Quick and Easy Nutella Cake

Recipe from Agnes Chang's 'I Can Bake' book

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
200g soft brown sugar.
4 eggs, lightly beaten
300g self raising flour, sifted
5 tbsp milk

6 tbsp nutella chocolate hazelnut spread
60g hazelnuts, chopped coarsely (I use pecan nuts)

Method:
1. Put all ingredients for cake into a mixing bowl and beat until light and fluffy.

2. Pour 2/3 portion of the cake mixture into a greased and lined 22cm/9 inch round baking tin and spread to level. Spoon the nutella into six blobs. Top with the remaining 1/3 portions of the cake mixture, swirl a few times with a skewer, then smooth the top.

3. Sprinkle nuts on top and bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 45min-1 hour until cooked and golden brown.

4. Remove, leave to cool before cutting into pieces and seves as snack.

Sweet Sour Pork Ribs

Bought some meaty pork ribs before chinese new year and its being laying in the freezer for quiet a while, last week I took a couple of days leave to stay home while my helper was on home leave (she never return...arrrggghh ) as I have more time to do dinner I did this dish with my own version of sauce...

Ingredients:


500g meaty pork ribs

Half capcicum-diced

1 small yellow/brown onion-cut into chunk pieces

1 tomato-seeded and cut into chunks

5 cloves garlic-chopped



Marinade:

2 tbsp light soy sauce

1 tbsp cooking wine

1tbsp sesame oil

Half tsp pepper

Half egg white

Tapioca starch for coating

Sauce:

4tbsp tomato ketcup

Half cup water

2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp mirin or any cooking wine

1 tsp vinegar



Method:

1. Rinse ribs, add in marinade and mix well. Place in fridge for a few hours.

2. Remove ribs from fridge, add in egg white and mix well. Heat up wok, coat ribs with tapioca starch and deep fry over low heat for at least 10min or till meat is well cooked. Dish up and set aside.

3. Heat up wok with a 2 tbsp oil. Add in onion and stir fry for a while, push to one side and add in garlic and sauté till garlic is fragrant. Add in the other vegetables, stir fry a while.

4. Pour in the Sauce ingredients and let it simmer for a while, pour in the fried ribs and cook till sauce is thicken. Taste the sauce, if its too sour add more sugar. Dish and serve.

Sweet Bread

This bread was done couple of weeks back, as I forgot to buy food for next day's breakfast so attempt this bread that I saw from a HK forum long ago, its called pai pao (排包) in HK.
The bread taste sweet and the dough suppose to be rolled into a swiss roll and arrange on tray for final proofing, but somehow on the day of doing the bread the proofing was slower then other times so I find the easy way out roll each dough into ball and lined them onto tray. The final proofing was so slow that I once thought that maybe the yeast was dead, I thought since it didn't rise well, will try to make a prata or something else next morning....surprising later that midnite the buns finally finish proof to double the size, all in all it took me 5 hours to finish making this bread....^_^

Chinese New Year Cookies

To me Chinese New Year season should have some cookies and sweets place at home whether its store bought or hand made. Thus will try to find time to make at least one type of cookie for festive season.
Pineapple tarts, kuih bangkit, kuih makmur and my helper did the pork floss roll.

Pineapple is a must that I would do for Chinese New Year. This time tried an old recipe from a friend's mum recipe collections. Saw that Lurpak butter was on offer so bought some and made the tarts, this year didn't have time to cook pineapple paste so use store bought paste and add a little blended pineapple pulp, cook it till dry then add the store bought paste and mix till soft and manageable texture.
 

Pineapple Tarts

Ingredients:
700g plain flour ( I use up the left over top flour)
450g butter
4 egg yolk
2 egg white

Method:
- Rub butter into flour till well combined. Add in eggs to flour mixture to form dough. Put the dough in a plastic bag and chill in fridge for 15min.
-Place a batch of dough between two large plastic sheets or baking paper, roll it about 3-4 mm thick, sprinkle a little flour on the surface and place cutter on it and cut out the shape. Place on baking tray line with baking paper, roll pineapple paste into round ball and place on cut out dough.
- Glaze tart with some beaten egg, and bake in 170-180 deg oven for 20min.

There were some left over dough from the pineapple tarts, thus I wrap it with ground peanut and form into kuih makmur...

This year did Valarie's kuih bangkit again, as last minute didn't manage to find fresh coconut milk, store bought one still works out fine.

Kuih Bangkit

Spiced Carrot Muffins

Quote from the book Muffin Galore-These muffin are really mini carrot cakes-perfect for lunchboxes and afternoon tea.

Made a batch of these muffins for office breakfast party on xmas eve, was dwelling on whether to put topping on the muffins as I thought some colleagues may not like to have cheese topping, finally decided not to add any toppings.

(Makes 12)
Ingredients:

300g plain flour
225g caster sugar (I reduce to 200g)
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
2tsp gound cinnamon
1 tsp salt
175ml vegetable oil (I use melted butter)
175ml milk
3eggs, lightly beaten
100g peeled carrot, grated
120g walnut, chopped
150g raisins

For topping (I didn't do)
85g cream cheese or full fat soft cheese, softened
40g butter, softened
125g icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180deg C/350deg F/ Gas mark 4. Grease a 12cup muffin tin or line the cups with paper muffin cases.

2. For the muffins, mix the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, mix together the vegetable oil, milk and eggs. Add in the grated carrot, walnut and raisins to the dry ingredients, mix till combined. Add the well ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients. Mix briefly until just combined.

3. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, dividing it evenly. Bake in the oven for 20-25min. or until risen and golden. Cool in the tin for 10min, then turn onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely.

4. For the topping, beat together the cream cheese or soft cheese and butter in a bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the icing sugar and vanilla extract until the topping is thick and speadable. Spread a large tablespoonful of the topping mixture on top of each muffin before serving.

Roast Turkey and Logcake

My sisters and their families came to my place for gathering during Christmas day. Each brought some food, which includes honey baked ham, roast pork, macaroni cheese, I did a roast turkey and some other simple dishes. Try my luck on a logcake too but my skill of doing the swiss roll sucks, end up the cake looks alittle collapse.
Thanks fellow blogger friend C for the beautiful Christmas card, all say the card it's a nice gift for the festival.

Valerie's Fruitcake

Learn this cake at Ms Valarie's class last year. This is the second time that I made the cake, thought that fruit cake will be nice addition for the office's Christmas party besides the usual turkey and logcakes. This time I replace the brown sugar with molasses, those who taste it said its nice as its not so sweet, also its not as hard as those selling outside.