Bake for Happy Kids

Milo Cupcakes (Primose Bakery)

2013-05-08T08:05:00.002+10:00

Did you know that MILO comes from Australia? See this!

In 1934, Australian chemist, Thomas Mayne created the nutritious beverage Milo and launched it at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. The name, Milo was derived from the famous Ancient Greek athlete who was known for his legendary strength.

I grew up drinking Milo... thinking that Milo is a Malaysian-Singaporean popular drink but I was totally wrong. Then, I learned that Milo is in fact popular too in many parts of the world. Interestingly, Milo can taste very different in different manufacturing countries. So far, I have tasted the Australian, Singaporean and British ones and true enough I can detect the minor differences in the three different origins.

When I first saw this recipe at Primrose Bakery app, I bookmarked it immediately, waiting for the most appropriate occasion to bake these appealing cupcakes. After feeling a little disappointed with my previous bake-along celebration cupcake baking with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena from Frozen wings , I have decided to bake another batch celebration cupcakes...

HAPPY that I have baked these Milo cupcakes! Although the comparison of these Milo cupcake to my previous vanilla cupcakes are not exactly apples to apples, I can't help to think that these Milo cupcakes are really really really so much better. The Milo cake bases are moist, fluffy and delicious. With no added fat, their Italian-meringue-kind of marshmallow icing is surprisingly creamy and compliment these cupcakes very well. We are all happy eating these cupcakes and me completely satisfied now that I have baked good celebration cupcakes for our Bake-along 2nd anniversary. Cheers!

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It is the time of the year that I need a holiday again... My family and I will be having a break in Singapore and Taipei for the next coming 2-3 weeks and will return on 29 May 2013 with Seeded Crackers (a bake-along post). See ya!

Milo Cupcakes! Feeling strong eating these?

Making the milk-yogurt mixture which is essential to give an overall nice and curdling texture

Making the cupcakes

Making sugar syrup for the marshmallow icing

Light and yet creamy fluffy icing!

Assembling the cupcakes

They look like Milo roses to me!

Yum!

Here's the recipes from Primrose Bakery app
(with my notes and modification on blue)

Milo Cupcakes

112g butter (I used 125g)
120g light soft brown sugar
100g caster sugar (reduced to 50g)
2 eggs
125ml milk
1 tbsp sour cream (replaced with yogurt)
60g plain flour
125g self-raising flour
50g Milo powder
Milo powder (to decorate)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Line a 12-hole muffin tray with muffin cases.

Cream the butter and sugars until pale and smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing briefly after each addition.

Sift together the flours and the Milo powder. Measure the milk into a jug and stir in the sour cream (or yogurt).

Add one-third of the flour and Milo mix and beat well . Pour in one-third of the milk and beat again. Repeat until all the flour and milk has been added. (I fold in both by hand.)

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, and bake in the center of the oven for about 25 mins (I baked mine for 23 mins), until risen and golden.

Leave to cool in their tin for 10 mins and then carefully transfer onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cool, ice with Marshmallow Icing and sprinkle with Milo.

Marshmallow Icing

½ tsp vanilla extract (I didn't add this)
120g granulated sugar
80g golden syrup
1½ tbsp water
2 egg whites

Put the sugar, golden syrup and water into a pan and cook on a high heat for about 2 mins until the mixture thickens and turns golden (the soft ball stage).

Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks start to form. Then keep beating while you slowly pour the hot sugar mixture into the bowl.

Continue beating but at a higher speed until the mixture becomes thick, glossy and cool. Add the vanilla extract towards the end.

This icing is easiest to work with while it is still a little warm, so try to use it right away. You can store it in the fridge overnight - but beat well with a spoon before reusing.

Note: This amount of icing is too much to ice 12 cupcakes but I reckon that half of amount of the recipe might be difficult to prepare.

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their celebration cupcakes baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 2 to 12 May 2013.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Seeded Crackers (Recipe from Williams-Sonoma, Essentials of Baking, Pg 279 or here) which is to be posted on 29 May 2013. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake these crackers and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 10 days.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Once again... Happy 2nd Birthday to our Bake-Along!

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Before leaving from this post, the naggy me would like to remind everyone that the MUSHROOM event for Little Thumbs Up (MAY 2013) is still on-going. The MUSHROOM event starts on the 7th May 2013 and my baking buddy, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours is the hostess for this theme.

Don't forget too to participate our next Cook like a Star, Curtis Stone blog hop event starting on 1st July 2013. This event is hosted by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Grace from Life can be simple.

Mushroom Ragoût with Oven-baked Polenta (Nigella Lawson)

2013-05-07T12:24:00.003+10:00

When I was serving these for our dinner, both my husband and son were staring at me and these dishes with their starving eyes...

Man: Where is the meat?
Me, trying to explain: Eeerrr...

To me, this almost vegan mushroom ragoût with oven-baked polenta (minus the chicken stock) is a simple but elegant autumn meal to eat.

To my husband and son, these are plain boring!

With much persuasions, both father and son reluctantly eat most of these but the poor me had to tolerate all these no-meat winching. My son can tell that I was feeling a little disappointed and gave me a sympathetic thumbs up...

We love mushrooms and eat at least a large bag of mushrooms at least once a week. I wasn't expecting any of these negative remarks and wonder if I have cooked this mushroom dish well enough with my Italian-Asian mushrooms combination. Accordingly to Nigella's description, the more wild ones the better... I wasn't too sure about eating too much wild mushrooms with unexpected assorted woody, tough or chewy textures. And so, I didn't want to take the chance of exploring the wild mushrooms and choose to play safe cooking with these three types of mushrooms that can be commonly found in our local deli and supermarket.

My first choice is porcino. Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia, and North America, these mushrooms are not found naturally in the Southern Hemisphere. It is very difficult to cultivate and mostly sold being dried. It is used in many cuisines especially in Italian pasta or risotto. My second choice is shiitake which is a commonly consumed by most Chinese and Japanese with a strong earthy taste. My third choice is the mild-tasting oyster mushroom. I chose this for its thick, meaty white stem and also its milder taste to neutralize the overall combination of other stronger-tasting mushrooms.

To me, although these mushrooms in this Italian-Asian combination seems unusual but should be nice for a balance of texture and taste. However, knowing that these are boring for my husband and son, I'm now asking myself... Are these mushrooms not wild enough for us?... As you read further and you will see why...

Mushroom ragoût with oven-baked polenta

My mushroom number one: porcino

The other two types mushrooms that I have used and other ingredients

More ingredients...

Cooking the onions and celery...

... and the mushrooms

Cooking the sauce for this dish

All done! This Italian-Asian mushroom combination looks good, isn't it?

Preparing the polenta for baking

After baking...

Eating the mushrooms with the baked polenta. Nice for me but not for my husband and son...

Here's the sympathetic thumbs up from my son :(

As you can see, this dish was not popular in my family. We managed to finish half of the mushroom ragoût and had the rest as leftovers. Subsequently, I used the leftover by stirring it into 3-4 cups of warm cooked rice and 1 can of 420g sweet corn kernels. I served these leftover to my husband and son, telling them that these are mushroom fried rice. Guess what? Everything was gone without any complains! At this point, I would like to conclude that there is nothing wrong with this mushroom ragoût. I'm guessing that the only reason is we might be a little too Asian for this dish.

Here are the recipes.
(with my personal notes in blue)

Mushroom Ragoût adapted from the book, How to Eat by Nigella Lawson
Serves 3-4
(which half of the original recipe)

400g fresh mushrooms, or a combination of wild and cultivated
(I used a combination of 80g dried and soaked porcini, 150g abalone mushroom and 100g shiitake)
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 red onion, sliced finely
2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
1 clove garlic, finely minced
2/3 cup dry red wine (original recipe uses 175 ml and I'm using 160 ml for half the recipe)
35ml Marsala
2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp thyme leaves
1/2 tbsp flour, preferably Italian OO
200ml chicken stock
50ml "mushroom water", water that I have used to soak the dried porcini
extra thyme to garnish

Wipe mushrooms thoroughly, trim off tough or woody stems and slice or cut them into generous pieces.

Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a frying plan and sauté the onion and celery in a pan until they begin to soften.

Add garlic and some salt and pepper and continue cooking until onions begin to brown. Add half the red wine and half the Marsala, bay leaf and thyme. Turn down the heat and simmer gently until wine cooks away.

In a separate pan, sauté mushrooms with 1 tsp of olive oil, 1 tbsp of butter and a pinch of salt until their excess liquid cooks away and begin to colour. Add the remaining wine and Marsala and allow the wine to simmer down. Transfer onions to the mushrooms.

Re-use the pan that was used to sautéed the onions. In this pan, melt 1 tbsp of butter. Stir in the flour and keep stirring for a few minutes while it turns golden. Whisk in the stock and mushroom water. Add this sauce to the mushrooms and onions. Simmer very gently for 10 mins. Serve with steamed or boiled rice or polenta.

Oven-Baked Polenta adapted from the book, How to Eat by Nigella Lawson or here

Butter for greasing dish and foil
1.8L stock (any kind) or water
(I used chicken stock)
Salt to taste
350g polenta meal

Preparation

Butter a shallow 2 1/2- to 3-quart baking dish or ramekins, and set aside. Place stock or water and salt into a large saucepan, and bring to simmer. Remove pan from heat.

Heat oven to 350°F or 160°C fan forced. Slowly pour polenta into stock, stirring rapidly with a wooden spoon. Place pan on medium heat. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring constantly in same direction. Boil 5 mins, continuing to stir.

Pour polenta into buttered dish or ramekins, and cover with buttered foil. Bake for 1 hour or 45 min for ramekins. Remove foil and serve.

Happy Cooking and Baking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, at this post.

The Little Thumbs Up event starts on first Tuesday until the last day of the month. Please join us! To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with the theme of the month which is MUSHROOM for May 2013 and link with us at this post anytime until 31st May 2013. Don't forget your thumbs up or display this badge! And make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post preferably within May 2013 . (2) Please mention Little Thumbs Up in your post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY or/and Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. For more details, please see this.

What after May 2013? Miss B from Everybody Eats Well in Flanders will be the next hostess of JUNE 2013 and her theme is CURRY powder or paste! All the upcoming ingredient themes and hosts for the forthcoming months are listed at "Little Thumbs Up" side bar of my blog and hope that you can join in the fun of this event. Thumbs up!

The Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes (Cupcake Project)

2013-05-02T08:14:00.000+10:00

Another year has passed... Joyce from Kitchen Flavours, Lena from Frozen wings and I have been baking-along for two years!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our Bake-Along!

We bake-along about twice a month. One is from a chosen recipe and the other one is based on a theme. At the beginning, it was just the three of us that baked along. Soon after we started blog hopping, we have multiple entries now and knew lots of friends through our bake-alongs.

For our second Bake-Along anniversary, we are baking celebration cupcakes. Although cupcakes seems common and easy to bake, there seems too many recipes to choose and I don't really know which is the best one to bake. And I google the word, "best vanilla cupcake" and this is what I found.

This ultimate vanilla cupcake recipe by the Cupcake Project.com is the first hit that I found with my Google inquiry. Stef, the author of Cupcake Project.com has a team of 50 test bakers who are known as the Vanilla Cupcake Recipe Cupcake Project Explorers. They had baked and helped Stef to seek for the most perfect vanilla cupcake recipe and finally concluded that this recipe is the one that has the most positive feedback.

There is no way that 50 test bakers can be wrong! - Knowing these makes me feel silly if I don't give this recipe a try...

Instead of creaming butter and sugar first for the typical cake mixing methods, this recipe adopts an alternative "Reverse Creaming" method (which is also mentioned in this cake recipe by America's Test Kitchen). All the dry ingredients are first well mixed with butter and all are mixed together with the combined wet ingredients. Accordingly to what I have gathered from the reviews of this method, the most critical thing to know is that all the ingredients have to be at room temperature so that I won't have to worry for any curdly looking stuff.

Besides seeking for an ultimate cupcake recipe, I'm also seeking for a buttercream recipe which is moderately creamy and contains no eggs and least amount of added fat. As I was looking online for reduced fat version of vanilla buttercream, I found these two reasonable good recipes from Taste of Home at here and here using milk and more icing sugar to substitute the missing butter.

With both interesting cupcake and frosting recipes to try, I'm excited baking these cupcakes. Is this going to my best and ultimate vanilla cupcakes? Let's see...

Happy 2nd Bake-Along anniversary... with ultimate vanilla cupcakes?

Making the batter using the reverse-creaming method

These cooked cupcakes look pale and not golden brown at all.

Making my fat-reduced vanilla frosting

Half amount of frosting recipe can only frost THREE cupcakes!!!

Two are smiley and one hold the candle - Happy Birthday Bake-along!

Ultimate vanilla cupcakes? Now take a closer look...

Zoe's "Seriously serious" Cupcake Assessments:

Cupcake recipe - Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake from Cupcake Project.com

Method: 10/10. Easy with no curdling stuff to worry if everything used is in room temperature
Texture: 10/10. Light and moist! Smooth and slightly buttery! Excellent!
Taste: 8/10. It has a slight egg-y smell at initial inspection but can't detect the smell at all when I ate the cakes. It tastes really good with a good balance of saltiness and sweetness. Being extra critical, I'm not giving it a perfect mark mainly for the fact that it doesn't and wouldn't brown at all.

Frosting recipe - Vanilla Frosting from Taste of Home

Method: 5/10. Easy like most typical buttercream method but difficult to know the most ideal consistency to archive. The recipe says that it yields 16 servings but I can only frost 3 cupcakes with half amount of the recipe.
Texture: 4/10. Creamy but mostly sugary. Not very stable and doesn't stay in shapes.
Taste: 2/10. Very sweet! Recommend to ice cupcakes with just a thin layer of this frosting... No wonder this recipe can yield 16 servings. Not recommended to use for tall frosting.

