Making Macarons is tougher than I’ve thought! I tried making these Sesame Macarons with red bean ganche.

Couldn’t get the shape right. sob sob… Taste wise is super sweet and a little sticky. Well… what do u expect from a macaron?

Radish cake is very simple to do. Really. For someone who only started to cook or bake daily in the last one month. Internet is your best resource to do research on the “best” recipe to try

This recipe fills a 9″ springform round baking pan.

Step 1: Fry 50g dried shrimp till crispy and grind them to powder. Cut a Chinese sausage into tiny cubes.

Step 2: Peel a 450g daikon (1 white radish) using a potato peeler and shred coarsely as shown below.

Step 2: Heat wok over high heat until a drop of water evaporates from the wok. add 3 tbsp of oil. Add shredded daikon, 1 tsp of salt, 1/2 tsp pepper and 1 tsp oyster sauce to stir-fry for 3min. Cover and cook over low heat for about 15min till daikon is cooked and soft.

Step 3: Add dried shrimp powder, Chinese sausage bits, 300g rice flour, 60g wheat starch,  and 1 litre boiling water to the cooked daikon and stir till all combined.

Step 4: Scoop the batter into a 9″ springform baking pan. Press the batter so that it fills the pan nicely.

Step 5: Steam it for 30 – 45 min.

Step 6: Let it cool to set. That’s it!

Fry it with egg. It’s nice with lots of white pepper, coriander leaves and some fish sauce to taste. My mum fried this and took this picture

Had it for breakfast and lunch today!

Simple isn’t it?

It’s a boring rainy afternoon surfing for recipes to try till I saw Florence’s recipe – 65ºC Chocolate Wassant.

What’s that? It’s a simple method called 65°C water-roux starter which can replace bread improver / softener that makes your bread super soft (even after a day or 2 if u keep in an air-tight container) – just like Petit Provence’s (crust is crispy though)!

(A) 65°C water-roux starter

Ingredients (Basically, 1 part bread flour + 5 parts water)
50g bread flour
250ml water

Method (I have a microwave that can heat up to the desire temperature. For the details how others did it, read this)

1. Heat water to 50°C in a microwave in a microwave safe container.

2. Dissolve bread flour in the water. Put it back to microwave and heat to 65°C. Stir the mixture again.

3. Leave it to cool till room temperature as I work on the chocolate layer.

(B) Chocolate Layer

Ingredients
40g cake flour
100g sugar (I regret halving the original recipe. A little bitter… my advice is to add 120g cos cocoa is bitter and the dough is not sweet!)
2 egg white
160ml milk
40g cocoa powder
20g butter

Method
1. Mix cake flour, sugar and egg white till smooth.
2. Heat the milk in a saucepan and stir in the cocoa powder. (Careful about this part… I added all at one go and there were lumps that are hard to dissolve…   )
3. Add in the egg white mixture stirring till thicken and dry. (Nearly char here… must turn to low heat and stir continuously!)
4. Stir in the butter and mix till all butter is incorporated.
5. Leave to cool and measure out 300g of the chocolate paste. Put this chocolate paste into a freezer bag and roll it into a rectangular shape of size 22cm x 14cm. (My freezer bag is 20.4cm x 17.8cm… not a big issue as I realised later.)
6. Keep refrigerated for at least 2 hours before using.

(C) Dough

Ingredients
250 – 270g bread flour (I added alot more cos the dough was so sticky! Mine was 300g bread flour!)
70g cake flour
20g skim milk powder (I used my mum’s Anlene Milk Powder for 51 plus… haha…)
100g water-roux starter (see above)
5g salt
40g sugar
25g egg yolk + 115g warm water (I didn’t bother to measure this. Just use the 2 egg yolks separated)
8g dry yeast (I used all of SAF instant dry yeast which is 11g per sachet.)
26g butter (I melted this in the microwave first. Hate to cut butter into small pieces and work with them in the kneading process)

Method
1. Put all ingredients into the bread maker, select the Dough cycle and let the bread maker knead and prove the dough- which is about 100mins. (I didn’t have a bread maker. Not a concern. Use a wooden spoon to mix and knead. It worked all the time for me anyway. See how much it grew in size after 45min! More than twice! )

2. When the dough cycle is completed, remove the dough and punch out the air. Roll out the dough into a rectangle of size 31cm x 22cm. (This was a hassle to measure. Basically this dough should wrap the chocolate layer. Do use a plastic sheet as shown below because this dough is very sticky and wet to handle with your hands! See how I do it!)

