Wake Up and Smell the Cake

Made apple cobblers instead of the usual apple muffins, because I wanted to try something with less sugar/flour and more apples. I made 6, using my Daiso ramekins that rarely come out of the cupboard. Surprisingly the Husband said it's yummy. Took the recipe from the first website I came across, food.com . Apple Cobbler 4 apples, peeled and diced 1 cup flour 1 cup sugar (can reduce) 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder 1 egg 1/2 cup butter, melted Cut the apples and coat them with the cinnamon powder. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, sugar and egg together. Sprinkle the flour mixture on top, then pour the melted butter over. Bake for 30-40 minutes until top is browned and crispy. On hindsight, if the butter was mixed with the flour mixture, I suspect it'll be fine too. Somehow I feel like it's missing something. It's sweet, but not lemak. Not like pie. Maybe cos there's too much sugar. Maybe I'd prefer an apple pie crust instead.

Repeat recipe: Tyler Florence's Banana Muffins I've been wanting to make banana muffins over the weekend to use up the leftover bananas and yoghurt sitting in the fridge. Finally got some time yesterday night. My little girl sorta helped, it's not always that she wants to bake! I have lots of chocolates here and there and I can't possibly eat them all. Here I've used up 24 mini Toblerones muahahaha. I still have another 2 bags of mini Toblerones though! I don't know why but they don't taste as good anymore. I'm quite picky with chocolates these days. A sign that I'm getting older, plus I don't want to waste calories cos it's so hard to burn! Speaking of burning calories! I've been getting comments that I look slimmer, or that my face is slimmer now (must be the tudung) but honestly I feel the same. I still have babats and my flat tummy target is far from achieved. But at least my butt doesn't jiggle as much when I jog, cos tha

Haven't posted for so long! Not that I haven't been cooking, but all aren't new recipes. This year I made 1 less kuih compared to last year, since I'm always the one finishing these cookies. So it's the usual Almond London, Kuih Tart and Chocolate Chip Cookies. Last Saturday was my little girl's second birthday. We made no big celebration, just us 4 at home with a little Hello Kitty cake :) I made the cake on Saturday morning, before we went to the swimming pool. But cos I couldn't wait for the cake to cool, I left it in the pan and when we came back, the bottom sides were sticking to the pan noooooo. But I oiled it already :( So here's the outcome. Sigh. Whipped some whipping cream to cover it up, but after 10 minutes on medium-high and still no peaks and we had to go Raya visiting already, so I left the whisk, bowl and cream in the fridge. Whipped it again (about 7 minutes on speed 4 out of 6 on my Kitchenaid) at night and YAY! It worked!

I made a batch of double chocolate banana muffins to clear my yoghurt and overripe bananas and I used a recipe I've tried before, here . 1 ½ cups self raising flour (if not then add 1 tsp of baking powder & baking soda each) ½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (Valrhona) 1 egg, well beaten ½ cup yoghurt 1 cup granulated sugar ½ cup canola oil 1 ¼ cups mashed, ripened bananas (~3 large bananas) Semi-sweet chocolate chips These are really good! Easy and yummy, very chocolaty! I also made sausage aglio olio with bell peppers, mushrooms and cili padi of course, for this week's packed brunch. Remind me not to buy sausages again, even if they're gourmet. The amount of fat that was left after cooking was just scary. Not to mention they harden when cooled. I managed to scoop out the excess oil, but the veges were already coating in them. Oh wells. Lesson learnt.

Back from the long weekend! Spent two days fully at home, cooking and baking. So happy. Day 1 was sindhi briyani and Almond London . Day 2 was ayam lemak cili padi and a batch of almost Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies , but I split the batter into 2: hazelnut, white chocolate, cranberry combination and hazelnut, dark chocolate chip combination. I made the cranberry ones first, they taste awesome. But after I ate the chocolate chip one, say bye bye to cranberry! Nothing beats chocolate. And the white chocolate chips somehow dissolved into the batter, melted. What to do, it's just white chips from Redman. I should try a better brand instead.  Happy new year indeed!

