Baking on Cloud 9

Xmas macarons

2011-12-26T18:51:00.010+08:00

Wishing all a (belated) Merry Christmas 2011!

It has been an extremely busy period for me now as my other half has got himself injured during our recent family holiday. Initially we thought that it's a not-so-serious bone fracture, but upon returning home, the CT scan showed that the crack is in rather bad shape. He was almost immediately admitted for an operation and will be in clutches for a long while. Hopefully he will recover and back in action soon! Meanwhile, pardon me for not being able to leave messages in your blog for this period, however I'll still be browsing your blogs as and when possible.

Here's my bake for our family xmas party which was 'constructed' after 2 failed macaron-ings, and even the 3rd attempt was 'haphazardly' done up and put into the oven. That's why you will realise that there's no pretty even shape macarons. As a result, only the little children in the family gets to eat the 'special' reindeers and xmas tree macarons. I guess a clear mind is definitely needed even for a tried and tested recipe.

I'm also submitting this post for this month Aspiring Bakers #14: Creative Christmas Bakes (December 2011) hosted by Hankerie.

Super-moist apple cupcakes

2011-11-27T10:41:00.012+08:00

I was completed sold when I saw Jo posted this Super-moist apple cake, and the heavenly cinnamon-nutmeg-sugar toppings! By now, some of you would know that I'm quite a cinnamon person. The sweet scent of cinnamon baking in the oven is like aphrodisiac and give you a high feeling, if you get what I mean.

For this recipe, instead of baking it as a 10-inch cake, I baked mine into 12 standard sized cupcakes and 2 mini loaves. This is mostly because I want to submit to this month Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes (November 2011) hosted by Min's blog. Actually, my baking was not smooth sailing... 1st my heavy cream turned bad even before it's expiry date, so got to rush T to buy for me when he just stepped into the house after a day's work. Then, I was being too greedy and put too much batter into each cups and ended up with a overflowing cupcakes :-( Like Jo, I was quite apprensible how the cake would turn out with the heavy cream being poured over the cake just before putting them into the oven. True enough, the cake did not turn out soggy at all. It was moist and the crumbs are so soft that it does not hold well if you are using a fork to eat. Overall, it's still a good recipe that I would try again when I have cinnamon cravings. I'm copying Jo's recipe with slight modifications here for future reference.

Super-Moist Apple Cake
(makes 12 standard cupcakes + 2 mini loaves)

Ingredients/ Method:
a) 1 1/4 cups sugar (I reduced it to 1 cup)
170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggs
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon cake flour (not self-rising)
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk (whole or low-fat)
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 medium baking apples, peeled, cored, halved, and thinly sliced (I used Granny Smith)

b) 3/4 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup sugar + 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon + 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (I used brown sugar)

1) In a large bowl beat 1 1/4 cups of the sugar and the butter for 3 to 5 minutes until light in color. Scrape the bowl as needed with a rubber spatula and continue to beat the mixture until it is very light in texture and color, several minutes more.

2) Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl between additions. Then add in the vanilla extract and beat to incorporate together.

3) Sift together the flours, baking powder, and salt. Alternately add the milk and dry ingredients into the butter mixture, stopping to scrape the bowl as necessary.

4) Pour the batter into the prepared lined cups not more than 3/4 full using ice-cream scoop. Spread it evenly with a rubber spatula. Arrange the apple slices overlapping on top of the cake batter to completely cover the top of the cake. Pour the cream evenly over the apples.

5) Stir together the 1/3 cup sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon and sprinkle the mixture over the top of the cake.

6) Bake in pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 35 minutes for cupcakes or 40 minutes for the mini loaves or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven, transfer it to a rack, and let cool completely.

7) Invert the cake onto the rack, remove the parchment paper, and invert it once more onto a serving platter. Serve warm or room temperature. Once cool, the cake can be stored tightly covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Update - 30 Nov 2011:
I kept the unfinished mini loaves in an air-tight container and left it in the fridge since Sat. The cake still taste fresh and superb on the fifth day that they were being baked. I microwaved on mid-high for about 1.5 mins after taking them out from the fridge. A keeper recipe that I would recommend to everyone!

See how the cake looks like on day 5! Nice!

Bloggers potluck Nov 2011

2011-11-20T10:51:00.023+08:00

Yesterday, I attended another bloggers gathering initiated by ZY and Eelin has kindly allow us to hold the event at her cosy home! This time, the theme of party is American and Asian and we have to prepare our bakes/food according to the theme. We have 14 food items and 2 cold/hot drinks for 9 adults and 2 kids! Isn't it too much for everyone? All in all, it was really a fun & enjoyable afternoon gathering, with great hosts, company, food, ambience & backdrop music! I shall let the pictures do the talking....

Cinnamon buns (water roux/tangzhong) recipe here

Thanks again everyone for the yummy goodies and great time, and ZY for initiating and Eelin for hosting! Till we meet again <(*v*)>

You can also hop over to the wonderful blogs of my bloggers friends!
Eelin of The batter baker
Jane of Passionate about baking
Zhuoyuan of Baking library
Chris of Yummy bakes
Doris of Tested and tasted
Judy of A busy gran's kitchen
Bee Bee of Honey bee sweets
Shirley of Kokken 69

Kawaii panda bread

2011-11-07T13:47:00.005+08:00

I'm a late bloomer in making this kawaii panda bread. Actually, I've seen this many times and always marvel at how cute it is but it never cross my mind to bake it till now. As usual, I would spend my time before going to bed to visit baking blogs or watch my k-dramas, and this cute panda loaf pops up again. Since today is a public holiday (as Hari Raya Haji falls on a Sunday), I can spend some time baking. Checking back, the last I baked a loaf of bread was almost 2 years ago!

Perhaps I did not greased my baking tin properly or I was too eager to dislodge the loaf from the tin, my panda came out 'disfigured'...sob sob. It need a little cosmetic surgery to look like a proper panda!

Panda bread
Ingredients/ Method:
(Recipe adapted from Do What I Like and pictorial guide from originator Taro Taro)

230g bread flour
70g cake flour
30g sugar
milk + 1 yolk = 210g (I used low fat milk)
4.5g salt
18g unsalted butter (I used 20g)
4g yeast
8g green tea powder dissolved in 10g boiling hot water
8g cocoa powder dissolved in 8g boiling water

1. Heat up milk and yolk to temperature of 38C. (I beat the yolk lightly with milk and send it to the microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds).
2. Put everything in bread machine and set to dough cycle. Let it knead for 20 minutes. Stop the cycle and restart the dough cycle and let it knead for another 15 minutes.
3. Divide dough (about 560g) into 3 parts: 75g for the chocolate, 210g plain and the rest of the dough which is less than 280g for the green tea.
4. Add chocolate to the 75g dough and knead till the colour is even. Add green tea mixture to the 280g dough and knead till colour is even.
5. Proof all 3 pieces of doughs on separate greased plates covered loosely with oiled cling wrap for 30 – 40 minutes. (1st proof))
6. Punch air out of dough and proof for another 20 – 30 minutes. (2nd proof)
7. Use 90g plain dough for the face and 2 pieces of 27g chocolate dough for the eyes. (Refer to photo guide in Step (7) in TARO’s site).
8. Fill the hollow of the eyes with 30g plain dough. (Refer to photo guide in Step (8) in TARO’s site).
9. Roll remaining plain dough over the patterned dough. (Refer to photo guide in Step (9) in TARO’s site).
10. Divide the remaining chocolate dough into 2 pieces (17.5g each) for the ears. (Refer to photo guide in Step (10) in TARO’s site).
11. Use 70g of the green tea dough to fill up the hollow between the ears. (Refer to photo guide in Step (11) in TARO’s site).
12. Wrap the rest of the green tea dough all around the patterned dough. (Refer to photo guide in Step (12) in TARO’s site)
13. Place dough into a well-greased loaf pan and cover it with a lid and proof for 50 – 60 minutes in an enclosed area eg. microwave oven. (3rd proof)
14. Bake at 200 deg C for 25 – 30 minutes.

Notes:
1. As my BM has broke down, I uses my KA mixer and knead for about 20 mins or so, till the dough looks smooth.
2. My 1st proof is 2 hours (unintended) though Florence uses 60 minutes, 2nd proof is 30 minutes and final proof is 60 minutes.
3. I bake at pre-heated oven 185C for 25 – 30 minutes.
4. Original recipe calls for tin size 206 x 108 x100mm (600gm). My bread tin is smaller 10 x 4 x 4' for 400gm, but the dough still manage to fit well.

Pandan chiffon cake (water roux/ 汤面)

2011-11-06T22:38:00.008+08:00

Still feeling unsettled for not trying out Happy Flour's recipe, I baked another pandan chiffon cake yesterday ..haha... 2 pandan chiffon cakes, 2 different recipes, in 2 days. Anyway, it feels like a proper closure.

The recipe is pretty easy to handle but my batter was quite watery and not as 'gluey' as Happy Flour's. In terms of pandan flavour, it's not prominent enough, so I would probably add a few drops of pandan paste the next time. Texture wise is fluffy & spongy except for some spots which I didn't do a good job in mixing the batter evenly. Also I did not manage to achieve the nice brown skin like Happy Flour... will continue to try! Regardless, it still a good recipe.

Pandan chiffon cake (water roux/ 汤面)
(Recipe adapted from Happy Flour)

Ingredients/ Method:
Batter:
5 egg yolk
70g coconut milk (I diluted with 50% water as I don't like the strong taste of coconut milk)
30g pandan juice (see below for making pandan juice)
50g unsalted butter
1/4tsp salt (I reduced to 1/8 tsp)
90g cake flour (sifted)

Egg whites:
5 egg white
1/3 tsp cream of tartar
85g caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Mix egg yolks and pandan juice together, set aside.
3. Pour coconut milk, salt and butter in a sauce pan, boil over low fire till butter melted about 60-65C (when few bubbles started to appear on the surface).
4. Remove from fire, add in flour and stir till it form a soft dough.
5. Slowly add in egg yolks mixture, whisk till smooth batter and set aside.
6. Use a cake mixer, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar till frothy.
7. Gradually add in sugar and whisk till stiff peaks form.
8. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the egg yolk batter until combined. (By now, the egg yolk batter should be lukewarm.)
9. Then fold in the rest of the meringue in two portions until well combined.
10.Pour batter into a 23cm tube pan, smooth the surface.
11.Place pan into a preheated oven and bake for 40-45mins.
12.Remove from oven, invert cake onto table top and leave it cool.

To make pandan juice:
1. Blend 10-12 blades of pandan leaves with 100ml of water, squeeze out the liquid from the puree.
2. Pour the pandan juice into a bottle, cover and chill in the fridge overnight for the residue to settle down.
3. Discard the clear liquid, use the residue left at the bottom of the liquid. This concentrate part of pandan juice give cakes a nice and light fragrant of pandan leaf.

Pandan chiffon cake (Christine's)

2011-11-03T23:53:00.009+08:00

This is a pandan chiffon cake that is not meant to be.....but don't get me wrong, it still turned out good!

I had previously bought a bunch of pandan leaves for kueh making but didn't get to use it. Not wanting to waste it and because there's some left-over coconut milk, I decided the best way is to bake a pandan chiffon cake. Onwards searching for good pandan chiffon cake recipes and found many available such as Jane's, Christine's, Happy Flour's, etc. But seeing that Happy Flour uses a rather different technique -汤面- I decided to use hers. However, when I was preparing the ingredients for the cake, I somehow clicked on Christine's recipe instead. These days, I baked without printed recipe; I would put my iphone beside me and constantly refer to the recipe from the small screen. Thereafter, I had problem sequencing what I should do? I used to utilise both my KA mixer and handheld mixer whenever the recipe calls for egg white meringue. As my handheld mixer has broken down months ago, I thought I could just use another bowl and KA mixer to beat the egg white. But all the bowls I used didn't fit. Ended up changing 4 bowls and only got it right on the 5th try and it's back to using the KA bowl. Got to wash and dry the bowl spotlessly knowing how sensitive the egg white can be. Trouble didn't end here, instead of Cream of tartar, I added baking powder to the egg white and had to scoop them out carefully. After losing so much egg white, beat another egg white to make up for it but it seems to be too much! My soul must have left my body whilst I'm baking this cake. I felt kinda lost & drained after that! What else can happen on a Thursday night baking!

Pandan Chiffon Cake
(Recipe adapted from Christine's Recipes)

Ingredients/ Method:

Batter:
5 egg yolks
20 gm caster sugar
100 gm cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
100 ml coconut milk
2 Tbsp pandan juice (see below for making pandan juice)
a few drops pandan essence/pandan paste, optional
3 Tbsp olive oil

Egg whites:
5 egg whites
60 gm caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 170C. (Note: I would turn up to 175 the next time cos the cake didn't brown that much.)
2. Beat the egg yolks with a balloon whisk and mix in 20 grams of sugar. Add coconut milk, pandan juice, and a few drops of pandan paste (if desired). Combine well.
3. Sift in cake flour and baking powder in three batches into the egg yolk mixture. Mix well. Lastly, add olive oil. Set aside.
4. Use a large clean bowl, making sure there’s no water or oil in it. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until bubbles form. Add the cream of tartar. After mixing well, add the 60 grams of sugar in three batches, about one-third at a time, and beat well between additions. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.
5. Spoon out 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and fold into the egg mixture. Lightly fold in the rest of the beaten egg whites with a spatula, until just combined.
6. Pour into the cake pan and bake in preheated oven for about 35 to 40 minutes.
7. Remove cake from the oven. invert the pan immediately. Allow it to cool completely.

To make pandan juice:
10 pandan leaves
1 1/2 Tbsp water

1. Chop pandan leaves into chunks, pop in a food processor and add about 1 1/2 tablespoons of water. Process to small pieces.
2. Place pandan leaves in a muslin bag and squeeze out the juice. You need about 2 tablespoons of it to make this cake. If you don’t have a muslin bag, just use your clean hand to squeeze out the juice.

As bad as my baking experience, I could only take one not-so-decent picture of the chiffon cake on a Friday morning before rushing to work. Pardon me ;)

Purple Sweet Potato Ang Ku Kueh (红龟粿)

2011-10-30T23:12:00.009+08:00

As mentioned earlier, I'm not into making kueh-kueh so far because of its perceived difficulty, and especially if it calls for homemade paste-like fillings. Until now that AB's theme is traditional kueh that I started 'looking seriously' into kueh recipes from books as well as many wonderful blogs.

There are many recipes that caught my eye, especially this purple sweet potato ang ko kueh from Frozen Wings and Honey Bee Sweets. I'm sold! I love the purple hue, and what's even more comforting to know is that the colour is 100% natural from the root, no addictives! Since I've have some left-over lotus seed paste from my earlier hakka pumpkin kueh post, it makes life easier (haha .... being lazy). Like HBS, I love peanut fillings ang ku kueh, so this would be next on the list. Of course, the mung bean fillings seems pretty easy & straight-forward to prepare, so I would give it a try too!

Ingredients/ Method:
(Recipe yields 24 pieces)
Purple sweet potato ang ku kueh skin
200g sweet potato, steamed and mashed
300g glutinous rice flour
1 tbsp rice flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
4 tbsp cooking oil
200ml water (I added slightly more as the dough was a bit dry)

*Filling: About 200g - 250g lotus seed paste

1. In a large mixing bowl, knead all the ingredients together and gradually adding the water as needed. The dough should be a soft pliable dough but not sticky.
2. Cover the dough and let rest for 20 minutes.
3. Rinse the banana leaf with hot water and dab dry it. Cut out oval shapes slightly bigger then the kueh size. Brush with some vegetable oil on the surface.
4. Divide the dough into 30g each and roll round.
5. Flatten the dough, place about 1 heap tbsp of filling in the middle, then wrap and seal nicely.
6. Place in the mould which is slightly dusted with rice flour and press down with some pressure.
7. To unmould, knock on the side of the table and let the kueh gently fall out on to your palm.
8. Place kueh on greased banana leaf and arrange on a steaming tray.
9. Steam at medium high heat for 10 minutes.
10.Brush some cooked oil over the surface of the cooked kuehs to prevent sticking.

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Steamed Rice Cake (蒸米糕)

2011-10-26T22:12:00.004+08:00

Today is a public holiday in Singapore as all our Indian friends celebrate Deepavali. For us, it's a good day to go out for a nice family lunch and R&R at home. Also gave myself an indulgence by arranging a masseur to our house for a full body rub ~ heavenly! Of course, there's some time for making some steamed rice cake. BUT, the supposedly quick & easy recipe became a pro-longed preparation. Sigh. Anyway, the colourful cakes brought along smiles and fond childhood memories, especially with extra coating of red sugar!

Steamed Rice Cake (蒸米糕)
(Recipe adapted from "Make Your Own Pastry - 自己做糕点, yields 14 cups)

Ingredients/ Method:
200g rice flour
200ml coconut milk
160ml boiling water
2 tsp double-acting baking powder
120g sugar (i reduced to 100g)
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

1. Sift rice flour and 1 tsp baking powder.
2. Combine rice flour and coconut milk and mix well.
3. Add boiling water, mix well and set aside to cool.
4. When cool, stir in 1 tsp baking powder and set aside for 1 hour.
5. Add sugar and vanilla essence in batter and mix well.
6. Line aluminium cups with paper and arrange on steamer tray. (I used small paper cups instead.)
7. Pour batter in cups until 90% full and leave to rise for 30 mins.
8. Steam over rapidly boiling water for about 15 mins.

Note: (1) The next time I make this, I would probably dilute the coconut milk with half portion water. (2) Add just a drop of your favourite colour to the batter (about 130ml).

