Easy doughnut balls

I bought blueberries and bananas during lunch last Friday and wanted to make muffins for breakfast. However, my kids ate all the blueberries and bananas that night before dinner so I have no choice but to defer my plan in making blueberry and banana muffins to some other time.

I end up making doughnut balls for tea yesterday. This is a very easy recipe, seriously, I made about 25 doughnut balls in less than 1/2 an hour. It took me about 10 minutes to mix the ingredients together, waited 15 minutes for the dough to rise, and another 5 minutes to heat the oil and fry the doughnut balls.

For those who wanted to give this a try, here's the recipe:

Doughnut balls recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups of flour
• About 2 tablespoons of butter
• About 5 grams of dry yeast (I used a little less than 1/2 packet of mauri-pan dry yeast)
• Warm water
• 1 tablespoon of icing sugar, and more to serve
• Vegetable oil for frying

Method:

• Mix dry yeast with warm water and put aside.
• Mix flour and 1 tbs of icing sugar, then rub in the butter.
• Mix in the yeast and warm water mixture into the flour mixture, add in water as necessary to make a smooth dough.
• Form small balls using the dough and wait for about 15 minutes for the dough to rise.
• Deep fry the doughnut balls and serve with icing sugar.

Carrot cake

I ate carrot cake at my brother's house last weekend and determined to bake one since it's been years since I last baked any carrot cake.


I googled recipes from the internet and read through my cookbooks but decided on this recipe that I had previously tested.

Carrot cake recipe:
Adapted from bbcgoodfood's website but with changes here and there.


Ingredients - for the cake:
300 g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
200 g brown sugar
4 eggs
250 ml vegetable oil
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange plus juice of 1/2 orange
200 g carrots, grated (approximately about 2 medium carrots)
mix fruits and flaked almonds, approximately about 1/4 cup each


Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting:
120 g butter at room temperature
50 g icing sugar
250 g cream cheese


Heat the oven to 150 C. Line a 10" x 7" rectangle cake pan. Sift the flour, cinnamon powder, baking powder and baking soda and mix in the sugar. On a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil, lemon zest and orange zest. Stir in the carrots and mix in the flour and sugar mixture. Stir in the orange juice and fold in the mix fruits and almonds. Spoon the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 50 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.


To make the cream cheese frosting, beat the butter and the icing sugar until soft and beat in the cream cheese. Chill the mixture until it comes to a spreadable consistency and spread on the cake.


It's ok if the cake cracks a little as you're gonna need to trim it anyway

Visible flaked almonds and mix fruits, yummy

Spread the cream cheese frosting, cut and enjoy!

Victoria sponge cake

Made victoria sponge cake for my husband's birthday last month. However, since we were out of fresh cream, I used fresh strawberries and strawberry jam for the filling, topped with icing sugar.

Happy birthday sayang!!

Nuha's chocolate birthday cake

Can't believe how fast time flies, and Nuha is now 1.


I made my signature chocolate cake for Nuha's birthday party, upon request from Amirul and Faiz. Filling made from whipped cream and crushed oreos, and topped with chocolate ganache.  


Used hundreds and thousands to decorate the cake.

Here are some pictures from the birthday party:

Nuha suka sangat everytime orang nyanyi birthday song.. sure tersenyum lebar...Love you so much dear :)

Lagi gambar kek:

Nuha's 1st birthday, pre-celebration

Made strawberry bakewell cake for the pre-celebration of Nuha's 1st birthday. Recipe as per my previous post here, but I substituted the raspberries with strawberries this time around.


Love this cake, still one of the easiest to make. I prefer raspberries to strawberries though, as it hold its shape better.


Amirul and Faiz didn't like the almonds, and requested for a chocolate cake instead. Will be posting the chocolate cake that I made for Nuha's birthday party soon..

Agar-agar pelangi

Last Sunday, buat lagi sekali agar-agar pelangi ni, best.. suka sangat :) 


Recipe from my previous post here.

Apple pie

I baked apple pie for iftar last month, tapi belum sempat post gambar apple pie tu lagi. When my sister in law stayed at my place on the eve of raya, she had asked for the recipe.

So, to Awin, this recipe is for you, enjoy!

Recipe adapted from pete bakes! with some slight  changes to the original recipe (and I also skipped the part on caramel sauce and cinnamon ice cream).

