Chocolate Banana Cake

This is for banana lover around the world. Yipieee.... I usually get many bananas from my grandmother when she come to my home. And totally, the amount of bananas was so absurd, never been success to eat all of them without throw some of them in the rubbish bin because the banana was spoiled.

It happened again several days ago. My home became a kingdom of banana, LOL. Finally, there were 3 ripe bananas remain in my fruit basket. I tried to not throw them out into the rubbish bin. Then i got idea why not use them to make banana cake. My friend ever told me that those blackish-brown banana are the best ingredient to make super yummy banana cake.

Then I made this cake (the original recipe said that it was not cake, it is bread. Forgive me that i prefer to say that this is a cake). 

I got the original recipe from Mbak Hesti, adapted from Savory Sweet Life The cake is so rich and moist, i can't imagine i used only 1 egg and the texture of the cake very moist. I made some adjustment to the ingredient, i didn't use sour cream because I didn't have it at home so I substituted it with fresh milk. Maybe the taste would be better if i use sour cream or maybe buttermilk. If you ate this cake when it was still warm you will get the melting sensation of the chocolate chip inside the cake.

Just enjoy it...

Chocolate Banana Cake

Ingredients :

• 100 g salted butter, softened to room temperature (if you use unsalted butter like me, you must add 1/4 tsp of salt)
• 120 g sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 large ripened bananas mashed
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 150 g flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tbs cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup of sour cream (can be substituted with yogurt, buttermilk or fresh milk)
• 1 cup of chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celcius.
• Lightly grease a 9x5 loaf pan or any size of baking pan that you have at home with butter and sprinkle a little amount of flour.
• In a bowl, mixture butter and sugar together. Add egg, mashed bananas, sour cream, and vanilla, mix it well. 
• Add baking soda, cocoa powder, and flour. Mix well. Then add chocolate chips, stir briefly.
• Pour batter to the pan and bake it for 50-60 minutes. Remember not to over baked it. You can insert a tooth pick to check if it has been enough, but because the chocolate chip melt you will see the batter still stick to the tooth pick.
• Remove from heat and let the cake still in the pan for 10 minutes.
• Take away the cake from the pan and let it cool in the cooling rack.
• Ready to be served.

Recipe in Bahasa Indonesia

Macaroni Schotel

Can't say no to this dish. Frequently made this at home and it come to be one of favorite dish at home especially for me and my son. I will share the best recipe that I have ever found. Many recipe will told you only to bake it, but I found the one that give better taste to enhance the cheese flavor by steam it before baked. For cheese lover like me, the best cheese flavor will be my choice, hahaha...

Macaroni schotel is known as staple food in northern Europe home cooking. Some people in Europe said this dish as macaroni casserole. In Indonesia, this dish was introduced by Dutch during the occupation in there. Schotel in Dutch is schall means dish. Maybe it refer to the container used to make this dish. Originally the recipe only consist of macaroni and a mixture of egg and milk with additional ingredients such as meat, sausage, and of course cheese. But you can add anything that you want like vegetables (sometimes I add broccoli, corn, carrot to my macaroni schotel).

Macaroni Schotel

Source : Ferona in Cake Fever
Modification by me

Ingredients:

• 125 g dried elbow macaroni
• 125 g cheddar cheese, grated
• 150 g ground beef
• 1 pieces of sausage, sliced
• some vegetable as your desire
• 1 piece chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• Butter/margarine
• sugar to taste (add only a little as you wish)
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp white pepper powder
• 300 ml full cream milk
• 2 tbsp fresh cream/cooking cream
• 3 eggs, whisk lightly
• 1 tbsp cooking oil

For topping

• 1 tbsp margarine/butter
• 1 tbsp flour
• 125 ml full cream milk
• 1 tbsp cooking cream
• salt to taste
• pepper
• 75 g cheddar cheese, grated
• 50 g mozzarella cheese, grated

Direction:

