Xandra's Cooking & Baking Journal

Crunchy Durian Cookie

2012-02-05T10:28:00.000+08:00

As promised, here is the 2nd 'new' cookie recipe that I made for the Chinese New Year. I was clearing up my room and at the same time flipping through my cooking books ( I didnt realised I accumulated so many cooking books) and found this interesting recipe. It's taken from 'Cakes Pastries Savouries' published by Bake with Yen Sdn Bhd. Guests who came to my CNY open house totally 'finished' them up and it was a pity I didnt bake enough... I will definitely make this cookie again for next years CNY if I manage to 'store' durians in my freezer.

Ingredients:

225g Butter
175g Icing Sugar
2 Egg Yolks
1 tsp Durian Essence
250g Plain Flour
30g Milk Powder
50g Custard Powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
100g Durians, mashed
some sesame seeds or almond nibs (for decoration)

Method:
1. Sift the plain flour, Milk powder, custard powder & baking powder together. Set aside
2. Cream butter & sugar till fluffy.
3. Add in egg yolks & durian essence.
4. Add in the sifted dry ingredients
5. Add in the mashed durian.
6. Pipe out with a noozle onto a baking tray and sprinkle sesame seeds or almond nibs on top.
7. Bake at 180 degree C for 25 mins or until golden brown.

Happy New Year 2012 & Gong Xi Fa Cai

2012-02-01T21:11:00.000+08:00

Oh no!!! I've fallen behind in updating my blog again....:-(( The time flew past so quickly and before I realized it, it is already February 2012 . Hmmmm I actually did not attempt any new baking at end of 2011 as I had quite a number of orders from friends for the Christmas Celebration and then it was school opening time...Busy busy busy and Chinese New Year.

Before Chinese New Year arrived, I had planned to bake few types of cookies and all new recipes but with the last minute house cleaning (I actually used 3 whole days just to clean my Music Room which had became a 'store room' before attacking the kitchen) I just did not have the time to do any baking. And just 2 days before CNY Eve, I had a baking marathon and I had to use last year's recipe...:-(( BUT! I manage to bake 2 new flavour of cookies just the day before CNY Eve. I had all the ingredients at home and it looked interesting. It even had the word 'MUST TRY' printed on that page. One of the cookie is....: Butter Icing Cookie. This recipe is taken from the Yum Yum Magazine issue No 76.

Ingredients:
220g Butter
100g Castor Sugar
1 Egg
300g Plain Flour

Butter Icing:
30g Butter
70g Icing Sugar

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160 degree C.
2.Butter Icing: Combine all ingredients and mix well. Place into a piping bag for later use.
3. Beat butter & castor sugar until creamy. Add in egg and beat until smooth. Add plain flour and mix into a dough.
4. Place into a piping bag and pipe onto a baking tray.
5. Use your fingers to indent the centre of the dough. Pipe a little of the butter icing into the indentation.
6. Bake cookies for 15-18 mins or until golden brown.
7. Remove fromn oven and leave to cool before storing.

Fish & Chips

2011-12-21T14:06:00.001+08:00

I seldom post my cookings as I cant cook very well...:-)) I almost always use premix ingredients to cook meals for my family as I find it very tedious to prepare from scratch. There are a few dishes that my children love it when I cook for them and usually its western food. This is one of the dish that they love and will usually have 2nd servings..:-))

Ingredients

4 pcs dory fillets (pat dry)
Salt & Pepper
Oil for frying

Batter: 200g Plain flour
           2 tsp baking powder
           1/2 tsp salt
           1/2 tsp pepper
           4 tbsp oil
           280 ml water

Extra: French fries
         tartare sauce
         Lemon Wedges
Method:

1. Season the dory fish with salt & pepper and set aside.
2. Mix all the batter ingredients together.
3. Heat plenty of oil in wok. Dip the fish fillet into the batter & fry till golden brown.
4. Serve fish with french fries and tartare sauce &  lemon wedges by the side.

Red Cherry Baked Cheese Cake

2011-12-19T11:27:00.000+08:00

Wow..another cheesecake recipe again....(^.^). I found that after baking so many cheesecake, they use more or less the same method but of course the texture varies on what ingredients are used. Some use purely cream cheese and you get this dense and creamy texture while some mix in whipped cream and you get this fluffy texture.

For this Red Cherry Cheesecake, I got this recipe when I went to attend the 'Anchor' products cooking demo in my local bakery shop and decided to try it out after sampling the cake during the demo.

Ingredients:
Base:
100g Digestive Biscuit, crushed
50g Butter, melted

Filling:
375g Cream Cheese
115g Castor sugar
100g Sour Cream or plain yogurt
3 Eggs
200g Whipping Cream, whipped
2 tbsp Cornflour
Red Cherry filling (from tin)

1) Base: Mix the crushed biscuit & melted butter together & press onto the base of a 9" springform pan. Set aside.
2) Beat cream cheese & sugar together till light.
3) Add in eggs one at a time.
4) Add in the sour cream & cornflour.
5) Fold in the whipped whipping cream.
6) Put few tbsp of red cherry filling on the biscuit base and pour the cream cheese mixture over. Top with few tbsp cherry filling.
7) Steam bake at 160 degree C for 1 hr 30 mins.
8) Refrigerate overnight before removing from tin.

Ooops! I did it again!

2011-12-17T22:47:00.000+08:00

Ha..ha.. From the title, no, I'm not refering to Britney Spears song but rather on my neglected blog....Really, I do not know where the time went. It was a busy month for me in November because it was the end of the school year and also my daughter was facing her SPM examination. I did manage to do some baking and I will upload them one by one as soon as possible.

For this post, as promised previously, I'm giving you the recipe I used for making macarons. One thing I discovered when making macarons is that on a rainy day, the humidity is very high and the success of having a good macaron is slim. It was a waste of ingredients and time. Nevertheles, my macarons still have those 'feets' except that they are not as high as I want them to be nor are they dry on the inside.

110g Ground Almond
200g Icing Sugar
90g Egg Whites (best to age them overnight)
50g Castor Sugar

1) Sift ground almond & icing sugar together.
2) Beat egg whites till frothy, add castor sugar & beat till stiff peak. You may add some colouring at this point.
3) Add meringue to almond mixture. Carefully fold in till you get a sticky consistency. Do not overfold till its runny.
4) Pipe onto tray lined with parchment paper.
5) Bake at 130 degree C for 18 - 20 mins.
6) Match the macaron shells and fill it with buttercream or chocolate ganache.

My Battle with D Mac....

2011-10-29T13:50:00.000+08:00

OK. This post I'm not giving out any recipes but rather share with my readers on my battle with the Mac. Not McDonald but rather the Macarons....

A 'macaron' is a sweet confectionery made with egg whites, icing sugar, granulated sugar, almond powder or ground almond, and food coloring. The macaron is commonly filled with buttercream or jam filling sandwiched between two cookies. Its name is derived from an Italian word "maccarone" or "maccherone". This word is itself derived from ammaccare, meaning crush or beat, used here in reference to the almond paste which is the principal ingredient. It is meringue-based: made from a mixture of egg whites, almond flour.

The confectionery is characterized by its smooth, domed top, ruffled circumference (referred to as the "foot"), and flat base. It is mildly moist and easily melts in the mouth.

Then again, do not be confused by 'macaroons'. A macaroon is a type of light, baked confection, described as either small cakes or meringue-like cookies depending on their consistency. The original macaroon was a "small sweet cake consisting largely of ground almond similar to Italian or Moroccan amaretti.

I think anybody who has attempted to bake macarons must have tried few times before succeed (except for few lucky ones who managed in 1 attempt.) For me, I think nobody has my record of more than 15 attempts. Some were edible and some went into the bin. I did manage to take some shots of the first few tries and after that I gave up.

It wasnt until my friend, Cynthia of http://mumto4angels.blogspot.com/ started to bake them that my interest to try this cute & colourful french 'cookie' once again. With help and some troubleshooting from my bro, Moses who came home for a short break from US that I managed to bake the macaron. With daily practice, I managed to master the art of baking macarons!!! Yay!!!!

Here's some pix of my first few disasters..(Pls dont laugh...:-((

This one was more like a meringue.....

Perhaps the temperature was too hot, it cracked...

Tried to add some 'sprinkles' to make it more attractive...

Thought this mac was going to have the 'feet' but....it didnt happen...:-((

And now....my successful macarons...(^.^)...

This one is with Green Tea Buttercream Filling

I added some ground hazelnut to make 'Hazelnut Chocolate Macaron'

Assorted Macarons packed into a box as gift

Or make it into Macaron Lolipop...

And I can only say that the battle has been won!!!! Will post some more pix and my recipe for the macarons...

Cranberry Pecan Cookies

2011-10-18T07:43:00.000+08:00

I have been diverting away from baking Cakes & Cheesecakes these few days so, another type that I seldom make is ...Cookies which I would make only during festive season like Chinese New Year. Last month, a customer gave me a box of Cranberry Pecan Cookie made by her sister. My family loved the cookies so much that it was all gone in 2 days time after I opened it.

I was a little hesitant to get the recipe from her sister as we're not so acquanted, I googled the web for a cranberry recipe and found this one that looks easy and interesting as it had chocolate chips added. This recipe is taken from the web cooks.com

I would suggest to make smaller pieces so it will be crispier. The crunchyness of the pecan nuts and chewiness of the cranberries plus the chocolate chips given by my brother from US makes the cookies taste soooo good. I would definitely make this for Chinese New Year.....:-))

Ingredients:
125g Butter
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 1/4 cups Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1/3 cup Brown Sugar
1/3 cup Castor Sugar
3/4 cup Dried Cranberries (chopped to small pieces)
1/2 cup Chopped Pecan Nuts
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips

1) Preheat oven to 375 degree F.
2) Beat butter, egg & vanilla till fluffy.
3) Add remaining ingredients and mix by hand till well blended.
4) Drop heaoing teaspoonful of mixture to cookie sheet.
5) Bake for 8 -10 mins or till edges slightly brown.

(Before Baking)

(After Baked)

Kueh Keria

2011-10-15T12:49:00.001+08:00

Hmmmm I seldom make traditional kuehs but I love to eat them. If I go to the morning market, there sure will be lots of varieties and I go 'gaga' over them and ended up buying lots of them. Alas, my family is not an avid fan of kuehs so rather than go to waste, the kuehs will be my breakfast, lunch, tea break sometimes thrown into the bin as some of the kueh has coconut milk and it will go bad towards the evening.

As this month (October) Aspiring Bakers theme is Traditional Kueh, I gave this recipe a try. I remembered making this when I just got married and stayed together with my in-laws. They always have lots of sweet potatoes/ tapiocas as we stayed in a kampung and they plant fruits and rear pigs, chickens, geese, etc - A typical kampung life. My sis-in-law always made them into keropok (crackers) and while I made kueh keria out of it. I never measured the ingredients used so for my fellow readers, I try to give the weight of the ingredients.

(This one is before glazing)

Ingredients:

600g Sweet Potatoes
60g Plain Flour
60g Tapioca Flour
120g Castor sugar
45ml water
Oil for deep frying

1. Boil sweet potatoes till tender. Peel the skin and mash till fine.
2. Add flour little by little to the mashed potatoes & knead together to form a dough. Add water if its too dry.
3. Roll dough on a floured surface to 5 cm thick. Use a donut cutter to cut.
4. Heat oil in wok & deep fry the kueh. Drain & set aside.
5. Put sugar & water in a pan to make a thick syrup. Add the kueh to pan and glaze completely.

(This was after the glaze but I realised I didnt wait until the sugar syrup crystalized a little before dipping the kueh in. It would have been much nicer...:-))

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

Orange Baked Cheesecake

2011-10-13T07:59:00.000+08:00

My daughter was telling me the other day that I have not been baking Chocolate cake for quite sometime. My daughter is a chocolate lover so I obliged her request but was just too lazy to try a chocolate ganache cake for her. Since she loves cheesecake as well, I made this Baked Cheesecake for her temporary...:-)) and promise to bake her a chocolaty chocolate cake for her birthday in December..(^.^)

This recipe is taken from 'Alex Goh's Baking Code. I find that his recipe is quite reliable and easy. I hope to meet him in person or attend his class one day...

Prepare a 23 cm Chocolate sponge cake about 2 cm thick. You can use any sponge cake recipe that you like or if you're lazy like I did, use a sponge mix..:-))

Ingredients A:
250g Cream Cheese
20g Castor Sugar
1 Orange Zest

Ingredients B:
3 Egg Yolk

Ingredients C:
30g Orange Juice
80g Sour Cream (I used Natural Yogurt)

Ingredients D:
25g Plain Flour

Ingredients E:
3 Egg White
55g Castor Sugar

1. Grease & line the sides & bottom of a 23cm round mould. Wrap the outside with aluminium foil.
2. Cream ingredients A until light. Add in ingredients B, cream until smooth.
3. Add in ingredients C, cream until well blended. Add in ingredients D, mix until incorporated.
4. Whip ingredients E until soft peak stage.
5. Mix the whipped egg white with the above cheese mixture until well incorporated.
6. Place a layer of sponge at the bottom of the mould. Pour the cheese mixture over the cake.
7. Bake in water bath at 160 degree C for 1 hour.

Durian Cheesecake

2011-10-04T20:38:00.000+08:00

I had some durian flesh frozen in my freezer and decided to use it up so I dug out my collection of recipe books in search for interesting recipe that calls for durian and found this. I made a chilled durian cheesecake last year but didnt find it appealing so I thought of giving this baked durian cheesecake a try.

