Ok I love this chocolate cake. I got the recipe from Nigella Lawson. I was kinda doubtful at first. It uses fricking sour cream. But since I never really tried to do a chocolate cake from scratch and I really cannot be bothered to do an elaborate one, this recipe is heaven sent.

• Butter for greasing baking pans
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup best-quality cocoa powder
• 6 ounces (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3/8 cup sour cream, at room temperature

heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter sides of two 8-inch cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with a knife blade, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder, butter, eggs, vanilla and sour cream. Process to make a smooth, thick batter.

Using a rubber spatula, divide batter between pans and smooth tops. Bake until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 35 minutes; do not overbake. Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes before removing from cake pans.

The cake is a bit hard.Kinda like a pound cake. Not too sure what I should do to make it more fluffier. My guess is as good as yours.But it’s nice netherless. The intensity of the chocolate is quite good.

For decorating the cake,I just used chocolate ganache and buttercream.

 Enjoy.

Here’s the pizza before going into the oven

Here is it after about 30-40min in the oven. 

Ok I lied. I didn’t really do it from scratch coz I don’t have the time to do the pizza sauce. So I bought the Ragu’s Pizza Sauce instead. :p

Here’s the recipe

Take note though, this recipe will make you 3 large pizza so I suggest halfing the ingredients.

Recipe for pizza dough

800g strong flour( any plain flour will do I guess)

200g semolina flour

550-600ml water

4tbs olive oil

1 packet yeast

1 tablespoon of salt

Method.

Mix the 2 flours today. Make a well in the centre and pour in the water. Using a fork, incorporate the flour from the edges of the well into the water well. Then add in the yeast, olive oil and salt in the well. Again with the fork, mix the flour and the ingredients together. After a soft dough seem to be forming, knead the dough and set it aside for 30min or so for the dough to rise.

I hope I make sense. Haha. Sorry I’m still very new at cooking lingo. Give me time. Hehe. Good luck

 -Siti Rohani

This 4 is my pet project. Not bad for my 1st attempt at raya kuihs.

from left, choco chip cookies, sugar cookies with icing, kuih aloha and kuih badam berjantung

I like the last one. Kuih badam berjantung. At first I was not very receptive to do anything nuts. Coz I don’t really like nutty kuih raya except for kuih makmur. But my mum insisted. So I relent but with a condition. I get to choose which one. So I chose this coz it’s heart shape. Haha. Ya I’m superficial like that. But hey it taste real good. I am pleasantly surprised. It’s very garing…crispy in English I think.

Recipe for kuih badam berjantung or literally in English Heart shaped almond cookies.

225g butter

115g icing sugar

1 egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

100g finaly crushed almonds( I used those packet almond powder)

150g plain flour

150 g cornflour

almonds(cut) for deco

1 teaspoon vanilla essence.

Method:

Beat butter and sugar till it’s fluffy. Add in vanilla essence, crushed almonds,baking powder, flour and cornflour. Mix evenly.

Roll out the dough and use preferred cookie cutter to cut out the cookies.Put the cut almonds for decoration and brush on the egg yolk. Bake at 170degrees for about 20min. ( Sorry again my Malay-Eng translation sucks now.)

 Good Luck!

-Siti Rohani

 She showed me this recipe for puff pastry.I was hesistant at first because the last time she showed me a recipe from BM, it didn’t turn out that well. But I gave in anyway looking at how interested she is. Anyway it’s better I do it than her, coz knowing mums, they get a bit too “innovative” with recipes.

So with the recipe in hand, I did the pastry dough and made 2 types of pastry. Curry puff and vol-u-vent

I’m supposed to use jam for the vol-u-vent but because I couldn’t find it in the fridge…I used nutell instead.It works well so no complaint there..

How do they all look? Nice,no? =)

Here’s the recipe if you want

 Ingredients

-620g plain flour

-110g butter

-210ml cold water

-1 egg

-1 teaspoon of salt

-320g of pastry margarine

-whisked egg for brushing on pastry

Method

Add everything together in a bowl except for the pastry margarine and whisked egg. Mixed to get a soft dough. Rolled out the dough to form a square, slabber on the pastry margarine evenly and fold the dough into 3. Repeat this step 5 times.Lastly,roll the finished dough and keep it aside for any use.

