Lychee Lime Yogurt Mousse Cake 荔枝青柠慕斯蛋糕

Yesterday I made a mousse cake again for my sister's Birthday today since she prefer a mousse cake, like the strawberry mousse cake I made for her last year. This time I changed to new flavours, I made a lychee and lime yogurt mousse cake. I hope she will like this new flavours, anyway, my youngest sister already bookmarked this cake and asked me to make for her next month ^_^

This is the Lychee Lime mousse cake that I made for my sister..a bit short because I use some to made into another 4 small cake..



Because I wanted to try out these small new cake rings..

I suggest to use better quality of canned Lychee, with big and white lychee..

I adapted the recipe from Jane with my own modification where I added key limes (remind of the nice Lychee and Lime soda drink I prepared earlier). She recommended to use special biscuit sponge that adapted from Okashi's book in fact this is the right choice, this sponge is firm to handle,  and the taste is a bit sweet so just perfect to match with slight less sweet mousse (next time I will add some sugar into mousse as I prefer slightly sweet). Ya, I also omitted the egg white as I afraid kids can't stand with raw egg white. And next time I also want to increase amount of lychee and reduce syrup because the mousse batter is a bit watery. Also I pipe batter into cake disc instead of bake in a normal cake pan.

Lychee Lime Yogurt Mousse Cake 荔枝青柠慕斯蛋糕

*makes a 8” cake

Special Biscuit Sponge

(recipe adapted from Okashi by Keiko Ishida book)

 20g Top flour or cake flour

 10g corn flour
 18g unsalted butter, melted
 45g egg whites
 40g caster sugar
 40g egg yolks

 Method:

1.Preheat oven to 200C.
2.Line a baking sheet with non-stick baking paper or a 8” round cake pan with baking paper.
3.Combine Top flour and corn flour.
4.Beat egg whites with an electric mixer until foamy. Add sugar to egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form.
5.Add egg yolks and beat until combine.
6.Sift flours into egg mixture with spatula.
7.Pour melted butter into batter and fold well.
8. Pipe the batter on a lined baking sheet or pour batter into cake pan (if using cake pan)

9.Bake for 12-15 mins. Cool completely and remove cake disc from the baking sheet or cut out a 8” round cake disc.
10.Place the cake disc on a 8” cake ring or a 8” removable bottom cake pan.If using cake ring, leave cake in the cake ring and cover bottom of cake with cling film and a stainless steel tray. If using removable bottom cake cake, just set aside.

Lychee Lime yogurt mousse

(recipe adapted from Jane’s corner with my own modification)

2 Canned lychee  ( you will have some leftover)

60g sugar (add this if you prefer sweeter or adjust accordingly)
200g whipping cream
120g plain natural yogurt
20g gelatine powder
4tbsp water
3 key limes zest , 1tsp lime juices

Method:

1.Open lychee can and leave aside 8 pieces of lychees for decoration(your choice of number of lychee).
2.Weight the rest of lychees plus syrup to 700g (I use 18pcs lychee + syrup, next time I will  increase number of lychee and reduce syrup). Process them in a food processor, strain lychee puree, weight lychee puree 300g for jelly topping and set aside for later use. Blend the lychee bits (lychee bits after strained the puree) again with a blender until fine, add back to the balance lychee puree, and weight 400g for mousse making.

3.Add sugar into 400g lychee puree, stir to dissolved. Mix lychee puree with key limes zest,lime juices and yogurt in a mixing bowl, set aside.

4.Melt gelatine with water over simmering water, set aside to let it cool down.

5.Beat whipping cream until soft peak

6.Fold in whipping cream into lychee yogurt mixture and at last add in gelatine to mix well.

7.Pour into cake ring or cake pan and refrigerate for 2 hours

To prepare Jelly Topping & assemble the mousse cake

300g of above strained lychee puree

30g caster sugar (add this if you prefer sweeter or adjust accordingly)

10g gelatine powder
2tbsp hot water
Pink rose colouring (I use Wilton Rose)

Method:

1.Melt gelatine powder over simmering water. Leave to cool.
2.Mix sugar with lychee puree, stir to dissolved. Add gelatine and pink coloring. Pour on top of lychee mousse layer.

3.Refrigerate for another 3hours or overnight. Remove mousse cake from cake ring or cake pan by heating the side of the pan using a hair dryer. Decorate with lychee, cream, lime slices or etc as per your desired.

This mousse cake is so refreshing and now is the best time to enjoy it since weather is so hot now.. 