Ultimate vanilla cupcakes? I like the cupcakes but not the reduced-fat buttercream. I prefer to stick my usual buttercream recipe which is always creamy and nice!

Disappointed? - I must say a little... but no worries at all. I have another interesting cupcake recipe to try. So stay tune for the my next celebration cupcake post.

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Before proceeding on to the recipe of these cupcakes, I would like to thank everyone for your participation in Little Thumbs Up in Apr 2013 which we have a total of 88 entries. Thumbs up, everybody!

Next, we will be cooking or baking with MUSHROOM for Little Thumbs Up in MAY 2013. The MUSHROOM event starts on the 7th May 2013 and my baking buddy, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours is the hostess for this theme.

Don't forget too to participate our next Cook like a Star, Curtis Stone blog hop event starting on 1st July 2013. This event is hosted by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Grace from Life can be simple.

Here are the recipes that I have used to bake our celebration cupcakes.
(with my note and modification in blue)

Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake from Cupcake Project.com

Yield: 16 cupcakes

1 cup (225g) granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean
(used 1 for half amount of the recipe)
1 3/4 cups (175g) cake flour, not self-rising
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
(replaced with extra baking powder)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup (57g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/3 cup (75g) full-fat sour cream
1/4 cup canola oil or vegetable oil (60 ml)
(I used rice bran oil)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
(I didn't add this)
2/3 cup (160 ml) whole milk

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C or 160°C fan forced).

In a small bowl, combine sugar and seeds from the vanilla bean.

Using the back of a spoon, move around the bowl and apply pressure to break up any clumps of seeds and to better infuse the vanilla flavor into the sugar. Set aside.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl or bowl of a stand mixer, mix together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the vanilla bean sugar and mix until well combined.

Add butter and mix on medium-low speed for three minutes. Because there is so little butter, you'll end up with a very fine crumb texture.

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, sour cream, oil, and vanilla extract until smooth. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.

Slowly add milk and mix on low speed until just combined. The batter will be liquid. (Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong. It's supposed to be that way.)

Fill cupcake liners just over 1/2 full.

Bake for 14 mins and then test to see with cake tester if they are done. The cupcakes should appear white with specks of vanilla bean. They should not turn golden brown. If they are not done, test again in two minutes. If they are still not done, test again in another two mins.

When the cupcakes are done, remove them immediately from the tins and leave them on a cooling rack to cool.

Note: Using half amount of the recipe, I have 9 cupcakes at 160°C fan forced for 17 mins.

Vanilla Frosting from Taste of Home

Yield: 1 cups for about 16 servings

2 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
(replaced with vanilla paste)

In a bowl, combine the sugar, butter, milk and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until smooth and fluffy.

Frost the cupcakes with this frosting.

Note: Using half of both recipes, I have baked 8 vanilla cupcakes and managed to frost only 3 cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I have decorated them with rolled and cut fondants and transformed them into Happy Ultimate Vanilla Cupcakes! - LOL!

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their celebration cupcakes baking.

Vanilla Xiang Si (Ogura) Cake

2013-04-30T14:32:00.001+10:00

After seeing Jeannie's perfect Ogura cakes, I kept thinking of the Mocha Xiang Si (Ogura) cake that I have baked previously. Although my previous Mocha Ogura cake managed to survive from massive cracks and under-baking, I reckon it is still not as perfect as Jeannie's ones.

Oh no... I'm thinking too much and losing sleep because Xiang Si Cake AGAIN! - Silly me!

Early this year, Doreen from My little favourites DIY and I have been chatting a lot about Xiang Si cakes. She reckon that this recipe from corner cafe is always failure proof for her Xiang Si baking. I did a comparison on this recipe that find that this recipe contains 30g more flour (plus custard powder) than the one that I have used. Apart from the increase flour content and the addition of icing sugar, everything else seems to be the same.

Seeing Jeannie's Ogura cakes (at Baking Diary) gave me some improving ideas...

One is to use smaller eggs (60g) instead of larger ones (70g). I realise that my cake looks a little more moist than Jeannie's and Phong Hong's. I have weighed both small and large eggs and thought that mine (using the larger ones) might be a little too much for my Ogura baking.

Two is to beat egg white to near stiff peaks. Sonia from Nasi Lemak Lover has kindly pointed out me that I should beat egg white to near stiff peaks, not soft peaks. I must have misunderstood her instructions initially - Oopsie!

Three is to increase oven temperature to 150 or 160°C after baking it at 125°C fan forced for 40 minutes (as advised by Sonia, Nasi Lemak Lover) as the higher temperature will brown the top of the cake better.

Last is to use a round tin instead of a square one for even heat distribution after seeing Jeannie's perfect round Ogura cakes.

With more thoughts and a bit less sleep, I managed to bake another Xiang Si (Ogura) cake with these improvements... Presenting my better vanilla Xiang Si (Ogura) cake! Hoping to bake more of this beautiful cottony cake with more variations in the future.

Finally! This is my improved Xiang Si (Ogura) cake!

big vs small - size does matter with Xiang Si baking!

The nice vanilla beans paste that I used

Mixing part A of the ingredients

Beating egg whites to near stiff peaks

I should have tapped the cake tin more to remove large bubbles but lucky that my cake survived well this time.

Cooling the inverted cake

My miniature slices of vanilla Xiang Si cake

Nicer texture this time!

Here's the recipe mostly adapted from My little favourites DIY

Part A:
45g cake flour
5g corn flour
1/8 tsp salt
30ml canola oil
30ml milk
2 1/2 egg yolks from 60g egg
1/2 whole egg from 60g egg
10g icing sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste

Part B:
2 1/2 egg whites from 60g egg
35g caster sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 150°C or 125°C fan force. Grease and line 16cm round cake tin. Prepare 2-3 cups of boiling water at this stage.

For A:
Whisk oil, milk, egg yolk and whole egg until frothy.
Sift in flour, salt and icing sugar. Mix well, put aside.

For B:
Using electric mixer, beat egg white with tartar powder and castor sugar until near stiff peak.

Using a spoon, fold mixture B into A by batches until well combined. Pour batter into the prepared cake tin. Tap pan lightly to remove air bubbles.

Bake at 130°C fan forced at the most bottom rack of the oven with a tray of boiling water placed under the cake tin. Bake for 55 mins and another 10 mins or longer at 150°C fan forced for the cake develop a nice browning top according to your preference.

Invert pan onto a cake rack and allow it to cool completely. Cut with a serrated knife and serve.

Happy Baking

Sweet Corn Bread Rolls with Chicken Creamed Corn Soup

2013-04-29T12:15:00.005+10:00

Mine. Mine. Mine...

Are the birds from Finding Nemo at my place? No. It is my son who is grabbing all these sweet corn rolls and put them all on his dinner plate. - LOL!

When I first saw these sweet corn bread rolls at Esther's Copycake kitchen, I knew that we are going to love these bread rolls and of course, we do... These sweet-smelling bread rolls are very soft inside and also outside. The combination of brown sugar, milk and butter is making these rolls and our house smelling extremely good. Taste-wise, the sweet rolls are even sweeter with lots of sweet corn kernels embedded inside.

Instead of the mixing all ingredients into one bread dough, this bread recipe requires two steps of mixing. First, it makes an initial dough which is highly enriched in egg and milk. After proving into double of its size, the initial dough is then torn into pieces and kneaded again with brown sugar, more flour, water and butter until smooth and elastic.

My son and I was having lots of fun shaping these bread rolls and extra-happy enjoying these delicious breads with bowls and bowls of warm and comforting chicken creamed corn soup.

Scroll down and you will see how easy these rolls and soup are made...

Our simple and warming dinner: Sweet corn bread rolls with chicken creamed corn soup

The initial dough torn into pieces and ready to be knead with our ingredients

My son is happy shaping these bread rolls.

One of the rolls shaped by my son - Not bad huh?

These rolls were shaped by me but one has a slightly cracked surface. Ops!

The three main ingredients to make this soup...

... mix them up in any proportional you like. Cook all + chicken in a saucepan... Ta Dah!

A bowl of soup + this soft and fluffy roll = ?

Thumb up, of course!

Here are the recipes.

Sweet Corn Bread Rolls mostly adapted from Copycake Kitchen
(rounding up and down all Esther's magic numbers - LOL!)

Ingredients

A
200g bread flour
1 tsp instant yeast
20g milk powder
50g egg (1 small 60g egg + 1 1/2 tbsp water)
70ml milk

B
65g bread flour
55g brown sugar
4g salt
30ml water
40g butter, softened

Fillings - corn kernels (about 1/2 of 420g can)

Method

Mix all ingredients (A) together and knead well to form a smooth dough.
Cover with cling wrap damp cloth and leave to prove until double size.
(I have kneaded (30 mins) and proved my dough for 1 hr using a bread-maker)

Take out dough and tear into small pieces. Add ingredient (B) and knead until the dough is smooth and elastic. Rest for 30 mins. (I have kneaded (30 mins) and proved my dough again for 30 mins using a bread-maker)

Divide dough into 8 portions and shape it into balls. Divide each portion again into two and roll out both dough into long rectangle shape. Spread about 1-2 tsp of corn kernels on top of one and place another dough on top of each other. Top dough sandwich roll with extra corn kernel and roll it tightly like swiss roll.

Arrange the dough into baking tray.

Leave to prove for 50 mins.

Preheat oven at 170°C or 160°C fan forced. Brush doughs with milk and bake for 15 mins or till golden brown.

Chicken Creamed Corn Soup mostly adapted from Taste.com

Serve 3-4
500ml chicken stock
1/2 x 420g can corn kernels
1 x 420g can creamed corn
1/4 store-bought roast chicken, skin and bones removed and shredded
chives, to garnish

Place the chicken stock in a large saucepan with corn kernels and creamed corn. (in any proportion that you like and I find that this ratio is working well for our preference)

Cook over medium heat and simmer for 5 mins.

Add shredded chicken and bring it to boil for 1-2 mins.

Serve with chives and also soft corn bread rolls.

Happy Baking and Cooking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Esther from Copycake Kitchen, at this post.

Due to many requests, we have decided to extend our Little Thumbs Up event from the first Tuesday until the last day of the month. Please join us! To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with the theme of the month which is CORN for April 2013 and link with us at this post anytime until 30th Apr 2013. Don't forget your thumbs up or display this badge! And make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post preferably within Apr 2013 . (2) Please mention Little Thumbs Up in your post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids, my little favourite DIY or/and Esther from Copycake Kitchen. For more details, please see this.

What after April 2013? Joyce from Kitchen Flavours will be the next hostess of MAY 2013 and her theme is MUSHROOM! All the upcoming ingredient themes and hosts for the forthcoming months are listed at "Little Thumbs Up" side bar of my blog and hope that you can join in the fun of this event. Thumbs up!

"Funny" Cat Tuna Bread Buns

2013-04-24T08:43:00.001+10:00

Funny cat tuna bread buns? You might ask... what is so funny about these cats or buns? They look like cat of course but why funny? "Are these Hello Kitty?" some of my colleagues asked. My answer is no. These are just "funny cats"...

It can be a long story for me explaining the origin and name of these bread buns but I shall cut my story as short as possible... Briefly, my son have a couple of these freebies Little Pet Shop toys from Singapore Airline and he likes to call them funny cats. As I was browsing through a Chinese bread baking book, The Second book of Baking for Beginner by Carol (a gift from Lena, Frozen wings), my son was excited seeing one of the recipes in this book and insisted that we should bake it because the bread buns look like his funny cats... so here we are baking these funny cat tuna bread buns.

As much as I am trying to read and translate Chinese language, I'm still lost in translation (like what I did in this post) - LOL! Good that this book has lots of good picture to illustrate many bread making processes and glad that I'm adapting well most of its fantastic recipes into my routine baking. Although both mother and son seem to be hopeless with our Chinese language, we managed to bake these nice and fluffy buns using a brilliant recipe from a Chinese baking book. Ironically "funny", isn't it? - LOL!

Our funny cat tuna bread buns

See how we tortured our boiled potato... LOL!

Making the tuna filling

Shaping and decorating the bread - the chocolate dough for decoration is not sweet at all.

freshly baked from our oven...

"funny" cat bread bun vs "funny" cat - Are we "funny"? - LOL!

Ear has been chomped! Not so "funny" anymore...

See how fluffy is our funny cat's ear...

Thumb up for "Funny" cat and its inspired bread buns

Here's recipe adapted mostly from the book, The Second book of Baking for Beginner by Carol, original in Chinese language, now briefly translated to English.

Makes 6

The tuna filling
1 can tuna (95g)
1 potato, boiled, mashed (or tortured - LOL!) with 15g milk powder
3 tbsp corn kernel
a pinch of freshly ground black pepper
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
(the original recipe didn't have this but my son had requested for it)

Mix all and divide into 6 equal portions

The bread dough
270g bread flour
30g all purpose flour (I used Italian OO flour)
1/2 tsp yeast
1 egg
20g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
20g olive oil
150ml water

The chocolate dough
100g bread flour
1/4 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp sugar
60ml water
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Egg wash
1 egg
1-2 tbsp milk

Instead of kneading by hand as illustrated in the book, I've placed all my ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the bread and chocolate dough for 1 hr.

Divide dough into 6 large portions which is about 60g each and 12 small portions which is about 15g each. Shape them into round shape and cover them with moist cloth and allow them to rest for 10 min. the large portions makes the face of the cat.

Flatten each large dough into a flat oval shape. Place each portion of tuna filling in the center of the dough and pinch the edges together to enclose it.

