A Layered Cake for Bake Along 1st Anniversary

It is our Free and Easy Bake Along 1st Anniversary! I would like to thank our co hosts, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours who first initiated this bake together and also Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, both of whom at one point we were all completely strangers to now have become wonderful friends. I'm very glad that i had the opportunity to meet Joyce and Zoe in person last year, something that i've always been looking forward to after all those communications through blogs and emails. Never was there an awkward or uncomfortable moment talking to them..you know, Joyce has a very cheerful and bubbly personality, always makes me laugh and Zoe, a very fun and sporting person, giving me so much warmth when i met her. Believe me, we do have our differences  at times but i would call that good differences that we are able to understand each other more and enable us to be more honest in our opinions. They are always so kind and helpful to me, guiding me how to do this and that, coordinating the bake along and so on.

our first anniversary

I would also want to take this time to thank some of you who have been always joining us baking together . Peng, Angeline, Anuja, Alice, Jeannie, Abbygail, Jasline, Vivian, Emily, Mimi Bakery House, Eileen it's always delighting to have all of you around, a big thank you! Not forgetting Yan, Yvonne, Mui Mui, Riceball joining us for the first time in the last two bake along, hope to see you gals joining again and also to Sonia, Laura, Wai Kitt, Baking Addict, Veena,Radhika ,Rebecka and Angel for your previous participation. I believe that we have got so much to share and learn from each other, it's always nice to get to know someone new in the group and again, if it's not for blogging, i wouldnt have known all of you including my blogger friends who drop by regularly here. So cheers everyone!!

how about the candles represent me, joyce and zoe..hahaha...

I'm not going to write the entire recipe making this cake but included here are the links where i had earlier sourced from. It's a white cake filled with layers of lemon curd and swiss meringue buttercream. While i find that the white sponge is a little dense for my liking, the tangy lemon curd and the smooth buttercream complements each other very well. Initially what i wanted to do for its decorations were piped flowers everywhere surrounding the whole cake but it was already too ugly with me just piping a few of them , my fault, my piping skills...uurrgh...so i ended up doing  a shapeless, nameless design..really i dont know what i was piping! LOL!

Sponge cake - Dorie's Perfect Party Cake taken from here. I used two 8 inch pan, cut each cake horizontally into 2 slices each. I used 3 slices instead of 4.
Lemon curd - same as what i did for my Pavlova. I made this few times already, very nice.
Swiss Meringue buttercream - sourced from Crumb Boss and Wendy's blog. It's my first time making swiss meringue buttercream, made 1/2 recipe of crumbboss for filling and 1 recipe of wendy's for decoration.

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Dim Sum Prawn Rolls ( 虾 卷 )

I guess this is just another popular snack where we can find at a dim sum restaurant. I do find myself order this most of the time whenever i have dim sum. Well, not only this...there are so many kinds of dim sum that i like and you know, there's this little bad habit in me that is i keep ordering and ordering because all the dim sum always looks so delicious and it's like within 10-15 minutes after being seated, you will see my table is full of dim sums. I said bad habit is because sometimes we just cant finish all what we've ordered. .so 'tapau' ( bring home) I just got to refrain myself now from ordering too much really. Even though i can bring the leftovers back, but they dont seem to taste as good as when i eat them at the restaurant...maybe due to different atmosphere and quiet :)

By the way, if you are making this, be sure to get the beancurd sheets that is soft, not the hard or crispy type that you used to make dessert, just ask for the type that is use for wrapping. And also when you are wrapping the fillings , just cover the unwrapped beancurd sheets with a bowl or something, i find that they will get dry and turn slightly crispier after exposing to air, if not you may find it a little difficult to wrap and roll them. Eat them with mayonnaise, nice!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers#19- Dim Sum Affair ( May 2012 ) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker

Recipe ( with some reference from Dim Sum Inspirations book )
makes 10 rolls
Ingredients
250gm prawn meat ( after deshell weight ) my prawns are quite big, each prawn i sectioned into 3
1tsp baking soda
1tsp sugar
60gm fish paste
2 water chestnuts, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp cornflour
slightly more than 1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of chicken powder
few drops of sesame oil and some white pepper
a small sprig of coriander leaves, chopped

