Yuri's Bake Journal

Another Year!

2009-08-25T21:22:00.003+08:00

How quickly time has flown by, it's another year. My cyber friend was surprised when I told her that I had to rush home to bake a birthday cake for my son. He turned 11 today and I baked him this super and wonderfully chocolatey cake. Admittedly, it is far too chocolatey for my daughter and I. Hubs and son both enjoyed the cake, though. On hindsight, perhaps I should have let it remain a chocolate banana cake or added something else, such as dark cherries, in the middle.

I am not complaining that the cake is too sweet, though. I had used Belgium couverture chocolate both for the cake, as well as the ganache. Perhaps that had contributed to the intense (son said it was bitter) chocolate sensation. I'm sure any chocolate lover would love this. To keep decoration to a minimum, I simply placed 2 Ferrero Rondnoir and 2 sticks of Bourbon cocoa crepe cookies at the top of the cake. For the sides, I broke up some chocolate transfer. It's also a small cake, just 6-inches in width.

I had learnt this from a baking class and I knew this was the cake for my son this year. Again, he had wanted a cake from the store but I managed to convince him to let mummy bake for him. Then I felt stressed, do mummies all feel this way? I'm glad it turned out ok.

In exactly 2 weeks' time, it will be my daughter's birthday. She had requested that her cake be "special", now, what happened to any cake baked by mummy would be special ... aren't children hard to satisfy these days?

Pineapple Upsidedown Cake

2009-08-14T08:53:00.002+08:00

Yet another attempt to practise making caramel. Sometimes I wonder why I bother practising when it is just sugar, which is not a big friend. It gets worse when the people who received the cake commented that it was too sweet. I had already reduced the sugar used in the cake and the caramel, let's just said it was a fraction of the original recipe.

Instead of making a big 10-inch cake, I made 3 loaves. I reduced sugar for the cake by one-quarter cup and made only half of the caramel. The syrup was then shared among the 3 loaves and it was still sweet for that friend. Guess her tolerance for sugar is way lower than mine, or have I began to accept more sugar now? :S The perils of baking, perhaps?

My brother, who also received one loaf, asked me to bake it some other fruit. I will bake him a Peach Upsidedown Cake, another day. Come tomorrow, I am committed to the community baking effort every other week. That would take away some weekend (home) baking time...

Working with Caramel

2009-08-10T22:32:00.003+08:00

In a recent community baking event, I had the opportunity of making caramel on my own. After watching a few episodes (on cable tv) featuring caramel, I thought I could finally put that "knowledge" to test. However, I failed a few times. Thankfully, P and J were on hand to share their knowledge. Lo and behold, that attempt proved successful! It was such a joy to see the amber syrup. The downside of knowing this is -- I keep looking out for recipes that feature caramel! Gosh, it's nothing but sugar and butter ... I found this information really useful and close to what we did.

Since I've been wanting to try to make my family's favourite snack, I had invested in a packet of popcorn, the DIY kind, that is. From the instructions, it looked pretty easy. And it was! I didn't believe that the children would take the bland popped corn (while waiting for the caramel to be done).

I followed this recipe in making the caramel, which is slightly different from the method I had tried earlier. The popcorn didn't last very long, they were gone in minutes. One packet of popcorn will make many servings.

Refreshing Treat

2009-07-31T11:00:00.003+08:00

For all of us living in this part of the world, we are accustomed to the humid weather. While the rest of the world has four seasons to cope with, we just have to deal with "summer". As the Chinese saying goes, 长年是夏，一雨成秋(summer all year round, with rain comes autumn). With the effects of global warming, it sometimes gets a little unbearable.

It appears that whole (young) coconuts are fast becoming an ubiquitous items in supermarkets. Even my regular vegetable stall at the market sells them. The stallholder even taught me a trick or two about them. To my dismay, I don't seem to remember any of the tips :( But I can always count on him to pick a good coconut for me.

I came across the recipe for coconut jelly a while back. With two coconuts in my fridge, I decided to give it a try. Afterall, I have a ready supply of agar agar (gelatine) packets calling out to me. As I had forgotten to get pandan leaves, I added a dash of pandan extract. That explains the greenish tinge.

This is one refreshing dessert, especially if it's served right out of the fridge. We had a family barbeque and I served this. It didn't go well with the children as fresh coconut is probably a new flavour to them? The adults enjoyed the coolness the jelly brought. The next time I make this, I must remember to get pandan leaves so that the jelly will remain clear and transparent.

Ribs and Parties

2009-07-29T07:43:00.000+08:00

My family loves ribs, especially succulent and tender ones. Guess it's due to tasting ribs from a certain family restaurant that sharpened our palates to this texture. I have since been trying to recreate this particular bite at home.

I will also admit that I am a cable tv junkie especially now with a hubstation, I can record whatever shows I like and my children are always chasing me to free up the harddisk space. One of my favourite shows (I could have mentioned it before) is Chef at Home. He makes cooking look so easy and he creates recipes on the fly! "A bit of this and a dash of that... " I'm not sure if I can agree with some of the creations (which I have tried, of course) but it's inspiring (to me) just to watch this series. What about the house they "live" in...

I made this Oven Baked Ribs for a family gathering a while back (yes, backlog of photos and posts). I wouldn't say I had achieved the desired "bite". But gosh the ribs were yummy and they were gone in no time! Fortunately, I made almost 2kg of it and there were enough "leftovers" for my two sisters-in-law to bring home.

Not one to give up, I tried making this ribs in a different way recently. I used a trusty, multi-purpose claypot and (semi) braised the ribs. What d'ya know? I achieved the texture I was looking for and hubs agreed too. However, I realised that the tomato paste/puree made a big difference. I shall not use local brands for western cooking. On the cooking method, somehow baking meat for an extended period just doesn't sit well with me. Someone remarked "crazy... weather is so hot, bake in oven for one or two hours ... kitchen will overheat..." I'm glad I used the claypot.

A Significant Day

2009-07-22T15:44:00.002+08:00

I wanted to remember today with a post and a bake. What is so significant about today? Well, it's the total solar eclipse, a precious and special event. I'm not into astronomy or any scientific studies. But it is such a phenomenon, that the Sun, Moon and Earth are in a straight line. As I was at work, I could only rely on certain websites for updates. I'll catch the recording later.

As for the bake, I chose a "dark" cake that I had baked several weeks ago. I was tired of baking the same thing and someone highly recommended HHB's Chocolate Torte. Apparently, it's a form of "comfort food" for some, chocolate lovers, I suppose.

I like this cake, but my attempt was underbaked :( The sides of the cake caved in so I had to hide it. Most of the nice ribbons I have are too wide and the only ones (with suitable width) are all plain. Must invest in nicer ribbons (note to self).

I thought it tasted a lot like brownie, but better, and my son loved it. I had followed HHB's recipe closely but I added some cointreau for kicks. This is one cake I will bake again. Besides, I have all that chocolate waiting to be used, including some Belgium (couverture) chocolates. Yums!

I'm Back!

2009-07-21T14:11:00.003+08:00

Yes I'm back to blogging, but not sure for how long. I've been baking all these while, just haven't updated this space due to a variety of reasons. Having nothing to blog about (at least "in public") was a major reason. The other reason is of course due to laziness and the lack of nice photos. Besides, I kept baking the same few recipes. However, I am continually inspired by the beautiful photos and wonderful experience by various bloggers.

Chiffon cake is one of my favourite to bake when I have time. I don't usually enjoy baking chiffon cakes at night as the cooling process takes too long, by which time I can hardly keep my eyes open. I'm home today as my son has fever. With news reports that say "1 in 2 flu cases is H1N1" don't necessary sit well with anyone. I was most recently a "close contact" of someone who tested positive and had to observe Leave of Absence of 7 days. During the initial days, I was rather worried that I may catch the virus. Not so much worried for myself but more for the children. What if they had to suffer as a result? Seeing my poor boy weak and sick yesterday brought on some strange feelings. He has grown significantly and he is not a small-sized child. He is big for his age and seeing him so weak made me feel helpless. He's no longer the tiny tot who relies on mummy for every little need. My boy has grown up.

His fever hovered between 39.1 and 39.8 deg C last night.Thankfully, after the first dose of medicine this morning, the fever subsided. He looked visibly healthy today, compared to yesterday. He was able to eat, which should be the case since he did not eat much yesterday. I took the chance to bake, on seeing that he was a little better. Since all I had were oranges, it would have to be orange chiffon. I have learnt that my weakness in the chiffon cake process was in "baking", ie, my cakes were mostly underbaked. I've recently discovered that for my oven, it would ideally need at least 55 minutes of baking time (at an average temperature of 160 deg C). I must have been muddled-headed today and forgot how long time has elapsed. I thought I had overbaked the cake but it turned out alright, thank God.

Looks like I have to seize whatever opportunity there is to keep practising chiffon cakes. For my next try, may be a rose or bandung flavoured cake. J had kindly helped me get a bottle of rose water which I have yet to try. Wonder what else can rose water be used for?

Anniversary Again

2009-05-06T23:23:00.005+08:00

It's been a long time and there was so much going on in and around my life that I could not find time to blog. I have been baking very much the same cakes -- banana cake, blueberry yogurt cake -- that I find no meaning in writing nor posting photos.

I did, however, attend a series of baking classes in April where I learnt more about mousse and buttercream. So, I need to go beyond my comfort zone of just baking a cake. I have come to realise that the "limitations" are those I set in my mind.

For our wedding anniversary, I decided to try making lemon mousse to go with an almond sponge cake. The mousse was a bonus recipe which is really a simpler version of what we did in class. There was no Italian meringue to make, phew! The sponge cake recipe is a real delight and has become one of my favourite cake with nuts.

As expected, the cake is very "grainy" as I had used finely ground almond. I had tried the same recipe with walnuts and pistachios, all garnered good reviews with request for recipe. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to share it.

With Mother's Day round the corner, I may just try to see if I can whip up another cake. As for photos of the cakes I did from baking classes, that will be in later posts, perhaps.

Lemon Cream Sponge Cake

2009-03-30T21:19:00.005+08:00

A few cyber friends have asked about my absence this past month. First and foremost, I had been really busy at work. To unwind, I did bake, but the same pound cake recipe. Since I had nothing new to write about, I did not blog.

During this time, I also tried to practise baking Rei's sponge cake recipe. After a few practice, I am somewhat happy with this result. I'm sure I can still do better, as the cake can be softer and fluffier. I really have to thank Rei for her guidance, without which I won't have gotten it. She was so sweet to make me some of her lemon curd as well. So I used it all in between the two layers of cake.

The result? A very "lemony" cake. I must admit that the amount of cream is not enough. However, I feel that it is good enough for me. What's left now is for me to acquire some cake decorating techniques. I have to resist taking another slice and shared the "test" piece with my children.

Blueberry Cake

2009-02-24T17:13:00.004+08:00

I would like to think that I am wiser with the another year added on but upon reflection, I still have my "off" days. Father JP said in his weekend sermon that teenage is the time when one seeks "identity" and in middle age, one seeks "purpose". While I have come to terms with my purpose recently, living it can be somewhat challenging on certain days. Those are my off days and I am happy that with God's grace, I am able to deal with it.

Enough about be philosophical. I did not intend to bake my own cake, no sir! But while complimenting Rei on her achievement, I told her that I am still trying to find a workable sponge cake recipe. She encouraged me to try out the sponge cake recipe on her blog (belongs to her sister, S). She suggested that I use the egg separation method where there is less likelihood of deflating the eggs.

So the idea came to mind, why not use the cake as base for my own cake? Besides, I have fresh blueberries and canned ones too. I have some problems trying the separate the eggs as 2 of the yolks broke! I had wasted 2 egg whites in the process. Other than that, the recipe is fairly easy to follow.

I must look for more ideas and practice when it comes to decoration, as well as improving my photographing skills. That sure are lots to work with ... With technology, namely Facebook, I had received more wishes than the past. I want to thank all my friends who sent wishes since I am not into writing on FB walls, neither am I "active" there.

Taste of Childhood

2009-02-22T22:26:00.005+08:00

It's been a long time since I last fried bee hoon at home. I'm not sure why I stopped cooking this, perhaps I got tired of frying bee hoon and moved on... I'm glad I tried this one tonight, it's really easy and it could have re-ignited my interest in this dish. However, my boy had indicated that he did not enjoy bee hoon in general. He did have second helping, though.

I was inspired by this post to try my hand at fried bee hoon tonight. It was one ingredient in particular, canned stewed pork ribs, that struck me. I didn't use to enjoy the taste when mom cooked this but somehow, after seeing the photo on that post, I was determined to try it. I doubled the recipe and used organic brown rice bee hoon. I would need to do much more to improve on the presentation too.

With my girl doing Home Economics classes, I am hopeful that she will soon take an interest in cooking. She is definitely more keen in sewing, especially in this past year. She had actually put together two outfits on her own for her dolls! At least she takes after my mom in this area, while I try my hand in cooking and baking.

Sponge Cakes in Paper

2009-02-15T00:03:00.004+08:00

I wanted to have a post today to ensure that I remember the reason I made a particular decision. Yes, I opted for "status-quo" and the reason is I want no change to my lifestyle. Hubs told me that this is a good and valid reason and he would stand by me. To ensure that I can live with this decision for a long time to come, I would need to check my own attitude and "weather" daily. To my friends who know what I am referring to, please remind me to MYOB. That's truly a load off my mind and thank God for the direction.

I wanted to use this soft and spongy cake to signify the "light-heartedness" I feel right now. This is something that I had wanted to bake ever since I took up baking. I've seen several posts but most recipes use SP. Although I had bought a tub of SP, I had used it only once. Honestly, I don't feel it has done anything good to that particular cake and since it is nothing but chemical, I decided to throw the whole tub away.

The recipe is from this book and since the book is fairly affordable I feel it isn't very ethical of me to post the recipe. In fact, there are many interesting recipes in this book that I am keen to try. I got the book by mail order a long time ago!

Love...

2009-02-14T22:25:00.002+08:00

For chocolate, that is! I am not a fan of chocolate, at least not consistently. To me, chocolate is a "mood" thing, I've gotta be in the mood for it. Otherwise, I won't even bat an eyelid when faced with them. Of course, that depends a lot on what is being offered as well... it's a complicated relationship. Aren't most relationships, complicated?

I looked around for something appropriate to put up today. I heard a good sermon but I am unable to articulate it and I won't try in case I mess it up. Back to the brownie, my dear boy is a chocolate fan. Give him anything with chocolate and he's a happy boy. As expected, he enjoyed this most among all of us at home. Hubs as usual said this wasn't something he liked, he has a palate for chinese (and at most, Asian) food. By the way, he eats to live, so don't bother to be too fancy.

I followed HHB's Nut and Chocolate Chip Brownie (sans nuts) and I love it that it does not call for butter. I can indulge in the best chocolate and cocoa powder without additional guilt (and fat) of butter. One other thing which I had an overdose was the chocolate chips! I had definitely used more than what the recipe called for. The result was of course a really fudgy brownie.

I asked my girl if she would like to learn to bake this so she would have something to give to her friends. [Some had asked her what she would be baking for Valentine's Day and I asked her if they meant her or me!] She flatly refused as one of her classmates bakes really solid brownie. Looks like she has got this from me. For me though, I'm sticking to this brownie recipe most definitely.

Hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day, celebrating love of any kind.

PS: I needed a cheer-up to clear my mind and mistakenly thought that chocolate would do the trick. It did cheer me up but my mind is still not clear. The "issue" is pushed to the back of my mind for now...

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

2009-02-11T09:04:00.005+08:00

I've been lagging behind on blogging and taking photos. Many things have been happening especially at work. These are times when I wished I didn't have to work. In any case, I've come to terms with my situation at work and I will just do what I have to do. That was why I took up baking in the first place...

I have been converted to love Greek Yogurt and I could not resist not buying it when I spotted a 500ml tub of it at the supermarket just before Chinese New Year. I had not planned what to bake as I knew at the back of my mind I could easily bake a banana cake.

When cyber friend mentioned that NZ blueberries were in season at relatively low prices in Hong Kong, I couldn't help but pick up some when I saw them at the supermarket. The berries added an interesting twist to a very reliable pound cake recipe which I have always enjoyed baking. Unfortunately, it's not something that I can share, sorry.

This blueberry (greek) yogurt cake is currently my favourite cake (to eat). I'll share a piece with you anytime.

Lunar Niu Year

2009-01-25T22:25:00.004+08:00

What do you do when you run out of pineapple fillings and there is still pastry left? Since I had tried out a Cheese Stars cookie recipe recently, I thought why not add some shredded chedder cheese to the dough?

When I was first mixing the dough for this not so ordinary cookie, I had made a mental note to try adding shredded cheese should I have excess pineapple tart pastry. I must say that it was not a bad idea except that I was too conservative with the cheese. I should have gone with the gut feel of 100g of cheese instead of stopping at 50g. I had a block of chedder cheese in the fridge and so had to shred my own. You'll be able to guess why I stopped at 50g... it wasn't very hard work but the smell was getting to me. Ok, I was getting lazy and it was almost time to leave home for dinner at my parents' home too.

I like both versions very much. It seems that I am drawn to savoury cookies this year. Other than cheese stars there is keropok cookies. Of course, I made the usual dose of pineapple tarts and a few negligible and forgetable attempts at some traditional cookies.

I am so happy to be done with all the CNY baking! I would probably not be baking much cookies after this. Here's wishing all friends a very prosperous Year of the Ox.

"Wang Wang" Tarts

2009-01-22T00:04:00.000+08:00

This is a record of all the pineapple tarts I have attempted since January 2008. I am so happy to be able to bake this, my all-time favourite snack. It's a real challenge trying to identify a good vendor for this snack. Everyone has an expectation of what it should be, ideally. Of course, it's hard to achieve one that satisfies everybody so I should be happy if I like it myself, right?

