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Saturday, April 19, 2014

Chocolate Banana Quick Cake - Tish Boyle


 
Hey, guys, as promised, I'm sharing this wonderful cake recipe and unlike my recent posts, this recipe does not come from Australian Women's Weekly.. kakakka    I'm taking a break from that cook book for now.

Well, I am one person who will only purchase a cookbook with plenty of visuals.  I'm not a fan of a cookbook with no pictures or very few of them, no matter if the review is super good or not.

Having said that, I do own one of Tish Boyle's recipe book and if you own her book entitled 'The Cake Book', you will know what I mean by saying that it has not many pictures in it.  And how come I own one you might ask since I'm not one for only full of text kind of book, well, I've been influenced by my sis who recommended this book to me.  She's all but singing praise for this book.  So, I thought, hey, this is my sis.  If she says it's good, then it's good.

I've tried one or two of Tish's recipes and they are good.  I ate this Chocolate Banana cake when I visited my sis one weekend and it was super duper yummy.  She then told me that it's from Tish Boyle's recipe, so I decided to make this and brought some for my colleagues to try.  They simply love it. Thank you sis, for your good judgement in always purchasing full boring text cookbooks.. hehehe.. you know what I mean. 

Even though with limited pictures in the book, this book I have to admit, has good recipes.  To me when I select my books, a good recipe and equally tempting mouthwatering clicks go hand in hand.  By reading the recipe, I can gauge if the recipe book is good to buy or otherwise....     Most times I made good purchase but at times, not so good as well.  Pictures sometimes can fool you but you need to use some good judgement and common sense when purchasing a good cook book.  After making a few bad decision, you'll find the tricks and tips the next time you want to make a purchase.  I guess for cook book collector like me can relate to what I'm trying to say here.  Anyway, let's proceed with the recipe shall we??





What you will need:

1 1/4 cups (151g) all purpose flour
1/4 cup (23g) Dutch processed cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar (I used brown sugar)
2 large eggs
1 1/3 cups (320ml) mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium sized bananas)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup (121g) sour cream
4 ounces (113g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped


Here's how you do it:

- Pre heat oven to 180dC, grase bottom and sides of a 9" loaf pan.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a medium bowl.  Whisk to combine, set aside.
- With electric mixer at medium speed, beat butter until creamy, about 1 min. Gradually beat in the sugar at high speed until blended.
- At medium speed, beat in the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
- Add mashed bananas and vanilla at low speed until blended.
- Add the flour mixture at low speed in three additions, alternating with the sour cream.
- Remove from mixer stand and stir in chopped chocolate and scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake for 55 - 60 mins or until done.  Cool cake pan on wire rack for 15 mins and unmold cake.  Cool completely.



The texture of this cake is so moist and soft with good flavor of the bananas.  The melted chocolate chunks add the gooey-ness of the cake.  I love this! Especially with a cup of hot tea!

 

Sunday, April 6, 2014

Pecan Pie



I am in the mood to bake this weekend.  No idea on what to bake but just wanted to bake something.  So I posted on Facebook for suggestions and a friend of mine suggested Pecan Pie.  Although I have been wanting to make this pie for quite awhile but some how, didn't attempt to try until now.  Thanks to my friend, I finally made it.

I always thought that the process is so complex but to my surprise, it's so simple with not much effort at all!

Since my sisters and their family came over for dinner yesterday, I decided to make this for dessert.  All of us love it. I shall make this again and again for sure.. it tasted like butterscotch but with just the right level of sweetness.  Mmm..mmm..mmm!!

And guess what?  Where did I get this simple recipe from?  Wanna guess?  If you have been following my recent posts, I bet you can guess it... yup, bingo!  The Australian Women's Weekly!  None other than... kakakakka   

So here's this wonderful recipe which you must try.. you must you must!


Crust:
1 cup plain flour (I like the crust to be thicker, I recommend 1 1/2 cups)
90g butter (if use 1 1/2 cup flour, suggest to use 135g)
2 tbsp water (3 tbsp)
- Sift flour into bowl, rub in butter.  Add enough water to make ingredients cling together.
- Press dough into ball, knead gently on lightly floured surface until smooth; cover, refrigerate 30 mins.
- Roll dough on lightly floured surface large enough to line 24cm round loose based flan tin.  Lift pastry into tin gently, ease into side, trim edge.
- Place tin on oven tray, line patry with paper, fill with dried beans or rice, blind bake in moderately hot (190dC) oven for 10 mins, remove paper and beans, bake further 10 mins or until pastry is lightly browned.
- Pour filling into pastry case, bake in moderately slow oven (160dC) for 55 mins or until set; cool.

Filling:
3 eggs, light beaten
3/4 cup light corn syrup or golden syrup
1 cup brown sugar (I used 3/4 cup)
30g butter, melted
1 1/4 cups (125g) pecan nuts
- Combine all ingredients in bowl, mix well.





Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

Yummey..

And today, I baked Chocolate Banana Quick Cake which shall be featured in my next post.. guess where did I get this recipe from?  You sure you guessed it right? Well,  let's wait till then ok.. :)


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