Christmas Parties!!

Been having Christmas parties for the past 2 weekends! One on the 11th and another on yesterdae! There is gonna be another one at my house this coming friday! I gonna be fat once christmas is over! O wait! There is still New Year Party after christmas and Chinese New year the next month! There goes my diet!! *sobbies*

Decided to show some faces and some food that i have eaten in my bloggie. I scared pple get bored from jus seeing cooking steps. keke!!

The party I had on the 11th was with my good frns and their bfs. It is our annual pigging out christmas party! We had our standard favourite Sheperd's pie(made by my mama... I got lazy! keke), Spaghetti Vongole(by mellie,yx,jc and jem), honey baked ham, salmon sashimi and sausages (sponsered by mei,tm,ju,gerald) and home-made oreo cheesecake from audrey! There were also ice-cream, baileys and wine (from sherrie, cris and jason).


Haf-eaten sheperd's pie. Hot favourite! For those who dunno wat they are, they are mashed potatoes over a layer of minced beef.


The spaghetti Vongole! The picture made it looks like char mee(complained by mellie). This "char mee" was cooked in white wine and have loads of clams in it too but not captured in the picture.


My pretty frns and i! Big Grins! SHowing off our christmas presents!

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The party we had yesterday was held at BC's place. It was kindly organised by Jason and Elaine. Thankz! We had turkey and leg of ham (ordered from cold storage), potato salad(done by elaine), some yummy salad(with croutons and bacon bits) made by jason and bc, cheese sausages, ribs from cold storage, asparagus wrapped with bacon strips and oso biscuits with yummy dips.

We were totally stuffed after the meal!! All the meat! After dinner, there were cheesecake and fresh fruits (kiwis,strawberries,honeydew and grapes) with chocolate dip.

Unfortunately, every1 is too busy with eating and forgot to take more pics!

We also took the opportunity to celebrate nat's first bdae! Happy birthday nat!!!


Our table overflowing with food!


I am happy about the turnout! so many pple! There was BC, his parents, TH,gary, gary's sis and nat, elaine, jason, bao, chin hong and jefferey and of cos me!! TH kindly took this pic for us.


Natalie's birthday cake from Cake Avenue! We all thot the colour of the cake is a bit too pink!

Pineapple CheeseCake!!

Made cheesecake for a christmas party i had at my bf's place ydae! On Th jie's request! My good fwens loves this cheese cake! Coz it has a yummy crust, served cold and its light! They have not eaten this for a long time. Haha! Will try to make this for u gals next year ok??

Mum got this recipe from my auntie. I loved the taste of it when i tried my aunt's and pestered my mum to learn how to make it. I was surprised that the cake was quite popular with my frns too. I hope pple who tried it ydae loves it too! Frm wat i rem, not much pple commented it was good! Hmphz! so sad! coz this time it was done by me and BC instead of mummy! My first attempt ok? must gif chance! Moreover i made it in BC's hse! no mama to guide! keke!

Ingredients:

• 2-3 tsp of Gelatine
• 125g Butter
• 1 tin Nestle Cream (170g)
• 1 pkt of digestive biscuit (crushed)
• 1 can philadelphia cream cheese (Net wt. 8oz or 227g)
• 1 big can pineapple(cut into pieces)
• 2-3 tsps of sugar (fine)

1. Crush digestive biscuits. Add softened butter to biscuits. Mix well until butter has melted. Make sure there are no lumps. Put mixture in a cake pan and press it hard. Put it in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.


We used about 18 digestive biscuits. BC was responsible for crushing the biscuits. He put a few biscuits at a time into a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to crush the biscuits. Make sure u crush it real fine. I was responsible of mixing the butter with the crushed biscuits. After mixing the butter well with the biscuits, start to form the mixture as a base on the cake tin.


2. Add philadelphia cheese to 2-3 tsp of sugar. Loosen the cheese and mix well.


The philadelphia cream cheese is sold as 250g instead of 227g. So instead of wastage, both of us decided to put the whole packet of cheese inside. Guess 23g more of cheese wun make much of a difference! Wonder who came up with this measurement. Wierd !


3. Boil pineapple with the syrup. Add in the cheese mixture.


Keke! Jus boil as shown in pic.


4. Shake the tin of nestle cream. Then add it to them mixture. Low heat when cream is added.


My tin of cream! Shake before opening! i forgot! used spoon to mix instead! keke!


