Merry Christmas To All!

Have not made logcake for a long time, the thought of making it have been lingering in my mind these few day. So finally did a simple chocolate logcake this afternoon for my family...

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 egg

2 egg yolk

50g icing sugar

2 egg white

40g caster sugar/fine sugar

40g cake flour

10g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp corn oil

some chopped walnut

Cream:

50g chocolate coverture

200g whipping cream (whipped till peak)

Method:

Cream:

Melt chocolate coverture over double boil. Add melted chocolate into whipped whipping cream, mix till well combined. Place in fridge till later use.

Cake:

1. Sift icing sugar. Mix cocoa powder and cake flour, sift 2 to 3 times, set aside.

2. Beat whole egg, egg yolk and icing sugar till pale yellow color. Mix oil and vanilla essence, add into egg yolk mixture.

3. Beat egg white till form, add in caster sugar in 3 portion, beat till stiff peak form.

4. Mix flour mixture into egg yolk mixture, mix well.

5. Add half portion of egg white into 4) mix lightly till well combine, pour the mixture back into the balance portion of egg white and mix well.

6. Lined pan (24x28cm) with baking paper. Pour batter into pan and bake at 200 deg C for 12-15min.

7. Remove cake from oven, place it on a cooling rack and let it cool down completely.

8. Remove the baking paper, place the cake on another shit of baking paper larger than size of the cake. Spread some chocolate cream on it, sprinkle some chopped walnut. Roll the cake using the baking paper. Spread more cream on the cake, then use a fork to create the lines on the cake. Decorate as desired.

Rainbow Tangyuan

Sunday was dong zhi (冬至）, the kids had requested to make multi color tang yuan and Trenyce requested to add nutella into her tang yuan. Trenyce help me to form half of the tang yuan balls, I didn't teach her how to do and to my surprise her tang yuan was quite well done. I did 2 type of simple soup base, one was using canned peanut, the other was clear soup with brown sugar for the kids.

Ingredients (tang yuan):

400g glutinous rice flour

330ml warm water (approx.)

edible coloring (optional)

Method:

1) Place glutinous rice flour into a big mixing bowl, add water a little at a time till it form a dough, knead the dough for about 15min. Cover with dough with cling wrap or cloth for 15min.

2) Split the dough into portion and add a little color into each portion and knead the dough till the color is evenly distributed.

3) Roll the dough into a long rod, take a small portion and form into balls by rolling it between two palms.

4) Boil a pot of water, add sugar to taste, add in tang yuan into the boiling water. When the tang yuan floats, its done. Serve warm.

Rainbow Agar Agar

I made this agar agar for my mum's birthday, she didn't want a cake. This agar agar was quite popular among the family during the gathering.

Kuih Lapis

This recipe is nice but abit short, I followed the recipe recomendation used 7" square tray still it came out quite short, I think 1.5 times the recipe will get a nicer height. Recipe from fenying's blog.

Banana Butter Cake

There were some ripe bananas and nobody wants to ate it, so I use it to make a butter cake. I prefer to bake in disposable loaf tin, ate 1 loaf and can keep the other and not messy too. Recipe from Kevin Chai's book.



Ingredients:
250g butter
250g caster sugar (I reduce to 180g sugar)
¼ tsp salt
5 eggs
250g banana puree
¼ tsp banana essence
250g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:
1. Grease and line a 20cm baking pan. Preheat oven to 175°C.

2. Beat butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

4. Add in banana puree and essence, fold in sifted flour, baking powder and soda. Mix until well blended. Spread into prepared pan.

5. Decorate with banana slices. Bake in oven for 35-40min or until cooked.

Stew Pig Trotter

Last weekend, saw supermarket selling some pig trotter, the thought of trying this dish flash across my mind, so bought half a pig trotter and try. I did about half the recipe, but I added more water to prevent it from drying up and to make sure the skin will be cooked till soft, also added some mushrooms as I like braised mushrooms. Recipe from 'Sensational Braised and Stewed'.

Ingredients:
1 (600g) pig trotter,
10g old ginger (flatten)
30g garlic cloves
2 tbsp cooking oil
1200ml water

Spices:
4 star anises (八角)
1 piece tangerine peel (陈皮)
1 tsp szechuan pepper
5 pieces Licorice/”gan chao”(甘草)
10 cloves (丁香)
4 stalk “gui zhi” (桂枝) (Don’t have this so didn’t add)
1 inch cinnamon stick (桂皮)
6 cekurs/ “sha jiang” (沙姜) (Don’t have this so didn’t add)
2 “chao guo” (草果) (available at chinese medical hall or sengsiong)

Seasoning:
25g rock sugar
5 tbsp soya sauce paste
1tsp dark soy sauce
3 tbso shao xing wine
½ tbsp monosodium glutamate (I don’t use this at home)

Method:
1. Ask the butcher to cut the pig’s trotter into convenient pieces. Blanch into boiling water for a moment. Remove and drained. Praboil into hot oil for a while (I didn’t do this step). Dish up, rinse under cold water. Keep aside.

