Ingredients for choux pastry:

100 gm. Water
80 gm. fresh milk
95 gm. hard butter

120 gm. plain flour

3 large eggs

Chocolate cream cheese filling:

250 gm. Cream Cheese
50 gm. Icing sugar
50 gm. Instant custard powder
100 gm. fresh milk
120 gm. melted chocolate
180 gm. whipped cream

Decoration: Melted chocolate and sprinklers

Method:

(1) Boil water, milk and butter in a pot till rolling boil.
(2) Pour in the plain flour immediately and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon.
(3) Leave paste to cool till lukewarm and transfer paste into a mixing bowl.
(4) Beat with a ‘K’ beater …add in eggs one at a time till well blended.
(5) Place mixture into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe a strip onto a tray.
(6) Bake at 190c for about 20 mins. or till golden brown. Do not open the door while the pastry is baking or else it will collapse.

For fillings:

(1) Cream cream cheese with icing sugar till creamy.
(2) Mix instant custard powder with fresh milk.
(3) Pour in melted chocolate into cream cheese mixture and mix well.
(4) Mix in instant custard powder mixture and then fold in whipped cream. Leave in the refrigerator to harden for 1 hr.
(5) Slice puff eclair into half and then pipe chocolate cream cheese mixture onto it and sandwich with the other piece. Note: If you like to eat choux pastry , just take two pieces and sandwich it with the fillings.
(6) Melt some cooking chocolate, scoop a spoonful on top of eclair and then sprinkle sprinklers on top. You can sprinkle anything of your preference, e.g. almond nibs or chocolate rice.

Leave to harden in the fridge for 45 minutes. Serve chilled.

Recipe from here

Easy to make!!! Great yummy success

CHEESE BUNS

Ingredients:

350 gm. Bread flour
10 gm. Instant Yeast
60 gm. caster sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. Condense milk
100 gm. cold milk
50 gm. cold water
1 egg
40 gm. Butter
Filling:

250 gm. Cream Cheese
120 to 150 gm. icing sugar (more icing sugar, more liquid filling)
1 tsp. Vanilla essence

Method:

(1) Combine flour, yeast, sugar, salt into a mixing bowl. Mix for about 1 min. then pour in the
milk, water and egg gradually.

(2) Beat with medium speed until smooth. Then add in margarine and continue beating until the dough turns smooth.

(3) Rest the dough for 45 mins.

(4) Scale and weigh the dough into 60 gm. each and then cover it. Rest for 10 mins.

(5) Roll out the dough and wrap the fillings and leave to rise on a baking tray for 45 mins.

(6) Brush the buns with egg and then bake at 190C for about 10 mins.

Fillings: Cream the cream cheese with icing sugar and vanilla essence until creamy. Put into fridge to set for awhile for easy wrapping. If you want the fillings to be less watery, cut down on the icing sugar.

Been wanting to bake this since before exams! after tasting the wonderful chicken pie from dilys at school canteen. finally got to try the recipe out!

Ingredients

Pastry:

200 gm butter
250 gm plain flour
110 gm plain yoghurt
1 tsp sugar
1 egg yolk
A pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl except yoghurt, and mix to a crumble. Add in yoghurt and mix to a dough. Dough will be very soft so need to keep it refrigerated for at least 30 mins.

Filling:

12 oz diced potatoes
1 big onion diced
50 gm mixed vegetable (or more if you like)
Sliced canned mushrooms (amt up to you)
2 chicken breast diced
1 tbsp corn starch or potato starch mixed with 2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Heat abt 2 tbsp of oil and fry potatoes with abt 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 tsp salt until soft. Set aside. In a clean wok, heat 2 tbsp oil. Fry the onion until transparent. Add mixed vegetable, mushroom, chicken. Fry for a while to break up chicken. Add in potatoes. Add in abt 1/2 cup of water and cook for abt 5 mins. Add in 1.5 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp sugar and 1/2  tsp pepper. Add in the cornstarch and stir to thicken mixture. Set aside for later use.