This recipe is taken from the book 'Baking Code' by Alex Goh. I found the texture to be quite dense initially but after overnight in the fridge, it was much better. The aroma of the durian cannot be described...:-))

Ingredients A:
150g Milk
60g Durian Paste (I used durian flesh)
30g Butter

Ingredients B:
125g Cream Cheese

Ingredients C:
30g Plain Flour
20g Corn Flour

Ingredients D:
2 egg Yolk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Ingredients E:
2 egg White
1/8 tsp Cream of Tartar
60g Sugar

1. Grease & line bottom of a 18 cm round mould.
2. Cook Ingredients A until it boils. Cream Ingredients B until smooth. Add in Ingredients A, mix until well blended. Place over double boiler, stir until thick. Remove form double boiler.
3. Add in Ingredients C, mix until well combined. Add in Ingredients D, mix until evenly blended.
4. Whip the egg white in Ingredients E until foamy. Add in the remaining ingredients, continue to whip until soft peak stage. Add it into the above cheese mixture, mix until incorporated.
5. Pour the cheese mixture onto the prepared mould.
6. Bake in water bath at 160 degree C for 50 -60 mins or until set & golden brown.
7. Remove cake from the mould immediately when baked. Set aside to cool.

My brother's Wedding cake

2011-09-25T20:49:00.000+08:00

Today I will not be posting new recipes, instead I will post pix of my brother's wedding cake...(^.^). My brother who works in Singapore decided to have a sunset wedding with his wife at his hometown, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and his wife ( my sis-in-law) requested for me & my USA brother's help to bake their wedding cake. BTW, my USA brother is my youngest brother and not the groom...:-))

I left all the planning to my brother as he has more experience and I just assisted him in the baking. He and my sis-in-law decided on a 3 tier 'satelite' wedding cake design and my sis-in-law requested for green tea flavour. Well, my USA brother flew in on 31st Aug 2011 and the next day we started buying all ingredients to prepare for the wedding cake. Wow! I have never bought so much cake ingredient especially the icing sugar. All in all I bought 30kgs to make the buttercream icing and also the fondant (but we didnt use up all of the sugar).

I baked the butter cake using my favourite recipe. I had to bake 14 pcs of cake to make seven 6" cake , 2 pcs of 8" cake and 3 pcs of 12" cake. I also made lots and lots of fondant. My brother in the mean time, prepared all the fillings which is Lemon Buttercream, Red Bean paste & Green Tea Buttercream.

Oh yes, we were also supposed to make Lollipop Macarons to serve to the guests as pre-dinner snacks. I told my brother that I havent have any success on making macarons and left the job to him...:-)) Initially, he had failures due to the high humidity in our place and after some trouble shooting we managed to get some nice ones & some bad ones.

Here are some of the pix of the wedding cakes...

The butter cake all covered with fondant.

My sis-in-law (the bride) wanted a contemporary design on the cake. Initially, we were supposed to use a stencil but it didnt work out as the icing got smeared so my brother had to use 'free hand' to pipe the design..(I would not have been able to do it...:-)

Tadah!! The completed wedding cake assembled at the wedding dinner reception. (Cakes & fondant made by me, fillings & decoration by my US brother)

My Spore brother & sis-in-law scout around Spore & Johore for a wedding topper but couldnt find one that they like so my USA brother offered to buy for them from USA and they chosed this one..

The 7 pcs of 6" cake which is the bottom 'satelite' tier is sandwiched with lemon buttercream. As there were 7 tables, each table had a whole cake served to them.

The 8" and 12" cake are sandwiched with Red Bean paste and Green Tea buttercream. We divide the 12 " cake amongst family members and the 8" cake was kept frozen for the bride & groom's 1st year anniversary. (The cake is still in my freezer as they couldnt bring it back to Spore (excess luggage) and furthermore they plan to celebrate their 1st anniversary in KK, Sabah. (I have to ensure no 2 legged rat eat them up...:-))

And last but not the least, the Lollipop macaron made by my brother packed nicley for the guests.

Lotus Seed Paste & Cheddar Cheese Mini Mooncake

2011-09-17T10:14:00.000+08:00

I made some mini mooncakes instead of the big ones as I find the mini ones can retain its shape. When I made the bigger baked mooncake it became slanted and has 'elephant' feet. I think I need to trouble shoot some more before attempting again next year...:-((

I got this interesting recipe from the 'Yum Yum' magazine vol # 68. In this issue, they have many types of baked mooncake traditional and alsoteochew style. I picked this one since its the easiest...(^.^)

Skin:
175g Mooncake syrup / Golden syrup/Sugar syrup
1 tsp Alkaline Water
50g Peanut Oil (I used corn oil)
200-220g Low Protein Flour (I used superfine flour)

Filling:
250g Cheddar Cheese, cut into 25 cubes
350g Lotus seed paste, divided into 25 portions (14g each)

* You can actually reduce or add the portions of the cheddar cheese and lotus paste according to the weight of your mould.

Method:

1. Skin: Combine all ingredients & mix well. Cover with a piece of damp towel and rest for 30 mins. Divide the dough into 25 portions about 17g each.
2. Filling: Wrap 1 cube of cheddar cheese into 1 portion of lotus seed paste and form into a ball.
3. Flatten the skin dough, wrap filling and form into a ball. Sprinkle dough with a little flour and press into mooncake mould. Knock out the mooncake and place onto a baking tray. Brush off the excess flour.
4. Brush the surface with a little water and bake in preheatwed oven of 200 degree C for 8 mins. Remove and leave to cool for 15 mins. Glaze with beaten egg and bake for another 10 mins or until golden brown. Remove and leave to cool before serving.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011), hosted by Happy Home Baking

Snow Skin Mooncake

2011-09-14T22:18:00.002+08:00

Its the time of the year for mooncake baking & making. This year, instead of buying boxes of mooncake to give to friends and relatives, I gave them homemade mooncake..(^.^) and I'm so happy to get words of encouragement from hubby, relatives & friends. And also, the theme for this month's Aspiring Baker is 'Mid-Autumn Treats'.

For the snow skin mooncake, I made 4 types of flavour by adding emulco & coloring. I cant say I made the paste 100% as I used store bought ones and there were so many varieties of mooncake paste & fillings like peppermint, blueberry, charcoal, white coffee,etc.

Ingredients for Skin

100g Kao Fen
95g Icing Sugar
30g Shortening
120ml Cold water
Emulco/ Flavour/Paste
Coloring

1) Sift Kao Fen & icing sugar together.
2) Rub in shortening.
3) Add flavour & colour to cold water & pour into flour mixture.
4) Combine into dough and let rest for 30 mins.
5) Divide dough and wrap filling.

* I used Green Tea paste with Green Tea Lotus filling
              Pink colouring with Dragon Fruit Paste
              Yam Paste with Tausa filling
              Durian Flavour & yellow colour with Durian Paste.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011), hosted by Happy Home Baking

Pineapple Cheese Pie

2011-08-31T19:22:00.000+08:00

This recipe has been in my collection since last year but I have been keeping it aside as I did not attempt any pie baking last year. Since this month's (August) Aspiring Bakers Topic is 'Easy as Pie' I flipped through my cookbooks and magazines in search of interesting recipe and settled for this one.

It is quite easy to make and the tanginess of the pineapple filling combine with cream cheese sure taste delicious. This recipe is taken from the Y3K Recipe magazine issue #55.

I did not follow the recipe given for the pie crust as the measurement looked dubious to me. so I used my own favourite crust recipe.

Ingredients for Pastry:

1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
100g Shortening (I used butter)
1/4 cup cold water

- Sift flour & salt together. Rub in the shortening/butter. Slowly pour the cold water to form a dough. (you might not need to use all the water).
- Set aside in fridge for at least 30 mins before fitting in to a 9' pie dish.

Ingredients for Filling:

200g Pineapple Filling (available from local bakery store)
250g Cream Cheese
80g Castor Sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 tsp salt
60ml Milk

- Beat Cream Cheese until smooth. Add sugar. Slowly beat in eggs followed by salt and milk.
- Spread pineapple filling onto the prepared pie crust.
- Pour the Cream Cheese mixture on top.
- Bake in preheated oven of 170 degree C for 25 - 30 mins till golden brown.

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #10: Easy As Pie ( August 2011) hosted by Janine of Not The Kitchen Sink!

Oreo Layer Cheesecake

2011-08-23T13:14:00.000+08:00

CHEESECAKE again!!! My son was saying when he saw me taking out the cream cheese from the fridge. Son, this one is not the normal pure cheese cake, its a layer cake with cream cheese....(^.^) He was happy to try a slice after that. I really think my family has cheesecake phobia. Hmmm time to try other recipes..

I didnt get a spongy cake but the texture of the cheese was good and not dry. This recipe is taken from the book ' My Favourite Dainty Desserts' by Kevin Chai.

Sponge Cake Ingredients:
120g Sponge mix
2 Eggs
2 tbsp Water
30g Butter, melted

Filling:
400g Cream Cheese
100g Castore Sugar
2 Eggs
130g Sour Cream
1 tbsp Cornstarch
60g oreo Biscuits, crushed

1. To make sponge cake, beat sponge mix, eggs & water in a mixing bowl with high speed till light & fluffy.
Turn to low speed and add melted butter.
2. Spread into an 8' lined pan and bake at 180 degree C for 20 mins.
Cool and split to 2 layers.
3. To make filling, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time until blended. Stir in sourcream and cornstarch.
4. Divide into 2 portions. Add in 40g oreo biscuits into a portion.
5. Place a slice of cake into pan. Spread the original flavour cheese batter and bake at 200 degree C for 20 mins.
6. Place another slice of cake on top of the half baked cheese. Spread with oreo cheese batter and sprinkle remaining crushed oreo biscuits on top. Return to oven to bake for another 20 mins.
7. Remove from oven and leave to cool. Chill in fridge.

Martabak Mee ???

2011-08-20T14:20:00.000+08:00

I think I've been blogging mostly on bakings although my blog says ' Cooking & Baking Journal'..(^.^) I was browsing through a page in Facebook and saw this recipe being posted by 'Sabah Cakes Directory' (whoever you are, thanks for this easy recipe).

The recipe sounded so interesting although there was no picture to accompany it. I think you can serve this as a snack or if you're bored of eating the normal instant noodle and would like to do something interesting to it, you can try this.

All you need is
1 pack of instant noodle (any brand)
2-3 eggs
some cooking oil

- Cook the instant noodle as you normally do and drain off the water.
- Mix with the accompanying seasoning.
- Add the eggs and mix together.
- Heat a little oil in your frying pan and spoon the noodles onto the pan.
- Flip over the other side and let it cook evenly.
- Serve hot!

Even though it is called 'Martabak Mee', I think its more of a Instant Noodle Omellette.. No matter how you call it, this is a delicious snack and you should try it out...

Chilled 'Sunquick' Cheese Cake & Mango Pancake

2011-08-19T12:37:00.000+08:00

I've been repeating previous recipes posted in this blog but gave a twist (variation) to it. Again, I made this chilled cheesecake just for the sake of using up the yogurt and this time, I used the 'Sunquick' mix fruit cordial instead of Ribena. You can actually use any cordial according to your preference.

The recipe can be viewed from http://xandrascookingbakingjournal.blogspot.com/2011/06/chilled-ribena-marble-cheesecake.html

As it is also the fruits season, the mango tree in my garden bore some fruits and to savour the sweet and juuicy fruit, I combined the flesh with whipped cream and wrapped them up with pancake.

The recipe can be obtained from http://xandrascookingbakingjournal.blogspot.com/2010/09/chilled-durian-pancake.html

Lemon Yogurt Muffin

2011-08-11T22:54:00.000+08:00

Hmmm I seem to be baking just to clear the food items which will be expiring soon. I have this habit of buying 'extra' ingredients whenever I bake for an order. So recently foran order of 60 pcs of Oreo Cheese Cupcakes, I bought 4 tubs @ 470g of Natural flavoredYogurt and I actually used only about 1 1/4 tub. I gave 1 tub away and tried to find recipes that uses yogurt as I do not eat yogurt and my children do not really fancy them.

OK, so one of them is this Lemon Yogurt recipe which has been in my scrap book since last year. I did not jot down where I got it from. I added some blueberry topping instead of icing as muffins are usually serve as it is and bluberry goes well with lemon.

Lemon Yogurt Muffin

100g Cake Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Lemon Juice
1/2 tsp Lemon Paste (Optional)
100g Plain Yogurt
50g Castor Sugar
50g Butter
1 Egg

1) Mix butter & sugar together & double boil over a pot of simmering water. Stir with hand whisk till well blended. Cool slightly.
2) Sift Cake Flour with baking powder.
3) Add yogurt, lemon juice, lemon paste & egg into butter mixture & stir till combine.
4) Add in sifted flour & fold lightly. Spoon batter into cups.
5) Bake at 180 degree C for 25 mins.

Cheese Tart

2011-08-06T10:04:00.000+08:00

What!...Cheese Tart again? My children asked. Yeah, I've been making cheese tart on and off but this time, I made this batch because I found out a way to decorate the tart...(^.^) And instead of using my previous recipe for the cheese filling, I picked this one from the book 'Fantastic Cheesecake' by Alex Goh.

And for the month of August, the topic for the Aspiring Bakers is 'Easy as Pie' which also covers tarts, quiches, etc... hosted by Janine of "Not the Kitchen Sink!"

Sweet Pastry:
(A) 200g Butter
      100g icing Sugar
(B) 1 Egg
(C) 420g Plain Flour

1) Cream (A) lightly. Add (B) & cream until smooth.
2) Add (C) and mix until well blended.
3. Press it into tart mould.

Filling:
(A) 250g Cream Cheese
(B) 30g Butter
      100g Castor Sugar
(C) 1 tbsp Flour
(D) 1 Egg
(E) 1 tbsp Orange Juice
      1 Orange zest
(F) 50g Whipping Cream

1) Cream (A) until smooth. Add (B) and cream until light.
2) Add (C) and cream until well blended. Add (D) and cream until well combined.
3) Add (E) and then (F). Cream until well incorporated.
4) Pour the cheese mixture into the prepared tart mould.
5) Bake at 175 degree C for 30 mins or until set and lightly brown.

* I made a variation on the method:
- I baked the tart shells at 170 degree C for 15 mins.
- Add a little blueberry pie filling onto the tart shell. (you can also use any filling you like)
-

- Fill /cover with the cream cheese filling.

- take out 3-4 tbsp of the cream cheese filling and add a drop of food colour of your choice.
- drop a small mixture of the coloured cream cheese onto the tart and using a toothpick, make a pattern.

