Stir Fried Chicken with Apples

Trying out a new dish, Stir Fried Chicken with Apples.

I adapted the original recipe from Peng's Kitchen Blog

Ingredients:
Half a chicken
1 red apple
2 tsp of plum sauce
2 Shallots
1 Onions
A few slices of ginger
1 tsb of oil
1 tsp of soy sauce
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp of lemon juice

Method:
1. Season chicken with soy sauce, pepper & 1 tsp of plum sauce.
1. Heat up 1 tsb of oil, Stir fried chicken with garlic, shallots and onions. Add in chicken, stir fried till cooked, add in 1 tsp of plum sauce, add in abit of water, stir fried till cooked.
2. Add in apples, cook for about 10 mins or till gravy slowly dries up.
3. Dash some parley on the dish. Ready to serve.

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Milk bun

This is my 3rd attempt on bread making, i adapted the recipe from Happy home baking blog. Having the idea of not giving up on bread making, i decide to bake it again today. I do not have a pullman tray so i used a baking tin. Instead of shaping 3 swiss roll dough, I shape it into 2 portion of longish dough to fill up the tray. This time, it took about 2hrs to fill up the tin. It did not rise super high but it fill almost 90% of the baking tin and the taste of it is so much better den previous time.

To me, it looks like a milk bun instead of milk loaf.. keke. the turn out is great, very soft inside.



143g fresh milk (I used HL low-fat fresh milk)
35g egg
25g caster sugar
5g salt
250g bread flour
4g Instant yeast
38g butter (unsalted)

1. Place milk, egg, followed by caster sugar, salt, bread flour and yeast into the pan of the bread machine. Set to Dough function. Add in the butter after 8 ~ 10 mins into the kneading cycle. Continue to let the bread machine do the kneading. Stop the machine after the kneading cycle. Re-start the machine and let the dough knead for another 10mins before stopping the machine.
2. Remove dough from the bread pan, let it proof in room temperature in a mixing bowl, covered with cling wrap. Let proof for 60mins.
3. Remove dough and punch out the gas. Divide dough into 3 equal portion. Roll and shape into balls. Let the doughs rest and relax for 15 mins. (this 'relaxing' time is needed so that the dough will be easier to roll out and shaped).
4. On a lightly floured surface, flatten one dough and roll out into a longish shape. Roll up the dough swiss-roll style. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
5. Flatten the rolled-up dough and roll out again into a long rectangular shape. Roll up tightly, and make as many rolls you can, swiss-roll style for the second time. Do the same for the two remaining doughs.
6. Place doughs in lightly greased bread tin/pan. Let the doughs proof for the second time, until it fills up 80% of the tin/pan. Cover with cling wrap.
7. Bake at pre-heated oven at 180 ~ 190 deg C for 30 to 35mins.
   
8. Unmould the bread immediately when removed from the oven. Let cool completely before slicing.

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Cranberry cupcake

While waiting for the bread dough to proof, i made some cranberry cupcake with the remaining egg and fresh milk.

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Milky Loaf

After browsing some of the baker's blogs on bread making. I made 2 loaves of bread on sun and monday but the end result wasnt as good. Not sure what's the problem. The 2nd proofing didn't go well, after proofing for 2hrs, it did not rise very high dough it rise doubled size of the dough.

It was a long day of waiting and baking.. waiting for the proof. It took me about 5hrs to make this bread including the 3hrs of proofing. My hubby commented that should have just buy a loaf of bread for $2, why waste 5hrs making bread? hahaha.. well i would say its a sense of accomplishment and eating the bread that you have made your own, its kind of joy too.

I suspect the following problems:
1) The baking tin is not the correct size
2) During the 2nd proofing, after an hr, the clingwrap stick onto the dough, i carefully remove it but i think i deflate the dough :( the dough collapse abit.

Any shifu can advise on my problems?

1st proofing, pretty nice shape

Slice of the bread, texture was quite soft

After 30mins of baking.

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A Western dinner night

Grown tired of chinese food, we decide to have a western food feast, just the 2 of us..

We had this with Boiled potatoes!

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More Cream Puffs & Durian Puffs

Here comes the durian season, we feasted on durians for the past 2 weeks, damn fattening and sinful.. haha, after indulging in the durians, we left some for durian for the puffs. In total, i made about 32 puffs. 16 for cream puffs and 16 for durian cream puffs.

Durian Cream Puffs (yield about 16nos.)