1 large sheet of beancurd sheet, cut into 10 pieces of 9cmx12cm
1 tbsp of flour and 3 tbsps of water mixed together for sealing purpose

Method
1.After cleaning the prawns, pat them dry and mix them with sugar and baking soda for 20 minutes. Rinse them and pat them dry.
2.Mix the prawn meat , fish paste, water chestnuts and the rest of the ingredients well and keep in the fridge for 30 minutes.( i left them in the fridge for about 2 hours, i went shopping! )
3.Place some fillings onto each small piece of beancurd sheet, brush the edges with the flour water solution and roll them up, pinch the sides a little.
4. Deep fry them till they are slightly golden. (not too long, otherwise they become bitter and salty )

Chicken Piccata

I was contemplating to make a lemon bar and also this when i was choosing something to make for this month's Cook like a Star event hosted by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids . The 'star' chosen for this month is Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa). I finally decided to make this Chicken Piccata. As much as i would also like to make the lemon bars, i think i just got to put a hold to it first as i still have a few slices of cakes sitting in my fridge.

So what is chicken piccata? The name sounds a little foreign to me. In wikipedia , it says it is a italian word and is used in reference to way of preparing food, particularly meat and fish, sliced and served in a lemony buttery sauce and parsley. The meat is seasoned and dredged over with flour and breadcrumbs, fry them with olive oil and the main ingredients of making the sauce are lemon juice, white wine , butter and also the oil drippings from the frying earlier. Capers can also be added. Yay! All these ingredients dont sound foreign to me, i have all these at home and another good thing is that it takes only 30 minutes to make this chicken piccata.

Before pouring the sauce onto the chicken, i tasted it..the sauce. I thought it tasted a little funny.It tasted too lemony and buttery..i thought. So I just poured a little and then quickly took photos cos i wanted to eat them warm. After everything was done, i sat down and ate it and i started spooning some sauce onto the chicken.  Eh, it's not bad .now eating it with the chicken , it tasted differently and actually started spooning more sauce onto the chicken . It's not so lemony now, the flavours of the sauce got into the chicken, it's a little tangy and fresh but if i make this again, i will make a lighter buttery taste. Yet, i'm glad that i made this, something which i havent eaten before and glad that i didnt end up just eating only the plain breaded chicken.

Recipe ( from Foodnetwork.com)
2 split, boneless chicken breasts
salt and black pepper
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 egg
1/2 tbsp water
3/4 dry seasoned breadcrumbs ( i used plain breadcrumbs)
olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided into 2 tbsp and 1tbsp
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 tsp of capers ( my addition )
chopped parsley leaves ( i used chinese parsley )

Method:
1.Preheat the oven at 400F/200C. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
2.Place each chicken breast betweenplastic warps and pound t0 1/4 inch thick and sprinkle both sides with salt and pepper.
3.Mix the flour with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper in a shallow plate. In another plate, beat the egg with 1/2 tbsp of water. Place breadcrumbs in another plate.Dip each chicken first with flour, egg and followed by breadcrumbs.
4. Heat 1 tbsp of olive in a large pan over medium heat and place the chicken breasts, cook them for 2 minutes on each side, until browned. ( as i cooked the 3rd and 4th piece, i added more olive oil onto the pan).
Place them on a sheet pan and bake for 5-10 minutes while you make the sauce.
5.Wipe out the pan with paper towel. Melt 1tbsp of butter, add the lemon juice, white wine, capers, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper.Boil over high heat until the sauce reduced to half, about 2 minutes. Off the heat, add the remaining 2 tbsps of butter and swirl to combine. Serve the chicken breast on each plate and spoon the sauce over and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.

Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake

We at The Home Bakers (THB) are baking again this week, the 3rd cake chosen from the book, Coffee Cakes by Lou Seibert Pappas. Blueberry Streusel Cake. One word, Yum! Besides the cake itself giving a very moist and lovely texture, i really like the streusel toppings. The original recipe uses walnuts but i just had very little walnuts left, so i added in some almond nuts too, now i'm not saying that because i added both of these nuts that made it delicious, it's actually the crunchiness of the sugar and nuts altogether that is so nice and made the cake tasted even more better. I hope my picture of the streusels justifies what i claimed. I did experienced making streusel that didnt look like streusel, they looked flat and not crunchy. But this time while rubbing them, i felt that i will get it right. I usually put  my cake into the fridge on the 2nd day after baking, the streusel stays just as crunchy even after 2 days in the fridge, the cake stays just as moist and tasty!

I made half of the original recipe in a small loaf tin, 7"x3.5"x2.5" plus a lonely muffin. As i've made some changes of using more cake flour to whole wheat flour and also more white sugar to brown sugar, i shall put my list here. For full recipe and directions, you can refer to Chaya's blog and to see the rest of the members who did this, visit here

yummy streusel

Now , there's something wrong here. Anyone noticed? ...how am i supposed to remove the cake?? there's streusels toppings and i totally forgot about lining to above the edges of the tin! i cant flip the cake over so i have to use a knife here and ruthlessly stab and cut on one end of the cake, take that poor piece out and use my hand to slide under the bottom lining and lift it up!

phew!..finally out!

Half of the original recipe
Streusel topping
14gm cold salted butter, cut into pieces

the lonely muffin

15gm cake flour
33gm castor sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup of mixed chopped walnuts and chopped almonds

Cake
1/4 cup vegetable oil
40gm brown sugar
80gm castor sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
95gm cake flour
30gm wholemeal flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup yogurt
1 punnet blueberries

Tortilla Pizza

I remember seeing Elin using tortilla to make pizza here and i like it. I'm now stealing her idea and make my own pizza, as much i would like to put in additional veggies for my pizza, i try to stick to 4 ingredients to fit in the theme. It's thin, slightly crispy, quite like a thin crust of pizza. It's good and as i'm typing this now, i'm still munching on one! I used pesto sauce as a base, spread it on the tortilla, add in the tomatoes and load them over with mozarella cheese. I've made 2 pieces here.. one with cherry tomatoes and one with sun dried tomatoes. Bake them till cheese is bubbly and the tortilla is slightly crispy. You may need to bake them till slightly crispy otherwise your tortilla wont hold up, takes around 6-8 minutes. You can check after 5 minutes in the oven to check that the crisp is just nice and not easily broken.

with sun dried tomatoes

with cherry tomatoes

Ingredients
tortilla
pesto sauce
sun dried tomatoes or any other filling
shredded mozarella cheese

Method:
Spread the sauce over tortilla, sprinkle some cheese over, add in the fillings and sprinkle another layer of cheese again. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C till cheese has melted and tortilla is slightly crispy, around 6-8 minutes.

note: as the pesto sauce and sun dried tomatoes are packed with oil, i tried not to put too much and also i dabbed the oil off the sundried tomatoes before putting them in.

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Bake Along #24- Bake with 4 ingredients - Lazy Chicken Wings

i call these lazy-day wings because these are so simple and effortless to cook them , just like when there are days that I really needed to cook a meal but in actual fact, i didnt feel like cooking anything at all so these shall make their appearance on the table occasionally. Oh, maybe just fry 2 more eggs or cook a simple soup, that's it..call it a meal. Not to say that i always cook these during my lazy days..just a name..but because it's so easy and tasty and also not oily, i thought i might just share it here with all of you. You see, this dish was actually not make intended for the theme this round but as i was running through my pictures folder the other day,  it just striked me that i can make it as an entry for this 4-ingredients bake theme. I also think it's great to make some of these at parties.

Garlic salt is one of the ingredients used here for its marinating, it's a seasoning aromatised by its deep garlic flavour without the need of pounding garlics, great on roasted vegetables, mashed potatoes and if you're making french fries, they would be nice too. Besides garlic salt, i also added in some curry powder, not really spicy but adds a little more flavour.

