Cookies exchange line-up....

Cornflakes cookies

Ginger cookies

Satisfaction guarranteed...

Chocolate Swirl Bread

It never occured to me that one day i'll attempt a complicated looking bread like this. This chocolate swirl bread looks completely store-bought! However, on friday, i chanced upon this recipe on a japanese website and tot to myself, hey, this doesn't look as complicated as i tot it'll be! and it looked so delicious on the website that i can't resist trying it out and see for myself if i can really do this. Except for the fact that it's gonna take up a few hours before this bread can be baked and eaten, the ingredients are easily available. The end result is so satisfying. Bread is really soft and fragrant. This is definately a keeper! (and i expect repeat requests for this bread to come from the kids!)

Here's the recpe for those who wans to give it a try too. Makes 1 loaf.
What you need
For the chocolate paste
For dough

• 20gm cake flour
• 50gm sugar
• 1 egg white
• 80gm milk (warmed)
• 25gm cocoa powder
• 10gm butter

• 300gm bread flour
• 12gm milk powder
• 5gm dry yeast
• 5gm salt
• 24gm sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• Water (water + egg yolk = 210gm)
• 18gm butter

What to do
For chocolate paste

• Mix sugar and cake flour into the egg white until smooth. (no need to beat)
  Add coca powder into warm milk and sitr till powder is incorporated into milk.
• Add egg white mixture into the warm milk (using a small pot) and stir over low fire till thicken (paste like). Then add in butter and mix till incorporated.
• Leave paste to cool and then roll into a 14x14cm square (using plastic wrap).
• Keep in fridge.

For dough

• Mix all the dough ingredients tog. Knead for 8 mins and add the butter. Knead until you get a smooth dough. Leave to poof at room temperature until 1.5 times size and then place dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
• Take out dough after 1 hour, roll it out to 25x25 square. Place the 14x14cm rolled out chocolate paste in the middle of the dough. Fold in 4 sides of the dough to cover the chocolate and seal the seams tight.
• Roll out dough to 45x21cm. Make 3 folds (like folding a letter) and place dough in the fridge for 1 hour.
• Take dough out from the fridge and repeat the step above (roll out and then 3 folds). Rest it for 10 mins.
• Finally, roll dough to 14x30cm. Make a cut in the middle (along the 30cm side) but do not cut thru', leave about 3cm uncut at top end, then twist and plait the dough.
• Place plaited dough into the bread mould and let it poof at room temperature until dough expanded to 80% of the mould.
• Bake at 190C for 35-40mins in a preheated oven.(preheat oven at 200C)

And so it starts....

Rugelach

This is a real tough cookie! (haha). After scrutinising the recipe, I realised that this cookie will be a challange to me. The dough consist of a high ratio of butter and cream as oppose to flour. Knowing the warm weather we face everyday, I knew I had to work very fast to get the cookie done. I welcome the challenge, and thus starting on this recipe the nite before. I got the dough ready and chilled it. This morning, I prepare the fillings ingredients and got to work immediately. Boy... it sure wasn't an easy task. However, after completing half of the rolling, I finally got the hold of it and did a (slightly) better job with the remaining half of the dough.

I'm participating in a cookie-exchange. In the next few days, I'll be baking some more cookies. These cookies, and the rest that's gonna follow, will have to survive a trip to Penang via post. I hope it'll still be in good condition when it reaches my partner's hands. . And I hope it's not too late to start now... targetting to get the cookies posted by tues! wish my luck!

Coke Chicken

After 1 week of cooking, it's hightime for me to churn out somefin that my kids had not tried before. After looking at my freezer and finding a chicken in there, I decided to create a chicken dish. I heard that coke chicken is a very common dish in China. Practically every family knows how to cook this dish. However, for me, I've not the slightiest idea how to go about creating this dish. So I googled for a recipe and came up with this. Verdict : Somehow my kids dun like the taste of this dish. They din like the sauce. DS said the sauce is too sweet (but I din find it so, in fact it tasted rather sour to me). DD said she dun like the lemon . As for DH, he found the dish rather interesting. I guess he likes it. :P
What you need

• Half a chicken (chopped to pieces)
• Some julienned ginger
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups cocoa cola
• 1 1/2 tsp cornflour
• some cooking oil
• 2 tbsp dark soya sauce
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce

What to do

1. Marinate the chicken in 1/2 cup coke, cornflour and lemon juice for 2 hours or more.
2. Heat up wok and add oil. Add in ginger and fry till fagrant.
3. Add in drained chicken pieces and stir fry for a while.
4. Pour in remaining 1 cup of coke and also the leftover marinate. Also add in the dark soay sauce and oyster sauce.
5. Cook until sauce has thickened.
6. Serve hot. Taste great with hot steaming rice!

A Quickie...