I absolutely loved the pineapple tarts that I baked last year. The pastry is of the right texture and taste. Since it was my first try, I used commercial pineapple filling. I tested another brand of filling this year and that turned out alright as well. I was sure one packet wasn't enough so I bought another packet which started my adventure in semi-making pineapple fillings. I shan't go into details but I've certainly learnt lots from this attempt. I can't say for sure that I will or won't be making my own pineapple jam next year, though. There is a certain sense of achievement if I get it right, I'm sure.

So, this picture below is this year's version of pineapple tarts. My earlier attempt was to crimp it so it resembles a rose, lots of room for improvement. As for the version below, I cannot say that there is a remarkable improvement in the appearance but what matters is the taste, don't you agree? I gave J some jam as I had too much and she kept praising it, so it can't be that bad. I had also learnt that pineapple tarts usually taste better the day after baking. Hubs and I have been munching on them every night, we'll have lots to pay back later...

If you are keen to cook your own pineapple jam, you may want to refer to Rei's post.

Lemon Melts

2009-01-20T23:16:00.003+08:00

Don't these look great? I love the shape so much but the dough wasn't very cooperative. After I had used up almost 80% (after filling one big pizza pan), they just refused to form nicely. Perhaps I had pressed too hard and after banging a few times, the cookie broke. I had to use a polvoron plunger to mould the remaining dough. They are that soft.

I was keen to experiment with other flavours after the very successful (for me) cookie I had named Keropok Cookie. I toyed with the idea of adding lemon zest as well as ground almond. Finally, I had the chance to play with lemon flavour today.

I really like the aroma of lemon, especially when these were baking in the oven. What I like about this recipe is that it doesn't use any butter nor eggs! It's really healthy and good for people who are lactose intolerant too. May be I should try using orange zest next...

Biscotti Galore

2009-01-18T22:08:00.004+08:00

I've finally delivered my promise to my friend W, she had asked me to try baking biscotti so that I could "teach" her how to make her favourite snack. I first tried it in June 2008, when W was going into the third trimester of her first preganancy. I am ashamed that I had forgotten about this until she sent me an sms recently.

So I quickly baked some and arranged to meet W as soon as possible. I'm glad she liked it and that encouraged me to experiment with another flavour: green tea and pistachio. While this flavour tastes quite unique, my girl and I prefer the original version.

In fact, my girl asked if I could just bake biscotti without the nuts! I told her that the nuts made the biscotti tasty, for me. So, I reduced the amount of almonds and added cranberries as requested by her. I found this a little too sweet for me but she absolutely loves this! She and hubs polished the whole batch in less than 3 days! Perhaps I should try baking it with just cranberries next. I've also decided that this will be one of the few items that I'll be baking for this Chinese 牛 Year.

Keropok Cookies

2009-01-12T09:30:00.003+08:00

Can't help but let this post surge ahead of the rest especially after seeing J's post on her CNY2009 baking. Thanks so much for sharing this gem of a recipe and it's a welcome change to all the sweet cookies during this time of festivities.

However, this is not made with that particular recipe with J shared. It has been tweaked by Gina and it is something that will go on sale at Chef's Secrets. Thanks Gina and Amy for allowing me to be around during the "recipe testing".

All I can say about this version of the cookie is that it "melts" in the mouth! I am so happy I have achieved this by trial and error. After hubs tasted it, he said it tasted like keropok! That's why I have named it Keropok Cookies. This, however, is NOT the version that is available for sale at Chef's Secrets.

Caramel Croissant Pudding

2009-01-03T22:42:00.002+08:00

I was attracted to this dish the moment I first saw it on a certain trailer on Discovery Travel and Living (Starhub Channel 16) promoting Nigella Lawson's show. In fact, I had bought croissants hoping to keep them a couple of days "stale" so I can try this recipe out. Unfortunately, my boy always beat me to them and I didn't get a chance until recently.

I must say, puddings especially bread and butter puddings, aren't something I would try. However, since this is made with croissant and rum, why not? I thought. I'm glad I did and next time I would go easy on the amount of rum. The kids won't even take a piece after test-tasting the first bite. Guess rum isn't a flavour favoured by kids. Rum, not rum essence, was added to this pudding.

To ease the guilt (if only!) I didn't use double cream and used Nestle's Pouring Cream instead. As I had a carton of no-frills Whole Milk around, I used that, talking about easing the guilt! As much as I liked it, I limited myself to one-third portion of the pudding. I am planning to showcase this dessert when I get the chance. Must remember to target friends who have either have "alcoholic" or "western" palate...

Happy 2009!

2009-01-02T11:20:00.004+08:00

Gosh, 2008 came and went in a flash! To some, it was probably not a good year so no love lost. I can't help but wonder how it was for me... well, another year older, that's for sure.

As usual, we hosted a small gathering (considering how big all the kids have grown, small is really an understatement) at our home on New Year's Eve. Hubs wants to host so he can drink as much as he desiers since to him, I am NOT qualified as a "back-up" driver. I always say that I am destined to be a passenger more than a driver, anyway.

The strangest thing this year was that almost everyone had dinner plans when he extended the invitation! I told him that perhaps he was very late in inviting, that was the reason. Everyone didn't want to take for granted that we would host the gathering again, but they didn't realise that Hubs is one who will offer to be host year after year ... that's him. I was glad to have the opportunity to focus on canapes and desserts, for once!

I tried to re-create a very delicious smoked salmon canape I had tasted not so long ago. I bought some sweet mini pie crust (to standby) in case the baked mini bread cups didn't turn out. In the end, it was the mini bread cups that won most support. I also goggled for help with bruschetta and did the most basic one.

I tried to make tzatziki to go with the smoked salmon so it won't be too dry. This being the first time I am making it blind (without tasting it before), I had to rely on how my tongue (and my kids') reacted to it. Well, to me, it played a quite role of keeping the canape moist and let the smoked salmon dominate. I am happy with the result as the kids kept asking for more!

For dessert, I made a Rum Peach Pie and a Chocolate Banana Pie. I also made Bubur Cha Cha, my very first attempt and a last minute decision. Thanks to the internet and KC forum, I found many ideas and recipes. How do you like the Rum Pech Tart, recipe thanks to HHB.

Blessed Christmas

2008-12-26T00:28:00.002+08:00

Here's wishing all my friends a happy and blessed Christmas.

I promised a friend photos of what I served at our cosy family Christmas Eve dinner. I am happy with the result of the honey plum roast pork, finally. I made Oxtail Stew at my sister-in-law's request and they loved it.

I brought the items below to our office gathering on Tuesday. I completed the crustless quiche in record time! Those who tasted it enjoyed it and I intend to keep practising. Hubs brought one bottle of Cornflakes Minicups to his office party. He had asked for another bottle of it for his colleague. As for peanut butter fans, guess which item appealed to them most?

Steamed Glutinous Rice

2008-12-22T23:16:00.003+08:00

This is one dish the 2 guys at home really enjoy. My son loves anything made with glutinous rice but I have to limit his intake as old people would say that kids are not able to digest it well. Besides, he will soon be obese if we don't start to control his food intake. As for hubs, he totally loves the steamed glutinous rice from a certain stall at the Tiong Bahru Market & Food Centre.

After tasting Gina's version at the KC Hi-Tea recently, I told myself that I had to try it out again. While there is nothing rocket science about this dish, practice is the key to success. I used the recipe from here.

I remembered that my first attempt at it did not yield any memorable results as there were some uncooked rice. This time around, there wasn't any uncooked bit but the rice could be a little softer. I'll have to add slightly more water to it. As I wanted to have a "white" version, I omitted all the dark sauces and used oyster sauce instead. That yielded a somewhat brownish appearance. Guess I would have to leave oyster sauce out as well if I want a totally white version.

I thought that I could also increase the taste quotient of this next time. However, my boy said this worked just fine for him. Hubs still misses that version from Tiong Bahru... a taste of childhood, maybe?

Madeleine, oh Madeleine

2008-12-18T22:54:00.003+08:00

This is worth every effort in making. For the first time since I began baking, these babies were consumed all within 6 hours! I baked them this morning so we would have some light snacks while the children enjoyed themselves at Wild Wild Wet. My little niece was the biggest fan of these chocolate lemon madeleines, she kept asking for more.

The recipe is taken from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme by Dorie Greenspan. I had to wait a few weeks after reserving the book online. I must say that it is an interesting recipe that I would definitely try again soon. Besides, the madeleine trays are screaming for attention.

I would also need the practice of rubbing the sugar with lemon zest as I kept wondering if I had done that step well. There wasn't much hint of lemon, or that could have been over-shadowed by the varlhona cocoa powder... Overall, I would say that these are really chocolatey, yum!

Apple Sauce & Cinnamon Cupcakes

2008-12-13T10:26:00.001+08:00

Aren't they so cute? The tiny donut-shaped cakes are made with the same batter as the cupcakes. They are made with a simple recipe which my sister-in-law gave me long ago. She has been eating my bakes and she wanted to share this really simple recipe with me.

It's really simple, equal amounts of sugar, self-raising flour and butter; with some cinnamon, 2 eggs and a bottle of apple sauce (I used baby food!). Beat all together till smooth and bake. I didn't have a particularly easy time trying to fill the donut tray, though. Next time, I'll try piping definitely.

I suspect that I could have over-compensated for the slightly "old" flour as the cupcakes turned out a little too wet for my liking. However, my friend S said they were perfect and she liked the texture of the cupcakes! Well, since these were done especially for her, that should be considered a success. Besides, my children kept popping the mini donuts into their mouths. If I didn't stop them to take photo of the mini-donuts, they would have been gone in under 15 minutes. I hope S tries to bake it ...

Of Quiche and Good Times

2008-12-10T21:31:00.009+08:00

It's not true that I MADE this quiche, well at least not entirely. All I did was prepare the shortcrust pastry and laid it onto the pie pan. The custard and filling were prepared by Gina and that was what gave flavour to the whole dish. She made it look so easy or perhaps I had not bothered to find out previously.

I had tasted quiche but don't remember liking what I had tasted. So I never bothered to look up recipes for quiche. This was one of the dish presented at the first Hi Tea Buffet held by Kitchen Capers and Chef's Secrets Cooking Studio.

When I knew that Gina and Amy, co-owner of Chef's Secrets, were going to prepare and cook a day before the buffet, I volunteered to help. I had been taking a break from baking for too long and thought this would end the drought of not baking. It sure did!

I rubbed butter into flour and kneaded till it was pliable. Without guidance from the two teachers, I would not have learnt one important thing. The crust which I made previously were too dry! That explained why I was unable to roll the dough, even after chilling it for 30 minutes! Now I know...

Below is a picture of some of the food served, just a few of the many yummy items served.

Korean Pancake

2008-11-27T18:24:00.002+08:00

It's been a really long time since my last post, I had been away was one reason. The other, I have not found any recipe that inspired me to take out the mixer and spatula. I'm tempted to bake something for my colleague who will be celebrating her birthday this weekend, but I'm afraid she won't eat the cake as cakes are calorie-laden...

While chatting with a cyber friend, she told me about a particular Korean pancake premix that tasted amazing... ok, if you had seen what ingredients she added, it would be hardly surprising that the pancake DIDIN'T taste amazing. So, I visited the Korean grocery store near my home and found the same packet of Korean pancake premix! Oh, did I mention that she doesn't live in SG? Psst, this premix is supposedly FREE of MSG too!

Since I was on leave, I went out to the local wet market to buy Chives (or koo chye) and prawns. My friend insisted that I had to use chives as that's what makes the pancake yummy. Thankfully, my regular vegetable stall has a bunch remaining and sold them all to me without any hesitation.

From my experience with this pancake, I realised that a flat-based frying pan would give the best looking pancakes. As I used a wok, I ended up with slightly thin pancakes. My friend is right, the pancake tasted really delicious and this is something that I won't hesitate to serve my guests in future. It will be an interesting talking point too!

Memories are Made of These

2008-11-10T07:23:00.000+08:00

This was a request from my boy, he wanted breakfast that consisted of scrambled eggs, ham and sausage for breakfast. I promised him that I would prepare that for him and that happened about two weeks ago, on the last public holiday in October.

This reminded me of the time I spent as a SAHM (stay at home mom) from May/June 2000 to Sep 2001. He was barely 3 then and was an absolute joy to be around, as moms of little boys would attest to. Not that girls are not, but moms and daughters share different experience from moms and sons. I decided then to stay home full-time as the dotcom I was working in was going under and I felt that my girl needed some serious preparation for Primary 1. I am glad I did that and this breakfast brought back memories of all the moments I had spent with each of them.

I took so long to get this post up and got the nudge when I found that Happy Home Baking has tagged me! Gosh, I can proscrastinate no more... here goes 7 random facts about me:

1. After my stint as SAHM, I have absolute respect for all SAHM as I realised that my calling isn't that. I believe my kids appreciate me more when I get home after work, and vice versa too.
2. I, too, have a driivng license (as old as my son, I was in my 4th month with him) and the last time I drove was a couple of months back. I didn't go far, just forward for 500m? and reversed into a parking lot :P
3. I have taken a 2-week break from baking as I have been eating all the cakes (if I didn't give them away) on my own. Imagine the number on the scales when I finally had the courage to step on one!
4. Linked to the above, I am trying to reduce the number on the scale, so far, it's been uphill and the reduction is meagre.
5. I am big on inspiration, I seek to be inspired and hope to inspire anyone who needs it. I work with many young people and I see how they transform as they get ready to take their first step into the world of WORK.
6. I am (or specifically, my hair is) in need of a perm and colour, however, the hairstylist recommended that I improve the condition before I do further damage to it.
7. What else, but my wardrobe (or even life?) is in dire need of a serious "clean up". You won't believe, but I have almost a cupboard full (in my girl's room) of clothes that I have probably not worn in the past 12 months. These are mainly jackets and clothes that don't fit any more...

I'm tagging the following 7 bloggers, I hope they have fun with this meme
1. Rei at All That Matters
2. Aimei at Baking Cottage
3. SSB at Small Small Baker
4. KWF at Pure Enjoyment
5. Bernice at Bernice's Baking Journey
6. Emily at Misosa's Diary
7. Ting at Bake Me Happy

Here are the rules for tagging:

Link to my blog (tagger) on your blog.

Give seven facts about yourself.

Tag another seven bloggers by leaving a comment on their blogs and letting them know they were tagged and listing them (and their blogs) on your blog.

Banana Yogurt Cake

2008-10-21T20:25:00.005+08:00

If I did a count of the fruit I baked most with, then it has got to be bananas, with oranges a close second. I simply love baking with these two fruits! The aroma was so amazing, and it definitely didn't come from essence as none was used.

I was recently introduced to Greek yogurt, which is creamier but less sour than normal plain yogurt. Working with it initially was a challenge but I soon grew to like this better than the usual yogurt, which tends to be very watery. In my opinion, results of bakes with Greek yogurt comes closest to those with sour cream. I was told that recipes that call for sour cream, yogurt or buttermilk yield the best results. I have tried both sour cream and yogurt and I love both. I will find a chance to try baking with buttermilk. I am begining to be more selective with recipes under the good influence of a cyber friend :)

I managed to buy a tub of Greek yogurt over the weekend but there was only one size, 1 kg! Ideally, everything should be consumed within three days of opening. Imagine the stress of looking for the right recipe so that the yogurt won't go to waste. I had wasted half a tub about two months ago and felt so bad. I had just enough for one last cake and when hubs said he felt like having bananas, (which is really rare although he loves it) I encouraged him and looked for the nicest bunch with the most speckles.

And which recipe did i use? This one from Baking Bites of course! I cannot remember how many times I tried baking with this recipe, but today's result turned out best. Previous attempts were very moist due to the overdose of bananas. Today, however, the proportion of all the ingredients was just right. I must make a note of the amount of ingredients which I used today so that I can get the same result the next time.

I was pleasantly surprised with a call from my little 6 year-old niece. She called especially to tell me that she liked the banana cake and to "please cook it again, ok?" Of course, sweetie, I will definitely bake it again.

Orange Yogurt Cake

2008-10-17T07:56:00.000+08:00

A show of hands, please, how many of people (on this sunny island, at least) have encountered problems when using cups instead of the weighing scale? Perhaps it's just me but I would like to think that my problem, with the latest yogurt cake, lies not in the size of the cups but most likely in the size of the eggs. I bought this last batch of eggs from the market, 10 for S$2.10. These are likely to be slightly bigger than 60g each.

I know I am not the only person who have problems with this recipe. I used oranges instead of grapefruit. After an earlier unsuccessful attempt with another yogurt cake, I approached this with a proper plan.

make a more conscious effort to scoop (and flatten) the 1.5 cups of flour
mix the eggs, yogurt and sugar together, then add oil (to prevent over mixing flour later)
use the balloon whisk to fold in flour, not more than 15 strokes (a tip I found here, see "Batters")
bake at a slightly lower temperature (than 180 deg C).

With all the above checked, I put the tray in to bake. All looked and smelled well, and I drenched the cake with OJ from two oranges. And waited... but I could wait no longer and cut the cake when it was cooled enough.

After uttering a silent prayer, I picked up one piece of cake. I should have suspected when there wasn't any crumbs, it's another kueh :(

Sago, Say Me

2008-10-13T21:17:00.002+08:00

Did I mention that I am a TV addict, and that my fave channels on cable is Asian Food Channel (AFC, Channel 69) and Discovery Travel & Living (Channel 16)? That's also because our subscription plan does not include any of the chinese channels, that explains why I am not watching the drama serials on cable channels.

