Gingerbread Boy & Gingerbread Girl

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for Year 2010!

Update: I made these cookies together with my nephew because he loves "The Gingerbread Man" story.

Gingerbread Cookies

Ingredients
(A)
60g butter
100g sugar
pinch of salt

(B)
1 egg

(C)
170g golden syrup

(D)
460g flour
2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
1 tsp baking soda

Method
1. Mix (A) till well combined. Add in (B) and cream till smooth.
2. Add in (C), then (D) and mix till well blended.
3. Let it rest for 15 minutes. Then roll the dough to 3mm thick and cut it out using Gingerbread Boy & Girl cookie cutters.
4. Bake at 180 deg C for 15 minutes.

Recipe from: Joy of Making Cookies by Alex Goh

Will be back... not so soon

I guess I have taken a longer break than I have intended. I have been missing for almost 3 months! Several blogging friends have been asking about me. Thanks for all the concern. I'm perfectly fine!

As for the reasons why I'm missing for this long:

1) At first it's my laziness, I feel that I should take a break from baking and blogging for a while.

2) Then it's Facebook In, Blogging Out. I'm spending more time using FB nowadays.

3) I have been baking some of the old recipes and not worth mentioning again. As for some of the new bakes, they were not really that good to blog about.

4) Lastly the main reason is, now that when I feel my hands itching to bake again, I can't bake as freely as I wish to. My brother has shifted back home cos my mum has to look after his new twin babies. Now that there are 3 more adults and 3 more children staying in my house, my oven and breadmaker have to shift aside to accommodate so many people. I'm still getting used to it, I'm too used to a quieter home actually. Sigh. So I will not be baking anytime soon, unless someone can lend a kitchen to me.

Till then, cya, not so soon. Bye!

Good news... problem finally solved

Good news for all bloggers who have been experiencing problems with missing editing icons in the new post page.

It has nothing to do with Blogger and nothing to do with internet browsers (both IE and FF didn't work for me). It is actually Singnet's problem. It seems to affect singnet users only I think.

Here's a solution from the forum for those using Internet Explorer.

Tools -> Internet Options
Click on "Connections" page tab
Click on "LAN Settings" button (if you are using Broadband)
Check "Use a proxy server for your LAN ..." checkbox
Click on "Advanced" button
Under HTTP type, input "proxy.singnet.com.sg" for proxy address and "8080" for port

It works for me!

Poll: How long do you take to write a blog post?

Bored and trying to find something interesting to do.

Join me in this poll. You have 1 whole month to vote until 31 August 2009.

For me, if I'm posting a recipe, I usually take 30 minutes to 1 hour. :)

Poll Results

Problem with Blogger again

A short update from me before I take a hiatus from blogging.

This Blogger problem has been frustrating me so much that I have no mood to post anymore. My new post screen can't display properly and the editing icons are missing, including the upload photo icon. I can only type plain text like this.

I still continue my daily routine of blog-visiting for interesting new posts. I read all the blogs that I follow with envy. Everyone is blogging something and nobody complains about any problem. So is it my problem or Blogger's problem.

Anyway, I have received a second award. I also made a Mars Bar Ice Cream, another eggless, very simple recipe that is extremely soft and creamy.

I will post about it when the problem is gone. Dunno when.

Kreativ Blogger Award

Great thanks to Tracie of Bitter Sweet Flavours and Missy of Sweet Crumbs for passing the Kreativ Blogger Award to me. It's my first award!


The Kreativ Blogger Award comes with some rules:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated

It's hard to think of something interesting about me. So I shall change this to 7 types of cakes that I wish to try or improve on.

1. Sponge cakes - Hope to make one that is really soft and will not turn dry so easily. Intend to try making sponge cakes using the method similar to chiffon cakes by separating the egg yolks and egg whites too.

2. Chiffon cakes - Although I have some successful attempts, I still fail sometimes. Hope to be more consistent in future.

3. Swiss rolls - I never got this right so far! All my swiss rolls crack!

4. Cupcakes - I wish I could make pretty cupcakes.

5. Cartoon cakes - Want to do a cartoon cake for my nephew and niece. But ahem... I have no idea how to do it.

6. Layered cream cakes - I'm just not confident about decorating cakes. I'm pretty clumsy in handling the cream, not creative, and clueless about decorating.

