Monday Blahs.

In photo:

Mocha-marbled Cheesecake

Insane Exhausted Blogger.

P.S. I think I have a really short tongue.

Jam Tarts

Tried a recipe for the cookie base before I used my precious pineapple jam.

It turned out pretty well so I shall deem it worthy of my tedious, time-comsuming, painstakingly, laborous,torturous lovingly made home-made jam.

Raspberry-jam tarts.
Made with raspberry jam from a jar, of course.

Neatly stamped out tart bases.

Jam Tart Recipe

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
100g caster sugar
450g all-purpose flour
1 egg
30g milk powder
1 extra egg, beaten (for egg wash)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line cookie trays with baking paper.
2. Cream butter, sugar and 1 egg. Add in sifted flour and milk powder, mix well to form a dough.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough till about 1/2 centimetre thick. Using a mould, stamp out tart shapes.
4. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush all the exposed edges of the tart with the beaten egg. The egg wash will give the pastry it's golden, shiny surface.
5. Fill tarts with jam. Bake for 15 minutes or until pastry is a rich, golden brown.

Important: when using watery jam, remember not to over fill the tarts.
A jam tart should look like this.

And not like this.

Pretty jam tarts in rows.

Related posts:
Home-made Pineapple Jam

Generation Gap - Part 1.

My wise, old, experienced, all-knowing grandmamma bakes from the heart.

Me, I need measurements. I need the measurements!!!!

Grams, cups, spoons, something!

I've decided that since I'm stuck here in the UK for Chinse New Year (for the last year, hopefully) I'd try to make some of my grandmother's cookies and get a taste of home. So I called her for her recipes.


Me: Er, Amah can give me some Chiniese New Year cookie recipes?
Amah: Can.. What you want to make? You sure you want to make, will take a lot of time.
Me: Uhm, try only la. Can tell me how to make kueh bangkit? (for the less informed, they're the yummy, white, melt-in-your mouth, coconutty thingys)
Amah: You need tapioca flour, can get anot.
Me: I think can la. (which actually I can't so that plan's scrapped for now)
How much flour?
Amah: 5 katis.
Me: Errrr... what's a kati? (when was the last time anyone used katis?!!!?)
Amah: 600 grams.
Me: Oh.

.....

Amah: So like 3 kgs flour.
Me: *thinks with that amount, I can open my own small scale industry*

Errrr, okay.


To Be Continued.
Along with my other CNY cookie escapades.

SIX hours...

To get from this,

To this.

Pineapple Jam.

Pineapple Jam.

Pineapple Jam.

Yes, I am aware that it's photos of the same thing over and over again. For all the effort (and TIME) I put in, the pineapple jam deserves that much attention.

Peel, Chop, Grate, Grate.
Stir, wait, stir, wait, stir, wait, sir wait.
Stir, stir stir stir stir.
Sheesh.

Up next:
Pineapple Jam Tarts.
(if I don't eat all the jam, it turned out really, really good)

Mocha Marbled Cheesecake

Coffee. Cheese. Chocolate. Mmm.

Mocha digestive crust, creamy cheese marbled with mocha swirls.

Mocha Marbled Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients:

Biscuit base:

100g butter, melted

16 digestive biscuits

1 teaspoon instant coffee powder

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Cheese filling:
600g cream cheese

50g milk chocolate, melted

1 tsp instant coffee powder mixed with 1 tablespoon hot water

80g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160 fan-forced. Make biscuit base by putting coffee powder, cocoa and digestives in a bag and crushing the biscuits into crumbs. Mix crumbs well in melted butter and press into the base of a 9-inch springform cake tin. Press the crumbs about halfway up the tin as well, creating sort of a bowl-like effect. This part is a bit tricky, you don't want the crust to be too thick, or too thin that it crumbles. Bake crust in the oven for about 8 minutes, take out and leave to cool.

2. Next, prepare the cream cheese by beating the cheese, vanilla and sugar till well mixed. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Remove about 2/3 cup of cheese mixture, and stir this together with the melted chocolate and coffee.

3. Pour the plain cheese into the cooled crust. Next, drop spoonfuls of the mocha cheese over the plain cheese, making sure not to cover the plain cheese completely. Gently swirl the mixture to create a marbled effect.

4. Tap the tin on a table gently to level out the cheese. Steam bake cake for about 1 hour at 160C/140C fan-forced. Leave cake to cool in oven, then remove from tin and chill in the fridge before serving.

To the bestest Mummy in the world.

Afternoon tea at Harrods almost a year ago.

Wish I could be there to celebrate.

(and maybe bake you a cake!)

Hope papa took you somewhere nice for dinner.

I miss you loads.

Happy birthday mummy.

Love always,

Your daughter.

