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

Assorted Seafood Bakso Noodle

Mee bakso simply means meatball noodles. There are many versions of mee bakso but this time round, I decided to use seafood balls instead for a change. However, I still used beef as the stock base for more added flavour.

Ingredients
Stock
1 kg beef, slightly fatty
1 pkt sup bunjut (this you can buy from the supermarket where all the spices are packed in a small bag. Very convenient)
3L water
salt & pepper to taste

1 pkt bee hoon, soaked in water till tender
fish balls, sotong/cuttlefish balls and crab balls
2 large onion
5 clove garlic
2 inch ginger
2T oil

Garnishes
lettuce, julienne
sliced lime
blanched beansprouts
chilli
chopped parsley and spring onions

Method
1. Boil the beef for about 20mins in a litre of water then throw away the water (this is to get rid of the impurities)
2. Fill the pot with 2L water and add beef and sup bunjut
3. Simmer for about 1-2 hrs till beef is tender, remove spices and put aside
4. Blend onion, garlic and ginger into a paste
5. Heat oil in a pot and fry blended paste till fragrant
6. Add stock into the pot and let it simmer
7. Add beef pieces, balls, salt and pepper to taste and let it boil for about 20mins
8. At the same time, drain bee hoon and pour hot boiling water to tenderised the noodle
9. To serve, pour soup over the noodle with some of the beef pieces and seafood balls
10.Garnish with lettuce, beansprouts, lime, chopped parsley and spring onions and serve

Chicken Nuggets

I am not exactly a nuggets fan but my kids do have them occassionally at the fast food joints. I have tried making my own but they always turn out a little on the soggy side until I tried this recipe which is originally taken off Berita Harian - our local malay paper. The recipe uses chicken wings but I opt for chicken chunks instead and add more spices to it. It's a fairly simple recipe and you can add whatever spice that you like.

Here, the potato starch actually keeps the nuggets dry and the rice flour gives it a crunchy texture.

Ingredients
1 kg chicken fillets, cut into bite size
7 dried chillies
5 clove garlic
5cm ginger
1/2 T coriander powder
1 T garam masala or any spices you fancy
1 C rice flour
1 C potato starch
1 egg
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
salt & pepper to taste
oil for frying

Method
1. Blend dried chillies, garlic, ginger into paste
2. Mix blended paste with both flours, salt, pepper, egg and soda bicarbonate
3. Add chicken pieces into the batter and marinate it for about 30mins
4. Heat oil and deep fry chicken pieces till golden brown
5. Drain oil and serve with your favourite sauce

Enjoy !!

Curry Tuna Fritters

This is an easy one, great to have for tea and dipping it with a good chili sauce. I got a can of Curry Tuna (Ayam brand) lying around and I was not in a mood to make a puff. So came up with this instead.

The main ingredient is the Curry Tuna in a can .. heh This is the packaging that you should look out for. You will notice that I mention potatoes in the methods. Just to inform that the curry tuna has potatoes in it.

Ingredients:
1 can Curry Tuna (Ayam brand)
1 - 1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs
1/4 - 1/2 cup water, you may not need to use all
a bunch of spring onions, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
oil for frying


Method:
1. Mix flour with salt and pepper
2. Add the eggs and 1/4 cup of water, mix till well blended
3. Pour the curry tuna into the batter and mix, mash the potaotes a little
4. If batter is too watery, add about 1 tbsp of flour at a time till the consistency that you like, if too sticky, add 1 tbsp of water at a time
5. Add the chopped spring onions and mix it well
6. Heat oil in a pan
7. Fry a spoonful at a time till golden brown
8. Serve hot with chili sauce

Horse Shoe Nutella Roll

This is one of a favourite during Hari Raya. You will see many homebakers selling this and lots of houses serving this during the muslim festive season. I think the main attraction is the nutella as young and old simply love the taste of this chocolate hazelnut spread ;-)

I got this recipe from Suria a malay channel in Singapore. Since this particular recipe uses lesser egg, I thought of giving it a try. Result is nice but I think there's way too much baking powder being used for the amount of flour in the recipe. I would recommend halfing it the next time.

I didn't follow the recipe to the T as I omitted the ovalette. I try to bake cakes without using emulsifier as I don't like the after taste of it - to me at least.

The original uses 1tsp ovalette. So if you are using it, you can put all the ingredients except the nutella and melted butter into the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume. Since I am not using emulsifier, a bit more steps are involved.

