Tropical Sheet Cake

I have cans of crushed pineapple in my pantry waiting to be used. I bought them to make pineapple jam for my CNY pineapple tarts, but my lazy bones kicked in and I didn't make any pineapple tarts this year. So, I went online to search for a quick and easy recipe for me to use up the crushed pineapple. I found this recipe very interesting, very easy to do and no butter and oil required. It really got me curious and hence I had to try this recipe.



Hmmm...this cake is very interesting indeed. The texture is spongy, moist and kind of sticky. A bit like eating "kuih" instead of cake. The sweetness is just nice but sure make a big cake. I gave half away because we couldn't finish the whole cake. Because I added coconut flakes and dried fruits, you can taste that in the cake too. I think the dried fruits gave this cake an extra sweetness.

Evy's Birthday Cake: Marshmallow Cake

I asked Evy what cake she wants for her birthday, a store-bought cake or a cake mommy made for her, at first she said she wanted a store-bought cake but later changed her mind to a marshmallow cake. So I said okay and since the strawberry was in season again, large and sweet, why not make a strawberry chiffon cake again and decorated it with whipped cream. Just like a cake I made for her last year except this time will have some marshmallow on the cake. When I started to decorate the cake, she said she wanted a smiley face marshmallow cake, so here's her smiley face marshmallow cake for her 5th year old birthday.


Another look of my tall chiffon cake. Can you see the smiley face?


This time I made it three layers with two layers of whipped cream with strawberry bits.



I definitely added too much red coloring as this cake is redder compared to my previous one. This time I also used 2 cups of fresh whipped cream plus 1/3 cup of confectioner sugar to ice the cake. Remember to place the bowl and beaters in the refrigerator before you whip the cream. The whipped cream beats best when the bowl and beaters are cold.

Note: The marshmallow turned soft the next day but nevertheless still delicious.

I realized I haven't shared the pictures of my girls for quite some time, so here are the most updated pictures of them saying Hi.


Evy with her birthday cake saying cheese.


Edda saying cheese without looking at the camera.

Plain Old Butter Cake

Added sprinkles for the kids.



Can you feel the power of butter cake? We can have chocolate cake, green tea cake, pandan cake, lemon cake, orange cake, etc but deep inside us, we do crave for the simple butter cake. There is an attraction there and I find myself couldn't resist the simple looking plain old butter cake. Often time, I found it calling my name at the bakery section at the supermarket, oh the temptation to resist picking it up. So, instead of buying I would make it at home. Since Valentine's Day is around the corner and I have some heart shape foil holders, so why not? So, I made this heart shape butter cake to wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day!

Oh I over filled the cups and thus the spilling over when baking. :P

Blueberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake

6 oz. fresh blueberry was on sales for $1 again. I bought 5 because my girls loved it. Decided to take 3oz and put it in my favorite cream cheese pound cake and the resulted cake was heavenly. I truly love this cake, you gotta try it if you haven't already. It should do well with other berries as well such as raspberry, blackberry and strawberries.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Awesomely delicious!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 pkg. (4 oz) Philadelphia cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup flour (all purpose, unbleached)
1/2 Tbp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Beat butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed 1 min. Gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition, until very light and fluffy. Add cream cheese; beat 1 min. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract, beat to mix.

2. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture. Beat 1 min or until well blended. Pour batter into greased and floured 8 1/2 x 3 1/2 loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes. Stick with toothpick to check for doneness.

Check out my Green Tea Pound Cake.

Sweet Potato Cake

I bought some sweet potatoes and wanted to experiment with making a sweet potato cake. I used the pumpkin cake recipe as a base and made this cake. Since sweet potatoes is sweeter in nature, so I cut down the sugar a little so that it won't be too sweet. I also provided my short-cut version of making the mashed sweet potatoes. Of course if you don't own a microwave, you can always peel and then steam the potatoes for 20-30 minutes (or until soft) and then mash it.

Best Ever Pumpkin Cake

Like many others, I don't really like my pumpkin cake with a lot of spices. But I do like the fragrant of cinnamon powder but not too much. So, I created this recipe to suit my personal taste. This pumpkin cake is moist and soft and totally delicious. My keeper pumpkin cake recipe thus far. Bonus is very easy to make and absolutely divine.

