Cakes (7/9 - 13/9)

Baby Shower Cupcakes

These cupcakes were baked for J's baby shower party yesterday.

The pretty little blue jumpsuit is for a baby boy that's coming her way......

Prawn Risotto

One blink, it's been 2 weeks since my last post & this is my first in September ! Can't believe I've been busy, lazy, tired ???


Been craving for risotto for quite a while, finally found time to cook some on one of the week nights.

Serves 4-6

1Kg Raw prawns
2 Tomatoes, chopped
1 Carrot, chopped
1 Celery stick, chopped
2 Bay leaves
1 large onion, chopped
5 Cloves garlic, crushed
1 Cup (250 ml) white wine
Pinch of saffron threads
1 Tbsp Olive oil
20g Butter
1 1/2 Cups (330g) Arborio rice
1 Tsp Finely grated lemon rind
3 Tbsp Finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 Tbsp lemon juice
Shaved Parmesan, to serve

Peel & devein the prawns. Reserve the heads & shells. Cover the prawns, then refrigerate. Place the heads & shells in a large saucepan & add 1.5L water. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 5 minutes.

Strain the liquid into a clean saucepan & add the tomato, carrot, celery, bay leaves, half the onion & half the garlic. Bring to boil, then reduce the heat & simmer for 45 mins.
Strain into a bowl, pressing the solids for any juices, then return the liquid to the same pan - you should have 1.25L liquid, if not, add water. Add the wine & saffron, bring to the boil, then reduce the heat & keep at a simmer.

Heat the oil & butter in a large saucepan over medium heat until the butter melts, then add the remaining onion & cook for 5 minutes, or until soft. Add the rice and remaining garlic and stir for 1 min, or until the rice is well coated.

Ladle 1/2 cup (125 ml) of the stock into the rice and stir constantly until it is all absorbed. Add stock, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly for 25 mins, or until all the stock is absorbed, adding the raw prawns and lemon rind with the final portion of stock. When the prawns are pink and curled and the rice is tender and creamy, stir in the parsley and lemon juice. Season and serve with Parmesan.

* I omitted the shaved Parmesan as I do not like it.

Doraemon Cake

This is the third year I'm baking Yi Hung's cake. I've watched this little boy grow up, from the day he was born 3 years ago, on Merdeka Day.

This year, he's big enough to tell his mummy that his favourite cartoon character is Doraemon, what a cutie !

The image was from Rei , the 'sifu' back home. The design on her cakes are all so gorgeous, a real talent she really is ! I got her permission to use her design. Something I learn from blogging for the past year, if you like someone's design, just ask if you can use it & give credit, that makes everyone happy !!

Angel Hair Pasta With Crab, Chilli & Lime

I was left with the last packet of frozen crab meat that my mum gave me during my last trip back home. I think it's from Sri Lanka crab as the flesh is really big chunk & even though it's frozen, the taste is so sweet & fresh, not fishy at all !

I didn't want to make crab meat omelette again like what I did the last time, I wanted olive oil based pasta this time.
Found this Gordon Ramsay recipe :

Serves 4

Ingredients :

• 200g angel hair pasta *
  
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 red chilli *
  
• 4 spring onions
• Approx 75ml dry white wine
• 1 lime
• 250g white crab meat
• Handful of flat leaf parsley *
  
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Olive oil
• Extra virgin olive oil

1. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, add the pasta and cook according to pack instructions until al dente (approximately 3-4 minutes).

2. Heat another large pan with the olive oil. Chop the spring onions, thinly slice the chilli (deseed if you prefer) and crush the garlic. Sauté for 1-2 minutes and season with salt and pepper.

3. Add the wine to the pan and cook out for a minute to reduce. Add the crab meat, stir together and allow to heat through.

4. Drain the pasta and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Add the pasta to the crab mixture, chop the parsley and toss the ingredients to combine.

5. Divide between warm plates and serve immediately with a generous squeeze of lime juice, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

*I've used vermicelli instead of angel hair for the pasta. Chilli has been omitted, well because of the girls. I was lazy to drive to TH to get a bunch of flat leaf parsley so I used dried parsley leaves.
This is a very simple pasta, very easy to cook & so yummy, will defintely cook it again the next time I stock up on crab meat again !

Cupcakes For JF 2009

A batch of cupcakes baked for JF, for her to bring to school tomorrow morning. Since her birthday is always during the summer holidays, she only gets to bring cake in when school reopens.

She got very excited about when I told her I'll be baking some cupcakes for her to bring to school on Friday. And she even asked me if she could decorate them. I'm not going to let her do it because I already have a plan in my mind !

I want to make my first batch of fondant cupcakes & I make sure I do it.

I was up at 4.30am this morning to bake the cupcakes. JF wanted vanilla this time. So by the time I send them to school, the cupcakes were already cooling on the rack. Back from my morning run at 9am, it was time to start the action.

A few months back, JF's favourite colour was still green, now it's blue. So I decided on blue theme for the cupcakes. I've made the sugar paste a few days ago so I just had to finish up with the decoration today. The cupcakes were meant to be a surprise for her so I had to get it done before the girls come home from school today.

I think JF already has a preview of the cupcakes because I set them as wallpaper of my mobile after I took a picture of these cuties !

She's going to be so happy tomorrow.

Panna Cotta With Strawberry Puree

Yesterday was Jana Faith's 7th birthday.

This year I didn't bake her any cake but of course I made her something ! We had Panna Cotta as her 'birthday cake' this year. Why Panna Cotta ? In fact, there's a story to it....

My girls grew up with diary cream so obviously they like cream, especially when whipped. We had a dinner at Al-fresco last weekend to celebrate JF's birthday. Since there's a band there so I got them to sing her a birthday song & I thoght it would be nice to have a dessert to go along with it. Browsing through the dessert menu, I saw Panna Cotta with raspberry crisps & that seemed interesting. When the dessrt arrived, served in a huge glass, with a thin pathetic layer of raspberry jelly & crumbed pieces of what seemed to me butter cookies. The Panna Cotta tasted like a thick milky agar agar, not like a creamy dessert. We pushed it around among the four of us & when we left there's still like almost half left. The kids commented that the Panna Cotta was awful !

So I thought I could make Panna Cotta while the girls were still sleeping yesterday morning & be ready for lunch.

Few months back, I saw on Jenny's blog about her Panna Cotta, I was so attracted to it, so pretty served in a tall glass. This is the link to the original recipe .




I made some changes to the original recipe & this is my version :

Serves 4

1 cup (250ml) strawberry puree
2 tablespoon (30g) water
8g powdered gelatin
1 vanilla bean
2 cup (500 ml) heavy cream
1/4 cup (50gr) sugar


Fill 4 champagne flutes with strawberry puree up to 1/4 height, let freeze till firm.

Place the water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over it. Let it bloom while you prepare the cream. On a flat surface, cut the vanilla bean in half lengthwise without cutting all the way through. With a pairing knife, scrape the seeds from the pods. Set aside.
In a medium saucepan, heat the heavy cream with the sugar and vanilla bean seeds until the cream is just about to boil, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves completely. Remove from the heat and stir in the gelatin until it is completely melted. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. You can speed up the process by placing your saucepan over a bowl filled with ice but keep and eye on it as it will thicken faster. Once the cream is cooled, slowly pour it over the frozen fruit till about half full. When it almost set, pour in another layer of strawberry puree, let freeze till firm & pour the remaining cream on top of the puree. Let chill till firm before serving, at least 2 hours. Garnish with strawberry before serving.