Recipe: Vegetarian lemon tea cake with berry sauce

The unstable weather in Wageningen drives me crazy sometimes. Davis has unpredictable weather too, but only in few seasons (and not all four of them). I can experience all hot, cold, sunny, cloudy, windy and rainy weather in one day here in Wageningen. Looking at the weather forecast website is an hourly routine, and it is my new best friend. Good thing I have bought new rain jacket so I can bike to the campus without being irritated when it suddenly rain (maybe haha).

On a good note, the crazy weather is the only thing that I don't like about Wageningen so far, the rest is awesome! People are friendly - strangers greet me whenever I pass by them, sometimes they even greet me in Bahasa which I find adorable.The nature is so pretty, and this place is calm and peaceful. Fresh produce is a lot, and you can even buy it for cheap.

Owh talking about local produce, I was going gaga over the fruits sold at the market. Lots of summer fruits and I can't help buying many varieties. We bought 2 kg of fresh cherries last week, and was planning to make cherry pie but had to change my plan as 'dear' hubby ate 1.8 kg of them (literally!) *speechless* -_-!!! We didn't buy any cherries this week though but I managed to grab few berries for my own use.

I baked vegetarian lemon tea cake as I wanted something refreshing, and lemon goes well with blueberries, or even with other berries. I have a lot of Greek yogurt left so I used that to make delicious and moist vegetarian cake. The recipe below is something that I created myself, it might not be perfect but I find the cake to be not that sweet (just the way I like it), has light flavor, moist and taste delicious. A perfect tea cake to serve to quests plus easy to prepare :D

Vegetarian Lemon Tea Cake with Berry Sauce (Click to print the recipe)

Vegetarian Lemon Tea Cake 

125 gm unsalted butter
4 tablespoon castor sugar (you can add more if you want)
200 ml Greek yogurt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup flour (cake flour is better)
2 teaspoon baking powder
100 ml corn oil
Finely grated  zest of 1 lemon (you can add/reduce this if you want)


Berry Sauce (Serving: Two people)

7 large strawberries, cut into quarters
15 pieces blueberries
1/2 tablespoon sugar (or more)
1 cup water
A dash of salt
A dash of nutmeg

For serving: 1 cup whipping cream - beat until fluffy (I don't like to put sugar in my whipping cream, you can do that if you want it to be sweeter)


Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy. Add Greek yogurt and vanilla extract and mix until combine. Put flour, baking powder in the mixture and mix, add oil and lemon zest and continue beating for one more minute until everything is combined. Pour the batter in 8' x 8' square pan and bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. Cool off the cake to room temperature.
3. To make the sauce: Combine everything in a medium pot on a medium to high heat, mash the berries using potato masher and cook until the sauce is thicken (you can add or reduce the water if you want, and you can also add corn flour to thicken up the sauce).
4. To serve: Cut the cake into square pieces, serves with berry sauce and whipped cream and garnish with fresh berries. This cake is delicious serving warm or cold.

p.s: Sugar in Europe is less sweet than the one in Malaysia, so I advice you to reduce the amount of sugar if you follow this recipe and adding more little by little if you want it to be sweeter. 

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Recipe: Black and white pudding

It's been almost two weeks since I came to Netherlands. It's a beautiful country and I can't stop saying pretty since the day I arrived. Wageningen is a small and pretty city, it reminds me a lot of Davis (maybe it's prettier here haha). Our apartment is surrounded by parks and nature and we enjoy walking to the arboretums nearby. The campus is small, and I like the fact that my office, lab and greenhouse is all at one place. The idea of cycling from one end to another is not really fun. Albeit Netherlands is known for its flat land, this place is a little bit hilly and cycling from campus to home can be quite challenging for me.

