Ninja In The Kitchen

Becoming a diabetic

2009-06-09T07:46:00.000-07:00

Since a few weeks ago, after making my first creme caramel with sponge, I've begun gorging on sugary, creamy desserts and no wonder the love handles have grown larger and it'll be no surprise if I become a diabetic.

Firstly, it didn't help with scrumptious ice cream with exotic flavours such as pistachio, cookies and cream, caramel praline, and green tea. Secondly, I am addicted to a new show called "MasterChef" and I am so tempted to make all the sweets. This is one of them and I can tell you that it is a bit too sweet for my asian tastebuds but rich and tasty nonetheless.

Sticky Date Pudding with Butterscotch Sauce & Almond Praline

Sticky Date Pudding Ingredients
180 gm dates, pitted and chopped
310 ml water
1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
165 gm brown sugar
60 gm butter
2 eggs
150 gm self raising flour

Method:

Grease 8 dariole metal moulds with melted butter. Preheat oven to 170 degree Celcius.
In a saucepan, bring the chopped dates and water to boil. Remove from heat.
Sprinkle the bicarbonate soda into the dates mixture and stir. Set aside.
Beat the sugar and butter together.
Add in the eggs into the sugar and butter mixture, beating well after each addition until the batter is creamy.
Add the dates into the creamy batter. By this stage, the mixture will look very watery.
Sift in the flour and fold until combined.
Divide equally into the 8 dariole moulds and bake in a bain marie (water bath) with the water covering 1/3 of the height of the moulds, in a 170 degree Celcius oven, for 40 mins.

Almond Praline Ingredients
110 gm sugar
35 gm slivered almonds

Method:

Melt sugar in a small saucepan without stirring until light golden brown and no sugar crystals are visible.
Quickly pour the toffee onto a sheet of non-stick baking paper and sprinkle the slivered almonds over the toffee.
Wait until the toffee sets before breaking it into pieces.

Butterscoth Sauce Ingredients
50 gm butter
220 gm brown sugar
250 ml whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

Place all the butterscotch sauce ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a slow simmer. Stir to combine.

To serve: Invert the hot pudding onto a plate, top with the butterscotch sauce and a piece of almond praline. Serve immediately.

Note: I had used 300ml cream simply because I didn't want 50ml cream leftover so the sauce was way too watery. This recipe was too sweet for my tastebuds so if I am to do it again, I'll cut down the sugar in the pudding to 90gm as I can always use more sauce if it is not sweet enough, and the dates are pretty sweet on its own.

Zhong Zhi - Preparing the Leaves and Wrapping Process - Part 4

2009-06-01T21:10:00.001-07:00

All photos, except for that posted in the Part 3 were taken during last year's festival but due to time constraints, I never got to post it up until several months after the event and by then, I thought it was a bit late and thought I'll save it for this year.

Last year, I only had to help mum and dad but this year, I was doing the whole thing solo. It was a bit of an effort to get everything prepared, to get it wrapped and cooked but it was well worth it.

Preparing the leaves:

Dried bamboo leaves are filthy so make sure it is well cleaned before use. First, the store-bought dried bamboo leaves (tan to light brown in colour) have to be soaked in hot water until it softens and turns green. Then the water has to be changed twice daily for a few days. A scrubbing brush is required to scrub both sides of the leaves once the leaves have softened. Notice the dirty water in the second pic from just scrubbing about 30 leaves or so. Allow the washed leaves to soak in the water for at least overnight. Rinse and drain the leaves, making sure that the upper surface of the leaves all face the same way.

Wrapping Process:

Fold the leaf into a cone shape, ensuring that the top surface of the leaf is on the inside to prevent the glutinous rice sticking on the leaf after cooking.
Fill up with rice and filling.
Hold the dumpling cone with your thumb and middle finger and push down on the leaf from the top. You should have two flaps on the side of the dumpling.
Push down the left flap and secure it using the thumb.
Repeat step 4 with the right flap and hold with the middle finger.
Using your other hand, fold the jutting-out leaf such that it follows the contour of the dumpling (left or right, it doesn't matter).
Secure it with a piece of nylon string (or raffa vine), which should be parallel to the two flaps mentioned in step 3, 4, and 5. Double knot the string.
Once a bundle has been made (around 15 per bundle), place in the pressure cooker or a stove pot (this will take about 3 hours to cook as oppose to the 1 hour in the pressure cooker) to allow it to cook.
Once taken out of the pressure cooker, allow the bundle of dumplings to fully drip-dry (about 2 hours) before placing it in the fridge. This process deters mould from forming in a humid environment.

Zhong Zhi (Nyonya/Nonya Zhang) Part 3

2009-06-01T07:26:00.001-07:00

upper left and bottom are the Nyonya Zhangs

Although this is not the traditional "zhang" that most people are accustomed to, this has become my favourite. It is a balance of sweet and savoury, with an aromatic fusion of exotic spices and a blend of textures wrapped in one small parcel.

Makes 35

Ingredients:

500 gm chicken meat (diced into 1cm cubes, or even minced chicken meat will do)

1 knob galangal (cleaned, thinly sliced)

5 pips garlic

3 stalk of lemongrass (thinly slice the root)

2 stems of tumeric root (each is about 4cm in length)

1 tbsp onion infused oil

1 1/2 tsp coriander powder

1/2 tsp pepper

2 tsp light soya sauce

1 1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce

200 gm candied melon (chopped)

2 tsp oil

150 gm mushrooms (soaked, and chopped into 1cm cubes)

few pinches of plain flour

80 gm roughly chopped peanuts

Method:

Grind and pound the galangal, garlic, lemongrass, tumeric root with a mortar & pestle until fine. You can also do this with a blender but be warned that the tumeric may render the the machine with a yellow/orangy tinge which is hard to scrub off.
Marinade the chicken with all the seasonings and the grounded paste from step 1 above, overnight, in the fridge.
Heat up the 2 tsp of oil in the wok and place the marinated chicken, candied melon, mushrooms and stir-fry until cooked.
If there are lots of juices remaining, add a pinch of plain flour at a time until the sauces thicken.
Dish up and set aside to cool.

Rice:
1 kg glutinous rice (washed and soaked overnight)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp onion infused oil

Drain the glutinous rice.
Add the sugar, salt and oil into the glutinous rice and mix until it is mixed thoroughly.
Wrap the dumplings with the rice, cooked chicken filling, and peanuts.
Place in pressure cooker for an hour.
Remove from pressure cooker and hang the bundle of dumplings to dry.

Zhong Zhi (Jian Shui Zhong aka Ki Zhang aka Lye Water Dumplings) Part 2

2009-06-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't say lye water dumplings is for everyone. The little morsel of bland rice does not quite constitute as a meal, nor a dessert but dunked in gula melaka (palm sugar) syrup, it justifies the reason for eating the gula melaka on its own.

Soak 1kg of glutinous rice in water along with one teaspoon of lye water overnight.
Rinse the glutinous rice with plain water and start wrapping.
Cook in pressure cooker for 45 mins.
Take out of pressure cooker and hang to dry.
Serve with honey / palm sugar syrup / sugar syrup / sugar.

Variations of this dumpling includes placing a ball of red bean paste in the middle.

Zhong Zhi (Bak Zhang) Part 1

2009-06-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

This is the traditional food prepared for the fifth day of the fifth lunar calendar, and also celebrated by dragon boat races. As a bit of history and legend (there are many versions of the story but they all share many similarities), there was a minister called Qu Yuan (475 - 221 BC) who was much loved by the citizens. During the warring Zhou Dynasty, the Emperer of Chu of whom Qu Yuan was serving, was advised by Qu Yuan to resist going into conflict with the Qin Kingdom. The advise was rejected by other officials who, along with the Emperor's son, framed Qu Yuan and caused him to go into exile. In his despair, he drowned himself in the Milou River. To remember him, the common people used long dragon boats and beating war drums to scare the fish from eating his body. Rice wrapped in bamboo leaves are for his spirit and to avoid fishes from eating it as well. However, another version of the story is that the rice is thrown into the river so that the braver fishes will eat the rice rather than his body.