Back to my fave channels, I simply love and enjoy very much any programme that features, what else but food! That said, I do have my preference and lately, Food Safari caught my attention. Ok, from what I gather so far, it's about the different types of food found in Australia, either from restaurants or people's homes.

In recent episodes, they featured both food from Singapore and Malaysia. And something caught my girl's eyes -- sago gula melaka. I didn't follow the recipe on AFC, though, as the idea of eating raw egg white doesn't rest well with me. But I think the egg white will give another dimension to the otherwise bland sago. There is a lot of room for improvement and the result was not too bad for a first attempt. Prior to this, I had neither made nor tasted this. As expected, my girl went "ooohhh, taste a lot like coconut..." By the way, she is no fan of coconuts, in any form.

Rum Raisin Pound Cake

2008-10-12T23:51:00.001+08:00

I have been reading a few chinese cook books lately. All of them feature simple and beautiful cakes. These books are regularly featured on a few blogs and so I visited the library's website to reserve them. I especially enjoyed Delicious!! Baked Cakes, Ikuko Omori, BUT, I was also very frustrated when I found some pages of the book missing! The pages were torn so meticulously and indicated that it was a pre-meditated act. How anyone can be so selfish is really beyond comprehension, not only did I have to pay to borrow it (ok, it's a small sum), I had to wait a few weeks for it. Gosh!

So, I turned to a previously tested recipe and was totally blown away with the result. Perhaps it's due to my obsession with rum & raisins, but the texture of the cake is really something. It's soft and moist, almost like "melt in your mouth". I used light sour cream this time and I have reasons to believe that this version is better than the previous attempt. As for the recipe, it's a pound cake, so use your imagination...

Finally Posting

2008-10-07T22:19:00.002+08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. There are a number of factors, work and personal matters have been keeping me busy. It felt like an extended PMS, one that lasted a few weeks. Thanks to my friends in the blogging community who emailed me, it's a really warm cyber community. I would have baked tonight had I not run out of caster sugar...

I have been baking during this period but I didn't post because I had been baking numerous banana cakes since baking Nigella's banana rum cake. So I figured it was a little meaningless to keep posting about banana cakes.

I also tried baking 3 chiffon cakes, all I can say is that I am out of practice. They were all lousy to look at, but I still ate three-quarters of the 2 orange chiffon cakes. I added cointreau to the batter and that added another dimension to the taste. I would probably not be baking without liquour, if I can help it.

During the past few weeks, I added more toys to my collection as well. I went to Shermay's as they were having a sale for microplane graters. When I got there, I could not resist buying the packet of 3 different zesters/graters. The packet was priced at a real bargain, all for under S$100. Then I picked up 2 silicon madeleine moulds from Pantry Magic as well. I really love the microplane zester, it seems that orange and lemon zest taste and smell much better now! That was why I baked 2 orange chiffon cakes and 1 lemon chiffon cake (sadly, without liquour).

Mango Sago Smoothie

2008-09-14T20:28:00.006+08:00

It's the fifteen day of the eighth month, according to the lunar calendar. That's what my dad told me when I asked him to help me get a pomelo this morning. It's the day where sellers over charge for everything related to the Mid Autum Festival (中秋节), he said. I'm not sure how expensive the pomelo costed eventually as the deal was, if it were exorbitant he would not get any for me. I got one anyway. The way I see it, if they are left with so much stock, that won't make much business sense. So, it doesn't make sense for them to over charge on the actual day, I guess.

I searched the web for something appropriate to write on this auspicious day, and found the lyrics of a song, 月圆花好 by 周璇:

浮云散明月照人来
团圆美满今朝最
清浅池塘鸳鸯戏水
红裳翠盖并蒂莲开
双双对对恩恩爱爱
这园风儿向着好花吹
柔情蜜意满人间

I won't try to translate that as I'm sure I'll be really far off. I'm sure the song is about how this is such a special day for couples, and everything is sweet and happy. Here's wishing everyone a happy and joyous time with loved ones.

As for me, I tried re-making something I ate a lot of during my trip to Hong Kong last year. I remember ordering this dessert 杨枝甘露, which can be called mango sago smoothie. I found that in Hong Kong, some stalls added coconut milk, something I don't especially enjoy.

My sister-in-law made something like this recently, and I thought I would try making it on my own version. I am glad that own concoction turned out pretty good. Room for improvement, of course, but not bad for my first attempt.

Black Sesame Delight

2008-09-13T17:14:00.006+08:00

I was very curious when I first saw this post on Florence's blog. She had described it as a "sweet and delicate dessert". Click here for a more in-depth explanation of what blanc manger is.

I agree wholeheartedly that it is a very delicate dessert. Notice that I didn't even take it out from the mould? I had removed one and for some reason, it could not stand upright for long, and started to fall a little shorter in a short while. It didn't break, though, just looked really, stout.

I had followed the recipe closely except for the part about black sesame paste. I could not find any and so used a sachet of instant black sesame paste (芝麻糊) mixed with very little hot water. I supposed the version Florence used is much thicker as mine turned out looking very very light with almost no frangrance of black sesame at all. For the next try, I would probably use the whole sachet instead.

This dessert was so light and refreshing that my boy liked it so much. The two of us probably finished the whole batch of this blanc manger. It tasted very much like mousse, and I'm glad I had used non-diary whipping cream! So, I was very much guilt-less as I ate the whole cup on my own.

This will definitely be my number choice for an "elegant" dessert for the next dinner party. Besides, it is something that can be prepared well in advance. All I need is to find something equally elegant to serve them in. Perhaps I won't even remove them from the cups...

Banana Chocolate Cake

2008-09-11T21:12:00.002+08:00

Surprise, surprise, yet another banana cake, you must be thinking. We don't usually buy bananas as fruit, as I am carbo-averse. Hubs, lets just say he has a sensitive stomach... my girl loves bananas, only found out this week though, when we had a overflowing (over-ripening flow) of bananas at home. In total, I had purchased between 15 and 18 bananas just to experiment with Nigella's Banana Rum Cake.

September seems to be a busy month of birthdays. My girl had her birthday on Monday and she asked me to help her bake a cake for her friend! I seem to have become the "official baker" and have to bake presents on her behalf too. So I got her involved, afterall, it was HER present for her friend, right? She made the stencil by cutting out the letters "Happy B'day XT" on a piece of paper. Ok, the words looked a little fuzzy :P I have since bought 4 wilton stencils for cake decorations to cope with such requests to bake birthday presents, erm, cakes.

This cake was easy to bake as well, just stir and bake. Of course, there was the additional step of melting chocolates and butter. My kids love this cake, that was what they said anyway. Next time I bake this, I would cover the top with a layer of ganache as it has lots of small holes all over. This is also a kids-friendly cake (read: no alcohol).

Banana Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

90g self-raising (SR) flour, 90g all-purpose (AP) flour
1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 170g butter
1 tbsp corn oil, 150g chocolate
100ml hot water, 80ml milk
170g brown sugar, 3 eggs
200g bananas (sliced)

Method

Grease and line 10cm x 32 cm baking tin. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.

Combine SR and AP flour, baking powder, soda and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.

Melt butter, oil, chocolate, hot water and milk over low heat. Remove from heat, combine with brown sugar and eggs.

Stir egg mixture into flour mixture together with banana slices until well blended.

Spoon batter into prepared tin. Bake in oven for 40-45 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 10 minutes before turning on to wire rack to cool.

Decorate with ganache, bananas and/or chocolate chips (optional).

Source: Easy Stir 'n Bake Cakes by Kevin Chai

Banana Rum Cake

2008-09-10T22:31:00.005+08:00

I doubt I would be baking any regular banana cake after this. Afterall, this is so easy to put together as well. A cyber friend in Hong Kong told me that she had baked a banana cake with rum-soaked raisins and walnuts. When I looked at her photograph, I couldn't help but want to try to bake it myself. Besides, I had received a copy of Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddes since last Christmas.

The recipe looked fairly simple and there are many resources, even videos, easily available on the internet. I didn't even need to use a mixer. It was so easy to make that I made it twice this week. The picture above is the improved version as the first one had a huge crack in the middle. My mistake with the first attempt was wrong oven temperature. The cake was dark and cracked, it also looked really dry. However, it was very soft and tasty, especially on the second day. I shared the first loaf with my group of tasters and they gave their "stamp of approval" saying that the cake was "nice and moist". That encouraged me to bake another batch for a dear friend, whom I'll be meeting tomorrow.

On VB's advice, I tented the pans during baking to see if I would get a better result. And I'm glad I did that, as the cakes turned out so beautiful -- without any cracks! For the second attempt, I even brushed the top of the cakes with some rum! I was determined to intoxicate anyone who consumes the cake! I can't wait to see my friend's reaction tomorrow.

Now, to show you version one, see the crack and difference in colour? It looked dry and hard too, but tasted great even on the third day.

She's a Teenager

2008-09-08T00:11:00.001+08:00

What d'ya know? My first-born little girl is officially a teenager, she turns 13 today. I can't help but recall all the excitment that surrounded us while we waited for her arrival. She is the first grandchild for both paternal and maternal sides. That naturally meant she is eagerly anticipated by both sets of grandparents, and both of us.

Being people who do not like to be unprepared, we chose to have an induced birth on 8 September 1995, it was a Friday. This day is also the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Sister Ma at the Mt Alvernia Hospital told me that we had chosen a good day to have our baby. (Yes, we are Roman Catholics).

Most, if not all, mothers would agree that everything is pure anticipation for the first-timer. When my doctor told me that it was going to be a "long-haul" I wasn't quite sure what to make of his comment. It was then past 9.00 am and epidural had just started. It wasn't until 5.30 pm that we finally met her. And boy, did she look exactly like her daddy! (In fact, she still looks exactly like him!) I was told later by another mother, whom I met at the ante-natal class, that in Thai culture (she was from Thailand) they believe that if a little girl she looked like her father, then she would be really fortunate. With God's blessings, I'm sure she would be blessed with good fortune too.

Officially, I didn't bake her any cakes as she had requested for a chilled marshmellow cake. It had to be purple, no less. As I could not get any blueberries in time, I had to resort to using food colouring, as she had insisted as well. She cut the cake with 4 of her classmates, who came over on Saturday to complete some holiday projects. When a group of young girls get together, one can expect lots of giggling, chuckling and screaming. They happily ordered fast food by phone, while we were out. In all, I'm sure she had a really good time on Saturday.

We hosted a small get-together on Saturday night, as it was another friend's birthday. So we bought a chocolate cake to celebrate both their birthdays.

Lemon Lavender Cookies

2008-08-31T21:17:00.005+08:00

Oh, how time flies! At the blink of an eye, it's the end of August now. It's been 9 months and 9 days since this blog was conceived. For Chinese, the number 9 sounds the same as "forever" and I wonder how long I can sustain this interest in baking and blogging.

I have a bottle of dried lavender waiting to be used. Drinking lavender tea is an acquired taste, initially it was like drinking air freshner, but after a while, it was quite soothing. Afterall, it's property is calming and it's supposed to be pain relieving too. I cannot remember what other flower goes well with lavender so I have been drinking it on its own.

So naturally when I saw a recipe using lavender, I was intrigued and keen to try it out. Besides, it also calls for lemon. Since taking up baking, I realised that I love citrus fruits, especially lemon and lime. Their zest add to the aroma during baking. Even the lavender gave off a wonderful aroma, but it does need some getting used to.

I first saw it on Mandy's blog and later on Happy Home Baking's blog. I encountered a similar experience as HHB, where the dough was really soft. I had some trouble rolling and wrapping it with cling wrap. Fortunately, after a little struggle, I managed to wrapped them up and placed the 2 rolls into the freezer.

I baked them after 45 mins to 1 hour. I could not wait to taste it, and tried one as soon as it was cool enough. It simjply melted in my mouth! As for taste, let's stick with "acuquired" taste.

Oatmeal Cookies

2008-08-28T23:36:00.010+08:00

I have been looking out for a good oatmeal cookie recipe to try for the longest time. I was addicted with oatmeal cookies after tasting those made and sold at Wooden Spoon, a small bakeshop at Beach Road. They sell the most incredible scones, yum yum. These scones are sold out by lunch time. On one occassion when their scones were all sold out, I could not walk away empty handed. So I bought a box of their oatmeal cookie and boy was I blown away when I tried one.

When I saw this recipe on Amanda's blog, I told myself that I had to try it one day. Since it's the eve of Teachers' Day celebrations in schools, I told myself to just go ahead to bake them. I was keen to try the recipe and suspected that my girl would probably ask me for something to bring. And true enough! She asked if she could bring the cookies for her teachers while I was making the dough. She said she needed 8 packets, then she wanted 2 more for her primary school teachers. Later, when her friend found out about the cookies, she asked if she could have one to give to her CCA teacher as well.

In all, we packed about 11 packets (about 5 to 6 cookies each) and my girl brought the balance to school to share. By the time everything was cooled and packed, it was past her bedtime. I had to grab my camera and stole a few shots quickly.

I followed Amanda's recommendation of reduced sugar (I used 155g of brown sugar) and 2 tsp of cinnamon powder. Air was filled with slight aroma of cinnamon but I could barely taste it. If I have time to bake them longer, say at least 15 mins, they would probably be more crispy. It's a good recipe, give it a try!

Anko Soy Parfait

2008-08-26T23:38:00.002+08:00

I once heard a relative comment that since she could not (or did not enjoy) cooking, she decided that she would focus all her efforts in perfecting different desserts. I thought that was a pretty good strategy as her mother-in-law is a really fantastic cook among the relatives. So, no point competing in the same area, right? Since venturing into world of baking and desserts, I have learnt these are not "easy" to prepare and call for lots of 功夫 (skills).

I won't say that I have a sweet tooth and in recent years, I've cut down on sugar so much that I take coffee and soy milk without sugar. Since taking up baking, I've consumed more sugar, much to the detriment of my initial goal of keeping my weight consistent (ideally, no weight gain, but honestly, how can that be possible?) So, it's always a challenge for me to balance sweetness so that whatever is prepared would appeal to everyone (so that I won't be the ONLY person eating it). My girl always says "Mummy, it's only sweet to YOU..."

Back to this latest trial. I first saw it on Florence's blog after this year's Chinese New Year. I thought it was an interesting recipe and would probably be a talking point at dinner parties. I finally found the chance to give it a try.

In terms of preparation, it was really easy! As I wanted it to appeal to more people, I used Meiji low fat milk instead of sugar-free soy milk. Even then, the taste of soy was still prominent. It tasted very much like silken 豆花 (bean curd). However, I found it too sweet especially when taken with the anko (azuki bean paste). I used Japanese canned anko, available at Daiso, and didn't expect it to be so sweet as well. I'm wondering, what else I can pair this soy parfait with...

First Decorated Cake

2008-08-25T09:42:00.008+08:00

After various attemps, this was the cake I baked for my son, who turns 10 today. The cake was presented on Saturday, when we invited some close friends over for a small celebration. He insisted on putting mini oreos on the sides. I had originally wanted to decorate it like Mandy's. But my boy simply refused to let me use the chocolate wafer sticks.

For the cake, I followed HHB's ever-reliable sponge cake recipe and simply replaced 10g of cake flour with 10g of Varlhona cocoa powder. Somehow, when I touched the cake, it didn't appear to be as soft as the vanilla version. I followed a fellow blogger's suggestion to apply chocolate ganache and creme chantilly on the cake. I realised afterwards that I should have been a lot more generous with the creme (non-diary whipping + sugar + a dash of rum).

As this would be my first attempt in covering the cake, the creme was all over! I also made the mistake of using a cake base that was too small! After covering whatever I could all around the cake, I had to think of something to hide the top! Laying more oreo would be what my boy would have liked but it would be an overkill. Nuts were out of the question as the kids dislike having nuts on or in cakes. So, I thought of covering with cocoa powder instead, and it worked.

At the end of the whole exercise, my boy declared that he wanted a store-bought cake for the small gathering. I was devastated! Naturally, I could understand that he was bored from tasting all the trials -- I had been practising Rei's chocolate yogurt cake recipe. The first one failed as I got a real hard but super chocolatey kueh. The second attempt was slightly more successful but the taste of yogurt was a tad too strong. So the boy probably concluded that this cake wasn't up to standard to "face public scrutiny".

However, on Saturday, after he bought his birthday present, a DS Lite games cartridge (and he is now targeting the PSP) he totally didn't want to spend more time looking for a cake. He just wanted to go home! I was like what? Now you want mummy's cake, omg, will the cake be up to expectations as I had baked it on Thursday? ...

As expected, the cake was a little dry and the oreo biscuits were, well, soft. I had placed a layer of Loacker dark chocolate waffers in the middle. I suspect that I should have broken them up as suggested by a fellow blogger. In all, it was a good exercise as I had learnt many valuable lessons for future cakes and decoration. Bracing myself for my girl's cake in two weeks and she has decided on a non-bake/chilled cake, in the likes of strawberry hearts, without the strawberries.

Peach Ice-Cream Cake

2008-08-19T23:02:00.002+08:00

Oh, I'm so proud of myself on two counts: first, for successfully baking a wonderfully soft sponge cake (thanks HHB for the recipe) and secondly, for pulling off the assembly of this cake. It's a big sigh of relief as my earlier trials of baking a sponge cake, let's just say they were nowhere near "successful".

I must say, the cake needs to be further decorated before it can "face the world". For home consumption, it was enough. We don't need any more unnecessary calories tagging on. As we were too eager to taste it, the cake was still fairly frozen. Before consumption, it should probably be thawed :P Ice-cream is homemade as featured previously.

I have trying out and practising to bake birthday cakes for my two darlings' birthday. Boy's in August and two weeks later in September, for my girl's. While I have partly succeeded for my girl's (sponge cake portion only :S I'm still not sure what to use as fillings!) I am still trying to bake a chocolate cake that meets my boy's liking (first attempt turned out like a kueh...)

