BAKE WITH L.O.V.E

Baked Pumpkin Kueh

2009-09-26T21:39:00.003+08:00

Hehe.. After "Missing In Action" for a long long while, I'm finally back!

Nah, actually I wasn't away.. Just that the laziness in me refrained me from baking and posting.. Finally.. Now I'm left with the last sem to go before graduating.. So, officially I've cleared the last exam in poly! Double yea!

Anyway.. I baked a Pumpkin Kueh some time back.. (Long time back actually).

I forgot where I got this recipe from.. So if anyone of you out there know, please let me know, K?

Baked Pumpkin Kueh

Ingredients

500g pumpkin (cut into small pieces)
300g water
160g plain flour/ Cake flour
120g sugar (Reduced to 80g)
175g coconut milk (Replaced with milk)
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten

Methods

Preheat oven to 175C.
Lined and grease a 7 inch square tin with butter and set aside.
Cook pumpkin in water till soft.
Remove pumpkin, mashed and set aside to cool.
Using a hand whisk, mix flour, sugar, salt, coconut milk, and mashed pumpkin together till smooth.
Add in eggs and mix till well combined.
Pour batter into prepared tin and bake for 30mins - 40mins.
Remove kueh and set aside to cool.

Although no doubt that the cake is edible... But personally I don't really like the taste of the cake.. I think I still like my pumpkin kueh to be savoury, something just like Yam cake??

Anyway, personally I find that the kueh has this flour smell.. Or is it that the pumpkin that I used is not fragrant.. I doubt I'll attempt this recipe again.. but still it's a good experience!

Oh, I've realised that kueh tends to be quite soft upon removing it from the oven, at first I was rather upset thinking that I've failed, but after a hour or so when the kueh cooled down, it hardens a little, and the texture is pretty nice! =)

Bento #5

2009-07-08T16:44:00.004+08:00

Today marks the 3rd day of Common test.. Really exhaust myself greatly from all the muggings..

Anyway, prepared a Bento for Mr B.. He's having he Basic Theory Test (after much nudgings) in the evening time, and knowing him inside out, I'm quite certain that he will be hungry by teatime, and thus, the purpose of this bento!

A relatively easy bento that I took 20 minutes to prepare (including the thawing and cooling time).

I make sure I pack everything right up to the brim as B has a "healthier than normal" appetite.. Keke..

I made a Egg prawn sandwich (B likes his prawns), squeezed some salad cream (else it'll be too dry) and top with some sliced onions. (wanted to include some cheese, but ran out of it)

Also added an apple for fibre, a packet of hello panda chocolate biscuit, and a Quaker Oatmeal rasin cereal bar, just to make sure that it can fill him up to 50% satiety.

Basically, I just make do with the things I've on hand to assemble this bento.

Hope he enjoyed his meal, and I'm sure he'll pass his BTT!!

Boo-hoo.. Sob sobs..

2009-07-04T13:54:00.004+08:00

Raah!! Was so so so unlucky recently!.. Or rather 2 weeks ago..

I dropped my phone into the public toilet bowl.. Gosh.. Even now when I ponder about it, I seriously thinks that it's just so so so dramatic..

But anyway, one consolation is that the "oh-so-unlucky" phone is 2 year old.. I think if I drop a brand new phone into the toilet bowl, I'll seriously cry!

Anyway, I've got myself a new phone, with a 5 megapixel camera, guess that promises better quality pictures of my bakes.. keke..

It's a Sony Ericsson C902 Cybershot phone (Seems like Blogger can't upload any pics)

2nd issue for me to cry over is that my hand held cake mixer officially R.I.P

Sigh, seems like at the moment I can only whip up some stir-mix-bake stuffs... =(

Sweet Corn Chiffon Cake

2009-06-27T22:42:00.004+08:00

Hee.. Baked something else today.. I'm back to the chiffon craze..

Yes, I baked a sweet corn chiffon cake today.. Easy peasy.. I got it done within 1.15 hr.. Not a time consuming bake.

The most important step in chiffon making.. Whipping of egg whites to stiff peaks.. Looks like whipped cream uh?

Anyway, one simple way to test if it's the stiff stage, simply overturn the whole bowl, and the white will not fall off..

Next, just stiff in some whites to lighten the yolk mixture, then subsequently fold in all of the whites.

End Result.... One word to sum it all up.... DISAPPOINTING...

So so disappointed with the appearance, as well as myself.. I was so impatient, I removed the cake after 20mins of cooling (Usually takes 1 hr), and I was chatting away while doing this, next thing i know, I drop the whole pan on the countertop, and flop the whole cake out..

Causing big wholes here and there.. Geeshh!!

Nevertheless, I still like this cake (tho it's ugly). Simply because it taste so heavenly!! I like the fragrance of the coconut, and the bites from the sweet corn.. Lovely!

One thing to rejoice about is that this time round, the browning is more even!

Sharing with you the recipe, adapted from Peng's Kitchen

Sweet Corn Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

6 egg yolks
250g creamy sweet corn
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
60ml corn oil
100g castor sugar
120g plain flour (I use a mixture of 55g cake flour, 65g self raising flour)
50g coconut powder
6 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

Whisk egg yolk with 30g of sugar till pale and creamy.
Stir in oil, vanilla essence and sweet corn. Mix till well blended.
Stir in the sifted flour, and coconut powder and mix till well combined.
Beat egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy, then gradually beat in the remaining 70g sugar and beat till stiff peaks.
Gently fold in the whites to the yolk mixture.
Pour the batter into ungreased chiffon pan, and bake at 180C for 35min-45min.

Amendments made:

- Substitute part of the flour with self-raising flour. And I omited the baking powder.
- Add in another 4 tbsp of canned sweet corn.
- Mistaken 60ml of oil as 40ml, so in the end I only added in 40ml.

Lemon Yoghurt Cranberries Chiffon Cake

2009-06-25T10:12:00.006+08:00

Yoghurt Lemon Cranberries Chiffon Cake.. Woah, what a long name! Hmm.. Guess in short, I'll name it, "The Celebratory Cake".

You guys might be thinking, why celebratory cake??

It's because, "thanks" to the outbreak of H1N1, my school (Nanyang Polytechnic) gets an extension of another week of holiday, which means I've an additional week to mug for my test-s! So that calls for the celebratory cake!

Hmm.. Seems like recently I've been clearing my "to-bake-list" (which is good!).

Anyway, even before I've a taste of this chiffon cake, I kind of like fall in love with the name, imagin the combination of Yoghurt + Lemon + Cranberries, sounds so refreshing right?! Ok, at least for me, I love anything that's fruity, and FLUFFY. Yes, FLUFFY is another distinct characteristic of chiffon cakes.

Woppes, and I almost forgot to mention that, this cake is quite moist as well! Which I think is good, imagin you've to stuff down a piece of cake that's so dry that you almost choke.. Not a good experience, I suppose.

Did not manage to get a nice even brown surface.. Sigh, maybe my chiffon pan is not season enough..

Maybe it's an indication that I should bake more often? Hiak Hiak Hiak!

I'm thankful that the cranberries floats around instead of sinking to the bottom.

Looks like a sponge! Reasonable height as well..

Hmm.. I think I got the trick to chiffon making.. *Happy Happy* Beating of whites... Folding.. etc etc...

Sharing with you the recipe, obtained from All That Matters, Thanks Rei!

Lemon Yoghurt Cranberries Chiffon Cakes

Ingredients

(A)
4 egg yolks
40g castor sugar
1/4 tsp salt (Added a pinch only)
40g cornoil
120g plain yoghurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
zest of 1 lemon
80g dried cranberries (Used only 65g)- Toss with 1 tsp cake flour

(B)
120g cake flour (I use a 130g mixture of top flour, and cake flour)
1/2 tbsp baking powder

(C)
5 egg whites (I used 6)
50g castor sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

Whisk egg yolks with 40g castor sugar till creamy.
Mix in lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and oil. Mix till well blended.
Whisk in sifted flour, and flour coated cranberries- (A trick to prevent cranberries from sinking)
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar till frothy, then gradually add in sugar and beat till stiff peaks.
Stir in 2 tbsp of egg whites to lighten the yolk mixture.
In 3 batches, fold in the egg whites till well combined.
Pour mixture into chiffon pan and bake at 175C for 10minutes. Then lower the temperature to 160C for 20 minutes. Then lastly, 150C for 10minutes.
Remove cake from oven and overturn immediately till cooled.

By the way, this is the very very 1st time my chiffon cake surface have no cracks!!

This recipe is so worth to keep! And I'm sure I'll bake this over and over again!

Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake!

2009-06-21T09:36:00.003+08:00

Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake has been on my "To-bake-list" for the LONGEST TIME ever..!

Yesterday eldest sister had a buffet party for her friends, so I contributed this cake. I've always wanted to try out baked cheesecakes, but just that I'm plain lazy to get the ball rolling, and since she's having a function, I jumped at the chance, taking this as an opportunity to practice some baking!

Those people that tried the cake loves it! (except brother-in-law, who loves heavy, dense kind of cheesecake). Well, I love this cake too, it's not rich like NY cheesecakes, and it's cotton-y spongy soft! And my 2nd sis's bf actually commented that it tasted like Breadtalk's, and that really makes my day!!

See! The cake rise and brown evenly!

The end product, a nice and soft cheesecake!

I unlock the springform pan while the cake is still hot, and alas! Cause a big ugly crack at the side.. =(

The interior of the cake. I did not use a sharp knife, that's why the cut is so ugly.

And lastly, I'm very happy with the height of the cake! Rise so nicely!

Recipe from Kitchen Capers Forum. Variations made by me are highlighted in RED

Japanese Cottonsoft Cheesecake

Ingredients

250g cream cheese
50g butter
100ml milk
60g superfine flour (I use Top flour)
20g corn flour
6 egg yolks
6 egg whites
1 tbsp lemon juice
140g caster sugar (I use 120g)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp lemon zest

Methods

Using the double broiler, melt the butter, cream cheese, and milk together. Leave it to cool till room temperature.
Using a ballon whisk, stir in the sifted flours (cornflour + Top flour) till well incorporated. Mix in the lemon juice, zest and egg yolks.
In a dry and clean bowl, whisk egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy, then slowly add in caster sugar and beat till soft peaks.
Gently whisk in egg whites (In 3 batches) into the cheese mixture, till no visible streaks of egg white could be seen.
Pour the batter into the lightly grease and lined cake pan and bake in a water bath at 160C for 70mins.
Chill in refridgerator before serving.

Blackcurrent Cheese Tarts

2009-06-17T16:21:00.003+08:00

Gosh! Couldn't believe it that it's been almost 2 months since my last post.. Hmm.. I guess no one reads my blog anymore, thinking that I've either gave up blogging, or baking.. Sheesh..

But nah, I'm still into my fav hobby (ie: baking).. Just that there's been lots of school work to complete, and tests to mug for.. And of course, distractions like facebook games, which can be quite addictive!

Nevertheless, I did bake something, sometime back, just that I did not have the time and effort to blog about it.

Blackcurrent Cheese Tarts! My favourite!

I got the recipe from Aunty Yochana's blog.

And finally I put the tart mould (ordered from Kitchen Capers sometime back) to a good use!

I'm just too ooo ooo generous with the blackcurrent filling, resulting in it sinking in.. Which I think that it's quite ugly... Keke..

Look at the flowy current filling..

My only complain for the tarts is that the vanilla extract I added in is too dark in colour, staining the cheese to a yellowish brown colour, yes, again, it's ugly!

It taste quite good, abeit that it's ugly.. =(

Sharing with you guys the recipe!

Blackcurrent Cheese Tarts

Ingredients

Pastry

100g butter
60g icing sugar
30g beaten eggs
200g plain flour
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Cream cheese filling

300g cream cheese
80g icing sugar
1 tsp lemon paste
15g vanilla essence
50g whipping cream
25g cornflour (sieved)
2 large eggs

Some blackcurrent jam as topping

Methods

Cream butter, icing sugar till slightly creamy
Add in beaten eggs, salt, and vanilla essence.
Fold in flour and mix into a dough. Leave in the fridge for 20 mins.
Press dough into tart mould and cut off excess dough.
Bake the tart mould till half-baked and let it cool slightly.
Cream cream cheese and icing sugar till creamy.
Add in lemon paste and vanilla essence.
Add in eggs one at a time , beating well after each addition.
Add in whip cream and mix evenly
Pour filling into half-baked tarts, scoop a little blueberry jam topping on top of filling and then use a skewer to swirl into a marble effect and bake in preheated oven at 180C for 10 to 15 mins. or till set.
Leave to cool before serving.

I brought the tarts to school to share with my friends, and of course to get their comments.. Generally good, and thank so much guys for being so generous w the comments!

2009-04-20T20:19:00.002+08:00

Well well.. Ought to do some explaination for the lack of postings recently..

It's not that I've alot of bakes to share, and have no time to post.. but rather, I didn't bake anything at all.. Aww.. So sad..

Reason being schools starting soon, and I've got to pack up my previous sem stuff, and pack my room etc.. So really have no time to indulge myself in baking.. keke

I promise, once I get everything settled and adjust myself to the schooling hours, then I'll attempt something!

Sweet Corn Konnyaku Jelly

2009-04-15T00:28:00.004+08:00

As promised, shall update on the 2nd jelly I made for Little Megan's B'day.

It's Sweet Corn Konnyaku Jelly! Alright, maybe I'm a mountain tortise, it's my first time hearing/seeing/knowing konnyaku jelly + Sweet corn... Hmm Hmm.. Sounds interesting? and I bet it taste as good as it looks (from Aunty Yochana's Blog). So I decided on that.

And hey, I've got the same jelly moulds as Aunty Yochana! Keekee! I like the pure white-ish colour, with bits and pieces of yellow here and there.. Ain't it prettyyy??

Sharing with you the recipe for this Jelly:

SWEET CORN KONNYAKU JELLY

Ingredients

15g Konnyaku Jelly Powder
750mL water
200mL coconut milk (Yes, please use this for the fragrance..)
150g castor sugar (I use 100g)
1 tin cream style sweet corn (I use Del Monte)

Methods

Boil 750ml water.
Put sugar and jelly powder into a mixing bowl and stir till evenly mixed.
When water is about to boil, pour in the konnyaku jelly mixture and continue stirring till everything dissolves.
Pour in coconut milk and corn, stir till everything is evenly mixed.
Pour mixture into jelly mould and let it set.
Chill before serving.

Well, in my previous post I mention that B actually dn't like this jelly (he prefers the mango one), but my Uncle (Megan's daddy) actually prefers the sweet corn one.. So I guess taste is very subjective.

