Corned again ;-)

Here's the corn muffin recipe I've tried. Made some modifications... I've only half a cup of cornmeal and then I added a heap tablespoon of sour cream to it. What you need

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal (original recipe called for 3/4 cup)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter (room temp)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 medium size eggs (i used 60gms eggs)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tablespoon sour cream with milk to make up 1/2 a cup. (original recipe called for 1/2 cup milk)
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels(original recipe was 3/4 cup)

What to do

• Preheat oven to 200C and line muffin tray with liners.
• Sift tog flour, cornmeal and salt. Set aside.
• Cream tog butter, sugar, honey and salt.
• Beat in eggs one at a time.
• Fold in the dry ingredients, alternately with milk+sour cream mixture.
• Finally, fold in corn kermels.
• Fill muffin liners 3/4 full.
• Bake at 180C for 25 mins.
• Makes 12 muffins.

Foodie Blogroll...

If you've noticed, there's a column at the sidebar of my blog which I've just added not too long ago. It's the FOODIE BLOGROLL. The founder is Jenn and I really liked her idea of letting foodies find each other! Do go thru' the list while you're here and I'm sure u'll find something interesting gng on at other blogs!

Have fun!

Mac Attack!!!

Macarons and I went back a long way... we 1st "met" each other at a taiwanese blog last year. I was really intrigued by this dessert and back then, there wasn't a macaron craze in sg yet. So I absolutely had no idea how to go abt baking these except for the instructions on the blog. Well, I thot to myself, it shdn't be that difficult rite? After all, the ingredients are pretty straightforward and I had all the ingredients needed on hand. So one nite, I set abt making these macs... and needless to say, I FAILED big-time! The macs turned out very soft and had surfaces to rival the moon's. So i told myself, "ok... macs and me dun have the chemistry ".
Until this year when macs suddenly appeared in almost every local blog! Many ppl were baking and of course some succeeded, some failed. And it's only till then that I came to know that it's actually called macarons! (the taiwanese blog is in chinese mah!). And armed with this info, I started searching the internet for mac recipes. Still I can't make myself bake a batch of these... I duno why, maybe it's the fear of failure? maybe it's just plain laziness....

Images of macarons appeared everywhere I turned... so much so that it came to a point where I felt I must really give it a try again.

Based on what I've gathered, there's 2 ways of making this tooth-achingly sweet dessert. There's the usual whip-the-egg-white way and then there's the italian meringue way, which produces a very stable batter and some even commented that it's a fail-proof method. I decided to try the italian meringue method... (no prizes for guessing why). But then I realised that it means I need a candy thermometer! After asking ard and Elyn highlighted to me that the thermometer will turn into a white elephant 'coz there's no much use of it besides making candies, I did not get one. So how would I know if the sugar syrup had reached a certain temperature, u may ask.... well, I just eye-ball it! haha.... What I did was to let the syrup come to a boil and continue to let it boil for ard 1 min. Then I added it into the egg whites. Well, it worked! Then came to the part where I started mixing the grounded nuts and sugar into the egg white. I din know how to gaudge if it's to the correct texture. I read that the batter had to be like magma! Ermm... tat's a BIG problem to me 'coz the only time I see magma was on Discovery channel! *laughs*.... so again I had to trust my instincts.... Finally I piped the batter onto the baking trays, gave it a few raps to get rid of air bubbles and left it facing a fan blowing at full speed. When the surfaces no longer feels sticky, I sent it into the oven....

You can't imagine how happy I was when I spotted the "feets"! I was so happy that I was yelping away in the kitchen! and that was 11pm at nite. DD got up from her bed, all beary-eyed and came into the kitchen and asked "Mommy, what are u doing? why are u so happy?" *LOL*
After sending 2 trays of the plain hazelnut and almond (I ran out of almonds, so I added hazelnuts to it) macs into the oven, I decided to be more adventureous and added green tea powder to the remaining batter. Topped it with white sesame seeds as I din have any black ones at home.

Here's the results of my MONTHS of research and proscrastination.....These chocolate ones tasted just like (i hope!) what a macaroon shd taste (Read somewhere that the surface shd be crisp while the insides are chewy).... I used 62% bittersweet chocolate as the filling.
The green tea ones turned out softer in texture. But I love the pastel colour.... maybe I din add enough green tea powder, the geen tea taste was not distinct. However, I liked these more than the chocolate ones!

