Ever had lovely fresh bread but need something equally nice to eat it with? We were faced with this dilemma this weekend and decided to make hummus. Ah! The simple tastes are always enjoyed any time of the year. 

I often have heaps of vegetables in the fridge and struggle to use it up before it goes off. This time around we had a lovely head of Chinese cabbage but with only two of us, we were struggling to eat this watermelon sized cabbage. Until I came across the idea to make Japanese cabbage pancake. For those who aren’t cabbage lovers, this might turn you off. However, this is YUMMY! You wouldn’t even notice it's made of cabbage and it's also great for those fussy kids too.

Okonomiyaki means whatever you like, grilled (apparently). So feel free to put whatever you fancy in this dish with the base obviously being cabbage. I see many recipes putting seafood (prawns, mussels, scallops), other have pickled ginger, shallots, onions etc. I’ve outlined the basic “base” below and what I used from what I had in the fridge. This is a great quick meal and suitable for vegetarians (with simple substitutes).

The recipe below I’ve adapted from Cook, Snap, Repeat! And I followed the method from this youtube video called Cooking With Dog.

(Serves 2)
Ingredients
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/2 cup of dashi stock (vegetarians can substitute for vegetable stock or water)
pinch of salt and pepper (to taste)
1 tblspn potato starch with a bit of water to form a paste (normal, the Japanese use grated yam but I didn’t have any handy, but the idea is to make it sticky)
~ 2+/- cup finely chopped cabbage (be sure to remove the thick bit of the cabbage)
1/4 large onion, finely chopped
200g mushrooms, chopped in small cubes
2 eggs, lightly beaten
herbs to suit (I added a bit of dill and parsley – not the most Japanese but I couldn’t pass up the option)
Oil (olive or vegetable) for coating fry pan
250g streaky bacon, cut in about 5cm lengths
~ You can add other ‘toppings’ to suit

To serve
Okonomiyaki sauce (optional)
Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie)
Sesame seeds
Bonito flakes

Method
1. In a large bowl combine flour and baking powder. Add salt and pepper. Stir in stock to form a thick yet runny paste. You may need more liquid (stock or water) depending on the batter consistency. Watch the youtube video to get a better gauge of the consistency required. Add potato starch mixture and mix through.
2. Add chopped cabbage, onions, mushrooms (other filling ingredients you have chosen) to the batter. Add eggs. Stir to just combine. Be sure not to over mix.
3. On medium to high heat a small to medium fry pan, add oil to coat. Add about a cup of mixture to pan and using the back of a spoon, spread out to form a thick’ish pancake. Again the video will provide you with a good guide. Place bacon strips on the flattened batter. Add a little bit more batter just on top of the bacon so it secures the bacon onto the pancake.
4. After a few minutes (3 to 5 minutes), flip pancake. Cook for a further 3 to 5 minutes. Cover to cook through, uncover to crisp edges. Once cooked through, place on serving plate. Repeat step #3 and #4 with remaining batter.
5. To serve, top with sauce (I didn’t have any and am not a fan of sweet sauces so I left this out), mayonnaise, sesame seeds and bonito flakes. I also added nori sprinkles.

So after watching re-run of Friends, there was an episode where Rachel and Chandler kept eating this baked cheesecake. It was so good they were willing to eat it off the floor after dropping it. Oh it gave me a craving! I LOVE cheesecake. The dense, creamy, rich slice of goodness! Admittedly, cheesecake does take a little bit of effort to make. Obvious by how much I was talking about it at work the whole week – a lot. Sorry guys. It is also a more expensive cake to make, considering the ingredients used and the amount of time required to cook it. So fair warning, this isn’t a ‘quick and simple’ recipe.

The base in this recipe I adapted from Donna Hay’s version from Masterchef Australia 2011. For those of you who know me, I’m not really a Masterchef fan. Don’t ask, I just think there are more negatives than positives about that show that I choose not to watch it. Saying that, Mum was watching a particular episode and asked me to get the recipe from the web. Reading the base’s ingredients, it definitely perked my interest. Especially not having to crush my own biscuits – a big plus. The portions below is enough to have the base go up the side of the cake.

