Sleeping Bear

Saw this in Facebook and was so eager to try it out myself and so happy 
that I really made it! 

Brownie Cubes

I baked these Chewy Brownies and turned them into Brownie Cubes. Very satisfied it was presentable as a gift for someone special - Dr Andrea Mclaughlin, Chiropractor.

Green Tea Ogura Cake

I came cross this Ogura Cake recipe from MiMi Bakery House and would like to attempt using Green Tea powder. The only mistake I did was I used 8 inch square baking pan instead of 7 inch so the cake turned out not as high as I expected. However, the texture was good and the pattern came out pretty. I would like to try with other flavours such as Milo or Coffee as in original recipe.

Modified for my easy reference

Ingredients

5 egg yolks
1 whole egg
pinch of salt
60g milk
50g canola oil
70g cake flour

5 egg white
80g sugar
1/2 tsp cornflour

4tsp of green tea powder with 20g of water

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, hand whisk egg yolk, whole egg, salt, milk and oil till well combined.
2. Fold in flour and blend well.
3. Whisk egg white till foamy, add cornflour and gradually add sugar. Use high speed beat till stiff peak.
4. Mix 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter till well combined and gently fold in the rest of the egg white into the batter till well combined.
5. Pour 2/3 of the batter into 7 inch baking pan. Add  green tea mixture to the balance 1/3 of the batter and mix well.
6. Pour green tea batter on top and use a chopstick to do some swirl around. Gently tap the baking pan to release trapped bubbles.
7. Steam bake in preheated oven at 160 Deg C for 60 mins.
8. Remove from oven and invert the cake to cool down.
9. Gently remove cake from baking pan and let it cool upside down on the cooling rack. Cut the cake after completely cool down.

Gado Gado

Made this easy pisy Gado Gado for dinner with satay paste bought from NTUC. Just add water, 2 tsp of sugar (to make it less spicy) and crushed peanuts. Yummy!

Chocolate Banana Walnut Cupcakes

Baked these Banana Walnut Cupcakes to thank the Doctors & Nurses of St Andrew's Community Hospital for taking care of my MIL during her stay there. 

Bakes on 29 March 2015

I have been craving for banana cake and suddenly I had this crazy idea of blending chocolate with banana cake (even though I am not a chocolate lover). Amazingly, it was a great combination. The sweetness from the banana cake went so well with the slight bitterness from the chocolate. Glad that I did this experiment.

Ingredients

Cake Base
200g butter
180g castor sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs
2 1/2 tbsp milk
275g self-raising flour + 3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
5 ripe bananas mashed
50g walnuts (crushed)
Whole Walnuts (Roasted)

Gnanche 
Converture Chocolate
A little butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven at 180 Deg C and line paper fillers. 
2. Beat butter, vanilla essence and sugar together until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
3. Stir in milk and banana. Continue to beat for another minute.
4. Fold in sifted self-raising flour with added bicarbonate of soda. Lastly add in walnuts and stir till combined.
5. Transfer batter to the prepared paper fillers and bake for 20-30 mins or until the cake is done.
6. For the chocolate ganache, just melt converture chocolate with a little butter in microwave. Spread on top of cupcakes and top with a whole walnuts. Fill some portion of mixture in piping bag and do a swirl on top of walnuts.

Ban Jian Kueh (面煎糕) aka Peanut Pancakes (2)

I came across this recipe in Facebook and the steps were different from the previous recipe I tried. This is alot simpler and easy to make. The texture was also nicer as compared to the previous recipe. Give it a try and make your very own Ban Jian Kueh.

Ingredients

160g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
5g yeast
1 large egg
30g sugar
210g water

Finely crushed peanuts
Sugar

Directions 

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk all the ingredients until smooth batter. Pour into a container, refrigerate 5 hours or overnight.
2. Add a little butter on a non stick pan over moderate heat. When the pan is hot, pour 2 ladle of batter and using the base of the ladle to smooth out the batter evenly. Cook for about 1 min until the batter is set and form small bubbles. Sprinkle sugar evenly and cover with a lid for a minute. Sprinkle crushed peanuts on top of pancake and cook till the pancake is lightly brown. Loosen the side, fold the pancake into half and transfer to a plate. You can slice into 2 or 3 and serve warm.

