Fong's Kitchen Journal

Fried Garoupa with Mango Salsa

2012-02-22T12:12:00.000+08:00

To prepare: Marinate the fish with soy sauce and ground pepper for a few minutes. Add in 1/2 beaten egg and lightly dust the fish with some corn flour or plain flour. Set aside for 2 to 3 minutes.

Heat up some oil (for shallow frying) till moderately hot. Fry the fish till golden brown on both sides. Drain away excess oil and set aside.

For mango salsa - Mix together:

- One mango, shredded (unripe one is better, mine in the pic above is too ripe for this dish)

- Shredded carrots and cucumber

- Red chilies, sliced

- Spring onion, cut into 2" sections

- 2 shallots, thinly sliced

- lemon juice or lime juice (amount to use depends on how tangy is the mango and personal preferences)

- about 1 tbsp gula melaka (break into small pieces)

- fish sauce, pepper to taste

Prepare the mango salsa just before serving and pour over the fried fish.

Mixed Fruits Cinnamon Rolls

2012-02-20T10:07:00.002+08:00

I could still remember the sweet fragrance of caramelised sugar and cinnamon, once you stepped out from Orchard MRT station. St. Cinnamon, a small little shop at the basement of Wisma Atria, sold really good cinnamon rolls. My favorite was the original roll, was around a dollar ???, was considered a treat for me then as a student. There were always people queuing up for their freshly baked cinnamon rolls ..... but still, a few years later, the shop was closed for good :( not easy to run a business in Singapore .....

Ingredients
(makes about 12 rolls)

(A)
40g bread flour
10g milk powder
1 sachet instant dry yeast (11g)
1 tsp sugar
80g eggs (about 1.5 eggs)
170g water

(B)
200g bread flour
140g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
65g fine sugar
65g butter

(C) Filling:
80g dark brown sugar (I used molasses sugar)
80g butter, cut into small cubes
Ground cinnamon powder (I just sprinkled from the container, amount as desired)
4 to 5 tbsp mixed dried fruits (soaked in a little rum or orange juice)

Method:

1) In a mixer bowl, whisk ingredients (A) together on medium speed for about 3 minutes. Cover and leave it aside for about 20 minutes.

2) Change to dough hook. Add ingredients (B), except for butter, into step (1) above and knead on medium speed for about 3 to 5 minutes. Add butter and continue to knead on medium speed for about 10 minutes till you get a smooth dough. Rest the dough for another 20 to 25 minutes till the dough doubled in size.

3) Roll dough into a rectangular shape about 1/2 cm thick. The length is about 18" (as each roll is about 1.5" wide). Sprinkle dark brown sugar, ground cinnamon and soaked fruits onto the dough sheet. Place butter cubes uniformly on the dough sheet (see picture above)

4) Brush the edge (length-wise opposite) with water. Roll up the dough (starting from length-wise nearest to you). Pinch and seal the dough. Cut rolls into approximately 1.5" wide slices and place flat down in greased pan(s) lined with baking paper. Allow room for proofing (see picture above)

5) Rest the dough for about 30 to 40 minutes till rolls are doubled in size. Brush a little beaten egg over the dough and bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 20 to 25 minutes till golden brown (for my oven, I need to cover with foil after 10 minutes to prevent burning).

6) Remove from oven, flip the rolls over baking rack. Peel off the baking paper and let the rolls cool.

Freshly-baked cinnamon rolls

Raspberry & Mango Mousse Cake

2012-02-17T09:12:00.001+08:00

My Valentine's Day bake this year - a mango mouse cake with raspberries topping. The cake consists 2 layers of sponge cake, 2 layers of mango mousse (with fresh mango slices) and a top layer of raspberries & cream.

Method for sponge same as here (optional: add 1 tsp mango flavour to sponge). After experimenting with baking sponge cakes, I find that a mixture of melted butter and corn oil gives better texture and flavour. To yield a lighter cake texture, replace a small portion of butter/oil with milk. After bake and cool, slice the cake into 3 or 4 layers (8" cake). I only need 2 slices for one cake.

Experimenting with camera setting... and this is the best picture I had :p oops!

For the mango mousse filling:

(for 8" round cake)

150g mango puree - blend fresh mango into puree

15g gelatin + 3 tbsp water (or mango juice) - melted together

120g fresh cream - whipped till stiff

100g dairy cream - whipped till stiff

1/2 tsp mango flavour (optional)

Method:

1) Mix mango puree, melted gelatin, mango flavour and about 3/4 of the fresh whipped cream together till well-combined (reserved some fresh whipped cream for decoration)

2) Carefully fold the dairy whipped cream into step 1.

To assemble:

2 slices of sponge

Mango mousse filling

Fresh mango slices

Fresh raspberries

Fresh whipped cream

A little apricot gel + water (glaze the raspberries) - optional

Method:

1) Place a slice of sponge into a loose-bottom cake pan or cake ring.

2) Pour 1/4 mousse filling onto sponge, place mango slices and pour another 1/4 mousse over the mango slices.

3) Repeat steps with sponge and the remaining mousse and mango slices. Place in fridge for about an hour to set the cake.

4) Remove cake from pan or cake ring. Decorate the cake with fresh raspberries and whipped cream. Keep in fridge till ready to serve.

Make little mango mousse cups with leftover mousse filling and cake

Bite-Sized Mousse Cakes

2012-02-15T09:55:00.002+08:00

This is my version of the lightweight semi-circle sponge cakes, commonly found in the neighbourhood cake shops. They are usually 4" to 5" in diameter, fold into half and fill with blueberries/strawberry jam and non-dairy whipped cream. Quite a delicious treat for tea-break.

I like these sponge cakes to be smaller, so I made them into mini cakes, about 5cm to 6cm width. Instead of folding the cakes into semi-circles, I just need to sandwich two mini cakes with prepared fillings.

Initially, I planned to have mango with strawberry mousse; and raspberries to go with chocolate ganache. I like sweet and sour combination .... sweet mango with slight tangy strawberry mousse; tangy raspberries with semi-sweet chocolate. But, I had prepared too much strawberry mousse, so I used the same mousse filling for the raspberries.

Ingredients

(makes about 30 halves or 15 cakes@ 6cm each)

(A)

4 yolks

40g fine sugar or caster sugar

Small pinch of salt

(B)

4 egg whites

40g fine sugar or caster sugar

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

(C)

70g plain flour

30g corn flour

50g corn oil

1 tsp vanilla, rum or any flavourings (optional)

Method:

1) Whisk (A) together at high speed till pale, thick and creamy. Set aside.

2) In a clean bowl and mixer, whisk (B) at high speed till stiff. Fold (1) and (2) together in batches till well-combined.

3) Sift plain flour and corn flour together. Fold the sifted flour into the batter in three batches. Add in the corn oil, flavouring and fold till well-combined.

4) Pour batter into piping bag. Pipe batter onto ungreased baking paper (I draw circles on baking paper and flip it over, so that the cakes will be the same size).

5) Bake in preheated oven at 190C for about 5 to 8 mins, till top is light golden brown.

6) Remove from oven, peel off baking paper and let the cakes cool completely.

7) Fill one circle with your favorite fruits/cream/mousse and place another circle on top.

8) Chill in fridge before serving.

[Source: Recipe adapted from Richard Goh's baking class]

To prepare the mousse: In a chilled mixing bowl, whisk 100g cold dairy cream with about 1 to 2 tsp sugar. When the cream is getting stiff, pour in melted gelatin (1 tsp gelatin mixed with 1 to 2 tbsp water, melt and let it cool) and whisk till stiff. Fold in 3 to 4 tbsp strawberry jam into the whipped cream and mix to combine.

Breakfast time!

2012-02-11T21:02:00.001+08:00

Other than the usual sandwiches, here's what I prepared for breakfast recently:

* Pan-fried radish cake - this is my favorite!

* Zucchini and Cranberry tea-bread - my second attempt of this recipe. I like the soft & moist texture of this tea-bread.

* Corn & oats pancake - this is a "rojak" version and surprisingly turns out quite nice.

Luv You Beary Much

2012-02-07T13:39:00.002+08:00

Wedding Cake for the final cake lesson

Cake Decorating Lesson 8: Wedding Cake

Our final cake decorating lesson is to make a two-tier wedding cake. A wedding cake sounds very challenging and exciting, right? Prior to the lesson, our teacher gave us a detailed list of instructions, what to prepare and bring for class. For very elaborated wedding cakes, we will need cake stands, boards etc. Since we are beginners and leisure bakers, the basic things we need to bring are just two sponge cakes (different sizes), flowers/fruits etc to decorate the cake, decorating tools and of course, bring along our fabulous ideas!

First, let's do a quick recap ....

Here are the cakes that I have done for my cake decorating lessons (tag with label: cake decorating class). As a home-baker with no professional training in baking, I'm really proud of my achievement! Even though this is a leisure baking class, I have spent hours to research, plan and prepare for these lessons. I wanted each lesson to be different, so I experimented with different fillings, flavours for the cakes. There are also many "first-times" - first time to learn how to cream a cake properly; first time to pipe a basket weaving design on a cake; first time to make royal icing roses that left my hands aching for 2 days; first time to bake finger sponge; first time to make a cut-out cake. I felt like a school-going student again!

A big THANK YOU to our instructor, Mr Richard Goh, for your sincerity and willingness to share your knowledge on baking. It is a blessing to meet and learn from you.

Lesson 1: Green Tea Strawberry Cake

Lesson 2: Rose Basket Lemon Cake

Lesson 3: Blueberry Fresh Cream Cake

Lesson 4: Butterfly Strawberry Yogurt Cake

Lesson 5: Barbie Doll Cake (Licca)

Lesson 7: Longevity Peach Cake

Preparation for the final lesson ...

I have been baking sponge cakes for my cake decorating lessons. Since this is the last lesson, I decided to attempt something different ..... rum-marinated dried fruits butter cake and decorated with marshmallow fondant (MMF). We learnt how to wrap marzipan for the longevity peach cake, so covering the butter cake with fondant is basically an extension of what I had learnt in the earlier lesson.

Things to get ready:

* Two butter cakes (8" and 6" cakes) - you can use 9"/7", 6"/4" or any other sizes.

* 700g MMF (you will have some leftovers)

* Some butter cream or you can use jam (act as a glue to stick the fondant on the cakes)

* 3 to 4 bubble-tea straws

* Cake board (same size or slightly smaller than the smaller 6" cake that I'm using - I DIY the cake board by wrapping aluminium foil over a thick cardboard)

Rum-marinated Dried Fruits Butter cake

Rum-marinated Dried Fruits Cake

I marinated 300g mixed dried fruits & chopped dried apricots with about 100g of rum and 3 tbsp rum flavour. Cover the marinated fruits and leave it at room temperature for a few days before using. I kept it in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

I used the same butter cake recipe for making the walnut butter cake, but made the following changes:

* Reduce sugar at (A) to 50g fine sugar + 50g molasses sugar.
* Reduce sugar at (B) to 70g fine sugar + 50g molasses sugar
* Reduce sugar at (C) to 80g fine sugar
* Replace 170g Nestle cream with 1.5 tbsp condensed milk.
* Replace the chopped walnut and chocolate chips with the marinated dried fruits.

Same preparation method, except to increase the baking time to about 90 - 100 minutes at 160C preheated oven, as I baked the cakes in 8" and 6" round pans, instead of making one 10" cake as the recipe is meant for. My cakes are very tall, about 3" height each. This recipe should also work for making a 9" cake and a 7" cake.

Leave the cakes to cool completely before covering with fondant.

Marshmallow Fondant

(yields about 700g MMF)

250g plain marshmallows (use the mini ones, easier to melt)
2 tbsp water
About 450g to 600g icing sugar (if it's not a newly-opened pack, sift the icing sugar before using)
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
Few drops of food colouring or gel (I added a little pink food gel for a pale pink coloured fondant)
Some Criso shortening (to grease your hands to prevent the fondant from sticking onto your hands)

Method:

1) Place the marshmallows and water in a microwavable bowl. Heat on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir. Heat for another 15 to 20 seconds if the marshmallows have not melted completely.

2) Stir the melted marshmallow to a smooth paste (I stirred with a pair of wooden chopsticks) and add in the vanilla essence. If you intend to have only one colour for the fondant, add the colouring now (easier than having to knead the colour to the dough later).

3) Add about 1/3 of the icing sugar and stir. Continue to add icing sugar and stir until it looks like a dough.

4) Grease your hands with Criso and knead the dough. Continue to add icing sugar and knead till the dough is pliable.

5) Wrap the fondant with cling wrap and leave it for at least 2 to 3 hours before rolling out.

Making the fondant cake

To assemble the cake:

1) Level the cakes for a flat, even surface. Turn the cakes upside down.

2) Cover the cakes with a thin layer of butter cream or jam, and leave it in the fridge for the cream to harden a little.

3) Dust your hands, table-top and rolling pin with icing sugar. Take about 2/3 of the fondant dough and gently knead and roll it out into a thin sheet (about 2 to 3 mm thick). Move and dust the fondant sheet with icing sugar as you roll it, to prevent the sheet from sticking on the table-top. The fondant sheet must be big enough to cover the whole cake with extra allowance.

4) Take out the bigger 8" cake from the fridge and carefully place the fondant sheet over the cake. Smooth the top and sides with your hands. Trim the excess fondant and tuck the fondant underneath the cake. Set aside.

5) Roll out the remaining fondant and cover the smaller cake. Set aside.

6) Insert the bubble-tea straws into the centre of the bigger 8" cake. Note the height and cut off the excess straws so that they are of the same height as the cake (these straws act as support pillars, to prevent the top-layered cake from sinking into the bottom-layered cake).

7) Place a cardboard on top of the bigger cake and sit the smaller cake on top of the cardboard (cardboard size to be the same or smaller than the top-layered cake)

8) Decorate the cake as desired.

Happy Valentine's Day

I lined the cakes with ribbons (use a little butter cream to stick the ends together), made some fondant ribbon roses with the remaining fondant, placed a pair of wedding bears on top of the cake and inserted a big paper-heart topper at the top. I think this cake is good for Valentine's Day too... with just a week to Feb 14.

And to my fellow classmates at the cake decorating class, it's really nice to meet all of you. Keep in touch, ok (you know who you are ^_^). And here are the pictures of some of the wedding cakes that we decorated in class:

I will be submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #16: Fun with Fondant! (February 2012), hosted by Yvonne of iceamericanos.

Breakfast and waking up early

2012-01-27T18:18:00.001+08:00

Breakfast menu

Since beginning of this year, I have been waking up early at around 5.20am to prepare breakfast for my family. No choice, little girl's having morning session and she needs to eat something to last her till recess at 9.30 am. I have been waking up around 7am for many years. This sudden change in morning routine makes me rather sleepy or even moody at times. But, I'm glad that my little girl is adapting well to waking up early. So far so good, she wakes up promptly, washes up, eats her breakfast and is ready for school within 40 minutes. But her poor mummy is still trying to adapt to the early hours. In fact, after my last December holiday trip, I have cut down my time on blogging. Just too tired or lack of energy to blog (or even to read other blogs) though I still cook/bake quite a lot.

I find it rather tricky to prepare breakfast, 'cos:

1) The breakfast must be quick and easy to prepare or heat up, max time = 20 mins.

2) I do not like to have bread for breakfast everyday.

3) My girl does not like to have milk and cereal (neither do I).

To avoid having the same food for breakfast, I noted down what I had for breakfast each day for the past 4 weeks. Well, I can't say the menu is "balanced" or nutritious, as the greens/fruits are obviously lacking in them. But, I will just make sure we have more greens during lunch/dinner.

My girl has sensitive airways. Hence, no citrus fruits (not even apples) or cold drinks for her in the morning. She is not a fussy eater, but she does not like nuts, prunes or raisins (supposedly healthy snacks) in her oat meal porridge. And yes, she loves her oat meal porridge.

