Desmond turns 6 today !!

Today Desmond turns 6, he was celebrating with his classmates in the Kindergarten. He likes Spiderman, so I decorated Spiderman on his Birthday cake with my poor cake decoration skill. I baked a basic cocoa sponge cake and decorated with fresh cream.

Desmond hand over goodies bag to his friend..

Pray before enjoy his Birthday cake

group photo with the girls

group photo with the boys

Happy Birthday my son, mommy hope you stay healthy and happy!!

Lemon Poppy Seeds butter cake_specially for my mom

I'm so happy my Lemon butter cake recipe well received by many bloggers. Here are few bloggers have tried this recipe. Thanks for trying out this recipe.

Please visit their lovely blog as they also share a lot of good recipes:-
1. Ching
2. Sulianmummy
3. Jane's corner
4. Ohbin
5.ahmok33
6.Reesekitchen
7. Tee kitchen

Today I made this cake again, as I'm going to balik kampung (go back hometown) tomorrow to celebrate Mother's day with my mom, my mom prefer butter cake. Why i celebrate Mother's day after 1 week later, this is because my sisters have to celebrate Mother's day for their mother-in-law on the actual day. They have no choice, in Chinese family, husband's family comes first...I have no MIL, and I prefer we celebrate this day with our mom together.

In order to get better flavour, I baked today and keep this cake till tomorrow..

This time, I added blue poppy seeds, this is also my 1st time use poppy seeds, just like to present something new for my mom .

Lemon glaze, without this, this cake will not taste nice..

I also made some changes to the this recipe too.

Lemon Poppy Seeds Butter Cake
*use a 8” springfoam cake tin
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
250g butter
200g sugar
2 lemon, finely grate the rind
4 large eggs
280g cake flour
2tsp of double action baking powder
4tbsp milk
20g blue poppy seeds

Lemon glaze
8tbsp sugar
2 lemon, extract juice
2 lemon, finely grate the rind

1. Sift cake flour and baking powder in a bowl.
2. Beat butter with the sugar until pale and fluffy.
3. Add in egg one at a time, then add in lemon rind, mixing well.
4. Fold in the flour and milk, combine well. Last add in poppy seeds, stir well.
5. Pour the mixture into cake tin.
6. Bake in pre-heated oven at 180C for 50mins.
7. While baking the cake, start to prepare the lemon glaze.
8. Mix sugar and lemon juice and cook over low heat till sugar dissolved, add in lemon rind, set aside.
9. When cake done, remove cake from the oven and prick all over with a skewer.
10. Pour over the lemon glaze over the hot cake.
11. Ideally to leave cake to set overnight, to get better flavour.


Hopefully my mom will like this new way of butter cake...

Happy Baking and Happy Weekend ahead...

Homemade Pandan Kaya

I never think to get my hands on making Kaya (coconut jam) because it is so easily to get it from supermarket here. Anyway, I tried to make Pandan Kaya for the 1st time, and it turns out so well, I like the jade green colour from the fresh pandan leaves (screwpine leaves), no artificial colour added, smooth paste and full of coconut aroma.

my home grown pandan (screwpine leaves), very tiny in size..

started to cook over the double boiler.

about 15mins

about 45mins, colour getting darker


Done, with nice jade green colour


Recipe adapted from Kitchen Corner. I agreed with her, I like this recipe too because it don't need to be stirred all the time with double boiling cooking method. Thanks Grace for kind sharing.

Homemade Pandan Kaya
(printable recipe)

Ingredients

3 large eggs (lightly beaten)
250g caster sugar
350ml coconut milk
8pcs pandan leaves (screwpine leaves)

Steps:-
Mixture A - Blend pandan leaves and coconut milk in a blender. Strain to discard pulp.
Mixture B - Add sugar into beaten eggs, use a hand whisk to stir mixture until sugar dissolves (Do not beat but lightly stir !!)

1. Add mixture A into mixture B became kaya mixture. Stir and mix well.
2. Sift the kaya mixture into another mixing bowl (stainless steel preferred).
3. Place mixing bowl over another pot of boiled water on low heat, stir kaya mixture occasionally.(Do not stop too long, 1-2mins intervals)
4. It took at least 1hour to cook till desired thickness. Cool completely before store in a clear jar and keep in the fridge.

My note:
Since my home grown organic pandan leaves size is very small, I increased the pandan leaves to 14pcs. At the beginning, the colour of kaya mixture is very pale in green, but the colour will turn darker and darker, you will get very nice jade green colour at the end. The volume of kaya will be reduced at least 1/3 from the initial kaya mixture.

