White wine, olive oil and polenta cake

This recipe was the one I was talking about yesterday. It comes from June 2008's issue of Delicious, written by Rick Stein.

It's very Italian to me, or at least Mediterranean. The taste of the olive oil is very prominent and I thought that maybe if I left it for a day, the olive oil taste might be a little more mellow. Turned out, I was wrong, I tried it this morning and it's still there. I did reduce the amount of oil called for and added a tbsp and a half of lemon juice. The lemon taste is beautiful bolstered by the white wine. Rick called for a sauvignon blanc or riesling, but I had an opened bottle of chardonnay so I used that instead. The aromas weaving through my little apartment was so promising, so I was a little disappointed by the strong olive oil taste. It made me feel like I was eating oily cake which isn't appetizing...not very anyway. The lemon and wine made things a heap better, or perhaps I'm just not used to it. Fred liked it though but it wasn't our favourite.

Also something went funny when I tried mixing the flour into the liquid batter. It got clumpy and scary so I did something bad...I just used my hand mixer to whisk in the flour until it was homogenous. I know, I shouldn't have, especially when the eggs had been ribboned prior. But better than eating bits of flour I suppose. Do try out the recipe since it's so simple and let me know what I did wrong. It's simple enough to try again.

White Wine, Olive Oil and Polenta Cake (serves 8)
2 eggs
250g caster sugar (I used 175g)
150 ml white wine (such as sauvignon blanc or riesling)
150 ml olive oil (i used 125ml + 1 tbsp lemon juice)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
175g plain flour (I used 1 cup rice and 1/4 tapioca and potato starch each + 1 tbsp almondmeal)
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 instant polenta ( I used 1/4 cup polenta and almond meal each)
Icing sugar, to dust.

Preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Grease and line the base and sides of a 24 cm springform cake pan.
Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and whisk using an electric hand whisk. Whisk for 10 minutes or until thick enough to form ribbons when you trail it on the surface.
Gently beat in the white wine, olive oil, vanilla and lemon zest and juice. Sift over the flour and baking powder.
Gently fold it with a metal spoon until just conbined, then fold in the polenta and almond meal. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour until a skewer inserted comes out clean.

*oh, I just realized, I didn't sift the flour over the liquids, I merely tipped it in... oops.

cold

I am going to apologize for being bad and not blogging for over a month. But it's been a busybusy time for me. For starters, I had to move out of my old apartment to my current one. So that was a really big deal and the amount of clothes and shoes (ahem) I had, made it a... bigger deal. Plus, I was bed ridden for a week, down with that dreadful thing called a flu. I never knew that you lose all sense of taste when you're out sick. The only thing I could taste amidst all the sniffling was peanut butter and apples. Luckily they go together so that was all I ate for about 3 days. Evil, I know but a girl's got to eat! =) Well it's not that I stopped baking or eating, I just momentarily stopped blogging.

The word cold has so many meanings. It describes the weather here right about now. Cold, very icy cold. Sometimes it's a good thing especially when you're wearing new heels and the cold numbs your feet so you can't feel the pain. Sometimes it's a hindrance, especially when you have 9am classes and your jeans have been sitting on the sofa all night exposed to the cold. And as you pull them on, they bit your legs with the cold. And sometimes it's how I feel, inside. A lonely kind of cold. I realized this when I listened to an entire album by Taylor Swift and the only song I could relate to was 'Cold as You'. Hmmm... oh and I might watch Wicked alone (the Broadway musical about what went on behind the Wizard of Oz-kinda like the untold story). It might be something new for me. I've grown accustomed to shopping alone, exploring alone and eating alone.

Okay, now that I've bared my soul and wallowed in self-pity, I've got a cake baking in the oven (I love my oven) for this month's SHF. It's from June 08 Delicious, a recipe by Rick Stein. A lemon, olive oil and white wine cake. Since it's still baking I can't really say how it turned out. I will update this post though. So stay tuned!

Brownie Babe of the Month #2

My fudgey Neopolitan


For as long as I can remember, I've always associated passionfruit with my elder sister. Funny thing, I don't even know if she still loves it. It happened when we were kids and on a trip to the Gold Coast for the first time. She'd been there before with school, but it was my first time. And the most poignant memory of that trip was the Churros she insisted we ate, which I instantaneously developed a taste for and passionfruit icecream. Every single day, we had churros and icecream. I'd stick to vanilla or the rainbow colored ones and she would without fail have passionfruit. So there, my little story about how my sister became a passionfruit.
So today I went to the market to get more stuff for the get together on Saturday. And despite only have 50 dollars left in my back account, i just HAD to buy some passionfruits. 8 for $2. I thought i had a bargain...but the store down the aisle had them going for 10 for $2. Oh well, So I came home, de-pulped all of them and decided to use them in my entry for Brownie Babe of the Month 2!