For the crust:

110 g butter

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg yolk

a pinch of salt

1 14 cup flour

Beat the butter, add in other ingredients (except for the flour) and beat until blended. Add in the flour and beat just until the dough begins to clump together. Flatten and press into a 9 inch tart pan. Pierce crust all over with fork and freeze for 30 minutes. Bake for about 30  minutes in a preheated oven (160 degree Celsius) until golden brown.

For the filling:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp cornstarch

50 g butter

About 4 granny smith apples, mix with 1 red delicious apple and 1 yellow delicious apple

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Mix both brown sugar and cornstarch in a bowl. Melt butter, add in apple pieces and saute for about 10 minutes. Add the brown sugar/cornstarch mixture, stir until dissolves and add in vanilla essence and cinnamon. Simmer for about 5 minutes until juices are bubbling and slightly thickened.

For the crumb topping:

6 tbsp flour

6 tbsp brown sugar

a pinch of salt

3 tbsp chilled butter

Mix all in a food processor until small moist clumps form.

To assemble the tart, spoon the apple filling into the tart crust and top with the crumb topping. Bake for about 25 minutes in a preheated oven (170 degree Celsius) until topping is crisp and golden.

Rainbow jelly - a recipe

I watched masterchef last weekend and was suddenly inspired to make agar-agar. So, I made this rainbow jelly last Sunday.


I don't normally cook with colors. Seriously. If you look through my previous entries, you will be able to see that the colors that I used to decorate my cakes were limited.

I had fun playing with these colors so lets just hope that I will continue not to be afraid to use colors in the future.

Rainbow jelly - ingredients:
10 g agar-agar powder
800 ml plain water
200 ml coconut milk
200 g sugar
A pinch of salt
food colorings

Cook 5g of agar-agar powder with 500 ml of water &100 g of sugar. Once cooked, put aside.

Cook the balance (5g) of agar-agar powder with 300 ml of water and 100 g of sugar. Once all the sugar had dissolved, mix in the coconut milk and a pinch of salt. Once boiled, put aside.

Now, the fun part. 

Pour 150 ml of the 1st mixture into a bowl and mix with a color of choice. Then pour into the jelly mould (or any container big enough to hold about 1200 ml of liquid). Wait for about 5 to 10 minutes until the jelly hardened. 

Using a fork, make some light lines on the jelly, this step is crucial our else the jellies won't stick to one another. Then pour 150 ml of the 2nd mixture.

Repeat with the 1st mixture (and a different color every time) and the 2nd mixture (without adding any color). Let cool in the fridge and enjoy.

Coconut milk and agar-agar powder (but I used clear version  and not the one with coloring) 

Biskut raya 2011 - part 2 (chocolate chips cookies)

Made these cookies last Thursday, after work. Resipi dapat dari myresipi.com

I used small ice-cream scoop untuk dapat biskut yang lebih kurang sama saiznya. Tapi, kena penyekkan cookie dough tu sebelum dibakar untuk dapat biskut yang agak leper, or else, dia akan jadi gemuk-gemuk.

Sekali bakar dapat 12 biji biskut je sebab saiz biskut ni yang agak besar. Me and my hubby loves these cookies, but the kids don't like it because it contains almonds.

Biskut raya 2011 - part 1 (biskut cornflakes)

Made these cookies yesterday evening. Recipe from my earlier post here.

This time, buat 2 adunan biskut, dapatlah dalam 180 biji.... 

Still in the opinion that this is the simplest cookies ever!!

Sebelum bakar - bakar pada 160 degree celcius for about 15 minutes 

After 15 minutes in the oven

Sedap & senang sangat nak buat

Chicken pie & mini blueberry pies

My original plan for this weekend was to start making raya cookies. However, I ended up making chicken pie and mini blueberry pies instead, for iftar.


For the chicken pie, I had used the same recipe as per my earlier post on mini chicken pies. The pie crust is definitely a never fail recipe, and the chicken pie filling is real easy to prepare.

Here's the recipe for pie crust:

2.5 cups flour

a pinch of salt

225g cold butter, cut into small pieces

a little less than 1/2 cup of ice water

Using a food processor, combine the flour and salt. Add in butter and pulse for about 10 seconds. With the food processor running, add in ice water in a slow steady stream until the dough just holds together.


Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour.


Now you can start working on the chicken filling.


Recipe for chicken filling:


1 onion - sliced
2 garlic cloves - chopped
chicken breast - cubed
2 potatoes - diced
about 6 to 8 button mushrooms - sliced
1/2 packet of mix vege
1 large can cream of mushrooms
1/2 can (use the cream of mushroom's can) of water
1/2 chicken cube
salt and pepper to taste
about 1 to 2 tbs of vegetable oil


Fry the onion and garlic with oil, then add in the chicken breast. Fry for about a couple of minutes then add in the potatoes. Next add in the mushrooms and mix vege. 