Makes 65.

Bak Zhang (Meat Filled Dumplings)
Ingredients:
150gm Dried Shrimps (soaked and washed)
2 big onions (diced)
1/4 cup vegetable oil.
1kg Pork Belly Meat (diced)
100gm Shiitake Mushrooms (soaked)
750gm Dried Chestnuts (cleaned and husked) (replace with salted peanuts if desired)
Five Spiced Powder (aka mixed spices)
1 tablespoons Light Soya Sauce
4 tablespoons Dark Soya Sauce
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons Oyster Sauce
1 1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 tablespoon Plain Flour
250gm Mung Beans (rinsed)
bamboo leaves (I used about 100) and raffa strings (or nylon strings if you don't have any raffa strings)

Method:

Fry the dried shrimps with about 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and set aside overnight.
Heat the remaining oil and fry the onions until the oil is fragrant. Leave aside overnight.
Place the chestnuts in a pot and cover with water to just about 1cm above the chestnuts. Allow the chestnuts to simmer in the pot until it is soft and water is just about dry. You may need to place more water if there is completely no more water in the pot and the chestnuts are still not dried. You may also wish to put in a few blades of pandan leaves into the pot. Set aside overnight.
Slice mushrooms and fry with one tablespoon of the onion-vegetable oil from step two above, along with 1 tbsp dark soya sauce, 1 tbsp light soya sauce, 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce, pinch of salt and pinch of five spiced powder. Add in 1/2 tbsp flour to thicken up any sauces. Set aside overnight.
Marinate the pork belly with the remaining seasonings and spices. Set aside in the refridgerator overnight.

Rice and Wrapping Dumplings

2kg Glutinous Rice (soaked overnight)
3 tbsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp five-spiced powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp onion/oil mixture from previous night's preparation

Drain the soaked-overnight-glutinous rice and season the glutinous rice with all of the ingredients above.
Wash and drain the mung beans.
Bring out all the previous night's preparation of the fillings (marinated pork belly, mushrooms, dried shrimp, chestnuts)
Begin the wrapping process.
Place in pressure cooker for 1hr, remove from pot and hang up to drip dry.

A late post

2009-06-01T06:19:00.001-07:00

Went through my pics today and realised that my mum's birthday cake - a green tea sponge with green tea cream cheese frosting - had not yet been posted. As the green tea sponge was a bit dense, i am not bothering with the recipe post. Have to master my sponges. *Grrr*

My Best Sponge Yet

2009-06-01T04:52:00.001-07:00

I can't believe the best sponge I made is when I am not expecting it. I've been searching for a recipe with creme caramel on top of a sponge base since when I first discovered internet a decade ago and after first eating it. It was only recently that I found a recipe on Roz's blog. I've made this three times since last week and all have been perfect. Pity my "sponge cakes" don't turn out like the ones for this custard-cake.

With a few changes, I've made mine in a 22.7cm x 96cm round pan. Don't be fooled by the detailed recipe as it is really easy to make, and you do not need to cook the custard first and the two layers is sure to impress guests. And in addition, the sponge layer comes out evenly on top of the custard once cooked.

Sugar Base:

100gm sugar

1 tbsp water

Melt the sugar and water in a saucepan without stirring the sugar. If required, swirl the melted sugar in the saucepan to allow the syrup to brown evenly.
Quickly pour the sugar into the base of the baking pan until it covers the base fully and if time permits, let the sugar syrup coat about an inch of the side of the pan.
Set the pan aside and the toffee to cool in pan while preparing the creme caramel and sponge base.

Creme Caramel Custard:
750ml milk
110gm sugar
6 large eggs
3 tsp vanilla essence or 1 tsp vanilla extract

Place the milk and sugar into the saucepan used to make the toffee for the sugar base and heat the milk mixture on the stove just until the sugar melts.
In a separate bowl, using a balloon whisk, whisk the eggs and vanilla essence until well-beaten but not until there are lots of froth on the top of the egg mixture. (If there are lots of froth, just run it through the seive.
Mix the milk into the egg mixture and set aside until the sponge base is prepared.

Sponge base:
3 eggs (separated into yolks and whites)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
90gm castor sugar
110gm self raising flour (sifted)
2 tbsp milk
30gm butter (melted and cooled)

Beat the egg yolks with about half the amount of sugar required for the sponge base.
Add in milk and beat until combined.
Fold in half the self raising flour into the egg yolk mixture until combined, repeat with the remaining flour. The batter will be really thick at this stage.
In a separate greasefree bowl, using a high speed setting, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks form, before slowly adding in the rest of the castor sugar and continue beating the egg whites until firm peaks form. Continue beating the egg whites with a slow setting for another minute or two so that the air bubbles trapped in the egg whites are more stable.

Gently but quickly fold 1/4 of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk batter. Repeat until all the egg whites are folded into the egg yolk mixture thoroughly. At this stage, the batter should be light and fluffy.
Drizzle the melted butter over the batter and quickly fold through until just combined.

To assemble:

Pour the Custard into the toffee-prepared baking pan.
Pour the sponge cake mixture on top of the custard.
Place in a bain marie (waterbath) in the oven for 50mins at 180 degrees Celsius.
Let the cake cool before placing it into the fridge until chilled.
The toffee will have melted and there will be syrup at the bottom of the pan. I usually pour out the syrup and reserve it for drizzling over the cake when serving but you can let it soak into the cake base if desired.
Turn the cake onto a large plate.
When serving, drizzle the reserved toffee syrup if desired.

Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. But I managed to save it

2009-02-21T23:14:00.000-08:00

Everything that could go wrong went wrong on Friday. I had an exam which I thought I did alright but on hindsight, reflecting on what went wrong with all my attempts on Friday, maybe I just didn't get the 80% needed to pass the exam (will find out tomorrow). I thought class was going to finish on time, if not earlier so I can rush home to make the cake for P's birthday, but class wasn't finished until 1 1/2 hrs later. A series of events happened but it's too tedious to type out the sequence of events but let's just say that there was blackout at around midnight so hence more delays and ended up with me with a penlight torch between my teeth while washing the chocolate coated dishes. And this was JUST THE CAKE BASE. Lucky for me, I had the chocolate paste made in advance so the roses came through easily on Sunday morning (the day of the party). Recipe is per the chocolate cupcakes in my previous post but in the 160 degrees Celcius oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Chocolate paste

Ingredients:
400gm milk chocolate
50ml glucose syrup
25ml water

Method:

Melt chocolate in a non stick saucepan / milk saucepan. to 40 degrees Celcius.
Stir melted chocolate until all the chocolate is melted.
Slightly warm the glucose syrup.
Pour the glucose syrup into the chocolate and stir rapidly until all is combined. When the glucose syrup is added, the whole mixture will start to come together pretty fast.
Knead until it is just combined and put it into the fridge for a few hours.
Once harden, take out of fridge and put it through a pasta machine for smoother and faster results. Otherwise you can always take the hard way and use the rolling pin (I used the latter when my pasta machine broke down due to inadequate maintainance and oiling of my equipment - so I'm on a lookout to purchase new kitchenaid pasta rollers)
When needed to make the roses, knead a small portion of the paste and make a few cone shapes for the base of the roses.
From the paste, take out another small portion and knead until pliable. Roll out a sausage strip of chocolate paste to 1.5cm thick in diameter. Cut into 1 cm rounds.
Place rounds of paste between two plastic sheets and with the pads of your thumb, flatten the paste for the petals.
Layer the cone with the petals.
Allow it to set for a few hours before assembling the spray of flowers. Use ganash to stick and position the flowers onto the cake if necessary.