3. Place the chocolate layer on the middle of the dough. Fold in both ends of the dough to cover the chocolate layer completely. Seal all the edges tightly..
4. Turn the dough 90°. Roll dough till it is about 60cm x 22cm. (If you didn’t flour the surface, this is very difficult to do!)
5. Fold the dough into 4 folds. Turn dough 90C. Roll dough into a 54cm x 22cm rectangular sheet. (I didn’t follow the dimensions…)

A palette knife was used to cut these triangles.

6. Cut into triangular pieces of base 9cm and height 22cm. Roll triangular pieces from the widest part. (Personally, I felt the dimensions given was too big for a chocolate wassant. From one triangle of the original dimension, I managed to do 3 chocolate wassants instead. See picture.)

7. Prove* for 50 minutes at 35°C. (*Cover these with a wet clean cloth.)

8. Apply egg wash and bake at 175C -180C for 18 – 20 minutes. (I used milk to apply instead and baked at 180ºC)

These were what I had at the end. Super soft bread with slight crisp on the outer layer.

Afterthoughts:

1. You must grease the baking tray or place a baking sheet. Otherwise, good luck removing them from the baking tin. (Tip: When applying a glaze before baking, be careful not to “glue” the loaf to the rim of the loaf pan or the baking sheet. This not only will make it difficult to remove the loaf from the pan, but can prevent the loaf from expanding fully in the oven. Use a clean, soft pastry brush to apply the glaze.)

2. Use a large transparent plastic sheet (at least 60cm x 30cm) and floured to work on the (wet and sticky) dough. You can also have the measurements placed underneath the plastic sheet

3. I wanted to achieve Petit Provence’s standard. i.e. their outer layer is soft unlike mine with a slight crisp. Perhaps, I’ll reduce temperature to 160ºC and bake slight longer… 25 min?

Will try again (when I buy more bread flour)

Tired day… Made pizza, bread, pineapple fried rice and tom yum seafood soup!

It was 16 years ago that I had eaten a delicious cheesecake in Downtown Vancouver. However, I forgot the cafe name.

Today, I tried to reproduce it using the recipe from Wikibooks.

The cheesecake is currently in the cooling stage. Not sure if it’s the right recipe though

Here’s the cake!

Immediately out from the oven!

After 30min… notice the crack on the top? It’s a little jelly like what the recipe says. I was shaking the tin too much. In the end, I scooped a bit from the centre and ate a little… hehe…

All ingredients are halved and I used a 18cm round springform baking tin.

Ingredients

• 500 ml cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 125 ml ricotta cheese
• 6 large eggs
• 250 ml whipping cream
• 80 ml white sugar
• 5 ml of lemon juice
• 10ml pure vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Beat the cream cheese and ricotta together until smooth, continue beating as you mix in the sugar, then the eggs.
3. Slowly beat in the whipping cream
4. Add lemon juice.
5. Add vanilla extract.
6. Pour into 8″ springform round baking tin.
7. Bake at 150°C for 45 minutes or so, slightly less time in loaf pans. The cake should still be jelly-like in the centre when done. Remove and allow to cool, then refrigerate for a minimum of 4 hours.

Do you know how much fat is in this cheesecake?

Let’s count using the nutrition facts found on the packagings,

Total estimated fat in this cheesecake (I’m only using half of the stated ingredients above) = Cream Cheese (34.4g x 2.5) + Ricotta Cheese (13.3g x 0.5) + 3 Eggs (5g x 3) + Whipped Cream (35.1g x 1.2) = 149.77g!

For simplicity, 150g of fat translated to 1,350 calories! :p

Should I eat it???

Edit: I regret making cheesecake after reading this article “Don’t Say Cheese”. Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) said that Cheese is giving Americans a heart attack.