Because I like dense cheesecakes, I opted for a different filling recipe. The one I always use is from taste.com.au. I’ve reviewed many cheesecake recipes, but I always come back to this one. You’ll probably fall off your chair when you see how much cream cheese goes into it, its about 50% more than other recipes.  But it really makes it that much more dense and creamier! 

I’ve also researched a bunch of tips and tricks to get the perfect cheesecake. So follow the link and check it out before embarking on this cheesecake journey. Also I strongly suggest you use a proper cake mixer (Kenwood or Kitchen Aid). It just makes life a lot easier and is definitely worth the investment as its a lot easier to make other things too, including bread and pizza. You can find second hand ones/refurbished ones on eBay that are still in great working condition. They last a lifetime!

Ingredients
Base
1 1/2 cups almond flour/meal
1 1/8 cup plain flour
1/3 cup caster sugar
135g butter, chilled and chopped

Filling
750g cream cheese, at room temperature (3 packets)
1 cup caster sugar (I cut it down to 3/4 cup)
2 tspn finely grated lemon rind (grated skin of 1 lemon)
1/2 tspn vanilla essence
2 tblspn plain flour
4 eggs
300ml sour cream

Method
Base
1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease base and sides and line the base only (don't line the sides, the base won't stick to paper) of a 20cm spring form tin with baking paper. Cover the exterior of the tin with foil.

2. Place almond meal, flour, sugar and butter into a bowl. Rub mixture with your fingertips. You can also use a cake mixer with the dough hook attachment. The mixture will form coarse breadcrumbs (see picture below). You know this mixture is ready when you squeeze a handful in your palm and it stays that shape.



3. Place the base mixture in the tin and press gently with fingers to line the tin until even and then smooth out with the back of the spoon. I suggest doing the sides first before you press down the base. Bake for about 15 minutes or until light golden. Remove from oven and set aside.




~ You can keep the oven on if you work fast enough to get the filling ready. Otherwise, I suggest turning it off to save power. But remember to turn it back on and preheat to 160C before returning the cake to the oven.

Filling
4. Using electric cake mixer, beat cream cheese until a smooth consistency. Mix in sugar, vanilla and lemon rind until just combined. Beat in flour. Add the eggs, one at a time, beat well after each addition until combined. Stir in sour cream until just combined. Be sure not to over mix, as this will force more air into the mixture.

5. Pour cream cheese mixture into the base. Tap lightly to get rid of any bubbles.

6. Place tin in a baking tray lined with a tea towel. Fill tray with boiling water until it comes midway up the tin. Place in oven and bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours or until just set in the centre. If you notice the top browning or cracking, the heat is too high, turn down the heat.




7. Leave the cake in the oven, turn the oven off and leave the oven door a jar for a couple of hours or until cooled completely (this also prevents the cake from cracking). Take cake out of oven and baking tray, remove foil and place in fridge for about 6 hours or overnight to chill.

8. Top with fruit (optional), cut into wedges to serve. Keeps in fridge for a few days (if it lasts that long!)

Every South East Asian nation has their own version of stir fry noodles, and so does every Asian restaurant around the world, catering to the palates of their local patrons. 

With this dish, you have a lot of creative license. Throw together what you have or carefully select your favourite ingredients. Whatever you decide, there are a few simple directions to make this dish great. I’ve tried to highlight this in my instructions below. To summarise, it's a lot of different flavours – garlic, ginger, onions, herbs. And no matter how hard you try, you’ll always cook more than you think you need. But that’s okay, this is great as leftovers too (or mid-night snacks).

If you have your favourite version, I would love to hear about it, feel free to leave a comment.

This recipe serves 2 very hungry people or probably 3 to 4 average serves. Obviously you can increase the portions to cater for more people.

