In baking most (or nearly all) of the cheesecakes, it is often required to ‘steam bake’ the cake, so that the cake won’t be too dry. So, what does steam bake mean, and how to do that? This is also another question that I have received often, and I have asked many times in the beginning too!

Steam cake basically means that you bake the cake in an oven, together with water –> by placing the cake tin into a tray of water before inserting into the oven.

The tricky part is, most of our cake tin used for cheesecake is loose base. This means, if we put it into a tray of water, water can sip in, and damage the cake!

Most book would ask you to wrap the cake tin base with tin foil. I tried that, but it often leaks. Then, decided this is the best method:

The easiest solution is: Just put the loose base cake tin into a slightly larger solid base cake tin, before placing them onto a tray of water!

Example above: 8″ loose base tin was placed into a 9″ non-loose base cake tin. Then the whole cake tin was placed into a 10″x10″ (or 11″x11″) tray with water, before inserting to oven.

Happy trying!

I intend to publish a new recipe on a very healthy Pumpkin Cheesecake, and I would like to share 2 tips first before going to that, so you can bake that easily…

This is a cake that needs a biscuit crust base, and I would like to share with you this very simple way of crushing your biscuits, which is also less messy.

Very easy, just put the biscuits (or any other ingredients you need to mash or crush) into a food grade plastic bag, tie a knot at the end (after you squeeze out all the air), then roll a rolling pin onto the food until well crushed/mashed.

I haver received some comments and email asking me how does a UHT cream looks like, and what brands do I use, or where to get it. This post is to answer this question.

I don’t know what other brands available, but have always use this brand Anchor. It can be found in all cake ingredient shops and all supermarkets/ hypermarkets. It is tasteless, looks like normal UHT milk but a lot thicker.

It is durian season again, and from BIL’s family orchard, came not only durians and mangosteen, there were a lot of bananas as well! Isabel loves fruits, but the bananas are not only abundant, they are all fully ripened! What it means is that, we cannot keep them for long.

So, Isabel ate 4 pieces in 2 days, I ate 2. We tried very hard to clear the ‘stock’, still have a lot left. I then turned this into a delicious banana cake:

This cake is easy to bake, yields around 3 loaves like sold at stores, and it is very fine, moist and delicious. We finished the cake in just 2 days (well, I gave some to MIL family since they contributed the bananas!).

BANANA CAKE RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
4 bananas (roughly 200g)
200g butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking bicarbonate
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk/soymilk
2 tbsp lemon juice

METHOD
1. Preheat oven at 180 Celsius
2. Mash bananas
3. Cream butter and sugar until creamy and fluffy
4. Add in eggs and mashed banana, mix well
5. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder together.
6. Fold into the batter, half or 1/3 at a time, alternate with the milk and lemon juice
7. Pour into an 8″x8″ square tin.
8. Bake at 180C degree for 50 to 60 min, or until skewer comes out clean

I have been searching for a good spinach dip recipe that is easy and simple, and with the ingredients easily found in my usual fridge stock. I finally found this recipe, which I improvised a little. Kids love this, and they can finish 1 cup in just one sitting. 1 small bunch of spinach (from Jusco, RM1.20 per bunch) can make 2 cups. So, effectively 1 kid ate 1/4 bunch of the spinach, considered a success for those who hate veggie.

INGREDIENTS
1 bunch of spinach
1 tbsp butter or margarine
1 tbsp flour
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/4 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp pepper

METHOD
1. Wash spinach, drain and finely chop the spinach
2. Steam the spinach until cooked (will shrink too)
3. Melt butter/margarine in a pan, add flour and stir for a minute.
4. Add in the cooked spinach and other ingredients.
5. Stir to mix well, chilled and serve with taco or tortilla chips (or even celery for a healthier change!)

I recently found out many do not know how to cut their cheesecake nicely, so would like to share my tips here…

Very easy, just warm your knife before you slice the cheesecake, and the cut will be smooth and the cake will not stick on the knife. No messy look on your nicely baked cake!

What you need are: knife, hot water, kitchen towel, and a cheesecake (of course!)

Either dip the knife into the hot water or pour water over knife on a sink. Wipe dry with towel quickly, make a slice on the cake before it gets cool again. Repeat the process until you get all the cuts made.

I have got most of the ingredients required for this cake for at least 6 months. All set up to bake it, but couldn’t find an occasion. My original plan was to bake it for DH’s birthday, but it happened in Oct, my first month of starting the new and demanding job – I just couldn’t spare my time!

