Another Year of Baking

Somehow the clock seems to tick at a faster pace in the cyberworld than real life. It has already been two years since I started this blog. In fact, I'm two days behind my 2nd Blog Anniversary ;')

Looking through the photos of my homemade bread, cakes, cookies and tarts, I realised that I have made lots of stuff over the past 12 months. Without this blog, I would never ever be able to document the joy and pleasure that I have experienced over the year.

I have never known that home baking can bring so much nice feelings throughout the entire process. I treasure the peaceful and serene moments when I go about the preparation...be it whisking a bowl of egg whites...or working hard on a lump of wet and sticky dough. I enjoy each 'aroma therapy' session when the cake is baking in the oven while I went about doing my other daunting chores. What a bliss to be wrapped around with the sweet scent emitting from the oven...be it coming from the chocolate, banana, vanilla or lavender...but of course, there's always the occasional burning smell which would send me dashing into the kitchen ;'p

It brings me immense satisfaction whenever the cake came out nice and fluffy...or that loaf of bread turn out a perfect square when I slide open the lid of the pullman tin. Not forgetting the excitement when I unmold a chiffon cake; and the overwhelming stress of having to swipe the palette knife over and over and over again to make the frosting appear as smooth as possible on a birthday cake. I guess the most rewarding part of the whole process is the great pleasure it brings when I see my loved ones wolfing down my 'labour of love'.

Even failures or kitchen disasters of any kind, have taught me several good lessons...although I have to confess, it takes more than a day for me to get over the great sense of disappointment from any failed attempts.

To mark the occasion, I have compiled my baking repertoire into a little slide show. I find this the best way to condense a selection of some of the better cakes & bakes that I have done over the past year...into a one minute video clip.

My heartfelt thanks to everyone who has dropped by this blog, especially to all those who have taken the time to leave behind their encouraging words and lovely comments. I also appreciate readers who have asked me questions...I try my best knowledge to answer them...and it is through the process of finding out the right answers, it has widen my knowledge and insights into the world of baking. Since it is the season of giving, I have decided to send a little gift to a fellow blogger pal. It is a small way to show my appreciation, and I hope I will be able to do the same thing next year.

And here's to another wonderful year of baking and blogging!

Happy New Year!!!

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Butter, Margarine and Heart Disease

Shortly after World War II, margarine replaced butter in the U.S. food supply. Margarine consumption exceeded butter in the 1950s. By 1975, we were eating one-fourth the amount of butter eaten in 1900 and ten times the amount of margarine. Margarine was made primarily of hydrogenated vegetable oils, as many still are today. This makes it one of our primary sources of trans fat. The consumption of trans fats from other sources also likely tracked closely with margarine intake.


Coronary heart disease (CHD) resulting in a loss of blood flow to the heart (heart attack), was first described in detail in 1912 by Dr. James B. Herrick. Sudden cardiac death due to CHD was considered rare in the 19th century, although other forms of heart disease were diagnosed regularly by symptoms and autopsies. They remain rare in many non-industrial cultures today. This could not have resulted from massive underdiagnosis because heart attacks have characteristic symptoms, such as chest pain that extends along the arm or neck. Physicians up to that time were regularly diagnosing heart conditions other than CHD. The following graph is of total heart disease mortality in the U.S. from 1900 to 2005. It represents all types of heart disease mortality, including 'heart failure', which are non-CHD disorders like arrhythmia and myocarditis.

The graph above is not age-adjusted, meaning it doesn't reflect the fact that lifespan has increased since 1900. I couldn't compile the raw data myself without a lot of effort, but the age-adjusted graph is here. It looks similar to the one above, just a bit less pronounced. I think it's interesting to note the close similarity between the graph of margarine intake and the graph of heart disease deaths. The butter intake graph is also essentially the inverse of the heart disease graph.

Here's where it gets really interesting. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has also been tracking CHD deaths specifically since 1900. Again, it would be a lot of work for me to compile the raw data, but it can be found here and a graph is in Anthony Colpo's book The Great Cholesterol Con. Here's the jist of it: there was essentially no CHD mortality until 1925, at which point it skyrocketed until about 1970, becoming the leading cause of death. After that, it began to fall due to improved medical care. There are some discontinuities in the data due to changes in diagnostic criteria, but even subtracting those, the pattern is crystal clear.

