Carrot Cake

   I'm starting to count down the days.

   15...

   12...

   10...

   8...

   8 days.

   8 days until the new year begins.

   8 days left before the new school year starts.

   In a way, I'm excited. I can't wait to see the children and jump around and go mad with them. If only school was just about teaching and being with children. If only.

   Now, teachers have to handle so much more than classrooms and students. Lots and lots of paperwork. Document this and that. Go for meetings here and there. Sometimes I feel like I'm more of an odd-job man really, because I can't think of anything that a teacher doesn't do at school. Let's play a quiz shall we? Name the occupations the tasks listed below actually belong to.

   Teach.

   Prepare documents.

   Photocopy documents.

   Mail documents.

   Treat children's wounds.

   Dress up like a clown and clown around in class.

   Carry and move things here and there.

   Organise sport events. Train students for sport events.

   Paint and decorate the rooms.

   Paint the stairs, even.

   Break up a fight between children.

   Break up a fight between other teachers.

   Okay. I was joking. Or maybe not.

   The good thing is, I have these bright faces to look forward to:
   

I know, right. Bigger than me, boys and girls these days.

   Next year, I want to be a happier, more productive, fun and better teacher than ever.

   For that, I shall need better nutrition. Healthy food.

   Carrot cake should count as healthy food, right?

   If you're reading this Shaheen, you'd be proud of me... right??? I'm really sad about the loss of Moggy. I love cats.

Lots and lots of carrots.

Already cut through it before remembering to take a photo. Haha.

MAMA DOROSCH'S CARROT CAKE
Source: Bisous A Toi 
Click on the link for original recipe and cup measurements

Ingredients

CAKE
300g castor sugar
1 1/2 cups oil
4 eggs
260g flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups grated carrots, packed
3/4 cup walnuts (optional)

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
8oz cream cheese - well softened
113g butter, well softened
100g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

CAKE

Pre-heat the oven to 360ºF with a rack in the middle position. Grease and line three 7-inch baking tins.

In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and oil. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

In a second, medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar mix and mix until well incorporated.

Fold in the carrots and walnuts.

Pour into prepared pans and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

FROSTING

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until light and fluffy.Gradually beat in the icing sugar until well blended. Frost and decorate as you like. 

This cake turned me into a veggie eater. So proud of myself! *pats self on the back

   This cake is soooooo good. I like to put the cake in the refrigerator and take it out a few minutes before eating. So far I haven't tried a new carrot cake recipe without falling in love with it. 

Of Apple Pies & Carrot Cakes

   This was the day I made 5 apple pies and 3 carrot cakes. All in one day. And I had to catch a bus to KL after that too.

   First, let's look at the apple pies. I love making pie pastry, though they never turn out the same each time,. Unpredictable, these people.

   First, I made this for mum's cousin. It's quite a scare isn't it? I meant to just cut out holes using an apple-shaped biscuit cutter, but it turned out to look like this:

   Should cheer anybody up, that! 

   Next, I made this for my driving instructor, who unfortunately forgot to come and take it, so we gave it away to somebody else. I'll make her something else next time. It was quite the prettiest pie I made that day, I think, with the apple cutouts all around the edge: 

   I meant to leave this for the others to eat at home, but they gave it away to Little Brother's teachers, along with the second pie. Little Brother got 9As for  PMR, so it was sort of thank-you gift. Congratulations Little Brother, you nailed it!

  I also brought 2 with me to KL, one for Big Sister and her housemates, and another for my friend Wawa, for her birthday which was on 15th December. Latecomers, we both are!

   I only managed to take a photo of one carrot cake, which Mum gave away to her friend. I rather like this baking and giving away thing, it makes me happy (for getting the chance to bake something) and the people getting the baked stuff happy too!

   This is a recipe that I stick to whenever I want a carrot cake because it uses only 5 easy to remember ingredients. The only things that take time is grating the carrots and baking it. I sometimes reduce the amount of sugar, but it's okay to use the actual amount, it's not too sweet.

As usual, this is what I put into my cake, you can visit the link for the original recipe. Jules uses almond flour in her recipe, which she says makes the cake super moist but if you substitute it for all-purpose flour or self-raising flour like it did, it's still pretty good.

I love Stonesoup. Jules recipes are so simple, and so far the ones I've tried have turned out really nicely.

