practically missing you

I have not been baking anything lately, life have been pretty hectic.
But I do enjoy a wonderful time with my family holidaying with us. All my family were here, and for once in a long long time we manage to spent a lot of times with each other, which is a very precious thing to do as we're all scattered around in different places, and when we do get together, it's often very rush and short. This time though, I make an afford to take time off and spent time with them. The funny thing about having your parent coming over for holiday is that they really just want to sit around at home and enjoy being together with you. At least, this is what my parent enjoy the most. My mum likes to share her cooking with me in the kitchen, my dad loves to tease the doggie, and my brother and I pretty much chat away, making up for all the loss time that we have not spent together. Very idyllic indeed.
Only a couple of issues with staying over at your children place is that, they dun normally have what you normally use at home! You see, I have a special love to all things beautiful but not all things beautiful are practical and functional. So i have a lot of things laying around, especially in the kitchen that are oh too pretty to look at, but they are not practical to use at all. My dad who is an avid coffee drinker, cannot find a decent sized coffee mug in my cabinet, and that frustrate the hell out of him. You see, we normally take our coffee from cafe or in the office, so i really dun have a "mug" sitting at home. that said, my cabinet is full of tall flute glasses, martini glasses, wine glasses but we're not at all an everyday drinker! I never say make sense!!
Anyway, so we went on a shopping spree to get him a decent coffee mug, but my wondering eyes took notice of this cutie soup mug instead, and of course, it found a way into my shopping basket and follow me home!

One of my childhood memory dessert was this azuki bean soup. So I beg my mum to cook it for me again, and we also added black sticky rice. It's a very simple and easy dessert and very versatile too. You can adjust the amount of beans to water ratio and adjust the amount of sugar to your desired sweetness.

Sticky Azuki Bean Soup

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Azuki Beans, rinse with running water
• 1/2 cup black sticky rice, rinse with running water
• 6 cup water
• 1 cup sago, soak in cold water
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup of coconut milk/cream
  

Method:

1. Put the beans, sticky rice and water into a slow cooker. Have the button turn to high, and cook for 1 hour, or until the red beans begin to split. You can also use ordinary pot on stove, just keep an eye and make sure it doesn't boiled over.
2. Put in the sago and sugar.
3. Continue cooking for another 30 mins or so, serve warm or cold with a dash of coconut milk or coconut cream.
   

I like the soup warm, slowly sipping the sweet soup with my mum in the kitchen really does bring back lot's of memory. AND isn't that a practical and functional mug that i bought?!!

Happy Queen's B'day!

It's Queen b'day today, although i hardly know her, but God Bless the Queen for because of her, I got to enjoy ( probably the last ) public holiday before Christmas.

Public holidays are rare and precious in Australia. All year round, we have but only a small numbers of public holidays: The New Years day, The Australia day, The Easter, The Anzac ( which was not made public holiday because it falls on Saturday this year :( ), The Queens b'day, Labour day ( which are yet to be proclaim to be public holiday this year ) Christmas and Boxing day!! We often need to make plans a few months ahead if we plan to go on a short break during the long weekend, the motel will always be fully booked, and the traffic going out of the city would also be quite dreadful, not to mention the stress of driving because of the triple demerit points during public holidays!!



Because my husband have his essay to be completed, and a record book of dangerous level demerit points, we decided not to go anywhere, and just chilled out and enjoy the surprising sunny Monday. To keep up with the Queen b'day's theme, I decided to bake a traditional English cake. Well, you need a cake for every b'day, especially your queen's b'day.



This cake was a traditional autumnal cake from the country of Gloucester shire in England. Gloucester shire is very famous for it's apples, pear and plums.The local cheese: the double Gloucester, has also been made in Gloucester shire since the 16th century and was traditionally made from milk produced by Old Gloucester cattle. It is a hard, pale orangey cheese with a creamy, almost buttery, nutty flavor and a flaky texture. Hence, the Gloucester cake, was made from the locally produced apples and cheese. I have never eaten a cake made from hard cheeses, and was very eager to try when I first read about this cake from NQN. I was lucky enough to lay my hand on some quality double Gloucester, but like NQN, i also make it with pear instead of apple because I love the juicy and sweet Corella pears.



