Blueberry and mandarin orange muffin

We bought a carton of Mandarin Orange for celebrating Chinese New Year. With so many oranges still lying around in the kitchen, I went to look for recipes with orange in it. This is what we had for breakfast. My son likes it very much.

Blueberry Mandarin Orange Muffin

(makes 12)

Dry ingredients:

185g plain flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp baking powder

170g castor sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:

1 egg

125g butter, softened

1/2 cup mandarin orange juice

1 tin (425g) Blueberries in light syrup (drained) or use 125g fresh/frozen blueberries

Method:

Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Mix all the dry ingredients and add in all the wet ingredients and mix lightly. The batter should be lumpy.

Fold in the blueberries. Scoop the batter into a greased muffin tin or line with paper cups in the muffin tray. Filling 2/3 full and bake for 18-20 minutes until cooked and golden. Serve warm or cool on wire rack.

Happy Lunar New Year

After a long break, finally I'm back in the kitchen and ready to bake more cookies for Chinese New Year which is just a few days ahead.

Last night I pan-fried a packet of Tapioca Flour and 8 pandan leaves (cut and shreded). After about 10 minutes of frying, the flour was left to cool.

Today I made 4 trays of kuih bangkit, my son has eaten about half a tray.

The recipe can be found here.

MILO Chocolate Chips Cookie

This morning my kitchen was filled with MILO and chocolate aroma... my son quickly went to the kitchen and ate a piece of it and wanted to eat more...

MILO Chocolate Chips Cookie
(makes about 80 cookies)
Adapted from Jam's recipe

Ingredients:
225g butter
150g sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp of cream of tartar
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup MILO powder
1 egg yolk
165g Hershey's semi-sweet mini chocolate chips
300g self-raising flour

Method:
Mix butter, sugar, vanilla essence, cream of tartar and bicarbonade soda in a mixer till fluffy, add in milo, egg and chocolate chips. Lastly add in the flour. Shape the dough using a teaspoon and bake in preheated oven at 160 deg C for about 15 minutes .

Butter Crunch Cookie

Firstly, my apology. Please don't be angry with me as I was busy playing games in my facebook. Really!

It's so addictive and I have totally forgotten about my food blog and also not replying to some comments posted here.

Today my daughter asked me if I can bake some cookies for her friends. First thing came to my mind was a Cookie shared by Sri (Thanks for sharing, Sri!), the recipe looks easy. As I bake quite often, I have most of the ingredients, just need to buy one more ingredient, that is "Pecan" nuts.

So this morning I headed to NTUC supermarket, I was very disappointed to find that "Pecan" was missing on the selves. Sigh! No choice! Try another supermarket near my place, that is "Shop n Save", couldn't find "Pecan" nuts, and saw plenty of "Almond" nuts, chopped, sliced, powdered, whole and washed. No choice lor! Decided to replace the "Pecan" with "Almond" nuts.

"Nice! It's so crunchy and taste good." My daughter commented.

This recipe is a keeper. I shall post it here for easy reference.

Butter Crunch Cookie

Recipe taken from Tastes of Home magazine.

Yields : 4 dozen

Recipe shared by Sri

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (2 sticks = 250g), softened

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups cornflakes, lightly crushed

1/2 cup chopped pecans (I replaced it with chopped almonds)

Method:
In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt;

gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well.

Stir in the cornflakes and pecans.

Roll into 1 inch balls.

Place 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cool for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks.

Cheesy Salmon Potato Patties

Cheesy Salmon Potato Patties

Ingredients:

200g fresh salmon, cooked and mashed

pinch of salt

2 potatoes (about 420g) ~ boiled and mashed

80g grated parmesan cheese

1 small onion, chopped finely

1 tbsp chives, chopped

1 tbsp plain flour

1 egg, lighly beaten

some breadcrumbs for coating

cooking oil for frying

Method:

Mash cooked salmon to paste. Add mashed potato, cheese, chopped onion, chives, flour and mix well, then add an egg to bind. Divide mixture evenly into 10-12 portions and form each into a patty. Coat each patty with breadcrumbs until evenly covered.

Heat the cooking oil in a large frying pan. Put the patties, pressing them down with a spoon to flatten slightly. Cook for 2 minutes on each side until golden. Serve.

Quick and Easy Chicken Curry

My daughter likes to eat spicy food, especially Curry Chicken. She said this curry is yummy!
So I'm posting the recipe here and hope she can learn to cook her favourite curry when she is older.


