Pandan Melting Moments

I saw this recipe in the June 2011 Good Food Magazine. I love this magazine. The photos in it are so beautiful and well-taken. The recipes will make me want to jump out of my bed and start cooking. Hee hee. This is one of the recipes that I have tried. This cookie is actually accompanied with a coconut cream. Since I am not a fan of cream and these cookies are meant to last for at least a week, filling them with cream is not a wise option. 

This is a relatively simple recipe to put together. I used a zip top bag instead of a piping bag. Not a good choice. The zip top bag spilt along the seam after I piped half of the cookies and I was in a big mess when it split. To save myself from more agony, I just used a teaspoon and drop the remaining dough on the sheet pan and baked them. The rosettes held their shapes well after baking and the dropped cookies looked like the Danish butter cookies, just that they are in green. 

No one can detect the pandan flavour in my cookies. I think I need to put in more pandan paste. Nonetheless it has beautiful butter flavour. My husband and I renamed them as Green Butter Cookies. :p But my parents feel that it is too sweet. They still prefer my Chocolate Chips and Almond Cookies. Opps. I have not blog that yet. Hee hee.

Ingredients:
200g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar ( I will reduced to 80g the next time)
4 tbsp pandan juice ( I replaced with 1 tsp pandan paste and top up with water till i get 4 tbsp)
225g plain flour
4 tbsp cornflour

Methods:
1. Preheat oven to 160 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the butter, icing sugar and pandan juice until light and fluffy.
3. Sift in the plain flour and corn flour, and mix thoroughly until all the ingredients are well combined.
4. Place the dough in pipping bag fixed with a star nozzle and pipe the mixture into 1.5 cm rosettes or 3 cm
    long fingers.
5. Bake for 10-12 min until the cookies are firm and lightly golden. Set aside to cool on a wire tray.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Cake

This is an overdue post. As usual. Haha.

Happy Birthday Daddy.

My whole family doesn't fancy the whipping cream on cakes. We will scrape away the cream and eat the sponge cake and the fruits, if there is any. Unless... the cake is extremely expensive or it is coated with chocolate ganache (my favourite), then we will send it down to our esophagus. That's the main reason why I have yet to make any layer cake. Maybe I should step out of my comfort zone soon. Mother's Day? My own birthday? Mummy's birthday? Hubby's birthday? ;)

Staying in my comfort zone, I chose the Pineapple Cream Cheese Cake from Dailydelicious, a site that I trusted. I accomplished this task quite easily (phew), if not, I would have to rush out to get a cake from the bakery. Everyone loves the cake, especially the birthday boy, I mean old boy. Haha. 

Baked in a Bundt Pan. Uneven browning. :( I planned to sprinkle some icing sugar on it but my hubby said then it proves that it is made by me. -_-"

Mini Meatloaf

This recipe is obtained from the March 2011 edition of Good Food Magazine. The ingredients are easy to find and easy to prepare, just chopping onion and carrot and processing some bread cubes to get homemade breadcrumbs.

The result is good. I am not really a big fan of meat. I survive mainly on vegetables but I like this meat loaf. This recipe did change my impression of meatloaf as a heavy and filling block of compressed meat. This meatloaf is moist and not over clogging. The addition of onion and carrot not only add sweetness to the meatloaf, it also made it less oily and meaty (I know it sounds funny ;p) I served it with s bed of romaine lettuces in a simple lemon vinaigrette. A well-balanced meal.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake and Black Bottom Cupcakes.

The block of cream cheese in my fridge is expiring soon. I bought it to make the Strawberry Jelly Hearts but somehow I just don't have the mood to make it this weekend. Craving for some cakes, I began to go through my to-do list and look for cakes that uses cream cheese. I stumbled upon the Cream Cheese Pound Cake on Little Teochew's Blog. It looks so appetizing. I decided to bake this. However, it uses only 140 g of cream cheese. What am I going to do with the rest? I searched in her blog and saw the Black Bottom Cupcakes. I halved the recipe to use up the
remaining 110 g of my cream cheese. Hee hee. I managed to bake both cakes before lunch.

At about tea time, my parents came over to get my bakes and bought me 4 egg tarts from Tong Heng (my fav). So sweet of them.

I guess I am an inconfident baker. I only have the courage to offer my bakes to my parents, my brother and my husband. It is not that I cannot accept criticism, in fact I want them to comments on my bakes so that I can improve in those areas but normally they don't. Only my parents, brother and husband do. I am worried that if I gave the

m and they don't enjoy it, it will be a torture to them and I will be very upset to know that. I really enjoy cooking and baking for others and see them enjoying or giving me feedback on my food. That's the way to learn.

