Ang Ku Kueh

i think it should name it PINKu Kueh instead ;)
As i din't want to add too much colouring, hence the colour look pretty pale here. Since i'm a kueh newbie, i will settle for something manageable to start with. Secondly, the lazy me want a fuss free ang gu with just mix and knead kinda. Where do i source for recipe? No where else but ask my Sifu Jane's. True enough, ask and you will receive. Thanks Jane, you have always make it easier for me to follow yet yields wonderful results following your recipe.  Thanks for your sharing ;)



Ang Ku Kueh
recipe courtesy of Jane

Ingredients:

(A) 50g rice flour
      110ml water
(B) 250g glutinous rice flour
      30g sugar
      220ml water

(C) 3tbsp oil

*food colouring

fillings: 300g mung beans, 200g sugar

Method:

1. Soak mung beans for 2hrs, steam the beans until soft. Mash the beans.
2. Fry mashed bean with sugar until dry and non stick to wok.
3. Mix ingredient (B) and set aside.
4. Cook ingredient (A) until thick.
5. Mix (A) & (B)  and add in (C) to form a soft dough. Colour your dough.
6. Divide dough into small portions, wrap in fillings and mould it out.
7. Place the "ang ku" on lightly greased banana leaves steam for 7-8 minutes over medium heat. Greased some oil on the surface of "angku" and serve.

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker.



Tricks or Treats? Spooky or Cute?

Have a ghoulishly good time this Halloween with these meringue ghosts canvassing round your neighborhood. Happy spookiest weekend!

Meringue Ghosts

please refer methods & video  reference at Joy of Baking

Ingredients:

4 large whites (120 grams)

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

200 grams superfine or caster sugar

*Note from Joy of Baking: If you don't have superfine sugar,  simply take 1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar and process it for about 30 seconds in a food processor.

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

handful of mini chocolate chips

Jessie's note: these meringue ghosts taste very much like cotton candy, crisp from outside and chewy in the inside. I find it too sweet for my liking, i would suggest reduce the sugar a little without affecting too much of the whites volume.

Classic Chocolate Cupcakes:

adapted from: Fergal Connolly 500 cupcakes & muffins

Ingredients:

225g Unsalted butter (soften)

225g Caster sugar

225g Self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp Dutch-process cocoa powder

4 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175deg C

2. Line paper cases in muffin tin

3. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, whisk with an electric until smooth, about 5 minutes.

4. Spoon the batter into the cases.

5. Bake about 20mins

6. Remove cupcakes and cool on rack

      

Have Fun!

comfort food

Hubby and me are big fan of chwee kueh. We would often travel the extra mile and join the snake queue for this simple hawker delight. I have never thought I would ever get to make and eat this comfort food right at the comfort our home until i saw Anncoo's Chwee Kueh post with steps-to-steps pictorial and detailed recipe that yields very soft kueh that topped with fragrant chai-po, minus the oil from store-bought ones along with home-made sambal chili paste. We had this for lunch yesterday. Hubby and children like it and i can proudly says, we no longer need to travel just to have this. Thanks Ann for your sharing ;)



Recipe reference: Anncoo Journal Chwee Kueh

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker.

psst...as i explore and experiment into kuehs making under this month Aspiring Bakers Challenge, i am intrigue with all the assortment kuehs posting by fellow bloggers. Looks like i have to buy more moulds, bigger steamer with more kueh posting here with my new found love. Tho my niche is still baking but, one can always learn and improve ;)
Next on the list, Ang Gu Kueh!

kitchen mishap

My initial plan was to bake mini marble cake like this, from Wen's Delight.
But why oh why there ain't any marble effect on my cakes!?
You see, when you have all your children at home 'chanting' mummy seeking attention, you'll understand my state of focus then. At times, i wish i can clone many me to devote my attention for all. Yes, 24x7 is never enough!
So, instead of dividing the batter into two to create the marbling effect, in split second i poured the cocoa right into the batter. oh my goodness! NO WAY to salvage! hmph...
Grreeat! Now it turned into a full chocolate cake! but, i wanted something more than just a plain o'chocolate cake :(
Forget about the beautiful swirls! I stood still, stared at my batter for couple of minutes and finally,  took a turn with little adaption. That, I transformed it into 'chocolate buttons' instead. Don't they look cute, kinda like buttons?
Luckily, It was kitchen mishap turned pleasant suprise, these buttons were tasty. The credit goes to the versatile recipe, not forgetting the ever rich cocoa i used.

