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Dear followers and all the lovely people who arrived at this blog,

I have recently started transferring the recipes, reviews and the science to my new blog hosted by wordpress. New recipes will be presented there and I will be transferring the vast majority of recipes on this blog over too. I just find wordpress layout is more easily manageable.

If you are interested. Please use the the link below and follow my new blog on wordpress. Hope to see and speak to many of you again.

https://bakingfornerds.wordpress.com

Chocolate orange cake

Chocolate orange has always been one of those flavours I love, so I thought it's a nice once to get me back into baking. Though more work on piping is required. I hope the people who had given up chocolate for Lent will find this a worthy cake to attempt! 

Ingredients 
Chiffon sponge

• 3 large eggs (separate yolk and white)
• 105g plain flour
• 15g unsweetened coco powder
• 4g baking powder
• 100, 50g caster sugar (in separate bowls/container)
• 60ml vegetable oil
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large orange (you need the zest and about 80ml orange juice)

1. Pre-heat oven to 160 degree C (or 140 fan)
2. You will need a 21cm round cake tin (DO NOT grease or line with parchment paper)
3. Mix the egg yolks and 100g caster sugar together and mix until smooth
4. Sift the flour and coco powder and baking powder and add to the egg
5. Add the salt and orange zest, mix ingredients together
6. Add a well in the middle of the batter
7. Add the vegetable oil and orange juice
8. Mix everything until smooth
9. Beat the egg white with electric whisk until foamy
10. Add 1 tbsp of caster sugar (from 50g container) at a time to the egg white
11. Whisk until the egg white forms stiff peaks
12. Put in 1/3 of egg white to the cake batter and gently fold it in
13. Add the remaining egg white in two batches to the cake batter and CAREFULLY fold it in
14. Pour the cake batter into the cake tin 
15. Run a large metal life slowly through the cake batter to remove large air bubbles
16. Bake for 40-45 minutes
17. Cool upside down on a wired rack (if the tin was greased, then it will just slip out of the tin)

Simplified chocolate mousse

• 100g dark chocolate (at least 70% coco)
• 50g caster sugar
• 400ml double cream
• 50g icing sugar

1. Heat 200ml double cream with caster sugar until boiling, remove from heat and let it sit for a minute to cool down slightly
2. Chop/break chocolate into small pieces
3. Add the hot cream to chocolate
4. Gently stir until chocolate has completely melted (chocolate ganache)
5. Allow it to cool down to room temperature
6. Whisk 200ml double cream with icing sugar until the cream forms soft peaks
7. Once the ganache is cool and thick, add the whipped cream to the ganache and fold it in gently

Tempering chocolate

It is easier to temper a slightly larger amount of chocolate (preferably more than 100g high quality chocolate about 70% coco).

1. For 100g dark chocolate
2. Melt 70g chocolate over simmering water or on low power in a microwave
3. Break/chop remaining 30g chocolate into small pieces
4. Test temperature of melted chocolate and make sure it is below 50 degree C
5. Add in the remaining chopped chocolate (which would rapidly cool down the chocolate) and stir until it has melted
6. This chocolate is practically good to use for most people at home, but to make it better, the following optional step can be added
7. (Optional) To make sure the melted chocolate has a higher proportion of seed crystal (it has a higher melting point and provides the crisp and harder texture to the chocolate), re-heat the melted chocolate until it reaches 31-32 degree C
8. (Optional) This additional step melts chocolate crystal that is NOT seed crystal (lower melting temperature). The seed crystal in the melted chocolate would promote the other chocolate to take on the seed crystal structure and hence reduce the non-seed form
9. Test the consistency of chocolate by dropping a amount onto a parchment paper using a teaspoon, if it spreads, then it is too runny to be piped
10. Once the chocolate forms a more or less firm dot when dropped onto the parchment paper, then it is ready for piping into various shapes

Assembling

1. Slice the cake horizontally in half
2. Spread about 1/3 of chocolate mousse in the middle of the cake
3. Pipe/spread the rest of the mousse on the side and top of the cake
4. To decorate the top with orange slices, cut orange into thin slices and drain off the excess moisture with a clean kitchen cloth 
5. Place orange slices on top
6. Decorate with chocolate decoration

Hazelnut and Caramel cake

Let me get it straight, it's not the most beautiful cake, but it's not TOO bad for my first proper bake for about a year. So, here comes the first recipe of 2015! It is a fairly long recipe to guide beginners through one step at a time. 

