An all time favourite

An all time favourite in my family ....Never fail to win hearts :p

On cloud 9

I was never a fan of baked cheesecake. E 1st cheesecake I had was more than 5 years ago. It was baked by me! :p Although I was told that it's nice...I actually feel tht it was ok. E 2nd cheesecake was about a year later. It was from some bakery and I didn't like it. There were a few other occasions after that. Cheesecakes from Delifrance, secret recipe...etc2. Still, I wasn't in love until I tried making a non-baked cheesecake. I was head over heels with the rich and creamy dessert! Until quite recently, my cousin bought slices of cheesecake from Secret Recipe and I found those to be really lovely! I guess the 1st time when I had SR's cheesecakes...those were coffee/mocha flavored thus my dislike. (Tiramisu is an exception)

Anyways, my love for cheesecake kinda grew....(only those from secret recipe though) I decided that I should give baked cheesecake a 2Nd attempt. Furthermore, a few of my customers have been requesting that I should have baked cheesecakes on my list.

So I embarked on a "serious cheesecake baking session" :p I had cherries and strawberries, so It has to be a new york styled cheesecake with some topping. I took out my Martha baking handbook, Dorie's from my home to urs and Chef Wan's sweet treats. I read all the important notes by them and follow the do's and don t's closely. I freeze the base 1st, bake it for 10 mins and let it cool as per Dorie's instructions. I also baked the cheesecake in a water-bath, cool it in the oven for a few hours and let it chill overnight. Basically, I left no stone unturned. :)

Everything was so worth it coz I was rewarded with a crack-less, gorgeously yummy and creamy cheesecake. Shaf who doesn't take cheesecake actually liked it! My uncle ate 2 large pieces and my aunt said my cheesecake looked ike it was store bought! Even fussy me thought that E cheesecake was super delicious! I was in a state of blissful happiness. :)

Updated Recipe

I have been getting quite a lot of emails in my inbox requesting for this recipe. I'm sorry that it took me forever to post the recipe. Nevertheless, now tht I remembered, here is the recipe :)

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cocoa powdered
1.5 cups milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Method:
Cream butter until softened. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs, one at a time.
Measure the flour, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder into a medium sized bowl and whisk to combine.
Add about a third of the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar and beat to combine. Add about a half of the milk and beat to combine.
Continue adding, alternating between dry and wet and finishing with the dry.
Mix in vanilla
Scoop batter into cupcake cups about 3/4’s full.
Bake at 170D for about 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Frosting

5 oz chocolate
3 oz butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
5-7oz Icing sugar (start with 5 oz and add accordingly)

Method:

Melt butter and chocolate using a double boiler.
Once smooth and melted, gently whisk in vanilla.
Whisk in icing sugar, a little at a time.
Add in sour cream and cream till its satiny smooth.
Keep it aside for a while to thicken. Do give it a stir once in a while.

Enjoy!

Simple English Muffins

As promised, this is Alex Goh's super easy yet deliciously soft recipe for English muffins.

Ingredients:

(A)
1.5 tsp instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
0.5 tsp sugar
300 g bread flour
15 g milk powder

(B)
180 ml lukewarm water

(C)
0.5 tbsp butter

Semolina for dusting

Method :

Place ingredients A in a mixing bowl and give it a good mix.
Slowly pour in the lukewarm water, a little at a time until the flour sort of stick together.

Add in butter and continue kneading until a soft and smooth dough is formed. Add more water if necessary.
Place the dough into a bowl and wrap the bowl with a clean plastic bag.

Leave to prove till double the size.
Divide dough into 8 pieces and mould them into balls.

Coat them with semolina and arrange them on a baking tray.
Leave to prove for 20 minutes and cook them on a non stick skillet over medium heat for about 7 mins on each side.

McMaya

Most of us love easy yet yummy recipes which require minimum effort. Who wanna spend hours in the kitchen, slaving over E hot stove right??

As for myself, I do love express recipes for lazy or busy days. It has to taste good though!
Deep inside, E cook in me prefer to cook food right from scratch. Home-made sauce, seasoning food from scratch.....etc2. Home cooked food has become a scarcity in our diet, I think the satisfaction of serving home cooked food has enormously increase!

Yesterday was 1 such day. I made a hearty breakfast meal! It was served way after breakfast hours though! Well, thats E beauty of McMaya, you get to eat breakfast after 11am and everything is freshly made! You get salad too! *winks*




So, I made some beef patties, scrambled eggs, rosti, salad and English muffins. E star of the day were the English muffins! They were soft, tender and just wonderful! I didn't know it was that easy to make these muffins. I didn't even use the oven! Awesome isn't it? I shall share the recipe very very soon! :)
Oh btw, E rosti was very good too! I dare say that it taste better than mostly commercially made hash-brown. I don't really have a recipe for the rosti, but I'm planning to make it again soon. I shall make a mental note of the recipe then :)

By E way, if some of you are wondering what with E Logo on the table wares. No, I didn't steal those when I was in 1 of SQ flights :p My brother worked there and there was a time where they sold boxes of unused tableware. Got it? :p

Weekend Bakes...

