Does anyone know any good Korean (and if not Asian) recipes for birthday cakes? Me and my friends are having a surprise 12th birthday party for our Korean friend, she moved here from Korea about a year ago.
Haley from OH
I am of Chinese heritage, not Korean, but I know that in China there really isn't any such thing as birthday cake. Chinese baked goods are very limited, and consist of things like sweet buns or individually-sized egg tarts. Most bread-like things are steamed, not baked, and are sweet breads rather than cake. I think I'm correct in saying that this summary also holds true for most other Asian countries, except perhaps Vietnam which has absorbed a strong French influence.
The traditional Chinese birthday sweet is something called 8-jeweled rice, which is a big mound of steamed sticky rice, mixed with sugar and various dried fruits (i.e,., the "jewels").
Oh, and just FYI, "mandarin" oranges are unknown in China. :-) Good luck!
(02/01/2005)
By Lynne
My grandpa's brother came over from Korea with his wife and cooked up a Korean meal for us during their stay. When we questioned them about deserts, they said that in Korea they do not prepare cookies, cakes, or any other confection like they do here in America. However, they do eat fruit for dessert and they have little bean "cakes", with a sweet bean filling in them, but in my opinion they're nothing like cakes or any other dessert I've ever tasted. (02/07/2005)
By Misha
Oh, I forgot a word of advice:
Your best bet is to visit oriental or Korean specialty stores. They don't have cakes, but they do carry candy and other sweets there. Good luck! (02/07/2005)
By Misha
They do have Korean style cakes. It's a lot of fruit and a lot less sweet than American style cakes. (02/18/2005)
By
I'm Korean. We do have cakes for birthdays. They are called 'saeng cream cakes'. It is basically a cake with very light cream topped with fruits. It's not too sweet, but it is a very refreshing cake. (11/22/2005)
By David Lee
My mom and I made a cake like in Tina's post and all we basically did was to use a cake mix (like in the boxes), heavy whipping cream in milk cartons, and some fruit. She said that it was a Korean cake... hope this helps!
But if you want, here's another one I found (it's from radicalchar at the soompi forums):
Ssaeng Cream Cake!
Cake Ingredients:
Making Cake:
1. Prepare by putting a piece of paper on the bottom of the pans.
2. Separate egg whites from yolk (Be very careful not to mix the two together, this is a crucial step.)
3. Mix sugar A with yolks. Beat eggs until the liquid drips from the egg beater with fair viscocity (slight thickness).
4. Add vanilla extract and mix.
5. Beat the egg whites until they are 60 percent foamy (Um..meringue?). Divide sugar B into 3 sections, and add each section at intervals while mixing.
6. Put in 1/2 of the meringue mixture into the yolk mixture and mix. Put flour into a sift and shake into the mixture and mix.
7. Soften butter at around 50c-60c temperature and mix into the rest of the batter. Also put in milk and mix into batter.
8. Mix in the rest of the meringue and we're ready to bake!
9. Bake at 170c temperature for 25 minutes.
10. Put the cakes in the refrigerator to cool.
Adding decorations and icing:
1. Take cake out of refrigerator and cut out the cake. Cut out the outer skin (brown parts) and brush on syrup (sugar water + lemon juice) thinly over the surface of the whole cake.
2. Cover the cake with whip cream or butter cream in between the two cakes and on top of the cakes. Use canned fruit cocktail to decorate the cake the way you wish.
3. Cover the circumference of the cake with more cream and the top.
4. Create little sections on the cake to put more fruit.
5. Arrange fruits on top (kiwi, strawberry, pineapple, cherries, or tangerines.)
Making the cream (There are two types of cream you can choose from):
Butter Cream Ingredients:
Making the butter cream itself (you can make it or buy it):
1. Mix eggs and sugar A together heated at 70c temperature (mix well).
2. Mix sugar B, water, corn syrup and boil at 115c temperature. (not together with mixture 1)
3. Mix mixture 1 and mixture 2 together in this heated state.
4. Chill butter until it is 23c temperature and mix in small amounts at a time to the mixture.
5. Mix in wine (or grape juice or just leave it alone?)
Second Cream Ingredients:
Making the cream itself (make it or buy it):
1. Mix whipping cream in a bowl.
2. Mix till whip cream is 50 percent bigger/smaller? not sure, uh just mix well. I didn't understand this step very well. Then mix in sugar and wine/rum.
3. Put in chilled water
4. For strawberry cream just add strawberry syrup instead of wine.
http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking(08/09/2007)
By blank
I'm also Korean, and David Lee is right (and mishalee your information is outdated, from an older generation that doesn't know much about the contemporary culture). We have ssaeng cream cakes, which are commonly translated as 'fresh' cream cakes, and they are similar to Chinese and Japanese fresh cream cakes. They are similar to sponge cakes with whipping cream icing and topped with various fruits. You can choose whatever fruits you like and arrange them however you like and add whatever else you like (i.e. wafers), and I also like to glaze the fruits with a thin extremely difficult to make an Asian-style fresh cream cake for many reasons, not least because you can't find heavy whipping cream with a high enough percentage of fat in America. At around 8% fat, the whipping cream icing is not stable enough and, after all your hard work, will all too quickly melt off the cake. And using recipes for American sponge cakes don't taste quite the same or have the same texture, but again it may be the availability and type of ingredients. (10/02/2007)
By Yoo Ri
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