Cream Cheese Mixed Fruit Butter Cake

I have a bottle of Brandy sitting at home, so I'm thinking of soaking it with some mixed fruit and make a fruit cake out of it. But I never make a fruit cake before and eventhough I do like the American version of the dense fruit cake with little flour used, I still prefer the Asian version with more flour and less fruit.



My mixed fruit soaking in Brandy ready to be used. I soaked it for more than two months. Now in search of a recipe to try. Since I'm not going to make the traditional kind, I opted to try Lucy's cream cheese mixed fruit butter cake. You can find the recipe at her blog under October 2006 archives.

These are the nicer bunch of my end product. The rest got stuck to the pan and came out broken. :( So, please grease generously and flour it if you want to try.

This cake is very soft, sweet and moist. Since I used a lot of brandy (1 cup) to soak my mixed fruit, my cake tasted of brandy and if consume too much can get giddy wor. I think I should rename it Brandy Cake. LOL!

For convenient, I posted Lucy's recipe here:

Ingredients:

125 gm. Butter

125 gm. cream cheese

185 gm. castor sugar (probably have to cut down the sugar to 150 gm. or less)

3 eggs (size B)

200 gm. Cake flour, sifted together with

1 tsp. baking powder

150 gm. Mixed fruits - soaked overnight with 2 Tbsp. Rum/brandy/Kirsch

50 gm. Chopped walnuts

5 nos. green Cherries - diced

Method:

(1) Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar together till creamy.

(2) Add in eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition to prevent curdling.(3) Mix 2 Tbsp. of the sifted flour with the mixed fruits to prevent the fruits from sinking.

(4) Fold in sifted flour and then add in the mixed fruits, green cherries and walnuts.

(5) Pour mixture into a 7" square tin and bake in preheated oven at 175C for about 45 mins. or until cooked.

(6) Remove from oven and leave to cool on the wire rack.

My Girls

My lovely girls!


Edda smiling!


She is pushing up finally!

This is for my record, so I will know whether Edda is behind or not.

2 months before turning three, Evy knows:
~ All the phonics (through LeapFrog Phonics dvd).
~ Speak Mandarin in sentences.
~ Speak some English in sentences (self-learn through T.V. and her notebook).
~ Converse with grandpa and grandma on the phone (mummy's friends too).
~ Know most of the animals name in Mandarin & English.
~ Know all the common shapes and colors in Mandarin & English.
~ Learn to recognize and pronounce Chinese characters correctly.
~ A-Z, and sing the whole song correctly.
~ Sing a bunch of English and Mandarin songs.
~ Say 1-20 in Mandarin & 1-10 in English.
~ She can write 0, 1, 2, 10, H, E & F.
~ She can spell Evy, baby and Tad.
~ She can draw circle, rectangle and our family picture.
~ Tell me what to buy her on her 3rd birthday and what kind of birthday cake she wants. *Geez...*

As for Edda, a bit slow on her development. Still not turning over yet. But at least finally she is pushing up on her own. Not enough tummy exercise I guess, but she always cries when I put her on her tummy, so... Well, as long as she can sit up on her own at 6 months, I'm not going to worry about her turning over or not.

Dinner March 08, 2007

I made Purplegirl's Ayam Masak Sambal Kicap, recipe can be found at IK, under Asian Dishes. It's pretty good!


Stir-fry sugar snap peas/sweet peas with chicken, babycorn, straw mushroom and carrot in oyster sauce. I just love the crunchyness of this peas as oppose to snow peas.


I have the leftover sweet potatoes from making the fried nian gao, so I cooked Bobochacha with Boba multi-color tapioca pearls as dessert.

Sambal Dried Shrimps Okra

Featuring one of my short-cut homecook dishes:

Ingredients:

1 pkg. of frozen cut okra (you can use fresh of course)

About 2-3 Tbp. of dried shrimps, soften in hot water, drained

2 big shallots, sliced thinly

2 Tbp. shrimp paste with bean oil

2 Tbp. sambal oelek ( or less or more depending on how spicy you can take)

Fish sauce to taste

1 tsp. of sugar

4-5 Tbp. cooking oil

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a wok. When hot, add shallots, stir-fry for a while. Then add dried shrimps. Stir until fragrant, then add the frozen okra. Stir well and add the rest of the ingredients. Add a little water when need to.

