Run Out of Snow

Most of my friends are doing Hokkaido cupcakes and I said one day, I will try, just never get to that corner. Last saturday, went Phoon Huat to get some stuff and I get a string of Hokkaido cake cases just in case, I will have it, when I need it.

My niece wanted to go facial, my beautician is so nice and she likes the things that I made, so. I came to a conclusion and ended in this, I follow HeartyBakes's Blog recipe.

I made 18 pieces of Hokkaido Cupcakes and I brought some to my brother's house, some to beautician and hairdresser, gave 1 to my part time helper and 1 share with my husband.

Overall verdict, they loved it. Thanks HeartyBakes.

Recipe extract from the blog

Ingredients:


(A) 4 Yolks
70g Sugar


(B) 2g Salt
drops of Vanilla Essence


(C) 80ml Milk
60ml Corn oil


(D) 135g Flour
4g Baking powder


(E) 6 Whites
50g Sugar


Method:
♥ Preheat oven 180°C
♥ Arrange paper cups on baking tray
♥ Hand whisk (A) till pale in colour.
♥ Add (B)
♥ Follow by (C). Whisk till combined
♥ Sieve in (D). Stir till well-mixed.
♥ Whisk whites till foamy, add sugar. Whisk till medium peak.
♥ Take 1/3 whites fold in with yolk mixture.
♥ follow by folding in the rest of white
♥ scope batter into pre-arranged paper cups about three-quarter filled
♥ baking time est. 20-25mins.


Recipe reference: 不用模型做点心

Early Mid Autumn For Me?

This week, I am very industrious on baking, baked 2 sugee cake, 1 cotton cheese cake and last night, mei cai mooncake. Sometimes, when you have the mood, I will bake or not or not, I just sit in front of TV or just because I feel bored, especially, my favourite Tv program has ended, just find something to do... hmmmm......

I was being recommended to buy preserved mei cai from HK called "mei cai wang", I have a recipe for mei cai mooncake and decide to try it out. After tasting the finished products, I like the overall taste of this mooncake.

This morning, pass some mei cai mooncake to some of my hubby's hobby friends and they thought this is lao Por Bingm it's not but appearance looks like it, maybe it's the brushing of egg wash and the sprinkle of the sesame seeds.... Yummy...

Puff Puff Away......

Four years ago, I did this, and I did it again upon request of my neighbour who asked me to teach her, I prepare the ingredients and I did not inform her before hand, I tried it first in the morning, just in case it's a failure, turns out to be okay, but not so perfect and I am ready... Sad to say, she was busy and said some other day :(

Give mum 10 pieces of curry puff and she liked it, asked me how to do, told her and I told her, if she wanted to eat, maybe 4 years later.... hee! hee!

sugeeeee

A friend has given me a can of sugee flour, and recently has expired, and hearing that they say that the expiry date is a guideline and can be used, not to waste it, I bake sugee cake last night.

This morning, I tried the cake and still surviving, that's means the sugi flour is still okay... :)

They are doing it

I see most of the bloggers are doing Mrs S K Ng's Butter Cake from Table for 2 or more blog, Curious, they baked it, so I also baked one.

i have almost all the ingredients except short of self raising flour by 50gm and I used cake flour to topped up the desired weight. The baked cake texture was soft and my husband who loved butter cake did not like this texture. He told me, he loved those oily ones, and say this one is just like any other normal cakes (he meant sponge cakes texture).

This morning bought a piece for my collegue to try, she loved it and say it's soft and fragant and I think this cake is personal preferences.

Below is the recipe extract from ber blog

Ingredients
230g Salted Butter, room temperature.
200g Eggs (no shell) - About 4 eggs (Grade B).
50g + 150g Castor Sugar
200g Self raising flour, sifted
60ml Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method
1. Pre-heat oven at 180C (Conventional).

2. Prepare a 8 x 8 inch square pan. Line the base, grease the sides.

3. Separate egg whites & yolk. Beat egg whites until soft peaks, gradually add 50g sugar and beat until stiff.

4. Cream butter and 150g sugar until pale and fluffy. Add in Vanilla essence, beat for awhile, and followed by egg yolks one at a time.

5. Put in half the flour and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add in milk in 2 additions and mix until well incorporated. Mix in balance flour.