Oxtail Stew

2008-08-16T21:37:00.003+08:00

This is one recipe that I've been searching for the longest time. Basically, everyone at home loves beef stew and I have been looking for different recipes that will interest them.

The first beef stew was tomato based with lots of vegetables. I got really tired of that recipe fast. Then I learnt of a recipe from a friend's mom, and that one soon became a fast favourite of my girl. She doesn't eat much meat as a young child. But she loved beef stew, I suspect it's due to the soft and tender beef.

When I served them this dish tonight, they quickly endorsed it as a "keeper". As usual, mashed potatoes is a must have to accompany any beef (or oxtail) stew. I started cooking the stew since last night. I also added potatoes, carrots and turnips into the stew.

I got the recipe from Kitchen Capers. Thanks Gina!

Mini Chocolate Muffins

2008-08-14T00:17:00.002+08:00

I won't claim that I am proud of this batch of mini muffins, especially since it's for my girl's cca party (finally). The original item just won't cooperate and due to the late notice ... "mummy, the party is tomorrow (8 Aug), what are you baking for me?"

"Omigosh, tomorrow? That's like how much notice?" I thought. The poor girl didn't know as they kept postponing the party, which was also a farewell party for the teacher-in-charge. I was planning to try this recipe out that night as I was looking around for something interesting and found this on Happy Home Baking.

Muffins are supposedly "easiest to bake" but somehow, I still have not gotten the hang of doing it right. This is my archilles' heel and I tend to over-mix most of the time. I can't seem to be able to accept that small lumps of batter is FINE. While I had long stopped stirring/mixing, I could have inadvertently "stirred" the batter some more as I scooped the batter to till 40 mini cups.

My girl said they looked "normal" as, I guessed, she was hoping to dazzle her friends with some extraordinary items baked by "my mummy". ("So good, your mummy bakes everyday!") I felt so lousy for not being able to live up to her expectations. I read somewhere, that women tend to want to please everybody. As (working) mothers, we have even more people to please, don't we?

After I had finished packing these into a box for her, I realised that I had planned to make these. Rei's little girl had such a good time decorating them. When I told my girl about this, she said "then you should have!" My heart fell further and I knocked myself for not remembering them. I told her that I will make them for her next party.

That's why this post is so late ...

Musing about Granola

2008-08-10T22:48:00.008+08:00

Is it muesli or granola? I thought granola came in the form of a bar, while they are called muesli when they are uncooked and not bound together. After keying in the question "difference between muesli and granola", there were several results and I went with this one.

Since this has been coated with maple syrup and honey and toasted, it fits the description of granola. I need to get a special gift, something which is home-made would be best. It's for my colleague, JT who will be quitting to play mom to her fast growing boys. Eldest will be going to army soon, number 2 will be sitting for A levels next year, and the youngest will be doing PSLE in 2 years, just like my boy. Guess if one has been experiencing fatigue at work, it's best to either take a break or just call it quits. My colleague is fantastic at what she does and she has been carrying out her craft with her heart and total commitment. So much so that she must have felt she had been short-changing her boys. Mothers will always feel guilty if their kids had to take a back-seat while they build their career. I'm glad JT is able to be there for her family although I'll miss having her area at work. She is so kind and easy to work with, she has never given me any hard time. There are very few like her at work.

I came across this wonderful granola recipe at Grace's Kitchen Corner. I bought mainly organic ingredients such as rolled oats, sunflower seeds, and raisins. I also added dried cranberries and apples, as well as chopped almonds and walnuts. I used the remaining maple and honey syrup I had in the fridge to bound these altogether. They were then toasted for a while.

I was surprised by the taste and texture. While muesli tends to be a little dry and somewhat "raw", this granola is crispy and a little sweet. My girl could not resist and tried some. Being a non-nut lover, she found it a little too "nutty" for her. I may try it with yogurt tomorrow as breakfast. I deliberately added lots of dried fruits, not only for texture but also for colour.

11 Aug: This morning's breakfast, granola with yogurt and blueberries :)

Vanilla Yogurt Pound Cake

2008-08-08T08:08:00.001+08:00

I baked this pound cake so many weeks ago but didn't have time to post it. A very sweet cyber friend (you know who you are) shared this secret recipe with me, thanks! It's a very delicious and simple pound cake, and I love it.

Unfortunately cannot post the recipe, but you should be able to guess what went into baking it. Use only good quality stuff and your pound cake will be most delicious.

Happy National Day!

Mochi Bread

2008-07-31T23:57:00.001+08:00

Ok, I'm a little behind time for the mochi bread craze. I had the package for so long but didn't have the urge to bake it till recently. Even then, I didn't post immediately. This precious bag of pre-mix is from my korean colleague's wife. I had asked to piggy-back on their grocery order (done online) and since it was out of stock, Mrs H spared me a package. Kam-sa-ha-mida.

It's really really easy to put together. Just add one egg and 70 ml of milk to the flour, knead together to form dough. Divide the dough into 40g a piece (*I will make them smaller next time, probably 30g each) and roll into a ball. Bake at 180 deg C for 25 mins. You'll get these precious little balls with a chewy interior. Super yums! My daughter asked me to bake more! Guess I would have to try my luck at some Korean supermarket...

Hong Zhao Ji

2008-07-27T22:08:00.003+08:00

Thanks very much to Rei, she gave me a bottle of Red Glutinous Rice Wine and jar of wine lees. It's so kind of her to do so. She even posted a recipe on how to use these gems!

As we are not fans of chicken breast meat, I used 1 kg of chicken mid-wings instead. The dish is not decorated with cilantro nor scallions as we do not particularly like them. As a result, I tend to not remember to buy them.

I did not have the privilege of tasting this dish, 红糟鸡 after the birth of both my children, more than 10 years ago. My friend told me that her mom, who is Hock Chew, is looking for authentic Red Glutinous Rice Wine for her confinement in September. Of course, I'll be happy to hook her up with dear Rei and let them work out the details.

I tend to like stronger flavours in my food (重口味), so I followed the recipe exactly even though I had only 1 kg of chicken wings. As I had excess ginger juice left, almost 1.5 tbsp, I added it to the gravy. The gravy was a little bitter although it wasn't obvious. But we completely finished the portion I served tonight. I saved the rest in the freezer to be consumed in the weeks to come.

Mango Cake

2008-07-18T23:11:00.003+08:00

This is the latest craze among several bloggers, Easy Stir 'n Bake Cakes. Indeed these cakes are really easy to bake, tasty, and soft! I was worried that they were not baked. I baked 3 cakes between 5.30 pm and 9.30 pm tonight. No mixer required, just a whisk.

Of particular interest is this Mango Cake. Can you see the mango cubes? It makes the cake really really soft but I think I would just puree all the mango in future. I'm not sure if there's too much liquid in the batter, the cake looks a little like kuey. As I didn't have any mango essence, I used konnayku flavouring instead. I may just go and pick up a few more mangos to try this again.

Mango Cake

Ingredients
100g plain flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
100g caster sugar (reduced by 10g, depending on mango's sweetness)
80 ml corn oil (I used 65g canola oil)
150g mango (diced)
50g mango puree
50g glazed cherries (chopped)
1/2 tsp mango essence (I used konnyaku flavouring)

Method
1. Grease a 20 cm (8 inch) cake ring.
2. Combine plain flour, baking powder and soda in a mixing bowl.
3. Combine eggs, sugar and oil. Stir into flour mixture with diced mango, mango puree, cherries and mango essence until well blended.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven at 175 deg C for 35-40 minutes. Stand for 10 minutes and turning on to wire rack to cool.
5. Dust with icing sugar.

Source: Easy Stir 'n Bake Cakes by Kevin Chai

Celebrating 100 Posts

2008-07-16T22:13:00.009+08:00

Celebrating Yuri's Bake Journal's 100th post today! Hip Hip Hurray! I cannot believe that I've reached this milestone in under a year. I raked my brain to find something to signify this achievement. I was somewhat happy that I was too busy and worn out with fatigue to bake last week.

My girl requested that I bake something for her CCA party on Friday, she asked for a chocolate pie. But I wasn't keen to make pies, and definitely not the same pie again. Then I remembered seeing something interesting, check it out here. Now, that's something worthwhile and pretty to mark post number 100.

HOWEVER, that was not to be. Firstly, I am unable to steam bake the cheesecake, as my microwave oven is too small. So, I thought perhaps I could buy a no-frills cheesecake from the supermarket! Then I found out that I could get a cheesecake from one of the Japanese restaurants. Eventually, I bought a frozen baked cheesecake from the supermarket instead as I couldn't wait to try. I found that even though the cheesecake was frozen, it wasn't easy to work with it. The cake went soft so quickly and the balls just won't be round. I emailed Passionate about Baking to find out about her experience. She provided some suggestions, but I didn't want to take the chance of having my girl bring sub-standard stuff to the party.

Then she recommended making chocolate coated cornflakes. Bingo! I remembered this from Nigella Lawson, Chocolate Caramel Crispy Cakes. I had book-marked this recipe for so long, in fact, I had once bought 4 Mars bars thinking I would try it out. But the folks at home ate all the Mars bars before I could do anything! I was also very distracted then with many other things, possibly chiffon cakes.

And so, this Chocolate Caramel Crispy Cakes became the star of the 100th post. My daughter was very enthusiastic and she decorated them. She was so happy to finally have the chance to make use of my collection of toppings. She was the only one who tasted them and she said they were delicious. Of course, they are delicious, I added more chocolates, which explains the deeper colour. The aroma of chocolate was mesmerising as well, perhaps that was why I didn't feel like tasting any. She wants me to make another batch so that she can bring some to share with her primary school friends on Saturday.

Beef Ball Soup

2008-07-15T22:38:00.002+08:00

What you see above is not what I started out to cook. I made a friend through flickr and she taught me a lot about cooking and baking. She also has exacting standards and a very discerning palate. I sometimes feel ashamed of my own cooking and baking. Perhaps it's due to my family's lack of demand for high standard food.

I used a combination of spices and method, this would be quite close to what I actually used/did. As there was quite a bit of watery gravy, I added more stock. I then added some japanese somen, beef balls, fish balls and bean sprouts. I also shredded the beef. Somehow, the beef didn't turn out the way it's supposed to. Perhaps I had cooked it in the pressure cooker for too long. But my folks liked it this way... so, it's a mistake that turned out well, don't you think?

Pineapple Cake

2008-07-10T21:18:00.003+08:00

The Pineapple Upsidedown Cake was the first cake that I baked when I started this baking and blogging journey. I love the taste and texture of it and have been wanting to bake it again.

I recently bought a cake ring, which to me, is very multipurpose -- can be used for cake or bread. As I didn't have time nor energy to bake any bread, I chose to revisit the pineaple cake. But I didn't have any pineapple rings, only pineapple cubes, so I laid them around the bottom of the pan. Of course, it would have been perfect if there were more diced pineapples.

It's a really simple and idoit-proof cake and I made half the recipe. Try it!

Pineapple Upsidedown Cake

Ingredients
240g butter

200g castor sugar
4 eggs

240 self-raising flour, sifted
4 tbsp pineapple syrup
Pineapple rings and glazed cherries

Method
1. Arrange pineapple rings into a lined and well-greased 22 cm round baking pan. Put half a red cherry in the centre of the pineapple ring. Keep aside.
2. Put butter and castor sugar into the mixing bowl and cream till light.

3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Fold in sifted flour, 1/3 at a time. Mix in pineapple syrup till well-combined.
5. Pour cake mixture on top of pineapple rings and spread evenly.
6. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg C for 45 minutes till golden brown and cooked.
7. Remove, leave to cool before inverting it onto a serving plate to show the pineapple rings on top.

Source: Baking Made Easy by Agnes Chang

Homemade Coleslaw

2008-07-06T23:14:00.002+08:00

The truth is, coleslaw isn't something I would normally order, unless it comes free. As one would get with western food at the food courts. That was until I tried a homemade coleslaw by my friend's domestic helper. They served it along with the rest of the barbeque spread during their recent housewarming party. It was so refreshing, hubs could not stop eating, and neither could I. Perhaps we were famished.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this post by Cookbake Legacy. I was naturally curious and ventured to the original post where the recipe is. I was surprised by the ingredients that went into the dressing, other than what I dreaded most, mayonnaise. So I chose the Japanese version of mayonnaise, and used up the remaining of my honey mustard and bought a new bottle of sweet relish. Honey mustard is a regular item in my fridge and sweet reslish has, sadly, been out of my mind for some time now. Well, it's time for a happy reunion!

What I learned from my first experience in putting together coleslaw, size is everything! Gosh, I realised that one cannot simply cut the whole section of cabbage and hope that they are nicely thin. My first attempt was a mess and everything was HUGE. As I didn't even finish the quarter section of the cabbage, I tried to cut more finely what remaining cabbage there was. The picture you see above, that was the second attempt. Still much room for improvement, and I'm glad that the children enjoyed it, especially my son.

No Venture, No Gain

2008-07-05T23:30:00.002+08:00

It's my first attempt at Sponge Dough Method. In his book, The World of Bread, Alex Goh described that this method needs a longer preparation time. As a result, it produces a softer, bigger loaf which keeps longer.

Compared to previous wholemeal loaves, it does seem a little bigger. Softer, it is not. In fact compared to the picture found in 孟老师的100道面包, it's a far cry. Even from the photo in the book, one can see that the dough was rolled up nicely. For mine, the dough was too sticky to be handled. No matter how much I oiled my hands, the dough would still stick.

But this will not be the end of Sponge Dough Method for me, not just yet. I was probably a little too eager and didn't allow enough time for the first dough to proof, only 90 minutes (according to the recipe), a far cry from Alex Goh's recommended 2 to 4 hours. I shall post the recipe later, so that shifus out there can dissect the problem with the sticky dough.

Get it Rolling!

2008-07-02T08:55:00.002+08:00

I have been a little under the weather lately, so haven't baked in many days. It's a case of the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. But looking at everyone's bakes and blogs, I'm really motivated to pick up the whisk soon.

Have you heard or seen the Foodie Blogroll? It's a wonderful network of people who share the same passion in baking, cooking, and well, food in general. I haven't had much time and energy to check out the Foodie Forum yet, but this journal been getting many new visitors. It's a facinating way to connect with more people, or just blog-hop for inspirations!

Try it today.

Enjoy Your Flight

2008-06-28T21:01:00.004+08:00

"Enjoy your flight!" That's what the staff would say cheerfully as we hopped on board the moving (very slowly) Singapore Flyer. Ordinarily, I doubt we would pay to go on such a ride, (adults pay S$29.50 and kids pay S$20.65), unless there was a good deal, eg, company's Family Day, etc.

My sweet 5-year-old niece had won a contest and the prize was 2 Singapore Flyer adult tickets. When her mummy asked who she would like to give the tickets to (as they have experienced the Singapore Flyer) she said "Pak Leong" (her daddy is my husband's younger brother). As the tickets were due to expire at the end of June, we had to go today.

As National Day is drawing near, we could see the rehearsal from the flyer. In fact, as we approached the Singapore Flyer, there was a flurry of activities at the Marina Bay Floating Platform. On our way up, the parade was formed up for the "President's" inspection. We also saw some navy vessels waiting for their cue to enter the performance area. My boy saw the cannons where the gunfire salute will be fired as well.

From the flyer, we saw where the pit stops will be when the F1 race comes to Singapore in September. Our family (other than my girl) are mild F1 fans. We would catch every race on TV whenever we can. We are mild fans as we won't even consider driving to Sepang to catch the race. We are not sure if we would bother to go down to Marina Square when the race comes to Singapore. I doubt very much as we can catch all the action on TV in the comfort of our home, without having to squeeze with the crowd. I doubt very much we would be able to catch a glimpse of any of the F1 drivers...

Back to our first ever experience on the giant observation wheel. For my girl, who confessed that she has a fear of heights (at 13, I guess I was afraid of heights too). Initially, she sat quietly on the bench but as the flyer ascended, she sat on the floor (to stay close to the ground). Even my dear husband's knees went a little wobbly. Now we know where my girl's fear of heights came from. My boy was busy snapping photos, and even got creative. He snapped through the lens of the binoculars! Check these out!

So, that was our first ever ride, er, flight on the Singapore Flyer. The experience gave me a chance to see everything from a very different angle/view. I now have my own photo of the Singapore skyline! Keep a lookout for special deals so you can experience the flyer too!

Stir, Pour and Bake

2008-06-26T22:57:00.004+08:00

This has got to be the easiest banana cake recipe I've tried. I started weighing the ingredients around 8 pm tonight and I was able to sit down to watch Chef at Home at 8.30 pm. If I had cracked the eggs directly into the mixing bowl with sugar and oil, that would leave 2 mixing bowls and a hand whisk for washing. Talk about easy.

Even the mixing was the easiest ever, and idoit-proof too. From what little experience I had with baking chiffon cakes, I applied the technique of whisking egg yolks here. The lumps of flour miraclously disappeared with just a few whisk. I would do away with folding in flour when I next try this again. As a result of the initial folding in of flour, and whisking later, that probably caused the huge hump and crack.

I came across this from Aunty Yochana's blog, where she shared a real easy banana cake recipe. As my kids do not like having nuts in cakes, I omitted the nuts altogether. Instead, I added a little cinnamon, as Gina mentioned that cinnamon enhances the flavour of bananas. Unfortunately, I was a little cautious and added just a dash. I also mashed the bananas instead of slicing them.

