Simmered Long Bean Rice

At times when the lazy bugs attacked me, I will cook this for my family. Easier, faster and less washing involved. This savoury rice are always my family's favourite. Just add in any ingredients of our choice. One of my family favourite are Yam Rice, Roasted Pork with Mustard Cabbage and Long Bean Rice.

Simmered Long Bean Rice Recipe

(A)

350g rice (wash, drained well) - I use Thai Fragrant Rice
600 ml water - *it depends to the type of rice we use*
1 tbsp chopped shallots

(B)

2 chicken drumsticks with thigh (skinned, cut into bite size)

200g long bean (cut into 2 inch or diced )
1 stalk chinese sausage (sliced or diced )
30g dried shirmps (chopped)


Marinade:

1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp "Shaoxing" cooking wine
salt to taste


For Garnishing:

some fried shallots
1 stalk spring onion

Method:

• Marinate chicken with the marinade ingredients for at least 2-3 hours.
• Heat up 2 tbsp oil, saute chopped shallots until fragrant. Add in entire ingredient (B), stir-fry briskly until aromatic.
• Add in rice and toss well. Remove, transfer to the electric rice cooker, pour in water. Cover and cook until the long bean rice is cooked through.
• Garnish it with fried shallots and spring onions. Serve warm.

*Note: Becareful when adding water to cook the rice. Add enough water for cooking rice, you can measure it before frying the rice. Too less or too much water will end up uncooked rice or the rice is too sticky.


HAVE A NICE DAY!!


AMY

Pandan Chiffon (Screwpine Chiffon)

Chiffon again!!! I hope you all won't get bored with my chiffon adventures here. Yeah, I've finally master it already. I was so happy when my friend tried the chiffon recipe here with a great success. I really happy when she told me her kids enjoyed the cake so much and repeatly asking her to bake chiffon for them.

Pandan (Screwpine) Chiffon are one of the most common chiffon we have here. We can always buy this at the bakery or morning market. I don't really like the one they sell out there as I found they use too much of pandan essense or pandan paste. The pandan smells too strong for me and sometimes they are too sweet as well. I use the recipe from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done and did a few changes to it, I always found his recipe very sweet and need to reduce the sugar used. I use my own way baking it too. The cake turn out soft and fluffy, very fragrant & very yummy! Do give it a try and tell me what do you think okay??

Chiffon cake are easy once you have master how to beat the egg whites foam. Make sure the egg whites you beat reached stiff peak before we mix it into the egg yolk mixture. ***Always use clean, dry, oil free mixing bowl for beating the egg whites. The egg white must not have any egg yolk in it, not even one drop of egg yolk. This are two important thing you must take note before start beating the whites.

Pandan Chiffon Recipe

- adapted from Kevin Chai's - Chiffon Cake Is Done

Egg Yolk Batter:

• 6 egg yolks (always use large eggs, room temperature)
• 80g caster sugar (I use 60g* and still a little sweet for my tastebuds, pls reduce it to 55g*)
• 150g coconut milk (I prefer the fresh coconut milk, thick one pls!)
• 2 tbsp pandan juice (I hand pound 8 pandan leaves with some water, use less water possible)
• 1/4 salt
• 1/4 tsp pandan essense (I use pandan paste and omit the green colouring)
• 1-2 drops green food colouring (omit this if you use pandan paste*)
• 4 tbsp cooking oil (I use sunflower oil)
• 140g plain flour

Egg Whites Foam:

• 6 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (I replace this with 15g of corn flour)
• 100g caster sugar

Method:

1. Egg yolk batter: Hand whisk egg yolks with sugar till it's a bit dissolved. In coconut milk, add in pandan juice, salt and pandan paste - it's already with green colouring in it. Stir to mix.
2. Pour the coconut mixture into the egg yolks and hand whisk to mix. Add cooking oil and mix well.
3. Fold in flour slowly until it forms batter and no lumps. Set aside.
4. Prepare the egg white foam: In another bowl, beat egg whites till it form soft peak. Gradually add in sugar till it finished. Add in corn flour and continue beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form.
5. Gently fold the beaten egg whites foam into egg yolks batter until it is well blended.
6. Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) chiffon pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c (I bake at 160c for 30mins) for 30-40mins or until it is cooked.
7. Remove cake from oven, immediately invert cake onto table.
8. Wait until it is completely cooled before unmould it.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Scones or English Biscuits??

