Harry Potter cupcakes

A friend ordered a HarryPotter cupcakes for her son who is a big fan of the series.  12 pieces of chocolate fudge cupcakes with chocolate ganache.  It was my first theme cupcakes and actually had great time making them.  Let see what I can do with the balance coloured fondant :)

Spaghetti with Chicken and Mushroom White Sauce

You won't believe that this recipe is from my daughter's child care centre.  Recently, the centre held a food demo of the kids' favourite dish,  actually the program was held to encourage family bonding activity.  My youngest pestered me to cook this for the weekend and so I relented.

You should know that this was a serving for her :)

I won't really call this quick and easy.  Quick and easy would mean to use canned soup *LOL* but of course, from scratch is still the best.  For this dish, it involves 2 steps.  You need to prepare the white sauce first then followed by the chicken and mushroom sauce.  I promise it is not difficult but you can prepare the white sauce a day ahead to make it easier for you.

Slice Fish Noodles

I love anything soupy especially when it comes to noodles.  Whenever I have a chance I will get myself a bowl of sliced fish noodle soup.   This time round, instead of buying I decided to do a homemade version.  To get a good tasting broth, you need to simmer the soup on the stove for about 1hr or so.  Due to time constraint, I decided to use my pressure cooker instead.   There is not much ingredients used for the soup base.  I used about 2 medium size toman fish bones.  You can use other types of fish bone that you like.  As for noodles, it is optional.  You can have it with rice too.

Buttery and flaky croissants

This is definitely not quick and easy.  It's not that difficult but definitely not quick :-P  I will post the recipe in my other blog.

This is my second attempt at making these lovelies.  It was quite a daunting experience with the humidity and heat here, I had to work real fast in order to keep the butter from melting.  Nevertheless, they came out beautiful, buttery and flaky.  My family loves them, the thing is it took me hours to prepare this but took less than an hour to finish 'gobbling' them *LOL*  but it was great fun making them.  I used 100% butter and love the flavour unlike the ones I get from the supermarket which are just too waxy.  Actually I find them disgusting :-P.  I am however tempted to try with the butter meant for laminating dough.  I have seen it sold at the baking supply shop and it comes in a slab of 1kg.  I wonder if it gives the same flavour as using butter... hmm

A tray of them before the 1.5hrs rise

Cake projects to close 2011

The 2 cakes that I made end of last year.  The first was my youngest daughter's birthday cake and the second was for my aunt.  Jump to my other blog to read at http://mybakingadventure.blogspot.com/ :)

Noodles week

The last 2 weeks have been a noodle week for us. I was thinking of nothing but having noodles over the weekend so we had ban mian, sliced fish noodle and xinjiang inspired la mian :)

Xinjiang inspired la mian which looks far from the version that I had during my trip there many years ago. The colour of the sauce is way too dark. I used tomato puree instead of fresh tomatoes :-P But it came out pretty alright though. I used beef instead of mutton because none in my family including myself eats mutton. I will definitely try it again to get the right colour :)

Keropok Lekor

This is my husband's favorite snack and he never gets tired eating it *LOL*. Keropok lekor tastes very much like fish keropok but it is shaped like a sausage. There are 2 types, one is chewy and the other is really crispy to a point like eating sticks *lol*. You will usually need to cut them into pieces before frying. I decided to give it a try over the weekend and fortunately they came out nice :) For this, I used the saba (mackeral) fillets that you can get from the supermarket, usually prepacked in 400g package. Otherwise, you can get fresh ones and get the fishmonger to fillet them for you. I get about 8 sausage pieces with this recipe.

Japchae ala Zu

Japchae is a korean dish which is actually glass noodle salad. It uses the sweet potato glass noodle instead of the mung bean ones that we normally see in the supermarket. I like this one better as it is chewy and slightly thicker than the regular mung bean version. It is almost as thick as the laksa noodle, maybe slightly thinner. So in the midst of clearing my pantry and refrigerator, I decided to make this for my lunch in the office today.