7. Mooncakes - I promise to make mooncakes this year. :)

The next seven 'Kreativ Blogger' holders would be..
Happy Home Baking
Kitchen Corner
Passionate About Baking
The Adventures of Giggle!!!
....a little diary of mine
Honey Bee Sweets
Happy Flour

If you can't upload your photos, try this...

Problem:
Image has been uploaded, but nothing appears on the compose window.

Temporary solution: Upload the photos manually

1. Upload your photos as usual (make sure you choose the size that you want).

2. When the picture is uploaded, DO NOT click done. Instead, right click on the pic, left click on properties & copy the URL (add) there. Do not close the uploaded image window. Just minimise it.

3. On your edit post window, in edit HTML format, input the following:

(can't type this. see comments below)

where URL is the URL (add) that you have copied. Close the uploaded pic window before you click publish. Once you click publish, you shall be able to see your photos.

It's a bit troublesome. But that's all we can do while waiting for Blogger to resolve the problem.

Marble Chiffon Cake

I can't wait to try this Chocolate Marble Chiffon by Grace's Kitchen Corner once I saw the beautiful swirls on her cake.

I'm not very confident about doing this. I have never done anything complicated for my chiffon cakes, like making them multi-coloured. Cos most of the time, my chiffon cakes fail and I'm afraid my effort will be wasted. Secondly, her recipe uses a 21cm chiffon pan, while I'm using a 16cm one (that's the only one I own, sad!). I feel a bit risky to reduce the recipe like that.

You know what, I pass! (Like passing exams!) I'm pretty proud of myself. Thanks Grace, for such a wonderful recipe!

Summer Ice Cream Treat

I made Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Cream using the same recipe as the Mango Yoghurt Ice Cream. It was really refreshing to treat myself a Mango and Strawberry Ice Cream Combo in such a hot weather. :)

Strange! I have not been able to upload photos to Blogger for the past few days. I wonder why? You can take a look at the ice cream from my Flickr photos. Meanwhile, I will continue to try uploading my photos.

Update on 4 July:
I'm finally able to upload my photo. The Blogger problem still exists. I read from the forum and found the manual way to do it.

Double Chocolate Chips Chiffon Cake

I went Facebook crazy again after my sister invited me to play the Restaurant City game. You keep wanting to expand your restaurant, buy more decorative items to make your restaurant look better and exchange ingredients to level up your dishes. It can really get you so addicted to it. :)

Here's a peek to my restaurant. I'm only at level 10, still very small and need more money to buy more items. :)


Ok, back to baking again!


Rei's All That Matters Double Chocolate Chips Chiffon Cake is something that I wanted to try long ago. But because of my lack of skill in chiffon cakes, I never dare to bake it for fear of disappointment. Feeling a bit encouraged after the success of the Coffee Chiffon Cake, I steal some time (while running my Restaurant City, haha!) to make this.


When chiffon cakes and chocolates, two of my favourites are combined, it is no wonder that I love this cake so much. I couldn't believe that I succeed again. I'm slowly on the road to making good chiffon cakes, hopefully. This has to be added to one of my favourite lists again. :)

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

It was another baking session for me and my nephew. I steamed the cake, made and spread the fudge frosting and left the cake decoration task to my nephew, as he wanted to decorate the cake himself for his mummy (my sister). The cake turned out to be so lovely and colourful! I think he did a great job! :)

The Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake from Peng's Kitchen was a nice one, moist and fudgey. I'm glad that I have steamed the cake well, and not turning it into a "kueh"! It's a good recipe for those who without an oven and electric mixer.

Milo Doggies Cookies

It's the June holidays! The few Double Chocolate Mint Cookies that I had saved for ourselves was simply not enough. :) I promise my nephew to make some Kids Cookies for him during the holidays.

I tried the Milo Doggies Cookies from Happy Homebaker so that I could include him in the cookies-making for some "fun" as he could help me to put the ears, eyes and noses. I heard from him that he had made cupcakes during his class and enjoyed it. So I thought he might enjoy doing the cookies with me too.


