Cookie & Cream Ice cream

I first tasted this ice cream during Mother's Day celebration at my mum's place. My younger brother bought a few tubs of expensive ice cream from a local store. This small tub of "cookie & cream ice cream" was quickly snapped up within minutes!! Though very creamy and tasted heavenly, my husband and I found it way too rich to our liking. Age is catching up..... can't take food that are too rich, too sweet, too salty, too oily.....sigh!!!!

I made this specially for my two kids and husband who are Oreo and ice cream fans! This was my second attempt. During my first attempt, my husband suggested that I should add more cookie crumbs for the next round! So this time round, I added more biscuits crumbs and sprinkled more crumbs on top. I also made some adjustments by adding more Oreo fillings and reduce the amount of caster sugar.

Recipe as follows:

Ingredients A:
4 egg yolk
25g caster sugar (I use 15g)
7 pieces Oreo biscuit filling (I use 10 pieces fillings which was about 12g)

Ingredient B:
200g diary whipping cream

Ingredients C:
250g non diary whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Some crushed oreo biscuits (I use more biscuits, i.e. 10 pieces)

Method:
1. Beat A until well mixed and slightly pale. Bring B to boil at low heat. Remove from heat, add in A and mix well.
2. Double-boil A and B mixture until slightly thick. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
3. Whisk non diary whipping cream until stiff. Add in no. (2) mixture, vanilla essence, some crushed Oreo biscuit and stir well.
4. Pour mixture into a prepared container and sprinkle crushed Oreo biscuit on top. Freeze overnight or until set.

Enjoy!

Note:
The ice cream was not overly rich and sweet. It suits us very well. It will be an ice cream that I can make often and give away! Bye Bye to those expensive brand! :)


Recipe adapted from: "冷冻甜品" by Kelly Tang

My Otah Bun

This was our breakfast yesterday. Unlike store-bought otah buns with thin slice of otah, I use a bigger portion and thicker otah! :) Bought a few of otah pack at the Expo last weekend. The otah was quite spicy and tasted very good. Yummy! My kids like it very much. This is the otah I bought:


I use a Sweet bun dough from "Bread Magic" by Alan Ooi. The sweet bun is very 扎实 and fit the otah very well. 咬劲十足！一极棒！:D

Steam Lemon Sponge Cake （清蒸柠檬蛋糕）

Today is my birthday. I made a simple cake in the late morning, a "Steam Lemon Sponge Cake". The texture did not turn out like a real sponge cake, rather like a "鸡蛋糕" texture to me? Or was it suppose to be like that? One bite, my hubby went, "hmmm... very nice"! My little one kept coming back for more... ! Rather encouraging, right?

I suppose a few more rounds of making I'll be able to get the right texture. Anyway, this is a very refreshing & yummy cake, with lemony smell, not overpowering. It's a cake you'll only get at home, i.e home make specially! :)

I want to thank a fellow "friend" who leaves somewhere in Singapore, who sent a special gift to me a few days ago. Though you had no idea, your gift arrived just in time! What a coincident! Thank you for your "special" present! I really appreciate it very much. :)

My "long-time" lens (which has been buried more than ten years) has been able to reunite the world once again "重见天日“ with a new body (a thought I would never ever have dreamed of)! :) And a jumbo cooker, which is very versatile to use. Now, my kitchen is less oily less smoky "少油少烟"! Ha! I don't have to mob the kitchen floor that often! :) Thank you, CS, for your presents and your thoughtfulness, 谢谢你的体贴! :)

Here is the recipe for the Steam Lemon Sponge Cake:

Ingredients:
Lemon zest 1 tsp
Lemon juice 3 tbsp
Salad oil 3 tbsp
Eggs 250g
Caster Sugar 180g
Cake flour 190g
Double-acting baking powder 1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp

Method:
1. Line a 20 cm x 20cm square pan (all around) with parchment paper.
2. Put lemon zest, lemon juice and salad oil in the same bowl. Stir to mix well.
3. Using an electric mixer, start with low speed and gradually increasing to high speed, beat eggs and sugar together till colour change to pale.
4. Beat at high speed till egg mixtures turn milky white. Beat till it reaches "ribbon stage", i.e when you lift out the beater, the mixture will stay on the surface for a while. Lastly, using low speed, beat for about one minute to stabilize the mixture.
5. Sift in cake flour and the DA baking powder.**
6. Pour in no. 2 (lemon & oil mixture).
7. Using a hand-whisk, fold up the mixture carefully until there are no lumps.
8. Use a spatula to scrap the sides of the bowl till well mix.
9. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and let it rest for ten minutes.
10. Heat up a wok with boiling water. Steam with "medium fire" for 20-25 minutes.


Important tip from the author:
** If your egg mixtures is beaten properly (till ribbon stage), your cake flour and baking powder will not sink immediately when you are sifting in. It will stay a while before sinking. (I think I fail a little here! It stayed a while and curve in later! Will have to take note next round.)

Recipe source: 孟老师的一百道小蛋糕

Dried Shrimp Sambal

I made a batch of sambal last week. Nothing special, just that I pound everything "manually" instead of using a chopper this time. I've heard that pounding will release the full flavours of ingredients. All along I've been thinking that pounding take times. But I realise that if the dried chillies and shrimps are soaked till soft (which I didn't previously, silly!), it is very easy to pound! I'd adjusted the spiciness as I was afraid my kids may not take it! However, my husband complained that it was not spicy enough for him.... :(

While frying, my two kids came running to the kitchen, covering their nose, "Mummy, what's that smell? It's very stinky!!" My house smelt belachan after frying (including me)!!! Anyone has any good ideas to get rid of that smell?

Recipe as follows:

Sambal A (Pound finely)
10 small onions
3 pip garlic
15 dried chillies, soak till soft
5 chilli padi
1 tbsp toasted belachan
100g dried shrimps, soaked
6 tbsp oil

Sambal B
1 tbsp asam paste, mixed with 3 tbsp water, squeeze out thick assam juice
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt to taste

Method:
1. Heat up oil, saute Sambal A until fragrant.
2. Add Sambal B and stir-fry until dry.
3. Taste and dish up. Leave to cool before storing in the fridge.

This Sambal is good for stir-fry (with sweet potato leaves and kangkong), topping for fried rice and sandwich.

Recipe source: Delightful Snacks & Dim sum by Agnes Chang
(开开心心做点心 - 蓝赛珍)

Maple Syrup Chiffon Cake

Last Sunday was Father's Day. I celebrated this occasion by baking a simple chiffon cake. Looking through my posts, I noticed that it had been almost a year since I last baked it, last September to be exact! Like other bloggers, I also hold much fear when baking a chiffon.... the beating of egg whites and the folding part.

Days before the bake, I went through this trusted video website 周老師的美食教室 for a better picture of the making of chiffon cake. The videos have 3 parts: Part 1-preparation & beating of egg yolks; Part 2-beating of egg whites; Part 3-folding of egg whites to egg yolks.

I think the videos are very good & informative to me. See, my chiffon cake didn't collapse after inverting. But, I wonder why there were so many air pockets on the cake itself? I did bang the cake pan several times before sending it to the oven for baking. Or, could it be the baking powder I used? This time round I used "Double-acting baking powder" as stated in the recipe by "孟老师的一百道小旦糕".

Nonetheless, the cake was soft and fluffy and a bit moist, but not as moist as my Green Tea Chiffon Cake. Taste wise, the cake had a slight tinge of maple syrup but not overpowering (which was good). My family loved it very much. My husband had a few slices, which was very rare! :) You must be wondering why my cake had no frosting? Well, my husband does not like any "make-up" ! :D


Wonder also why can't I unmold it beautifully like other bloggers such as Happy Home Baker. I like her perfectly "look alike pork floss" chiffon cake! Well, guess practice make perfect!

