Sponge Cake & Egg Tart Making - Coaching by My Uncle

Alas! The sponge cake managed to rise! :) The culprit - Phoon Huat Sponge Cake Mix.

Finally managed to book my uncle to teach me baking. Not easy to book him given his hectic schedule as a pastry chef. So now I know why my sponge cake sinks evey time.
We tried making one with the cake mix & it turned out dense & flat. still edible & my uncle said it could be used as the based for cheese cake.

I gasped when I saw the way he fold in the flour & pour out the batter...he laughed when I told him that I read from the net that I have to treat the mixture gently so as not to 'shock' it with big movements which may cause the cake to sink.



Well, the exterior of the cake is kinda messy cos I told him that it was a non-stick baking pan but I guess the pan didn't live up to its expectations. Still I'm happy enough that the cake had risen to a reasonable height :)

He also taught me 2 kinds of egg tart. One is the normal one you could usually find in the bakery shops; the other one is the type you could see in Tim Sum Restaurants (I call that the Chinese crispy egg tart). The first one is easier to make whilst the crispy tart involves more steps (somewhat similar to making a croissant)& it's better to have the machine to roll the dough for you to ensure consistency of the dough. You can check out my Homebakers blog for the recipe.




I'm really impressed or in fact, in awe by my unlce's skills.
1. He's 'heat proof'- he tested the heat of the oven using his bare hands to touch the tray in my oven to see if it's ready. Something that my hubby would never ever dare to do near the oven without wearing a glove.

2. A multi-tasker - he can do several other things whilst giving me instructions & recipe.

3. Versatile & Creative - he could make do with whatever tools he has. He cut up the transparent food storage bags so that he could roll the dough on it. Used my cups to cut out the shape of the tarts which fitted nicely into the mould. As my oven does not have the function of choosing the bottom heat, he used the solid tray to block the heat from the top so as to prevent overheating the egg solution that could cause it to get burnt. Lastly, he could make a successful sponge cake using my ordinary hand mixer kekeke ;p

4. A weighing expert - he weighs everything on the weighing scale without having to measure the ingredients separately.

5. An agaration expert - he can't tell me how many tarts I can make or when the tarts are ready or how long to beat the batter etc. But he can tell how to tell when it's ready for each step. I thought that's more useful as many a times, the timing depends on the equipment you use.
Now that's what I called having 'years of experience':)

Half the time I was busy taking down the recipe & I've to divide the portion of the ingredients as my uncle is used to making them in bigger quantities. Haha, so basically quite a bit of "agar-ation".

The normal one turned out well & is yummy with the soft egg filling. The cripsy one is not so satisfactory as the oil had leaked due to the dough rolling process. In fact the only big surface area that I have (other than my floor) is my teak wood dining table which my uncle had to roll the dough on. In any case, the tarts still tasted ok :)




We finished around 5pm if not for the failed sponge cake using the cake mix. So it's quite fast.

Oh I mustn't forget to mention the lady behind the scene hehe ;p She's my 二婶(my Uncle's wife aka super-duper housewife) who had helped us with the cleaning up. She's real good & a fast one too. Must thank her for helping out with the cleaning otherwise me & my poor hubby will need to spend an hour or so clearing up the mess. But she had also contributed to the confusion too as I was nagged by her to wash/ keep the unused tools whilst trying to learn the steps & take down the recipe ;p