Simply Delicious !!

Egg tofu with mixed vegetables, and Happy Mothers' day

This is a quick and easy Chinese style of tofu dish.

Cut egg tofu into half, from the middle




remove the plastic bag, slice into few pieces

Deep fry the tofu, and place on a serving plate

cook mixed vegetables and chicken


Egg tofu with mixed vegetables
(printable recipe)

Ingredients
4 rolls egg tofu, cut into few pieces
150g chicken breast meat, cubed
150g mixed frozen vegetables, defrost and washed

Seasonings
1/2tsp light soy sauce
1/2tsp tapioca flour
A dash of white pepper powder
1/2tbsp oyster sauce
1/2tsp salt or to taste

1. Lightly marinate chicken meat with light soy sauce, pepper and tapioca flour, set aside.
2. Deep fry tofu in hot oil till golden brown, dish out, arrange on a serving plate and set aside.
3. Heat oil in a wok, stir fry chicken meat for 1min, then add in mixed veggie,some water and add in seasoning, combine well.
4. Pour chicken mixture over the fried tofu, serve hot with rice.

Happy Cooking !!

Update on Mother's day-

I'm sure you all had a wonderful Mother's day celebration. Just like to share with you 2 meals that prepared by kids for me..

Breakfast-French toast and mixed fruits yogurt, not bad..

-afternoon tea, Coffee with Vanilla ice cream, this is good

-afternoon tea, this is really good, slightly crispy crepes, vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberry. They are just a perfect combination. Lucas even use chocolate sauce to put his signature on the serving plate, very creative..

Homemade Asian basic chili paste (sambal tumis), red and hot post !!

You know I'm a Nasi Lemak Lover, I cannot live without spicy foods, especially Nasi Lemak, chicken curry, fried chicken & etc. So I use a lot of sambal (chilli paste), usually I prepare my own chilli paste and keep a big batch of chilli paste as is much easier than grind for small batch.

My style of chili paste is very basic, dried red chili, onion, garlic and shallot.

Normally I have frozen my batch of chilli paste in small container (2tbsp each container) and just snap pieces off when required. It defrost very quickly too.


The important point of getting a good sambal is to tumis (keep stirring) the raw chili paste with oil for very long hour as to get rid of the raw chili smell and get better chili fragrant. One of my Malay friend took 2hours to prepare her sambal, can you imagine!!

Homemade Asian basic chili paste (sambal tumis)
(printable recipe)

Ingredients A
300g dried red chili (cut 1” length and cooked in hot water for 10mins, remove seeds)
175ml water

Ingredients B
2 onions
10 shallots
10 cloves of garlic
50ml water

300ml cooking oil or more

1. Blend ingredients A till fine or paste texture, and set aside.
2. Blend ingredients B till fine or paste texture, and set aside.
3. Heat wok (without oil) over low flame, add in chili mixture, stir fry for 15mins.
4. Add in cooking oil, continue stir fry for another 15mins (at this time, the mixture is quite heavy and hard to stir)
5. Add in onion mixture, continue stir fry for 45mins or till oil separated from chili (at this time, the mixture is light and easy to stir)
6. Cool down completely before store in clean air tight container.Store in fridge or freezer.

My note:
I did not add any seasoning (salt,sugar & etc), belacan (shrimps paste), herbs or etc. So this basic chili paste can be used to cook chicken curry, fried Mamak noodles, fried chicken, fried fish, sweet sambal, sambal ikan bilis (anchovies) for nasi lemak and etc. You can adjust the amount of seasoning, add more shallots, onion or garlic, or to add shrimps paste or herbs, so it is very versatile, adjust according to your recipe. So this is very similar to the chili Boh that we use to buy from market here.
The best thing is I can reduce the cooking time, don't need to stir fry the chili paste while cooking, just add in and mix with other ingredients, easy and fast!!

Happy Cooking !!

Steamed savoury yam cake

Beside radish cake, we also like steamed savoury yam cake, both using the similar way to prepare.

yam paste after cooked, and the garnishing..


Coarsely chopped dried shrimps..


After taken the pictures, these two pieces of yam cake become my yummy tea break...

