23 April 2013

Rainbow Cake once more

Recently, I received an order for a Rainbow Cake from a friend E, who is celebrating his son's upcoming birthday.

Was considering whether to use the previous recipe attempted for dear son's birthday or try the other recipe by Whisk Kid that I was interested in. As it was also the hubby's birthday recently, I took the opportunity to test-bake Whisk Kid's recipe.

I decided to go for 7" round cake as my friend's cake is supposed to be for 10 pax. I reckoned the cake would be too tall if it were 6". But since it's only a test-bake, I just did a 4-layer cake instead of actual 7-layer one. As such, I halved Whisk Kid's recipe. For the buttercream, I also used Whisk Kid's Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream, and adjusted the ratio accordingly, enough to crumb coat and frost the cake.


The cake turned out beautifully, and in fact the texture was slightly more tender than the previous recipe, which was curious because Whisk Kid's recipe uses lesser sugar and butter comparatively. Or could it be the eggs? Whisk Kid uses only egg whites and lululu uses full eggs? I have no idea. But the cake's texture is still not as tender as I like. Probably I would use cake flour for the actual cake.

As for the lemony buttercream, I thought that the lemon extract was too sharp for my liking. Hubby had the same though as well. But the lemon taste did provide a slightly refreshing change to the otherwise vanilla base cake. Probably I will add lemon juice instead of extract, or explore other lemon buttercream recipe.


Rainbow Cake
(7", 4 layer, recipe from Whisk Kid)

Ingredients
  • 213g plain flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 113g unsalted butter, slightly softened
  • 213g caster sugar
  • 3 egg whites (I use 2 x 60g eggs and 1x 50g egg), room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 180g fresh milk, room temperature
  • Red, green, yellow, blue gel colouring
Steps
  1. Preheat the oven to 175 degree celsius. Grease 4 x 7" cake pans and line with parchment paper. (Alternatively, grease the cake pans and dust generously with flour, then tap away excess flour). Set aside.
  2. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix well and set aside.
  3. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  4. Add the egg whites gradually, then add the vanilla extract and mix until incorporated.
  5. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk, until just blended. Stop to scrap down sides of the bowl with spatula as necessary.
  6. Total weight of batter is about 830g. Divide into 4 portions (each about 205g - 208g).
  7. Add food colouring to each portion using toothpick, bit by bit to desired colour tone. Mix thoroughly to ensure all the colouring is well blended with the batter.
  8. Pour batter into cake pans and smooth the surface. Bake for about 13 to 15 mins.
  9. Place the cake pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 mins. Invert the cakes onto rack and let cool completely. If not frosting immediately, wrap each layer individually with clingwrap.
Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream
(with some excess)
  • 8 egg whites
  • 320g caster sugar
  • 360g unsalted butter, softened
  • 1.5 tsp lemon extract
Steps
  1. Place egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl over a pot of simmering water. Using a hand whisk, beat continuously until sugar has completely dissolved. The egg whites should feel hot to touch. Remove from heat.
  2. Transfer mixing bowl to electric stand mixer and beat at high speed using whisk attachment till meringue is thick, glossy and cool down to room temperature.
  3. Reduce speed to medium and add softened cubes of butter gradually. Continue mixing until the meringue turns into a silky smooth texture of buttercream. *It may seem like a long time, but the switch in texture can happen quite sudden, be sure to watch closely.
  4. Add the lemon extract and mix till well-incorporated.
  5. To assemble the cake, place one cake layer on a serving plate/tray and spread some buttercream evenly. Repeat this process until all cake layers are stacked.
  6. Crumb-coat the top and sides of the cake, and place the cake into the fridge to chill for 30 mins.
  7. Frost the cake and garnish as desired.
  8. Chill the cake to set the frosting. Leave in room temperature for at least 1 hour before serving.

16 April 2013

Bangkok Jan 2013 - Fuji Japanese Restaurant & Som Boon Seafood

Continued from Part I and Part II.
 
Our second last day at BKK.
 
Both of us slept in till late morning and was about to go out for shopping when our friends text us for an early lunch at Fuji Restaurant, Siam Paragon.
 
I think we outdone ourselves once again, just let the amount of food do the talking :p

Seafood salad.
Pan fried beef.
Grilled unagi.
Salmon and Hotate sashimi.

 
Tamago.
Stir fried mushroom.

Sweet beancurd with rice.


Grilled mussels with garlic.

Pan fried bacon wrap with golden mushroom.

