Missing naps....

I know I shouldn't be neglecting this blog of mine but I've been busy and feeling lazy.  My apologies to all whom have left me a note in the comment box.  I'll try to find time to reply soonest.

Remember I said DD3 is skipping her nap?  I was washing up in the kitchen and when I returned to check on DD3, I saw this!

Initially I thought she was just feeling restless and was just resting.

Her favourite Kong Bak Pau but she was too tired to finish it up.

Can you see the pau in her mouth?  It was only 6.30pm...  Woke her up to finish her dinner and sent her to bed at 8pm.

2011 Snowskin Mooncakes

DD3 started missing her nap a few weeks ago.  I decided it is time to drop her pm nap because when she does nap, she doesn't fall asleep easily at night.  I'll rather keep her awake in the day and let her sleep early when night falls.

With 3 children constantly yakking behind my back, I literally cannot do much baking.  Thankfully most birthdays are over and the next celebration will be in Nov.  I still have some time to continue taking my breather.  But I promised Mom I'll make her mooncakes again this year.  So besides the baked mooncakes, I made snow skin mooncakes too.

DH likes matcha mooncakes so I made him these.  Although the paste is low sugar, we still find it way too sweet to our liking.  And the colour is so fake.  Unlike the ones I made last year, I love that colour.  Yes, I used artificial colour paste this year as my matcha has not arrived.

Again, I added some colours to this as I recall SL telling me it is inauspicious giving away white mooncakes.

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11 for September 2011 by Happy Home Baking.

Recipe can be found here.

2011 Baked Mooncakes

I've recovered from my urticaria and eczema!  However, I been busy with my year end holiday planning, thus leaving me with not much time to blog :P  To keep the story short, just to share what I've made for Mid-Autumn Festival.

There are many new mould designs in the market.  I'm so tempted to add them to my collection but I really have insufficient storage space.  So it's the same old design that I have.

Last year I saw Anncoo made these but it was too late for me to try it out.  This year, I made an effort to do it.  Ann made big piggies (50g skin 70g paste), I made mini piglets (20g each).  Alright, I know I didn't do a good job, but at least I've tried my best in this attempt.  Made 11 piglets within an hour and it was almost time to cook dinner.  With balance 7 portion of dough, I used my mooncake moulds to complete the job.

As usual, I didn't eggwash the moonies, just left it as it is.

Oh... my ugly looking tail :P  I personally think this is the most difficult part.

Recipe here.  Do note that I've only let the dough stand for 20 minutes instead.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #11 for September 2011 by Happy Home Baking

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake

I'm suffering from a bad eczema attack and don't much feel like baking.  The itch is killing me despite taking antihistamine pills and applying steriod cream (which I hated).  But I always console myself that this is nothing as compared to cancer patients who need to go through chemotherapy.  I'm sure they suffer more than me so I'm not complaining about my own condition.

We celebrated DD1's 9th birthday yesterday.  After googling on the internet for the past week, I decided on a swiss roll ice cream cake (I got the idea from Daring Bakers Challenge, July 2010) .  Reason being, I won't have time to bake and frost a cake over the weekend, so the easiest way is to buy ice cream from the stores and cover it up with swiss rolls.

It seemed simple, so much so that I took it for granted and didn't start baking the cake until 11pm on Saturday night.  It was a big mistake.  The swiss roll needs to be chilled before slicing, and the ice cream needs to be frozen layer by layer.  I was literally rushing through the whole process and only slept at 2am, with the cake only 75% completed.

The layers should go this way:- 1. swiss roll, 2. raspberry ice cream, 3. chocolate fudge and 4. chocolate chips ice cream.  I only managed to cook the fudge at the wee hours while waiting for the raspberry ice cream to harden.  Was rushing through to cool the fudge down in order to pour it into the prepared pan so I could catch up with my beauty sleep.  Everything looked perfect until I saw the cake the next morning.  What a disappointment!  The raspberry ice cream were not set enough and with the warm chocolate fudge, they decided to combine into one.  Argh!!  I was so angry with myself for not preparing the cake earlier. But there's nothing else I can do except to just go ahead and complete the cake.

A cross-section of the cut cake. 

What a pity, I say :-(

Nevertheless, the birthday girl is happy to see her cake :-)

 
I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers: #9 Swiss Rolling Good Times by Obsessedly Involved with Food.

I used the same recipe here but just omit the decorative part.