• Cook macaroni in boiling salted water and cooking oil until just firm to bite (about three-quarter cooked). Drain the water and set aside. 
• Sautee onion with butter/margarine until wilted. Add chopped garlic, and continue sautee until fragrant. 
• Add ground beef and sausage. Stir fry it until the beef change into the darker color. Add other ingredients if you add vegetable. Stir it well just for a while. Add salt, pepper, ground nutmeg. Stir it well. Turn off the heat.
• In different bowl, break the egg and whisk it lightly. Pour fresh milk and cooking cream. Add the beef that has been stir fried before, macaroni, and grated cheddar cheese. Taste it. If the taste still not tasty enough, you can add some salt as your desire. Stir it well. Pour this to the casserole dish (you can use aluminum foil dish). Then take it into the steamer and steam it about 15 minutes.
• While waiting the dish steam, let's prepare the topping. Sautee butter/margarine, add flour, stir it well and fast (only until the flour dissolve with the butter). Pour fresh milk gradually while fast-stirring to prevent the clumping of the mixture. Add grated cheddar cheese. Add salt and pepper.
• After the dish steamed, pour the topping into the top of the dish, spread it well using spatula. Sprinkle the grated cheddar cheese/mozzarella cheese. Then bake it about 15-20 minutes until the cheese perfectly melt and browned.

[KBB#32 Rolls Nice] Love and Dotted Japanese Roll Cake

Roll Cake is a type of sponge cake roll. In Japan, we call it “Roll Cake” but in some other countries people all it Swiss roll or jelly roll. You will be amazing how Japanese made fancy-decorated roll cake. For me, Japanese are the most creative people around the world. They can make anything appear more fancy than usual. Several weeks ago, I seen this Japanese Roll Cake in Mbak Rachmah's photo album when she share this in her Facebook account. I fall in love with the fancy and beautiful look of this roll cake. Amazing, unusual, full of creativity. She told me that she got the inspiration from Junko's book.

There are a lot of cute and pretty decorated roll cakes that we can made - polkadot, sakura flower, strawberry, cartoon character such as Angry Birds, Pokemon, and so on. Even, the President of United States can be seen in the roll cake. LOL. If you don't believe just visit Junko's blog, hehehe..

Just by read the recipe, one thing that I think only, it was so straightforward, nevertheless need a lot of work to do. First we have to make cake batter separately for the decor and for the cake base. Also separate the batter into different bowl to color it. I ended up more time than usual to finish after-baked, washing and cleaning supposed to be can not be fun anymore, LOL.

 But, just because I need to do my probation test for Klub Berani Baking, then I made it :D
 

The cake was really soft, probably because we batter the egg yolk and egg white separately. Also, the use of cornstarch helped the cake to be more moist and have fine texture. But, I was not to satisfied with the result. For this recipe, I made 2 roll cake, the first one was good (but not at all), and the second one was failure. Don't know why, my second roll cake didn't taste and as soft as the first one. Maybe because it was too long in room temperature and I didn't use emulsifier at all.

Based on the recipe in here, the direction said that to make a decor just apply it in the baking paper then take it in the freezer. I use other technique that is been usually used by Junko, i didn't freeze it but baked only for 1 minute in 170 degree Celsius.

I was also not satisfied with the decor. Maybe because the oven was too hot or something like that, there was a little bit brownish in the decor pattern and make the roll cake wasn't looked fine. But tomorrow I plan to baked another to give it to my son's pediatrician. Hope the result will be good...

Here it is my Japanese Roll Cake...

JAPANESE ROLL CAKE

Adapted from : Junko's book

Modification by : Rachmah Setyawati

Ingredients:

Batter A

• 4 egg yolk
• 40 g fine sugar
• 40 cc cooking oil (canola or sunflower oil would be better)
• 60 cc water
• 80 g flour
  

Batter to decorate the motif

• 60 g egg white
• 15 g fine sugar
• 10 g cornstarch flour

Batter B

• 160 - 175 g egg white
• 0,5 g salt
• 50 g fine sugar
• 1 tsp lemon water, squeeze from a half of lemon
• 15 g cornstarch flour
• 1 tbs blueberry paste

Filling　

• Non dairy fresh cream
• Some fruit of your choice (I used Mandarin Orange)

Directions:

• Batter A 

1.  Combine egg yolk and sugar in a small bowl. Mix it until you get smooth batter. In medium speed, while mixture the batter, add cooking oil gradually. Mix it well. Then add some water gradually (maintain the medium speed when mixture it).
2.  After the batter combined well, pour some flour. Mix it until smooth batter and foamy. Set aside the batter and prepare next step.

