I really am sorry. It has been more than 4 months since I last updated the post. I have been busy with kids and catering and cakes order and we are building our home. I am exhausted by the time the kids go to sleep, therefore I had no chance to do my things.

Anyway, enough with my excuses, here what I promised 4 months ago, a recipe for the Perfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan. This cake was trully delish and if you are a fan of all lemony things like me, you will love this cake.Enjoy this recipe and meanwhile I will update you with lots of pictures of what I have been doing for the 4 months on the next post.

Ingredients for The Cake

Recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan: Baking from My Homes to Yours p.250-252

• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 tbsp baking flour
• 1/2 tsp salt (I omit this)
• 1 1/4 whole milk or buttermilk (I used buttermilk)
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 1 stick or 114 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp pure lemon extract
• 2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves, stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable (I added few drops of water and stirred until smooth), for finishing
• about 1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, for finishing (I omit this)

Ingredients for The Buttercream

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites
• 3 sticks or 340 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Instructions for The Cake

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

This cake was Ok , but not great. It tasted like pound cake, quite heavy and make you feel like one slice is enough. In terms of the amount of eggs used i.e. 8 eggs, I feel it was a bit over. Imagine what you can do with 8 eggs to make cupcakes, you will produce dozens of cuppies. But I guess because this is Indonesian’s recipe, the egg used is still few compared to Lapis Surabaya (about 30 yolks for 19 by 19 cm square tin) or Lapis Legit (about 40 yolks for 19 by 19 square tin).

Can you see my melting buttercream? I was so sleepy and couldn’t wait to frost them. I thought I might don’t have time next day when my kids were awake. I waited for half an hour or so, but they still melted If I knew than that I would be the only mom who brought the cake to school, I wouldn’t bother making this cake. It turned out that I didn’t read the invitation clearly. It didn’t state that “we have to bring a plate of food to share” as usual. Furthermore, I hate being in the spotlight, where I was being the only one who brought something to the school gathering (or I think to much )

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion: Cake Pandan Tabur Keju

• 150 gr plain flour
• 50 gr corn flour
• 100 gr unsalted butter, melted
• 200 gr caster sugar
• 8 eggs
• 1 tsp emulsifier
• 1 tbsp pandan paste
• Cheese Buttercream
• grated cheddar cheese
• glazed cherries for decoration

Instructions

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

My husband came home after work around 7 PM and brought a cake. He said that his office usually ordered this Chocolate Mousse cake if someone has a birthday. He said it was pretty good. Well, either this cake really tastes good or they had no choice but to buy this particular cake from the nearest available bakery, since their office is kinda in the middle of nowhere :p

I was really looking forward to taste this “favorite birthday cake for office people”, they were good. The chocolate mousse cake was basically just a chocolate mouse in  a cake shape. What I mean is there was no layer of chocolate cake stacked up together with chocolate mousse. The cake was topped with cocoa dusting and 2 tubular shape of meringue.

However, I found a 3 cm thin metal rod in the middle of the meringue. Shocking and very dangerous. I couldn’t imagine if Nathan was the one who ate that meringue. I managed to keep that rod thinking that my husband probably want to show the bakery that on his next visit. Well, as far as I know, he haven’t go there and I lost the metal rod thingy.

Well, getting inspired by this Chocolate Mousse, I myself try to search for the recipe high and low. After searching through lots of recipe, I decided to make “Milk Chocolate Mousse Cake with Hazelnut Crunch Crust” without the milk chocolate (I was using dark chocolate), without the hazelnut crunch crust, and without some other ingredients. I know, I completely turned and improvised this recipe accordingly to suit my ingredients available. While typing this, I couldn’t believe why in the world would I chose that recipe since I wasn’t really following everything it said.

Since, I wasn’t really using the correct ingredients, i.e. gianduja bars (I used Nestle dark chocolate buttons), and this was where the nightmare begun. The instruction says to mix 3 tbsp of water with the melted chocolate. Since mine wasn’t Gianduja bars, it turned like an overcooked melted chocolate. If I have to make it again, I will stick with my usual Chocolate mousse recipe. I am happy to combine my Chocolate mousse with the cake recipe though. Here is the link to the recipe.

