Van Houten Chocolate cake, anyone? If you are looking for a tried and tested recipe for chocolate cake, you might want to try this out. This chocolate cake recipe is actually modified from the scroll cake recipe. Medium moist, light and buttery, it makes you want to have another piece once you’ve eaten one. Van Houten Cocoa Powder is used in this recipe. If you can’t find it, you might also want to try the Tudor brand. As for butter, we use Golden Churn brand. SCS butter is also a good substitute.

To prevent sticking, ensure that the baking pan is well greased with butter followed by dusting with flour. Cool the cake over a rack before storing.

Oh, in case you were wondering, the Van Houten Chocolate Cake is on the foreground. The other pieces of cakes are the famous Sarawak Layer Cake (Kuih Lapis Sarawak). Looks good, don’t they?

But for now, let me share with you the recipe for Van Houten Chocolate Cake :-

Ingredients

• 10 oz. Butter
• 10 oz. Castor Sugar
• 7 ½ oz. Flour
• 1 oz. Cocoa Powder
• 8 Eggs (separate egg yolks from egg whites)
• 2 ¼ teaspoon Baking Powder

Method

Beat butter and sugar for 8 minutes (or until white).

Add egg yolks one by one and continue beating for another 10 minutes.

Fold in flour sifted with cocoa powder and baking powder (sifted 2 to 3 times).

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff and add it to the butter mixture.

Pour mixture onto a baking tray (8″ inch, square tin)

Bake in a 300°F (or 150°C) oven for about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

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Van Houten Chocolate Cake

When I was in England, I enjoyed eating Shortbread cookies, which are really popular in the British Isles. After all, the most famous Shortbread cookies are probably from Scotland especially the Walker’s Shortbread Cookies brand with the red tartan-like design. I have always thought that Shortbreads are difficult to make or bake. Afterall, it tastes great and has a nice semi-crumbly texture. That was until I was introduced to the Shortbread cookies which my mother-in-law baked over Chinese New Year recently.

Being her creative self, my mother-in-law baked this cute little Shortbread cookies in horse-shoe design and they were irresistible. We brought back a tin when we came back to Kuala Lumpur. This shortbread recipe was obtained by my mother-in-law about 20 years back but she did not attempt the recipe until the recent Chinese New Year and we were all impressed. When she gave me the recipe, the first thing that ran through my mind was “Is that all there is?”. It is so simple that even a beginner should be able to bake this and impress everyone else. Once you know how to bake this, you shouldn’t be keen to buy them off the shelves anymore. So, are you ready to try and impress?

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients

• 8 oz flour
• 4 oz rice flour
• 4 oz castor sugar
• a pinch of salt
• 8 oz butter

Method

Knead sugar into butter. Add salt. Fold in flour and rice flour.

Press on greaseproof paper to about half-inch thick. Cut into desired shapes and prick with pin / toothpick.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool thoroughly before storing.

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Shortbread

Chinese New Year was celebrated about 1 ½ months ago and there are two recipes for biscuits which I will be featuring here. One of the recipes is Cheese Biscuits – an all-time favourite of my wife. The Cheese Biscuits shown above were baked by my mother-in-law, one of the 10 types of biscuits she baked this year. Oh yes, my mother-in-law is good with baking.

These Cheese Biscuits have the usual cheesy taste – cheddar cheese to be exact. So, there is a little bit of saltiness and sweetness. Kids love them as well. The above Cheese Biscuits were came in a crescent moon shape. You can use any mould you want. Just be a little creative.

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for Cheese Biscuits

Ingredients

• 230 grammes of cheedar cheese (sliced)
• 1 egg
• 170 grammes butter
• 340 grammes flour
• a little soda
• a little salt

Method

Sieve flour and soda together.

Put salt, butter and egg into mixer. Beat until fluffy and light. Then, add in cheese slices and flour. Mix well.

Put dough between grease paper and flatted it with rolling pin. Cut into smaller pieces and arrange on baking tray. Brush egg yolk over them, bake for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius.