• Batter to decorate the motif

• Place the egg white in a cleaning  mixing bowl and some part of sugar, mix it until foamy. Add remaining sugar and mix in medium speed until you get glossy and soft peak form batter.
• Pour cornstarch flour, mix for a while until soft peak form. Set aside.

• Take about 5 - 6 tablespoons of Batter A, combine it with Batter to decorate the motif, beat lightly. Divide the batter into 4 bowls. Add little food coloring into each bowl (it depends on your taste). I used light pink, red, and green.

       
• Use 20 x 20 x 5 cm baking pan. Before that, don't forget to prepare the paper that has been drawn with pattern/motif that we like. Take that paper in the base of pan, spread butter/margarine over the paper. Cover the paper with baking paper (you can use silicon mat for better result). Then make the pattern by using food colored-batter. 
• After that, take the baking pan in freezer about 8-10 minutes. Let the batter freeze. If you want to save the time, you can just bake the food colored-batter in 170 degree Celsius for 1 minute. Just choose the easiest method for you.
• Batter B
• Place the egg white in a cleaning  mixing bowl and some part of sugar, mix it until foamy. Add remaining sugar and mix in medium speed until you get glossy and soft peak form batter.
• Add lemon water, beat lightly. Then pour cornstarch flour, mix for a while until soft peak form. Set aside.
• Take a half of Batter B and combine it with Batter A, whisk lightly. Pour remaining Batter B, whisk lightly. Add food flavor paste, I used blueberry food paste.
• Take the frozen batter from the freeze. Gently pour the cake batter (combination of Batter B and A) and spread evenly with an offset spatula or dough scraper. Bake for 20-25 minutes in 165-175 degree Celsius. After baked it, take out from the oven and detach the baking paper carefully. Set aside until cool enough to roll.
• After the cake cool enough, spread the upside of the cake (the one that is brown) with cream and fruit, spread it thick. Then roll the cake, tightly wrap the cake with baking paper and refrigerate to set. This cake is best served the day it is made.

Ayam Woku Belanga (Chicken with Spicy Chilli Woku Sauce)

I am not a Manadonese (one of ethnic group of Indonesia inhibits Sulawesi island), but i truly love the taste of this food. No offense, i am the biggest fans of spicy food wherever they are, LOL. Manadonese food is very famous throughout Indonesia. The flavor of choice is very hot and spicy. People in Manado will likely not go for a strike when fuel costs increase, but it is very unlikely for them to stay quiet when chili prices increase.

Woku is an authentic Manado sauce that get named from Daun Woka. Daun woka is a kind of young coconut leaf that is usually used as a warm rice wrapper. In Manado's history of culinary, woku spices is rich Manadonese mixed spices. Actually this woku using seafood as basic ingredients but some people use chicken. There are 2 version of woku, i.e. Woku Belanga (cooked with juicy sauce in belanga or saucepan) or Woku Daun (cooked wrapped in banana/woku leaves).

The fusion between savory fresh sour flavour and fragrant of various herb leaves make this food is completely delicious. And don't blame me if you will be so tempted in this food after you taste it, LOL.

I took the recipe from Bunda Inong's blog. She was my greatest inspiration to write a blog about food and recipe. I admire her so much, although she has been gone several years ago. Now, we can only meet her by her blog, a place where she kept her recipe and story about her past daily activity. This is one of my favourite food at home. I often cook this at home.

Ayam Woku Belanga 

(Chicken with Spicy Chilli Woku Sauce)

Ingredients :

• 12 chicken pieces
• 1 lime, squeezed to get the juice
• 1 medium-sized tomato, sliced
• 2 lemon grass, bruised
• 2 stalks spring onion, sliced
• 3 kaffir lime leaves
•  2 sprigs of lemon basil leaves (Kemangi leaves)
• salt, sugar, and pepper as desired
• 500 ml water
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Finely ground :

• 5 shallots
• 100 gr long red chillies
•  50 gr bird's eye red chilli (you can reduce or eliminate this chili if you don't want this food too spicy)
• 2 cm fresh turmeric
• 3 cm fresh ginger
• 5 candlenuts

Directions :

• Rub chicken with salt and lime juices. Marinate for 30 minutes. Set aside.
•  Stir fry the finely ground ingredients in cooking oil. Add lemon grass and stir it until fragrant. 
• Add chicken and water. Stir well then add sliced tomato and kaffir lime leaves. In medium heat, let it cooked about 30 minutes or until the chicken pieces tender and the sauce reduce.
• Add salt, sugar, pepper, spring onion and lemon basil leaves. Stir it, and ready to be served.