I also decided to make lots of meringue sticks as decoration. I used the recipe I posted earlier. However, I don’t think this meringue recipe is suitable for this cake though, because they all became spongy and quite soft overnight.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

I had been looking for the recipe on how to make cake pops. There is a measurement on how much the cake and the frosting should be. AH stuff them, I would used my own instinct instead.

So this is how it works.

• Crumble the cake.
• Mix them with cream cheese frosting until they are easily to be work with. It is messy to use hand but the mixture will be well combined. I used spoon at first and had a go with hand last.
• In order to have the same cake pops size, weigh them individually.
• Store them in the fridge, so they retain their shape better.
• Dip them in melted chocolate and sprinkle with hundreds and thousands.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Nathan had 3 birthday celebration and it was just because we couldn’t book the function place soon enough. He had his first birthday on the 29th of August (his actual birthday) with me, his dad and little brother. His second birthday was on 31st of August at his kindergarten. It was only singing, blowing candles and eating cakes with his friends and teachers. Now the third celebration on the 18th of September was a big one.

Party Guest: 30 – 35 people

Party Menu:

• Nasi Tumpeng (Yellow Rice), 4 kg of rice
• Ayam Bakar Bumbu Rujak (Grilled Chicken), 5 whole chickens
• Sambal Terasi (Sambal with Shrimp Paste), 500 gr chilies
• Rendang (Beef Rendang), 5.5 kg beef
• Sambal Goreng Hati (Chicken Liver Sambal), 2 kg potatoes, 2.5 kg liver
• Tahu Tempeh Bacem (Fried Tofu and Tempeh marinated in palm sugar and herbs), 2 boxes of tofu, 2 packs of tempeh
• Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), 4 kg potatoes
• Mie Goreng Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles), 700 gr egg noodles
• Gado-gado, 1 lettuce, 1/2kg potatoes,1 box tofu, 1 cabbage, 4 cucumbers, 1 dozen eggs
• Peanut Sauce for Gado-gado, 1 kg peanut
• Strawberried Treasure Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The cooking plan was thought through weeks ahead. Monday and Tuesday were for herbs and nuts pureeing and sambal terasi. Wednesday and Thursday were for cooking chicken, beef rendang, tahu tempeh bacem, and perkedel. They were all packed in an airtight container inside the fridge. I should actually took a picture of how my fridge look like. I didn’t have the time to take a photograph. My head and hands had been pre-occupied almost all the time. Friday was dedicated for the cake. The decorating part had to be done after the birthday boy fell asleep. Friday afternoon was for cooking sambal goreng hati.

Everything was as I planned and imagined by Friday afternoon. When my husband went home from work, I asked him to drive me to the groceries store. I wanted some chocolate coins to decorate the Pirate Ship birthday cake. I also had to buy some chillies for the peanut sauce. This chili thing for the peanut was something that I didn’t expect to happen, but I believed that it wouldn’t cost me my time. Well, my husband had another plan. He was hoping to get a parking on Friday night in the city so he could stop by the Apple store to get an Ipad. What a timing huh. We circled the city for few minutes. It felt like hours to me. Time was ringing TICK TOCK!!!  TICK TOCK!!!  inside my head. Well long story short, we couldn’t get the chocolate coins and by the time he got the parking, the Apple Store closed (LOL).

The birthday boy was asleep by 9 o’clock, but the baby kept waking up and asked for frequent breast feed. Well I think it was around 1.30 AM I was done with the cake decorating. A little story behind the cake. I was planning on making the Dinosaurs cake for a long time, but I couldn’t seen to get matching merchandise like goody bags, plates, toys and decorations. When I was hunting for them, I found lots of Pirate things instead, so we decided the theme is ” Ahoy there… YARGGGG Pirate”. Look at these goodies bags, aren’t they cute?

I searched through probably about hundred of pirate cakes on the internet to brainstorm my idea. They are almost have the same shape and I was kinda combining lots of different ideas that suits me and the decorations available. I designed (well it wasn’t really designing, but arranging stripes of red and white at Photoshop) flags and printed them few days before so that I wouldn’t rush at the last minute. The recipe used was Rich Chocolate Cake , because I think it was the easiest, simple and tasty cake. I made 5 layers of 30 by 30 cm. Having all the plan on how big the ship was going to be and drawn the template on the paper made the shaping of the cake so much faster. And Taaaa Daaaa….. here comes the cake.

