Mango Rose Tart.

Gloomy. 
I don't know why I'm feeling gloomy. Like the weather. 

Probably it's because my school is starting soon.

OMG.


I'm probably having pre-exam-school depression. 
I hated going to school since young. Actually I hate exams. I get the jitters all around because I know the moment I step in the exam hall my mind is all blank. SIGH. 


Actually I feel excited as well. Mix feelings.

Anyway, I'm not going to talk about this first. It's not important. 

I made this tart over the weekend. 
It's using my basic shortcrust pastry (kindly change all to plain flour) for the base and pastry cream for the filling. 
The toppings are mangos. I made a BIG flower. 


Does it look like a flower?!
If you say no I'm going to kill you.

I'm just saying. 

Oh yes, by the way Happy Birthday to everyone born in June.
And Happy Father's day.




Mango Tart
Yields: 9 inch tart

Tart Base :

200grams plain flour
2 teaspoon castor sugar
7 tablespoon - 100grams cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1 egg yolk + 3 tablespoon water
A pinch of salt
A little egg white for brushing the shell

Pastry Cream:

1 2/3 cup - 400ml full cream milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla Bean Paste
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup - 100grams sugar
2 tablespoon cake flour
2 tablespoon corn flour
100ml whipping cream

Topping: 

2 to 3 sweet ripe mangos

Method:

Tart Base:

In a large bowl, combine both flour, sugar and salt. Mix well.
Add in butter and using your finger tips or pastry cutter, rub until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the egg yolk mixture and combine using your hands to form into a dough.
Wrap the dough in a cling wrap and chill for about 1 to 2 hours. 
Remove the dough from fridge and roll out your dough in between baking paper
Roll out your dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and slightly larger then the tart pan.
Transfer the dough over to the tart pan and trim off the edges.
Chill again for another 15 minutes. 
Preheat oven to 350F/180C.
Prick your tart base with a fork and blind bake for 20 minutes. 
Remove from oven and brush with a layer of egg white on partially bake tart shells and bake another 15 minutes uncovered. 
Remove from oven and let set aside to let cool. 

Pastry Cream:

Pastry Cream:

In a medium pot, pour milk and turn fire on low heat.
When it begins to boil, turn off fire. (You will know when the side starts forming little bubbles)
In another medium heatproof bowl, light beat egg yolks and add in sugar. 
Using a balloon whisk or a normal whisk, beat the mixture together until light in colour.
Combine the cake flour and corn flour and sieve together. 
Add in to egg yolk mixture and combine.
Gradually add the slightly cooled milk in 3 to 4 addition to egg yolk mixture and stir thoroughly. 
(Add in slowly to avoid cooking the eggs!)
Strain the egg yolk mixture back to the pot.
Over low heat, stir quickly but slowly to let the mixture thicken. (It should take about 3 minutes)
**You have to stir very quickly as this is very important to not let the eggs be cooked or burn the bottom 
When it begins to form bubble at the sides, remove from heat and transfer to a flat tray beneath a ice bath.
Once cooled, cover the pastry cream with cling wrap touching the cream. 
The reason for doing this is to prevent a crust from forming. 
Store it in the fridge as soon as possible as pastry cream spoils fast. 
This pastry cream can be done a day in advance.

Assembly:

Whip the 100ml whipping cream to stiff peaks and fold into the pastry cream until combined.
Spread or pipe the pastry cream onto the cool tart shell. 
Slice mangos into thin strips. 
Starting from the inside of the tart, overlap your mangos each onto other to form a rose shape or you may decorate whatever you want. 
Place in the fridge for another hour and serve chill. 

Banana Nutella Swirl Bread.

Anything with Nutella is never wrong. 

They won't go wrong, how can that possibly be right?
And the addition of banana.

Yummy.

As I was typing Nutella, the computer actually suggested another word. 

WHAT? You mean Nutella doesn't exist in the dictionary? 
This is pathetic.


Just saying.

Anyway, this banana bread is fantastic.

Moist, soft, fluffy.

................................

with Nutella. 

I use the overripe bananas who people always think that it's too disgusting to be consumed.

Let me tell you something, you are so wrong.