2. Cook the spices with water in a deep pot until boiling, simmer for about 20min. Add in pig trotter pieces, old ginger, garlic cloves and seasoning. Bring back to the boil, covered, and stew over low heat for approximately 1 hour until tender.

Focaccia Bead

I only did half recipe for this bread as I though that only Kenny and myself will appreciate such bread, to my surprise Trenyce like it so much that she at quite alot of it. Recipe from phoon huat demo class.

Ingredients:

400g Bread flour
100g Plain flour
10g Yeast
15g Caster sugar
5gm Mix herb
2tsp Black pepper
2tsp Garlic powder
280-300ml Water
3 tbsp Olive oil
2 tbsp Soften Unsalted Butter
1tsp Salt

Topping:
Rosemary
Sea salt
Coarse Black Pepper
Olive oil
Chopped Garlic

Method:
1. Put all ingredients into mixing bowl and stir well.

2. Beat dough until smooth and soft, rest for 30-40min.

3. Divide the dough into 4 piece (each about 220g), shape round and let it rest for about 15min. Roll into oval shape and place on grease baking tray proof till double size.

4. Brush with olive oil and use finger tip to make small indentations all over the dough.

5. Sprinkle the top with Rosemary, sea salt, coarse black pepper and chopped garlic.

6. Bake at 210°C for 15-20min till brown.

7. Remove bread from oven, apply a layer of olive oil.

Pandan Bread

Made this bread because there were lots of pandan leaves left in the fridge, and besides making bread using breadmaker I do not have the time to make other things. I make use of Alex Goh's recipe, I did adjust little of the recipe. The color is not so green because I didn't add pandan paste.



Ingredients:

10 pandan leaves
160ml water

30g egg
300g bread flour
45g sugar
½ tsp salt
½ tbsp milk powder
2tsp instant yeast

20g corn oil

Method:
1) Wash and cut the pandan leaves into small pieces. Blend the leaves with 160ml water. Strain and squeeze 160ml of pandan juice.
2) Place juice with the rest of the ingredients in Bread maker, set to Sweet bread function and start.

Chicken Pau

My friend told me about the link in Hugbear's blog so I tried it last weekend for breakfast, I hardly practise making pau so my pleated skill is lousy. I followed the chinese recipe linked in the blog and use filling in Agnes Chang's book. This pau is huge, was surprise to see the size of it the moment I open the steamer cover. The pau skin is very nice and soft.

For the pau skin and method, can follow hugbear's blog. The recipe yields 12 huge paus.

Filling:
300g chicken, cut into small pieces
1tsp ginger and shallot juice
½ tsp salt
1tsp Chinese cooking wine
2tbsp light soya sauce
1tsp sugar
¼ tsp pepper
1tsp chicken stock granules
3tbsp water
1tsp sesame oil
1tbps fried garlic oil
2tbsp diced spring onion (I didn't manage to get it at the time of marinating)
1tbsp corn flour
(original recipe also add some chopped yam bean (bang kuang))

Method:
Filling:
Mix all ingredients, stirring in one direction and chill for 3-4 hours before using.

For each pau skin, I added 1 tbsp plus a little bit more of filling then wrap it. Place it on a plate or steam tray lay with pau paper. Rest the pau for 15 min. Steam over medium heat for 15-20min. Serve warm.

Stir Fry Spicy Squid

I have not ate such squid before, I always feel its chewy and tough to bite from the outlook, Kenny mentioned that its nice if cook well. So I tried frying it with some bulgogi sauce, turn out quite good and not tough at all.

Ingredients:
1 pcs processed squid
1 medium onion – cut wedges
20g ginger – minced
2tbsp mince garlic
1 red chilli – cut wedges
1 stalk spring onion – cut into short strips

Seasoning:
4 tbsp pork bulgogi sauce
½ tsp sugar

Method:
1. Cross scale the inner wall if the squid and then cut into prism shape and blanch in boiling water until cooked.

2. Heat up 3 tbsp oil in wok and sauté ginger, garlic and onion until fragrant.

3. Pour in seasoning and squid stir fry in high heat.

4. Toss in spring onion. Dish and serve.

Blueberry Cheese Cake

I tried combine 2 recipes from Alex Goh's book plus abit of my own idea and created this simple cake for Kenny's birthday. Although it looks abit ugly but taste was quite good.



