lychee butter cake again

I am such a klutz. After 2 consecutive (mini) cake disasters, I felt the immense need (and pressure) to bake a proper cake. Hence, I decided to attempt the lychee butter cake again after the last dry, overbaked cake. So, the past few days have been spent poring through websites and cookbooks on how to make the perfect butter cake and ta da! I (almost) succeeded today. Almost because the cake fell apart! *sob*

The day started of great. Work ended early, it was nice and sunny but not too hot. The cake smelt wonderful in the oven, the aroma of butter, eggs, sugar and lychee. Yup! There it was, the distinctive sweet floral smell of lychee amidst the usual suspects. It seems like the stars are finally aligned until the moment I was turning the pan to remove the cake, it fell. Whoops. Or rather, ARGH!!!

So now, my "perfect" cake has a huge crack right in the middle, like the major earthquake that recently happened. And at the same moment, the sky turned dark and threatens to rain, almost on cue to my "misery". (I swear it's true!) Not to mention that the camera battery was running low too.

O wells, looks like it's not a baking day after all.

PS: the cake really really tasted yummy, moist soft butter cake (like sara lee) but not oily or heavy and with a distinctive lychee flavour.


Lychee Butter Cake (changes in red)
1- 14 oz can lychees (about 1 cup lychees, reserve the liquid)
2 cups (240g) cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (160g) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (160 g) sugar
2 eggs around 60g each with shells
6 tbsp lychee liquid
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 baking pan.

Drain the lychees and cut into small pieces; set aside. Toss the lychee pieces in the flour mixture to coat (this will help keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter).

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside. Mix well

In a stand mixer, cream the butter starting at low speed then to medium (total 2 minutes). Add sugar to butter and continue creaming from low to medium speed and then to low speed again in last minute (total 4-5minutes), until light (almost ivory white) and fluffy. Creaming at low speed helps produce fine crumb.

Add the eggs, 1 tsp at a time with mixer at low speed, and then the vanilla. Mix to combine.

Add flour and lychee mixture to the batter and mix to combine. Start by adding 1/2 of the flour and mix at low speed, stop as soon as it is combined. Then add 1/2 of the lychee with 3 tbsp of lychee liquid, mix at low speed and stop as soon as it is combined. Repeat with remaining 1/2 of flour, followed and lychee/lychee liquid and ending with rest of the flour. Do NOT over mix, stop the mixer once most of it is well mixed.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. About 4ominutes at 180C without fan. Leave in pan for 10minutes before unmolding. Cool on wire rack before serving.

in search of the perfect sponge 2

Yes, I'm still looking for THE perfect sponge cake. Nope, I haven't given up yet, just taking a break from sponge cake. (There is a limit to how many sponge cake you can give away, ha) So imagine my delight when I saw this recipe on CRUMMB> Is this it?? Is this what I've been searching for? I HAD to try it. But alas, it turned out dry cause I over baked it. Again! But otherwise, in the words of KK, the taste is there but the texture, erm... Looks like I need to try this again. So, how do you salvage a dry sponge? Easy, frosting and trifles.

Perfect sponge from CRUMMB (changes in red)

The only ingredients needed:

4 eggs, separated (each egg to weigh 60g without shells)

120g castor sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

110g plain flour

70g melted butter (must be hot when added to batter)

And all you have to do is:

1. Using a hand-held mixer, whisk egg yolks till smooth. Add 20g of the sugar and vanilla and continue whisking until yolks puff up and the colour turns very pale - like the lightest shade of peach – and doesn’t turn any paler (about 2 mins).

2. In another bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the remaining 100g of sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form.

3. Fold egg whites into egg yolks until just combined. Just use a rubber spatula.

4. Sieve in flour and fold in gently. Add in hot melted butter (to be safe, pour down the side of the bowl so it won’t agitate too many air bubbles) and fold in gently and quickly.

5. Pour into 8-inch round pan and bake at 190 deg C for 30 minutes. When done, cake will shrink by a few mm but still stand at a beautiful 2 inches.

6. Then look up Chef Alex Goh, wherever he is, whomever he is, and thank him

lychee martini (rum) cake

Was surfing the other day and came across this wonderful food blog by Pastrygirl called Dessert First. The post on For love of Lychees caught my eye and guess what? It's about lychee butter cake... oooh. Now, I love lychees, especially the luo mi chi, which is the special type with plump juicy sweet meat and puny little seeds. But I never knew that you can make lychee cake! Of course I have to try it, and what's the best thing to go with lychee? Lychee martini, of course. So, here's my attempt in marrying the two together.


Lychee Martini Cake by me! ;-)

1 Lychee butter cake (see below)
300ml cream whipped with 3 tbsp lychee liquid + 1 tbsp rum
Lychee liquid

Slice top of cake to flatten it and slice cake into half vertically. (I wanted a taller cake)
Brush lychee liquid over both cake halves.
Spread thin layer of cream sandwiched between two cake halves
Apply crumb coat. Put in freezer for 15minutes for crumb coat to dry.
Frost cake and decorate with lychee halves.

