Bananas over Bananas! A continuous adventure... (Part 2)

Recently, tried out a few other bananas recipe.

1) Banana Andama bread (Recipe from a favourite blog).
I don't know what Andama bread means, so don't ask. This is the name of the recipe and I am just following, that's all. This is a rather unusual bread. It uses molasses as well and this gives the bread a slightly rustic flavour. Not bad but I would say it is an acquired taste though.


2) Banana Lemon Poppy Seed Cake
This is utterly delicious. The lemon provides a refreshing zing to the cake while the poppy seeds add a nice crunch. But this cake is a danger to any plans to diet though...(you know what I mean) ;-p


3) Healthy Low-Fat Wholemeal Banana Loaf
This cake is healthy just as the one above is rather sinful. It only uses 1 tablespoon of oil. Other wholesome ingredients include wholemeal flour, oats, low-fat buttermilk and of course, bananas. However, just as the one above was very popular with my family, this one is hardly touched. *sigh* Oh well, at least I tried to bake something healthy for them. It's their loss...(heh heh)

"Red Tortoise" Steamed Kueh

Did you take a double-take when you read the headline above? Yup, you read right! What you see below are really called "red tortoise" steamed kueh. Or at least, they are in the Hokkien dialect. Red tortoise is a direct translation from its original namesake known as "Ang Koo" in Hokkien. But why are they called "Ang Koo" in the first place? I think I better not dwell in the meaning too much (not that I know for sure anyway) except that I know they are supposed to represent good luck and fortune.
Anyway, if you scroll below and take a look at the pics, you will notice that my "ang koos" are anything but red. (except for the letter on the plain ones).
I found a good and healthy recipe from Florence and used lotus paste and red bean paste as fillings. The lighter ones are sans coloring and the green ones are pandan-flavoured. Both are good although the latter seems to be the crowd's favourite...

Click on title for link to recipe.

Experiment with Tarts & Chilled Mooncake

I have baked egg tarts before but I have always taken the shortcut and used a ready-made frozen pie pastry bought from the store instead of making my own.

Recently, I tried making egg tarts from the scratch based on a much raved-about recipe from a forum that I subsribed too. And after making it, I understood what the rave was all about. These tarts are seriously good. The crust is rich and buttery, and the filling, delicious!


And for some added variation (actually, I ran out of the egg tart filling), Chocolate Almond Tart:


Since I have the time, also took the opportunity to try my hand at making some mini pandan 'pingpei' mooncakes with lotus paste. Mini because I mis-interpreted the recipe and used only half portion of the originally required filling. Otherwise, these are supposed to be full-sized mooncakes!

Since today is a holiday, I made these....

Today is Malaysia's 48th Independence Day. We call it Merdeka Day. Most importantly, it is a holiday. *grin*

Anyway, I spent most of the day in the kitchen making these. But let me warn you that they are not exactly pretty sights....

1) Chocolate Orange Swirl muffins
Made a mistake by accidentally adding an additional half cup of liquid resulting in a chewy center. Taste was gorgeous though....


2) Cappucino Huat Kueh
Erm, something went wrong here. I used a very simple and easy recipe that seems to be "too easy to be good"... I reckon I was right the first time. :(


3) Seafood Pizza
SIL wanted to learn to make pizza so I taught her. I wasn't too satisfied with the end result though although they were quite yummy. I would prefer to make the crust thinner as opposed to making a thick-crust pizza which these were.

All Dressed Up!

Cupcakes! What more can I say about cupcakes? I mean, it is almost a basic and fundamental recipe to bake for wannabe bakers. Honestly speaking, I am not a fan of cupcakes and hence, have no impulse to bake cupcakes till now. Why the sudden interest? Well, I have been visiting a few food blogs lately, and was very impressed with the often cute or gorgeous looking cupcakes. I mean, how can you not like a the look of a nicely frosted cupcakes? Anyway, after viewing one particular recipe on a member’s blog, I decided to make my first “fancy-looking” cupcakes. (Also helped by the reminder that I still have a tub of ready-made chocolate fudge frosting left in the fridge).

This recipe is a relatively healthier option in the sense that it uses less butter. The recipe is called Neopolitan (that means a combination of vanilla, chocolate and strawberry as in the ice-cream flavour, get it?) Buttermilk Cupcakes. These cupcakes are rather good. Moist and good, although the 2nd batch were slightly over-baked (I seems to have a habit of doing this!) resulting in a more chewy texture. For me the recipe yields 6 medium size cupcakes and 6 smaller ones.

