Chocolate cheesecake

 

 

Friday morning, kids are both at school, I have the morning free but it was absolutely chucking it down today.  I wasn't in the mood for shopping so what can I do?

Shall I make a cheesecake? Oh why not haha..

 

I thought I could bake a simple chocolate cheesecake but I ended up piping chocolate to decorate the cheesecake. As usual, I like to make my cakes to look pretty.

 

And here I made this chocolate cheesecake with piped chocolate deco and strawberries.

And what is so great about this? It doesn't have to be baked in a water bath. And yes, it cracked but we are going to cover it with ganache.

 

 

Strawberry cake with mirror glaze

 A simple cake using a sponge, cream and chocolate glaze with strawberries to decorate.

I find this easy to make and it looks amazing.

Here is my simple step by step tutorial so you can make one too.

 

 

Banana & Nutella muffins

 

 

 

 

Molten lava cupcakes

 

I've always think it's beautiful how chocolate oozes out of a chocolate molten lava cakes.

I don't have enough ramekins so I thought baking them in cupcakes I might get similar results, in fact this was better than expected.

Small and dainty, it was perfect for me!

It's so easy to put together as I always like simple recipes and something fuss free!

This can be made all in 30 minutes if you have everything ready.

You can get 6 mini size molten lava cupcakes out of this recipe but if you like a larger size just double up the ingredients and bake for longer.

 

 

Lychee Cheesecake (non bake)

 

 

 Lychee cheesecake, I put this together after having a huge hit with my peach cheesecake by my readers. I used tin Lychees in syrup but I find them quite sweet so I used less icing sugar in this recipe compared to the peach cheesecake, using only 1 tbsp of lemon juice for a less sharp citrus taste as I didn't want it to overpower the flavour of the lychees.  This works really well and the gelatine used is the perfect amount to hold it together as a cheesecake.  I added berries for the decorations as Lychees are so pale and white.  Giving it some red and blue colours makes this cheesecake look more attractive.

Don't you think?

 

Chewy Hazelnut & Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

300g plain flour 

1/2. Tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/2. Tsp salt

170g unsalted butter (melted) 

160g light brown sugar

100g white sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2. Tsp vanilla extract

100g dark chocolate chunks

50g chocolate chips

50g chopped nuts for topping

Method:

Preheat the oven at 180c

Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda & salt together. 

Line the baking tray with parchment paper. 

Whisk the brown & white sugar with melted butter.

Add in the egg yolk, whole egg & vanilla extract and mix well.

Fold in the flour mixture to combine. 

Add the chocolate chips & chocolate chunks.

 

Scoop equal portions of cookie dough onto the baking tray.

Sprinkle some chopped nuts on top. 

Each cookie dough don't need to be flatten as it would spread out once it goes into the hot oven.  

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes or until the cookies gets golden with crispy edges. 

Let the cookies cool on the parchment paper as it is very soft to move. 

 

Blueberry Cupcakes

 

 

 

Blueberry cupcakes

 

Ingredients:

 

125g unsalted butter

120g caster sugar

190g self raising flour

2 eggs, beaten

80ml milk

1/2. Tsp vanilla extract

1 cup of blueberries

 

Method:

 

Preheat oven at 180c.

Cream the butter and sugar until light, pale and fluffy.

Add the beaten egg graduallyto the mix.

Add flour and milk alternating until you get a smooth batter.

Coat the blueberries in flour.

Put cupcake cases into the muffin tin and spoon in the batter adding the blueberries on top.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

 

 

This recipe makes 10 cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Mango Mousse recipe



 

 

Ingredients:

350g whipping cream

300g mango puree

3. Tbsp icing sugar

10g gelatin

60g water

Method:

Soften the gelatin with water and dissolve into liquid, you can do 2 x 20 second burst in the microwave until it has melted.

Once the gelatin has cooled, pour into mango puree and mix well.

Whisk the whipping cream until mousse state and add icing sugar.

Fold the cream into the mango puree and wait 10 mintues, the mousse will thicken slightly and you are ready to use it for cake making.

You will need to chill it in the fridge for at least 4 hours before eating.

Best if chilled over night.

For sponge recipes click here

 

 

 

 

Mother's Day cake

It's Mother's Day but although in UK we have celebrated this special occasion in March, I wanted to make one for my mum as she was in Hong Kong during that time.

 

Now that she's back I wanted to give her something special by making this cake for her.

