Cranberry cheese cake

Another version of the cranberry cake, with cheese to make it fluffier, yummier and tastier... kekeke

Ingredients:

• 90g sugar
• 100g butter
• 35g cream cheese
• 250g self raising flour
• 125ml milk
• 2 medium size egg
• a teaspoon of vanilla essence
• a big bunch of dried cranberries

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Cream sugar, butter and cream cheese.
3. Add in the milk, vanilla essence and egg little by little while mixing.
4. Add in the flour little by little and fold in the mixture.
5. Stir in the dried cranberries.
6. Scooped in the cake tray or cups and bake for 20mins at 180C.

Meat Floss Cheese Bun

There are some meat floss lying in the kitchen for a while, opened, and I remember seeing Han Ker post her cheese breadstick and decided to do a combo. Did some modifications to meat the weather condition here.

Ingredients:

• 254g Laucke Crusty White bread flour
• 175ml warm water (I uses 100ml warm from my thermos that is at 80C and 75ml from the filter)
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 80% of the 1tsp salt (I want it less salty)
• 80% of the 1 tsp sugar
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan
• 1 cup of plain flour (this depends, it was raining and was kinda humid, so the dough was rather too watery and soft to work on)
• 60ml water
• 12 tsp of meat floos
• mayonnaise 
• 1 tablespoon of milk to glaze

Methods:

1. Add in the yeast to the warm water and let it rise (I like to do this first to avoid wasting effort and material just in case the yeast is dead). This will take roughly 5-10mins).
2. Scoop out 2 tsp flour and mix with 60ml of water. Cook till it turn a little creamy, stirring occasionally. Quickly turn off the heat and still mix, it should get a little thicker.
3. Sieve the flour on to the mixing bowl. Add in salt and sugar and mix well.
4. Pour in the yeast water mixing and constantly stirring and add in the creamy stuff (it is supposed to be tangzhong with specific measurement, but mine is always this way... hehehe), all of it.
5. Mix the mixture till it forms a dough and continue to kneed till it is not sticky. If it is, add in little by little flour.
6. Leave it to rest for an hour. For me, while resting, I leave the mixing bowl covered with wet towel on top of a hot pot of water coz it was rather cold here yesterday. The dough requires some heat to help it double up.
7. After an hour, punch the dough, give it a little knead. Cut it to 8pcs and flatten them on the table top.
8. Scooped 1.5tsp of meat floss on each flatten dough, squeeze some mayo on it and fold up and form a ball. Leave it on the tray to rest for another 30mins. This time, I was cooking dinner and I leave it near to the stove to provide some heat.
9. Preheat the oven to 180C (if you using a brand new electric fan oven, should be 160C). While waiting, sprinkle the cheese mixture on top of the bun.
10. Place the bun into the oven. After 5mins, increase the oven temp to 200C (again, the electric fan oven should be 180c). After 10mins, glaze the top with milk and then bake for another 5mins.
11. Take it out and cool and devour... hehehe

Curry chicken

Thanks to the post in FB few days back by Malaysia Kitchen, I decided to cook curry chicken... hehehe... my own version. I used deboned drumstick (bone reserved for my little sweetheart's chicken soup).

This is before the sauce reduced to the thickness I want

Ingredients:

• 3 pieces of drumstick without the bones
• 2 potatoes, cut to small cube
• 1 onion, sliced thinly
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped small
• 1 teaspoon of the sambal
• 1.5 tablespoon of oil
• 1 tablespoon of curry powder
• 1/2 tablespoon of dried cumin powder
• 1 star anise
• 1 small piece of cinnamon stick
• 2 pieces of cloves
• a small pinch of fennel seed
• 1.5 cups of water
• 1/4 cup of santan  (coconut) powder
• a small pinch of salt
• a dash of pepper

Methods:

1. Saute the onion with oil till soft and add in the garlic.
2. After stirring bout 1mins, add in the herbs (dried cumin powder, curry powder, start anise, cinnamon stick, cloves and fennel seed and stir till it is even.
3. Stir in the potato and chicken. Make sure the chicken is lightly fried and coated with the mixture.
4. Add in water, sprinkle the santan powder on top and stir till it dissolved.
5. Leave it to simmer for bout 30-40mins or till the potatoes are soft and tender.
6. Season with salt and pepper.
7. I added a little sliced chillies and parsley :D

Sambal Prawn Thai Salad

Simple easy yummylicious salad...

For the prawn:

Ingredients:

• one cup of shelled and deveined prawn
• 1/2 onion sliced
• 1 teaspoon of sambal (uses the one I posted earlier)
• 1 teaspoon of olive oil

Methods:

1. Saute the onion till it is soft and turn brown.
2. Add in the sambal and then the prawn. Lightly stir after 2mins and let the prawn cooked well on both side (dry and slightly brown and crispy).
3. Set it aside (best leave it on the pan you use to fry it).

For the tong fun (bean vermicelli):

Ingredients:

• one packet of the bean vermicilli
• 2cups of hot water
• 2 birds eye chilli (chopped to small pieces)
• 1 lime (juiced)
• 1 teaspoon of fish sauce
• few dashes of sesame oil
• 2 teaspoon of soy sauce
• 1.2 teaspoon of brown sugar

Methods:

1. Soaked the vermicelli in the hot water for about 20mins
2. Mixed all the rest of the ingredients.
3. Once the vermicelli is soften and break when u try to bite it, it is ready, drained off the water.
4. Mixed the sauce with the vermicelli and set aside

Rest of Ingredients:

• 2 cups of mixed salad leaves (washed and dried)
• 1/2 big tomato, cut to cube
• half carrot, shaved julienned
• 1 cup of thinly sliced wombok (chinese cabbage)
• 1 tablespoon of lime juice
• 1 tablespoon of fish sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of soy sauce
• 1 handful of chopped mint leaves and parsley

Methods:

1. Pre marinate the carrot, wombok with lime juice, fish sauce, soy sauce and brown sugar. Set aside for at least 2hours.
2. Tossed all the prepared ingredients, the prawn, carrot, wombok, and the vermicelli with the salad leaves and tomato in the mixing bowl.
3. Served... :D

Nutella Cupcakes

When you have a party to attend the next day with BYOF, last minute notification and not sure what to cook, fridge that is almost empty coz you gonna travel the day after that and even the sugar level is running down, there you go, whatever is in the kitchen... nutella cupcakes.

Why nutella? It is sweet enough to compensate for the lack of sweetness in the cake due to my shortage of sugar supply.

Ingredients:

• 125ml milk
• 73g sugar (this is all I have in the kitchen at that time)
• 2 eggs
• 250g self raising flour
• 125g butter
• 12 teaspoon nutella

Methods:

1. Preheat oven at 180C.
2. Cream sugar and butter till fluffy and creamy.
3. Add in the egg one by one and mix slowly.
4. Add in the milk and give a light stir.
5. Slowly fold in the self raising flour till well mixed.
6. Scooped in 1.5 teaspoon of batter into the paper cups. 
7. Drop a teaspoon of nutella on each and top up with another 0.5 teaspoon of batter.
8. Bake for 20mins.

*The batter should be enough for 12 cupcakes of medium size.