Extra Dark Chocolate Cake with Salted Extra Dark Chocolate Frosting

Was messaging friend D during the long Easter weekend of what I had been baking and she told me that her birthday was coming.. In a couple of days actually.. So i told her, let me bake you a cake then.. That got me thinking what cake should I bake.. It has been so long since I baked a full cake.. Think the last round it was in January 2013 when I first started the blog.. hahaha. it was that long.. New work and everything just took me away from my beloved baking.. It was really awesome to continue baking.. I felt so happy to bake. Felt so nice during the long weekend.. Baked so many stuff (recipe coming soon)

Long story short.. I decided to bake chocolate cake.. Went to Phoon Huat and saw this "Extra Dark Cocoa Powder" and I was like.. Wow... How dark is extra dark.. bought a pack back and oh my.. it was like the charcoal powder.. No kidding..

SO So Black :) I like 

Ingredients (makes a good 8-12 slices, depending on how big or small you want to slice the cake. but 12 is still too big for me.. haha) Adapted from Joy Of Baking's Simple Chocolate Cake

For the Cake

• 425g of Sugar
• 245g of Plain Flour
• 75g of Extra Dark Cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 Cup of Flavourless Oil (I use Canola Oil)
• 1 Cup Milk
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1 1/2 Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Warm Strong Espresso 

For the Frosting

• 226g of unsalted butter
• 3 to 3 1/4 Cups  of icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 50g of Extra Dark Cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt
• 2 to 3 tablespoon of Milk

Method:

For the Cake: 

1. Preheat Oven to 180C. Set aside 2 9" by  1.5" round pan with parchment paper and oiled. 
2. Add all the dry ingredients (first 6 items) together in a large mixing bowl. Mix well.
3. Combine all the wet ingredients together. Whisk well 
4. Add the Wet Ingredients to the dry ingredients until combined. 
5. Bake the cake batter for 27 - 30min or until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the middle of the cake. Remove from oven and let it cool in the pan for 10 - 15min and the top side down on a wire rack 

Note: Instead of using butter for most recipe, it is good to use oil. Oil will not dried up like butter will and even when refrigerated will not hardened.. Which gives you a moist and soft cake to eat.. *Yum Yum*

For the Frosting: 

1. Sift the icing sugar and cocoa powder separately
2. In a stand alone mixer, using the paddler attachment, stir the butter till it is pale and creamy looking. Add in the vanilla extract and salt. Continue to mix until combine.
3. Add in the sifted cocoa powder. Mix well.
4. Slowly add the icing sugar 1/4 cup at a time. Halfway through adding in the sugar, pour in 1 Tablespoon of milk. This will help to mix the icing sugar better with a bit of liquid. Keep alternating the addition of the icing sugar and milk till you get the right consistency and the sweetness level. 

Note: Another reason I alternate adding icing sugar and milk is because I worried if the frosting is too sweet. (Not much of a sweet tooth for me.) 

To assemble the cake.. 

I made it more rugged looking.. Not bad eh. 

• You might want to cut flat the cake (sometimes the cake baked with a little bulge). What I did earlier, which is to put the top side diwn is to try to flatten the bulge as much as possible. 
• Putting the flatter side of the cake at the bottom of your cake stand, spread a layer of the frosting on top of the cake. The amount really depended on how thick you want your frosting to be. 
• Next, place the next layer with the less flatter cake touching the frosting. (This way, I created a flat top that you see in all cakes at the cake shop. You might see some gaps between the 2 layers of cake, no worries, you can fill them up with more frosting. *Yum Yum*)
• Crumb coat the whole cake. Crumb coat means applying a thin layer of your frosting and then refrigerate the whole cake for a good 10 min. This will help in providing a crumb free surface to work with while you frost the cake. Once you frost the cake to the level of perfection, you can leave it as it is (which is what I did for the cake) or add decoratives items to beautify the cake :)

Friend D was very surprised that I made her a cake. She was just kidding. But wells, I told her I was doing.. And am happy to be baking for her.. Made me wanna bake more cake for more people and for any occasion..

With candle and "Happy Birthday" decorative item.