I love it with blueberry jam *

My friend told me that this is English Biscuit. I don't know if this is scone or biscuit, I haven't tried the English Biscuit before. To my curiosity, I tried to bake this recipe shared by Happy Home Baking the other day. It's low fat, not too sweet and the texture are soft. My daughters even think that this is bread and ate 3 little scones at one go. She just love it!! I would like to thank HHB again for sharing this recipe. Thank you!

I make it smaller size and I get 13 scones with the recipe shared by HHB.

Please click HERE for the recipe of this yummy scones, or I shall said it's English Biscuit.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Thank You, Anncoo!

I would like to thank Anncoo of Anncoo's Hobby for award me this BEST BLOG AWARD. I really appreciate it. Thanks again Anncoo!

However this award come with some rules:

To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link.

-Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you've discovered and think are great!

-Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I would like to pass on this award to blogger as below, I found that their Blog are just GREAT!

• Let's Get Wokking - i just love the recipe shared in her blog!
• My Kitchen Snippets - her blog never stop inspired me, one of my favourite blog.
• Lucky Inn - she shared her success and failure with everyone. A nice blog!
• Daily Delicious - I love her blog and recipe she shared.
• Carol's Blog - check it out, you'll find something interesting in her blog.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate them.

AMY

Tom-Yum Chicken

People who knows me long enough will know that I love Thai food very much. I can make a one day trip to Hatyai, Southern Thailand just to enjoy the Thai food there. My appetite will boast when it come to this sweet, sour and spicy food. I will forget entirely about my diet plan or the big "sparetyre" around my waist ~ LOL..

- kaffir lime leaves -

Normally we will have the soup type Shirmp or Seafood Tom-Yum all the time. It's Tom-Yum paste cooked into soup with different seafood in it. Shirmp, squids, fish meat and clams with mushrooms, chilies and tomatoes. Lemon grass and kaffir leaves was added for the extra flavour. It was normally served with the rice noodles (bee hoon) which is has become one of my favourite Thai dishes, a must have when I visit Thai restaurant. It's just delicious, for those who haven't tried Tom-Yum before, please go and find out now!!

Today, I want to share with all of you one easy way to prepare this Tom-Yum recipe, Tom-Yum Chicken. This recipe are perfect for those who is working. Just marinade the chicken with all the ingredients a night before or in the morning if you want to cook it for dinner then just wrap it with aluminium foil before we bake them in the oven and Voila~ you'll have this delicious Tom-Yum Chicken for your lunch, teatime or dinner. Easy right??? This is what I did when I'm lazy to cook. No need to do a lot of washing and it really save a lot of time... hehe!! Lazy me!

Tom-Yum Chicken Recipe

5-6 large chicken drumsticks with thigh(skinned)

Ingredients for marinade:
2 tbsp Tom-Yum Paste (I use Peace Brand, I've tried and it's excellent!)
8-10 shallots (skinned)
5 clove garlics (skinned)
3 red chillies (seeded, cut into smaller pieces)
4-5 small hot chillies/cili padi (I omit this, my kids can't take it too spicy)
4 pieces kaffir leaves (cut into smaller pieces)
2 tbsp honey
some salt

For Garnishing:

lemon (cut into wedges)
some mints leaves

Method:
Wash chicken, remove skin and all the excessive fat. Use knife to cut few lines on it for better marinade.
Blend all the marinade ingredients until fine and in paste form. **Do not add water when blending them.
Rub the ground ingredients on chicken and marinate for at least 2 hours or preferably over night.
Preheated oven at 200c, wrap the chicken seperately with aluminium foil (can line it with a piece of banana leaves if you want-optional) and bake for 30-35 mins.
Serve warm with steamed rice or we can just eat the chicken alone.

