Vegetarian Mayo Prawns / Broccoli with Mushroom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.