For the next month, I shall plan my breakfast menu along daily theme, for example:

Monday & Thu: Sandwich day (tuna, egg, ham, peanut butter, jam etc)

Tue: Tea cakes, muffins, scones etc

Wed: Local breakfast (chwee kueh, chee cheong fun, steamed yam cake etc)

Fri: Oat meal porridge

You are most welcome to share with me your breakfast ideas .... just note, must be quick and easy... cos I need my beauty sleep.

Longevity Peach Cake (寿桃蛋糕）

2012-01-25T18:36:00.002+08:00

Cake Decorating Lesson 7: Longevity Cake

This longevity cake is a basic sponge cake wrapped with marzipan, a paste made with ground almond and sugar. If you are good with making fondant cake, you will find this cake very manageable.

Carving the cake ....

How to prepare the longevity cake?

Carving is the most difficult part in making this longevity cake. You can use either a sponge cake or butter cake, though a butter cake will be easier to carve.

1) Chill or freeze the cake in the fridge to harden it first. It is easier to carve when the cake is firm.

2) Draw a heart shape with the pointed end slanted to one side (see pic above).

3) Place the heart shape on the cake and trim the cake.

4) Hold a serrated knife at an angle and trim the edges all round to get a smooth edge.

5) Apply a little fresh cream/or butter cream and stack the excess trim-out cake on top.

6) Keep carving the cake till the edges are all nice and smooth, and with a slight indentation in the middle.

7) Trim the cake at the bottom, so that it is easier to tuck in the marzipan later.

8) Apply a thin layer of fresh cream/or butter cream all round the cake and place in freezer to harden.

9) Roll out the marzipan (or fondant) into a thin sheet while freezing the cake.

10) Cover the cake with the marzipan sheet and trim off the excess marzipan. Tuck in the marzipan neatly.

11) Dip a clean toothbrush with some red food colouring. Brush off the excess food colouring and randomly spray the red spots over the longevity cake.

12) Use the excess marzipan to make leaves (add green colouring) and stalk (add brown colouring) for the cake.

Wishing all a Happy and Prosperous Dragon Year!

Licca-chan Doll Cake

2012-01-09T10:32:00.002+08:00

A purple gown for Licca

Cake Decorating Lesson 6: Doll Cake

I bet this must be the most popular cake lessons for our creaming class, especially if you have little girls at home. Doll cake, or most called it "Barbie Doll Cake", is basically a doll dressed in a cake. This is a popular choice of birthday cakes for little girls. Eat the cake and the birthday girl gets to keep the barbie doll as a present.

[I missed lesson 5: Making of house & mini-garden]

Planning and Preparation at home ...

We are required to bring two sponge cakes, 9" and 7". I had 8" and 6" cakes instead. I remembered the last barbie doll cake that I made, I needed 4 butter cakes of various sizes from 8" to about 5.5", stacked together to give a real tall cake. This time round, I used a Licca doll, the Japanese version of the Barbie doll. Since Licca is shorter than Barbie, I thought two cakes should be enough, though at the back of my mind, I thought three cakes will be safer. I don't like the idea of pulling out the legs from the doll. Instead, I prefer to wrap the legs with plastic wraps and insert the doll into the cake. Hence, you really need to have a tall cake to insert the doll into the cake (up to the waist).

I tied a purple hair-bow to match the dress

How to make the doll cake?

I was too busy during class to take pictures for step-by-step illustration. Basically, this is what you need to do:

1) Slice and cream the cake as per normal. Use any flavouring or filling as preferred, just avoid those chunky filling, since you need to carve the cake into a ball dress.

2) Stack the cakes together, bigger cake at the bottom. Take a small bowl, turn it upside down to make a marking at the top layer. Use a serrated knife and carve a dome shaped around the marking. Where necessary, use the excess cake crumbs to fill the top or the side of the dome to achieve a uniform round dome shape.

3) Make a small hole at the top and insert the doll (this is to ensure that the doll can be properly inserted later). Remove the doll. Cream-coat the cake.

4a) If you are piping the whole cake with little stars or rosettes, you can do so now, after cream-coating the cake. Insert the doll first before piping and pipe the whole cake as desired. [Note: Steps 4b to 7 is for another cake design method].

4b) If you intend to pipe ruffles or laces on the cake, i.e. not covering up the whole cake, you will need to apply another layer of cream. This layer will form the dress of the cake, so add whatever colourings you like for the dress. Spread the cream onto the cake and smooth the cream as nicely as you can with a spatula.

5) To get a nice smooth cake surface, cut a small piece of baking paper (about 2 cm x 30cm) . Hold the paper at both ends with your hands and place it at the side of the cake. Start from the bottom and glide the paper up against the cake to smooth the surface. Repeat this step around the cake till the surface is smooth.

6) Insert the doll and fill up any gap/holes with a little more cream. Use the baking paper again, this time, glide from top to bottom to smooth out the cream.

7) Decorate the cake as desired.

Notes on piping tips:

1) For ruffles, use piping tips, 103 or 104 (rose tips) or 67 - 69 (leaf tips).

2) For laces, use a small round tip or just cut a very small opening at the tip of the disposable piping bag.

Purple gown decorated with ruffles and fondant ribbon roses

Which is the most difficult step in making this doll cake?

1) The carving and trimming part is the most tricky part. You need to hold your knife at an angle while you carve the cake, so that you can get a nice dome shape for the dress. Hmmm.... this needs practise and good judgement. A sharp serrated knife is essential. I used a flat blade knife and ended up with lots of cake crumbs.

2) For Licca's doll height, I think three cakes will be easier to work with (maybe 8", 6" and 4" respectively). For a base of 8", I had problem hiding her lower body with two cakes (8" and 6") stacked together. In the end, I used excess cakes from my classmates for the top and patched up with cream. Maybe I could work with two 8" cakes. Trim one cake into a 6" and use the excess cake to build the third layer. Hence, for a full-height Barbie doll cake, I think three to four cakes will be needed.

3) Compared to a fondant-covered doll cake, a creamed doll cake really put your piping and carving skills to a test. The strength control and precision are very important to have smooth ruffles or laces on the cake. I still need lots of practice in this area - you can see my laces are not smooth! For a fondant cake, if the cake is not carved to a perfect dome shaped, you can still hide the mistake under the dress. For a cream cake, if the cake is not carved properly, it shows easily.

Travel Turkey - Part 1

2011-12-29T19:03:00.006+08:00

Start from Istanbul, counter-clockwise to Canakkale, down to Antalya, up to Cappadocia and back to Istanbul

Singaporeans love to travel and December is the travel peak period. After our free and easy trips for the last two Decembers, this year, we booked a packaged tour to Turkey during the NATAS fair.

My strategy for booking at NATAS: Do homework, stay focus and be early.

It is important to make a decision for the holiday destination. Prior to the fair, flip through the papers for travel advertisements and do a quick read up on the travel destination. This will gives a rough idea of the price and the itinerary. If you go to NATAS with a "any-place-will-do" thinking, you are likely to waste time "ding-donging" from one booth to another.

Stay focus! If you have been to a NATAS fair, you know just how crowded it can be and so many brochures to look at .... Headache! I usually focus on three travel agents, get their quotes/airlines/travel dates before making a decision. While we will try to get the best travel deal, price is not the deciding factor, since too low a price will either means sub-standard accommodation/food or lots of pushy sales at the destination.

Be early. Oh yes, even parking at the Expo is tricky if you are late. We waited at the queue for about 30 minutes before opening (not too bad ^_^) and for about another 15 minutes to get the tickets to the fair. Travel agents usually throw in freebies for early birds - discounts, free optional tours etc, to attract enough people to form travel group(s) in the shortest time. These freebies can be substantial. For my trip to Turkey, it translated to a savings of US$220 per pax!

Others:

1) Division of labour: Where possible, queue at different counters to collect your free bags, luggage, lucky draws to cut down on queuing time.

2) Check the best credit card(s) deal for payment. By the way, you can call your credit card company to extend your credit limit on a one-time basis.

Share some pictures below, before elaborating on my trip in subsequent posts:

Topkapi Palace Museum

Ruins at ancient Pergamon (current Bergama)

Trojan Horse

Ancient marble city - Ephesus

Spectacular cascading terraces of limestone deposits at Pamukkale

Aspendos Theatre - the best preserved Roman theatre in Turkey

Beautiful sights at Cappadocia

One of the highlights of the trip - hot air balloon ride

Beautiful sunset in Istanbul

Except for the map of Turkey, these beautiful pictures were all taken by my hubby during our trip, and without any photo editing or touch up. I think he is really good. Thanks dear, for capturing all these beautiful and memorable moments ....^_^

It's a Butterfly!

2011-12-07T17:48:00.002+08:00

A colourful butterfly for you

Cake Decorating Lesson 4: Cut-Out Cakes

What is a cut-out cake? Bake a cake using basic pan shapes like round or square, then you cut the cake to shape it into any alphabets, numbers, animals, insects or designs that you like. For example, you can have a letter "A" for Amy, "B" for Betty or "C" for Carol. Or if your little princess is celebrating her 5th birthday, you can cut and design a number "5" cake for her. Such customised cakes are usually quite expensive, but if you prepare it at home, it only costs a tiny fraction of the price! And, cut-out cakes are not that difficult to make once you know the trick!

The things to consider when preparing a cut-out cake are:

1) Keep cut-out to a minimum to avoid cake wastage (well of course, you can always munch on the cut-out pieces or even combine the small pieces for making cake pops).

2) Do not trim the cake surface area too small, or it will be difficult to add designs on it.

Planning and Preparation at home ...

I have no special birthday celebrations at the moment, so I thought of making a butterfly cake. I saw a simple method at Betty Crocker by using a round cake pan. I modified the method slightly as shown below:

How to cut and assemble the butterfly cake

After the cake pieces are assembled, trim the edges to make them look curved. For ease of trimming, place a piece of cut-out baking paper (i.e. the pattern paper) on the cake to help in getting the right shape. You can also draft your design on the baking paper.

Next, how to transfer the draft design onto the cake? One way is to use chocolate transfer method (as in Lesson 3). But you need to freeze the cake to harden the surface cream, so that the chocolate will stick nicely onto the cake. Another possible way is to use a toothpick or skewer to mark the outline of the design before piping in the cream. This is a more difficult method than chocolate transfer, but you do not have wait to freeze the cake. I thought of using tinted piping gel to trace the outline onto the cake, but was advised that it is not workable. I thought I saw this method in the Wilton Decorating book??? Never mind, will try this piping gel method at home.

I do not have the time to freeze the cake during lesson time. No choice, but to free hand draw the design onto the creamed cake using toothpick, then pipe in the cream using a star nozzle.

A strawberry yogurt cake

This time, I did not prepare any special filling for spreading between layers of sponge. I guess you can do so, before cutting and assembling the cake. Instead of baking a basic plain sponge, I added some strawberry yogurt drink to replace part of the melted butter and also added 1/2 tsp strawberry flavour. The cake turns out soft and flavourful, even without any filling.

As I was writing this post, I saw this site with lots of creative ways to make cut-out cakes.

Congrats ... You've Survived Preschool!

2011-12-05T10:06:00.003+08:00

Congratulations Class 2011

During my times, kindergarten means one to two years of preschool education at PAP foundation. Life is simple and straight-forward. Most of us are born at Kandang Kerbau Hospital (more commonly known as KK hospital), fed with S26 infant milk powder and attended PAP kindergarten. I still remember my sky-blue uniform with a little mock red tie. The proudest moment of my kindergarten must be when I graduated at the top of my cohort. Oops... sorry mum, I was never first thereafter and so lucky not to be at the bottom last ^_^ Anyway, I survived my years of school education, never failed any examinations (so-called "no red marks" in my report book) and my mum did not have to meet my teachers or the Principal (last time, there was no "parent-teacher conference", meet teacher means you have done something wrong in school!).

Now, my little gal has graduated from her preschool. Compared to my time, hers would be considered a premium kindergarten. Teachers are all well-trained, good facilities, all-rounded education with enrichment activities like phonics, han-yu-pin-yin, drama, music, ballet classes etc. As expected, my little gal loves her school and looks forward to school everyday. Hopefully, she will be equally enthusiastic and motivated when she starts her primary school next year.

Making of owl cupcakes and graduation cake

For her preschool farewell party, I prepared an owl graduation cake with little owl cupcakes for her teachers and friends. I tried these little owl cupcakes previously over here. This time, I used walnut butter cake as the cake base, covered the top with fondant and decorated with Oreo cookies, royal icing and M&M.

While there are extra steps for making this walnut butter cake, it gives very soft and fragrant cake. I will certainly bake this again, as a whole cake, for the coming Chinese New Year.

Recipe for Walnut Butter Cake

(makes 10" square cake)

(A):
8 egg yolks
100g demarara sugar*
50g molasses sugar*
* or replaced with 100g fine sugar

(B):
450g butter
200g demarara sugar (or use 150g fine sugar)
170g Nestle cream (I used 100g evaporated milk)
2 tsp rum flavour (or use vanilla or coffee flavour)
400g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
200g walnut, toasted at 160C for 10 minutes & chopped
200g chocolate chips

(C):
8 egg whites
100g fine sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1) Whisk ingredients (A) for about 3 minutes till creamy with flowy consistency. Set aside.

2) Cream butter and sugar at (B) till pale and fluffy (butter and sugar must be well-creamed at this stage, takes about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on mixer).

3) Add in the egg yolk mixture from step 1, Nestle cream and rum flavour. Cream for another 2 to 3 minutes to combine.

4) Add in the remaining ingredients at (B) and mix well to combine. Set aside.

5) Whisk ingredients (C) till stiff. Fold meringue into butter mixture from step 4 in a few batches till well-combined. Pour batter into greased and lined baking pan.

6) Bake in preheated oven at 160C for about 50 to 55 minutes. Test with skewer (reduced time for cupcakes, about 35 to 40 minutes).

[Recipe source: Richard Goh's baking class]

A triple-chocolate graduation cake

The main cake is a 10" triple-chocolate cake: Chocolate-layered sponge, sandwiched with Nutella butter cream, frosted with plain butter cream and surrounded with Kit-Kat chocolate bars. The owl and congrats message are made from marshmallow fondant.

Congrats again to all my little friends. Wishing each of you a smooth transition to Primary One and an enriching school life ahead!

A little birdie says ... "Love is in the Air"

2011-12-01T14:18:00.002+08:00

My #3 cake for cake decorating class - Blueberry Fresh Cream Cake

Cake Decorating Lesson 3: Cartoon Drawing by Chocolate Transfer

Lesson 3 is a test of our artistic flair. Choose your favorite drawing or cartoon design, pipe the design using melted chocolate and transfer the design onto the cake. Sounds easy? Ho.... I soon realised that it was not so easy to pipe melted chocolate without your hands shaking away.... And yes, do make sure that the cream on the cake has indeed hardened before transferring your chocolate design onto the cake......... else, there will be "pot-holes" on your cake!

Planning and Preparation at home ...

I wanted a design that is unique, simple enough to execute and presentable. Finding a simple and unique design is tricky.... I avoided all popular cartoon characters as I foresee there will be many such designs in class. Since lesson 3 is about arts and drawing, I "borrowed" an idea from scrap-booking design. Instead of playing with design layouts and embellishments on scrapbook papers, I will have them on a cake! As for presentation, I decided to use a combination of pastel colours - blue, pink and green. For a touch of romance, I added a wavy border (i.e. using finger sponge), a few jumbo hearts sprinkles and a soft pink ribbon to tie around the finger sponge.

Making blueberry jam for the cake filling

I love to buy fresh blueberries whenever they are on sale and use any leftover for making blueberry jam. You can spread the blueberry jam on toast, scones, pancakes or use the jam as filling for cakes, muffins, or even add to your favorite milk shake. 100% blueberries with no preservatives or food colouring. For this 10" square cake, I needed two punnets of fresh blueberries (about 250g) for making the jam filling.

Ingredients for 10" square cake

To make the sponge cake:

1.5 times of basic sponge cake recipe (i.e. 6 eggs, 125g flour, 125g sugar, 125g butter/oil*)

*I used a combination of 50g melted butter, 50g oil and 25g milk for the liquid portion

To make blueberry jam:

250g fresh blueberries, juice from 1/2 lemon, 1 to 2 tbsp water, sugar to taste

1) Place the blueberries and lemon juice in a pot and cook over medium heat. Stir frequently to prevent burning.

