Banana Cake Again!

I baked them the week before the last. I baked them again last week. 2 consecutive weeks of banana cake baking. There is a slight difference hence this post.

So following last week's recipe, instead of 3 bananas, I made it with 4 bananas with no changes being made to the rest of the ingredients. 2 bananas for mashing into the cake batter and the other two were sliced and placed in between and on top of the cake. As you can see, this cake looked more browned.

The insides of the cake does not look like a banana cake at this point as there were no black speckles, aka seeds of banana, and the texture is like a sponge cake with sliced bananas. They were so shy that they only appeared the following morning.

Rejoice! It is a banana cake after all. They can be eaten warm or cold and tastes best on the 2nd day after and I like this one better than the previous one.

Banana Cake

This time round, I have decided to make a simple banana cake. I have put in much less sugar comparatively to my past attempts. Recipe and method are the same as the previous times. Adaptation from Exclusively Food.

Banana Cake:
125g butter, softened
50g raw sugar
3 large ripe bananas (reserve 1 for decorating)
2 eggs
100ml buttermilk
225g plain flour 1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Notes:

The original recipe calls for 330g of sugar and because I thought of trying something with much lower sugar content so I just added 50g of raw sugar. I did not have self-raising flour on hand so I just adjusted that part.

The cake batter turned out a bit dry and I think I poured out about 50ml more of the buttermilk to mix in the batter.

Pour half of the cake batter in the cake tin and spread evenly. Place sliced bananas and then top up the rest of the batter and place in more sliced bananas. I could do with more bananas in future as the banana taste was not very strong.

This cake was baked for about 40mins but the top part seemed pale looking. I deduced that the reason could be due to the lesser sugar content. I adjusted the oven a bit so that the top part can be browned.

The taste was just nice. The feedback given was that one could take 2 slices and not feel overloaded with sugar and grease. Success is mine! ;op

Banana cake innards

A little update

The first picture shows what I had for one of the packed lunches. Pesto with scallions angel hair. Seems like I seldom bring or eat meat when I pack my lunches. These are easier to clean.

Strawberry Crumble

1st helping

I was inspired to bake something out of the strawberries because I grabbed 2 punnets at S$4.65, which was considered quite affordable. I baked 2 batches using one punnet each time and this has inspired me to consider other filling options like blueberries or apples in future.

Sliced strawberries

Strawberry Crumble:
For the crumble and base
11/4 cup of self raising flour
1/2 cup sugar
125g of cold butter (salted)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder - Optional
5 teaspoons of beaten egg mixture

Strawberry filling
1 punnet of strawberry (250g)
2 teaspoon of cornflour
1/4 cup of sugar

• Preheat your oven to 180 deg.
• Slice the strawberries and mix the cornflour and sugar and leave them aside for later use.
• Put the flour, sugar, cinnamon powder and cubes of cold butter in a bowl.
• Use a fork and start mashing the butter in the flour to make it look like breadcrumbs.
• Once the mixture is like breadcrumbs, add in the egg mixture.
• Mix them until lumpy.
• Place half of the dough mixture on a baking pan (4"x8") and use your hands to press them down until the dough covers the bottom of the pan.
• Place the strawberries nicely on top.
• spread the crumble on top of the strawberries. You may wish to sprinkle some extra sugar or cinnamon.
• Bake for 20mins or until the fillings start bubbling. It will resemble like strawberry jam.
• Let cool completely before cutting them up.
• Stare your baked good in awe, pat yourself on the back and enjoy.

Notes:
The first crumble I did was too soggy because of too much egg. The second one has more crisp to it so it you like it crisp, add less egg to them.

Lining strawberries in the pan

The result!

2nd helping. Wish you could eat!

Halloween: Mutant Pumpkins & Jumpy Yolk

It is that time of the year when the bright orange squashes make special appearances at supermarkets like Jasons Market Place and you know Halloween is just around the corner. I spotted these oddly shaped pumpkin at Raffles City.


They reminded me of a butt. Two butts in fact. Lol. There are other weird and interesting shapes of pumpkins which seemed to be mutated because of some chemical imbalance in the soil or something else. There is also this giant pumpkin which costs S$169.00!! I did not check to see how much did this giant weigh but I read on the papers that a farmer who harvested a 697kg pumpkin was this year's winner for some pumpkin competition. And that was not a record breaker. Freaky.

Speaking of freaky finds, while dining with a group of friends at a certain HK Cafe, an egg yolk actually jumped out of the plate and landed on the table.

Actually, it was "bleeding" a little after 2 stabs.

My friend ordered the half boiled egg and pushed one of the egg yolk to the side but it actually jumped out. The yolk was pretty sturdy because it did not break so we decided to use toothpick to see if it breaks. It didn't. What a strong egg yolk. :o)

Desserts at Nectarie, le'Dessert Pâtisserie

I remembered a particular conversation with the impression of this place as a "snob" because they simply "specialize in everything."

How is that possible?

Impressions aside, I actually chose Nectarie, le'Dessert Pâtisserie after dinner because I wanted to have a nice slice of cake.

The initial choice was an Opera cake because it looked not too bad but I immediately changed my mind when the serving staff mentioned this Green Tea with Sweet Potato cake. I am glad I did because this was one of the better cakes that I had.

Why do I like this cake: That mustard yellow layer of real sweet potato had got me hooked. It was not too sweet to begin with, which was a good thing as I do not like my desserts to be overdosed with sugar. The mild green tea custard did not really accentuate any flavours as did the thin layer of cake. The sweet potato layer, however, was awesome. Genuine stuff. The maple syrup that was drizzled on the plate seems to bring out the flavour of the sweet potato. Yum...

I also tried the Blood Orange Sorbet and the Wild Strawberry Sorbet with the former being more thirst quenching. It definitely changed my impression of this place which looked like it has more substance than its pretty looks.

Left: Blood Orange Sorbet
Right: Wild Strawberry Sorbet

Key Lime Pie from PS. Cafe, Paragon

I have googled for "key lime pie" and was directed to Wikipedia where it was shown that the traditional version for this has a thick layer of meringue. It also mentioned that the colour of the filling was mostly yellowish due to the addition of eggs and food colourings are added in by some to give it a lime green colour.

More whipped cream please!

This was my first time trying this dessert and I did not know what to expect. Having no expectations was a good thing because this pie turned out to be pretty appetising and I don't mind having seconds if not for the steep pricing. The lime green coloured filling was sweet and tangy, subtley fragranced with lime and had a texture of a custard. I had imagined it to be more gelatinous but this was even better. The whipped cream and the pie base had complimented the filling so much so that I had requested for more whipped cream.

Really, I don't mind seconds. Oops, did I repeat that?

White Cherries

White Cherries

Never judge a cherry by its colour! Although they may look unripe, these cherries are actually pretty sweet! It was given to me by my co-worker so I am not sure where to buy them or how much do they cost. This is to compensate for the earlier snack which was too greasy.

My Blueberry Days

Blueberries. I like them because they are sweet. Well...at least for most of them that I buy from supermarkets. They will stain your tongue for most parts if you eat them fresh (not dried). They are a high source of vitamin C. For me, it is a convenient and healthier snack.

I took this because I like the sticker.

I could learn how to make blueberry pies