Pandan Buns

Made these for breakfast tomorrow. I got the pandan juice from blending the leaves with some water, no added colour that's why it's only a light green hue. The recipe as follows :

200g High protein flour
50g Plain flour
3g Instant yeast
20g Sugar
2g Salt
26g Maple syrup
15g Egg yolk
36g Butter
170g Pandan juice
15g Angel flake (sweetened coconut flake)

1. Mix all ingredients, except butter, in a mixer with a dough hook on low speed until combined, add butter & continue to mix on medium speed for about 15 mins until dough is fully developed.
Cover bowl & let rise in a warm place for 1 hr or until dough doubles in bulk.
2. Divide the dough into 50g portions & mould them round, place them onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, let proof for about 20 mins.
3. Bake in a preheated oven of 190 degrees for 12 mins.

* This recipe yields 10 buns, I've doubled the recipe today*

Almond Jelly

CJ calls this fruit salad, she simply adores it, a very basic dessert, it's actually almond jelly with fruit salad. I've used SPC fruit salad in pear/apple juice with no added sugar, added in an extra 1/2 chopped mango & pureed the other 1/2 before adding it to the mixture.
The almond jelly is made from Holly Farms brand that I got from LTS, just follow the instructions on the package, very easy.............

Cupcakes !

While baking for the order of carrot & chocolate cake, I whipped up extra batter to make some cupcakes for ourselves ! They r going to be our breakfast for tomorrow as I'm totally exhausted to make any bread today, the girls should be happy that they r going to have cupcakes instead of bread for breakfast ..............

Tiramisu

This order of Tiramisu was together with the carrot cake & another chocotlate cake. It's made with mascarpone cheese, authentically Italian no substitute, no flavour, no gelatin ! For health reason, I don't use any raw eggs as well. Shots of dark Rum is added to the espresso that the sponge fingers are to be soaked in. This is JF's favorite's dessert, I keep her portion small if I do whip up a batch for ourselves...............

Carrot Cake

Had an order for a carrot cake today. It's filled with toasted walnuts, sultanas & of course grated carrot, finished with a layer of light cream cheese frosting on top of the cake. Frankly, I used to dislike carrot cake in the past but over the years I've grown to like it, especially with my favorite cup of coffee, the reason ? because hubby likes it................. haha

Another Birthday Today !

This is a blackforest cake for a 1 year old boy. Since it's for a kid, I covered the side with star shaped chocolate cut from a cookie cutter & the top with dark cherries, alphabet & numeric candies which many kids adore !

Happy Birthday Adam !

It's Adam's birthday today & I had the pleasure of making his birthday cakes ! The top one is a fresh mango cake topped with luscious strawberries ! (chk this out,bboy ).
The football themed cake is a blueberry cake, I colored some whipped cream green to make it look like grass !

Osmanthus Jelly

After I've tried osmanthus (桂花) jelly in a Chinese restaurant in Singapore during CNY, I fell in love with it ! So I bought a big packet of dried osmanthus but I didn't get osmanthus honey while I was there so I decided to make my own, after searching through the internet, I managed to come up with 2 jars of thick osmanthus syrup made from rock sugar & honey ! So I decided to try making the jelly 2 days ago.To make it simple, I bought a packet of jelly (agar agar)powder from LTS, I've used the Flying Swallows brand & noticed that there is different colour for the jelly powder, luckily my eyes are sharp enough to notice that the packet that I grabbed was white !
My jellies were made from :

1 pkt of jelly powder
950ml water
100g sugar
6 TBSP osmanthus syrup

Well, these little jellies were easy to make, just stirring, boiling, pouring & chilling, with this I made 10 heart shape jellies & filled 3 jelly cups too !
These came at the right time cos Thursday was a very hot & humid day in KK !

Still craving for some cooling desserts last nite, had been busy this 2 days so that left my fridge with no desserts. So we went to City Mall, checked out the Maxim dessert shop there, I had the 杨枝金露 but it was very bland, only a tiny bit of pomelo & sago & no aroma of mango, the few pcs of mango in it was already turning dark so I believed that it has been displayed for a few days, the price at RM5.80 for that tiny bowl of the dessert was definitely steep ! Hubby had the red bean soup with glutinous rice ball, same thing bland & diluted with a miserable glutinous ball with tiny bit of red bean filling in it !
This afternoon at one of the fruit shop in Damai, I bought a pomelo & over 2kgs of mangoes, in my fruit basket now, waiting for them to ripen further so I can make my own 杨枝金露 !

Our Dinner

Today we had spaghetti with tomato sauce, added some sausage to the sauce, with steamed broccoli at the side. I always steam our vegies & serve it with whatever food we're having.

There'll always be containers of tomato sauce in my freezer. I make the sauce from scratch & whenever the supply is running low, I'll whip up a batch. I use the sauce for pasta, baked rice, pizza, shepherd pies & sometimes tomato based soup. I make mine with :

- lots of garlic & onion, coarsely chopped ( I'm a die hard garlic fan)
- 2 kg very ripe tomatoes, halved & seeded, blanched in boiling water
for a min, drain & let cool, peel the skin off & chop coarsely
- 1 can tomato paste
- 1 can tomato puree
2 bay leaves, dash balsamic vinegar (or red wine vinegar), some chopped oil soaked sun-dried tomatoes (if any), basil & oregano.

Heat a large saucepan with olive oil, cook onion & garlic till soft,add bay leaves, followed by basil & oregano, add tomato paste, puree, chopped tomatoes, vinegar, sun-dried tomatoes. Cover saucepan, let simmer over low heat for 2-3 hrs, stirring occasionally.
I don't season my sauce, seasoning is added when I cook with it, depending on what dish I'm cooking.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

A friend ordered a batch of chocolate chip cookies & mini vanilla cupcakes for a gathering tomorrow. My kitchen was filled with the aroma of cookies & cupcakes while the oven was working hard today. I had to resist the temptation of popping these little goodies into my mouth, as I always make extra for my girls, I did manage to keep to just 1 cookie though ..........

