kitchen flavours

Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

2012-03-07T00:00:00.005+08:00

I can't believe that my last ice cream post was more than four months ago! Yup, did not make any ice cream at all during these four months .... until my son requested me to buy some ice cream!! So I told him, why don't I make some....well, promise is a promise and here it is, creamy and delicious Toasted Coconut Ice Cream.

There's no coconut milk in this ice cream, the coconut flavours are from the shredded coconut flakes. They are first toasted till brown, crispy and fragrant. These are then added into the mixture of warmed milk, cream, sugar, vanilla seeds and pod and some salt, cover and leave for about an hour to infuse the flavour. I left mine for about 3 hours as I needed to go out for an errand that day, but I think that it really makes the flavour more pronounced by soaking it longer. The mixture is then strained over a strainer set over another bowl with the remaining cream. The egg based custard is then cooked as per instructions in the recipe below, I use only 4 egg yolks instead of 5.

David says to discard the strained coconut flakes, but when I tasted the flakes, they are sweet and the coconut flavour are still very "coconut-ty", they are in fact still very tasty, why waste it? I kept the strained coconut flakes in a container and store it in the fridge to eat it together with the ice cream later.

The Toasted Coconut Ice Cream sprinkled over the top with the coconut flakes speckled with vanilla seeds and some canned pineapple cubes which I bought for something else, but seems perfect with this ice cream! A perfect pairing for a tropical flavoured ice cream! The ice cream is creamy, with just the right amount of coconut flavour and it really is delicious! I did reduce the sugar to 1/3 cup and I can taste the sweetness alright, but not overly sweet, just right. And do not skip the salt, I think the salt really brings out all the flavours together. Another wonderful ice cream dessert from David Lebovitz!

I'm sharing this with :
Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness

Toasted Coconut Ice Cream
(adapted from "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz)
1 cup (70gm) dried shredded coconut, preferably unsweetened
1 cup (250ml) whole milk
2 cups (500ml) heavy cream
3/4 cup (150gm) sugar (I use 1/3 cup)
Big pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise
5 large egg yolks (I use 4)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, or 1 teaspoon rum

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Spread the coconut on a baking sheet and bake for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring it frequently so it toasts evenly. Remove it from the oven when it's nice and fragrant and golden brown.
In a medium saucepan, warm the milk, 1 cup (250ml) of the heavy cream, sugar, and salt and add the toasted coconut. Use a paring knife, and scrape all the vanilla seeds into the warm milk, then add the pod as well. Cover, remove from the heat, and let steep at room temperature for 1 hour.
Rewarm the coconut-infused mixture. Set a mesh strainer over another medium saucepan and strain the coconut-infused liquid through the strainer into the saucepan. Press down on the coconut very firmly with a flexible rubber spatula to extract as much of the flavor from it as possible. Remove the vanilla bean pieces (rinse and reserve them for another use), and discard the coconut.
Pour the remaining 1 cup (250ml) heavy cream into a large bowl and set the mesh strainer on top. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Slowly pour the warm coconut-infused mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.
Stir the mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scrapping the bottom as you stir, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula. Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Mix in the vanilla or rum and stir until cool over an ice bath.
Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

*******************************

There will be a new baking event starting from April 2012. You are welcome to join us, to find out more, please click The Home Bakers.

Char-Grilled Corn And Spiced Chicken Salad and A New Baking Event !!

2012-03-05T09:40:00.002+08:00

Donna Hay is a famous Australian food stylist and the author of many, many cookbooks. Her cookbooks can be found easily over here, but I have never thought of buying any of her books. So when my baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids organized a blog-hop event "Cook Like A Star" featuring Donna Hay as the celebrity chef of the month, I took a second glance at Donna Hay's recipes online. There are quite a few that I have bookmarked to try, and this salad is one of them.

It so happens I have two cob of corns in my fridge and seems perfect for this salad. Instead of using the pan to char-grill the corns, I grilled them in my oven. The kernels are then sliced off from the cobs.

Went to the supermarket to get some asparagus, saw a few bundles of asparagus on the shelf, thought I get it later, while I went looking for some cherry tomatoes. Made a turn later to get the asparagus, it was all gone! I grabbed some Japanese cucumbers instead, definitely not going to grill these cucumbers! Could not find any Romaine Lettuce, so I use some regular lettuce instead.

I sliced the chicken breast fillet in half horizontally for thinner pieces, marinate with the paprika and cumin powder, though I did add a little bit of salt (the recipe does not call for salt), and pan-fry on both sides until cooked and light brown. It was very tasty, I ate a piece or two while cutting it to slices. :)

The yoghurt dressing is simple and very good and would be suitable for any salad, which I'll make again, especially since I'm using my own homemade yoghurt.

Overall review : Delicious plate of salad! The spiced chicken, the grilled corns, veggies and the yoghurt dressing blends well together, love the taste! Yum!

I'm linking this with "Cook Like A Star" blog-hop featuring Donna Hay as the celebrity for the month of March, hosted by my friend, Zoe of Bake For Happy Kids. Please drop by Bake For Happy Kids for the full details, you have a whole month to cook or bake any of Donna Hay's recipes and join in the blog-hop!

Char-Grilled Corn and Spiced Chicken Salad
(source from : Donna Hay, magazine issue 43 or here)
2 cobs corn, husks and silks removed
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed (I use cucumbers, cut to thick julienned strips and add to salad)
200gm chicken breast fillet, trimmed
olive oil, for brushing
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
125gm cherry tomatoes, halved
1 (100gm) red onion, thinly sliced
1 baby cos (romaine) lettuce, leaves separated

Yoghurt Dressing :
1/2 cup (150gm) natural yoghurt
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon white balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon water
seas salt and cracked black pepper

To make the yoghurt dressing, place the yoghurt, garlic, vinegar, water, salt and pepper in a bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.

Heat a char-grill pan or barbecue over a high heat. Char-grill or barbecue the corn for 10-12 minutes, turning occasionally. Slice off the kernels. Char-grill or barbecue the asparagus for 3-4 minutes or until tender. Set aside.

Brush the chicken with oil and sprinkle with the paprika and cumin. Char-grill or barbecue for 5 minutes each side or until cooked through. Slice the chicken and asparagus and place in a bowl with the corn, tomato, onion and lettuce and toss to combine. Spoon over the dressing to serve. Serves 2.

********************************

AN ANNOUNCEMENT : NEW BAKING EVENT "THE HOME BAKERS"

Starting from April 2012, I'm starting a new baking event, where we will be baking entirely from one book.
We are The Home Bakers (THB), a group of bakers who bakes from home and we all love baking and collecting cookbooks. Most of us would probably tried out about 2 or 3 recipes from most of the books that we own and these books somehow got pushed back or "forgotten" as we collect more cookbooks along the way! So, at THB, we will bake from one cookbook only, until every recipe has been baked. This will not only fully utilized your cookbook to the maximum, but it will widen your baking skills, and learn more about baking as we share our experiences together. For a start, we will be baking from this wonderful cookbook, Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas. This is a beautiful book containing 60 simple recipes, which are perfect for a tea-time snack, picnic or simply as a breakfast treat.
For more information about joining in, please do visit the new blog, The Home Bakers. Everyone's welcome! Hope to see you!
Thank you!

Emergency Blender Cupcakes : ABC March 2012

2012-03-02T00:00:00.022+08:00

This is my third bake with ABC, and we are currently baking from "The Weekend Baker" by Abigail Johnson Dodge. And I love all three recipes that I've tried so far! When this cupcake was chosen for this month's bake, I was pretty curious, as these cupcakes are called "Emergency Blender Cupcakes"! Yes, the batter is mixed in a blender!

The dry ingredients, like the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda are all whizzed in the blender to mix evenly and the wet ingredients, egg, oil, hot water and vanilla extract are then added in, make sure you scrape the sides two or three times and blend until the batter is evenly mixed. Pour the batter into the muffin pan lined with cupcake cases and bake for about 17 to 19 minutes. Mine was done in exactly 17 minutes. Leave to cool in pan for about 10 minutes and remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Though these cupcakes can be done without using the blender, I decided to follow as it is, as I was really curious about using the blender for the cake batter, first time I've tried with this method!

The fudge frosting is heavenly! I frosted some of the cakes when the fudge was still gooey and silky. Look at how silky and smooth it is, and the addition of salt makes it so yummy! I only made half the fudge recipe, and it was more than enough. I frosted the rest of the cupcakes when the fudge has thickened, last picture below.

This cupcake is really good!

The fudge frosting and the cupcake makes one perfect combination.

The texture of the cake is really moist, soft and tender, almost brownie-like, and it is not too sweet, the sweetness is just right! If you are looking for a good chocolate cupcake, quick and easy, this is it! Would you like to give this a try? You can get the recipe from the book "The Weekend Baker" or here. Abby has made this with another frosting, Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting, which can be found in her blog, here. Whichever frosting you choose, I'm sure you'll enjoy this cupcake, as much as we have!

Frosted the rest of the cupcakes when the fudge has thickened. Either thickened or silky smooth, it's yummy! You'll be licking your fingers clean!

Please visit my fellow bakers at Avid Bakers Challenge (ABC) to see their delicious cupcakes. Want to join in? Visit ABC to find out more!

Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake : Free and Easy Bake-Along #19

2012-02-28T06:50:00.002+08:00

This lovely cake was chosen by Lena for our Bake-Along No. 19. Did you know that this is the signature cake of Rose Levy Beranbaum? Rose describes this cake as "buttery and tender and melts in your mouth. I love the little crunch of poppy seeds, but the cake is also fabulous without them." And I couldn't agree more!

I have made this cake before, about one and a half years ago (I made a note in Rose's Heavenly Cakes) and I remembered that it was really dense and heavy, did not rise at all, but it tasted good. I have always wanted to try making it again, but well, you know, I sort of forgotten all about it, as I have tons of other recipes to try! So I was glad when this cake was chosen for our bake-along, even though I was rather apprehensive about baking this again!

The only change I did was I used my homemade yoghurt instead of sour cream and I reduced the sugar to 180gm instead of the original 250gm. This cake turns out delicious! It is just as Rose describes, buttery, tender with the delightful crunch of the poppy seeds. Even the lemony taste is just the right balance, and I did not even bother measuring the zest, I just used the zest from two large lemons.

Can you see the zest of the lemons, a slice of this cake looks very nice with the zest against the speckled poppy seeds! For the glaze, I used the juice from one large lemon and top with about 4-5 tablespoons of sugar, heating till the sugar dissolved and tasting the sweetness to my liking. Do not skip the glaze, I think that the glaze brings out the lemony taste of the cake, and making it moist.

This cake is really delicious! According to Rose, for best flavour, complete the cake 1 day ahead, but I had two slices while still warm ! :)

After all, it is Rose's signature cake! So tender and deliciously yummy!

Let's go over to Lena and Zoe, and see their Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake. Also, pay a visit to our friends that have baked along with us in the linky below. We have included in our Bake-Along, a blog-hop linky, to submit your bake, just click on the linky link "get the Inlinkz code", select and copy the code provided, paste it at the bottom of your drafted post in your HTML code page, save, publish your post as usual, submit your link, and all the links will pop right in your own post! If you are unsure about how to go about it, just send any of us an email and we will gladly assist you.

For our next Bake-Along, our theme is "Ciabatta". Ever made Ciabatta before? Ciabatta is an Italian bread with large airholes, this will be a challenge for me, I'm really looking forward to try my hand at making some Ciabatta. Do bake some and join us in our blog-hop, which will be opened on 12/03. Everyone's welcome! See you!

Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake
(adapted from Rose's Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum)
Plan Ahead : For best flavour, complete the cake 1 day ahead
Batter
2 large eggs (100gm / 3.5 ounces), at room temperature
1 large egg yolk (18gm / 0.6 ounce), at room temperature
200gm (7 ounces / 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon) divided, sour cream (I use my homemade yoghurt)
1-3/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
250gm (8.7 ounces / 2-1/2 cups) cake flour (or bleached all-purpose flour) sifted into the cup and leveled off,
250gm (8.7 ounces / 1-1/4 cups) superfine sugar (I use 180gm)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 gm (0.5 ounce / 5 teaspoons, loosely packed) lemon zest, finely grated (I use 2 large lemons)
50gm (1.7 ounces / 1/3 cup) poppy seeds
200gm (7 ounces / 1-3/4 sticks) unsalted butter (softened, at room temperature)

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT : One 10-cup Nordic Ware Elegant Heart Pan or metal fluted tube pan, coated with baking spray with flour.

PREHEAT THE OVEN : Twenty minutes or more before baking, set an oven rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F/175C (325F/2160C if using a dark pan).

MIX THE LIQUID INGREDIENTS : In a medium bowl, whisk the whole eggs, yolk, 1/4 cup of the sour cream, and the vanilla, just until lightly combined.

MAKE THE BATTER : In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the flat beater, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, lemon zest, and poppy seeds on low speed for 30 seconds. Add the butter and the remaining sour cream. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Raise the speed to medium and beat for 1-1/2 minutes. The mixture will lighten in colour and texture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Starting on low speed, gradually add the egg mixture in two parts, beating on medium speed for 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the ingredients and strengthen the structure. Using a silicone spatula or spoon, scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface evenly with a small metal spatula.

BAKE THE CAKE : Bake for 45 to 55 minutes, or until a wire cake tester inserted between the tube and the side comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in the center. The cake should start to shrink from the sides only after removal from the oven.

Shortly before the cake is finished baking, make the lemon syrup.

Lemon Syrup
Makes : 2/3 cup / 5.3 fluid ounces / 7 ounces / 200gm
112gm (1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon / 4 ounces) sugar (I use about 4 to 5 tablespoons)
94gm (6 tablespoons / 3 fluid ounces / 3.3 ounces) lemon juice, freshly squeezed from 2 large lemons (I use one large lemon)

MAKE THE LEMON SYRUP : In a 1-cup or larger microwaveable glass measure (or in a small saucepan over medium heat), heat the sugar and lemon juice, stirring often, until the sugar is dissolved. Do not allow it to boil. Cover it tightly to prevent evaporation.

APPLY THE SYRUP AND COOL AND UNMOLD THE CAKE : As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, place the pan on a wire rack, poke the cake all over with a thin skewer, and brush it with about one-third of the syrup. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Invert it onto a 10-inch cardboard round or serving plate. Brush the top and sides of the cake with the remaining syrup. Cool completely and wrap airtight.

This is a blog hop, to join in, click on the link :
get the InLinkz code

Lemon-Coconut Bars

2012-02-26T01:32:00.004+08:00

Be warned, these are addictive! I know most lemons bars are! But these have the ingredient, flaked coconuts in the crust, it really is very good! This was bookmarked months ago and never did get round to make it, and finally made this a couple of days ago. If you love lemons and coconuts, then you will love this!

The lemon topping has the wonderful tangy taste of the lemons and the sweetness is just right. The bottom crust is wonderful with the chewiness of the flaked coconuts. Put them together and you get a perfect bar.

Make sure that the aluminium foil is greased really well at the sides, cause the bars are stuck to the aluminium foil and I've got to carefully separate the foil without doing any damages to the bars.

Top with some icing sugar, and enjoy!

I bet you won't stop at just one! I definitely did not! Don't worry, it is not very high and you need three pieces to stack up together for the size of a piece of cake! And the top filling does not contain any butter! Oh yes, another piece please! Hahaha, don't mind me, I just need to console myself after my third piece! :) Just one of those guilty pleasures!!

I'm sharing this with :
Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Bake With Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes
Sweets For A Saturday hosted by Sweet As Sugar Cookies

Lemon-Coconut Bars
(adapted from "Bon Appetit Desserts" by Barbara Fairchild)
Makes 16
Crust
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted, cooled
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Filling
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lemon peel
1 teaspoon unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup powdered sugar

CRUST :
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 8x8x2-inch metal baking pan with aluminium foil, leaving overhang on 2 sides of pan. Butter foil. Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add coconut and butter, process until mixture resembles fine meal and begins to clump together. Gather dough into ball. Press dough evenly over bottom of prepared pan. Bake crust until golden at edges, about 25 minutes.