5. Add 2-3 tsp of gelatine (depending on preferred texture). Stir for a whle so that the gelatine is mixed well.


This is how everything looks like when it completely mixed.


6. Pour mixture onto the digestive base. Make sure that the pineapple pieces are covered by the mixture. Cool it before putting the cake in the freezer.
   
   
   Our cheesecake! Try not to pour the hot mixture immediately into the biscuit crust! Make sure the crust is hard. Let the mixture cool for like 5 mins. Place the pineapples evenly on the crust. Then pour the rest of the mixture to cover the pineapple. Wait for it to cool then freeze for cheesecake for at least 2 hour.
   
   Serve cold. Try to rest it outside for a while if its very frozen. Try not to leave it outside too long else the cheesecake will crumble. Enjoy!
   
   

Orange Sponge Cake

Work is starting to get stressful these days. I am starting to feel the strain but i guess my dear is under more strain than me. He worked till really late hours and now even during weekends. Try my best to avoid stepping on his toes these days. I know how irritated i will get if i got to work so many hours. SO i decided to be a sweet gal to bake a cake specially for him since he is too busy for me and also that he can have something he can eat when he is hungry at work. I oso thot baking will be a refreshing change from the daily rountine and can keep my mind off work.

I picked this orange sponge cake recipe online, thinking he mite like it.

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 6 tablespoons orange juice

Heat the oven at 165 deg C.
Grease and flour 9 inch round pan


Seperate eggs while cold and leave to room temperature


My pathetic orange zest and yummy orange juice from 1 orange.


Beat egg yolks, sugar, orange zest until light and fluffy.
I guess I kinda screwed up here. I din noe how light and fluffy the recipe is referring to. I kept beating and beating and had a bad feeling i overbeat it.


Mix flour and baking powder together. Alternate add flour mixture & orange juice to egg yolk mixture.
The mixture got kinda thick and dry. I felt as if i was making cookie dough instead of a cake.


WHisk egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into batter. Pour batter into PAN. Bake for 50-60 mintutes.
Thank goodness it began to look more like a cake mixture by this stage.


The batter is all ready to go into the oven.


After a whole day of work, i dun fancy cleaning up. The beating of the egg yolks and the egg whites have totally drained me before i got to this stage. My fingers even felt kinda numb. But i still got to clean all up as i have made the mess. It will be all worth it if the cake turns out nice and that dear loves it.


The cake! i was pretty happy that it din turn out like stone like my first cake. Because i had a really bad feeling it might. However, in the end, the cake did turn out a bit hard. It felt more like a pound cake instead of a sponge cake. Yet, the taste was kinda light and not-bad. Mum was luffing at my butterless pound cake. She was amused by my farnie cake.


Packing up my cake to gif to my dear the next day. Sad to sae he din get to eat till like 2 days later. I baked on wed nite and he ate in on sat. He could not eat it in office because then he have to offer this awful cake to his colleagues.
In short, my plan backfired. :(


Desptie the hardness, my cake looks and taste pretty sane. See.. the airholes looks pretty evenly spread out. Maybe i shld start going for baking classes to master baking a perfect cake. or is there any1 out there who can tell me where have i gone wrong?


Bought chocolate banana cake today frm Awfully chocolate to make up to my taste buds and my dear from my cake failure. Unfortunately due to some misunderstanding, he will not be able to taste it tonite. Anyway, the cake isnt very nice. I shld just stick to its plain or rum and cherry one. The banana cake cannot beat that from bakery depot.

Tuna Potato Salad

WOw! It's been ages since i updated this blog. I started work last month. LOst the time and mood to learn and bake any new thing. Kinda missed it. I shall try hard to make some time to learn how to cook or bake once in a while.

Decided to make potato salad today since mum had all the ingredients. I remember that I owe this blog entry to Miss Elaine too. She been bugging me for the recipe eversince she ate my potato salad. I bet she wanna make it for her dearest zz coz she did mention he loves potato salad alot! Lucky zz. This is a very simple recipe. Shld be easy for anyone and its great to bring along for parties. Potato salad seems to be a well-liked dish for many. I am always responsible for the potato salad during the food gatherings with my good friends. My mum used to make them for me. But since it is really easy to do, i learnt to do it for my own. This is a dish you cannot go very wrong. Safe!