You can get the more authentic recipe from here For me I stir fry everything and have it as a main dish :D The sauce ingredients are generally sesame seed oil, soya sauce and sugar or honey for sweetening effect.

Nasi Samin/Nasi Minyak

We had it with Chicken Bamiah and pickled cucumber+carrot

This is the first traditional dish I made for 2012. This was actually inspired after a chat I had with my dad recently. Nasi samin is made using butter made from animal fat like cow, goat or camel. Here, we can get ghee (clarified butter) which is derived from cow easily. So my version is using ghee. It is a relatively simple dish, not much fuss and ingredient. To serve, I pan fried the cashew and raisins with a bit of ghee for flavour and aroma.

Ingredients:
3C basmati rice, rinse till water is clear then drain
4C water
1 medium size cinnamon stick
3 cloves
3 cardamoms
1 star anise
2 large onions, sliced
5 cloves garlic, sliced
2 T ghee
1 T oil
salt to taste

for garnishing, some cashews and raisins, pan fried with a bit of ghee

Method
1. Heat pot with both ghee and oil, once melted add onions, stir till onions becomes translucent
2. Add garlic and the spices (cardamom, clove, cinnamon stick, star anise) and stir till fragrant
3. Add rice and make sure they are coated with oil, add salt
4. Pour water into the pot, stir and cover to let the rice cook
5. Once the rice is cooked, sprinkle cashew nut and raisins before serving

Happy New Year !

I would like to wish all my readers a good 2012 .. May all your wishes come true. Thank you for all your support and reading my blog. I know I have not been updating this regularly especially after my dearest mom passed away in June last year. Now I will try to update as much as I possibly can try to stick to quick n easy recipes as per my blog title :-D

Thank you again :)

Butter+Olive Oil Spread

My family especially my kids love to eat bread. Eversince my eldest goes home straight from school, the olive oil spread consumption has gone up ! One tub of bertolli olive oil spread can only last slightly over a week and one tub costs me $7+ :-( So decided to be 'frugal' since butter and olive oil are the house's staple to make my own. The good thing about this is that I can control the quality of butter that I use. For this, the recipe is really simple.

What you need:
250g (9 oz) salted butter, softened
1 C olive oil

What you do:
1. Use a mixer and blend the butter till creamy
2. Slowly add oil little by litte and mix till well combined, it will look somewhat soupy
3. Pour butter+oil mixture into a clean container and refrigerate it till it reaches the spreadable consistency

Note: You can add a little bit of salt if you using unsalted butter

Basic Baking Class

I am opening a class during the school holidays. The details as follows. I have 1 place left. Do email to me at zuamir@gmail.com if you are interested.

Class: Basic baking, butter cakes (hands on)
Date: 8th December 2011
Time: 2-6pm
Cost: $65
Number of participant required: 4

You will be taught 3 methods of mixing and comparing the textures from these methods. Ingredients will be provided and you will bring home all your bakes. It is not going to be a boring butter cake, extra ingredients will be provided to add into your cake. 2 simple icing for butter based cakes will be included in this class. Light snacks will be provided.

Quick/Rough Puff Pastry

I was in the mood to bake something crispy and buttery. So what came into my mind was puff pastry. I was not prepared to do the classic pastry as it was a weekday night. Found one by Gordon Ramsay which is easy as it uses 1 block of butter (250g/9oz). Since most of the butters we get here is in 9oz or 250g, I love love recipes that uses the whole lot as I can be lazy to cut and weight it *LOL* This is extremely buttery so eat it with care if you are concern with your weight :-D Do make a bigger batch and store them in your freezer as it is definitely better than store bought ones (at least the ones we get here).