Ingredients
6 egg yolk
3 egg whites
50 g cake/plain flour
15 g corn flour
½ tsp baking powder
100 g castor sugar
50 ml fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
75 ml melted butter
1 tbsp chocolate paste/emulco
Nugotin atau Nutella

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 200C
2. Prepare 1 baking tray 10” x 10” x 2”, line with grease paper
3. Melt Nugotin or Nutella using double boiling, bain-marie method till soft
4. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, cornflour.
5. Put eggs and sugar in the mixing bowl and mix it till it doubles in volume (the batter should be thick, shiny and light in colour) then add vanilla essence
6. Fold in flour alternately with milk with last being the flour into the batter and mix it gently
7. Pour melted butter and fold it gently
8. Scoop approximately 250g mixture and leave it plain
9. Add chocolate paste to the remainder and mix it well
10.Pour plain batter into a piping bag
11.Pour the chocolate batter into the pan
12.Pour the plain batter onto the chocolate batter
13.Bake in oven for 5 – 7 minutes only, do not overbake as cake may crack when rolled
14.When fully baked, take the cake out and cool it
15.Spread Nugotin/Nutella on the cake, and roll it from end to end
16.Cool it before cutting cake for serving

Ukoy (Prawn Fritters)

Ukoy is prawn fritters which is an asian dish. Where exactly it is from, I am not too sure but searching the internet, it seems that it is a Filipino dish (correct me if I am wrong). This recipe is taken from a recipe book but I modify it slightly to suit my taste. I added a some tapioca flour to make it a little chewy and I omitted the yam simply because I don't have any at home. But do try with that, I believe it would be delicious.

Ingredients
200g prawns
1-2 cup water
1 1/2 cup rice flour
1/4 cup corn flour
1 heapful tbsp tapioca flour
2 eggs
chinese parsley, chopped
bean sprouts
1 yam, shredded (I omitted this)
salt and black pepper to taste

Method
1. Boil prawns in water till it turns orangy. Remove the prawn heads and keep the stock
2. Sift rice flour, corn flour, tapioca flour with salt
3. Add 1-1.5 cup of stock and eggs to the flour and mix till well blended (batter should not be runny)
4. Add bean sprouts, chopped parsley, shredded yam (if using) and prawn, mix till they are well coated
5. Heat oil
6. Scope the batter with prawns on top and fry till golden brown
7. Serve with a good chilli sauce or ketchup

Blueberry Sourcream Pound Cake

The last time I made a pound cake was a couple of months back. It was the marble sourcream pound cake. I got a small tub of sour cream and fresh blueberries in the fridge. I was searching for a nice recipe that uses both and finally decided to bake this.

I used the basic sourcream pound cake recipe but I increase the butter a little bit. It came out perfect, moist and rich - just the way I like it.

Ingredients
250g butter, softened
3 cups cake flour (you can substitute with all purpose flour)
2 1/4 - 2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sourcream
1 cup fresh blueberries, add 1 tsp flour
6 large eggs

Method
1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt and put aside
2. Cream butter and sugar till light
3. Add sour cream and vanilla essence into the butter/sugar mixture and mix till well blended
4. Add flour and alternate with eggs with last being flour, mix on low speed till well mixed
5. Using the spoon or spatula, add blueberries into the cake batter
6. Bake in a greased and lined 10" baking pan in a preheated oven of 180C for 1hr 20mins or till skewer comes out clean

Vanilla Frosting and Cuppies

It has been along time since I last update this blog. I apologize as I have been pretty busy with my work and home :-) For those requesting for the vanilla frosting recipe, here it is. This is taken from marthastewart website and I have been using it for most of my cupcake frosting. Here, I use half butter and half shortening so that the frosting will not melt easily in our humid weather. However, you can replace the shortening with butter if you like.

I used the American cake for the cuppies :-)

Vanilla Frosting
Makes 1 cup

Ingredients
25 gm unsalted butter, room temperature
25 gm butter flavoured shortening
2 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method
1. In a small bowl, beat together butter, sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt until light and fluffy. Use immediately, or cover with cling wrap, and refrigerate up to 3 days.

Before using, bring to room temperature.

