New Chocolate Cake Recipe

I have never considered myself a foodie, but I have been called a foodie a few times by friends especially when they see me get all wide-eyed and excited when I am talking about food. Hence, when I stumbled on this book at the last Big Bad Wolf Sale, I felt compelled to buy it, the RM8 price of course helped to convice me to get it.

  

The Foodie Handbook : (The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy by Pim Techamuanvivit.

When I started reading... I skimmed the book at stopped at page 173: Fifty things every foodie should do, or at least try once in her (his) life.

While some of the things listed had a bit of a ... "yeah right! like that's gonna happen"factor eg: no. 17: Spend a week in New Orleans - I would love to go to New Orleans but seriously?
though...

Anyhow... what I'm trying to get at is no. 20 Learn to make an easy but decadent chocolate cake.
I have tried quite a number of chocolate recipes, basic butter chocolate cake ones, moist chocolate cake, devil's chocolate cake etc... but seeing that the recipe was short and simple I had to just give it a go and thus tick off this number from the 50 too.


The result:

Yummeh!

 

 

The recipe:

 

7 oz / 200g good plain chocolate chopped or broken into small pieces

 (I used: Van Houten's Cooking Chocolate)

1 cup / 225g butter

1/4 cup / 25g cocoa powder

5 large eggs, separated

1 cup / 225g sugar

1/2 cup / 60g flour

1/4 cup / 85g soured cream (or creme fraiche)

and a pinch of salt

 

The method:

 

1. Put the chocolate, butter and cocoa powder in a medium-sized bowl.

2. Microwave for one or two minutes, depending on the power of your machine, just until the butter and about half of the chocolate have melted.

3. Remove the bowl from the microwave and stir until everything is , mixed together. Set aside.

4. Put the yolks, sugar and flour in another medium-sized glass bowl and stir with a spatula or wooden spoon until well mixed.

5. Add the creme fraiche and salt and stir until blended.

6. Pour the mixture into the bowl with the melted chocolate and butter mixture, and stir to blend well. Set aside.

7. Whisk the egg whites using your own amazing elbow grease, or a stand or handheld mixer. Beat until the egg whites form a soft peak, that is to say, it forms a peak that quickly leans over to one side as you pull the whisk up from the whipped cloud.

8. Take about one-third of the whipped whites and whisk it into the batter until well mixed. Fold the rest gently in to the batter until the white streaks entirely dissapear into the chocolate batter.

9. Preheat the oven to 400F /200C/Gas  Mark 6. Butter and flour a 9-by-15 inch/22-by-12cm loaf pan, and line it with parchment paper.

10. Pour in the chocolate batter and use the back of a knife to level the surface a bit.

11. Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes until the surface has a little bounce. Remove the cake from the oven, but leave it in the pan, and let cook in the pan on the countertop form about an hour.

12. Wrap the whole thing in aluminium foil and refrigerate. Remove it from the fridge at least an hour before serving, an run a knife between the cake and the sides of the pan. Remove the cake from the pan onto a plate and slice.

13. You can serve this with fresh berries, preserves, or a dollop of whipped cream.

* For a bit of variety, you can bake this batter in muffin tins - or other fancy single serving shapes - for 12 to 15 minutes.

 

Have fun baking! Trust me it will turn out amazing and like what Pim said... this will be your default chocolate cake from now on.

Waste not want not.

Here's what you should do when you find at least 3 overripe bananas on your kitchen counter:

Pre-heat the oven to 200C.
Line a muffin tin with paper cups.
Mash the bananas.
Add 125ml vegetable oil, followed by 2 eggs and 100g soft light brown sugar (I used caster sugar).
Mix 225grm plain flour, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda and 3 tbsp cocoa powder (sifted) with the oil and banana mixture, beating gently.
Finally spoon into prepared cups.

* Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes, by which time the muffins should be dark, rounded and peaking proudly out of the cups. Allow to cool slightly in their tin before removing to a wire rack.

** Recipe - Nigella's Kitchen

*** I also added a dash of vanilla essence and a handful of chocolate buttons.

Oh by the way - this is what you will get in the end ---> Chocolate Banana Muffins.

[notice that I didn't mention cake mixer? didn't need it! Uhuh, no excuse for not trying this.]

Grilled Seafood and Vegetable Spaghettini

This is a something that I would prepare whenever I do not make early dinner plans which means I forgot to defrost the meat or fish. If there is seafood in the freezer and some eggplants and bell peppers in the fridge, this would be a quick dinner dish.