Roll and shape two of the small doughs into teardrop shapes. Arrange two small doughs into lightly oiled baking tray with their pointed sides pointing upwards and place the large dough with its seam side down onto 30% of the two small doughs to form a cat face. Repeat to form the rest of the cat faces.

Roll chocolate dough into skinny ropes. Cut and place them onto each face and decorate them accordingly.

Prove the bread for another 50-60 min or until the cat faces grow puffy.

Preheat oven to 180°C or 160°C fan forced. Brush the bread with egg wash and bake them at 180°C or 160°C fan forced for 18min.

Remove the bread buns from baking tray and allow them to cool completely on a wire rack.

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Esther from Copycake Kitchen, at this post.

Tres Leches Cake

2013-04-22T07:48:00.003+10:00

Got milk? Yes, please! We love our milk and including the sexy celebrities featuring in this campaign... LOL!

Got milk? Yes, please! ... and plenty for my Tres leches cake.

Tres leches cake in Spanish means three-milks cake. It is traditionally a basic sponge cake or butter cake soaked in three kinds of milk: evaporated milk, condensed milk, and whole milk. When butter is not used, Tres leches cake can be a very light cake and its most ideal texture should be moist but not soggy despite being soaked in a three-milks mixture. Knowing the descriptions of Tres leches cake, I wish to bake the non-buttery kind and hoping that I can archive its most ideal light and fluffy texture. To share the happiness (or maybe pains - LOL!) of baking this traditional Spanish cake, I had proposed to bake Tres leches cake as our bake-along theme with Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Lena, from Frozen wings.

To me, I reckon that the concept of baking Tres leches cakes is quite similar to the boozy chocolate cake that I baked previously. The only difference is that the chocolate cake of the boozy cake is soaked in spiced Cointreau syrup and the Tres leches sponge cake is soaked in a three-milks mixture. From my past boozy chocolate cake experience, I have learned that I have to be patient baking these syrup-soaking kinds of cakes. Patient in term of giving the cake enough time to fully absorb the syrup for a moist and delightful texture.

For this bake-along, I wish to bake Tres leches cake in its most traditional way. As I was reading along, I have discovered a lot of interesting and modern versions of Tres leches cakes... From all, I choose this recipe from The Pioneer Woman which is kind of the traditional non-buttery one that I prefer to bake.

Based on the instructions of the recipe, I waited more than 30 minutes (and I did wait for about an hour!) for the cake to absorb the milk mixture... After waiting, I was excited to feast on my very first slice of Tres leches cake but had the "sweetest" shock after I had my first bite!

Is 30 minutes too short to wait? After 30 minutes, the sweet milky mixture are mostly still on the top, bottom and sides of the cake. Tasting the sides of the cake (at that time) is eating a small piece of cake with a few tablespoonful of condensed milk... Yuck! At that point, I asked myself... What should I do? Wait again? Will the milk mixture be absorbed into the cake further? Wait for another 30 minutes? Or wait for next day? *clock ticking*

What the heck... I need to eat this cake now and I can't wait. So, I trimmed off the sides of the cake and serve it with fresh cream and Mexican chocolate sauce to balance out its sweet milky taste. Glad that I have trimmed off the sweetest part of my cake and the cake has became not-too-sweet and delicious to eat and even in this chocolate-plus-cream combination. Despite my initial "sweet" shock, I'm happy baking and enjoying this light and fluffy cake. All I need is to be patient for thorough milky absorption... or taking shortcut by trimming off its sweet sides... LOL!

My Tres leches cake (without any sides)... LOL!

Making the basic vanilla sponge cake

The sponge cake is ready!

Combine three milks to make the milky mixture

Pour and wait... Easy!

Making the Mexican chocolate sauce

No more sweet shock! Soft and fluffy cake with served with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Yum!

Here are the recipes (with my notes and modification in blue).

Tres Leches Cake from The Pioneer Woman

1 cup all-purpose Flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 whole eggs (reduced to 3 large eggs for 2/3 recipe)
1 cup sugar, divided (reduced to 100g for 2/3 recipe)
1 tsp vanilla (replaced with vanilla-infused milk)
⅓ cup milk (** vanilla infused)
1 can evaporated milk (* I used the 98% fat free one)
1 can sweetened, condensed milk (* I used the skim one)
¼ cup heavy cream (* replaced with vanilla-infused milk)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Separate eggs.

Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar (3/4 amount of the amount I used) on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.

Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar (1/4 amount of the amount I used) and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.

Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.

Bake for 35 to 45 mins or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.

Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream (or milk) in a small pitcher. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can.

Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 mins (or MORE).

To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 3 tbsp of sugar until thick and spreadable. Spread over the surface of the cake. (I didn't do this and serve the cake with just plain whipped cream)

Decorate cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries. (I didn't do this) Cut into squares and serve. I served mine with Mexican chocolate sauce.

Using 2/3 of the recipe, I have baked my cake in 20 cm square tin at 160ºC (fan forced) for 25 min.

*For 2/3 of the recipe, I need to pour only about 2/3 cup of the milk mixture onto my cake.
Based on the recipe, the proportion of the mixture is 4:4:1 (evaporated:condensed:cream) but mine is 2:2:1 (evaporated:condensed:milk) which is 60 ml evaporated milk + 60 ml condensed milk + 30 ml milk.

** Please note that I have used two "recycled" vanilla pods to infuse its flavours into 80 ml of milk. The vanilla pods were previously used to make vanilla sugar and now used to infuse this amount of milk by soaking in the milk for at least 1 hr.

Mexican Chocolate Sauce from Epicurious

Mexican chocolate is very different from the European, American or Australian chocolate that we eat or cook It contains cinnamon, sugar and sometimes ground almonds making its texture grainy and also typically not smooth at all. Please don't get me wrong... This chocolate and its sauce is ok to eat. We are just being picky and fussy and prefer the usual typical continental chocolate that we used to eat...

8 ounces Mexican chocolate, chopped1/2 cup water
1/4 cup heavy cream
(both water and cream were replaced with 1/2 cup of evaporated milk)
1 tbsp Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur (I used rum)

In a bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water or using microwave at low power, combine chocolate and water (I didn't add any water) and stir until chocolate is melted and sauce is somehow smooth. Remove bowl from heat and stir in cream (or evaporated milk) and liqueur until combined well**. Cool sauce completely and transfer to a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Sauce keeps, covered and chilled, 1 month. Serve sauce over ice cream or my Tres Leches cake.

**At this stage, I realised that placing the combined sauce in the microwave for about 30 sec with high power can help to thicken the sauce and smoothen it further.

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their Tres leches cake baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 22 Apr to 1 May 2013.

For our next bake-along, we are baking celebration cupcakes for our bake-along second anniversary which is to be posted on 2 May 2013. Yes! We have been BAKING ALONG for TWO YEARS! Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake any cupcakes and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 10 days.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Essence of Orange-Chocolate Cake

2013-04-18T08:52:00.001+10:00

Judging from everything of this cake, I wouldn't think this tastes and looks like a coffee cake. For mine, I would prefer to name it as an orange-chocolate yogurt slice instead.

This cake recipe is mostly adapted from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas. It is chosen by Eileen from Hundred Eighty Degrees for our 17th The Home Bakers bake. THB is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. With a group of gorgeous ladies, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe from this book has been baked.

For some reasons, I have made a few changes to obtain this final texture of my cake and wonder if the original recipe would yield a similar result. In the book, Lou classified this cake as a dessert coffee cake; a bittersweet cake with the combination of orange (including its peels) and dark chocolate. She uses raw orange including its peel and dark chocolate wafers to create a bittersweet taste and also processes the orange and raisins for a pudding-like texture. For me, I don't really like the addition of raisins into the always-classic bittersweet orange and dark chocolate combination and replaced the raisins with extra orange in this case. Furthermore, I don't really like the idea of eating raw orange peels in my bakes and prefer to cook my orange before baking in this case.

With the addition of yogurt, I reckon that my cake by definition should be more like a yogurt slice than a cake. It has a dense pudding-like texture with heaps of bittersweet taste. Overall, I'm feeling neutral with this bake. I like its orange and chocolate bittersweet taste but not a huge fan of its compact and dense yogurt-y texture.

Essence of orange-chocolate cake - very fanciful for a cake name!

This is what I did to my orange...

Making the "cake"

Baking the "cake"

The final touch... the bittersweet dark chocolate

Is this a cake? You be the judge.

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Eileen from Hundred Eighty Degrees for the detailed recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake.

My ingredients list (which is 1/2 amount of the original recipe)

1 large orange, scrubbed and cooked in boiling water for at least 1 1/2 hrs
60g unsalted butter at room temperature
70g sugar
1 large egg
165g all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup yogurt
40g dark chocolate chips
(I used Callebaut chocolate with 70% cocoa)
40g dark chocolate pieces
(with 85% cocoa)

Modifications that I have made from the original:

Instead of using raw orange, I have used boiled orange instead.
I have replaced 1/2 cup of raisins (for half amount of recipe) with extra half an orange.
I have reduced the sugar content of the cake from 100g to 70g for 1/2 amount of the recipe.
I have replaced baking soda with the same amount of baking powder.
I have replaced chocolate wafers with dark chocolate chips and dark eating chocolates.
For half amount of the recipe, I have baked my cake using 15 cm x 25 cm loaf pan at 160ºC fan forced for 30 mins and another extra 5 mins with dark chocolate topping.

Happy Baking

Savoury Corn Bread and Butter Pudding

2013-04-17T09:10:00.001+10:00

I like bread and butter puddings but my husband and son don't...

I remember eating lots of bread and butter puddings when I was living in a town near London but I don't really bake and eat them much these days as I will be the only one eating them all. Not until now when I found this recipe...

This savoury form of bread and butter pudding is mostly adapted from this recipe found at Taste.com and it is a hit in our corn-loving family. Everything in this bread and butter pudding is in such a great balance. Taste-wise, it is cheesy and fantastic with no eggy taste at all. Texture-wise, the pudding is smooth, moist and not soaking wet at all.

"Mummy, we love your cooking! ... especially this one." - Hearing this makes me smile. No doubt at all that there is lots of thumbs up for this nice and easy corn dish.

Our favourite corn bread and butter pudding

All that I need to prepare to bake this

Assemble them all...

... and bake!

Can't wait to feast on these...

Thumb up for corn! ... and corn bread and butter pudding!

Here is my version of recipe mostly adapted from Taste.com

Serves 3-4 depending on individual portion sizes

1 1/3 cup milk
1 bay leaf
1 clove
25g unsalted butter
about 250g corn kernels
2 tbs fresh thyme, roughly chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
25g grated parmesan cheese
25g grated Gruyère cheese
50g grated mozzarella cheese
4 slices of about 2 cm thick white bread
(I used Maltose and Corn Square Toast Bread that I have previously baked)
2 eggs
salt and pepper to season

Place the milk in a saucepan with bay leaf and clove over medium heat until just scalding. Remove from the heat and set aside for 15 mins to infuse.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (or 170°C fan forced). Grease a 2-litre ovenproof dish. Melt the butter in a medium frying pan over low heat. Add garlic and cook for about 2-3 mins or until fragrant. Add corns and thyme and season with salt and pepper.

Combine the three cheeses.

Place a layer of bread slices on the base of the dish, cover with a layer of corn mixture and then the cheeses. Repeat to make another layer. Beat eggs into milk, then strain over the pudding. Allow to stand for 10 mins before baking in the oven for 35 mins or until crisp and golden.

Serve this and ready to be complimented by corn lovers.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Esther from Copycake Kitchen, at this post.

Maltose and Corn Square Toast

2013-04-15T08:19:00.001+10:00

Boy: Mummy, I think daddy is the boss... and I'm the small boss.

Mum: Am I the slave of all bosses?

Boy: No! You are the adviser of all bosses.

... LOL!

It is true that my bosses at home don't get to choose what they eat at home. I'm the one who decide what to cook and serve at home. Most often, they are not fussy with my decision but on some occasions, I will get requests for specific cravings. Typically, my son likes everything with chocolate or corn and my husband likes everything that is Asian. This bread is a fusion of their requests. It is Asian bread made with corn and my son likes to call this the "corny" bread... LOL!

I have baked this Asian corn bread recipe for more than once using two different sugars, maltose and golden syrup, mainly because I thought that golden syrup is a great substitution for maltose... or maybe not. Maltose is commonly known as a main component for beer brewing and also commonly used in Asian cooking as sugar glaze for Asian roasts. On the other hand, golden syrup is a thick, amber-coloured form of sugar syrup, made in the process of refining sugar cane. Being a common baking ingredient and this is why I used golden syrup to substitute Maltose at first, thinking that buying Maltose just to bake this bread might seems unnecessary. Subsequently, my golden syrup and corn bread baking has eventually prompted me to try baking with maltose...

The dough made with either sugars are very sticky and soft. Although both dough are too wet to shape, both develop to form moist and nice bread texture. The one with golden syrup has a nice golden colour on its crust and inside with a QQ-spongy texture. The one with maltose is fairer in colour especially when it was baked using a pullman tin. It has a light crust with soft and fluffy inside. Taste-wise, the one with golden syrup is better with sweet and salty caramel taste whereas addition of maltose in the other loaf is not as obvious as the golden syrup ones. Interesting that two different sugars can produce two quite-different breads. Both are great but personally, I would prefer the one with maltose for its extra fluffy texture.

Now, are my bosses at home happy with my choice? With these breads, they are!

My maltose and corn square toast

The "interesting" ingredients of this bread

Maltose and golden syrup are not the same at all and in fact very different!

Baking this recipe with golden syrup

Baking this recipe with maltose

One recipe, two sugars, two different results

Maltose and corn breads - They looks very different even baking two different baking tins.

Thumb up! Corny? Full of corns and not corny at all... LOL!

