Kinda distracted...

When Elyn asked me what I intended to bake this weekends, I was not sure how to answer her. As usual, I'll have a very ambitious list of stuff to do but then I am really distracted lately. There will be 2 weddings happening in the family by the end of this year and it has created alot of buzz right now. Tho' it's not my wedding, but I am really happy and excited abt it. To be exact, I had to do my share in the preparations for the wedding, ie, shopping! LOL... Besides the wedding, the upcoming event is my company's annual dinner and dance this year. So it again justifies my need to do some shopping!

Anyway, I had to bake something... although shopping does give certain satisfaction, it also burns a big hole in my pocket! So there I was at the supermarket on a friday nite, looking at the baking section, trying to decide on something to bake. I finally settled on bread-making and went ahead to grab 2 can of tuna mayo on the shelves.
Woke up on Sunday morning and the first thing I did was to get the bread dough done. ( I was out shopping on Saturday!) Finally shaped the buns in triangular shape (trying to be different?) and went to get some lunch. By the time I reached home, I realised that the buns had over-proofed! Nothing I can do except to get the buns baked asap.The buns turned out very soft, airy and yummy. However, I found the tuna filling too wet. I think maybe next time I'll try other kinds of tuna filling... probably one wif only brine, supposedly healthier this way? :P

Muffins....

Been feeling abit under the weather lately... feeling kinda lethargic, so looked for an easy recipe to work with.Thanks to Jestina for sharing the recipe... it's so ez and the results so yummy!I just placed half the batter into the cups, added chocolate chips and cubed cream cheese into half of the cups, pieces of oreo cookies into the other half. Then top it up with the remaining batter and placed more chocolate chips and oreos to finish off.... I got exactly 12 pcs from 1 recipe.

Steamed banana cuppies

I've tried out a few steamed cake recipes before and resuts are mostly good. More importantly, steamed cakes are able to retain it's moisture better than baked ones.

I saw a steamed banana cake recipe at Ching's blog and decided to try since I got some ripe bananas at my moms place. It's a very simple and fast recipe. The steamed cppies can be done in 30mins!

Made some modifications to the recipe and I'm putting it here for my own reference.
What you need

• 2 mashed bananas
• 1 tbsp of milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/8 cup self-raising flour
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 5/8 cup veg oil

What to do

• Start boiling the water in the steamer.
• Sift the self-raising flour and baking soda tog. Set aside.
• Mash the bananas and add in 1 tbsp of milk and vanilla essence. Mix well.
• Beat eggs with sugar till ribbon stage.
• Stop machine, stir in mashed banana mixture.
• Fold in 1/3 of the sifted flour, followed by 1/2 the oil.
• Fold in another 1/3 of the flour and then remaining 1/2 the oil. End off with the last 1/3 of the flour.
• Scoop batter into liners till 3/4 full. (It actually dun rise much, so next time, I'll probably fill it till full)
• When water is rapidly boiling, place in the filled liners and steam on high for 15mins.

Baked Mooncakes

Since I made abt 40 mini snowskin mooncakes already, I decided to make only 6 baked ones. Sadly, I overbaked the 1st batch of egg yolks and had to redo them... but since I only bot 10 salted eggs, i had to use one of the overbaked ones... and as luck have it, I ended up cutting the mooncake with that overbaked yolk for this shot!

Anyway, I din quite like the skin texture of the mooncake this time. I find it too dry and crumbly. Also I think I made the skin too thin. I'll stick to my old trusted recipe in future. :P

Durian Snowskin Mooncakes

Bought a pack of durian lotus paste and so did up these snowskin durian mooncakes. Made a few with chocolate centers.

Packed some mixed with mango snowskins I made yesterday as a gift to a dear friend.
I'm about done with my mooncake-making. Only left with the baked ones which are now on the cooling rack.

Walnut mooncakes

I tried this mooncake a few weeks ago at a cafe... couldn't forget how yummy it was and decided to make some myself. I took a bite of the mooncake when it was fresh out of the oven.... the "skin" was so good! crispy and fragrant.

I was greedy and made it quite big... I have to reduce the portion if I intend to make this again!

Snowskin Mango Mooncakes

I'm quite late this year in starting my mooncakes making. Finally kicked my lazy self into action. :P

Started off with the walnut mooncakes and then moved on to mango snowskin. I added diced dried mangoes and melon seeds into the mango lotus paste to further enhance the fragrance ... boy, it was good!

French Walnut Bread

This is a super duper yummy loaf. 'Coz I added some stir-fried onions to the dough, resulting in a very fragrant bread. The crust you see is actually chopped oats. After baking, it became really crunchy. It's a crusty kind of bread, which is good to eat just on it's own, or with some cheese... and some say, with good wine too! :P

For those who wants to give it a try, just use a wholemeal bread recipe, add in some walnuts and stir-fried onion, shape it into rounds, and then before the 2nd proofing, dip the top in water, and then coat it with chopped oats. Let it rise the 2nd time and then bake. I assure u of a very nice bread! LOL...

Calzone

With leftover cheese from the pizza making, I baked some calzones. Calzones are what they referred to as "reversed pizza". basically it's also using the same bread dough but wrapping the ingredients inside. Appearance wise, it's like curry puffs. But there's no pleating to be done at the edges. Just "glueing" the edges together using egg wash. And then egg wash the surface after wrapping the ingredients inside and leave it for 2nd proofing. And when it is ready, apply egg wash again and send to the oven... simple enough?I sauteed some onions, ham and spinach together till fragrant and then when the mixture cooled down, I mixed in the cheese. And used it as the filling.

Foccacia too!

Over the weekends, I blog-hopped and came upon Ching's site. Her new post was about a foccacia she made... what a coincidence since i also made foccacia (but too lazy to post abt it. :P)

Actually her foccacia looked so similar to mine, just that I shaped mine in little discs, unlike her oblong-shaped one. I omitted oregano ('coz i dun really stock this) and added chopped olives to the dough instead. Mixed the rosemary, italian herbs with olive oil and some mashed canned tomatoes and then brushed generously on the tops before sending them to the oven. After the foccacia were baked, I brushed on another layer of olive oil.

Also, I did not pair the foccacia with curry, but ate it a little toasted. No complaints... it tasted heavenly. :)