 Have fun.

-Siti Rohani

 So today since I have some blueberries left in the fridge, I decide to do blueberry tart…

Ta-dah!

Top it up with vanilla ice-cream… Perfection!

Recipe here

And boy was it worth it.

tim tams dough before coating

tim tams after coating and decorating

Predict: Very very chocolatey. I couldnt find the australian version of tim tams…so I bought the Malaysian ones and they are covered with chocolate. So if you’re using arnott’s Malaysian tim tams covered with chocolate. I suggest freeze the tim tams and blend them when it’s hard. This is definitely a hit among kids and anyone who loves chocolate.But beware..it’s very chocolatey and eating one or 2 truffles would suffice to satisfy any chocoholic tastebuds.

Good luck.

Siti Rohani

I remembered I wasn’t alone. My friend Dee was also squemish about it.But both of us braved ourselves and it was all for a good cause coz I can still remember how good it was. Now 8 years later, here I am craving for it after my cousin came home and told me how she baked shepherd’s pie at school for home econs.So hey why not I thought… since all I’ve been doing are sweet stuff…I need to inject some savoury goodies in my baking ventures…

 I had to take a recipe from the net here coz my cousin left the home econs book back in school. I would say not bad.Good but nothing like the one I did back in sec 2..which make me crave for it even more… But oh well….at least it’s something

I would however remember to boil the carrots first…I forgot la…haha…coz it’s too crunchy and add less milk to the potatoes coz it gets too mushy…But I still want that sec 2 recipe..Anyone still have the recipe?

Oh I did nutella swirl cake too though it’s nothing like a swirl cake…I think my oven don’t like self raising flour coz this is my 2nd time baking a cake with self raising flour and everything we put in the cake be it chocolate rice or nutella or whatnots…everything just sinks to the bottom…don’t ask me why. My oven is an enigma.

See!But taste wise..it’s quite good…just a bit sayang nothing stays up with this cake…

Next week I might try some raya cookies recipe to try out before the raya itself….so till then..

Siti Rohani

After reading Norm’s entry, I just want all of you to know that out of the 3, I’m the noob. So expect nothing fancy wancy from me, ok =p

 Anyway….

 I did tarts this weekends. Tarts are my specialty coz I can safely say my tarts are good! I did chocolate tart or tarte noire to be exact like a few weeks ago and it was a hit amongst my girlfriends..so why not I thought, to whip up another batch for a other set of friends..Coz nothing say love you like a heavenly-sinful-calories-laden chocolate. ..especially if your friends are these hormonal being boys like to call girls…

So there I am,10 on a Saturday morning…with my babu brother in that lovely kitchen of mine.Did 2 big( 7inch) tart for a birthday girl, my friend Dee and for home consumption and painstakenly did another 37 small tartlets…all with love for my other friends. And the reaction I get from my them is definitely worth that 3 hours slogging in the kitchen.

Besides tarte noire, I did peach tarts too. I thought the creme pattiserie was a tad tasteless but comments from my friends says otherwise…so I guess it’s pretty ok too.

You can get the recipes from here and here

For the tarte noire, use couverture dark chocolate and you’ll never regret it.

Next aim is nutella swirl cake. But I guess that can wait coz school have only started last week and I already have backlogs.

Till another entry…

Siti Rohani.

It has been said that if god were to have a sandwich, it would be nutella on Wonder Bread with more nutella on the side. If Elvis, the father of artery clogging sandwiches, had discovered Nutella, he would have probably died much earlier. But had he discovered nutella cheesecake, he would have died much much earlier but a happier man.

The first time i heard of this recipe, i thought to myself, the art of dessert making is so extensive and largely unexplored in the sense that such a simple and common dessert like cheesecake can take on so many variations. Its such an eyeopener and most of all an inspiration that you actually feel compelled to come up with different variations on your own. But you know you’ve gone too far when you come up with things like curry cheesecake and a cheesecake made from 41 types of cheese.