If I could do something different, I would:

• Make 3 batches of Swiss Meringue Buttercream instead of 2. As seen on the picture, the cake was lacking on the water and wave.
• Not using the Astor (roll chocolate wafers), as the were too big and look a bit dodgy. I would chose something slimmer like chocolate wafer sticks.
• The chocolate wafers were started to brake because I stand them vertically. I should stack them up instead.

This was another Tumpeng platter I created (I am now starting to take orders, you could see the details on the “I SELL” page). I tried to improve my carving skills every time I had a chance to make one of these. The new addition of my creation is the cucumber, look at how the spread open. I am so pleased

These cupcakes were chocolate cupcakes with strawberry buried inside them, topped with cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with some brown sugar and had a cool pirate flag on each. I didn’t have a chance to take the picture of the inside, because they were all gone very quickly. I tasted one though, and they are so good with a very fresh taste from the strawberry and creamy taste from the cream cheese. Super duper yummy !!!

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

The birthday celebration was on Tuesday, so I had to prepare everything on Monday after dropping Nathan at school. I was planning to do the Robot cake and the Robot cookies for kids goody bags. I decided to once again use Martha Steward’s recipe. This time I chose Versatile Vanilla Cake. For the Robot cookies, I decided to use Dorie Greenspan’s All Occasion Sugar Cookies recipe. I planned to put the royal icing on top of each cookie. I finished preparing both the cookie dough ready to be rolled in the fridge and two layers of 30 by 30 cakes. I wrapped the cake in the aluminium foil just before I picked Nathan up. There is no way I could frost the cake while Nathan is at home, unless he is asleep.

Finally, I started rolling the cookies around 9.30 PM. OMG, the cookie dough was a bit hard to work with if you want the cookies to be in certain shape. It is constantly needed to be chilled to be able to work with. I abandoned my prepared robot mould that I made few days earlier and decided to use a star shape. I also had prepare the royal icing, but didn’t use it on the cookies because of the time constriction. I finished baking the whole dough of cookie though and to tell you the truth, they taste F-A-N-T-A-S-T-I-C.

One important lesson that I learned that night was to remember to have your unsalted butter at room temperature before you make the Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I made this buttercream lots of time and that fact has made me over confident with myself. I thought I could waive myself through the chilled butter and got a beautiful buttercream. I was wrong, the buttercream curdled and the liquid from egg whites is separated from the mixture. I made 2 batches of the buttercream and throwed everything in the bin. OMG, it was more than half kg of unsalted butter, what a waste. I had to make another one, and this time I played safe and rest the butter until it was ready. I only made 1 batch as I was worried that I might screw up again. Anyway, I finally finished frosting the cake at 2.30 AM in the morning.

I can’t wait to cut the cake as I was pretty curious on the taste and textures. I was a bit worried actually on the sponginess of this cake because the batter was really thick that I had to level the them with the spoon before they went into the oven. It turned out that the cake was OK, not really spongy as I want them to be but they really were versatile and sturdy. It made them easier to carve and frost.

For the decoration, you can use any chocolate colours or anything you have on hand. I am sure that the kids won’t judge I got my inspiration from this website. The baking tin suggested in the web is 13 by 9 inch, but because I only got 30 by 30 cm square pan, I cut my Robot parts accordingly. You could try to do your Robot cake according to whatever pan available.

