Tiny Butter Ice Cakes

from Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros

Preheat your oven at 180 degrees celcius.

Beat together:

1. 250g softened butter
2. 250g caster sugar
3. 3 eggs, one at a time
4. 1 & 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
5. 290g plain flour
6. 1 & 1/2 tsp baking powder

and add 185ml or 3/4 cup of milk in slowly, to the mixture as you beat together the flour and baking powder.

Prepare around 120 tiny cupcake cases on a large baking tray and spoon the mixture into each case, allowing it to settle as it bakes in the oven. Leave some space for the cakes to rise up to just slightly above the surface of the casing.

As it bakes, prepare the icing, and get the sprinkles ready. The icing will set pretty quickly, so sprinkle the candy/coloured bits over the icing-covered top of the cupcake with haste.

Mix together:

1. 125g icing sugar
2. few drops of colouring
3. 2 & 1/2 tbsp cold water

Add your Sprinkles!

Brandon's Chicken

Using butter, pan-fry pre-salt-marinated chicken thighs, dusted with plain flour on all sides, with a few drops of lemon juice and sprinklings of dried mixed herbs. Ensure all parts of the meat is properly cooked before serving.

Sago Kueh Kueh

• 400g Sago
• 1 litre water
• 400g Gula Melaka (palm sugar) for syrup
  
• 1 tbsp sugar for syrup
  
• 200ml water for syrup
• coconut milk for serving

Soak the sago in water for 15 mins and wash a few rounds like washing rice. Spoon the drained sago into a pot and fill with the 1 litre of water. On high fire, keep stirring and churning the mixture till ALL the sago dissolves. Have a little patience and stamina in churning the mixture which gets thicker and thicker, increasingly difficult to stir. The sago mix has to be free of opaque white spots.

In a separate pot, heat dissolve the Gula Melaka, sugar and 200ml of water together. Once combined, the syrup is ready.

Spoon the sago mix into mound-moulds and chill for at least half and hour to an hour before flipping out and serving with the syrup.

Double Chocolate Fudge in White Chocolate Icing

for mom & her BSF fellowship group

For the people I Love

Toasted Black Sesame Snowskin with Lotus Paste

White Sesame Snowskin with Almond Green Tea Paste

White Sesame Snowskin with Sweet Ginger in White Lotus Paste



This year I've made mooncakes for those I love.

It's my first year making mooncakes. Last year I enjoyed receiving them. I felt loved. Now, I want people who mean so much to me to feel the same kind of warmth I did. A mouthful is pure indulgence, and that's what love sometimes feels like to me. I savour the sweet cake, letting its flavour linger on my tongue, reluctant to finish each bite of the small cake. It's the same kind of reluctance you grit your teeth for when you have to say goodbye to some one who means so much to you.

Snowskin Mooncakes

Plain White Lotus

Plain Green Tea

Toasted Almond White Lotus

Sesame & Ginger White Lotus

Sesame & Almond Green Tea

Cinnamon Junkie

Cinnamon Junkie by adam TM

I like my coffee, in baked mugs, with caramelized rims, and cinnamon powder on a layer of warm froth. Snort and drink.

White Cabbage Signature

"... this is Your recipe.

...hand this recipe down to your grand-daughter... "

- from the mother who loves her mother's cooking -

White Cabbage Sign-Off
(serves 5)

• 1 full elongated white Chinese (Napa) cabbage
• full handful wolf berries
  
• 4 red Chinese dates (Jujube)
• half handful dried scallops
• half handful dried shrimps
• splash of Chinese Wine (Hua Tiao Jiu)
• 1 bottle Essence of Chicken
• few drops Benedictine DOM
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp sugar
• pinch of salt & white pepper
• chopped garlic & ginger
• 5 big dried Chinese mushrooms
• 1/3 cup water
• 1/2 cube chicken stock
  

Chop off the base of the cabbage, separating all the leaves, and rinse. Set aside and in a wok, heat enough oil to scald 3 to 4 leaves at a go (submerge one side of leaves in oil). The oil must be very hot so that the oil burns off relatively quickly. The kitchen will smoke very bad so keep ventilation under check. Scald each side of the leaves and remove quickly from the wok onto a plate, till all leaves have been scalded. Oil in wok is no longer needed. Using the oil drained from the scalded leaves, brown the garlic & ginger. Remove the garlic & ginger and pour in shrimps (pounded), scallops (pounded), mushrooms (cut into strips), chicken essence, water, wolf berries and dates. Add light soy sauce, sugar, salt & pepper, chicken stock & Chinese wine. Throw in cabbage and mix well. Cover and let it cook for 15 mins over low flame, stirring occasionally. Remove leaves from wok into casserole and pour everything else over.

Pineapple Fried Rice

We had dinner really late on the 19th of July (same night of the sticky wings), but I was contented. I had dinner with my parents and Adam. For the soup, I made Pork Rib Tea-infused Herbal soup (Bak-Gu-Teh). Everyone had seconds and thirds of the pineapple fried rice.