Ingredients:
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
100g melted butter

A)
250g cream cheese
90g castor sugar

B)
140g blueberry puree – I strain away canned blueberry syrup and blend it till puree
1tbsp canned blueberry

C)
1tbsp gelatine
40g water – I use the syrup from the canned blueberry

D)
160g whip topping cream

Method:
Digestive Biscuit base
Mix all the ingredients until well blended. Press onto bottom of cake ring(base wrap with foil). Refrigerate for 15min or until firm. (I use 7" cake ring so only use 3/4 of the biscuit base mixture)

1.) Whip (D) until soft peak form. Place in fridge.

2.) Cream (A) until light and smooth. Add (B) and mix until well blended.

3.) Bring the water in (C) to boil, pour into bowl with gelatine, stir until gelatine dissolves. Stir the resulting solution into cream cheese mixture and mix until well blended.

4.) Fold in (D) and mix until well combined.

5.) Pour the mixture into the cake ring and freeze for 3 hours until firm.

Sweet Potato Kuih Ku

Tried this recipe during the Deeparvali weekend. I like the skin texture, though had hard time while wrapping the filling. The skin were still soft till the next day.

Ingredients:
200g Sweet potatoes – peeled and steamed for 20min or until soft
1 tsp castor sugar
250g Glutinous rice flour
100ml hot water
120-150ml cooking oil

Banana leaves -- cut into 6cm squares or circles

Cooking oil for brushing

Kuih ku mould

Filling
200g skinned mung bean – soak in water for 4 hours

2-3 pcs Pandan leaves
120g castor sugar
¼ tsp salt
90-105ml cooking oil

Method:
1) Prepare filling. Steam pre-soaked mung bean and screwpine leaves for 20min or until soft. Discard screwpine leaves.

2) Combine hot mung beans, sugar, salt and oil in a food processor until smooth paste result.

3) Prepare kuih skin. Mash steamed sweet potatoes with sugar, then gradually mix in glutinous rice flour until mix resembles breadcrumbs.

4) Add hot water and oil, mix with a spatula until a soft dough forms.

5) Divide dough into balls large enough to snugly fit into the kuih mould.

6) To assemble, fit form a well in each portion of dough. Place a ball of filling inside, then wrap dough around it and reseal.

7) If dough is a little sticky, lightly dust the mould with some glutinous rice flour before pressing in the filled dough.

8) Knock mould gently against the work surface to dislodge the kuih and turn out onto a piece of greased banana leaf. Repeat until ingredients are used up.

9) Steam prepared kuih over medium heat for 8-10min.

10) Lightly grease cooked kuih with some oil and serve.

Mango with Sago Dessert

I thought that eating the mango like any cut fruits were abit boring so came out with this simple way of eating the indian mango, for the pass 2 weekends Kenny and I (the kids don't like mangoes) have been enjoying the sweet mangoes like this...






Ingredient:
2 mangoes – Peel and diced
1/4 - 1/3 cup sago

100ml water } Syrup water
3 tbsp sugar }

Method:
1) Boil syrup water and set aside to cool.

2) Bring a pot of water to boil, water should be enough to cover more than 1 inch of the sago when sago is added in. Add sago pearl to boiling water and boil till it become transparent. Drain and rinse over cold water. Set aside.

3) Put some sago in a bowl, add about 3 tbsp sugar syrup to sago, can add abit more per individual taste. Place dice mango on top of sago, best serve with some ice cubes.

Cashew Scottish

I hardly made cookies, unless I have the mood to do it. I think my brain is getting a bit rusty. I made mistake in this recipe. Was thinking that doing double the recipe cos 1 portion may not be enough, the dough end up too soft and I have to pipe out the dough, so I didn't sweep the milk as mention in the recipe. Days later then I realised that I should made the dough portion by portion instead of multiply the original recipe. Recipe from the book Biscuit Code .




Ingredients:
120g plain flour (sifted)
2tbsp rice flour (sifted)
125g butter
60g castor sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla essence
3tbsp milk
50g grounded cashew nuts
adequate cashew nuts(for decoration)

Method:
1. Beat butter, castor sugar and egg till light and fluffy. Add vanilla essence.

2. Fold in sifted ingredients and ground cashew nuts mix to a dough.

3. Cover and chill for 30min.

4. Roll dough in between 2 sheets of grease proof paper, and cut with a cookie cutter.

5. Place cookies on greased baking tray. Sweep with milk.

Fish & Chips

Have tried doing this dish but unsuccessful, so did it again last weekend. And this round the result was good, at least the batter didn't drop off when deep frying. Recipe from Danny Cheok.





Ingredients:

1 kg Fish fillet

Seasoning:
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
2tsp pepper

Batter:
200g self raising flour
100g corn flour
100 g rice flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

500g ice water

3tbsp oil

Method:

1) Rinse fish fillet. Marinade the fish fillet with sesoning for half hour.