Yes I finally made them! I thought I'd take about 2 days but I finished them in the morning. That's pretty quick! Got up early to do the pandan cupcakes first, no one to disturb me. Decided to make the frosting before storing the cakes since I had the time. Recipe adapted from here . Pandan Cupcake 125g butter 2 eggs 150g sugar 200g self raising flour 3 tbsp homemade pandan extract 80g coconut milk +20g water Coconut cream cheese frosting (aka experiment) 250g cream cheese 120g butter Finished off my icing sugar, probably 3/4 cup Splashes of coconut milk Grated coconut Some gula melaka syrup Cream the butter and sugar like the normal cake method. Add eggs one by one until batter incorporated. Add in the flour and milk mixture in a flour - milk - flour sequence. Since I didn't use any green colouring, my cupcakes turned out pale green. The top is more brown that green too. Made holes using a knife and ate all those cut out pieces huahuahua. That

Have been away so long! It's been the long weekend but weird enough I didn't cook, except for the normal cook for kids. I did do lots of laundry, and in between made some oreo muffins and kuih bakar, same recipe as before . Oreo Muffins 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup milk 1/3 cup sour cream 1 egg 1/4 cup butter, softened 20 oreo cookies Chocolate chips Could have reduced the baking powder by a bit, since I have tasted slight bitter taste in some of the muffins. Or I might have not mixed well. The muffins the next day taste better. I have some more oreo cookies, enough for another batch. Would probably bake and bring for family gathering this weekend! No pictures! Again, haha.

Excess tart shells + cheese about to expire = mini cheese tarts. Easy peasy cos the tart shells are pre-made, so all I had to do was to bake the shells, make the cheese filling and bake again! My son wanted to help so I got him to fill the shells with the cream cheese mixture. He's more descriptive now, and it's a joy to hear his comments and questions. Found this recipe from the facebook group Baking's Corner, since someone posted just a couple of days ago, hence the inspiration. Cream Cheese Filling 500g cream cheese 40g butter 2 eggs 120g sugar Beat all the ingredients together until no lumps, using a handheld electric mixer. Scoop a tablespoonful of filling and fill the baked tart shells. Note: Tart shells were baked at 180 degrees Celsius for 14 minutes and left to cool before filling can be poured in. Bake the filled cheese tart for 10-12 minutes untill cooked. The tart shells have a milk powderish taste, which doesn't feel like what shortcr

I love apples in cakes but sometimes the amount of apple is just too little. I had 6 apples to use up, and I figured, why not try replicate Swensen's apple crumble! So I searched for apple crumble cake, which some call the German apple cake. This recipe is by allrecipes UK . Apple Crumble Cake For the cake base: 100g butter (I used 30g butter, 70g oil cos I was lazy to thaw more butter) 100g brown sugar 200g flour 1 tbsp baking powder 3 eggs Apple layer: 6 apples, peeled and diced sprinkle of cinnamon Juice of 1/2 lemon Crumble top: 125g butter 125g sugar (can reduce to 100 next time) 150g flour Mix the cake base like a normal cake/muffin method and pour into an 8 or 9 inch springform pan lined with baking paper. Important to always line the tin! Mix the apples with the cinnamon and juice, then layer over the cake base. You can press in the apples into the cake base so that the cake won't be apple-less haha. Using your fingers, mix the crumble ingredi

Today my baby boy is celebrating Children's Day in school and everyone was to bring goodies or food. I made brownies for him to bring since they are easy to transport and they're chocolatey. Kids like that right? I tried another recipe, one which is more trustworthy. Hershey's! I had Hershey's cocoa to use up too. It is a perfect go to brownie recipe! I don't usually come across 4 egg brownie recipes but that made this brownies more moist and less prone to being hard in case of overbaking. I made one batch yesterday morning before work as a test, and since it was good, I made another this morning but with nuts and some chocolate chips for the office and our home. This is husband approved! :) Two batches worth of brownies Hershey's Brownies 225g unsalted butter 1/4 tsp salt 4 eggs 2 cups sugar 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1 cup flour 1/2 tsp baking powder Melt the butter and mix with the salt and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and incorporate int

Finally baked something over the weekend! I got my little boy to help me even though he was feeling all sorts of tummy aches and having fever. Made a simple butter cake, and the pan was chosen by the boy too. Marble Bundt Cake 225g butter 250g sugar 4 eggs 65g almond flour 240g self raising flour 1 cup evaporated milk 2 heaps of Hershey's cocoa powder Little boy brought his Boulder transformers along, and he helped with weighing, mixing and making patterns. Had a good weekend, going to USS for family day. Only took 3 rides though cos the boy's fever shot up again by noon. Tonight I'm gonna try make chicken baked rice for tomorrow's sahur. I did it before but I didn't write down the recipe, have to start from scratch again sigh.

