Kueh Bahulu

I came home today on a mission:
To bake the perfect Kueh Bahulu.

When i was really little my Mom used to buy these for me and my sister.
So we would lounge on the couch munching on this precious little sponge cakes,
or snack on it in the pool.

It's perfect, spongy, bite-sized.
A dieter's dream.

In my lifetime (and that's totalling up to fifteen years), i have come across many a dry, chewy, bland Kueh Bahulu.
Thus i vowed that mine shall come out perfectly baked, just the correct amount of moisture (moistness??).

And then i realised i did not have enough eggs.
Why why why, does this always happen? I must start rearing chickens in my backyard because i am becoming the queen of oops-i-need-more-eggs-to-bake.

The recipe called for three eggs. So being the daring, risk-taking, never-say-never baker that i am (ahemmm), i decided to halve the recipe.

So i weighed the two eggs that i did have on my fancy little digital scale and took out a quarter of it.
No easy task, i must say.

So sadly, the rest of the recipe had to be sliced and i ended up with 18 little Kueh Bahulus to watch a whole season of Big Bang Theory with.

The first Batch was a little undercooked so the photos are of the second.

Kueh Bahulu is a traditional little Malay sponge cake that's supposed to be a tad bit crunchy on the outside and soft and spongy inside. I think it's eaten and baked around Chinese New Year and Hari Raya. But now I have the recipe i can eat it all the time (and frankly, that makes my waistline very afraid).

Now it's time to give your waistline the jitters. And i wouldn't worry about it if i were you. This is sponge cake. It is meant to be eaten in excessive amounts.

Kueh Bahulu

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour (sifted)

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1/4 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda

2 tablespoons of cooking Oil/Butter (optional)  (i added this so that the cake would be more moist)

1. Beat the eggs with an electric hand-mixer until frothy. Then add in the sugar and continue to mix until well dissolved

2.Add in the vanilla essence and mix well.

3. Gently fold in the flour and bicarbonate of soda and add in the cooking oil or butter if using. Continue to beat with hand-mixer until well blended.

4. Grease Kueh Bahulu moulds and fill with batter. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees C for fifteen minutes or until golden brown. Remove from moulds and cool on wire rack. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

The butter or cooking oil is entirely up to you. But i guess it's encouraged as it's way easier to slip out of the mould with it. Plus your little kuehs end up nice and moist.

I didn't have the traditional Kueh Bahulu moulds so i IMPROVISED (don't i always) and used a little cookie baking mould. Madeline moulds would work might fine, too.

So if you've got one of those, you're set. You have no more excuses to go into your kitchen right now and whip up a batch. It took me all but thirty minutes.

Unless, of course, you're out of eggs.

Quick Chocolate Buttermilk Bread

Chocolate bread is the bomb.
No, literally.
The flavour explodes in your mouth.

Mighty fine.

i decided not to use a chocolate ganache of any kind because i snuck some chocolate kisses in there and that was already DOUBLE chocolate.

But if you're the daring, chocoholic kind, pour loadsa chocolate icing if you want!

It is actually quite a light cake. Not like black Forest or anything.
I just realised i typed cake there instead of bread.
Because it actually IS quick bread.

Ah, potato potahto.

My only complaint would be that the bread sort of broke when i tore the baking parchment from it. Although it my have been 100% my fault because i have been known to be pretty rough when it comes to ripping off baking parchment.

Recipe?
gladly.

it is altered from here. by the way.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup Cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 4 oz unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
• 1/4 cup Chocolate Morsels

PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease 9 x 5-inch loaf pan. 

COMBINE flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda in medium bowl. Beat butter and sugar in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture alternately with buttermilk. Fold in 1/4 cup chocolate morsels. Pour into prepared pan. 

BAKE for 50 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; remove to wire rack to cool completely


EAT!

Go get your sugar rush, then.
if you click the link there is a recipe for a chocolate honey butter to ice your cake bread


oh, and for the buttermilk substitute:

Note: I didn't have buttermilk (who does?) So i substituted with two cups of pretend buttermilk. You get this pretend butter milk by adding i tbsp of lemon juice to a 1 cup then filling it to the brim with milk and letting it rest for 5 minutes before using.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

You know what cake i love more than anything?
A cake with vegetables, i mean. (my absolute favourite is cheesecake)

Carrot cake.

