Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake!

Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake has been on my "To-bake-list" for the LONGEST TIME ever..!

Yesterday eldest sister had a buffet party for her friends, so I contributed this cake. I've always wanted to try out baked cheesecakes, but just that I'm plain lazy to get the ball rolling, and since she's having a function, I jumped at the chance, taking this as an opportunity to practice some baking!

Those people that tried the cake loves it! (except brother-in-law, who loves heavy, dense kind of cheesecake). Well, I love this cake too, it's not rich like NY cheesecakes, and it's cotton-y spongy soft! And my 2nd sis's bf actually commented that it tasted like Breadtalk's, and that really makes my day!!


See! The cake rise and brown evenly!


The end product, a nice and soft cheesecake!


I unlock the springform pan while the cake is still hot, and alas! Cause a big ugly crack at the side.. =(

The interior of the cake. I did not use a sharp knife, that's why the cut is so ugly.


And lastly, I'm very happy with the height of the cake! Rise so nicely!

Recipe from Kitchen Capers Forum. Variations made by me are highlighted in RED

Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake

Ingredients

• 250g cream cheese
• 50g butter
• 100ml milk
• 60g superfine flour (I use Top flour)
• 20g corn flour
• 6 egg yolks
• 6 egg whites
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 140g caster sugar (I use 120g)
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 2 tbsp lemon zest

Methods

1. Using the double broiler, melt the butter, cream cheese, and milk together. Leave it to cool till room temperature.
2. Using a ballon whisk, stir in the sifted flours (cornflour + Top flour) till well incorporated. Mix in the lemon juice, zest and egg yolks.
3. In a dry and clean bowl, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy, then slowly add in caster sugar and beat till soft peaks.
4. Gently whisk in egg whites (In 3 batches) into the cheese mixture, till no visible streaks of egg white could be seen.
5. Pour the batter into the lightly grease and lined cake pan and bake in a water bath at 160C for 70mins.
6. Chill in refridgerator before serving.
   
   

Steamed Egg White Rainbow Cake

Finally I baked something after the long "holiday" from baking... I was "thread-hopping" in KC last night, and I stumbled on this cake recipe posted by zurynee, EGG WHITE RAINBOW CAKE.

Well, I've to admit that it's the beautiful picture of the cake that caught my attention, I was quite shock to see the picture because it's simply tooooo beautiful, with so many colours and the pattern created... Amazing I would say, but I was in for another shock! The amount of egg whites required!

Nah, not 100g, not 200g, not 300g, definitely not 400g... BUT 500g of egg whites! Gosh, that's quite a fair bit.. But reading on the posts by those forumers that tried this cake, 98% gave raving reviews and most of them yield beautiful cakes too, so I was like being tempted to try it out too..

I was curious on how to creat the patterns, so I read on the methods.. Looks simple enough.. So yes, SET, I decided on making this cake.

TADA..!! Present you a picture of cake before steaming.. My sister and I was like "goo goo ga ga" over the beautiful swirls..


There's a total of 6 colours in this cake..

• Rose Pink
• Apple Green
• Egg Yolk Yellow
• Brown (Coffee Emulco, instead of chocolate emulco)
• White (Actually I just left it plain)
• Cherry Red

Of which I concluded that Cherry Red and Rose Pink are quite similar in colour.. Take note of it, so next time shall omit either 1 of them.

This is the look of the cake after steaming.. It rise up till quite high, but kind of like shrink back a little after I took it out of the steamer. Maybe I should left it to sit in the steamer instead of exposing it straight away to the cold air?? (Any experts out there care to advise??.. Much much appreciated!)

Hey Hey, this is the picture I wanted or rather waited to present to all of you.. Check out the beautiful pattern!! Alright, please please ignore the crack in the middle and the ugly sides..