2) For batter, add all dry ingredient in a bowl, the pour in water bit by bit to avoid lumps.Oil should be last to add to make the batter more smooth.

3) Add about 500ml oil to wok, heat up oil using medium heat, test the oil by dropping abit of batter, if batter bubble and float very fast, then its ready for deep frying.

4)Dry the fish fillet with paper towel, dip it in batter and place into oil. Fry till golden color. Dish and serve with tartar sauce.

BBQ Smokey Orange Flavour Pork Ribs

Original recipe was by chef yong. There was no BBQ sauce at home and was rather lazy to make another trip to supermarket, so I replace it with oyster sauce and soysauce, the ribs turn out really yummy with the glaze that I anyhow mix..haha. Next round I will follow the original recipe and see how's the taste like.

Tiramisu

I have made this tiramisu for a few times and those who tried it love it very much, thanks my friend S for sharing the recipe.

Potato Croquette

I like the taste of potatoes, the kids love potato croquette, this round the croquette looks and taste better than those that I have done before.

Ingredients:
3 dutch potatoes
Half carrot – chopped
Dash of pepper and salt
About 2 cups breadcrumbs for coating
1 egg – beaten

Method:
1) Wash and boil potatoes in a pot of boiling water till fully cooked.

2) Remove potatoes and put in a cold water for a while. Peel off the skin. Mash the potatoes till paste form.

3) Add in chopped carrot, salt and pepper. Mix till well combined.

4) Shape the potato mixture to a disc shape. Place aside for a while.

5) Coat the potato disc with egg, then place it in breadcrumbs and cover it with bread crumbs, shake off excess breadcrumbs.

6) Heat up wok with lots of oil, place the potato croquette in hot oil, fried till golden color. Dish and serve warm.

Orange Cotton Cheesecake

This cake texture is soft like Japanese Cheesecake. I alter a little of the methods in the recipe from my understanding of the recipe. Recipe from Agnes Chang's 'I can bake' book.

Ingredients:
250g cream cheese
220ml fresh milk
100g butter/margarine

A:
70g plain flour , sifted
20g corn flour, sifted
60g castor sugar
6 egg yolks
1 orange, grated rind and squeezed juice

B:
6 egg white
¼ tsp cream of tartar
60g castor sugar

Method:
1. Put cream cheese and fresh milk into a double boiler. Double boil till cream cheese has melted. Remove from heat, add butter, stir till butter has melted and leave to cool.

2. Beat egg yolks and sugar till sugar dissolve, add in orange rind and juice mix till combined, sifted flour and corn flour, add into egg yolk mixture and mix till well combined.

3. Add step 2 into cooled cream cheese mixture and stir well to form batter.

4. Whisk B till soft peak form, fold cream cheese mixture till well combined.

5. Pour cake mixture into a non-grease 10” square baking tin. (I use 9” sq tin)

6. Put baking tin into a large roasting pan half filled with hot water. Steam bake at 150°C for 1½ hours till golden brown and cooked.

7. Remove cake from the oven, invert the cake onto a cake rack and leave to cool completely. Chill the cake in fridge for at least 2 hours. Cut into pieces and serve.

Waffle

Randal have been requesting waffle for breakfast as I have been making it for quite a while. This round I tried Kuali's recipe, I replace the rum with 1 tsp of pandan paste.

Pineapple chicken

Bought the chicken breast to do something else but forgotten that the time had been scheduled to do other things. So decided to cook it for dinner instead. Recipe from Hawkers' Fair Simplified. I modified the recipe a little to make it less spicy.

Ingredients:
1 piece chicken breast, thinly sliced
4 pcs canned pineapple rings, diced
2 green chillies, remove seed and diced – original recipe uses 1 green capsicum
2 red chillies, remove seed and diced - not in original recipe
1 tomato, cut into wedges
½ cucumber, remove seed and cut into wedges –not in the original recipe
1 small onion, diced – not in original recipe
cornflour for coating chicken
oil for deep frying

Marinade:
1tsp salt,
½ tsp sugar
1 egg white
1tbsp corn flour
1tsp cooking wine

Sauce:
1tbsp thai chilli sauce
1tbsp tomato sauce
3tbsp canned pineapple juice
1tsp lemon juice
1tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt

Method:
1. Combine chicken breast with marinade and season for 2hours in fridge. Then coat with corn flour and deep fry in hot oil until cooked. Dish and drain.

2. Leave 1 tbsp oil in wok, put in onion fry till fragrant, add in pineapple, chillies, cucumber, tomato and stir well. Pour in sauce and cook until thick.

