Charlemagne's Name Day part 2

I made a cake for Charlemagne's name day and we would be cutting the cake after Holy Mass this evening.  We have our annual house Mass and after the Mass we have a shared meal.  So here are the pictures of the cake.  

 

Halina B said the sides look like a Wedgwood design.

I painted the flowers sunburst gold for the little emperor and the leaves were painted in two tone green.

John B said he liked the asymmetrical way in which the flowers were arranged. He thought it was very artistic.

There are doves on the cake because little Charlemagne loves birds.  Green Indian Parakeets often visit him and get him very excited. 

Blessed Charlemagne's Feast Day

Blessed Charlemagne's feast day is on Thursday 28th January and it is my little boy's name day also.  Little Charlemagne's birthday falls on Good Friday this year and who would celebrate birthdays on Good Friday?  So he has to have his birthday transferred to his name day and he will be 12 years old on the third day of April 2015.

 

[These pictures of little Charlemagne were taken a couple of days ago with Auntie Marie's new mini iPad.]

So I am making cupcakes for him: humans can eat cupcakes made from butter, eggs, sugar, flour et cetera top with Italian meringue butter cream and the cat can eat a cupcake made from tuna, and Auntie Marie has bought two large tins of tuna in spring water for my little boy. 

Here are examples of human cupcakes for little Charlemagne's name day.

And for my Ahmue - this butter cream tastes like mum's.  Here is the recipe.

200 ml of egg whites
1/8 tsp of cream of tartar
50 grams of caster sugar

whisk until light and fluffy - soft peak stage

In a small pan, which has a sprout, add 250 grams of sugar [can be caster or granulated and can be reduced to 200 grams if you do not want the butter cream to be too sweet] and add 100 ml of water.  Heat up the sugar and water in low heat until the sugar dissolves and then turn up the heat to medium.  You will have to stir the sugar and water to help the sugar dissolve.  If you find any sugar crystals on the side of the pan, then use a silicon spatula to push the crystals down to the liquid.

When all the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat to medium and do NOT stir anymore.  Insert a sugar thermometer into the syrup and let it boil until the temperature reaches 121 C.  When the syrup reaches 121 C, turn off the heat, place the bottom of the pan in a bowl of cold water to stop the temperature of the syrup rising and then dry the bottom of the pan with a clean towel.

Turn your beater, which has a balloon whisk, to the highest speed and pour the very hot 121 C syrup into the whisked egg whites.  Continue whisking even when you have finished pouring the syrup into the egg whites.

When the whisked egg whites have cooled down, i.e. the bowl is only warm to touch, add 450 grams of unsalted butter, which has been cut into cubes into the egg whites while it is whisking at high speed.  Continue to add the cubes of butter, a cube at a time, until all the butter has been added.  Then add your flavours.  I added some vanilla extract [1 tsp] and orange oil [1/2 tsp] into the butter cream.  You can add any flavours which take your fancy.

Continue whisking until the butter cream is well formed and I then wrap the top of the bowl with cling film until you are ready to use the butter cream.

If you store the butter cream in your fridge over night, then you have to warm up the butter cream to room temperature and the whisk the butter cream until it reaches a soft state which allows you to pipe or apply it on your cakes. 

This butter cream is truly delicious and it reminds me of mum's butter cream.  However, Auntie Marie says perhaps I could reduce the amount of sugar in the butter cream.  If I were to make this butter cream again, I would reduce the sugar by 50 grams. 

AND Mrs Caroline Jones says she loves the butter cream because it is so light and creamy - and personally I [I as in Ruyi] think it tastes better than whipped double cream. 

28 January 2015 morning

Today is Charlemagne's feast day or name day or whatever you want to call it.  I got up at 5 this morning to bake little Charlemagne more cup cakes and decorated them after Mass.  I did not take him to Mass as he would create mayhem in church.  LOL  However, I will bring him to Fr Abbot Francis on Friday after the house Mass for the monk to bless him like last year. 

Here are the photos of the cupcakes I baked and decorated today.

Kao Chashaobao 烤叉燒包 Baked Chashao Buns [Chasiu bao in Cantonese]

Dr Marie's grand niece, Megan E from the States, sent me a recipe for cha'shaobao and I made it for breakfast this morning. 

Ingredients for the wrapper: [By the way, there is no reason not to use my sweet New Year bread recipe for this wrapper.]

