The Sugar Bar » ginger

Matcha Tofu Cheesecake

diva — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 09:30:28 +0000

I’m not gonna lie, I honestly thought this was going to be a failure. I was ready to sink into depression like a cake deflated and ruined. Thankfully, things worked out for the better. And so life carries on as usual.

After a blender disaster and an overly buttered crust that baked to a crisp (I followed a recipe quite blindly without doing the proper math therefore resulting in a crust with double the butter), I was sure this was doomed. Fortunately, following the advice of Marc of NoRecipes to let the cheesecake sit for possibly a day longer, this worked out fine. The parched crust absorbed enough moisture from the cheesecake filling. The layers gelled and the crust became more manageable. It tasted good too with a lovely smooth and fluffy mousse-like texture. The tofu flavour needed some getting used to and the matcha wasn’t strong enough to be really that noticeable but it’s definitely something I’d try again and tweak it as I go along to perfect it (until Mama Critic deems it worthy of her taking another spoonful). Also, I’d definitely use soy milk fresh from the markets in the future rather than the cartoned stuff from the supermarket because it lacked a little bit of that soy umami and the thick, creaminess of the former.

So here it is. Simple, naked for all to judge. I didn’t think it needed any more fussing or additional garnishing etc. The flavours worked. Besides, I thought it’d gone through enough – from being bashed up in an inferior blender, exploded in a slightly better blender, to being dripped all over the kitchen and completely let down by a messed up crust. That’s it.

Anyway, you can imagine my relief. A cheesecake saved from the bin. And somehow, still tasting pretty damn swanky.

Shame about the hole in the wall where I bashed my head into though. Expect repair works some time around end of 2011 until the state of my finances picks itself up again and the bits of my sanity return back to its mothership.

Tiny kitchen drama, Twitter to the rescue, overreaction controlled, etc. – story of my life. End of.

This recipe makes one round tin cheesecake. I’ve altered the measurements for the gingernut crust thankfully.

Matcha Tofu Cheesecake
Original recipe of filling from Manggy, inspired by Okashi Treats
Ingredients

For the crust:

For the matcha tofu cream:

Line bottom of cheesecake tin (preferably springform) with baking parchment or light grease it.

Crumb gingernut biscuits. Add sugar and salt and lightly whisk together with a small egg whisk or fork. Add melted butter and mix until combined. Transfer to cheesecake tin and press down into a nice even layer of bottom of tin. You can bake this in the oven 190d Celsius for 5-10mins or simply place it in the freezer for 15mins to bind (I prefer the latter).

Combine all ingredients for the matcha tofu cream, except soy milk and gelatin, in a blender and mix until smooth.

Sprinkle gelatin over soy milk and let sit for a few minutes. Then melt it in a baine marie (or in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water on the hob). Stir to dissolve completely, then process it into the rest of the tofu cream.

Pour complete tofu cream into the cheesecake tin and refrigerate overnight until set.

To unmold, warm the sides with a warm towel and use a thin palette knife to separate the cheesecake from the tin around the edges before unlocking the springform pan.

Serve chilled on its own or with a little bit of whipped cream. The flavours don’t need much else and will delight you quite pleasantly with a mild bitterness of matcha, creaminess of soy, honeyed sweetness from both white and brown sugar and a distinctive savoury and gingery flavour from the crust.

Oatmeal Cherry & Walnut Cookies and Dolly Mixture Fairy Cakes

diva — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:56:48 +0000

Two Easters ago, I baked a feast. I went so crazy there were cakes, muffins and cookies everywhere: on the tabletops, in the bedroom, in the freezer, in the fridge. It was gloriously nightmarish. A thoroughly obsessively psychotically sick affair.

Last Easter, I believe things were a little more toned down. Moderation was key.

This year, we went for a nice balance of things. Don’t they say good things come in pairs? Two’s a nice number. Well-rounded and more acceptable. In that case, this Easter, we’ve got cookies and cakes. No more than that. No more, no less. I thought we were quite clever.

On Tuesday, we had a nice little wander through the Oxford Covered Market. There’s a cake shop in there which I’ll blog a little later on about. Truly inspiring cakes and sugarcraft. And they make personalized easter eggs made to order too! In fact, H and I had our Easter eggs from there last year. They were yum. And almost too pretty to eat. It’s shops like that that make you feel like you’ve gotta bake. You leave wanting to make something of your very own, to get creative and start challenging yourself in the kitchen. I don’t suppose we really did challenge ourselves but we sure had good fun in the kitchen that day.