3. Add in fried chicken breast, stir well and dish up.

Randal's Birthday Cake

Randal requested to have a cake after seeing Trenyce cake, he wants almost the same design except with his favourite toys, we bought the toys together last month, all the ben10 toys were quite big for the cake, so I suggest mix with a few pokemon toys. I try to create the cake with ben10 main colors. I did encounter some problem while doing the cake, glad that he didn't mind at all.

Sweet Pancakes

I remember my mum used to make this snack for the family when we were kids, her recipe was very simple, just add water, sugar and an egg to flour and mix into a thin batter, spread a layer of the batter into a greased wok and fry it. I saw this recipe from a book, this pancake is thinner than the american style type.


Ingredients:
250g plain flour
pinch of salt
4 tbsp sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
500ml milk
4tbsp melted butter or oil
oil or butter for greasing the pan

Method:
1. Put the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the egg and a little of the milk into the well. Whisk the liquid, gradually incorporating the flour to make a smooth paste. Whisk in the butter or oil, then the remaining milk until smooth. Allow to rest, if liked.

2. Put 1 tbsp oil or butter in a heavy based frying pan and heat until it starts to smoke. Use a ladle to scoop the batter into the pan, tilting the pan until the base is coated in a thin layer. Cook for 1-2 min until the underside is turning golden.

3. Flip the pancake and cook for a further 30-45 seconds until golden on the second side. Remove the pancake out of pan and make the remaining pancakes, greasing the pan as necessary. Serve plain or any sauce per individual preference.

Pulut Hitam

Was busy making mooncake last Saturday afternoon, have no time to make other snacks for tea so I use pressure cooker to cook some pulut hitam. Its was done on rough estimation, bought 1 pack of black glutinous rice from market, soak it for a few hours, rinse and cook it in pressure cooker with a handful of glutinous rice and a few pandan leaves plus more water than usual in order to avoid the water being soak up while cooking. When the needle of the cooker pop up, cook a further 20min, after the pressure was release, I remove excess water then pour the rice in another pot and reheat it and add rock sugar to taste. Serve it with coconut milk.

Mid Autumn Festival (中秋节）

This year I made mooncakes at very last minute over the weekend, take some pictures today as it nicer to be eaten at least two days after baking it.

These are single yolk traditional mooncake. I prefer to do the lotus paste from scratch as its less sweet than those bought from store. Kenny helped to do the glaze on all the mooncakes as he's better at it...LOL.

There were lots of mooncake pastry left over, so Kenny suggest to use it to wrap the mango paste that I bought couple of weeks back. He helped to add some walnut into the paste, surprisingly the mooncakes taste quite pleasant.

Orange with Walnut Snowskin Mooncake

Came across some fruity taste paste and thought that it will be nice to made into snowskin mooncake. For the filling, I mixed the orange paste with some chopped walnut. As for the skin, I use the snowskin mooncake recipe from my friend and add in some sunquick orange syrup and orange emulco into the ice water. This mooncake is not sweet and taste rather refreshing.

Thai Style Tofu

I like the taste of this dish after eating it at a chicken rice shop last weekend. I did it for Sunday's dinner. Its not difficult to duplicate the dish, the shop uses soft tofu, I change it to firm tofu or tau kua because its easier to fry with lesser oil, replace the lime with lemon cos I only have lemon at home and I used chilli padi as I prefer this dish to be more spicy.




Ingredients:
3 pieces of firm tofu or tau kwa – cut into small pieces
½ cucumber – shredded

Sauce:
2 chilli padi – chopped
Juice from half orange
Juice from half lemon
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
½ tsp sugar
½ tsp fish sauce

Method:
1) Deep fried tofu till chrispy. Dished and set aside.

2) Place cucumber on top of tofu. Mix sauce ingredients in a bowl. Pour the sauce on the top of cucumber.

Roti John

Bought two baguette while shopping at carrefour on Saturday, used it to make roti john for Sunday breakfast. I used canned tuna in stead of minced meat because its more convenient...



Ingredients:

2 slim baguette

1 can of tuna fish (170g)

1/2 onion --diced

5 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

dash of black pepper


Method:

1) Cut bread into about 10-12inch length. Slice baguette lenghthwise from the side into 2 pieces.

2) Heat 1 tbsp oil in frying pan, stir fry onion till fragrant. Remove and set aside.

3) Pour away water in the canned tuna fish, pour fish into a mixing bowl, add in beated eggs and onion. Add in salt and pepper, mix the ingredients till well combined. Make sure the fish is broken into smaller pieces if using canned chunk tuna.

4) Heat frying pan with 3 tbsp oil, scoop some egg mixture onto frying pan, quickly place bread face down sticking onto egg, press the bread while frying inorder to let the egg stick to bread. Turn the bread while frying, fry till the egg side is crispy and brown.

5) Repeat the process for the rest of the bread. Serve warm with chilly sauce or ketchup.

