I need to cool down

First, it's fever. Then, comes the cough and sore throat. I tried to search for blogs that share recipes or any home remedies. With no satisfactory results, I made a pot of chrysanthemum tea learnt from Noobcook. Serious. I even need to look for reference to make such a simple chrysanthemum tea. I'm really clueless in cooking. This website is great and has a lot of easy recipes. Promise to learn some simple dishes and post here ok.


I couldn't find soups that helps to soothe coughs. So I made some lemon honey. Juice of 1 lemon + 1 cup hot water + honey to taste. At least, I get a boost of vitamin C and soothe the throat. Anyone has remedies for cough?


Anyway, I'm into baking sponge cakes nowadays. Tried to make green tea cake roll and spread with azuki beans and whipping cream. The cake roll cracked, not much surprise, I knew I can't make cake rolls. :( No choice, I turned it into a layer cake like this.


The other sponge cake I made is a strawberry sponge cake (recipe from HHB). Love its texture - soft and spongy, and it remains soft on the next day.



No chocolates and heaty stuff for me now. I'll see what I can bake.

Making fruit enzymes

Not baking. So I will post up something that my mum is very into recently:
Making fruit enzymes (水果酵素).

We have heard of the health benefits for taking fruit enzymes. Enzymes are important for our digestive system and when our body does not produce enough enzymes, we can't absorb the nutrients from the food that we eat.

It is easy to make enzymes at home.
1. Just prepare a glass container that is very clean and dry. Be careful! Any grease/water will spoil the whole jar!
2. Wash and dry the fruits. Cut into small pieces. Make sure they are very dry!
3. Put a layer of fruits, followed by a layer of rock sugar (we used 冰片糖), repeat until the jar is about 3/4 full. Make sure the top layer is sugar.
4. Seal the jar and leave it in a dry and cool place to ferment.
5. On the 3rd or 4th day, shake the jar to mix the fruits and sugar evenly. Open to release some gases. Remember to close the jar.
6. Enzyme should be ready to be consumed in 2-3 weeks time, depending on the fruit.
7. Filter the fruit from liquid. Store the liquid enzyme in a new glass bottle. Must be clean and dry too!
8. Keep in the refrigerator and drink it within 1 month.
9. If you are making many batches (like my mother), paste a note of the date of making and date of completion on the jar.
10. Drink daily and amount according to your weight (reference from a book). E.g. if you weigh 60kg, then drink 60ml a day, 30kg - 30ml a day.

Here are some enzymes that are ready to be consumed. More coming... :)

Pomegranate enzyme

Mixed fruits enzyme (apples, grapes, lemons and kiwi fruit)

Roselle enzyme

I like the Roselle enzyme the best. It tastes almost the same as Ribena. Very nice to drink.

Easy Honey Cupcakes

Do you know that honey is the the only food in the world that does not spoil?

I remember I read it somewhere and it is quite amazing to know that it can be kept for thousands of years! As for the science behind it, you might want to find out for yourself and let me know, hehe! I think it's a good project for children to do some little research about their favourite food. :)


Anyway, back to baking. :) One day, last week, I was feeling hungry and couldn't find anything good to fill my stomach at home. So, I decided to make this Honey Cupcakes from 孟老师的100道小蛋糕. It looks pretty easy. The only problem is I have a phobia for making sponge cakes that requires me to beat up eggs and sugar first, then fold in flour and oil/butter. I remembered deflating it when I first started baking and since then, I hardly make any sponge cakes, if you have noticed.


Still, I call this an easy recipe, cos I only take 30 minutes to make these cupcakes (including weighing and washing). Fastest record for me! Wasn't very sure if I had beaten the batter to the right stage. But at least, I did not deflate the mixture this time and the cupcakes remains soft and spongy. Not too bad! :)

Easy Honey Cupcakes (From 孟老师的100道小蛋糕)

Ingredients
20g oil
30g honey
2 eggs
20g sugar
50g cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

Method
1. Place oil and honey in a bowl and heat up the mixture by placing the bowl in hot water. Mix well using a spoon and set aside.
2. Beat eggs and sugar using a mixer. Gradually increase the speed to high and beat till mixture turns creamy white and when the whisk is lifted up, the trail does not disappear immediately. Reduce to slow speed and beat for another 1 minute.
3. Sift in cake flour and baking powder and add in honey and oil mixture in step 1. Mix gently until smooth.
4. Fill into cupcake cases until 8/10 full, rest in room temperature for about 5 minutes.
5. Bake in preheated oven at 180 deg C for 15-20 minutes. (Bake at a higher shelf or use a lower heat for the bottom heat cos the honey can cause the base to burn easily.)

Red Bean Buns

It has been quite some time since I baked breads and buns. I have been putting it off as the thought of handling stubborn sticky dough keeps me away from it. And I don't want to leave it in a bread machine to bake too. And more excuses like making ice creams and cakes and muffins, which are easier for me to handle.