 

I hope you would like to try this too, it's very simple and you don't have to copy my decorating.

You can create your own.
 

Cheung Fun 腸粉 (Rice Noodle Roll)

 

 

 

 

 

I have always wanted to try making my own steamed Cheung fun but I never knew what goes into it apart from knowing it is made with rice flour.

I have seen this recipe from a group I have joined on Facebook.

I wrote the recipe down but forgetting who have shared this, unfortunately I cannot give credit to this person who have helped me make my first Cheung fun.

 

I would say this is very time consuming and I didn't have the right equipment but nevertheless I went ahead to make this as I always like a challenge and would try something with whatever equipment I have in the kitchen.

 

With this recipe, the original post says to use a square steamer.

Well, I haven't got a square steamer but only an electric pot and two 7 inch flan tin.

I have seen on YouTube a lady steaming cheung fun using a wok of hot water and an aluminium tray to make these so I guess what I have will do the job too.

So here I went ahead and managed to prepare fresh cheung fun for my little son.

 

Ingredients:

 

250g rice flour
70g tapioca flour
40g corn starch
50g oil (I reduced it to 30g)
900ml of water
I added 1. Tsp of salt.

 

Method:

Stir everything together and set aside.

 

I greased the flan tins lightly with cooking oil.

 

 

Using a small ladle, I add a scoop of rice flour mixture into the flan tin.

 

I put the tin floating in the hot water & put the lid over it.

 

 

The big pot I used is the ones you use for steam boat / hot pot.
I steamed for about 3 minutes or until it started to look set.

 

Once it is transparent, flip over carefully with a flat knife.

And continue the process until you have used up all the rice flour mixture.

 

 

 

It did take over an hour to make.

If you can steam in a steamer then it would probably saves you burning your fingers like me.

My verdict:  worth the trouble as they were very fresh and soft.

Add filling if you like or add topping of your choice with some soya sauce.

 

Fish floss swiss roll

 

Recipe is very simple:
9x9 square cake tin lined with baking paper.
Preheat oven 180c.

2 eggs
40g sugar
45g self raising flour
25g oil

Whisk eggs and sugar until ribbon stage.
Fold in flour.
Fold in oil.
Pour into tin and bake for 15 minutes.
Take out and cool on a wire rack for 5mins.
Turn over onto a clean baking paper and peel off the used baking paper.
Wait to cool.
Turn over again and spread with thin layer of mayonnaise & sprinkle over fish or meat floss generously.
Roll it up using the clean baking paper and hold in place wrapped up for 10 minutes before serving.

 

 

 This is really quick to make, took me 30 minutes and its soft and fluffy, best of all the flavours are amazing.  It's sweet, savoury and a mild tang from the mayonnasie.

 

Strawberry Mousse cake

Simple and elegant, strawberry mousse cake with a chocolate sponge and strawberry gelée.

This is a 9 inch cake using a spring form tin, line the bottom of the cake tin with baking paper.

Biscuit base:

150g digestive biscuits

75g melted butter

Crush biscuits and add melted butter to form your biscuit base. Chill for 30 mintues.

Recipe for the Strawberry mousse:

300g strawberries

50g caster sugar

300ml whipped cream
4 tbsp icing sugar

16g gelatine

60g water

Puree the berries with sugar and set aside.

Soak gelatine in water for 5 minutes and dissolve to liquid.

Whisk cream and add icing sugar.

Add the gelatine into the fruit puree and whisk to combine, add this into the cream and fold to combine.

Strawberry gelée:

 (set using a 7 inch seamless round cake tin)

50g strawberries

50g raspberries

50g caster sugar

(or less sugar depending how sweet your berries are)

1. tsp gelatine

1 tbsp of water to dissolve

Line cling film inside the cake tin.
Soak gelatine with water for 5 minutes and dissolve into liquid.
Puree the berries with sugar and add gelatine.
Pour into the tin and chill in fridge to set.

Chocolate sponge:

  1 egg
20g caster sugar
20g self raising flour
5g cocoa powder
10g oil

Whisk egg and sugar until ribbom stage.
Sift flour and cocoa powder together and fold into the egg batter.
Add oil and fold well to combine.
Pour into a 7 inch round cake tin with bottom lined, bake in a preheated oven at 180c for 8 minutes.

To assemble refer to this link or see below.