Now i'm so eager to see what the rest are making for the theme. Our next bake along theme will be a layered cake, in conjunction with our bake along 1st anniversary! Any form or any kind of layered cakes, no restriction on the number of layers, all are welcomed to join along and the link will be opened from May29th till June04, 2012. Thank you!

Recipe
Ingredients
6 chicken wings
1.5 tbsp garlic salt
1tsp curry powder ( i used Baba's fish curry powder)
some black pepper

1. Clean and pat dry the chicken wings. Marinate them with garlic salt and curry powder for 30 minutes.
2. Bake at 210C for 20-30 minutes till they are cooked.  Once done, sprinkled some black pepper over the wings.





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Baked BBQ Meat Bun ( 餐 包 )

For the past few days, have been seeing dim sum over some of my friends' blogs and created the urge in me to go and have some dim sum...mmm..just had that 2 days ago. Talking about dim sum, i have a story to relate. Many years ago, i was still very young then, i worked as a waitress in a dim sum restaurant, a casual job..the one that pushes the trolley or cart you call that..filled with all kinds of dim sum and comes to your table..I remember one incident when on that morning, it was just opened for business and i was standing in the kitchen getting ready to push the trolley out. There were a few trolleys there and i took the one trolley that was filled with all steamed buns or paus. I was already going to my 2nd or 3rd table serving the buns and suddenly, i was called back to the kitchen, together with my trolley. Back in the kitchen, i was scolded by one of the chefs there. You know why? He said in chinese, " why did you bring that trolley out?" Dont you know it's all buns and paus?? You want to stuff all those customers with paus first, is it, huh? Then who's going to eat the rest of the dim sum?? Now leave the trolley here and bring other dim sum out!" Then he turned around, mumbling and talking to the rest of the chefs how stupid i was. Logically, the profit minded chef  was correct ..one bun can make you half full already whereas you will have to take baskets and baskets of dims sum to make you full.  I knew then that trolley of paus were pushed out only after like 20 minutes.

Now this baked BBQ meat bun, i'm not sure if this is considered dim sum but normally we can find them in all dim sum restaurants here. I followed agnes chang's bun recipe and it's quite good. Not extremely light but stays soft. As for the filling, i cooked it my own way, just a mixture of some sauces to get the right taste. It's quite a big portion here because apart from making these buns, i also wanted to make some BBQ meat puffs, i will do that in another post. Just a gentle note, pls do not leave out the thickening solution even though the fillings may appear dry, we will need to really thicken the sauce, like 'sticky' when the fillings come together, not only makes wrapping easier but a better mouthfeel. You can also use chicken meat to substitute char siew. Nice weekend, everyone!

Fillings ( can be easily halved , just taste as you cook )
500gms chopped char siew ( bbq meat )
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 bunch of chinese parsley, chopped
few drops of Hsiao Hing wine (optional)
oil for frying

Sauces ( mix all in a bowl )
1 tbsp of hoi sin Sauce
2 tbsp of oyster sauce
1/2 tbsp of char siew sauce
2 tbsp of dark soya sauce
2 tbsps of sugar

For thickening sauce
Mix 3 tbsps of tapioca flour or cornflour with 3 tbsps of water.

Method:
1. Pour some oil in your wok , fry garlic and a few drops of hsiao hsing wine. Pour in all the sauce and add in the char siew and fry till all are well coated, fry them for about 2-3 minutes
2.Add in the thickening , followed lastly by the chinese parsley.Cool filling and refrigerate for several hours.