5 cups American Rose wheat flour [22 oz or 622 grams] + 1/3 cup [52 grams] of this flour for tangzhong roux 湯種 + 60 grams [a little > 1/3 cup] for dusting
2/3 cup water + 1/3 cup whole milk for tangzhong roux 湯種
1/3 cup granulated sugar [62 grams]
1 tsp salt [6 grams] - I used Hilmalayan salt 
1/2 oz [15 grams] baking powder [single action baking powder]
50 grams fresh yeast
2 large eggs
2 oz unsalted butter [4 tbsp or 56 grams] 

Egg Wash - 1 egg + a good pinch of sugar + 1 tbsp milk - slightly beaten together

First make the tangzhong roux - Mix 52 grams [1/3 cup] American Rose wheat flour with 2/3 cup water and 1/3 cup whole milk and cook slowly until the mixture becomes a thick paste.  
Add in the 1 cup of whole milk and sugar into the tangzhong and yeast to allow the yeast to be activated. 
Meanwhile sift the flour, mix in the salt, rub in the butter, mix in the eggs and knead in the activated yeast mixture.
If you have a table top mixer like a Kenwood Chef, use a dough hook and knead the dough for about 20 minutes.
Cover the dough and allow the dough to rise to at least double or triple its original volume which could take about one or two hours, depending on the ambient temperature.

Filling for the bun:

2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup of finely diced Echalion shallot 
3 tbsp flour [I used strong bread flour]
3/4 cup chicken stock

Seasoning: 2 tbsp granulated sugar, 2.5 tbsp light soya sauce, a little less than 2 tbsp oyster sauce - mix these together and set aside

2 cups [260 grams] finely diced chashao 叉燒 - Cantonese bbq roast pork
1.5 tbsp sesame oil

Sauté the finely diced shallot in the oil until slightly brown and then add the flour and mix well.  Add the chicken stock slowly to form a roux and then stir in the seasoning.  When this is piping hot, add in the diced chashao [bbq roast pork] and when the meat has been heated through, turn off the heat and mix in the sesame oil.

When the dough has risen sufficiently, divide the dough into 16 portions and shape each portion into a circle where the centre is thicker than the edges.  Fill each circle with a portion of the filling, and close the package and ensure the edges are tightly sealed.  Place the prepared buns on parchment squares, with the sealed edges facing the paper and allow the bun to rise again on a baking tray. 

Heat your oven to 180 C - I use baking mode on my oven which is fan heating with heat coming from the fan and the bottom of the oven so I can bake three trays of the buns at the same time.

When the buns have risen sufficiently, egg wash the buns at least twice, before baking in a pre-heated oven for some 20 - 25 minutes until the buns are cooked. You know the buns are cooked when you knock the bottom of the buns and it sounds hollow. 

Notes: As this flour is very expensive, I buy the flour when I go to WingYip [榮業行 or RongYe in Mandarin].  Sometimes there is a breakage of a huge 22 kg bag and WingYip would repackage the flour in 1.5 kg bags and this becomes more affordable.  Alternatively, you can experiment with "bun flour" which you can purchase from some Chinese supermarkets but I have not experimented with any bun flour because I am very happy with the American Rose flour 美國玫瑰粉 which is sourced from China.  

Evaluation: Megan E said the buns were not dried, not salty and very good indeed. 

I have not been very successful with the filling of Chashao bao because I found my previous recipes were too salty. However, I rather like this recipe as the filling is not too salty.  So thank you Megan E for sending me this recipe and I can make chashao bao again in the future - perhaps the steamed version next time. 

Caroline, Auntie Marie's hair-dresser, said, "The buns were lovely, light and moist and savoury filling was just delightful.  The buns melted in my mouth.  I intended to eat only one bun and ended eating two buns in ten minutes and will be full for five hours."

Auntie Marie said, "The buns were delicious and the filling was gorgeous."

If you want a heavy bread texture, then use strong bread flour instead of the American rose wheat flour.  However, Chinese people prefer the lighter, fluffy bread which the American rose wheat flour gives.  

Owen's Birthday Cake

Owen celebrated his sixteenth birthday on 13th January, Tuesday.  However, due to school work and other matters, he and his friends will be celebrating his birthday tonight with a good meal and a sleep over.  I have been given the honour to bake and decorate this cake for this lad.

A little about Owen - Owen is a very talented musician.  By Year 8 [around 12 years old] Owen has already passed his piano level 8 with distinction.  And since then, he has passed so many music examinations with distinction that I have lost count.  He spends his Saturdays at the Royal School of Music learning to be a professional musician.  

Happy 16th Birthday Owen! 

Here are the pictures of Owen's birthday cake.

Owen has a birthday cake every year and I thought it would be good to mark this cake with 2015 so we know which year this cake is made.

The cake has "May God bless you always." written on the back.

I received an email of Owen's mother last evening asking me to include "16" on the cake.  Sweet 16 - I wish I were 16 again!  A joke! No I do not!  

Zoya's Baptismal Cake

So who is Zoya?  Zoya is Dr Marie's great grand niece.  She is Dr Marie's sister's daughter's son's daughter.  