Ingredients for Double Chocolate Cakes

Recipe adapted from Martha Steward, for details click here

(I used 2 batches of this recipe for 30×30 cm square pans)

• 1 cup (2 sticks) or 226 gr unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans
• 2 1/2 cups or 320 gr all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups  or 192 gr sugar (I used 175 gr)
• 2 large eggs plus 3 large egg yolks
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
• strawberry jam plus a little bit of water to smooth the jam, spread in between the layer
• Swiss Meringue Buttercream to frost
• 12 pcs Maltesers to decorate
• 8 pcs orange M&M to decorate
• 3 pcs white M&M to decorate
• 2 pcs green Lollypops to decorate
• 2 cupcakes to decorate
• 10 pcs Nutrigrain to decorate

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I didn’t plan to make anything for him on Sunday as I thought he would have his Robot birthday cake (as he requested) at his preschool on the coming Tuesday. Late in the afternoon, his daddy asked me whether I am going to prepare something for him or not. I thought better to make something simple yet interesting for Nathan. “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, that is easy, simple and quick. The decoration is no fuss, just need to find an easy, quick yet tasty recipes to make. Before I begin my recipes hunting, I asked my husband what flavour he would like to have on the cakes (He is not a cake and dessert eater, but he loves chocolate). I did my research at night and decided to make Martha Steward’s Double Chocolate Cake and Shelly Kaldunski’s Chocolate Cupcakes.

When Martha Steward’s Double Chocolate Cake is done, I started the carving while waiting for the cupcakes being baked in the oven. I started to pass on the unused cake to Nathan, so he could have a nibble. Suddenly we had this conversation:

Husband: OMG I can’t stop (speaking while watching the series of old cartoon “Duck Tales”)

Me: I never understand how people can’t stop watching this kind of cartoon. I couldn’t seem to find the addictive part of this series.

Husband: I am not talking about the Duck Tales. I couldn’t stop eating this chocolate cake

Me: (surprised and can’t believed what I heard) Really??? Why??????

Husband: I just love the taste… What the difference from the usual cake

Me: There is no egg and butter in it. It uses oil instead.

Husband: Owww probably that is why BUTTER. I don’t like the greasy feeling on my throat after eating them.

Me: Isn’t oil greasy as well????

Husband: (finished the whole cake left over from the carving)

Ingredients for Double Chocolate Cakes

Recipe adapted from Martha Steward, for details click here

• Vegetable-oil cooking spray (I used butter and baking paper instead)
• 1 cup warm water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (I used Cadbury cocoa powder)
• 1 1/2 or 192 gr cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup or 128 gr granulated sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sunflower oil (I used canola oil)
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
• Swiss Meringue Buttercream to frost

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Here are some notes and tips that you may consider before you try to make this cake:

• The original recipe doesn’t state the temperature, so I tried 170. Next time I preheat my oven around 190-200 C. (will keep you posted on this)
• Both of the cake layers weren’t rise as they suppose to be. One of the reason was because the oven wasn’t hot enough. The first layer that was bake sunk slightly after cooling down.
• When the first layer was cooked and removed from the tin, I quickly poured the remaining batter into the baking tin. What I found was breaking my heart. I found a thick residue of melted butter on the bottom of the mixing bowl. I just knew that the second layer wouldn’t be spongy at all. My conclusion, it is winter now and the recipe requests a melted butter. The melted butter just couldn’t wait to be butter again because of the weather. Next time I will divide the ingredients into two portions and whip them individually. Unless your oven would fit two baking tins at the same time, you better consider my suggestion.

Overall, the cake was pretty soft and spongy, but honestly the credit was all for the cake emulsifier. You have a peace of mind when you use cake emulsifier

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Cake Pandan Vla Pandan, for details click here

• 6 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 200 gr sugar (I used 150 gr instead)
• 1 tsp cake emulsifier (I used 12 gr)
• 200 gr plain flour
• 100 gr butter, melted (I used reduced salt butter)
  
• 1 tbsp pandan paste
• Custard mix with a little bit pandan paste for in between the layer (or just omit the pandan paste)
• Swiss Meringue Buttercream to frost

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

My busy Monday started with preparing my oldest son morning tea and lunch box, then dropping him at kindy. Then off I went to the kitchen preparing this cake with few pauses because the little one waking up. Sorry baby, probably you are not used to the loud mixer sound, well you better get use to the sound as you will hear it most of the time in the upcoming future. I will post the recipe later with few notes and tips as I didn’t do so well with this cake.

How my oldest boy felt so happy looking at the cake. He always excited looking at cakes because he loves singing the birthday song and blowing off the candles. This time, he did like uncountable times of singing, blowing and clapping hands. I guess it was kinda like a little practice before his upcoming birthday at the end of August.