Thai Cuisine

I am so glad that I have cooked these Pineapple Rice and Green Curry well with the paste I bought from NTUC supermarket. Everyone enjoyed the dinner with thumbs up!

Red Bean Soup with Orange Peel Soup

Another yummy desserts that I have whipped up for my Mother-In-Law only with 3 ingredients - Red Bean, Orange Peel and Rock Sugar.

Mini Fruit Tarts (2)

I have some leftover strawberries from making Jelly O Hearts Cheesecake and so I decided to make these mini fruit tarts. I have used my previous recipe, a refresher for me. It was not difficult to make the crust base but I took a little time to understand the steps for making the pastry cream (I have did some modification for easy reference). Good to revisit recipe at times to further enhance the steps.

Jelly O Hearts Cheesecake

I made this whole cheesecake for Kenneth & Cynthia's Wedding Anniversary. Though there were some hiccups but after some touch up and all cover up. Glad that they love it!

Super Soft Bread

I tried the modification and concluded the following:

1) Replacement of Milk with water and it did take away the strong yeast taste (not sure if this fully contribute to the reduction of yeast taste).
2) Reduced the yeast to 11g (hoping to use exactly 1 pkt). Felt the bread was still soft but not as cottony as with 16g. I guess I will use 15g for my future bakes (so can help to reduce more yeast taste).
3) Reduced the oil to 80g (I do not think have any impact).
4) I have increased the sugar to 60g as I felt the bread not that sweet by itself.
5) Happy with the various toppings (Nutella, Chocolate Rice, Almond Flakes and Pork Floss) and all tasted so yummy!

Revised Ingredients as follows:

Ingredients

280g Milk (microwave it warm)

80g canola oil

15g instant yeast

60g castor sugar

1.5 tsp salt

1 egg

475g bread flour

1st baked on 19 May 2015

I came across this recipe from MiMi Bakery House and was amazed by the easy steps and the short time required for proofing, yet able to yield such super soft texture. I am so happy to see the dough rise so much as I always wanted to see in bread making. However, there are a few points that I want to take note and modify for my next bake.

1) I felt that the bread has quite a strong taste of yeast, so I would like to replace water with milk (hope it can help to reduce the yeast taste)

2) To reduce the yeast a little to 11g (1 pkt exactly).

3) To try out with more variety of fillings or toppings.

Ingredients

280g warm water
83g canola oil
16g instant yeast
56g castor sugar
1.5 tsp salt
1 egg
475g bread flour

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, add water, oil, sugar and yeast and mix well. Allow to rest for 15 mins and the mixture will become foamy.
2. Add salt, egg and bread flour into above mixture. Knead with dough hook for 10 mins on high speed. The dough will become smooth with a little stickiness.
3. Divide dough into desired shapes and place on baking tray, cover with damp cloth to allow them to proof for about 10 mins.
4. After proofing, egg wash the dough and bake at preheated oven 220 Deg C for 10-15 mins or until bread turns golden brown.

Potatoes Buns

When I saw this recipe from MiMi Bakery House, I was so curious if potatoes really could be used to make bread and yet still have the softness. Indeed it came out so soft with a slight sweet taste. When I let my dough to proof for the first time, it did not really rise double in size which I knew something might gone wrong. However, I still proceeded with making the dough into round balls and let it proof the 2nd time. It did not rise double as well but after baked, the bread turned out into a nice shaped bun. The bun goes so well just alone with butter and within seconds my kids gobbled up a few buns. I had kept a few buns till the next day to test out the texture, it was not as soft as yesterday but good with just a minute of microwaving.

Thanks to MiMi Bakery House for sharing this wonderful recipe.

Ingredients

350g bread flour
1/2 salt
2 tbsp milk powder
1 tbsp yeast
70g castor sugar

150g mashed potatoes (boiled & mashed)
80g potato water (from the water use to boil potatoes)
1 egg

75 butter (room temp)

Directions

1. Place flour, salt, milk powder, yeast & sugar in mixing bowl and mix well.
2. Add mashed potatoes, potato water & egg. Knead to form a dough.
3. Add in butter and continue kneading for about 10-15 mins till you get a smooth & pliable dough. Put the dough in lightly greased bowl and proof for 1 hr.
4. Punch the dough to expel air and divide dough into round balls.
5. Arrange dough on baking tray and allow to proof for another 45 mins till they double in size.
6. Dust the dough lightly with some flour and baked in preheated oven at 180 Deg C for about 15 mins or until golden brown top.

