Kek pisang dengan cip coklat

Best jer cuaca hari ni, tak panas, mendung je dari pagi. Kain baju kat luar still kering walaupun cuaca tak panas, nasib sempat angkat sebelum hujan tadi.

Petang-petang camni, mesti dok pikir nak masak apa untuk minum petang. Sambil mencari-cari tupperware/pinggan/cawan untuk memenuhkan dishwasher yang masih tak berapa nak penuh (tunggu penuh sikit baru run, rugi kalau run bila rak atas je yang penuh dengan cawan), terjumpa saki-baki kek pisang dan brownie coklat yang saya buat minggu lepas kat dalam fridge. Jadi, kek pisang dan brownie la yang menjadi santapan minum petang hari ni.. Makan sambil minum kopi panas... best.

Ni saya kongsi resepi kek pisang dulu, resepi brownie coklat tu next time pulak ye. Resepi asal dari sini.

113 gram butter

1/2 cawan gula perang

1/2 cawan gula putih

2 biji telur

1 sk esen vanila

2 1/3 cawan pisang - dilenyek (lebih kurang 3 - 4 biji pisang)

2 cawan tepung

1 sk baking soda

1/4 sk garam

1 sk serbuk kayu manis

1/4 cawan cip coklat

1. Panaskan oven @ 175 degree celcius.
2. Pukul butter dengan gula putih dan gula perang.
3. Campurkan telur, esen vanila dan pisang yang telah dilenyek. 
4. Campurkan bahan-bahan yang lain dan tuang ke dalam bekas acuan kek.
5. Bakar lebih kurang 40 - 45 minit hingga masak.

*Resepi asal guna kacang walnut tapi saya ganti dengan cip coklat sebab anak-anak tak berapa suka kacang.

Suka sangat rasa kek pisang ni, dah banyak kali dah Shas buat kek ni sejak jumpa resepi via pinterest. Kalau ada pisang lebih je kat rumah mesti nak buat kek pisang ni. Simpan kek yang lebih dalam peti sejuk, lepas tu makan sejuk-sejuk untuk sarapan atau minum petang. Yum.

Homemade chicken nuggets

I found this recipe from pinterest a couple of days ago and had pinned it to my pinterest board, waiting for the right moment to try it.

When the tesco delivery guy came today to deliver the groceries that I've earlier ordered online, and had substituted 1 kg+ of chicken fillets instead of the 3 chicken breasts that I've ordered, I knew that I had to try this recipe.

So, after putting aside some for making other dishes, i've cubed the extras to make chicken nuggets, recipe as follows:

Chicken fillets, cut into bite size

Salt and pepper to taste

Flour

1 egg and some milk, beaten

Breadcrumbs and 1/4 - 1/2 cube of chicken granules

Add salt and pepper to the chicken fillets and coat with the flour.

Pick up the flour coated chicken and dunk into the egg/milk mixture then straight into the breadcrumbs mixture.

Coat with the breadcrumbs and put into a cookie sheet, in a single layer.

Bake at 180 degree celcius for 8 minutes on 1 side, turn, and continue baking for another 7 minutes.

Recipe adapted from here, with changes here and there. Based from the blog entry for this recipe, you can also make extra to freeze, but I didn't get to try that this time around as my kids loved the nuggets so much and ate lots of it.

Egg pizza

I made pizzas for dinner a few months back and had an extra, so I flash freeze the pizza (unbaked) and then wrap it with plastic wrap and label.

For breakfast, I took the pizza out of the freezer and unwrapped the plastic wrap. 

I placed it in a preheated oven @ 200 degree Celsius for 10 minutes to bake.  I then took it out of the oven, cracked a few eggs on top, sprinkled some salt and pepper and drizzled some olive oil on the eggs.

I then continue baking it for another 10 minutes.

*note: For large pizza, you will need to par-bake the dough first for a few minutes before spreading the pizza sauce and topping. However, if you are making regular sized pizza (8 - 9 inches in diameter), it is not necessary to par-bake the dough.

Salam aidilfitri

Selamat hari raya aidilfitri pada semua yang menyambutnya, maaf zahir dan batin.

Meet baby Iman

It's been a while since I last posted.

Alhamdulillah, kami telah dikurniakan seorang lagi cahaya mata. Iman is now 2 months old, can't believe how fast time flies.

The kids are all super excited, and so are we :)

Ya Allah, semoga semua anak-anak kami menjadi anak-anak yang soleh dan solehah, Amin. 

