Christmas Cake Bake-Off Crumb Boss : Cranberry Orange Cardamom Bundt

Cranberry Orange Cardamom Bundt   



Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 4 large eggs, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons grated orange zest
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups dried sweetened cranberries
• 4 ounces chopped white chocolate
• 3/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts
• 1/2 tsp powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Spray Bundt Pan with cooking spray and flour it, tapping away excess. Oil it very well so it doesn't stick to the pan after baking. Cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy. Decrease the speed to medium and add in eggs, on at a time, sour cream, orange zest and vanilla. Scrape down the bowl as needed. Mix batter well.
Sift flour, cornstarch, baking soda, cardamom and salt together in a medium mixing bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing just to combine. Fold in cranberries, white chocolate and walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan, pushing batter in all crevices with a spatula and smooth top. Gently tap the batter on center rack and bake 50-55 minutes, until a wooden pick comes out almost clean. There may be a few moist crumbs.
Remove cake from oven when done and cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Invert cake onto cake pedestal or wire rack and cool completely.

Serving recommendations:
A perfect and gorgeous table centerpiece, this Cranberry Orange Cardamom cake is wonderful for breakfast, lunch or dinner dessert! It is fabulous with a dollop of fresh cinnamon spiced whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla bean or cinnamon ice cream.

 Recipe courtesy of Nordic Ware

There is a contest on Crumb Boss page for Christmas cake! And the prize is very enticing!

 

 And so I had my go at it....

 Hope I win! :)) Wishful thinking!

Red Bean Cake for a red bean lover

This was ordered by a customer for her sister who loves red beans to death. The top pic is my creation and the bottom one is the picture she has sent to me... something that she might like... I was planning to do 100% like that... She wanted a 7" one, but somehow I only have a 10" cake square "ring", so I decided to do the 10" and trim off the rest for the others to taste. I did a trial beforehand and used a 7" round mould, and used half a packet of red beans. Yesterday, when I was doing the actual cake, I actually didn't notice that its alot bigger and I used about abit more than half pack of red beans... it didn't turn out to be enough! So I decided to fill the bottom with the red bean paste, and the top to be red bean mousse... turns out quite nice actually! So here's the recipe! You will basically need a vanilla/yellow sponge cake and to cut it into 2 layers for this. Can always use the yummilicious crumb boss's vanilla cake! Bake it in a 10" cake tin.

Red Bean Red Bean I love you Cake

Ingredients (For a 9" Square)

About 300-400g red beans (soak overnight, cook until soft abt 2hrs, drain and save the soup for jelly use, add sugar to taste and fry the red beans in the pan until little liquid left - almost dries up)

1 x 10" Vanilla cake cut into 2 slices


Red Bean Filling
Coconut Milk                      200ml
Jelly Powder                        2 tbsp
Agar agar powder                2 tsp
Sugar                                    2 tbsp or to taste
3/4 of the red bean paste

Hoon Kueh flour                 60g
Red bean soup                     100ml

Red bean mousse: 
Whipping cream                  1 cup
Gelatine powder                   3 tsp melt in a little cold water in microwave (do not boil!)
1/4 of the red bean paste

Red Bean Jelly: 
Reserved red bean soup        500ml
Sugar                                     To taste
Jelly powder                          80-100g (if you like it softer or harder)
Red colouring (optional)       1 drop

Mix coconut milk, jelly powder, agar agar powder, sugar together and bring to a boil. Mix hoon kueh flour with red bean soup and stir it in to the boiling mixture and continue to boil for about 30 sec till thick. Add in 3/4 of the cooked red bean paste and stir till well combined. Leave to cool.

Put the gelatine into a small bowl and put in a little water, just enough to cover the gelatine and let it bloom for a few seconds. Put in microwave for about 10 sec to dissolve. DO NOT BOIL. Gelatine will lose its power once its above 60 deg C! Whip up the whipping cream until stiff, add in the red bean paste and gelatine and continue to whip till combined.

Assemble the cake. Put first layer of cake into the cake ring (place a cake board underneath!), scoop the cooled red bean filling and spread evenly. put on the next cake layer, and fill in the red bean mousse and spread very evenly, leaving space for red bean jelly to come on top later. Cover with cling wrap and put into the fridge to chill until set and mousse is firm to touch.

Put in all the ingredients for Red Bean Jelly and bring to a boil. Once it is not so hot, remove cake from fridge and pour it over the top of the cake and let it set further in the fridge, about 3hrs at least.

Unmoulding - put a small sharp knife in hot water and then run it through the insides of the cake to separate it from the mould. Slowly remove the ring. Trim off the sides with a sharp and warmed knife, cleaning the knife after each cut and rewarming it in hot water (to ensure clean cut). Decorate as you like. I made red beans and deco out of fondant as per pic! Its all up to your imagination!

Its soooo delicious!

Enjoy!

Experimenting with Optima Flour

I finally laid my hands on a pack of this Optima flour. Its a flour with all the industrial use leveners, emulsifiers, chemicals etc in it. And it was labelled as the legendary NO FAIL Sponge cake mix. 

It contains everything... even sugar... so there's no need to even add sugar. 

What we need to do is... add eggs, water, and oil. I followed the swiss roll from AuntyYochana's blogsite... where she has famous swiss rolls made to perfection. I have never stopped exploring how to achieve the soft and fluffy texture of the Polar Sugar (Swiss) Roll...After doing loads of research long ago and never been able to confirm my hypothesis, I decided to try it out.

Opened and the flour is white and sparkly... I guess its from the sugar crystals? And I smelled it... it smells kinda weird... like baking soda and a little plasticky?? Other than that it looks OK.

Directions were to add eggs and water to the flour mixture, with yochana's recipe, a teaspoon of ovalett is required, so I put as per recipe. Then, whisk the mixture until its white and thick... and then add in the oil and vanilla essence and bake it... for the swiss roll, I'm doing it at 200 deg for about 11mins. 

That's the resultant sponge sheet. Not expecting it to be that super fragile, I tried flipping it over onto a sugared baking paper, and it crumbles into pieces. I fixed it and decided to make another one. I made 1/3 batch of buttercream and used it for 2 rolls.

My knife wasn't that good so I didn't manage to do such a clean cut...and I didn't put as much sugar cos scared too sweet... I took a bite and chewed... instantly... POLAR SUGAR ROLL appears right in my mind. That is it. Mystery solved. That is EXACTLY what the sugar rolls taste and feels like. Its nothing like what we can do at home with the natural ingredients without putting in all these chemical agents. The flour was crazy priced at $5 a pack (compared to $2.25 normal flour). As I eat and enjoy the wonderful texture, I can't help but picturing how much chemical goes into this...and other pastries in the commercial bakeries... I will definitely carry on making cakes and pastries the old fashioned way.

Fondant Cakes

From the first fondant cake for the little girl Gwyneth's Birthday...

Comes the next... a tie-dye inspired cake for my mum's birthday!

 I really love the pattern created... the pastel colours blend in perfectly...

And the cutting... is the most exciting part ever, in creating every cake... I love playing with fondant, now that I discovered it... Its like re-living my childhood... where we don't really have "play dough" yet... and we play with those yuckky "Plasticine"? This is so much more fun... and the best part? Its EDIBLE... though I would say its too sweet for my family's liking... well, you know the older folks will not prefer this, but the prettiness this creates is beyond what you can do with buttercream or Chantilly/Whipped cream, so, I'll still make this once in a while to satisfy a sweet tooth ba!

Always welcome to enjoy baking together: http://www.facebook.com/groups/Chocolatecandyfloss.bakes/

Lets bake and eat cake!