Ingredients:

For roasting:
Bell peppers
Eggplants
Garlic
Zucchini (if you plan ahead)
Tomatoes (I used overripe cherry tomatoes that I need to finish off quick)

** so marinate all veges with olive oil, black pepper and salt, set aside for a few minutes.

Seafood : Marinate prawns, cuttlefish, mussels (if planning ahead of course) with all same ingredients of the vege marinade only add some paprika for added flavour set aside too while you turn on the grill in the oven.

Spread all marinated ingredients onto a roasting dish, splash a little more olive oil if necessary.

Prepare the following for sauteing:
Onions
Garlic
Red chillies
3/4 boiled spaghettini

Final step:

Saute all the above apart from the spaghettini. Add the spaghettini. I also save some boiled spaghettini water, so this is added to the fried spaghettini to make it a little moist and tastier (a tip I picked up from watching the cooking shows on tv). Then I throw in all the roasted "goodness". Season to taste and toss to mix. Finally garnish with some roughly chopped parsley and my kids love them served with grated cheese too. That's it really. Have a try and enjoy.

Marble Cake.

Since last week, I have this sudden craving for Marble Cake. My mother used to make them, and I used to help separate the mixture into three and add the cocoa powder and colouring. When I checked my mom's recipe that I copied last week, I realised that the measurements were in oz!!! Only my mother has the old school weighing machine with the oz weight blocks. So, I had no choice but to google another recipe!

Last Saturday, I tried this recipe. Took the risk and made double batch so that I could send to Mom and MIL. The cake sorta caved in the middle, don't know why, but still is crumbly and I thought nice just like how I remembered my mom used to make them. Give it a try, won't cha. 

My SRF (self-raising flour) was bad, so I substituted it with the Superfine Flour added with 2 tbsp of baking powder for each 225g of flour.

Here's the original recipe, I suggest you follow exactly:

Ingredients:

225g butter, softened

225g caster sugar

4 eggs

225g self-raising flour

3 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

1.         Heat oven to 180C/gas 160C/gas 4. Grease a 20cm cake tin and line the bottom with a circle of greaseproof paper. If you want to make life easy, simply put all the ingredients (except the cocoa powder) into a food processor and whizz for 1-2 mins until smooth. If you prefer to mix by hand, beat the butter and sugar together, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Fold through the flour, milk and vanilla extract until the mixture is smooth.

2.                  Divide the mixture between 2 bowls. Stir the cocoa powder into the mixture in one of the bowls. Take 2 spoons and use them to dollop the chocolate and vanilla cake mixes into the tin alternately. When all the mixture has been used up (and if young kids are doing this, you'll need to ensure the base of the tin is fairly evenly covered), tap the bottom on your work surface to ensure that there aren't any air bubbles. Take a skewer and swirl it around the mixture in the tin a few times to create a marbled effect.

*** If you wish to have 3 colours, divide into 3 and add some red colouring to the 3rd bowl, and alternate the 3 mixtures when mixing into the cake tin.

3.                  Bake the cake for 45-55 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Turn out onto a cooling rack and leave to cool. Will keep for 3 days in an airtight container or freeze for up to 3 months.

Recipe: BBC Good Food

Laksa Johor - Ala Chef Wan

My latest birthday treat was Chef Wan's - A Taste of Malaysia.

I love the recipes in this book. 

Tried a few already and will continue to do so, one recipe at a time.

I've been trying to learn to cook Laksa Johor. As a second attempt, I tried Chef Wan's recipe.

I got a thumbs up from my family, my friends at work and even my mother! 

My Laksa Johor - Ala Chef Wan.

Here's the recipe:

Gravy

Vegetable oil

Ginger

Shallots

Garlic

Dried prawns

Fish Curry powder

Prawns

Coconut Milk/Cream

Lemon grass

Galangal

Mackerel Fillet 

( I used canned Tuna in water, it was a Monday working day after all - 

who has the time to poach, debone and mince a whole fish!)