Sardine Fried Rice

By the time I reached home everyday after work, it's at least 7pm (and that's when there's no traffic jams), so in order to be able to serve dinner real fast ('coz when there's 2 hungry young kids, noise level reaches an all time high), sometimes, fried rice is the best option. Cleaning up is easy-preasy too! (oh, how I hate washing dishes!!!) :P

Some Birthday cakes I've baked in the past.... (part 2)

Sorry for this blur pix. I din have my digital cam at that time and had to rely on my phone camera. :(

Some Birthday cakes I've baked in the past.... (part 1)

While Mommy's away....

My meals are all being taken care of by my mom.... she has been a great support for me (frankly, i can't imagine how to cope without her help). Coz i work full-time and live far away from the office, it's quite impossible to have enuf time to cook my dinners. Everyday, i'll stop by her place for dinners before heading home. She has gone for a much-deserved holiday, and while she's away, it fell upon me to make sure that her darling grandchildren are being fed proper food (junk food are a big NO-NO). So i decided to post dishes cooked during these 2 weeks, just in case she came by my blog and she knows her grandchildren's meals are being taken care of.... LOOK MA, homecooked food! hahaha... so far, 1 week had passed by. now i fully understood how difficult it was to plan all the meals everyday... from getting the groceries rite down to cooking enuf food for family members!

Sunday afternoon assignment

DH had a sudden craving for bread. So he gave me an "assignment"... his requirements? 1. Must have sugar coated on the bread....2. If raisins are included it will be the best. so no prizes for guessing wad his favourite food are! haha... i remembered seeing this bread posted in LeeLee's blog. So here's........ Bee Sting Bread! A wonderful bread... thanks LeeLee.

Gone jap

My family loves japanese food. Amongst the many dishes, we love Agedashi tofu the best. So decided to try re-creating this same dish at home. Saw a demo on cooking this dish before, it looked simple enuf. However, the sauce didn't seem to taste the same when I did it... anyone knows what's missing?*


What you need
For the tofu

• 1 block of soft siken tofu
• 2 tablespoons of rice flour
• 2 tablespoons of corn starch

For the sauce

• 2 tablespoons of japanese soya sauce
• 2 tablespoons of mirin
• some water *(after some googling, i found out that i shd bring some kelps to boil and then use the stock for the sauce. however, it means i've to go buy a packet of kelps which i seldom has use for. guess the next best way is to use other stock from fish or chicken, which is easily available in most kitchens)

What to do

1. Heat a pot of oil for deep frying tofu.
2. Pat tofu dry with paper kitchen towels. Cut into cubes.
3. Mix rice flour with corn starch and coat each cube of tofu with flour mix. Do not let it rest for too long before frying. The flour will turn wet and it'll be difficult to move it.
4. When oil is hot enuf, deep fry the tofu.
5. While tofu is frying, prepare the sauce.
6. Pour the soya sauce and mirin and water (or stock) in a small saucepan. Bring to boil. (Adjust the sauce according to your preference. If you like it sweeter, add more mirin)
7. Remove tofu when it's slightly golden in colour and leave them on paper towels to drain off excess oil.
8. Arrange tofu cubes and then pour in the ready sauce.
9. Garnish as desired and serve hot. (garnish suggestion : bonito flakes, ground ginger, shredded seaweeds, juilienned spring onion)

Long overdue....

I've been planning to give this recipe a go for the longest time. It doesn't help that the ingredients is a long list of stuff that I usually dun stock up at home. So it took me many trips of weekly groceries shopping to get everything in place. Finally, a day when I have everything that is needed that I start working on it. Verdict? It's more of a kueh-like texture, not quite what I expected it would taste like (I actually thought it'll be more spongy). It actually taste better when chilled. Not as sweet as I expect it to be also, as a whole can of condensed milk actually went into the batter! I actually forgo the 65gms of castor sugar in the recipe.

Thanks Lucy for this recipe!

As promised.....

Chocolate swiss roll done last nite, requested by DH. YEAH, it's X'mas!

Wad do ya know!?!?!

You Are Mud Pie

You're the perfect combo of flavor and depth. Those who like you give into their impulses

What Kind of Pie Are You?

Meet the GOLDEN GAL

This is a healthy chiffon cake. Low on sugar, only 2 egg yolks are used! ..... a diet cake maybe? hehe....

Presenting..... Golden Kiwi Chiffon cake

What you need

• 4 egg whites
• 20gm sugar (original recipe calls for 30gm sugar, i cut it down)
• 75gm cake flour
• 32gm warm water
• 30gm oil
• 95gm golden kiwi puree (green kiwi can be used too, but golden kiwi is sweeter)
• 2 egg yolks
• 30gm sugar

What to do

1. Sift cake flour and set aside. Preheat oven @180degrees.
2. Mix water, oil and kiwi puree together and set aside.
3. Beat egg yolks tog with 30gm sugar till thick. Combine mixture from step 2 (water, oil and puree) into egg yolk.
4. Fold in cake flour and set aside.
5. Beat egg whites with 20gm sugar till stiff.
6. Fold in 1/3 of whipped egg whites into batter to "lighten"it and then add in remaining egg whites. Fold in gently. Batter shd be thick.
7. Bake at 170degrees for 25-30mins. Invert mould immediately once removed from oven.