Double Gloucester Cheese Cake with Corella Pears

Ingredients:

• 225g Corella Pears, ( about 3-4 small sized pears )
• 120g Butter, soften
• 180g Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 120g Double Gloucester, grated
• 450g Plain Flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tsp Baking powder
  
• 3 tbsp yoghurt
• 60g flaked almonds

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius, line and grease a large loaf pan with grease proof paper.
   
2. Grate the pear, retain all skin and juices
3. With an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar and eggs.
   
4. Sift together the flour, bicarb soda and baking powder
5. Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient, stir in the pear, cheese, and yoghurt. If the mixture appear to little too dry, add a dash of milk.
   
6. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, sprinkle the flaked almond on top.
   
7. Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour. Rest in the pan for about 5 mins before turning out onto wire rack to cool down further.
   

I like to serve the cake warm, straight from the oven, with a glass of cold chardonnay.
Oh, I'm not too sure if the Queen is truely happy on her birthday, but I sure am!!

Are you an adventurous dunker?

They say when it comes to morning teas, afternoon teas or supper, there are only 2 types of person, the dunker, and the non-dunker. If you're the later, then a little explanation for you:
to dunk, is to dip biscuit, bread, cakes etch into beverages like coffee, milk or tea. The dunking, can soften the biscuit, and hence, able to enhance the flavours to particularly dry biscuits, bread or cake. One of my greatest childhood pleasure was to dunk heaps of "ping pong" brand soda biscuits into hot Milo. Later when I was a little bigger, and demand for better dunking biscuits like Oreo into milk. As i was getting older, i also have experimented with almost every dunking biscuits with different beverages. Lately, i fall in love with a whole new level of dunking activities, i discovered that dunking banana into hot mocha creates a wonderful taste sensation. I know it sounded a bit awful, but if you have not tried it before, i urge you to try it just once. You may like it, you may not, it doesn't hurt to try! I am totally addicted to the strong coffee aroma that comes with biting into the banana.


That is why, when i come across this banana coffee bread recipe from Australia Good Food Magazines, I know i just have to bake it. and yes, it's not a typo, it's suppose to be a bread, and to be baked into the bread loaf tin, but I don't have the big loaf tin, and I just happen to buy a silicon baba cake mould. So, it came out looking like a cake, but with the texture of banana bread. This cake/bread is also very moist, and have a very light texture, laden with coffee and banana aroma. If you remember my mission to use up the wattle seeds from the pantry, then you won't be surprise i also added wattle seed, to further boost the coffee aroma.



Coffee Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup mashed very ripe banana
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tbsp finely ground espresso coffee ( i use instant espresso coffee )
  
• 1 tbsp wattle seeds

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree Celsius, grease and line a large loaf tin, or a 22cm baba tin
2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil until smooth.
3. Add banana, sour cream and vanilla. Stir until combined.
4. Sift the flours, baking powder, bicarb soda and wattle seeds. Add in the coffee.
   
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until all combined.
   
6. Pour mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 50-60 mins. Cool in pan before turning it out. If using the baba mould, turn it upside down and leave to cool.
   

It's perfectly fine to serve it just like that, warm or cold with a dollop of cream and dusting with icing sugar, but I'm trying to be fancy and a drizzle the cake/bread with custard, and decorated with fresh sliced banana.
yeap, i love banana; and coffee.

Go Green

In continuation of the pantry cleaning story, I also found a small delicately decorated jar of green tea, Matcha powder which i bought when I was in Japan few years ago. I have no idea what i want to do with it at the time, and I can't really appreciate the strong and bitter matcha serve to me during the tea ceremony, but i bought it anyway because it the packaging is too pretty. In fact, all the food packaging are super pretty and delicate and make fantastic homecoming gifts. However, I could not make up my mind when surrounded with all these pretty packages I ended up buying packages of mochi, biscuits, polka and other oh too pretty Japanese sweets that can't fit into my luggage bag. I still remember we're desperately trying to get a extra box ( so they dun get squash as some of the packaging is quite delicate ) to pack them, and not a lot of Japanese understand us in Takayama, but we later learnt a new word: Box = Haku in Japanese, and very soon, we're giving a medium size box to pack our shoppings!