Dried sour fruit (asam gelugor)

Pounded roasted grated or desiccated coconut (kerisik)

Spaghetti

Kalamansi limes

Sambal Belacan

Red Chillies

Dried prawn paste (belacan)

Salt

Lime Juice

Garnish

Cucumber

Laksa leaves

Bean Sprouts

Onions

Long Beans

Method:

• Combine ingredients for Sambal Belacan in a food processor and blend until smooth. Set aside.(But of course pounding them silly with a pestle and mortar gives a thicker and less watery sambal belacan, authentic traditional way.)
• Heat the oil in a heavy pot and fry the ginger, shallots, garlic and dried prawns until fragrant. Add the curry powder and fry for 2 minutes.
• Add the prawns, coconut cream, lemongrass and galangal. Leave to simmer.
• Add the mackerel and dried sour fruit and continue to simmer for 20 minutes.
• Add the pounded grated coconut to the stock. Stir and cook for another 2 minutes. If the sauce is too thick, dilute with hot water. ( I used prawn stock prepared by simmering the prawn shells in water earlier).
• To serve, divide spaghetti into serving bowls. Garnish with the cucumber, laksa leaves, bean sprouts, onions and long beans.
• Pour the sauce over the spaghetti, squeeze some lime on it and serve with sambal belacan on the side.

** I also added Torch Ginger Buds (bunga kantan) as garnish.

Wallaaaa... easy peasy lemon squeezy. If I can do this so can you. 

I don't provide exact measurements (which are provided in the book by the way), because I tend to not follow them strictly. Good luck, happy cooking.

Cookbooks.

Love them.

Love browsing through them.

Love reading them.

Love collecting them.

Love using them.

My cookbook shelf #01 which contains some celebrity cookbooks.

I tend to get them as birthday treats for myself on my birthdays.

Okay, so sometimes I don't necessarily wait for my birthday to treat myself.

Got a couple too from hubby on my birthday a few years back.

Cookbook shelf #02.

This shelf has recipe books from unknown cooks, from a friend's brother's vocational school, mini cook books, online recipes, my mother's recipes from her cooking/baking lessons, old books bought way back when I was studying at uni... 

Notice the yellow folder on the very right? It contains loose sheets of recipes.

The full scape paper book in blue, well that contains my highly used recipes, either hand-written or pasted from online print outs. Precious! Have not gotten to beautifying it yet. Will get to it soon. Shall definitely blog about it, once I've done it.

So, if you have no idea what to get for me for my next birthday... now you do! :-D

Ribs & Caesar Salad tonight.

For dinner tonight I decided to cook the ribs that we got from last weekend's Eid Al-Adha Korban. Just look at the size of the ribs! Unfortunately there were not much meat on it, but I decided to roast them anyhow.

Marinated with Smoky BBQ sauce, rosemary, black pepper and salt. 

Par boiled some potatoes and toss them together with the ribs in the oven. 

Found some leftover mushrooms and carrots in the fridge, added those to the roasting pan too.

 

As expected, the meat was very little, good thing I had some frozen baked pasta 

and broccoli soup as side dishes.

Oh, and I made Caesar Salad for the first time ever!

I totally love San Francisco Coffee's Caesar Salad (why SFC particularly?, well simply because it's in my office building and it's a quick take away for my late lunches after gym). I found romaine lettuce (or cos lettuce) at the supermarket this morning, so I decided to try the dressing recipe that I found online sometime last week. I thought it turned out well, at least the kids loved it.

Caesar Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

3/4 cup mayonnaise or less

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 clove of garlic minced (1 used 2 cloves)

1/4 tsp salt

1/8 tsp pepper

1/2 C Parmesan Cheese ( I have no idea what this C meant, so  I just added as much as I liked the taste)

1 tbsp of milk ( I also added as much as it felt right)

I also added a couple of squirts of mustard and a dash of olive oil

Method:

Mix all ingredients together and I blitzed with my trusty hand blender. Chill before serving.

Serve the lettuce chilled too, and throw in some home made croutons in the end before serving. Divine!

Source: Cook.com

Croutons

Ingredients:

A few pieces of bread.

Remove crusts, but I find that it's wasteful to do so, leave it in if you don't mind crusts.

Spread with garlic infused olive oil before dicing.

Roast in the oven or pan-fry without oil.

Leave to cool before serving.

***********

So how did my family enjoy the meal?

Like this.

And this...

This one just loves to be photographed! 