I must say the cake is really soft but since I reduced sugar by 10g, the cake is not sweet enough for most people. I find it alright as I have reduced my sugar intake for some time now. It could also be due to the relatively "just ripe" state of the bananas. I shall try this recipe for another friend who recently requested for a banana cake. For my next try, I may use melted butter instead of canola oil. Try it today!

Yogurt Biscuits

2008-06-18T00:01:00.003+08:00

This is an interesting recipe and since I have yogurt to finish up, why not? But I really don't like the taste of this yogurt after the chocolate ice-cream. I thought hard about what to add to give some flavour to the yogurt. I found a bottle of Heinz apple & mango sauce, which I bought as standby for baking cakes.

I first came across it on Kitchen Capers when Precious Moments posted her daily bake. The biscuits looked very fluffy and cute, which was what attracted me. Besides, I have been curious to find out what these western biscuits (actually quite bread-like) tasted like. My girl was also interested in helping as she loves to roll and cut the dough with cookie cutters.

I tried to be smart and bought many XL eggs. I had used 2 for this bake and the dough was simply too wet. The apple & mango sauce further contributed to the liquid and I could have added another cup of flour to the original recipe just to get the right consistency for the dough!

Yogurt Biscuits

Ingredients
3 cups plain flour
3/4 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsps baking powder

Method
Soften the butter and mix in yogurt (done manually with spatula).
Sift in flour, baking soda and baking powder.
Knead briefly and turn onto a lightly flour surface.
Roll out the dough into 1cm thick sheet. Cut using cookies biscuits.
Bake in pre-heated oven of 180 deg C for 15 mins, or till biscuits turn slightly brown.
Best served warm.

Adapted from: My Kitchen

Pound Cake... Again

2008-06-17T22:47:00.005+08:00

Ooh, I'm so happy with today's results. It's my second attempt at baking the Condensed Milk Pound Cake, and it turned out much better than my first try. I realised that I usually cannot achieve a good bake with non-metric recipes. Perhaps I'm not confident when measuring with cups and always gingerly scoop flour and sugar and end up messing up the whole recipe. Even when I try to convert to metric, it sometimes doesn't help. I would have to learn the trick or balancing the proportion of liquid to dry ingredients for a cake to work.

So, thanks to Rei she tried the same recipe from Simply Anne's and converted to something really convenient for me. I have always enjoyed working with Rei's recipes, as they usually turned out well for me. Also, she works out the proportion of the ingredients that almost always guarantees success. I also told her that her recipes are usually quite healthy, less fat and less sugar, I like!

If you like the smell of condensed milk and/or vanilla, you should give this a try. The fragrance filled the whole house and this time, I used Madagascar Pure Vanilla Extract and softened Anchor salted butter (the canned ones). I'm glad I used this butter, as the aroma and taste was perfect! The texture is much better this time as well, really soft and moist. I remember that the previous cake was fairly dense as well. Overall, I am very happy with this cake and will be sure to bake this again and again. I just have to get the low fat version of condensed milk. I haven't stepped on the scales for a couple of weeks, and I'm really afraid to find out the damage I've been doing to myself during this time.

Biscotti

2008-06-13T15:59:00.005+08:00

What is a Biscotti?
The word "biscotti" in Italian is the plural form of biscotto, which applies to any type of biscuit, and originates from the medieval Latin word biscoctus, meaning "twice-baked": it is defined as biscuits baked twice in the oven, so they could be stored for long periods of time, which was particularly useful during journeys and wars. Through Middle French, the word was imported into the English language as "biscuit". (Source: Wikepedia)

Hope that answers your question, my dear son. He asked that question quite innocently when I first mentioned "biscotti". He has eaten these before, those from Olio Dome are his (and his sister's) favourite. I practised with two recipes so that I can present the best version to a dear friend of mine, W, who is entering her third trimester. Her little bundle of joy will arrive some time in September. Since she had requested me to bake biscotti, I think I should try.

These are not difficult to make, honestly. However, that does not mean they are easy as well. One needs a little patience. The almond biscotti looks paler as it contains egg whites and no butter (nor any other form of fat). I took the "non-stick" pan for granted and did not line it. Well, I wasted that favourite square pan of mine! I should have poured the batter out, washed the pan and lined it. Urgh...

I first came across the recipe at Aunty Yochana's blog. I skipped the step of letting the cake cool for a few hours in the frige. Once the cake has cooled enough (so that hands don't hurt when holding it), I started to slice it. I returned the slices to bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until they looked dry and hard. These tasted quite good and the children did not complain about the tiny pieces of almond slivers. It was very hard, just like how biscotti should be.

I subsequently came across another biscotti recipe at Amanda's blog. This one looked interesting as it has cornmeal and butter. As expected, the dough gave off a very fragrant aroma (butter mixed with 1.5 tsp of Madagascar vanilla extract) when it was baking. I added another half a cup of flour (making it to 225 g) as the eggs I used were fairly large (about 65g each). Still, I got a rather wet dough and it spread a fair bit in the oven.

As a result of the wet dough, the first piece was underbaked. I suspected as much when I removed it from the oven. As I cut, the "cake" got softer and wetter. So I baked the second piece for 20 mins, and it browned nicely and was easier to slice. I read that Amanda would slice it thicker on her subsequent attempt, so I sliced it thick. It was easier to slice it thicker anyway as I had used whole almonds. My kids said this version is very cookie like and hubs said that this biscotti is a little soft. I guess I didn't dare bake these longer as they were darker (due to butter?) than the egg white version.

The cranberry almond biscotti is definitely more tasty than the (egg white only) almond biscotti. However, I am positive that I had underbaked them as they are quite soft after a day or two. I'm sure giving them a slight toast would restore the crispiness. I shall explore another recipe before presenting you a version that I am satisfied with. Thanks for your patience.

I-Scream

2008-06-11T11:00:00.006+08:00

Finally, I tried and successfully made it. Yes, the wonderfully cool and refreshing relieve for the incredibly humid weather we have here. Like many, I used to think that one would need an ice-cream maker to create these. That was until I found out from Kitchen Capers' forumers that it can be as easy as A-B-C. Oh, these are healthy too!

I selected recipes that did not ask for eggs to start off my experiment. Gina posted 2 amazingly healthy and easy to make recipes, both available at the Cold Room section at Kitchen Capers forum. All I needed was plain yogurt (for the chocolate ice cream) and Bulla thickened cream (for peach ice cream). However, I was not able to find the 1 kg pack of my favourite Swiss Premium plain yogurt. I had to settle for the other available brands as I didn't want to buy too many 100g packs. Perhaps I should have done that. This particular brand of plain yogurt is so SOUR and tastes so "yogurty", yucks! Since I have some non-dairy cream and yogurt left, perhaps I should try 2:1 proportion instead of 1:2 as stated in the original recipe. (Well, perhaps I have overlooked, the original recipe is known as Green Tea YOGURT ice cream...)

As it turned out, my chocolate ice cream tasted like yogurt, no matter how much sugar I added. While it appealed to the adults (thankfully), the kids didn't like it one bit. Even though I added Hershey's chocolate sauce to it, the kids refused to touch it. So, on the second day, I decided to add some melted marshmellows and another cup of whipped non-dairy cream. I then blended these with the chocolate ice cream and returned it to the freezer.

I tried it the next day, the taste of the chocolate ice cream had improved, somewhat. I could still taste yogurt, though, but it was as strong. My guess was right, more non-dairy cream and melted marshmellows helped. The texture of the ice cream improved tremendously as well. I checked with Rei and she said that if the ice cream is not blended again after the first freezing, the texture would like icicles.

As for the peach ice cream, I think the taste of Bulla thickened cream is most dominate. I mashed a whole can of peach halves and added that to the thickened cream, non-dairy cream and sugar. The original recipe used strawberries. My kids loved this ice cream so much, along with the icicle like texture. They won't let me blend it again though. Will experiment some more when the current stash has been consumed, probably one that uses egg yolks.

Nuts n Oats

2008-06-10T09:24:00.004+08:00

Yes, it is yet another entry about bread. I did mention earlier that I was on a bread baking frenzy last week as I was on 2 days' leave. That gave me a long weekend, from Thursday to Sunday! We had to stay home as my boy underwent a minor surgery on Thursday. He is recovering well and will see the doctor for a review this week.

Several recipes from 孟老师的100道面包 caught my eye and I had a hard time deciding what to bake. I also had to take into consideration the ingredients that I had in stock. Having a 2-kg bag of Harvet King Gold Medal bread flour was a major factor that led to the bread frenzy. Also, have four full days at home was another factor. I've learnt that breads and chiffon cakes need time and patience and rush jobs always end with dissatisfactory results.

The only thing I had to buy to bake this bread was instand oatmeal. I had checked with my mom and they are out of instant oatmeal. She told me to use whatever I need and they can take over the balance. She was keen to try bread made with oatmeal as well. So I zeroed in on this recipe, Walnut Oatmeal Bread. Recipe asked for molasses, which I replaced with maple flavoured honey syrup. I suppose real maple syrup would yield better fragrance and flavour. I did not have enough walnuts so I used the remaining pecan nuts still sitting in my fridge (from the hummingbird cake).

I thought I should toast the pecans slightly longer this time as they did not release any flavour previously. However, I forgot that I was using my new toaster and the nuts were slightly over-toasted (which I'm guessing explains the colour of the bread).

This recipe uses the water-roux (汤种 tangzhong) method, oatmeal and milk is cooked to form a dough. This is then refrigerated for at least 60 minutes before it is added to the rest of the ingredients. As usual, I used the breadmaker to help me with the kneading. Thanks to experience with the earlier loaves, I got quite used to working with the machine. This dough turned out to be less sticky and I did not bother to wrestle with it.

As I was too sick of tasting breads, I still do not know how it tastes. I guess I should ask my helper for her verdict. As I did not finish using the pecan cream cheese spread from the hummingbird cake, I thought it would be a great combination. May be I should try a small piece some time ...

Pecan Oatmeal Bread

Ingredients
A (汤种 tangzhong)
20g instant oats
50g water (I used milk)

B
250g bread flour
20g caster sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp (4g) instant yeast
20g milk powder
20g molasses (I used maple honey syrup)
120g water

C
20g unsalted butter
60g chopped walnuts (I used pecans)

D(mixed together)
25g chopped walnuts (I used pecans)
10g caster sugar

Method
1. Heat ingredient A in a saucepan, over very low heat. Stir with a wooden spoon or heatproof spatula until the mixture resembles a soft, wet lump of dough. Cover with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 60 mins.
2. Place ingredient and B in the pan of the bread machine (according to the sequence as stated in the instruction manual of your bread machine). Add ingredients from 1 above last.
3. Select Dough function of the bread machine and start.
4. After about 8 mins of kneading, add in butter. Let the machine continue to knead. After the kneading cycle has completed (20mins), add chopped walnuts (pecans). Restart and let the machine complete the whole Dough cycle (I removed the dough only after it had doubled in volume, ie, end of the entire Dough cycle).
5. Remove dough and give a few light kneads to release any trapped air. Shape into a ball and cover with cling wrap. Let the dough rest for 10 mins.
6. Flatten and roll out into an oval, about the size of 20cm by 15cm. Roll up, lengthwise, like a swiss-roll.
7. Place the rolled dough into a well-greased baking pan or Pullman tin. Cover the lid and let dough proof for 60 mins or until the dough rises to 90% of the height of the tin.
8. Brush the top of the dough with some egg wash, and sprinkle ingredient D on top. Bake in a preheated oven at 180-190 deg C for about 30mins.
9. Remove from oven and unmold immediately.

Notes:
a) If baking uncovered, check the colour of the bread after 20 mins. If it has turned brown, cover the top with tin foil. (I baked it in a covered Pullman tin.)
b) There is no need to toast the walnuts (pecans). If desired, however, you may bake the nuts for 10 mins at 150 deg C.

Recipe from 孟老师的100道面包

Trio of Colours

2008-06-09T22:09:00.005+08:00

This is another recipe from 孟老师的100道面包. Thankfully, Happy Home Baking has translated and tested the recipe, making it really easy for me to try it without having to plough through the chinese dictionary. Like the title of her post, I felt that I was playing with the dough when plaiting it.

For this dough, I tried to knead it further after the breadmaker has completed kneading it as it was really sticky and obviously didn't pass the window-pane test. But after wrestling with it for close to 30 minutes, I realised that I was probably not doing it right and left the 3 balls of dough to proof separately. Fortunately, plaiting the dough was the easiest part of the whole process. However, the uncoloured piece of dough broke away after the second proof.

The only disappointment was that the dough did not rise up the top of the pullman pan. I felt happy with the result especially after slicing it up. The bread is soft, with a hint of ocha flavour. The chocolate flavour is not obvious, that is just as well as this give the macha flavour a chance to come through. It will be a recipe that I will attempt again. It made me happy when I saw the finished product.

Prior to baking this tri-coloured bread, I baked another ocha flavoured bread. I did not take a photo of the finished product as it was not good looking at all. On the whole, it tasted quite unique as macha always goes well with azuki. I will try it again in future and post the recipe then. This was how it looked like before baking. I thought it wasn't a good looking loaf, and I would probably break up the dough and bake as smaller buns in future.

All from One Book

2008-06-08T23:17:00.002+08:00

What more do I need to say about this loaf? It's good looking and has chocolate. I first came across this bread when I saw Happy Home Baking's post. I then realised that I have the book where the recipe came from!

I stumbled on this book 孟老师的100道面包 while browsing at a bookshop. I would not have bought the book had it not come with a DVD. So I willingly parted with slightly over S$30 for the package. Intially, I was daunted by all the chinese characters. Thankfully, the author had devoted several pages of photos in the begining to the fundamentals of baking bread, from ingredients to shaping breads in various ways, among other things. All the bread recipes featured in it are interesting and what I would call "Asian". I bought another book on western bread making bread (mainly for breadmaker) but have yet to try a single recipe. I have tried 4 recipes from this chinese book over 3 days!

I revisited the water-roux (汤种 tangzhong) method for this bake. It was interesting and different from my previous attempt. This time, I had to add a slice of cheddar cheese to milk and some bread flour to make the tangzhong. If you are keen to learn more about this method, I would recommend that you check Florence's blog here.

If you are not a cheese person, don't worry, as the taste of cheese was not noticeable at all. On the whole, the bread was soft and very delicious with peanut butter (I did not have any chocolate spread at home). My boy asked for more chocolate chips if I were to bake this again.

I realised that I haven't been doing things "right" when baking bread. As the whole baking process is long, I tended to cut corners to save time. I have been very fortunate that the breads I baked previously turned out alright. Lessons learnt with the help of 孟老师's DVD:

- Check the dough (window-pane test) after removing from breadmaker.
- Not to add flour at own whim or even flour hands/work area when kneading dough :S
- Give time for dough to rest (10 to 15 mins) after the first proof but before final shaping (after dividing the dough to smaller portions, if necessary).

I won't profess that I am an expert at baking bread. In fact, I'm still wrestling with sticky dough and have yet to solve the mystery. I have not passed the window-pane test since I started checking for it. I definitely do NOT know how to knead the dough by hand. The learning journey with bread will still go on, more on the other 3 loaves soon.

Scrumptious!

2008-06-04T08:25:00.003+08:00

My girl has been asking me to bake cranberry bread lately. However, I haven't had time to bake bread and have been buying commercial ones for her. Finally, I found some time to bake yesterday as I was home to meet the new Chinese tutor.

I could not decide which recipe to use, it was a tussle between two recipes which I had tried previously: yogurt bread or brioche? As I did not have any "whole milk" (I forgot I could have used Nestle cream!) I went with the yogurt bread recipe. I followed the recipe exactly as posted on sweet-tooth's fiood haven:

Cranberry Yogurt Bread

Ingredients
100g yogurt
60g fresh milk
25g egg
250g bread flour
20g sugar
3g salt
2.5g dry yeast
30g butter
70g dried cranberries (optional)

Method
1. Put all the ingredients except butter into bread machine according to the order recommended in the instructions manual.
2. Select Dough cycle and allow dough to be kneaded. After 10 minutes, stop the machine and add in the butter.
3. Start Dough cycle again, add cranberries when butter is fully mixed.
4. Remove dough at the end of Dough cycle.
5. Divide dough into 3 portions, punch out air and roll into swiss roll. Repeat for remaining 2 pieces of dough.
6. Place the dough in a lightly greased pan and proof again till it reaches 80% of the pan.
7. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180°C for 30 to 35 minutes.8. Unmould the bread immediately and let it cool completely before slicing.

This is a trust-worthy recipe always yielding ultra soft bread. Somehow, I like it better as "mini buns" (like my two earlier attempts) instead of a loaf. Since this is a request from my girl, I baked a loaf.

Hearty Bread

2008-06-01T21:27:00.005+08:00

It's been a long time since I last baked a loaf of bread. As I had half a packet of wholemeal flour still remaining the fridge, I thought of kwf's self-created Mixed Herbs Wholemeal Bread. I've always loved the aroma of herbs but haven't had the privilege of my own pots of fresh herbs.

From my last attempt at baking wholemeal bread, I had learnt that wholemeal breads tend to be denser and shorter. Although the proportion of wholemeal flour to bread flour this time is 1:3, the bread was still shorter than usual white bread. Oh, I used the breadmaker completely from kneading the dough to baking the bread.

Everyone loves the lovely fragrance of baking bread. With the addition of mixed herbs, it gives another dimension to the aroma. It's also been such a long time since I last baked a loaf for my mom, this bread was baked for her in mind. That was why I cut down the amount of mixed herbs to 1.5 tsp. As I had ran out of olive oil, I used canola oil instead.

I'm sure olive oil would give this bread an even better aroma. As I didn't try this bread, I can't say how good it tastes. Other than the crust, the rest of the bread was fairly soft, given that it's a wholemeal loaf. I was surprised how "wholemeal" the loaf looked given that wholemeal flour accounted for one-third of the total flour used.