Finally got down to making some egg tarts and using up my store bought tart shells. I got them from Phoon Huat, and intended to make some savoury tarts for guests but those were just my never ending dreams. And another of my dream is to make sabsuka, and hence 2 dozen eggs in my fridge plus 2kg of minced meat in the freezer. I know right. Ha. Ha. Eggs need to be used up first, and after sifting through many recipes, I found one simple one that uses low fat milk which I have. None other than one of my favourite sites, Baking Bites ! They use only egg yolks. The egg whites I decided to make a fritatta of some sort but didn't turn out too well so not sharing it here. Egg Tarts 5 medium egg yolks 2/3 cup low fat milk splash of vanilla oil 1/2 cup sugar Whisk all together, pour into a measuring cup for easy pouring into the tart shells. Take tart shells out of the freezer and pour the custard in. Bake for 17-20 minutes at 170 degrees. These are husband-approved! Thoug

After a few failed attempts at chocolate chip cookies (they spread out and get stuck to the pan), my cookie confidence is boosted after this recipe! There's a few types of recipes claiming to be famous amos choc chip cookies, and I tried the one which looks easiest. Which is the real famous amos? ;) I bought coffee oil which supposedly gives the "free smells", and now my larder smells of coffee haha. Got the recipe from here , but it's been on so many blogs. 225g unsalted butter, softened 200g brown sugar (on hindsight maybe if I used normal sugar it'll be more crunchy?) 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 tsp coffee oil 1 egg Seeds from 1 vanilla pod 1/4 cup oats, processed to bits in a chopper 1/4 cup ground almond LOTS of semi-sweet chocolate chips 300g self-raising flour (I used normal flour + 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda) At least 2 hours or the night before, beat egg with vanilla and coffee oil to infuse. Refrigerate. Beat butter, suga

This is a long overdue post! But I have to finish it anyway because of the recipe I'd like to use in the future. Few Saturdays ago I made sugee cake like FINALLY. I bought semolina flour after my little shopping trip to Phoon Huat, among other things haha. I made one batch with one pack of butter, but made into 2 cakes of 7 inches each. Sugee Almond Cake adapted from Guai Shu Shu 225g butter 225g sugar 225g almond meal 225g semolina flour vanilla 1 tbsp baking powder 5 eggs 50ml milk Using the electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add vanilla, eggs one by one and mix well. Mix in the almond meal and semolina flour and baking powder, then milk. Bake in the oven at 170 degrees for about 45 minutes or more depending on the thickness of your cake. I like the fact that this cake rose levelly unlike my usual butter cakes done by hand (maybe mixer's the trick), or maybe the ingredients play a part. The plain cake Passionfruit version! I added ab

I guess this has to be the healthiest muffins I've ever made. I made them this morning for breakfast. Very quick, mixing + baking + cooling took about an hour. It's a win-win muffin of sorts; trying to clear my oats, bananas and yoghurt, and at the same time make a healthy snack to hopefully boost my milk production. I adapted the recipe from here , but I don't have a huge food processor (I have those small ones that comes with the blender, and the baby food steamer cum processor) hence I couldn't blend all in. I just processed the sugar and oats together and mixed with the other ingredients. 2 cups oats 1/4 cup sugar 3 medium ripe bananas 1 cup yoghurt 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 2 eggs It's amazing, no oil! They turned out moist, but because I didn't process the oats to be really fine, it kinda tasted like eating cooked oatmeal. But still good cos it has a bite and even the Husband said it's okay. I added chocolate covertures

