Chocolate Swiss Roll

Hi everyone today's recipe is my own Chocolate Swiss Roll with whipped cream. Simply delightful, and with very little guilt since it is so light and not too sweet.

What we need:
Chocolate cake ingredients:
6 eggs, separated at room temperature
140gr granulated sugar
70gr cake flour (or 60gr plain flour + 10gr cornflour)
10gr cocoa powder
2 tablespoons thickened cream

Whipped cream filling:
600ml thickened cream
1/2cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 180oC or 350oF.
Prepare and line a 30x40cm jelly roll pan.
Microwave the cream for 20 seconds, leave aside.
Sift together cake flour and cocoa powder twice

In a clean mixing bowl, put together 6 egg whites and little bit of cream of tartar
Using the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on high speed until frothy, gradually add the sugar while beating
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks
Add the 6 egg yolks one by one, mixing at low speed until combined.
Add in the sifted flour and cocoa mixture, fold in the egg mixture with a spatula until combined
Please fold carefully here since the flour mixture tend to end up at the bottom of the bowl.
Finally add the microwaved cream, fold to combine.
Pour the batter in the prepared pan and flatten using spatula, take notes of corners.
Bang the pan on benchtop for few times to get rid of bubbles.

Bake in preheated oven for 13 minutes.

The cake should be done when you can cleanly peel off the baking paper.
Drop the baked cake from a height to prevent sinking.
Slide the cake onto a wire rack to cool. Drape a damp towel all over the cake to keep moist.
Cool the cake completely.

In the mean time we can make the whipped cream filling.
Pour thickened cream and powdered sugar in mixing bowl. Use wire whisk to mix until stiff peaks. Vanilla extracts can be added for extra flavour.

When cake is completely cooled, spread whipped cream evenly over the cake.
Then from the shorter side, gently roll up the cake, using baking paper as guide.

Refrigerate before cutting into smaller slices, for cleaner cut.

Happy baking and enjoy your Swiss roll!

Homemade English Muffins

Hi Everyone I'm back today with a recipe for English Muffins. They are so easy to make at home, and I believe after reading you'll want to make them yourselves too!

I came up with this idea of making English muffins myself when I was (honestly) bored at home and wanted to do some baking. And who would have thought of making them at home? Just when I came across this blog The Wok of Life and thought to myself "Maybe I should make them for something different for breakfast?". And you don't need any fancy ingredients either, pretty much what everyone has in their pantry.

What we need:
3 2/3 cups plain flour
Little bit of semolina flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 packet of dry yeast
1 tub (175ml) yoghurt
1 cup (250ml) warm water (around 40oC - 110oF)

Mix water and sugar together. Sprinkle the yeast in water then stir, let the yeast bloom for 5 minutes until the surface foams up.

Put the rest of the ingredients and the yeast/water mixture in a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, then let the machine knead away! Lots easier, it takes around 7-8 minutes. You can also mix and knead by hand, it takes around 10 minutes.

The dough smells really good because of the yoghurt. I actually used strawberry yoghurt (hehe) because that was what I had in the fridge, but you can use pretty much any type of yoghurt.

After kneading, let the dough rest for 5 minutes. During that time lightly dust a baking tray with semolina flour (or polenta up to you). This is to give the muffins that sandy crust.

Then roll the dough out about 3/4 inch or 1cm thick...

I find it a bit hard to roll out, since the dough is quite elastic. Remember to lightly flour your benchtop so it won't be sticky.

Then use a cookie cutter or anything round (rice bowl, round drinking glass etc.) to cut out rounds like this...

My cookie cutter is around 9-10cm (around 4") round. But I guess you can use any size depending on how big you want the muffins to be.

Then put the cutout dough into the prepared baking tray. Put the damp towel over the tray and let rise in a warm spot for an hour.

This is what it looks like after rising

Heat up your favourite frying pan. Brush a thin layer of butter or oil, reduce the heat to medium and put the cutout round doughs in. Cook for 5 minutes each side, turning once only.

Pretty puffy little rounds... They puff up further when you heat them up :)

Then flip!

Look at the lightly charred muffins! Almost like store bought already (only healthier and better, he-he)
After cooking transfer them to a wire rack and let cool.

Or you can slice them hot and slather them with butter! They taste amazing when hot. We like it hot!!

Store them in a airtight container or ziplock bag for few days on benchtop. Please don't put them in the fridge, they will dry out. Or you can wrap them individually in plastic wrap and freeze. Just bring to room temp & toast before eating.

Happy baking everyone!