Fresh ginger cake

I don't know how well known it is, but Chinese or Asian people like to make a lot of ginger water (grated ginger simmered in water to release the juice and spiciness) and drink it for health reasons. As I was feeling unwell, I decided to make a small pot of it with our remaining ginger. The ginger was so spicy, I felt like I was drinking fire!

The side effect of making this ginger water is the ginger pulp that remains. I could have made another batch or two of the water to drink, but wasn't too keen on drinking it after the first batch. So I settled to make a cake with the pulp.

I found a recipe on Epicurious that I felt was adequate. I did make some changes to the recipe to fit the ingredienst I had on hands. A quick breakdown: reduced sugar, reduced oil, put more ginger, omitted cloves and pepper, and used Greek yogurt to replace one egg, and a chia seed and water mix to replace the other one. I also didn't have molasses, so I replaced it with dark brown sugar.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (150 g) grated ginger pulp
• 3/4 cup (150 g) dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup (130 g) cane sugar
• 3/4 cup (165 g) oil
• 2 1/2 cups (300 g) flour
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup hot water
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 cup (71 g) Greek yogurt
• 1 chia egg
• 1 tbs ground chia seeds
• 3 tbs water

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. To make the chia egg, mix the ground chia seeds and 3 tbs water in a small bowl. Let sit for 5 mins until gelified.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix dark brown sugar, sugar, and oil.
4. Dissolve baking soda in hot water, and add into the sugar mix.
5. Stir in the grated ginger.
6. Fold in the flour and cinnamon.
7. Mix in the Greek yogurt and chia egg.
8. Pour into a prepared pan (I baked it in a 9 in. springform pan lined with baking paper).
9. Bake for 45-60 mins, or until a toothpick comes out clean.
10. Cool for 30 mins before unmolding.

Eggless Lemon Bars

A few weeks ago, my cousin L and I had a friend over for dinner. I also had a single overripe banana sitting around waiting to be either used or dumped. Since I am no fan of dumping food, I looked for a way to use it up.

Banana bread requires at least 3 bananas, and so did my banana brownies. I then recalled a recipe I had stumbled upon for an eggless version of lemon bars, from Heart of a Baker. Not that I had ever tasted any classic lemon bars, I opted to give it a try.

First, I lined a small pan with my usual pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry), which I baked for about 10 minutes. Then I filled it with the lemon filling, and baked it some more. The result was a zingy, fresh bar that smelled like banana but tasted 100% lemon.

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LEMON BAR RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1/4 recipe pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry)
• 1 ripe banana
• zest and juice of 2 lemons
• 1/2 cup sugar
• vanilla
• 1 tbs cornstarch
• 1 tbs flour
• icing sugar, for dusting

  Procedure

1. Prepare the crust in an 8 in. x 8 in. pan as per the shortcrust pastry recipe. Precook 10 mins.
2. In a bowl, mash the banana.
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients.
4. Pour into the crust.
5. Bake for 30 mins at 180˚C or until set.
6. Cool then refrigerate min. 1 hour.
7. Cut into squares or bars.
8. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Matcha Tiramisu...

... or as my friend C dubbed it, "Tea"ramisu.

A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a brick of whipping cream that someone was giving away for free in the building (freebies are always nice). Then last week, I picked up a ricotta at the supermarket. I was really in the mood for making tiramisu, except.............. I only have about 5 spéculoos cookies left. That wasn't going to be enough.

While digging through the various drawers in our little student apartment, I found the pack and a half of digestive cookies I had left from last semester. So I opted for matcha-flavored tiramisu!

I followed my normal recipe. While whipping up the whipping cream to soft peaks, I added matcha powder and a bit of icing sugar, taste-testing in the process until I was satisfied with the flavor and color (I had so many matcha bakes that came out not tasting nearly strong enough.....). Then instead of dipping the cookies in coffee/decaf, I brewed some green tea and dunked them in that. then came layering. I originally wanted to make the heart out of green matcha, but due to the cream's pale green color, the matcha wasn't coming out as strongly as I wanted. So chocolate it was.