Can't believe I'm saying this but I am getting sick of chocolate

2009-01-26T01:46:00.000-08:00

I went shopping one day and saw that a box of 8 Bulla Crunch ice creams were one for $6 or 3 boxes for $10. My mind said "Gosh, they are cheap" but my body said "They won't be good for you". As you can guess, my mind took over. But because my partner needed the freezer for his diet ingredients, I had to start clearing space so over two weeks, I had 3 boxes.

And as fate had it, I was wanting to make ganache as I haven't done that before so really, I just wanted to play with the icing, rather than make the cake. But ganache is really only good for one thing - Chocolate mud cake. So I had to make that too and had to scrounge around looking for a recipe for ganache and mud cake.

I didn't even taste the cake and ganache until two days later, after quite a number of people commented on the moistness of the cake, and remembering that I haven't taken a photo of the cross section of the cupcake that I brought one home from the class whom I had baked it for. So after the photos, I tasted it and true enough, it was the best thing I've baked ever. But now, I am all chocolate-out but this has become my most beloved recipe so I had promised a friend to bake it for another friend's birthday coming up in Feb.

Chocolate Mud Cake with Ganache

Ingredients:
(makes 24 cupcakes)
190gm milk chocolate
60gm dark chocolate
250gm butter
190ml water
155gm self raising flour
170gm plain flour
30gm cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbinate soda
450gm sugar
4 eggs
40ml oil
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
125ml buttermilk

Method:

Place chocolate and butter in a saucepan and allow chocolate to melt slightly before adding in the water.
Allow chocolate to fully melt and until the mixture is a smooth consistency.
Allow chocolate to cool to room temperature.
Sift the self-raising flour, plain flour, cocoa powder, and bicarbinate soda into a large bowl.
Add the sugar in with the flour.
In another bowl, combine the eggs, oil , essence and buttermilk and whisk until the eggs are thoroughly incorporated into the fluid mixture.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour the egg mixture into the centre of the well and fold the mixture through.
Pour the chocolate into the combined mixture in three batches, fully mixing the mixture after each addition. (The batter should be pretty runny)
Line a 12 cupcake muffin tray with cupcake liners and fill it two-thirds full of batter.
Place into a preheated 160 degrees Celcius oven for 30 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
Repeat steps 9-10.
Take out of oven and allow to cool to room temperature, before placing it into the fridge for an hour prior to coating it with ganache.

The recipe is actually for a cake which is required to be placed in the oven for 1 1/2hours.

Ganache:
300gm milk chocolate
60gm butter
62ml thickend cream

Place all ingredients in a saucepan and place it over low-medium heat until the chocolate has just melted.
Remove from the stove and stir until the chocolate mixture is glossy and smooth.
Pour over the muffins if desired, or wait for the ganache to cool down slightly so that it is a spreadable consistency.

Note: By pouring the ganache over the muffins, the sides of the muffin liners can get pretty sticky and messy so I had dipped the muffins into the ganache and held it down for a few seconds. However, some still dripped onto the sides of the muffin liners. Best way is to probably wait if you have the time and spread it with a palette knife but that may not be as smooth if you had poured it on.

Muffins are just plain, ugly cupcakes.

2009-01-26T00:39:00.000-08:00

I read somewhere that muffins are just plain, ugly cupcakes.

I have had frozen blueberries sitting in my freezer for almost 3/4 year now so decided that I'll never get to use them on anything else other than muffins/cheesecakes. Plus since it's been sitting in my freezer for so long, and I have never used these berries in my bakes, I thought that the blueberries must all be used in one hit so it doesn't go back into my freezer. So having remembered the quote "Muffins are just ugly cupcakes, I thought I'd make a cream cheese topping so I don't end up with ugly cupcakes", and remaining blueberries.

Blueberry muffins with blueberry cream cheese topping

Ingredients:

(makes 24 muffins)

3 eggs (small, or 2 large eggs)

2 tsp vanilla essence

125ml oil

420ml buttermilk

600gm self raising flour

335gm sugar

400gm blueberries (frozen or fresh)

Method:

Combine vanilla essence, oil, buttermilk and eggs in a bowl and whisk until eggs are incorporated into the fluid mixture.
Sift the flour into a bowl.
Mix the sugar and blueberries into the flour.
Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour in one third of the liquid mixture.
Fold until it is half incorporated before adding another one-third of the liquid mixture.
Repeat step 5 with the remaining liquid until mixture is well mixed. DO NOT overmix the mixture as this increases the gluten from the flour and makes the muffins tough after baking. Just fold until just combined.
Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners and fill it two-thirds full with the batter.
Place in a preheated 190 degrees Celcius oven.
Bake for 25 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
Repeat steps 7-9.
Allow the cupcakes/muffins to cool to room temperature, before placing it into the fridge for 1 hour.

Icing:
250gm philadelphia cream cheese
200gm whipping cream
80gm blueberries (fresh or frozen)
icing sugar

Method:

Whip softened cream cheese until fluffy.
Whip the cream until soft peaks form.
Puree the blueberries and add into the softened cream cheese.
Gradually add the whipped cream and sift enough icing sugar to taste (sorry, I didn't measure)
Pour on top of cupcake. To make my decoration, after each layer, place into fridge for 10 mins before adding another dollop of cream on top. Repeat 4-5 times.

Note: I made the topping too runny and cannot therefore place into piping bags to pipe onto the muffins and resorted to step 5 above. To reduce the runny-ness, reduce the whipped cream.

Curry Puffs

2009-01-25T15:13:00.000-08:00

Ingredients:
Filling:
2 tbsp oil
4 large potatoes (diced into 1cm cubes)
4 large onions (diced)
500gm chicken mince
125ml coconut milk
3 tbsp curry powder
1/2 tbsp tumeric powder
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp plain flour (may not be required)
2 cups oil for frying

Water dough(A)
2 cups plain flour
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp salt
150 ml cold water (mix and knead together)

Oil Dough(B)
1 1/2 cups plain flour
6 oz butter
(mix and knead together)

Method:

Boil diced potatoes until tender, but not mushy. Drain and set aside.
Saute diced onions in a skillet with the oil until soft and fragrant.
Add chicken mince to the onions and stir fry until chicken mince is cooked, then add in potatoes.
Add coconut milk into the chicken mixture.
Sprinkle the curry powder, tumeric powder, and sugar into the skillet.
Depending on the moisture content of the mixture, if it is too watery, sprinkle a bit of plain flour to absorb the water. Otherwise, this can be omitted.
Set aside filling to cool to room temperature.

Mix Dough A and Dough B separately and store in the fridge for about 1 hour.
Divide Dough A into 28 portions, and Dough B into 25 portions.
Take one portion each of Dough A and Dough B and roll it into a ball.
Slightly flatten Dough A with the palm of your hands and wrap up Dough B.
Roll the combined dough into a long rectangle, ensuring that Dough B does not leak out of Dough A.
Starting from one end of the rectangle where the width is narrowest, roll it to the other end like a swiss roll.
Turn the rolled up dough 90 degrees clockwise and roll out into a long rectangle again. If you find that the oil dough is going to leak out, place it back into the fridge.
Repeat steps 13 and 14 another 2 more times, before rolling it into a ball and returning it to the fridge while completing the rest of Dough A and Dough B.
Place ball of combined dough onto work surface and roll out onto the tabletop, place filling in the middle and crimp the sides of the curry puff. Place it aside (in the fridge if you willl be deep frying it soon, or in the freezer if you plan to store it for a later date).
Deep fry curry puffs in batches of three - five until golden brown. Drain off excess oil and serve hot or warm.

Note: If the made-up curry puffs are stored in the freezer, defrost it for about 8hrs (overnight) in the fridge before frying. The frozen curry puffs can stay in the freezer for about 2-3 months.