6. Put in half the egg whites in and mix on low speed. Pour the balance egg whits in and FOLD using your spatula.

7. Pour batter into pan and level.

8. Bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Just to keep in touch

Afternoon for lunch, I made "zhong zai fan", steamed rice with preserved vegetable meat patties with salted egg yolk, nimus the egg yolk, for me I quite like this cooking, not so oily but I still like fried fish.. hee!hee!

Long time, I never made a proper macaron, my friend has been baking and has been tempted me, decide to practice, I think I overfold and my macarons are flat and the sizes are uneven, not satisfied.

After lunch, decide to do again,this time round, I made  sure that I not to fold too many times, I think this time round, I miss a little bit but I like the effect of the macaron despite of with a little peak and a little rough, maybe I should made this my signature macarons.... :)

Naughty Crabby

This morning, went to Circuit Road market to have breakfast and after that, went into the market to see what I can get to cook for lunch or dinner. I saw crabs selling on one of the stall, feel like buying but on hesitations because normally if you buy crabs from neighbourhood market, seldomly you can get good ones, unless you are very lucky. I bought 3 crabs with a total weight of 1.3kg and decide to cook Rice Vernicilli Crabs (Tang Hoon Crab)

I went to the provision stall to buy garlic, ginger and tanghoon and was talking to her and she wanted to see whether my crabs are fresh. I open my plastic bags and she put in her hand and one of the crab suddenly pinch her with the pincer and she immediately withdrew her hand together with the crab out of the plastic bag. She shook her hand and the crab wasvflung to the other corner of the market and the people, who saw. found it amusing.... We had a good laugh but luckily it was a small cut and the crab broke one of it's pincer.

Once reached home, I immediately killed the crabs and use claypoot to cook the crabs with the tanghoon. Both of us loved it and what out of my expectation, it's true, the crabs are not really good. Nevermind, the most important is taste.

Chicken Curry Laksa

I went for Chef Keong's workshop on Fook Hai Chicken Curry Laksa, and I tried the recipe yesterday despite of hubby discouraging me because I wanted to try the full recipe instead of half... he was not happy... what the heck, I don't care, it's my choice.......

I started from boiling the whole chicken to the curry gravy, boy, it's a big pot and I have to find a rescuer so that I won't waste too much food. I was lucky, my rescuer is willing to try my food. and I should say that it's was a success and it's worth it to attend the workshop, even after so much grumping from hubby, he did say "thank you" and he said that it tasted better than the day I bought home for tasting. :)

Dumplings 2

Feel like eating Nonya Dumplongs, one of my favourite, can't request my mum to make, so I tried make myself.

This morning, went to market, went to the pork seller and asked him for nonya dumplings , do I use belly pork or lean meat (wu hua rou), he said belly pork is oily, the latter is better and he wanted to minced for me. I said no, I like diced.
Nonya dumplong using minced meat, first time I came across.

Today, just use 2kg of rice and I get about 37 pieces and by 6pm, my dumplings is ready for delivery.

Crabs

I wanted to cook chilli crabs for dinner, and after work today, I went to Tekka market to buy some crabs. Walk around and found only one store selling, I thought there is a few store there.

I point my fingers into a basket of crabs and asked the seller where is this crab from, she refused to answer me and asked my which type of crab I want. My hubby don't really like the seller attitude... well! I have no choice, have to buy, only store there.

Back home, I made some bread to go with the chilli crabs. Four of us loved it, it was just a little bit sweet. Must reduce sugar the next time.

Try again

The other time, when I did this glutionus rice kueh (Png Kueh), I add in too much water and it's just like eating very soft rice "chiak nuen png"... Ha! ha! my husband does not like this word.... very sensitive.....

Made and give some to my part time helper and send some to mom for her to try. Both of them like it. Worth the effort of making. Still, I must twitch the recipe especially the seasoning to made it perfect.

Family's favourite

This along has been my family's favourite, and this has been a long time, I have made this, gula melaka agar agar.

For this I was being taught to use strip agar agar, cut, soak and measure, If you get a bowl, measure 3 bowls of water or liquid to get the texture, for me I always use 2 1/2 bowl. I use estimation on the sugar, but this time round, it's was a little bit too sweet.

Chiu Zi....

This is also one kueh, Kueh Bingka Ubi that I did ages ago... reminising it. This morning went to market to buy some fresh grated tapicoa from the coconut seller.

I forgot what is needed, I went to buy grated coconut as well, but in the end, I did not use, was thinking of making kueh kosui, one of my favourites too.. but just too lazy ... I hought pandan leave also... juz sometimes cannot remember what is needed and impronto just want to made and am afraid that one item is short and have to go running.... One of those things.

