Baking Addiction 4: Chocolate Walnut cake

Two weeks ago I made a Chocolate Walnut Cake to bring to church. The recipe requires multitasking- mixing, baking, toasting etc. So you can imagine I'll be holding a whisk or a spatula while running around like a headless chicken in the kitchen. But I have to say that it is a straightforward recipe which can never goes wrong. By just using good quality of chocolate compound, you can almost guaranteed that the cake will be yummyliscious. I usually use the local manufactured Beryls Gourmet dark chocolate compound and not some expensive imported goods. You will be surprised that its just cost RM15.80 for 1 kg. Frankly you can make at least 5 cakes with such a big amount of chocolate. 

Well, I dont know whether its a girl thing or what, but I am obsessed about Chocolate. For me its the most versatile food in the whole world.  If you are health (or weight) conscious, just grab a dark chocolate bar rather than Snickers. Dark chocolate has tons of antioxidants which is great for heart, skin and release some chemicals called serotonin in your brain that makes you feel like you're in love! So ditch you bf/gf and start munching chocolate :)

I made my chocolate cake based on www.joyofbaking.com. You can get the full recipe here.

Chocolate Cake:

1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1/4 cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup (75 grams) unsalted butter, melted

1 cup (240 ml) warm water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 177 degrees C and place rack in center of oven
2. In an ungreased 8 inch (20 cm) square cake pan, stir together the flour, sugar, sifted cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt
3. Add the melted butter, water and vanilla extract. With a fork, mix all the ingredients together until well blended
4. Bake in preheated oven for about 30 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

For Walnut, you can buy at any baking store, I bought mine from Bagus Melawati, it costed me around RM10.50 for a 500g pack. In actual, you maybe just need 1/3 of it for the cake, so just keep the rest for other nutty dishes/desert. Lightly toast the walnut in a hot pan without oil. Caution not to burn the nuts! Once its cooled down just crushed it to smaller pieces, and spread half of it on top of the cake. Sprinkle the rest of the nuts after adding the chocolate frosting.

Chocolate frosting

170 grams dark chocolate, chopped

80 grams of unsalted butter, room temperature

Basically, you just have to put the butter in the microwave, zap with high heat until it melted, took out and add in the chocolate, microwave on high heat again for 2 minutes, stir unmelted chocolate in the butter until its dissolved evenly and pour it on top of the cake. You can do this the "proper way" by melting the chocolate and the butter together in a glass bowl on top of a pot of boiling water. But I find this really tedious plus I have cracked a glass bowl due to the high temperature of the pot. Do you know that Chocolate is technically responsible for the invention of microwave?

Scientists were experimenting with micro waves in hopes of creating better radar detectors and in the wake of World War II, scientists were testing devices called magnetrons. A scientist named Percy Spencer entered the lab with a chocolate bar in his pocket and realized it quickly began to melt. Spencer then realized that the magnetron could potentially be used to cook food.  

Read the full article here.

Anyway, back to the recipe. I've improvised the recipe of the chocolate frosting by leaving out the fresh cream, which causes the chocolate frosting to solidify on top of the cake, well, the texture is abit different from the usual Chocolate Walnut cake, but nevertheless its still tasty. ;)  

A good cup of tea

It has been a blogging drought since the sad departure of Miko. Life still goes on as usual, but it saddened me whenever I think of her. I try to think more of the good memories about her but when the emotional gate opened, it hit me hard. Well, though am not an optimistic person, but I do strive to be one. I mean we can bitch about bad stuff in life occasionally, life is never bed of roses after all, but we shouldn't ignore that there are roses among the thorns as well. And I'm still learning to appreciate things I have in my life, everyday. Whether its a sweet kiss, a good movie, or a good book, or a cup of good tea. There is always something to be thankful for. 

Coming back to a cup of good tea. I bought a bunch of different type of Chinese tea with a nice teapot lately. It was an ad hoc decision and frankly I am not a big fan of Chinese tea at all. I had always prefer English's simply because Chinese tea is not sweet. In fact, I used to get scolding for putting sugar in Chinese tea like Hiong Pin (Fragrant tea leaves). Anyway, it all started with a random conversation when my colleague, whereby she told me that there are Chinese tea that are sweet, like hua cha or simply the flower tea or some may refer to as aromatic tea. I was tempted to try hence we went for a Chinese tea shop and she recommended me to buy a few types of it to tryout. 

The fun of hua cha is that you can just mix and try. I bought i think around 6 types of flower tea leaves and a pack of dried lemon slices for flavor enhancement. Then I painstakingly stored it in IKEA small glass jar and label it accordingly. Don't even ask me why I store it so neatly, I'm kinda anal when it comes to packing/ arranging /storing spices and condiments and baking stuff and coffee and tea etc. in the kitchen. 

Anyway, today I tried the combination of apple tea leaves (its the small bud of flower before its turns into apple), Stevia Rebaudiana Leaves and some dried lemon slices. Anyway I never knew what is Stevia Rebaudiana Leaves is all about until my friend introduced it to me. According to our friend google, 

"The species Stevia rebaudiana, commonly known as sweetleaf, sweet leaf, sugarleaf, or simply stevia, is widely grown for its sweet leaves. As a sweetener and sugar substitute, stevia's taste has a slower onset and longer duration than that of sugar, although some of its extracts may have a bitter or licorice-like aftertaste at high concentrations.With its steviol glycoside extracts having up to 300 times the sweetness of sugar, stevia has garnered attention with the rise in demand for low-carbohydrate, low-sugar food alternatives. Because stevia has a negligible effect on blood glucose, it is attractive as a natural sweetener to people on carbohydrate-controlled diets."

In short, its perfect for girls on diet. The Stevia blah blah blah leaves has this unique sweetness taste which makes the Chinese tea super nice to drink. It differs from sugary taste or honey taste, in Chinese we have a term to describe it, which is 甘甜. Anyway you get the point.

This is how the tea leaves looks like after draining with hot boiling water.

A good cup of Hua cha, such a simple yet satisfying cup of drink.  

  

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