The steps for the chicken pie will be as per normal. You can either do big pie or mini pie. Just need to roll out the dough, cut the size required and place in a pie dish. Poke hole on the base using a fork and place ingredients on top. Cut another piece of dough to cover the top. Poke a few more times using fork on the cover of the pie and brush with 1 beaten egg. Baked in a preheated oven at 180C for 35 mins.

Optional: You can add hardboiled eggs if you like.

Taste really good. But my “cover” and the bottom pastry din gel together. let the bottom pastry overflow, so that the “cover” pastry that covers over can merge together with the base.

Finally, after my 5th try of making a chocolate cake, with different recipes, I finally succeeded. Not the most pleasant one.. But at least its edible and looks like a cake. hahaha…Glad that its my 22nd birthday cake! way to go to improve further.

Ingredients:

150g dark chocolate, broken up
75g light brown sugar
150g unsalted butter, diced
1 tablespoon runny honey
4 large eggs, separated
200g ground almonds (almond powder)
75ml milk (I used low fat fresh milk)

chocolate ganache:
100g dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream

Method:

1. Line the base of a 20cm cake pan (with removable base) with parchment paper, grease the sides with butter and set aside.
2. Separate egg yolks from whites when the eggs are still cold. Set aside to bring to room temperature.
3. Place chocolate, sugar, butter, honey in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir frequently till the ingredients melted. Let cool.
4. Transfer to a large bowl. With a manual whisk beat in egg yolks and ground almonds, then stir in the milk. (Just a few stir should get everything incorporated. The mixture will be rather thick at this stage.)
5. In a clean, dry, grease free mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, whisk egg whites until stiff. whisk egg just before you are going to use it. With a spatula, Fold In the beaten egg whites in 3 separate additions, into the cake mixture. (Ensure all the whites are fully incorporate into the cake mixture after every addition.)
6. Pour batter into prepared cake pan (the final batter will be less thick). Give the pan several sharp taps on a work top to bring up any air bubbles that may be trapped in the batter.
7. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 170 degC for 35-40mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
8. Remove from oven, let cool in the pan for about 1omins. Run a thin-bladed knife along the sides of the pan, unmold and cool right-side up.
9. Dust with cocoa powder before serving. Alternatively, if desired, spread with chocolate ganache. To make chocolate ganache: bring the heavy cream to a boil, remove from heat and add in chopped chocolate. Stir till chocolate is melted. Let cool for a few mins and spread over the cake.
10. Decorate as you wish.

Being the first weekend of the vacation, and taking a break from attachment, I decided to make egg tarts for the second time in my life

A bit too sweet for some, but otherwise it does taste pretty decent

Recipe:

 Ingredients for Pate Sucree:
125gm Butter – chilled
60gm icing sugar
1/2 egg white
1 egg yolk
200gm plain flour
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Ingredients for Egg custard:
280gm fresh milk
160gm sugar
3 whole eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Method:
1. For pate sucree: beat butter and icing sugar till well mixed.
2. Add in white and yolk and mix.
3. Add in vanilla essence and then the flour and mix into a dough. Rest for 10mins. press dough into small tart moulds.
4. Bake the tart shell till half-cooked.
5. For egg custard, heat sugar and milk together. Once sugar dissolves, off heat.
6. Whisk eggs and strain it  before pouring into the milk mixture. Do not whisk till frothy.
7. Add in vanilla essence.
8. Sift the egg custard and pour into tart moulds and bake at 175degrees celcius till egg custard sets.

Note:
Half baked should be around 10 min at 175 degrees celcius. However, everybody’s oven is different. Hence, judge for yourself and see that its puffed up slightly and turned white.

After pouring in the custard, bake at a lower shelf to make sure that the pastry will be cooked at 175 degrees celcius. Bake for about 10 minutes and watch over it. If you see the custard is about to puff up into a ball, take it out from the oven immediately. Once it puffs up, the egg tart will wrinkle when its cooled. what you can do is to shake the tray of egg tarts and if the custard wobbles, then its a sign that its not cook and if it doesn’t wobble, then its set and you can take it out from the oven.

