Niece's birthday

Well, I was busy and will be so until my External Paramedic exam is over. Luckily my niece was adamant that she wanted Patrick (Spongebob's partner in crime) on her cake. At first, I thought Patrick is so boring but in my busy schedule, I think Patrick rocks as he's easy to draw and I therefore, do not need to put too much effort in.


Again, like my nephew's birthday cake, I had to erase her name for privacy on her family's sake.


Will update recipe after December.

Cupcake with Pandan Cream Cheese Frosting

I wanted to make cupcakes, ice them and see how pretty I can make them. But the batch was too much so I had to make the cake as well. But all is good because it is good practice so that I can do my niece's bday cake which is coming up in two weeks. She wants me to draw a "Patrick" from Spongebob Square Pants since his brother got Spongebob for his bday cake. I think Patrick is not appealing but who can argue with a 4 year old?!!!

I am still etchy on making a flat surface on top of the cake without too much cream on the surface. I was so delighted when I found a place that was selling quality icing tips for $0.50 so I bought about $16 worth. Used some of them today but they weren't anything as spectacular as I thought it might be.

The problem is, I got too much cupcakes and cake in the fridge now and I can't make anything else until I finish it.

Cupcake with Pandan Cream Cheese Frosting

Sponge cake
Ingredients:
4 eggs
100gm cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100gm sugar
1 1/2 tsp ovalette (aka cake stabiliser)
30ml fresh milk
90gm melted butter

Method:

1. Line a 24 small cupcake size tray with cupcake liners, and a 15cm square tin.


2. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius.


3. Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.


4. Add in the eggs, sugar, ovalette, and fresh milk.


5. Using an electric mixer, whisk / beat mixture until pale, fluffy and the consistency is in the ribbon stage.


6. Fold melted butter quickly but thoroughly through the mixture.


7. Bake cake and cupcakes in oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 25 mins or until skewer comes out clean. (8 mins for mini cupcakes)

Frosting
Ingredients:
70gm butter
125gm philadelphia cream cheese
90gm icing sugar
1/2 tsp pandan paste

Method:

1. Beat butter until pale and creamy.
2. Add cream cheese and icing sugar and beat until mixture is smooth and creamy.
3. Icing is ready to be applied to your cake and cupcakes.

Something sweet and simple

Cupcakes! It started off when I was doing a St John's duty at the Baby expo two weekends ago. There was a cake decorator there and she was selling cupcakes. Since my sponge cake didn't turn out as good as it had looked in the oven when I was making my nephew's cake, and the cupcake was suppose to have used "sponge", I bought one just to taste the texture of it. Their vanilla sponge looked good because a cadet and another adult with me had purchased one each, but mine, which was a caramel cupcake wasn't as soft as I had expected. So I got home and started searching for good-looking cupcakes (no, i don't mean guys, either)!

But it seems that most cupcakes uses a recipe that is not much different to a pound cake recipe. My pound cake recipe works for me everytime, so I decided to give it a go. Thanks BeeChoo YiYi for giving me this recipe.

Pound Cake Cupcakes with Pistachio Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

4 oz butter
4 oz sugar
4 oz superfine self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp fresh milk
chocolate emulco

Method:

1. Cream sugar and butter until thick and creamy.
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Add vanilla essence and milk.
4. Sieve in flour and baking powder.
5. Fold the flour into the butter mixture.
6. Scoop out half the mixture into another mixing bowl and stir through the chocolate emulco until thoroughly combined.Fill muffin tray half full.
7. For small muffin trays, bake at 190 degrees Celcius for 15 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
8. For regular muffin trays, bake at 190 degrees Celcius for 20 mins or until skewer comes out clean.

Pistachio Frosting

Ingredients:

125 gm butter
1 egg white
70gm icing sugar
30ml fresh milk
60 pistachios blendered into pistachio meal

Method:

1. Cream butter and half of the icing sugar together.
2. Mix the remaining icing sugar with the milk.
3. Continue creaming the butter while slowly adding the milk, beating well after each addition.
4. In a separate clean greasefree bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form.
5. Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture.
6. Fold the pistachio meal into the butter mixture.
7. Buttercream frosting is ready to be iced onto the cupcakes.