Tutorial to normal tiramisu yonder this way~

Coffee Crumble Cake

This cake should rather be named "Coffee" Cake. The intended coffee flavor came out only as a fragrance, overpowered by the bananas I used. But more on that further down.

I wanted to use up some instant coffee my uncle had left here. At L's suggestion that I bake it into a cake, I started looking at recipes for espresso-flavored cake. That's when I came across this recipe by The Vegan and the Chef that seemed promising. I started measuring out ingredients, already mixing the flax egg and blending oats into flour, etc. When came the time for the wet ingredients, I realized I didn't have applesauce. Oops.

I do have apples. But at the moment, I did not want to deal with cooking them into an applesauce just to make this cake. I vaguely recalled that mashed bananas worked the same way -- albeit with less liquid -- so I too the 2 overripe bananas and got to work, adding in about 1/4 of hot water to mimic the moistness brought by applesauce.

*Update* After letting the cake sit for a night, the coffee flavor really came out above the banana!

Due to a lack of almond flour, I changed it all to oat flour. I was also too lazy to actually measure the butter required for the crumble topping, so I did it by eye. A lack of almonds turned me to the jar of walnuts I have. I additionally opted out on the vanilla and almond extracts. Last change was to use buttermilk, which I had on hand, rather than the almond milk and vinegar mix.

Next time, I'll use applesauce to preserve the coffee flavor of this cake.

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RECIPE (adapted from The Vegan and the Chef)

  Ingredients

     Cake batter

     Dry ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup oat flour (~1 cup of dried oats, blended until fine)
• 1 tbs instant coffee powder
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt

     Wet ingredients

• 1 flax egg
• 1 tbs ground flax seeds
• 3 tbs warm water
• 2/3 cup almond/soy milk*
• 1 tsp vinegar*
• 1/3 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup applesauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup unrefined cane sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

     * use 2/3 cup of buttermilk instead, if you have that on hand

     Crumble topping

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 5 tbs butter
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped

  Procedure

    Cake batter

1. In a small bowl, make the flax egg by combining the ground flax seeds and the warm water. Set aside
2. If using almond/soy milk and vinegar, combine in another bowl and set aside 10 mins.
3. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
4. In a mixing bowl, whisk together all remaining wet ingredients.
5. Add in the flax egg and milk/vinegar mix or buttermilk.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Pour into prepared pan.

     Crumble mix

1. Mix brown sugar, flour, and instant coffee powder.
2. Rub in butter to obtain a mix like wet sand.
3. Mix in chopped nuts.
4. Spread in even layer on top of cake batter in the tin.

     Baking

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. Bake for 1h15 min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
3. Cook on a rack before unmolding.

Vegan Banana Waffles

I have been so busy of late with academics that I barely had any time to bake. These waffles date from a February weekend brunch with my cousin L, when I had ripe bananas to deal with (yet again).

First up was the batter. I adapted a recipe from Minimalist Baker, which resulted in my first time using ground flax seeds as an egg replacer. I had conveniently just gotten a jar of flax seeds from a friend, so I measured out 1 tablespoon of flax seeds and ground them with a mortar and pestle. Mixed it with some water and set it aside to do its thing. After adding the rest of the ingredients, I got a thick yet runny batter.

After heating the waffle iron, I poured the batter in and let it cook. I had some mishaps with a couple of almost burnt waffles, but otherwise, they were pretty good! The only adjustment I made from the recipe, if my memory works properly, was that I did not add any chocolate chips.