The age-adjusted heart disease death rate (all forms of heart disease) has been falling since the 1950s, largely due to improved medical treatment. Heart disease incidence has not declined substantially, according to the Framingham Heart study. We're better at keeping people alive in the 21st century, but we haven't successfully addressed the root cause of heart disease.

Was the shift from butter to margarine involved in the CHD epidemic? We can't make any firm conclusions from these data, because they're purely correlations. But there are nevertheless mechanisms that support a protective role for butter, and a detrimental one for margarine. Butter from pastured cows is one of the richest known sources of vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 plays a central role in protecting against arterial calcification, which is an integral part of arterial plaque and the best single predictor of cardiovascular death risk. In the early 20th century, butter was typically from pastured cows.

Margarine is a major source of trans fat. Trans fat is typically found in vegetable oil that has been hydrogenated, rendering it solid at room temperature. Hydrogenation is a chemical reaction that is truly disgusting. It involves heat, oil, hydrogen gas and a metal catalyst. I hope you give a wide berth to any food that says "hydrogenated" anywhere in the ingredients. Some modern margarine is supposedly free of trans fats, but in the U.S., less than 0.5 grams per serving can be rounded down so the nutrition label is not a reliable guide. Only by looking at the ingredients can you be sure that the oils haven't been hydrogenated. Even if they aren't, I still don't recommend margarine, which is an industrially processed pseudo-food.

One of the strongest explanations of CHD is the oxidized LDL hypothesis. The idea is that LDL lipoprotein particles ("LDL cholesterol") become oxidized and stick to the vessel walls, creating an inflammatory cascade that results in plaque formation. Chris Masterjohn wrote a nice explanation of the theory here. Several things influence the amount of oxidized LDL in the blood, including the total amount of LDL in the blood, the antioxidant content of the particle, the polyunsaturated fat content of LDL (more PUFA = more oxidation), and the size of the LDL particles. Small LDL is considered more easily oxidized than large LDL. Small LDL is also associated with elevated CHD mortality. Trans fat shrinks your LDL compared to butter.

In my opinion, it's likely that both the decrease in butter consumption and the increase in trans fat consumption contributed to the massive incidence of CHD seen in the U.S. and other industrial nations today. I think it's worth noting that France has the highest per-capita dairy fat consumption of any industrial nation, along with a comparatively low intake of hydrogenated fat, and also has the second-lowest rate of CHD, behind Japan.

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The Fundamentals

I heard an interview of Michael Pollan yesterday on Talk of the Nation. He made some important points about nutrition that bear repeating. He's fond of saying "don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food". That doesn't mean your grandmother specifically, but anyone's grandmother, whether she was Japanese, American or African. The point is that commercial food processing has taken us away from the foods, and traditional food preparation methods, on which our bodies evolved to thrive. At this point, we don't know enough about health to design a healthy synthetic diet. Diet and health are too complex for reductionism at our current level of understanding. For that reason, any departure from natural foods and traditional food processing techniques is suspect.

Mainstream nutrition science has repeatedly contradicted itself and led us down the wrong path. This means that traditional cultures still have something to teach us about health. Hunter-gatherers and certain other non-industrial cultures are still the healthiest people on Earth, from the perspective of non-communicable disease. Pollan used the example of butter. First we thought it was healthy, then we were told it contains too much saturated fat and should be replaced with hydrogenated vegetable margarine. Now we learn that trans fats are unhealthy, so we're making new margarines that are low in trans fats, but are still industrially processed pseudo-foods. How long will it take to show these new fats are harmful? What will be the next industrial fat to replace them? This game can be played forever as the latest unproven processed food replaces the previous one, and it will never result in something as healthy as real butter.

The last point of Pollan's I'll mention is that the world contains (or contained) a diversity of different cultures, living in dramatically different ways, many of which do not suffer from degenerative disease. These range from carnivores like the Inuit, to plant-heavy agriculturalists like the Kitavans, to pastoralists like the Masai. The human body is adapted to a wide variety of foodways, but the one it doesn't seem to like is the modern Western diet.

Pollan's new book is In Defense of Food. I haven't read it, but I think it would be a good introduction to the health, ethical and environmental issues that surround food choices. He's a clear and accessible writer.

Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays to everyone!

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My White Christmas!

I spent a quiet morning on Christmas eve hopping from one blog to another, reading how others are celebrating this festive seasons; and admiring gorgeous cakes and cookies created by my favourite food bloggers. This is so different from how I had spent the many past Christmas eve mornings. In the past, a typical Christmas eve morning would be spent attending Christmas parties in the office, sending e-cards and well wishes to friends and colleagues while listening to the never-ending Christmas songs over the small radio on my desk. The afternoons would then be spent grabbing last minute food items at the supermarket. Our Christmas eve dinners were mainly off-the-shelve food such as frozen pizzas, ready-cooked roast chicken and canned soup. Even though I have been cooking for my family for the past few years, last night's dinner didn't go beyond the usual meatball pasta, oven roast chicken, Waldorf salad and I still depended on Campbell's clam chowder to complete the meal ;')

This is the third year that I have spent the Christmas eve afternoon making a cake for Christmas day. Ever since the first time we spent a wonderful white Christmas several years ago, I have always been dreaming of spending the next Christmas in snow. Since there is zero chance of a white Christmas here, I created my own winter wonderland!


Unlike the first log cake I made two years ago, this cake was made by rolling up layers of chocolate sponge cake to create a 'stump'. I should have cut the sheet of sponge cake into 4 strips instead of 3; as I ended up with a rather tall cake :( I whisked a cup of non-dairy whipping cream and divided it into two portions. For the filling, instead of using melted chocolate, I experimented by folding in two tablespoons of nutella spread to one portion of the whipped cream. It was a good choice as I could smell the sweet aroma from the nutella while I was mixing it into the cream. Rolling the strips of sponge layer was not easy...there were cracks here and there. However, I wasn't too concerned about it since the entire cake would be covered with more whipped cream. Even the frosting was easily accomplished, there's no need to worry about making the surface very smooth...that's how forgiving a log cake is! I piped the 'rings' of the tree with a tiny teaspoon of nutella, some sprinklings of chocolate shavings (by grating a chocolate coated espresso bean) and a few 're-cycled' ornaments completed the picture. With the artificial snow (thanks to Flickr), my white Christmas really came true!

The sponge layer was soft and not dry. The nutella cream filling was really amazing!! This cake is so delicious that my husband kept asking for more.


Here's a slice of cake that I would love to share with all my readers and fellow blogger pals. Thanks for all the well wishes and lovely comments you have left in this blog. May you have a wonderful Christmas with your love ones...be it snowy, sunny or rainy! Merry Christmas!


Christmas Log Cake

Ingredients:

70g cake flour
15g cocoa powder
3 eggs, room temperature
90g caster sugar
2 tablespoons fresh milk

filling:
300ml non-dairy whipping cream
3 tablespoons nutella spread


Method:

1. Sift cake flour and cocoa powder, set aside. Line a 9" x 12" (23 x 30cm) Swiss roll tray with parchment paper, set aside. Pre-heat oven to 180 degC.
2. With an electric mixer, whisk eggs and sugar on HIGH speed for about 5 to 7 mins, until the batter double in volume and is ribbon-like (the batter should leave a ribbon-like texture when the beater is lifted up). Turn to LOW speed and whisk for another 1 to 2 mins. Whisking at low speed helps to stabilise the air bubbles in the batter.
3. Add sifted flour mixture into the batter in 3 separate addition. With each addition, use a spatula, gently fold in the flour until well blended. Take care not to deflate the batter.
4. Add the milk, fold with spatula until well blended.
5. Pour the batter into the tray. Spread and smooth out the batter evenly. Bake for 10~15 mins*, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.
6. Remove tray from oven. Remove sponge layer from tray (with parchment paper still in tack), place it in a plastic bag**. Tie the plastic bag and leave it to cool. (Instead of using a plastic bag, I cover the sponge layer with another Swiss roll tray.)
7. Prepare filling: whisk non-dairy whipping cream in a mixing bowl till stiff peak. Remove half of the whipped cream and set aside (for decorating the cake surface). For the remaining half, add in nutella spread, mix with a spatula and blend well.
8. When the sponge layer is cooled, remove the parchment paper and turn the sponge layer with the 'skin' side up. Slice the sponge layer into 3 equal long strips (cut along the long side).
9. Spread some nutella filling on the first piece and roll up. Place the roll vertically on a serving plate or cake board. Spread some filling on the second piece, use it to join the first piece and continue to roll it. Do the same for the third piece.
10. Spread the cake surface with the whipped cream. Use the tines of a fork to draw lines on the surface to create a tree bark effect. Pipe some nutella spread on the top of the log cake and sprinkle with some chocolate shavings. Decorate with ornaments as desired.