Note: Half of my mixture is mixed with 1 tsp honey, and explains why some of the frosting is white.

The Humble Pancake

Haven't cooked for the last few weeks because I was too busy with work, volunteering, job applications and dad's accounts, and this morning, I woke up itching to do something quick and easy. So decided on pancakes.

Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour
2 eggs
2 cups fresh milk
1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients into the blender or juicer and blend until there are no lumps of flour in the batter.
2. Heat up wok / skillet / frying pan with just enough oil to form a film on the cooking medium.
3. Once cooking medium is hot, pour in some batter (about 2-4 Tablespoon) and swirl your pan if you want your pancake to be thinner.
4. Once the pancake has roughly 75% of its surface covered with holes from the reaction between the self-raising flour and heat, use an egg flipper to flip over the pancake.
5. Cook until the bottom is slightly golden.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 until remaining batter is used up, occassionally spraying some oil on the cooking medium if required.
7. Serve with maple syrup, nutella, jam of your choice, lemon juice with sugar, or even plain.

Say Cheese!

This was made a while back but was never posted up because I didn't get my hands on it until now. This cake is for those who love their cheeses and it is a combination of savoury and sweet.

Double Cheese Cake

Ingredients:
300gm thickened cream
145gm condensed milk
Marie biscuits (chocolate / coffee / cappucino / plain)
125gm cream cheese
1 1/2 tbsp extra condensed milk
30gm shredded cheddar cheese

Method:

1. Lightly mix the cream and condensed milk until it is well combined.
2. Dunk the marie biscuits into the cream mixture and line it in a prepared 6" square cake tin, filling in the gaps between the biscuits with some crushed up marie biscuits.
3. Continue to Layer the cake with the marie biscuits prepared similarly to step 2, until the desired height or when the cream mixture runs out.
   
4. In a clean bowl, combine the cream cheese and the extra condensed milk until thoroughly mixed.
5. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the biscuit cake and decorate with shredded cheddar cheese.

Note:

• For those who do not like cheddar cheese, you can omit decorating the top with shredded cheese.
• For those who are lucky enough to obtain different flavours of marie biscuits, you can also alternate the layers to be of different flavours. I always do that to mine, but unfortunately, I wasn't there to take a picture of it when it was cut.

My Nephew's Birthday

This was taken on 1st October. It was LR's 5th birthday and he absolutely jumped with joy when he saw his cake. I wasn't there to see his reaction but when he saw me next, he said to me, "I only got one piece. Next time, you tell my teacher that I can have two pieces, ok?" I was too shell-shocked to answer him, but I ought to have said, "If you are so greedy, next time, you get none!"

The cake was to feed around 42 people and my sponge cake shrunk from the sides of the cake tin so I couldn't chop off the sides too much. After much consideration, I edited the photo to take LR's name out of the pic for privacy reasons.

It's actually a chiffon cake recipe, but I think a butter cake would have been much better in terms of holding its shape when it comes out of the oven. Thanks VPV for the cream recipe. Will be doing something for my niece's 4th birthday coming up on 17th November.



Vienna Cream
Ingredients:
500gm butter
4 egg whites
280gm icing sugar
120ml fresh milk

Method:

1. Cream the butter for about 1/2 hour or until the butter is pale yellow and has doubled in volume.
2. Sift half of the icing sugar into the butter.
3. Combine fresh milk and the remaining icing sugar until the sugar partially dissolves.
4. Slowly add the fresh milk mixture into the butter, creaming well after each addition.
5. In a greasefree bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
6. Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture until thoroughly combined.
7. The recipe is enough to be sandwiched between a 30cm x 40cm cake and to cover the cake as well.