Choux Pastery - i use the same recipe from my previous post

Durian Fillings
200 or 250 ml of non-diary whipping cream
equivalent amount of durian pulps
10 gm of gelatine powder
3 tbsp of hot water to dissolve gelatine powder

Whip up whipping cream to a soft peak.
Add in durian pulps and melted gelatine powder and mix well.
Put fillings in a piping bag and pipe it out into the baked choux pastry. If you like, you can just spoon the fillings into the pastry too.
Dust the top of the pastry with some snow powder and leave it in fridge to chill before serving.
(If you leave it in freezer, it will taste like eating durian puffs ice-cream.)

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Watching the ladies from SMH making very nice puffy Cream puffs, i also made some today. The bakes turn out fantastic! Puffy and soft, suprisingly my hubby likes it, amazing cos he dun really like sweet stuffs. After comparing a few recipes, i decide to us the recipe is from yochanna' webbie again.. keke.. im a fan of hers!

pastry puffing in the oven

puff pastry with custard cream in it

Choux Paste:

85 gm. water
50 gm. Butter
60 gm. Plain flour
125 gm. eggs (about 2 eggs)

Custard filling:
420 gm. fresh milk
150 gm. sugar
5 eggs - beaten lightly
30 gm. Butter
25 gm. flour
25 gm. cornflour
1/2 tsp. Vanilla esssence

Method for choux paste:

(1) Boil water and butter till boiling.
(2) Pour in all the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon till paste is not sticky and leaving the side of the pan. Remove from heat and let it cool till lukewarm.
(3) Stir in eggs and mix till it becomes a smooth paste.
(4) Fill paste into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto a baking tray. Makes about 15 nos.
(5) Bake at 180C for about 20 mins. or till puffed up and golden in colour.
(6) For filling: Boil milk with sugar till sugar dissolves.
(7) Meantime, mix cornflour and flour together and then mix in the 5 beaten eggs. Seive mixture.
(8) Remove hot milk from stove, pour gradually into the egg mixture and stir till well mixed. Return to stove again and cook over low heat till custard thickens.
(9) Stir in butter, vanilla essence and rum and set aside to cool.
(10) Cut cream puffs but not cut through, pipe some custard filling into the puff and close back the top put.
(11) Serve.

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Steam Yam Cake

Finally pick up the courage to make steam yam cake last week, my mum makes very nice yam. Im afraid that mine will not be as nice as my mum's. Overall was nice, in laws says 'can sell already' but i think its still need improvement, yam was slightly hard and abit bland, i dare not add too much salt, will improve on that further.

This recipe is adapted from yochanna's blog but i modified abit.

Ingredients:
220 gm. Rice flour
300 gm. Yam - cut into cubes
20 gm. Tapioca flour
2 tsp. 5-spice powder
850 ml. water (divide into 2 portions of 425 ml. each)
5 shallots - sliced

30 gm. chinese sausage - lap cheong - diced
60 gm. roasted pork -siew yok - diced
50 gm. Dried shrimps - soaked then chopped coarsely
4 nos. mushrooms -soaked and diced
2 Tbsp. cooking oil
1 Tbsp. cooking oil - put into boiling water

Seasoning:
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. Vetsin
1 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. sesame oil


Method:

(1) Fry yam with 2 Tbsp. oil and toss with 5-spice powder, leave aside.
(2) Fry the shallots until fragrant, add in dried shrimps and fry till dried shrimps starts to jump then add in chinese sausage, roasted pork and mushrooms . Dish up and leave aside.
(3) Mix the rice flour, wheat starch and tapioca flour with 400 ml. water. Add in seasoning and stir.
(4) In a wok, boil the 400 gm. water till boiling. Add in 1 Tbsp. cooking oil. Off the heat, pour in the rice flour mixture and stir till mixture thickens. On the the heat again and cook over low heat till mixture thickens, pour in 2/3 of the dried shrimp mixture and stir till well-mixed.
(5) Pour into an 8" oiled square tray and level the top.
(6) Steam for about 45 mins.
(7) Sprinkle the balance 1/3 of the dried shrimps mixture on top and steam for another 5 mins.
(8) Leave to cool before slicing.
(9) Sprinkle chillies, fried shallot and spring onion on top and serve with chillie sauce.

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Chicken Pie

Pastry:
200 gm butter
250 gm plain flour
110 gm plain yoghurt ( i omit the yoghurt)
1 tsp sugar
1 egg yolk
A pinch of salt

Put all the ingredients into the mixing bowl except yoghurt, and mix to a crumble. Add in yoghurt and mix to a dough. Dough will be very soft so need to keep it refrigerated for at least 30 mins.