Boys are boys, instead of helping me to do the cookies nicely, he was making monsters instead of doggies. Put the eyes one up and one down or a dog with two noses, most of them don't look good at all. Those in the photos are the only fews that look better. Haha! And he was eating the Koko Krunch and chocolate chips while making them! Gosh! I wonder how the preschool teachers manage a whole class of kids! But I'm glad that he likes the cookies.

I promise him to make more cookies for him again after he finish this batch. Got to think of what to make again. :)

Mango Yoghurt Ice Cream (Eggless)

Solve this problem: Hot weather + Cheap mangoes = ?
The answer is: Mango Ice Cream!

The mangoes are really cheap these days. My mother happened to buy mangoes at a cheap price of $2.40 for 3. So I "steal" some mangoes over to make the Mango Yoghurt Ice Cream adapted from Aunty Yochana's Strawberry Yoghurt Ice Cream.


Few weeks ago, my poor nephew had to stay in the hospital for 3 days because of diarrhoea. His stools were tested and Salmonella bacteria was found. We had no idea how he got contacted with it. But that surely prompt us to take extra care of the food that we gave him, whether at home or outside food. As Salmonella can come from raw eggs, I have decided not to use any ice cream recipes that use eggs. I just want to be safe cos he loves to eat the ice creams that I make.

Come back to this ice cream again. It is EGGLESS! So it's safe for children and anyone who is allergic to eggs. The best thing is, it is SO DELICIOUS! Everyone gives two thumbs up for it. To make sure that I keep this recipe properly and permanently, I make another recipe card for it.

Click on picture to enlarge.

Double Chocolate Mint Cookies

It's been a long time since I have baked some chocolate cookies. Have been "blog-hopping" around for some recipes until I found this Double Chocolate Mint Cookies from Kitchen Capers. It's interesting to know that the Polo sweets that we eat can be used to make cookies.

I bought 2 tubes of Polo sweets, sort of in a hurry. To my surprise, I got a tube which is flavoured! To those who know me, I'm not a sweets person. I hardly eat any sweets and I can't remember when was the last time I had eaten Polo. I guess I'm too far behind time, Polo mints are actually flavoured now!!


Left with only 1 tube of Polo, I wasn't expecting too much mint flavour this time. Truly, there was hardly any mint flavour in the cookies. As I chopped the Polo sweets coarsely, you can only taste it when there's bits of crushed Polo here and there.


All of a sudden, I was in a very giving mood, and decided to pack one box to give away to my friend and my neighbour with 2 little boys. Just left only a few for myself to test-taste. The kids love it very much!

Vanilla Ice Cream

Almost a year ago, when I signed up for a Premium Service membership at the library which entitles members to borrow 4 additional books/AV items like VCD/DVD/software, etc, I borrowed a VCD called "Ice-Cream Making" by Agnes Chang. The VCD teaches how easy ice creams can be made at home without any ice cream maker. All you need is an electric mixer that will churn out the ice creams in about the same way. I had taken down some useful notes and will share it briefly here.

In that VCD, Agnes Chang introduces 3 ways of making ice cream at home:

1. The simple method (mango ice cream and strawberry ice cream)
This method does not require any eggs and is suitable for people who cannot consume eggs or is worried about consuming semi-cooked eggs. The main ingredients are coffeemate powder, sugar, milk and gelatine powder. However, I do not like the idea of adding gelatine to my ice creams cos it's not suitable for vegetarians so this method is out for me.

2. The quick method (double chocolate ice cream and rum and raisin ice cream)
This method is quick because it does not require the process of freezing until half frozen, whipping, and re-freezing. Just need to freeze one time only. The method involves cooking the custard > adding whipped egg whites > adding whipped cream. The end product is smooth enough and does not require additional whipping. However, I do not like the idea of adding raw egg whites to my ice creams so this method is out for me too.

3. The traditional method (vanilla ice cream and sweet corn ice cream)
This is the traditional way of making ice cream which involves cooking the custard > adding whipping cream and whisk up the mixture when it is half-frozen till smooth and fluffy, then re-freezing. And here I have just tried out her Vanilla Ice Cream using this method.