Green Tea Yogurt Cupcakes/Muffins

Looks like I am addicted in baking yogurt cake right? Actually it is also I bought a big tub of plain yogurt so I have to finish it. This time I tried adding green tea powder into the yogurt cake. This cake has a slight fragrant of green tea and not too sweet.

Dark Chocolate Yogurt Cake

Because I liked this healthier version of yogurt cake so I decided to play with the recipe. So, I created this chocolate yogurt cake. Mine turned out to be black in color like a black cake, hahaha.... Reason being I was using the Special Dark cocoa powder and thus created this specially dark cake. :)



The texture of this cake looked different than my Pandan yogurt cake. It looked spongy but in reality it was soft and moist and packed with chocolate flavor. My daughters loved it and asked me to make it again.

Pandan Yogurt Cakes

I was inspired by Peony to make yogurt cake. Using yogurt and oil instead of butter to make cake do sounds healthier. Also I can use the leftover yogurt to make baked donuts so it is a win win situation.


It actually turned out pretty good. The sweetness was just nice for me and the texture was soft and moist.


I slice it open to let you see the texture of this cake.

Recipe adapted from Epicurious. Yield 10 large papercups (a dozen for the normal one) as shown above. Of course you can play with different flavor of your choice.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake - Part 2

Simple decoration as Evy requested, strawberry and sprinkles. My strawberry chiffon cake recipe can be viewed here.


Yummilicious!! Oh yeah, I didn't do a party for her this year, just made her a cake and took her out for lunch at her favorite locale.

You all really need to try this cake, it turned out to be so delectable, my hubby just couldn't stop at a slice! This is also the only cake thus far that he ate till the last slice. Next time I would make three layers so that I could have more strawberries bites. Simply YUMMY!! The chiffon cake is soft and light and the whipped cream is a perfect match with strawberry, I just love this cake! Can you tell how I adore this cake? :P

My Whipped Cream Frosting Recipe:
1 1/2 cup whipped cream
1/4 cup icing sugar
~Beat until soft peak is formed.

For middle layering:
Take some of the whipped cream and mixed in with some chopped strawberries.

Note:
The amount of whipped cream just enough to cover the cake, not enough for fancy decoration on top of the cake. You need to use 2 cups of whipped cream for extra decoration.

Check out my other Strawberry Chiffon Cake recipe.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

What a mommy does when her daughter requested a strawberry cake as her birthday cake? Luckily she didn't ask for a Dora cake. :P I know I want either a sponge or chiffon cake as a base instead of butter cake. So, I picked chiffon cake to experiment since I haven't made any chiffon cake for ages. I actually did a lot of "bo bo" when making this chiffon cake. When blending in the egg whites with the yolk batter, I realized that the color was not red. So I added some red coloring while blending in the egg whites mixture. Really scary! And when I done mixing and started pouring into a pan, I realized I got the wrong pan. I was pouring the batter into a bundt pan instead of a tube pan. So, I had to take out my tube pan and pour the one from the bundt pan into the tube pan and added in the rest of the batter. I was actually praying that my chiffon cake won't fail me at this point because I was certain I was kinda messed out.
Luckily after so many scary moments, my chiffon cake was a success! I cut the cake into half to add in the filling later. This cake actually turned out so yummy! :) Stay tuned for part 2 for the complete assembly. ;)

Pumpkin Cake

I happen to try some delicious store-bought pumpkin cakes at my friend's house recently which prompted me to make one myself. Since now is the season for pumpkin, the Libby's 15oz canned pumpkin is on-sales for $1 each. So, I grabbed some. After some research, I decided to try the Pumpkin Cake I posted at allrecipes.com.



The alternation that I made was I cut down the sugar to 2 cups. It turned out just nice for me, not overly sweet. I omitted the allspice because I don't have any and I also omitted the walnuts, easier for the kids to eat.


This cake is delicious, best eaten the next day when the crust has soften, easier to slice too. I store my cake in air-tight container.


Just want to show how moist and soft this pumpkin cake is! The spices are not too overpowering, just nice. A very festive cake indeed!


Lastly, while presenting you with this Pumpkin Cake, I want to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year! For those who don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays to you too! :)

Banana Cake 2

I decided to try a new recipe for Banana Cake that I found on the web because it has minimal list of ingredients that normally people have in their pantry. This turned out to be unlike any banana cake that I have baked, more like a Banana bread. It's more dense in texture and drier than the one I tried before. I guess I should call it my failed banana cake, hahaha... Taste wise, it's fine though because I can treat it like a banana bread and eat with my cup of morning coffee.

