Minion Cupcakes

A friend asked me to bake some chocolate cupcakes for her daughter's birthday party and since her daughter is a huge fan of the Minions from the movie 'Despicable Me 2', this is what I came up with:

Lots and lots of Minions!

Ginger Kisses

I fell in love with these melt-in-the-mouth little gingerbread cakes with filling called 'Ginger Kisses' when my family and I visited New Zealand in 2007 but have not been able to find the correct recipe to make them at home.

That was until I met a lady from New Zealand recently and I asked her about them, and she suggested that I Google 'ginger gems' instead. I did just  that and voila! There was the recipe that I had been searching for all this time!

I made a batch of them and my daughter brought some to school to share with her friends during recess...and came back with praises from her friends.

You might want to try them too. If you have a sweet tooth like mine, you won't be disappointed! Some of the ingredients you would need to get from stores selling baking supplies.

Ingredients:

250g   butter
2         eggs
¾ cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 level teaspoon baking soda dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water
1 level teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon golden syrup
2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

Icing:

1½  cups icing sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon Creamwell 
2 teaspoon lemon juice
a little boiling water

Method:

1) Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffly. Add eggs and beat well.

2) Mix in dry ingredients and baking soda dissolved in ¼ cup boiling water.

3) Place half tablespoons of batter on a tray lined with baking paper, spacing them well apart Bake for 20 mins or until the edges start to brown, at 180 degrees Celsius.

4) Remove from oven, cool about 10 mins before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

5) Mix icing ingredients and enough boiling water to form a smooth creamy icing. Sandwich the ginger kisses together with the icing.

6) Enjoy!

On a different note, I made some ping pei mooncakes this year using 2 different fillings and when I cut them into quarters they looked like heart shapes (viewed from a certain angle). It's amazing how our eyes can find something unusual in the ordinary things!

Aloe Vera Dessert

We were with some friends sometime before the Chinese New Year, when someone mentioned that he always gets aloe vera leaves from his grandma's garden in Malacca to make tong sui (Cantonese for a sweet soupy dessert). He offered to bring some back for me since I always enjoy a bowl of chilled tong sui on a hot,humid day.

The aloe vera leaves were HUGE, bigger
than any that I've seen. I suppose the soil
in Malacca must be rich in nutrients!

Cut off the side thorns then slice off the skin
 with a vegetable peeler

Slice open the leaf, then cut into strips

Cut the fleshy pulp loose from the skin

Cut the flesh into bite-size cubes

Throw it into a large pot, add water and red dates.
Boil, then add sugar according to taste.

And there you have it, a simple and tasty dessert that's good for the skin :)

First Attempt at Rainbow Cake

I decided to try baking a rainbow cake for hubby's birthday. The idea came from some photos I saw in Facebook, so I looked up YouTube for the proper way to make it.

I used a normal butter cake recipe as my sponge cakes usually don't turn out too well. Bless my Science teacher in school for drilling into our brains the correct order of the colours of the rainbow - this is how I remember it:

Roy G. Biv...just pretend it's some guy's name, and there we have...

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet!

Prepare the cake batter and pour into 7 paper cups,
each cup with the same amount of batter.
Add colouring.

Pour the first colour (I couldn't get it to turn red
no matter how much red colouring I used,
so pink was the next best option)
into a cake tin lined with non-stick baking sheet. There's nothing worse than
a beautiful cake stuck in the pan after baking!

Pour the next colour in the middle of the first colour.
Lift the pan about 5cm from the table
and let it drop so that the colour will spread evenly.

Repeat with the rest of the colours.
Bake.

This is how it looked like when taken out
of the oven.

I realised that I should have added a smaller amount
of batter for the last colour to get a more balanced layer.

There were lots of 'ooh' and 'aah' when the cake was cut and lots of photos snapped before the cake got eaten :)

This was a simple and quick way to make a rainbow cake. Next time I'll try the more time-consuming one...baking one layer at a time and assembling it (gasp):

Red Velvet Mini Cakes

I have read a lot about the famous Red Velvet cakes but never tasted them until I went to the US earlier this year. It's a moist buttermilk cake in a dramatic red colour topped with cream cheese frosting. Since then I have been looking around the internet for the recipe so that I could try baking it myself.

I adapted a recipe from Bakerella and used square paper cups instead. 





I gave a piece to hubby and a few minutes later....


Verdict? YUMMY!

Recipe:

2            large eggs, room temperature
1½ cups   corn oil
2    Tbs    liquid red food colouring 
1    tsp    vanilla essence
1    cup    buttermilk (to substitute: add 1 Tbs lemon juice to 1 cup milk)
1    Tbs    apple cider vinegar

2½ cups   multipurpose flour

2   Tbs     cocoa powder
1½ tsp    baking soda
1½ cups   sugar
1    tsp    salt

Frosting:

500g   cream cheese, softened

1 cup  unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp  vanilla essence
4 cups icing sugar, sifted

Method:

1) Lightly stir eggs in a medium bowl with a wire whisk. Add remaining liquid ingredients and whisk until blended. Set aside. 

2) Sift flour, cocoa powder and baking soda into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugar and salt. Mix until combined. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix on medium-high until completely combined, about 1 to 2 minutes.

3) Scoop batter into cupcake paper-cups about ¾ full and bake at 175 degrees Celsius or until the top of a cupcake springs back when lightly pressed with a finger.

4) When done, remove from the oven and cover all the cupcakes with a large film of clingwrap while cooling to keep the moisture in.