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Hakka pumpkin kueh (客家南瓜饼)

2011-10-23T10:06:00.009+08:00

This post has 2-firsts for me, first time making lotus paste and first time making this type of kueh. Although making the paste is easy, I won't say so for the kueh. Because I'm not used to handling this type of sticky dough, I sorta regretted when I first started. Not wanting to waste my efforts and ingredients, I persevered and finally completed them. If you ask me whether I will do it again, I will hesitate and that's because the kueh turns out good despite the 'daunting' experience for me.

Homemade lotus paste
(Recipe adapted from Amanda's blog)

Ingredients/ Method
200gm white lotus seeds
160ml oil
120gm sugar (reduced from 180gm, but I still find it too sweet for me)
1tbsp condensed milk
1 tbsp honey
A pinch of salt

1. Soak pumpkin seeds in hot water overnight. (I bought my lotus seeds which green centre already removed. If fresh lotus seeds, please remove green centre.)
2. Wash and drain lotus seeds. Cook lotus seed with water till soft and tender.
3. Blend the lotus seeds till smooth.
4. Heat up a wok/pan, melt half the sugar until it turns golden brown in color.
5. Pour in blended lotus seeds, remaining sugar, oil and salt.
6. Cook over medium flame, stirring all the time until the lotus seed paste thickens.
7. Stir in honey and condensed milk. Continue stirring till paste leaves the side of the wok/pan.
8. Cool before use.

Hakka Pumpkin Kueh (客家南瓜饼)
(Recipe adapted from 汗牛养生馆 - 家常点心 yields about 20 pieces)

Ingredients/ Method
150gm glutinuous flour
100gm wheat starch/ tim sum flour (澄面粉)
500gm Pumpkin
100gm sugar (reduced to 80gm)
100gm homemade lotus paste

1. Deskinned the pumpkin and slice the pumpkin into small pieces.
2. Steam for 10mins on high, and mashed.
3. Add sifted glutinuous flour, tim sum flour and sugar into the mashed pumkin to form pliable dough.
4. Steam dough for 10 mins. Remove and allow to cool.
5. Divide dough into 30g each. Flatten dough and wrap with lotus seed paste. Roll to form a ball and light flatten. (The dough is quite sticky to handle, dust some dim sum flour on working surface and hand.)
6. Add some oil into wok. Pan fried till golden and ready to be served.

I'm submitting my post to Aspiring Baker #12: Traditional Kueh hosted by Small Small Baker this month.

Gourmet pizza

2011-10-10T16:01:00.008+08:00

Following my earlier post on pizzas, I made another attempt again the following Sunday using another recipe posted by Batter Baker. This time, I bought my ingredients days ahead so that I can be ready before the children's class ended. Somehow, the timing didn't work out and only two of the pizzas were churned out by then. Something must be seriously wrong with my time management ;-(

These gourmet pizzas were made after 'consultations' with the two men in my house, cos they would be the main customers anyway. They are 3-cheeses, portobello & basil, and italian sausage pizza. The pizza dough is by Jamie Oliver.

Overall, the customers were happier with the outcome of the pizzas this time.

Pizza Dough, by Jamie Oliver
(Doubled the recipe of Batter Baker's, and made 4 x 7" thin pizza)

260ml lukewarm water
1tsp sugar
2tsp instant yeast
2tbs extra virgin olive oil
400g bread flour
1tsp salt

1. Sprinkle sugar and yeast over water. Set aside for about 10 min till frothy.
2. Pour yeast mixture and oil into flour and salt.
3. Knead till smooth and springy (about 20 min by hand, 10 min by machine).
4. Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl.
5. Proof for about 30 min or till it doubles in size.
6. While you wait, prepare the pizza topping.
7. Generously flour your work surface.
8. Tip out the dough and flour the top.
9. Press or roll out dough to a 7" circle. If dough keeps springing back on you, let it rest for a few minutes.
10. Prick the dough with a fork (so the dough won't balloon in the oven).
11. Brush the pizza base with little olive oil (this is to prevent the base from becoming soggy.)
12. Spread pasta sauce generously on the pizza base.
13. Place dough on a pizza stone sprinkled with bread crumbs or cornmeal, or on a greased and floured baking pan.
14. Bake at 220 deg C for about 10min.
15. Remove from oven and top with your favourite ingredients.

Pizza Toppings
(for 4 x 7" pizza)

250g mozarella cheese
200g pizza topping cheese
Pasta/ Spaghetti sauce

3-Cheeses
(a) Mozarella cheese
(b) Pizza topping cheese
(c) Gouda chese

Portobello mushroom & basil:
(a) 1 pkt portobello mushroom, sliced & sauteed
(b) 1 pkt basil leaves

Italian Sausage
(a) 2 italian sausages
(b) Yellow & green capsicum

1. Spread half of mozarella cheese and followed by the ingredients.
2. Add the balance mozarella & pizza topping cheese.
3. Put back to the oven and continue to bake for another 10 mins at 220 deg C, or till brown.
4. Slice and ready to serve.

Our Sunday lunch

2011-09-28T19:15:00.006+08:00

After seeing batter baker's half & half pizza, my hands were itching to make them too! Originally intend to make it for the kids' snack after class, but I took too long to do my 'marketing' in the morning. By the time I reached home, the class had almost ended and making the pizza from scratch took a slow-motion me a 2.5 hours. Undoubtedly, we had late lunch again! As we had a movie to catch, we had to literally take our half-an-hour afternoon nap straight after our lunch. Me can't survive without afternoon naps, especially on Saturdays and Sundays!

I've copied batter baker's pizza base recipe for my future reference, and doubled her recipe as well to make 2 pizza.

Pizza Base
Recipe for 1 thin 12" (30cm) pizza base.
(Slight modifications on the baking steps.)

120ml lukewarm water
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp olive oil
200g bread flour
1/2 tsp salt

1. Sprinkle sugar and yeast over water. Set aside for 10 min till frothy.
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix till a dough forms.
3. Knead till smooth and springy (about 20 min by hand, 10 min by machine).
4. Place the ball of dough in a large flour-dusted bowl.
5. Proof for about 30 min or till it doubles in size.
6. While you wait, prepare the pizza topping.
7. Generously flour your work surface.
8. Tip out the dough and flour the top.
9. Press or roll out dough to a 12" circle. If dough keeps springing back on you, let it rest for a few minutes.
10. Prick the dough with a fork (so the dough won't balloon in the oven).
11. Place dough on a pizza stone sprinkled with bread crumbs or cornmeal, or on a greased and floured baking pan.
12. Bake at 220 deg C for about 10min.
13. Remove from oven and top with your favourite ingredients.

Pizza Toppings
(for two 12' pizza)

250g mozarella cheese
200g pizza topping cheese
Pasta sauce (can refer to batter baker's, but being lazy I use the usual spaghetti sauce)

1st half:
(a) 1 canned pineapples, drained & cubed
(b) 150g Pinic ham, cut into small squares
2nd half:
(a) 1 pkt Shitake mushroom, sliced & sauteed
(b) 1 pkt basil leaves

1. Brush the pizza base with little olive oil (this is to prevent the base from becoming soggy.)
2. Spread pasta sauce generously on the pizza base.
3. Next, spread half of mozarella cheese and followed by the ingredients.
4. Add the balance mozarella cheese and put back to the oven and continue to bake for another 10 mins at 220 deg C, or till brown.
5. Slice and ready to serve.

Mini egg tarts

2011-09-13T23:13:00.006+08:00

This is my second attempt to make egg tarts within 2 weeks using different recipes. The reason why I did not post it earlier is because the first attempt was a failure and I had to feed the bin. It was a dim sum style/ puff pastry type of egg tart that I tried, and using a recipe from a local magazine. I think I fail big time, both the pastry as well as the egg custard. I wonder how reliable the magazine recipe can be or is it because of my lack of skill in handling the puff pastry? Anyway the next time I'm going to make the dim sum egg tart will be using recipe from the reliable blogs; I've book-marked a few that look so good that you would want to eat them from the screen.

Now that lil Zak goes for his montessori class on every Sunday morning at my neighbour place, I had the luxury of time to do some baking. Further, I can share my bakes with my neighbours and their kids after their class. This helps in a big way as earlier I had 'problem' of finishing my bakes...kekeke. Thankfully, these egg tarts using recipe that I got from Cook.Bake.Love were very well received, and the little kids came back asking for more! I'd doubled the recipe and it produced 45 mini tarts and with about 15 tart cases left over, which I kept in the fridge unbaked.

Easy & Delicious Egg Tarts
(makes about 45 mini egg tarts)

Pastry
300g plain flour
2 tbsp custard powder
2 tbsp milk powder
1 tbsp sugar
50-60g egg (1 egg)
200g butter

Rub-in Method (cold butter) - I used this method
1. Cut cold butter into small cubes.
2. Combine flour, custard powder and milk powder and mix well.
3. With fingertip, rub in the cold butter, add sugar, mix well.
4. Add beaten egg, mix to form a soft dough (do not knead).
5. Wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate before use.

Easy Method (melted butter) - For reference only.
1. Melt butter.
2. Combine all dry ingredients and mix well
3. Add melted butter and beaten egg.
4. Using a pair of chopsticks mix to form a soft dough.
5. Wrap with cling wrap and refrigerate before use.

Filling
280g water
120-140g sugar
200g beaten egg (3 large eggs or 4 medium eggs)
80g evaporated milk
Few drops pure vanilla extract (optional)

1. Heat up water and sugar till sugar dissolved. Let cool.
2. Add beaten egg, evaporated milk and vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Sieve 3 times.

Assembly
1. Roll into ball and press the dough into tart moulds. (I did not measure the dough for each tart.)
2. Spoon in the fillings till 80% full. (I poured mine almost 100% full.)
3. Bake in preheated oven at 180C for 20 mins.

Mooncake or not?

2011-09-12T23:18:00.009+08:00

These days the monthly Aspiring Bakers event is one that gave me the little push to continue baking 'something'. So far, the theme of each month had been very interesting and it really serve as a good on-line encyclopedia for all who loves baking. Kudos to Small Small Baker who initiated this splendid AB, and to all hosts who spent so much time and effort to compile all entries every month!

Being the 8th month of the lunar calendar, naturally it's Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011) and hosted by Happy Home Baking. Of course, I'm submitting this post for this month's AB event. BUT....

Back to the title of this post.... I'm not very convinced that mine is a mooncake, though what I've "researched" from wikipedia skewed towards the answer "yes". What is a mooncake? Crust - can be chewy, flaky or tender, glutinuous rice, jelly. Filling - can be lotus seed paste, five kernels, durian, chocolate, etc. Shape - can be round, rectangular, piglet, cute cartoon characters, etc. Not wanting to do the snowskin mooncakes which I did previous years, and have not got the time to try baking traditional mooncakes, I did mine using 老婆餅 (wife's biscuit) recipe and shaped using the mooncake moulds/plunger that I just bought from Elyn of ShopnBake. The previous set of mould/plunger was given to my sis-in-law, and I only ordered this new set and collected on Sunday. You'll see how I always do my things at the last minute (oh no...)!

You will decide whether this is a Mooncake or not?

Anyway, Wishing all 中秋節快樂 or Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2011!

AB #10 - Blueberry Cheese Tart

2011-08-31T23:47:00.007+08:00

I'm beating the time to participate in the Aspiring Bakers #10 - Easy as Pie hosted by Janine of Not the Kitchen Sink. You see, I've only finally decided to bake the blueberry cheese tarts at the 11th hour (i.e 10.20pm to be exact!)Although I did prepare the blueberry fillings on Tuesday which is a PH, I didn't think I have the time to do any baking during the week.

Whilst writing this post, the tarts are still baking in the oven. I will be snapping some pictures later, do a quick edit and upload it here.

The blueberry cheese tart is the 2nd time I'm baking it (the last was June 2009). I didn't realise how time flies and without this blog to journal my baking journey, I would have thought that I did it just last year! That's a pretty long time for me to re-bake such a wonderful recipe.

In my haste of baking, I accidentally dropped and broke my beloved & sentimental mixer (heart-break as well). Told T about it and that I would have to throw it away, but he said that "something with sentimental value is for keep-sake though it can't be used anymore". Very true. I'm contemplating now.

Blueberry Cheese Tarts

(makes 36 mini tartlets)

Ingredients/ Method:

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.

Blueberry Filling:
125gm fresh blueberries
1 tsp sugar

1. Bring blueberries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat.
2. Cook, mashing berries with spoon several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to ¼ cup, about 6 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.

Cream Cheese 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.

The best blueberry muffins & pancake

2011-08-21T22:41:00.013+08:00

During my 3-weeks getaway in States, other than making lao po bing, I also had my hand on the Best blueberry muffins and soft fluffy pancakes. My original plan was to bake-like-crazy when I'm holidaying at my sis' place, if we had only stayed at her place. But we decided to have a week stay at her house "doing nothing", and another 2 weeks on road trip from central States heading westward to San Francisco. For the last decade that my sis left S'pore for States, this is our first time visiting her together with my dad & Zakris; my gf E tagged along as well. My regret is that my mum didn't get the chance to see the well-being of my sis in a far-away land, and I do not want to have another regret that my dad didn't get to do it too! It was definitely a good trip but it won't be the last for sure! I'm already planning another trip in 2013, and to see my 1 year+ niece then!

When I saw the big array of baking tins, tools, ingredients, spices, pots & pans etc left me & my friend in awe! Even the sugar and salt are particular! The kitchen is so well-equipped that you can bake anything almost anytime. For someone who don't cook at all before she left S'pore, it's a pleasant surprise!

The blueberry muffin recipe is highly recommended by my sis, and with the lemon-sugar toppings, they are luxurious to the bits. The only problem I had was the measurement used - cups, half stick butter, etc.

Blueberry Muffins
(Recipe adapted from Hooney's The Best Blueberry Muffins)
Makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients/ Method:

Lemon-Sugar Topping
1/3 cup sugar (I used Turbinado Sugar)
1 1/2 teaspoons finely grated zest from 1 lemon

Muffins
2 cups fresh blueberries, picked over
1 1/8 cups sugar plus 1 teaspoon
2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or 56.5gm) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk (may substitute with 3/4 cup plain whole-milk or low-fat yogurt thinned with 1/4 cup milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

FOR THE TOPPING: Stir together sugar and lemon zest in small bowl until combined; set aside.

FOR THE MUFFINS:
1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees F (or 218 deg C).
2. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.
3. Bring 1 cup blueberries and 1 teaspoon sugar to simmer in small saucepan over medium heat.
4. Cook, mashing berries with spoon several times and stirring frequently, until berries have broken down and mixture is thickened and reduced to ¼ cup, about 6 minutes. Transfer to small bowl and cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in large bowl.
6. Whisk remaining 11/8 cups sugar and eggs together in medium bowl until thick and homogeneous,about 45 seconds.
7. Slowly whisk in butter and oil until combined.
8. Whisk in buttermilk and vanilla until combined.
9. Using rubber spatula, fold egg mixture and remaining cup blueberries into flour mixture until just moistened. (Batter will be very lumpy with few spots of dry flour; do not overmix.)
10. Use ice cream scoop or large spoon to divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups (batter should completely fill cups and mound slightly).
11. Spoon teaspoon of cooked berry mixture into center of each mound of batter.
12. Using chopstick or skewer, gently swirl berry filling into batter using figure-eight motion.
13. Sprinkle lemon sugar evenly over muffins.
14. Bake until muffin tops are golden and just firm, 17 to 19 minutes, rotating muffin tin from front to back halfway through baking time.
15. Cool muffins in muffin tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire rack and cool 5 minutes before serving.

As we had to settle our own breakfast during the first week of our stay (both my sis & bro-in-law were out at work on some days), we created "chaos" in the kitchen. One of the brekky items I prepared is the soft & fluffy pancakes. I like how easy it was to prepare and the result is real good. This is a keeper!

Fluffy Pancakes
Recipe adapted from Wen's Delight)

Ingredients/ Method:
150g Self raising flour
50g Sugar
1/4 tsp salt
110ml Fresh milk
1 egg
1 tbsp Corn oil

1. Mix flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in egg, milk and corn oil, use a hand whisk to stir well.
3. Spoon batter onto a non-stick pan (without oil) to pan fry until golden brown on both sides.
4. Serve hot with maple syrup/jam.

Lao po bing (Wife's biscuit) & POP

2011-08-21T01:30:00.032+08:00

This is my longest break from blogging and I was almost contemplating to neglect it totally. I'm so sorry if anyone is waiting for an update on this 'pathetic' blog, that is if there is anyone LOL. I can't promise a regular posting but will try my best to keep my hobby going and this blog alive.

Actually, there are a couple of recipes that I will be posting, but this Lao Po Bing "step-by-step" will take priority as it's a long overdue request & promise. I only managed to get it done whilst I was on my 3-weeks holiday at my sis' place in US. This recipe originated from Florence's Do What I Like, but it seems that the post cannot be found in Florence's blog anymore.

Ingredients/ Method:
Water dough
100g cake flour
25g icing sugar
25g butter (cubed) or shortening or margarine or lard
40g water
Oil dough
100g cake flour
45-50g shortening or lard
Filling
50g candied winter melon, chopped to bite size
55-60g castor sugar
70g commercialised glutinous rice flour (koh fun)
18g shortening
15g white sesame seeds, roasted
12g dessicated coconut (can be omitted)
120g boiled drinking water, room temp.
Egg Wash
1 yolk + 1 tsp water + a pinch of salt

1. Pastry:
Water dough: Rub butter into sieved flour and icing sugar till breadcrumb-like. Add in water till a pliable dough is formed. Cling wrap dough and rest for 30 to 45 mins. Divide dough into 12 equal portions.

Oil dough: Rub shortening into flour till well mixed. Cling wrap and leave it aside to rest for 30 to 45 mins. Divide dough into 12 equal portions.