8 inch Cream Cheese Pound Cake

A peek at the texture

This cake smells and tastes fantastic. Soft and moist. This recipe is very forgiving and suitable for novice baker like me.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

I prefer to have more cheesy taste to it. Nonetheless, the texture is great and not too sweet.

Mummy's Chicken Stew

This is one of my favorite dishes when I was young. Whenever my mum cooks this, she would serve it on a cartoon plate and drench my rice with the gravy. I love the carrots in particular. They are so sweet. I would have extra serving of rice when my mum cook this. This dish tastes even better the next day. I tried to replicate this dish in my own kitchen. Even with my mum on the other side of the line guiding me how to cook it, I still cannot get the same taste as my mum's one. Maybe that's what they call 妈妈的味道. :)

Lemony Cupcakes with Tangy Lemon Curd

I was mesmerized by the photos in Daily Delicious but I know that with my skills, I doubt I can recreate most of her bakes. When I saw this, I was delighted because it looks basic enough for my standard. So here I go into my kitchen, armed with the ingredients, I managed to bake these cupcakes within 3 hours (I know I am slow, it runs in the family), including filling it with the lemon curd that I made a day before. I omitted the mascapone frosting and replaced it with a wedge of strawberry. I love the taste. Well balanced. My mum loves them and she finished a jar of lemon curd by spreading it on crackers and toast. I feel satisfied whenever she enjoy my creation. :)

Hamburger Buns

For busy (or lazy) people like me, I would prefer to make plain bread loaf or bun. It saves me the trouble of preparing the filling. So far, the fillings I have prepared at home are simply store bought grated cheese, cinnamon sugar and sausages. I really like to try fillings like curry potatoes and custard but that will have too wait.

This time, I tried a recipe from 65oC Tang Zhong Bread by Yvonne C. I heard so much about this book and it is really not disappointing. I am so inspired to try out all the recipes in the book. In this post, I have tried the hamburger buns.

I was so happy and amazed by the smell and softness of the bread when it just came out of the oven. I simply could not resist but to press the sides of the buns. Please bear with me. I hardly have success baking bread so far. Haha. After it was cooled, though not as soft as it was when it came out of the hot box, but the texture is comparable to the bakery one. As I was slicing them into half, I was smiling all the way. I had them with cheese the next morning, it was good without toasting. I had it the next next morning again with honey baked ham, still so good. I gave two to my mum and she gave me the same feedback too. She had them with ham, cheese and tomato. She said that the sesame seeds gave the bread the fragrance that cannot be found in the store bought ones. I was delighted.


Recipe (adapted from 65oC Tang Zhong Bread)

Ingredients:

(A)
bread flour 210g
cake flour 56g
milk powder 20g
castor sugar 42g
salt half tsp
instant yeast 6g

(B)
whole egg 30g
water 85g
Tang Zhong 84g

(C)
butter 22g

Sesame seeds for decorations

1. Mix (A) and (B) until it is smooth using a dough hook. Start with slow speed to prevent the flour from flying around then change to medium speed.

2. Add in (C) and knead till the dough pass the window pane stage, which means if you tear a piece of dough out, you are able to stretch it till it forms a thin membrane.

3. Make it into a round dough and put it into a floured bowl. Let it proof in an enclosed area for 40 minutes. (I placed it in a big box with a cup of steaming hot water and cover the box with the lid.)

4. When it has doubled in size, punch down the dough and divide into 9 round doughs (each ~60g) and let it rest for 10 minutes.

5. Roll them into nice round balls, brush the surface with the remaining egg or water and coat it with tonnes of sesame seeds. Space them out on greased baking tray.

6. Let it proof for another 40 minutes. 20 minutes before the end of proofing, preheat the oven to 180oC.

7. Bake for 15 minutes in middle rack. Let it cool first before slicing. Enjoy.

Bread Bread and More Bread

Seems like I have abandoned my blog again. :( I am stuck in a busy and vicious cycle. Even though I am baking every weekend, by the time I clean up my kitchen, it will be time for bed and get ready for another week of work. Sometimes I do get a little depress over this. Finally I am here again after about 4 weeks.

I have been baking bread during these 4 weeks. Why did I keep on baking bread?? First, I love bread and I have it for breakfast every weekday morning. Second, the bread that I baked just doesn't seem to be as fluffy as what I bought in the bakery. Sometimes I do get soft bread but it's just not the fluffy kind. More dense to be exact. I don't know if my expectation is too high. But to me, I feel that I have yet to succeed in bread making. I will keep on trying. This process just simply has too many variables and unknowns. Maybe this is the third reason. It is challenging.

20th March - Butter Cinnamon Roll from here


For this bun, I forgot to leave the dough to double in the second proof. After shaping it, I sent them into the oven straight away. So blur. Luckily it is still soft and nice just that it is not fluffy.
I am sure if I did not forget that step, the standard will be closer to my dream bread.

