Carrot Cake II

Made this for my sister's birthday.

This time I tried the Carrot Cake recipe from JoyOfBaking. But I did change some of the ingredient and quantity, such as sugar(I prefer brown sugar for my carrot cake). This prepare method is slightly different compare to my previous Carrot Cake recipe.

p/s: This cream cheese frosting is way too sweet for most of my family, but some say it's nice. So I would suggest you to taste the sweetness while adding the icing sugar bit by bit.

Ingredient:

350gm Carrot, finely grated

260gm All purpose flour

2 tsp Baking powder

2 tsp Soda Bicarbonate

1/2 tsp Salt

2 tsp Cinnamon powder

4 eggs

250gm Brown sugar

250ml Cooking Oil (sunflower oil or canola oil)

100gm Walnut, toasted and chopped

100gm Raisin, chopped

Cream Cheese Frosting:

50gm Butter, room temperature

230gm Cream Cheese, room temperature

230gm Icing sugar, sifted (Put according to your preference)

1 tsp Vanilla essence (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180c, greased the cake tin and line the bottom of the tin with a circle of parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda bicarbonate, salt and ground cinnamon.

3. Beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 min).

4. Gradually add the sugar and beat until batter is thick and light in color (about 3-4 mins).

5. Add the oil in and continue to beat.

6. Add the flour mixture and mix well.

7. Add grated carrots, chopped walnut and raisin. Mix it well and let the batter to rest for 5 minutes.

8. Pour the batter into a baking tin and bake for 35-45 minutes or simply use a dry bamboo skewer inserted into the center of the cake, when the stick comes out clean - its cook.

9. Remove the cake from oven and let it cool on a wire rack. After 10 minutes, take out the cake from the tin and remove the parchment paper. Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack before frosting it.

10. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl, then add the cream cheese. Beat until smooth.

11. Gradually add the sifted icing sugar in a few batch. Mix until smooth.

12. Spread on cooled cake and decorate it.

13. Chill in the fridge for 2 hours and ready to serve.

Young Mango Salad

Young Mango Salad

Ingredient:

Young Mango, thinly julienne

Onion, thinly sliced

Coriander leaves

Bird eye chili, sliced

Fried Ikan Bilis

Lemon/Lime juice

Thai Sweet Chili sauce

Method:

1. Mix mango, onion, coriander leaves, chili, lime juice and a little sweet chili sauce.

2. Dish it to a plate, sprinkle fried ikan bilis on top.

3. Ready to serve.

Mee Goreng

Mee Goreng

Ingredient:

350gm Yellow Noodles

3 clove Garlic, chopped

1 nos Onion, sliced

150gm Green Vege-I used Sawi, cut in 2 inch length

1 nos Carrot, julienne in 2 inch length

2 nos Egg

200gm Char Siew, sliced

2 tbsp Oil

Seasoning:

1 tbsp Oyster Sauce

2 tbsp Light soy

Pepper to taste

2 tsp Sesame oil

5 tbsp water

Method:

1. Heat oil in the wok, add onion saute for 1 min or until the onion is lightly soften.

2. Add garlic and saute till golden brown.

3. Add carrot and the veg stem part saute for 1 min.

4. Add Char Siew and saute for 2 mins.

5. Make a well in the center of the wok and a little oil to the hot wok. Add the beaten egg in the center and stir briskly until its cook.

6. Add the noodles and cook for 2 mins.

7. Add the veg leaves and mix well. Cook for 1 min.

8. Season the noodles and mix well. Stir fry for 2-3 mins or more if required until the noodles are cook.

9. Ready to serve.

p/s: for a spicy kick, add a tsp of Sambal Belacan in step 8.

Chocolate Cake

Chocolate cake

Ingredient:

230 ml Boiling water

40 gm Unsweetened cocoa powder

175 gm All-purpose flour

4 gm Baking powder

1 gm Baking soda

1 gm Salt

110 gm Butter, softened

200 gm Dark brown sugar

2 nos Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla extract

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180̊c. Grease the cake pan and set aside.