Recipe from my old file

1 1/2 kg grated tapicoa
1 Coconut
1 1/2 cups of sugar
2 tbsp butter
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
some vanilla essence

Squeeze the grated tapioca and put inside the bowl, let the water settle and use the starch only.
Squeeze coonut milk and add water to get 3 cups.
Add sugar, salt into the coconut juice and stir till sugar dissolve.
Add in the eggs and stir.
Add in the squeezed tapicoa plus starch and vanilla essence and butter. Miz well.
Pour int the greased 8' square tin and bake at 180 degrees till top is brown (almost 2 hrs)

Puffing Away

Yesterday, made some cream puffs with the intention of bring over to dinner for my nieces, couldn't chilled he puffs because there's is some problem with my fridge, what a day, I passed it to my neighbour to be eaten.

I even have to take some ice from my neighbour to whip the cream.

This recipe was given by my friend, D, to test it out. Hers is suppose to be crispy, but I didn't let it try in the oven because I have a second batch to bake. I feel that my oven's temperature is not even, when baking for 10 mins, one corner of the tray, the puffs are starting to brown, open the oven and rotate. Saw the puff starting to deflate, there goesw my heart sinking, luckily a few minutes, the puffs started to rise again..yay.... I was happy, not an effort wasted.

I use a long nose nozzle to pipe the custard inside the puff from underneath.

Thanks D for the recipe.

Did Kueh Sarlat some 20 years ago using Mrs Leong's cookbook recipe, now you know my age, ha!ha! and long time wanted to do this, but by some unseen forces and never get it done.


Get it done tgday using Florence's recipe from do I like blog and did a 8" square tin. Bought a 500 gm Heng Guan Coconut milk and was not enough went downstair to bough a small packet of Kara coconut milk to add.

When my husband knew that I was making this kueh, he was happy and keep saying that I keep on making things he don't like (cakes)... haiz....


Recipe from Florence's blog

Ingredients: (18cm round springform pan)
Rice Layer
200g glutinous rice (soak in water for 5 hours)
100ml coconut milk + 50ml water
2 pandan leaves
1/2 tsp salt

Egg Custard Layer
3 eggs
30g flour + 25g rice flour
350ml coconut milk
140g castor sugar
2 tbsp pandan juice
1/4 tsp pandan paste
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Drain rice and steam on pandan leaves for 20 minutes.
2. Remove from heat, fluff up the rice with a pair of chopsticks and pour in the coconut milk + salt + water mixture . Mix well. Steam for a further 20 minutes or till cooked3. Remove pandan leaves and press cooked glutinous rice firmly onto a lined pan. I lined my pan with baking paper. You can line it with a sheet of banana leaf.
4. Sieve the 2 flours mixture and add them to lightly beaten eggs. Strain mixture.
5. Combine coconut milk with pandan juice, salt and sugar. Cook over low heat till sugar dissolved. Stir in the egg mixture and cook till slightly thicken.
6. Pour this slightly thickened egg custard over the steamed glutinous rice and steam for 15 - 20 minutes.
7. Cut kueh into serving slices when cool.

Notes:
I added pandan paste to give it a nice jade color.

Bake with Love

The other time, I baked a mushroom onion tart, my daughter mentioned, she like spinach mushroom quiche.

Decide to bake for her, going to places to hunt for frozen spinach, not easy to get only selected supermarket, I was lucky to get in Bedok today.

My previous mushroom onion tart was slightly saltish maybe due to the parmesan cheese and bacon that I have used and today, inorder to not to have too saltish, I use different cheese,cheddar cheese ane less salt this time.

I found today's baked product is slightly bland but my husband say nice... But I will keep note to taste first before baking. A lesson to be learn.

Dragon Eye...

My brother has bought some dried longans from Taiwan and there's a place in taiwan selling longan muffins that is famous among the local people. I have tasted it, when my collegues bought some back for us to try.

Taste still lingers and my hands are itchy to try it out. Surf the website and came across this blog and I bake this today.

It has a fragant smell, when baking and I found my muffin is a bit sweet despite of lessing 10gms of sugar (in true fact, this is what I have..ha!ha!). In fact, I put in more dried longan flesh that might contribute to the sweetness but it's still ok.

Tasted again this morning for breakfast, the combination of brown sugar, walnuts and dried longans are perfect, except that I found the muffins a bit dry, next time, I will twitch the recipe and see..