Just discovered that there’s Philadelphia fat-free cream cheese which will reduce amount of fat to 64g! How come it’s not available in Singapore’s Carrefour?

I baked Orange Chiffon Cake again! This time, rum was added instead of vanilla, baked at 170ºC for 55 minutes and I patiently waited an hour for the cake to cool before removing it from the tin

Not easy to remove the cake from the tin if you didn’t lubricate the sides with corn/peanut oil.

Tada!

There’s still a slight depression towards the centre. I guess it’s today’s humidity. Raining all day!

Have you tried baking it?

This is simple to bake. Asked my dad and sister-in-law to try as they are coffee-drinkers. Both commented that the coffee taste wasn’t strong enough. Hmmm… I may need to add more espresso (it was decaffeinated cos I don’t drink coffee) in future. Overall, I thought this cake is nice and not too heavy like Pandan Chiffon Cake (Using original recipe containing 9 eggs and 300ml coconut milk!).

Ingredients

(A)

¼ cup brown sugar
3 tbsp finely chopped walnuts
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp instant Espresso

(B)

70gm or 5 tbsp butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

(C)

²/3 cup plain fat-free yogurt
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt

(D) – Sieved

1¹/3 cup flour (leveled)
2 tsp instant Espresso

Method

1. Melt butter on high, 1 minute in a microwave

2. Preheat oven at 170°C

3. Coat a 8-inch round / square pan with some flour

4. Combine (A) and put aside

5. Whisk (B) for 4 min or so

6. Add (C) in the batter and whisk again for 2min

7. Blend (D) in the batter till a consistent batter is achieved

8. Spread half of the batter in  the baking pan and sprinkle half of (A) mixture over

9. Spread the remaining batter over and sprinkle remaining (A) mixture over

10. Bake for 28min at 170°C. Cool on rack for about 10min before serving.

As I’m using a Panasonic microwave to bake, your results may differ from mine…

Have fun baking!

I wonder how I can achieve a healthier version of Pandan Chiffon Cake without compromising the taste?

By gut feel, I changed the recipe and got this as a result of less eggs, baking at 160ºC, using 200ml coconut milk etc…

Got a 2-in-1 cake! haha… It tastes like Pandan Chiffon Cake anyhow. Texture wise the top is like the usual Pandan Chiffon Cake while the bottom part tastes like kueh! hahaha… My brother tried and said this is better than bakery’s cos it’s more solid.

Pandan Chiffon Cake or Kueh or 2-in-1?

This is my quirky recipe…

Ingredients (For a 23cm Chiffon Tin)

1 ½ cup cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 packet of 200ml Kara UHT Natural Coconut Cream (It claimed that it contains no cholesterol! Do you believe?)

½ cup of fresh Pandan Juice from lots of Pandan leaves (Bought 50 cents worth of Pandan Leaves)

6 egg yolks + 50g castor sugar + ¼ tsp salt
6 egg whites + 50g castor sugar + 1 tsp cream of tartar

Method

1. Boil coconut cream with pandan juice.

2. Whisk egg yolk until creamy and light in colour. Add (1).

3. Add flour and baking powder (sieved) into (1) lightly.

4. Beat egg white using electric beater till big bubbles are formed. Sprinkle cream of tartar and beat till white. Add 50g sugar (a little at a time) and beat till stiff peaks are formed.

5. Pour 1/2 egg white into flour mixture in (4) and blend well. Fold in the remaining egg white mixture.

6. Bake at 160°C for 50 minutes.

7. Invert the chiffon cake tin to cool before taking the cake out of the tin.

It’s not easy to remove from the cake tin even after it’s cooled. Wonder what did I do wrong? Didn’t follow the original recipe, I guess

Going to try again tomorrow! :p

Pandan Chiffon Cake has always been my favourite tea-time cake, especially one bought from Bengawan Solo.

I challenged myself to try baking one this week. Searched many recipes and found one claimed to be of Bengawan Solo’s standard. When I looked at the ingredients, I was shocked! 300ml coconut milk and 9 eggs in a pandan chiffon cake?! That’s so unhealthy!

So, I tried Orange Chiffon Cake instead.

My first try begins…

An egg separator is good for separating egg yolk from egg white without the mess. Just make sure it’s over a bowl so that you do not have to hold it.

