This is another cookie i did for Chinese New Year which happens to be just around the corner!
Time really does fly!
I dare say this has to be one of the yummiest peanut cookies i've ever had.
Crispy on the outside but melt in the mouth once it's in. Very nutty and the sweetness is just right.
I love it!!
Credits : Jo, the IK Admin - xie xie nie .. if u are reading this Jo :D
As i had mentioned before, this is my first year to bake cny goodies. Usually i get them from my mil - who usually buys for me as well - but this year is an exception.
So far, i've done 3 batches [including today] of pineapple tarts and 2 batches of the peanut cookies for family, friends and relatives. The feedbacks i got is very positive [i only gave to 5 friends who live nearby mostly] even though the packaging was terrible! *hide* [everything was too last minute!]
So good that i actually earned myself a customer already, whom already 'booked' my 1st order for my next year's bake since i am not selling any this year. Grin.
Thank you Davis!! :*
In fact, i sort of know what kind of packaging i'll do too! Something not ordinary but very nice :P
OOooooo, i cannot wait.
Of course, i will be selling to friends only as i am closing this blog soon ;)
Yeah, it has been that overdue!
It happened on the Christmas afternoon of 2007.. when hb was at home [which is pretty rare, especially in the afternoons] and i decided to bake everyone something mainly because hb loveeeess freshly baked goodies and he cannot resist it :P
I picked something chocolate-y as it is everyone's favourite.
An almost flourless warm and dark chocolate cake, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream of course! :)
It's pretty nutty actually as the almond meal replaces most of the flour.
I like!
It was just too bad that i couldn't find any Christmas-related cake decoration to put on top of the cake, especially after the layer of snow white layer of snow i shook on top.
Otherwise, it would be perfect for a nice lazy Christmas afternoon tea.
I was mesmerised by the simplicity of the ingredients and of course, the nuts.
It uses olive oil instead of the butter.
However, because of that.. the cake isn't that fragrance.
Me no like.
I still like butter better :P
Next time if i were to bake this again, i would substitute the olive oil with the butter for sure.. and also, be less generous with the nuts too.
Heh.
I have never wanna attempt making pineapple tarts because of the tedious process.
But mainly, because i'm not a fan :P
However, this year.. for no apparent reason, i just wanna try making them. You could say it's for the CNY spirit. Or probably i just wanna bring back my childhood memories and also for the boys' memories too.
I remember my mom used to make the bee hive [not sure what u call it in chinese] and all sorts of keropok whenever CNY nears. I also remember going into the kitchen, stole them and ran into the bedroom to eat. Heh.
So for the boys.. i would love them to remember me as the mommy who bakes near CNY... all kinda goodies and yummy goodies too to be exact. Goodies that they will always remember fondly till old. Goodies with the distinct taste and texture that no money can buy.
As if! Me and my wishful thinking as always :P
Anyway, the tarts....
Bone breaking hardwork for more than half a day!
The tedious part is rolling the dough into thin small lengths, which explains why you don't see this 'design' outside. Only homebakers would attempt this as far as i can tell.
If not for the 'X', we could have wrapped up 2 hours early.
As for the filling, i loveeeeeeeeee it!
For a non-pineapple-tart-lover, it's quite amusing that i could like it. Heh.
I think it has a lot to do with the sourish taste. I used a non-ripe pineapple + a ripe one. Also, it's moist and not too sweet, unlike the ones they sell outside.. which are pretty sweet, not sourish and can be quite drying too.
Because of the successful filling that i did, i couldn't wait to make the tarts.. i was so excited you know! Lol.
In total, i managed to churn almost 6 tubs of pineapple tarts.
1 for myself, 1 for in laws and 4 for my mommy. Yupyup.. we'll be hitting the road again in a while, after much persuasion from the sisters :)
AND THEN.
This morning..
sobs..
sobs..
SOBS!!!
The beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep threw all of them to the floor!
He climbed onto the table top and threw them 1 by 1 onto the ground with much strength. 99% have broken 'X'.
The tarts break very very easily. Because the texture i made is those melt-in-the-mouth sort. So, it's extremely fragile.
