20 February 2008

Steamed Mini Sponge Cakes

I chanced upon this book Steamed Cake & Kuih Muih at Popular Bookstore. It contained recipes for traditional Nonya/Malaysian/Singaporean cakes and kuehs which I used to eat when I was young. Here's one which I adapted from Steamed Mini Pandan Cakes recipe in the book and it's definitely for keeps! I made these cute mini cakes 2 nights ago, Hubby had 3-4 with coffee for supper (so did I) and we had them for breakfast too. Yummy!

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Steamed Mini Sponge Cakes
Ingredients A
2 eggs
2/3 tsp ovalette or sponge gel (optional)
100g caster sugar (which I had reduced to 75g in my version)
1 tsp vanilla essence

Ingredients B
100g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
50ml milk
1/4 cup rasins

1. Prepare the equipment and water for steaming. Sift plain flour and baking powder, set aside.
2. Whisk ingredients A in a clean bowl, till light and fluffy, reaching the ribbon state.
3. Gently fold in sifted flour into the egg-sugar batter, alternating with milk, in 3 batches. Complete the folding-in with rasins.
4. Spoon batter into plastic molds, filling up to 80%.
5. Steam for 5-7 minutes or till done. Remove, allow to cool before serving.

Changes to original recipe
* This recipe is 2/3 the original.
* 100ml thick coconut milk replaced with 50ml UHT milk
* 1 tbsp pandan juice replaced with 1 tsp vanilla essence
* Self raising flour replaced with plain flour with baking powder
* Added 1/4 cup rasins

Notes
* For steaming, the water must be boiling vigorously.
* Plastic molds can be found at baking supplies stores, such as Phoon Huat.

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I found the green oval molds in a houseware store at the market. The other smaller bundt-like molds were bought from Phoon Huat.

4 comments:

Starfruit said...

pax: I have got steam cake qs for u... how come ur steam cake looks so white.. mine turned brownish cos of the vanilla essence.. and mine dun look as fluffy and soft as urs leh... too much flour? or my folding in method not correct?? What u mean by whisk till ribbon state? what is ribbon state? u using a cake whisk to whisk right?not by hand right? i using a handheld whisk, i tried to whisk the egg as best as i can, but not sure if it reached "light and fluffly" state leh
Mine very tasty too, i added some fresh bananas.. heheh

Sandy said...

hi star
my steam cakes are actually yellow. i think the photos are slightly over-exposed, so looked white.
did u add too much vanilla essence? it's only 1 teaspoon, i hope u didn't see it as 1 tablespoon?
i used handheld electric mixer. light and fluffy, riboon state is when u create a figure 8 on the batter and the figure 8 doesn't disappear immediately.
yummy... adding banana is a good idea. did u omit the milk? if u didn't, maybe that's why ur cakes are not as fluffy and soft. too much liquid.

good luck with ur next batch :)

Starfruit said...

I added only half a teaspoon of vanilla essence but my sugar was full strength ie 100gm cos i like it sweet.. heheh.. i think maybe i added a bit too much flour too.
As for ribbon state of my eggs. i dun think i reached ribbon state..I did include the milk in my recipe, maybe i can try and omit it in my next batch.
I used a figure 8 method to flod in my flour.. this is correct right?
As for the banana, I had a lone organic banana in my house, so tot i use it instead of letting it ripe and go bad..heheh
Will try again, hope the next batch will be better.
I will try and post a pic of my cakes in the forum, u go see there lah . :)

Sandy said...

star
to fold in flour. add flour. gently, using a big spoon or spatula, turn the batter at the bottom over the top and give the bowl a quarter turn.