#25: Pumpkin Pie

I am not a fan of pumpkin, in fact I don't even eat them. This pie that I made was for chingkai and susu, both somewhat a pumpkin fan. I heard from them that its not too bad, so I hope it is. I adapted the recipe from Buddy and made the pie crust and pumpkin filling. (BUDDY IS REALLY AN AWESOME BAKER, HE'S MY IDOL) 

There's alot of spices used for the pumpkin filling including cloves, cinnamon, all spice, ground ginger and nutmeg. Spices are really a unique thing, they are added in small quantities but they can bring about so much flavour to the food. Simple yet classic. 

So here are the pictures of my pumpkin pie! 

this is just the tart before baking (its not shaped really nicely heh) 

I made some in cupcake size so here they are. 

and the real pumpkin pie thats i took out from the pie pan

doesn't the colour looks appetizing? yum yum! 

I found a new craze, which is tart/pie making. I am going to master my skill in making them suchc that my crust can be nicely shaped! 

Oh by the way I have started taking orders for pineapple tarts for the upcoming new year! I am really excited about it! Hopefully I can reach the target of 100 bottles this year. I am more than half way there already!! Excited! (: 

YUM YUM!!! 

#24: Hoddeok

Hoddeok is a pancake filled with a variety of fillings and it is  popular street food in the South of Korea! I made it once I think one or two years back and the fluffy texture of the dough makes me wanna make them again!

Its currently exam period and I really don't have much time to make something extravagant. Thats why I decided to make Hoddeok. I just need to mix the flour, sugar, salt, yeast, oil and water together and leave it to rise for an hour before pan-frying it. Its really a easy snack to make! And in the mean time while it rises to double its size, I can head back to my books and revise for my exams!

For the filling, I went with something simple: brown sugar and cinnamon. I did not add any nuts as I am not a personal fan of nuts. However, in Korea, they have it with fillings that include honey, walnuts and even meat with kimchi!

After pan-frying the hoddeok, the brown sugar and cinnamon should have melted to form a gooey mixture thats in the hoddeok! Yum yum, love it!!

Hoddeok with Brown sugar and Cinnamon!

Don't they look a little like prata? 

Thats all! I can't wait for exams to be over!!!!!! 

#23: Tuxedo Strawberry

This is something that everyone should try. It looks so hard to make but its really easy!!! I enjoyed myself and I have more requests from friends who want to eat these tuxedo strawberries!

I learnt how to make them from youtube video by Buddy Valastro (a really famous Italian American baker!). 

All you need to do is get really good strawberry, melted white chocolate and dark chocolate. Start by dipping the entire strawberry into the white chocolate mixture and freeze them for a minute. Then, you dip them with dark chocolate mixture sideways down to cover part of the strawberry on both sides such that you will have a little bit of white chocolate in the middle thats not covered. Finally, piped the little details on then pop them into the fridge till you want to eat them! 

These strawberries really look so pretty and amazing!! 

Look at how gorgeous and fat these strawberries are!

Smart looking right? 

A more close up shot now! 

I really love these babies! I tried to google for the bride version but I don't get really good results! Heh, I will try to come out one myself. 

#22: Meringue Kisses

When I went to New Zealand three years ago, I got my first experience tasting a meringue. My family went to a local supermarket and my cousins and I bought a weird looking cake that has a weird looking name, "pavlova". I totally fell in love with it, so sweet and tasty but yet it melts in your mouth like a cotton candy.

However, this sweet thing did not win the hearts of the adults. My cousins and I gobbled them up quickly but our parents didn't really like it! Haha, obviously because they thought its too sweet!

I managed to find out what it was made of then slowly I started researching on them. I failed before, thousands of times, but then this time, my meringue kisses turned out really well and it won the hearts of many more people (susu, eliz, guagua and susanna). Definitely exploring more of it in the coming weeks.