Roti paun

Buat roti ni untuk minum petang minggu lepas, kebetulan memang ada masak kari ayam, jadi bolehlah makan roti tu cicah kari. Dua hari berturut-turut buat roti tu, sebab anak-anak suka sangat makan. Resepi roti tu dapat dari sini, tapi Shas hanya pakai 'dough function' pada breadmaker, dan bentukkan roti tu sendiri.

Resepi roti paun:

1.5 cawan air

2 sudu besar minyak

4 cawan tepung roti

2 sudu besar gula

2 sudu kecil garam

2 sudu besar susu tepung

1.5 sudu kecil serbuk yis

Masukkan bahan-bahan di atas ke dalam breadmaker mengikut turutan, pastikan garam dan yis tak diletakkan sekali. Pilih 'dough function' pada bread maker, setelah siap, bolehlah dibentukkan (boleh tabur sedikit tepung roti bagi memudahkan doh dibentuk).

Doh yang telah dibentuk

Lepas tu, biar pada suhu bilik lebih kurang 40 minit hingga 1 jam, sehingga doh naik.

Doh roti selepas satu jam pada suhu bilik

Bakar pada suhu 180 darjah Celsius untuk 12 minit atau sehingga masak (bergantung kepada saiz roti, Shas bakar selama 12 minit).

Roti yang dah siap dibakar

Roti ni memang lembut dan gebu, sedap je makan. Hari pertama buat, sekejap je dah habis. Sempat simpan sikit untuk sarapan hari esoknya. Hari kedua buat lagi, pastu siap simpan 1 buku roti yang dah dibakar dalam freezer for the weekend. Bila nak makan, hanya perlu panaskan sekejap dalam oven.

Ice cream and bear cookies

Made these cookies last month. Initial plan was to make fancy ice cream cookies, but Nuha wanted some bear cookies as well. So, I made both using the recipe that I had earlier posted and had doubled the ingredients used.

Both Faiz and Nuha helped in making the cookies. I also let them sprinkled the decoration, i.e. the sugar stars and sugar balls, although I am pretty sure that most of the sugar decorations ended up in Nuha's mouth rather than on the cookies.

Chocolate chips cookie dough (for the freezer)

I made cookie dough a few weeks back to freeze. They are delicious and the smell of these cookies were so good, love how lovely the home smell when baking them. Original recipe taken from King Arthur Flour's website.

2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

In a bowl, beat in the sugars, butter, shortening, salt, vanilla essence, vinegar and baking soda until smooth and creamy. Add in the egg, followed by flour and chocolate chips until well incorporated.

To freeze, scoop the cookie dough using a small ice cream scoop onto a baking sheet. 

Freeze till the scooped cookie dough are frozen solid. Once frozen, transfer to a zip lock bag, label and return to the freezer.

To bake, preheat the oven to 190 degree Celsius. Take the number of cookie dough needed out of the freezer and put them on a baking sheet (remember to spread them a little). There's no need to thaw the cookie dough.

Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes depending on the size of your cookie dough (I baked mine for 8 minutes). 

Enjoy fresh warm cookie anytime :)

Moist chocolate cupcake with fresh cream

I made chocolate cupcakes last Thursday, with the help of my 2 1/2 years daughter. Nuha loves everything about baking, and she always be by my side from the beginning right through the end whenever I'm baking. I love seeing her face lights up every time I ask if she wants to make cake, cupcakes or cookies.

Anyway, I made these moist chocolate cupcakes for my mum-in-law's birthday based from the same recipe used for Faiz's birthday cupcakes. I love how moist the cupcakes turned out, and how easy it was to prepare.

I then whip about 300 grams of non-dairy whipping cream (I used rich's gold label whipping cream) to top the cupcakes and sprinkled some colored sugar strands on top.

Chocolate pavlova

Made chocolate pavlova again last weekend, based from the recipe that I recently shared. I've however increased the amount of ingredients by 1/3 and am able to make a pavlova of about 11 inches in size.

This time around, I just used strawberries and grated belgian chocolate to top the whipped cream. Delicious :)

Yogurt pancakes

I was on the net the other day searching for a yogurt pancake recipe to make for tea time and I stumbled upon this vanilla yogurt pancakes recipe from baked bree. I immediately tried the recipe, but had made several small changes to it and I love the result. The pancakes were light and fluffy, and very delicious. My kids ate most of the pancakes and they loved the pancakes very much.

