Doughnuts

Yes, doughnuts again!
Actually it was for my Mum, who had a craving for the sweet tea time treat.
I guess it was from watching too much Donut Showndown on Diva!

The recipe we tried before this didn't turn out to well and had too many steps.
I hate long winding recipes, so I browse the internet until I came across one that suited my
laziness!

The recipe had egg, I just only found out that! All this while the recipes I had tried and tested for doughnuts had no eggs! Tak palah, only one egg, so okaylah tu.
The best part no need for special flour, plain old tepung gandum is used.
But maybe next time I'll add a bit of vanilla essence...

So are you up for it? The original recipe required the dough to be made into small balls, and later stuffed with jam but I just cut it out with a doughnut cutter and got much more than 12.
The sugar part is a bit confusing at first but basically all the recipe needs from the stated 4 Tbsp is
1 Tbsp and 1/2 tsp only. The rest was used to roll the freshly cooked doughnuts.

Doughnuts
source: BBC Good Food

Ingredients
1 Tbsp dried yeast (I tipped the entire sachet)
4 Tbsp castor sugar
150ml warmed milk (1 min on med in the mircowave is good enough)
8 oz /225g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
50g melted butter (2 Tbsp)
1 beaten egg

Method
In a bowl mix the yeast. 1/2 tsp sugar and 2 Tbsp milk.
Let it stand for 15 minutes or until it becomes foamy.

Sieve the flour and add in 1 Tbsp sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the
yeast mixture, melted butter, rest of the milk and the egg. Mix well, you might need
a bit of flour is the dough is sticky. Knead the dough until it smooth.
Let the dough stand, covered in a warm place for 45 minutes or until double in size.

Knead again for about 5 minutes, roll the dough into small balls or use a doughnut cutter.
Place the doughnuts onto a tray and let it stand for another 30 minutes or until dough has double it size.

Heat up the oil in a frying pan or kuali or wok. Gently lift the doughnuts from the tray and drop them into the oil. Fry until golden brown. Toss the excess oil and roll the cooked doughnuts in the rest of the sugar.
All done! Makanlah!
The original recipe, after the balls has cooked, make a small slit at the side and pipe in jam.
I think rolling in sugar is easy and yummy.

Do try it, as it is worth the long wait. It helps if you are doing something else...
But don't leave the dough out too long as it will dry up.

Good Luck!

Cream Puffs

Cream Puffs, or choux pastry not to be confused with the other cream puff recipe I uploaded.
The Japanese Crispy Cream Puff has an extra piping of butter cream before baking.
So there is a crispy layer or skin on the puffs when cooked.
Where else this one is soft and smooth with a fine dusting of icing sugar.

In the original recipe the puffs are dipped in melted chocolate and has orange chocolate filling.
I followed the recipe for the choux pastry. And the method is my take after several tries and errors!

Cream Puffs
source: The Australian Women Weekly Cookbooks (Chocolate Cookbook)

Choux Pastry
75g butter, chopped
1 cup water
1 cup plain flour
4 cold eggs

In a pot combine water and chopped butter. It is advisable for the butter to be of room temperature and chopped into small cubes so that it melts faster.
Once the butter is all melted, turn down the heat and add in all of the flour.
Using a wooden spoon stir vigorously until combine and the dough pulls away from the sides of the pot and forms a ball.
Turn of the heat and allow the dough to cool.
At this point some recipes say to continue beating with a hand mixer or transfer the dough to another bowl.
I just let it cool in the pot, stirring occasionally for it to cool. It takes about 20 minutes or so.
I read that real cold eggs will also help cool down the dough that's why I said cold eggs.

Don't make the mistake I made several times of adding eggs when the dough is still very warm.
You will end up with a mixture that is running and will not puff up at all.

Once the dough is reasonable cool, add the eggs one at a time and continue beating.
I use a wooden spoon but you could use a hand mixer.
Keep adding the eggs and beating until the mixture is smooth and glossy.

You can either pipe the mixture onto a greased oven tray or use tea spoon to drop the mixture onto the tray. I personally found the tea spoon way faster and easier.

Bake for 10 min on high heat and later the next 15 min lower the temperature.
Once it puffs up and is golden brown, take out and cool on cooling rack.

Once cooled, split the puff with a knife or scissors. Pipe in the custard into the puffs.
Lastly dust some icing sugar on the top.

Happy Baking.