CARROT CAKE

Source: Stonesoup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

250g brown sugar

3 large eggs

250g self-raising flour

250g grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Line a baking tin with baking paper and grease the bottom and sides with a little oil.

3. Measure the oil into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and whisk together until well-combined.

4. Add the eggs, one by one, until well-combined.

5. Sift in the self-raising flour. Fold in until well-incorporated. 

6. Thoroughly fold in grated carrots.

7. Bake in pre-heated oven for about one hour. If the top of the cake browns too quickly,  cover it with a piece of aluminium foil until the cake is cooked (do the skewer/toothpick test).

8. Cover with yoghurt cream cheese topping, which is really easy to make:

Yoghurt Cream Cheese Topping

I'm afraid I forgot to measure the amounts. Just whisk together soft, room  temperature cream cheese, castor sugar and yoghurt. If you want the topping to be stiffer, use more cream cheese. if you want it to drizzle over the sides, use more yoghurt. Add sugar to taste. 

If you like, you can bake the cake in a large, square pan. When its baked, cut the cake into little squares, and pour the topping on top, like a sauce:

This is also useful if you have to cut of the top of the cake to level it. Use the scraps for this, it makes a lovely dessert.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I think this is a pretty good photo, don't you?
Well, it's better than the ones I've been posting, haha

   Nope, this cake does not have coffee in it. I suppose it's called a 'coffee cake' because it's good to have with coffee, just like a teacake is good with tea? Or good for tea? Anyway, I had three blocks of cream cheese (well, 1 and a half actually) and I wanted to make a cake that uses cream cheese but I did't want anything that uses too much cheese or else I won't have another chance to bake any other cream cheese recipes until we get some more. Get it?


   Thankfully, we can now get Tatura cream cheese for almost half the price of a block of Philadelphia cream cheese. I suppose Philadelphia cheese is creamier or more delicious or whatever, but we're not fussy folk and I believe in enjoying what food we can afford. Some people can't even afford a good, square meal per day. We've had a whole family- a mum and her children, (so many of them too!) come asking for some money and water at our house once. Poor kiddies. And mummy. 


   So should I be overly fussy over getting the best ingredients for baking, when cheaper ones which are good enough are available? I believe not. If I can afford to buy the more expensive stuff one day, Insya-Allah I will, but if I can't, I shouldn't grumble about it. And I won't. So remind me if I do.


   This is a pretty good recipe, and one that I'd probably make again. However, I seem to have problems  with cakes that need to be baked for over one-hour- the sides always turn out overbaked and black and burnt, just like with the Apple Crumble Teacake I made . I'm not quite sure how to counter  this problem, does anybody have any good tips that you ca share with me? I'd be really grateful.

   The ingredients & measurements below are what I've used, so visit the link for the original recipe and the metric measurements. 


BLUEBERRY CREAM CHEESE COFFEE CAKE
Source: JoyofBaking


The Whats:

Streusel Topping:

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup coarse granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 cup cold butter cut into pieces

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 ounce  cream cheese, at room temperature

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 tablespoon all purpose flour 

Cake Batter:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup good-quality margarine

1/2 cup soft brown sugar, tightly packed

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

1/3 cup milk

1/2 cup (or more) blueberry filling

The How-Tos:

Preheat oven to 150C (original is 180C).

Grease and line the bottom of an 8x8-inch pan with baking paper (I don't have a springform pan, so I just used a regular one)..

Streusel Topping:

Mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in one bowl. Cut in the butter using a fork, a  bread knife or the tips of your fingers  until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Cover and place mixture in the refrigerator (or freezer, which is what I did!) to keep it cold.

Cream Cheese Filling:

Place cream cheese in a bowl and beat using an electric mixer until creamy and smooth. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla and flour and beat until well incorporated. Set aside.

Cake Batter:

Whisk or sift flour and baking powder into a bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat the margarine until smooth and creamy. Add in sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk and eat until just combined. 

Assemble:

Spread the cake batter onto the bottom of the prepared pan and up the sides (the mixture is quite thick so this shouldn't be too  difficult). Pour the cream cheese filling on top of the cake batter. Spread or dollop generous spoonfuls of the blueberry filling on top of the cream cheese filling. Scatter the streusel topping on top.

Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes. Test using a toothpick- poke it into the centre of the cake. Wait for 5 minutes and pull it out, if it comes out clean it is ready. Remove from oven and let cool.

Serve warm or at room temperature. It's good enough on its own, but you can always have it with cream. Yum!

Baker's notes:
1. Using coarse granulated sugar gives the streusel topping a lovely crunch, which Littlest Brother approved of. 
2. The cake is best eaten o the day it's made, because the topping will slowly sort of soak the moisture from the cream cheese filling, I think, and will no longer be crumbly. But it's stil definitely good for eating. Definitely.

Super Moist Egg-less Chocolate Cake

  Or Black Beauty. I'd like to call it that. It was wonderfully black in colour.

   We were out of eggs. Dad asked, "What do you need eggs for?"


   "I was thinking of making cake?"


   "Then we're getting eggs tonight!"


   Hopeful they will. I was in the mood for baking right then and there though, and decided that I wouldn't wait. I googled 'eggless chocolate cake' and found this recipe. After being used to the DFCC, it was nice to make plain, chocolate cake without any topping. No fuss, no mess. According to the blogger who posted it, the cake was good enough without the need for a topping, so I went with her suggestion. 

   And it is pretty good. That is, if you like super, dark chocolaty cake. If you'd rather have a topping, then by all means go for it. I like how smooth it looked when it came out of the oven, with just a few tiny cracks on top. And how easy it is to make. You only need one bowl and a hand whisk for mixing. As well as measuring spoons and cups. And a spatula. I can never make cake without my spatula.

This was taken using a flash.
What a huge difference from the first photo!

   The texture is spongy and not too crumbly, and the colour really dark. I'm a goon at taking photos, and this cake was extra tricky because of its colour. Oh well. I had three slices before I knew it. And the others aren't even back home yet.


SUPER MOIST EGG-LESS CHOCOLATE CAKE
Sources: Love2Cook & Dapurku Sayang


Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
two tablespoons milk powder
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup cold water (from the fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
1/2 cup vegetable oil (apparently you can also use melted butter/margarine or cooking oil)
1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar (which I forgot. Whoops)


1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add salt, milk powder and brown sugar into flour mixture. Whisk until well combined.
4. Measure water into measuring cup and add in vanilla extract. Add to dry ingredients and mix using whisk, making sure there aren't any lumps.
5. Add vegetable oil and whisk until well-combined. Apparently you can also use melted margarine or butter (omit salt if you use margarine or salted butter) or cooking oil, but I don't recommend the latter. (I've used cooking oil once for pastry and didn't like the taste.)
6. Add lemon juice/vinegar and mix well. (I forgot this part so I don't know how it affects the cake).
7. Pour into 8x8-inch pan. Or you could use a smaller, round pan if you want a taller cake.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Test for done-ness using a toothpick- poke one until it reaches the bottom of the pan, wait for 5 seconds and pull it out, If it comes out clean, it's done.
9. Slather some topping on top if desired. I didn't bother.

I was... uh-hum... trying to take a photo while holding the camera in one hand.
Not a good  strategy.

   This is not a cake for wowing people. More of a I-need-a-good-cake-in-45-minutes sort of cake, maybe for serving some guests? It's nice and simple and uncomplicated. you won't have a heart attack making it. Although my whisk did fall out of the bowl two times. 

Crime scene!

Washing up!

Apple Crumble Cake

   I'm making up for lost time.

 I made this Apple Crumble Cake a while ago and I loved, loved, loved it. In fact, I made it three times. It has entered my 10 top favourite cakes (I don't have an actual list though). Yeah. There are still some apples on the counter and I only refrained from making a fourth for fear my family will  throw them at my head (well, they wouldn't do that to food, but I shouldn't bore them with the same thing over and over again anyway).

Aren't they beautiful?
I wish apples grew here in Malaysia. That way I could plant one right outside my bedroom window.

   We had some apples browning in the fridge, so I wanted to bake something with apples. You cannot imagine (or perhaps you ca) how mind-boggling it is to choose a recipe! I took two days over it. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is an apple corer.
Useful for, uhm, coring apples.
It's lost. Mum said I may have thrown it away with the apple skins
Somebody please knock some sense into me.

