Cream cheese bread

I tried another bread recipe from Blessed Homemaker and it really turns out good! Although oven-baked bread usually turns out better than the breadmaker, this cream cheese bread recipe is comparable. The crust is not as thick as other BM recipes and smells extremely nice! Think it will taste even better if it's oven-baked ;-) Bread making and smell of freshly baked bread is simply addictive!

Ingredients/ Method:


160g water
250g bread flour
50g cream cheese
10g powder milk
15g sugar
3g salt
20g butter
2.5g dry yeast


1. Using my bluesky BM, put in the liquid ingredients followed by the dry ingredients. Yeast to be added last.
2. Select Basic function, Light, 700gm, and press Start.
3. Let the loaf cool down before slicing.

This is our bread for Saturday breakfast. As usual, I like my bread with peanut butter, and another with just margarine to be able to taste how good the bread is. My little zak had the bread with cheese and (store-bought) strawberry jam. I'm contemplating to make homemade strawberry jam, hopefully soon.

Chiffon & Chiffon

My parents' birthdays are just days apart, and we would eat out on my mum's birthday as hers is on earlier date but we would have cakes on both actual day. I've never baked a cake before until last year. And this year i did two different type of chiffon cakes - passionfruit and blueberry, and they are just plain cakes without any decoration.

the appearance did not do justice to the taste

au-naturel blueberry chiffon cake

"star-studded" fresh blueberies are impromptu put-on.

little zak loves it the most!

the texture is different from the usual chiffon cake wonder

is it due to the whipping cream i added?

Blueberry cheese tarts

Blueberries are on promotion these days and 2 punnets cost less than $5. They are very versatile in baking and of course taste good on its own, so can't resist to buy when my baby and i were browsing at the supermarket after our breakfast last Saturday. At the back of my mind, I already knew i wanted to bake some blueberry cheese tarts, which had been in my to-do list for some time.

Ever since i shifted back to our home, Saturdays is an eat-out affair throughout the day - breakfast, lunch, dinner. There are occasional home-made bakes like cakes, breads, etc during teatime treats. I'm going to break the routine and have at least a home-cooked lunch on Saturdays. The only reason, of course, is for little zak. I started cooking a simple porridge last Saturday, and luckily little zak really 'give face' by finishing the whole bowl of porridge with carrot and meat balls.

Back to the tarts, i'd planned to do it during his nap time but before i could finish, little zak woke up and just then, it started to pour and flashes of lightning and came ear-cracking thunder. He started to cling onto me, and forbade me from going near the windows or sitting down on the sofa..... there goes my plan to make him tarts for his teatime treats, and he just ate some cream cheese crackers. Anyway, i only managed to finish baking the tart base and got to prepare the blueberry cheese filling the next day morning, for little zak's breakfast!

By the way, i got myself a customised turn-table through Lydia of My Kitchen, and I got a little excited to take photos with it ;-)

Ingredients/ Method:

Recipe adapted from Reese Kitchen

Pastry:

125g butter

50g fine granulated sugar

250g plain flour

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp COLD water

1. Sift flour and sugar into mixing bowl.

2. Rub butter into flour until resembles coarse crumbs (rubbing method).

3. Add in egg yolk, vanilla and water.

4. Shape dough into ball and refrigerate (20-30 minutes) before using** (before using, take out from fridge, wait for awhile until dough soften).

5. Place dough onto tart shells, and pooked the base with fork (this is to let the air comes out while baking).

6. Bake at 160-170'C for 10-15 minutes or until brown.

Filling:

250g cream cheese

20g butter

50g fine granulated sugar

1 egg

1. Beat cheese, butter and sugar together until fluffy.

2. Add in egg and beat till well mix.

3. Pour mixture onto baked tart shells.

4. Spoon some blueberries or blueberry pie filling onto unbaked tarts, and use a toothpick to create swirls.

5. Bake at 170-180'C for 10 minutes.

Century egg porridge

I was down with a cold last friday and having no appetite for outside food, i decided to cook century egg porridge for myself. I don't know for others, but there are certain food that bring back many memories for me.

When all 4 siblings were staying together at my parents' place, we will have home-cooked food on most of the Sunday mornings! I supposed it's cheaper to cook than to have breakfast outside since there are so many of us. My mum or dad will cook a big pot/wok of either century egg porridge, san mee, kway teow with yong tau foo, mee hoon kueh (handmade noodles),etc. Before/during and after breakfast, sibling bickerings and fightings and bullying were a common scene then, and my mum would be shouting at us at her top of lungs! (Un)fortunately these are only fond memories! *sob sob* The last time i cooked this century egg porridge was 1.1.2008, it was for my family and relatives who were staying over at my place after our new year count-down.

To prepare this porridge, most importantly is to soak the rice in water added with some cooking oil and dash of salt, at least an hour before cooking or overnight. When the porridge is almost cooked, add in mashed 1/2 century egg and 1/2 salted egg, meat balls, pork liver. Salt, pepper and sesame oil to taste when the porridge is cooked.

Basic bread

I'm craving to bake something last week, and nevermind that it's a working day, cos my hands are really really 'itchy' for not-baking for so long. Did couple of recipe searches and finally chose one that doesn't require baking; contradicting right? Basic bread for breadmachine. Maybe i just wanted a freshly baked bread? Again, i want to say breadmaker is the best and most amazing piece of kitchen equipment!

Ingredients/ Method:
Recipe adapted from Blessed Homemaker


1 cup cold water
3 cups bread flour (or 1 cup plain & 2 cups bread flour)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp yeast (make an indent in the flour and add in yeast)


1. Using my bluesky BM, put in the liquid ingredients followed by the dry ingredients. Yeast to be added last.
2. Select Basic function, Light, 700gm, and press Start.
3. Let the loaf cool down before slicing.


I gave 2 slices of bread to one of my friends to try as she is interested in getting a BM. Her comment is that "it tasted like bread we buy from outside." Another point i wanted to add is: there is no preservatives and definitely fresh!


I like my basic bread with margarine and sprinkle of sugar ;-)

1st food bloggers potluck party

It was a casual remark made to Jane of Passionate About Baking sometime beginning of the year, and she really made it happen last Sunday, 31 May '09! We had our very 1st food bloggers potluck party at Gina's newly opened shop - Kitchen Capers at Kallang Bahru. I had jitters before the event as each of us supposed to bring an item to the party, and i chose Japanese cotton soft cheesecake, which i baked before. However, the appearance of cake really sucks and i was almost too ashamed to bring it to the party. As I can't back-out at the last minute and there's no time no ingredient to do another one, i just have to bring no matter how ugly it is, at least i know it would taste good.

The party was fun, although everyone took a while to warm up to each other, the food was good - no preservatives, only love, Jane was very good at being a host and making us at ease, Gina is very generous to lend us her shop front for the party, a tour and intro to her shop, she also gave everyone a goodies bag plus discount for any items we bought on that day! I must say that Gina's shop do offer quite a number of things and ingredients not sold in PH, will definitely patronise the shop again soon.

I would love to have another such get-to-together with my food blogger friends. Hope to see my new friends again ;-)

Here's the good food on that day.....

*I didn't manage to take all the pictures of all food so only able to put up those that T had taken on that day.