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.

Pizza with home cooked tomato sauce

The big and small bosses both wanted pizza and hence, pizza we make. Hehehe...
Instead of the normal bread dough, I googled for some inspiration and ended up with this olive oil dough which is yummy, with some accidentally modification.

Ingredients for the dough:

• 1.3cups of lukewarm water
• 0.75 tablespoon of yeast
• 0.5 tablespoon of salt
• 0.5 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil
• 4cups of self raising flour (this is the accident)
• 1/2 cup flour for kneading or shaping use

Method:

1. Premix all the ingredients in a bowl, except the flour.
2. Have the flour in the magimix and slowly add in those wet ingredients till they mix well. Let the mixture mix for about 5mins. 
3. Take it out and leave it in a container with cover to rest (not air tight) for roughly 2 hours.
4. Take it out, give it some "boxing" and kneading. Refrigerate overnight if possible, otherwise at least for 2-3hours. 
5. And it is ready to use. Take the amount required and flatten it. Give the bottom of the pan or paper or pizza stone a spray of olive oil before putting on the pizza dough. This will avoid sticking and gives the dough a soft fluffy taste.

For the topping, I have some home cooked tomato sauce and other toppings like mushroom, pepperoni, sliced chilli, fresh spinach leaves, surimi.

To prepare the tomato sauce (if you want enough for the above):

Ingredients:

• 8cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 10 tomatoes (leave it in a pot of boiling water for about 3-5mins to help removed the skin), cut and chopped, keep about 1cup of the water
• 3 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/8 teaspoon of pepper
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 2 tablespoon of finely chopped bacon

Methods:

1. Saute the bacon and garlic with the olive oil till the bacon is crispy and brown (medium high fire).
2. Add in the chopped tomatoes and season with the rest of the ingredients. Add in the water from the tomato and simmer it for about 5-10mins.
3. If you like your sauce to have the tomato texture, use it directly. Otherwise, you can blend them till smooth before using it to smear all over the top of the pizza dough.

Bake Chicken Nugget

A friend had posted her nuggets in facebook and that reminded me to give it a try again and indeed, it tasted yummylicious except that I make a small mistake, I should have let the ginger and onion blend till fine first coz the girl detected them and kinda reject it.. :(

Ingredients:

• 400g chicken breast (approximately coz I'm not quite sure the weight too.. hehehe)
• half a small apple (for the moisture and yummy texture)
• one small onion (yellow)
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 teaspoon of cumin powder
• 4 small slices of ginger (really small pieces)
• a pinch of pepper
• 2 tablespoon of shredded cheddar cheese
• 1.5 cups of bread crumbs (for coating) + a pinch of salt + a pinch of freshly grounded pepper + a pinch of curry powder
• 2 eggs, lightly beat (for coating)
• olive oil for baking

Methods:

1. Mixed all the ingredients except those for coating in the blender and mix it till even. It does not need to be super fine caused you will want to have some texture for the nugget. But like in my case, do blend the onion and ginger in advance so that it is fine caused some kids can be quite sensitive and detect those flavour on its own.
2. Spray some olive oil on the tray lined with baking sheets. Preheat oven at 180C.
3. Wet you palm, scooped bout 2 teaspoon amount of the mixture on your palm and for the shapes you like. 
4. Dip the shape into the egg and then to the breadcrumbs. Lined them on the sheets.
5. Once all done, spray the top of the nuggets with oil and bake at 150C for 20-25mins. I sprayed a little more oil on the nuggets after 10mins baking to avoid it from getting too dry.
6. Served with ketchup or any sauce of your choice.. :D