Shiroi Koibito (White Lovers / Black Lovers)

This is a famous biscuit in Japan & Korea. It is exceptionally sweet so next time, I think I'll cut down on the sugar in this recipe. The problem with making this biscuit is that you've got to get a mould for the biscuit otherwise it will turn out ugly like mine. I tried cutting out a microwave container lid but this is the best I got (see photo)

Shiroi Koibito

Ingredients:
100gm sugar
90gm butter
2 eggs
85gm cake flour
white chocolate / milk chocolate

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Add sifted cake flour into the mixture.
4. Line baking tray and spread mixture to cover the hole in the template on the baking paper.
   
5. Bake at 180 degrees Celcius for about 10-15 mins, or until the sides become slightly brown.
6. Melt chocolate over double boiler.
7. Using a butter knife, spread the chocolate over one piece of biscuit and sandwich with another biscuit on top.
   

Mochi

The process of making mochi is extremely sticky and it is even more so when it comes to washing up - unless you do it properly and use lots of cornflour. My first attempt at doing it sometime last year was disastrous and I thought I'll never ever do it again. But having promised mum that I'll make it for her to try, I gathered up my courage to do it a few weeks ago and as it worked then, I thought I'll do it again.

Mochi

Ingredients:
Pandan Paste (will be covered in another post)
Red Bean Paste (will be covered in another post)

Mochi Skin:
100gm glutinous rice flour
180ml water
50gm sugar
Generous amount of cornflour

Method:

1. Combine the glutinous rice flour sugar together.
2. Pour in water and mix until sugar dissolves.
3. Pour into a microwave container for 30mins, then take it out to mix before returning it into the microwave again.
4. Repeat step 3 again thrice. The total time that the mixture stays in the microwave is about 2 mins, or until it looks almost translucent.
5. Generously dust your hands and workbench with cornflour before pouring out the microwaved contents onto the table.
6. Roll out rounds of red bean or green bean paste.
7. Take about 1/2 tablespoon of mochi skin, using your fingertips, flatten the piece of dough and place a ball of filling into the mochi.
8. Wrap mochi.

Note:

• The mochi skin dough is very very sticky, so generously dust your hands and workbench with cornflour. I cannot stress this enough.

Mooncake Festival

I haven't had as much time as I had originally hoped to update my blog. My original aim was to update it every day, then having failed that, I thought every week will suffice. But now, it seems that I am hardly even managing once a fortnight.


Well the mooncake festival is celebrated on the fifteenth of the eighth month in the chinese lunar calendar. There are several stories underlying the mooncakes but the most famous of all is according to chinese history, at around 1368AD. The Chinese distributed mooncakes with secret messages hidden between them and circulated around to all the Chinese. Inside, the messages revealed the Chinese' plan to overthrow their oppressors, the Mongols on the date that we now know as the mid-autumn festival.


Traditionally, mooncakes were baked. But ever-increasing new varieties have evolved and now, there are baked ones, deep-fried ones, snow-skin, savoury, and jelly ones.

White Sugar Cake

Yippee,
I finally got a camera to snap all my cooking so I can start baking again. A dumbass decided to drop the camera into a pond, so leaving me without a camera and a mobile phone. Hence the delay. I made several things (hum chim paeng, glutinous rice doughnut and several episodes of mochi and bak thong goa) but pity there wasn't a camera so it will have to wait until I make them again.

This cake is called "Pak Thong Goa" or directly translated as White Sugar Cake. There are several methods of doing this, from using wine rice cake to using yeast. The Vietnamese uses coconut as substitute for the 180ml of water in Ingredient B, and I think they call it "cow cake". That is what my friend tells me anyway. After her suggestion of using coconut milk, I would suggest to others who decides to make the Vietnamese version, to limit the sugar down to 140gm sugar as the coconut milk enhances the sweetness of sugar.

Pak Thong Goa

Ingredients:
A:
200gm rice flour
1 tsp dry yeast
230ml warm water
2 tsp sugar

B:
180ml warm water
160gm sugar

Method:

1. Mix all of ingredient A together and stir until sugar has dissolved. Leave overnight in a warm, dark place (an oven / microwave will do).
2. The mixture should have lots of bubbles on the next day.
3. Mix all of ingredients B into A and pour into a paper-lined pan. Leave aside for 2-3 hours.
4. Steam the mixture for 25 - 35 mins on high, opening the lid of the steamer every 10 mins or so to let the steam escape.