2. Filling: Put all ingredients into a big bowl, mix till well combined. Divide filling into 12 equal portions.

3. Flatten a piece of water dough. Place a piece of oil dough in the centre of water dough.

4. Wrap oil dough with water dough.

5. Press and roll out dough into a longish flat piece with a rolling pin. (I didn't do a good job here.)

6. Roll it up like swissroll style.

7. Turn the dough 90 degrees.

8. Roll it into a longish flat piece.
9. Roll it up like swissroll style again.

10. Pinch the 2 side edges.

11. Using hand, shape it into a flat circular shape.

12. Place the filling in the centre of the flatten dough.

13. Wrap up the filling with the dough. Ensure dough completely covers the filling.

14. Using hand, roll the dough to make it like a round ball. Then flatten it with a rolling pin. Egg wash the dough.

15. Bake in pre-heated oven at 200 deg C for 20 to 25 mins or until golden brown.

POP (Pig Out Party)

Just last Saturday, I attended my 2nd bloggers' party which was initiated by Eelin and it was held at Jo's cosy home. In fact, I'm surprised initially with the invitation but very happy that I got invited. Since my baking bug hasn't returned, I'd chosen to bring tau suan instead of baked stuff. All my other blogger friends put in so much efforts and brought along super sumptuous and tempting homemade TLC cakes, puffs, ice-cream, pizza, fried fritters, chwee kueh, and alot more. The gathering was very enjoyable and I look forward to another one soon. I promised to do a proper dish the next time! You can visit the wonderful blog of my friends here, plus many of them have put up pictures that will make you salivate & envious of our POP party.

Eelin of The batter baker
Jo of Sugar & everything nice
Edith of Precious moments
Jane of Passionate about baking
Doris of Tested & tasted
Jess of J3ss kitch3n
Zhou Yuan of Baking library
Grace of Kitchen corner
Bee Bee of Honey bee sweet
Cathy of Cathy's joy

Souffle cheese cupcakes

2011-04-24T00:48:00.006+08:00

It has been a long time that I've updated my blog. During this period of absence, I've done very little baking. Not too sure what I had been up to, but I'm left with little time and energy to bake after busy work week, dramas. It also doesn't help that I've no idea what I want to bake.

Whatever, I've a block of cream cheese that's going to expire very soon, and also that my younger brother had organised a housewarming on Good Friday, it seem a perfect calling for me to bake something on this day. This 'something' took a while to conceive as I'm totally clueless these days ~~ but definitely has to include cheese ~~ which is this month Aspiring Bakers #6: Say Cheese, hosted by Noms I Must. It was only till the eleventh hour that I decided to bake and finally deciding on baking this Souffle cheese cupcakes.

I'm happy with the outcome, and my family and relatives like them very much. The texture is very soft and tender, and resembles the Cotton soft Japanese cheesecake that I baked previously. Comparing, this Souffle cheese cupcakes is much easier to prepare and bake than the Cotton soft Japanese cheesecake. Taste-wise, both are equally good.

Souffle Cheese Cupcakes
(Recipe adapted from SeaDragon, with slight modifications)
Makes about 15 cuppies

125g cream cheese
60ml milk
40ml canola oil
3 egg yolks
40g caster sugar (reduced to 25g)
20ml lemon juice (extracted from 1 lemon)
30g cornflour, sifted
3 egg whites
70g caster sugar (reduced to 60g)

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Place a large tray of hot water inside the oven just below the shelf where the cheesecakes are to be baked.
2. Line 15 muffin holes with paper cups or use cupcake holders.
3. Soften cream cheese with milk and oil in a bowl placed over simmering water, or in a double-boiler. Whisk until smooth, remove from heat and let cool until lukewarm.
4. Beat egg yolks with 25g sugar until combined, beat in lemon juice. Gradually whisk in cheese mixture to combine. Lightly whisk in sifted cornflour, mix well.
5. Beat egg whites until foamy. Then gradually beat in 60g sugar, spoonful by spoonful, until firm but just under stiff peaks stage.
6. Fold 1/3 of the egg white mixture into the cheese mixture until thoroughly mixed in. Repeat two more times with the remaining egg white mixture.
7. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups using ice-cream scoop, filling each cup nearly to the rim.
8. Place the muffin tray on the shelf just above the tray of hot water.
9. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the tops of the cheesecakes are lightly browned. Test doneness when skewer inserted come out clean.

Cinnamon Buns

2011-03-21T14:01:00.013+08:00

I've been meaning to bake my own Cinnamon Buns for ages but never get to do it so far. Recently, there are few bloggers who 'tempted' me again with their hot-from-oven cinnamon buns, you can see from Reese Kitchen, Do What I Like. With some time to spare today, I finally get to bake these delicious cinnamon buns. It is so easy and I'm wondering why I took so long to bake it.

I was enjoying the entire process - from preparing the ingredients to cooking the water roux to mixing the dough and proofing, and rolling, cutting. Not too sure whether am I the only one, but I like the smell of yeast, it totally lift up my spirits! Seeing the 1st and 2nd successful proofing made me super uber happy!

Before 2nd proof.

40 mins later... after 2nd proof

When the buns are fresh out of the oven (almost immediately cos I'm running late on schedule -again!), I grabbed one of them, snapped a few pictures and rushed out of the house. I was munching the bun whilst walking to the bus-stop.

Cinnamon Buns (65 deg C Tangzhong method)
(Recipe adapted and slightly modified from Kitchen Corner)

Water Roux (Tangzhong)
125g water
25g bread flour

1. Cook 125g water with 25g bread flour at medium low heat, keep stirring until becomes thicken and no lumps left. Cook until 65 deg C, or if you do not have a thermometer, cook until mixture resembles baby porridge.
2. Transfer to clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent skin forming.
Note: Water roux can be stored for 2 days, and if colour turn dark grey, to discard.

Dough

(A) 210g bread flour
56g plain flour
20g milk powder
42g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
6g instant yeast

(B) 30g eggs
85g water
84g water roux (refer to water roux recipe as above)

(C) 22g butter

(D) 15g butter, soften
30g brown sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

1. Put all the ingredients (A) and (B) and knead until it form a dough.
2. Add the butter little by little and continue the kneading process until smooth and elastic and the dough does not stick at the side of the mixing bowl.
3. Proof for 40 minutes in a clean bowl cover with cling wrap.
4. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon powder until well combine. Set aside.
5. Flatten the dough with your hand and roll it out in longish shape with a rolling pin about 25cm x 40cm.
6. Brush butter on the surface of the dough then sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture onto the dough evenly.

7. Roll it up like a swiss roll and seal it tightly.
8. Cut into 8 equal portions using lightly floured knife.
9. Place dough in a 9" round cake tin and cover with a cling wrap. Proof for a further 40 minutes. 10. Bake at 180 deg C preheated oven for 15 minutes.

It turned out cottony soft and yummy, and simply easy to churn out. Sweetness is just nice so there is no need to reduce the brown sugar. But if you like sweeter cinnamon buns, more sugar has to be added.

Enjoy over a cup for black coffee - heavenly!

Birthday brunch at Keppel Club

2011-03-21T11:19:00.020+08:00

Yesterday, we invited our family members to the Peony Jade @ Keppel Club. The restaurant is open to the public and the weekend dim sum brunch is good value for money at $28++ for adults, $15++ for child 5-10 years old, and free for kids below 5. In addition, the environment is cool! and the place is not crowded probably because of the location. Good service and attentive service staff!

Here's a galore of some of the food we had tried. I didn't manage to take pictures of all food cos they were gone before I could snap them. Other good ones that are not here includes Steamed Meat Dumpling with hot & sour sauce, Beancurd Skin Roll with Prawn & Japanese Seaweed, Deep Fried Prawn Roll with Almond & Mayonaise, Stirred Fried Brocolli with Oyster Sauce.

**Die-die must try!

Soft & fluffy Bao

**Must try, 'wok-full' taste

**This looks plain, but it's very flavourful & fresh! Must try

Delicious & refreshing desert!

Can give this a miss.

Save your stomach for something else.

We were filled to the brim when we left the restaurant. Overall it's a good experience but I find that the desserts selection is limited and not impressive, except for the mango sago. If we could end our meal with a nice round of dessert, it would have been more perfect!

Have a good week ahead!

Lemon Meringue Cake

2011-03-20T23:58:00.005+08:00

Today's my birthday and it started with a long day but wonderful and lovely with lots of people closest to me. Before the DAY, I was busy preparing a birthday cake for myself and ended till the wee hours. Although I had in mind a cake to make, I was deliberating whether to bake or not to bake. Ended up I started baking preparation late in the night (like 9.30pm). So I was practically still baking the cake when the clock striked twelve i.e. on my birthday! And the cake was only frosted in the morning, just before the time we were supposedly to leave the house and picked up my family members for brunch! I was rushing. TL commented that I must have rushed to come to this world. Period.

Being a super inefficient and bad planner me, this was a tedious birthday cake to make. If any other bakers were to see me in this state, they would probably looked in exasperation. One thing for sure, I can't bake for a living, hah!

Anyway, whilst planning for my own birthday cake, I was flipping the new recipe book I got last month - "My Birthday Cake" by Kevin Chai. The pictures are all alluring but I finally decided on a Lemon Meringue Cake because I was left with 3 lemons sitting in the fridge for ages. Ironically, I did not followed the recipe in the book, the final cake was an assembly of various recipes.

Lemon Curd
(Recipe adapted from The Little Teochew)

60g unsalted butter
200g sugar
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
120ml fresh lemon juice (from 2.5 lemons)
1 tsp grated lemon zest, or more if you like (depending on how strong you want the flavour of lemon)

1. In a large bowl, whisk all the ingredients except the butter*. Mix well. Place the bowl over a bain-marie** (water bath) and stir constantly. The mixture may look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.
2. If you want a more subtle taste of lemon, do not add the zest at this stage. Set aside with the butter.
3. Once the mixture thickens - it should leave a path on the back of a spoon - turn off the flame and add butter in 2 or 3 additions. If you have not added in your lemon zest, add it in now and stir to mix well.
4. Allow the curd to cool slightly before transferring to a clean jar or bowl. Strained the curd to get a smooth curd. Make sure it is covered to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator. The curd will thicken further as it cools. Covered tightly, it will keep in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for 2 months.

Genoise Cake Batter
(Recipe adapted, doubled and slightly modified from Honey Bee Sweets)

86g clarified butter (or unsalted butter)
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk (100g + 18g)
100g caster sugar
66g cake flour
66g corn flour

1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. To prepare the butter, in a microwavable bowl, warm the butter until hot. Stir in the vanilla bean paste, cover and keep warm.
3. To prepare the egg mixture; in the bowl of a stand mixer set over a pan of simmering water, heat the eggs, yolk, and sugar until just lukewarm to the touch, stirring constantly with a long handled whisk to prevent curdling.
4. Immediately remove the bowl to the stand mixer and attach the whisk beater. Beat on high speed for a minimum of 5 minutes. It will more than quadruple in volume and very thick and airy.
5. Remove almost 1/2 cup of the beaten egg mixture and whisk it thoroughly into the melted butter.
6. Sift about half of the flour over the remaining egg mixture, fold it in gently but rapidly until almost all the flour has disappeared. Repeat with the remaining flour until all traces of the flour have disappeared.
7. Fold in the butter mixture until just incorporated. Make sure you reach into the bottom of the pan to be sure to moisten all the flour.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared 7" cake tin.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden brown and the skewer inserted into the cake came out clean.
Note: To prevent the collapse of its delicate foam structure, while still hot, the genoise must be unmould as soon as it is baked.

Meringue
(Recipe adapted from My Birthday Cake by Kevin Chai)

70g egg whites
60g caster sugar (reduced from 70g)
40g ground almond
25g dessicated coconut
10g plain flour

1. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form.
2. Gradually add in sugar, continue beating until stiff peaks form.
3. Combine ground almond, dessicated coconut and flour, and fold into egg white mixture.
4. Spread meringue onto 2 sheets of 7" diameter of round greaseproof paper.
5. Bake at 170 deg C for 25 mins or until golden brown.

Crystallized Lemon
(Recipe adapted from My Birthday Cake by Kevin Chai)

Half a lemon (sliced) - this is what I had left
50g caster sugar
25ml water

1. Bring sugar and water to boil.
2. Add in lemon slices and continue to cook on low heat until sugar thickens.
3. Remove and leave to cool.

Lemon Curd Cream
1 cup whipping cream
Slightly more than 1/4 cup lemon curd

1. Whisk whipping cream until stiff peak.
2. Add in lemon curd into whipped cream and continue to beat at low speed until well combined.
3. Stored in fridge until ready to use.

Assemble the Cake

Slice the cake into 3 portions.
Spread lemon curd cream onto a slice of cake and sandwich with meringue.
Continue step (2) and cover with another slice of cake.
Coat the entire cake with remaining cream.
Decorate crystallized lemon slices onto the cake.
Pipe lemon curd on the cake in any design.

Unfortunately, the genoise sponge cake did not work for me this time and I strongly believe it's because I didn't manage the techniques required. The texture was densed although not dry. I must work very hard to get THE sponge cake. Overall, the combination of lemon curd/cream, genoise sponge cake and meringue is a twist to a conventional cake, rather refreshing I would say. As usual, my family members are very supportive and finished up the cake!

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by Jess of Bakericious.

Passionfruit Swiss Roll

2011-03-12T22:53:00.005+08:00

This week has not been a good week for me. I'd not been feeling well since last weekend after Zak's birthday celebration. First came the body ache and fever, and followed by gastric. I didn't know that gastric pain can be so excruciating, and there's this nagging cramp every now and then. Hopefully it'll self-recover by next week.

Seeing that I go to bed much earlier than before, and knowing that I'd been to the doctor, my boy appears to be very concerned. On couple of nights, he would come to my bed side and ask me whether I'm feeling better and stroked my forehead, chest and stomache. Ohh... whatever pain there is would have been soothed. Just today, after hearing that I'm still not well, he asked me to go to the doctor again "...and if I still don't recover, can see the doctor 1000 times". So innocent and yet so lovable and touched.

Regardless, I've been thinking of baking something else to contribute to this month Aspiring Bakers , to use up all the egg whites and to make something out of the 3 lemons that have been sitting in my fridge for a long time.

I'm glad that I've at least accomplished baking something today. Not only that, I overcome my fear of making a swiss roll - fear that it will not roll up at all, fear that it will crack and break mid-way, fear that it will be too dry, etc. I'm also more ready to try it because I got a proper sheet pan (which I just bought and used it to make Zak's Strawberry long bus cake), and there's a highly recommended recipe for sponge cake/ swiss roll ( which I'd also used it for Zak's Strawberry long bus cake).

Afterall, the rolling is not as daunting as it seems to be *phew*. And I'm satisfied with the texture and appearance, this being my first try. You can be assured that I'll be trying out other flavours and designs in time to come.

Passing the pulps through the strain to extract the juice

Passionfruit Sponge Cake
(Recipe adapted & slightly modified from Kitchen Corner)

Ingredients/ Method:

A) 100g egg yolk (about 6 eggs)
20g caster sugar

B) 160g egg white (about 4.5 eggs)
75g caster sugar

40g unsalted butter
55g plain flour (I substituted with cake flour)
2tbsp passionfruit juice (extracted from 2 passionfruits, see above picture)

1. Prepare a baking tray (11" x 14") lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
2. Using electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale.
3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peak.
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the sifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter and passionfruit juice until well combine. Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly.
7. Bake at 190 deg C for 12 minutes. Be careful not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediately when it is out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

Passionfruit Cream
1/2 cup whipping cream
3 passionfruits

1. Whisk whipping cream until stiff peak.
2. Add in passionfruit pulps into whipped cream, one at a time until well combined.
3. Stored in fridge until ready to use.

How to Roll
1. When the cake is cooled, removed the parchment paper.
2. Put a new piece of parchment paper on the cooled cake. Gently turn the cake using another wire rack (or using the sheet pan).
3. Spread passionfruit cream on the entire cake.
4. Putting a clean dry kitchen towel under the cake makes rolling easier.
5. Lift up the parchment paper and roll the cake about 1 inch and hold to set the position. Using 2 hands, start to roll the cake using the parchment paper, and when in rolling motion use one hand to lift up the kitchen towel and continue to roll till the end.
6. Tighten the rolled cake and place the cake seam side down.
7. Fold the 2 sides of the parchment paper (like a candy sweet) to hold the rolled cake and put in the fridge to set the shape.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by Jess of Bakericious.

This cake is very soft and fluffy, and the passionfruit cream gives a refreshing taste! Do give it a try :))

4 years ago....

2011-03-05T23:38:00.016+08:00

4 years ago and on this day and time, I was still in the delivery room and just had the first hug from my lovely boy! Yes, Zakris is turning 4 today and we had a simple celebration at home with our family and relatives.

The day before, we had an early celebration at the school with all his friends from nursery 2. He was so happy and excited, looking forward in anticipation to both the celebrations at school and home. How he has grown from without knowing what is birthday to one who will ask for birthday parties! He knows how to say nice things to mummy to make me happy, give me hugs & kisses and say I love you <3<3<3>

Every year, I would ask my boy the cake he wishes to have for his birthday. Although a very young boy, he is someone who has a mind of his own and we always encourage him to make his own decisions . This year theme is supposed to be a bus depot cake as wished, but it is really too tall an order for me. I 'negotiated' for just a bus cake, no depot, and he agreed with having just 2 buses - one double-deck bus bus and a single-deck bus. As usual, I would keep thinking for weeks on the design and how to do it, what sponge cake recipe to use, what flavours, fondant, buttercream or whipped cream, etc. There are always so many ideas and thoughts running through my head before finally deciding on the Cake to make.