Cut-out cookies

I bought some cookie cutters while I was holidaying in Taiwan earlier this year. These are really cute... but sad to say, I've not tried using them at all! Come to think of it, I've not been baking cookies for the longest time.

I was actually planning to give macaroons a try when it suddenly dawn on me that I'll be left with many egg yolks if I really wanna bake macaroons. So, I looked thru' my stash of cookies recipes and found this one. The dough uses only egg yolks... and that means my egg yolks will not go to waste if I only needed the egg whites for macaroons. *YAY*

Needless to say, I immediately went to work on the dough for the cookies....

And presenting...... DISNEY cookies! Aint they CUTE?!?!?! I absolutely adore these cookies. I made 4 different flavours : mocha, vanilla, green tea and strawberries.....
ps : I'll not post the recipe for these cookies. Reason being that it's NOT GOOD. I'll tweak the recipe abit next time and then post it, kay?
Next up ........ macarons... crossing my fingers! *LOL*

Corned

My love affair with corn muffins started when I took my 1st bite into the corn muffins served at Kenny Rogers. But at that time, I had not ventured into baking, so I could only visit the restuarant whenever cravings hit.Since I started baking, I was always on the lookout for a recipe that would resemble the same muffins I had tasted at Kenny's. However, I can't find one that's close enuf. :(

Still I'll continue to try out the recipes I chance upon at blogs or forums. When I saw there's a cornmeal muffin in the recipe book that peppa scanned for me, I just can't pass off the chance. Actually looking at the recipe, I knew it would not turn out like kenny's muffins, but I still tried it out anyway.

The muffins are not sweet and it's so easy to prepare. So I drizzled some honey on the muffins to up the yummy factor. DD requested for some strawberry jam to go with the muffins....

ps : anyone with a recipe for corn muffins that resembles that of Kenny Roger, pls share, ok?

Sharing with you the recipe here :

What you need

• 1 cup flour (sift)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup butter (melted)
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup corn kernels

What to do

• Preheat oven @ 180C.
• Mix the dry ingredients tog.
• Combine the melted butter, milk and egg tog.
• Stir in liquid ingredients into the dry and combine just until moistened.
• Stir in corn kernels.
• Fill greased muffin cups and bake at 180C for 15 mins.
• Serve HOT!

The wobblies....

Realised that I've still have 2 packs of pudding mix in the pantry. These I bought when I was in Taiwan in March this year. So here goes.... mango puddings.....

And then another round of jellies for the kids to enjoy. This time, for some fun, I added some colourings to the jellies.... love the blue ones!

A Healthy Breakfast...

I'm one of those guilty working mothers who will buy b'fast instead of preparing them. Many times I'll tell myself to make something healthy, so the kids will be having something that is not greasy, less sugar, no transfat... the list goes on. However, sometimes it's just not possible, given the hectic lifestyle we all lead nowadays. By the time I return from work, I'm so dead tired! And not to mention, I have to go thru' DS's homework everyday to make sure that he's doing/learning things right. I continue to search for a good b'fast recipe, that's fast and yummy, not only for the kids, but also myself. I guess there's only so much fried beehoon, Mc's b'fasts one can take.

On one occasion, pepperdemon offered me some muffins she made in the weekends. She said she'll bake these muffins in dozens and store in the freezer. Whenever she needs one, she'll take it out and "thaw" it to room temp and it's as good as fresh. If you want it warm, a 20 seconds zap in the microwave oven will do the trick. This is really an appealing idea to me... imagine hot, healthy muffins can be had anytime, any day! After tasting the muffins (which were REALLY delicious!), I got her to pass me the recipes. She then proceeded to scan the whole book for me, as this recipe book is out of print and it was never sold in sg b4. Thanks pepperdemon for being such a sweetie! *muak muak*

Armed with the recipes, I gave the orange oatmeal muffins a try. Erm.... as I've mentioned b4, I'm not good with muffins... I tend to overmix it and it turned out really hard and holey... well, this time, I tried so hard not to overmix. Still, the end result was nothing like wad I've tasted (peppa's).... but it was moist and soft. I'll be trying another batch of these muffins again. Hopefully, it'll turn out right.

