Lemon Frosted Lemon Cake with a sad snake...

Every Chinese New Year for the last few years, we have been invited over to Ms Lor Siak Por's for lunch. Ms LSP always provides a lovely spread of food and this year was no exception


As has been the 'tradition' I bake a cake for her and her guests to eat. Except for the first year, when I managed to pipe on a Chinese character on the cake, the last 2 years have seen me trying to feature the Chinese Zodiac animal on the cake.

Trying is the operative word as my Zodiac Animals never seem to turn out well. Two years ago, I attempted a Rabbit Cake but the rabbit turned out looking more like a hamster or maybe a rat. Then, last year, I attempted a Dragon Cake but alas, said dragon turned out looking more like a fancy prawn.

This year, being the year of the snake, I attempted a Snake figure for the cake. Well, it kind of looks like a snake but perhaps a rather sad snake. As my little princess said, I should have just gone for a 'cartoonish' kind of snake in 2D rather than trying to be fancy. My son said that the snake made the otherwise lovely looking cake look scary....

He said I should have taken a picture of the cake first without the snake. I wish I had done that too.

Almond Choc Chip Chinese New Year Cake

I'm late
I'm late
For a very important date.
No time to say "Hello, Goodbye".
I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.


Yes, Late, Late, Late! Chinese New Year has come and gone and I'm only now posting about the cake I made for Ms Lor Siak Porfor Chinese New Year 2012!

Taking a cake over to Ms LSP's for her Chinese New Year parties has become something of a tradition. It's the least we can do since Ms LSP always feeds us with some awesome food! This year, I fell in love with her Abacus Yam dish. The dish is basically yam shaped into abacus like discs and then cooked with minced meat and all sorts of other stuff. I dont know how to make it nor what goes into the dish but is really yummy. You'll have to ask her how it's made but trust me when I say it's delicious.

I always feel I need to make something different to tantalise Ms LSP's taste buds. She is one person that I really enjoy baking for as she is honest and will tell you if the cake doesn't meet up to her expectations. She also doesn't ooh and ahh for the sake of oohing and aahing but will tell you what she really thinks.

So for this year, I decided I would make a Choc Chip Almond cake topped with my usual Chocolate Ganache. This being the year of the dragon I piped out a dragon on top of the cake.

No, I dont have good piping skills, what I did was to make a royal icing and pipe it over a printed out picture of a dragon. Then I carefully moved it over to the cake. Rather clever of me I thought!



For the cake, I flirted with the idea of making a blondie - the vanilla version of a Brownie. What I did was meld the method of a brownie with my butter cake recipe and this is what I came up with.

Ingredients
250g Butter
230g Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
230g Flour
2.5 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Vanilla
100g Choc Chips
100g Almonds (nibs or chopped)

Chocolate Ganache
150g Dark Chocolate
200ml Cream
Sugar to taste

Method
Melt the butter and let cool. Beat in sugar. Add in eggs one at a time till creamy. Sift flour together with baking powder and fold into the mixture. Add in vanilla, nuts and choc chips. Mix well. Spread into a lined baking pan and bake in a preheated 170C oven for about 40 minutes or till done.

For the topping, heat the cream and then pour over the chocolate. Mix well and add sugar to taste. Allow to cool slightly then spread over top and sides of cake.

My kids reckoned that the dragon looked a little bit like a prawn but fortunately Ms LSP and her guests all knew it was a Dragon!




I think the cake turned out pretty well and Ms LSP gave me the thumbs up. Thanks for a great lunch Ms LSP and here's a belated wish to everyone for a Very Happy Chinese New Year! May the year of the Dragon bring you lots of peace, love and prosperity. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Chocolate Orange Cake with a Rabbit thrown in!

Happy Chinese New Year everybody! Okay, So I'm a little late but at least I'm still within the 15 days of Chinese New Year! This year, our good friend, Ms Lor Siak Por, invited us over for Chinese New Year lunch on Saturday, 5th February. That was the 3rd day of Chinese New Year.