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
1 small tub of yogurt ( I used Nestle's fat free mix berries yogurt, 135 grams tub)
1 tablespoon of honey

In a bowl, whisk together all purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Heat a lightly oiled non-stick pan over medium heat. Pour 1/4 cup of batter and cook until surface of pancakes have some bubbles, about 1 to 2 minutes. Flip and cook until browned on the underside. Serve warm.

Freezer meal - beef lasagne

In my opinion, the easiest way to build up on freezer meals' inventory is to double or triple the amount of meals you make and freeze the extra(s). That is what I did when I made lasagne the other day. I doubled the ingredients and made two lasagnes instead of one, one for dinner and another one to freeze.

Here's how I made my beef lasagne:

Onions, minced

Ground beef

Carrots and button mushrooms, sliced

Pasta sauce (I used the one that I made earlier)

Salt and black pepper to taste

Olive oil

Lasagne sheets

Cream or milk

Tomatoes, sliced

Shredded cheese (I used mozzarella)

For the beef sauce, heat the olive oil and saute the onions. Add in ground beef and cook. Next, add in the sliced carrots and button mushrooms (feel free to add any other vegetables in, e.g. capsicum, celery, baby tomatoes etc). Stir for a bit, and add in the pasta sauce. Let simmer until all the vegetables are tender and season well with salt and pepper.

To assemble:

I lined my baking tin with aluminium foil as I want to freeze the lasagne. If you want to cook it straight, then you can skip this step. Next, spread some beef sauce onto the lined baking tin:

Add in a layer of lasagne sheets, I normally will just wet the lasagne sheets with plain water before layering:

Then, layer with more beef sauce and add in the sliced tomatoes. Then, I pour some milk (or cream, depending on what I have in the kitchen):

And sprinkle with shredded cheese:

Then repeat i.e. lasagne sheets, beef sauce, tomatoes and cheese. I normally do about 3 to 4 layers of lasagne sheets for each lasagne.

To freeze, wrap the aluminium foil to cover the top of the uncooked lasagne:

Add more aluminium foil to cover the uncooked lasagne, if needed:

Freeze the lasagne with the baking tin until solid. Once solid, remove the lasagne in aluminium foil and place it inside a freezer/zip lock bag and label. This way, you can use the baking tin for other things:

To bake, let thaw and place in a preheated oven @ 180 degree Celsius for 30 minutes (covered) and another 15 minutes (uncovered). You can also cook from frozen, just bake it for longer. To test whether the lasagne is cook, just insert a fork in the center of the lasagne to test if the lasagne sheets are soft. Let cool for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Freezer cooking - pasta/tomato sauce

Like I mentioned earlier, I've been doing lots of freezer cooking lately. In fact, I think I am kind of addicted to it. I love how easy it is to just pull out something from the freezer and cook from frozen, especially on days when we were busy with other things, not that cooking is difficult, I love cooking but there are days when I am just to tired to do so. Freezer cooking is very convenient, at least to me, as I am currently in my third trimester of pregnancy. I also plan to have more meals in the freezer before I deliver my number four, so that it won't be a hassle thinking of what to cook or what to eat after I've delivered.

I made about 3 kilograms of pasta sauce last Sunday to use for lasagnes and to make spaghetti bolognese. I freeze about half of them in 400 grams pack, and use the remaining to cook with ground beef to make lasagnes.

Frozen pasta sauce

I love the fact that by making my own sauce, I can hide vegetables in the sauce without my kids knowing. My eldest have started to consume some type of vegetables, but my second and third child refuse most kind of vegetables. I added in carrots, celery, capsicum and mushrooms to the tomato sauce and processes them in a food processor, so that all the vegetables will be well blended with the pasta sauce.

Here's how I made my pasta sauce:

Lots of fresh tomatoes (I used about 2.5 kilograms)

Garlic (about a bulb or so)

Onions (about 2 to 3 big onions)

Celery

Capsicum (I used green capsicum because that is what I have at home)

Button mushrooms (about 200 to 250 grams)

Carrots (I used about 4)

Tomato puree ( I used the 430 grams pack)

Oil (to saute the onions and to coat the tomatoes and garlic before roasting)

Bay leaves

Dried thyme (you can use italian seasoning or oregano or rosemary etc)

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the tomatoes and peel the garlic. Spread them on a baking tray and coat lightly with oil. Bake in the oven at 180 degree Celsius for about 45 minutes to an hour. Once baked, you can choose to discard the skin and seeds of the tomatoes (I just don't bother and proceed to the next step). Process the roasted tomatoes and garlic in a food processor until fine.

