Merry Xmas & A Happy New Year 2009

Helloooooo! I've been MIA for 3 weeks. That's a loooong time in blogging years :) Apologies but I've been busy of late. My colleague Nads ordered some cuppies for her engagement last week and Nicko for Xmas. Kind, kind people they are :) It's been a whirlwind adventure so far, thanks to supportive friends and Facebook! Posted some pictures on it and next thing I know, I'm making cupcakes for sale.

I'd love to stay and go on a barrage of stories, so many things to share with you (like BunsInTheOven :))! But alas, I can't be too long here, gotta prepare some toppings for May's order. Her wedding is on the 31st and her 'guo dai lai' or delivery of bethrothal gifts is this Saturday. Instead of the usual cakes, she's opted for cupcakes. Btw, she's having a black and pink wedding how cool is that?

Ok, here are some pictures of Nad's cuppies and a sneak peek at Nicko's. The Xmas cupcakes are basically what you saw on one of my earlier posts. But this time I made sure that I used a mixture of gumpaste and fondant. And oh, to add HANDS for the snowmen!

Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year my virtual friends, may 2009 be everything you ever wish for and more!

Lap Cheong Fried Rice

Do you like lap cheong (chinese dried sausage)? TW & I lurveeee them. It's one of those dry food stuff that we stock up, because it's real handy when you run out of ideas on what to cook. You can add them to omelette, stir fry leek, fried bee hoon (rice vermicelli) or just steam them with white rice if you're just too lazy. But my personal favourite is to add them to fried rice. The sweet and savoury taste of the lap cheong gives an additional kick to the dish and you won't really to add a lot of other ingredients, just some eggs and vegetables. And if you're really really lazy or don't have much time to spare, use Adabi Chinese Fried Rice powder. It tastes reaalllyy good!

Ingredients (serves 2-3)

• 2 cups of rice, best to use leftover
• a handful of french beans, chopped
• 2-3 bird's eye chilly, sliced
• 3 sticks lap cheong, soaked in water for a few minutes, cut the top off a little, remove the casing and sliced diagonally
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten and seasoned with a dash of white pepper
  
• 1 packet of Adabi Chinese Fried Rice powder
• some oil

Method

1. Heat enough oil in a wok and fry eggs, scramble style. Dish out and set aside.
2. No need to clean the wok, add in lap cheong and fry till desired state of crispness. Drain and dish out. And oh, please do not throw away the melted lard that remains in the wok, no matter how much your conscience tells you that it's not good for you. That's the BEST part.
3. Add french beans and chilly, fry for a couple of minutes till vegetables start to wilt.
4. Put in rice, followed by lap cheong and eggs; add some oil if you find it too dry.
5. Sprinkle chinese fried rice powder over rice and toss till everything is mixed evenly. Add a dash or two of dark soy sauce if you like.
6. Tuck in!

chinese fried rice and a bowl of watercress soup

simple and satisfying

It's The Time of The Season

Christmas is just around the corner! Even though I don't observe the religious aspect of it, I embrace every other bit of this wonderful celebration. It's yet another season for food, gifts and lots of love. I took the opportunity to channel all of them into something that I could think of; cupcakes!

I started baking early in the morning and left the vanilla and choc cupcakes to cool while I prepared the decorations. All the figurines were made with 100% fondant, which was sooooo unwise. I totally forgot about the humid weather and as a result, lopsided snowmen! And by evening, a couple of them were already on their backs staring up innocently at me. Oh well, I should have known better. Lesson learnt there.

The candy cane was totally unplanned. I had leftover fondant and the next thing you know...tadaa! The holiday sprinkles were courtesy of Aunt Evelyn & Uncle Weng Kay. They actualy spent about 2 hours strolling through the aisles of Phoon Huat to get me my baking stuff, bless them. And what a haul it was! A 3 tier cake stand, a 56 piece master tip set, tip covers, savers and brushes, decorating bags, spatulas, icing colours, a cupcake cookbook, heart shape plunger cutters...the list goes on. I am so blessed!

christmas tree no.1  

christmas tree no.2

candy cane anyone?

armless snowmen! *smack on the head* i forgot about those too

made possible with the help of my mom

we made 3 sets; for Maggie, Jan & Aunt Evelyn

Season's greetings! 