Note: ***Adjust the flavour according to your own preference and it's also depend on brand of Tom-Yum paste used. When the chicken is cooked, there will be some chicken juice inside the aluminium foil. **Don't throw that away, that's the best Tom-Yum soup you can ever have!!*** hehe~

Enjoy Your Weekend & Happy Cooking!!!

AMY

Orange Chiffon

Again, another successful chiffon attempt and this time I baked Orange Chiffon, my kids favourite. It was a great surprise when I see all the comments left in my comment box. I never get so many comments at one time. I'm so happy. Thank you so much my dear friends!!

I decided to post the recipe of this Orange Chiffon now and let any of you who interested, can try it out. This is a good recipe and a successful one. Anyhow, this is my second time baking it. My first Orange Chiffon was snapped up in few minutes time, eaten by my group of girlfriends when they are at my house to see me demonstrate and show them how to bake chiffon the other day. I don't even have any chance to take a picture. The first Orange Chiffon turn out just as GREAT as this one. So, I truly recommend this recipe for all of you to try out.

Recipe adapted from Kevin Chai's ~ Chiffon Cake Is Done and I made some changes to suit my tastebuds. Here we GO!!!

Orange Chiffon Recipe

Egg Yolk Batter:

7 egg yolks (I use large size eggs, room temperature)
50g caster sugar (I reduce 10g and I found it's still too sweet*)
1/4 salt
4 tbsp cooking oil (I use Organic Sunflower Oil)
2 tbsp grated orange rind (I blend it using blender)
60ml orange juice (I squeeze juice from 1 orange)
few drops orange colouring (I omit this)
110g self-raising flour (I use cake flour)

Egg Whites Foam:

7 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar ~ I substitute it with 15g (approx: 1 tbsp) corn flour.
130g castor sugar

Method:

1. Prepare the egg yolk batter: In a mixing bowl, combine egg yolk, salt and sugar. Hand whisk till the sugar dissolved. Add in oil, orange rind and orange juice. Stir till well combined.
2. Fold in flour until it forms batter and no lumps left. Set aside for later use.
3. Prepare the egg white foam: In another bowl, beat egg whites till it form soft peak. Gradually add in sugar till it finished. Add in corn flour and continue beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form. **(Check with your finger, press on the egg whites and you can feel it's hard and the egg whites won't dropped out when you over turn the bowl)
4. Gently fold the beaten egg whites foam into egg yolks batter until it is well blended.
5. Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) chiffon pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c for 30-40mins or until it is cooked.
6. Remove from oven and immediately invert cake onto table until it is completely cooled before unmould it.

Happy Trying & Enjoy!!!

Note: For those who still new in baking chiffon, egg yolks and egg whites have to be seperated and place in different mixing bowl. Make sure you use the clean bowl and beater, free from oil to beat the egg whites. The process of beating egg whites are very important, make sure it is already in stiff peak foam before you started to mix it in the egg yolk mixture.

Click HERE to see my Orange Poppy Seeds Chiffon.

AMY

Cranberry & Raisin Scones

This was my very first time baking scones. I tried scones years back when I tour europe and I didn't have a good first impression on it. The scones there are rocky hard and I could hardly cut them half to spread the butter. I don't bother to learn baking them as I have bad impression for scones until I see this Blueberry Scones baked by Wendy - The Adventures Of Giggles

I was totally inspired by her lovely blueberry scones. Too bad, I can't get all those fresh blueberries here in Alor Star. I failed to get the frozen one as well, maybe not much people demanded for it. What I can get is only blueberry puree, the one which is more sticky like jam type and I can't use that to bake scones. To replace blueberry, I substitute them with dried cranberries and raisins. But, according to Wendy, blueberries are the BEST for scones. I really want to taste it now. Wendy, keep one for me okay?? lol

After I bake the scones, I totally change my impression toward it. The recipe shared by Wendy are fantastic! The scone are soft and yummy. Not too sweet and it's best eaten warm with some butter or fruit jam. However, I still prefer the eat them with butter. Do give it a try!!