   And the apples kept browning. I finally choose this recipe because:

   1. It's from The Caked Crusader's blog, hehe, so what's not to love?
   2. It was baked and loved by a superhero, so what can an adoring fan do but make one too? 
   3. It has a crumble topping. I've always wanted to make a crumble cake ever since I found out about them, so this is one thing ticked off my wishlist. The topping also has cinnamon- I love cinnamon! Wait, should that be reason number 4?
   4. CC's introductory words about them. I quote: "This could be just about the best cake in the world. It’s more than a cake, sort of a cake/dessert hybrid – and if I haven’t caught your attention with a statement like that, then what are you doing on this site in the first place?"
   5. I was attracted to the step which involves whisking the eggs and sugar until it 'soufflés up' to 4 or 5 times its size. I love steps that involve whisking sugar and eggs. It's divine!
   6. It involves melted butter. I have no idea why this is a reason, since I didn't even use pure butter. Whoops.

   I also took down some notes while making the first cake, so I'll put them here. Hopefully they'll be useful in the future when I make them again.

   1. You're supposed to whisk the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer, because it'll take at least 10 minutes for the mixture to get to 4 or 5 times its original volume. I used a handheld electric mixer, and it took me nearly 25 minutes (with 4 or 5 30-second breaks in between). My hand got really stiff, and I was afraid the motor would heat up too much and blow up, but it didn't and the end result was worth it. I was right about reason number 5. 

   2. After the batter was ready, I started preparing  the apples, before which the batter was quite runny, like CC said it would be. When I was ready to pour the batter into the pan, discovered that it had thickened up, and even had bubbles which reminded me of a yeasted (if that is even a word) dough. I'm not sure if this was supposed to happen, but I poured into the pan and arranged the apples on top.
   3. (The cake is now out from the oven) I baked the cake at 175C. It's supposed to be baked for about 1.5 hours. At the 30th minute, I thought the top already looked nice and brown, and since I was afraid of burning it and there was still along way to go, I reduced the temperature to 150C. At the 45th minute, the cake looked ready and had even over-browned. I held myself from checking since there was still at least 0.5 hours to go. However, I checked it after another 10 minutes and no crumbs stuck to the knife I inserted. I think it was actually ready at the 40th minute. I wonder why, but after thinking about it, I think it was because the batter that went into the pan wasn't quite runny, and in fact I didn't have any trouble arranging the apples on top or worry that they would sink into the cake. So I suppose a runnier batter calls for a longer cooking time? (shrugs).

I'm looking for a way to make sure the  inside gets cooked without  overbaking the outer part of the cake. 

   Serve the cake with some lovely homemade Devonshire cream.

   [Click HERE for original recipe]

   Thank you CC, for such a lovely recipe! I've yet to produce a truly satisfying cake (which hereby refers to a cake that is both fully cooked inside without being overbaked on the outside- so far I've only managed either one), but so far the ones I've made have been gulped down so fast I wonder I wasn't sick!

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake

   What a name! Though I don't really fancy it, the person who posted the recipe (the Kitchen Guardian, whose blog is lovely) asked that we name the cake as it is, so Devil's Food Chocolate Cake it is. I've made this cake two times. The first one looked a total mess that I named it Chocolate Mess Cake, but it tasted lovely. I followed the proper measurements for the cake, but as I only had 100g cream cheese (the recipe calls for 250g) I made some adjustments. The same goes for the chocolate ganache, which I halved but later wish I hadn't. Hehe.


   This cake turned out to be even more popular than the red velvet cake. I made it at 12 a.m. and chilled it overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I managed to eat one slice before going for my driving class. When I came back, only a very thin slice remained! I decided that the next time I made it, I'd make two cakes so that the result would be taller- which means that you can cut thinner slices so that everyone can have several goes at eating it instead of just once or twice.


   This is the first cake. Just two layers since I only made one cake. I only put 5 tablespoons sugar to the 100g cream cheese so it was a little sour, but I still liked it. I divided the batter into two and baked each layer separately because I didn't want the bother of having to cut the cake in two later. By some fortunate or unfortunate incident, I accidentally baked the first layer at 110C instead of 160C, so it took longer to bake but somehow yielded a lovely, moist texture. (The photo below's not that good, but I think you can see that the top layer is slightly moister).

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 1
You don't want to see the whole cake. You really don't.