Another chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Really? Yeah, by now you would have thought you 

already have THE chocolate chip cookie recipe that you'd use till... forever right? Well, yes that's what I thought when I first got a chocolate chip cookie recipe when I was in my teens. Another when everyone received this chain emails about Famous Amos Cookie Recipe years ago until.... I got Nigella's KITCHEN and tried her cookie recipe! And followed her suggestion to scoop with ice-cream scoops! I ended up with huge chunk of cookies that are just out of this world.  So yes, this is my last chocolate chip cookie recipe ever! :-)

 Ingredients:
150g unsalted butter
125g soft light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg, fridge-cold
1 egg, yolk fridge-cold
300g flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 X 326g packet milk chocolate morsels or chocolate chip

 ** I used Van Houten's chocolate buttons and chocolate chips
Imagine how chocolatey the cookies are!
** If you want the cookies to be less sweet, just reduce the sugar measurements a little.

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
• Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together. 
• Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy.
• Slowly mix in the flour and bicarb until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.
• Scoop the cookie dough into an American quarter-cup measure or a 60ml ice cream scoop and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 8cm apart. You will need to make these in 2 batches keeping the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.
• Bake for 15-17 minutes in the pre-heated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Here's the cookie jar that will not be full for long... once you fill it with these yummy cookies!

Maybe you can try this recipe for this Eid??? 

Baked Doughnuts

Here's a simple recipe that I have used over and over again. Something that I got from one of the recipe books received during the Naturel Bento workshop that I attended (thanks to advertlets :-)). Do give it a go. Make double batches at least because I can assure you it will just disappear as soon as you serve it! I usually make 2 batches, serve 1 and freeze the other batch for a surprise tea time treat another day.

Ingredients:

50ml Naturel Blend Cooking Oil
2 large eggs
80 ml sour cream or plain yogurt
1tbsp lemon juice
120g self-raising flour
20g cocoa
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
80g caster sugar
pinch of salt
Naturel Soft Margerine, to grease

STEP 1

Brush a 12-hole doughnut pan lightly with Naturel  Soft Margarine and preheat oven to 160 degrees celcius. Beat Naturel Blend Cooking Oil, eggs, yoghurt and lemon juice together with a fork until well mixed.

STEP 2

Sift flour and bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl and stir in sugar and salt. Make a well in the centre and pour in the liquid ingredients (from STEP 1). Mix until well combined.

STEP 3

Spoon mixture into greased tins, filling only half-full and bake for 10 - 12 minutes or until well risen and a skewer inserted into doughnuts comes out clean. Remove from tin and cool on wire rack. If you wish, sprinkle the top lightly with some sifted icing sugar before serving.

** if you wish to freeze some, once cooled, place in containers and freeze immediately.

Enjoy!

At long last...

I finally found the urge to blog again. It has been so long since my last blog post. Well, to break the ice, I guess, I shall begin with the easiest post... a tried and tested recipe. I found this recipe last Sunday, since I thought I wanted to find a different banana cake recipe. The ones that I already have and tried before somehow just isn't that divine... so I googled for another. I came across this one, I didn't ponder much, just found it and tried it. The recipe is simple... yet divine!

A simpe yet divine: BANANA CAKE RECIPE

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 125g butter
• 3 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups (185g) self-rising flour
• 2 tablespoon milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essense
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 190 degrees C. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl until it turns a light colour. Gradually add beaten eggs one at a time. Mash banana in a bowl with vanilla essense. Mix bicarbonate of soda in a cup with the milk.
2. Add your mashed banana mixture into the creamed butter and sugar and mix until combined. Alternatively add your flour and your milk mix until just combined.
3. Pour mixture into a greased loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes at 190C or until the cake springs back from touch in the middle. Cool on cake rack.
4. Enjoy or share it with family and friends! :-)

Source: Googled from allrecipes.com

DIY frozen food.

I thought that I was already doing a great job by ensuring that my kids take packed food from home to school daily. Their normal packed food would be tuna sandwiches, the 60 cents buns, cheese sandwiches, chocolate spread sandwiches and their all time favourite next to the tuna sandwiches... nuggets!!! If I learned only one thing from the recent Bento workshop last month, it would be that nuggets and other processed meats are such a NO! NO! This is because it contains Nitrate that is essential to preserve meat products, which can cause CANCER!!! Errrkkkk!!! I'm not feeding my kids that!!!

Therefore, hubby and I have agreed that we should spend a little more time at least once a month to prepare our very own home made chicken nuggets for the kids to take to school. No more store bought nuggets.

