Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

70g sugar

75g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

75ml coconut cream

1.5tbsp corn oil

0.5 tsp vanilla essence

1tsp pandan paste

5 egg whites

30g sugar

1tsp cream of tartar

pinch of salt

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175ºC or 345ºF.
2. Cream egg yolks, 70g of sugar until thick n creamy.
3. Add flour, baking powder, vanilla essence, coconut cream, corn oil, pandan paste. Mix well.
4. In clean, dry bowl, beat egg white, 30g of sugar, cream of tartar, pinch of salt until stiff.
5. Mix egg white into flour mixture.
6. Pour into mould n place in preheated oven for 45 minutes.
7. When done, invert immediately to cool down for 10 minutes.
8. Use sharp knife to loosen side n bottom to release cake.
9. Leave on wire rack to cool down further.

Finally! A successful attempt at Pandan Chiffon Cake! I give credit to the new stand mixer Ken gifted to me. (^_^)

Gadget Replacement Therapy

The cheapo plastic kettle spoilt after about 4 months. So we had to replace it, Ken suggested this stainless steel one that has auto shut-off. It is really good, I am glad we got it despite the price tag. I have had the new kettle for 2 months.

The small hand-held hand mixer was left in a cold cupboard and the huge stand mixer was alloted its very own place on the limited counter space. Just got it 2 days ago.

Butter Cookies

Ingredients

175g unsalted (sweet) butter @ room temperature - diced

90g golden caster sugar

250g plain flour

demerara (raw) sugar for coating

Method

1. Put butter n sugar in a bowl n beat until light n fluffy. Add flour, using hands gradually work it in until the mixture forms a smooth dough.
2. Roll into a sausage shape about 30 cm long, pat the sides flat to form either a square or triangular log.
3. Sprinkle thick layer of demarara sugar on a piece of grease proof (waxed) paper. Press each side of the dough into the sugar to coat. Wrap n chill for 30 mins until firm.
4. Preheat oven to 160ºC or 325ºF
5. When ready to bake, remove the dough n unwrap. Cut into thick slices n place slightly apart on a non-stick baking sheet.
6. Bake for 20 mins until just beginning to brown.
7. Transfer to wire rack to cool

Do not chill for too long else become too hard and difficult to cut. Also the cookies taste better the next day. They taste like those danish butter cookies, the one that is square in shape with sugar coated.

Today's Dishes

sesame oil & ginger chicken breast tenders

xiao ba cai

tom ka (fishball, meatball, shrimp, mushroom)

Chow Time

Dinner last night. Our 'any-how' fried dish.

There's yellow noodles, tang hoon, shrimp, asparagus, bean sprouts, fresh shitake mushroom, egg, carrot, prawn + chicken stock.

Back in Action

Hey hey hey! I'm back in action. I will not bore you with the details, or do a blow by blow account of each dish I cooked. I will just 'feature' some dishes that I liked.Clockwise from top left :

Fried Spring Roll

Corn, Pork n Date Soup

Yam Paste with Ginko Nuts (Orr Nee)

Curry Chicken

I will be posting 2 other recipes that I have used. They are nice, maybe you would like to try them out.

No voice plus fever

On the day I was unable to find my voice....

08 Oct 07 - Monday

Sunday - 07 Oct 07

Breakfast : Clam Chowder Soup with Toast

Lunch : Sushi Row @ Shogun

- spicy scallop with unagi kabayaki

- soft shell crab

- salmon & scallop

- tempura shrimp with green bell peppers

Dinner : Skipped due to heavy lunch

Saturday @ Phoenix

So we sort of agreed to having Dim Sum with friends here at Phoenix. There were 4 couples including Ken and yours truly and 3 kids. So I only managed to take 2 pictures and one did not turn out well. Anyways, we had a nice time at the Dim Sum place. After which, we split up to shop at different places.

We went to get groceries first before we went to a mall to jalan-jalan. We ended up with a top each, think total less than $25, cause they were on sale. We decided to go to the restaurant we planned to had dinner initially, instead of joining the others. Also I was not feeling too well to talk much anyway.

05 Oct 2007 - Food Diary

Forgot to take pictures as I was not that well on that day. Was not in the mood to take pictures and all that. But was really glad that Ken did not have to work so that I have someone I can whine to. :p

• Lunch @ Miss Saigon again. Had the exact same things as 22nd Sept, plus an Almond Milk Tea with Bolba
• Dinner was some microwaved frozen BBQ wings

Chocolate Cupcakes

Like I mentioned before, this is really easy to make. We did it at Christine's place, and the batter was ready in just minutes. Just needed some vegetable oil, 3 eggs and water as per instructions on the box. The result is moist chocolate cake. I dun quite like cakes but I thought it was really good for pre-mix cakes. But the most that I could handle was one cupcake. Haha.

