Kuey Lapis

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

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

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

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

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!!