In a big pot, heat the oil and saute the onions. Add in the chopped celery, capsicum, mushrooms and carrots and cook on low heat for about 5 to 10 minutes. Then add in the processed roasted tomatoes and garlic mixture. Let it simmer and add in tomato puree, bay leaves and herbs. Cook on low heat for about an hour until the water had reduced. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning accordingly.

Once  cooled, process again in a food processor until fine. At this point, you can choose to use the sauce, refrigerate if you plan to use it in a day or two or freeze them for future use. I used about half to make lasagnes and freeze another half in 400 grams packs (of course this will depend on how much pasta sauce you need per serving). To freeze, pour the right amount to a freezer bag (I used Ikea zip lock plastic bag as I don't have any freezer bag available) and lay flat in freezer to freeze.

*Note: I didn't write in the exact amount of vegetables/ingredients used as you may want to adjust the amount of ingredients based on your preference. You can also add in any other extra ingredients that you deemed appropriate, maybe sweet basil or you can remove some from my ingredients list if you don't like the flavor of certain ingredients. Most recipes will discard the tomato seeds as the seeds makes the sauce a bit bitter, but I proceeded with the seeds in as I am okay with the taste.

Crustless mini mushroom quiche

I made mini mushroom quiche last weekend to bring to my niece's birthday party. It was my first time making quiche and I can't believe how simple it is to make one (especially this one since it is crustless). Recipe adapted from the Kitchn, originally adapted from the Fine Cooking Magazine.

1/4 cup corn flour

2 1/4 cup whole milk

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon to 3/4 teaspoon salt

a dash of nutmeg powder

oil, for the mini muffin pan

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 shallots, minced

150 grams white button mushrooms, sliced

some baby tomatoes, quartered

grated cheese (I used mozzarella since that is what I have available)

To make the batter, mix corn flour with whole milk. Add in the eggs, salt and nutmeg powder and whisk until smooth.

For the mushroom mixture, heat oil and add in the minced garlic and shallots. Stir until fragrant . Add in the button mushrooms and baby tomatoes and stir until softened.

To prepare the quiche, oil mini muffin pan(s) well. Put grated cheese, followed by the mushroom mixture and pour batter until almost full. Sprinkle some grated cheese on top.

Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degree Celsius for about 15 minutes.

Once cooled, carefully lift each quiche out of the muffin pan (I used off-set spatula to do this).

Based from the the Kitchn's website, these quiche freeze very well. Just reheat on a cookie sheet at 200 degree Celsius oven for about 5 to 10 minutes and serve.

These quiche were delicious and I will make this again in the near future to stock on my freezer meals.

Frozen seafood pizza

I'm currently in the mood to fill the freezer with more freezer meals. Been doing so since mid February this year and been loving the result (i.e. almost ready meals available even on days when I don't feel like cooking). So far, I've successfully frozen mac and cheese, seafood pizza, spring rolls with chicken and mix vegetables, chocolate chips cookie dough, chocolate banana muffin dough and curry puffs.

Will share some of the recipes later, but for now, let me share how I made the pizza and how I freeze them for later.

Pizza dough recipe adapted from here.

250 ml plain water

2 tablespoons honey

300 grams flour

150 grams bread flour

30 grams butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

15 grams sugar

8 grams yeast

Put all the ingredients in the bread maker based on the bread maker instructions. (Mine is in the above order, making sure that the salt is in one corner and the yeast is at the other corner).

Set the bread maker setting to 'dough' and press start.

When the dough cycle has finished, remove the dough and place it on a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough accordingly, depending on how many and how big or small you want your pizza to be. 

I divided the dough into 5 since the biggest zip lock bag that I have with me can only accommodate pizza of about 8 inches in diameter.

Roll out the dough into the appropriate size and place it on a lightly floured pizza/baking pan. I used baking pans for the pizza that I want to immediately bake, and cake boards for pizza that I intend to freeze. Let the dough rest for about 10 to 20 minutes to rise.

For the filling, I used:

Pasta sauce

Canned tuna flakes in oil

Crab sticks

Red and green capsicums

Thousand island sauce

Shredded cheese (mozzarella, cheddar or combination of both)

After the dough has rested, spread pasta sauce over the pizza base. Scatter the tuna flakes, crab-sticks, sliced capsicums and shredded cheese. Then, squirt some thousand island sauce on top.