Fondant covered cake 翻糖蛋糕 (拜天公)

While i am still compiling all the entries sent to me during CNY (because i have no time sitting in front of the computer for past 2 weeks ^_^), let me share my 1st fondant covered caked first.
Every CNY day 9 when "Pai Tin Kong (a praying ceremony to God for Hokkien peoples) , i am sure bake a cake and bring back to my mom's place to Pai Tin Kong together..This year, in order to make the butter cake look nicer, i covered it with fondant and this was my 1st cake covered with fondant..

First, i baked a marble butter cake using an old recipe, check recipe here.

After checked few youtube videos, i was very braved and tried out my first cake that covered with fondant..And it is not as difficult to handle as i expected..
I did not apply a layer of buttercream before cover with fondant (feel lazy to make the buttercream, hehehe)..

trim the excess gam paste using a pizza cutter..

you can just brush water on the fondant and you can easily stick it on the fondant base, but remember not to brush water on the whole fondant base, because water will not dry at those area without placing with fondant..This was happened to my cake, i simply brush water on a large part of fondant base, and stick the flower fondants, but later realized that those area without placing with fondant still wet and can not dry up.

my daughter helping me on the wording using gum paste

we also made mandarin oranges and "chin yen bao"

why not next CNY you also make one ? ^_^  ^_^

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover


 

Roselle Cheesecake 洛神花乳酪蛋糕

This was my 1st time experimented with Roselle ( some may called as Hibiscus or Ribena flowers). I made this Roselle cheesecake about a month ago, at that time, wet maket was flooded with a lot of fresh Roselle. I saw many bloggers made into Roselle jam or syrup. But for me, when i saw Roselle in the market, remind me of the nice and crunchy picked Roselle that i ate from a piece of expensive (RM30 for a slice) Raspberry Pistachio Cheesecake during my trip to Melbourne. Instead of using expensive and imported raspberries, i replaced it with Roselle in this cheesecake.

In fact, I wanted to make this cake again before i post it here. I want to re-confirm the amount of all ingredients as I was busy when making this cheesecake, no proper record down the exact amount of ingredients and also no time to take photos of the steps and even a photo of the fresh Roselle. But too bad, when i want to make this cake again, i can't find any Roselle in the market anymore. 

My daughter said the Roselle filling tasted similar like blueberry..I feel the filling is a bit thick, next time i want to use the filling recipe and make it to a layer of Roselle jelly instead.

But the pickled roselle worth a try, because it was crunchy, tangy and sweet.

For this recipe, not all amount of the ingredients are accurate recorded, especially the amount of water..When i make this cake again next time, i will revise this recipe.

Roselle Cheesecake 洛神花乳酪蛋糕
(recipe source: by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover)

Pickled Roselle in Syrup 蜜汁洛神花
10 Roselle, cleaned, removed seeds and keep the petals
1 fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

10 Roselle, cleaned, removed seeds and keep the whole Roselle

Method
1. Add Roselle petals, lemon juices, sugar and water in a saucepan.
2. Boil over medium heat for 10mins, discard Roselle petals and retain the syrup.
3. Once syrup has cooled, pour into a glass jar, add in fresh Roselle, cover and keep in the fridge for 2-3 days.
4. Remove pickled Roselle for decorate the cheesecake, and use Roselle syrup to make cordial.


Roselle filling
60g Roselle
60g sugar
180g water (you may need to adjust accordingly)

1/4cup water (you may need to adjust accordingly)
1tbsp corn flour or corn starch

Method
1. Mix Roselle, sugar and water in a saucepan, cook over low heat for 1hour until Roselle turned soft, stir from time to time to prevent burnt.
2. Blend the Roselle jam using a hand blender till fine.
3. Transfer back to a saucepan, add in 1/4cup water, stir till mix well.
4. Add in corn flour to thicken the Roselle filling.
5. Set aside to cool.

To assemble Roselle Cheesecake

One quantity of baked cheesecake- refer recipe here (I halved the recipe to make a 6” cake)
Roasted pistachio, chopped
Roselle filling
Pickled Roselle
whipped cream

Method- Spread Roselle filling on top of the cake. Then frost the sides of the cake with whipped cream, pat with chopped pistachio. Arrange pickled Roselle on top.

Sarawak Black Cake (Kek Serikaya or Kek Hitam) 砂劳越黑蛋糕

After i made Kaya, the first thing came into my mind is to make this famous Sarawak Black Cake. I received two bottles of gula hitam (a special browning sugar for black cake) from a reader (Thanks to Angeline) few months back. 

When i try to take these pictures just now, sky was dark with heavy rain, very poor lighting this time and it was so difficult to take picture with very dark and black cake ^_^..



