Can't get enough & a birthday

My sister ordered some Red Velvet Cake from a reputable bakery near my place. Since she fell ill, I had to pick up the cakes for her before it closed for the day during Christmas eve.

She offered to share the smaller cake with me as she doubt she can eat it since she is sick.

She loves the texture as it is light and easy to eat. As I didn't have very good experience with the last Red Velvet Cake recipe that I made, I wonder whether how the texture should be. After tasting this reputable version, I was determined to get the texture next time.

Since today is my hubby’s birthday and seriously I don’t know what else to buy for him after being married to him for 19 years, a simple man he is! So I baked him Red Velvet Cupcakes instead. A chance for me to see whether the recipe I wanted to try will live up to the reputable ones.



I am pleased to say that the texture is nearly close and it went really well with the cream cheese frosting. Everyone agreed that it was good, except that my son is a not a fan of cream cheese had his opted out.

Happy Birthday my dear.

Boxing day

This year, it was supposedly to be a quiet Christmas for us. In fact, we spent this period looking for appliances and checking out fittings for the new abode.

Last minute, DC decided to have a birthday party for her kid and we were invited for a BBQ.

I am amazed how she can pull though organising it within a day. She even hired a company that organised laser gun combat for the kids and my son had a great time with it.

My girl didn't go for the game as she was busy in another party. H had been organising Christmas parties for nearly 3 years now. Just love her personality and she is a great host but I am sad that her girl will be withdrawing from this school and moving on to another IP school but we promised that we will keep in touch.

As usual, I didn't like to go empty handed to the BBQ so I prepared two cakes for the night.

My first attempt was the Hummingbird Cake. I heard so much about this cake but never attempt on it as there is pineapple in it. Yet I am really curious on its taste.



Though I didn't like pineapple but some how, it tasted good in cakes just like pineapple tarts. Guess cooked pineapple is better than raw pineapples.

Anyway, this cake received tremendous positive comments.



As I prepared a big tub of cream cheese frosting, the next cake I chose a Carrot cake to match it.



Though the cake looked dense but I won't say it is a failed attempt for it tasted really good.



Both cakes received positive feedback. I guess Carrot Cake is more common than Hummingbird Cake, so most want to try Hummingbird cake instead.

Both taken from the same book, Hummingbird Bakery.

Now, I guess you are already planning for your year end party. Perhaps I should to. Invite my family over for a small dinner. I am sure they don't mind the mess in my house.

Well let's see how I managed as I need to complete some orders before I do my countdown.

Have a Blessed Christmas.

A quiet Christmas

Despite the heavy downpour, we were still out shopping. I have been out these past few days shopping but I wasn't shopping for Christmas but rather appliances for my new abode.

Suddenly I was told that I got to get all these done by this weekend as the carpenter needed the dimension before he can start work. So no choice, flood or no flood, I still have to do it. Guess age is really catching up on me or was it out of touch. These errands actually tires me.

With most of the appliances done, I am happy with my effort. I even found the replacement piano that I promised my daughter.

Now I have to slowly start clearing stuff from my pantry. As I have a packet of kinako powder and after seeing Piggy's Journal's Kinako Cookies, I know this packet of soy flour will be the first in line.



Texture is like butter cookie. After a few bites, you can really taste the nutty flavour.

So to all my readers, enjoy your time with all your dear ones.

Merry Christmas.

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #14: Creative Christmas Bakes (December 2011), hosted by Hankerie.

On the way

After visiting our counsellor in IMH, I decided to swing over to Jln Kayu and visit my favourite Otah stall and prata stall. Some months ago, I got my otah fix in Geylang and was utterly disappointed by the deterrioted quality.

I am so happy that at least the quality in this stall is still the same as before. Was happily munching on it while son went to buy our pratha.

Decided to keep some to make Otah Buns. As I was not ready to make these, I decided to freeze it.

You might be wondering whether I am crazy to make bread in such weather. Well, when you crave for it, I guess even the weather can't stop it.

Here I am, making bread on a wet and cold day. I proof the dough with a steaming hot cloth over it and letting it sit in the microwave. So far, this method never fail me.



I was upset when my helper rebutted me that she is not wrong to boil liang cha in a small medical pot. How can I not tell the difference between liang cha and chinese medicinal herb? Well she still insist that she is right. So what more can I say right?

Because of this while I was kneading my bread, I totally forgotten about the butter.



Luckily it didn't affect the taste too much.

So here is my not so pretty Otah Bun.