FILLING :
Meanwhile, combine sugar, eggs, lemon juice, lemon peel, flour, baking powder, and salt in processor. Blend filling until smooth.

Remove crust from oven. Pour filling evenly over hot crust. Return to oven and bake until filling begins to brown at edges and is just set and springy to touch in center, about 30 minutes. Transfer pan to rack; cool lemon bars completely.

Using foil as aid, transfer lemon bars to work surface. Fold down foil sides. Cut into bars. Sift powdered sugar over.

DO AHEAD : Can be made 5 days ahead. Refrigerate lemon bars in single layer in airtight containers.

Oatmeal Honey Bread

2012-02-24T09:28:00.014+08:00

The Artisan Bread Machine by Judith Fertig has been on my wishlist ages ago, I finally ordered the book and have been waiting anxiously for it to arrive since then. I was so excited when I received my book a few days ago and the very next day, made this simple bread. I love making bread, though sometimes reading the long instructions from some books really tires me out, makes my mind works overtime just by reading and understanding the long and tedious (which I'm sure are necessary!) instructions :) So I always look for bread machine cookbooks, though I do have some great books like Amy's Bread and Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day, I have never attempted any recipes from those books, well, not yet! Maybe soon!

I was very happy with the contents of this new book, lots of great recipes, and tips. There's even a chapter on how to make your own sourdough from scratch, I'm looking forward to that one. Much as I love my bread machine, I have always prefer to mix the dough in the machine and finish off the baking in the oven. That's what I did with this Oatmeal Honey Bread.

This is a lovely loaf of oatmeal bread. The only changes that I did was to omit the milk powder, just because I do not have any in my pantry! The next time when I make this, I'll double up the salt, as I think that it will be much tastier, I'm not saying that it is bland, but I think a little bit more of salt would make it nicer. I only made a 1pound loaf, though the recipes given are for 1lb, 1-1/2 lb and 2lb loaves.

It has a nice soft texture. I wrap the bread in plastic wrap and store it in an airtight container, and it was still soft the next day. I enjoyed it spread with some butter and homemade apricot jam and since this is only a small loaf, we finished it all at breakfast. Overall rating : Good loaf of bread! One that I will make again!

I'm sharing this with
Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes
BYOB-Bake Your Own Bread hosted by Girlichef

Oatmeal Honey Bread
(adapted from "The Artisan Bread Machine" by Judith Fertig)
Makes 1lb (500gm), 1 loaf
1 tbsp instant skim milk powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1/4 cup lukewarm milk
2 tbsp liquid honey
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1-3/4 cups bread flour
2/3 cup large-flake (old-fashioned) or quick-cooking rolled oats
1 tsp instant or bread machine yeast

Add milk powder, salt, water, milk, honey and oil to the bread pan. Spoon flour and oats on top of liquid. Add yeast.
Select the Basic/White Cycle and Light Crust setting and press Start.

Tips :

Ideally, the water and milk should be between 86F and 95F (30C and 35C), the temperature range in which yeast is most active. Warm them in the microwave or in a saucepan on the stove, and check the temperature with an instant-read thermometer.

When making the smallest loaf allowed by your machine, check the dough a few minutes after kneading starts to make sure the ingredients are incorporated. You may need to help the machine along by using a rubber spatula to scrape the corners of the pan.

If your dough does not form a ball during the first few minutes of kneading, do one of two things; if the dough looks dry and crumbly, add 1 tbsp (15ml) water at 1-minute intervals until the dough forms a ball; if the dough looks wet, add 1 tbsp (15ml) bread flour at 1-minute intervals until the dough forms a ball.

Kitchen Flavours notes :

~ omitted the milk powder

~ mixed the dough using the bread machine on the Basic Dough cycle. The first rise in the bread machine, at the end of the cycle (1 hour 35 minutes) the machine would have "punch down" the dough and it is ready to be taken out and proceed manually.

~ put the dough on a lightly floured work surface, and rolled out dough to almost the length of the baking pan, about 1" thickness. Roll it up from the longer side like a swissroll, make a nice round at both ends and place the dough in the greased baking pan (for 1 pound loaf, pan size is 8-1/2"x4-1/2"), seam side down. Sprinkle with some flour if desired. Cover with an oiled cling film and left to rise till double in size, about 40 minutes.

~ Remove cling film and bake in a preheated oven at 160C (I use a dark pan) for 35 minutes. Immediately remove bread from pan and cool on a wire rack.
~ note : will double-up the salt next time.

Individual Coconut Cakes

2012-02-22T11:40:00.008+08:00

These little mini cakes are packed with coconut flavour, from the flaked coconuts. If you love coconuts, then try and make a batch of these. This wonderful recipe is from my latest collection of cookbooks which I just purchased a couple of days ago, "bake!" by Nick Malgieri. It is a beautiful book with a mixture of recipes from cakes, bread, pastries, scones, tea bread, cookies, bars, muffins and lots more. There are twenty chapters in total, with a few recipes in each chapter. Wow, I did not know which one to start with! I made the right choice by selecting these mini cakes to begin with.

These mini cakes uses only egg whites and since I have a few dozens of egg whites (yes, a few dozens!) in my freezer that I really wanted to clear, this is perfect!

Nick Malgieri states that instead of desiccated coconut, unsweetend flaked coconuts can be used instead, and I love using flaked coconuts in my bakes over the desiccated ones, as the flaked coconuts are more moist and chewier. If using the flaked coconuts, just process it in the food processor to reduce the size of the flakes to about 3mm, be careful not to turn them into powder.

I got more than 24 mini cakes, perhaps my mini pans is just a little bit smaller than the ones that Nick Malgieri used to make these. I got a total of 24 mini cakes, about 1 full tablespoons per cake, and have some extra batter left, so I used the standard muffin-sized, which gave me 2 more. I baked the mini ones about 18 minutes and the bigger ones about 23 minutes. Funny thing is the bigger ones rose higher than the mini ones.

These are so small and without realizing it, I ate three while taking these photos! And I had two more later with a cup of black coffee. Yes, they are delicious! Moist and very tasty, and I'm glad that I did reduced the amount of sugar, as the sweetness is just right. And even though I used salted butter, I did add on a tiny pinch of salt to the egg whites as the recipe states. The result is a sweet with a hint of saltiness mini cakes, really good with the flaked coconuts.

I'll be making this again! It's easy and so yummy! :)

I'm sharing this with

Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Individual Coconut Cakes
(adapted from "bake!" by Nick Malgieri)
Makes 24 individual cakes
(Unsweetened coconut is available both flaked or more finely ground. The flakes retain more moisture than the desiccated coconut does. Either may be used in this recipe, but if you use the flaked variety, pulse it in the food processor half a dozen times, not to grind it to a powder, but to reduce the flakes in size to about 3mm)
170gm sugar (I use 110gm)
65gm plain flour
110gm unsweetened desiccated coconut
4 medium egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
110gm unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 tablespoons sweetened flaked coconut or unsweetened ground or flaked coconut, for topping the cakes before baking
Two 12-hole mini muffin tins, buttered and flour

Set a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 190C/gas mark 5.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the sugar, flour and unsweetened desiccated coconut; set aside.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites with the salt until smooth, then whisk in the lemon zest and butter. Whisk in about half the dry ingredients, then use a rubber spatula to fold in the remainder.
Spoon the batter into the prepared tins, filling them about two-thirds full. Sprinkle the top of each cake with a pinch of flaked coconut.
Bake the cakes until they are well risen and deep golden and they are firm when pressed with a fingertip, about 15 minutes. Invert them to a rack, then immediately turn them right side up and let them cool completely.

Serving : Serve these after dessert with coffee, or as part of an assortment of desserts.

Storage : Keep the cakes loosely covered with clingfilm on the day they are made. Arrange them in a tin or a plastic container with a tight-fitting lid in one layer and refrigerate them for longer storage. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Chili Pork with Curry Leaves

2012-02-19T08:46:00.031+08:00

I love spicy food, I would eat it everyday if I could! Now that my kids are older, they are learning to appreciate a little bit of spiciness in their food, which is fine with me! When they were younger, I would always cook a separate non-spicy dish just for them, but now, as long as the dish that I'm cooking is not too spicy, I just need to cook a little bit extra, that's all. Cooking is easier as they gets older, as they love to try out new flavours.

According to the book, "500 Curries", this recipe is from the state of Andhra Pradesh, one of the southern states of India, where the hottest chillies, known as guntur after the region where they are produced, are grown in abundance. Well, since I do not have any curry powder or chili powder made from this chili called guntur, I just used whatever I have, which is just as well, as this is not an extremely spicy dish that even my kids love it.

Fresh curry leaves from my garden. A bowl of spices all mixed up together. However, I did add on the amount of curry powder and chili powder, as I wanted to have more gravy, although this is a fairly dry dish.

This is a really easy dish to cook, except that you have to watch out that it does not dry out, adding some water when necessary from time to time, do not add too much, as this is a fairly dry dish. I would advise to use a non-stick saucepan for this. As I do not like to use too much of coconut milk in my curries, I used only 1/2 cup. During cooking, I added in some water from time to time to prevent the dish from drying out and getting burnt.

Really good with white rice. I have some leftover and the kids was asking for it the next day!

I'm sharing this with :
Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Chilli Pork with Curry Leaves
(adapted from "500 Curries" , Mridula Baljekar)
2tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, finely sliced
2in piece fresh root ginger, finely grated
4 garlic cloves, crushed
12 curry leaves
3tsp extra-hot curry paste, or 60ml/4tbsp hot curry powder (I use 6 heaped tbsp curry powder)
1 tbsp chilli powder (I use 1 heaped tbsp)
1tsp Chinese five-spice powder
1tsp ground turmeric
900gm pork, cubed
3/4 cup thick coconut milk (I use 1/2 cup)
salt
red onion, finely sliced, to garnish
Indian bread and fruit raita, to serve

Heat the oil in a karahi, wok or large pan, and fry the onion, ginger, garlic and curry leaves until the onion is soft.
Add the curry paste or powder, chilli, and five-spice powder, turmeric and salt to the pan. Stir well.
Add the pork to the pan and stir well over a medium heat to seal and evenly brown the meat pieces. Cover the pan with the lid and cook for about 20-25 minutes.
Stir in the coconut milk and simmer; still covered, for about 10 minutes or until the meat is cooked. Toward the end of cooking, uncover the pan to allow the excess liquid to reduce and the sauce to thicken slightly. Garnish with red onion and serve with Indian bread, and with fruit raita, for a cooling effect.

Steamed Meatballs with Broccoli

2012-02-16T12:53:00.008+08:00

Meatballs are a favourite in my house, especially with the kids. This simple homemade meatballs will bring smiles to your kids faces when it is dinnertime, as they did mine! I already have a request to make this again in the very near future, tomorrow!! I promised my kids to make this again soon, but definitely not tomorrow! :)

The broccoli can be replaced by any other veggie, or a mixture of other veggies like mushrooms, cauliflower, carrots and even Chinese broccoli (kai lan). Broccoli happens to be our favourite, so that's what I use.

The meatballs are a simple combination of minced pork, chopped mushroom, chopped spring onions and seasoned with white pepper powder and some salt with a little bit of corn flour and water. Some chopped water chestnut may be added and if you have some prawns or white fish meat, these may be minced and added in too, which would be really delicious. But for today, I only use minced pork as that was what I had.

The broccoli and meatballs are steamed separately, retain the juices collected from both during steaming and mix them together later for the gravy. This is one simple, delicious meal that your kids would definitely love!

I'm sharing this with
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage
See Ya In The Gumbo #18 Potluck hosted by Ms. enPlace

My baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids will be starting a blog hop in March, "Cook Like A Star" featuring Donna Hay as the celebrity chef for the month of March. Please do join in, everyone's welcome. Please drop by Bake For Happy Kids for the full details. Hope to see you in "Cook Like A Star"!

Steamed Meatballs with Broccoli
(by kitchen flavours)
400gm minced pork
1 medium broccoli
1 tablespoon cornflour
2 tablespoons water
salt to taste
1/4 teaspoon white pepper powder
1 dry shitake mushroom, soaked till soften and chopped finely
2 tablespoons chopped spring onions
salt to taste
1 tablespoon cornflour mixed with 2 tablespoon water, for the gravy

Put minced pork in a bowl, add in cornflour, white pepper powder, water and salt. Stir well and keep aside for 15 minutes.
Cut broccoli florets to medium large chunks. Steam on high heat for 3-4 minutes. Remove from heat, drain and retain whatever steaming liquid collected from the broccoli, which is not much, but full of nutrients!
Stir marinated pork and add in chopped mushroom and chopped spring onions, stir well to evenly combine.
Heat up steamer. Steam a teaspoon of meatball paste for about 5 minutes to check on the seasoning, add salt if necessary.
Once the seasoning are to your liking, take about 1 tablespoon of meat paste and mould it round, placing it on a steaming plate. Repeat with the rest of the meat paste.
Steam on high heat for about 15 minutes until cooked. Remove from heat and place meatballs on serving plate, retaining the steaming liquid collected from the meatballs. Arrange broccoli florets around meatballs on serving plate. Keep aside.
Mix the retain liquids in a small saucepan. In a small bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of cornflour with 2 tablespoon water. Heat saucepan and when liquid starts to boil, add in about 2 teaspoon of the cornflour solution (stir the solution before adding in) until gravy is slightly thickened, adding more if you prefer a thicker gravy, add salt to taste if necessary, let it come to a boil and immediately pour over meatballs. Serve hot.

Red Velvet Cupcake for Valentine : Free And Easy Bake-Along #18

2012-02-13T05:16:00.015+08:00

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY !!!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!! To celebrate Valentine's Day, together with Lena and Zoe, we made Red Velvet Cupcakes for our Bake-Along. What did you make for Valentine's Day?

Instead of using the usual cream cheese frosting that usually goes with red velvet cakes, for these cupcakes I use a simple icing made up of just icing sugar and lemon juice, really nice actually and pairs wonderfully with these cupcakes.

Decorating cakes certainly is not one of my best skills! I did thought of doing a decoration using fondant as I have never done anything with fondant before, but on second thought, best leave the "fondant experiment" when I'm ready for it!

I only made half the recipe and instead of getting 12 cupcakes, I only got 8. The only changes I did was, for half a recipe, I used only 1/2 cup of sugar and 3/4 tablespoon of red food colour. And instead of using buttermilk, I use the mixture of homemade yoghurt and some milk, which always works well for me.

This Red Velvet Cupcakes is very good! The texture of the cupcakes is really moist, soft and tender! Yum!

Let's go over to Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids, to see their beautiful Red Velvet Cupcakes, and also to our friends who are baking along with us in the linky below.

We have one exciting news to share regarding our Bake-Along!

Starting from our next Bake-Along on 28th Feb, we will be changing our linky to a blog hop. You may copy the blog-hop codes when baking along with us, go to the link provided, which you can find from the hosts' (myself, Lena and Zoe) bake-along post, copy the code and paste it at the bottom of your post in the HTML page of your blog post and submit your link as usual. All the links will then be published at the bottom of your very own post! This blog-hop will stay open for 7 days. Please remember to mention this Bake-Along blog-hop event in your own post linking direct to any of the hosts' post and leave a comment. If you have any queries, please email us and we will be glad to assist you!

Starting from 28/02

To summarise, here's what you got to do :

1. go to the blog-hop link provided.

2. copy the codes

3. paste the codes in your HTML page of your drafted post

4. post as usual and submit your post via the link.

Please remember to :
5. mention Bake-Along event in your own post linking direct to any of the hosts' post

6. leave a comment at any of the hosts' post.