Note:

• Be cautious when opening the lid of the steamer as the steam can cause burns. It is advisable to be wearing oven mittens when you open it.
  

No Pics

Damn. My camera has gone on holidays for the next two weeks so I can't snap anything that I will be cooking - so I refuse to cook since I can't take the pictures to post onto my blog. Endless circle, isn't it? And since my work has put restrictions on saving files onto a memory stick, I can't update the blog with the BDO Chef night pics either. *Sighs*

Looks like I'll be on holiday from this blog for the next two weeks until I can start taking pics again! Not fair!

Green Lil Balls of Sweet Surrender

Never made ondeh-ondeh before but having some coconut filling leftover from my previous encounter with pulut inti, I decided to use the rest up in these small little green balls. Ran out of freshly white coconut so I didn't roll my ondeh-ondeh in it. I remembered when I was little, the green kuih with the coconut filling didn't have coconut on the outside either but I am not sure if it is still called ondeh ondeh.

Ondeh-Ondeh

Ingredients:
60gm glutinous rice flour
10 teaspoons of pandan juice (blend pandan leaves with a little bit of water and squeeeze out the water)
1 cup of coconut filling (see pulut inti)
2 tbsp finely chopped gula melaka

Method:

1. Mix about half the pandan juice with the glutinous rice flour.
2. Add one teaspoon at a time into the glutinous rice flour mixture and knead until flour becomes a soft, easily-managed dough. You may require more or less pandan juice, as long as your dough is easy enough to wrap a filling and rolled into a ball, it will be ok.
3. Take some dough, and using the fingertips, flatten the dough. Take a teaspoon of the coconut filling and a bit of gula melaka and place it in the middle of the dough. Wrap the dough around the filling and roll into a ball.
4. Instead of putting in the coconut filling, you can also put in gula melaka only - then it will be a true ondeh-ondeh, with sweet gooey syrup squirting out when you bite into the ball.
5. Boil water in a saucepan. Once water is boiling, cook the ondeh-ondeh in the water and let it boil until the balls floats to the surface of the water.
6. Dish out the ondeh-ondeh balls and roll it in a mixture of grated fresh coconut mixed with a bit of salt.

Note:

• Adding a pinch of salt to the fresh coconut will preserve the coconut a bit longer, and the coconut will not sour as quickly.

The Day After and Banana Leaves

As I am not accustomed to the effects of drinking, I usually try not to put myself through the torture for the next morning of the BDO Iron Chef night - can't say that for someone I know who felt sick from overeating and perhaps, overdrinking. *LOL*

Since the Croc Dundee team had decorated their stand with banana leaves, at the end of the night, I managed to convinced that giving me the banana leaves was a better idea than putting it in the bin. Call me 'kiam siap' as you may but it costs about AUD$2 for me to get 3 small pieces of banana leaves at the markets which also depends on the availability. But in payment, I was asked if I know how to make a sticky rice with coconut topping dessert. So this is the result. I hope this met the Joan's expectations.

Pulut Inti

Ingredients:
Banana Leaves
Glutinous rice
300gm glutinous rice
1 blade of pandan leave (aka screwpine leave)
pinch of salt
½ cup of coconut milk
3 tablespoons of water
Coconut topping
120gm gula melaka
50gm sugar
1 tbsp water
1 ½ cups freshly grated coconut

Method:

1. Wash the glutinous rice until water runs clear. Soak overnight. If you are time restricted, you don’t necessarily have to let the rice soak overnight as I have done.
2. Dissolve the salt in water.
3. Place banana leaves at the bottom of a steamer and place glutinous rice, water, knotted pandan leave and two teaspoons of coconut milk on top of banana leave and allow it to steam.
4. Moisturise the rice with the addition of coconut milk every so often until the coconut mulk is used up.
5. Allow rice to be steamed until soft.
6. Leave glutinous rice aside.
   
