Rum laden fruitcake

I promised DH a fruitcake before the cny. However, alot of things got into the way, especially the cny bakes... :P Anyhow, I eventually got it baked and it has to "mature" for a while before I can serve the cake. Finally, I got it cut-up for everyone to have a share yesterday. I was over-zealous in dousing the cake with rum... it's abit soggy with rum, but tasted so good nevertheless!

Gula Melaka Chiffon Cake

I've been wanting to give this recipe a try and the CNY break was a good time to do it. The cake turned out really nice, soft and very fragrant! The original recipe called for 6 eggs, for a 22cm tin, but I decided to reduce it to 4 eggs to fit my heart-shaped chiffon tin. Here's the original recipe (with my 4 eggs recipe in brackets)... do try it!

What you need

• 150gm gula melaka (100gm)
• 100ml coconut milk (67gm)
• 6 egg yolks (4)
• 4 tbsp oil (2 1/2 tbsp)
• 1/4 tsp salt (1/8 tsp)
• 140gm plain flour (93gm)
• 6 egg whites (4)
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (1/8 tsp)
• 50gm castor sugar (33gm)

What to do

• Melt gula melaka in a pot with coconut milk over low heat. Set aside in mixing bowl.
• Combine egg yolks, cooking oil and salt into the melted gula melaka mix.
• Sift flour into egg yolk mix and whisk in.
• In another bowl, whip egg whites till foamy and add in cream of tartar. Then gradually add in castor sugar and whip till stiff peaks.
• Fold in 1/3 of the whipped egg whites into the egg yolk mix to lighten it. When combined, pour entire egg yolk mix into the remaining whipped egg whites. Gently fold in till the colour of the batter becomes uniform.
• Pour batter into cake tin and bake in preheated oven at 170 degrees for 30-40mins.
• Remove tin from oven, invert immediately and remove cake from tin when totally cooled.
  
  

Happy and Prosperous Year of the Tiger!

Hi everyone,

Here's me wishing everyone a happy and
prosperous new year!

Gong Hei Fatt Choy!

Chocolate cornflakes clusters

This is a no-brainer recipe. All I needed to do was melt some chocolate to coat the cornflakes and then sprinkle some hundreds and thousands on it before the chocolate sets. Definately a treat for the kids! and also a good way to use up my half pack of cornflakes that had been sitting in the fridge. :P

Huatt ah!

When it comes to Chinese New Year, the Chinese love anything & everything auspicious. This covers anything from the decorations to food that is served during the festive period.

Huatt Kueh is actually a steamed cake. And it is very important that the top has to crack open, as it symbolises prosperity. "Huatt" means propsperity and this is very crucial when one is steaming this cake for the new year as it will mean the coming year will be a good and prosperous one for the family.

The original recipe was from a forumer. There was coconut milk in the ingredient list, but I did not want to include that as coconut milk turns rancid easily in the hot weather we are experiencing lately. So I replaced it with water and prayed very hard that it will work. I also added a tsp of baking powder.


Here's the recipe:
What you need

• 250gm self-raising flour
• 1tsp baking (double-acting) powder
• 140gm orange sugar
• 40gm dark brown sugar
• 320ml water

What to do

• Boil water in the steamer. Sift flour & baking powder together and set aside.
• Mix the orange and dark brown sugar into the flour.
• Make sure that the water is boiling and steamer set on high.
• Add water into the flour mix and stir till there's not lumps.
• Pour batter into the mold till at least 90% full.
• Steam on high fire for 20mins. Do not lift the cover while steaming.

It's just round the corner....

Made pineapple closed tarts but this year, i decided to do it tangerine style.

The pastry is oh-so-melt-in-the-mouth that I have a hard time wrapping the tarts, all thannks to the very warm weather we're experiencing lately. Even after baked, the pastry was very soft. However, it was well received as the family love the melt-in-the-mouth texture.

As busy as a bee...

As usual the weekends came and went in a flash. During the weekdays, I'll look forward to the weekends, with an ambitious list of to-bakes. However, when weekends actually arrived, I tended to take things easy and ended up making only a tiny dent in the to-bake list. This seems like an re-occurring (vicious) cycle in my life, at least for now. :P

Anyhow... nephew asked me last weekends if I intended to make kueh rose, popularly know as beehive in my family. It is a very well received snack in the family and I guess there's no escaping from making these. So I got myself all prepared with the ingredients, only to know later that nephew was not coming to visit my mom in the weekends, meaning I'll be left to make these myself. Thankfully my niece did come by and she helped me to finish these up.

After standing at the hot kitchen for 2 whole hours, these are what we got. *happy dance*

Chocolate Chips Coookies

These are crunchy and delicious.... nom nom nom....

come... have a piece. :)