2) Once the blueberries turn soft and start breaking down, add in sugar and continue to stir. Add 1 to 2 tbsp water (if too dry).

3) The jam filling is done when the mixture thickens (Note: The jam will further thicken when cools completely). Cooking takes about 8 to 10 minutes.

4) Let the jam cools completely before spreading on the cake.

Adding a "border" to my little birdie drawing with home-made finger sponge!

To make finger sponge

A: 3 egg yolks + 40g fine sugar

B: 3 egg whites + 40g fine sugar + 1/8 tsp cream of tartar

C: 90g plain flour, sifted

Method:

1) Whisk (A) till thick and creamy.

2) Whisk (B) till stiff.

3) Fold (A) and (B) together, then fold in (C) to combine all.

4) Pour batter into piping bag and pipe strips of batter on baking paper.

5) Bake in preheated oven at 175C for about 10 minutes or till golden brown.

To assemble the cake:

1) Cut the sponge cake into 3 even layers.

2) Place the first layer sponge, spread a thin layer of fresh whipped cream, pipe or spread blueberry jam on the cream, and follow with another thin layer of fresh cream. Repeat steps with another layer of sponge, cream, jam, cream and finally place the last layer of sponge on top.

3) Cover the whole cake with fresh whipped cream. Chill the cake in freezer till cream hardens (about an hour).

4) Place a piece of baking paper over chosen design. Pipe melted coating chocolate to trace the design on the baking paper. Place the design in fridge for about 2 minutes (so that the design is not runny when you flip it onto the cake).

5) Flip the chocolate design onto the cake surface. Gently rub the design to transfer the drawing onto the cake.

6) Pipe tinted piping gel or cream to fill in the drawing.

7) Place finger sponge around the cake and secure with a ribbon.

Chicken Soup with Stuffed Glutinous Rice & Ginseng

2011-11-29T09:28:00.003+08:00

An-yong-ha-se-yo! (Korean's greeting for hello). Does this chicken soup reminds you of the Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup? This is Fong's version, as I did not use Korean ginseng to prepare this. Instead, I used the mild American ginseng (花旗参). And unlike the Koreans who love to consume this soup in the hot summer period, I prefer to pamper myself to this hot piping soup during the year end chilling months.

Stuffed chicken

To prepare this soup, you will need:

1 young chicken (slightly below 1 kg)
1/2 cup glutinous rice, soaked for about 2 hours
7 to 8 red dates, remove the core
5 to 6 cloves garlic, keep it whole (or use as little or many as you like)
A big handful of dried lotus seeds
Few slices American ginseng
Spring onion for garnish

Method:

1) Wash the chicken and trim away any visible fats. I prefer to keep the chicken skin on (better flavour to the soup and keeps the meat moist) and skim the fats time to time during cooking.

2) Drain the glutinous rice and season with about 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Add the red dates, garlic, ginseng and some of the lotus seeds (see note below) with the rice.

3) Stuff the chicken with the glutinous rice filling. Stuff a few lotus seeds or red dates at the opening to keep the glutinous rice in the chicken. Use 2 to 3 toothpicks to seal the opening. Place the chicken and the remaining lotus seeds/ginseng/red dates in a deep pot or casserole dish (see picture above).

4) Prepare some boiling hot water. Pour the hot water into the casserole to cover the chicken. Bring it to a boil and reduce to medium heat. Let it cook for about 15 to 20 minutes. Turn to low heat and simmer for about 45 minutes to an hour. Season with salt to taste.

5) Garnish with spring onion and serve hot.

Notes on lotus seeds:

We soak the glutinous rice to speed up cooking. However, the same does not seem to work for lotus seeds. Remember to rinse the lotus seeds with HOT WATER, briefly soak in hot water for a few minutes to slightly soften, so that you can split open the seeds to remove the inner bitter germ - 莲子心。 You can keep it if you like as the germ is believe to relieve body heatiness.

Do not wash or soak the lotus seeds in cold water, as the lotus seeds will harden up and do not soften easily during cooking. This is not an old wives' tale, as I made this mistake in the chicken soup. I happily soaked the lotus seeds in hot water and leave them for a few hours (totally forgotten about it). The lotus seeds remain hard after cooking.

Or-Nee You ... Yam Mousse Cake

2011-11-23T09:24:00.000+08:00

Yam Mousse Cake with pink rosettes

I'm quite into roses recently. After my recent rose basket, now I have these pink roses "Or-Nee for You" (read: Only for You). Or-Nee is a Teochew yam paste dessert. While I never really like Or Nee (I find it too sweet and thick to swallow), I was surprised how delicious the yam mousse tastes when I first tried the yam mousse cake at my baking class. The yam mousse filling in the cake is not too sweet, it tastes much lighter than yam paste (with the addition of whipped cream ^_^) and has a nice coconut milk fragrance.

For the cake sponge, I used my usual "4-1-1-1" combination for an 8 inch round pan. After baking, let the cake cool completely and slice into three or four even layers. Divide and spread yam mousse filling (see below) equally between layers of sponge. Spread a thin layer of fresh whipped cream all over the whole cake (crumb coat) and place the cake in fridge to set for about 30 minutes. Decorate the cake as desired and put it back into the fridge for another 30 minutes to an hour before serving (for our hot weather).

Making yam mousse filling

This cake is a birthday present for a lady friend, so I filled the top with pink rosettes (pipe with Wilton 1M tip). Compared to the royal icing roses that I made for the rose basket cake, these rosettes are definitely much easier to pipe. I practised piping a few rosettes on paper before piping them on the cake. Try to pipe the rosettes as close as possible to minimise the gaps in between. After piping the rosettes, fill the small gaps with swirls using the same 1M tip. Arrange for odd number of roses in the centre, like 1 or 3. Somehow, odd numbers is more visually pleasing than even numbers.

To complete the "rose" look, I covered the plain cake box with a rose-designed wrapping paper (if only cake box comes in a variety of colours and patterns ....) and finished with a purple ribbon and tag (same colour as the yam mousse filling). By the way, I did not specially buy the wrapping paper, ribbon or tag. They are ready-stock in my room. I love to shop around for scrap-booking papers and accessories. Beside cooking and baking, this is the area where I "waste" (败家) my $$$ on.

A birthday surprise for somebody .....

Ingredients for Yam Mousse Filling

300g yam (weigh after peeling) + few pieces of pandan leaves

50g sugar

2 egg yolks

150g coconut milk

Few drops of violet food colouring (optional)

100g fresh cream, whipped till stiff (I whipped 250g and use the remaining for decoration)

200g dairy cream (cold) + 20g fine sugar

1 tsp gelatin powder + 2 tbsp water (melt and set aside)

Method:

1) Cut the yam into thin slices and steam till soft with a few pieces of pandan leaves.

2) Discard the pandan leaves and mash the yam while it is hot. Stir in sugar, egg yolks and coconut milk.

3) Cook the yam mixture in a non-stick pan over low heat till thick. Set the yam paste aside to cool.

4) Place a mixing bowl in the freezer for 5 minutes. Get ready some ice cubes or ice water. Pour the dairy cream and sugar in the cold mixing bowl (placed the bowl over a bigger bowl filled with ice cubes/water) and whisk the cream till soft peak. Pour in the cool gelatin mixture and continue to whisk till stiff. Do not over-whisk or the cream will curdle. Keep the diary whipped cream in fridge.

5) Mix 100g of fresh whipped cream and food colouring into the cooled yam paste. Mix well.

6) Gently fold in the dairy whipped cream.

7) Assemble the cake with the yam mousse filling

Notes:

1) If use all fresh whipped cream for the mousse filling, use about 150g fresh cream.

2) If use all diary whipped cream for the mousse filling, you may want to try 350g dairy cream with 40g sugar and increase to 2 tsp gelatin powder with about 3 to 4 tbsp water. Increase the sugar used in the yam paste to about 70g (fresh cream has sugar in it while dairy cream is plain without sugar).

[Recipe: Mainly adapted from Richard Goh]

Blueberry Scones with Lemon Curd

2011-11-18T18:24:00.000+08:00

I was looking around my kitchen to see what to prepare for next day's breakfast. I had some fresh blueberries. Shall it be blueberries muffins, blueberries cupcakes or blueberries pancakes? Finally, I decided it will be blueberry scones, for I have not baked scones since March this year. And since I still have some lemon curd in the fridge, it will be nice to have it with the scones.

Ingredients

(makes 8 scones)

250g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

70g butter (for unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt), cut into small pieces

2 tbsp fine sugar

60g fresh blueberries

100ml milk + 1 tbsp (if the dough is too dry)

Method:

1) Combine flour and baking powder. Rub butter into flour till it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2) Add in the sugar and fresh blueberries.

3) Pour in the milk to combine all the ingredients together to form a dough.

4) Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Use your hand to shape the dough to a flat round circle, with about 1" thick.

5) Cut into 8 triangular portions and place the scones on baking tray lined with baking paper.

6) Brush the top with milk and bake in preheated oven of 220C for about 15 minutes or till light golden brown on top.

7) Serve warm with your favorite spread.

Chicken Wine Soup

2011-11-16T09:39:00.002+08:00

With the year end Northeast Monsoon season, the weather is getting very nice and cooling. This is the time of the year where I think my electricity bill is at its lowest. The wind is so strong that I need to shut most of my windows (else my house will be in a horrible mess), so there's no need to switch on fans or air-con.

With the cool weather, this dish came to my mind. Chicken wine soup is actually a confinement dish, but I have cut down on the amount of ginger, sesame oil and wine in this soup.

Ingredients:

2 chicken thighs, drums and wings (or any chicken parts that you prefer)

Small piece of wood fungus (木耳), soaked and shredded (I used cloud fungus - 云耳 instead)

3 slices ginger, shredded

1/4 cup rice wine (I used cognac)

Method:

1) Chop up the chicken to bite-sized pieces and briefly marinate with a pinch of salt and pepper.

2) Heat up a little oil and about 1/2 tbsp sesame oil in wok over moderate-high heat. Stir fry the shredded ginger till fragrant, then add in the chicken. Stir fry till fragrant, add in the wood fungus (or cloud fungus) and sufficient water (depends on how much soup you prefer and how thick you like the soup to be).

3) Bring the soup to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes. Add salt to taste.

4) Pour in the rice wine and remove from heat immediately. Serve with plain rice.

Rose Basket Lemon Cake

2011-11-15T11:50:00.004+08:00

I love the vibrant colours of these roses!

Cake Decorating Lesson 2: Basket Weaving

As in lesson 1, we need to bake basic sponge cake at home and bring to class for decoration. This time, we need two cakes, so that when the cakes are stacked together, it makes a nice tall basket. In addition, we need to prepare either fruits, flowers or anything that we want to arrange on our "basket".

The planning stage at home ...

Since I had used strawberries in my first lesson - a Green Tea Strawberry Cake, I like to have something different. I thought of using some other fruits like kiwi fruit, star fruit, mango, grapes, blueberries (use a stick to thread 3 to 5 together ... should be pretty) or perhaps pineapple rings cut into flower shape by using a flower cookie cutter, or maybe add some chocolate-dipped marshmallows in a stick. Lots of ideas were running in my mind, as I think through, surf online for inspirations, and keep thinking ....

Eventually, I decided on roses ...

A few days before my class, I saw this beautiful rose basket... I know this is exactly what I want. It does not matter that I have never done any rose piping before. I will just learn. It's a good opportunity to push myself to learn and do something. Of course, it helps that I had this Wilton Lesson Plan: Flowers and Cake Design sitting in my study (for a year). So, I carefully read through the steps and started practising ....

A bouquet of roses!

My hard work and my aching hands ...

These roses can be piped using stiff butter cream, fresh cream or royal icing. Since I will not have enough time to pipe the roses during lesson time, after the basket weaving, I prepared the roses in advance. Royal icing roses seems to be a better choice since they keep well and stay in shape.

To pipe these roses, you will need a flower nail and piping bag with tip 104 (I used 103). Hold the flower nail in one hand and the piping bag in the other hand. As you squeeze the piping bag to release the icing, you need to turn the flower nail.

My first few roses were flat and ugly (aiyah... I should have taken a photo of them ...). I thought I have read every single words on the step by step..... never mind, read again. Ok, icing is still not stiff enough. More importantly, I did not move my tip "up and down". It is not as simple as to just squeeze the bag. You need to control your strength, the angle of the piping bag & tip, PLUS move the tip "Up and Down" while you turn the flower nail. After hours of piping and many roses .... my hands were aching badly.... really painful.

By the way, you need to prepare these roses a few days in advance (better still, make them one week in advance) as you need to wait for them to dry completely. Detailed step-by-step over here.

Roses... Roses... I love you

Preparation of sponge cake and lemon curd

I used my current favorite "4-1-1-1" formula for sponge (4 eggs, 100g flour, 100g sugar, 100g melted butter), but adjusted to 3 eggs recipe, plus 2 teaspoons lemon juice and 1 teaspoon lemon zest per cake (8" cake). This formula gives consistent soft and light sponge.

Lemon curd filling:

2 egg yolks

100g sugar

Juice and zest from 1 lemon (about 60g lemon juice)

1 tbsp butter

Method:

1) Combine egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice in a bowl and set over a pot of simmering water. Stir frequently and cook till thicken (about 5 to 8 minutes).

2) Remove from heat, whisk in butter. Place the bowl in a bigger bowl filled with tap water. Continue to whisk till the lemon curd cools completely.

3) Cover with cling wrap (touching the surface of lemon curd) and keep in fridge. Alternatively, I pour the lemon curd into a piping bag and store in fridge. During lesson, I just need to pipe the filling between layers of sponge and cream (no mess!).

A basket of red and pink roses

I'm very glad that I took up the challenge to attempt this rose basket cake. This marks my first rose piping and first basket weaving. It's the same feeling all over again when I did my first princess barbie doll cake. Very tedious, lots of hard work n preparation and reading up to do, except that it was not so stressful this time round. In fact, I enjoy piping these roses. The more I pipe, the more motivated I was to continue piping them, even though my hands were really aching. Ha.. the power of our mind, determination, and .....

The tangy lemon curd blends in perfectly with the soft sponge and cream

And the POWER OF LOVE, for I make this cake with a person in my mind. Happy Birthday, Mum!

Osmanthus and Honey Cream Cheese Cupcakes

2011-11-14T12:19:00.005+08:00

Mummy... there are bees on my cupcakes!

BuZZ ...... BuZZ ..... have you joined in the fun for this month's Aspiring Bakers #13: "Enjoy Cupcakes"? Still thinking of what cupcakes to bake? No worries... you have up till end of November to bake, post your cupcakes and submit your entry to Min. More details over here.

Honey bees joining in the fun of this month's Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes (November 2011)

These bees cupcakes were inspired by the creations at Kraze Kitch Bakeshop. I have thought of using Hershey's kisses or fondant to replicate these honey bees. In the end, I used another method - similar to making cake pops, or in this case.... BEES POP (cos I wanted to make use of the leftover biscuits crumbs).

Similarly, there are several ways to make the honeycomb. I suggest to use fondant as it is the easiest and gives the best results in terms of presentation. Alternatively, you can bake some cookies in honeycomb shape and dust them with yellow crystal sugar. I thought of a third method - waffle biscuits cut into trapezium shapes, glue them together using candy melts and sprinkle over with yellow crystal sugar. This method is rather tedious, so if I were to make these again..... I think I will go for the fondant, though taste-wise, the waffle or the biscuit method should yield better results.

Steps in making honey bees and combs

Make honey combs from waffle biscuits

You will need:
Waffles biscuits
Melted yellow candy melts or melted chocolate
Yellow crystal sugar

Method:

1) Split each waffle biscuit into half (to get thinner waffles) and cut the waffles into equal-length trapeziums (with angle of 60 degree at the wider length)

2) Glue six trapeziums together with melted candy melts/chocolate to form a honeycomb shape.

3) Spread some melted candy over the waffles and dust over with yellow crystal sugar.

