Pavlova

I made pavlova the other day for lunch's dessert based from the recipe found from the Joy of Baking's website. I substituted the vinegar with lemon juice since I only have apple cider vinegar at home but not white vinegar. Besides, lemon have this sweet-sour smell that I love. Original recipe can be found here.

Delicious!

Below is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients for pavlova:

4 large egg whites

200 g of caster sugar (processed using food processor until very fine)

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon of corn flour

1. Preheat oven to 130 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peak.
3. Add sugar, a little at a time until they hold stiff and shiny peaks.
4. Add in vanilla essence.
5. Add in the lemon juice and corn flour and gently fold in using a rubber spatula.
6. Spread the meringue on a baking paper (about 6 to 7 inches in diameter) and bake for 60 minutes.
7. Turn the oven off, leave the over door slightly ajar and let the meringue to cool.

Meringue spread on a baking paper

Ingredients for topping:

250 g of whipping cream

20 g of icing sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Fresh fruits - strawberry, blueberry and kiwi

1. Just before serving, whip the cream until soft peaks form. 
2. Add in the sugar and vanilla essence. 
3. Place the freshly whipped cream on top of the meringue and arrange the fruits randomly.
4. Serve immediately.

Sliced pavlova

I love this dessert, hubby and the kids loves this too. The sourness of the fruits makes this dessert tasted even better, and fresher too. Just a note to myself - to place more fruits in future pavlovas, I initially thought that I've used more than enough, but no, the more fruits on top of the pavlova, the better.

Review kelas talam part 3 Chef Asma

Kelas ni merupakan kelas masakan pertama yang saya pernah join.. betul.. but of course not counting those classes that I attended whilst in Form 2, waktu belajar kemahiran hidup dulu. I attended the above class last weekend. The class was conducted from 10.30 am till 6.45 pm, and was attended by 15 students. 

All in all, we learnt to make 14 types of kuih. Suka sangat, especially bila dapat belajar buat serimuka serta berjenis-jenis talam dan bingka. Kelas ni bukan full hands on, but separa hands on. Dalam erti kata lain, kita tak buat dari mula sampai habis.. Tapi dapat buat sikit-sikit sana dan sini. Contohnya, setiap orang akan dapat timbang bahan bahan, sediakan bahan bahan sebelum masak, masak bahan untuk satu atau dua jenis kuih etc. 

Ramai yang hadir kelas ni sama ada memang berniaga, baru nak mula berniaga, guru masakan yang mengajar orang lain masak, dan tak kurang juga yang macam saya, saja saja tambah ilmu pengetahuan. Resepi talam memang banyak ada kat internet, tapi tak tau kenapa saya tak pernah nak try. So, end up masuk kelas ni untuk dapat basic buat talam. 

Overall, saya seronok sebab dapat belajar buat kuih kuih ni. Semua kuih kuih tu sedap sedap.. Dapat bawa balik dua potong kuih setiap jenis, sedap, by sunday afternoon, semua kuih kuih yang saya simpan dalam fridge tu dah habis dimakan. Next time boleh buat lagi...kena banyak practise supaya tak lupa apa yang dah dipelajari.. 

Ni antara gambar kuih muih yang kitorang belajar hari tu:

Am looking forward to my next class :)

Recipe - oreo cheese cupcakes

Had always wanted to give a baked cheese cake a try. I've done chilled cheese cake before but not the baked version.

Found this recipe online for oreo cheese cupcakes (original recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes), but I had made several changes to the amount of ingredients since I only had 250g of cream cheese.

This is a very simple recipe, yet it yields cupcakes with great flavor.

Ingredients:

Oreo cookies

250 g of cream cheese

1/4 cup of caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 large egg

1/4 cup of sour cream

a pinch of salt

Preheat over to 140 degree celcius.

Line muffin tins with paper liner and place one whole oreo cookie at the bottom of each paper cup.

With a mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth and add in sugar, followed by vanilla and sour cream. Beat until well combined.

Add in about 2-3 crushed oreo cookies into the batter.

Scoop the batter and fill in the paper cups until almost full. 

Bake for about 22 minutes until the mixture is almost set. 

Transfer to wire racks to cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee... mmmmm yum!!

* the above yields about 15 cupcakes.

Steamed chocolate cake

I bought a new steamer last month as my current steamer is too small to steam a cake. So, in order to try the new steamer, I had decided to make a chocolate cake using the steaming method. Had always wanted to try out this method, and I assumed that the cake should be more moist than the baked ones.

I googled for a steamed chocolate cake recipe and landed on this entry. Made this cake and brought it to my mum's place to share. Overall, I found the ingredients to be easy to find, and the recipe is easy to follow.

Cake was done in no time! As such, I will use this recipe again in future if I needed a cake but don't have much time to make one. Cake came out good, but not as moist as what was expected (could it be that I over cooked it?). I do love the flavor though.

Here's the recipe, credit to http://recipesforkeeps.blogspot.com. I did make slight changes to the original recipe.

Ingredients - for the cake:

1 3/4 cup cake flour*

3/4 cup cocoa powder*

1 tsp baking powder*

1 tsp baking soda*

1 cup caster sugar 

1 cup vegetable oil

200 ml of evaporated milk

3 eggs (beaten)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup of boiling water

1. Sift items marked with * and add in the caster sugar. Combine well with a wooden spoon. 
2. Pour in the oil, followed by milk, eggs, vanilla extract and boiling water, making sure to stir the batter well after each addition.
3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking tray and steam on a medium heat for about 45 minutes.

Ingredients - for the chocolate topping:

150 g of cooking chocolate

50 g butter

2 tbsp of cocoa powder

2 tbsp of vegetable oil

2 tbsp icing sugar

100 ml of evaporated milk

1. Melt the chocolate and butter using a double boiler.
2. Then, add in the rest of the ingredients.
3. Pour the melted topping on the cake and decorate.

Bow pillow cover

Whilst browsing through the net, I found this sewing tutorial at www.e-tells-tales.com with clear detailed instructions on how to make a bow pillow cover. 

Made a couple of these pillows and am really satisfied with the end result. Try sewing it, and I'm sure you too will be happy with the end result!

Weekend sewing project

My blog posts has been mostly on cakes and bakes. Apart from baking, I also love sewing and crafting. I always love to sew, but had not done so for years. Only in these recent years, after my dear hubby bought me a sewing machine that I started to practice on my sewing skills.


I hope to be able to share my sewing projects with you readers. I will also continue to bake and share more baking projects through this blog.


To start, my 2 boys had asked me to make them a case to keep their color pencils. I made these cases last weekend for my boys:

They had chosen the fabric themselves. The one with circles is especially made for Faiz and the other one is for Amirul.

Both were happy with the color pencil case. They had then requested for a coin purse to keep their coins and notes, which I am yet to make.