7. visit at least one or two other links and leave a comment, everyone loves that!

For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking Lemon Poppy Seed-Sour Cream Cake, from Rose's Heavenly Cakes, or you may get the recipe here. We will be posting this bake on 28/02, remember this will be a blog hop! Hope you can join us, everyone's welcome! See you!

Red Velvet Cupcakes
(adapted from "The Big Book of Cupcakes" by Betty Crocker)
Makes : 24 regular cupcakes
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 bottle (1oz) red food colour (about 2 tablespoons)
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon white vinegar

Heat oven to 350F. Place paper baking cup in each of 24 regular-size muffin cups. In small bowl, mix flour, cocoa and salt, set aside.
In large bowl, beat 1/2 cup butter and the granulated sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until mixed. Add eggs; beat 1 to 2 minutes or until light and fluffy. Stir in food colour and vanilla. On low speed, alternately add flour mixture, 1/3 at a time, and buttermilk, 1/2 at a time, beating just until blended. Beat in baking soda and vinegar until well blended.
Divide batter evenly among muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake 20 to 22 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pans to cooling racks to cool.

Fan Pastry

2012-02-08T14:00:00.005+08:00

Fan Pastry? I'm sure most of you must be wondering what is Fan Pastry! It is a Chinese sweet pastry with the a fan-like pattern, that's all! This fan pastry is perfect as a tea-time snack and for breakfast too. I made this as an afternoon snack. It was one of those days, being a holiday and everyone slept in, we came back late from a dinner party the night before, went to bed at 1.30am, woke up late, had our late breakfast and very early lunch, so called "brunch" and I figured that the family would be hungry when it is tea-time, not that we have tea-time very often! So I made this, since this has been on my mind lately and I have all the ingredients on hand. It was really good and we enjoyed it!

I like the pretty petals, does it look like a fan or a flower? Despite its name "Fan Pastry", I think it looks more like a flower! This recipe uses Red Bean Paste as the filling. You may use Lotus Paste Filling or Mung Bean Paste Filling if you like. Either one, I'm sure it will be just as good!

Ok, Let's do this together :

1. The dough on the left is the Water Dough, on the right is Oil Dough.

2. Some red bean filling, scaled at 25gm and mould them into rounds for easy wrapping.

3. The Water Dough are divided into 16 parts, each 15gm, mould each part into a ball.
4. The Oil Dough are divided into 16 parts, each 10gm, mould each part into a ball.
5. Roll out one ball of Water Dough into a round thin sheet, place a ball of Oil Dough into the centre and wrap it up, sealing the edges together. Mould into a round ball. Using a small rolling pin, roll this ball into a thin sheet, and roll it up Swiss Roll style. Repeat this step one more time. Let rest for 10 minutes.
6. Roll out rested dough into a thin round sheet and place one ball of red bean filling in the centre.

7. Wrap the filling, and seal the edges of the dough. Place the sealed edges downwards.
8. Gently roll out filled dough into a round, about 2-1/2" in diameter. Using a small metal spatula or small knife, starting almost towards the centre, cut into 4 sections, still attached.
9. Repeat until there are 8 cut sections, still attached at the centre.
10. Twist the edges of the sections upwards at an angle to form a fan-like pattern.

11. The completed pastry will look like a fan.
12. Transfer to the baking sheet lined with baking paper. (It is easier to transfer the cut pastry to the baking sheet, then twist the sections on the baking sheet). Brush with beaten egg yolk.
13. Sprinkle some sesame seeds in the centre.

14. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20 minutes or until browned and crispy.

Transfer to a cooling rack, let it cool a little, about 15 minutes and enjoy.

Isn't it pretty?

Reaction from my kids : "Looks so yummy and cute!"

Layers of tender crispy crust.

This is good with a pot of warm Jasmine Tea!

I'm sharing this with

Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

My baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids will be starting a blog hop in March, "Cook Like A Star" featuring Donna Hay as the celebrity chef for the month of March. Please do join in, everyone's welcome. Please drop by Bake For Happy Kids for the full details. Hope to see you in "Cook Like A Star"!

Fan Pastry
(adapted from "Irresistible Pastry" by Alex Goh)
Ingredients
Water Dough
120gm flour
1/4 teaspoon maltose (I use golden syrup)
20gm sugar
35gm shortening
65gm water

Oil Dough
100gm flour
60gm shortening

Filling
400gm red bean paste

Method :
Water Dough : Mix all the ingredients to form a smooth dough. Divide it into 16 parts of 15gm each.
Oil Dough : Mix all the ingredients to form a smooth paste. Divide it into 16 parts of 10gm each.
Filling : Divide the red bean paste into 16 parts of 25gm each.

Wrap the oil dough with water dough.
Roll out the dough into thin sheet. Then roll it up like Swiss Roll. Repeat this step one more time. Let it rest for 10 minutes.
Flatten the above dough and wrap the filling in.
Roll out the dough flat using a rolling pin. Along the round edge cut the pastry into 8 equal portions about 2.5cm thick.
Twist the edges into petal shapes. Egg wash twice and stick some black sesame seeds at the centre.
Bake at 200C for 20-25 minutes.

my notes :

I find that the both the doughs are wet, especially the Oil Dough. I added about 1-2 tablespoons flour to the Water Dough and about 2-3 tablespoons flour to the Oil Dough.

Pissaladiere

2012-02-06T11:00:00.002+08:00

As described in the book "Bread Machine Kitchen Handbook", "this French version of an Italian pizza is typical of Nicoise dishes, with anchovies and olives providing the distinctive flavour typical of the region".

Ever since I've seen recipes using canned anchovies with the descriptions "stir until the anchovies are melted ", I have been curious about how anchovies can be melted. Anchovies is a common ingredient over here in Asian cooking, but what we have over here are usually the dried ones, which we use to make a base for stock and cooked in various dishes and can be deep-fried till crispy as a snack. But I have never come across anchovies that can be "melted" when cooking. Though this Pissaladiere recipe does not require the anchovies to be "melted", I can now fully understand how that can happen when I purchased a can of anchovies in oil. It is quite costly, more than RM8.00 for one can (product of Spain), and there are only about 8 pieces of anchovies inside!

These canned anchovies are salted and soaked in oil and are really soft, easily broken to pieces when I remove them and I can see that these can be easily "melted" if cooked further. They are actually very much similar to our local salted mackerel fish (mui heong ham yee), soaked in oil, which are very tender and can be mashed easily.

This pizza is a healthier version with no presence of any cheese! The dough is soft and I have got to let it rest and stretch a couple of times to fill up the pan.

The result is a nice, fluffy, soft crust. Instead of using tomato sauce for the base as in most pizza, this uses only a tablespoon or so of Dijon mustard. If you are not a fan of mustard, I guess you can always substitute with your own favourite tomato sauce. The filling are just onions, basil leaves, black olive and anchovies, it is best to break the anchovies to little pieces and scatter all over, as it is quite salty.

Review from my kids : Where's the cheese? How come there's no cheese on this pizza???? Oops, sorry kids, I did thought of adding some cheese to it, but decided at the last minute to follow exactly as the recipe..maybe next time!!

Overall review : Nice pizza with soft, fluffy crust that would make a great base for any pizza. I enjoyed it with a cup of warm Earl Grey tea.

I'm sharing this with
Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness

Exciting Announcement !!!

My baking buddy, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids will be starting a new blog hop "Cook Like A Star". Each month a celebrity chef will be chosen, and everyone is invited to cook from any of that chosen chef's recipes! "Cook Like A Star" will launch in March and Zoe has chosen Donna Hay as the celebrity chef of the month. Please hop over to Zoe for more details. I hope everyone will join in this exciting blog hop, see you there!

Pissaladiere

(adapted from "The Bread Machine Kitchen Handbook" by Jennie Shapter)

100ml / 3-1/2 fl oz / 7 tbsp water

1 egg

225gm / 8oz / 2 cups unbleached whole bread flour

5ml / 1 tsp salt

25gm / 1oz / 2 tbsp butter

5ml / 1 tsp easy bake (rapid-rise) dried yeast

For the filling

60ml / tbsp olive oil

575gm / 1-1/4 lb onions, thinly sliced

15ml / 1 tsp Dijon mustard

3-4 tomatoes, about 280gm/10 oz, peeled and sliced (I did not bother peeling)

10ml / 2 tsp chopped fresh basil

12 drained canned anchovies

12 black olives

salt and freshly ground black pepper

Pour the water and egg into the machine pan. If the instructions for your machine specify that the yeast is to be added first, reverse the order in which you add the liquid and the dry ingredients.
Sprinkle over the white bread flour, ensuring that it completely covers the water and the egg. Add the salt in one corner of the pan and the butter in another corner. Make a small indent in the centre of the flour (but not down as far as the liquid) and add the easy bake dried yeast.
Set the bread machine to the dough setting; use basic or pizza dough setting (if available). Press Start.Then lightly oil a 27 x 20cm/11 x 8 in Swiss (jelly) roll tin (pan) that is about 1cm/1/2 in deep.
Make the filling. Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and cook the onions over a low heat for about 20 minutes, until very soft. Set aside to cool.
When the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough from the machine and place it on a lightly floured surface. Knock it back (punch it down) gently, then roll it out to a rectangle measuring about 30x23cm/12x9in. Place in the prepared tin, and press outwards and upwards, so that the dough covers the base and sides.
Spread the mustard over the dough. Arrange the tomato slices on top. Season the onions with salt, pepper and basil and spread the mixture over the tomatoes.
Arrange the anchovies in a lattice and dot with the olives. Cover with oiled clear film (plastic wrap) and leave to rise for 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Bake the pissaladiere for 25-30 minutes, or until the base is cooked and golden around the edges. Serve hot or warm.

Thank you!

2012-02-04T14:00:00.003+08:00

There is no recipe posting today. This post is all about "THANK YOU" for the following awards and gifts that I have received from my blogger friends! And also a big "THANK YOU" to everyone (YOU!!). It is great knowing all of you through blogosphere and I really appreciate your valuable time, precious comments and constant visits!

THE GIFTS :

From Louise of Months of Edible Celebrations
During the month of October, Louise has organized a Cookbook Party and I was glad to participate in the party. Did you know that October is a month full of delicious celebration? Well, to add icing to the deliciousness, Louise has some prizes in store! I was one of the winners and received these wonderful cookbooks from Louise! Thank you, Louise! Do stop by and visit Louise over at her blog Months of Edible Celebrations, you will find lots of interesting information on "months of celebrations". EVERYONE knows that February is all about Valentine, but did you know that February is also the month for "Potato Lover's Month, Chocolate Month", and lots more! Do check this out over at Louise's!
Thank you, Louise!! (meant to post about this months ago!!)

****************

From Parsley Sage of The Deep Dish

In the months of December 2011 and January 2012, Parsley Sage of The Deep Dish has done a series of "Taste of Cayman", featuring restaurant reviews and all about food, delicious, mouthwatering food, right from the beautiful Cayman Islands! If you are not familiar with The Deep Dish, then it is time to pay Parsley Sage a visit! The Cayman Islands will be on your next vacation destination! It is already on my list! (hope hubby will read this!! )

"Taste of Cayman" series comes with prizes for some lucky winners, and I was one of them! I won this wonderful Caribbean Rum Cake, which I received just a couple of days ago. IT WAS DELICIOUS! The best rum cake I have ever eaten! The cake is soft, buttery and moist with the wonderful aroma and delicious taste of the rum, distinctly over the top of the cake!! My mission now, is to find out whether this cake is sold locally over here in Malaysia. Hehe!!

Thank you, Parsley Sage!!

*****************************************

The Awards :

Winner Award

From Rebecka of At Home With Rebecka
Rebecka has organized a Fish and Chips Challenge. And Rebecka has been wonderfully sweet to forward the Winner Award both to me and Shirley's Luxury Haven. Rebecka is one multi-talented lady, she's an opera singer and has performed in many professional productions. And Rebecka is very creative in creating new delicious dishes, she has some videos showcasing her creations. Rebecka was chosen as the first dessert winner in the Real Women of Philadelphia Cookbook Competition! Her winning entry will be featured in the next edition of Real Women of Philadelphia Cookbook! How cool!
Thank you, Rebecka!

*****************************************

Liebster Blog Award

From :

Jen from What's Baking

Chris from Yummy Bakes
This lovely award has been forwarded to me by two lovely ladies, Jen from What's Baking and Chris from Yummy Bakes. Be sure to stop by these lovely ladies blogs to see their delicious bakes and mouth-watering dishes!!
Thank you, Jen and Chris !!

The Versatile Blogger Award

From :

Jasline from Food Is My Life
Kajal from Purple Chronicle

This lovely award has been forwarded to me by Jasline from Food Is My Life and Kajal from Purple Chronicle. I am honored that both Jasline and Kajal has forwarded this award to me. Both ladies have beautiful sites with lovely recipes and musings, be sure to stop by and say hello.
Thank you, Jasline and Kajal !!

In accepting both these awards, I'm forwarding both the Liebster Blog Award and The Versatile Blogger Award to the following wonderful blogs, each is unique in their own special way. Please do accept these two awards and forward them to 10 other blogger friends of your choice.

Abbygail from Abbygail's Kitchen
Jeannie from Baking Diary
Emily from Emily's Cooking (Makan2) Foray
Elpiniki
Yummy Chunklet
Hamareerasoi
Edith from Precious Moments
Radhika from Tickling Palates
Alice from I Love. I Cook. I Bake
Eva from Kitchen Inspirations

Thank you, everyone!!

Glazed Cinnamon Rolls : ABC Feb 2012

2012-02-02T06:00:00.001+08:00

I have always wanted to bake Cinnamon Rolls! Imagine how happy I was when I saw that Glazed Cinnamon Rolls is on Avid Baker's Challenge (ABC) February's bake. ABC is currently baking from "The Weekend Baker" by Abigail Johnson Dodge. This is the second recipe that I've tried, and it is another winner!

According to Abby, the dough is really sticky and advises us to resist the urge to add more flour. After I have kneaded for about 10 minutes, it was still very sticky, I read thru the recipe again and realised that I have used slightly more milk than the recipe states. I use one full cup of 250ml instead of 1 cup of 233ml (Abby's measurement) as stated. I then added in about 3 tablespoons of flour, it was still sticky, but I left it at that. And the only change I did was, I used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour as per the original recipe. The dough is shaped into a ball and left to rise for about 1 hour until nearly doubled in size. After rising for an hour, it is no longer sticky but wonderfully soft. It is then rolled out to a rectangle and spread with the filling. The dough is then rolled up like a jelly roll, and sliced at 1" interval to yield 12 pieces.

The rolls are placed in a pan and left to rise, covered for another 40 minutes or so, until they are almost doubled in size.

Bake the rolls for about 35 minutes until puffed and well browned. The smell of the rolls while baking, is deliciously wonderful!

These are delicious! The rolls are really soft and fluffy. Though we have the option of glazing the rolls, I omitted that, as I am not a fan of overly sweet desserts. These rolls are good on its own, without any glaze!

Yummy! So soft and fluffy! The next time when I make this, I will reduce the sugar for the filling as I find it a little too sweet.

Overall review : Really good! Soft, fluffy and absolutely delicious especially when eaten while still warm. A definite keeper recipe. You may find this delicious recipe from "The Weekend Baker" or get it here.

Please visit my fellow bakers at ABC to view their post on this yummy rolls.

Cherry-Vanilla Tea Cake with Vanilla Sugar : Free and Easy Bake-Along #17

2012-01-30T05:32:00.003+08:00

Thank you for all the Chinese New Year wishes!! I'm back from the week long Chinese New Year holidays and had a nice time travelling to my in-laws' and my dad's home. Well, CNY is not over yet, it will last for a total of 15 days and looking forward to another party this weekend!