In the recent cold and wet weather, my original intention was to bake something richer and comforting but I ran out of milk, yoghurts and cream, all the essential ingredients to bake a cake or something warming. There is no way I'm going out to the shop when the rain was pouring outside, so I have my eyes fixed on the delicate jar of matcha powder and make the easiest green tea cookies ever. In fact, so easy that the method would only consits of 1 sentence. You'll see.



Green tea Cookies

Ingredients:

• 80g butter, soften
• 40g sugar with extra
• 1/2 tsp matcha powder
• 2 egg yolks
• 140g plain flour

Method:

1. Combine everything together until it forms a dough, chilled it in the fridge for 15 mins, rolled out and cut with cookie cutter, sprinkle with extra caster sugar, bake in preheated oven (160 degree Celsius, lesser if fan force ) for 15mins.( depending on the thickness too! )
2. While still hot and soft, sprinkle more caster sugar on top and cool on wire rack, it'll become crispy and firm up while cooled, enjoy it before serving to anyone, or else you'll surely missed out as they taste like manna from heaven!
   

OK, so it's more than 1 sentence, but still, it's really easy cookie with a big taste!

A taste from the outback

We have been doing a lot of cleaning and clearing at the moment, though my house seems tidy over all, we were still amazed at the amount of junks hiding in the cupboard, under the bed, behind the sofas....some of these things are brand new unwanted gifts, some of them were the result of impulse buying, and most of them were just junk that we thought it will be useful so we kept them at the time, but we've never really needed them. Even though husband and I are no haorders, some of the junks were difficult to get rid off, especially those that hold sentimental values, like my engagement and wedding flower bouquet. They have been drying quite nicely, and been sitting on the shelf beside my wedding photos, but even dead and dried flowers have their used by date, and lately they have been deteriorate quite rapidly, and the dried patels began to turn into fine, powdery " ash". Husband have been asking me, no, begging me to get rid of the pile of patel ash, and finally, I had but no choice to put them ( unwillingly ) into the big black plastic bag together with other junks.

My pantry is another place with a lot of hidden junks, and gems. I'm absolutely delighted when I found a jar of wattlseeds sitting nicely behind the many other cans of food inside the pantry. I remember searching high and low for it after I read about these particular spice from a cooking book, and finally bought it from the Essential Ingredients, alas, never used it after!! I was so relieved to find that the use by date is still one long year away, and I swear to myself that I'll use it in my next baking. Wattleseeds are Australia native spice, they are edible seeds from wattle plants dried, and ground. They have very nutty, chocolaty and coffee flavours. It was used by the aboriginals for cooking and making bread and has become quite a popular spice lately because of their distinctive flavour, and can be found quite easily from gourmet food store. Because of their nuttiness, i decided to pair them with the coffee and almond crunch recipe, adapted from the October 2008 issue of Australian Good Food Magazines.


Bush Coffee Crunch Cake

Ingredients for the cake

• 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 170g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tsp coffee essence
• 100g almond meal
• 1/4 cup strong coffee
• 2/3 cup SR flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp wattleseedes

Ingredients from the crunch topping:

• 60g plain flour
• 40g demerara sugar
• 1/3 cup pecan nuts ( optional )
  
• 40g cold butter, cubed

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius. Line a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper.
2. To make the topping, mix flour and sugar in a bowl, and rub in cold butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Put in the fridge while making the cake.
   
3. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, one at a time until all combine. Add in the vanilla and coffee essence. Fold in the almond meal, alternating with half of the the strong coffee.
   
4. Sift the SR flour, wattle seeds and baking powder together, gently fold the flour into the egg mixture, and add the other half of the strong coffee.
   
5. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Scatter the topping and pecan nuts on top of the cake batter, and bake in the pre heated oven for about 1 hour.
   
6. Remove from oven once cooked, and cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
   

The cake is loaded with heavenly coffee aroma and is very moist with a crunchy nutty toppings. The addition of wattleseeds is wonderful, and gives another layer of nuttiness and mocha flavours to the coffee aroma. It's not overly sweet, and I serve it warm with a dollop of chocolate custard ( ice-cream would have been perfect too! ).



