Banana Walnuts Cake

I baked another banana cake; this time, I baked an additional half times the original recipe from here by adding 100g of walnuts so that I could try out my banana walnuts cake!

Fruit Cake

I tried another cake recipe which I took it from auntyyochana blog. My very first fruit cake which I was very satisfied with the result.

For the dried fruits that were supposed to go into the cake, I soaked them for approximately 2 weeks in rum and the cake was being brushed twice with rum, after baked!

Ingredients

150g currants

150 g sultanas

130g raisins

100gm glaced cherries

50g mixed peel

6 tbsp rum (original recipe called for 3 tbsp)

230g butter

220g sugar (I cut down sugar to 200g)

finely grated rind of 1 orange

finely grated rind of 1 lemon

4 eggs

50g chopped almonds

50g ground almonds (I omitted this from original recipe)

230g plain flour

50g blanched almonds

Method

1. Soak currants, sultanas, raisins, cherries and mixed peel with rum, brandy or sherry at least overnight or longer (I did mine for about 2 weeks).
2. Prepare an 8" round cake tin and lined the side and base with double layer of greaseproof paper.
3. Cream butter and sugar till creamy. Add in orange zest and lemon zest and continue to beat till light and fluffy.
4. Add in eggs one at a time till thoroughly mixed before adding in the next egg.
5. Mix 2 Tbsp. of flour into the soaked fruits.
6. Fold in chopped almonds, ground almonds and soaked fruits. Fold in sifted flour to make a soft dropping consistency.
7. Pour batter into prepared cake tin. Arrange whole almonds on top of batter and bake at 160C.
8. Bake for 1 hour or until centre is firm to the touch. Let the cake cool in the tin for 20 mins. then remove it onto a wire rack and leave it to cool completely.
9. Leave the greaseproof paper intact and remove it only when you want to serve so as to keep the cake moist while stored.
10. Drizzle some rum onto cake once a while to keep cake moist.

Mango Pudding

I made this mango pudding using 100% Phillipines mango products as husband brought them back from the Phillippines. Since they is only a handful of the mangoes, we ate 2 and the remainders went into the fillings of the puddings. Very sweet and yummy! ^-^

Udon

A simple vegetarian udon soup for lunch.

Banana Cake

I baked this banana cake last night. Husband loves the taste of it as it was fluffy and moist... most important, not too sweet as I cut down the sugar!! ^^

Ingredients

170g butter

150g castor sugar (original recipe called for 170g)

2 large eggs

3 tbsp fresh milk

4 medium size banana, mashed (use 3 instead if using large banana)

225g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Add egg one at a time and cream until smooth and light.
3. Add in milk and banana, mix well.
4. Sieve in flour, baking powder & bicarbonate soda and mix until well blended.
5. Grease and line the baking mould. Pour the batter into the mould.
6. Bake at 175C for 50 minutes. Insert a bamboo skewer to the centre of the cake, if skewer comes out clean, cake is done.

Egg Tarts

I took this recipe from aunty yochana blog, and it was my very first batch of egg tarts. Have yet to master the tactics of making the crust as pretty as those in in the bakery shop....but I am already very happy with the results! Yummy...!!!

I had the permission to publish this recipe, pls enjoy ^o*

Ingredients

Pate Sucree

125 gm Butter - chilled

60 gm icing sugar

1/2 egg white

1 egg yolk

200 gm plain flour

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Egg Custard

280 gm fresh milk

160 gm sugar

3 nos. eggs

1 tsp rum

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method

1. For pate sucree: beat butter and icing sugar till wellmixed.
   
2. Add in white and yolk and mix.
   
3. Add in vanilla essence and then the flour and mix into a dough. Rest for 10 mins. Press dough into small tart moulds.
   
4. Bake the tart shell till half-cooked.
   
5. For egg custard, heat sugar and milk together. Once sugar dissolves, off heat.
   
6. Whisk eggs and pour into the milk mixture. Do not whisk till frothy.
   
7. Add in rum and vanilla essece.
   
8. Sift the egg custard and pour into tart moulds and bake at 175C till egg custard sets.

Note: Half baked should be around 10 mins at 175C (everybody's oven is different). Judge yourself and see that it's like puff up slightly and turned white.After pouring in the custard, bake at a lower shelf to make sure that the pastry will be cooked at 175C. Bake for about 10 mins and watch over it. If you see the custard is about to puff up into a ball, take it out from the oven immediately. Once it puffs up, the egg tart will wrinkle when it's cooled. What you can do is to shake the tray of egg tarts and if the custard wobbles, then it a sign that it's not cook and if it doesn't wobble, then it's set and you can take it out from the oven.

Pumpkin Kueh

Here's the Pumpkin Kueh which husband misses, it's what my late mother-in-law used to make for them! Husband mentioned this to me many times, so I thought it may be a good idea I also learn how to bake this.

Afterall, not difficult to master the tactics of the kueh making; except it is time consuming during the preparations!

Ingredients

Approx 1 kg of pumpkin, remove seed, hard skin and shred thinly

500g of Rice flour

80g Tapioca flour

1.5 litres water

150g dried shrimps, soaked, drained and chopped

200g pork, sliced thinly and seasoned (I used pepper, some oyster sauce and a little sesame oil)

50g Chinese mushrooms, soaked and sliced thinly

2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

cooking oil

some pepper

some salt

For Garnishing

200g sliced shallots

some spring onions, washed and sliced

2 red chilli, sliced