You can use the bananas to make it into a cake, or bread. Or cupcakes.

Or, whatever you can think of.

Never waste these precious. They make the best out of dessert!

Nutella Banana Bread

Yields: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

1 cup + 9 tablespoon - 200grams all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt 

2 eggs, room temperature

6 tablespoon - 85grams butter, melted and cool

5/8 cup - 120grams brown sugar

1/4 cup - 60ml milk

3 bananas, mashed until no lumps

3/4 cup - 85grams nutella 

1 teaspoon rum or vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Grease a loaf pan with butter. 

In a medium bowl, combine butter, sugar, milk, eggs and rum. Mix until just combine. 

In another bowl, combine flour, baking soda, powder and salt.

Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix just until smooth.

Add mashed bananas into batter and mix until just combined.

Place nutella on heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water and stir until it becomes runny.

Alternatively, you may microwave about 20 seconds to soften it. 

Take about 2/3 of the nutella and drizzle over the banana batter. 

Gently fold the nutella using a spatula. Do not over mix.

Carefully pour batter onto prepared grease pan evenly so that the swirl will be even. 

Add the remaining nutella and swirl the batter again.

Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, depending on your oven. 

Remove from oven and let cool on wire rack before serving. 

Or just eat them warm.

FANTASTIC.

By: Black Baker

Apple Crumble with Vanilla Sauce. A comforting food for your soul!

I have alot of comforting food on my mind. Especially when it rains. (Or even if it doesn't, but it does especially when it's raining.)

Cinnamon Rolls, Chocolate cake, Cheesecake, Ice cream..  My mind is corrupted by all this food. I can even smell it in the back of my mind ( Does that even sounds right???!)

Ok nevermind. Everyone have weird thoughts.

It's a Sunny day today. Looking out of the window, noticing how beautiful the place is, I snapped some photos.

The haze was quite bad over here actually.. But somehow it was quite good that day. 

This tree is going to be chopped off soon. It's going to be so bare.. There's good and bad.
Good because the view is unblocked, bad because... I don't know what's really bad actually. Just that the tree is coming down after sucha long time here. 


Ok, back to here. I love Vanilla sauce. Sweet and with a hinge of vanilla in your tongue. So tempting and delicious. And it goes so well with my Apple Crumble. I think I had too much of that I get bloated. 

So, this is quite easy.. You just prepare all the ingredients needed. Slice the apples, prepare the crumble. Coat your apple with some cinnamon sugar..

And cover the crumble over the apple. And off you go into the oven.

Bake in oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown.

Meanwhile, prepare your Vanilla Sauce. (I didn't have time to take photo for the Vanilla Sauce)

Violaaaa!!

You must be wondering why it's so flat. Because I was using a pie dish. 

Apple Crumble need to be eaten hot and fresh on that day itself. Because of the crumble. Wouldn't taste so nice on the next day of course. 

Yummy. Right after the photos, this goes into my tummy.
Yummified.

Satisfied.

Apple Crumble with Vanilla Sauce. 

Ingredients for the cumble:

1 cup plus 1 tablespoon - 100grams cake flour 
1/4 cup - 50grams granulated white sugar 
80grams unsalted butter
Pinch of salt

Ingredients for filling:

2 Apples (Peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch pieces)
1 1/2 - 2 tablespoon granulated white sugar
1/2 tsp cinnnamon powder

Ingredients for Vanilla Sauce:

1 Egg
3 tablespoon granulated white sugar
Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon corn flour
1 cup - 250ml milk
Seed from 1/4 pod of vanilla
2 tablespoon - 28grams unsalted butter


Method:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/180 degrees C.
Brush the pan with butter.
Make the crumble by rubbing the butter, flour, sugar and salt together until it resemble coarse crumbs.
Set aside.
Make the filling by mixing the 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar and cinnamon together.
Place the apple into the pan and sprinkle the sugar mixture over the apple.
Cover with the crumble. 
Bake in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until golden brown.
While waiting for the crumble, prepare the sauce.
Put the eggs, sugar, both of the flour into the saucepan, whisk till combine.
Heat the milk into the microwave for 1 - 1.30 minutes or until heated through. 
Pour into the egg mixture slowly, whisking all the time. (You do not want to have scramble eggs)
Place the sauce pan over low heat and let the mixture come to a boil (whisking all the time), until the mixture thicken abit.
Take off the heat and add the butter, whisking slowly until the butter melted. 
Pour sauce into a jug and now you are ready to serve!