Pesmol Ikan Kembung (Short Mackerel in Spicy Onion Sauce)

I was tempted to short mackerel since I was child. Nowadays, I never let through to buy this fish whenever it was displayed in grocery. Usually I just deep fried this fish and eat it with Sambal (one of Indonesian staple food that has spicy flavor). But today I try to make something different. Then I remembered that I have ever eat Fish Pesmol in Sundanese Restaurant and I like the spicy onion sauce of Pesmol. I searched the recipe in the internet and Voila.... Here they come....

In the original recipe, she used White Pomfret fish (Ikan Bawal), so I just substitute the main ingredients. Overall I love this recipe, fresh and spicy. If you don't like spicy food, you can eliminate or reduce the bird-eye chilli. Hope you enjoy it..

Pesmol Ikan Kembung 

(Short Mackerel in Spicy Onion Sauce)

 Ingredients:

• 500 gram Indonesian mackerel (Ikan Kembung), you can substitute to other kind of fish that you like
• 1-2 lime, squeeze to get the juice
• 3 cm fresh galangal, crushed
• 1 lemon grass, bruised
• 2 kaffir lime leaves
• 2 Indonesian bay leaves
• 6 shallots, halved, sliced
• 1 spring onion, sliced
• 1 lemon grass, sliced
• 1 small size tomato, sliced
• 1 long red pepper, angle sliced
• 5 whole bird's eye chillies
• water as desired
• 1/2 tablespoons vinegar (can be substituted by tamarind juice)
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil

Ground Spicy Paste:

• 3 shallots
• 5 cloves garlic
• 5 candlenuts
• 3 cm fresh turmeric 
• 1 cm fresh ginger
• salt, sugar, and pepper as desired

 Directions:

• Rub fish with lemon juice, salt and pepper. Marinate for 15-30 minutes. Deep fry until golden brown, then set aside.
• Stir fry ground spicy paste, galangal, lemon grass, bay-leaves, and kaffir lime leaves in a small amount of oil until fragrant.
• Add water, salt, pepper, and sugar. Bring to boil. Add whole sliced shallot, spring onion, lemon grass, tomato, long red  pepper, and bird's eye chillies.
• Add vinegar/tamarind juice. Cook until chillies and shallots wilted then add fish. Stir evenly in small heat until all the paste seep into the fish. Serve with warmed rice.

Recipe in Bahasa Indonesia version

Pempek (Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake)

Pempek or we can called it Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake is a savoury fish cake delicacy from Palembang, capital city of South Sumatra. It is usually served with yellow noodles and a dark, rich sweet and sour sauce called kuah cuko. Pempek is one of my favourite Indonesian cuisine since I was child. I really love it. I still remember when I got my first pregnant, I ever asked my parents to bring Pempek from Pontianak just because I really want to eat Pempek that is made by my mother's friend. 

Now, I try to make it by myself. So, I don't need to imported  it again from Pontianak, or maybe from the origin place, Palembang. I was so happy because although it was my first experiment to made it I can made it successfully :D But only for Pempek Lenjer, not for the Kapal Selam type, it was so hard to make it perfec.

Pempek dough is made from a mixture of boneless ground fish meat, commonly Indonesian uses Ikan Tenggiri (kind of Wahoo or Spanish macakerel) with water, salt and tapioca. But some of others uses Ikan Gabus (Snakehead fish) or Ikan Belida (Featherback fish). Many people said the best tasting pempek are made from Ikan Belida, but it is so difficult to find that fish in Malang, very rare, so I use the usual thing and easy to find, Ikan Tenggiri.

The other important part of this cuisine is Kuah Cuko. The colour of this sauce is dark brown. Just make sure you made the sauce from palm sugar (gula aren), because it will give good colour of the sauce better than if you use brown sugar/coconut sugar (gula merah). But the best thing will always gula merah Linggau, palm sugar from Palembang.