Here's recipe adapted mostly from the book, The Second book of Baking for Beginner by Carol, original in Chinese language, now briefly translated to English.

Makes two 20cm x 10cm x 10cm loaf or square toast

(Note: Original is half of this recipe but I like to double up to make two loaves)

540g (plus 2 tbsp if dough is too sticky) bread flour
60g all purpose flour (I used Italian OO)
4 tbsp maltose or golden syrup
2 eggs
1 tsp dried yeast
20g milk powder
30g sugar
1 tsp salt
60g butter, cut into small pieces
300ml water
240g corn kernels
200g overnight sponge dough*

Instead of kneading by hand as illustrated in the book, I've placed all my ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead for at least 45 mins and prove the dough for 1 hr.

Divide dough into 2 (or 6), shape them into round shape and cover them with moist cloth and allow them to rest for 10 min.

Roll each divided dough to long logs and roll them loosely towards front. Place them with seam side down into lightly oiled baking tin.

Prove for another 50-60 min or until the baking tin is 80% full.

Preheat oven to 210°C (or 180°C fan forced).

Place the cover of the tin when the baking tin is 90% full and bake for 40min.

Remove the bread immediately from baking tin when it was baked and allow it to cool completely on a wire rack.

*200g overnight sponge dough

125g bread flour
1g salt
75ml water
1/4 tsp dried yeast

Instead of kneading by hand, I've placed all overnight sponge ingredients into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 3-4 hr. Store dough in the fridge, overnight until required.

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Esther from Copycake Kitchen, at this post.

Angry Birds Star Wars Cupcakes

2013-04-10T07:34:00.004+10:00

"When I grow up, I want a house with one thousand storeys.

Daddy will live in storey two.

Mummy will live in storey three.

Storey four is my store room.

Storey five is my garden.

Storey six is my balcony.

My three girlfriends will live in storey seven, eight and nine and I will live in storey ten.
I will rent the rest storeys to earn extra money..."

I laughed hearing my son saying these... Funny that these are what my four-years old son wish to achieve? Three girlfriends??? Geez!

Another year has passed and my son is now FOUR!

The transition from three to four hasn't been drastic for us and I can't help thinking that it seems like yesterday that my son had turned three. Being four now, my son seems more conversational and opinionated but still loves angry birds like what he did last year.

Happy 4th birthday, son! These star wars angry birds cupcakes are for you! May all your wishes (except for the three girlfriends one... LOL!) will all come true... Love ya!

Angry Birds Star Wars Cupcakes

Making the white chocolate mud cupcakes with my son

This recipe is super easy and always good.

Making the butter cream

My angry birds sketch

Things that I need for a finial touch

The good birds...

More good birds...

... and the bad piggies

May the baking force be with you...

This is how I made these cupcakes:

(with my modification and notes in blue)

This white chocolate mud cake has been the most popular cake published by the Australian Women's Weekly. Due to its reliability, moist and delicious taste, I have used this recipe more than once but never blog on this recipe before and so, here I am using this super-easy-melt-and-mix recipe again to make these cupcakes.

White Chocolate Mud Cake from Australian Women's Weekly

180g white eating chocolate, chopped

350g unsalted butter, chopped
2 2⁄3 cups (590g) caster sugar

11/2 cups (375ml) milk
2 cups (300g) plain flour
2⁄3 cup (100g) self-raising flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 160°C (140°C fan-forced). Grease a deep 22cm-round cake pan; line base and side with baking paper.

Combine chocolate, butter, sugar and milk in a large saucepan; stir over low
heat until smooth. Pour mixture into a large bowl; cool for 15 mins.

Whisk in sifted flours, extract and eggs. Pour mixture into pan; bake for about
1 hour 45 mins. Cool cake in pan.

Note: Using 2/3 of this recipe, I have baked 24 cupcakes at 140°C fan-forced for 35 mins.

Butter Cream adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly Mini Cookbook, Cupcakes and Cookies

75g butter, softened, chopped
180g icing sugar
1 1/2 tbsp milk

Beat butter with electric mixer until as white as possible. Gradually beat in half the sifted icing sugar, milk then remaining icing sugar.

Please note that this amount is only sufficient to spread thin layer of butter cream on 18 cupcakes.

This is how I made these Angry Birds Star Wars Cupcakes:

Planning - Each cupcake design is sketched with the actual measurements of each Angry Bird or pig on paper.

Using Wilton colouring gels, I coloured 2 packs (750g) of white rolled fondant into the amount required for these colours; red, pink, black, brown, light brown, yellow, orange, blue, beige and grey. Please note that this amount is sufficient enough to decorate 18 cupcakes and there will be excess of bits and pieces (about 300g-400g in total) of leftover.

Assembling the cupcakes:

Spread a smooth layer of butter cream on the top of each cupcake.

Roll out the fondant with a non-stick rolling pin with spacing rods to maintain a uniform thickness of about 4mm.

Cut the rolled fondant into:

1) 6.8 cm diameter circles as faces or background of the Angry Birds and pig and carefully place the circles on top each cupcake.

2) white circles as eyes of the Angry Birds and pigs

3) eyebrow shapes

4) beaks shapes

5) Hairs

These angry birds can be unique in their individual specific hair styles:

Luke Skywalker has a marble blend of yellow and light-brown coloured hair.
Han Solo and Princess Leia has dark brown hair and Princess Leia's one has to be braided instead of cutting the shapes from rolled fondant.
Chewbacca is quite furry and so the fondant edges don't have to be neatly cut.
Obi Wan Kenobi has only 3 grey hairs. - LOL!

6) their outfits, belt and weapons

Assemble the Angry Birds' and pig's faces onto each cupcake using a paint brush to apply small amount of water onto the bottom of each cut-out shapes to adhere the shapes onto other fondant surfaces.

Use an edible black food pen (Americolor) and edible rainbow dust to give the angry birds, pigs and Luke's swords a nice finishing touch.

Please refer to my pictures or any Angry Birds or pigs pictures for assembly of the cupcakes. I must apologise that I can't provide any fine details further in term of writing as there is really too much to include if I have to list them all extremely-thoroughly. I reckon following the details with the help of these pictures seems much more easier than following the words in the lengthy instructions.

Happy "Angry Birds Star Wars" Birthday and may the baking force be with you...

Deep Chocolate Pound Cake, Cook Like a Star Winner and more ...

2013-04-08T08:40:00.000+10:00

I'm always a big fan of Sara Lee's pound cakes especially the chocolate one. I love to eat them straight from the freezer and also with a glass of milk... Yum!

Now that I have been baking a lot, I have stopped buying Sara Lee's cakes and desserts. Since I love chocolate pound cake very much, I wonder if I can replicate this cake... For this reason, I have suggested to bake this recipe from the book, Bon Appetit by Barbara Fairchild or here for our bake-along with Joyce (Kitchen Flavours) and Lena (Frozen wings). Although there are mixed reviews of this recipe at Epicurious and its app, I'm still happy to give this recipe a try.

As mentioned in its recipe description, this chocolate pound cake is indeed comforting and chocolatey to eat but I wouldn't think that it is a good replica of Sara Lee's. This cake is slightly dry and crumbly on its outside but smooth and compact enough to be like a typical pound cake. It has a nice strong hint of honey which never exist in any Sara Lee's pound cakes. In term of its overall texture and taste, I reckon it is very different from Sara Lee's cakes .

Even this cake is not the exact replica of Sara Lee, this doesn't mean that I can't eat this cake in Sara Lee's ways... Using this and this recipe, I have adapted two simple ways of dressing and eating my chocolate pound cake. Both recipes are superb but we reckon that the one with gooey marshmallows and chocolate chips is simply the best.

---
Before proceeding to the recipe of this cake, I would like to make a few announcements...

One is the winner of my giveaway for Cook like a Star (Mar 2013) and the winning trendsetter is Mich from Piece of Cake. Mich will receive a cookbook from book depository and I will provide her a few titles to choose.

We have a total of 80 entries for this event and the most popular recipes in this events includes:

Quick and Easy Flaky Pastry with 5 entries and Mich from Piece of Cake is the first one to post.

Low Fat Carrot Cake with 5 entries and I'm the first one to post but I can't be the winner. Ops!

Congratulation to Mich! You are indeed a cooking star and a trendsetter!

Two is that I will be traveling again... I'm going to Singapore and Taipei in May 2013 and US in June 2013. Due to this reason, the hostesses of Cook like a Star (May 2013) with Nigella Lawson theme) have all agreed to postpone the event to August 2013. Cook like a Star (July 2013) with Curtis Stone theme will proceed as usual.

Three is I want to thank everyone for your participation at either Cook like a Star (Delia Smith) and/or Little Thumbs Up (Tomato) events. Hosted by Doreen from My Little Favourite DIY, we have a total of 91 entries for Little Thumbs Up (Tomato) at her tomato blog post. Hope everyone has fun cooking and baking like Delia and/or with tomatoes and seek your continuous participation in our future Cook like a Star and Little Thumbs Up.

Last is I want to apologize for my blog disappearance for the past few days as I had to fly back to Singapore to attend my grandmother's funeral. I'm back now at Melbourne cooking and baking again...

Making the cake batter

Baking the cake

Happy to see and taste the nice and moist pound cake texture

Eating our pound cake with Sara Lee's pound cake dressing ideas...


Gooey marshmallow and chocolate chips on a slice of chocolate pound cake... how can I reject this?

Here's the recipe from the book, Bon Appetit by Barbara Fairchild or here
(with my notes and modification in blue)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp coarse kosher salt
(replaced with table salt)
1/4 tsp baking soda
(replaced with baking powder)
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
(I used the Dutch processed one)
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp boiling water
3/4 cup sugar
(reduced to 120g)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips
(I used 80g of the Callebaut ones with 70% cocoa)

Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F.

Butter and flour 9x5x3-inch loaf pan, tapping out any excess flour.
(I lined my 11 cm x 21 cm loaf pan with baking paper)

Whisk flour, baking powder, coarse salt, and baking soda (I didn't use this) in medium bowl. Whisk sour cream and milk in small bowl.

Sift cocoa powder into another small bowl. Whisk in honey and 2 tbsp boiling water until smooth. Cool completely.

Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter in another medium bowl until light and fluffy, about 3 mins. Beat in eggs 1 at a time, occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in vanilla. Add cocoa mixture; stir until smooth, occasionally scraping down bowl. Beat in flour mixture alternately with sour cream mixture in 2 additions each until just blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Transfer batter to prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour 8 mins. Remove cake from pan and cool.

Note: I have baked my cake at 160°C fan forced for 1 hr 10 min and reckon that I should have baked my cake 5 mins lesser.

Nice toppings for my chocolate pound cakes

Option One (adapted from here):
Sprinkle rolled oats plus brown sugar evenly over pound cake.

Option Two (adapted from here):
Sprinkle marshmallows, chocolate chips evenly over pound cake.

Preheat oven to 200°C fan forced with grill.

Line baking tray with baking paper. Place pound cake slices with toppings on the tray and bake for 5-7 mins or until marshmallows and chocolate chips are lightly toasted or melted.

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their deep chocolate pound cake baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 4 to 13 Apr 2013.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Tres Leches Cake which is to be posted on 22 Apr 2013. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake your favourite Tres Leches cake and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 10 days.

Our Kiddy Corn Cooking

2013-04-08T08:33:00.006+10:00

My little boy can be quite fussy with his food but never think twice rejecting anything with chocolate, sweets and... corn! - Lucky me?

My son and I have been doing lots of "kiddy-cooking" lately and here are two different pancakes that we have created using corn and cheese as our main ingredients in our "play-kitchen". My son and I really enjoyed eating both versions of pancakes that we have created but our big boss daddy was a little disappointed when he first saw these pancakes and asked "where is the meat?" - LOL!

The first recipe that we have used is mainly adapted from shrove Tuesday pancakes by Nigella Lawson, published in her book, Feast. In Feast, Nigella wrote that we can eat these pancakes with sugar plus lemon or Nutella but we ate ours with buttered corn and melted mozzarella cheese - Yum!

The second recipe is mainly adapted from a corn cake recipe from Epicurious. The original recipe adds corns, cheese, onion, red pepper and chilli into the pancakes but we only like our version being plain with corns and cheese. Nothing more and less - just corns and cheese!

Corn and cheese pancakes made with Nigella's recipe

Cooking these basic and versatile pancakes

Assembling the pancakes

Enjoying the pancakes with they are warm with gooey cheesy filling

The ingredients to make corn cakes, recipe from Epicurious

Mix, mix, mix and fry!

These warm pancakes have nice spongy cheesy texture.

Thumbs up our "corn-y" cooking :D

Here are the pancakes recipes (with my notes and modification in blue)

Shrove Tuesday Pancakes adapted from the book, feast by Nigella Lawson

Makes 6 x 20 cm crepes

30g unsalted butter, melted plus more than frying
150g plain flour
325ml milk
1 egg

Melt butter and let cool a little.

Pour flour into a bowl, whisk in the egg and milk and finally just before making the crepes, mix in the melted butter.

Note: Mixture can be lumpy. You can whiz mixture in a blender or pour mixture through a sieve and press any lumps through the sieve.

Heat a pan and ladle 2-3 tablespoons of batter into the pan and quickly swirl so that the batter forms a think pancake. Cook for a min and flip it and cook for 30 secs to a minute on the other side. Remove the crepe to a layer of baking paper. Continue with the rest of the batter.

Note: Using double amount of this recipe and a 26 cm pan, I have made 9 pancakes.

Our Filling:
1 1/2 cup of corn kernels
1 tbsp of melted butter
a pinch of salt

Sauté corn, melted butter and salt together until lightly fragrant. Set aside. On a heated pan, place one pancake first, a small handful of mozzarella cheese, then 2 tbsp of buttery corn. Cook until the cheese begin to melt and flip the pancake into half. Remove pancake from the pan and enjoy them while they are warm with gooey inside. Repeat with the rest.