But if you were to ask me, I'll say that I like both! Heheh!

Mango Konnyaku Jellies!

2009-04-14T00:51:00.004+08:00

Heyy all!! Finally I've decided to come back after a long period MIA-ing.. Hehe..

Wonder if anyone out there still reading this boring bloggie of mine, since I've been quite inactive down here for a couple of weeks..

Tho I MIA-ed, but I still did a bit of kitchen work, making some simple snacks without the aftermath (Major pile up dirty equipments and dishes at the sink). Okie, I admit, I was feeling lazyy.. Hiak Hiak Hiak!!

So made some jolly jellies for my little cousin Megan's FIRST Birthday Bash! She's a real adorable baby, can expect plentiful facial expression from her! And best of all, she can suddenly give you a wide smile, and yes, it makes my day and I'll go "Ahh gooo gooo" over her.. Haha!

So that day there's a buffet party, and my contribution was Corn Konnyaku Jellies and Mango Konnyaku Jellies.

This is the only picture I've of the mango jellies. After dislodging the jellies from the moulds and arranging them nicely (I hope) on the serving ware, I realised that I was running late, so I quickly use B's HP camera to snap a photo before making my way down to the function room.

As you can see, the jellies is overloaded with Nata De Coco and pineapple slices.. B said he prefer this than the corn one.. Oh well well.. Then I guess it must be good then, cos FYI, B doesn't like mangos, and when he say this (made using mango juice) is good, then most likely it's good!

Sharing with you the recipe:

MANGO JELLIES

Ingredients

950mL Mango Juice (I use marigold)
1 packet Nata De Coco, Drained
1 Can sliced pineapple in syrup, Cubed
1 packet REDMAN konnyaku powder (10g)
40g sugar

Methods

Arrange the Nata De Coco and Pineapple cubes in the mould. Amount is up to individual preference.
Combine the sugar and konnyaku jelly powder, stir well to mix.
Pour mango juice into a pot, pour in (1) gradually, stir well to mix. (Medium-Low fire)
Continue stirring till sugar dissolves and mixture boils.
Spoon mixture into the jelly mould, use a toothpick to burst any visible bubble on the surface of the jelly.
Leave the trays of jellies to cool before placing it in the refridgerator to chill.
Serve Chilled. Enjoy!

Note:

I definitely suggest not to add in too much sugar as the fruit juice used is already sweetened, so 40g of sugar is sufficient.
Remember to dry the fruits well, if not it'll affect the "hardening process" of the jellies.

I'll share the recipe of the corn jelly in the next post.. I'm too tired to continue typing.. Keke!

GOod NighT!

Got Really Addicted To.... This Game..

2009-04-10T21:47:00.003+08:00

What??!! You're not updating your blog with your bakes?!

No? Din bake anything recently?!

Yes, I did not bake anything recently.. Why? Cos I got really hook on to a game.. COOKING ACADEMY 2!

Oh My, it's a really really addictive game.. Initially I tried the free trial (playing the full version for 1 hr only), then I realised that boy, the game is really fun and good..

It's all about cooking.. Thr's chinese crusines, western stuff etc etc.. Really fun.. I guess I like this game bcos in actual life, I like to cook and bake as well... So in this game, I can cook (and play) like a chef.. keke!

So after playing that for 1 hr, I realised that I need to have the unlimited full version, if not this game will definitely haunt my mind.. Keke

So thanks to B, he managed to get the full version of the game for me! I was really over the moon! Lots and million of thanks to U, B!

Err... So it seems like I'll go MIA for another week.. Fully immerse myself in the joy of playing this game! Whhheee!

Marinated Guavas... DELICIOUS!! (2)

2009-04-05T21:58:00.003+08:00

Made another batch of marinated guavas yesterday! Hmm.. But this batch of guavas couldn't "survive" for more than 2 day.. Cos they all end up in our stomach!!! Hee!!

Really yummy.. Taste like the 1st batch, except this time round is not so sweet.. I've learnt from the previous experience, so I washed 3/4 amount of orange peels under running water hoping that it'll wash off most of the sugar on it.. And it works! Oh ya, I did up-up the no(s). of lime used, for the same amount of guavas, I used 5 limes (and I find that it makes the guavas more appetitsing) and chop up the 3/4 of the whole lime and marinate it together.

This time round the taste definitely suits my tastebuds more! And I wish to experiment with other different types of fruits. =)

For the recipe, please get it from here. Please do make the changes accordingly. =)

Have a nice day!

Steamed Egg White Rainbow Cake

2009-04-03T16:30:00.008+08:00

Finally I baked something after the long "holiday" from baking... I was "thread-hopping" in KC last night, and I stumbled on this cake recipe posted by zurynee, EGG WHITE RAINBOW CAKE.

Well, I've to admit that it's the beautiful picture of the cake that caught my attention, I was quite shock to see the picture because it's simply tooooo beautiful, with so many colours and the pattern created... Amazing I would say, but I was in for another shock! The amount of egg whites required!

Nah, not 100g, not 200g, not 300g, definitely not 400g... BUT 500g of egg whites! Gosh, that's quite a fair bit.. But reading on the posts by those forumers that tried this cake, 98% gave raving reviews and most of them yield beautiful cakes too, so I was like being tempted to try it out too..

I was curious on how to creat the patterns, so I read on the methods.. Looks simple enough.. So yes, SET, I decided on making this cake.

TADA..!! Present you a picture of cake before steaming.. My sister and I was like "goo goo ga ga" over the beautiful swirls..

There's a total of 6 colours in this cake..

Rose Pink
Apple Green
Egg Yolk Yellow
Brown (Coffee Emulco, instead of chocolate emulco)
White (Actually I just left it plain)
Cherry Red

Of which I concluded that Cherry Red and Rose Pink are quite similar in colour.. Take note of it, so next time shall omit either 1 of them.

This is the look of the cake after steaming.. It rise up till quite high, but kind of like shrink back a little after I took it out of the steamer. Maybe I should left it to sit in the steamer instead of exposing it straight away to the cold air?? (Any experts out there care to advise??.. Much much appreciated!)

Hey Hey, this is the picture I wanted or rather waited to present to all of you.. Check out the beautiful pattern!! Alright, please please ignore the crack in the middle and the ugly sides..

I'm super duper impatient, I release the springform pan almost immediately after removing the cake from the steamer, and I was literally banging the cake here and there... That's explains the ugly sides.. (I handle the cake VIOLENTLY!) Hiak Hiak Hiak.. =p

Nevermind the blurred picture, cracked cake.. The cake is still pretty (in my eyes) and did I ever mentioned that the cake is AWESOME-ly SUPER-ly DUPER-ly YUMMYYY and SPONGY?????? Just give me a Humongous slice of this cake and a cup of hot coffee, trust me.. I'll be a happy girl for the whole day!

It has a egg-y taste, nice fragrance from the vanilla essence, and a comforting smell from the coffee emulco used.. I'm in love with this cake.. TOTALLY!!

But my dad commented that next time round I should just make a plain + coffee one (i.e white and brown colour ones).. Then it strikes me that it'll become a ZEBRA CAKE!

Well.. It's hard not to fall in love with this cake right??

FYI, this cake is quite big in size, and now, there's only 2 slice left in the container! I've reserved a slice for B.. How can I miss out his share of this lovely cake??

Sharing with you the recipe (with my variations):

STEAMED EGG WHITE RAINBOW CAKE

Ingredients

500g egg whites
60g evaporated milk
1 tbsp vanilla essence
150g melted butter (I replaced with 100g corn oil)
225g castor sugar (I used only 100g)
300g top flour
1 tbsp ovalette
1/2 tsp Colouring of your choice (I use 6 diff colours)
1 tbsp coffee emulco (considered as 1 colour)
Pinch of salt

Methods

Beat egg whites at high speed. Add in sugar bit by bit once the egg whites turns bubbly. Continue beating till soft peaks.
Add in sifted flour, milk, ovalette, vanilla essence and salt. Continue mixing (Use electric mixer).
On low speed, mix in the corn oil/ melted butter and mix till well blended.
Divide batter into equal parts (depending on the no. of colours you've). Add one colour to each portion of batter and mix well.
Add coffee emulco into 1 portion of the batter as well.
Grease a baking tin with melted butter (I did not do so as I was using non-stick pan). Scoop 1 tbsp of batter (1st colour) into the center of the baking tin, continue with another colour (2nd colour) onto the 1st colour. Continue with all the colours and repeat the process till finish.
Bang the cake thrice on table top to eliminate air bubbles trapped within. Swing the cake pan from side to side gently. (This creats the wavy effect).
Steam the cake on high heat for 30mins or till cake is done.

Original recipe available here.

PS: In case some of you are interested, I use 18 medium eggs to get 500g egg whites.

Share With Me..

2009-04-01T22:36:00.003+08:00

Awww.... Looking at the Kueh Lapis picture I can only drool and yearn to bake it.. Actually, I'm allowed to bake and cook.. So what's holding me back?

It's the amount of butter and egg yolk used in the making of Kueh lapis.. Ever since I saw the recipe for kueh lapis, I totally abstain from consuming it..

Yes, it definitely taste delicious (Who don't love it??), BUT consume it at the expense of your waistline (from growing horizontally)... *so sad right??*

By the way, anyone out there care to share a less "calorie/fat threatening" kueh lapis recipe??

Marinated Guavas... DELICIOUS!!

2009-04-01T21:25:00.004+08:00

Alright my dear friends, readers, and passerby-s out there... Please do believe me.. At least for once.. That this marinated guavas are really delicious!!

No no no.. I'm not the genius that "created" this recipe.. I got this recipe from Kitchen Capers, posted by Yvne (really thank you so much for sharing)!

The sweet little guavas.. They are really small, guess they're from thailand?

Hmm.. the addition of chilli doesn't make any differences to the taste.. I guess chilli padi will be better.. More SPICY!

Yes, this is the "MAGICAL" ingredient.. It's the one that make the dish so tasty!

The end result after 8hrs of marination..

The last yummy shot..

Sharing with you the recipe... with my variations

Marinated Guavas

Ingredients

3 large guava

2 pkt marinated mandarin orange peels

1 chilli (It's really optional)

3 lime

Methods

Skin guavas and slice thinly, approx 2mm thick.
Slice the mandarin peels thinly.
Remove the seeds of the chilli, and slice the chilli thinly into stripes.
Obtain the lime juice and chop up 1 lime.
Mix guavas, peels, lime juice, chopped lime and chilli together. Toss to mix well.
Transfer into a plastic container and store in fridge for 8 hrs b4 serving.
Serve chilled.

Yes.. It's that easy peasy.. This recipe can easily yield a tub of guavas, but it definitely won't last long.. Cos my family polished off this tub within a day!

I marinated a smallllll quantity with the addition of chilli, the other big tub is chilli-free... Cos my parents aren't very adverturous when it comes to food..

Luckily I manage to keep a small container of it away in the corner of the fridge and bring it to my grandparents to try.. Yes, they (Aunty, uncles, grandparents) love it!

I gonna make some more real soon.. but this time round I gonna make some changes to it.. To perfect it!

Note

I use only 1.5 pkt of peels and 3 small guavas.
Tho I did not use any sugar, but I still find that it's too sweet. So I gonna rinse the peels b4 adding them to marinate together.
My family finish off the whole tub even tho the marination time wasn't 8 hrs yet.. =p
One word of advice.. Don't be afraid to make more, cos it's really POPULAR!!

Venturing into Kueh making... SOON!

2009-03-31T19:51:00.003+08:00

Gonna venture into Kueh making soon... Well, I'm a typical singaporean that loves to eat kueh.. Even though it is relatively cheap to pick up a kueh or two, but I guess it'll taste even better (or perhaps not) if it's homemade..

So recently I've been very hardworking in searching for Kueh Recipes and yeah, I've got a book that features recipes of local kuehs (Courtesy of B's dad, Thank U uncle!). So I'm so gonna make some kuehs for my family, B's family and to satisfy my munching pleasure.. Keke!

Stay tuned for the 1st kueh product from my humble kitchen!

Steamed Tofu for Dinner...

2009-03-30T22:08:00.006+08:00

"Contributed" this dish for dinner last night.. It was a real simple and fail-proof dish.. Simple and healthy.. Suitable enough for my family's diet (woppes, or rather mine) keke!

Got the inspiration from my Aunty.. She used to make this dish for me and my cousins to have for lunch. So I recreated this dish based on my memory..

My Aunty's version uses Egg tofu, century egg, salted egg yolk and minced chicken. But of course, I just make use of those things that are available in the fridge.. Don't wanna make another trip to the market.. (yes... I'm lazy..) Hehee..

Steam Tofu

1 packet tofu/ 2 tubes egg tofu
3 prawns
50g minced pork
1 egg
1 tsp chicken stock
Spring Onion
Chilli

Seasonings (suitable amount of:)
Soy sauce
Pepper
Sesame oil
Hua Diao Jiu (chinese cooking wine)

Methods

Carefully remove tofu and rinsed under water. Pat dry.
Cut tofu into 9 equal pieces and arrange them on the steaming plate.
In the middle of the tofu, scoop up some tofu, creating a "hole".
Cut prawns into smaller pieces and mix with the minced pork. Mix in the seasonings.
Form small balls out of the meat mixture and place onto the tofu. Garnish with spring onions and chilli.
Beat an egg with some sesame oil, soy sauce, pepper and chicken stock, pour onto the steaming plate.
Steam over medium heat for 15 mins.
Serve hot.

A promise made... LONG TIME AGO...

2009-03-29T14:40:00.011+08:00

Yes.. Finally brought a promise into actuality.. I made a promise to B 1.5 yrs ago that I'll cook for him a bake rice..

Baked Rice.. His ultimate favourite food! I tried to imitate those restaurant to create a set lunch specials.. So here's my set lunch menu:

1. Main Course- Seafood baked rice

2. Sides- Grilled chicken and Capsicums on stick

3. Drinks- Homemade Icy Lemon Tea

4. Desserts- Ice cream... Serve in a special way

He has an "Ang Moh Soul" trapped in an asian body.. Haha! He will choose western food over any chinese-style food.. And since today's theme is western food, I guess he'll enjoy the food as much as I do.. Keke!

The seafood baked rice, before baking.. I top the dish with lots and lots and lots of cheese.. whole packet actually.. =p

After baking.. I did not wait for the cheese (in the middle) to brown.. Simply because my dad and B was waiting at the dining room, and my dad was rushing me to be quick.. Guess he was really hungry.. Nevertheless, the taste is still great!

I use sotong, fish, prawns, ham and potato for the baked rice..

