Gingerbread cookies

Oh this post came late. Nevertheless, these gingerbread cookies are to be enjoy all year long. :)

Ingredients: 

• 3 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 1 Tbsp molasses
• 55g light brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp of ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of ground cloves
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 125g unsalted butter, chopped
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 285g of all purpose flour, sifted

** I used mixed spice for the recipe which consist nutmeg, clove and cinnamon.

Royal icing recipe and method adapted from Joy of Baking - Royal icing

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160C. Grease cookie sheets and line with parchment paper.
• Combine corn syrup , molasses, sugar and spices in a heatproof bowl. Place over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until sugar has dissolved. Stir in baking soda.
• Place butter and stir until butter has melted and mixture is smooth. Allow mixture to cool.
• Add egg and 1 cup (125g) to mixture and mix well. Add remaining flour and, using hands, bring dough together. Knead gently, on a lightly floured surface, until dough is smooth.
• Roll out dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper to 1/4 inch (6mm) thick. Using a gingerbread cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Place on prepared sheets. 
• Bake for 10 - 15 min, until starting to color and firm to touch. Cool completely on wire racks before frosting.

Rainbow mille crepe cake

Came across this beautiful recipe from Eugenie Kitchen.com. It's always the colourful things that attracted me. I just can't resist not to try this recipe out.  Tedious work though. Get prepared to stand for at least 2 hours or more. ;)

But this will make you smile. :)

Green tea tiramisu

What about a Japanese-inspired Tiramisu? To all green tea lovers, you should try this recipe out! ;)

If you are keen in making this, here I'm sharing the recipe.

Ingredients:

• one packet of lady finger biscuits (Depends which type of dish you are using, I used one packet) 

Mascarpone Cheese filling:

• 40g (about 2 eggs) of egg yolks
• 70g of caster sugar (Separate 30g and 40g each)
• 250g of Mascarpone cheese
• 100g of whipping cream (35% fat) 
• 70g of egg whites
• 10g + extra for dusting
• 90g of hot water

Method:

• Prepare mascarpone cheese filling. Combine egg yolks and 30g of sugar in a bowl and beat until mixture thickens and becomes pale yellow in colour. Add mascarpone cheese and mix well.
• Whip whipping cream in a chilled bowl until stiff peaks form. Add whipped cream to the mascarpone cheese mixture and fold through.
• Make meringue. Place egg whites in a clean bowl and beat until foamy. Add remaining sugar and beat until stiff peaks form and egg whites are glossy. Fold into mascarpone cheese mixture.
• Place green tea powder in a small bowl and mix with hot water a little at a time. Stir until completely dissolved. Quickly dip both ends of each biscuit sponge in the green tea mixture, then place in a medium serving dish such as a 27cm oval dish, or into individual serving glasses.
• Spread half of mascarpone cheese filling in a layer over soaked biscuit sponges. Dip more biscuit sponges into green tea mixture and place on top of mascarphone cheese layer. Spoon over remaining mascarpone cheese filling.
• Dust generously with green tea powder and refrigerate until required. Tiramisu can kept refrigerated for up to 2 days.

Tips: Mix powdered with green tea powder for dusting. Just green tea powder alone is kinda bitter.

Green tea chiffon cake

I'm on a green tea craze lately. Here's a green tea chiffon cake that I'd recently baked. Soft and moist! :)

Ingredients:

• 70g of top flour
• 10g of green tea powder 
• 5 egg yolks
• 20g of caster sugar
• 70g of water
• 60g of canola oil

Meringue:

• 90g of caster sugar
• 10g of corn flour (cornstarch) or rice flour
• 180g (about 5 eggs) of egg whites

Method:

• Preheat oven to 160C
• Sift flour and green tea powder together twice. Combine egg yolks and sugar in a bowl and mix well. Add water and canola oil and blend together. Add flour and green tea powder mixture and mix until batter becomes sticky. Set aside.
• Make meringue. Combine sugar and rice or corn flour. Beat egg whites until foamy. Add half the sugar and flour mixture and continue beating for a few minutes, then add remaining sugar and flour mixture and beat until egg whites are glossy, with stiff peaks.
• Add 1/3 of meringue to egg yolk mixture and fold in lightly, then add remaining meringue and fold to incorporate completely.
• Pour batter into an ungreased 20 cm chiffon cake pan. Bake in an oven for 40 - 50 minutes. When cake is done, remove from oven and turn the pan over. Leave cake to cool in pan.
• Once cake has cooled completely, carefully run a knife or spatula around the sides of the cake to loosen it before inverting onto a wire rack.