      Then, Littlest Brother requested that I made the cake for his birthday. So we went to Tesco and got some more cream cheese. Since it was already a few weeks after Raya, they'd restocked most of the supplies and I found quite a number of different brands for cream cheese. As usual, of course, I wanted to find one with an establised and recognised Halal logo, and found two- the KRAFT Philadelphia cream cheese which is what we usually get, and another brand named Tatura, which comes from Australia. The Tature one was much cheaper, 250g for about RM 7.99 while the Philadelphia cheese was priced at nearly RM 12.00. So I bought two of the Tatura cheese. They look like this:


    When we got home, I started making the cake. I knew it was about to become one of my nocturnal baking adventures since I planned to make two cakes, wait for them to cool and frost them, etc. This time I followed the recipe exactly, because I planned to use one batch of chocolate ganache and cream cheese frosting for two cakes. 


   I actualy planned to make four layers out of the two cakes, but I made a mistake when I divided the batter... long story... so instead I ended up with three layers. Which was good anyway since there would not have been enough frosting and ganache! Frosting the cake was messy, I didn't have a proper cake stand, but I had an idea that if I spread the cream cheese and chilled it in the fridge for a while first so that it'd firm up a bit, I wouldn't have so much trouble spreading the ganache on top (like I did with the first cake). It worked, but I think next time I'll make the cake earlier during the day, and do the frosting and layering at night so that I'll have more time for chilling the cake. 


   Anyway, here is the recipe. I first found it in Kak Rima's blog, who had Kak Edi from Adorable Cupcakes recommend it to her, who in turn took it from the Kitchen Guardian, who took it from a book called Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. Phewwh! That was long. KG requested that we give the proper credits, which I hope I've done correctly. Shelly Kaldunski, is, by the way a food consultant for Martha Stewart Living. No wonder it's such a good recipe!


Devil's Food Chocolate Cake
links to original recipe: here, here and here


Cake: 
(I made 2 cakes)


1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder 
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons (about 65 gram) butter 
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
1/4 cup buttermilk (or fresh milk with a few drops of lemon juice/distilled vinegar)
1/2 cup warm water (I used 1/4 warm water and 1/4 milk)

Grease and line cake tin with baking paper. (I used a 7-inch cake tin)
Sieve flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, salt in one bowl.
Beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined.
Add dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder etc) alternately with liquid ingredients (buttermilk + warm water) in three portions.
Add vanilla extract/essence. Mix until well combined.
Bake for about 30 minutes at 160C or until just cooked. 

Cream Cheese Frosting
250 g cream cheese, room temp (I used Tatura cream cheese)
125 g butter, room temp
3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted (I reduce the amount from 1 cup so that we could taste the cheese)
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
a few drops of lemon juice, optional

Beat cream cheese and butter, just until creamy. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until well combined.


Chocolate Ganache
3/4 cup non-dairy whipping cream (original: 200 ml double cream with at least 30% fat content)
200 g dark chocolate, chopped (original 250g)
a pinch of salt (which I didn't put)

Heat cream until just at boiling point. Add chocolate (and salt) and stir. Remove from heat when chocolate has melted and continue stirring until well mixed. Leave to cool.

Cool cake completely, spread the cream cheese frosting and pour cooled ganache on top. Make sure the ganache is cool but still pourable, if you leave it for too long it'll get really thick and becomes a little difficult to spread.


Chill cake overnight in the refrigerator. This is what I did because we prefer cakes that come out of the fridge nice and cold. I think it also allows some time for the ganache and cheese to be absorbed into the cake for a bit, which helps to make it even moister. Yum!


   This is what it looks like from the outside. You can see that I've a lot to improve in my cake frosting skills. The bits of paper that you see underneath was an attempt to utilise this tip I learned which says that you can slip long strips of paper under the cake (about three strips) which you can later remove after you've finished frosting. This will help to reduce the mess, but it didn't work because the paper stuck fast under the cake!

   This is what it looks like from the inside. (Oooppss I forgot to remove the baking paper). Three layers! I think this is the best cake I've made yet.

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 2
Oh my God, what is that on top of the cake???
Oh. An extra large cake crumb. Thank goodness.

   I can't wait to make it again! Maybe when Big Sister comes home for the weekend?