Meanwhile, I use the other oven to grill this chicken.. That's the good side when you've a 2nd oven (even tho it's smaller).. You can use it to bake multiple things at the same time.

This is how I serve the chicken.. Actually I wanted to do some decoration to the food before serving, but like I've said, I was running out of time.. *Need a better time management*

The Ice Lemon Tea, made by yours truly..

Dessert of the day.. Crispy Biscuit base top with Ben and Jerry's Ice-cream + milk chocolate coated strawberries..

So... the verdict from the "food tasters" is that the baked rice is good! YEah, B gave me 10/10!! I was really over the moon when I heard that! *Maybe he was just being kind??* Hehe!

2nd attempt.. cooking my comfort foodie..

2009-03-29T13:47:00.011+08:00

Did this lovely dish for dinner again.. Only difference is that I replaced the lean pork with roast meat, uses long beans & egg plant for the vege.

The pearl-y white uncooked rice grains.. I did dry fry them after washing.. I feel that it'll make the rice more fragrant..

Yum Yum.. I love the taste of dried shrimps (Hae Bee in hokkien).. They taste excellent when cook in curry.. And they've a very nice fragrance! But do remember to soak them in water, else they'll be very salty..

Long Beans (Cai Dao in hokkien).. My dad commented that I should fry them longer before adding them to the rice to cook.. Cos he don't like them to be crunchy.. He likes it soft and mushy..

And this applies to the egg plant too..

The roast pork are my dad's favourite.. I dry fry the roast pork first.. And it secretes some "roast pork oil" which I use it to cook the vegetables..

I fry the pumpkin and yam together, towards the last 10minutes of frying, I add in the roast pork cubes.. And the flavor of the pork kind of like magically fused into the yam and pumpkin..

Last of all, in the wok, combine all of the above ingredients to fry together for 2 - 3minutes before transferring to the rice cooker to cook till done.

Kiam Peng (Hokkien food- "salty rice")

Ingredients

600g yam, cut into cubes

400g pumpkin, cut into cubes

2.5 cups rice (I use rice cup to measure)

9 stalks of long beans, cut to 4cm long

5 egg plant (short and slender type), sliced

150g roast pork, cut to slices
60g dried shrimps, soak in water for 20mins

6 shallots, chopped

2 - 3 garlic, chopped

8 - 10 dried scallops (Gan Bei, in chinese)

Oil

Seasonings

3 tbsp abalone sauce

1 tsp Sesame oil

1 tsp dark soy sauce

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tsp chicken stock granules

Some salt

0.5 tsp Hua Diao Jiu (chinese cooking wine)

Methods

Soak dried scallops in hot water for at least a hour (it will swell up in size), reserve the water and shredded the swelled up scallops.

Heat up 1 tsp sesame oil and fry the washed rice for 1 mins. Remove the rice and set aside.

Heat up wok till hot, dry fry the sliced roast pork till hot and fragrant.

Remove the pork from the wok and set aside. DO NOT WASH the wok, heat up 50ml oil and deep fry the yam and pumpkin cubes till crispy. Towards the last 5mins, add in the roast pork and fry together.

Heat up 1 tbsp sesame oil in wok and fry shallots and garlic till fragrant, before it browns, add in the soaked dried shrimps and fry till fragrant.

Add in the long beans and egg plants to fry for 3mins. Add in the shredded scallops to fry for 1min.

Pour in the scallop water and give it a stir. Cover wok and continue cooking for 1min.

Add in yam, pumpkin, roast pork, rice and seasonings to the wok, cooking it for 1mins. Transfer the contents into the rice cooker and add in suitable amount of water to cook till done.

Lastly, dish up rice and serve hot! ENJOY!

I'm so sorry that I did not take any pictures of the end products.. I was busy as a bee serving the food to the "Food critics", my family members actually..

I also pack 2 box of this for my paternal grandparents to try.. Happy that they enjoyed the food!

Randommm..

2009-03-23T23:38:00.004+08:00

Just a sudden random thought...

If I've my own house in the future..

I want...

1. My Kitchen...

To be bright and BIG
Be RED in colour
Equip with kitchenAid (In this colour/ or white)
A really good oven
A microwave
A big big fridge (Yes, you read it right, must be a big big one to store all those barang barangs)
An island
In modern stylish design

But first of all, I must earn alot alot of money in order to make a dream come true.. Hehe..

I guess only the KitchenAid, Oven and a basic fridge is a Need, whereas the rest are Wants.. =p

Yummy Cookies!

2009-03-21T20:46:00.007+08:00

Baked this Cream Cheese Cookie sometime back... Just that I'm just too plain lazy to update my little bloggie.. Keke!

This cream cheese cookie taste like those Commercial Danish Cookies that comes in a round tin box.. It is slightly crispy on the outside, but soft and melt in the mouth inside.. So it's quite an interesting texture..

I made the cookies in different shapes.. Flowers, heart, star, pig... Etc..

I colour part of the cookie dough GREEN, while the rest plain. I had such a fun time rolling out the dough, cutting them and assembling them together.. Haha!

I'm so childish I know.. =P But doing cut out doughs reminds me of playdough/ plasticine.. Something I enjoy playing during the childhood days..

Spot the heart shape cookie with eyes and a smiley mouth?? Yes, that's my favorite of all, so cute right? The "saddist" within me pinch the eyes and the mouth to eat first before munching up the rest of the heart.. Hahaha!

Woppes! Zillions of sorry for the lousy pictures.. Hehe.. I baked these at night, and it was close to 2am by the time I'm done, so I'm really tired by then.. hee

I adapted the recipe from Aunty Yochana.

Cream Cheese Cookies

ingredients

150g butter

80g cream cheese

125g icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

200g plain flour

1 egg yolk

80g cornflour

0.5 tsp baking powder

Dash of colouring of your choice

0.5tsp strawberry emulco (I omitted this)

Methods

Cream butter, sugar, and cream cheese till soft and creamy.
Add in vanilla essence and egg yolk
Add in plain flour, cornflour and baking powder. Mix till a soft pliable dough is formed.
Take some dough and mix in colouring of your choice (and emulco if using).
Chill both dough for 30mins to harden them alittle.
Roll out the uncoloured dough on floured surface and cut into shape of your choice.
Roll out the coloured dough and make into shape of your choice and add onto the plain cookie dough (as a design). May use some egg whites to stick the details on.
Place onto baking tray and bake in preheated oven at 150C for 20-25mins, or till slightly browned.
Cool well before storing in airtight containers.
Munch and Enjoy!!

My Comfort Food..

2009-03-19T12:26:00.008+08:00

If you ask me what's my comfort food, it has got to be Kiam Peng (direct translation from hokkien is 'salty rice')

Actually wanna cook yam rice, but in the end, I add in lots of other stuffss.. So my dad corrected me that what I've cooked today is not yam rice, it's KIAM PENG + YAM. *Faints*

As some of you might have already know, I really hate eating plain rice, but eating this kiam peng and fried rice is ok for me.. In fact, I ate 2 serving of kiam peng! Really Yummy!

Went out early in the morning (7.30am) to the market to get some yam, lean pork and cabbage.. Bought a really nice big yam, something my dad loves to eat!

Afterwhich, came home and start to prepare the ingredients and cook the kiam peng, so just nice its ready for lunch. Heee, and this dish is my own concortion.. Geez

Look at my mix-and-match rice... I know it's really messy..

In it goes into the pot with sufficient water to cook..

End result.. Really nice and super fragrant... Exactly the same taste as my grandma's! But I find that it's not salty enough, and because of this my dad jokingly said that my kiam peng is not the authentic one.. Haha

But something that really made me hopping mad is that after I dump the content into the rice cooker, I happily leash my dog out for a walk.. And when I reach home, guess what my helper told me? "No electricity!" The 2nd shock falls in.. I walk to the kitchen, I saw my sis adding a big cup of water into the wok.. and yeah, my rice sort of like "transform" itself into loh mai kai texture.. But still taste good!

I used lean pork in this kiam peng, but what I suggest is to use roast pork, it definitely makes a whole lot of difference to this dish.

Variety of buns...

2009-03-17T22:37:00.007+08:00

Made some bread the day before my sis's wedding, using Baking Mum's sweet bun recipe..

Use small cheese cocktail sausages for the smaller buns

The soft and fluffy interior of the buns..

Whole tray of sausage buns sauna-ing in the oven.. I sprinkle some spring onions at the top of the buns to beautify it.

The recipe really yields lots lots of buns.. I made quite alot of sausage buns, 6 plain buns, and approximately 9 cinnamon rolls.. So if I were to attempt this recipe again, I'll definitely keep some dough in the freeze, or do half of the the recipe.

But I guess I won't bake any bread in the next few months.. Sigh, reason being, I really can't knead well.. And I attribute my failure to produce bread that stays soft to without owning a breadmachine/ heavy duty mixer...

Yes, my bread came out of the oven fluffy, soft and absolutely delicious, but after a few hours (5 hrs?) it starts to work it's way to become a rock..

And what I did was to munch on the sausages and dump the bread.. Which I consider that as real wastage.. =(

So I work it out that buying my bread from a bakery is better (and muchX1000 more efficient) that producing your own bread (considering the fact that you knead the dough using your bare hands).

For your information, I woke up at 5am in the morning to prepare the ingredients, and knead the dough for 1.5 hours (I'm afraid that I din knead it enough). I complete the whole bread baking process in 5 hrs time..

So from this experience, I derive the conclusion that cake baking is much much more easier.. Yes, I might try making bread again, if next time I own a kitchenAid, or bread machines.. Hehe

Enough of my grumbling.. Sharing with you the recipe (From baking mum)

Sweet Bread Dough

Ingredients

(A)

480g bread flour

120g plain flour (I used cake flour)

110g castor sugar

20g milk powder

4 tsp yeast

(B)

1 egg

300ml cold water ( I used cold milk)

(C)

60g unsalted butter

10g salt

Methods

Mix (A) till well blended. Add in (B) to form a dough. Add in (C) and knead till dough is elastic and smooth.
Gather dough to form a ball and cover dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 1 hour or double in size.
Divide dough into portions of 60g each. Shape into balls and leave it to rest for about 10mins. Roll out dough and wrap with desired fillings. Shape as required and let it proof on greased baking tray for 60mins or double in size.
Apply egg wash on dough and sprinkle some spring onion on it. Bake at 180C for 12mins.

Maiden attempt in making bread......

2009-03-10T22:36:00.007+08:00

YEAH!! If anyone is beside me right now, he/she cand definitely see me beaming away with joy.. Reason being: my attempt in bread making today is successful!

And yes, I'm really really happy!

Anyone ask me if the kneading process is a tedious one, I'll definitely be the first of all to exclaim "YES"! And what I gain from this process is a basket of freshly baked bread, and some formation of arm muscles! Seriously speaking, I've no idea kneading bread dough can be so so so tough and tiring.. BUT, I enjoy every bit of it.. =)

Alright, Pictures time!

The batch of bread baking away in the oven.. Someone please remind me that my dough is shaped in a super duper ugly way.. Esp the cinnamon rolls.. After the 2nd proofing, everything literally "un-roll" itself.. =(

Any kind souls out there can provide me some tips on shaping bread?

The "family portrait".. Although my sis, helper and I ate about 2 square buns, and 4 cinnamon roll away b4 taking this picture.

Up close view of the cinnamon rolls.. Lovely right? And I actually prefer this to the cheese ones..

The cinnamon rolls is crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside.. So yeah, I like this combination!

I wrap in some cheddar cheese slices into the big fat round buns, and for the spiral ones are actually sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. However, I suggest it will taste better if it's a cinnamon powder + sugar + butter mixture.. I believe that the taste would be strongly enhanced.

Recipe adapted from florence's blog.

Wonderfully Soft Bread (Sweet bun)

Ingredients

310g bread flour
60g cake flour
40g Nestle CoffeeMate/ Milk powder
115mL skim milk
20g condensed milk
55g castor sugar
3g salt
7g instant yeast
1 egg + 2 egg yolk
40g butter (I use corn oil)

Egg Glaze: 1 egg + 1 tsp water

Methods

Sieve flour mixture into a large mixing.
Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and add in the rest of the ingredients except butter.
Mix till a dough is formed and knead in the cornoil till you get a smooth dough (I did the membrane test in this step).
Prove dough for 50mins or till double in size.
Divide dough into 12 portion (60g each) and shape it or wrap in the fillings.
Prove the shaped dough for another 50mins or double in size.
Brush with egg glaze and bake at 190C for 15mins or till cooked.

Hmm... Bit of thoughts.. I think bread making is really time consuming.. But nothing can beat home bakes..

And yes, my family enjoyed every single bit of it. Within 1.5hours, the bread are all gone from the tray! I gonna try making different types and flavor of bread!

Wanna try out bread making!

2009-03-09T14:50:00.003+08:00

Ok, the next challenge for myself is to try my hands on bread-making! Without the help of bread machines, Kitchenaid, high duty machines etc... Just rely on my bare hands! Wish me LOTS of luckSSS!

Actually wanted to try it out today, but its raining.. Which is bad for proofing.. So next time whether my family can have a fresh loaf of bread or not will have to depend on the weather!

A gift form heart

2009-03-08T22:52:00.004+08:00

Went over to my maternal grandma's house today.. The family knows that I can and I love to bake.. But they don't have much chances to try my bakes.. Mainly it's because we're staying too far apart..

So today my sis is going over, so I quickly whip up a cake in 1 hour time! Wanna make an orange chiffon cake, but looking at the limited amount of time I've (not enough time to prepare the orange peels), I abort that thought.. and settle for some bakes that I'm familiar with.. So decided on Cinnamon Teacake (Yes, again I know..).

Recipe for Cinnamon Teacake can be obtained from HERE

The specks of brown-y stuffs are not "chao-ta" patches.. It's the cinnamon sugar that I sprinkle onto..

I love the fragrances of this cake, it's really comforting.. But comments from uncle:

1. Slightly too sweet
2. Should use finer flour, like top flour. As he finds that the texture of the cake is quite rough.
3. Use LESS LEss less cinnamon sugar sprinkles.
4. He prefer something that's more buttery in taste.

I would definitely take his comments into consideration next time when I bake some more stuffs for them to feast on. Will definitely lessen the amount of sugar use.. Cos I forgot, his family is same as mine, non sugar-holic.. Hehe!

Double Chocolate Mint Cookie

2009-03-06T15:07:00.006+08:00

Bake some cookies for B.. As a gift!

Bake some cookies for him.. Yes, He likes crunchy chocolate cookies.. So I used Gina's (Kitchen Capers) Double chocolate mint cookie recipe, but I made some modifications to it to suit B's tastebuds..