.I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers#10-Easy as Pie hosted by Not the Kitchen Sink

Oreo Yoghurt Cheesecake

2011-07-30T17:44:00.000+08:00

My nephew asked me to bake an Oreo Cheesecake like the one sold in 'Secret Recipe' for his GF's birthday this coming Monday. From my newly acquired book, I saw a recipe for an Oreo Cheesecake but I was not sure if it will be like what he wanted so I tested it out first. The verdict, hmmm even though the picture looks like it, the finished product doesnt look or taste like it.

But I would still like to share this recipe with you readers. From the book 'Cheesecake Mania' by Kevin Chai, this is "Oreo Yoghurt Cheesecake".

Base: 160g Oreo cookies, crushed
          60g Butter, Melted

1) Stir all ingredients until combined. Press mixture onto base of an 8" pan.
2) chill in fridge.

Filling: 450g Cream Cheese
           100g Castor Sugar
           3 Eggs
           120g plain yoghurt
           1 tbsp lime juice ( I used lemon juice)
           1 tbsp Cornflour
           80g Oreo cookies (roughly chopped)

1) Beat cream cheese & sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2) Beat in yogurt, lime/lemon juice & cornstarch until blended.
3) Stir in the chopped cookies, mix well.
4) Pour mixture onto prepared tin and bake in preheated oven at 170 degree C for 30 - 40 mins.
5) remove from oven and let it chill in fridge 4 hours or overnight.
6) Decorate as desired.

White Chocolate Macadamia

2011-07-29T07:36:00.000+08:00

Remember me mentioning I bought few cookbooks recently? Well, again from the book 'Baking Code' by Alex Goh, I found a recipe which I've been searching for. I tried to google and also search in food blogs but couldn't find this recipe.."White Chocolate Macadamia" cake. This cake is me & my youngest son's favourite and it's sold in Secret Recipe.

The verdict after baking this cake?? My son said "hmm taste better than Secret Recipes but mom, you gotta work on the white Chocolate" (which is the ganache). I found that next day, the cake will be much easier to cut due the the setting of the white chocolate ganache.
If you love this cake, do give it a try!

Vanilla Sponge Cake

120g Sponge cakemix
2 tbsp water
2 Eggs
2 tbsp Melted Butter

1) Whisk all ingredients except melted butter until fluffy.
2) Fold in the melted butter. Mix well
3) Pour into a greased & lined 8' round pan and bake in preheated oven of 180 degree C for 15 mins.

Filling:
250g Whipped Topping
50g toasted Macadamia nuts, chopped

1) Mix 150g whipped topping and macadamia nuts together.
2) Keep the rest of the whipped topping for frosting.

Ganache:
100g whipping Cream
200g White Chocolate, melted
10g Butter

1) Cook the whipping cream until it boils.
2) Add it to the melted white chocolate. Stir until it has melted completely.
3) Add in butter, mix until well combined.

To Assemble:

1) Slice the sponge cake into 2/3 layers.
2) Sandwich the cake with the whipped topping + macadamia.
3) Cover the cake with whipped cream and refrigerate for 30 mins.
4) Remove the cake from fridge, coat it with white chocolate glaze.

Marble Baked Cheese Tart

2011-07-23T22:39:00.001+08:00

I'm 'hooked' when it comes to cooking/baking books. I just have to buy them if the recipes inside the book catch my interest. I recently acquire few books through mail order and some are written in Bahasa Malaysia which is alright to me as I can read and understand Bahasa but not chinese...:-)) I also bought few books from Popular bookstore and one of them is 'Baking Code' by Alex Goh. This is one of his 'old' book and I am starting to collect his books as his recipe is simple and the methods looked easy.

I picked the Marble Cheese Tart as I still have some empty tart shells from my Apple Ice Cream Tart baking. I shot this pix using my sony digital camera. Hmmm I think I have to upgrade to a better one so that the pix alone will tempt you readers..:-))

Ingredients for the Filling

A: 250g Cream Cheese
     60g Castor Sugar

B: 1 Egg

C: 50g Whipping Cream

D: 1 tbsp Milk
    15g Melted Chocolate

Prepare a ready-made sweet pastry from your favourite recipe or from my previous posting http://xandrascookingbakingjournal.blogspot.com/2011/07/durian-egg-tart.html

1) Press the sweet pastry onto the tart mould. Prick some holes on the pastry shell and bake at            190 degree C for 15 mins or until light golden brown. Leave to cool.
2) Cream ingredients (A) until light & smooth. Add in ingredients (B). Cream until well blended.
3) Add in ingredients (C), mix until well blended.
4) Take out 60g of the cheese mixture, mix with Ingredients (D) until well blended.
5) Deposit the cheese fillings onto the baked pastry shells. Place some chocolate cheese fillings on it and make swirls with it.
6) Bake at 200 degree C for 10 - 12 mins.

Durian Swiss Roll

2011-07-19T21:43:00.000+08:00

Remember I bought a container of Durian Puree from the local Consolidated food? Yeah... I still have lots of it and I'm trying to finish them up by searching for recipes that uses durian puree. Over the weekend I went over to Johore Bahru for my brother's marriage registration ceremony and he bought durians for me to eat. Wow! I never knew there were so many types of durian. We ate 2 types of durian - the 'Musang' & 'Apple'. In Sabah, the durian season is not out yet so I will probably have to wait until August/ September to use durian flesh for baking and add some of the store bought durian (if I still have them.)

Since its still the month of July, I'm making this durian swiss roll for the Aspiring Bakers. Actually the swiss roll cracked but it cannot be seen as it was underneath..(^o^). Because I used durian puree for the filling, it was not thick and flow out when cut. Taste wise, its still good...

Ingredients

5 Egg yolk
60g Castor Sugar
60ml Milk
80g Durian Pureee
90ml Corn Oil
60g Cake Flour
60g Plain Flour
20g Corn Flour
1/2 tsp Durian Essence (Optional)

5 Egg White
70g Castor Sugar
1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar

Method

1) Grease & line a tray size 10 X 14 with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 170 degree C.
2) In a large bowl, mix egg yolk & sugar followed by durian puree, corn Oil, Milk, Durian Eessence and lastly the flours.
3) In another bowl, beat egg whites till foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to whip. Gradually add in the sugar & beat at high speed till stiff peak.
4) Fold in the egg yolk mixture to the egg white.
5) Pour over the tray and bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
6) Cool the cake before spreading the filling.

Filling

120ml non-dairy whipping cream, whipped
80g Durian Puree
150g Durian Flesh ( I didnt add any)

- Mix the puree & flesh into the whipped cream and spread onto the cake.
- Roll it gently and chill in fridge at least 1 hour before slicing.

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times (July 2011) hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food

Durian Egg Tart

2011-07-10T19:51:00.000+08:00

This is my 1st time making egg tarts and I picked the Durian Egg Tart from 'In The Mood for Pastries & Tarts' by Alan Ooi. Few days ago I saw a container of Durian Puree for sell in the local consolidated foodstore so I bought 1 thinking I will try and find recipes that uses durian puree.

All I can say is that the smell of the Durian is there but you cant taste the durian as there's no 'flesh' in it. Just pure pureed durian form. Hmmm I would like to try making this again when I get a real durian.

Sweet Tart Pastry

250g Butter
110g Icing Sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
450g Plain flour

1) Beat butter & Icing sugar until fluffy.
2) Add in egg & vanilla essence.
3) Lastly add in the flour and combine into a dough.

Durian Egg Tart

1 portion Sweet Tart Pastry
A
170ml Water
65g Castor Sugar
B
80ml Evaporated Milk
40g Durian Puree
few drops of yellow colour
C
5 Eggs

1) Press pastry into tart mould and bake in preheated oven at 175 degree C for 15 mins.
2) Bring (A) to a boil. Add (B) and leave to cool. Add (C) and mix well.
3) Pour the fillings into the baked tart shells. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for 20 - 25 mins.

Apple Ice Cream Tart

2011-07-09T21:14:00.000+08:00

This is my 2nd post on ice cream using the recipe I got from the baking class last week under Chef Daniel Choong from Kuala Lumpur. I do say that the making of ice cream using whipped cream is easy but if you prefer the creamier version like gelato, this is not it. Hmmm I will try and google for more ice cream recipe that will yield a ceamy texture.

Ingredients:

Tart: 150g Butter
        70g Margarine
        145g Icing Sugar
        1 Egg White
        465g Flour

Ice Cream: 3 Egg yolk
                  100g Creamer (Coffee mate)
                  1 tsp Vanilla Essence
                  100g Evaporated Milk
                  285g Whipping Cream, whipped
                  3 Green Apples, blended
                  1 Green Apple, chopped

Method:

Tart: 1) beat buter, margarine & icing sugar till creamy. Add in the egg white.
        2) Add in the flour and knead gently to form a dough.
        3) Press into tart mould.
        4) Bake in preheated oven at 175 degree C for 15 - 20 mins.

Ice Cream: 1)Double boil all ingredients except whipped cream & apples. Let it cool.
                  2) Mix with fresh cream and stir till smooth.
                  3) Add in blended & chopped apples.
                  4) Pour into tart mould and freeze overnight.
                  5) Decorate with fresh cream topping.

* You can also use your favourite short crust recipe.

Classic red Velvet Cupcake

2011-07-07T13:03:00.000+08:00

Did you know that a Red Velvet cake / cupcake is actually a chocolate cake with buttermilk as one of the ingredients and of course top with a cream cheese frosting. I was wondering why the Red Velvet is so popular and decided to try but using a recipe that calls for sour cream/yogurt instead of buttermilk. And the texture is fluffy and moist. I do find dumping the whole bottle of red food colour is too much though so I just added a few drops to give it some 'colour'. You can actually make this into a cake instead of cupcake.

Ingredients:

21/2 cups Flour
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
226g Butter, softened
2 cups Castor Sugar
4 Eggs
1 cup Sour Cream / Yogurt
1/2 cup Milk
1 bottle (1 oz) Red food colour ( I used few drops)
2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda & salt together. Set aside.
2. Beat butter & sugar in a large bowl at medium speed for 5 mins till light & fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time.
3. Mix in sour cream/yogurt, milk, food colouring & vanilla extract.
4. Gradually beat in flour mixture on low speed till just blended. Do not overbeat.
5. Spoon into paper cups and bake about 20 mins.
6. Cool before frosting.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

250g Cream Cheese
58g Butter, softened
2 tbsp sour cream / yogurt
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
500g Icing sugar, sifted

1. Beat all ingredients except sugar till light & fluffy.
2. Gradually beat in sugar till smooth.
3. Frost on top of cooled cupcakes.

Lemon Cheese Swiss Roll

2011-07-05T22:27:00.001+08:00

This is the second time I am participating in the Aspiring Bakers and the theme for this month is ' Swiss Rolling Good Times'. I actually only attempted baking swiss roll twice and this month's theme gave me a good excuse to try again.

The recipe I chosed is from the "Y3K recipes' magazine issue # 56 by Coco Kong. I find the texture of this cake very soft and the lemony taste in the Lemon Cheese filling not too overwhelming.

Ingredients
(A) 5 Egg Yolks
      45g Castor Sugar
      1/2 tsp Salt
      40g Corn Oil
(B) 115g Hong Kong / Superfine Flour
      1 tsp Baking Powder
      50ml Ice Water
      Grated rind of 1 Lemon
(C) 6 Egg Whites
      85g Castor Sugar
      1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
(D) 1 tsp Lemon Essence / Paste
       200g Cream Cheese
      Juice of 1/2 Lemon
      50g Icing Sugar
      60g Natural Flavoured Yogurt

Method:
1. Beat ingredients (D) until smooth. Keep mixture chilled for 30 - 60 mins.
2. Combine ingredients (A) together. Beat well. Fold in ingredients (B). Set aside
3. Beat ingredients (C) until soft peaks form and mixture becomes fluffy. Fold in no (2) till even.
4. Pour no (3) onto a tray lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for 12 - 15 mins. Remove cake from oven.
5. Loosen cake from pan and trim off hard edges. Cover with a dry tea towel to prevent cake from drying out. Cool well.
6. Place cake on a clingfilm and spread some filling (1) on surface. Roll up tightly and keep chilled.
7. Do not unwrap during the first half hour. Slice & serve.

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #9 - Swiss Rolling Good Times (July 2011) hosted by Obsessedly Involved with Food

Raisins & Hazelnut Ice Cream

2011-07-04T14:03:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend, I joined a baking class organised by a local bakery and the chef was from Kuala Lumpur. There were a few classes but the one I attended was on Ice Cream & Desserts. After bringing home the samples (which was not enough to distribute to my children) I picked the easiest one to make as I have all the ingredients at home. I have to say that making ice cream uses up lots of egg yolk and I might be using the egg whites to attempt macaron making for the 6th or 7th time...

Previously when making Ice cream, I would put them into a container to freeze and just scoop it out to a cone or cup but this time from the lesson, an interesting way was putting it onto a tart so it became Ice Cream Tart and of course onto a dessert cup.

Ingredients

A: 6 Egg Yolks
    25g Icing Sugar
    15g Milk Powder
    40g Creamer (Coffee Mate)
    225g Evaporated Milk
    2 tsp Coffee Emulco/Paste

350g Non Daily Topping, whipped

200g Hazelnut, Roasted & Chopped
90g Raisins / Sultanas

1) Double boil all ingredients A. Let it cool.
2) Mix (A) into whipped topping and stir till smooth.
3) Stir in the Chopped Hazelnuts & Raisisns.
4) Scoop into a dessert cup / tart cases or just into a container.
5) Freeze overnight.
6) Decorate with whipped cream and top with chocolate or fruits before serving.

Orange Carrot Cake

2011-06-25T10:29:00.000+08:00

Remember me mentioning that hubby do not fancy cakes? Well, he does eat certain types of cake though not really indulge in them and I'm on a 'journey' to discover his prefered taste...(^_^). One of them is Carrot cake. On his previous deep sea fishing trip with his buddies, I baked a carrot cake and put some inside a container as I know my children and I will not be able to finish them. When he came home from his 3 days 2 nights trip, he said he & his buddies finished up the whole lot in seconds and it was not enough to share ...:-)) Hmmm....makes me wonder if it was because they were too hungry or rather, nothing to eat on a fishing boat in the middle of nowhere.

