Graham Cracker Crust Chocolate Flourless Cake

What do you do when your children want something delicous to eat, you want to finish off some unused biscuits and you want to try something new? Bake a new dessert of course!

I've seen a lot of recipes that call for Graham Crackers. Never seen them before nor have I tried them. I usually use Marie Biscuits or Digestives in place of Graham Crackers whenever a recipe calls for it. Anyway, our friend Lynn brought over some Graham Crackers to eat with cheese - not knowing that Graham Crackers are sweet. I don't blame her since the word cracker would imply savoury rather than sweet. Anyway, I was thrilled to finally get my hands on some Graham Crackers. They tasted very much like Digestives, although maybe a little sweeter.





The Graham Crackers sat in the cupboard for a little while till the kids asked for a nice dessert one fine day. I decided to whip up something and to use the Graham Crackers as the base. This is what I did.

Ingredients
125g Graham Crackers
90g Butter

200g Chocolate
3 eggs
150g sugar
100g almond meal

300ml cream
Method
Melt butter and allow to cool. Crush the Graham Crackers in a bag till fine (or use a food processor - although the bag method produces a nicer crust). Place crumbs in a bowl and mix with the butter. Pack into a 8" or 9" springform and then bake crust for 15mins at 180C. Remove from oven and let cool

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over a double boiler. Allow to cool. Whisk the eggs and sugar together till thick and creamy. Beat in the chocolate and then mix in the almond meal till smooth. Whip the cream and fold into the chocolate mixture. Spread into the springform pan and bake at 180C for 20 mins. Remove from oven, cool and then refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

The crust turned out really nicely and the cake was mousselike with a nice texture from the almonds. The children really enjoyed it as did The Lovely Wife. I love anything chocolate and this one goes in as another one of my favourites - a mix between a pie and a crusted cake.

Simply Delicious!!

French Toast for Breakfast and Dinner

My son had a bit of a stomach bug yesterday and couldn't eat very much. He was hungry though and so I suggested making some French Toast. The eyes of my little princess lit up as she asked "Like the ones in hotels?"

Yes, I replied, just like the ones in the buffet breakfasts at hotels. To make the French Toast a little more interesting, I dusted them with cinammon and sugar. Rather yummy indeed!

This morning, being a public holiday for Malaysia's Independance Day, the kids again asked if they could have French Toast - this time for breakfast. I remarked that there was no more cinammon nor was there any more bread. The bread problem was easily fixed by popping over to the local petol station but there was no cinammon there. It was also too early to get any cinammon from the local supermarket. So, this time, I just dusted the toast with icing sugar.

Ingredients
4 eggs
pinch of salt
2 Tbsp milk
8-10 slices white bread

Method
In a shallow bowl, beat eggs, milk and salt lightly with a fork. Over medium-low heat, heat a skillet or shallow pan with a thin layer of oil or butter.
Dip the bread slices, one at a time, into the bowl to coat one side then carefully turn to coat the other side.

Transfer bread skillet and cook till the bottom is nicely browned before turning over to cook the other side. Remove to a plate and while hot, sprinkle with cinnnamon sugar or icing sugar. Alternatively, serve with some honey or maple syrup.

It's quite amazing how something so simple is so well liked. My little princess wolfed down 5 pieces - equivalent to 2.5 slices of bread. Her words said it all as she reached for piece number 5 - "I'm already full, but I'm still hungry!"

Sungai Kelang Mud Cake

This is a really easy recipe that delivers quire a stunning dessert. I've had this recipe for quite a while but haven't made it in the longest time. I used to make this dessert without any baking.

However, I am a little averse nowadays to using uncooked eggyolks and so I now bake this recipe for a short while. However you can opt not to bake it if you so desire. That cuts out the baking and cooling time and makes this dessert even easier to make!

This dessert is one of those that doesn't look terribly attractive and neither does it photograph very well. It is definitely one of those desserts that you shouldn't judge just by looks alone! It is really delicious and its the kind of dessert that you just can't have one slice off...


This dessert is like a Missisipi Mud Pie and it uses crushed biscuits instead of flour to give it body. It tastes really good on its own and is even better with a scoop of ice cream. The cake needs to thaw a little once out of the fridge. Since we are far away from Missisipi, I decided to have a little fun and call this the Sungai Kelang Mud Cake. Sungai Kelang means Klang River - where Klang is a town in Selangor - and is in fact one of two rivers that meet at the confluence that gave Kuala Lumpur its name. I've mentioned this before in my Baked Mackerel recipe.