I was lazy to retyped the recipe and please feel free to click HERE for the recipe from The Adventure Of Giggles!

**I substitute the blueberries with the same amount of dried cranberries & raisins mixture.

Happy Baking!

AMY

Nutella Cup Cakes

A quick bake for my kids and they loved it!!

Nothing will go wrong with Nutella. It's simply yummy on anything. If you are a chocolate lover ~ make sure you didn't miss this Nutella Cup Cakes. I have baked it many times and will repeat to bake it again and again in future.

Please refer HERE for the recipes. Do give it a TRY!! Cheerz~

Important Notes: ***I reduced 1-2 table spoon of sugar in the recipe as I found it's too sweet to my taste buds, the nutella itself are already sweet. I only add 1/2 teaspoon of Nutella chocolate spread on each cupcakes, don't add too much or it'll be too sweet and for those who don't like the buttery taste on cakes just substitute the butter with the same amount of margarine. HAPPY TRYING!! ***

AMY

Pizza ~ Simply Tasty!!

Once a while, my 3 kids will crave for Pizza when they are getting bored with rice. Taking the kids out to dine at Pizza Hut are quite expensive, I might as well bake one myself. I can't afford to bring them out too often, each trip normally will end up spending RM50-RM60 sometimes more, including all the side orders like chicken wings, garlic bread, salad, mushroom soup and drinks. Sigh..! economy so bad, must save a bit ~ lol

Pizza are very well depended on the sauce used and the most important part is CHEESE. It didn't went wrong with a lot of cheese and it's not hard at all to bake our own pizza. Mix all the ingredient for the crust and let it proof for 20-30minutes. Spread the dough on pizza pan and top it with our favourite toppings ~ tuna, bacon, hotdog, mushrooms...etc, etc. I used this Prego Pasta sauce on my pizza and it taste fantastic!!

Baked this pizza for my kids so, I made their favourite toppings - hotdog, mushroom, onion, pineapple and a lot of cheese...yum, yum!! I use Mozzarella cheese. If you are cheese lover, you can always spinkles some Parmesan cheese powder on pizza before serving for more cheesey flavour. I'm hungry now, when think of the pizza...haha!

Pizza in the oven

Look at the melted cheese...at this time you can smell the yummy pizza from the oven.

For the PIZZA recipe, please click HERE!



Believe me or not?? It's simply tasty!!

AMY

Thank You, Tracie !!

I would like to thank Bitter Sweet Flavours - Tracie for giving me this Kreativ Blogger Award. This is the first award I got since I started blogging...hehe! Thanks again sweetie!!

When I first look at Tracie's Blog, it doesn't even come across my mind that she is only 18 years old college girl. When I was her age, the only cake that I bake is Butter Cake, nothing more than that. She is a genius, very smart girl. Look at her latest post on the Chocolate Banana Cake, it really impressed me, the cake look no different with the one sold in Secret Recipes. Congrats, girl!! I wish my 2 girls will grown up to be like her, a very creative girl !!


The Kreativ Blogger Award comes with some rules:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated

Okay, now let me share 7 facts about myself :

1. I love the smell of the freshly baked cakes, bread or cookies out from oven.
2. I love to walk bare foot on soft sandy beach. Enjoy the wind & sound of waves.
3. I love to collect recipe books, mostly are books with pretty pictures of cakes or desserts.
4. My life will be boring and dull without chocolate and ice-cream. I love vanilla flavoured ice-cream with Bailey...Yumm!! (I love to have ice-cream on winter time-when it's extremely chill~lol*)
5. I love THAI food the most and I enjoy Japanese food as well, sashimi ~ slurppsS
6. I wish I could have more time to bake and cook. I got so many recipes lining up, waiting for me to try out...hehe!
7. My other hidden talent is knitting and I don't have time for it now, I'm too BUSY!