Few days later while eating an orange, he asked me if there's such thing as Orange Carrot cake. I told him that there should be and will try and bake one. I actually fogot all about it until I was reading other blogger's webpage yesterday and saw this recipe from http://anncoojournal.blogspot.com/

Ingredients:
160g Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
1/2 cup Corn Oil
150g Carrot, Grated
100g Raisins
1 tbsp Orange Zest
4 tbsp Orange Juice
180g Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon Powder

1) Line a 7' square pan at all sides.
2) Gently mix brown sugar, oil, orange juice & eggs till combine.
3) Add carrots, raisins & orange zest. Mix well.
4) Sift flour, baking soda & cinnamon powder together. Fold into the wet ingredients.
5) Bake in preheated oven at 175degree C for 40 - 45 mins.
6) Leave to cool before frosting with your favourite Cream Cheese frosting.

Chilled Ribena Marble Cheesecake

2011-06-23T13:37:00.002+08:00

This recipe has been in my collection for quite sometime. I felt like making a chilled/non bake cheesecake as its been quite sometime since I made a non baked one. I have most of the ingredients at home and this is a very easy cake to make. You can go to this blog to check out the step by step instruction.
http://happyhomebaking.blogspot.com/2009/02/yummy-delight.html

Ingredients for Crust:

150g Digestive biscuit, crushed
60g Butter, melted

1) Line a 20cm/ 8 ' round pan with removable base.
2) Combine crushed biscuit with melted butter and press to base of pan.
3) Chill in freezer for at least 1 hour.

Ingredients for Filling:

250g Cream Cheese, room temperature,
75g Castor Sugar
250ml / 1 cup PlainYogurt
75ml Ribena Cordial / Syrup
100ml Water
2 tbsp Gelatin powder

1) Sprinkle gelatin into water. Do not stir. Let gelatin swell (about 10 mins) before setting bowl over a pot of simmering hot water. Stir well till gelatin melt. Remove & set aside.
2) Beat Cream Cheese & sugar till smooth. Add in gelatin & yogurt. Beat till smooth.
3) Divide mixture into 2 bowls and add ribena cordial/syrup to one of the bowl.
4) Spoon 4 tbsp of plain cream cheese onto the middle of prepared biscuit base. Spoon 3 tbsp of ribena cream cheese over it.
5) Continue altenately until the cream cheese is finished. Do not tilt the pan, it will spread by itself.
6) Chill in refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

Ice Cream Cake for Father's Day

2011-06-21T19:43:00.000+08:00

The 3rd Sunday of the month of June is dedicated to fathers all over the world and this year, I made the cakes for my father and also hubby. For my father, I made a carrot cake frosted with cream cheese as he loves the carrot cake I bake minus the walnuts...:-) Previous years, he would request me to get him either a Black Forest cake or a Fruit Cocktail cake from the local bakery. I'm glad this year I get to bake for him.

For my hubby, he actually do not fancy eating cakes but once in a while indulge in them. I baked him a chocolate cheese cake for his birthday in April so I thought of trying out the Ice Cream Cake recipe I had from the baking class last year, hence the Yogurt Mango Ice Cream Cake.. I still need to have more practice on decorating and handwriting...(^.^)

Yogurt Mango Ice Cream Cake

Sponge Cake Ingredients: -
(A) 4 Eggs
      120g Castor Sugar
      1 tbsp Ovalette (I omitted)
(B) 100g Superfine Flour (or low protein flour)
       15g Corn Flour
       1/2 tsp Baking Powder
(C) 40g Water
      1/2 tsp Mango Essence
(D) 50g Corn Oil

1) Whisk ingredients (A) till fluffy. Add in (B), use high speed to whisk till thick and light.
2) Pour in mixture (C) & (D). Stir well and pour into 9" round pan. Bake at 160 degree C for 30 - 35 mins.
3) Let cool and slice into 3 layers.

* You can also use your favourite sponge cake recipe.

Ice Cream Filling: -
((A) 3 Egg Yolk
       80g Castor Sugar
(B) 200g Mango Puree
      200g Plain Yogurt
      1/2 tsp Mango Essence
(C) 300g Whipping Cream, whipped

1) Double boil ingredients (A) till sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add in ingredients (B). Mix well.
2) Let it cool and stir into (C).

To Assemble:-
1) Arrange a layer at the bottom of the cake board inside a cake ring. Cut another slice into 4 to cover the sides of the cake ring.
2) Pour in the ice cream filling and cover the top with the last layer of sponge cake.
3) Put in freezer overnight.
4) To decorate, remove the cake ring and deco with fresh cream.

Cinnamon Rolls

2011-06-09T22:01:00.000+08:00

My youngest brother had been asking me to try baking Cinnamon Rolls since his visit back home from Kansas, USA last year. He knew I love any food that has cinnamon in it. I really love the smell of cinnamon during baking like carrot cake or apple pie. I looked up on the various cinnamon roll recipe from the cooking books I have and also google the net but I still find this recipe taken from 'Agnes Chang's Baking Made Easy' the easiest.

Ingredients A
300g High Protein Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
50g Castor Sugar
1 tsp Instant Yeast

2 Eggs, lightly beaten
60 - 75ml Milk
60g Soft Butter

Filling:
60g Soft Butter
50g Soft Brown Sugar mixed with 2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
50g Ground Almond

1. In a mixing bowl, mix ingredients A. Add eggs, milk and knead to form a soft and pliable dough. Add butter & continue to knead till smooth and elastic. Cover and prove till double in bulk.
2. Knead again till smooth. Rest for 15 mins.
3. Roll into a 36cm/14" square, spread soft butter on dough, leaving 2 cm border all around empty. Sprinkle cinnamon mixture on top of the buttered area and roll up like a swiss roll.
4. Cut the roll into 4cm thick and put them close together (cut side up, 9 pieces in 3 rows) on a greased 20cm/8" square tin.
5. Cover & prove till double in bulk (about 30 mins).
6. Bake at 190 degree C till golden brown about 15 - 20 mins.
7. Cool and drizzle top with your favourite glaze/ frosting. (I used 1/2 cup icing sugar mix with 1-2 tbsp milk)

* You can also add raisin before rolling up.

This is also the first time I'm joining the Aspiring Bakers - a monthly baking 'challenge' hosted by different bloggers with different themes.
I'm submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #8 - Bread Seduction (June 2011) hosted by Jasmine from Sweetylicious.

Raisin Bread Pudding

2011-06-06T22:08:00.000+08:00

I 'm a fan of bread pudding and found a cafe that sells the bread pudding just the way I like it in town. This cafe ' Fook Yuen' has many outlets but only the one in Jalan Gaya (Gaya Street) sells it by the 'loaf'. I surf the net to find recipe for bread pudding and found one from 'Kuali' that 'looks' similiar to the one sold in the cafe.

Previously I attempted one using the 'Nestle' recipe card but I found the texture to be rather dry. You can see below the first bread pudding I made.

Now, the one below is more like pudding texture. If you want it to be drier, please cover with an aluminium foil when baking a little longer to avoid the top from becoming dry & darker.

Ingredients

16 slices bread
1 cup Raisin
2 can (12 fl oz) Evaporated milk
4 Eggs
55g Butter
3/4 cup packed brown Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Essence
1 tsp ground Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg

- Preheat oven to 180 degree C. Grease a 12 x 8 baking dish. (I baked in 2 aluminium baking loaf foils)
- Combine bread & raisins in a large bowl.
- Combine evaporated milk, eggs, butter, sugar, vanilla essence, cinnamon & nutmeg.
- Pour liquid mixture over bread mixture. Combine well.
- Pour mixture into baking dish and let stand for 10 mins.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a knife inserted in cake comes out clean.

Cheesy Cheese Cake

2011-05-24T13:39:00.000+08:00

Few weeks ago, one of my classmate from my Japanese Language class brought some cakes to share with us as it was her birthday. I liked the taste and texture of the cake as even though she said it was a cheese cake, it was not like the normal 'cheese cake' that I have eaten or made like the 'Japanese Cotton Cheesecake', ' New York Cheese Cake' or any other baked 'cheese cake'. Instead it was sort of like a sponge cake sandwiched with cream cheese frosting.

I remembered having this type of cake recipe in one of my cookbooks so I flipped through them and found it. This recipe is taken from the book 'The Joy of Baking' published by Bake with Yen. It was not very difficult to make and my children and friends loved it. I'm definitley going to make this again.

Ingredients for the Chiffon Cake

(A) 4 egg Yolks                                                     (B) 4 egg Whites
      60 ml Corn Oil                                                      60g Castor Sugar
      120g Cake Flour                                                   1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
      1 heap tsp baking powder
      60g Castor Sugar
      4 1/2 tbsp Milk
      1/3 tsp Vanilla Powder (I used vanilla essence)

1) Sift flour with baking powder.
2) Mix the flour with egg yolks, oil, sugar, milk & vanilla. Stir until well mixed and smooth.
3) Beat egg whites with cream of tartar and sugar until stiff.
4) Fold egg yolk mixture into egg whites.
5) Bake in a 9' round tin at 180 degree C for 40-45 mins.

* You can use any of the sponge cake recipe that you normally use.

Ingredients for the frosting

227g Butter
113g Cream Cheese
60g icing Sugar
1/4 cup milk
Cheddar Cheese, grated (for sprinkling)

1) Beat Cream Cheese & butter together.
2) Add icing sugar alternating with milk.

To Assemble: - Cut the cake into 3 pieces and sandwich each layer with frosting and Cheddar Cheese. Spread frosting on top and sides of cake, sprinkle cheddar cheese all over the cake.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake for Mothers Day

2011-05-23T22:07:00.000+08:00

Mothers day is celebrated on the 2nd Sunday of the month of May every year and this year, I baked a mini cake for my mother whereas previously I buy them from the local bakery. When I took the cake to my mother's house, she grumbled about wasting my money on buying cakes but when I told her that I baked the cake, she accepted it readily....(^.^).Mothers! They do not want to see her children wasting money unwisely....

This was the first time I baked using green tea aka matcha as an ingredient. I dare not try any recipe using green tea as I thought they might taste bitter but at first bite, it was aromatic and tasted like pandan cake....I picked Green Tea chiffon cake as my mother do not like sweet cakes and also not fond of chocolates.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake

70g Cake Flour                                          5 Egg Whites
10g Green Tea Powder                              90g Castor Sugar
5 Egg Yolks
20g Castor Sugar
70g Water
60g Oil

1) Combine egg yolks & sugar. Mix well.
2) Add in water & oil. Blend together.
3) Sift the cake flour & green tea powder together and add into the egg yolk mixture. Mix well and set aside.
4) Beat egg white till frothy and gradually add in the sugar and beat until stiff peak.
5) Fold egg white into egg yolk mixture.
6) Pour into a 20cm tube pan and bake at 160 degree C for 40 - 50 mins.

* I divided into 2 small pans (a 6' round pan & 6' heart shape pan)

The original recipe actually suggested frosting with red bean cream but I frosted it with cream cheese & another one for myself (^o^) with fresh cream. I will definitely try this recipe again and this time frost it with red bean cream.

Pandan Cheesecake

2011-05-03T22:01:00.000+08:00

Oh dear......oh dear! Been lacking in updating my blog again. Also I didnt attempt any 'new' recipes for the past few weeks. I had been trying out old recipes just to perfect them like the apple pie and the classic butter cake.

I still had some left over cream cheese in the fridge so I thought of baking a cheesecake that is lighte in texture. Something like the Japanese Cotton Cheesecake. I dug out my favourite recipe book 'Fantastic Cheesecake' by Alex Goh and found this easy recipe.

The taste of coconut and pandan is refreshing and I add just a tiny drop of colour as it was for own consumption.

Ingredients

(A) 500g Cream cheese
      100g Castor sugar
(B) 3 Egg Yolks
(C) 20g Flour
      20g Cornflour
(D) 200g/ml Coconut milk
      1 tsp pandan leaf juice
      few drops of green food colouring
(E) 3 Egg whites
      75g Castor Sugar

1. Cream (A) till light. Add (B) and cream till smooth.
2. Add (C) and mix till well combined.
3. Add (D) into the mixture from step 2. Mix well.
4. Whip (E) till soft peaks. Add it into the cheese mixture from step 3. Mix until well incorporated.
5. Grease and line bottom of a 23 cm springform pan. Pour the cheese filling onto the tin.
6. Bake in water bath at 160 degree C for 60 -70 mins.
7. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.
8. Refrigerate for 5 hours or overnight.

Quiche Lorraine

2011-04-19T22:10:00.000+08:00

Hmmm what is a quiche? In French, a quiche is an oven-baked dish made with eggs, milk or cream in a pastry crust. Quiche is generally an open pie and it may be eaten for breakfast, lunch or dinner. It is a savoury pie and you can use any meat for its fillings. This was my second time making this pie and I find its good for using up leftover chicken meat or ham.

The recipe is taken from "In the mood for Pastries & Tarts" by Alan Ooi and published by Seashore.

You can use any short crust recipe. The one I used was also taken from the same book.

Short Crust Pastry
200g Plain Flour
110g Butter
1/4 tsp Salt
21/2 tbsp Water

Mix all ingredients except water till crumbly. Slowly add water to form a dough. Wrap it in a plastic and refrigerate for 30 mins.

Quiche Loraine
1 portion short crust pastry

(A) 25g cooking oil
      150g onions, sliced

(B) 100g Chicken meat, cubed (I used ham & chicken franks)
      1 Egg
      100g Fresh Milk

(C) 60g Cheddar Cheese, grated
      50g Parmesan Cheese Powder

(D) 2 Eggs
      200ml Whipping Cream
      70g Fresh Milk
      1/4 tsp salt
      1/2 tsp pepper

Dough: Rest the short crust pastry for 20 mins. Roll into 3 mm thickness. Press dough into pie mould. Prick some holes in it. Rest for 20 mins. Bake in preheated oven of 175 degree C for 20 - 25 mins.