No matter how much planning, hiccups are very common for me. First, my 2 batches of lemon and greentea macarons totally failed and went to the bin - scatterbrain me forgotten to sift the icing sugar and almond meals :-( Then, when preparing the sponge cake, my egg yolk mixture became scrambled eggs...oh no! Followed by, I mis-read the sponge cake recipe resulting in a smaller sponge base, hence no 2 buses (sorry Zak), only one bus - a long/ bendy one. Next, I mis-calculated the amount of buttercream needed and I only managed to pipe one-third of the cake. Omg! I didn't want to start preparing the buttercream all over again as time is running short, and after some hesitation, I decided to use whipped cream instead for the remaining piping. Luckily and finally, I was able to present the cake to my lovely birthday boy <3<3<3.>

Plain Sponge Cake
(Recipe adapted from Kitchen Corner and visit Honey Bee Sweets for very useful step-by-step pictures)

Ingredients/ Method:
40g unsalted butter
100g egg yolk (about 6 eggs)
20g caster sugar

160g egg white
75g caster sugar
55g plain flour

1. Prepare a baking tray (11" x 14") lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
2. Using electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale. 3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peak.
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the sifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter until well combine. Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly.
7. Bake at 180C for 12 - 14 minutes. Be careful not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediately when it is out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.

Decorate
1 punnet of strawberries
Swiss meringue buttercream

1 cup whipping cream + 3 tbsp icing sugar (sifted) **

**Whipped cream is used because I don't have enough buttercream :p.

I am submitting the Strawberry Long Bus Cake to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by http://bakericious.blogspot.com/.

Other than baking the birthday cake, I also prepared Refreshing lemongrass drink shared by Jane of Passionate about Baking. The drink is really refreshing and good, but I prepared in "limited edition" so not all guests get to try it. I must say this is really a keeper!

Refreshing Lemongrass Drink
(Recipe adapted and slightly modified from Passionate about Baking)

Ingredients/ Method
8 Lemongrass, chopped and mashed lightly
3 litres water
10 tbsp Sugar
2 Lipton tea bags

1. Boil lemongrass and water in a pot.
2. Remove from heat.
3. Add tea bag to infuse, followed by sugar.
4. Remove tea bag after about 10 mins.
5. Let the lemongrass infused in the water overnight as it cooled.
6. Strained into a bottle and refrigerate.
7. Serve with ice.

Wishing Zakris a very Happy Birthday & 健健慷慷, 快高长大!

Steam Carrot Cake (萝卜糕)

2011-02-27T23:05:00.006+08:00

I had another go of this carrot cake recipe which was originally shared by Honey Bee Sweet. This time, I added more of everything - radish, mushroom, dried scrimp, chinese sausage (腊肠), but forgotten I had to increase the liquid and flour and as a result it was more 'densed' with ingredients! Nevertheless, it still tasted good... we love it steamed than fried. Healthier choice and less cleaning to do without the frying (",)

Ingredients/ Method
(Adapted and modified from Honey Bee Sweet's Dim Sum Fried Carrot Cake)

Set A:
650g white carrot / turnip, peeled and shredded
340ml water

Set B:
5 shallots, peeled and chopped fine
3 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked and cut into smaller bits
7 dried mushroom, soaked in water till soft, then cut into small chunks
3 Chinese sausage, casing removed and cut into small chunks
3 tbsp vegetable cooking oil

Set C:
155g rice flour
15g corn flour
15g wheat starch powder
340ml chicken stock (or use 340ml water + 1 chicken bouillon cube)

In a large pot, add shredded carrot and water and start boiling mixture. Cook for about 5 to 8 minutes till the vegetables are slightly cooked. Do not throw about the water, leave the whole mixture together and set aside till needed.
In a saute pan, add vegetable oil at medium heat and stir fry the shallots till fragrant. Then add in Chinese sausage, mushrooms and dried shrimp. Cook mixture for a couple minutes then add the carrot water mixture in. Let it stew for about 8 to 10 minutes and then off the fire. Set aside till needed.
In the meantime, prepare the steamer with boiling water and grease a 8" round steam pan lined with parchment paper.
In a large mixing bowl, add rice flour, corn flour and wheat starch. Pour in the chicken stock and mix well. Then pour the carrot mixture into the flour mixture and stir well. The mixture will be lumpy and thick.
Pour it into the prepared steamer pan and let steam on medium heat for about 40 minutes till cooked.
Remove from steamer and let cool completely before cutting into it.

Note:
a) Remember to increase the liquid and flour to have more kueh than ingredients!
b) More shallots to be added as requested by T.
c) I did not use parchment paper, instead I oiled the pan so that it will not stick.

As I made this on Saturday afternoon, I re-heated the the carrot cake by steaming them again for about 5 mins this morning. Slice and serve for our simple breakfast today!

Strawberry macarons

2011-02-14T20:54:00.010+08:00

Love In The Air ....
Happy Valentine's Day

With my success with the chocolate macarons, I'm gearing myself to try out other flavours and colours of these lovely macarons.

However, without proper planning and research, it spelt trouble and failure! My attempt to replace the cocoa powder with cranberry sauce only produced flat meringue, not macarons. I first blended the almond powder and icing sugar, set aside, and followed by blending the cranberry sauce. Few mistakes, (a) cranberry sauce is not blended fine enough (there are still bits of cranberry), (b) blending almond power mixture and cranberry sauce produced very gluey batter, which make it very difficult to fold into the egg white without deflating all the bubbles, (c) continue to pipe and bake even though the batter look very unpromising.

I then proceeded to read more blog posts about macarons, and came out with the Strawberry Macarons. I was not very hopeful initially, but the outcome turned out acceptable. The only complaint that I have is the faint colour of red, and the not-so-smooth dome. Anyway, Love is not always smooth, there are ups & downs. More trials & errors in macarons, and practice make perfect!

Strawberry Macarons

Ingredients/ Method:
(Makes about 36 pieces or 18 sandwiches)

50g icing sugar
37.5g almond powder
1 large egg white, room temperature (about 36g each)
32.5g caster sugar
2 -3 drops of strawberry emulco

1) Preheat oven to 150 deg C.
2) Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip (about 1 cm) ready.
3) Grind together icing sugar with almond powder so there are no lumps, using blender or food processor.
4) In a bowl of standing electric mixer, beat the egg white until they are foamy. Add sugar in 3 batches and whip egg white until very stiff and firm.

5) Add in strawberry emulco to the egg white mixture and beat until colour evenly blended, about 5 seconds.
6) Carefully fold in the dry ingredients in two batches into the egg whites mixture using the mixer on low-medium speed, about 5-10 seconds . When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop mixing and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
7) Pipe the batter like a v-shape on the parchment-lined baking sheets. Evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
8) Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

Filling can be anything, I'd used nutella and peanut butter this round.

Note:
1) Smooth the piped batter if rapping the baking sheet did not give a smooth dome/ surface.

2) There's no need to rest the macarons before baking. I put them straight into the oven after they are being piped.
3) So far I use Glad's baking paper for most of my baking and these macarons can be easily removed using them too.

4) Add more colouring or emulco to have more pretty/ obvious colour.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #4: Love In The Air which is hosted by Ellena of Cuisine Paradise for this month's theme.

Chocolate macarons

2011-02-13T23:52:00.009+08:00

With all the CNY baking, I've got so many egg whites left. For the past few years, these egg whites will be thrown away (*heart-ache*) cos I don't how else I can do with them. This time, I've put them in good use, in fact, I'm very happy with the outcome!! Macarons!! However, I did failed on the first attempt using another recipe and I was like, "...well, these egg whites would have gone to waste anyway ;( " I've read of many failed stories, and that macarons are not the easiest to bake. I agree and disagree. Why? Depends on the recipe, I would say.

My first failed attempt! No feet & the macarons cannot be

removed from the parchment paper. Only "empty" shells left.

Through my sis's close buddy, whom we got closer because of our baking interest, she recommended me an almost fail-proof chocolate macaron recipe by David Lebovitz. I would recommend to anyone who wants to try out macarons! When the macarons came out from the oven, I can see the nice little feets, shiny & firm dome! Happy!

Whilst filling up the macarons, Zakris took one and said it's nice. Returned to the kitchen and took another 2 more, followed by saying it's very nice! Even T commented that it's nice too! Very happy! I've to add that Zakris has tried more macarons than us, but I think he's basically attracted to the arrays of colour and these super-sweet biscuits. I'm not as sweet-toothed though.

Chocolate Macarons

Ingredients/ Method:
100g icing sugar

50g almond powder

25g unsweetend Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 large egg whites, room temperature (about 36g each)

65g caster sugar

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

2) Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip (about 1/2 inch - 2cm) ready.

3) Grind together icing sugar with almond powder and cocoa power so there are no lumps, using blender or food processor.
4) In a bowl of standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they are foamy. Add sugar in 4 batches and whip egg whites until very stiff and firm.
5) Carefully fold in the dry ingredients in two batches into the egg whites mixture with a rubber spatula. When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop folding and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
6) Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch (3 cm) circles (about 1 tablespoon each of batter), evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
7) Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

Filling

1 portion of Nutella

1/3rd portion of cranberry sauce

1) Mix well and spread on the macarons.

Note:

1) I use Van Houten cocoa powder instead as this is what I had in my kitchen.

2) I bake the macarons at 150 deg C.

3) There's no need to rest the macarons before baking. I put them straight into the oven after they are being piped.

4) As I have problem using the spatula, I used my electric mixer - balloon whisk - to mix the dry ingredients with the egg whites. This takes about 5 seconds on low-medium speed.

5) So far I use Glad's baking paper for most of my baking and these macarons can be easily removed using them too.

6) My piping tip is rather small (less than 0.5cm) and they works well.

7) I piped the batter about 1.5cm as I think small macarons are more cute.

Cranberry butter cake

2011-02-12T17:02:00.008+08:00

Using my home-made cranberry sauce, I made a cranberry butter cake. This was baked on the late night of 2nd day of CNY as we were initially expecting guests to our humble home on the 3rd day of CNY. However, there was a last minute change and we adjourned to our aunt A & uncle D house instead, and we brought the cake along. Everyone loves this cake!

Cranberry Butter Cake

Ingredients/ Method:
225g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
85g unsalted butter
150g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup non-fat unsweetened yogurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
90g cranberry sauce

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg and lined a 8 inch round tin.
2) Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3) Cream the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Dribble the eggs slowly about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for about 2 mins.
4) On LOW speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined. Beat in 1/2 of the yogurt. Then beat in 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture, followed by the remaining yogurt, and vanilla essence. Finally beat in the remaining flour mixture.
5) In a separate bowl, scoop about 1/4th of the batter and mix well with cranberry sauce.

6) Pour remaining batter into prepared tin. Add dollop of cranberry batter into main batter and create swirls using knife.

7) Bake for about 40-50 mins till skewer inserted comes out clean.
8) Cool in pan for 5 mins. Unmould and cool completely.

Note:
1) I will probably add another 30g more of cranberry sauce the next time.
2) I will pour half of the remaining batter and add dollop of cranberry sauce, and then pour the balance batter and add cranberry sauce again to have a more even distribution of cranberry sauce in the cake.

Cranberry sauce

2011-02-09T22:10:00.006+08:00

I've bought a punnet of fresh cranberries thinking of adding them to my fruits yogurt, but these are way too sour. I recalled seeing an easy cranberry sauce recipe before and decided that I would make them in order to "salvage" these cranberries. The fresh cranberries were put in the freezer and after more than 2 weeks, they still look "fresh"!

The steps are really easy but the results are not compromised. I'm very happy with how the sauce turn out so pretty & yummy, and I'm already thinking of making other jam using blueberries (as these are much cheaper than cranberries ...kekeke).

Ingredients/ Method:

(Recipe is halved as I've got only 170g cranberries)

100g caster sugar

130ml water

170g fresh cranberries

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan.
2. Add cranberries and return to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat and boil gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, till the cranberries have burst.
4. Let stand to cool completely at room temperature. The mixture will thicken as it cools. Store sauce in refrigerator for up to a week.

Stay tuned to see what I've done with these pretty cranberry sauce!

Pineapple Tarts - Old & New

2011-01-31T14:19:00.009+08:00

This must be at least nth post about pineapple tarts that you can find in the blogosphere. During Chinese New Year, pineapple tarts is something that almost every Chinese family will eat, and there are at least another 4 persons around me that bakes their own pineapple tarts.

I can't remember when I started to bake my own pineapple tarts, but whenever I do so, it is definitely 100% home-made i.e. making pineapple jam from scratch. I don't have to elaborate how laborious it can be, from grating the pineapples by hand (getting cuts on the fingers is pretty much the norm for me :p), standing in front of the stove and stirring the grated pineapples for hours, preparing the dough is easy, to moulding each tarts, and packing them in the containers. There are several occasions where I want to take the short-cut and buy off-the-shelf pineapple jam, but cross-fingers this has not happen yet. I still find immersed pleasure and joy to make these pineapple tarts from scratch and give them away to my family and relatives. Especially when there's a little more work stress these day, I like to play with the dough and be able to indulge in my own thoughts and world! Also reminiscing the good ol' days when I had both my mum and dad to help me out with all the preparation and baking of these pineapple tarts.

Here's sharing the 2 recipes with you, hope you enjoy and find joy in making pineapple tart as much as me!

*OLD Recipe

Ingredients/ Method:

Filling
11 half-riped pineapples
1kg caster sugar

1. Grate the pineapples and drained the juice. Do not squeeze out the juice as this is what give the filling the flavour.
2. Cook the grated pineapples in a pot over medium heat, stirring occasionally.

3. Add in the sugar when half of the juice is reduced.

4. Continue to cook until the jam is totally dry on low heat, which takes about 2 to 3 hours.

5. Leave to cool before rolling them into small balls.

6. Keep in fridge if using it on the same day. Put in the freezer if not going to use immediately.

This is how I rolled & stacked before keeping them in the fridge.

Note:

1. The next time, I will use 50% riped pineapples, and 50% half-riped pineapples as I read from somewhere that the jam will be more flavourful.

2. Make sure the eyes of the pineapples are removed.

3. More stirring required towards the end as the jam will get burnt easy at this stage. Keep an eagle-eye when the jam starts to dry.

Pastry
750g butter
525 Hong Kong flour, sifted
525g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp butter milk essence
100g milk powder
50g custard powder
120g soft brown sugar
4 1/2 egg yolk
1 1/2 egg white
1/2 tsp salt

1 egg (for egg wash)

1. Beat all ingredients, except Hong Kong flour and plain flour, till pale white.
2. Add flour and mix evenly. Do not over-mixed.
3. Keep in fridge for 30 mins before use.

4. You can either use this for closed-up tarts or nastar. (I've not tried open tarts using this recipe.)

5. Egg washed the tarts before baking to give it a nice colour.

6. Bake in pre-heated oven at 175 deg C for 25 mins.

7. Cool tarts thoroughly on wire rack before storing.

**NEW Recipe

Ingredients/ Method:
Recipe adapted from QBB webite - Chef Devagi's Pineapple Tarts

Pastry
•200g QBB
•25g icing sugar
•2 egg yolks
•1/2 tsp salt
•350g plain flour

1.Using a wooden spoon, cream QBB, sugar, egg yolks and salt until creamy.
2.Fold in shifted flour and mix well to combine. The dough will be sticky and slighly 'wet' to the touch. Refrigerate for 1/2 hour.
3.Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Line 2 - 3 baking trays with greased baking paper.
4.Roll out pastry to about 0.75cm thick.
5.Make tart shapes with pineapple tart cutter.
6.Arrange on a lined baking tray.
7.Place prepared balls of pinapple jam in the hollow of the cut pastries.
8.Bake for 20 - 25 min
9.Cool tart thoroughly on a wire rack before storing.

Note:
1. I used the same pineapple jam as the "OLD" recipe.

Before baking, I tried a few moulds to test which is the easiest to handle.

I love the flower-shaped but they are not as easy. Next year, perhaps!

Personally, I still love my "OLD" recipe. I will gather what my other family members and relative got to say about these 2 pineapple tarts and will update shortly.

I'm also submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookie hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

Special Melting Moments

2011-01-22T19:48:00.011+08:00

Today is a activities-filled day! At the repeated request of my boy, he wanted to take the train from our place to Changi Airport... nothing special if you are not staying in the farthest north of Singapore. I didn't really timed the journey, but I think it took at least 1.5 hours including the feeder service from my house to the MRT station. The return trip was another train and super long bus trip back from Changi Airport back home. Really a B.M.W. (bus.mrt.walk) day! Although it was pretty tiring, I really cherish and love these moments. Our conversation whilst in the sky train:-

Me: Are you happy today?

Zakris: I am happy!

Zakris: Mummy, are you happy?

Me: I'm happy because you are happy :-))

Zakris: Why?

Me: B'cos I love you <3<3<3>

I thought I would be too tired to do any baking today, but my energy level went up when I reached home. So here's another recipe which I'm trying from Agnes Chang's I Can Bake.... Special Melting Moments. Another easy and no-fuss (i.e. no mixer required) recipe which yield yummy & very delicate morsels. And these are made especially special because my darling helps with the mixing and piping :-))

Special Melting Moments

Recipe adapted from Agnes Chang's I Can Bake

Ingredients/ Method:

200g butter

80g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp salt

120g self-raising flour, sifted

120g corn flour, sifted

1. Cream butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and salt using spatula till just combined.

2. Add self-raising flour, corn flour and mix into soft dough.

3. Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a big star nozzle. Pipe onto a greased baking tray to form into the shape of rosette.

4. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 deg C for 15 - 20 mins till light golden brown.

