Easy does it - Banana Walnut Cake

I finally tried out a recipe from Kevin Chai's Easy Stir N Bake Cakes. Decided on this recipe as I had some bananas in the freezer and also leftover walnuts from mooncake-making.

I remembered the buzz when this book was launched as the title of the book said it all... no mixer needed... all you need to do is to give the ingredients a few stirs and then you bake it! But I did not buy the book immediately then, instead, waited till the buzz died down and then I started to hunt for the book. And HUNT I really did! The book was sold out at many places and I finally found a copy (the LAST COPY) on the shelves at popular bookshop, in a shopping ctr at Novena. Even then, this book suffered the same fate as the many other recipe books I had, left at the book shelf at home, till I finally picked it up on one lazy weekends. :P

Back to the recipe....

I was afraid that the over-ripe bananas will make the cake too sweet so I reduced the amount of sugar. Also I did not have a small tube pan indicated in the recipe, and searched everywhere until I found the smallest tube pan I have at home. Still, the cake turned out quite short. But well, it did taste good! So good, that everyone had 2 helpings (I cut small slices) and the cake was gone in 1 afternoon. I did not have any buttercream on hand to decorate the cake, so I melted some white chocolate and drizzled it on and finally, sprinkled some chocolate rasps on top.

Here's the recipe, with my modfication.

What you need

• 100gm plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp soda bicarb
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 70gm castor sugar
• 80gm veg oil
• 150gm bananas (diced)
• 40gm walnut (toasted and chopped)

What to do 

• Preheat oven at 170 degrees. Grease a 20cm tube pan. Set aside.
• Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and salt tog in a mixing bowl.
• Combine eggs, sugar and oil tog in another bowl. Give it a few whisks. Stir in sifted flour mix and then mix in banana and walnut till well blended.
• Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in 170 degrees for 35mins. Stand cake in pan for 10mins before unmolding onto wire rack to cool completely.
• (Optional) Deocrate with melted chocolate.

Marbled Condensed Milk Poundcake

Once a while, I'll bake this cake....

throw in a little surprise when I felt like it...

In this instance, I marbled it.  :P

Mooncake 2010 - Baked Walnut Mooncakes

These mooncakes are also known as Shanghai Mooncakes. This recipe yield really yummy mooncakes, a definate keeper! This is the 2nd time I've made these and this time, I halved the recipe.

I adapted LeeLee's recipe (Thanks Lee!) and made some modification to it as I do not want to be left with 1/2 an egg and I do not have shortening in my pantry.... I got 13pcs from the recipe listed below.

What you need

• 190g Plain flour
• 12g Custard Powder
• 1/4 tsp Sodium Bicarbonate
• 25g Icing sugar
• 135g Butter (salted)
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla paste
• 1/4 tsp Ammonium Bicarbonate
• 1 Egg
• Walnut for decoration

What to do

• Cream sugar, butter, vanilla paste and ammonium together until slightly white. (slow speed first then change to high speed)
• Gradually add in egg.
• Add in sifted flour, custard powder and sodium bicarbonate to knead into a dough. Be careful not to overmix. Leave dough in fridge overnight or for a few days.
• Take out dough from fridge and divide into portions of 30 gm each.
• Divide fillings into about 40 gm each.
• Wrap fillings into dough and round it up. Decorate with walnut at 4 sides. Apply egg glaze (from SunLik, can be used to glaze traditional baked mooncakes too) and bake at 160ºC for 10 mins. Take it out and leave it for about 10 mins and apply egg wash again. Bake for another 15 mins.

Mooncake 2010 - Traditional Baked Mooncakes

I've made use of the long weekends to bake some mooncakes. Last year, I did not have the time to bake these, and made snowskin and agar-agar ones instead. It made me realise that I still prefer and appreciate these old-school baked mooncakes.

I had been using Florence's recipe for mooncakes and as usual, I used it again this year. It's a good, no-fail recipe. Thanks Florence, for your generous sharing.

I only made single yolk ones as I'm no fan of salted egg yolks, but since I'm giving some of them away as festive gifts, having a yolk in them makes them more presentable. :P

Here's the mooncakes... I LOVE the mold. Special thanks to Elyn for bringing them in!

There was leftover dough and filling, so I made a piglet and use the cookie cutter to finish up the dough.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Poundcake

This is a very sinful cake, considering the amt of cheese AND butter in it. It was originally a simple cream cheese poundcake recipe, I added blueberries in it coz i was trying to finish up the blueberries stash in my freezer.