Christmas 2007 Feast

Smoked Salmon and Cream Chesse Canapes
Stir Fried Mushroom Canapes

Devil's Eggs
Steam Live Prawns
Yew Cha Kuey Sotong Grilled Lemongrass Spare Ribs
Mango Glazed Honey Baked Ham
Mee Siam

We had a mini Christmas Party on Christmas Day. My mother-in-law and I prepared the food for the party. Everyone had a good time and the kids were the happiest of course as they got many presents.

Mango Sago with Pomelo 杨汁甘露

I was introduced to this dessert by my bother-in-law who brought us to this dessert stall. If you are a fan of mangos, you will like this. I got this recipe from Zu's Kitchen. The original recipe called for 1tbsp of cornflour mix with some water to thicken the dessert but I thought this was unnecessary as the sago pearls would thicken the dessert eventually.

Mango Sago with Pomelo 杨汁甘露

Ingredients:
600gm mango (abt 2 honey mangoes)
400ml mango juice (Peelfresh or any other similar brands)
125ml evaporated milk
80g sago pearls (original uses 300gm pomelo, split into small pieces)
250ml water
2~3 tbsp sugar

Directions:

1. Boil 250ml water and sugar till sugar dissolves.
2. Mix cornflour/tapioca starch with 1 tbsp water and pour into the syrup and stir over low heat until mixture is smooth.
3. Take syrup and cornflour mixture off the heat and leave it to cool.
4. Cut the sides of the mango and cube them.
5. Scrap the remaining mango and put in a bowl, add 100ml of water to blend, put aside. Seive the mango puree to remove any fibre to get a smooth dessert.
6. Add blended mango, cubed mango, mango juice and evaporated milk into the syrup solution (from 1) then stir.
7. Add sago pearls and stir, if too thick, add abit of cooled boiled water or more mango juice.
8. Chill before serving.
   

Techniques for cooking the sago

1. Boil about 3 cups of water in a saucepan. Add in sago pearls and bring to boil.
2. Once it boils, cover saucepan and turn off heat. Leave for 20 minutes.
3. Remove the lid, stir the mixture, turn on the heat and bring it to boil again.
4. Once it boils the second time, cover again, turn off the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes. The sago should be cooked by now.
5. Drain the sago from the hot water and rinse. Soak in cold water (to stop it cooking further). When completely cool drain again and set aside.
   

Holicks Doggie Cookies

Made these for my son's class at childcare for Christmas as well as for some colleagues of mine. I adapted the recipe from Happy Home Baking. I thought it was not sweet enough, but it is healthier. You could add some castor sugar while creaming the holicks and butter. A tablespoon should be sweet enough for one portion.

Here is the recipe for it:

Horlicks Doggies Cookies
(makes about 48 cookies)

Ingredients:
180g butter, soften at room temperature
80g Horlicks (original flavour)
200g top flour or cake flour
25g corn flour
25g milk powder.
100g chocolate chips
some chocolate rice
some Koko Krunch

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 140deg C. Line baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
2. Sieve top flour, corn flour and milk powder.
3. Cream butter and Horlicks for about three minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
4. Put in top flour, cornflour and milk powder and beat for about one minute to form dough.
5. Divide dough into 10g each. Put three chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into balls.
6. Insert two pieces of Koko Krunch to form the 'ears', chocolate rice for the "eyes", and a chocolate chip in the centre for the 'nose'.
7. Bake at 150 deg C for about 25 minutes. Depending on your oven, it may take another 5 to 10 minutes more for the cookies to be ready.
8. Leave to cool on wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

Banana Sponge Cake

Made these banana sponge cakes over the weekends with some over-riped bananas.