Too many bananas over the weekend! We had one bunch, and I took home another bunch from a family gathering. Googled all sorts of banana recipes from pies to cakes to ice cream. Managed to use up 15 bananas which is a lot, and I still have about 6 more. Hurhur. Saturday morning I made jemput-jemput pisang, then I made chocolate banana spring rolls to be refrigerated and fried later, and in the afternoon I took out my Kenwood for some banana cake. Moist Banana Cake with Greek Yoghurt from Baking Bites 3 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 227g butter, softened (the recipe used half cup butter, half cup oil) 2 cups sugar 3 eggs 1 tbsp vanilla 1 cup plain Greek yoghurt 1 1/2 cups mashed banana (they said approx 3 large, but I used 8 medium sized ones) Cream butter with sugar, then add the eggs one at a time. Add in half of the flour, then the greek yoghurt, and then rest of the flour. I used my Kenwood mixer for these! Haha so happy can us

I was so determined to make bread that I woke up at 5.30 as I do on weekdays. And I did it! So happy :) I did one recipe of sweet bun that I learnt in my breads course. Totally love my Kenwood mixer! Here's to many more bakes using the Kenwood! I got the Titanium Major, the bowl's huge at 6.7 litres. But you'll never know when you need a big one, and since I'm buying this for long term use, might as well buy a very good and reliable one. Bosch seems good too with a huge power output. Anyway. Here are the pictures! So after mixing the dough in the mixer for about 12 minutes, here it is after some kneading using the hand. Left for proofing for an hour. Good thing I can use my counter top to knead dough! It doubled! So happy! I asked my son if he wanted to punch the dough, he touched it instead -_- He didn't want to punch it because he said it was sticky. Haha. Knead and then design, I made into butter buns and raisin cranberry rolls. Got 10 x 60g bu

So I finally did something with the speculoos spread. Made it into a cheesecake with the biscoff biscuits as the base! As usual I engaged my little boy for some help. I let him beat up the biscuits in the ziploc bag and he loved it so much! He said he was very excited hahaha. This recipe was a campak2 recipe, I based on a few websites I saw, and pretty much used whatever I had in the fridge. Speculoos Cheesecake 30 biscoff biscuits, crushed 25g melted butter 2x 8oz cream cheese 3 eggs 1/4 cup yoghurt 1/4 cup thickened cream 300g speculoos spread 150g sugar Add melted butter to crushed biscoff biscuits, then transfer to an 8 inch springform pan and flatten to make the crust. Use a mixer to mix the rest of the ingredients together, then pour into the pan and bake for about 50-55 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius. I was supposed to use a water bath method but my oven can't fit the 9x13 inch roasting pan hurhur. It turned out fine, with some cracks near the sides,

I attended my first ever baking class, bread module and I love what I learnt! I've always been scared of making breads because of the fear that the bread won't rise and I don't know how to knead. So I decided to attend a class at Zan's Treats. We learnt two basic recipes, one for savoury one for sweet bun. And we made 7 types from it. The dough was mixed in the mixer using the dough hook, then kneaded a bit before proofing. We did it in pairs so one set of dough per person. Look at the dough! So high it stretched the cling wrap! Made a pattern for this so it'll look nice haha And ta-da!!  So exciting! I am now more confident of making breads. I hope I can make it without a mixer, I only have the handheld one and my two hands huahuahua. I wanna make cinnamon buns too!

I took overripe bananas from my mum last Friday to make cake, and it turned out wonderful! Made banana walnut muffins and once again I used another recipe (hurhur) and this time I promise I will not look for any other banana cake recipes huahuahua. Cos this one is husband approved! I like this one because it uses oil instead of butter and less than my mum's banana bread. I added 2 splashes (haha what a unit of measurement) of buttermilk to make it moist and fluffy. Banana Walnut Muffins from Tyler Florence 3/4 cup oil (they used melted butter) 2 cups flour 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda 1 cup sugar 1 bowl mashed overripe bananas (5 pieces) 2 eggs 2 splashes haha of buttermilk, maybe about 1/3 cup chopped walnuts In the big bowl, mix together flour, bicarbonate soda and sugar. Mix the wet ingredients together: oil, eggs and buttermilk. Buttermilk should be added here but when I was doing, I added in last because the batter was thick and I wanted i