Happy (belated) Birthday Yau Fai!

To one of my favourite housemates/food tasters/guinea pigs/friends.

Being the oh-so-nice *cough* housemate that I am, I decided to drag my jetlagged self out of bed to bake a cake for Yau Fai's birthday dinner last Saturday.

A simple, decadant, flourless chocolate cake, drizzled with melted dark chocolate.

One of my other housemates aptly calls this a "Chocolate Volcano" since it looks like it has a crater in the centre, with chocolate oozing everywhere.

This flourless dark chocolate cake looks really rich, but it's acually light and kind of mousse-like. Even though the 5 of us were really stuffed after dinner, we still managed to wolf down half the cake.

Opinions were good all around. =)

Flourless Dark Chocolate "Volcano" Cake Recipe

Ingredients:
125g butter, cut into cubes
200g good quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
7 large eggs, seperated
1 cup/200g caster sugar

Dark chocolate drizzle:
100g good quality dark chocolate, broken into pieces
25g butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C/160C fan-forced. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate over a low heat, stirring occasionally. Leave to cool for about 10 minutes.
3. Beat the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl till mixture turns thick and pale in colour. Stir this mixture into the melted chocolate.
4. Whisk egg whites with an electric mixer till soft peaks form. Gently fold in half the egg whites into the chocolate-egg yolk mixture, add in the rest of the egg whites, gently fold everything together.
5. Pour batter into tin, bake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes. Cover the cake(still in the tin) with a damp cloth, and leave in the oven to cool. The center of the cake will sink considerably, so don't panic when it does.
6. When cake is cooled, make the dark chocolate drizzle by melting the chocolate and butter. Drizzle liberaly all over cooled cake and serve.

The Tale (and recipe) of The Gingerbread Man

"I've run away from a little old woman,

A little old man,

A barn full of threshers,

A field full of mowers,

A cow and a pig,

And I can run away from you, I can!"

From the classic fairytale, The Gingerbread Man

You know what? Thinking back now, I can't seem to get the point of this story. If you don't already know the ending; the Gingerbread Man eventually gets outrun by a fox and eaten as in this online version. I also recall a version from my childhood where the fox gets the Gingerbread Man to ride on his head to get across a river and along the way, the Gingerbread Man gets eaten.

So what is the moral of the story?

a) No matter how far you run or how many people you overtake you eventually get eaten?

b) Don't trust foxes?

c) It doesn't pay to be an overconfident, boastful, arrogant S.O.B.?

d) Don't bake food that can run away from you?

I draw my own conclusion:

When it comes to gingerbread men,
always eat the legs first.
That way they can't run away.

As usual, I digress. Let me give you the recipe.

For Diane ;)

Gingerbread Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:
125g butter, cut into cubes
150g caster sugar
5 tablespoons double cream
3 tablespoons black treacle
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
finely grated zest of one medium sized orange
375g all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda


Directions:
1. Place the first 8 ingredients into a saucepan. Melt over a very low heat, stirring occassionally until the sugar and butter has melted.
2. In a seperate bowl, mix the flours and baking soda. Add this to the mixture in the saucepan and stir until a soft dough is formed. Knead the dough gently with your hands till everything is well mixed. Divide dough into two balls, wrap in clingfilm, and chill for about an hour.
3. Preheat oven to 180C/fan 160C. Line baking trays with baking paper.
4. On a lightly floured surface, flatten out a ball of dough with a rolling pin till it's about 3mm thick. Cut into shapes, reroll and reuse any extra dough.
5. Bake the cookies well spaced apart for about 10-12 minutes. Leave cookies on tray for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool and harden completely. Deccorate cookies however you like.

An alternative conclusion:

Maybe the Gingerbread Man ran away because he was lonely.
Nobody likes to be lonely.
So make sure your Gingerbread Man has lots of friends.
Which you can then share with yours.

Ah, I just love this season.
Hopefully I'm not starting to sound too preachy though.

Cranky. Need Chocolate.

At times or moods like this, nothing beats brownies.

Triple-Chocolate Brownies, to be more precise.

Uh, no photo of full brownie, people started digging in before I remembered.

That, and I think all brownies kind of look the same.

Texturewise, I think this brownie is pretty perfect, or at least the closest I've gotten to perfect brownies so far. And people usually have different brownie preferences but the feedback from everyone for this one was all great. A light, flaky shell with a moist, slightly gooey middle. And no need to choose between dark, white and milk chocolate it's all there! =D

Triple Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Ingredients:

200g dark chocolate

190g butter, cut into cubes

3 large eggs

270g caster sugar

90g all purpose flour

4 tablespoons cocoa powder

60g white chocolate, cut into chunks

60g milk chocolate, cut into chunks

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/ fan 160C. Butter and line a 18cm square, deep cake tin.