Chocolate Chocolate Chips Muffins

Nope, this is not a typo.... it's chocolate muffins with chocolate chips! And to up the yummy factor, i also added in blackcurrants and walnuts. The resulting muffins are very nice and moist, it taste abit like brownies! This recipe yields 12 muffins.
Here's the recipe:
What you need

• 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (those with sweet-tooth may want to add more)
• 1 cup plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 100gm butter (melted and cooled)
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup dried black currants (or raisins, add some hot water to the dried raisins to "plump" it)
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

What to do

1. Sift flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together. Mix in brown sugar.
2. Beat egg and vanilla essence together. Add in the melted butter, yogurt and milk and mix till well incorporated.
3. Add chopped walnuts, black currants (drain away the water) and chocolate chips into the flour mixture to coat them. Mix them well.
4. Finally, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Fold in till just combined.
5. Scoop batter into lined muffin trays.
6. Bake at 180C for 20mins.
   
   
   

Lemon curd cookies

I've been procrastinating for the longest time to try making lemon curd. Seeing the bag of lemons sitting in the fridge for so long, I finally thought it's time to do something abt it.
These cookies are great, tho' DH finds the lemon curd too sour.
What you need:


For the cookies

• 140gm all purpose flour
• 115gm butter75gm sugar
• 60gm ground almonds
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 an egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

For lemon curd

• 1.5 oz unsalted butter, at room temp
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

What to do:
For Cookies

1. Put all ingredients for cookies in bowl except egg.
2. Rub the butter with your fingers into the flour mixture until it resembles bread crumbs.
3. Add in the egg and combine into a dough.
4. Leave dough, wrapped with cellophane, in the fridge for 1 hour.
5. Take dough out from fridge, roll out on a floured surface and cut out cookies into shapes as desired.
6. Bake at 180C for abt 15mins.When done, let cookies cool completely.

For lemon curd

1. Mix butter and sugar together.
2. Add in egg and egg yolks and combine.
3. Mix in the lemon juice. Mixture may look curdled, but it'll even out when it's cooking.
4. Cook mixture in a heavy-based saucepan on low heat. Stir continuously. When butter melts, the mixture will smoothen out.
5. Then change to medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thicken, abt 15 mins. It shd leave a path on the back of a spoon. DO NOT LET THE MIXTURE BOIL.
6. Remove curd from heat. Transfer to a bowl and wrap a cellophane on top, to prevent a skin from forming .Chill curd in fridge. It'll thicken further when cooled.
7. Cover tightly, it will keep in the fridge for 2 weeks or freezer for 2 mths.

To assemble

1. Spread lemon curd on the bottom of the cookie.
2. Cover the top with another cookie.
3. Dust with icing sugar.

nutcase....

Tried making muah chee for afternoon tea.

What you need :

• 250gm glutinuous rice flour
• 200ml water

What to do :

1. Add water to glutinuous rice flour and mix well.
2. Grease the container to be used for steaming with peanut oil.
3. Steam for 35mins.
4. When cooked, cut cooked dough into small pieces and roll in powdered peanuts and sugar. Add sesame seeds if u like.

Fion, if you're reading this, pls halve this recipe... the above is too much even for the 4 of us at home.

Gone nuts....

Baked these peanut butter cuppies last nite. Very nice. Recipe from Angie of http://mykitchenmylaboratory.blogspot.com/ . Thanks Angie!

Sugar Rolls

Special Thanks to Yochana, who generously shared this recipe.

My kids love this sugar roll very much. Now, thanks to Yochana, this roll can be re-created at home, anytime! and YES, i've overcome the fear of handling that huge amt of butter and shortening for the buttercream. Now, with a tub of the buttercream sitting in the freezer, expect more swiss rolls to roll from the oven!

friend or fiend?

Pandan Fudge Cake

After looking thru' the many recipes available for this cake in the net, I decided to modify the recipe to make things easier... u know, 'coz i'm too lazy to blend the pandan leaves and extract the juice, so I took the easy way out and used pandan essence.

Here's the recipe :
What you need:
For the sponge cake

• 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk
• 100gm sugar
• 100gm plain flour, to sift (I used cake flour as I ran out of plain flour)
• 100gm butter, melted and cooled.
• 1/2 tsp pandan essence

For the filling

• 500ml water
• 100gm sugar ( I reduced the amt of sugar as I dun like it too sweet. This amt turned out to be just nice for my family, you may add more sugar if you like)
• 50gm butter
• 2 tsp agar-agar powder
• 150ml water
• 350ml thick coconut milk (I used packaged coconut milk)
• 90gm hoen kwa flour
• 1.5 tsp pandan essence
• dessicated coconut (for decorating the cake)

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line a deep 8 inches round baking tin.