The next seven 'Kreativ Blogger' holders would be..

1. Fad About Food - Constance, she is my very first blogger friend who encourage me to have my own food blog. My best pal and I miss her.
2. The Adventures Of Giggles - Wendy, we have been friends for more than 15 years since college days. She finally found her beloved hubby, married and now residing in Arizona, USA.
3. My Kitchen - Lydia Teh, I love the collection of recipes in her blog and the beautiful foodie pictures in her blog.
4. Kitchen Corner - Grace, her success in baking chiffon without cream of tartar and baking powder inspires me to try out her recipe. I love her blog a lot.
5. Tartelette - I love her unique creations and everything in her blog.
6. Closet Cooking - Kevin, his cooking never fails to impress me, he is a GREAT chef !
7. Nasi Lemak Lover - Sonia, I always found her blog very informative and interesting. One of the blog I will repeatly visit and read.

AMY

Moist Chocolate Cake, Anyone???

This is the best chocolate cake I've ever tried. I baked the Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake not too long ago and was wondering how is this oven baked Moist Chocolate Cake turn out, will it be nice?? Anyway, I stumbled upon this wonderful recipe at My Kitchen (original recipe is from kak izan on MyR) This recipe is definitely a keeper. Try it and you will know why I'm saying so...hehe!!

I LOVE everything that is related with chocolate. So, I decided to give this recipe a TRY!! Ya, this cake turn out almost perfect, moist and rich in chocolatey taste. It's worth a try if you are one of the chocolate craze out there.

I use Hershey's natural unsweetened cocoa powder to bake this cake. This is one of my favourite brand for cocoa powder. However, I still found the cake are a bit on the sweet side. I will reduce the amount of sugar use on my next bake. My kids enjoying eating it so much, they just love it!

Ingredients:
(5"x8" loaf pan)

Chocolate Paste:
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp instant coffee (optional)
1/4 cup castor sugar (reduce 1-2 tbsp if you prefer it less sweet)
1/2 cup hot water
1/4 cup evaporated/fresh milk (I use low fat milk)

pinch of salt

125g butter, softened
1 cup castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essense
2 large eggs

1 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder

Method:

• Grease and line bottom of cake pan with baking paper and preheat the oven to 180c.
• Combined all ingredients for chocolate paste except MILK in a mixing bowl. Hand whisk mixture till sugar are fully dissolved.
• Add in milk, stir to mix well. Set aside.
• Sift cake flour and baking powder together for later use.
• In another bowl, cream butter and sugar till it is light and fluffy. Add vanilla essense and continue with eggs one at a time. Beat till well combined.
• Gently fold in flour mixture, alternate with the chocolate paste. *Start with flour and end with flour.
• Pour batter into cake pan and bake for 45-50 minutes or till it is cooked.
• Leave it to cool before unmould the cake.

One of the BEST chocolate cake EVER!!

AMY

Ayam Kurma (Kurma Chicken)

This is my youngest daughter's favourite. What's the different between this Kurma Chicken with other curry out there? It's more yellowish in colour and it's not hot at all, slightly in the sweet side. With the use of different spices, it taste totally different with the normal curry we always had. My kids just love it with a lots of potatoes and tomatoes.

Let me share on how I cook this yummy "Ayam Kurma" here.


