Bake N Cook

Chocolate Streusel Cake

2011-05-30T14:48:00.007+08:00

I made Chocolate Coffee cake on Dailydelicious blog site. Pook at Dailydelicous calls this Chocolate Coffee Cake because she thinks that this goes well with coffee. But I think I prefer to call it Chocolate Streusel Cake.

Streusel is a German word which means - something scattered or sprinkled, generally referring to a crumb topping of butter, flour, and white sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, cakes. (abstract from Wikipedia)

I thought this cake was normal. Nothing very impressive about the streusel topping. D doesn't think very well of the cake either and he doesn't like the cinnamon topping.

Despite all this, I think Pook's photos are very well taken. Hope I could take photos like that one of these days too.

Longan Tart

2011-05-30T13:35:00.005+08:00

I have bought loose bottom tart tray few months back. Since then, I have been thinking of what to make with it. Looking at the Crostata recipe at Dailydelicious website makes my heart flutter. As berries are not very popular in my family, I have decide to use a more tropical fruit - canned longans.

I have used the pastry cream and sweet crust pastry from JoyofBaking for my masterpiece above.

Marshallow Chocolate Cupcakes

2011-05-30T12:23:00.003+08:00

When I saw the recipe that uses Nuttella to dress a cupcake from Flavours magazine Mar-Apr 2011 edition, I told myself that I had to make it. I was quite disappointed that I could not find the mini coloured marshmallow from NTUC and had to resort to cutting large white marshmallow into small bits. The recipe in Flavours actually drizzled melted chocolate on top of the marshmallow but I had problem melting the chocolate buttons I had at home, so in the end, I gave up and just left the marshmallow white.

The cupcakes with mini M&M were more popular as compared to the ones with marshmallows. These were yummy!!

Happy Birthday Dad! Chiffon Cheesecake

2011-05-30T11:54:00.008+08:00

Happy Birthday Dad! Wishing you good health always! (sorry for the wrinkles on the cake. :P)

Thanks dad for providing for us and bringing us up. He may not be the type of dad that chats with us and plays with us but he shows his love and concern in other ways. During our younger days, we tend not to know how to appreciate his care and concern and gets frustrated when he impose or nags at us too much. As now I am a parent myself, I learn to appreciate what dad has done for us in the past.

Dad came over last weekend for dinner at my place. Besides making the birthday cake and a Longan Tart. With the help of my MIL we cooked : Curry Chicken, Stir Fry Garlic chives, Cream prawn dip, Sotong Yew Cha Kuay and Steam Fish.

Chiffon Cheesecake Recipe
Egg White Batter:
6 egg white
1/4 tsp tartar powder
140g castor sugar (I reduced to 120g )

Egg Yolk Batter:
6 egg yolk
50g butter
250g cream cheese
100ml milk
60g cake flour
20g corn flour

Method:
Preheat oven 160degrees.

Place cream cheese, butter, milk in a double boiler, stir till all dissolved and cream. Sieve the mixture to ensure batter is lump free. Add in egg yolk when mixture is cooled. Sieve in corn flour and cake flour. Mix well.

Beat egg white and cream of tartar till foamy. Slowly add in castor sugar. Whisk till soft peaks.

Mix egg yolk mixture into egg white mixture. Stir till combine. Pour into an 8" baking tin. Bake in water bath for 1hr 10mins or till cooked.

Once baked, keep in oven to cool slowly. Do not take out the cake immediately as it will cause the cake to collaps.

Happy Birthday YL! No Baked Oreo Cheesecake

2011-05-30T10:20:00.004+08:00

Happy Birthday YL!!

It has been another year. It was quite unfortunate that YL had gotten some allergic reaction from some food items recently. Till now she is still not sure what is causing outbreak of rashes. Anti-allegric medication doesn't seem to help but she has concluded that it could be things such as eggs and seafood that is causing her outbreak. As she likes cheesecakes, I have decided to make a No-Bake Oreo Cheesecake for her birthday.

This cheesecake is free of egg and gluten and best of all, it is no bake! I am sorry for the slip short photos. However, due to the lack of time and a demanding toddler, I can only settle for normal snaps of pictures at the moment.

YL commented that her cake looked like a clock with the mini oreos round the edge which was the same thoughts that I had when I placed the oreos round the cake. :P. I wanted to make the whipped cream stars before topping up with the mini oreos, but I ran out of whipping cream, thus have to settle with the mini oreos laying flat on the cake. Anyway, even though the cake don't look as pretty as it tastes, but it was nice and YL commented that it tastes better than the baked ones as this no bake version is lighter in cheese taste.

No Bake Oreo Cheesecake (8" round tin)
Crust
24 pcs of large Oreo Cookies (with filling removed)
100g butter (melted)

Filling
300g cream cheeese
150g sugar
9g gelatin powder (3 gelaltin sheets)
20 ml water
600 ml dairy cream
5 pcs large Oreo Cookies (with filling removed)

Deco
Whipping cream; Mini Oreos

Method:
For Crust: Crush cookies and mix with melted butter. Put crumbs into a spring form baking tin. Press evenly and chill till required.

For Filling: Bloom gelatin sheets in 20ml of water. Heat mixture till gelatin dissolve, put aside. Double boil cream cheese and sugar till sugar dissolve and cheese is soft. Add gelatin liquid into cream cheese and mix well. Whip up dairy cream till soft peaks. **(be careful to watch your cream carefully and not have it overbeaten and turn to curds of butter) Mix cheese mixture into the whipped cream. Pour 1/2 into the baking tin, place cookies over in a circle, pour the remaining cheese mixture on top of the baking tin.

Chill overnight.

For Deco: Decorate with whipping cream and mini oreos.

Low Iodine Recipes - Part 3

2011-04-12T15:34:00.006+08:00

As we busy ourselves to take care of work, family, and children, we tend to forget to take care of ourselves. Many times we procrastinate, putting off things we want to do till a later date without realising that who knows, that 'later date' will never come. And we never get to do want we want to do in mind.

With this recent illness scare, I learn to appreciate life more and take things a little easier. I have also learnt that whatever we want to do, it is best not to hold it off too long. Besides having to take care of so many other things, we have to learn to take care of ourselves and also do things that makes us happy.

Life is short, live it to the fullest and with no regrets.

Boneless Pork Chop with Apple Chutney
4 slices of boneless pork chop
1 tsp non-iodized salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Method:
Heat 2 tbsp of oil.
Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the pork chop.
Salute till pork chop till golden brown. (2mins on each side)
Place pork chop in the oven and roast for 5mins at 200 degrees C or till cooked.

Serve with Apple Chutney Sauce

Low Iodine Recipes - Part 2

2011-04-12T15:22:00.003+08:00

During these 2 weeks, I realised that simple cooked vegetables and meats can taste as good. Salt naturally brings out the flavours of food. In the past, I would have added all sorts of seasoning such as oyster sauce, soya sauce, chicken stock, chicken granules while cooking a plate of vegetables. Here is a simple stir fry vegetable dish which goes well with 小白菜. Again, no photos.

Stir Fry Greens
300g 小白菜 / or any green leafy vegetables
1 tsp garlic
dash of salt and sugar

Method:
Heat up 1 tbsp of oil in frying pan.
Stir fry garlic till fragrant.
Add in vegetables and stir fry quickly.
Sprinkle a dash of salt and sugar
Serve. (Once cooked dish out immediately)

Rostti (Potato Pancakes)
1kg of potato (choose those from Indonesia or any type that is not too starchy)
Salt
Some flour

Method:
Shred the potatos into thin sticks.
Sprinkle with salt and some flour.
Heat up flat frying pan. Put some oil.
Spread out shredded potatoes sticks to form a pancake
Fry till edges are crispy. Serve.

Note: This can be served with sour cream and chopped spring onion if it is allowed in your diet.

Low Iodine Recipes - Part 1

2011-04-12T14:49:00.008+08:00

Having your whole thyroid removed and needing to go through a session of Radioactive Iodine therapy, one needs to be on a low iodine diet for 2 week before the therapy. This means a big no no for any form of seafood and also any food items which are high in iodine.

Generally safe food to take would be fruits, vegetables, fresh chicken/pork. I have came up with or modified some recipes that can be used during this period. Apologies that there are no photos for these recipes.

Pork with Chopped Lotus Roots
600g minced pork
300g piece of lotus roots (chopped)
1 tsp of non-iodized salt
1 tbsp of sugar
some pepper
1 egg white
1 tbsp cornstarch
3 tbsp water
dash of sesame oil

Method:
Put the above in the bowl and mix well.

Note : This meat mixture is versatile and can be pan fried into patties, steamed into balls or deep fried.

SAUCES for pan fried / deep fried meat balls/patties
Orange/Lemon/Lime Sauce
Juice from 1 orange/lemon or 3-4 limes
Add 2-3 tbsp water to dilute the juice if you find it too tart.
2 tbsp sugar (depending on how sweet you want to sauce to be
1/2 tsp corn starch mix with 1tbsp water

Method:
Mix juice, water and sugar together and bring to a simmer.
Add cornstarch mixture to thicken it slightly into a sauce.
Serve with meat patties/balls

Apple Chutney
1 large onion (cut into 1/2" cubes)
4 green apples (cut into 1/2" cubes)
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 tsp ginger powder
Non Iodised salt and pepper

Method:
1. In large saucepan, heat 2 tbsp oil
2. Add onion, salute till translucent and beginning to brown. (About 6 min). Add apples, salute 4 mins more.
3. Add vinegar, raisins, and ginger powder. Stir well to combine. Cover
4. Simmer till apples are tender but can still hold their shape. (About 3 min).
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve with meat patties or pork chop (Recipe)

Book for Sale - How to become a Domestic Goddess

2011-04-01T08:16:00.003+08:00

I have a brand new baking book by Nigella Lawson - How to become a Domestic Goddess for sale at $27.50 (usual price ~ $32 at local bookstores) inclusive of normal postage in Singapore only.

Interested please email me at ghlam73@gmail.com

Melt in the Mouth Almond Cookies

2011-03-07T15:56:00.004+08:00

Pardon me for the poor quality photo taken with the Iphone. It's been a long while since I have uploaded anything to my blog site. I have been doing less baking since the birth of my younger son. There is practically not much time to spare for photo taking when I bake or cook.

I made use of the recipe from one of my favourite blog sites - My Kitchen . It was successful and I am glad that I have finally found the recipe that I have been looking around for. Made some for my colleagues and they like the cookies very much.

I also made Tiramisu over the weekends.. (No photos again as it was a rush project with a baby complaining at the back.)

Hopefully I will have more time soon to do more baking and uploading.

Sunquik Mango Chiffon Cake

2010-08-17T17:18:00.004+08:00

Apologise for the not so nice picture. This was taken from my Iphone.

Made this cake using the Sunquik Mango Concentrate. The mango concentrate smells and tasted very nice on its own, but the flavour of the mango was not that strong after making it into a cake. Sunquik Orange Chiffon is better.

Anyway, here is the recipe. You can replace Mango concentrate with Orange concentrate. You may try with the other range of Sunquik concentrate if you like. Let me know the results!