Fruit Tart. Sweet and nice!

Seems like January is a birthday month to me. Have been doing 3 birthday bakes and one more coming along .. But I don't mind because I love to bake and I can learn alot of things.. hehehe. I hope everyday I can bake something everyday if I could. Anyway this fruit tart consist of pastry cream. This pastry cream is adapted from a cooking book by ....  I like pastry cream alot. You can use it in alot of bake goods like tarts, elcair, bread or cake.. It's sweet and taste like custard. Who doesn't love custard? 

18cm tart pan

(Serves 9)

Tart Base:

180g plain flour 

90g unsalted butter

pinch of salt

2 tsp sugar

2 to 3 tbsp water + one egg yolk 

1 tsp vanilla essence

Egg white for brushing

Pastry Cream:

10g pastry flour

10g corn flour

40grams butter

pinch of salt

15g sugar

200g milk

1/2 vanilla bean, scraped from vanilla bean pod

45g egg yolk (I use about 3)

70grams milk

50grams sugar

Some whipped cream

Topping:

Fresh fruits of your choice

Method:

Mix flour, salt and sugar together in a bowl. 

Rub in butter until it resembles fine crumbs. 

Add in egg yolk mixture and vanilla essence to form a dough. 

Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill for an hour.

Take dough our from fridge and roll out dough bigger then your tart pan.

Transfer to tart pan and cut out excess dough.

Chill again for another 15 minutes. Preheat your oven to 180C.

Blind bake the pastry for 20 minutes. Remove tart from oven and brush egg white over and bake for another 15 minutes till golden brown and leave to cool.

Pastry Cream (Custard cream):

Sift corn flour and pastry flour and set aside.

In a saucepan, mix together 200 grams of milk, butter, 20grams sugar, salt and vanilla bean and place saucepan over medium heat.

Stir till butter and sugar is dissolved.

Switch off fire and set aside. 

In a bowl, mix 50 grams sugar and egg yolk. 

Using a hand whisk, whisk till mixture is light in colour.

Add flour mixture and mix evenly. Add in 50 grams milk and mix together. 

Pour butter mixture into egg yolk mixture slowly.

Pour mixture using sieve into another saucepan.

Over medium heat, stir vigourously until mixture becomes thickened and custard like. You will notice bubble popping out from the saucepan. 

Pour custard into a clean bowl. Using ice bath, place custard mixture over the bowl and stir until custard becomes cold. Be careful not to let water get in as it will spoil the custard. 

Keep it refrigerated. Custard cream can be keep for two days in fridge.

Assemble:

Whip up some whipping cream till stiff peaks.

Take out custard cream from fridge and fold whipped cream together.

Pipe custard cream into tart base and decorate with fruits.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Tart with Caramelized Bananas.

Feather light chocolate mousse with pie crust topped with caramelized bananas? How does that sound?? I like it alot. I did it for one of my friend's birthday.. I love chocolate. Especially when you can have alot and you don't feel sinful. hehehe.. The caramelized bananas is good.. very addicitive. Very nice to have it with a cup of coffee or tea..

Chocolate tart with Caramelized Bananas
Makes one 8 inch pie

Base:

150g plain flour
70g butter
1 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp corn oil
1 medium egg yolk
1 tsp rum extract

Filling:

100g dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces (60%)
50ml whipping cream
2tbsp orange liquor
2 medium egg whites
40g fine brown sugar
1/4 portion whipped cream from below

200ml whipping cream + 1tbsp sugar
1tsp gelatin powder + 1tbsp water (combined together and warm up till gelatin melts)
**Whisk cream and sugar till soft peak, add in melted gelatin and whisk till stiff

Caramelized bananas:

2 medium size bananas
Brown sugar

Tart base:

