I got the recipe from here and I omitted the sherry.
Pure indulgence !!!
For those who are interested, I got the recipe from this site it's in Japanese btw. I was lucky to have found it translated at one site that I was surfing but unfortunately cannot remember which one :-( Please use good quality chocolates and for the cocoa powder, use dutch processed ones.
Ingredients:
195g dark chocolate (I used valrhona 50% cocoa but best is with 70%)
100ml fresh cream
1 Tbsp honey (if you are not using anything more than 70%, you can cut down the honey a little bit if you prefer slightly bitter taste)
enough cocoa powder to coat the chocolates later
Method:
1. Chop the chocolate into small pieces
2. Place cream and honey in a pot and heat it up. Turn off the flame the moment it boils
3. Add the chopped chocolate into the warm mixture and stir till the chocolate and cream are combined (it should look like ganache)
4. Lay baking paper on a tray (covering the sides too), then pour the mixture into it
5. Place it in the fridge for about 2 hours or until firm
6. Remove the hardened chocolate from the baking tray and chop them into cubes with a warm knife blade
7. Coat them generously with the cocoa powder and serve it chilled
This time round, I didn't really have any particular recipe for the fillings. It was just plenty of durian pulp and some whipped cream. Mixed them together and chill it before serving. Make sure you get good grade durians. This is best served chilled also you can even drizzle some chocolate sauce or melted choc to go with it .. yumms
Here is the choux pastry recipe which I used for the durian puffs.
Profiteroles (Choux Pastry)
adapted from Small Cakes from Fondant Fancies to Florentines by Roger Pizey
Ingredients
150ml water
60g butter (I used salted butter)
2 tsp caster sugar
a good pinch of salt
100g bread flour
3 eggs, 55g each whisked - original stated 2-3 eggs, if you are using bigger eggs, you may need less than 3
Method
1. Place water, butter, sugar and salt in a pan and bring to boil making sure butter is melted
2. Add flour and stir with wooden spoon till the dough comes away easily from the side of the pan (you need to cook the flour fully, so try not to hurry)
3. Place dough in a mixer and while beating, add enough eggs slowly to make it suitable for piping
4. Cover dough with cling wrap and leave it to rest in the fridge till it cools
5. Fill piping bag fitted with a large nozzle with cooled dough
6. Preheat oven to 240C
7. Pipe a choux evenly on tray (size is up to you)
8. Place tray on the middle shelf of the oven and turn off the oven, leave it for 15mins
9. Turn oven back on at 180C and bake for about 20-30mins (Do not open the door untill nearly cooked or it will flatten - I took it out when the top turned brown)
10. Remove from the oven and turn out onto a wire rack to cool
I used my trusty thermal pot and cooked this in the morning before I left for work and by the time I reached home, I had a piping hot dish waiting to be served ;-) I still have another 362 to try out ..(actually I have done some other dishes but didn't get a chance to take a picture of them) :-P and pretty happy that my kids are eating them with no complains !
I don't know what to call this dish. This is my all-time favourite easy meal. However, I cannot make this very often because my hubby is prone to gout. My dad used to make this when we were young and I think his tastes better than my mom's *lol* We usually make this when we have plenty of bread (to get rid off) or when mom's not cooking. I love to have this with french loaves .. yummy.
I know that some people don't like sardines because of the smell. I love sardine including the smell *LOL* but adding freshly squeezed lime juice is a good way to get rid of it (be generous). Chillies are optional if you don't like spicy, but for me personally it will not taste as good without them.
Ingredients:
1 tall can sardines, mashed (I like Ayam brand)
1 japanese cucumber, cut into small cubes
1 medium red onion, sliced thinly or cut into small cubes
2 red fresh chillies, thinly sliced, remove seeds if don't want spicy (optionally)
juice from 10 small limes (or more)
Method:
1. Mix them all up
Dump everything on the mashed sardines
Lovely juicey limes
Serve this with hot french loaves .. or sliced bread if you like :-)
I finally took up a challenge to do a large fondant cake (large as in anything bigger than 6inch in size :-P) for my baby brother's engagement. Time is always an issue for me, after coming back from the holidays, I had very little time to prepare - either I was bogged down with work or simply too tired. Initially, I was very sure that I will have enough time to prepare marshmallow fondant, but deep inside I know I need some contingency plan and true enough the store bought fondant saved me. Another issue was with the flowers that I ordered for one of the cake. Unfortunately, I underestimated the time and was not able to get them in time, so took out my backup design and came out with this. This cake was a gift from the guy side to the girl. Pretty couple aren't they :-)
Personally, I like the lilies better :-) On top of the cakes, he also requested for a cuppy set .. well this was easy to make. I used my usually American Chocolate Cake for the cuppies and vanilla frosting .. the flowers again were store bought.