Will update on taste in due course. I will also keep in mind to bake this as individual rolls for the next dinner party. I would also have to think of suitable dishes to go with it as well. Any suggestions?

Mixed Herb Wholemeal Bread

Ingredients
Water 165g
Olive oil 30g (I used canola oil)
Bread flour 200g
Wholemeal flour 100g
Sugar 20g
Salt 5g
Milk powder 10g
Yeast 4g
Mixed Herbs 2.5 tsp (I used 1.5 tsp)

Method
1. Pour the water into the breadmaker bucket. Add in oil and half the flour (bread + wholemeal).
2. Sprinkle with the salt, sugar and dried milk powder. Cover with the remaining flour.
3. With a finger, make a small indent in the centre of the flour, and place the yeast in the indent.
4. Fit the bucket into the breadmaker, and set to Wholemeal. Select the desired colour of the crust. (Choose the smallest loaf size.)
5. Add herbs when machine sounds the beep for raisins.
6. When the cycle completes, carefully shake the loaf out of the bucket and let it stand the right way up. Leave the loaf to cool for at least an hour before cutting and remove the blade/paddle if necessary.

Duo and Novel

2008-05-31T23:33:00.003+08:00

What do you know? I cracked open an egg and I got another double yolks! Hubs said hens could have been genetically engineered, otherwise how to get lower cholesterol and more what have you in the eggs? Besides, these hens need to produce eggs on a larger scale as well as quicker pace, don't they? This time though, the yolks are visibly smaller. It came from a no-frills packet from ShopNSave. Now that has become a fave supermarket for me. I will gripe about the staff another day, when they really piss me off big time.

Thanks to the helper at home, I got a new rice-cooker that bakes. It was something that I had been thinking about ever since I laid eyes on it as I walked past the demo counter at the Tangs basement. Then, however, I had no reason to indulge. I found out a few days ago that the base of pot of the old rice-cooker had scratches, and one really huge one too! Once such non-stick coating is scratched, they cannot be used anymore! As usual, helper didn't breathe a word about the scratches. I saw it with my own eyes when I scooped the last bit of rice out of the pan the other night. I was fed up alright. But what's done cannot be undone, so it's water under the bridge.

Just last week, the toaster decided to konk as well. My girl had wanted to toast some popcorn chicken and found that no matter which plug was used, the toaster just won't work. Well well, time for a new toaster? I was only thinking of using hubs' Esso Smiles points to redeem the toaster. He said we should just save the Smiles points for petrol. So we went shopping *grin*

We didn't find any suitable rice-cooker nor toaster at Carrefour (Suntec City). I thought I would be able to get bargain stuff there, guess I thought wrong. So hubs said we should check out Harvey Norman at Millenia Walk on the way to the car (parked at Marina Square).

To our surprise, we saw that rice-cooker that bakes going at a bargain price of under S$60! I was quite sure it could easier cost over S$100 especially at Harvey Norman. My boy was really clever, he said that "mummy will surely like this, cos it bakes!" Sweet boy he is. I tried to look at the "normal" and no-frills ones, but they cost more that this!

Next was the hunt for a toaster. Choices were eliminated by cost, and it's not easy to find anything below S$50 any more. But one caught our eyes. We have never heard of that brand, but hey, who cares, right? Other than a knob for timing, there is temperature control, as well as control of top/bottom/both heating! It's a dream! My brother bought one a few months back and I was tempted to get the same one. I had just taken up baking then and could use a "real" oven. But the toaster was working fine then, besides, that oven was simply too big for my tiny kitchen. But today's find fits snuggly. It's known as an electric oven, not a toaster lol.

I am one happy girl today. Although I baked, I didn't use either of these new gadgets...

PS: I needed 4 images to make this poster. So I chose to include the cover of a book I had borrowed from the library. I liked it so much that I went round looking for the book. I finally found a big bookshop at the basement of Cathay Cineleisure that carried books from this publisher. I was told by the staff there that the bookshop and publisher are owned by the same people!

Streusel Topping

2008-05-26T23:04:00.006+08:00

First I must say that I have been quite intrigued with cakes with streusel toppings. After watching Anna Olson bake her Blueberry Buckle, I felt I had enough confidence to eventually try it. It was still among the list of many on the to-bake list. Until I saw HHB's peanut butter chips crumble muffins.

They looked so inviting and the rubbing-in method caught me. I bought this cutter-looking thing which Anna had used on the show. I found it recently and was looking for an opportunity to use it. So I went about happily to get started. I had even put the block of butter in the freezer to keep it hard.

I worked according to the muffin recipe, starting off with the chocolate streusel topping first. I suspected there wasn't enough butter, or it was simply because I wasn't used to using the cutter to "rub-in" the butter. As I couldn't get bread crumb texture, so I started to use my hands. Lo and behold, the butter melted! What a mess that was, I quickly put that into the freezer.

Then I worked on the cake portion. This time, the rubbing-in went well. Could be that I put the butter into the fridge while I weighed the other ingredients. Then it was time to mix the wet and dry ingredients. This was where I encountered problems. Perhaps there was too much liquid, as I had combined the beaten eggs with the milk. I added the liquid slowly and the mixture became pasty. That was when I fumbled and poured the rest of the liquid into the mixing bowl. I had a sticky paste floating in the puddle of liquid. What was I to do? So I tried my best to integrate the two, and "do not overmix" was hanging at the back of my head. I decided to stop when the mixture was no longer two distinct texture, paste in liquid. It was still fairly liquid at that point.

I poured the batter into a loaf pan, as my boy doesn't like individual cakes. (I found out that he was lazy to peel off the layer of paper.) After that I added the chocolate streusel topping, which had hardened nicely in the freezer. I broke them into smaller pieces and laid them on top.

The cake rose to quite a height, and gave off a very chocolatey fragrance. I didn't use any special cocoa powder, just plain old Van Houten. I'm not sure if the gooey texture of the cake (in the mouth) is due to over-mixing. The cake is not dry, but the crust is hard as I had to bake it for almost 45 minutes. I learnt that streusel topping isn't very friendly for whole cakes as the top fell apart when I sliced the cake. Many lessons in bake, next time I would bake this as muffins, definitely.

Of Stripes and Lines

2008-05-22T21:47:00.006+08:00

Aren't they cute? And no, zebra is not my favourite animal. I love giraffes and these gentle giants remind me of someone who sparked this soft spot for the spotted darlings. Every time I see a giraffe, I would be reminded of Y. After the giraffes, zebras come in a close second. I am simply mesmerised by their stripes...

Back to today's bake. My girl asked one day if I knew how to bake zebra cakes. Then I saw Aunty Yochana's post about her unsuccessful attempt in making the stripes. So, I searched the internet for a suitable recipe.

My first stop was Kitchen Capers and I found one very easily. However, the recipe uses emulsifier and I went about looking for another workable recipe. Then I came across one at Recipezaar which uses yogurt and no butter. However, there wasn't any reviews so I thought I should search some more. I landed on Farida's Azerbaijani Cookbook and found another easy recipe. Just so you know, there are various versions of Zebra Cakes using ingredients from cheese to crackers :S

It appears that many bloggers have tried it and gave the thumbs up. So I set out to try it, all the while praying that all will go well. On the "surface", I thought I did well. Perhaps I was a little too enthusiastic about chocolate as there was simply so much to use. Looking at the photo, you'll understand what I mean. It's a far cry from the original, definitely.

I'm sure I have over-beaten the batter as well. There were several cracks at the top. As I was too afraid to disturb the stripes, I didn't bang the pan against the table to remove the air bubbles. As a result, there was a huge air pocket just beneath the top.

While I was cooling the cake, hubs wanted to try the cake. After that piece, he asked for another! Wow! Personally, I wasn't satisfied with the result, no fault of the recipe's. I had added another tablespoonful of flour hoping to thicken the batter. I think I will compare this recipe with the American Carrot Cake recipe, and see if I can improve on the texture. Other changes I made was to reduce the amount of sugar from 250 g (same amount as flour!) to 220 g. The aroma of chocolate is tantalising yum yum...

Cream Cheese Cupcakes

2008-05-19T18:03:00.004+08:00

This is one recipe that I would use again and again, especially after several failures with the chiffon cake. Besides, since it is a public holiday today, I had promised some friends that I would bake something for them. Not that I don't enjoy baking for my family, it's just that they could have grown sick of sampling all the bakes.

Back to my "comfort" bake for today. I first baked it in March when I saw the recipe on Peony's blog. The recipe came from a book which I had borrowed before, Tempt by Betty Saw. Several recipes in this collection caught my attention and I went about looking to buy the book. Having borrowed the same book on two occasions, I took that as a confirmation of interest :D

I used the juice and pulp of one passionfruit today, in place of the lemon juice. As I had a pumnet of blueberries in the fridge, I simply washed them and dropped two into each cupcake. I had read about how the juicy blueberries will give off juices during baking and could not wait to see the results. Boy, was I impressed.

I had a slight scare after adding the eggs to the cream cheese mixture. The recipe indicated 2 medium eggs of 60 to 65 g each, and I had used 80% of the recipe. I could not decide as I had eggs of two sizes, 55 to 60 g and 60 to 65 g. So, I estimated 1.5 eggs would be needed, and used one egg of each size, how ingenius right? Anyway, when I saw the mixture curdled, I stopped adding eggs. I didn't want to introduce too much liquid as I was going to add the passionfruit pulp and juices. After adding the flour, I kept stirring it, hoping that the curdling will disappear. I could have overdone the sitrring.

Phew! All's well that ends well, I hope. The cuppies are as soft as the picture above. An absolute winner in terms of taste and versatility. The flavour I baked last time was lemon. Oh yeah, I used cream cheese spread for this as well.

Practice Makes Perfect

2008-05-18T22:37:00.002+08:00

You must be wondering what's the corelation between this picture and the title. Following the success of the Banana Chiffon Cake, I was so elated that I kept trying different flavours. The one flavour that I wanted to try was chocolate. From the near success of the White Mocha Chiffon Cake, I was determined to try a chocolate flavoured one.

Sad to say, I tried baking a chocolate flavoured chiffon cake TWICE, without success :( I followed closely to Rei's recipe, adding only more sugar.

My mistakes? For the first try, I was in too much of a hurry. I rushed home from work and set about weighing the ingredients and beating the yolks then the whites. I did all these before I had dinner. I learnt from this experience, never to rush a chiffon cake. Even though it rose beautifully, it was under-cooked.

For today's experience, I reminded myself not to rush through the process. I took my time and did everything according to how it's suppose to be done. I even checked the oven temperature and timing meticulously. However, I thought I got a whiff of something burnt in the air! Since the cake has risen reasonably high, I decided to lower the temperature a little. I increased baking time by another 5 minutes. I even let the cake cool inverted, in the warm oven, with the door ajar, for another 5 minutes before taking it out to cool, inverted of course. I only unmoulded the cake after more than 1.5 hours. Guess it's not meant to be as it was still under-baked! I will try again, but probably with another flavour. I bought some pandan leaves, perhaps I should try something that I had near success, huh?

Back to the picture, for the 2 attempts outlined earlier, I needed 10 eggs. Lo and behold! One of the eggs yielded 2 egg yolks! Wow! This was my second encounter, my first happened on my birthday. My daughter had her first encounter last night when she ate one hard-boiled egg with 2 yolks. She was tickled too.

No Bake Cheesecake

2008-05-17T22:34:00.003+08:00

This is one good looking cheesecake, definitely one to bring to a party or to delight guests. It is also relatively easy to make. It's been so long since I tried making no-bake cheesecake. Lately, the availablity of passionfruits is so inviting and many bloggers have used this exotic fruit.

The recipe is available at Kitchen Capers, a forum where wonderful recipes reside. The original recipe calls for ginger biscuits to be used as crust. I took the easy way out and used a ready made short crust. Big mistake, as the crust could not hold the cream cheese layer.

I also made a healthy change to the recipe, not so much because I wanted to. I didn't have any sour cream last night, so I used the cup of natural yogurt found in my fridge. I bought some really fragrant mangoes as well and the whole combination worked excellently.

I served it at a family gathering this evening. The ladies gave very good reviews of it, with some asking for the recipe. I felt that this is an easy way to dress up the ordinary marshmellow cake. Simply add a layer of thinly sliced managoes and topped with passionfruit pulp. To make the pulp stay, these could be added to some jelly or gelatine. I will definitely try to perfect this as I really love the end result. Tastes delicious too!

Another Pie

2008-05-16T11:39:00.007+08:00

I noticed that whenever I'm baking something, eg, bread, chiffon cakes or pies, I'll keep baking the same thing, but either in a different flavour or with another ingredient.

After baking that Chocolate Cherry Pie for E, I automatically selected to bake this pie for K, who will be celebrating her birthday on 19 May. I was delighted to be invited to a surprise birthday party in her honour. Unfortunately, I had to miss the youngster's party due to family commitments. To make up for it, I baked this for her. Well, I do have to keep my online shopping buddy happy so I will still be invited to future shopping sprees... Thanks S for helping to pick this up for her as well.

I have also been toying with a very lazy idea of using ready-made crusts. So, I picked up 2 ready crusts and shamelessly used one for this Chocolate Pumpkin Pie. Sorry K and party that I chose this shortcut :P

Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients for Filling
150g Pumpkin
100g Milk
50g Whipping Cream (I used Nestle Pouring Cream)
70g Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Corn Flour
½ tbsp Flour 60g Dark Chocolate, melted*

Method
1. Steam the pumpkin until soft. Set aside to cool and mash it.
2. Mix milk, whipping cream, sugar and egg until well blended. Add in the melted chocolate and mix until well combined.
3. Add in corn flour and flour, blend until even mixed. Sieve the mixture, then mix it with the mashed pumpkin until well incorporated.
4. Pour the filling onto the half baked pastry and bake at 190 deg C for 30 minutes, or until the filling is set. Decorate with shaved white chocolate.

*Melted chocolate can be omitted. Add in ½ tsp of ground cinnamon to make traditional pumkin pie.
Recipe is also from Alex Goh's Temption of Chocolate.

Chocolate Cherry Pie

2008-05-15T23:20:00.006+08:00

I made this pie for someone who inspired me. She is one passionate lady with a super big heart. Being Italian helps, of course. I was invited to her first talk to launch her book, Stella's Mum Gets Her Groove Back. Yes, she is none other than Elisabetta Fronzoso.

I met her, and her wonderful husband, Leonardo, through a course last year. I was struck by her passionate and approachable nature. In the three-day course, I realised that I had found the "inspiration" that I had been looking for! Perhaps I didn't require any external inspiration and I was capable of inspiring myself! Along with that, I discovered that people around me, ie my children, would benefit from this new found inspiration.

Then I got passionate about baking and I was waiting for an opportunity to bake something for this wonderful couple. I could not think of anything suitable until I saw this recipe in Alex Goh's Temptation of Chocolate...

Chocolate Cherry Pie
Ingredient for fillings
A
120g Butter
100g Sugar

B
2 Eggs

C
40g Flour
80g Ground Hazelnuts (I used ground almonds)
1 tbsp Cocoa Powder

D
Some dark cherries, stoned

Method
1. Prepare a semi-baked 8-inch round sweet pastry.
2. Cream (A) until light then add in (B). Cream until smooth. Lastly add in (C) and mix until well-blended.
3. Place the above filling onto the semi-baked sweet pastry and arrange the dark cherries on top and press it lightly.
4. Bake at 190 deg C for 25 to 30 minutes.
5. Let it cool for 10 minutes. Remove it from the pan. Brush it with apricot glaze.

*Pie crust recipe from here

I received an sms from E to say that the pie was delicious. I had enough to make 2 pies and will share the other one this weekend at a party. About the book, I do hope that you will get a copy of it when it hits the bookstores at the end of the month. Should you be interested, please leave a comment as well. E is really an exceptional woman and she is spearheading a very meaningful movement known as Stella's Mum Pay It Forward Projects (website still under construction).

Note: I am not paid to advertise E's book and projects. I am just inspired by her passion and desire to Pay It Forward.

Banana Chiffon Cake

2008-05-10T21:34:00.002+08:00

Hmm, I'm so pround of myself! I've finally done it, I can now say that I have successfully baked a chiffon cake! In terms of taste and texture, I am very very happy with this cake. Especially after 2 back-to-back dissatisfactory results.

Bananas are quite tricky, evident from the last 2 cakes, my anniversary banana cake as well as the hummingbird cake. I realised that the variety of bananas used for these cakes (local name is "ang bak jio") were extremely mashy and caused the cakes to be very sticky. While the banana cake was somewhat dense, the hummingbird cake was "sticky". I have to admit that in an attempt to not waste the bananas, I had used one too many.

So, for today, I followed closely to Rei's recipe, but added a little more sugar (5g) as the bananas were not sweet, as well as 1 tsp of banana essence. I used the small bananas (baby petey) from Phillippines, available at Shop n Save. I was a little worried, as the eggs I used this time were extra large. I had wanted to use only 4 egg whites, but decided I should add another. The batter filled a little more than 80% of the tube pan.

From today's experience, I found that my oven's temperature can be quite a challenge. For future baking, especially for chiffon cakes, I will preheat the oven to 200 deg C, bake for 20 mins at 180 deg C and another 25 mins at 160 deg C. I covered the cake with foil after 25 mins and left it covered till the end. I turned the cake over to cool inside the oven for about 20 minutes, while we had dinner.

I am happy that I achieved this result today. See what my kiddos made for me :) Happy Mothers' Day!

