Raspberry Panna Cotta [覆盆子意式奶冻]

Panna cotta, at its most basic, is just milk and cream jelly. The jelly may be served as it is, but that'd be quite boring.

How to liven up plain panna cotta?

Make it heart-shaped. Make it in bright colours.

Looking good is half the battle won. Tasting good is the other half.

Raspberries work like a charm in panna cotta. They brighten the blandness of milk and cream with a tart fruitiness. In return, the milk and cream tone down the sourness of raspberries. One would be lesser without the other.

Heart-shaped panna cotta is perfect when you want a light dessert. Why? Because the glass looks like it's filled to the brim, but it's actually half empty. There's really not much in there! And 3/4 of what's there is just juice, milk and water.

Here are a few good-to-knows that you might want to know:

1. How much gelatine powder to replace gelatine leaf?
That depends on your gelatin powder's Bloom number. To replace 1 gelatine leaf with gelatine powder, use:

2.5 g or 3/4 tsp for Bloom 160-180

2.0 g or 2/3 tsp for Bloom 190-225

2. What is Bloom number?
All gelatines have a Bloom number to indicate their quality of gel strength, taste and clarity. The higher the number, the better the quality.

3. How to bloom and melt gelatine powder?
Place the powder in a bowl. Sprinkle with just enough room temperature water to wet it thoroughly. (For 2 g powder, use 6 g water). Place the bowl in a hot water bath, and proceed as in the recipe below.

4. Where can you buy gelatine leaves?
Supermarkets, baking supply shops (Bake King, Phoon Huat, etc), and online (bakeking.com.sg, amazon.com, taobao.com, parknshop.com, sainsburys.co.uk, etc).

5. Why do I use frozen instead of fresh raspberries?
Because they're much cheaper than fresh raspberries. The 1 kg pack I buy is S$13.70 (about US$10). Fresh ones are S$6.50 for 170 g.

6. Can you use fresh raspberries instead?
Sure. But you can't mash fresh raspberries with a spatula.

7. What can you use instead of raspberries?
It's a free world. Please feel free to use whatever you like.

8. Can you use water instead of milk? Milk instead of water? Milk instead of cream? "Something" instead of milk? Whole milk instead of full-fat milk? "Normal milk" instead of full-fat milk? Etc instead of etc?
Please refer to point #7.

RASPBERRY PANNA COTTA (Recipe for 2 persons) Cream jelly 1 gelatine leaf, soak in ice water till soft 1/2 tbsp sugar 80 g full-fat milk, room temperature 80 g dairy cream with 35% fat, cold Raspberry jelly 1 gelatine leaf, soak in ice water till soft 1 tbsp sugar 60 g water, room temperature 140 g frozen raspberries thaw, mash and sieve to yield 100 g juice 1. To make cream jelly, squeeze gelatine leaf to remove excess water. Place in bowl. Place bowl in hot water bath. Add 1/2 tbsp sugar. Stir till gelatine and sugar dissolve. Add half of milk. Stir thoroughly. Add remaining milk. Stir thoroughly. Remove bowl from water bath. Add cream. Stir thorougly. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. 2. To make raspberry jelly, squeeze gelatine leaf to remove excess water. Place in bowl. Place bowl in hot water bath. Add 1 tbsp sugar. Stir till gelatine and sugar dissolve. Add half of water. Stir thoroughly. Add remaining water. Stir thoroughly. Remove bowl from water bath. Add raspberry juice. Stir thoroughly. Taste and add more sugar if necessary. 3. To assemble, rest two 8 x 7 cm glasses at 45º angle. Fill 1 glass with cream jelly. Fill other glass with raspberry jelly. Refrigerate both glasses till jelly is set, about 2 hours. 4. Leave remaining jelly at room temperature for 1 hour, then refrigerate to chill but not set. 5. When jelly in glasses is set, turn glasses 180º vertically. Fill cream jelly glass with remaining raspberry belly. Fill raspberry jelly glass with remaining cream jelly. Refrigerate till set, about 1 hour. Turn glasses upright. Cover. Refrigerate till ready to serve.

Chocolate Swiss Roll (巧克力瑞士蛋糕卷)

If you've never made Swiss roll before, or never made one successfully, please don't try my chocolate Swiss roll recipe.

Making chocolate Swiss roll is a bit tricky. Why? Because cocoa powder complicates things. If you want a straightforward recipe, go for vanilla roll. That's almost idiot-proof (not that idiots are the lowest common denominator).

