Chocolate Rum Balls

Hi! Sorry I took so long to post. I had been really busy with school. It’s week 12 of semester 2 now and everyone is busy rushing to meet assignments and projects deadlines. Insane madness. Made these rum balls a few weeks ago for my friends! Hardly can find bakeries that sell rum balls anymore. Well, the bakery famous for their toufu tarts do sell rum balls. But they are so expensive. They dont sell individual pieces so u have to buy 10 at one go for probably $9? i forgot the exact price but it’s just expensive! Why now make it yourself instead? Its pretty easy! You can use any chocolate cake recipe you want. I have been using this chocolate cake recipe for almost every cakes that has to do with chocolate because it has never failed me. I have baked chocolate Layered Cake, oreo Cupcakes, baileys cupcakes, chocolate devil cupcakes with this recipe.  (:

Ingredients:
Chocolate cake
5-10 tbsp of Rum (depends how strong you want)
4 tbsp Condensed milk (depends)
Milk
Chocolate rice

Steps:
1. Crumble your chocolate cake
2. Add condensed milk and rum and mix it w a spoon or your hands. I added the condensed milk 1 tbsp at a time until it is sticky enough to roll them into balls. Actually I think it depends what kind of chocolate cake you are using. If your chocolate cake recipe is pretty compact-brownielike then u can probably reduce your condense milk.
3. Roll your cake mixture into balls.
4. Coat them with milk and chocolate rice and place them on a plate.
5. Store them in an air tight container in the fridge.

Tiramisu

Made this for my sis’s birthday. ^^ this is the second time I am making tiramisu! My first attempt was probably 7 years ago which I made with my sister, when both if us have zero knowledge about baking. I rmbed us ultimately adding about double the number of eggs the recipe asked for because of.. Ican’treallyrmb the reason. There were too much coffee too, beyond saturation point of the lady fingers. In the end, the tiramisu was inedible. But this time, I was glad it turned out fine. Not perfect yet though. I made some adjustments to the original recipe. Instead of soaking/dipping the lady fingers into the coffee, I used a table spoon to pour the coffee mixture onto the lady fingers. I tried the dipping method and my ladyfingers immediately melted..

Recipe (original recipe adapted from here

1/2 cup (125ml) espresso, at room temperature
4-6 tbsp rum (depends on desired alcohol level)
2 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
pinch of salt
7 tablespoons (90g) sugar, divided
1 cup (250g) mascarpone
twelve 3½-inch ladyfingers (70g, or 3 ounces)
optional: 1 ounce (30g) bittersweet chocolate

unsweetened cocoa powder, for serving

1. Mix together the espresso, rum, and cognac. The mixture should taste strongly of alcohol. If not, add more until it does. (That flavor will tone down when mixed with the other ingredients, but feel free to adjust to taste.)

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, or by hand, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they begin to get stiff. Beat in half of the sugar until stiff. Scrape the egg whites into a small bowl.

3. In the same bowl, beat the egg yolks with the remaining sugar until stiff and light-colored, about three minutes. (If using a standing electric mixer, you may need to stop and scrape down the sides.) By hand, beat in the mascarpone with a spatula or whisk, until lump-free.

4. Fold in half of the beaten egg whites, then the remaining half, just until fully incorporated.

5. Put a splat, a heaping soup spoon, of the mascarpone cream into each vessel.

6. Use a tbsp and pour the coffee mixture onto the ladyfingers until saturated. Rmb not to pour too much. Then layer them over the mascarpone cream in each vessel. Use two ladyfingers per.

7. Grate a generous amount of chocolate over each.

8. Top with remaining mascarpone cream, cover, and refrigerate at least four hours, but preferably overnight.

9. Right before serving, shake powdered cocoa generously on top.

Mini Fruit Tarts

This shall be my last bake before cny ( i hope!!!) I have been baking quite often and it’s kinda draining my allowance, time and sleep away. Chocolate chip blondies were supposed to be last bake but i just couldnt resist the temptation to bake when i am at home. Anyway, fruit tarts sits at the top of my to-bake-list. I have baked fruit tarts several times but still unable to get a satisfying attempt. I prefer my crusts to be thick. The sweet crust pastry is able to make about 30 thick mini fruit tarts. I made the pastry cream twice. Failed at my first attempt because i didnt control the fire and my custard sat on the stove for too long. In the end, the custard became more like egg curd. The second attempt was better than the first. Actually i am looking for  a lighter pastry cream recipe. I read somewhere that i can add some whipped cream to my pastry cream for a lighter version. I’ve yet to try but i will definitely do it one day. My fruit tarts looked so dull. Fruit tarts are usually colourful. I wanted to get so many fruits in the supermarket but i am pretty broke this month so i ended up with blackberries and kiwi. Strawberries and blueberries cost $6 + each!!! Do note that they should be only assembled when you want to serve them and serve chilled. I baked the tarts and prepared the cream the day before and stored them in an air tight container. Brought the tarts to school for my friends. As there’s no fridge, they were at room temperature for more than half a day and they were quite soft by the time i gave to my friends. I guess if that’s the case, prolly can extend baking time by slightly longer.