Merry Christmas everyone!

p/s: my newly wed brother forgot to get me the green ribbons i asked for, red's kinda nice too eh?

Steamed Tofu & Cauliflower with Crispy Garlic

What's with the weather lately? It's been crazy! Bright and sunny one minute and thunderstorm the next. Funny how it never rains whenever I carry an umbrella though.

Anyways......TW & I had these for dinner a couple of days back. We didn't have rice as both us were quite stuffed from a late lunch.

cauliflower, corn and button mushrooms drizzled with crispy garlic oil

Recipe is based on an estimate as I didn't take measurements that day. It's just one of those days :)

• A small bouquet of cauliflower, cut to bite sized florets
• 4-5 shoots of fresh young corn, sliced diagonally
• 3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
• 3-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• a dash of osyter sauce

1. Boil cauliflower and corn for a few minutes or till just done, drain and run over cold water. (Do not overboil or they'll lose their crunchiness)
2. Heat oil in a wok. Fry garlic till golden brown and dish out, leaving some oil behind.
3. Do a quick stir fry of the mushrooms, cauliflower, corn and oyster sauce.
4. Dish out and serve with crispy garlic.

steamed tofu with minced pork, shitake mushrooms, spring onion

and TW's favourite; bird's eye chilly

• 1 block of soft tofu
• about 100g of lean pork, minced and seasoned with white pepper, sesame oil and salt
  
• 1/2 tbsp oil
• 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 2 stalks of spring onion, cut to 1.5" length
• 2-3 shitake mushrooms, soaked to soften and sliced thinly, discard stem
• 2-3 bird's eye chilly, roughly chopped

1. Drain water from tofu and steam over high heat for about 15 minutes.
2. Heat oil in a wok, stir fry mushrooms followed by minced pork for a few minutes.
3. Add in oyster sauce, mix well.
4. Add in spring onion and chillies and fry for another few minutes.
5. Dish out and pour over steamed tofu.
6. Best eaten while hot :)

Now isn't that simple? Enjoy my dears!

Chewy (or not) Rum Raisins Chop Chip Cookies

Hello there! It's me again....the proud owner of a brand new oven! :) Finally, TW and I won't have to make garlic fried rice everytime we have some left over. Now we could make cheese baked rice and perhaps some twice baked potatoes as starters then creme brulee for dessert. Oooo my tummy's rumbling :)

The oven is huge for a bench top type (I had a bit of a problem looking for a place to fit it in my small and already packed kitchen) and it comes with 5 functions; stew, fan oven, bake, rotisserie and grill. My my, the stuff that I could churn out of this baby...let's just hope that my old friend, procrastination, won't get the better of me.

Now I was feeling rather 'up to it' yesterday. Why not bake some cookies? I still had some raisins in the fridge and plenty of brown sugar and rum from my previous ice cream recipe. All I need was flour, butter and eggs. 

Here's the full recipe;

• 1 cup dark raisins, soaked overnight with 1/4 cup of rum (I used Captain Morgan)
• 1 cup (about 1 block) of unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup castor sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, no sifting required
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp fine salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups semi sweet choc chips (I used Hershey's)

Follow the steps below and you're well on your way to gorgeousness :)

1. Preheat oven to 175C. 
2. Line baking tray with parchment paper.
3. Cream sugar (brown & castor) and butter till fluffy and light in colour. (I used a hand mixer)
4. Add eggs, one at a time followed by vanilla extract and beat till well mixed.
5. Add flour, salt and baking soda and beat till just moistened.
6. Fold in choc chips and raisins (tip in the rest of the rum too) and let mixture rest for about 10 minutes.
7. Place tablespoonfuls of mixture onto the prepared baking tray, spacing about 2 inches apart. (or else you'll end up with one HUGE cookie)
8. Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are brown but centre is still soft.
9. Remove from oven and leave them on the baking tray for about 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

These cookies turned out chewy. If you want them to be crispy, just pop them back into the oven for a few minutes. Either ways, they're absolutely addicitive. 

I found a great article that explains and teaches you on how, with a little bit of tweaking, you can achieve crispy or soft chewy cookies. Read it here.

these are dangerously close

i think i'll use shortening instead of butter next time,

maybe they'll turn out harder and spread less

store them in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks....

but I doubt they'll be around that long!