Helper re-arranging them again but discarding the X bits and the bad ones [mostly into our own mouths. Heh]
Then we decided we would make do without the X top since most it are broken. What a waste since the tough part lies right there :(
Oh well.. mil told me to look at the bright side. At least, the baby didn't fall down from the table and hurt himself which is true. That would be infinite times worse than having broken-ugly pineapple tarts..
And hence, from 4 tubs, it's down to 3 tubs for mommy. Thank goodness i gave mil hers last night *phew*.
As for now, no more pineapple tarts for the notti beep! :P
I have quite many overdue posts that i have yet to post and this is one of them :P
Hb's birthday cake which i baked a day after beep beep boop's birthday.
I actually brainstormed quite a bit to make something special for the husband. As the hb likes chocolate cake a lot and he loves my chocolate truffle cake, i decided to do a little adaption to the truffle cake.
This is what i came up with :)
I also made the chocolate '#' myself!
Not too bad aye?
Because i didn't have the normal chocolate that is meant for chocolate moulding/shaping, i used my ValRhona 55% chocolate to do it. Yes, it is possible b.u.t it will melt very quickly in our tropical weather.
Right after i took an exact 4 shots, the # started to bend foward. Heh. Good for me though, coz it went straight into my mouth there and then :P
What i did to the truffle cake :
. add a layer of feuilletine on top of the bottom sponge for the added crunch
. add whole roasted hazelnuts in between the 2 sponges in the chocolate truffle layer
. last but not least, lots of roasted almond bits to my top chocolate truffle layer
Sliced [psstt : i made the diamond shape chocolate myself too! ;)]
Side view. See the whole hazelnut at the bottom? *drool*:P~
Up close : fr bottom - chocolate sponge, feuilletine layer, chocolate truffle with hazelnuts, chocolate sponge again, chocolate truffle with almond bits.
Guess you can tell i'm a total nuts freak by now aye? :P
So how do we like the cake?
Let's just say.. i didn't even wanna share it with my in laws! Heeee.. we had the whole cake ourselves, 3 adults + 2 children but consumed mostly by adults. Very greedy me >.<
Edited to add : 2 tbsp of rum were added to the chocolate truffle too!
When i was a little free the other day, i baked myself an orange and lemon cake.
My first reaction after i unmould them was 'woww.. it looks like a gold bar!' and it really does i tell you.
Couldn't get the colour right! Me want new cam cam! >.<
This is really my kind of cake.
I will never ever get bored with it at all. I can even eat the whole loaf! It's my absolutely favourite.. butter cakes. What's more, orange and tangy lemon flavour...
Simply heaven.
When i had my first bite right after it came out from the oven, i really thought i could fly. It was very very good.
Indescribable is the word.
And then i thought 'why not make this my Chinese New Year bake project?'.
I'll call it Gold Bar!
Pretty auspicious for the festive season give-aways don't you think so?
So i talked to a 1-2 close confidantes and they were like, good idea! But the problem is where do i start? How to find customers?
Advertising in the forum is a no no because forums don't allow it.
My blog isn't a food blog. It's a personal junk blog actually. Lol. Hence, i never wanna advertise it at all. In fact, i don't even leave any link to my blog in the comments i have made in floogers, gfs, anons' blogs.
BUT.
That doesn't mean i don't welcome you the readers hor. In fact, i am already feeling slightly weird and abit conscious knowing there are as many as 100 readers [okay, i don't really keep track but it's roughly there :P ] per day reading my blog but hardly any comments!
In case you do not know, i enjoy reading comments quite a lot. Grin. They keep me going :P
Anyway, back to my CNY sale.
So, what do you think?
Should i go ahead?
Will you buy?
I actually baked 2 loaves very recently as a present to sil. I tied them with bright red ribbons and they looked pretty awesome. The peeps went 'whoa'. Grin. Too bad i didn't manage to take any photos as i was rushing out for the salon opening ceremony, an unofficial one.
The feedback i got was very encouraging hence, me wondering about it.
So yeah, will you buy for your own consumption? Will you buy to give away to family and relatives?