Mix in the cream of mushrooms, water, chicken cube and salt and pepper to taste. Let it simmer until the potatoes are cooked through and the sauce had thickened.


Take about half of the pie crust dough and line the pie plate. Pour in the filling and cover with the balance of the dough. Make some cutouts using knife to allow steam to escape. Bake for 180 degrees Celsius for about 30 to 40 minutes.

And since Amirul had been asking for "purple pie" since mid last week, I had reserved some of the pie crust from the above recipe  to make some mini blueberry pies for him. The blueberry filling recipe was adapted from allrecipes.com.


This is the simplest version of blueberry pie recipe, as all you need to do is line the tart shell (I used about 4 mini tart shells) with the pie crust dough. Pour in some fresh blueberries, and sprinkle the blueberries with a mixture of sugar,salt, corn flour & cinnamon powder. Dot with a little butter and cover with pie crust dough. Bake for 180 degrees Celsius (or lesser) for about 20 to 30 minutes.


I have no picture of the mini blueberry pies, but this recipe is definitely a keeper. Not only that it's easy to make, it tasted delicious too!

Raspberry bakewell cake

Whilst browsing through the internet the other day, I found this recipe on BBCGoodFood's website. It's really easy to make as all you need is a food processor to mix the ingredients together, and a cake pan to bake the cake in.

I was a bit skeptical at first, as normally, in most cake recipes, we tends to cream the butter and sugar first, but in this recipe, all ingredients went into the food processor at the same time. And the cake still came out light and delicious.

Here's the recipe, adapted from the website:

• 140g ground almonds (i used flaked almond and processed it in the food processor before adding in the rest of the ingredients)
• 140g butter
• 140g caster sugar
• 140g self-raising flour
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g raspberries (i used about 160g)
• flaked almonds
• icing sugar to serve

1. Heat oven to 180C, and prepare an 8 inch loose-bottomed cake tin.
2. Blitz all ingredients (except for raspberries, flaked almonds and icing sugar) in a food processor.
3. Spread half of the cake mix over the cake tin, scatter with raspberries and spread the balance of the cake mix on top of the raspberries.
4. Scatter with flaked almonds and bake for 50 minutes.
5. Cool, remove from cake tin and dust with icing sugar to serve.

It was really simple, does not require much time to prepare and tasty!. Will definitely make this cake again, but will try it with strawberry or blueberry instead.

Agar-agar mangga

Dah lama teringin nak cuba buat agar-agar. Rasanya dah lama sangat x buat agar-agar ni. Dulu masa kecil2 selalu la juga tolong mama buat agar2 santan. But that was years ago. Sejak dah besar nih, memang x pernah buat agar2 rasanya.

Memang ada stok 1 paket agar2 kat rumah, sebab niat memang nak cuba buat. Hari ni baru berkesempatan nak buat. Resepi pun main agak2 je.

Hasilnya....

Ni resepi agar-agar mangga yang saya buat:

1 paket agar2

4 biji buah mangga

Air

6 sudu besar gula pasir, atau secukup rasa

Cara-caranya:

• Potong buah mangga (dalam 3 biji) dan blend (boleh campur air)
• Kemudian, tapis mangga yang di blend tadi - sukat hasilnya (saya dapat dalam 350 ml)
• Rebus 1 paket agar2 dengan air (air campur air mangga mestilah dalam 1300 ml, sebab air mangga tadi saya dapat dalam 350 ml, rebus agar2 dengan 950 ml air)
• Bila agar2 dah hancur, masukkan air mangga tadi dan campur lebih kurang 6 sudu gula, atau secukup rasa - kena buat manis sikit, kalau tak agar2 akan tawar bila dah sejuk
• Bila semua gula dah larut, dan campuran agar2 dah hampir mendidih, tutup api
• Potong dadu baki mangga tadi (1 biji) dan letak dalam bekas/acuan agar2 (saya pakai 6 biji gelas)
• Tuang campuran agar2 dalam acuan, dan biar sejuk. Bila dah agak suam, bolehlah disimpan di dalam peti sejuk

Mangga yang dipotong dadu

Tuang campuran agar2 kedalam gelas

Letak dalam peti sejuk lebih kurang 1 hingga 2 jam, dah siap! 