Cherry-Vanilla Tea Cake with Vanilla Sugar, sounds really nice and fragrant! We made this for our Bake-Along, together with Lena from Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids.

The cake is a soft tender butter cake, lightly spiced with nutmeg. After the cake is baked, the top is sprinkled with vanilla sugar, a mixture of vanilla seeds with some sugar and confectioners' sugar while still hot, about 10 minutes after baking, then left to cool so that some of the sugar melts on the top.

This cake is perfect to go with tea! It's texture is light, tender, soft and moist. At first I was afraid that it might be sweet, but since I did reduced the sugar in the cake itself, so this is not a too sweet cake, really nice with the fragrant vanilla sugar.

Though some of the cherries stays throughout the cake, most of it settled at the bottom. But then, it does not affect the yumminess taste of the cake one bit!!

Overall review : A nice cake to have with a cup of tea for afternoon tea-break. It is light, soft, moist and tender. Another keeper recipe from Bon Appetit Desserts Cookbook.

Let's go over to Lena's and Zoe's and also to our friends in the linky below. For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking based on a theme "Red Velvet Cupcakes" which we will post on 13/02, in time for Valentine! Everyone's welcome! Just bake any Red Velvet Cupcakes and join us as we celebrate Valentine's Day! See you!

Cherry-Vanilla Tea Cake with Vanilla Sugar
(adapted from "Bon Appetit Desserts" by Barbara Fairchild)

A springform pan is ideal for this cake. The powdered sugar topping can be sifted over the hot cake while it's still in the pan - allowing some of the sugar to melt ever so slightly - then the sides can be slipped off without disturbing the topping. Tossing the cherries with the reserved flour mixture before they're added to the batter prevents them from sinking to the bottom

10 servings

1-1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar (I use 3/4 cup)
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream (I use homemade yoghurt)
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel (I use orange zest)
1 cup canned pitted sweet cherries, halved, drained
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly butter and flour 10-inch-diameter springform pan with 2-3/4-inch-high sides. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter and 1 cup sugar in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Blend in vanilla extract. Transfer 2 tablespoons dry ingredients to small bowl. At low speed, beat half the remaining dry ingredients into butter mixture, then mix in sour cream and lemon peel. Beat in remaining half of dry ingredients. Mix cherries into reserved 2 tablespoons dry ingredients; fold cherries into batter.

Spoon batter into prepared pan, smooth top. Bake until tester inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer cake to rack and cool 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, using small sharp knife, scrape seeds from vanilla bean into small bowl. Mix in remaining 1 tablespoon sugar, rubbing with fingertips to distribute seeds. Add powdered sugar and rub again.

Sift vanilla sugar over hot cake and cool. Cut around pan sides to loosen cake, remove pan sides.

Do Ahead : Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover; let stand at room temperature.

GONG XI FA CAI !!

2012-01-21T18:37:00.002+08:00

Here's wishing all my Chinese blogger friends

and readers GONG XI FA CAI. May the year of the dragon brings you good health, happiness, prosperity and longevity! And Happy Holidays to all!

Chinese New Year - AnitJi.com

Will be back end January, see you soon!

********

Bitter Gourd and Chicken Braised with Fermented Bean Paste

2012-01-14T08:30:00.005+08:00

This is a common dish that almost every Chinese household would dish up in their kitchen. In my house, we love bitter gourd. Though some of the bitterness may be lessen by marinating the sliced bitter gourd pieces with some salt, squeeze out some of the bitterness, rinse and cook as usual, I would usually omit this step. As my hubby says, it wouldn't be called a bitter gourd for nothing! This is one dish that you would not find in a Chinese New Year menu, definitely a no-no! In Chinese, bitter gourd melon is known as "fu gua", the word '"fu" meaning bitter, and having this melon at the start of a lunar year means that you will have a year of "bitterness". Nobody would want that! Since Chinese New Year is celebrated for 15 days, then it is alright to consume this melon after that period is over.

The ingredients needed for this dish : chicken pieces (skinless), slices of bitter gourd, pounded garlic, fermented bean paste and julienned ginger.

A plate of Bitter Gourd and Chicken Braised with Fermented Bean Paste is ready for our dinner.

It is not as bitter as you imagine it would be. It is really an acquired taste and once you "accept" the bitterness, it is really delicious! There are many varieties of Bitter Gourd Melon, their bitterness varies with each variety. The one I use above is what we commonly called the Chinese Bitter Gourd. Choose the ones with pale green in colour, it will be less bitter than the dark ones.

Bitter Gourd is good for you! It is low in calories and has high dietary fiber. It has excellent source of nutrients with vitamins B1, B2, B3, magnesium, folic acid, Vitamin C, zinc, phosphorus, manganese and rich in iron. It contains twice the beta-carotene of broccoli, twice the calcium of spinach and twice the potassium of a banana! Wow! All the goodness and delicious too! Have you tried Bitter Gourd Melon before, if not, then give it a try!

Bitter Gourd and Chicken Braised with Fermented Bean Paste
(by kitchen flavours)
1 medium bitter gourd
1 whole chicken thigh, skinned, and cut to small bite-sized pieces
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1-2 tablespoon ginger, julienned
4 garlic cloves, pounded
1 tablespoon fermented beans paste
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon black soy sauce
1 teaspoon light soy sauce or to taste
1/2 cup warm water

Cut bitter gourd to half lengthwise. Using a spoon, scoop out seeds and discard. Cut bitter gourds to 1-1/2" to 2" lengths and slice lengthwise to about 1/2 inch thickness.
Marinate chicken pieces with cornflour and 1 tablespoon water. Keep aside for 10 minutes.
Heat oil. When oil is hot, add in ginger, stir for a minute until fragrant. Add in pounded garlic, fermented beans paste, and stir for about 1-2 minutes until fragrant.
Add in the chicken pieces and stir until chicken is no longer pink. Add water, stir to combine and cover, lower heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Add in bitter gourd, oyster sauce, black soy sauce, light soy sauce and stir till well combined.
Cover and continue to simmer, stirring now and then, adding a little water if appears dry, until bitter gourd is tender and chicken is cooked.
Dish up and serve hot.

Brownie Buttons : Free and Easy Bake-Along No. 16 - Theme : Brownies

2012-01-12T16:40:00.009+08:00

I am late for my own Bake-Along "Brownie" posting. I was absent for a week as there was some personal matters that I have got to attend to and now that everything is fine, I can't help thinking about baking something! So here's my brownie!

This is a fairly easy brownie to make, really quick, it was done in about 20 minutes. It has a moist and soft cake-like texture. Do not skip the white choc coating, I think it taste better with the white chocolate.

If you have not visited my baking buddies Lena and Zoe, do hop over to their blogs and see their lovely brownies. Also please do visit our other baking friends delicious brownies, in the linky below. For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking Cherry Vanilla Teacake with Vanilla Sugar, from Bon Appetit Desserts cookbook, or you may get the recipe here. We will post it on 30/01 and our linky will stay open for 5 days, please do join us. See you!

Brownie Buttons
(adapted from "Baking From My Home To Yours" by Dorie Greenspan)
Grated zest of 1/2 orange (optional)
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1/2 stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2-1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar (I use scant 1/3 cup, loosely packed)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg

For the glaze (optional)
2 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped

GETTING READY :

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter two miniature muffin pans, each with a dozen cups, and place them on a baking sheet.

If you're using the orange zest, combine the zest and sugar in a small bowl, rubbing them between your fingertips to blend, set aside. Whisk together the flour and salt.

Melt the butter, chocolate and brown sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over very low heat, stirring frequently with a heatproof spatula and keeping an eye on the pan so nothing overheats or burns. When the mixture is smooth, remove from the heat and cool for a minute or two.

Stir the vanilla, egg and the zest, if you're using it, into the chocolate mixture. When the mixture is well blended, add the flour and stir only until it is incorporated. You should have a smooth, glossy batter.

Spoon the batter into 16 of the muffin cups, using about a teaspoon of batter to fill each cup three-quarters full. Put 1 teaspoon of water in each empty cup.

Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, or until the tops of the buttons spring back when touched. Transfer the pans to racks to cool for 3 minutes before carefully releasing the buttons. Cool to room temperature on the racks.

TO MAKE THE OPTIONAL GLAZE :

Melt the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Stir constantly and don't leave the chocolate for even a minute - white chocolate scorches easily. As soon as the chocolate is smooth, remove from the heat.

One by one, dip the tops of the buttons into the chocolate, twirling the buttons so that you get a little swirl at the center of each one and the excess chocolate drips back into the bowl. Refrigerate the buttons for 15 minutes to set the glaze.

kitchen flavours notes :
Watch out for the baking time, mine was done in about 10 minutes.

Cauliflower Pickles

2012-01-06T09:30:00.002+08:00

These Cauliflower Pickles are so addictive! They are great served alongside roasted meats, and make really good appetizer, in my case, so addictive to snack on, that it is so difficult to stop! I have made this a couple of times already, and everyone who has tasted this love it!

They do look kinda plain, but do not let that fool you, make a batch and see for yourself!

For full flavour, make these a couple of days before serving, I let them sit in the brine solution, stored in the fridge for three days before I actually eat them. On the second day, I tested one (alright, a few!) and found that I got to add in more rice vinegar and sugar, depending on how sour or sweet you want. Stir with a chopstick or long spoon and wait for another day or two before consuming.

Do not cut the florets into big chunks, just cut them up into suitable sizes that are easy to pop into the mouth in one bite! It makes munching easier and is tastier as the solution gets soaked into the florets! Trust me! If you are not a fan of cauliflower, this might turn you around.

These should be eaten cold, right out from the fridge. Crunchy, sweet, sour with a tinge of the garlic and ginger. If you do not like the strong garlic smell, just reduce the amount to 1 clove. However, if you love garlic, do not be tempted to put in more, the taste of the garlic will be too strong. Just follow the recipe for the right amount of garlic. Pop the garlic and ginger in your mouth when you have finished with the cauliflower! Yum! Great as a refreshing appetizer for parties! I made this for a Christmas party two weeks ago and will be making this again for the coming Chinese New Year. There will be lots of "rich food" during festivities and this will be a great "snack"!

I'm sharing this with :
Cookbook Sunday hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

This is the original recipe, you may adjust the rice vinegar, sugar and salt according to your own taste. This recipe makes a large amount. I halved the recipe and got three bottles as per the photos above.
Cauliflower Pickles
(adapted from "The Chinese Kitchen" by Eileen Yin-Fei Lo)
3 quarts cold water
5 garlic cloves, peeled
One 1-inch-thick slice fresh ginger
3-1/2 pounds fresh cauliflower, cut into 1-1/2-inch florets
1-3/4 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups Chinese white rice vinegar or distilled vinegar
5-1/2 cups cold water
4 teaspoons salt

In a large pot, bring the 3 quarts of water to a boil with the garlic and ginger. Add the cauliflower and blanch for 30 to 45 seconds. Do not overcook. Remove from the heat and run cold water into the pot. Drain. Fill the pot with cold water and let the cauliflower rest in cold water for 15 minutes, then drain.
In an oversized glass jar, place the sugar, vinegar, 5-1/2 cups water, and salt. Stir with a wooden spoon to ensure that the sugar and salt are completely dissolved. Add the cauliflower, garlic, and ginger. Cover the jar. (A jar with a plastic screw top is preferred, if unavailable, place a piece of plastic wrap over the top before closing.) Refrigerate for at least 24 hours before serving. Serve cold. The cauliflower pickles will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to 6 months.

Nut-Crusted Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake : ABC Jan 2012

2012-01-02T07:10:00.005+08:00

This is my first post in 2012 and also with Avid Baker's Challenge (ABC). ABC is currently baking from "The Weekend Baker" by Abigail Johnson Dodge, also known as Abby Dodge. I have not baked any of Abby Dodge's recipes before this, but I am liking what I have baked.

Chocolate Banana Swirl Cake is the first recipe that ABC is baking from "The Weekend Baker" cookbook, and was chosen by Abby herself! I was pretty excited about baking this cake as it sounds delicious and it is! This cake is baked in a bundt pan which was greased and sprinkled with the mixture of chopped walnuts and sugar. The bananas are creamed together with the butter and sugar first, with the addition of eggs, buttermilk (which I substitute with the mixture of yoghurt and milk) and flour. I did reduce the sugar from the original of 1-1/4 cup (about 250gm) to 170gm, which is just right for me. Half the batter is then mixed with some melted chocolate.

Spoonfuls of the two batter are placed in the bundt pan, and finish off with a clockwise and anti-clockwise swirl with a spatula.

It smells wonderful while it was baking in the oven. Could not wait to try a slice.

I could not help myself, ate a slice while still warm. Yum!

This cake has wonderful texture. It is moist and soft, with tender crumbs, with the right balance of bananas. The mixture of walnuts and sugar adds a wonderful bite, the crispy walnuts is a nice contrast against the soft tender cake. This is simply a wonderful cake, perfect for tea.

This recipe can be found in "The Weekend Baker" or from Fine Cooking, here. Please visit ABC bakers to read other bakers's post on this lovely cake.

Kitchen Flavours 2nd Blogoversary & Happy New Year!!

2011-12-31T10:10:00.019+08:00

Kitchen Flavours is 2 years old today! I just cannot believe that I have been blogging for two whole years! Thank you for all the support and encouragement from all my blogger friends all around the globe! I really appreciate all your visits and valuable comments. Here's to another year of wonderful cooking and baking! Cheers!!

Thank you, friends!!

****************************************

I would like to wish everyone

A HAPPY NEW YEAR

AND

A GREAT 2012!!

****************************************

Mango-Lime Jam

2011-12-28T20:10:00.003+08:00

More mangoes from my friend! Made this delicious Mango-Lime Jam. It is not too sweet, well I did reduce the sugar! If you have some extra ripe mangoes around, this would be a lovely jam to make.

This is fairly simple and quick to make. Just make sure you wear your kitchen gloves when stirring, and use a ladle with a long handle, as with most jams, as it boils, it will pop and imagine the hot jam landed on your skin, you would not want that! Ouch!

I love my jam a little runny, it will set further as it cools.

Guess where this spoonful of delicious jam ended up after this and ....

.... this photos are taken? Hehehe ! :) Yummilicious!

Yield : 3 bottles of 250ml size. One for my friend, one for my toast, and .....

...... I've used up the third jar for the Orange Mille Crepe in my previous post. :o)
I made this jam about a month ago actually, and my jar that I reserved for toast has already finished!

I'm sharing this with

Cookbook Sundays, hosted by Sue from Couscous & Consciousness
Hearth & Soul Hop hosted by Mom's Sunday Cafe

Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Mango-Lime Jam
(adapted from "The Joy of Jam, Jellies and Other Sweet Preserves" by Linda Ziedrich)
Makes about 2 pints
2 pounds peeled and cubed mango
1/2 cup lime juice
2-3/4 cups sugar

Put the mango cubes and lime juice into a preserving pan. Stirring often, simmer until the mango is tender. Remove the pan from the heat and mash the mango lightly with a potato masher.
Add the sugar to the pan. Over medium heat, stir until the sugar is dissolved. Raise the heat to medium-high and boil the jam until a drop mounds in a chilled dish.
Ladle the jam into pint or half-pint mason jars. Add lids and rings, and process the jars in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

kitchen flavour's notes:

For the lime juice, I use slightly less than 1/2 cup, about 2 tablespoons less.
For the sugar, I only use 1-1/4 cup, as I do not like my jam overly sweet. Even with this lesser amount of sugar, the jam sets rather well. Sugar is a form of preservative, but since I do not intend to keep this jam for long, so this is fine with me.

Pumpkin Chip Muffins

2011-12-26T20:00:00.007+08:00

First of all, thank you for all the Christmas wishes! We had a fantastic Christmas celebration over at my sister's house. Lots of delicious food, good company and lots of presents! Now that the Christmas holiday is over (for me at least), it is time to plan for the coming Chinese New Year, in less than a month!

