Banana cake 香蕉蛋糕

Been wanting to try this banana cake that Happy Home Baker
has baked. Finally got all the ingredients.

Here's my cake.


Now you see it.

Made only 3/4 portion in a loaf pan as I forsee that the kids
would be fussy about the wholemeal grains. Its so yummy.
And true enough my boy only ate a small piece, my girl 1 piece,
my hubby 2 pieces, and with 3 pieces to my mother, I polished 
up the rest (its only day 2 that the cake has been made) ! How
 not to become fat?


now you don't.

Love the little grains inside... and now I hv to think how to
use up the rest of the wholemeal flour.

终于买齐材料， 烘了这个香蕉蛋糕。用了些全麦粉， 好健康哦。
真的很好吃。孩子和先生不爱全麦，所以大部份都进了我肚子。
才第二天呢， 你说我能不肥吗？

要动手自己做吗？ 请点击这。谢谢 Happy Homebaker 和我们
分享食谱。

Cheese Muffin

Made these a couple of days ago, but too tired to post it up.

A very simple recipe, taken from a library book that shows
recipes for children.

A very tough muffin was the result of the first batch. I used
cake flour instead of plain flour as i ran out of it. Purposely
put chocolate rice so as to entice my kids to eat but i reduced
the sugar by 20g. My mother thinks that I did not beat the
eggs enough so the muffin are quite tough. 

My mother loves the taste so she made another batch 2
days later. She uses top flour instead and this time the muffin
is not tough. My hubby likes this version better. Now we are
not sure if it is the beating of the eggs or the flour that made
the difference (thou she says she did not beat the egg too much
too).

Wondering did the cheese matters, cos the grated cheese I got
from PH states hard cheese, not cheddar cheese.

One drawback, these muffins stick to the paper cases very well.

Here are the pictures of the first batch.



Heres the recipe

Ingredients

Flour                                    2 cups
sugar                                    1/4 cup
baking powder                    1 tbsp
salt                                        1/3 cup
grated cheddar cheese      3/4 cup
low fat cheese                     3/4 cup
whole milk                          1/2 cup (can use skimmed milk)
eggs, beaten                       4
butter, melted                   3 tbsps
pistachios, crushed

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 to 200 degree celsius. Put flour, sugar,
baking powder and salt into a big mixing bowl. Then add in
cheddar cheese.

2. Mix egg, milk, and butter together. Slowly stir it into the dry
ingredients. Mix well.

3. Pour mixed batter into muffin paper cups. Sprinkle crushed
pistachios on top.

4. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. Serve.

Try it and share your tips if it is not sticky.

nutella cupcakes

I love nutella .. so I am very happy to see nutella cupcake
recipe. I follow the recipe from small small baker. Thanks
small small baker and precious moments.

Its so simple to do and it taste so good. Not sure if I bake them
too long cos it is a little hard (esp the crust) . I am also not
aware of the temperature since the oven thermometer is not
with me at the moment.

I reduce the sugar by 20g since it is fattening enough to have
nutella on top. Next time I will try reducing butter. The
cupcake also doesnt stick to the paper cups (the small one I
mean, big one have not tried eating).

Here's the nutella cupcake family. Not nice swirls, just don't
have the skills leh. Daddy and mummy cupcakes for home
consumption, junior cupcakes for kiddos' snack in school tmr.

Another two swiss roll attempt

Wanted to make use of the whip cream that has stayed inside the
fridge for a long time, so made swiss roll since not ready to make
big cakes.

So far, it seems that swiss roll recipes mention that swiss roll is
made without butter. This is a simple recipe, 75g plain flour,
 75g sugar, 3 eggs, 1 tablespoon hot water. Suppose to beat
sugar and egg till ribbon stage, then fold in flour in two batches,
then mix in water.

Not sure if it is due to the reason of no fat, the swiss roll looks
coarse and  crumbly and taste dry. I remember my sister in law
told me that to hv a smooth cake, use optima flour.  Anyway i m
keen to test out other flour, so i made another one today
(pictured) using top flour. Texture wise is a little better ...

I think i better find more swiss roll recipes and try out.

As for the whipped cream, I think i did not whip enuf for it to be
pipe. (I test piping with the newly bought piping equipement.)
The flower i piped did not stay.

I also actually wanted to make chocolate whip cream. I did not
have blocked chocolate, so i use nestle chocolate chips. The
chocolate did not melt into watery state, but rather gluey. It also
solidify when mix into the cold whip cream. What a failure.

ok, so i must try more swiss roll recipes.

A not fanciful necklace

I hope I get to wear this more often, since it doesn't look fanciful.
I saw a lady wearing this design when I bring my kids to gym one
saturday and think the design is quite casual. Lets see if this
casual simple necklace will be put to use at all.

I am even tempted to make similar one with different color beads.

Vanilla muffins/cupcakes

It has been a long break since I have been baking. School
re opens, busy with fitting into new routine.

Sunday 11pm, I suddently realise there isn't anything
for the kids to bring to school for snacks the next day. I started
to prepare muffin for the kids. This recipe is tested on them since
they had been eating more then the usual at a playgroup
gathering. This time, I sprinkle on chocolate rice, chocolate chips
since I  did not prepare any frosting. The kids still love it.

As it is so late, i did everything by hand, creaming the butter and
sugar, then I add the eggs (the recipe actually says mix all 
together). The mixture becomes like mashed tau huey. Is it
suppose to be like that ? I did not manage to get the mixture to
be smooth as it is pretty late, so i just dump in the flour, mix and
pour into paper cases. It will be edible anyway, probably just not
nice looking. So there you see, the top picture. My kids' school's
snack.

Since the previous muffin is so well received (even my hubby say
it is nice), I went ahead to try another similar recipe. Both uses
the same ingredients but in different proportion. This time, my
kids like it as much, but hubby said that the previous recipe's
taste better.

This time i use the mixer, as it involves 250g flour (previously
only ard 175g). The order of ingredient is still the same, cream
butter and sugar, add eggs, add flour, but this time, no curds.
I used chocolate rice and chocolate chips as well as the colourful
star and moon shape sugar sprinkles. ( I only want to test if the
sugar sprinkle melts, and they don't).

Very happy that I can bake snacks for the kids to bring to school.
I also realise that it is very convenient to bake muffins since I
just put the batter into cups, not much washing required after that.
A shorter cooling time. No need to cut the big cake too.

Should I start baking all the other cakes using paper cups ?
Here's the 2nd attempt with a similar recipe.