I'm super duper impatient, I release the springform pan almost immediately after removing the cake from the steamer, and I was literally banging the cake here and there... That's explains the ugly sides.. (I handle the cake VIOLENTLY!) Hiak Hiak Hiak.. =p

Nevermind the blurred picture, cracked cake.. The cake is still pretty (in my eyes) and did I ever mentioned that the cake is AWESOME-ly SUPER-ly DUPER-ly YUMMYYY and SPONGY?????? Just give me a Humongous slice of this cake and a cup of hot coffee, trust me.. I'll be a happy girl for the whole day!

It has a egg-y taste, nice fragrance from the vanilla essence, and a comforting smell from the coffee emulco used.. I'm in love with this cake.. TOTALLY!!

But my dad commented that next time round I should just make a plain + coffee one (i.e white and brown colour ones).. Then it strikes me that it'll become a ZEBRA CAKE!

Well.. It's hard not to fall in love with this cake right??

FYI, this cake is quite big in size, and now, there's only 2 slice left in the container! I've reserved a slice for B.. How can I miss out his share of this lovely cake??

Sharing with you the recipe (with my variations):

STEAMED EGG WHITE RAINBOW CAKE

Ingredients

• 500g egg whites
• 60g evaporated milk
• 1 tbsp vanilla essence
• 150g melted butter (I replaced with 100g corn oil)
• 225g castor sugar (I used only 100g)
• 300g top flour
• 1 tbsp ovalette
• 1/2 tsp Colouring of your choice (I use 6 diff colours)
• 1 tbsp coffee emulco (considered as 1 colour)
• Pinch of salt

Methods

1. Beat egg whites at high speed. Add in sugar bit by bit once the egg whites turns bubbly. Continue beating till soft peaks.
2. Add in sifted flour, milk, ovalette, vanilla essence and salt. Continue mixing (Use electric mixer).
3. On low speed, mix in the corn oil/ melted butter and mix till well blended.
4. Divide batter into equal parts (depending on the no. of colours you've). Add one colour to each portion of batter and mix well.
5. Add coffee emulco into 1 portion of the batter as well.
6. Grease a baking tin with melted butter (I did not do so as I was using non-stick pan). Scoop 1 tbsp of batter (1st colour) into the center of the baking tin, continue with another colour (2nd colour) onto the 1st colour. Continue with all the colours and repeat the process till finish.
7. Bang the cake thrice on table top to eliminate air bubbles trapped within. Swing the cake pan from side to side gently. (This creats the wavy effect).
8. Steam the cake on high heat for 30mins or till cake is done.

Original recipe available here.

PS: In case some of you are interested, I use 18 medium eggs to get 500g egg whites.

Steamed Chocolate Milk Custard

I really like those food that has silky smooth texture.. Like soy beancurd, steam eggs custard etc.. This can be justified by the recent posts that I've posted up.. Hehe..


Please pardon me for doing the same range of things over and over again.. I'm trying to explore with new type of food and flavours.. Hee =P

Today after dinner made myself a chocolate-y dessert.. I like this very muchie... Cos I like my chocolate to be slightly bitter.. I don't like sugary food as well and this is not overly sweet.. So it suits my tastebuds very well!

Steamed Chocolate Milk Custard

Ingredients

130mL chocolate milk
30mL water
1.5 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp honey
1 egg white

Methods

1. Heat up water in a saucepan, and stir till cocoa powder and honey dissolves. Remove and set aside till cool.
2. Add in the cooled chocolate mixture and egg white into the chocolate milk. Stir well to mix.
3. Strain mixture into a bowl and steam over low heat for 12minutes.
4. Serve warm or chilled

This dessert is a much healthier version of a chocolate pudding.. as it doesn't use cream and butter. And I only use egg whites, which greatly reduces the fat content of this dessert. And trust me, its really smooth.. Really enjoy eating this very much! I guess I will make this whenever the chocolate cravings kicks in!

Updates: I tried experimenting it using chocolate milk (minus the water), and it does make a difference to the texture, its more rough and less silky. In my point of view, it wasn't as nice as the orignal one.

Steamed Eggs (a.k.a Tan Tan)

Tried making steamed eggs just now..


Surface of the steamed egg is not smooth as compared to florence's. I used medium fire instead of low fire..
The steamed eggs is very smooth and nice.. Taste abit like beancurd (Tao huey), only difference is that this has the egg and almond fragrance.