Ingredients
300g Good Quality Chocolate
200g Butter
2 eggs
150g caster sugar
225g Marie Biscuits or similar
100g chopped almonds
100ml cream
Method
Melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler. mix till smooth. Allow to cool. Beat eggs with sugar till light. Stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Meanwhile, whip cream till stiff. Add to chocolate mixture and fold in well. Crush the biscuits or process in a food processor till it forms crumbs. Mix biscuits into the chocolate mixture. Add in the nuts and mix well. Pour into a greased pyrex dish and bake for 20mins in a 180C oven. Allow to cool then refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

I made this recently and aside from the kids, who always enjoy my desserts, my Father-in-law really enjoyed it. The kids couldnt quite get enough of it and the dessert was had for lunch, tea, dinner, supper and again the next day after breakfast and lunch. Come dinner time, the kids looked at me wistfully and asked why there wasn't anymore of the dessert.


Why Indeed! It was as if everyone else had eaten it all and they hadn't had any!! It's always a pleasure when desserts are enjoyed!

Another Birthday Cake for The Lovely Wife...

TLW celebrated another birthday on the 10th August so that means I'm late with this post. I wasn't late with her cake though so that's what matters! This time around, TLW knew what she wanted. One of her favourite desserts, if not the most favourite, is Tiramisu. I have my own version that she really loves. However, there is a certain restaurant/cafe in Kuala Lumpur that serves a Tiramisu Cake that she loves too. I specifically mention Tiramisu Cake as it is more a cake than a Tiramisu - which to me, needs to be served in a bowl and scooped out. But to each their own.

Everytime she mentions the Tiramisu Cake at Alexis (said Cafe/Restaurant), I feel a little stab at my heart. I have to admit that it is pretty good though. What is nice is that they use pralines/caramelised almonds on top. They also put a layer of chocolate in between the layers of cream. To finish it off, the cake is seated on a bed of strawberry coulis.

So for this birthday, TLW asked if I could replicate the Alexis Tiramisu Cake. I retorted that if I had their recipe, I could do it very easily but just to make her happy, I would see what I could do.
Type your summary here



I had it all planned out. However, a good plan doesn't always work out. I decided to use the Dorie Greenspan Perfect Party Cake for the cake layers. I would then use my Tiramisu recipe for the cheese layers, add in some chocolate shavings, make pralines for the top and use some strawberries for decoration. Sounded like a good plan.
However some things did go wrong. Firstly, the cake didn't whip up as well as it usually does. It was still nice, just not as light and fluffy as it usually is. I put that down to not using new eggs and the fact that I didn't have any cake flour and used plain flour.
Then my pralines didnt turn out as well as they usually do either. This was due to me trying a new method of making pralines. Usually, I make the caramel first and then thrown the roasted nuts in. This time, I threw the nuts together with the sugar and tried to caramelise the whole thing - as suggested in one recipe book I referred to. It kinda worked but was a little grainy. Next time I'll stick to my tried and tested method!




Since there were leftover egg yolks, I decided to make a Sabayon to add into the cheese mix to reduce wastage. I reduced the alcohol for the coffee mixture as the Sabayon had so much alcohol in it. I also doubled my cheese mixture but that left a lot of leftover filling.



All in all though, the cake turned out really good and TLW was very pleased with the cake. She did comment that the praline wasn't properly caramelised and she also didnt quite like the fact that there was so much cream filling around the cake. That was my mistake as I completely misjudged the measurement. Since there was so much cream mixture, I placed the cake in a large springform so there was too much cream around the cake.



Nonetheless, the cake was a real success. The kids loved it as well! TLW took some of the cake to her mother's the next day but made sure to keep enough at home for a second nights eating. And after we shared a piece after dinner, she snuck down later that night to quietly enjoy the final piece of cake on her own...!

Ingredients
For the cake - 1 perfect party cake recipe

For the Cream and Sabayon mixture
*Note - Mixture is enough for 1.5 cakes.
800ml whipping cream
3 Tbsp icing sugar
500g cream cheese
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup creme cacao
5 Tbsp sugar

For the Coffee Mixture
1 cup hot water
2.5 Tbsps Instand Coffee powder
1/2 cup Kahlua
1/2 cup cold water

For the Pralines
250g sugar
150g roasted almonds

200g dark chocolate bar
strawberries
cocoa

Method

Make the cake first and set aside. Then make the sabayon. Place the eggs, sugar and choc liqueur in a heatproof bowl. Place bowl over a pan of simmering water. Dont let the bottom of pan touch the water. Whisk with an electric beater till mixture is thick and pale, leaving a small trail when beaters are lifted. (about 10 mins)
Remove bowl from heat and continue whisking for another few minutes. Place in fridge.