Corn Cakes from Epicurious
1 cup stone-ground yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
(replaced with baking powder)
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper (I didn't add this)
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus additional melted butter for brushing the griddle
(replaced with rice bran oil)
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup thawed frozen corn, chopped coarse
(increase to 1 1/2 cup to compensate the missing onion, red pepper and chilli)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion (I didn't add this)
1/4 cup finely chopped, rinsed, drained, and patted-dry bottled roasted red pepper
(I didn't add this)
1 fresh jalapeño or serrano chilli, or to taste, seeded and minced
(I didn't add this)
1 cup coarsely grated Monterey Jack
(I used 3/4 cup mozzarella and 1/4 cup of Parmesan)

In a bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, salt, baking soda (or baking powder), pepper (I didn't add this) and the sugar.

In another bowl whisk together 2 tbsp of butter (or oil), egg, and buttermilk. Stir in corn, onion, roasted pepper, chilli, (I didn't add onion, pepper and chilli) and cheese, and stir in the cornmeal mixture, stirring until the batter is just combined. Heat a griddle over moderately high heat until it is hot, brush it lightly with the additional butter (or oil), and working in batches drop the batter by a 1/4-cup measure onto the griddle. Spread the batter slightly to form 3 1/2- to 4-inch cakes, cook the cakes for 2 to 3 mins on each side, or until they are golden, transferring them as they are cooked to a heatproof platter, and keep them warm.

Note: With this amount of batter, 1/4 cupful of batter can yield approximately 12 pancakes. They are great to be served on their own or with mayonnaise.

Happy Kiddy Cooking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Esther from Copycake Kitchen, at this post.

Russian Easter Bread

2013-03-28T08:38:00.001+11:00

I can't believe it's Easter so soon at the end of March 2013. I though I just celebrated Christmas a few months ago and can't believe autumn and winter is now approaching Melbourne with the coming Easter... *sign*

Like most families, we love celebrating our Easter with lots of chocolate (chocolate eggs - HURRAY!) and hot cross buns. This year, with Cook like a Star Delia Smith theme, I was intending to bake these hot cross buns from Delia Smith website but thought baking this Russian Easter bread for a change.

I have never been to Russia and know nothing about Russian Easter traditions. I never tasted a Russian Easter bread called kulich but learn something about this bread from Google, Wikipedia and Epicurious. Accordingly to Wikipedia and Epicurious, kulich is a cross between brioche and challah and often baked as a tall loaf in a coffee can. Being lightly sweetened and egg-glazed, kulich would sit proudly in the center of the family basket, decorated with flowers and served with meats, cheeses, butter, and eggs for traditional Eastern European Easter celebrations.

Unlike most of the Russian Easter breads that I have seen from Google images, this one that I baked seems rather plain. Although mine is not as glorious as mostly described and served, it is very soft and delicious for us to eat. In my opinion, baking and enjoying this beautiful sweet buttery loaf is in fact pretty priceless...

My plain Russian Easter bread

Making the bread dough

Shaping my kulich

One large and two mini kulichs

I need to do this for a nice glaze.

The sweet buttery smell of these breads is heavenly...

Very soft and delicious.. Yum!

Happy Easter! Tweet Tweet!

My family and I will be away for a really really short break at this Easter long weekend and I will be back to blog again on 3rd April 13. - Happy Easter!

Here's the recipe from Epicurious
(with my modification and notes in blue)

1 cup whole milk
(for 1/2 amount, replaced with 15g milk powder with water)
1/2 cup sugar plus a pinch
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
Pinch of saffron threads, crumbled
2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water (105–115°F)
(for 1/2 the recipe and considering the amount of water to replace milk, total volume required is 160ml, preferably boiling)
6 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting
(for 1/2 amount, I used 100g Italian OO flour + 350g bread flour)
4 large eggs

Make dough using Epicurious method:

Heat milk, sugar, butter, saffron, and salt in a 1-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved, about 2 mins. Remove from heat and cool to lukewarm.

Meanwhile, stir together yeast, warm water, and pinch of sugar and let stand until foamy, about 5 mins.

Put flour in a large bowl and make a large well in center. Lightly beat 3 eggs and add to well along with milk and yeast mixtures. Carefully stir together with a wooden spoon, gradually incorporating flour, until a soft dough forms. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and knead, dusting with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until smooth and elastic, about 10 mins. Put dough in a lightly oiled large bowl, turning to coat with oil, and let rise, covered with a clean kitchen towel, in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 3 hrs.

Punch down dough and let rise again, covered with towel, until doubled in bulk, about 1 hr.

Make dough using my method:

Combine boiling water, butter and salt together in a microwave-safe bowl. Mix well until butter is melted and well incorporated. Place saffron into the mixture and heat it in a microwave with low power for about 2 mins for saffron to release its reddish golden colour. Remove and allow mixture to cool to lukewarm.

Place saffron mixture, eggs, flour, milk powder and yeast into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 1 hr.

Form loaves:

This recipe makes two loaves with each 5-6 cup or 2-pounds capacity. Generously butter soufflé dishes (or any baking pans that you want to use). Punch down dough and divide in half. Loosely wrap 1 piece in plastic wrap and set aside. Cut away one third of remaining piece of dough and reserve, then roll remaining two thirds into a large ball and transfer to a soufflé dish.

Roll reserved piece of dough into an 18-inch-long rope on work surface with palms of your hands. Cut rope into 3 equal pieces and lay pieces vertically side by side on work surface, about 1/4 inch apart. Gather 3 ends farthest from you and press them together, then braid strands, pressing together other ends to secure braid. Lay braid over top of dough in soufflé dish (trim braid if using coffee cans). Form another loaf with remaining dough in same manner.

Cover loaves with clean kitchen towel and let rise in draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled in bulk, about 1 1/2 hrs (loaves will rise about 1 inch above rims of dishes).

Using 1/2 of the recipe, I have shaped 2/3 of my dough to bake a large loaf using a 14cm round baking tin and 1/3 of my dough to bake two small loaves using two ramekins (each with 1 cup capacity).

Bake loaves:

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F (or 160°C fan forced).

Lightly beat remaining egg and a large pinch of salt (mine is 1/2 egg yolk with 2 tbsp of milk plus salt), then brush egg over top of each loaf. Bake loaves until golden brown and bread sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 1 hr.

Note: My large 14 cm round bread took 15 mins to bake without foil, then another 25 mins to bake without foil and at last another 5 mins to bake without foil for its most ideal golden colour. Its total baking time is 45 mins.

My two small loaves took 15 mins to bake without foil, then another 10 mins to bake without foil and at last another 5 mins to bake without foil for its most ideal golden colour. Their total baking time is 30 mins.

Turn loaves out onto a rack, then turn right side up and cool completely.

Happy Baking and Happy Easter

Focaccia with Ham and Melted Gruyère (Delia Smith)

2013-03-27T08:12:00.001+11:00

I know that the combination of ham and cheese can never go wrong in our family... especially anything with gruyère cheese. We are not just chocoholics and I reckon that we are cheeseaholic too! Whenever I served food with good quality Parmesan and gruyère, the cheesy layer of the food is always gone extremely quick. I'm always in the process of hunting down the cheese-stealing mouse in our house but never seem to be able to catch it! -LOL!

I know that we all will love this focaccia when I first saw this recipe from Delia Smith. The recipe suggests the use of either fontina or gruyère and I have chosen gruyère for its extra nutty taste and sharpness. The recipe uses 350g of cheese to make this mid-size focaccia which I reckon this amount of cheese might be too much to fit in. With much effort of stacking, I can managed to pack in only 200g gruyère in our foccacia... maybe because I wasn't playing tetris enough in the 90s? - LOL!

Despite that we had a reduced amount of cheese in our focaccia, the melting cheese was sufficient enough to ooze out of freshly baked bread. As I was serving it, we were all excited seeing this...

We love the oozing cheese flowing out of this freshly baked foccacia.

The beautiful filling ingredients in this bread

A big stack of filling packed in this mid-size focaccia

There is more than just packing the bread with ham and cheesy fillings...

Stacks of ham and cheese sliding off my focaccia after I took my first bite... Ops!

Here's the recipe from Delia Smith
(with my modification or notes in blue)

For the dough:
9 oz (250 g) strong white bread flour, plus a little extra for dusting
1 level tsp easy-blend dried yeast
1 dessertspoon olive oil, plus a little extra for greasing
1 level tsp salt

For the filling:
175 g sliced Parma ham
(I used 200g thinly sliced honey roasted ham which is also 97% fat free)
350 g Fontina (or Gruyère)
(I used 200g Gruyère)
3 tbsp chopped fresh sage leaves
freshly milled black pepper

For the top:
15 small sprigs fresh rosemary
2 tbsp olive oil
1 level tsp sea salt
(I used fleur de sel)
Pop the ingredients for the dough, including 5 fl oz (150 ml) water into the breadmaker in the order your manual instructs. Set it to the dough only setting (as the focaccia is going to be baked in the oven) and press the start button.
Meanwhile, towards the end of the time, prepare the filling ingredients, separating the slices of ham and cutting the cheese into thin slices. When the dough is ready, remove it from the machine, turn it out on to a flat, lightly floured surface, divide it into two and then roll out one half
to form a rough, rounded rectangle about 11 x 8 inches (28 x 20 cm).

Then place it on a baking tray (I greased my tray first with extra olive oil) and arrange the slices of ham on top, making sure they go right up to the edge. Follow this with the cheese, right up to the edge again, then scatter over the sage. Now give it a good seasoning of freshly milled black pepper. Then roll out the remaining dough, lay it on top of the first, pinching the edges together all the way round to completely enclose the filling. Now cover it with a clean tea cloth and leave it to puff up again for about 30 mins (60 min for mine). Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to gas mark 6, 400°F (200°C) (or 180°C fan forced).

When the dough is ready, make 15 little dimples in it with your finger and press in the sprigs of rosemary. Finally, drizzle over the olive oil and sprinkle with the salt. Bake for 20-25 mins, or until the dough is crisp and golden. Serve the focaccia, cut into squares or wedges, straight
from the oven.

Note: I baked mine at 180°C fan forced for 30 mins.

Happy Baking
This post is also linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Wanna cook or bake like Delia Smith? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from Delia Smith's website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013. For more details, please see this.

For March 2013, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

Here are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Cook like a Star in your post and link back to our Cook like a Star post, Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Cheers!

Chicken with Sherry Vinegar and Tarragon Sauce (Delia Smith)

2013-03-25T08:31:00.003+11:00

It was a nice and mild weekend evening when I was serving this beautiful chicken dish with a nice and easy potato salad.

The wonderful combination of chicken cooked with sherry, sherry vinegar and tarragon is simply superb creating very nice flavours. With no doubt, we finished all of this dish with great satisfaction. The potato salad with this vinaigrette dressing is fantastic as well and complement well with these chicken. I would assume that everything seems nice and ok for this dinner but unfortunately, not so as we can't think unanimously well of this potato salad... Apparently, the subtle fume from the shallots in salad has made my son a winch at the begining of the dinner. After his first taste of the potato salad, my son just refused to have another bite subsequently... *sign*

Boy: Mum, I don't like potato anymore...

Mum: Ok! For you, I will remember not to add shallots into our potato salad anymore...

Boy: I will not eat any potato salad anymore...

Dad: Chips are made of potato and maybe you should not eat chips anymore...

Boy: D'Oh

Chicken with Sherry Vinegar and Tarragon Sauce

The beautiful ingredients for this dish

Cooking the chicken dish...

We are getting there. Giving this dish a final touch...

Ready! Now I need a good potato salad to compliment this.

Making the vinaigrette for the potato salad

Only for adults - Nice potato salad served with shallots and vinaigrette

Here are the recipes from Delia Smith
(with my modification in blue)

Chicken with Sherry Vinegar and Tarragon Sauce

1.75 kg chicken, jointed into 8 pieces, or 4 bone-in chicken breast portions
(I have used 4 skinless and boneless chicken breasts, about 1.3 kg in total)
5 fl oz (150 ml) sherry vinegar
2 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves
2 tbsp olive oil
12 shallots, peeled and left whole
4 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
15 fl oz (425 ml) medium-dry Amontillado sherry
(I used a medium range Australian mild sherry - cooking sherry doesn't have to be expensive)
1 heaped tbsp crème fraîche
salt and freshly milled black pepper
To garnish: 8 small sprigs of fresh tarragon

Method
First of all, heat the oil in the frying pan and season the chicken with salt and pepper. Then, when the oil begins to shimmer, fry the chicken (in two batches) to brown well: remove the first batch to a plate while you tackle the second. Each piece needs to be a lovely golden-brown colour. When the second batch is ready, remove it to the plate to join the rest. Then add the shallots to the pan, brown these a little, and finally add the garlic cloves to colour slightly.

Now turn the heat down, return the chicken pieces to the pan, scatter the tarragon leaves all over, then pour in the vinegar and sherry. Let it all simmer for a bit, then turn the heat to a very low setting, so that the whole thing barely bubbles, for 45 min (I did mine for 50 min). Halfway through, turn the chicken pieces over to allow the other sides to sit in the sauce.

When they're ready, remove them to a warm serving dish (right side up) along with the shallots and garlic. The sauce will by now have reduced and concentrated, so all you do is whisk the crème fraîche into it, taste it and season as required, then pour the sauce all over the chicken and scatter with the sprigs of tarragon.

This is lovely served with tiny new potatoes tossed in herbs and some fresh shelled peas.