Today, I'm sharing a lovely muffin recipe which I baked about two weeks ago. I have about 3 cups of homemade pumpkin puree in my freezer which I made last month and wanted to finish them up. My nieces and nephew came for a visit two weeks ago, perfect timing to use some of my pumpkin puree for these lovely Pumpkin Chip Muffins.

Homemade pumpkin puree

These muffins are delicious. They are really moist, soft and tasty.

As usual I reduced the sugar, to half, you would not miss out on the other half of the sugar. The sweetness is just right and with the chocolate chips scattered all over, it is definitely chocolaty sweet. I reserved some of the choc chips and sprinkle over the top of the batter before baking.

These muffins was a hit. It was really good when eaten either warm or at room temperature. And they stay soft and moist even the next day. A definite keeper recipe!

I'm sharing this with
Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes

Pumpkin Chip Muffins
(adapted from "750 Best Muffin Recipes" by Camilla V. Saulsbury)
Makes 12 muffins
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I use 1/4 tsp)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt (I use slightly less)
1 cup granulated sugar (I use 1/2 cup)
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400F (200C)
12-cup muffin pan, lined with paper liners

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt.
In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla until well blended.
Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just blended. Gently fold in chocolate chips.
Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups.
Bake in a preheated oven for 15 to 18 minutes or until tops are golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then transfer to the rack to cool.

Apricot and Walnut Bars : Free and Easy Bake-Along #15

2011-12-22T00:00:00.017+08:00

This is such a delight to eat! For our Bake-Along this week, together with my baking buddies, Lena from Her Frozen Wings and Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids, we baked this fabulous "Apricot and Walnut Bars". It is a two-layer bar, the bottom is a buttery shortbread, the top is filled with apricots and toasted walnuts.

This is baked in a 8x8" pan, just a right portion for the family. The brown sugar used for the top makes a beautiful brown.

The shortbread crust is buttery and the topping is really nice, with the mixture of moist dried apricots which has been softened by boiling it first before baking, and the toasted walnuts gave a nutty, delicious crunch.

I baked this at night, we had a piece each and finished the rest the next day. I find that after leaving overnight, it tasted even better. It is even more moist, soft and tastier the next day. Definitely a bar that is worth making again!

This delicious Apricot Walnut Bars is our Bake-Along's last bake for the year 2011! How time passes by! There will be more interesting and fun bakes in the year ahead! Do join us, bake along together with us! Everyone is welcome!

Please stop by at Lena, Zoe and our friends who are baking along with us at the linky below. For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking everyone's favourite, Brownies! Yup, our theme is "Brownies". You may bake any brownies. Do you have a favourite or maybe a recipe that you have eyeing for ages? Now is the time to make just that and join us on 9th January 2012, our linky will stay open for 5 days. See you!

Apricot and Walnut Bars
(adapted from "Bon Appetit Desserts" by Barbara Fairchild)
Shortbread Layer
Nonstick vegetable oil and spray
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Apricot Layer
2/3 cup (packed) dried apricot halves, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup (packed) golden brown sugar (I use loosely packed 3/4 cup)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Powdered sugar

Shortbread Layer
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray 8x8x2-inch glass baking dish with nonstick spray. Blend flour, sugar, and salt in processor. Add butter, using on/off turns, process until coarse meal forms. Press crumbs firmly onto bottom of prepared dish. Bake until center is golden, about 25 minutes. Maintain oven temperature.

Apricot Layer
Meanwhile, place apricots in small saucepan; add enough water to cover. Boil until soft, about 4 minutes; drain. Set aside and cool.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into small bowl. Using electric mixer, beat eggs in large bowl. Add brown sugar and vanilla, beat until blended. Stir in flour mixture, then nuts and apricots. Spread over shortbread.

Bake until puffed and dark brown and tester inserted into topping comes out with small moist crumbs attached, about 35 minutes. Cool in dish.

Cut into bars. Transfer to waxed paper. Sift powdered sugar over bars.

**********************************

I would like to wish everyone "A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS". Have a fun, enjoyable time with your family and friends! And for those who are travelling either to your loved ones or for a festive holiday, wish you a Safe and Comfortable journey to your destination and back home again! See you!

**********************************

Pork And Black-Eyed-Pea Chili

2011-12-20T10:13:00.002+08:00

A lovely bowl of chili, I had this with Chilli Corn Bread, from my previous post. This is another wonderful recipe from Rachael Ray's "Look+Cook".

Unlike some recipes which calls for 2-3 hours of simmering, this is fairly easy and quick. It takes about only an hour of preparation and cooking.

A delicious bowl of chili, with some hint of spiciness. For a milder taste, the chili powder and hot sauce may be reduced.

We really enjoyed this with chunks of Chili Corn Bread. Yum!

I'm sharing this with :

Cookbook Sundays hosted by Couscous & Consciousness

See Ya In The Gumbo#11 Potluck hosted by Ms.enPlace

Savory Sunday hosted by The Sweet Details

Saturdays with Rachael Ray hosted by Taste and Tell
Hearth & Soul Hop hosted by Mom's Sunday Cafe

Pork and Black-Eyed-Pea Chili
(adapted from "Look+Cook" by Rachael Ray)
Serves 4
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 pound andouille sausage, chopped or crumbled
1 pound ground pork
1 onion, chopped
2 to 3 celery stalks from the heart with leafy tops, chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped (I added in 1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped)
2 to 3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
Salt and pepper
A few sprigs of fresh thyme, leaves removed and chopped
1 tablespoon sweet smoked paprika, a palmful
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander, 2/3 palmful
2 cups chicken stock
1 (14-ounce can) petite diced tomatos or diced tomatoes with mild chiles
1 (14-ounce can) black-eyed peas, drained
2 tablespoons hot sauce
2 scallions, chopped
4 toaster corn muffins or 2 corn muffins, split and toasted, buttered

In a large heavy pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and brown for a couple minutes, then add the pork and brown and crumble it for another couple minutes. Add the onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, bay leaf, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook to soften the vegetables, 5 to 6 minutes. Add the thymes, spices, stock, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, and hot sauce. Stir, bring to a bubble, then reduce the heat and cook for 10 to 12 minutes more. Discard the bay leaf. Serve in shallow bowls. Top the bowls of chili with the scallions and toaster corn muffins or crumbled toasted split muffins.

Chilli Corn Bread

2011-12-17T23:00:00.010+08:00

We had Chilli Corn Bread with Pork and Black-Eyed-Pea Chili for our Sunday night dinner (well, several Sunday nights ago!). Instead of our usual rice meals from Mondays to Fridays, on weekends, I try to venture into other cuisines that I've always wanted to try out.

A really good, satisfying dinner!

I have tried a few other recipes of Corn Bread before and never did post any of them, mostly because I find them either too dry or too bland, with not much taste. But this is different. This Chilli Corn Bread is really good! It is so easy to prepare, it was done within minutes. The only "work" is to slice the chillis and spring onions! The recipe calls for dried chillies, but I used fresh chillies instead. It has yoghurt, milk and cheese, and together with the spring onions (fresh from my garden) and chillis, makes a really tasty bread! We had this for dinner about 40 minutes after it was out of the oven, and it was yum!

The texture is moist, soft and really tasty! Just break the cornbread into chunks and add to the bowl of chilis. Delicious! I had some leftover which I heated up in the oven, wrapped in aluminium foil and it was just as good! Give this a try when you plan to have a chili night, I am sure that you will like it!

I'm sharing this with
Cookbook Sundays, hosted by Sue from Couscous & Consciousness
Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes
Savory Sunday at The Sweet Details

Chilli Corn Bread
(adapted from "The Bread Book" by Sara Lewis)
1 tablespoon caster sugar
150gm yellow cornmeal
250gm plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
50gm butter, softened
50gm Parmesan cheese, grated (I use Cheddar Cheese)
2 large whole dried chillies, finely chopped (I used fresh red chillies, remove seeds and finely chopped)
6 spring onions, finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
150gm natural yoghurt
300ml milk

Line the base and grease the base and sides of a deep 18cm (7-inch) square cake tin.
Put the dry ingredients into a large bowl, add the butter, cheese, chillies and spring onion. Whisk the eggs, yoghurt and milk together in a jug and add to the dry ingredients and mix well. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and level the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven, 160C (325F), Gas Mark 3, for 45-55 minutes or until well risen and golden and the top has cracked slightly. Check the bread is cooked by inserting a skewer into the center. If it comes out cleanly, the bread is ready.
Holding the tin with oven gloves, loosen the bread with a palette knife. Transfer to a wire rack and peel off the lining paper. Leave to cool.

Upcoming Post : Pork and Black-Eyed-Pea Chili.

Walnut Cake with Coffee Icing

2011-12-14T22:56:00.007+08:00

I love to bake snacking cakes. They are half the height of the normal pound cakes or butter cakes, and that means they will be eaten up much sooner once they are cut and divided! And that gives me an excuse to bake something else! LOL!

Snacking cakes are usually easy and quick to make. This walnut cake is only 8" square, the perfect size to eat for a day or two.

This cake uses whipping cream instead of butter. The coffee icing is what an icing should be, sweet! If you have a sweet tooth, then you would like this icing, for me it is just too sweet! As usual I reduced the sugar slightly for the cake!

Look at the glossy sweet coffee icing flowing down. Do you like coffee? I most certainly do, got to have my cuppa first thing in the morning before I start the day! For this recipe, I use Nescafe instant coffee powder since I do not have any espresso powder.

Great with a cup of plain tea or a cup of hot black coffee. Want a slice? :)

I'm sharing this with

Cookbook Sundays, hosted by Sue from Couscous & Consciousness

Full Plate Thursday hosted by Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Hearth and Soul Blog Hop hosted by Melynda's Sunday Cafe
Bake with Bizzy hosted by Bizzy Bakes

Walnut Cake with Coffee Icing
(adapted from "Piece of Cake" by Camilla V. Saulsbury)
Makes 9 servings
Preheat oven to 350F (180C)
8-inch (20cm) square metal baking pan, sprayed with nonstick baking spray with flour

Ingredients :
1 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 cup packed light brown sugar (I use slightly less than a cup, loosely packed)
1-1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup heavy or whipping (35%) cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts
Coffee icing

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. Add eggs, cream and vanilla to flour mixture. Using an electric mixer on medium-low speed, beat for 1 minute, until blended. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a spatula. Beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Gently stir in walnuts. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 28 to 33 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack. Spread or drizzle icing over top of cooled cake.

I only make half a recipe from the following coffee icing for the above cake, which is sufficient.
Coffee Icing :
Makes 1-1/4 cups (300ml)
2-1/4 cups confectioners' (icing) sugar (I use slightly less than 2 cups)
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
3 tbsp milk
2 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Dissolve 2 tsp instant espresso powder in the milk before whisking.
In a small bowl, whisk together confectioners' sugar, butter, milk mixture and vanilla until blended and smooth. Use immediately.

Keledek Gula (Warm Sweet Potato Dessert)

2011-12-12T19:00:00.004+08:00

December has been a really busy month! Please forgive me for not visiting as often lately. There seems to be a million things to do! I've just came back from a short vacation and has been out of the house ever since. Christmas is just round the corner, there are Christmas presents to shop for, the new school term will be reopened in about three week's time, have not even got round to buy the school uniform, shoes, stationeries and other school things for the kids! I will be busy this coming weekend, and there will be a gathering for Christmas the next weekend, and school will start about a week later. I have not baked anything for three whole weeks and have not cooked a single meal in the last ten days! And Chinese New Year is on 23rd of January, gosh, really tired just thinking about the shopping and preparation for Chinese New Year! And got to consider about the "$$$" too!

Today's post is a simple dessert which I have made a couple of weeks ago. This dessert brings back memories to my childhood days. I have been having Fan Shi Tong Sui (Sweet Potato Dessert), as long as I can remember. Being Nyonya, we would call it Keledek Gula, Keledek meaning Swee Potato and Gula meaning Sugar. Though when I was young, this is not my favourite bowl of dessert. My mom would make this once in a while, and I would only eat a bowl, preferring the sweet watery syrup over the sweet potatoes, and would seldom eat more than a bowl. Now that I am older, over the years I have began to appreciate this simple dessert, and the humble sweet potatoes. I'm sure that many of us, at least my blogger friends that are residing in Malaysia and Singapore would have some sort of childhood memories with the mention of this simple dessert.

There's no exact measurement to this simple dessert. Here, I have used a mixture of orange and yellow sweet potatoes. I would sometimes cook this over the weekends as a late afternoon dessert. This is especially good too when one is not feeling well, and have no appetite for heavy meal. Sweet potatoes are good for you, they are rich in Vitamin A, C and a whole lot of other goodness!
The pandan leaves give the fragrance aroma and the ginger add a nice twist to an otherwise bland syrup. It is usually eaten warm or at room temperature, my preference would be to eat it while still very warm.

A bowl of comforting, simple dessert.

Sweet Potato Dessert
by kitchen flavours
serves 4 to 6
about 800gm sweet potatoes
water (enough to cover sweet potatoes and some extra)
sugar to taste
about 80gm ginger root, peeled, cut to three and bruised lightly
2 pandan (screwpines) leaves, each tie into a knot

Fill a medium stock-pot with water and let it come to a boil while you prepare the sweet potatoes. Add in the bruised ginger pieces, pandan leaves and sugar. Let it boil and simmer for about 30 minutes to release the fragrance and taste of the ginger. The amount of ginger depends on your preference. For a stronger gingery taste, more ginger may be added in. But if you are serving to kids, then go easy on the ginger. This dessert is supposed to be a little on the sweet side, test for sweetness, and add more sugar if necessary. The sweet potatoes are peeled and cut into bite-sized wedges. Wash the cut sweet potatoes under running water to remove the milky sticky sap. Add in the sweet potates to the boiled syrup and leave to boil uncovered till the sweet potatoes are fork tender, which would take about 10-15 minutes, depending on the variety of sweet potatoes. Serve warm in individual medium-sized bowls.

Tip : remove the ginger and discard, as the longer it sits in the syrup, the syrup will get more spicier.

Orange Mille Crepe : Free And Easy Bake-Along #14, Theme : Pancakes And Crepes

2011-12-08T08:41:00.002+08:00

It is great to Bake-Along with Lena and Zoe. Otherwise I do not think that I'll be making this Orange Mille Crepe which I have bookmarked to make ever since I bought the magazine back in May 2010. For this round, our theme is "Pancakes and Crepes", perfect to remove one post-it stickers among the many that pops up in my cookbooks and magazines! Don't you love it when one sticker is down? I feel happy when I do that! (wink!!)

The original recipe is called "Orange Flower Water Mille Crepe" but I do not have any Orange Flower Water, so I use some orange extract. According to the magazine, "Mille" means a thousand in French, and mille crepe is a sandwich cake made by stacking many layers of crepes. Between the crepes layers, add a layer of sweetened whipped cream or fruit jam."

Though the original recipe calls for either apricot jam or marmalade, I guess any favourite jam will do. For this, I used my own homemade Mango Jam.

I used a loose bottom cake pan when I stacked up the crepes with the filling. Either refrigerate to be served later or unmould the finished crepe, sliced and serve immediately.

Do you have a jar of forgotten jam that has been sitting in the fridge, completely forgotten? Then this is a great way of using all that jam! You can prepare the crepe up to a day ahead, keep covered in the refrigerator and assemble the next day, that's what I did.

Cut to wedges, dust the top with icing sugar if you like, and serve.

Simply delightful!

To see Lena's, Zoe's and the others yummy pancakes and crepes, click on the links below. For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking Apricot Walnut Bars from Bon Appetit Desserts Cookbook, page 595, or you can get the recipe here. Join us in our Bake-Along on 22nd Dec. See you!