My apologies for the blurred pictures.. It was taken by B.. I forgot about taking pictures, and I only remember that when I reach home at night, so I quickly smsed B and ask him to take a pic for me..

Hmm.. I have no idea on how to describe the cookie... it wasn't insanely crunchy like Famous Amos, but the crunchy-ness is good enough coming mainly from the nuts and chocolate chips.

It has a distinct fragrance cos the itchy hand of mine added some drops of coffee emulco and vanilla essence. I read from a tread in KC (by stephanie) saying that in famous amos cookies, they beat the eggs with coffee oil (which I don't have, so replace with some drops of emulco) and vanilla essence to get the special fragrance that is "so special yet couldn't tell what is it from".

This recipe also uses crushed peppermint sweets (polo), but trust me, I really cannot taste the mint at all, maybe the mint fragrance is being musked by the vanilla+coffee combination.. If I'm trying it out again, I would use fisherman's friend sweets which are really very minty..

The ones that are highlighted in Red are the changes that I've made to the original recipe

Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

Ingredients

115g butter
180g self-raising flour
1 tbsp cocoa powder
80g castor sugar (I use 10g)
50g light brown sugar (I use 80g)
1 egg (I beat the egg with coffee emulco and vanilla essence and left it to stand for 1 hr)
1 tube polo mints (I use 1.5 tube)
1 cup chocolate chips
0.5 cup almond nuts, coarsely chopped (optional)
3 tbsp gound almond

Methods

Crush polo mints in a bag. ( I suggest not to crush it till powder form)
Cream butter and sugar till creamy.
Add in eggs to beat till well mixed.
Turn off mixer and fold in flour, chocolate powder, chocolate chips, nuts, and crushed mints.
Line baking tray with baking paper.
Use a piping bag to squeeze out tiny spots on the paper. (I couldn't pipe out nicely, so I roll a tsp of dough and flatten them slightly)
Bake in preheated oven 180C for 15minutes.
Remove and cool completely on wire rack.

I seriously salute Gina, and any other people that can pipe out cookies nicely... Cos I seriously can't do that, I will end up with dough that looks like sh*t.. Literally the shape I mean.. Any tips from the pros out there in the cyber world?? I wanna achieve the famous amos style cookies as well!

But nevertheless, B commented that he love this cookie, he said its very nice! But personally next time round I wanna leave in small bits of crushed mint.. I'm sure it would taste heavenly!

Moist and Chewy Chocolate brownie!

2009-03-05T23:34:00.006+08:00

Sharing with you guys my favorite brownie!

These brownies are really moist and chewy (the way I like mine to be)!

Add in some chopped walnuts to the extra crunch and textures.. I feel that either walnuts or pecan nuts goes well with brownies.. Absolutely not peanuts or green peas right?

Pack up in a box of 6, really to zooommm off for B!

Recipe adapted from KC, posted by Sophie.

Moist and Chewy Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

125g butter

200g dark chocolate (use good quality ones)

3 eggs

1¾ cup caster sugar ( I use 50g caster, 50 brown sugar)

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 ½ cups plain flour (sifted)

1/3 cup cocoa powder (sifted)

2 cups chopped walnuts

Methods

Preheat oven to 180C.
Brush a shallow 8 x 11 inch tin with melted butter/oil and line the base with baking paper, extending over the two long sides.
Double boil butter and dark chocolate till melted, add in sugar and mix well. Remove the bowl of mixture and cool it slightly.
Add in eggs, one at a time and mix thoroughly with each addition. Add in vanilla essence and mix well.
Add in sifted flour, cocoa powder and nuts. Mix well.
Pour mixture into the prepared pan, sprinkle some chocolate chips on top, and bake for 30 minutes, allow the brownie to cool in tin before cutting into pieces.

This is really a good recipe that's worth keeping! I really love chewy brownies, actually the love for such brownies starts when I bought a piece of Fudgy Chewy Gooey Brownie from The Brownie Factory at takashimaya basement (its a really small stall, keep your eyes open or you might just walk pass it w/o realising it's pressence!).

The brownie that I tried is their's no.1 best seller! Sticking to the bestseller ensures nothing goes wrong, and yes, the brownies are really chewy! Really nice! Selling at $3.10, it comes in a big piece, so I got only a pc and I shared it with B, and he too thinks that it's nice.

So if you guys likes chewy and moist types of brownies, do try this! You'll love it!

Betty Cocker's Premix

2009-03-03T23:46:00.005+08:00

Sometimes the laziness within me forces me to use premix..

Yes, I'm lazy I know.. but what to do when you're lack of basic ingredients to make cookies, but only left with a stick of butter and a bag of premix? (And FYI, I can get a tub of freshly baked, and absolutely delish cookies in 1 hr! (We love things to be speedy, right?)

So say YES to premix, esp Betty Cocker's! I like the one above, as the taste is really good.. Except that its slightly whineeyy bit too sweet..

I usually drop big tablespoon of cookie dough to bake.. It will spread out by itself (thanks to the butter). To get a crispier cookie, bake it for a few more minutes.

So purpose of this post is to share with all, the brand of cookie premix I like to use, and if there's a day where you're stuck in a situation like me, you might want to consider using this to satisfy the cravings for freshly made cookies that are still warm!

Durian/ chocolate cuppies!

2009-03-02T12:05:00.012+08:00

My family was invited to go to my uncle's baby full month celebration. As my sis is sponsoring 3 duckies as an add on to the buffet dinner, I wanted to bring along some food as well.. So in the end decided to stick to my forte- baking..

Wanted to bake 40 cuppies, but couldn't decide on the flavor.. I wanted to to bake a variety, but couldn't afford the time, wanna bake a single flavor, but I'm afraid it'll be too boring... So in the end bake 2 different flavors.. DURIAN N' CHOCOLATE!

Bake the Little Devil Chocolate Cupcakes and top with lots of coarsely crushed digestive crackers.. Quite a good move actually as it add on crunchy-ness to the cuppies, and yes.. This cupcake is addictive!

Didn't have time to pack them nicely.. So hehe.. Just stack them up all together in a box and lug them to my uncle hse..

Next up on the list is Durian cupcakes..

Add a tablespoon of cake batter and top with 1 full teaspoon of durian puree..

After baking, I like the golden colour on the cupcake, and yes, its crunchy on the surface, soft inside... And a well hidden "surprise".

Tadah! Surprise revealed! Lots and lots of durian puree! Hmm.. Looks like custard cream right? Hehe..

First bit, your teeth will be welcomed by the crunchy crust, and hit by the softness of the durian flavored cake, then followed by the soft, creamy and slightly bitter durian center, that fills your mouth with the durian fragrance!

*One complaint though... Should triple the amount of durian filling!*

Using a template, I dust the durian cupcakes with cocoa powder.. Tried using Hershey's, but it the colour is too light.. And doesn't complement the colour of the durian cupcakes well.. So I used valhora's cocoa powder.. Nicer contrast.

The guest praises the cuppies! I'm really so glad that they enjoyed the cupcakes (as much as I do)!

On a side note, the durian cupcakes was gone by the first hour, and it was quite a hit among the guest! As for the chocolate cuppies, those who tried gave their comments that it's very chocolate-y, moist and not too sweet.. Even my fussy cousin took 3 piece! Achievement eh? HEHE!

Mommy's Birthday Cake

2009-02-25T22:54:00.008+08:00

Made this cake for Mom on her birthday..

This is the first time I make a cake for my mommy.. I wasn't confident with frosting the cake and decorating them, lack of the creative juice in me.. Hehe..

So being her 50th Birthday this year, I raised up my hands and "volunteer" to bake her a cakie, nothing fanciful just a simple blackforest cake but frosted in chocolate ganache.

My mum was really happy when she saw the cake. Actually there's no element of surprise in here, my mom saw me busying frosting the cake and decorating it, so there is no "WOW-reaction" in her face.. All I could see was her beaming away.. Maybe she's proud of me? (I guess so too!)

Sharing with you the pictures:

Did wrote some short messages on the cake board using white chocolate.. But this picture was taken by my sister before writting.. Or rather when I was melting the chocolate, she took this picture.. Haha..

What I wrote was "Happy birthday, Mommy" (In chinese) and drew a big heart shape beside the text! Hehe! (shows that I love my mommY!)

This is exactly the same cake as B's Bday cake, only difference is that I uses chocolate ganache (1/3 milk chocolate, 2/3 dark chocolate) to frost the cake. My family don't really adore creams..

Well, anyway, that day she was really happy, maybe its because all the family members + all the boyfriends was there to celeb with her.. And I believe my cake did make some contribution to her happiness as well! Hehe!

I wouldn't mind all the trouble, as long as my mommy is happy!

Apple Crumble Pie

2009-02-22T15:55:00.009+08:00

I made these Apple Crumble Pie on friday night! Finished my marketing paper at the evening, and prepared the dough and crumble filling at night..

If I were to make any tart desserts, I like to prepare my tart shells the day before, store it in the freezer and use them the next day.. I'm really really extremely slow in moulding the tart dough into the aluminum cups.. So I usually start the day before, if not I think just by doing this apple crumble pie might took me 5 hours! (Yah, thats how slow I'm)

As compared to the first time making of tarts, I think I fare better this time round.. I took the advice from Aunty Yochana in avoiding over-handling of dough.. A "just-right" dough should not be oily to touch, and my dough falls under that category! So I'm happy! =)

I always make my tarts in aluminium cups, and I really have the hardest time ever trying to mould the dough in.. Cos I'm afraid that I might distort the shape of the aluminum cups.. (that explains why I work like an old lady) =P

The dough yields lots of tart shells (or maybe I mould them too thin), and it is quite crumbly after baking, so when my family and friends who tired it commented that its hard to hold up the pie..

It might be that I added in too much egg (an accident). Next time round I'll cut down on the butter and egg to yield a crispier shell, or simply I just stick with the Egg Tart shells.. I love them!

The box full of tarts for my friends..

I adapted the recipe from KC, posted by Yangone.

Apple Crumble Pie

Ingredients

(A) Crust

125g butter

225g plain flour

1/2 beaten egg

(B)Filling

4 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

2 tbsp brown sugar

sprinkles of cinnamon powder

lemon juice from a slice of lemon

some water

1/2 tbsp corn flour

(C)Topping

70g butter

1 cup self-raising flour

3 tbsp sugar

Methods

Make filling first by cooking the apples with the rest of the ingredients with some water. Add cornflour to thicken.
Make the crust by combining the butter, flour and egg to form into a dough. Press dough on to a pie pan. Bake at preheated oven of 180C for about 8mins (or till the base is dry).
For the crumble, gently rub the butter and flour to form into crumbs and add sugar and mix well.
After crust is baked, pour in the apple filling and sprinkle top with the crumble. Bake at 200C for about 30 - 45 mins (i think) or till crust is nicely browned.

1 small problem would be that using 4 apples is seriously not enough.. I'm only able to add 1 tablespoon of filling into each tart whereas there's still room for another 1.5 tbsp.. Next time I shall up-up the apples to 6! ( I like my tarts to be bursting with fillings!)

Families and friends gave raving reviews for this pie! And I'm really happy! Brought 11 to school for friends to eat during the group study.. and I went home with the empty box! I'm really so happy that my bakes are appreciated and loved by all

Made a mental note to self, to make this for my maternal grandma family and B's family.

Good things are meant to be shared, right?

Woppes, still have 6 tart shells left, which means, more tarts rolling in!!!

B's granny Chocolate-O-Durian mousse cake

2009-02-21T00:29:00.008+08:00

Hey people.. I backed to share with you guys a cake I bake 1 yr ago.. (I didn't have a blog back then).

Baked this cake for B's grandma.. It's her 70yr old birthday.. To the chinese, its considered as quite a big event.. I mean I feel quite embarress to bring out or present this cake.. I mean.. look at the decoration.. So...

The above is the actual cake for B's grandma and it weights about 1.5kg - 2kg.. I know look wises is really ugly and not good enough as bday cake.. *Slap self hard hard*

It was my really really maiden attempt at using whip cream to decorate the cake.. Just simply add mix in pink colouring and green colouring..

Sigh, my piping is really CMI (cannot make it) *slap triple hard again*

I'm like that, if I were to bake a cake for a major event, I'll trial trial to make one for family consumption and to ask them for comments..the picture above is for family consumption..

The blackish thing in between the cake is actually a failed chocolate mousse.. Hehe.. But the durian mousse makes up for the bad ganache failure.. Durian mousse is smooth and bursting with durian flavor.. YUM!

Thank god the 2nd attempt of this cake is a much better attemp.. The chocolate mousse is much much more better, not runny and its smooth. I was so happy that day that I actually assembled the cake w/o much hiccups.. =)

I adopted the recipe from Aunty Yochana's blog.

Choco-O-Durian Mousse Cake

Ingredients

Durian sponge
4 Eggs
250g optima flour
1 tsp ovalette
70g water
1 tsp durian paste
drops of green colouring
70ml corn oil (to be added last)

Beat the above ingredients together till thick and fluffy (approx 10mins).
Fold in corn oil and pour into a 9" round tin.
Bake at 175C for about 45mins or till cooked.
Turn cake onto a wire rack and leave it to cool.

Chocolate Mousse
100g good quality chocolate, chopped and melted
200g whip cream, whipped till stiff
20g rum

Whip cream till stiff, fold in melted chocolate and rum.

Durian Mousse
2 egg yolks
50g sugar
250g durian flesh
75ml milk
200g whipping cream, whipped
10g gelatin powder
3 tbsp water

Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl over simmering water until puffy, stir in durian flesh and cook for a while to warm it up.
Soak gelatin powder with water and let it bloom. Microwave for a while until gelatin melts and add into durian flesh mixture. Stir till well combined.
Add in milk and stir thoroughly.
Gently fold in whipped cream making sure its mixed thoroughly.

Assemble

Spread chocolate mousse on top of a slice of cake, and them top up with the other layer of sponge cake.
Pour the durian mousse onto the sponge and level it. Top the cake with the last piece of sponge. Chill cake till set.
Cream the whole cake with cream and decorate as desired.

Note: I triple the whole recipe. The cake pan I bought is very big, so the first batch of cake batter I pour in just nice for a layer. Which means I bake the cake layer by layer for 3 times.

Comments were good! Those who tried my cake said that its very nice! And this made me so happy!

I myself find that the cake is very nice too! Maybe its because I'm a ultimate durian fan.. Hehe!

Do try this cake!

Examsss...

2009-02-19T18:21:00.004+08:00

4 more papers to go.... before ending this sem...