After galloping 2 huge slices of the cake almost all at once, the husband put on a big smile, comforted me and promise me that I can always have fresh bouquet of flowers whenever i like on his credit card, at the same time, he took bags after bags of trash out to the bins. Suddenly, my house is less cluster, and I can see much clearer; it's the man that's should matter, not the moulding wedding flower!!

Mother's Maple Cheesecake

Mother's day was never a big event in our family when I was young. Growing up in a church, it's merely just another event of the many events. Also, my mother was such a practical mum that she never encourage us to buy anythings or do anything special on these days ( or any other days ). I still remember on some occasion, she used to buy our shampoo which were running low, and ask us to wrap it up and give it to her during the sunday school presentation as the sunday school teacher ask each kids to give a present to thank our mother during Mother's day!!! I seldom show my gratitude and appreciation towards her, and always took her for granted.

It was when I leave home to study aboard, and trying to live independently then i truly appreciate my mother. My first year was particularly a hard one, trying so hard to fit in and adapt the new culture, living with a foreign relatives, have to juggle my heavy uni workload, and trying to cook my own meals ( which i never did before!! ) How easy it was when I was living with mum that my only worries was to pass my exam. She would thoughtfully prepare many delicious and nutritious meals which according to her, is good for the brain . My mum is great in kitchen, so much so that we're never have to dirty our hands to cook. I must admit that I never touch any kitchen utensil other than the spoon and the fork ( if that's consider a kitchen utensil at all! ) After many years of living aboard, I've develop a closer relationship with the kitchen utensils, and cooking is not merely just for survival now, but a great enjoyment, and i often found my mum inside me when I'm preparing meals. I tend to do it just like she used to do it, it's a strange thing!! I guess the love of preparing food genes do runs in the family, from my grandmother, to my mother and to me.

I would love to bake my mother this cheesecakes when the parental visit next month. They love cheesecakes as they can't desired anything too sweet, and a good cheesecake is hard to find in Malaysia. I've never baked a whole cheesecakes before, so i decided to do a little experiments and practice well before their arrival. In addition, I can also take this opportunity to treats all those homesick overseas students in my church with my experimental cheesecake, it's very rich and good for the soul, the best we can make do during Mother's day, without our mothers!!



It's not hard to decide which cheesecake to experiment, the autumn wind is chilling, and there were falling maple leaves everywhere, perfect season for a rich, maple cheesecake!


Maple Cheesecake
Ingredients for the crust:

• 8 digestive biscuits
• 1/3 cups pecan nuts
• 85g butter, melted

Ingredients for the cake:

• 600g cream cheese
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 125ml maple syrup, plus more for later
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius, or 160 degree if fan force.
2. Grease and line a 20cm round spring foam cake tin with baking paper.
3. Process biscuits and pecan nuts in the food processor until finely crushed.
4. Add butter, combined well, and press the biscuit mixture firmly onto the base of the cake tin. Chilled in the refrigerator while making the cake filling.
5. With a electric beater, beat the cream cheese until they are smooth, gradually beat in sugar, corn flour, maple syrup, eggs and lemon juice until well combine. Do not over beat or else it may cracks, or develop bubbles ( like mine :( ).
6. Pour the cake fillings into the cake tin with the biscuit base. Wrap 2 layers of al foil around the cake tin to prevent water from sipping in from the water bath.
7. Put the cake tin into a large baking tray, and pour boiling hot water around the cake tin. ( your cake tin should sit in the middle of the baking tray, with hot water around it )
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour and 3o mins. i check the cake every 10 mins after the 1st hour. When the cake is set but still a bit wobbly in the middle, it is done.
9. Switch off the oven temperature, and cool the cheesecake in the oven with the door ajar, and then take it out and cool it to room temperature before leave it in the fridge overnight.
10. Pour extra maple syrup over the cheesecake before serving. Best serve cold.

Because of my over beating, my cheesecake develop some bubble on the surface, but it's not a fatal one, and I'm overall very satisfied with the taste and texture of the cheesecake. This recipe is adapted from NQN, and she was very kind to give me a few tips and hints for baking this cheesecake as I'm very unsure about the water bath thing. Apparently, the most important thing with baking cheesecake is not to "shock" the cake, ie: the cake dun get shock when first entered the hot oven by baking it gently with the water bath, and the cake dun get shock when comes out of the oven by cooling it in the oven first and then room temp, and then fridge. If the cake is shock, it'll cracks, very much behave like us don't you think?!!!

