Mini Oven Baked Donuts!

There is this craze in Singapore on donuts and you can see that many shops have started to sell donuts. Previously, the donuts were not so healthy as they were deep fried. But now, they can be oven baked and this make them healthy and popular among the health-conscious consumers.


Mini Donuts

Preparation time: 15 mins for preheating the oven, sifting the flour and preparing the chocolate coating
Cooking time: 15 mins
Serves: 24 mini donuts
Oven temperature: 180C
Cost: about $2 for sugar, flour, milk and chocolate coating

Ingredients:
1. 1 cup all-purpose flour (i.e. plain flour)
2. 1/2 cup caster sugar
3. 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
4. 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
5. 1/4 teaspoon salt
6. 1 egg
7. 150ml UHT milk (or alternatively you can use soymilk)
8. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9. 2 teaspoons lemon juice
10. 1 tablespoon canola oil

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven at 180C for 10 mins.
2. In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
3. Combine egg, milk, oil, lemon juice and vanilla extract and mix well.
4. Stir in dry ingredients until moistened.
5. Coat the tube pans with non-stick cooking spray and dust with 1 teaspoon of icing sugar.
6. Pour batter into the pans.
7. Bake at 180C for 15 mins.
8. Wait for the donuts to be cool before decorating with icing sugar or chocolate coating. You may wish to sprinkle some toppings such as almonds, chocolate rice.

Measurement from cup to gram
1 cup sugar = 200g
1 cup plain flour = 100g

I found that my mini donuts tasted more like cakes and they were a bit too moist. Think next time I will mix the wet ingredients longer under step 3. This should "introduce" more air to the donuts and the donuts should taste like donuts. Haha... you will know what I meant if you are a donut lover.

I bought the tube pans from Sun Lik Trading at 33 Seah Street. Their phone no. is 63380980. I also bought my chocolate coating there. The brand is TULIP. I found the chocolate coating too sweet but they were shiny enough for a nice photo. To melt the chocolate, you can use the microwave and turn to "High" power for 1 min.

Banana Cupcake!

Have some bananas left and decided to bake banana cupcake. Modified the recipe found on this girl's website where cooking is her passion. To go to her website, please click the link under the food blogs. She is my idol as she is very creative and her cupcake designs are all so pretty!

Banana Cupcake

Preparation time: 15 mins for preheating the oven, sifting the flour and mashing the bananas
Cooking time: 25-30 mins
Serves: 12
Oven temperature: 180C
Cost: about $3 for butter, sugar, flour and bananas

Ingredients:
1. 130g butter, soften
2. 3/4 cup caster sugar (I found them too sweet)
3. 11/4 cup self-raising flour
4. 1/3 teaspoon baking soda
5. 2 eggs
6. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
7. 1/4 cup milk (may need less)
8. 3-4 bananas, roughly mashed

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven at 180C for 10 mins.
2. Beat butter and sugar till pale & fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Stir in bananas and vanilla extract. Mixture will turn gluey.
5. Fold in sifted flour alternately with milk till they are well-incorporated.
5. Spoon the butter mixture into the muffin cups.
6. Sprinkle some nuts or raisins onto the mixture for variety.
7. Bake for 25 to 30 mins till golden brown.

Tips : Make sure the bananas are very ripe so that the cupcake will smell more fragrant. You may add some lemon juice onto the mashed bananas to prevent them from turning brown quickly.

Measurement from cup to gram
1 cup sugar = 200g
1 cup plain flour = 100g

I like this banana cupcake recipe as it is more fragrant and tastier. Am wondering whether I can reduce the butter as the cupcakes become oily the next day though they still taste good. Cupcakes still taste best when they are straight from the oven.

Butter Cupcake!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Baked some cupcakes last nite. Intended to have them for breakfast today. Yummy, they are delicious... They are quick and simple to make and the recipe is easy to remember. The same measurement for butter, sugar and flour (i.e. 120g each) and you can make 12 regular sized cupcakes.

Butter Cupcake

Preparation time: 10 mins for preheating the oven and sifting the flour
Cooking time: 20-25 mins
Serves: 12
Oven temperature: 180C
Cost: about $2 for butter, sugar and flour, could cost you more if you use good quality toppings like cranberries, chocolate chips and nuts like almonds

Ingredients:
1. 120g butter, soften
2. 120g caster sugar
3. 120g self-raising flour
4. 2 eggs
5. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6. 1/3 cup milk (more if necessary)
7. toppings, .e.g. cranberries, chocolate chips, raisins, almonds

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven at 180C for 10 mins.
2. Cut butter into cubes and cream it at medium speed. Add sugar and increase speed to high. Cream till sugar is dissolved and the mixture is light and creamy. Will take around 15 mins for the electric mixer that I am using.
3. Add in extract and eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Fold in sifted flour alternately with milk till they are well-incorporated (Don't add flour while the electric mixer is on - will explain what is folding method - see below)
5. Spoon the butter mixture into the muffin cups.
6. Sprinkle your favorite toppings onto the mixture. You may fill the muffin cup half with the butter mixture and add the toppings before filling up the cup and sprinkle the toppings again. In this way, every bite you take, you can feel and eat the toppings.
Remember to fill the cup to 3/4 full as the mixture will rise during baking.
7. Bake for 20 to 25 mins till golden brown.

