Custard Cream Puffs

I made these for one of the Ladies' meetings some time ago.

I am simply in a state of inertia where blogging is concerned.

K-drama is partly to be blamed - I'm practically hooked!

I used to bake a few hundred puffs daily, usually with durian filling. I recall how I had to wake up at four in the morning just to fill up the puffs so that my hubby could deliver them to the various shops by 7a.m and how I had to rush to work after that. Those were my hectic days - that was the kind of life I had led for over 20 years! Festive seasons were the worst time where a couple of hours' sleep was a luxury! Whenever I reminisce my baking journey, the thought of it just seem to drain my energy away.

Enough of rambling!

Now to post the recipe for the choux pastry.

Choux Pastry:

240 ml water

120g butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 tablespoon caster sugar

160g plain flour, sifted

4 large eggs

Method:

1. Place water, butter, salt and sugar in a pot and bring it to a boil.

2. Lower heat and pour in flour and immediately stir with a wooden spoon to mix into a soft dough. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time and use an electric mixer to beat in the eggs.

4. Fill up an icing bag with a round nozzle attached. Pipe out circular mounds on a greased tray.

5. Bake in preheated oven at 170 deg C for 15 minutes. ( Puffs must be sufficiently baked so that they will not shrink and flatten after when cooled.)

6. Once cooled, slit side of puff and spoon custard into it or fill icing bag with nozzle and pipe out any filling.

Gleaming, waiting to be baked!

See how they have puffed up!

Simple Salad

I've been away too long from blogging.

I hardly cook or bake anything new or authentic enough to be posted.

My meals are very simple and it's the usual fare. Quite boring!

I seldom bake as I'm trying to cut down on my calorie intake.

I am eating healthy and exercising quite regularly.

Since December last year, I've shed 8 kilograms!

A wonderful excuse to change my wardrobe!

My younger daughter occasionally fixes salad for her meals.

This is my share of the salad.

She shared with me how she did the hard-boiled egg.

Simply boil a small pot of water. Once the water is boiled, turn off heat and put in the egg and cover.

After 12 minutes, remove and you'll have a lovely hard-boiled egg that is not overdone!

Romaine, oak, cherry tomatoes, turkey ham, egg

and Caesar's dressing

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!