PICTURES TIME! 

this is how the meringue should look after you beat the egg whites (anyway there's only egg whites, caster sugar and cream of tartar inside the mixture) 

this is how they look. its not pale white because i wanted it to have a little pink colour!

doesn't this looks really good! i will post more about the tuxedo strawberries soon, keep a look out!

look at the meringue! can't wait to make them again!

Its really fun making this meringue! It didn't seem as hard as before! MORE MERINGUES SOON!!

PS: I apologised for the bad lighting, due to the long baking time of the meringues, I couldn't finish them before sun set, so I could only used the house lights, which isn't good for photo taking!! 

#21: Sausage Platter with Potatoes, Capsicum and Onions

I love how flexible this recipe is! I found this recipe on skinnytaste blog and then as usual tweak the recipe a little to make it more appetizing and appealing for myself!

I used Smoked Brats (which are pork sausage that are smoked and they taste a little like chippy's sausage, I am serious!) then add in alot of onions and capsicums. Totally love baked onions and capsicum, soft and full of flavour!

I made this recipe twice and did variations to both. For the first one, which I took pictures of, I added some cajun seasoning to the potatoes, onions and capsicum then mixed them well. Then, I seasoned them with sea salt to add a little kickto it! I added some butter with olive oil to enhance the flavour, it turned out really well.

Then today, I made it the second time. This time, I still seasoned the potatoes, onions and capsicum with cajun seasoning and sea salt but I added only olive oil! Then instead of adding only the sausages, I added some mushroom ham and bacon to add alittle more flavour to the entire dish! I love how it taste like! I am definitely more for the second way, as I totally love bacon! Bacon has really this unique flavour that it can bring about to the dish!

So here goes the pictures

Doesn't this looks yummy?

and more of it! looking at it just makes more stomach grumbles!

and one without such a good lighting! haha

I hate taking these pictures in the evenings, it makes the picture so dark and there's always a shadow! Anyway I shall attached the recipe that I used for the second time, you guys should try out and whip a delicious dinner for your love ones.

Sausage Platter with Potatoes, Capsicum and Onions (and bacon and ham too!)

2 or 3 Smoked Brats (you can find these in NTUC or Cold Storage, its red i packaging, they have quite a few flavours, including Polish, Brats and Smoked Brats)

2-3 Baby Potatoes

Half an onion

3 Cloves of garlic (chopped)

1/3 of a Capsicum

1 1/2 tablespoon of Cajun Seasoning

A dash of seasalt

2 Pieces of Mushroom Ham (these are only available in Cold Storage, you can choose other hams if they are more convenient)

2 Pieces of Bacon

1 tablespoon of Olive Oil

1. Cube everything!

2. Mix the Potatoes, capsicum, garlic and onions together

3. Oil the roasting tin and evenly placed the potatoes mixture on the roasting tin and sprinkle the seasalt and cajun seasoning over them.

4. Baked this at 200 degrees celsius for 15 minutes.

5. Remove the tin from the oven then placed the ham, bacon and sausages in the gaps and as evenly as possible

6. Baked at 200 degrees celsius for another 20-30 minutes or until the potatoes are cook!

#20: Oreo Milkshake

I didn't have much time to pamper myself this week. So I had to go with something simple but yet delicious. My brother and I are not crazy over oreo milkshake now and we finish one whole tube of oreo cookies and one whole tub of vanilla ice-cream for these milkshakes in a week!

They are really easy, there's no exact recipe if you ask me, just go ahead and do it! All you need is vanilla ice-cream (i used movenpick vanilla dream), fresh milk and oreo cookies! Put them together and blitz them in a blender, ta-dah, you got your oreo milkshake!

I like my oreo milkshake to be thick and full of oreo taste, so I went heavy with the oreo (which explains for the disappearing oreos in my fridge)! In addition, its good to keepyour oreos refrigerated before you make these milkshake. I don't blitz them till fine, some of my oreos are still intact and I just love the crunch that it brings to the drink!

