at Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

I just received the green light to share this recipe last night. An affirmation from my mom and aunty that this cake is delicious! Until mom felt so reluctant to finish it and tried to keep it for the longest time she possibly could. Don't be silly, I can make this again and again mom  ;)

Whenever my parents are visiting, I will bake something for them to bring back. Knowing my mom, grandma and aunty (yeah we all kinda live together :D), they would prefer something simple and non-sugary. So I chose to try this recipe out since I still have some cream cheese left. 

One mistake which I'd made is letting the butter in the room temperature for too long. Resulting to an extremely soft butter. When I start mixing the butter and cream cheese together, the mixture still looked okay. But when I added in other ingredients and continuously mixing the batter, it split! I'd experienced this once when I was making buttercream last time, but I didn't know the reason. This time I got smarter and googled it. Found out that butter shouldn't be left in room temperature for too long. When it is too soft, the moment we whisk it together with other ingredients, it will start melting and split. To test whether the butter is soft enough to work with, just place a finger on it. If it leaves a soft mark, then it is ready. 

The texture of my cake still need some improvements. It looks more 'coarse' than it is supposed to. Other than the overly soften butter, another reason could be the sugar. I use granulated sugar instead of castor sugar. I shall improve on that and try another time.

Ingredients (*Recipe from The Little Teochew)

- 195g all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 150g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 140g package cream cheese, room temperature
- 200g castor sugar
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- Zest of a lemon or orange


Method (with slight adaptations)
1. Preheat oven to 175°C and place rack in center of oven. 
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the sugar, in three additions, beating well after each addition. Continue beating on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla and lemon zest and beat until incorporated.
4. Add the flour mixture and mix just until incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. I use non-stick mini loaf pans for this recipe to avoid the hassle of greasing/ lining the pans. The amount of batter is just nice to fill 4 mini loaf pans.
5. Bake for about 50 mins. Do check at the 30 min-mark for over-browning. Since I was using mini loaf pans, it took less than 50 mins for them to cook.
6. Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for about 20 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan and cool completely. (The cake is cooled in the pan first for about 20 minutes so the cake has time to set. The cake may collapse if you try to remove it from the pan too soon.)
7. This cake will keep several days at room temperature and one week when refrigerated. Can also be frozen.

*Note: According to Ju (from The Little Teochew) and other readers who had tried this recipe, the top of the cake will crack after baking. But mine wasn't cracking at all. Is it a good sign? Maybe lol. 

at Saturday, May 19, 2012

The Best Vanilla Cupcakes

I baked this in the very last minute before we head back to hometown for Mother's Day. Initially, I didn't plan to bake anything and thought of just buy a simple cake from the bakery or do without a cake. Since none of them in my family has sweet tooth and they dislike anything too sugary. All are very health conscious it seems. Last year when I made the mini fondant cake for mom's birthday, all ended up in my dad's tummy because nobody can take the amount of sugar from the fondant + chocolate cake + buttercream combo, including myself lol. 

At 10am in the morning, while I was comfortably lying on my bed surfing the net (didn't even brush my teeth yet lol) I came across this super easy recipe for vanilla cupcakes, which is named as the BEST vanilla cupcakes by the blogger. Since I stock up quite a bit on baking ingredients, I have all the things required for the recipe. Checked on the baking time required, 25 minutes. I can totally make this! 

So here it is, my version of vanilla cupcakes. 

The recipe calls for vanilla extract or vanilla beans. I only have vanilla essence which I bought from Bake With Yen and it is the slightly more expensive type. The one labelled as Vanilla Essence (France). I guess it is a little bit better than the cheapo ones? Obviously the vanilla taste will not be that strong if I only use the essence. I've tried it before and the taste was just blehh.. Luckily I had one dried vanilla beans left. So I added that into the batter along with my vanilla essence which I didn't measure according to the recipe. Just bantai only based on my instinct haha.. No regrets because the final product taste AMAZING!! 

I put the batter into 3 different types of baking tins/ liners just for fun. First is the heart shape liners which is super cute and pretty, the usual cupcake liners and a mini heart shape baking tins. The mini heart cupcakes are for mom alone because she is recovering from really bad gastric and have to be extra careful with food intake. I keep the cupcakes simple without adding any topping or frosting.

The second cupcakes design which is in normal cupcake liners (for our own consumption), I topped it with a dollop of fresh whipped cream and a tiny piece of peach. I love the whipped cream so so much. It is so light, not too sweet and it taste like vanilla ice cream! The combination is totally finger licking good!! No joke. Each time I have one of these, I can't stop telling how good it is. It is that good LOL.

Final design which is also the main character, is this small heart shaped baking tins/pans which I bought quite some time ago but didn't get to use it. Since it is Mother's Day, why not ;) The size is really small and only enough for 2 or 3 servings. Unless you are a very small eater. I shared this with my family which includes my auntie and cousin haha. Each of us took a bite since all of us were super full after dinner. Just nice because I hate keeping leftovers, desserts especially.

My last minute idea was to frost this cake with whipped cream and topped it with peaches. But hubby saw my frosted cake and said it looked ugly. What did he know *stares* So he suggested to cover the cake with ground peanuts. Since I was rushing ok la, I followed his idea. I think the cake looked uglier with the peanuts :s The most challenging part is how to place the peaches on top of a heart shaped cake. Hubby asked me to just cut the peaches into chunks and throw them on top :x This time I followed my guts, sliced the peaches then outlined the cake and assembling it as below. What do you think? Personally, I think it looks beautiful :D

Happy belated Mother's Day to all!!