugar
3 large eggs, white and yolk seperated
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
40 g self raising flour ( or cake flour)
1/4 tsp salt
1 scant tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest

Method :

1. Add 500 ml water into a big baking tray ( that the tin you use for the cheesecake can fit in) and place the tray in the oven then preheat the oven to 160c.Line the base and side of a 18-20 cm springform/cake tin with parchment paper. Then use a big piece of foil to wrap the tin around from the bottom upto top of the tin side.

2. Place the butter, creamcheese and milk in a bowl set over a saucepan then wait until the butter has melted, remove the bowl from the heat and give it a really good stir until the mixture is smooth, set aside and leave it cool to the room temperature.

3. Add the orange juice and zest to the creamcheese mixture, stir to blend then add the yolks and mix them until incorperated. Sift the flour and salt into another mixing bowl,pour over the cream cheese and egg mixture in the center of thr flour. Quickly whisk or stir everything until just blended ( don't overmix or the cake will be tough)

4. In a seperate mixing bowl , beat the egg white with cream of tartar until foamy, then gradually add the sugar ,few tablespoons at a time, and continue to beat at high speed until reach the soft-medium peak ( more than soft but not hard peak). Gently fold the white into the creamcheese mixture until blended.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared tin. Place the tin in the preheated baking tray and bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted from center comes out clean. Turn the cake out on to a wire rack once taken from the oven ( the cake will shrink if left too long in the tin!). Leave to cool at room temperature, then let it set in the fridge for another hour or so before slicing and serve.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Chocolate Sunkun Brownie cupcakes

NO MORE BAKING!! That's me trying to stop myself from baking consecutively for the last 2 days!! Today I tried making chocolate cake but made it into cupcakes instead...because of the high heat and small mixture I think that's why my cupcakes sank in the middle =( Hence the title of this blog.




Despite the look and my family all asking me why it sank in the middle, they all said it was yummy and it finished within minutes!

What you need:

150g unsalted butter
½ tsp salt
150ml water
1/3 cup cocoa powder
some chocolate bits (optional)
1 2/3 cup cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
200g castor sugar (I used abit less)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method

A)

Combine butter, salt and water in a small pot. Cover and cook over low heat till the butter has melted and the mixture is about to boil.

Add in cocoa powder and chocolate bits (optional) whisk until smooth. Let it cool completely.

Preheat oven to 180˚C.
B)

Sift cake flour and baking powder. Add in sugar and mix very well. Stir for at least a min.

Add in eggs and vanilla to the cocoa mixture and beat until smooth. Scrape this mixture into the flour.

Stir with a whisk until smooth, then spoon batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake for 20-22 mins

This chocolate cupcake turned out with a brownie texture which make it yummy. Next time I will do it in a proper cake tin!

Note to self: strawberry season is here soon will go well with chocolate desserts!