I have to say that Ms Lor Siak Por cooked up a feast and I ate a whole lot more than I should have. I told her the food was Absolutely (F***ing) Delicious and she laughed at my profanity! I'd tell you what she cooked but then again this is my blog and not hers...

So anyway, The Lovely Wife and I thought that we couldn't go over empty handed especially since Ms Lor Siak Por is such an ardent fan of my cakes/desserts. Since this year is the Year of the Rabbit and since Chinese New Year is always equated with mandarin oranges, I decided to make a Chocolate Orange Cake.


I've made a Choc-Orange cake before for a friend where I just added in some marmalade and cointreau to my usual chocoalte cake recipe but this time I wanted it to be different. What I did was to make a double batch of my butter cake recipe, but modified to include Marmalade, Cointreua and Orange Oil. Then I split the quantity and added Cocoa to one half and then marbled the batter to make a Choc Orange Marble cake.

For the Icing, I used a combination of cocoa, butter and chocolate with liberal doses of cointreau added in as well. The results were indeed rather yummy. The recipe yielded enough for 1 round 9inch cake plus a square 8 inch cake plus a Mother rabbit and two baby rabbits.



I had the Rabbit moulds stored away in the cupboard - a hand me down from Mummy dearest who had apparently made a Rabbits in the garden cake many, many, many years ago! So I baked all the cakes together and they came out looking pretty good. I decided I would keep the small rabbits for the kids and put the mummy bunny on top of the square cake.

Makes 2 quantities. Half the recipe for just one cake.
Ingredients
460g (16oz) Flour
5 tsp Baking Powder
460g (16oz) Castor Sugar
500g Butter
8 Eggs – lightly beaten
6 Tbsp Marmalade
2 Tsps Orange Oil
3 Tbsp Cointreau
3 tbsp cocoa mixed with hot water

For the Icing
4 oz butter
4 oz chocolate
4 oz cocoa
12 oz icing sugar
1-2 Tbsp Cointreau
water

Method
Cream butter and sugar till light and ivory coloured. Add eggs a little at a time. Fold in flour (sifted twice with baking powder). Add in Marmalade, Orange Oil and Cointreau. Mix well till smooth. Halve the mixture. Mix the cocoa with a little hot water to make a smooth paste. Add in the cocoa to one half of the mixture.
Marble the batter by putting in two spoons of plain mixture followed by two spoons of chocolate mixture. Divide equally into two lined and greased cake pans or moulds.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for about 45 mins or till golden and done
Allow to cool then frost with icing.

Icing
Melt the butter, cocoa and chocolate together to form a smooth paste. Allow to cool. Sift the icing sugar and beat into the mixture. It may clump up a little. Add in the cointreau then add in a little hot water, a little at a time till you achieve a nice smooth, thick icing.
Method

I had made the cakes the evening before and The Lovely Wife's mother, brother, nephew and niece had come over. I served the cake with Ice Cream and the Kids ate the baby rabbits and then dug into the cake with much gusto. The cake was almost completely polished off and I was surprised by how fast it went.



Once cut, the cake had a nice marbled effect and the orange taste was rather distinctive while the chocolate was more subtle.

When we took the cake over to Ms Lor Siak Por's place, I was a bit embarrassed as I thought the rabbit looked more like a little rat as my icing didn't turn out so good. I had run out of icing bags and had to make do with zip lock bags that kept bursting. Fortunately, it looked enough like a rabbit for everyone to ooh and ahh. Apparently her other guests remembered my Chocolate Raspberry Cake that I made last year and I was hoping that this cake would be just as good.

The cake turned out really well and everyone enjoyed it. The kids especially liked it when we could finally cut into the rabbit. I think the rabbit tasted especially good too and as I said earlier, the marbling looked quite good too.




Happy New Year Ms Lor Siak Por and I hope you enjoyed eating whatever cake was left over! Thanks for the splendid meal too. :)