Cookies Gift for Chinese New Year

I have been extremely busy lately due to the coming CNY. As a child, I love CNY. A child do not need to do anything, he or she just enjoy this event to the max. Non- stop supplies of snack, playing with the relative kids, collecting the CNY "ang pow". Look at my girl, she tell me "mummy, CNY is my best". Yeah...She is damn right. She have all the fun with my sisters & brother.

But as an married adults with kid, CNY means a lot of work to me. Cleaning, baking, shopping, traveling & spending lots of money..etc. Of course CNY is still a joyful event with the "extra work" mentioned above.

I have yet to complete my cookies project. I have make some cookies as gift to friends & relative.
At this moment, I have only make 2 types of cookies.

Let me share with you the Butter cookies recipes:
Ingredients:
100g butter
100g margarine
100g icing sugar (sifted)
1 egg white
250g AP Flour (sifted)

Method:
1) Combine butter, margarine & icing sugar until well blended. Stir in Egg white. Fold in the flour to form a dough mixture.
2) Fill the dough to a piping bag with a flower shape nozzle. Pipe it into flower shape on the baking tray & garnish with diced cherries.
3) Alternatively, use red coloring mix with some dough to pipe the "red" decorative cherries.
4) Bake in a preheated oven at 170C for 10 mins.

Tips:Do not over creamed the butter mixture too long as the shape of the baked cookies will not appear clearly.
Tips: You can also add 30g-50g of sesame seed to make it sesame butter cookies.





Below is a super easy No Bake Cornflakes Cookies.
Ingredients:
250g Chocolate (I prefer dark)
85g Cornflakes
40g Roasted Nibbled Almond
Some colorful decorative sugar
Some small little cookies cups

Method:
1) Melt Chocolate over a double boiler over a pot of simmer hot water.
2) Add in the cornflakes & roasted nibble almonds & mix it well.
3) Place a spoonful of the mixture into the small little cookies cups.
4) Decorate with the colorful decorative sugar.
5) Let is set naturally or refrigerate for 5 mins.
6) Packed nicely & share with your friends.

Enjoy.

Read More

Baked Sausages & Baked Carrot

Baked Carrot is super easy & delicious. I knew that Jamie Oliver recipes is not presenting fine food cooking like French cooking. It doesn't looks very high class. But it is a humble everyday food ...Hey it doesn't need to be complicated....simple food can taste fantastic too. You couldn't believe how delicious those little sweet caramelized carrots are. I should have make more. My brother says personally he prefer the baked carrot more than the baked sausages. He can't believe that carrot can taste that good. I will definately make it again.



Here is the tested recipies:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetarian-recipes/best-whole-baked-carrots

Next, it is the baked sausages. It is super easy too.
What you need are:
Bacon
Good quality pork sausages
Fresh thyme
Fresh rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Splash of Olive oil

Method: Just wrap the sausages with the bacon slices with rosemary & thyme. Rub the oilive oil. Wrap with tin foil. Refer picture:


Baked in the oven together with the carrot. Kill 2 birds with one stone. Muahahahah.....;P
Serve & enjoy.

Read More

Seafood Miso Soup

Here is another variation of the Miso Soup. I love to try experimenting different way of cooking or using different ingredient to cook. You will be surprise how much fun you will have in your kitchen.

Basic Recipes ( For 2-3 serving)

3 tbsp miso paste

3g Japanese wakame

1 block organic soft tofu

5g spring onion

600cc water

For richer soup you can add these alternative materials:

Add seafood: squid (cut into ring shape); Sea vegetable (different type of seaweed)

Method:

Boil water, Add tofu (cut), Add in the squid ring, Sprinkle wakame & sea vegetables into the soup,Add miso paste into the soup, Turn off heat & add spring onion.

Read More

Decorated Chocolate Marble Butter Cake

I know most of us love chocolate. But not everybody love chocolate. Among my friends, especially the older generation, some of them do not really like the after taste of chocolate. Well, in order to please everyone- the younger generation & the older generation. I make a cake something in between - a chocolate marble cake. We have the vanilla cake batter & the some chocolate cake batter in this cake.

