GREEN TEA MADELEINES

When 5 years old little Mei-Mei from next door saw me, she asked "Aunty, why you never bake me cupcake?"

It made me realise that I have been neglecting my baking and I have been getting lazy already....

Maybe my motivation has gone... yes gone overseas with Sarah....it was always fun and challenging for both of us to bake together. For me, its a joy to teach her and to pass on family favourites recipes. She is my personal food critic :D!

So over the weekend, it was time to dust the flour off the recipes and get the oven hot once again. 

Stick my head into the fridge and discovered 2 canisters of green tea powder ... better make use of them before they expire ! 

So, it is Green Tea Madeleines besides I had only used the madeleine tray which I brought from Melbourne only once so far.     

I have actually documented the process on my camera but then discover that I could not upload them here, so these are the only photos available from my handphone. 

These are truly delicious and can you see those "humps"  too?

Recipe from dailydelicious.blogspot.com.  Except for 4 of them which I gave little Mei-Mei, I finished all of them myself.... for my tea-time, for my breakfast, for my TV time, for desserts after lunch.... hahahah..  

Orange Poppy Seed Cake... our family favourite. We were first introduced to cake by my sister Vicky when she came back for holidays from Australia the very first time .... maybe in the 90's then... that time we (me and my other sisters) were not keen on baking at all.   She baked this cake for us and we all fell in love with this cake and from then on it has remain our favourite.... she even left behind the bundt tins which she bought for us.  Who knows from that time, my sisters and myself had gone into the "baking business" as well.

Just her simple Orange Pound cake recipe (equal portion of butter, sugar and flour) to which I added 2 tablespoon of blue poppy seeds.  

Just a note: grease and flour the bundt tin well and wait till the cake is cold before unmoulding if you don't want to see the above cake!  Despite its not so beautiful appearance, this cake sure brings back happy memories of that day when you baked it the first time for us, Vicky!

    

This is Lemon Drizzle Cake -(without the drizzle) that I have seen in a few blogs.  I omitted the drizzle as I did not like the cake too sweet but it is suppose to turn into crisp lemon glaze on top of this delicious cake as it cools.   As you can see the cake texture is fine crumbs and taste tangy/citrusy and moist too.   Recipe from the Guardian- by Dan Lepard. 

My adapted recipe:

100 gm salted butter, melted (recipe:50gm unsalted butter + 50 gm sunflower oil)  

2 lemon zest finely grated
135 gm caster sugar (recipe:150 gm sugar)
2 large eggs
50 gm ground almonds
150 gm plain flour
2 tbsp cornflour
2 tsp baking powder (recipe: 2 1/2 tsp)
75 ml lemon juice

Sift flour, cornflour and baking powder together and keep aside.
Mix melted butter with lemon zest, sugar and eggs in a large bowl and whisk until mixture is smooth.
Stir in the ground almonds.
Add half of the flour mixture, follow by the lemon juice. Mix till combine
Add remaining flour mixture and combine.
Bake in preheated oven at 180C for around 45-50 minutes (mine was done around 45 minutes)
Remove and cool in tin for 5 minutes.

For the drizzle:
Beat 15 ml of lemon juice with 75 gm icing sugar till smooth and spoon this over the cake while it is still hot and in the tin.

Sorry, little Mei-mei, no cupcakes this week but hope you like these cakes as well as I do.