Lapis Legit Pisang (Banana Layer Cake)

Layer cakes or lapis is never an easy thing to bake. Actually it is not very difficult just tedious. Another reason why I seldom bake this is because of the amount of eggs it needs .. So eat this sparingly if you bake one *LOL*

The original recipe you can get it from http://nccbananaweek.blogspot.com/2010/01/lapis-legit-pisang-by-ari.html but it is in bahasa Indonesia. I have it translated and I also made some changes to the ingredients. So this is my version.

Ingredients:

12 yolks

4 whites

230g castor sugar

110g flour

200g milk powder (original is vanilla icecream powder)

1t baking powder

400g butter

250g bananas, mashed

2T cocoa

Method:

1. Sift flour, milk powder and baking and put aside

2. Cream butter till fluffy and add mashed bananas and mix till well combined, put aside

3. Beat egg white till frothy then add sugar slowly and whip till stiff

4. Add yolks one at a time and whip till double in volume, about 10-13mins on high

5. Add butter mixture into the egg mixture and fold gently

6. Add sifted flour and fold gently till well combined

7. Line a 6x6inch pan and preheat the oven to 180C

8. Take half of the mixture and add cocoa powder, mix gently

9. Pour a ladle of plain mixture and bake for about 10min or till it browns

10.Turn the grille on and set the temperature to 200C

11.Pour a ladle of chocolate mixture into pan and level it make sure you cover the corners

12.Grill it for about 7min or till the top turns brown

13.Using the presser or the bottom of a glass, level the layer and remove any bubbles that you see

14.Pour a ladle of plain mixture and grill for about 7min or till top turns brown

15.Repeat with alternate flavours till all is finished

16.Change oven setting to 180C and bake the cake for about 10-15min or skewer comes out clean

17.Cover the pan with aluminium foil if you do not want to burn the top

18.Once baked, leave the cake in the pan for about 10mins then take it out and leave it too cool completely

Have fun !

A birthday cake for my 10year old

My 10 year old girl celebrated her birthday last month and as usual, I decided to make her a cake for her to share with her friends. I have always been making either cream or mousse cake and sponge has always been the main cake base. However, my eldest doesn't like cream cake that much and so I decided to make a fondant cake. For the cake base, she wanted a mango cake and that was another big headache for me because I was planning to make a big cake which is 11inch and I am not sure whether I can handle the fondant well for such a large cake.

I peservered and finally made it *LOL* It was stressful indeed because I didn't have a large rolling pin. So I had to cut the fondant into pieces and joined them at the corners. That is why you see the large side decor which was used to cover the ugly sides *LOL* I still had fun doing it though and finally bought a 20 inch rolling pin for my next project :-)

Cake base is mango butter cake with chocolate and colored fondant. I never got to taste the cake but the kids loved it .. *phew*

Blackforest Cake for CNY

I got a request from my sister to bake a black forest cake for chinese new year. I made something simple and since I did not have chocolate shavings, I made do with this simple chocolate design wrapped around the cake. I would love to do something with lacy for the top but unfortunately the plastic sheet that I have is not tall enough :-( I will probably do to that in my next project :-)

This is my favourite recipe from Jodeli with minor changes.

Ingredients
Part (A)
3 egg yolks
110g low-gluten flour (eg. Top flour, cake flour)
½ tsp baking soda
20g cocoa powder
60g castor sugar
50g oil
100g milk
1 tsp chocolate emulco/ paste (optional)

Part (B)
3 egg whites
¼ tsp cream of tartar
60g castor sugar


350-400g non-dairy whipping cream, whipped till stiff
A small can of dark pitted cherries, drained and keep the syrup
8 maraschino cherries, with stem

METHOD:

Chocolate chiffon cake:
Preheat oven at 180 degC.

Sift flour, baking soda and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and put aside.

Whisk egg yolks and castor sugar till sugar dissolved, add oil and milk to the egg mixture and stir till blend.

Add the flour mixture and gently mix until just combined. Add more milk if the batter is too thick 1 tbsp at a time.

In a separate mixing bowl, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar at medium speed until formy. Add sugar and continue to whisk on high speed until soft peaks form. Turn to medium speed and whisk until stiff peaks just form.

