Coffee-cinnamon Walnut Cake And a cheesecake: Chocolate Orange Cheesecake.When it comes to the standard that most of our local bakery claims to be, which is a 'home-baked' business, it should be like what it should be. Therefore, no added chemicals, flavorings, colorings and any synthetic items mixed to it. Unfortunately, I've seen a lot of bakers in Malaysia who prefer to use all these kind of things instead of the real ones. The very nearest points to this reasons is, not to be blamed, but it's the truth that almost all of the bakery supplies provide these kind of things. There are a bunch of colorful items here and there, stacked upon each other, in a sorted manner. This experienced me when I first visited one of the famous bakery items supplier at the heart of KL city 10 years ago. It is situated in a wet alleys, surrounded by the short shophouses, and there could be some human 'flees' too. What a silly place they have, but they were managed to get their business to run even smoothly without any circumstances!
This time, when I first discover how well the recipes are prepared in my only best book of all, I'm a bit surprised of how natural the ingredients it used in most of its recipes. I'm sure the author of this books has experienced the true environment of baking experts from around the world, especially the original places of breads. When it comes to breads, no other natural ingredients from the freshly harvested wheat that are being processed at the same time, the hands of the traditional bakers, and a minimal set of machinery items. And it uses the natural yeast, too. This scene has been showe
d at the food channel on Astro TV last time, where the scene happens at some part of Europe, like Scotland, if I'm not mistaken. Now this is what I mean by truly natural in baking, just like what the 'home-baked' items should be. With the geographical factors taken into account, I'm not hoping that the real wheat as the main ingredients of the baked items as well. We can used the nearest quality of the things that available in each country in this world. I believed that to produce the basic home-baked items such as breads and cakes, there could be enough of using the basics flours and fats while adding some additional liquids such as eggs and rising agents, plus the state-of-the-art actions of the two hands of the bakers, with the help of the basic tools like a wooden spoon, bowls, and the oven. If we handled them carefully and neatly, of course, the end result is what the home-baker expected to come.And when I was first watched the game of Cake Mania, I'm shocked of how the standard bakery bake the cake such like that to a line of customers waiting for their orders in front of it? This looks like a Pizza house rather than the cake house as the items could be expressly finished within the period of orders. And I believed, if the way of baking is similar to the traditional taste, we could cut our cost in term of time and budget, just to make the cakes of the basic-like variants! Apart from that, we could just take some extra times just to decorate the finished product, like the wedding cakes, which could take for up to a week to accomplished it. By limiting the amount of unwanted ingredients, we can just have it for some days. The customers will loved the cake even it's just covered with a simple icing, where it still could become nice with the help of the arts to manipulating it.
As for the cheesecakes, you can see that the recipe used a little and minimal ingredients as it can to produce a basic and home-touched cheesecake recipe. This is yet different from the traditional type cheesecake, as this only used the plain type of cheese, the cheddar cheese, blended with the fats such as cream.
Now I will let you feel the secrecy of the baking havens, where it could brings you to feel like at home whenever you deserve it.
1st recipe: Hot Apple Cake with Pecan Sauce Topping
(For your info, I've omitted the topping for this recipe)
Ingredients:
For the Cake:
226 g butter
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups All-Purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinammon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 medium apples, peeled, cored and diced
3/4 cup pecans, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Method:
- Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs one at the time
- Add the dry ingredients.
- Mix in the apples, pecans and vanilla
- Bake at 30 - 40 mins at 175 C / 350 F.
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup pecans
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup cream, simmered.
Melt the butter and add the pecans. Add sugar and cook for some minutes until the mixture starts to caramelize. Pour in the cream. Keep stirring. Bring to the boil until the sugar dissolves and the sauce is browned.
(Copyright: Juadah Manisan Istimewa Chef Wan, 1998 Times Edition Pte Ltd, 2000 Tme Media Private Limited)
2nd Recipe: Coffee-cinnamon Walnut Cake
For the cake:1 tablespoon baking powder
2 cups All-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
150g unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon instant coffee powder, dissolved in a little bit of hot water
1 cup fresh milk
1 1/2 cups walnut, chopped.
Method:
- Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
- Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one at a time, with the coffee liquid at the last additions.
- Fold the sifted ingredients alternatively with the milk.
- Add in the walnut, stir and pour into the greased and lined 22cm tin.
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup walnut, chopped coarsly
powdered sugar for dusting.
- Add flour, butter, cinnamon and walnut and mix well. Drops over the cake mixture.
- Bake in the preheated oven at 170 C/340 F for 40 minutes. Cool before cutting.
- Dust with the powdered sugar on top.
3rd Recipe: Chocolate Orange Cheesecake
serves 8-10
Preparation time: about 30 minutes, plus chilling
Cooking time: about 10 minutes
Ingredients:
40 g/1 1/2 oz. plain chocolate
40 g/1 1/2 oz. butter or margarine
175g / 6 oz. digestive biscuits, crushed
Filling:
225 g/8 oz. full fat soft cheese
75 g/3 oz. caster sugar
grated rind of 1 orange
4 tablespoons orange juice
15 g/1 1/2 oz powdered gelatine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
large can evaporated milk, chilled overnight
Decoration:
150 ml/ 1/4 pint double or whipping cream
1 1/2 - 2 packets plain chocolate biscuits
jellied orange slices
Method:
- Melt the chocolate and butter or margarine in a saucepan over a gentle heat. Stir in the crushed biscuits until evenly coated, then press over the bottom of a well-greased 19-20 cm/7 1/2-8 inch loose-based round cake tin. Chill until set.
- To make the filling, beat the cheese and sugar until soft and smooth. Gradually beat in the orange rind and juice.
- Dissolve the gelatine i the lemon juice in a heatproof bowl over a pan of hot water. Cool, then mix evenly through the cheese mixture.
- Whisk the evaporated milk until very thick and standing in soft peaks, then quickly fold through the cheese mixture. Pour into the tin over the biscuit base and chill until set - preferably overnight.
- Remove the cheesecake from the tin and place it on a plate. Whip the cream until stiff and spread a thin layer all around the sids f the cheesecake. Stick the chocolate finger biscuits round the sides.
- Decorate the top with whirls of whipped cream and complete with jellied orange slices.
(Copyright: Cakes & Cake Decorating, Rosemary Wadey, 1982 Hennerwood Publications Limited)