Hummingbird Cake

2008-05-07T22:00:00.004+08:00

Now I've tried it too but honestly, I'm not impressed. Perhaps the problem lies with my baking skills. I much prefer the taste and texture of my American Carrot Cake. I suppose for those who haven't tried the carrot cake, this cake is fine. I only frosted one loaf, which was given to a very good friend of mine. Hope that the cake tastes more exquisite due to the frosting. I won't know and probably too shy to ask ...

I followed the original recipe quite closely, and for frosting, I used kwf's recipe. For my next try, I may use 100 ml of milk instead of pineapple juice. I believe the milk will give a better bite. I am somewhat dissappointed with the two cakes using bananas, not sure why these two cakes didn't work out.

I may try Aunty Yochana's Steamed Soft Banana Cake as I have another 5 very riped bananas left. Or I could try this recipe again, but cinnamon goes better with carrot, not bananas.

A Special Day

2008-05-06T21:48:00.003+08:00

I thought about it for the longest time -- what to bake for such a special day? Afterall, it's our 15th wedding anniversary. It's really an ahcievement, when I think of the number 15, it does sound BIG. But the years passed almost like a blink of an eye. Afterall the kiddos are 13 and 10 this year. Boy, I feel so old ...

Back to the bake. After all these baking from November 2007, there wasn't one item that hubs enjoyed as much the Banana Cake. He even asked me to bake one for his colleague a few months back. So, I baked us this cake. However, I must have used too many bananas as the cake turned out to be very densed. Not crumbly as my previous attempts.

We took the day off to chill, his work is so stressful and the hours are long. He easily clocks 60 hours a week. We went to Vivocity for lunch at Sushi Tei. We spent some time walking about Vivocity and made our way home. That was what we did to "celebrate" our 15th wedding anniversary.

White Mocha Chiffon Cake

2008-05-03T20:49:00.006+08:00

I used the same recipe by Rei to bake this White Mocha Chiffon Cake. I wanted to bake something for my wonderful mom for Mother's Day. So I embarked on this second cake, improvising as I went along. I replaced the orange juice with unsweetened soya milk (that was what I had in the fridge, healthier than fresh milk anyway) and some super duper white mocha powder.

Well, I made the same mistake as Orange Chiffon Cake this morning. The cake collapsed as well, and has a similar cheesecake texture. This one was even more underbaked :( I had to put it into a warm oven for a few minutes *sobbing* However, my boy LOVED it, he said it reminded him of something his kindergarten used to serve them on Mondays. What a sweet boy, he is in P4 this year. My girl likes the cake too, but said that she may not eat it any more if I rebaked it.

I'm glad I used a good quality white mocha powder, although I added another pack of 3-in-1 coffee as well (to enhance the coffee flavour). The result was a tasty cake, not too sweet either. I was so hopefully when I took the pan out of the oven (see the picture on top left), look how tall it was in the begining! Imagine my disappointment when I saw the cake (picture on top right) after I came home from dinner. My heart sank, just like the cake. I went on to unmould it, cut it and taste it. That was when I knew I didn't bake it enough. It was too moist and soft while it was tasty.

Now that Rei had diagnosed my possible "problem areas" I should try again. Next time, I should preheat the my (Sharp) micorwave/convection oven* to 200 deg C, then bake at 200 deg C for 10 minutes then 180 deg C for another 20 minutes before reducing the temperature to 160 deg C for another 10 minutes. Her idea of tenting the cake initially is good and I may retain that. After 40 minutes, I would bake at 130 deg C for another 7 to 10 minutes to brown the top. I hope this will work, keeping my fingers crossed.

At this point, I should place a question here for all my shifus: This happened for all 3 recent chiffon cake. The egg yolk mixture became lumpy when flour was added. I tried to add flour in batches, there wasn't any difference. As a result, I tried to press the mixture against the side of the mixing bowl. Not sure if that would cause "overbeating" of flour or egg yolks :S

*I have to rely on an oven thermometre to help me with this. I realised how off the temperature was today!

Orange Chiffon Cake

2008-05-03T20:48:00.005+08:00

I was on fire today, I baked TWO chiffon cakes using the same recipe. Thanks Rei for the great recipe. While linking to her post, I read her reply to my comments. From Rei's analysis, she pointed out where I could possibly have gone wrong. Indeed, I suspected as much, I had not baked it enough :( The texture turned up looking like cheesecake... Of course, the cake collapsed as well.

Even though it was underbaked, the cake is still edible and soft. I will have to increase sugar when I next use this recipe as Rei's family does not have sweet tooth. Also, this time I had used some mandarin oranges which I bought from the supermarket. They were sooo sour and I figured the only way to finish them up would be to bake with them. As I was a little conservative with sugar, the result was still not up to mark, in terms of taste. Also, the mandarin oranges were quite soft and getting the zest was quite a challenge. Having my helper zest the oranges was probably a mistake, as there is a bitter aftertaste.

Verdict for this cake, if one were not an expert on cake, one would probably not be able to tell the hosts of mistakes in this bake. Afterall, the cheesecake texture wasn't all that bad. I could also try one of Anna Olson's switch up techinques to glamourise this humble cake :)

Pandan Chiffon Cake II

2008-05-02T23:32:00.005+08:00

I am a happy gal, I can now say I have tasted a small success with the Pandan Chiffon Cake compared to my previous attempt. This time, I tried using a recipe posted on KC by Gina.

The recipe calls for mixing blended pandan leaves with milk instead of water. Also, there is one more egg and less flour. Sounds good to me! With this try, I discovered that pandan leaves from the supermarket are bigger than those I bought from the market. Perhaps that explains the fragrance of pandan. I brought some to the office this morning to share but ate 3 pieces at one go. I saved the rest for some friends, and the pandan fragrance permeated the air around my workstation the whole morning. I could hardly concentrate and it being the day after public holiday and with so many people out of office, didn't help, at all.

The cake is tasty and fragrant. I am sure the milk and extra egg helped. I like the idea of it having so little flour as well. The cake is soft as well and even my daughter loves it. She asked me to bake it again, wow!

I had a chat with Rei and she told me that chiffon cakes are addictive. I'm sure they are addictive to eat as well as to bake. I was so motivated, I went to PH at Jurong East and bought a 21-cm tube pan, with removable bottom. I had resisted from buying it for so long. I'm so happy to finally buy it. There was so much residue on the bundt pan* when I unmoulded the cake last night. That was after cooling the cake for at least 1.5 hours. I told myself that I would get a conventional one so I can run a palatte knife along the sides. Gina told me that with a silicon pan, one can press the sides of the pan to remove the cake. How come I didn't think of that?

*I bought the bundt pan from Robinson's at the members' preview sale early this week. It costed less than S$10 and there was an additional 20% discount. That was a real steal and I also bought a 22-cm springform pan as well. I have set my eyes on this cheesecake (from KC).

Swirl Ham Bun

2008-04-28T21:54:00.004+08:00

I baked these yesterday, using Florence's Wonderfully Soft Bread recipe. I fell for it immediately, well who wouldn't fall for soft bread? Look at the tear above? My only complaint would be the lack of taste, I would probably add a piece of cheese next time. I have another 7 pieces of dough (60g each) in the freezer. I would probaly make cinnamon rolls with it.

The bun doesn't have much taste and I prefer the other recipe which I used for the an-pans. I ran out of cake flour so I used plain flour instead. Not sure if there is any significant effect with this change. Considering the amount of ingredients used, I expected a slightly tastier bun: condensed milk, low-fat milk (Meiji), milk powder on top of the 1 egg + 2 egg yolks! I think I may switch to using the Hokkaido Milk Bread recipe for sweet bun in future.

I promised one of my tasters that I would make a chocolate pie for him to share with the other tasters. As I had expected, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Z and gang, apologies k? Hope that the cheesecake that you guys are baking for J turns out to be a success. About the pie, MT2 will last for a while more, I will definitely bake it for you.

Improved Nasi Lemak?

2008-04-26T22:40:00.005+08:00

Last week's baking class was full of "bonuses", not only did we bake 4 cakes, Gina brought some rempah to cook Sayar Lodeh, and even demonsrated her version of nasi lemak. I told her that I would try the nasi lemak when I get pandan leaves to bake the Pandan Chiffon Cake.

I blended the pandan leaves in the morning, and even reserved those used for baking the cake to cook the rice. I remembered how fragrant the nasi was last week and was really excited to make this a success. Then I would have more recipes when the need to entertain arises.

I tried to be a smart alec, and fried some Kee's chicken rice mix with garlic and added to the nasi. I thought there's no harm since my mom would normally add fried garlic, shallots and ginger whenever she cooked nasi lemak. While the rice was cooking, there was a weird smell which I won't classify as fragrant nor aromatic. I'm not sure if the coconut milk has gone rancid or was it that chicken rice mix didn't go with coconut milk? In any case, I had reduced the amount of coconut milk as well, though the rice had a nice tinge of pale green.

The most popular item turned out to be the fried chicken wings! The number complaint was that everything was too dry. Obviously, soup was absent tonight. I may have to learn how to make soto ayam to accompany this nasi lemak. As for the nasi lemak, one important lesson I learnt was that one cannot scrimp on ingredients, namely coconut milk. Another fault was that there wasn't enough liquid to cook the rice. Sometimes, cannot really too much on helpers to estimate water to cook rice. Well, this won't be the last time I'm cooking this anyway. Now I have to of ways to finish the remaining coconut milk.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

2008-04-26T21:55:00.004+08:00

After missing half of last week's baking class, I couldn't wait to try baking the pandan chiffon cake. I remember tasting it in class and when told that there wasn't any coconut milk, I was amazed! The taste of pandan was so distinct and fragrant.

So, I went out early this morning to the market to get pandan leaves. As I had very limited time to bake, I told myself not to waste any time. But I had a shock when I mixed the dry ingredients with the egg yolks, oil and pandan juice. It came together as a paste! Omg, I had missed this part of the class and wasn't sure if this was to be expected. I tried to stir the paste hoping to "loosen" the paste. Instruction read: "mix till satin smooth" :(

I tried not to think about it but images of my first try at baking the banana cake came flooding to my mind. But this time, I am very sure the ingredients are regular and according to the recipe. Anyway, I think the egg whites reached stiff peaks. I made sure I took a photo for my shifus to comment. With a silent prayer, I went on to mix the egg whites to the egg yolk mixture. I could have deflated the egg white somewhat, and the batter became less pasty and more runny.

Finally, the batter was in the oven. I managed to fill 2 cupcake trays and one oval baking pan, which I collected last week. (This time I didn't take any pictures of my new toys.) As I had to rush out to pick my boy from tuition, I left the cakes to cool in the pan, on the table. I would probably not use these cupcake trays for chiffon cakes or sponge cakes anymore. There isn't enough fat and I'm not sure if I should grease the pans for chiffon cakes (I read that trays should NOT be greased when baking chiffon cakes).

Taste-wise, it's a far cry from the original :( Other than the absence of pandan taste (it was aromatic while baking, alright), the cake was dry. Perhaps I had over baked the oval tray. The first cupcake tray (roses) turned out alright, thought they were somewhat sticky (I baked it for 15 minutes). Perhaps 40 minutes is too long for the tiny oval tray. The final cupcake tray was so over baked, they were HARD (baking time 15 mins, cool in oven 10 mins).

Overall, I guess this is a really good learning experience. Perhaps to avoid getting the paste, I should perhaps mix the dry ingredients with eggs first, then add oil then pandan juice. Hopefully that would solve the mysterious of the "dry" cake as well. As Rei told me, must practise more.

Learning...

2008-04-20T21:49:00.004+08:00

Sorry, haven't been baking much lately. Initially, it was due to the large amount of stock from previous bakes still in the fridge. I handled everything over to mom this morning for her to savour. She is the best, she takes everything without complaints.

As I had to go for chiffon cake class today with Gina, I didn't bake anything. However, due to some silly mistake of mine, I was 1.5 hours late! Gosh! I had overlooked the timing of this class, and presumed it was the same as the previous class. Anyway, Gina tasked me to beat the egg white for the Green Tea sponge cake, and I believe I did a rather good job *pat on own back*. Sadly, the photo didn't turn out sharp so I cannot post it here. However, with this small success, I am itching to bake again! Perhaps tomorrow...

I was at Popular bookshop the other day, and came across a *book on bread making that comes with a VCD. I thought it would be a good idea to watch someone knead the dough. So I paid SGD30 for the set. The VCD is informational but the narration was quite monotonous. But it serves its purpose, I realised where I had gone wrong, or rather could have gone so wrong. I must thank God for all the successful breads and buns in the past few weeks. I probably should look for some reputable teachers to learn from ...

*Photo and title would be up soon

Condensed Milk Pound Cake

2008-04-15T22:08:00.004+08:00

Yes, I was bored and been surfing around. Many interesting bakes caught my eye, such as Amanda's Steamed Banana Cake, kwf's Orange Bread, as well as Florence's No-bake Oreo Cheesecake. So many to bake, so little time... Besides, just as hubs said, "who's gonna eat all these... didn't you just bake?" (He was referring to the American Carrot Cake.)

Back to how I ended up making this choice, very simple, I don't have ripe bananas, don't have time to make bread, don't have cream cheese nor oreo. But I remember having a can of condensed milk which will expire soon (well, in July 08). I've always wanted to bake pound cakes anyway, so I jumped at this chance.

I was blog-hopping when I landed at Simply Anne's and saw the recipe of Condensed Milk Pound Cake. I was curious to see what texture this cake would be as this would probably be the first cake recipe featuring condensed milk. I cannot remember why I bought the condensed milk in the first place.

The only "regret" I have is not spending $5.70 for a block of Lurpak unsalted butter. Perhaps a block of SGS butter would do, or even the block of Buttercup butter. (I used Anchor unsalted butter.) That's the only complaint I have about the cake, it was a little bland, although it gives off a very pleasant aroma of vanilla. I had used Bake King's vanilla essence, cannot imagine if I had used better quality vanilla.

On the whole, the cake is quite soft and moist and not too sweet. I could have over-baked it a bit or the oven temperature was a little high. I hope the cake will stay good tomorrow, but I was planning to put it in the fridge or freezer, just like the usual Sara Lee pound cake. One other thing I like about this recipe is the simplicity. I used the mixer from begining to the end, and there wasn't much to wash as well once you've figured out how to "cut corners" :P

American Carrot Cake

2008-04-13T22:56:00.008+08:00

I didn't think I would be baking this cake, I was never really a fan of it anyway. I had tasted a few really good American Carrot Cake in the past and imagined that it would be a tough cake to bake.

I came across a thread on KC with the recipe from Aunty Yochana. I know from experience that Aunty Yochana's recipes are always winners, though some can be challenging. I've had my share of not so successful bakes, so with a prayer in my heart, I proceeded with this attempt.

Recipe called for eggs to be beaten with sugar till creamy. Now, I was wondering when it would be creamy enough :P My old gf told me her carrot cake recipe did not require the use of a cake mixer. I had done some research on the internet and narrowed down my choices to 3 recipes, with Aunty Yochana's right on top. Both the other 2 did not require any beating. I felt more secure with beating of eggs. The only thing I did differently was leaving out the vanilla essence and added 1 tsp of ground nutmeg. I gave the walnuts a miss and added crushed pineapples.

It's also the first time I used the mixer up to mix in the flour. I used a pair of chopsticks to stir in the carrots, crushed pineapples and raisins. I am sure I can improve on this for my next attempt. The raisins were all at the bottom of the pan and some cupcakes did not have any raisins.

I'm convinced that recipes that use cinnamon are most aromatic in the oven. With nutmeg, that becomes even more aromatic. The fragrance of the spices kept me near the kitchen!

Then it was time to taste it. To be honest, I didn't wait for it to be cooled. When I bit it, it was still warm and the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg made the cake so alluring. The cake is sooooh light! I can't say that it is close to the real thing, but it is a lighter version. I honestly can't put my finger to what is lacking but I love this version! I like the lightness of the cake, and in future, I would use diced pineapples instead of crushed pineapples. On the whole, this recipe is a keeper! I may also use brown sugar for my next attempt though, the cake is a little, erm, light (in colour, that is).

15 April: Wow, this recipe is an absolute winner! I've even received compliment about it's authenticity by a true blue US citizen. The cake was also given an almost "two-thumbs-up" rating. I am very happy with this cake, and it would be a good choice as a gift. Besides, I shall be experimenting with soy milk and may be even soy flour in an attempt to make it a healthier choice :D

Sweet Corn Bread... Sticky!

2008-04-13T22:31:00.004+08:00

It was really sticky, no matter what I did, oil or flour didn't help. Perhaps I cannot simply use the breadmaker for ANY recipe. I first saw this recipe on KC but eventually used the recipe by Alan Ooi (found out that Baking Mum aka Hugbear has it posted as well).

My original plan was to make buns instead of a loaf. However, after wrestling with the dough for almost 30 minutes, I was ready to surrender. I had to roll the dough up and leave it to proof. I had used the breadmaker's dough function.

After that, I went to prepare dinner and forgot all about the bread! When I saw the dough again, I was shocked! While I had a flat loaf last night, I was shocked by how much today's dough rose. Ok, it wasn't all that much but was a nice sight to behold. I quickly pre-heated the oven, and sent the dough to bake. Not much aroma to speak of, just smelled like bread. Or perhaps dinner was more aromatic. As I was busy with the American Carrot Cake, I didn't slice the bread till much later. It felt soft, but I didn't taste it as I was too full from dinner.

Here's a closer look at the texture:

My First Whole Wheat Loaf

2008-04-12T20:57:00.002+08:00

Horrors! It doesn't look like a loaf, does it? Omg, I certainly hope it's a case of using too big a pan and nothing else. I had followed Cocoa's recipe exactly, except that I used 100g of yogurt (Swiss Premium of course) and 100 ml of Meiji full-cream milk.