Ingredients
150g sirloin beef steak, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 tspn minced fresh ginger
1 medium onion, chopped
light soy sauce (I’m not sure of quantities, so just keep the bottle out. Basically use soy sauce of your salt.)
2 to 3 tblspn oyster sauce (I used vegetarian mushroom oyster sauce)
150g mushrooms, sliced
1 head of broccoli, cut into bite sized ‘tree-tops’ (as my mum likes to call them)
2 sticks of celery – thick slices
200g fried tofu, halved or quartered. (Apologies, this isn’t very descriptive, but you can see from the picture what I mean. But we love our fried tofu, obviously this is optional)
Vegetable or olive oil for frying
1 tspn flour corn starch mixed with 1/8 cup of water (cold or at room temperature)
200g fresh rice noodles (available at most Asian supermarkets)
bunch of chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)
Pepper and sesame oil to taste

Other ingredients you can include:
Chopped cabbage
Baby spinach
Chinese greens (bok choy, choy sum etc)
Carrots – thickly sliced julienne
Cauliflower
Green beans
Snow peas
... I can go on! Essentially lots of veges
Eggs
Chicken, pork, fish (instead of beef)

Method
Preparation
1. Marinate the meat – It doesn’t matter what little time you have, some marinating time is better than no marinating. This particular instance I did this 3 days before and left it in the fridge, but that’s a bit extreme. I’d just so happened to defrost the meat to make pho. So I decided to marinate it and leave it in the fridge until I needed it later in the week. So in a small bowl, combine the sliced beef, 1 tspn minced ginger, 2 cloves of garlic – minced, soy sauce (enough to just coat the meat) and pepper. Stir and set aside.

2. Prepare veges – Once you have the meat marinating, spend all the time you like chopping up your vegetables. The idea is to get them bite sized. Not too big you’ll struggle to put the piece in your mouth, but not too small it falls apart and the noodles can’t carry it. When you’re chopping it, keep them separated. Though they’re similar in size, they still take different lengths of time to cook.

3. Other prep – chop up your onions, more garlic, more ginger. Again keep them separate. Slice up the tofu. Put rice noodles in a colander and rinse under tap hot water to loosen up and wash away the residual oil from the packet.

Cooking
4. The essence of this bit is high heat and work quick. If you can’t handle it, drop the heat or move the pan away from the burner until you’re ready to move on. Heat a wok or fry pan on high (when you put your hand over it, it should feel like you right next to a heater – toasty!) then add oil, swirl to coat the pan. Add onions, stir around until slightly translucent, add ginger and veges. General rule, the harder the vegetable, the longer it takes to cook. So carrots, broccoli generally take longer than the leafy spinach and the soft mushrooms.In this case I just added the broccoli, stir around, then add celery, reduce the heat slightly, add mushrooms, then add a dash of water and cover for about 30 seconds. This cooks the greens. You can tell its good when it just turns from a dull colour to a shiny bright colour, as soon as that happens take it off the pan and set aside. This will still be a bit crunchy but we’ll bring it back later so don’t worry.

5. In the same pan, bring the pan’s temperature back to hot, add more oil to just coat the pan and add meat. Stir around to just cooked through. As the meat starts browning add starch/water mix. This will create a thick gravy. Especially with beef this won’t take long. Set aside (can be in the same vessel as the vegetables from step #4).

6. Again, in the same pan, bring the heat back to hot and add a bit more oil and the tofu with about 1/2 tspn of chopped ginger. The idea is to the bring the tofu to hot and slightly flavour with ginger. Again this shouldn’t take long. 1 minute or so. At the same time, the tofu will pick up the residual flavour of the meat left behind from the previous step. Set aside (can be in the same vessel as the vegetables and meat from step #4 & #5).

7. In medium to high heat, add noodles, any gravy from the vegetables from step #4 and meat in step #5. Then add a dash of soy sauce and oyster sauce to noodles and stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium. Add all the veges, meat and tofu back into the same pan and stir to combine evenly. This step is to bring it all together, reheat the vegetables, meat and tofu you set aside and make sure you have all the flavours right. This is a point to taste and adjust the seasoning where you see/taste fit. If too salty, add sugar. If not salty enough, add soy sauce.