Quick & Easy Curry Chicken

Ingredients:
1kg Chicken pieces (I use chicken legs also known as drumsticks)
2 tbsp BABA's brand curry powder (to marinate the chicken and set aside)

1 large red onion (chopped)
2 fresh chillies (chopped)
1 packet Instant Chicken Curry Sauce (240g)
2 large potatoes (peeled, cut into big chunks)
500ml water
200ml Thick Coconut Milk (any brand)
Salt to taste

Method:
Heat the frying pan with 2 tbsp cooking and saute the chopped onions and red chillies till fragrant.
Stir in the instant curry sauce and cook for about 2 minutes.
Transfer it to a large pot together with marinated chicken pieces.
Add 500ml of water and bring to a boil and cook for about 10 minutes.
Add potatoes and coconut milk. Simmer over low heat until the chicken is tender.
(Approx. 20 minutes)
Serve hot with rice.

Carrot cupcakes

These carrot cupcakes are very moist, soft and yummy. The recipe was adapted from Brenda's Carrot Cake recipe. Thanks Brenda! *wink*

Carrot Cupcake

Ingredients:
250ml vegetable oil (I use 200ml Sunflower oil)
150g brown sugar
3 eggs
500g coarsely grated carrot (I use 300g)
120g coarsely chopped walnuts (I use 50g)
375g self raising flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice (I use 1 tsp cinnamon powder)

(Please take note: I would prefer to follow the original recipe, due to not enough ingredients available, I adjust a bit here and there.)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice together in a bowl.
3. Whisk eggs and sugar till thick and creamy.
4. Fold in the oil lightly. Don't worry if the oil doesn't bind into the mixture at this stage - because it won't. Therefore, you don't need to stir the mixture too long.
5. Fold in the carrot and the walnuts. Again, don't worry if the carrot and walnuts don't get mixed evenly; the mixture still won't bind well until you...
6. Add in the dry ingredients. In this case, add in a few spoonfuls at a time, until the batter is more or less even.
7. Spoon the batter into the paper cups about 2/3 full.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes or till skewer inserted comes out clean.
9. Let the cupcakes cool on the wire rack.

French Toast

I had this French Toast for breakfast yesterday. It's quite healthy as I don't use butter or cooking oil to cook it.
Here's the recipe.

French Toast

Ingredients:
60ml milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg (55-60g)
1 tsp sugar
2 slices wholemeal bread
cinnamon powder to sprinkle on
fresh fruits for serving

Method:
Place the egg, milk, sugar and vanilla essence into a flat dish, whisk with a fork.
Place the bread into egg mixture and leave 1 -2 minutes.
Heat non-stick pan, place the bread into the pan and allow to brown before turning to brown other side. Sprinkle with cinnamon powder and serve with fresh fruits.

Tea Time

I have a few recipes of this snack ~ 金堆. I love this yummy snack and will try to make that one of these days. If the recipe is good, I will post it here.

Biskut sarang semut

Thanks Jam for sharing this delicious recipe.

Biskut sarang semut

Ingredients:
200 g castard flour
100 g plain flour
120 g butter
100 gm sugar
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
chocolate rice for sprinkling on the cookies
paper cups

Method:
1) In a mixer, cream the butter, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla essence till fluffy.

2) Add in the mixture of custard and plain flour which has been sifted first.

3) Chill the dough in the fridge for about 1/2 hour or more, and grate the dough.

4) Spoon the grated dough into paper cup and sprinkle some chocolate rice on top.

5) Bake in preheated oven of 175degrees C for about 15-20 minutes.

Peanut Chocolate Chips Brownies

I always like to read the "ST" ~ "Mind Your Body" Kitchen section every Thursday. For this issue, there are two Brownies Recipes by CYNTHIA LOW, she suggests making snacks like Brownies. Oh, I always like sweet cakes and brownies. Very sinful snack! I've the ingredients for this recipe, so trying this one today and for the other recipe - "Gooey Chocolate and Walnut Brownies", wait till I have next family or friends gathering. The texture of these "brownies" is crispy on the outside, soft in the inside. Quite fragrant, very nutty, not too sweet.




Click on the image to enlarge.


Here's the recipe, makes about 50 brownies.

Peanut and Chocolate Chips Brownies
by CYNTHIA LOW

Ingredients:
130g butter
160g caster sugar
2 eggs
200g plain flour
1 heaped tsp baking powder
150g roasted unsalted peanuts
100g chocolate chips

Method:
Preheat oven to 180 deg C. Cream the butter and sugar together then add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.
Sift the flour and baking powder together then stir into the creamed mixture. Stir in the peanuts and chocolate chips. The mixture will be quite stiff.
Line an oven baking tray with baking paper. Roll tablespoonfuls of the mixture into balls and place on the tray. Slightly flatten the top of each with a fork.
Bake for around 15 to 20 minutes then cool on a wire rack.

Baked Sausage Prata Pastry Rolls

I bake these mini sausage rolls this morning for breakfast.
The flaky pastry, "Chinatown brand Prata pastry" can be found at most supermarkets.
I use half a packet, 3 pcs of prata (halves), 6 cocktail chicken sausages, an egg for glazing and some vegetable oil for greasing the baking tray. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 deg C, for about 25 minutes or till it turns golden. Serve warm.