I think it'll be the perfect welcoming cheesecake for my mum, and hopefully the first bite would shock her taste bud and she'll cracks a big smile!!

Yum Cha Egg Tarts

I was sick on Friday, so when I was asked to make something for the church fate I wasn't very keen, but as I was feeling better on the Saturday, I decided to make something less fussy and easy. A few years ago, a friend of mine, Jenny, make me a batch of these heavenly egg tarts. The custard is glossy, soft and sweet, and the pastry is particularly wonderful. Later when she kindly give me the recipe, i realised the secret ingredient of the pastry : cream cheese! Yeap, it's very yummy and they taste just like those egg tarts from the yum cha trolleys!!



Hong Kong Egg Tarts ( makes about 30 egg tart with a very thin layer of pastry, or make about 14 egg tart with a nice thick crust )

Ingredients for the pastry:

• 125g cream cheese, soften
  
• 125 g butter, slightly salted, cubed
  
• 11/2 cups AP flour

Methods:

1. Rub the butter into the flour and cream cheese until combine.
   
2. Do not add water because the moisture from the cream cheese would be enough to bind the dough. It may appear a bit crumbly in the beginning, but it would be OK.
3. Divided the dough into 2 portion, and wrap with cling wrap. Store in the fridge for about 30 mins.
   

Ingredients for the custard:

• 3 eggs, lightly whisked
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.
   
2. Combine everything in a big mixing bowl, whisk until sugar dissolved.
   
3. Pour the custard mixture over a fine sieve into a jug.
   
4. Roll out the pastry, divided the pastry into 30 small equal portion, and press them onto the muffin pan ( which you'll then have 14 egg tarts ), or petty aluminium cases ( which you'll then have about 30 egg tarts ).
5. Bake the pastry in the oven for about 15 mins.
   
6. When the pastry is golden, take them out of the oven, and pour the custard mixture onto each pastry cases. Bake the tarts in the oven for a further 30 mins, until the custard is set.
   
7. Cool on tray, but best serve them warm.
   

Of course, you can skip the blind baking part and just pour the custard onto the unbaked pastry and bake in pre heated oven for 30 mins, but because I'm making very thin pastry layer, I don't want my pastry to go soggy with the custard. But if you're making a thicker pastry layer, by all means, skip the blind baking part.

These egg tarts were very silky, smooth and sweet and the tart is very crunchy from the blind baking. They are best eaten warm! Unfortunately, I have to sell them cold during the church fete, but they're still delicious!

Lest we forget

When I first came to Australia, I was very amused by those delicious oats biscuits normally sold in bulk from
Coles or woollies.




Later than I know that they are called Anzac Biscuits. It's kind of like the national biscuits in Australia, and it's eaten by soldiers who fought in WW1.

Anzac basically means: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Every year today (25th April), Australia and New Zealand celebrate this day to honour the armies, who fought in Gallipoli and the fields of Flanders during WW1.

We all know that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, so the mothers, wives and girlfriends of these army troops, bake heaps of biscuits to be sent to their loves ones who fought in Gallipoli. Concern that their loves ones doesn't get enough nutrient, they used a lot of oats in the biscuits, along with coconut, butter and golden syrup. Eggs, which are normally a binding agent in most biscuits, are purposely left out because they want these biscuits to be more sturdy and last longer in order to withstand the long journey to Gallipoli.
More interesting facts of Anzac Biscuits, can be found here.
Although I'm not too much an Australian myself yet, I do take this day to remember and appreciate them, for Australia is a free country today, all because of their sacrifice, and least not forget the little loving biscuits who give them strength and lift their spirit during the war!


Anzac Biscuits

Ingrediants: ( makes about 50 mediam sized biscuits )

• 125g butter
• 2 tbsp golden syrup
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1cup dessicated coconut
• 1 cup plain four
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 tbsp boiling water
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degree Celcius
2. Line a large baking trays with baking paper
3. Place butter and golden syrup in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally.
4. Place all the dry ingrediants: oats, coconut, flour and sugar together in a large bowl.
5. Dissolve soda in the boiling water, and stir into the butter and golden syrup mixture.
   