Well at least my craving is fix and my son went crazy and ate most of them.

Merry Christmas

Though this year, we are not having Christmas celebration as my house is currently in a mess, I still prepare Christmas presents for close friends and family members. It is harder and harder to think of a nice gift for them and I seems so lost these days to shop. Lack of practise maybe. I wish they have the same hobby as me and that will make my life simple. hahahah.

Perhaps next year, I will just bake for single one instead or like Mrs Pamela who gives tooth brush. hahaha

Enough said, I am at a lost what to get for my young adult nephew who is very picky. So I decided to bake chocolate chip cookies for him instead. Well at least he can munch on it on his way to HK.



I am glad that my family loves these. The salt actually gives this simple Chocolate Chip Cookie a different dimension.

Definitely a keeper!

Source: The Cookbook chronicles

What you need:

300g unsalted butter, at room temp.
52g granulated sugar
1/2 cup demerara sugar (light brown sugar is fine too)
404g packed, dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2½ tsp vanilla extract
244g flour
83g 1 tbsp bread flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
1½ kosher salt (not table salt) + fleur de sel / vanilla salt for sprinkling over cookie dough
504g 70% bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

Method

Preheat the oven to 350ºC.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs one at a time, and beat well after each addition.

Add the vanilla extract, the flours, the baking soda, baking powder, and salt. On low speed, beat the mixture until the dry ingredients are well-incorporated, about 1 minute.

Stir in the chopped chocolate.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop the dough and place it in the tray. Leaving space for expansion as this will melt into a thin cookie.

Dust the tops of each ball of dough with a tiny bit of fleur de sel or vanilla salt.

Bake for 12 – 13 mins (Do not bake these on the bottom rack in the oven–the high proportion of brown sugar will cause the bottoms to darken too much.) (as I wanted it to crisp more, I baked longer).

At this time, the cookies should have taken on a golden brown color all around the edge, but still look very soft in the center–like hot cookie dough.

Remove the tray from the oven, and allow the cookies to cool directly on the tray for 10 minutes before eating.

Loving myself

My emotion has been on a roller coaster ride for nearly 8 years.

On Thursday, I had a superb time as we managed to settle many errands in a day. Most importantly, we finally identified a furniture maker! This will help us with substantial savings.

We spent Friday, having tea with Baby G (oops should be Little G now) and JM, then we were off for science tuition. (how boring)

My emotion went downhill after we came home. I burnt my weekend in my own cave. I felt overwhelmed and all alone. I even forgo a family gathering and told my mom that I am unwell.

Those few days were hard to past but I learnt from this experience that my daughter is so sensible. She literally can feel my thoughts and she can sense my pain.

I doubt I can live without her. She is such a God sent angel to me. Her words are so comforting and her presence makes me feel wanted.

After a visit from my sisters, I felt so much better. Yes, I need to be kinder to myself. I need to love myself more. It is easy to say but I will try to make that happen.

Now I am feeling so much better and I hate to see my kids kept eating Peanut Butter with banana sandwiches all the time. So I decided to make Hoddeok (Korean Pancake) again. Actually I made these for my tea with JM the other day using dried yeast, and for this batch I used fresh yeast.

Personally I find the dry yeast dough is much easier to handle then fresh yeast. The latter is very sticky to handle (just like in the video as provided by Frozen Wings).

Texture wise: I think will be nicer if the dough has more sweetness to it and this is best eaten freshly cooked as it gives a crisp skin. Warming it again didn't have the same texture.



Thanks Frozen Wing for sharing this.

What you need:

219g or 1 cup slightly warm water
6 g or 2 tsp instant yeast
28g or 2 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp vegetable oil
276g or 2 cups all purpose flour

Fillings

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tbsp chopped walnuts

Method:

Pour slightly warm water into a big mixing bowl. Add in the instant yeast, sugar, salt and vegetable oil and mix all together with a hand whisk.

Next add in the flour and continue mixing till all is well incorporated. Leave to proof in the bowl for 1 hour till double its volume.

After an hour, stir the mixture ( it will deflate ) and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, you can prepare your fillings. Just mix all the filling ingredients in a bowl and leave aside.

Flour your working table and remove the dough from the bowl ( from step 3) and divide into 8 portions.

Lightly pat each dough with your palm to flatten it , wrap in fillings , seal tightly and pan fry them in a pan with little oil.

Leave them fry on one side for about 30 seconds and flip over to the side. Once flipped over, use your spatula to flatten the dough and fry till both sides are golden brown, you can then cover and cook for another minute.