Grocery shopping is awesome as the market has fresh local produce, even finding fresh halal meat is easy. Baking supplies on the other hand is another story. It's pretty hard to find few ingredients  here (baking soda and cream of tartar for example), not to mention the price is not compatible with my wallet. I will buy the baking stuff one by one, and yeah seems like I have to buy most of the things online (read: 'cheaper').

I haven't tried much of the local sweets, but the honey and nut cake from one of the local bakeries is yummy! I was searching for the recipe but couldn't get my hand on it. Seems like it's their very own special recipe. Owh well, maybe I can try making something similar later. Stroopwafel is to die for. I know few people don't like it because of the sweet caramel filing, but the cookies taste great when you complement it with coffee and tea (without sugar please!).

Anyway, there was a Malaysians get-together few days ago for sunset viewing and watching football match of Netherlands vs Spain (wasn't it such a great match! haha), and I prepared simple pudding which I find awesome. It's a combination of chocolate and vanilla pudding and I put chocolate ganache and stroopkoeken (a butter cookies version of stroopwafel) for extra flavor. You can use other cookies if you want, but I find having the cookies gave that extra crunch to the pudding. Owh yeah, this is American+British pudding thus the texture is different than Malaysian type of pudding.

Black and White Pudding (makes 12 -16 pudding in ramekins)

Chocolate pudding (recipe source from Nigella with few modification)

100 grams dark chocolate (I used IKEA's dark chocolate)

100 grams unsalted butter

4 tablespoons of caster sugar (you can use more if you want, I love my desserts less sweet)
4 large eggs
50 grams plain flour
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Vanilla pudding (recipe source from Taste of Home with few modification)

2-1/2 cups milk, divided

Pinch salt
2 tablespoons of caster sugar (you can add more if you want)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon butter

For filling and chocolate ganache

12-16 stroopkoeken (or you can use other butter cookies)

180 gm dark chocolate (I used IKEA's dark chocolate)

200 gm cream (I used 30% cream)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Break up the chocolate and melt it with the butter in a bowl in the microwave or in a double boiler. Once it's melted, sit the bowl on a cold surface so that the chocolate cools.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar until thick and pale and moussy, then gently fold in the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
4. Fold in the slightly cooled chocolate and butter mixture and then put 1/3 in each ramekin and bake for 20-25 minutes. While waiting for the chocolate pudding to be cooked, prepared the vanilla pudding.
5. Place 2 cups milk and salt in a saucepan. Sprinkle sugar on milk and do not stir; heat over medium-high. Quickly combine cornstarch with remaining milk and mix well. When milk comes to a full boil, remove saucepan from the heat and stir in cornstarch mixture. Pudding will begin to thicken. Return to the heat and cook for 1 minute. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla and butter. 
6. To make chocolate ganache, break chocolate in small pieces and put it in a bowl with cream and  microwave or double boiler until the chocolate melts. 
7. To assemble: take out the chocolate pudding from the oven, put stroopkoeken on top of it and cover with vanilla pudding. Let's everything cool and set, and put chocolate ganache on top of the vanilla pudding. You have to make sure the vanilla pudding is set or it will mix with the ganache. 
8. Put it in the fridge and let it cool for 2 hours or overnight. Garnish with raspberries or anything you desire.

The sour taste of raspberries complements well with dark chocolate. 

Hope you guys love this recipe! 

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My birthday cake

'I thought you are done with baking' said my husband sarcastically as he saw me baking my birthday cake. I told him that I'm not going to bake anymore last week (and maybe several weeks before too haha) as we want to clear out the ingredients before we leave Malaysia, but the idea of me not having a birthday cake baked by me is kind of sad when I have baked for others for their special days.

So today, dear hubby, is the last day I'm baking before we are leaving to the Netherlands, officially!! (as if you are ever reading my blog)

We had a large pint of Greek yogurt thus I decided to make my favorite vegetarian cake with a twist - pandan flavor! I bought few pandan leaves couple of days ago and made pandan paste out of it. I combine it with my favorite vegetarian cake recipe and voila, delicious and moist vegetarian pandan cake. I decorated the cake with cream cheese frosting and made salted caramel cream cheese filling for between the layers. And yeah, I obviously had to decorate the cake purple - my favorite color!