Recipe from book - Alex Goh Fruity Cake
Banana Sponge Cake
Ingredients:
(A)
120g sugar
1/2 tbsp SP cake emulsifier

(B)
4 eggs
120g Low protein flour
1/2 tbsp Baking Powder

(C)
120g Mashed Banana
1/4 tsp Baking Soda

(D)
85g Melted butter

Method:

1. Mix (A) until well blended. Add (B) and whip till light and fluffy.
2. Add (C) and mix until well combined.
3. Stir in (D) and mix until well blended.
4. Pour the batter into greased cup cake moulds.
5. Bake at 180C for 20 minutes. When they are done, remove them from the moulds immediately.

Tip:
Butter can be substituted with vegetable oil.

Pooh Bear Cookies

I have finally managed to get my very own Winnie The Pooh cookies cutters after many months of search. The cutters were easy to use and the cookies were so cute. I bought the whole series fo cookie cutters from Kai consisting of Winne the Pooh, Chip and Dale, Mickey and Minnie and also some Hello Kitty cutters but I think I still like Winne the Pooh best. The recipe is the same as the one I posted for the car cookies.

Chocolate Lava Cake

Made this for dessert after lunch upon my sister-in-law's request for the Chocolate Molten Lava Cake with ice cream after she ate something of this sort in a French resturant. I used the recipe from this site

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/desserts/chocolate-lava-cake-recipe.asp

I guess the name of this recipe was derived from the fact that liquidified chocolate was suppose to flow out from inside. Unfortunately, for my case, there was no lava due to overbaking. As a result, my cake was more like a moist brownie rather than a lava molten cake. I would recommend to use Lindt bittersweet chocolate for the recipe as this cake is mainly made up of chocolate and very little flour, thus in my opinion, the quality of chocolate is important.

Curry Rice

This was our family's lunch on Saturday, simple to cook and tasty. It is also one of our family's favourite and even my son loves it.

Camera Test

No, I didn't make these. These were some of the pictures taken while trying out the various functions on my digital camera. And no, it is not a new camera, just that I have never really been interested in photo taking before this blog was setup.

So here are the two nicer ones that I manage to capture after fidgeting with the camera for almost an hour.

Bakery Suppliers In Singapore

I have been doing some research lately and managed to gather the following information of the various suppliers in Singapore besides Phoon Huat which has branches in many areas.

Chong Trading Co.catering/baking supplies & cook wear
#02-09 The Adelphi1 Coleman St
Tel: 6336-0560

Bake It Yourself StoreCake Decoration Specialty Store
182 Bukit Timah Road
Tel: 6100-2253
http://www.b-i-y.com/

Kwong Cheong Thye
No 61-63, Lorong 27 Geylang
Off Sims Ave
Singapore 388186
Tel: 6748 0128
http://www.kctsoya.com/

Sun Lik
33 Seah Street
Singapore 188389
Tel: 63380865
Monday to Friday - 8.30am to 6.30pm
Saturday - 8.30am to 6.00pm
Sunday and Public Holiday – Closed

Ailin Bakery House
845 Geylang Road #01-48
Tanjong Katong Complex
Singapore 400845
Tel : 67432693
Opening Hours : 9.30am to 7pm

Gim Hin Lee (Pte) Ltd
10 Haig Rd #01-363/365
Singapore 430010
Tel: 67428388

Cars and Ship Cookies

Bought some cookie cutters from Daiso and made these cookies over the weekends.

Cars and Ship Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

100g butter, softened at room temperature

65g brown sugar

1 egg yolk

180g cake flour

20g corn flour

Method:

1. Sift cake flour and corn flour together and set aside. Line baking tray with parchment paper, set aside.
2. With an electric mixer, add in sugar to the butter in 2 ~3 additions and cream till the mixture turns pale and fluffy.
3. Add in egg yolk and mix well.
4. Add sifted flour into mixture, stir with a spatula to form a soft dough.
5. Place dough in a plastic bag and flatten with rolling pin.
6. Roll out dough on slightly floured work surface and cut out with slightly floured cookie cutters.
7. Bake at pre-heated oven at 175 degC for 15 ~ 20mins.
8. Let cool and store in air-tight container.