Long weekend

A long weekend feels even longer when the oven's not working. Yes, the oven is down, had been down since two weeks ago. Which explains the long silence on the blog.

Spoilt a batch of portugese egg tarts the other day when after more than half an hour in the oven, the pastry refused to 'puff' up. The oven was supposed to be at 220 degrees, yet I can touch the pan with my bare hands!

The last two weeks had been bad too.. hence no time to call the service center.

Nathalie's rashes had been getting worse. Visited the docs three times in a week! The last visit was to KKH to see an allergy specialist. Took blood test to test for milk, wheat and nut allergy, will know the results tomorrow. The specialist also introduced a 'wet wrap' treatment for her, which includes through mosisturizing, then letting her wear a set of damp pyjamas followed by dry ones. As uncomfortable as it sounds, it really worked. After a couple of days of wet wraps treatment, her skin condition improved tremendously. We stopped only when she seem to have caught a chill.

Visiting the doctor tomorrow for followup and praying for good results to the blood test.

Gabriel appears to have some insect bites and he could not stop scratching, causing an infection. We tried to get an appointment with a dermatologist in KKH and Skin center, but was told that the next appointment will be late June! But God work miracles and sent help our way. We manage to get an appointment for tomorrow! Praise the Lord!

The oven will be fixed tomorrow. Really looking forward to bake something.

Portugese Egg Tarts

I am really thankful for the long weekend. I was hoping to bring the kids outdoors, but little Nathalie's rashes were getting worse and the advise from the doctor is to keep her cool and keep her indoors.

Nathalie is allergic to milk. Tried supplementing with formula a couple of weeks ago and she vomited and hives appeared all over her body. We spent the night at the hospital.

Not so sure what triggered this round of rashes. She scream when the itch is bad and we won't allow her to scratch. My heart aches each time I hear her scream. There are raw patches at the back of her knee, her wrists and her neck. Her cheeks are really red too. Poor little Nathalie. Thankfully, we have many aunties and uncles in church praying for her, praying for her speedy recovery.

I found some time to bake a simple recipe - the Portugese Egg Tarts. I never thought egg tarts can be easy, but this one uses store bought puff pastry, so really no sweat at all. The result is really good, even my gourmet MIL and hubby likes them.

The lovely custard.

I only dared to eat half... because of little Nathalie, I really have to avoid dairy products.

Here's the recipe, you can find it in many blogs out there too.

Portuguese Egg Tarts Recipe

Ingredients
500g ready made puff pastry

Filling
200g whipping cream
300g milk
80g sugar
3 eggs3 egg yolks
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Method
1. roll our the pastry to a rectangular shape about 3mm thick. Roll it up like a swiss roll. Chill until firm.
2. divide the pastry into 25g portions, flatten the pastry and roll it into about 3mm thickness. press onto the tart moulds.
3. filling: cook whipping cream and milk until 70c. stir in sugar and cook until sugar dissolves. add into the beaten eggs and egg yolks. mix until well blended. lastly add in the vanilla essence. set aside to cool.
4. pour the filling into the pastry tarts from step 2. then bake at 220C for 20-25mins.

I did not bother to roll up the pastry and chill it. I simply use a round cutter to cut and then lined it into foil cups. I made a total of 12 egg tarts.

Do try it. Its easy and the results .. delicious.

Orange Cotton Cheesecake

My son Gabriel loves this cotton cheesecake. (He told me to type this)

My hubby bought me this book from Msia - Agnes Chang's 'I can Bake'. It has many recipes, from cakes to cookies to bread. I had this book for almost a year already, but hardly tried anything from there, cause I'm almost always distracted by the wonderful recipes I find online. Finally got to bake this cotton cheesecake for my cellgroup meeting.

The recipe calls for a 10 inch square tin, but my little oven is unable to accomodate a water bath tin bigger than that.. so I settled for a 10 inch round and a 7 inch square. I only managed to take pictures of the square one.