Side view of my birthday cake - 6' tall pandan cake with salted caramel cream cheese frosting decorated in purple ruffles.

The taste was awesome! Just the way I like it - moist, not too sweet and refreshing pandan smell. I think I will miss baking this cake in Netherlands. The chance of finding fresh pandan leaves is slim, plus I don't like the idea of using the yucky and unnatural pandan flavoring.

Top and side view of the cake. Isn't it pretty? :)

For those who are not familiar with pandan, I would say that it has nice and subtle fragrance of rose. It gives out light and refreshing taste, and tastes well when you complement it with palm sugar :) I think most (if not all) of the Southeast Asian countries use it in their cuisines.

So yeah, happy birthday (more like belated) to me and hope I can make more delicious and pretty cakes in the future :D

Natural green color of the pandan makes this cake looks so yummy!

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Making memories

Okay, pretty schmaltz post title haha. So few more days before we are going to the Netherlands. At the moment we are spending our time at my parents house in Baling, Kedah. I feel a bit sad, knowing that I won't come back to this homey place for four years. I will miss this place for sure - the pretty environment, my loved ones and my mom homemade food! My parents slaughtered turkeys few days ago, knowing how much their daughter and son-in-law love eating them :)

I had spent some quality time with my friends and family. Having potluck party with the UCDavis peeps, lunch and tea party with UPM colleagues, lab mates and friends, meeting fellow bakers whom I adored (you guys know who you are ;) ), and yet there are more people who are meaningful in my life whom I am unable to meet due to my tight schedule :( . Sorry guys, hope we can still keep in touch.

Anyway, seems like I will be more active with blogging in the future *hooray* Need to hone my writing skills before it gets worst hoho.

Delicious desserts made by me for my farewell tea party held last week. Cute deco from my lovely sis Farah Munirah from @makeupbyferrarossa :)

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'Sabbatical' leave from baking in Malaysia until 2018

Received email for e-ticketing to Amsterdam today. Our flight will be on the night of the 1st of June. I haven't started packing yet, not planning to bring lots of things like I used too when I went to the States for undergraduate study. My feeling is a mixture of sad, happy, excited and scared. PhD will be a very different journey than undergraduate and Master, and I do hope that I can go through it.

Muniroh's Bakery has been a wonderful experience since me and hubby started it in 2012. I am not going to stop it, just that it will be like taking a 'sabbatical' leave from baking until I'm done with my study. I will still bake in the Netherlands though, just that it will be more like stress reliever than baking for order.

I have had very wonderful journey with Muniroh's Bakery. Made new friends, met up with lots of people, and had the chance to meet up with other talented bakers ;) I had sweet and bitter memories which help in making the business grow, and all I can say is thank you so much for supporting me and Muniroh's Bakery and hope we can meet up again one day <3

Me with the last wedding cake that I made before going to the Netherlands. Beautiful picture taken by my good friend who is also a very talented photographer, Peter Law (019-8844337). Thanks Peter :)

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Not taking any more orders for cakes etc, only brownies!

There is so much to do and so little time. Thus I can't take any orders for cakes/cupcakes/etc except for those who have made the earlier arrangements. I will not be in Malaysia the end of this May until June 2018. Thus during this time I cannot take any orders. I'm going to do my PhD and please pray that everything goes well for me and my husband :)

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Our last classes will be in April 2014 as we won't be available until 2018 :)

By POPULAR DEMAND we will be having Muniroh's Bakery baking and decorating classes in April. There will be three interesting classes to join! April will be the LAST MONTH we will be having our classes as the baker will not be here in June 2014 until 2018. All classes will be conducted at our house at No 30, Jalan Tambatan 19/16 Shah Alam. Special price will be given to those who register for more than one class and pay the deposit before 1st April 2014.