Cream the cheese until soft. Set aside. Then whip cream with icing sugar until stiff. Mix Sabayon with cream cheese till smooth. Fold in cream and mix well till incorporated.

Using a large kitchen knife, shave or chop the chocolate lengthwise to get long shavings. Keep shaved chocolate in fridge until ready to use.

Dissolve coffee in boiling water. Let cool. Mix Liqueur and cold water. Pour into coffee.

Place the sponge in a springform pan or similar pan of the same size as the cake. Soak the cake with half the coffee mixture. cover with a thin layer of chocolate and then top off with the cream mixture. Place the second sponge layer on top and soak with remaining coffee. Top with remaining chocolate and cover with cream mixture. Smoothen the top and let set in fridge. Before serving, dust with cocoa and Cover with chopped pralines. Decorate with sliced Strawberries.



Perfect Party Cake
Courtesy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (page 250).
For the Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
4 ounces butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

The ABC of the Quintessential Malaysian Dessert - more Cultural Exchange

In this hot climate of ours there is no snow, nor will there ever will be. We do get hailstones some times but that is rare. What we do get though is rain. Lots of it. Torrential rain and thunderstorms. Then Kuala Lumpur floods. Traffic crawls. Trees get uprooted. Damage occurs. You get the idea.

But I digress. I started this post off to say that we don't get snow. Why snow? Because as a young lad, I remember reading books that talked about scooping out snow and covering it with maple syrup or honey - written by western authors no doubt.

Many countries and cultures have evolved to using shaved ice instead of snow and pouring syrup over it. We do that here too and we call it "Ice Balls". Better than that however is our very own dessert known as ABC - Air Batu Campur. Air Batu means Ice (Air is pronounced I-yay and means water while Batu is pronounced Bah-to and means stone) and Campur means to mix or mixture. The language has evolved and Air Batu is now commonly known as Ais (ice!) So the dessert is also commonly known as Ais Kacang (literally Ice with Nuts or Beans).


The dessert is usually made with Red Beans, Peanuts, Cincau (grass jelly), coloured jelly pieces (or shredded) and some cream corn. It is then covered with shaved ice to which coconut milk is poured on top and then covered with Gula Melaka and Red Syrup. Sometimes, instead of Coconut milk, evaporated milk is used. Sometimes too, the syrup used is only Gula Melaka or Red Syrup. Nowadays, the ingredients to Ais Kacang are wide and varied and include fruit cocktail in addition to the other ingredients. The options are really limitless. Some places like to place a scoop of ice cream over the ABC as well.

Both my kids love their Ais Kacang. The Lovely Wifes sister-in-law has an electric ice scraper that TLW borrowed to make home-made Ice Kacang. Although the home version of the ice scraper doesnt produce as fine a shaved ice, it does a pretty good job.



For the homemade version, TLW used Evaporated Milk rather than Coconut Milk - healthier although not quite as tasty. She made the gula melaka syrup by melting the solid gula melaka with a little water while the red syrup is simply coloured sugar syrup flavoured with some pandan leaves. She also made her own jelly by boiling agar-agar with pandan leaves and then adding in sugar and food colouring. The red-beans took a long time to soften and I had suggested that TLW just get canned beans isntead. The rest of the ingredients, like grass-jelly, peanuts and cream of corn, are easily available in the local stores.

Sometimes, the jelly is shredded and sometimes it is just cut into small cubes. For the first serving of the Ais Kacang, TLW shredded the jelly. Subsequent servings were just served with cut up jelly!

Ingredients
At least two types of Agar-agar (Jelly made from seaweed)
Cincau (Grass-Jelly)
Cream of Corn
Evaporated Milk
Gula Melaka
Red Syrup or Rose Syrup
Peanuts
Red Beans - boiled till soft
Lots of shaved Ice
Method
Arrange the ingredients in the bottom of a bowl. Cover with shaved ice and then pour evaporated milk/coconut milk on top. Drizzle over Gula Melaka and Syrup.

Here's a little step by step pictorial for you to truly understand the composition of Ice Kacang.


1. Place all the ingredients in the bottom of a bowl. I usually like to put my cream corn in too but TLW and the kids like it on top. To each their own I guess!