And if i do sell, i would be selling for $16.80 - auspicious number! :P
It's a 9" x 4" loaf cake by the way, made with top ingredients eg ; lurpark/president butter, huge fresh eggs from Lim Chu Kang (definitely pricier than NTUC's) and most importantly, made with lots of love too. Heeeeeeeeehehhe :D
Will appreciate all comments. Do leave one please!
Ari-gato!
p.s : sil's new salon is located near Katong Mall, just a few shops away. If you like to try out new good stylist, do give them a try! ;)
I've been extremely busy these few days!
And i think i will be even busier for the next 2-3 weeks :P
But. It is happy busy. Busy clothes shopping actually.
Not for me of course but for the boys. However, in between.. i do sneak in a couple of minutes for myself to look see look see whenever possible. Grin.
Anyway, last week i baked some muffins for a gathering with the gfs.
You know, i think to date.. i feel muffins are the hardest thing to bake. You must never over mixed them or else, they'd be as hard as rock.
Fortunately, i remember the no.1 rule very well and although the muffins weren't as yummy as i had anticipated.. they weren't hard, unlike my 1st experience quite some time ago.
The lighting was really bad when i took these pictures so you can't really tell what's in them. Basically, as mentioned in the tittle.. it has got chocolates and Grand Marnier soaked dried cranberries in them.
For myself, i find them okay, not too bad. Not to say super yummy nor yucky at all. Somehow, i actually feel they were pretty healthy in fact!
Initially i was so worried about the muffins' appearance [they weren't pretty at all!] that i almost refused to bring them for the gathering.
Because i didn't have much time left for another baking session, i had no choice but to pack them along.
But guess what?
The girl friends liked it!
Either that or they were being very very nice to me. Ha! :P
Inspired by my family friend's dog, a Dalmatian no less :)
Beginning of the year spells h.e.a.d.a.c.h.e for me usually.
2 of my boys' birthdays [the old old one and the baby] are in January, on the 8th and 9th to be exact!
However, it is the baby's cake that i'm getting headache at. The old man's cake can anyhow decorate or even no decoration also can but never for the little one. Oooppsssss~ :P
Moreover, there will be a small party for him so all the more stress! Heh.
As i couldn't find any cute no.1 cut out for the cake that i wanna make, i actually cut it out myself freehand with no guide or whatsoever just like that using 2 cakes, a 7" square cake and a loaf-looking cake which i anyhow agar-agar hoping the cakes will somehow form a number 1, which fortunately they did :D
Like i mentioned earlier, i decorated the cake the way it is because of the Dalmatian i saw and played with. Initially i had no idea how to decorate the cake though the number.1 shape is already there but when i saw the dog.. it was *ting*ting* in the head.
Simple but adorable.
So i thought why not?
Then i don't have to brainstorm anymore come January :P
Nevertheless, i was worried mad because the whole idea seems good and workable in the head but when it comes to really doing it, i have no idea how it'd turn out as i have no prior experience in decorating using melted chocolate on fresh cream + the number 1 shape might not be achievable.
And we're talking about having the cake for a party on the very day itself that i'm decorating it.
Pretty brave of me isn't it? Heh.
But worst come to worst, i'll just drive down to Bengawan Solo to buy one! No biggie actually :P
Anyway, the cake i used is Japanese Souffle Cheesecake, which i had baked before quite sometime ago because it is truly very yummy [in my opinion that is :P].
The cake tastes pretty much like Ichiban Boshi's cheesecake but very slightly heavier. I don't like it too light because i won't know when to stop eating.
Slightly heavier is good. At least, i can feel it is there. Heee..
All in all, i must say i'm pretty pleased with my end result of the cake. But there is something, or rather 2 things that bother me slightly when i was working on this tiny project of mine.
i - the cake's baking time turned out to be 2 hours instead of just 1! So 2 cakes = 4 hours. Imagine my horror! Till now, i still do not know why it took 2 hours per cake when previously it was just an hour.
ii - the colorful sprinkles' colour ran! within an hour after throwing them on. Why oh why?!
Now now, i'm really dreading for March to come. Headache ah!!!