I got this recipe from a book called “Crave – Cheese desserts to die for”. Its actually a gift from Haqeem and Ruz (my brother from another mother) for my 21st birthday. It is by far my favourite cookbook because it is a locally written cookbook so you know you wont have problems looking for the ingredients. Also, the different variations of cheesecake and other cheese desserts are really creative. The authors of this book also have a website (http://www.obolo.com.sg/) where you can place orders for their cakes.

The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

A box of oreo cookie (you can use either the original oreo cookie or the chocolate creme oreo for a more chocolatey taste. You’ll only need 1 roll of cookies from the box for a 7 inch springform tin).

450g of cream cheese (i used philly cream cheese)

3 tbsp light brown sugar

1/3 tsp vanilla essence

2 1/3 tbsp corn flour, sifted

150g Nutella

2 large eggs

75ml whipping cream

75ml whole milk (Do not use low fat milk like HL)

I’d estimate the total cost of the ingredients if you “steal” or what i like to call “conveniently procured” the eggs, milk, corn flour and brown sugar from your mum’s cupboard to be about S$15. But you’ll be left with some leftovers for future baking.

In order to make the crust, place oreo cookies into food processor(my mum’s food processor suck so i used the good ol’ pestle and mortar). Line your springform tin with aluminium foil to prevent the filling from leaking out. Spread cookie crumbs evenly onto base of springform tin. Your base should be at least half of a centimetre thick and make sure that it is packed firmly onto the base. Put it in the freezer until your ready to use it.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Centigrade. (325 Degree Fahrenheit)

With and electric mixer, beat cream cheese with the brown sugar until creamy. Beat in the vanilla essence, cornflour and nutella.

Lower speed and add eggs one at a time, mixing until just incorporated. Gradually add whipping cream and milk until well mixed.

Pour filling onto prepared oreo crust. Bake in a water bath for 70 to 90 minutes or until edge of filling is set and centre is slightly wobbly.

For the water bath, place cake tin onto a bigger baking tray. Fill the baking tray with hot boiling water up to the halfway mark of the cake tin. Refill the water in the middle of baking should the water level decrease.

.

Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake inside for 30 minutes with door of oven closed. Open the oven door and leave for another 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven and cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate for 6 hours before unmoulding. But honestly who could wait that long? I’d give it 2 hours tops. But thats just me.

I’m not quite sure about the science for the last part but i think its something to do with letting the cake “rest” and acclimatise itself to the change in temperature so that it won’t sink or crack when it is pulled out of the oven right after baking.

Do not put the cake into the fridge before letting it cool completely. If you put the cake in the fridge while its still warm, the moisture formed from the condensation will ruin the flavour and soften the cheese.

And this is what you’ll get.

I would add more nutella if i’m gonna bake this again in the future. The nutella taste is pretty mild. I guess its kinda hard to maintain a balance between the classical cheesy taste and at the same time the flavour that your trying to introduce. But i say, overall, it turned out ok.

Norm

Got the recipe from Norman and I have to say not bad.the cheesecake is smooth and velvety..Yeah!Ok maybe not that velvety and smooth but I don’t know what other words to explain the texture. Just good la.

The recipe is here… I used Norm’s recipe which he say is adapted from this

Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake

 INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups crushed chocolate graham crackers (Substitute with McVitie’s Digestive Biscuit)

6 tablespoons butter, softened

2 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, chopped

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (Philadelphia cream cheese)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

 ——————————————————————————–

 DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). In a medium bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter. Mix well and press into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. In a microwave-safe bowl, microwave chocolate until melted. Stir occasionally until chocolate is smooth.

In a large bowl, beat the softened cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until creamy and smooth. Blend in the eggs one at a time. Remove 1 cup of cream cheese mixture and combine with melted chocolate.

Spread plain batter into the crust. Drop the chocolate mixture randomly over the top. With the tip of a knife, Swirl the batter to create a marble effect.

Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until center is set. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight before serving.

I just omit all the chocolate part…

 Have fun trying ok…

 Siti Rohani