Banana 'zebra' Chiffon Cake

I've been making this cake 2 time during last week, woow, never happen before that my hubby LOOOOVEEEES the cake so much

BANANA CHIFFON CAKE
7 yolks
100 gr palm sugar
175 gr all-purpose flour
100 gr ripe banana
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
80 ml vegetable oil
1 tsp banan essence or vanila extract or spekoek spice is work too
250 ml white eggs
100 gr powder sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of Tart-tar or lemon juice
2 tbsp fine chocolate powder or 1 tsp chocolate paste


Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 325F.

Cut a round of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan and cut out a hole in the middle to fit the center tube of the pan. This cake is baked in an ungreased pan because greasing the pan would keep the batter from rising and gripping the sides of the pan as the cake bakes.

Over a large piece of parchment paper or bowl sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder

With hand mixer mix sugar and yolks until dissolved very well. Adding the dry ingredients towards the side of the bowl. Add the banana mixture. Using a rubber spatula, stir together until thoroughly combined.

Place the egg whites in the grease free bowl of an electric mixer or in a large grease free bowl. Using the wire whip attachment or a hand held mixer, whip the egg whites on medium speed until they are frothy. Add the cream of tartar if using. Slowly sprinkle the sugar and continue whipping until the egg whites hold glossy and firm but not stiff, peaks, about 5 minutes.

Fold the egg whites into the cake batter in 3 to 4 stages, blending thoroughly after each addition. Transfer the batter to the tube pan. Use the rubber spatula to smooth and even the top.

Take about 5 big spoon of batter, add about 2 fine chocolate powder or 1 tsp of chocolate paste, mix well.

Since I using original chiffon pan, on the one side of pan I started by dropping 1/4 cup of vanilla batter. It will spread a little bit. Then Measure out a 1/4 cup of chocolate batter and pour it in the center of your vanilla batter . Repeat this process, continuing with 1/4 cup scoops of alternating flavors, each flavor of batter dropped into the center of the previous circle of batter. The batter is thin enough that it does not take long at all for the batter to spread out a little bit.

Bake for 1 hour, or until the cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.(Mine took 45 minutes).

Remove the pan from the oven and invert it over a cooling rack onto its feet or over a funnel or a thin necked bottle. Let the cake hand to cook completely. Don't set the pan on a cooling rack on its base. This will cause the cake to collapse onto itself.

Don't shake the cake out of the pan before it is cool. Once the cake is cool. use a thin blade knife or flexible blade spatula to run across the outer edge and the inside tube to help release the cake from the pan. Invert the cake onto a rack, then reinvert onto a serving plate.

Place the cake on a rack over a lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar if using.

Late Bloomer - I'm not perfect series

Have you ever in situation that when you see around everybody looks are so perfect , lucky in life but you ?. Everyone looks so divine. They have many things in life, they are become a great author, have their own careers, and looks so brights !! I feel that way sometime (ok, alot)  and those feeling made me 'sad '. Not until I sat with an old lady, friend of mine a couple days ago - we had a cup coffee , chit chat for almost 2 hours . We felt comfort with each other, and share our stories together. The story of her's life made me almost cry - I feel that is too much for her to 'carry' herself. But I tell you, she is the strong woman I ever met.  I'm not gonna tell you, what kind of situation she has. But the point is : you can't always look up , you need to look down too, to see people who doesn't have a perfect life and those will make you feel like  a lucky person in the world who doesn't need to go through that situation.  That is for sure, comforting me that I can't be perfect because I am  what I am - be myself and feel blessing with things on my hand right now, I don't need to see how beautiful people grass is, I just need to trim my own grass and make them as beautiful as people yards :D

Anyway, what on the earth this pictures has thing to do with story above ? I tell you this one, may be I'm a late bloomer  ; I just start sewing, quilting, baking when my age is more than 40yo!!  LOL  - and this is my first time quilting ever, well, I made several projects before but typical of me cut..sew and set aside, never intend to finished it up.  But this project really make me happy ; and if you see carefully, the sewing line is not straight ; kind of mess up little bit - but after the project finish, the picnic blanket is look 'perfect' to me   LOL  - oh well, mommy try to make an adjustment  ^__^

Now you will see the related between story above and my quilting project !! You don't have to see one by one and will find un-perfect thing, just need to see overall finish product ..  so comfortable picnic blanket and ... looks good, *eeerrr.. stop talking now !*

Do you see in the bottom of blanket ? I borrow the sketch from my daughter drawing paper and transfer to fabric and did a little handstich. :)  

oh , Ms.D , I hope you like this picnic blanket and every time you see the bottom of blanket you will know who you looking at ?