But happy headache though. It's the only time of the year where i can and will challenge myself ;)
Something baked for the family when i went back early last month :)
Green tea cupcakes with green tea cream cheese frosting
It was quite a disaster.. heh.
The cake was not as nice as the first time because i somehow beat all the eggs together instead of doing the usual because i was pressing for time!
So the cake was very muffin like instead of light, fluffy and to-die-for.
Quite an embarrassment i must say.. but i still gave the bestie some!
I am shameless :P
AND sadly, the family dislike cream cheese frosting, just as i had expected! But i couldn't do buttercream frosting fearing that they will not be able to withstand the long journey.
Another cake i did was chocolate yogurt cake with lotsa walnut which i LOVE to death [a recipe which i thought of myself! :)]. Unfortunately, i didn't manage to take any pics of it.
One of the programs that i had lined up for the boys to do during the very long break was to bake.
I have seen schools offering baking classes to the young ones, so i thought why don't i conduct one myself instead of paying the school to do what i know though there will be some difference of course. [between baking in the school and baking at home with mommy]
What i did was to prepare the dough in advance minus the boys' help.
After that, it was hands off for me.. totally.
And it meant just that, totally hands off for me.
The boys did the kneading [slightly], rolling, stamping etc themselves.
All by themselves.. with a little help from the helper though.
And i?
Just standing around, trying NOT to give any instructions at all which i managed to successfully *grin*, carrying the baby and watched the boys have fun or rather, watched the boys fret mostly over their difficulty in stamping the cookies and trying to get the dough out in one piece. Heh.
Nevertheless, i was rather impressed with the results.
Orange butter cookies
Not too bad aye? ;)
Sure. There were some disfigured Hello Kitties. There were also some disfigured Stars, Hearts and not to mention.. the broken giant Star and Gingerbread Man.
But what matters more is that the boys had fun which they claimed they did and they loveeeeeeeed the cookies to bits!
The hint of the orange zest in these butter cookies was very refreshing.
Initially, i wanted them to continue on with decorating/piping using the icing with colours but by the time the cookies were baked, all of us were very much worn out.
So, that was that. No further decorating/piping.
Everytime when i received a notice from the boys' school saying they'll be having party and food needs to be contributed, i'd start having headache.
Because the party isn't just once a year, it's every term and it could be twice a term sometimes!
Term 4 just finished last week. The last day of term 4 usually means X'mas party for the boys and parents are asked to contribute food if possible. This time round, i feel i should make something nice for the teachers as well instead of just for the the children hence, more headache!
I have to come up with something that will entice the old and young. Chocolate is out of the question because i bake chocolate cake too often for the parties. So, what's left for me to bake?
Orange cake?
Not sure if the kids will like them.
Oreo cake sounds good.
But i didn't have the ingredients on hand.
Then, i went browsing.. looking through my handwritten recipes and cookbooks for ideas and i finally came up with something.
Peanut butter cupcakes!
I like the way the peanut butter came oozing out a little. Biting into these babies are totally orgasmic especially when they are fresh out of the oven.. Very very yummilicious.
Which is an excellent choice.
i- it's simple and easy
ii- i can finally clear my peanut butter which will be expiring end of this month!
iii- not many adults and children will say no to peanut butter, right? *i hope*
But as they were cooling on the rack, i thought they look a tad too plain for the children to fancy it. For one, i know my boys will not go 'wahhhhhhhhh' when they see it so, i decided to play dressing up!
Keeping in mind that i need to finish the decoration within 15-20 mins, i came up with something really simple again.
Peanut butter cupcakes with Nutella. Should be quite a nice combination me think.
Nutella, right from my unopened bottle.
Then, with some variety of toppings ; rainbow sprinkles, heart shapes, candies.. the boys were all ready to go!
And of course, i left some naked.. for the teachers who might not like them dressed up :)
Whenever there is an opportunity, the family will ask me for my bakes. Very 'fan' you know! [hint to the no-automatic sisters, HINT!] :P
Initially the greedy sisters and mother wanted 3 different type of cakes! But because of my tight schedule nearing the weekend, i could only squeezed in one. Hehe...