27th March - Sweet Bun with hotdog from here


This ugly looking bun is the result of me acting smart when I am not. Slap myself. I prove the dough overnight because I don't want to spend so many hours in the kitchen on Sunday. On Sunday, I took out the dough, shape it and bake it. Terrible mistake. I should have thaw it first but I am afraid that the dough will be over proof. Sigh. I think I won't try this method again until I got more specific instructions on how to carry this out correctly from a trusted source. Anyway, this bread has a scone-like texture. It still taste decent after toasting. Far from my dream bread.

3rd April - Sweet Bun with hotdog


I am tired of failure. So this time, I decided to be obedient and follow the above recipe step by step. And finally, I got a bun that is close to my dream bread, just that the fluffiness is still shy of those bought ones. But this bun is good enough to make me happy for the whole day.

10th April - Wholemeal Bun (Using Tangzhong)

I forgot to take picture of these plain wholemeal bun. After hearing so much about Tangzhong method and how it can retain its fluffiness for three days, I decided to try it. But sad to say, it did not come out right. Quite soft but not exactly fluffy. Luckily it tastes good when it is toasted with cheese.

I am taking a break this week from baking bread. I think I will bake muffins instead. :) But... I will be back.

Deep Fried Nian Gao in Spring Roll Pastry

What is sticky, sweet, gooey and delicious? Caramel? No. What I am describing is a traditional Chinese delicacy that is available only during Chinese New Year, the Nian Gao. It is made from glutinous flour, sugar and water, steamed for many hours in a mould lined with banana leaves. I have heard of several ways of eating it but I still prefer the deep fried version.

My mum used to sandwich the Nian Gao in between a slice of sweet potato and a slice of yam then coat it with a batter, deep fried till golden brown. I have been eating this once every year for twenty over years and not tired of it yet. :) But my mum always complained to me that the oil splatters everywhere, even onto her arms when she is deep frying them. So when I saw what Wendy did with her Nian Gao, I proposed this idea to my mum and she was in for it.We did some modification to the recipe. Instead of mashing the yam and seasoning it, we just cut the yam into rectangles, rubbed them with salt and steamed them for 10 to 15 minutes. After which, the assembling part is the same as what Wendy did.



The outcome is simply divine. Haha. When it just came out of the fryer, the Nian Gao is gooey and the pastry is crispy. Left it to cool for a while, the Nian Gao becomes a bit chewy and the pastry is still crispy. This is my favourite texture. If left overnight, the pastry will turn soft and crumbles but still taste good. The pastry will regain its crispiness after toasting but the pastry looks darker and full of wrinkles. Tastewise is as good as before. Yum Yum.

Traditional Delicacy

A Weekend Afternoon Tea

Today, I invited my uncle and aunt to my house together with my parents to have a simple afternoon tea and also a bonding session. Haha. I have baked a blueberry pound cake yesterday. I need to bake in advance because I am a slow worker. Sigh. I inherited this from my mum as what my dad always says. :) I think I slightly overbaked this cake as you can see that the crust is rather thick. Other than that, I love this cake. It is so fragrant, fruity, buttery and tender. High cholesterol but I can't resist it. Love it. My mum brought back what was left as she didn't have enough of it too. I got this recipe from Seasaltwithfood. Thanks so much.



I think my skill still have lots of room for improvement. See the big holes there? I will definitely make this cake again. The next dish that I prepared is the savory dish called pearl balls. It is actually meatballs coated with glutinous rice. I got my inspiration from Honey Bee Sweets. It is a very simple dish to prepare. I made the meat mixture in advance and coated them with glutinous rice when I wanted to steam. I modified the recipe a bit by replacing the prawns with fish paste to make my life a little easier. As usual, lazy. ;) I am still not very confident with my seasoning skills so I boiled some water and cooked two meatballs to have a taste of it. Luckily the taste is well-balanced. Good enough to treat my parents and guests.


Pretty morsels. Looks elegant and cute. Easy to eat too. I think I will omit the grease paper next time and just simply grease the plate to prevent them from sticking.


Lastly, I also baked two hasselback sweet potatoes. The slicing of the potatoes is really a challenge to me. The sweet potatoes are so hard. I cut through it twice. So sad. No skill. After struggling for half an hour, I finally did it. Haha. Filled with satisfaction. I prepared according to what Seasaltwithfood has blogged. Towards the end of the baking, a familiar smell struck me. Roasted chestnuts. It must be the smell of the burnt sugar on the aluminium foil. This dish is also well-received. Just that I need to eat more spinach to gain more arm power before I do it again. ;) But I think I will make this again because my hubby likes it.