For sponge cake :

1. Beat eggs, 100gm sugar, pandan essence for 10mins till thick (mousse like)
2. Fold in sifted flour and then add in melted butter till well incorporated.
3. Bake for abt 35mins.
4. Cool cake and cut into 3 layers.

To make filling:

1. Boil water with sugar, butter and agar-agar powder.
2. Mix tog 150ml water with coconut milk, hoen kwa flour and essence in a separate bowl.
3. Add to boiling sugar mixture and cook till thick.
4. Place 1 layer of sponge cake in a 9-inch round springform baking tin. Pour inabt 1/3 of the cooked filling and spread it out. Place in the 2nd layer of the sponge cake. Continue with another 1/3 of the filling and spread it out evenly. Finally, place in the 3rd and last layer of the sponge cake and pour onto of it the remaining filling. Even it out. (got to work fast as the filling cools rather fast)
5. Cover and chill the cake.
6. Scatter dessicated coconuts on the cake as decoration.
7. Serve chilled.

My family really enjoyed this cake, I hope you will too.

Lemony Poppyseed Cookies

This is basically a butter cookie with lemon and poppyseeds added. One of my favourites (who can resist butter cookies?!?!) that's very easy to make and also foolproof.

Here's the recipe:
What you need :

• 110gm butter
• 30 gm white sugar
• 50gm brown sugar
• 200gm all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp poppy seeds
• 1 tsp lemon zest
• 1/2 tsp lemon essence (optional, to give it a more pronounced lemon flavour)

What to do :

1. Beat the butter and sugars until creamy and fluffy.
2. Add in sifted flour, poppy seeds, lemon zest and essence. Mix and form into a dough.
3. Shape dough into a log (or triangle in my case), wrap with parchment paper and place in the fridge for it to firm up abit.
4. Take out dough and cut into half centimeter thick slices (or if u want, u can roll it out and use cookie cutters).
5. Place onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and bake @180 degrees for 18mins.
6. Makes abt 30 pcs.

No Shit....

Memo to All Employees:

In order to ensure the highest levels of quality work and productivity from employees, it will be our policy to keep all employees well trained through our program of SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (S.H.I.T) .

We are trying to give our employees more S.H.I.T than anyone else. If you feel that you do not receive your share of S.H.I.T on the course, please see your supervisor. You will be immediately placed at the top of the S.H.I.T list and our supervisors are especially skilled at seeing you get all the S.H.I.T you can handle.Employees who don't take their S.H.I.T will be placed in DEPARTMENTAL EMPLOYEE EVALUATION PROGRAMS (D.E.E.P.S.H.I.T) .
Those who fail to take D.E.E.P.S.H.I.T seriously will have to go to EMPLOYEE ATTITUDE TRAINING (E.A.T.S.H.I.T).

Since our supervisors took S.H.I.T before they were promoted, they don't have to do S.H.I.T anymore, and are all full of S.H.I.T already.

If you are full of S.H.I.T , you may be interested in a job teaching others.
We can add your name to our BASIC UNDERSTANDING LIST of LEADERS (B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T).

For employees who are intending to pursue a career in management and consulting, we will refer you to the department of MANAGERIAL OPERATIONAL RESEARCH EDUCATION (M.O.R.E.S.H.I.T) . This course emphasizes how to manage M.O.R.E.S.H.I.T
If you have further questions, please direct them to our HEAD OF TEACHING, SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (H.O.T.S.H.I.T) .

Thank you.
BOSS IN GENERAL, SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING
(B.I.G.S.H.I.T)

More office rantings from me :P

Big-Head-Hot-Air Syndrome (BHHAS®)

This is a disease currently sweeping thru the world. It's more lethal that the Bird Flu.
Symptoms include:

1. inflated ego
2. being a side-kick
3. ass-kissing yr boss.

You know when you reach the final stage of this disease when your boss goes on leave and you suddenly becomes the person IN-CHARGE!
Now we enter the critial stage of this disease... hot air accumulates in your head.... your head gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER. And then what happens? you EXPLODE (read : screwed-up).

Decided to blog about some happenings I observed in the office, besides baking and food. Of course it's meant to be done in good fun. I hope no one is offended by my rantings.

Swiss Rolled

My swiss rolls :) more to come, once i get over making the buttercream.

1st post!

oh no... dunno if i'm gonna regret this the next minute. finally got myself a blog... sounds really unreal to me. not good with words, which will leave me few options as to how to keep this blog going.... just posting recipes will be an easy way out of this situation i got myself into....

fiend or friend?