This is the Orange Chiffon Cake that I am going to bake. Try it. It’s yummy!

Ingredients:
1 cup of Cake Flour
¾ tsp Baking powder

½ cup of Warm orange juice
Finely grated zest of 3 small oranges (I bought 5 small Sunkist oranges from Giant at S$1.50)

(Bought this grater at S$33 at Pantry Magic in Holland Village. The orange zest were so fine! )

5 egg yolks + 30g castor sugar + ¼ tsp salt
5 egg whites + 50g castor sugar + 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

¼ Cup of Corn oil
½ tsp Vanilla essence

Method:
1. Whisk egg yolk until creamy and light in colour. Add in corn oil then warm orange juice and vanilla essence.

2. Add flour and baking powder (sieved) into (1) lightly. Add orange zest.

3. Beat egg white using electric beater till big bubbles are formed. Sprinkle cream of tartar and beat till white. Add 50g sugar (a little at a time) and beat till stiff peaks are formed.

4. Pour 1/2 egg white into flour mixture in (3) and blend well. Fold in the remaining egg white mixture.

5. Bake at 180°C for 45 minutes.

6. Invert the chiffon cake tin to cool before taking the cake out of the tin.*

* This is important. Cos I was impatient, the cake sank. Simply can’t wait for it to cool cos it smells really good in the last few minutes of baking!

Top View

Bottom View (That’s the Chiffon Cake Tin. I got mine – 23cm from Phoon Huat at Holland Village for S$12.36)

Side View

Side View

My parents tried and liked the taste! Me too… I love it!

Will try pandan cake tomorrow!

After a successful try baking apple pie, I wanted to try Blueberry pie!

Saw this  Blueberry Crumb Bars recipe and I had used it to make the Blueberry Pie!

Argh… Never expected the blueberry fillings to over spill.

Like what my mum said, it didn’t look as good as it tastes!

I will try again without halving the recipe ingredients next time!

Yum!

I have lots of time to try out many recipes which I do not have time to try before.

Have been experimenting different recipes like for example – French Toast. However, I have yet found one that I liked very much. Perhaps, I don’t really like eating french toast? Btw, it’s difficult to take picture and do French Toasts at the same time. Also, I will be too hungry in the morning to remember. So, I always forget to photograph them.

These were what I have tried and remembered to photograph

Ikea Swedish Meatballs (Recipe Source)

Trust me. The original meat mixture does not look like this and not pretty at all. I nearly wanted to throw away the mixture because it looked too watery to be made into balls like these for frying. Wonder if the amount of milk stated in the recipe was wrong? Does the mixture need to be mixed and cooked before making them into balls for frying? It’s so ambiguous!

I’m glad that I continued to stir the mixture till most of the liquid evaporated… Tada… home-made meatballs!

But, these do not taste like Ikea’s Swedish Meatballs which are much harder. These meatballs are softer and tasted very much like a shepherd’s pie! Delicious though!

Strawberry Muffins (Adapted from Blueberry Muffins Recipe – Forgot the link)

This is heavenly (only if I didn’t use strawberry but blueberries)! Do you know yoghurt muffins tasted better than butter ones? They are less oily too!

This muffin came out wetter because I used strawberry. But, the issue can be resolved by heating up in an electric oven for 5 min!

Apple Pie (My adaptation after doing the dough and watching various versions on Youtube and looking at different butter crust recipes)

Didn’t had enough dough for the crust… Tasted delicious anyway!

I didn’t use Granny Smith Green Apples. These were South African red apples with some yellowish-red skin.

These were good and soon after it’s out of the oven, it’s gone in 30min!

That’s all for this week!

I’ve always wanted to try roasting a chicken.

It’s amazingly simple after trying it out today!

This is the Sakura Chicken and Thyme which were used in this dish. Salt and pepper was rubbed in-between the skin and meat as well as on the skin itself. Lemon slices and dill sprigs were inserted between the skin and meat to add flavour. Some lemon slices and thyme were inserted into the cavity. Broil in a broiler at 200°C for 1 hour. It’s done! Crispy roasted chicken!