Spicy Baked Beans

This is an Indian influenced dish which I was inspired by one of Saturday's Kitchen guest chef. Most of the time, I will have my baked beans just as it is or add scrambled eggs, chopped onions to it and have it with bread. This version came out pretty well and it tastes great with chapati. In fact, you can add some potatoes and curry leaves and use it as a thosai filling - just a thought *wink*

As usual, this recipe is 'agaration', you can add more or less of the items to suit your tastebuds 8-D

Ingredients
3 small tin Heinz baked beans or any brand that you like
2 shallots, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 heapful tsp garam masala powder
1/2 tsp tumeric powder
1 stalk coriander leaves, chopped
mixed vege
1 Tbsp oil

Method
1. Heat oil in frying pan and stir fry chopped shallots and garlic till fragrant
2. Add baked beans, stir till well mixed
3. Add garam masala and tumeric powder and mix them well
4. Once bubbly, add the mixed vege lastly followed by the chopped coriander, stir well and simmer for about 2min and serve it hot with chapati or thosai

Chocolate Chip Muffin

This recipe is adapted from Simply Delicious segment at AFC (Asia Food Channel) and I maanged to memorise the ingredients and wrote it down in my notebook. Well, the original recipe uses flour+baking powder, but I replaced it with self-raising flour simply because to lazy *LOL*. It is very easy to do muffin and tastes very rich due to the butter. It doesn't require any machine, just your hands and fork & spoon and of course not forgetting the weighing machine too .. hehe

Muffins batter is supposed to be lumpy and not smooth. Just ensure that the dry ingredients are moist then stop mixing. Further mixing will give a hard muffin and you don't want that.

Ingredients
125g chilled butter, cut into cubes
275g SR flour
115g brown sugar
115g choc chips or a block of dark chocolate and chop them into small pieces
1/2 tsp salt
100ml milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method
1. Sift flour and salt together
2. Add egg and vanilla essence into the milk and mix them well, put aside
3. Mix butter into flour mixture, using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour till it resembles crumbs
4. Make a hole in the dry ingredients and pour the milk mixture (2) slowly and using a fork, mix it gently till all the dry ingredients are moist. The batter should be lumpy and not smooth.
5. Scoop into muffin pan or cups and bake in a preheated oven at 175C for 20mins or so till cooked.

Rainbow Egg White Lapis

I got this recipe from the internet - indonesian website (sorry can't remember the site name) but modified it to suit my taste. To me this is more a layered sponge cake and taste wise, not too sweet. You can do variation like sprinkle shredded cheese or chips or dried fruit to make it interesting.

Ingredients
500g egg white
250g white sugar
250g plain flour }original is 300g plain flour
50g self-raising flour }
60ml evaporated milk (original is coconut milk)
100ml melted butter (original is oil)
1tsp vanilla essence (not in the original recipe)
a few drops of red and green colouring
4 pitted dates/prunes or slivered almonds for sprinkling on last layer

Method
1. Beat egg white till bubbly, add sugar little by little and beat till stiff
2. Sift in flour and gently stir into egg white mixture
3. Add milk and melted butter together and pour slowly into egg+flour mixture, mix slowly till well blended
4. Divide batter into 3 leaving one original and the other 2 with the respective colours
5. Pour one scoop batter into a lined and greased loaf baking tin and baked in a 175C preheated oven for 7-10min till brown
6. Change oven mode to grill and increase temperature to 200C
7. Pour 1 scoop of green and grill till the top turns slightly brown, then pour 1 scoop of red over the green. Repeat till you finished all the batter.
8. On the last layer, either sprinkle slivered almonds or prunes or date and grilled till brown then change the oven to baking mode and bake till cake is cooked.

Farah's 7th birthday cake

My eldest daughter, Farah celebrated her 7th birthday on 16th March and she wanted to celebrate it with her friends at her after school care centre. Although I can always order a cake for her, I decided to bake her a birthday cake for her instead. As usual, I bake part of them in little cups with a small centre piece for the candles.

The whole look of the cake


and the little cuppies

I was glad that her friends and herself enjoyed it.

Salmon Gravlax

I love salmon in any form except when it's overcooked. Finally got hold of fresh salmon to make this. This makes a great finger food too.

The basic of curing fish is to remember the sugar and salt amount. It is 1 part sugar and 1 part salt. Mix them together and add chopped fresh herbs. For this, I used dill.