8. Serve hot with a light coating of sesame oil and pepper.

After creating two batches of custard tarts for the family, I had heaps of egg whites left overs. Which can only mean one thing, friands! These little morsels are just so tasty!

I first learnt about friands while working my way through university in a cafe. These little cakes were really popular but I never had one. I thought, why wouldn’t you just get a muffin, its 3 times bigger and probably cheaper. Then I had one one-day. Oh its so worth it. They’re dense, moist and really tasty. I then found a recipe in a magazine and gave it a go. I’ve never looked back. 

These are really easy to make and you can go wild with all sorts of flavours.
This time around I made 3 different versions: fresh strawberries and passion fruit, strawberry ripe and raspberry and white chocolate. All yummy and distinctly different. I’ve also changed the traditional recipe by substituting half the portion of almond meal/flour with hazelnut meal and cut down the sugar.

Ingredients
6 egg whites
185g butter, melted
1/2 cup almond meal
1/2 cup hazelnut meal
1 cup icing sugar mixture
1/2 cup flour

Variations
Strawberry ripe – 100g chopped strawberries, 100g chopped dark chocolate, 1/2 cup desiccated coconut
Raspberry and white chocolate – 100g frozen raspberries, 100g white chocolate chopped
Strawberry and passion fruit – 100g chopped strawberries, 1/3 cup passion fruit pulp
NB: Obviously if you want more or less flavouring you can add or subtract the quantities

Method
1. Preheat over to moderately hot (190-200C). Grease 12 x 1/3 cup (125ml) capacity friand or muffin pan.
2. Place eggs whites in medium bowl, whisk lightly with fork until combined.
3. Add remaining ingredients to bowl. Including flavour variations. Stir until just combined. Be sure not to over mix.
4. Divide mixture among prepared pans.
5. Bake in preheated oven for about 20 to 25 minutes. Stand in pan for 5 minutes before turning them out on a wire rack. Serve dusted with extra sifted icing sugar.

There is no other way of describe this dish but “Mmm tasty treat!”. I love Agedashi tofu whenever I go out for Japanese food. I probably could keep eating it all day. With our favourite local Japanese restaurant closed down, it's time to try making this myself. It makes great comfort food. I served this with some terriyaki chicken and bok choy over brown rice. As you can see below, I didn’t completely deep fry it, so don’t be afraid to try this, as you don’t need heaps of oil.

This recipe comes from the Woman's Weekly Japanese Cookbook. I know not very … authentic. But its given me some good results in the past. Obviously, I’ve made modifications. Hope you enjoy!

Ingredients
Tofu
1 packet of firm silken tofu (I found the Fortune Brand quite good – if you’re in Australia)
1/4 cup potato flour (you can also use wheat corn starch if you don’t have potato flour on hand)
1/2 cup olive (or vegetable) oil for frying
Bonito flakes to serve (optional)

Broth
3/4 cup dashi (Japanese seaweed stock) you can also use powdered vegetable stock if you don’t have dashi. You can get instant dashi from your local asian grocer.
3 tblspn mirin (I don’t think you can really substitute mirin with anything else. A must have for many Japanese dishes)
3 tblspn soy sauce
1 tblspn miso paste
1/2 tspn sugar

Method
1. Prepare broth
Combine all broth ingredients in a small pot. Heat over medium until it comes to a boil and sugar and miso paste has dissolved. Set aside.

2. Drain tofu package of liquid. If not already, slice up into squares. Heat oil in pan over medium to high heat.

3. While waiting for oil to heat, on a plate add a few spoons of potato starch.

Tip! You can tell the oil is read if you place a wooden chopstick/spoon in the oil, it bubbles around the chopstick. Alternatively drop a bit of flour in the oil and it bubbles up.

4. With a paper towel, pat dry a tofu square to remove excess liquid. Then roll the tofu on the plate of potato starch to light coat.
  
5. Gently place tofu in the oil. Be sure not to crowd the pan. Flip tofu after a minute or two. It should look just golden. After another minute or so remove from oil and drain on a paper towel to remove excess oil then into serving dish. Don't leave on paper towel as it will start sticking as it cools.