NOTE:
*Do not over bake the sponge layer, otherwise it will turn dry and may crack upon rolling.
** The reason for doing so is to keep the sponge layer moist for easy rolling.

Recipe source: 点心达人, 轻松学 / 小川智美著

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A Fun Christmas Updo

Because really, I don't know what else to call this.

We did this little ditty on Sunday and I LOVED it. I curled it tighter because, well, I felt like it. Today the curls aren't as tight and I STILL love it!

Start by pulling the hair into little triangle ponytails. With Tess, I started on either side of her bangs and went to her crown, then from that ponytail (and the one on the other side) I went just beneath the ear. What was left, was one more ponytail...like so.

Then I pulled each ponytail into a knot.

A bit closer.

Next, I took each ponytail and combed it to the center. When I had them all in my hand, I went around to each ponytail and pulled a little hair out of either side. You can see them hanging down. The middle I secured in another ponytail that I didn't pull all of the way through. That's just a temporary fix for a minute while I do a few more things.

Curl each of the pieces that you had pulled from the original ponytails and then spray the heck out of them with hairspray (dumb humidity).

Now I pulled the ponytail all of the way through and curled the rest of the pieces. Then I tied a bow around the base and fluffed the ponytail.

Ta-da!

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Front French Braid into Two Ponytails

I love combining elements. In this one I did a Dutch braid (inside out French braid) from her part to her ear along her hair line. Then I curled all of the hair that was left down, parted it down the middle and pulled the Dutch braid into one half in a ponytail and pulled the other side into a ponytail. To poof it up, I held onto the elastic with one hand and pulled up hair at the crown...just a little, too much and she would have looked a little too boofy.










{I am SO sorry! I just realized that I have a bunch of entries that have no pictures! My computer went crazy for a while and I couldn't upload pictures to the net. I put them all on Photobucket and one day went stir crazy on that site and deleted a bunch, not realizing that they were linked to this site. I will remedy that soon.}

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Happy Birthday

I knitted this pair of booties for my younger child while he was still save inside my tummy. Earlier this year, I found them hidden in a huge pile of baby clothing while I was sorting through the various items to give to my newborn nephew. I guess I hardly let my child worn these booties as seven years have passed and yet they look as good as new! I was a little sad when I wasn't able to find the other pair that I made for my elder child :'(

While we went through a rather dramatic emergency cesarean section when the elder one was born, the birth of my younger son was rather 'uneventful', although his was also a cesarean birth. I remembered when he was 3 days overdue I was still hoping for a natural birth. I had this thought that I would be a 'lesser mother' if my child is not able to arrive to this world via the 'proper channel'. My doctor had advised me not to wait any longer than the next 3 days, and he hinted that I would probably have to face a double whammy if I insisted to wait for a natural birth.Those words have finally convinced me that I should go for another cesarean section. We decided to wait till the ultimatum date for the operation plus it was considered a 'good' date, since it is so easy to remember 21-12-2001! It was also such good timing as the three of us were able to bring home on Christmas day what turns out to be our fountain of joy. Since that day, he has given us so much joy and laughter.


It was a couple of weeks ago when we were at their cousins' place, my boy pointed to a Domo Kun flush toy and told me he would like me to bake him a Domo Kun cake. You may not be familiar with this hilarious-looking creature, even for me (I do keep myself very up to date with the latest cartoon characters and toys!) I have only seen it on tv once. It was a short animation and was aired to fill the gaps between programmes. If you are interested, you can read more about this weired looking creature here.

Fortunately, Domo has got very simple features...two popping eyes and a humongous mouth with sharp pointed teeth. Since it would be my very first attempt to make a 3-D cake, I told my boy I would give it a try, although he better be prepared that if things don't work out, we would have to go for plan B...ie to get those ready-made cake from the nearby bakery shop.