Little fairy cakes topped with dolly mixture (we’ve so gotta love these sweets…so mildly flavoured and pretty to look at) for Easter cakes and a twist on the usual oatmeal raisin cookie which gives you something to talk about as well if you’ve got guests coming round for tea. I haven’t posted a recipe for the Fairy Cakes as H actually remembers this basic recipe by heart. It’s simply margarine, vanilla, flour, eggs, sugar all skillfully beaten by hand then baked at 175d Celsius until ready. Cooled, then frosted with a mix of icing sugar and water. Voila. Top them with sweets or decoration of choice. Cute as a button.

When it comes to eating cookies, dunking in a glass of cold milk is second nature. Or sometimes just eating it sans milk is pretty okay too. Dunking in hot coffee or tea seems unthinkable to me. I’ve seen my mum do it and it leaves rings of buttery-surfaced coffee in the cup. I’ve seen my mates do it and it just all looks a little drippy, a little messy. This time I tried it with this oatmeal cookie and I have a strange feeling my cookie-eating ways have been forever altered. Or at least, when it comes to oatmeal cookies. You’ve gotta dunk them in something warm. Leave the cold milk for the chocolate chip cousin. Oatmeal cookies have so gotta be dipped in a hot coffee or tea. A momentary experience of sweet bliss, as comforting as a spoonful of warm honey-laced porridge. So good.

Happy Easter everyone! Hoping the Easter bunny sends out much sugary love to all. Will post up some of my little Oxford visit here soon.

Oatmeal Cherry & Walnut Cookies
Ingredients

Preheat oven to 175d Celsius.

Cream butter and sugar til light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, then beat.

In another bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Add oats to this and mix. Add to wet mixture of creamed butter and sugar. Mix until it is just incorporated.

Fold in cherries and walnuts. Do not overmix.

Form into 1-2 tbs balls or simply drop onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15-18mins or until just golden brown.

Cooking it for longer gets these cookies a darker shade and they turn into nice crunchy cookies when kept. Cooking for 15mins leaves it nice and chewy in the middle so cook according to your preference. Leave to cool on sheets for a minute before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Spiced Rhubarb Pancakes with Golden Syrup

diva — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:21:30 +0000

It’s Shrove Tuesday, ie. Pancake Day! Well it’s not like I need an excuse to have pancakes. It sorta is like a Sunday brekkie thing to have but pancakes when it’s not even mid-week is so much more indulgent and delicious. Knowing that just about the rest of England is having pancakes too (albeit the English crepe-like ones) – savoury or sweet – helps with feeling all fat and happy, and a lot less like the lone greedy chubster.

I spied some gorgeous rhubarb pancakes over at Nic’s Cherrapeno and I couldn’t help getting some rhubarb as well. I think it’s gotta be one of the prettiest pink edible things and I simply love it in a trifle or yoghurt. Thanks Nic for a lovely pancake idea. I’m really glad I made this as I love all things tart. Although the rhubarb sauce wasn’t as tart as I wanted it to be (didn’t wanna tart-out my flatmate), I thought it was a very delicious variation of the usual plain pancakes or the same old blueberry pancakes I find myself having every time.

I’d love to stay on here longer, but I gotta hit the books again. Yes I am a geek, don’t judge me. And yes the work’s starting to pile up. Third yes, I’ve turned into a granny who fights the cold with hot soups, cups of tea and blankets about my knees. Well, grannies are so in right now. You can’t fault that. Off I go, leaving you the recipe.

This recipe’s given me the fluffiest, softest pancakes ever. But it didn’t rise enough to my liking and it may have needed some rising agent like baking powder. I might have to experiment and compare with other recipes in the future. Nevertheless, they were good. Like little fluffy clouds.

Recipe yields 8 pancakes
Rhubarb Pancakes
Ingredients

In a dry medium bowl, whisk egg whites to form stiff peaks.

In a separate large bowl, sift flour, sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre.

Beat lightly together the egg yolk, melted butter and milk. Pour into the well and mix gently to form a lumpy batter. Fold in egg whites, leaving some touches of egg whites intact.

In a small frying pan, heat some butter, add a ladle of batter and fry until bubbles start forming on the surface. Flip and allow the other side to cook for another minute or so. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Keep the other pancakes in a warm oven or let the hungry buggers you live with gobble them up whilst you work hard at the stove!

Rhubarb Sauce
Recipe can be found here, which I used for a ganache. You can use this in the pancake batter and to serve over them.