What you need:
250g strong plain flour (bread flour)
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
250g cold butter , cut into cubes
about 150ml cold water

What you do:
1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl.
2. Add 1/4 of the butter and rub them in loosely into the flour either using a food processor, hands or pastry blender (I used pastry blender)
3. Add the balance 3/4 butter and mix them lightly, it is important to have chunks of butter in the dough
4. Make a well in the bowl and pour in about 100ml of the cold water, mixing until you have a firm rough dough adding extra water if needed. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20 mins in the fridge.
5. Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead gently and form into a smooth rectangle. Roll the dough in one direction only, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50cm. Keep edges straight and even. Don't overwork the butter streaks; you should have a marbled effect.
6. Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length. Fold as before, cover with cling film and chill for at least 20 mins before rolling to use.


Note:
1. The reason why you need to have the butter in chunks because we need the steam coming from the butter during baking to lift the dough so that you get the layering effect.
2. When rolling, if you find the dough gets a bit soft, chill it in the fridge for 15mins and continue with what you were doing.
3. If you want a more distinct layering, do not roll the pastry too hard.

Review: CP 5-Spice Roasted Chicken

I have been wanting to try this out for quite some time. Although I roast chicken at home quite regularly, i want to find out it this off the freezer chicken is good enough for days when I do not have the time to bake one from scratch. At a glance, the packaging does not look huge but the chicken is actually pretty big. Definitely bigger than those spring chicken. You can use either the microwave or regular oven to reheat the chicken. I should you can also preheat it on the stove with a covered wok.

In terms of flavour, I find it not too bad although it is on a slightly salty side. So what did I have this with? I had it with buttered rice and a simple salad. This is good for days when you do not have time to cook or simply too tired/lazy to cook up a storm *LOL* I took me at least 40mins to reheat it in the oven. Maybe the temp I set was too low but the chicken was still pretty frozen before I chucked it in the oven. As long as you don't overheat it, the meat will still stay moist.

I would say that this is pretty versatile. You can have it with your wraps or have gravy on it with mash potatoes etc. Will I buy this again? Yes, I will :)

Easy Nutella Brownie

This easy recipe was shared by an online friend and not only that is easy to make, it's a lovely brownie. It is really easy that even your kids can do it to with minimal supervision :-D How not to when it requires only 3 ingredients and no mixer is needed.

I made another batch but added marshmallow half way through the baking. I am not a great fan of marshmallow but if you do you may want to, bake them in cuppies as it was really sticky and goey and I had a hard time cutting it.

What you need:
1 C nutella
3 large eggs
10T self-raising flour, sifted

What you do:
1. Mix eggs and nutella with a whisk or spatula till it well blended, it will look like a fudge
2. Add sifted flour and gently mix it till no lumps
3. Pour into a greased baking pan or cupcake casings and bake in a preheated oven at 160C to about 20-30mins or till skewer comes out clean

If you want to add marshmallow, when batter is still a bit jiggly, arrange them on top of the cake and continue with the baking.

Blended Orange Cake

It's been a while since I update this blog. Have been busy with stuffs but could not find the time to upload things that I have done over the past months. Today, I will be sharing a simple cake which was introduced by a friend. It uses orange, the whole orange minus the white bids and blend all the ingredients in. Pretty straight forward and simple.

The original recipe is taken from here but I made some changes to the ingredients and used my food processor for this cake.

Ingredients:
1 medium size orange, cut into pieces and remove the seeds and the white pith as much as possible but keep the rind intact
3/4 - 1 cup of sugar
1 cup oil
3 large eggs
2 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
some chocolate chips

Method:
1. Sift the flour and baking powder into a bowl and set aside
2. Blend together orange till almost into paste, add the sugar, oil and eggs continue blending till double in volume
3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the flour and mix it well or you can pour the flour into the blender and pulse it till it's mixed well
4. Pour batter into greased 8inch pan and sprinkle chocolate chips
5. Bake in a preheated oven, 160 celcius for 30-40 minutes or till skewer comes out clean and not sticky

Phad-Thai inspired fried beehoon

Getting a bit tired of eating the regular white version fried beehoon, I decided to make this for the kids. It is a phad thai inspired noodle as I omit some of the ingredients :D To make it extra spicy, you can add cut chili padi after it is almost done before you turn off the fire like I did after I took out the kids' portion.

