Coffee Date Loaf

My friend, Sue emailed this recipe and a picture of the date loaf she had made a couple of weeks ago.

Since I have 2 packets of dates bought from JB recently, I thought I should give it a try.

I used sun-dried dates which are not preserved with sugar, so they are naturally sweet. These dates are usually available during the Muslim fasting month and it's the best time to buy them. At other times, the dates available would be those that are preserved with added sugar.

This date loaf is healthy, moist, soft, not-so-sweet and delicious!

This brand of dates is by far the best that I've tasted.

The dates are still attached to the branches.

Ingredients: (23cm x 13cm or 9" x 3" loaf tin)

A

1 cup chopped dates

1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

1 cup hot water mixed with 1 heaped teaspoon nescafe

B

1 large egg

1 tablespoon butter, softened

1 and 1/2 cup Self-raising flour

1/4 cup fine sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Place dates in bowl and sprinkle bicarbonate soda over it and pour hot water. Set aside.

2. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour and add in dates. Beat for 2 minutes at medium speed.

3. Pour into greased and lined loaf tin and bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 35 to 40 minutes.

4. Cool, slice and eat it on its own or spread some butter or cream cheese. Yum!

Unbelievably soft and moist!

Prawns in Coconut Milk

This is one of my MIL's recipes. She learnt cooking from her MIL who hailed from one of the Batak tribes in Sumatra. Hence my FIL is a descendant of the Bataks. Hmmm.... interesting!

I used to cook this quite frequently before. I had actually forgotten about it until my hubby's friend gave us some freshwater blue prawns. Some of them were really huge and had very long 'pincers'.

Since freshwater prawns are not as 'sweet-tasting' as saltwater ones, I thought that it would be better cooked in spices. So what better way to cook them was in "Udang masak Lemak" as my MIL would term it!

They sure have long nasty-looking pincers!

Ingredients:

Large prawns, about 10 or more

To be ground together:

14 candlenuts (buah keras)

2 medium-sized onions

5 or more fresh red chilli

4 chilli padi

1 thumb-sized turmeric (kunyit)

1 pce 6cm-lemon grass (serai), sliced

30g belachan

3 medium potatoes, cubed to preferred size

1 litre water

1 fresh coconut milk (obtain 250ml 'first' milk & 1 litre 'second' milk

Oil

2 pces 10-cm lemon grass, bruised

Kaffir lime leaves (optional)

Salt to taste

1. Heat enough oil and saute ground spices bruise lemon grass till fragrant.

2. Add 'second' coconut milk and potatoes. Add salt and cook till potatoes are soft. Remove from pot.

3. Add prawns and 'first' coconut milk and bring to boil until prawns have just curled up nicely.

Turn off heat and serve with rice.

Not so nasty but tasty!

Check out the bulbous head!

Moist n Soft Chocolate Cake

This is a very easy-to-bake chocolate cake. It takes about 10 minutes to prepare and bakes in about 12 minutes in cupcake cases. In total, it took me about half an hour to produce 16 cupcakes from half of the recipe!

Ingredients:

A

1 3/4 cups plain flour

2 cups caster sugar

3/4 cup cocoa (use good cocoa for a good chocolatey flavour)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons bicarbonate soda

1 teaspoon salt

B

3 medium-sized eggs

1 cup UHT milk or chocolate milk

1/2 cup oil (I used canola oil)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

C

1 cup boiling water

2 1/2 teaspoons Nescafe, dissolved in boiling water

Method:

1. Place all dry ingredients A in mixer and mix well to combine.

2. Mix all liquids in B before adding to A. Beat at high speed for 2 minutes.

3. Remove and stir in boiling water pre-mixed with Nescafe by hand. The consistency of the mixture is not thick but runny.

4. Fill cupcake cases 3/4 full and bake in preheated oven at 160 deg for 12 minutes.

This recipe bakes about 30 to 32 cupcakes or 2-layered 9-inch round tins for frosting.

The cake would go well with some chocolate ganache or frosting.

Steamed Yam Cake

Another one for the ladies' meet.