2. Melt the dark chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl, placed into a large pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool.

3. Whisk eggs and sugar till thick and creamy, and till the mixture has doubled in volume. Fold this gently into the cooled dark chocolate.

4. Sift flour and cocoa into the mixture, fold. Gently stir in the chopped white and milk chocolate.

5. Pour mixture into prepared tin, spread evenly. Bake about 30 minutes, or until the brownie has started to form a shiny, slightly flaky, papery crust. Leave to cool in tin before cutting into squares.

Spot the chocolate chunks.

I may be rushing the season...

But it IS only one month till Christmas.

The seson to be jolly is almost upon us.

So, have you been naughty or nice this year?

Cappuccino Cupcakes

Can't keep a girl with a dead laptop away from her blog for too long.

But you can really slow her down with a super-cranky old borrowed laptop. However it's definitely better than nothing at all, so I'll take what I can get. (Please, please, please don't die on me dear borrowed laptop I mean no offence =S.) Also many thanks to the laptop contribitor, it's not the first time this laptop's been borrowed.

On another note, I feel like giving myself a good kick for not transferring a whole lot of photos that were taken during the past few weeks into my exteral memory. Here's to hoping they'll be recoverable when I finally get around to getting my own precious laptop fixed.

Enough about me, lets move on to happier things, like Cappuccino Cupcakes.

Chocolate-coffee sponge, coffee cream, chocolate coated coffee beans.

Yummy.

I do need to mention though that the coffee taste is pretty strong I didn't use much sugar so it might be a bit coffee-bitter for some but great for a coffee lover like myself.

Wouldn't reccomend it for kids though, might keep them awake.

Cappuccino Cupcake Recipe

Sponge ingredients:

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

1 1/2 tablespoons instant coffee powder

110g all purpose flour

90g golden caster sugar

110g butter, cut into small cubes

2 medium eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

Coffee cream ingredients:

100 ml double cream

1 tablespoon boiling water

1 tablespoon instant coffee powder

30g icing sugar

Also, chocolate powder and chocolated coated coffee beans, to decorate.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/180C fan oven. Line cupcake tins with about 14 cupcake liners.
2. Start with the sponge. Mix 2 tablespoons hot water with the coffee and cocoa powder and instant coffee to create a paste. Leave to cool to room temperature.
3. Place all the ingredients, including cooled paste into a large mixing bowl and mix until creamy.
4. Fill cupcake liners about two thirds full and bake for about 18 minutes or until well risen and tops and springy to touch.leave to cool completely before making cofee cream.
5. To make coffee cream, start by mixing one tablespoon water with coffee powder to create a paste and leave to cool. Whisk cooled coffee, icing sugar and double cream until stiff.
6. Drop a teaspoon of coffee cream over each cupcake and dust with chocolate powder. Top with chocolate coated coffee beans.

Coffee-lovers unite!
Okay it might be carrying it a bit too far to call myself a coffee lover.
But I do like coffee ocassionally.

Rant

My laptop DIED. AGAIN!!!! *Sobs*

Will be back as soon as I possibly can.

In the meantime will probably be baking loads. Have I ever mentioned that I find baking therapeutic? You can tell I've had a bad day when I walk into the kitchen and immediately dig out my big box of baking paraphernalia. I've been doing that a lot this week.

Deadlines piling up, dead pc, god awful flu. Typing this out before I have to head for work. It's been a bad week =(

Need some comforting. NOW.

Thus ends the rant.

Edit: I also need lots and lots of retail therapy.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle

Impress your friends with your baking prowess.

A seriously easy-peasy recipe for dainty, pretty cupcakes. And they taste impressive too. Like much more effort was put into them than what is really needed. Read on for the recipe, which I found in one of my BBC GoodFood magazines.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle

Whew, that's a mouthfull of a name.

But I kind of think super long names make food sound more impressive.

Or hard to make.

Raspberry Fairy Cakes With Orange Sugar Drizzle Recipe (and now that sounds like some sort of tongue twister. Don't mind me I'm just rambing on. I do that sometimes.)

Ingredients:

200g self-raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

200g unsalted butter, softened

4 eggs, lightly beaten

200g golden caster sugar

3 tablespoons milk

50g ground almonds

zest of one medium orange (I used a large one I love the tangy citrus taste)

150g raspberries, lightly crushed

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/160 fan. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

2. I love this part. Simply toss the first 8 ingredients (yes, everything but the raspberries) into a large bowl. Mix with an electrix mixer till smooth.

3. Gently fold in the raspberries till evenly distributed throughout the batter. Half-fill the cupcake cases and bake for 20-25 minutes till golden and just firm. Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly.

