Boston Creme Strawberry Cake

This is a beautiful butter cake with a Boston Creme filling, topped with lots of whipped cream and strawberries.

For the cake:

1.5 cup cake & pastry (or white) flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder

Mix together the dry ingredients and leave aside.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl, bring the butter to room temperature and cream with an electric mixer.

Add the sugar, eggs, and vanilla, and mix till light and fluffy.

Alternating with the flour mixture, fold in 3/4 cup of milk to the dry ingredients. Pour the batter in a prepared pan. For this one I used a Tube pan (also known as Angel Food Cake pan). Since I can't use a parchment to line this type of pan I grease the pan with shortening and dab it with  flour. Works like a charm.

Bake at 350 F in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or till the sides of the cake separate from the pan and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Cool to room temperature.

For the Bostom Creme Filling:

In a medium sized saucepan mix together:

1/3 cup sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
pinch of salt

Add 1.5 cup milk and put the saucepan on medium heat. Stir constantly and cook till mixture thickens and comes to a boil.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat the yolks of two eggs. Before adding the yolks to the hot milk mixture you have to raise the temperature of the eggs. This is called 'tempering'. To the eggs add a tbsp of the hot milk and mix the yolks well. Add another tbsp of the hot milk and mix well. Now add all of the egg mix into the saucepan with the hot milk and stir constantly as sauce thickens and comes to a boil.

Remove from heat and stir in 2 tsp vanilla. Transfer to a glass/ceramic bowl and cover with cling film - with the plastic touching the sauce to prevent a skin from forming as the sauce cools down. Bring to room temperature.

When the cake has cooled, cut into two layers and fill with cooled bostom creme. Finally, frost the top layer with whipped cream and sprinkle with chopped strawberries.

For the whipped cream I just used half a cup of whipping cream and used an electric mixer to whip till peaks were stiff. Then I used a piping bag to pipe out the cream as shown in the picture. You can also just use a spatula to spread out the cream if you don't have the decorating tools.

Cool in fridge for a couple of hours and serve.

Chicken Manchurian

I've been to quite a few hakka Chinese restaurants in town but I could never find the red 'ketchupy' Chicken Manchurian you find back home!

1/2 kg boneless chicken breast - diced
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp white flour
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 egg

1/4 cup canola oil (for frying)

Marinate the chicken for 30 minutes and fry in canola oil till chicken is cooked and no longer pink. Drain on paper towel and keep aside.

For the sauce:
1/4 cup squarely chopped green pepper
1/4 cup squarely chopped onion
3 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp finely chopped ginger

Using 4 tbsp of the canola oil used for frying the chicken, fry the above vegetables till peppers and onions are limp.

Add the cooked chicken.

Add:
4 tbsp ketchup
4 tbsp chilli garlic sauce

The original recipe calls for Chilli Garlic Sauce but I never have it so I used: 3 tbsp chilli sauce (This is NOT the same as Tabasco or Hot sauce)  + 2 tbsp chopped garlic + 2 tsp sugar + 2 tbsp crushed chillis.

Season with salt and pepper and add 1/2 cup of water. Mix well and cook for a minute or so. Meanwhile, prepare 2 tbsp cornflour in 1/4 cup of water and add that to the sauce. Also add 2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce and mix well.

Finally add 1/4 cup of chopped (1 inch) green spring onions and cook with lid on for 2 minutes. Add 1 tsp lemon juice and serve.

Princess Cake!!!

My niece wanted one of those standing-upright princess cakes for her 7th birthday. A store-bought cake was costing around 35 dollars and Wilton sells a princess cake baking kit for around 30 dollars. So I decided to make one at home with the pans I already had. And it literally cost us nothing since most of the stuff was already in the pantry!

For the cake I used 3 batches of my chocolate cake recipe. For the pans I used two round pans and one pyrex bowl to shape
the dress of the doll.

For the doll I took a barbie doll and removed her legs. Rolled up the dress and covered her in plastic wrap up to her waist.

For the filling I made a chocolate truffle filling:

3 cups whipping cream
2.5 tbspn butter
3 tbspn sugar

Pour the above three ingredients in a saucepan and cook on medium heat till the butter has melted and the cream comes to a boil.

Meanwhile, put 4.5 cups of semisweet chocolate chips in a glass/ceramic mixing bowl. When the cream comes to a boil, pour it on the chocolate chips and leave for 5 minutes. Mix well and let it cool to room temperature. Use an electric beater to whip up the truffle mix.

Prepare to assemble when the cakes have cooled down completely.

Trim off the top of the cakes so they are all levelled. Slice all three cakes into two layers each. Start off with the circles and layer the cake with the truffle filling as shown in the pictures. Depening on the size of the pyrex bowl, the dome shaped cake may or may not fit perfectly on top of the round cakes. In my case the dome was slightly smaller so I used the truffle mix to even out the shape of the dress and it worked pretty well.

Cover in a plastic wrap and leave in the fridge for 2 hours.

For the icing, I made a plain whipped cream icing and added some pink food coloring to it.

Just take 3 cups of whipping cream and whip it with an electric beater till it has soft peaks. Add food coloring depending on how much color you want to give to the doll. Beat with a mixer till stiff peaks form.

Before you begin the icing you have to make a small space at the top of the cake to fit the doll into. Using a spoon and a knife scoop out just enough cake so the doll can fit in. Cake is now ready to be frosted.

This cake will get two layers of icing. The first one will act as a base. So cover the cake with almost 1/3 of the icing mix and smooth it out with strips of parchment paper. Leave in the fridge for 3 hours to overnight.

Fit in the doll at the top of the cake and use the rest of the icing to decorate the dress.