Remove from pan. Serve hot. Best eaten fresh.

Note: You can fry these pancakes 2 or 3 at a time .

Meeting strangers

Being a home maker, sometime it is hard to find new friends so when there is an opportunity to do so, I generally grabbed it. Another plus point is that I am going to be meeting like minded people who enjoy cooking and baking!

So today I am joining a Happy Call Pan Party. Each of us has to cook something in this pan.

Initially, I really don't know what to cook and since I have tofu in the fridge and found a recipe in a book, Mapo Tofu it will be.

I have eaten Mapo Tofu many times when dinning out but somehow, I never cook this at home. Don't ask me why, perhaps I thought it was difficult.



After the food preparation. I took only less than 10 mins to whip up this dish. Best of all, I didn’t leave a mess behind. I am sure my helper is happy if I continue to cook in this pan. Easy peasy.

As for the party, I had fun and so did my girl. Hope to attend another one soon. Thanks K for hosting it and W for organising it.

Note: I didn't add in chilli oil as there were kids in the party.

Adapted from: Home Cooking with Sam & Forest

What you need:

2 blocks Silken tofu
2 tbsp cooking oil
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp minced shallots
300g diced prawns
6 dried mushroom, soaked and finely chopped
1 tbsp corn flour mixed with 1 tbsp water

Seasoning

1 tbsp of mom's bean sauce
1 tsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp sugar
a dash of dark soya sauce (for blanching tofu)
a dash of sesame oil

Garnish
chopped spring onions
chilli oil (optional)

Method

Blanch tofu with hot water and a dash of dark soya sauce (for colouring). Set aside for 10 mins.

Heat wok with oil and stir fry shallots and garlic till fragrant. Add in prawns and sautee.

Add in mushroom and seasoning sauce. Bring to boil.

Season to taste and add in corn flour mixture to thicken the sauce.

Add in beancurd and stir gently.

You can add in chilli oil and garnish.

Serve with hot rice.

Can't get enough

The last two Saturday, we spent some quiet time with my parents. After sending the kids off for their Taekwondo training, we picked up my parents and went to Jacob's Cafe in Changi for dinner. Yes we dined there for two consecutive Saturdays. This cafe is hubby's favourite.

Initial plan was to take a little walk along the board walk before we have our meal but it was ruined by rain. Luckily, the second Saturday was an awesome evening. We even saw 4 couples getting their wedding photo taken and a beach wedding.

My dad is very into Confucius study. He strongly felt that abolishing that teaching was a big mistake for our society and maybe that explains why kids these days are so difficult to teach. They are rude and just too self centred.

You see after having our first Saturday dinner with my parents, my hubby left town for work. On the following Friday, my son went into a fit of anger for I had confiscated his phone for misuse. The worst fear happened; he pushed me and got me bruised.

As hubby was not around, my little one rang my parents and got them involved. Let's hope that after my parents' pep talks to him, and his dad's, he will be more sensible and learn to control his anger in a better matter.

Enough said, dad saw a very interesting calligraphy on the wall of this café. It is extremely meaningful and I planned to share but unfortunately, I misplaced the paper and will ask him to forward it to me again. I am sure you too will find it very meaningful so hang on for a little longer.

With the kids's competition done, they don't have go on diet anymore and thus I decided to bake some Chocolate Muffins for them. After all, it's been a week since I last warm up my oven.



This is really good recipe especially when you use the best quality cocoa powder, soft and fluffy and with rich chocolate taste. Unfortunately, the souffle cups are oily. I suspect it could be from the butter but luckily the muffin is not.

Overall, I strongly you try it.



Note: Divide batter into 12 cups as this will rise nicely, just like those shown in this picture.

So proud of them

My son started taking taekwondo lesson when he was 9 years old. Back then, this sport was pick by us randomly as we need to identify a sport to allow him to let out his excess energy.

He surprised us by doing very well in this sport and brought home many medals after.

As for my girl, after watching her brother going for his training for years, she too join the sport at the age of 5.

Recently she got her brown belt and was ready for competition. We signed her up for exposure and didn't expect her to bring home a medal.

Just before the competition, she told us that she has to do well so that she can bring home a medal for her 公公. True to her words, she was so determine that she didn't give up and won.

Credit should also be given to the coach who show so much passion for the sport as well as the love for the kids. Believing in them and giving them the confidence.