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RECIPE (adapted from Minimalist Baker)

  Ingredients 

• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup oats
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk (I used soymilk)
• 1 flax egg
• 1 tbs ground flax seeds
• 2 1/2 tbs water
• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder

  Procedure

1. Prepare the flax egg by combining the ground flax seeds and water in a bowl, stirring, and setting aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, mash the bananas with the baking powder using a fork.
3. Add milk, flax egg, and mix.
4. Mix in salt and oats.
5. Add flour until just combined.
6. Let batter rest while preheating the waffle iron.
7. Spray the iron with cooking spray or brush with oil.
8. Pour in batter and cook according to waffle iron instructions.
9. Remove and enjoy~

Orange Chocolate Cake

To celebrate a double birthday (early birthdays for my brother and my dad), I made two desserts. Well technically, I was supposed to just make this cake, and my cousin B was supposed to make the apple tart. In the end, she had other stuff to do as well, so she helped me make the applesauce. Then I made the rest of the tart using store-bought puff pastry for the crust. This was also because my dad mentioned preferring it with puff pastry.

While debating what cake to make, I recalled the Black Forest cake I had made. I didn't have applesauce, but I used some my cousin made for the apple tart. I also used a sweetened cocoa powder (like those to mix in milk) as I did not have unsweetened cocoa, so reduced the sugar a lot. Also, instead of using 1/2 cup of decaf, I used about 1/4 cup decaf, and 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice. To add to the orange flavor, I zested an organic orange and threw it in with the dry ingredients.

For decoration, I sliced a smaller organic orange and simmered it in a simple sugar syrup (1 part sugar, 1 part water) until translucent, then drained on a grill. On a whim, I took some chocolate, melted it with a bit of vegetable oil to make it shinier. Then I swiped some leaf/drop shapes on a sheet of baking paper using the back of a spoon, and put it in the freezer to set.

I whipped cream with some icing sugar in it and put it between the two cake halves. Then I spread the rest over the top of the cake, and cut halves of candied orange slices before arranging them on top. With the chocolate, I settled for a flower-like shape, trying my best to keep the chocolate from melting in my hands. I chopped up a bit of a leftover candied orange for the flower's center.

Here's the cake with the candles, as well as a bit of the apple tart. I had planned to try making my own puff pastry, but didn't want to make the effort while having so much to do that day. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera at college, so had to settle with my phone's camera. We had a nice dinner with family, ate the cake, apple tart, and a fruit salad accompanied by some tea, then played games. All in all, it was a great party!

Lemon Sponge Cake with Cranberry Topping

I rarely start a post with a picture of the slice, but this time, the inside was what was important! For a dinner among friends, I tackled a recipe I found on Indian Kitchen, for an eggless lemon sponge cake. When the cake came out of the oven, I was surprised at how nicely spongy it was.

The yellowish color of the crumb comes simply from the lemon. When we ate it, however, we deemed the cake a little on the dry side. Maybe infusing it with some juice after baking, or baking it for a shorter time would have remedied that.

The topping is a sauce I made with rehydrated dried cranberries and candied orange peels that I had made a few weeks ago. I just stuck a couple handfuls of chopped dried cranberries and some candied orange peels in a pot with some water, and simmered it all until all the dried bits were rehydrated. Then I added a bit of a slurry of cornstarch to thicken it up. After cooling, I topped the cake with the mix.

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RECIPE adapted from Indian Kitchen

  Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/3 cup yogurt
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• zest 1 lemon
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1/4 cup vegetable juice

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. In a bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk yogurt and powdered sugar.
4. Add lemon juice and zest, and oil. Mix well.
5. Add in sifted flour mix, and mix until combined.
6. Pour into prepared pan and bake 20-30 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan for about 2 mins.
8. Unmold and cool on a cooling rack.
9. Top and enjoy.

Lime and Lemon Shortbreads

The end of another short (and unofficial) internship meant another batch of cookies to deliver. I especially wanted to thank the doctor I was shadowing at the time, so I stamped a handful of these cookies with a "Thank You" message with a heart~

I was half tempted to make cranberry shortbreads again, but decided to opt for something different. Part of my motivation for this was that I did not want to deal with creaming butter and sugar. Therefore, I flipped through my "La Grande Imprimerie Gourmande" recipe book, which is full of various shortbread recipes, from the sweet to the savory.