Egg Tarts (of the Portuguese kind) Revisited

I LOVE egg tarts. I had the opportunity to visit Macau earlier this year and considered my trip there complete only after I had a taste of their infamous egg tarts. Such was my LOVE for this delightful pastry.

I've tried egg tarts from many different cafes and bakeries and came to a conclusion that there are basically 2 types of crusts; shortcrust pastry that crumbles with each delectable bite or puff pastry which is light and flaky. I LOVE them both. Anything goes for me as long as they're egg tarts. 

I am not too happy with the results of the egg tarts I made the last time. So I decided to give it another try but I have a confession to make. I took a shortcut. Didn't make the pastry from scratch this time. Instead, I got frozen puff pastry from Cold Storage. Ok ok, so I was a teensy bit lazy and took the easy way out. Maybe you should too ;)

Right, here's what you'll need;

• 1 packet frozen puff pastry (I didn't use all of them though)
  
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup castor sugar
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1/3 cup milk (I used low fat)
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract

And here's what you do;

1. Thaw puff pastry according to instructions on packaging.
   
2. Preheat oven to 200C. 
3. Beat yolks, sugar, whipping cream, milk and vanilla extract for a few minutes. Strain the mixture if you must. I was in lazy mode so I didn't.
4. Grease muffin moulds or ramekins with melted butter.
5. Dust working surface with some flour and roll out pastry to desired thickness. 
6. Cut rolled pastry using an upside down glass or bowl (whatever that's handy) and line into moulds by pressing gently on bottom and side.
7. Pour egg mixture into lined moulds about 80% (90% for me as I was feeling rather mischevious).
8. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until crust turns golden brown and the filling has set. Oh yes, those brown spots on the filling would be lovely.

i made the first 2 using ramekins. And I took them out of the oven before the filling could caramelised with lovely brown spots.

But the custard filling looked great though. 

And it tasted good too, neither too sweet nor milky.

The rest were mini ones as I didn't have my regular muffin pan with me. 

This time I left them in the oven for a little longer. It was kind of exhilirating to watch the filling bulged and ballooned to the verge of bursting but it never did. Don't know if they would but I figured that it would be a rather messy affair if it did.

They're sort of cute aren't they :)

A Simple Meal for Two

Well, the title says it all. Really, there's nothing fanciful about our dinner today (when has it ever? lol!). But it's still yummy and nutritious, goes well with rice and most importantly, darn easy to put together. So here are my recipes for Steamed Fish With Ginger Paste and Stir Fried Kangkung (Water Spinach). 

Steamed Fish With Ginger Paste

• 2 fish fillets (honestly I don't know what type of fish I used. Take a look at the picture and let me know will you :) But I think dory fillet would be great for this recipe)
• salt & pepper
• 3-4 inches young ginger, skinned and sliced
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• a stalk of spring onions and a sprig of coriander, chopped (for garnishing)

1. Boil water in a wok or rice cooker (mine comes with a plastic perforated steamer tray that fits into the top).
2. Rub some salt and pepper on both sides of the fish. Put fish on a metal or heatproof dish.
3. Blend ginger and olive oil to a smooth paste. Pour paste over fish.
4. Steam fish over rapidly boiling water for about 20-30 minutes.
5. Combine sesame oil, oyster sauce and soy sauce and pour over cooked fish. 
6. Garnish with spring onions and coriander.

My photography 'skills' (if you can even call it that) is extremely basic so it doesn't look quite appetising here but it's really nice....really! 

 Gives you that warm feeling after eating (probably not because it was so lovingly prepared but the ginger)

Stir Fried Kangkung

• 300g kangkung, soak in water, washed and drained (I do this at least 3 times as I find that kangkung may have lots of foreign stuff lodged between the stalks...don't wanna risk biting into a snail or something...acckk!) Roughly chop your squeaky clean kangkung, about 1-2 inch in length.
• 4-5 cloves of garlic, smashed and discard skin
• 4-5 cili padi (bird's eye chilly), sliced diagonally
• 1 tsp concentrated liquid chicken stock
• 1-2 tbsp oil

1. Heat oil in wok and fry crushed garlic till fragrant, but not crisp.
2. Add in cili padi and give it a quick stir.
3. On high heat, toss in kangkung and stir fry till the leaves start to wilt.
4. Add chicken stock and stir for another 30 seconds or so.
5. Dish up and you're all set.