Just imagine, she gives extra coaching without charging extra. It is seriously hard to find coaches that teaches not based on monetary gain these days.

Most importantly, the kids all love her and behaves really well. Yes, even my son.

So well done kids! I am so proud of you all.

Like a tortoise

This week, I am moving around like a tortoise. Very slow and steady. I am also looking forward to having one tuition lesson less in a week till end of the year. To be honest, isn't it great if tuition centre all closed during school holiday?

Since my kids are all on diet in preparation for their competition next weekend, I also refrained from baking too much. Though my girl is requesting for madelines, I am holding it till she is done with her compeitition.

So now I leave you with this mushroom risotto which we had last week.



I really love the creamy texture. While cooking it, my son commented that it smells good. Nothing beats compliment from your family while you are cooking.

Final trip

I hope this will be hubby's final trip for the year. I seriously pity him, after taking on this role, he worked so much harder than before. I really appreciate him spending time with the kids as much as he could. Well we still have to endure for another year plus.

Before he disappear for another week, I wanted to cook a good meal and enjoy together as a family. Somehow, I always appreciate my parents' role in raising family. We always eat together. When I started my family, I too insist that we must have our meal together every night. Of course there will be nights that hubby has to entertain but at least those are kept to a minimum.

I am sure my kids will grow up appreciating this.

I loaned a book from the library last week and I spotted some really interesting recipes from it. I will be churning out more delicious dishes from this book soon.

The first dish that I tried is Crispy Pork Ribs with Fermented Bean Curd.



Generally, I don't add sugar to my cooking. So this dish gets a hint of sweetness that we are not accustomed to but overall, it didn't taste that bad. I guess the sweetness could have been from the Chinese Rose Wine.

Overall, it will be great if there is more salt added to it.

Next I did a Poached Spinach with Century Egg. Original recipe needed three types of eggs. I was having a slight hiccup with my salted eggs. The first one, I cracked it by accident but the yolk was not good. The second one, after cooking, I realized it was spoilt too.

I had a hunch that my helpers placed it too near the heat and all were spoilt before I have a chance to cook it.

With that hiccup, I totally forgotten about the third egg and that is the fresh chicken egg.



My daughter actually baked some premix brownie and she was really proud of herself. Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to take a picture.

Nevertheless, it still tasted good and we had a great evening.

Layers by Layers

I am begining to fall in love with my Happy Call Pan. In fact, I already asked my hubby to buy a deeper one when he visit Korea next month.
(If you ever bought one directly from Korea, please do let me know where. Thanks.)

I heard so much about Crepes cake but never tasted one so when I saw the recipe, I knew I had to made one myself.



This looks like a lapis cake don't it? but I spent half the effort making it.

I love the texture of the crepes and best of all, my family loves it too.

Since I had the last piece of pork belly in the fridge, I decided to make Roast Pork as well.

You see, I attempted Roast Pork many years ago and it left me a smoky kitchen for many days. Thus though it was a good recipe, I wasn't keen to try it anymore till now.

Verdict: Because of a different cooking method, I find that after blanching the pork in water, the marination was a little difficult to infuse into the meat. I will have to increase the seasoning portion next time.

Also I need to make sure that the skin will touch the base of the pan FULLY so that the skin will brown evenly.



Overall, it is okay but will be nicer if I increase the salt and brown the skin more.

Definitely looking forward to attempt more recipes.

Source: Happy Call Pan Forum

Crepe cakes

What you need:

150g sieved top flour
30g castor sugar
3 eggs
350ml milk
45g melted butter, cooled
Chocolate ganache or nutella

Method:

Mix flour, sugar and eggs together until lump free.

Alternate the milk and butter into the batter.

Sieve the mixture to remove lumps, set aside for 30min.

Heat up pan, add a ladle of mixture, swirl batter to cover pan for even layer.

When the edge starts to brown, close pan and flip over to cook the other side.

Spread ganache while crepe is still warm, place the next layer of crepe and continue till batter is used up.

*******
Roast Pork

What you need:

1 kg Pork belly
10g salt
20g seasoning (10g salt, 2 tsp pepper and 10g five spice powder)

Method

Wash and clean the pork belly.

Boil in water for about 15 to 20 mins until cooked.

Drain and pat dry.

Rub salt on the skin and the seasoning on the meat.

Marinate it for about 2 hours or overnight.

Put a tbsp of oil in the Happy Call Pan. Using med high heat, place skin side down and cooked for 6 mins on each side or till crackling appeared.

Further cook the meat skin for another 6 mins.