Have your cake and eat it!

Relatively Healthy Granola

2010-12-14T16:40:00.002+08:00

First, I'd like to apologise for the super long absence from this blog.
Second, I'd like to present you with this peace offering for my negligence.
Finally, I really really hope you'll forgive me & continue reading my blog!

:p

I know there's no good excuse for being awol from this blog for so long, but let me explain myself!

I moved house in July.
The new house has NO OVEN (kill me, I know).
I just started Uni (& it's killing me with activities like you won't believe it!).
I'm still trying to figure out how to operate my convectional microwave oven like a regular oven.

There. My "good" excuses. Now back to the peace offering.

I've never really liked oatmeal back when I was younger. Sure, it's "good for you" and it's "healthy" but we used to make it simple and plain, without the works. Just oatmeal, condensed milk and hot water. No honey, nuts, dried fruits or granola. Just oatmeal. How can anyone fancy eating that?? (No offence to those who like it though)

It was only until the beginning of this year, when I developed a new appreciation for all things cereal-y, and oat-y. Not that I still eat oatmeal now of course. I'm more of a muesli-lovin, granola-munchin, cereal-chowin type of girl. HA.

So now I'm back with a rather healthy version of my favourite granola. Storeboughts are wayyyyy too sweet and are packed loads with unhealthy stuff. I should know, because I've been ingesting boxes of that stuff all these months! Talk about unhealthy.

I think I've sort of become an advocate for healthy and/or organic food. Having gone through a fat-phase once, I know I must make better food choices! Hence the decision to eat organic New Zealand apples and use organic honey from Australia in this recipe. Okay no link. My bad. Back to the recipe.

Healthy Granola (or so I think)

makes about 1 and a half cups

adapted from 80breakfasts.blogspot.com

1 cup old fashioned oats

1-1/2 tbsp canola oil

1/2 tbsp water

2 tbsp organic honey

3/4 cup (or so) dried fruits (I used black and yellow raisins)

5/8 cup (or so) roughly chopped nuts (I used walnuts, almonds and cashews)

1. Mix the nuts and oats together in a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil, water and honey until it is well combined and sort of syrupy.

3. Pour the honey/oil/water mixture into the oats/nuts mixture and mix well, making sure all the oats and nuts are thoroughly covered. I hand-mixed the mixture, which I found easier, and ended up with oily-sticky-oat-covered-hands. Yum.

4. Place the mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and spread it out until the mixture is flat and even.

5. Bake in a preheated 180C oven for about 25-35 min (I baked for about 35 min in my microwave) and stir the mixture once or twice (I stirred it twice) to ensure even baking before it is done.

6. Remove and transfer the granola to another cookie sheet lined with parchment paper to cool once it is done.

7. When cool, add in the dried fruit into the granola and toss to combine.

8. Store in a clean, dry, airtight container.

This granola doesn't really clump together much but I kind of prefer it this way. The sweetness is just nice for me and it isn't cloying. I took a big bite of it after letting it cool a while and myohmy it delicious! It was still slightly warm and had a bit of crunch to it. Mmhmm yum.

I halved the original recipe from 80breakfasts because I'm the only one in my family who eats oats and stuff. So yay! More for me :D

You could also use other types of nuts (hazelnuts, pine nuts etc) and dried fruits (mangoes, cranberries, figs etc) in the recipe. If you're feeling rather adventurous, you could throw in a handful of banana chips, kiwis or even better, CHOCOLATE CHIPS. That will make one helluva granola!

Note: I don't know how long this granola will keep but you wouldn't have to worry about that since it'll be devoured sooner than you realise! :p

The Easiest Ice Cream Ever

2010-06-10T17:36:00.000+08:00

I kid you not when I say this is the easiest ice cream you will ever make.
Seriously.

No long-winded stories, no reminiscing the past.
This post is straightforward and to the point.
Banana. Ice cream. How simple can it get?

I'm not in the World Cup fever mood yet. Am I weird? Yeah maybe. I decided to use soccerball-shaped half glass bowls to put the ice cream in.

Okay I know this looks nothing like ice cream because I left it on the counter too long. They melted too much and I was lazy to freeze it up again. It actually looks more like custard.. Hmm.

But I really must must must reiterate the fact that this really tastes like banana ice cream! The creamy texture and the intense banana flavour without the calories and sugar! It's the healthiest ice cream you can find out there. PLUS, it doesn't compromise on the flavour. What can you expect when it's 100% made of banana??

I thought frozen fruits would all be icy. Think frozen grapes. But I guess I was wrong to stereotype like that. This is one discovery that I'm sure will change the world! (exaggerating here don't mind me)

One Ingredient Ice Cream
makes 1 serving
adapted from thekitchn.com here and here

1 ripe whole banana

1. Peel and cut the banana into bite-sized pieces.

2. Spread them out and freeze them for 1-2 hours on a plate.

3. Blend it in a food processor/blender or if you're lazy to bring out the heavy machinery, whisk it manually like what I did!

4. Scoop it into a pretty bowl using an ice cream scoop and serve. If it has gone all melty, you may want to freeze it for a few minutes to half an hour to firm it up. Or if you don't care, like me, you can stick your spoon in and enjoy your frozen delight! :D

Kudos to the amazing Faith from thekitchn.com who chanced upon this amazing sort-of recipe! I would have never thought of doing this in a million years. And I'm not exaggerating!

Classic Mini Fruit Tartelettes

2010-05-26T18:41:00.001+08:00

I love colours.

They just brighten up everything and make it seem better!

Take for example boring old lecture notes. No matter what, I have to use my multi-coloured highlighters and marker pens to brighten up the sentences. I don't know why, but it it just makes studying a whole lot easy when everything's in colour! :D

I love rainbows too. They're so cheerful and bright. They give me a sense of hope in an indescribable sort of way.

Although these fruit tarts don't have all the colours of the rainbow, they sure are colourful!

I needed a break from the dull brown that is chocolate (no matter how alluringly delicious it may taste) to bake something bright and colourful! My camera craved colours!
Okay and also because the supermarket had discounts on golden kiwi, blueberries and strawberries the past weekend. So I stocked up!

The ruby red strawberries complement the dark blueish-purple hues of the blueberries very well. Both also look great when paired together with the pale yellowish-green (slightly golden?) kiwi slices on a crumbly, delicious-smelling tartelette.

The tartelettes were crumbly and had a shortbread texture. Although it was my first time attempting the "rubbing in" method (where you rub the cold butter into the flour), the dough was really easy to make! As the weather here in Singapore suddenly became hot like the African deserts, I didn't take the butter out until just before I needed it. It also doesn't help that I have slightly warm hands. Boo. But don't worry, all turned out well.

Oh, I also used a glass to roll out the dough because I was lazy to take out the heavy machinery. Okay no, I meant the rolling pin. It was buried wayyyyyyy deep in the cupboard!! >< But it turned out well too :D

What are you waiting for? Get your butt down to the kitchen and make these! They are really awesome!

Mini Fruit Tartelettes
makes 9 mini tartelettes (1/4 original recipe)
adapted from ourchocolateshavings

pastry dough:
50g all purpose flour
25g cold unsalted butter
7.5g (3/5tbsp) caster sugar
pinch of salt
1/4 egg, beaten with 1/2tsp water

1. Sift the flour, sugar and salt directly onto a work surface (preferably cold marble - I don't have marble countertops so I used a plastic serving tray. Weird I know.)

2. Cut the butter into small pieces and rub it into the flour. Use a pastry scraper (dough cutter or whatever you call it) if you have. Work quickly to ensure that the butter stays as cold as possible. Once the dough has the texture of fine sand, create a well in the center.

3. Add the egg and water to the center and gently beat the egg.

4. Slowly incorporate the flour into the center, ensuring that the well does not break. Once most of the flour has been incoporated, you can start using your hands. Knead the dough and form a round ball of dough (be careful not to overwork the dough!).

5. Take a small handful of the dough and use the palm of your hand to smear it completely onto the counter surface. This ensures that the butter is fully incorporated into the dough and makes it easier to work with. Reform the smeared piece of dough and repeat with the rest until you have a pile of chunks of dough. Form it into a ball again.

6. Wrap the dough in cling wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 45min.

7. Preheat oven to 190C. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit unwrapped so it warms up a little. Lightly flour your working surface (or just roll the dough in the cling wrap like I did!) and roll the dough out to about 1/8-inch thick. Using a small cookie cutter, cut out circles of dough. Place the dough in the moulds and gently prick the bottom of the dough with a fork a couple of times*.

8. Bake for 10-12min or until the edges of the tarts turn a light shade of golden brown. Let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

*You can blind bake them if you want but I didn't have baking beans so I just baked them as is. Surprisingly, they didn't puff up! Awesome (:

pastry cream:
1/2cup milk
1/4tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk
18.75g (1-1/2tbsp) caster sugar
5g all purpose flour (a bit less than 2tsp)
5g cornstarch (a bit more than 2tsp)

1. Whisk the yolk and the sugar until mixture turns pale yellow (about 3min).

2. In a separate bowl, stirthe cornstarch and flour together and add it into the sugar-yolk mixture. Stir to remove any lumps.

3. In the meantime, bring the milk and vanilla to a boil, stirring occassionally. As soon as the milk starts boiling, add a ladle of hot milk to the egg mixture and stir vigorously, ensuring that the eggs won't curdle.

4. Add all the egg mixture into the milk mixture and whisk until the mixture thickens (about 1-3min). Remove from the heat as soon as the mixture thickens.

5. Place the pastry cream in a bowl and cover with cling wrap, ensuring that the cling wrap touches the surface of the cream (prevents the formation of a skin). Let the pastry cream cool (I just put it in the fridge so it'll cool faster!)

assembly:
blueberries
kiwis, sliced then quartered
strawberries, some sliced some whole

1. Wash and dry all the fruits then cut as mentioned above.

2. Once the tartelettes and pastry cream have cooled down, add some pastry cream to the bottom of each tart. The cream should go up to about 2/3 of the tart shells (I think I overfilled them but who's complaining when there's more pastry cream? Hahah)

3. Decorate each tartelette with desired amount of fruits. Serve them at room temperature or cold, as you wish. Both are equally awesome!

The measurements in the recipe above made 9 mini tartelette shells using the pastry dough and yielded enough pastry cream to generously fill the 9 shells completely. I omitted the apricot glaze which ourchocolateshavings used because I was lazy. And also because I didn't have apricot jam. Ha ha.

Would you pass the Chocolate Truffle Tart, please?

2010-05-21T13:06:00.002+08:00

I used to have mini tea parties with my sister when we were in kindergarten/primary school.

We would set up the dining table with multi-coloured plates and cutleries; make Milo and put it in my mom's teapot; prepare Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, Oreos, Chicken in a biskit, Hello Panda, sour gummy worms and those small biscuits with the colourful sugared twist on top they sell at neighbourhood mama shops etc. I bet most people don't know what these are but it is one of my childhood snacks that I used to eat! They still sell them everywhere. So old school and comforting! You can google them if you want to see how they look like (: Or, you can take a little trip to Singapore to find them yourself! That way, you can try them too :D

I miss those carefree times. Those fun, crazy, girly times we used to have. Even though there were many cat fights and petty quarrels, it brought us closer together (usually after one of us takes the initiative to say "wanna be friends?" Yeah, we were childish like that). We used to spend every day playing together after school.

As we grow older, things change. Time spent together diminishes drastically. Words said to one another decreases. Although fights are close to nil nowadays, I really miss the times we spent together. It's great having a sister as your playmate. Sniff.

As we grow older, tastes change as well. From the time when we were willing to eat anything so long as it tastes good, to the time where we become choosy and selective. And this tart, will definitely be selected for any grown up tea party we have in future (if applicable).

Now, more about this tart. It has an intense chocolate flavour that simply explodes in your mouth! The filling is smooth and almost fudge-like. I loved it! Best thing? It doesn't contain flour so it's gluten free! I mean the filling. You can easily substitute almond meal or gluten-free wafers for the crust to make the entire thing gluten-free. I'm not particular about flour/gluten so I'm not too sure about substitutions.

I didn't see the need to butter the springform pan as the crust itself already had loads of butter. The tart came out easily for me even though aesthetic-wise, they aren't as pretty as travelerslunchbox's :/

PS: notice there's a square of chocolate in the middle? Well, I just decided to put it there for the fun of it. No special meaning. It was just my random nature acting up. Ha.

Chocolate Truffle Tart
serves 2-3
adapted from Gourmet via travelerslunchbox
1/4 of original recipe

crust:
37.5g finely ground digestives (about 3 or 4 pieces)
1/2tbsp unsweetened cocoa (Hershey's for me!)
22.5g unsalted butter, melted and cooled

filling:
22.5g unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/2 egg
20ml heavy cream
1tbsp caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
50g bittersweet chocolate (72% cocoa Swiss M&S chocolate and 60% cocoa bittersweet Ghiradelli chocolate buttons)

1. Position the oven rack in the middle and preheat the oven to 175C. Wrap a piece of aluminium foil around the bottom of a 4" springform pan (in case of leaks).

2. Stir together the ground digestives, cocoa and butter in a bowl until combined. Pat the mixture evenly onto the bottom and 1-1/2inches (3.5cm) up the sides of the pan. Bake for about 10min or until the crust is slightly puffed. Cool completely (about 15min) while leaving the oven on. Pat the crust back into shape if it has slumped.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth (I just microwaved it @ 50% power for about 30s in intervals), then remove from the heat and cool for about 5min. Whisk together the egg, cream, sugar, vanilla and salt in a bowl. Whisk in the chocolate mixture until combined.