Fillings: Fry (A) till fragrant. Add (B) and fry until chicken turns white. Remove and set aside to cool.
            Place into the baked pie pastry. Place (C) and pour (D).
            Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for 25-30 mins or until fillings turn golden brown.

Oreo Ice Cream 'Cake'

2011-04-13T23:27:00.000+08:00

Hmmm Oreo again. Who doesnt love oreos. I think I've used Oreos countless times in baking as crust, fillings, decorations, etc.

I was thumbling through you tube searching for clips on making ice cream cake and found this easy recipe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOecLVgUTZ8 . The ingredients are very easy to get and my children loved it so much that it was gone in seconds..(^.^)

1 tub of Vanilla flavour ice cream
2- 3 pacts Oreo cookies
Caramel Syrup/ Maple syrup, optional

- Leave the ice cream in room temperature to soften it for easy handling.
- Line a spring form pan with plastic wrap and place the oreo cookies around the sides and bottom of the pan.
- Crumble few oreo cookies and mix into the ice cream.
- Squeeze some caramel syrup and mix to combine.
- Pour the ice cream mixture into the pan and freeze for at least 4-6 hours.

Irish Coffee Caramel Cake

2011-04-09T21:30:00.000+08:00

Irish Coffee Caramel Cake..Hmmm thats a mouthful. If you are a coffee lover and like caramel, this one is for you. When my brother from USA came back for a short trip end of last year, he brought some baking stuffs for me and one of them is the Jell-O Mousse Caramel flavour.

While cleaning up the pantry, I noticed that it was nearing the expiry date and rather than making it as a mousse by itself, I decided to use it as a cake filling. I was deciding between a chocolate or a coffee cake and since I have a recipe for an Irish coffee cake from my baking class which I attended last year, I decided to give it a try....Hence the "Irish Coffee Caramel Cake.(^.^)

Sponge Cake
(A) 9 Egg yolks                                                        (B) 9 Egg Whites
     110g Cake Flour                                                       150g Castor Sugar
     30g Cornflour                                                            1/2 tsp Cream of Tartar
     70g Optima Flour
     40g Cappuccino Powder
     3 tbsp Nescafe
     1/4 tsp Salt
     1/4 tsp Baking Soda
     80g Water
     80g Corn Oil

-Mix all ingredients (A). Set aside.
- Whisk Egg White & cream of tartar of (B) till foamy. Add Sugar and beat until stiff.
- Fold in Egg white mixture to Egg yolk mixture & mix well. Pour into an 11' round pan.
- Bake at 150 degree C for 45 - 50 mins.
-Let cool and slice into 2/3 layers.

* I halved the recipe and used a 9' round pan.

** Prepare the Jell-O mousse as directed. Lay a piece of sponge cake and pour the caramel over it. Top with another layer of sponge cake.
    Chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before frosting with fresh cream.

Apple Pie

2011-04-03T15:42:00.000+08:00

Okay, I've tried pastries like sardine rolls, curry puffs & choux pastries so now to Pies! Who dont love pies but making pies seems like a hastle. You have to make the crust, let it rest in fridge and prepare filling, etc. So I thought I give it a trylah...(^.^)

I found this quite easy recipe but had a disaster on making the crust. With some 'patchwork' I manage to come out with one pie..My 1st pie He..he..

Crust: 220g Flour
          80g Margarine/Butter
         35g Lard/Shortening
         2 tbsp cold water

- Mix Flour, Butter/Margarine & Lard/Shortening into crumbs. Add water and form into a soft dough. refrigerate for at least 30 mins before rolling into 2 pcs.

Filling: 500g apples, sliced
          2 tbsp lemon juice
          1/2 cup sugar

- Mix apples with lemon juice & sugar. Transfer apples without juice to pie crust.

Topping: 1 1/2 cups sugar
              1/4 cup flour
              2 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
              some cinnamon
             30g butter
             some milk (for glaze)

- Mix sugar, cinnamon, flour & cornstarch in a bowl. Pour over the apples in the pie pan. Dot with butter
- Cover with another crust. trim down the edges.
- Bruch top with milk bake at preheated oven of 175 degree C for about 1 hour.

Chocolate Walnut Cheesecake

2011-03-22T13:28:00.000+08:00

I was trying to clear/use up some cream cheese in my fridge before they expire but didnt really want to bake the usual creamy cheesecake. Been baking quite alot of those type and frankly, too much creamy cream cheese is not good. So....I took out Alex Goh's Fantastic Cheesecake cookbook (I highly recommend his book) and flip thru to see what type of cke I can try out.

It was between the Beer Cheesecake( which I will try to bake ) and this one considering I have most of the ingredients at home. But again, the beer cheesecake is the creamy type and I was quite 'lazy' to make the crumb base and also that recipe calls for water bath..Hmmm troublesome. So! Next option, the Chocolate Walnut Cheesecake which looked pretty easy to make.(^.^)

Chocolate Walnut Cheesecake

(A) 130g Butter

130g Cream Cheese

170g Brown Sugar (I reduce to 150g)

2 tbsp Honey

(B) 4 Eggs

30g Cocoa Powder (I used chocolate powder)

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Baking powder

(D) 1 Orange zest, grated

50g Orange juice

(E) 200g Walnuts, Chopped (I recommend to reduce to 100-150g as 200g was just too much)

1. Cream (A) until light & fluffy. Add (B) and cream until light & smooth. It might start to curdle which is normal. Immediately add 1/2 of (C) and mix till well blended.

2.Add (C) & (D) ingredients alternately in several batches. Mix till well blended.

3. Add (E) and mix until well incorporated.

4. Grease & line a 23 cm / 9" square pan. Pour the batter onto the prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven of 180 degree C for 40 mins.

5. Remove from pan and set aside to cool before frosting.

Cream Cheese Topping

250g Cream Cheese

60g icing sugar

1 Orange zest, grated

2 tbsp Orange Juice

- Beat the cream cheese & icing sugar until light & smooth.Add in orange zest & orange juice.Mix until well blended. Spread it on top of the cake.

Baked Curry Puff

2011-03-14T14:08:00.000+08:00

So far I have not been venturing into pastries as I was quite 'lazy' to roll and cut the pastry and cook the filling, etc, etc.. But after doing the sardine rolls, I tried out the curry puff, another old time favourite.

Again, from Agnes Chang's "Baking Made Easy" book, I use the 'Basic Rich Short Crust Pastry' recipe for the skin of the curry puff. You can also use store bought puff pastry to wrap up the fillings.

Rich Short Crust Pastry

250g Cold Butter, cut nto cubes
50g icing sugar
1 Egg yolk
360g plain flour mix with 2 tbsp Custard Powder, sifted

- Beat butter, icing sugar & egg yolk till creamy.
- Add in flour and mix to a plaible dough.
- Leave aside for 30 mins before shaping them.

Curry Puff Filling

200g Potatoes, cubed
1 Big Onion, cubed
100g Chicken Meat, diced
4 tbsp Curry Powder
Salt & sugar to taste

- Heat some oil & stir-fry onion till fragrant.
- Add chicken meat folowed by potatoes.
- Add curry powder then salt & sugar. Add some water if texture is rather dry.

1) Put pastry between plastics to roll them into thin round sheets.
2) Place 1 tbsp of filling in the middle & seal the edges.
3) Brush top with egg wash (egg yolk + some water)
4) Bake at 180 degree C for 23 - 30 mins.

Tiramisu

2011-03-13T22:24:00.000+08:00

Tiramisu is one of the most popular Italian Cakes. It is made of biscuits dipped in coffee, layered with a mixture of egg yolks and mascarphone and flavoured with liquor and cocoa. It is considred to be a 'desert made in heaven'. Some made it into a cake and some in cocktail glasses.

I made this tiramisu with a chocolate sponge cake base This recipe is taken from Agnes Chang's "Baking made easy" with slight alteration. Please forgive me for the decoration. I ran out of chocolate flavoured whipped topping and had to add some vanilla topping. I didnt blend them together as I wanted to have some 'colours' :-)

Chocolate Sponge Cake

110g Self Raising Flour
20g Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
4 Eggs, separated
1/4 tsp Cream of tartar
pinch of salt
180g Castor sugar
60g Butter, melted
60ml Water
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

- Sift flour, cocoa powder and baking powder 3 times. Set aside.
- Whisk egg whites and cream of tartar & salt until soft peak formed. Add sugar gradually and continue whisking until stiff peaks.
- In a separate bowl, whisk egg yolk with melted butter, water & vanilla essence. Fold into egg whites & combine well.
- Finally fold in the sifted dry ingredients & pour batter immediately into an 8 in round cake tin lined with greaseproof paper.
- Bake in preheated oven of 170 degree C for 30 - 40 mins.
- Remove from oven & let it cool. Slice into 2 layers.

Coffee Liquor Syrup
250ml boiling water
2 tbsp instant coffee
4-5 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp Kahlua

- Mix boiling water, instant coffee & sugar til dissolved.
- Leave to cool and add in Kahlua.

Cream Cheese Layer
500g Mascarphone Cheese
80g castor sugar
120g whipping ceam, whipped

- Beat Cream cheese & sugar till light.
- Add whipping cream and mix well.

* Extra ingredient: Sponge fingers
Whipped Topping

To assemble:
1) Place 1 layer of chocolate sponge cake at the bottom of the cake tin.
2) Sprinkle/ brush coffee liquor over the cake.
3) Spoon half of the cream cheese layer to cover the cake.
4) Dip the sponge fingers into coffee liquor and place on top of the cream cheese layer.
5) Spoon the remaining cream cheese on top of the sponge fingers.
5) Place the last layer on top and chill in fridge for at least 3 - 4 hours.
6) Remove cake from the tin and decorate as you like with whipped ceam.

Sardine Rolls

2011-03-11T22:29:00.000+08:00

Hmm sardines, the fish with the fishy smell :-). Its been quite some time since I ate this and I think not many cafes or bakery are making this for sell. A friend asked if she can order sardine rolls for a tea party next week so before I could promise her, I gave this recipe a try and I'm satisfied with the crust and filling but few of my friends commented that it was not spicy enough. Hmmm I must add some 'cili padi' next time.

I remembered making this sardine roll by placing mashed sardines on a piece of white bread which was then rolled up and deep fried during my childhood times. For this recipe, I made these rolls using a shortcrust pastry taken from Agnes Chang's 'Baking Made Easy'

Basic Short Crust Pastry
240g plain flour, sifted
120g cold butter, cubed
4 tbsp cold water

- Place flour and butter in a mixing bowl.
- Use finger tips & rub butter into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
- Make a hole in the center, add in cold water and mix into a dough.
- Leave aside to rest for 30 mins before shaping.

Sardine Rolls
1 small tin sardine, drained & mashed
1 onion, chopped
1 tbsp chili sauce
1 tbsp oil
juice of 1 lime
sugar & salt to taste

- Heat oil and stir fry the onion till fragrant.
- Add sardines, chili sauce, sugar & salt & lime juice.
- Fry till mixture becomes dry. Dish out.

1) Place 1 tsp of sardine filling on one end of a 9 x 6 pcs of pastry.
2) Roll up swiss roll style and seal edges with water.
3) Place rolls on baking tray and brush top with egg yolk.
4) Bake in preheated oven of 180 degree C for 20 - 25 mins or until rolls become golden brown.

New York Style Sour Cream Topped Cheesecake

2011-03-09T20:15:00.000+08:00

Wow! Talking about yummy & sinful Cheesecake. This New York Style Cheesecake has an 'extra' to it which is the sour cream topping. I got this recipe from Kraft Cooking School in the You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5P4GnnrJKQ

If you love cheesecake, you should try this. I halved the recipe and baked it using a 7" square pan but I think an 8" pan would be better as there was not enough 'room' for me to add the sour cream topping as the cheesecake itself almost reached the top of the pan.

My children loved this cheesecake and it is really addictive..:-)

Crust
1 1/2 cup Graham Crackers / Digestive Biscuit, crushed (I used Oreo cookies)
1/4 cup Butter, melted

Filling
4 x 250g Cream Cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sour cream
4 eggs

Topping
1 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

Crust:- Mix the graham/digestive/oreo biscuits & melted butter.
           Put on a foil covered 13 x 9 pan (leave some foil hanging for easy removal)
           Bake at 170 degree C for 10 mins. Set aside

Filling:- Beat cream cheese with sugar, vanilla & sour cream.
            Add eggs one at a time. Do not overbeat.
            Pour onto the crust and bake at 160 degree C for 40 mins.

Topping:- Mix sour cream, vanilla and sugar together.
               Spread the topping over the cheese cake & put back into oven for another 10 mins.
               Let cool. Cover with foil & refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Easy Baked Potato

2011-03-08T20:26:00.000+08:00

What to do when you have left over meat like chicken or you have chicken franks aka hotdog and you are bored of pan fry them? You can try this very easy recipe. I actually do not measure them. Just add accordingly to taste but for my blog viewers, I give you an estimate measurement.

My children love this very much as its full of cream & cheese and an alternative to lasagne which I had yet to try (^_^).

4 Potatoes
1 tbsp Butter
1/4 cup whipped cream
cooked chicken meat, cubed (or 2 chicken franks, sliced)
2 slices cheese
1/4 cup breadcrumbs

1) Cook & mash potatoes well. Whisk together with whipped cream.
2) Add chicken meat/ chicken frank.
3) Pour into tin and dot with butter.
4) Cut cheese into small pieces & spread on top of the mashed potatoes.
5) Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the cheese.
6) Bake for 25 mins at 180 degree C or until surface turns golden brown.

Mini Cream Puff aka 'Choux Pastry'

2011-02-27T14:12:00.000+08:00

I've been wanting to make this puff for quite sometime but most of the recipes looked way complicated for an amateur like me :-) I found this recipe from the book 'Caldo Recipes 2' sold in a local cake supply store. It looked very easy to make. I used the acoompanying custard recipe as well but will try to make durian custard when it is Durian season time. You can also fill it with whipped cream.