At last, I have put my Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract to good use. Below is a special recipe card (can I call this a recipe card??) that I have made myself. Hopefully, it will be useful to anyone who wants to make ice creams at home. Oh ya, if you need any recipes for the other methods, I have them too, but I can't tell you how good the result and taste is.

click on picture to enlarge

Coffee Chiffon Cake

I wonder if it's the caffeine or the excitement that keeps me awake at night. Oh, it could be the caffeine cos I can't sleep well if I drink coffee in the day. It could be the excitement too... because I have FINALLY baked a chiffon cake successfully!


Not that I have never succeeded before. I managed to bake Banana Chiffon Cake and Green Tea Chiffon Cake pretty well and standing tall. Then later attempts were disappointment and more disappointment. But I did it again! See, no more sunken top! I'm excited! I keep thinking about what chiffon cakes to make and imagining myself making them successfully again when I can't seem to fall asleep last night.


I love this Kevin Chai's recipe. Simple and great. The texture is just perfect, soft and spongy and not too moist or dry. A must-try for chiffon cake beginners like me!


Coffee Chiffon Cake

Ingredients (6-inch chiffon tin)
2 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
1 tbsp instant coffee powder
20ml milk
20ml cooking oil
40g self-raising flour

2 egg whites (I use 3 egg whites but it is too much for a 6-inch tin, haha!)
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
50g caster sugar (can reduce to 40g)

Method
1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar. Stir instant coffee powder with milk until the coffee powder dissolves.
2. Add the coffee mixture and oil into the egg yolk batter. Fold in the flour.
3. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until mixture is foamy. Gradually add in sugar and beat until stiff peak form. (Important!)
4. Gently fold beaten egg white into egg yolk batter (in step 2) until blended in 3 batches.
5. Pour batter into ungreased 6-inch chiffon tin. Bake in pre-heated oven at 170 deg C for 30 mins. (I bake at 180 deg C for the 1st 10 minutes, then reduce to 170 deg C for the next 20 minutes.)
6. Remove from oven and invert cake immediately until it is completely cool.

Recipe modified from: Chiffon Cake is Done by Kevin Chai

Milo Chocolate Chip Muffins

At times, when you don't feel like baking anything complicated or trying something new or attempting a recipe that you have already failed several times, making muffins is the best choice.

I try out the Milo Chocolate Chip Muffin by Cooking Crave. I can't help adding this to my to-do list cos they look so yummy from the photos. She has modified HHB's recipe by reducing the sugar and chocolate chips.


It is only after trying out these delicious muffins then I realize the taste seems to be a bit familiar. No wonder! I had baked these muffins before, back in 2007 when I had just started baking (see picture below). It was my first batch of muffins! How forgetful I am, falling for the same recipe twice, unintentionally. Proves that this recipe is too good to be missed! And you notice how different the two batches of muffins looks, even though they were done by the same person. It looks like the muffins have just gone through a "makeover"! ^_^

Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to Me,
Happy Birthday to Me,
Happy Birthday to Me...
Happy Birthday to Me!


Here's my birthday cake from Crystal Jade Bakery. It's a Mango Cake, one of my favourite!

Polo Buns

My earlier experiments with breadmaking last year wasn't really successful. I had problems of sticky dough which led to frustrations. (I have this "weird" dislike of sticky and greasy hands!) That stopped me from making breads for quite a while. Due to an urgent need to clear the packet of expiring-soon bread flour, I'm back to breadmaking again.


The sticky problem is gone! It's either that the recipes are good or the cold method works (or both!), which makes these Polo Buns and Creamy Braided Bread extremely easy to handle.

What is Cold Method? (when using the breadmachine)
Cold Method simply means use cold ingredients. Instead of putting everything into the breadmachine at room temperature, take the extra effort. Measure the water, milk, eggs, butter, cream or any other liquid ingredients, then put them in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. Then put the cold liquid ingredients, followed by the dry ingredients, and lastly the yeast into the breadmachine and start using the DOUGH function. Leave the lid OPEN (a tip from Happy Homebaker). Let it knead for about 10 minutes, then add the cold butter. Restart the machine and knead the dough for another 20 minutes. Then I got the nice, smooth, non-sticky and stretchable dough ready for proofing.