2. In a bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa and mix until smooth. Let mixture cool.

3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

4. In a clean dry mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and creamy.

5. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla extract.

6. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture.

7. Pour the batter into the cake tin.

8. Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes.

9. Allow it to cool before cutting the cake. Ready to serve.

Notes:

Step 6- Add the cocoa mixture slowly, if after put in all the flour mixture and you see the cake mixture is too wet, you don't have to use all the cocoa mixture.

Homemade Mint Sauce

Ingredient:

1 bunch Mint leaves

1 tbsp Sugar

4 tbsp Water

4 tbsp Vinegar

a pinch of Salt

Method:

1. Finely chop the mint leaves and put them in a jar or bowl.

2. Bring sugar and water to boil till it thicken.

3. Add vinegar and continue to boil till it is thicken slightly.

4. Pour the sugar syrup into the jar/bowl of mint and mix well.

5. Leave it to cool with out covering it.

6. Ready to serve or to be stored away.

药材炖鸡 Steam Herbal Chicken

This is a simple and nourishing dish. Hope you will like it too.

Ingredient:

2 nos Chicken whole drumstick

1 tbsp Dark Soy

2 tbsp oil

1 pkt Herbal Soup Mix (药材汤料)

300-500ml Water (depends on how much gravy you like)

1-2 tsp Oyster sauce

1-2 tsp Soy sauce

1-2 tsp Chinese Shao Shing rice wine (绍兴酒)

1 tsp Dark soy (optional, just for the colour)

Pepper to taste

Drizzle of Sesame oil

1 tbsp Corn starch mix with 2 tbsp water

Method:

1. Pat dry the chicken and rub the dark soy onto the skin.

2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, shallow fry the skin part to get a nice brown colour.

3. Dish out and set aside.

4. Bring a pot of water to boil, add the herbal soup mix.

5. Let it boil for 10 mins or so.

6. Add oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine, dark soy, sesame oil and pepper to taste. (Season it according to your taste)

7. Add the corn starch mix to thicken the gravy. Turn off the fire when the gravy is thicken.

8. Place a big sheet of aluminum foil in a deep dish or bowl. Place the chicken drumstick in the middle and pour the gravy and put the herbal onto the meat. (I wanted to serve it individually, so I have make two parcel as two individual serving)

9. Wrap the chicken up like a parcel.

10. Steam the parcel for 2 hours.

11. It's ready to serve. You could serve it with steam rice or noodles.

Today we had it with some buckwheat soba noodles. So yummy!

p/s : I used the Herbal Soup mix which can easily get in any supermarket. Usually is ready mix. It consist of：

Red dates (红枣)

Gou Ji berries (枸杞)

Dang Shen (当参)

Wai Shan (淮山)

Bei Qi (北芪)

Yu Zhu (玉竹)

Shu Di (熟地)

Chuan Xiong (川芎)

* If the soup mix you bought do not have Shu Di (熟地) it does't matter, with "Shu Di" it will give a dark/black colour soup. So you could just add dark soy in your gravy if your soup mix do not have "Shu Di".

Beginner Cup Cake

My first attempt to bake and dress the cup cake in butter cream frosting.

Ingredients to make 12 cup cake:

125gm butter

125gm sugar

2 eggs

125gm flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Cream the butter and sugar till light in colour.

2. Add one egg at the time and mix well.

3. Shift in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate soda. Mix will.

4. Add vanilla essence, milk and mix well.

5. Fill up to half cup cake mould.

6. Bake in a 180c preheat oven for 15mins.

7. Put the cup cake on a rack to cool.

Butter cream frosting:

70gm butter

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbsp milk

Method:

Mix all ingredient with a whisk.

Spread it over the cup cake and decorate it with colourful sugar rice.

Enjoy!