Using left-over rice, prepare the rice by rubbing the grains with 2 tsp of oil, so that the rice doesn't clump. Soak a handful of dried mix fruit like raisins, apricots, and orange peel in a cup of boiling water. Prepare a cup of pineapple chunks to be added to the rice later. In a bowl, mix 4 tbsp chicken stock, 3 tbsp fish sauce, 2 dashes of ground black pepper and 3 tsp curry powder. Brown shallots, garlic and onions with 4 tbsp of oil and 2 tsp of belachan (chilli-prawn paste). Fry 5 pieces of ham, cut into half inch wide by 2 inch long slices together with the browning flavourful, fragrant garlic. Push all these to a side of the wok while you pour in and scramble an egg roughly, chopping it up as you toss. Stir-fry everything together and add the prepared bowl of mixed sauces and pepper. Throw the rice in and stir-fry, tossing to ensure a well-blend. Allow the rice grains to crackle a little, do not douse the rice with more water. If need, use a little more stock to moisten and continue frying. Add the drained mix fruit and pineapple, and stir-fry.
You can then add more fish sauce if necessary or cut chilli.

Serves well with generous amount of pork floss.

Juicefuls

Extremely pleased with these sweeet juicefuls. Little seedless berries (grapes) I got from Shop & Save surprisingly... Not too expensive. Their cheaper than the Australian green seedless grapes. I'm not too sure where they're from, but I wish I took notice of the name of it. It's sooo good.

You'll popping them into your mouth non-stop.

Beef Rendang

"...*point point*..*gasp*... POWER. ...*gasp*....."

- the boyfriend who loves spice -

Beef Rendang
makes for 6

• 1/2 bottle Patak's Vindaloo's Curry paste
• 210ml water
• shallots chopped
• garlic chopped
• onions chopped
• ginger grated with juice
• 1 tomato diced
• 3 strands long beans chopped at 45 degree angle
  
• 2 potatoes diced
• 650-700g (1.5pounds) top loin beef
• 1tsp oil
  
• corn starch, sugar, salt & pepper for marinate
  

Marinating the Raw Beef

Rub a pinch corn starch, sugar and salt & pepper well and evenly into the meat. Place the slab of meat between plastic sheets or simply put into plastic bag, and pound hard on it, shifting it, and pounding again. Remove from plastic and use blunt face of the knife to pound the meat in a criss-cross pattern. Then turn the knife on its side and slap meat as much as you want.

Cutting the Marinated Beef

Slice the beef at 50 degrees angle to create large med-thin slices of meat. It helps to use a sharp blade.

In the Pan

Heat the pan well, add the oil, less is best. When the oil is hot, throw in the chopped onions, shallots, garlic and ginger with the juice. Everything should brown nicely. Pour a bit of water into the pan enough to cover the chopped ingredients already browned, then add the sliced beef, stirring. Pour the rest of the water in, mixing, add the paste and stir in pan till bubbling. The gravy should cover the meat evenly. Throw in all other prepared ingredients and stir occasionally for 2 hours over slow fire.

Yum yum.

Grandma's Kailan

• 2 pkts Kailan
• 1/2 red chilli
• 1 and 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce
• 1 and 1/2 tsp corn starch
• 200ml water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• rice wine
  
• chopped garlic
• extra light olive oil
  

Heat wok till very hot over high heat, lower the fire and pour oil in. The oil should be very hot. Add chopped garlic into the hot oil so that it burns slightly, and throw all kailan in quickly, tossing and flipping the Kailan immediately. Pour the combined water, salt, sugar, corn starch & oyster sauce over the Kailan, all the while tossing and stir-frying.

Once Kailan is cooked, add a few dashes of rice wine while still tossing. Throw in the cut chilli & blast that fire up for 2 full seconds, turn the fire off, and dish out.

If stalk of the Kailan is cut out so it is shorter in length and makes for easier consumption, blanch the stalks with the combined water and condiments after browning the garlic, till the gravy boils for 1 or 2 mins, before adding the rest of the Kailan.

A really quick and easy stir-fry, you can add prawns, mushrooms or baby corn to the dish. When stir-frying, you might want to keep everything in the wok moving at all times, ensuring a well-tossed, equally cooked result.

TomYam yum

Tom Yum Seafood Soup

Little bro finished his rice real quick with the tasty soup, downing a bottle of cold water as he went along. It's also the last dinner Jessica's having with us before she goes home in a few hours. Jermelene will be here later tonight. And I get to teach her how to cook. While I'm away, grandma'll have the honors next week. Splendid! I hope Jerm's dishes'll start tasting of granny's.

Ta-Bao

for Mi

Lunch before MI756

For momMi who likes her pasta with extra olive oil, carrots, no olives & less pepper.

• 1/3 chinese sausage
• 4 slices ham
• spare ribs
• cabbage
• button mushrooms
• lots of shrimp

Asian style for my family.

little doughboy

Make the little guy dance to your choreography, end it with kisses and send it to your friend.