Happy Smashin’ 21st Sam G.: A Bloody Amazing Carrot Cake

diva — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:55:39 +0000

Just last week, we went to see the new Underworld film – The Rise of the Lycans. The boys and I are avid fans of the film and of Kate Beckinsale. Violence, vampire action, good soundtrack and a fine woman – no one can resist that, now can they! Although she doesn’t appear in this one, the prequel, we were still pretty excited about it simply by association. I enjoyed this one thoroughly since I really liked the Lycan dude anyway, even in the previous film. The army of werewolves in the film, however, somehow brought ideas of creating an army of my very own. What did I think up?

Mating Anna’s black persian cat Mortie with my cocker spaniel Fifi. That sounds like the most horrid, sick thing to do. Please don’t be offended but Anna and I pissed ourselves chatting about this and decided a cat and a spaniel will create an army of, not Lycans, but Spatz! How cool does that sound? Someone’s gonna say ‘Maybe to a stoner’. Chances are, he’s right but man, do I think my little army of Spatz will be great fun to have around. Nonetheless, this really just stays in my head. I’m really not that into inter-breeding of animal species.

So anyway. Someone turned 21 yesterday (actually 3 people I know share the same birthday on 27th Jan) and Kid Diva did her duty and baked the birthday cake. The last time I made carrot cake for a friend’s birthday was years ago and it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it to. Melting in the summer heat, it was greasy, squishy and simply pathetic. This time, I truly believe I have outdone myself all thanks to Ina Garten’s recipe. This woman is a godsend! The cake was orgasmically good – dreamily moist and the flavours were fantastic. Considering I had hardly any of my bakeware from home, no sieve to sift the flour or icing sugar, ancient scruffy-looking cake tins and a shitty garbage of an oven, this cake turned out a hit. The birthday boy was grinning from ear to ear and it wasn’t strange to spot our party-goers dipping their fingers as discretely as possible into the cream cheese frosting between gulps of vodka.

The whole evening was as posh as student life can get. The recent credit crunch, however, prevented us from making a pleasant trip out into the country for a relaxed pub lunch as Sam would have wished it. Instead, we organized a nice little dinner, table cloths and all. Redecorated the kitchen, lit some candles, whacked on some posh jazz music and placed a green sign on the door that read ‘Bistro Gamper’. The whole thing was Anna’s brainchild and kudos to her. She did an amazing job preparing the pork, potatoes and vegetables, and a to-die-for redcurrant and cider gravy which I’ve already nicked the recipe of. I’ll never forget the taste of that gravy and I’m eager to give it a go myself. In fact, there’s some left in the fridge. I could possibly drink the whole bowl of it. It is that mindblowing!

Stuffed, about to pop, and feeling slightly woozy from too much food and champagne, we braved on towards pudding and the birthday song. My family’s quite the group of conservative eaters. At family meals, I’m always the only one gasping and moaning away if something tastes great. It takes quite a bit to stop me from banging on about how good it is. Last night, however, I am very pleased to say the whole table was gasping and moaning away to no end. What a fan-fucking-tastic experience that was! I am so relieved and glad that the cake was a success, thrilled that it tasted like sex and delighted that our dearest Sam is 21 and lovin’ it.

I have altered Ina Garten’s recipe just slightly – adding more spices and substituting half the amount of vegetable oil for applesauce. This was recommended by a lot people who had attempted the recipe and thought I might as well try it their way. Can honestly say this cake wasn’t greasy like the one I made years ago. It was wonderful – perfectly moist and the flavour was well balanced. I might’ve reduced the amount of icing sugar in the frosting as well. I rather enjoy tasting more butter and cream cheese then just sweetness. Come the summer, I will be making this again. It’s so beaten my infamous Guinness Chocolate Cake.

I’ve noticed a trend though. I happen to make the best cakes on days where I know I’m going to get absolutely battered that evening. I suppose alcohol doesn’t just give you a head rush huh?

Carrot Cake
Adapted from Ina Garten
Ingredients

Preheat oven to 180d Celsius.
Butter and flour 2 8″ round cake pans.

Beat sugar, oil and eggs together until light yellow. Add vanilla. In another bowl, sift together 2 1/2 cups flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Toss the raisin and walnuts with 1 tbs flour. Fold in the carrots and pineapple. Add to the batter and mix well.

Divide the batter equally between the 2 pans. Bake for 55 – 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely in the pans set over a wire rack.

For the frosting:
Beat hte butter til light in colour. Add the cream cheese and beat. Add the vanilla. Beat till just incorporated. Add the icing sugar and mix til smooth.

