Recipe : Lamingtons Cake

This is a free recipe : Lamingtons Cake, which I got from buying one of Lamington Baking tray :

Cake Mix Ingredients :
125g butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 milk (approx)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Chocolate Icing Ingredients :
30g butter
1/2 cup boiling water (approx.)
3 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 cups dessicated coconut

Cake Mix Method :
1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition
3. Sift flour and salt
4. Add alternatively with milk to mixture
5. Add vanilla essence
6. Blend well, but do not over beat
7. Add a little more milk if necessary, to form a soft dropping consistency
8. Spread evenly onto tray
9. Bake in a moderate oven (180deg C/350 deg F) for 25-35 minutes, or until cooked
10. Turn out and cooled on a cake rack
11. Cut into 30 squares
12. Dip each square into chocolate icing and roll in coconut

Chocolate Icing Method :
1. Melt butter in 1/4 cup boiling water
2. Sift icing sugar with cocoa
3. Add liquid, mixing well
4. Add vanilla essence
5. The icing must be thin so that squares of cake can be readily coated
6. Add sufficient boiling water to form this consistency

Convection Oven

I have been hunting around for a Convection Oven recently. And finally got one.

Here I am going to share some info that I had gathered during this hunting period :

How do you choose a Convection Oven? First of all, you need to understand what are your cooking needs. Do you need the oven more for Baking, Roasting, Grilling or others? Different oven work best for different needs.

However following are what an oven should have, no matter what are your cooking needs :

• Top heating coil
• Bottom heating coil
• Fan
• Glass door wide enough to see the food inside the oven
• Glass door that is able to maintain coolness while cooking for safety precaution - can be a double layer glass door
• Rack(s)
• Baking tray
• Independent Lighting
• Digital timer (better if have increments of 5 degrees)
• Door that can be keep ajar at an angle (when testing the food inside)

Now I'll list out which oven function to use for different cooking purpose :

1. Traditional baking
- Top + Bottom Coil Heating (eg. cookies)

2. Pastry Baking
- Fan Heating (eg. rising bread, meringue, choux pastry, sponge cake)
- Top + Bottom Coil + Fan Heating (eg. satay, fish, meat, cookies)

3. Barbeque
- Top Coil Heating (eg. grilling)

4. Gratin
- Top Coil + Fan Heating (eg. grill, sear, brown, crisp chicken)

5. Pizza
- Bottom Coil + Fan Heating (eg. pizza, quiche)

MIA again!

Hey I am back and alive again! (after my usual act of MIA - Missing in Action) ;)

What have I been doing all this while? I have been busy doing research. Research on how to be a successful homemaker without much effort. Gotcha ...

I have actually been busy doing experiments on food and cooking. Trying different methods and different mix of morsel bits to come out with unusual (in better words, creative) dishes.

Some come out great and some come out disasters. Of course the one who suffers from these is my dear hubby :)