What's Christmas Without Trifle

2008-12-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

Trifle - Sweet and refreshing on a hot, Darwin Christmas. This recipe is ideal for those who want to say that they made it but the truth is, they only assembled it all together.

Trifle
1 jam roll
2 packets portwine/raspberry jelly (follow manufacturer's direction and allow to set)
1 litre custard (I made mine with 2/3 cup of custard powder and 1 litre of milk, boiled until it thickens and let to cool)
500gm fruit salad in syrup (drained, and reserve the syrup)
600ml cream

Method:

Cut jam roll into 1cm slices.
Line half the jam rolls into glass bowl,
Drizzle 1/3 of the fruit salad syrup over the jam roll slices.
Cut jelly into cubes and fill the glass bowl with half the amount of jelly made.
Pour the custard over the jelly.
Top with half the drained fruit salad.
Place the remaining jam rolls on top of the fruit salad layer.
Repeat steps 4 - 6.
Whip cream until cream almost triple in volume (but before it turns into butter)
Using the spatula, layer the cream on top of the trifle.

Note: No cream layer in my pic as it was nearly overflowing, and my partner has to take it into work so I didn't want cream all over the car.

Christmas - A Time to Get Drunk

2008-12-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas - drinking with family and friends which kinda inspired me to make these rum balls. However as I don't take alcohol and neither should I compromise my partner's and his workmates' work ethics as paramedics, I thought I had better substitute it with rum essence

Rum balls

250gm plain biscuits (Arnott's Arrowroot, Marie and Nice biscuits would do fine)
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tbsp rum essence (or the real stuff)
395ml condensed milk (1 tin)
1 cup desicated coconut
Extra desicated coconut, cocoa, or chopped nuts, for decoration

Method:

Process the biscuits in a blender until they resemble bread crumbs.
Add in the desicated coconut.
Sift in the cocoa.
Add the rum and condensed milk into the mixture and stir until the mixture sticks together.
Roll into balls and roll over the extra desicated coconut (or cocoa or chopped nuts) for decoration.

Colour of Christmas

2008-12-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

Been deprived of my decorating set for so long that I decided to make cupcakes - only so that I can decorate them. I went through some websites and found ideas on what to decorate on my cupcakes, and because I couldn't decide which ones I wanted, I ended up with all of them.

Cupcakes
250 gm butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
5 egges
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
370ml milk

Method:

Cream butter and sugar together
Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add in vanilla essence and beat well.
Sift the flour and baking powder together.
Add the flour in 3 portions along with the milk, and mix well, starting and finishing off with the flour.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 20-25 mins.

Glace:
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp milk
20gm butter (softened)

Sift icing sugar into a bowl.
Make a well in the centre of the icing sugar and add in butter, and 1 tbsp boiling water.
Stir until well combined.
Add milk and stir until well combined.
If more water is required to acquire the right consistency, then add in some more boiling water and stir.
Colour icing as desired and coat the cupcake tops.

Note: Making the glazing is optional. I only did it because I wanted a coloured surface to place my buttercream decorations. If using this step, place the iced cupcakes into the fridge for 10 mins so the icing glace can harden.

Buttercream:
120gm icing sugar
240gm butter
colouring

Sift icing sugar into a bowl.
Add the butter and beat until the butter achieve a pale ivory colour.
Colour as required and decorate (the fun bit)

Christmas once again

2008-12-24T20:39:00.001-08:00

It's been a long time but with Christmas holidays here, and having just resigned from my job (as I got a new position), I finally found my baking & decorating hobby once again.

Oreo Truffles

250gm Philadelphia Cream Cheese (softened)

3 packets of Oreo cookies (39 pieces of oreos)

Method:

Place the Oreo's (including the sandwiched cream) into a blender and blend until finely processed.
Place Oreo's into large mixing bowl.
Combine the softened Cream cheese with the Oreo's until thoroughly combined.
Roll into balls, or shape them into the desired shape. Place into fridge for 10mins or freezer for 5 mins before decorating with icing.

*DO NOT place the cream cheese along with the Oreo's into the blender otherwise when oil starts weeping out in big droplets, don't say that you haven't been warned.

Icing:
Heat white chocolate as per directions on the packet. Add in peppermint oil once the chocolate is melted. Colour and decorate truffles as desired.

Cheesecake makes baking worth it

2008-06-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

I love making cheesecakes, especially after I learnt that cream cheese DO NOT belong in the freezer. I love the way that they form so effortlessly and I have discovered that no-bake cheesecakes are not so bad afterall and they are so much easier to make, without having to worry if the water from the bain-marie has seeped into the springform and destroyed my hard-nights' labour.

I made this in an attempt to renew my faith in myself over the past disasters. It didn't turn out so bad. Plus it was also an attempt to ponder what I will/can make with my new KitchenAid that I redeemed from my flybuy points plus paid $400 for. Well worth the money *dancing on the bed because I am overjoyed at my new purchase* It's coming in 4 weeks, Yippee.

NO-BAKE TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHEESE CAKE

Ingredients

180gm marie biscuits

1 tbsp castor sugar

1 tbsp cocoa powder / milo

90gm butter, melted

80ml warm water

1 1/2 tbsp gelatine

400ml whipping cream

3 tbsp castor sugar

500gm cream cheese

1/2 cup castor sugar

60gm dark chocolate

100gm milk chocolate

80gm white chocolate

Method:

In a food processor, blend the biscuits, sugar and cocoa powder together until they resemble fine, sandy crumbs.
Add in the melted butter and pulse the food processor for a few seconds until they resemble slightly wet sand grains.
Remove the biscuit crumbs and press well onto a 23cm springform pan.
Add gelatine to water and put it over the stove until the gelatin dissolves. Set aside to cool slightly.
In a bowl, whisk the whipping cream and 3 tbsp of sugar together until soft peaks form. Set aside.
In another bowl, whisk the cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar together until creamy.
Add the gelatine mixture into the cream cheese and beat until well combined.
Fold in the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Gently beat it to combine the cream cheese with the whipped cream.
Divide the mixture into three equal parts.
Pour the slightly warm dark chocolate into one part of the mixture while beating it with one beater attachment (on a handheld beater) until thoroughly mixed through. Pour into the springform pan over the biscuits.
Using a spatula, smooth the layer until it is reasonable flat.
Repeat steps 10 & 11 with the milk chocolate, pouring it over the dark chocolate layer.
Repeat steps 10 & 11 with the white chocolate, pouring it over the milk chocolate layer.
Cover the top of the springform pan in foil and place it into the fridge for at least 4 hours.

Note:

*DO NOT pour chocolate into the cream cheese mixture without beating it immediately, otherwise you'll have small (or large) pieces of chocolate - unless you want it to be a chocolate chip cheesecake. The milk chocolate layer turned out a little like chocolate chip cookie and tasted pretty good actually.

*I used leftover white chocolate with 2-3 drops of food colouring from my previous cooking to draw concentric circles with a piping bag. Then I ran a skewer from the side of the cake towards the center and then in the opposite direction around the cake to produce the spider web effect.

A Disastrous Weekend

2008-06-03T07:28:00.001-07:00

Few weeks ago, I decided to make pandan steamed cupcakes, fatt koh and blossom cake - all of which are steamed and supposed to "smile" once the steamer lid is lifted.

Well, mine didn't smile and instead, made me grumpy for the rest of the week, and has prevented me from coming back to my blog because I hate to admit that I have failed miserably in making things "smile" and to add insult to injury, mum and dad weren't particular helpful in making me cheerful either.

So here is the best of my three efforts. The latter 2 were nearly unedible. But I have seen yochana's site and her blossom cake looked amazing - unlike mine.

Pandan Steamed Cupcakes

No recipe until I perfect this one.

