Recipe: Strawberry Shortcake

I tried to make strawberry shortcake today. It was awesome! Here's the recipe as well.


Ingredients for shortcake
225g plain flour
55g caster sugar and another 30g of caster sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
250ml whipping cream


Ingredients for filling
450g of strawberries, quartered or halved
3 tablespoons of icing sugar
250ml whipping cream

Instructions


1. Preheat oven at 200 degrees celcius. Lightly grease a tray.

2. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add 55g of caster sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir well.

3. Gradually add cream and toss lightly with a fork until the mixture forms clumps. Gather the clumps together. DO NOT KNEAD the dough. Shape into a cylinder and cut into discs of about 1inch each.

4. Place on baking tray and sprinkle the remaining caster sugar over the top of the discs.

5. Bake until light brown for about 15 minutes. Cool on a rack.

6. For the icing, combine 1 quarter of the strawberries with the icing sugar and mash with the fork. Add in the remaining quarter/halves of the strawberries. Stir well and let it stand for about an hour at room temperature.

7. Whip the cream until soft peaks form.

8. Cut your shortcake horizontally using a serrated knife. Do it slowly to prevent it from breaking apart. Place bottom half on a plate, top it with the whipped cream and strawberry filling. Place the top and its ready to be served!

Enjoy!

SimpleMakan

Recipe: The Best Chocolate Cake Ever

Hi all! Been some time! I've been baking these few days because mum is not home to nag at me! Hahaha! Alright, here is the recipe and ingredient list. :)


Ingredients for cake
115g unsalted butter
115g plain flour
55g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 eggs
225g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence


Ingredients for icing
225g plain chocolate
85g unsalted butter
3 eggs, separated
250ml whipping cream
3 tablespoons caster sugar

Instructions


1. Preheat oven at 180 degrees celcius and prepare 2 or 3 8inch round tins with grease/oil/butter. (2 or 3 tins depending on number of layers you want.)

2. Melt butter over low heat and skim the surface of any foam. Leave the melted butter aside.

3. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt 3 times and set aside.

4. Place eggs, sugar in a large heatproof bowl. Set this bowl over a pan of hot water. With an electric mixer, beat until the mixture doubles in volume and is thick enough to leave a ribbon trail when beater is lifted. Add in vanilla essence.

5. Sift over the dry ingredients in 3 batches and fold in slowly. Fold in the butter.

6. Divide the mixture between the tins and bake until cake pulls away from the sides of the tin, about 25 minutes. Let it rest on a cooling rack.

7. For the icing, melt the chocolate on top of a double boiler. Off the heat after chocolate is melted then stir in butter and egg yolks. Return to a low heat and stir until thick. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

8. Whip the cream until firm, set aside. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Add the sugar and beat untill glossy.

9. Fold the cream into the chocolate mixture. Make sure the chocolate mixture is NOT hot. Then carefully fold in the egg whites. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes to thicken the icing.

10. Sandwich the cake layers with icing, stacking them carefully. Spread the remaining icing evenly over the top and sides of the cake.

This is honestly one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever tasted. I mean, I know it seems like self-praise, but this was seriously very good! Follow the recipe closely and try it yourself. You will not regret. :)

Then it is ready!!! I would suggest refrigerating for about 30 minutes before cutting. :)


SimpleMakan

Recipe: Cream Cheese Swirls

Had some leftover cream cheese, so decided to bake something new. Looked through my recipe book and found this recipe. Seemed easy so I tried it out. Turned out quite well. Tasted good.

Ingredients
225g butter at room temp
225g cream cheese
2 teaspoon caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 egg white beaten with 1 tablespoon water for glazing
caster sugar for sprinkling


For the filling
115g of chopped walnuts
115g of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

Instructions1. With a mixer, cream the cheese, butter and sugar.

2. Sift the flour and mix together until combined.

3. Gather into a ball and divide into half.

4. Flatten each half on greaseproof paper and refrigerate for at least 30 mins, longer will be good too.

5. Meanwhile, make the filling by mixing the brown sugar, cinnamon and walnuts.

6. Preheat 2 baking trays at 190 degrees celcius.

7. Working with one half of the dough, roll out a circle of about 28cm.

8. Brush the surface with the egg-water glaze and sprinkle filling evenly.

9. Cut the circle into quarters, then cut each quarter into 4 sections. Total, you should have 16 sections.

10. Starting from the outer edge of the circle, roll each section to form the swirls.

11. Place on your baking tray, glaze with the remaining glaze and sprinkle caster sugar over it.

12. Bake for 15-20 mins, until golden brown.


The dough can be quite difficult to handle because it might be quite sticky. My tip will be, after dividing it into 2, place them on the greaseproof paper and refrigerate a little longer. Then when handling the dough after removing from the refrigerator, just use the greaseproof paper as your working base and roll out into a 28cm circle. Try not to knead or handle the dough after it is out of the fridge because it will become sticky again.