Condensed milk bread

After a long haul from the bread making at year 2012.. I'm back with a soft condensed milk bread. Everything is from scratch and it's easy to make; just with simple ingredients!

Ingredients and recipe adapted from RumblingTummy23 (original recipe from http://cookpad.com/)

Ingredients:

• 200g of bread flour
• 15g of condensed milk
• 120g of fresh milk
• 20g of caster sugar (you may add a little more to your preference level of sweetness)
• 3g of yeast
• 3g of salt
• 20g of unsalted butter, room temperature

For glaze:

• 20g of condensed milk
• 20g of unsalted butter, room temperature

~Mix the glaze ingredients till smooth and spreadable.

An egg is required for glazing the bread; before baking.

For ganish:

• 15g of almond flakes
• Some icing sugar 

Method:

• Grease a 15cm chiffon tin (I used cupcake liners) 
• In a stand mixer with the dough hood attachment, mix all ingredients for bread.
• Knead for 10 min or until dough is glossy/shiny.
• Remove from the bowl and form the dough into a ball shape. Put the dough into a greased bowl with cling wrap and let it proof for 30 min; or until it turn double in size.
• Give a few punches to release the air and roll the dough into rectangle size 12" x 8" long; or to your desired size.
• Cut the dough into 4 long strips
• Brush the dough strips with the glaze mixture and stack them together, on top of one another.
• Then cut into 8 equally size or cube size
• Assemble them like the picture shown below
  

 Photo courtesy from Azberry

• Cling wrap the tin and let it proof for 40 min.
• Egg wash the bread evenly and sprinkle the almond flakes.
• Preheat oven at 170C and bake for 25 min.
• Sprinkle with icing sugar.

Chocolate easter cookies

Erm ya... Easter is over. But I'm picking out the most easiest recipe out of my recent buy of cook book to try it out first ya. HOHOHO:) And shhh... this is my first successful attempt of cookies making. -_-"

Ingredients:

• 125g of butter, softened
• 100g of icing sugar
• 90g of plain flour
• 35g of cornstarch
• 40g of unsweetened cocoa powder

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C (mine 170C; know your oven well before you adjust the temp settings)
• Lightly greased the parchment sheet and put aside
• Using a electric mixer, beat butter and sugar till fluffy.
• Add sifted flour, cornstarch and cocoa over the butter mixture and mix to form a dough.
• Take dough out onto a clean and lightly floured work surface and roll out to 1/8 inch (3mm) thick or to your desired size.
• Cut out egg-shaped (or your desired shaped) cookies using a cookie cutter. Placed cookies on prepared sheets.
• Bake for 15 min, or until firm. Transfer to wire racks and let it cool completely.

Notes: If you find it difficult to handle the cookie dough (too soft and can't roll), put them into a fridge and let them slighly harden.

To make chocolate filling:

Melt heavy cream (160ml) and chocolate (190g of semi-sweet plain chocolate morsels- I used chocolate chips) together, keep stirring until smooth. Refrigerate the mixture until firm. 

Sandwich cool cookies together with chocolate filling.

Sour cream banana cupcakes with ganache chocolate frosting

 Recipe and method adapted from a cookbook that I'd recently bought from Malaysia.

