MERRY CHRISTMAS with... fruitcake!

What's Christmas without a fruit cake? My family had a Christmas party at our place. We invited 18 people over, what a crowd! I baked my first fruitcake...on the day. Christmas fruitcakes were initially supposed to be baked 6 months ago, so the brandy in it can mature, and all the flavours come together.

But it was a last minute thing because my Mum was suddenly worried about not having enough food. With this huge turkey, not enough food?? The bird took 3 hours to roast in the oven. Such a huge bird, thank goodness we have a big oven. =P

I also made mango pudding, because its mango season!

The cake tasted great! Moist, with caramelised fruit and just a hint of brandy. The smell of mixed spices made it taste even yummier.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Cherry & Strawberry Picking

Berry and cherry seasons are here! Just one of the things to love about summer. We travelled all the way to Port Sea, and along the way stopped to pick some of these decadent jewelled fruits.

Cherries were ripe, sweet and juicy. I think I ate nearly a kilo of them while picking them, haha.

And the strawberries. Ripe and ready for picking!

Man, they were HUGE. Not as sweet as the cherries, but I definitely haven't seen a size like that in Coles or Woolworths, or anywhere for that matter. They were almost palm sized, really amazing.

Strawberry fields: there actually weren't many strawberries left. Most have already been picked. Next time we should come earlier to get the best crop.

Omu Rice

I cooked this while my brother was preparing for his exams. Something to encourage him to study harder. And I just wanted an excuse to try making Omu Rice. It wasn't hard to make, and tasted absolutely delicious! I thought I was going to screw up the first egg omelette, but thankfully I didn't =D

It's basically tomato fried rice wrapped in an egg omelette. Once you break into the egg, you can uncover and smell the fried rice wafting to your nose... My brother loved it ^^ Woot~

Green Tea Red Bean Swiss Rolls

I baked these a while back, just remembered to post them, haha. The first roll wasn't that successful, as in the sponge wasn't soft or fluffy but rather dense.

I dusted it with icing sugar.

So i tried to bake a second one, which had the nice cloud-like texture. But it just doesn't look as appealing as the first. When will I find a good recipe for my swiss rolls...? T^T

They remind me of sushi.... Preferred this one to the first roll though.

Green Tea-ramisu

I baked something for my brother's pre-Xmas party. A green tea charlotte cheese cake, but I layered it with sponge fingers and surrounded the sides so it looks like a picket fence. Looked and tasted pretty good ^0^

Didn't take any proper pictures because it was a busy time preparing for the party. Sorry!

Matcha Shortbread & Biscotti

Xmas Baking! I wanted to bake some Christmas goodies for my friends, and decided on Green Tea shortbread 'coz they liked green tea so much. But once I've done baking, I'm left with 3 egg whites left over. No idea what to do with them, and didn't want to waste it either. So I used my trusty friend Google and it gave me the recipe for Biscotti! Brilliant. Really happy with my baking products.

Rich, buttery shortbread with not-too-bitter green tea flavour and just the right sweetness.

Healthy, crisp biscotti (Because I used whole wheat flour, halved the sugar, and added the goodness of almonds plus some cranberries for the festive season ^^). These were very addicting, I couldn't stop at one. I'll definitely bake more biscotti whenever I get leftover egg whites...

My friends loved them; yay~!

Success with Pandan chiffon!

Wow! Can't believe its been more than 2 months since I last blogged my last baking escapade. I've been busy with exams, and then after exams, busy with the things I've been restricting myself from. Like my precious animes, mangas, dramas... and baking! I was supposed to post this up a month ago, but I watched 50 episodes of anime first, ahahaha ^^;;

Celebratory baking~!

NO MOAR EXAMS!! No more studying, no more restrictions, oh my gosh *0* And most of all, I can bake/cook whatever I want! So I started, with a successful Pandan Chiffon Cake:

Woooooo, did you see how tall and pretty and how it is NOT sinking? I could finally bake a chiffon cake that doesn't flop! I guess third time really is the charm! It was so exciting, I did a victory dance around the kitchen. How could I get so much joy over baking a cake, I'll never know.

This time, I used fresh Pandan leaves, so no artificial colouring with using essences. Pandan leaves are quite hard to find, and not always supplied in an asian grocery shop. Luckily, I saw it while grocery shopping with my mum. I haven't touched pandan leaves in five years! I remembered my mum used to boil it with barley, or fresh grass jelly. Oh, those days were amazing. She boiled it with barley, fresh grass jelly is pretty much impossible to find find in Australia.... So yummy! ^0^

I used the remaining leaves to blend it up with coconut milk, and used it to bake the chiffon cake. I finally have a proper chiffon cake tin! It was a birthday present from my aunt, and will definately be put to good use.

I also made Tamago Tofu or Chawanmushi: A japanese savoury egg custard. My family always orders this whenever we are in a japanese restuarant: silky, smooth custard embedded with spring onions, a must eat when dining out for japanese food. Little did I know how easy this was to make! And it tastes just like the ones from restuarants. No need to shell out big bucks for this delicious entree anymore. =D

Egg Tarts + Apple Puff

Whew! Baked a lot today. I was using both of my ovens, so five tiers were being used all together. My brother wanted me to make egg tarts, so I did.

I was kind of lazy to make my own pastry for the tarts; I used puff pastry. It worked well too!