Medical Microbiology
Introduction to Immunology
Molecular Genetics
Marketing for Life Sciences (II)
Bioinformatics
Protein Technology
Bioprocessing Technology

I'm so looking forward to the end of exams.. And till then I'll bake till drop! HEE! But not going to school means that I'll be lazier when it comes to preparing bento.. =(

Updates: Left with last paper to go.. Wish me luck for this killer module.. Cos I'm never "calculator savvy".. Duh, I hate maths all along!

Quiche... When I was 10!

2009-02-19T18:08:00.002+08:00

I just realised something...

I made Quiche when I was in primary 4! And that's like when I'm 10 years old! Crazy or what?!

Yes.. I'm seriously not lying! Back then my sister bought this new oven, and I remember it clearly that day after school I reached home I've nothing to eat, so I just any-o-how add in things into aluminium cup, and bake it in the oven.. Seriously, I have no idea how on earth I know how to set the right temp of the oven etc.. (And I'm very sure I did not preheat the oven)

I can vaguely remember that I added in mushrooms, ham, cheese, spring onions, salt, pepper, eggs and milk in....

Why till now then I remember?

Cos recently read up alot on quiches.. Wanna try making them and pack them into bentos.. And after reading it for quite a few times, then it suddenly strikes me that "Hey, I've tried this before!"

Haha! Amazing right?

Steamed Chocolate Milk Custard

2009-02-16T20:31:00.007+08:00

I really like those food that has silky smooth texture.. Like soy beancurd, steam eggs custard etc.. This can be justified by the recent posts that I've posted up.. Hehe..

Please pardon me for doing the same range of things over and over again.. I'm trying to explore with new type of food and flavours.. Hee =P

Today after dinner made myself a chocolate-y dessert.. I like this very muchie... Cos I like my chocolate to be slightly bitter.. I don't like sugary food as well and this is not overly sweet.. So it suits my tastebuds very well!

Steamed Chocolate Milk Custard

Ingredients

130mL chocolate milk
30mL water
1.5 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp honey
1 egg white

Methods

Heat up water in a saucepan, and stir till cocoa powder and honey dissolves. Remove and set aside till cool.
Add in the cooled chocolate mixture and egg white into the chocolate milk. Stir well to mix.
Strain mixture into a bowl and steam over low heat for 12minutes.
Serve warm or chilled

This dessert is a much healthier version of a chocolate pudding.. as it doesn't use cream and butter. And I only use egg whites, which greatly reduces the fat content of this dessert. And trust me, its really smooth.. Really enjoy eating this very much! I guess I will make this whenever the chocolate cravings kicks in!

Updates: I tried experimenting it using chocolate milk (minus the water), and it does make a difference to the texture, its more rough and less silky. In my point of view, it wasn't as nice as the orignal one.

Chocolate Ginger Milk Curd

2009-02-15T20:05:00.006+08:00

Continue with the ginger milk curd fever, I made another today.. Chocolate flavor

If you were to ask me which one I prefer, I would definitely choose the Chocolate flavour one.

A simple test to test if the milk curd has set or not.. Apparently yes...

This is how the chocolate ginger milk curd looks like.. Texture wise is soft and even softer than beancurd.. But I like this kind of texture very much!

Chocolate and ginger sound weird and "disgusting" but trust me this is really good.. It taste like a softer version of chocolate pudding.

Once you put this into your mouth, you can immediately taste the rich chocolate taste, after which then you will taste the ginger taste.. Its sweet (from the chocolate milk) and hot (from the ginger) at the same time! New taste accquired!

Presenting to you the recipe:

Chocolate Ginger Milk Curd

Ingredients
120mL chocolate milk (I use HL brand)
1/2 tsp honey
2 tsp ginger juice (freshly squeezed)

Methods

Place the ginger juice in a bowl.
Heat milk and honey together till honey dissolves and the milk bubbles at the side.
Remove pot from stove and stir it with a spoon for 20 times.
Pour the milk into the cup containing ginger juice and give it a quick stir.
Put aside and wait for the curds to form, approximately 2mins.
Serve warm.

Do try it! Its good!

Brownie Muffin (with a twist)

2009-02-15T14:07:00.005+08:00

Baked this brownie muffins after finish studying one of my module.. I wanted to take some rest and surf the net for a while, then suddenly craves for some chocolatey stuff.. So I bake these to stop the cravings.. Hehe!

On top of the original recipe, I add in some peanut butter and a piece of mint chocolate.

The interior view of the brownie muffin. The pale brownish stuff is the peanut butter, and some slightly shiny blacky stuff is the melted mint chocolate.

After making the brownie batter, I saw that there's a bottle of peanut butter on the tabletop so I thought, "why not add some in? I'm sure it will be yummy!" And so, I proceed on to add some PB in.. Quite a smart move.. As I really like this little surprise.. hehe!

And as for the mint chocolate, you can sub it with any chocolate you like, I used this because there only a few pcs left, and I thought of finishing it up..

Brownie Muffins

Ingredients
3 tbsp valhorna chocolate powder
100g sugar
87g brown sugar
100g plain flour
0.5tsp baking powder
0.25tsp salt
75ml oil
50ml evaporated milk
1 tbsp bailey's irish cream
2 eggs
100g chocolate chips (I use pcs of peppermint chocolate)
some peanut butter

Methods

Preheat oven to 180C.
Sieve flour, chocolate powder and baking powder and salt together, and then stir in the sugars.
Mix eggs, evaporated milk, oil and Bailey’s together, and pour them into the dry ingredients.
Stir till no more visible lumps.
Spoon 2 tsp of batter into prepared cases, then adds in a piece of chocolate, followed by 1 tsp of batter, top with some peanut butter and finally another 2 tsp batter.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
Cool muffins thoroughly and store in air tight containers

I brought 8 of these to school for my classmates to try.. And reviews are good.. I guess its chocolate, so naturally will be a hit among the ppl who tried them!

Ginger Milk Curd

2009-02-14T22:08:00.008+08:00

Ginger Milk Curd, also known as Jiang1 Zhi1 Zhuang4 Nai3. Its easy to make this if you get it right.. I have the most experience in this... (as in failures..)

If I did not remember it wrongly, I tried this for about 5 or 6 times, and each time I failed to get the curds, so I end up drinking ginger milk.. haha!

See the milk curds?

A clearer picture.. I know this looks like the steamed egg custard that I've just posted, but its not the same..

One require steaming the other no.. And FYI, I made this 2 on the same day (half an hour apart). So by the time I finish both, I'm really really fullll~

Recipe adapted from KC, posted by Florence.

Ginger Milk Curd

Ingredients

115mL milk
1 tsp sugar (Omitted)
2 tsp ginger juice
0.25tsp vinegar (Freshly squeezed)

Methods

Put vinegar and ginger juice in bowl.
Scald milk and sugar till sugar dissolves.
Remove milk from heat and stir for 15 times (to bring the temp of milk down).
Pour into (1) and leave till set, for a firmer texture, steam on low heat for 6minutes.
Serve warm or chilled.

I omited the sugar and just boil the milk till the side bubbles..

Milk should not be boiled till 100C as the addition it into the ginger juice would denature the enzymes, and curdings will not occur.

The ginger taste/smell is not too strong, so no worries.. And this dessert really warms up the body, and its good for a chilly weather!

Steamed Eggs (a.k.a Tan Tan)

2009-02-14T21:42:00.006+08:00

Tried making steamed eggs just now..

Surface of the steamed egg is not smooth as compared to florence's. I used medium fire instead of low fire..
The steamed eggs is very smooth and nice.. Taste abit like beancurd (Tao huey), only difference is that this has the egg and almond fragrance.

Recipe adapted from Kitchen capers, posted by Florence.

However I made some changes here and there to suit my tastebuds.

Steamed Egg

Ingredients
60mL water
0.5 tsp honey (recommand 1 tbsp instead)
115mL milk
1 egg (beaten)
1 tsp almond powder

Methods

Boil honey with water till honey dissolves.
Stir in almond powder till dissolved.
Add milk and eggs to the cooled mixture.
Strain mixture into 2 cups (I pour into 1 cup), cover with foil and steam over low heat for 10minutes.
Serve warm or chilled.

Alas.. I re-read the recipe, then I realised that I did not cover my cup with foil, which I guess it contributes to the "Rocky" surface of the custard and next time round I shall steam in 2 cups, so I can eat one cup warm, the other chilled.. Hehe

I don't like anything sweet, so I used only 0.5tsp of honey, and trust me.. Thats a bad move.. Should have up it to 1 tsp.. Really not sweet at all.. The additon of almond powder really enhances the taste of the steamed egg.. Very fragrant! Yumm.. Hehe! (Will make this again tml, but with variations of course!)

I made another milk dessert on the same day, and I ate both by myself.. So now I shall declare that my stomach is really overloaded.. With milk..

I shall post the other milk dessert in a seperate post.

Bento #4

2009-02-14T12:20:00.005+08:00

Went back to school yesterday with classmates to mug for the upcoming exams.. So I woke up early in the morning (only 1 hour earlier) to prepare a bento for B..

I packed the bento using Lock n' Lock lunch box and a free lipton box.

Lunch today consist of gourmet blackpepper hotdog bun with cheese and egg, bacon potatoe salad, fried butterfly prawns (X3). In another seperated box, I added in watermelons (X2), slices of orange and strawberries (X3).

The strawberries are from korea, and it's really sweet.. My dad bought 2 punnet for $5. So it works out to be $2.50/punnet.

I think its quite cheap.. Consider to get 2 punnet for my bakes.. hehe!

Coming back to this bento, B really enjoyed the food! He asked me to double up the potatoe salad and the prawns! Heheh! And I'm really glad that he enjoyed the food I've prepared for him!

=P

My favourite subject

2009-02-13T21:20:00.002+08:00

Ello all..

Sharing with you what I did for my Secondary 4 O'levels Food and Nutrition exam..

Appetiser: Watercress and Peas soup
Main: Baked fish with herb butter
Side dish: Chicken Potatoe Patties
Dessert: Berry delicious yoghurt

I was given 2 hours to whip up all this.. It wasn't stressful at all, in fact, I enjoyed the whole process very much!

I still remember during my sec school days, my favourite subject is none other than Food and Nutrition! We get to cook once every 2 weeks.. Most of the time we cook..

Actually cooking is another passion of mine.. I love to cook.. Cook for my family and those peeps that I love..

So in this bloggie, apart from my bakes, I will post up my "cooks" (if there's any) and my bento.. Stay tuned!!

Christmas Logcake

2009-02-12T23:30:00.007+08:00

Trying hard to clear off all of my "bakes" pictures by posting 3 post at a go..

Presenting to you my last year Yule logcake.. My maiden attempt at it..

Actually B requested me to bake somethings for his family's x'mas party.. Since its a X'mas party, I've in mind to bake a logcake..

I was really afraid that I'm not up to the standard yet, so I bake one "trial-trial" solely for my family's consumption. Something random: personally I like the cream cheese filling very much!

The "naked" yule log that survive the trial test.. But since its for family consumption, I did not add on any decorations.. (my family didn't mind either) =P

The above is the one that I brought over to B's family party.. A really simple decoration.. As it totally slips off my mind that I need to buy snow powder to dust the cake, so I used icing sugar.. But its a big NO-NO as I realised that it kind of like melt into the chocolate ganache..

The feedback from B's family were fairly good.. And that makes me a happy girl for the whole day!

Recipe adapted from Florence's blog.

Christmas Yule Logcake

Ingredients
(A)
5 egg yolks
25g castor sugar
Pinch of salt

(B)
Dissolve 20g cocoa powder in 55g warm oil

(C)
65mL warm milk

(D)
80g Cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
5 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60g castor sugar

Cream Cheese Filling
125g cream cheese
30g sugar
110g whipping cream + 1 tbsp icing sugar
1 tsp gelatin dissolved in 1 tbsp boiling water

Chocolate ganache
100g 66% valrhona dark chocolate (chopped)
90ml cream
12g butter

Methods

Yule Log

cream ingredient (A) with hand whisk till sugar dissolved.
add in ingredients (B) and mix well. Stir in (C).
sieve in (D) and mix till no lumps.
beat egg whites with an electric whisk till frothy, sprinkle in cream of tartar. Beat till white in colour and add in sugar by thirds. Continue beating till stiff peaks form.
fold in half of egg whites into yolk mixture and mix with a hand whisk in 6 strokes.
Pour in yolk mixture into the rest of the egg whites and mix well with hand whisk.
Bake in a lined tray at 180C-190C for 20minutes.
Prepared a sheet of baking paper large enough to hold the sheet cake. Sprinkle icing sugar all over the baking paper.
Turn cooled cake onto the sugared baking paper and roll the cake in swiss roll style while it is still warm.
Keep sheet cake in its position till cool enough to spread filling and frosting.

Cream Cheese Filling

Whip whipping cream with icing sugar till mousse state.
Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.
Cream cheese with suga till creamy. Stir in gelatin mixture.
Fold in whipped cream. Refrigerate 10min prior to use.

Chocolate Ganache

Bring cream to a boil. Remove from heat.
Add in chopped chocolates and stir till smooth and creamy.
Stir in butter while mixture is still warm.
Refrigerate for 30minutes then cream frosting till thick.

Assemble

Unroll the cake carefully, spread filling all over the cake. Roll up the cake again.
Spread the ganache over the whole cake, and decorate with fork.
Decorate as desire.

Woah, longest recipe I ever typed.. Fingers aching.. haha! Personally I find that the difficulty I encounted then is that the chocolate roll wasn't soft enough.. And I strongly believe its my skill of folding in of egg white, back then I really couldn't fold whites well..

Bento #3

2009-02-12T23:13:00.006+08:00

Another bento lunch prepared by yours truly.. And I really mean it that I cook these from scratch.. Considering that it's quite an achievement.. Hehe

My favourite strawberry shortcake box! (Cos it's big, can dump lots of things in it and its PINK!)

This bento filled with (L-R, clockwise): Blanched french beans with grilled capsicum, pan fry pumpkins, thai sweet chilli sauce, pieces of Otah skewer together, blanch baby corn, pan fried blackpepper salmon, and blanched broadbeans?

Gosh, suddenly just forgot the name of the bean.. But I assume it is alright cos A picture worths a thousand words, yeah?

I really enjoy the salmon very much! Cos I marinated it with lots of black and white pepper.. Fiery hot.. YUM!

Vanilla cupcakes

2009-02-12T22:56:00.009+08:00

Hey hey.. I'm back in action again.. after MIA for weeks..hehe!

Of course I'm back in action with more things to share..

Zillion Months ago, I made my favourite vanilla cupcake again! My all time favourite..

A tried and tested recipe that never fails me.. I bake these cuppies and brought some for my project mates and share with them! And they were generous with the praises, which gave me extra boost of confidences in baking!