Chocolate Buttons

adapted from Sonia's Marble Chocolate Cupcakes

and Wen's Mini Marble Mocha Cakes

yields 26 buttons

Ingredients:
150g Butter (softened)
135g sugar
3 eggs
200g Self-raising flour
*Alternatively, you can use plain flour sieve with 1 tsp of baking powder.
6tbsp milk
* Wen's marble cakes asked for 2 tbsp of milk, however, the batter was rather dry with all the cocoa powder thrown in, hence i adjusted the milk to 6tbsp instead for moisture.
55g cocoa powder
*some melted chocolate

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 180deg c, grease the donut trays.
2. Whisk butter, sugar, eggs, milk and flour and cocoa until smooth and well-mixed. Easy peasy!
*alert! alert! please do not repeat my mistake and pour the cocoa if you want to make marble cakes.
3. Transfer batter into piping bag. Pipes batter onto donut trays till full and bake for about 18 to 20 minutes or until well risen and springy to the touch.
4. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool.
5. Double-boil some chocolate. Pipe into the hole in each donut-shaped cakes.


What an eventful morning! All i want now is head back to my massage chair. Peace at last, before they are back.

Hokkaido Chiffon - Encore

Hokkaido Chiffon is one of my favourite. I reckoned that it is also one of the popular cake among the baking community. I'm not sure its origin but one certainly need not travel there for a taste of it.
The recipe, as versatile as the cake, see here & here,  is the sort that you can whip up if you are running short of time. If you have 30 minutes to spare, this IS the cake!
Simple is beauty~



Hokkaido Chiffon

Ingredients:

4 Yolks

70g Sugar

1 tsp of Vanilla Essence

80ml Fresh Milk

60ml Corn oil

135g Cake Flour

4g Baking powder

6 Whites

50g Sugar

Method:

♥ Preheat oven 180°C

♥ Arrange paper liners on baking tray

♥ Hand whisk yolks with sugar untill pale in colour.

♥ Add drops of vanilla essence

♥ Add in Milk, follow by oil, manually whisk till combined.

♥ Sieve in Cake flour and baking powder. Stir till well-mixed.

♥ Whisk whites till foamy, add sugar. Whisk till medium peak.

♥ Take 1/3 whites fold in with yolk mixture.

♥ follow by folding in the rest of white

♥ scope batter into pre-arranged paper cups about three-quarter filled.

*Jessie's note: this cake will shrink after cooled. However, do not over-filled up the liners as batter will over flow.

♥ baking time est. 20-25mins.

Recipe adapted from : 不用模型做点心



Spiral Curry Puffs

After my maiden attempt in making kuih, let's try spiral curry puffs.

Recipe reference: Jane's Corner

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker.

I'm no longer just a Cake Lady

wow... wow...WOW!!!...was what my family responded when i told them i'm gonna make some kuih!
In the family, i'm known as the cake lady. Eversince i started baking, any events or birthday, you'll see me with my cake along. Hence, the nick given. Of course, i'm more than honour as no one bakes in my family, more so for one who once work in the corporate world who knew nuts about cooking to one who cooks and bakes, not very well tho but learning and improving. Hey! that's little achievement for me k ;)
With the blogosphere  flooded with all the kuih kuih posts, now tell me how can i not be tempted to try?
i shall call myself a kuih amateurish cum newbie ;)
Kudos to many of you, i shall continue to explore and learn from all. Till then, happy dance!

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #12: Traditional Kueh (October 2011) hosted by Small Small Baker.

Kuih Dadar

Filling:

80g Gula Melaka

40ml water

200g Grated coconut

1/3tsp salt

2tsp glutinous rice flour (sieved)

Batter:

100g Plain flour (sieved)

1 egg

1/3tsp salt

1tbsp pandan juice

(to make pandan juice, blend 4 to 5 pieces of pandan leaves with water. Strain the mixture)

150ml water

Method:

1. Prepare the filling first. Boil gula melaka with water till it dissolves. Add grated coconut and salt and stir till mixture is fairly dry. Add in the glutinous rice flour and stir to mix well. Remove and set aside to cool.

2. For the batter, mix all the ingredients using a hand-whisk till smooth and set aside for about half an hour.

3. Heat up a non-stick frying pan and wipe a little oil on it. Scoop batter onto pan and lightly swirl pan to let batter spread into a thin pancake. Heat until pancake is cooked then remove and let cool. Repeat steps till all batter used up.

4. Spoon the grated coconut filling on the pancake and roll up like a spring roll.

Recipe adapted from: Local Kueh - Joy of Cooking

                                       



My Helper's Birthday

Coffee cream birthday cake for our Phil' helper who has been with us 5 years.