 

Pempek (Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake)

Source: NCC

Ingredients:

Basic Dough:

• 500 grams boneless ground Ikan Tenggiri (Spanish macakerel) meat
• 100 milliliter icy water
• 1 egg
• 25 grams wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 4 clove garlic, minced
• 100 milliliter water
• 400  grams sago flour (Tepung sagu tani)
• 3 tablespoons Tang Mien Flour (wheat starch flour)

Kuah Cuko:

• 250 grams palm sugar
• 50 grams tamarind
• 1 teaspoons ground dried shrimp
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 750 milliliter water
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• bird eyes chilies, ground 
• salt

Directions:

Basic Dough:

• In a bowl, mix boneless ground fish meat, icy water, and egg. Mix well (use your hand better than spoon). Take in chiller until thicken.
• In a bowl, mix wheat flour, sugar, salt, minced garlic, and water. Stir it while boiled in small heat. Stir continuously until thicken. Leave it cold and take in chiller after that.
• After 30 minutes, take out all the ingredients that you put in chiller. Mix all ingredients in different two bowl into one bowl. Mix well (use your hand again).
• Add sagu flour and tang mien flour gradually while you knead the dough slowly until smooth and not sticky in the hand.
• In a big pot, boil water. Add some cooking oil to make Pempek looks shiny and didn't stick each other while boiled.
• On your work table, dust sagu flour. And also don't forget to dust your hand also with sagu flour.
• Take a small amount of Pempek dough, shape it into ball (if you make Pempek adaan), or shape into long cylindrical (if you make Pempek lenjer), and you can also add chicken egg wrapped within the dough (Pempek kapal selam).
• Plunk Pempek into a pot of boiling water. Let pempek float. Take it and leave it cold.
• Deep fry until golden brown. Serve with kuah cuko and cucumber chopped. You can also add some noodles or ground dried shrimps to enrich the flavour.

Kuah cuko:

• In a saucepan, add water, tamarind, palm sugar. Let the sugar dissolve and wait until boil.
• Add minced garlic, ground dried shrimp, ground bird eyes chilies, salt. Bring to boil. Turn off the heat. Add vinegar. 
• Strain it. Ready to be served.

Lumpia Sayur (Vegetable Spring Roll)

Spring roll or Indonesian called it with "Lumpia", are a large variety of filled, rolled appetizers. The name is a literal translation of the Chinese chūn juǎn (春卷) found widely in Asian and Southeast Asian cuisine. The kind of wrapper, fillings, and cooking technique used, as well as the name, vary considerably within this large area.

I do love spring roll. My mother usually make this for me and my family when Ramadhan (fasting month) come or make it only for snack in our daily. Although fried spring roll is more crunchy than this one, but in my personal taste I like the one that is not fried better than the fried one. I love the authentic taste of the original flavor of spring roll wrapper.

This recipe is adapted from Resep Keluarga Nugraha which I changed the filling. In original recipe used chicken meat, shrimp, and bamboo shoot. Just because my husband is a vegetarian, so I only use bamboo shoot, sprout, and carrot for the filling. I didn't make the dipping sauce as the recipe written. I only serve this with simple chilli sauce, bird's eye chilli pepper, and spring onion.

Lumpia Sayur (Vegetable Spring Roll)

Category : Appetizer and Snacks

Style : Indonesian

Servings : 20 spring rolls

Ingredients

Wrapper, mixture:

·         110 grams all-purpose flour

·         60 grams rice flour

·         2 eggs, beaten

·         350 ml water

·         5 tablespoons cooking oil

·         ½ teaspoons salt

·         ½ teaspoons chicken bouillon powder (optional)

Fillings:

·         6 medium-sized shallots

·         4 cloves garlic

·         120 grams bamboo shoot, finely chopped

·         120 grams carrots, finely chopped

·         100 grams sprouts

·         2 tablespoons oyster sauce

·         2 teaspoons sugar

·         ½ teaspoons salt

·         ½ teaspoons pepper

Dipping sauce:

Hot chili sauce

Directions

1. Wrapper : made thinly wrapper using a 20 cm-frying pan
2. Filling : Sautee garlic and shallot at a medium-high heat in a pan until fragrant. Add bamboo shoot, carrot, and sprout. Stir evenly. Add oyster sauce, sugar, salt, and pepper until well-cooked. Remove from the heat and leave it in room temperature.
3. Take a spring roll wrapper and fill with approximately 1 tablespoons of filling mixture. Wrap and shape it.
4. Serve the spring rolls with the hot chili sauce, bird’s eye chili pepper, and spring onion.