Yr 2009 CNY

This year CNY, princess wanted a lion head. Good reasons she gave was, she wanted to do lion dance "dong chang, dong chang" and peel orange to make a 8. Daddy was very pleased and gave a nod and off we went down to Chinatown a day b4 New Year Eve to get the lion head. We went round checking the price and finally the deal is sealed and we got princess & prince one lion head each. Not only that, a cymbal & drum were also bought, to create the atmosphere.

Princess & Prince are each holding a drum & Chinese cymbal

Big project - Lions getting ready their way to their grand parents house, as for daddy & mummy busy with the drum & cymbal.

Keeping to their words, the kids try hard peeling oranges to make an "8". Guess what Prince made an "Egg" instead. hahahhah ... 8 & egg sounded the same. Importantly, both Grans were very happy, with this special CNY greeting.

Orange Chiffon Cake

The tool on the cake is a lemon scrapper, i used this to get the orange zest.

Ingredients

(A)

4 egg yolks

45g castor sugar

1/4 tsp salt

35g corn oil

140g orange juice

Zest of 1 orange

(B)

120g cake flour } sift 2 x together

1/2 tsp baking powder }

(C)

5 egg whites

45g castor sugar

1/2 tsp cream of Tartar

Method

1. Using hand whisk mix (A) until well blended. Add (B) and mix well


2. On a separate bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks from using high speed until foamy. Add sugar & cream of tartar, continue whipping until stiff (like snow) * Don't overbeat and this process are done in a very quick manner.


3. Quickly use a spatula take 1/4 of the meringue and slowly fold into the egg yolk mixture in the earlier bowl. Mix until well combine. Finally add in the remaining meringue and mix well


4. Pour mixture into an ungreased chiffon tin and bake for about 40-45 mins @ 170c. * Bake at the lower rack (i used 4 mini chiffon tins fm Daiso and 1 smaller PH mini chiffon tin)


5. Immediately turn tin over on a cake rack to cool before loosening cake

Popiah

On the 1st day of CNY, i've made popiah, gado gado for my hubby sibling visiting in the evening. Hereby sharing the making of popiah.

Ingredients (A)
600g Popiah wrapper
100g minced meat (stir fry)
2 med size turnips (shredded)
1 carrot (shredded)
1 yellow tau kua (diced & fry)
300g french beans (sliced) (桂豆)
8 shallots
soya sauce

Ingredients (B)
Some Crispy prawn chilli
Some sweet sauce
1 cucumber (shredded)
Some fresh lettuces
crushed peanuts
crushed sweet candied peanuts (花生糖)
small cooked prawn (halve)
some fried chinese sausage (sliced)
some bean sprout
Eggs

Method

1. Slice shallots, deep fry in hot oil till fragrant.
2. Add in turnips to stir fry, follow by french beans. Finally add the rest of the ingredient like minced meat, tau kua. Add appropriate amount of soya sauce to taste.

To Serve

1. Put some sweet sauce & chilli (optional), peanuts on the popiah wrapper. Add in your choice ingredient B & spoon in cooked filling. Top with shredded cucumber
2. Roll up the popiah wrapper, fold up the sides and roll tightly. Serve at once

Cashew Nuts Cookies

Buying ready made cashew nuts from stores seems so expensive. I like cashew nuts but not willing to pay for higher price for ready one. Last Friday i went to the market to get some raw one, just in case i'm in the mood to bake. So now it came in handy and I use my microwave to cook them - oil free.

Here's the recipe :-

Ingredient
105g butter
50g icing sugar
1/2 egg yolk
1/4tsp vanilla essence
125g plain flour
30g corn flour
1/4tsp baking powder
100g ground cashew nuts

* extra cashew nuts for decorate & egg wash to brush over

Method

1. Sift plain, corn flour & baking powder together and set aside
2. Cream butter with icing sugar till light
3. Add in egg yolk & vanilla essence. Mix well
4. Stir in dry ingredients and ground cashew nuts. Mix well. Chill dough in fridge for 40 mins
5. Shape dough into a small ball and place half cashew nut on top of cookes and brush over with the egg wash
6. Bake at 180c for 15mins

Corn Flake Cookies

Last minutes baking for me on CNY eve. I didn't expect myself to be so hard working baking more cookies. I thought just concentrate with my pineapple cake for today. Well, since I missed my nap time, so make good use of it by baking cookies. (what an excuse) Guess what i did 2 different type instead of cookies but in small quantity.