Chocolate & Vanilla Cupcakes for her to celebrate with her friends during her off days.

Craving for a little cake

Quick and easy to prepare and it tastes divine!

Lemon Cupcakes

adapted from 500 cupcakes & muffins

Lemon Buttercream

Cupcakes Ingredients:

225g unsalted butter (softened)

225g caster sugar

225g self-raising flour

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

* i added 1tbsp lemon juice & 1 lemon rind

Method:

1. Preheat the oven 175degC

2. Place paper liners in muffin tins.

3. Place all the ingredients in a large bowl and beat using an electric whisk until batter turned smooth and pale, takes about 2 to 3 minutes.

4. Spoon the batter into the cases. Bake for about 20minutes

5. Remove cakes from oven and let cool on cooling racks. Frost your lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream.



2 buns 1 dough

I have the caught the contagious bug lately,  right here at the blogosphere.
I have one long to-bake list but often, my attention crave changes when i'm greeted with mouth-watering  bakes during my blog hop middle of the night. Next morning, you see me baking those.
Thus, you"ll see bakes that have been going around in blogospere recently over here too for the upcoming posts. Meanwhile for this particular one, i have to agree with HHB & her bake friend, magically soft indeed! 

I was so tempted to give it a go after seeing how magical these rolls HHB & her bake friend described. And when HHB says it's good, it gotta be good  ;)

Then, next came Edith, showcasing her piping hot cinnamon rolls with pecans in our Facebook exchange and gave her all thumbs up for those rolls. Can you imagine me drooling infront of my ipad?! Now, tell me can I not be tempted anymore?!

Still, my children dislike cinnamon buns the last time i baked for them. So how am i going to finish ten over rolls on my own???  A puzzle to ponder...then came the solution!!!
Why not i make half recipe into cinnamon rolls for myself to satisfy my crave while the other half, make into chocolate rolls? Bingo!
The rest is history...

Out of my surprise, my children like these cinnamon as much as the chocolate rolls too!

Great! I can simply make all into cinnamon rolls next time for all to share!

Cinnamon & Chocolate Rolls

yields 6 cinnamon rolls & 6 chocolate rolls  

Dough Ingredients:

250ml milk

50g Caster sugar

62.5ml corn oil

1 tsp Instant Yeast

250g Plain flour

Sieve & set aside:

30g Plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Chocolate filling:

1/2tbsp Varlhona Cocoa powder

25g caster sugar

25g Unsalted butter (melted)

40g Dark chocolate droplets

chocolate sauce for drizzling

Cinnamon filling:

1/2 tbsp cinnamon powder

25g caster sugar

25g unsalted butter (melted)

40g rasins (soaked & tap dry)

handful of walnuts

sugar icing for drizzling (I couldnt wait any longer to eat the piping hot rolls,  i just simply scoop some icing sugar dissolved with a some warm water)

Method:

1. Mix milk, sugar and oil in a pan. Heat up the mixture,  remove it just before it boils. Set mixture

aside to cool.

2. Place 250g plain flour with instant yeast in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and slowly add the above mixture. You can stir using a spatula or a wooden spoon until the mixture comes together to form a thick batter. Cover the bowl with clingwrap and sit for at least an hour.

3. Remove the clingwrap, add in the sieved 30g plain flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Slowing stir until the mixture comes together. You can either go ahead to make the rolls or as Happy Home Baking did, leave to chill in fridge over night or until needed.  HHB mentioned dough will be more firm and easier to work if left to chill in fridge. I couldnt wait to experience that magical moment. hence i went ahead.

4. Divide the dough into two. One is for the cinnamon rolls and the other, for chocolate rolls.

5. Lets start with the chocolate rolls first.  Dust your work station and dough with flour. Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape. It was rather difficult to work on the sticky dough. I had a hard time rolling out the dough as it was sticky. The next time i shall follow HHB's note to leave the dough overnight to firm up the dough.

6. Brush the rolled out dough with the melted butter. Sieve the cocoa powder over it. Sprinkle evenly the sugar and chocolate droplets over the surface.

7. Starting from the opposite end of the dough, roll it neatly in towards you ( similar to rolling up swiss roll). Roll as tightly as possible.  Pinch the seams to seal.

8. Cut the roll equally into 6 pieces and arrange on greased baking tray. (Note: i dint want to place the two different rolls together as i'm afraid the cinnamon smell may be too empowering if place along with the chocolate rolls. So i placed both flavors in two different trays instead.) You can place the rolls close together almost touching like HHB did which i find it neat and nice or like mine, placed them separately.

