Chocolate Cream Puffs

Recently my colleagues have been boorrowing recipe books from the library. wow... flip & flip through those yummy cakes & pastry makes me more into this hobby.

These recipe books were all tag with post-it by them for copying. Me too copy quite a few recipes for my reference.

This cream puff recipe was from 1 of the book. It was a sure to keep recipe beacuse there are pictures on the steps & also consider a successful attemp for the 1st time.

I use my whipped cream to mixed with coco powder for the filling, the puff was crispy when out of oven, after cooled, i piped in the chocolate cream & keep in the fridge.

These puffs were soft, yummy & well receiving from colleagues & family ^-^

Ingridents:

Puff Pastry:
125 ml. water
50 gm. Butter
pinch of salt
3 gm Castor sugar
75 gm. Cake flour
2 eggs
1 egg (for egg wash on top of the piped paste)

Chocolate cream filling:
200 ml whipping cream
flavor - 1~2 tbsp Coco powder (depends on own preference for Coco richness)

Method for Puff pastry:
(1) Boil water, butter, salt & sugar till boiling.
(2) Pour in all the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon till paste is not sticky and leaving the side of the pan. Remove from heat and let it cool a little.
(3) Stir in eggs and mix till it becomes a smooth paste.
(4) Fill paste into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto a baking tray to about 2-3 cm round shape. Makes about 20 nos.
(5) Brush the paste with egg wash & bake at 180C for about 20~30 mins. or till puffed up and golden in colour.
(6) Fill Chocolate cream into a piping bag with a round tip nozzle. Make a small hole with the nozzle & pipe in the cream till full.
(7) Chilled in fridge & serve.

For filling:
(1) Use electric mixer to beat whipping cream till stiff perk.
(2) Add in the coco power & gentle mix till well blend.

Vannila Swiss Roll

I kept thinking how to utilise my whipped cream in my freezer & have no idea how long can i keep it frozen. I can't possibly wait for another 2 weeks to make another layered birthday cake for Evan birthday, so searching for bakings that i can use up my whipped cream.

Swiss roll was the 1st that i can think of. So i flipped through Alex Goh receipe book & use the Fruity Swiss Roll Sponge cake recipe with my whipped cream sprinkle with chocolate rice.

I was so happy after i rolled up the cake beautifully... yippee.. i can't wait to cut a slice & try. It was nicely rolled up with but the cake tasted slightly salty & dry. Maybe next time i shall cut half of the salt portion & also reduced on the baking time. I think the dryness was due to small baking tray & also thinner batter. I shall try again with my bigger swiss roll baking tray next time.

Teacher's day Gift Packs

Finally, the last resort to try on the Sponge cupcake. But Thur 27 Sep was a bad day for me. I got problem with the normal eggs beating & the batter turn out to be bubbly. So i knew the cupcake will be a failure. The strawberry Jam sank right to the bottom instead of staying in the centre due to the watery batter :(

So left with the last 2 eegs, i turned to the last alternative to bake the orange cupcake that i had done before. but again the batter curdled when i added in the eggs into the creamed butter & sugar... tried adding in flour but it just won't work. i was so mad & frustrated... so just proceed on to whisk up everything & put it into the oven.

Overall still edible, both still got the nice aroma but the texture wasn't what i expected. Since i am running out of time, i just had pack it up with the Coin purse gift that prince had packed before he slept.

Vanilla Sponge Cake with Strawberry Jam

This was another experiment after the pandan cupcake.... again the cupcake raised mighty high but collapsed after out of the oven.

I used Alex Goh sponge cake recipe for the Fruity roll & i added the strawberry jam as the filling. I love the taste & the texture was very soft & cottony.

Overall this recipe is great but the collapsed & the wrinkled surface that make it no so presentable.... so need to find other alternative recipe.. but time is running out!

Pandan Sponge Cupcake

I was experimenting the bear shape pandan sponge cake for teacher's day gift but the result wasn't too good. Can't see the bear face at all & the cupcake collapsed significantly after out of the oven. However, the taste was yummy... & the texture was more like a chiffon cake rather then sponge cake. My prince & hub love it ... so i will try this again using plain flour instead of the Hong Kong flour.

I used Yochana's chocolate sponge cake recipe & replace the chocolate with pandan paste & water with milk.

Ingredients A:

80 gm. Plain flour (I used Superfine/Hong Kong flour - could be the reason why the texture turn out to be like chiffon cake)

1/8 tsp. Baking powder

1/8 tsp. Bicarbonate of soda

1/8 tsp. salt

30 gm. sugar

2 egg yolks

25 gm. cooking oil (any brand)

55 gm. Milk
1/8 Tsp Pandan paste

Ingridents B:

2 nos. egg white

1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

40 gm. castor sugar

Method:
(1) Mix all the ingredients (A) together into a smooth batter.

(2) Preheat the oven at 170C & line the cupcake moulds.
(3) Beat egg white until foamy, add in cream of tartar, beat till soft peak & add in sugar & continue beat until stiff peak.

(4) Fold 1/3 of the beaten egg white into (A), combine well & fold in the balance egg white till well combine. (Take care not to over-mix)
(5) Pour the batter into the cupcake tin with liner and bake at 175C for about 15 mins. (I bake at 160C for micro-wave oven)