Eggless Fruits Flan: Happy Birthday To Sister!

It had been almost 2 months and finally I have chance to do my second cake, on a special occasion again, this time round, it's my sister's Birthday! I bought a cake recipe and when I'm brainstorming about what cake should I do, my sister suddenly said she want to have a fruits flan. All right, it's correct that I should do a cake that meets the birthday girl's favor!

This cake do not need eggs at all, this fully attracting me :)

Ingredients A:                                                                      
Butter 200g
Sugar 160g

Ingredients B:
Milk 200ml
Vanilla essence 1 tsp

Ingredients C:
All purpose flour / plain flour 240g
Baking powder 1 3/4 tsp

Topping:
Adequate amount of - Whipped topping cream
                                - Apricot gel
                                - Toasted almond flakes
                                - fruits (I used Red man peach in syrup and Strawberry)

The steps for doing the cake are very simple, I believe anyone new in baking can do this!

                                                                                       
1.  Cream ingredients A until light.
2. Add in ingredients B in graduation, whip until light and smooth.
3. Add in ingredients C, mix until well-blended.
4. Pour it into 20cm round tin which lined with parchment paper.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degC for 50 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Out of Oven! Oops.. why a bit black?

 

Final step: Decorating!!

Unlike sponge cake which is soft, this cake taste more compact. But it's delicious with the whipped topping cream, seems like only they are the perfect match! The taste upgraded with the very nice peach and super huge & sweet strawberry (I'm very lucky to get this USA strawberry with offer)!

Topping:

Apply the whipped cream on the whole cake. Arrange the fruits on top as desired & coat the side of cake with toasted almond flakes.I suppose to mix apricot gel with some water and cook over the double boiler until melted and apply on the fruits for glazing purpose. But, I can not find apricot gel in the market :( Anyway, a pretty delicious cake is ready!

Ready!!

Yummy...

Seremban Chicken Shao Bao, P/s: 烧包,我爱你!

It's used to be part of my happy moment to enjoy Seremban shao bao when I study at KL, always have one when shopping~ All these became memories after I work in Singapore. I fail to find one that really made me satisfy & hence I decide to do it myself. But this decision is challenging because I'm new in baking, no experience in doing pastry or even normal "bao"...reading a few recipes about "杆长，卷起，休面" & yet can not imagine it until recently I saw a very detail recipe from Echo kitchen only then I fully understand the pastry part. Thanks for the recipe, sincerely! And, today I did it finally! Cheers!

Ingredients for Shao Bao's filling~

I had bought everything from NTUC supermarket last night, I bought canned green peas as I can not find the frozen peas.

Ingredients for Pastry are ready... Go go!

This is the first time I use pure Ghee (The green can in picture above). Pure Ghee is a class of clarified butter that is commonly used in South Asian cuisine and ritual. Now only I know I can not use normal butter instead of Ghee because the normal butter is water containing. It smell fragrant when I open.. Totally in good mood to get start!

For recipe, please see here.

My Shao Bao filling is ready, to be chilled.

The pastry part not as difficult as I think initially. But of course It need a lot of patient and love to keep repeating all these steps: roll out / flatten (杆长), roll up like swiss (卷起) and let it rest (休面), in order to have a very yummy, flaky (can see the layering) & crispy pastry! I think I did a great Job in pastry making, 99% success in first try! yeah!

It's time to make it into a bun!!

I found that not easy to pinch a bun perfectly, my bun doesn't look great enough :(. Need more hands on, and sure will getting better in one day! I had use organic flax seed to replace the sesame because I have a lot of left over flax seed, just want to use it~ It did useful in the garnish part but I think lack of some sesame fragrance as expected.

The process really take time, when waiting for the outcome suddenly realized the half day was gone! But all the tiredness gone once the Shao Bao is out of Oven!

My lovely first home made Shao Bao!! I love you!

It taste great, especially the pastry part!! Some of them slightly open up after baked, guess I really need a lot of practice on the making bun part. Will do again in one day!!