Assemble cake and decorate as you like it!

Garlic Shiitake & Gari Soba with Sweet Green Tea Sauce

diva — Fri, 30 May 2008 16:34:46 +0000

Thank God it’s Friday.

Not that it makes much of a difference, since (why?) we’re on holiday and officially worry-free from exams. This weekend, Hans and I are the only ones left in the house; so begins our crazy marathon of baking and cooking, feasting and merry-making (no innuendos there). Not only do we deserve this because of the hard work we’ve put in, but after a “WE’VE BEEN BROKEN INTO” scare, it’s only natural to need comfort food.

Have no fear. We weren’t broken into but both the front door and the porch door were foolishly left ajar and coming home to that was a bit of a shock. What a miracle we weren’t since we don’t live on one of the safest roads in Selly Oak.

Comfort food this was with that lovely sweet sauce. It is a rather thick sauce so you don’t need much for a serving of soba. Don’t expect it to be a very green tea-ish sauce either as this is made not with sencha but with green tea cooking sprinkles. I didn’t do much with the mushrooms as shiitake on their own have a very distinctive flavour.

Right then. Hans and I have to get back to what’s cooking in the oven.

Here serves 2.

Garlic Shiitake & Gari Soba with Sweet Green Tea Sauce
Ingredients

The noodles take about 5-7min to cook so get started on your sauce first.
Whisk all the ingredients together, except for the green tea cooking sprinkles and hot water. Then in a heavy-based saucepan, heat the mixture and stir slowly on low heat. In a small bowl, mix together the green tea sprinkles with hot water and let it sit for about a minute. Add this to the saucepan and leave it to reduce a little for 2-3min. Then cut the heat and set aside.

Cook the soba noodles.

In a frying pan, fry the garlic till nearly golden brown. Then sautée the mushrooms. When cooked, add a few drops of sesame oil. Stir and then set aside.

When the soba is ready, drain the water and run some cold water over it to stop the cooking and keep the noodles cold. Place noodles in bowl. Place gari pickles on top, followed by garlic fried shiitake mushrooms. Drizzle about 2 tbs of sweet sauce over it and garnish with sesame seeds.

Chocolate Non-Bake Cheesecake with Gingerbiscuit Crust and Raspberry Coulis

diva — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:41:37 +0000

It’s quite difficult to find that perfect cheesecake since quite a lot of people are rather anal or picky about their cheese. When it comes to cheesecake, I’m even more fussy. What I mean by that really is that I love to eat it, that’s a given. But that I always associate really good cheesecake with one that’s been made for me by someone else because I cannot be bothered to bake a cheesecake. That’s just that. It’s (in that warped head of mine) too much of a faff in my opinion to bake cheese when you can just have it as it is. Cheese, neat. Straight out of the fridge, oh yeah. Now we’re talking. But cheese cooked is so amazing too – savoury or sweet. Nevertheless, somehow I still can’t bring myself to be bothered to bake a cheesecake.

Whilst hopping through the foodblogs I usually visit, I came across Cafe Johnsonia’s Frozen Mascarpone Cheesecake, so that really got my tastebuds into craving mode. Not one to fuss around with cheesecakes, I couldn’t be bothered to work on this Chocolate Mascarpone Fruit & Nut Cheesecake shizzle from good ol’ Delia so I decided to mash-up little bits and pieces to create my very own non-bake, why-not-use-the-freezer cheesecake. Take laziness to the maximum without forfeiting the taste factor. I admit frozen/non-bake cheesecakes hardly ever look as impressive as baked cheesecakes but Hans and I were very pleased when we were tucking into our very own slices. Tasty, rich yet light. Coupled with a raspberry coulis and you’re well on your way to a sugary cloud 9 heaven. Also, I find baked ones very heavy and filling whereas this was creamy but not too overwhelming that you couldn’t fit in another healthy slice.

Thumbs up and a big pat on my back; one too on Hans’s. Cheers to Anna for doing the taste-testing of the respective bowls of ingredients. Although I now have a bright red spot of raspberry coulis on my duvet cover (looks suspiciously like blood…geeez), it was so worth it! This coulis is absolutely gorgeous. If you don’t know what that is, it simply is a posh way of saying raspberry sauce. Quick to prepare, great colour and delicious; use it for just about any other raspberry-requiring dessert. For a cheesecake? Spot on!

I was a little pretentious with the presentation. But it was a pretty day today. Very very warm. And I was surprised to see so many bluebells growing out in the garden so I picked one, washed and dried it, then popped it atop my cheesecake for added prettiness. How adorable.