Mango Sunquik Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

Merigue

7 eggs white

120g castor sugar

1/4tsp cream of tartar

Yolk Batter

7 egg yolks

150g cake flour

1/2tsp baking powder

150ml of mango concentrate

4tbsp oil (corn oil/sunflower oil)

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 170 degree celcius, preheat 8" chiffon tin.

2. Mix all ingredients in the yolk batter.

3. Whisk egg white till slightly foamy. Add caster sugar slowly. Whisk still form soft peaks.

4. Mix yolk batter into merigue.

5. Pour into chiffon tin and bake for 1hr or till golden brown.

6. Invert immediately to cool after removing from oven.

Thoughts ... Baby

2010-08-17T16:36:00.009+08:00

Its been months since I uploaded anything. Have been busy with taking care of the baby, supervising my elder one on his school work that I hardly have much time for myself these days. Felt a bit low initially with the lost freedom and frustrated with Baby contantly wanting to be carried.

Thankfully these not so happy days have passed and with Baby half a year old now, situation has improved. At least I am now back to work and baby smiles more than he cries now. He is now able to recognise people around him and smiles and laughs when we talk or play with him.

I am also able to find some time to do some bakes and cook. But then too lazy to take pictures these days as most of the what I make are similar to what I have done previously.

Books and Keeping Sane

2010-04-07T06:43:00.002+08:00

I must have been insane to post this Title without any content. Haha... Took me months to realise that this posting was blank.

Anyway, I have been buying many books to keep sane and even found a couple of chinese books from Taiwan interesting. Unfortunately, I had problem finding out some of the ingredients that they were using. Anyhow, the 2 books below from Xiao Xiao Mi Tong is simple to cook. I have tried the salted egg meat ball recipe and I like it.

Resolutions for Year 2010

2010-01-26T15:42:00.004+08:00

Is almost Chinese New Year. This year, I won't be baking any cookies due to a big tummy on hand.

Last year hasn't been a very smooth year especially at work. This year, I hope it would be better. Well, hopefully everything will be better be it health, wealth, career, family, etc.

Resolutions for 2010

Buy more cookbooks. The next book on the list is the new release from Rose Levy - Rose Heavenly Cakes.
Buy a bigger book shelf to house my collection. (Have to think of where to put the shelf)
Avoid offending 小人.
Good health to all, especially my family members and friends.

Happy New Year 2010

2010-01-25T14:06:00.003+08:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010

This should have been uploaded after Christmas but due to my laziness, it was delayed till now. I bought this 3 Tier Plate from Ikea during the weekend when they were selling it for $19 instead of $29.

Instead of putting home made pastries as I did not back any pastries for Christmas, I have used it to put savoury stuff like condiments such as crepe skin, cucumber for Peking duck, fried spring roll, fried sotong yew cha kuey and cocktail sausages.

A very useful tray as you could stack food item upwards and save some space at the dining table. Very pleased with myself to have gotten this at $19.

Christmas Party

2009-12-14T11:43:00.004+08:00

After the Christmas party we had in Yr 2007, we have decided to hold another Christmas Party this year at my place. This year's menu would be very simple to cook as it it only caters for like less than 20 people as some family members are away this Christmas season on a holiday. I am definitely looking forward to the party!

Raisin Pound Cake

2009-12-14T11:27:00.003+08:00

This raisin cake is made from the same recipe as the fruit pound cake. However if you notice, this looks a bit dense. I suspect is because I used some left over brown sugar instead of castor sugar and my brown sugar was a bit damp. This could have contributed to the cake failing to rise. But I prefer this cake taste to the fruit cake as it has a brown sugar fragrance.

Fruit Pound Cake

2009-12-14T11:12:00.004+08:00

I have used this pound cake recipe to make various versions with different fruits, nuts, etc. This recipe gives a light and fluffy butter cake texture and this is not the traditional type of fruit cake which you usually get on Christmas.

Ingredients

226g unsalted butter

100g shortening

300g castor sugar

350g flour

1tsp baking powder

5 eggs

1tbsp vanilla essence

1 cup milk

2 cups dried mix fruits/chopped walnuts/raisins/blueberry/etc

Method

Preheat oven at 180C.
1. Cream butter, shortening, sugar till light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs 1 at a time and cream well after each addition

3. Add vanilla essence.

4. Put 1 tbsp flour into mix fruits and mix well.

5. Sift flour with baking powder.

6. Use a spaluta and mix in flour and milk in 3 batches, starting with flour then milk.

7. Lastly add in mix fruits, pour into baking tin, bake for 1hr or till cooked.

Banana Cake

2009-12-07T17:47:00.001+08:00

I made this banana cake from More Kitchen Secrets from Betty Saw. This cake uses a generous amount of bananas and makes use of the rub-in method instead of creaming method. Initially I was a bit suspicious if the cake would be soft but it turned out moist and soft as Betty has claimed.

Steamed Chocolate Cake

2009-12-07T17:46:00.003+08:00

Made this Brownie Steamed Cake from a recipe I found from Reas Küche . This recipe proved to be a success. The cake was soft and nice. I put chocolate rice at the centre but it didn't taste like what I expected it to be. In future, I will steam it without the chocolate rice at the center and then top it up with chocolate ganache after it is cooked. I believe it will taste better that way.

Steamed Sponge Cake

2009-12-07T17:45:00.002+08:00

This Steamed Sponge Cake was made from a ready mixed flour mixture that I bought from Seng Siong Supermarket. All you need to do is to put in milk and egg and beat it till mixed. It was suppose to open up like a flower, but then because I didn't oil the knife to make an 'X' for every cake, thus no flower appeared.

I thought the cake was rather dense as well. Maybe I should have added more milk to have a fluffier and lighter sponge. On the whole it tasted good. Nice eggy fragrance.

Nestum Cookies

2009-12-07T17:19:00.002+08:00

Made this from a recipe that I found in the local food magazine - Food and Travel magazine. This cookie is simple to make and fabulous with the fragance of nestum with every bite of these cookies.

Chocolate Chip Muffin

2009-12-07T16:38:00.002+08:00

These muffins were made using the rubbing in method. This means no need for a mixer to bake these muffins. Simple to make and very tasty. A colleague of mine recommended self raising flour from Prima. I must admit that she is right. Using Prima Self Raising flour definitely makes softer cakes.

No Baked Brownie Cheesecake

2009-11-03T13:26:00.007+08:00

After eating something from Canele, I thought chocolate base cake with cheesecake goes really well. I baked this last weekend after deciding which chocolate base and cheesecake formula to use. After some thoughts I decided to use a no bake cheesecake formula.

This brownie had an additional step of whipping the eggs and sugar till fluffy instead of just mixing it into the chocolate mixture. The brownie turned out to be light and spongy but it could have been baked a bit too dry. Overall, the cake was delicious though the base could be a bit thinner and the brownie a bit more fudgier.

Recipe for brownie

250g dark chocolate

250g butter

200g brown sugar (this has been reduced from 2cups to 1cup)

6 large eggs

1tbsp vanilla essence

1 cup of chopped walnuts (optional)

200g flour

Method:

1. Melt dark chocolate with butter. Leave aside to cool

2. Whip eggs with sugar till thick and fluffy, add in vanilla essence.

3. Add melted chocolate mixture, followed by flour.

4. Pour 2 cups of mixture into a 9" square tin.

5. Bake at 190C for 10mins or till cooked.

6. Leave aside to cool.

(Pour the rest of the mixture into a baking tin to bake till cooked at 180C for about 40mins.)

Recipe for No Baked Cheesecake:

350g cream cheese

100g sugar

350g dairy cream (whippped)

1tsp vanilla essence

1tbsp geletine

3tbsp hot water

Method:

1. Melt geletine in hot water.

2. Cream cheese and sugar till smooth. Add vanilla essence

3. Pour dissolved geletine into cheese mixture. Mix well.

4. Mix whipped dairy cream into cheese mixture.

5. Pour cheese mixture onto cooled brownie base.

6. Put in freezer to set.

Ganache Topping:

100g dairy cream

100g dark chocolate

Method:

1. Bring dairy cream to boil.

2. Off the flame and pour dark chocolate into dairy cream.

3. Stir till chocolate is melted and well blended with the cream.

Longan Peach Cake for CH

2009-09-29T16:33:00.004+08:00

Happy Birthday CH!

Another year had pass... and CH is one year older ...

Children look forward to every new age, but we adults dread every upcoming birthday. :)

After doing stock taking of my baking ingredients last week, I am quite glad that my stocks of all sorts were almost used up. Not baking for about 3 months had rendered 2 new bags of floor useless due to bugs infesting in it.

I used up the last bag of sponge cake mix and also some canned fruits to make this cake up. Got to get rid of the carton of whipping cream in the freezer as well. Quite please with the outcome of the cake. The fruits looked a bit dry though as this cake was in the fridge for 2 days before it was taken out to cut and I did not have any glazing jel at home, so I didn't do any glazing on the fruit.

As I won't be baking as much as I used to, I won't stock up too much on ingredients and will only buy what I need.

Last week I was very happy as CH brought back 13 baking books from Taiwan on his business trip for me. It resulted in a 3kg excess baggage and he was fined $50. Thus, there was very little savings for the books bought due to the fine.

Banana Chiffon Cake (High banana content and low sugar)

2009-09-01T14:43:00.003+08:00

It hasn't been good past 2 months. Basically wasn't feeling too well and not up to bake anything at all. I only felt better 1-2weeks back and was more or less back to my usual self. I had been looking at making a Banana Chiffon Cake few weeks back and last weekend, the opportunity came when there was a bunch of overripped bananas setting on the dining table screaming 'Use me! Use me!'

I have modified the recipe to make this low sugar and banana filled chiffon cake. The original recipe called for 1 cup of bananas but I threw in all 6 large bananas I had which was about 2.5cups to 3 cups of bananas in total. The cake still baked into a beautiful chiffon cake, soft and full of bananas.

Banana Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:

(A)

200g cake flour (sifted with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of bicardonate soda)

50g castor sugar

8 egg yolks

6 tbsp oil

2.5cups mashed bananas

(B)

8 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

100g castor sugar

Method

Mix all (A) ingredients together to form a thick batter.
Whisk egg white and cream of tartar till 'soapy' stage.
Slowly add in castor sugar
Whisk till egg white becomes medium peaks.
Mix egg whites to (A), mix well but with a light hand.
Pour into a 25cm/10" chiffon tin
Bake at 160C for about 1hr or till cooked.

Have fun!

Sugee Cake

2009-06-29T11:30:00.002+08:00

Make a batch of biscottis over the weekends and had many egg yolks left over. I decided to make the Sugee Cake which I read in a magazine. However, I have modified the recipe slightly to accomodate to the ingredients I had at home.

The cake has a grainy texture due to the semolia flour and almond powder. I guess this is a cake that you will either love or hate. I personally do not really like the cake. I would prefer blueberry cupcakes or butter cakes to this.