Recipe adapted from Kitchen capers, posted by Florence.

However I made some changes here and there to suit my tastebuds.

Steamed Egg

Ingredients
60mL water
0.5 tsp honey (recommand 1 tbsp instead)
115mL milk
1 egg (beaten)
1 tsp almond powder

Methods

1. Boil honey with water till honey dissolves.
2. Stir in almond powder till dissolved.
3. Add milk and eggs to the cooled mixture.
4. Strain mixture into 2 cups (I pour into 1 cup), cover with foil and steam over low heat for 10minutes.
5. Serve warm or chilled.

Alas.. I re-read the recipe, then I realised that I did not cover my cup with foil, which I guess it contributes to the "Rocky" surface of the custard and next time round I shall steam in 2 cups, so I can eat one cup warm, the other chilled.. Hehe

I don't like anything sweet, so I used only 0.5tsp of honey, and trust me.. Thats a bad move.. Should have up it to 1 tsp.. Really not sweet at all.. The additon of almond powder really enhances the taste of the steamed egg.. Very fragrant! Yumm.. Hehe! (Will make this again tml, but with variations of course!)

I made another milk dessert on the same day, and I ate both by myself.. So now I shall declare that my stomach is really overloaded.. With milk..

I shall post the other milk dessert in a seperate post.

Egg-y Tart-y

Burp Burpsss...

Woppes, sorry.. just gobble up 2 egg tarts before posting.. hehe.. Yeah, right, made egg tarts today (actually yesterday too).. So I shall post up yesterday pictures..

I was comtemplating between 2 egg tart recipes, because I like the tart recipe of the 1st and the egg custard of the 2nd, so in the end, I combine both recipe and came up with:




















I use the tart recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2008/01/egg-tarts.html

And the custard recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/09/egg-tarts.html

Both of which originated from Aunty Yochana website, I did some changes here and there to suit my family's tastebuds. I prefer the tart recipe because it uses less amount of butter.. My family and I are not "good friend" with Miss/Mr Butter.. But sad to say that, in baking using butter is inevitable. You want a rich taste, use butter, if not you will have to compromise with the taste..

Thus, in summary, the below is the recipe I used to make these egg tarts.

EGG TARTS

Pastry Crust

100g Butter
40 icing sugar
1 egg
20g milk powder
220g plain flour (I use 200g top flour)
20g custard powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence


Egg custard

280g fresh milk
160g sugar (I use only 85g of icing sugar)
3 eggs
1tsp rum (I omit this)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

(Tart)

1. Beat butter and icing sugar till well mix. Add in egg and vanilla essence and mix till combined.


2. Add in the sifted flour, milk powder and custard and mix till a pliable dough. Rest dough for 10minutes and press the dough into tart mould.


3. Bake the tart shell for 10 minutes at 175 celcius.
   

(Egg custard)

1. Heat milk and sugar together till sugar dissolves.
   
2. Cool down the milk and whisk in the egg mixture. Do not whisk till frothy.
   
3. Add in the vanilla essence
   
4. Sift the egg custard and pour into the tart mould and bake at 175 celcius till set (no longer wobbles)

I took about 10 - 15minutes to cook the egg tart till set, but this baking time may vary with different type of oven.

The egg tarts are very well-received! I gave some to my granny and my aunty commented that this egg tart is even better than the neighbourhood bakery stall she use to buy from! To me, this is very encouraging and will push me on to bake more stuffs! So happy..!

The egg custard is very smooth and silky.. Not too sweet as well.. very nice!!

And the tart case is crispy and very fragrant!

I packed 4 egg tarts and give away to my driving instructor as I have a driving lesson with him on that day.. Hope he enjoy it as much as I do!

Another happy stuff is that I finally got my silpat mat! This item is on my wish list for a long time, so today I finally got it! Though it is more on the expensive side, but I believe its worth it.. because I want to venture out in making macarons! One of my constant cravings.. Nutty taste, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.. Yumms.. Making me hungry!