As for the potato and egg salad. Just boil and dice both potatoes and egg white part. Mash egg yolk with mayonnaise, Djion Mustard, pepper and squeeze half a lemon into it. Put it in the fridge to cool before serving on the greens like this.

A nice orange jelly dessert to end after a delicious meal! Yum!

I made these orange-flavoured cookies this afternoon! However, the recipe I got from the Internet was too wet for cookie cutter. I added much more flour after that. Probably, twice the original amount!

Total of 147 excluding first batch which was too wet… Thus, cookies were flat and charred.

See the orange zest on one of the cookies? It’s important that each cookie has at least one. Otherwise, it simply tastes like any other butter cookie.

Tried to coat some cookies with melted Hershey’s chocolate I had in the fridge and it tasted too bitter with it. I wonder who had bought bitter chocolate? :p

First Trial with bitter chocolate

Second Trial with Sugar and Water added to bitter chocolate. Looks lumpy.

In the end, I decided the ones without chocolate coating tasted better and will last longer.

Here’s the final gift!

Here’s the recipe I used.

Ingredients:

250gm butter

3/4 cup sugar

5 Tbsp orange juice (which I felt do not help to inject flavour. Original recipe calls for 1 tsp orange extract)

Zest of one orange (this helps alot to create that interesting taste. Should have added more! )

2 eggs

Approximately 5 cups of flour (Original recipe uses 2 ½ cups of flour. It was too wet for me to use the cookie cutter)

2 ½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract (I didn’t use this cos none at home)

Optional: 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate (To melt in a bowl over boiling water; to coat the cookies.)

Preparation

1. Cut butter into smaller cubes and cream it with sugar till it’s light and fluffy.

2. Add and Mix orange extract, zest and egg in (1).

3. Sift flour, baking power and salt in (2).

4. Add vanilla extract in (3) and mix till a dough is formed.

5. Preheat oven to 200°C and bake for 15 min.

Personally, I felt the orange extract and vanilla is not necessary. But, orange zest is very important! I’ll make sure every single cookie contain at least a piece of zest on my next try!

Have fun!

I had a good paying job before resigning late July. If I had stayed for money sake, I would have a job albeit uninteresting and irritating.

So, I thought I might as well quit to focus looking for a new job and spend more time with myself as well as my family.

Coming 25 Oct, it’ll be full 3 months since my last working day.

There are plenty of jobs on jobstreet and I’ve applied to a few. However, there are no interviews yet.

I nearly had an interview with iDA… only to find out a day before the interview that they can’t hire me because of their rehiring policy. I was very angry then. Don’t they check my resume? I took so much time filling up their online application form (anyone who has applied to iDA will understand the pain!). It was only after some questioning that I understood their rehiring policy works against ex-employees. How exasperating! Rehiring policy so strict that rehiring is remote.

So, I guess I have to continue sending job applications for now.

奶皇包？流沙奶皇包？

There’s a difference between the two. I thought they were the same and made egg custard buns instead of the version that has liquid fillings. Sigh…

Custard Bun Recipe

I didn’t use this recipe’s ingredients for the skin

Ingredients for the filling

Adding Sugar to the mixture

Add Melted Butter into the Mixture

Melt butter in Microwave.

After adding Custard Powder

To the steamer! After steaming for 15 mins, it’s still very wet. So, it was steamed again for another 15 min.

Dough

Still small…

Dough after Proofing for 1 hour

Grew bigger!

Steamed Fillings

hmmm…

Buns before steaming

Let’s hope it’s soft this time!

Buns after steaming

Wow! It’s very soft unlike what I’ve tried many years ago

How it looks inside

Verdict: Not bad. Skin soft but fillings not sweet enough

Just received a free eat@Meritus card with compliments from OCBC yesterday!

So, I brought my mum to Pine Court at Meritus Mandarin for a yummy dim sum lunch

Meritus Mandarin is currently undergoing renovation, so its main entrance is temporarily shifted and we had to walk a longer distance after shopping at Robinsons’ Centrepoint.

While walking along the pavement outside Meritus Mandarin, we spotted lots of bird shit like these.