4) Leave to dry completely.

Notes: Check out Anncoo Journal on how to make coloured sugar at home ...... really cool!

Make honey bees from biscuits & cake crumbs

You will need:

Cake crumbs and/or biscuit crumbs (I used a little cake crumbs and leftover waffles from above)

Melted chocolate (sufficient to mix with crumbs to form a dough)

Melted yellow candy melts

A little coating chocolate (melted)
Some almond flakes (for the bees wings)

Method:

1) Crush cake/biscuits into fine crumbs.

2) Add in sufficient melted chocolate to form a dough. Place in fridge for about 30 minutes to slightly harden the dough for easy handling.

3) Take about 1 tsp dough and roll into a teardrop shape. Put back into the fridge for 30 minutes.

4) Dip the shaped dough into melted candy and place on lined baking tray to set.

5) Pipe the eyes, a smiley face and lines on body with melted coating chocolates.
6) Stick two almond flakes on the bees.

7) Place in fridge to set till ready to use.

Notes:

1) I find that the candy melts is not really user-friendly. It does not melt to a thin consistency for easy dipping, so you will find that the bees do not have a smooth surface. I checked online and found that some added a little paraffin to the candy melts to achieve a nice smooth consistency. I added about 1/2 tsp to 1 tsp of Criso shortening to the melted candy, else dipping is basically impossible.

2) Alternatively, melting and dipping in coating chocolate is much easier to handle. So, at step 4 above, dip the bee dough into melted coating chocolate, set and then pipe yellow candy melts or butter cream on the body.

3) Sigh... after all these trial and errors, I think I should have just buy a packet of Hershey's kisses or use some fondant to make the bees! But I must say these bees taste really good and fondant will not achieve the same good taste.

Spongy cupcakes with honey cream cheese frosting

Make Osmanthus Sponge Cupcakes
(makes about 9 cupcakes)

2 eggs
50g fine sugar
50g plain flour, sifted
50g melted butter
Pinch of dried osmanthus flowers

Method
1) Whisk eggs and sugar (add a tiny pinch of salt) at high speed for 5 to 6 minutes till stiff.
2) Fold in sifted flour and add in melted butter. Fold batter well till shiny.

3) Pour into lined cupcake trays or cupcake liners and bake in preheated oven of 160C for about 15 to 20 minutes (test with skewer).

4) Remove from oven and leave to cool completely.

Make honey cream cheese frosting

30g butter, thaw at room temperature
60g cream cheese
1 tbsp honey
A small pinch of dried osmanthus flowers

Method: Cream all the ingredients together till smooth.

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes (November 2011), hosted by Min of Min's Blog.

Green Tea Strawberry Cake

2011-11-11T14:34:00.002+08:00

I started my cake decorating class recently and this is my first piece of "homework". The first lesson requires us to bake a basic sponge cake at home and bring the cake to class for creaming and decoration. In the class, we need to slice our sponge cake into two or three layers and fill the layers with whipped cream. We also learnt how to crumb coat the cake and thereafter apply cream on cake and smooth the surface.

I consider myself a beginner to cake decoration, as I have not attended any other cake decorating classes before, other than the 2-tier fondant cake workshop early this year. In any case, the skills and technique required for fondant cake is rather different from cake creaming. For instance, when we apply cream on the cake, the way we hold the spatula, the angle and our movement will affect how the cream is applied on the cake. I used to spend an hour just to smooth out the cream... but to find that the more my spatula touches the cake and cream, the messier and uglier my cake has become. In fact, trying to slice the whole cake into three equal slices is not an easy task to begin with!

After my successful attempt with the Green Tea Strawberry Swiss Roll, I decided to use this green tea + strawberry combi for my first lesson. I love the colour contrast of the green-layered sponge against the bright red strawberries. For the sponge, I used this wonderful and easy to remember "4-1-1-1" formula, plus 5g of baking green tea powder, added to the sifted flour:

Basic sponge cake:

(makes one 8" or 9" round cake)

4 eggs

100g fine or caster sugar

100g plain flour or top flour, sifted

100g melted butter or corn oil

Pinch of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla essence (or other flavor) - optional

Method:

1) Whisk eggs, sugar and a pinch of salt at maximum speed till stiff (mixture does not drop easily when mixer is held up).

2) Fold in sifted flour and melted butter/oil till batter is shiny.

3) Pour batter into greased and lined baking pan.

4) Bake in preheated oven at 160C for about 35 to 45 minutes (test with a skewer).

5) Turn cake out from baking pan and leave it to cool completely.

[Recipe: Richard Goh's baking classes]

Who wants Ice Cream?

2011-11-10T13:22:00.001+08:00

Lemon Meringue Cupcake in a cone

These ice cream melts in your mouth, but not in your hands. You can place them outside the fridge for hours and they will stay in shape. Simply cos'... these are not real ice cream.

Last month, I bought some ice cream waffle cones, with the intention of making a castle cake for children's day. But, that did not happen as I ended up making some chocolate cake pops and desserts instead. With these ice cream cones in my kitchen cabinet, an idea came to my mind - ice cream cupcakes!

Cut off the bottom tip with a serrated knife

One obvious problem of using these pointed-end waffle cone is they cannot be placed upright without some form of support at the base. So if you intend to make ice cream cupcakes at home, buy those flat-based waffle cones instead. Anyway, I just wanted to clear these waffles cones from my pantry (rather than to buy another packet of waffle cones), so I just cut off the bottom with a serrated knife to create a flat base and insert a small piece of Oreo cookie into the cone to prevent the cake batter from leaking,

Ingredients
(makes about 12 ice-cream cupcakes)

Ice cream cones (use the flat-based cones)

Sponge cake
2 eggs
50g sugar
Tiny pinch of salt
50g plain flour, sifted
50g melted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence or lemon essence

Method:

1) Whisk eggs, sugar and salt at high speed for about 5 to 6 minutes till stiff.

2) Fold in sifted flour and add in melted butter. Fold well till batter is shiny.

3) Pour into ice cream cones, almost touching the top.

4) Bake in preheated oven of 160C for about 15 to 20 minutes (test with a skewer).

5) Remove ice cream cones and poke a hole at the bottom with a knife to release moisture. Set aside to cool.

6) Use a small knife and cut a small hole in the sponge cake. Fill in with the lemon curd filling. Pipe meringue frosting on top. Grill in preheated oven of 200C (top-heat only) to lightly brown the meringue for about 30 seconds (or use a kitchen torch for better results).

Keep the ice cream cone steady with aluminium foil and a small cupcake liner

Lemon curd filling
2 egg yolks
100g sugar
Juice and zest from 1 lemon (about 60ml lemon juice)
1 tbsp butter

Method:
1) Mix all ingredients except butter in a bowl and cook over a pot of simmering water till filling thickens (takes about 5 to 8 minutes. Need to stir frequently).
2) Remove from heat and stir in butter. Set aside to cool.

Meringue topping
100g sugar + 1 tbsp sugar
45g water
2 egg whites

Method:

1) Combine 100g sugar and water in a pot and bring to boil on medium heat (do not stir the sugar at all).

2) When the syrup starts to boil, start to whisk the egg whites till foamy. Add in 1 tbsp sugar and continue to whisk (meanwhile, continue to boil the syrup till thick).

3) When the syrup becomes thick (test with the back of a metal spoon, it should coat the spoon and only drips a little), pour the syrup into the meringue and continue to whisk till cool.

4) Fill the meringue into a piping bag for easy piping on the cone.

Cross-section of the lemon meringue cupcake

These are basically fun or novelty cupcakes to make with kids or for kids' parties. My girl was very thrilled when she saw these "ice cream" and said they were very yummy. But for adults, baking these cupcakes in normal cupcake liners still works better, as the waffle will turn soggy after a short while.

I will be submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy cupcakes! (November 2011), hosted by Min of Min's blog.

Oxtail Stew

2011-11-09T10:16:00.002+08:00

Preparation is similar to my earlier post over here, except that I have added more vegetables in this stew and about 3/4 cup canned tomato puree in the sauce (hence the orange colour in the stew). As oxtail takes a long while to simmer, I stir-fry the ingredients in the wok, bring to boil, simmer for half an hour and then transfer the contents to an electric slow-cooker and leave it to cook till tender. So, I started to prepare this dish before noon, transfer to slow-cooker and come home in the evening with a piping hot dish.

I have prepared more gravy for this dish as I'm having it with bread (french loaf). I also intend to use the leftover gravy for another dish(es) (my way of stretching dollar, since oxtail is quite expensive and it takes so long to cook). So, depending on how much gravy you like in your stew, you will need to adjust the amount of seasoning sauce accordingly.

Ingredients:

Oxtail

2 to 3 stalks celery

2 stalks leek

2 to 3 carrots

1 onion

1 potato

5 to 6 slices ginger

[All vegetables cut into big chunks]

Seasoning sauce:

1 to 2 pieces fermented red bean curd

1 tbsp bean paste

3/4 cup canned tomato puree

Dash of cooking wine

Sugar to taste

Soy sauce (to add later if you find the sauce is not salty enough)

Hootylicious Chocolate Cupcakes

2011-11-07T10:26:00.003+08:00

Hoot do you love?

With the year-end school holiday round the corner, how about making some cupcakes with your kids at home? These yummy-looking chocolate cupcakes are much easier to make than they look. First of all, the cupcake batter needs no creaming or whisking at all! They must be the easiest cupcakes to make!

Hoot want more?

The "embellishments" added to the cupcakes are available from most supermarkets and are easy to assemble on the cupcakes, even for little children. Probably, the hardest part is to twist and split the Oreo cookies into halves! I'm not joking, that's how easy ^_^

First, let's start with preparing the chocolate cupcake. The recipe yields very soft and moist cupcakes, not surprisingly, given the high ratio of butter/sugar to flour.

Ingredients
(makes 12 cupcakes)

(A):
120g butter, thaw to room temperature
75g chocolate chips
120g brown sugar
100g hot water
1 tbsp instant coffee powder (or 1 packet of 3-in-1 coffee)
1 tsp coffee emulco

(B):
110g plain flour
1 and 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
25g cocoa powder
1 egg, beaten

Method:

1) Combine ingredients (A) in a bowl and double boil till smooth. Leave it aside to cool. Add in the beaten egg and mix well.

2) Mix plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder together. Sift the flour mixture and mix well into the melted chocolate mixture.

3) Pour the batter into cupcake paper liners, about 70% full (the batter rise very well during baking, I filled about 80% full and the batter overflowed). Bake the cupcakes in a preheated oven of 160C for about 35 minutes or till a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cupcake.

4) Cool the cupcakes completely before decorating them (Note: These chocolate cupcakes are very soft, you may want to put the cooled cupcakes in the fridge for 30 minutes to harden them slightly before decorating).

[Source: Richard Goh's chocolate mud cake - original recipe is doubled the above portion for one 10" round baking pan - bake for about 50 minutes to an hour at preheated oven of 160C]

Get ready all the ingredients before starting to decorate the cupcakes

To decorate the cupcake owls:

You will need:

Baked cupcakes

2 Oreo cookies (per cupcake)

1 Maltesers chocolate ball, cut into halves (per cupcake)

1 M&M chocolate (per cupcake)

Buttercream (see below)

Method:
1) Twist and split the Oreo cookies. The side with the cream will form the eye. To make the ears, cut one plain side into half, then quarter. You need 2 quarters for the ears.

2) Spread vanilla buttercream on the cupcake. To make the eyes, place two cream-side cookies on the cupcake (cream side up) and place half a chocolate ball on each cookie.

3) Place a M&M chocolate between the eyes for the beak.

4) Put the quartered cookies above the eyes for the ears and pipe chocolate buttercream on the cookies (Note: Alternatively, for little children, you may want to spread some chocolate buttercream on the quartered cookies, then stick cocoa crunch cereal for the ears instead).

5) Use a toothpick and dab a small dot of vanilla buttercream for the white highlights on the eyes.

Recipe for buttercream:

240g unsalted butter + a small pinch of salt

120g icing sugar

80g milk

1/2 tsp coffee emulco, 1 to 2 tbsp cocoa powder (for chocolate buttercream)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (vanilla buttercream)

Method:

1) Cream butter till smooth. Add icing sugar gradually and beat till fluffy.

2) Add in the milk gradually and beat till smooth.

3) Take half portion of buttercream, add in the coffee emulco and cocoa powder. Mix well and put in piping bag, fitted with star nozzle (no. 21). Add the vanilla essence to the other half portion of buttercream.

Hoot... Hoot ..... I will be submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011), hosted by Min of Min's blog.

Stir Fry Asparagus with Prawns

2011-11-05T20:47:00.003+08:00

I was shopping at Giant super-mart when I spotted some nice, thick and fresh asparagus from Australia. I happily grabbed a few spears ...

Ingredients:

6 to 7 thick spears of asparagus*

8 to 10 thin slices of carrot

6 to 7 medium-sized prawns

2 slices ginger

1 tsp shredded scallop sauce (similar to XO sauce)

1/2 tsp bean paste sauce

Soy sauce to taste (optional)

A little cooking wine

A little cornstarch solution to thicken the gravy

* Tip: Use the top tender part for stir fry and use the bottom part for making cream of asparagus soup.

Method:

1) Remove shell, devein and clean the prawns. Pat dry. Add a pinch of salt, a tsp of cooking oil, a tsp of cooking wine and a dash of pepper to marinate the prawns (about 3 to 5 minutes before cooking).

2) Remove the tough fibre from the asparagus by peeling off the outer skin with a vegetable peeler. Cut into thick slices. Blanch the asparagus and carrot slices in salted boiling water for about 2 minutes to partial-cook the vegetables (add 1/2 tsp oil in the water so that the asparagus retains the bright green colour). Drain off water and set aside.

3) Heat up the wok on high heat. Add a little oil. Add the prawns and sear both sides - takes about a minute. Remove and set aside.

4) Add a little more oil to the hot wok. Stir fry the ginger slices briefly. Add the blanched asparagus and carrot slices. Stir fry briefly till aromatic. Add in the shredded scallop sauce and bean paste sauce and stir fry to combine. Add in the prawns from step 3. Stir and add a dash of cooking wine from the side of the wok. Stir and add a little water or stock for gravy. Stir well to combine. At this point, you may want to add a little soy sauce to taste (check the taste first to determine how much soy sauce to add).

5) Add some cornstarch solution to thicken the gravy. Serve hot immediately.

Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes

2011-11-03T08:15:00.002+08:00

Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes, or Nutella Swirl Cupcakes were such a hit with many food bloggers a few years back (was it Year 2005?). It was such an ingenious idea of adding a teaspoon of Nutella on top of each cupcake, swirl it gently with a toothpick and you will have the yummy frosting bakes right into each lovely cupcake. No mess at all. These cupcakes are tasty on its own and do not need further frosting on top. After all, why would you want to cover the lovely Nutella swirls with frosting?

These cupcakes are light and airy with a lovely Nutella bite at the top. I am sharing this yummy cupcake with Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011), hosted by Min of Min's blog.

Ingredients:

(makes 12 cupcakes)

140g cold butter (I use salted butter)

1/2 cup fine sugar (about 115g)

2 medium-sized eggs (cold from fridge)

30g whipping cream

20g milk

1 tsp rum extract (or vanilla extract)

200g plain flour + 2 tsp baking powder (sifted)

12 tsp Nutella spread (about 4 tbsp)

Method:

1) Cream butter and sugar together till pale white and fluffy (I used an electric hand-held mixer and it took about 8 to 10 minutes).

2) Add in eggs, one at a time and beat for another minute. Mix in whipping cream, milk and rum extract (Do not worry if the batter looks a little curdle, it's normal).

3) Add in the sifted flour mixture and mix well to combine.

4) Fill each cup to 3/4 full and top each cup with 1 tsp Nutella spread. Gently swirl the Nutella into the batter with a toothpick or wooden skewer so that some batter covers the Nutella (do not over-swirl as you want a marbling effect).

5) Bake in a preheated oven of 165C for about 20 to 25 minutes, till a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the cupcake.