Here is the recipe (reduced sugar version):

Ingredients:

250g butter

200g sugar

9 egg yolks

3 egg whites

225g semolia flour

170g almond powder

30g cake flour

1tsp mix spices

2tbsp milk

Method:

Preheat oven at 160C.

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

2. Add in egg yolks one at a time. Beat well after each addition.

3. Add in semolia flour and almond powder and mix till just blend.

4. Sift flour with mix spice. Add into no. 3.

5. Add 2tbsp milk. Put batter aside.

6. Whisk egg white till light and fluffy.

7. Add into butter mixture. Mix well.

8. Put in a baking tin and bake at 160C for 50mins or till light golden brown.

Father's Day Cheesecake

2009-06-23T16:15:00.003+08:00

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Dad asked for cheesecake for Father's Day. I used the same recipe as the cake chessecake I baked for my son's Birthday excluding the Oreo Biscuits inside the cheesecake.

Pardon me for the messy handwriting. Doing writings on cakes is something that I need to definitely improve on.

I bought a new recipe book - Bit Size Desserts by Carole Bloom over the weekends at Kinokuniya since there was 20% storewide for members. Initially, I thought I would wait till this book was available at the library to see what the book was like before buying. But after waiting for 2 months, still no sign of it being available at the library and the thought of the book keeps appearing in my mind. In the end, I decide to take the risk and just buy the book.

Well, no regrets buying the book. The recipes were interesting and it included weights of ingredients in ounces instead of just cup measurements. There were also pictures includes for many of the recipes so you actually get to see how the outcome of the recipes would be like.

A good book to add to my collection.

Ice Box Cookies

2009-06-08T17:50:00.003+08:00

These are called Icebox cookies. I got this recipe from the book called Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets. These cookie dough were quite tricky to handle as it was soft and needs to be chilled. I made a total of 4 different flavours here.

1. Orginal Flavour (ie the plain ones with red sugar coating)

[The kids called them cha siew cookies]

2. Orginal Flavour with chopped glaced green and red cherries.

3. Chocolate Flavour

4. Marbled Flavour (Orginal with chocolate)

In order for it not to be too sweet, I actually reduced the sugar content and forgot that cocoa powder is bitter. As a result, the Chocolate and Marbled flavour cookies tasted 'non sweet'.

My son and niece was so excited when the cookies came out and as the chocolate ones were not sweet, I would think that the kids won't like it. To my surprised, the 2 rascals said that the chocolate cookies where yummy... .... ...

Well, glad they liked them!

Biscottis With Egg Yolk

2009-06-08T17:43:00.002+08:00

This biscotti recipe was given by a colleague. It is different from the ones i usually make in the sense that it had egg yolks in this recipe. It was also easier to make as you just need to mix the liquid ingredients into the flour, form a dough and bake it. After that, just slice the dough into thin slices and double bake it again.

The egg yolk smell is very strong in biscotti made in the way even though I have added grated orange peel into it. Reviews from people who have eaten the egg white version and this version all preferred the egg white version one.

My personal preference is also the egg white biscottis.

Oknomiyaki

2009-06-08T17:35:00.003+08:00

Bought a pack of Oknomiyaki Flour from Mei-diya recently. So I made this for lunch last Saturday. I made a giant one for myself which was this one and finish everything. I added thinly sliced pork at the bottom of the pancake, but I think bacon would have made it taste better.

Osmanthus Konnyaku Jelly

2009-06-08T17:27:00.002+08:00

My colleague got her brother to buy some osmanthus essense from Hong Kong. I wanted to make these Osmanthus Konnyaku Jelly some time back, but was not able to find the pack of osmanthus flowers in the fridge. So I gave up the ide till recently when the pack of flowers mysteriously appeared again.

The taste was pleasant but due to the fact that I did not soak the dried flowers, the flowers tasted grainy on the jelly and that was not very pleasant to eat. I will try again next time by soaking the flowers first before putting it in the jelly.

Dishonest Cake Shop at Bukit Merah Central

2009-06-08T16:38:00.005+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YL!

Forgetting that there was a Han's near my workplace, I resorted to buying a cake at a neighbourhood bakery shop - Sweet Ring at Bukit Merah Central. This neighbourhood cake shop has been around for many years and I thought that the cake quality won't be that bad. Thus I chose this cake that looked the best out of all the cakes in the display fridge. However, maybe due to tiredness or maybe due to the glaring 2 red cherries, I have failed to spot the dried up fresh grape that was lying at the centre of the 2 red cherries behind Garfield. The fresh grape was all wrinkled and almost rotten. It was only when I got home, took out the cake that I noticed the grape. The cake shop had got the cheek to charge me $12 for this 4" cake which to our extreme dismay, it turned out that the cake was extremely stale. Base on my experience, this cake could have been in their display fridge for at least 3 weeks to 1 month!

The sponge cake was extremely dry. Stale should be the more correct word to use. After taking 1 mouth of it, we decided to throw it away. Don't think we want to risk food poisioning and have to spend further money to see a doctor.

Anyway, lesson learnt, never to buy cakes off the shelf from this Sweet Ring Cake shop. In fact, the bread they baked didn't look nice as well and they aren't cheap. I really wonder how they can survive so long at Bukit Merah.

Chocolate Marble Cheesecake

2009-05-25T13:30:00.005+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY YL!

Baked this cake for YL for her birthday. She actually wanted a strawberry cheesecake of don't know what sort which I don't have a recipe for. And she didn't have a picture of how the cake should look like. Thus in the end, she settled for this Chocolate Marble Cheesecake from my cheesecake recipe book - Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook

This cheesecake has a digestive biscuit crust which I laid the crust higher at the sides so that there was more biscuits to eat with the cheesecake.

Besides this cheesecake, I made dumplings for this Thursday dumpling festival - 端午节. This was of course with the help of my Mother-IL who did the cutting and cooking of the filling. Cooking the fillings is a lot of work having to cut up all the meat, and other ingredients are cooking them. The Hokkien dumplings needed more effort as each item had to be cooked seperately whereas the Nonya dumplings only needed to cook 1 filling which had all the ingredients in it.

There were quite a lot of ingredients for the Nonya dumpling left as we ran out of rice. So that means that we could do dumplings again pretty soon!

Mini Mango Mousse Cake

2009-05-07T13:55:00.002+08:00

Mother's day is this weekend but my parents were going off for a short holiday so I decided to make some cakes for my mom as well as my mom-in-law last weekend. I did some Kaya Pandan Cake for my mom as I recalled her talking about it some months back. And my mom-in-law wanted a normal Chiffon Pandan Cake. No pictures taken as they looked similar to what I had made before in one of the posting.

Last Saturaday morning, I went to the market to get some water chestnuts. Though my inital intention was only $1 of water chestnut from the vegetable store, I ended up buying $10 of vegetables and fruits from the store owner. He recommended snake beans (蛇豆）to me and told me it was 10 times better tasting than the normal long beans and that I will love it. They looked like long beans but was slightly broader and grossly ugly, with very rough skin. No pictures though as my mom-in-law eagerly broke the long beans into shorter stems ready for cooking. She said that she was looking for this for a long while and also commented that it tasted better than normal long beans. I fried it with sambal chilli and I thought it tasted almost similar to normal long beans and frankly speaking I don't fancy them. I was never a fan of long beans and would prefer french beans to long beans.

Besides the long beans, the store owner recommended mangoes to me. He said that he bought it for own consumption and sold some of the extras. I was septical as the mangoes didn't smell frangrant. But he assured me that they were sweet. So all in all, I spent $10 at the vegetable store instead of $1.

So with the mangoes bought, I made the mango mousse cake and used the recipe I learnt at Creative Culnaire. One quantity of the cake recipe could make about 15 mini mango mousse cakes. These mini mango mousse cakes are easier to manage and decorate as compared to a regular 9" cake.

Vegetarian Mayo Prawns / Broccoli with Mushroom

2009-04-21T13:19:00.005+08:00

Some vegetarian dishes after all the hearty meals over the weekends. Broccoli is one of SY's favourite vegetable. There are 3 varieties of mushroom at the centre stir fried with oysters sauce.

The other dish is called Vegetarian Mayo Prawns. Notice the yellow little sunny side up eggs at the side of the plate? I fried little sunny side up quail's eggs.

The vegetarian prawns can be bought from NTUC chilled section. It is actually made of konnyaku which is suppose to be high in fibre and good for health.

Recipe:

1 packet large vegetarian prawn

Batter(Mix together):

4 tbsp flour

1 tbsp rice flour

1 egg

1 tbsp water

Mayonnaise Dressing (Mix together):

4 tbsp mayonnaise

1/2 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp lime juice

Method:

1. Coat vegetarian prawns with batter.

2. Deep fry till golden brown at 185 degrees.

3. Mix fried vegetarian prawns with mayonnaise dressing.

4. Sprinkle some sesame seed.

5. Serve.

Mini Cheese Cups

2009-04-21T12:23:00.002+08:00

What do you think of these? I made these using some left over cheesecake batter from the Oreo Cheesecake. These little cups of oreo are very pretty to look and eat as well. More work to decorate but is worth the effort.

So instead of baking a big cake, the cheesecakes can be made into little cups like these for ease of consumption and no hassle to cut it. The baking time is also reduced since it is so small.

I managed to purchase some Philadelphia cream cheese at $5 for 2 blocks from Carrefour last weekend. This is really a good buy as the blocks are usually sold at $5 each.

Oreo Cheesecake II

2009-04-21T12:11:00.003+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SY!!

Is SY Birthday and he asked for the Oreo Cheesecake after eating an oreo cheesecake which my BIL brought over some weeks back. Now you know why Oreo Cheesecake kept appearing in my blog. Those were the various tests on the different types of Oreo Cheesecake. By now, I am sure my family members are quite bored with cheesecake. I decided to use the egg white beaten seperately method for SY cheesecake.

Notice the strawberry hearts round the cake? I cut those using a cookie cutter. I thought they looked nice. I wanted to do more decoration but with my limited skill, I figured out that it would be better just to leave it like this in case I ruin the whole cake in theh process of trying to be creative.

This cake managed to feed 15 people and there were some leftovers for some folks to bring home. My brother mentioned that he would setup a bakery shop for me if he had the money. Well, I too hope he will one day have the money to setup a shop for me. hahaha...

Mint Oreo Cheesecake

2009-04-15T16:04:00.003+08:00

I was at Meidi-ya when hub caught eyes on a pack of Newman's O which was Oreo look alike biscuits with a minty filling. He suggested making a Mint Oreo Cheesecake. I was game for it as I wanted to try out another cheesecake making method where egg whites are beaten seperately and folded into the cheesecake mixture before baking instead of dumping whole eggs into the cheese batter to beat.

This method gives the cheesecake a volume and is lighter and fluffier. I baked a high 7" round cake that needed only 250g of cream cheese. For making cheesecake, it is still best to use quality Philadelphia Brand® despite the cost of it. Quality of ingredients results in a quality end product.

I gave some slices of cakes away for testing and the rest was for hub's consumption since he said he liked it well.