Here's the Polo Buns that I made, another good recipe from Grace Kitchen Corner. The extremely soft interior and buttery pastry on top makes it so good to eat. There's a link in her post that teaches how to push the dough into the pastry easily, which really helps. Try this!

Cookies & Cream Ice Cream

This Cookies & Cream Ice Cream has been tempting me for too long! I keep reminding everyone in the house not to touch that packet of oreo cookies cos I'm going to use it to make something delicous. Haha!


This ice cream is absolutely delicious! Instead of using milk, dairy cream is added to make it more rich and creamy. We finish it within 3 days! This recipe is taken from an ice-cream making book in Chinese called 冷冻甜品. Do take a look at the bookstore. I have tried the Toblerone Ice Cream which tastes great too! For this Cookies & Cream Ice Cream recipe, you can find it here.

* If you find the cream taste is too heavy (my mum finds its 奶油味太重), I suggest using half cream and half milk, or replacing all the cream with milk. The book suggests substituting every 150g dairy whipping cream with 100g fresh milk.

Creamy Braided Bread

Gosh! When was the last time I baked a bread? It was so long ago that I felt a bit guilty of under-using my bread machine. That's the first reason. Second reason, the pack of bread flour is expiring soon. Third and most important, I'm so addicted to Grace Kitchen Corner's blog these days. I admit that I have been reading this blog for quite long but got addicted to it only recently, hehe! I'm so impressed by her breads and chiffon cakes especially as they look professionally good! Have been reading through her previous posts and found more reasons to bake some fresh breads. ;)


So here's the Creamy Braided Bread. This bread dough is extremely easy to handle. No sticking to my hands at all and very easy to plait them. But I'm not sure if it's the high fat content in the whipping cream or due to the hot weather that cause the dough to be a bit greasy. It was like "sweating with oil" during proofing!

But I hope it does not stop you from baking this. It's really soft and buttery and taste wonderful. The crumble topping is excellent, except a little sweet for me. I also have extra crumble topping left as I'm only able to use up half to cover up the bread. I will reduce the crumble topping ingredients if I try it next time.

Melting Moments

Melting Moments! One of the most famous cookies that everyone loves to eat. It is supposed to melt-in-the-mouth and I guess that's why it's named Melting Moments.

This CNY, we bought some homemade cookies from Malaysia and one of them was the melt-in-the-mouth kind and it tasted so good! As it was not labeled, I'm not really sure if it's the Melting Moments cookies that I've been wanting to try.


I'm determined to make these some day and I finally found one recipe from Sweet Decadenze. I tried to duplicate the cookies that we had bought, piping little flowery shapes and putting a chcocolate chip on top. My piping skill is horrible! Every cookie comes in different sizes, shapes, thickness, heights, plus I wasn't using the real piping tools (I just fold my own piping bag). Hehe!

The cookies are great! Melts-in-the-mouth kind. Mine is a little crunchy at first bite. Perhaps I overbaked a little. Those we bought were better. But nobody complains! Another cookie to be baked for next CNY. Who wants? :)

What’s Your Baking Personality?

I took this What’s Your Baking Personality? quiz from Baking Bites.

Result: 2A 2B 1E
So I'm a split between Type A and Type B personality. This is pretty accurate!

a) Giving: Friendly, well-liked and enthusiastic, giving bakers seldom experiment, love baking and like to serve tried-and-true family favorites that they know are crowd pleasers, rather than risk experimenting with the unknown.

b) Methodical: Talented bakers who rely heavily on recipes because baking is considered to be a science for a reason! They know that they’ll get the results they want that way. And usually, their creations look just like the picture in the cookbook.

Take the quiz here.

***

Here's another muffin that I have baked recently, from the same book - Muffins Galore.

Gift from a special friend

This post has been kept as draft for 2 months! I received a gift from a special friend on the 2nd day of 2009. It is the Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract, the best vanilla ingredient to make perfect vanilla cakes and desserts. Every baker dreams to own this!