And do you know what would be even more awesome (and potentially dangerous) than carrot cakes?

Carrot cake Cupcakes.

i say dangerous because what's going to stop you if you have dozens of bite-sized servings of this cake?
Nothing.

Except maybe an exploding stomach.

The sprinkles were my idea. I'm all for sprinkles now. Sprinkles FTW!

So we had the cupcakes iced and ready.

I did some of them in these little souffle cups i bought and then discovered you can't actually BAKE in them.

So i had to peel out the cupcake from the liner all baked and ready AND THEN fit it neatly into the paper cup.

this is one of the plain ones. The piping was really easy, but the bag occasionally slipped from my hand and left loads of icing-less bits peeking through on my first few cupcakes.

The icing is cream cheese. I never thought cheese would be good as a frosting until now.

i told you i had a thing for sprinkles.

We tried to get a bit classy and do the others with White chocolate bits and those little silver balls we all love so well but have no idea what it is named.

Man, these were good.

Next up for cupcakes: Funfetti!

Although it may be a while before i do another cupcake.

I've been DYING to try home made Pop tarts.

Kueh Lapis

Oh how my arms ache!
This is, by far, the most deceiving cake ever.

It looks pretty simple to make, doesn't it?

It took me three hours to get one cake ready and about ten minutes for it to get devoured by hungry little people.

Oh, well.
It is insanely full of eggs and butter.
But who cares about the extra calories when this baby is in your mouth?

Ingredients:
-17 egg yolks
-250g Castor sugar
-500g butter
-105g plain flour
-1/2 tsp mixed spices
-5 egg whites
-1 tsp vanilla essence
-1 tbsp brandy (optional)

Method:
1. beat egg yolks and sugar till pale yellow and thick.

2. In a separate bowl, stir butter until smooth.

3. in a clean bowl, whisk egg whites till stiff and frothy.

4. Combine egg yolk mixture with butter mixture gradually until well mixed.

5. Add sifted flour and spices and fold in slowly with a wooden spoon.

6. Fold in egg whites.

7. Add vanilla essence and brandy until well mixed.

8. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C for 15 minutes at grill function. Grease and line a 18-cm square tin with parchment paper and heat in oven for 5 minutes.

9. Scoop three tablespoons of batter into heated tin. Hold the tin (HOT!) and swirl it around until the batter has melted and made an even layer at the bottom. Place it in the oven until the top has browned. (about 4 minutes)

10. After the first layer has browned, quickly remove it from the oven and prick batter with a fork. Use a flat object to flatten the layer before adding the second layer. Each subsequent layer should be 3 tablespoons and should brown in the oven before the next layer.

11. After all the batter is used up, turn the oven to bake function and cover your tin with some tin foil. Place it in the oven to bake a further 5 minutes before removing it and inverting the tin on a cooling rack.

Note: Try to do the layers as quickly as possible as the bottom layer might burn if it is in the oven for TOO long.

so, go.
Fly off.
See what this layer cake does to you.

Apple and Cinnamon Tea Cake

The bad presentation of this cake was probably my fault.
i forgot to use a spatula to even out the cake before i baked it.

huh.
But whatever it lacked in looks, i guess it made up for it taste.
That's what Daisy said anyway.

So it's a tea cake. I guess it's like any old cake but for some reason the recipe book had it under 'Tea cakes'.

So here is the recipe.
Hopefully someone else would try it and get it to look a tad bit better than mine.

-60g unsalted butter
-1/3 cup caster sugar
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-1 egg, beaten
-1/2 cup apple, diced
-1 1/4 cup self-raising flour
-1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease and line a 20-cm round tin.

Cream butter, sugar and cinnamon together until smooth. Add egg and beat further.

Mix in the flour and milk.

Fold in the apples.

Bake for 30 min and cool for a further 10 min.

Cinnamon Glace icing
-1/2 tsp cinnamon
-87g icing sugar
-Warm water

Mix icing sugar and cinnamon together. Pour in warm water and mix until thick and slightly sticky. Pour over cooled cake.

Maybe i should have taken a photo of the SLICE of cake.
hmmm.