Verdict: Most testers thought the combination of mint and cheese was kind of strange and I thought it was like eating cheesecake with toothpaste. YL's friend liked it as well as she is a fan of mint stuff. So I guess if you are a mint lover, you might like it else it may not appeal at all.

Oreo Cheesecake

2009-04-06T16:45:00.005+08:00

In a frenzy of seperating the frozen Oreo Cheesecake slices up, I forgot to take a picture of the whole cake. The biscuit crumbs at the topping made a big mess on the table. This is the only slice of cake that I found decent and snapped a picture of it.

My son asked for Oreo Cheesecake for his birthday. I found a recipe on the internet and decided to do a trial run. The outcome was pretty good. Well my son liked it and YL reserved 3 slices.

I wonder if the cake would be lighter if I were to whip the egg whites seperately before mixing it into the cheese mixture. Should I risk a failed birthday cake by attempting to whip the egg whites before mixing into the cheese or should just follow the instructions of the original recipe.

Mini Fish Burgers

2009-04-06T16:18:00.004+08:00

Saturday lunch was a feast of mini burgers of fish nuggets and egg mayo. The fish nuggets are convenience food bought from the supermarket. This is made of real dory fish pieces and cost about $4.80 for a bag of 16-18 pieces and all you need to do is to just deep fry it. I will put up the brand another day as I cannot remember what brand is it now. Took a picture of this burger as I thought it look kind of pretty.

Mango Mousse Cake

2009-04-06T16:10:00.003+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME AGAIN!

I didn't make this. Hub/YL got this for me on my Birthday from Four Leaves. Mango Mousse and the sales person told YL that there is nothing inside except a sponge cake. Four Leaves ought to educate their sales person to provide the correct information. This cake has mango mousse in it other than a sponge cake.

Besides this YL bought some tiny magnets that is shaped in cakes and ice cream for me. Thank you YL.

Devil's Chocolate Cheesecake

2009-04-02T13:45:00.003+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I made this last Sunday for my own birthday.

Hub said "it was ridiculous to be baking my own birthday cake".

I replied "What wrong?"

Hub said "You don't give birth do yourself do you?"

I replied "I can't but I sure can bake myself a cake!"

This one is from the Cheesecake book - Junior's Cheesecake to Die For. Interesting combination which was well liked by people who tried it. My sis friend took a 2nd helping for this cake and some other testers loved it as well.

I personally cannot really accept the combination though. This cake is very rich and the chocolate is sweet while the cheesecake had a tinge of saltiness in it, making this a sweet and salty cake. Hub said the same too!

Kuih Koci / Kuih Dadar

2009-04-02T12:12:00.005+08:00

After a trip to Malacca in the earlier part of March, my mind was full of Kuih Koci, a Kuih Koci which I tried at Malacca that has a greyish skin and a not very sweet cocount filling. It was made from a resident home and sold at a Pasa Malam. Baba CharAli is the store's name if I am not wrong. The kuihs are snapped up quicky at the home as well as the pasa malam at night. You have to be there early if you want to get a variety of kuehs.

I regretted not staying overnight in Malacca. The next time I go, I will stay over for at least a night so that we have more time to explore the place.

Till my next trip, I started exploring making kuihs on my own. I went through my recipe books and found a recipe from Debbie Toh's - Underwraps and tried it. It was nice and my MIL loved it. I used some of the coconut to make kuih dadar. The first round of kuih dadar that I made was not successful. Too many eggs and smelt like egg crepe. I did a second time the following day. This time round another recipe with less eggs and also added a spoonful of tapicca flour to make it slightly chewy. It was a success. These kuihs are laddened with coconut and not advisable to eat in large quantities.

Babi Ponteh is the next dish in line but have not thought of when I should be making it though.

Scones

2009-04-01T17:00:00.002+08:00

This is a big lot of raisin scones that I baked base on the scones recipes given by Judy. I love these scones made of dairy cream and not butter. Still as fattening as dairy cream is 35% fat but is nice. As dairy cream cannot be frozen and cannot be kept too long after it is opened, this recipe comes into action to help use up whatever left over cream that is left after making ganache or cheesecakes.

Chocolate Eclair

2009-04-01T16:50:00.004+08:00

Eclair that uses fondant as one of the ingredients for the coating chocolate at the top of the choux pastry. These little puffies were filled with thick chocolate ganache, absolutely delicious though the appearance didn't look very appealing as the fondant topping hardens rather quickly.

I did this a second time and tried adding more water to the fondant topping that I prepared, the result was horrenous as the fondant topping melted when these little eclairs were put in the fridge to chill. I got feedback that just normal chocolate topping with less mess was preferred. If that is what was preferred, it would be even easier to do...ie to melt compound chocolate and coat the top of these little puffies.

New York Cheesecake

2009-04-01T16:18:00.005+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIS!

This is also 1 month late, but nevertheless, better late than never. This is the New York Cheesecake that I baked for my sis birthday. This has a vanilla sponge base instead of the biscuit crumb base that we usually see from cafes outside. The cheesecake itself is pleasant tasting. I have tried many cheesecake recipes and never fancied those that uses sour cream in them. This one uses dairy cream which I personally prefer to those that uses sour cream.

I took the recipe from this book - Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook that I came across in the library. I like the book so much that I decided to buy a copy from Amazon. I bought the other book from Junior's as well - Welcome to Junior's! Remembering Brooklyn With Recipes and Memories from Its Favorite Restaurant. This book has favourite recipes like Clam Chowder, Broiled Burgers, waffle, onion rings, corn muffin, etc.

I have also tried baking the carrot cake from Junior's Cheesecake Cookbook but have forgotten to take a picture of that.

Chocolate Cupcakes

2009-04-01T15:39:00.003+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRO!

This posting is 2 months late. Bro celebrated his birtday on the 1st day of Chinese New Year. I made these cupcakes along with 2 pandan cakes and some walnut cakes all within a day, some to be given away as CNY cakes to my parents and in-laws.

In the mist of weighing so many ingredients all at the same time and the bottle of the baking powder and bread improver looked similar, I didn't check the label and added bread improver into the walnut loaf cakes that I made. I didn't realise the mistake till weeks later. The walnut cake looked normal after it was baked, tasted soft and moist but the taste was not quite right but I couldn't put my finger to it till weeks after Chinese New Year that I realised that I have used up 3/4 of a bottle of bread improver when I didn't bake a single loaf of bread for a long while. It was only then that I realised that I have used it for the walnut cakes and no wonder they tasted kind of strange.

Besides that walnut cakes, the pandan cake and cupcakes turned out all right. I guess I must have only used bread improver for the walnut cakes I made.

The chocolate cupcakes was nice, but to prevent the cupcakes from turning messy while transporting them to Bro's birthday BBQ, I used compound chocolate to ice the tops instead of ganache. It didn't taste very impressvie when cold but by warming the cupcakes slightly in a microwave, it turned soft and tasted good and you can even eat it with a scoop of ice cream.

I used marzipan to make the sun on the cupcakes. I like the taste of marizpan. Eating this makes me think of my favourite chocolate - Reber Mozart ... Yummy...

Chinese New Year Bakes

2009-04-01T15:31:00.002+08:00

This CNY, I did not take any cookie orders from friends. Baking in mass is no joke and I have decided that I am better off baking for fun and for friends at times would be better than doing repetitive bottles after bottles of pineapple tarts.

This year, I baked a various of cookies for family and relatives. There were:

Almond Flortines
Pineapple Tarts
Tutti Frutti Cookies
Almond Biscottis

I did not take pictures of the other goodies as they are repeated bakes that I have done through different times of the year. This Tutti Frutti Cookies was a recipe given by a colleague. She made crispy cookies while mine was a bit soft. There was a step to chill the dough before baking which I missed out due to time constrain. I wonder if that had cause my cookies to turned out soft and not crispy. On the whole, it is still nice to eat.

Christmas Cakes

2009-04-01T15:17:00.004+08:00

These pictures should online earlier on. But I was so busy past months, I didn't even had time to retrieve the pictures out of the camera least to post it online.

I made 2 cakes for last Christmas. One for my family and one for my hubby's uncle's family who celebrates Christmas. I made a Cottage House for my family and a Christmas log cake for hub's uncle's family.

The biscuit rolls on top of the Cottage House turned soft after a while but it was still nice.

We didn't have a Christmas dinner at home like 2007, instead we were at my parent's place for Christmas last year round.

Chocolate Mousse Cake

2008-12-18T17:32:00.002+08:00

My latest creation last weekend using various recipes in the recipe book 'Crave'. This is made up of various layers. Base a chocolate base with chocolate and feuilletine, followed by a chocolate sponge, topped with chocolate mousse. Chocolate sponge and chocolate mousse repeat another layer each and topped with a chocolate gananche.

A very delicious combination and was all consumed quickly. My sister-in-law and son requested for 2 of these each.

I am quite happy with my creation but would like to improve it further. Next time, I will make it into a square ring and then cut them into slices. Maybe not to make it that sweet as well. :)

White Chocolate Almond Cake

2008-12-18T17:16:00.004+08:00

I recently bought a book called 'Crave - A passion for Chocolate' by Maureen McKeon. For some reason, I love this book. The recipes are easy to follow and not that difficult to make. And the cakes tastes good. This was the first recipe from this book. White chocolate Almond Cake with a white chocolate glaze.

I was doing stock taking on my ingredients to realise that I had 1/2 a kg of compound white chocolate bought months earlier meant to be used for cake decorations, but the problem with these white chocolate was that they do not melt properly and it was impossible to do any cake decoration with it. Instead of wasting ingredients, I decided to melt the chocolate and use it for this cake. Half of it went to the cake, half of it went to making a glaze for it.

The cake turned out pretty well and was quite well liked by some of my colleagues. I personally do not fancy the cake as the white chocolated tasted a bit like condensed milk to me.

White chocolate is very sensitive to temperature. Too high a temperature, it gets burnt. After you have opened a bag of white compound chocolate, it cannot be kept too long even though you try to keep it in an air tight and cool place. Judy, my baking teacher thought it could be due to some evaporation of the moisture in the white chocolate resulting in it not being able to melt properly. Thus conclusion would be to buy good quality compound chocolates in small quantities and try to finish using them ASAP.

Cake Making Stage 2 - L4

2008-12-10T15:05:00.003+08:00

This was the fourth and last lesson of Cake Making Stage 2. I am glad that the course has ended as I was feeling rather tired from all these lesson. The last lesson was slightly disappointing as we were only taught one type of cake, which was the Green Tea Mousse Cake. Judy prepared broiled red beans for us to put in the cake, but my partner and I weren't a great fan of red beans, thus we decided to exclude them.

The other two items taught were the chequed cookies which I have to admit is a very time consuming cookie to make. As the dough is very soft due to the high butter content, it had to be returned to the fridge after every few steps to be hardened again before we can continue. I am quite sure I won't make these cookies.

The scones were quite nice. Tasted a bit like cake and also like bread. It uses bread flour for the recipe. I am thinking of trying them out with normal plain flour to see the difference. I felt that bread flour gave it a very dense texture and wonder if using plain flour would result in a lighter texture for the scone. Will let you know when I try it out in future.

