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Post by tod2 on Apr 28, 2017 17:31:51 GMT
A week ago I tried my hand at baking a cake. No ordinary cake. This cake was a Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake.
It took operating room precision and measurements.
The result was OK but I know I can do better. I love baked cheese cake just slightly warm.
This is the recipe I used:
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 12, 2020 16:40:57 GMT
Peanut butter & chocolate squares 115g crunchy peanut butter 115g soft butter 175g soft light brown sugar 3 eggs 1 tspn vanilla extract 175g SR flour 1 1/2 tspn baking powder 80g milk chocolate drops 2 tbsp milk (I only needed 1) Icing 3oz chocolate 50g crunchy peanut butter 3 tbsp milk 115g icing sugar Grease & base line 28cm x 18cm tin (or equivalent) Put peanut butter, butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract in a bowl sift in self raising flour and baking powder. Beat together until well mixed (I used my mixer took about 3 min) Fold in choc drops Add enough milk to give soft dropping consistency Spoon into prepared tin, smooth out, slight hollow in centre Bake 30 - 35 min 180°C Cool on wire rack. Icing - melt chocolate, peanut butter and milk together, beat until smooth. Gradually beat in icing sugar. Spread over cake and allow to set before you cut it into squares  |
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 12, 2020 16:45:23 GMT
Butterscotch walnut cake: 80g chopped walnuts plus 25g for sprinkling 175g butter 250g soft light brown sugar 3 eggs, beaten 1 tspn vanilla extract 175g self- raising flour Grease & base line 28cm x 28cm tin or equivalent Place 3oz walnuts on baking tray, bake 180°C 6-8 minutes In a saucepan slowly melt butter and sugar together without boiling until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. Cool ~10 min Gradually beat in eggs with wooden spoon (a bit at a time) Stir in vanilla extract Add flour and beat in so you have a smooth batter. Chuck in the toasted, chopped walnuts and mix in Pour into tin Sprinkle the untoasted walnuts over the surface Bake @ 180°C 30/35 mins until springy to the touch. Cool in tin, then on wire rack Cut into 12 squares Eat.  |
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Post by patricklondon on May 15, 2020 19:30:46 GMT
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Post by questa on May 17, 2020 13:02:33 GMT
Tonight's news showed rows of empty shelves from supermarkets to corner shops. You couldn't buy any sort of flour for love or money. It seems that from almost professional 9 yr old boys to grandmas passing on their secrets are BAKING. One flour making company has just taken delivery of a machine that makes flour 8 times faster and more varieties. Our farmers still getting over the drought are worried that they won't be able to fill their overseas commitments. So stop baking all you cooks, we need that flour to sell to the Chinese!
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Post by kerouac2 on May 17, 2020 14:09:01 GMT
I have some cake mixes from the United States. Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines… I must get around to using them before they reach the age of 20.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 17, 2020 14:15:24 GMT
Our farmers still getting over the drought are worried that they won't be able to fill their overseas commitments. After disappearing temporarily, flour is back on the shelves in France, but a lot of it is from local companies that never used to sell flour in one kilo packages. They were selling it to bakeries in vaster amounts or exporting it. Since a lot of the export traffic has temporarily dried up, it is now being packaged for supermarkets. What is funny (but good for them) is that it doesn't at all matter that the packages are extremely plain and frankly rather ugly. It is just flour, dammit, and there is no need for fancy logos or appealing advertising campaigns. They are probably making more money than before since they don't have to waste resources on advertising. |
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Post by onlyMark on May 17, 2020 14:24:49 GMT
Virtually everything here is back on the shelves though the anomaly is, or has been, yeast. I've not gone hunting for it but always looked when I've been shopping at different supermarkets. Eventually yesterday I managed to find some available.
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Post by Kimby on May 17, 2020 14:52:15 GMT
Yeast was not on the usual shelf in the grocery store, but there WAS a sign directing customers to its new location in the store. Perhaps a location where it can be better policed. Those little packets are too easy to slip into a pocket, perhaps?
I didn’t bother to go to the new location. Every time I’ve ever bought yeast, it’s died in my pantry. Not a baker, sadly.
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Post by bjd on May 17, 2020 16:23:46 GMT
After big shortages of flour and yeast, there is flour again, and for the first time: 5 kilo bags from Spain. Almost no flour especially for bread though and no yeast to be seen for over 2 months now.
We had company for lunch today (first time in 2 months!) so I made a cake. Tried to make an ordinary marble cake but didn't melt the chocolate properly so there were little hard bits of chocolate in that part of the cake. Nobody complained.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 17, 2020 16:36:06 GMT
Little hard bits of chocolate are still chocolate!  |
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Post by lugg on May 17, 2020 18:44:25 GMT
Flour is returning to the shelves finally ...so whats missing now === Vitamin D
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 17, 2020 19:29:17 GMT
Good grief I haven't been considered one of those for about forty years  Which one did you make?
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 17, 2020 19:41:09 GMT
I have had reason to be thankful for my Brexit end of the world zombie apocalypse planning. I'd got two little tubs of dried yeast in my store cupboard ready for the inevitable shortages. Flour is starting to appear in shops but it wasn't until Tuesday this week that I managed to find strong white bread flour in a nearby co-op. I had the last two bags.
