Pineapple yeast vanilla cake

Recently I've been using less and less dried yeast and more of my own starter for baking breads. Then I thought... why not use it for my cakes too... so, I did. ;)

I made a simple buttery vanilla cake with my pineapple starter. And and..., it was a great success! I think the pineapple yeast was a good choice for a cake because it has a very sweet fruity flavour to it.

Andy took the round cake to work (I put ginger pear jam and butter icing in the middle) and apparently it was gone in 5 minutes! That's to me the best compliment I could get as a baker. :D

One thing with using the starter for a cake is that it's a much longer process than an ordinary cake because you need to wait for the cake to rise before you put it in the oven, and it could be more than a few hours depending on the size of the cake and the condition of the starter. So, plan your baking time! Don't start it late in the evening because you might end up waiting and waiting and won't be able to go to bed until midnight... (that was my case...silly me...).

Biscuit assortment

Biscuits are simple. But perfecting an ultimate biscuit recipe is pretty hard. I've been trying to come up with an easy enough biscuit recipe which also have that "moreish-ness" to it.

So... yesterday I made 4 different biscuits that I've been meaning to test out. Normally when I do multiple recipe experiments, some of them fails miserably.... However, this time all of them came out awesome!

So here we are. There are what I made...

Jam biscuit (I used raspberry jam)

Flour 100g

Butter 50g

Sugar 50g

Jam 50g

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add jam and mix well.

3. Fold flour and baking powder into 2.

4. Knead lightly until the mixture come together and smooth.

5. Wrap with cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. Cut out the dough and place on a baking sheet.

7. Bake in the preheated (180ºc) oven for 10-12 minutes.

Salted vanilla biscuit
Same as the Lemon meringue's sweet pastry.
After making the dough, shape it into a stick and rest it in the freezer until it's hard. Cut the dough into 8mm thickness and bake. When the biscuits are done, sprinkle salt.

Cocoa biscuit

Flour 100g

Cocoa powder 15g

Butter 50g

Sugar 50g

Egg yolk 2

Baking powder 1/2 tsp

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk and mix well.

3. Fold flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into 2.

4. Knead lightly until the mixture come together and smooth.

5. Wrap with cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

6. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 5mm thickness. Cut out the dough and place on a baking sheet.

7. Bake in the preheated (180ºc) oven for 15 minutes. 

Almond ball biscuit

Butter 100g

Icing sugar 50g

Egg yolk 1

Almond powder 120g

Flour 130g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Cream butter and icing sugar together.

2. Add egg yolk into 1 and mix well.

3. Fold almond flour and flour into 2.

4. Rest the dough int the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

5. Take out the dough and make small balls. Place the balls on a baking sheet.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

My favourite was the Almond ball biscuit. I can see myself making it again pretty soon! :D

Vanilla butter cream Swiss roll

Because I've been making a lot of breads at work..., because I just wanted to make an authentic sponge cake..., or simply because I was craving for something soft and sugary yet creamy...whatever the reason is I had an urge of making this Swiss roll.

It is pretty simple. When you follow the recipe, I almost guarantee that you'll get a nice soft sponge that is easy to roll and goes with any fillings you like;D

This time I made my own vanilla butter cream. I wanted to make it really exquisite, so I used a whole vanilla pod. (from Vanillabazaar, seriously awesome stuff!) Using a ready made cream or jam for the filling is fine, but it's much more fun to make it yourself!

So here is my vanilla butter cream recipe...;
Butter 80g

Sugar 60g

Egg 1

Milk 60ml

Vanilla pod 1 (scrape the beans)

1. Cream butter until it's fluffy. In a separate bowl, beat egg.

2. In a pot, combine milk, vanilla beans and pod and sugar and put on a heat.

3. Keep stirring 2 and when it starts to boil, turn the heat off. Take the vanilla pod out.

4. Add beaten egg into 3. Keep mixing in order to keep the egg from being lumpy.

5. Add 4 into butter. Keep mixing until it's smooth.

And a few tips for a nice soft Swiss roll...

Egg 2

Sugar 30g

Flour 30g

***

Vanilla butter cream + coconut flake (2-3 tbsp) + a few drops of rum = Humm, awesomeness...

1. Pre heat the oven to 200ºc. Place a baking sheet in a cake tin.

2. Beat egg with a electric hand mixer. Add sugar and mix until it's VERY fluffy. (Make sure that the eggs have got a lot of air in and look sort of white.)

3. Sift four into 1. Fold in. NEVER mix, but FOLD IN! (Do it like drawing '8'  with a spatula. Do not let the fluffy egg disappear.)

4. Pour the mixture in the prepared cake tin. Make the surface smooth with a spatula. Hit the bottom of the tin against the work surface a few times to get the air out.

5. Bake in the preheated oven (200ºc) for 10 minutes.

6. When the cake is done, cover it with cling film and cool it down.

7. Spread the filling on the cake, and roll up carefully.

Aghaaah awesome cream and sponge..., that was a really nice sugar supply for the afternoon...

Taste of London

I went to Taste of London yesterday to help my friend, Sakina, who has got an excellent  Madagascan vanilla company, Vanillabazaar.com (see their amazing products here...)
Although the weather wasn't too great (I felt like we had all the weather in a day... Heavy rain, wind, and sunshine....), thanks to Sakina, I did enjoy the whole event so much! It was really inspiring!

And... there is a thing or more like...a chef... I met there when I was wandering around during the break time. Yes, Michel Roux Jr! Seriously.... I thought I was going to throw up my heart! I was THAT thrilled to see him because to me he is THE chef, my legend. I was totally speechless. Overwhelmed....
I don't remember what I said to him... maybe something like "I am a... a... a... big.. fa fa fan... oof... you...". Anyway..., I got one of his books and he gave me his autograph... Oh, and and! I took picture with him too!! Amazing... I just can't believe how lucky I was...

So..., it was a really really good day for me:) Thanks again to Sakina for such a lovely day:D