Busy holiday weekend

Last weekend was another of those long weekend that simply stretches!
I personally love them but at the same time it does put a dent on daily activities like paying bills, yep I still do it the old fashion way, take a number and patiently wait my turn at the post office.
And of course the normally congested road, the infamous KL traffic is even more so.
I wonder why, after all the traffic reports on the radio say that the highways are equally congested, some several kilometers long. A few years back when ever there is a public holiday or eve of such an event its practically smooth sailing in the capital.
But now it a queue here, a traffic jam there and I'm not just talking about cars. Unfortunately the population of our dear city has grown so much, mostly with foreigners. Oh well, that's another story and I don't think this is where I ought to venture.
Back to my precious cakes!
I have NOT been updating my blog! Good grief does anyone even care? LOL
I planned on adding several more recipes for my own use of course but just haven't gotten around to it.
My other project of transferring old recipes from my battered book to a brand new one pun hasn't taken off either and all the while I keep finding and trying out new recipes and simply jotting them down in another book or pieces of paper!

Yes I did start with the weekend, and I have a fabulous one. I admit it was rather hectic and stressful but I enjoyed baking and made some money too! Now who can say no to that?
We didn't go anywhere but stayed close to home, went shopping at KWC and watched some wuxia films on TV.
Alhamdullilah for the rezeki God has bestowed onto me.

Thank you very much to dear friends who ordered and still enjoyed my baking. I sincerely hoped they had a good weekend holiday as well.

Afni, ordered a moist chocolate cake, a Victoria sandwich cake and cream puffs.
She requested that both cakes were baked in squared tins.

As decoration and a different twist from the norm, I crushed Cadbury Crunchie and sprinkling it on top of the chocolate cake's melted chocolate top. I froze the chocolate bar and smashed it with my rolling pin.

A dusting of icing sugar was enough for the Victoria Sandwich Cake but I piped a few lines of butter cream across the cake and stuck some fresh strawberries.
The cream puff well, remain as they were! The creamy custard filling justified everything else.



In addition to that there was also orders for birthday cakes!
Thanks to Suzila who wanted a marble cake with butter cream icing for her dad.

Another friend also celebrated his birthday that week, Happy Birthday Koko, many happy returns for the day! I hope he enjoyed the butter cake with chocolate cream icing.

If interested, recipes for each can be found in the blog.

Happy Baking.

Birthday Cake

Marble Cake Birthday Cake, with Butter Cream.

Red Velvet Birthday Cake with Cream Cheese Icing.

Granola oh granola

Granola, hmm... I had them before.
I liked them but they were too expensive.
I switched to cereals and oats. But oats, as porridge after a while feels yucky and tasteless even with all the delicious toppings.

In fact I haven't had any for a long time, I often looked for the dried fruits under all that oats.
Then just the other night, I was watching a cooking programme on AFC, Urban Cook. An Indonesian cooking show actually and was fascinated by the way the show was done, quite different from our boring ones with a nosy, bored, uninterested 'host' and a over hyper chef...

What got my attention the most was how easy granola was prepared. Btw in that episode, he made granola bars, I didn't fancy egg whites in my granola even if it was baked...

So I surfed the net and searched for various recipes for granola.
I found some that were interesting but some didn't quite suited my taste buds or had too many steps.
Lastly I opted for an easy on on BBC Good Food.

I must say that I made it in the middle of the night, with ingredients that were in the fridge! So I left out a few things... but it was received very well by the masses and my next batch I'll try to stay true to the recipe.
As for the brown sugar bit, leave it out if you want. I just wanted the lovely taste and smell of caramel on the granola.
Since my mum loves raisins, I added a little bit more of dried fruits than required.

Here is the recipe, if you are interested. Like I said, I made some subtle changes, I believe that it should be suited to our individual taste and wallets.

Crunchy Granola with Berries and Cherries
source: BBC Good Food.

Ingredients
175g mixed nuts (I only had walnuts at that time)
450g oats (they didn't say rolled or instant but I used the instant one)
50g sesame seed
50g sunflower seed
100ml runny honey (I just scooped out the one in the small plastic bucket)
125ml sunflower oil (Any vegetable one will do)
80g dried berries and cherries (I used dried cranberries, raisins and apricots)
1 tsp salt (optional)
2 Tbsp brown sugar (I added this)

Method
Set the oven at 180C
Roughly chop all nuts and berries into at least bite size pieces.
In a bowl, combine all the oats, nuts, seeds and oats.
Pour in the honey and oil into the bowl of dry ingredients and mix well.
Tip the contents onto a baking tray and gently pat to even the mixture.
This is so it cooks evenly.
Lastly sprinkle the brown sugar over the oat mixture.