I had to make some adjustment on the baking time and manage to get a better product the at the 2nd try.

Ingredients

A. 50g High Protein Flour
     50g Low Protein Flour   * I used 100g all purpose flour the 2nd time
     pinch of salt
B. 35g Butter
    2 Eggs
    150 ml water

Filling: 80g instant Custard powder
          180ml drinking water
          1 tbsp Condensed milk

1. Add water & butter of (B) into a pot and bring to boil. Remove from heat and add ingredients (A). Use a pair of chopsticks to mix them together.
2. Add in eggs from (B) immediately and beat to form a smooth mixture with a wooden spoon.
3. Put into a piping bag fitted with a 'star' nozzle and pipe onto a tray lined with greaseproof paper.
4. Bake in preheated oven of 180 degree C for 20 mins.
5. Remove puffs and leave to cool. Make a slit at the side of each puff and pipe in filling. Keep chilled & serve.

Fillings: Mix water, instant custard powder and condensed milk together for 2 mins.

Fruit Cake

2011-02-25T21:48:00.000+08:00

Most people associate fruit cakes with Christmas Season. Last years' Christmas I did not attempt the fuit cake as my family & I are not an avid fan of it. Few days ago I had an order for a fruit cake. With only 3 days, I had to try and bake a fruit cake that does not need to 'age'. Luckily I found one which just require to keep for a day. This recipe is taken from 'The Joy of Baking'.

Ingredients
A. 250g Butter                                                          D. 225g Flour
     250g Brown Sugar                                                    1/2 tsp Baking powder
                                                                                         1/2 tsp mixed spice
B. 1 tbsp golden syrup
     1 tbsp black treacle                                              E. 750g mixed fruits
                                                                                       50g flour
C. 4 cold eggs
     25ml Cold water

1. Beat (A) till creamy. Add in (B). Slowly add in (C ) and continue creaming and then fold in (D). Lastly fold in (E).
2. Pour batter into a 6 x 10 in cake tin that has been doubled lined with paper and buttered.
3. Bake in preheated oven of 180 degree C for 1 hour and then at 160 degree C for 1 hour or more.
(After 1 hour cover cake with foil to prevent the top from getting burn).
4. Take out and keep for a day. Sprinkle with rum or brandy.

Mini Nutella Cheesecake

2011-02-16T22:39:00.000+08:00

I have been searching for recipes using Nutella as I was trying to finish it up before it expires in July 2010. Other than spreading on bread or sandwich in between cookies, I found few recipes using Nutella as one of the ingredient. I tried this one and found that it's almost like the Oreo cheese cuppies I made last time but my children says it smells like 'Ferrero Rocher' ha..ha..Thats Good I think.

500g Cream Cheese, softened
2 Eggs
3/4 cup Castor sugar
1/4 cup Nutella Spread
Some Oreo cookies or Chocolate Wafers

1) In a bowl, combine eggs & sugar & beat till fluffy.
2) Mix in Nutella & beat till combined.
3) Add in Cream cheese & mix till combined.
4) Put 1 oreo cookie or wafer to each cup. Pour cheese mixture into each cup 3/4 full.
5) Bake at 160 degree C for 25 mins.
6) Let it cool before leaving in fridge overnight.
7) I use Chocolate flavour whipped cream as topping but you can use butter cream, butter icing or chocolate ganache.

Seaweed Crispies

2011-02-13T11:52:00.000+08:00

I used to buy this seaweed crackers by the containers during CNY as my family loves it and also a way of getting my youngest son who dislikes anything green to eat it. He only takes seaweed on its own or wrapped as sushi. He likes this crackers but not very into it...:-)

Recently I bought a book entitled 'Biscuit D.I.Y' published by One Publisher. The recipes inside are mostly the classic cookies and are not difficult to make.

This seaweed crispies is taken from the book:

1 packet Spring Roll Sheets (50 pcs)
50 pieces Seaweed Sheet
2 eggs (lightly beaten0
Oil for deep frying

1) Use a pastry brush to brush a thin layer of beaten egg on a piece of spring roll sheet.
2) Put a piece of seaweed sheet on top. Press firmly.
3) Proceed with the rest of the spring roll & seaweed sheets.
4) Use a scissor to cut into squares.
5) Deep fry seaweed spring roll pieces in medium hot oil till crispy. Remove & drain well before storing.

Melt-in-the mouth Cookies

2011-02-12T23:34:00.000+08:00

Very very sorry for the lapse in updating my blog....Anyway, Chinese New Year is not officially over so if you run out of goodies, there's still time to bake some more cookies. Normally after the CNY open house, I will have lots of mandarin oranges leftover and also biscuits & cookies from the hampers given by friends & hubby's associates. I usually give them away as I noticed they are near expiring date. I think its one way for the supermarket to get rid of their stocks.

For this cookie, I got the recipe from a food blogger Angel, http://angelcookbakelove.blogspot.com/. This cookie is actually known as German cookie and is very easy to make. I find that it tastes better after a few days.

125g Butter
40g Icing sugar
125g Potato Starch
80g Superfine Flour
chopped red & green cherries (for decoration)

1) Beat butter & icing till fluffy & light in colour.
2) Sift in potato starch & flour. Mix to form a smooth dough.
3) Roll into small ball. (I used a piping bag & pipe into small cups)
4) Bake on top rack at 150 degree C for 20 mins. No need to bake till brown.

A cute cookie...The Horlicks Doggie Cookie???

2011-01-22T19:48:00.000+08:00

This cookie had been the favourite in most bloggers baking list last year. Well, since I started taking up interest in baking after the Chinese New Year, I didnt find the urge to bake cookies as my children do not really fancy them. I always associate cookies with festive seasons like Chinese New Year, Hari Raya and Christmas.

So...with daughter's help again, I made this cookie. Like the title stated, its supposed to be doggie but after moulding and putting the 'touches' to the cookies, they looked more like bears to me...:-))

180g Butter

80g Horlicks

200g Superfine Flour

25g Cornflour

25g Milk Powder

Chocolate Rice

Chocolate Chips

Koko Crunch

1) Sift Superfine flour, corn flour & milk powder together. Set aside

2) Cream butter & horlicks on low speed for 3 minutes.

3) Add sifted flour & beat for 1 minute.

4) Divide dough to 10g. Shape into a ball.

5) Use the chocolate rice as eyes, chocolate chips for nose and Koko crunch for the ears.

6) Bake at 140 degree C for 25 mins.

Baking for Chinese New Year...Pineapple Tarts

2011-01-17T20:08:00.000+08:00

Chinese New Year is just around the corner and for this year, I felt the urge to bake cookies instead of buying them. All these years I think I spent over hundreds of RM to buy containers of cookies to be given away as gifts to friends and also to serve to guests during the open house. This year, not anymore. I spend my money instead on buying ingredients to make some selections of cookies.

With the help from my daughter, I spent the whole weekend mornings to prepare, cut, mould and bake the cookies. It was very tiring but after seeing the goodies laid out on the table, I felt a great satisfaction.

This time I will post one of the cookies made which is the 'not to be missed' Pineapple Tart from the book 'Biscuit DIY' published by One Publisher. Initially I wanted to make pineapple roll but reading how time consuming it is, I venture to bake the 'open' tart and promised to try the roll next year..:-))

250g butter
80g castor sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
400g Flour
pinch of salt
few drops Vanilla essence
300g Pineapple Jam (stor bought)
1 egg yolk for glazing

1. Cream butter & sugar until light. Ad egg & beat thoroughly. Add salt & vanilla essence.
2. Stir in flour and mix to a firm dough.
3. Roll the dough into 1/4 " thick and cut with cookie cutter.
4. Glaze the cookie and place a small ball of pineapple jam in the centre.
5. Bake in preheated oven of 170 degree C for 20-25 mins.

My Dad's 70th Birthday & Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

2011-01-13T21:08:00.000+08:00

Gosh! I've been neglecting my blog for some time. Sorry. It's not that I've not baked . I did but with the visits from my brothers who came from USA and Singapore during the christmas to new year, I didnt have time to blog my bakings. Their visit around this time was to celebrate my father's 70th birthday which was on 26th December 2010. I'm happy to say that this time, I managed to bake a birthday cake for my father and also some cuppies for the guests during dinner with the help from my brother from USA who is a baker as well.

Peach Fresh Cream Cake made & deco by both my brother & I.

Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese frosting. Fondant longevity bun moulded by my brother, cup cake baked by yours truly.

Having succesful attempts on baking 'Baked Cheesecake', I ventured to another type of cheesecake. The Japanese Cotton Cheesecake which is baked in 'water bath'. The texture of this cake is soft and has a milky taste, not too sweet..just nice for people who do not like sweet things.

This recipe is taken from Alex Goh's Fantastic cheesecake.

(A) 160g Cream Cheese
       25 g Butter
      120g Milk

(B) 40g Flour
      30g Cornflour

(C) 4 Egg Yolks

(D) 4 Egg Whites
      1/8 tsp Cream of tartar
      100g sugar
      pinch of salt

1. Grease & line the bottom of an 8" springform pan. Wrap outside of the pan with aluminium foil.
2. Double boil (A) & cook until thick.
3. Add (B) and mix until well combined. Add (C) and mix till well blended.
4. Whip the egg whites in (D) until foamy. Then add the remaining ingredient (D). Continue whipping until soft peaks.
5. Add into the cheese mixture from step 3. Mix till well blended.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake in water bath at 160 degree C for 40 - 45 mins.
7. Remove cake from oven. Remove cake from mould immediately. Set aside to cool.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

2010-12-19T10:55:00.000+08:00

FINALLY! After my 5th / 6th time (lost count) of making baked cheesecake, I manage to get it right this time. I chose this recipe as it looked easy and interesting as it uses white chocolate. I couldn't taste the chocolate but my brother (who is on vacation from USA and also a baker) says that there's a hint of the chocolate taste and the texture is good. Yay....

Like I said before, don't ever give up if you were unsuccesful the 1st few times. Give it a rest before trying again and of course must have the 'mood' :-)

Base: 1 pack oreo cookies, crumbled
50g melted butter

Mix the cookie crumbs and melted butter together and press in 7" springform pan. Bake in preheated oven at 160 degree C for 10 mins.
* You can also use digestive biscuit.

Cake:
200g White chocolate
250g Cream cheese
2 Eggs, separated
1/2 cup sour cream / yogurt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp sugar

- Melt the white chocolate in microwave oven for 1 min or double boil. Stir till chocolate melted.
- Beat Cream cheese till soft & creamy. Add in egg yolks one at a time followed by sour cream & melted chocolate. Mix till combined.
- In another bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add sugar and beat until stiff peak.
- Fold egg white into cheese mixture.
- Pour into springform pan with base and bake in water bath at 160 degree C for 50 mins.
- Leave to cool in oven with switch off for at least 1 hour.

Orange Chiffon Cupcake

2010-12-15T23:44:00.001+08:00

Wow...year end is really a busy time for me and I've been neglecting my blog too. Its not that I didnt bake since my last post. I did but they were not perfect. I sometimes think that we need to be in the 'mood' if we want to do any baking. One cannot be stressful, in a hurry or in a bad mood. It really affects the outcome of the cake that we baked.

Enough said, I recently had lots of oranges left and tested out this recipe which uses orange . I love the light spongy texture of the cupcakes which held a hint of orange flavour. To top it up, I frosted the cuppies with orange flavour butter icing. Do give it a try.

Orange Chiffon Cupcake

11/2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup corn oil

5 eggs, separated

1/4 cup orange juice

Zest of 1 orange

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cream of tartar

1) Mix the flour with egg yolks, oil, juice, zest & vanilla essence.

2) Beat until smooth & thick. Set aside.

3) In another bowl, beat egg white with cream of tartar until foamy.

4) Gradually ad in sugar and beat until stiff peak.

5) Fold into egg yolk mixtue.

6) Pour into cupcakes and bake at 170 degreee C for 30 mins.

Orange Butter Icing

11/2 cup Icing sugar

50g butter

1 tsp grated orange zest

3 tbsp orange juice

Mix everything together.

Oreo Cheese Cuppies

2010-11-10T21:35:00.000+08:00

I have been going crazy over cheesecake this week - have been trying out recipes using cream cheese. Luckily my children were not 'turned away' from my cheese cake baking frenzy. I surfed through many food blogs and found this recipe that really got me 'thumbs up' from my children and my friends....

20 pcs oreo cookies (15 whole, 5 pcs chopped)

500g Cream Cheese, room themperature

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream

-Preheat oven to 160 degree C. Place a whole oreo cookie in the bottom of the paper cup.

- Beat Cream Cheese until smooth. Add in sugar and beat till combine.

- Slowly add in eggs one at a time. Beat in sour cream.

- Stir in the chooped cookies. Fill into cups and bake for 20 mins.

- Refrigerate at least 3 hours.

D Swirl....

2010-11-06T22:25:00.001+08:00

Those who are pro in cake decorating would say whats the 'hoo-hah' about a swirl! Well, for an amatuer like me, to get a perfect swirl especially for a cupcake took me quite sometime. At last, with practice and also getting the perfect consistency of the butter icing, I 'conquer' the 'swirl' and got the hang of it.

These were the swirls I attempted in my first few attempts in the baking world.

My 1st attempt with cream cheese frosting on lemon cupcakes.

The shape just wouldnt 'hold' and it looked like a blob of cream ! Well, 6 mnths into the baking and with lots n lots of practice (plus complaints from my children about eating cupcakes just for the sake of practicing swirls :-) I managed to get them to look like a rose. VOILA ! Here's the result .....

For those out there who's like me, do not give up. Keep praticing and I'm sure you can do it. Just like I did ........:-)

Rich & Creamy Cheezy Brownies

2010-11-02T23:17:00.000+08:00

This is also another recipe that I've been wanting to try. After looking through some brownies recipe, I found this to be 'perfect'. Most brownies base texture are like 'heavy' cake. My children love this and always request me to make it for them. A warning though, its not good to the waistline :-))

The creamy texture of the cream cheese topping is so good and it just 'melt' in your mouth. Do give this a try.