Since I do not have a large pan, I made the cake by baking two separate sheets of sponge layer. I drew a template on a baking paper and used it as a guide to cut out the sponge cake. The sponge layers were then filled with whipping cream and peach slices (according to the boy's request!). The surface was coated with a thin layer of chocolate ganache and I took two chocolate-coated coffee beans to make the eyes. I melted some white chocolate and added a drop of food colouring to form the mouth. The teeth were simply cut out from a bar of white chocolates.

This must be the ugliest and yet most adorable cake I have ever made!


It is no surprise that my boy received a Domo Kun flush toy on his birthday. I compared it with the cake I made, and I realised that I have made the teeth too huge and the entire mouth should have been sunken. Anyway, my boy was very happy with the result, to him it looked perfect...and the cake grabbed the most paparazzi attention during the party!


The boy had such a wonderful time...he was so tired and felt asleep in my arms while giving me his goodnite hug ;)

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Half Twists

This one is really super easy.

Using the elements of THIS twist, part the hair down the middle and pull into sections to the ears.

Divide each section in half and twist to the ends. I temporarily held the first one with a clip.

Then repeat on the other side.

Take both twists and pull together. Decide where you want the twists to end and secure with an elastic.

Finish the hair how you would like. I really like this one with a flip and with curls. It's really up to you.

Then tie a ribbon, place a bow or a flower for the weight (this one has a tendency to flip funny).

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The Christmas Tree

We did this for her Christmas party at school today. Start at the top with one ponytail. Her's is triangle shaped. Then do a normal smocking style until you get to the bottom. At the bottom divide it into two ponytails.

As far as the accessories, I bought some Christmas buttons and used Jenn's fun accessory idea. Loop the elastic through the button and put on top of the ponytail.

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COOKIES, COOKIES EVERYWHERE! (BUT NOT A CRUMB TO EAT...YET!)

Santa's favourite: White Chocolate Covered Oreos! Hand-decorated tediously lovingly with royal icing snowflakes! Take a look at that beauty. I know you'd want one.

Cakebrain's 2008 Christmas Goodies Box! Tiffany Sugar-Cookie Snowflake, Organic Cocoa Nib & Pecan Triangles, Pecan Butter Crunch, Vanilla Bean Butter Sables and White Chocolate Covered Oreo Snowflakes.

Dear Fellow Food Bloggers,
Have you ever had a furious week of baking and accumulated a ton of things to post but just didn't have the time to photograph it and post it?

Well, that's been me for the last 2 weeks. Not only that, but with that accumulation of baked goods comes the inevitable temptation of the family members. They mill around the sealed tupperware containers and linger by the kitchen counter, hoping to snatch a cookie or two before you tuck them away for gift-giving or other things...like blogging!

Sometimes, when I bake stuff, I encounter the perfect looking cookie of the batch. You know--the photogenic one. I usually don't have a problem with leaving cookies around, but this year I was a little ticked off when somebody in my household snatched the most handsome butter cookie of the bunch and ate it in 2 seconds. I had a little white plate with 5 different types of cookies. These cookies were the best lookers and made a handsome grouping even though they weren't "artistically presented". They were just minding their own business, the innocent little things, when Stomach, a devout Sweets-hater, nonchalantly grabbed one and inhaled it.

in this photo, the vanilla bean butter sables are quite fetching, i must admit...

Yes, I know, I know. I should be jumping in glee that he even ate a cookie because you know he hates to eat baked goods and has rarely had more than a sliver of any cake I made (and that, under a sort of obligatory duress) and yet my automatic reflex was to yell, "NO! not that one!"

"Fine. I won't eat any more of your cookies," he hissed.

"Well, didn't you notice how good-looking they were?" I exclaim exasperatedly. "Those were for my blog photos!" "You could have just asked and I would have given you a whole bunch of other cookies. You're only supposed to eat the ugly ones first!"

He stomped off in a huff and I muttered something about how rude he was.

Bah Humbug.

:P even a sweets-hater couldn't resist these cookies!