And whisk 200ml of cream with icing sugar to taste to cover the cake and decorate with strawberries and chopped pistachio nuts.

Pipe with cream small dots around the cake.

Strawberry & Raspberry mousse entremets

 

This recipe is for a 6 inch square cake tin. You will need to use this cake for 3 seperate stages in making this cake.

Strawberry decorations

 

Have you ever wonder why many of my cakes using strawberries are alway the same size?

 

Well, you probably think that I must be lucky enough to buy them in a box the same size.

No, not always the case and I have bought strawberries that came in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

 

I have come up the a method I use all the time to cut strawberries into the same size and I will share it with you.

 

Pick out a Strawberry that is what size you want for your cake.

Cut in half.

Grab another one thats slightly bigger than the first one.

Cut the second one into an angle so that it is close to the first one.

Again cut the otherside, so that both ends matches up with the first piece,

You will have the excess from the middle part which you can use as filling for the cake.

 

When you lay them out you can see that they are the same thickness and equal lenght.

 

Here's a quick video that demonstrate how it's done.

Click here

 

Chocolate Brownies

Simply delicious. 

Simply Chocolate Brownies. 

 

 

 

Ingredients:

150g semi sweet chocolate 

120g unsalted butter

180g light brown sugar

2 eggs

5ml vanilla extract 

65g self raising flour 

4. Tbsp cocoa powder

40g milk chocolate chips 

40g chopped walnuts 

This is my favourite cocoa powder, I find it makes the bakes deeper in colour than other brands I've tried. It's also very chocolatey in flavour. 

 

 

 

Method: 

Preheat the oven for 180c. 

 

Melt butter & chocolate in a separate bowl over a double boiler. 

 

Then add the melted butter into the melted chocolate mixing carefully until combined.

 

 

Now you have the ingredients all ready. You can start mixing. 

 

Mille Feuille

Mille Feuille, in French its means thousand leaves. A dessert I wanted to make for a long time.

 

 

I have created a simple version so there's not a lot of work into it and it can be eaten straight away, not like my other desserts where I have to wait over night.

This dessert isn't heavy and a fantastic treat after a meal.
If you want a even lighter version use creme fraiche instead of cream.

 

 

This recipe makes 7 Mille Feuille and I worked it out to around 90p for each portion.
All round, a quick and inexpensive dessert to make and most importantly tastes and looks great.

Here's my version and I hope you like it.

Ingredients:

One packet of ready rolled puff pastry
300ml of whipping cream
1. Tbsp icing sugar
Box of fresh strawberries or other fruits you like
Icing sugar for dusting.

So, that's all the ingredients. Lets make some.

 

Method:

 

Roll out the puff pastry on your Worktop. 

 

Cut out puff pastry to 8 x 5cm. And lay them on a flat baking tray with baking paper over it.

 

Prick holes with a fork lightly on the surface, don't prick it all the way through. This would help release the steam during baking and making it rise evenly. Only prick the centre and not the sides. 

 

 

Brush with egg wash.

 

 

Bake in a preheated  oven at 220c, after 5 minutes it would puff up like the picture above, this is when you use a flat utensil to flatten it down by pressing firmly to stop it rising.
Then leave to bake for another 5 minutes and again flatten it down and bake for another 2 minutes.
You want to get the pastry as flat as possible but still flaky.

Another method you can use is to place a heavy baking tin with baking paper over the pastry after the first 5 minutes once it has puffed up. This would make the pastry nice and flat. Then bake a further 5 minutes and take off the baking tin and baking paper to bake until golden brown.
I didn't have a baking tin that would fit over it so I flattened it down twice during baking.

 

Leave the puff pastry to cool on a wire rack, you can dust lightly with icing sugar if you like it sweeter. I think this dessert have to be nice and sweet. 

 

Whip the cream and add 1. Tbsp of icing to it. Don't over whip the cream, you want it at soft peak so the texture is like thick custard but still holds its shape. 

 

Fill a piping bag with a large round nozzle and prepare some fruits. 

Pipe cream in a swirly line and lay sliced strawberries across.

Pipe a little more cream on top of the strawberries so the next layer of pastry will stick together.

 

Press gently but firmly to sandwich the fillings. 

Pipe more cream on the second layer and lay strawberries across it, repeat the same as above.  

 

 

Add the last layer on top and press carefully so the cream sticks to the pastry and dust lightly with icing sugar.

 

Time to tuck in..... yum yum....