Cocoa powder makes the cake less stretchable, so you have to be careful not to overbake the cake. Even slight overbaking makes the cake crack when you roll it.

Cocoa powder also makes the crust sticky, so you have to be careful not to underbake the cake. The more underbaked the crust is, the stickier it is.

The cake is perfectly done when it just turns springy in the middle. After it's cooled down, the crust should be a bit sticky around the edges. That's OK because the ends will be trimmed, or tucked inside/below after the cake is rolled.

If the entire crust isn't sticky, that's not a good thing at all. The cake is too dry and will likely crack when you roll it.

If the entire crust is sticky, it's gonna stick to whatever it rests on. Of course, that's not a problem if you ice the cake. Or if you go for the skinless look and roll the cake inside out.

Even when you've got the cake baked just right, you may still have a problem when you're rolling the cake. Why? Because the crust doesn't really stick to the crumb, so it comes off very easily. The loose crust is caused by cocoa powder which, as I said, complicates things.

Chocolate cakes have haphephobia (fear of being touched). Direct contact with the crust must be minimized if you don't want to damage it. How? Like this:

⋈ Put the cake on a piece of parchment paper, face down. Spread with whatever filling you like.

⋈ Start rolling the cake by making a fold in the cake. The fold must be very small, or the cake will be oval instead of round after rolling.

⋈ After the first fold is tucked in tightly, lift and tilt the parchment paper with your left hand (if you're right-handed). As the cake moves forward, it may bulge here and there. Gently flatten the bulges with your right hand so that the roll is tight and even. If you're making a very long roll, you'd need a rolling pin (or the core of your parchment paper or aluminium foil) to do this.

Because the cake doesn't handle well, it cracks (when you roll it) if it's too thick. And if it's too thin, the inside may be too dry when the crust is just right. Hence, you must scale the recipe according to your pan size. You don't want too little or too much batter in the pan. 

Why make such a fuss over a cake? Why not just let it crack? You can hide the cracks with icing, icing sugar, chocolate rice/shavings, nuts, whatever. Nobody would know, right?

Yup, covering up is an easy way out. But you'd have bought a chocolate Swiss roll if you had wanted the easy way out. Or at least made a Swiss roll without cocoa powder. Or just eat the bloomin' cake without rolling it!

For those who want to make a good but uncomplicated Swiss roll, click here for my vanilla recipe.  For those who want to make a chocolate roll for the sake of making it, because eating is only half the fun:

CHOCOLATE SWISS ROLL (巧克力瑞士蛋糕卷) (Recipe for one 12" roll) 15 g corn oil 10 g alkalized cocoa powder, Green & Black's brand 15 g castor sugar 10 g water pinch salt 1/2 tsp vanilla extract 30 g egg yolks 15 g cake flour 70 g egg whites 30 g castor sugar 75 g whipped cream If you double the recipe, you need a pan that's 18"x 12". 1. To make cake, preheat oven to 200°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Grease 12" x 9" pan with butter. Line pan with 12" x 12" parchment paper. 2. Heat oil till hot but not smoking (if you put your hand near the oil, you should feel searing heat). Add to cocoa powder. Whisk thoroughly. Add 15 g castor sugar. Whisk thoroughly. Add water. Whisk till thick paste forms. Add salt, vanilla extract and egg yolks. Whisk till sugar dissolves. Sift half of cake flour into mixture. Mix with whisk till even. Sift remaining cake flour into mixture. Mix with whisk till even. 3. Whisk egg whites on medium-slow speed till thick foam forms. Gradually add 30 g castor sugar whilst continuing to whisk. Keep whisking till egg whites are at soft peak stage. Reduce speed to slow and continue to whisk till firm peak stage (when whisk is lifted, egg whites form peak that's hooked). 4. Loosen egg yolk mixture from bottom of mixing bowl with whisk. Add egg whites in 2 batches. Mix with whisk after each addition till batter looks even. Scrape down and fold with spatula till batter is truly even. 5. Pour batter into cake pan. Spread with spatula as evenly as possible, pushing batter into corners of pan. Jiggle vigorously till batter is level. Tap pan against worktop twice. 6. Bake cake on middle shelf till middle of cake is springy when pressed, about 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Drop pan from 1' high 3-4 times. Unmould cake onto wire rack. Peel parchment paper from sides of cake. Leave till cool. 7. To assemble Swiss roll, place cake on clean parchment paper, face down. Peel parchment paper from bottom  of cake. Spread evenly with whipped cream. Roll cake as shown in video. Do not remove parchment paper till cake is transferred to serving plate (so that cake may be moved easily without touching the crust). 8. To cut Swiss roll neatly, chill till filling is set. Cut with serrated knife, wiping knife clean with paper towels after each cut. Transfer to serving plate. Discard parchment paper. 9. To store overnight, place Swiss roll in cake pan. Place pan in plastic bag, making sure bag doesn't touch Swiss roll. Refrigerate. Remove from fridge about 15 minutes before serving. Cut immediately. Transfer to serving plate. Discard parchment paper. Serve when cake is soft but filling is still cold.