[Source: Recipe adapted from Baking Bites, original recipe from Donna Hay]

Notes:

1) I cut down the sugar from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup, which is just nice for me and not overly sweet (since the Nutella frosting also adds to the sweetness of the cupcake).

2) Original recipe calls for creaming the butter (soften at room temperature) and sugar till light, for about 2 minutes. From my baking class, I learnt that creaming the butter and sugar till light and fluffy helps to achieve the softness in butter cakes (which appeals more to our Asian palette, as compared to a dense texture). Butter that is not well-creamed will result in cakes having a harder or dense texture. But, you do not want to over-cream your butter till it melts, as the resulting cake will then be oily and compact (heavy). Hence, I started with cold hard butter from the fridge and cream till light and fluffy (the mixture will be pale white in colour). Adding cold eggs from fridge helps to keep the temperature of the butter low while creaming, which helps to prevent it from melting (especially for our hot weather).

3) Original recipe calls for 3 eggs. I replaced one egg with whipping cream and milk as I run out of eggs and happened to have whipping cream and milk on hand. The result is good.

4) Add 1/4 tsp salt if using unsalted butter.

Creamy Curry Pork Chop

2011-11-02T09:20:00.001+08:00

How often do you zoom straight into your kitchen to prepare a dish, after reading through a recipe on the internet? Chances are you will first bookmark the recipe, and attempt it at a later date .... well, hopefully (we all know after a few days, we will be too "lazy" to go source for ingredients and then cook it).

But this is exactly what I did, after reading Wendy's Curry Chicken Chop. Her pictures look so mouth-watering that I headed straight to the kitchen to gather the ingredients. Of course, it helps that I have all the necessary ingredients - ALL EXCEPT for the main ingredient - CHICKEN! ha.... If you have been reading my blog, you would know that I do not follow recipe closely, especially when it comes to cooking. I have no chicken, but I have two beautiful pieces of pork chop sitting in my fridge. So, here's my pork chop with creamy curry sauce.

As what Wendy said, this sauce has the fragrantly curry aroma, but it is not hot and spicy at all. Let me add on: This is "kids friendly". My little girl happily drizzled the curry sauce over her pork chop and licked her fingers to savour every drop of the sauce.... Thanks for sharing this recipe, Wendy!

Ingredients:

2 pieces of pork chop

Marinate for pork:

1 to 2 tbsp light soy sauce

2 cloves garlic, finely minced

1/2 thumb-sized ginger, grated

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbsp cooking wine

1 tbsp water

Dash of pepper

Coating for pork (before frying)

2 to 3 tbsp corn flour

1/2 tsp curry powder

1/2 beaten eggs

Sauce:

1 medium-sized onion, chopped

1 heaped tbsp curry powder

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup plain yogurt, slightly sweetened (this will further help to reduce the heat of the curry)

1/2 to 1 cup milk for thinning the curry (to your desired consistency)

Salt to taste

Method:

1) After cleaning the pork chop, pat dry and gently pound on the pork chop using the back of the chopper (or cleaver). If pork pieces are huge, cut each piece into two portions, i.e. yield four pieces.

2) Combine marinate and rub all over the pork slices. Cover and keep in fridge for 3 hours.

3) Add the beaten egg to the pork, coat it evenly. Mix the corn flour and curry powder in a shallow plate. Dust the pork pieces lightly with the flour and set aside for 5 minutes.

4) Meanwhile, heat up sufficient oil for deep-frying the pork chop. When oil is moderately hot, put in the pork chop and deep fry till golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper.

5) In a clean frying pan or wok, heat up a little oil till hot. Fry the chopped onion till translucent. Turn to low heat, add in the curry powder and fry till fragrant.

6) Up to medium heat, add in the whipping cream and let it thickens. Pour in the yogurt and sufficient milk to get the desired thickness of the sauce (more milk added, thinner the sauce). Add salt to taste. Note: The sauce will thicken further when cool.

7) Pour the sauce over the pork chop or serve the sauce separately as a dip (I poured half over the pork chop and served the remaining sauce separately).

Now, are you ready to head to your kitchen to cook this yummy curry dish ^_^

Roti Jala (Lace Pancake)

2011-10-31T11:13:00.002+08:00

Hey mum... there are holes in your pancakes!

I chanced upon this Roti Jala recipe in the Oriental Cuisine magazine (August 2010 issue) -《美味风采》. I was flipping through the pages and the lovely lace pancake immediately caught my attention.

Ingredients:
210g plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp salt
375ml milk
125ml water (I replaced with 150ml diluted coconut milk)
1 egg
1 tbsp cooking oil

Method:

1) Combine flour, salt and turmeric powder in a mixing bowl. Combine milk, water (or coconut milk) in another bowl and whisk in the egg. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together and sieve batter to remove lumps. Add in the cooking oil and cover to rest for 30 minutes before using.

2) Heat a non-stick pan on medium heat, lightly grease with cooking oil. Stir the batter and pour some batter into the roti jala mould.

3) Move the mould in concentric circles to make the lace pattern.

4) Flip over once and repeat the process until all the batter is used up.

5) Roll up the roti jala or fold into parcels. Cover with a tea towel to prevent drying.

Each pancake takes about a minute or less to cook

Notes on making these Roti Jala:
This is my first time making these Roti Jala. After some trial and error on the first few pieces of Roti Jala, I managed to get these nice lacey pancakes.

1) Sieving the batter is essential as you do not want lumpy flour to block the tiny holes in the Roti Jala mould.

2) The batter consistency is thinner than the usual pancake, very similar to batter for crepe.

3) I find that filling the mould up to about 3/4 full gives a better flow of the batter.

4) Sit the mould in a bowl or cup with a flat surface (see pic below), so that the batter does not flow out from the bottom funnels (careful not to topple over the mould!).

5) To cook the pancake, move the mould with the bowl/cup over the heated pan (you do not want batter to be dripping all over your stove). Lift up the mould from the bowl/cup and lower the mould close to the pan (but not touching) to form circles. Do not hold the mould too high up from the pan (the batter will not flow nicely to form a nice lace pattern).

6) Cook the pancake for about 45 seconds (check with a thin blade or spatula). Once the pancake turns light brown, flip it over to the other side. Count down to 10 and it's done!

Roti jala mould

My initial idea is to manually poke some holes in an empty condensed milk can as my DIY Roti Jala mould. But, a plastic mould costs only S$1 and is reusable, I better not mess with hammer and nail.

It's dinner time!

I served these Roti Jala with sambal prawns for dinner. My family loves the softness of these Roti Jala and it's fun to eat them (especially for kids!). Another post for sambal prawns ....

Soon Kueh (笋馃)

2011-10-28T08:21:00.002+08:00

The last time I made Soon Kueh (it was my first attempt then), I used pre-mixed soon kueh flour. While the filling was flavourful and soon kueh were nicely wrapped, my mum "failed" the dough skin. Her verdict: skin texture and colour not there yet .... There are pros and cons when your mum is a good cook. Well ... you get to eat lots of home-made goodies. But, when it's your turn to cook, you know just how hard it is to pass their test.

While my mum makes lots of yummy steamed yam cake and glutinous rice (she used to sell these at a coffee shop and I was her part-time assistant), I do not recall her making any soon kueh (maybe once for own consumption). So, I have no recipe to "observe" back home. I needed a soon kueh dough skin recipe - one that will give a clear and slightly translucent colour, the skin must be soft and very importantly, it must not stick onto your teeth.

I google for soon kueh recipes and scribbled down the amount of flour, types of flour, amount of water, oil etc. Most recipes have a combination of wheat starch (澄粉 or dim sum flour), tapioca flour and/or rice flour. Some even have mashed yam in the dough skin (Hakka Soon Kueh). To make the dough skin, you need to pour hot boiling water into the flour mixture, stir it quickly with a rice scoop or chopsticks, cover and let the dough rest for about 10 minutes before kneading it. The proportion of flour to water is about 1: 1.5 to 1.7. Next, you need to add a little cooking oil and knead the oil into the dough. The dough is now ready to use and it should be soft and not sticky. Cover the dough with a damp cloth while wrapping to prevent the dough from drying out.

I spent the whole afternoon making the soon kueh and gave some to my mum. She called me the next day and told me "I have passed" ^_^

Soon Kueh before steaming

I still have some leftover soon kueh flour from my last attempt, and so I added some into making the dough skin. This flour combination gives good result. The dough is soft and easy to handle. After steaming, the skin is translucent, soft to bite and is not sticky.

Ingredients:

(makes about 30 soon kueh)

Dough skin

200g wheat starch

100g tapioca flour

100g soon kueh flour (consists rice flour, tapioca flour, wheat starch, corn flour)*

600ml water

3 to 4 tbsp oil (I used shallots oil)

1 tsp salt

1.5 tsp sugar

* or replace with 60g rice flour, 20g tapioca flour, 20g wheat starch (rough estimate)

Method:

1) Mix the flours together in a mixing bowl. Bring 600ml water to a boil. Add in salt and sugar. Pour the hot boiling water into the flour mixture and quickly stir with a pair of chopsticks or rice scoop. Cover and let it rest for 10 minutes.

2) Knead in 3 to 4 tablespoons of shallot oil into the dough till smooth (kneading takes a few minutes only). Divide the dough into two portions (cover with damp cloth when not working on the dough). Roll each portion into a long tube and cut into small disc (each weighs about 35g).

3) Flatten each disc and roll out thinly. Use a round cutter or a rice bowl (my bowl measures 11cm in diameter) to trim the dough skin into a round shape (note: combine the excess dough skin and roll it out again). Dust a little tapioca flour on the dough for easy handling.

4) Place one heaped tablespoon of filling on the dough skin, fold it over to form a semi-circle and pinch the edges firmly to seal the filling.

5) Place the soon kueh on well-greased steaming rack, brush the soon kueh with a little shallot oil and steam on moderately-high heat for 10 to 12 minutes till dough skin turns translucent (I placed a piece of clean banana leaf on the steamed rack and brush a little oil on the banana leaf).

6) Brush another thin coat of shallot oil on the soon kueh after steaming. Sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds and fried shallots over the soon kueh.

7) Serve hot with a drizzle of sweet black sauce and chili sauce.

Soon Kueh for breakfast the next day

Soon Kueh filling:

(makes about 30 soon kueh)

750g mang kwang (about one medium-sized turnip or 沙葛), thinly shredded

1 to 2 carrots, thinly shredded - about 180g

5 to 6 Chinese mushrooms, soaked & sliced, keep the liquid

2 to 3 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked & finely chopped, keep the liquid

600ml water (including the liquid for soaking mushrooms and dried shrimps)

Few cloves garlic, minced

Few slices ginger

5 to 6 shallots, sliced (deep fried and use the shallot oil for making and brushing the dough skin )

Seasoning: oyster sauce/soy sauce/salt & pepper to taste, a little sesame oil

Method:

1) Heat a few tablespoons of shallot oil and stir fry the ginger and mushrooms till fragrant. Push to one side of the wok, add in the dried shrimps and minced garlic, fry till fragrant.

2) Add in the shredded mang kwang and carrots. Stir briefly, add water and cover to simmer over medium-low heat for about 45 minutes to an hour till turnip becomes soft. Give a few quick stirs in-between simmering to ensure even cooking. In the last 15 minutes, add in the seasoning and half the fried shallots. (Note: Turnip will release water as it cooks, so do not add all the water at the beginning. Keep a little and pour in later if the mixture is too dry.)

3) Cool the filling before wrapping.

I am submitting this to "Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011)", hosted by Small Small Baker.

Mango "Hor Fun" {芒果捞河}

2011-10-27T12:17:00.000+08:00

"EEEEEW... mummy! You cannot have this with hor fun (flat rice noodles)!" My little girl gave me a disgusted look when she saw me poured the mango sauce over the "hor fun". "Why not? It's very nice to eat with mango ..." I smiled at her.

Oh yes, you can have mango with this special homemade hor fun. 《芒果捞河》 is a dessert that looks as if you are tossing flat rice noodles in mango sauce. Flat rice noodles or we called it hor fun, is usually taken as a savory dish, such as seafood hor fun or beef hor fun. But, this hor fun is not made from rice flour. This is made with konnyaku jelly powder and coconut milk.

Ingredients:

(serves 3 to 4)

5g konnyaku jelly powder

80g sugar (or more if you like it sweeter)

350ml water

50ml milk

70ml thick coconut milk

3 pandan leaves (optional)

2 mangoes + 20g sugar

Method:

1) Mix konnyaku powder with sugar - (A). Place the pandan leaves and water in a pot and bring to gentle boil. Stir in (A) and mix well till dissolved.

2) Add in milk and coconut milk. Cook the mixture for a little longer, just before boiling and remove from heat (Once coconut milk is added, do not boil the mixture).

3) Carefully pour a very thin layer of jelly mixture into flat trays or pans and let the jelly set. Keep chill in fridge till ready to serve.

4) Peel the mangoes. Cut mango cubes from one mango and puree the other mango. Add sugar to the mango puree and warm it up to dissolve the sugar (alternatively, you can add some store-bought mango juice to the mango puree to sweeten it). Cool and keep chill in fridge.

5) Remove the jelly from fridge and cut into thin strips. Pour the chilled mango sauce over the jelly and serve with mango cubes.

Pulut Panggang (Glutinous Rice with Dried Shrimps)

2011-10-25T20:43:00.001+08:00

This is one of those kueh kueh that I love to buy from Bengawan Solo. It is called Lemper Udang at Bengawan Solo. I like the mild-spicy shrimp filling wrapped within the soft glutinous rice, which is lightly-infused with the fragrance of the banana leaves.

Since I have some leftover dried shrimps filling from the earlier Cucur Badak, I used it as the filling for the glutinous rice. I've included the recipe for preparing the filling, just in case if anyone is interested to prepare this at home. But, do note that I have made some modification to the original recipe. For instance, I have added more water for steaming the glutinous rice. The original recipe states only 50ml thick coconut milk, which is certainly not enough to cook the rice.

Ingredients

(Source: Hot Favorites Kuehs & Pastries)

(A):
300g glutinous rice
~~50ml thick coconut milk~~ (I used about 350ml thin coconut milk)
1 tsp salt
2 pieces pandan leaves
16 pieces banana leaves (12 x 15cm)

(B):
150g dried shrimps
200g grated coconut
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp coriander seed powder
2 tsp pepper

(C):
1 piece lemongrass
20g turmeric
3 pieces candlenut
2 cloves garlic
5 cloves shallots

Method:

1) Rinse glutinous rice and soak in water ~~for about 1 hour~~ and drain well. ~~Steam glutinous rice for 20 minutes~~. (I soaked the rice for about 5 hours or you can soak it overnight).

2) Mix coconut milk and salt together. Slowly pour coconut milk onto glutinous rice. Add pandan leaves and steam till cooked. Set aside (Note: The rice took about 40 minutes to cook. After 30 minutes, check to see if rice is soft enough. Sprinkle a little water over rice (if necessary) and let it steam for another 10 minutes till cooked).

3) Blend Ingredients C into paste.

4) Fry grated coconut in a dry wok till fragrant. Set aside. Heat 3 tbsp oil, and fry Ingredients C paste till fragrant.

5) Add pepper and coriander seed powder, mix well. Add chopped dried shrimp, grated coconut , salt, sugar and 150ml water, fry till almost dry. Divide filling into 16 equal portions.

6) Rinse banana leaves and ~~heat over dry pan till soft~~ (I scald the leaves in a wok of hot water and set aside).

7) Spread 1 tbsp of cooked glutinous rice over the banana leaf, follow by filling, then press tight and roll it up to form a cylinder. Use toothpicks to secure the ends.

8) Grease a pan. Place wrapped glutinous rice on the pan, and grill over low heat till fragrant.

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011), hosted by Small Small Baker.

Cucur Badak

2011-10-24T14:01:00.001+08:00

I saw this Malay Kuih Kuih recipe several times in my cookbook, but I just flipped over the page and never thought of making it. The recipe calls for some basic ingredients: sweet potato, flour, grated coconut, dried shrimps etc. But, preparing the filling is rather tedious. This is one of the reasons I did not attempt this earlier. But once you tried the delicious and aromatic filling, you will surely be tempted to prepare this again!