Ingredients(Sweet Crust Pastry) 

65g butter
65g margarine
65g icing sugar
250g plain flour
1/2 egg
1tsp vanilla extract

1. Measure butter, margarine, icing sugar and plain flour in a large mixing bowl. 
2. Use yr fingers, incorporate the cubes of butter and margarine into the flour and sugar by rubbing your thumbs against your fingers until you end up with a fine, crumbly mixture.  
3. Add the eggs and vanilla extract to the mixture and gently work it together till you have a ball of dough.
4. Let it rest for ten mins. 
5. Divide the dough and press them into tart trays. (I didnt have tart trays so i substituted with mini muffin tins.) Prick some holes with fork.
6. Bake for about 12-15 mins, until golden brown. 

Ingredients ( Pastry cream) 
60g sugar
2 egg yolks
1 1/5 tbsp corn starch
1 tsp vanilla extract
150 ml of milk

1. Simmer milk and vanilla extract. 
2. Mix sugar and egg yolks until even.
3. Add corn starch
4. Whisking constantly, slowly pour the hot milk mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Strain the mixture if egg starts to curdle. pour mixture back into saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly until it thickens and remove from heat. 
5. Add butter and mix evenly. 
6. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

 

Baileys Chocolate cake

Have been eyeing on this recipe for a long time and i finally get my hands on it. I had some left over cream cheese in the fridge so i decided to make some bailey’s cream cheese frosting. I will usually cut down on the amount of sugar. However, there is no need to cut down on the sugar level. The cake isnt too sweet because of the volume of coffee and bailey’s. Well, I will personally prefer a stronger bailey’s taste. One more thing, I halved the recipe and still baked in an 8X8 inch cake tin because i didnt have enough butter. Just that the cake is slightly lower than the one in the original recipe.

The powdered sugar frosting seemed to seep into cake or sth. It turned brown the next day.

Ingredients ( Adapted from here)

125g grams plain flour

5/8  teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
47.5 grams natural cocoa powder
150 grams sugar
125 ml (1 cup) brewed strong coffee, can be hot or at room temperature
112.5 grams butter, chopped, can be cold or at room temperature
187.5  ml Baileys Irish Cream
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Butter a 8 x 8 x 3 inch tin and line the bottom with baking parchment / paper. Set aside.

Measure the plain flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Whisk the mixture with a wire whisk to distribute the baking soda and salt evenly.

In a small pot, measure the cocoa powder and sugar. Add in the coffee and butter. Heat the mixture on medium heat, and whisk frequently until all the butter has melted, and the cocoa powder and sugar has dissolved. Pour the cocoa-coffee into a large mixing bowl and let it rest for 10 minutes to cool down.

Stir in the Baileys. Crack in one egg into the cocoa-coffee mixture and whisk it in until it has been fully incorporated. Whisk in the second egg then whisk in the vanilla extract.

Sift in the flour mixture and whisk in gently until all the flour has been incorporated. The cake batter will be thin (very liquidy) and bubbly (because of the reaction between the baking soda and the cocoa powder). Pour the cake batter into the prepared tin. Lift up the tin and drop it on the table counter-top gently 3 to 5 times to remove excess air bubbles.

Bake the cake for 1/2h. Cover the top of the cake with aluminum foil and continue baking for 15 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake come out with very little crumbs.Place the cake tin on a wire rack and let it cool completely.

Slice, dust with icing sugar, and serve!

Easy Chocolate truffles

Specially baked this for Woon’s birthday. Decided not to waste my left over heavy cream that i used to make the chocolate ganache since i have to finish using them in five days. Really easy recipe. No oven involved. All you need is the fridge.

Ingredients: ( makes about 14 truffles) 

250g of good quality chocolate

1/3 cup of heavy cream

1tbsp of sugar

Steps:

– Heat up the heavy cream.

– Add sugar and chocolate into heavy cream when it is simmering.

– Stir with a spoon until the mixture is well blended and smooth. Pour in a bowl.

– Refrigerate for 4-5 hours/overnight until set.

– use a spoon to roll them into balls and coat with cocoa powder or any desired topping like nuts etc..

– Best: Serve cold.