Filling:
12 oz diced potatoes
1 big onion diced
50 gm mixed vegetable (or more if you like)
Sliced canned mushrooms (amt up to you)
2 chicken breast diced
1 tbsp corn starch or potato starch mixed with 2 tbsp water
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper

Heat abt 2 tbsp of oil and fry potatoes with abt 4 fl oz of water and 1/2 tsp salt until soft. Set aside. In a clean wok, heat 2 tbsp oil. Fry the onion until transparent. Add mixed vegetable, mushroom, chicken. Fry for a while to break up chicken. Add in potatoes. Add in abt 4 fl oz of water and cook for abt 5 mins. Add in salt, sugar and pepper. Add in the cornstarch and stir to thicken mixture. Set aside for later use.

The steps for the chicken pie will be as per normal. You can either do big pie or mini pie. Just need to roll out the dough, cut the size required and place in a pie dish. Poke hole on the base using a fork and place ingredients on top. Cut another piece of dough to cover the top. Poke a few more times using fork on the cover of the pie and brush with 1 beaten egg. Baked in a preheated oven at 180C for 30 mins.

The pastry turn out very crumbly, like apple crumble pie pastry, not sure issit because i omit the yoghurt.

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Orange Chiffon Cake

2nd attempt on chiffon cakes

Ingredients:
(A)
4 egg yolks
75 ml. Orange juice
40 ml. water
85 ml. corn oil
90 gm. sugar
150 gm. Hong Kong flour or Cake flour
3 gm. Salt
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Orange emulco

(B)
5 egg white
1/8 tsp. Cream of Tartar
100 gm. sugar

Method:
(1) Mix all the ingredients (A) together and stir till smooth.
(2) Whisk egg white with cream of tartar for 1 min. then gradually pour in sugar and whisk till medium-stiff peak.
(3) Fold mixture (1) and (2) together and pour into a 23 cm. tube pan.
(4) Bake at 180c for about 1 hour or till cake is cooked through.
(5) Overturn cake (still in the pan) onto a wire rack and leave it to cool down completely.
(6) Remove cake from tube pan and slice.
(7) Serve.

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Pandan Chiffon Cake

I finally brave my courage to bake chiffon cake, chiffon cake is 1 of the easiest cake to make but its easy to fail. My 1st attempt wasn't good, my dad complain that the chiffon cake is hard, not soft enough, my mum commented not fluffy enough, my sis.. just say 1 word.. fail.. so demoralizing right! So after my failed 1st attempt of pandan chiffon cake, i decide to try orange chiffon cake last sunday and it turn out to be a great success.. keke.. the cake is soft.. fluffy and not too sweet but somehow the aroma of the orange flavor is not strong despite of putting orange amulco in, most probably i did not put enough of it.

Ingredients for egg yolk mixture:
6 egg yolks
2 Tbsp. Pandan juice
150 gm. coconut milk
1/4 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. Corn oil
1 tsp. Pandan Paste
1/4 tsp. Green colouring
80 gm. caster sugar
140 gm. Cake flour

Egg White Mixture:
6 egg white
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
100 gm. caster sugar

Method:
(1) Mix all the egg yolk ingredients together and stir till smooth.
(2) Whisk egg white with cream of tartar and gradually pour in the sugar. Whisk at high speed until frothy and stiff peak forms.
(3) Gently fold egg yolk mixture with egg white mixture until blended.
(4) Pour into a 9" (23 cm) tube pan. Bake at 170C for about 40 to 45 min.s or until cooked.
(5) Remove from oven, invert cake onto cooling rack until completely cooled before removing from the pan.
(6) Slice and serve.

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Cheese brownies

Left some cheese cream in the fridge expiring soon, decide to try out cheese brownies. Its really not easy, it actually rise quite high when its in the oven but sank after i remove it from the oven. Guess egg inflate during the process of beating. Taste nice though despite the not very pretty appearance.

heres the recipe:

Brownie Ingredients:
180 gm. Butter - melted
275 gm. brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla essence
120 gm. self-raising flour
70 gm. cocoa powder

Cheese filling:
250 gm. cream cheese
45 gm. butter
80 gm. icing sugar
1 egg

Some chocolate chips to sprinkle on top

Method:
(1) Mix melted butter with brown sugar until well combined.
(2) Add in eggs, one at at ime, mixing well after each addition. Stir in vanilla essence.
(3) Gently fold in flour and cocoa powder and stir till smooth.
(4) For cheese filling: beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar until well combined. Add in egg, beating well.
(5) Pour half of brownie batter into loaf pan, then pour in cheese filling. Then pour the balance brownie batter on top of cheese filling. Sprinkle top with chocolate chips.
(6) Bake in preheated oven 170C for 40 min.s or until cooked.