Recipe from the blog

Longan Walnut Muffins
Ingredients
150g Top flour (I uae cake flour)
2 tsp double-acting baking powder (I use 1 tsp baking powder and half tsp baking soda)
1/2 tsp fine salt
110g dark brown sugar
70g dried longan
3/4 cup hot water
2 eggs
70gm butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup longan water
75g walnuts, roasted and chopped coarsely

Method
1) Hydrate the dried longans in the 3/4 cup of hot water for 20-30 minutes. Strain the hydrated longans and squeeze lightly to remove excess water. Reserve 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid.
2) Sift top flour, salt and baking powder together.
3) Combine cooled longan water, melted butter and vanilla together
3) Whisk eggs and brown sugar till creamy. Add the butter/water mixture and whisk till just combined.
4) Fold in the flour lightly, add 50g of the chopped walnut and the dried longans.
5) Mix well and spoon batter into muffins/cupcake cases, top with the balance chopped walnuts.
6) Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for 30-35 minutes for medium sized muffins and 20-25 minutes for mini muffins. Skewer test for doneness.

Note:
1) The batter is quite runny.
2) Pulverize your brown sugar if necessary to remove any big lumps.

Sour Apples...

Feel like eating apple pie, especially those american ones. This morning, went to the supermarket bought some granny smith apples just to try out.

I don't have cinnamon powder, I used cinnamon stick to cook together with the cut apples, hoping that apple will absorb the flavour from the stick, I also add in some grated nutmeg and cook with some brown sugar and white sugar together with some cornflour.



I have problem in covering the top of the pie,the pastry keep on baking, I used some cut out patterns pastry to do a cover up,don't know whether it's the weather thats makes for the pastry harder to work on. Today is quite a humid day.

Finally taste tht pie, the apple is still sour, but it's still ok, especially for a after dinner dessert.

Savory Tart

Going through my recipes, came along a onion and mushroom tart recipe, bring back memories, when I try the sample, and I have been craving for quiche and has been pestering my friend, S to bake for me. Wow, I am really thick skin.

The recipe called for a 9 inch tart and I happen to have the mould, which haven't been used and that time I even bought 2, Boy! I am very ambitous, thought I can really bake but getting lazy at that time.

Bake the pastry first and cooked the filling in which I added onions, mushroom and bacon, add cream and egg and into the pastry and baked till cooked.



Hubby don't really liked to eat this, I cut a big wedge and give it to my neighbour.

When y r in love

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Chiam tao Luo Ti

I loved bread, there's alot of things, I want to do... Baguette is one of them.
Bought the baguette tray a few years ago, did not use it until now,when I saw Nasi Lemak Lover's blogspot and she happen to have the same tray and the bread looks beautiful, just like store bought. Decide to follow her using the tray and recipe.

I use one and half recipe to do 3 baguettes, For her she used bread flour, I run out of bread flour and I do half bread flour and half plain flour. The baguette turns out beautifully and we loved it.



We eat the baguette with muar otah and chilli crab.

Recipe

Easy French Bread
(recipe source: adapted from dailydelicious )


300g bread flour / high protein flour
1tsp honey
1 and 1/2tsp instant yeast
1tbsp Olive oil
200ml water
1 and 1/2tsp coarse sea salt


Some yellow cornmeal, for dusting and sprinkle over the pan
2 cups boiling water, for baking


Method
1. Mix olive oil, honey and water together in a bowl.
2. Put flour, instant yeast and salt in the mixing bowl, whisk to combine.
3. Slowly add in water mixture (No 1) into flour mixture(No 2), knead till elastic dough. Keep aside to rise until double size.
4. Place a baking paper or silicone baking mat over a sheet pan, or use a French bread pan (I use this one), sprinkle with the yellow cornmeal.
5. Divide the dough into 3 pieces.
6. Roll into balls and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
7. Press the ball lightly and shape into a long oval, do the same with another ball.( I dusting the worktop with yellow cornmeal too)
8. Use the side of your hand press the center of the dough, and roll again (do it 2-3 times until you get a desired length )
9. Place the shaped dough over a prepared pan.
10. Let the dough rise until almost double in size, about 30 minutes.
11. Preheat the oven 220°C and place a roasting pan in the lowest shelf of the oven.
12. With a very sharp knife, make 3 or 4 diagonal cuts about 1/4 inch deep across top of each loaf. Put the bread into the oven and pour the boiling water into the roasting pan, bake for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on wire rack.

