Sweetened condensed milk cake

Yeah! Finally I can safely say that my tiny 8" x 10" (rough estimate) conventional oven toaster can be used for baking. Well, it's not that I don't know that my oven toaster can bake (I did bake cookies with it before), it's just that I was quite skeptical about it when it comes to cakes. I was quite prepared for the first attempt to end up in a totally unedible disaster.

So, imagine my excitement when I peered through the oven door and saw that the cake was rising quite beautifully, if you disregard the slightly lopsided-ness of it. And it took a surprisingly short time to cook, about 30 minutes. I always thought that a cake will take up most of the day preparing and baking. It was the cooling down part that took a long time. I lost count of the times I went to check if it was ready to be turned out of the pan during the 3 plus hours that the cake took to cool down completely.

Despite the use of condensed milk, the cake was not too sweet. And quite edible too, I must say. :) The husband said it was not too bad for a first attempt, while BT said it was ok, but he would not encourage me to bring for my in-laws to taste, when I mentioned about it. Hmmm.

Anyway, it was not too bad for the taste. In fact, it tasted a bit like the Sara Lee cakes, just a teeny bit. But the texture was not as light and spongy as I expected, it somehow reminded me of the Chinese Huat Kuay (发糕) as I bit into it. I was not sure what went wrong, and the husband mentioned that I might not have "mix" enough air into the batter. So, he was quite enthusiastic to help me bake another one later. :)

Sweetened condensed milk cake (recipe from here)

Ingredients :
- 1 can (395g) sweetened condensed milk
- 4 eggs
- 120g all purpose flour
- ½ tablespoon baking powder
- 50g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- icing sugar, for dusting

Directions :
1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF; generously butter a 22cm (9 in) ring cake pan.

2. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and mix well. Pour the batter into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until risen and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.

3. Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely before unmolding.Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Note : I used a 20cm (8 in) pan, and my cake took about 30 minutes to bake.

Oreo cheesecake

Was feeling quite "motivated" yesterday after work, so decided to try my hand at the Oreo cheesecake (recipe courtesy of Skylar, my forum mate).

The making part was easy. The tedious part was to crush the biscuits. When I thought I had finally crushed quite evenly, a final "grope" around the crushed bits exposed some more big, chunky bits... which started the whole "crushing" process again.

Also, seems like I use a little too much Oreo bits for the cheese part till the cake looks brown, instead of the usual Oreo cheesecake with only little flecks of Oreo, with the cheese part still looking yellow.

Anyway, here is the final product...

Well, I have to say I was a little disappointed at how it turned out. Seems a little "flat", like not enough cheese. Also, haven't the chance to taste it yet. But brought half of it to school for my "guinea pigs". Wahahaha.

Oreo Cheesecake

Ingredients:

- Oreo cookies (I took out the cream part)
- 1 block of KRAFT Philadelphia cheese (leave it at room temperature for about 1 hour before using it)
- 75g unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons of condensed milk
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Directions:

1.Crush Oreo biscuits (depending on how thick you want the crust to be)

2. Melt unsalted butter about 75g in a pan, then add Oreo biscuits in, stir till butter is all absorbed.

3. Lay this mixture into a pan tin and put it into the fridge for an hour.

4. Add the block of cheese, condensed milk, lemon juice and some oreo biscuits crumbs & start beating it till a smooth mixture is obtained.

5. Lay this mixture on the top of the crust earlier and leave it in the fridge for about 5 hrs.

6. Add top layers of Oreo biscuits as decor (optional) and put back into the fridge to leave it overnight.