In terms of method, I followed closely to Cocoa's as well. Right up to the first proof stage (when the dough doubled, but I didn't poke the dough to test). All along, I wasn't sure if it was right as there wasn't any plain flour or bread flour. So I wondered about gluten and the structure and became worried when the dough still looked somewhat wet and sticky. I quickly removed it from the breadmaker, poured some plain flour and started to knead it (well, almost). Then I tried to roll the dough into one swiss roll. After that, I left it to proof in the fridge as I had to go out to get dinner.

When I checked the dough after dinner, it had nicely risen to almost 80% the height of the loaf pan. So I let it come down to room temperature, preheated the oven and put the pan to bake. I could smell the whole wheat fragrance all the way from the room. But when I went to take a look, my heart sank. The loaf was exactly the same height as before. This is the first time that a bread didn't rise. I didn't think that would be possible due to the yeast :(

Looks like the two attempts in slowing down the proofing didn't yield favourable results, although yesterday's cinnamon rolls wasn't that bad. Breads need a lot of patience and time, no short-cuts huh?

Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls

2008-04-11T22:33:00.008+08:00

You won't believe the nightmare I went through to bake this. I made the dough last night and left it in the fridge, chiller to be exact. I figured there wasn't enough time to bake it last night as I was tired from a whole day's course. After the dough cycle was complete, I took the dough out, applied some oil on the surface and wrapped it with cling wrap. I left it in a disposable box and placed it in the chiller.

To my horror, when I took it out of the fridge tonight, the dough had grown to double it's size last night! I was at a loss, didn't know what to do as Rei had told me that extended proofing may cause damage to the bread's structure, resulting in a hard bread. I thought what did I have to lose anyway, why not just bake it.

So I quickly prepared the filling and got on with rolling the dough. Somehow, I thought the dough wasn't thin enough so I kept rolling and rolling. Finally, satisfied with the thickness, I brushed melted butter and sprinkled cinnamon and sugar on the surface. As I was afraid that it would be too sweet, I did not use the entire amount that I had prepared. Then I added the chocolate chips and began (swiss-) rolling the dough. After that, I sliced the dough and added even more chocolate chips. I didn't even wait for them to proof any more, preheated the oven and baked them for 25 minutes.

The smell of the cinnamon rolls was so alluring and sweet. The air was filled with the aroma of cinnamon. Thankfully, the rolls browned nicely. Of course, presentation has to be improved. Perhaps if the rolls were allowed to proof a second time, they would rise properly. This won't be the last time I'm making these anyway. Next time I would increase the amount of cinnamon and of course, let the bread go the natural course.

Oh, by the way, as of today I am a proud graduate of ...

This below is just a glimpse of magic, fun and creativity that went on for past 2 wonderful days ...

Butter Marble Cake

2008-04-10T21:33:00.001+08:00

Hmm, I can still smell the aroma of the cake while it is cooling on the rack. I have some baking chocolate due to expire at the end of April so I had to bake something chocolate. I looked around and finally decided on the butter marble cake which Gina shared in the last baking class.

I am so proud of this result, it's been quite a while since I last baked a loaf. The aroma during baking was simply heavenly. I wonder if it's the butter (I used Anchor salted butter), the taste was not "buttery". But it's still quite tasty, overall. I'm happy with the result.

I was surprised that I still had the energy to bake after attending a full-day's course. Must be magic...

Cream Cheese Loaf

2008-04-05T22:26:00.002+08:00

As there wasn't time to bake last week, I didn't make any bread for my parents. I only gave them half of the banana quick bread I made last week.

Since we didn't go out this afternoon, I devoted my time to this baking "marathon" of sorts. I first started the breadmaker to make the dough for the an-pans, then went to bake the chocolate cream cheese cake and finished off with this cream cheese loaf in my brand new pullman pan.

I'm not sure if I had done everything right. The bread didn't reach the top of the pan, hence the top was a litted rounded and soft. I had forgotten to break the dough into 3 parts, do the swiss roll, before putting it into the pan for second proofing. I rolled it into one big swiss roll after punching out the air. I waited and waited for it to raise to the top, and when it was about 80% the height of the pan, I got ready to bake it. I intend to bake another one tomorrow to see if breaking the dough into 3 parts would make a lot of difference. I was too full to taste the bread but mom told me the last time that the bread was delicious. Even my brother was surprised that I had baked that :)

My First An-Pan

2008-04-05T22:20:00.004+08:00

This is my all time favourite bun, an-pan (bread with red bean paste). I remember that this was one of the earliest "fancy" bans I tried. If I'm not wrong, it was probably from Yaohan at Plaza Singapura. My mom used to bring my brother and I there when we were young. I remember that this was one ban I would pick. Now I can bake my own, I'm a proud girl.

I had originally wanted to use this Hokkaido Milk Loaf recipe, but I could not find any Bulla thickened cream at the Shopnsave near my place. (That's the touble when supermarkets try to make consumers stay loyal to them. Shopnsave issues stickers for purchases above $15, and for every 12 stickers collected within a month, they would give consumers a voucher for $9 off. Since I started taking MRT home on my own instead of waiting for hubs, I've been shopping at Shopnsave.) I had seen it at Carrefour yesterday, but thought I could get it on the way home.

Without the all important heavy cream, I went through my collection of to-try recipes. I had bookmarked Florence's Black Sesame Bun as reference. If only we have such cute bake stuff here, check out her black sesame fillings! I used the sweet bun recipe and it yielded exactly the same number of buns for me, 14.

I had overbaked the first batch, the round ones. The paper cup is also stuck at the bottom, perhaps I should have brushed the paper cups with oil before placing the dough in. These six buns turned out hard and dry, wonder if baking them before eating would make any difference. The second batch was placed in a loaf pan. Having learned my mistake, I reduced baking time and the buns turned out super soft to touch! It is really really soft when I bit into it, but I'm not sure why there is a hole between the bun and the red been paste. However, I'm not too worried about that as it happens to those commercially available buns as well.

I had cheated this time, I didn't make the Tsubushian (潰し餡, the red beans are mashed after boiling). I bought two packets from Daiso yesterday. I really like the location of my office now. I can go to PH at Bencoolen, Sun Lik at Seah Street or Daiso at Plaza Singapura. I should probably learn to make the paste on my own. Hubs tasted it, said that it's no different from the commercial ones. To him, convenience is top priority. I am not sure if it is cheaper to make our own an-pans although I know what ingredients I had used, NO PRESERVATIVES. But I like the satisfaction of making what I enjoy eating, too.

7 April: An-pans are yummy and soft especially after being toasted for a mere 2-3 minutes. Even the round ones are soft. Recipe is a keeper though I find the tsubushian a little on the sweet side...

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake

2008-04-05T22:14:00.002+08:00

I came across this recipe when visiting Peony's blog, and remembered I had one block of Philly cream cheese in the fridge. I like the way the cake looked and since my boy specifically chose this cake over others, I had to bake it.

While it was baking, the aroma of chocolate was really alluring. I was then helping my boy with his chinese comprehension. We could hardly concentrate on the story at hand (the cycle of water: from liquid to gas to solid back to liquid, the whole works)

As I was multi-tasking when the oven beeped (ie, cake was ready), I could not remove the pan from the oven as my hands were covered with dough and flour. When I finally unmoulded it, I realised that I had not laid enough chocolate batter on the bottom. Parts of it actually broke.

Finally the taste test, I found the cake a little dry. Peony mentioned in her notes that she had reduced butter but I didn't notice it. I should have used more butter as we found the cake a little dry and lacking in taste. I had to buy chocolate ice-cream (my kid's fave brand and flavour) to go with it. Otherwise, the cake will still be around after many days.

I'm Back!

2008-04-02T20:15:00.004+08:00

I was at home to settle some domestic issue today. As I had some time on hand, I heeded advise from kwf and happy home baking to make the yogurt bread again.

I remember this bread very well as it was my first attempt, baking the bread out of the breadmaker. It was very tasty and soft. Today I used a different flavour, peach flavoured yogurt and raisins. However, this time, it is not quite as tasty, but the buns are soft. You can see how soft it is, see the "dent" I caused when I used the spatula to lift the bread out of the pan.

Somehow this thought kept coming up: can bread be over-proven? As I had to bring my boy down to wait for his school bus, I kept thinking if the extra time given to second proofing would make any difference to the bread evenutally. I went back and baked them quickly and boy, dough in both pans rose beautifully.

Oh, now I recall what I did differently today. I didn't add any salt as I used salted butter. Could that be the difference? While today's bread was tasty, it wasn't as fragrant. I read the breadmaker's manual, that salt balances the flavour of bread, it is needed for crust colour. It also advises users not to reduce the amount of salt at will as baking may suffer. I also added more sugar today, 1.75 tsp instead of 1.5 tsp. Just surprised that it didn't turn out any sweeter :P

Egg White Cream Cheese Cupcake

2008-04-01T22:09:00.003+08:00

This is what I baked tonight, after a weekend of mood-less-ness :P Perhaps the weekend was too action packed, which resulted in fatigue and so lack of mood to bake. I told myself, weekend was the only time to play with the pullman pan, but lazy bones just won't get moving. No matter how I pushed myself, gosh!

As usual, seeing everybody's blog and visiting Kitchen Capers' forum got me all charged up again. Then I remembered reading about aunty yochana's egg white cream cheese cupcakes, and thought I should give it a shot, and I did tonight.

I realised it was a mistake when I put the batter into a disposable loaf pan. Memories of a certain failure came flashing to my mind... I was worried that it would turn out the same way but my boy specifically said he didn't like cupcakes. Perhaps I should have transferred the batter into cups but what's done cannot be undone. I did not put shredded cheese on top but anyway, the top was crumpled. Luckily, I overturned them to cool them. That helped to maintain the cupcakes' height. It helped to keep the loaf "tall" but after unmoulding, it flopped. I was worse when I cut it, it was kueh like. Totally like what happened to the cotton sponge cake. The cupcakes, though, didn't fall. It was rather soft too.

Although the bake didn't turn out well tonight, it tasted quite good and light. Perhaps I would revisit this recipe again after attending Gina's chiffon class later this month. Oh, I did beat the egg whites till stiff peak, I dipped the mixer in and lifted it for a look, just to be sure. I must have over-mixed the chesse mixutre, butter and flour.

Banana Quick Bread

2008-03-28T22:30:00.003+08:00

Interesting indeed. I didn't know that it was possible to bake a cake in the breadmaker. That was until I saw sweet-tooth's post on it. Of course, being the first time, I fumbled with the ingredients. In fact, I had forgotten to add sugar when the machine started. I added sugar only after close to 5 minutes of the cycle (when the cycle was supposedly for 7 minutes).

When baking was in process, the aroma of bananas was in the air. It was more fragrant than when I last baked banana cakes. So I wondered if it's due to the bananas that I used tonight. It's some smaller version of the del monte bananas from the Phillippines.

The cake or quick bread turned out ok, except it was a little dark. I should have chosen "light" for colour instead. It also turned out to be extremely crumbly, like the usual banana butter cake. It could use a little more sugar, as I had used salted butter. I'm also afraid that the edges would turn hard or dry tomorrow. We'll have to wait and see. When I tasted it earlier, it was ok, almost as good as the usual banana cake. I may try to bake the corn meal quick bread next.

I'm so excited as I have a new toy: it's a pullman pan! Yes, finally, I bought one from PH this afternoon. I'm not sure what bread I would bake but I don't have any more thickened cream, just meiji low fat milk and 3 tubs of swiss premium yogurt of various flavours. Boy, am I itching to bake but not sure if I'll have time this weekend.

Happy Easter! Today's Bakes

2008-03-23T21:49:00.012+08:00

Yes, after the frenzy of baking CNY cookies, I haven't baked as much as today. I started weighing ingredients at 7.10 am and within 10 minutes the breadmaker started working. I decided to follow Cocoa's Hokkaido Milk Loaf recipe (using Meiji Fresh Milk and Bulla Thickened Cream). I had consulted Rei yesterday on how to incoporate the last of my TZ (starter dough). The recipe worked beautifully and the bread was soft and tasty even on its own. I had also added 50g of butter as Cocoa had commented that the loaf lacked the taste of butter. Thank God I didn't spoil the recipe...

For the first batch, I took some dough out, hoping to wrap the remaining chocolate paste from yesterday. The dough was the softest I've encountered so far! I gingerly rolled the chocolate in the dough and placed each into a muffin pan. Then I realised that I had shaped the first one too big, so I went on to make the rest much smaller (to allow them to raise to fill 80% of the cavity). When hubbs tasted it, he said that it tasted like something fried. I had that impression when I took the first bite too! Could have been the butter, the crust was very crispy! It tasted yummy too, wonder how it would taste tomorrow. I rolled the remaining dough and placed it in a loaf pan to bake. As I unmoulded it, I dented the bottom, the loaf was that soft! I will leave you to savour the pictures.

See how I disfigured the bottom of the loaf? And the bun is oooh so soft and tasty.

I was so happy with this recipe that I decided to bake another loaf. Besides, I had more than half a bottle of thickened cream in the fridge. I have been looking through my collection of recipes for something which calls for cream, but haven't found anything suitable. The 2 likeliest candidates are the Banana Cake or Cocoa Puff Cream Cake but I don't have the necessary ingredients ready. Perhaps someone can share some ideas? But I'm glad I tried the same recipe again, this time I used the breadmaker to bake. The loaf eventually was given to the owner of the breadmaker...

While the loaf was in process, my girl kept bugging me to make Fairy Cakes from a children's cookbook of hers. In the morning, I had soaked some raisins in rum and thought it would be quite interesting to bake a little more of this fairy cakes and incoporate the rum and raisins. I'm glad I did that, the cupcakes are delicious!

Many who know me are surprised that I am so domesticated lately. They cannot imagine how much I've changed and it's true, I'm surprised myself. I've lost interest for shopping, except for baking related stuff :D I had all the time to bake today as hubbs had to go for his company football tournament all morning. We didn't go for mass until evening...

Chocolate er... Swirl Bread?

2008-03-22T15:54:00.004+08:00

The smell of chocolate fills the air, lovely… however I’m praying that the bread will turn out alright. I’m not just referring to the taste as I know it will taste fine, it’s the texture I’m referring to. See the photos below and you’ll see why and where I'd gone wrong …

Alright, it was supposed to be Florence's chocolate wassant, I had followed the recipe exactly... except that I had under-cooked the chocolate paste. I know now it's supposed to be dry or lumpy. Mine was thick but rather runny. I thought it would harden in the fridge, well, it didn't. I have some more paste left, wonder what I'll do with it, hmmm. Back to my harrowing experience with the chocolate paste.

Thanks to rei, she gave me a lot of tips via msn. I should have changed strategy when I found that the paste was still runny even after spending 30 mins in the freezer. Should have switched to buns but I had already rolled the dough into one fairly large square. Besides, the chocolate paste was already all over the dough.

As I was rolling the dough initially, I remembered what rei had told me earlier about it not being necessary to “punch” the dough – there were lots of air pockets! When I rolled over them, I could hear (and feel) them bursting, so interesting. Anyway, I tried to wrap the chocolate paste inside the dough, it was still ok until I started to roll to flatten the dough. It broke and chocolate oozed out! It was then that I knew it was a gone case. I quickly went on to msn to see if rei was online and she was! After briefly telling her, she told me that since I had done second proofing I had not much choice but to bake it.

So, I put it into the oven and it rose to a monstrous loaf! But it didn't look half as bad as I had imagined, thank God! Can you imagine, I had started out with Florence’s chocolate wassant recipe, then got lazy and changed my mind? I decided to make a chocolate swirl bread like HHB’s and this is the result. Disaster or success, you be the judge… gosh, the smell was heavenly! (when I was typing this post). This was how the loaf looked when I unmoulded it.

I went out after removing the loaf from the pan. When I came back some 3 hours later, I cut the loaf. I was amazed at my own patience actually. This was what I saw, and it tasted quite good really :) I think I will give it another try *thumbs up*

My Own 65 deg C Loaf

2008-03-22T15:46:00.003+08:00

It seems that Tang Zhong (or water roux method) is the craze lately in the baking blog community. I was mesmerised by Florence's post, and decided to use this same recipe to start my adventure.

As it was Maundy Thursday and I had to rush out to church, I quickly did the starter dough and cooled it in the fridge. I used this time to meaure the ingredients for the loaf, and when the starter dough was cool enough, I dumped everything into the breadmaker - wet ingredients in first, followed by the dry ones. Last in, yeast of course.

When I got back at 10 pm, there was still 1.5 hours to go! That meant it would be almost midnight before the bread could be ready. I should have set the timer instead. That way, we would have freshly baked bread on the morning of Good Friday.

Not long after baking started, I thought something was amiss... a thin layer had formed. Instinctively, I wanted to open the cover and burst that (huge) bubble. Then I stopped myself, may be the rest would rise eventually. Of course, it didn't. When I unmoulded the bread, the thin crust broke. There was a depression at the top of the loaf. I left it in my room to cool as it was still too warm to close the container's cover.

When I cut the loaf the next morning, I was disappointed yet again. Instead of a fluffy and spongy texture, I thought it was soft (no doubt) but elastic or felt plastic-ky. I knew it would be rejected by my picky eaters, so I had it steamed. Along with it, I also steamed a few of the chocolate milk buns. Steaming helped to soften the bread, but must be consumed as soon as it is removed from the steamer. After cooling, it's back to the rubbery texture. My boy loved the white loaf very much, as he had dipped it in half-boiled egg.

This left me thinking, the entire process was done in the breadmaker. So far, the only real success I can credit myself with, is the yogurt bread. Those were absolutely perfect buns and earned praises from everyone who tasted them. I began to wonder if that success was not to be repeated. Perhaps, practice makes perfect still rings true...