Luminous waffle !!!!

Whenever, I pass by any shops selling waffle, mostly I would order one for myself. One of my favourites.

Today, I tried one of the recipe from the website "house of Annie", seems like quite a number of bloggers have a favourable reviews on her pandan waffle, it tempted me.

I use self raising flour and a small packet of Heng Guan coconut milk and pandan extract that gives a luminous colour as well as the fragant. The only setback is that I went to use coarse sea salt and it was not dissolve, certain part of the waffle is salty. Other than that, my husband loved it, say taste like kaya.

Below is the recipe from the blog

Recipe from House of Annie
Pandan Waffles
1 cup bleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda + 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (OR 1 tsp baking powder + 1/4 tsp baking soda)
1 egg, whites separated from the yolk
1 cup coconut milk (or substitute with milk)
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted (I prefer to omit this step, the waffle just isn't as buttery. Can substitute with oil)
1/2 tsp pandan extract / pandan paste
Notes:
*If you double the recipe, most cans of coconut milk will be less than 2 cups, just add water to get correct liquid amount.
*Sugar can be halved for less sweet waffles.
*Self-raising flour can be used in place of flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
1. Put dry ingredients into mixing bowl.
2. Mix all wet ingredients except egg whites in another bowl.

3. Mix 1 and 2 together, but don't stir too much because the waffles will become hard and chewy (which is partly the reason why I ended up with badly mixed waffles the first time).
3. Beat egg whites in a completely dry bowl until stiff white peaks form. (make sure the bowl's dry or it won't become foamy)

4. Gently fold the egg whites into the mixture.
5. Turn on waffle iron. When hot, grease the waffle iron well.

6. Scoop waffle mixture over waffle iron. Wait till lots of steam appears, and keep checking to see if they're cooked. Takes about 5 minutes for my waffle iron. I like mine less brown, so I tend to undercook them.

You have, I also have but not the same

My baking buddy, Jane from Passionbaker has tickle my "waffles" bug and am itchy to do it. Did once a few years ago and keep the waffle machine until now, think could be more than 3 years already... hmmm that long, could be absolute model now. That time, I was crazy and bought this at Tang's Department Store for the price of $99.00, I think I am crazy about a lot of things, most of my equipment are white elephant and I have given a lot away. Impulse buying....



Went to dig out and hoping that the machine power won't trip, test it first and seems to be working fine. Actually, this machine has two types of plate, one is a waffle and the other is a sandwich plate. Open the box, seems that the sandwich plate is missing.. haiz.. hope it's somewhere.



Follow Jane's recipe and did the waffle,turns out to be okay and fluffy, the next try will do a pandan waffle, my favourite, Thanks Jane, for helping machine to be alive again.. ha! ha!

Bread & Dip

Made foccasia today and made a dip to go with it for lunch.

Today's breadmaking, I did not use machine, I was taught to use throw, stretch and fold method. I found that it's was quite easy and this bread dough is quite forgiving that you do not need to do a window pane test, just get the dough smoother and doesn't stick to the table. It's done.


Made a bell pepper dip to go with it. yummy delicious.. hmmm

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Balance Butter

I am glad that I have finished the butter that my friend has given me. Egg tarts ia the item random pick today and when I saw how beautiful the tarts is in this blog, I just want to have a try, never did this before.

No regrets, despite of the crust is pale in colour and crumbly, I just loved the taste. Yay! just like the blogger, this is a keeper for me.

Her recipe uses melted butter, for me I use rub in method.

Below is the recipe from the blog

Egg Tarts~~ Weee~
Found this recipe from Ching and Mikko


This recipes yields around 21 - 22 tarts (standard size)

Ingredients for fillings:
140 g sugar (i used 120g which is ideal for my family cause they don't like sweet)
288g water
4 eggs
80g evaporated milk

Method:
1. Boil the water and stir in the sugar until melted
2. Let cool for about 5 minutes or so then add in beaten eggs and evaporated milk
3. Sieve the mixture for 3 times.
4. Set aside

Ingredients for dough:-
300g plain flour
8g custard powder
8g milk powder
8g sugar
1 egg
200g butter

Methods:-
1. Melt butter in double boiler. Let it cool for a while
2. Mix flour, custard powder, milk powder and sugar together in a bowl until combined
3. Add in beaten eggs and melted butter. Mix until just combined only (with a spoon)
* Do not overmix them
4. Divide dough into balls of 26g each
5. Press dough into tart moulds
6. fill the moulds with egg fillings
7. Bake in preheated oven of 160 degree celcius for about 20 mins or till egg custards are cooked.
8. Let the tarts cool for a while, turn over the tart and lightly knock them out of the mould.