7. Bring to boil the gula melaka, sugar and water until the sugar partially dissolves.
8. Add grated coconut to the sugar and fry until the coconut has absorbed the dissolved sugar and becomes partially translucent.
9. Leave to cool.
10. Pour hot water over banana leaves to soften the leaves and to prevent it from splitting so easily.
11. Place two tablespoons of rice in the middle of a roughly 20cm x 10cm rectangular banana leaf, waxy & matt side up.
12. Using banana leaf, try to compact the rice together and then top it with the coconut mixture.
13. Wrap the longer dimensions of the leaf over the glutinous rice and tuck sides towards the bottom as pictured in the photograph.
    

BDO Iron Chef Night

Well, I have been busy - with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I thought I would have more time to update my blog every single day but reality is a bit different!

The fans of "Iron Chef", a japanese reality cook-off show shown on SBS every week, will know the gist of the competition. But for those who don't, "Iron Chef" is a battle between top-classed chefs. Each chef creats a three-course meal utilising an ingredient revealed at the start of the competition and may the best chef wins.

We hold an annual BDO (where I work) Iron Chef night but we modified the rules a little. Instead of 2 competitors, we had six teams of 3 or 4 people, each team was given a meat that they had to work with (chicken, deer, prawns, beef, pork and fish), there is a movie-themed presentation (Grease, Harry Potter, Shrek, Braveheart, Crocodile Dundee, and Star Wars) and each group draw out a secret ingredient from a bag (pineapple, ?, button mushrooms, okra aka lady fingers, tomatoes and dates)

I didn't end up winning *frowns* and heart-broken, I forgot to take pictures of my team's food. Our team's theme was "Grease" (as in Grease Lightning) and the pre-determined meat given to our team was chicken. On the night of the competition, the secret ingredient picked out of a bag of brown-paper-wrapped-parcels by one member of our group was pineapple. Given our meats and movie theme, we decided to make three dishes:

1. Chicken sweet corn soup - to fit the idea that 'grease monkeys' aka mechanics always order chicken sweet corn soup when they go to a chinese restaurant.
2. Malaysian chicken curry - because it is grease-y and this is where we hid the pineapple.
   
3. Chicken yiros - because it is from Grease (Greece).

Can't believe we lost considering that 3-quarters of my big pot of soup was completely devoured, and compliments shot out from most people. But Congrats to the "Star Wars" team who managed to make six dishes with the predetermined meat of fish, and secret ingredient of dates.

Secondly, also congrats to the "Shrek" team who had prawns to work with and secret ingredient of button mushrooms.

Thirdly, congrats to the best winning dress-up team of "Harry Potter" who used deer and secret ingredient of something-I-can't-recall. Loved the cauldron with the dry ice effect.

Another coconut milk dessert

Another soupy, coconut milk dessert. I know, I know, it's bad for the cholesterol levels and fat content but it is a dessert that I have been wanting to do but I couldn't get my hands on some alkaline water.

Instead of alkaline water, my mum bought me some alkaline rocks and then I didn't know how much of the rocks to how much part of water so I basically powdered up the rock a little bit and used about 3 pinheads size crumbs to 1/4 tsp of water. My first batch, with the alkaline water tasted soap-suddy - i guess it was too much alkaline water. That went into the bin, I don't think that even my dog will eat it. So I just omitted it in the second batch, and it tasted fine. All that hassle and wait, and the alkaline water was just not worth it!

Chendol is something that I always look forward to when I go back to Malaysia, especially the stall in Kuala Pilah. Most of them are sold by indians, on roadsides. But come to think of it, we put our health in danger when eating from those roadside chendol stalls because most often, the bowl which we eat off is rinsed off in a bucket of water that the stall-holder has rinsed off his previous customers' bowls in. Yuck!