2. Cover the wok and let the okra cooked through (this is if using the frozen okra), keep stirring if necessary. Serve hot!

Tean's Gourmet Curry Laksa Paste

Finally I tried the well talk about Tean's Gourmet Curry Laksa! It is indeed very good, like Malaysian curry mee. I didn't have the yellow noodle, so I used the instant noodle as substitute. It came out just as good with beehoon. I also added the crispy prawn chilli for extra kick as suggested by Ray. You can buy both of these at myTasteOf Asia.com. I know I will certainly order more when I ran out of these items.


This is how the package looks like. Oh, I used 1200ml of water and 200ml of coconut cream as opposed to 1500ml water and 150ml of coconut milk as suggested.


This is the yummy crispy prawn chilli.

Dinner March 06, 2007

Fish maw with lily buds, silken tofu and tang hoon in homemade chicken stock.


Ground Pork with diced fresh mushroom and carrot.


Sambal dried shrimps okra.

Braised Mushrooms

This recipe will only give the ingredients and techique used because that was how I cooked this dish.

Ingredients:

Dried Chinese mushrooms

Dried lily buds

Dried beancurd rolls

Dried wood ear fungus

Fa cai (optional)

(A)

Oyster sauce

Dark soy sauce

Light soy sauce

Sugar

A little chicken stock granules

Method:

1. Soaked all the dried ingredients with boiling hot water until soften.

2. For the mushrooms, cut the stem off of each mushroom. For the lily buds, cut the top harder part off (like a black tip) and tight it into a knot. If you used pieces of big woodear, just cut it into smaller pieces. Cut the beancurd rolls into 1 inch pieces.

3. In a big saucepan, add some water to boil. When boiled, add the mushrooms, beancurds, woodear and (A). Let it simmer for an hour or so. Lastly add in the lily buds and fa cai (if used) and let it simmer for 5-10 mins. Serve hot!

Chap Goa Mei (15th night)

Chap Goa Mei in Hokkein means the 15th night. It also marks the end of CNY celebration. So, I decided to cook and invited my neighbor for dinner. Fellow members at IK told me that people eat Tang Yuen at this last day of CNY, preferably the one without syrup that roll in ground peanuts. Some said people also eat the fried nian gao on chap goa mei. The fresh nian gao they eat it during the first few days of CNY and the last day of CNY, they eat the fried version. Maybe less fresh so they fry it?


I cooked four dishes (seem like three huh?). The one on top is too dark to be seen. Anyway, I stir-fry a mixed veggies, baked a soy sauce chicken, steamed some cod fish fillets and lastly braised some mushrooms (pic. below).


This is my braised mushroom with lily buds, wood ear, dried beancurd and fa cai.


I also made red bean paste tang yuen with ginger brown sugar syrup for dessert (don't have ground peanuts, so eat with little syrup lor).


This is Evy's hot dog tang yuen (as she called it) that she made herself. I thought she is too innovative so I snap a picture of her creation to share with you. :D


I fried some nian gao with sweet potatoes for lunch in the afternoon. This nian gao was given to me by Lily. You can look up her recipe at her blog.

Tong Sum Chinese Herbal Soup

This is one delicious chicken herbal soup that's good for us. I have been drinking this soup for ages, my mom used to cook this soup for us when we were little. And now I took over the cooking of chicken herbal soups. This is also the soup that I drank during confinement because dang kwai was not allowed in the first two weeks.

Cereal Prawns

Just showing a picture of the cereal prawns I made for a CNY gathering. Sorry no exact recipe because I was using a cereal prawns premix. You can buy it at Giant supermarket in S'pore.

Ingredients stated in the premix are cereal, sugar, non-dairy creamer, pepper and seasoning.

Method:

1) Deep-fry the prawns. Dish out and discard the oil.

2) Add 2 Tbp. of butter, when melted add curry leaves and chilli padi. Fry til fragrant then add the prawns and the premix. Fry and serve.

3) If you don't have the premix, just add those ingredients listed. I will try to make this myself without the premix next time.

Note: For the seasoning, it's probably salt and msg. For the cereal, it's just crushed cornflakes cereal. You can substitute with oatmeal.