Overall, I enjoyed making them although the rolling and covering the cake with fondant was full of stress .. I was soo scared that the fondant will tear during the transfer, but fortunately that didn't happen. I am now more confident handling it and maybe who knows, I will be a bit more adventurous with it.
Happy viewing !
These are some old food photos that I took during my work trip to Xinjiang. That time, my photo taking skill was still in infancy stage and I managed to took some photos of the food I had. This is only like half of it. There were alot of other stuffs that I did not take because I was just too shy *LOL* The best thing about the food there is the hot pepper that they use, man ..it's hot hot hot but best thing is that it doesn't burn your tummy but more of your lips. The red pepper if I am not wrong is know as 'mala' it is a bit like sichuan pepper but the taste is not exactly the sichuan pepper that I get here. It's different.
We had the pilaf, hand made noodles and kebab for one of our lunch in a local food stall. This is very middle eastern influenced as the owners are khasgar descendants. Loaded with lamb.
these were taken from street eating place. It's clean of course and they have a fantastic array of food
Grilled sotong
I love this chicken dish. This is hardcore mala peppers. It's just shredded steamed chicken with the hot sauce. Yummy but have to bear with the heat for awhile *LOL* Any kind soul out there who knows how to make this??
This is at a restaurant. My lychee dish in my earlier entry was actually inspired from this place.
I love xinjiang. There are soo many places that I can eat because majority of them are Muslims. I also had a chance to eat Peking duck there. It was really lovely. If you are a fruit lover, there are soo many lovely fruits like donut peach, hami melons, watermelons .. lots and lots of them. I wish that I day I can bring my family there for a holiday but I have to pick up speaking Mandarin first *LOL*
I wasn't sure whether my kids would like it but surprisingly they finished it all :-) If you want a thicker coating, coat the patty with egg and breadcrumbs 2x before frying it. This will give the patty a nice thick, even coating that looks like those frozen patties you get at the supermarket. Do give it a try.
Ingredients
500g crab meat (you can use fish or cuttlefish paste or a mix of each of them)
2 medium potatoes, steam and mashed
1 egg, lightly beaten
1-2T corn flour or AP flour
salt & pepper to taste
enough oil for frying
(Coating)
enough breadcrumbs
egg, lightly beaten
flour
Method
1. Mix crab meat and mashed potatoes throughly
2. Season with salt & pepper to taste
3. Add egg and flour and mix till well blended
4. Shape into lemon size balls and flatten it to patties
5. Chill patties in the refrigerator for about 2hrs
6. Place breadcrumbs, egg and flour each into 3 individual plates
7. Heat up oil in the pan
8. Coat patty with flour, followed by dipping into the lightly beaten egg
9. Coat with breadcrumbs, dip into egg again and coat with breadcrumbs a second time
10.Fry patty till golden brown
11.Serve hot with lemon wedges
This is the recipe for the vanilla sponge which is adapted from the book 'A Profit-Making Bakery Shop' by Wendy Kor. I believe this is a malaysian book. It doesn't really matter that the acknowlegdement and some parts of the book is written in chinese, all the recipes are bilingual though. I have tried many sponge recipes and this one is the one that I have been looking for. It could be the milk powder that is being used here that makes the difference. The texture is very soft and compact. No eggy taste and it is fairly white but of course taste is very subjective. My taste and others can differ, it may be good to me but not others :-D
Here goes:
Ingredients:
(A)
150g cake flour/superfine flour
1/2 tsp (2g) baking powder
1/4 tsp (1g) salt
10g milk powder
(B)
60g cooking oil
50g water
4 (75g) yolks
80g castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
(C)
4 (150g) whites
90g castor sugar (original 100g)
1/4 tsp (1g) cream of tartar
Method
1. Sift ingredients (A) and put it aside
2. Whisk yolks and sugar till it turns lemon color