This is the gula hitam

Recipe adapted from Mui Mui aka My Little Favourite DIY. See so many ingredients in this recipe..i could not find Nestle cream that used by Mui Mui, instead i replaced it with dairy whipping cream.

Not sure why the batter became curdle..

After mixed with flour, the batter become smooth, but the colour still not look dark at this stage..

After steamed, cake colour changed to very dark. In order for this black cake look more attractive, i sprinkle with silver beads

I have never eaten this cake before, if you asked how this cake taste like, for me, it taste quite close to "dodol" and a bit bitter caramel taste, not that over sweet and this cake is very moist but a bit oily..

It was tricky to handle gula hitam, the texture similar like maltose. When i added into batter, it was sticking to the whisk and i have hard time to mix it well with batter..I think should add some hot water to dilute gula hitam before adding into cake batter..

I halved the recipe and made a small cake instead..

Sarawak Black Cake (Kek Serikaya or Kek Hitam) 砂劳越黑蛋糕

(recipe source: adapted from My Little Favourite DIY who adapted from Mrs EG, with minor changes)
*makes a 7” square cake

173g unsalted butter
60g sugar
110g plain flour
4 eggs (large)
50g condense milk
60g Horlick
50g dairy whipping cream
90g kaya (i used homemade kaya)
70g gula hitam
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Method
1. Grease and lined parchment paper on a 7" square baking tray. Allow extra parchment paper or baking paper over hang on both side of the baking tray.
2. Beat butter and sugar till pale. Add in egg one at a time, beating till each combine well.
3. Beat in condensed milk, whipping cream and kaya till well combine. Then add in gula hitam.
4. Fold in Horlick, cocoa powder and flour and mixed well.
5. Pour mixture into the prepared baking tray. Cover the cake loose with a piece of aluminium foil to prevent (condensation) water from dripping into the cake.
6. Steam over medium high heat for 2 hours in a steamer or wok. Do check water level regularly and replenish when necessary.

Light cheddar cheesecake 车打芝士蛋糕

When i saw Honey Bee Sweet baked this light cheddar cheesecake, remind me that i have so long did not bake this cake. When i started my blog in 2008, i was totally new in baking, the only cake i know how to bake was plain butter cake..and the 1st cheesecake was this cheddar cheesecake which is a very popular recipe from 星厨房. And i just realized that i have never recorded this recipe in my blog before..So this time, i bake again and have it record in my blog. This is a very good cheesecake recipe, with few common ingredients, you can get a light, cottony, spongy and delish cheesecake..Thanks to Hsling for sharing such a great recipe.

Serve this cheddar cheesecake with chocolate fondue, very tasty wor..this was served in the recent Mid-Autumn BBQ party..

see so spongy and cottony of this cheddar cheesecake !!

My little tips to make a succes of this cheesecake:-
1. Beat egg white till stiff or at least close to stiff stage. Because we are using a cake pan that without any tube or insert at the middle (like chiffon pan)..
2. Bake at low temperature at lower rack, we do not want the cake rise too fast or too high and resulted cake deflated later. This cake will shrink a bit and go back to the same level of batter before baking, this is normal for a sponge cake.

Light cheddar cheesecake
(recipe source: adapted from Hsling, with minor changes on the step of preparing)
*makes a 8x8 square pan

6 slices of cheddar cheese
100g fresh milk
100g unsalted butter
6 egg yolks (large)
6 egg whites (large), cold from fridge
100g caster sugar
100g cake flour

Method
1. Place butter and tear up cheddar cheese slices in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, take a spatula and stir to melt, then add in milk and stir until all melted and mixed together. Set aside to cool slightly before use.
2. Lightly whisk the egg yolks in another mixing bowl. Ladle big spoonful of the cheese mixture into the egg yolks. Mix well and then add in the rest and combine well.
3. Sift in the cake flour into the egg yolk mixture and make sure no lumps.
4. Preheat the oven to 150C with a water bath (I place 5 small bowls water underneath). Grease and line (bottom and sides) the baking pan
5. In another mixing bowl, beat egg white till foamy. Gradually add in sugar and beat till stiff peaks or at least close to stiff.
6. Use a whisk, mix 1/3 of egg white mixture with cheese mixture, mix to combine and till light.
7. Gently fold in the balance egg white mixture with a spatula, mix well.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the surface.
9. Bake the cake in the oven for 60 minutes at lower rack or till the tester comes out clean.
10. Let cake sit inside the oven for 5mins with oven door ajar. Remove from oven, immediately remove cake from cake pan, cool on wire rack.

** I will be away for a family vacation the next whole week. I have prepared daily scheduled post about my recent Kyoto and Osaka trip..feel free to check it out later..Take good care and see you all soon..