Steamed Huat Kuih

My first huat kuih and I cheated by using Redman Huat Kueh Mix.


I added Pandan extract to one. Yellow coloring plus banana essence to the other and lastly just red coloring. "Swee bor?" (pretty or not?) :)


This is how the package looks like. It comes in this multi-colors one and the other is brown sugar only. Ingredients stated in the package are flour, sugar, baking powder and vanillin. All I need to add is water or coconut milk. Very easy! One package yields 12 small huat kuih.

I got one easy recipe for you to try. It's FenYing's Xiao Fa Gao recipe. Since all the ingredients can be found at home, why pay so much for a premix? I bought it earlier because I didn't know it's so easy to make. :P

Edit to add 02/27:
My conclusion: Use Gula Melaka for extra fragrant. If you want to make this colorful ones (more appealing to kids), use essence in addition to coloring (it tasted so much nicer). I thought of this while laying in bed:

~White color, add Coconut, Lychee or Almond essence.
~Green color, use Pandan extract or green tea powder.
~Yellow coloring, add Banana or Mango essence.
~Red coloring, add Strawberry, Raspberry or Rose essence
~Orange coloring, add orange essence.

Longevity Noodle & Bak Kwa

Nice or not, my Tangerines? CNY is in the air! :o)


My Longevity Noodle


My Homemade Bak Kwa

Just an easy yellow noodle stir-fry. CNY has to eat long noodle since it symbolizes long life. So, an easy dinner for us since I was too lazy to whip out other dishes. :P

Also trying Gan55 version of Bak Kwa which uses LKK char siew sauce, brown sugar and a little rose wine. Taste good too! Recipe can be found here.

Click here for my other bak kwa recipe. I strongly recommended this recipe as this is the best I have tasted so far and received rave reviews.

Deep-Fried Imitation Crab Sticks

Deep-fried Imitation Crab Sticks


Stored in a container


Is it a bit too brown (or chao ta, lol)? To ensure it is crispy, I have to fry mine until this color, if not it is kinda soft. This is very easy to do, just shred the imitation crab meats into pieces and drop it into a medium heat hot oil and deep-fry until golden brown and crispy. Drain on paper towel and when cool, keep in a container. Very yummy to snack on!

Note: My homemade one lasted only four days. It turned soft on the fifth day.



Check out my other deep-fried imitation crab legs with dessicated coconuts. This is a great appetizer or party finger food for your guests.

Goodies from Ray & Soo

How nice of Ray & Soo to send me a package of goodies for CNY and wished us Happy New Year. Evy grabbed for the Mamee as soon as I opened the box. She said all the Mamee are hers. LOL! As for me, I can't wait to try the Curry Laksa that people have been raving about.

If you miss your childhood snacks like Mamee, Fish Satay, Muruku, Twisties, Dodol Durian, etc. You can buy it at MyTOA. This online store also sells a lot of premixes and Old Town Ipoh 3 in 1 White Coffee. Believe me, that brand of White Coffee is the best! Hearing that he is going to import some M'sian ikan bilis, custard powder, Konnyaku powder, etc in the future. So do check out MyTOA for new products ya.

Ray & Soo, thanks for the yummy goodies! I just placed a big order at MyTOA. :o)

Xin Nian Kuei Le and Gong Xi Fa Cai ya! :o)

Pig Year - Oink! Oink!

Dear readers,

Hereby wishing you and family a Happy and Prosperous New Year and may this pig year brings you health, money and lots of happiness! :o)

Xin Nian Kuai Le &

Gong Xi Fa Cai &

Nian Nian Yo Ye!!

In addition to that, from my house to yours ~ my CNY cookies and goodies. Do help yourself ya!

My GoldFish Wantons

After seeing the Goldfish wantons at LeeLee's blog, I just have to try it. I love the idea of using the springroll wrapper and make it looks like little goldfishes, aren't they cute?

Oops, just noticed that mine look slightly different from hers because I didn't fold the meat into half. I forgot to recheck her pictures before I stated making mine, anyway still look good hor?



This is the closed up. I didn't have anything to use as garnish, so just simply borrowed the spring onions that was meant for stir-frying my bean sprouts.