Ingredients:

600gm chicken/meat (1/2 chicken), cut into pieces

Blend together:
4 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
1 green chili, seeded
1 inch ginger

1 packet of Adabi Kurma curry spices (mix it with some water to form curry paste)*
1 lemon grass, smashed
1 inch stick cinnamon

2 candlenuts (grounded)
1 piece tamarind skin (can replace it with some tamarind juice)

3 potatoes, skinned and cut
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
1 large onion, cut into wedges

1 cup of coconut milk (reduce it if you prefer it less santan taste, adjust according to your own liking)

some cooking oil
sugar & salt to taste

-this is ADABI KURMA spices -

Method:

1. In a wok, heat some oil. Add in the blended ingredients, lemon grass and cinnamon. Saute until it's fragrant.
2. Add in Adabi Kurma paste and ground candlenuts. Stir till it's a bit dry and fragrant until the oil appears on top of it, keep on stirring it to prevent the curry paste sticks on the wok (At this time, we can lower the heat and this take sometime to cook it)
3. Add in the chicken pieces, stir to until all the chicken is cover with the paste and change colour, slightly pale. Add in some water and let it cook for a while.
4. Pour in the coconut milk, add in the potatoes. Let it cook till the potatoes are soft (we can always boil the potatoes half-cooked ahead)
5. Add the tamarind skin, salt and sugar to taste (I didn't add any sugar as I found the curry is already sweet)
6. Lastly, add in the tomatoes and onions wedges. Stir and let it cook till the tomatoes and onions are cooked.
7. Serve warm with steamed rice or tomato rice.
   
   
   

I hope you all can try to cook this at home. A good dish to prepare when there are gatherings or party.

Wish you all a wonderful weekend and Happy Cooking !

AMY

Fried Eggs With Preserved Sweet Turnip & Onion

Both my girls loved egg dishes so much. When I was out of idea on what to cook, I will just did this simple fried eggs for my family. I got all the ingredients in my fridge and what I do is just cut and chopped and put all the ingredients together, season it with some soy sauce and fried it...Easy right???


To make this simple egg dish, we need:

4 eggs (beaten)
1 large onion (sliced)
2 tbsp chopped preserved sweet turnip (cai por)
1 tsp soy sauce
some cooking oil for frying

Method:

• Cracked the eggs in a bowl, add soy sauce and beat it to mix.
• Heat the wok with some cooking oil.
• Saute the onion slices until it's fragrant, add in the chopped preserved sweet turnip and stir-fried for 2 second (lower the heat if the wok is too hot)
• Spread the fried onion and preserved turnip in the wok and pour in the beaten eggs on it.
• Do not move the eggs for few minutes (lower the heat to prevent the eggs got burnt)
• Check on the eggs if it already cooked before we flipped over and continue to fry the other side (add a little more oil if the eggs sticks to the wok)
• Dish up and serve warm with steamed rice.

Happy Cooking!

AMY

Chocolate Marble Chiffon

After successfully baking my very first chiffon cake - Banana Chiffon Cake. I straight got hooked to this new method of baking cake. All the while I will just bake butter cake and cupcakes or muffins. As mentioned in my previous Banana Chiffon Cake post, I don't bother to learn baking chiffon cake as we can easily get them in the supermarket or morning market. But, after all I don't think we can get the banana flavour, chocolate marble chiffon, green tea flavour etc..etc.. out there, right?..

I think I have found a chiffon's cake master - Kitchen Corner, most of the chiffon cake she baked turn out fantastic and I hope to try out all her recipes. What attract me to try out her recipe beside viewing on her yummy cake pics is her chiffon recipe without the use of baking powder, soda bicarbonate or the cream of tartar. Amazing right??? I always limit the use of flavour essense or food colouring in all my baking. I got excited when I know I can bake a cake without baking powder and cream of tartar. Simply interesting right?? and,.. the cake turn out GREAT! Soft and spongy, not too moist or too dry. It's just perfect!

I modify the recipe from Kitchen Corner to fix my size 23cm cake pan. I reduce some sugar as I still found it is still a bit sweet. Guess what, I bake this Chocolate Marble Chiffon twice in one day. My first cake all gone in 30mins time. I give half of the cake to my mother in law. My kids each had 2 slices for breakfast. As I wanted to give some to my parent as well, so I bake another cake...hehe! The second cake turn out with even nicer marble pattern or effect... yeah!! I can bake it very well already~ hahaha! Oh well, practice makes perfect right? teehee..