Cheesecake Brownie

130g Butter Topping : 250g Cream cheese

150g Cooking chocolate 1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Egg 75g Sugar

130g Sugar 1 egg

100g Plain flour 125g Dairy Cream

35g Self raising Flour

1) Combine butter & chocolate in a saucepan and stir over low heat till smooth. Cool.

2) Beat egg & sugar till creamy. Stir in melted chocolate mixture.

3) Add in sifted flour & spread mixture into an 8" square pan.

4) Bake for 15mins at 180degree C.

Topping:

1) Beat cream cheese, vanilla, sugar & egg until smooth.

2) Beat in cream and pour mixture over brownie and bake for another 15 mins.

3) Refrigerate for 3 hours before slicing.

Carrot & Walnut Cake

2010-10-26T07:39:00.002+08:00

This recipe has been on my baking list for quite sometime but never gotten round to bake it until recently. For a beginner like me, the various ingredients needed to bake this classic cake was a little overwhelming BUT.....I had a go at it on Sunday after 'accumulating' the ingredients needed bit by bit. This cake will not be complete without the creamy texture of the Cream Cheese as frosting.

The texture of the cake is moist , the arome with a hint of spice top with cream cheese frosting....Do give it a try. Recipe taken from 'The Joy of Baking'.

4 eggs, separated
11/2 cups corn oil
170g fine granulated sugar
140g brown sugar
11/2 cups grated carrots
250g cake flour
1tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp salt
100g walnuts, chopped

1) In a large bowl, beat egg yolks then add in oil, sugar and carrots. Mix well.
2) Stir in dry ingredients and mix well.
3) Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into cake mixture.
4) Pour into greased and lined 9" pan and bake in preheated oven 180 degreeC for 45 mins.
5) Allow to cool before frosting with cream cheese.

Cream Cheese Frosting
120g butter
250g Cream cheese
120g icing sugar

1) Cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy.
2) Add icing sugar and cream until smooth.

Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-10-17T22:02:00.000+08:00

I'm sure most children and even adults love Peanut Butter. I myself love the crunchy rather than the smooth ones. I was so tempted to try this recipe out after reading in a blog (http://mumto4angels.blogspot.com/) . I can assure you this cookie tastes so much better than chocolate chip cookies :-)

1 1/4 cup All purpose flour
3/4 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 cup Smooth peanut butter (I used Crunchy)
3/4 cup sugar ( I reduced it to 1/2 cup)
1/2 cup light brown sugar ,firmly packed
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut buter chips (I used almond nibs)
1/2 cup Chocolate Chips
extra sugar, coarse or fine (for sprinkle)

1) In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
2) Beat butter & peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars & beat until smooth.
3) Add the egg & mix well. Add milk & vanilla extract.
4) Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in peanut butter & chocolate chips.
5) Place sugar for sprinkle on a plate. Drop teaspoonsful of batter into the sugar then onto greased cookie sheet leaving several inch for expansion.
6) Using fork, lightly indent with a criss cross pattern.
7) Bake for 10 - 12 mins at 180 degree C. Do not overbake.
8) Cool on wire rack before serving.

Coffee & Cheese....

2010-10-05T11:06:00.000+08:00

I attempted to make a baked cotton cheesecake last week using a recipe from a local published cookbook and followed everything to the dot. But.....the bottom part was 'soggy'. I consulted my baker sister and apparently cheesecake is a very sensitive cake and I gave it a 'shock' when I invert it to cool down instead of letting it cool in the oven for another hour or so..Well, I followed what was being told in the cookbook. Hmmm this means we sometimes cannot follow 100% of what is written. From the picture, it looks so pretty but only the top part was edible. Going to attempt again one day.

So...its back to chilled or non-bake cheesecake again and this time I tried out this recipe from a blogger (sorry,,couldn't remember which blog..). The only baking needed here was a sponge cake. Hmmm the taste of coffee is just nice and it goes very well with the cream cheese. For coffee lovers, you might want to give this a try.

Coffee Cream Cheesecake

1 Sponge cake (slice into 2 pcs)
Filling: 250g Cream Cheese
          200g Condensed milk
          150g whipping cream, whipped
          1 tbsp instant coffee + 2 tbsp hot water
          1 3/4 tbsp gelatine + 50ml water

1) Bloom gelatine in water for 2 mins before double boil until gelatine dissolves.
2) Mix instant coffee with hot water. Set aside.
3) Beat Cream cheese and condensed milk until smooth & creamy. Mix in coffee mixture. Mix well.
4) Beat in dissolved gelatine.
5) Fold in whipping cream.
6) Place 1 piece of sponge cake into a spring form pan and pour 1/2 of the filling. Place another piece on top and pour the remaining filling.
7) Chill in fridge 5 hours or overnight and decorate as desire.

Cream Cheese Buns

2010-09-26T21:46:00.000+08:00

For the whole month of September, our 'Learn 2 Bake' Leader, gave us a new task: Baking Buns...When I saw the 'challenge' I was asking myself if this is the end of my baking frenzy as to me, making buns is the toughest and we need to have the 'skill' to produce a soft and fluffly bun.

After deliberating and watching 'you tube' and reading up on the making of buns, I gave myself a chance to take up the challenge. We need to make the basic sweet bun dough first before we can add some fillings and make some variety to the basic bun. Surprise, surprise! I found that making the sweet bun dough was easy. All it needed was to knead and knead..(Good hand exercise :-) We had few fillings to try out. First it was 'Kaya' then move on to chicken floss and lastly cheese bun. After few rounds of making the sweet bun dough, I find that baking bun was not so difficult at all.

I started searching for some buns recipe and I find this recipe - "Cream Cheese Bun" a little different as they use cream cheese as filling instead of the normal butter icing ("Naiyu"). This recipe is taken from the book 'Bread Magic' by Alan Ooi

Basic Sweet Bun Dough
Ingredient A: 330g high protein flour, 1/2 tsp salt,1 1/2 tbsp milk powder, 60g caster sugar
Ingredient B: 1 Egg
Ingredient C: 120ml water, 10g instant yeast (Mix together)
Ingredient D: 40g butter

1. Combine Ingredient A together. Give it a slight blend before adding in ingredient B and ingredient C.
2. Knead combined ingredient for approximately 5 mins to form a dough. Add in ingredient D and knead till dough has a smooth surface.
3. Check whether dough is fully developed by stretching a small piece of dough with your fingers. If the dough can be stretched into a thin layer without tearing, it is ready. But if it does not stretch well, knead dough further till it passes the next stretch test.
4. Leave dough in a big bowl, covered with a damp cloth. Leave bowl in a warm place to proof dough for about 30-40 mins till doubled in size.

Cream Cheese Bun
1 quantity of basic sweet bun dough (recipe above)
Cheese filling: 50g icing sugar, 200g Cream cheese (combine together)
*Mexican Topping: (A) 100g butter, 50g shortening, 120g icing sugar, 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
(B) 3 eggs, 150g plain flour

* Cream ingredient A till well blended. Add in eggs and cream again. Lastly, add in flour and blend once more.

1) After dough has doubled in bulk, scale dough at 60g portion. Shape into small balls, flatten and roll out each ball of dough into a round.
2) Put in some chese filling. Seal and form into smooth ball. Leave it in a paper cup. Do the same with remaining rounds of dough. Rest them for 50 mins, to rise a second time.
3) Fill a piping bag with Mexican Topping. Pipe some mixture over buns. Place all filled paper cups on a tray.
4) Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for 10-15 mins. Cool well on a wire rack.

Special Chocolate Cake

2010-09-19T22:06:00.000+08:00

Are you a chocolate lover? If yes, this recipe will be great for you. What is so special about this Chocolate Cake you might ask...A chocolate cake is just a normal butter cake or sponge cake with cocoa powder added you might say BUT this one has something more. What is that 'something'? Read on to find out.

The texture of this cake is moist and fluffy. It is just soooo delicious and irresistable.

Before frosting Frosting with Chocolate Butter cream

Chocolate Cake

125g Butter, room temperature
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
60g Plain Flour
40g Self Raising Flour
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
3/4 cup Buttermilk
115g Castor sugar (I reduced to 80g as the strawberry jam was sweet enough)
2 Eggs
60g Cocoa Powder
1/2 cup Strawberry jam (get the good quality ones)

1) Preheat oven to 180 degreeC and grease a 18 cm/7 in round cake tin.
2) In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar & vanilla extract together until thick, pale & creamy.
3) Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4) Pour in the Strawberry jam and beat until smooth.
5) Add in bicarbonate soda then sift in half the flour mixture (plain and SRF) and cocoa powder. Fold in gently with half of the buttermilk.
6) Add the remaing flour and buttermilk, continue to fold well until just combined.
7) The mixture should resemble a thick chocolate mousse.
8) Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 mins.
9) Leave to cool in tin for 10 mins before removing.
10) Frost with chocolate buttercream or just dust top with icing sugar.

Chocolate Buttercream
300g Icing sugar
100g Butter
40g Cocoa powder, sifted
50ml Whole milk

1) Beat the icing sugar, butter & cocoa powder until combine.
2) Add milk, then whip for 5 mins.

Jelly Mooncake

2010-09-13T07:42:00.000+08:00

Every year around August you will see all the bakery, supermarkets and sundry stores stocking up on boxes and boxes of mooncake and I never fail to fall in love with - not the mooncake but the boxes itself :-). Hubby says I have wierd hobby as I love to collect pretty tins or boxes. BUT this year, I didnt even get one as since I started to learn baking, I've been investing in cookbooks instead and furthermore my children are not into baked mooncakes and you can hardly find jelly mooncake for sale in supermarkets or bakery stores.

I attended a mooncake class in August conducted by Chef Khoo and this is one of the recipe which I find very easy to make and also the ingredients are easy to obtain. I noticed that jelly mooncake uses a lot of coloring so the first time I tried it out which was for own consumption, I did not add any colour but for the 2nd batch which is to be given to my children's tuition teacher, I added some colour to 'brighten' it up.

Pandan Sweet Corn Jelly Mooncake

Jelly Egg Yolk : 5g 'Agar agar' powder
                        40g Castor sugar
                        200g water
                        few drops orange colour

Bring all ingredients to a boil and pour into 'egg yolk' mould.

Filling: (A) 2 tsp Agar-agar powder                                 (B) 100ml thick coconut milk
                  120ml thin coconut milk                                        150g cream style sweet corn
                  50g Castor sugar                                                   a drop of yellow colour
                  1/8 tsp salt (I omitted it as the corn was already salty enough)

1) Bring ingredients A to boil until agar agar dissolved.
2) Add in coconut milk of ingredient 'B'.
3) Add in the blended sweet corn and mix well.
4) Remove from heat and add a drop of yellow colour.
5) Pour into small mould (plastic cup) and put an 'egg yolk' in the middle.
6) Set aside.

Skin: (A) 3 tsp Agr-agar powder                                       (B) 100ml thick coconut milk
               1/2 tsp instant jelly                                                    100g pandan lotus paste
               500ml thin coconut milk                                            a drop of green colour
               few pcs pandan leaf
               80g Castor sugar

1) Bring all ingedients (A) to a boil until agar agar powder and jelly dissolved.
2) Add in coconut milk of ingredient (B).
3) As soon as its boiled, turn off heat and slowly pour into pandan paste. Mix well.
4) Pour mixture into mooncake mould until half. Wait for it to set a little and place the set filling.
5) Cover with remaining mixture till full.
6) Chill in fridge.

Orange Butter Cake

2010-09-07T21:17:00.000+08:00

I made an attempt on baking butter cake again but instead of the classic butter cake, I made one using orange. I got this recipe from 'thelittleteochew' & 'mumto4angels' blog and I find the texture of this cake very soft, fluffy and the aroma of the citrus fruit very pleasant. Furthermore, it uses only the zest and not the orange juice. Do give it a try.

Orange Butter Cake

195g all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
170g butter, softened
225g sugar (I reduced it to 180g)
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
1 1/2 tbsp orange zest
12 tbsp whole milk

1) Preheat oven to 190 degree C and line an 8" cake pan.
2) Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.
3) Cream butter & sugar until fluffy for about 2 mins.
4) Beat in orange zest then egg and egg yolk.( If the mixture curdles, just add 1 tbsp of flour & continue mixing.)
5) On low speed, add flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with milk.
6) Switch mixer to med & beat for 10-15 seconds just until batter uniform. The batter should be thick & creamy.
7) Pour into pan and bake for 40 mins or until it turns dark-gold color and cake tester comes out clean.
8) Let it rest in pan for 5 mins then remove.

Chilled Durian Pancake

2010-09-02T13:12:00.000+08:00

Bored with the normal pancake with maple syrup? Or you have left over durians and dont feel like making Durian Butter Cake? Try this simple and delicious recipe. After making 1 batch, my children and hubby asked me to make again as they love it so much. Even hubby's nephew who was at our home "tapau" few pieces back...:-)

Batter Ingredients:
150g plain flour
10g Custard powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
150 ml milk
200 ml water
1 tbsp cooking oil
Filling Ingredients:
350g Durian Flesh, mashed
100ml whipping cream, whipped

To prepare batter:
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Heat a non-stick pan with some oil & pour 2 tbsp of batter into pan. Spread the batter to cover the base thinly.
3. Flip pancake over & cook the other side for just a few seconds.
4. Set aside to cool before wrapping.

To wrap
1. Place a spoonful of mashed durian filling in the center of pancake.
2. Pipe some cream over and fold neatly like a parcel.
3. Chill & serve pancakes cold.

Sponge Cake Roll?

2010-08-28T00:12:00.000+08:00

Swiss Roll or Jelly Roll is actually a type of sponge cake roll. The origins of the term swiss roll are unclear and the cake originated in Central Europe and not Switzerland. This thin cake is made up of eggs, flour and sugar and baked in a very shallow rectangular baking tray. The cake is removed from pan and spread with jam or butter cream, rolled up and served in circular slices.