Bake for 25 to 30 min, until golden brown.
Keep stirring it, at least twice at intervals.
Keep checking because the oats burn easily.

Once golden brown, take out of the oven and cool.
When cooled, toss in the dried fruits or berries and mix well with the granola.
Now it is ready and can be stored in an air tight container.

Eat with milk, yogurt even ice cream is good or just on its own.
Drink lots of water.

Happy Baking.

Marble Cake - Again!

A friend's birthday was last week, but didn't have time to make a cake on that special day.
So instead I made one a belated one.
I baked marble cake, and used butter cream for the topping.

Marble Butter Cake
source: QL Kitchen

Ingredient
225g butter
225g sugar
225g self raising flour
4 eggs
6 Tbsp milk
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla

Method
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add in vanilla and the eggs one at a time, beat well.
Alternate 3 Tbsp milk and flour into the mixture.
Divide the batter into 2.
Leave one plain while the other add the cocoa powder and 3 Tbsp of milk.
Mix well to combine.

In a lined and greased cake tin or loaf pan, spoon in the mixture accordingly,
you can either put four small dollop of batter in the tin or
layer it, two spoon full of each batter at a time.
Either way the cake looks good.
Use a bamboo skewer and zig zag a pattern before baking.
Bake at 180 C for 1 hour.

Once cake is cool, you can either leave it as it is or spread the icing.

Butter cream icing.

Ingredients
125g butter
70g shortening
80g icing sugar
2 Tbsp of condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla.
 Food colouring.


In a clean bowl, cream the butter and shortening until turns light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla.
In two batches, add the icing sugar into the butter mixture.
Once well mix, add the remaining icing sugar, continue beating,
The mixture is smooth and spreadable.

Spread onto cake and decorate as you like.
Happy Baking.

Aglio Olio

Aglio Olio with seafood

Pasta...mmm either you love it or hate it.
To some pasta is only spaghetti bolognaise, but truthfully there is huge variety of it and sadly
not all are available here in our currently windy and sunny Malaysia.
Oh the winds, let me take a break from talking about pasta.
I lobe it! I really do. Clothes dry like super, super fast. I love the feeling of it gushing about, blowing already messy hair all over the place LOL Curtains flying, doors slamming - involuntarily of course!
But on the down side, dry leaves and rubbish like snack or sweet wrappers fly into the house from the road side, not to mention the sand and small pebbles.
More house work, more cleaning to be done *sigh* Just one of those things that has to be done.

Let's focus on more happier and yummier things like this Aglio Olio with seafood.

Aglio Olio means, garlic and olive oil, and in the true sense that is what it is, warm pasta tossed with garlic fried in olive oil, just sprinkle some freshly chopped parsley and eat.

But pasta lovers will beg to differ and say that there are a several versions and one of the popular one is with sea food. You can also substitute it with chicken, I've even seen on restaurant menus, fillets of fish!
All in all it is up to your taste buds and preference.
Here I used prawns and squids, but clams can also be added.

I just wanted to share with you my version of Aglio Olio with Seafood - spicy version!

Aglio Olio with Seafood.

Ingredients
1 packet of spaghetti (500g)
Boil for about 8-10 min, toss and set aside.
The water must be boiling before you put in the pasta.
Ensure there is enough water or the pasta would stick to each other.
The pasta doesn't needs to be cooked long because it is going to be cooked again later.
So, al dente is okay.

olive oil
5-6 cloves of garlic
5-10 cili api /bird's eye chili (add or lessen depending on your tolerance for chili)
250g fresh prawns
250g fresh squid
1/2 tsp of dried mixed herbs (optional)
freshly chopped parsley
1 Tbsp dried chili flakes
salt and pepper to taste.

Method
In a food processor minced the chili and garlic or just smash them in a pestle and mortar.
In a wok pour in about 5Tbsp of Olive Oil and over med heat fry the garlic and chili until fragrant.
Careful, the garlic burns easily.
Add in the seafood or chicken, stir fry until cook. The prawns turn pink, the squid and chicken white.
Season to taste before taking them out and set aside.

This is to prevent the seafood from over cooking and becoming tough.

Add in the spaghetti and mix to combine with the chili and garlic mixture.
At this point, you can add salt and pepper.
Stir gently as not to break the pasta, add the mixed herbs if using and dried chili flakes.
Add the cooked seafood and cook the pasta until warm through.
It depends if the pasta is a bit dry add some water.

Lastly, drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle the parsley over the pasta before plating up!

Best eaten warm but cold is good too. Just pop into the mircowave for a few minutes to warm it up for later!