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Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:

3 egg white
100 gm.Castor sugar
125 gm.cake flour
150 gm.whole almonds - slightly roasted

Method:

(1) Whisk egg white with sugar till light and fluffy.
(2) Fold in flour and almonds lightly till till mixture.
(3) Pour into a loaf tin 6" x 9" and bake at 180C for 30 mins. or light brown on top
(4) Remove cake and leave to cool and then refrigerate till harden
(5) Slice thinly and arrange onto baking tray and bake at 130C for another 45 mins. till dry and crispy. Leave to cool before storing into cookie containers.

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Double chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients

125g Butter
70g Castor sugar
70g Brown sugar
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
1 Egg
2 tbsp of cocoa powder
260g Self-raising flour
130g Chocolate chips (Add more if you like more choc chips)

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
2. Sift the flour, set aside.
3. Beat butter, essence and sugars using mixer until smooth.
4. Add egg and beat until well combined.
5. Stir in sifted flour and the remaining ingredients.
6. Take rounded teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls.
7. Place balls about 4cm apart on slightly greased oven trays or line with baking sheet.
8. Bake in pre heated oven for 15 minutes or until browned.
9. Cool in trays for short while and transfer to wire rack for cooling.

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CNY cookies, pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit
Went for baking CNY pineapple tarts with Joanne, Wendy and Tricia but still need more practice at home after the class. First attempt for both are successful..keke.. but i did not cook the pineapple on my own, bought ready-made pineapple paste from Sun Lik trading. Will challenge the cooking of pineapple next year..

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No Bake Oreo Cheesecake dec 07

Ingredients for crust:

220 gm. chocolate biscuits - blended
120 to 150 gm. melted butter

Cream Cheese fillings:

100 gm. Sugar
8 egg yolks
500 gm. cream cheese
22 gm. gelatine powder soaked with 100 ml. water then microwave for 25 secs.
300 gm. Dairy whip cream (35% fat whipping cream)
50 gm. cooking chocolate
1 packet of Oreo cookies

Method:

(1) Mix blended chocolate with butter evenly and press into a 9" round spring form tin. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 20 mins. Till biscuits are firm.
(2) Whisk egg yolks and sugar lightly over a pot of simmering water with the base not touching the water. Whisk till lemony in color.
(3) Beat cream cheese with a paddle till creamy. Pour in the melted gelatine mixture and mix evenly.
(4) Pour in the whisked egg yolks into the cream cheese gradually and mix till evenly combined.
(5) Fold in whipped cream and mix gently.
(6) Pour half of the cream cheese mixture into the prepared tin , lay Oreo cookies on top of cream cheese filling and then pour balance cream cheese filling on top.
(7) Mix 1 tbsp of cream cheese filling with melted chocolate and spoon it on top of the cheese cake. Use a skewer to swirl into a marble effect.
(8) Chill in the refrigerator for about 4 hours or until firm before slicing.

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Blueberry Cheese Cake dec 07

Blueberry Cheesecake for Xmas party at Germaine's House

Ingredients :
1 Small Packet of Digestive Biscuits
1 Can Condensed Milk (380 gm) or 1 tub nestle cream
8 oz or 250 gm (1 Block) Phillidephia Cheese
4 oz or 125 gm (half Block) Butter
5 Teaspoons of Gelatine
1 Lemon -- Squeeze into juice
A little hot water

Blueberry pie filling

Method:

1. Crush 10 pces. of biscuits (equivalent to 2 cups)
2. Melt butter on stove and add in the crushed biscuit crumbs.
3. Line tin with the crumb mixture. Press down and refrigerate for a few hours until hardened.
(Note: Leave cheese block for 1 hr at room temperature before starting).

When ready,
4. Beat cheese till soft and creamy Add condensed milk (use only half can)
5. Add lemon juice (some chopped rinds, if preferred)
6. Mix gelatin with hot water and add in to the mixture a little at a time. Stir briskly.
7. Pour ready mixture onto biscuit crumbs shell and chill in the refrigerator
8. Pour blueberry pie filling onto the top on the cheesecake after 20mins in fridge

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1st attempt baking of donuts on Aug 2007

Ist attempt baking donuts, turn out pretty nice but presentation wise has to be improved further. Heres the recipe.

Oven Baked Donuts

Ingredients :
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
150 gm UHT milk (ang moh like to use soymilk)
1 tablespoon canola oil a
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method :
1. In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

2. Combine the egg, yogurt, oil, lemon juice and vanilla and mix well.

3. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
4. Coat the tube pans with nonstick cooking spray and dust with 1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar. Divide batter among pans.
5. Bake at 180°C for 13 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
(1 Recipe is good to make 24 mini donuts)

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