Melting Moments

Husband said I should bake some cookies instead of baking cakes; since his birthday is just three weeks away, I decided to try bake for him some almond cookies! This is my first trial of melting moments which I got the recipe from here. And as what it is being called, it melted in the mouth!! ^o^

Shapes are a little 'out' as I piped them instead of making round dough!

Ingredients

227g unsalted butter, room temperature
175g all-purpose flour
90g cornstarch (corn flour)
¼ tsp salt 35g icing sugar
1 – 1½ tsp almond essence
almond bits or flakes for decoration

Method

1. Sieves flour, cornstarch and salt together. Set aside.
2. Use electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in the almond essence.
4. Add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Do not over mix.
5. Cover and refrigerate the dough for at least one hour or until dough is firm.
6. Floured your hands with all purpose flour and roll dough into small balls and place on a lined tray.
7. Flatten the dough slightly with a floured fork.
8. Decorate the dough by added some almond bits or flakes on top.
9. Bake at 190C for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown.
10. Cool and store in a airtight container.

Homemade Soy Bean Milk

We have been eating quite a lot for the past few days, therefore I decided to go for something light these few days. That would be soy bean milk with bread for lunch!

Last year, husband and I lugged this soy bean maker from our Xiamen trip. Though it was rather heavy, was indeed worth the effort to carry it all the way back here; as one local departmental store is selling more than double the price we've paid!! Everything looks exactly the same except that, brand was not printed on the equipment.

Now we can enjoy a nice warm soy milk anytime at home! Cheers! (^o*)

Christmas Fruit Cake

Here's my imperfect Christmas fruit cake which I promised to bake for my sis. The fruits that went into the cake was pre-soaked for more than 3 weeks; this time, I added lots of rum and had been constantly stirring them so that they will be soaked evenly.

Before presenting it, I added some icing sugar to hide the flaw and was happily playing with my 'Christmas toys' while decorating it! HO..HO...HO!!!

Durian Puffs

I long wanted to try making puffs and since we have some remainder durians kept in the freezer from our KL's trip, I decided to bake some!

For the puffs fillings, I merely mashed up the durians and piped them into the puffs so that everything is original! Husband reserved some plain choux pastry to go with his ice-creams...Yummy!! ^o^

The recipe came from Florence blog.

Ingredients (make approx. 25 medium size puffs)

Choux Pastry

170ml water

100g butter

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

100g bread flour

40g cake flour

4 eggs (lightly beaten)

Method

Choux Pastry

• Cook water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Turn the heat to low.
• Add in the flour mixture in one go and mix with a wooden spoon till a dough is formed.
• Still on low heat, cook the dough for 1 - 2 minutes till a thin white film is formed at the bottom of the saucepan.
• Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and beat till it is lukewarm.
• Add in egg by thirds and mix till well blended and smooth.
• Add in vanilla essence and mix well.
• Place batter into piping bag and pipe it onto a lined pan in rounds of about 5cm in diameter. Spray some water on it.
• Bake at 200C for 25 minutes then 180C for 8 - 10 minutes or till dry and golden brown in color.
• Turn off the oven and let it cool in the oven for 30 minutes.

Cookie Cutters

I brought these Pooh bear and friends cookie cutters from Hong Kong. The only thing which I requested to buy from our less than 24 hours stay in HK from Xiamen. I was told that only SOGO has these, so husband and I headed to the largest SOGO at Causeway Bay.

I am not sure for the rest who visited HK; for me, I realized that the population has increases tremendously!! Take for instance, at the SOGO departmental store; it was flooded with Chinese and there were long queues at certain branded boutiques. The roads nearby are flooded with human traffic on Monday evening, which is probably twice as many people found in our weekends Orchard road! Likewise for crowds in the public transport, our MRT is no way compare to that of the crowds of their MTR (*0*) !!

Fried Vermicelli

I requested husband to buy some local dried food when he called back from China last week, one of the items was a pack of vermicelli from Fujian province(福建蒲田)! As husband always comment about how good the texture was, whenever he comes home and start talking about the fried vermicelli he ate there... ....

So...he brought back what I wanted and a huge pack of this vermicelli which I think more meant for those running vermicelli business! ^o^

The vermicelli are extra fine as compared to those we commonly buy from our local supermarket. It 'survived' from the very much tossing during my frying and did not disintegrate like some local brand which we use; despite the extra fine texture! Thumbs up! (^o*)

Vegetables Invention

I recalled having this dish at one of the hotel wedding banquet years ago, but just couldn't remember where!!! This is a so-called copied version of it as I only remember the main ingredients were asparagus, fresh lily bulbs and wolfberry.

Bought a packet of the fresh lily bulbs at the local supermarket and decided to try out my version with added ginkgo nuts, Japan white Shimeji mushrooms.... so this is purely vegetarian!! And the overall taste was good!! ^^

Ingredients

some asparagus (I used Thai asparagus)

2 whole fresh lily bulbs, peeled individually

a handful of wolfberry, wash and soak slightly

50g Japan Shimeji white mushrooms

some ginkgo nuts

2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped

2 tbsp canola oil

some fish sauce

some pepper

Salad

My sister-in-law gave me the idea for creating the new style of salad presentation, instead of mixing everything like "rojak".

So, this is what came out from me today... (I layered them and wrapped everything up like a 'burger'). This is also part of luring husband to eat more vegetables as he has an unhealthy eating habit lately and has 'bloated' like a 'pregnant man'! (*o*")

Self-Wrapped Hamper for friend

This is not related to food at all; friend of mine wanted to know what I did to the few packs of cookies and chocolate meant for gift to my ex-colleague, for the invitation to Deepavali open-house! Here's what I did to make it presentable and with a DIY gift tag hung on it too! ^o^

I actually wanted to bring my camera along to take the photos of food which the host has cooked for us (but I forgotten about it)! The lady host (my ex-colleague) is a very good cook of Indian food, I am always looking forward to Deepavali as we will all be invited and she will cook very nice dishes... I mean all by herself without any domestic helper!!! And as usual, I have had a wonderful Indian food today!

By the way, thanks again to Tamy, Suresh & Family for the warm hospitality and delicious home cooked Indian food! (^o^)

Bunny Agar Agar

I made this Agar Agar for my niece Amanda's birthday as she simply loves bunny! It was prepared last night and took me four over hours to make this.

Partly due to the fact the I have not made any agar agar for a long....time! And also I did not plan anything ahead for the design....it was everything last minute!

At last, this design was made.... two bunnies hopping on grass field with pink flowers falling on them.

Carrot Walnuts Muffins

Ingredients

3 eggs

150g milk

250g sugar

1/2 tsp salt

180g vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

11/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

200g carrot, shredded

120g walnuts, chopped

Method

1. Whip eggs, milk, sugar and salt until creamy. Add vegetable oil and vanilla essence and whip until well blended.
   
   
2. Sieve in flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg and mix until well blended.
   
   
3. Add carrot and walnuts and mix well.
   
   
4. Pour the batter into individual muffin moulds. Bake at preheated oven at 160C for approx 35-40mins.

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.