I came across this citrus shortbread recipe that didn't seem like it would be too much trouble. In fact, the only problem was that there was no lemon or lime at home! A quick trip to the grocery store at the end of the road, and that was remedied with 4 untreated lemons and some limes.

I made a single batch of these, intending to make more. However, a shortage of time caught me, and I only managed the one. However, it was sufficient for the doctor and the nurses of the department. Unfortunately, one did not like lemon, so she did not eat any, but I could not have predicted that.

I made a small package with the portion for the doctor, and then put the rest in a small box to leave on the table of the nurses' room. Ingredients lists were stuck on, and a small blue flower.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 small lemon
• 1 lime
• 200 g unsalted butter, softened
• 300 g flour
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 pinch of salt

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 150˚C.
2. Zest the lemon and the lime. Juice them in separate bowls.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and zests.
4. Add 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tbs lemon juice, then the butter.
5. Mix by hand until the dough comes together, without overmixing.
6. Form a ball, and cover it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
7. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thickness.
8. Cut out desired shapes, and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Let cool and enjoy.

Christmas '15: Pumpkin Yule Log Cake

Christmas desserts this year were split between my cousin B and myself. B made little choux and éclairs, and I dealt with the egg-free stuff for those among us that don't eat eggs. Having seen a recipe on Dash of (Vegan) Butter for a vegan pumpkin cream roll, and seeing how I still had a pumpkin sitting around, I jumped on the opportunity.

First, I roasted the pumpkin in the oven, puréed it in a food processor, then drained it in a colander with paper towels in the fridge to remove all excess moisture. Then I whipped up about 6 tbs of aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas), and proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

For the filling, I folded some whipped cream into the leftover cream cheese mix from the brownie topping. I also added a little more sugar. Then I cut a small section at the end to make a stump on top, which was glued on with more of the cream cheese mix.

The whole cake was covered with whipped cream that was mixed with chocolate powder. At first, I just dragged a fork over the whipped cream to make it seem like bark, but then opted instead to shave some chocolate off large choc chips (the only chocolate I had) to dust over the top.

In the end, the cake was well liked, but the cake batter was a little tough. Either I had overbaked it a bit, or the amount of dry ingredients should have been reduced.

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PUMPKIN CAKE ROLL RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 6 tbs aquafaba
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup puréed pumpkin
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• icing sugar

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. In a bowl, combine dry ingredients. Set aside.
3. Whip aquafaba on high until soft peaks. 
4. On medium speed, add in applesauce, the progressively add sugar.
5. Mix in pumpkin and vinegar.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Pour into a prepared pan, then bake for 15 min or until it springs back when lightly pressed.
8. After removing from oven, immediately put on a clean dishtowel dusted with icing sugar.
9. Roll it up with the towel and set to cool.
10. Once cooled, unroll, fill with desired cream, and roll again.
11. Ice as desired, and chill until eaten.

Christmas '15: Brownie with Cream Cheese Pattern

This year for Christmas presents, I decided to bake a big batch of brownie and cut it up into squares to pack up. I had originally planned to have 2 different brownies and some kind of gingerbread-like bars in there as well, but due to time constraints, I had to settle with just the one.

For the brownie, I used a double batch of the classic egg-free recipe I have been using. To make it a little more interesting, at least to the eye, I topped it with a pattern of cream cheese, quark, and icing sugar mix. The quark helped make the cream cheese more fluid, and I had some left from before that needed using up. The pattern was made by drawing lines of cream cheese mix over the top of the batter, then running a chopstick in opposite directions.

The wonderful image I had in mind for nice, even squares went out the window the moment I cut into it after cooling and refrigerating it a couple of hours. The no-crust parts were crumbling and falling every which way. Luckily, I managed to somehow cut 30 squares that were more or less intact, and to package them in little bags, each piece sitting on its own square of baking paper. Unfortunately, in some cases, the pattern did not really survive the cutting and packaging.

Mint Chocolate Cookies

December 15, 2015

As the end of the semester approached, I wanted to give little packs of cookies to my professors, as thanks for teaching. I also felt that some of them had been particularly helpful to me this semester.