Potato croquet.

Tuna, squid and ikura sushi

Udon

Tuna and Hamachi sashimi.

Gyoza.

Futomaki.

 
Assorted tempura.
 
That was indeed a very hearty lunch, wasn't it? Imagine the amount of food just for four of us!
 
After lunch, all of us parted ways for our shopping before meeting in the evening for dinner.
 
 
This time round, we ventured to SomBoon Seafood at Surawong, apparently a very famous seafood chain in BKK. Had to queue for around 45 mins just to get a seat and we were there quite late in fact.

Grilled sotong.
Prawn cake with plum sauce.

Tom Yum Seafood soup.

Oyster in omelet.


Stir fried chicken.
Specialty of the restaurant. Crab in special sauce. We expected the sauce to be like curry and spicy but it was not, couldn't really describe the taste though. A little creamy, a little milky, slight sweetness.

Stir fried bitter gourd leaves. This was a bad dish, the stems/leaves were too fibrous and hard to chew and shallow.

Not sure if it was due to weekend, service was quite bad and the waiter only informed us that one of the dishes we ordered was sold out, after we waited for a long time and enquired. Food portion was also very small considering the price of the meal. We may or may not give this restaurant a second chance in future. Will see.

After dinner, we took a stroll at the nearby night market and thereafter headed back to Siam Square area. Wanted to do foot reflex at Chang Massage but it was full house. Hence, we retired early to the hotel. The next day was early flight back home.

15 April 2013

Bangkok Jan 2013 Part II - Or Tor Kor Market & Ban Khun Mae Thai Cuisine


Continued from Part I

The next morning of our BKK trip, we decided to pay a visit to Or Tor Kor Market. Interestingly, we've been to BKK so many times and this was our first visit there. In fact, I only learnt about Or Tor Kor Market recently. The market boasts of around 600 stalls selling seafood, meat, local fruits, dry ingredients, vegetables, traditional sweets and desserts, cooked food etc. It's very clean and well-organized and easily accessible by MRT and is just opposite Chatuchak Market.

Thai durians, with signature long stems.


Seafood stalls.


Vegetable stalls, all neatly stacked and packaged.


Dried seafood stalls.


Hubby saw these salted fish which was very "fresh" and decided to buy some.

 
 
The stall owner was very friendly and when she learnt that we were tourists, she vacuumed packed the salted fish for us so that there won't be a problem for us to pack the salted fish in our luggage.
 
 
All the vegetables are neatly packaged and displayed.
 
 
Then we saw the Thai durians and decided to buy 2 seeds to eat. Each seed or each pair were neatly wrapped for the convenience of customers.




The durian meat was very fleshy, thick, sweet and creamy. Not bad, but I don't think I could eat more than 2 seeds coz it was quite heavy on the palate. I still prefer the rustic kampung bitter type of durians.

Stalls selling rice and all types of grains.


Cooked food stall selling all sorts of pork items including intestines.


Drinks stall.
Cooked food stall, same as our local mixed rice stall.


 
The roasted pork looked so inviting, we bought a packet. The crackling was very crispy and the meat was succulent!

There were also many hawker stalls. I saw this coagulated blood fish maw soup and immediately ordered a bowl. Turned out that the coagulated blood was not pig's blood but duck's blood!

Cooked seafood. It was an eye opener to see cooked seafood sold in this manner.

Dessert stalls.

Hubby ordered some rice noodles soup with pork, intestines and coagulated blood.

 
Hubby also ordered this interesting dessert, with some springy stuff, coconut and water chestnut (red rubies)
 

After spending the morning at Or Tor Kor market, we were in need of some food massage and proceeded back to Siam Square.

The service at Chang Massage was quite good and most importantly the seats were very comfortable that both of us dozed off in the middle of our massage.

In the evening, we met P and N for dinner at a restaurant located at Siam Square, highly recommended by them.

This was where our feasting started again!

Tom Yum Gong. Very tangy and spicy!
Steamed fish with green chilli sauce.

Green curry.
Minced pork with Thai Basil.
Spring roll.
Pad Thai fried noodles.
Pandan wrapped chicken.

Papaya salad.

Chap Chye.

Honey grilled pork.
Steamed river prawn in milk and egg.

Sticky rice and mango.
Steamed tapioca.
 
Red ruby. Water chestnut in coconut milk.
 
Amazed by the amount of food we ate? Stay tuned for Part III w'here's there was more food to come!