Both Zoya's mother and father waited for her birth and we stormed heaven with prayers and God looked on Persis and Jonathan with pity and love and gave them this miracle baby.  

AND Zoya will be baptised on Sunday 18 January 2015 and I have been given the honour to make the cake for the baptism. 

Why is the cake all white? The cake is all white because it symbolises Zoya's dignity as a child of God after her baptism. After baptism, Zoya becomes a child of God and is sinless and pure and white signifies these aspects of the dignity of a child of God.  

Why are there doves on the cake? Doves symbolise the Holy Spirit.  When Zoya is baptised, the Spirit of God dwells in her and she becomes the holy temple of the Lord.  

The cake is baked with 20 large free range eggs and I baked two 10 eggs square cakes and sandwiched them together with ganache.  It is a 10 inch square cake and is 5 inches high, excluding the flowers on the top.  

There is ganache in between the icing and the cake.  It is a very large cake and I will be able to slice 50 slices from this cake and some people might eat several slices each.  Well, at least some of my brothers and their sons in my community can eat several slices of this cake each, as they love my chocolate marble cake. 

Post Baptism party evaluation: I definitely sliced more than 50 pieces of cake.  I had lost count of the number of pieces of cake I sliced.  It was like feeding the 5000, I kept slicing and there was more cake to be sliced.  Many websites have indicated a 10 by 10 inch square cake could only slice into 50 pieces and there were many more slices into 50 from this cake!  

You can for example view this website and you will see a 10 inch square cake can slice 50 pieces. 

I used Dr Oetker Ready to Roll Icing and I thought this was not a suitable fondant icing for such a large, tall cake.  

In future, I need to use a professional grade fondant icing like Satin Ice when decorating such a tall cake and this will make such cake more expensive to make and decorate.  A 2.5 kg of Satin Ice costs around £15 and one will need just over 2 kg to cover such a cake. I can use the cheaper Dr Oetker fondant icing to cover the cake drum. 

I used a chocolate icing between the white fondant icing and the chocolate marble cake, and this chocolate icing was very delicious and so easy to use.  The only thing was that it was rather expensive and cost of the chocolate was £8 and the cream was £1.80 bringing it to nearly £10 just for the chocolate icing.  

I think it is worth paying for the chocolate icing.  The chocolate icing is much better than butter cream or marzipan as the barrier between the fondant icing and the cake. 

What do I like about this cake? 

I like the fact that everything you see on the cake, except the ribbon, cake board / cake drum, can be eaten. There are no cocktail sticks, pins, metal wires, polystyrene buds etc. on the cake or flowers.  I have seen people eating the flowers in the party, including adults.  

There are some cake makers who use store bought polystyrene buds to make roses.  If a child or an adult were to eat such a flower, even X-Ray will not be able to see the polystyrene.  Imagine a child eating a flower which has wires in it, what could have happened?  I think we should think of safety first and avoid using such materials to make flowers on cakes for human consumption. 

I like the cake sitting on a board which is four inches larger.  This means each side has a two inch space and I could decorate the sides with anything which is protruding and the decorations will not be affected during the transportation of the cake to the party venue.  

I particularly like the chocolate icing in between the cake and the fondant icing.  It tasted very delicious indeed.  Its only downside is the cost of such icing. 

The trend nowadays is to cover the drum with icing and ribbon.  The cake sits on a board which is then placed on this drum.  I really like this trend as it makes it very easy for me as a cake decorator to cover the cake with icing and then place the iced cake on the decorated drum.

I like the silver plinth on which the decorated cake sits.  It really gives the cake an elegant finish.

I also like the fact that this cake does not need to be refrigerated.  Who has such huge space in their fridge to accommodate such a cake?  One cannot even put any food in the fridge as the smell from the food will diffuse into the cake.

The cake is my famous chocolate marble cake.  It is light, soft and moist and full of flavour.  Many people in the party complemented me about this delicious cake.  Dr Marie has asked me if I could make the cake more firm and I said no because I have worked years to improve my mum's cake recipe to have a cake which is light, soft and moist.  I think this is the lightest butter cake I have tasted.   

The texture of the cake is worth describing.  It is not rough textured but has a very fine smooth texture. It has taken me a long time to understand how to produce consistently marbled chocolate cake which has a fine smooth texture. 

I cut the cake with a new huge pastry knife.  It cuts through ribbon, cake and everything.  This knife has really made my life easier.  Well done Lakeland for producing such a knife at such a reasonable cost.  So it looks like my other cake knives are redundant after acquiring this pastry knife from Lakeland. 