Orange Mille Crepe
(adapted from "flavours" magazine, May-June 2010 issue)
For the Sweet Crepe batter
250gm flour
3 eggs
1 pinch salt
50gm caster sugar
500ml milk
50gm butter, melted
2 tablespoons orange flower water (I use 1 teaspoon orange extract)
grated zest of an orange

To prepare batter : Place the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Add eggs, salt and sugar. Add a little bit of milk and whisk until smooth. Add the rest of the milk, whisk and rest batter for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator - preferably overnight. Strain and add melted butter, orange flower water and orange zest, mix well.

To cook crepe : Brush pan with oil and place over low heat. When hot, but not smoking, pour a ladleful of batter into the pan - just enough to coat the base in a thin layer when pan is swirled. Cook for about 30 seconds. Flip the crepe over to cook the other side for another 30 seconds. Set aside. Repeat, stacking up the crepes as you work.

For The Chantilly
200ml whipping cream
40gm icing sugar
200gm apricot jam or marmalade (I use my homemade mango jam)
icing sugar for dusting
edible flowers for decorating (optional)

To prepare chantilly : In a mixing bowl, combine the cream and icing sugar and beat on medium to high speed until thick and stiff. Chill in the refrigerator.

To assemble : Using a spatula or pastry scraper, spread a layer of Chantilly on the first crepe. Top with another crepe and spread with apricot jam or marmalade. Repeat the layers, alternating the Chantilly and fruit jam filling each time to use up the crepes, or until you have a cake with a height of 6 to 8cm. Use a ring mould to help you do this if you like. Dust the top with icing sugar and decorate with edible flowers, if desired.

Preserved Roasted Peppers with Basil

2011-12-03T16:45:00.004+08:00

Another pepper post! Well a couple of days ago, I bought some bell peppers in traffic light colours, red, yellow and green. I used a red one for some Chile Jam which I made in my previous post, used some for my veggie stir-fries and have a few more whole peppers in my fridge. I'll be going for a short holiday with my family, there will be no cooking for a few days and thought of using up all the peppers in a recipe which I found in Rachel Allen's Favourite Food At Home.

Traffic light peppers! :o)

The peppers are first roasted in the oven for about 40 minutes, they will be soft and slightly blackened, and smells wonderful, the smell of roasted peppers.

Transfer to a bowl while still hot, keep covered, leave them until cool enough to handle, or until it comes to room temperature. The hot peppers will sweat (water) and its' own steam will make the peeling of the skin easier to handle.

After the skin are peeled, break the peppers into quarters.

Place them in a sterilized glass jar, layering the peppers in between pieces of fresh basil leaves. I added in a pinch of salt. Pour some olive oil over until peppers are soaked in oil.

You may serve immediately or keep in the refrigerator. I prefer to keep it for a few days before consuming, so that the flavours of the basil leaves are released. Use this in salads, would be perfect for the coming festive season.

Will be using this soon, when I'm back!

I'm submitting this to the Christmas Giveaway in The Sweet Spot, any dish or bake, sweet or savory, with green and/or red in it. Please hop over to The Sweet Spot for more details.

Preserved Roasted Peppers with Basil

(adapted from "Rachel's Favourite Food At Home" by Rachel Allen)

4 peppers, of various colours, left whole

Olive oil

Basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 230C (450F), gas mark 8. Rub some olive oil over the peppers, then pop on a baking tray in the oven. Cook for about 40 minutes, or until very soft and a little blackened. Take them out of the oven, put into a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to cool.

Once the peppers are cool enough to handle, take them out of the bowl and use your fingers to peel off the skin and break the peppers into quarters. Do not rinse in water or you'll lose the flavour. Then, using a butter knife, scrape the seeds away, which should leave just the flesh. Layer in a sterilised jar, adding basil leaves between the peppers, and fill up with olive oil.

kitchen flavour's notes :

I added in a pinch of salt before I pour in the oil.

Chile Jam

2011-11-30T16:08:00.002+08:00

Don't be mistaken, this Chile Jam, is not meant to be spread over your bread or toast for breakfast like the regular jam! But then if you would like to do that, no one would stop you! I did try actually, haha! It is quite nice, considering that this is not spicy at all. According to Nigella, this Chile Jam is usually eaten with cold meats or a cheese plate.

An equal proportion of Red Chile and Red Bell Pepper is used for a mild spiciness. For a spicier kick, Hot Red Chile may be increased, and use less of the Red Bell Pepper. I used equal amount of both, I would love to have a spicier taste, but then, I have kids in the house, and too spicy is a no-no!

Half a cup of chopped Red Chiles, about 4 large. I only made half the recipe from the original recipe below. Since I do not own a food processor, I chopped the chiles instead.

Half a cup of chopped Red Bell Pepper, about 1 medium.

Apple cider vinegar, sugar and powdered pectin are boiled until sugar and pectin dissolves. Chopped chiles are then added in, leave to boil for about 15 minutes. Leave to cool slightly, about 40 minutes until the chiles are suspended in the jelly. Ladle into the sterilized jars.

The vibrant red colour of the Chile Jam. I could not get a nice shot of the jars without any reflections on the jars. I tried putting them on the counter, near the window, in various places, in the end, I gave up.

That is, until much later at night, when I wanted to store the jar in the refrigerator, my goodness, it looks so lovely in the refrigerator, no reflections at all! Hahaha! Imagine that, the best shot is taken from my refrigerator!

The vibrant red, beautiful Chile Jam! There are lots of way to use this Chile Jam, as a marinade, as a sauce dip, etc... I'm really looking forward to use this soon. I have been eyeing this recipe ever since I saw it from my sister's Nigella Christmas cookbook more than a year ago! Now I have a copy of this book, got it real cheap at a recent sale. Don't you just love sales, especially when there's cheap and beautiful cookbooks around? Hehehe!

I'm submitting this to the Christmas Giveaway in The Sweet Spot, any dish or bake, sweet or savory, with green and/or red in it. Please hop over to The Sweet Spot for more details.

Chile Jam
(adapted from "Nigella Christmas" by Nigella Lawson)
Makes 1-1/2 quarts
1 cup seeded and roughly chopped fresh red serrano chiles (5 oz unprepared)
1 cup cored and seeded roughly chopped red bell pepper (5 oz unprepared)
5 cups sugar
1 x 1.75oz box powdered fruit pectin, such as Ball's original fruit pectin
2-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
6 x 1 cup resealable jars, with vinegar-proof lid, such as French hermetic seal jars or reuseable pickle jars

Sterilize your jars and leave to cool.
Put the cut-up chiles into a food processor and pulse until they are finely chopped. Add the chunks of bell pepper and pulse again until you have a vibrantly red-flecked processor bowl.
Dissolve the sugar and pectin in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring.
Scrape the chile pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring the pan to the boil, then leave it at a rollicking boil for 15 minutes.
Take the pan off the heat and allow it to cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly-like as it cools.
After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly dispersed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the bits of chile and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating on it), ladle into your jars. If you want to stir gently at this stage, it will do no harm. Then seal tightly.

Make Ahead Tip :

Make the jam up to 1 month before using or giving. Store in a cool, dark place for up to 1 year. Once opened, store in the refrigerator and use within 1 month.

kitchen flavours notes :
* For a slightly softer set, use less 1 tablespoon of the pectin. I guess the quality of the pectin varies. The one I used has no brand, other than the indication that it is from France. But it does not effect the taste of the Jam, really good.
* For half the recipe, I only got about 2-1/4 jars of 250ml-sized jars.

Pesto Pizza

2011-11-28T00:02:00.004+08:00

This Pesto Pizza is now my favourite pizza! Really! "Such a simple pizza, yet totally divine" as described by Rebecca Baugniet from the book "500 Pizzas and Flatbreads". And it is exactly that!

I use my Homemade Basil Pesto from my previous post, told you that I'm making something delicious! And could have knock myself for not trying this out sooner as making Pesto has been on my list for months!

The taste is unbelievably delicious! So simple, yet so full and packed with flavour!

This is a thin pizza crust and it is so, so, crispy and tasty. The recipe states that the dough is to be divided into three, to make three 12-inch round pizzas. But my skill at rolling the dough to 1/2" pieces badly needs more practice (more pizza to eat! hahaha!). So I only made two pizzas which are meant for three! I thought that it would be like the regular crust, but am surprised that it actually turns out quite thin and oh, so crispy! I actually made this same crust for a sweet pizza in one of my older post, Strawberry Streusel Pizza.

Simple and easy, with only three ingredients for the topping. Pesto, tomatoes and cheese!

I have already used up more than half jar of my Homemade Basil Pesto. Eagerly waiting for my basil plant to grow, for my next jar!

Perfect crust! Delicious topping! Definitely my favourite pizza, at the moment!

I'm sharing this with Hearth and Soul Hop over at Mom's Sunday Cafe

I'm submitting this to the Christmas Giveaway in The Sweet Spot, any dish or bake, sweet or savory, with green and/or red in it. Please hop over to The Sweet Spot for more details.

Pesto Pizza
(adapted from "500 Pizzas and Flatbreads" by Rebecca Baugniet)
1 recipe basic thin pizza base**
175ml (6 fl oz) basic pesto
2 fresh tomatoes, thinly sliced
175gm (6 oz) grated mozzarella

Preheat the oven to the maximum setting, usually 240C (475F/Gas Mark 9). Place pizza stone or unglazed clay tiles on bottom of gas oven or lowest rack of electric oven.
Make three 30-cm (12-in) discs of pizza dough. Lightly dust pizza peel with flour or cornmeal.
Place one 30-cm (12-in) disc of pizza dough on peel and spread 60ml (4 tbsp) cup pesto over the dough, leaving a 1cm (1/2 in) border around the edge.
Arrange 6 to 8 slices of tomato and sprinkle 1/3 of the grated mozarella on top. Gently shake pizza from the peel to the stone or tiles.
Bake for 4 to 6 minutes, until cheese is melting and base is puffy around the edges and crisp on the bottom. Slide the peel back under the pizza to remove from oven. Repeat with remaining 2 pizzas.

** Basic Thin Pizza Base
(adapted from "500 Pizzas and Flatbreads" by Rebecca Baugniet)

This base rises only once and bakes in minutes, making it the quickiest base to make. It can be made into three 30-cm (12-in) pizzas, as desribed below, or divided into six individual 15-cm (6-in) pizzas. Baking time remains consistent.

175gm (6oz) plain flour
200gm (7 oz) strong white bread flour
5ml (1 tsp) sugar
5ml (1 tsp) easy-blend dried yeast
5ml (1 tsp) salt
22ml (1-1/2 tbsp) extra-virgin olive oil
225ml (8fl oz) very warm water

To prepare the pizza dough, combine flours. Mix 225gm (8oz) flour with the sugar, yeast, and salt in bowl of standing mixer. Set aside. Combine olive oil and warm water. With paddle attachment, slowly stir in the water and oil into the flour mixture until well combined. Mix in the remaining flour.

Change to dough hook attachment and knead on low for 4 to 5 minutes, until dough comes together as a ball and is smooth and elastic. If not using a standing mixer, turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for about 10 minutes.

Place dough in lightly oiled bowl and cover with clean paper towel. Set aside in a warm spot for 1-1/2 to 3 hours, until dough has almost doubled in volume.

Once dough has risen, use a sharp knife to divide the ball into 3 equal pieces. Shape each into a ball, and flatten to form a disc. Using fingers or rolling pin, stretch out each dist co 30-cm (12-in) rounds, which is very thin - about 2mm (1/12 in).

(my notes : I use the breadmaker to mix the dough, setting "Quick Dough", this setting will mix and knead the dough for six minutes. I removed the dough and let it rise in a greased bowl, covered with a greased cling film, for about 2 hours until doubled in size. I do not have a pizza peel or stone, I just baked the pizza on a regular 12-inch pizza pan, place it on the lowest rack in the oven, at 220C, and baked for about 20 minutes until sides are puffy and bottom is crispy)

Homemade Basil Pesto

2011-11-26T00:05:00.005+08:00

I have never tasted Pesto before this! Reason is Pesto is not exactly an Asian sauce. Ever since I started to blog, I have been seeing lots of Pesto recipes and in cookbooks too! Well, I was curious! It does sound delicious, as I love basil! There are ready-made Pesto sold in jars in certain supermarkets, but the thought of making my own has been on my mind for several months now.

Basil leaves from my garden, smells wonderful!

I did a search for Basil Pesto recipe and came to the conclusion that there is no fixed measurement when it comes to making Pesto. It all depends on individual taste. And I do not have a food processor, (it has been on my wishlist for quite a while!), so I use the blender. Though the traditional way of making Pesto is by using the mortar and pestle, which would give a tastier result as the basil and the rest of the ingredients are pounded together, thus giving a maximum flavour. Some recipes I've read, calls for the ingredients to be chopped, that's a lot of chopping to do! But for convenience and a quick time saving effort, the food processor is used by most people.

Pine nuts are extremely tasty! And expensive! May use walnuts instead.

My homemade Basil Pesto, organic Basil leaves from my own garden. The satisfaction of seeing home-grown herbs in a delicious paste. This sauce is delicious, now I know what the fuss is all about when it comes to Basil Pesto! (wink!).

I have almost finished this jar of pesto! Made something delicious with this pesto, coming up in next post. I'm already planning on making the next jar, with a mixture of fresh parsley!

I'm submitting this to the Christmas Giveaway in The Sweet Spot, any dish or bake, sweet or savory, with green and/or red in it. Please hop over to The Sweet Spot for more details.

Basil Pesto
(by kitchen flavours)
3-4 cups fresh basil leaves
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
1/3 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1/2 - 3/4 cup olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste

Put all ingredients except salt and pepper into a food processor or blender. Blend to a paste, slowly pour in the olive oil as you blend. More olive oil can be added for a thinner Pesto. Season with salt and pepper. Store in glass jar and keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks. Pesto may be stored in freezer for up to 3 to 4 months. Simply freeze them in ice cube trays, once frozen, remove and store in a container, in the freezer.

Key Lime Cupcake : Free and Easy Bake-Along #13

2011-11-23T00:01:00.001+08:00

For our Bake-Along #13, Lena from Frozen Wings, Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids and myself, we baked Key Lime Cupcake, recipe taken from Bon Appetit Dessert Cookbook. This is a really nice cupcake, perfect with the cream cheese frosting.

I like most cakes without frosting but for these, it tasted much yummier with the frosting. Do not skip the frosting! : 0)

I did add on a little of the green food colour to make it a lovely green.

The cream cheese frosting is "melting" real fast, due to the extremely hot weather here, it's blazing hot, 95 degrees F, the sun is glaring and I can feel the heat on my skin at 4.00pm! The cream cheese is getting very soft, I've got to put away the cupcakes in the fridge for the cream cheese to firm up again!

Overall this is a nice cupcake, the texture is soft and moist, we really enjoyed it.

And check out our lovely badge, designed by Zoe. Thank you, Zoe! You many copy the image if you like and paste it over at your post for each Bake Along that you join in!

To view this cupcake baked by other bakers, click on the linky below. Please feel free to join in. For our next Bake-Along, we will be baking based on a theme, which is "Pancakes and Crepes". Whip out your best pancakes or crepes, treat your family and friends with some delicious homemade pancakes or crepes and share that with us on 08/12. See you!

Key Lime Cupcakes
(adapted from "Bon Appetit Desserts" by Barbara Fairchild)
Makes 12 cupcakes
Cupcakes
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
3/4 cup self-raising flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1-1/4 cups sugar (I use 180gm)
2 large eggs
2-1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon neon green food colouring (optional)
3/4 cup buttermilk (I substitute by mixing 6 tbsp milk plus enough yoghurt to make 3/4 cup)

Frosting
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 (8-ounce) package Philadelphia-brand cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cupcakes : Preheat oven to 350F. Line 12 standard (1/3 cup) muffin cups with paper liners. Whisk both flours in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, beat to blend. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, then lime juice, lime peel, and food colouring, if using. (Batter may look curdled). Beat in flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with buttermilk in 2 additions. Spoon scant 1/3 cup batter into each liner.
Bake cupcakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely.