9. Cover and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.

Taken from HHB's note: 1 hour if dough was left to chill over night or until the rolls double in size. The rolls can be left to chill in the fridge over night and bake them the next morning. If rolls have doubled in size, bake them right away. Otherwise leave to sit on counter until double in size before baking.

10. Next, lets work on the cinnamon rolls. Mix the ground cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.

11. Dust your work station and the remaining dough with flour. Roll out the dough into a rectangular shape. Brush the rolled out dough with the melted butter. Sprinkle evenly the cinnamon sugar and raisins over the surface.

12. Starting from the opposite end of the dough, roll it neatly in towards you ( similar to rolling up swiss roll). Roll as tightly as possible.  Pinch the seams to seal.

13. Cut the roll equally into 6 pieces and arrange on another greased baking tray. Sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of the cinnamon rolls.  Cover and leave to rise for about 30 minutes.

14. Bake in preheated oven at 180degC for 15 to 20minutes or untill golden brown.

15. Clearing up the mess while waiting for the rolls to be ready.

Recipe originated from Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls

Recipe adapted from Happy Home Baking Magical Rolls

Check out Cinnamon rolls from The Little Teochew and Precious Moments 

Personalised Gift of Love

A 10" Coffee birthday cake for a friend who adores Chip & Dale along with a box of personalised butter cookies with imprinted messages.

Wishing her a wonderful year ahead!

Happy Birthday!

Spiritual Uplift

I. Love. Cupcakes.
Cupcake, always a treat and a crowd pleaser. 
I get my caffeine fix in the morning as a cuppa is a must for me to kick start the day. Alongside with a coffee cupcake is a double-booster.
And when i want a quick fix of cake, i go for cupcakes. I made mine with luxurious coffee buttercream.
No slicing and best of all, i can have the whole cake by myself.  It never fails to give me an  spiritual uplift running a hectic day.
Have you had your coffee today?

Some for friends to bring home for tea.

Coffee Buttercream Cupcakes

Recipe source: Cupcake Bakeshop by Chokylit

Cupcakes ingredients:

1-1/2 sticks  unsalted butter, (i used 170g) @ room temperature
1-1/2 cups sugar (i used 1 cup)3 large eggs @ room temperature
2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dark roast coffee grounds
1/2 cup strong brewed, dark roast coffee
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 180deg C. Sieve plain flour, baking powder, salt, coffee grounds and set aside.
2. Cream butter on high speed until soft, takes about 30 seconds.
3. Slowly add sugar. Beat on medium-high speed, takes about 3 minutes until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beating until incorporated.
5. Whisk in the sieved flour, baking powder, salt, and coffee grounds, alternate with milk with brewed coffee. Beat until combined. Be careful when adding the coffee/milk mixture to the batter. If you add it too quickly the mixture will look curdled. Add small amounts and beat well to incorporate.
6. Scoop into cupcake liner, filled  about two-thirds full.
*Note that these cupcakes will shrink slightly when they cool.7. Bake in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean.
8. Cool cupcakes, set aside. Prepare coffee buttercream. Frost it when cupcakes are cool.

Coffee Buttercream:

adapted from here

Butter 120g
Icing Sugar 45g
Milk 75g
3tsp Instant coffee granules (dissolved with 1tbsp hot water)

Prepare butter cream for frosting
1. Beat butter and sugar till fluffy and pale in colour
2. Add in milk continue beat
3. Add coffee mixture
4. Ready to frost cupcakes.

Enjoy a cake! Enjoy your cupcakes!

Chocolate Wassant

Yes, its bread again.
If you have noticed for the last few posts. There are a couple more coming up. Please just say you don't mind. I will sandwich a couple of cake posts or even macaroons in between, alright?

My children are fans of chocolate wassant, absolutely!
I wanted to make for the longest longest time for them. Truth be told, I wasn't quite confident as the steps look complicated to me, so i always opt for the easy way.  Buy. I used to buy from Four Leaves and BreadTalk till i tried Provence which i'm sold! These days, i still grab few packs from them but that is when i'm in town.

Lately, my children have been bugging me for some and i knew the time has come.
No more excuses, no more procrastination. Isn't that what we always tell them?
Needless to say, i did my homework right away and replicate the best i can.

Check these out. My children gave me two thumbs up :)

Jessie's note:

If possible, do use Dutch cocoa. For me, it has always been Valrhona!

For recipe and steps, please refer to Chocolate Wassant from Do What I Like