A totally yummy and simple treat.  First, the ingredients.

Rather simple ingredients as compared to making cheesecake and what not. New things that I’ve never used before are apples and the puff pastry ready made dough. Had to make an extra trip to coldstorage to get it since NTUC didn’t have it. Its really easy to work with! Saved a lot of trouble.

First, to make the filling. Apple with sugar and lemon juice. I totally love the sweet with a tinge of sour taste.hahaha.

Then roll out the puff pastry, and cut them up into desired size, before filling them up with the apple filling and wrapped them up. Suggested shape was triangle. So the first one was a triangle.

But the subsequent ones had various shapes, including dumpling lookalike, rectangles, out of shape triangle.haha. Glaze with egg and then sprinkle with coarse sugar and off into the oven they go.

Straight from the oven. Ok looks disgusting. I admit the shape is lousy.hahah but it totally taste fantastic!

Close up.

Dad was full from his teabreak outside and didn’t eat any of the turnovers when they were hot and fresh from oven. But the next day, when mum warmed up the turnovers, he had 2 at 1 go. Should be not bad I guess.hahah otherwise he must be damn hungry.

Recipe:

adapted from bakingbites.com 

Turnovers are defined as small squares or circles of pastry dough that are filled with a sweet or savory filling, folded in half and pinched to seal, and then either baked or deep fried before serving.

Apple turnovers seem to be the most common variety of this pastry, largely because apple pies are so very popular. I opted not to use apples in mine, however, and to use some fresh and fragrant nectarines that I picked up at the store this week. Nectarines, as a stone fruit, are usually quite firm. This means that they can – and should – be prepared in much the same way as apples (or another firm fruit) would be for this recipe.

For the filling, the fruit is peeled and chopped into small, even cubes, then is cooked in a sugar syrup until the filling is thick and the fruit is tender. This thickening process is something that would normally take place inside the oven if you were cooking a whole pie, but the baking time for turnovers is much shorter and there simply isn’t enough time to ensure that your filling will get tender enough (without making the pastry soggy) during a short stay in the oven. You don’t want the filling to be too liquidy and risk that it will ooze out of the pastry cases during baking, so if your filling doesn’t thicken up enough on its own (this partially depends on the juciness of your nectarines), I’ve included a note about adding a bit of cornstarch to the fruit during cooking.

Any puff pastry will work fine for this recipe. I used a store-bought (”artisan”) puff pastry. When you go to work with it, make sure it has defrosted completely in the refrigerator and be sure to roll it out lightly before working with it. Don’t worry about rolling your pastry out to a specific size; work with whatever size or shape your pastry comes in. Turnovers should be quick, easy and casual desserts, so treat them as such.

You can prepare the filling in advance and chill in the refrigerator overnight. You can also fill and freeze the turnovers. If you opt to freeze them, freeze in a single-layer before storing in a freezer bag, and expect to add some additional time to the baking time.

Nectarine turnovers
3 firm, ripe nectarines
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp butter
1/8 tsp salt
1 tbsp water mixed with 1 tsp cornstarch
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
1 pound puff pastry (2 sheets), thawed
1 egg
coarse sugar

Peel nectarines and cut into 1/4-in cubes. You should have about 2 1/2 cups of nectarines. Place in a medium saucepan with sugar, lemon juice, vanilla, butter, salt and nutmeg. Cook over medium heat until mixture bubbles and nectarines are tender. Stir in 1 tbsp water mixed with 1 tsp cornstarch and continue to cook until thick. Total cooking time, start to finish, should be about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and cool completely. Filling can be prepared ahead of time and chilled.

Preheat oven to 400F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Roll out thawed puff pastry on a very lightly floured surface until pastry is a large square. Use a pizza cutter to slice into quarters.
Spoon 1-2 tbsp of filling into each square and fold diagonally, keeping filling away from the edges. Use a fork to crimp edges and seal. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining pastry.
Stir egg with 1 tbsp water in a small bowl. When all turnovers have been made, brush with egg wash and sprinkle generously with coarse sugar.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until dark golden brown.
Serve immediately.