Cheese & Sultana Bread

We had cheese & sultana bread for breakfast today. I made them look like bread sticks, at least something different cos I always make our bread into individual bun, guess my girls are sick of the look, ha ha ! JF was so fast with her breakfast today, well thanks to the cheese & sugar topping !

I was busy baking today so didn't have time to make any bread, guess breakfast will be at McDonald's again tomorrow morning ! We go there for breakfast about once a week, still in the mood for their Big Breakfast, on a lazy morning !

Sausage Rolls

I made some sausage rolls today, just out of the oven at 2pm. JF's class is going on a school trip to KK Wetlands, Jesselton & The Clock Tower tomorrow. The children are not supposed to be carrying any lunch boxes or backpack so I have to pack her roll in a disposable bag, that will be her lunch, with a packet of milk, anyway she'll be too tired to eat after having fun at the wetlands ! I've also packed some rolls for few of her classmates.............

Bloomers

This bread is a regular on our breakfast bread list. It's wonderful when freshly baked, crispy outside, warm & soft inside. I've always wondered why our crusty always turn soft the next day ? Is it the type of flour we have here or is there a special type of oven ? I'm using a Electrolux oven. I made the loaves with cranberries & sultanas today. This is the recipe :

Plain flour : 125g
High protein flour : 375g
Malt flour : 10g *
Milk powder : 5g *
Instant yeast : 8g
Salt : 10g *
Cold water : 330g
Shortening : 10g *

With an electric mixer & dough hook at low speed, blend the dry ingredients for 1 min. Add cold water & continue mixing for another min, add the shortening & mix on medium speed for 12 mins until dough is fully developed.
Transfer the dough onto a flour-dusted surface & round up the dough with both hands. Place dough into an airtight container & let it rise for 1 hr until dough is double in bulk.
Divide dough into 2 pcs and mould round, leave for 10mins. Remould dough pcs & form each pc into a long baton shape. Place dough onto a large baking try lined with greaseproof paper. Prove in a warm place for 1 - 1 1/2 hrs. Make several cuts across the top of each dough pc.
Preheat the oven to 230 degrees, bake with a tray of water to generate steam for the 1st 10mins of the baking time, open the oven door & remove the tray. Continue to bake for 10-15 mins.

* I did not use any malt flour but increased the milk powder to 15g instead & I changed the shortening to butter. I also reduced the salt to 5g, don't like my bread to be very salty. After the dough is fully developed, I kneaded in the cranberries & sultanas.
The loaves were done in total time of 20mins. *

Apple Crumble

I was rather free today & was craving for some sweet stuff. It was raining on & off the whole day with gusts of strong winds too, so I was thinking why not make something warm ? I still have some pie pastry in the freezer after making a apple pie for hubby on Father's Day, so with that portion of pastry, 2 apples, sultanas & an hour later at 3pm, 7 little apple crumbles were ready ! That was my tea break, with my favourite cup of coffee..........

Hello Kitty Cake

This is my latest edition, for 7 yr old Megan's birthday yesterday ! It took me & my 'designer' 2 days to do the kitty face, hope the birthday girl liked it !!

Tutti-Frutti

The 1st cake is filled with 2 layers of fresh strawberries & freshly whipped cream, the 2nd one mango slices. It's both strawberry & mango season now, so I've made quite a few of both cakes & swissrolls as well.

Train Set

2 of my cakes with train set decoration, pics may not be very clear as they r taken from my photo album.

Mango Cake

Sharon ordered this last weekend for a boy's birthday, it's a 2kg cake. Vanilla sponge with 2 layers of freshly whipped cream & fresh mango slices as filling, covered with more yummy whipped cream.

My Daughter's Birthday Cake

This is my elder daughter's birthday cake this year. She didn't have a party so I brought the cake to school for her classmates at snack time. How time flies - she's rather tall now, standing at abt 1.3m, give her few more years she's definitely going to be taller than her 1.57m tall mummy, hee hee ..............

Chocolate Cake

This is my best seller of all ! Chocolate sponge filled with two layers of light chocolate fudge, coated with dark chocolate ganache, a perfect combination for chocolate lovers ! This cake can also be made as chocolate with banana or chocolate with dark cherry.

Football Design Cake

This is a blueberry cake made for a boy (obviously !) The gel used to draw the football was tinted black, sad to say I'm not able to find black coloring in KK so I got it while rummaging through baking supplies shops in Singapore !

Doll cake

This cake was made for Apple's 8th birthday last month. As she doesn't like chocolate cake, I made a vanilla sponge instead, filled with a light whipped cream cheese frosting, covered in butter cream.

Football Cake

Just downloaded this pic from my mobile, it's a 2.5kg chocolate cake done for a 7yr old boy. The goal post & the football are all made from chocolate.

Blueberry Muffins

Home-made blueberry muffins, made with fresh blueberries, my girls loved them !
This is the recipe :

100g Butter
60g Sugar
2 Eggs
60g Honey
60g Cream
3g Baking powder
2g Bicarbonate of soda
130g Flour
90g High protein flour
1g Salt
125g Blueberries

1. Sift baking powder & bicarbonate with both flours, add salt to the flour mixture. Cream butter & sugar till pale, add eggs, one at a time, followed by honey & cream, fold in flour mixture & lastly the blueberries.
2. Bake @ preheated 180 deg oven for 25 mins.

I use longan honey from Taiwan, the aroma is fantastic ! This recipe yields 10 muffins, I made 12 muffins with 1 1/4 recipe,