*email us thewhiteboxz@gmail.com (Don't call/sms) or PM us at our page if you are interested*  

*RM 100 booking deposit required for each class.*
*No refund will be given if you have paid the deposit and can't attend the class. Do email us for rescheduling etc*

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ACC Maybank 162143191189

Mas Muniroh binti Mohd Nadzir

**Cake Baking Class (Suitable for beginners and intermediates) – RM 350**

Learn how to make our BESTSELLER cakes:

-          Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

-          Devil’s Food cake with homemade Nutella spread, covered with Belgium chocolate ganache.

-          Salted caramel cake covered with caramel cream cheese frosting and homemade caramel sauce.

-          Bonus Recipe: Magnolia Bakery inspired vanilla cake, vanilla frosting and Nutella frosting

What you will learn:

-          Bake three types of cakes in an efficient way to maximize your time.

-          Learn to use your senses – smell and taste to achieve wonderful results.

-          How to cut the cake and level.

-          Make your own Nutella spread, chocolate ganache and caramel sauce without fail.

-          Crumb cake and very basic decorating.

What you will get:

-          You will be taught from A to Z with our own personal baking tips.

-          Hands on, learn all important techniques and take home your own creations. This includes three cakes (not slices but the whole cakes), caramel sauce etc

-          Homemade lunch, coffee, tea and snack will be provided

What you need to bring:

-          Apron and hair net/scarf/ bandana so that your hair will not fall off

-          Pen for note taking

Fee: RM 350 per person (deposit RM 100) *6 people max. Prioritize to those who make the earliest payment*

Date: There will be three dates when we will be conducting our baking class and you can choose either on the 12^th April 2014, 19^th April 2014 or 26^th April 2014

Time: 9 am - 5 pm (or until 3 pm if everything goes according to plan)

**Cake Decorating Class (Suitable for beginners and intermediates) – RM 350**

Learn how to decorate lovely and pretty cake like Muniroh’s Bakery  (Suitable for beginners and intermediates):

-          Each person will get two prepared cakes (no baking required), and learn how to cut, level and crumb the cake.

-          Learn to make cream cheese frosting  and Swiss meringue buttercream and use them to decorate the cake.

-          Learn the basic skills and techniques to make swirl roses, star, daisies, hydrangea, daffodil, ruffles and more

What you will get:

-          Hands on, learn all important techniques on cake decorating and bring back your own personal decorated cake.

-          Homemade lunch and snacks will be provided

What you need to bring:

-          Apron and hair net/scarf/ bandana so that your hair will not fall off

-          Pen for note taking

-          Your own cake turntable

Fee: RM 350 per person (deposit RM 100) *6 people max. Prioritize to those who make the earliest payment*

Date: 27^th  April 2014

Time: 9 am - 5 pm (or earlier)

**Brownies and Pies Class (Suitable for beginners and intermediates) – RM 350**

Learn how to make our BESTSELLER treats:

-          Ultimate Belgian chocolate brownies with walnut and Belgian chocolate.

-          Banoffee pie

-          Pecan Pie with flaky butter crust

-          Bonus recipes: Pumpkin pie and salted caramel brownies

-           

What you will learn:

-          Bake three types of treats in an efficient way to maximize your time.

-          Learn to use your senses – smell and taste to achieve wonderful results.

-          How to make delicious flaky butter crust

-          Make your own toffee sauce

What you will get:

-          You will be taught from A to Z with our own personal baking tips.

-          Hands on, learn all important techniques and take home your own creations.