Tips:
1. Baked tarts in lower tray to avoid overbaking the egg custards
2. If the egg custards started to puff up, open the oven door a few inches because the temperature may be a bit too high.

Round 2

Bake pizza again, this time round using delay dough fermentation method, where you let the dough in frig overnight.

I have not buy a pizza peel or spade yet, my friend was telling me to use parchment paper to bake and halfway pull out the paper and continue baking, I was quite skeptical about it. She was sure can do it upon advise from another friend, surf the website and found out that there is a case,

Well, no harm trying, put rolled dough on parchment paper, topped with toppings and in the oven with pizza stone. After a few mins, I use a cake lifter to lift the dough and remove the paper, it works. Even though the parchment paper was in the oven for less than five minutes, it got slightly burnt.

Distribute to my neighbours, they like it.

Pizza Time

I now crazy about italian food, first pasta, now pizza but I am not crazy over risotto. All along, I was quite impressed with a small pizza oven, name G3 Ferrari Napoli Oven that sells at Tangs Department store for S$299.

Went with hubby over there, he was not impressed with the oven, so did one of my friend, she did advise me not jump into it too fast. Okay lah! i bought a pizza stone from there to try it first.



I remember my oven has a pizza funccion, I decide to use this function and also use ieatishootipost's pizza recipe to do it.

I use food processor to do the dough as what the blog says, I did not like the idea, I found that the motor gets heated up too easily and the soft dough got stuck in the shaft, the next time, I do, I will use my mixer.

Although, I do not have canned tomatoes, but I use tomato ketchup to do as a base for a starter and I do not have a perfect round for the cooked pizza but I loved the crust of the pizza.

Next shopping, I need to buy a wood pizza peel, it a must when you do pizza.

Below is the recipe cut and paste from the blog
1 1/2 cup Bread Flour
1 1/2 cup All purpose Flour
1 teaspoon yeast
3/4 tablespoon salt
1 1/4 cups cold water
3 tablespoons olive oil
Half cup semolina flour
Basically, you add all the dry ingredients into the food processor, then start by pulsing the dry ingredients first, then add the water and olive oil. Once all the flour and the water is just combined, stop the machine and let it rest for 20 mins. This resting period is important. This is when autolysis occurs and it makes it much easier to get that nice smooth and stretchable dough. After the 20 mins, turn the food processor on for around one to two minutes and you will end up with a smooth gooey, slime-like mess. All you have to do next is to dust it with flour and knead a couple of times by hand and you will get a dough ball as seen above.

Just leave this dough to rise in a warm humid area for an hour or so then punch it down and divide into four dough balls and leave it to rise in a container brushed with a thin layer of olive oil. You can rise it overnight in the fridge or for about 1.5 hours in an oven with a bowl of hot water.

In the meantime, you can start making the tomato sauce.

What you need is 2 cans of whole tomatoes, garlic, onions and olive oil. Now, the Italians don't even bother to cook their sauce beforehand. However, I personally prefer sauteeing the garlic, onions and adding the chopped tomatoes, oregano, salt and pepper and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes.

Not to waste

Still have a block of 500 gm butter left that is going to expire this month, not to wasted it, butter cake is one that uses a lot of butter and further more, hubby likes to eat butter cake. Why not? do it and I am doing justice to the butter .. ha! ha! that is a present from a friend.

The previous time, I add to much cocoa to my butter cake and this time round, I put lesser and dare not even stir it too much or not it will become chocolate cake... a mistake, never mind, there's always a lot of time to practice my swirl.

For this butter cake, I use egg seperation method,and I like the texture.

Below is the recipe, actually this recipe has been with me for over 15 years.

250 gm butter
5 eggs
200 gm flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vaniila essence
180 gm sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp condensed milk

What I did....

Beat the butter with condensed milk, 3/4 portion of sugar and vaniila essence together till light and fluffy.
Add in egg yolk one by one.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together and fold in butter egg yolk mixture.
Whisk egg white with the rest of sugar till firm.
Fold beaten egg white into butter eggyolk flour mixture.
Take 1/3 of the mixture and fold in the cocoa powder.
Bake in 7" sq tin at 170 degrees for 45 mins.