Here is the recipe I modify from Kitchen Corner
(my recipe is for 23cm cake pan, please refer to recipe at Kitchen Corner if you are using a 21cm cake pan)

Chocolate Marble Chiffon Recipe:

(A)
95g egg yolks
25g caster sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp honey (optional)

(B)
80g cooking oil (I use corn oil)
80g water

(C)
95g flour (I use cake flour)

(D)
10g cocoa powder
10g flour

(E)
240g egg whites
120g caster sugar (I reduced to 110g)
15g corn flour

Method:

1. Cream ingredient (A) with hand whisk till sugar dissolved.
2. Add in ingredient (B) in respective order and mix well before adding the next item.
3. Fold in ingredient (C) and mix till no lumps.
4. Divide the egg yolks mixture into two equal portion in two separate mixing bowl.
5. Mix 10g flour into one of the egg yolks mixture and 10g cocoa powder into the other bowl of egg yolks mixture respectively. Mix well till no lumps.
6. Beat egg whites in a clean large bowl until soft foam. Gradually add in sugar, one tablespoon at a time and finally add in corn flour. Mix well.
7. The egg whites mixture should be peak foam, smooth and shiny.
8. Gently fold in half of the egg whites mixture into the cocoa egg yolk mixture and plain mixture accordingly until well combined (Note: Make sure the egg whites are well combined with the egg yolks mixture, do it slowly and gently without breaking the egg whites)
9. To assemble the marble effect: Spoon in the plain batter to three or four different corner of the 23cm cake pan, then continue to cover the plain batter with cocoa batter. Layer by layer till the end. Bake at preheated oven at 170c for 35-45 minutes or till it's cooked.
10. Invert the cooked cake immediately on a wire rack until it's completely cool before remove the cake from cake pan.

HAPPY BAKING!

AMY

Butter Raisin Cupcakes

On Thursday, I bring my 3 kids to pray at a temple near Naka. It's about 1 hour drive from Alor Star. The temple there held the candle lighting prayer. It's believe will bring us brighter future and success in whatever we do. I bake this butter raisin cupcakes and bring it along, just in case my kids hungry they can have a bite on it. A quick bake, nothing fussy or complicated ~ 12 Butter Raisin Cupcakes are ready in less than an hour time.

Tada... here is my 12 yummy cupcakes!!!!

Ingredients needed for baking this yummy cupcakes:

This recipe yields 12 cupcakes

140 g butter, softened
110 g castor sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essense (increase it to 1 tsp if you prefer it more vanilla flavour)
200 g cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
45 g raisin

Method:

• Sieve cake flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
• Cream butter and castor sugar till it's pale and light (Approx. 2 mins)
• Add in egg one at a time and mix till it's well combined.
• Add in vanilla essense.
• Preheat oven at 170c.
• Fold in flour mixture slowly until finished all the flour.
• Lastly, add raisin and mix well.
• Scoop the batter into cupcake liners and bake in the preheated oven for 30 mins or till it's golden brown colour and cooked.

A very easy recipe for baking newbie out there. Do give it a try!!

P/S: If you wish to add more raisin, reduce the amount of sugar used or it'll be too sweet.

HAPPY BAKING!

AMY

(Non-Halal) Braised Fried Pork Belly - Hakka Style（客家炸肉）

Braised Pork Belly - Hakka Style（客家炸肉）。This is one of my mother in-law signature dishes and one of our family's favourite. My mother in-law will cook this dishes whenever there are special occasions like Chinese Lunar New Year, etc. Although we are not "Hakka" but we just simply cannot resist this yummy dishes of "Hakka" people. In "Hokkien" we call it "Zhar Bak" means "Fried Meat". The used of 'reddish cheese' - （南乳）make it taste differently with other meat dishes we have and I love the black fungus in the dish. It's yummy!