Steamed savoury yam cake(printable recipe)
Ingredients
220g yam, small cubed
250g rice flour
20g tapioca flour
450ml water
70g dried shrimps, soaked and chopped coarsely
10 shallots, slices

Seasonings
1tsp salt or to taste
1tsp sugar
1/2tsp chicken stock powder
1/2tsp white pepper powder

GarnishingChopped spring onion
Chopped fresh red chilli

1. Mix all seasonings with rice flour, tapioca flour and water by hand whisk till a watery batter.
2. Heat oil in a wok, sauté shallots till golden brown, add in dried shrimps and stir fry till fragrant.
3. Dish out half of the mixture and keep aside for later garnishing. Add in yam and stir fry for 1min. Pour in the watery batter and cook mixture for 1-2mins over low heat, stirring all the time, until the mixture turns to a thick paste.
4. Pour the paste into a greased cake tin. Smoothen the surface with a spatula. Place it in the steamer and steam over high heat for 45 minutes.
5. Remove the cake and allow it to cool thoroughly before cutting into slices.
6. Garnish with shrimp/shallot mixture, chopped spring onion and red chilli on top.
7. Serve with sweet chilli sambal (chilli sauce).

Simply yummy!!

Oreo cup cakes, supposed Black and White but...

Today I have learnt a lesson, do not bake anything without checking the stock of the ingredients, this Oreo cup cakes supposed to be in black and white, but mine turned out to Black only, due to lacking of the ingredients while preparing the mixture....

Even the colour a bit out, but the taste still good..very very Oreo lor...

Recipe adapted from dailydelicious, due to not enough cake flour and heavy cream for frosting, so I changed it to self-raising flour and butter for frosting..

Oreo cup cakes*makes about 14 cup cakes
(printable recipe)

150g self-raising flour
1/4tsp baking soda
1/8tsp salt
120g butter, at room temperature
90g sugar (I reduced the sugar from 100g)
2 eggs
25g heavy cream
4 coarsely chopped Oreo cookies

Frosting
40g butter
2tbsp heavy cream
2tbsp icing sugar
10 finely crushed Oreo cookies

1. In a bowl, sift self-raising flour, salt and baking soda.
2. Cream butter and sugar in an electric mixer on medium speed until mixture is light and airy.
3. Reduce mixing speed to low, add eggs one at a time, mixing well.
4. Gradually add half of the dry ingredients mix until smooth, then add the heavy cream.
5. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and the chopped Oreos, mixing until batter is smooth.
6. Fill the cupcake about two-thirds full
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180c, or until cupcakes are springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted in cupcake’s center comes out clean.

To makes the frosting and cup cake-place the cookies in a food processor, Pulse until fine crumbs are formed. Beat butter and icing sugar till creamy, add in heavy cream and Oreo pieces, mix well. Frost the top of each cup cake.

Happy Baking !!

Teochew vegetables dumplings / (kuih)

Teochew veggie dumpling is another type of dim sum that I like to order when we take dim sum , especially like the smoky peanuts and crunchy sweet taste of yam bean.
Learnt how to make the dough from a Hong Kong cooking show recently..

Dough making..

cooked filling

Teochew vegetables dumplings*makes about 35 dumplings
(printable recipe)
Filling
300g yam bean (sengkuang), coarsely shredded
80g carrot, shredded
30g dried shrimps, soaked for 15mins
50g peanut, roasted
30g Chinese parsley, coarsely chopped
2tsbp of cooking oil
1tsp light soy sauce
1/2tsp salt or to taste
1/2tsp sugar
A dash of white pepper powder

1. Heat oil in wok, add in dried shrimps and stir fry until fragrant.
2. Add in yam bean and carrot, cook for 5mins
3. Season with light soy sauce, sugar, pepper and salt.
4. Switch off the heat, add in chopped parsley and roasted peanut, mix well and set aside

Dough
210g Tang flour 澄面粉 (Tang flour is a kind of wheat flour used in chinese cooking that is suitable for making outer layer of dumplings and buns. It is also called wheat starch. You can find it in any Chinese supermarket)

1tbsp tapioca flour
410ml water

1. Sift tang flour and tapioca flour.
2. Boil water in a pot, once water is boiled, add flour and quickly stir and switch off heat.
3. Transfer cooked dough on a work top, knead into smooth and soft dough, takes about 10mins.

To make the dumpling1. Divide dough into small portions and roll into round sheet.
2. Place suitable amount of filling on each sheet and seal the edge by pressing the dough
3. Place dumplings in a greased steamer and steam for 10mins over high heat.
4. Rest for 5mins till slightly cold, then only remove the dumpling from steamer.
5. Serve with chili sauce, yummy!

Happy Cooking !!