Pandan Muffin

Did this for sunday breakfast because knowing that the kids like pandan flavour cakes, they would rather wait for the muffins to finish baking than to eat other things. Recipe from jo deli...

Flaky Yam Mooncake

I have ever tried making such mooncake last year but not very successful. This year I did it again, still the result was not satisfactory, only manage to get nice spiral pattern from 2 pcs out of the whole batch. Recipe from Yochana's blog...

Chocolate Cheesecake with Blueberry

I was thinking about doing a cheesecake for a few weeks already, finally did one on Saturday night. Thought that the kids may not like cheese cake so I did half of the recipe in a 7" cake ring. Glad that the kids love it and ate 3/4 of the cake by Sunday evening.


Ingredients:

Cake Base
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
100g melted butter
40g nibbed almonds

Filling
A)
500g cream cheese
180g sugar

B)
150g white chocolate, melted

C)
5 eggs

D)
200g sour cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 lemon zest, grated

E)
100g whipping cream

F)
100g Blueberries

Method:

Cake base:
1. Add nibbed almonds into the digestive biscuit base and mix well. Press onto bottom of 23cm springform tin.

2. Bake at 160°C for 10min and set aside to cool.

Filling:
1. Cream (A) until light and smooth. Add (B) and cream until well blended.

2. Add (C) one at a time and cream until well combined.

3. Add (D) and cream until smooth. Add (E) and cream until well incorporated.

4. Sprinkle (F) over the biscuit base and pour the cheese filling over the blueberries.

5. Bake in water bath at 160°C for 60-70min or until just set. Turn the oven off and remove the water bath. Leave the cake in oven with door slightly open for 30min.

6. Remove the cake and chill in the fridge for 5 hours.

7. Release the cake from tin.

Variation:
Blueberries can be replaced with peaces, strawberries, apricots or raspberries.

Orange Juice Chicken Wings

This dish was created for the kids, I know that if I deep fried the wings the kids will love it but I don't want them to eat too much deep fried food. Kenny suggested to cook orange juice chicken wings for them. Randal doesn't like the wings saying it taste a bit too sweet, Kenny and I find the taste were ok. If I do this dish again I will adjust the taste with some other sauces.



Ingredients:
8 mid joint wings
1tbsp ginger- sliced

Marinade:
1tsp salt
dash of pepper

Seasoning:
Juice from 2 oranges
Orange zest from 1 orange
2 tbsp water
1 ½ tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
cornstarch--1tbsp cornflour mix with 3tbsp water

Method:
1. Wash and clean chicken wings, add in marinade and marinate for half hour.

2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok, add in ginger and fry till fragrant. Add in wings and pan fry the wings till cook. Remove and set aside.

3. Add in seasoning except cornstarch into wok and bring to boil, add in wings and stir fry awhile, add in cornstarch bit by bit and stir till the sauce thickens. Remove from wok and serve.

Stir fry Mix Vegetables with Tumeric

There's always a vegetable dish for lunch and dinner whenever I'm cooking at home. Felt like cooking curry vegetable for last weekend dinner, but cooked this instead because saw this dish in yum yum magazine and thought that its easier to do.

Ingredients:
1tbsp oil
½ tsp chopped garlic
1 tbsp sliced shallot
½ tsp black mustard seed (biji sawi)
¼ cauliflower, cut into pieces
½ cabbage, cut into pieces
¼ carrot, peeled and cut into pieces
1 red chilli, cut into pieces
1 green chilli, cut into pieces

Seasoning:
½ tsp chicken stock powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp sugar
5tbsp water

Method:
1. Heat up oil, sauté chopped garlic, tumeric powder and mustard seed until aromatic.

2. Add in the remaining ingredients, seasoning and stir-fry until cooked. Dish and serve.

Pork Floss Muffin

Made some muffins for my dad, I chose this recipe because its low in sugar and not salty too. The pork floss gets a bit burnt due to size of my oven, the muffin was quite close to the heating element while baking. Recipe reference from Yum Yum magazine.

Ingredients A:
2 eggs
200g dairy whipping cream
85g butter, melted

Ingredients B:
250g self raising flour, sieved
½ tsp salt
40g caster sugar

Ingredients C:
50g pork floss

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.

2. Mix ingredients B in a bowl. Mix ingredients A in a mixing bowl. Add A into B and stir until just mixed.

3. Scoop the batter into muffin cups, sprinkle pork floss on top.

4.Bake in preheated oven at 180°C for 20-25 min or until cooked.

Carrot Bread

Use bread machine to make this bread on Saturday night for Sunday's breakfast. Kenny ate it with ham and otak for tea, and he said the bread taste better with ham. Recipe from the bread machines manual.