Use a large spatula to fold 1/3 of egg whites into egg yolk mixture. Fold gently to not deflate the egg whites, then add the remaining egg whites to the mixture and gently fold till well combined.

Pour batter into a 8 inch round cake pan which has been lined. Do not grease the sides of the cake pan.

Bake at preheated oven for 40-50 minutes or until skewer inserted into centre of cake comes out clean.

Remove cake from oven. Invert cake pan immediately on a wire rack and let cake cools completely before turning it out of the pan.

Once the cake is cooled, cut into 3 layers.

Brush each layer with the syrup from the dark pitted cherries.

Frost the layer with whipped cream and put a few pieces of cherries and place the second sponge layer and brush it with syrup and top it with whipped cream. Place the remaining cherries on it and cover it with the third layer.

Frost the sides and top with the remaining whipped cream and decorate with maraschino cherries and chocolate shavings or rasps.

Wrinkly Upin & Ipin cake

This cake was made for my dear niece in the month of January. This cake was not my best as you can see the wrinkly icing sheet :-( . I was very unhappy about it but I was really short of time to do any other changes. In fact, this is the first time I am encountering such problem and I suspect that I might have overwhipped the cream and introduced too much air into the cream. I used non-dairy whipping cream and probably took it for granted that the cream will not breakdown .. *LOL*

Anyways, the Upin & Ipin characters were made of chocolate and filled with piping gel. This is how I did:

1. Print the character in mirror image
2. Take a piece of tracing paper and place it over the printed image. Best is to have a cake board underneath and tape both the papers to it.
3. Melt some chocolate and let it cool a little bit before you start tracing the outline. If you use while it is still warm, the chocolate will be too runny to use for tracing.
4. Once you have done the outline, chill it in the refrigerator.
5. Melt some white chocolate and let it cool a little bit
6. Fill up the spaces and the outline with the white chocolate and chill it till it hardens
7. Prepare the piping gel and add colours to them
8. Gently peel the chocolate off the tracing paper and place it on the cake
9. Using a mini off set spatula, cover the white spaces with the gel

I hope the above is easy enough for you to visualise :-)

Happy trying !

Italian Meringue Buttercream

I have a task to accomplish next week which is to make a birthday cake and cuppies in which the celebration will be held at the beach. Meaning no refrigeration and will be hot if it doesn't rain. I have scrap the idea of using fondant for the decor because of the weather and had to choose to do something which can withstand the long hours outdoor. So I finally decided on Italian Meringue Buttercream due to it's heat resistance and also taste. Well I think I still prefer whipped cream but don't want the uncertainty of melted cake *LOL*

Initially it was quite daunting. The mix was really soupy after I added the butter and never came together. Then I used one of the tip by an online member at the forum that I frequent and voila !! It came together !!

After it was done, I left the cream outside for about 3hrs before I tint it and piped on the cuppies I made. It still holds the shape although the mixture looked a little limp. Taste wise, creamy and smooth despite the amount of butter being used and of course, no grainy gritty texutre. I love it lots.

Using frosting/icing sheets on fondants

Most of the time, I use frosting/icing sheet on cream cakes because that is what I do most of the time. I hardly do fondant cakes because not many people like eating fondant especially kids. However, I got my first experience covering big cakes with fondant last year for my brother's engagement. It was an extremely simple cake and I used a shortcut to get this outcome *LOL* Before anyone gets excited, the flowers were store bought .. hurhur

Back to the topic, my initial plan was to use fondant for the strips but due to lack of time, I cheated using frosting sheet. I printed out the design that I want cut it based on the diameter of the cake and have it pasted on the cake. This includes the picture of my future sister in law.

This method is nothing new really. But for everyone's benefit, I did a simple step-by-step photos on how to stick the sheets to the fondant.

1. Prepare your cake and the sheet that you will be using. Here I used a small strip of colorful stripes

2. Brush the area which you want to paste the sheet with water. Have a small brush ready to touch it up after pasting it

3. Gently paste the icing sheet on the cake. Use a small brush to touch the corners that are not glued nicely to the cake

4. The end product !

Happy trying !!