Tip : Flour must always be sifted and if you don't have self-raising flour, you can replace it with 120g plain flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder.

What is Folding?
Folding is a technique used to prevent deflating a light and airy mixture when combining it with a denser mixture. You will find more details under this website: Dyann Bakes. http://www.dyannbakes.com/index.php?post_id=255120
Dyann also teaches you tips on how to prevent cracks across the top of a cheese cake.

No Bake Cheese Cake!

Was on leave yesterday and have made a cheese cake. The recipe requires no baking and will be suitable for those with no oven.

Cheese Cake
(recipe from a cookbook - did not take down the name)

Preparation time: 30 mins for the base crust
Chilling time: at least 2 hours
Serves: 12
Cost: about $8 for Kraft's philadelphia cream cheese, butter, marie biscuit and Nestle cream

Ingredients:
Base
1. 1 packet of marie biscuit
2. 125g butter

Cheese Cake
1. 200g sugar
2. 250g cream cheese
3. 100ml water
4. 2 tbsp gelatine
5. 1 tin Nestle cream
6. 1 punnet strawberries, halved (I skipped this)

Preparation:
1. Let butter and cream cheese sit at room temperature for about 30 mins
2. Crush marie biscuit & mix well with butter.
3. Spread the mixture on a 20cm diameter cake tin and press hard to form the base. Put the base in the fridge.
4. Mix sugar with cream cheese in a mixing bowl using a spoon.
5. Boil water, add gelatine and turn hear down. Keep stirring on low heat till gelatine dissolved.
6. When the mixture boils, add sugar and cream cheese mixture and stir over a low flame.
7. Add cream and keep stirring till mixture boils.
8. Pour mixture onto the chilled biscuit base.
9. Chill cheesecake until set and garnish with strawberries halves before serving.

Tip : To crush the biscuit, I put them into a ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to "run over" the biscuit. Also you need a springform cake tin to make this cake as it cannot be turned over when ready. A springform cake tin has a metal " buckle" by the round side and the base comes off separately when the "buckle" is released.

I found the above recipe too sweet and cannot really taste the cheese. Maybe need to reduce the sugar and add more cream cheese?

Moist Chocolate Cake!

It has been a long time since my last entry as I was busy with my year-end closing. Have tried to bake a chocolate cake last Sat using the mix from White Wings.

Moist Chocolate Cake
(recipe from White Wings)

Preparation time: 8 mins
Cooking time: 40-45 mins
Serves: 12
Oven temperature: 180C
Cost: about $3 for the mix and eggs

Ingredients:
1. 370g White Wings moist chocolate cake mix
2. 2 eggs
3. 20g soft butter
4. 250ml water

Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Grease a 6cm deep x 20cm round cake pan. Line the base with baking paper.
3. Empty the sachet into a mixing bowl. Add eggs, water and soft butter.
4. Beat on low speed for 30 sec to combine before increasing speed to medium and mix for 4 mins.
5. Spread mixture into prepared pan. Put some toppings that you like. In this case, I have added chocolate chips and almonds.
6. Bake for 40-45 mins.
7. Stand for 5 mins before transferring to a wire rack for cooling.

You may go http://www.whitewings.com.au/ for more creative ideas. Alternative suggestion is to use the mix to make chocolate orange cupcake which I may be trying out the next time. I found the above recipe too chocolaty and it will be some time before I try to bake something related to chocolate :-)

You can also see that the cake was cracked in the centre. My guess is my oven temperature was set too high (I set to 190C) and the oven was not preheated long enough. As a result, the heat was not evenly distributed and thus the centre was cooked first.

My First Entry - Happy 2008!!

Today is the first day of a new year and I have created my own blog. A good start!

Hmm.. What had happened in the past 1 year?
(1) Being nominated for the company "on time delivery" value award for the 2nd time
(2) Promotion in the 2nd half of 2007
(3) Bought a new oven and a new electric mixer and learning how to bake
(4) Still learning to be a good mummy to my 2 cute monsters and it is a long journey and think that I am beginning to like this process.......

In my blog, I shall post what I called the "accountant" way of baking, i.e. systematic, organised, showing details like the oven temperate, baking time and serving size at 1 glance.

Watch out for this space and enjoy your new year!!