I couldn't decide on whether I'd overcome my bad experience with blondies and try one or bake brownies... So I guess I baked browndies...? That sounds bad, like brown undies. I don't know, you guys can help me think of a name. I decided to make a pink cream cheese frosting just because I wanted them to look like neopolitan icecream! GEEENIUS. hehe. My original intention to follow this recipe didn't out because I measured the butter all wrong so I just changed the entire recipe and dare I say, it wasn't bad at all, not half bad at all...

You do want to eat the brownie at room temperature, as with most cakes actually, somehow it makes flavours stand out more. I like the fact that it feels dense and rich and you can really feel the tinge of bitterness of the cocoa on your tongue but the sweet and tangy cream cheese quickly cuts it before it can turn you off and I personally find the crunch of the passionfruit seeds veryvery interesting, adds a different dimension and texture to the otherwise chewy brownie. =) I might actually melt some of the dark chocolate into the batter next time to oomph up the chewy factor and use passionfruit pulp in the cream cheese instead of strawberry just coz I love passionfruit. And this brownie is probably the story of how I turned into a passionfruit too.
Recipe (Part One):
1 and scant 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs
heaping 3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1) Mix the melted butter and brown sugar together until smooth, add in vanilla and eggs, whisk!
2) Add in flour and baking powder and mix, batter will be very thick
3) Split batter into 2 bowls

Part 2:
3 and half tbsp passionfruit pulp
1/2 cup chopped white chocolate chunks
1 tbsp milk

1) Mix 3 ingredients into one part of the batter

Part 3:
1/2 cup chopped dark chocolate chunks
2 tbsp cocoa
3 tbsp milk

1) Mix all together

TO BAKE:

Take a square pan (8 x8 I think) and place blobs of the two mixtures togetherand then slowly marble, Might be a little difficult because the batter IS very sticky but they'll eventually even out in the oven. Bake at 175 degrees celcius for about..25 minutes? I'm not sure I was washing the dishes. Until a skewwer comes out clean.=)

Frosting:
3/4 block Light Philly Cream Cheese
2 drops of strawberry food flavouring
2 tsp strawberry jam
2 tsp lemon juice
about 1/3 cup icing sugar*
2 tiny drops of pink food coloring

1) Whisk all in a bowl until smooth
2) Spread on the cooled blondie/brownie
* Add more if it's too watery or a little more lemon juice if too sticky


Going to Huiwen's tonight for dinner, we're cooking again! I'll definitely show you our aweeeeeesome creations and how FAT i'm getting coz of all these pent up baking frustrations. HOLYCOW and my mom's coming in like, 3 DAYS!!! goodbye gym, helloooooo couch potato!=)

A taste of yellow (and honey and yoghurt...)

LIVESTRONG Day 2007 is coming, a day dedicated to unify and help people with cancer. To celeberate LIVESTRONG Day 2007, I have decided to participate in A Taste of Yellow, whereby I baked a cake that had something yellow in it! =) I wanted to go all out and use yellow butter, yellow polenta/semolina, yellow honey...but I reeeaaalllyyy had an insane craving for YOGHURT and so, I baked the following cake...Lemon Banana Yoghurt Cake with Honey Lemon syrup.

The cake itself was yummy, the lemon, banana and honey flavours could definitely be felt and I particularly loved the fact that it had rivers of moist-ness throughout the cake due to the syrup I poured on the cake. The cake baked up nice and high, crusty and golden. You can taste the range of flavours throughout the cake, with the base having a strong banana flavour because of the bananas that I lined the base of the baking tin with and the middle of the cake slightly sour as the syrup had not reached it, and the top sweet and sticky from the honey. It's a good base recipe for a yoghurt cake, you could substitute lemon for orange or maybe add some blueberries or raisins in.

One big fat problem I faced was getting the banana to not stick to the bottom of the pan, so maybe Next time I will either have it lined with greaseproof paper or make sugary syrup for the base so that it will be self-saucing type of cake..maybe.