Potato Salad with Shallots and Vinaigrette

2 lb (900 g) Anya or other new potatoes, washed
(I used 1 kg baby cream delight potatoes)
6 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
4 tbsp freshly snipped chives
salt

For the vinaigrette
1 rounded dessertspoon sea salt
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 rounded dessertspoon mustard powder
(I used 1/2 tsp of Dijon mustard)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp sherry vinegar
5 fl oz (150 ml) extra virgin olive oil
freshly milled black pepper

Method
Steam the potatoes over a pan of boiling, salted water, covered with a lid, for about 20 min until they are tender.

Instead of steaming, I boiled my potatoes. Place potatoes in medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Cover and bring to boil at high heat. Reduce to medium and simmer uncovered for 15-20 min or until tender. Remove from heat, drain off the water and set aside for 10 min.

Meanwhile, make up the dressing. Begin by crushing the salt quite coarsely with a pestle and mortar, and then add the garlic. As you crush it and it comes into contact with the salt, it will quickly break down into a puree.

Next, add the mustard and really work it in, giving it about 20 sec of circular movements to get it well blended. After that, add some freshly milled black pepper.

Now add the vinegars and work these in in the same way. Then add the oil, switch to a small whisk and give everything a really good whisking. (I whisked mine briefly with a fork)

As soon as the potatoes are cooked, cool them in a mixing bowl for 10 min, then stir in the vinaigrette and shallots while the potatoes are still just warm. Now add the chives and give everything a good toss to distribute any dressing collected in the base of the bowl and transfer the salad to a serving bowl.

Note: The amount of the above two recipes are very generous portions for 3-4 adults. Knowing this, I have saved an extra portion for my husband's next day lunch.
Happy Cooking

This post is also linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Wanna cook or bake like Delia Smith? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from Delia Smith's website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013. For more details, please see this.

For March 2013, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

Flaky Apple Turnover

2013-03-20T07:41:00.003+11:00

When Joyce from Kitchen Flavours suggested Turnover as the theme of this bake-along, the first thing I want to bake is the classic apple turnover. I wonder if Joyce or Lena, from Frozen wings are thinking the same too...

Prior to this apple turnovers baking, I thought that baking apple turnover is always easy and basic to do. Simply wrap diced apple into puff pastry and bake... and what can be more difficult than that... Then, I realise that baking apple turnovers can be as challenging as I would imagine and it depends on each individual's expectation of a good apple turnover.

This is me and my crazy apple turnover thinking again... I have written down a small list to conquer and I called this my good apple turnover No-No list... LOL!

My number One No No is No soggy dough.
My number Two No No is No tasteless apple filling.
My number Three No No is No overcooked, undercooked, mashy or watery filling.

Looking at my No-Nos, my ultimate aim is to bake apple turnovers with flaky crispy buttery crust filled with flavoursome, firm but well cooked real apple fillings.

With all these factors in my mind, I'm very keen to bake my turnovers using this Cook's Illustrated recipe. This recipe claims that its puff pastry recipe can create super super-flaky, buttery layers made with lots of folding. Each fold creates thin layers of butter and pastry which puff and separate into delicate layers while baking.

I can never imagine that I can make puff pastry from scratch... It seems scary at first. Now, baking these, I reckon making my own puff pastry is definitely not scary at all... or in fact, it can be quite therapeutic.

Using this recipe, do you think my apple turnovers have conquer all in my No-No list? My answer will reveal as you scroll to see my last picture...

My Apple Turnover

Making the pastry for the puff pastry... sounds like a tongue twister, isn't it?

Puff pastry making - Part 1

Puff pastry making - Part 2

Puff pastry making - Part 3

Finally - This is my puff pastry!

Preparing the apple filling

Assembling the apple turnovers...

... and bake it!

Apple turnovers with my No-No?

No. 1 No No - No soggy dough, checked. Pastry is crispy on the top and flaky inside.
No. 2 No No - No tasteless apple filling, checked. This apple filling tastes great!
No. 3 No No - No overcooked, undercooked, mashy or watery filling, checked. Each apple piece is tender to bite and not mashy at all.

Challenge accomplished! *Happy*

Here are the recipes from the book, The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook
(with my notes and modification in blue)

Flaky Apple Turnover

Make 8

1 pound Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped coarse
(I used only 1 medium apple for half recipe)
3/4 cup sugar (reduced to 50g for half recipe)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 recipe Puff Pastry Dough, divided into two 8-ounce pieces
1/2 cup applesauce
(I use baby food, apple puree. It is 100% apples at least! - LOL!)
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400°F (or 180°C fan forced). Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

Pulse apples, 1/2 cup sugar (reduced to 35g for half recipe), lemon juice, and salt together in food processor until largest pieces of apples are no larger than 1/2 inch, about 6 pulses (To avoid over-processing, I chopped the apples briefly to specified size). Let mixture sit for 5 min, then transfer to fine-mesh strainer set over bowl and let apples drain, reserving juice, until needed.

Roll each piece of dough into 10-inch square between 2 lightly floured sheets of parchment. Remove top sheets of parchment and cut each piece of dough into four 5-inch squares (you will have 8 squares total). For half of the recipe, I have rolled my dough to about 7x15-inch rectangle and cut it into 4 equal rectangles.

Toss drained apples and applesauce together in separate bowl. Place 2 tbsp apple filling in center of each piece of dough. Brush edges of dough with reserved juice, then fold 1 corner of square diagonally over filling. (I fold mine from a rectangle to a square) Crimp edges of dough with fork to seal. Lay turnovers on prepared baking sheet and freeze until firm, about 15 min. Assembled turnovers can be frozen for 1 hour, then transferred to zipper-lock bag and frozen for up to 1 month. Let frozen turnovers sit at room temperature for 20 min, then bake as directed. (I didn't freeze mine at all and bake them immediately after shaping)

Combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar (reduced to 15g for half recipe) and cinnamon in bowl. Brush turnovers with more reserved juice and sprinkle generously with cinnamon sugar. Bake turnovers until well browned, 20 to 26 min (I baked mine at 180°C fan forced for 25 min), rotating baking sheets. Immediately transfer turnovers to wire rack and let cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: Using half the recipe, I have made four 3.5 cm x 3.5 cm square apple turnovers.

Puff Pastry Dough

Makes about 2 pounds

Dough
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon juice
1 cup water, chilled

Butter Square
24 tbsp (3 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
2 tbsp all-purpose flour

For the dough: Process flour, sugar, and salt in food processor until combined, about 5 secs. With food processor running, add lemon juice, followed by 3/4 cup water, in slow steady stream. Add remaining 1/4 cup water as needed, 1 tbsp at a time, until dough comes together and no flour) bits remain. (I didn't use a processor for this step and the knead the dough by hand)

Turn dough onto sheet of plastic wrap and flatten into 6-inch square. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for 1 hr.

For the butter square: Lay butter sticks side by side on sheet of parchment paper. Sprinkle flour over butter and cover with second sheet of parchment. Gently pound butter with rolling pin until butter is softened and flour is fully incorporated, then roll it into 8-inch square. Wrap butter square in plastic and refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hr.

Roll chilled dough into 11-inch square on lightly floured counter. Place chilled butter square diagonally in center of dough. Fold corners of dough up over butter square so that corners meet in middle and pinch dough seams to seal.

Using rolling pin, gently tap dough, starting from center and working outward, until square becomes larger and butter begins to soften. Gently roll dough into 14-inch square, dusting with extra flour as needed to prevent sticking. Fold dough into thirds like business letter, then fold rectangle in thirds to form square. Wrap dough in plastic and let rest in refrigerator for 2 hrs.

Repeat the rolling and folding step twice and let dough rest in refrigerator for 2 more hrs before using.

Note: I made my pastry using half of the recipe and rolled it according to half of the dimensions as mentioned in the recipe.

Happy Baking

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their turnover baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 20 Mar to 29 Mar 2013.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Deep Chocolate Pound Cake (Recipe from the book, Bon Appetit or here) which is to be posted on 4 Apr 2013. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake this recipe and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 10 days.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code.get the InLinkz code

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Tomato Bread

2013-03-18T09:55:00.001+11:00

Unlike my first homemade tomato chutney, this tomato based recipe is a nice one that my family truly enjoy!

We love the colour and texture of these tomato breads. They are so good that I have to bake it again and again...

This tomato bread has a delicious spongy texture with a beautiful reddish colour. I didn't like the idea of using tomato puree for making this bread and choose a lazy-way-out by replacing tomato puree with more tomato paste instead. For extras, I have added tomato pesto filling inside this bread.

This recipe uses the gelatinisation method which I have mixed opinions in this bread baking method. It might be plausible that this method is the main contributing factor to this ideal bread texture but I think that having adequate proving time is equally important. Nevertheless, rather than re-invent the wheel, I choose to follow the exact method of this recipe and I'm happy that these bread always turned out to be very yummy.

My first time baking this bread...

Then, my second time: adding mayo and cheese as toppings

The very tomato ingredients that I used

Shaping the bread

Brushing the bread with oil and adding toppings

Bake this bread now... We are very hungry!

My freshly baked tomato breads

Look at the yummy spongy texture... Very delicious!

Thumb up for tomato bread!

Here's the recipe from the book, Magic Bread by Alex Goh
(with my modifications in blue)

Ingredients:

A
100g bread flour
70g boiling water

B
400g bread flour
45g sugar
8g salt
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp Italian mixed herbs
8g instant yeast

C
125g tomato (blend until fine) (Replace with 80g tomatoes paste and 40g water)
20g tomato paste
120g cold water
35g olive oil

Toppings:
grated cheddar cheese (I use Parmesan cheese)
mayonnaise
(I use the 99% fat free one. We normally like the traditional egg mayonnaise but this fat free one tastes really light, tangy and goes very well for this bake.)
chopped fresh parsley (replace with Italian mixed herbs)

Method:

Add the boiling water from A into flour, mix until well-blended to form dough. Cover and set aside to cool. Keep it into refrigerator for at least 12 hrs.

Mix B until well-blended. Add in A and C, knead until smooth and elastic. Let it proof for 40 min. (I proof mine for 1 hr)

Divide the dough into 80g each and mould it round. let it rest for 10 min.

Flatten the dough and roll it into oblong shape. Place it onto a greased pan. Let it proof for 50 min. (I proof mine for another 1 hr)

Egg wash the surface and sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on top. Pipe some mayonnaise over it and sprinkle some chopped fresh parsley.

Bake at 190°C for 15 min.

Note:

I have baked this bread in two 10 cm x 20 cm loaf pan at 180°C fan forced for the first 8-10 min and covered the bread with foil and baked for another 8-10 min.

After its 1st hr proving, I've divided the dough into 6 portions. I've flattened each portion and spread 1/2 tsp of tomato pesto into each flatten dough and rolled them up.

Instead of egg wash, I've brushed my bread with 2 tbsp olive oil with 1/2 tsp tomato pesto and sprinkle some Italian mixed herbs on half of them. For the other half, I have proceeded to pipe some mayonnaise and sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on them.

Happy Baking

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Doreen from my little favourite DIY, at this post.

Due to many requests, we have decided to extend our Little Thumbs Up event from the first Tuesday until the last day of the month. Please join us! To join, simply cook or bake any recipe with the theme of the month which is TOMATO for March 2013 and link with us at this post anytime until 31st Mar 2013. Don't forget your thumbs up or display this badge! And make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post preferably within March 2013 . (2) Please mention Little Thumbs Up in your post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids or/and my little favourite DIY. For more details, please see this.

What after March 2013? Esther from Copycake Kitchen will be the next hostess of April 2013 and her theme is CORN! All the upcoming ingredient themes and hosts for the forthcoming months are listed at "Little Thumbs Up" side bar of my blog and hope that you can join in the fun of this event. Thumbs up!

Low-fat Moist Carrot Cake (Delia Smith)

2013-03-13T08:40:00.000+11:00

My son and I love eating cakes or cookies made with dried cherries. For this reason, I have been searching dried cherries for a long time and finally, I have found several shops in Melbourne that sells them. Yippee!

When we bought our package of dried cherries, we can't wait to eat them... and since I was going to bake this low fat carrot cake from Delia Smith, I might as well replace the sultanas with these dried cherries...

As expected, this Delia Smith's low fat carrot cake recipe is fantastic! My 10cm x 20cm cake is made with only 1/4 cup of oil and 80g of low fat cream cheese and yet it is so moist and yummy! And, of course, the longer you allow the cake to infuse with the orange syrup, the moister the cake will be...

My low fat carrot cake, recipe is from Delia Smith

Making the cake batter

Yum!

Baking the cake

The important extras for this cake

Infusing the cake with the orange glaze

Light and delicious carrot cake with dried cherries - This is so heavenly!

Before proceeding on to the recipe of this cake, I would like to mention that Esther from Copycake Kitchen will be the next Little Thumbs up host for April 2013 and her theme is CORN! Please link your blog posts with Esther if you are cooking or baking with corn in April. Cheers!

Here's the recipe from Delia Smith
(with my notes and modification in blue)

175g dark brown soft sugar, sifted
(I used dark muscovado sugar)
2 large eggs at room temperature
120 ml sunflower oil (I used rice bran oil)
200 g wholemeal self-raising flour
11/2 level tsp bicarbonate of soda (replaced with baking powder)
3 rounded tsp mixed spice (replaced with 1 tsp ground cinnamon for half amount)
grated zest 1 orange
100 g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
175 g sultanas (replaced with dried cherries)

For the topping:
250g Quark (skimmed-milk soft cheese)
(for less than half the amount, I used 80g of the slightly lower fat cream cheese with 14% fat)
20 g caster sugar
(to complement the amount of cream cheese used, I have used 8g of icing sugar)
2 tsp vanilla extract
(I didn't add this)
1 rounded teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus a little extra for dusting
(I didn't add this)

For the syrup glaze:
juice ½ small orange
1 dessertspoon lemon juice
40g dark brown soft sugar
(I used dark muscovado sugar)

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3, 325°F (170°C) or 150ºC fan forced

Begin by whisking the 175 g sugar, eggs and oil together in a bowl using an electric hand whisk for 2-3 mins.