Finally

2008-06-03T06:59:00.000-07:00

Well, my mum's birthday has been and gone (28th April) and I still haven't updated my site with her cake. Oh, I took the whole-cake pic with another camera so I can't upload the pic just yet. With this camera, I remembered to take a photo when it was already half eaten

It was nothing elaborate since I did it last minute and she doesn't enjoy the sweet richness of icing and butter cakes. So instead, I had to make a cheesecake and it can't be just any ol' no-bake cheesecake, it had to be one that has been in a bain-marie for about 1hr.

Marbled Baked Cheesecake

Ingredients:
500gm softened cream cheese
50gm castor sugar
5 eggs, separated
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp lemon juice
230gm whipped cream
120gm plain flour
120gm castor sugar
50gm melted milk chocolate
1 tbsp milk

Method

Beat the softened cream cheese with the 50gm of castor sugar until fluffy.
Add each egg yolk, one at a time into the cream cheese mixture, beating well after each addition.
Add in the lemon zest and juice.
Using a spatula, fold in the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture.
Sift in the plain flour and fold until well combined.
In a separate, greasefree bowl, beat the 5 egg withes with the remaining castor sugar until soft peak forms.
Fold the egg whites into the cream cheese mixture.
Beat in milk until the mixture is smooth and well combined.
Remove 200gm of cream cheese mixture and quickly mix in the melted chocolate.
Dollop some white cream cheese mixture followed by the chocolate cream cheese mixture into the spring form pan. Swirl patterns with a skewer if desired.

Note:

*Do not pour in chocolate and let it stand while you finish scraping the bowl or the like, otherwise the chocolate will set in the cooler cream cheese mixture and you'll have little clumps of chocolate.

*I have poured the chocolate mixture on the base and saved about 2 tablespoon of the mixture, then poured on the white mixture. Using the remaining chocolate mixture, I have placed it in a piping bag and drew little circly patterns and swirled it with a skewer. Chocolate icing made from piping and floodwork: Melted white chocolate with a bit of pink colouring for the letter flooding. Melted milk chocolate for the borders.

Last Minute Present

2008-03-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

Well, two Sundays ago was one of niece's birthday. I knew I had to bake her a cake as I had done so for my other niece. However, I had a big exam on Saturday from 8am - 4pm so I knew I had to buy the cake. Luckily the party was on Sunday morning, but that will not allow me time to bake the cake, freeze it, ice it and cover it with icing.

Anyway, from my previous experiences, sponge cake is just not something that I can perfect in a day so straight after the exam, I went to buy a Woolies sponge cake because their's taste the best. I got all my sugarpaste and stuff ready and by the time I got home and was ready with all my ingredients and all, it was already 6:30pm.

This post should have been put up earlier but I got tied up with other stuff, but my friend had emailed me this morning with "it has been 4 days of holidays, and there's nothing new in your blog", so guilty conscience has me posting it up tonight.

This was a cheat's cake - bought the sponge cake, bought the icing (Orchard's) and all I had to do was decorate, beat up butter with icing sugar and a bit of vanilla essence until the right consistency, and roll a bit of rosewater essence into my fondant icing and WA-LAH, my present to the lil' birthday girl.

Oh, it was a kiddy party, my sis and her two ratbags were invited so I had asked my sis to take it but unfortunately, my other niece fell sick in the morning and so they never went to their cousin's birthday. So I had to end up dropping it off at the venue but I didn't stay as I had other stuff to do. But although it was a present to the birthday girl, she has extreme allergies and can't take any dairy or gluten products. Unfortunately, she could, at most, just admire the present, but her mum baked her a special gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free kinda cake so I don't think she missed out on much.

A Little Kid Again

2008-02-13T05:23:00.000-08:00

Well I came across Lorraine's site and I have to say, she's a wonderful artist and I admire her skills in creating such adorable menageries and sculptures.

So I thought I'll give sculpturing a go. Knowing how clumbsy I can be with my fingers, and also that tomorrow is Valentine's day, I thought I need to make a teddy or something cute - FAST. The dilemma, however, was that I have work tomorrow and I only got about 2 hours to go before bed time, and I don't have any sugarpaste at home, and the shops are already closed.

So I thought to myself, I'll just go the ol' cheapo version - PLAYDOUGH. Hahaha. Quickly found myself a recipe on the internet and started playing. *giggles* Reminds me of the plasticine that I used to play with when I was a lil tacker. But I hated the chemical-ly smell it left on my hands. At that time, I didn't know about home-made playdough until I was in college. Otherwise, my poor mum will have me hassling her to make me some playdough to play with everyday.

Made my Valentine sculptures and showed it to bf. We just had a good laugh, took a few pics and disembodied the figurines again. I must say that the playdough is not as easy to handle as icing is. The dough is much thicker and stickier and it doesn't produce the delicate and smooth textures that are produced from sugarpaste/icing.

HAPPY VALENTINES EVERYONE

Playdough recipe (for those interested)
2 cups flour (I used self-raising as I ran out of plain flour)
1 cup salt
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp cream of tartar

Method

Combine all ingredients and put it over the stove at a medium heat for about 10 mins or until the dough starts to clump onto the wooden spoon.
Take dough off the stove and allow to cool a little.
If the dough still very sticky to the touch, grab a handful of flour and knead with your hands. Repeat if necessary.
Mix colouring if desired.
Use your imagination to create sculptures with the playdough or give it to your kids.
Store in fridge when not in use.

First and Last time of cake decoration

2008-02-09T07:08:00.000-08:00

Well I came to a conclusion today - that I am hopeless at spongecakes. Over 30 eggs and only one cake was successful - the one obtained from the shops.

First time:

Making a successful yam filling and yam cream
Making a 3D Novelty cake
Making a cake for a friend's birthday
Using rolled icing - I couldn't do this too well, my head was a bit of a mess on the teddy's right cheek and I had to therefore, make the hair. The skirt at the back was a bit of a mess too but hopefully no one sees it.
Using whipped cream to make icing
Putting my flower cutter into good use for flowers on presents and teddy's neck

Last time and the don'ts of cake decoration:

Trying to make spongecakes overnight
Turning off the aircon when the cream is left sitting on the table as it WILL melt into a mess
Combining whipped cream icing and fondant icing - it just does not mix in this humid weather and you will only find that out the next day because after placing it in the fridge, the icing goes a bit soft and then the cream will be covered with a film of condensation running off the icing! Try buttercream instead. However, whipped cream feels a bit more light and airy.
Making ALL the objects edible. Next time I'll just make stuff like the pillows, presents and decorative pieces from fondant and styrofoam, instead of making everything edible, but I don't really like the idea of stuff that isn't edible to be presented on the cake so it may take me a few takes before I am really convinced that I shouldn't make EVERYTHING edible.

Things turned from bad to worse on Friday - I didn't want to go out on Friday but my partner convinced that I should so we went out until 10pm before I got home. So my disaster began because I was tired and rushed so my first sponge was flat and so I made my second one. My second turned out to be uncooked in the middle only after I had it cooled after an hour. So I followed a different recipe but I ran out of custard powder and had to make a small sized custard sponge.

Things did not go too well on Saturday either - Woke up bright and early to start on my forth sponge. Didn't put in the sugar in the meringue so it wasn't holding up and became all runny but I realised my mistake before putting it in the oven. So after the fifth attempt, you'd think that I would near-perfected it but nope, middle was uncooked. Only the sixth attempt was successful but the texture is not the finer sponge type that I like.

Sunday - well today is the day that I have to present the cake and it's slightly wet after being in the fridge overnight. The whipping cream icing cracked and I had to patch it up and made a slight mess of it but I think it's still presentable. Another 6 hours to go before it all disappears (or gets thrown in the bin).

So after all these attemps, I have come to the conclusion that spongecake-making is a skill I have yet to master. At the moment, my cake is in bits and pieces as the only sponge I could get from the shops were all small round ones so I had to cut and model the sponges. It would be much easier using a slab of cake. And the sponges only came in vanilla or choc, but I wanted mine to be yam flavour!