Lemon banana cake:

1 large banana, sliced not-too-thinly
2 1/2 cups spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon (I would add more)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 melted butter
zest of two lemons
1/2 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
200ml plain low-fat yoghurt
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius, butter a 9inch round cake tin
Combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon)
Beat eggs and sugar together until thick and foamy
Add in the butter, juice, zest and extracts
Add in half the flour, mix well, followed by half the yoghurt
Add in 1/4 of flour and remaining yoghurt,mix well and finally add in remaining flour
Bake for 45 minutes or until golden (I can't rememeber how long mine took)
Let cool in tin

Honey Lemon syrup:

Mix the juice of 1 lemon, 4 tbsp of honey, 1 tbsp of water together

To finish:
Prick holes in the warm cake and pour in half the syrup, let sit for 10 minutes. Then pour in remaining syrup or if you want your cake to be less sweet, then don't bother with the other half. just half the syrup will do. =)

I'll stop the world and melt with you

So here I am, armed with nothing more than a cuppa organic green tea and some John Mayer, my laptop snugly resting on my lap (no pun intended) and my swanky little Olympus camera uploading photos of my latest baking adventure and it's a saturday night. I rather enjoy the feeling of sitting homealone and baking, then slowly cleaning up and doing nothing really. The excuse for sitting back and doing nothing is that I've completed part one of my essay so yes, here's a break for me! =) Back in the race tomorrow.

Anyway, like I said before, I'm sick of cupcakes. I want something small-er and crunchy, simple and home-y and wickedly buttery and melty...yeah you get my drift. So amidst my research on the Cold War (don't ask...), I decided to search for recipes that used limes. I'm going through this thing called a lime-phase as my sister so aptly puts it. So today I had Lime marinated chicken for lunch and now I am proud to say that I have just baked Lime Meltaways courtesy of Darby Field Inn and Restaurant in Albany, New Hampshire.

The cookie batter was relatively easy to work with, meaning it wasn't too difficult to stir it about though it bordered on the 'alittletoosticky' side, but nothing a little oil on your hands wouldn't fix! The recipe calls to chill for an hour, I got lazy to wait and I was hungry so i chucked it in the fridge for 10 minutes and took it out to slice. Obviously leaving it in there for the stated amount of time would result in evenly shaped cookies but hey, mine weren't all that ugly, just had to use my fingers to flatten them abit. heh, hey! YOUR HANDS ARE USEFUL! =)

Oh yes, yesterday Fred and I happened to chance upon this Indian supermarket so I decided to look around while he decided on which mint he wanted.. peppermint or spearmint? I FOUND ROSE WATER! Figuring I'll never stumble on this place again I decided to get it! So, I took half of the cookie batter and mixed it with 3/4 tsp of rose water to try it out. The rose taste and smell was light, so maybe I might increase it the next time, but they did taste so pretty when i dipped with cookies in icing sugar. Like turkish delight and cookies all beautifully laced in one. OOOH. and I tinted the batter a light pink, talk about being girly. =)

Lime Meltaways
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp flour (I used Spelt flour)
2 tbsp cornstarch
zest of 2 limes
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt

1)Cream butter and 1/3 cup icing sugar until fluffy (it wont be as fluffy as a typical creamed butter&sugar mixture, remember you're using icing sugar)
2)Add lime, zest and vanilla and beat until fluffy
3)In another bowl, sift flours and salt
4)Add the flour mixture into the creamed butter and mix well
5)Between 2 8 by 12 inch baking paper, roll dough into 2 1/4 inch diameter log and chill for one hour
6)Heat oven to 170degree celciusm slice logs into 1/8 inch thick rounds and bake for 12-15 mins (barely golden)
7)cool the cookies (abt 10 mins) and put them in the remaining icing sugar and coat
*Read on for easy way outs!

OKAY! being the lazy bum that I am, I didn't bother measuring what the diameter of the logs were, I just rolled them to a size that I would like (about 2 mouthfuls) and sliced them to a thickness that I found easy to handle. I mean, I flattened them with my fingers after lining them on the baking sheet so I suppose it doesn't really matter. Unless you're a perfectionist. In which case, I'm not.=) heh. So yeah, It's about the FEELING. lol, gut-feeling. I found the cookies UN-lime-y enough so i made a glaze.

Lime Glaze
5 tbsp lime juice
Icing sugar (1-1 1/2 cups)

1) Mix well until the consistency that you like, adding more sugar if a thicker consistency is desired. Oh yes, and dont dip the cookies into the icing sugar if you decide to glaze them. I personally like 'em glazed better. SUGAR-SWEETGLAAAAZE. =)