Cookie spooning in Progress, with the help of my princess.

All ready to pack and store away into the container and kids stomach

Here's the recipe :-

Ingredient
42g butter
42g sugar
15g honey
70g corn flakes

Method
1) Melt butter, sugar and honey till mixutre becomes frothy
2) Add in corn flakes all at once and stir to mix well
3) Spoon mixture into small paper cups
4) Bake at 150c for 10-12 mins

旺梨cake

Sound so typical chinese, on this Pineapple cake. Because of the 好意头, i've made this a give away for this year Chinese New Year to my friends & relatives. Therefore has been baking this cake since Friday and even on CNY day for my in-law


Ingredients
160g sugar
165g butter
3 eggs
175g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
4-5 ring of pineapple from canned
1/4 cup of pineapple juice from canned

Method
1) Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
2) Cream butter with sugar until mixture is light and fluffy
3) Add eggs one at a time and finally stir in vanilla
4) Add in flour alternate with pineapple juice
5) Bake at 180c for 45 - 55 mins

新年快乐, 万事如意

Happy 牛 Year !

Pork Floss Roll

Did the Pork Floss Roll last night together with my princess. Simple but time consuming cos need to handmade the roll and fry. Made this specially for the kids as they don't take spicy sambal prawn roll.

Ingredient
100g crispy pork floss
1 small packet of ready popiah skin (cut into 4 square portion)
Egg white (act as a glue to seal the end of the popiah skin after fold)

Below is the steps on how to do the roll
Finally deep fry the roll

Will follow up later with the picture of the fried Pork Floss Roll

Pancake

Haven't been baking or doing anything much lately. Last week my dearest aunty (daddy's sis) from Sarawak passed away and i had fly there for the funeral. Thanksfully my hubby help to take care of the kids.

Now I'm slowly picking up with my bake/cook. To begin with this morning is Pancake .... got the recipe from a chinese cookbook borrowed from the library 好想为你亲手做出美味的甜点 ! what a long book title.

Ingredients

Flour 100g

Castor sugar 20g

1 Egg

Milk 1/2 cup

Methods

1. Use a mini hand mixer to mix the flour & sugar
2. Mix egg & milk in a separate bowl
3. Pour egg mixture into the flour and mix well
4. Cover the batter for a hour (i didn't follow that as i couldn't wait that long to get it pancake ready for school)
5. Finally scoop a spoonful and fry with some butter until golden over at a flat pan

I roll the pancake with slice cheese.

Blueberry Cupcakes

I was inspired to bake this Blueberry Cupcakes so much. Finally i managed to get 2 punnet of blueberries at a reasonable price from cold storage & ntuc. It's moist, soft and yummy !

Princess loves posing for me, whenever she sees me snapping picture of my bake.

Ingredients

220g butter (soften)

200g castor sugar

4 eggs

220g self raising flour

2 punnet blueberries

Method

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy
2. Add one egg at a time and continue beating
3. Add in flour and beat well till mixture is smooth and pale
4. Fold in blueberries till will mix
5. Spoon batter into muffin cup
6. Bake for 20 mins at 175c

Regular Crepes

We had crepes for breakfast this morning. With different variety of filling ... Ham & cheese, bananas with chocolate, bananas with nutella and my princess favourite cheese crepes, she had 2 pieces. Yum yum....

Bananas with Chocolate crepes on pan before roll to serve

Top was ham & cheese crepes, the other is bananas with chocolate ready to serve.