Baked Cake Donuts with toppings

Another experiment with my new donuts pan. I came across this video with very simple steps. Without much hassle with baking, I started decorating the donuts with my kids in no time. It was fun and overall it looked like those store bought. However, these were cake based and not the bread texture but we love it as much. Try this out and have fun!

Ingredients

1 egg
75g granulated sugar
65g milk
15g salted butter (melted)
150g cake flour
5g baking powder

Converture chocolate with little butter
Colourful toppings (as preferred)

Directions

1. Place egg in large bowl and mix lightly with hand whisk, follow by sugar and mix well.
2. Add milk, melted butter and mix. Add in sifted flour, baking powder and mix till well combined.
3. Fill batter into piping bag and pipe batter in 1 round into the greased donuts pan.
4. Bake at 200 deg C for 10 mins. Once baked, place donuts on cooling rack.
5. Microwave chocolate and butter. Coat donuts with melted chocolate and top with decorative as preferred.

Rainbow Cake Donuts

I just bought a mini donuts pan and was so excited to use it. I was talking to my friend on making Rainbow Cake Donuts and after seeing her bakes, I decided to bake too. It was indeed easy to whip up the batter (butter cake recipe), the only time consuming steps were to mix the various colors in separate bowls and pour into piping bags. The final step to pipe out the respective colors batter (as shown below).  An important thing to note: do not pipe the batter into the pan when is still hot as the batter will start to melt and the batter will not stay in position side by side.

Ingredients

250g  butter
165g sugar
4 large eggs
220g self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla essence
Colourings

Directions

1. Whisk butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until well-combined.
2. Add eggs one at a time and mix well.
3. Add flour and vanilla essence and mix well.
4. Divide batter into 5 portions, add colouring to each respective batter and pour into piping bag.
5. Pipe out coloured batter accordingly into baking tray.
6. Bake at 180 deg C for about 10mins. Then, place donuts on a cooling rack.

Mother's Day Cake

Since I am not working, there is no reason I could escape baking a cake for Mother's Day. Taking note that my MIL cannot eat cakes that are too sweet, I decided to bake this 4 Layers Fruity Cake.  

I found this recipe from Baking's Corner with a different method from our usual cake making. We have to whisk the egg white first and add the egg yolk into the meringue, followed by flour. Surprisingly, the cake turned out soft and spongy. Very satisfied with the final result and all the compliments from everyone with thumbs up!

Ingredients

3 eggs (65g and separate egg white and egg yolk)
1/8 tsp cornflour (or cream of Tartar)
55g sugar
65g cake flour
30g milk
20g melted butter
Colorings
Fruits

Directions

1. Using electric hand mixer, beat 3 egg whites with cornflour until frothy. Add in sugar in 2 batches and beat till just before stiff peak.
2. Add in egg yolks one at a time to the egg white batter and slightly beat till combined. Do not over beat.
3. Add in cake flour in 2 batches and fold in until well combined.
4. In another bowl, mix milk and oil together. Add 1/3 of the batter and fold well. After folding, pour it back to the remaining 2/3 batter with a few drops of coloring and fold until well combined (easier to use hand whisk).
5.Pour batter into prepared baking tin and bake at 160 Deg C for 20 mins or until skewer came out clean.
6. Transfer to a wire rack and invert it to cool down before unmoulding.

Birthday Cake (2015)

Made this 3 layers chocolate cake for my son's birthday on 5 May 2015. Trying out the dripping down chocolate design and quite satisfied with the outcome.

Happy Birthday Cavan!

A Special Gift

30 April 2015 marked my last day working in Fong's Engineering & Manufacturing Pte Ltd (21 months as Senior Secretary). It was really a memorable working experience with nice bosses and friendly colleagues. I made this decision with a heavy heart to leave the company due to my health condition. A sign to ask me to take a break and rest my body well in order to take up my next life challenge. 

I have baked Butter Cookies for my bosses and colleagues as a memory and also to thank them for taking care of me. Specially hand written everyone names on each packaging, hope that they will like this little gift from me.