Super Soft Milk Toast

(This was using my bigger Pullman's tin with flour capacity of 450g.)

Yesterday evening, my husband came home telling me “哇！妳的面包好软！” (Your bread is very soft!). I was elated to hear that, since it was I who always asked him for feedback! And hey, this bread was made on Tuesday afternoon! It is able to "survive" under our current terrible hot weather and yet retain its softness... . I'm very pleased. :)

Unlike other bloggers who bake different kinds of healthy loaves with pumpkin or sweet potatoes, I can only bake simple plain/milk loaf for my family... simply because my family (especially my husband) doesn't fancy/like these kind of loaves! :( Another type of bread they will never want me to bake are those hard bread (European bread). See, a bunch of 吃软不吃硬的！ So I've been baking my usual milk loaf from here. Well, this is a very good loaf using very simple ingredients available in most home bakers' home. However, like all home bakers I'm constantly looking for bread loaf that stay very soft on the second and better still third day without additional of bread improver.

I chanced upon a recipe from a food blog which I frequent. It uses simple ingredients too, but with additional egg whites. Since I have leftover egg whites from my ice-cream making, I decided to give it a try. It's also a good way to use up the whites too. :)

Ingredients:
Bread flour 300g
Instant Yeast 3g
Castor sugar 45g
Salt 3g
Milk powder 4.5g
Fresh milk 138g
Egg whites 65g
Salted butter 30g

Method:
1. Use your usual kneading for bread. Make sure you knead your dough till smooth and elastic (window pane stage).
2. Cover and proof for 1 hour.
3. Divide into 3 portions. Round up the doughs and rest for about 10 minutes.
4. Roll into Swiss roll style once. Rest the doughs for a further 10 minutes.
5. Flatten the 3 rolls and roll into Swiss roll style one more time. (兩次桿捲)
6. Put the rolled doughs into you Pullman's tin and let it rise till 90%. (within 2 hours)
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 deg C for 30 minutes.
8. Unmold immediately. Let it cool off completely before slicing.

Note:
* This dough was rather wet & sticky. I wonder whether it was due to the salted butter used.
* During my first attempt, I used my stand mixer for the first 15 minutes. Thereafter, I hand kneaded and "throw & bang" for another 20 minutes or so before reaching window pane stage. Please remember to "lightly flour" your hand & working table. Do not be tempted to add more flour.

* For my second attempt, I used my bigger Pullman's tin with 450g of bread flour. This time round I used unsalted butter. I found it was easier to work with unsalted butter. I used my bread machine to knead for 30 minutes. I feel my bread dough usually don't reach window pane stage even after 30 minutes of kneading. So, I'll take out the dough and hand knead it. I'll also adopt the "throw & bang" method （甩打面团). I find this method works very effective than hand knead alone! Guess what I "throw & bang" and count to hundreds!

I always keep my home baked loaf in an airtight container at room temperature. Likewise, my husband will pack his bread in an airtight container and bring to his office. So please keep your bread properly.

I hope you will try out this wonderful recipe and enjoy this loaf as much as I do. :)


Recipe source: MARS 烘焙園地

Minced Ginger & Spring Onion Dipping Sauce

Made this dipping sauce to go with our chicken rice dinner last week. Hmm..... very 惹味! This sauce is also very suitable for steam fish, i.e. after steaming the fish, just spread some of the sauce over the fish. A plain steam fish instantly turns into a special dish! Sedap!

Ingredients:
200g young ginger (peeled, diced, mixed with 100ml water and blended into puree)
100ml oil
2 tbsp chopped spring onion

Seasoning:
1 tsp chicken stock granules
1 tsp salt
a little sesame oil

Method:
1. Heat up oil and put in ginger puree and seasoning.
2. Stir and cook until boiled.
3. Add in chopped spring onion. Stir well and remove from heat.
4. Leave to cool before storing.


Recipe source: 大牌档酱 作者： 郭子仁