Tuesday was all about planning, scheduling and shopping. Garlic, shallot, ginger, turmeric, candle nut, lemon grass and chillies for pounding, grinding and pureeing. Banana leaves, garlic shoots, broccoli, spring onions, parsley and carrot for decoration. Glutinous rice and flour, coconut milk and cream, potatoes, tofu, chicken eggs and quail eggs, prawns, can of petai in brine for the ingredients.

Buzzz… grrrrrrr…buzzz…. grrrr, that was the sound of Wednesday. Oh not to forget the hwaaaaaa… ooowaaaaacccchhhhh… (baby crying) and mommy look at this… mommy I want this that and it goes on and on and on…

Thursday, let’s the kitchen war begin!!! YAY and hubby had a day off, meaning that lots of lots of help with my two boys. Early in the morning, hubby and the oldest one went to the embassy to renew the passport and that made me so much easier in arranging banana leaves on platter. This was my third attempt in making the platter.

• The first one was last year on my boy’s birthday. Result: unsuccessful because of poor time management.
• The second attempt was last December on hubby’s birthday. Result: unsatisfied because of lack of research on how to arrange and decorate your dishes on the platter.
• The third attempt: Satisfied, however still need to improve on decoration varieties and perhaps bigger platter will be result in a much more attractive looks.
• Note to myself: find a storage space in the tiny apartment to store a new big platter

Here are the dish starting from yellow rice clockwise: Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Sambal Udang Pete Balado (Prawns with Petai cooked in Sambal Chilli), Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), Telur Dadar Gulung (Rolled Omelet), Tahu Bacem (Fried Tofu Marinated in Palm Sugar and Herbs), Sambal Bajak Terasi (Sambal Chilli with Shrimpt Paste Bajak style in Tomato Basket), Mie Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles with Red Boiled Quail Eggs), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken).

Conversation with Hubby while preparing those Tumpeng dishes around 4 PM:

Me: OMG we ran out of rice. We need to buy them ASAP.

Hubby: Ahhhh… I don’t wanna go out anymore today (answering with sleepy eyes, laying on the carpet)

Me: Oh well I suppose I could go tomorrow buying rice (25 kg) and chicken for Saturday (about 28 pcs of Chicken Maryland, those are for Theo’s one month things. We usually gave a packet of yellow rice with chicken, red egg, red traditional cake, and sweets to close friends and relatives. Traditionally, this thing is done to let them know that there is a new baby born in the family)

Hubby: Zzzzzzz… (snoozing already on the carpet while the toddler destroying the house with all of his toys all over the house)

Friday, lots and lots and lots of thing had to be done. First thing, feed all the boys then bath them and myself. Before we went out, it was already 12.30 PM. I was in a panicking zone. We all went to the city and darn it.. as usual no parking spot. Thank God I had a help that day from a friend. She watched the boys while I parked my car in a no parking zone (hoping that no parking office will pass and give me a ticket). I ran to the shop telling to the housekeeper that I need a 25 kg rice and then straight to the butcher asking him to give me 28 pieces of chicken maryland. I told them to be quick as I parked in the no parking zone. The porter carried the rice to the car, but there was no sign of the chicken from the butcher yet. I ran straight to the car and I was so lucky to spot a parking spot, although it meant that I had to drive backward about 5 metres on a busy zone. Back to the butcher asking him where the hell was my chickens. Surprisingly he handed me a big box of chicken.

Me: (still looking surprised) OMG how come you gives me the box? I only asked for 28 pieces of chicken.

Butcher: Yes 28 pieces of chicken maryland.

Me: (wondering how big those chicken pieces hidden inside the box) Mmm.. I need someone to help me carry this box to the car

Butcher: Okay.. no worries

Me: Hang on a second, I need to buy extra lemon grass

(Butcher kept going and went out of the store without me while I was paying the shopkeeper. Me following behind him and running)

(Me Arrived at the back of the car panicking and worrying that all those salmonella leaking and dripping from the wet box would contaminate my beloved car. I quickly placed lots of plastic bags on the car so the butcher could place that salmonella box on top.)