Vanilla Swiss Roll (香草瑞士蛋糕卷)

There're a few common problems with making Swiss rolls: (1) The cake is hard and dry. (2) The crust sticks to the paper the cake is wrapped in. (3) The crust cracks when you roll the cake.

Good Swiss roll starts with, of course, a sheet cake that's fluffy. You know what's wrong with a lot of Swiss roll recipes? They have way too much flour.

A cake that's 1-2 cm tall should have very little flour because it doesn't need much structural support. If it has as much flour as a cake that's 5-7 cm tall, it would be dense and hard.

There's no point in baking a cake that's fluffy but dried out. What makes my cake moist? Oil. It has more oil than flour. If you're on a low-carb, high-fat diet, this is the cake for you!

Water doesn't help make a sheet cake moist. Why? Because the cake is so thin, H₂O in the batter evaporates very quickly. It's gotta be fat that keeps the cake moist. 

Of course, don't overbake the cake or it'll be dry no matter how much fat it has. Timing is critical because a 1-2 cm thick cake may overbake in 1-2 minutes. Make sure the cake is removed from the oven once the middle is springy when pressed lightly.

How to stop the crust from sticking to the paper it's wrapped in? Easy. Just don't wrap the cake in paper.

A lot of Swiss roll recipes tell you to roll the cake whilst it's piping hot, when it's most flexible and least likely to crack. This (the rolling, not telling) is done after placing the cake on a piece of parchment paper, and then dusting the crust with icing sugar.

The cake is rolled along with the paper, which stops the cake from sticking to itself.

The sugar is supposed to stop the crust from sticking to the paper, in theory. In practice, however, it doesn't because the cake releases moisture as it cools down. The paper traps the moisture that makes the crust wet and, hence, sticky.

How about wrapping the cake in a tea towel which breathes better than parchment paper? That works if the cake is quite dry when it's removed from the oven. But who wants a dried out Swiss roll, right? If it's moist as it should be, it'd still stick to the tea towel.

I let my sheet cake cool down on a wire rack after it's baked, without rolling or covering it.

Is my cake dry after it's cooled down? Not at all, because it has loads of fat and it's not overbaked.

Does my cake crack when I roll it after it's cooled down?

Nope, it doesn't because it's very flexible. The cake can stretch and bend into a roll without breaking. The flexibility is due to the way the eggs are beaten. The whites are whisked to firm peak stage, then the yolks are added one at a time and whisked thoroughly. Compared to the whole egg or chiffon method, this makes a cake that's more stretchable.

Some people wrap their Swiss roll, after rolling, to set the shape. If you want to do that, I suggest you use a tea towel. Parchment paper, if tightly wrapped around the cake for a few hours, will stick to the crust.

I prefer not to wrap the cake. There's really no need to do so provided the filling is firm when I'm rolling the cake.

If you use dairy cream filling, it must be firm when you're spreading it on the cake. And you must work quickly so it's still firm when you roll the cake. If it isn't, put the cake in the freezer for five minutes or so.

Here's how I make a Swiss roll (without pushing him down a mountain):

