Polka Dot Swiss Rolls..a success and about time too!

I have never been one to be fancy of swiss rolls. I don't know why that is. These pillowy, eggy cake with all sorts of delicious fillings to me were rather...intimidating.

Okay, i lied. I KNOW exactly why I do not fancy them. Haha. Back when I just started my interest in baking - it was 2005, I tried baking many butter cakes, pound cakes and cupcakes. I tend to avoid recipes which calls for beating egg whites. I'm lousy at determining the soft peaks, stiff peaks and always have the tendency to overbeat the whites into a bubble of watery blah.

One fateful day, I thought to myself that I should bake a swiss roll. I was so excited and did no research whatsoever on how to make the sponge. I mean, cmon, cakes are cakes right? You beat 'em butter and eggs till fluffy, you beat in the sugar etc...

I did everything wrong and ended up with a slab of flat, hard and sticky cakescuit. You know, cake & biscuit...or biscake..whichever rocks your boat. heh. We (my hubby, Rah and I) could not define what it tasted like. The texture was...hmmm...non descript. Evenetually, it was a good snack for Mr Bin.

From then on, I AVOIDED making sponge cakes. However, the Hokkaido Chiffon cakes reawakened my senses and i tried baking sponge cakes of late. and Ooohh..oohhh..ooohhh....i discovered sooo many things which I have done wrong in my first attempt at the sponge!  I found the nearest wall and knocked my head against it. Good job Yan, it took you 7 freaking years to learn this. Such a YouTube idiot! There are so many tips on baking sponge on YouTube and I didnt even bother.

Last Friday, I was at Sun Lik with my buddy to buy baking stuffs and saw a Japanese book which had so many pretty decorated swiss rolls on it. You can see what I mean from here. Seen it yet?? Pretty, cute, kawaii.....no!? I told myself, its time to try making a swiss roll and since I have missed all that 7 years, I should make something more challenging than a normal one. Okay....its not THAT challenging since the design I chose was just simple polka dots. But it was an effort all the same and the result was beautiful!

I ran out of whipped cream for the filling so I used Nutella as the filling and loaded it in with Kit Kats. It was a hit with the kids and I brought it to a gathering with friends and it was very well received - even got an order for it.

Decorated Swiss Rolls (basic swiss roll recipe adapted from Honey Bee Sweets):

Vanilla Swiss Roll:

Egg Yolk Batter:
4 yolks
40g caster sugar
75ml water
50ml vegetable oil (I used Canola oil)
1.5tsp vanilla essence (I used 2tsp)
100g cake flour 

Egg Whites Batter:
5 egg whites
40g caster sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Okay, this is as far as I followed the recipe because I found the instructions on mixing the different batter colours rather confusing. I feared that I may misunderstood her instructions so I trawled the internet and read somewhere (sorry, I forgot where it was from) that I could simply add 30g of cake batter to 2tbsp of Egg white batter and colour it as I wish. ..and Yay! it worked!

1. Sift cake flour, set aside. Line a 10" x 14" Swiss roll tray with parchment paper. Grease underneath the paper to ensure it sticks real well to the tray. Lightly grease, verrrryyy lightly, on the surface of the paper. Pre-heat oven to 150 degC.
2. With an electric mixer, whisk egg yolks and sugar on high for about 5 mins. You will see that the batter will turn fluffy, doubled in volume and abit pale. Add the water, oil and vanilla to mix.
3. Add sifted cake flour into the batter in about 3 portions. Fold in the flour into the batter taking care not to mix to hard as it will deflate the batter.
4. SEPERATELY, in another bowl, beat the egg whites and as you see bubbles, add the cream of tartar and the sugar a little at a time.

Now, time to make the decorated portion of the recipe.

1. Take 30g of the egg yolk batter and mix in 2 tbsps of the egg white batter.
2. Seperate the mixture into different bowls and tint the mixture in the colours you want.
3. Put the coloured batter into piping bags and pipe on the parchment with the designs you want.
4. When you're done designing, bake the design in the oven for about 1minute.
5. DO NOT BAKE TOO LONG. You just want to bake short enough so that the batter will set and will not run into the main cake batter when its poured over the designs.
6. Set aside to cool. Increase the oven heat to 175C.

We're now back to the main cake mix.

1. Gently fold in 1/3 of the egg white batter into the yolk batter. Mix well.
2. Pour the mixed batter into the remaining 2/3 of the white batter and mix well.
3. Pour the cake mix over the design on the cake tray and smooth the batter evenly.Bake for 10minutes.
4. Cool the baked cake and turn over on a parchment paper. You will see the design on the sponge portion of the cake that way. Peel away the parchment carefully. Some of my dots got stucked on the parchment but it was too few to bother.
5. Use another parchment paper to turn over the cake so that you have the skin facing you.
6. You have an option to peel the skin or leave it be. I guess I would leave the skin on if it was whipped cream filling as it would be easier to spread.  But since the filling is nutella and its a bit sticky, I chose to peel away the skin.
7. Fill the cake with nutella and Kit Kats and then Roll away! I wrapped the rolled cake with the same parchment I rolled it with and placed it in the fridge.
8. I enjoyed the cake a few hours later.

So this cake here, ended my misery with sponge rolls. And I can betcha Im making more of these. In fact, I am planning to make one in a totally different recipe and method altogether. Its already bookmarked and I just need to find TIME to do it. Happy decorating and rolling!