Today i am adding tuna in my potato salad..jus for a different taste. You can also add bacon bits for extra flavour. Bacon bits are really easy to make. Jus slice yr bacon into tiny pieces( not too tiny cause they shrink when fried), fry them and soak the oil from the bits using paper towel. You can do this earlier and stock it in the fridge so you can use it whenever u want.


Obviously u need potatos for this. Boil the potatos till cooked (usually ard 20-30mins). Wait for it cool. Peel and cut into cubes as shown above.


The other ingredients i require: Salad cream, Japanese mayo and tuna. Love this japanese tuna! Yum yum! And its serving is small. Jus nice for my salad.


Add pepper and salt to taste. I love to use crushed black pepper for its nice fragrance. Add mayo and salad cream. Addition of mayo and salad cream is up to yr own taste. I usually add more mayo than salad cream because i dun wan my salad to be too sourish frm the salad cream.

The tip is to add moderately.. taste and add more as u deem fit.

I usually add shredded carrot in too. This was 1 of my mum's way to get me to eat carrot and she likes the nice colour it gives to the salad. Its really easy. Jus shred the carrot. Strain away its juice and throw it the carrot shreds into the salad.

Toss everything together well to make sure everything is mixed evenly. Dun over toss! else yr potato will be too mashy.


Here i pour in my whole can of tuna! Toss again!

I like my salad cold. So at this stage, i put my salad in the fridge to cool. I leave the lettuce to the last(jus before you are ready to eat) mum said the lettuce will "give out water" and then the salad will be watery. Not nice.


MY hard boiled eggs! Hmm... i think eggs take ard 10 mins to be hardboiled. Mum cooked the eggs for me. haha!

Mum's good tip. Once the egg is cooked, soak and cool in cold water. Then it wun have that greyish rim-like thing ard the yoke. Look. its true! the yoke is really pretty! No grey rim.


Salad is cooled and i am ready to eat. Twist the lettuce and scatter on top of the potatoes. Slice the egg into eighths and place on top. You can use and egg cutter for this. Usually i will add tomato too but i am jus too lazy today. heez! Toss and its ready to serve.


Thats all you have to get yourself a potato salad. QED!

Time for me to sit back and enjoy my salad!

Baking Coconut Crunch.

I think i am really hooked onto baking. I actually missed it. Due to recent happenings at home, i din have the mood. And oso now i dun have the luxury of the kitchen all to myself... guess there gonna be less baking from me.

I was fortunate to have a few hours of the kitchen to myself ydae. Jioed my Gweesie to come over to do some baking with me. He was sweet enuff to come accompany me. Coconut Crunch was the recipe i eyed from the recipe book(the 1 gwee got me). Mum dried up some coconut last week. She wanted to teach me how to make kueh gosui but unfortunately, time failed us. So instead of throwing the coconut away, she decided to dry them up in the oven so that i can use them for baking somedays. The word is desiccated! hehe! Learn from the recipe book!



Ingredients:
(A)
250g Butter
1/4 tsp Salt
220g Sugar

(B)
1 Egg

(C)
50g Desiccated coconut

(D)
250g Flour
2 tsps Baking Powder

The steps are as follows:

1. Cream (A) till smooth.
2. Add in (B) and cream till light.


Gweesie did all the mixing! I was in charge of adding the ingredients and instructing him. He did it till his hand got blisters! I said he was lousy. He claimed he was mixing the mixture thoroughly. As if! hehe! But i sure like not doing all the hard work! hehe! Hafway thru it, Gwee was complaining(looking at the box of danish cookies in my hse) that y cant we jus buy. haha!

3. Add in (C) then sieved(D) and mix till well-blended.
4. Shape it into balls and roll it in desiccated coconut. Place it into grease pan and press it slightly.


The mixture din turn out very dough-like but recipe din sae how did the final mixture will look like. But the mixture was thick enuff to be rolled in to balls.


It's time to get yr hands dirtee!! Those hands belong to Gwee. GWee was incharge of shaping the mixture into balls. i was incharge of rolling the balls in the coconut. I din see a point in rolling the balls in coconut... so i sprinkle loads of coconuts on the balls.


The final product! all of different sizes! the more he did... the bigger the doughs! In the end, we used a spoon for estimation. still quite huge!! I was warning him about it expanding... dun make so big!

5. Bake at 175 degC for 20 mins.


Always rem to heat yr oven first! i always do it for 10 mins. See see! the cookies expanded in the oven! kissing each other! oppz! i knew it! Because of its bigger size(compared to the 1 in the pic), we deicded to bake it 2 mins over. We even use a toothpick and poke poke to make sure it is done. hehe!