Chendol

Ingredients:
(A)
100gm cornflour
20gm hoen kwuen flour (mung bean flour)
20gm wheat starch (tang mein fun)
11 blades of pandan leaves
4 1/2 cups of water
(B)
350gm palm sugar (gula melaka)
150gm sugar
1 cup water
1 blade pandan leave, knotted.
(C)
400ml coconut milk
3 cups water
1 tsp salt

Method:

1. Blend water and pandan leaves together. Extract the pandan water.
2. Mix all the flour with the pandan water.
3. Strain into a non-stick saucepan.
4. Bring the mixture in the saucepan to a boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. The mixture will coagulate and thicken into a pastey mixture and start bubbling. Turn off the stove but keep on stirring for a minute or two.
   
5. Transfer all the mixture into chendol mould, or a colander with small holes or a steamer with small holes. Place the mould/colander/steamer over a big bowl of iced water.
6. Push the chendol mixture through the holes and it should go through the holes and drop into the iced water.
7. Bring all of ingredients (B) to a boil and allow sugars to melt. Leave to cool.
8. Bring all of ingredients (C0 to a boil. Leave to cool.
9. Scoop some chendol, coconut milk into a bowl. Top with gula melaka syrup.
10. Serve dessert hot or cold. Leave coconut milk in the fridge if you want it cold. Top with shaved ice and evaporated milk if desired.

Note: The 1/4 tsp alkaline water is supposed to make the chendol firmer and springy in texture.

Jelly Lollies

My sister saw this tempting dessert in one of my cookbooks and asked me to make it about 3 months ago. Being short of agar-agar at the time, I told her "next time". It looked like childsplay so I thought I would give it a go but either looks are deceiving or my substitution backfired.

Ingredients:
600ml water
50gm sugar
1 1/2 tbsps agar-agar powder
a few drops of red and blue colouring

250gm sugar
2-3 drops of water

Method:

1. Boil the water, 50gm sugar, agar-agar powder until the agar-agar powder is dissolved.
2. Add blue colouring to the agar-agar mixture and pour into a ball-shaped agar-agar mould.
3. Add red colouring to the remaining agar-agar mixture and pour into another ball-shaped agar-agar mould.
4. Unmould jelly balls and skewer three or four together.
5. In a saucepan, melt the sugar.
6. Using a metal spoon, take a spoonful of caramelized sugar and let it drizzle onto the skewered jelly balls while spinning the skewers between your fingers so that the sugar is spun around the jelly balls.
   

Note: I substituted sugar for maltose from original recipe taken from Y3K Fancy Cakes & Jellies. The original recipe calls for 200gm sugar, 50g maltose (mak ngar thong), pinch of salt, 6 tbsps water. Boil the ingredients together and glaze the jelly with the syrup.

I didn't have any maltose, hence my substitution. Bad bad move. Because 3 hours later, the caramel absorbed moisture from the jelly and started to melt. So I had to eat it all instead of giving some to my sister.

Doing the Cha Cha

Not quite. What I did was the Bubur Cha Cha aka "Bobo Chacha" to "Momo Chacha".

I went to the market on Friday evening and was told that the taro season is over and so I had to make-do with yam. Wasn't too happy with the taste and texture of yam but it'll have to do.

This dessert is not too good for the waistline and cholesterol levels due to the coconut milk but it sure is satisfying on the tastebuds. Here's the recipe. Enjoy.

Bubur Cha Cha

Ingredients:
800gm sweet potatoes - peeled, cubed and steamed
600gm taro/yam - peeled, cubed and steamed
400ml coconut milk diluted with 2 cups of water
250gm sugar or to taste
3 pcs pandan leaves, knotted

Starch:
50gm tapioca starch
20ml boiling water (approx)
a drop of red colouring
a drop of green colouring
a drop of yellow colouring

Method:

1. Steam the sweet potatoes and taro separately until soft.
2. Bring the coconut milk, sugar and pandan leaves to boil.
3. Add in the sweet potatoes and taro into the coconut milk, bring to boil.
4. Tapioca Starch Cubes : Put tapioca starch into a bowl, add in the boiling water little by little, mixing after each addition until it forms into a dough. You may or may not use all the boiling water specified in the recipe. Divide into three equal portions and add colouring to each. Roll each tapioca starch dough into a long strip, about 1cm in diameter. Cut the strips into about 1cm long. In a saucepan of boiling water, drop the topioca starch cubes and allow it to boil until the coloured starch appears translucent. Dish out of boiling water.
   