3. Add oil, water and vanilla and mix till well blended
4. Add ingredients (A) and mix it slowly till it forms a smooth batter
5. Whisk (C) till stiff
6. Fold in 1/3 of egg white mixture into egg yolk mixture and gently stir, then fold in the remaining egg white mixture and mix well gently
7. Pour batter into a lined 9" round cake tin
8. Bake in a preheated oven 180C for 35-40 mins or till it springs back when touched
9. Once cooked, removed from oven and invert the cake on the wire rack until completed cooled
10.Removed from mould and decorate it
Don't call me crazy but I have been on a mission to find a perfect vanilla sponge cake for creamed cakes for a couple of years already. I have tried many many recipes, not that they are not good but it didn't taste right for me. I know some of the people I know will ask why would I want my cake tastes like those from bakeries? Well, of course I admit that it can be difficult to replicate the taste of those lovelies from bakeries but to me it is a challenge - to be able to make something that is as good as those from known bakeries and not having to rely on sponge mixes *LOL* (simply because they have the closest taste). Neways, back to the topic of sponge cake, I finally found the perfect recipe and I am soo happy that I made it yesterday although I was pretty tired.
Recipe can be found here
The outcome is moist and soft cake. Yummy !!! I frost it with buttercream because I wanted to finish it off and of course, free some space in my fridge .. heh
At the same time, I used the opportunity to use my new gadget, which I actually purchased last year but never had the chance to use it until yesterday *LOL* Don't ask me how much I paid for it because you will tell me that I am crazy :-P But hey, you can grab it at Amazon at a price definitely cheaper than what I paid :-)
This is extremely useful especially weighing small grain items like gelatine powder, yeast, baking powder etc. .. lovely isn't it? (I can't help it, I am a gadget freak *LOL*)
I would like to wish all mothers Happy Mothers Day. For me, mother's day is just like any other days but I do get cards and self-made gifts from my daughters. However, every year, since a few years ago, I will bake a cake for both my mom and mother-in-law. Usually it is something simple and both will have the same design *LOL* This year, I decided to make something different ie. to have their faces on the cake.
This is the cake I made for my mom. It is just a simple chocolate sponge with fresh cream.
I hope that she enjoyed the cake as much as I enjoyed baking and decorating it :-)
The weather has been pretty hot humid for the last week or so. To beat the heat, I made this dessert for our dinner and it was sure heaven *LOL* The pudding was store bought as my fridge currently has no space for me to make one from scratch.
What you need is good mango pudding (cut to cubes), 1 can of fruit cocktail or whatever fruit that you like with the syrup, plenty of ice or crushed ice and enough water to dilute the syrup.
This is the mango pudding that I used for this dessert.
The hubby likes eating waffles with ice-cream, for me, I prefer to have it with jam/fruit preserves. Got this recipe from the manual that comes with the Philips snack maker and I like the fact that it is easier than the ones using eggs. This one uses whipping cream instead but you will still need to whip it till stiff to lighten the texture of this wonderful waffles. Surprisingly even without sugar it tastes real nice and crispy.
This talk about panini started in a parenting forum which I frequent and made me crave to have one. I love sandwiches but not those cold ones. If it is not hot, it has to be at room temperature *LOL* So all these talk about panini excited me but the problem is, it is not very easy to get a low price panini presser (even the over the stove kind would cost a lot more). There is one selling at departmental store but it costs a whopping S$300+ :-( So after doing my window shopping, I decided to get a multi-plate snack maker.
It has 3 interchangable plates and well it works pretty fine for me although you may have a problem with thicker sandwiches though. I started with something simple.
