Horse Shoe Nutella Roll

This is one of a favourite during Hari Raya. You will see many homebakers selling this and lots of houses serving this during the muslim festive season. I think the main attraction is the nutella as young and old simply love the taste of this chocolate hazelnut spread ;-)

I got this recipe from Suria a malay channel in Singapore. Since this particular recipe uses lesser egg, I thought of giving it a try. Result is nice but I think there's way too much baking powder being used for the amount of flour in the recipe. I would recommend halfing it the next time.

I didn't follow the recipe to the T as I omitted the ovalette. I try to bake cakes without using emulsifier as I don't like the after taste of it - to me at least.

The original uses 1tsp ovalette. So if you are using it, you can put all the ingredients except the nutella and melted butter into the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume. Since I am not using emulsifier, a bit more steps are involved.

Ingredients
6 egg yolk
3 egg whites
50 g cake/plain flour
15 g corn flour
½ tsp baking powder
100 g castor sugar
50 ml fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
75 ml melted butter
1 tbsp chocolate paste/emulco
Nugotin atau Nutella

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 200C
2. Prepare 1 baking tray 10” x 10” x 2”, line with grease paper
3. Melt Nugotin or Nutella using double boiling, bain-marie method till soft
4. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, cornflour.
5. Put eggs and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume (the batter should be thick, shiny and light in colour) then add vanilla essence
6. Fold in flour alternately with milk with last being the flour into the batter and mix it gently
7. Pour melted butter and fold it gently
8. Scoop approximately 250g mixture and leave it plain
9. Add chocolate paste to the remainder and mix it well
10.Pour plain batter into a piping bag
11.Pour the chocolate batter into the pan
12.Pour the plain batter onto the chocolate batter
13.Bake in oven for 5 – 7 minutes only, do not overbake as cake may crack when rolled
14.When fully baked, take the cake out and cool it
15.Spread Nugotin/Nutella on the cake, and roll it from end to end
16.Cool it before cutting cake for serving

Ukoy (Prawn Fritters)

Ukoy is prawn fritters which is an asian dish. Where exactly it is from, I am not too sure but searching the internet, it seems that it is a Filipino dish (correct me if I am wrong). This recipe is taken from a recipe book but I modify it slightly to suit my taste. I added a some tapioca flour to make it a little chewy and I omitted the yam simply because I don't have any at home. But do try with that, I believe it would be delicious.

Ingredients
200g prawns
1-2 cup water
1 1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1 heapful tbsp tapioca flour
2 eggs
chinese parsley, chopped
bean sprouts
1 yam, shredded (I omitted this)
salt and black pepper to taste

Method
1. Boil prawns in water till it turns orangy. Remove the prawn heads and keep the stock
2. Sift rice flour, corn flour, tapioca flour with salt
3. Add 1-1.5 cup of stock and eggs to the flour and mix till well blended (batter should not be runny)
4. Add bean sprouts, chopped parsley, shredded yam (if using) and prawn, mix till they are well coated
5. Heat oil
6. Scope the batter with prawns on top and fry till golden brown
7. Serve with a good chilli sauce or ketchup

Blueberry Sourcream Pound Cake

The last time I made a pound cake was a couple of months back. It was the marble sourcream pound cake. I got a small tub of sour cream and fresh blueberries in the fridge. I was searching for a nice recipe that uses both and finally decided to bake this.

I used the basic sourcream pound cake recipe but I increase the butter a little bit. It came out perfect, moist and rich - just the way I like it.

Ingredients
250g butter, softened
3 cups cake flour (you can substitute with all purpose flour)
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sourcream
1 cup fresh blueberries, add 1 tsp flour
6 large eggs

Method
1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and put aside
2. Cream butter and sugar till light
3. Add sour cream and vanilla essence into the butter/sugar mixture and mix till well blended
4. Add flour and alternate with eggs with last being flour, mix on low speed till well mixed
5. Using the spoon or spatula, add blueberries into the cake batter
6. Bake in a greased and lined 10" baking pan in a preheated oven of 180C for 1hr 20mins or till skewer comes out clean

Vanilla Frosting and Cuppies

It has been along time since I last update this blog. I apologize as I have been pretty busy with my work and home :-) For those requesting for the vanilla frosting recipe, here it is. This is taken from marthastewart website and I have been using it for most of my cupcake frosting. Here, I use half butter and half shortening so that the frosting will not melt easily in our humid weather. However, you can replace the shortening with butter if you like.

I used the American cake for the cuppies :-)

Vanilla Frosting
Makes 1 cup

Ingredients
25 gm unsalted butter, room temperature
25 gm butter flavoured shortening
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method
1. In a small bowl, beat together butter, sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt until light and fluffy. Use immediately, or cover with cling wrap, and refrigerate up to 3 days.

Before using, bring to room temperature.