Doesn't look like a banana cake at all hor? More like a butter cake with bits of banana.... hmmm.... no no....butter cake is soft and moist and this is not! Aiya! failed attempt lah! :P

p/s Not listing the source since I don't like this recipe and will not make again.

Butter Cream Frosting

My simple design birthday cake for Edda. I just stick to something simple because on that day itself I made a few other cakes, kuih and a lot of chopping and slicing for the next day. No energy left to decorate something fanciful.



The slice view of the cake. I love the icing for this cake so decided to share it here and for my own record. I memorized the recipe while watching the American Test Kitchen T.V. show.

Recipe from American Test Kitchen:

3 sticks of unsalted butter, soften (1 stick=113 g)

1- 16oz/1lb icing sugar a.k.a confectioner sugar/powder sugar

1 Tbsp. milk

1 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

Method:

Put all in a bowl and beat until soft and fluffy. Frost the cake as desired. If too soft, put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before frosting again.

Strawberries Butter Cake

I bought some strawberries the other day because it was on sales. And I always wanted to try Strawberries Butter Cake. So, I reserved some strawberries for my little experiment. Hehe...

My experiment was a success! This cake turned out soft and moist with a little bite of strawberry bits. Evy loved it and ate 3 pieces for breakfast!

Moist Chocolate Cake

I wanted to try this Moist Chocolate Cake because it looked so good and easy. This cake indeed turned out very soft, moist and delicious. Thanks Pupsha! :o) I have tried several recipes from her blog and it all turned out great. I simply love her easy recipes!



I made a mistake though. Can you spot it?

Don't think you can since I bury my mistake from your eyes. LOL! Anyway, I made a mistake by baking it in a bundt pan since I thought it would make a prettier cake. What a disaster!!! My cake got stucked on the pan again and turned out broken. The picture above is the only piece that was presentable. I purposely bought PAM for baking with flour and thought this would solve my problem. Since I also saw a review of this item at American Test Kitchen the other day with colorful result. They tested it with bundt pan and said all their cake turned out non-stick and beautiful. So, I quickly went out and bought one (even paid more to get the exact same brand). However, not in my case though. *sob sob* Pam, why you let me down? Do you think I should let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes first before I invert it on a cooling rack to cool completely? I inverted mine while the cake first out of the oven and it literally got broken into half. Aiyaya.... just horrible!

Anyway, this cake is simply delicious, so soft and moist and now it's my keeper recipe. Next time I would bake it in a square/round pan and lined with parchment paper and greased it, just for precaution. Oh, for my bundt pan, I only need to bake it for 30 minutes.

Chocolate Swiss Roll

What can I say, after seeing the Swiss roll one after another popping up at East Meets West Kitchen, I got motivated. I adapted this easy Swiss roll recipe from my previous Pandan Kaya Jelly Roll . I wanted to use this recipe again because (1) I wanted to proof that I can still make a Swiss roll without the 1 Tbsp. of hot water (as in the original recipe). (2) No butter or oil was used in this recipe, thus a healthier version.

I turned this into Chocolate Swiss Roll because I wanted to use Nutella as filling. Little did I know this combination can hardly see the swirling effect of Swiss roll. In addition, I didn't roll it once out of the oven and thus the top got cracks. :( Anyway, as long as it still tasted good right? ;)

Fruits Pastry Cake

Tada! Look familiar isn't it? This cake has been popping out at various food blogs and originally from a food forum IK. This is Vi's popular Fruits Pastry (she got the recipe from Mihaela). My hands gotten itchy when I kept reading about how delicious this cake is and vow to make it when I have some fresh fruits. Actually it's good with canned peach, pear and pineapple too. Anyway, I used fresh cherries, peach and canned pineapple for mine.



A closer look at the cake. The verdict is delish. Soft and moist with a mixed of sourness and sweetness from the fruits. Definitely good to bring to a potluck or serve in your party.

Orange Cream Cheese Pound Cake

As you can tell, I am loving cream cheese pound cake! I adapted this recipe from lemon pound cake. I don't have any orange at home and thus the use of extract. But it would certainly fragrant packed with added orange zest. Not that this is not fragrant, but I like the burst of flavor when I bite into the zest. ;)



Another look of the cake.