4. Pour the filling into the cooled crush and rap the pan once against the counter to eliminate any air bubbles. Bake for about 18-20min or until the filling 1inch from the edge is set and slightly puffed but the center wobbles when the pan is gently shaken. (The center will continue to set as it cools)

5. Cool the tart completely in the pan on a rack for about 2hours. Chill for about 4hours, uncovered, until the center is firm. Serve cold for a firmer texture or at room temperature for a softer one.

Black Magic Cake

2010-05-17T21:06:00.001+08:00

A special cake for a special friend.

Turning a year older is quite a big deal for us teenagers (I hope I'm speaking for the majority hahah). It can alter your life in many many ways.

Take for example turning sixteen. You can watch NC16 movies LEGALLY without sneaking around. You've reached your first milestone age and can host your own sweet sixteen party! Woohoo. And, you're going to junior college/poly (usually). Then, two years down the road, you turn eighteen. Awesome. You can finally watch M18 movies LEGALLY without sneaking around. You can also drink alcohol and learn driving LEGALLY. Totally cool. You've reached your second milestone age where you are practically an adult! No doubt you have to pay adult fares once you've graduated from junior college but so what? You're no longer a child. Halfway there. So as two more years fly by, you'll turn twenty. OMG you've finally hit the twenty-something mark. You feel different. No longer are you a teen. No longer does your age begin with a 1. Suddenly, it just doesnt seem fun. You used to look forward to birthdays and growing older. But now? You don't want to proceed down the twenty-something lane. But too bad, there's no turning back. Actually, there's nothing you can do but to suck it up and go on with life. After one more year, you've finally turned the big twenty one. Hurray for you! You're an official adult. You can vote, you can do whatever you want. You're free! (sort of). You can watch R21 movies LEGALLY without sneaking around. You can throw your 21st birthday party with all the works and invite everyone you know you celebrate with you. Cool. Then after all the bling has subsided, there you are, slowly inching towards the midlife crisis. Good job.

This is kind of a bleak and pessimistic picture to paint of one's future right? Come on! Life is not all about numbers! You have to live it your way and enjoy every day to the fullest! Right now, I'm at the in-between stage. I've turned eighteen end of last year and am on my way to turning nineteen. Truthfully speaking, I'm enjoying my life as an eighteen-year-old and don't really wish to turn nineteen. Why? Because that means I'll be turning twenty next year. But to be honest, I don't feel any different. It isn't as though after turning eighteen I feel like I'm this super matured person compared to when I was still seventeen a day ago. It doesn't make sense right?

So why not just lay back and enjoy every moment you have. Savour what life throws at you, even though you may not like it. But when life throws you this Black Magic Cake, you just gotta grab it and never let go! :D

Happy Birthday R!

You're finally nineteen (:

Hahah okay I don't think she knows about this blog, much less reads it. Anywho, I baked this cake for her and tweaked it a bit here and there. I sliced some strawberries and spread Nutella in between each layer. Awesome. What better way to celebrate turning a year older than eating this gorgeous cake?

I even put it in a personalised cake box which I decorated myself. Teehee

It's moist and chocolatey with hints of hazelnutty goodness in between bites.

The sweet tang of the fresh ripe strawberries adds a nice contrast to the richness of the cake. This cake is really decadent so be sure to share it with people who are not afraid of loosening their belts!

The pictures above doesn't do this cake justice AT ALL. They was taken under super dull lighting @ TCC the central (clarke quay) using my old Sony Cybershot camera.

When R first opened the box and saw the cake, she thought it was store-bought because it looked "too pretty" even though the ganache was a bit melted! Hahah what a compliment! But I didn't think the decoration was nice since it was my virgin attempt at baking such a cake (please forget about that failure tiramisu one. Please.)

I quartered the recipe and baked this baby in two separate pans; one heart shaped and one round shaped. The heart shaped one turned out weird shaped so I just cut it into a round shape to fit the other one. The combined cake was too tall for my cake box so I cut each layer into two. Used only three of the four layers. The concept went like this: first layer - Nutella - second layer - Nutella - sliced strawberries - third layer - chocolate ganache. I forgot to put the strawberries onto the first layer after smothering on the Nutella and immediately put the second layer on ._. That explains the weird combi.

So I had extras. Lots of extras from the remaining layer, trimmings and the pieces that fell off as I was smothering the cake in Nutella.

My supportive sister ate it all. She thought the cake was a bit too milky for her palate but I thought it was fine. If I do bake it next time, I'll reduce the salt I added though. Tasted the batter and thought it was a bit too salty. But the cake turned out fine though. Odd. Mom tried it too. She thought it was moist and awesome. But being my mom, she doesn't fancy sweet things even though it's chocolate. She prefers eating chocolate raw or in the form of ice cream. I love eating chocolate in any form. HA.

Black Magic Cake (full recipe)

makes 10-12 servings

adapted from Hershey's via therepressedpastrychef.com

2 cups sugar (caster for me)

1-3/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa (I used the unsweetened one)

2 tsp baking soda (didn't have this so I omitted it)

1 tsp baking powder (I increased to about 1-1/4 tsp to make up for the lack of baking soda; idk if it's a baking faux pas or not though)

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk or sour milk* (I used the sour milk version)

1 cup strong black coffee OR 2 tsp powdered instant coffee plus 1 cup boiling water (used the latter)

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Heat oven to 177C. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pan

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and satl (dry ingredients) in a large bowl. Add the eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer for about 2 min (batter will be thin). Pour batter evenly into prepared pans.

3. Bake for about 30-35min for round pans and 35-40min for rectangular pan (mine took about 25min to bake since they were smaller) or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 10min; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost as desired.

*To sour milk: Use 1 tbsp white vinegar and add enough milk to reach 1 cup.

PS: idk why it's called Black Magic Cake but it certainly does taste magical!

Chocolate Ganache

makes enough to cover my small 4" three-tier cake and dress the remaining 1 tier + trimmings + bits&pieces generously

adapted from therepressedpastrychef.com

50ml heavy cream

50g dark chocolate (72% Cocoa solids Swiss chocolate from M&S)

10g white chocolate (Cadbury's)

10g bittersweet chocolate buttons (Ghiradelli's)

1. Heat the cream to just about boiling and pour it over the chocolate.

2. Let it sit for about 3-4min then stir gently till combined.

3. Wait for the ganache to cool until it is pourable.

Sums it all up doesn't it?

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

2010-05-11T20:33:00.000+08:00

I thank God for my awesome mother.

She's like the silent, strong pillar of our house. The one who holds everything up. The one who keeps everything inside. The one who listens. The one who knows. The one who understands. The one who loves. The one who forgives. The one who makes the most sacrifices. The one who gets stressed most easily. The one who loves my molten chocolate cake. The one who relates. The one who cries silently by herself. The one who puts up a strong front.

The one whom I love dearly.

So this Mother's Day (although very belated), I want to dedicate this blog post to her! I don't know whether she knows about the existence of my food blog, but so be it. I just want to let the whole world know that I love her very very very much! (I love my dad and sis very much too don't get me wrong hahah)

Every year during Mother's Day and Father's Day, my sis and I get really big headaches. We have to decide where to bring the leading character to! Father's Day is not so bad as mom usually comes up with nice suggestions, like Lawry's last year. This year, since I got my job, I wanted to bring mummy to somewhere posher. Somewhere we've never been before (okay she's been to this restaurant before but the rest of us haven't! It's kind of hard to find some place she hasn't been before though). It would be a whole new experience instead of just falling back to the familiar places. Mummy and sis were very keen on Italian cuisine so sis and I tried finding nice Italian restaurants. Wanted to try the Italian buffet at Basilico @ the Regent hotel but they didn't pick up our call. So did Pietrasanta @ Portsdown Rd. Maybe they were fully booked that's why they didn't want to pick up any calls for reservations? I don't know. But if you ask me, that's plain rude. Like hello? At least tell me you're full so I won't keep trying right?

Anyway, I chanced upon this web and found a list of good Italian restaurants in Singapore. Scanning through the list, the first one that caught my attention was Michelangelo's. It sounded really authentic. Okay I'm not the best person to judge the authenticity of Italian food but I liked the sound of the restaurant name. Read some reviews on hungrygowhere and decided to try this one. Kept my fingers crossed the entire time I was on the phone. The first time I called, they didn't pick up as well. Pissed, but kept trying since we didn't want to spend Mother's Day at home without preparing anything! The second time I called, they picked up. Thank God! Made the reservations then were told they only had seats in the alfresco dining area. Didn't have much of a choice so we just took it.

Enquired a bit and was told moms received a complimentary rose, drink and a mystery gift at the end of the dinner. Nice. My interest in the place heightened a bit. Mummy said she didn't have a good experience there before when she went for their 1-for-1 lunch promo end of last year but was game to try it again. What can I say? She's not the kind who's once bitten twice shy. Moreover, she's been there twice prior to this!

Michelangelo's is situated at Chip Bee Gardens and is among the posher restaurants at Holland V. Was actually expecting quite a lot from this place hahah. Reached there and the restaurant wasn't full. We were on time for the reservation. Weird. There were paintings of Italians decorated on the wall inside which I thought were pretty cool. The alfresco area was very pretty. Candlelight dotted every table and the sofas were very woody and zen. Loved the whole feel of the place. Browsed through the menu and wasn't really sure what to order. One of the waiters brought us the set menu after like 10min? Normally all the menus would be given together right? Another weird point. Mummy, sis and I were keen on the set menu mainly because of the dessert even though the price was kind of steep (think $75++). But it was for a 5 course meal so I guess it wasn't that bad? Anyway, it was a special occasion so I guess it's alright to splurge once in a while. Daddy wasn't keen at all. Maybe he knew that we couldn't finish so he would have extra food hehe. Didn't manage to take photos of all the courses because I was too busy eating. And it was kind of awkward to be snapping away. Think the waiters and other customers were giving me weird looks but whatever! Couldn't really remember the menu and the exact names so I'll try to describe it the best I can (: Damn, should have brought home a copy of the menu, or snapped a picture of it at the very least.

Bread: sourdough? Served with 3 dippings - olive oil, balsamic vinegar and garlic jam.

First course: crabcakes w some greens and dressing

Second course: mushroom cappuccino soup (the one with the pouffy foam on top, served in a coffee cup)

Third course: dumplings of some sort w salmon. The dumplings resembled ravioli but weren't. Inside was supposedly risotto with spinach? Wasn't too sure. It was kind of mashed together and looked green lol.

Fourth course: the main dish - steak with asparagus and carrots on a bed of potatoes au gratin. Mom and I wanted medium well and sis wanted well done (she can't stand any redness on meat)

Fifth course: the dessert! Warm chocolate cake w vanilla ice cream + strawberry + raspberry + another fruit + a raspberry reduction.

I used to think Italian food was mainly pizza and pasta but this experience has changed my mindset. Like boy was I wrong! Like I mentioned before, I'm a sucker for a good loaf of bread. At Michelangelo's, they served warm bread which tasted like sourdough. It was soft on the inside and yet had a soft crust on the outside. One word: Awesome. Loved all the courses but I personally wasn't too keen on the third one (the dumplings). Liked the salmon though. We thought the warm chocolate cake would be the molten kind but were sadly wrong. And to think we were looking forward to dessert! Sigh. But the cake was nice though! Not too sweet and the vanilla ice cream was just to die for. There were specks of vanilla bean throughout the ice cream! Proving that it was of top grade and quality. It was my first time enjoying good vanilla ice cream and I will never look back. Ever.

Service at Michelangelo's was great that night. When I couldn't finish my dumplings, the waiter asked whether I didn't like it. Mummy said this was an indication of pride in their food. We reassured them the food was great just that the dumplings were too much. That same waiter also had a few laughs with daddy about the wine. Daddy's a fast drinker so they joked that there was a hole in the cup. It made the dining experience interesting and fun. Thumbs up!

On a side note though, throughout our meal, the dining area inside the restaurant wasn't full at all! How come we were told only the alfresco area was available? Mummy said maybe they wanted to give the impression that they were overflowing with customers. Sounded logical lol.

But on the whole, I enjoyed my experience at Michelangelo's and wouldn't mind going back there again! But we set our sights on the restaurant a few doors down - Da Paolo for Father's Day. Ha ha. But that's IF we spend it in Singapore.

Happy Mother's Day to all you delicious mummies out there!
Always know that you're appreciated dearly by your children :D

I love you mom!

pancakes revisited

2010-04-22T20:10:00.001+08:00

"Jie, I feel like eating pancakes (:"

It just takes one sentence to get my lazy bum off the couch and into the kitchen. Amazing isn't it?

I've made these countless times because that sentence is no stranger to me. Don't get me wrong though, I always enjoy myself making these pancakes and seeing my sister wolf it down eagerly after. It gives me a sense of satisfaction, you know? I bet you do. I bet all bakers/cooks experience that awesome feeling when someone enjoys what you made.

This is my turn to recipe for pancakes and they've never failed. Although I'm still on the search for that perfect pancake recipe that produces fluffy pancakes similar to that of McDonalds. Can anyone recommend me one?? Pretty please with sugar on top! :D

The top two pancakes were made with the addition of about a tablespoon of Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder to the remaining half cup of batter. I strongly recommend either increasing the batter or reducing the cocoa because the resulting mixture turned out a bit dry. Not that the pancake texture was compromised or anything. For what it's worth, I thought the cocoa pancakes were even easier to flip as they didn't spread. But they were a tad too bitter. Should have added more sugar.

Good or bad? You decide.

1, 2, 3, why don't you bake with me!

2010-04-19T11:14:00.001+08:00

I'm feeling much much much better after the baking marathon I had on Friday! The high is just amazing. Seriously.

Reason for the sudden baking marathon? Well, my sister and her friends decided to give their dancer juniors a little something before they stepped down so being my bonafide taster, she suggested asking me to bake for them! Sweet no? This was my chance to try 2 new recipes and dish out my all-time favourite recipe at the same time! Of course I jumped at it!