*Update  - cara buat agar-agar berbeza-beza, bergantung kepada jenis agar-agar yang dibeli. Konsep untuk buat agar-agar ni sama, tapi, untuk banyak air dan gula, ikut arahan seperti yang tertera pada pek agar-agar.

Mum's birthday cake

Made this cake for my mum's birthday. 

It took me about 2 hours to bake and decorate the cake. I reached home at about 7.30 p.m. after work and straightaway started working on the cake batter. I then started on the buttercream icing. Had a break to perform my prayers, and had a quick dinner before continuing with the cake. 

Decorated the cake with easy swirls. And then hurried off to my mum's place.

Happy birthday mama!

Scones for breakfast :)

We had a lot of scones when we went to Cameron Highland last month, and we especially love the one we had at the Cameron Valley Tea Farm.

Since the kids were up early this morning, I decided to make some scones for breakfast.

Scone with whipped cream & strawberry jam

Recipe adapted from Olive Magazine:


225g self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
55g caster sugar
55g raisins
1 egg
2 tbsp milk




Heat the oven to 200C.
Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the sugar.
Rub the butter into the flour mixture, then add the raisins.
Add in the egg and mix together.
Gradually mix in the milk, until you have a firm dough.

Roll out the dough to about 1.5 cm thick, then cut into rounds.

Put the rounds of dough onto a buttered baking tray and bake for 8 minutes, or until risen & golden.

Overall, the it took me about 10 minutes or so from the time I weight the flour to the time I put the baking tray into the oven, and another 8 minutes for the scones to cook & for me to do some cleaning up and load all the dishes into the dishwasher.

This recipe is definitely a keeper!

Cupcakes for aqiqah

Made about approximately 1300 mini cupcakes for the ceremony, and packed it (8 mini cupcakes - 4 choc and 4 vanilla) in each individual pack. 


The most cupcakes I've ever baked so far, thanks to my mum, my hubby and my 2 boys for helping.


I didn't snap any picture though. Tak teringat pun nak snap any picture of the gift packs.

---

Since the first 2 rounds of cupcakes making doesn't yield perfect result, I tried cupcakes recipe from 'The Whimsical Bakehouse' cookbook. I made both the chocolate and vanilla cupcakes based from the book. Too much efforts required though, as the recipe requires the chocolate to be melted, or the milk to be warmed and things like that. As such, a lot of time required to prepare the batter, and since time is something that I don't really have much, I can't afford to continue doing so. 


After the initial stage of baking the two recipes above, I looked through my cookbooks again and decided on a simpler recipe. I prepared the cake batter based from Dede Wilson's book. I love her recipes as there are all easy to prepare, and doesn't require much preparation. 


I made the 'essential yellow cake' and 'essential chocolate cake' from her book, and the process of making the cupcakes had become much faster and easier from thereon.

Cupcakes - practice #2

Since the last cupcakes were made using a cake recipe and not a cupcake recipe, I tried these using a cupcake recipe.

Made the Chocolate Butter Cupcakes - recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes.

Same thing happened. The cupcakes doesn't stick that well to the cupcake liners. But the cupcakes tasted good though.

My quest for a perfect cupcakes, that will stick perfectly to its liner is still on.

Cupcakes - practice #1

Remember this chocolate cupcakes? Tried the recipe again, but this time, I made mini cupcakes instead.

I'm actually preparing myself to baking more than 1 thousand cupcakes for my kids' aqiqah ceremony, to be given as door gift.

I found the cupcake pan (hold 24 mini cupcakes) for only RM12.50 at Bake With Yen. It's a real bargain, and the quality of the pan is also really good.

The recipe was originally a cake recipe, and not a cupcake recipe. It tasted so good and (another plus point) really easy to prepare.

However, since this is a cake recipe, the cupcake doesn't stick that well to the cupcake liner. It's good to be eaten the day that it is baked, however, not the next day as most of the cupcakes will most probably detached from its liner the following day.

This is in contrary to the popular belief (or is it just my own belief?) that all cake recipe will work for cupcakes (or is it just this recipe?). Will practice with a cupcake recipe next and see whether it yields the same result.

Amirul's birthday

Made this 10" cake for Amirul's birthday last month, yellow vanilla cake with choc ganache frosting:

Cake recipe from Dede Wilson's book - Wedding Cakes You Can Make, and choc ganache recipe from Rose Levy's book - The Cake Bible.


Cake from a different angle:

Gambar Amirul tiup lilin:

Nuha pun nak tiup jugak, Cik Nah yang buat cupcake ni:

Bahagian dalam kek: