FOOD SPA

Where is the door?

2010-06-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

I am depressed.

Referencing back to the frequency that I update my blog, I guess this is a significant indication that I am stuck with work and do not have time for my hobby. I am a hobby person. I spend large portion of my time on hobby. Of course my family comes first.

Couple of years back, fishing was my weekly pastime. Sunny and I went fishing as often as people visit the groceries. We drove 3 – 4 hours every week just to sniff the breeze of the ocean and catch some fish; If inbound, we would definitely heading to Eildon for some Trouts and Atlantic Salmons. Either sitting at the riverbank or in the boat, watching the sky and reading the cloud are the best therapy you will ever get. I am saying it out loud – better than retail therapy (though a lot of girls may disagree.)

I worked last Saturday on a capital project, a relocation project for my team. Anyway…..who cares about what I do….let’s get back to the hobby thingy.

After Jesse was born into the family, 9 months being a stay-at-home-mom was the period when I baked the most in my life. I baked a variety kind of cakes or desserts everyday, sometimes a collection of petit fours in one day. French macarons, lemon meringue tarts, souffle cheesecake, matcha cookies, chocolate croissants, banana loaf, sesame chiffon cake, marbled butter pound cake, almond rounds, pineapple tart, sour cherry gateau, just to name a few.

I also decorate cake. Ready to rolled fondant is a lot of fun. It thrives cake into a whole new level of treasure. It brings out the artist side of me, and there I created an animal kingdom cake for lil’ Jesse first birthday. I am longing for Jesse to grow up and roll some dough with me.

Guess what? I haven’t been baking for the last 2 months. I probably baked something, but I couldn’t recall what I’ve done. All I know now is work. The milestone, the flow charts, the resources, the archive, the disposal, the system transfer, the migration, the presentation – I am so depressed. I need to bake. I just want to roll my sleeve up, whisk some egg whites and mix some batter. Life without hobby is gradually killing me. My greatest time off nowadays is to go shopping with Sunny and Jesse, take Jesse to swimming class, go for a coffee, these are considered the luxury of my life at the moment.

Where is baking fits in? No where. I am depressed, that’s alright, we all have that moment; however, my concern is I don’t have a way out to pass on my depression. Where is the door??

Where is Tweety?

2010-05-08T04:37:00.000-07:00

Remember him?

I guess most of the kids grown up in 80's and 90's walked along Looney Tunes. One of my favourite character among all is Road Runner, Bee Beep!

Chewy Tweety

Today, I received an order from my colleague to create a dozen of cuppies for his sister birthday. His sister typically loves Sylvester and hates Tweety.....She would love to see Tweety in Sylvester's mouth and struggling to live, she would boil

Tweety in hot water if there is a real Tweety.

Y's Birthday

Anyway, these are chocolate cuppies that covered by Sylvester and anti Tweety signs.She was thrilled by the cuppies, 1 - because the cuppies are yummy (*grin*); 2 - because Tweety was killed and left with just a paw.......（What a violent minded birthday girl. However, as long as she is happy, why not?)

Yes, Sylvester's paw grabbing Tweety feet

Stained Glass Biscotti

2010-04-11T04:17:00.000-07:00

Knock! Knock!

Woahhhhhhhhhhhhh..................I am back I am back I am back.

Sorry guys haven't been updating my blog since forever. My schedule was packed. Christmas seems liked yesterday. Leading up to Chinese New Year, Malaysia and Japan trips, I was overwhelmed, overloaded and overeaten. Time was flying quickly for the last 4 months.

Now, I am back to work. Walking back to my work station, it reminds me the day I was waving bye bye to my colleagues and telling them “I am flying to Japan!!”, all these are yet so far, but so close. The truth is: my holiday came to an end; here I am in Dockland, welcomed back by cold wind from the harbour plus unfriendly security guards at the entrance of the office building.

Glazed Fruit Bowl

I have been very busy since the week I returned. I am just hoping for an R & R weekend, ‘chew’ on some DVDs and ‘watch’ some potatoes chips, be a couch potato and enjoy the rest of my day in the lounge with my peejay on. *dream yet to be come true* - the reality is – 7 am morning on a Satday, Jesse greets me with a cute smile, pulls off my warm doona, he jumps on the bed, he sings, nappy changes, pulls me out to the lounge, he wants his Elmo cartoon, I have to make him brekkie and milk, and then keep him accompany for the rest of the Elmo....*Howzat*

Stained Glass Panels

Make sure that the biscotti is baked til harden up and will not break apart

Anyway, here are some Christmas fruit cakes that I’ve dried up for longer shelf life – Stained Glass Biscotti. It’s not easy to slice the fruit cake, you definitely need sharp knife to do this, and then transfer them slowly onto the baking tray with a flat barbeque thong to prevent them from breaking apart. Bake under slow oven – 120 Degree Celsius for 40 minutes just to dry the cakes up. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack, you should have crunchy biscotti ready to be dung into your afternoon tea.

These lovely biscotti are good with plain coffee and tea as the glazed fruits give a sticky sweetness in them. The glazed fruits present chewy texture that binds perfectly with crunchy biscotti and soon melted in your mouth after lightly dung into coffee.

February?? Already??

2010-02-09T02:57:00.000-08:00

*Blink* *Blink* It’s 2010.

I closed out 2009 with some major procrastination (hmm…hmmm….clear throat!!)

I was stuck in a tight tight tight schedule. I feel guilty that I haven’t make time for my blog. Let alone blogging; baking and cooking nowadays are two significant luxurious activities for me at the moment. I was strangled with work. My work becomes increasingly demanding.

Let’s go off the beaten track for a while - A lot of people asked me the same question over and over again - “what do I do for a living?” Well, I work in the rail industry (yeah, rail), never heard that before? That’s okay. I wouldn’t explain further before everyone falls asleep. *grin*

Leaping into 2010, 10 years after the Y2K countdown (10 years already, and see how BIGGGGGG is the effect of millennium bug…puik!!), I have compiled a list of achievements that I am proud of and whole heaps of procrastinations that I am trying to avoid further (hehe!!):

Achievements:

1. Jesse turns 2 in perfect health. Thank God.

2. Be a Mac user at home and Windows user for work.

3. Online shopping for books and cosmetics (Why pay more just to touch before buy?)

4. Bake with Valrhona (Yeah, they normally gone as snack.

5. Cook Duck Confit with proper duck fat. (Vegetable oil is not tolerated!!)

6. Management role.

7. Increase EQ by 2%. (Slightly higher than my forecast of 0 %!!)

8. Learn nursery rhymes, sing and dance with Jesse. (La La La La, this is the song, Elmo song…..)

9. Increase amount of hugs and kisses to the ‘the bf’ (He complained.)

10. Rely on naturopath than pills and tablets.

Procrastinations (woo hoo):

1. Cut off caffeine. (This has been on list for quite a while – perhaps forever.)

2. Season greeting cards for friends and family. (It’s much easier to poke with Facebook!!)

3. Play Hoo La Hoop. (Complete failure – It’s not in my gene)

4. Build a little studio for photography. ( Oopppsss, I remember I delegate this to ‘the bf’, he should be ashamed)

5. 10000 steps a day. (10000 of breathing and heart pumping, I can)

6. Sleep on time. (Life is too short, I need more DVDs, which means…..)

7. Remove dairy from diet. (Ermmm, soy Latte tastes liked burnt rubber drink…)

8. No more poke tongue while concentrating. (Cass & Jess are the poke tongue pairs!! Can’t help!!)

9. Wear pair of proper shoes. (Haven’t been wearing any other shoes other than Crocs lately, including clubbing.

10. Cut ice cream intake. (‘The bf’ complained!)

Santa Claus is coming to town

2009-11-06T02:05:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

It’s that time of the year again. Christmas is coming. I walked past corner of Collin and Swanston on Sunday, that huge Christmas Tree was there. Every single corner of town are full of Christmas decorations – ornaments, stars, bells, pine, silver balls, golden chime, cards, reindeers, santa’s hat and etc.

I even started to use green and red colour bull clips to attach the documents that I passed on to P the other day. I love Christmas. Christmas is a time that I can present a lot of gifts to my beloved family and friends. Also, I will receive a lot of gifts from them. One special thing about Melbourne Christmas: We have warm Christmas, unlike the western white Christmas, we experience one of the warmest Christmas in the world. (Our Santa needs a pair of thongs here!!)

This Christmas, I will be bringing Christmas cakes your way! I will be traveling around Melbourne Metropolitan this season to spread some adorable Christmas cakes.

These little holiday presents are great idea for your friends and family. It will certainly stand out in the party that you will be throwing, it will give a smile on the face of the audience.

Please welcome Love Bear, Peace Bear and Joy Bear. These adorable sugar decorations can be presented as a set of gift for family and friends. Christmas is all about Love, Peace and Joy.

Staying true to tradition, underneath of the sugar decorations are a delicious fruitcake. A range of premium dried fruits have been selected as ingredients: sultanas, currants, blueberries, strawberries, apricots, cherries, cranberries, plum, dates, orange peels and lemon peels.

******CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW TO ORDER******

Besides these fabulous trio bears, I also created a dozen of cupcakes. Each of them is unique with different design. Trio bears are not the only celebrity under spot light, these cuppies are as adorable and brilliant as the trio bears.

Wowwwwww!!

Snowflakes

The cupcakes are rich chocolate cakes. They are filled with dark Chocolate Ganache and topped with Chocolate Meringue Butter cream. (YES, YUMMMMM……I am drooling now while I am typing!!)

Snow Man~

Reindeer!!

Holy~

******CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION ON HOW TO ORDER******

Pink Pasta

2009-10-23T01:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I felt so dying for a bowl of homemade noodle. Homemade noodle always tastes way better than the store bought noodle. The best quality store bought noodles are always second to the freshly made noodle.

Other than making normal white or yellow egg noodle, noodles nowadays needs to be dressed up! Vegetable juice can be added to the noodle to dress the noodle up. Miss Spinach glows in green, Mr Carrot sparkles in orange, and welcome to my version of hot pink noodle – de ra de ra de ra ra ra …..(drum rolls)

Miss Beets

Beetroot

Miss Beets is Fettuccine. Listen, she is Fettuccine, she is not Spaghetti. Make sure you got her right. Other wise, it will give you this:

Disaster

It was soooooooooo annoying when this happened to me while I was trying to blend beetroots into juice. When I saw the beetroots juice sipping out from the bottom of the blender, I knew something was going wrong. I quickly switched off the blender, and slowly turned the blender to relieve it from the motor, the bottom fell off.

YES, you hear me right, THE BOTTOM OF THE BLENDER FULLED OF BEETROOTS JUICE JUST FELL OFF!!!!

This was a disaster. Worst scenario always get ‘worster’ - Jesse saw this and thought this was a whole heap of fun mom was having in the kitchen and and and- he joined the game. Yes, you are right, again you hear me right, he joined the beetroots juice party.

He was having freaky pink feet and bum for the last 2 days before the colour went off. I felt colour blind as everything in the kitchen looked pink now.

BEETROOT NOODLE

Ingredients:

(Beetroot Juice)

300g Beetroots

80g Water

1/4 Tsp Sea Salt

(Noodle Dough)

260g Beetroot Juice

600g Plain Flour

1/4 Tsp Sea Salt

Methods:

1. Peel beetroot skin and chop into small pieces.

2. Add beetroot pieces, water and sea salt into blender and puree the mixture into as fine as possible.
3. Line a large bowl with muslin cloth. Pour beetroot puree into the muslin cloth. Tie up the muslin cloth and squeeze beetroot juice.
4. In a mixing bowl, add plain flour, beetroot juice and sea salt. Knead until the mixture form dough.

I Heart Kitchenaid Mixer !! It makes life so much easier!!

5. Cover dough with cling wrap and rest noodle dough for 30 minutes in fridge.

6. Remove dough from the fridge and knead dough into a smooth and shiny dough.
7. Using pasta machine, make noodle into favourable shape.

This can be made into Lasagna sheet as well.

Remember to dust Noodle with heaps of flour

This is my favourite bits....it retains its colour so well after the noodle is cooked.

***Noodle in this colour looked awesome***

Spare Set of Ribs

2009-10-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Can you resist this? Yes, you can??????......No way, I don't believe you.

I love munching on spare ribs. I truly enjoy using my front teeth to pull the meat apart from the bone. ( aRRRAaaaahhhhh!!!! Lion roars~) . I guess it traced back all the way to the fact that I was born in the year of the dog. I guess this explains. (ooOOppssss, did I just review how old am I?)

I always wonder why would the ribs been called spareribs…..would it be just a spare pair of ribs? Isn’t it necessary for the ribs to form a structure for the body and protect the organs? (Yeah…..whatever…..) I know this is pretty lame.

I have decided to make this killer ribs as every time we went to TGI Friday, it was just a very small portion of ribs being served. After pulling and sucking on 3 pieces of ribs, I started to nag for more – Where is the rest of the ribs?

FINGER LICKING GOOD STICKY RIBS

Ingredients:

1 kg American Pork Ribs

60 ml Ketchup
2 Tbsp Tomato Paste
2 Tbsp Hickory BBQ Sauce
45g Brown Sugar
60 ml Cider Vinegar
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
2 Cloves Crushed Garlic
2 Tbsp Crushed Onion
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tsp Mustard Powder

Sesame Seed

Method:

1. Place the ribs in a large saucepan of cold water and bring to boil. Remember to start with cold water.
2. When it boiled, reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 40 minutes.
3. Drain and rest ribs in a large pan.
4. Combine the ketchup, tomato paste, sugar, vinegar, oil, garlic, onion, Worcestershire sauce and mustard powder, pour over the ribs and toss to coat. Ensure the ribs are soaked in marinate.
5. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour to marinate.
6. Heat a barbeque or large char-grill to high heat, rest ribs on the grill. Brush with the marinade every 2 minutes and turn.
7. Grill until golden and sticky.
8. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.
9. Cut into pieces and serve.

I can guarantee that nothing beats this classic sticky ribs, which smothered in a rich and sticky BBQ glaze, trust me, this is finger licking super duper good!

Ditch the forks and knife...use your hand.......and roar - aRRRAaaaahhhhh

Un-cool Bananaz

2009-10-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

Banana cake has always been on top of my cake selection list. I would easily choose banana cake anytime, any day over chocolate cake, chocolate fudgy slices or brownies which have been on top of most people favourite list. I am gonna give banana credits this time. I just love the aroma of ripen bananas furnish the kitchen with tang of tropical island breeze.

By the way, Jesse calls Banana – Nana. In the afternoon, he felt the rumbles and he usually tippy toe and points at the bananas on the fruit basket, screaming loudly Nana, Nana, Nana until he got one in hand. (Caution, try not to give banana to kids below 2 yrs old with skin on, caz’ they will eat the banana with skin on and complain in gibberish with pokey tounge …….)

Now, why am I calling this post Un-cool Bananas? T has been nagging me for a recipe of the Banana Cake I made for her before, and she reminded me in an email, in Facebook, in comments, I am not sure whether she actually posted on TV and newspaper advertisement section as well. That was so uncool!! Yeah~ you know who you are!! (Hehehehehehehe…)

T – this recipe is not the recipe I used to make the one I made for you, you might find the texture is not as light and fluffy as that one…..this is a recipe for beginner LIKED YOU!!!

BANANA CAKE

Ingredients:

180 g Unsalted Butter

180 g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs

250 g Plain Flour

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Tsp Baking Soda
2 – 3 Overripe Bananas

50 g Evaporated Milk

Almond Flakes

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together with electric beaters until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs gradually and beat until combined. Make sure that you add egg one at a time, beating well after each addition, otherwise the cream and egg will separate.
4. Pour in evaporated milk, mashed bananas and mix well.
5. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda into the cream batter.
6. Fold mixture gently with rubber spatula until just combined.
7. Pour batter into 2 loaf pan or an 8" round pan, and sprinkle almond flakes on top. (or any favourite nut.)
8. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake.
9. Transfer on to a wire rack to cool.

Serve with a cuppa.....

Matcha Kumara Spiral Pastry

2009-09-04T05:33:00.000-07:00

I am not a big fan of pastry.

Did I just say I am not a big fan of pastry? Opppss…..I am drinking, I am a liar, at least for now.

Let’s start again.

Who can resist a piping hot pastry that came out from the oven? Just imagine Apple Pie, Meat Pie, Sausage Roll, Berries Lattice, Apricot Danish, Parisian Croissant, and Blueberries Pie?

And these Spiral Pastries??

I can’t!!! I just can’t!!!!

Pastry is one of my weakness. I can trade in a long determined Jenny Craig program, highly restricted gym sessions, or my weight just to munch on the crispy crust, for the pleasure of oooh and ahhhhh.

Kumara

This time, I match pastry with kumara. Kumara, aka Golden Sweet Potato, is my favourite tuber vegetable. Its colour is attractive, it flesh is sweet and mushy. It also gives that ‘zing’ to the traditional mash potato if you substitute half of the potato with kumara.

Matcha Kumara Spiral Pastry

Ingredients:

(a) Water Skin:

75g Bread Flour
75g Cake Flour
55g Butter
35g Pure Icing Sugar
70g Water

(b)Oil Skin:

220g Cake Flour
85g Butter
2 Tbsp Matcha Powder
2 Tbsp Turmeric Powder

Filling:

2 Kumaras / Sweet Potatoes
40g Butter
20g Sugar

Method:

1. Water Skin: Mix all ingredients (a) in mixing bowl; beat with dough hook until the mixture form manageable dough.
2. Transfer the dough to flat surface that lightly floured. Knead and stretch the dough using wrist until the dough become smooth and shiny. Wrap dough with cling film and set aside.
3. Oil Skin: Mix ingredients cake flour and butter in a mixing bowl, use finger to rub butter into flour. Slowly knead the mixture to form oil dough. Wrap dough with cling film and set aside.
4. Filling: Boil kumara in water or microwave until cooked. Cut kumara into halves and scoop out the flesh.

5. Mash kumara flesh with folk until fluffy. Add butter and sugar while it is still hot. Leave kumara paste to cool. Form kumara paste into small balls, arrange single layer on a tray and rest in freezer until it is ready to be used.
6. Divide oil skin into 2 portions. Flavour each portion according to personal preference. I flavoured one with Matcha Powder (Japanese Green Tea) and the yellow colour is Turmeric Powder.

This particular brand of matcha powder is perfume for food

7. Divide water skin dough and oil skin dough into 15g each, it yields about 20 pieces.

8. Preheat oven to 200 degree Celsius.
9. Wrap oil skin dough with water skin dough to form a ball. Flatten the ball into flat strip, roll up and flatten again and then roll up and get ready.

This process is to develop the thousand layers end product

10. This time, the spiral side of the dough ball has to face up. Flatten the dough ball into a round pastry skin, insert kumara ball and slowly wrap the filling completely.

Side of the pastry roll has to face up

Insert filling!!

11. The closing end will have to face down.
12. Bake spiral pastry for 17 – 20 minutes. Be careful not to let the pastry turns brown.

The pastry will turn crispy when it gets colder.

For any one who is not watching the cholesterol level, lard can be substitute for a better aroma and more crispy texture.

Yummmmmmmmmmm...........

No Icing !!

2009-08-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

When I get an order from K, he insists that his lovely wife would love a cake without chunk of cream liked those store bought cake. No Icing, No Icing, No Icing, these are the words most frequently used throughout the conversation while he was trying to explain his requirement.

Little sheepie: How can you resist me?

After long explanation and negotiation, I understand that he is not looking forward that the cake to be iced with buttercream or fresh cream, or with heaps of buttercream swirls and decorations. Now I’ve GOT IT!!

It’s a challenge.

It’s definitely a challenge that the cake to be presented just as that without covered by smooth buttercream or fondant icing, which means that I do not have a chance to fix, cover or patch up the crumb and skin of the cake. That is just liked asking an actress to go on a live TV show without putting make up on!!

Love the banner!! Liked a piece of blanket!!

Vanilla Light Sponge filled with various fruits

But, I’ve tried my best. This cake was layered with Peach, Kiwi, Blueberry and Strawberry. Each layer of the cake is lightly brushed with Cointreu to ensure moist as there was no cream around to seal in moisture.

Droooooling!! Just me?

K was certainly very happy with the outcome and this is his testimonial for me:

“She had so many cakes in her life, but I am sure she will remember this.”

He told me that they took a lot of photos for the cake. Actually, me too!!! Hehehe!!

Long Lost Twins

2009-08-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

Jesse long lost sibling - Minna No Tabo.

Life is a Puzzle

2009-08-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

I really enjoy playing puzzle. Putting puzzle together is an exhausting process but yet it is extremely rewarding when I found the piece that fits.

Life is a puzzle. Putting life together is an exhausting process but yet it is extremely rewarding when I found the thing that I want.

Dial P for Puzzle

Through playing puzzle, I’ve learnt to gather pieces, arrange them according to colours and sizes to form a bigger picture.

While learning to be a wiser person, I’ve learnt to gather a broken self, arrange myself according to the situation and emotion to achieve a better life.

Puzzle on Birthday!!

(Ordered by a she for a he, poor thing, life is already a puzzle, birthday got another puzzle!!)

The similarity between playing puzzle and learning the meaning of life inspire me to be a patient and calm person towards harsh situations. I apologize to whom I’ve shown my neglect and ignorance. I was deeply affected by some significant occurrences surrounded me lately.

I guess I just need more baking and R & R

These blue cuppies are my favouite of the set.

The Gang Up!!

I have always been seeing the bigger picture of life. Now, I have to learn to see an even bigger picture than the “bigger picture” that I used to be seeing. Our eyes are small and varied in very limited sizes; However, I believe our visions are unlimited, our visions can move across all angles and fly to anywhere of the world.

Or worst comes, I just have to move on and see another pictures.

Wish me Luck!

Multi-multi Layers

2009-07-25T04:57:00.000-07:00

Winter in Melbourne makes me miserable. The sky is grey and cloudy. I am always on the search for sunlight. Just a tiny bit of sunlight through the door gap or blind will make me dance.

I miss my Sun. My Summer Sun.

Winter Sun is just so weak....so so so not bright.

Clothes are not drying.

Mildew grows on the bath mat.

Not enough natural light for photo shooting.

Walking across the ever windy footbridge to Dockland for work.

Macchiato turns cold 2 seconds after walking out from the coffee shop.

Sunrise at 7am, Sunset at 4pm.

Slugs are everywhere at night.

Most uncomfortably, layers and layers of winter clothes. We store fat around the year caz’ we need to carry these extra 3 kilos of clothes everywhere during winter. (Is this the best excuse why I am always 3 kilos heavier during winter? Nothing to do with food? I think that must be it….)

----------------------------------------------------

Spekkoek is one of my baking dreams. It also called Indonesian Multi Layers Cake, Lapis Lengit and Kueh Lapis Indonesia.

I have attempted to bake this famous Indonesian delicacy for that many times, but when the recipe calls for 24 yolks, mountain of butter, tonnes of sugar, I felt clogged. It clogs my arteries by just a sniff on the recipe.

Anyway, to fulfil my ‘childhood dream’, I convinced myself to bake the cake, from scratch…..Arghhhh…..

SPEKKOEK

Ingredients

25 Egg Yolks

5 Egg Whites

500g Salted Butter

¼ Cup Condensed Milk

250g Caster Sugar

220g Plain Flour

2 Tsp Golden Syrup

2 Tsp Mixed Spices

2 Tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Tbsp Rum

Method:

1. Grease the base of an 8″ square pan and line with baking paper.
2. Pre-heat oven, selecting the “Grill” function.
3. Cream butter, condensed milk, vanilla extract, golden syrup, rum and mixed spices till well mixed, soft and fluffy. Set aside.
4. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until pale yellow, thick and creamy
5. Add beaten egg yolk mixture to the creamed butter mixture and mix well.
6. Sieve flour into the mix until combined.
7. Beat the egg whites with a pinch of cream of tartar until stiff. Do not overmixed.
8. Fold the egg whites into the flour batter.
9. For first layer, spread 2 tbsp of mixture in pan and grill for 8 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
10. Remove cake pan from oven and press the baked layer down lightly with a metal fondant smoother. Prick all over the layer of cake with a skewer.11. Repeat steps 9 to 11 for subsequent layers.
12. When top most layer is completed, cover with a metal tray or a piece of foil and bake for a further 5 mins.
13. Remove from oven and turn the cake pan upside down. The cake will slide out automatically.
14. Flip cake back upright and let cool completely before cutting.

Shopping Spree

2009-07-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

I am a shopoholic.

Ever since that Myer and David Jones announced that they are going on this EOFYS – End of Financial Year Sale, my syndrome became severe. Cosmetic, clothes, shoes, handbags, kitchen wares, home wares, nursery, vitamins, toys, stationery……….and so on.

Wah....Let's see what's mom buying for me!!

I am also awfully dictatorial in this area. When I decided and pronounced that we do not have enough shoes at home, I will make shoes shopping mandatory for that weekend, and shit happened, liked this:

Crocs went on sale~ Love these feather Light shoes, but look how ugly are they~

The purple colour little shoes are for my god daughter - Ning Ning!!

Also, on another occasions, when L’Ocittane has another limited edition 25% Shea Butter Cream, we bought the limited edition cream. Both Sunny and me never walked pass this shop without buying any thing.

Ylang Ylang cream and Acacia Flower cream....Yummy!~ Opppsss....They are body cream...

Along side, we threw in this bunch. From head to heel, there must be something that fits into any part of our body, you name it. If you move closer, there you’ll see shaving foam, fatigue gel and after shave balm for the man in da house.

There is even a baby cream for the little man in da house. This thing make us slowly moving away from Johnson and Johnson....Arhhh. love J & J.

Jesse: Happy Spending Day!

Colours

2009-07-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend, I was working with a set of colour matching boards to work out the best colour combinations for cake design.

I don’t have a favourite colour. I don’t particularly like one colour. One colour will not shine by itself. I believe colours should come in pairs or more together.

I’ve learnt more in-depth knowledge about colour through this exercise. Here is one: There are 22 different kinds of black in just black colour itself.

I’ve also come to learn that the pink colour I like called Cerise. The blue colour I like called Maya. The green colour I like is actually called Moss.

Let’s look at these cuppies, It’s not green and yellow. There are called Moss and Maize.

Ribbons

Polka Dot is a classic.

It survives through every generations and remains one of my favourite of all time.

Some other beautiful combinations I like:

Violet and Ivory

Brown and Pink

Yellow and Brown

Red and White

Green and Yellow

Grey and White

Yellow and Grey

Violet and Green

Triangle Dumpling

2009-07-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

My mom is a fairly famous dumpling seller in my hometown. According to very reliable source of information – which is my mom – her customers drove all the way from Singapore and JB to Ampang (about 400km away) to buy her handmade triangle dumplings(肉粽) during the 5th of May in Lunar Calendar. 5th of May in Lunar Calendar is known as DuanWu Festival.

On the 5th of June, I made these dumplings. In a country that celebrates western holidays and cultures, I sort of realize any Chinese culture festival few weeks later. When I was young, probably about 17 years old, while I was watching Astro TVB drama till late or preparing for examination, I always go downstairs, sneaked a dumpling, chucked into microwave, and from there they lost forever………..

After that many advanced secrets and tips from my mom, I successfully made a dumpling that taste very close to mom's version....I think soooooo.....

Looked at my hand...was shaking....

The ingredients: Glutinous rice, dried shrimp, mushroom, black eye peas and the oooozy braised Belly Pork. Without a 5 layers belly pork, dumpling is n longer a dumpling! kakakaka!

Before they were cooked. They were lining up for my ISO quality control.

Another great tips - Water level have to cover the dumplings. While cooking, keep adding water and ensure the water level is always higher than the dumplings.

Let's have a look into these oooozyyyyy braised pork again..wah..succulent and melt in my mouth...

Most importantly, the dumpling has to keep its shape while cooked. If the dumpling separated, we will have to cook the dumplings for another hour.

Autopsy - Pork Belly, checked! Mushroom, checked! Black Eye Peas, checked! YUMMMMM

Being away from home, it reminds me about my mom dumpling. I feel sad to be away from the easy accessible dumpling….and of course, most importantly mom, dad and my Ahko. Wish you guys have a happy DuanWu Festival. Calorie will not count on this happy day!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous, Classic, Kiddo

2009-06-26T20:01:00.001-07:00

This package was ordered and prepared for a colleague. He was looking for some tea goodies to treat his office mates. This was presented and he was very happy!

The Gorgeous – Mud Cake with Chocolate Ganache. Dressed up with colourful stripy costume.

The Classic – Red Cherry, Cream Custard and Almond Pastry.

The Kiddo – Peanut Butter Cookies with Chocolate Fudge Toppings

These 3 selections were made to suit the complexity of a working environment. The Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y. Still, it doesn’t mean that the Classic for Baby Boomers, The Gorgeous for Gen X…..It seems liked the Baby Boomers were loving the The Kiddo very much too………Yummy~

I personally crazy about this Bright Red Cherry Almond Pastry!!!!!!

Mud Cake and Cookies Fudge looked good too!!

Biggest Cuppa

2009-06-18T15:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve baked for many years. But this is the first cake that could make a difference. Baking for charity is awesome. It binds my passion with a meaningful mission. When the PR team approached me, I knew there was no chance that I’m gonna turn this down.

VicTrack hosted this Biggest Morning Tea with the most. People were really involving in donation and yummy goodies. This made a successful and meaningful morning tea.

Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea is one of Cancer Council’s leading fundraising events and the largest, most successful event of its kind in Australia. Over $60 million has been raised since it first began in 1994. Funds raised during Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea go towards Cancer Council research, prevention, education and support.

Dr Amanda Hordern from Cancer Council Victoria

Everybody was holding a cuppa in hand that will change life!

My time and effort was all paid off. In this 1 hour session of Biggest Morning Tea, VicTrack raised AUD550 for people who are living with cancer, which means about 10 dollars per minute! That was fantastic!

Below are photos of my " passion + heart + effort + no sleep + stress ".......Stress for a good reason.

The leaning teapot, cup and saucer sets are all made from sugar! How Sweeeeeeeettttt is that!!

Oh, underneath is chocolate mud cake with ganache. It was - totally decadent - accoding to the winner of the cake, Caroline.

The cake is an important one. I dressed them up with final make up. It took me 3 hours just to luster and shimmer up the cake! Shine Shine and Bling Bling!!

Today, I've learnt this - For charity, every bits count.

Spring Onion Pastry Cake

2009-06-01T23:25:00.000-07:00

I am very sick today. I just can’t resist kissing sickie Jesse before putting him to bed, and I got this flu bug from him. I am now staying at home and feeling sore everywhere.

Well, trust me, not swine flu. At least, I don’t look like a pig, I don’t oink, I don’t roll in the mud, but I do sleep and eat a lot……………….(should seek medical advice on this symptom).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spring onion pastry cake is a popular snack through Asia. I always stock the frozen spring onion cakes from Asian grocery. There are simply too delicious. There was this day, the spring onions were so cheap in the market, I bought 3 big bunches of them for 85 cents. Yes, 85 cents. I resourced these spring onions in every single dish that I’d cooked and people actually noticed that and started asking me:

Why is that heaps of spring onions on the steamed fish?
Why are these meatballs full of spring onions?
Why are the soup and noodle have that extra heaps of spring onions in them?
Why spring onion?

Finally, I have to find a recipe to use up my spring onion before the mouths in the house smell liked spring onions and complain a lot about spring onion..

Spring Onion Pastry Cake

Ingredients:

300g Bread Flour
300g Cake Flour
20g Powdered Sugar
10g Baking Powder
20g Kosher Salt
60g Olive Oil
200g Hot Water
100g Water

8 Stalks Spring Onions

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
2. Form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, pour in hot water, water and oil.
3. With dough hook, slow speed setting, mix until a rough dough is formed.

4. Remove the dough, punch and pull dough until the dough becomes shiny.
5. Rest dough for 30 minutes.
6. Chop spring onions into small pieces.

7. Divide dough into 6 pieces. Roll dough into flat semi translucent pastry sheet.
8. Brush with oil. Sprinkle spring onions evenly.

Sprinkle Sprinkle Sprinkle!!

9. From the edge, carefully roll pastry to wrap and hold spring onions in place.

10. Roll the pastry roll again to form a pinwheel swirl.

11. With rolling pin, flatten the pastry cake.

12. Light fry pastry cake on a pan with medium heat, 3 minutes each side or until golden brown.
13. Serve.

If proper fried, should have some crunchy noise!!

I made this pastry cake in bulk and freeze them in freezer. They can be kept for 3 months with deep-freeze.

It’s handy for a quick brekkie or afternoon snack.

Lacy Crepe Dog

2009-05-30T04:12:00.000-07:00

Well, perhaps the title sounds unusual. Believe me, it is indeed very odd combination.

I am feeling very much peculiar lately. Things just gone pear shape and strange thing happened one after another. This photo says it all:

While I was outside the garage, trying to lock the door, I acted weird during the weekend and unfortunately/fortunately I was caught on camera by Sunny. What pose is that? Geeee…

Here comes the brekkie to suit our peculiar weekend theme: Lacy Crepe Dog a.k.a. Roti Jala Dog. Basically, this is a hot dog, wrapped in lacy crepe. Odd idea created by odd Cassie on an odd weekend.

Roti Jala Dog

Ingredients:

1 Cup Plain Flour
1 Egg
1 Cup Milk
1 Cup Water
1 Tbsp Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt

5 Skinless Hot Dogs

Method:

1. In a mixing bowl, lightly whisk egg, milk, water, sugar and salt.
2. Sift plain flour into a large mixing bowl.
3. Gradually pour the batter into the flour and mix until well combined.
4. Strain the crepe batter and rest batter for 10 minutes.
5. Cut hot dogs into half.
6. In a pot, boil hot dogs until cooked. Drain.
7. On medium heat, grease a non-stick pan.

8. Using a Roti Jala cup, in circular motion, drop the batter on the pan to form a thin net pattern crepe.
9. When set, insert hot dog, wrap and arrange on a serving plate.
10. Serve with ketchup.

Thanks to the odd weekend, it turns out oddly yummy.

Sunrise - Lake Eildon

2009-05-22T03:12:00.001-07:00

Lake Eildon was our Rendezvous. In winter 2006, we went to this place on a weekly basis. At that time, we were after Rainbow Trout, Brown Trout, Golden Perch, Red Fins and et cetera. These are fishes, the variety of fishes in this pondage.

Last week, we revisit this place, went back there for more fishing. This time, we saw the sunrise. The ultimate first hour of the sun rising into the sky. One word - Speechless. One more word - Unreal.

We were wondering: “Is this sunrise? Was there sunrise in 2006? Never seem to realize it…..!” The sunrise was so beautiful that everybody stops fishing. Time to take some photos. Here we go:

We woke up at the wee hour and drove down here. It’s all paid off.

The roast duck, yummy......OOoopsss, the wild duckie!!

Ben was keen....the water was this !#$#&~*$&^#&* cold.

Jon looked extremely macho in this photo. Thanks Canon.

(It has got nothing to do with Jon....evil grin >.<)

After 3 hours

The sign of Autumn. Maple leaves will blush in Autumn.

Realistically, the fisherman and the fisherwoman had to go back for fishing. Sunny caught a Brown Trout, it's decent size, well, at least it fits well on to the grill. Cassie never stop thinking about food.

N~E~V~E~R~!

Cassie was grumpy after Sunny landed his first fish of the day.

About couple of months ago, there was a Saturday. It was Australian worst day in history, the Black Saturday.

To come to Eildon, we had to drive pass the bush fire towns. It was such a sad journey on our way back home. The trees were all burnt. Houses, cafes, vineyards and factories are all gone. Narbie was worst. The trees on the hills are black. Charcoal black.

Black Spur...What a magnificent saddle. The trees reach sky high.

Hope all bush fire victims found their new home and get themselves back together for a new life. By looking at all these trees, I wonder whether I can handle another trip down to Eildon in the near future. It's just .....sad.

Pot Sticker

2009-05-14T22:23:00.000-07:00

Pot Sticker is basically the fry version of a steamed dumpling. In various parts of the world, this food are called dumpling, Gyoza, Mandu, Jiao Zi and Guo Tie. Hang on a sec…..Is Ravioli and Tortellini part of these as well?

Pot sticker is a basic food in Asia. It typically consists of minced meat or vegetable filling wrapped into a thinly rolled piece of wheat dough.

I love love love the fry version as the crisp bottom of these dumplings give me the “zing” and wake me up straight away. Eating pot stickers with Jesse happened to be one of the best scenario in the world, I found the other piece of the puzzle. He typically enjoy the filling, while I am more a “wheat” person. We form a perfect puzzle in munching pot sticker and wonton.

The crispy skin

POT STICKER

Ingredients:

(A)
500g Pork Shoulder
1 Tbsp Minced Ginger
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
2 Stalks Spring Onions, finely chopped
4 Water Chestnuts, finely chopped

(B)
30 Dumpling Wrappers
¼ Cup Water
1 Tbsp Corn starch

Seasonings:

1 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Chicken Powder
1 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
Pepper
Sesame Oil

1 Cup Water
1 Heap Tbsp Flour

Method:

1. Mince pork shoulder into coarse pieces.
2. Add ginger, garlic, spring onions, chestnut and mix well.
3. Add corn starch, salt, chicken powder, sugar, oyster sauce, vegetable oil, pepper and sesame oil. Squeeze vigorously with hand until the mixture turns sticky
4. Dust a large tray with corn starch.
5. Prepare the “glue” by mixing ¼ cup water and 1 tablespoon corn starch.
6. Using a finger, wet edge of a wrapper with a little bit of “glue”. Place heap spoonful of filling in centre. Fold wrapper in half and, using your thumb and index finger, pleat one edge, then press edges together to seal into a half crescent.

7. Place dumplings on prepared tray in a single layer to prevent the dumplings stick together. Repeat with remaining wrappers and filling.

8. Drizzle a pan with vegetable oil. Arrange dumpling into the pan and shallow fry dumplings until browned on one side.

9. In a small bowl, mix 1 cup water and flour, stir to combine. Pour the water flour mixture into the pan until it reaches half height of the dumplings. Cover with lid.

10. Boil until the flour water evaporated and the dumplings turn crisp underneath.
11. Serve with vinegar and chili oil.

PS Alternatively, boil dumplings in hot water, but this will not create a thin crisp underneath. But the boiled version is good to eat with noodle soup.

SpongeBob SquarePants

2009-05-07T17:46:00.000-07:00

SpongeBob is a sea sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. While was typing this sentence, I felt ridiculous. A sea sponge was named Bob, eventually it looks liked the sponge in the kitchen (yellow!), it has got pants on?!?!?!?! He lives in a pineapple. What??

Anyway……

This is the cake I made over the weekend for a 21ST young lady who fancy about SpongeBob a lot.

Jelly~

Not being a fan of SpongeBob, it was certainly a challenge to be enthusiastic to create this cake for her. I am glad I’ve been there and made it.

Phew~!

Big Head!

The House Pet Gary

Anemone?

3/7 position is always good~ be it on human or sponge!!

Oh yeah, the cake underneath is Dark Chocie Mud Cake with White Chocie Ganache!

Tigger Bites Piggy

2009-04-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I was cleaning my suitcase that sits underneath my bed frame (probably craving for a trip) and found a Taiwanese snacks recipe book that mom gave me on my last trip back home.

Mom kept emphasizing that this book has English translation of the recipe in Chinese characters. (So what? I can read Chinese lar!!) Anyway, mom was being considerate so that I know the English name of the ingredients and be able to resource here in Melbourne. (So what? We got Asian grocery here in Melbourne lar!!)

A Proper Tiger Bites Pig!!

By the way, thank you so much Mom. For courtesy, I made this snack by referencing to the book...(Dare to say courtesy!!!)

Braised pork with steamed bun is a famous Taiwanese Snack, aka Tiger Bites Pig (虎咬猪), Sliced Bun (割包) and Chinese Burger etc.

Human Bites Tiger Bites Pig~~~

TIGER BITES PIG (虎咬猪)

Ingredients:

(A)
10 Slices Pork Belly
2 Stalks Spring Onions
5 Slices Old Ginger
2 Star Anise
1 Cinnamon Stick
5 Tbsp Soy Sauce
5 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
5 Tbsp Sugar
¼ Tsp Five Spice Powder
2 Cup Water
2 Tbsp Rose Wine
1 Tsp Salt

(B)
10 Steamed Burger Buns
1 Stem Coriander
½ Cup Pickled Vegetable
½ Cup Ground Peanut

Method:

1. In a pot, insert all ingredients (A).
2. Boil with high heat for 15 minutes and turn to low heat. Simmer for 2 hours until the pork rind turns into semi-translucent.

Browning

3. Steam the bun.
4. Assemble the bun. Start with ground peanut, pork, pickled vegetable and garnish with coriander.
5. Tuck in.

Left over were layered into baguettes for breakkie!

Taste Slightly better than Bacon and Egg Muffins! LOL

Prune Flowers

2009-04-03T01:27:00.000-07:00

This is the weather of Melbourne. Four seasons in one day. It can be freezing in the morning and burning in the afternoon and hailing in the evening.

Today was 29. It’s quite warm. Unlike Malaysia, Melbourne 29 is warmer. Anyway. Warm but not too warm, just good for proofing bread dough.

We are still warm!

It’s been ages since I last baked bread. Perhaps last year hot-cross bun was my last project. Oww…..Easter is getting closer. I know what I can do next week.

Well, for now, we served some prune flower buns. Prunes are one of those dried fruit that will attract my fingers to insert more and more of them into my mouth.

Love these beautiful prune buns. Jesse actually ate two.

PRUNE FLOWER BUNS

Ingredients:

350 High Protein Bread Flour
11g Instant Yeast
Pinch of Salt
1 Tbsp Caster Sugar
250ml Milk
30g Milk Powder
½ Tsp Bread Improver
50g Butter

100g Diced Prune (diced)
12 Whole Prunes

Method:

1. Sift all dry ingredients in a mixer. With low speed, mix ingredients, and slowly add in milk.
2. When sticky dough formed, add butter, continue beat with low speed until smooth and elastic dough formed.
3. Screen test.
4. Rest dough in a warm place for 40 minutes or until dough doubled in size.
5. Punch the dough to deflate the air. Add diced prunes and mix well.
6. On a floured working bench, divide dough into 12 portions and roll into round shapes.
7. Arrange dough in the baking pan, leave to rise for 15 minutes.
8. Preheat the oven to 200 degree Celsius.
9. Brush dough with sugar syrup and garnish with almond flakes.
10. Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Why these buns unlike the flower above? Well....one word, slack.

Remember to sprinkle almond flakes after proofing so that they will be evenly distributed.

Round bun is actually softer than the flowers above as it was not exposed and dried out too fast.

Uneven Checkerboards

2009-03-27T03:56:00.000-07:00

My kitchen was so un-happening lately. I was madly busy with some other “impossible-to-complete” task. I was badly developing withdrawal syndrome. Yah, baking withdrawal. Hands felt further itchy while I spotted my Kitchenaid in the corner.

This little man is conquering my cookies

I have 2 hours left before bedtime. Either do some net surfing or roll my sleeve up for some baking. Nah, been computering for 10 hours in the office!! Let’s bake.

Fat A*se Checkerboards

Checkerboards cookies looked intelligent. It’s the cookies that involve some calculations. (Not suitable for children under 3 years old….bleh……) Even pieces create even checkerboards, but how? How to make an even piece of checkerboard cookies? At least I don’t know. My Math was sh*t.

Told ya, how to make an even one?

CHECKERBOARDS COOKIES

200g Pure Butter
¾ Cup Caster Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Free Range Egg
2 Cups Plain Flour
2 Tbsp Dutch Cocoa Powder

1 Egg White

Methods:

1. Beat butter, caster sugar and vanilla extract until pale and fluffy. Slowly add egg and beat until well mixed.
2. Sift flour into the batter in 3 batches. With a wooden spoon, stir to form a soft and sticky dough.
3. Divide dough into two even portion, knead sifted cocoa powder into one half.
4. With wet hand, using ruler, shape each batch of cookie dough into 4.5cm x 4.5cm x 15cm rectangular bars. Separate each bar with baking paper and refrigerate for half and hour.
5. Using thin and sharp knife, cut each bar lengthways equally into 3 slices. Cut each slice lengthways equally into three, you will have nine 1.5cm x 1.5cm x 15cm strips of dough.
6. Thinly brush each strip of dough with egg white. Stack alternate flavours together in three. Stick three stacks together to recreate a 4.5cm x 4.5cm x 15cm cookie log. Repeat with second log. Refrigerate for half and hour.

Raw and cold

7. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease cookies pans, line with baking paper.
8. Using sharp knife cut each log into 1cm slices. Place cut side up, arrange about 3 cm apart. Bake for 15 minutes. Lift to wire racks to cool.
9. This recipe will yield approximately 45 checkerboards.

Doesn't matter it's even or uneven. It's food after all.

Good night everyone.

Marbled Tea Leaf Egg

2009-03-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

Never come to learn that hard boiled egg can be such tasty.

Don’t get me wrong. I love eggs. Be it fried eggs, scrambled eggs, poached eggs, raw eggs and et cetera. I love love love eggs. However, for hard-boiled eggs, I will always eat with sauce, i.e.: with Sambal in Nasi Lemak, with curry in Indian curry eggs, with Caesar salad dressings in Caesar Salad or Nicoise Salad; For some reasons, I just can’t eat a plain hard-boiled eggs.

To fit a hard-boiled egg into my diet, it’s gonna be a challenge. (Yes, I want to lose weight. Which girl ever stops trying to lose weight?) Here comes the recipe for “stewed” hard-boiled eggs, actually, tea leaf eggs in Chinese. I said it’s marbled because it has that marble pattern on the egg white if done properly.

Another easy recipe. 102% fool proof. By reading the recipe, you will already been stunt by how easy is this.

MARBLED TEA LEAF EGGS

Ingredients:

1 Dozen Eggs
5 Cups Water

15g Oolong Tea Leaves
1 Star Anise
1 Cinnamon Stick
3 Cloves
5 Slices Ginger
4 Pieces Licorice Roots
Pinch of Five Spice Powder
100ml Dark Soy Sauce
50g Rock Sugar
1 Tbsp Salt
6 Tbsp Soy Sauce

Method:

1. Add 5 cups of water into a pot slowly drop in and arrange the eggs. Make sure the water cover the eggs. Boil for 10 minutes.
2. Remove the hard-boiled eggs out from the pot; quickly rinse the eggs with cold water. Leave the water boiling.
3. Add remaining ingredients into the boiling water; stir to dissolve the rock sugar. Once the mixture boiled, turn the heat to low.
4. Using the back of a spoon, gently tap the eggshell to crack. The small cracks will ensure the marble pattern on the eggs.
5. Return the eggs into the tea mixture. Simmer for 2 hours.
6. Leave the tea eggs in the mixture overnight to further develop the colour and flavour.
7. Serve.

Peanut Cookies

2009-03-07T04:26:00.000-08:00

While Grandma was still here, she used to make scrumptious peanut cookies during Chinese New Year. I never bothered to bake my own peanut cookies as I would never make peanut cookies that close to grandma standard. And that little secret she exposed was the “lard”, the “dripping”, the arteries clogging thingy!

Lately, I craved for peanut cookies. I hunted down the local Asian Grocery without success. Their peanuts cookies have got too much “miscellaneous” ingredients on the label: flavour enhancer, colour, shortening, stabilizer just to name a few.

I decided to make my own peanut cookies since Grandma “migrated” to another world couple of years ago. I substituted the lard with peanut oil for health reason. (Then what about the sugar? Grrrrrrrrr)

Easy peasy and 102% fool proof.

PEANUT COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 ½ Cups Skinless Peanuts
1 Cup Caster Sugar
2 Cups Self-raising Flour
½ Tsp Baking Soda
½ Tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Peanut Butter
150ml Peanut Oil

Glazing:

1 Egg Yolk
1 Tsp Caster Sugar

Method:

1. Heat pan, fry peanuts without oil until fragrant. In a grinder, process peanuts until fine powder.
2. Preheat oven to 180 Degree Celsius. Line cookies pan with baking paper.
3. Mix sugar, salt, processed peanuts and flour until they are well combined.
4. Add peanut butter. Add oil in several batches. Knead the mixture until the sugar dissolved and a small piece of dough can be formed into a ball. Do not add all the oil at one time. Just add enough for the dough to be formed.
4. Scoop out and roll the dough into small balls and place them on baking pan. Gently press to make small round indents on top of the cookies with chopstick.
5. Glaze with egg wash and bake for about 12 - 15 minutes or until golden brown.

Pineapple Tart Rolls

2009-02-11T02:34:00.000-08:00

Pineapple tart is the most well-known snack during Chinese New Year. At least I think so. When I was a kid, I used to peel away the pastry and just ate the pineapple jam in the middle….Yum…..

Usually when mum was making this tart, I stood along side the oven, once they were removed from the oven, I kept my eyes on the piping hot tarts for about 10 minutes and tested with my little fingers (At that time, still little). Mum felt frustrated every time I did this to her, caz before the second batch was insert into the oven, the first batch would have already gone.

Now, when I was baking these tarts, someone did this to me. I thoroughly how mum felt last time. Didn’t even have a chance to arrange the tarts into the plastic container, they would have already gone.

PINEAPPLE ROLLS

Ingredients:

Pastry:

250g Unsalted Butter
1 Tbsp Vegetable Shortening (Crisco)
¼ Cup Powdered Sugar
¼ Tsp Salt
2 Egg Yolks
2 ½ Cups Plain Flour
2 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tbsp Milk Powder

Egg wash:

2 Egg Yolks (Lightly beaten)
1 Tsp Granulated Sugar

Filling:

2 Large Pineapples
½ Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Corn Starch
1 Tbsp Pineapple Juice

Method:

1. Skin and clean the pineapple. Crush pineapple in food processor. Squeeze off excess juice. Reserve the juice.
2. Using low heat, cook the crushed pineapple and sugar. Stir continuously until most of the liquid has evaporated, the pineapple filling turned into golden brown colour. This will take approximately 45 minutes.
3. Take a little bit of filling out and cool in a small saucer. Taste. Add more sugar if needed. Be careful that the filling is extremely hot, do not attempt to stick your finger straight into the filling.
4. Mix corn starch with pineapple juice. Pour into the filling to thicken the mixture. Set aside and let it cool in the fridge.

Pineapple Jam

5. In a mixer, beat butter, shortening, powdered sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add in egg yolk, beat until combined and add another egg yolk.
6. Sieve plain flour, corn starch and milk powder into the mixture. By using dough hook, slowly beat the flour mixture to form dough. Wrap pastry dough in cling wrap and leave in fridge for 20 minutes.
7. Preheat Oven to 180 degree Celsius, line baking pan with baking paper.
8. Roll pineapple filling into 1 cm rounds. It will yield about 70 rounds.

The tool!

9. Using the jam tart mould (as shown in the photo), squeeze pastry into a 5 cm length ribbon. Wrap pastry around the pineapple filling to form a roll.
10. Brush pastry with egg wash.
11. Bake pineapple tarts for 25 minutes until light brown.

May your family blessed with unlimited Pineapple Tarts!!!!

Chinese New Year

2009-02-07T22:08:00.000-08:00

This is the 4th year I did not celebrate Chinese New Year back home in Malaysia with my family, relatives and friends. As previous year, we will usually have annual dinner on the last day of the year and drink through to the next day.

CNY dinner! Bottomless dishes

Jesse and his prawn cracker of the year!

Looking for more prawn crackers!!

In the midnight 3am (Melbourne time), I received a call from my brother, and he brought me bad news that struck me badly. I couldn’t stop crying and couldn’t sleep all night. My 90 years old grandpa, Jesse’s great grandpa just passed away. That was the starting of 2009.

We flew back to Malaysia the next morning, hopefully I will be able to see my grandpa for the very last time. This time, my wish of going back to Malaysia during Chinese New Year came through, but in a very wrong way. Instead of going back for a celebration, I was back for a funeral. It’s even harder when all my friends said: “Happy New year, Gong Xi Fa Chai!!” Sorry my friends, I really didn’t mean to be rude and upset. I didn’t tell you guys that I am going back caz I was really not in the mood of Chinese New Year. Please be there to understand me.

In the flight, Jesse kept me focus! As you can tell!

No wonder statistic shows a lot of people overwhelmed by festival celebrations. As any other day, sad thing can happen on the happiest day and ever since, that day will become the worst day of one’s life.

KLCC

My best friend and her daughter, Kei Lui Ning Ning!!

Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year everyone. Tomorrow is the last celebration day of Chinese New Year, may all your best wishes come true.

Happy Birthday Jesse!

2009-01-22T02:09:00.000-08:00

It was Jesse 1st birthday. Yeah, 1 year old already! Already! I blink my eye, he is this big, it will only take 10 blinks and Jesse will be 10 years old. I always hope the days will slow down so that I can see Jesse at his age for longer. However, I also hope the days will fly faster to let me see Jesse talks in sentence....

This is the birthday cake I made for Jesse. It took me 2 weeks of labour every day after work to finish the figures on the cakes. It wasn't testing time management, it was testing my passion towards cake decorating. I really don't want to disappoint Jesse on his first birthday.

*The Bunnies*

My favourite characted among all - The Elie!!

Jesse loves nectarines and peaches. He eats a nectarine each day. On his birthday BBQ at Yarra Bank Reserve down Hawthorn, on this special day, he was given a bigger than usual nectarine...I managed to remember I had to bring him a nectarine....

Yarra Bank Reserve Barbeque. The weather was superb!

Froggie and Ladybirds

The wildlifes are sun bathing!!

Happy B'Day Jesse the Rockstar~

Jesse was born in the year of the Piggie. This special piggie was made to represent my little piggie is always no.1 in my heart!

I am suffering post cake decorating syndrome at time....haha

Portuguese Egg Tarts

2009-01-18T00:50:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was young, there was a promotion in our neighbourhood bakery about this special egg tart that looked a bit different from the usual Chinese egg tart. Since then, people were frenzy about this kind of egg tart. Every time I walked pass the bakery, there was already a long queue.

Since I moved to Melbourne, no one ever talked about these egg tarts, maybe it just not that tasty after all. I met this Macau friend and she told me it’s a famous snack in Macau. Since both of us missing this egg tart so darn badly, I’ve decided to make them to show my friend the thing that she’d been missing.

PORTUGUESE EGG TARTS

Ingredients:

Tart Shells:

2 Sheets Ready Rolled Pastry
50g Melted Butter

Fillings:

4 Egg Yolks
¼ Cup of Sugar
¼ Cup of Condensed Milk
¼ Cup of Milk
¼ Cup of Water

Method:

1. Coat a 12 holes muffin pan with butter and flour. Preheat the oven to 200ºC.
2. Brush top side of both ready rolled pastry sheets with melted butter.
3. Layer the pastry sheet on one another. Roll layered pastry sheets up into a long roll.
4. Cut pastry roll into 12 portions.

5. Facing the side of the pastry portions up, flatten the portions into a small round disk. Line the muffin pan by pressing firmly on bottom and side.

6. Prepare the filling. Mix all ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
7. Whisk mixture gently until just combined.
8. Strain filling through a strainer.
9. Fill the pastry shells with egg mixtures.
10. Bake the Portuguese Tarts for about 15 – 20 minutes until turn brown.

It's very rare seeing Sunny reading and eating at the same time as he can hold a book for hours without food. But, with egg custard and piping hot pastry, who can resist this indulgence?

Look at the Flaky Pastry....Yum

Satisfaction. Love to make this tarts again. I also brushed a layer of honey on top of the tarts right after it came out from the oven. It add a sweet sticky finish to the firm custard.

Christmas Rich Fruit Cake

2009-01-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

This is the first Christmas Cake in our family. Shared by 3 of us. Sunny, me and lil’ Jesse. Also the first time Jesse has seen and touched a real cake.

It was a lot fun while I was putting hat and scarf on him, I had this funny thinking - To keep a snowman warm? errrrrr....

Xmas tree, I am decorating a christmas tree as a decoration on a cake!

Underneath the Snowman, here come supermoist fruit cake!

RICH FRUIT CAKE

Ingredients:

1 Cup Golden Raisin
1Cup Currants
½ Cup Dried Cranberries
½ Cup Dried Bluberries
½ Cup Dried Apricots, diced
1 Cup Glace Cherries
½ Cup Dates
1 Cup Pitted Prune, coarsely chopped
1 Tbsp Lemon Zest, finely grated
1 Tbsp Orange Zest, finely grated
250g Butter
½ Cup Brown Sugar
4 eggs
1 Cup Plain Flour
¼ Cup Self Raising Flour2 Tbsp Gold Rum

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 160 Degrees. Line base and side of a 10 inch round pan or 10 inch square pan with 3 layers of baking paper.

2. Combine all fruits and lemon peels. Break up any lumps.

3. Sift flour into the dried fruits. Use hand to separate the fruits so that they are not stick together. Make sure the fruits are well coated by the flour.

4. Beat Butter and sugar in a small bowl until just combined.

5. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined. (Mixture may curdle, don’t worry about this.)

6. Add butter batter into flour and fruits mixture. Mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon or spatula.

7. Spoon mixture into the pan, smooth the top with spatula. Tab the side of the pan to remove big bubbles.

8. Put the pan in a larger pan, pour hot water into the larger pan up to half of the cake to form a water bath. Bake in the Baine-Marie for 1 hour 15 minutes.

9. Check for doneness by inserting skewer into the middle of the cake. If it comes out clean, it's done. If not, bake another 10 minutes, and check again.

10. Remove cake from the oven, brush cake surface with brandy.

11. Serve with custard sauce.

Tips:

1. You can brush brandy on to the cake everyday for 2 weeks. This will macerate the cake and retain the moisture in the cake.

2. I use Baine-Marie to prevent burn. This cake will easily get burn. Cover the cake with foil paper if it gets over-brown towards the end of the baking process.

3. Dried fruits can be soaked in 1 cup of brandy 1 day ahead to for re-hydration.

4. For non-alcohol version, substitute rum with apple juice.

Christmas the Crazy Season!

2009-01-01T00:49:00.001-08:00

It was so happening this year Christmas. Me, Sunny and Jesse have had a lot of fun this year. First with my departmental lunch the week before Christmas, I’ve was the last to be drawn out in the Kris Kringle, and therefore I got to grab every single present left on the floor. There were 4 of them.

Very nice set of Salad Bowl and Cheese Plate!

The Crabtree & Evelyn Hand Cream was from one of my colleague and look who’ve been munching on it.

Boxing Day Sale is a tradition in Melbourne. Biggest sale of the year. Shoppers will start lining up from midnight just to grab their “long for but will only buy until it is on sale” item. I wasn’t one of them but I do frenzy about Boxing Day Sale. Let’s see how much we save this season. Yay!

Been really Crazy about L'occitane lately.

Good bargain on these new books - one day 70% sale. I saved AUD100 on these. Awesome!

Country Road Stripy, Berghaus Storm Jacket, Columbia Titanium series pants, Cue Polka Dot blouse and white silk skirt, MNG hi-cut OL dress.

The next day we actually went out and get somemore CK shirt for brother, Levi's Jeans, Rodd & Dunn Shirt, Maxwell and Williams Cookware........ Conservatively, we save at least AUD1200. WOW!

Also, we started to introduce some "mature" type of toy for Jesse as he is entering his first year in 3 weeks time.

Here is Jesse chillin out with Daddy int he breakfast shop while Mum is crazily "robbing" the clothing shops.

Jesse got his haircut for the New Year. He is gorgeous in this hairstyle. It took us 30 minutes to get this much done. Never in life we are this unproductive.

My little Spiky.

Finally, the roses in the front yard are blooming at the moment. It symbolizes the start of summer. Yeah, the arrival of warm season. Let’s chuck the coat, jumper, jacket, gloves, scarf and boots out to the garage.

I will update more on cooking and baking in the next post. Been really slack lately!! Christmas got me!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-17T02:11:00.000-08:00

December is the season of Joy.

For me, Christmas is also season for indulgence and season for imagination. I make something everyday to bring into the office just to indulge my colleagues with some homemade goodies. Having a bunch of passionate colleagues to cook for, their compliments and supports are my mantra.

These sweet decorated butter cookies are specially made as a gift for people who have been loving, caring, helping, mentoring and guiding me. Their smile on their face while accepting these little gifts certainly warm my heart. Thanks dude!

The Green and Red Jingle Bells!!

In my office, everyone looks happy and contented. People are so busy with Christmas shopping, lunch, dinner and all sort of gathering. So far, we already had board drinking, departmental lunch, division lunch, sub-division lunch, group lunch and I believe more will be coming in this festive season.

Jolly Candy For Jesse!!

You're my inspiration, of course you deserve one!! Jesse 1st Christmas!

Sockie for Santa! Santa Claus is coming to town!!

I hereby wish everyone have a safe and Merry Christmas!

You better watch out, you better not cry,

Better not pout, I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is coming to town.

He's making a list, and checking it twice;

Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus is coming to town.

He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake.

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!

Oh, you better watch out! You better not cry.

Better not pout, I'm telling you why:

Santa Claus is coming to town. Santa Claus is coming to town!

Crab in Marmite Sauce

2008-12-13T03:36:00.000-08:00

Darwin mud crabs are one of the most famous meaty crabs among the world. We were shopping this morning in Springvale market, and there we saw all these huge mud crabs displayed in the baskets.

I was drooling straight away. Managed to shallow back the saliva and had a look at the mud crabs by poking the back of the crabs. (I couldn’t think of anything I can do other than poking the back of the crabs since they have huge huge claws..hehe)

I took a picture of the claw, this is how big it is. Imagine the flesh inside…..

Well, cooking with Marmite sound a bit uncommon but this dish is one of the famous dishes in Malaysia. Therefore, maltose, honey and sugar play a big role in this dish to caramelize the saltiness in Marmite. Here we go with the recipe.

CRAB IN MARMITE SAUCE

Ingredients:

1.5 kg Crab
Tapioca Flour
1Tbsp Minced Garlic

Sauce:

2 Tbsp Marmite
1 Tbsp Maltose
1 Tbsp Honey
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 Tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 Tsp Oyster Sauce
100ml Water
1 Tsp Chicken Stock Powder
Pepper

Method:

1. Cut crab into pieces. Coat crab pieces with tapioca flour. Shake excess flour.
2. Heat 500ml oil in a wok. Deep fry crab pieces until cooked and turn into red colour. Drain.
3. Leave 1 tsp oil in wok, insert minced garlic and fry until golden brown.
4. Pour in sauce and cook at medium heat until thick.
5. Put in fried crab pieces, turn to coat well. Dish up and serve.

Tips:

1. Try adjusting the flavour by adding sugar according to personal preferences.
2. The sauce is extremely hot, be careful while stirring the sauce.

Yummy Yummy!

Angel On Horseback (Bacon Wrapped Oyster)

2008-12-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

I ate Angels on Horseback for dinner just now. Yes, i ate ANGEL ON HORSEBACK!! That sounds so wrong.

Angel on horseback, aka bacon wrapped oysters. Well, same as you, I also have no idea why it was called so. The old English believed that the angel part came from the curled part of the cooked oyster. There is version of Devil on horseback as well, which a prune is wrapped by a piece of bacon.

Are all these angels going on to the horseback?

I can’t live without Oyster !!

Putting this shellfish into my mouth, creates a natural high in me, it’s the food that send me up to heaven for 2 minutes, and come back. Theoretically, each dozen of oysters bring me up to heaven for almost 24 minutes, I can feel my soul is pulled out of my body for a while when I insert this delicacy into my mouth….(next 2000 words are censored…18sx rated)

This dish is so simple to make and yet delicious as a snack or appetizer. I twist a bit of the recipe by adding Japanese ingredients into it to create a more asian flavour. As usual, it tastes fantastic.

ANGEL ON HORSEBACK

Ingredients:

2 Dozens raw oysters
2 Tbsp Mirin
2 Tbsp Teriyaki Sauce
12 Slices streaky bacon
Sprinkle of Brown Sugar
Sprinkle of Black Pepper

Method:

1. Drain the oysters; collect them in a big bowl. Add mirin and teriyaki sauce, marinade for 20 minutes.
2. Cut the bacon in half. Make sure that the bacon is in long strip.
3. Remove oysters from marinade. Wrap each oyster in a bacon strip and secure with a cocktail pick.
4. Preheat the skillet into very hot, smoky hot.
5. Place the bacon-wrapped oysters on the skillet. Sprinkle a little bit of brown sugar on the bacon and skillet.
6. When the sugar is slightly burnt and the bacon is crisp and the edges of the oysters have curled, turning once to cook both sides evenly.
7. Serve.

In my situation, a dozen of my oysters were gone after the above 7 steps. (evil grin*) How can I wait to go through all these steps before I put them in my mouth? hahahahaha.....yeah, i ate 'em. I did.

Roast Pork, Tofu with Sambal Belacan

2008-12-04T12:59:00.000-08:00

I guess I won the strange combination this time. I invented this dish out of no where. Okay, story telling time…

I was digging into the fridge to prepare dinner for last night; I found half box of left over roast pork, it makes me straight away thought of belacan roast pork with long beans. Therefore I grab all the ingredients I wanted, got everything nicely chopped, heat the wok and ready to go. Everything was in, now, where is my long beans? WHERE IS THE BEANS? Of course, of course it’s my fault, no beans this time. With 0.99 second speed, I quickly open the fridge and put in anything I can get before the belacan got burnt. WHAT? TOFU? ONLY?.......................There the story goes.

Surprisingly, it’s a heavenly combination, it tastes very very super super delicious. I never know tofu can pair with belacan. Hey kids, not just that kangkong can pairs with belacan only.

Left: Typical Belacan Brand from Penang, Malaysia

Right: Belacan paste pressed to form a block of belacan cake

For those who are not familiar with this ingredient - Belacan, let’s ask the Greatest Sifu - Wikipedia:

“It is made from fermented ground shrimp, sun dried and then cut into fist-sized rectangular blocks. It is not designed, nor customarily used for immediate consumption and has to be fully cooked prior to consumption since it is raw. To many Westerners unfamiliar with this condiment, the smell can be extremely repulsive; however, it is an essential ingredient in many curries and sauces. Shrimp paste can be found in most meals in Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is often an ingredient in dipping sauce for fish or vegetables.”

ROAST PORK, TOFU WITH SAMBAL BELACAN

Ingredients:

2 Tbsp Oil
2 Garlic Cloves, chopped
2 Shallots, shredded
1 Red Chili, shredded
300g Roast Pork
500g Silken Firm Tofu, chopped into small pieces
2 Stalks Spring Onion, chopped

Seasonings:

2 Tbsp Belacan
1 Tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp Sugar
½ Tbsp Oyster Sauce
Dash of Fish Sauce
1 Tsp Chicken Stock Powder

Method:

1. In a wok, heat up oil, sauté garlic and shallots until fragrant. Add in the Belacan and stir until dry and aromatic.
2. Add in red chilies, roast pork, and tofu, stir until well-mixed. Do not stir too vigorous, try to keep the tofu in shape.
3. Insert spring onion, soy sauce, sugar, oyster sauce, fish sauce, chicken stock powder, stir until well combined.
4. Serve.

Warning!!

Please do not bring this dish into your office as lunch, I was told it’s a sin to make people drooling, craving and hungry!!! I brought this into my office, and every single person think it smells too good to resist~ hahahhahahaha

Marble Chiffon Cake

2008-12-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

Mum used to bake me a Chiffon cake, and she insisted that the cake was for the whole family, not for me only. Well, I was so addicted to Chiffon cake that I thought that one serve mean one whole cake. LOL. Growing up with Chiffon cake, there was not one time that I wasn’t finishing the whole Chiffon cake. Yes, whole! WHOLE!!!

Who doesn’t like a super light and moist Chiffon cake?

I’ve tried to bake a variety of Chiffon and they all taste fantastic. It simply suits almost everything. I’ve tried Pandan (Screw pine leave), Raspberry, Strawberry, Blueberry, Chocolate, Coffee, Durian, Vanilla, Kahlua, Cream Cheese, Orange, banana, Black sesame and etc. If possible, I will even try with curry next time. *hehe*

There are several important tips and techniques involved in preparation steps of the Chiffon cake. Throughout the whole process, please bear in mind, how to keep the batter thick and filled with bubbles. If the air bubbles/pockets break down, da.. dang..It means the cake is gonna fail, it will become really dense and heavy..Nah, we don't want that.

MARBLE CHIFFON CAKE

Ingredients:

6 Egg Yolks
1 ¼ Cup Caster Sugar
¼ Tsp Salt
¾ Cup Water
1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
1 ¼ Cup Plain Flour
¼ Cup Corn Starch
2 Tsp Baking Powder
1 Tbsp Coffee Powder
2 Tbsp Cocoa Powder
½ tsp Vanilla Extract

6 Egg Whites
½ tsp Cream Of Tartar
¼ Cup Caster Sugar

Method:

1. Preheat Oven to 180 Degree Celsius. Mix coffee powder, cocoa powder with 2 tablespoons water to form a paste.
2. Sift plain flour, corn starch and baking powder together. Sift twice.

3. Cream egg yolks with caster sugar and salt until pale in colour. Add in the water and vegetable oil, stir to form smooth batter.
4. Slowly add in sifted flour, stir well until combined.
5. Divide yolk batter into 2 portions in different bowls. Mix one portion with coffee and cocoa mixture. Another portion with vanilla extract.
6. In a dry bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually add in the ¼ cup of sugar and beat until stiff.
7. Divide egg whites into 2 portions.
8. Pour each of the yolk mixture slowly into the egg white, mix lightly by folding the batter. Do not over mix.9. Pour ¼ of the Vanilla batter at the base of an ungreased chiffon cake tin. Spoon ¼ of the Cocoa batter into the tin as second layer of the cake. Repeat by pouring Vanilla batter, following by Mocha batter to form marble pattern.
9. Bake in a preheated oven for 45-50 minutes. Cake is done when an inserted skewer comes out clean. 7. Invert cake onto a wire rack and leave to cool in the tin before turning out.

Let's Peep!!

This is a funny shot of the twins baby yolks from one egg.

Important Tips:

1. Electric beater is a good companion in beating the egg white.
2. While mixing egg white into egg yolk batter, use folding technique to avoid “bubble burst”.
3. Sift flour 3 times to incorporate as much air as possible into the flour.
4. While separating the eggs, make sure that there is not even a tiny bit of egg yolk dropped into the egg white, otherwise, the egg white will sit still, and the longer u beat, the runnier it will be. There is no way to fix this SITUATION.
5. Use bundt pan instead of the normal round or square pan. The space in the middle allows heat to go through and the cake will rise evenly.

Malaysian Chicken Curry

2008-11-21T02:46:00.000-08:00

I call this cooking from pantry. Chicken curry is the simplest way of cooking a superb tasting dish.

Every time when I start wondering, “What to cook with only a couple of chicken fillets in hand?” Easy job, chicken curry.

Surprisingly, chicken curry is a common dish that all Malaysian students know how to cook, even the one who can only cook Maggie and boil water, he/she will still have no problem with cooking chicken curry.

I used to cook chicken curry from the prepared sachet for convenient purposes. Now, I am chasing for that “Gourmet Zing” in my chicken curry. Eventually, a lot more work to do, but the result is worthwhile.

MALAYSIAN CHICKEN CURRY

4 Pieces chicken thigh fillet
2 Potatoes
40g Meat Curry Powder
¼ Cup Vegetable oil
2 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Fish Sauce
1 Cup Coconut Cream
6 Cups Chicken Stock / Water

Spices:

8 Shallots
3 Garlic Cloves
10g Turmeric
20g Galangal
5 Candle Nuts
1 Stalk Lemongrass
10 Dried Chilies
1 Tsp Coriander Seed
1 Cinnamon Stick
2 Star Anises
7 Cloves

Methods:

1. Cut chicken into pieces. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Peel potato skin and cut them into 2cm cubes. Lightly fry the potatoes to prevent the potatoes melted into curry. Drain on paper towel.
3. Peel skin of shallots, garlic, turmeric and galangal. In a food processor, grind shallots, garlic, turmeric, galangal, candle nut, chilies and coriander seed until a fine paste.
4. Add ½ cup water into the curry powder, mix it becomes paste.
5. In a pot, heat up ¼ cup of vegetable oil; fry the ground spices until fragrant. Add curry powder paste, stir for 2 minutes. Insert Cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves. Fry until the colour of the curry paste turn darker and becomes drier.
6. Add chicken pieces. Stir for 3 minutes until fragrant and combined. Add potatoes and chicken stock. Bring to a boil over high heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
7. Add salt, sugar, fish sauce, and coconut cream. Bring to boil.
8. Serve hot with steam rice.

Tips:

1. Chicken curry also can be served with Roti Naan, Chapati, Roti Jala, Serabai, Nasi Kunyit, Nasi Lemak, bread slice and bread roll, etc.

Still taste good with wholemeal or multigrain bread. *grin*

Halloween Cupcakes

2008-11-08T01:30:00.001-08:00

This is the spooky season, Happy Halloween!

Halloween is not a traditional festival in Australia. We do not usually celebrate Halloween here. But, we are well-known as a multi-cultural country, therefore, let's celebrate Halloween.

I came across this idea of making batch of Halloween Cupcakes the other night, when 4 kids came and knocked on the door in spooky costumes asking for some candies. They dressed up like a witch, one even hold a broom in his hand which is really really cute.

Below are some of the typical Halloween characters:

Laughing Pumkins, Eye Ball and The Mummy

Naughty Devil, Frankenstein and Witch

My Favourite: The Mummy

Catch me Catch me!

I am madly in love *hehe*

Da Dang~

Hakka Stuffed Eggplant

2008-11-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

Eggplant, aubergine or brinjal always gets stuffed!! *grin*

In Chinese cuisine, eggplants are stuffed with fish paste or mince pork. In Italian cuisine, eggplants are stuffed with cheese, and bread crumb. In Mediterranean dishes, eggplants also get stuffed, with rice and olive.

The eggplants I used here are elongated oval-shaped eggplants which have smoother flesh and tender skin. You can also try using the lebanese eggplants which are thinner and longer in size, but the skin are a bit thicker and the flesh has a bit of bitterness in it.

HAKKA STUFFED EGGPLANTS

Ingredients:

2 Eggplants

Stuffing:

200g Minced Pork
200g Fish Paste
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Corn Starch
Sprinkles of Pepper

Gravy:

1 Tbsp Soy Bean Paste
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Hoisin Sauce
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Corn Starch
½ Cup Water

Spring Onion
Chilies

Methods:

1. Slice eggplants into 2 centimeters thick portion. In the middle of the eggplant portion, lightly slice eggplant (do not cut through) to form a “mouth”.
2. Soak eggplants in cold water to prevent oxidization (turning brown).
3. In a bowl, mix all stuffing ingredients, beat with hand until well blended.
4. Drain the eggplants and pat dry.
5. Fill each eggplant portion with about 1 tablespoon of the stuffing, mounding it slightly with wet finger.

Fried Stuffed Eggplants

6. Dust each piece of stuffed eggplant with additional cornstarch to coat them lightly.
7. In a wok, heat oil. Test the heat with a piece of bread. If the bread turns into golden brown, the oil is ready. Deep-fry the stuffed eggplants, a few pieces at a time, until the eggplant is golden brown and the filling is cooked through, about 5-6 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
8. Heat a wok over high heat until hot. Add 1 tablespoon of the reserved oil and swirl to coat the sides.
9. Add the gravy and bring to a simmer.
10. Slip the fried stuffed eggplants into the sauce and stir gently to coat.

11.Transfer the eggplants onto a serving plate. Garnish with sliced spring onion and chopped chili pieces. Serve.

Rich Dark Chocolate Cupcake

2008-10-28T03:49:00.000-07:00

I believe that searching for a right texture chocolate cake is a real tough mission. At least I am still looking for the perfect chocolate cake recipe. Traditional chocolate cake is too dry. Super-moist mud cake is too heavy and too wet. Is there a real chocolate cake recipe that brings the best of both worlds?

I am not that picky, you see. I just hope that the ideal chocolate cake is not too spongy, not too heavy, not too muddy, but moist both inside and outside, soft but not too much holes….. (I think if I keep going, I will end up injured here and there.)

Now, below is a recipe which I mix and match in between a devil’s food and mud cake recipe. Though, not the best chocolate cake ever, but since I have tried to substitute most of the ingredients into organic product, it tastes really awesome. The chocolate aroma filled my mouth and it worth a try.

RICH DARK CHOCOLATE CAKE

Ingredients:

90g Butter
125g Organic Dark Chocolate
110g Self-Raising Flour
20g Organic Cocoa Powder
100g Brown Sugar
80g Caster Sugar
2 Organic Eggs
¾ Cup Full Cream Milk

Toppings:

300ml Fresh Cream
3 Tbsp Icing Sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degree. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
2. Chop butter and dark chocolate into small pieces. Melt mixture on a double broiler. Stir to combine.
3. Sift flour and cocoa powder into a large bowl. Add sugar and stir the dry ingredients to combine.
4. Add butter and chocolate mixture into dry ingredients and stir to form a chocolate paste.
5. Add eggs and milk. Stir until everything is combined.
6. Pour batter into cupcake liners, bake for 25 minutes or until testing skewer comes out clean.
7. Remove cupcakes from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
8. Whip fresh cream and icing sugar on high speed until the right consistency.
9. Decorate with sweetened whipped cream. Serve.

Organic Chocolate with 70% Cocoa

Cross section of the chocolate cake

Pastillage Star and Pearl

This lil' thing got special treatment, it was specially dedicated for Yvonne. Cheers.

Prawn Dumpling

2008-10-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

Last night while I was spring cleaning my pantry, I found a packet of flour with colourful packaging, I was wondering: “When did I buy this thing?” Looking at the expiry day, it’s not overdue (next week is the expiry date), phew~ (though it does not make any different.)

Even though it’s not expired, but I believed it’d been sitting at the corner for someday. Oh yeah, it’s a packet of wheat starch (澄面粉). Wheat starch is common in Chinese cuisine, especially in yum char dishes. Combining with water, it forms dough. It creates a semi translucent and tender texture after being cooked, usually by steaming.

I quickly rang mom to “retrieve” a secret recipe from her, yeah, again. I was overwhelmed as this is the first time I make prawn dumplings (虾饺）. When I was slowly removing the lid of the bamboo steamer, the pinkish of the prawn could be seen through the pleated wheat starch skin, sexy dumpling~

Ingredients:

Dumpling Skin:
300g Wheat Starch
100g Tapioca Flour
¼ Tsp Salt
500ml Boiling Hot Water
1 Tbsp Shortening

Filling:
400g Shelled Prawn
100g Bamboo Shoots

Seasoning:
2 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Corn flour
Dash of Sesame Oil
Sprinkle of Pepper

Method:

1. Prepare filling. Dice prawn into small pieces. Boil bamboo shoots, squeeze dry and shred into thin strip.
2. Mix prawn, bamboo shoots and seasoning well. Cover and chill for 2 hours to infuse.
3. In a mixing bowl, put wheat starch, tapioca flour and salt, mix well. Pour in boiling hot water, whisk vigorously to incorporate. Add shortening and knead the mixture into pliable dough. (My guest chef did this for me – The Kitchenaid Mixer.)
4. Spray oil on a non stick working surface, roll dough and cut into small pieces. Roll small pieces to form a thin round, as big as a wonton wrapper.
5. Wrap up 1 tsp of filling with a piece of skin, slowly wrap up into pleated pattern to form a prawn dumpling.
6. Steam dumplings on high heat for 5 minutes. Open the lid, brush dumplings with dash of oil, steam for another 3 minutes. Serve hot.

Before steaming, the skin is white and not "see-through"

Tips:

1. Prawn dumpling best served hot, once it gets cold, the skin will turn hard.
2. Vegetarian can substitute the prawn with Chinese chopped vegetable (such as chives, spinach or Choy Sum) with chopped shitake mushroom.

Mikan Bouya Cupcakes

2008-10-19T22:21:00.000-07:00

Mikan (蜜柑) is a Japanese kawaii character that I used as a theme in this cupcake design. I adopted the fellow friends of Mikan in this design as well – strawberry, apple, lemon, peach, nectarine and etc.

These characters remind me of some of the famous characters in Japan – Hello Kitty, My Melody, Badz Maru, Keroppi and etc. When I first started secondary school, we were super crazy about all the affiliated stationeries, cutleries, t-shirt which related to all these cute characters, we could even worked out a plan to save money efficiently to collect all these products. (Unbelievable.)

Banana cakes are lining up to be frosted by evil buttercream.

Main Character - Mikan.

Mikan's friend - Miss Strawberry

Another friend - Green Apple

Lemon Baby, Peach and a Nectarine as well~

Final photo shoot~

Taro Cream Cake

2008-10-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Taro, aka Yam, is a famous ingredient in South East Asia. It is commonly used within Chinese cuisine in a variety styles, mainly as a flavour enhancing ingredient. Taro has a distinctive taste (as in delicious kind of distinctive, no worries.) which it pairs with almost everything. I couldn’t think of anything that taste like Taro or similar to Taro. It is a plant that worth trying.

During mooncake festival, steamed baby taro is a traditional snack that we munch on while appreciating the beauty of the moon on that day. In this baking session, I had sandwiched taro cream with sponge cake. As usual, they integrate well.

TARO CREAM CAKE

Ingredients:

Vanilla Sponge Cake:

4 Egg yolks
80ml Water
70g Caster Sugar
½ Tsp Salt
120g Plain Flour
1Tbsp Corn Starch
1 ½ Tsp Baking Powder
½ Tsp Vanilla Extract
½ Cup Vegetable Oil

4 Egg Whites
½ Tsp Cream of Tartar
70g Caster Sugar

Taro Cream:

450g Taro
70g Caster Sugar
Pinch of Salt
2 Tbsp Fresh Cream

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line an 8 inches round cake pan with baking paper, and grease by lightly spraying oil on the pan.
2. Place egg yolks, water, sugar, salt, vanilla extract and vegetable oil in a large bowl. Whisk to mix until combined and smooth. Sift plain flour, corn starch and baking powder into mixture, stir to combine. Set aside.
3. Place egg whites and cream of tartar in a mixing bowl and whisk on high speed. Add sugar portion by portion and continue whisking until stiff.
4.Spoon 1/3 of the egg white into egg yolk mixture. Stir by folding and slicing through the mixture. Add the rest of the egg white and fold until combined.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and invert immediately on a wire rack and set to cool.
6. Slice cake into 4 layers horizontally.
7. Steam taro until soft and mashed into puree. While hot, add sugar, salt, and fresh cream, stir until combined. Divide into 3 portions.
8. To assemble: Start with a layer of vanilla sponge cake. Spread a layer of taro cream on the cake (As shown below). Repeat process until the end. Finish with a layer of cake on top. Leave cake in the refrigerator.

9. Decorate cake with your favourite methods – buttercream, fresh whipped cream, or fondant. I use fondant and round cutters in different sizes to create a retro style patterns. Serve.

Omelette Dumpling

2008-10-07T02:17:00.000-07:00

Given a handful of minced pork in hand, what should i make? What should i make? What should i make? Minced meats are always a versatile and handy ingredients to have in the freezer as we can turn them into bolognese sauce, dumplings, meat balls, etc.

Omelette dumplings are how an omelette works as the skin instead of the wheat flour. This dish will only need 2 major ingredients - eggs and minced meat. Yes, you are right, my fridge is currently empty due to my 3 guests from oversea. They are experiencing first winter of their lifetime. Winter is always related to hunger. It figures where my food has gone.
I hope this hearty omelette dumpling can keep them entertained for another evening before we go out and stock the fridge up.

OMELETTE DUMPLING (煎蛋角)

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
½ Tsp Salt
Dash of Pepper

Minced Pork:

1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
400g Minced Pork
1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
2 Tsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tsp Sugar
Dash of pepper

Gravy Seasoning:

2 Cup Chicken Stock
1 Tsp Sugar
1 Tsp Salt
1 Tbsp Tapioca Flour
3 Tbsp Water

1. Whisk eggs, add salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. In a wok, heat up oil, sauté minced garlic until fragrant. Add in minced pork, light soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar and pepper. Stir fry until cooked. Dish up and set aside.
3. In a wok, heat up 1 tbsp oil, move the wok and make sure the oil coat the wok well. Pour quarter of the whisked egg, move the wok to make the egg coat the wok to form a thin layer, fry until half cooked. Add in minced pork and fold up the omelette. Fry at low heat until both sides are golden brown. Continue until all eggs finish.

4. Arrange one layer of the omelette dumplings in a frying pan. Pour in chicken stock and bring to boil. (Refer to image above). Boil until the dumplings are soft. Dish up the omelette dumplings. Remain the stock in the pan.
5. Stir tapioca flour into water and slowly pour into the chicken stock to thicken up the gravy. Pour gravy on top of the omelette dumplings. Garnish with spring onion. Serve hot.

Chicken Rice Tonight

2008-09-28T22:07:00.000-07:00

Hainanese Chicken Rice is something to be proud of as a kid grown up in Malaysia. We can find this dish commonly sold everywhere in Malaysia – From the old kopitiam (coffee shop), roadside stall (which usually taste the best) to franchise restaurants in mega shopping mall. I still remember visiting a chicken rice stall can be something we were so exciting about when I was a kid.

Last month, when I went home for holiday, there was a nationwide chicken rice competition to determine the best chicken rice in Malaysia. Moreover, it was listed in Wikipedia as well. Every generation is so crazy about chicken rice in Malaysia.

Below is the recipe of chicken rice I obtained from my mum. She told me to use the normal younger chicken as she knew that I don’t like to eat chicken breast. (The normal younger chicken produces tender meats including the breast parts, but the downside is, it is not as flavourful as using free range chicken). I used premium free range chicken as I love the smell of the stock and the taste of the flavourful meat.

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Ingredients:

Chicken Whole 1 – 1.5 kg
1 Stalk coriander
3 Litres water
2 Tbsp salt

Chicken Seasoning Sauce
1 Tbsp Light Soy Sauce
½ Tsp Chicken Stock Powders
1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
2 Tbsp Chicken Stock
1 Tbsp Maltose

Rice
500g Jasmine Rice
1 Bundle Pandan Leaves
30g Old Ginger
1 Tbsp Butter
1 Tbsp Minced Shallot
1 Tbsp Minced Garlic
1 Tsp Salt
500ml Chicken Stock

Chili Sauce
5 Cloves Garlic
30g Young Ginger
7 Red Chilies
1 Tbsp Salt
5 Tbsp Sugar
100ml Lime Juice
1 Tbsp White Vinegar
200ml Water

Method:

Chicken
1. Rinse whole chicken and drain. Chop coriander finely.
2. In a stock pot, add water and salt, bring to boil on high heat. When the water starts boiling, add in chicken and cook until water boils again. Cover with lid and turn off the heat. Soak the chicken for 45 minutes. (Meanwhile, I actually jumped straight to step 5, get the rice, seasoning and chili sauce ready.)
3. After 45 minutes, quickly remove the chicken from the chicken stock and soak in cold water for 30 minutes. Keep the chicken stock for cooking the rice.
4. After 30 minutes, remove from the cold water, hang to drain excess water. Chop chicken into chunks. Serve on a plate.

Rice
5. Rinse rice and drain. Wash old ginger and slightly pound on the ginger, not too strong as it will crush the ginger into pieces.
6. In a wok, heat up butter, stir fry mince shallots, mince garlic, and ginger until fragrant. Add rice and stir fry evenly.
7. Pour rice into rice cooker. Add salt, chicken stock, and pandan leaves. Stir evenly, cook rice according to the instruction.

Chicken Seasoning Sauce
8. Add all ingredients into a bowl and stir well. Pour the seasoning on the chicken chunks before serving.

Chili Sauce
9. Peel garlic and young ginger. Cut chilies into half and remove the seeds inside by mildly tapping the chilies with a spoon. Insert red chilies, garlic and young ginger into a food processor and grind until fine. Add in remaining ingredients and mix well. Chilled.

Tips:

I drizzled some fried shallots and garlic on top of the chicken. It adds that “zing” into the chicken.

I used lemon juice instead of lime juice thanks to the courtesy of neighbour from Nepean Street. It tastes slightly different if your tongue can tell the different between lemon and lime. But after all, it tastes fantastic.

Pumpkin Ondeh Ondeh

2008-09-10T04:06:00.000-07:00

I have always enjoyed staying in the suburb, surrounded by lovely neighbours.
(Well, at least my neighbours are all wonderful). The atmosphere here is much warmer than staying in the city about 5 years ago. Every now and then, my neighbours will give me heaps of fresh organic garden products. Chilies from Dennis’s garden, tomatoes from May’s backyard, spinach from Whitney’s front yard, lemon from almost everybody etc.

These neighbours are so smart since the products that they are planting are all so expensive in the market *hehe*. Taste wise, compared to the veggies and fruits I bought from the local market, although these products usually looked uglier, but, the taste is incredible. They are very juicy and sweet, which makes me always a big fans of home-grown products.

Last Satday, someone hit the door bell again and I was surprised by a big pumpkin. A Japanese Pumpkin. It is golden in colour and full of sand and mud around it. Obviously it was freshly plucked from the vine. I was so happy and I decided to make something with my pumpkin.

Pumpkin is my all time favourite, a very versatile ingredient, from sweet dessert pumpkin pie and pumpkin muffin to savoury pumpkin soup, roast pumpkin and pumpkin gnocchi. Stacks of ideas in my mind now. I decided to steam and puree the pumpkin and then thinking of what to make along the way. Hmm….I've got it - Pumpkin Ondeh Ondeh.

Mum used to call Ondeh Ondeh as “Bird Eggs” (雀仔蛋). If you have tasted one before, this sticky round ball is filled with a type of special brown sugar from South East Asia - Gula Melaka. When it cooked, the sugar inside will melt. As we bite into the glutinous rice ball, some sugar liquid will flow out which make it looked like a half-boiled quail egg with runny yolk. This is where “Bird Eggs” comes from.

Pumpkin Ondeh Ondeh

Ingredients:

200g Pumpkin (Steamed and Pureed)
40g Glutinous Rice Flour
50g Tapioca Flour
2Tbps Mung Bean Starch
50g Caster Sugar
1/4 Cup Water
Pinch of Salt

Gula Melaka
Fresh grated coconut
Method:

1. Combine pumpkin puree, glutinous rice flour, tapioca flour, mung bean starch, caster sugar, salt and vegetable oil. Stir and mix well to form dough. Add water if the mixture is too dry, add tapioca powder if the mixture is too wet. This mainly depends on the water content of the pumpkin. (I used mixer with flat beater and get this done within 3 minutes.)
2. Boil a pot of water and keep the water boiling.
3. Spread the freshly grated coconut in a plate and put into a steamer. Steam for 10 minutes. Remove from steamer, quickly add salt and stir.
4. Divide the pumpkin dough into 24 pieces, roll each piece into a ball and slightly press into the middle to form a bowl. Fill each ball with Gula Melaka cubes. Remember to buy the softer Gula Melaka as you will suffer chopping up the hard one.
5. After all pumpkin balls are ready, drop them into the boiling water. Boil for approximately 10 minutes or when they float.
6. Scoop out and drop them into the steamed grated coconut. Serve.

Get Done!

2008-09-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

About 6 months ago, I was telling myself: I want a blog, I want to blog, I want to let people know I am very internet savvy, I BLOG! I am Blogger!……….About 6 months later (today), I finally registered myself a username and password, login and browse browse browse until now. WOW, I have my own blog. Finally.

Now, setting up a blog is much more tedious than I’ve been thinking. Am I Internet Savvy? (Puik! Far not!!) My head is now full of question marks. Staring at the monitor, I felt like I was 20 years younger, thinking: “I don’t know what is this, let’s click in; I don’t really know what is that; right, let’s click…” I am just like a child watching the creepy crawly in the backyard and trying to “communicate” with them. Fun. Okay, the shopping part - themes, design, font, colour, pictures. Let’s be procrastinate and do it tomorrow. Now I know why this blog only started by now. Caz’ there is always tomorrow.

Weekend is coming, hopefully I will have something to share. Let’s get back and play around with the settings. Headache is coming again. I hate choices. (Blogger: Lazy Cassie always find excuses.) Okay, let’s get them done today.Promise.