And i picked lemon yoghurt cake which i had done once earlier.
Reason being is that i needed to clear my yoghurt and lemon.. Lol.
And of course, they are truly delicious despite on their plain look when not dressed up. Plus, my younger sister in law has been requesting this cake for sometime already ever since she last tried it. So frustrated she is until she wanted to 'order' from me :P
In total, i baked about 3 dozens of them.
Gave a few to boy2's teachers, some for testing, some for sil and the rest, my greedy family :)
Because i didn't have enough yoghurt (short of half a cup), i substituted it with 1 cup whipping cream + another cup of milk. I remember quite clearly that the last batch could have used another cup of milk for a perfect texture, hence my adaption for this time round.
I was half accurate.
When the cakes were fresh out of the oven, it tasted so heavenly. Moist, soft and just right for everything!
However, after being contained in the container for 1 day, the cakes became a tad too moist for my liking. Now i know what to do for my next time round.
If yoghurt isn't enough : 1/2 cup whipping cream + 1 cup milk.
If yoghurt is enough : 1 cup of milk.
But i tell you hor, no one else noticed the extra moistness in the cake leh! I was the only one... they were nicely chomping the cupcakes away till no more left.. oh, left 1 actually :P
Something which i have said i would bake again. Financier ;)
This time, it was meant to be given away though, to some nice aunties and in laws whom i felt i owed big time. Hehehe...
Super big one at the side is for the husband's breakfast
First, it was the egg auntie. Yupyup, i have got an egg auntie! Heh. She delivers eggs to me. Fresh eggs from Lim Chu Kang whenever i needed a tray of them - 30pcs. All gorgeous eggs and you can really tell.
There was once she even brought me 2 types of really fresh vegetables, from Lim Chu Kang again. So fresh that my helper couldn't help but to smell it. Hahahaa.. though they weren't flowers!
Okayyy... fine..... i did the same too! Lol.
I can't decide which colour i like better, the fairer ones or the more golden ones. So i baked 2 batches of 2 different colour financiers :P
Then there's aunty Shirley who never fails to bring me cook books whenever she comes to visit. She used to be hb's old neighbour who works in a publishing company.
Every now and then, the workers are asked if they want any of the excess books that got printed and this very nice aunty Shirley will always get some for me and my boys :)
Of course, for the in laws too. It has been quite some time since i last gave them any of my bakes because these days, we usually eat them all! *hide*
Knowing how much my mother in law fancies nuts and more nuts, half a dozen got set aside just for her but it turned out that she only had one of out 6, as usual... though she openly commented that she loves it.
One thing about my family of in laws is that they never over eat. No matter how delicious the food is. I'm amazed at their self control. Totally. Why oh why do i not have it? Dang!
pssstt : even my boys inherited it, believe it or not.. amazing! Boy1 can say no to chocolates *gasp* and ice cream too.
Financiers.
The other time i didn't have the chance to take a closed up shot of it but now i do :)
It's really soft and fluffy.. not spongey like some sponge cakes though. Because of the ground almond used, it's slightly grainy which i love.
I wanted to use sliced almonds for the topping but when i was about to finish, i realised i didn't have sliced almonds after all. Didn't want it plain so i substituted it with freshly roast walnuts. They taste just as nice if not better...
I will be making them again very soon no doubt since everyone loves them and no egg yolks! Excellent.. :)
Yes, i'm still obsessed with the whole bread/bun thing. It is an obsession that has got no ending. I love bread, buns of any kind. But if i can only pick one, it's European bread for me.
For the rest of the family, they like the normal asian bread/buns. I guess a wife , a mother gotta to do what she got to do..
Sacrifice *ahem*.
Till today, the only attempt i did on bread and buns are all Asian ones. Because that's what the boys eat, the big boy and the small boys.
Last week was a good week for me. When i went visiting to a new friend's house, i got myself a very good bread recipe.
I didn't ask of course, knowing the friend uses the recipe to sell her very famous black pepper chicken buns daily. But the very nice friend gave them to me voluntarily. She was so enthusiastic about the whole thing. Honestly, i have n.e.v.e.r met anyone who can be this excited when it comes to giving an almost stranger a recipe she uses for her own business.