Cake turned out yummy with flowery scent and sweetness of lychee. However, I overbaked it slightly and hence had to apply syrup to "salvage it". Thank goodness it turned out to be a good idea cos it improved on the lychee flavour of the cake. Will probably add more liquor next time.

Lychee Butter Cake (from Dessert First)

1- 14 oz can lychees (about 1 cup lychees, reserve the liquid)
2 cups (240g) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (160g) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup (160 g) sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8x8 baking pan.

Drain the lychees and cut into small pieces; set aside. Toss the lychee pieces in the flour mixture to coat (this will help keep them from sinking to the bottom of the batter).

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl and set aside.

In a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed for several minutes until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla. Mix to combine.

Add in about 4 -6 tablespoons of the reserved lychee liquid slowly. Mix between additions to fully incorporate before adding more.

Add flour and lychee mixture to the batter and mix to combine. (do not overmix)

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack before serving.

Damien Pignolet's Serious Orange Cake

This is a recipe from the book French. I'm not sure why it's so serious but admittedly it's a really simple cake to make, with minimal washing up to do. An excellent recipe for anyone who is baking for the first time. Surprisingly, it turned out well, moist and not too dense. It is full of orange flavour (as expected of a orange cake), sweet with a slight bitter taste to counter the sweetness.

I substituted Cointreau with rum as I did not have Cointreau around. I must admit it is probably not the best alternative, and I must imagine the cake would be much much better with Cointreau.

This orange cake is good on it's own and yet even better when served warm (microwave 15sec) with a dallop of vanilla ice-cream... Mmmm.. absolutely divine.


Damien Pignolet's Serious Orange Cake

1 orange, weighing around 150g, washed well and diced, pips removed
200g sugar
3 eggs
150g self-raising flour, sifted
a small pinch of salt
180g butter, melted and cooled a little

Orange Syrup Ingredients:
60ml orange juice
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1-2 tablespoons Cointreau

Preheat the oven to 170ºC. Grease and line a 24cm diameter springform cake tin with baking paper. Place the diced orange in the bowl of a food processor with the sugar and process until very smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between additions. Add the flour and salt and combine for 30 seconds. With the machine running, add the butter all at once. Transfer to the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 minutes; test for doneness by inserting a bamboo skewer--it should emerge clean and dry.

While the cake is cooking, make the orange syrup. In a small saucepan, combine the orange and lemon juices and the sugar. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar, and simmer for 1-2 minutes. Add the Cointreau to taste and simmer for 1 minute more.

When the cake is ready, remove from the oven but leave in the tin to cool for 5-10 minutes. Use a bamboo skewer to pierce the cake all over, then slowly spoon the syrup over the cake and leave until completely cool before turning out. Important to leave it to cool so that the syrup can form a nice sticky "crust" on the cake.

Mushroom risotto

Risotto is Italian rice cooked in a broth to a creamy consistency. It is not difficult to make risotto at home but it IS tedious, usually entailing standing in front of the stove for a good 30-40 minutes.


Mushroom risotto (serves 4)

1.5cup of Carnaroli rice
400ml chicken stock
300ml hot water
5 dried mushrooms
200g mixed mushrooms thinly sliced - portobelllo, shitake, brown button
30g butter
1 medium onion diced
5 cloves garlic minced
1/3 cup cognac/dry white wine

Soak dried mushrooms in hot water for 10 minutes. Snip off the stems using a pair of kitchen shears. Sieve the mushroom water into the pot containing chicken stock. Add mushroom stems to the pot. Dice the dried mushroom caps. Heat chicken-mushroom stock to slow simmer.

Meanwhile, melt butter in saucepan. Saute onion at low heat for 5 minutes. Do not brown the onions. Add garlic and dried mushrooms to pan. Saute for another 2 minutes. Add fresh mushrooms into pan and saute for another 3 minutes.

Add rice (do not wash the rice) to pan. Saute at medium high heat for at least 2-3 minutes, till rice turns translucent. Add cognac/wine to pan. Continue to saute at medium heat till all the wine has evaporated.

Bring the pan to low heat and add a ladle of stock to rice mixture in pan, stirring often. Add another ladle of stock when the liquid in the pan has evaporated. Continue adding ladle by ladle till rice is al dente. This will take around 20-25 minutes, depending on type of rice used. Stirring helps release the starch from the rice, making the risotto creamy.

Season with (truffle) salt and pepper when rice is done. Turn off the heat and add shaved Parmesan cheese to risotto. Cover the pan for 2-3 minutes. Stir and serve immediately.

The risotto was al dente and creamy, not too wet. However, I feel that the flavor of the mushroom could be stronger, may be Porcini mushrooms will help. O wells, till next time.