Repeat steps 4 to 5 for remaining tofu. If you find the oil level dropping, add more oil to the pan between batches, not during as this disrupts the temperature of the oil and will results in uneven and soggy Agedashis. If you do add more oil, be sure to bring it upto hot temperature before starting a new batch.




6. To serve, laddle the both over the tofu and place some bonito flakes on to. Serve immediately and watch the little bonito flakes dance!

The rain has really settled in Sydney this weekend, as winter rears its head around for 2012. As usual, my mood for noodle soup has resurfaced. I made this recipe up – I don't think it's too much straying away from the traditional phở recipe. Although simpler, I feel a bit guilty using pre-made stock. At least it's not from powder and the packet was soon expiring.  

What makes this fusion? I’ll let you read the recipe below, but there is miso paste, apple cider vinegar, Chinese cabbage, button mushrooms and vermicelli noodles.

Ingredients
1 litre of beef stock
1 cup of water
1.5 tblspn fish sauce
1 tblspn oyster sauce
2 star anise pieces
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 large onion – roughly chopped
2-4 cloves of garlic – minced
5 thickly slices of ginger
1 – 1.5 tblspn miso paste (I used a dashi flavoured one)
1/2 tspn crushed peppercorns
1 cup of celery leaves
1 tblpsn apple cider vinegar
2 medium button mushroom – quartered
250g sirloin beef steak – thinly sliced
5 or so outer leaves of a chinese cabbage head – finely chopped. Separate the leafy and stalky bits.
2 tblspn chopping coriander leaves (I used dried as I didn’t have any fresh)
200g dried vermicelli noodles

Method
1. In a large pot, add stock, water, fish sauce, oyster sauce, star anise, cinnamon sticks, onions, garlic, ginger, miso paste, peppercorns, celery leaves. On high heat, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Add mushrooms and stalky cabbage bits and continue to simmer until mushrooms are cooked. Turn heat off (you can keep it simmering on low until you’re ready to serve).

3. In a large bowl put dried vermicelli noodles and pour boiling hot water to just cover. Allow to soften – about 5 or 10 minutes. Drain, set aside.

4. Just before serving, put beef slices into broth. The remaining heat will cook the meat.

5. To serve, put in bowls leafy cabbage then vermicelli noodles. Then add meat and hot broth and its contents. Serve with fresh sliced chilli (if you fancy it).

Firstly, how good is goats cheese?! I’ve had it in a few dishes at restaurants but couldn’t really remember how it taste. I decided to get a pack for home. It just adds that extra life, to an otherwise boring dish. Yum! Yum!

Back to what I’ve actually cooked. It was Monday and the rain was rolling in on a late autumn evening. After work, I plonked myself on the couch feeling a bit buggered from the day and sorry for myself with a sprained dominant thumb. I started thinking, I could not be bothered cooking, is it going to be Thai takeaway or just left overs. The two options weren’t exciting me either. 

I started watching this food tv-show Catherine’s Italian Kitchen. It's about this Irish chef that discovers Italian cooking through her Italian husband and family. She showed a few simple recipes and got me really wanting pasta. I kept watching and felt so inspired … perhaps motivated would be a better word. None the less, I summoned some strength from my empty belly and made a spinach tomato pasta with bacon and mushrooms. This dish is another Fongolicious-original. So I had low expectations. I sorta winged it, trying not to wreck anything. Turned out really well and very tasty. The bacon is optional for the vegetarians out there. Not a bacon muncher? You can substitute for chicken or whatever other meat you fancy. A salty protein helps with adding less/no salt during cooking. 

Hope you’ll try this out and let me know what you think.

Ingredients
250g spiral pasta – boiled as per packet instructions
1 tin of canned tomatoes
1 medium onion – finely chopped
4 rashers of bacon
200g spinach – I used half a packet of frozen spinach defrosted
200g fresh mushrooms – sliced
3 cloves of garlic – finely chopped
herbs – parsley, basil, oregano, 3/4 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoons nutmeg – grated
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 tblspn butter
1 1/2 tblspn plain flour
1/2 tblpsn olive oil
2 tbpsn sour cream
Salt & pepper to taste
Goats cheese to serve

Method
1. Boil pasta as per packet instructions. Drain and set aside.