Hooked On....

Still in the mood of doing pasta, tell hubby, I tried to do Aglio Oglio today, he immediately agreed. Sad to say, that today's cooking is lack of taste, a bit flat and no oomph, maybe got no chilli padi and less salt or the way I do. For this small failure, I won't be given up so easily and the other consolation is that hubby say the texture of noodle very nice. 100gm flour to 1 egg, no water to make the dough.



The pasta machine has 2 cutters, one like "mee pok" and one like "mee kia". I don't know the terms for the name of pasta, looks the same, difference in length and size, different name. I think I'll stick to "mee kia" or mee pok".ha! ha! layman term.

Pasta Day

All along, I am more interested in baking but not so much in cooking but I like to eat all kinds of food. I loved pasta and my husband recently acquire the taste to eating pasta especially aglio aglio and those on creamy sauce but not so much on tomato base, he encouraged me to learn.



Last thursday, went to Sia Huat at Mosque Street to purchase a pasta machine, luckily, there's still left one for me. Can't wait to try out...

Yesterday, went to attend a demo pasta workshop at Garibaldi Restaurant at Purvis Street. They demo 4 types of pasta and a coffee biscuits. Although, I did not taste the food but the food demostrated is exact look from the restaurant.



I choose this recipe to do because of chocolate, normally we use chocolate powder for baking but on pasta??? Alot of doubts, right, I was speaking to my friend about this, she said "nice meh!". I was very curious about this too, especially the combination. Have to try.



After tasting the chocolate pasta with cream sauce, actually it's was quite nice and you can even taste the chocolate after eating the pasta, I loved it. Will do again for my nieces.



Since, I have the mood to doing pasta, I tried to do like "mee pok", it's was not easy because of today's weather, very humid, have to use alot of flour to dust the dough or not it will stick.. Hai!! chocolate pasta is so much easier and drier.



I cook meat ragout for the pasta and I quite satisfied in what I did today.

Did It Again

Today, I tried baking again, this time green tea madeleines. The recipe is from youtube, I had problem with the green tea powder which requires cream to mix it but the specified amount of cream required is not enough to make the green tea powder smooth. I use part of it, I and hubby tasted and

Found the green tea is overpowering, next time, I think I use just 5 gm instead of 20 gm.

The rest of ingredients is okay and this time round it requires beating the batter over hot water and there's no need to leave the dough overnight.

I am quite happy enough, to see the dome and the crack as what others did.



Recipe:

Green Tea Paste
20 gm Green Tea Powder
30 gm Heavy Cream

Madeleines Batter
120 gm Eggs (2 large eggs)
100 gm Sugar
30 gm Honey
120 gm Flour
30 gm Almond Powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
120 gm Butter (melted)

Mix the green tea powder and heavy cream in a small bowl
Add the heavy cream little by little.
Beat the eggs together with the sugar and honey in a large metal bowl.
Place the bowl on a double boiler and keep beating until the sugar fully dissolved.
Remove from the heat when the mixture reaches about 39 degrees.
Add the sifted flour, baking powder and almond powder to the egg mixture.
Mux the dry ingredients into the batter (use whisk)
Than add in green tea paste.
Add in the warm melted butter - all at once.
Mix gently until you have a smooth batter.
Grease the madeleine pan with butter, powder with flour, invert the pan on a baking paper to remove the flour.
Fill the molds with batter, 80% full.
Bake for 10 mins in your pre-heated over at 226 degrees. (i use 200)

Wanted To Do This....

I have been wanted to do madelines for quite some time, I just like the look of it. That day, I help my friend to buy silpat mats and I myself went to buy a flexipan medeline mat just to support my urge of making this and this mat is not cheap. Glad that I did that, seeing my husband enjoy the cooked madelines one by one.

I did follow this blogger's exact recipe and I just put the finish beaten dough in the fridge for just an hour, I do not have a dome and crack like hers, maybe next time, I put in longer and see whether is there a difference in results.



