Wholegrain Raisins Toast

Yay..!! finally after much consideration and waiting. I finally granted my wish. I got myself a breadmaker. I used to hand-knead my bread and it takes really long time and a lot of energy to get the dough smooth and elastic. My kids they just love to eat bread and buns. All the bread sold outside contain to much preservatives, colouring and etc.., not to mention other chemical used to make the bread soft and spongy. Most of the bread I bought from the bakery taste sourish. Breadmaker will be a good investment for my kids and my family. They will get to eat fresh and healthy bread at anytime right?? hehe...

I try out this Wholegrain Raisins Toast using my new breadmaker and it turn out perfectly. A very healthy toast and it taste very yummy too. The bread stay soft after 2 days. Try this out if you want something healthy for your breakfast.


Wholegrain Raisins Toast Recipe
(recipe adapted from Bread Code)

Ingredients

(A)
250g high protein flour (bread flour)
250g wholegrain flour
5g (1/2 tbsp) instant yeast
20g milk powder
40g brown sugar
15g (1 tbsp) honey
10g (1 tsp) salt
320g water

(B)
30g butter

Filling
50g raisins (soak for 5 minutes)
50g walnuts

Method

• Blend ingredients A at slow speed in a mixer for 1 minute, then switch to medium speed for another 5 minutes till bread dough is coarse. Add ingredient B, continue to knead till bread dough is shiny and springy.
• Place in container and cover with cling wrap, allow to leaven for 40 - 50 minutes till bread dough double it size. Cut out a 500g portion, make it round, proof for 10 minutes, roll it into a long strip, place soaked raisins and chopped walnuts on top, roll up into oval shape, place into bread pan, allow to leave for 40 minutes.
• Place into pre-heated oven, bake at 200c for 25 to 30 minutes.
• Cold the baked toast on wire rack, sliced and it's ready to be served with butter or jam.

HAPPY BAKING !!!!

p/s: I sprinkled some rolled oats on the surface of the toast and omit the chopped walnuts as my kids they don't like nuts in the bread. *I baked this toast straight with my breadmaker and surprisingly it turn out just perfect, SOFT & FLUFFY! It remained soft for the next 2 days and I have no regret getting this breadmaker after all!

AMY

Butter Cake Recipe

I have several recipes of Butter Cake and I found this one is the BEST among all. Moist, very buttery taste and soft. This butter cake recipe is definitely a keeper. Try it out and let me know the result ok? Each time when I get to know that there will be guest coming to visit me. Butter Cake will always be my first choice as I know it'll be well accepted by most of us. Kids love it so much, adults and elderly too.

It's perfect for tea-time while chit-chating with group of friends ~ yum...yum!

My favourite butter brand for baking...!

Separate the egg whites and egg yolks into 2 different bowls

Ingredients:

(A)
250 gm Butter (I prefer SCS or Golden Churn Brand) - softened
85 gm Castor Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Essense
A pinch of Salt
4 Egg Yolks
1 tbsp Milk
200 gm Cake Flour (if self-raising flour are used, just omit the 5 gm baking powder)
5 gm/ 1 tsp Baking Powder

(B)
4 Egg Whites
85 gm Castor Sugar


Method:

• Preheat oven at 175'c. Grease or line the 8" baking pan.
• Sifted together flour and baking powder. Set aside.
• Beat together butter, sugar, salt and vanilla essense until creamy and light with mixer.
• Add in egg yolks, one at a time and beat until creamy. Add in milk and mix well.
• Fold in the sifted flour slowly spoon by spoon into mixture till well mixed.
• In a separate clean bowl, whisk eggs whites till foamy then add in sugar gradually. Beat to a soft peak and fold 1/4 into butter mixture. Mix well and fold in the rest.
• Pour batter into baking pan and bake at 175'c for about 40-45 mins or until cooked (insert a skewer in the middle of the cake and it come out clean)

p/s: I bake bigger cake using 25" x 30" retangular cake pan and use 1 1/2 recipe stated above. I bake my cake at 160'c as my oven temperature tend to get too warm and will burn top of my cake.

HAPPY BAKING!

AMY

Stir-Fried Jicama/Yam Bean

Do you believe it??? I just learn a new word, I just got to know this "sengkuang" is known as Jicama or Yam Bean in English. Each time when there is any big family gathering like Chinese New Year Eve & etc.., my mother will cook this stir-fried jicama/yam bean dish for us. This is one of her signature dishes and we all love it so... much! This yummy Jicama dish can be eaten with rice or eaten wrapped in fresh lettuce. We can use it as the fillings for popiah but I will mix in the shredded eggs before we deep fried it. You can try this, it's yummy!! It taste even better overnight, yum...yum... !! There is many ways to stir-fried this Jicama and I just follow my mother's way. However, my mother in-law she have the different way cooking it.

