Inari Sushi

Nothing about baking on this post, but want my friends who
read my blog to know what crazy thing I have done today. 
Did you notice anything wrong with the inari?

My kids love eating sushi. I love making sushi, but it is really
alot of work and the sushi get all eaten up before I even 
finish rolling and cutting them. Ya, I am a slow coach.

The easiest sushi to make (in my opinion) is the inari. Buy
ready pack soya pockets, stuff cooked rice, my kids will be
happily munching away. But the NTUC near my house do not
sell the ready made pockets, and i have to travel to Giant to
get them. I don't always have the time to travel to Giant just
to get the pockets. So finally, i decide to make my own using
chinese tofu puff.

I search the internet for recipes and finally decided on this.
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons Mirin or sweet Japanese cooking wine
1 and ¼ cup Dashi or fish stock

1. I soaked the tofu puffs in boiling water to remove oil.
    Squeeze them dry.
    (by now I had a feeling that I am stupid to do that cos the
      puff is so absorbent, worried it will soak up all the sauce)

2. Combine the above ingredients accept dashi stock (cos I
    don't have). Put the tofu puffs into the boiling sauce and let
    it simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes, on a slow heat.

3. I leave them to cool in the pot after 20 minutes and by the
    time I want to squeeze the puff dry, the sauce are all
    soaked up. About 1.5 tablespoon sauce are squeeze out
    after that.

So, thats the soy pockets I made. The puff are rough, not like
the japanese's, but of course, since it is chinese tofu puff. Taste
wise, I think I will reduce a little soy sauce and sugar the next
round. Ya, I think I will do this crazy thing again, cos my hubby
and kids like it, and they do not mind the rough texture.
HA HA HA.

爱吃寿司吗？我爱，尤其是 inari sushi, 就是那种褐色包包，里头
包着饭的那种。我家附近的超市没卖现成的，所以想尝试用华人
豆卜来代替。在网上找了做法就动工了。味道还可以，不过咸了
点。孩子，先生都没嫌弃，也赞不错，所以以后就不必费时间到
偏远的大超市卖了。

Lovely Pearly Earrings

I never realise mixing pearl with crystal can be so pretty (ok, its
my own opinion).

Anyway, this earring is so simple to make. I hope to wear it
when i dress in a more girlish way.

Purposely chosen a simple earring hook. I think the previous
ones too old fashioned.

耳环漂亮吗？是我做的， 但不难哦。喜欢？去找材料自己做吧。
找我帮你做也可以哦。

Zebra Cake

My friend just baked zebra cake not too long ago. The name
sounds interesting so I got the recipe from her and finally
baked it yesterday. The ingredients are very simple, readily
available for anyone who bakes frequently, so not difficult
for me to decide when to bake it.

The recipe I noticed, is from the blog Farida’s Azerbaijani
Cookbook. Please refer to the site for recipe. The night before
I started baking, i did some searching, and realise some
recipes uses yogurt or condense milk. This recipe I refer to
only says milk, so I used fresh milk (worrying that the batter
might be too runny).

All the mixing is not difficult. I left the mixer to cream the eggs
(used 5 eggs since it requires 4 large ones but mine is not big)
and sugar for me while i measured the other ingredients. Then
I pour in the oil and milk (followed recipe to the T but it does
seems a huge amount of sugar and oil). The difficult part is the
mixing of flour cos the batter is already very full (ok my mixer
bowl is too small). The flour also get lumpy easily. Finally, it
came to the last part of preparing the batter for baking.

I have read that some batter are too watery that it runs over
the chocolate part, so i did my pouring slowly. I went,
white batter, wait, chocolate batter, wait, white batter, wait ..
till the pan is almost full. I did have lovely rings of alternating
white and chocolate. Then I remembered abt banging the cake
tin to remove air bubbles, so i went "thud thud thud" then put
the lovely looking cake into the oven and wait patiently for it
to bake and cool.

The cake still look lovely with the rings on top but the inside,
a disaster. This is how it looks.


I did not lie. There is really rings on top, can you spot it below?


Anyway, not sure if it has to do with the banging or the slow
pouring, that the denser chocolate batter sink down below.
No matter what, it is a tasty cake, infact, just enough sweetness.
I will try again to see if I can create the strips inside the cake.
I would like to thank the recipe owner for the lovely recipe.

烘了个斑马蛋糕。是什么东西？不清楚，可能是因为切了之后，
蛋糕里呈现斑马条纹吧。不过我失败了。蛋糕表面是有纹，但
里头就是半黄半黑的蛋糕。
现在我还不知哪儿出错。可能是我放进烘炉前，为了“除气泡”
敲击桌面所造成， 也可能是我倒粉糊太慢造成？巧克力粉糊
重，就沉底了。
但蛋糕味道好，糖虽多但甜度刚刚好。 我会再试一次看能否
成功。想看真正的斑马蛋糕就请劳驾到
http://azcookbook.wordpress.com/2008/02/15/zebra-cake/ 。

Update

Dear friends,

I am still around .. been not able to do much since kids are not
napping and not schooling. For the past one week, kids down
with fever and now still coughing (thus no Fathers' Day cake).
Been watching too much TV programs at night too and library
has this "double the books" promotion so I have alot of
beading books at home now and busy flipping them.

Hope I will be able to start my baking once the kids start
schooling again.

Meantime, take care.

Low Fat Chocolate Marble cake

Been not baking and kids are complaining they want to eat
cake. We have just finished a Sara Lee Chocolate Swiss pound
cake and that's the kids' favourite. So I went searching for a
pound cake recipe but knowing that pound cake is loaded with
butter, i search for a low fat one.

This one caught my eye, Low Fat Chocolate Marble cake from
here (Thanks Mandy). After reading, it doesnt seem too
difficult. It has yogurt as one of the ingredients and I know I
do not really like using yogurt, just don't quite like the texture
of the end product, but I guess, low fat, so no choice.

Everything went on quite smoothly, but I really don't know
how to make the swirl inside the cake, so I just mix the two
types of batter and get the kids to swirl the pattern on top.

In goes the cake, and the recipe says 45 minutes... but before
the time is up, the cake cracked.  I have to continue baking
cos the inside is not cooked. I ended up with a hard and burnt
crust. Anyway, the cake is still edible and with the chocolate
inside, it is still considered tasty. However, I noticed a greenish
patch at the bottom of the cake (did you spot it?) and am
wondering did that patch resulted from cake sinking after
cooling, or was it uncooked batter (told you i am still a newbie),
so I did not offer alot to my kids and eat most of them all up
myself (luckily the recipe says low fat).

Here's how it looks.


did you see the greenish "belt" below the chocolate part?

刚吃完Sara Lee的pound cake,孩子又吵要吃蛋糕，所以想
做个pound cake,但 pound cake 用很多牛油，所以找了个
low fat的巧克力云石蛋糕。
一切还算顺利， 直到烘烤时，还没够钟，蛋糕顶就裂开，里
面还没熟，所以就继续烘， 结果就有点焦了。
这蛋糕还真蛮好吃，但发现蛋糕底部有点青青的，不知是否
不熟，所以没给孩子多吃，自己把它给解决了（还好是低脂的)。