Should I be flattered that He-Who-Doesn't-Eat-Sweets is coveting my butter cookies? I dunno. Well, he won't be back anymore as I think I've scared him off. Perhaps I'll make a peace offering of a pile of yummy butter cookies later. How was I to know he only eats photogenic food?

organic cocoa nib pecan triangles

Last year's Christmas Boxes had some excellent cookies and this year I made two of them again: Medrich's Cocoa Nib Pecan Cookies (which I formed into triangular logs and sliced before baking) and my all-time favourite cookie in terms of ease of making, speed of completion and depth of flavour, my Vanilla Bean Butter Sables.

My Vanilla Bean Butter Sables incorporate whole ground up vanilla pods and are gorgeously crunchy with their ring of sanding sugar. The dough keeps well in the refrigerator or freezer during the holidays for those unexpected guests. All you do is slice and bake! Yummo! Your house is infused with the heady smell of vanilla and sugar and that's what the holidays are all about around here!

cakebrain's tiffany snowflake sugar cookie

In my 2008 Christmas Cookie Boxes I have made: Pecan Butter Crunch (a pecan and popcorn mix adapted from the Macadamia Butter Crunch recipe from the Martha Stewart Living site) and I also used MS's Sugar Cookie recipe. I used my favourite Tiffany Snowflake design for the Sugar Cookies and also made a few other shapes like Candy Canes, Snowmen and Stockings.

This year's Tiffany Snowflake Sugar Cookies are easy to cut and handle, but for better flavour, I still like last year's Tiffany Snowflake Vanilla Pod Butter Cookie recipe better. With the sugar cookie dough, you don't have to repeatedly refrigerate the dough to get crisp lines; whereas the butter cookie gets soft quite quickly. With the butter cookie dough, I like to cut out a tray's worth and refrigerate it before baking. The sugar cookie dough is very resilient...very forgiving. I never use extra flour to roll out the dough. I just roll between sheets of plastic wrap. It's so clean and easy and I don't get the extra flour in the dough which then results in tougher cookies.

The White Chocolate Oreo cookie idea was not mine of course. Darn. The fine people who make Oreos decided that it would be a good idea to coat them in White Chocolate. They did a good thing. When I saw these in the aisle of my local London Drugs store, I gasped. I had seen them on one of my favourite blogs, The Decorated Cookie and remembered them from a post she had where she piped snowflakes on the white chocolate Oreos. I quickly piled a few boxes into my little shopping basket and rubbed my hands in glee at the prospect of decorating these ready-made pure-white canvases.

They were gorgeous and delicious! Trust me, you won't have many people complaining too much about how they aren't homemade. You just have to make them more Christmassy by piping royal icing on them. That's the fun part anyway.

homemade raspberry marshmallow

I wanted to add some variety to my Cookie Boxes this year, so instead of just cookies, I decided to try out a marshmallow recipe that didn't use egg whites. The last one I made with egg whites was from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I made a chocolate variation and it was gorgeous and delicious. I had no complaints. I wanted to make it again, but as you know, there was this little voice inside me saying, "But look at all those other marshmallow recipes out there that don't use egg white...maybe they'll be even better!"

I yielded to that little OCD voice and sought out another recipe. I chose Sherry Yard's basic vanilla marshmallow recipe (from her book Desserts by the Yard) and adapted the heck out of it. I wanted Christmassy and thus I wanted red or pink at least. I felt Raspberry would do it so I incorporated seedless raspberry jam.

The marshmallows were very tasty but I still prefer the texture and appearance of marshmallows made with egg whites. The egg whites contribute a springy airy texture to the marshmallows that I like much better. An interesting problem I encountered with Yard's recipe that I didn't with Greenspan's was that the bottom of my marshmallows were kind of crusty-looking from all the icing sugar/cornstarch and cooking spray used to cover the foil-lined baking pan. The foil didn't really impart much of a pretty pattern either, I thought. I had to use a pastry brush to brush off all the excess icing sugar/cornstarch mixture.

I don't recall ever having the "crusties" with the Greenspan recipe. Ah well. It didn't look so pretty but it was rather tasty.
santa buckling under the weight of this gargantuan chunk of raspberry marshmallow

I've entered my Tiffany Snowflake Sugar Cookie into Susan's Christmas Cookie roundup. Check it out here.

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