Loaf size 750g

Water 250ml
1 ½ tbsp melted butter
450g bread flour
56g carrot – grated
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp instant yeast

Program: Basic

Claypot Soya Sauce Chicken Wings

I can use the wok to cook this dish but I need it for the sweet sour pork rib dish, so I transfer the wings to claypot and cook it. This dish was for the kids, but only Randal like it.



Ingredients:
4 drumlets and 4 mid wings
a few slice of ginger

Marinade:
1 tbsp soya sauce
dash of pepper
1 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp corn flour

Sauce:
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soya sauce
1 tsp light soy sauce
½ cup of water
1 tbsp mirin

Method:
1. Wash and clean the wings and drumlets, add in marinade and marinate for a few hours in the fridge.

2. Heat 2 tbsp of oil, fry ginger till fragrant, add in the wings and drumlets and pan fry each sides till slightly brown colour.

3. Transfer the wings and drumlets to claypot, add in the sauce and bring to boil over medium fire. Turn the wings frequently using chopstick to prevent the wings from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

4. Cook till sauce dries up or till the wings are fully cooked. Dish and serve.

Sweet Sour Pork Ribs

My mum gave me 2 big piece of prime ribs over the weekend, just I was about to use it to boil soup, Kenny saw it and said it would be an waste to boil soup with it, he suggest to do a dish with it. As its last minute decision, I didn't have tomato and onion at home so I just make do with some chillies and carrot as the garnish. Recipe is mix and match of book and my own estimation...



Ingredients:

500g prime ribs
corn flour for coating pork
½ onion
½ each green and red capsicums
1 tomato, cut into wedges
1 tbsp chop garlic
1 egg -- beaten

Marinade:
1 tsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine
½ tsp sesame oil
dash of pepper

Sauce:
1 tbsp plum sauce
3 tbsp tomato sauce
1 tbsp chilli sauce
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tbsp vinegar
100ml water

Method:
1. Wash and chop the ribs to smaller pieces. Add in marinade and marinate for a few hours in the fridge.

2. Add egg into ribs, mix well then coat each piece with corn flour. Deep fry in hot oil for low heat for 5 mins. Then fry over high heat for about 1 min. Dish and drain oil.

3. Use 2 tbsp of oil, fry garlic till fragrant. Then add in onion and fry till softened. Add seasoning and cook till thicken.

4. Add in ribs and mix well. Dish and serve.

Potato and Prawn Curry

I didn't follow the original recipe and grind the spice paste, I just use whatever spice paste thats available in the fridge, I add about 1 1/2 tablespoon of my own spice paste. I think just buy any brand of sambal or chilli paste from supermarket can also do this dish. Attach recipe from Yum Yum magazine, I didn't do the spice paste, so I skip the frying paste part for my dish...

Spices(grounded)
2cm tumeric
2 cm ginger
5 red chillies
5 pips garlic, removed skin


Ingredients:
2 tbsp oil
2 potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1onion, remove skin
2 green chillies, seeded and cut into pieces
2 red chillies, seeded and cut into pieces
1 tomato, cut into chunks
500g medium prawn meat

Seasoning:
½ tsp salt
½ tbsp sugar
1tbsp light soya sauce
500ml water

Method:
1. Heat up oil and sauté spices until fragrant. Add potatoes, seasoning and bring to boil. Lower

the heat and simmer for 25min.

2. Add onion, green and red chilli and cook for another 5 min.

3. Lastly add in the prawn and tomato and continue to cook for 3min. Dish up and serve.

Blueberry Buttercake

I have tried numerous times on using creaming method to do the buttercake but everytime I just can't get it right. So last weekend tried to do creaming method again and this time I finally succeed....YAY.

I bake the cake in two loaf tins as I intended to pass one loaf to my friend Ann Nee whom helped me get some baking ingredients.

The original recipe added blueberry filling and slice apple on the top of the cake, I prefer to use frozen or fresh blueberry. Recipe from Kevin Chai's I love butter cake book.

Ingredients:
250g butter – thaw at room temp for about half hour
150g caster/fine sugar (original recipe is 200g)
5 eggs
Sift together200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g frozen/fresh blueberry

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170-180°C. Greased and line a 20cm (8inch) square baking tin.

2. Cut butter into smaller piece, place in mixing bowl. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Colour of mixture should be pale yellow.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition. The mixture should looks like butter cream before adding another egg.

4. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder, mix well. Spread some batter into prepared tin. Sprinkle some blueberries in the batter.

5. After spreading all the batter in baking tin, place some blueberries on top of the batter. Bake in lower rack of oven for 40min(180°C) or 60min(170°C) or until cooked.

Thai Claypot Prawn Tang Hoon

I like the taste of this dish, the main cast of this dish is actually the tang hoon but I added more prawn than the amount stated in the original recipe. Original recipe was from the book 'Zesty Southeast Asian Treats'...