Having recently visited ovenhaven's blog and read her post on the 3 simple steps to baking the perfect muffins, I knew I had to source for tried and tested recipes from there. I chose this chocolate chip muffin one but it wasn't what I expected. The taste was a tad too bland for my liking and the crumb wasn't muffin-y at all. It was more like that of fa gao (some spongey chinese steamed cake usually offered during prayers). Mine looked totally different from the photos in her blog but I was sure I followed the recipe exactly so I'm not sure what went wrong. But I did follow ovenhaven's 3 tips and they were amazing. Props to you! :D

On the other hand, I was totally satisfied with Nigella's double chocolate muffins. They had the perfect crumb! Moist and chocolatey with the liners coming off easily without bits of muffin sticking to it. The chocolate chips that were inside the muffin melted - aka pure chocolate bliss! I have nothing but raves for this recipe. Although I don't know how the original recipe tastes like but I tweaked it a bit after reading some of the comments and left out the remaining 1/4 cup of chocolate chips which I had to sprinkle on top. Even so, BEST I tell you. Sister said it can rival the all-time favourite blueberry muffins :D

Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from allrecipes.com via ovenhaven
makes 11 muffins (weird number I know)

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk (I used HL low-fat milk!)
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil
1 cup mini chocolate chips (Hershey's!)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line your muffin pans with muffin liners. I did.

2. In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder) until thoroughly mixed. Make a well in the middle.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients (vanilla, milk, egg, oil).

4. Pour the wet ingredients into dry ingredients via the well and mix until just moistened. Batter should be lumpy.

5. Add in the chocolate chips. Fill the muffin liners until about 3/4 full.

6. Bake for 18-20min or until muffins are risen and toothpick inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs.

Nigella's Chocolate Chocolate-chip Muffins
adapted from foodnetwork.com
makes 12 standard muffins

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup cocoa powder (Hershey's!)
1 1/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup chocolate chips (Hershey's!)
1 cup milk (I used HL low-fat milk)
1/3 cup + 2tsp canola oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line your muffin pans with muffin liners if you want. I did.

2. In a mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa, sugar) + the chocolate chips.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (milk, oil, egg, vanilla).

4. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients in. Mix until just incorporated. DO NOT OVERMIX! Batter should be lumpy.

5. Fill the muffin liners until about 3/4 full.

6. Bake for 18-20min or until muffins are dark, risen and springy.

It's nice to get recognised for your efforts don't you think?

I need all the comfort I can get!

2010-04-16T21:11:00.002+08:00

Just had an interview earlier this afternoon and let's just say things aren't looking so good from where I'm standing. I don't know whether I made a good impression or not but I know the way I answered the interviewers' questions was pretty weird. Why weird? Even I don't know. Sigh. All I can do is leave my future in the hands of God and I know He'll show me the way.

But in the mean time, I need some comfort food!!!!!!!!

Dinner tonight is prepared by me, for me. Home alone once again. I've gotten sick of eating cold cereal (I eat it for dinner whenever I have work and come home late - aka I'm lazy and can't be bothered to cook stuff) so I need some excitement for my palate! Since today is quite gloomy, think my gloomy mood + heavy rain since the late afternoon, I wanted to make something comforting. Comfort, comfort, comfort. Hmm, what screams comfort? To me, comfort food definitely means Shepherd's Pie! Bear with my rather gross photos because I wanted to quickly snap some photos so that I could eat! By the time I finished making dinner, it was already 8pm. Starving girl + taking photos do not go hand in hand I'm afraid.

And because it was supposed to be easy comfort food, I used this can of instant peanuts (already cooked) which came with a lovely sauce. Normally we eat this with porridge in my family but I decided the sauce would go perfectly well with this Shepherd's pie. Okay I think anything would go well with the sauce and peanuts :D

Easy Peasy Shepherd's Pie
makes 1 serving

1 small Russet potato
1/3 small sized tomato, cut into wedges
1/2 a can of instant peanuts in sauce (I used the Narcissus brand in sg!)
1/2 medium carrot, diced
1tbsp frozen sweet corn
salt and pepper to taste

1. Make the mashed potatoes first!
Wash the potato.
Put the potato into salt water and bring it to a boil, skin and all.
Boil the potato until it is soft, i.e. easily pierced by a fork.
Drain and let it cool in the pot.
Mash the potato with a fork and add a dash of milk (I used HL low fat milk). Season with salt and pepper to taste.

2. In a non-stick pan on low heat, fry the carrots first (no oil for the health conscious me!). After they turn somewhat soft, add in the tomatoes. When the tomatoes cook down a bit, add in the corn, followed by the instant peanuts with its sauce. The corn and peanuts are already cooked so adding them in last is just to warm them up a bit.

3. Pour the cooked ingredients into the bottom of an oven-safe bowl and cover with the mashed potatoes. You can make swirly patterns or write your name on top to signify that it's yours! Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for about 10-15min or until the top is lightly browned. Okay I didn't really take note of the time because I was super anxious to eat it already! Everything's cooked anyway (:

PS: look at all the sauce! I didn't add salt to the cooked ingredients, just pepper, since the sauce was already full of flavour!

I ate this with chilli. Awesome stuff! Being Asian, I love my chilli. I have to eat chilli with everything! Except maybe bread and cereal but you get my drift. The chilli I used was belacan! I added in some bulldog sauce (a Japanese sauce normally eaten with tonkatsu) just to add some flavour and to thin the belacan since I didn't add any lime/lemon juice.

Right so after that awesome dinner, I feel better and perkier. It's time to bake some muffins for my sister's friends :D I get to bake and experiment with new recipes + I get paid. How awesome can it get?

Do you trust me?

2010-04-04T23:27:00.002+08:00

Right, these don't look like muffins but they are! Trust me. If you don't, at least trust cookiebakerlynn!!

Yup I have an issue with trust. I'm too naive it seems (I believe almost anything people tell me). Yeah I bet you're painting that big LOSER sign on my forehead now. But I can't help it! Is it really such a crime to be so trusting?

Take for example during my first driving lesson. There was this red button in the car and my instructor was like "never ever press this button otherwise you'll fly out of the car". Okay I admit it sounds a bit farfetched and absurd but I believed him. Yeah I did. I mean, red buttons in tv shows all signal danger and such right?! Like those self-destruct buttons and what not. Come on, I'm a tele-girl! Grew up watching tele programmes and cartoons. So I believed him. Then he told me to press it. I was like NO FREAKING WAY. I didn't want to fly out of the car did I? And he pressed it. I was like "shit" and mentally prepared to fly out of the car like those jokers who get ejected out of their car seats in cartoons. Well, obviously that never happened. The horn just honked. Felt like painting that big LOSER sign on my forehead right there and then.

So what do I do? Bake. That's right. I bake up a batch of deceptive muffins. Muffcakes as what Mowie from Mowielicious calls them - a cross between a muffin and a cupcake. There! Now nobody can say they don't trust me when I cross-referenced from two reliable sources hehe (I didn't totally throw back all my history knowledge to my sec sch teacher now did I?)

Actually, come to think of it, these really do resemble muffcakes. Even though Lynn didn't mention it anywhere. These have a heavy texture to them, much like their muffin counterpart but don't look at all like muffins from the outside! They look alarmingly similar to the cupcake. Now that's one deceptive muffcake. Never judge a book by its cover. How apt. But whatever the case, anything that involves not one, but THREE types of chocolate, has to be good!

Now you see it,

Now you don't!

Deceptive Triple Chocolate Muffcakes

adapted from The Complete Muffin Cookbook via cookiebakerlynn

makes 10 standard cupcake sized muffcakes

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp cocoa powder (Hersheys ftw!)

1/2 tsp baking powder*

1/8 tsp salt (supposed to use sea salt but I didn't have any, so I used regular table salt instead)

3/8 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Hersheys!)

1/4 cup coarsely chopped milk chocolate (I used Ghiradelli's 60% cocoa chocolate buttons instead)

7/8 cup buttermilk (I used HL low-fat milk since I didn't have buttermilk - not a very good substitute but I thought it was alright)

1/4 cup honey (I didn't have honey so I just used a little less than 1/4 cup of caster sugar)

1/8 cup canola oil

1 small egg (the kinds you get from Sg supermarkets)

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Line your muffin tin with 8-10 muffin liners (8 if you want your muffcakes to be filled more so they stand taller).

2. Sift the flours, cocoa powder, sugars (add the caster sugar here if you're using it as a sub for the honey), baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Add the chocolate chips and chunks and stir to combine.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the milk, oil, egg and vanilla together (add the honey here if you're using it).

4. Pour the wet ingredients gently into the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed. Do not overstir!

5. Spoon the batter into the muffin liners, filling each cup until about 3/4 full. I filled mine somewhere between 1/2 to 3/4 full that's why my muffcakes weren't that tall.

6. Bake for 12-18min or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean with a few moist crumbs. Baking time depends on how much batter you fill the liners with.

7. Cool the muffcakes for at least 10min before removing from the tray. My advice is to let them cool for a while longer so the liners peel away easily from the muffcakes, removing lesser of the chocolatey goodness with them! Save 'em chocolate!

*In addition to the baking powder, 5/8 tsp of baking soda was required but as usual, I didn't have any so I omitted it.

Lesson learnt: When in doubt, bake. That way you'll know who to trust when you've tried and tasted it yourself.

How's that for a lesson learnt!

I did wrong

2010-03-30T16:48:00.003+08:00

I'm still riding the Hallyu Korean wave so I've been listening to many Korean songs these past few months. The latest one that's on my playlist is 'I did (was) wrong' by Korean boy band 2AM. And I think the title's quite apt in describing my latest baking experiment.

This would be my first post in showcasing a failed baking attempt. Though the pictures don't look too shabby (the lighting's bad since I shot the pictures at night under my sucky kitchen light - didn't bother changing locations oops), as soon as I assembled this baby, I knew something was wrong. My sister didn't know it was a cake, she thought it was a big cupcake which was sliced in the middle and iced. Oh well. Better luck next time.

I didn't let the frosting set long enough so the middle layer kind of melted. What can I say? Impatience has always been my downfall. But fear not! I've been working on it! To demonstrate that, I've been whipping up batches of pancakes for my sister using really low fire to get that even browning. Otherwise, one side will just get burnt (as experienced in many previous attempts :/). The cake layer wasn't fluffy like I expected, but maybe it was supposed to be this way? I'm not sure. It sort of had the texture of a cupcake, which was really quite odd if you ask me. So I'm guessing I did something wrong. Although that may have something to do with the fact that I didn't follow the recipe to a tee since I didn't have all the specific ingredients that the recipe called for. Okay my bad.

'I did wrong' Tiramisu Cake
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours via mybutteryfingers

cake
1/2 cup cake flour*
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/16 tsp salt
35.5g unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 egg
3/8 tsp vanilla
3/16 cup buttermilk

preparation:
Line 2 springform tins with parchment paper OR butter 2 springform tins. Preheat the oven to 180C.

1. Sift the prepared cake flour + baking powder + salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer, beat the butter until it is soft and creamy. Add in the sugar and beat for another 3min or so. Add in the egg and beat for another 1min. Beat in the vanilla.

3. Add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt) into the butter/sugar mixture, alternating with the milk. Start and end with the addition of dry ingredients. E.g. dry, milk, dry, milk, dry. Mix only until the ingredients just disappear.

4. Divide the cake mixture into 2 portions and smoothen the tops. Bake them for 15-20min to get your cake layers (original timing was 28-30 min but since I quartered the recipe, it should take lesser time).

5. Cool and remove the cake layers from the tins. Invert them right-side up and let them cool completely! (Don't make the same mistake I did by being impatient yeah? Promise me that.)

espresso extract
1/2 tbsp instant espresso powder
1/2 tbsp boiling water

1. Stir the espresso powder and boiling water until dissolved. Set aside.

espresso syrup
1/8 cup water
1/12 cup sugar
1/4 tbsp brandy/rum/kahlua (I didn't have any so I omitted this)

Stir the water + sugar in a small saucepan and bring just to a boil. Pour the syrup into a small heatproof bowl and stir in 1 tbsp of the espreso extract + liqueur. Set aside.

filling & frosting
56g mascarpone
1/8 cup sugar, sifted
3/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tbsp amaretto/brandy/rum/kahlua (again I omitted this)
1/4 cup (60ml) heavy cream
1/8 cup mini choc chips
2 sticks of Savoiardi Italian Lady fingers (optional - I added this in in an attempt to create texture)

1. Whisk the mascarpone + sugar + vanilla + liqueur until smooth.

2. Using a mixer, whip the heavy cream until firm peaks are formed. Stir about 1/4 of the whipped cream into the mascarpone. Gently fold in the rest of the whipped cream with a light touch.

assembly:
1. Soak 1 cake layer with 1/3 of the syrup using a pastry brush and repeat with the other cake layer. Cut off the top part of the cake if it puffs up to even it.

2. Smooth some of the mascarpone mixture onto the first layer then sprinkle some chocolate chips on top. Crumble the Savoiardi fingers onto the mascarpone mixture alongside the chocolate chips as well. Put the 2nd layer on top. Soak the entire thing with the remaining syrup.

3. Whisk the remaining extract into the frosting (it should turn brownish in colour due to the coffee). Frost the cake as you wish.

*I didn't have cake flour on hand so I used joythebaker's tutorial on how to make cake flour from all purpose flour - take 1/2 cup all purpose flour minus 1 tbsp and sift it with 1 tbsp of cornstarch for about 5 times.

Actually the pictures and reviews from mybutteryfingers were very good (which was what enticed me to bake this baby) so I think I definitely did something wrong along the way. Do try this recipe and tell me where I did wrong yeah? Please! You'll help a fellow baker in distress hahah (:

But I was generally pleased with this cake simply because it was my very first attempt at baking a layered cake! Frosting and all. Granted it doesn't look at all like mybutterfinger's or dorie's, my sister still enjoyed eating it. And I enjoyed baking it. That's what mostly matters right? Right. At least I know that I did something wrong and will keep improving. Cheer me on k? :D

The Great Cookie Experiment!