I think the box weighs almost 20 kg and don’t ask me how I get them all up to my apartment. A very hard work indeed. I had a very busy day and night after the chicken arrived on my kitchen station.Lots of chopping on the extra chicken fat. Lots of pinching the extra feather left on the huge chicken pieces. I wonder how big the chickens were when they were alive. I had to finish at 1.30 AM in the morning since my brain wasn’t really synchronized with my doing anymore.

All I can say about Saturday was busy hectic and kind of panicky, not so much for the cooking but for my two nagging boys. We started the delivery at 12.30 PM and arrived back home at 7.30 PM at night. What a journey, starting from inner west, eastern, northern, west, and city. Well thank God both of my boys was behaving nicely, especially the little one who slept all the way through and only woke up once for a fed.

This is one of the packet we delivered to relatives and close friends. I made 25 packets of them, each consists of Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken), Telur Merah (Red Boiled Egg), Kue Ku (Glutinous Rice Cake filled with Mung Bean Paste).

My dad came to visit us on July and he stayed for 3 long weeks. For me, he was very helpful because he could help me by playing and looking after my first boy as I am preoccupied with the newborn. For him however, he looked pretty bored when my boy was at school as the little one only sleep and sleep. On both of our free time, we used it to discussed about his new exciting business back in Indonesia. He is opening a restaurant cafe and he is not too familiar in this field. So I am sort of giving him the ideas for individual serving of sweets, cakes, and desserts. One of them is Pavlova, and it uses egg whites YAY!!!

His verdict about Pavlova: LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!! LOVE IT!!! All member of the house verdict about Pavlova: Absolutely love it !!! Special verdict from my brother: Absolutely ADDICTED to Pavlova. He keep asking me almost everyday whether I am going to make one or not. I did make another one on the weekend. Poor him, he woke up late. We actually wanted to left him half of the Pavlova but it was too good. We ended up eating a third of a quarter and left him a quarter. I promise him I will make one big Pavlova for him.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay: Pavlova, for details click here

• 150 ml egg white (approximately 4 eggs)
• 220 gr caster sugar (I used 200 gr and will use lesser next time)
• 2 tbsp cornflour, sifted
• 2 tsp white vinegar
• whipped cream to serve
• fresh fruit to serve
• passion fruit pulp to serve

Culinary tradition: Australian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

A little background story behind this pudding. When I was little, I remembered that our close family friend who owned a bakery back in Indonesia always send us this pudding on Chinese New Year. They usually delivered this pudding a day before the Chinese New Year and we (or at least me) can’t wait for tomorrow to come so I could have a big chunk for myself. Well you see, I slept at my grandparent house on new years eve because it was a big family dinner. My grandmother is a fussy woman (sorry ama, but you really are). She won’t let us touch all the cakes until the actual day of Chinese New Year. I never understand why or how she thinks, because she didn’t serve the pudding to the guests who visit her house anyway. She kept all of her grandchildren favourite foods in a safe place so no one could had them. So, why didn’t she let us have the taste before the day Ama? Oh well, I think she likes to have lots and lots of various foods serve on her table at the same time on the important day.

I did an attempt to make this pudding before with a recipe listed on some packet instruction (forget what is the product..) a long long time ago. I don’t think I need to describe how was it, because it was surely a big disaster, ended up with the whole chunk of mess in the trash. So, I am a little bit traumatized to try.

I found this recipe, read the instructions all the way through. I thought to myself, well I have nothing to lose because the egg whites is going to the trash anyway if it is unused. If you look at the original recipe (if you could understand Indonesian), you will notice that she whipped all the egg whites and mix it with the agar-agar mixture. Then she divide the mixture into three batches and mixing them with colours. Then she arrange it colour by colour. Well, I thought it was a chance to fail for me. I am not that big of a risk taker. So I decided to do two tins so I don’t have to weight the agar-agar every time I cook them. I am really surprised on how quick the layer set, and I am relieved that I didn’t do as the original recipe told.

Note to myself:

• Reduce the amount of milk so the texture is much harder.
• The sponge cake recipe is OK, but next time I will use sponge cake recipe from egg whites.
• The top layer is better with Nutrijel (jelly) as this agar-agar is too hard and break the colourful layer as you spoon them.