VANILLA SWISS ROLL (香草瑞士蛋糕卷) (Recipe for one 13" roll) Cake 140 g egg whites 60 g castor sugar 60 g egg yolks 40 g cake flour 1/16 tsp fine salt 1 tsp vanilla extract 60 g corn oil butter for greasing pan Filling 80 g chocolate spread       or 215 g whipped cream (click here for recipe) 1 can (312 g) mandarin orange, drained and chilled This recipe is double the pygmy-sized (10" x 7") cake in the video. 1. To make cake, preheat oven to 200°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Grease 13" x 10" pan with butter. Line pan with 13" x 13" parchment paper. 2. Whisk egg whites on medium-slow speed till thick foam forms. Gradually add castor sugar whilst continuing to whisk. Keep whisking till egg whites are at soft peak stage. Reduce speed to slow and continue to whisk till firm peak stage (when whisk is lifted, egg whites form peak that's hooked). 3. Add yolks to whites in 4 batches. Whisk on slow speed till evenly mixed after each addition. Sift half of cake flour into mixture. Add salt. Mix with whisk till almost even. Sift remaining cake flour into mixture. Mix with whisk till just even. Add vanilla extract and corn oil. Fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. 4. Pour batter into cake pan. Spread with spatula as evenly as possible, pushing batter into corners of pan. Jiggle till batter is level. Tap pan against worktop twice. Bake on middle shelf till middle of cake is springy when pressed, 10-11 minutes. Remove from oven. Drop pan from 1' high 3-4 times. Unmould cake onto wire rack. Peel parchment paper from sides of cake. Leave till cool. 5. To assemble, place cake on new sheet of parchment paper, face down. Peel parchment paper from bottom of cake. Spread evenly with chocolate spread or whipped cream. Place mandarin orange, if using, in middle of cake. Roll cake as shown in video. 6. To cut chocolate spread Swiss roll neatly, dip serrated knife in hot water before each cut and wipe dry/clean with paper towel. For orange and cream Swiss roll, chill till cream filling is set, then use a serrated knife that's wiped clean after each cut. 7. Orange and cream Swiss roll is best eaten after an overnight rest in the fridge, when the filling has had time to perfume the cake. Chocolate spread Swiss roll should be chilled or eaten once it's made. Otherwise, oil separates from the spread and seeps into the cake, making it hard.

Magic Custard Cake (魔术卡士垯蛋糕)

What's magical about magic custard cake?

The cake's three layers, which are "self-made".

The top of magic custard cake is a layer of fluffy cake. The bottom is a layer of starch which eats like kueh. What's in the middle? Smooth, milky custard.

My last recipe, pandan kaya cake, is a combination of cake and kueh. Magic custard cake gives you not only cake and kueh but custard as well. And you don't have to make the kueh and custard separately. Isn't that nice? It's how you have your cake, and eat kueh and custard too.

How to bake magic custard cake? Unfortunately, you can't wave a magic wand and make a neat stack of kueh, custard and cake fall out of the sky. You have to roll up your sleeves and make magic custard cake using the separated egg method.

The batter for magic custard cake is quite unusual. It has a humongous amount of milk, so it's extremely watery. If you put the watery batter in a pan with a loose bottom, it'll leak. You have to use a one-piece pan.

The thin batter, when it's baked at a low temperature, sets very slowly. That allows the ingredients to divide themselves into three layers:

1) The starch in the flour separates from the protein and, because it's dense, sinks to the bottom of the pan. There, it forms a layer that eats like kueh.

2) What happens to the protein in the flour? No longer weighed down by starch, it rises to the top of the pan, along with the very light egg whites in the batter. That's (kinda) how the cake layer is formed.

3) The egg yolks in the batter are sandwiched between the heaviest and lightest layer. The middle layer is my favourite. It's custard that's smooth, soft and milky.

As usual, follow my recipe if you want to bake the cake I bake. Don't be alarmed when your whisked egg whites become a bit grainy. That's the way it's supposed to be.

If the meringue isn't grainy at all, the cake layer will be too wet when the top is golden brown. Why? Because the water in creamy egg whites evaporates too slowly.

If the meringue is too grainy, the cake layer will be very thin because overly grainy egg whites are too inextensible to rise much. What's wrong with a thin cake layer? It doesn't absorb all of the fat in the batter, so there's a layer of butter between the custard and cake layer.

Mind you, it's not a good thing either if the cake layer rises a lot and becomes very thick. That's a sign it's going to be too wet.

When you hit the Goldilocks sweet spot, you'll get a fluffy cake layer that's neither too thick nor too thin, and neither too dry nor too wet. It goes very well with the custard and kueh, and the ratio of cake to custard and kueh is just right.

How do you make sure the meringue is grainy but not too grainy? By doing everything the recipe says, and not doing everything the recipe doesn't say.

You don't need a magic wand to bake magic custard cake. All you need is a good recipe.

