Chocolate Banana Cake

I haven't been blogging for ages now :p but today I have a good reason to write again. My friends on facebook were asking me for recipes on some of the things I made. One of them is this chocolate banana cake. So I thought I might as well post it here on my blog.

So to you guys out there, hope you like it :)



Ingredients:

4 bananas, sliced


Cakes:

170g butter, softened

225g granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla essence

120ml sour cream

330g all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp baking soda

100g cocoa powder

2 - 3 mashed bananas

Chocolate Cream:

750ml whipping cream

300g semisweet chocolate, chopped

Chocolate Ganache:

125ml whipping cream

125g dark chocolate, chopped

Method:

Cake:

Cream butter with sugar in a bowl, until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla essence. Beat in sour cream. Combine flour, baking soda and cocoa powder in another bowl. Then add in to the creamed mixture in 3 additions alternately with 2 additions of the mashed bananas. Mixing just until flour is incorporated. Spoon into 2 greased 8.5 inch spring form pans.

Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 35 – 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Let cool on rack for 20 minutes. Remove from the pans and let cool completely.


Chocolate Cream:

In a saucepan, bring half of the cream to boil. Remove from heat immediately and pour over the chopped chocolate in bowl, whisking until chocolate melted. Set aside for it to cool or alternately refrigerate until chilled, whisking it every now and then.

Remove from the fridge and using an electric mixer, beat chocolate mixture on medium speed just until ridges hold shape. Beat in remaining cream just until soft peaks form.


Dark Chocolate Ganache:

Bring cream to boil. Pour over chocolate in a bowl. Whisking until chocolate melted. Let cool for 20 minutes or until room temperature. Do not over whisked, or it will become whipped cream.



Cake Assembly:

Slice the cakes in half horizontally. Place a top layer, cut side up, on plate. Spread top with a layer of chocolate cream, cover with single layer of sliced bananas, leaving 1 cm border around. Cover with a bottom cake layer, cut side down. Repeat with cream and bananas.

Repeat with remaining cake, cream and bananas.

Using palette knife, cover cake smoothly with remaining chocolate cream (if there’s any leftover). Refrigerate until firm, about 1 – 2 hours.

Remove cake from the fridge and pour the ganache over the centre of the cake, spreading it to edge with clean palette knife. Gently cover the whole cake with ganache and refrigerate it until firm.

Photoshop

While I was back in Malaysia recently, I spent most of my time with my sister and her 3 adorable kids - Karl, Wayne and Nyn. Being kids, they are oh-so-forever curious about things and they have wonderful imagination.

I strongly believe that we, adults should never never restrict them in exploring their imagination but instead try to always encourage them to further enhance their creativity. As I am into photography and design, I always carry my camera and laptop everywhere I go.


As usual, the kids love to ask me about my camera and what I do in Photoshop. I will try to explain to them in the most simplest and easiest way and allow them to try hands on. Kids nowadays can understand technology pretty well, so it did not take them long before they got the hang of taking pictures with my DSLR and editing their photo in Photoshop.


Here are their individual work:

Karl did everything on his own with my guidance.

Wayne was only interested in trying out since everyone is doing it.

But then he got too lazy to proceed further.

Nyn did most of the colouring by herself.

I only help her get the more difficult edges done.

So what do you think about their work ? Pretty neat huh ? :)

Chinese Vs Italian

Wonton Mee is one of the old time favourite dishes in Malaysia. However, there are many versions of wonton mee in Malaysia. The ingredients are basically the same but the dish comes with different sauces. The most common ones are the ones with black sauce, we call those the "Black" ones. Then there are the Famous Johor Bahru version wonton mee which comes with chilly sauce, hence the name "Red" ones. As for those people who dislike both the black or red, do not despair, cause there are the "White" ones available too. The "White" ones basically comes with light soy sauce. Because they are not very popular, you will have to specially mention to the vendor when placing the order.

I have a very weird liking (or disliking ?) about wonton mee. I only like the red ones. Other than the red ones, I don't really like eating wonton mee. Weird huh ? Anyway, my personal favourite wonton mee is from the famous Johor Bahru stall - Ho Seng Kee, located in Century Garden. It is my whole family's favourite too. Frankly speaking, till today, non of the wonton mee I have tasted can beat the Ho Seng Kee's wonton mee.

Well... there is one that I came across many years back, which is pretty good too. It is from a corner coffee shop in Skudai. I think the name of the coffee shop is called Jin Jin or Jing Jing. Other than wonton mee, they also serve the braised chicken feet noodle. But when I eat there, I like to order the wonton mee and additional chicken feet to go along... yum !

Ooh... all these wonton mee talk is making me miss my favourite wonton mee. Thank goodness I will be going back home soon, so I can have a big feast of wonton mee to satisfy my craving :) Can't wait for that.

Hahaha... I think I am getting a little off the track here. Now back to what I intended to write. Yes, wonton mee. Since I am so particular about wonton mee, I don't eat any of the wonton mee here in Sydney. So I ended up making my own.

I actually made my wonton mee almost from scratch. Well, I mean I made the wonton myself, except for the skin and roasted the char siew myself. Pity I don't know how to make the noodle myself, or else it will be perfect. Er... almost perfect. I didn't make the sauce myself, I ended up using some bottled chilly sauce imported from Indonesia. And boy it was HOT ! I am one person who can't take too spicy food, so I used only very little chilly sauce on my wonton mee, enough to get the taste but not enough to get the colour.






Ok, I guess we are done with noodle ? Well... not quite yet. Talking bout noodle, I was just thinking the other day, that Chinese noodle actually has some similarity to Italian pasta, or was it the other way round ? Anyway, here's some example: Hokkien Noodle vs Spaghetti; Kuey Tiaw vs Fettuccine; Thin Noodle vs Angel Hair Spaghetti. Haha... interesting, isn't it ?

Well, I have come up with a simple pasta dish that can be done in 5 - 10 minutes. The Garlic Prawn & Mushroom Angel Hair Spaghetti. It's so simple and yet the aroma and the taste of this dish is simply marvelous.

Ingredients:
I am not putting the quantity down as everyone has their own preference

Prawns, de-shelled and de-veined (marinate overnight with finely chopped garlic if preferred)
Mushrooms, cut to small pieces
Garlic, finely chopped
Angel hair spaghetti
40g of butter (per serve)
White wine (approx. 50-100ml per serve)
Salt & pepper
Parsley (fresh or dry), finely chopped

Method:

1. Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the packaging. Cook it just a fraction under as it will be cooked further again later. Drain the spaghetti and rinse it with cold water. Set it aside.

2. Heat up a frying pan on medium to high heat. Put a slice of butter in the pan and put in the garlic. Stir fry the garlic until it is almost golden brown, then throw in the mushrooms. Continue to stir for a while, then throw in the prawns.

3. When the prawns are almost done, put in the spaghetti. Sprinkle some salt over it then pour in the white wine. Give everything a quick stir and turn off the heat.

4. Sprinkle some Parsley flakes and ground black pepper onto the dish. Drizzle some olive oil around the pasta, if desired. Serve hot.

Buon appetito !