Ingredients
2 pcs fresh salmon fillet
1 part salt } eg. if you are using 1/4 cup salt,
1 part sugar } use 1/4 cup sugar
bunch of fresh dill, chopped
2-3 tbps freshly ground black pepper
lemon zest
cling wrap/aluminium foil for wrapping fish

Method
1. Clean and pat dry the fish
2. Mix salt and sugar till well incorporated
3. Add chopped dill, black pepper and lemon zest into the salt/sugar mix
4. Mix all them till well combined
5. Place one fish, skin side down on a cling wrap/foil
6. Cover the top and the sides with the curing mixture
7. Take the second fish with skin side up and cover the first fish
8. Wrap the fish tightly and place it on a tray
9. Place a chopping board or anything heavy on top of the wrapped fish
10.Keep in the fridge for at least 24 hrs
11.To serve, clean the fish by removing all the salt/sugar mixture
12.Remove skin and slice thinly
13.Serve on it's own or with salad

Kiam Chye & Chicken Soup

Had this during the later stage of my confinement. I needed something that is light and slight salty, so made this easy soup. Surprising, my daughters love it too.

As usual, an 'agaration' recipe.

Ingredients
1-2 pcs skinned chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 slice of ginger, slivered
chicken stock
1-2 tomatoes, chopped with seeds removed
kiam chye, washed and sliced
Enough water to boil
Salt & pepper to taste
Oil

Method
1. Heat oil in pot and stir fry garlic and ginger slices till fragrant
2. Add water and add chicken stock
3. Add chicken and kiam chye
4. Leave it to simmer till the chicken is cooked then add the tomatoes and further simmer for about 10mins
5. Add salt & pepper to taste and serve it hot

Marble Sourcream Pound Cake

I have been wanting to bake a rich buttery cake before my delivery but it didn't materialise. Finally after delaying for soo long, I had no choice but to get my butt to the kitchen and baked this, simply because the tub of sourcream was expiring soon.

The original recipe was shared by an online friend quite sometime back and I made it into a marble version. It came out perfect.

Ingredients
8oz butter
2 1/2 C sugar (original is 3 cups, I still find 2 1/2 c still sweet. You may want to reduce to 2 - 2 1/4 c instead)
250g sour cream (original is 1 cup)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3 cups all-purpose flour
6 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 heapful tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

Method
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar and beat till fluffy
3. Add the sourcream and mix until well incorporated
4. Sift baking soda and flour together and add to the creamed mixture alternating with eggs, beating each egg 1 at a time
5. Add vanilla and scoop out about 1/4 of the batter
6. Sift cocoa powder into the 1/4 batter and mix till well incorporated
7. Pour the original and chocolate batter alternately into a greased and floured tube pan
9. Use a knife to swirl the cake batter
10.Bake for 1 hour 20 minutes or till skewer comes out clean

Sroto

I would like to apologize from the bottom of my heart for not updating my blog for a very long time. With my new addition to the family is growing big, I managed to find some time to resume my baking and cooking.

So over the weekend, made this simple and less spicy version of a soto called Sroto. Don't ask me where it came from or why it's called Sroto because I don't have the answer for you .. heh But I do believe it could be an Indonesian dish but I have not idea where.

The recipe is taken off the local malay paper Berita Harian dated 22nd Jan by a well know chef/cooking instructor Aini Salim

Ingredients A
500 g beef (cut into 4)
3 bay leave
2 cm galangal/blue ginger (bruised)
1 tsp salt
4000 ml water

Ground Ingredients
8 cloves garlic
8 candlenut
1 tsp white pepper
2 slices fresh tumeric
6 tbsp oil for frying

Garnish
300g beansprouts
100g vermicilli (soaked in hot water and drained)
2 potatoes (sliced and then fried)
3 hardboiled eggs (sliced) - I also added quail eggs
1 cup toasted peanuts
fried shallots, spring onion and chinese celery for garnishing
lontong or ketupat


Method
1. Boil A till the meat is tender
2. Take the meat out and slice them thinly and strain the stock, put aside
3. Fry the ground ingredients till fragrant and pour it into the stock together with the beef slices
4. Simmer the soup till it boils, turn off fire
5. To serve, prepare a bowl with ketupat/longtong, vermicilli, beansprouts, beef slices, fried potatoes. Pour soup and garnish with fried shallots, chopped spring onions, chinese parsley and toasted peanuts. Top it with enough sambal.


Sambal Ingredients
30 chilli paid (steam and then pound)
40 g toasted peanut (finely ground)
6 tbsp kicap manis
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt (optional)

Method
1. Mixed all the ingredients till well blended

Note: You can replace it with chicken, but you only need half chicken and reduce water to 3500ml.