I looked around in my stash of baking ingredients, to see what kinds of cookies I could make with what I had. I had thought about chocolate chip cookies, but I didn't have anymore choc chips... No more cranberries either, and at the time I was starting to dig in my boxes, I was not up for zesting a lime. Then I saw a box of mint-filled chocolates I had gotten before but that was just sitting there. I figured I could try and put that on or in a cookie somehow.

My first test attempt was a flop and almost left a chunk of charcoal at the bottom of the oven. The cookie had fallen through the grill despite the baking paper (I neglected to put a pan between the paper and the grill), and had spread like crazy. Some flour and chilling later, I finally managed to get something decent.

The mint chocolates were cut into small rectangles/triangles depending on the part of the chocolate. I then stabbed them through the top of each cookie formed. Some pieces melted and caramelized on the sides of the cookies.  It might have been better if I had just stuck a bigger slab in the middle of each cookie, but I settled with what was done.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup golden sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp Orgran egg replacer
• 4 tbs water
• 3 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp hot water
• mint chocolate (or sub in 1 cup chocolate chips)

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 175°C.
2. Cream butter and all sugar until fluffy.
3. Mix the egg replacer and the 4 tbs water (proportions ~2 eggs) and beat them into the mixture.
4. Dissolve baking soda into the hot water before adding.
5. Stir in flour and chocolate chips.
6. Put on baking sheet by large spoonfuls.
7. Bake for 10-15 mins.

Marbled Banana Brownie Wannabe

The original title for this post was going to be "marbled peanut butter and chocolate banana brownie wannabe," but since that is very long-winded, let's settle for the short version.

A week or two ago, my cousin L bought a bunch of bananas. As usual, they sat in the fruit basket getting riper and riper, until there was nothing left to do with them but to bake them. I am still not in the mood for banana bread (don't ask me why), so I thought I'd make another banana brownie. Then L saw the Facebook post from someone in the building saying they had leftover peanut butter brownie, and so she asked me if I could make it peanut butter this time.

To make things more difficult for myself, I thought I'd tackle a marbled peanut butter chocolate one. I simply made half of a batch of chocolate brownie batter (using half of the recipe in the link above), and half of a batch of an experimental peanut butter variant, which simply used 100 g of creamy peanut butter instead of the chocolate. Then I dolloped it progressively, alternating batters, into my loaf pan, and swirled it all with a knife.

Although the texture was amazingly soft and great to eat, it made it very difficult to cut the loaf and get decent slices that didn't collapse and break every which way. I'm still debating whether it's worth trying to fix that and possibly sacrifice the texture. To be determined in the future, I guess.

Lime Glazed Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

Remember these cranberry shortbread cookies I made last summer? Well I made them again, this time for a friend's birthday gift. I wasn't really up for rolling out the dough, however, so the dough was rolled into a log, then refrigerated. I then sliced the log into fairly irregular (I don't have much experience in cooking log cutting) slices, then baked them. Since I only made half a batch, my log was short enough that I could wrap it in cling film, and tie one end to the rack in the fridge, so that the surfaces didn't leave any flat side to my log.

Just like for the oatmeal cookies, I soaked the dried up cranberries in a bit of hot water before chopping them and throwing them into the mix. Instead of leaving them plain, I made a quick glaze with some icing sugar and lime juice, which I spread on half of the top surface of each cookie. The recipe for this glaze was from Cakecrumbs. The cookie recipe can be found in the link above.

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LIME GLAZE

  Ingredients

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbs lime juice

  Procedure

1. Mix together sugar and lime into a paste in a heat-proof bowl.
2. Set the bowl into a pot of simmering water and heat until mix is runny.
3. Glaze cookies, and let dry.

Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

 

With all the academic deadlines flying around at this time of the semester, I needed to get rid of some stress. I had pulled an all-nighter the night before, and was trying to stay awake long enough to go to bed at a reasonably normal time.