2010-03-15T14:37:00.007+08:00

Sorry guys I've been MIA for super long. Them uni apps are driving me insane! Although we don't have to write personal statements (other than for some courses) but the whole procedure is just so confusing! It really drives me mad trying to figure them out. Not to mention I'm super worried I'll do something wrong and end up screwing my uni life. But I'm praying. That's my only consolation (apart from having awesome friends who are equally confused haha).

So enough about uni apps. Let's talk weather. I know the weather in Singapore's been a real bitch lately with random downpours and super hot afternoons. But there's no better time to get the oven started and bake not one, but TWO lovely chocolate chip cookie recipes! No regrets. Seriously.

Alton's The Chewy

vs.

Emily's Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies (visionsofsugarplum)

Well, the verdict is pretty much clear at the moment. Judges include those who have tried these cookies - my sister, her friends, my mom, my friends and some of my friend's friends, and most importantly, ME! The baker hahah (dad didn't try :/ he's not a cookie/baked goods person. Ah well, he doesn't know what he's missing). We unanimously preferred Sugar Plum's cookies! Even though both were rather similar. So hurray for Emily! :D

They liked the chewiness of the cookie and the fact that it retained its crisp-exterior-chewy-interior texture after quite a number of days. The smell was somewhat similar to Famous Amos' cookies some said (an awesome compliment I must say). The chocolate chunks took the cookie to another level as it had more body than regular chocolate chips. You could really taste the good quality chocolate (I used Cadbury's Old Gold Dark Chocolate with 70% Cocoa Solids - it was surprisingly good imho) in every bite!

The Chewy
an Alton Brown recipe
I got 37 small cookies

1-1/8 cup all purpose flour (I didn't have bread flour)
113g (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 tsp table salt (didn't have kosher)
1/2 tsp baking powder (didn't have baking soda)
1/8 cup caster sugar
5/8 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 egg white
1 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I ran out of it halfway!)
120g semisweet chocolate chunks/chips

1. Preheat oven to 190C (if baking on the same day)

2. Melt butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat and set aside.

3. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder (dry ingredients) together in a bowl and set aside.

4. Pour the melted butter into a mixing bowl and add both sugars. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed if using a mixer. Add the egg yolk and white, milk and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined. Slowly add the dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined (fold in works best imho). Stir in the chocolate chunks/chips.

5. Chill the dough in the refrigerator (I chilled it overnight). Scoop onto parchment-lined baking trays with about 6 cookies per sheet. Depending on the size of your cookies. Bake for 12-14min or until edges are golden brown, checking the cookies from 5min onwards. Rotate the baking tray to achieve even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

But who wants to store it when you can eat it immediately??? :D

Best Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
Emily of visionsofsugarplum's recipe
I got 35 small cookies

57g unsalted butter
1-1/8 cup all purpose flour
5/8 tsp baking powder (didn't have baking soda)
1/2 tsp salt
28.5g unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
85g semisweet chocolate chunks
toasted nuts (optional - I omitted the nuts because sister didn't want them)

1. Preheat oven to 190C (if baking the cookies immediately). Line baking tray with parchment paper.

2. Melt 57g butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and continue to cook the butter, whisking frequently, until it starts to brown and foam, about 5-7min. Set aside.

3. Sift flour, baking powder and salt until well combined in a bowl and set aside.

4. In a separate mixing bowl, beat 28.5g softened butter and sugars until well combined and grainy (medium speed if using mixer) for about 1min. Beat in the browned butter for an additional 1min. Add in the egg and vanilla and beat until well combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually beat in the flour mixture until just combined (I used the folding in method to be safe). Stir in the chocolate chunks and nuts if using.

5. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for about an hour (I chilled it overnight). Drop 1/4 cup measures of dough onto baking tray and flatten slightly. Bake at 190C for 12-14min (I made smaller cookies so baking time was reduced to 8-10min) or until golden brown around the edges. Cool and store in airtight containers or serve to hungry family members :D (or gorge on them yourself!)

For both cookie recipes, I have to stress this again! DO NOT OVERBAKE. Never. Not on your life. Seriously. Otherwise you'll feel like these recipes have let you down when they most certainly will not! Hahah stern warning here yeah.

So do yourself a favour and try Sugar Plum's Chocolate Chip cookies. Or rather, do yourself a MEGA favour and try both! You may prefer Alton's recipe as opposed to me but that's okay. To each his own right? Tell me if you do, we can exchange more cookie recipes to carry out more cookie experiments! Now wouldn't that be great? Cookie lovers unite! :D

Clash of the titans or a match made in Heaven?

2010-03-02T12:14:00.000+08:00

Korean figure skater, Kim Yu-Na, won the Gold in this year's Olympics in Canada while arch rival Japanese figure skater, Mao Asada, won the Silver.

Korea vs. Japan.
Kim Yu-Na vs. Mao Asada.
Kimono vs. Hanbok.
Gimbap vs. Sushi?????

While I have nothing much to say about the figure skaters, given my less than adequate knowledge on the sport, both girls showed great sportsmanship and really performed to the best of their abilities imho. I managed to watch a bit of Kim Yu-Na's routine in a Korean grocery store on Sunday and I must say she is really good. All the triple axles and the grace she showed was really amazing. I didn't manage to see Mao Asada's routine but for her to clinch Silver at the Olympics, she must have put up a good fight.

But when it comes down to the competition between the Korean Gimbap and the Japanese Sushi, it really is a close fight. To me, there is no clear winner as both are equally nice. To be painfully honest, both are sort of similar, yet while the Japanese Sushi (we're talking about the maki here) has more variations, quantity seldom beats quality. But to ask me to make a choice between the two, I'd rather not. Like my blog title suggests, I want to have my cake and eat it! I want the best of both worlds (: and who is to say I can't?

My sister currently has this obsession with bringing lunch boxes to school. I had that craze too when I was in J2. The other time I packed chicken cutlet with Japanese Curry and rice for her and she enjoyed it (I didn't cook it, mom did). This time, she requested for a spinoff of the Japanese Onigiri. Or rather, a simpler version of it. Just a mixture of Japanese rice with the bottled seasoning, shaped into balls. I suggested adding Gimbap because I was just browsing through recipes for it a few hours ago. Although it is rather easy to obtain the ingredients for Gimbap and Sushi, I didn't purposely go out of the way to purchase them. Come on, cooking is to create something with what you have on hand at the moment right? I had Japanese rice, nori (Japanese seaweed), spinach, eggs, Japanese Cucumber and the Japanese bottled wasabi seasoning for rice. So i got to work, mixing the Korean elements and Japanese elements to create a fusion!

Korean-Japanese Fusion Gimbap
adapted from mykoreankitchen
serves 1 hungry sister (makes 1 roll)

1 sheet of Japanese nori
1/2 cup cooked Japanese rice (short-stemmed)
1 strip of Japanese cucumber
about 3 stalks of spinach
1 egg
1/2 tsp sesame oil, divided + extra for garnishing
2 pinches of salt
(yellow radish strips, carrot strips, seasoned edible burdock roots, crab sticks, BBQ Gimbap ham were the other essential ingredients for the traditional Korean Gimbap which I didn't have and thus were omitted)
Sushi bamboo mat

1. Preparation:
Cook the rice (I can't give specific instructions on this as I used a 1:1 rice-water ratio for my rice cooker. It depends on how you normally cook rice). After rice is cooked, add 1/4 tsp of sesame oil and a pinch of salt. Mix thoroughly to season.
Cut the cucumber into strips (1 cucumber gives 4-8 strips, depending on how thick you want your strips to be. I got 8 strips)
Beat the egg and fry it in a pan. Before the egg is fully cooked, roll the egg to make it stick (mykoreankitchen has pictures of the various steps). Tada! You've made an egg roll!
Rinse the spinach while you boil water. Put the spinach into the boiling water and cook for about a minute until spinach becomes soft. Do not overcook! Place the cooked spinach in a bowl and add 1/4 tsp of sesame oil and a pinch of salt. Mix it together to season.

2. Place the Japanese nori onto the bamboo mat.

3. Spread a thin layer of rice onto the nori, leaving the furthest edge of the nori from you rice-free (you can use your rice spatula and fingers to help).

4. Place your prepared ingredients (for me it's cucumber, egg roll and spinach) across in the middle of the rice.

5. Roll the nori away from you. If the nori doesn't stick, wet your fingers with water and dab it at the edge Alternatively, you can stick some grains of cooked rice at the end as an adhesive.

6. Brush some sesame oil onto the surface of the nori. Slice them and serve.

Japanese Rice Balls
my own simple recipe
serves 1 (makes about 5 small balls with diameter half the size of your pinky finger)

1/4 cup cooked Japanese rice
as much Japanese Wasabi rice seasoning you want

1. Place the cooked rice in a bowl and sprinkle on your desired amount of Wasabi rice seasoning. Mix thoroughly.

2. Using plastic gloves (so that the rice doesn't stick onto your hands), roll the seasoned rice into small balls of desired size. Serve as is.

I hope my sister has an enjoyable lunch in school today :D

And of course, to have an enjoyable lunch box lunch, one must have a gorgeous lunch box! Mom knows I'm crazy about Disney Princesses, except Snow White (another story), so she bought this awesome lunch box from Hong Kong. Okay I know it's kind of a childish craze but so what? We all have a child-side to us right?

This is for you..

2010-02-23T12:28:00.000+08:00

I had my very first crush in kindergarten, but I'm not telling you his name.

He was shorter than me, cute, had flat straight hair, small almond brownish-black eyes, a fair complexion... Well, that's as far as my memory goes. I used to take the initiative to play with him during play time and went out of my way to help him if he got bullied by others or when he cried. Yeah I was pretty tough back then. Whether he reciprocated or even felt my concern I don't know. All I know is that I was fiercely protective of him. Weird right? I know. After graduation from kindergarten, we lost contact. Not that we kept in contact throughout kindergarten outside school, but you get my drift. I went to an all-girls primary school and he went elsewhere.

Just the other day, before my fellow dancer's housewarming, I facebook-ed him. Okay I'm a stalker I admit. But who doesn't do it secretly? I didn't expect to find his account because I didn't know how he looked like now. Maybe it was fate, but I found it. He posted his primary school photo on his account. That small, cute boy from my memory was there on the computer screen. What luck. I looked through his photos and got a glimpse of his life all these years. Stalker to the max.

After the facebook find, I put the matter aside. But as fate would have it again, I met him. On the bus. I was on my way to work and when I boarded the bus, I saw him. Our eyes met briefly before the realisation hit. I was sure it was him because I had just viewed his profile that day! Freaky coincidence? I think so too. So now I knew he stayed around the same region as me. Ooh.

Fate's a real mystery and I still don't know what to make of this incident. So for Valentines this year, although wayyyy belated, I would like to dedicate it to him. He made the bulk of my kindergarten memories and I appreciate it. I actually hope we can be friends and stay in touch. After all, it's very rare to be able to find friends from kindergarten days.

Here's some brownies for you, Mr D. Happy Valentines Day.

Valentines Day Fudge Brownies
adapted from kingarthurflour.com
makes 12 small brownies and 2 small brownie hearts

1/4 cup (57g) unsalted butter
9/16 cup caster sugar
1 egg
5/16 cup Double-Dutch Dark Cocoa or Dutch-process Cocoa (I used Hershey's unsweetened cocoa)
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp espresso powder
1/4 tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/8 cup all purpose flour

1. Preheat oven to 177C (350F). Line an 7"x3" pan with parchment paper and lightly grease it for easier lifting out of the pan.

2. Melt the butter in a microwave oven using a microwave-safe bowl or in a saucepan over low heat. Stir in the sugar until incorporated. Return the butter/sugar mixture into the microwave and heat until mixture is hot but NOT bubbling. Stir the mixture again and it should be shiny. Do this a second time.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg, cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder and vanilla extract until smooth.

4. Add in the hot butter/sugar mixture and stir until smooth.

5. Add in the flour and stir until smooth.

6. Wait for the mixture to cool down (about 10-15min) before adding the chocolate chips so that they hold their shape and do not melt after baking.

7. Fill the prepared pan with the mixture. I added some mixture into the 2 prepared Wilton's silicone heart-shaped moulds.

8. Bake for 20-25min or until a cake tester/toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges but look moist, not uncooked, in the middle. Cool on a cooling rack and serve. Brownies can be served warm with vanilla icecream and raspberry sauce drizzled over. Yum. Or you can pack it in a bag and give it to your first crush.

These brownies are moist with a cake-like crumb. They have a light coffee+chocolate=mocha aroma and are quite delicate. Not too rich and not too dense. These have love written all over it, perfect for your Valentine.

I haven't forgotten him all these years, I wonder if he still remembers me?

Happy Lunar New Year!

2010-02-15T12:18:00.001+08:00

Red is once again the main colour of this festive period!
Whether you are celebrating the Chinese (Lunar) New Year or Valentines Day, the colour red will be ubiquitous. Think hong baos (red packets), festive goodies in red-lidded plastic containers, cheong sam/qi pao (traditional chinese clothings), oranges, lion dances etc for the LNY and kisses, red roses, romantic walks, hugs, love, heart-shaped candies/cookies/muffins/cupcakes/cakes... It really is a time to just let go and eat.

Yes that's what I'm talking about. Eat. Eat and be merry! Notice how every festive season involves loads of food? Bring on the fats I say! Hahah

During the Lunar New Year, there will be an orange-buying-frenzy in supermarkets everywhere. Why? Because it symbolises luck/gold/fortune and the younger generation has to present it to the older generation. In return, we get hong baos (: So I hope I get to bake something with oranges/orange zest after the LNY celebrations! Or I'll just have to clear them with my family by eating them as a fruit (after refrigeration of course!). It's nice to spend time with family, relatives and friends during the festive period.

