Home Bakes - Cocoa Almond Muffin Cupcakes

My daughter was in the mood to bake cupcakes.  After baking the mini carrot cupcakes on last Sunday, she wanted to try out another cake with different flavour, I was a bit lazy but she promised to help out, she started to randomly flipped through a cake recipe book in the kitchen and found a coffee & walnut cake but I do not have instant coffee power nor walnut.  I do have coco powder and almond flakes which I have not been able to use them for anything yet, thus we have a twist on the ingredients and we had Cocoa Almond Muffin cupcakes instead.

It was supposed to be a cake as per the recipe book, since I have got plenty of unused muffin cupcake cases in stock might as well use them up.  We only made 7 medium size muffin cupcakes using this recipe, using smaller size cupcake cases will yield more. 

I included the ingredients in my youtube video description box for record.

Sunday bakes - Carrot cupcakes

After taking a long break off from baking due to kitchen renovation. Crystal wanted to baked some little cupcakes. She agreed to help me in the baking, my better half flipped thru the recipe book and suggested us to bake the carrot cake because we have got carrots in the fridge. The ingredient called for self-raising flour but we didn't have any. Crystal suggested to ask uncle Google see whether we can replace it with cake flour. Yes, we can. Just add baking powder and salt.

We did it with some modifications from the book's ingredients by reducing the amount of sugar and oil especially.  

most of the cupcakes are in this small size with only 4 bigger size with cheddar cheese topping.  The cheese all turned brown after baking.  

 

Banana Cheese Puff Pastry

Could not remember when did I buy a pack of the puff pastry sheets.  Though I noticed it whenever I opened my fridge, I kept giving myself all sort of reasons to postpone my plan to bake some puffs which I planned to do so at the time I bought these pastry sheets.  Without further procrastination, I finally used them to make some banana cheese puff pastry, with my self created recipe.   

Unlike the self made from scratch pastry, the store bought puff pastry sheets always give the 100% result and less work.   

My fresh from oven Banana Cheese Puff Pastry 

The simple method in making the Banana Cheese Puff Pastry :

 Place half slice of cheese on the pastry cheese

 Place your favourite type of banana (I used Pisang Saba cut into half for each puff) and wrap it up.  Seal the edges, egg wash each of them and bake in the oven till the pastries turn brown like this.

 and serve when the pastries have cooled down to room temperature.  

 My afternoon tea : The Banana Cheese puff pastry & hot Sabah Tea

台湾古早蛋糕 Taiwan Original Cake

I told my better half that there is a super soft Taiwanese cake selling like hot cake in Damai, really is hot cake this time. I told him that my colleague has to queue for about 30 minutes to buy the cakes, and the lady who queued after her lost her tamper because my colleague bought 10 pieces of the cake and left none for her, she has to wait for another 20 minutes to get this famous Taiwanese original cake, she burst and scolded the shop helpers. With curiosity, he went the next day afternoon and bought a piece for us to try.

Everyone who tasted it has to agree that this cake is super soft even after keeping in the fridge for 2 days.

Honestly, there is nothing extra ordinary about this cake, what makes this cake so special is the consistency of maintaining its super soft and moist texture.  I have been dreaming to be able to bake this kind of cake myself, looks like the easiest way is to buy from the shop. 

The original flavour is sold at RM14.00 per piece in a box, much more expensive than West Malaysia.

Pumpkin cake

Pumpkin is among the cheapest vegetable fruit that we can find in the market, this whole fruit cost less than RM4.00.  My girls love pumpkin cake especially the one that baked by their aunty.

Since they like it so much, I try to bake some for them following a recipe from youtube

the ingredients are 2 cups of pumpkin, 7 eggs, 90g coconut milk and some sugar

mashed the pumpkin after it is steamed

put all ingredients into the blender, mix well

into the oven and bake till cooked.  It took about an hour.

Slice and serve.  