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Cheese Biscuits

I finally got hold of my mother-in-law’s recipe for pineapple jam. This pineapple jam is used to make pineapple tarts. Prior to this, I have posted the recipe for the pastry for Pineapple Tart. I didn’t know that the recipe for pineapple jam is so easy…though it does take an amount of patience to stir the ingredients till the juice is reduced and the pineapple mixture becomes sticky. The good thing is that the jam can be stored in the fridge for a few months, which would allow you to make a couple of batches of pineapple tarts

This is the recipe for Pineapple Jam

Ingredients

• 2 pineapples
• 250 grammes granulated sugar
• 5 cloves
• a dash of cinnamon powder
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Method

Skin pineapple and scrape out the flesh. Drain flesh on a sieve for 10 minutes to obtain ½ cup of juice.

Place the scraped pineapple flesh in a non-stick pan and add granulated sugar, pineapple juice, lemon juice, cloves and cinnamon. Place pan over low heat and cook, stirring occasionally for about ½ hour until pineapple jam is sticky and can easily be rolled into a ball. Set aside to cool.

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Pineapple Jam for Pineapple Tarts

Kuih Lapis has got to rank probably one of my favourite cakes. Also known as Layered Cake, Kuih Lapis is said to have originated from Indonesia and it is quite a labourious cake to bake as it involves baking the cake layer by layer. The layer is usually paper thin and it can be quite fun peeling it off layer by layer to eat them. This cake is also quite sweet and it is best sliced thinly across the layers and consumed in small portions. Somehow, eating them in big slices does not give the kind of pleasure when you eat them in thin slices whilst admiring the layers.

My mother-in-law learnt this recipe from an Indonesian many years back and she bakes this cake annually. Though you might say that I am partial, I must say that her Kuih Lapis is the best I’ve eaten so far. Try out the recipe for Kuih Lapis here. It’s worth the work!

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for Kuih Lapis

Ingredients

(A)

• 350 grammes butter
• ½ tin condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon full mixed spice
• 1 teaspoon golden syrup
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essense
• 2 teaspoon rum or brandy
• 1 tablespoon almond or cashew nut powder

(B)

• 18 egg yolks (cold)
• 3 egg whites (cold)
• 100 grammes flour
• 180 grammes sugar
• 1 tablespoon ovalette
• 25 ml cold water

Method

Beat (A) till light.

Beat (B) using low speed before gradually increasing speed and beat till stiff .

Fold (A) mixture into the (B) mixture and then grill layer by layer till finished. The grill must be hot and the procedure must be fast. When done, place cake into oven temperature no. 4 or 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes.

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Kuih Lapis

My mother-in-law bakes awesomely delicious pineapple tarts and that is one of the highlights whenever we go back home for Chinese New Year. Pineapple tarts take up lots of hours to make as there is the cooking of pineapple jam (which can take hours) and preparation of pastry followed by baking. Usually, my mother-in-law will make the pineappple jam in advance and keep it in the fridge until needed.

Unlike some poor tasting recipes, my mother-in-law’s pineapple tarts have a nice buttery smell pastry which melts in the mouth. It does not crumble in your hands, yet it nicely disintegrates when savoured. Over here, I only managed to get the recipe for the pastry and will put up the recipe for the pineapple jam and baking time when I get my hands on her secrets. If you have been baking pineapple tarts, try this pastry recipe for a change.

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe for Pineapple Tart Pastry

Ingredients

• 1 lb. flour
• 10 oz. butter
• 2 to 3 egg yolks
• Some cold water
• 4 teaspoon castor sugar

Method

Sift the flour and add in the castor sugar.

Using the pointed ends of a fork, rub the butter into the flour until it looked like fine bread crumbs. If necessary, use fingertips to continue rubbing lightly the bigger pieces into finer pieces.

Add egg yolks and cold water at the same time and knead well lightly combine them using finger tips (rather than kneading them like bread dough) before rolling out to desired thickness.

(The fork and fingertip technique is what makes the pastry special)

Updated! (12.06.2007)

For baking, bake using Gas Mark 3 (160 degrees Celcius / 325 degrees Fahrenheit) for 20 minutes. When placing jam onto the pastry, take caution not to smear jam onto the sides as this will easily “burn” and render the sides of the pastry (the flowery design) darker.

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Pineapple Tart Pastry