Presenting to you the recipe:

Vanilla Cupcakes

Ingredients

125g butter (softened)
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g caster sugar
3 eggs
225g self-raising flour
60ml milk

Methods

Preheat oven to 180C. Line cupcake pans with paper cases.
Combine butter, sugar, extract, eggs and milk and mix till just combined. Sift in flour and beat on low speed to incoporate the flour.
Increase mixer speed to medium and continue for 3minutes until mixture is smooth and change to a paler colour.
Spoon mixture into prepared pan till 80% full.
Bake in preheated oven for 20minutes, check for done-ness.
Remove cake from oven and turn top side up to cool.

Note: Actually you can add variations to the cupcakes. I fold in almond flakes and chocolate chips into the batter. Then decorate the top with A.flakes and choco chips as well.

The recipe is a really simple one.. I simply adore easy bakes.. Minimise the washings.. Hur Hur Hur!

Hope you'll enjoy this simple cuppie!

Durian Chiffon Cake

2009-02-02T21:55:00.011+08:00

Now I'm into the Chiffon craze.. Tho abit late.. Hehe..

I usually walk home (to and from school) instead of taking bus as I treat this as a form of exercise.. So on my way home today, I saw DURIANS! I've a reallly realllly soft spot for this thorny creamy fruit.. So almost immediately I stop and bought a box for $5, consider that as quite cheap as january is not the durian season..

I continue to think what can I do with this durian other than eating it down to my stomach.. So I thought of DURIAN CHIFFON!

I got the recipe from Aunty Yochana's bloggie.. I've it printed out and place it nicely into my file.. hehe!

See how tall this chiffon is..

I really like the golden brown colour on the surface of the cake.. Looks beautiful right? hehe

See the air-holes, and a whineey speck of egg whites.. Hehe.. Didn't fold it well..

DURIAN CHIFFON CAKE

Ingredients

6 egg yolks (use only 5)
150ml coconut milk (Replace with full cream evaporated milk)
4 tbsp corn oil (Use only 3tbsp)
Pinch of salt
150g durian puree
1/4 durian essence (omitted it)
50g caster sugar (use only 10g)
140g plain flour (use top flour)

6 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
100g caster sugar (use only 80g)

Methods (base on how I did it)

Whisk egg yolk and sugar till light and creamy, and stir in the durian puree, evaporated milk, and oil and stir to mix.
Gently stir in the sifted flour and salt.
Whisk egg whites with caster sugar till foamy, then gradually add in caster in 3 batches, continue whisking at high speed till stiff peaks forms.
Gently fold in the egg whites (in 3 batches) into the yolk batter.
Pour batter into a 23cm chiffon tin and bake at 175C for 45mins (I use 50mins) or until cooked.
Remove cake from oven and invert pan immediately onto a wire rack and leave it to cool completely.
Remove cake from pan, and serve.

Personally I think that baking at 45mins is not sufficient as the skewer did not come out clean.. So I bake at 50mins.. However, I suggest to add addition 10g of flour as the cake surface is dry, but interior is slightly wet/moist..

Nevertheless, mom love this cake.. she rated it 8/10... However I suspect it's because she likes durian.. So for her, anything that goes with durian is good.. Haha! I wrote down in a short note from on the recipe, next time try pairing this cake up with durian mousse.. I think it will be heavenly! Hehe!

But I would say that this cake is quite sucessful! Will definitely try this again, when the durian season (June/July) approach! Hehe!

Bento #2

2009-01-31T21:03:00.003+08:00

Prepared a simple bento lunch for myself... Really simple and tasty... Heheh, maybe I was really hungry then..

Used the newly brought bento box (and bento strap) from daiso, its really spacious, can put alot of foodie in it.

Top tier: Stir fry cabbage with belachan chilli (courtesy of B's mom), fry egg cut out with flower and star shape.

Bottom tier (L-R): Organic brown rice in heart shape, pan fry garlic fish and prawn-y potatoe croquette (did I spell it correctly?)

I sprinkle Japanese chilli flakes onto almost every thing! I totally adore spicy food! The belachan chilli given by B's mom is really good! Very very spicy and flavor-full... Haha!

If I do cook for myself to eat, I tend to fill up my bento box with all of my favourite food, cooked in my favourite way! I guess its a way to make myself feel satisfied.. Hehe

Happy Chinese New Year!

2009-01-28T00:09:00.011+08:00

First and forth most, let me wish all the chinese (and of course non-chinese) a HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!

I spent my 2 days of holidays wisely and did not waste any seconds, hehe! Went to visit lots of relatives, and some of them I only meet them once a year, catch up with my cousins and chat with them through out the night.. Just like how we use to play together, so fun!

Well anyway, the day before the eve of CNY, I baked a orange chiffon cake for my mum, as she needs it for prayers.

I use to make lousy chiffon cakes, sometimes they shrinks, some are soggy and wet, some are dense and some are really tough and dry. I always thought that it might be due to overbaking, underbaked or incorrect folding technique.. but it never occurs to me that it's due to the usage of wrong chiffon pan..

I usually use those mini chiffon pans (from Daiso), so this time round, I use a chiffon tin pan (23cm), and boy, the outcome of the cake turns out to be fabulous! Absolutely soft, fluffy, spongy and not dry at all..

The distribution of the air bubbles are very even and no lumps of egg whites could be seen! Previously, I was afraid that I might over-fold it, so I just fold for a short while so after baking, I could see lumps of eggs.

This time round I uses Florence's orange chiffon recipe, should give it a try as its really fragrant! Hehe!

Presenting to you my ORANGE CHIFFON CAKE!

ORANGE CHIFFON CAKE

Ingredients

115g cake flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
85ml warm orange juice
zest of an orange
60ml cornoil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

5 egg yolks + 30g castor sugar + 1/4 tsp salt
5 egg whites + 50g castor sugar + 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

Sieve cake flour and baking powder.
Whisk egg yolk, sugar and salt till light and creamy, add in orange juice and oil, stir to mix.
Add in flour mixture and zest and mix lightly.
Beat egg whites and cream of tartar till frothy (big bubbles), and add in castor sugar in 2 batches. Beat till stiff peak (approx 8-10mins).
Gently fold in egg whites in 2 batches and bake in preheated 175C oven for 45mins.

Verdict from my family members is that the cake is very fragrant, and even better than those that sell from the cake shop! Hehee! (Hope they are not lying..)

This recipe is definitely a keeper! I've alr printed it out nice and slide into my recipe folder! Hehehe! I know for sure I'll bake this again real soon!

Finally done with CNY bakes!

2009-01-20T22:31:00.018+08:00

Hello Peepss... I know I MIA-ed for the longest time ever.. Neglecting this little corner of mine.. But no worries, I'm back for good! In fact, back with more pictures and experiences to share! Yippee!

Year of OX is definitely a fruitful one for me.. Not that I start the year with a terrible flu + sore throat + all sorts of rubbish illness... BUT, it's the first time I attempted to bake my own Chinese New Year (CNY) goodies..

I did not bake a large variety like some bloggers/bakers did.. I just bake a suitable amount of goodies and of course at the same time, trying hard to shorten down my "To-Bake-List"..
So CNY is definitely a good reason to indulge myself in baking!

So after my last lesson on friday (ends at 3pm), I rushed down the Phoon Huat and NTUC (AmK) to get all the ingredients.. and sigh, B offered to help me.. But I insisted that I could manage it on my own.. and in the end, I lugged back a total of 10kg loots..

Upon reaching home, I called up B and complained to him that sometimes I really hated myself that I always like to "gek kiang" (Act smart)! Gosh, 10kg was really heavy, and I nearly die from carrying them! Hahha..!

I start the massive baking session on friday evening time, all the way from 7pm-2.30am! I took such a long time because I've have to painfully shape 500pc of peanut cookie by hand! After the first batch of peanut cookie, I really exhausted, so my kind helper Tila came to rescue me! Heheh! Million of thanks!

Kick start the whole session by baking PEANUT COOKIES

Although it is quite tedious to do most of the work by myself, but when I pop one of these self-made goodie into my mouth, I can only feel satisfaction!

These peanut cookies are really lovely, holds it's shape well, melt in the mouth and have a slight crunch.. Lovely is the word to describe! Hehe!

Next up on the list, COFFEE FLOWERS

Another buttery creation! Original recipe calls for instant coffee, but absent minded me, forgot to buy coffee when I'm shopping for ingredients.. Haha.. So I replaced it with milo.. it doesn't affect the taste much.. still as fragrant!

DAY 2

Woke up early in the morning at 9am to fry the pineapple paste.. after frying the first batch, I realised that 5 pineapples yields too little paste, so I rushed off to the market to grab another 5 pineapples... So a total of 10 pineapples.. But I still find that 10 is not enough.. Too little..

Look at the amount of pineapple juice! But my family member didn't drink those.. And I just throw them away.. I find that its quite wasteful so I drank a cup... Any ideas on what to do with these? so next time make pineapple tarts I can utilise this well..

Packed pineapple tarts.. Ready to give it away to B's family!

I'm really really very happy that my pineapple tart turns out to be such a success! Even my really fussy eldest sis said that it's really nice! All of them love the tarts! My dad said that I should make them and sell it out since its so nice.. Hmm.. Should I??

Frying 2 batches of pineapple took my 5 hours in total.. But like I've said, I've a lovely helper to help me with the 2nd batch. Meanwhile I went off to bake other type of goodies..

Made the ever popular CRUNCHY CORNFLAKE COOKIE:

Before sending them into the sauna.. hee..

All a personalised touch to the cornflake cookie for my helper T.I.L.A.. She was really amused when she saw this! Haha.. But I gobble up the L and I as she claims that that's my initials, so I ought to eat them up.. Which I did! hehe!

These cornflake cookies are crunchy on the outside, slightly melt-in-the mouth on the inside.. and the crushed cornflake adds on good amount of texture and crunch when this tiny cookie melts in your mouth.. I was totally amazed by it's texture and mouth-feel (Kou3 gan3).. And so, I pop 6 into my mouth at a go! It's really addictive!

Last but definitely not the very least... ALMOND COOKIES

I made these cookies slightly bigger than the peanut cookie.. I find that this is really nice as well! Almonds in it makes the cookie crunchy and I added lots of barang barang (not indicated in recipes) into the making of these cookies.. Maybe its my luck that all those "any-o-how" addition of ingredients can make these cookie crunchy, yet at the same time "melty"! Hehe! Nice Nice!

Seems like I hit the jackpot this time, cos out of so many recipes that I wanted to make for CNY, I choose some to make, and it turns out to be popular within my family! Hehe!

Of all these bakes, I kept some for my family, gave away some to my granny, and B's family.. Hope they like the cookies.. As they are all BAKE-WITH-LOVE!

Heheh!

S.I.C.K

2009-01-11T23:35:00.002+08:00

Hey Peeps..

I will not be able to bake this week, thus no sharing of my bakes.. Down with cough and a really bad throat, even drinking water hurts..

Will try to get well soon by next week, so I can start my pineapple Jam making.. no more procastination!

Cheerios!

Nice and Fluffy Butter Cake

2009-01-07T22:55:00.005+08:00

Woo Hoo.. Its been a long time since I update this little baking blog of mine.. Reason mainly due to overloaded school work.. Lots of projects lining up await me to complete them..

I did some baking here and there whenever I got released from school early.. Or sometimes crazily did my baking in the night, and wake up for school at 7am. But nevertheless, I really enjoy baking sessions, even tho its a 3 step recipe, I still enjoy the session trememdously! Cos it's the baking process that I enjoy!

I received a comment from Anonymous, requesting for a buttercake recipe, I've this recipe on hand, waiting for it's turn for me to try out.. I intend to bake this cake for B's mum, cos I remember her saying that she likes buttercakes!

I got this recipe from Aunty Yochana, and even though I haven't try it out yet, but I have faith in her recipe, always so good, and always yield good results!

So here you go!

Butter Cake

Ingredients
125g butter
125g cake magarine
100g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
90g egg yolk
1 tbsp evaporated milk
200g cake flour
5g baking powder
pinch of salt

160g egg whites
100g sugar

Method

Beat butter, magarine, sugar and salt and vanilla essence till light and creamy.
Add in egg yolks one at a time and beat till creamy. Add in evaporated milk.
Fold in sieved flour and baking powder.
Whisk egg whites with sugar till soft peaks and gently fold into butter mixture.
Pour into 20cm round tin and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or till a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Note:

Buttercake taste nicer the 2nd day and this cake can stay soft and fluffy up to 3 days. Store well in air tight containers to retain the moistures of the cake.

Oh, I expressed my interest to learn chicken rice and belachan chilli sauce from B's mum! She's a fantastic cook! Went over to B's house for lunch/dinner on several occasions, and his mum always serves up great tasting food! 2 of which I cannot resist eating more will be the chicken rice and belachan chilli!

I'm really determined to learn these from her!! So happy, really look forward to it!

Recently, I'm quite interested to learn cooking, not that I can't cook, but I wish to learn special food recipes, and impart their skills.. hehe!

I also pester my grandma to teach me her famous pumpkin rice, and yam kueh, so till then, I will master all these skills and share share it up here! Hehe!

Chicken Pie

2009-01-03T00:50:00.010+08:00

After reading some info on chicken pies, the craving for it starts to kicks in.. And for the whole week I was craving for some pies.. Hmm.. not really craving to eat it, but rather to try my hands on it!

I'm even silly enough to think of making chicken pie on a friday night, but then, I realised that I don't have chicken.. =(

So the next day I went to market early to get some really fresh chicken breast meat and other ingredients.. And with those stuffs on hand, I kick start my saturday with CHICKEN PIE!

See the chicken pie full of fillings.. Hee.. the way I like mine to be. I find that the commercial ones are thick in skin and very little fillings. So, nothing can beat homemake, you can alter the recipe to suit your family's preferences.

The pastry tart filled up to the brim with chicken.

Frying the potatoes.. Regret didn't add in more potatoe, and I should have mash 1/3 of it, my dad like slightly mashy potatoe.

Left the chicken to cool down before spooning in.

Seal up the tarts and brush with eggs.. Ready to go into the oven!

These chicken pies really taste yummy, I like the tart especially. The additon of yoghurt makes the tart more fragrant. However do note that the dough is quite soft to handle, thus it requires some chilling before handling.

I did play cheat as well, instead of rolling out the dough, I just pinch some and press it into the pan, that explains why my chicken pie looks a abit on the ugly side..

I use the recipe from My Culinary Journal.