5. Cool on rack, sprinkle some icing sugar on top if desired.

6. Store in air tight tin before serving.

Note:

1. I reduced the icing sugar to 60g, sweetness is just nice for me.

2. As usual, I used my favourite pure vanilla bean paste.

3. I baked the cookies at 15 mins.

4. I sprinkled snow powder on some of the cookies but I think they look and taste better without them.

5. The next time I baked, I may want to add a bit of red cherries to make these cookies look brighter and cheery.

(Updated 23.1.2011: My relatives tried these but they don't fancy this cookies. General comment is that it's very salty. To omit salt or use unsalted butter the next time if I'm trying this recipe again.)

Melting Moments dusted with snow powder.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookie, hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

Daisy Mocha Cookies

2011-01-16T22:56:00.007+08:00

Another CNY cookies that I made today - Daisy Mocha Cookies, the first recipe that I tried from Agnes Chang "I Can Bake" cookbook. Personally I'm not a cookie-person, and usually I don't pay much attention to the cookie section of any cookbooks. If you were to notice, I hardly bake cookies but during this CNY season, it seems that I'm going to bake more cookies than ever ;-))

The recipe is very easy to prepare, and only require a mixing bowl and spatula.

Daisy Mocha Cookies
Recipe adapted from Agnes Chang "I Can Bake"

Ingredients/ Method:
(A) 250g butter
120g castor sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/2tsp coffee paste

(B) 420g plain flour, sifted
60g chocolate rice

Decoration: Some chocolate chips

1) Put all ingredients A into a mixing bowl and cream till well combined.
2) Mix in ingredients B and form into a firm pliable dough.
3) Place the dough in between 2 layers of grease-proof paper and roll it to 3mm thick.
4) Cut with daisy-shaped cookie cutter and arrange the shapes on a greased baking tray. Decorate each centre with a chocolate chip.
5) Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for about 15 - 20 mins, till lightly brown. Leave to cool before storing.

Note:
1) I reduced the sugar to 100g and level of sweetness is just right for me.
2) I replaced the coffee paste with 1 1/2tsp hot water and 2tsp nescafe granules, as I didn't want to buy the coffee paste which I know I will hardly use.
3) Work on a small portion of dough at a time, and put the remaining dough in the fridge. It's much easier to work with the dough when they are just out of the fridge.

Verdict: The cookies are crunchy & crispy, the coffee taste is mild and not over-powering. For a non-cookie person, I don't mind eating them at all. T prefers this over the Sugi cookies.

I'm also submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookies hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

Suji Cookies

2011-01-16T16:50:00.008+08:00

This is the start of my CNY baking. Unlike previous years where I would start with my favourite pineapple tarts, I'm now baking other stuffs first. Though I have prepared my homemade pineapple paste, I want to bake them last so that the pineapple tarts are eaten as fresh as possible.

I always planned and tagged many recipes but end up doing one or none...kekeke. Quite determined that it would not happen (again) this year, today (or at least half a day) is fully reserved for my baking. Fortunately, T is ever so welling to take care of Zakris and brought him out for their CNY haircut, library, lunch, in-law's place, etc. and whilst I'm writing this post, they are both sleeping soundly. The evening is reserved for both hubby & sonny - dinner and shopping ;-))

Here's the first of my CNY baking..... Suji Cookies! And what do you do when someone doesn't want to share his/ her recipe, don't fret, there's always the internet and so many generous sharing by other bloggers!

The black specks are from the vanilla bean paste!

Suji Cookies

Recipe adapted from QBB website - Chef Devaji

Ingredients/Method:-
250g QBB
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
500g plain flour
2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda
170g icing sugar
3/4 teaspoon fine salt

Melt QBB over low heat and cool.
Add vanilla essence to cooled ghee.
Sift flour, bicarbonate soda, icing sugar and salt into mixing bowl.
Pour ghee mixture in flour mixture and knead well to form a firm dough.
Preheat the oven to 180 deg C.
Roll dough into melt-in-your-mouth ball sizes and place on greased tray.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes till cooked but not brown. The cookies should be white and crumbly in texture.

Note:

I replaced vanilla essence with same amount of my favourite pure vanilla bean paste.
After baking the first batch, I adjusted the oven temperature to 175 deg C, and baking time reduced to 20 min.
Roll the dough very small (about size of 10 cents coin) so that you can pop them in your mouth; they expand a fair bit after baked.

Update 27.1.2011: I baked another 2 batches last weekend and reduced the sugar by 25%, and baked them at 18 mins for smaller dough size (about 10 cents coin). I think the salt can be reduced slightly too. Overall comment for this cookie is very good.

The verdict - I love these cookies, they really melt-in-your-mouth <3<3<3>

I'm submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favourite CNY Cookies, hosted by j3ss kitch3n.

Nutella banana squares

2011-01-01T23:47:00.008+08:00

The last thing I did in 2010 and first thing in 2011 is this nutella banana squares.... nothing elaborate and in fact a recipe which I tried before. Except that previously i baked in a muffin cup and it had a streusel topping, I decided to make mine in squares and slather lots of nutella and put on a cheery-red raspberry :)) Baking the banana cake was a breeze but I did have a tough time cutting up them in squares of 4cmx4cm as the nutella kept sticking on the knife. In the end, it was so messy that the last 2 pieces of squares was almost beyond recognition ;0

*P.S. The main reason for baking this was because of the very riped mini bananas sitting in my kitchen, and screaming to be eaten or else to be fed to the bin!

Happy holiday!

Happy eventS

2011-01-01T03:54:00.000+08:00

Before I start blogging about my bakes & such in 2011, I want to complete this post about the happy eventS that happened in 2010.....

My Madagascar Vanilla Beans - one whole packet of fresh vanilla beans! ..... and

One big bottle of Nielsen-Massey Pure Vanilla Bean Paste - 944ml! ......

...... I think these are going to last me for many good years of baking!

However, the anxiety of waiting and happiness of receiving these vanilla bean (paste) does not beat seeing my dearest sis, who's residing in States, once again! Now, I'm looking forward to my trip to visit her this year ;-))

02102010 - These were cute little wedding cupcakes that I made and received positive feedbacks, there were some "ohhs" and "wows" .....

.... but what made me much happier is that my youngest brother has finally tied the knot!! I believe my mum would be the happiest at wherever she is now ;-))

To end our year 2010, we had dinner at Tims Restaurant & Cafe - a no-fuss place that served good food ....

From left to right: Cream of Asparagus with roasted almond, Chicken caesar salad, Oyster rockafellas

Fish & Chips

NZ Ribeye topped with sauteed pacific clam with black pepper sauce

Grilled lobster & panseared cajun spiced salmon fillet with basil cream sauce

Desserts: Blueberry cheesecake & strawberry ice-cream

I'm counting my blessings to be surrounded by many loved ones and good friends. Of course, there were many other happy, not-so-happy, ups&downs in 2010, but with a beginning of new year 2011, the goods will be remembered & the bad be bygones, everything will be refreshed. I'm wishing EVERYONE a very happy, healthy and smooth sailing year ahead! Cheers o(oO)o

Colours

2010-12-26T23:47:00.005+08:00

I hope this post can add colours to my blog, to my life and yours as well!

What went into the colour-happy pot: red apple, granny smith, banana, sweet tangerine, nata de coco, blueberry, and of course plain yougurt to make a simple fruit salad on Boxing Day.

Aspiring bakers #2: Xmas cupcakes

2010-12-25T14:47:00.010+08:00

This post is jumping queue and ahead of a few posts which have been kept in the inbox for months. The only reason is that there's a deadline for submission to Aspiring Bakers #2. I'm keeping this post very short, but nevertheless would like to wish everyone a

Merry Christmas and enjoy the joy the festive seasons bring you! Cheers <3<3<3

These decorated xmas cupcakes are all handcrafted as gifts for my colleagues. I used steamed chocolate cake recipe, but instead of steaming it, I baked them for about 20 mins at 180 degC.

These are very simply decorated with store bought figurines and dusted with snow powder, using the same recipe as above.

Special guest appearance

2010-10-30T23:25:00.008+08:00

Today I have a special guest appearance on my blog, and that's my pa. Of course, he's not writing it (and unlikely to read this post unless I get it translated to Chinese). My pa is in his mid-60s and has not been working for more than ten years, I think. Sometimes I do hope to 'retire' so early but most of the times I can see the boredom and loneliness in him, and can't help but think that early retirement is actually not a good thing afterall. With our government just announcing the retirement age to be pushed from 62 to 65, and the eventual 68, Singaporeans have to be working/ slogging throughout their lifetime! The only probable benefits would be financial security (i.e. when children do not take care parents anymore) and mental alertness (i.e. the age of dementia patients are getting younger) for us.

These days, my dear old pa is helping us to fetch Zakris from the childcare centre every evening, and on some Saturdays, he will bring Zakris to take train rides or just walk around. I hope these activities had keep him active and bring him joy.

There are many things which I remembered about my pa - I would cry when he goes to work; he used to drive a lorry and the whole family of six will squeeze into it (can't imagine how we did it?); he was very good with carpentry and made some of the furnitures in our old house; he could speak thai because most of his workers were thais; we would go to 7-11 in the night to buy loaf of bread; he would drive me to the school even though the school was within walking distance; days when I have ECA on Sat morning, we would go to the Malay stall at the foodcentre for nasi-lemak and teh tarik before heading to school; he let me play with his hair; he will "lock" us in the room for an hour to do self-study & homework everyday; I can't remember when he started cooking for us , but he sure can cook; he took great care of my mum when she was ill; etc.

Just today, after not cooking for a very long period of time, he decided to cook dinner. Originally he wanted to cook preserved vegetables with duck soup, but I requested him to do a braised duck instead. I remembered that on his very attempt to cook braised duck many years ago, it turned out so good that the taste still lingers in my head! Of course, I took this opportunity to learn the ropes and jot down how it is being done. It still tasted as yummy!

Ingredients/ Method:

1 fresh duck (bought from supermarket, cost around $13+)

2 cloves garlic

1 stick cinnamon

3 star anise

2 tsp five spice powder

7 slices ginger (each abt 3mm thick)

5 tbsp dark sauce (Tiger brand, top quality dark saucce. This has thicker consistency, and less saltish)

3 tsp salt

**The quantity of ingredients are eye-estimated cos my dad don't measure them.

1) Boil 1L (or enough to cover more than half of the duck) of water in a wok. When boiled, put the duck into the wok and blanch it, about 3 to 5 minutes. The purpose is to remove the "duck" smell. Discard the water. Set the duck aside.

2) In a wok, add all ingredients except duck in 1L of water, and let boil using high heat.

3) When the water is boiled, put in the duck and continue to cook on high heat. If the water does not cover half of the duck, add more water.

4) When the water starts to boil again, cover the wok and turn the heat to low-medium. Cook for 20 mins.

5) Remove the cover and turn the duck over. Continue to cook for 20 mins on low-medium heat.

6) Turn the duck again and continue to cook for 20 mins.

7) Repeat step 6 but cook for 10 mins only.

8) Remove duck from wok. The braised duck is ready to be served.

**The duck would be nicely cooked within 60 mins i.e. you can omit step 7.

If you want it soft and tender, you may follow the cooking time in step 7.

If you want it VERY soft and tender, step 7 should be 20 mins.

**If you want to add braised eggs, cook hard boiled eggs in clear water first and remove shells. Remove the garlic/ spices etc from the dark sauce, and put the eggs in and cook for 10 mins on low-medium heat.

I hope you would enjoy it as much as I do (^,^)

Someday

2010-10-25T23:00:00.006+08:00

This post is not related to baking or cooking, but about a book which we had recently borrowed from the library for little Zakris. It's a very short story but so meaningful that I want to journal it here and share with everyone! The title of the book is "Someday" by Alison McGhee and Peter H. Reynolds. Enjoy!

One day I counted your fingers and kissed each one.

One day the first snowflakes fell, and I held you up and watched them melt on your baby skin.

One day we crossed the street, and you held my hand tight.

Then, you were my baby, and now you are my child.

Sometimes, when you sleep, I watch you dream, and I dream too....

That someday you will dive into the cool, clear water of a lake.

Someday you will walk into a deep wood.

Someday your eyes will be filled with a joy so deep that they shine.

Someday you will run so fast and so far your heart will feel like fire.

Someday you will swing high - so high, higher than you ever dared to swing.

Someday you will hear something so sad that you will fold up with sorrow.

Someday you will call a song to the wind, and the wind will carry your song away.

Someday I will stand on this porch and watch your arms waving to me until I no longer see you.

Someday you will look at this house and wonder how something that feels so big can look so small.

Someday you will feel a small weight against your strong back.

Someday I will watch you brushing your child's hair.

Someday, a long time from now, your own hair will glow silver in the sun.

And when that day comes, love, you will remember me.

Pretty in Pink

2010-10-11T23:03:00.005+08:00

Hi all, here I am to clear some of the posts again. I'm pretty stumped with writing a post (and sometimes baking) these days. I guess that's partly because my life is generally quite monotonous, and there's not much "exciting" activities on-going, except 2 recent happy events which I'm going to write about them in 2 separate posts. Without my little darling, I would probably die of boredom, literally ;p For sure, this baking hobby has helped me keep my sanity intact, and there's no better words to describe baking as therapeutic. Sadly or fortunately, my work is sort of therapeutic as well, though at the back of mind, I really don't like to work, contradicting isn't it?

Enough of babbling, this is a very simple and small cake baked on a Wednesday night for my aunty Cat. She's hitting XX but undoubtedly young at heart and always have great compassion for everyone!! I think she still looks and behaves the same like 30 years ago...hahaha (Hi aunty Cat, if you are reading this, please don't fly to the ceiling and hit your head.)

My first cake order

2010-09-25T23:58:00.006+08:00

A month ago, I'd got my first cake order from my friend, E and for her dear prince Dylan's 4th birthday celebration. When I first started to bake more regularly about 2 years ago and also my blogging journey, I'd never knew that I can bake and decorate a cake, and what's more baking for a friend now. I'm fortunate to have a friend like E who places so much confidence in me as she'd not tried any of my bakes before, and her little gesture became my first-hand experience in doing cake order.

It so happened that Sat 18th Sept 2010 seems to be such an auspicious date, where there were many events on that day - Dylan's birthday celebration, my bro's guo-da-li (过大禮), chalet to celebrate my nephew's birthday. Therefore, i took a day off on Fri to prepare for the chalet's bbq stuff as well as Dylan's cake. Being my usual self, I'm bad with my time-management and spent almost half a day doing nothing, and started to panic when the time started ticking faster and faster. By then, it was almost time to pick up Zak from the school, and I only managed to marinate the chicken wings, and bake the chocolate sponge cake. Eventually I could only continue preparing the cake after our dinner, and by the time I was done with cream and decorating, it was already in the wee hours! Alas with the cake completed, I could finally heave a sigh of relief and have a really good shower before hitting the bed!

The feedback I'd received from E is most encouraging "Yep very nice.... the nicest cake I ever had.... thanks Esther! Dylan loves it very much and now Davier is asking for one *faint* hahaha...". Once again, I would like to thank E for her encouragement and confidence in me (*-*)

As a side note, I tried this Swiss Meringue Buttercream and I must say that it is really good! Although the steps seem daunting, I was pretty lucky to get it right the first time and couldn't stop licking the cream off my fingers...yummy...I'm a SMB convert for now (",)

Special birthday cake

2010-09-13T00:06:00.003+08:00

Somehow my uncle Simon's birthday slipped my mind, opps!! and therefore there was no cake :-p To make up for it, I prepared a very special birthday cake on his actual day. Since it is on a weekday, I need to find a very simple recipe which do not require baking. Initially was thinking of preparing this cocoa puff cream cake, but like most things, when you want to buy it, the store always run out of stock! This time I couldn't get any cocoa puff biscuits at bishan fairprice. I have to quickly think of other alternatives, or no cake at all.

At last, this is what I had prepared for my dear uncle simon, hopefully he likes it ;-) The colourful agar-agar looks like gemstones, ruby, sapphire, onyx, emerald, aquamarine, to me, plus another 6 big lovely hearts. However, when the cake was put in the fridge overnight, the shapes and colours were not as obvious, and the clear agar-agar became whitish in colour.

**Edited on 13/09/2010 11.03pm

My colleague, who is a 'master' in making agar-agar, suggested that the whitish colour could be due to the clear agar-agar being too hot when poured over the colourful "gems". Next time, will try cooling the clear-coloured agar-agar first before pouring.

Sandra's birthday cake

2010-09-12T07:53:00.012+08:00

These days with the ease of checking out blogs, emails and playing games on the iphone, there's not much push for me to use the laptop which I'll use it to edit my photos and write a post. Therefore you will see that this is quite a delayed post, as my cousin Sandra has celebrated her birthday 3 weeks ago!

We had a potluck party as her house, and had a very sumptuous dinner - roasted piglet, 933 curry chicken and mutton, porridge with tonnes of ingredients, garden of greens (salad), otak-otak, many many durians (D24, mao shan wang, 666), cherries, and of course the best is ah ma's home-cooked dishes with love - curry chicken, nourishing soup!! I contributed the birthday cake and fried dim sum carrot cake ;-)

Turning to the birthday cake, I planned and made a fruity pastry cake thinking it would be a very safe bet. How wrong was I? Somehow the cake did not rise to enough, the top was very hard which I had to cut it away, it was quite dry; nothing close to my earlier 2 attempts which turned out very delicious. I kept thinking why it had gone awry, and like rewinding a tape, I suddenly recalled that little zak was playing with the oven when i was baking the cake! At that time, I didn't give much thought except to adjust back the temperature from 220 to 170 deg C. God knows how long the cake was baked at such extreme temperature? The next time, I should keep an eagle eye on my boy as he's getting very "helpful" and always curious and fiddling with things. And whenever I'm baking, he will push a chair and stand beside me at the kitchen. These extra pair of hands doesn't really help at the moment, and alot of times it made me more busy and sometimes 'irritated'. Nevertheless, I know I have to, and yes I do enjoy these moments briefly for time flies so fast that when he's a teenager, he may be with his friends and do not want to be with the mummy anymore ;-( After finishing this post, I must give little zak many hugs and kisses!!