Then, I realized that the ingredients are going to get expired! So, even without an occasion, I still went ahead to bake this few weeks ago.

I have to admit my kungfu (skill) in slicing the cake (horizontally) is horrible! Look at the photo below, my first slice was too thin, almost cut through. After slicing the 2nd piece, I then realized that what was left behind, too thick! There must be a technique to slice them evenly. I must find it out!

Anyway, the cake was so so so delicious and popular. The kids cried when I wanted to share a piece with Piggy and Aiyu. LOL! I think the use of a good quality chocolate bar is the key. The chocolate bar that I bought is so expensive. It costs RM7+ for 400g, which you could get half the price for a less delicious chocolate (too sweet to my liking).

Here is the recipe…

Chocolate Banana Cake Recipe
Ingredients
Chocolate Chiffon Cake
(A)
30g cocoa powder, mixed with 120ml water
4 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
130g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
60ml corn oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

(B)
4 egg whites
60g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tatar

Cake Filling
500 ml chocolate whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp instant coffee (mixed with 1 1/2 tsp hot water)
1 tbsp gelatin (mixed with 40ml water)
6 ripen bananas (sliced)

Chocolate Frosting
140 UHT whipping cream
350g good quality cooking chocolate
1 tbsp butter

METHOD
1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. In a bowl, whisk Ingredient (A) until smooth.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar (from Ingredient B) until foamy. Add in sugar and continue whisking until stiff.
4. Fold (3) into (2) and mix evenly.
5. Pour into prepared 9″ lined cake tin and bake for 40 min at 180C.
6. Invert cake and leave to cool completely. Slice cake horizontally into 3 layers.
7. In a clean bowl, whisk cream at high speed until stiff. Add in vanilla essence followed by coffee mixture and gelatin mixture.
8. Spread filling onto 1st layer of cake and arrange banana slices on top of filling. Top with 2nd layer. Spread filling and arrange slices of bananas. For the last layer of cake, spread cream filling on top and sides of the cake.
9. Chill the cake in fridge at least 1 hour to set.
10. When set, place cake on a wire rack, pour on chocolate frosting. Decorate as desired with fruits of chocolate chips. Refrigerate until set, before serving.

Chocolate Frosting
1. Heat UHT cream in double boiler.
2. Add in chocolate and butter.
3. Stir until chocolate and butter melted.
4. Leave to cool slightly before pouring on top of cake. (important, or it will ‘melt’ the cake)
5. Let the chocolate spill over the sides to coat evenly.

Update: Even that type of chocolate can’t satisfy us now, I’m going for 75% cocoa dark choc, it costs RM60+ a pack! Delicious!

Not sure if you have received this hoax email before, which story centered around a freely distributed RM250 Famous Amos Chocolate Cookie Recipe?

I got that a while ago, ignored. But received again from Piggy last year, saying that her sister baked it successfully and is quite delicious, except that it is the chewy type, which can disappoint some who expect it to be crispy.

I waited a year to bake it!! CNY is nearby, and I thought maybe I should bake it for CNY!

It is not an easy task. I don’t think I will repeat this in a short while. The part about grating the chocolate bar is killing me. And then, have to roll the dough into tiny pieces… With the small oven we usually have at home (i.e. not commercial), it is so slow. Every tray can only carry that many pieces only, have to leave space for the biscuit to expand. I think it yielded about 100 tiny pcs or so, didn’t really count it. Tedious, tired, sweaty…

Anyway, my kids loved it so much. I think before CNY the cookies are going to be gone!

Here is the recipe. I reduced the sugar by half, and still think it is quite sweet. Can’t imagine how people eat with the original recipe!!

‘FAMOUS AMOS’ CHOCOLATE COOKIES RECIPE
Ingredients
1 bar butter (approx 250g)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla essence
2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 cups oatmeal, blended to powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
340g chocolate chips
250g Chocolate bar, grated
100g nuts (your choice), chopped

Method
1. Preheat oven at 190C
2. Cream the butter and both sugars
3. Add eggs and vanilla, mix evenly
4. Fold in flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda.
5. Add chocolate chips, grated chocolate bar and nuts. Mix well (I used my hands in a food grade plastic bag, as it is too thick for my mixer).
6. Roll into small balls (around 1 inch in diameter) and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet/tray.
7. Bake for 10 minutes at 190 C.