Hope this helps! E-mail me anytime if you queries!


SimpleMakan

Recipe: Chocolate Cheesecake

I tried to make Chocolate Cheeecake as well! It is now resting in the refrigerator. Haven't tasted it yet. Hope it tastes good! Here's the recipe for those who are interested.

Ingredients for the cheesecake
285g plain chocolate
1.2kg cream cheese
200g sugar
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence
4 eggs at room temp
175ml sour cream
1 tablespoon cocao powder


For the base
200g crushed chocolate biscuits
85g melted butter
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions1. Preaheat oven at 180 degrees celcius and grease bottom and sides of a 9inch diameter by 3inches depth tin.

2. For the base, mix the crushed biscuits with the melted butter and cinnamon and press evenly onto the tin.

3. Melt the chocolate slowly over a double boiler.

4. Beat the cream cheese until smooth, then beat in sugar and vanilla essence. Then add eggs in 1 at a time.

5. Stir the sour cream and cocoa powder to form a paste in another bowl. Then add to cream cheese mixture. then stir in the melted chocolate.

6. Pour into the tin with the base. Bake for 1 hour. Let it cool, remove from tin, refrigerate before serving.


Here are some pics of mine! :)

Updates: The cheesecake was nothing below awesome. It was my first try and many of my friends and myself were utterly shocked at how good it tasted.

SimpleMakan

Recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookies

I just tried out this cookie recipe. I used to bake cookies using pre-mixes. Totally no challenge, boring and extremely sweet. So I tried out baking chocolate chip cookies from scratch. Guess what?? AWESOMENESS! Haha! I'll share the recipe here, so hope it helps you guys who are interested. :)

Ingredients
115g of butter at room temp
50g caster sugar
110g brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
170g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
170g chocolate chips
55g chopped walnuts

Instructions1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius and grease 2 large baking sheets.

2. Use an electric mixer to cream the butter and both the sugars together until light and fluffy.

3. Mix the egg and vanilla essence in another bowl, then gradually beat into the butter mixture.

4. Sift the flour, bicarbonate soda and salt and stir it into the butter mixture.

5. Add the chocolate chips and walnuts and mix well.

6. Place spoonfuls onto your greased trays about 5cm apart and bake for 10-15 minutes, until lightly coloured. Cool it and it is READY!


Some picturess of my baking!

SimpleMakan

Food Review: Azur @ Changi Airport's Crowne Plaza Hotel

Today, went to this restaurant at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Changi Airport. It is called Azur. Food was quite basic. Normal Singapore fare. Some were good, some were not as nice. But overall, I would say it is quite worth it. If you just want to try some place new, I would suggest this place. But if you are looking to impress, I think this will not be enough. There was a really huge variety of food. Let me list it here: nyonya chap chye, chicken rice, roasted pork, roasted chicken, steamed chicken, carrot cake, mee siam, soon kueah, lotus leaf rice, kung ba pao, pork belly, fried noodles, otak-otak, rojak, teochew congee, chicken with century egg congee, salad bar, 4 different flavours of ice cream, 6 types of nyonya kueh, pulut hitam, bread and butter pudding, muffins, scones, creme brulee, banana cheese cake, prune tart, pandan cake, vanilla panacota, mango pudding, durian pengat, fresh fruits, ice kachang, mussels, prawn, flower crab, pork rib water cress soup, mushroom soup, 5 types of sushi, pumpkin with kalamanta salad, thai prawn salad, black olive pilaf rice, sauteed vegetables, deep fried crispy chicken, breads and buns, creamy/tomato based pasta, mushroom ragout, sauteed potatoes, breaded fish fillet...

So as you can see, really lots of food. But not all was fantastic. Ambience was actually nice. Simple and beautiful. Very posh feel. Family was satisfied.

Some photos here. I'm very sorry for the real poor quality because I forgot to bring out my camera, so I had to make do with the camera on my cellphone. Really sorry about it people.

SimpleMakan

Food Review: A&W at Jusco Permas Jaya @ Johor Bahru Malaysia

I went there some time ago with a friend. Simply to eat the curly fries and have some root beer float. But guess what?? They had a problem with their root beer machine! SO NO FLOAT! Haha!!! Anyway, at least I got to eat some freshly fried curly fries. It was much better than Singapore McDonald's festive season curly fries. Hope I get to go there again to try the long missed root beer float!

Some photos.

SimpleMakan