Baking Experience - Egg Tarts

The making of egg tarts is not a very difficult process. These egg tarts were made before Chinese New Year when my fever of baking was on high.  I have not been touching my oven for these last 2 months. 

the crust mixture

press into the moulds before sending into the oven

half baked egg tarts crusts ready for egg custard mixture 

the filled up egg tarts ready for baking

it's done.  The crust looks just nice

took pictures of my efforts for records,  Don't know when I will make some egg tarts again.  

Pineapple cookies

I baked these lots of Pineapple cookies for Chinese New Year of Goat,  I did a lot of other baking before and around the new year until I got sick for being too much time spent near the oven.  It took me more than 1 month to recover from the bad cough. Now, just a recap and share my venture into making the Pineapple cookies. The pictures say it all...:D

Made 3 small containers.  Not long after new year, I brought the last container to the office, my office mates helped me to finish off before the cookies become expired.

Tau Sa Piang 豆沙饼

Another trial recipe - Tau Sa Piang.

This was the second attempt.  Its taste was alright when fresh from the oven, but the crust turned hard after a while. I always bring my homemade products to the office, my colleagues did not mind the texture, all were consumed in a day or two.

Verdict : Since it was not a successful bake, I prefer not to share the recipe.  :D

UFO cake

I have attempted numbers of baking in search for products for my shop for the last few months.  Nothing had come out with what we were looking for.  

One of the recipe that I have tried is the UFO cake which is a famous dessert in Sandakan, a city at the east coast of Sabah.  I personally hadn't tried the real one from Sandakan yet.

These UFO cake from my oven is a bit too sweet for my liking.  Though the 1st attempt did not turn out well, I decided not to go for 2nd attempt.  Would not want to waste my energy as no one in the house is excited about it.  

Verdict : Failed Attempt.  

The grilled brown meringue

Before grilling

Home baked cookies for Chinese New Year 2015

My oven has been made full used of on this Chinese New Year after more than 3 years sitting in the kitchen.

I have attempted 5 types of cookies this time with 3 of the recipes shared from a cousin whom baked cookies for sale for the past years.  She didn't  bake any this year because she has started a full time job.  While the pineapple cookies and colourful butter cookies, I found the recipes online. 

Now then I realised making cookies for sale is not an easy task as I first thought.  It is not just time consuming, the produce are not as many as I expected, the cost of ingredients also becoming costly..the profit margin is not as good. 

I made some for sale, some to give as gifts and whatever left are for self consumption.  The most satisfying cookies that I have made would be the pineapple cookies.  It is also Clet's favourite.

Pineapple cookies

Chocolate rice peanuts cookies, Butter Cookies and Cornflakes Cookies

Butter with Chocolate rice cookies

Butter Cookies

Colourful Butter Cookies

Light Cheddar Cheesecake

Inspired by Sonia of Nasi Lemak Lover, my hands have turned itchy and wanted to try on baking some Light Cheddar Cheesecake.  I finally did the baking on last Sunday night after about 2 years break from baking. I had a bit of a hard time to get my baking utensils organised because I had forgotten where I put them. Blamed it to a not so organised person, that's me "_".

I only managed to take some photos of the cheddar cheese creaming process, after that I was too busy getting the baking done before midnight as the next day was a schooling day.  Here's how it goes :

 Break 6 slices of cheddar cheese and mix together with the butter, double boiling to dissolve them (I used light cheddar cheese slices)

 the melted cheddar cheese and butter mixture

 the cake sit in the oven for 5 minutes with the oven door ajar

My Light Cheddar Cheese Cake look like this, not as fluffy and spongy as it's supposed to be, probably because I took too long on the egg yolk mixing process.  After adding all the cake flour, I realised that my egg yolk mixture is too thick hence I have to add more milk to it.

The whole piece of cake were polished off by 4 of us pretty instantly on the next day.  My girls could not wait to try this cake, they brought slices of them to school as snacks during recess.  We simply love this cake and I will definitely make it again.

I followed exactly the recipe HERE from Nasi Lemak Lover, except putting in additional milk to the egg yolks batter).  Try baking this cake, I am sure you are going to love it!!