I hope the whole cake will be ok. There are about 4 different types of cakes used for the presents, pillows, the teddy's head and body and the sofa. It would have been so much easier if I can just make my own next time.

Junior Cheesecake

2008-02-08T00:38:00.000-08:00

No, it is not a small-sized version cheesecake that you give to a toddler, it is actually the name of this baked cheesecake.

I had previously came across cheap 2-pack cream cheese for sale, which still has until May before it expires. So I bought 2 lots. Shortly after, I realised that they were cheap because they no longer sell them in 2-packs anymore. Anyway, so I thought it will not keep as well in the fridge and stupidly, went and placed it in the freezer for 2 months. It was only when I tried using a pack for my muffin toppings (posted earlier last month) that I realised that they were crumbly and grainy in texture. So I jumped on the net and realised my mistake - cream cheese DOES NOT belong in the freezer.

Panic set in and what was I going to do with these three packets? So I frantically searched more web sites and luckily came across on that said that I may be able to salvage it if I use a lot of other full-fat content ingredients. Therefore this cake is rich, but tasty. But prepared to have lots of cream cheese handy.

Junior Cheesecake

Ingredients:
100gm biscuit crumbs (I used Marie biscuits processed through the blender)
50gm castor sugar
100gm butter (melted)
750gm cream cheese
280gm sugar
40gm cornstarch
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup heavy whilpping cream
2 eggs

Method:

Combine the biscuit crumbs, sugar and butter together.
Press the biscuits onto the bottom of a springform pan.
Place into a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes at 180 Celcius.
Remove the pan from the oven and allow to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat a third of the cream cheese and a third of the sugar with the cornstarch. Beat for at least 3 mins.
Add the remaining cream cheese and continue to beat, whilst adding the remaining sugar, a bit at a time.
Add the vanilla and cream to the mixture.
Blend in the eggs.
Pour mixture over biscuit base.
Place springform pan back into the oven for 1 hour, in a bain-marie waterbath filled with boiling water
Allow cheesecake to cool and place in fridge overnight.

NB:

The mixture that comes out of the oven may appear a bit soft and slightly shaky when moved. However, this is ok. It will firm up overnight.
I used raspberry jam as decorations. Dollop raspberry jam every here and there and draw a tail in each dollop before you place the cheesecake into the oven. Or use your own imagination.

Browning Bananas

2008-02-03T05:20:00.000-08:00

My partner's bananas were browning and beginning to freeze as it got pushed towards the back of our fridge as we go shopping each day. So instead of chucking it out on our bin-day on Friday, he asked me to make banana cake - only time he's ever asked me to make any cakes. I ended up making muffins instead.

I love making butter cakes, because it never goes wrong and it always tastes perfect, if not just-good. I basically put in whatever basic ingredients I have left in my pantry as my partner has been complaining that I have too many baking ingredients everywhere. But it is a vicious circle because now that I have finished using them, I need to get more for next time.

Banana muffins

Ingredients:
250gm butter
1 cup sugar
5 eggs
5 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda
3 bananas (approx 280gm mashed)
choc chips

Method:

Cream butter and sugar until creamy.
Add one eggs at a time to the butter mixture, beating with an electric beater after each addition.
Add milk, vanilla essence and beat until well combined.
Sift the flour, powder and bicarbonate soda. Add about 1/2 cup flour to the butter mixture and beat well after each addition until all the flours are added.
Add mashed bananas to the mixture and mix well.
Batter should hold its shape when combined.
Line a 12-muffin pan with liners, and fill liners with 3/4 full of batter.
Drop about 5-8 tiny choc chips (or to your taste) on top of each muffin batter.
Place muffin tray into a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 20-25 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted.

Australia Day

2008-02-03T02:33:00.001-08:00

Ok, Australia Day was last week, but I never got the chance to post this up. After a suggestion from my friend, I decided to make lamingtons. Lamingtons is cut sponge coated in chocolate and then coated in shredded coconut. I don't know how it is an Australian-y treat, but it gave Australia the "lamington-drive" for charity runs.

After endless search of a good sponge recipe with very little butter, I finally found one, but have tweaked it a little. The coating was a little runny, and after making it, I realised that other recipes uses butter, so mine soaked into the cake a little, but it tasted alright. However, next time, I'll try the butter and chocolate recipes. Anyway, enjoy the recipe.

Lamingtons

Ingredients:
5 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup self raising flour
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/3 cup warm water (not hot off the kettle)
13g softenedbutter

Method:

Add the butter into the cup of water, and allow the butter to melt in the water.
Beat eggs it has doubled and almost tripled in volume whilst adding a little sugar at a time until all sugar has been added. This takes roughly 10 mins.
Sift flours into the egg mixture and fold until combined.
Add the butter-water into the mixture and fold gently but quickly.
Pour mixture into a pre-lined 8" round baking tin.
Place tin in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 25 mins.

Icing ingredients:
3 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp milk

Method:

Sift icing sugar and cocoa powder together into a bowl.
Add milk and enough water to make the cocoa mixture into an icing consistency.
Dip the sides of the cut and cooled squares of sponge cakes into the icing.
Place on a bed of shredded coconut and roll lamingtons in the coconut until well covered.

Things to do with eggs. Part 2

2008-01-21T02:59:00.000-08:00

Eggs, I just wish people sell just egg yolks or just egg whites, especially the former, as I know you can get powdered egg whites nowadays. But I am still unable to get my hands on some. The closest thing I have seen to powdered egg whites is ‘Pavlova Magic’ which comes in a cute egg shaped container but I am a sceptic to those prepared stuff as I enjoy making stuff from scratch.

I am digressing. My last post was on macaroons which only used the egg whites, so what was I going to do with the delicious but high-cholesterol egg yolks? It would be too boring if I just fried it so I decided to make egg tarts (adapted from Agnes Chang’s Delightful Snacks and Dim Sum).

I have made the egg tarts using the book recipe several times. However, she has also produced a video cd for egg tarts and that recipe is slightly different from the one in the book. So I decided to give the vcd recipe a try. But having done both, I have to say that the book recipe is much tastier and much easier to make.

Egg Tarts

Ingredients:
Water skin:
150gm plain flour
20gm custard powder
30gm icing sugar
60gm copha / vegetable shortening
2-3 tbsp water

Oil skin:
90gm plain flour
60gm copha / vegetable shortening

Filling:
3 eggs
120gm castor sugar
250ml hot water
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp white vinegar
2 drops yellow colouring

Method:

Skin A: Sift all flour. Mix and knead all skin A ingredients together into a pliable dough. Do not add all the water in at once. Pour enough to make a pliable dough. Divide into 20 parts.
Skin B: Sift the flour. Mix and knead all skin B ingredients together into a pliable dough. Divide into 20 parts.
Let the dough rest for 15 minutes. Meanwhile add the sugar into the hot water for the filling and allow it to cool while preparing steps 4 to 7.
Wrap one portion of dough B inside one portion of dough A, and roll into a fat sausage of approx 8 - 10cm long, ensuring dough B does not spill out.
Lightly roll the sausage-shaped dough with a rolling pin. Then roll it up like a swiss roll.
Roll the mini swiss-roll dough into a ball and press into the egg tart mould.
Repeat steps 3 to 5 with the remaining dough.
Beat the eggs for the filing and combine it with the syrup prepared earlier (step 3).
Combine all filling ingredients and strain filling.
Pour filling into moulds until 3/4 full.
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 15 - 20 minutes or until the filling is set.

Note:

To determine if the filling is set, shake the mould and if the filling doesn't waver like liquid, then it is set.
Another way to determine if the filling is set is when you start seeing the filling starting to puff upwards, remove the tart from the oven immedietely otherwise when your filling rises too high, it may pop and when it deflates, the egg tart will not look too pretty.
If, in step 1, you have added all the water and the skin is too wet and sticky, add in more flour and continue to knead. The skin dough should not be sticky when touched.