Grated coconut and dried shrimps filling

Ingredients:

(Source: Hot Favorites Kuehs & Pastries)

Dough
600g sweet potato, peeled, steamed and mashed
300g -350g plain flour
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt
24 pieces prawn, trimmed and washed

Filling
300g grated coconut (white part only)
50g chili
50g lemongrass
25g turmeric
20g garlic
30g shallots
200g dried shrimps
1 tsp salt
1.5 tsp sugar
5 tbsp oil

Method:

1) Blend or pound chili, lemongrass, turmeric, garlic, shallots and dried shrimps separately.

2) Toast grated coconut in dry wok till fragrant and slightly golden. Heat up 5 tbsp oil, fry shallots, garlic, chili, lemongrass, turmeric till fragrant. Add in dried shrimps, toasted grated coconut,salt, sugar and 150ml water. Fry ingredients till dry. Set aside to cool.

3) Mix mashed sweet potato with plain flour, salt and oil. Knead into a dough and divide into 24 portions.

4) Flatten a portion of the dough into a round disc and wrap a tablespoon of filling. Fold and pinch the dough to seal. Flatten it a little and place a prawn on top.

5) Deep-fry over medium heat till golden brown.

[Note: I made half recipe and yield about 12 pieces]

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011), hosted by Small Small Baker.

Overnight Pancakes

2011-10-22T09:49:00.003+08:00

How do you like to have some freshly-made hot pancakes for breakfast? But if you consider the time to gather the ingredients, weighing and mixing them too much work to do in the rush morning hours, this is just the pancake for you! These are OVERNIGHT PANCAKES! No, I do not mean that I make these overnight and warm them up the next morning. Rather, I prepare the pancake batter the night before, keep it in the fridge and use them the next morning.

Each pancake takes about a minute or less to cook. While one pancake is cooking in the pan, I will spread the other pancake with filling and transfer to a clean serving plate. By then, the pancake is cooked and I'll repeat the process of greasing, pouring batter, cooking and spreading fillings while waiting.

The results? These pancakes are surprisingly soft. Probably, the overnight sitting in the fridge helps ^_^

Ingredients:

(A): Mix together:

200g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

50g sugar

(B): Mix together:

160g water

160g milk

1 egg

40g butter, melted

1/2 tsp vanilla, rum or banana essence

Method:

1) Prepare (A) and (B) and mix them together into a smooth batter. Keep in fridge overnight.

2) Heat up a non-stick pan over medium-low heat and lightly grease it with oil or melted butter. Wipe away excess oil with a paper towel.

3) Pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan and swirl the pan. Cover and let it cook till pancake is cooked and bubbles formed on the surface of the pancake (takes about a minute or less). Remove the pancake.

4) Spread your favorite fillings onto the pancake and fold into half (I used crushed toasted peanuts & sesame seeds with Nutella spread).

[Source: Jane's Corner]

Hello Kitty Cake and Happy Blog Anniversary

2011-10-20T09:38:00.003+08:00

Fong's Kitchen turns one! I started this food blog on 20 October 2010, an easy-to-remember date: 20102010. Prior to setting up this blog, I love to post pictures of my dishes/bakes on Facebook (hopefully that did not irritate my FB pals cos I actually had one pal commenting "why I keep thinking of food "....) Anyway, posting on FB takes minimal effort, just pictures with a few words. Eventually, I started this food blog after receiving positive comments from pals and much encouragement from my dear hubby.

For me, writing a food blog really takes a lot of time and effort. I always admire bloggers who are ever so fluent and creative in their writing. They can talk about the sky, weather, story behind the dish, why they make this or that... just anything under the sun! And how I envy those who master the art and techniques of food photography ... huh ... what angle? what lens? I am absolutely clueless. In short, I find myself a boring blogger. I do not come up with creative sentences to describe the taste of my dishes/bakes (read: limited vocabulary) and sorry.... no beautiful pictures to make up for the lack of words either, since all my pictures are taken from an idiot-proof "point and shoot" camera.

My second challenge in food blogging is the details to be recorded for each recipe. For baking, I will try to follow the recipe as closely as possible. So, putting up baking recipes is relatively easier. But, when it comes to cooking, I adopt a "free and easy style", i.e. I cook what I have available. Seasoning is usually a pinch of this or a dash of that. I go by feeling and I do not really measure. You see, that's the fun of cooking. But ever since I started Fong's Kitchen, I started to take note of the volume, weight and amount of the ingredients used (as far as possible), the amount of seasoning and even buy standard measuring spoons and cups!

Of course, there were times when I asked myself "why do I blog"? It is rather ironical, since blogging takes up much time that I would have otherwise spent in whipping up another new dish or bake another cake. The immediate satisfaction and reward of blogging come from the lovely comments made by readers. I sincerely thank all who have dropped by my blog to find out what's cooking at Fong's Kitchen. Some may not have left any comments, nevertheless I truly appreciate your presence (hee... we have statistics bar!). Hopefully, you will find something interesting over here at Fong's Kitchen.

Now, this Hello Kitty Cake. This is a non-bake strawberry cheesecake and is for a sweetie. She tasted the blueberry cheesecake that I made recently for my friend's birthday and she loves it. She wanted to learn from me, so that she can make one for her boyfriend .... so sweet :) But since she has not baked before and has no oven at home, I taught her this easy non-bake cheesecake instead. She made one cheesecake at my place and I gave her this Hello Kitty cake to bring home (since freezing the cheesecake takes a few hours).

Here are the steps for the Hello Kitty design:

1) Cover the whole cake with topping cream (or butter cream if you like) and freeze till the cream hardens (butter cream will take about 20 minutes while topping cream may take up to an hour to harden).

2) Melt some coating chocolate (this type of chocolate sets easily, available at Phoon Huat) and pour the melted chocolate into a piping bag. Get ready a design. Place a plastic sheet or baking paper over the design. Pipe the chocolate on the outline of the design (i.e. trace the outline). Place the chocolate outline in the fridge for 2 to 3 minutes (not too long as the chocolate will crack when harden!).

3) Remove the cake from the freezer and flip the prepared chocolate design onto the cake. Gently press down the chocolate to transfer the outline onto the cake. Now, you can fill the design with coloured piping gel or piped whipped cream as what I have done for this Hello Kitty cake.

4) Pipe the eyes and whiskers with the remaining melted chocolate.

Note: As you need to flip the design onto the cake, the image drawn on the right-hand side will flip over to be on the left-hand side. Take for example this Hello Kitty. We all know the little red bow is on its left ear. Make sure to flip the design over (on the wrong side) before you pipe the chocolate outline (the bow will be on the right side), so that when you flip the design onto the cake, the bow will end up on its left ear.

Similar recipe for non-bake strawberry cheesecake over here (I used strawberry-flavoured yogurt instead of whipped cream).

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Glutinous Rice Kueh (饭馃）

2011-10-19T09:27:00.002+08:00

This is one of my favorite breakfast snacks - Teochew rice kueh or commonly known as peng kueh.

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011), hosted by Small Small Baker. This month, we are looking at traditional kueh. Come and join in the fun! Just make any traditional kueh - Chinese kueh, Malay kueh, Nonya kueh etc in this month and share with us your kueh recipe. More details at Small Small Baker.

Drizzle with sweet black sauce and dip in chili sauce

Ingredients:
(makes about 12)

Dough skin
160g rice flour (粘米粉）
60g tapioca starch (木薯淀粉)
295ml boiling water
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp shallot oil
Few drops of red food colouring

Method:

1) Mix rice flour and tapioca starch in a bowl.

2) Mix salt, shallot oil and food colouring into the hot water. Pour this hot mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a pair of chopsticks. Let the dough rest for about 10 minutes, covered.

3) Turn out the dough (it is still warm) and knead briefly till smooth. Dust your hands with a little tapioca starch if the dough is sticky.

4) Divide the dough into 12 portions. Take a portion of dough, flatten to a round disc and place 1 to 2 heaped tablespoon of glutinous rice filling at the middle. Fold up and pinch the sides to seal the dough. Press well into a lightly-oiled rice kueh mould. Give a gentle knock at the side of the mould to release the kueh.

5) Place the rice kueh on a lightly-oiled steam plate. Steam over high heat for 10 minutes.

6) Brush shallot oil over the steamed kueh. Transfer the kueh to a lightly-oiled plate.

[Dough skin recipe adapted from "Do what I Like"]

Glutinous rice filling

2 cups of uncooked glutinous rice

5 to 6 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked and sliced

2 to 3 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked and chopped

80g braised peanuts (from canned - drain away liquid)

Fried shallots and shallot oil (5 shallots - thinly sliced, fried in oil over medium-low heat)

3 cloves garlic, minced

220ml water (approximately) - include water used to soak dried shrimps, mushrooms

1 tbsp light soy sauce

Salt/pepper to taste

Method:

1) Wash the glutinuous rice and soak in water for about 5 hours. Drain water and set aside.

2) Heat the wok with 4 to 5 tbsp of shallot oil, stir-fry the dried shrimps with garlic till fragrant. Push to one side of the wok. Add the mushrooms, stir-fry till fragrant.

3) Add the glutinous rice and stir-fry to combine the ingredients. Add in the braised peanuts, seasonings and water. Cook for a few minutes in wok and transfer the glutinous rice filling to a large plate/pan. Steam over moderate heat for about 30 to 35 minutes (After steaming for 25 minutes, taste the rice to see if it is soft enough. If the grains are hard, sprinkle some water over the rice and steam for another 10 minutes).

4) While the rice is still hot, stir in about 2 tablespoons of fried shallot and a dash more pepper. Set it aside to cool before wrapping.

Potato Pie

2011-10-18T13:55:00.001+08:00

I first saw these potato pies at Anncoo Journal and I knew I'm going to bake them one of these days. You can fill these pies with any fillings - chicken, beef, pork, tuna, vegetables etc. I prefer a tomato-based filling with minced pork, bacon, onion, mushrooms and carrots.

Ingredients:

Shortcrust pastry base:

(makes about 12 tarts)

250g plain flour

50g ground almond (lightly toasted)

150g butter

Pinch of salt

1 egg yolk + 2 to 3 tbsp water

Egg white (beaten) - for brushing

Method:

1) Combine plain flour, ground almond, salt and butter. Rub the butter into the flour mixture till it resembles bread crumbs.

2) Stir in the egg yolk mixture to the dough till it forms a ball. Keep the dough in fridge for 30 minutes.

3) Pinch about 2 tablespoons of dough, flatten it slightly between your palms and press the dough evenly into the mould. Trim off any excess dough. Repeat to finish all the dough. Place the tarts in the fridge for an hour or overnight.

4) Prick the tart base with a fork, place a small piece of baking paper on each tart and fill with baking beans (or rice) - I put a smaller empty tart mould into each tart as weight.

5) Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 12 to 15 minutes. Remove paper and weight, brush with beaten egg whites and bake for a further 10 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Pie Fillings

250g minced pork, seasoned with soy sauce & pepper

5 to 6 slices streaky bacon, cut into small pieces

1 carrot, chopped (pre-boiled a few minutes)

1 onion, chopped

Few button mushrooms, chopped

3 to 4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 cup tomato puree

Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

1) Brown minced pork and half the minced garlic till fragrant. Remove and set aside.

2) Brown the bacon and fry the onion, carrot, button mushrooms with remaining minced garlic. Mix in the browned pork and tomato puree. Add a little water if the mixture is too dry. Simmer for 10 minutes and season with salt/pepper to taste. Set aside.

Potato toppings

5 Russet potatoes

20g butter

2 to 3 tbsp Japanese mayonnaise

1 egg

Sufficient milk

Salt/pepper to taste

Method:

1) Peel and boil the potatoes till soft. Drain water.

2) While the potatoes are hot, mash them and mix in butter, mayonnaise, egg and sufficient milk such that the potato mixture is soft enough for piping onto the tart. Season with salt/pepper.

Assembling the potato pie

1) Remove baked pastry shells from tart moulds and place them on lined baking tray.

2) Fill the tart with prepared fillings.

3) Fill piping bag with mashed potato fillings and pipe onto the filled tarts.

4) Bake in preheated oven of 190C for 20 to 25 minutes till golden brown.

Chocolate Pops

2011-10-16T18:46:00.002+08:00

These chocolate pops are highly-addictive. When you have Nutella, melted chocolate, Oreo cookies and digestive biscuits ALL combined into a pop... you will understand why this is a highly-additive treat.

This recipe comes from my Nutella Truffles. Instead of making cake pops using butter cream and cake crumbs, I added crushed Oreo cookies and digestive biscuits into the Nutella chocolate mixture. The result? You will have some crispy bits as you bite into the pop, while the rich creamy chocolate ganache simply melts in your mouth.

Ingredients:

(makes about 20 pops)

150ml cream

250g dark chocolate

125g butter

150g Nutella

15 Oreo cookies (separate the cream from the cookies and crushed)

5 digestive biscuits, crushed

150g to 200g coating chocolate, melted

Method:

1) Heat the cream until it starts to simmer. Away from heat, add the chocolate and butter. Mix well, add in the Nutella and sandwiched cream from the Oreo cookies . Mix well to combine. Let it cool slightly.

2) Add the crushed Oreo cookies and digestive biscuits into the chocolate mixture. Stir well and place in fridge to harden (about an hour).

3) Roll chocolate balls (about 1 tablespoon each) and place them on tray lined with baking paper. Place in the fridge for about 20 to 30 minutes to harden.

4) Dip the end of each cookie stick (or ice-cream stick) into the melted coating chocolate and insert the sticks into the chocolate balls. Put the chocolate balls (with inserted sticks) back to the fridge to harden (20 to 30 minutes).

5) Dip each chocolate ball into the melted coating chocolate. If you have a styrofoam block, you can insert the pops into the styrofoam block for the chocolate to set. Alternatively, just place the pops on lined baking tray for the chocolate to set. Place the pops back to the fridge. Remove and serve chill.

And here are the chocolate pops at the mini dessert buffet:

Green Tea Strawberry Swiss Roll

2011-10-14T21:04:00.000+08:00

After July's Swiss rolling good times hosted by Lynn, I have not been making any Swiss rolls. So glad that this Swiss roll turns out nicely ......

Recipe for sponge similar to here, except to add 5g green tea powder with the sifted flour.

Mini Donuts

2011-10-11T21:02:00.003+08:00

These mini donuts are baked, not deep-fried. Preparation is similar to making muffins, i.e. combine wet and dry ingredients, stir and bake! It is really quick and easy, and makes a wonderful kids' party snack or tea-time treat.

Ingredients:

(makes about 30 mini donuts, each about 4 cm in diameter)

(A): Sift together

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

(B):

1 egg

60g sugar

150g yogurt (I used strawberry flavoured yogurt)

45ml milk

4 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

Pinch of salt

Method:

1) Whisk egg and sugar together. Mix in other ingredients in (B) till combined.

2) Add in sifted flour/baking powder and stir to combine. Spoon batter into a piping bag and pipe into lightly-greased donuts pan, about 3/4 full.

3) Bake in preheated oven at 180C for about 10 to 12 mins till light golden brown.

4) Cool the donuts, dip in melted chocolate or candy melts and coat with crushed Oreo cookies/nuts/sprinkles etc.

[Source: Recipe adapted from Cuisine Paradise]

Mini Dessert Buffet

2011-10-07T10:36:00.002+08:00

Prepared this mini dessert buffet for little girl and her friends to celebrate Children's Day. Initially, I was thinking of baking them some cupcakes, cookies, or perhaps even a castle cake. But, when I bought this lovely cupcake stand from a Facebook pal, the idea of a mini dessert buffet came to my mind!

This is how the cupcake stand looks like. It has 5 tiers, but you can assemble the number of levels as desired. A wonderful piece of party accessories and you can decorate the cake stand to match the party's theme. For me, I just cover the board with wrapping paper to keep it clean.