2. Place the bowl under the ice scraper maching and fill up with ice shavings.


3. Pour over the evaporated milk (or coconut milk)


4. Then pour over the Gula Melaka...



5. ... and the Red Syrup


The dessert is then ready for the eating!!
Ice Kacang is a great dessert to end a meal with. More than that however, its a great treat to have at any time of the day. The only problem with Ice Kacang is that eaten too quickly, it can cause 'Brain Freeze' as my little princess found out!

Festmahl Kuchen - a cake fit for a feast

In my previous post, I mentioned how Lynn's request made me decide to make Quinoa Stuffed Peppers for the dinner we had with friends prior to watching the World Cup Quarterfinals. The ever discerning Ms Kong Piang yawned in her royal manner and declared that she was tired of purchasing substandard desserts and wanted something that would "hit the right spots." She waxed lyrical about something fruity then pondered upon something chocolatey before she dismissed everything and just 'demanded' something that would satisfy her. Kind of like Jean-Luc Picard saying "Make it so". (For those of you not from the same generation or wavelength, Picard is the Captain of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, The Next Generation)

Anyway, I'm quite frightened of Ms Kong Piang . She has such discerning taste and is a fabulous cook in her own right that I would have to think of something that would match her expectations. Same goes for TLW as well as Lynn!

Having 3 gorgoeus women expecting satisfaction from one man may not be such a dream after all... Women with discerning palates are not to be trifled with. Be afraid. Be very afraid.





TLW kept asking me what I was going to make but I knew it would be better if I surprised her. I decided on a dessert with pears, chocolate mousse and a nutty base. My usual mousse uses egg whites to make it light and fluffy but I needed the egg whites for the meringue and didn't want to have leftover egg yolks. I decided to modify my Baked Chocolate Mousse. This is what I came up with, another original recipe:

Ingredients
3 Egg Whites
150g Caster Sugar
160g Ground Hazelnuts

3 egg yolks
1 Egg
2 Tbsp Sugar
200g good quality Dark Chocolate
400ml Cream
1 large can pears
Method
Start off by straining the pears. Discard the juices. Cut the pears into quarters and set aside.

Whip egg whites till at soft peak stage. Add in the sugar and continue beating till thick, stiff and glossy. Quickly fold in the nuts till well incorporated. Spread into a 10" Springform lined with parchment paper. Bake at 180C for 30-40 mins till meringue is nicely cooked. Remove from oven and let cool. Once cool, remove the parchment paper from the meringue and place the meringue back into the springorm pan, being careful not to break the meringue.

Meanwhile, Melt the chocolate over a double boiler. While chocolate is melting, whisk together the egg yolks, 1 egg and sugar together till light and creamy. Add the egg mixture into the melted chocolate, stirring quickly. Should the chocolate seize or get lumpy, dont worry. Beat with an electric mixer for a short while and chocolate will become thick and silky. Set aside.

Whip the cream till it forms stiff peaks. Carefully fold into the chocolate mixture incorporating well to get a lovely chocolate mousse.

Place a thin layer of mousse over the meringue and then arrange pear quarters over the layer of mousse. Cover the pears with remaining mousse and smoothen the top of the mousse. Bake at 190C for 25 mins. Remove from oven and let cool before allowing to chill for at least 6 hours. Decorate with sliced pears.

I was in a bit of a rush when I made this cake that I didn't remove the parchment paper from the meringue before covering it with mousse. So when I wanted to unmould the cake, I caused a bit of cracking. I've written the recipe above to make sure I dont repeat that mistake!

When I brought the cake out to be served, everyone asked what it was and it was then that I realised that I didn't have a name for it. We decided to eat it first before deciding if it was worthy to be named.



The dessert was a huge hit! Everyone enjoyed it with Ms Kong Piang saying that it was the nicest dessert she had partaken of in a while. I was pleasantly surprised at how well the mousse complemented the pears while the hazelnut meringue was much nuttier and tastier than my usual almond meringue base. Michael enjoyed it so much that he had two pieces at one sitting while the rest of us definitely had more than one serve each!

Lynn and I reckoned that we had to give the cake a Geman name to commemorate Germany's destruction of Argentina in the 2010 World Cup Quarterfinals. Since its a Chocolate Mousse Cake with Pears, I thought of calling it Schokoladenmousse Birnenkuchen - a direct translation.


Maybe Festmal Kuchen is a better and simple name for this cake as I reckon it is the perfect finale to any Feast!