To make buns ( from Agnes Chang Dim sum Series )
makes around 12 buns
Ingredients
240gm high protein flour
1tbsp custard powder
1/2 tsp salt
1.5 tsp yeast
50gm castor sugar
135ml water
30gm butter/shortening ( i used shortening )
50gm melted butter, for glazing ( will have leftover)

Method:
1.Put flour, custard powder, salt, sugar and yeast in a mixing bowl and use a fork to mix them.
2.Using a dough hook, slowly pour in the water and on low speed, knead them till they come to a rough dough. Add in the butter and shortening and continue kneading till they become a smooth dough. ( i beat around 10-15 minutes using speed 2 and 4 interchangebly )
2. Remove to a floured surface and, shape into a ball and let it proof in a large bowl till almost double its size, for about 1 hour.
3.Remove the dough from bowl, slowly knead till round again, let it rest for 10 minutes. After this, you can shape them into small balls, 35gm each and let them proof again for 20 minutes.
4. Take each ball , flatten them and shape into a circle and put in the fillings, seal tightly. Do the rest for the rest of the buns and let it proof in your baking tray for another 30 minutes.
5. Bake in a preheated oven at 190C for 12 minutes. Once done, remove from oven and brush some melted butter over the buns.

*you can reheat it in the oven for a few minutes the next day.

Stir fry Fish Fillet with Black Pepper ( 黑椒鱼片)

Saw a few big chunk garoupa fillets the other day, couldnt resist to get one though it's quite expensive. Just one piece of fillet of 500gms costs me about RM30 ( USD9).  A lot of times i use this fillet to cook porridge but this time, i just do a simple stir fry with black pepper. I guess most chinese are quite familiar with this dish, also quite common dish served at chinese restaurants. Have not cooked this for a long time, it's very appetising and it's up to you whether you want to pre fry the fish first or not. I find it easier to pre fry the fish before cooking it with the rest of the ingredients because the meat wont break up so easily. You can adjust the the amount of black peppercorn, this one here is quite peppery hot.

Recipe
Ingredients
240gm garoupa fillets, cut into slices
1/2 tsp of tapioca flour
1 clove garlic, minced
4 slices of ginger
1 regular size onion, cut into wedges
1/2 piece of capsicum, cut into wedges
1/2 tbsp of black peppercorn, coarsely pound
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp water
a little dark soya sauce
coriander leaves

Method:
1.After cutting and cleaning the fillets, pat them dry and coat them with the tapioca flour while you can get ready the rest of the ingredients.
2. Pour some oil into the wok, the amout that can almost cover all the fish fillets and deep fry them for about 40 seconds. Dish up and remove from heat .
3. Pour the cooked oil into your container and  leaving some in your wok, saute the garlic, ginger and onions. Add in the capsicum pieces and black pepper which has been pounded and fry them for about half a minute.
4. Put in the precooked fish fillets, salt, dark soya sauce and water and fry them till the gravy almost absorbed ( about a minute ) Throw in some coriander leaves, quick toss it and remove from heat.

Bake Along #23- Honey and Walnut Cake

This is a delicious cake and if you like honey in cakes, i think you will like this too. I actually made this cake twice. The first time i made it,  i didnt ground the walnuts properly. I was supposed to use a food processor to do the job but because i halved the recipe  i thought it was just a little amount so i used a mill instead to grind. But it was difficult to do it with a mill and soon my half grinded walnuts started to release oil and and when it was mixed with the flour, it kinda of lumpy and i knew that probably it will not turn out well. I didnt care cos i was already finishing almost doing everything. True indeed, it turned out to be fudgy in some parts of the cake, nevertheless edible and tasted very nice. Just 2 days ago, i thought i wanted to make this again, after all i find its taste good so i dont mind baking another one, making sure i use the food processor to ground the walnuts but again i did some other little mistake about the sugar but i dont think it affected the taste and the texture of the cake. It came out well this time, cakey, moist and most importantly i like the taste of honey in there. Previously, i did made other cupcakes with honey in it but i didnt like that, i found that it tasted funny with honey but not this one.

first time..fudgy..like underbaked

2nd time...better

For our next bake along, our theme is 'baking with 4 ingredients'. I have not thought what to make yet but just to give you an idea, you can bake potatoes or mushrooms and put in some stuffs like cheese and  breadcrumbs, or maybe you can bake a fish, you dont really need much ingredients baking a fish and if you like to bake something sweet, then maybe you can save some number of ingredients like using self raising flour, puff pastry, etc and somebody was asking me about using muffin mix. Not a problem, afterall what i associate with ' baking with 4 ingredients' is really something quick and easy for everyone to make, people do use premix, so go ahead and use that. That link will be opened from May14 to May20, 2012.