I also have a cutting board, which is used exclusively for cutting cakes.  Why? This is because the smell from food can migrate to the cake from the cutting board.  In addition, imagine someone using such a cutting board which has been used to cut meat?  I would rather not imagine such a thing. I have to remember food safety first! 

Icing Flowers

I have spent three days making icing flowers for a cake which I am going to decorate this weekend.  Here are pictures of some of the flowers.

These are large roses 3 inches in diameter 

The doves are made from sugar 

The rest are just roses stored according to size.

如意的餡餅 Ruyi's Xian'bing

Xian'bing 餡餅 is a Northern Chinese snack which is eaten like the way sandwiches are eaten with one's hands.  They are normally round, like an aloo paratha and the wrapper is gathered and then tugged into the xian'bing and therefore in a small part of a xing'bing, there is a little excess dough, which I do not like.

So, I redesign my own xian'bing and thus I name it as Ruyi's Xian'bing 如意的餡餅 which solves this problem.  

I make a half moon shape xian'bing and gather the sides together like a kali'su 咖哩酥.  

First the wrapper recipe:

300 grams strong flour 
1.5 tsp salt - I use Hilmalayan salt
1.5 tsp sugar - optional - I add this to aid browning of the wrapper
60 grams vegetable oil
180 grams boiling water

Mix the above together and knead it into a dough without burning your fingers / hand with the hot boiling water.  Allow the dough to rest for at least an hour. I normally leave the dough to rest for a few hours before use. 

This will make 10 [ten] xian'bing.

Filling: The ingredients below can make more than 30 xian'bing. 

450 grams of Aberdeen Angus mince beef - I bought this from Waitrose and in my humble opinion, this slow growing, grass eating cattle gives one of the best tasting beef in the UK and the other very good beef is Hereford beef

5 leaves of napa cabbage, more commonly known as Chinese leaves in English supermarkets - finely sliced - add one teaspoon salt to the sliced cabbage and mix well and allow to stand.  This will draw water from the cabbage.  The Chinese would dispose of the water, but I do not,

1 inch ginger - peeled, finely julienned, and then finely diced

organic spring onions - one bunch - finely slice only the green part - you can use the white part for other things.  Some people like using the white part and if you do, then use only half a bunch.

100 grams coriander leaves - finely sliced

and the following seasoning:-

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil - you can use vegetable oil instead 
2 tbsp sesame oil - I use a Singaporean sesame oil made by ZhiCheng 志成 [CheeSeng in Singapore PinYin]
2 tbsp Jinlan 金蘭 Golden Orchid soya sauce - I like this Taiwanese soya sauce because it is not salty and it has a wonderful taste - if you use other soya sauce then you need to use less soya sauce or the xian'bing will be too salty
2 tbsp Shaoxing rice wine 紹興酒

Mix all the above ingredients together to form the filling and allow it to rest and marinate for at least half an hour.

Roll out the wrapper dough into a long sausage and cut it into 10 equal parts and make a disc out of each part.

Fill each of these wrapper discs with a tablespoon of the filling or more if you want and wrap into little xian'bing.  You can also make this like a stuffed paratha like an aloo paratha.  

Shallow fry the xian'bing in oil, like you would do with an aloo paratha and brown on both sides.

Enjoy!

Garibaldi biscuits

Garibaldi biscuit is an English biscuit which has its origins in Stoke-on-Trent some 150 years ago.

My cousin Margaret loves Garibaldi biscuits and would buy these in bucketloads whenever she visits London.  

I have made some Garibaldi biscuits and I wonder what she would think of them when she arrives from Germany tomorrow.  Dr Marie says it tastes better than the ones we buy from the shops - much softer in texture.  LOL

Ingredients

4 ozs [113 grams] McDougalls 00 plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 oz [28 grams] caster sugar or superfine sugar
1 oz [28 grams] room temperature unsalted butter
a pinch of salt 
3 oz or more of finely chopped dried fruits of your choice - eg. sultanas or raisins or currants
a few spoons of milk

1. Mix the baking powder into the flour and rub the butter into the flour
2. Mix in the sugar and salt
3. Add about 4 - 5 dessert spoons of milk [or more] until a dough is formed.
4. Allow the dough to stand - I cling film the dough and let it stand for about an hour after I have kneaded it into a ball.
5. Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape [8 by 12 inches] and scatter the dried fruits on only half of the dough.  Fold the rolled and filled dough in half - which now measures 8 by 6 inch - and then roll out the dough again to 8 by 12 inch.
6. Cut the rolled and filled dough into 20 pieces and bake in a preheated oven [200 C] for around 13 minutes, depending on your oven.  Before you bake the biscuits, it is a good idea to use a fork to prick the biscuits like the way one would make shortbread biscuits. 
7. Remove the biscuits, allow them to cool on a cooling rack and then store them in an airtight tin.