Apologies! I have been baking CNY Cookies during January and busy with eating them during February that I haven't been able to bake much. I hope to look for recipes like a pure vanilla cake or pure vanilla desserts to taste the real vanilla in it. :)


Come back to these muffins. I got this Muffins Galore book from the library last week and tried this Vanilla Chocolate Chip Muffins, the very first recipe in this book. The muffins smell and taste very good! Maybe it's the Vanilla Extract :P. I'm eager to try out more recipes from this book.

To my special friend, you know who you are. I really appreciate the efforts and thoughts that come with the present. Thanks for the wonderful gift and let me understand the joy of giving and sharing. It's my best gift ever! :)

Banana Cake

Time to start baking! I bake this Banana Cake using HHB's recipe. Have to leave out the wholemeal flour and use plain flour instead cos I don't have that at home. The cake somehow looks quite different from hers. My cake splits and "explodes" at the top and doesn't remain flat and nice like hers!


I like this recipe as it uses very little sugar and the butter is not too much. As a result, the banana cake is not overly sweet and oily. I like the top crust which is slightly crunchy and sugary with the extra sugar sprinkled on top. The cake inside remains soft. The banana taste strangely isn't that strong. Maybe I use the wrong type of bananas or the bananas are not ripe enough?


I bake this cake in this newly-bought mini loaf pan from Daiso. Daiso is a heaven for cheap, small and cute baking stuffs. There are mini chiffon pans, tart pans, heart-shaped pans, etc. I'm tempted to get the mini chiffon pans. They look really cute. But the thought of washing many mini ones instead of 1 large one puts me off. I would rather not buy! :)

I saw a rainbow

Nevermind, this is not related to baking. I just can't help posting this photo up. It was taken yesterday evening when I saw the beautiful rainbow at around 6.30pm. My place has a very good geographical location. :) I saw rainbows outside the corridor several times. So whenever there is rain and sunshine, I will tell my nephew to look out for the rainbow. :)


This rainbow lasted unusually long. In fact, there was a second rainbow beside it, which is fainter. I think it's the reflection of the first rainbow (if I'm not wrong) and its colours are opposite of the first one. It was still up there after 7pm and disappeared only when the sun set. And I believe it could be seen at many parts of Singapore.


I took this rare opportunity to take a picture of my mother's newly grown roselle plant. I hope they can grow up successfully.

Before CNY ends

I'm squeezing everything in this post just before the CNY ends. :)

I made another batch of pineapple tarts to use up the remaining pineapple paste. Initially, I wanted to use HHB's recipe. But I received a few recommendations on Mandy's recipe (Fresh from the Oven) too . I compare the 2 recipes and find that they are very similar. The difference is Mandy's recipe replaced some flour with cornstarch and added some icing sugar. So in the end, I decided to use Mandy's one. Sorry HHB! The pineapple tarts taste great! It simply melts in the mouth and the fillings inside remain very soft and moist. Rolling the jam into balls with wet hands really helps (click here for more tips from HHB). So those who are interested, you can try this next year!


You see, the above recipe used up 3 egg yolks, so with the remaining 3 egg whites, I made the Angel Food Cake from Baking Fiends. It was done pretty fast cos there were only 3 ingredients. I wasn't expecting much, I had enough failures in making chiffon cakes. I just constantly repeating to myself "stiff and glossy... stiff and glossy... stiff and glossy" when beating the egg whites. Although the result wasn't perfect, I was quite relieved to see that it did not sink at the top after cooling down.


Lastly, in order to use up the toblerone chocolate that is expiring soon, I made the Toblerone Ice Cream again. Send this to bakers all over the world using my unique stamp. :)

Sentosa Flowers 2009

I went to the Sentosa Flowers 2009 on the 2nd day of Lunar New Year. Took the Sentosa Express from Vivocity and it was SUPER crowded. The queue for the tickets extended to the rooftop amphitheatre outside and we have to sit there to wait for our turn to move in.

We alighted at the Imbiah Station and this was one of the best places for photo-taking.



Walking towards the beach.


Some of the creative garden sculptures created by students.




Ended our day at the Palawan Beach. Walk across the suspension bridge, you will reach the Southernmost Point of Continental Asia (Asia's closest point to the Equator). Nice views from the top.