What's a long weekend without baking?

 Pepe surprised me one afternoon with Adam Liaw- Two Asian Kitchens.

So I couldn't wait to try out a few recipes.

The two that caught my interest was the Ants' Nest Cake and the Sataa andagi.  

Ants’ Nest Cake

Serves 8-10

The texture of this cake is as its name suggests an ants nest. The butter that floats to the top of the batter forms this bumpy surface and then the bottom layer of the cake has this honeycomb look which looks very much the tunnel matrix that ants would have in their nest.

Ingredients

220g caster sugar

85g unsalted butter, softened

½ tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs at room temperature

125mL condensed milk

150g plain flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

Put the sugar into a medium saucepan and heat gently swirling the pan occasionally until melted to a dark caramel. Reduce the heat to low and add 250mL water ( it did spit so stand back). The caramel will solidify but continue to stir over low heat until no lumps remain and you have a thin liquid caramel. Set aside to cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease an 18cm round cake tin and line the base with baking paper. Cream the butter and vanilla extract in a large bowl until the butter becomes slightly pale.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until well combined. Add the eggs, condensed milk and caramel to the creamed butter and whisk to combine. Sift together the butter and bicarbonate of soda and use the whisk to gently stir into the butter mixture.

Don’t worry that the butter doesn’t mix in evenly- this is how it should be.

Pour the cake batter into the tin and leave for a minute or two. Bake for 50 minutes or until the cake is springy to a gentle touch in the centre. Leave to cool in the tin then run a knife around the edge before turning out.

A great breakfast includes donuts and coffee.

Adam Liaw has a recipe called Sataa Andagi which is fried donut and I was dying to try it. So first chance I got I made up a batch of these yummy balls.

I used half the quantities called for in his recipe and I also reduced the sugar and replaced the cream for condensed milk and still got an amazing result.

Sataa andagi

Ingredients

2 eggs

125mL pouring cream ( I substituted with condensed milk)

¼ tsp vanilla paste

300g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

220g caster sugar

¼ tsp salt

Vegetable oil to deep fry

Method

Whisk the eggs, cream and vanilla together in a large bowl. Sift together the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Fold into the egg mixture until well combined.

Half fill a large saucepan with oil and heat to 180C. Drop teaspoonsfuls of dough into the hot oil, cooking about 6 at a time. Fry for 2 minutes until golden brown and risen to the surface. Lift out with a slotted spoons and drain on paper towels. They will become crisp on cooling.

You ask what Jaeminkins was upto whilst all this cooking was going on. He kept himself happily amused with the cookie cutters. I think he's going to be the next pastry chef hahahahah.