I gave in to the temptation that had been gnawing at me for the past few days, but that I had to push away due to the aforementioned deadlines: BAKING.

Trying to think of what I wanted to make, I remembered the last of the dried cranberries sitting in one of the kitchen drawers. I used some for other cookies I will post in a few days, that I plan to give to a friend for her birthday. Then my cousin L (who is also my roommate) complained that I hadn't made normal cookies in a while for her to eat. I think she actually had chocolate chip in mind, but my stash of chocolate chips is long gone. I hit up Google, and came up with these cranberry oatmeal cookies.

The recipe is from Eggless Cooking, and makes more than the pictured 20 as plenty disappeared into L's stomach as I baked tiny batch after tiny batch of 6-7 in our tiny oven. The pack of cranberries had somehow ripped at some point, and wasn't closed properly, so the cranberries were dried up. I attempted to slightly rehydrate them in hot water before using them. I also subbed walnuts for the pecans.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup (70 g) butter, softened; margarine makes this vegan
• 1/4 cup cane sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• vanilla or 1 packet vanilla sugar
• 1/2 cup non-dairy milk
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1 pinch nutmeg
• 3 cups quick cooking oats
• 1 cup cranberries
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven at 180°C.
2. Cream sugars and butter until well combined.
3. Add in milk, and mix.
4. In a bowl, mix spices, flour, and baking soda. Add to the butter mix.
5. Fold in oats, cranberries, and pecans.
6. Spoon tablespoons of mix onto a lined baking tray. Flatten with a fork.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Banana Brownie

For a hallway dinner, I figured I should try and do something with the bananas I had left in the fruit basket. I wasn't really in the mood for banana bread, though, so I thought I would try and tweak my brownie recipe into one that would incorporate bananas.

I used mashed bananas instead of the applesauce, and added whatever chocolate I had left in my baking ingredients storage (which turned out to be mostly dark chocolate, with a small bit of white chocolate chips).

Dipping the bottom of the 12 banana slices in some flour kept them from sinking during the baking process. I also sprinkled some granulated cane sugar on top of the slices so that they would caramelize a bit, as well as to keep them from drying out.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients (for a loaf pan)

• 3/4 cup (94 g) flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• less than 1/4 cup (~30 g) cane sugar
• 1 1/2 (~70 g) mashed banana
• 1 packet vanilla sugar
• 3 tbs hot water
• pinch of instant decaf/coffee
• 200 g chocolate
• 3 tbs (28 g) butter
• 1/2 banana, for topping

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C. 
2. Oil and flour a loaf pan.
3. Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl, and set aside.
4. In a microwaveable bowl, put chopped chocolate and butter. Melt 30 seconds at a time in a microwave until the chocolate appears partly melted. Stir until smooth.
5. In a large mixing bowl, whisk mashed banana, vanilla sugar, and sugar until melted.
6. Add hot water and instant decaf/coffee.
7. Add in the melted chocolate and mix well.
8. Fold in the dry ingredients.
9. Pour into pan. Slice the half banana, and dip one side in some flour before putting on top of the batter. Sprinkle some sugar on top of each slice.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out dry.
11. Cool and enjoy with some ice cream or whipped cream (or both)~

Chocolate Checkerboard Cake with Strawberries

Last Monday was one of my friends' birthday. Unfortunately, this last week was also one of the busiest weeks of the semester, being midterms time. Due to this quite pressing engagement, we couldn't really celebrate. My cousin and I thought we should do something at least, however, as we are usually on Fall break when her birthday comes around. This year, however, our semester somehow got moved up a week, so we are actually on campus on her birthday.

I know that she likes chocolate. Instead of doing boring plain chocolate cake, however, I thought I'd alternate dark and white chocolate in a checkerboard cake. I decided to stick to two mudcake recipes (like the ones I used in the Christmas tree cake) but ended up with a bit less white chocolate mudcake than dark. I thus had to chop some off in order to make it somewhat equal. I thought I'd just chop off the top, domed part, and just stick a layer of white and a layer of dark, and invert 1/3 of that for a 2-layer cake.