I'm not perfect

I trying to balance my time between : so active kid, a kind of picky eater husband, house works, taking care of my garden, sewing, baking, social life, facebook-ing, twitter-ing, blaaah... not always easy :p - ooh, well what I can say that I'M NOT PERFECT but I KEEP TRYING !

Happy Mother's Day for all mom around the world, especially my dear mom - who I never seen for almost 3 years, just heard her voice. I miss you so much mom, I wish I can sit enjoy the nice afternoon with you with a cup of coffee and talk about life or whatever comes to our mind.

Let me share this recipe to you, who know you decide to bake some for your mom too :) by the way this cake is glutten free.. so delicious

Flourless Orange Cake(Recipe from taste.com.au)

2 oranges
3 eggs
215g caster sugar
300g almond meal
1 tsp baking powder

Wash the oranges, place them in a large saucepan and cover with water. Bring to boil and simmer for 15 minutes. Drain, then return to pan, cover with water and bring to boil. Let simmer another 15 minutes. Drain and coarse chop the orange discarding any seeds.

Place the oranges in the bowl of a food processor and process until smooth.

Whisk the eggs and the sugar until thick and pale. Add the orange, almond meal and baking powder and fold until just combined. Pour into a greased, 22cm round pan and bake in 170C for about 50 minutes or until skewer inserted comes out clean.

Serve with pure icing sugar and decorate with orange rind

Birthday Cake for my daughter

I pretty much busy lately, almost forget to make a birthday cake for my daughter. And just a second, I decided to 'just' baking vanila cake.. and within 2 hours everything is ready. My daughter was so happy with her's birthday cake .. sorry dear, I forget all about the butterfly decoration you've been talk before.. *silly mom..* This is basic vanila cake, but as my daughter wish, I divide the batter – one portion vanila and another portion is chocolate batter, feel free to add the fine chocolate powder as you wish.

Birthday Chocolate cake

Ingredients
500 g butter, room temperature
500 g sugar
8 eggs
450 g all purpose flour
25 g corstarch
1 tablespoon baking powder

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 ºF
Prepare 4 7 inches cake pans (butter and flour the bottom and the sides of the pans)
In a large bowl, place butter and sugar, and mix well
Add eggs one by one
Add flour, cornstarch and baking powder, and beat until combined
Pour batter into pans and bake for 25 minutes
Leave the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then turn out to cool.
The cakes can be frozen until needed

For the chocolate buttercream:
I double the recipe so enough to cover 4 layer cake and decoration around

Ingredients:
8 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
6 cups confectioners' sugar
16 Tbs. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
6 Tbs. milk, plus more, if needed
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt

Directions:
Have all the ingredients at room temperature.

Put the chocolate in the top pan of a double boiler set over but not touching simmering water in the bottom pan. Stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Let cool to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, the 6 Tbs. milk, the vanilla and salt and beat on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium and beat for 2 minutes, then reduce the speed to low. Add the chocolate and beat until combined, then increase the speed to medium and beat for 1 minute more.

If the frosting is dry, add more milk, 1 tsp. at a time, until it is creamy but still holds peaks. Makes about 4 1/2 cups.

Decoration :

Fill the cake layers with chocolate buttercream, and then frost it with a thin layer of buttercream . Place the cake in the fridge for 15 minutes to set
Place the remaining chocolate buttercream on a piping bag fitted with a medium sized round tip (#12)
Create a row of dots (vertical). Using a spatula, spread every dot to the right, in one motion . Clean the spatula between every swipe
Once you have spread one row of dots, add another row of dots and repeat the pattern until the whole cake is covered with “petals”.