Chocolate Swirls Cheesecake (II)

2010-08-22T23:47:00.007+08:00

I was happily typing the title of this post, without realising that I had written a post with the same title "Chocolate Swirls Cheesecake" before. Scatter-brain. Referring back, the ingredients are quite identical except for the portion of each of them. And of course, I have forgotten that I had written in my earlier post that the (250gm) butter is excessive and I would like to cut it down. Anyway, this is another tasty chocolate swirls cheesecake shared by Bakericious, and again this taste like brownie to me. I guess I'm "infatuated" with swirls, chocolate + cheese (*_*)

Ingredients/ Method:

(A)

250g cream cheese, softened (reduced from 300g)

40g castor sugar (reduced from 50g)

1 egg

lemon zest from 1 lemon (not added in original recipe)

1. Beat cream cheese with sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add in lemon zest and give a few strokes to just incorporate into cream cheese mixture.

3. Beat in egg until well-mixed and set aside.

(B)

250g butter, softened

145g castor sugar (reduced from 165g)

4 eggs

4 tbsp cocoa powder

160g self-raising flour

1 1/4tsp baking powder

1 1/4tbsp chocolate milk (replaced with full cream milk)

1. Sieve cocoa powder, self-raising flour and baking powder and set aside.

2. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Batter should look pale in colour.

3. Add egg one at a time and beat until well incorporated into the butter mixture.

4. Alternate flour and milk into the egg mixture, and beat on low speed until well-mixed.

5. Pour half of chocolate batter into prepared cake tin, followed by cream cheese mixture, and lastly the remaining chocolate batter. (I did mine in 6x6' square tin, and there are enough batter for another 6 medium-sized cupcakes.)

6. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 45 to 50 mins or until skewer comes out clean. (I bake the cupcakes first at 180 deg C for 20 mins, i guess 18 mins should be good enough.)

You might notice that the colour of the

chocolate in these cupcakes are not "rich"

enough, that's because I had scooped the

mixed batter from my square tin after realising

my 6x6' tin can't "accomodate" all the batter.

Princess castle cake

2010-08-17T23:08:00.013+08:00

A year ago, I made a Princess cake for my little cousin Winni's 9th birthday. One year wiser, she requested for a Princess castle cake for her 10-year old birthday. Although I did toy with the idea of doing a castle cake before her request, I was quite apprehensive as I could not figure out how to make the towers (P.S. I still could not figure out this part, anyone can help or suggest?). Thereafter, I had many question marks like the design, the assembly, whether using butter cream or fondant...etc, and these kept me thinking for many days. It also did not help that workload had not been kind for the last few weeks, and therefore I was totally drained when I reached home. Timing was ticking, and I finally sketched out the design of the cake plus whatever 'accessories' that I want to put on the cake. Only on the Wed nite that I finally got anxious and started to prepare the fondant, and did couple of figurines. Did some on Thurs nite. Did some on Fri nite. Did some on Sat nite. No more energy to bake the cake on Sat nite. The birthday party was on Sunday 6pm, and I probably spent almost the whole day to bake, decorate, and did the final touch-up of the cake. Phew! Finally, the end result .....

A Princess sitting on the garden with her lovely cat, and

surrounded by 3 towers at W I N N I castle.

She's pleased with her beautiful dress and pearl necklace,
bumble bees buzzing around her and the flowers, but oh
no, the castle towers are leaning towards each other. They
seems to collapse anytime ;p

Bright and sunny roses and petals flanked the castle gate,
to welcome all guests to W I N N I castle.

Diamond-shaped window with details and flower motifs. This

is a 2-storey tower.

This is the 3-storey tower that was constructed to lean like

"Leaning Tower of Pisa".

The main cake used is Steamed chocolate cake,

but the "tower" is oven-baked using the same

recipe and in muffin cups.

Dim Sum Fried Carrot Cake

2010-08-09T22:24:00.006+08:00

When I saw Honey Bee Sweet's post on dim sum fried carrot cake, it caught my eye because they really look yummy! The ingredients and method are pretty straight-forward and I managed to try it out yesterday. As I hardly cooked at home, I had to "borrow" the chinese sausages from my dad, and the shallots from my aunt. I guess the rest of the ingredients are within their expiry dates...opps! HBS had them pan fried, which I didn't but they are still good. I'm going to make this again, for sure! Hope over to HBS for the method/ ingredients for preparing this dish ;-)

This is a steamed version, not fried yet

Chocolate fudge cake

2010-07-30T00:07:00.007+08:00

Yesterday was T birthday and I can't remember when was the last he took leave on his birthday. T works in a "chi-na" company where the bosses hardly take leave, do not really recognise mc, and at times the bosses go to work even they are sick, etc. They are really sick!

On this special day, although we did not venture anywhere except for a korean dinner fare with some of our family members, it was pure joy to be relaxing at home together as a family. It's considered a luxury for us, and the happiest person is Zak, of course - no school, and play & play all day!

Though i tried to make a super-yummy chocolate birthday cake, it didn't turn out that way! The cake was (rock) hard, dry, sponge cake was not evenly sliced, fudge is bland and gluey, .... you name it. Luckily no one else other the three of us ate it, and daddy-son were very supportive to finish almost a slice of cake each ;-p I will try to compensate with a real super-yummy chocolate cake, I promise!

Daddy enjoying the super warm birthday kiss from his little darling! Better than any gift anytime!

Moist Banana Walnut Cake

2010-07-28T00:16:00.006+08:00

Near my workplace is a market where there is row of fruit stalls, and they are always stocked up with the freshest fruits, ever so colourful with the varieties that are available. If I go in the evening to get my oranges for my vit C boost, most of the time I would end up buying more than just oranges. Not that I'm going the healthy trend, it's just an impulse-buying behaviour, if you know what I mean. Just last week, I got a bunch of ripe bananas and they are real cheap at 80 cents! I thought I would have the time and energy to do some baking during the weekday, but days past and the bananas were all going very 'blacked-spotty'. Left with 2 choices - into the bin or bake something - and here I go:-

Ingredients/ Method:

300g self-raising flour, sifted

270g butter (would reduce amount by about 20% the next time)

3tbsp sour cream (replaced with plain yogurt)

1tsp vanilla essence

180g brown sugar

5 eggs, lightly beaten

8 small bananas, mashed

90g walnuts, toasted and chopped

Pre-heat oven at 180 deg C.
Cream butter, sugar and yogurt until light and fluffy.
Add in vanilla essence and beat well.
Dribble in eggs, about 1 tablespoon at a time, until all used up.
Fold in the flour gently, then add the mashed bananas.
Add in walnuts and stir gently to mix well. Leave some walnuts for the toppings.
Pour batter into lined cake tin and bake for 40 to 50 mins or until golden brown. Sprinkle some chopped walnuts on top of the batter.

(I used a 6 x 6 inch square tin and a 8 x 4.5 inch cake tin. The 6 x 6 inch square tin needs an extra 10-15 mins of baking time and i tent the cake during this extended time to prevent the cake from getting over-brown. The 8 x 4.5 inch cake tin is ready within 50 mins.)

The above recipe is 1.5x the original and some modifications made. If using original recipe, bake in 20cm cake tin for 40 to 50 mins.

I brought the cakes to the office for my colleagues and they like that the cake is moist & fragrant, not so sweet, and the crunchiness from walnuts.

Lastly, I would also like to thank some of colleagues who have always help me to cut and distribute the cakes (into 30++ small pieces), and this time around, helped me in taking some of the pictures for my blog, and of course 'guinea pigs' for my baking adventure! Aren't they helpful and lovely? Or am I fortunate to have them as my colleagues?

Fruit Pastry Cake

2010-07-19T22:29:00.009+08:00

Joining the recent craze in the blogosphere, I've finally made this Fruit Pastry Cake. There must be at least more than a dozen bloggers posting this recipe, which first caught my eye when Happy Home Baking posted it here. I guess there are more bakers who have tried this, but either did not have a blog or did not post it, one good example is my colleague, P. When I brought this cake to the office today, we started chatting about the recipes and then realised that we got the same source and she had baked it earlier! Why I had baked this cake to bring to the office was because of 1 request from my colleague E through FB, though I know it's just of the casual remarks. It must have been a surprise for her on a Monday-blue-morning, when I stepped into the office and walked over to her work-station...kekeke. Actually I really need to finish up all the fresh fruits that I've bought and if I don't use it, they are likely to go to the bin. Fresh apricots, fresh strawberries and fresh blueberries.

Apricots, I've tried them dried but not the fresh ones. I suppose now is the season, and these fresh apricots are easily available at the market fruit stalls or supermarket, and selling at $5 a punnet. Usually, the uncles or aunties at the market fruit stalls readily dishes out tips and information on the fruit they are selling, which we will not know if we just buy from the supermarket. Do we call it value-added service? These uncles and aunties do not need to have high education level to know what attracts customers, marketing, promotion, customer service. Call me silly but I always feel for these stall-holders sweating their hearts out to make a decent living, of course, there are a few of them who are actually very well-off and stay at big landed property. I know a few living examples! Sorry that I've digressed too much, I want to share with you about what I learnt about the special 'gem' of apricot - it's inside the seed! Keep the seed and pound them open, but not too hard as you might squash whatever gem that is inside, you will find an ALMOND! I've ate a few and kept the balance, thinking of adding these little gems in my next bake. Very nice and fresh!!

I like the texture and taste of the cake, and importantly, it's very easy to bake. Also have to keep in mind about not reducing the sugar (too much), as just learnt from HHB that the sugar not only acts as a sweetener in a cake, but also helps to attract moisture in the batter, which ultimately affects the texture of the cake. So much science for baking, which I've all along ignored! Being lazy here, I've copied HHB's recipe and pasted it below for my future reference. I tried both 180g and 170g sugar, and I think both turned out similar in texture. Both cakes are baked at 180 deg C and for 60 mins. Did I say both - yes - baked 1 on Fri nite and another on Sun nite ;-)

Ingredients/ Method

100g butter, soften at room temperature
200g caster sugar (I cut down to180g)
50g sour cream (I replaced with same amount of low fat yogurt)
3 eggs, lightly beaten, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon or orange zest
210g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
500g fruits* tossed with 2 tablespoon sugar*
(You can use strawberries, blueberries, peaches, bananas, oranges, pears, apples, pineapple, or any other fruits that are not too juicy. I omitted the sugar and used as much fruits, either fresh or canned, as needed to fill the top of the cake)

Wash, cut (chunks or slices, as desired) and drain fruits, toss with sugar (if desired) and set aside. (if using canned fruits, wash the fruits to remove the syrup, omit the sugar).
Grease (with butter) and flour the side of a 9" round pan or a 8" square pan and line the base with parchment paper.
With an electric mixer, cream butter, sugar and sour cream (or yogurt) till light and fluffy.
Dribble in the eggs gradually and beat till incorporated in the batter. (The mixture may appear slightly curdled.)
Add vanilla extract and zest. Mix to combine.
Sieve over flour and baking powder and mix till smooth. (To avoid getting flour all over my work surface, I mixed the flour into the batter using a spatula, just a few strokes will do, then I used the electric mixer to mix the batter till smooth.)
Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
Arrange fruits on top, don’t press the fruits down into the batter. Decorate the fruits as desired.
Bake in pre-heat oven at 180degC for 60-70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 mins of baking to prevent the top from getting over browned.
Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5~10 mins. Unmold and transfer to wire rack to let cool completely. Dust the cake with some icing sugar if desired.

Orange baked cheesecake

2010-07-07T23:36:00.009+08:00

Hello to all who is still reading my blog, and sorry for the exceptional long period of absence here. My usual excuses are - busy (lazy?) and the breakdown of my laptop. Now I'm using a new laptop which my brother's friend has so kindly bought on my behalf during last month's IT fair. Why did it take another 3 weeks to update my blog is because we all fell sick one after another, it first started with Zak having a viral fever which took almost a week to recover, followed by myself and then T. It's good that we are now alright, except that both T and me are still recuperating from our lack of sleep!! It's real tough at times, and is wondering how to find the time to really really have a thorough rest eg deep sleep for 24 hours?? I was previously quite addicted in baking, blogging and blog-surfing, but after being away from these "vices" for so long, I can now curb my addictions and without any major withdrawal sypmtoms ;-) Of course, not forgetting I still have a 3 year old toddler who needs alot of attention these days, alot of things have to take second, third, etc priority. Nevertheless, I'll try to update and bake as often as I can as there are still many interesting recipes which I wanted to try it out.

If you have been following my blog, I've a big family and therefore many birthdays. So far, I think I have missed out 3 birthdays and 2 special occasions, where I didn't bake anything at all . Will see whether I can make it up next year? The most recent bake is this Orange baked cheesecake which I would like to share with you all. This is a birthday cake for my aunty Ivy. Other than the slightly dry chocolate base, perhaps due to the over-mixing which deflated most bubbles, I think this cake is worth a try. Maybe adding chocolate chips into the chocolate sponge would be a good idea too!

Chocolate Sponge Cake (23cm or 9" round tin)

Ingredients/ Method:

(A) 5 egg yolks, 20g sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

(B) 5 egg white

(D) 90g plain flour, 20g cocoa powder. Sift and set aside.

(E) 60g corn oil or 60g butter melted

Pre-heat oven at 180 deg C.
Whip (A) until light and fluffy. The mixture should look pale in colour.
Whip (B) in a clean and dry bowl, until soft peak. Keep a very close watch as it only take a few seconds for it to turn from soft to stiff.
Add in (C) and continue to whip till stiff.
Mix egg white mixture with (A) until well-blended.
Next, fold in (D) in 3 - 4 batches and mix until well-combined.
Scoop some batter into (E) and mix well. Add this back to the batter and mix until well incorporated. Be careful and do not overmix as the air bubbles will be burst.
Pour into greased and lined round cake tin.
Bake at 180 deg C for 25 mins or until skewer comes out clean. Remove the cake immediately when baked.

Orange cheesecake layer

(A) 250g cream cheese, 20g sugar, 1 orange zest

(B) 3 egg yolks

(D) 25g plain flour, sifted

(E) 3 egg whites, 45g sugar

Pre-heat oven at 160 deg C.
Grease and lined the sides and bottom of a 23cm or 9" round cake tin. Wrap the outside of the cake tin with aluminium foil.
Cream (A) until light. Add in (B), cream until smooth.
Add in (C), cream until well-blended. Add in (D) , mix until well-combined.
Whip (E) until soft peak.
Mix the whipped egg white with cheese mixture until well incorporated. Do it gently and try not to deflat too much air bubbles.
Place a 2cm layer of chocolate sponge cake at the bottom of the cake tin. Pour the cheese mixture over the cake. (My chocolate sponge cake was badly deflated and hence I use the entire sponge cake for this.)
Bake in water bath at 160 deg C for 1 hour.
Remove the cake from oven and let it cool before removing from the cake tin.

Decoration

I added shaved chocolate, and thinly sliced orange peel on the cake. Sift some snow powder on the cake as desired.

There is another cake - Coffee cream cheese cake which I had made in May, but I got to find where I scribbled the recipe before I post it here. Stay tuned if you are interested @>

At long last (Part II)

2010-04-11T22:56:00.007+08:00

Since the last baking class i attended in Sept last year, I finally got another chance to attend another one today. Actually there are so many baking classes/ courses available these day, but to find one that is of interest and suits the timing is not so easy, plus the price does not come cheap. Anyway, to cut long story short, I chanced upon this very interesting class - Buttercream Roses Cake by Sugar Inc., and attended the class today with my friend E. With no piping skills at hand, and being able to pipe out roses was really incredible. Not that I'm good, but it all thanks to Anna being really precise and clear in her instructions and demo. Of course, there's alot of practices required, you know what i mean by looking at the pictures below.

These are art-pieces from our group. Guess which is mine?

And these are from another group.

The purple and white is by Anna, and the rest of the class. Think

this group's piping is the best!

Ta-ta.... this is what I've done. They look better from afar

At long last (Part I)

2010-04-11T22:24:00.007+08:00

I've neglected this blog for so long that I actually find it tough to start writing this post. Not that I've lost the interest in baking or blogging, but I'm facing a 'time-management' crisis...hahaha. I couldn't allocate spare time for baking/ blogging and I'm feeling slightly 'ashamed' to continue from where i stop.

Life has been going fine for me but is such stability (or monotonous) a way of life? It's a personal preference. Sometimes I love it cos I do not have to think too much about most of the things - simply do things in the 'usual manner'. On the other hand, I explored the thoughts of doing things differently, to give life the challenges and to make it more colorful and exciting, maybe? At this moment, there is no complaints of course. Stay happy and open-minded!!

Picking up from my last baking post in early March, I'm going to blog about a cake I made last week. There's no baking still, but at least it's a cake, right? I got some spare Thai Honey mangoes, courtesy from my brother who bought more than a dozen to make mango smoothies for us. It tasted simply great especially during this super hot and humid weather ;-) With my stocked-up cream cheese, what else but a mango cheesecake. However, i think the mango smoothies fared better than my cake, so disappointing ;-( Not going to post the recipe since it's not that fantastic, perhaps it was not chilled enough when we eat it.

My precious' 3rd birthday

2010-03-01T23:27:00.014+08:00

Although it's another 4 more days before Zakris turns 3 years old, we had an advance birthday celebration yesterday. Time really flies and it only seem yesterday that i was cuddling him in my arms, and now he's already running, jumping around everywhere, and we are having decent conversations or sometimes 'arguments'. In another blink of eyes, he'll be a young fine man ;-p (which means i will be an 'old lady').

