Cranberry mini-cupcakes

Another melt & mix bake which I did today. This is an extremely easy recipe with very little ingredients. I would recommend using butter instead of oil as it gives a rich flavour to it. This recipe is good by itself but you can add citrus zest or essence for variety. This time round, I added cranberries, it gives a nice balance of sweet and sour. I wanted to add lemon oil but forgotten all about it, maybe another time.

Ingredient
100g unsalted butter
80g sugar (you can use 70g if you are adding choc chips)
2 eggs
100g self-raising flour, sifted
pinch of salt (you can omit if you are using salted butter)
50g cranberries

Method
1. Melt butter then add sugar and stir till sugar dissolves
2. Add eggs and beat till well blended
3. Gently fold in sifted flour into butter/sugar/egg mixture till well combined
4. Add cranberries and gently mix into the batter, do not overmix
5. Pour batter into small cupcake liners and bake in a preheated oven at 180C for 15-20mins or till the top turns slight golden brown
6. Remove mini cupcakes from the oven and take them out of the tray immediately and leave it to cool

Hokkien Mee

This is a chinese noodle dish which uses different types of noodles usually yellow and laksa noodles and served with lime and chilli. My mother-in-law who only eats seafood/fish was coming over, so I thought this would be the best to fits everyone's palate.

Ingredients
500g yellow noodles
500g laksa noodles
300-400g fresh prawns
2-3 medium-sized squids, cut into rings
2-3 fish cakes, sliced thinly
3 eggs, lightly beaten
11 cloves garlic, chopped
1 bunch spring onions, cut into 5cm lengths
150g beansprouts, more if you like
4-5 Tbsp oyster sauce
splash of fish sauce
salt & pepper to taste
lime for garnishing
prawn+squid stock
3-5 Tbsp oil

Method
1. Clean prawns but don't remove the shells
2. Blanch prawns in a pot of water, once they turn pink, remove the prawns (you don't want to overcook it as it will turn rubbery
3. Add squids to the same pot (do not throw the water after blanching the prawns as this will be used as the stock) and remove once they turned white, put aside
4. Remove prawns shells+head and put them back to the prawn+squid stock, simmer for another 20-30mins, strain and put aside
5. Heat oil in wok and add chopped garlic, fry till fragrant
6. Add egg and break into small pieces
7. Add noodles, stir till they are well coated with the egg pieces and oil
8. Add abit of stock, oyster sauce and stir till well combined
9. Cover wok and let it simmer for 5 min
10.Add prawns, squid and fish cake slices and stir, add more stock if you want it to be wet
11.Add fish sauce, salt and pepper to taste
12.Finally add beansprouts and spring onion and mix thoroughly, add stock if it is too dry
13.Simmer for another 5-10 min and serve hot with lime and chilli slices or sambal

Chocolate Yogurt Cake

I have not been baking for a while, so to get the mood back, I chose to do this simple chocolate cake using yogurt which I have some left in the fridge. This recipe uses the melt & mix method which is fuss free - something that I like and the result was very satisfying, soft and moist. You can see from the 2nd photo.

The original recipe is taken off the book 'Best Ever Chocolate Cakes & Slices' by Periplus. I modified a little bit replacing some of the yogurt with milk.

Ingredients
1 1/2 C self-raising flour
1/2 C cocoa powder
1 C caster sugar
200g butter, melted
120g plain yogurt
80g milk
2 eggs

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Melt butter over the stove or microwave and leave it to cool
3. Sift self-raising flour, cocoa powder and caster sugar into a big bowl and make a hole in the centre
4. Mix eggs, yogurt, milk and melted butter together
5. Pour mixture into dry ingredients and mix it with mixer for about 1min till all the ingredients are well mixed (do not overbeat)
6. Pour into a greased and lined baking tin or cupcake/muffin liners
7. Bake for 30-50mins or until skewer comes out clean when inserted in centre of cake
8. Stand cake in baking tin for about 10mins before turning onto wire rack to cool