Oh right! Even though yesterday was Valentines Day, it wasn't very significant to me because 1. I was busy visiting relatives for the LNY and 2. I don't have that special someone to share it with (boohoo hahah!). It doesn't matter that I'm single and all since I have such wonderful friends and family to share the day with. So yippee for all you singles out there who spent Valentines with friends and family! Because you are not alone (:

PS: Sorry there will be no recipes uploaded since I didn't get the chance to bake any LNY cookies like last year and I don't have anyone to bake for during Valentines so check out other foodie blogs on my list on the left side of this blog for interesting recipes and bakes :D Check back soon for more updates!!

Happy Holidays everyone!

Thank you, Lord, for our Daily Bread

2010-02-12T10:39:00.000+08:00

I'm a real sucker for a good loaf of bread.
I eat 2 slices of wholemeal toast everyday for breakfast if you remember! One with my favourite Nutella and the other with either PB or PB&J (I just bought a jar of Smuckers' PB&J swirl! Awesome, but can't beat Nutella hahah).

Ever since my pita bread attempt, I got hooked on bread baking. This way, I can control whatever goes into my bread! I can reduce the sugar or increase the % of wholemeal flour used...
Only problem is I've never baked bread before, assuming we just ignore the pita bread for now. Yeast used to scare me honestly. Actually, the idea of baking anything with yeast scared me last time because let's face it, baking is a unique type of Science. Hands up if you agree!

Blue Yonder's Daily Wholemeal Bread
adapted from lafujimama
makes 1 small loaf - 12 slices

2/3 tbsp warm water
1/3 cup warm water
1/2 tsp yeast
1/6 tsp sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup wholemeal flour
2 tbsp applesauce
extra flour to dust

1. Mix the yeast, sugar and 2/3 tbsp warm water together and let it sit for about 10-15 min.

2. In a large bowl, pour the yeast mixture, the remaining 1/3 cup warm water, the flours and the applesauce together. Mix until incorporated using an electric mixer with a dough hook. Keep mixing for about 7min or 3-4min then knead by hand. The dough should no longer be sticky but smooth and elastic.

3. Remove the dough and place in a clean bowl, lightly dusted with flour. Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour as well. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and place in a warm, draught-free spot for it to double in size.

4. After the dough has risen, punch it down to release the air. Spray/grease and flour a small loaf pan. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in the pan.

5. Let the dough rise in the pan in a warm spot again, uncovered, until doubled in size.

6. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the loaf for about 20-25min or until the loaf sounds hollow when lightly tapped on top.

Hmm, for some reason or other, this bread tastes a bit like sourdough. It looks like sourdough too. The texture of this bread is crumbly yet moist. It's not like the regular off-the-shelf wholemeal bread you get, which is soft and moist. This bread also has a crust. But it's not those hard crusty kinds, it's more of the sourdough kinds. Maybe I really unknowingly baked a loaf of sort-of sourdough and didn't know it. Hmm.

Thank you, Lord, for our Daily Bread. Amen.

Excuse me, there's a hole in my bread!

2010-02-08T23:22:00.005+08:00

"What do you want to eat for lunch today?"

That's the million dollar question that I ask myself every single day. At this rate, I'll become the world's fastest self-made billionaire/trillionaire/whatever-aire if I get a million dollars every time I ask this question. Now wait, that wouldn't be so bad now would it? Right.

Ever since the end of last year, when I was studying for my A levels, I had to eat lunch fast in order to continue studying. So when I went to the supermarket with my family one weekend as we were doing our weekly marketing, I noticed the bread section had pitas, tortilla wraps etc. Being a bread-lover, I decided to eat pita bread stuffed with ham/fruits/whatever I could find in the fridge for lunch during the weekdays. I never looked back.

Having extra time on my hands to spare now, I decided to attempt making my beloved pita bread. Making your own bread from scratch is just so satisfying. It's a different kind of satisfaction from normal baking I realised. Maybe because this is a staple? Well you can't possibly grow rice in your backyard can you? Unless of course you're a farmer, then I've got nothing to say.

Pita Bread
adapted from straightfromthefarm
makes about 10 5-6" pitas (or 8 6" pitas)

2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tbsp EVOO
about 1 cup warm water
extra flour for dusting

1. Sift the flours and salt together in a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and the yeast.

2. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients then add the oil and about 3/4 cup of the water. Mix to form a soft dough (if it doesn't come together at first, add a little more water).

3. Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and knead for about 5min until the dough is smooth and elastic. In the meanwhile, clean the large bowl and lightly spray with oil. Place the dough inside and cover with a damp tea towel. Let it rise in a warm, draught-free, place until doubled in size. It would take about an hour.

4. Punch down the dough to release the air and divide into 8 equal pieces (I divided it into 10 unequal pieces). Shape them into balls and roll out eat one into a circle about 1/4 inch thick.

5. Place the rounds on greaseproof/parchment paper and cover with oiled cling film. Let them rise for 20-30min. While waiting for your pita rounds to rise, preheat the oven to 230C and place your baking tray inside the oven, lined with greaseproof/parchment paper at the same time. You can make the pitas in batches.

6. Place 2-3 pita rounds on each tray and bake for 6-9min or until the pita rounds are puffed up and golden brown.

7. Cool the pita rounds slightly then cover with a clean tea towel to keep them warm and soft until served. Alternatively, you can wait for the pita rounds to cool completely then freeze them between sheets of greaseproof/parchment paper. These store for up to two days well wrapped or frozen for three weeks.

Just thaw the pitas and reheat in a toaster oven whenever you want to eat them!

Note: It is important for the oven and the baking tray to be hot so that the pitas will puff up and form a pocket inside!

Notice that my pictures only show 7 pita pockets when I made 10? Well, I've got a gross confession - I burnt my first batch of 3 pitas.

It can only be blamed on my poor memory because I thought they were to be baked for 10-15 min and only started watching at the 10th minute! They became rock-hard and dry, almost like pita chips actually. Mom and sis loved it though, much to my amazement. I didn't. Why? Because I like my bread soft. Yup, soft and chewy bread's my kryptonite.

It's really burnt at some parts, see?? :(
So take a leaf from my book and remember your baking times. You wouldn't want to end up with bad pitas.

Happy World Nutella Day!

2010-02-05T10:34:00.002+08:00

Today is the 5th of February and it is very special.
Why is it so special you may ask? Well my friend, here's why.

Happy World Nutella Day 2010!

The World Nutella Day was created in 2007 when Sara Rosso from Ms. Adventures in Italy thought that there were many days in the year but no day set aside to appreciate Nutella (oh boy was she right!). So World Nutella Day was born. She was joined by Shelly from At Home in Rome to organise World Nutella Day 2007. In 2008 and 2009, Sara has also been joined by Michelle from Bleeding Espresso as they spread World Nutella Day love! Now, it is up to us to pass it on! Let's do our part for Nutella (here's how)!

Yes! World Nutella Day is finally here!
Nutella has been a great and wonderful part of my life since secondary school, about 4 years ago. I used to slop on a thick layer of the chocolatey hazelnut spread on digestive biscuits and gobble them down for my after school snack! Whenever my mom buys bananas, I would slice the bananas then dunk and eat them. As simple as that. Nowadays, being older and all, I slather a huge dollop of the nutty goodness on wholemeal toast for breakfast every morning. The wholemeal toast helps lessen the guilt as it is healthier compared to white toast right? Okay I may be a bit health conscious but that doesn't stop me from eating Nutella every day now does it! So in conclusion, I couldn't figure out which type of Nutella lover I was. But whatever the case, I wouldn't mind being ALL the types mashed in one :D

Since this is my first year celebrating World Nutella Day (I heard about it only end of last year), I had to find a special recipe! I looked through tons of websites and browsed through all the Nutella related recipes submitted from previous years to get some inspiration. Alas, I decided. It would be the Tiramisu that would join the gorgeous Nutella in the most anticipated marriage of the year. After deciding on the type of dessert I would make, I had to choose a recipe to follow/tweak/adapt. So back to the computer and cookbooks I went.

Finally, I succeeded. Below is the adapted recipe from 2 sources (:

Individual Nutella Tiramisu
adapted from Gordon Ramsay and marmiton.org
serves 2

8 Savoiardi (Italian ladyfingers)
125g mascarpone
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
50g Nutella (you can add more or less, depending on your preference)
75ml heavy whipping cream
1tbsp heavy whipping cream
100ml strong coffee or espresso cooled to room temp*
unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting
frozen 70% cocoa chocolate bar
sugar to sweeten coffee

1. Melt the Nutella with 1tbsp of whipping cream in the microwave. The cream acts as a medium for the Nutella to dissolve and melt. Let cool.

2. Whisk the 75ml heavy whipping cream in one bowl until soft peaks form. Do not over-whisk!

3. Whisk the mascarpone and vanilla extract in another bowl until the mascarpone mixture is creamy and smooth.

4. Add the melted Nutella mixture into the mascarpone mixture and mix until incorporated.

5. Gently fold in the whipped cream into the mascarpone-Nutella mixture to avoid losing the air incorporated previously.

6. Quickly dip the Savoiardi into the coffee and arrange into desired position in the individual cups/glasses. Break them into smaller pieces if you need to. Don't soak the Savoiardi in the coffee too long as it is highly absorbant! The Savoiardi will turn soggy and that's not what we want right!

7. Pour a layer of the Nutella mixture over the Savoiardi and repeat the process until the cup is full.

8. Refrigerate for about 4 hours to ensure the tiramisu has firmed up (I took mine out about 2 hours after to photograph hahah couldn't wait!).

9. Grate the frozen chocolate bar over the tiramisu and dust with cocoa powder before serving (or you can just eat it straight if you can't wait haha)

*I just dissolved about 2tsp of Nescafe in 100ml of water

Okay so I'm not a good decorator as you can see, but what matters most is the taste right? Given that it was my first attempt at making a Tiramisu, albeit a non-authentic simple one, I thought that it tasted awesome! So did my sister (:

So go ahead, indulge in whatever Nutella fantasies you have today. After all, you have to wait a whole other year for this day to come knocking again. Enjoy you fellow Nutella lovers! :D

I love you, Nigella Lawson!

2010-01-25T15:12:00.000+08:00

I'm a HUGE fan of Nigella Lawson. I bookmarked her website, studiously copied down her recipes while she recited them on her shows, searched Youtube to find videos of episodes of some of her previous shows, googled her etc... And now, I've finally recreated one of her recipes. Hurray!

I like the way Nigella presents her shows, sort of daring and humorous. She doesn't mind piling on the extra pounds just to enjoy her favourite meal or dessert, whichever she feels like having that night. Her candid and yet relaxed approach towards food never fail to intrigue me. The fun she has in her kitchen seems neverending and I hope to have that in my family kitchen! The joy and laughter will brighten anyone's day the moment they step in. Actually, the moment they enter the house and smell the delicious aroma of whatever's baking will put a spring in their step instantaneously! Hahah :D

Nigella's Chocohotopots
adapted from an episode of Nigella Feasts
makes 4- 4" springform tins

125g semisweet chocolate chips
125g unsalted butter, softened + extra for greasing on butter wrappers
2 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 tbsp all purpose flour

1. Melt the chocolate chips and butter in a bowl above simmering/boiling water. Make sure the bowl of chocolate mixture doesn't touch the boiling water!

2. Preheat the oven to 200C. Butter the 4 springform tins (Nigella used ramekins but I don't have them at home) with butter wrappers.

3. Leave the melted chocolate on one side to cool.

4. Whisk the eggs and sugar together.

5. Add in the flour into the egg mixture.

6. Fold in the melted chocolate mixture into the flour-egg mixture gently.

7. Bake for about 8-12min or until the top looks a bit cracked. The toothpick test fails here because the centers should still be gooey, just like molten chocolate cakes.

8. Leave to cool for about 2min then serve immediately. Pair with vanilla icecream, sorbets, fruit, warm chocolate ganache etc. Up to your imagination and cravings (:

Yes I know these are jaw-droppingly similar to the molten chocolate cakes I made last year during Christmas, but I promise you they are very different! The taste may be a bit similar but the textures of the two cakes are different. The molten chocolate cakes have a really molten, liquidy (is there such a word??) center whereas Nigella's chocohotopots have a gooey center. They are quite firm but still have that element of wetness and liquidity in them. Hmm. I don't think you quite understand. The best way to understand this idea is to make them yourself! That way you can truly understand what I mean (:

Try them! You won't regret (:

there's always room for two!

2010-01-15T14:35:00.009+08:00

Yesterday was my first day at work and my brains were fried due to info overload. My colleagues were very friendly and patient with me, so I blamed myself constantly for forgetting what they taught me. No doubt I had to put into immediate practice what was taught but that's the best way to learn right? On the job training. Well, people learn through mistakes. And I guess I learnt a lot yesterday, considering the huge number of mistakes I made. Thank God nobody scolded me. It was a pretty rough and stressful day for me but I prayed and everything got better after lunch. Weird as it may seem, I actually can't wait for next Monday to start work again! I want to test my memory and put whatever I digested into practice! That's a good sign, isn't it? That I'm enjoying work. It's my first ever job and I'm determined to make good impressions and excel in it.