I'm going to describe the instructions for one thing at a time and then describe how to assemble the whole thing together last. Make the sponge and the creme patissiere first as these take a long time to cool. 

Ingredients

Genoise sponge

• 4 eggs
• 125g caster sugar
• 125g plain flour
• 25g butter (melted and cooled down)

1. YOU NEED AN ELECTRIC WHISK
2. Line the bottom and sides of a 23cm round baking tin with baking parchment
3. Pre-heat oven to 190 degree C (or 165 for fan oven)
4. Put the eggs and sugar together in a large mixing bowl
5. Whisk until the egg is thick and leaves behind a trail a ribbon when the whisk has been taken off, this step can take a long time, so put the mixing bowl over a pan of simmering water to slightly warm up the bowl (take care not to heat the egg too much or you might as well be making scrambled eggs)
6. Sift flour and add it to the egg to one side of the bowl (not in the centre, as this makes mixing more difficult)
7. Gently fold in the flour to the egg
8. Add in the butter and gently mix again
9. Bake for 30-35 minutes
10. The cake should rise start to detach itself from the baking parchment on the sides of the tin
11. Test with a clean skewer and the skewer should come out clean if the batter is completely cooked
12. Remove cake from cake tin and take off all the baking parchment (careful not to damage the cake)
13. Turn the cake upside down and let it cool on a wired rack, turn the cake every 5 minutes to avoid the cake from sticking to the rack (repeat at least 4 times)
14. When the cake is cool, slice it in half horizontally

Creme patissiere

• 250ml milk
• 60g caster sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 40g plain flour
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat milk in saucepan until it simmers
2. Combine egg yolks and caster sugar and whisk until smooth
3. Add flour to the egg and whisk again until smooth
4. Add hot milk a little at a time to the egg and whisk the entire time
5. Once all the milk has been added, return the entire mixture to the saucepan and leave it on medium heat
6. Whisk the mixture continuously until it thickens (it should be quite thick at this stage)
7. Add the vanilla extract and whisk for another 1 minute
8. Remove the creme patissiere from saucepan and transfer it to a large bowl to cool down to room temperature

Chantilly cream

• 250ml double cream
• 50g icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Mix all the ingredients together and beat with electric whisk until it thickens

Caramelised hazelnut

• 100g hazelnut
• icing sugar

1. Heat the hazelnut on a hot frying pan for a few minutes
2. Take it off and rub off the skin of hazelnut
3. Return the hazelnut to the hot frying pan and sprinkle icing sugar over the hazelnut
4. Heat until sugar has dissolved and coated the hazelnut
5. Take off lightly caramelised hazelnut off the heat to cool down
6. Reserve 15-20 hazelnuts on the side and roughly chop (or grind) the rest

Caramel decorations

• 150g granulated sugar

I have previously dissolved the sugar in a small amount of water first to make the caramel, but you can't stir that as it contains both dissolved and undissolved sugar, so stirring will mix the both together and form a lumpy sugar mixture instead of a smooth caramel. I have adopted the dry method this time. You will have to work quickly with the caramel decorations. 

1. Heat sugar in a saucepan (preferably not black in colour so you can tell the stage of caramelisation) over medium heat
2. Stir occasionally (yes you can do this when the sugar is not dissolved in water beforehand)
3. Once caramel is a dark shade of yellow (or a very light brown colour), turn the heat off
4. When the caramel is still runny, use a metal spoon and sprinkle the caramel over a piece of baking parchment in the shapes you desire and let it cool to harden
5. To make the hazelnut spikes, allow the caramel to cool down slightly in the saucepan so it is more viscous and less runny
6. Pierce the hazelnut with a skewer/tooth pick and dip the hazelnut into the caramel
7. Cover the hazelnut with caramel and lift it up and hold it for a few seconds so the excess caramel starts to drop down
8. Move the hazelnut spikes and let the spike hang over the edge of a table and hold the skewer/tooth pick down with a heavy object

Assembly! (Finally)

1. Fold in the chopped hazelnut, Chantilly cream into the creme patissiere
2. Cover the bottom half of the genoise sponge with the hazelnut cream, be generous with the amount you put in
3. Put the other half of the cake on top 
4. Pipe the cream over the top in any way you want and decorate with the candied and spiked hazelnuts