I am very touched and grateful.
Equipped with the friend's recipe, i tried making some buns that i anyhow create using whatever i can find at home.
This is what i came up with :P
Ham and cheese with cheddar cheese filling. Yes, i really anyhow hor...
But at that time, i wanted to finish off the cheddar cheese, so i went ahead to use it as filling too, which i must say, wasn't too bad after all.
I know the cheese on top looks really funny. That was because i couldn't grate the cheese at all. The helper actually froze the cheese after i used it the last time which she shouldn't. So when i tried grating it after that, the cheese broke into many many lumps, big big lumps and small small lumps.
That was the main reason why i wanted to use up the cheese actually. Because i know if i didn't, i won't wanna keep it anymore :)
This bread by far, has the best texture i ever did.
I love it. So did the very fussy hb.
For once, the husband never said that the bun is too heavy. And all of us felt the same way too. We fancied the buns so much so that all of us, including the little boys, finished the whole tray of buns in 1 morning!
I made 9 buns that day.
Each adult had 2, and the children had 1 each + 1 test bun which we tried straight from the oven.
Thank you very much Kak Siti :) [if you are reading this ]
p.s : i know i still haven't mastered the art of bread/bun making yet.. so, please don't laugh yeah!
Craving for some cheese cake... So i baked one :)
Chocolate and hazelnut cheesecake
The recipe called for an oreo crust base but because i didn't have any oreo left, i decided that digestive would do too. Didn't wanna wait any longer to make this cheese cake since i was craving rather badly.. heh.
The chocolate ganache topping was something which i added myself for indulgence. It turned out perfect.. goes really well with the cheesecake i must say.
All in all, all of us had a blast eating this.
The kids wanted more and so did the husband. It got so precious that i didn't even give any to the in laws as i'd planned earlier. Bad bad me! Hehe. Yupyupyup, so in the end, we ended up devouring the whole entire 8" cheesecake ourselves which got wiped out on the very next day i baked it.
Scary hor? :P
Recipe for a 7" round cheesecake:
Ingredients :
7" round oreo crust
Filling :
Cream cheese 450g
Light brown sugar 3tbsp
Vanilla essence 1/3 tsp
Corn flour 2 1/3 tsbp, sifted
Nutella 150g
Eggs 2, large
Whipping cream 75ml
Milk 75ml
Method :
1. Prepare round Oreo crust
2. Preheat oven to 160
3. Beat cream cheese and light brown sugar at medium speed till creamy with an electric mixer. Beat in vanilla essence, sifted corn flour and nutella until smooth
4. Lower speed and add eggs, one at a time mixing till incorporated. Gradually add whipping cream and milk until well mixed
5. Pour filling onto prepared crust. Bake in a water bath for 1 hour 10 mins to 1 hour 30 mins or until edge of filling is set and centre is slightly wobbly
6. Turn off oven and leave cheesecake inside for 30 mins with oven door closed. Prop open door and leave for another 30 mins. Remove cheesecake from oven and cool on a wire rack.
7. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours before unmoulding. Decorate as desired before serving
Oreo crust :
Using 100g of oreo cookies
Method :
1. Wrap a springform pan with a layer of aluminium foil. Place on a baking tray and set aside.
2. Break cookies into large chunks. Place in a blender and pulse until finely ground.
3. Transfer ground cookies to prepared pan. With your hands or the back of the spoon, press firmly into an even layer on the bottom of pan. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using.
Source : Crave, Mac Woo and June Lee
Have fun! :)
This was made last minute for hb's aunt's birthday celebration quite some time ago.
Volcanoes : these moist chocolate cupcakes with creamy cheesecake centres are sure to be a hit with both children and adult.
How very true.
I tell ya, it was really good. The adults and kids love it tons!
Of course, i didn't send these cuppies the way they look here. I got them all dressed up in pink buttercream frosting together with some colorful sprinkles and wordings. At that time, i had enough of 'all-dressed-up' cupcakes photos since i just baked the teacher's day batch not too long ago. So i decided not to take anymore pics with the decoration.