Food Diary - 04 October 2007 (Thursday)

Sorry for the lack of entries. Anyways, I got some virus in my body that caused my throat, glands and whatnots to swell up. I was having difficulty to breathe and had no choice but to see a doctor on Friday. God was good that Ken was home, we were stuck at the doctor's and pharmacy for like 2 hours. I was prescribed 2 doses of heavy-duty antibiotics which made me kind of woozy and weak. Think the virus is slowly going away.

So on Thursday, we had Japanese Curry Rice. I prepared fried chicken breast cutlet too, and it went well with the curry. I used the pressure cooker to cook the curry and 20 minutes later, the beef cubes were still nice and soft. Yummy. I also went to Christine's place to bake the pre-mix chocolate cupcakes for Caleb - see the pictures in another entry.

Mango is the Pudding!

Not bad cause 2 medium-sized mangoes were chopped and added to the pre-mix. However, we found it to be too sweet. Think I will look for a recipe to make it from scratch so I can control the amount of sugar being added.

Food Diary

C is for Cookie! Yummy!

So today is a more interesting day. Woke up and executed my plan of cookie tasting. Wanted to bake the cookies to bring to Bible Study for them to sample. I intend to use the recipe to bake the cookies for the Thanksgiving party favour. So wanted some feedback before the time comes, in case I need to make some changes.

Anyways, the feedback was that the cookie is nice cause not that sweet. I used dark chocolate morsels instead of the usual semi-sweet morsels. The cookies turn out a bit dark as I used the dark brown sugar rather than the light brown sugar. The recipe is below the pictures.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

110g butter (softened)

85g sugar (i used organic sugar)

85g packed brown sugar (i used dark brown sugar)

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

250g plain flour

2 eggs

220g chocolate morsels (i used dark chocolate morsels)

110g chopped nuts (i used macadamia nuts, halved)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190ºC or 370ºF
2. Add butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl. Beat until creamy. (i used a hand-held egg beater)
3. Add in eggs , one by one, and continue to beat until creamy and texture constant.
4. In a clean bowl, add in salt, baking soda and flour. Mix well.
5. Add the flour mixture to the above mixture and beat well.
6. Add in the chocolate morsels and nuts. Use a spatula and mix well. (i added the nuts on each cookie dough)
7. Drop a small amount of the dough (look at the photo for sample of dough compared to a half macadamia nut). Leave some space in between dough drops as they expand during baking.
8. Bake for 8 to 9 mins.
9. Remove from oven and leave to cool totally before storing. (if stored before totally cooled, cookies will be a bit soft)

Hope you enjoy the cookies!

Do give me feedback if any. Thanks!

A Boring Boring Day in AZ

Eh eh... Tuesday was an uneventful day for me. I cannot remember what I did but it passed by. However I thank God that I was able to fall asleep without much difficulty. (^_^)

Had yogurt for breakfast, then fried some beehoon for lunch/dinner and for hubby to bring. Also green bean soup cause suspect heaty as no appetite and also dun feel like drinking water. Wanted to bake some cookies but was too tired and put it off for the next morning. Butter is melting liao... zzz

Food Diary - 1 Oct 2007

30 Sep 2007 - A Sunny Sun Day

Sunday morning started with the balance of the previous night's soup and some bread. We had lunch out as Ken needed to back to office to clear his work. So we grabbed a quick lunch near church @ Carl's Junior. Dinner was just plain instant noodles cause I wanted something soupy and it being almost 7pm by the time we were leaving his work place.

29th September 2007

27th Sep 07 - Baking @ Mid-night

Sorry for the lack of updates. My internet connection was acting up and has been for quite some time. We finally diagnosed the problem when the modem went ka-put. Haha. Actually only the power supply was gone. We only managed to get the replacement on Saturday after comparing prices of new modems and power supply. We decided to go with a new power supply. But I was not well on Saturday evening and not 100% on Sunday as well. So here I am, back again. (^_^)

Last Thursday night, I was not able to sleep. At around mid-night, I decided to bake some cupcakes instead of waking up in the morning to do it. I was attending a fellowship, so thought of bringing some cupcakes for the ladies. I used a pre-mix box of butter cakes, so here are some pictures.

I made 2 variation of it. I pour half of the batter into the paper cups and added a walnut on top for deco. The other half, I added almost a whole pack of shredded cheese to it. And after mixing it well, I poured them into the remaining paper cups. So I have Butter-Cheese Cupcakes and Butter Cupcakes.

So some like the cheese ones and some like the regular ones. Haha. But only 24 cupcakes and not enough to give each family too many. Next time I shall make more. I should be making chocolate cupcakes this week if Christine is free, cause Caleb asked me for some. (^_^)