Christmas is fast approaching and I have been busy baking biscottis to freeze up so that I can slice and rebake them again closer to christmas for my sister who has requested 15 boxes and 20 mini packs to give away to her colleague.

Cake Making Class 2 - L3

2008-11-24T13:44:00.003+08:00

Cake Making Class Stage 2 - Lesson 3 taught us more detail knowledge on buttercreams and the different types of butter cream. We were taught how to make the Pistachio Gateau, which is made of a light and fragrant sponge cake with chopped pistachio, finished with a delicious pistachio butter cream. This cream has pistachio paste added in to give it a fragrant. I thought the pistachio paste tasted more like almond than pistachio.

The second cake we made was the Nana Choco cake, made of a moist chocolate cake made of real chocolate. It has bananas sandwich between the layers of chocolate ganache and sponge. Mini bunches of bananas made of marzipan is used to decorate the cake.

We were taught how to make mini decorations and also chocolate decorations for the top and side of the cake.

Blueberry Cupcakes

2008-11-24T11:24:00.003+08:00

Made these blueberry cupcakes with the two boxes of fresh blueberries that I bought 2 weeks ago on impulse. Two weeks back, I attempted to search through my recipe books to find the ideal blueberry related recipe and for some reason, I was not able to find anything despite having a whole bookshelf of cookbooks! I realise that this always happens to me. Whenever I intentionally try to find a recipe, I can never find it in my recipe books. But if I am just browsing though my books, I would find recipes that I tried searching for previously. How frustrating!!!

The fastest and easiest way to this problem would be to do a google search online on the internet and it will provide the solution! Despite the fact that may recipes can be found online free, I still enjoy buying cookbooks. It is a hobby of mine and I have to admit that I haven't even tried cooking 10% of all the recipes I have. And this boils down to the next questions that my mom always asks - Why are you buying recipe books if you aren't cooking anything from them?"

And my answer to that - 'They are for browsing through and looking at those delicious pictures prior to bedtime! " (*wink*wink*)

Christmas Biscottis

2008-11-24T10:57:00.004+08:00

Fragrant crunchy biscottis for sale for this christmas season. Packed in pretty square boxes or 10 pieces in a pack as give aways. Healhty and fat free, makes it an ideal gift for this christmas.

Cake Making Stage 2 - Lesson 2

2008-11-17T15:22:00.002+08:00

Lesson 2 of Cake Making Stage 2 involves the teaching of making fruit mousses and how mousse is used as filling for cakes. Two popular cakes were taught in Lesson 2. The first being Mango Mousse Cake and the second Strawberry Chalotte Cake.

We were taught the differences of an Italian and a Swiss meringue and also the techniques in making the mousse. We got to make sponge fingers for the Strawberry Chalotte Cake as well. After this lesson, I am more confident is trying to make the Italian meringue which involves adding of boiling glucose to add into the beaten egg whites which I used to fear making in the past as it seems not only troublesome and also difficult in my view point.

Looking forward to Lesson 3 this coming weekend!

Peach and Strawberry Cake

2008-11-17T15:09:00.003+08:00

This weekend we celerbated my Brother-IL and Mother-IL's birthday at this seafood restuarant at Defu Lane. It was recommended by a blog site and the food was quite good. I am surprised that a resturant that is located in some industrial estate can be so fully packed.

This cake that I made for my Brother-IL and Mother-IL is made of a vanilla sponge cake, sandwiched with a layer of chopped peaches and a layer of strawberry cream and chopped strawberries, complete with strawberry and peaches decorated on the top with pretty heart shape white chocolate round it.

The kids were the happiest singing birthday song for grandma and uncle and of course to get to eat the cake after that. Both of them kept the white chocolate last and bite it slowly so that they get to enjoy every bit of the white chocolate.

Transformer Cream Cake

2008-11-13T11:59:00.003+08:00

Made this cake yesterday for an order for a 10yr old boy's birthday. I realise it is not easy to add colours onto the face due to the many lines that I created for the face. Just 'painting' the picture took me 2hrs. That is not including doing the outline and creaming of the cake.

This is made of a vanilla sponge, sandwich with strawberry bits, fresh cream and some expensive strawberry jam which I bought from my school. I was surprised that the boy wanted a strawberry filling cake as I thought children loves chocolate. Then I realise it was because his dad didn't allow him to eat chocolate in case he falls ill.

I would say it is much easier and less time consuming to make a fresh fruit cake rather than doing 'painting' like the above. And now I regretted not having air condition installed in the dining area. I think it helps to keep the room cool creaming cakes. At least the cream don't melt so fast.

Cake Making Stage 2 - Lesson 1

2008-11-10T14:42:00.002+08:00

It has been about two months since I last attending class at Creative Culinare. I was quite excited about Stage 2 baking lessons started yesterday.

We were taught 2 butter cake recipes and some time was allocated on teaching of cake decorations, ganache, etc. Stage 2 lessons assumes that you have a foundation on making the various types of cake such as sponge cake, chiffon cake, and butter cake. The first cake taught was the German Pecan Chocolate Cake. This cake is made of a chocolate butter cake, filled with a pecan coconut filling and topped with ganache and decordated with chocolate flowers. The cake was soft and the best part was, it need not be refridgerated as it is butter base. Initially I felt the coconut filling rather strong when I tasted the filling on its own. But when eaten with the cake, it blended very well.

The second cake that we made was the European Pecan Apple Cake. This is a butter cake, with chopped pecan nuts mixed and topped with fresh apple slices.

To minimise washing, instead of working in pairs, our table of 4 girls decided to work in fours. That means one side to beat the butter batter while the other mixer to beat the egg whites. Thus cutting down on washing. Lazy huh, but I think more important is what we learn and not really how much work and washing that we do.

After Lesson 1 yesterday, I am familiar with Ganache, something that I was unsure previously despite trying to read up from the internet and books. Yesterday's lesson was quite slow pace and relaxing as well. Judy our instructor mentioned that the subsequent lessons would be of a quicker pace and I look forward to that.

l am so surprised that the class was about 2/3 full compared to the Stage 1 class which was pack to the brim.

Dates Almond Cake

2008-11-10T14:13:00.004+08:00

More orders for chicken pies over the weekends. Made another 12 and managed to make this Dates cake with a packet of dates that was in the fridge since a few months ago. Should have roasted my almonds which I forgot, thus the almonds were a bit 'soft' and not fragrant enough. But the dates gave the cake a distinctive frangrant which I thought was quite nice. I have reduced the brown sugar by 50g as I felt that the dates would make the cake sweet. This easy to make cake can be found in Alex Goh's Fruity Cake recipe book.

If you noticed, there are some black spots on the top of the cake. Well, I have kind of overbaked the cake slightly while busy doing something else and didn't realised that the cake was turning black! I do not like the cake as I am not a fan of dates myself.

Christmas is fast approaching, but I have not come up with a list of nice bakes for christmas. Not that I am lazy, but I am just too busy at work and too little time over the weekends to think of what can be good Christmas bakes with constant orders from friends to keep me busy. On top of that, I am going for another 4 lessons of cake baking at Creative Culinare with the first lesson last Sunday.

I am suppose to make a strawberry cake with a Transformer design for a birthday boy this coming Thursday and also make some cookies for goodie bags for a little girl's school's birthday party at her childcare in early December.

More Books to Think of

2008-11-04T15:29:00.004+08:00

Really tempted to buy these 2 books from Amazon. Chocolate Epiphany: Exceptional Cookies, Cakes, and Confections for Everyone by Francois Payard is a recently published book. The review from Amazon makes it sound like a really nice book to buy. I wanted to wait till the book is available for loan from the National Library to have a look before deciding if it was worthwhile buying but just how long do I have to wait? And the other tempting reason for buying online is the thrill of looking forward to the arrival of the books at your doorstep.

I am also contemplating about getting a pastry mat to roll my cookie dough, bread dough and puff pastry dough on. As there is limited work area in my kitchen, I usually had to prepare my bakes at the dining table. Having a pastry mat would be good for rolling doughs but a silicon pastry mat cost $36. I am just not sure, or should I just stick with buying bigger pieces of greaseproof paper to work on.

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

2008-11-04T15:12:00.004+08:00

This was my masterpiece for Sunday. Steamed Chocolate Cake with a nice chocolate fudge topping. This cake is not only easy to make, meaning you don't have to beat butter or eggs and you don't even need an oven to bake it. This cake is cooked through steaming it over simmer water for 45mins. The cake is quite soft and the chocolate fudge complements the cake totally.

For those interested, do try it. The recipe can be found here. http://saucingaround.blogspot.com/2008/10/steamed-moist-chocolate-cake.html

Sandwich Loaf

2008-11-04T14:45:00.004+08:00

Did this on Saturday, made 3 quantities of sandwich loaf recipe which I was quite pleased with. I was not happy with the result of the bread that I baked 2 weekends agao. I tried preparing the dough the night before and kept it in the fridge. However, I have forgotten to reduce the quantity of yeast for the recipe. As a result the bread had a yeasty smell and turned yellowish after it was baked. Overferment I guess. This round, the bread turned out good, and tasted very nice when it just came out of the oven. However, due to the lack of preservatives or bread improver, the bread only stayed fresh for 2 days. After that, it turned quite dry and stale.

Initially I bought an additional bread loaf tin from KL thinking that it would be nice to be able to bake 3 loafs of bread at one go. But after last Saturday, I really got to admit that I am not a bread person. I hate the hours of long wait just to be able to bake the bread. The bread goes into 2 rounds of fermentation and it takes like 3hrs before the bread can be baked. To me, this 3hrs is like forever as I constantly peer at the dough to see how big it has grown. After some thoughts, I decided to sell my third bread tin away to a bread making lover.

I will still continue to bake bread once in a while, but I don't think I will be baking them as often as I would bake cakes and cookies. The long wait kills ...............

Apple Crumble

2008-11-04T14:35:00.002+08:00

This is a 10" square Apple crumble requested by a friend the weekend before Deepavali. Baked this the night before I departed to KL for a 3 day short trip with my family. My friend asked if it needed to be heated up before consumption and I told her that I personally like it cold.

The following week when I met her, she told me that her daughter agreed and said that I was right that the apple crumble tasted better when it is cold. The part that I cannot help laughing was that the daughter only ate the apple crumble cold so how did she know that it was true that it tasted better cold and not at other temperatures. Well as they always say - 'Kids say the darnest things!'

White Chocolate Balls

2008-11-04T14:30:00.003+08:00

Yummy Chocolate Balls made from some left over brownies that I kept frozen for a while. Mixed it with granche and coated with white chocolate. When I first took a bite into this, I felt that it was very sweet, but when I tried one more another day, it tasted ok. The white chocolate hardened giving it a nice crunch when you bite into it.

As for the left over egg whites from the baking of the Kuey Lapis, they disappeared from the fridge and I realised my mother-in-law used it to make steam pork with salted egg. Oh well, there goes the biscottis.