Last year when we celebrated his birthday, i think he doesn't really understand what birthday celebration is all about. Now that he's 1 year wiser, he's requesting his favourite things like cars, buses, train, depot, heart-shapes, stars etc on his birthday cake, and also that he wanted to celebrate his birthday and 'blow candle, cut cake' in the school.

It was another attempt of fondant making, and it took me more than a week to plan what to put on his cake, and a few days to slowly mould the figurines. When it almost took shape on Friday, Zak let out a glee and the sparkle in his eyes make the hours spent ever so worthwhile. Every now and then before the party, he will request to look and touch the figurines, which i happily allow.

Not everything Zak requested went on the cake, but I try to 'accomodate' as many as possible of his favourites on the 2-tiers 6" and 9" cake. These are the little things that Zak like, and maketh his birthday cake ;-)

4 24 28 29 35 42 34

2010-02-16T01:35:00.008+08:00

The set of numbers are definitely not my vital statistics or codes to my safe box; it's the winning numbers of yesterday's Toto $6 million draw. Although i did not buy any Toto tickets for yesterday's draw, I prepared some 'huat kueh' (發糕) especially for my Wendy's mil and relatives for them to "FATT FATT" (發發). Not too sure whether any of them is a overnight millionaires? If not, we still have the Hong Bao Draw on 26 Feb 2010 ;-) Good luck everyone!

The 'huat kuehs' are nicely packed and given as a gift to my Wendy's mil! We went to their house on the 2nd day of CNY, and as usual, we enjoyed the sumptuous dinner prepared by her .

These lovely sweet hearts paper cases is one of my favourites and i had used them for my mini 'huat kuehs'.

To good health and wealth in 2010!

大年初一 (Lunar New Year)

2010-02-14T23:46:00.011+08:00

Before the first day of lunar new year ends, I would like to wish all of you ....

花開富貴

旺旺來

春風得意

金銀財寶享不完

八星報喜, 喜臨門

甜甜蜜蜜

(My boy requested me to take picture of the cream crackers

& his hand together with the dessert ;-p)

Walnut snowballs

2010-02-12T00:55:00.007+08:00

My production for CNY is running very low, it seem that energy has been sapped. Nevertheless, other than pineapple nastar tarts, i managed to bake some walnut snowballs. Actually, I have plans to bake so many cookies (at least 4 or 5 types), and tagged all my recipe books, but in end I only managed to bake 2. With CNY approaching in 3 days' time, I won't have any time to do any more baking.

So for now, here's Walnut snowballs to share with all my friends here. These little snowballs are very fragile, and it has the melt-in-your-mouth texture. I believe it will taste as good with other condiments like almonds or peanuts.

Fresh walnuts are easily available these days

Ingredients/ Method:

(Yields about 120 little snowballs)

(A)
227g butter
35g icing sugar
1 egg yolk

(B)
1 tbsp rum
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

(C)
350g plain flour, sieved
1/2 tsp baking powder
60g walnuts, chopped coarsely

(D)
icing sugar for dusting

1) Cream ingredients (A) until combined. Add in ingredient (B), beat until blended.
2) Fold in ingredient (C), mix to form a soft dough. Scale at 6gm each portion and shape into rounds.
3) Arrange balls on lined baking tray.
4) Bake in pre-heated oven at 150 deg C for 25 to 30 mins.
5) Cool cookies slightly, dust top with icing sugar.
6) Store in airtight jars.

Customised Hello Kitty stickers are so cute!!
Now, these "limited edition" cookies are packed and ready to be given to my family & relatives. Hopefully I can bake more next year in order to give to each and everyone of them ;-)

祝: 虎年行好運, 虎虎身威.

Catching up

2010-02-08T00:03:00.008+08:00

..... with CNY baking. I know I've been slacked with blogging and baking for at least 3 weeks. This blog would probably be neglected for even longer period, but because I really like baking my own pineapple tarts that pushed me to start preparing the pineapple paste last week. The usual shredding, cooking, and rolling them into little balls.

Unlike years of making all covered up, i wanted to 'expose' them!! Open tart or nastar? A very ignorant me, I thought the nastar was using a knife to cut the pastry across many times. I tried that before and of course, the outcome was disastrous! Until recently i saw a post from Quinn that i realised that there is actually a tool to make nastar, and it cost only a few bucks. I did open tarts before, like 4 years ago, and i still have the moulds.

Ok, Sunday is a good time to start baking CNY cookies, and here it goes. But only nastar. Because there's not enough pineapple paste left for open tart. Maybe next year? There are probably about 190 pineapple nastar, and they are definitely prettier than my closed pineapple tarts ;-)

With some leftover dough, i added chocolate rice and 'concorted' my own Butterfly cookies.

Tiramisu Charlotte Cake

2010-01-15T23:24:00.011+08:00

My laptop is giving me problems again!!! Urgggh! It happened after we got a free subscription for virus and the usual activity of checking mails, editing photos, write a post, etc became snail slow. I really couldn't stand the speed (pun intended) and the frustration that sometimes the laptop get hanged after i open a few application, and even shutting down the laptop is a pain!

The last straw came when chatting for 2 lines in msn with my friend, the laptop decided to stop responding for more than 2 times today. Out goes the virus scan - bye ;-) Hopefully i won't have other problems with the laptop or its speed.

All these technie problem made blogging a nag, which is why my tiramisu charlotte cake took a while to be here. I love how the cake looks in Happy Home Baking, and of course, mine couldn't hold a candle to hers. Although the cake taste good, it was almost 'melting' by the time we eat the cake. Luckily the recipient of my cake is very pleased with it, and thank me profusely. She's none other than my aunt wendy's mil. If i could put up the pictures taken during that day, you could see how happy she was on that day, because it's another of our big family gathering and celebration! The next time i attempt this delicious and pretty cake, i would probably add gelatine.

Oreo lemon non-baked cheesecake (Icebox cheesecake)

2010-01-05T22:44:00.008+08:00

Many times i got stuck in what i want to write in my blog, and how to start writing or have an opening statement... just like now.

Perhaps i should just leave it as Wordless Tuesday, or maybe not?

This Oreo Lemon non-baked cheesecake (aka icebox cheesecake) is made especially for my youngest aunt steph, whose birthday falls on this Thursday. We had a little celebration on Sunday and we will be getting a birthday treat from her this Friday. It's celebration-makan-and celebration-makan and more celebration-makan since Dec and it does not seem to end anytime soon ;-) That's how fortunate coming from a very big family like us!

Ingredients/ Method:

(Recipe adapted from Food-4Tots with modifications)

Crust

11 slices of digestive biscuits

55g unsalted butter, melted

1. Crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter and press firmly in 8" round springfoam baking tin.

2. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Filling

1 tbsp gelatine powder

3 tbsp hot water

250g cream cheese, room temp

40g caster sugar

2 large egg yolks

zest from 1 large lemon

3 tbsp lemon juice (i doubled the amount and it was too sour)

2 tsp cointreau (can omit)

150g diary whipping cream

Oreo topping

6 pieces of oreo biscuits, crushed finely

1. Dilute gelatine powder with hot water in small bowl until dissolve. Set aside.

2. Beat cream cheese and sugar until soft and creamy.

3. Add in egg yolks, followed by lemon zest. Mix well and set aside.

4. Pour dissolved gelatine powder into cream cheese mixture and mix quickly.

5. Add in lemon juice and cointreau. Mix well and set aside.

6. Whip cream with hand whisk till creamy and soft peak. Do not overbeat the cream.

7. Fold in whipped cream into cream cheese mixture until well combined.

8. Spoon filling onto crust. Smoothen the surface.

9. Spread crushed oreo biscuits onto the cake and press lightly.

10. Cover the baking tin with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours (best overnight) until firm before serving.

Closing 2009, Beginning 2010

2010-01-02T00:01:00.011+08:00

As usual, Dec is always a busy month and with holidays, festive season celebrations, there's not much time left for baking and blogging. Hence, this space has been very quiet for more than a month!!

Nevertheless, to close year 2009, these are a few bakes that have not been posted. These are the not-so-satisfactory ones, except the last being a Banana Chocolate Cake which i did for my elder brother's birthday. Fortunately, it was a very well-received cake and it gave my baking-blogging 2009 a sweet closing ;-)

Strawberry Chiffon Sponge Cake

"Sour"-honey popcorns

Portugese egg tarts

Banana chocolate cake

Other than a sweet closing for 2009 in terms of baking, we had a wonderful time spent together as a family with our loved ones; our unplanned & impromptu night began with a simple dinner fare, followed by a ride to mt. faber (which was surprisingly very crowded) and ended up counting down at an almost secluded place - Soprano at Wessex Estate. That made our first second of year 2010 filled with love, joy, fun and warmth!!!

Happy New Year to everyone & thoroughly enjoy yourselves in year Twenty Ten B-)

Update 4 Jan 2010, recipe & video on banana chocolate cake
(video link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM5vRvcIUvM&feature=related)

Ingredients/ Method:

203g whole eggs (6 nos.)

32g egg yolk (2 nos.)

135g caster sugar

21g glucose

1g salt

32g vegetable oil

21g cocoa powder

106g cake flour

1g baking soda

21g milk

1) Warm vegetable oil and put in cocoa powder until well mixed and dissolved. Set aside.

2) In a large bowl, add eggs, sugar, salt and beat on HIGH speed until foamy and double in volume, and sugar dissolve.

3) Add in glucose and beat on MEDIUM speed until ribbon stage.

4) Sift flour and baking soda over beaten egg mixture. Mix flour on LOW speed for 3 seconds just to combine most of the flour. Thereafter, turn to MEDIUM speed for approximately 20 seconds until mostly incorporated. Fold in the remaining traces of flour using rubber spatula.

5) Scoop some egg mixture and add into cocoa powder mixture to lighten the mixture. Thereafter, pour into egg mixture, add in milk and fold till well combined.

6) Pour batter into 8" round cake tin and bake at 170 deg C for 35 mins.

7) Invert the cake tin on cooling rack after removing from oven.

Chocolate Filling

2-3 Delmonte bananas

250g non-diary whipping cream

35g cocoa powder

35g hot water

2tsp instant coffee powder

1) Mix cocoa powder and coffee powder with hot water.

2) Whip the cream until stiff peak.

3) Add the cocoa-coffee mixture to the whipped cream.

Ganache
300g whipping cream
250g melted chocolate
50g butter

1) Mix all ingredients and microwave till well combined and smooth.

2) Leave to set before pouring onto cake.

To assemble

1) Slice the sponge cake into 3 layers.

2) Spread the chocolate filling on the first layer, and put freshly cut banana slice on the cake, and spread some chocolate filling on top of the banana slices.

3) Repeat Step 2.

4) Cream & crumb the entire cake with remaining chocolate filling.

5) Put the cake in the fridge for 10 mins so that it will be easier to spread the chocolate ganache.

(Note: I got problem with the chocolate ganache as it was either too watery or too solidified to spread or pour nicely on the cake. I ended up putting into the microwave to liquidify it, and back to the freezer to solidify it, a few times of doing the same thing just to get the right consistency. By then, my kitchen top and floor were in a mess, and had to clean up frequently as my house ants were very active & alert that day!!)

More fruits & walnuts wholemeal loaf

2009-11-30T14:23:00.006+08:00

I've finally used up the almost-expired wholemeal flour; yippee!! Left with 160g of wholemeal flour, I made 2 portion of this recipe. Enough to give away to my other family members ;-) With some dried fruits left (cranberries, blueberries, tart berries), i added more golden raisins, goji berries (wolf berries) and toasted walnuts!

Other than the standard 20 mins & 60 mins proofing, the dough is left to proof for more than 6 hours and got another round of kneading, just because i over-slept!! You see, the dough was prepared after we came back from dinner, and my heavy eye-lids couldn't keep open for another minute. Think the texture was slightly affected, but not too much harm caused though.

(Note: To reduce the oven temperature to 180 deg C next time, as 190 deg C might be a little bit too hot and the crust is almost too black by end of baking time.

Siew Mai

2009-11-30T13:44:00.009+08:00

Little children are usually fussy eaters especially during their proper meals. Mine is not exactly fussy but a "temperamental" eater i.e. during his meals, sometime he likes it with vegetables, sometimes he refuses them; sometimes he likes meat but other times he refuses to take them at all. One thing he definitely loves to eat these days is Siew Mai, and of course, junk food or tibits, ice-cream, chocolates, sweets, ANY time.

Other than dim sum restaurants where you will good siew mai, good ones are not readily available even though it sold at most coffeeshops, foodcourts, supermarkets. The frozen we bought from NTUC sucks and I won't even take a second piece. Nevertheless, my aunt ivy knows where to get good ones from the market stall she frequents, and they are a regulars on our dinning table.

Whilst at my dad's place last Saturday, I tried to make some siew mai but they fell under the look-alike but not taste-alike category. I thought they taste more like steamed 'wu xiang', anD my little boy lamented why the siew mai is so "dark" (in colour)!! He took them only with lots of ketchup...kekeke. So coincident that my mil also made siew mai on Sunday, it too didn't taste like those siew mai we eat at dim sum restaurants. Ok, got to look elsewhere for really good siew mai recipes, any recommendations?

Orange chiffon cake

2009-11-22T22:45:00.010+08:00

At last, i got to try out 2 things yesterday at my dad's place .... (1) the broiler can be used to bake a cake (happy!!), (2) the orange chiffon cake which was a newspaper cut-out recipe and i had wanted to try for some time.

Now that i had to bring my little one for his music class every Sat, i got wake up early in order to get a ride from T, before he heads to his office. Which means to say that if i wanted to bake anything at my dad's place, i got to plan in advance, including preparation of baking tools and ingredients to bring over. Luckily my dad's place have most of the baking tools/ bulk items like weighing scale, broiler (to replace the oven), mixer, etc as my mom used them to whip up delicious food, snacks, kuehs, huat kuehs ;-) Till now, I can still find traces of 'remnants' on the weighing scale and mixer. As for the broiler, it had been serving us very well for at least 20-odd years, that is how reliable old gadgets are. I always remember one 'old' mixer which my mom bought when she attended some cooking classes when we were in our primary school, but i threw it away as it's slightly mal-function and we had got a new one for her. She would frequently bring it up how i threw her things away..... now that she's at a better place, somehow i won't want to throw any of these items away.

Anyway back to the orange chiffon cake, the recipe is straight forward and very easy to follow, without compromising on texture and taste. Except for the egg white which i had over-beaten slightly which i thought would fail the cake, it didn't, luckily. In fact, the cake rise so much higher than the 17cm tube pan that i don't have a flat chiffon cake. Otherwise, the cake is very springy to touch. On the day itself, the cake exudes very slight tinge of orange taste, but the following day, the orangey taste got deeper.

Ingredients/ Method

(Recipe is for 25cm tube pan, i halved the recipe using 17cm tube pan)

7 eggs

200g cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

200g icing sugar

150ml freshly squeezed orange juice (abt 3 oranges)

150ml corn oil

2 tbsp orange zest

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1. Pre-heat oven to 170 deg C.

2. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites. (abt 240ml egg whites)

3. Sieve cake flour, icing sugar, and baking powder into a mixing bowl.

4. Make a depression in the centre of the cake flour mixture, add egg yolks, orange juice and oil and stir until well combined.

5. Add orange zest to the mixture and stir well.

6. Beat egg white and cream of tartar on high speed until stiff.

7. Add in cake batter to the egg white gradually and fold gently in batches, until well mixed.

8. Pour into tube pan and abke for 50 mins at 170 deg C. ( I reduced baking time to 40 mins for 17cm tube pan).

9. When done, remove the tube pan from the oven and invert on a cooling rack and leave to stand for 2 hours.

10. Remove the cake from the tube pan by running a knife along the perimeter of the pan and inverting the cake onto a plate.

Fruits & Walnuts Wholemeal Bread

2009-11-22T08:09:00.008+08:00

I'm still trying to use up the wholemeal flour that is going to expire end of this month. Actually baked this bread last week but has been very tired to write a blog or edit the pictures. Furthermore, my laptop is giving me alot of problems, and the slow speed is killing me! I think it's almost time to get a new laptop soon....

I followed the recipe from Kitchen Corner, and I must say the added dried fruits and walnuts really gives the oomph to the bread. We ate it plain without any spread and it's really nice and tasty. However, the shape of my bread looked kinda odd, like "golden pillow". It was supposed to be nice round shape with very rustic look, which i got the idea from Happy Homebaker who proof the dough in a colander. Perhaps my colander is too big for the dough, or i didnt do a proper job in shaping it. Anyway, the shape didn't matter as long as the taste of bread turns out good! My little boy likes the dried fruits more than the bread, and my poor dad got to eat the left-over hole-y (after all dried fruits removed) bread .... hahaha

Ingredients/ Method

250g bread flour

80g wholemeal flour

30g sugar

3/4 tsp salt

5g yeast

1 egg

150g ice water (i replace with milk)

15g milk

30g butter

Optional ingredients

Dried fruits

Sunflower seeds

Walnuts

Raisins

1. Put all ingredients except butter and optional ingredients into the BM and knead for 30 mins. Add butter at the 8-10th min.

2. Let the dough rest in the BM for 20 mins.

3. Knead dough and punch out gas.

4. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces and roll to form 3 ball shape.

5. Flatten dough and roll out into longish shape. Roll up the dough like a swiss roll.

6. Flatten rolled up dough and roll out again into long rectangular shape. Add in dried fruits and walnuts on top and then roll up the dough tightly.