Things to do with eggs. Part 1

2008-01-21T00:11:00.000-08:00

Eggs - so versatile and so easy to whip up. I can't imagine baking without eggs in my fridge. But they are becoming so expensive, that I just get them from the markets nowadays. And getting it at the markets are not cheap either - $8.50 for a tray of 30 but they are not exactly the large ones either! That will only last me, uhmmm, 2 weeks if I don't use it for breakfast/lunch/dinner.

I wanted to try making macaroons. There seems to be such a craze for these delectable, cute, little morsels and I can't get them from where I live. So the only way to taste them is to make them myself. After researching many food blogs, I got the gist that it is just meringue, sugar and ground nuts as the basic ingredients. But if I use the egg whites for the meringue, what can I do with the egg yolks!!! That will be another story.

So I went in search for almond meal, but they were roughly $4.00 for a packet of 100gm. So cheapskate me decided to buy peanuts and ground it myself. Although most people will buy unsalted peanuts, I went for the easiest and cheapest types of nuts, which was of course roasted, salted peanuts. It saved me the trouble of having to roast it myself *grins*

Peanut Choc Macaroon

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups unsalted peanuts (122 grams)
2 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup sugar
4 large egg whites

Method

Ground the peanuts and the icing sugar together until they resemble almond meal. (Most recipes uses ground almond meal).
Pour mixture into a large mixing bowl.
In a greasefree bowl, place the egg whites and whisk until soft peaks form (usually 2 minutes on high speed), then slowly add in the sugar while continuing to beat on a medium speed for another minute until hard peaks form.
Continue beating the eggs on the lowest speed for half a minute so that the air trapped within are finer.
Add 1/4 of the meringue into your peanut meal and fold gently but quickly.
Repeat step 5 until the meringue is fully combined with the peanut meal mixture.
The batter should be like molten lava and does not look too fluffly (unlike a pavlova) so do not fret.
Add in any colouring you desire (but I left mine plain).
Place batter into piping bag with a round, size 12 nozzle.
Squeeze batter onto a baking parchment placed on a baking tray, until the circle is roughly 2 - 2.5 cm in diameter.
CRUCIAL POINT: Leave piped batter to stand for 25 mins, to allow the skin to form.
Place in a preheated oven and bake for 15 mins at 150 degrees Celcius.
Take out of oven. Allow it to cool on baking tray.
Remove from trays and match similar sized macaroons together.
Sandwich with chocolate cream filling.
Enjoy.

Note:

Take note of the crucial point, otherwise you'll end up with macaroons that are pretty sad looking like some of mine (see picture on baking tray, and spot the mishaps) as I didn't read other people's blogs properly and did what I felt like doing. Then I remembered that I read somewhere that the skin must form before placing it in the oven.
Chocolate cream filling is just chocolate buttercream leftover from my jaffa cupcakes.

Another Mix and Match

2008-01-15T01:58:00.000-08:00

Wanting to make something different with the current ingredients in my pantry, I found myself this - white choc cappucino muffin with cream cheese topping - from the lazy chef's website. After a bit of tweaking, I've renamed my cupcake. However, I did not quite like the overpowering Bailey flavour and it is definitely not a flavour that I am used to - I don't like coffee unless I am really tired and need a 'ping' to wake me up. The cream cheese was barely tastable but my partner says it is ok, and his paramedic friends lapped it up - but I don't know if it is the "it's free and it's sweet" policy that sees my cupcakes all gone or were they genuinely nice.

Choc Chip Cappucino Muffin with Cream Cheese Topping

Ingredients for muffins:
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cups chocolate chips
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tbsp Baileys
2 tspn instant coffee melted with 1 tbsp hot water.
1/3 cup milk

Ingredients for cream cheese topping:
125 gm cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla essence
60gm icing sugar

Method:

Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
Add the remaining dry ingredients with the flour - sugar and chocolate chips.
In a large cup, combine the remaining ingredients together - vegetable oil, egg, Baileys, coffee, and milk - until well combined.
Pour into the dry ingredients and gently mix until combined. Do not overmix.
Pour into pre-lined muffin trays and bake in a preheated oven for 5 mins in a 190 degrees Celcius oven.
While the muffins are baking, combine the cream cheese mixture ingredients together and beat for 3 mins or until slightly creamy. The topping is a bit runny.
Remove muffins from oven and spread some cream cheese mixture on top of the muffins.
Replace into oven for a further 20 mins before removing from the oven and allow to cool.
Sprinkle some icing sugar and cocoa for decorations.

Mix and Match

2008-01-15T01:04:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year. My New Year's resolution to maintain my blog periodically (weekly) went out the window by the first week into January - too much things to do around the house, oh and the cyclone, and the volunteering side of things, partner getting a new job as a parmedic trainee... well it's just been busy, ok?

I am still after a soft, moist cake/muffin recipe that I can rely on but I still haven't found one. This next recipe is ok, but still not soft enough to my liking. But the cream is sensationally devine as it mixes my favourite flavours of chocolate and orange (jaffa).

Jaffa Cupcakes

Ingredients for muffins
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa
2 1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup orange juice

Ingredients for cream
190gm butter
360gm icing sugar
3 drops of orange essence
zest of half an orange
1 tsp chocolate emulco
2 drops of red colouring
4 drops of yellow colouring

Method

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate soda and salt into a mixing bowl.
Add sugar into the dry ingredients.
Combine the rest of the ingredients (the wet ingredients) together.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.
Bake in a preheated oven for 25 mins at 170 degree Celcius.
Remove from oven and let stand until the cupcake cools.
Cream the soft butter until slightly pale and creamy.
Sift the icing sugar into the butter and continue creaming until texture is soft, pale and creamy.
Divide the cream in half.
Add the chocolate emulco to one half of the cream mixture.
Add the colouring and orange essence to the remaining half of the cream mixture.
Place a portion of each mixture onto one side of the piping bag, so that the orange flavoured cream is on one half of the piping bag and the chocolate flavoured cream is on the other half of the piping bag.
Fit the piping bag with a star nozzle and swirl it on top of the cooled cupcake.

Niece's birthday

2007-11-23T00:41:00.000-08:00

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

2007-11-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

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:

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

Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius.

Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.

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

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

Fold melted butter quickly but thoroughly through the mixture.

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:

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

Something sweet and simple

2007-10-26T19:38:00.000-07:00

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:

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

Cream butter and half of the icing sugar together.
Mix the remaining icing sugar with the milk.
Continue creaming the butter while slowly adding the milk, beating well after each addition.
In a separate clean greasefree bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture.
Fold the pistachio meal into the butter mixture.
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

2007-10-20T18:03:00.000-07:00

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

Combine all the ingredients into the blender or juicer and blend until there are no lumps of flour in the batter.
Heat up wok / skillet / frying pan with just enough oil to form a film on the cooking medium.
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.
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.
Cook until the bottom is slightly golden.
Repeat steps 3 to 5 until remaining batter is used up, occassionally spraying some oil on the cooking medium if required.
Serve with maple syrup, nutella, jam of your choice, lemon juice with sugar, or even plain.

Say Cheese!