A friend has given me 2 blocks of butter from Italy and each weight 500g and the shelf life is very short. expire in March and am was thinking of what to do. Recking my mind, butter cakes or anything cakes to do with butter, think will do another few batch of this, I myself quite like the taste,

Ingredients:
2 eggs
60g castor sugar
20ml maple syrup (can be replaced by honey)
80g cake flour }
3g baking powder}
20g ground almond
100g unsalted butter (melted)
½ tsp lemon zest

Method:
1) Beat eggs and sugar till sugar dissolved (need not beat till fluffy).
2) Add maple syrup, mix well and add lemon zest.
3) Sieve in flour mixture and ground almond, mix till just incorporated.
4) Add in melted butter gradually and mix well. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for overnight or at least one hour.
5) Grease and flour Madeleine mould, fill with batter till 80% full.
6) Bake in preheated oven at 170C for about 12-15 mins, upper rack

Fruits

A friend prompt me about fruit tartlets, never did before, had a recipe, tried to do it. In the meanwhile, I am testing my new food processor to knead the dough, had a hard time with the food processor, went to shift the bowl clockwise to lock the mechanism, doesn't work, ask hubby to analyse for me... BoY! had to move and lock the bowl anti-clockwise, must remember.

I am quite satisfied with the result, no doubt the grapes is sour...

A Request

First a Happy & prosperous Chinese New Year and good health to everyone.

My youngest angel who is going to be 7 years old this year and now at the moment, her favourite is anything to do with rabbits. Even her hair clips is bunny. Both she and her mummy went shopping and bought a set of miffy plastic cutter for me to bake cookies, this is what she request for.... "Da Gu, can you made for me rabbit cookie" and I can't refuse any request from any of my angels.

I bake the cookies from this blog using the cutters they bought, had a hard time to cut the cookies (the insert is loose), manage to finish the lot.

After baking, I liked the teddy bear shape better than the rabbit, it looks cuter, that's what my daughter say so also. I loved the taste of this cookie, have a try, you will not regret it.

Recipe from the Blog

Animal Cookies

Ingredients
(A)
150gm Unsalted Butter
50gm Icing Sugar
50gm Brown Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla essence
2 Egg Yolks
1 Egg white
Pinch of salt
Pinch of Ground Cinnamon (optional) - I did not add

(B)
325gm All-purpose Flour / Plain Flour
50gm Milk Powder
30gm cornflour
½ tsp Baking powder

Method

Pre-heat oven at 180~C and line 2 baking tray with parchment paper or lightly greased it.

Beat (A) till light and fluffy.

Sift (B) and fold in lightly into (A) until a dough is form.

Roll the dough into 3mm thickness and use the animal cookie cutter to shape it. Place onto a greased tray or on parchment paper, bake for 20 minutes at 180~C.

Set on the wire rack to cool before storing into air-tight container.

Gong Xi Fa Cai

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regain confidence

After having the success in baking pandan lapis few weeks ago, I begin to have some confidence back in baking Lapis cake. Since 10 over years back, when I have Ariston oven, I can' even bake a decent lapis.

This is my second Ariston oven, and upon advise of my friends, I play with the temperature and placing the tray on different rack level position and I have found the technique in baking lapis in this present oven. Although it's still not so perfect, but is better than I can't get a decent one.

Bake for My Loves

One of my niece is going to Shanghai for her school work attachment and she is going to be away for 5 months. I gather the rest of my angels to have a dinner with her, and her request to eat pasta, and yesterday night, Eight of us (6 angels + 2 old folks) went to Cujini Restaurant at Club Street, Boy! we loved the food that we ate. Actually this is not a special day, it just an excuse to eat together.



Before, we went to the restaurant, 2 of the angels came to my house to watch 3D movies on my TV. Knowing that they liked to eat brownie, took out Daniel Tay's Dessert book and tried out the recipe, I did try one of the chocoate mousse in the book and I liked it. Found that the portion is too big, I halved the recipe and baked in a 8" x 11" x 1.5" baking tin.

Below is the recipe extract from the book

CHOCOLATE BROWNIE (JUST DESSERT BY DANIEL TAY)

325 g Plain (All Purpose) Flour
5 g Baking Powder
150 g Cocoa Powder
225 g Cream Cheese
860 g Sugar
½ tsp Vanilla Essence
10 g Salt
450 g Unsalted Butter
400 g Eggs
300 g Walnuts (chopped)
Butter for greasing

Preaheat oven to 180 degrees.
Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and leave aside.
Place cream cheese, butter, sugar, salt & vanilla essence in another mixing bowl and whisked until well blended.
Fold in eggs into cream cheese mixture, then gradually fold in flour mixture, Add in walnuts and mixed well.
Lightly grease a 28 cm (11”) square baking tin with butter.
Level batter into tin and bake for 20 mins.
Unmould brownie and leave aside to cool. Slice before servings.