Egg mayo sandwich
Peanut butter+banana sandwich
So far I am pretty happy with this gadget. In fact I have made waffles and pocketed sandwiches with it. The waffles will be updated later ;-D
My eldest daughter turned 9 in the middle of March. I wasn't in the mood to do any baking but it just didn't feel right not to prepare anything for her. So as usual, I baked a cake for her to share with her friends at the day care centre. I know kids just love chocolate so I decided to bake a chocolate & banana cake with a simple chocolate ganache. Excuse the decor as I was like really pressing for time :-( But I was very happy that all the kids enjoyed the simple cake I did.
A slice of the cake (extra cake I did to celebrate at home)
The original recipe is taken from BBC Goodfood I skipped the crumble topping and used brown sugar and replaced the chocolate with dark chocolate (my favourite).
Here is the recipe with my changes. I double the recipe and baked in an 9 inch baking pan and with some excess I pour into a small about 6inch pan or you can use a loaf pan.
Ingredients
100g dark chocolate, melted by double boil or microwave
150g butter , softened
175g brown sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
2 large bananas, peeled and mashed
Ganache
170g cream (dairy or non-dairy)
170g semi-sweet choc chips or anything choc that you like (sometimes I use more for thicker ganache)
Method
1. Heat the oven to 180C
2. Cream together the softened butter and caster sugar until pale and fluffy, gradually add the egg, beating well between each addition
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder and cocoa and fold in using a large metal spoon
4. Add the mashed banana and chocolate and mix well
5. Pour into a greased and line baking pan and bake for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean
6. Cool on a rack and then frost it with the ganache
7. For the ganache, heat the cream till you see bubbles at the side of the pan and add the choc and stir till all is melted, leave it to cool before use
I had one orange sitting in my refrigerator for about a week or so. I wasn't in a mood to have fresh orange but decided to use it for a cake. So I came out with this easy orange cake. The original recipe was taken from KC but I modified it based on a suggestion by a member and I got this !
Ingredients
250g self raising flour, sifted
150g sugar
125g butter, softened
2 eggs (60g each with shell)
120ml water
1 medium orange (I used navel orange)
Method:
1. Boil orange with skin and all in a pot of water for about 40mins till the skin is soft and almost translucent (make sure that the orange is fully covered with water), remove and cool the orange
2. Cut the orange to remove the seeds and blend it, put aside
3. Beat butter and sugar till creamy
4. Add eggs, one at a time to beat till well blended
5. Add the orange pulp, mix it well
6. Add water to the bowl or container that was used to hold the orange pulp (I don't want the waste the leftover pulp), put aside
7. Fold in flour and gently mix it, followed by water and then the balance flour
8. Pour batter into a greased and lined 8 inch pan
9. Baked in a preheated oven at 180C for 40-45mins or till skewer comes out clean (bake at the lowest rack)
10.Let cake cool in the pan for about 5mins before turning it out on a cooling rack
My family just love pasta apart from pizza. Recently, I took the opportunity to use my new Le Creuset dutch oven which I purchased recently with this simple baked pasta. Like many of my other dinner, I 'cheat' using ready made sauces.
I got abit tired of just using the traditional sauce. So I decided to make it abit like lasagna but using pasta instead.
Here I used 2 kinds of sauces. One is the traditional spaghetti sauce (I used prego) and the other is actually cream soup but I added cheese to it.
The 2 main ingredients, but I used mushroom campbell's soup. It is the kind in sachets.
The following is how I did it but you can vary it by using bolognaise sauce and replace the pasta with lasagna.
Ingredients
1 package pasta of your choice (375g), boil till al-dente
1 large bottle pasta sauce of your choice
1 sachet campbell mushroom soup
1 Cup of water for the soup
3 slices cheddar cheese
mix of shredded mozarella and cheddar cheese
Method
1. Heat 1 cup of water in a pot and add soup, stir to blend the powder
2. Add cheese slices and stir till they melt, put aside
3. Pour cooked pasta into a casserole dish and our 3/4 of the pasta sauce and mix it till all the pasta are covered with the sauce
4. Pour the cheese sauce over the pasta and followed by the balance pasta sauce
5. Sprinkle shredded cheese generously covering the pasta
6. Bake in a preheated oven 190C for 30-40mins or till the top turns golden brown
7. Sprinkle with herbs if you want and serve it hot
Enjoy!