5. Add cooked tapioca starch cubes to the bubur cha cha.
6. Serve either hot or cold.

Note: You can add jackfruit strips to the bubur cha cha as well. Instead of using the coloured starch, you can also substitute it with tapioca balls and big sago balls.

Cookies and Cream (Part II)

Chocolate Spirals

1. Take one half of the remaining basic cookie dough (after half of it has been made into the chocolate cookie dough)
2. Take one half of the chocolate cookie dough.
3. Between two sheets of non-stick baking paper, separately roll each portion of dough into 30cmx40cm rectangles, to about 2-3 cm in thickness.
4. Place one layer on top of the other.
5. Trim the edges.
6. Roll up the dough in a swiss roll style.
7. Place in freezer, slice and bake as directed in Part I.

Checkerboard Cookies
Refrigerate the cookie dough at any stages where you believe the dough is too soft to handle or to be cut.

1. Take one half of the remaining basic cookie dough (after half of it has been made into the chocolate cookie dough)
2. Take one half of the chocolate cookie dough.
3. Between two sheets of non-stick baking paper, separately roll each portion of dough into a rectangle to 1cm in thickness.
4. Trim edges and place one layer on top of the other.
5. Refrigerate for about 10 mins or until dough is hard enough to handle.
6. Slice down the middle of the length of the rectangle.
7. Place the two rectangles one on top of the other, ensuring that the colours are alternately layered. (white-brown-white-brown).
8. Refrigerate for about 10 mins or until dough is hard enough to cut.
9. Remove dough from fridge and cut into four equal slices along the longer side of the rectangle.
10. Assemble cookie dough into the checkerboard effect.
11. Place in freezer, slice and bake as directed in Part I.

Double Choc Chip Cookies

1. Using the some basic chocolate biscuit dough, roll out some balls of diameter of 3cm.
   
2. Lightly, using the heels of your palm, press the dough onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper.
3. Add 5 chocolate chips on the top of the biscuit dough.
4. Bake as directed in Part I

Cookies and Cream (Part I)

My computer has a virus in it and keeps popping up with these system alert messages. It is damn annoying but that's what I get for not paying for a virus protection.

Change topic, back to my cookies blog. Cookies go so well with milk, especially chocolate ones. I made these last night. The uncooked dough can keep up to 1 month in the freezer and it is good when unexpected guests drop in or when you just feel like making something without having to have a lot to clean up afterwards.

Basic Cookie Dough
Ingredients:
180gm butter
1 cup soft or dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg
2 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Method:

1. Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy.
2. Add the vanilla essence and egg and beat until combined.
3. Add in the sifted flour and baking powder.
4. Mix all ingredients together until a soft dough forms.
5. Roll dough into a log shape, sized to your own preference, on a sheet of baking paper (You may have to first divide the dough into two portions)
   
6. Fold the paper around the dough neatly and place the dough into the freezer for about 20 mins or until the dough is firm.
7. Slice the logs to about 1cm thick.
8. Place on baking trays, leaving 3 cm between each slice.
9. Bake in a preheated oven for 10-15 mins on 180°C.Leave on the trays for about 3 mins before transferring it onto a wire rack to cool.

Basic Chocolate Cookie Dough

1. Divide the basic cookie dough in half.
2. Melt 50gm of chocolate and milk over a double boiler.
3. Add the melted chocolate and 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder into one half of the cookie dough mixture and knead until combined.

My Birthday Today

I didn't cook today coz I've been kinda busy with work and volunteering.

My work supplies two cakes for every person's birthday but because I had to go out on an audit today, I had to postpone my cakes until next week at the earliest since I have audit all this week, Monday is a public holiday for us and Tuesday is another day out of the office on audit. So I guess I'll be having my Black Forest and Treasure Cake from 'The Cheesecake Shop' on next Wednesday. So everyone wasn't too happy that we didn't get our cakes today - however for those who was at home sick, they must be happy that I have postponed.