2. Melt half the amount of butter over medium heat and add olive oil then slice mushrooms. Reduce heat to medium low and lightly sauté with some parsley flakes. Slow heat allows it soften and not burn. Set aside.

3. In same pan, increase heat back to medium and add bacon and half the amount of onions. Stir around and cover to “sweat” the onions and bacon. The onions will go translucent and bacon will go soft. Set aside. Same bowl as mushrooms is fine.

4. In medium low heat in the same pan, melt the rest of the butter and add flour and whisk to form a roux. Add the rest of the onions then tomatoes. Mash the tomatoes with a fork. Add garlic, nutmeg and herbs and bring to a slow simmer. Stir in spinach. Return cooked mushrooms and bacon. Stir through. Add sugar. Simmer for about 10 minutes. If very chunky, you can add some water.

5. Taste and season with salt & pepper. Turn heat off and stir through sour cream until it melts through.

6. Mix with pasta and serve with goats cheese. Feel free to garnish with fresh herbs and pepper.

Told ya you’d get more posts from me! 2 in 2 days! So this isn’t so much a recipe based blog, rather a decorative cake one. In light of Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea Fundraiser at work next week, I decided to make this Watermelon looking cake. Even though the fundraiser isn’t having a competition this year, I’m all excited to bring this to the masses. So here is a sneak peak to my work teamies, and a nah nah to everyone else who wants but cannot have. As I've not made it before, I figured I should trial it before making the real one. 

I think it turned out really well. According to the ever critical parents, it could be more moist (reduce heat, create a humid oven) but besides that, positive feedback from those who’ve tried it. I based this cake on the red velvet cupcake recipe in my previous blog post, but tried to reduce the heat and baked it for longer. Below a summary of the changes I made/will make.

• Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line round springform cakepan.
• In a small bowl, mix food colouring, vanilla and cocoa powder to form a thin paste without lumps; set aside. The trick to this one, I put the cocoa and vanilla first into the bowl, then slowly added the food colouring, enough to make a paste.
• Fill prepared baking pan with mixture.
• Bake for approximately 30-45 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, until toothpick comes out clean.
• I mentioned the humid oven earlier. This just means putting a tray of water on the bottom shelf of the oven. As this cake cooks, the heat evaporates the water creating a sauna effect in the oven.
• Cool the cake in the tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes then remove and allow to cool completely before frosting.
• I made the basic cream cheese frosting recipe (with 2 cups of icing sugar mixture) and I added 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. Definitely a must! It definitely adds to the flavour.
• Then I split the frosting mixture into 3. With the majority to be pink (half), then green (third) then left the rest for the “white part”.
• For the bright pink/red colour, I used red food colouring and some cocoa.
• For the green I mixed yellow and blue colouring. More blue than yellow. Mix a couple drops at a time until you reach your desired colour.
• Start decorating from the middle outward.
• I then used raisins as “seeds”.

Its been a while since my last blog post. A combo of too much going on and lacking inspiration. Agreed, that’s no excuse. My apologies. So to make it up, I have a few posts to come in quick succession. Here is the first – beef strog. It's one of the winter staples in our household. With the weather getting cooler quickly in Sydney, this strog was a great idea and enjoyed very much.

As you know, I try not to use pre-made packet sauce mix. I don’t think canned mushroom soup falls into this category, and this can be made without it, but I think it definitely adds to the flavour and is much quicker to make. I didn’t hand make this gnocchi either. I figured it's just a base, and you can serve the stroganoff with whatever you like, pasta, rice, mash potato.