As the name implies, the cheesecake is cotton soft. Very fluffy and nice. Its not too cheesy. Personally, I find it not cheesy enough. But some people prefers it this way, as its less jelat.

It has a nicely browned top.

Fluffy interior.

Orange Cotton Cheesecake

Ingredients
250g cream cheese
220ml fresh milk
100g butter

A:
70g plain flour, sifted
20g corn flour, sifted
60g caster sugar
6 egg yolks
1 orange, grated rind and squeezed juice

B:
6 egg white
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
60g caster sugar

Method:
1. Put the cream cheese and fresh milk into a double boiler. Double boil till the cream cheese has melted. Remove from heat, add butter, stir till the butter has melted and leave to cool.
2. Add A into cooled cream cheese mixture and stir well to form batter
3. Whisk B till thick and glossy (soft peaks form), fold into cream cheese mixture till well combined
4. Pour cake mixture into non-greased 10"square baking tin ( I lined the bottom of the pan with baking paper)
5. put baking tin into a large roasting pan half filled with hot water. Steam bake at 150 degree for 1.5 hours till golden brown and cooked.
6. Remove cake from the oven, invert the cake onto a cake rack and leave to cool completely.

Other variations
- for lemon cotton cheesecake, use one lemon to substitute orange
- for mocha cotton cheesecake, use two tbsp instant coffee dissoved in 4 tbsp hot milk to substitute orange

Polo Buns

Its the school holidays. Took couple of days off to keep the children company. Plus also use the extra free time to bake. Tried my hands at polo buns. I've heard how tasty they are, but have never tried them.

Mine looks like this.

Not quite as pretty as the ones I saw on the internet. Taste wise, its OK. When fresh out of the oven, the covering dough was a little crispy, but the taste was not as buttery as what I expected. Maybe the quality of butter was not that good, I used the relatively cheap ones from Phoon Huat 'Greenfields'.

The bun was really soft. I used a recipe from Creative Culinaire. Even after two days, pop into the microwave at high for 20 s and its still as soft as before.

Proofed, but before baking:

I mixed some butter and icing sugar and put some into each bun. I've done this before for butter buns and they tasted delicious. But this time, the taste of butter was so mild.... lesson learnt.. don't stinge on butter.

For variation, I made some garlic butter buns too.

To my surprise, little Samantha loved this batch of buns. She polished off almost 4 in 2 days.

Healthy Granola bars

Had not been baking much. Busy.

Samantha brought back the stomach flu virus and passed it on to almost my entire family. Prayerfully, little Nathalie was spared, thanks to the many prayers from family and friends. Gabriel is still suffering with lots of gas in the tummy.

Nathalie has very sensitive skin. PD confirmed she has eczema. She has rashes on the face, hands, legs and feet. Sometimes its so bad that a sticky liquid oozes out. On some days it bothers her so much that she could not sleep. She used to sleep through the night, in fact she was able to do that in her first month. But ever since the rashes came about, she wakes up two to three times in the middle of the night. Sometime due to the itch, sometimes due to diarrhea. After some research and trials, I realised that she is sensitive to peanuts and milk. When I consume those (I am still breastfeeding), she breaks out in rashes. So I have to stay away from dairy products and peanuts. The diarrhea has stopped, her rashes better, but still flares up occasionally. There is still something in my diet or the environment that she is sensitive to. Pray for wisdom.

My hubby enjoys cycling. He suffered two falls recently. Thank God no major injuries. You can read his blog here. He had been eating just granola bars for lunch for past week and was telling me how expensive good bars are. So I ventured to bake him some.

I searched the internet for recipe and decided to use this. I was sold by the beautiful pictures and it looks easy enough.