The custard was really yummy. I kept tasting it as it cooked, so I had to stop myself before there was too little left, hehe.

Warm, flaky crusts with smooth custard. Yum! Of course it can't compare to the professionals at Yum Cha, and it'll always be one of the things I regularly order, along with cha sui bao. *0*

Then my mum wanted to finish all the puff pastry, so we made apple puffs. =D

You can see the apples bursting out of the pastry. Oops, I didn't seal them up enough.

And lastly we had some left over egg whites from the custard. So I whisked it up, added some sugar and baked them, hoping it would come out as meringues.

It didn't. But what came out tasted like popcorn, and the texture is like cotton candy! It's amazing. I think I'll call it popcotton candy. LOL.

Today was so fun, even though I spend 4 hours baking...

Banana cake III: The One!

I think I've finally found it. A low fat, low sugar, actually healthy banana cake recipe. Oh em gee. About time too; my banana supply was rapidly diminishing.

Most of the sugar was replaced by honey, plus I used whole wheat flour and brown sugar.

I love the plump raisins scattered throughout the cake, it added sweetness to the cake.

This yielded a surprisingly spongy cake. It was moist, but still had some bite to it. Oh, and it smelled really good too because of the cinnamon I mixed in.

So the quest comes to an end! Mainly because I have no more bananas left Hahaha... Gosh I love this cake. It's a keeper. ^0^

Banana II (muffins)

Second trial of banana quest. In the form of muffins this time! I used one banana, but the flavour was still as intense. Not too happy with this recipe though. The texture wasn't crumbly enough to be anything like cake or bread. And the appearance reminded me of wrinkly corn muffins. Won't be baking this again.

I added some raisins and sunflower seeds to...well, make it less boring.

I have three more bananas left, just enough for one more banana trial. Will the third time work a charm? Hmm...

Banana Bread I

I am on the quest to find a good banana cake recipe that uses the minimum amount of oil or butter. I have a bunch of bananas ripening, a list of recipes to try and a determination to find the perfect healthy banana cake. This will probably take some time, as my family can only eat so many banana cakes a week, haha.

This first banana cake turned out more like banana bread. It really tasted like bread, with the taste of bananas. I think it would be good if I had baked it in a loaf tin, and cut it into slices.

Looks like banana buns! These are really nice with honey and jam though. I toasted it lightly and spread blueberry jam over it. So yummy!

There were bits of gooey banana dotted throughout, which was my favourite part.

Not as fluffy as I would have liked it, and it was sort of dense as well. But with no butter or oil, and using wholesome ingredients like whole wheat flour, it's really healthy. There is twice the amount of bananas in this recipe then other banana cake recipes, so it's still moist and soft. I ate three at a go, hehe.

Checkerboard Cookies

Wow it's been ages since I last posted, only because of VCE!! Finally holidays are here, and I have time to breathe. Anyway, I actually baked these a few weeks ago for my friend's birthday, but never got the time to post it.

Baking in oven...

These cookies are shortbread cookies, and they take quite some time to assemble, but they look so cute once they are out of the oven! My friend was really happy, because she had been wanting to try them for ages, haha. The pastry needs to be cooled when kneading and arranging, so I had to put it in the fridge at intervals. But they were so fun to make, and great stress reliever (for me) too.


After they have set, I take them out of the fridge. These cookies are pretty convenient to store for months, so you can cut and bake whenever you feel like eating cookies. So bake in bulk next time. =D Totally worth it.

The cookies were soft and buttery, with taste of chocolate and vanilla on your tongue...perfect with milk tea!

Pandan Chiffons

Been missing Pandan cakes from S'pore, that's why I've been making them. They are impossible to find over here, even in Box Hill. I went into a Chinese cake shop to ask if they have any, but was met with a blank stare and ,"Would you like taro instead?" So I thought I'll make my own instead.

I've been wanting to try out chiffon cakes for the longest time... Chiffon cakes are daunting; they could sink like quick sand, becoming a dense kueh instead of a tall, fluffy, melt-in-your mouth cake. I really wanted to see if I could succeed in making one. Or two.

The first cake was... alright. It didn't rise up proud and tall, it stopped midway and sank a bit more during cooling. And I did not have a proper chiffon cake pan either, I used a normal cake pan. That chiffon cake pan is so hard to find! I've looked simply everywhere, and not a single store has it. I kept thinking how in S'pore, they were sold everywhere and I didn't even notice... T^T

Anyway. I deduced the problem was either the cake pan trouble, or I did not beat the egg whites enough. Here's the first cake:

It tastes like a chiffon cake, which my family was happy about. Soft and moist with pandan and coconut flavours complementing each other... But after an hour, the cake sank... I was so disappointed.

But I was ready to give it a second go. This time, I placed a tin can in the middle of the normal cake pan so the cake would have a hole in the middle, hahaha. The egg whites were also beaten a lot, to the point where I could left the bowl over my head and the egg whites still remained in the bowl. Very cool =P

It rose more than the first cake. but you can see it sinking in the middle already...

Compare the two:

Chiffon II

Chiffon I
Chiffon II is definitely taller than I, but why are both cakes still sinking?? I can't figure it out...

Oh well, until then, I'll just eat the cakes I've made. It's ultimate comfort food for me...

(Chiffon II)