These double and triple chocolate chip cookies were an order from a regular customer. These were supposed to be gifts for her friends.....


70 cups of talam lauk....

Chocolate Cupcakes

This sums up my Sunday bakes :)

I spent the day at my aunty's place yesterday. She cooked my favourite dishes and I wanted to reciprocate with the same. My aunty and family love to munch on cakes, donuts...etc.... so I made just tht.

I already blog about these soft yummy donuts before. You can get the recipe here. here

Mom bought some really ripe and super sweet mangoes which were cheap too!

E moment I saw E mangoes, I saw mango cupcakes, mango cheesecake n mango pudding all floating in E air...but mom felt that uncle would love the medley of 3 (sago, mango n pomelo dessert) as he love cold desserts. I obviously knew that she suggested this dessert coz she loved it lots too :p So, I ended up making this dessert. It is of coz super duper delicious.

I tried a new recipe for the cake. It's Almond cake. Taste-wise, it's in between a rich butter and sugee cake. It's rich and moist coz of the amount of butter used. Do give this simple yet delicious cake a try!

Ingredients:

150g brown sugar
140g self raising flour
80g almond meal
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
5 eggs
240g melted butter

Method:

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add eggs one at a time and whisk to combine.

Add vanilla andmelted butter.

Mix till well combine. Pour in papercups or a greased baking pan.

Bake at 170 degrees C for 30-40 mins.

Ps: I didn't slice up the cake till I was at aunty's place, so I didn't manage to take a pic of the sliced up cake.

Tiramisu Cheesecake

I have been wanting to experiment making Tiramisu cheesecake. Finally, I managed to get it done. I received very positive feedback from my cousins and brother...so yeay! :)


Ingredients:
20 Sponge fingers
250g Cream cheese
150ml heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sugar
1tsp vanilla

Coffee syrup
1 Tbsp espresso granules (Use any coffee you prefer)
1/2 cup hot water
1tbsp sugar

Cocoa powder for dusting
Chocolate shavings.

Method:
Dissolved coffee granules into hot water. Add sugar to taste and set aside.
Whip cream until soft peak, add in sugar and whip until stiff peak, set aside.
Cream cream cheese and vanilla till creamy and fold in cream.
Dip sponge fingers into coffee and lay on the base of dish or cupcake cases.
Sprinkle with cocoa powder.
Top with cream mixture.
Repeat with another layer of sponge fingers and cream mixture.
Chill for a few hours or overnight.
Top with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings just before serving.

Presenting..... Naan Pizza!

I have to admit that certain Express Recipes of Nigella's worked like a charm! I was browsing thru E pages of Nigella Express and I saw these. She used naan for the pizza crust! How come I never thought about that? I guess I so used to "slogging" in the kitchen :p

Anyways, I didn't follow her recipe coz it uses fontina. I had mozzarella and cheddar in the fridge and I'm sure it would work just as well. She used spinach wherelse I used whatever that were available in my fridge. It turned out to be awesomelicioussssssss! Mom was like "U said u baking naan...but this is pizza?" I'm like yeah...its naan pizza!! :p I knew that she enjoyed the naan pizza too coz she said "there isnt a need to order pizza anymore...don't have to bother to make/buy pizza crusts too...use naan can already..." Coming from some1 like mom, its a compliment that she said it! I do think that the brand of E naan play an important part too obviously. I used "Kawan" naan...it was good! Try it sometime!!!

Ingredients:

2 Naans

4 tbsp tomato pulp or any tomato sauce

Mushrooms - Sliced

2 tomatoes - Sliced

Shredded Mozzarella

Shredded Cheddar

Slices of chicken ham

Slices of bell peppers

Herbs (I used oregano)

Method:

Spread sauce over naan.

Top with half of the cheese

Arrange tomatoes, mushrooms, chicken ham and bell peppers.

Top with more cheese

Sprinkle with your favourite herb and bake in the oven for 15mins

Dig in!!

Cheezilicioussss!

Double the crunch.

I have been getting quite a lot of orders for triple chocolate chips for the past few weeks. On 1 of the occasions, I decided to make a few "extra special" ones for myself :p I filled 'em with peanut butter. I used chunky peanut butter thus it had a good crunch. Do try it with your favourite chocolate chip cookie. Add about 1/2 tsp of peanut butter in each cookie. It's heaven! I wished I made more. Sighs....

Ps: Don't mind the pic. It was basically a lazy+can't wait to bite into these photoshoot :p

Sowwie....

Hi Folks,

I'm changing the layout a bit so plz pardon me if this blog is a bit messed up right now. :)
More laterz!