2007-10-06T01:43:00.000-07:00

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:

Lightly mix the cream and condensed milk until it is well combined.
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.
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.
In a clean bowl, combine the cream cheese and the extra condensed milk until thoroughly mixed.
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

2007-10-02T01:26:00.000-07:00

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:

Cream the butter for about 1/2 hour or until the butter is pale yellow and has doubled in volume.
Sift half of the icing sugar into the butter.
Combine fresh milk and the remaining icing sugar until the sugar partially dissolves.
Slowly add the fresh milk mixture into the butter, creaming well after each addition.
In a greasefree bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture until thoroughly combined.
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)

2007-09-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

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:

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

Mochi

2007-09-25T02:21:00.001-07:00

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:

Combine the glutinous rice flour sugar together.
Pour in water and mix until sugar dissolves.
Pour into a microwave container for 30mins, then take it out to mix before returning it into the microwave again.
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.
Generously dust your hands and workbench with cornflour before pouring out the microwaved contents onto the table.
Roll out rounds of red bean or green bean paste.
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.
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

2007-09-25T02:09:00.001-07:00

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

2007-09-18T01:14:00.000-07:00

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:

Mix all of ingredient A together and stir until sugar has dissolved. Leave overnight in a warm, dark place (an oven / microwave will do).
The mixture should have lots of bubbles on the next day.
Mix all of ingredients B into A and pour into a paper-lined pan. Leave aside for 2-3 hours.
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

2007-08-24T20:41:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-22T01:24:00.000-07:00

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:

Mix about half the pandan juice with the glutinous rice flour.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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

2007-08-21T07:05:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
Dissolve the salt in water.
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.
Moisturise the rice with the addition of coconut milk every so often until the coconut mulk is used up.
Allow rice to be steamed until soft.
Leave glutinous rice aside.
Bring to boil the gula melaka, sugar and water until the sugar partially dissolves.
Add grated coconut to the sugar and fry until the coconut has absorbed the dissolved sugar and becomes partially translucent.
Leave to cool.
Pour hot water over banana leaves to soften the leaves and to prevent it from splitting so easily.
Place two tablespoons of rice in the middle of a roughly 20cm x 10cm rectangular banana leaf, waxy & matt side up.
Using banana leaf, try to compact the rice together and then top it with the coconut mixture.
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

2007-08-21T06:31:00.000-07:00

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:

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.
Malaysian chicken curry - because it is grease-y and this is where we hid the pineapple.
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

2007-08-12T04:07:00.000-07:00

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:

Blend water and pandan leaves together. Extract the pandan water.
Mix all the flour with the pandan water.
Strain into a non-stick saucepan.
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.
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.
Push the chendol mixture through the holes and it should go through the holes and drop into the iced water.
Bring all of ingredients (B) to a boil and allow sugars to melt. Leave to cool.
Bring all of ingredients (C0 to a boil. Leave to cool.
Scoop some chendol, coconut milk into a bowl. Top with gula melaka syrup.
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

2007-08-12T03:22:00.000-07:00

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:

Boil the water, 50gm sugar, agar-agar powder until the agar-agar powder is dissolved.
Add blue colouring to the agar-agar mixture and pour into a ball-shaped agar-agar mould.
Add red colouring to the remaining agar-agar mixture and pour into another ball-shaped agar-agar mould.
Unmould jelly balls and skewer three or four together.
In a saucepan, melt the sugar.
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

2007-08-12T02:43:00.000-07:00

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:

Steam the sweet potatoes and taro separately until soft.
Bring the coconut milk, sugar and pandan leaves to boil.
Add in the sweet potatoes and taro into the coconut milk, bring to boil.
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.
Add cooked tapioca starch cubes to the bubur cha cha.
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)

2007-08-03T18:52:00.000-07:00

Chocolate Spirals

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

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

Double Choc Chip Cookies

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

Cookies and Cream (Part I)

2007-08-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

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:

Cream butter and sugar until light and creamy.
Add the vanilla essence and egg and beat until combined.
Add in the sifted flour and baking powder.
Mix all ingredients together until a soft dough forms.
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)
Fold the paper around the dough neatly and place the dough into the freezer for about 20 mins or until the dough is firm.
Slice the logs to about 1cm thick.
Place on baking trays, leaving 3 cm between each slice.
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

Divide the basic cookie dough in half.
Melt 50gm of chocolate and milk over a double boiler.
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

2007-08-01T04:48:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-31T05:03:00.000-07:00

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:

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

2007-07-30T05:54:00.000-07:00

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:

Boil water with the pandan leaves and ginger for about 20 mins.
Peel and cube the sweet potatoes.
Add sweet potatoes into the water and let it simmer for about 20 mins.
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).
Turn up the fire on the stove and allow the tong shui to come to a boil before turning the stove off.
Serve the tong shui hot, warm or cold.

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

Marble Pebble

2007-07-30T03:16:00.000-07:00

I remember when I was a kid and every Winter Solstice, we would have these round little pink and white balls, or "tang yuan". These little chewy balls go well in a sweet based soup. Occasionally one or two balls just freshly taken out of boiling water is also nice, but more than about 5 on its own gets a bit bland and not-so-nice.

When I went to China in 1994, we had a marbled pebble (notice the singular), in what-I-remember to be just plain cold water. But the taste was unlike any "tang yuan" I have tasted. It had filling, mine was red bean and my sister's was peanut. And you can just taste the slight flavour of cocoa in it.

After years of pondering what it is, I finally decided to rummage through my souvenirs which I was adamant that I have saved the menu from our banquet in China that fateful night. And there it was, right at the bottom of the menu was the name of the dessert that I had so many moons ago, it was called "Yu Hua Shi Tang Yuan" or Marbled Pebble Tang Yuan. So using my mum's tang yuan recipe, I managed to make my tang yuan and my ninja in the kitchen - see below. Ninja didn't turn out good as he is missing a neck and is way too fat for my liking, so i had to modify him using photo-edit for my blog title. Hehehe

Marble Pebble Tang Yuan

Ingredients:
50ml Water
Glutinous rice Flour
Cocoa powder
Ready-made red bean paste

Method:

Add water and enough glutinous rice flour together to form a pliable dough.
Divide the dough into half.
Add in enough cocoa powder to form a chocolatey coloured dough. Add a few sprinkle of water if required.
Roll both sets of dough into strips and combine together.
Twist the combined dough.
Roll the ready-made red bean paste into balls about 1 inch in diameter.
Pinch enough dough to wrap one ball of red bean paste. Flatten it and wrap the red-bean paste.
Remove excess dough if necessary.
Roll the tang yuan into a ball and slightly press it between the palms of your hand to form a pebble shape.
Drop the tang yuan into boiling hot water and let it boil until the tang yuan floats to the top of the water.
The tang yuan is ready to be served with a sweet based clear soup (such as sweet potato soup or red/mung bean paste soup) or it can be eaten as is.

Note:

I couldn't taste the cocoa in this recipe, so I recommend a sweeter and stronger tasting powder substitute such as nesquick or milo.
Also, I would recommend that the ready made pebbles get placed on paper and aired out overnight preferably. Otherwise, if there is too much moisture remaining in the dough, the tang yuan is more 'furry' when cooked.

My First Post

2007-07-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

After contemplating on starting my own blog for months, and after the inspirational blogs of others, I have finally decided to create and start my own. Despite how fast time flies by each day, I will try to maintain this journal as often as possible.

I made Rice Crispies about a week ago but I used butter that had been sitting in my mum's freezer for god-knows-how-long and had absorbed the smells of a Chinese-freezer. Unfortunately, when making the Rice Crispies, the cooking process was easy but the tasting part was uhmm.. let's say it wasn't what I expected! So off it went to Molly, my forever-hungry Labrador. I forgot to take photos that instance so I had to make it again. This is the result of my second attempt.

Chocolate Rice Crispies

Ingredients:
1/8 cup butter
150 gm marshmallows
3 cups Rice Bubbles
4 mini Mars Bars

Method:

Melt butter in a saucepan.
Add marshmallows and Mars Bars into the saucepan to be melted.
Stir thoroughly, making sure everything is melted.
Add in Rice Bubbles and stir until well coated.
Line a 9" tin with baking paper.
Transfer the Rice Bubble mixture into the cake tin and using a buttered spatula or a piece of waxed paper, press the mixture into the tin.
Cut into slices when cool.

Note: Baking paper is best greased with butter as the marshmallow may still stick.