Stir-Fried Jicama/Yam Bean Recipe

Ingredients needed:

600g -1 medium size Jicama/Yam Bean (shredded)
1 Carrot (shredded)
300g cabbage (shredded)
5 chinese black mushroom (soaked until soft and shredded)
300g medium size prawn (shelled) /dried shirmp (chopped) &
pork belly (slice thinly)
50g shredded dried cuttlefish (soak till soft & drained)
5 cloves garlic (chopped finely)
4 tbsp cooking oil
some spring onion & fried shallot - garnishing

Seasoning:
1 1/2 tbsp minced fermented bean paste
*(this is well depend to the brand used, just adjust the amount to your preference taste)
2 tbsp light soya sauce
1 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp pepper

some salt and sugar to taste - optional*

Methods:

• Heat up oil, saute garlic until fragrant. Add in shredded pork belly, prawns/dried shrimp, mushrooms and stir-fry until aromatic.
• Add in the remaining ingredients (*except dried cuttlefish) and stir-fry until well mixed
• Add seasoning and continue to fry until well mixed. Cover and simmer till jicama turn soft and water starts to dish out *add in some water, 100ml and cont' cook if the jicama didn't dish out much water. Continue to cook till it is dry. Add some salt or sugar to taste *( I omit the sugar in this dish as I found it's already sweet to my taste)
• Stir in shredded dried cuttlefish and mixed well.
• Lastly, add in the spring onion and stir to mix.
• Dish up, sprinkle fried shallot on top and serve warm.

p/s: *Due to no stock in hand and I was lazy out to market, I cook this dish with prawns and without the dried cuttlefish. For the better flavour, use pork belly and dried shrimp, don't forget the dried cuttlefish ya!!*

Jicama/Yam Bean is a must in this dish. Other ingredients like cabbage and mushrooms are optional.

HAPPY COOKING !!

AMY

Ham Chim Peng

Ya, these are one of my favourite kuih and I can ate 3 -4 at one GO!! and skipped my lunch or dinner after that. From the picture here, you can see the very yummy looking "Ham Chim Peng" right??? But, I'm gonna to tell you the truth. I follow the recipe given by a friend of mine. Knead the dough by hand but, the dough turn out a little bit sticky and I was having real hard time to shape them one by one.

However, when I fried them the dough expand nicely in the wok. I was so happy and thought this time I'm going to successfully make this "Ham Chim Peng". The "Ham Chim Peng" taste good when eaten warm but once it's cold, the texture turns hard and chewy. "WHY"???...

In this post, I'm not going to share the recipe here. I FAILED...!!! * HELP!!! anyone can share with me the tips of making this kuih????

Anyway, I just want to share with all of you my first "Ham Chim Peng" pictures. Look YUMMY right??? lol~

p/s: I will try it again until I success. Wish me LUCK!! ~ hehehe...

HAVE A NICE DAY!!

AMY

Scrambled Egg with Sausages & Tomatoes

For those who have been follow my blog I would like to apologise for keep you all waiting for my updates. I have been busy for the pass few weeks. My son finally finished his UPSR - phew!!!, now I will have more time to try out some recipes and sharing my cooking with all of you.

My internet connection have been slow and sometimes I can't be connected at all which cause me a lot of patient when I tried to upload the pictures or updating my BLOG! I don't know what happen to Wimax? When I first sign up, the connection are fast but now, they always have the connection problems.

I've never stopped cooking and baking but just no time to update my BLOG. I will slowly update it. When the lazy bugs attacked me, I will just prepare simple dishes for my kids. One of it is this simple and easy egg dishes - Scrambled Egg with Chinese Sausages & Tomatoes.

Ingredients:

4 Eggs
1 Chinese Sausage (skinned and slice)
1 Tomatoes (cut into wedges)
2-3 Garlic (skinned and slice)
some green onion (wash and cut into 1/2cm)
some light soy sauce to taste

Beat eggs with:
2 tbsp milk
some pepper
some salt to taste
some sugar (optional)

Method:

• Heat the pan with some oil, add in garlic and stir-fry till fragrant and golden in colour.
• Scope out the garlic slices *my kids don't take this. Add in sausage slices and stir-fry it till fragrant and its oil dish out from the sausage. Lower the fire, add in sliced tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes turn soft. Add some light soy sauce to taste (*this is well depended to our own taste preference)
• Add a little more oil if you found it's too dry, higher the heat and pour in beaten egg. Let the eggs cook for a while before using the spatula to flip it and cut the egg into smaller pieces till the egg are dry and wholly cooked. Lastly, stir in the green onion.
• Dish up and serve warm as breakfast or side dishes.

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI & HAPPY COOKING !!