Swiss Roll Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients
(A)
6 egg yolks
20g sugar
60g fresh milk
45g corn oil
100g plain flour/cake flour
15g corn flour

(B)
6 egg whites
70g sugar

(C)
Ice cream of your choice, 2 flavours

Method

1. Lightly whisk the egg yolks together with 20g sugar.
2. Add in fresh milk and corn oil, mix well.
3. Sift in plain/cake flour and corn flour and stir well.  Set aside.
4. In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat till egg whites are frothy. Add in sugar gradually and beat till stiff peak.
5. Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a rubber spatula till incorporated.
6. Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated.
7. Pour batter into lined 11" x 14" pan.
8. Using a spatula, level the top evenly.
9. Bake @ preheated oven of 180C for 12 - 13 mins.
10. When the cake is cooked, remove from oven and leave to cool completely.
11. Spread a layer of whipped cream/butter cream/jam onto the sponge cake. Roll it up and chill in fridge.

Chocolate Fudge
Ingredients
200g caster sugar (I used 150g)
3 tbsp of natural unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tbsp cornstarch
1 ½ cup water
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract (I omit)

Method

1. In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornflour and water.
2. Place the pan over heat, and stir constantly, till it begins to thicken and is smooth (for about 2 minutes).
3. Remove from heat and mix in the butter and vanilla. Keep aside to cool .

Assembly

1. Cut the Swiss rolls into equal slices.
2. Cover the bottom and sides of the bowl (I used a loaf pan instead) in which you are going to set the dessert with cling film/plastic wrap. 
3. Arrange swiss roll slices at the bottom and sides of the pan, with their seam sides facing away from the pan.
4. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till the slices are firm. (I missed out this step)
5. Soften the first flavoured ice cream (for my case, it's raspberry ripple). Take the bowl out of the freezer, remove the cling film cover and add the ice cream on top of the cake slices. Spread it out to cover the bottom and sides of the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and freeze till firm.
6. Add the fudge sauce over the first layer of ice cream (chocolate chip ice cream for me), cover and freeze till firm (I left it overnight).
7. Soften the second flavoured ice cream and spread it over the fudge sauce. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 4-5 hours till completely set .
8. Remove the plastic cover, and place the serving plate on top of the bowl. Turn it upside down and remove the bowl and the plastic lining. If the bowl does not come away easily, wipe the outsides of the bowl with a kitchen towel dampened with hot water. The bowl will come away easily.
9. Keep the cake out of the freezer for at least 10 minu

Creative Swiss Rolls

I cannot remember how long ago it was but I'm able to post any comments in blogger.  I'm unable to login to my Google Account and whatever post is signed off as Anonyomous.  Anyone has the same problem?

The last time I baked a cake was back in April, where I baked a pandan chiffon cake for my birthday.  To date, the pictures are still sitting in my harddisk and I've not updated my blog :P  When I saw July's Aspiring Bakers - Swiss Roll, I knew it's time to get my engine started again.

Reese made this Creative Srawberry Swiss Roll and I thought it was cute. I wanted to try my hands on it but just couldn't find the time. With Aspiring Bakers, what a perfect excuse to bake some swiss rolls ;-)

I didn't want to spend too much time on designing the strawberries so I just piped them into hearts instead.

I didn't do justice to this cake because the pictures were taken on a late afternoon where the sun was setting.  I took 3 pictures of the cut cake and they were either overexposed or too dim.  This is the best I have.

Verdict:  Yields a soft and light cake.

If you are comfortable with chiffon method, this recipe is really quick and easy.  Just make sure you've got all the ingredients measured out before you proceed, it helps.

With DS2's teachers in mind, I made another batch the next day, this time round with DD3 as my assistant.  She helped to choose the colours and mixed them :-)

The baked cake, unrolled.

This is the only rolled up cake I have as I didn't have time to cut and pack.  After my routine trip to the local supermarket, I prepared the cake before I cooked lunch.  Yes, it is that quick and easy!  However, by the time the cake is cooled, I didn't have enough time to chill it in the fridge and it was time to fetch DS2.  So the rolls were given to DS2's Form Teacher and his Mother Tongue teacher in this state.  I'm glad they like the cake but I think I can do better next time.

Let your creativity run wild!  Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury to spend too much time on it.  Maybe next time during the school holidays, I'll get DD1 to design her very own cake.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers: #9 Swiss Rolling Good Times by Obsessedly Involved with Food.