-          Homemade lunch, coffee, tea and snack will be provided

What you need to bring:

-          Apron and hair net/scarf/ bandana so that your hair will not fall off

-          Pen for note taking

Fee: RM 350 per person (deposit RM 100) *6 people max. Prioritize to those who make the earliest payment*

Date: There will be two dates when we will be conducting our brownies and pies class and you can choose either on the 6^th April 2014 or 20^th April 2014

Time: 9 am - 5 pm (or earlier if everything goes smoothly)

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You have our prayers

The news of flight MH370 went missing is affecting everyone in Malaysia. As I listened to the live broadcast on the radio, the sad feeling becomes deeper and deeper. No, I don't know anyone on the flight, but the fact many lives on the board went missing any 'normal' human beings would have felt the same way. A couple of ignorant and seemingly 'pious' people gave negative and rude remarks of the incident, if your statement make you feel 'good' then we know how little compassion you have and how inhumane you are. During this hard time, all we should do is be empathetic towards the affected family members, and pray that MH370 will be found. I'm happy that many Malaysians show their sympathy and pray for MH370.

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2 Exciting Classes by Muniroh's Bakery - Cake Decorating and Cake Baking

So we will be having two classes in the coming week:

On the 8th of March will be Cake Decorating Class and it will focus mainly on decorating, and no baking is required! We will provide the cakes :)

Learn how to decorate lovely and pretty cake like Muniroh’s Bakery  (Suitable for beginners and intermediates):

- Everyone will get a prepared cake (no baking required), and learn how to cut, level and crumb the cake.

- Learn to make cream cheese frosting  and Swiss meringue buttercream and use them to decorate the cake.

- Learn the basic skills and techniques to make swirl roses, star, daisies, hydrangea, daffodil, ruffles and more

What you will get:

- Hands on, learn all important techniques on cake decorating and bring back your own personal decorated cake.

- Homemade lunch and snacks will be provided

What you need to bring:

- Apron and hair net/scarf/ bandana so that your hair will not fall off

- Pen for note taking

- Your own cake turntable

Fee: RM 350 per person (deposit RM 100) *8 people max. Prioritize to those who make the earliest payment*

Date: 8^th March 2014

Time: 9 am - 5 pm

Location: No 30, Jalan Tambatan 19/16 Seksyen 19, Shah Alam

*email us at thewhiteboxz@gmail.com (Don't call/sms) or PM us at our Facebook page

ACC CIMB  7601815254

ACC Maybank 162143191189

Mas Muniroh binti Mohd Nadzir

Another one on the 22nd March 2014 is our Cake Baking Class which will be focusing more on baking! very minimal decorating technique will be taught as the class is very pack with fun activity! :D

As requested by many, we will be having Muniroh's Bakery baking class on the 22^nd March 2014

Cake Baking Class (Suitable for beginners and intermediates)

Learn how to make our BESTSELLER cakes:

- Red Velvet cake with cream cheese frosting.

- Devil’s Food cake with homemade Nutella spread, covered with Belgium chocolate ganache.

- Salted caramel cake covered with caramel cream cheese frosting and homemade caramel sauce.

- Bonus Recipe: Magnolia Bakery inspired vanilla cake, vanilla frosting and Nutella frosting

What you will learn:

- Bake three types of cakes in an efficient way to maximize your time.

- How to cut the cake and level.

- Make your own Nutella spread, chocolate ganache and caramel sauce without fail.

- Crumb cake and very basic decorating.

What you will get:

- You will be taught from A to Z with our own personal baking tips.

- Hands on, learn all important techniques and take home your own creations. This includes three cakes (not slices but the whole cakes), caramel sauce etc

- Homemade lunch, coffee, tea and snack will be provided

What you need to bring:

- Apron and hair net/scarf/ bandana so that your hair will not fall off

- Pen for note taking

Fee: RM 350 per person (deposit RM 100) *6 people max. Prioritize to those who make the earliest payment*

Date: 22^nd March 2014

Time: 9 am - 5 pm

Location: No 30, Jalan Tambatan 19/16 Seksyen 19, Shah Alam

*email us thewhiteboxz@gmail.com (Don't call/sms) or PM us at our page

ACC CIMB  7601815254

ACC Maybank 162143191189

Mas Muniroh binti Mohd Nadzir

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First Baking Class from Muniroh's Bakery

Hubby went out to UPM for the MASUM chess team tryout. The house is quiet and it would have been a perfect day to relax and sleep the whole day, except for the fact that I have to bake lots of cakes. While waiting for the brownies to be done, a lot of fresh memory from yesterday's class flying around in my head. I can still remember the conversation that I had with them, their expressions, and my emotion.