Makes 8 turnovers.

Note: If baking from frozen, bake for 10-15 minutes at 400F, then reduce the oven temperature to 350F and continue to bake until pastries are dark golden brown.

 

I’ve always loved to eat baked pasta although they are super expensive and sinful. Saw this recipe and hence decided to try out my seafood baked pasta! hahaha. Now I know why baked pasta are so expensive. The morzerella cheese alone cost me $7, and the prawns and the fish slices cost another I don’t know how much.

First to make the white sauce.

This gooey white thingy contains butter, flour, and morzerella cheese. The pictures doesn’t show the long elastic stretch of cheese coz it snapped before I could take a picture of it. arghs. As much as I love to eat cheese, now I know how much hidden carbo and fats there are in the pasta.

Rice was cooked separately, fish and prawns were cooked tgr with tomato sauce and garlic, before they were all combined, topped with more cheese, and fresh diced tomato, and off into the oven it went.

Spot my victory sign in the reflections.

The final product. Again, looks ugly but taste really fantastic! haha gf, i can cook this for you in holland already … if you are not afraid of the fats and the $ to buy ingredients.

But I think I need to figure out how to make my prawns not so nua nua. perhaps I should not mix it tgr with my rice and cheese but instead place them on top so they don’t feel as though they are not fresh and firm.haha. Next time I’ll add in mushrooms, ham, and dunno what else.hahaa

Recipe

SEAFOOD BAKED RICE

RICE
200g rice (Calrose rice)
300ml water
1. Wash rice and drain well. Add in water and cook rice in a rice cooker.
2. When rice is done, fluff with a pair of chopsticks. Set aside to cool before using.

WHITE SAUCE
A) 50g butter
1 bay leaf
B) 50g plain flour
300ml milk
C) 300g grated cheese (cheddar or parmesan)
2 tsp chopped garlic
1 tsp paprika
D) 3 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs tomato puree
2 large tomatoes (quartered/sliced)
200g prawns (with shells on)
400g clams/mussels
Chopped spring onions for garnishing

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Place ovenproof or gratin dish in the oven to heat it up.
2. Melt butter in a pan, put in flour and stir over low heat, till mixture forms a smooth paste. Cook, stirring for another minute.
3. Add milk gradually, a little at a time, whisking well in between each addition.
4. Allow mixture to boil and thicken before adding more milk. Continue till all the milk is incorporated and smooth.
5. Allow sauce to simmer for 5 to 10 minutes. Stir frequently to prevent lumps from forming. Add in 3/4 of the cheese to the white sauce, leaving the other 1/4 for sprinkling on top of the rice. Stir to mix well, season with salt and pepper.
6. Meanwhile, heat oil in a frying pan and fry garlic till fragrant. Add in tomato paste, paprika and seafood. Fry till it is beginning to cook.
7. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove and set aside.
8. Add cooked rice and seafood to the white sauce. Stir to mix well and pour the mixture into the preheated dish.
9. Scatter the top with the reserved cheese and quartered/sliced tomatoes.
10. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes till the cheese is bubbling and top is golden brown.
11. Remove and sprinkle with chopped spring onions. Serve immediately.

 Today, mum finally made Beancurd, barley, ginko nut soup dessert! After nearly 2 months of buying the beancurd and putting in on the shelf, I finally get to taste it!  

presenting mum’s creations.

One of the classic desserts. Pearl/Sweet Barley is supposed to be cooling and it has many good properties that does your body good. Drinking plain barley water will promote bladder improvements fast. This sweetened soup is suitable especially when summer is hot. Gingko nuts are good for treating cough.

Ingredients:

1 sheet of dried bean curd (the folded variety)
1/2 can of gingko nuts(optional)
2 ozs of pearl barley
2 sheaths of pandan leaves(if available otherwise omit)
1.35 liters or 48 fl ozs water
4 ozs rock sugar or granulated sugar(adjust to your own taste)
1 egg or egg white only

Method:

Soak dried bean curd sheet in cold water for a while. It should be very soft and if the sheet is not soft, add a pinch(yes, a very tiny pinch of bicarbonate of soda to the cold water) and leave it to soften the bean curd. Drain.