Creative Swiss Roll

Recipe seen here
Adapted from 小本
(with slight modifications on ingredients and method)

Ingredients
(A)
6 egg yolks
20g sugar
60g fresh milk
45g corn oil
100g plain flour/cake flour
15g corn flour

(B)
1/2 egg whites, ~ 20g
10g sugar

(C)
5.5 egg whites
70g sugar (I used 55g)

(D)
red colour paste

Method

• Lightly whisk the egg yolks together with 20g sugar.  Add in fresh milk and corn oil, mix well.
• Sift in plain/cake flour and corn flour and stir well.  Set aside.

• Spoon out 30g egg yolk batter (about 2 tbsp) and mix in red colouring. Mix well.
• Whisk the egg whites and sugar (ingredients B) till medium peak form and mix with the prepared 30g egg yolk batter. Stir well.
• Spoon the pink batter into a piping bag with tip #3 (I just used a plastic bag and cut a small hole). Pipe some heart shape onto lined tray (11"x14").
• Bake at 180'C for 1.5 minute, remove from oven.

• In another bowl, using an electric mixer, beat till 5.5 egg whites are frothy. Add in 55g sugar gradually and beat till stiff peak.
• Fold in 1/3 of the whites into the yolk mixture using a rubber spatula till incorporated.
• Pour the mixture to the remaining egg whites and fold in gently till incorporated
• Pour batter into prepared pan (the half-baked hearts).
• Using a spatula, level the top evenly.
• Bake @ preheated oven of 180C for 12 - 13 mins.
• When the cake is cooked, remove from oven and leave to cool completely.
• Spread a layer of whipped cream/butter cream/jam onto the sponge cake. Roll it up and chill in fridge before serving.

Sweet Watercress Drink

School holidays are finally over!  I was looking forward to the day to send DD1 and DS2 back to school :P  Of course I enjoy having them home but to have them 24/7 is literally killing my brain cells everyday.  I need to take a breather, I need some fresh air.

It had been 2 weeks since school started and DH is back to his hectic flying schedule.  I've learnt to take things more positively, and is able to cope better now.  Afterall, he joined the Regional team 2 years ago, and by hook or by crook, I need to adapt.  If I'm not being understanding, I'll be giving him unnecessary stress.  I'm also thankful that I was working in the Regional department and this made me understand that traveling is inevitable.  In fact, I'm glad he is flying again as absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Anyway, I haven't been baking lately.  Sometimes I just feel lazy and didn't even bother to cook dinner.  Whatever is happening to me?  I don't know, probably age is catching up as I get tired more easily.  Pregnant?  I wish but unfortunately not.  Hahaha!

Feeling lazy to post something "complicated" so I went to my harddisk to search for the simplest recipe and found this.  So I'm just going to share this simple drink that I made several months ago.

Couldn't get your kids to eat enough greens?

Drink it ;-)

My children like the savory soup (here, here and here) but they simply love this sweetened drink.  I have a few other watercress related recipes but I'll leave that to future postings.  If you do try this out, I hope your family will like it too.

Sweet Watercress Drink

Ingredients

500g watercress

2.5 - 3 litres water

2 - 3 dried honey dates (蜜枣)

rock sugar to taste (I used honey rock sugar)

Method

1. Wash watercress and cut into half.  Rinse honey dates.
2. Add watercress and honey dates in a pot with 2.5 - 3 litres of water.  Bring to boil.  Reduce to small flame and simmer for 1 hour.
3. Add rock sugar to taste.
4. Sieve and serve, either warm or chilled.

Malacca, March 2011 - Part 3

We have already returned from recent holiday in June but I'm not done posting the pictures for our holidays back in March :P  Going to make it quick and short here, for my own reference.

For those interested, you may check out my earlier posts on our visit to Malacca here and here.

Nancy's Kitchen

Food wise so-so, nothing to shout about.

 Pork Pongteh (RM10) - too sweet for us

Softshell crab (RM12) -  taste normal, nothing fantastic

 Assam Fish (RM42) - this is the only dish we like

Fried Egg with Cincalok (RM6) - cannot find any attraction in this dish

Fried Angle Bean (RM8) - the beans tasted extremely old and chewy, despite asking for less chilli (for the kids), we still find it way too spicy for the adults.

Cendol (RM3) -  Nothing fantastic too but I thought it tasted better than Jonker 88 (read review here).

Total bill: RM107.65 including steamed rice and 4 drinks.

From a Singaporean standard, not an expensive dinner but as far as I'm concern, it is not value for money.  With the same amount, I'll rather go back to Teo Loong Chan Teochew Seafood Restaurant.

We spent a total of RM1900 nett for 3 days 2 nights in Malacca, 3A + 3C.  This marks the end of our 2nd trip to Malacca.