Add some chocolate sauce at the bottom and put some oreos at the top for the extra kick (picture adapted from kraft's). I was too excited to drink them that I totally forgotten to snap a shot of it! I excluded the chocolate sauce though and they taste just as good!

So go shake some up for yourself this week then!

#19: Durian Pengat

All durian lovers you are gonna love this! Durian Pengat is a Nyonya dessert (as I have mentioned, its nyonya craze this week guys!) that uses durian, coconut sugar and coconut milk for its flavour. I really love how these two fruits come together and give such an aromatic fragance. I am a total durian freak and I love coconut too so this naturally became one of my favourite dessert after I tasted it.

The dessert consist of coconut milk, gula melaka (coconut sugar), durian puree, durian pulp and fresh whole milk. The steps are rather easy but the results are good. However, due to the richness of it, it is advisable to serve them in shot glasses.

Note: Excessive amounts of it will make people feel that its disgusting. Small amounts of it taste the best!

So just serve them like this:

oh and remember the strawberry!

one more picture!

and thats all (: till next time!

#18: Pulut Sambal

Its Nyonya craze this week! I really enjoyed myself making all these nyonya food. Definitely more work is required in making Nyonya food. I need to chop, blend, fry, steam, so many more steps as compared to making just usual baking food.

However, its really aromaticand the results of the food today was definitely rewarding! For this pulut sambal, I used a recipe from one of my friend's sister in law and made some changes to suit to myself. I love how the Prawn Sambal turned out so I am giving the recipe here:

100g of Small Prawns (Xia Mi)

13 Cloves of Garlic

8 Cloves of Shallots (Might want to increase it to 10)

1 Chilli Padi

6-8 Big Chilli

130-150g of Vegetable Oil

2 tablespoon of sugar

2 teaspoon of salt

All you need is to blend everything together then fry it with the vegetable oil and then add sugar and salt then fry them to dry

My aunty actually suggest some meat to be added inside! I shall try it someday. The Prawn Sambal is really good, it will go really well with porridge! The sambal that I made is not really spicy so if you want to go for the kick then you can add more chilli padi or more big chilli!

So here are the pictures:

this is the prawn sambal when I just added them to the pot!

then this is after I fry them dry!

this is the rice, I added coconut, it looks a little blue because I added some food colouring, we are suppose to use clitoria flower extract but I didn't have time to find the flower!

Now its the final product!

And more of it!!

I wrapped some with banana leaves, not very pretty but its not bad for first attempt I guessed! Thats all today!

#17: Strawberry Milk Whoopie Pie

This is another recipe or adaptation from sprinklebakes, officially one of my favourite bakers now! I love her recipes, just tweaked a little here and there to suit to my preference!

I wanted to use the ice-cream pie mould that Susu bought for me, but I had to throw away my first batch of pies (which I used to test the temperature of the oven). However the subsequent batch turnout pretty well.

And based on all the reviews its really good! So here they go:

and more... I added the cream in between them and some cappuccino chips to add more flavour!

#16: Tonkatsu Ramen

I wanted to make this a week or two ago but I didn't manage to get the recipe right! This time round, I went to a Japanese store and got a packet of their instant ramen. The packet consists two servings of ramen and its actually quite nice (and of course filling!)

I added some ingredients! I am never against the use of instant things but I always feel that there's a need to add some extra kick to the instant food!

So, I added, bacon, chicken, corn and of course some spring onions!

Wonder when will I be able to make the real tonkatsu ramen! I will keep trying

#15: Pancakes

Always a favourite breakfast of mine, easy to make but delicious to eat.

I will definitely make this for my children next time (before they go to school) and tell them that, Mummy's pancakes are nicer than that of the M*******'s! Haha!

I took about half an hour to 45 minutes to prepare and cook all of them! The best part is you can even make this in advance and just throw them into bags in the freezer. Then, when you want to eat them, just popped them into the oven for a couple of minutes and they will taste as good!