So after what seemed like the 2nd longest baking hiatus (compared to the Alevel period), I went berserk. No seriously. I put my oven to work and churned out TWO items. Not one, but TWO. Though granted they were pretty small. I baked Chocolate Chip Cupcakes and Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins. It was my first attempt at making muffins (although cupcakes and muffins are quite similar) and I'm glad to say they were a success! I substituted the buttermilk for some mixed berry yoghurt I had lying around in the fridge simply because I didn't have any milk, let alone buttermilk in the house. It was a pretty close substitution I suppose as the muffins turned out very well. The cupcakes were not my first attempt. They were the first things I learnt to bake when I started out and now it's miraculously back on my list of items to bake! Having been caught up in experimenting with different kinds of flavours and recipes, I decided to go back to basics. To go back to where it all started - the humble chocolate chip cupcake. Thank God I did because both tasted equally amazing!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

adapted from cupcakerecipe.net

makes 6

1/4 cup castor sugar

55g unsalted butter

1 egg

3/4 tbsp milk (I omitted it)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 drop vanilla extract

1/8 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or more if you like)

1. Preheat the oven at 180°C and prepare 6 cupcake liners in a muffin tray

2. Cream the sugar and the butter in a bowl.

3. Add in the egg to the butter-sugar mixture and beat until incorporated. (add in the milk at this stage if using)

4. Sift in the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture.

5. Gently fold in the vanilla extract and chocolate chips into the batter.

6. Spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake liners until about 3/4 full. Bake for 15-20 min or until cupcakes have risen and are golden brown.

Serve as is or cool them if you want to spread icing on.

Blueberry Yoghurt Muffins

adapted from joyofbaking.com

makes 6

1-1/4 cup all purpose flour

3/8 cup granulated white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 small egg (those kinds you get from NTUC Fairprice in SG)

3/8 cup of mixed berry yoghurt (instead of equal volume of buttermilk)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

75g melted unsalted butter

1 cup fresh blueberries

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and prepare 6 muffin liners (I used cupcake liners instead) in a muffin tray.

2. In 1 bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt (dry ingredients) together until well mixed.

3. In another bowl, mix the egg, yoghurt, melted butter and vanilla extract (wet ingredients) together until well mixed.

4. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just incorporated.

5. Fold in the blueberries gently.

6. Fill the muffin liners until almost full and bake for about 20 min or until the muffins have risen and are golden brown.

Serve as is. Best eaten immediately when warm or can be reheated in the oven the next morning for breakfast (:

It's been a while

2010-01-06T11:25:00.000+08:00

Happy 2010!

Fine I know I'm like 6 days late but this is my first post of the new year! WMB has survived the new year with a rather decent number of recipes uploaded. Because of this blog, I ventured into baking new goodies I would never have dreamed of baking before! Would I call this blog my motivation to bake? Maybe. But I haven't been baking as much as I had imagined I would these past few weeks after the yuletide celebrations.

Reason? Probably due to the desperate meetups with long-time-no-see friends and dancers, job hunting, potential job interviews etc etc. I'm going for an interview later on in the afternoon and I really do hope I get this job! It's a rather demanding job but I think I need something challenging to spur me on during this 6 months. Otherwise, I might just lag the whole period away and that would be rather disastrous! I've also signed up for driving lessons (yes I'm 18 already!) and am taking my Basic Theory Test (BTT) on 4 feb! Wish me luck hahah (: Although friends who have taken the test already say its beyond easy, I fail to see why. Maybe this driving business just doesn't come naturally to me? Idk. I really do hope I'll pass it on the first try because it would be humiliating to fail even the most basic test :/

Ah well, I'll be sure to start baking as soon as possible whenever I have free time on my hands! As for this post, it shall be filled with descriptions of mom's extravagant New Year's Eve feast (no pictures because I couldn't find the cable!). We went grocery shopping at ntuc's Fairprice Finest and saw many frozen seafood items on sale. Being kiasu Singaporeans, we grabbed most of them. In the end, the freezer was overstocked. But it was obviously better than having an understocked freezer right? Hahah so in the end, mom prepared Escargots, Pepper-seared Tuna, Cucumber and Tomato Salad, Garlic Bread, Scallops in their shells topped with Fried Garlic and Smoked Salmon. It was a sumptuous meal to welcome the New Year don't you think? Although it wasn't the healthiest way to start the year, it was the most delicious (:

My sister has been asking me to bake her Chocolate Souffles from this new book I got for Christmas (will upload photos of it later on)! It will be a challenge but I'm sure I'll be able to handle it. Anticipate! :D

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T17:27:00.001+08:00

Merry Christmas one and all!
It's finally that time of year when it's all about Jesus Christ (:

I just came back from Christmas service at my church - Lighthouse Evangelism and decided to blog a bit about yesterday's Christmas eve dinner. So we invited a few friends and colleagues over for dinner and cooked up a storm with leftovers to boast. In addition to the curry chicken and the salad, together with the omission of the bee hoon, my mom toasted some ready made fishballs. One of her colleagues brought some Japanese sushi rice with shredded omelette, mushrooms and other funky things in. Delish btw. My dad's friend brought a big log cake from Prima Deli to add on to the dessert menu. Snacks consisted of boiled peanuts and mixed dried nuts and berries. But my main point is not the dinner, its the dessert. MY dessert.

I finally chose to bake the individual Chocolate Fondant cake aka lava cake aka warm chocolate cake aka molten chocolate babycakes etc etc and the list goes on. I haven't found a standardised name for this delight yet so I'll just make do with the name 'Molten Chocolate Cake'. Simple and straightforward. I was super nervous and scared that I would ruin the molten centers when I tip the pan over (I used muffin pans btw, my budget didn't allow for the ceramic ramekin moulds) and whether the molten centers would really be molten. I prayed. And my cakes turned out beautifully! The molten centers were really molten, all except for one. It was still moist and wet but not liquid. But it's a rather good attempt I think, for a first try.

I browsed through many many recipes and decided on the one from Take Home Chef Curtis Stone because I had seen him make it on tv before. I also cross-referenced several sources and found that his tallied with another source's perfectly. Hence the obvious choice.

I also decided to follow the advice of the many tv chefs when they recommend us to us chocolate with 70% cocoa solids! The only brand my mom could find was Lindt. Awesome no?? It's really one of the best brands available in my honest opinion.

Molten Chocolate Cake
adapted from TLC.com
makes 6 cakes

113g unsalted butter, and more for greasing
unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting
105g chopped dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/6 cup (25g) all purpose flour
vanilla ice cream/whipped cream/chocolate sauce for serving

1. Preheat oven to 200°C if baking straightaway.

2. Coat 6 moulds with butter and dust with cocoa powder to cover the entire mould. Tap out the excess.

3. Melt chocolate and butter over low heat in a heavy medium saucepan until smooth (Good chocolate will make an awesomely smooth and velvety melted mixture)

4. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs, egg yolks and sugar until it is pale and doubled in volume. This would take about 3-5min.

5. Fold in the melted chocolate mixture.

6. Fold in the flour until the batter is smooth.

7. Pour the batter into the prepared moulds about 3/4 full. Make sure the batter is divided equally amond all the moulds.

8. Bake for 8-10 min (1-2min longer if batter is fridge-cold)/until cakes are slightly puffed and just set around the edges. Toothpick inserted should come out with batter still attached. DO NOT OVERBAKE otherwise centers would not be molten.

9. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate sauce (I used Hershey's hahah)

Too bad it doesn't snow in Singapore

2009-12-23T21:38:00.000+08:00

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well it should, since tomorrow's Christmas eve! How time flies.

This year, my family's hosting a small gathering tomorrow just to liven up the household and to pump up the Christmas mood. Despite the setting up of a Christmas tree with a miserable number of presents underneath, the Christmas mood is still somewhat lacking. As I walked down Orchard Road yesterday with some of my friends after dinner, the Christmas mood in me started building up. Was it the prettier-than-past-years Christmas decorations? Or the Christmas carols playing in the background? I wasn't sure. One thing's for sure is that Singaporeans don't celebrate Christmas the way the Westerners do.

Gingerbread house at the St. Regis Hotel Singapore

I love having a spread at the table with many friends and relatives to enjoy it with. Better still if they all compliment the food. The centerpiece would be a huge oven-roasted turkey stuffed with gorgeous Christmas stuffing no doubt, flanked by many side dishes such as mashed potatoes, baked/broiled/tossed vegetables, cornbread, ham, minced pies, delicious cranberry sauce, a gravy boat, fruits etc. Oh and let's not forget dessert! Christmas puddings, apple pie, fruit cakes, log cakes, ice cream, Christmas cookies etc. And standing quietly in the corner would be a majestic gingerbread house, complete with gingerbread men and women (:

Okay maybe my head is filled with images from shows such as Nigella's Christmas Kitchen, Joan Cusack's Local Flavours, A Christmas Carol, Jamie cooks Christmas etc. But a girl can wish, can't she?

So anyway, back to my family's Christmas eve dinner. Mom's cooking her famous chicken curry, bee hoon and tossing up some salad. And I'll be in charge of the baking! I baked some Christmas cookies (shortbread) as sort of party favours and decorated them with icing together with my sister this afternoon. They were great fun decorating but were sort of troublesome during the cut-out process. My dough was too sticky even though I added in more flour than the recipe called for in desperate attempts to dry it out. The end product was rather satisfactory if I do say so myself. The cookies had a crumbly-melt-in-your-mouth texture, just the texture I wanted.

Christmas Shortbread Cookies
adapted from joyofbaking.com
makes 51 odd-shaped cookies (see picture)

cookies
2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting the workplace
1/4 tsp salt
226g unsalted butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

icing
75g (5/8 cup) icing or powdered sugar
1 tbsp hot water
pink food colouring (optional)

1. Whisk the flour with the salt and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Make sure the butter is at room temperature!

3. Add in the sugar and beat until smooth. Then add in the vanilla extract.

4. Gently stir in the flour into the butter mixture.

5. Flatten the dough into a flat round circle and wrap with cling film/plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least an hour.

6. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking/parchment paper.

7. On a lightly floured surface (mine was floured many times) roll out the dough until it is about 2" thick. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters dipped in flour.

8. Place cookies in the refrigerator for about 15min (okay I forgot this step and rushed right into baking them).

9. Bake for about 8-10min or until cookies are lightly browned.

Have a blessed Christmas everyone!

안녕하세요 Korea 2009!

2009-12-23T12:21:00.000+08:00

Although I doubt anybody reads this, I must say that I still enjoy updating this blog. In case you didn't notice, I was mia for a while, say 3 weeks? Reason being that I was overseas in South Korea! The trip was awesome and I didn't really want to come back to Singapore. The food was good, the sightseeing was good, the food was good, the shopping was good, the food was good, the people were good, and most importantly, THE FOOD WAS GOOD! Hahah I really really loved it there as you can probably tell. The only drawback was the weather. Temperatures reached the sub-zero region but there was no snow! My dad was particularly upset over this. He lamented EVERYDAY. No joke.

Typical Korean restaurant table setting (ondol-style)

One of our meals

The best bibimbap we ate throughout the trip!

Korean food is loaded with carbs and you seem to have 3 lunches/dinners everyday. Breakfast with bread and butter is seldom seen at the table in the morning. Rice, or bap, is a must have at every meal. Although I do not really enjoy eating rice, I liked the bibimbap (rice topped with vegetables and egg mised with gochujang). Interesting thing to note though is that the taste varies from place to place. Not once did I eat a bibimbap that tasted the same as somewhere else. Awesomely unique if you ask me. The Korean style porridge/congee (juk) is starchy and thick. This is different from the watery thin kinds that my mom makes at home the way she likes it. My sister and I especially liked the abalone juk hahah, no surprise there.
Side dishes (banchan) are also ubiquitous. They include Kimchi (preserved cabbages/cucumbers/radish etc), cold boiled beansprouts doused in sesame oil, seaweed with a sweet red sauce, boiled spinach with some sauce, tasty ikan-bilis (anchovies) with some spicy sauce etc etc. There is simply too many to be named!

Haemul casserole

Soups and stews such as jjigae (Kimchi, miso, seafood etc) and other seafood (haemul) casseroles in the form or steamboats are common as well. Simply pair soup with rice and you get a one way ticket to food paradise. But if you ask me, I would prefer it if the rice was replaced by bread xD

Oh yes, you cannot forget the Korean barbeque. If you're a vegetarian or simply detest meat, Korea might not be the place for you. Barbequed bulgogi (marinated cooked beef), galbi (marinated pork/beef short ribs) and others are heavenly. The protein might be too much for you to handle thus moderation is key. Chicken dishes such as samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup stuffed with rice) is a popular dish during summer although we had it during the winter hahah. My parents liked it but I personally didn't enjoy it much.
Then there's the noodle dishes. Ramyeon (something like the La Mien of the Chinese except in spicy Kimchi soup), Naengmyeon (Cold noodles in a sweet broth) and jajangmyeon (noodles with bean paste sauce) are just some of the noodles that we tried in Korea, but there are many many others available too.
Finally we have the street food. Gimbap (something like the Japanese sushi), tteokbokki (spicy rice cakes, sometimes with fishcake slices), fishcakes on sticks, pajeon (Korean style pancakes filled with seafood, spring onions, kimchi etc), japchae (Korean starch vermicelli fried with vegetables), chestnuts etc. Okay chestnuts are not really Korean but we saw many stalls selling them and they are bigger than the ones in Singapore. The pajeon is also about 4 times the size of that sold in Singapore. There was also many stalls selling cooked silkworms and some small shellfish. I tried to have an open-mind towards the preference of people from other countries but I got repulsed. I'm sorry.

Well, that's about all for my Korean food experience. Although we were there for close to 10 full days, my family and I didn't get sick of Korean food! But there was one little deviation from Korean food - Paris Baguette. It's this bakery/cafe which is literally everywhere in Korea, advertised by 2PM! I especially liked their sweet red bean paste bun :D Reminds me of the Japanese Dorayaki hahah. We got like 8 posters of 2PM from Paris Baguette! Really goes to show how mad we were over Paris Baguette hahah

Our very first purchase from Paris Baguette I think (my red bean bun is the one with black sesame seeds!!)