I always like teaching. Have been teaching lab in UPM for a while and now I have the opportunity to conduct my own class. I want to make something different, where people can gain lots of knowledge and yet express their creativity freely.

Moritz told me to write out a tentative schedule a day before the class. I was reluctant, the idea of typing out nice schedule using Microsoft Word turned me off as my body needed to rest. He told me it is for me and not for the students as it will be a useful guideline so that I can plan ahead and maximize the short time that I have. It was a great idea! I scribbled my awful handwriting on a piece of paper and plan out which cake to bake first as well as the frosting and the time duration for each. 'This could work out' as I said to myself, but then again it could work for me who has the experienced in baking but I'm not sure for others.

As I was  anxiously waiting for the students to come,  I cooked simple lunch for me and the students (I made Maqlooba based on this recipe, but it doesn't turn out perfect and felt sorry to the students for that *sorry guys*). Buying food is always my last option as I am concerned of the hygiene and quality, and I want them to get a personal touch of the 'baker.' I made my famous 'Ultimate Belgian Chocolate Brownies' for snack so that I can give extras to the neighbors as well.

Ummul and Shafa were the earliest to arrive and we started off first to avoid the delay. As their red velvet cake almost finished baking, Mima and Nurul joined up and I taught them how to make red velvet cake as how I taught the first group. We started making the rest of the cakes and frostings together after that. During my busy time handling the class, my husband was helping out with the dishes. I am so grateful with his kind gesture. He lightened up the burden and I am blessed with that (thanks baby <3 ).

The whole day was filled with chatter and laughter. It was a relief that all of them were such easygoing and fun people. We met new people and learned a lot about each other. I love how we were able to get along so well despite knowing each other for less than a day.

I taught them the easiest, and simplest way to make cakes and yet produce great results. All of the ingredients are from the finest quality, and no substitute used. We make everything from scratch without depending the store bought processed goods like Nutella and caramel sauce. Just the way I do it.

I am not fancy in following long  instructions with lots of steps so I always modify things to make it simpler. I do that in the lab when I'm doing experiments, and in the kitchen when I'm cooking. Some of them were surprised with my method, and yet they were so happy looking how perfect their cakes look like. Tall and fluffy, and the most important part - Delicious!

As we were in middle of decorating cakes, one of them said 'no wonder the price of the homemade cakes are expensive, it is not easy to bake cake, and yet to decorate it,' and I was grinning listening to her. All bakers in the world would have hugged her if they had heard this - because it is true.

I gave the freedom for them to decorate the way they like it. No rules for that as I want them to use their own creativity. Besides, this class was mainly focused on baking. It is important to know how to make delicious cakes beforehand, and decorating second. For me, tasty cake is more important than how it looks like even though some people find it vice versa. If the students like to learn how to decorate, they can join my 'Decorating Class' which will be mainly focused on decorating cakes.

The timing was good, even though we overdid it a little. I can reduce the time in the next class based on my husband great suggestion and my experienced. All of us were tired in the end, and I remember this cliche ending that I usually used in Bahasa Melayu karangan (writing) in primary school - Walaupun penat, kami rasa seronok sekali (Even though we are tired, we feel very happy) ;)

Nurul, Mima, me,  Shafa and Ummul. All of them baked three cakes and bring back home all of the cakes. They also took home their homemade caramel sauce :) Thanks guys for joining, it was fun :D

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