Our cookies!!!! Nice smelling cookings. Nicely brown!! First time joint effort with no major argument! maybe because my cuzzie was there... hehe!

Verdict: taste like those butter cookie. Crunchy throughout (except for my second batch, abit soft in the centre...too huge). No coconut taste though i feel which is good coz i m not exactly a fan of coconut! Quite a few good comments... from gwee's sis and also a few relatives! WOooHoo! I love baking! hahaha! Adding some more comments here: some pple commented a bit too sweet. SO less sugar next time.

FINGERS!!

Baked something called "Fingers today". I ate this before. Its sweet and crispy looking like thing! Gweesie bought me a book like 3 days back! Decided to show my appreciation and try to bake something from the book!


This is how the fingers looks like! Snap from the book! I am sure most pple noe how it taste like!


Here are the ingredients for this recipe:
(the book divide them into categories so i shld follow suit! hehe!)

(A)
- 3 egg yolks
- 10g sugar
(B)
- 3 egg whites
(C)
- 70g sugar
(D)
- 70g Flour
- 20g Cornflour
(E)
- Some Icing Sugar


To get the egg whites and egg yolks, we obviously have to divide them from 3 eggs! DUh! Hehe!


Whip (A) till light and thick. I can not figure it out. How can something b light and thick at the same time? Maybe he meant colour. DOesnt look very thick to me. Stopped when it din seem too watery anymore.


Whip (B) till soft peaks. Jus make sure its no longer watery and can form little peaks. I think u pple better use machine for this cause more whipping in the next time.


Add in (C) and continue to whip till stiff. This part takes super long time! So tiring! esp doing so much whipping earlier... U pple better use a mixer. Mum help me with the whipping for a while. WHip till stiff! u noe? like u watch on tv...can put over yr head. Hehe! as seen from the pic... i only dare to tilt the bowl n not over my head... scarly wait drop on the floor... i will cry!!

Mix the egg white mixture with (A) till well-blended.
Fold in sieved (D) and mix till well-combined.

The baking part consist of 2 steps.
step 1: Bake at 200deg on the middle rack for 10 mins or till golden brown.
step 2: Let it cool. Bake at 130deg for another 20mins till crisp.


Pipe into finger shape on the lined pan and dust it with (E).
USed the nozzle thingy i bought from Daiso! hehe! This part reminds me of when i was baking the "Cat's tongue". Same way. The way stuff ard the "Fingers" are actually the icing sugar. I am lazy. So jus dust all ard the pan using my sieve.


The first batch after the first round of baking. DUst too much sugar. Visible thick layer of sugar on top of the "fingers". Hehe!


While letting it cool, i decided to bake the second batch.

The second batch looks better. The sugar on the "fingers" looked nicely sprinkled on. Even the shape looks better than the first. But its still too fat to be called "fingers"! Mine shld b called "toes", short and fat. Haha!

While waiting for the first batch (second round of baking), decided to take a break by having a snack! My frn, mei, highly recommended this yoghurt to me! Finally tried it! Love the aloe vera bits! Refreshing snack! Plus.... It's Healthy! haha!


First and Second batch done from the second round of baking! I think i noe whats the second round of baking is for! Its like a "drying" process! At low temperature, the heat will slowly dry the fingers. U can actually see some of the sugar crsytalise. Kewl right?


A close up view! This is from the first batch! Told ya i dusted too much sugar! hha! look at the layer of sugar!


The third batch! This batch landed in the bin! I guess the mixture i left it out too long. Was concerntrating too on the first and second batch that i decide to do the third batch much later. Bad mistake! Kept to the timing but din not keep a lookout n the "Fingers" burnt! Some how it was flat too! oh well! jus throw~ so sad! thats like haf the amount of "fingers" went down the drain. Tok about "burnt fingers". haha!

Verdict: Tasted exactly as i expected it to be! Sweet and crispy! but for the first batch. its soft in the middle! must b too fat liao.... 2o mins not enuff! hehe! Anyway, wanna do this another time! I wanna perfect the shape of "FIngers"! Try to get used to using my nozzle! and this time round... i am so using the machine!!!!! hahahA!! i dun care! it will definitely reduce my workload by half!

Tips from the book: The egg white and sugar must b whipped till stiff. If it is too soft, the "fingers" will turn out flat.