A Cake to aid the Iraqi and Syrian Christians

My parish raised £19 026.48 to aid the Christians of Iraq and Syria - Thanks be to God!

Cake Auction – In aid of the Christians of Iraq and Syria – Ealing Abbey’s Lenten Appeal 2015

This cake was auctioned at Ealing Abbey, Church of St Benedict, Charlbury Grove, London W5 2DY, on the third Sunday of Easter, 19th April 2015, to aid the Christians from Iraq and Syria who have been chased out of their countries and are living in very desperate conditions and raised over £300. 

The auctioned cake was made from two 10 inch [25 cm] round marmorkuchen, sandwiched together with real dark chocolate ganache.  The marmorkuchen was drizzled with a delicious coffee liqueur.  

The cake was then covered first with homemade marzipan, which had in excess of 36 percent real almonds, with NO eggs added, and then covered with fondant icing. To glue the marzipan to the cake, a thin layer of Swiss chocolate meringue butter cream was spreaded on the cake.

The cake was 4 inches [10 cm] tall and has a weight of 9 lbs 4.5 ozs [4.195 kg] and it had taken four days to make the flowers, to bake and decorate the cake.

Marmorkuchen is a German word for chocolate marbled cake.  A German man, Kai Beermann says the cake tastes better than any marmorkuchen he has eaten in Germany.  Owen’s grandmother says that this is the finest cake she has eaten.  Another customer Gini wonders what the secret of making such fine cake is.

The cake auction was part of a cake sale which raised over £1566.  The whole parish Lent and Easter appeal raised £19 026.48 for the suffering Christians of Iraq and Syria.  May God be blessed indeed! 

薄餅 boh'bian [popiah]

The HogGiang [Hokkien] people are world famous for making boh'bian [the 'n' at the end of bia indicates the word is nasal], or spelled as "popiah" in places like Singapore or Malaysia.

薄餅 boh'bian [popiah] Spring Roll Wrap

It is a rolled wrap filled with a filling.  In Xiamen 廈門 the filling is made from shredded cabbage, bamboo shoots, pork and cooked until soft.  The wrap - boh'bian 薄餅 - then has a layer of sauce which is usually hai'xian jiang 海鮮醬 then a leaf of lettuce leaf, the filling and topped with seaweed.  For the wrap to be glued together, they use some sweet chilli sauce and you can use garlic chilli Lingham sauce. 

In the west, you can just call boh'bian as spring roll.  This is not the deep fried version.  It is a healthy version.

Ingredients:

a layer of spring roll wrap
sweet gem lettuce leaf
a teaspoon of plum sauce
fillings
nori - Japanese seaweed - as it is impossible to buy Xiamen seaweed in London - optional - you do not have to add this if you do not want to, especially considering the radiation problem in some of the seas around Japan! 

Filling - this could be made from anything and I just make this to suit my taste and the filling can include

175 grams fresh peeled prawns
30 grams dried prawns - soaked in hot boiling water
two chicken breast - julienne of
julienne of carrots [200 grams]
finely sliced spring cabbage [260 grams]
1 packet bean curd 炸豆乾 [炸豆干] julienne
600 grams of peeled, yam bean - julienne
200 grams finely sliced green beans or French beans

I stir fry the above filling with diced shallots with oyster sauce, soya sauce and sesame oil, and allow the mixture to cool and drain to ensure the filling is dry for wrapping. If the mixture is hot and wet, the spring roll wrapper will break. 

The cooked filling is allowed to drain so can be used in the wrap

There are a hundred ways to make spring roll filling, and you can add all sorts of other ingredients including julienne of lean pork, julienne of Chinese mushrooms [香菇 or 冬菇] and for those who love hot food, you can even add Burmese balachaung to spice up your spring roll.

The display on the dining room table

Plum Sauce

 Mrs Li Langley, suggested I use plum sauce instead of haixian jiang which can be rather salty.  Thank you Auntie Li for this suggestion.

The glue which brings the wrap together, taught by my friend XiangJun from Xiamen, the home of boh'bian

It is not possible to buy fresh boh'bian wrapper in London and XiangJun suggested using this frozen version, which works well,

The sweet gem lettuce on the spring roll wrap with some plum sauce on the top.

The filling on the lettuce leaf and the glue on one end of the wrap

The end result - the boh'bian

Dominic's 17th birthday cake

Dominic, Caroline's son, was 17 years old on 30 March.  His mother, Caroline, ordered a birthday cake for him and he is returning from Germany today.  They will eat this cake today.

The cake is iced [frosted in American English] with Swiss chocolate butter cream made from real chocolate.  I baked an 8 inch marmor kuchen, sliced it and filled the cake and then decorated the cake.  It should taste wonderful and I will phone Caroline tomorrow and do an evaluation,  my normal procedure for continuous improvement to ensure total quality.

Little Sonya saw the cake and wants the same cake for her 18th birthday next year in January.

This cake is so fun to bake and decorate.  I enjoyed making it so much and I must make more butter cream cakes for sale.

If you want to buy such a cake, the cost is £35.00 for an 8 inch marmor kuchen filled and frosted with Swiss chocolate butter cream - the best butter cream in the world.  Of course, you can have a bigger cake if you want.  However, I do not sell smaller cakes than an 8 inch round cake.