I have also listed out the themes for the our bake along ahead. You can check them at the sidebar on my blog. Thanks!

Original Recipe ( i made 3/4 of this recipe in a 7" round pan )
1 1/2 cups walnut pieces
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
6 tbsps honey
3 large eggs
1tsp grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
confectioners' sugar

1.Preheat the oven at 350F. Grease a 9 inch round cake tin. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. Grease the parchment , dust the sides of the pan and parchment with flour. Spread the walnuts in a single layer on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely.
2. Combine the cooled walnuts and 1 tbsp of sugar in the bowl of a food processor and process until the nuts are finely ground. Add the flour, baking powder, salt and pulse to combine.
3. Add the buttter, honey and remaining sugar to a large mixing bowl and beat on medium high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl . Beat in the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat in the zest and vanilla. Add the nut flour mixture, 1/2 cup at a time and mix until just incorporated.
4. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth with a spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out dry, 35 to 40 minutes. If the cake starts to brown too much around the edges, loosely tent with foil after 25 minutes.
5.Let the cake cool in pan for 10 minutes, invert it onto wire rack and then turn it right side up again to cool completely. Dust heavily with confectioners' sugar before cutting into wedges and serving.





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Smoked Salmon and Avocado Spread

I had something very similar to this during my last trip to aust. It was not taken at any cafe but just something that i grabbed from a 7 eleven outlet and i used that to spread on my breads, potatoes and as a dip for some carrots. It was nice and trying to see what's in there, the label says it has smoked salmon, avocado, cream cheese, chives and a few more that i have already forgotten what they were by the time i wanted to make these at home. So i shall seek help from google again. I see some that add tomatoes relish, that sounds delicious but a little extra work for me, i want something simpler and browsing here and there, i came up with this version of a simple smoked salmon and avocado spread. The one that i had there looks more orangey in colour and a little more creamier, you can add in more cream cheese if you want. It's simple to prepare, put all the ingredients in a food processor, blitz them and they are ready in couple of minutes.

Recipe ( makes one cup)
Ingredients
100gms of smoked salmon, i got 2 slices here
1/4 piece of ripe avocado, peeled
110gm of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 small onion, chopped
1tsp lemon juice
spring onion/chives
some black pepper ( optional)

Method:
Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and process them till they are well mixed. Remove and add in the chives or spring onions and a dash of black pepper if needed.

Bersih 3.0 in Ipoh

On April28, 2012, Ipoh , together with 50 over cities around the world has also joined in the Bersih 3.0 global movement to call for a clean and fair elections in the country. It was a peaceful gathering here, there were no untowards incidents, minimal police presence, people were in good spirits and it was all a very friendly atmosphere. When i arrived at the field, i could hear people chanting " Bersih! Bersih!, looking at the crowd, i think it was probably 2000 of them and maybe more, people from different races, young and old, mostly wearing yellow. I'm glad that this year the rally is also being held in this small town here, enabling people for certain reasons that couldnt make it to KL, to show our support to Bersih by making our presence here. There were a few speeches made followed by singing the national anthem, 'Negaraku', everybody stood up and boy, i felt i was getting a little emotional and actually getting goosebumps on my hand. But it was a good feeling.

On the same night and the following 2 days, i was just on the net, catching up with the Bersih news in KL and a few locations, reading blogs, their stories, the strong unity that they see on that day, how each and everyone helped one another when things just went chaotic and their personal encounters with the teargas. But really, is there such a need for teargas and water cannons and barbed wires? Are they criminals?

There may be some of you that do not support the actions of Bersih but my reason is very simple, i want a fair electoral  process in my country and i agree to the demand points made by Bersih. We want to see the winning candidate or party wins based on majority, not by buying votes and no fraud. We are saying NO to corruption, we are saying NO to dirty politics and we are saying NO to cheating.

Putrajaya, can you hear us?