So we bought the organic chicken from the wet market last Saturday, de-boned it and set out the items required to prepare home made chicken nuggets. Googled the recipe online, so here it is...

Main ingredient:

Chicken pieces cut into bite-sizes. Those smaller bits that has no shape whatsover becomes "popcorn chicken".

So prepare bowls like shown in picture above in the following order:

Flour - Egg - Breadcrumbs (these are homemade too! Just pan fry or oven bake your wholemeal toasts, cut into cubes and blitz to oblivion).

** Do add the flour with your favourite chicken spice (I used, what I already had in the kitchen which is Meat Curry Spices), and somes salt and pepper to season. Keep the salt moderate though eh.

Step by step method with pictures:

Pick the chicken pieces one at a time, roll in in the flour.

Do a quick egg wash.

And roll it in the breadcrumbs. After this point it gets messy and your fingers will resemble a nugget too!

I tried working with chopsticks, yeah okay not too bad but eventually I went back to using my fingers.

Wallaa, your chicken nuggets ready to be packed and freezed.

Since we have started the production line, we also prepared some beef patties for our weekday dinner.

What's in the beef pattie?

Minced beef, onions, spring onions, loads of black pepper, salt, egg (not too much), breadcrumbs and some parsley.

  

Hubby left the nuggets "line" and jumped into the beef pattie "line" cause he wants to be in control of the size of the beef pattie that he'd be consuming in the coming week. Fine with me. :-) So he rolled it like the above picture.

Then it is patted to be flattened.

To fit nicely into a container for freezing.

Since this is a belated entry, I managed to take some pictures of the beef patties being cooked and served.

Hot on the grille.

Can you find the hidden Mickey?

Served with salads, boiled broccoli and mashed potatoes (homemade of course).

Red Velvet Cupcakes

My 1st attempt was a cake, please click for recipe.

This time cupcakes!

I thing I nailed it this time.

Thanks to Nigella's wonderful recipe in this Simply Divine book.

If you have been thinking about getting this book, go and get it NOW! 

I have tried 3 recipes so far: Apple and Cinnamon Muffins, Chocolate Banana Muffins

and this Red Velvet Cupcakes. 

Simple yet Divine, darling.

for the cupcakes:

250g plain flour (I used superfine)

2 x 15ml tablespoon cocoa powder, sifted

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100g soft unsalted butter

200g caster sugar

1 x heaped 15ml tablespoon red paste food colouring

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 eggs

175 buttermilk (see how to make buttermilk here)

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or other vinegar

2 x 12-bun muffin tins

• Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 and line the muffin tins with paper cases.
• Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarb in a bowl.
• In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar, beating well, and when you have a soft, pale mixture beat in the food colouring - all of it - and the vanilla.
• Into this vividly coloured mixture, still beating, add 1 spoonful of dried ingredients, then 1 egg, followed by some more dried ingredients, then the other egg, followed by the rest of the dried ingredients.
• Finally, beat in the buttermilk and vinegar and divide this extraordinary batter between the 24 cases (I got more, because I used smaller cups). Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes by which time the redcurrent-sorbet-coloured batter will have morphed into a more sombre, but still juicily tinted sponged - more maroon acryclic than red velvet to be honest. (Nigella's words exactly, I like the way she writes, you can almost here her saying it, just like on TV).
• Leave them to cook on a wire rack and do not ice with the frosting till absolutely cold.

Just look at the intense colour!

The red colour is just so amazing.

Someone sure was attracted to it!

Topped it with Buttery cream-cheese frosting and some sprinkles on top.

for the icing:

500g icing sugar (no need to sift if using a processor)

{I used only 400g because that was all I had, I might even reduce another 50g, 

because it's a tad sweet. It really depends on how you like your sugar.}

125g cream cheese

{I used the whole block of Cream Cheese, only because I thought the recipe said 250g and also I sub-consciously wanted to finish the whole block as I wasn't sure I would use the leftovers soon. But it turned out okay though, nice and creamy.}

125g soft unsalted butter

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

chocolate sprinkles and red sugar for decoration(optional)

• Put the icing sugar into a processor and whizz to remove lumps.
• Add the cream cheese and butter and process to mix. Pour in the cider vinegar (or lemon juice) and process again to make a smooth icing.
• Ice each cupcake, using a teaspoon or small spatula.
• Decorate with chocolate sprinkles and red sugar, or as desired. 

Have a try.

Someone's happy.