Frosting : Using electric mixer, beat all ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. Spread over cupcakes.

Creamy Pumpkin Cheesecake with Ginger-Pecan Crust

2011-11-20T09:40:00.010+08:00

This is my first posting with The Cake Slice bakers and I am pretty excited! We are currently baking from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle, and it so happens to be my favourite baking book at the moment! And I was thrilled when this recipe was chosen for this month's bake. The moment I browsed the book, this recipe was bookmarked, along with a few others!

But without the convenience of buying canned pumpkin puree off the rack, I would have to make the puree myself. Canned pumpkin puree is not easily available here, but fresh pumpkins are. The thought of making my own puree actually keeps me from trying out this cake sooner. We have pumpkins whole year round, so making our own puree is not a problem, that is if you can spare some time and effort. So now, I do not have any excuse not to go ahead and make the puree and start baking this cake!

The bottom crust is really nice. I could not find any pecans, so I just used ground hazelnut instead, which I happen to have exactly 33gm, the amount needed for! Co-incidence, maybe it was meant for this cake after all! It turned out really well, I really like the crust, with bits of crystallized ginger, also I do not have a food processor,I just used a pastry binder to mix everything into coarse crumbs, then I briefly knead by hand and need to add in about 3 tablespoons of flour as it was really, really sticky. It works out fine after that.

The cheese filling is really good. I use 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon instead of 1 teaspoon, as I want just a light fragrance of the spice. The sweetness is just right, it is not overly sweet and the texture is fabulous. I made the pumpkin seeds a couple of days earlier and got to stop myself from munching them all up!

Overall, this is one delicious Pumpkin Cheesecake. Tish Boyle did it again! This recipe is another wonderful keeper!

Please visit The Cake Slice Bakers to see this delicious cheesecake from the other members.

Creamy Pumpkin Cheesecake with Ginger-Pecan Crust
(adapted from "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle)
Ginger-Pecan Crust
1 cup (4.3oz/121gm) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup (1.9oz/54gm) firmly packed light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup (1.2oz/33gm) pecans (I use ground hazelnut)
1/4 cup (1.4oz/40gm) chopped crystallized ginger
1/2 cup (1 stick/4oz/113gm) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 tablespoon (15ml) cold water

Make The Crust :

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350F. Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9x3-inch springform pan. Cut an 18-inch square of heavy-duty aluminium foil and wrap the foil around the outside of the pan.
Place the flour, sugar, salt, pecan, and ginger in the bowl of a food processor and process until the pecans are finely ground. Add the butter and process until the mixture forms coarse crumbs. Add the water and process until the dough starts to come together. Press the dough into an even layer over the bottom of the prepared pan.
Bake the crust for 25 to 30 minutes, until it is just beginning to brown. Place the pan on a wire rack and cook completely. Reduce the oven temperature to 325F.

Pumpkin Cheesecake Filling
1 cup (240ml) pumpkin puree
1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspooon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 pounds (567gm) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup (3.5oz/100gm) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (3.8oz/108gm) firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tablespoon (0.3oz/7gm) cornstarch
4 large eggs

Make The Filling :

In a medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, heavy cream, vanilla extract, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese at medium-low speed until creamy, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Gradually add the sugars and beat until blended. Add the pumpkin mixture and mix until blended. Add the cornstarch and mix just until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Scrape the batter into the cooled crust. Place the wrapped pan in a roasting pan or large baking pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come 1 inch up the sides of the springform pan. Bake the cheesecake in the water bath for 70 to 80 minutes, until the center of the cake is set but slightly wobbly (the cake will set completely as it cools.)
Remove the cake pan from the water bath, place the pan on a wire rack, and carefully loosen the foil. Immediately run the tip of a paring knife around the sides of the pan, to prevent the top from cracking. Let the cake cool completely.
Refrigerate the cheesecake for at least 4 hours before serving.

Sugared Pumpkin Seeds
1/2 cup (2.5oz/70gm) hulled raw pumpkin seeds
1 large egg white
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons (0.9oz/25gm) granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Make The Pumpkin Seeds :

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F. Lightly grease a baking sheet.
Place the pumpkin seeds in a small bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the egg white just until frothy. Add just enough of the egg white to the pumpkin seeds to coat them. Add the salt, sugar and cinnamon, and toss well to coat the seeds.
Spread the seeds in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet. Bake, tossing them occasionally with a metal spatula, for 15 to 20 minutes, until they begin to dry and colour. Place the pan on a wire rack and cook completely.
With your fingers, separate any clumps of seeds. (The seeds can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week).
To serve, remove the side of the pan and slice the cake with a thin-bladed sharp knife, wiping the knife clean between each cut. Garnish each slice with a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of sugared pumpkin seeds.

Store in the refrigerator, loosely covered, for up to 5 days.

Garnish
Classic Whipped Cream
Makes 3 cups
1-1/2 cups (360ml) heavy cream
3 tablespoons (0.7oz/21gm) confectioners' sugar, sifted
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

In the chilled bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, whip the cream at high speed just until it begins to thicken. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat until soft peaks form. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate.

(Store in the refrigerator, covered, for up to 2 hours).

Carrot Salad With Cardamon, Ginger And Lemon

2011-11-18T10:00:00.003+08:00

For this week, I Heart Cooking Club, which is currently cooking from Tessa Kiros's recipes, theme is "Orange Skies". So, naturally I search for recipes with oranges as the ingredient. I did not want to bake any cakes or desserts, but wanted something savory instead.

While looking for recipes with oranges, I came across this Carrot Salad which sounds interesting with cardamon, ginger and lemon as the ingredients. And decided to give this a try instead. I have never tried carrots as the main ingredient in a salad before. It has always been ''one of the ingredients", along with other veggies.

The recipe calls for the carrots to be processed in a blender but not too fine as to keep some texture, but I grated the carrots instead, as I prefer to have more texture in my salad. This is a pretty simple and quick salad to put together. According to Tessa Kiros, this recipe is a friend of her mother's, who picked up this recipe in India. And this salad works well with spicy food.

Overall review : I like it. The sweetness of the carrots blends well with the spiciness of the cardamom, ginger and pepper, the tinge sourness of the lemon and the freshness from the mint leaves. Though I did not have this with any spicy food, yes, I think that it will complement well indeed with spicy meat dishes. I have some leftover which I kept in the fridge, and it tastes even better the next day!

To view other delightful yummies based on the theme "Orange Skies" hop over to I Heart Cooking Club.

Carrot Salad with Cardamom, Ginger and Lemon
(source from "Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros)
Ingredients
1-1/4 pounds (about 8 medium) carrots
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
juice of 2 lemons
2/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
a pinch of white pepper
1-1/4 inch piece of ginger, finely chopped or grated
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
a small handful of fresh mint leaves, to serve

Put the carrots in a blender and pulse into small pieces (not too fine as you need to keep some texture). Transfer to a bowl, add the onion, and mix together well.
To make the dressing, whisk together the lemon juice, oil, salt, sugar, white pepper, ginger and cardamom. Add to the carrots and onion, toss well, and then chill for a few hours. Toss in a few mint leaves before serving.

Mint Chocolate Bundt Cake for National Bundt Day

2011-11-15T19:26:00.004+08:00

Today is National Bundt Day! Did you know that? Well, I certainly was not aware of that, until Yummy Chunklet mentioned about National Bundt Day, and The Food Librarian! Thank you, Yummy Chunklet! So I'm baking this cake to celebrate National Bundt Day which falls on 15th November. Mary from The Food Librarian is organizing a Round-Up for only Bundts! A perfect excuse for me to bake another bundt and to use my new cookbook! (wink!)

This is another lovely recipe from the book "Cake Simple". Chocolate and Mint, they are certainly meant for each other!

I love bundt cakes, as they are simple and elegant, and since I do not like overly sweet desserts, I seldom iced or glaze my cakes, and mostly bundt cakes do not need any "dressing" to make them taste good! Well... sometimes there is an exception, like this cake, tastes extra delicious with the ganache!

My daughter has been asking for mint chocolate cake a number of times. So I made this, and it is really, really good! The cake is moist, soft with lovely texture, the mint and the chocolate all comes together in each spoonful. I made the ganache, using some mint leaves from my garden. Though, I think that if you do not have any mint leaves, you can just omit them out, since the cake itself is full of the mint flavour, you would not miss out on the mint! As you can see from the first picture above, I did not pour all the ganache on the cake, reserving it for individual serving instead! And as usual, I reduced the sugar for the cake!

This is a cake to bake for chocolate and mint lovers! If you are not, then you will be after having this!

Yum!

I took a peek at The Food Librarian and was amazed that Mary is baking a bundt cake each day for the month of November! That will be 30 Bundt Cakes! Wow! Go take a look! You will be amazed! And drool! And will want to get your bundt pan out to start baking! :o)

To view my other bundt cake bakes, please click on the recipes for the link;
Apple Butterscotch Bundt Cake
Brown Sugar Bundt Cake
Chocolate, Walnut and Prune Cake
Citrilicious Cake
Coconut Cake
Cranberry Creme Fraiche Bundt Cake
Lemon Bliss Cake
Lemon Soaked Ginger Pound Cake
Marble Cake
Nutty, Chocolaty, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake
Whipping Cream Cake

Mint Chocolate Bundt Cake

(adapted from "Cake Simple" by Christie Matheson)

Serves 10-12

Melted butter for greasing the pan

3/4 cup (75gm) cocoa powder, plus more for dusting the pan

1 ounce (28gm) semisweet chocolate, chopped

3/4 cup (180ml) boiling water

1 cup (200gm) granulated sugar (I use 140gm)

1 cup (220gm) packed dark brown sugar (I use 150gm)

1-3/4 cups (210gm) all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (240ml) buttermilk (I substitute with 3/4 cup homemade yoghurt mix with 1/4 cup milk)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil

mint chocolate ganache

fresh mint leaves for garnishing

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C/Gas 4). Brush the inside of a 10-cup (2.4L) Bundt pan thoroughly with the melted butter and dust it lightly with cocoa powder. (Use a pastry brush to help distribute the cocoa powder and tap out any excess).

Put the chopped chocolate in a small heatproof bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Whisk until the chocolate is thoroughly melted and the mixture is uniform. Let cool to room temperature.

Whisk the granulated sugar, brown sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, mix the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, peppermint extract, vegetable oil, and melted chocolate mixture on low speed until thoroughly combined.

With the mixer still on low, gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-low, and mix for another 3 minutes.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for about 45 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack and let it cool completely. Spread the cooled cake with the ganache and garnish with fresh mint leaves. The cake will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Mint Chocolate Ganache

4 ounces (115gm) semisweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream

15 to 20 fresh mint leaves

pinch of fleur de sel

Put the chopped chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. In a small nonreactive saucepan over very low heat, combine the cream with the mint leaves and heat for about 10 minutes. Do not let the cream boil. Strain the hot cream over the chocolate and let stand for about 3 minutes, until the chocolate has melted. Add the fleur de sel and whisk until the mixture is smooth uniform. The ganache will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Bring to room temperature before using.

Mango and Coconut Cupcakes

2011-11-12T00:01:00.004+08:00

A friend gave me some mangoes last week, harvested from her tree (how nice to have a mango tree!) and now that the mangoes are ripe, time to enjoy them sweet and juicy, and reserved some for this delicious cupcake! This cupcake has already been on my list to bake ever since two weeks ago, perfect timing too, for me to submit to Aspiring Bakers' theme for November, Enjoy Cupcakes!

The original recipe calls for desiccated coconut, but I use sweetened coconut flakes. Other than this, I followed exactly as what the recipe calls for. I'm being very good this time, as I did not reduce the sugar as I would normally do! I figured 1/2 cup sugar for 12 cupcakes is reasonable enough! (wink!)

But instead of 12 cupcakes as stated in the book, I only got 9, and I use the regular sized-muffin pan as indicated.

Review for this cupcake : It is soft, moist and tender, the mangoes are soft and delicious, and perfect with the flaky chewy coconuts. I like to use sweetened coconut flakes over the dry dessicated coconut as the coconut flakes are much coarser in texture and moist, it gives a lovely chewy coconut taste in each bite. There is no vanilla extract in the recipe, but the lime zest and juice takes care of that really well. The next time I would add about 1/4 cup more chopped mangoes. And the sweetness is just right! Really good. And I like cupcakes like this, good on its own, without the need for any frosting or icing.

Oops, sorry for this poor photo! I made the cupcakes at night and this photo was taken at 10.00pm, did not check the photos after that! Gave some cupcakes to my neighbour, and we finished the rest, one each! No more cupcakes to "model" for me! LOL! But it is really moist and delicious, will definitely bake this again.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #13 : Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog

And also sharing this with :
Bake With Bizzy at Bizzy Bakes
Cookbook Sunday at Mom's Sunday Cafe

Mango and Coconut Cupcakes
(adapted from "Wild About Cupcakes" by Rachel Lane)
3/4 cup (125gm) all-purpose (plain) flour
1/2 cup (60gm) shredded (desiccated) coconut
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (125gm) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (100gm) sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lime zest
2 large eggs
1/4 cup (60ml) coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 cup (125gm) fresh or canned mango cheeks, coarsely chopped, plus extra, to decorate
Coconut flakes, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 325F (170C/Gas 3).
Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
Combine the flour, shredded coconut, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
Beat the butter, sugar, and lime zest in a medium bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until pale and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until just blended after each addition.
With mixer on low speed, add the mixed dry ingredients, alternating with the coconut milk and lime juice. Stir the mango in by hand.
Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, filling each one three-quarters full. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and firm to the touch. Transfer the muffin tin to a wire rack. Let cool completely before removing the cupcakes. Top each one with mango slices and coconut flakes.

Tessa's Sauteed Potatoes With Egg and Tomato Pasta

2011-11-09T19:07:00.003+08:00

We had a lovely lunch a couple of days ago. Made a simple Sauteed Potatoes with Egg and a simple, flavourful Cherry Tomato Pasta. I Heart Cooking Club is currently cooking with Tessa Kiros's recipes. I have not heard of Tessa Kiros before this. No idea who she is! Well, now I do!

A simple and delicious lunch.

Potatoes are boiled and pan-fried till brown and crispy.

An egg is cracked in the centre of the pan with the potatoes at the side. I use fresh thymes from my garden as I did not have any sage. Season with salt and pepper. Yum!

A simple pasta with just cherry tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, garlic, capers, olive oil and seasoning. The recipes calls for 12 Cherry Tomatoes, I tripled it, we love Cherry Tomatoes! And I only cooked half a packet of spaghetti.

Makes sure this pasta dish is season well with salt and pepper.

A simple, yet delicious combination. My kids love it! So do I!

I'm sharing this with
"November Potluck with Tessa" at I Heart Cooking Clubs
Hearth and Soul Hop at Mom's Sunday Cafe
Let's Do Brunch at The 21st Century Housewife's Kitchen

I got these recipes from various websites.

Sauteed Potatoes with Egg
(source from "Apples For Jam" by Tessa Kiros)
500gm potatoes peeled and cut into dice, and cooked till tender
2 tbsp olive oil
20gm butter
1 garlic cloves, peeled, but left whole (optional)
sage sprigs to taste (I use fresh thymes)
2 eggs
seasonings to taste

Heat the oil with the garlic to high in a frying pan, removing the garlic once it is aromatic and tip the potatoes in, spread them over the pan, including any little bits. Then leave them alone, don't turn them about at this stage, they will crisp up far better if just left to cook on one side.