For the Orange Sugar Drizzle

Stir 4 tablespoons of caster sugar into the juice of one medium orange until well blended. Using a pastry brush, liberally brush the orange sugar mix over the lightly cooled cupcakes. Leave to cool completely before serving.

Red raspberries.

Chocolate Chocolate-chunk Cupcakes

More chocolate. Chocolate makes me happy.

Okay, so maybe you can't see any chocolate-chunks.

But they're there.

Under the surface.

In all their gooey chocolate glory.

These were the cupcakes I used for Anne's Cupcake Basket.


Chocolate Chocolate-chunk Cupcake recipe

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour+1 heaped tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted
1 cup/230g butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
200g milk chocolate cut into chunks

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line cupcake tins with paper liners.
2. Beat butter and sugars till light and fluffy. Add in vanilla, and eggs one at a time, mix well.
3. Add in milk and flour in two parts, mixing until just combined, do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chunks with a spatula.
4. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full with batter. Bake for about 20-25 mins or till inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Birthday Wan.

Anddd I'm back to cupcakes, told you it'd be a short break.

For the first time ever, I shall make a birthday post on my blog which is on time. On the ACTUAL DAY ITSELF. I'm so proud of myself.

Enough about me for now. Meet Wan. Wan turns 21 today. Sooo...
Happy birthday Wan!

The red-eyed one on the left is Wan.

In case you're wondering.

And here are Wan's birthday cupcakes.
I think maybe my decorating is getting a wee bit better.
Oh btw, those are Nutella cupcakes i posted about them here not too long ago.
Everyone loves Nutella.

And for those people that commented there was only one 'P',
it's a P-squared.
So there.

Childish people.
My cupcakes are not bad at all, wei.
They're very tasty cupcakes.
*Glares*

As you may have guessed by now, I'm pretty pleased with these last-minute *cough* painstakingly time-consuming cupcakes.
I think I deserve a dinner.

Don't you think so Wan?

Chocolate Banana Cake

And now for a brief, mind you BRIEF interlude from cupcakes.

This is a chocolate banana cake.

Chocolate = Good.

Banana = Good

Chocolate + Banana = Excellent!! =D

Another recipe from my Australian Women’s Weekly book collection (ok so maybe I have about 5, it’s still a collection.)

Chocolate Banana Cake Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup mashed bananas (use about 2 overripe bananas)
2/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons lemon juice
¾ cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour+½ teaspoon baking soda, sifted
100g dark eating chocolate, finely grated

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 170C/150 fan. Grease and line a 22cm round deep cake tin.
2. Mix milk and lemon juice in a bowl, leave to stand 10 minutes.
3. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl till light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until just combined.
4. Mix in flour, baking soda, banana, milk+lemon juice mixture and grated chocolate.
5. Spread mixture in prepared cake tin. Bake about 1 hour 10 minutes. Let cool around 10 minutes, remove from cake tin and leave to cool, top side up.

Chocolate frosting (prepare this while cake is cooling)

Ingredients:
200g dark eating chocolate
¾ cup icing sugar
½ cup sour cream

Directions:
Melt chocolate in heatproof bowl in a pot of boiling water. Gradually stir in icing sugar and sour cream till desired consistency is achieved.

Frost cake. Frosting cures all cake flaws, check out how ugly my cake look without it.

All cracked and ugly.

But with frosting and bananas… Ahhh… A work of art!
Well sort of anyway (I still soooo need work on my cake decorating someone sponsor classes for me please.)

View from the top.

Nutella Cupcakes

Nutella Cupcakes

Rejoice! I have now settled down enough in my new kitchen to start baking!!!

Started off with a failproof classic, Nutella Cupcakes. Get the recipe here, it's perfect wouldn't change a thing.

These cupcakes smell amazing while baking, it makes people walk out of their rooms to stare into the oven.

Mmmm, chocolate-hazelnutty goodness.

Stay tuned for more kitchen adventures I have been baking quite a bit. Just too lazy to blog. Heh.

Hmm I just realized that this seems to be turning into a cupcake blog.

But who can resist cupcakes?

Missing Malaysian Food Already...

... and I've only been back in the UK for like 2 weeks.

Still busy getting organized got tons of photos of all the yummy food I had while I was back home. Being the lazy person I am though, I still need to get them all sorted out. I will eventually...

Meanwhile thanks to those few faithful readers that have stuck around. I shall reward you with photos of my first cupcake basket! Specially made for my dear friend Anne's birthday last month. Gosh... I am really backlogged on my posts. Sigh.

Chocolate Chocolate-chunk cupcakes decorated with coloured icing. I need to work on my cupcake decorating, I'm terrible at it.

So pretty! Was really happy with the end result.

Will post the recipe another time. Please please please don't stop reading. I'll update soon. =D