Blueberry muffins

I am soooo proud of myself in my first trial of the blueberry muffins. The recipe as follows:

Ingredients
(Makes about a dozen muffins with cupcake liner measuring 5cm in diameter by 3cm in height )
- 1 1/2 cups* (190g) plain flour
- 1 1/2 eggs, beaten
- 1/2 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup (225g) caster sugar
- 150g blueberries
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) milk
- 1 tsp vanilla essence/extract
- 65 grams butter, cut to small pieces and melted or softened at room temperature

Directions
1. Sift flour, baking powder and sugar together, and mix well.
2. Add in milk, vanilla extract, eggs and butter and stir until just blended (and lumpy). Be careful not to over mix as it will result in a tough texture.
3. Fold in the blueberries into the mixture. Place baking cases in muffin tins. Spoon the mixture into the cases till almost full.
4. Bake for 20 minutes in preheated oven of 200C or until slightly golden brown.

Strawberry Marshmallow Cake

After trying 3 consecutive days of mango cake, I decided to make the strawberry marshmallow cake for my daughter's 9th birthday.

It is an easy, no baking cake. You just need to melt, mix and freeze.

Base

180-200 gm digestive biscuits

60-80 gm melted butter

Crushed digestive biscuits and mix well with melted butter. Press into a 8” tin. Refrigerate.

Marshmallow filling:

150 gm of marshmallow

300 ml of UHT milk

200 ml of whipping / heavy cream

2 or 3 tsp of gelatine powder

Put all the ingredients into a pot. Boil over small fire until gelatine is dissolved.

Jello topping:

1/2 pkt of strawberry Jello
200 ml of water

2 tsp of gelatine powder

Boil all ingredients until dissolved.

Assembling the cake:

Pour marshmallow filling into the prepared baking tin with biscuit base. Put in freezer  (30-45mins) until slightly harden but not totally frozen. Take it out and arrange sliced fresh strawberries. Put it back to freezer (10-15mins) to harden a little. When slightly harden take it out and pour the slightly cool or cool Jello on it. Put in fridge to chill.

So easy! The kids simply love it!

Mango Cake

This marks the start of Joy of Baking blog!

I recently found a growing interest for baking, don't ask me from who, where or why. I am also asking myself these questions. But whatever, it is a genuine interest, though it may be too late......

This is my first mango cake.......

I took the recipe from My Wok life and moderated a little as follows:

Yields 8" cake (about 12 small slices)
Ingredients
200 grams of sponge cake premix (Optima Ready Mix from Bake King brand)
3 large eggs
50ml mixture of milk + water (about 1/4 small cup)
10 gram of butter (1 teaspoon sized)
1 teaspoon of mango flavour
1 teaspoon of ovalette (called it sponge cake gel or sponge cake stabilizer)
200ml of whipped cream
2 ripe mangoes, diced (Half the amount for filling, half the amount for topping. Dice it chunk for the topping.)

Method:
1) Pre-heat oven for 10 minutes, set temperature to 180°C.
2) Mix egg yolk with the premix flour, butter, milk mixture, and into large mixing bowl to form the batter. Whisk the egg white till soft peak. Then fold in the egg whites into the batter.

3) Grease and line a sheet of grease-proof paper evenly on a 8” square or round baking pan. Pour in cake mixture.

4) Place baking pan at centre rack. Bake for 30 – 35 min using 180°C (top and bottom heat on), or until toothpick inserted in the centre comes out completely clean.

5) Allow cake to cool on wire rack, for about an hour.

6) When cake is completely cooled, slice it into 2 layers, using bread knife.

7) For filling: Use half the amount of whipped cream with half the amount of diced mangoes you have prepared, and combine it well. Spread a thick layer of filling evenly on the bottom layer of cake. Leave some space around the edge of the cake.

8) Top another layer of cake. Spread another half amount of whipped cream just on top or covering the whole cake. Next, place another half amount of the chunky diced mangoes on top evenly. Chill decorated cake in the refrigerator till ready to serve.