To freeze the pizza, flash freeze the pizza in your freezer for about an hour or two (there's no need to par-bake the dough or pizza first). Once solid, remove the cake board (or baking pan) and wrap the pizza with plastic wrap. Then, insert it into a zip lock bag and freeze (freezer bag works better, but since I don't have any, I just use the zip lock bag that I bought from Ikea. Don't forget to label your freezer pizza with date prepared and the baking instructions.

To bake, preheat the oven to 200 degree Celcius. Bake the pizza (from frozen) for about 10 to 12 minutes (or longer depending on the size of your pizza).

Enjoy freshly bake pizza whenever you feels like it, yumm!!

Creme caramel

I had initially wanted to make creme brulee as I wanted to utilize the egg yolks balance from making the chocolate pavlova, but since my mum had requested for creme caramel, I had changed my plan and made creme caramel instead.

I recently encounter this recipe whilst browsing through the internet and had since kept it in my 'recipes to try' folder. I'm glad I am able to try it out, despite having to tweak the recipe a little so that I can utilize the egg yolks balance.

Recipe is adapted from myresipi, original recipe can be found here.

For the caramel:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

Put both in a microwavable container (I used my 9 inch pie dish) and microwave on high for about 6 minutes until part of the caramel is golden in color.

For the custard:

3 eggs

3 egg yolks

(note: original recipe calls for 4 eggs and 1 egg yolk)

3 cups of milk

3/4 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

Whisk the eggs and egg yolks, then add in the rest of the ingredients. Pour the mixture into the pie dish (the one with caramel) and bake into a preheated oven at 160 degree Celcius for 1 hour using bain marie / water bath method (i.e. put the pie dish containing the creme caramel mixture into a baking tray and pour hot water into the baking tray).

Love this recipe as it is very easy to make and tasted delicious too!

Marbled chocolate cake, with a hint of orange

I made marbled chocolate cake last weekend, based from a recipe found in a book belonging to my mum in law.

Recipe adapted from The Dairy Book Of British Food:

225 grams butter

225 grams caster sugar

4 eggs

225 grams cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

grated rind of 1 large orange

1 tablespoon of orange juice

75 grams of chocolate, melted

1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

Grease a cake pan with butter. Cream the butter and sugar till pale and fluffy, and gradually add in the eggs, one at a time. Add in the flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix throughly.

Divide the mixture into 2. Add in the orange rind and juice to one and the melted chocolate and cocoa powder to the other.

Put alternate spoonfuls of the 2 mixtures into the prepared cake pan and swirl using a knife to make the marble effect.

Bake at 180 degree Celsius for 35 to 40 minutes or until cook.

The marble effect

This recipe is easy to make. I love the taste but will definitely add in more orange rind and juice in the future (maybe double the amount).

Chocolate pavlova recipe

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I made chocolate pavlova for Faiz's birthday. I've made him cupcakes to bring to school, and we had also eaten some of the cupcakes the day I baked them. As such, to be a little different, I made chocolate pavlova for his birthday celebration.

I've made pavlova before, and I noticed that the kids enjoyed chocolate pavlova even more. I personally love the chocolate pavlova better than the ordinary pavlova. Seriously, it tasted wonderful.

The recipe that I used is adapted from Nigella Lawson's website. I've made some changes to the recipe, you can view the original recipe here.

Recipe for chocolate pavlova:

3 egg whites

150 grams caster sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

30 grams dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius. Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper. Draw a 6-inch diameter circle on the paper and flip the parchment paper over.

Beat in the egg whites until satiny peaks form, then beat in the sugar, a little at a time until the meringue is stiff and shiny. Then, gently fold in the cocoa powder, vinegar and dark chocolate. Mound the meringue onto the parchment paper, within the circle drawn, smoothing the sides and the top with a spatula.

Place the baking sheet in the oven, and immediately turn the temperature down to 140 degree Celcius. Cook for about 1 hour, until the edges/sides look crisp. Turn off the oven and open the oven door slightly to let the meringue cool. Don't be demotivated if the meringue crack when baking, as this is pretty normal and it won't affect the taste. Besides, you're gonna cover the top with cream and fresh fruits.

As for the topping, you will need:

250 ml of cream (I used UHT whipping cream)

1 tablespoon of icing sugar

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

Fresh fruits (I used strawberry and green grapes)

Grated dark chocolate to sprinkle on top (I used Belgian dark chocolate)

When you are ready to serve, whisk the cream till thick and add in the icing sugar and vanilla essence. Pile the cream on top of the meringue. Scatter over the fresh fruits and sprinkle over the grated chocolate.