Ingredients A:

1kg pork belly with skin
100g black fungus (soaked & cut into biting size)
30g chopped garlic
1 stalk coriander (sectioned)
1 1/2 tbsp plain flour
1000ml water

Ingredients B:

150g shallots
8 garlic cloves

Marinade:

1 egg (beaten)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp lime juice
1 1/4 pieces reddish cheese（南乳）
1 tsp five spices powder
2 tbsp rose wine

Seasoning:

1/4 tsp reddish cheese（南乳）
1/4 tsp five spices powder
1/2 tbsp "Shaoxing" wine
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

• Blend ingredients B finely become paste and squeeze, reserved the shallot and garlic juice. Set aside.
• Clean and cut the pork belly into small pieces. Marinate it with the marinade ingredients and the shallot & garlic juice (ingredients B), marinate for at least 4-5 hours or preferably overnight in the fridge wrapped with cling wrap.
• Coat the meat with plain flour and deep fried into hot oil at high heat until it's golden brown in colour. Dish out and leave aside.
• Leave 2 tbsp oil in the wok, fragrant 1 tsp chopped garlic, add in water, seasoning and bring to boil.
• Place in pre-fried pork belly pieces and black fungus, bring to boil. Cover, simmer at low heat for 30-40 minutes until the pork belly pieces are tender and the flavour has been absorbed.
• Lastly, add in the remaining chopped garlic and mix well. Cook for further 5 minutes, sprinkle with coriander. Dish up and serve warm.

P/S: This dish will be tastier if we keep overnight. We can always prepare this dish one day ahead and keep it in the fridge before we heat it and serve.

Just in case you don't know what's reddish cheese/red fermented beancurd（南乳）or how it looks like??

source of picture from flickr Piggy

HAPPY COOKING!!

AMY

Banana Chiffon Cake

Chiffon cake is one of my favourite cake. I love it's spongy and soft texture, not too oily and very light. I don't even bother to find out it's recipe as I can get it at the market with cheap price. A friend of mine, Ai Lee borrow me her Chiffon Cake Is Done - Bake with Kevin Chai recipe book the other day. After flipped over the pages and read it, I finally make up my mind to try this Banana Chiffon Cake since I have all the ingredients needed.

-the top of the cake after 3hrs cooling time-

-texture of the cake ~it's very soft and spongy-

This recipe will be a great keeper for sure. My first chiffon cake turn out GREAT! The texture of the cake are just nice, it's soft and spongy, not too moist or dry. I follow exactly the ingredient stated in the book without reduce the amount of sugar and the sweetness of the cake are just nice, not too sweet. I omitted the usage of banana essense and colouring. However, this cake still contain natural sweet banana smells on it even though without the usage of banana essense.

-my first chiffon cake-

Ingredients:

Egg Yolk Batter

6 egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
60ml corn oil
170g banana puree
1/2 tsp banana essense (optional)
50g caster sugar
few drops yellow colouring (optional)
110g plain flour (I use super soft flour)
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Egg White Foam

6 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
100g caster sugar

Method:

• To make egg yolk batter: Combine egg yolks, salt, oil, banana puree, essense (if you are using), sugar and colouring (if you are using) in a mixing bowl. Mix till well combined.
• Fold in flour and bicarbonate of soda until forms batter. (sieve the flour with soda first before mix it in the egg yolk mixture)
• To make egg white foam: Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until mixture forms soft peaks. Gradually add in sugar, beating at high speed until frothy and stiff peaks form. (*make sure the bowl and the mixer use to beat the egg whites are free from oil*)
• Gently fold the beaten egg white foam into egg yolk batter until it's well blended.
• Pour batter into ungreased 9" (22cm) tube cake pan. Bake in preheated oven at 170c for 30-40 minutes or until it's cooked.
• Remove from oven, invert cake onto table until it's completely cooled before unmould it.

This is a worth-try recipe. Do give it a try when you free.

HAPPY BAKING!!

AMY