Ingredients:

• 125g of butter, softened
• 170g of light brown sugar (I used 100g)
• 2 eggs
• 190g of plain flour (all purpose flour)
• 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 170g of mashed riped bananas
• 175g of sour cream ( I replaced with greek yogurt)
• 4 tsp of milk
• Optional: 12 dried banana chips, for decorating. (Omitted)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 180C. Line muffin pans with cupcake liners.
• Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until fluffy.
• Add one egg at a time, beating well with each addition.
• Add sifted flour, baking powder and baking soda over the creamed mixture. Fold in along with the banana, sour cream and lastly the milk, until well combined.
• Scoop mixture into prepared cupcake liners to 2/3 full. Bake for 20 - 25 min or until a toothpick/skewer inserted comes out clean.
• Cool in the pan for 5 mins, then transfer cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely. 
• Spread ganache over cooled cupcakes.

Ingredients/Method for Milk Chocolate Ganache:

• Combine milk chocolate (250g) and heavy cream (125ml) in a medium saucepan, stir over a low heat, until smooth. Cool to room temperate, to allow the mixture to thicken.

Buy your favourite chocolate to do ganache. I love Belgian chocolate!

Yums!

Beware! The cake is super moist!

Mango snowskin mooncake

Last batch! No more making for now, yeah!

Used mango juice instead of cold water. :)

Oneh Oneh

I love this dessert so much! I absolutely love how the gula melaka gushed its juice in my mouth.*contented* 

But........!

This was a failed attempt! It doesn't gush! I have to cautiously (haha, no cautiously la...) and manually bit the gula melaka into pieces and eat together with the kueh. WT-Fish man! Wahahahahaha~ 

Reason behind... I was just being gei-kiang, I'm thinking how that 10g of little dough able to wrap the gula.. and VOILA, died flat this time. The stupid dough so thick. LOL~ 

Good thing that my fatty boy loves it. He helped to clear some. :)

You may refer to Nasi Lemak Lover for this Oneh-oneh recipe.

~Sweat

    Took me about 15-20 min to yield this 100 over grams. It's also depends how efficient you are.

So must take more photos of it. Duh~

Fresh pandan juice

Tadah~!

Got 賣相， 沒吃相。-_- I shall be making this again. Damnit~

Bo-Bo Cha-Cha

Yes! Again my first attempt in cooking this dessert.. Homemade is nicer but huh... buy one bowl and eat is faster. LOL.

Recipe and method adapted by Nyonya Cooking.

I doubled up this recipe. :)

Ingredients:

• 140g taro (diced) (I omitted taro)
• 70g purple sweet potato (diced) 
• 70g yellow sweet potato (diced) (For this recipe, I used two different kind of potatoes, one from Indo and other one from Aust.)
• 1 banana (I omitted banana)
• 40g sago (I didn't measure, just cooked what I needed)
• 50g boiling water
• 80g tapioca flour
• 160g sugar 
• 250g coconut milk (I used 400g)
• 3 pandan leaves (aka screwpine leaves)
• Some salt to taste (Oops! Forgotten about this, lol!)
• Red and green food colouring

Method:

• Steam the diced taro, purple sweet potato and yellow sweet potato for 20 minutes.
• Cook sago in a pot of boiling water until translucent. Sieve the cooked sago to remove thick syrup and run them through the tap water to avoid the sago from sticking together.

To prepare the tapioca jelly:

• Form a dough by adding boiling hot water of 50g (I used about 60g or so) to the tapioca flour. Boiling hot water will helps to create a dough.
• Divide the dough into two and add colours (red and green) to each of the dough.
• Roll and flatten the doughs and cut them into your preferred sizes.
• Boil the pieces of dough until they turn translucent.
• Once cooked, drain the thick syrup and run them through the tap water to avoid the tapioca jellies from sticking together

To prepare the Bo-Bo Cha-Cha:

• Add sugar to 250ml of water. (Do not put all sugar at once, adjust accordingly to your preferences) 
• Add coconut milk and boil it slowly at low heat.
• Then add the taro, sweet potatoes, sago, tapioca jelly.
• Allow the Bo-Bo Cha-Cha to simmer.

This QQ potato's recipe and method is adapted from
http://eileenlml.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/blog-post.html

Cheese Shanghai Mooncakes

Got this recipe via a close friend. This recipe is light, less sweet and the crust's main job is to melt in your mouth. Thumbs up!