Pictures Update of Evy

Mom, quick I wanna watch Arthur! (a cartoon series)


At her friend's birthday party recently.


Mummm...what?


Can we look at the magazine together?


Being funny!

Whole Wheat Buns

Basic Whole Wheat Dough recipe (using a BreadMaker):

2 3/4 cup whole wheat flour (King Arthur)

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp. bread improver

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbp. milk powder

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

220ml cold water

1/3 cup butter

1 Tbp. instant yeast

Method:

1. Add everything in according to your breadmaker manual. Turn on the dough function and let the breadmaker do the work.

2. When done, take the dough out, give it a few kneads and cut it and shape it whatever you like. For the above bun shape, roll the dough in cylinder shape, cut out individual portion, roll it into ball and place it on a baking pan lined with parchment paper.

Note: You can add any filling you like at this point as well.

3. When finished placing the balls of dough in the baking pan, leave some space in between for it to prove.  Cover with plastic wrap and let it proves for 45-60 mins depending on the temperature of your room (or til double in size). It is faster if you let it proves under the sun. [For us who lives in U.S. or other seasonal country, during winter I prove my bread/buns in a preheated 170'F (my oven lowest temp.) oven for 30 mins]

4. When double in size, brush the top with milk or egg wash (optional) and bake in the preheated 375'F oven for 10-12 mins. Or until golden brown on top.

5. Cool on wire rack and keep in an air-tight container.

Brahim's Kuah Kari Ikan (Fish Curry)

I have tried several Brahim's premix like rendang, honey chicken, etc but nothing to shout about. But I would recommend Brahim's fish curry as shown below. It is delicious and tasted like Indian curry and quite spicy. It's a super fast and easy to whip up dinner because all you need is water and freezer ready ingredients. My hubby "sapu" (finished) the whole bowl down to the gravy.



Ingredients:

2 fish fillets, cut ( I used Tilapia, you can use cod or mahi-mahi)
6 small toufu pok, cut into half
12 frozen whole okras
1 cup frozen cut green beans
1 package Brahim's kuah kari ikan
3/4 cup water

Method:

1. In a pot, add water and the Brahim's sauce, turn up the heat, stir to mix well and let it boil.

2. When boiled, add the frozen veggies and taufu pok. Turn the heat to low, covered and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Open the cover and add in the cut fish fillets, scoop some curry on top of the fish, covered and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Serve hot with rice!



This is how the package looks like!

Pork Floss Mini Puffs

Just out of the blue I decided to make pork floss mini puffs on that day. The reason was because I wanted to test out this agaration puff pastry that failed on me when I made my curry puffs few months ago. I used to make a good one 10+ years back and I refused to believe I couldn't get it right again. I used to make lots of pork floss mini puffs and pleated it by hands (no child at that time) and baked it in the oven. It was really a tasty treat and a healthier version . Being stubborn, I just had to try it again. Alas! I failed again! I am not happy with the texture of the puff (better than the first though), but "bolek makan lah" (edible). I only made about 20 pieces and it were all gone the same night. BUT, I wanted it to look like those sold at the pasar malam (night market) you know. *sigh*

Guess I just couldn't recall anymore and have to resort into following a recipe instead of agar-agar myself. The ingredient I remember was simple, it has butter, flour, salt and water. But I just couldn't remember how much to agar-agar anymore (the butter and water part). :0(

S_ter Babi Assam 2 (Tamarind Pork)

I decided to try a new dish today. This S_ter babi assam has been on my to try list since it received rave reviews. I used lean pork instead of the pork belly and omitted all the veggies since I don't have any. I omitted the light soy sauce also since the taucheo and oyster sauce are salty enough. This dish is indeed delicious and will sure to make it again. Even my picky eater hubby who is skeptical about trying any new dish, finished this up. Thanks S_ter! :)

Recipe can be found under Asian Red Meat at KC.

Almond Flavored Sugee Cookies

I was just playing or experimenting with my cookies. Instead of the vanilla extract, I used almond extract instead. The cookies turned out great, just as yummy. Guess this is a short-cut way for those of us who don't have ground almond on hands. I saw one sugi cookie recipe that uses ground almond, so I experiment with almond extract. I wonder why they called it sugi cookie instead of almond cookie when ground almond is used? Any idea?