We bought back some Kimchi (cucumber and cabbage), the tasty ikan-bilis, gochujang and the red chilli powder for making jjigae! All in all, this was a satisfying trip for both the materialistic and non-materialistic aspect. Thoroughly enjoyed myself :D

You can't rain on my parade

2009-12-03T16:48:00.006+08:00

It's been raining raining raining these few weeks. Gloomy skies, rumbling thunders and the smell of wet grass seems to be an every day fixture. I even had to run in the pouring rain to get to school on the day of my Physics paper 3 exam (Nov 19 '09)! Buses were stalled as the roads were flooded. So I was drenched as I sat for the exam in the cold hall. As the exam was delayed to allow more stranded students to reach, my friend and I (she was more drenched than I was) were shivering even more! It really is the ultimate exam condition to be in I must say.

So before the daily rain started today, I decided to bake. Again. Mainly because there would be close to zero natural light you can use to take a decent photo. Besides, you can never bake too many times a week (: This time I baked Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. Okay so they didn't turn out that thick but they sure are chewy and moist! It has to be my best attempt at baking cookies EVER. And I didn't burn them at all!! May there be more to come :D

Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Cooks Illustrated

makes 20 2.5-3" cookies

1 and 1/16 cups self-raising flour

1/4 tsp salt

85g melted and cooled unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 caster sugar (granulated is fine too)

1 egg yolk

1/2 egg white

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 to 1 cup chocolate chips/chunks (semi or bittersweet)*

1. Preheat oven to 165°C and line 2 baking trays with baking/parchment papers.

2. Mix flour and salt together in a bowl and set aside.

3. Beat butter and sugars together until thoroughly incorporated. Mix in the egg yolk, white and vanilla extract.

4. Gently mix the flour mixture into the butter mixture until just combined.

5. Stir in the chocolate chips/chunks. Add in any other nuts or berries you want (optional) at this stage.

6. Drop the cookie dough onto the baking trays with about 3" spacing (the cookies will expand a little). Bake the cookies for 13-15 min or until the cookies are light golden brown and the edges start to harden. The cookie centers should be still soft and puffy to ensure the cookies are chewy. Do not overbake!! If dough is frozen, the cookies would require another extra 1-2 min baking time.

7. Cool the cookies on the tray. Serve as is or store in an airtight container. Cookies are best eaten after cooling or when they are still semi-warm.

These make an excellent afternoon snack :D

If only chocolate chip cookies could grow on flowers..

*Yup, you guessed it. I used Ghiradelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate buttons and Hershey's mini semisweet chocolate chips.

On a side note, Christmas is coming and my family has no clue what to do -whether to invite guests or keep it an immediate family affair. But one thing's for sure: I will definitely attempt to make individual Chocolate Fondants (the kinds with the gooey liquid centers) for the family! :D I can hardly wait!

PS: I used up all the self-raising flour today. Should I get all-purpose/cake/wholewheat flour and baking powder or stick to self-raising? Advise please!

Tuesday morning madness

2009-12-01T21:30:00.004+08:00

Can you believe I got up at 8am just to BAKE?

Yes of course you can, because you probably would do the same if you were an avid baker! :D

I actually had an appointment at 10.15am at the nearby bt panjang so I had to get up early anyway. What amazes me is that I managed to clear the oven and the junk on top (to prevent any plastics from melting), prepare the ingredients, wash the equipment, bake and get ready to leave house by 9.50am! Although I was a little late, even though I cabbed there, I managed to make it there by 10.20am tops. It was amazing. So this recipe is probably one of the speediest ones I found so far (:

These Mini Brownie Bites were found from one of the blogs I hopped to this morning before I got down to baking. They looked appetising and seemed easy enough for a morning bake. Since my sister wanted to eat brownies for a long time, I decided it would be a good choice. Although it's not really a brownie since it has a muffin-like texture which is moist and intense, it still does have the smell of a brownie :D Awesome for a first attempt hahah.

Mini Brownie Bites
adapted from Baking from My Home to Yours - Brownie Buttons (a TWD-chosen recipe from quite long ago)
makes 12 mini cupcakes (about 1.5-2")

1/4 cup + 2 tbsp self-raising flour
1/8 tsp salt
57g unsalted butter cut into small cubes
71g bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped*
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 180°C and butter a mini muffin pan with 12 slots (I used a non-stick pan so I skipped the butter).

2. Whisk the flour and salt together in a bowl.

3. Melt the butter, chocolate and sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and cool when all has melted and mix until thoroughly combined.

4. Stir the vanilla extract and egg into the cooled chocolate mixture.

5. Add the flour and mix well. Add any dried fruits, chocolate chips etc in at this stage. I didn't add any because I forgot to :/

6. Pour the mixture into the prepared muffin pan and bake on the middle rack for 10-14min or until stick inserted comes out clean. Do not overbake! Otherwise they will be hard and burnt around the edges.

*Again I used Ghiradelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate buttons (: They come in handy very often!

It's a recommended recipe by me because I like the texture of the bites! Do try it and let me know how it comes out (:

Oh and I also want to know any other recommended brownie recipes since I haven't been able to find one yet. So please leave a comment to help me out! Thanks!! :D

PS: My blog has finally been verified for the foodieblogroll! Super happy hahah

Some call it chocolate therapy

2009-11-25T16:38:00.012+08:00

Finally I get to bake again! During the A'level period, I have been browsing through many food blogs just to suppress the longing to bake. Pathetic right? I know. I even bought Hershey's Unsweetened Cocoa Powder and Ghiradelli's chocolate chips over the weekend during grocery shopping just to satisfy the baking craving. Asked my mom and sister for their comments and preferences to select the first thing I'll bake to break the baking hiatus. So there you go, the recipe for the awesome looking and tasting cookie above.

Chocolate Therapy Brownie Cookie

adapted from cookiebakerlynn.blogspot.com

makes about 2 dozen 2" cookies

29g unsalted butter
29g unsweetened chopped chocolate*
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
3/8 cup self-raising flour**
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
3/8 cup white sugar***
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180°C

2. Melt butter, chopped chocolate and 3/8 cup chocolate chips in a large, heavy saucepan on low heat. Stir continuously to ensure everything has melted. Set aside and cool.

3. Combine flour and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

4. Beat the egg, sugar and vanilla extract at medium speed with an electric mixer.

5. Gradually add in the flour mixture and beat well.

6. Add in the chocolate mixture and mix well.

7. Stir in the remaining 3/8 cup chocolate chips (You can add in other ingredients like nuts or berries if you want at this stage)

8. Drop blobs of cookie dough onto a baking tray lined with baking/parchment paper, about 2" apart (they will expand!) - I used 2 tablespoons to help carry out this step.

9. Bake for 8-10min, no longer. Otherwise they'll burn and when they cool, the cookies will be as hard as rocks! Cool them in the tray for a few minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack for complete cooling.

10. Serve and enjoy! (Best eaten on the day itself)

*I used Ghiradelli's 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate chips instead. Saved the trouble of chopping the chocolate up :D

**I used self-raising flour because I didn't have all-purpose flour and baking powder :/

***I reduced the sugar added and substituted in a little brown sugar for better taste.

Because I left them in slightly more than 10min (but still under 11min), my cookies were burnt a little. After they cooled completely, the cookies were only a little chewy, but they weren't moist. Hmm, I should leave them for only 8-9min next time I bake. Or maybe my oven was too hot? Anyhow, they still tasted delish a few minutes after cooling (: Yeah I couldn't resist!

(Inspiration for this photo came from cookiebakerlynn.blogspot.com!)

The best way to start the day

2009-11-25T12:52:00.008+08:00

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day"

That is what I strongly believe in. The day can only proceed right if you start it right! Right? (:

Today I have the luxury of slacking the day away, because Alevels are OVER! (sort of) Well I have a remaining Physics mcq on Monday next week but there's still time for me to laze around and BAKE. My sister requested for Chocolate Chip Pancakes! Awesome way to start the day if you ask me. But I would have preferred to use Wholemeal Flour, just to make it seem healthier hahah. But there are 2 problems: 1, I'm the only one in my family who eats wholemeal (grain) stuff. 2, I have to use up the self-rising flour left in the cupboards. They turned out gorgeous according to my sister, and I trust her taste! (: So here's the recipe.

Yummy Chocolate Chip Pancakes
adapted from joyofbaking.com
makes about 7 3"pancake

1/2 cup self-raising flour

1/8 tsp salt

1 tbsp granulated white sugar

1/2 egg

1/2 cup low-fat (HL) milk

1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1. Whisk flour, salt and sugar together in a big bowl.

2. Whisk egg, milk and melted butter in another bowl.

3. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Add the chocolate chips at this point (or blueberries, bananas etc - optional)

4. Heat a frying pan/griddle over medium high heat.

5. Brush the pan with a little butter so the pancakes don't stick.*

6. Using a small ladle, pour a ladle-full of the pancake batter.

7. Flip the pancakes when bottom of the pancakes are brown and bubbles start to appear on the surface.

8. Cook until lightly brown on both sides.

9. Serve with butter, maple syrup, chocolate syrup, fruits or whatever you feel like having (:

*I used a non-stick pan to fry the pancakes so I didn't use any butter. Healthy living ftw! :D

While I love cooking up a storm for breakfast, I personally prefer eating something else - nutella and peanut butter on wholemeal toast!! It's sort of my everyday staple. Although I'm Asian, I prefer bread to rice. Call me crazy but I love bread! Of course with dollops of nutella and peanut butter. Mmmm yum!

EDIT:

I just found out that there's such a thing as World Nutella Day on 5th Feb! Okay, I shall attempt to bake something that contains nutella next year on that day :D

I love Nutella!!

Signed sealed delivered

2009-11-22T21:47:00.001+08:00

This must be a sign. It has to be!

Broken digestives must be a God-sent sign for me to start baking again! Hahah (:

Two more days. Woohoo!

Oat to Joy

2009-11-21T12:20:00.002+08:00

I have underestimated oats. They may look simple and unattractive, but they pack a punch when incorporated into the dough of an ordinary cookie. This post is dedicated to an all-time favourite: the Oatmeal Raisin Wonder Cookie!

Although my family is not a fan of the wonder cookie, I choose to be unique. I'm a self-proclaimed foodie and am super proud of it! Despite my attempts to diet nowadays, I still manage to indulge once in a while (: God didn't provide air for Man to eat, He provided food. Bread was broken at the Last Supper mind you. So anyway, back to the wonder cookie.. This chewy sensation delights most tastebuds around the world, hence it can be called an "all-time favourite" right? In my honest opinion, yes. Let's celebrate this wonder cookie by baking it over and over again till we rejoin the Lord in Heaven (:

Oatmeal Raisin Wonder Cookie

adapted from joyofbaking.com

makes 20-24 large cookies

170g unsalted butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cup rolled oats

1 cup raisins/cranberries/chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with parchment or baking paper.

2. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl.

3. Add in the egg and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and ground cinnamon

5. Add in the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Mix well.

6. Stir in the oats and raisins/cranberries/chocolate chips at this point.

7. With wet hands, shape the cookie batter and place on the parchment paper. Alternatively, you can use an icecream scoop to get the perfect round shape (but what's a homemade cookie without the ragged edges??)

8. Bake for about 10-12min or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges.

9. Cool and serve!

My cookies turned out scrumptious even though they didn't look their very best. Next time, I will reduce the amount of batter for each cookie, otherwise they'll end up joined together like this attempt :/

Bite me!

Cheryl :D

My baking buddy

2009-11-21T11:43:00.002+08:00

It's always nice to have someone to bake with, be it a friend or a family member. The baking gets done in half the time and the success always seems twice as sweet.

Felicia, my baking buddy, came around to my house last year during the holidays to get some baking done. The two of us are secondary school friends and have remained close ever since! We were in the same CCA (dance) and although we went to different JCs, we made it a point to study together. It was the end of last year that we discovered our similar passion for baking, hence the closer friendship (: It is amazing how baking breaks down walls and soothes the soul (which explains why I am having baking-withdrawal-syndromes during A's now). World leaders should just bake together and everything will be alright.

Peanut Butter Cookies (made with love)
adapted from joyofbaking.com

makes about 40 cookies

170g unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated white sugar & extra for glazing

1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy up to you)
2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped peanuts/chocolate chips (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 2 baking trays with parchment or baking paper.

2. Cream butter and sugars in a bowl, about 2-3min using electric mixer. Beat in the peanut butter.

3. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.

5. Add into the peanut butter mixture and fold in peanuts/chocolate chips at this stage.

6. Roll the batter into 1" balls and arrange on the parchment paper. Use a fork dipped in the white granulated sugar to make # patterns

7. Bake for 10-12 min or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges.

8. Cool and serve!

Enjoy baking with friends. It's one of life's simple pleasures (:

Bite me!

Cheryl :D

I like it raw

2009-11-21T09:58:00.003+08:00

There are pros and cons when my mom travels on business trips.
Cons: I'll miss her. The house will feel weird and empty without her (although she's barely at home due to hectic work schedule even if she's in Singapore).
Pros: She'll bring back loads of goodies - food and souvenirs!

Recently she went to Japan and we requested for her to buy back Royce chocolates; both the nama chocolate and the nutty bar chocolate. They are 'boomz'!! ;D We ate a box of Au Lait nama chocolate yesterday night just for the fun of it. Okay I know my family doesn't have a very healthy eating lifestyle, but who am I to complain? I'm loving every second of it.

The first time we tried the nama chocolate was when my mom got it as a gift from her Japanese colleague (yes, the Japanese are very generous!). The way the powdered, smooth raw chocolate melts in your mouth is simply to die for! From then on, we would make it a monthly affair to go to the Royce shop at Suntec City Mall to buy these gorgeous chocolates. It was only when we were coming back from a family holiday at Japan when we saw these exact same chocolates at the Narita Airport going for much less! Okay so it was decided. Since my mom has to go to Japan often for business trips, we would get our supply of Royce directly from Japan :D The exact same quality for much less. Enough said.