A different take from the usual kangkung belacan (water spinach with prawn paste). 

Those bird's eye chillies sure were hot, as good as chilly paste I tell ya.

TW loved it!

Maybe next time we'll have this with plain rice porridge :)

More Fun With Fondant

Hello my lovelies! This past week has been a flurry of activities, not to mention some really fantastic news. I attended a fondant cupcakes class, went shoe shopping (yes, this particular activity is rather strenuous :)) and one of my former schoolmates May, who's getting hitched in December is asking me to bake her bridal gift cakes! My heart skips a beats, lol! My goodness. I am excited, happy, nervous, concerned, anxious and delirious all at once.

It was good timing too that I signed up for a fondant cupcake class. Before this, the only experience I had with fondant was making some simple flowers. I was so looking forward to see what I could learn from the class. And hopefully use it wisely to create some nice looking toppers for May's cupcakes.

And so there I was on a Saturday morning, sitting in the cosy kitchen of Cake Connection, bubbling with excitement. Yasmin Sanusi, our instructor, introduced us to gum paste and fondant, letting us feel (literally) the difference between the two. They both look exactly alike but gum paste feels tougher while fondant much more pliable. Gum paste is preferred over fondant in flower making because the dough is very elastic, making it possible to be rolled out thinner. But gum paste hardens rather quickly, so it's best to work with nimble fingers. Fondant on the other hand, remains softer much longer and is suitable for covering cakes. It will harden over time but never bone hard.

Yasmin taught us 6 designs; a snowman, a teddy bear, sea shells, butterflies, a tea set and a scarf for fabric effect. We used pure fondant to cover the cupcakes and a dough mixture of 50% fondant & 50% gum paste to make most of the figurines, except for the butterlies where pure gum paste is needed in order for the wings hold its shape. 

To assemble parts of the figurines together, piping gel was used as glue. For bigger objects like the butterfly, we used fondant glue, which is a small amount of fondant mixed with water to form a paste.

Now let's leave it to the pictures to do to the talking :)

*The term dough here refers to a mixture of 50% gum paste, 50% fondant

Meet Poppet my snowgal.

This was the 1st figurine that we made and I'm very happy how it turned out.

Tips: 1. use a strip of spaghetti to attach the head to the body.

2. using a small sifter, dust icing sugar to create snow.

And this is Robert the teddy bear.

Robert seems to have a bit of a problem with his left arm and he's got cracks all over his body.

Tips: 1. mix brown, yellow and orange gel colour to achieve the 'teddy bear shade'.

2. to achieve equal sizes for the limbs, roll dough into a ball and cut it into half. Obviously I didn't, hence the oversized left arm.

3. warm dough between palm of hands and knead it to reduce cracks, if there's any. Apply shortening on hands, just a little.

Forget me nots and butterly, a design suitable for weddings.

The flowers were provided by Cake Connection while the butterfly was made using a cookie cutter. The designs on the base were achieved using crimpers.

Tips: 1) dry butterfly cut out downside up on an egg carton (layered with tissue paper for hygiene purposes).

2) use piping tips to create designs on the butterfly wings. Press gently while gum paste is still soft.

3) paint butterfly using pearl/shimmer dust mixed with fresh lemon juice. 

 

Another wedding design, with a scarf draped across and ready made sugar paste rosebud and leaf. I love the fabric effect, don't you? :)

Tips: 1) roll out dough thinnest possible to have a more realistic effect.

2) use a toothpick to gently roll along the edges of the scarf to create waves.

Seashells (a clam and a true tulip) on an ocean bed.

Tips: 1. to get streaks in your dough, tint with a darker shade of gel colour. Press fondant together and then pull and stretch to form marbling.

Ahh...the tea set. This was rather meticulous as they were very small.

Tips: 1) to make cups, roll dough into tiny balls and use a stick to gently poke a hole in the middle, wiggle it a little to create depth.

2) use a tiny paint brush to apply pearl/shimmer powder mixed with fresh lemon juice onto the cup rim and handle.

The whole line up. Look how tiny my Poppet was compared to her snowy friends :)