MAGIC CUSTARD CAKE (魔术卡士垯蛋糕) (Recipe for one 18 x 18 cm cake) 75 g icing sugar 45 g egg yolks 85 g unsalted butter, melted and cool 12 g water 3/4 tsp vanilla extract  85 g plain flour 1/16 tsp salt 360 g full-fat milk, slightly warm 105 g egg whites 20 g castor sugar Fully line 18 x 18 x 5 cm 1-piece cake pan with parchment paper measuring 30 x 30 cm, without cutting corners of paper. Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Sift icing sugar into mixing bowl. Add egg yolks. Whisk till mixture is ivory pale. Add melted butter, water and vanilla extract. Whisk till combined. Sift plain flour into mixture. Add salt. Whisk till just evenly mixed. Add milk. Whisk till evenly mixed. Separately whisk egg whites on high speed till thick foam forms. Add castor sugar. Continue whisking at high speed till egg whites are at stiff peak stage – i.e. when whisk is lifted, egg whites form peak that's straight, not hooked – and a bit grainy. Add to yolk mixture. Mix with whisk till fully combined. Scrape down with spatula and mix till even. Pour batter into cake pan. Level top with spatula. Bake till golden brown and edges of cake don't squish when pressed gently, about 50 minutes. Remove cake from oven. Unmould by lifting cake out of pan. Serve hot (cake may be cut hot from the oven if you use a serrated knife), warm, at room temperature or slightly chilled.

Banana Chiffon Cake (香蕉戚风蛋糕)

If you like your banana cake very fluffy and very "banana-y", you must try my version. Other recipes may be as fluffy but not as banana-y, or as banana-y but not as fluffy.

Making banana cake more banana-y is easy. I simply put loads of very ripe bananas in it.

Most recipes for banana cake have about 1 part banana to 1 part flour. Some may go up to 2:1. Mine has 175 g bananas to 70 g flour, so the ratio is 2.5:1.

When banana cake has a lot of bananas, it becomes dense and wet. IOW, it turns into banana bread. That's a good thing if you like heavy and squat banana bread but I don't.

How do I stop banana cake from turning into banana bread?

By making the cake rise, so it's not dense. And making the cake dry out, so it's not too wet.

To help the cake rise well, my recipe has a fair bit of baking soda and baking powder. Egg whites whisked till firm peak stage also lend a hand. A chiffon pan helps too because the funnel makes the batter heat up evenly.

I use a fairly low temperature, 160°C. If the temperature is higher, the inside of the cake would still be wet when the top is brown. Mashed bananas dry out slowly, so the cake must be baked longer, at a lowish temperature. If the cake is too wet when it's removed from the oven, it'll shrink as it cools down or after it's unmoulded.

Besides the baking time and temperature, putting less wet ingredients in the cake also helps make the cake less wet. There's no water or milk in the recipe, and there's only a small amount of oil.

A fluffy cake is fluffy because its structure is weak. To stop the structure from collapsing when it's at its weakest – just after the cake is removed from the oven –  it must cling to the sides and bottom of the cake pan. The pan, therefore, mustn't be non-stick and it must be inverted once it's removed from the oven. A funnel in the middle gives the cake more surface area to cling to.

Banana cake is best served without frosting, so there's nothing to mask the flavour of the bananas.

Are you ready to eat the most fluffy and most banana-y ever banana cake? Hey, you have to bake it first.

BANANA CHIFFON CAKE (香蕉戚风蛋糕) (Recipe for one 18 x 8 cm cake) 2-3 very ripe bananas, peel to yield 175 g 60 g egg yolks 15 g castor sugar 40 g corn oil 70 g cake flour 1⁄4 tsp baking powder 1⁄2 tsp baking soda 1⁄8 tsp salt 140 g egg whites 1⁄16 tsp cream of tartar 50 g castor sugar Preheat oven to 160°C. Measure and prep ingredients as detailed above. Blend 175 g bananas, egg yolks, corn oil and 15 g castor sugar till smooth and thoroughly incorporated. Sift cake flour, baking soda and baking powder into mixture. Add salt. Mix with whisk till just even. Separately whisk egg whites till frothy. Add cream of tartar. Whisk till egg whites form thick foam. Gradually add 50 g castor sugar, still whisking. Continue to whisk till egg whites reach firm peak stage. Add egg whites to yolk mixture in 3 batches. Mix with whisk till almost even after each batch. Scrape down and fold with spatula till just evenly mixed, banging mixing bowl against worktop 2-3 times. Pour batter into 18 x 8 cm 2-piece chiffon pan that's not non-stick, rotating pan as you pour so that batter is spread evenly. Jiggle pan till batter is level. Bake in bottom of oven for about 1 hour, till cake is well browned and, when pressed lightly, springs back and squishes softly. (Loud squishing means the cake is still too wet.) Remove cake from oven. Invert onto something narrow and tall, e.g. jam jar or inverted glass. Leave till cool. Cut cake out of pan. Serve.