Then sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and the mixed spice into the bowl, tipping in all the bits of bran that are left in the sieve.

Now stir all this together, then fold in the orange zest, carrots and sultanas (or dried cherries). After that pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the centre shelf of the oven for 35-40 mins, until it is well risen and feels firm and springy to the touch when lightly pressed in the centre.

While the cake is cooking, make the topping by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl until light and fluffy, then cover with clingfilm and chill for 1-2 hrs or until needed. Now you need to make the syrup glaze, and to do this whisk together the fruit juices and sugar in a bowl.

Then, when the cake comes out of the oven, stab it all over with a skewer and quickly spoon the syrup over as evenly as possible. Now leave the cake on one side to cool in the tin, during which time the syrup will be absorbed.

Then, when the cake is completely cold, remove it from the tin, spread the topping over, cut it into 12 squares and dust with a little more cinnamon (I didn't do that).

Note: Using half amount of the recipe, I have baked the cake with a 10 cm x 20 cm loaf pan at 150ºC fan forced for 30 mins. I piped the minimal amount of cream cheese topping on my cake and decorated with some fondant carrots.

Happy Baking

This post is also linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Wanna cook or bake like Delia Smith? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from Delia Smith's website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013. For more details, please see this.

For March 2013, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

Sausage and Vegetarian Sausage Rolls (Delia Smith)

2013-03-11T09:01:00.000+11:00

I reckon these vegetarian and non-vegetarian (obviously - LOL!) sausage roll recipes from Delia Smith are fantastic! Both versions of sausage rolls used the same pastry recipe. True enough, Delia's quick and flaky pastry recipe is really easy to make and amazingly flaky!

For a busy mum, this is a wonderful fuss-free recipe. I have made these sausage rolls all in advance, freeze them, bake and serve whenever my family is hungry. So easy!

They are great to eat with my homemade tomato chutney but my husband and son prefer to eat them with tomato sauce... *eyes rolled*

My husband and son are happy eating these... but with tomato sauce.

Making the flaky pastry

The vegetarian sausage filling

The non-vegetarian sausage filling

Before and after baking

Very yummy and flaky pastry! - This vegetarian one is for me :D

Here are the the recipes from Delia Smith.
(with my notes and modification in blue)

Sausage Rolls
Makes about 24

For the quick flaky pastry:
6 oz (175 g) butter
8 oz (225 g) plain flour
a pinch of salt

For the filling:
1 lb (450 g) good-quality pork sausagemeat
1 medium onion, peeled and grated
2 level tsp chopped fresh sage
1 egg, beaten
(I didn't use this)

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7, 425°F (220°C) or 200°C fan forced.

The butter needs to be rock-hard from the refrigerator, so weigh out the required amount, wrap it in a piece of foil, then return it to the freezing compartment for 30-45 mins. Meanwhile sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. When you take the butter out of the freezer, open it up and use some of the foil to hold the end with.

Then dip the butter in the flour and grate it on a coarse grater placed in the bowl over the flour. Keep dipping the butter down into the flour to make it easier to grate. At the end you will be left with a pile of grated butter in the middle of the flour, so take a palette knife and start to distribute it into the flour (don't use your hands), trying to coat all the pieces of fat with flour until the mixture is crumbly.

Next add enough cold water to form a dough that leaves the bowl clean, using your hands to bring it all gently together. Put the dough into a polythene bag and chill it for 30 mins in the refrigerator.

When you're ready to make the sausage rolls mix the sausagemeat, onion and sage together in a mixing bowl. Then roll out the pastry on a floured surface to form an oblong (as thin as you can). Cut this oblong into three strips and divide the sausagemeat also into three, making three long rolls the same length as the strips of pastry (if it's sticky sprinkle on some flour).

Place one roll of sausagemeat on to one strip of pastry. Brush the beaten egg along one edge, then fold the pastry over and seal it as carefully as possible. Note: I didn't brush beaten egg along the edge of the pastry. All I did was to pinch the edges together. Lift the whole thing up and turn it so the sealed edge is underneath. Note: At this point, I wrapped my sausage rolls with baking paper and freezable bag and stored them in the freezer until ready to use. When they are ready to be consumed, I took them off the freezer and continue the next step without thawing them. Press lightly, and cut into individual rolls each about 2 inches (5 cm) long. Snip three V-shapes in the top of each roll with scissors (I didn't cut my sausage with these V-shapes) and brush with beaten egg. Note: I brushed my pastries with milk and sprinkle them with some poppy seeds before baking.

Repeat all this with the other portions of meat and pastry.If you are going to cook straightaway, place the rolls on baking sheets and bake high in the oven for 20-25 mins. Note: The baking time for my sausage rolls are 25 mins if they are frozen and 20 mins if they are at room temperature and all of them were baked at 200°C fan forced.

If you want to cook them later, store them uncooked in a freezer box and freeze until needed. Although you can store the cooked and cooled sausage rolls in an airtight tin, they do lose their crunchiness. For this reason I think it is preferable to remove a few at a time from the freezer and cook them as required.

Note: Using the 1 1/4 amount of pastry and 560g of pork sausagemeat, I can make 36-40 sausage rolls. I reckon the number of sausage rolls made is very much depending on how thick you can roll them and how long you want to cut them.

Vegetarian Sausage Rolls

Makes 36

For the quick flaky pastry:same as the above

For the filling:
10 oz (275 g) fresh breadcrumbs

(I used dried breadcrumbs and have heaps of leftover!)
8 oz (225 g) mature Cheddar cheese, grated
1 large onion, grated
3 tbsp thick double cream

(I didn't add this)
1 level tbsp fresh chopped herbs (chives, parsley, thyme, etc)

(I used fresh thyme, sage and oregano)
1½ level tsp mustard powder

(I didn't add this)
pinch cayenne pepper

(I didn't add this)
salt and freshly milled black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7, 425°F (220°C) or 200°C fan forced
For the pastry: please refer to above sausage roll recipe.

For the filling, simply place all the filling ingredients in a mixing bowl, season well and mix very thoroughly.Then roll out the pastry on a floured surface to form an oblong (as thin as you can). Cut this oblong into three strips and divide the filling also into three, making three long rolls the same length as the strips of pastry (if it's sticky, sprinkle on some flour).

Place one roll of filling on to one strip of pastry. Brush the beaten egg along one edge, then fold the pastry over and seal it as carefully as possible. Lift the whole thing up and turn it so the sealed edge is underneath. Press lightly and cut the rolls obliquely, so that they form little diamond shapes. Snip each one on the top in three places with the end of some scissors, then brush with beaten egg. Repeat all this with the other portions of filling and pastry.

Note: The dry breadcrumbs that I used is causing the filling to be very crumbly. Instead of following the above shaping instructions, I have cut my rolled pastry into squares and wrapped them like a triangle turnovers.

Bake, on greased baking sheets, on the top shelf of the oven for 20-25 mins. Then leave them to cool on a wire rack before storing in an airtight tin.

Note: Using 1/4 of this recipe, I can only make 8 of these vegetarian rolls. The leftover fillings were used as cheesy-crumbly topping for my pasta bakes.

Serve both sausage rolls with tomato chutney (LINK)

Happy Baking

This post is also linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Wanna cook or bake like Delia Smith? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from Delia Smith's website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013. For more details, please see this.

For March 2013, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

Orange Sponge Cake with Orange-scented Yogurt

2013-03-07T14:35:00.002+11:00

Glad that Charmaine from MiMi Bakery House has chosen this almost-fat-free orange sponge cake recipe for our 15th THB bake. THB is an baking event organised by my friend, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours. With a group of gorgeous ladies, we are baking all recipes from the book, "Coffee Cakes" by Lou Seibert Pappas until every recipe has been baked from this book.

This recipe is great! I like it because the cake itself does not contain any added fat or butter and is made using a fail-proof sponge cake method...

Based on traditional methods, most sponge cakes are made by beating whole eggs and sugar at first until the egg mixtures are thick, fluffy and lightly coloured. Achieving this stage is critical for sponge cake baking and failing to do so will result sponge cakes to be tough and not spongy at all. I was told at a William Angliss course that beating just the egg white with sugar is an alternative method to make sponge cake and it is easier and much more reliable than using the beating-whole eggs traditional sponge cake method.

This sponge cake that I'm baking uses the alternative sponge cake method. Briefly, the method combines egg yolks, orange juice and vanilla together first. All dry ingredients with half amount of sugar were then added into the egg yolk mixture to form a thick mixture. Meanwhile, the egg whites and the other half of the sugar were whisked to form thick glossy peaks. And eventually, both egg white and egg yolk mixture were combined together to form the final cake batter.

Prior to this THB bake, I wasn't satisfied with a few of my previous THB bakes. I thought of taking a break and not baking this cake. Luckily that I baked this cake as this is actually nice and fluffy to eat. Instead of serving the cake with its original butter-and-icing-sugar based frosting, I have choose to eat this low-fat cake with orange-scented yogurt for less guilt, extra-happiness and lots feel-good feelings. Cheers!

Before proceeding to the details of my bake, I must apologise that I've published this post 1 day ahead before the official day of post which is 8 March 2013... Sorry if I have confused any THB participants.

My orange sponge cake with orange-scented yogurt

Making the cake...

... and baking it.

Making a healthier "orange frosting"

Fluffy sponge cake... sorry about my knife being not sharp enough to give a clean cut

I love this guilt-free way to indulge a delicious cake.

Being the rule of this event, only the host of the chosen bake can post the recipe in her blog post. Please visit Charmaine from MiMi Bakery House for the detailed recipe of this bake.

And, here are the notes and modifications that I made for my bake.

My ingredients list (which is 2/3 amount of the original recipe)

Orange Sponge Cake

125g cake flour (with 8% protein content)
50g + 50g caster sugar (50g for beating the egg whites to glossy peaks)
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs, separated
2/3 tsp cream of tartar
40 ml fresh orange juice
vanilla seeds from 1 vanilla pod

Orange scented yogurt
200g natural vanilla yogurt with less than 5% fat

1/4 tsp of zest from 1 orange

Using this amount of ingredients of the above recipe, I've baked my cake using a 20 cm un-greased tube pan at 160°C fan forced for 45 min.

Modifications that I have made from the original:

I have reduced the sugar content of the cake from about 200g to 100g for 2/3 amount of the recipe.
Instead of using vanilla extract, I have replaced it with vanilla seeds scraped from 1 vanilla pod. The vanilla pod was lightly soaked in the egg yolk and orange juice mixture for 5 mins and the seeds were scraped off and thoroughly squeezed out of the pod.
Instead of the original orange frosting made with butter, icing sugar and orange juice, I have chose to eat my cake with orange-scented yogurt which is just vanilla yogurt mixed with about 1/4 tsp of zest from 1 orange.

Happy Baking

Delia Smith's Tomato Chutney and Our Tomato Plants

2013-03-06T07:27:00.005+11:00

I love eating tomato chutney but have never make them before. There are so many tomato chutney recipes to choose and since it is Delia Smith for Cook Like a Star this month, I have decided to use Delia's recipe to make my first homemade tomato chutney.

This tomato chutney recipe contains two different of tomatoes which are fresh and dried ones. It uses Spanish paprika (pimentón) too for its smoky flavour. For my son, I didn't want to make my chutney too spicy and uses Hungarian sweet paprika only.

While cooking the chutney, it released a nice sweet-smelling tomato aroma that fill up the house. My husband and son were curious when they smelled the cooking chutney and kept asking me what was I cooking... Hearing their comments, I thought that they will like this chutney or maybe not...

Dad: Is this papaya jam?
Boy: I don't like this... Can I eat our baby tomatoes instead?
Mum: ???

I guess all my thoughts and efforts for making this chutney has gone to waste... Despite that the chutney is really ok to eat, we still prefer eating our homegrown tomatoes as it is and I simply don't know why??? I think that it is simply us that is the problem! Please don't blame the chutney... LOL! Thumbs down for this chutney but thumbs up for our homegrown tomatoes!

My smoky tomato chutney

The tomatoes that I used

Spices for the chutney

Cooking the chutney

Getting the right texture

Ta-dah! Presenting my homemade tomato chutney... Strangely, my family didn't like it.

Our tomato plants

Thumbs up only for our homegrown tomatoes... not really for the tomato chutney

Here's the recipe from Delia Smith

(with my notes and modification in blue)

Makes four 1 lb (350 ml capacity) jars

4 oz (110 g) sun-blush tomatoes

(I used the no fat added ones)
2 lb 8 oz (1.15 kg) red, ripe tomatoes
1 tbsp hot pimentón

(I didn't add this)
1 tbsp sweet, mild pimentón

(I used Hungarian sweet paprika)

1 dessertspoon coriander seeds
1 dessertspoon mustard seeds
2 fat cloves garlic, peeled
2 large onions, peeled and quartered
4 oz (110 g) light muscovado sugar
½ pint (275 ml) good-quality red wine vinegar
1 heaped tsp salt

First of all, drain the sun-blush tomatoes of excess oil and pat dry with kitchen paper. (If using mi-cuit tomatoes, there will be no need to drain them and I didn't need to do that.) Then heat a small, heavy-based frying pan and dry-roast the coriander and mustard seeds over a medium heat, turning them over and stirring them round for 2 mins to draw out their flavour. Then crush them together with a pestle and mortar - not very much; they just need to be broken up.