Granola Bars
2 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup shredded coconut

1/2 cup pepitas

1/4 cup flax seeds

1/4 cup sesame seeds

1 cup whole almonds (or other nut)

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup honey*

1/4 cup natural peanut butter*

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cup dried cranberries (or other dried fruit)

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Next, line a square baking pan (8 or 9 inches) with two perpendicular sheets of parchment paper that are long enough to leave an overhang. The sheets will form a “basket” for you to lift out the sheet of granola, before you cut it into bars.

Combine the oats, coconut, seeds and nuts; spread out evenly on the rimmed baking sheet and toast for 15 minutes. When the oat mixture has been toasting for about 10 minutes, combine the honey, peanut butter, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and vanilla in a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. If the sugar dissolves before the oat mixture is done toasting, reduce the heat to low.

When the oat mixture is done toasting, transfer it to a large bowl and add the honey mixture and fruit; stir to incorporate. Spread the mixture in the prepared square pan, using the back of a wooden spoon or bottom of a measuring cup to press the mixture into the pan and create a smooth, even surface. Bake the granola mixture for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool completely on a wire rack.

Using your parchment “handles,” lift the granola sheet out of the pan and onto a cutting board. Using a large sharp knife, Cut the sheet into one-inch wide bars. Next, cut the series of bars in half, lengthwise. Store in an airtight container.

I modified the recipe and replaced the nuts with what I have on hand. I used sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and crushed the whole almonds. I also added some wheat germ.

The oats and nuts toasted.

Mixed the nuts with the peanut/honey/sugar mixture. I had problem with it coming together that I rushed to make another half batch of the peanut/honey/sugar mixture. After mixing, put into a 10 inch pan.

Press and press and press with wooden spoon till surface is even.

When cool, cut with sharp knife and the granola bars are ready to be consumed. It was quite difficult to cut. I think its too dry and a little crumbly, not the soft chewy granola bars I am familiar with. Maybe the baking time was too long.

Here's a close up.

Taste wise, its not too bad. Not sweet, very nutty and certainly very healthy.

Next time, will try a more chewy recipe.

Birthday cupcakes

Baked these lovely cupcakes for a colleague's birthday. Cupcakes were chosen because they are less time consuming to bake and decorate, yet the results were so lovely.


These are cherry cupcakes with low fat chocolate ganache, topped with a simple fondant cutout.

Recipe for low fat Chocolate Ganache

180g dark chocolate
1 tub of light sour cream (200ml)

1. Take sour cream out from fridge, let it warm up to room temp. This is important, else chocolate will seize when cold sour cream is poured on it.
2. Melt dark chocolate.
3. Mix the two together until well blended. No need to use mixer, just a spoon will do.
4. Use immediately.

If you refrigerate the ganache, let it warm to room temperature before spreading on cake. On the same principle, it tastes better at room temp.

Daring Baker February challenge - Chocolate Valentino cake

I love February. Its a month of celebrations. Chinese New Year, Valentine's day and my birthday.

So when the daring bakers chose a flourless chocolate cake as the challenge, I had to go for it. I had baked chocolate cakes before, but never the flourless variety, so its going to be interesting. The other big plus is that it will work beautuifully for Valentine's day and my birthday celebrations.

Extracted from daring bakers' site:

"The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge."

The challenge also requires ice cream, which was no problem at all. My hubby bought me the Cuisinart Ice Cream maker recently and he had been churning out lots of ice cream which was still in the freezer.

The cake was easy enough. I baked mine in two ramekins (for Me and Hubby on Valentine's day) and a 6 inch cake pan.

I love the rustic look of these little babies!

Topped with vanilla ice cream and strawberry sauce, makes the perfect dessert.

The cake is moist and totally chocolate! Paired with smooth, cold ice cream and a slightly tangy sauce.. YUM!

For the 6 inch cake, I dusted it lightly (or not so-lightly) with icing sugar, stick in a "Happy Birthday" pick and candles. My family was over for dinner. My brother shares the same birth-date and my nephew's just a couple of days away - so a candle for each of us.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C. Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Do check out other daring bakers' take on the Chocolate Valentino cake. I tell you.. these people are really talented!