Ingredients
2 tblspn olive oil
500g beef – thin slice strips (I used chuck steak in this instance. You can use blade, rump, gravy – whatever you fancy. The cheaper cuts just means a longer simmer to get it to soften up. You can even use minced beef!)
1 tblspn paprika
1 large onion – finely chopped
250g fresh button mushrooms thickly sliced
2 bay leaves
2 tblspn chopped parsley
1 tspn of crushed peppercorns
1 tblspn Worcestershire sauce
1 canned mushroom soup
2 tblspn sour cream
salt to taste

Method
1. On high, heat a large pot and add half olive oil to coat the base. Reduce heat to medium high and add beef to brown only, no need to cook through (2 to 3 minutes). Set meat aside.

2. Return pot to heat, add remaining oil and chopping onions. Stir to sauté. Stir in paprika, bay leaves, parsley and peppercorns. Return meat. Add mushrooms and stir through. Add Worcestershire sauce.

3. Add canned mushroom. Stir and reduce heat to simmer for 15 to 30 minutes or until meat is tender. Stir occasionally. Start cooking gnocchi.

4. Just before serving, stir in sour cream. Taste and season with salt accordingly.

5. Serve with gnocchi (or whatever you want).

This cake was probably the fastest cake I’ve made! From shopping to plating – 3.5hrs! It was OG’s Dad’s birthday and he mentioned how he’d like a “Kim’s Cake”. (Tee hee compliment! *blush*) The criteria I was given was “so long it's moist”. I previously made this cake when making my Double Rainbow Unicorn Cake. But here comes the confession, this type of cake is not good to stand upright. I learnt this the hard way. At 11pm at night, I had to make a butter cake to replace it as the rainbows. The failed rainbows with its sloppy frosting (white chocolate ganache) went to OG’s family as I knew they love cake and wouldn’t care what it looked like. I had really good feedback on the failed rainbows, so I decided to rebuild this cake but a properly presented one. The birthday boy likes walnuts, so that was the garnish. Nothing extravagant but definitely well received. I think it made a lot of happy campers. 

Regarding the actual recipe, I adapted this from Raspberri Cupcake’s Milo Cake but I used Ovaltine instead. I think with Milo it makes the cake rise a bit higher, the ovaltine cake didn’t rise as much as Raspberri Cupcake’s. Plus I didn’t make the condensed milk icing. With hindsight, I should have halved the ganache recipe too (which I’ve done below).

Ingredients
125g butter -  room temperature
50g (about 1/4 cup) caster sugar
195g (about 1 1/4 cups) plain flour
2 1/2 tspn baking powder
150g (about 1 1/4 cups) Ovaltine (Original recipe calls for Milo or Malted Milk Powder + Cocoa)
3 eggs
120ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease and line a 20cm round springform tin.

2. Cream butter and sugar together until smooth and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking powder and Ovaltine together and then gradually add to the rest of the mixture with the mixer on low speed, so the flour doesn’t fly everywhere.

4. With the mixer still on low, add buttermilk until just combined.





5. Pour into cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. While waiting, make the ganache.

6. Remove and cool in tin for 10 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool completely.

7. Place cake on serving plate and spread with ganache.

8. Can be stored in the fridge overnight. Serve at room temperature.




Ganache Ingredients
150ml pouring cream (at least 35% fat content)
200g dark chocolate
1/4 cup ovaltine

Method
1.  Place in a large heat resistant mixing bowl, broken up chocolate pieces. The original recipe said the Milo formed small clumps, so it might be better to try adding Milo to the cream in the saucepan first, however I didn’t have that problem with the Ovaltine.

2. In a medium saucepan, heat cream gently on medium to low heat until it just reaches the boil.

3. Pour hot cream into mixing bowl and set aside for 10 minutes to allow chocolate to melt. Using a whisk, stir until mixture is smooth and glossy. I noticed the fat content in the cream makes it more shiny.

4. Set aside to cool to room temperature, until mixture is thick and only just pourable. If you are impatient, you can chill in the fridge for about 5-10 minutes.

5. Spread ganache over the top and sides of the cake. If the ganache runs right off the edge of the cake, it is not cool enough, scrape the excess ganache back into the bowl and chill for longer. When it is ready, the ganache will lighten and be slightly less shiny, and then you can use a spatula to cover the top and sides of the cake