Freeze: Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

Rated: Submitted By: Gabrielle Photo By: TTV78 Prep Time: 20 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour Ready In: 1 Hour 20 Minutes Servings: 8

"Bread, bananas and chocolate chips are featured in this bread pudding."

INGREDIENTS:

4 eggs 2 cups milk 1 cup white sugar 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 cups cubed French bread 2 bananas, sliced 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan.
2.	In a large mixing bowl, mix eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Stir in bread, bananas, and chocolate chips, and let rest 5 minutes for bread to soak. Pour into prepared pan.
3.	Line a roasting pan with a damp kitchen towel. Place loaf pan on towel inside roasting pan, and place roasting pan on oven rack. Fill roasting pan with water to reach halfway up the sides of the loaf pan. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Baked: Fruit Pastry Cake

Ingredients:

100g butter, soften at room temperature 
200g caster sugar (I cut down to180g)
50g sour cream (I replaced with same amount of low fat yogurt)
3 eggs, lightly beaten, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
210g plain flour 
1 teaspoon baking powder
500g fruits* tossed with 2 tablespoon sugar*
(You can use strawberries, blueberries, peaches, bananas, oranges, pears, apples, pineapple, or any other fruits that are not too juicy. I omitted the sugar and used as much fruits, either fresh or canned, as needed to fill the top of the cake)

Method:

1. Wash, cut (chunks or slices, as desired) and drain fruits, toss with sugar (if desired) and set aside. (if using canned fruits, wash the fruits to remove the syrup, omit the sugar).
2. Grease (with butter) and flour the side of a 9" round pan or a 8" square pan and line the base with parchment paper.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and sour cream (or yogurt) till light and fluffy.
4. Dribble in the eggs gradually and beat till incorporated in the batter. (The mixture may appear slightly curdled.)
5. Add vanilla extract and zest. Mix to combine.
6. Sieve over flour and baking powder and mix till smooth. (To avoid getting flour all over my work surface, I mixed the flour into the batter using a spatula, just a few strokes will do, then I used the electric mixer to mix the batter till smooth.)
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
8. Arrange fruits on top, don’t press the fruits down into the batter. Decorate the fruits as desired.
9. Bake in pre-heat oven at 180degC for 60-70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 mins of baking to prevent the top from getting over browned.
10. Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5~10 mins. Unmold and transfer to wire rack to let cool completely. Dust the cake with some icing sugar if desired.

Verdict: 7/10

The cake was a little bit hard, not moist enough probably had the cake overcooked. Since the fruits were placed inside while it was baked for an hour, the fruits were all soften and not as crunchy as the raw fruit.. The strawberry juice kept the cake a litter more moist but also went soft and lose its strawberry colour too.  

FREEZE: Blueberry and White Chocolate Coffee Cake

Blueberry and White Chocolate Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
(serves 8)

210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
120g caster sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
1/4 cup milk
50g (about 1/4 cup) white chocolate chips
80g (about 1/2 cup) blueberries
some sliced almonds
some granulated sugar or coarse sugar


Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degC.
• Line base and side of a 7" round pan with parchment paper. (Note: The cake can also be baked in an 8" or 9" round pan, shorten the baking time to 40-45mins)
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and whisk to combine. Set aside.
• Stir yoghurt and milk together, set aside. (Note: I used 70g Marigold low fat plain yoghurt and combined with slightly more than 1/4 cup low fat fresh milk to yield 1 cup of yoghurt-milk mixture).
• With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture turn light and flurry.
• Add in egg and vanilla extract and beat till smooth. 
• With a spatula, stir in half of the flour mixture.
• Add the yoghurt-milk mixture, stir to combine (the mixture may appear lumpy at first, keep stirring till smooth). 
• Add in the rest of the flour mixture.  Stir only until just combined. Do not over mix.
• Fold in blueberries (if using frozen blueberries, toss with some flour before using) and white chocolate chips to evenly distribute them. 
• Spoon batter into prepared pan and spread into an even layer. 
• Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and granulated coarse sugar.
• Bake for about 50 minutes (if using bigger pan, shorten baking time to 40-45mins), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Leave to cool in pan for about 5 mins. Unmold and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

FREEZE: Kuih Bahulu II

Ingredients:5 large eggs (about 300gm without shell)
120g fine granulated sugar
150g all-purpose flour
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp vanilla essence

Methods:In a large mixing bowl, beat together eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in vanilla essence, and stir to blend.
Sift together flour and baking powder, then fold into egg mixture.
Preheat oven at 220ºC together with the mould. Grease mould with cooking oil and put in the oven for a few seconds.
Fill each hole with batter and bake for 6-7 minutes or until it is golden brown.
Cool completely before storing in the container.

Verdict: -

BAKE: Kuih Bahulu

Ingredients :
5 normal cold eggs (straight from fridge)
150g sugar (I reduce my sugar to 120g)
150g plain flour (baked)
1tsp baking powder
Cooking oil, for greasing (I use melted butter. Do not use olive oil/peanut oil)
1tsp of chocolate/vanilla/lemon essence (optional)

Method:

1.     Preheat oven at 200ºc.

2.     Put flour in a baking pan and bake for 2 minutes. Stir flour on 1 minute interval. Set aside to cool. Add in baking powder and stir well. Sift for two to three times.

3.     Add sugar into the cold eggs. Beat the mixture on a stand mixer for 20minutes until fluffy, thick & pale (ribbon stage). Add in chocolate/vanilla/lemon essence. Beat over slow speed for another 1 minute.

4.     Slowly add in sifted flour over egg mixture. Mix over low speed till combined and smooth. Do not over mix.

5.     Oil the mould properly with melted butter/oil. Heat up the mould in the oven for around 1 minute.

6.     Remove the mould from the oven. Use a spoon to fill up the mould with batter slowly, to 80% full.

7.     Bake for 10-15 minutes (no fan) at middle rack until golden brown.

8.     Remove the mould from oven and use a toothpick to carefully prick cake with skewer and lift out. Cool on wire rack.

9. Grease warm mould again before use and put into oven to re-heat for another 2 minutes. Continue to bake until all mixture finished.
10. Store in air-tight container once cooled.

Notes:

• Use cold eggs straight from fridge will give thick and stable batter.
• The texture of the kuih bahulu will become light and spongy if you dry the flour in the oven before use.
• The mould must be hot and greased so cake will not stick to the mould when removing them.
• For slight crispy bahulu, turn cakes onto tray and return to oven at 180ºc for 5 minutes. Cool on wire rack (optional).
• It would be good if you have few spares of kuih bahulu moulds ready so you don’t have to clean the mould each time after baking.
• Homemade kuih bahulu is best to be eaten when they are freshly out of the oven as the outer layer is crispy and the cake is soft. Once they have cooled down, they are a bit dry & hard. You can heat up these little cakes in microwave for few seconds, they will become soft again.

Verdict: 3/5 

Soft inside but not crispy outside. Taste great! but not crispy enough! probably its becos the temperature is not high enough or the sugar is insufficient as i reduced the sugar from 150g to 130g.