Rub flour and butter together until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. 
Sift in cocoa powder and icing sugar. 
Mix well before stirring in the corn oil, followed by egg yolk and rum until the dough comes together.
If mixture is too dry, add 1 tbsp cold water.
Wrap dough in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

**Do not overknead the dough. Quickly combine all the pastry ingredient together to form a dough

Roll out the dough into a thin sheet.(slightly bigger then tart pan) and cover the dough sheet over the tart pan.
Fit and trim the pastry, prick the base with a fork and chill again for another 15 minutes.
Blind bake the pastry base for 15 minutes in preheated oven at 190C.
Remove foil and bake further for 10 minutes or till base is cooked. 
Set aside to cool while you prepare the filling.

Caramelized bananas:

Slice bananas into 2 cm thick. 
Place sugar in pot over medium heat and let it turn slightly brown.
Add bananas and cooked till bananas caramelized.

Filling:

Warm up the whipping cream and pour over the dark chocolate. 
Stir till chocolate is completely melted. 
Set aside to cool before mixing in orange liquor. Fold 1/4 of whipped cream into the chocolate. (keep remaining whipped cream in fridge.)
Combine egg whites and brown sugar in a bowl and place over a pot of simmering water without touching the base of the bowl. 
Beat egg whites for about 1 to 2 minutes using wired whisk. (be careful not to cook the eggs)
Remove the bowl from hot water and whisk the egg whites using electric mixer till stiff peaks.
Fold 1/3 of the whites into the chocolate mixture, then fold in the remaining whites.
Spoon the chocolate filling into tart shell. Chill in the fridge for an hour to partially set the chocolate.
Remove tart from fridge. Spoon or pipe the whipped cream over chocolate mixture and top with caramelized bananas. Chill in fridge for another 1 hour before serving.

**This tart is best eaten on the day itself as bananas left overnight will turn dark the next day.

Orange Chiffon

I won't say Chiffon is hard to make.. Neither will I say it is easy.. You have to fold the egg whites very properly otherwise there will be alot of ugly holes.. I tried three times and fail and failed three times. When I really wanted to give up I tried again. And this time it works! You really have to have patience with this simple yet ''not so simple'' cake. hehehe.

Orange Chiffon
For a 21cm chiffon tin.
Adapted from Kitchen Tigress

60 g egg yolks (about 3 yolks)

50 g castor sugar

80 g corn oil

65 g orange juice

100 g cake flour (sift together with baking powder)

¾ tsp double-acting baking powder

¼ tsp salt

15 g finely grated orange zest

180 g egg whites (about 4 whites)

⅓ tsp cream of tartar

50 g castor sugar  Preheat oven to 200°C.  Whisk egg yolks and 50 g castor sugar till thick and pale. Add corn oil. Whisk till thick again, like mayonnaise. Add orange juice. Whisk till evenly mixed.  Re-sift sifted cake flour and baking powder into bowl.  Add salt and orange zest. Mix till just even. Set aside.  Thoroughly wash whisk.

Whisk egg whites till very frothy. Add cream of tartar. Keep whisking till egg whites are thick. Gradually add 50 g castor sugar whilst continuing to whisk.  Keep whisking till egg whites reach firm peak stage.  Add to yolk mixture in 3 batches.  Mix with whisk till almost even after each  addition.  Scrape down thoroughly with spatula. Fold till just evenly mixed.  Bang bowl against  worktop 2-3 times to remove big air bubbles in batter. Pour batter into 21 cm  loose-bottomed chiffon pan that's not non-stick, slowly so that  big air bubbles burst as they flow out of bowl. Level batter with  spatula. Run chopstick around sides of pan and knock pan 2-3 times against worktop to get rid of more big air bubbles. Place cake in bottom of oven. Reduce temperature to 180°C. Bake till cake is level with pan and slightly golden brown, about 20 minutes.  Place baking tray in top of oven to block heat from top of oven. Continue baking till cake is brown and slightly springy when pressed, another 20-25 minutes, rotating as necessary so that cake browns evenly.  Remove cake from oven.  Invert and rest cake elevated from worktop. Leave till cool.   Unmould by cutting cake out of pan.