Peeps! Give me more reasons to bake.. I really love to see people enjoying my cake :)

Cajun Chicken -- going sounthen

Was a bit out of ideas of what to cook on a Saturday Lunch for the family.. So I thought.. Hey bought some cajun seasoning from Phoon Huat.. Let's make some Cajun Chicken.. Went to market, bought the chicken breast only to find out that I did not buy Cajun Seasoning.. I only bought red chili flakes and ground cayenne pepper ... I know..

OMG!!! I know  (*pic from The Guardian)

Anyway, i decided to make do with what I have.. And thanks to Jason I had some dried herbs at hand to make a Cajun seasoning. It was quite easy to make actually. And it turned out to be quite yummy.. woohoo.. hahha.. maybe 10min of prep time + 30min or more of marinating time + 10 min of cooking.. It is very easy to do.. Can also marinate in the morning (even better, all the goodness is being soaked into the chicken) and have it cooked when you are back from work.. yea!

Here how I made it:

Ingredients (Make 4)

• 4 chicken breast
• 2 Tbs Olive Oil
• 3 Tbs Ground Cayenne Pepper
• 3 tsp Dried Oregano
• 3 tsp Dried Thyme
• 3 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 clove garlic (finely minced or grated)
• 1 shallot (finely minced or grated)

*Note: Usually the cajun seasoning calls for dried onion and garlic powder but since I do not have them in hand.. no choice, I went to minced them but I lower my portion cos minced onion and garlic are more overpowering than the powdered form..

Directions:

1. Using a rolling pin, pound the chicken breast till it is even in height of about 1.5cm. Ensure that the chicken is dried using kitchen towel.
2. Mix all the spices/herbs/salt/garlic/onion into a small bowl. Set aside
3. Rub about 1-2 teaspoon of oil onto the chicken breast and coat the chicken with the dry mixture evenly. Set aside in the refrigerator for at least 30min.
4. Heat up a non-stick pan with half of the remaining olive oil, place 2 chicken breast at one time. Cook the chicken 4-5min each side. And you are done. 

Chomp Chomp.. Meat Galore.. 

Note: This is good to serve with Mash Potato and some mixed vegetables.. You are all set to go.. :)

Banana Bread.. Version 2.0 .. My quest to healthy yet tasty bread

Since Kimmie asked me to make Banana Bread, I decided to make one from the previous recipe and another one with an improved recipe.


This time, i decided to change plain flour to oatmeal flour and reduced the amount of sugar by 25%

Let's now talk about Version 2.0

Ingredients (Makes 1 loaf)

• 1 3/4 Cup of Oatmeal Flour (Take around 2 Cups Oatmeal and grind)
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp of Cinnamon Powder
• 1/2 Cup of low-fat yoghurt (thinking of trying greek yoghurt the next round)
• 3/4 Cup of sugar (thinking of lowing the sugar amount the next round)
• 2 large eggs
• 5 medium sized ripe bananas, mashed ("kim-jio" for those living in Singapore)
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• Zest of 1 orange (medium size)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Set aside a 9" by 5" loaf pan with parchment paper and greased with butter or non-stick spray. 
2. Take the oat (rolled or quick) and grind it for a couple of mins. It is okay if it is not finely grinded.  
3. Mix the 1st 5 dry ingredients together and set aside. 
4. Add the orange zest into the mashed banana and mixed well.
5. In a mixing bowl cream the sugar and the yoghurt together for a couple of minutes. Add egg and continue mixing till well combined. 
6. Add in the banana-orange zest into the mixing bowl. Mix them till well combined. 
7. Lastly, add in the dry ingredients and stop mixing once 90% of the dry ingredients are combined. Using a spatula, fold to ensure all the dry ingredients are well mixed. This is to prevent over-mixing and the formation of gluten in the flour. If so, the bread will be tough. 
8. Pour the batter into the loaf pan and bake for 35-40 min or until when you insert a toothpick into the middle of the loaf and the toothpick comes out clean. 

Apparently it is faster to bake banana bread made from oatmeal flour.. Wells. 

Yea... Banana Bread... I added oat on top to give it a more "healthy" look.. Hahha

You can still see chunks of banana in the bread...