I used the recipe from joyofbaking (credits to joyofbaking) and did some modification. I prefer a lighter texture so I replaced half of the flour with top flour which has a lower protein level so that the pancakes will be softer! Then I chose to add vanilla bean paste! Look at those black speckles, those are the vanilla beans which give off that nice fragance to the pancakes!

Then of course after cooking them, we must top them off with the traditional maple syrup and butter.

And of course, one more picture!

Alternatively, you can choose to go for sprinkles, chocolate sauce so on and so for! There's so much choices to choose from!

Looks yummy doesn't it!

And if you are looking for more varieties of pancakes, you can add blueberry, chocolate, banana...the list goes on. I will be trying the IHOP pancakes recipe soon! I really love the pancakes from there! Kinda miss it now!

#14: Matcha Cheesecake

I was just searching for recipes to make this weekend! I managed to find one that looks really appealing to me: Matcha Cheesecake.

Its a Japanese soft cheesecake, with green tea powder on the top! However I haven't been able to find the appropriate green tea powder thats not bitter! So maybe its better off just eating the cheesecake alone! But its really soft and sweet:) Love it much:)

First, we start off with the cheese batter (consisting of butter, cheese and milk!)

then we baked the mixture after mixing with rest of the ingredients (ie flour, eggs and cornstarch)! and we have the cooled cake! NICE:)

Then we cut the cake up to squares and sprinkle the green tea powder on top (yes the bitter green tea powder!)

and more of it!

Thats all for today! Love the texture and the smell of the cake! Oh by the way, I adopted the recipe from sprinklebakes and make some changes to hers. I love her! She's an awesome baker and her recipes are really good. :)

#13: Mentaiko Pizza

I really love Mentaiko Pizza from Waraku Pizza and I have been dreaming to come out with a recipe that it similar to that of Waraku's.

I made this last year during my anniversary for picnic with my boyfriend. Sad to say, I haven't made them for some time. But I have to say they are real good stuff.

All you need is either a pizza dough or a flat burrito, some mentaiko, some japanese mayonnaise and mozzarella cheese. Its easy but it really tastes good. To mimic the Waraku version, all you need is some sliced potato on the pizza! But I prefer to remove the potato totally and just have the pizza with mentaiko thats all!

*Pardon me for the lousy photo.

Another one of it!

More time please

Was supposed to bake over the weekends. However, my weekend is totally burnt out. With SLF and BF215 exam on Saturday, I totally didn't have time to bake:(

Hoping to whip up something before I go school tomorrow!

Was looking at pancakes, I hope I can wake up to do them!

Credits to joyofbaking

Hopefully more time this weekend!

Cute Cookie Cutters

Just received this not long ago, I opened them today and I fell in love with them!

Can't wait to use them, pity I won't be baking and selling for Christmas! I will be making my way to the beautiful city of London and celebrating pre-christmas there! EGG-CITED!

There's four designs: Reindeer, snowflakes, gingerbread man and leaf!

More of it!

And this is how it looks on the reverse side. Unlike normal cookie cutters, these cookie cutters will create a mark on the cookies! Thats why I bought them!

Then the cupcake cookie mould! It can be used to make cake pop! Coolios right?

So all you need is some chilled mixture of the cake batter and squeeze it into the mould then you will get some cake pops in the shape of cupcakes!

Can't wait to use them!!!

#12: Chashu Pork

I tried cooking tonkatsu soup base today. But sad to say, I failed. The first part of the soup went pretty well but just changing it to a tonkatsu soup base didn't turn out that well.

However I still made Chashu Pork that was meant for the tonkatsu ramen! That turned out pretty well. I like the smell and the tasteof the meat. However, the meat that I bought has a little less fat! So maybe pork that has more fats will taste softer and nicer!

And more of it!

thats all for today!