Chocolate Non-bake Cheesecake with Raspberry Coulis
Ingredients

For the filling:
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz mascarpone cheese
1/2 cup double cream
1/3 cup caster sugar
120g plain chocolate, melted (you can increase the amount, or use dark chocolate if you’re going for an uber chocolatey cake)

For the coulis:
1/3 cup caster sugar
3 tbs water
2 1/2 cups raspberries

Bash up all the biscuits. Add sugar and melted butter. Using a fork, toss and coat in butter until all of it is covered. Press into bottom of a springform pan and use the back of a spoon to flatten and even it out. Place in freezer for the crust to bind about 15min.

Using a wooden spoon, beat together the cream cheese, mascarpone and sugar. Over a bain-marie, melt the chocolate and be careful not to burn. In a separate bowl, using a metal whisk, whip the double cream until it can hold its shape. Do not overwhip. Add the chocolate once it’s cool enough to the cheese mixture. Finally, the double cream. Give it a good stir.

Remove crust from freezer. Pour the cheese mixture into the pan and smooth out. Cover with clingwrap, making sure the clingwrap touches the surface of the cheese and up the sides of the cakepan. Place in freezer 40-50min. Remove and place in fridge. Serve whenever after by using a warmed knife to slice.

The coulis is really simple. Over a medium fire, cook the sugar and water. Stir continuously for about 5min. It’ll start to thicken and caramelize but be careful not to let it burn. Add the berries and keep stirring. Lower fire if it bubbles too much. Break up the berries, leaving some relatively whole just so it looks better unless you want it to be as smooth as possible. Cook until it thickens. Leave to cool. Then serve by spooning loads over your cheesecake.

Eve Dinner

diva — Sat, 24 Dec 2005 12:23:00 +0000

Happy Yuletide! Today marked the day I made a perfect cake! Ginger Spice Cake, though the gingery taste wasn’t as strong as my dad would have liked it, i felt it was just right. Tasty enough for the kids. No longer would this be called the adults-only cake. I used a Tyler Florence recipe but after studying other ginger cake recipes like that from joyofbaking.com, i made a few slight adjustments for my own liking. Honestly, this is really a very good cake. I served it with warm cranberry sauce and it went pretty well. But maybe the next time I make it, I’ll wanna try it with a lemon icing instead.

Ingredients

2cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tbs ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 egg

1/2 cup molasses, unrefined

1 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted then cooled to nearly rtp

1 cup buttermilk (i used faux buttermilk which is 1 cup milk + 3/4tsp cream of tartar)

Directions

Preheat to 175dcelsius.

Put dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.

Beat egg, molasses, sugar and melted butter until thick. Sift dry ingredients and gradually mix it in in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk. Beat for near 1 min after each addition and end the mixing with the dry ingredients not buttermilk.

Finally when done, pour into pan and bake for 35-40min.

Next comes the Cranberry Sauce. This needs to be served warm and can be microwaved right before serving if you have made this too early. This recipe was created by my own try-and-error and guess what? It was pretty damn amazing (to my surprise)!

And it’s really simple too. I used 1 cup of frozen cranberries, washed and dried with a paper towel. Add 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup white sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and some leftover blueberries from my previous blueberry cake and voila!

All this needs is for you to boil everything together, except the blueberries and cinnamon. Then reduce the heat to the smallest fire, so it heats nice and slow enough to simmer. Stir occasionally so that all the sugar crystals melt. The berries will start to burst. Add the cinnamon when it starts bursting. And wow, there’s this amazing warm thick scent that wafts up. Indescribable. You can let this simmer for 10-20min, depending how fast your sauce started to boil. For me, I let it simmer around 12min which gave me time to get a bite to eat since I was skipping lunch. Finally, when it’s done, remove from heat. Give it a stir and throw in the blueberries. I suggest keeping the blueberries to a minimum cause you want the cranberries to not be overpowered by the blueberries which are meant to reduce the twang and add a more defined colour to the sauce.

So, slice the cake up into wedges and serve with warm sauce! Perfect for our garden dinner after turkey, wine and salad! We ordered some mini mince pies from this British Pies place over at Swan Lake too. Forgot to upload the pic but gosh were they so yummily adorable! (O yea, found orange peppers for the salad from this Meidi-ya supermarket. amazing. they were as orange as carrots) Of course, it ended up with my sister spilling wine and flipping the bowl of water and floating candles and so everything had to be cleaned up. But what a way to welcome Christmas.
Merry Christmas everyone! Cheers!