Noobcakes

I tried three cake recipes recently!

Steam rice cake

Following the white honeycomb cake trial, I decided to give the steam rice cake a try. At first, I followed the recipe from Sweetday. But I tried thrice and it wasn't good enough. It tasted so much like fa gao (发糕), moist and sticky. The end product was mustard brown color.

After which, I found another adapted recipe of the same steam rice cake. Happy flour used double acting baking powder instead of baking soda, which I believe has an effect on the overall recipe. Double acting baking powder would ensure that the cake continues to produce bubbles and rise upon heat.

Here's the proportion I used:

67g rice flour

25g cake flour

110g water

44g sugar

1tsp double acting baking powder

1) Mix the rice flour, cake flour, baking powder and sugar. (all the dry stuff together first, with a whisk)

2) Add in the water.

3) Bubbly mixture should be formed.

4) Steam for 45 mins.

My measurement of the ingredients is only an estimation because I used a measuring container instead of the weighing device. The texture of the cakes using the new recipe is great. Soft and slightly fluffy, not sticky anymore. However, it taste weird. Like plain and not nice. Maybe because I didn't add any flavoring. It appeared white in color.

I also did a variation by swapping the rice flour and the cake flour; 25g rice flour and 67g cake flour. It taste even weirder. There's a metallic, scotchtape kind of taste inside. I came to realized that it is the smell coming out from the cake flour. Maybe using plain flour would be a better idea.

Vanilla/Butter Cake

Because I still have such a big packet of cake flour, I decided to continue with baking. Recipe adapted from here! I used the same proportion.

175g softened butter 

175g caster sugar

175g cake flour

1 Tsp double acting baking powder

1 Tsp vanilla essence 

3 eggs

Pinch of salt

1) Mix the butter and eggs. Despite putting the butter outside for about 2 hours, it was still hard. I used my cake mixer to do the job in the end. Add the vanilla essence.

2) Pour the cake flour, sugar, salt and baking powder together. I whisk stir them instead of sieving. Slowly pour the dry mixture into the wet mixture. (usually you should add wet into dry, but because my butter mixture had to be mixed first, it was already in the mixing bowl)

3) Mix with cake mixer until just blended. It's usually bad to over mix, but I guess with double acting baking powder, it won't pose such a big problem to over mix a little.

4) Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease cake container with butter. Pour in mixture. Bake for 45 minutes.

The cake doesn't taste very fluffy but it is okay. It taste very nice when it's fresh, soft and buttery. After which, it became drier after I stored it in the fridge. Success!

Banana Cake
Recipe adapted here!

40g butter
About 150g sugar (not enough sugar at home)
3 mashed banana
1 egg
185g cake flour
1 tsp double acting baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup milk

1) Cream the butter and sugar. Use cake mixer!

2) Add the egg, then bananas, and then milk.

3) Whisk the cake flour, baking power and baking soda in another bowl.

Add in to the wet mixture and mix until blended. 

4) Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Bake for 45 minutes. 

Looks like double acting baking powder makes the cake crack up a lot. The banana cake taste rather chewy (maybe it's the flour) and has a slight metallic cake flour taste. On the cake flour package label, I think it stated that cake flour makes cakes high in oil and sugar soft and fluffy. In this case, the ingredients in the banana cake does not make it highly oily or sugary, hence that may be a reason why the cake flour taste is not covered. Bad choice to use cake flour here. Haha. Other than that, it is still nice and edible when it's fresh. The outer layer so crispy and sweet when it came out. :D