Ingredients:

300g yam, cubed

250g rice flour

1 tablespoon tapioca flour

1 litre water

3 pieces dried mushrooms, soaked and sliced

100g chicken meat, chopped

40g dried prawns, soaked and chopped coarsely

60g shallots, sliced

2 tablespoons oil

salt, sugar to taste

For garnishing:

sliced red chilli

fried shallots

spring onions

coriander leaves

1. Mix 500ml water with rice flour and tapioca flour and set aside.

2. Heat oil and saute shallots till fragrant and add in chicken, dried prawns, mushrooms and stir fry for a while.

3. Add yam cubes and water. Cover to cook yam till slightly soft. Add seasoning to taste.

4. Stir flour mixture and add to yam and stir immediately to mix well as it thickens.

5. Pour into a greased 18-cm tin and steam for about 45 minutes.

6. Cool before removing from tin. Garnish and serve with chilli sauce.

Stir-frying before the flour mixture

All garnished and waiting....

Dressed up by my daughter!

Pan-Fried Carrot Cake

I have been procrastinating again! This was done weeks ago. That's how lazy I've become! ;p

It was a winner with my friends.

There were 24 of them.

They enjoyed it.

And I am happeeee!

Ingredients: (for an 8-inch / 20-cm cake tin)

1 1/2 kg shredded radish, drain juice and set aside

225g rice flour

40g corn flour

2 cups water (include radish juice, water for soaking mushroom and scallop)

2 pieces Chinese sausages, chopped

6 to 8 pieces dried mushrooms, washed, soaked, drained and chopped

3 pieces dried scallops, rinsed, soaked, drained and chopped

40g dried shrimps, washed, soaked, drained and chopped

3 shallots, sliced

1/2 chicken stock cube

pepper to taste

sugar to taste

1. Heat some oil in a pan and saute shallots till fragrant.

2. Add in sausage, scallop, dried shrimps and mushrooms and fry till well mixed.

3. Season with chicken stock cube , sugar and pepper.

4. Add in radish and mix well with ingredients. Taste to add more seasoning if required.

5. Mix water and 2 types of flour, strain to get rid of lumps.

6. Once radish is partially cooked, slowly pour in the flour mixture and mix quickly

to prevent lumping. Mix well and turn off heat. Radish mixture should be thick.

7. Pour into lightly greased cake tin and pat the surface to level it.

8. Steam for 40 to 50 minutes. Let it cool completely before cutting.

9. Sliced to desired thickness and pan fry.

All 'steamed up'!

Sliced and Pan-fried!

Hmmm.... Missing the chilli sauce!

Steamed Gula Melaka Cake with Intih

Another lot of cupcakes I made for the Ladies' Meet.

It's the usual steamed gula melaka cake (steamed palm sugar cake) which I had done before, but these are with coconut filling (intih)

I cooked some freshly grated coconut in melted gula melaka and pandan leaves till it thickened.

The recipe for the cake is the same as the steamed palm sugar cupcakes posted previously, so I shan't repeat it.

Chicken Pie & I AM BACK!!!

I have been MIA for about seven weeks. I had been down with a very bad flu when I returned from Cambodia which took me about two weeks to recover.

Though I have been cooking and baking, I am just too lazy to post about it. My daughter even commented on the absence of my postings. Apart from that, I have been busy six days a week. My nights are devoted to watching Korean dramas by the episodes. You know how it is like when the episode ends with suspense and it makes you want to continue watching. Ahem! Precisely that's what I have been doing - watching 3 to 4 episodes in a row. You can imagine the time I go to bed, it would be the next day!!! Bad! Bad! Bad! Now I have developed 'panda eyes'!! LoL!

Enough of my ramblings!

I baked these for a ladies' meet last Saturday. It's not the usual shape for a chicken pie. It was a short cut and I don't waste any pastry if I had cut them round. It doesn't matter what shape a pie takes as long as it tastes good.

Puff Pastry

150g plain flour

40g butter

1 egg yolk

30 ml water

a pinch of salt

60g pastry margarine, shredded

1 egg yolk, for glazing the top

1 egg white, for sealing the edges

1. Mix flour and butter with finger tips till it resembles breadcrumbs.

2. Mix egg yolk, salt and water together and pour into flour and mix to form a dough.

3. Roll out dough on floured board or pastry mat into a rectangle shape.

4. Place pastry margarine evenly on two-thirds of dough and fold the one-third dough without the margarine over and then the other with the margarine over.

5. Fold into two and roll into a rectangle and repeat the three folds two times.

6. Then roll out dough to desired thickness and cut into small rectangles or use a round cutter.

7. Egg-wash the pastry with egg white, put filling and fold over and seal the edges. (Egg white acts as glue to seal the edges.) Crimp edge with a fork.

8. Glaze top of pies, prick a couple of holes and bake in preheated oven 170 deg C for 25 to 30 minutes.

A Wokful of Chicken and Mixed Veggies

Fresh from the oven!

Now for a cuppa tea!