Chicken Pie

Filling: (adjust to own preference)

1 big onion diced
diced cooked potatoes

mixed vegetable

Sliced button mushrooms

2 chicken breast, diced
oil
½ cup water

Seasonings :

1 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp water

1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce

salt n pepper to taste

Method

Filling: Heat 2 tbsp of oil and fry potatos till golden, set aside.
In a clean wok, heat 2 tbsp of oil, fry onions till transparent, add in mixed vege, mushrooms, chicken, potatos.
Add in water and cook for about 5 minutes. Add in seasoning.
Add in cornstarch, stir to thicken mixture. Cool and set aside.
Dough: Put all the ingredients, except yoghurt, in a mixing bowl.
Rub butter into flour mixture until like breadcrumbs., Add in yoghurt and mix to a dough.
Dough will be very soft so need to keep it refrigerated for at least 30 mins.
Assemble: Roll out dough to place in a pie dish, scoop 2 - 3 tbsp ingredients, cut another layer of dough to cover. Make holes on the surface of dough to allow hot air to escape during baking.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes at 180 celcius.

This recipe yields 4 6-holes muffin pan size. Which is just nice from my family of 6. We have this for lunch. My dad actually commented that the filling is even nicer than those POLAR and other shop sells. It's quite rewarding to receive compliments from family members you love, because at least you know that they are enjoying what you prepared for them!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-01T00:40:00.001+08:00

To all out there:

Happy New Year! May year 2009 be a joyous one for you!!!

Cheerios,
Carrie

Macaron Baking Class By lovely Aunty Yochana

2008-12-31T18:13:00.008+08:00

Hey Hey! As promised, I'm updating on the Macaron Baking Class on the 21st december.

The "Shi Fu" of this class is none other than Aunty Yochana. She's a petite lady, very friendly and really generous to share her baking tippys and she really make sures we understand every single bit of things!

Hehe, so after leaving her house.. I'm so much richer (in terms of knowledge on baking)! I would love to join her class again!

Pictures time! (Million of thanks to evelyn for sending me the pictures!)

Aunty Yochana's hand at work! See those macarons? Each piece looks the same size.. My macarons are never the same size.. Hee

Macaron Tartlettes (before baking)... I especially like the tart base.. So buttery and nice!!

Macaron Tartlettes (after baking), these tartlettes are so tiny and prettyyy! They're nice to eat, difficult to do... Lots of effort required!

Aunty Yochana serve all of us high tea as well! And boy, her bakes are tasty! I love the chocolate truffle cake, durian swissroll and the christmas fruit cake! There are alot more, but I've a poor memory.. can't remember.. Hehe..

I look forward to more of her baking lesson!

Le Pasta... Special!

2008-12-30T00:39:00.005+08:00

Well well.. this not a typical post of my bakes but rather, my main intention is to introduce all of you this fabulous stall! I mean, in order for someone to talk about your food, it must be really good or really bad, right? In this case, trust me, the food is YUMMY!

That day my sis, her BF and I pass by Bukit Timah Food Center, we decided to have our lunch there, and we tried LE PASTA.

It's located at Bukit Timah Market & Food Centre #02-158.

I tried this stall for twice.. And each time, the pasta dishes did not disappoint me!

I know from the young chef that he once work in a high class italian restaurant, and he operate this stall to gain experiences. I tried before the Truffle Scented Carbonara (actually my sis ordered this, but I took abt 1/4 of it), the chef uses truffle oil in this, and base on what I understand, I know that this truffle oil is an expensive stuff.. And I double check with the chef to see if I'm right, andbingo, I was told that he bought this small bottle of truffle oil for $20++.

Indeed, this truffle oil really spice up the whole pasta dish and brings the flavour to a higher level! Within this dish, there are egg, parmesan, bacon and truffle oil of course, and I really enjoy every bite of this dish!

Next up on the list, Frutti De Marie, I ordered this on the 2 diff occasion. It's actually a seafood base pasta and I like it because they have fresh seafood that's cook till perfection! It includes squid that are cooked till just nice not overcook (chewy, hard to chew), generous with the prawns, very big mussels, and lastly my favourite: Scallop! Yeah, some pasta stall (hawker) sells seafood pasta, but I never chance upon one that uses real, fresh scallop.

My sis's BF order Bolognese, I did not try that, but I heard raving reviews from him.

Lastly, we order 2 bowls of Home-Made Mushroom Soup, we was wondering if we'll be serve with canned mushroom soup (like most hawker western stall did). God, the mushroom soup is one of the best I've ever tried! Nothing like those canned ones! I can really spot and see chop-till-fine mushrooms in it! Absolutely delish! I like it very much, in fact, all of us love this and we slup it up with 10minutes? Then the chef's brother told us that this soup was sold in his previous workplace (italian restaurant) for about $15, and here, he only sell for $2.80! The chef's brother assure us that the taste of the soup with not be compromised at all.

I noticed that sliced garlics are added to the pasta. I wanted to pick out the garlic and throw on the table, but my sis asked me to try it, which I did.. The garlic taste is very subtle and not like what I imagined them to be... "smelly".

Extra toppings are available, starting from 50cents..
There are 3 choices of pasta as well, spaghetti, linguine and penne.

Maybe you would like to "preview" the menu first??

And overall, the rating for Le Pasta will be 8.5/10!

(I couldn't hide the fact that my stomach are growling now.. or rather.. whenever I think of Le Pasta's Pasta.. Hehehe)

And I'm terribly sorry that I did not provide any pictures.. Actually after I've ordered the food, I made a mental note to myself to remember the picture takings... But eventually when the food arrives right in front of me, I totally forgotten about the mental note, and attack the food like no tomorrow (cause they're too delicious.. hee). Lastly, lots of apologies for the lousy quality of pictures!

*Lesson learnt... mental notes are NOT work-able (for me)*

I promise, the next time I'm there, I'll take pictures of the foodies before attacking them.. Hehee!

My Chocolate Chiffon Cake

2008-12-29T22:47:00.014+08:00

After finishing my going-to-due report, I decided to reward myself by drowning myself in preparing cake batter, suffocate myself with the fragrance of freshly baked cakes.. Nah, don't worry! I'm not torturing myself, in fact, I enjoy these process!

Shall share with you the pictures of this lovely chiffon cake!

I took this picture when the cake is still in the oven doing sauna.. haha

A slice of cake

Looks abit dense, but trust me, this cake is soft, fluffy and nice!

I find that this arrangement looks like a face! Can you spot the eyes and the mouth (or rather beards)?

I bake the divided the chiffon into 3 smaller pans as I don't have the big chiffon pan, so I utilised the 2 mini chiffon pan from daiso.

Sharing with all of you, this recipe:

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

4 egg yolks
40g cocoa powder (I use 20g hershey's, 20g Valrhora)
130ml water
130g sugar (I reduced to 85g)
¼ tsp salt (I add only a pinch)
150g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
85g corn oil

4 egg whites
90g sugar1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Methods

1. Sieve all dry ingredients together.
2. Add in the egg yolks, water and sugar into the dry ingredients and stir till smooth.
3. Add in corn oil and stir till smooth.
4. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar till frothy and pour in sugar in 3 batches and beat for about 2 minutes till stiff.
5. Gently fold in egg whites into the yolk mixture and pour into a 23-cm chiffon cake pan
6. Bake at 175oC for about 1 hour or until skewer comes out clean.
7. Invert chiffon cake immediately onto a wire rack and let it cool before removing it from pan.
8. Slice and serve.

I got the recipe from Here.

I didn't follow the recipe strictly, I add and minus base on my family preferences.. I add in a tsp of coffee granules (by dissolving it in the 130ml water). But I didn't notice the taste of coffee at all, I think next time I attempt this I will add in 1 tbsp, and a note to myself, I will add in some chocolate liquer into the batter on my next attempt!

By the way, I'm going to get myself a chiffon pan tml after school at phoon huat! Let's welcome more chiffon cakies!! Woo-Hoo!

I really enjoy and love chiffons to bits.. So nice and soft! And I find that stuffing myself silly with chiffon is much more guilt-free than cakes that uses butter, and my family all love chiffons!

School starts tml, and its back to the stressful, busy days.. Welcome reports and practicals!

I love my practical sessions, dealing with chemicals, viruses, bacteria and microbes.. But I totally hate reports that I'll have to pass up.. Imagin dealing with at least 4 (at least 4 pgs) reports per wk.. Gosh, don't wanna imagin that at all..

Alright, I'll have to chase away those negative thoughts and embrace myself to work harder!

First try.. MACARONS!

2008-12-27T12:51:00.014+08:00

Attempt macarons for the first time ever! Actually baking macarons was on my list for the longest time ever, but didn't manage to pluck up the courage to try as I've heard too much of the failures.. Therefore after going to Aunty Yochana's macaron class, I stop procastinating, and get started on MACARONS!!

Went to get the basic stuff needed for macarons!

After baking macarons, then I understand how joyous and how depressing it can be.. My virgin try turns yield half good and half bad macarons. Half of the macarons cracked, espcially the chocolate macarons, crack like nobody's business whereas the pink macaron fare slightly better, less cracks and more prominent dainty feets.

The bad macarons

And the good macarons!

I stayed vigilant by the oven, spotting for feet, for cracks and for everything that could possibly happen to my babies... Therefore when I spot the ugly crackings, my heart sank, and after I spot the crackings, I started search for the good macarons among the bads, when I spot some good ones, I get so happy again!

Haha, so whenever a batch of my babies in the oven baking, my mood tends to fluctuates up and down..

I totally forgot to take a picture of the good-and-bad chocolate macarons, because by that time, I was too tired to do so.. Spend a total of 5hours in the kitchen baking them..

When it comes to baking.. I tends to work like a snail in the kitchen and to add on, the macarons need to be rest..

I prepared the macaron shells on the 25th, then I pipe the fillings on the 26th as my sis's bf requested some for his function, and some macarons was given to B's family as well. Hope they like it..

Some of the ugly macarons went into my stomach. Never judge a macaron by it's appearence! The macarons might look ugly, but definately delish! Once you start poping, U can't stop!

I sandwich chocolate macarons with peanut apricot buttercream, combination might be weird, but personally I think that the peanut and apricot goes well together!

The pink macarons was sandwich with sesame buttercream. Personally I adore the pink macarons! Ain't they beautiful? (I've a soft spot for pinky stuffs!)

11 macarons went into a beautiful box, and was given to B, and he likes it!

As from what I understand from Aunty Yochana, cracking might be due to over-resting of the macarons, which happens in my case.. I rest the macarons for 45-50 minutes? I rest the macarons and meanwhile I do other things, thus it cracks...

Next attempt I shall pay closer attention to them!

Note Note: Goodbye Bakerzin (selling each macarons for $1.50)! Welcome to homebaked macarons by yours truly!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2008-12-25T03:02:00.003+08:00

Ho Ho Ho HO! MERRY CHRISTMAS to all! Wishing all of you a blessed christmas!

Credits goes to... My Oven!

2008-12-23T23:44:00.007+08:00

Without this lousy, but still work-able oven, I wouldn't be able to carry out my bakings and to indulge in my baking therepy..

This oven was built into the kitchen cabinet, in fact the whole kitchen was designed and built by the contractors, so when my dad bought the house, everything was fix nicely..

So I always has this mindset that this oven is for free.. Hahaha!

Anyway, if I were to be less picky, I consider this oven serving it's primarily function well. It's idiot-proof and really user friendly, just turn on the timer and the temperature, then off you send your bakes in.. *that's what I did*

I mean I don't understand what it meant by fan-based type etc.. I just use the most simple mode.. But nevertheless, my bakes still came out good and edible without being burnt.

Enough of those lengthy wordy tortures, showing you my humble oven:

Brand: ELBA

Interior view, I think it dn't have any fan in there.. *most likely?*

The Knobs..

Actually, I prefer those type of oven where you can key in the temp digitally.. Which I believe it to be more accurate. Maybe next time when I've my own home sweet home, I shall buy one big one so I can bake alot of things at a time.. Save money, save time!

HAHA!

Making my own Buttercream

2008-12-23T17:25:00.004+08:00

Made my own butter cream today! It's my first try actually.. learned it during the macaron class, this butter cream is rich and nice!

I got the recipe from Aunty Yochana, and I do half of the recipe.

BUTTER CREAM

Ingredients

200g sugar
30g water
140g egg whites
300g Butter
300g Magarine (I use marianne, from sunlik)

Method

Boil sugar and water till thick but flowy
Whisk egg whites till fluffy, and pour in the hot syrup
Continue whisking the egg whites till cooled
Slowly add in the butter and magarine. Beat till thick and fluffy.

As I ran out of butter, so instead of using 150g of butter, I use only about 100g and top up the rest using magarine, it does not affect the taste much, except it's a wheeny bit salty.. I guess it must be due to the salted butter I'm using..

I have to made this in advance and store it in the fridge, this is to save myself from working extra hard on the 25th Dec as I will try to make macarons on that day!

Getting Ready..... To bake.... MACARONS!

2008-12-22T23:02:00.003+08:00

Ok, finally after so long of procastinating and thinking if I should try macarons (the "in" thing now) I finally decided that "Yes, why not learn something new?"

So.. I sign up for Aunty Yochana macaron class! I attended the class yesterday and yes, I love her class, so informative and fun! Learn alot of things and got alot of tips from her as well! She's a lovely lady!

But too bad I haven't got the pictures from a fellow student, I promise, I'll post the pictures straight away upon receiving them!

So, after the macaron class, I went to Sunlik today to get the ingredients for macarons!

I bought icing sugar, butter, magarine, almond meal, color powder and cocoa powder!

So yeah, I shall post up the pictures after trying the macarons! *Cross fingers* Hope it turns out well and pretty!

Constant wishlist....

2008-12-21T21:39:00.007+08:00

Christmas is just round the corner, I wish for all my "wants" to come true!

B has given me my X'mas prezzie, a silpat mat, which is reallllyyy useful to me, and yeah, when I received that gift, I was literally jumping up and down, down and up.. beaming with joy!

But apart from silpat mat, there are other things which I want as well... *Equally useful to me*

So 1st up on my list:

kitchenAid!! it's every baker's dream to own one of these beauties! Apart from pleasing my eyes, its really useful! Using this KitchenAid, will make every creaming session a happy one!

Ahem** Trust me, I won't be picky at all! If someone buy me this, I won't be picky with the colours! But if its in RED or PINK will be good! My fav colours!

*Oh gosh, "they" are really so beautiful*

Down the list, its:

Woppes, the picture seems to be quite small... But this is a digital weighing scale! Moreover, its a pink one!

This will be extremely useful as well! It helps me to measure ingredients thats required in 2g? 1g?

Usually I avoid such recipes, imagin how on earth am I suppose to measure out flour that in 2g, using those normal type of weighing scale.. the minimal is 10g...