Here's the recipe for these oatmeal orange muffins for those who are interested.

What you need

• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1 cup rolled oats (regular or instant)
• 1/2 cup butter (room temp)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baing soda
• 1 tsp salt

What to do

• Combine orange juice and water. Add rolled pats and soak for 15 mins.
• Meanwhile cream butter and sugars. Beat in eggs and sitr in oat mixture.
• Stir in raisins and vanilla.
• Add flour, baking powder, baking soda (Sifted) and salt.
• Stir till moistened. Poour into well-greased muffin cups.
• Bake at 180C for 15-20mins.

Edited to add :
These muffins tasted better than ever after I've freezed and zapped them in the microwave. In fact, the texture is very close to peppa's muffins! yum yum.... will definately be looking into more of the muffin recipes! wish me luck!

Chocolate, (MORE) rum and raisins cupcakes *HIC*

I came across this book, TEMPT-cupcakes to excite, a book by Betty Saw while browsing at Harris bookshop some time ago. DH offered to buy it for me... I love the pictures of the cupcakes inside and the size of the book, which fits nicely on my hands. However, as do most of my other recipe books, it was left sitting in a pile for a long time before I decided to try a recipe from there. On one of DH's trip back to Sg, I got him to pick up a bottle of rum from the DFS at the airport. So now, I've all the ingredients needed, no more excuses! LOL.... I picked the rum and raisins recipe from the book to try, 'coz frankly, I've never tasted a rum and raisins cupcake before.... but had plenty of rum and raisins ice-cream.

I'm glad that I gave it a shot. The cupcake is really light. A note in the recipe says that these cupcakes improve with keeping. So I probably have to give it a good dose brush of rum everyday.... of course the gluttony in me can't wait. I took one this morning and it tasted sensational....

You Are 32% Vain




Okay, so you're slightly vain from time to time, but you're not superficial at all.You are realistic. You know that looks matter. You just try to make them matter less.

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2 thumbs up - Fruit Pastry

This is my 2nd attempt on this pastry. I use cake flour in my 1st attempt, hoping to achieve a moist cake with smooth and fine texture. However, I felt tat it was rather dry. I used apples, canned peach and blueberries and this combo works out really good! There's no pics of the cake then as my camera konked out on me.

So having a free time slot now, I decided to attempt this cake again. I used the same combo of fruits and I switched to self-raising flour this time.

Thanks Vi for posting the recipe at IK.

Here's my modification:

What you need

• 210 gm self-raising flour
• 150 gm sugar
• 100 gm butter
• 3 tbsp sour cream
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp lemon peel
• 3 eggs
• Combo of fruits (1 apple, 1 whole canned peach, abt 15 blueberries)

What to do

• Sift self-raising flour with baking powder in a bowl, and set aside.
• Cut fruits into thin slices.
• Preheat oven to 180 C.
• Beat butter, sour cream and sugar together till fluffy.
• Add eggs one at a time.
• Add lemon peel and vanilla extract.
• Fold in flour and baking powder and mix until everything is smooth.
• Grease a baking pan.
• Place batter in the pan and level nice. Place fruits on top.
• Bake for 40 minutes (test with skewer).
• Let cool on a rack and sprinkle with icing sugar.

Chilling...

The weather lately in sg has been so warm! And then there's the haze problem lurking.... I hope it won't be as bad as last year.

Anyway, to "survive" this period, I've been drinking lotsa water and "liang tei" - herbal drinks. And one of the favourites for me and the kids will be a cold dessert!

Jellies are always welcome in the household, esp when there are kids. So I got off my butt and made these....I L.O.V.E this fish mold! The fishes looks so lively and pretty.... I think I'll be getting more of these.....And now, sit back, have a jellified fishie, and CHILLLLL..........

Marbled Chocolate Cheesecake

I bought a new camera! and in case u're wondering wad the new camera has got to do with the cheesecake, here's why....

I need to test out my camera.... DH has been bugging me abt it. and so, I baked somefin so I can test it out. Hah! as simple as that. Anyway, this cake turned out pretty well. DH wolfed down 3 in 1 go... imagine tat..... I felt so full after eating 1.