I know it spoils one’s appetite starting a food post with a picture like that. But, I was simply peeved seeing these white spots on the pavement…

Yucks! Aren’t NEA /STB / LTA going to something about it? What is the use of spending so much money to improve the pavements when the tourists see this along Orchard Road? Sigh… it must be the doing of those black crows which used to roost at Somerset area! Now that the crows are gone, their bird shit is still stuck on the pavement.

*tsk tsk tsk*

Dried Bird Shit on the Pavement

I will report this to NEA and see if the situation improves.

Now, back to the dim sum lunch!

Appertizer - Duck Meat and Long Bean

This appertizer is FOC. Tasted savoury with sichuan vegetable taste. Pretty tasty.

There was a ala carte buffet dim sum lunch at S$19.80++ per person. We weren’t that hungry and decided just ala carte will do.

We like Pu’er. Costs S$4++ per person. But, their grade doesn’t taste as good as the ones we had at home.

Pu'er

Pumpkin Dumplings at S$5.40++ (3 pieces). Skin so transparent!

Pumpkin Dumpling

Shanghai Dumplings at S$5.40++ (3 pieces).  Taste good but not very juicy.

Shanghai Dumplings

Deer Meat in Taro at S$5.40 (3 pieces). Something interesting and unique.

Deer Meat in Taro

Deer Meat in Taro

Char Siew Pau at S$5.40 (3 pieces). Nice but not the best eaten. The filling has a different jam taste which I can’t figure out what.

Char Siew Pau

Char Siew Pau

Spicy Crabmeat bun at S$5.40 (3 pieces). Mum found this too spicy. I thought was okay except very little crab meat fillings. See the picture… looks pretty empty inside.

Crabmeat Bun

Crabmeat Bun

Mango Dessert at S$8++ each. That lime taste sorbet is sooooooooo sour! Mango with sago was good.

Mango Dessert

Custard Bun at S$3 each.

Egg Custard Bun

Look at the filling! It was delicious! I like this dessert best! 2 days ago, I tried making these and realised the recipe from the Internet was for custard bun (not the liquid filling version). Will post later about those buns I’ve made.

Egg Custard Bun

Total damage was S$33.55 after 50% discount!

Receipt

Hope to go back there again to try other dishes with this eat card!

Prawn Noodles at Boon Tat St

I was attending Project Management Professional certification course this week in Central Business District.

My course mates shared that they could not find where the Buzz Cashier 2 Prawn Noodles stall was.

Being familiar with the area (I was working for Ministry of National Development for almost 10 years. Resigned early this year), I gallantly offered to bring them there.

This is the dry and spicy version which costs S$3 for a small portion

Though the prawn mee and soup tasted good and prawns were very fresh, my preferred version is still Adam Food Centre’s Bak Kut Prawn Noodles! More flavourful and yummy!

It has been raining heavily since lunch.

Great day for sleeping when air is cool and you are home

Enjoy!

PS. Happy Teachers’ Day to all Teachers

Bought this from Sephora at Orchard Ion for S$30.

Effective and painless to curl my short eye lashes! (Need to apply mascara first before it can curl)

My room (and life) needs spring cleaning.

Too much has been accumulated over the years. I don’t know how many of you are like me, hoard lots of stuff in the room, can’t bear to throw and thought it could be of use some time in future.

4 days at home nursing those nasty bites (blisters are still there), I threw away at least 10 boxes of stuff… be it Home and Decor magazines (wish they have digital version e.g. pdf), out-dated computers and IT books, free souvenirs like notepads, banks’ / Telco’s correspondences  etc etc… I was doing whatever I could to eliminate any possible source of spiders. Found no spiders though. Lots of old stuff like letters and cards got read over again… after a long, long  time.

There’s still a pile of stuff and my wardrobe needs to be taken care too.

Just a while ago, I was sharing with my mum that those bites probably happened when I had my shoes on, on Monday. The bite locations were areas not covered by shoes. I speculated it could have happened when I was at the elderly care centre last Monday.

You know what she said to me?

“Never mind where you got bitten. The spiders should have bitten you much earlier!” (She said that in a jest because I have been refusing to throw away most of my stuff till the “spider bites” incident.)

Awww… that’s nasty… I’m still suffering from those bites! :-p