I got prezzies from two of my best friends - Thanks Heather and Vy. Absolutely loved the egg timer, and the unique pineapple peeler/corer/ringer and the "Happy Therapy Ball" which apparently has the answers to all my questions. Loved the lollypops and card but not the big reminder that I am getting old. Was just checking out my prezzies again and I realised I haven't opened one...the best one... the magnet saying "This is a self-cleaning kitchen so clean up after yourself". I have given it to Kev and hopefully he gets the message since he's the one that never cleans the kitchen.

Something Short and Simple

Thanks to my wonderful sis for giving me a big bunch of avocados and after several weeks, it is finally starting to go really soft. But more importantly, I have to thank her for the other present she's given me - The Magic Bullet. She didn't really intend to give it to me, but it was more a I-was-there-at-the-right-time situation that landed myself a present on my lap.

For weeks, I have seen a huge box lying in her house. Everytime I visit her, I have to step past this damn box that lies in the path of getting from her front door to her living room. One day, she asked me to find a recipe for an avocado milkshake her friends talked about during their holiday. The only info she had was that there was avocado and gula melaka in the drink, so after I found a recipe from google, she thought it would be a great idea to open her parcel that she's received from mail order to make this milkshake. Surprise surprise, there were two sets of 'The Magic Bullet' in the box (a-buy-one-get-one-free scam from telemarketers) and so that's how I scored myself a set.

Anyway, this is the amended recipe. The pics below uses half the recipe and golden syrup as I ran out of gula melaka.

Avocado Thickshake (aka Jus Alpokat)












Ingredients:
1 medium size avocado
1 cup vanilla ice-cream
3/4 - 1 1/4 cup fresh milk (If you want it like a yoghurt, go less milk. If you want it like thickshake, have it in between, if you want it like a normal milkshake, then go more milk.
1/2 tablespoon of thick gula melaka syrup (Malaysian palm sugar) or you can just substitute it with maple syrup although the taste is not as fragrant as that of gula melaka.

Method:

1. Put the avacado, ice-cream and milk into a blender or 'the magic bullet'.
2. Pulse the blender, or place it in the magic bullet for 15 seconds.
3. Swirl the gula melaka syrup on the insides of one tall glass.
4. Empty the contents of the blender into the glass.

Note:

• You can also put the gula melaka syrup into the blender with the rest of the ingredients for a more thorough mixture, or if you are lazy like me. But for presentation, the above method does a prettier job.
• Depending on whether you like small pieces of avocado in your thickshake, you can vary the amount of time in the blender. I personally like mine a bit chunky, like a yoghurt-with-fruit consistency so I only blend mine for about 5 seconds.
• Jus Alpokat originates from Indonesia and it is usually an avocado milkshake with chocolate milk. But I stumbled across a site (can't remember where) and they were using gula melaka.

Dinner Last Night

In an effort to post a new blog each day, I had to contemplate what easy meal I can cook yesterday so I can post it up today. So following my marbled pebble tang yuan, I thought I'll just post my sweet base soup - sweet potato tong shui.

Sweet Potato Tong Shui








Ingredients:
4 blades of pandan leaves (aka screwpine leaves)
10 slices of thinly sliced ginger
130ml of water
2 medium sized orange sweet potatoes
90gm sugar (or according to your taste)

Method:

1. Boil water with the pandan leaves and ginger for about 20 mins.
   
2. Peel and cube the sweet potatoes.
3. Add sweet potatoes into the water and let it simmer for about 20 mins.
4. Extract the leaves out of the water before adding the sugar (optional, but since you'll have to extract it sooner than later, it is better not to have syrupy leaves in the bin that attract ants).
   
5. Turn up the fire on the stove and allow the tong shui to come to a boil before turning the stove off.
6. Serve the tong shui hot, warm or cold.

Note: I used the soup as my base for my tang yuan.