AMY

Lotus Root Chicken Soup

My 3 kids they love to drink soup and will always ask me to cook them soup. Lotus Root Soup - one of my family's favourite and it was my elder daughter's favourite too. There is few methods to cook this soup. We can double-boiled it, cook it with the pressure cooker or just cook it the normal way. I love to cook the soup with double-boiled method as I found the soup won't dries up and manage to retained it's natural flavour. We can have very clear soup as well.

I cook this Lotus Root Soup with my pressure cooker. My kids love the peanuts to be soft and it takes longer time to cook it with normal method. I add some white radish to enhance the flavor and the soup taste sweeter too. Try it out!

Lotus Root Chicken Soup Recipe


Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, clean and cut into 4 piece
500 gm lotus root, skinned and sliced 1/2cm thick
1 white radish - about 200 gm, skinned and sliced
50g peanuts
10 red dates
1 tbsp wolfberries (optional)
some dried cuttlefish, wash and cut into smaller size
1500ml water

salt to taste


Method:

• When the water boils add in the chicken pieces, lotus roots & radish slices, peanuts, red dates, wolfberries and dried cuttlefish.
• Simmer the soup for 45 mins or till the peanuts reach our desire tenderness.
• Add salt to taste.
• Scope out the excessive oil on the soup surface and serve warm.
  

Note: If using pressure cooker, let the soup boils for 20 mins in the covered pressure cooker before turn off the fire, release it's pressure and make sure the pot really cold before open it.

AMY

Cream Puff With Fresh Strawberry

I always love to bake and cook. It has become part of my life and how I always wish that I can have more time to spent on experimenting new recipes everyday. I like to try out new recipes but my first choice of the recipe to try shall be something that my kids would enjoy eating. I have started baking cream puffs 10 years ago. It was a recipe shared by a friend of my mother in-law. I use to bake cream puffs with her recipe until recently I think I have found another great one from KITCHEN CORNER. Thank you so much Grace!!

At first I just attracted to the lovely pictures of her cream puffs, beautifully decorated with fresh berries and look so yummy. I feel like want to have a bite on it. I give her recipe a try and I think I will stick to her recipe for cream puffs now. The puff appear to be more in shape and the custard taste just nice, not too sweet and not too thick. It's just GREAT !! (*hope you know what I mean here =)

Cream Puff Recipe (Yields 20 puffs)

For the Pastry:

70g plain flour

3 beaten eggs

100g water

60g unsalted butter

Pinch of sugar and salt


Method:

• In a cooking pan bring to boil water, butter, pinch of sugar and salt. Off the heat, add in the plain flour and mix with a wooden spoon until well combine and become smooth dough.
• Add in half of the beaten eggs and keep stirring until the egg mix into the mixture. Once the eggs completely mix with the dough, you will find it quite dry and hardly to mix.
• Continue add the beaten eggs slowly, little by little into the dough and continue mixing. You might not finish using the beaten eggs.
• Control adding the eggs to get a smooth and silky consistency of the mixture. When you spoon up the mixture, it should drop back to the pan very slowly. *The mixture should not too dry or too wet
• Transfer it into a piping bag and pipe out about 20 dollops of mixture on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
  
• Dip your fingers with some water and gently touch the top of the mixture. This is to prevent it over burning while it's baking in the oven. Then spray some water on the mixture surface. (Not too much)
• Bake at 200'C preheated oven for 15 minutes until it puff up then turn the temperature to 170'C and bake for another 15 minutes. Transfer the puff on a wire rack to cool down.

For the Custard Filling:

3 egg yolks

200ml milk

60g castor sugar

20g plain flour

10g unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract/essense

Ways to cook it:

• Boil the milk with sugar in low heat until sugar dissolve but not boiling. Meanwhile, mix the egg yolks and flour into thick paste but no lumps in it. *Add two tablespoon of milk if you find it too dry to mix.

• Pour the dissolve warm sugar milk mixture into the egg yolks mixture. Pour slowly, little by little and mix with a hand whisk until everything well combine (*strain the mixture if necessary) Then, pour back the mixture into the cooking pan. Cook in very low heat and keep stirring until it thicken.

• Once the mixture thicken, remove from the heat and keep stirring until the heat slightly cool down but slightly warm. Then add in the butter and vanilla extract. Continue stirring until well combine. (*It look silky smooth at this time)

• Transfer the custard into a plate and cover with cling film. Make sure the cling film touch on the mixture, this is to prevent it from skin forming on its surface.

• To assemble the cream puffs: Spoon in some custard fillings then sandwich it with some strawberries. Chill the puffs in the fridge before serve.

p/s: This recipe needs a lot of stirring. A very good hand exercise... hahaha!


Happy Trying & Enjoy!

AMY