As for my Brexit cupboard...still filled with dried pasta, caster and soft brown sugar, dried milk power, semolina, rice, tomato puree, lentils, pasata and other stuff...I honestly had been quietly buying just one or two extras each time I went shopping for months...all carefully rotated to keep expiry dates in order....panic buying? I don't think so..hoarding? Definitely.
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Post by questa on May 18, 2020 6:21:32 GMT
Hoarding? No, CPB, it is called "Planning ahead" Hoarding implies taking your share of the goodies and someone elses as well, then refusing to share with others.
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Post by patricklondon on May 18, 2020 7:05:03 GMT
CPB, you are a wicked temptress, and I was tempted. Delicious. Good grief I haven't been considered one of those for about forty years Which one did you make? Butterscotch walnut cake. I'm wondering how to add in some dark chocolate or coffee as well on some future occasion. |
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Post by kerouac2 on May 18, 2020 20:00:13 GMT
I know the taste of butterscotch but I have never been able to imagine how it is made.
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Post by questa on May 20, 2020 1:25:22 GMT
WhenI was on night duty in the children's ward we used to make butterscotch. There were many cans of Sweetened Condensed Milk in the store room and we had an old fashioned steriliser with racks that boiled the equipment. We would put the un-opened can into the steriliser and let it simmer a couple of hours, depending on how busy we were. Somewhere between 2-3am there would be time to open the cooled can and get our sugar rush. The contents would be fudge brown, sometimes we would add a stir of butter. I've made it many times over the years but it never tasted as good as Kidsward Delight
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Post by bixaorellana on May 20, 2020 2:47:04 GMT
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Post by bjd on May 20, 2020 5:52:22 GMT
I remember wandering around in Buenos Aires and seeing all the cafés with cakes in the window. They looked yummy but on trying some we discovered they nearly all had dulce de leche in them. I find it inedible, just too sweet.
In Chile and Colombia it's called manjar, which means delicacy.
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Post by onlyMark on May 20, 2020 8:47:17 GMT
Isn't it generally accepted that as you age, your taste buds become less sensitive?
Not sure, but what I do know is that as I get older, what was just right for sweetness when I was younger is now far too sweet for me, which seems the opposite of what it should be.
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Post by Kimby on May 20, 2020 10:47:40 GMT
Mark, perhaps taste declines as sense of smell goes bad, which would have no effect on the sensors for sweet, would it?
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Post by onlyMark on May 20, 2020 11:22:29 GMT
Kimby, I don't have a clue. You may be right. I'm sure that as between us we hold all the knowledge of the universe, someone will know.
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Post by bjd on May 20, 2020 11:30:14 GMT
From the fount of all knowledge:
"Every two weeks or so, our taste buds naturally expire and regenerate like any other cell in the body. Around 40 years of age, this process slows down, so while the buds continue to die off, fewer grow back. Fewer taste buds means blander taste, and a different combination of activated cells when we experience a food."
I personally still have a very good sense of smell and still like spicy food. But definitely prefer less sweet things than before.
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Post by kerouac2 on May 20, 2020 15:09:05 GMT
You're not old enough yet, Mark (that is probably a compliment). I have noticed that the old people will gobble anything as sweet as possible.
At the moment, I am cringing as I pass by all of the stands of Ramadan sweets in my neighbourhood, since just about all of them are pure sugar.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 20, 2020 16:27:22 GMT
I used to love very hot spicy food, but as I've got older I am having to damp down the fires a bit. I try to compensate by bigging up the flavour whilst turning down the heat...not always a successful move.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on May 22, 2020 18:57:21 GMT
Cakes requested by youngest for his birthday tea. He's 39 btw !  White chocolate mud cakes, milk chocolate ganache...chunks of chocolate bar and sweeties to decorate. I know that they look a mess but the one I had was lush... |
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Post by bixaorellana on May 22, 2020 22:41:19 GMT
Messy? They're inspired! Best wishes to the birthday boy.
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Post by mich64 on May 23, 2020 1:33:03 GMT
Oh they look yummy! Happy Birthday to your son Cheery!
(this reminds me to talk with my sister-in-law to see what cake is planned for our father-in-law's 90th birthday next week! I am getting him his favourite chicken wings from our restaurant down the road, but we NEED a cake!)
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Post by tod2 on Aug 18, 2020 16:49:30 GMT
Last week I baked a cake that required a whole tin of Condensed Milk. I have heard of using it in tarts of the Lemon Meringue kind but never as an ingredient in a cake. Well, it turned out fine but because it didn't;t ask for any extra sugar for sweetness I thought it needed to be iced and that was after cutting into it at tea time.
Today I reached for 2 boxes of Pillsbury Chocolate cake mix and baked a lovely big cake. It had to be iced/frosted but not any old butter icing would do. I filched (from the stash in the fridge) a BarOne chocolate, a Cadbury's chocolate slab and melted them in the microwave. Stirring madly I added two tablespoons of butter and three tbsps of thick Jersey Cream just like clotted cream. And three tbsps of icing sugar and one of cocoa powder. Stir, stir stir and leave until the cake halves had cooled completely. Then sandwiched them together with the icing. Left the top and sides bare as we are not cake icing fans at the best of times. I let my husband do a test drive of the mixing spoon and he approved so all is go for the finale`.
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