Yan 

Hi-hat disaster

I've heard quite a number of issues with regards to Martha Stewart's recipe. Though I am a fan of hers, I have to say, I do have a problems or two with her recipe. Could it be that tips were left out of the recipe or the measurements given were just awry? I'm quizzed.

Sometime ago, I tried to make the Hi-hat cupcakes featured on her site and thought it would be a brilliant idea to bring this to a potluck party I'd be going to later. The cake looks fairly easy to do and the instructions on the recipe as well as how they did it on the video looks pretty easy (although the video had alot of short takes so you don't know whether the real product of all those short cuts would actually turn out perfect.)

The cake turned out nice and spongy, soft and nice. And its not too sweet either cos I cut down on the sugar in the recipe in anticipation of the super sweet Swiss Meringue frosting. All in all, I thought the whole thing will look perfect and was very pleased with myself for this small achievement.

And then he time came to dip the frosting in chocolate. Now this is not as easy as dipping your regular nachos into a cheese dip. My first attempt at dipping ended up with a huge dollop of what used to be a perfectly piped frosting drowning in a bowl of melted chocolate. At that point I scoured the internet trying to save the rest of the hi-hats from the same predicament. I tried to cool the chocolate slightly longer and found that it became too stiff for a dipping consistency. By then, the baby has gotten restless and wanted attention, the kids were running around wild and I just dont have that much patience left in me to experiment. I reheated the chocolate, cooled it abit and then decided I would pour the chocolate on the frosting.

As the frosting began to set, I told myself that it doesnt look too bad. well, okay, some did look awful but hey, wat could get worse? As you may have guessed, yes, i spoke to soon. Cos one bite into the frosting would send a diabetic nuts. The frosting was to sweet and there were bits of undissolved sugar in it. It was grainy and too sweet. I guess there should be a technique to completely dissolve the grains of sugar but I dont know how. Even my kids with sweet tooth did not like the frosting. we ended up scraping off the frosting and eating the cake on its own instead. Ironically, the frosting was the most time consuming part of the whole batch. Arghh..

I'm not entirely blaming the recipe as much as I am blaming myself for attempting a recipe i've never tried before right before a party (which, as a blessing or so it may seem, i didnt get to go to.) It is most likely that I made a mistake or two in making my icing stay firm enough for dipping or probably did not wait for the chocolate ganache to cool enough before dipping the frosting in. I wonder how they got it soo perfectly nice and coated in the picture. I dont dare say I would like to try this recipe again to learn from my mistakes. Just as good because I dont think its worth to make again as the family will not be able to digest anyting this sweet.

A good rest and something German, you think?

Phew, after that last burst of studying for this year, I'm ready to enter the kitchen again. It was a very hectic month, November. I found it difficult to manage the domestic chores, assignments and also cracking my brains for the examinations. If you are able to notice, the post date of this post is somewhat later than I've typed this down, all because I've taken the habit of typing down my post and then saving them to drafts for when I'm more free to view what I've typed..you know, to make myself sound more ummm...sane or intelligent. hahah...yah, im laffing too.

Anyway, speaking of examinations and stuff, I'm just glad my burden is over and once I was done with my last paper, I flew right to the library. The first section I zoomed to was, u guessed it - the baking section...no prizes there huh. I was wondering what would be the best recipe to try out but not too tiring or too messy to clean up cos I was still exhausted from lack of sleep.. and brain cells, for that matter.

I decided cookies would be great. Something to last me for a week or two just in case I crash into the sofa with a good book and the tv remote and never get up. I borrowed Cookies by Sally Sampson and already decided to make the gorgeous recipe on its cover - German Chocolate Cookies. Now, when I say gorgeous, its by no way that I mean mine would turn out gorgeous too. Taste-wise, they were great....u can say gorgeous. But in terms of looks, well, you be the judge.

Call these the ugliest cookies you've ever seen. haha..i would too. In fact, my mother-in-law's blunt description of it summarised it perfectly - "what are these? they look like coals!" and i have to agree with her but I could'nt make her a convert as she refused to taste them. haha...well, can't say i did'nt try. These cookies are reminiscent of Famous Amos' Double Chocolate Pecan Cookies. Those are my favourites and yes, they too look like coals but tastes like heaven. You may want to try these too, though I think yours would be much better looking than mine. And if they don't, well, just keep them in the farther region of your pantry when your in-laws come to visit. Hahah.

German Chocolate Cookies (adapted from Cookies by Sally Sampson)

You need:

3/4 cup butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tbsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 cup dessicated coconut or coconut flakes

1 cup walnuts, lightly toasted, cooled and roughly chopped (the book used pecans, though)

4 oz sweet chocolate (i used abt 5oz...i know, my bad)

Preparation

Preheat over to 165 degrees c or 350 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Mix butter and sugar in a mixer and mix till smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla. You should add the egg one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Add flour,cocoa, baking soda and salt and mix well.

Finally, add in the coconut, walnuts and chocolate and mix again.

Drop the dough by heaping teaspoons on the cookie sheet. This cookie spreads abit so leave abt 2 inches of space in between each cookie. Bake in the over for 10 to 12 minutes.

Cool on cookie shee and then transfer to a wire rack before nibbling on some with a cup of vienna coffee. SUPER SHIOKING!

NOTE: I find that if you leave some of the nuts and chocolate bits to decorate on the unbaked cookie dollops would make it more prettier - just for aesthetics value. This, of course, i didnt do at the time, silly me.