As you can see, however, I ended up including the domed parts, cut into strips, for a third, somewhat smaller layer. I just didn't want the cake to be too flat... The strips of cake were attached together with a dark chocolate ganache.

I thawed some frozen strawberries (fresh ones being a bit too pricey now for my student wallet), drained them, and sliced them. I "glued" them over the seams on the top with some melted dark chocolate, then I arranged whatever leftover I had a bit around. These provided a nice refreshing touch to counter the sweetness of the chocolate. For contrast, I added words of white chocolate that I wrote on a small piece of baking paper and stuck in the freezer to set.

The two cakes should probably have been refrigerated before I cut them, as they somewhat crumbled when I tried arranging them right after they just cooled to room temperature. In the end, after the ganache and the cooling in the fridge, they stayed together nicely.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Dark Chocolate Mudcake

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup tepid water
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

     White Chocolate Mudcake

• 1 cup sifted flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup soymilk or other milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tbs vinegar
• 100 g white chocolate, melted

     Chocolate Ganache

• 150 g chocolate, chopped
• 75 mL (~1/3 cup) heavy cream

  Procedure

     Dark Chocolate Mudcake

1. Preheat oven at 180°C. Grease and line a loaf pan.
2. Sift together all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients.
3. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well
4. Pour into the pan, and tap the pan against the table/working surface to release trapped bubbles.
5. Bake 30-35 minutes or until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry.
6. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 mins, then remove to cool completely.

     White Chocolate Mudcake

1. Preheat oven at 180°C. Grease and line a loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
3. Melt the chocolate.
4. Add the soymilk, oil, chocolate, and vinegar to the dry ingredients mix.
5. Mix until smooth.
6. Pour into the pan, and tap it against the table or working surface to release trapped bubbles.
7. Bake for 20-30 mins.
8. Cool.

     Chocolate Ganache

1.  Place the chocolate in a medium bowl.
2. Heat cream until boiling.
3. Pour cream over chocolate, and mix until all chocolate is melted.

     Assembly

1. Cut the two cakes into even layers. Spread ganache on one of the layers, then top it with a layer of the other one. Repeat if there is sufficient cake remaining.
2. Cut the assembly into 3, lengthwise.
3. On a surface, set down the edge piece. Spread some ganache on the inside-facing side of it.
4. Turn the middle row upside down, then set it next to the edge piece, pressing slightly for it to adhere.
5. Spread more ganache on the bare side of the middle piece, and add the remaining edge piece.
6. If desired, cover the whole cake in ganache or other icing.
7. Refrigerate before serving.

  Tips

• Ideally, the recipe quantities should be tweaked to make 2 cakes of equal height. In that case, 2 cakes of opposing patterns can be made.
• Refrigerating the cakes before cutting them will make them a bit firmer and thus less likely to crumble.
• If there are remaining cut-offs of the cakes (like from the domes), they can be made into cake pops.
• Other cakes and flavors or icings can be used to make such a cake.
• Using vegan chocolate and non-dairy cream will make this cake vegan.

Lime and Strawberry Mini Cheesecake

For reasons, I had to provide some baking samples a few days ago. I wasn't too sure of what to bake, and I wasn't in the mood for baking a cake like banana bread. I did not really have the ingredients for much else, so I opted for cheesecake (and even then I had to borrow butter from a neighbor).

Inspired by the reunion cheesecake, I opted for a lime flavored base on top of a shortcrust pastry. I got distracted and thought we still had a jar of forest fruit jam, but I was mistaken. Therefore, I cooked, reduced, and crushed some frozen strawberries we still had, and topped the cheesecake with that. I made 4 of the same ones, in 10.5 cm springform pans.

I then dug through the various sizes of boxes and cardboard in our recycling box, to find some way to package 3 of these so they wouldn't get crushed or fall while I biked to deliver these for the people who were going to sample them.