6. Add wet ingrediants to dry ingrediants and stir until well combined.
   
7. Roll level tbps of the mixture into balls and place about 3 cm apart on the trays. Flatten slightly with the back of the fork, and bake in preheated oven for about 15-18 mins.
   
8. The biscuit will be golden brown, but still soft. It will harden and become crisp once cooled on the wire rack.
   
9. Stored cooled biscuits in an airtight container for up to 1 month.
   

In love with Lebanon

If i were to tell you that I got most my dinner and baking recipe from going to gym will you believe me? I know you'll think that I am joking, coz what on earth will a gym have so many recipes and meal ides?? But it's true. You see, there are 3 big LCD TV in front of me when I was on the treadmill, one is news, one is sport, and the other one will often always be a cooking show, depending on the timing of course. It's really amusing when I was running and shedding those fats, while in front of me, the chef is frying Foie gras !! There are also a lot of women's day magazines around, which also contain a lot of recipes!
So,when I was working out yesterday, I saw this recipe, about making your own chocolate baklava, I was immediately inspired. Especially since I am so hooked on Lebanese cuisinee these days.
I have a good study at the recipe, and decided that I'm going to go with my own style. I make it without the chocolate ( as a traditional baklava normally don't use chocolate ), and using a combination of pistachio and cashew nuts. Because I want to make it more healthy, and less sugary, I did not bother to make the sugar syrup, instead, I use maple syrup with rose water, and just brush the syrup on the pasty rather than pouring the whole syrup over the pastry and let them soak. But I shall includes the recipe for the sugar syrup if you like your baklava toothachiningly sweet.


Pistachio and Cashew Baklava

Ingredients:

• About 9 sheets of filo pastry
• 100g melted butter
• 100g pistachio, shelled
• 100g cashew
  
• 5 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp rose water

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius
2. Combine the pistachio, cashew and brown sugar into a grinder and grind for about 5 mins in high speed, or until the mixture resembled coarse pebble. ( beware, the texture should not be too sand like ). Add in the rosewater.
3. Use a big wet towel to cover the filo pastry to prevent them from drying out.
   
4. Took 1 sheet of filo pasty, and lay on a dry bench, and brushed the top side of the filo with a very thin layer of butter. Took another sheets of filo pastry, lay it on top of the buttered filo, and continue brushing the top side of the pasty with filo. Repeat with the 3rd sheets of filo.
   
5. Gently scatter a thin layer of ground nuts mixture on the buttered pastry, and rolled it up like a cigar. Cut the rolled up baklava into desired shaped, ( in my case, i just cut them into little tubes about 4 cm long ).
   
6. Put the baklava on a tray lined with baking paper. Brushed the top of baklava with a little butter.
7. Repeat step 4-6 until all the nuts mixture have been used up. The above recipe will yield about 3 long rolled up baklava and about 15 (4cm) cut baklava.
8. Bake in preheated oven for about 20-25 mins, or until the pasty is crisp and brown.

Alternative syrup :

• 5 tbsp maple syrup
• 2 tbsp rose water

Methods:

1. Combine the maple syrup with rose water, heat it in the microwave for about 30 second or until the the syrup is hot.
   
2. Brushed the hot baklava generously with the syrup, let it cool to room temperature before serving.
   

Original syrup:

• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 1 cup of water
• 2 tbsp rose water

Methods:

1. Dissolve the caster sugar in water on the stoves. Stir in rose water.
   
2. Pour the sugar syrup over hot baklava and let it soak for 2 hours before serving.

Beware though because I added sugar in the nut mixture, so the baklava is already sweeten. If you would like to soak your baklava in sugar syrup, it's best to excludes sugar in the nut mixture to save your pancreas from overworking !!



Since figs are good companion to middle Eastern cuisine, and since I've recently bought a bag of figs, I decorated my baklava with it. The figs are beautiful and blushing just like 2 lovers met!