Kuey Lapis

2008-10-20T14:06:00.002+08:00

One master piece that I was proud of over this weekend was to successfully make this Kuey Lapis. The recipe was obtained from Mad Baker - one of the blog sites that I visit frequently. Slightly more tedious than making a whole cake as every layer has to be baked slowly. To make this, I think you will need at least 1.5-2hrs in general to complete the whole cake.

This cake turned out to be less moist as compared to those from some renowned bakery shops. But I felt that it was better, as it was not as oily as compared to some that I have eaten before. This cake is not be eaten in large quantities considering the fact that it uses 20 egg yolks and 500g of butter to make an 8" square cake!

What happens to the egg whites from these 20 egg yolks? Well, I am already planning what to do with the egg whites. Biscottis of course! Unless along the next few days I find something different to do.

Almond Snaps

2008-10-20T14:01:00.002+08:00

Found some slices of almonds at the fruit compartment of the fridge. Roasted it last week to make almond snaps but only managed to do it this weekend. This, similar to almond biscottis are made of almonds, egg white, and sugar, and a small quantity of melted butter. But instead of baking two times, this only require one time baking. Pretty simple to make, but got to keep a watchful eye as it will burnt quite quickly.

Compare this to Almond Biscottis, I still prefer the latter.

Chicken Rice

2008-10-20T13:42:00.003+08:00

It has been a while since I posted dishes online. Not that I have not been cooking, but more of I was getting lazy to think how to arrange the dish nicely for photo taking. This plate of chicken rice was arranged by Hub.

This was our family's Saturday dinner - Hainanese Chicken Rice. My first time making this and after consulting a few books on the cooking time of the chicken, I decided on 1/2 hr boiling time for the chicken before soaking it in cold water to cool it down.

Besides chicken rice, I made oyster sauce veggie and also vegetable soup. The chicken was slightly still on the raw side for some of the thicker parts of the chicken such as the thigh. Next time I shall boil the chicken maybe 40mins to make sure it is cooked.

Though I can use some of the chicken soup to cook the rice, I used a Hainanese Chicken Mix which I bought from NTUC. The result was a very flavourful and frangrant rice.

I am not sure, but lately I have been turning to using ready mix for cooking chilli crabs, curry chicken etc. I was questioning myself if I was turning lazy or what but then, some of these ready mixes really tasted pretty good. So why even bother to go to the extend of grinding chilli, onions, garlic, ginger etc, just to cook something. It not only need less effort and results in quite nice dishes as well. Well, with all the extra time I have, I will use it for my baking. I still think I prefer baking to cooking.

QQ Balls

2008-10-20T13:30:00.002+08:00

These QQ Balls were made out of a Korean Bread Mix which I have asked a colleague to purchase for me while she was at Marine Parade. A flour mix which you only need to add egg and milk according to the instructions behind the box. Unfortunately, the instructions were in Korean but I was lucky enough to have a Korean colleague whom I asked to help me translate the instructions to English.

These little balls tasted fantasic fresh from the oven. They are a bit crispy on the outside and a chewy texture inside which we call it as QQ in chinese. Slightly sweet and frangrant from the black seasame seeds that came with the flour mixture. My dad ate it with some butter and jam and he felt that it tasted better that way.

The disappointing part about these QQ balls was that they became quite tough to chew on after it has cooled down completely. Tough to the extend that my mother-in-law decided to catagorise them as rubber bands.

On the whole, good to eat while freshly baked, but not that good to leave it too long. I don't think I will buy the mix again to do this.

Puff Pastry Class - Lesson 2

2008-10-03T12:23:00.003+08:00

During our second lesson for Puff Pastry, we were taught how to make Apple strudel and Curry Puffs. The lesson, the puff pastry was made of butter instead of magarine that we learnt in the first lesson. As butter melts faster than magarine, it makes it more tricky to make the puff pastry. The texture is lighter and quality of the puff pastry is definitely better than the ones made of magarine.

Judy taught us how to make the cream for the apple strudel which was amazingly delicious. Hub loved the apple strudel and has requested me to make some over this weekend.

These were the curry puffs that we made with the puff pastry. The curry chicken filling was delicious but to compare this with apple strudel, I still prefer the apple strudel especially when it is chilled. Yummy!!

Petit Bakes for a Wedding

2008-09-22T15:19:00.005+08:00

A friend had asked if I could make some pastries to compliment her lunch buffet on her wedding day. After thinking hard for the past week, I have decided to make these 3 items as samples for her. The extreme left side-brownie, centre - mini cheesecake and the extreme right - Apple Crumble.

As this was the first time i baked the brownies, I baked it according to the recipe time which was 40 mins, resulting in a drier brownie version. I think i can shorten the baking time to maybe 30mins so that the brownie would be more fudgy.

The mini cheesecake baked quite fast in small cupcakes. Instead of a 1.5hrs of baking time, it was done within 20mins.

The apple crumble consist of 3 layers. The first layer consist of a sweet crust pastry that had to be prebaked first and after that, topped with cooked apple filling and covered with a crumble to be baked again till the crumble turns brown.

I personally liked the apple crumble and the mini cheesecake.

Longan Atap Seed Cake

2008-09-22T14:04:00.002+08:00

Baked this on Saturday for Hub. His request for Longan Atap Seed Cake which is a vanilla sponge cake sandwiched with chopped longans and atap seeds and topped with longan and atap seed. The children loved the heart shaped chocolate that surrounded the cake. These were individually made using the chocolate mould that I bought from Starnet Pte Ltd. Our niece who is quite selective with food also liked it and requested to pack some back.

Chicken Puffs

2008-09-19T13:43:00.002+08:00

I attended Puff Pastry Lesson yesterday. This is a 2 lesson course on making Puff Pastry. The first lesson yesterday, we were taught to make the simple puff pastry using pastry margarine. We used this pastry that we made to make chicken pies and also sasuage rolls. The puff pastry was fragrant and very delicious. The only problem was that we all went home smelling like a walking chicken pie as well.

This weekend will be a busy week for me as a friend ordered a Pandan Kaya Cake from me. Besides that, I had to make a cream cake for Hub who is celebrating his birthday a week ahead as my sister-in-law is flying off to taiwan for a short holiday the following weekend. Other than that, I am suppose to come out with 3 types of pastry for sampling for a friend who wants to order some petite cakes/pastries for her wedding next month. These bakes are to be served with the buffet lunch that she is having at her place on the wedding day.

Chocolate Cupcakes

2008-09-16T15:19:00.002+08:00

Chocoate cupcakes...I have been planning to bake these since a few weeks ago. This weekend, I finally got to do it. I visited Starnet Pte Ltd at IMM on Saturday. I found that they sell all sorts of baking items such as cupcake casing, bread casing, muffin casing, dessert containers etc. The place was awesome as I went round looking at all the items and feeling fasinated. Call it cheap thrill but I love looking that anything that is related to baking, be it bakewares, baking ingredients, recipe books etc etc.

I baked the cupcakes on Sunday night. I had to bake them, else I will be thinking of them even in my sleep. On Monday evening, my son and I decorated them, not with fanciful butter cream but a healthier and less messy option - white compound chocolate. After doing my cupcakes into sunflowers at class in Lesson 1, I concluded that pretty cupcakes are pretty to look at may not be that delicious in taste. And in order to maintain its pretty look, you've got to be careful in handling it after you dress it up all pretty.

My cupcakes, after the compound chocolate set, it is not only easier to handle, and on top of that, absolutely not messy at all. You can then use normal boxes to transport it, without fear of having the decoration all messed up.

My son loved the cupcakes, well, so long it is chocolate, he likes it. This version has less butter content and high fluid content to make the cupcake retain its softness even after 3-4 days. My colleague feedback though that it is a bit dry. Well, if you want a moist cake that slide down the throat smoothly, perhaps a higher butter content? I am not too sure though.

Cake Baking Class 1 - L4

2008-09-08T15:16:00.002+08:00

This was from the fourth lesson of Cake Making Stage 1. We made 3 cakes including decoration for the cakes. The 3 cakes were the Black Forest Cake, the Pandan Kaya Cake, and the Sweet Corn Fudge Cake. I creamed the Sweet Corn Fudge Cake while my partner creamed the Black Forest Cake. As this course is more on Cake Making, cake decoration was not taught in detail but I was glad that I took the Basic Cake Decoration earlier on and was able to apply what I learnt here during class too. I was quite proud with the cake I creamed, though it was not very smooth, but I think I can give myself a pass.

Judy taught us how to do cheque design for the Pandan Kaya Cake. By doing so, the cake was very heavy with kaya and I found it rather sweet. I think just layering the cake and sandwiching the kaya between layers would be good enough but I have to admit that the design was attractive.

My partner mentioned that she was not successful at home while making the chiffon cake, so for this last lesson, I suggested that she will be in charge of whipping up the Meringue for all the cakes. The cakes we baked turned out ok, so she should be able to do the same at home. Maybe a few more practices and she should be all right.

I look forward to attending Cake Making Class Stage 2 where we get to learn more advance types of cakes.

Macrons

2008-09-08T11:01:00.005+08:00

After many months of procrastination, I have finally gotten down to do the macrons that everyone seems to be raving about. Looking through many versions of the recipes that can be found in recipe books and on the many websites, I have decided to use the one found in Tartelette . I used the recipe without the red colouring as I just wanted to try out if it was really that difficult to make macrons.

My initial plan was to make 3 quantities of these little things. One batch of plain, one batch with chocolate and maybe another batch plain with some colouring. There was quite a lot of macrons from just one batch and after tasting them, I decided to abandon the Macron Project after round 1. The simplest reason that made me stop was that these little things do not taste as good as they look. They were way too sweet for my liking and none of my family members liked them. I think I would be better off just making cookies with the left over grounded almonds that I've got.

These macrons are not that difficult to make. The critical area that determines if your macrons will be successful is the way your make your meringue. If you didn't do this part right, the macrons will most probably fail. The same theory for making chiffon cakes where the meringue determines the success of your cake.

Oh well, with this, it ends my adventures with the macrons.

Books - Amy Beh's Series

2008-09-03T15:56:00.008+08:00

I have a soft spot for collecting recipe books and magazines. My collection should be at least a 100 books now though I have never seriously counted them. They consist of books/magazines related to cooking as well as baking. Due to work I have to admit that I have so far spent more time just staring at the colourful pictures in all these recipe books rather than having hands on to actually cook/bake.

I thought I'll introduce these 3 books by the author Amy Beh, the lady behind the recipes that are found on The Kuali website. There are a whole lot of recipes ranging from cooking to baking and as this is a Malaysian website, many recipes are quite localised.

The Star also has a bi-monthly magazine called Flavours which is also one of my favourite magazines. I have started collecting them since end of 2005. It not only has many recipes in each issue but also rich in information related to dining, travelling and what are the new kitchen gagets that in currently in the market. I can't help but feel that these magazines that are published in Malaysia seems to be richer in content as compared to the local food magazines that Singapore has.