In short, I have to say it was quite a joy looking at the end result of the frosted cupcakes.

Fresh out from the oven and before frosting. (Note the different colored layers)

After frosting.

The kids digging in!

Bread: Ground-breaking discovery!

You may not think this is much but for someone like me who bakes bread frequently, this is substantially a mile-stone achievement. Discovering a really soft and delicious bread recipe, akin to those sold at good bakeries! Thanks to Florence, a notably good baker, I baked the softest and yummiest bread ever! Of course, there are a load of ingredients that went into the recipe as compared to an ordinary loaf of bread that includes different kind of milk (skim milk, condensed milk, creamer), different kind of flour (bread and cake flour) and eggs (1 egg and 2 yolks to be exact).

I used the recipe to make Light Raisin Cinnamon Rolls. So good! Best when served slightly warmed.

Frozen Treats

Another sweet temptation to add to my ever-growing list....

Just found out how easy it is to make our own frozen yoghurt ice-cream and even more surprise to find that it is really good too. And to ease my sense of guilt, it is relatively low-fat (for an ice-cream)....

Vanilla & Chocolate Swirls Chocolate Chip Yoghurt Ice-Cream

See the bits at the side? I couldn't wait to dig in before taking a pic!

Desserts for A Lady and for a D****?

If there is ever such thing as the most suitable name for a lady, I would say that it is Victoria. So when there is a cake known as Victoria Sponge Cake, I couldn't help but to think it must be created for a lady. That said, I never bothered to check on the history of this cake (you can do a search on the Net to find out more, if you are so inclined) so I would just stick to my own presumptions until told and proven otherwise.

This is a rather simple cake, strawberry jam sandwiched between a basic sponge cake sliced into 2 and dusted with icing sugar (optional). However, I felt as it the sponge cake can be further improved. I am still looking for the perfect cotton-y soft sponge cake recipe.


On the other end of the scale is a cake known as Devil's Food Cake. I read somewhere that its namesake came about due to the dark colour of the cake. I sure hope so, duh...Here's my attempt at baking this cake.

Crazy Baking Weekend Part 1

What do you call a weekend where you did nothing but bake? Yup, crazy! I guess I was on a "baking high" for otherwise why would I declined invitations to go out and instead, stayed home and bake? Sometimes, I don't understand myself too... :-)

1) Banana Chiffon Cake

2) Walnut Oats Bread

3) Pandan Coconut Bread


Continue to Part 2..."Nice to Look At , But...."

Nice to Look At But....(Part II of Crazy Baking Weekend)

I have been thinking about baking a chocolate cake. A darn good chocolate cake with frosting and all things sinful. I also bought a tub of Betty Crocker's Ready-made Chocolate Frosting so I decided this shall be it, I will bake a Chocolate Cake this weekend.

If it was up to me, I would bake a dark and gooey chocolate cake. But I have to think of my family (after all, I do not want to be the only person eating the cake) and I have doubts that they share the same tastes that I do.

Then I chance upon this recipe when I was browsing through the numerous chocolate cake recipes. It looked simple enough and better yet, it seems to be reasonably low-fat as well (not to mention a very captivating recipe title as well, "Died and Went To Heaven Chocolate Cake").

Everything went well until the final step when I stir in one cup of coffee. At that time, the mixture was very runny and liquidy. Although the recipe did say that the batter will be thin, but I wasn't sure whether can I call it a cake batter. It looked more like the consistency of some drink. Only then, I had difficulty recalling back whether did I add 1-1/4 cup or 1-3/4 cup of flour (the recipe called for the latter). Darn my slow memory!

Anyway, I tried to have some faith and put it back into the oven. I baked 10 minutes longer than asked for. Already, I had a strong suspicion that it will be more like a pudding-type cake rather than a moist cake. I tasted the crumbs and it tasted like it needed more help so I made some Butterscotch frosting from DreamWhip and Jell-O Fat-Free Instant Pudding in the Butterscotch flavour. I thought this would help.

The frosting by itself was delicious. And I think my very amateur skills in cake-decoration did fare not too bad this time. But upon cutting the cake and eagerly anticipating the taste of the cake, it was a BIG letdown. The cake was indeed pudding like and had firm up. Taste was not good. And the frosting, despite tasting delicious by itself did not go so well with the cake. Maybe if it was a proper sponge or pound cake, it would be better. Here's how it looked like:



Nice to look at but....

Spoiled Plan!