Turn the bits of potatoes so that another side is crisped up, and then once again, until the potatoes are golden and crisp nearly all over. Make two spaces for the eggs and crack them in the centre. Sprinkle over the sage, which should crisp up beautifully. The egg too may crisp a little at the edges, which is how I like it here, season with salt and pepper. When the eggs are cooked to your liking, slide the eggs and the potatoes (which will be sticking together now) onto plates lined with paper towel. Leave for a moment before pulling the paper carefully out from under the food.

Daniele's Tomato Pasta
(source from "Falling Cloudberries" by Tessa Kiros)
Serves 3
12 ripe cherry tomatoes, halved (I use about 30-35)
about 30 baby salted capers, rinsed and squeezed dry
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed with the flat of a knife
about 8 fresh basil leaves, torn
3/4 (16-ounce) package spaghetti

Put all the ingredients except the spaghetti in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Leave for at least an hour if possible to let the flavours mingle. Cook the spaghetti in a large pan of boiling salted water, following the packet instructions. Drain and add to the tomato sauce, tossing well to coat the paste. Serve immediately with or without grated Parmesan.

Cranberry Creme Fraiche Bundt Cake

2011-11-07T10:30:00.001+08:00

I have a can of Whole-Cranberry Sauce sitting in my pantry for months, and it is about to expire in three months' time. Got to use it quick! Found the perfect recipe in my new cookbook, "Cake Simple". In this recipe, Christie Matheson recommended to use homemade cranberry sauce, but we do not have fresh cranberries here, and even if I do find it, is gonna cost a bundle!

Don't you just love bundt cakes? I do!

Christie has even included the recipe for homemade Creme Fraiche if you can't find any. Which is great, as trying to find Creme Fraiche over here can be pretty frustating. So her substitute recipe definitely comes in handy!

The cranberry sauce is added in the middle of the batter and at the top before baking. And as usual, I reduced a little sugar from the original recipe, which works out just right for me.

The lovely cranberry sauce in the centre and at the top, (now the bottom!) I did not add on the almonds nor glaze the cake, but from the picture in the book, the glaze is a lovely shade of dark pink.

This is a lovely cake, delightfully delicious!

The cranberry sauce is wonderful with the buttery cake.

The cake is moist, soft with tender crumbs, thanks to the Creme Fraiche. This is definitely a keeper recipe!

I'm sharing this with

Cookbook Sunday at by Mom's Sunday Cafe

Sweets For A Saturday at Sweet As Sugar Cookies

Bake With Bizzy at Bizzy Bakes
Sweet Thursday at The Coffee Shop

Cranberry-Creme Fraiche Bundt Cake
(adapted from "Cake Simple" by Christie Matheson)
1/2 cup (115gm) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus melted butter for greasing the pan
2 cups (240gm) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pan
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (200gm) sugar (I use 170gm)
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (240ml) creme fraiche **
Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce ** or 2 cups (450gm) canned Whole-Berry-Cranberry Sauce
1/2 cup (45gm) chopped toasted almonds
Cranberry glaze **

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C/Gas 4). Brush the inside of a 10-cup (2.4L) Bundt pan with the melted butter and dust it lightly with flour. (Use a pastry brush to help distribute the flour and tap out the excess).
Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl until thoroughly combined.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter with the sugar on medium speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each additon. Beat in the vanilla.
With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture (in three increments), alternately with the creme fraiche (in two increments), beginning and ending with the flour and beating after each addition until just combined.
Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan. Swirl half of the cranberry sauce over the batter. Pour the remaining batter over the cranberry sauce, and then swirl the remaining cranberry sauce over the batter. Sprinkle the almonds over the top. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until golden brown on top.
Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 15 minutes, then invert the cake onto the rack and let it cool completely. Transfer the cake to a serving plate and drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake. The cake will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.

**Creme Fraiche
2 cups (480ml) heavy cream
2 tablespoons buttermilk (I use yoghurt)
Combine the heavy cream with buttermilk, cover tightly, and let sit at room temperature (in a warm room) for at least 8 hours. Stir the mixture - it should be thick and creamy. If it hasn't thickened completely, cover the mixture again and let it sit in a warm place for another 2 to 3 hours and check it again. When it has a nice, thick consistency, it will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
(I made half the recipe, enough for one cake)

**Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce
12 ounces (340gm) fresh cranberies
3/4 cup (180ml) water
2/3 cup (147gm) brown sugar
1/3 cup (70gm) granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the cranberries with the water, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and salt and cook for about 15 minutes (after about 10 minutes, remove about 1 tablespoon of the liquid for the cranberry glaze), or until the sauce has thickened and most of the liquid has reduced. Let the sauce cool completely before using it in the cake. The sauce keeps in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

**Cranberry Glaze
1 cup (93gm) confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 tablespoon cranberry juice (reserved from making the cranberry sauce)
Mix the confectioners' sugar, almond extract, and cranberry juice in a small bowl until smooth.

Spinach and Parmesan (Cheddar) Bloomer

2011-11-02T21:12:00.003+08:00

A lovely and tasty bread, perfect for sandwich. This bread has a chewy crust and soft texture inside. One tasty bread! Packed with the delicious taste of the spinach, onions and cheese. The original recipe calls for Parmesan Cheese, but I used Cheddar Cheese instead, as that was what I had. I reduced the salt slightly as the Cheddar Cheese is already salty.

The onions are sauteed until light brown and spinach is added in. Stir, remove saucepan from heat, keep covered for 5 minutes, stir and leave to cool uncovered. The spinach mixture is then added to the bread pan along with the water and egg. Scatter the bread flour all over, top with grated nutmeg, cheese, salt, sugar and yeast. Set the machine to Basic Dough setting and add in the pine nuts at the sound of the beep. That's it! Let the machine do the kneading!

At the end of the cycle, tip out the dough from the bread pan, it will be a beautiful green, roll it out into a rectangular shape about 1" thick and roll it up like a swissroll from the long side. Place in on a greased baking sheet, with the seams facing up. Cover with lightly oiled cling wrap and leave to rest for 15 minutes.

Have another greased baking sheet ready. Transfer dough to the second baking sheet, with seams facing down, plump up dough by tucking sides and ends of dough. Cover with lightly oiled cling wrap and leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes. Using a sharp knife, make five slashes diagonally on top of dough. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes until cooked.

A beautiful bread is ready.

This bread has a crusty crust and the insides are soft and nice. It is really tasty, the flavours of the spinach, onions, cheese and grated nutmeg, all combined into one gorgeous bread.

The spinach and onions are all mashed up in the bread, a great way to get your kids to eat up some veggies!

The pine nuts added a nice nutty taste.

We had a simple delicious dinner with bread, a change from our daily rice meals.

Made this into a sandwich with chicken ham slices, lettuce, tomato, cheese slices, mustard, mayo and chilli sauce. I had mine with some Hot Chilli & Jalapeno Relish which my sis bought from London, yum! We had some soup along with the sandwich. And don't forget that cup of Earl Grey! Lovely! This bread recipe is a definite keeper!

I'm sharing this with
Hearth and Soul Hop at Mom's Sunday Cafe
Bake With Bizzy at Bizzy Bakes
Full Plate Thursday at Miz Helen's Country Cottage

Spinach and Parmesan Bloomer
(adapted from "Bread Machine Kitchen Handbook" by Jennie Shapter)
Makes 1 loaf
15ml (1 tbsp) olive oil
1 onion, chopped
115gm (4oz) fresh young spinach leaves
120ml (generous 4floz / 1/2 cup) water
1 egg
450gm (1lb / 4 cups) unbleached white bread flour
2.5ml (1/2 tsp) freshly grated nutmeg
50gm (2oz/ 2/3 cup) freshly grated Parmesan cheese (I use Cheddar cheese)
7.5ml (1-1/2 tsp) salt (I use 1-1/8 tsp as Cheddar cheese is already salty)
5ml (1 tsp) granulated sugar
7.5ml (1-1/2 tsp) easy bake (rapid-rise) dried yeast
30ml (2 tbsp) pine nuts

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the chopped onion and saute until a light golden colour. Add the spinach, stir well to combine and cover the pan very tightly. Remove from the heat and leave to stand for 5 minutes. Then stir again and leave the pan uncovered, to cool.
Tip the spinach mixture into the bread machine pan. Add the water and egg. If the instructions for your machine specify that the yeast is to be placed in the pan first, then simply reverse the order in which you add the liquid mixture and dry ingredients.
Sprinkle over the white bread flour, ensuring that it completely covers the liquid mixture in the bread pan. Sprinkle the grated nutmeg and the Parmesan cheese over the flour.
Place the salt and sugar in separate corners of the bread pan. Make a small indent in the center of the flour (but not down as far as the liquid) and add the easy bake dried yeast.
Set the bread machine to the dough setting; use basic raisin dough setting (if available). Press Start. Lightly flour two baking sheets.
Add the pine nuts to the dough when the machine beeps or during the last 5 minutes of the kneading process.
When the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough from the machine and place it on a surface that has been lightly floured. Gently knock the dough back (punch it down), then carefully roll it out to a rectangle about 2.5cm/1in thick.
Roll up the rectangle of dough from one long side to form a thick baton shape, with a square end.
Place the baton on the prepared baking sheet, seam side up, cover it with lightly oiled clear film (plastic wrap) and leave to rest for 15 minutes.
Turn the bread over and place on the second baking sheet. Plump up the dough by tucking the ends and sides under. Cover it with lightly oiled clear film again and leave it to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
Using a sharp knife, slash the top of the bloomer with five diagonal slashes. Bake it for 30-35 minutes, or until it is golden and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped. Turn the bread out on to a wire rack to cool.

Orange Popsicle Ice Cream

2011-10-30T13:02:00.011+08:00

It has been more than two months since I last posted an Ice Cream recipe. I have made Ice Cream a couple of times since then, and they are all repeats, the same ones which I have made earlier. I made Dragon Fruit Ice Cream one weekend, when my nieces and nephew came for a visit. I made some Peach Ice Cream when my daughter's friend planned to come over to spend the day with her, in the end, she could not make it and we finished the ice cream ourselves! And I made some Mango Ice Cream when my neighbour gave me some big juicy mangoes from her tree. These ice cream are all worth making again. I figured it's time to try out a new flavour.

I have some oranges in the fridge which I thought of making some ice cream with and found the perfect Orange Ice Cream recipe. David Lebovitz did it again with this delicious, creamy, orangy ice cream.

Instead of using the blender, I mix the sugar and the orange zest by hand! Wow! Smells fantastic! I almost did not want to wash my hands! : o ) My son happens to come back from school at that time, the minute he walked into the house (not the kitchen!), he goes, "Wow, smells nice, oranges!"

Yum!

This is is a delicious, creamy and refreshing Ice Cream bursting with the tangy, citrusy taste and the fragrance of the oranges! Simply a beautiful fabulous ice cream! There will definitely be a repeat of this delightful ice cream, for sure!

And I'm bringing this to a Cookbook Party, hosted by Louise of Months of Edible Celebrations. Louise is celebrating her Blogoversary by throwing a Cookbook Party, and October being the National Cookbook Month! There's a whole list of food celebrations just for the month of October! For full details, hop over to Months of Edible Celebrations. I'm submitting this delightful Ice Cream under the list "Dessert Month"!

Orange Popsicle Ice Cream
(adapted from "The Perfect Scoop" by David Lebovitz)
Makes about 1 quart (1 liter)
2/3 cup (130gm) sugar (I use about 1/2 cup, depending on the sweetness of the oranges)
grated zest of 3 oranges, preferably unsprayed
1-1/4 cups (310ml) freshly squeezed orange juice (from 4 or 5 large oranges)
1 cup (240gm) sour cream
1/2 cup (125ml) half-and-half (I use whipping cream)
2 teaspoons Grand Marnier or another orange liquer (I omit this)

In a blender, pulverize the sugar and orange zest until the zest is very fine. Add the orange juice, sour cream, half-and-half, and Grand Marnier and blend until the sugar is completely dissolved.
Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator, then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Toasted Almond Pound Cake

2011-10-27T22:00:00.008+08:00

This is the best Almond Pound Cake I've eaten! Hands down! It is so soft, with tender crumbs, moist and absolutely delicious! Another keeper from "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle, which is becoming my top favourite baking book for cakes at the moment! This is the fourth recipe I've tried, and all four recipes are keepers. I love almond cakes, and this "Toasted Almond Pound Cake" is really good.

The smell of the almonds while the cake is baking is fantastic! My sister was around when I baked this and we could not wait to take a bite of this cake. Half an hour after the cake was out of the oven is the longest that we can wait! The minute the knife cuts into the tender crumbs, I knew this is a keeper! Both of us go WOW, absolutely delicious! This cake is soft, tender, moist and full of flavour from the toasted nutty almonds and really fragrant.

This is so good, you will find yourself reaching for a second slice!

The recipe calls for slivered almonds which are toasted and then process with some sugar until just finely ground. I did the lazy and easy way out, I just toasted the almond meal instead, until light brown, and proceed on with the recipe. One of the ingredients that I could not find was Almond Paste. So I made my own. It is so super easy and quick to make. I got the recipe from where else, but the website for almond lovers, Almond Board of California. If you cannot find any canned almond paste, try making your own, I never knew it was so easy to make. Once you have your almond paste, either homemade or store bought, try out this delightfully delicious cake, you will be glad you did!

I'm sharing this with
Full Plate Thursday over at Miz Helen's Country Cottage
Bake with Bizzy at Bizzy B. Bakes
These Chicks Cooked Link Party at This Chick Cooks

And I'm bringing this to a Cookbook Party, hosted by Louise of Months of Edible Celebrations. Louise is celebrating her Blogoversary by throwing a Cookbook Party, and October being the National Cookbook Month! There's a whole list of food celebrations just for the month of October! For full details, hop over to Months of Edible Celebrations. I'm submitting this cake under the list "Dessert Month"!

Homemade almond paste, you may view the original recipe, click here.

Almond Paste
(source from : Almond Board of California)
1-1/2 cups (8oz) whole blanched almonds
1-1/2 cups (5 oz) sifted powdered sugar
1 egg white
1 tsp almond extract
1/4 tsp salt
Grind whole blanched almonds, a portion at a time, in electric blender or food chopper with fine blade (Yield : about 1-3/4 cups ground almonds). Combine with powdered sugar, egg white, almond extract and salt; work to a stiff paste. Store in refrigerator tightly wrapped in saran or disposable plastic bag.
Makes 1-1/3 cups (13oz) almond paste.
(my notes : I use ready bought ground almonds instead)

Toasted Almond Pound Cake
(adapted from "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle)
1-3/4 cups (6.2oz/175gm) sifted cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (2.1oz/60gm) blanched slivered almonds, toasted (see page 36)
1 cup (7 oz/200gm) granulated sugar, divided (I use 160gm)
1 cup (2 sticks/8oz/227gm) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (5oz/142gm) canned almond paste
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup (120ml) heavy cream or whole milk
confectioners' sugar for dusting

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x5-inch loaf pan. Dust the pan with flour. Stack two baking sheets on top of one another and set aside. (This will be used to insulate the cake while it is baking - you can use an insulated baking sheet instead if you have one).
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside.
Combine the almonds and 1/4 cup of the sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process until the almonds are just finely ground (don't overprocess, or the nuts will become oily). Stir the ground almonds into the flour mixture and set aside. (I use ground almonds instead and toast them till light brown)
In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter and almond paste at medium speed until very creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add the remaining 3/4 cup sugar and beat the mixture at high speed until very light, about 4 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Beat in the vanilla and almond extract. Add the flour mixture at low speed in three additions, alternating it with the heavy cream in two additions and mixing just until the flour is incorporated. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Place the cake in the oven on top of the stacked baking sheets. Bake for 70 to 85 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Place the cake pan on a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes.
Unmold the cake and cool completely, right side up.
Dust the top of the cake with confectioners' sugar before serving.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week, or refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.