What you need

500g bee hoon
200g fresh prawns, shelled and deveined
200g chicken breast, cut into strips
1 medium size onion, sliced thinly
5-7 clove garlic, chopped
5 tbsp fish sauce
5 tbsp tamarind juice
4 tbsp palm sugar
100-200g bean sprouts/veges of your choice
a few stalks birdseye chili, cut into small pieces

What you do

1. Mix fish sauce, tamarind juice and palm sugar till sugar dissolves, set a side
2. Heat oil and stir fry fresh prawns and chicken till they are half cooked, remove and set aside
3. Fry onions till translucent and add chopped garlic till fragrant
4. Add noodles and toss it with the ingredients in the wok
5. Add a few tbsp of water to soften the noodles
6. Add cooked prawns and pour fish sauce mixture and stir well and ensure that the noodles are well-coated
7. Add bean sprouts/veges, chillies and stir till well blend heat it through for a few minutes. If noodles too dry, add more water
8. Serve hot with cilantro and scallions

Chilled Cheesecake with oreos (update with recipe link)

Made this simple chilled cheesecake for my brother-in-law who turned 19 last month. He is into wushu and so to make it extra special, I did a silhoutte using chocolate for decoration. I had a bit of excess of the both the filling and base, so I made them into cuppies just nice for the kids :-D

I used the recipe from the nobake chocolate+banana cheesecake (CLICK HERE) I replace the biscuit with oreos instead, minus the chocolate on the base and banana.

Calzone wannabe :-)

I made pizzas for dinner the other day and had some of the toppings ingredients left but not the dough. Fortunately, I had some instant pratas stashed in the freezer and used it to make these. Easy and delicious I must say *LOL*

What you need:

A few prata skins, enough to use up the pizza topping ingredients
chicken ham or whatever cold meats that you like
shredded cheese
pizza sauce
egg wash (optional)

What you do:

1. Remove the plastic from the prata skin (make sure the prata is not too soft as it will be difficult to handle)
2. Spread pizza sauce to half of the prata skin
3. Add chicken ham, shredded cheese
4. Fold over the other half of the prata and press the ends either using the fork or just crimp it a bit with your fingers and egg wash the skin
5. Arrange on lined baking tray and bake in a preheated oven 180C for about 20-30 mins or till the prata skin turns golden brown - you may need to bake a little longer in a slightly lower temperature if you want to have crispy skin.
6. Serve it piping hot

Red Velvet Cupcake

I don't usually eat cakes that are heavily coloured, hence it took me a very long time before I decided to make these delicious cupcakes. Thanks to Chuck Hughes, after watching one episode of 'Chuck`s Day Off', I could not get this out of my mind. So I finally caved in and made these. They are very easy to make and delicious especially the mascarpone frosting. Do give it a try!

You can get the original recipe from here: http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Dessert/recipe.html?dishid=11309

Cupcakes
Ingredients
2 eggs (60g each)
1 1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 C canola oil
1 C yogurt, plain
1 tsp Wilton no-taste red gel (original is 2T red food coloring)
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 1/2C cake flour (original recipe uses plain flour)
1T cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Method
1) Preheat oven to 180 °C
2) In a food mixer/processor, mix the eggs with the sugar, oil, yoghurt, food coloring, vinegar and vanilla. Add flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Blend until just incorporated.
3) Place cupcake papers into a muffin pan, divide the batter in the cupcake papers, pour only halfway so batter doesn’t overflow, and bake, rotating half way through, for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove and let cool.


Icing
Ingredients
1 tub mascarpone (500g,original recipe uses 2C mascarpone)
1C icing sugar, sifted
1/2C cream
Zest of 1 lemon

Method
1) In a bowl, beat the mascarpone, icing sugar, cream and lemon zests together until the mixture is smooth.
2) Spoon a dollop of mascarpone cream on the cupcakes.