Sad to say, there has been nothing new in my repertoire lately. Have been catering to the same old same old. Last weekend, I had to prepare the Roast Duck Pasta for a friend's housewarming, together with a salad, mee siam (which the maid made), lemon meringue pie, AND, I experimented with a moist yoghurt chocolate cake, (as in there's yoghurt in the cake), and inspired by masak masak's review of the zangtoi choc banana cake, attempted to intersperse the chocolate cake with layers of banana and chocolate cream, and topped with a chocolate sauce. Again, I forgot to take pictures. But I did get a shot of the host and the birthday girl, with the cake. It doesn't say very much though.
Now, I found the the chocolate cake a tad dry, but that might be because I got the corners. The inside parts were better. I don't know if people were being polite or what, but generally the reviews were good. And it was finished. Then again, there were 30 people.
Samples of Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting, (from top, clockwise), sticky toffee date pudding, and banana walnut loaf. Might not be able to get a sense of scale here, but the loaves are quite small. Maybe 6" x 2 1/2 ".
I have to say that the sticky date pudding is rather good. It would be better served warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
I recently bought a large bag of walnuts from Chang Tung. During the Raya period, there seemed to be a nationwide shortage of walnuts, which I needed for the carrot cakes, so I ended up buying them at Carrefour, at RM48 per kg. It's a lot a cheaper at the bake shops, I think it's like RM39 per kg at Chang Tung. It was still out of stock in Bake With Yen last week. Anyway, I then researched the internet, as I was snacking on them, (the walnuts) to see if they are good or bad. Turns out, it seems to be a miracle nut. Omega fatty acids, good for heart, bla bla bla....So, I've been embellishing my lunchtime salads with them, liberally. Yesterday, I was at a friend's raya open house. Now, when I first laid eyes on these technicolor kaleidescopey layered cake, I was thinking, aiyo, looks terrible. But I have to say, one bite dispelled all doubt. They were rather delectable, with various flavours assaulting the palate. Since there were lots of other guests, I didn't bother putting them on a plate and photographing them.
8 comments:
finally, an update! glad to see you've been keeping busy :) i usually make a test baby cake too, in a little metal bowl, kinda like a large cupcake. am too paranoid to send out any cake untested!
btw, bake with yen was STILL out of walnuts, as at lunchtime today. chang thung must be getting lots of only-source-of-walnut business!
The technicolor layered cakes look extremely unique. I share your love for cakes and am always intrigued about amusing 'Cake trivia'-Have a look and tell me what u think?
yar, but the problem with test cakes...aiyo, so fattening right. and also, it only works for whole cakes. cant do it for cheese cakes, or rather, too mah fan, or any layered cakes.
cybercasey, very cute, your trivia site. thanks for dropping by.
Throw some test cakes my way pls? Another problem abt testing is sometimes it's best to use the original measurements as you can adjust items better. How's the Martha Stewart cookbook coming along? I want to test something from it, any suggestions?
yar, boo, i know what you mean, coz for the test cake, you need to do 1 1/3rd quantity kinda thing...and if the original recipe has four eggs, how? do you use 1 or 2 extra eggs?
no problem sending the test cakes your way. will bear in mind the next time i make em.
martha's books are suchhhhhhhh a pain, coz its not metric. 1 cup butter!!! roll eyes....how to measure? i managed to get the relevant conversions, but its a pain. so no, i havent tried any of her recipes. the bad thing about baking for orders is that there's no time for experimenting anymore.
Your blog is awesome - lots of useful info about baking esp. I would like to know where is Chang Tung? Been buying walnut by 120gms tubs at Village Grocer at RM7.20.. nearly dbl of that at Chang Tung.. Thanks.
hey diary of kay el, thanks for the comps.
chang tung (the one i go to) is along the same row as bake with yen, la manila, and fatty crab, in taman mega. and yes, walnuts are much cheaper compared to the village grocer or bsc ones, at 7.20 for 120gms. bake with yen's are even cheaper, only about RM36 a kg, but chang tung has the premium variety, which is about RM40 per kg. still cheap.
Love your blog!
And gawd, is that fluorescent green in that cake! Looks almost radioactive man!
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