Chocolate Sponge Cake with Chocolate and Strawberries..

Happy New Year to all. I had a great time catching up with friends, bbq session at the park, the crazy boxing day sale and next, I went to visit Tassie and had a blast there. Anyway here's a mini chocolate cake that I've baked for the christmas season. Remember that I've mentioned before that I had made the Masterchef's black forest cake? Well I definately needed to practise on more sponge cake and hence, I've made chocolate sponge cake with chocolate and strawberries.

I've googled for the recipe and found it at Best Recipes and I've actually halved the portion to half as I was making a mini version. The cake was soft and fluffy, love it with the melting chocolate and strawberries. Yum!

Ingredients:

2 eggs, separated

1/4 cup of caster sugar which I further reduced that to around 60g

1 teaspoon of maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate soda

1/4 cup of cornflour

1/2 tablespoon of plain flour

1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees fan forced
2. Grease 2 mini cake tins
3. Place egg whites in electric mixer bowl and beat until soft peak form
4. Combine caster sugar and bicarbonate soda and gradually add it into the egg whites while still mixing
5. Add egg yolks and beat together
6. Add maple syrup and briefly combined
7. Stir the dry ingredients and add them into the wet mixture, fold in gently
8. Pour the mixture into the cake tins and bake for 20-25 minutes
9. After getting out from the oven, let it cool for at least 5 minutes before taking the cake out of the tin
10. Lightly whip around 60g of thickened cream and place it in the middle of two cakes with some strawberries. Double boiled 100g of chocolate with some butter and pour it on top of the cake. Decorate it as you wish. For presentation purposes, I've dusted some icing sugar on top. Pretty right? :)

Lazy Ways to Prepare Lunch..

Well lately I've been enjoying myself in cooking. You can do different kinds of easy meals with just a few items. I'm lucky enough to have Coles supermarket just 5 minutes away. So here's two of my favourites. Puff pastry and pasta salad.

I think I've shared this before. But anyways I'll share it again! All you need to make this is just a pack of Coles puff pastry, a can of mushroom and potato creamy soup and parmesan cheese. Boil the cream soup and then put it into the puffs. Then sprinkle the cheese on top. Bake that for 5-10 minutes until the cheese turns golden brown. There you go. A nice sunny afternoon with pastry and a cup of coffee or tea. Courtesy of my friend, Yiki on this easy recipe.

For a quick lunch, it can be tricky to prepare something for yourself, only one person. All I did was vegetarian pasta salad with a hot bowl of cream soup. With the pasta salad, just simply boil some spaghetti. Add some mixed salad leaves, Japanese sesame salad sauce and a bit of cracked pepper with diced garlic. If you like to have some meat in there, maybe you can add some sliced ham or bacon. Easy and healthy, isn't it? Have a nice weekend.