Ingredients

3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tbsp butter, melted
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Method

1. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
2. Add in the rest of the ingredients mix until smooth
3. Heat up the lightly oil flat pan. I pour in about 2 scoops of mini ladle batter onto the pan. Tilt pan in circuitlar motion so that the batter can coats the surface evenly.
4. Cook the crepe until the bottom light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn over and cook the other side.
5. When cook you may put in your choice of filling and roll them and ready to eat.
6. Repeat with remaining batter

Getting up early these days

Since school term start for the kids, the biggest adjustment that i had now is.... Wake up really early. This year onwards my son will be in morning school, whereby the school bus will pick him up at 6am. That means to say i need to wake up between 4.30 - 5 am to get his lunch box & breakfast ready. After that i'll fix princess lunchbox. I'm still trying to cope with lesser Zzzzzz time.

Got a special request from prince for his lunch box. Prince favourite Quiche
Scramble egg
Pooh shape bread

Sausage with bacon rolls

Quiche
grapes

Princess 1st day of school lunch box

Today is princess 1st day of school - K1. I baked some chocolate chip bread last night, for the kiddos to bring school today. I'm using my last bake recipe Chocolate Bread


This time round, i added some chocolate chip to enhance the bite & taste of the chocolate bread

Princess is a small eater, so here's her mini lunch box

Golden Rose Biscuits (Kuih Ros)

I was hesitating is it too early to bake for CNY. Next thought I have was ... if i don't start now, i may end up not baking due to working late. So... why wait, JUST DO IT (sound like Nike slogan)Recipe extract from Famous Cuisine # 53

Ingredients

250g tapioca flour

250g rice flour

300g castor sugar

5 eggs

400ml thick coconut milk

250ml water

Method

1. Combine all ingredients, stir until sugar is well dissolved.
2. Heat up oil in wok for deep frying, put moulds in the hot oil and heat it for about 5 mins. Dip mould into batter mixture carefully until 90% full, deep-fry over medium heat until the biscuits left from the mould
3. Continue deep frying until golden brown and crispy, remove from the hot oil, drain on kitchen paper.

note : The thickness of the rose biscuits is depending on the quantity of the water or coconut milk. If mixture is slight watery, it turn thin, but if is thicker, it'll be slight harder and crispy.

I spoil a couple of biscuits before getting the temperature & the momentum right.

Agar Agar

Here's the late posting of my last Friday night making. I'll not be sharing the recipe as i find the white layer too hard. I'll need to improve on the recipe, before sharing it out. As for now, this is just a preview.
My princess wanted to pose for my agar agar, she said she help me to decorate the mini agar agar jelly.

Macau Koi Kei Bakery - Mini Almond Cookies

This is my favourite Almond Cookie, finally can be found sold in S'pore. I'm very excited about it. I bought 2 boxes from 2 different store = 德信medical hall (chinatown) & Sheng Siong supermarket separately on last Thur & Fri. Cool right ?

What's the difference?
The green box was Almond Cookies with Whole Almond, the other box is just normal mini chip almond cookies.

So which is my favourite ?
The green box one. Well, I'm actually not bother about it. I just loves eating them, irregardless it's whole or chips. It's my favourite and now are sold here.

Yummy ! I can eat to my whole heart content.

Year 2009 - 1st Day of School

Today is son 1st day in morning school, I'm really proud of him. He's making every effort to wake up early and being happy. He even act as my 2nd alarm clock to wake me up w/o lazing on bed. So that i could help get his lunch box ready for school, make his breakfast and sent him to take school bus. Suddenly i felt he has grow and mature.

Lets take a sneak here what he's going to eat later during his recess time today.
French Toast
Chicken Popcorn
Grapes

French Toast

Ingredient
2 slices white bread
2 eggs
1 tbsp plain flour
Peanut butter
Butter

Method

1. Beat eggs into the bowl until well mix.
2. Add in plain flour and mix well. Set aside for later use
3. Spread peanut butter on 1 side of the bread than butter on the other side and hold them together
4. Coat them with the egg batter
5. I used a non stick oil pan and had the oil omitted
6. When golden brown in colour remove from pan
7. Place 1 slice of butter on top of the toast or spread over it to give the toast a nice butter taste

* The balance batter i managed to use it for another 3 slices of french toast