Back to my mini dessert buffet items. They are all kids' favorite items... the best part is .... no baking is required:

Mini Dessert Bar

**** Chocolate-coated Marshmallows with Smarties ****

**** Melt-in-your-mouth Chocolate Pops ****

**** Neapolitan Mousse Cups ****

Recipe for Neapolitan Mousse Cups (Eggless Recipe):
(makes about 20 small cups)

Ingredients:

Chocolate layer:
100g + 200g dairy whipping cream (total: 300g)
60g sugar
100g dark chocolate
30g butter
1 tsp gelatin + 1 tbsp water (warm the mixture till gelatin dissolves)

Strawberry layer:
300g fresh strawberries, cut into smaller pieces
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
Sugar to taste (for cooking strawberries)
200g dairy whipping cream
2 tsp gelatin + 2 tbsp water (warm the mixture till gelatin dissolves)

Marshmallow layer:
250ml milk
1 cup mini marshmallows
120g dairy whipping cream
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
1 tsp gelatin + 1 tbsp water (warm the mixture till gelatin dissolves)

Strawberry jello layer:
Instant strawberry jello
- prepared per instructions on package - to yield 500ml jello

Method:

1) Chocolate layer: In a small pot, combine 100g whipping cream and 60g sugar. Bring to gently boil till sugar dissolves. Remove from heat, add in chocolate and butter. Mix well till smooth. Leave aside to cool. Whisk 200g whipping cream till peak (be careful not to over-whip). Fold the whipping cream to the cooled chocolate mixture. Add in gelatin mixture and mix well. Pour into cups. Place in fridge to set (about 1 to 2 hours).

2) Strawberry layer: Combine fresh strawberries, lemon juice and water in a pot. Cook for about 5 to 10 minutes till strawberries break down. Add sugar to taste and cook for further 3 minutes. Set aside to cool and blend into strawberry puree. Whisk 200g whipping cream till peak (be careful not to over-whip). Fold the whipping cream to the strawberry puree. Add in gelatin mixture and mix well. Pour over the set chocolate mousse. Place in fridge to set (about 1 to 2 hours).

3) Marshmallow layer: Double boil the milk and marshmallow till marshmallow melts completely. Set aside to cool down mixture. Whisk 120g whipping cream till peak (be careful not to over-whip). Mix the whipping cream to the marshmallow milk. Add in gelatin mixture and mix well. Pour over the set strawberry mousse. Place in fridge to set (about 1 to 2 hours).

4) Prepare strawberry jello per instructions on package. Set aside to cool completely. Carefully pour the jello over the set marshmallow layer. Place in fridge till set.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella frosting

2011-09-29T10:05:00.001+08:00

This is my last minute idea to reward the children for their fabulous dance performance at a charity concert. They sure had a busy schedule in school - last week had their annual drama day in school where they put up the play "The Stone Soup". Next month or so will be parents' day, and not forgetting, there is the most important graduating concert at year end. I'm so excited for the kids!

Last minute? Yes, I only started to weigh the ingredients at about 9 a.m. in the morning. By 11.00 a.m., these cupcakes were all packed in cupcake box and ready to go! Here's the recipe. I did 1.5 portion and yield 16 medium-sized cupcakes. I actually intend to dust some icing sugar on the cupcakes before the frosting, but it slipped my mind. Next time, perhaps ...

Chilled Strawberry Cheesecake

2011-09-23T10:19:00.002+08:00

Fresh strawberries were on sale last Friday at Fairprice Xtra, around $2.80 for 250g punnet. I happily grabbed two punnets even though there's still one punnet in my fridge. These strawberries were imported from Australia, very plump, red and juicy. Not as sweet as the Korea strawberries, but not too sour either and has a lovely strawberry aroma.

And after making the Chocolate Marshmallow Cake, I still have lots of whipping cream to clear. Now, you can't go too wrong with strawberry + whipped cream combination. And since I have cream cheese in the fridge and some digestive biscuits in my kitchen cabinet, I know exactly what I will do with my strawberries.

At first, I was thinking of blending the fresh strawberries with milk, then combine with cream cheese and whipped cream for the filling. But this will not give me a nice strawberry flavour in the end product. I find that cooking the strawberry actually brings out the full flavour, and it adds a nice colour to the cheesecake. The same goes for blueberries. Beside using this strawberry sauce for cheesecake, you can also use the sauce to drizzle over ice-cream, yogurt, pancakes or add to milkshake etc. It's 100% homemade strawberry sauce without artificial preservatives and flavouring.

Ingredients

(make 30 small squares, from tray measuring 20cm x 30cm)

(A): Base

15 digestive biscuits (crushed into fine crumbs - I used a rolling pin to crush it)

90g butter (melted)

(B): Strawberry sauce

250g fresh strawberries (chopped)

60g sugar

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 to 2 tbsp water

(C): Cream cheese filling

200g cream cheese

2 tbsp lemon juice

60g fine sugar

250ml dairy whipping cream (whipped till peak)

120ml milk

30ml water + 2 tsp gelatin

3 gelatin sheets

[Note: I need about 5 tsp of gelatin powder. But I run out of gelatin powder, so I replaced it with 3 gelatin sheets.]

Method:

1) Mix the crushed biscuits and melted butter together. Press onto baking tray lined with cling wrap (for easy removal). Chill in freezer till the base hardens.

2) Combine all ingredients in (B) in a small pot. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes till strawberries break down. Stir frequently and check. Remove from heat, cool slightly and blend to become strawberry sauce. This will yield about 300ml strawberry sauce.

3) Place the milk in a small pot and bring to a gentle boil. Meanwhile, combine 30ml water with the gelatin powder. If using gelatin sheets, soak in water briefly and squeeze out excess liquid. Pour in the gelatin mixture and/or the soaked gelatin sheets into the pot of milk. Stir and cook till the gelatin melts completely. Do not boil the milk rapidly or the gelatin may lose the setting ability. Set aside to cool.

4) While preparing step 3, place a mixing bowl in the freezer (for a few minutes) to chill it. Pour the whipping cream into the chilled bowl and whipped till peak form. Place the bowl of whipped cream in the fridge.

5) In another mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, lemon juice and sugar till creamy. Add about 200ml of the strawberry sauce from step 2 (reserved about 100ml for later use). Beat to combine. Pour in the milk mixture from step 3 and mix well.

6) Fold in the whipped cream from step 4 to the cream cheese mixture. Pour the cream cheese mixture over the prepared biscuit base. Drizzle the remaining strawberry sauce over the top to create the marbling effect. Put it back to the freezer to set.

7) To remove: Invert the chilled cheesecake onto a piece of baking paper, remove the bottom cling wrap and flip the cake onto a cutting mat. Cut the cheesecake into desired serving size and serve chill.

Chocolate Marshmallow Cake

2011-09-22T16:10:00.001+08:00

Make this cake specially for my gal's teacher to congrats her for winning this year's Outstanding Childcare Teacher Award, organised by MCYS. This is the highest national award to honour and recognise the contributions and work of the outstanding childcare teachers. I am so delighted and proud of her achievements!

This is a coffee sponge cake with chocolate ganache & marshmallow creme fillings.

Ingredients

(for 7" cake)

(A)

3 egg yolks

35g brown sugar

30g ground almond

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

3 tsp water

45g top flour, sifted

1 tbsp instant coffee powder (I used the 3-in-1 type)

1 tbsp corn oil

(B)

3 egg whites

35g caster sugar

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

(C)

60g whipping cream

80g dark chocolate chips

1 cup mini marshmallow + 1 to 2 tbsp milk

100g whipping cream (whipped to stiff)

(D)

Coffee syrup: 50ml black coffee + 1 tbsp sugar

Handful of Mini marshmallows

Chocolate shavings

Method:

1) Whisk egg yolks, brown sugar, ground almond, cinnamon, coffee powder and water till thick and creamy. Mix in sifted flour. Set aside.

2) Whisk egg whites, caster sugar and cream of tartar till stiff peak. Mix 1/3 of the egg white into the egg yolk mixture. Fold in the remaining egg whites into the egg yolk mixture. Pour in the corn oil, fold till well combined and the batter is shiny.

3) Pour batter into greased and lined baking pan and bake in a preheated oven of 170C for about 40 minutes.

4) Cool the cake completely and cut into 3 slices.

5) Heat up 80g of whipped cream on stove (or microwave oven). Stir the hot cream with the dark chocolate chips till all the chocolate melts.

6) Combine the marshmallow and milk in a microwavable bowl and set it on high for 30 seconds. Remove and stir till marshmallow melts. Pour in half the chocolate ganache from step 5 and mix well. Set aside to let chocolate mixture cool.

7) Whisk 100g whipping cream till stiff and fold into the chocolate mixture at step 6.

8) To assemble the cake: Brush a slice of cake with coffee syrup and spread half the chocolate mixture over the cake. Repeat process with another slice of cake. Place the last slice of cake on top. Spread the sides with chocolate mixture and pour the reserved chocolate ganache (from step 5) over the top. Chill the cake in the fridge for an hour to set the cake slightly.

9) Decorate the cake with some marshmallow and chocolate shavings.

Braised Mushrooms with Sea Cucumber

2011-09-20T13:30:00.002+08:00

This is one of my favorite dishes. My mum will always prepare this dish on special occasions, such as the Lunar New Year period (without fail), mid-autumn festival, dongzhi festival or on our birthdays. In the past, we do not get to eat this dish on normal days, as Chinese mushrooms and sea cucumbers are expensive stuffs. Quality Chinese mushrooms from Japan are pricey, so I'd usually settle for the more affordable China mushrooms, which costs me about S$10 for 300g (I think it costs double or triple for the one from Japan?). But, nowadays, even the mushrooms from Japan does not taste the same as before. Can't be help, since even the chicken and pork taste quite different from the past, included those labelled as "kampong chicken" or "kampong pork".

I had prepared this dish in my earlier post over here. Method is the same, except that this round, I replaced the chicken bones with pork front hock, which has more collagen and gives a richer and thicker gravy. Also, this time round, I used a thicker type of sea cucumber which requires longer simmering time. To save time and money, add in the sea cucumber (after brief stir-fry with a few slices of ginger) to the mushrooms in the last hour of simmering.

As this dish always taste better the next day, prepare this dish one day in advance. For me, that means preparation starts the night before, set to simmer in a slow-cooker, next day switch to high (or auto mode) and add the sea cucumber and simmer till the sea cucumber becomes soft.

Stir-Fry Egg Whites with Milk (No. 2)

2011-09-19T08:48:00.001+08:00

When I cooked this dish in January this year, I told myself I must try it again, as I did not do a good time then. I remember the egg whites was too grainy and scrambled, as I made a mistake of stirring it too frequently at the beginning (see picture here).

I'm quite happy with this time - the whites are not too scrambled, and it has a smooth and soft texture. Here's the improved recipe:

Ingredients:

(A) Mix together:

1 cup egg whites

1/2 cup milk

1/2 tbsp cooking wine

1/2 tsp seasoning powder

3/4 tbsp corn flour

Pinch of salt and dash of pepper

(B):

Small handful of corn kernels

1 slice of ham, chopped
Small handful of wolfberries, rinsed and soaked in warm water
1 stalk of spring onion, chopped

(C):
Sweet beans, blanched in hot water with a little oil and salt (for garnish)

Method:

1) Heat up the wok with a tablespoon oil, stir fry the corn kernels and ham slightly. Set aside.

2) Heat up the wok with another tablespoon of oil over low heat. Pour in the egg white mixture. Do not stir it immediately. When the bottom starts to set softly, push it gently with a wok spatula, so that the set piece floats up.

3) Keep checking and gently pushing the mixture. About 3/4 way into cooking, add in the corn kernels, ham (from step 1), wolfberries and chopped spring onion (reserved some for garnish). Push the mixture gently to combine. When the egg mixtures have set softly but still slightly wobbly, turn off the heat and serve onto dish.

4) Garnish with greens and chopped spring onion.

Weekend meal: Trying new recipes ...

2011-09-15T14:26:00.002+08:00

These are not exactly new recipes, as I have cooked them in one way or others. For instance, the stuffed tofu puffs with minced meat and Chinese chives. I have prepared similar dishes with mashed tofu and minced chicken as the filling, or sometimes using minced pork and mushrooms as the filling, and braised the puffs in hot bean paste sauce. But, this is my first attempt to fill these tofu puffs with minced meat/Chinese chives; after looking at Wendy's mouth-watering Guangxi Stuffed Tofu.

Stuffed Tofu Puffs with Minced Meat and Chinese Chives (韭菜)

I have used minced meat, fish paste (about 1/3 of minced meat portion), 2 to 3 Chinese mushrooms (chopped) and Chinese chives (chopped) as the filling. Chinese chives (韭菜) has a very strong smell (pungent?). To reduce the strong smell, I pre-marinated the chopped chives with a tsp of sugar and about 1/2 tsp salt and leave it for 30 minutes. Then, squeeze out the excess liquid from the chives before mixing them to the minced meat mixture (seasoned with a little oyster sauce, sesame oil, pepper, corn starch etc). Chill the minced meat filling in the fridge for at least 2 hours before filling into the tofu puffs (I like the Unicurd brand cos their puffs do not have the stale oil smell and is very soft after cooking).

I learnt a very useful tip from Wendy when steaming these tofu puffs: Arrange the puffs on plate and fill the plate with boiling water halfway up the puffs. Steaming with water in the plate makes these puffs juicy and keeps the filling moist. I did a little twist to it. I filled the plate with some lightly-seasoned stock instead. After steaming over high heat for about 10 minutes, transfer the tofu puffs over to a serving dish, drain the liquid into a pot, heat it up and thicken with cornstarch. Pour the gravy over the tofu puffs for a shiny touch.

Stir-fry Baby Kailan with Chinese Sausage

Stir-fry kailan is another common home-cooked dish. This time, I added some thinly-sliced Chinese sausage. The trick to a nice plate of stir-fry kailan is to squeeze some ginger-wine juice (grated ginger mixed with cooking wine) while stir-frying the kailan in the wok over high heat. This adds a nice aroma to the dish. Since I'm using Chinese sausage in this dish, lightly heat up the sausage in the wok first with a little oil to release the excess fats in the sausage. The fats will also add flavour to the vegetables.

Grilled Sambal Stingray

Everyone loves this dish and the sambal gravy! I prepared these weekend menu about 3 weeks ago, so I cannot really remember the exact details. It was a huge piece of stingray (probably around 600g to 700g, or more). For the sambal sauce: I mixed sambal paste (store bought or home made) with some assam juice, sugar, soy sauce and some stock (taste it to determine if you need to add more sugar and soy sauce etc). Spread the sauce evenly over the stingray. Prepare a piece of aluminium foil. Place some sliced onion on the foil, sit the stingray on the onion and pour any remaining sauce on top. Wrap the foil lightly over the stingray and bake in preheated oven at 200C for about 15 to 20 minutes (how long you need to cook depends on the thickness of the fish. After 15 minutes, poke the tip of a knife into the fish to determine if it's cooked). Then set the oven to top heat only and grill the fish for a few minutes uncovered, till the top caramelised. Squeeze lime juice over and serve immediately with cucumber slices.

Beside these 3 dishes, we had the Arrowroot pork rib soup for dinner. And I just noticed that this menu makes my 20th 3-plus 1 menu ideas. You will see more menu ideas over here.

Chilled Tofu with Pork Floss and Century Egg

2011-09-13T16:40:00.001+08:00

This is an super quick and easy dish to prepare. No cooking at all.

Ingredients:
1 box of silken tofu (chilled)
1/2 century egg (cut into small pieces)
1 handful of pork floss
Some toasted sesame seeds
Some chopped spring onion

Sauce:
1 tsp Korean hot paste
2 to 3 tbsp Japanese sesame sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp mirin
1 clove garlic, minced

Method:
1) Prepare the sauce and keep chill in fridge.
2) Place the tofu on the plate and top with century egg. Pour the prepared sauce over the tofu, add the pork floss and garnish with toasted sesame seeds and chopped spring onion. Serve chill.

Blueberry Cheesecake

2011-09-12T19:02:00.015+08:00

Made this blueberry cheesecake for my friend's birthday. She likes cheesecake, so I naturally thought of making one for her birthday. Her favorite is Tiramisu cake, but I do not want to risk my birthday cake melting under the hot sun. A baked cheesecake is a safer choice.