As for the nutty bar chocolate, it's discovery was much less subtle. Mom bought it back from Japan just to let us try since we have always been eating the same nama chocolates. Voila! It became our new staple. The milk chocolate encased bar with it's crunchy nuts and crispy almond puff was simply too irresistable! Royce was also recently advertised in the Lifestyle section of the Sunday Times a few weeks back as it's new outlet opened at Ion Orchard Singapore. I haven't made a trip there to take a look yet, but I'm sure I wouldn't buy anything from there. After all, given the Asian culture of thriftiness (my econs paper was yesterday hahah), why would I buy something more expensive when I know there is a cheaper perfect substitute for it in Japan? You know, being the exact same product and all. Hmm, maybe I should visit the Royce chocolate factory in Japan one day...

My verdict: Awesome and highly recommended.

Hey Doraemon, have a Dorayaki!

2009-11-20T22:35:00.008+08:00

I've never been a fan of the Japanese blue and white cartoon character that Doraemon is. But I do have to credit him for having good taste!

Recently, my mom's colleague gave her a box of Japanese red bean pancakes - Dorayaki. I've seen them around before but never tried them until that one fateful day. It was just last week after one of my papers when I reached home in the early afternoon. Being greedy, I decided to indulge in an after-school snack, just to reward myself for completing that paper. I happened to see the box of opened Dorayaki lying on the table (they were opened because my mom brought some to office for her colleague). Ooh they looked super inviting. The plastic wrapper wasn't any ordinary plastic, it was of the highest quality! That aside, I tore it open and the delectable aroma of the pancake wafted into the air. Amazing! It was that good I tell you. Maybe it's the brand, I don't know. So anyway, I took a bite of the soft goodness and to my surprise, the red bean wasn't overly sweet and cloying like normal Japanese red bean products. Think mochi and other Japanese sweets. I fell in love with it. Enough said.

Went online and found out that the scrumptious pancake was the favourite snack of Doraemon! Hmm so that explains the similarity in name I suppose. Well, that was the only link I could draw as sadly, I'm not Japanese (Japanese cuisine is awesome fyi!).

I will search and try out the recipe for Dorayaki after my A's. For now, these photos are taken of the brand I ate. Do check it out if you're ever in Japan! They receive a two thumbs up from me :D

Bite me!
Cheryl :D

Dinner for two, what say you?

2009-11-20T22:08:00.008+08:00

Whenever my parents are out of town, the duty of making dinner falls heavily on my shoulders. Being a picky eater, my sister is hard to satisfy. I have to find recipes for food that the both of us like, which is actually quite hard. I remember making shepherd's pie once and the plates were clean. So this time, surprisingly, my sister requested for Aglio Olio. I immediately went online to search for recipes. Since it was my first attempt at cooking this dish, I can't say it turned out well. The spaghetti wasn't very successful as it ended up tasting a whole lot like peppery noodles :/

I can't remember the exact measurements of the ingredients used but I do remember what I added in!

Spaghetti Aglio Olio
makes 2 servings

white pepper
coarse black pepper
olive oil
dry chilli flakes
1 red chilli padi
2 cloves of garlic
spaghetti noodles

These are the basic ingredients for the Aglio Olio spaghetti but please do not trust it. The noodles look nice and are edible (yes they are!) but the taste could be improved a whole whole lot.

Rolling in chocolate

2009-11-19T20:41:00.012+08:00

In order to tide me over the baking-hiatus during the exam period, I've been baking these mini chocolate croissants (Pain au Chocolat) for my sister. They're really really easy to make! No seriously. All I have to do is to cut up the ready-made puff pastry dough (storebought), chop up some chocolate and roll it up! As simple as that. There really isn't any recipe to follow since you can roll them in any shape and size you want, depending on your sweet tooth or diet plans. I have to credit Nigella Lawson since I got the inspiration from her cooking show - Nigella Express. Do watch it if you have cable (:

Mini Chocolate Croissants (Pain au Chocolat)
adapted from Nigella.com

1 sheet ready-rolled butter puff pastry
6 squares of baking chocolate (or any other chocolate based on preference)
1 egg beaten (for glazing)
Serving Size : Makes 12 mini croissants

1. Preheat oven to 220°C/230°C.

2. Roughly chop the chocolate.

3. Take the pastry sheet out of the

4. Cut each sheet of pastry into half.

5. Cut the half into about 3 rectangles to get 6 rectangles.

6. Half each rectangle diagonally to form 2 triangles so that you'll yield 12 triangles per sheet.

7. Position the triangles such that the base is nearest to you.

8. Place the chopped chocolate onto the triangles and carefully roll them up.

9. Seal the ends of the rolled up pastry slightly with your fingertips to prevent chocolate from oozing out.

10. Place the croissants on a lined but not buttered baking tray and brush the beaten egg over to glaze.

11. Bake for 15-20min or until golden brown and puffed up. Serve as is.

Personally, I left the pastry in the fridge until I was ready to deal with them as they got overly soft for handling on my first attempt. Hope my directions are understandable! It's my first time writing such baking instructions so do comment if they stink! ><

So anyway, my sister gobbles these up for her breakfast, afternoon or late night snack and they seem to get better and better! Not sure why. Maybe it's because everytime I make it, I increase the amount of chocolate I put inside these croissants. Oh well, these are one of the few things I bake that she appreciates. Not that I'm complaining or anything (okay maybe I am, oops!), my family's not very supportive of my baking. Sure they are supportive when it comes to buying the baking supplies and stuff, but when it comes to the eating... That's why I'm kind of restricted to what I bake. My family likes chocolate but they don't like peanut butter, oats, baked apples etc! It's appalling. That's why I have to rely on my friends to be my guinea pigs :/ At least they're the real foodies and can appreciate what I bake better.

Happy baking everyone!

Bite me!
Cheryl :D

Nearly there

2009-11-19T20:10:00.008+08:00

Ahh I'm exactly 2/3 done with A'levels!! :D

After that, it's time to bake. Seriously I haven't baked in the longest time! Close to 2 months I think. It's actually a miracle that I managed to survive hahah.

Right I know I'm supposed to be studying right now but I couldn't resist blogging about this amusing article I came across recently in The Sunday Times Nov 15 09. If you have the original copy, look it up! Because seeing is believing (: Anyhow, I'm going to type it all out here just for your viewing pleasure.

"New scientific research has proven that low-carb diets make a person crabby, what the
world needs is a carb-on-carb side dish. Think buttery mashed potatoes topped with crispy
crinkle cut fries.

....... (I didn't bother typing the part here because it wasn't very read-worthy)

Okay, so this is not the way to get svelte. But who likes thin, cranky people anyway?"

- Cheap and good: Spoonfuls of goodness; Lifestyle, taste page 25
Tan Hsueh Yun

You see, this particular article caught my eye mainly because it made me rethink my diet. I'm currently on a mission to lose weight before my prom in Dec. It's kind of tough but necessary if I want to look nice in whichever dress I want to wear then. The baking-hiatus now kind of helps keep my diet in check as I won't gorge on whatever. Although recently, I kind of like the feeling of giving what I bake away. Take for example my jelly hearts cheesecake. I gave like 7/8 of the whole cake to my friends at school and only took 1 small bite from the entire thing! No regrets though. I like it when people enjoy what I bake. It's that little satisfaction that makes my day (:

Oh no it's time to go back to my books. Just have to endure for another week or so!
Wish me luck! :D

Bite me!
Cheryl :]

Jelly Hearts strawberry cheesecake

2009-10-03T11:36:00.010+08:00

Hey all! This is my first time trying out the Jelly Hearts cheesecake recipe! Adapted the recipe from many sources (auntyyochana & happyhomebaking). Tweaked it here and there to fit my 7"x7" tin. This is not the finished product yet though! I'm still waiting for the cheese and first layer of jelly to set before adding the rest of the jelly (: Am using raspberry jelly from Tortally because it's the brand I always use and the Cold Storage at Holland V ran out of strawberry jelly :/

Anyway, I'm so excited to taste it! Was a bit critical about the gelatine powder at first. But decided to just add it in. After all, it's my first attempt! Can't criticise me if I fail right? After all, as the Chinese say, 失败乃成功之母! (Which means failure is the mother of success) :D

Will post photos of the end product once it comes out of my fridge! Hahah

Bite me!
Cheryl :D

EDIT:

Here are the photos and the recipe! (:

Strawberry Jelly Hearts Cheesecake (non-bake)
adapted from auntyyochana.com & happyhomebaking

base:
310g digestive biscuits*
140g melted butter

cheesecake filling:
250g cream cheese 10g (1tbsp) gelatine powder 50g sugar 1/2 cup hot water 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

about 20 Strawberries
heart-shaped cookie cutter

jelly topping:
1 box of raspberry jelly 1 cup of boiling hot water 1 cup of cold water

1. Put the digestives in a ziplock bag and roll with a rolling pin till crushed. Melt the butter in a saucepan (do not burn!). Mix the biscuit crumbs & melted butter together and press firmly onto the base of a 7x7 cake tin. Chill for 30 minutes or until hard.

2. Dissolve the gelatin powder in the boiling water in a bowl. Keep warm.

3. With an electric mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth & creamy. Blend in the gelatin solution and mix well.

4. Pour the cream cheese mixture into the cake tin on top of the biscuit base. Layer the strawberries on the cream cheese mixture and chill for at least 3 to 4 hours.

5. Dissolve the jelly crystals in boiling water. Add in the cold water after jelly dissolves. Pour the jelly onto the cream cheese mixture. Chill in the fridge until jelly is set before removing from the cake tin. Slice and enjoy! Makes about 20 squares.

*if you like your base more crumbly, increase the amount of digestives used.

Bite me!
Cheryl :D

Drool fest!

2009-10-01T19:46:00.006+08:00

Alright even though I'm nearing my A level exams, I still succumbed to the temptation of baking. Here's a few pictures of what I baked/cooked/ate! Some are from wayyyyyyyyy back but some are pretty recent (:

Yummy eggtarts (recipe courtesy of auntyyochana!)

Gorgeous Chinese New Year (CNY) peanut cookies which I baked with my mom (: recipe was from some website I found but didn't bookmark. Oops.

Uncooked mini shrimp rolls (mom's own recipe! heheh)
Please don't be deceived by it's raw uncooked texture and sight, it tastes fabulous once deep fried! :D Although, they do taste pretty darn good raw if I do say so myself. HAH.

It's a chocolate-rice-chocolate-chip-m&m-failure-icing-coated CHOCOLATE CHIP CUPCAKE! Which doubled as my mom's birthday cake in 2008 :] (recipe courtesy of cupcakerecipe!)
Admitted, it looks kind of amateur and gross. But trust me, the cupcake tastes good! :D

Okay I didn't make these. They were storeboughts! Seriously, Bakerzin bakes awesome stuff! These are just a few pastries that my mom bought to let us try one night. Check out the super nice paperbag!

Look at this cute Hello Kitty mooncake that my mom's colleague made! It was snowskin with lotus paste and some white chocolate inside. It was her first attempt at making mooncakes but I have to say they taste pretty good (: Although I'm not a big fan of mooncakes (because they are bloody fattening! I can save the calories and eat baked sweets hahah!), during the Mid-Autumn Festival every year I try to eat a bit just to appreciate chinese goodies. Sounds like I'm forcing food down my throat? A bit. But they taste alright I guess. Mom bought some hotel's mooncakes which are also snowskin with lotus paste and chocolate this year. Ate them too lol.

Okay i took the photo from here. Didn't manage to take photos of what I ate from BreadSociety - chocolate bagel + raisin loaf. Both taste fab btw (: Am already a huge fan of that shop! It's like the more exclusive version of home grown brand BreadTalk (which btw is the parent company). The chef's a Japanese who apparently is quite famous! Oh and they have a gorgeous logo which translates to a gorgeous paperbag! :D

These pictures DO NOT do justice to what I've been eating and what has been churning out of my oven the past year and a half since I started baking. Just last week, my sister and I made Shepherd's Pie and it was awesome! Okay it could have been way better but I thought it was pretty awesome lol.

Oh yes, ever since the baking supplies shop at Jurong East closed down (why oh why!!!!!), I haven't been able to source for another supply shop. That is until my aunt and Felicia told me about this Phoon Huat store at Holland V. Haven't made a personal trip there yet but since I can get a discount, courtesy of my aunt (TYVM!), I might as well schedule one as soon as possible! Simply can't wait to try my hand at Jelly Hearts! This cheesecake which Felicia baked recently that has this red jelly on top of a cheesecake. I've been longing to bake a cheesecake!! But if I bake it, there's nobody to be my tester :/ Although I know Rinita would love to be my guinea pig (thank you love!) but she might not be coming to school next week and the cheesecake might go bad :/ :/ Sucks. Maybe I could bake a smaller portion... But then again, I don't know the serving size because it kind of varies. Hmm...

Note to self: buy springform tin!!!!

Bite me!
Cheryl (:

First bite

2009-10-01T17:51:00.000+08:00

You know how some people on diets say they should eat sufficient food only to live? Well, for me, I live to eat. Mom said it was a privilege since I have enough food and cash to eat what I want, and I don't disagree with her! So I decided to start this blog to capture the finer moments when I bake or cook. It's really awesome to combine many different ingredients and taste to see how they complement or substitute each other (okay I take economics in school to pardon my economic jargon).

This is my first attempt at creating a food blog. Think I'm really going to like it (:
I'll try to upload photos about the delish food I eat and the delish food I bake! Recipes won't be posted since I get most of my recipes from online webs. Will try to credit the recipe to whichever website or blog I take it from.

Bite me!
Cheryl :D