Almond Walnut Biscotti

2008-09-01T11:17:00.005+08:00

I collected a total of 8 eggs while meeting my mooncake orders. It would be a waste to be throwing them away which I used to do previously as I had no idea what to use it for other than making Angel Cakes. However, recently, I've got enlightenment from Judy my baking instructor when she mentioned about how extra egg whites can be put into good use instead of discarding it away.

I had a pack of almonds bought some months back, stored in the fridge, just right for making these Almond Biscotti. I made these for my son's teachers as it is Teacher's Day today, Hub tasted them and had requested 3 packs, I think maybe to give his colleagues. The rest was distributed out to my siblings and I brought a pack home for my mother-in-law.

These biscotti are healthy as they are fat free. That means no butter, or oil used in the process of baking. Definitely healthier than eating butter cookies, or chocolate chip. If you are health conscious, you can consider eating small amount of these besides the boring fruits and carrot sticks.

Pandan Kaya Cake

2008-09-01T11:02:00.003+08:00

A colleague of mine requested me to make this Pandan Kaya Cake for him over the weekends. After looking through various recipes, I made this. As I use commerically packed coconut milk, I was not sure if I should dilute with water. As it was my first time making this, I used 70% coconut milk and 30% water. The end result was a very rich and frangrant pandan kaya cake. But I think it might be better to use maybe 50% coconut milk and 50% water so that the cake would not the that rich. Overall, I was quite satisfied with the outcome.

My colleague feedback that it was very nice, but complained that a 9" cake was kind of too much for his consumption, (as he is staying alone) especially when it was rich in coconut. He suggested perhaps a smaller cake next time. I cannot help to agree with him that it would be better not to eat too much cake though I have already tried reducing the sugar level a bit for health purpose.

Petite Four Class - Lesson 3

2008-08-26T22:11:00.002+08:00

This is from the third and last lesson of my Petite Four Class. This lesson, we were taught to make mainly Petite Fours Sec. What you see in the picture starting from the top:

Expresso Cheesecake - Little expresso cheesecakes baked and chilled. Dust with some cocoa powder and snow sugar and decorated with white chocolate and a coffee bean made of marzipan.
Hazelnut Focus - A crunchy little cake made of hazelnut powder and meringue, decoarated with ganache and roasted hazelnut.
Cranberry Almond Florentines - Made of sliced almonds and cranberry cooked in glucose which hardens when cooled.
Orange Kisses - The base is made of Pâte Sucrée, topped with a chocolate orange chantilly and decorated with a slice of oranage and chocolate slice.

My personal preference are the Expresso Cheesecake which has a very strong coffe flavour and the Cranberry Almond Florentines which you cannot stop munching on once you start.

We were awarded with a certificate of accomplishment at the end of the course.

Cake Baking Lesson Stage 1 - Lesson 3

2008-08-26T22:10:00.003+08:00

This is what we made for Cake Baking Stage 1 - Lesson 3. The one on the left is the Rainbow Roll, this recipe can be used to make the Rainbow Roll or the Feather Roll. This swiss roll was then filled with whipped cream and a nice strawberry jam. Very light and refershing.

The other swiss roll that we made was the Tiger Roll. The outer skin had to be seperately and after that, roll together with the inner chocolate roll. The reason why the outer skin wrinkles is due to the heat reacting with the flour in the batter. As it is a thin roll, it is also important to try to even out the batter throughout the tray so that the outer skin would bake evenly. As this is a thin roll, we need to be careful not to overbake it as it will result in it turning into a biscuit instead of a cake. Some skill is need to be able to make the skin successfully and beautifully. A ganache mixed with whipping cream was used for this swiss roll.

I like the Tiger Roll better as compared to the Rainbow Roll.

Cakes - Tiramisu and Longan Peach

2008-08-24T21:57:00.010+08:00

Last weekend was a super busy weekend, initially having to make 1 cake as requested by my hub's cousin - A for her 21st birthday, but ended up having to make two cakes as A called Wednesday night asking if I could make a small cake for her friend who was turning 21 also. We only have one 21st birthday a lifetime, so I agreed. Not knowing how many people will be turning up for her birthday party, I decided to make a 10" square fruit cake with fresh cream for A. which was the plan initially. With the additional request, I started to think hard again to decide if I should make the same flavour for the smaller cake that A requested for her friend as it would make my job easier. But then I thought that it would look boring if both cakes looked the same during the party.

After some thoughts and some inventory taking to see what other ingredients I had at home, I decided to make a 7" Tiramisu for A's friend.

I started all the baking and making on Friday night as I had some Mooncake orders to fulfil and Cake Baking Class on Saturday afternoon . I used my brand new Spa mixer to whisk up the cake batter for the Longan and Peach cake. This mixer definitely had power and the cake turned out light and fluffy compared to if I were to use a hand held mixer to whip up the batter.

I managed to finish both cakes by 11pm that night. A great sense of satisfaction and happiness to see the two cakes turning out well though I felt that the fruit decoration for the Longan and Peach Cake could be better. The other happy part was to see guests happily finishing up the cakes.

Walnut Moon Tarts

2008-08-24T21:29:00.004+08:00

Walnut Moontarts with Pâte Sucrée and white lotus. These were made on request from hub for giving to some Taiwan colleague to bring back to Taiwan. These moontarts are very different from the traditional mooncakes because of how the crust is made.

Some of my friend's have requested to place some orders for these, thus I would be busy for the next 2 weeks with these little pastries.

Petite Four Class Lesson 2

2008-08-21T23:09:00.005+08:00

I attended the Petite Four Class 2 last Monday. Lesson 2 was better in terms of pace as some of the items used were prepared in Lesson 1. Our instructor Judy emphasized on Mis En Place which means the preparation work head of time. For the Petite Four class, we made our Pâte Sucrée during Lesson1 and this will be used for the subsequent lessons.

In Lesson 2, we did four items, namely

Apricot Passion Fruit Tartlets - a sweet crust pastry, topped with a Apricot Chocolate Ganache.
Mini Fruities - Layers of sponge cake sandwiched with custard filling, surround by a layer of heart shaped chocolate sheet and topped with various types of fruits.
Angle Head - Made of the sponge cake 'droplets' that we made in Lesson 1, sandwich with lemon curd and decorated with snow sugar and chocolate ganache piped on the top.
Rhubard Rolls - Rhubard rolled between a thin layer of sponge, and a lemon curd filling.

Unfortunately no Rhubards where found in the local supermarkets, thus we have to substitute it with strawberries which tasted good with the lemon curd as well.

My personal favourite were the Mini Fruities which were light. We were taught to make various fruit base ganache. However, for some reason, I personally do not like the taste of fruit puree mixed with chocolate.

Cake Making Lesson Stage 1 - Lesson 2

2008-08-19T12:13:00.004+08:00

Last Saturday was our second lesson for the Cake Making Stage 1 course. This week, my partner and I were not as unluckily as our first lesson. Well, at least we didn't break any bowl, and our cakes rose beautifully.

In Lesson 2 , we were taught to make 3 different flavours of chiffon cakes. Namely banana chiffon, citric chiffon and the pandan chiffon. At the end of the lesson, we were taught how to glaze and decorate the citric chiffon with a orange glaze made of jelly powder, orange juice and some colouring. The trick to have the glaze look beautiful and smooth was to pour the glaze quickly onto the cake before it hardens and DO NOT use any utensils to try to smoothen the glaze or else the glaze will turn drastically ugly if you do not do it fast enough.

My partner and I could proudly say that our glaze is one of the nicer looking ones out of the many groups in our class. Though I already have some basic knowledge on making chiffon but I was surprised that there were some secrets in making a good chiffon that I wasn't aware of. No wonder my chiffon sometimes turn out good and sometimes turn out not so light and fluffy.

This Cake Making Stage 1 course is a very popular course at the school and is fully booked for the subsequent months up till the November class. Can you imagine that!

I suddenly remembered that I had once met a lady in one of my classes previously who had critised that the courses held at BITC which stands for Baking Industry Training Centre was better. And how she determined that it was better was because the school didn't weigh and prepare the ingredients ahead for the students while at Creative Culinaire, the ingredients would usually be weighed for us before the start of the class.

I didn't share the same thoughts as this lady as I wonder why would I want to be paying $340 for 4 lessons just to spend 1/2 the time rushing around with the other classmates to weight out the ingredients for the lesson. So what if we attain the skill of weighing each item perfectly but yet not able to use the correct skill and technique to bake a good cake. I would think the skill and techniques are more difficult to master than the skill of being able to weigh out ingredients accurately. Don't you think so?

Petite Four Class Lesson 1

2008-08-14T17:34:00.003+08:00

This month of Aug is a busy month for me as I am taking both the Basic Cake Making Class which consists of 4 lessons and also the Petite Four Class which consists of 3 lessons.

The first lesson for Petite Four, we were taught to make four items as shown above, starting from the top.

Bananarama - a light banana cake coated with chocolate ganache.
Amore - made from a very frangrant sweet crust pastry, topped with a chocolate cream, strawberry and a piece of pretty heart shaped white chocolate.
Raspberry Chocolate Jewels - made of sweet crust pastry and a raspberry chocolate mousse.
Coffee buttons - consists of a sponge cake with a coffee ganache filling.

I like the Bananaram the best as chocolate and banana goes really well together. It amazes me how a chocolate ganache can be further mixed with whip cream and flavouring to become another filling or decoration item. In this first lesson, we were also taught how to make some parts of a pastry item ahead of time and assembling the item before it is being served.

I really like the thought of being able to eat a variety of mini pastries as compared to eating a large slice of cake. Well, I like variety and perhaps it is self-consoling to feel that I am eating a small portion of a sinful dessert = less fattening?? This theory may or may not be true though but the thought of being able to eat more variety is definitely delicious.

Pooh Bear Birthday Cake

2008-08-14T17:17:00.002+08:00

I have again put my cake decoration skills to practice. This time around is a cake requested by my dearest niece who has turned 7 this August. A picture of Pooh Bear and Piglet to be on the cake was her request. She actually wanted a chocolate sponge cake but as she just recovered from flu infection, thus she was advised not to eat so much chocolate.

At first she suggested strawberry sponge, but I thought it would be safer to just do a normal sponge cake as the strawberry essence may not be that acceptable to her taste buds. This cake took me 2hr to decorate. The colouring of the picture took the most time but I am glad everyone loves it and it is very satisfying to see everyone eating happily.

Cake Making Stage 1 Class (Lesson 1)

2008-08-04T14:51:00.009+08:00

Last Saturday was the first lesson of Cake Making Stage 1 class at Creative Culinaire. I was looking forward to this class as I registered for it since June. Lesson 1 was not very smooth going for both me and my partner. The lesson started off with about 2hrs of theory by Judy the instructor. After that, it was our turn to make the cakes. The first cake to make was the Walnut Butter cake. My partner and I started creaming the butter but found it very strange that the butter was slightly greyish in colour. Initially we suspected that the mixer was leaking oil into the butter. Judy changed a mixer for us but the same thing happened and we could not figure out was was actually wrong. The third round, Judy suggested we use a smaller mixer and this round, the same thing happened... grey streaks of oil look alike substance in the butter mixture. I finally realised that it could be due to the metal peddle that hit the sides of the metal bowl that created the grey streaks that looked like oil in the butter. In the end, we were advised to use the plastic bowl instead of the metal bowl and things were all right.