5) To make frosting: Beat cream cheese and butter with a mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add sugar, 1 cup at a time and mix until smooth.

6) Remove paper from cupcakes, cut each cupcake into half horizontally. Place frosting in between the 2 halves, assemble, and frost the top as well. 

Enjoy!

Yummy Cake Frosting

I love to bake and I love cakes with icing/frosting. I have tried lots of different recipes for cake frosting but somehow have not found the perfect one. Some turned out too runny and seeped into the cake once it was applied. Others were either too rich or too sweet.

I finally found a great recipe for yummy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting which is usually used for carrot cakes, but can be used for other cakes as well. It was scribbled on a piece of paper in one of my full-to-the-brim drawers where I stash away all kinds of stuff - receipts, newspaper cuttings, interesting recipes, my favourite very sharp scissors, stickers for little kids, coins, etc, etc...and I can't remember where I copied the recipe from.

I baked some carrot cupcakes and thought I would try out this recipe since I had some cream cheese in the fridge...better use it up before the expiry date! When I tasted it I was on cloud nine! It was REALLY good. I made a batch, iced the cupcakes, then made some more of the frosting...it was THAT good! It remains soft and spreadable even when kept in the fridge. I kept a tub of it in the fridge...perfect for times when I just want to indulge in a little extra topping for any plain slice of cake without having to put frosting on the entire cake itself. (enjoy first...will worry about the extra kilos later!)

Really simple to make:

30g softened butter/margarine
80g cream cheese
1 ½ cups icing sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

Sift icing sugar. Mix all the ingredients together until smooth.

How To Make Fruit Enzyme Drink

Quite a number of my friends have asked me how to make the fruit enzyme drink and even though I explain it to them step by step, some of them still find it difficult to visualize what I tell them, and there are not many videos on YouTube which demonstrates how to make this enzyme drink...so I thought I would put up some photos with a step by step explanation of the process.

What you would need:

lemons
pineapple (or any other fruit)
brown rock sugar
a dry,clean jar



1) Wash lemons and pat dry. Remove the lemon skin and as much of the white part as possible (leave the skin on if you like a tangy, bitter taste to the enzyme drink). Slice and remove the seeds.

2) Wash pineapple, pat dry and remove skin. Slice into bite-size pieces (not shown in the photos, but it shouldn't be too difficult)

3) Arrange the pineapple pieces at the bottom of the bottle.

4) Add the lemon slices in a thin layer.

5) Add 1 or 2 pieces of rock sugar (1 piece if large, 2 pieces if smaller)

6) Repeat the process - one layer of pineapple, followed by a thin layer of lemon slices, then 1 or 2 pieces of rock sugar.

7) Repeat the layering process until the whole bottle is filled to the brim.

8) Close the cover, making sure that it is airtight, and label the bottle 3 weeks from the day you make the enzyme...that will be the date when you can open your bottle and enjoy your enzyme fruit drink.

9) Keep the bottle in a cool dry place for 3 weeks.

Things to note:

1) Your hands must be absolutely dry when handling the fruits. After washing, pat dry the fruits with paper towels...or they will turn mouldy during the fermentation process.

2) Tip the bottle every 2-3 days to make sure all the fruits are moist during the 3-week fermentation process.

10) After 3 weeks, open the bottle, strain the liquid and store your enzyme drink in the fridge. It tastes better when chilled.

11) Drink 30ml a day. Dilute with a little water if the drink is too sweet. By the way, this drink is an alcoholic beverage...don't drink too much!

Enjoy.....

Double Colour Jelly

A friend of mine made some double-coloured jelly for one of our church functions and they looked so pretty that I decided to try making them too. The photo above is the jelly I made, the one that my friend made was much prettier!


I made dragonfruit jelly then used cookie cutters to cut out some shapes.



Arrange the pieces in a container.



Arrange the rest of the jelly in another container.


Then I made plain jelly and poured it over the dragonfruit jelly. Leave it to cool and set. Cut into square pieces and serve.

Ingredients for dragonfruit jelly:
300 ml dragonfruit puree
10 g agar-agar powder
200 g sugar, or to taste
550 ml water

Ingredients for plain jelly:
10 g agar-agar powder
200g sugar, or to taste
850 ml water

Things needed:
cookie cutters
containers for jelly

Homemade Sushi

My daughter, Miss PreTeen, has taken a strong liking to sushi. Once in a while we would take her to the Japanese restaurant to have her dose of sushi, our favourite being Sakae Sushi at The Curve, but usually we just end up at Sushi King which is nearer our home. Japanese food can be rather costly so I thought I would learn how to make sushi instead. When I told my friend Nini about it, she said that I should put on my blog the step by step instructions for homemade sushi. I'm sure she makes much better sushi than me but here is my own simple recipe:



Things you would need (all available at Jusco supermarket):



Calrose rice, bamboo rolling mat, large pieces of dried seaweed, Japanese vinegar, sugar and salt.


Method:

Boil the rice: 1 cup of rice + 2 cups of water


Mix into the rice after it is cooked:
1 tablespoon vinegar + ¾ tablespoon sugar + ½ teaspoon salt





Ingredients for the filling: Japanese cucumber, crabsticks, caviar, egg omelette (you can add any ingredient you wish)







1) Place 1 slice of seaweed on the bamboo mat.
2) Scoop some rice onto the seaweed, flatten with a spatula.
3) Place filling onto the rice.
4) Roll up into a log shape using the bamboo mat.

5) Cut into small bite-size pieces with a sharp wet knife.



Bon appetit!