7. Place rolled dough in floured colander, and put it in oven with door close and proof for 60 mins.

8. Take out dough and bake dough in pre-heated oven at 190 deg C.

9. Bake approximately 40 mins or until golden brown.

10. Cool before slicing.

Pizza for lunch

2009-11-15T20:41:00.008+08:00

Our second weekends that we are staying at home due to our little one's HFMD. Although the spots are cleared, we have not gotten the doctor to certify he's alright to return to school. Anyway, before heading back to school, we have to check whether there's any new cases in his school, better don't take anymore chances like what we did. I bet the happiest person is zak, of course! He's not excited at all to go to school, neither does he miss his friends or teachers. It's still tough getting him to school every morning, after 11 months!

Instead of porridge, instant noodles or fried mee tai mak which we had been cooking for our lunches, I made a pizza today! Pizza toppings are whatever we fancy, shitake mushrooms, pineapples, ham, cherry tomatoes, and of course, mozarella cheese (lots of them)! Cold Storage sells value shredded mozarella cheese at less than $3 for 150g, that's quite a bargain and no wastage if just making one pizza.

We fell on the late breakfast - very late lunch cycle, and by the time the pizza was ready we were all quite hungry. We almost gobbled down the 11" pizza in less than an hour. Don't we have a big appetite - 2 adults 1 toddler?

Ingredients/ Method:

Pizza base

250g bread flour, sifted

1 tsp instant yeast

1 tsp caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp olive oil

150ml water

1. Put all ingredients into a mixing bowl and with a dough hook, knead to form a soft pliable dough.

2. Leave covered with cling wrap and damp cloth till dough double in size.

3. Roll out dough to fit pizza pan. The dough fit nicely to my 11" ikea pie dish.

4. Bake dough in pre-heated oven at 220 deg C for 10 mins.

5. Remove from oven and prepare toppings.

Toppings

(*quantity depends on individual's preference)

Shitake mushroom, sliced & sauteed

Canned pineapples, cubed

Pinic ham, cut into small squares

Cherry tomatoes, diced

150g shredded mozarella cheese

Pasta sauce

1. Spread pasta sauce generously on the pizza base.

2. Next, spread half of mozarella cheese and followed by all ingredients.

3. Add the balance mozarella cheese and put back to the oven and continue to bake for another 10 mins at 220 deg C.

4. Slice and ready to serve.

Rum balls

2009-11-14T19:03:00.007+08:00

The last time i baked some chocolate cupcakes, it shrinked till so small that i can't decorate with it. I've kept them in the freezer thinking to turn them into rum balls and these are what i'd done when my little baby is taking his afternoon nap.

Ingredients/ Method:

300g sponge cake

60g raisins

80g butter

20g sugar powder

1 tsp rum (to increase to have a stronger rum flavour)

150g Semi-sweet chocolate

sprinkles

1. Break the sponge cake into crumbs using hand.

2. Put butter and sugar powder into mixing bowl. Beat on low speed until well mixed, and turn to high speed and beat until mixture turns pale yellow and fluffy.

3. Add the rum and butter cream into cake crumbs and mix well to form a dough.

4. Weigh about 20g dough and roll into balls. Put in the fridge for about an hour.

5. Melt chocolate in microwave, about 2-3 mins on mid-heat.

6. Dip the balls into the chocolate and drip any excess. To decorate, roll on chocolate sprinkles, or hundreds & thousands or mini hearts.

Long-winded post

2009-11-09T22:00:00.008+08:00

Whilst writing my last few posts, i realised that i'm reaching my 100th post real soon... and this is it! I was planning to bake something special to mark this post, something that i've not tried before like a swiss roll or tiramisu which my sis-in-law's sister had passed me a good recipe, or a vanilla chiffon sponge cake. It didn't turn out as planned as these last couple of weeks was short of 'happy', there was also health scares concerning T and then my little zak got the dreaded HFMD from his childcare centre just last week. Things just seemed to be going the wrong way then. Anyway, T got the doctor's clearance today, except for a 'fatty liver' and little zak's spots did not develop into blister-like ones and he's eating and playing well. Things are smiling again ;-)

Since last Friday, we were mostly cooped at home. Little zak is bored, i'm bored (a little). But there is real good rest. For the longest time, we have not ever stayed at home 24-hours straight, and surprisingly, it feel good!! I've never cooked 3 meals a day, and only managed to do it during this period. Although i have so much time on hand, i did not go into baking-frenzy which i probably would a few months back.

There were simple fares like vegetable & minced meat porridge, dorayaki (little zak's all-time favourite), whatever-ingredients-in-the-fridge spagetti, fried mee tai mak, instant noodle (oops! without the seasoning is a redeem), cereals from the box, bread with jam/ peanut butter, walnut & raisin banana muffin (i wonder why they called it banana bread?). Also bake a vanilla chiffon sponge cake eventually, but no good snaps taken, so until then. Personally i thought the texture is soft and fluffy, but the whipped cream (maybe too much?) does not compliment the cake.

For this 100th post, there are a few random things/ thoughts i want to write down:-

This humble blog first started cos i had too much free time; i used to spend these time with my family (mum, dad, grandpa, baby, hubby) either eating, playing mahjong, shopping, cooking for them, just being together, etc.
Blogging and baking kicks in, and became almost addictive.
This is a good way to record and made a comment or two on tried & tested recipes; it's a much better way than filing the recipe somewhere and couldn't find it. The human memory bank is getting limited.
Baking can be done whatever the mood is, good bad neutral, it usually end up feeling better. It's so therapeutic. Period.
There are few occasions which i hesitated to continue writing the blog, but continue because it became more of a little diary for me, just like what i am doing right now.
To avoid wastage, i will attempt to make small portion of trial recipe in my subsequent bakes.
So far, I've attended 2 baking classes. Still interested in attending more baking classes, if time permits.
Everyone has different taste, it's difficult for my level of (baking) standard to satisfy all of them.
My most ardent baking supporter is - little zak; he eats almost everything. Does toddler have sensitive or not-so-developed taste buds?
For every nine bakes that turned out not-so-good, that tenth bake that is good makes the day.
Will there be a 200th post?

Another go at wholemeal bread

2009-10-25T23:27:00.008+08:00

Following my earlier trial on wholemeal bread, i had another go of the same recipe today. Dodol & Mochi is very kind enough to drop a note on trouble-shooting, and bearing in mind a few 'errors' which i did earlier, i'm more mindful of:

Not overcooking the water roux (tangzhong)
If proofing in the fridge, i ought to bring the dough to room temperature before baking
The dough should be abt 1/3rd of the height of loaf tin if i want a square loaf
Since i'm using BM to knead the dough, i left it in the BM for the first proofing. It was almost 'spilling' over after an hour or so + weather is extremely hot today!

I did the whole portion of recipe and ended up with a 7x4x4" loaf, and 2 approximately 10cm long twin-bread, and 2 approximately 8cm long baguette-like bread. I gave the loaf to my aunt ivy, 2 twin-bread to aunty cat, and left 2 for T & my tomorrow's breakfast. They simply smell wonderful!

Shall update on the taste and texture of the bread after i try them out for my breakfast tomorrow.

Update on 26 Oct 09: The smell of this bread is heaven, and the texture is soft. Taste good even on its own. A keeper for anyone who wants a healthy bread!

Ondeh Ondeh

2009-10-24T22:13:00.010+08:00

My saturdays' routine has changed recently, that's because my little zak is attending music class in the late morning, and the centre is near my pa's place. So i'll end up idling at my pa's place the whole day. There goes my (almost) only day to do any baking ;-( Do i call this a little sacrifice for my little darling? Not the least!! Haha!!

Thinking through, i can still do something without using the oven, although if i want, i think i can still use the broiler. Anyway, before i got married and have my own house with a built-in oven, i had always used the broiler for baking of cookies, tarts. What i have done today is not using the broiler, just simple wrapping and boiling -- ondeh ondeh. When i was doing it today at my pa's place, i remembered how i was doing the same thing years back, in the same place, but with a very lonely feeling now. Shall stop writing or else get too emotional again :-(

Ingredients/ Method:

(Adapted from Florence's Do What I Like, with modification)

200g sweet potato

200g glutinous rice flour

13 tbsp water or more

1.5 tsp con oil

chopped pieces of gula melaka

freshly grated coconut

1. Steam sweet potato till soft.

2. In a bowl, mash sweet potato and add in glutinous flour, water and oil.

3. Knead till smooth dough is formed. Add more water if dough is dry.

4. Chop gula melaka to bite size.

5. Divide dough and wrap in the gula melaka.

6. Put wrapped balls into big pot of boiling water. (Boil the balls for about 20 mins to ensure gula melaka is melted.)

7. Toss on plate filled with grated coconut.

8. Ready to be served.

This recipe yields very soft and 'chewy' ondeh ondeh. However, the amount of gula melaka put in each ball is not consistent, and resulted in some balls with either too little or just enough fillings. Other than that, i have some balls that still have crystallized gula melaka and some nicely melted ones..... hahaha.... it's the inherent vice of hand-made products?!

Notes:
1. Boil the balls for about 20 mins to ensure gula melaka is melted.

2. Put as much gula melaka as possible, otherwise the ball would be too bland and you don't get the ooze-sensation.

3. Steam the grated coconut for about 5 - 10 mins. When ready, sprinkle a little salt over grated coconut. This will prevent the grated coconut from turning bad.

Healthy wholemeal bread

2009-10-24T07:23:00.004+08:00

I bought a packet of wholemeal flour few months ago thinking of baking a loaf of wholemeal bread, but didn't get to find recipes until I realised that the flour is going to expire next month! Didn't know that wholemeal flour has such short 'life-span', and wonder if it is ok to still use if it is over the expiry date? Anyway, i will try to use them up asap, instead of feeding the trash bin again.

Was following dodol & mochi's blog and just so coincident that she did a 65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf. The last i tried bread making using tangzhong, the result of sandwich bun turned out very good! This is it, I'm going to use her recipe to make my first wholemeal bread ;-)

As i hasn't been successful to manual knead the bread dough, and partly because i'm lazy, i used the BM to help me do the kneading job! As the original recipe yields two 22cm(L) x 10.5cm(W) x 10cm(H) loaves, i halved the recipe since it's like a test trial and also because i only have 1 bread tin.

Despite that my dough didn't rise properly, the smell and taste of bread is wonderful! After 2 days, i put the bread in the microwave for half a minute to warm it and it turns out still as soft.

The bread has nice brown crust

Ingredients/ Method:

Water Roux (65 deg C tangzhong)

250g water

50g bread flour

1. Cook 250g water with 50g bread flour at medium low heat, keep stirring until becomes thicken and no lumps left. Cook until 65 deg C, or if you do not have a thermometer, cook until mixture resembles baby porridge.

2. Transfer to clean bowl and cover with cling wrap to prevent skin forming.

3. Water roux can be stored for 2 days, and if colour turn dark grey, to discard.

65 deg C Tangzhong Wholemeal Bread Loaf

(make 22cm x 10.5cm x 1ocm loaf)

1. Put all ingredients, except butter, in sequence as per bread machine, and use dough function and knead for 30 mins. Add butter after dough is formed, about 10 mins. The BM pre-set kneading time is 20 mins, re-start the dough function and knead for a further 10 mins.

2. Round up dough and place it in a greased bowl and cover with cling wrap. Proof until double double in size about an hour. (Next time will try proofing the dough in the BM.)

3. Divide dough into 4 portions and shape it into smooth ball shape. Rest for 15 min.

4. Flatten dough and roll into longish shape. Roll it up to a sausage shape and seal tightly.

5. Place dough in loaf tin and cover with cling wrap. Proof till dough reach 80% of tin.

6. Bake at 180 deg C for 30 mins or until golden brown.

7. Remove from oven and immediately unmould bread onto wire rack to cool completely.

Fruity cheesecake

2009-10-24T07:10:00.006+08:00

For the first time, T requested me to bake a cake and that's for his mum/ my mil. Something using fruits, and can't be sweet. I kept thinking of what to bake, doesn't want to repeat what I have done before, flipped through couple of recipe books, and finally found 1 that seems interesting.

Interesting it may seem, but alas it didn't taste what i expected it to be. I don't think i will try this recipe again so won't be posting the recipe here. Better luck in trying out other recipes then ;-)

The making of bumble bee

2009-10-21T22:39:00.024+08:00

Got to know Grace and Jane at the blogger's party in May this year. Grace's bakes are always amazing and interesting; whereas Jane seems to have 24 hours more than anyone else with her constant baking and cooking and recently her new venture in conducting baking workshops. Both have been very encouraging through their little notes left in my little blog-space and i'm grateful for that ;-) As requested by them, here's the step-by-step of making a bumble bee. Hopefully the below illustrations are helpful and clear.

Happy fiddling with fondant!!

Bumble bee cupcakes

2009-10-18T12:39:00.009+08:00

One of my closest friends recently shifted house and the group of girlfriends decided to do a bbq at her place... not a housewarming (just a gathering), otherwise I would get her a chopper as she said her apartment lack of one...hahaha. Anyway each of us brought something for the bbq, so it's not that tiring for the host. Think she would be a dead-meat if she's doing it alone. It was a fun gathering but the night ended early as my little boy started to get grouchy when it's near his sleeping time. Something unusual happen when he reached home - he kept crying and can't really get to sleep and insisted i carry him. Either he was playing too much earlier or some kinda of unexplained presence **eerie**. Alas it didn't last very long, just about 2 hours before he's into deep slumber again.

I also made a few bumble bee cupcakes for the little children. Wanted to prepare the fondant bees earlier in the week, but this week was simply too busy at work and tiring. Only managed to mould them yesterday morning, and let dry in air-conditioned room for an hour plus. Just in time for bbq and hope to have another one soon ;-)

Ingredients/ Method:
(makes 6 standard-size cupcakes)

60g unsalted butter, softened
70g caster ugar
95g self-raising flour
65ml milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.
2. Beat all ingredients, except flour, until well combined.
3. Add in flour and beat until batter is pale and smooth.
4. Pour batter into lined cupcake tin and bake for 30 mins or until cooked and golden.
5. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Updated 25/4/2011: You may click on this link for step-by-step of making these cute Bumble Bees.

Chocolate swirl cheesecake

2009-10-11T23:11:00.007+08:00

Ever since i baked a brownie cheesecake months back, i was looking out for other brownie cheesecake recipes which would yield creamy and fudgey texture. There are a few brownie recipes which i have found but yet to try, but this one caught my eye with its fabulous pictures and description of the cake! Although it is not exactly a brownie, but it did taste like one!

The outcome of cake is close to what I was looking for, except that i did not do a very good job with the swirls which resulted in a not-so-even mixed of chocolate and cheese. Furthermore, the butter used in the recipe seems way too much, hence it is not so healthy for a regular treat! However, i would want to give this recipe another try, except maybe to replace the chocolate portion with another chocolate recipe. Wonder how it would turn out?

Ingredients/ Method

(A)

250g cream cheese, softened

80g castor sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 egg

(B)

120g plain flour

20g unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4tsp baking powder

(C)

250g unsalted butter, softened

120g castor sugar (reduced from 160g)

1/8 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

1. Preheat oven at 180 deg C.

2. Sift (B) and set aside.

3. Mix (C) till well incorporated. Set aside and use as the cream cheese batter.

4. Mix butter, sugar and salt of (A) till creamy. Add in eggs gradually till well-mixed. Fold in (B) till just blended. Set aside and use as chocolate batter.

5. Spoon both cream cheese and chocolate batter alternately onto lined 20x20cm cake tin, until both batters are used up. Swirl around the batter with knife or chopstick to create marble effect. Swirl enough to have a good mix of cheese and chocolate batter.

6. Make sure surface of batter is even before putting into oven and bake for 45 mins or till cooked through.

7. Remove cake from oven and let it rest in tin for 10mins before unmoulding. Let the cake cool completely on the cooling rack.

8. Store in airtight container once it's cooled or serve chilled.

Durian snowskin moonies

2009-10-04T01:26:00.007+08:00

Following my earlier post on mooncakes, I did manage to try out some durian mooncakes and brought them to my aunty wendy's house for the mid-autumn celebration. Actually this is the 1st time we are celebrating the festival with my relatives. We had very sumptuous dinner cooked by my aunt's MIL, very delicious spread!

The snowskin is using the same recipe with no durian essence added, and the filling is 100% pure durians. I'd got 1 box of 'mao san wang' and 3 boxes of 'segamat' from Fairprice @ AMKHub, and the quality is good!! To get a good bargain, go to the supermarket at around 9pm as they usually try to clear everything before the store closed for the day.

I have not tried durian snowskin mooncakes before, so i'm not quite sure how it should taste like? Do we have to add cream, gelatine, or anything to the filling?? Does anyone know?

Snowskin mooncakes

2009-09-29T23:07:00.008+08:00

I did these mooncakes last Saturday and was happy that I managed to use up all the pastes i bought. In total, I had made 71 mooncakes within a day and includes packing them in boxes as gift for my relatives, also brought some to my colleagues on Tuesday. I started preparing in the late morning and finishing with the cleaning up at 2+am. It may look unnecessary to do all these and get it from the store, but it's always the passion that pushes me ahead. I do feel i'm missing something if i do not bake or making something or blog, these days.

There are white lotus, pandan and green tea, and all these are supposedly to be low-sugar. Why supposedly? Cos they aren't that low-sugar, my relatives and I find them to be on the sweet side still. Wonder what it would taste like if i had bought the normal paste? However, if these mooncakes are chilled enough, the sweetness seems to be alright. Perhaps i need to prepare my own paste the next year??

These snowskin mooncakes are using the same recipe as what i did last year. However, i did try to make a variety of snowskin flavours like oreo, blueberry, green tea, pandan, and of course the original. There are no artifical flavourings added, just au-naturel, hence there's only very slight hint of flavour in them. Should i contemplate with artifical flavourings, the next round?

Still few more days to Mid-Autumn festival, would i be making more mooncakes?