The reason why grey streaks appeared in the butter was because I, the smart alec slightly tilted that mixer bowl so that the peddle could beat the butter as the quantity of the butter was slightly too little and this resulted to the peddle constantly hitting the sides of the bowl, creating the grey streaks of oil like substance. For the subsequent cakes, I just carefully lifted the mixer bowl once a while so that the paddle could mix the butter and not constantly hold the bowl.

On top of all the frenzy about the mysterious streaks of oil look alike substances appearing in the butter, my partner drop a glass bowl and broke it. We were lucky we didn't have to pay for the bowl and Judy was so nice to make sure that my partner was all right and not hurt by the broken glass bits.

Despite all the initial 'bad luck', our walnut cake turned out pretty well, lightly fluffed up and soft texture. The taste was good as well.

The second recipe that we had to complete was chocolate cupcakes. This was to be done by a group of 4 people. While we struggled with the walnut cake, our 2 other classmate that shared out table did the chcolate cupcakes. It turned out very soft and definitely better than some of the cupcakes that I tasted outside.

We get to decorate our cupcakes into sunflowers or with chocolate and colourful candies. The sunflower was decorated with yellow coloured buttercream which was not at all tasty and on top of that, fattening. It was on the whole, very pretty. It will be nice to put some chocolate cream inside the cupcakes. Each of us got to decorate 3 cupcakes in total to bring home.

The third recipe that we made was the marble butter cake which uses another technique slightly different from the way the walnut cake was might. The pyamids were made using silicon moulds. The texture of this cake was slightly denser compared to the walnut cake but on the whole soft and moist. Judy made hers into roses which is definitely much nicer compared to pyramids.

Next Saturaday is National Day, so there won't be any class. Looking forward to Lesson 2 where we will be learning Chiffon cakes. Hopefully our luck would be better next lesson.

Tiramisu

2008-07-21T11:10:00.007+08:00

It was my mom's birthday last Sunday and I decided to make a Tiramisu cake for her. Previous occassions, I usually make tiramisu in a dessert cup for ease of consumption and portablity. After examining a few recipes, I decided on forming my own hybrid recipe, taking what I like from one recipe and combining it with something else that I like from another recipe. The ingredients are quite similar for all recipes, basically, there is a mascarephone cheese with whipping cream, a sponge layer which could be in a form of a cake or sponge fingers, chocolate shavings and coffee syrup with coffee liqueur and top it off with cocoa powder.

Initially, I wanted to put sponge fingers at the side of the cake, but in the end, decided to try my hands on working out some chocolate artwork for the sides and the top. I got the flower inspiration from a gelato shop that I visited some weeks back. The chocolate for the side was not easy to make and if you noticed hard enough, some of it actually cracked up when i tried to put it onto the sides.

I am still not able to understand why it is more difficult to work with white chocolate as compared to dark chocolates. It is not only difficult to melt it as too hot a temperature would burn the white chocolate while too low a temperature, the chocolate doesn't seem to melt a all. I suspect it may be due to my lack of skills in tempering chocolates or could it be due to the quality fo the white chocolate that I purchased. It hardens quickly and my attempts to melt it again usually gets it burnt.

As for the sponge cake, it needs more coffee syrup. As I was afraid that the sponge cake would be soaked till too extreme, ie coffee syrup starts dripping out with every cut , I was careful not to put too much coffee syrup, resulting in only 1/2 of the sponge cake was soaked with coffee. It would be better if all the layers of sponge was soaked completely.

I got feedback from my sister-in-law that the tiramisu this round was better than the last but she said it tasted different from those sold outside but she was not able to tell me what the difference was. Which bakery's tiramisu should I taste?

For the recipe, please click on this link
http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html

Mooncake Lessons

2008-07-21T10:19:00.004+08:00

My colleague and I attended the Mooncake Class at Creative Culinaire last Friday evening to learn how to make the Traditional Mooncake and the Teochew Yam Spiral Mooncake. My objective was maintly to learn how the spiral mooncakes is being done as I already have some knowledge on making the Traditional Mooncake through my own trial and error at home. I used to make Traditional Mooncake years back and my mother-in-law would tell me that she wants 'x' number of boxes to give to relatives. There is usually not enought to go round. However, after the birth of my son, I have stopped making mooncakes and now that he is bigger, and I have more free time, I may venture into this mooncake business again.

This is the Teochew Spiral Yam Mooncake that was taught in the class. We were taught how to make the yam filling as well. It takes quite a lot of effort to make the flaky skin as the dough needs to be rolled out thinly to create the layers. The thinner the dough is rolled, the flakier the end result. This type of mooncakes cannot be kept very long due to the nature of the skin and have to be eaten within 3 days whereas the Traditional Mooncake can be kept for a month and it seems that it tastes better the longer it is kept.

Chicken Pau

2008-07-14T17:08:00.005+08:00

There is this stall that sells hand made paus near where I live and I love the softness of the bun and the taste of the filling and I wished I could make paus like that. While chatting with a colleague one day, we decided to try our hands on making paus. It was then decided that my colleage would make the cha siew pau while I try making the chicken pau. Remember the siew mai filling that I made earlier on, I decide to mix it with the chicken filling that was in the recipe for "San Yok Pau" in the Dim Sum Book by Agnes Chang.

The taste and smell of the filling was superb receiving thumbs up for the taste and the smell. I was however slightly disappointed with the result of the dough as the recipe in the book didn't turn out as white as I hope it would be. After steaming the colour of the buns turned slightly yellowish. Some sources online mentioned that it could be due to oversteaming or too much baking powder. So I continue pondering on the question of how to make white soft pau.

I have been analysing the techniques of making 'smiling pau' where the buns will 'bloom' after steaming. But it takes 3 days to complete the fermentation of the dough. It is only then that the buns would smile but by then, I hope I can still smile along with the pau.

Apple Pie

2008-07-14T15:47:00.007+08:00

After spending the whole of Saturday wrapping Chicken Paus, there was not much time to go anywhere. So I convinced Hub to make a trip to Phoon Huat in the West. I used to visit one of the outlet almost every weekend when I visit my mom at the North end of Singapore but unfortunately for some reason, that outlet closed.

I bought some lotus paste with the intent to make some mooncakes and aluminium cups for making the quiche and my Hub suddenly said that it would be nice to make some apple pies. I thought of making the filling but it would mean looking for a nice apple pie recipe and spending time cooking it. In the end, we bought a can of ready made apple pie filling and I decide to just make the shortcrust pastry. I wondered if it would be too sweet, but to my surprise, it was all right. Next time I might want to try making apple filling on puff pastry instead of shortcrust pastry.

Mini Bacon and Mushroom Quiche

2008-07-14T14:43:00.004+08:00

Last weekend, my brother was raving about quiches and about how nice it was. I personally have never eaten one. It was said to be some sort of an egg tart but on the savoury side instead of the usual sweet one. I was reading last month issue of Flavours and saw some quiches recipes inside. They had large ones and small onces and the small ones looks rather nice and easy to eat as well. No cutting/slicing required, eat directly from the cup.

Consider it a success on first round for the quiches. I asked my brother if it tasted like those he bought from outside and he said 'YES' and he ate a total of 5 at one go. My sister-in-law brought one for a colleague to test as she mentioned that her colleague loves quiches and another 'Pass' graded for the quiche I made. I ate one out of the twenty I made but personally do not fancy it . It there was a choice, I would eat an egg tart to this.

Dragon Fruit Chiffon Cake

2008-07-14T14:28:00.004+08:00

Six dragonfruits appeared on Friday evening in the kitchen. It was brought over by my hub's uncle. No one in the house was a fan of dragon fruits, so I thought I would try to make use of it to make a chiffon cake from Kelvin Chai's - Chiffon Cake is Done book. Is uses red dragon fruit for the recipe. I wonder what colour was the dragonfruit that was brought over but I suspected it to be white as that is the most common one available locally.

With white flesh, it would mean that the cake would turn out white with black dots from the seeds of the fruit. I decided to add some red colouring to give the cake a slight pinkish colour. The fruit I had didn't have much flavour and the recipe calls for a tablespoon of lemon which gave the cake a slight freshing sourish taste.

Siew Mai

2008-07-14T14:01:00.007+08:00

I finally got myself to make this from a Dim Sum book from Hong Kong. The quantity in the recipe was large. Eg ingredients for making 100 pcs. Why would I want to make 100 siew mai, thus I had to do some division to make it into a smaller portion. A mixture of meat, prawns and mushroom with season. The meat had to be mixed with ice cubes before adding in the other ingredients.

I didn't have a mixer, with a K hook, so I end up beating the meat with my hands. The result was good. The original recipe actually had a Part II filling for the top of the siew mai that was made of shrimps and seasoning. I thought the Part I filling was good enough for siew mai, thus I have omitted making the Part II. (Another partial reason was that I was getting a bit lazy and tired after beating the Part I filling with my hands).

Nonya Dumplings

2008-06-23T09:39:00.002+08:00

Got around making this over the weekends after being influenced by one of my colleague who is at the moment obsessed with making 'changs' (dumplings). I assisted my MIL to make the Hokkien Changs before the Dumpling festival a few weeks back. She did all the preparation while I help with the wrappings.

Last weekend, I decided that I should prepare everything on my own and tried out the Nonya chang recipe that was compiled by my colleague. Feedback from various testers was that the chang was good and it is definitely easier to prepare as compared to the Hokkien changs where each item needs to be seperated cooked. Though Nonya changs do not include chestnuts but I added 2 in each as I love chestnuts.

Unagi Cigars

2008-06-16T15:45:00.002+08:00

This is a simple to make finger food and is tasty too!

Unagi Spring Rolls

Ingredients:
Spring roll Skin (use the one that has 50 pcs per pack)
Ungai (purchased from frozen section in NTUC)
Flour paste (mix 1 tbsp flour with some water to form a paste)

Method:

Cut spring roll skin diagonally to form a triangle.
Cut unagi into long strips of about 8cm x 1cm.
Place unagi on the spring roll skin and wrap up like a cigar.
Use a bit of flour paste to seal the end.
Fry in oil at 190C for 3mins or till golden brown.
Serve

Purple Sweet Potato Cookies

2008-06-16T15:27:00.002+08:00

Something different from the usual cookies. This was made from purple sweet potatoes which is not often seen. Seasonal I guess and I was happy to find some at NTUC a few Saturdays back. This cookie is not crispy due to the large amount of sweet potato used.

Hello Kitty Pineapple Tarts

2008-06-16T15:21:00.003+08:00

Some left over pineapple filling as still sittng in the fridge, so I decided to make this with the Hello Kitty vegetable cutter bought from Kai Kai at Chinatown. It looks pretty cute. I tried making with a Pooh Bear cutter but was not very successful as the ears were quite narrow and quite difficult to make the shape.