When the cookies are removed, they are soft. But when left cool, it will harden up and become slightly crisp outside (but chewy inside).

A reader has highly recommended this recipe of steamed raspberry cheesecake, and left a comment here for me to try it out.

I have not had time to do any cooking or baking for a while until I’ve recently settled in my new job and got a new maid. Just made this cake yesterday…

This recipe is very different from all the other ‘common’ ones, in many ways. For a start, it is the EASIEST and SIMPLEST cheesecake recipe that I have tried. It is steamed instead of baked. And it uses 6 eggs rather than 4 that other recipes usually call for, but my friends and I do not quite like the overpowering egg scent and taste, and if I were to make this again, I will reduce to 4 eggs like the usual ones.

The original recipe calls for raspberry jam, but since the shop ran out of stock, I replaced it with blueberry. I believe you can substitute this with any fruit jams that you like.

RECIPE
Ingredients
500g cream cheese
1/2 cup caster sugar (reduced from original recipe)
6 eggs (recommend to reduce to 4 eggs)
1 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence
200ml UHT cream
200g fruit jam (raspberry, blueberry, strawberry, etc)
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Method
1. Cream cheese and sugar until smooth
2. Add in eggs, vanilla essence, and cream. Mix till smooth.
3. Pour into lined 8″ round cake tin.
4. Mash the jam until very smooth, pour half of the jam into the cake mixture. Stir with a chopstick to create marble effect. Reserve the other half of jam for decoration.
5. To avoid water sipping in, cling wrap the cake tin 3 times tightly.
6. Steam the mixture for 2 hours under low heat (after water is boiled).
7. Cake is cooked, if the surface is firm to touch and shrink from the sides.
8. After cooled, chill in fridge for at least 1/2 hour before decorating.

Decoration
1. Pour the rest of the jam onto a pan, mix with 1/2 lemon juice. Bring to boil.
2. Spread over the chilled cheesecake, and chill for another 1/2 to 1 hour. It is ready to be served.

I bought a recipe on bread making. It looks quite easy to make, but I didn’t know the kneading part is so so so tough and time consuming. I don’t have a bread maker, unlike what described in the book I spent so much time preparing the basic sweet dough. I will give this bread making a stop, until I get myself a machine. Imagine, I did this from 5pm and ended post midnight!! I got myself a set of Oreo Biscuit Honey Bun, some dried Crab Meat Buns, and chocolate loafs. The chocolate loafs and crab meat buns are not very successful so I’m not going to share the recipe until I get it right.

Basic Sweet Bun Dough
[Note: The measurement here, yields a LOT, which I think can make 6 batches of this Oreo Biscuit Bun]
INGREDIENT
400g High protein flour
100g Low protein flour
50g sugar
1 tsp salt
13g instant yeast
100g butter
25g milk powder
90g fresh cream (unwhipped)
50g condensed milk (cold)
1 large egg
170g cold water

METHOD
1. Add all ingredient except water into bread maker or mixer (with dough hook). Mix well. Slow the spped and add in water slowly, beat for a min.
2. Change mixer speed to medium for app 10-12 min, or until the dough is elastic. (if use hand to knead, you might end up kneading hours like me!!)
3. Cover dough with wet cloth or cling wrap for 10 min.
4. Place dough on table, stretch it and fold over, cover with big bowl and rest for another 10 min.
5. Dough is ready for whatever bread you want to turn into. Refer to below for Oreo Biscuit Honey Bun.

OREO BISCUIT HONEY BUN
[yields 4 pieces]
INGREDIENT
Filling
50g Oreo biscuit, chopped
20g almond flakes, roasted
20g honey
(Mixed well)

Others
4 pcs Oreo Biscuit for decoration
Almond flakes, non-roasted
Some honey
Some evaporated milk
Baking tray, greased

METHOD
1. Prepare 200g basic sweet dough, divide into 4 equal portion of 50g each. Shape into round and leave to rest for 10 min.
2. Flatten the dough and place filling in the center and seal up.
3. Place onto baking tray, cover with a big bowl and leave to rise for 35 min or double in size.
4. Brush with evaporated milk. Place one piece of Oreo biscuit in the middle of the dough. Arrange almond flake on the side of the dough. Brush some honey onto it.
5. Bake at 190C for 10-13 min or until golden brown.