holiday baking

It has been a really busy and eventful month...I felt like I was on an emotional roller coaster ride for the most part of it ;)

It started off with the agonising wait for the release of the psle (primary school leaving exam) results, followed immediately by another few days of decision making...choosing the secondary schools for my younger child. We then flew off for our year end holiday trip to Seoul and Jeju. We had a great time visiting or rather re-visiting the places in Seoul, not forgetting the great eating places and the fun self drive tour in Jeju. It snowed when we were in Seoul and it was a winder wonderland at the Hallasan national park in Jeju, the place was covered with thick snow!

I came down with a cold during the trip and developed skin rashes after we came home :( Despite the discomfort from the itchy rashes, sinus and coughing, I still had to carry on with washing and clearing the piles of laundry...the usual aftermath of a holiday trip. It took me more than a week to recover and I went on to work on the year end spring cleaning chores.

My roller coaster ride ended on a high note with the good news that my child has been offered a place in his dream school. It was really icing on the cake as we received the good news on the eve of his birthday.

With so many things going on, it was hard to find time to do much baking. It was even more difficult to keep up with blogging.

Just when I thought my absence would be gone unnoticed, I received a warm comment from a well wisher...an anonymous reader :) My heartfelt thanks to you for checking on me and my apologies for not updating my blog as regularly as I wanted.

A couple of days ago, I finally managed to squeeze in some time to bake this delicious Blueberry and White Chocolate chips coffee cake. In case you are as ignorant as me, there's no coffee in this coffee cake. The term coffee cake refers to a moist, tender cake that is served alongside coffee or tea during breakfast or anytime of the day. One of the characteristics of most coffee cake is the inclusion of either yogurt, buttermilk, or sour cream in the batter. The cake is usually topped with some kind of streusel topping from a mixture of flour, sugar, and butter, or nuts, and sometimes various fruits may be added as well.

I followed the recipe from Baking Bites but adapted it to suit my baking pan, the ingredients I have on hand and reduced the sugar amount. The result was fabulous. I am not sure whether it was the 'drought' (the lack of homemade cakes for the past weeks), both my boys were all thumbs up after they took the first bite once I gave the go-ahead permission to cut up the cake.

The cake was surprisingly moist, tender and even tasted so buttery although I have cut down on the sugar (by at least 80g) and it doesn't calls for much butter. I guess the yoghurt has made wonders again. The blueberries was on the tart side, but the sweet white chocolate chips paired it off really well. You can't go wrong with sliced almonds as toppings, it lends so much fragrance and flavour to this simple and easy to put together cake.    

If you have the ingredients on hand, why not whip this up for your breakfast, tea or after dinner dessert? It will be a nice centre piece if you have guests coming over, and certainly great to bring for potlucks or gatherings during this festive seasons. I am quite certain it will be a crowd pleaser :)


Blueberry and White Chocolate Coffee Cake

Ingredients:
(serves 8)

210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
60g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
120g caster sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup plain yoghurt
1/4 cup milk
50g (about 1/4 cup) white chocolate chips
80g (about 1/2 cup) blueberries
some sliced almonds
some granulated sugar or coarse sugar


Method:

• Preheat oven to 180 degC.
• Line base and side of a 7" round pan with parchment paper. (Note: The cake can also be baked in an 8" or 9" round pan, shorten the baking time to 40-45mins)
• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and whisk to combine. Set aside.
• Stir yoghurt and milk together, set aside. (Note: I used 70g Marigold low fat plain yoghurt and combined with slightly more than 1/4 cup low fat fresh milk to yield 1 cup of yoghurt-milk mixture).
• With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture turn light and flurry.
• Add in egg and vanilla extract and beat till smooth. 
• With a spatula, stir in half of the flour mixture.
• Add the yoghurt-milk mixture, stir to combine (the mixture may appear lumpy at first, keep stirring till smooth). 
• Add in the rest of the flour mixture.  Stir only until just combined. Do not over mix.
• Fold in blueberries (if using frozen blueberries, toss with some flour before using) and white chocolate chips to evenly distribute them. 
• Spoon batter into prepared pan and spread into an even layer. 
• Sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and granulated coarse sugar.
• Bake for about 50 minutes (if using bigger pan, shorten baking time to 40-45mins), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Leave to cool in pan for about 5 mins. Unmold and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Recipe source: adapted from Baking Bites