So yeah, this will be useful as well... I'm those practical type of person, I don't wish for things that I've no use for.

On a side note, if someone sells KitchenAid to me at 100++ bucks, trust me, I'll buy it! *Fat Hope* (But I doubt there's anyone that would do so..)

Oh Santa, please grant me my wishes!!

Yoghurt Coffee Cake

2008-12-21T21:15:00.009+08:00

Hiyee! Back in action again after hibernating for a long time! That day I've a sudden craving for some coffee, but at the same time, I want to stuff myself silly with some cakes.. So I came up with Coffee + Cake... And Tadah, COFFEE YOGHURT CAKE!

Like I mentioned before, I'm not a big fan of butter or margarine, therefore I use yoghurt and kick the butter aside.. But I couldn't provide the recipe for this Yoghurt coffee cake as I did this cake base on agar-ation, and I forgot to jot down the recipe.. =P

I'm too absent-minded for my age.. (Signs for aging?)

Well, anyway, this cake is quite moist and smell very nice! When its baking, the whole kitchen was filled with coffee scent, which makes me drools more! Moreover, this cake is not to sweet, which is good..

Based on what I did, the recipe yields about 10 muffins, and I alone polished off 2, my helper ate 2 as well, my mum and sis both ate 1 each. And the last 4 mini caffeine booster was given away to my granny. My mum commented that they love this as the coffee scent is really strong and enough to give them the caffeine boost! Hahah!

Cinnamon Teacake

2008-12-18T22:19:00.006+08:00

During one of the weekend, I went over to B's granny house to visit her. B's grandma is a jovial, caring and friendly old folk, which I like very much! Very nice to chat with and talk to!

So I bake her a Cinnamon Teacake, which I reckon this cake will be a hit among old folks. I particularly like the Cinnamon smell, very nice! My sister love this cake as well, she use to make it so often, at least twice a week (can you imagin that?) for family own consumption.

But after her short term passion towards baking wears off, I "took over" all the equipments and bakewares that she bought and this recipe as well.. And ever since then, whenever I'm visiting any folks or relatives, I usually tends to bake this recipe, because it's love by all!

CINNAMON TEACAKE

Ingredients

60g Butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g caster sugar (I use brown sugar for better flavours)

1 egg

150g self-raising flour

80ml milk

10g butter, extra, melted

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Cinnamon sugar

1 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp gound cinnamon

Method

Preheat oven to 180 celcius. Grease deep 20cm round cake pan; line base with baking paper.
Beat softened butter, extract, sugar, and eggs in a small bowl with electric mixer till very light and fluffy; this process takes about 5 - 10mins (depending on the type of mixer used).
Using a spatula, gently fold in sifter flour, cinnamon powder and milk. Spread mixture into prepared pan.
Bake cake for 30mins. Stand cake 5mins before turning the cake top side up onto wire rack. Brush top with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon powder. Serve warm with butter.
For cinnamon powder, just mix the caster sugar and ground cinnamon.

I top the cake with sliced almond to beautify the cake, and to add the extra crunch to the cakie.. Actually, I like mine serve with lots and lots of cinnamon sugar, makes the cake extra fragrant!

I find that the cake actually looks like Huat Kueh, because it has a big big smile. The cake is soft and moist, which goes well with a cuppa of hot coffee!

Bento #1

2008-12-17T13:11:00.007+08:00

I prepared a bento box to fill my stomach, and I incuded all my favourite foodies in the bento box!

I like food that please my eyes! I mean I don't arrange my food like above for every meal, but at least I don't like my plate to be messy with food dumping on top of rice.. Ok, except fried rice, I love fried rice!

So anyway, I shall name the contents of the bento box one-by-one starting from the top right hand corner, in a clockwise motion:

-Blanched french beans top with half a prawn, Blanched beanspouts top with half a prawn.

-Hard boiled egg, cut into a smile-y face.

-Boiled fishballs skewered using cutie toothpick

-Lettuce tossed in salad cream, tomatoes, blackpepper as seasoning and with even more prawns.

This bento box is definitely loaded with fibers and proteins! I'm a prawn lover, cereal prawns esp! But at the same time, prawns are loaded with cholestrol too, sigh.. So I'm limiting myself to the amount of prawns I can eat. *control control*

Another of my favourite will be beanspouts a.k.a Tau Geh, cheap and good! Whenever my mum cook beanspouts, I'll definitely be the one that polish off half a plate and still yearning for more! After doing a search online, apparently beanspouts contains pure form of vitamin A, B, C and E, in additon to that, it also contains an assortment of minerals, like calcium, potassium and iron! A big packet of beanspouts only cost you 50cents? So indeed it's cheap and good!

So after polishing off the bento box, I ended up with a protruding belly.. And its an indication that my stomach is overloaded with food..

*Self note to myself, next time pack a smaller serving of bento box!*

Egg-y Tart-y

2008-12-16T14:40:00.012+08:00

Burp Burpsss...

Woppes, sorry.. just gobble up 2 egg tarts before posting.. hehe.. Yeah, right, made egg tarts today (actually yesterday too).. So I shall post up yesterday pictures..

I was comtemplating between 2 egg tart recipes, because I like the tart recipe of the 1st and the egg custard of the 2nd, so in the end, I combine both recipe and came up with:

I use the tart recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2008/01/egg-tarts.html

And the custard recipe from:

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/09/egg-tarts.html

Both of which originated from Aunty Yochana website, I did some changes here and there to suit my family's tastebuds. I prefer the tart recipe because it uses less amount of butter.. My family and I are not "good friend" with Miss/Mr Butter.. But sad to say that, in baking using butter is inevitable. You want a rich taste, use butter, if not you will have to compromise with the taste..

Thus, in summary, the below is the recipe I used to make these egg tarts.

EGG TARTS

Pastry Crust

100g Butter
40 icing sugar
1 egg
20g milk powder
220g plain flour (I use 200g top flour)
20g custard powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Egg custard

280g fresh milk
160g sugar (I use only 85g of icing sugar)
3 eggs
1tsp rum (I omit this)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

(Tart)

Beat butter and icing sugar till well mix. Add in egg and vanilla essence and mix till combined.

Add in the sifted flour, milk powder and custard and mix till a pliable dough. Rest dough for 10minutes and press the dough into tart mould.

Bake the tart shell for 10 minutes at 175 celcius.

(Egg custard)

Heat milk and sugar together till sugar dissolves.
Cool down the milk and whisk in the egg mixture. Do not whisk till frothy.
Add in the vanilla essence
Sift the egg custard and pour into the tart mould and bake at 175 celcius till set (no longer wobbles)

I took about 10 - 15minutes to cook the egg tart till set, but this baking time may vary with different type of oven.

The egg tarts are very well-received! I gave some to my granny and my aunty commented that this egg tart is even better than the neighbourhood bakery stall she use to buy from! To me, this is very encouraging and will push me on to bake more stuffs! So happy..!

The egg custard is very smooth and silky.. Not too sweet as well.. very nice!!

And the tart case is crispy and very fragrant!

I packed 4 egg tarts and give away to my driving instructor as I have a driving lesson with him on that day.. Hope he enjoy it as much as I do!

Another happy stuff is that I finally got my silpat mat! This item is on my wish list for a long time, so today I finally got it! Though it is more on the expensive side, but I believe its worth it.. because I want to venture out in making macarons! One of my constant cravings.. Nutty taste, crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside.. Yumms.. Making me hungry!

A Blackforest cake for a B'day boy

2008-12-14T23:51:00.009+08:00

September 11, a day that some people will never forget.. (due to the attack of the twin towers)

However, this year september, 11 is a special day for someone special..

Its B's birthday.. so I created a cake for him.. He really like chocolates very much, and almost immediately BLACKFOREST CAKE flash across my mind, so without any procastination, I lift my butt off the comfy chair and search online for Blackforest cakie..

I got this recipe from "Do what I like" @ Kitchen Capers Forum.

http://wlteef.blogspot.com/2005/04/black-forest-cake.html

When I saw the picture of the cake florence created, I was so amazed! absolutely stunning! Just like what we will get from those secret recipes, breadtalk etc.. So yeah, a picture determines the birthday boy's cake.. Keke

Presenting to you, this lovely recipe:

BLACKFOREST CAKE

Ingredients

(A)

4 egg yolks

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp rum or kirsch (I use my Sis's chocolate liquer)

40g castor sugar (I use icing sugar)

(B)

5g cocoa powder

85ml warm corn oil

(C)

135ml warm water

(D)
125g cake flour
1/2 baking soda
1/2 baking powder

(E)

4 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

50g castor sugar

(Fillings)

15 fresh cherries pitted and halved (dried with paper towel)

25 canned pitted sour cherries halved drain well

500ml whipping cream whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar

100g shaved Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate

10 - 12 Fresh whole cherries with stems for decoration/maraschino cherries with stems

Methods

1. Mix ingredients (A) well with a hand whisk.

2. Stir cocoa powder in warmed oil until dissolved and pour into yolk mixture.

3. Stir (C) into yolk mixture.

4. Sieve ingredient (D) and stir it into yolk mixture.

5. Whip egg whites in a clean mixing bowl until big bubbles are formed. Add in the cream of tartar and whip until white in colour. Add in sugar over 3 times and whip until egg whites is stiff. 6. Pour 1/2 white into yolk mixture and blend well.

7. Pour yolk mixture into the remaining egg white mixture and blend well

8. Pour batter into clean baking pan and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until cooked.

9. Invert cake and leave to cool. Then cut cooled cake into 2 or 3 layers.

10. Whip the cream with icing sugar until stiff.

11. Add pitted fresh and sour cherries into half portion of the whipped cream.

12. Sandwich the cake with (11).

13. Frost the cake with the remaining half portion of whipped cream and decorate as appropriate with chocolate shavings and fresh whole cherries

I prepared the base cake around afternoon before the night I do up the decorations, this allow the crumbs to settle, and when you slice the cake into 3 individual parts, the crumbs will not fall off.. And a prettier cut as well la..

So after all these hardwork, I came up with this cake:

I did not decorate the cake with marashchino cherries because I couldn't find them at the AMK Phoon Huat, and not wanting to run around the whole "little red dot" (Singapore) for the cherries, I settle for strawberries and Rochers.. The rochers was quite a hit, guess they like the rochers.. Strawberrie wise, quite sour..

Non-dairy whipped cream was used to deco the cake as well, I prefer non-dairy over dairy whipping cream. Because I tends to overwhip the dairy whipping cream and "transform" them into butter.. *Sobs*

Just simply no luck with dairy whipping cream.. So whenever any recipe calls for dairy cream, I'll substitute it with non-dairy ones, the taste will not be compromised (according to my tastebuds) =p

Oh ya, I also used the heart candies to decorate the cake... add on a sweet and feminine touch.. Keke. The side of the cake uses chocolate shavings.. Done by yours truly.. Well, I really dislike making my own chocolate shavings, cos they tends to melt quite fast in hot weather, and resulting in a gooey mess..

Anyone has any idea to make my "Chocolate shaving journey" a less tedious one?? Please tell me! TIA!

Taste wise, I think it might be due to the chocolate liquer that I used, the chocolate scent is strongly enhanced, and the cake is spongy soft! Another point to add, the cake is not too sweet, which makes it even more appealing to me.

*I love desserts, but I don't have a sweet-tooth. Weird uh?

Well anyway, the cake was quite well received by all those who tasted it, and of course, the Birthday boy loves the cake as well! So overall, its worth the hardwork! As I greatly appreciate it when people enjoys my bakes!

Hmm.. Stay tuned, I'll be back with more stuffs!

My "good pal"

2008-12-14T01:46:00.010+08:00

Alright, this is not related to bakes and foodies.. But to introduce myself a wheeny bit, I'm a avid dog lover (Trust me, any kinds of dogs!). Well, so I myself got a dog as well, a Jack Russell to be precise, 7 year old this year.

Base on what Chinese thinks is that 1 year of dog is equivalent to 9 human years, so can you imagine, how old my dog is this year? Doing your mathematics correctly, he is 63 this year (Even older than my papa!).

Now, without further adieu, let me proudly introduce my best pal, RUSKIE!

Alright, this is a major identity crisis... Ruskie is a guy...

Suntanning out there..

Where's my newspaper??

Ruskie loves durians, just like all Singaporeans, although ruskie is an Austrian!

Tada! Show you my butt... Woof Woofs!

Ruskie can be quite picky about food, in terms of expensive or cheap food... He loves strawberry, fish, pork, broccoli, apple.. many more... But he totally hates bread, unless it is tuna bread (with real fishy smell) and cannot consume any chicken.. else he will be a Mer-doggy (merlion) the next day! Lastly, he don't like cornflakes as well..

To make this slightly related to cooking and baking, ruskie loves to eat my bakes! Esp those buttery cakes, pandan chiffon cakes, Orange cake! Hmm.. on a side note, this means that my bakes are good! Remember I mention ruskie is a picky eater?

Okie, that's all for today's update.. need to tuck in soon..! And I'll make sure the next post will be non-dog related!

Peanut Butter Cookies

2008-12-12T23:06:00.008+08:00

This peanut butter cookie is a melt in the mouth cookie! It is a fragrant and most importantly, a simple recipe to start with!

When I was baking this, my neighbour actually smelt the peanut scent.. She told me afterwards when I treated her the cookies..

Go ahead and try it, its yummilicious!

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

225g peanut butter (Smooth or chunky)

150g plain flour

1 cup brown sugar ( I use caster sugar)

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Methods

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius.

2. In a large bowl, mix sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla essence till well combined.

3. Gradually add in flour and mix till combined.

4. Use hands to roll out a tablespoon of dough into a ball, place on baking trap and flatten it slightly using the back of the fork.

5. Bake for 8minutes and cool for 5minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Tada, easy recipe right? Easy and good, definitely gonna stay with me for life!

First Blog Post

2008-12-12T22:50:00.004+08:00

Hello all, this is my first blog post! I'm very excited as I'm embarking on a journey to bake more stuffs and to try more new recipes!!

I love to bake very much, it is an interest developed when I was in secondary 4!

I can still clearly remember how my cake turns out to be kueh (being over ambitious, I tried to make Banaba orange muffin), how chocolate cake turns out to have plastic smell, and how cookies becomes stones (extremely bitter at the same time).

But luckily, I still manage to make some decent chocolate chip cookies using betty cocker's premix.. =p (W/O screwing it up)

Nevertheless, I try here and there and manage to at least bake some edible foodies...

So being a novice, I'm still learning and hope all the shi-fu(s) out there in the cyberworld can guide me along... Much much much appreciated!