Ingredients for the Sponge Cake

Recipe adapted from dapur DiFa : Sponge Cake with Toppings, for details click here

• 4 eggs
• 80 gr plain flour
• 20 gr corn flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 50 gr reduced salt butter, melted
• 1 tsp cake emulsifier

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

My verdict on the cake is absolutely soft and spongy even without the cake emulsifier. Amazing really, how can it be that soft without the cake emulsifier. I still couldn’t explain the reason.

As the recipe suggested, do not buttered the baking tin. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The side of the cake is not that difficult, but as for the bottom one, I rip part of my cake and left it on the pan. Next time I will definitely butter the pan very lightly especially the bottom of the tin.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Chiffon Chocolate White Egg, for details click here

• 125 gr plain flour
• 25 gr cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 gr corn flour
• 75 gr oil (I used 75 gr melted reduced salt butter)
• 75 ml full cream milk
• 100 gr egg whites (to be mix to the mixture)
• 400 gr egg whites (to be whipped)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 175 gr sugar (I used 150 gr)

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

This is one of my trial recipe. the recipe is definitely a keeper. The cake is super soft and has a beautiful texture. It is really different compares to the baked cakes. It is also beautiful in appearance. This steam cake is a sudden hit to my house members. When I asked my husband whether I should actually give some of the cake to my neighbor, he simply replied : “Hmmm… not this one, I think we could finish it very quickly”. He was right. We finished the cake in a day. My boy loves the pink one as it has a strong strawberry essence. My husband loves the green one. I love them all.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Bolu Kukus Pelangi, for details click here

• 500 ml egg whites
• 325 gr sugar (I used 300 gr)
• 1 tbsp cake emulsifier (I used 15 gr Ovalet Kupu Kupu brand)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100 ml full cream milk
• 50 gr melted butter (I used reduced salt butter)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 250 gr plain flour
• 25 gr full cream milk powder
• strawberry essence + red colouring
• lemon essence
• mocha essence
• pandan essence

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

What could I say about this cake. It is a very chocolaty cake and I am sure for big chocolate lovers out there, they will absolutely love them. It is not my type of cake though as I am not a big fan of chocolate and my tooth isn’t sweet enough. However, for all of the member of my house, this is the type of cake to die for.

At first, I wasn’t really sure that I will succeed making this cake as Dorie’s. Few reasons behind that:

• Mixing boiling water to the cake batter.
• Mixing hot sugar syrup to the egg white mixture.

Hmm, but they all turned out OK. I guess you can really judge the final result until you have a go.

I admit that I am not that generous with the frosting as Dorie’s. She had the frosting in between layers almost as thick as the cake layer. Well I have reasons for that. First, my house members are not a big fan of frosting. And last, because I don’t have a candy thermometer handy at my home, I kinda work my way through cooking the syrup. So, 1/3 of my frosting actually turned into liquid. OMG, I kinda glad that I was not divide the layer into 4, because there will be not enough frosting to go around.

Ingredients for The Cake

Recipe adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

• 1 1/3 cups AP flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar (I used 1/4 cup sugar)
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
• 1/2 cup buttermilk or whole milk, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 4 ounces semisweet or milk chocolate, finely chopped

Ingredients for The Filling and Frosting

• 1/2 cup egg whites (about 4 large eggs)
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 tsp tsp cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary Tradition: American

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!

However, I was saving them because I only made one Lapis Legit. I could use them for many things, for cakes, cookies, coating the meat/chicken, making an egg omelet (of course by mixing them the yolks as well, only lots and lots of egg whites), steaming the egg whites with mince meat and vegetable, and some people even use it for a face mask for tightening the skin.

I was sitting on the couch playing with my toddler on a rainy afternoon. Winter season is here and I need a warm simple cake with hot cup of tea so bad. So, here it was a very quick and easy cake to make. They are not as light and fluffy as the cake with yolks but they are pretty good for egg whites cake.

Ingredients

• 400 ml egg whites (or about 10 eggs whites)
• 175 gr plain flour
• 25 gr corn flour
• 150 gr sugar
• 200 gr margarine, melted (I used Blue Band margarine)
• 1/2 tsp emulsifier
• cocoa powder as needed