Butter Cake

Recipe adapted from Annielicious Food.

Ingredients
250g Salted Butter, room temperature.
4 eggs
40g + 140g Castor Sugar
200g Self raising flour, sifted
60ml Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence (optional)

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven at 180C (Conventional).
2. Prepare a 8 x 8 inch square pan. Line the base, grease the sides.
3. Separate egg whites & yolk.
4. Cream butter and 140g sugar until pale and fluffy. Add in Vanilla essence, beat for awhile, and followed by egg yolks one at a time.
5. Put in half the flour and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add in milk in 2 additions and mix until well incorporated. Mix in balance flour.
6. Beat egg whites until soft peaks, gradually add 40g sugar and beat until stiff.
7. Put in half the egg whites in and mix on low speed. Pour the balance egg whits in and FOLD using your spatula.
8. Bang the mixing bowl a few times to get rid of air bubbles.
9. Pour batter into pan and level. Bang the pan a few more times.
10. Bake for 45min or until skewer comes out clean. Adjust accordingly.

Walnut Butter Cake

When I was young, my mom used to order really nice walnut cakes from a home baker.  The cake was very moist and fluffy. My mom will help her colleagues order and orders were always large. The auntie will spend hours the day before baking. The funny thing is my mom never met the auntie before, only my dad has seen her before, as he is the one who goes to collect the cakes. I can't remember when, but eventually the auntie stopped taking orders, but will still give us walnut cakes every CNY... but we didn't have walnut cakes as often. That eventually stopped too. The ones from Bengawan Solo were too oily, and couldn't match up. My parents tried to get the nearby bakery to bake walnut cake but somehow, it just doesn't seem to be the same... probably cos they have to sell cheap (or else no one will buy) and compromised on quality. And that is why I have always wanted to bake a walnut cake when I first started baking. I went through a few websites and finally settled on two... tried to combine the two and also add what I knew about the famous Mrs Ng's butter cake.

Recipe adapted from My Baking Cottage and Guai Shu Shu.

8-inch pan

Ingredients
250g Butter
140g caster sugar
4 eggs, separated
200g plain flour
4g baking powder
30g chocolate chips
150g walnuts, toasted and finely chopped
80g milk

Instructions

1. Prepare and line a 8-inch square pan.
2. Lightly toast in an oven for about 5 minutes. Use Turbo Chopper and chop finely (with some bigger pieces is ok).
3. Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, cream slightly softened butter with half of the sugar (70g) using an electric beater until light and fluffy.
5. Add egg yolks, one by one and cream and cream till well mixed.
6. Put in half the flour and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add in milk in 2 additions and mix until well incorporated. Mix in balance flour.
7. In another mixing bowl, beat egg whites using an electric beater until soft peaks. Add the other half of the sugar (70g) slowly and continue beating until the egg white reaches stiff peaks (when you lift the beater, the tip droop slightly, and beaten egg whites becomes stiff and shiny).
8. Add toasted nuts and chocolate chips into the cake batter.
9. Fold in beaten egg whites into the cake batter, in two to three additons, until egg whites is well-incorporated into the batter.
10. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven at 160C for about 50 minutes.

Note:

• I had wanted to get a 7-inch pan, but wasn't able to buy one. The 8-inch pan yields quite a short cake, but it was still ok for me. The first time I baked this, I used a 9-inch pan and it was OMG short!
• I tried out chopping 150g walnut into quarters - too big. Then I tried having half finely chopped and half quartered - still too rough. Finally I tried 150g finely chopped - perfect! My mom and hb doesn't like walnuts that are too big and totally loved the finely chopped version. My MIL on the other hand, prefer having the bigger walnuts. I personally liked the finely chopped version... so bite but not too much.
• Some found the cake a bit sweet, but it is because of the chocolate chip... so no real control on that. Not a choice to leave the chocolate chip out, as it tastes good in the cake.

I baked this for Mothers' Day today - well received by the adults and kids. :)

Uncle Tetsu

Address: No 47, Jalan Austin Height 3, Taman Mount Austin, 81100 Johor Bahru
Hours: 10:00 - 21:00
Telephone: +607-364 7777
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/uncletetsumalaysia, https://www.facebook.com/uncletetsumountaustin/
Website: http://www.uncletetsu.com.my/home

Visited 26 Feb 2016.

This was our maiden trip into JB, first time we are driving into Malaysia without my dad. We were joined by OPF, Lianne and Makcik Elena. Initially it was pretty 心惊胆跳 cos of all the "horror" stories about driving in Malaysia... but hubby was really brave and drove like a pro. Armed with printed addresses and names of the destination, and the car GPS system... we made it into and out of Johor without any hiccups... we did a bit of detour here and there, but that was expected... GPS is quite a confusing thing sometimes... and we made it. That trip paved the way for more future trips for hubby and I... so much that now, my dad just lets my hubby drive when he joins us for our JB trips.

Anyway, OPF said that there is this very famous cheesecake which used to have a shop in Orchard, but closed down, called Uncle Tetsu. And I was like... got meh? Never heard of it before. So ok, googled and printed down the name. When we finished shopping at Aeon Tebrau, we went to the shop to buy cheesecake. I still remember along the way, we kept saying how come OPF bring us to such ulu places (GPS keep bringing us to small roads)... bring us to sell is it? When we reached Jalan Austin Heights... wow, we were surprised... the area seemed really atas, as they had a lot of restaurants and shops... all looked trendy and upmarket too. And we bought one chocolate and one original flavored cheesecake to bring home. The cheesecake has to be kept in the fridge if not consumed within 12 hours, so we usually try to coincide this place as the last stop.

The cheesecake is soft and light... in fact, feels a bit like eating sponge cake. Pretty good... @ RM21 for the signature cheesecake... less than S$10 for a cheesecake leh... value for money.

They have this in original and chocolate flavor. Both are nice. The chocolate flavored one reminds me of the Rich & Good Cake Shop's swiss rolls.

Uncle Tetsu Cheese Zuccotto (Hat Series) 

We wanted to try the Strawberry flavored one, but at 2pm they were sold out already! Next time then.