This is a light cheesecake and the two of us finished almost a quarter of the cake after our ramen lunch! Preparation is similar to the Nutella Cheesecake, except that this is topped with homemade blueberry filling with whipped cream and the base is a thin layer of sponge cake. Absolutely light and delicious!

Pizza Toast & Angry Bird Bento Workshop

2011-09-09T08:26:00.002+08:00

Pizza Toast prepared by my little gal

It was a fun-filled morning. Kids were busy cutting and stamping away flower and butterfly designs on small pieces of carrots, ham and cheese. And very carefully, they arranged their art pieces onto their wholemeal toast and bento set. A BIG THANK YOU to Ellena of Cuisine Paradise, who has kindly conducted this pizza toast cum bento-making kids workshop at her place. Her initial plan is to organise this workshop for 6 pairs of parents and kids, so that all participants will have a fair chance of making the toast/bento. But due to overwhelming response, she opens up another session, in order to accommodate 6 more pairs of parents/kids for this 3-hour workshop. Phew... salute to her!

Pizza Toast prepared by our junior chefs from 4 to 7 years old

My little girl was all so excited in making her very first bento set! And I am equally thrilled to meet Ellena in person. I have been a silent reader of her blog for several years, before getting to know her through Facebook and blogging recently.

Angry bird bento

While I love cooking, I am not into preparing bento meals for my girl. I find them time-consuming and wonder if the food will still taste good after all the time spent in decorating the bento. And since my girl is non-picky over her food, I really have little incentive to prepare bento. But after this workshop with Ellena, I think I should be able to prepare some simple bento in a few easy steps. No kids will resist a cute-looking bento meal! My girl was so happy to show her friends her angry bird bento and proudly eats up her own creation! You can refer here for details to prepare the angry bird bento.

What's in a Cupcake: dark brown and red scrapbook papers, pink foam, crystal, glue dots (for 3D effect)

To thank Ellena for her time and efforts in conducting this workshop, I handmade a little gift for her - a customised kitchen sign and a thank you card. I wanted to give Ellena a surprise, so instead of packing the gift in a gift box, I put the kitchen sign and card in a plain cake box.

Kitchen sign on chipboard, decorated with scrapbook papers, pasta and star anise

Flip over, it reads:

Once again, thanks to Ellena for conducting this workshop. I'm sure the kids had enjoyed themselves (mommies too!).

Pumpkin & Beech Mushrooms in Miso Sauce

2011-09-05T10:29:00.001+08:00

This is a simple yet delightful dish - pumpkin and beech mushrooms cooked in miso sauce. The natural sweetness of the pumpkin blends in nicely with the miso, giving a nice rich gravy.

To prepare, stir-fry the beech mushrooms lightly with some garlic, add in the pumpkin, follow by miso paste. Add sufficient water to cover content, add a little mirin, cover and let it simmer for a few minutes, till pumpkin turns soft and the gravy thicken. How long you cook this dish depends on how soft you like your pumpkin to be.

While writing this post, I realised that I used pumpkin quite frequently in my dishes:

From top to bottom (L to R):

Pumpkin, Carrot, & Orange Soup, Saba Fish & Pumpkin in Miso Sauce, Mini Pumpkin Cheese Buns

Leek & Pumpkin Soup, Pumpkin & Cranberry Rice, Steamed Pumpkin Cake

Perhaps a pumpkin quiche, pie, muffin, cheesecake or scone for my next pumpkin dish ....

Princess Castle Album for a Wonderful Teacher

2011-09-03T09:08:00.001+08:00

For the past week, other than baking a strawberry mango cake for Teachers' Day and preparing my usual meals, I have not done much baking/cooking. I was spending hours on making this princess castle album. This is a present for little girl's teacher. She is really a wonderful teacher, a motivator, lots of interesting ideas and takes good care of the children. My girl has spent two years plus with her and this year she will be graduating from her preschool. We were also informed of the good news that her teacher will be promoted as the principal next year. So, this will mark her final year as a Class Teacher.

I wanted to make something memorable, a keepsake for her teacher.

The castle template is made of chipboard and is available at Spotlight (Plaza Singapura, Level 5). It comes in plain wood colour and you can decorate the castle with scrapbooking papers and embellishments. The castle has only 4 chipboards, so I added a few more sections to accommodate more photos and contents.

I filled the album with class photo, the children's photos, poem for her, our note of thanks and of course .... LOTS OF LOVE.

Wishing her the best in her new role and responsibilities. May she continue to spread her love and passion to all the little ones under her charge.

A wonderful news on 22 Sep:
The school principal told us a wonderful news - my girl's teacher won this year's Outstanding Childcare Teacher Award! This is an award at the national level, we are so proud of her! I baked a Chocolate Marshmallow Cake to congrats her.

Strawberry & Mango Cake (Happy Teachers' Day)

2011-09-01T22:03:00.000+08:00

Today schools celebrate Teachers' Day and I bake this strawberry & mango cake for my girl's teachers. It is a sponge cake, layered with mango/strawberries slices and whipped cream.

Recipe for sponge cake and whipped cream are the same as here, except that I multiplied the ingredients by 1.5 times for a 10" cake (adjust baking time about 30 to 35 minutes at preheated oven of 175C) and replaced the rum with vanilla essence. Once the sponge has cool completely, wrap and chill in fridge for a few hours or overnight, before slicing them into 3 thin slices.

My little girl helps to make these bookmarks for her teachers.

Wishing all teachers a Happy Teachers' Day!

Arrowroot: A soup and A Dish

2011-08-30T09:14:00.000+08:00

A Cantonese home-cooked meal is not complete without a soup. At the start of each meal, my family habit is to take a few sips of the soup first. At the end of each meal, we'd help ourselves to more soup! Depending on the types of soup, cooking time can be as quick as 10 to 15 minutes (we call it 滚汤) or the slow-heat, long simmering soup (煲汤 or 老火汤), which will take about at least an hour plus to three hours to prepare.

Arrowroot pork ribs soup (粉葛猪骨汤) is a traditional Cantonese soup. It is flavourful and naturally-thicken with the arrowroot and beans used to prepare the soup. But compared to other popular soups, such as ABC, lotus roots, watercress, old-melon etc, arrowroot soup is not commonly available in hawker centres or food courts. Occasionally, Chinese restaurants serve this soup in their menu. When selecting arrowroot for soups, get those big and round type - it is sweeter and more importantly, it has lesser tough fibre. Later in this post, I will utilise the leftover arrowroot for making another dish.

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized arrow root

1 carrot (optional - for colour and added sweetness), cut into chunks

A small handful of pearl beans (珍珠豆）

A small handful of black eyed beans (眉豆）

5 to 6 red dates

5 to 6 pieces of pork ribs

Method:

1) Wash and scrub clean the arrowroot. Peel the skin and cut into chunks.

2) Blanch the pork ribs in hot water to remove blood and impurities. Discard water.

3) Bring a pot of water to boil (about 2 litres). Put in all the ingredients and bring the soup to boil for a few minutes. Turn to low heat and simmer for about two hours. Add salt to taste.

Usually, we just drink the soup and discard the arrowroot, as it is rather tough and fibrous. But, occasionally, if I manage to get a good piece of arrowroot that is sweet and quite "粉" (shall translate it as .... lesser tough fibre), these leftover arrowroot can be transformed into another delightful dish.

Braised pork trotters arrowroot with fermented red bean curd sauce

This dish reflects the "wisdom" and "thriftiness" of our old grandmothers. They are so ingenious to turn an otherwise "not-so-tasty" fibrous root (but edible food) into another rich and flavourful dish!

My mum and mother-in-law told me back in the olden days, leftover arrowroot (or lotus roots) are never thrown away. By braising these cooked arrowroot with fermented red bean curd sauce (南乳) and some pork belly (or pork ribs), you have another yummy dish!

Ingredients:

Leftover arrowroot, cut into smaller bite-sized pieces

1 carrot, cut into bite-sized pieces

1/2 pork trotter, front hock (猪手), chopped into bite-sized pieces

5 to 6 slices ginger

3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped

3 to 4 shallots, smashed

1 piece tangerine peel

1 to 2 pieces fermented red bean curds (南乳）

1 to 2 tsp soy bean paste (豆酱）

A little cooking wine

2 tsp sugar or some rock sugar

Spring onion (garnish)

Method:

1) Boil the pork trotters in hot water for a few minutes to remove blood and impurities. Discard water and set aside the pork trotters.

2) Heat the wok on high heat. Add a little oil, stir-fry the ginger slices and shallots briefly. Add the pork trotters and stir fry for a minute or more. Push the pork trotters to one side and add in the chopped garlic, fermented red bean curds and soy bean paste. Stir the sauces to prevent burning (if the wok is too hot, lower to medium heat where necessary). When you smell the aroma from the sauces, stir-fry to combine with the pork trotters. Drizzle a little cooking wine around the wok and stir-fry again.

3) Add water to completely cover the pork trotters, plus some more (water will be reduced & thickened after braising and with the addition of arrowroot). Add the carrot and tangerine peel.

4) Bring content to boil, then turn to medium-low heat and braise for about an hour. After 15 minutes into braising, add the arrowroot and sugar, cover and continue cooking. In between, check to see if the gravy has reduced to prevent burning. Add some water, if necessary.

5) Garnish with chopped spring onion and serve hot.

I will be sharing this post with Edith of Precious Moments at Heritage Food Trail.

Chocolate Brownie Tart

2011-08-28T21:45:00.002+08:00

I "cheated" cos this is not exactly a tart (i.e. one with a pastry base). This is actually a chocolate brownie baked in a tart pan. So what you see here is a chocolate brownie that has gone through a "slimming" session.

I halved the recipe and bake at preheated oven of 175C for about 20 - 25 minutes.

Almond Pear Tart

2011-08-26T11:34:00.000+08:00

Made these pear tarts with a tiny piece of leftover pastry dough.

I just mould the dough into the bottom of these rings. Partially-bake the dough at preheated oven of 175C for about 15 minutes, then let it cool slightly. Fill the base with some almond cream and place one poached pear into the ring, press it down gently, so that part of the almond cream comes up to surround the pear. Cover the top of pear with foil and bake further at 175C for about 35 to 40 minutes.

The detailed recipe is here, but I reduced the portion. For almond cream, I used only 1/3 of the recipe.

These pear tarts are tasty on their own, but I don't mind having them with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #10: Easy as Pie (August 2011), hosted by Janine of "Not the Kitchen Sink!".

Nutella Truffles

2011-08-25T15:45:00.001+08:00

Thanks to {L} of Obsessedly Involved with Food, I was the lucky one to win a coffee-time desserts book from her recent Aspiring Bakers #9 event. Thanks {L}, I love this book for all the little treats ideas.

I browsed through the recipes and was attracted to this quick and easy Nutella Truffles. I had all the required ingredients stated in the recipe. The best thing is it helps to clear my dairy whipping cream, after I first opened the carton for making my Strawberry Tart.

Ingredients:
150ml single cream
250g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
125g butter, cut into cubes
200g Nutella
200g unsweetened cocoa powder

[Note: I used 80% of above ingredients and yields about 50 small pieces]

Method:

1) Heat the cream until it starts to simmer. Away from heat, add the chocolate and the butter. Mix well until you have a smooth ganache. Add Nutella in 2 to 3 stages. Mix well.

2) Put the ganache in fridge for at least 2 hours until it harden (I pour into a plate and it took me an hour or less for it to harden).

3) Put the cocoa powder on a plate (I made some with toasted chopped almonds).

4) With a teaspoon, make little balls of ganache and roll carefully in the cocoa powder (I used a melon ball scoop).

5) Arrange on a plate and return to the fridge for 30 minutes before serving.

[Recipe source: Les Petits Plats Francais: Coffee-Time Treats by Jose Marechal]

Marrow Green with Vermicelli (大姨妈嫁女）

2011-08-24T12:25:00.003+08:00

Here is one dish that all Cantonese families will be familiar with - 大姨妈嫁女 (briefly translated as: maternal eldest aunt's daughter is getting married). "Huh... you mean yee ma actually cooked this dish when her daughter got married???".... I asked my mum when she first told me the name of this dish. The truth is everyone calls it this way for many generations. So now, I also tell my little gal this is "大姨妈嫁女" (hee.... she looks at me with a "huh" expression ...)

One possible explanation (I read from the internet) is this dish is such a common household dish that everyone is familiar with and knows how to prepare it with ease. The ease of preparing this dish is associated with the way the eldest aunt marries off her daughter. As the aunt has many daughters, she became very familiar with the details and rituals in marriage. So, when you cook this dish, it is as easy & familiar as the aunt who marries off her daughter. If you know of any other versions of how the name of this dish came about, please do share it with us over here cos I would really love to know it.

Indeed, this simple household dish is really easy to prepare, but you need some practice to make it taste good. Basic ingredients: dried prawns, marrow green and vermicelli (I added Chinese mushrooms, carrots and sweet bean sticks). Basic steps: Heat oil, add garlic, chopped dried prawns. Add marrow green & stir-fry, add water, simmer. Lastly, add in vermicelli, cook till soft and gravy thickens. The sweetness of the dried prawns and the marrow green is fully soaked up by the vermicelli and goes very well with rice.

Ingredients:

1/2 marrow green (节瓜), cut into thin strips (amount of marrow green used is about 2 to 3 times of carrot)

1 carrot, cut into thin strips

2 Chinese mushrooms, soaked & cut into thin strips

2 pieces sweet bean sticks （甜竹), soaked & cut into thin strips

1 small bunch of vermicelli （粉丝), soaked, drain off water

Small handful dried prawns (about 2 - 3 tbsp), soaked for few minutes, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 small piece of ginger, smashed

A little oyster sauce (to taste)

Method:

1) Heat a little oil in wok to moderately hot. Add in ginger, garlic and dried prawns. When you can smell the aroma from the garlic/dried prawns, add in the marrow green and carrot (add a pinch of salt). Stir fry to combine the ingredients in the wok. Cover for about a minute. Add sufficient water (cover about 7 parts of contents in wok), cover and let it simmer at low heat for about 15 minutes. In between, give it a few stir and add oyster sauce to taste.

2) Add in the sweet bean sticks and vermicelli. Let it simmer again till vermicelli turns soft and absorbs most of the gravy. There is no need to thicken the gravy with cornstarch. The gravy should be just sufficient, not too little (it will taste dry) or too much (it will not be as flavourful).

I will be sharing this dish with Edith of Precious Moments at Heritage Food Trail.

Flower Pot Cakes {Tea-Treat for Teachers}

2011-08-23T11:35:00.002+08:00

What is a flower pot cake? It is a cake baked in a flower pot or similar containers, thereafter covered with crushed cookies (such as Oreo) to resemble the soil. This was my Teachers' Day project with my little girl for last year's Teachers' Day Celebration. Instead of baking the cakes in flower pots, I just baked them in muffin cases and drop each cake into a IKEA mug, i.e. my mini flower pot. My little girl had much fun stirring the cake batter, washing/drying the mugs and crushing the OREO cookies.

My craft paper flowers

To make it special, I made some paper flowers using craft papers and insert each flower into the mug. Attach a tea-bag with a little note "Teachers' Day Tea-Treat". So, the gift idea is: The teacher gets to enjoy the cake, along with a cup of tea (brew using the mug) and keep the paper flower as a gift.

Flower pot cakes for all the Teachers & Staff

We also made a Teachers' Day Card for her class teacher. On one side is a "crossword puzzle" made up of all the names of the students in the class (plus the teacher's name). I got this idea after my girl repeatedly asked me to spell the names of her friends (she enjoys writing little notes and drawing princesses pictures for her friends). I typed, printed and cut out the letters; while my girl carefully arranged her friends' names and stick them onto the card (based on the draft that I prepared for her). The other side is her class photo (taken during racial harmony day).

DIY Teachers' Day Card

Next week will be Teachers' Day again... how about making a card or DIY a gift to thank your teacher(s)?