Rinse pearl barley and put in pressure cooker together with bean curd sheet and 1 liter of water. Bring the pressure to high, lower the heat and pressurised for 10 minutes. Turn off heat and leave until pressure is done before opening lid.( If not using the pressure cooker, cook the barley and bean curd sheet with all the water, uncovered until high boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer until barley is soft.)

Bring back soup to the boil, add the rest of the water, gingko nuts and sugar. When sugar dissolves, turn off heat as soon as the soup comes to high boil. Stir in the egg/egg white and keep stirring until it is cooked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not too bad. I had two bowls of this while the rain poured outside my window. But I still like mum’s chengteng more.

Chocolate fondant recipe came from here.

i have some problem catching whether its bake for 6min or 26min. can someone help?
and i have no idea whether its suppose to end up like this

(pic from DJ Peifen’s blog)

or is it suppose to be muffin-ish. i reckon it should be like the pic above.
which is when i open the oven at 6min. but i poke it and it look like if i should remove the whole thing from the aluminium cup, it will jus collapse and the chocolate liquid will burst out. it seriously look vv uncook to me. imagine eating raw beaten egg with chocolate n butter n sugar (tts what the chocolate liquid is made up of anywae) .

but when i bake it till a full 26 min, the fondant looks VERY nice. crispy ! and the bottom looks black.haha coz i coated the cup with butter and cocoa powder. it looked as though its wrapped in black paper. bleah. but no its not burnt nor paper. its the cocoa powder.

however, the inside isn’t muffin-ish. maybe it isn’t meant to be. its edible lar. but it feels as though its coz the beaten egg doesn’t have enough air. but i did 2 batches. the 2nd batch i beat the egg until the mixture was quite thick alr. but still the same thing happened.hmm. i haf no idea how exactly a fondant should taste.maybe if someone succeeds in makin a real one. can let me know. ahaha.

but for now, i’ll jus leave it as such. will try makin batch 3 again when im free.

________________________________________________
decided to google what exactly is a chocolate fondant.yes yes. in my hurry to make i din even bother to check out what is it that im making. haha lesson learn. nv rush into things.

“Chocolate Fondant is a cup-cake or muffin which has been baked for just a few minutes, thus the inner part of the cake is a liquid.”

Okay. i think i shall note that batch 3 shall be baked not till 26 min. but to jus 12-15 min.

bought 2kg of cream cheese for my cheesecake coz somehow my math failed me when i was shoppin at phoon huat. i thot 0.6xxkg of cheese need at least 10 bars in order to reach 300g , and thought buying the 2 kg one would be more worthwhile.haha so now i have ALOT of cheese and whipping cream which i only used 125ml out of 1 litre. decided to try out cheesecake cookies to use up the cheese. almost wanted to do bailey’s cheesecake, except that i do not haf vanilla essence with me at 1am in the night. haha.

somehow i think its quite peaceful to just sit there in the kitchen late at night doing all these stuff. im an owl.

the recipe mentioned sth abt the cookies melting at room temperature and so i left majority of them in the refrigerator with only 2 pieces in a tupperware. they din melt in the end. in fact i thought the one left at room temperature tasted much better. best served when fresh from the oven. the smell of cheese is simply aromatic! irresitable. only probably is that having followed the recipe too closely, the cookies turned out a bit too sweet for my liking… haha.

let the pictures do the talking.

R1,1: Mix the butter and creamcheese in a bowl.
R1,2: add in some salt and egg.
R1,3: add in all purpose flour and mix.
R1,4: send in to the oven!

R2,1: stacking up the first batch!
R2,2: stack up again.
R2,3: taking a bite off the biscuit. YUMMY!
R2,4: having stacked the hot cookies tgr, they kinda melted each other and left marks.

R3,1: more of the pic
R3,2: more cooKies.
R3,3: my new camera is fantabulous. can do this black n colour effect.hahaa dun need to use photoshop!
R3,4: cookie in my hand !