Making breads is no easy task for me. So far, none of the breads really satisfy me. I still think there's something lacking, I couldn't get very very soft breads just like those bought from the bakeries. Could it be because bakeries use additives which made the breads softer? But I guess it is most probably due to my bad skills in kneading the bread. Though with the help of a bread machine, the dough still comes out sticky and I have no idea how to knead it to the right stage.


But with a 不服输 attitude (refuse to admit losing), I made the Red Bean Buns from 孟老師的100道麵包. The sticky problem improves a bit. I have left the lid of the bread machine open during kneading, use cold water and eggs. It's definitely less sticky than the last time. Wrapping the fillings is a challenge for me too. One of the buns had red beans leaking out. Inexperience... I also tried plaiting the bread like what Happy Homebaker did. Of course, hers look much better mine. :)


However, I'm still unsatisfied with the softness of the bread. That will be my next challenge.

Recipe can be found in My Home Kitchen's blog. Hers looks great too!

Coffee Marble Cheesecake

Tried out another recipe from 孟老师的100道小蛋糕. I don't have much choices when it comes to making cheese cakes. Remember my disaster for my peach cheesecake? I haven't got any springform or loose base pan yet, so I wouldn't want to attempt any cheesecakes with a biscuit base. That's why I picked this cheesecake recipe without a base!


Making this cheesecake is indeed simple. No need mixer at all. No need to beat egg whites. Perfect for beginners.

The steps go roughly like this: Double boil the cream cheese and sugar. Stir till the mixture is smooth and no lumps. Add milk and cornflour, mix well, remove from heat and cool. Add eggs and vanilla essence, mix well. Scoop 1 tsp of the batter and mix with instant coffee powder. Pour the remaining batter into the tin. Drop teaspoons of the coffee batter on top and swirl marble patterns with a skewer. Steam bake in hot water bath. You can replace coffee with cocoa powder or green tea powder.

Sorry, recipe will not be provided here cos I don't want to publish too many recipes from the same book.


I have no problem with eating any type of cheese cakes. But my mother thinks it's a bit too cheesy and prefers the Japanese type of cotton-soft cheesecakes. It was 1 year ago since I baked it. I miss it too! :)

Toblerone Ice Cream

What is the best food to have when you are feeling down?


Chocolates of course! Chocolate (Wikipedia) contains a variety of substances, some of which act as stimulants. It is said to have 'love chemical' which makes you feel like you have fallen in love and has a mood-elevating effect. Hm...

Here's my treat of Toblerone Ice Cream. Excellent dessert during the hot weather these few days. This is so delicious! Ice-cream making is truly fun! :)


Toblerone Ice Cream (From 冷冻甜品)

Ingredients
3 egg yolks
40g sugar
1 tsp corn flour
170g fresh milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g toblerone chocolate (or cooking chocolate)
220g non-dairy whipping cream
50g chocolate chips

Method
1. Beat egg yolks, sugar and corn flour until sugar has dissolved and pale.
2. Add in fresh milk, vanilla essence and toblerone chocolate. Double boil the mixture and stir and cook at low heat until chocolate has melted and slightly thicken. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
3. Whisk non-dairy whipping cream until stiff and fold into the cooled milk mixture.
4. Stir in chocolate chips and mix well.
5. Pour into a container and freeze overnight. Whisk the mixture again until smooth and freeze until set.

Devil's Cupcakes and A Surprise Reward!

The Devil's Cupcakes


Did these cupcakes quite some time ago as my mother requested me to bake something for her friends. I was scratching head and trying to recall something good enough to let people try. I looked through my archive and saw this Devil's Food Cake. Suddenly remembered that I had tried scooping some out to bake as cupcakes the last time and they tasted very very soft and delicious.


So using the same recipe, I made them into Devil's Cupcakes, topped with chocolate chips ;). When she was back, I received the best feedback ever. I could see she was pretty happy and proud to hear people saying that the cupcakes were good. Sigh... I have probably never done anything great to make her feel proud of me. Very sad.


The Surprise Reward!

It was merely a week since I joined and added the widget from the Foodie BlogRoll. To be honest, I knew this website since a long time ago, but I didn't join it because I find that it slowed down the loading of the websites. But the new widget looks pretty cool and I decided to join in to add some colours to my blog. Weird reason right? Haha! I never knew that because of this simple addition, the readership of my blog increases and I am very surprised to be one of the featured blogs in FFF. FFF means Finest Foodies Friday, which is a weekly Friday post in The Left Over Queen featuring favourites from The Foodie Blogroll. Read here.

It's totally unexpected. I have set up this blog just to record my baking experiences. I have baked some good ones and also numerous unsuccessful attempts. My bakes are not really that outstanding... the photos are very ordinarily taken... my English is poor and I don't write well (I sometimes need to check the dictionary to make sure that I have used a word correctly, blah)... and there are better baking blogs out there who have not had the chance to receive the attention yet.

I would say it's some kind of reward for my persistence in baking and blogging. I'm kind of feeling down lately. It does give me a boost and brighten me up a bit.