Pls refer to this link for the recipies:
http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Butter-Cake

This is a normal butter cake recipies. In order to make the marble chocolate effect. You can do this:

75g of chocolate

Method:
-Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
-Double boiler means: heated water in a pot & put a bowl of chocolate on top. Use the steam to melt the chocolate. Never melt chocolate using direct heat. It will burn & turn bitter.
-Let the melted chocolate cool.
-Mix the cooled melted chocolate with 1/3 of the cake batter.
- Use the skewer to make some swirl pattern in the cake mold after you alternate pouring the 2 different cake batter in the mold.

Then I decorated it with some butter cream & flowers.

Here is the recipes for the butter cream icing:
http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Buttercream-Icing

Read More

Culinary Herbs

Naturally, people who love to bake will love to cook. I think it is very natural for a baker to fall in love in cooking. Hm.....Look at Anna Olson, Rachel Allen, Nigella Lawson, Michael Smith....they love to bake & cook. Ahem** I love to bake & cook too.

Due to that, I have started planting some herbs in my little condo garden. It was not growing very well though (end of last year) due to not enough sunlight in the balcony.

However, it is growing well in these 2 months because there are more sunlight in the balcony. It is spring. We are so excited that the herbs are growing well.

We have:

Sweet Basil for pasta

Rosemary for roast meat/fish

Chinese Herb

Spear Mints for dessert

Thyme for chicken/fish

Thai Basil

Thai Basil (different species)

Read More

My Kitchen Helper

I do not have a maid. My kitchen helper is mainly heavy duty kitchen equipment. Most of the time I would like to get the "industrial" grade tools for my kitchen. 1st- it is durable, of course it is not cheap. 2nd- it is reliable, just like any others tools in the professional baker kitchen. It got to be heavy duty to handle my "abuse" usage. Can you imagine that my Fagor oven (higher range) break down & need replacement? Initially I was thinking of replacing it with a German brand mini industry oven. You can make 8 pizza in one go in this oven. Unfortunately, I do not have space for that ( I am not staying in a landed house). Nowadays I even have to restrict myself from buying more tools because I seriously do not have any space to store.

My main & most important kitchen helper is the MIXER. Without this, I can't make the bread.
This machine is definitely good for making bread, it can handle up to approx 1.2-1.5kg of dough. It helps me to "cheat" because I do need to knead the bread so long. If I feel tired or run out of time, then i will get his help. Sometimes, if I am in the mood, the I will handmade the dough 100%. It is fun.

Here is some of the bread that I have made using this machine.

Doughnut: It is too delicious to indulge. We ate 10ea immediately when it is cooked.



















Chewy sesame bread sticks:
















Seeded whole meal bread:

Read More

Red Chilled Raspberry Konnyaku Jelly

Red- the colour of Spring. Well, I should also say the auspicious colour of Chinese New Year.

I have made some delicious red raspberry konnyaku jelly. It is low in fat & low in sugar provided you don’t throw in lots of sugar. I knew, sugar is a very addictive element. The chilled konnyaku jelly is really good for such hot weather. The sweet & sour chilled konnyaku jelly is really delicious.

It is pretty simple to make those little sweet things. Just follow the konnyaku package instruction & add in the raspberry sauce.

Here is how I make the Red Raspberry Sauce:

A handful of raspberry (250g frozen/fresh)

Splash of water

1 tablespoon of sugar

Method: Just put all the above into a saucepan & cook over low heat. You can see the fruit is melting.

Option 1: If you like smooth texture jelly, you can sieve the raspberry seed out & mix it with the konnyaku jelly mixture while it is still hot. Then, pour it into the jelly mold to let it set.

Option 2: You can just pour it straight into the konnyaku jelly mixture while it is still hot. You can still see the beautiful seeds in the jelly.

Read More

My 2010 New Year Dinner

I have been really busy on work & family. I have cooked up a storm in my kitchen for the new year dinner with my family. Here are some of the pictures. Will publish the recipes when I am free. Hopefully.


The ugly bad boy -> Red snapper baked in salt crust.

Read More