I thought of giving it a try and took this recipe from "Agnes Chang's Baking Made Easy"

Ingredients:

4 eggs
100g castor sugar
1/2 tsp essence (any flavour - strawberry, coffee, vanilla)
120g self-raising flour, mix with 1/8 tsp salt, sifted
2 tbsp hot water
some jam or butter cream

1) Whisk eggs in a very clean bowl till frothy.
2) Add sugar and continue whisking till mixture is very thick and creamy. Add essence.
3) Fold in flour lightly using a whisk. Add hot water and mix well.
4) Pour into a lined and greased baking tray, bake in preheated oven at 220 degrees C for about 10-12 mins until golden brown. remove from oven.
5) Invert cake onto a clean sheet of grease-proof paper and remove the lining paper from cake.
6) Spread cake with jam or butter cream.
7) From one end, start to roll up using the paper to pull it tight.
8) Wrap up the cake with the paper and leave to cool before cutting.

* To make strawberry swiss roll, use strawberry essence and a few drops of red coloring.
* For mocha swiss roll, add 1 tsp coffee paste
* For chocolate swiss roll, add 1 tbsp cocoa powder into flour.

OREO - The Black Cookie with white cream.....

2010-08-23T15:48:00.001+08:00

I think everyone young and old loves to eat Oreo cookies. There are so many companies imitating the Oreo cookies but the original is still the best. There are so many ways to bake using Oreo cookies to supplement the flavour. One of them is:

Oreo Butter Cake

225g Cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

85g unsalted butter
150g caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
240ml non-fat natural flavour yogurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
80g Oreo cookies (roughly crushed)
some Oreo for decorating

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line & grease an 8" round cake pan.
2) Sift Cake flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt.
3) Cream butter, sugar and cream from the Oreo cookies till light and fluffy.
4) Ad eggs slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time.
5) gently fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture until combine, follow by 1/2 of the yogurt & 1/2 of the flour and mix then the vanilla extract and remaining yogurt and finally the remaining flour.
6) Lastly, add crushed cookies and mix well.
7) Pour into pan and arrange whole oreo on top.
8) Bake for about 40 - 50 mins.

Still can't get enough of Oreo? This is another easy recipe to follow and does not involve baking. It's the :

Oreo Cheesecake

Crust:
1 cup crushed Oreo cookies
50g butter, melted
Filling:
500g Cream Cheese, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 tsp gelatin dissolve in 1/4 cup boiling water
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup dairy whipping cream, lightly whipped
100g Oreo cookies, crushed
50g Oreo cookies, roughly chopped

1) Combine cookies and melted butter of crust and press into spring form pan. Chill in fridge.
2) Beat Cream cheese and sugar until smooth. You can add the cream scraped from the cookies.
3) Fold in the gelatin mixture, lemon juice, whipped cream and lastly the roughly chopped Oreo cookies.
4) Pour filling onto prepared crust and refrigerate for 30 mins.
5) Sprinkle with extra crushed Oreo on top and refrigerate until set.

Puff Pastry

2010-08-19T20:07:00.000+08:00

There are so many ways you can bake with puff pastry. And for those who are beginners like me, you can get the ready made ones from your local supermarket. Of course if you can make them yourself, so much the better. You can keep few packs of these puff pastry for usage in case you need to whip up a quick snack or light lunch. I would like to share few easy way to bake using puff pastry.

Crispy Tuna Pie
6 pieces Puff Pastry, thawed
2 hardboiled egg, cut into quarter
1 can Tuna in olive oil, drained and mashed coarsely
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup grated mozarella cheese
1/2 cup PREGO pasta sauce
Extra mozarella cheese

1) Lightly grease muffin pan and line with thawed pastry (shape like a cup)
2) Mix tuna with grated cheddar & mozarella cheese and PREGO pasta sauce.
3) Fill each pastry with quartered egg and tuna filling.
4) Sprinkle top with some extra mozarella cheese.
5) Bake in preheated oven 180 degree C for 20-25 mins until pastry is golden & crispy.
6) Serve hot.

                                 Hot Dog Roll

4 pieces Puff Pastry, thawed
4 sausages
4 slices Cheddar cheese
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten

1) Spread 1 piece of sliced cheddar cheese on top of puff pastry.
2) Put 1 sausage on top of the cheese and roll it up tightly. Brush with water at the seams to seal them.
3) Brush the top part with egg yolk.
4) Bake in prehated oven for 20-25 mins until they puff up and golden brown.

Apple Wraps (No pictures)
2 sheets puff pastry
4-6 apples
1/3 cup sugar                                                   .
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup water

1) Peel and chop apples to bite size pieces.
2) Place apples, cinnamon and sugar into a saucepan & cover with water.
3) Cook for 10 mins. Take off heat and starin excess juice into a bowl.
4) Place a large spoonful of apple onto each puff pastry. Take one corner of pastry and pinch it together with the diagonal corner.
5) Repeat with opposite corners. Make sure the pastry is pressed together firmly.
6) Glaze with strained apple juice.
7) Bake in preheated oven 180 degree C for 15 mins.

* There are various types of filling sold in your local bakery store including apple if you do not wish to make it but I would encourage you to try out this simple apple pie filling.

King of the Fruits

2010-08-14T23:28:00.000+08:00

It is the fruit season again. Everywhere you can see stalls / lorries with loads of fruits like rambutan, 'campulut', 'tarap'( a local fruit only available in Sabah), duku langsat, jackfruit, mangosteen and not forgetting the King of the Fruit - The DURIAN. Sometimes we can make cake out of certain fruits and Durian is one of them.

For durian lovers, if you have leftover durian, just take out the flesh and freeze them for usage later. A good, delicious and aromatic durian cake will taste better with a ripe and good quality durian flesh but sometimes we can use flesh of durians that are not up to 'standard'. ( flesh not creamy or a little tasteless).

Here is an easy Durian Cake recipe taken from "Agnes Chang - I Can Bake"

Ingredients A: 250g butter                                    Ingredients B: 180g durian flesh
                      200g Caster sugar                                                4 tbsp milk
                      4 eggs                                                                  1/2 tsp durian essence (optional)
Ingredients C: 240g Self Raising Flour, sifted
                      1 tbsp Custard Powder, sifted
                      1/4 tsp salt

1. Cream butter and sugar of Ingredient A till light. Add eggs one at a time, creaming well after each addition.
2. Mix durian flesh and milk of Ingredient B and strain to get smooth and velvety flesh.
3. Fold in half of B and half of C mixture till well combined. Fold in the remaining B and C mixture till well mixed.
4. Pour cake mixture into a lined and greased 20cm / 8" round cake tin. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for about 45-50 mins till golden brown and cooked.
5. Remove cake, leave to cool before serving.

Going Bananas....

2010-08-12T13:26:00.000+08:00

What to do if you have over ripe bananas and you do not want to make fried banana fritters (pisang goreng) with it. Well, there are many ways of baking with bananas like banana pancake, banana cup cake, banana cake and so on. A friend asked me for a good recipe for banana cake and I made this recipe taken from "Agnes Chang - I Can Bake".

Nice & Easy Banana Cake

240g plain flour (sift with 1 tsp baking powder & 1 tsp baking soda)
180g butter
180g caster sugar ( I reduce it to 150g)
2 eggs,
4 ripe bananas (coarsely mashed to get 1 cup)
3 tbsp milk mix with 1 tbsp lemon juice
2 ripe bananas (sliced and squeeze with juice from 1/2 lime)

1. Cream butter & sugar till light. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. Mix in mashed bananas, milk mixture and flour mixture till well combined.
3. Pour into a greased & lined loaf tin or paper cups.
4. Arrange banana slices on top of cake as decoration.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degree C for about 20-25 mins till cooked and golden brown.
6. Remove cake from oven and leave to cool before serving.

* Other than banana cake or banana cup cake, you can also make it into Chiffon Cake which is a light, spongy and much healthier cake as it does not use butter. The recipe below is also taken from "Agnes Chang's book - Baking Made Easy".

(forgive me for the burnt top ;-)

Banana Chiffon Cake

Ingredients A
200g Self Raising Flour (sift with 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda and 1/4 tsp salt.)
100g Caster sugar (I reduced to 80g)
8 egg yolks
6 tbsp corn oil
1 cup mashed banana
4 tbsp water

                                              Ingredients B
                                              8 egg whites
                                              1/2 tsp cream of tartar
                                              100g caster sugar (I reduced to 80g)

1. Mix all the ingredients A in a mixing bowl to form a smooth batter.
2. Whisk ingredients B till stiff. Add A and mix in one direction using hand whisk till combine.
3. Pour mixture into a 25cm/10" chiffon cake tin. Bake in 150 degree C till lightly brown. Increase heat to 170 degree C and continue to bake till golden brown and cooked. (about 1 hour).
4. Remove from oven, invert tin and leave to cool before removing from tin.

** The texture of this Banana Chiffon Cake is very soft and the aroma of banana while baking makes your mouth water. I find I have to adjust the temperature of my oven (its a small table one) which is why the top part burn easily as it really 'rise' during baking and the heat from the top of the oven was too much. - I really need to get a bigger oven...:-)

Do try it this all time favorite recipes!.....

Cup Cakes Galore

2010-08-10T16:11:00.002+08:00

Remember that I mention I joined the "Learn2Bake' Club in Facebook? Well, the challenge given for the month of May (the 1st part) was Cup Cakes where we have to bake and 'dress' the cupcake for mothers day. Oh dear....I have actually never made a cupcake before. The ones I did was premix muffin bought from supermart. But...I gave it a try and the result was disastrous!!! I actually made 4 attempts until the leader of the club aka 'sifu' took pity on me and drop off some cupcakes which she made for me :-( Here are some pix of the unsuccessful cupcakes I made and before the 'dressing'.

After few attempts on my own and some practise on decorating the cupcakes, I manage to 'master' the making of cupcakes but I still need to have more practice on the decorating. Here, I would like to share with you my favorite recipe:

Lemon Cupcake
(makes 24)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter
11/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 tbsp lemon zest & 2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp vanilla essence
1 cup milk

1) Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. set aside.
2) Cream butter & sugar till pale & fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporate.
3) Beat in zest & vanilla.
4) Fold in flour in 3 batches alternating with milk and lemon juice.
5) Fill cups to 3/4 full. Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees c for 25 mins.
6) Cool before frosting.

Variety of Butter Cakes

2010-08-09T13:30:00.000+08:00

After few successful attempts in 'mastering' butter cake plus few complaints from children (until they start feeding our pet dogs with butter cake) it was time to have some variety in my baking. But er.........I can just bake butter cake for the moment and dare not venture to other types of cakes so......I started digging old recipe books (bought ages ago supposedly to start my baking interest :-) and found few variations to the basic Butter cake. Ha!......at least the children were satisfied.

Marble Cake - Just keep 1/4 portion of the cake mixture and mix in cocoa paste. (1 tbsp cocoa powder add 3 tbsp hot water and mix to a paste).
- Spoon the cocoa mixture on top of the plain mixture and use a small knife to draw lines to get marble effect.

Crunchy Cheese Cake - Fold in 100g grated cheddar cheese together with flour mixture. Just before baking, sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on top.

Orange Butter Cake - Use 4 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice and 1 tsp grated orange rind before pouring batter into pan.

I would like to share with you this cake which I remember being baked constantly by my great baker & cook sister who resides in Cameron Highland now. (If I had interest back when I was young, she would have been my teacher). This recipe is taken from the book "Agnes Chang's Baking Made Easy"

                                           Pineapple Upside down Cake

2 small cans pineapple rings, drained
8-10 red cherries, cut into 1/2
240g butter
200g caster sugar (may reduce if do not want too sweet)
4 eggs
240g self-raising flour, sifted
4 tbsp pineapple syrup (from the can pineapple)


1. Arrange pineapple rings onto a lined and greased 22cm/9 inch baking tin. Put 1/2 red cherry in the centre of the pineapple ring. Keep aside.
2. Put butter and castor sugar into a mixing bowl and cream till light.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Fold in sifted flour, 1/3 at a time. Mix in pineapple syrup till well-combined.
5. Pour cake mixture on top of pineapple rings and spread evenly.
6. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C for about 45 minutes till golden brown.
7. Remove, leave to cool before inverting onto a serving plate to show the pineapple rings on top.

Hi & Welcome

2010-08-08T17:34:00.001+08:00

I am a mother to 3 teenagers and work from home which give me lots of time in my hand. I started having interest in cooking & baking after seeing my friends post their 'products' in Facebook. I did attempt baking years ago but it always ended up in failure. When a friend started the 'Learn2Bake' club in April 2010 thru Facebook, I signed up and gave myself a chance to try baking again.

The 1st challenge was "Back to Basics - Butter Cake". I remembered baking butter cake using premix bought from stores and also the outcome of the cake which was a disaster as it was always uncook in the middle.

This challenge requires us to bake from scratch which means no premix allowed. I have to say it sounded easy but my 1st attempt was not a disaster but also not 'pretty' but edible..ha.ha.. After some advice from friends and members of the club, my 2nd attempt was great. Thank you all for the advice :-)

My 1st attempt - with cracks and almost burnt top.

My 2nd attempt was much better. With advice to cover with aluminium foil halfway thru baking, I managed to get a 'nice looking' butter cake.

Here's the easy recipe for you all to try out.

BASIC BUTTER CAKE
Ingredients:
200gm Self-Raising Flour (you can use 1 cup plain flour plus 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 tsp baking soda)
120gm caster sugar
250 gm Butter
5 eggs

Method:
1)Pre-heat oven to 180~C (remember to always pre-heat your oven 15-20 before you bake)
2) Sift the flour.
3) Lightly beat the eggs in a separate bowl.
4) Cream the butter and the sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Slowly add in the egg, mix well after each addition.
5) Fold in the flour and mix well until all the flour are incorporated into the batter.
6) Line the bottom of a 7" round baking tin with parchment paper / greaseproof paper and lightly greased the sides of the tine with butter.
7) Bake the cake at 180~C for 40-45 minutes, or until the skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.