Ingredients:
125g mung bean vermicelli (tang hoon)
6 medium size prawns
4 cloves garlic
2 stalk spring onions
2 stalk coriander stems
250ml stock
some coriander leaves

Seasonings
1 tsp peppercorn
11/2 tbsp cooking wine
1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorn (I didn't add this item)
1 ½ tsp fish sauce
½ tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp castor sugar
1tbsp black vinegar

Method:
1. Soak tang hoon till soft, remove and drain. Remove prawn whiskers and trim the legs, then make a shallow cut down the back of the prawns with a knife. Remove intestinal tracts, wash and drain. Flatten garlic with knife. Cut spring onions and coriander stems into sections. Grind peppercorn.

2. Heat up 6 tablespoons of oil in the claypot, fry coriander stems, garlic, spring onions, peppercorn, 1 tablespoon of cooking wine, Sichuan peppercorn till fragrant. Add stock and bring to boil, pour tang hoon, fish sauce, castor sugar and prawns into the pot and fish sauce, castor sugar and prawns into the pot and stir well. Cover the pot and simmer for 3 min with low heat till the gravy is fairly dry.

3. Uncover the pot, add black vinegar and the remaining cooking wine and stir evenly. Granish the coriander leaves. Serve.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Trenyce kept requesting me to bake pandan chiffon cake, this round I tried the recipe taught by Ms Valarie that I learned at the CC. I reduce the sugar, so it looks shorter compare to teacher cake.I felt so delighted that this is the first time the chiffon cake I baked doesnt have any cracks on top. The cake was so popular that as usual its gone within minutes after I cut it...

Mini Donuts

I always wanted to try making these mini donuts but there's always other things to do in mind that I kept postpone it. Last sunday morning I realise that I didn't prepare anything for breakfast so this mini donut recipe suddenly pop up in my mind. Thanks Peony for sharing the recipe , it was so easy to do, just stir and pour it into the mini donut tray and bake.

Japanese Pastry Cream Puff

Learn this cream puff from cc sometime ago, I tell myself that I have to make this cream puffs one of these days because I want all to try the cream, did 1 batch over the weekend to bring over to in-law's place. Glad that all likes it after tasting it.

Steam Chicken with Tau Pok and Salted Fish

Kenny was not feeling well a couple of weeks back, to avoid heaty food I did this dish with the salted fish that my mum fried. Recipe from HoHo Jiak! Hawker Fair...




Ingredients:
10 chicken mid joint wings
10 small tofu pok
1 tbsp shredded ginger
1 tbsp salted fish (diced) (original recipe uses 1 pc mui hong salted fish)

Seasoning:
½ tbsp oyster sauce
½ tbsp light soya sauce
1 tbsp shaoxing wine
3tbsp water
½ tsp corn flour

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, mix chicken wings with seasoning and season for 2 hours. Remove chicken wings from fridge ½ hour before cooking, mix together with tofu pok and season mixture for half hour.

2. Put mixture into a steaming tray. Steam at high heat for 20min or until cooked. Remove and serve.

Hokkaido Milk Loaf

I have done 65°C tang zhong bread a few years ago, but maybe not familiar with bread making at that time so the end result was not very satisfactory. Last weekend attempt it again, this round I use bread maker to knead the dough. I did half recipe as trial and reduce wastage just in case nobody like the bread. This bread turn out so soft that all like it very much, the bread stay soft for a few days.

Recipe from chinese book '65°C tang zong bread'(65°C 湯種面包)...

Ingredients:
A.
540g bread flour
86g caster sugar
8g salt
11g instant yeast

B.
86g whole egg
59g dairy whipping cream
54g milk
184g tang zhong (湯種)

C.
49g unsalted butter

Method:
Tang zhong(湯種):
1. Add 500g water to 100g bread flour, mix well. Place the pot of mixture on stove, boil the mixture, stir continuously else it will burnt at the bottom.

2. Boil till the mixture reaches 65°C, remove from fire.

3. Place a piece cling wrap on the surface of tang zhong, let it cool down completely before use.

Bread:
1. Place the ingredient B and butter in bread maker pan, follow by tang zhong, lastly add in ingredient A.

2. Set the bread maker to dough function and let it run till dough rise till double the size.

3. Remove the dough from bread maker, divide into 2 portion. Shape into round and let it prove for 15min.

4. Use rolling pin flatten the dough, fold in 1/3 from both side, turn the dough over and use rolling pin flatten the dough till about 30cm length, turn dough over and roll it like a swiss roll.

5. Place the dough in loaf pan. Let it rise till double in size. Brush top of dough with egg wash. Bake in preheated 170-180°C oven for 35min.