How to survive recession and keep your friends

You know Easter is just around the corner when all the supermarket shelf are being replaced with lot's of chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs and hot cross buns. Almost everyone will rush in at the very last weekend before Easter to buy these chocolate treats from family and friends. Normally, I would join the crowd and buy a few treats, but I still have about 3 easter eggs sitting in the pantry from last year, and I'm not alone, few of my friends have chocolates from last Easter too. So, I decided to do something different this year, something that is more one of a kind, and perishable. Hence have to be appreciated and consume upon received.
There are so many easter goodies to make as well. I decided to skip the traditional hot cross buns, ( since it's so easy to buy one from anywhere ),and go with something a bit different.
As usual, I like to make simple, easy and delicious treats, and these chocolate easter crackles are just the kind of goodies to make. All in all, you only need some Mars bars and Coco Pops, and it yields about 40 crackers! Now, what a good idea to save money and still be generous!!



Chocolate Easter Crackles

Ingredients:

• 200g Mars Bars, chopped
• 2 tbsp cream
• 4 tbsp coconuts
  
• 3 cups Coco Pops
• 40 mini eggs for decoration

Methods:

1. Place the Mars bars and cream in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.
2. Stir until melted and smooth. ( it will take sometime for the Mars bars to melt )
3. Place coconuts and coco pops in another huge bowl, pour the melted Mars bar mixture and stir until well combined.
   
4. Quickly pile mixture into small paper cases and decorate each with a mini egg.
   
5. Place in the fridge until firm, store in airtight container for about 2 weeks.
   

aren't they look gorgeous? I glam them even further by putting them into small boxes, and give them to special friends.



or simply pile them into a basket and bring it to the office to share!

Happy Easter and Happy Holiday!

Brownies my style

Some people loves to eat brownies that are very googey in the centre,
Some likes it without nuts while others only eat brownies with nuts
Some like their brownies dusted with icing sugar
Some like it dusted with cocoa power
Some like to eat it warm
Some prefers over-night brownies, especially those left in the fridge
children loves it with milk chocolate, grown ups prefer dark, some are crazy for white...
and the list go on..

I love my brownies more like a cake, in fact, i don't really like any dense brownies. I find them too rich for my taste bud. Hence I am using SR flour in this brownies to created a lighter and more cake like texture. So consider you be warned should you love those dense and googey brownies, this is not the type for you!!




Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 125g unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3/4 cup SR flour
• 1/3 cup milk
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius. Grease and line a 20cm square cake tin with baking paper.
2. Chopped the chocolate and butter into cubes, put in a heat proof bowl. Melt the chocolate and butter by sitting the bowl on top of a saucepan of simmering water.
3. When melted, remove the bowl from the heat and stir in brown sugar.
4. Add eggs, and gently fold in flour, alternate with milk. Season with a pinch of salt to further enhance the flavour.
5. Add the chopped walnuts, or any preferred nuts, or go without nuts.
6. Pour the mixture into prepared pan and bake for 20-25 mins. When tested with a toothpick, it should come out clean.
7. Cool the brownies in the pan before turning out from pan. Serve warm or cold.

Tea with my cake

Teacakes are great because they're not as heavy as cake. Hence, they makes a fabulous treats for morning teas, afternoon teas, even for supper. I decided to turn the unsually plain and simple teacakes into something more elegant for a church function.
This apple custard teacakes looks complicated, but it's actually very easy to bake, in fact, the hardest thing is to keep me from having one after another. They taste sensational!!


Apple Custard Teacake

Ingrediants:

• 150g butter, softend
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups SR flour
• 1 tsp cinnamons
  
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• Tinned Apple
• Vanilla Custard
• 1/4 cup desiccated coconut

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degree celcius. Grease and line a 22cm square cake pan with baking paper.
2. Using electrci mixer, cream butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition.
   
3. Sift flour and cinnamons together. Gently fold flour and milk alternatively into the eggs and butter mixture until just combine. Take care not to over mix or else the teacake will be tough.
4. Spread half the batter into prepared cake pan. Arrange apple on the top, and dallop some custard over the apple. Gently spoon over the remaining cake batter. and top with more custard. Use a skewer to swirl custard into the batter. Scatter deseccated coconut on top of the cake.
5. Bake the cake in preheated oven for about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
   
6. Cool cake in the pan before inverted into the wire rack to cool completely.
   
7. Serve teacake with remaining custard, or ice-cream with a cup of tea in a hot summer afternoon.