Now, making the chutney is going to be a lot easier if you have a food processor. In the past, an old-fashioned mincer was used for chutneys, and a processor is even faster, but if you have neither, then you just need to chop everything uniformly small. Add the sun-blush (or mi-cuit) tomatoes to the food processor and chop till roughly ¼ inch (5 mm) in size. Then add the fresh tomatoes and process briefly until they are the same size. Now pour the whole lot into the pan.
Next, add the garlic and onions to the processor and process these to about the same size.

Note: I didn't use a processor to process the tomatoes, onion and garlic and preferred to cut them by hand to get a slightly chunky chutney.

Then transfer them to join the tomatoes and add the crushed spices, pimentón (or paprika), sugar, vinegar and salt. Bring everything up to simmering point, stirring all the time, then, when you have a gentle simmer, reduce the heat to low and let it cook very gently, uncovered, for 3-3½ hours. It doesn't need a great deal of attention - just come back now and then to give it a stir to prevent it sticking. The chutney is ready when all the liquid has been absorbed and the mixture has thickened to a nice soft consistency. The way to test for the right moment is by using a wooden spoon to make a trail all the way across the top of the chutney - if the trail fills with vinegary juices, it's not ready; when the spoon leaves a trail that does not fill with juice, it is. You need to watch the chutney carefully at the end because under-cooking will make it too sloppy and overcooking will make it dry.

Note: I cooked mine for 2 hr and allow it to cool for at least 20 min before processing it to the right consistency.

When it is ready, allow it to cool a little and pour it through the funnel into the hot, sterilised jars, filling them as full as possible. Cover each one straightaway with a waxed disc and seal with a vinegar-proof lid while it's still hot, but don't put a label on until it's cold. Store the chutney in a cool, dry, dark place for 8 weeks to mellow before using.

To sterilise jars, wash the jars and lids in warm, soapy water, rinse well (again in warm water), then dry them thoroughly with a clean tea cloth, place them on a baking tray and pop them in a medium oven, gas mark 4, 350°F (180°C) for a minimum of 5 minutes. Add their contents while they are still hot.

Note: Using 1/4 of recipe, I have cooked about 350 ml of chutney. I didn't sterilise my jar and fill it with the warm chutney when the chutney is slightly cooled. The chutney is stored in the fridge up to 2 weeks for our consumption.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and me, Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Doreen from my little favourite DIY, at this post.

Banana Nut Bread

2013-03-04T07:33:00.000+11:00

When Joyce from Kitchen Flavours suggested this recipe for our bake-along with me and Lena, from Frozen wings late last year, I know instantly that this is the most ideal fuel for my marathon training...

Comparing to my previous moist and buttery Martha Stewart's banana loaf, this one has lesser butter and banana but contains buttermilk instead. If you are expecting a fluffy cake, this is definitely not the kind. This banana bread is dense in its texture and fully packed with lots of banana and energy. For my training, I had to fast-forward my bake-along baking to bake this loaf. Being filling to eat and long-lasting for my energy supply, this banana bread has been really effective for my training. And not surprisingly at all, I have actually baked this recipe for more than once!

By accident, I have discovered an interesting way of baking this loaf with a nice nutty crowning top and here's something to share... Instead of mixing in the nuts into the cake batter, I filled up the cake batter to about 80% of the prepared pan and then gently push in the pre-roasted nuts from the top of the batter. The finishing bread would be then beautifully dome-shaped with the nutty topping after baking.

Besides sticking to the original recipe, I have also baked them in form of banana muffins with chocolate chips for me and my son... And all I can say is we are going bananas with all these banana baking!

My banana bread with a nutty dome

The essential ingredients

This is how I made my banana bread with this nutty crowning top...

This banana bread is dense and very filling to eat.

Using this recipe to bake banana chocolate chips muffins for my son...

Enjoying slices of this bread with light spread of honey... They are very powerful for my run!

Here's the recipe from Williams-Sonoma
(with my modification in blue)

Ingredients:
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar (reduced to 150g)
2 or 3 very ripe bananas, coarsely mashed (about 1 1⁄2 cups)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1⁄2 cup buttermilk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda (replaced with baking powder)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg (replaced with ground cinnamon)
1⁄2 tsp salt
3⁄4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts (I used per-roasted walnuts)

Directions:
Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy, about 1 min. Add the bananas and eggs and beat until smooth. Add the buttermilk and beat just until combined.

In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, salt and nuts. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and beat just until combined. The batter should be slightly lumpy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. It should be no more than two-thirds full. Bake until the loaf is dark golden brown and dry to the touch and the edges pull away from the sides of the pan, 55 to 60 min. A toothpick inserted into the center should come out clean. Let the bread rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn the loaf out onto a wire rack and let cool completely. Cut into thick slices to serve. Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf.

Storage Tip: Wrap the bread tightly in plastic wrap and store at room temperature overnight or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Note: Using 2/3 of this recipe with raw caster sugar, I've baked this bread in a 8 cm x 17 cm loaf pans at 160°C fan forced for 50 min.

Using the full amount of this recipe with light brown sugar and chocolate chips (instead of walnuts), I've baked 16 standard size banana chocolate chip muffins at 160°C fan forced for 20 min.

Happy Baking

Thanks Joyce! This banana bread is very fuel-efficient and great as energy consumption for all sporting events!

Here are our baking friends that have joined us for this bake-along. Please visit their blogs for more of their banana nut bread baking.

Please submit your details if you wish to link your post with this bake-along. This linking tool is open from 4 to 12 Mar 2013.

For our next bake-along, we are baking Turnovers which is to be posted on 20 Mar 2013. Please bake-along with us! All you need to do is to bake your favourite turnovers recipe and blog hop with us on this day or within the next 10 days.

To blog hop with us, simply copy and paste this linky HTML code into your blog post where you want the blog hop list to appear. Make sure you are in HTML view/mode when you paste in the code. get the InLinkz code

Before using this linky tool, please make sure that: (1) Your post must be a current post. (2) Please mention Bake-Along in your post and link back to any of our hosts' Bake-Along post, (Joyce, Lena or Zoe). (3) Appreciate if you can display the Bake-Along badge in your post when linking up with us. Cheers!

Buttery Poppy Seed Rolls (Delia Smith)

2013-03-01T07:53:00.001+11:00

This is my first post for Cook like a Star, Delia Smith blog hop event. Pardon me for my ignorance but I have never heard of Delia Smith until Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out recommended this famous UK cook to me. Oopsie!

According to Wikipedia and Google search, Delia Smith is excellent TV presenter with her basic cookery skills featuring also many of her photographs with her iconic no-nonsense looks. After browsing through Delia Smith's website and "seriously" good recipes, I reckon that having Delia Smith for the theme of this Cook Like a Star event will be a great opportunity for me to learn lots of cooking skills and techniques. For this month, I would love to cook and bake most of Delia's most basic recipes...

Why basic? You might ask... First of all, I wish to be like Delia Smith being "serious" too with all my cooking... LOL! Knowing that Delia's basic recipes are her biggest strength, I hope to learn well from her cooking basics. Second is quite different from Delia Smith's no-nonsense approach. I'm trying to encourage cooking basic recipes for this March Cook like a Star event. I reckon cooking basic recipes can be fun and challenging too as this might be your good strategy to win my Cook like a Star giveaway.

A giveaway? Yes! Cook like a Star is approaching its one year anniversary this March! For this, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend-setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013 and I reckon that the simpler and basic recipes that you cook, the most likely you will win. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

To start the ball rolling, I'm baking this nice, straight-forward basic bread roll recipe from Delia Smith. These rolls are lightly crusty on their outside and soft and buttery on their inside. Best of all, we love the liberal sprinkle of poppy seeds which makes these rolls look very pretty.

Very pretty-looking poppy seed rolls

Proving the rolls

Baking the rolls

Not just pretty... yummy too!

Here's the recipe from Delia Smith website
(with my notes and modification in blue)

about 2 tbsp poppy seeds
275ml hand-hot milk
(replaced with 40g milk powder + 275ml of warm water)
1 tsp white sugar
2 tsp dried yeast
450g strong bread flour, warmed slightly, plus a little extra for dusting
2 tsp salt
110g butter, at room temperature
1 egg beaten
(replaced with 1 egg yolk + 2 tbsp of milk)

Start by pouring 150 ml of the milk into a bowl and whisk the sugar into it with a fork, followed by the dried yeast. Leave this on one side for 10 min to froth.

Meanwhile sift the flour and salt into a bowl, make a well in the centre, and (when it's ready) pour in the frothed yeast and milk, and the rest of the milk. Mix to form a smooth dough, then turn out on to a working surface and knead for 10 min. After that put the dough back in the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave it to rise until doubled in bulk (which will take 1 1/2 to 2 hrs at room temperature or 45-60 mins in a warm place).

Then punch the dough down in the bowl to knock the air out, and then gradually work in the softened butter. The dough will now be very sticky, but ignore this and carry on until the butter is evenly worked in.

Note: Instead of kneading by hand, I've placed all my ingredients (including butter) into my bread-maker and use "dough" setting to knead and prove the dough for 1 hr. As described, the dough will be sticky but the continuing kneading will smooth the dough.

Next, turn it out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead into a round shape then divide this into 16 sections. (I divided mine into 15 sections)

Roll each piece out into a long roll, and literally tie each roll into a knot. Place each roll on the baking sheet and brush with beaten egg (I did my egg wash after proving). Now pop the baking sheet and rolls into an oiled polythene bag, and leave them to prove until puffy and risen again – about half an hour in a warm place or an hour at room temperature.

Note: I placed all my rolls in a lightly greased 25cm x 35cm baking tin and proved them further for another 60 mins.

Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to gas mark 5, 375°F (190°C) or 170°C fan forced. Sprinkle the rolls with the poppy seeds and bake for about 20 mins or until golden brown. Cool on a wire cooling rack.

Note: I applied the egg wash just before I sprinkled the poppy seeds and baked the rolls at 170°C fan forced for 20 mins.

Happy Baking

This post is also linked to the blog hop event, Cook like a Star, organised by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Wanna cook or bake like Delia Smith? To join, simply cook or bake any recipe from Delia Smith's website or her cookbooks and blog hop with us for the whole month of March 2013. For more details, please see this.

For March 2013, I'm giving away a gift to a Cook like a Star participant who cooks or bakes the most popular recipe within the Delia Smith, Cook Like a Star blog hop event. To win, you have to be trend setter of Cook like a Star, March 2013. For further explanation on how to be the trend-setter, please refer to this post.

Chocolate Mousse (with no cream and yolks!)

2013-02-27T07:23:00.002+11:00

Not surprisingly at all, my chocoholic son loves eating chocolate mousse. Having said that, my son has made numerous requests for me to make this super-easy dessert and yet, I have hardly make any for him.

Why? - You might ask. My main reason is because most of the chocolate mousse recipes that I have come across contain mainly cream (with 35% fat or above) and egg or egg yolks and making them in the minimal four serves are usually too much, rich and heavy for us to finish. Typically when we buy just one serve of chocolate mousse from shops, the very least amount of this rich dessert is usually so much easier for three of us to share and finish...

Then, I came across this recipe, Raymond Blanc's basic chocolate mousse from Angela's blog, My Golden Pear. Angela has found this fantastic chocolate mousse which contains only chocolate and egg whites which I'm really keen to try...

With 10g of added sugar in per serve (or even less if you divide the servings further) and no cream at all, these chocolate mousse are not overly sweet and rich. Although I've made three serves of these light and fluffy chocolate mousse, the three of us still strangely prefer to share one serve and save the other two to share on tomorrow and the day after. Maybe we do like chocolate mousse and only like to eat it in a moderate amount without being overly indulged. Or maybe, we just like sharing... LOL!

Overall, I must say that I would highly recommend this if you are after a light and delicious chocolate mousse recipe. This is really good!

Our chocolate mousse served with chocolate flakes

It is essential to make these with good quality chocolate.

Beating the egg whites for nice and fluffy mousse texture

Very light and creamy mixture

For a finishing touch, shave some chocolate flakes...

... and sprinkle them generously on each serve of mousse

Enjoy!

Here's the recipe from BBC food recipes
(with my modifications and notes in blue)

Ingredients

170g good-quality dark chocolate, minimum 60 % cocoa, roughly chopped
(I used Callebaut chocolate with 70% cocoa)
7 free-range egg whites
¼ tsp lemon juice
40g caster sugar

Method

1. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Instead of using this method, I have used microwave with low power to melt my chocolate.

2. Whisk the egg whites and lemon juice in a large, clean bowl until they form soft peaks. The lemon juice will stabilise the egg whites, make them easier to work with and help to prevent over-whisking.

3. Add the sugar and continue to whisk until firm peaks form when the whisk is removed. Do not whisk beyond this stage - the egg white will start to collapse and separate into dry froth and runny liquid, and you'll lose all the air that you've whisked in.

4. When the chocolate has melted, remove the bowl from the heat.Whisk one-third of the egg whites into the hot chocolate quickly and vigorously, until thick and well combined - if you add the egg whites in too slowly, their cold temperature can make the hot chocolate seize, solidify and result in a lumpy mousse.

5. Fold the remaining egg whites into the chocolate mixture, using a spatula, until all of the egg white has been completely incorporated into the chocolate. Don't overmix at this stage as you'll knock out the air bubbles and the mousse will be dense.

6. Spoon the mousse mixture into four Martini glasses. Chill in the fridge for 2-3 hrs, or until set.

Note: Using 3/7 of the recipe, I have made 3 serves of chocolate mousse all divided with 3 glasses.

Enjoy this treat.

Don't forget to participate our Cook like a Star, Delia Smith blog hop event starting on 1st March 2013. This event is hosted by me, Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake. Hope that you can be the trend-setter of this event. Good Luck!