But now, after a month of not seeing any colourful pics of desserts on this blog, i kinda miss looking at them. In fact, i yearn to see some colours again! Too bad about my decision then.. hehe.
Anyway, this cuppies are so delicious and very easy to make too! They'll be on my often-bakes list for sure. Writing this entry makes me wanna eat them right now.. *drool* :P
The original recipe calls for quite a bit of cocoa powder which i simply refused to follow. It was a bit too much in my opinion. I cut down almost 2 tbsp from it and the cuppies still turned out fantastic.
That left me wondering.. what 'if' i actually follow the recipe to a t. Will the cupcakes taste much much better?
Recipe :
Ingredients :
Cream cheese filling
115g cream cheese
55g castor sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 large, lightly beaten egg
Fudgy chocolate cupcake batter
100g cake flour
5 1/4 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
100g butter, softened
20g castor sugar
70g light brown sugar
2/3 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 eggs, lightly beaten
140ml milk
Method :
1. Prepare cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and creamy. Gradually add egg, beating until smooth. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 182. Line cupcake tin with cupcake cups.
3. Stir together cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt until well blended.
4. Cream butter, caster sugar and light brown sugar until smooth and fluffy. Gradually add in vanilla essence and eggs.
5. Add flour mixture and milk in 3 separate additions, starting and ending with flour mixture.
6. Divide batter. Create a cavity in the centre of each cupcake with the back of a spoon. Fill cavities with cream cheese filling.
7. Bake for 25-30 mins. Leave to cook in tin for 10 mins.
8. Remove cupcakes and leave to cool completely on wire rack before serving.
Makes 12 cuppies.
One thing that i really look forward to whenever i go back KL is the food.
First, it's my mom's cooking. Then it's the hawker's fare. Last but not least, the yummy sambal that my mom makes :)
When we went back 2 weeks ago, mom requested for some home made cakes from me. I managed to do financiers and lime cream cheese pound cake with mango bits before sending my machine for service. That explains my lapse of food post yeah? :P
Lime cream cheese pound cake with mango bits.
As much as i would love to rave for this cake, i couldn't. Don't get me wrong.. i love the taste but unfortunately, not the texture. It was rather dry. Almost couldn't swallow without having a gulp of water kinda dry. Heh. Pretty bad isn't it?
Nevermind... at least, it's not the taste. Grin. I could always add an extra cup of milk or something the next time round, which is what i will do exactly.. if.. i do bake it again :P
Lime cream cheese pound cake with mango bits
On the day we reached, the mother cooked up quite a bit. There were plenty of yummy dishes but my favourite is the stir fry 'wild jungle vegetables' with sambal.
It was mind blowing i tell ya!
Wild jungle vegetables with sambal is the one of the right
Why such funny name one wonders?
Actually, no one knows the name to this vegetable. It is unknown. According to my mom and my helper [yep, the helped had it before too in her kampong], it usually gets picked in the jungle on the ground. It grows wildly on its own.
At the helper's kampong, whenever they wanna eat it, all they need to do is to go to the jungle's floor and pick. Helper called it 'pakis' in Malay. And i am wondering if it's the same as the paku pakis plant that grows wildly in the jungle..
Cute yeah? And it's very affordable too! Only costs my mom RM2 for the whole bunch :)
Then, there is chee cheong fun, the Malaysian version. My absolutely must-eat whenever i go back, apart from my mother's lao shu fen. Luckily the mother knows me well. She will buy them automatically without having me to ask her to, knowing my love for them. Hehe.
The mother buys them raw. Then cooked it herself. More economical and definitely yummier!
Besides the jungle vegetable, i saw something else that is also 'quite cute' too. We've never seen anything like it before.
Check this out!
What do you think it is?
Is it asian's brinjal? Or is it ang moh's egg plant?
Nope. It's not!
It is chili padi!
Yep, it's chili padi in purple! So pretty isn't it?!
Taste wise, i dare not try. Heh. The chili lovers parents warned that it is extremely spicy but fragrant. Hence no trying for me. Not gung-ho enough ah! ^.^