I wanted to bake something tonight. Was already having a hard time but at the same time, getting excited in choosing what to bake. So many recipes to try but can only pick one tonight. Thoughts of "What shall I bake, what shall I bake" kept playing in my mind. However, my grand plan for tonight was not to be. Upon reaching home, I found my house to be in a state of chaos (from renovation works; this time extending to the kitchen)...

This is what I ended up doing instead...

Bananas over Bananas! Continuous adventures.....

Going bananas over bananas! Which one do you like?

4) Latest Addition (2/7/05): Banana Chiffon Cake


3) Banana Marble Cake


2) Banana Cashew Nut Loaf (from JoB)


1) Light & Fluffy Banana Cake (except it is NOT exactly what I would call "light")




To be continued. More bananas projects to come.....

More Pics on Recent Bakes!

Here are some of the better-looking ones:

1) Mini Lemon Poppy Seed Muffin (nice but a little too sweet).


2) Big Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (not exactly chewy for I did bake them longer that stated. Also, I accidentally added an extra 1/4 cup of sugar so the end result was really too sweet).

My 1st Pandan Kaya Cake (near disasterous) Experience

I have been wanting to try my hands in baking Pandan Kaya Layer Cake for a long time but always lack of the self-confidence to go ahead with it. This is probably my family's favourite cake besides the Pandan Chiffon Cake. You see, my family (or some of my family) have very simple (albeit boring) tastes and at the same time, can be very picky; and they usually stick to tried & tested favourites.

When I mentioned lack of self-confidence, that was because the cake does not look like an easy-to-assemble cake. I'd read quite many comments from others regarding their disaster with this cake. In other words, it looked to be too much hassle.

However, I was browsing through one particular cook book entitled Populars Cakes & Desserts, and they have a recipe that looks to be a simplified Pandan Kaya Layered Cake. Also, it only has one layer and that make things much easier, so I thought. Spurred by a burst of confidence, I made up my mind to "just do it" on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

To cut the story short, everything went well until when I started assembling the kaya. The recipe said to dissolve the jelly/green bean powder mixture first before boiling the santan, which I did. But much to my horror, when as the santan was boiling and I was just about to start adding the jelly mixture into the santan mixture, I found that the former had already congealed/solidified! Still, I persisted and threw the jelly mixture in and stirred like mad while increasing the fire, hoping in vain that the congealed jelly mixture would melt again. Alas, it didnt. Instead, what I had was bits and pieces of the congealed green jelly mixture floating in the santan mixture. Eww, gross.

Not to give up easily, I took some sips of ice-cold Diet Coke to help subdue my growing panic and also gather my thoughts together. Determined to succeed, I told myself that it's ok, I can re-make the kaya again. So, I strained the santan mixture to get rid of the floating bits and started from scratch. However, I had to use reduced portion of coconut milk, jelly powder and milk as I had ran out of those in the right quantities.

In the end, I still manage to present a proper Pandan Kaya Cake although quite an ugly looking one. The top was lumpy so I tried concealing that fact by liberally sprinkling some chopped almond pieces and also some colourful edible decoration beads on top. To finish it off, I sprinkle icing sugar on top of it (also to try sweetening it up as the kaya tasted bland). Unfortunately, all of the toppings that I sprinkled melted except the almond. The colourful beads melted resulting in a ghastly looking colourful mess. Luckily, I didn't use too much of those. *LOL*

I was impatient and started cutting the cake after chilling it for just 3 hours. I poked at the cake before cutting and it seemed being firm enough. However, I'd some trouble cutting it so it looked quite messy. This is one of the better shot of the sliced cake.

The cake tasted slightly odd. The sponge was not as fluffy as I would have like, rather, it was quite dense. The kaya, oh well, what can I say. I should be lucky that it came out looking like a decent kaya pudding. Taste wise, it just wasn't there. Well nevermind, practice makes perfect after all. There will surely be Round No.2!

ps: However, the cake did taste better the next day, after chilling in the fridge overnight. Next time, gotta learn to be more patient!

Where Shall I Begin?

First thing first. It's only appropriate to write an introduction as my first blog entry. But where shall I begin?
Ok, how about this (hope it doesn't come across sounding cheesy). I am a twenty-something female residing in the Klang Valley who rates desserts and all things sweet as one of her favourite things in life and much to her delight (and as what others who know her well say, "About time...") , had recently taken a strong interest in creating her favourite desserts.

So in short, this is another food-related blog dedicated to desserts creation (aka baking) although I have to point out that I am very much still an amateur when it comes to baking (aka more misses than hits). All the same, it delights me very much to be able to share with others both my adventures & mis-adventures in the kitchen and I hope that it will bring to you some measure of amusement as well.