Rojak

No No. I did not make any of that (refering to the title). This post is mainly for me to talk to or update my friends who visit my blog.

I have been busy with my own house improvement (painting works) and lately helping out with my mother's new house renovation stuff as well as spring cleaning (ya so far just talk and not much done).

In the middle of all these, I still read papers and I come across an offer on something that I have been looking for quite a long time.

Ta da !

This little set of drawers now housed about 2/3 my possessions of beads and beading stuff.

(photo is blurred cos it is taken with my spoilt camera. Got spoilt on that very day!) Wished I had got another one but afraid of splurging too much on this hobby that I cannot go full swing into (actually no time to go into any hobby full swing leh).

Then just a few days ago, I came across this post where the mouth watering cake is baked in a ramekin found in Daiso (I asked the author), and ramekin is something that I have been wanting to get my hands on (thou not sure for what yet). I think it is not easy to get a $2 ramekin, so I got permission from the "finance manager" and went to purchase 4. Now I am a proud owner of these beautiful ramekins.

Besides busy shopping (keke), I attended a Bento making workshop on 30th Jan. Thanks to Angelia and June, I have the chance to enjoy some me time and most important, it is an event on something I like. I do not make bento before this workshop, but I do sometimes cut bread into shapes using my cookie cutters to prepare the kids' snack boxes to school.

At the workshop, I am totally lost at the part where we are suppose to make 2 bentos. I am not creative at all, so all I can do is to copy the simplest idea from the various pictures posted on the wall of the room.

This is the bento that I have made that day. Thanks to June for taking the pictures for me.

Our teacher for the workshop is Angie, and this is her blog where you will be able to read more details on the event. I am also happy to meet Leonny in person (otherwise only read about her in her blog).

I am really happy to have attended this event and also with the goodies that I got in that goodie bag. Thank you to Angelia and June again. Will I make bento from now on? Yes, will try, after all this is also my interest, just that hubby say I can't be having too many hobbies with the limited time I have. Anyway I think Teacher Angie says that Bento is about arranging food nicely into the boxes and I do try to create nice looking food and arrange my food, but onto plate .. so I think not difficult to try bento making on the plate. :-)

Anyway, this is the first try, meal in the box ... girl got to take her lunch at my mother's new place as I am supposed to help with supervising a job in her house.

It is salmon with Furikake. Initally only the rice and smiley potato, but not happy with serving the not so healthy ready made vege, I quickly prepare some broccoli and carrots to go with it.

Ya, I said I am busy, but my friend tried making her own kaya and said it takes her 10 minutes only. With ready ingredients in the fridge, and the "10 minutes only" temptation, I made kaya too, but I think I did not pass.

I started with low fire, trying to heat up the coconut milk, mixed some into the beaten eggs, before I empty everythingg bit by bit inside. However, I took around 30 minutes and it still doesn't look and taste like kaya. The mixture just won't thicken itself even with an extra egg I added. I double checked with my friend and decided that I will try again with the exact ingredients she used. That will be after CNY. Thanks June for the recipe and advices. Here's how my kaya look.

Too long a post, too tired ... no chinese translation for this post this time .....zzzzz

My first loaf from the bread maker

This breadmaker is not a new addition. My mother bought it from Phoon Huat many months ago. Today is the first time I use the machine.

My girl is the only person in the family who likes pandan bread (I eat any flavour thou) so instead of buying just for her, I used this chance to bake one for her since I have the pandan juice. I followed the Pandan bread recipe from HappyHomeBaking's blog. I only have 50ml of coconut milk left over from my pandan chiffon cake attempt last week, so I top up the rest with pandan juice (extracted from pandan leaves on my own). I just happily dump all the required ingredients into the machine (mum helpped too), let the machine do some mixing before I stopped it to do some scrapping of the ingredients off the wall of the bread bucket. Then I choose the option for basic bread and light crust, and waited patiently for 3 hours and this is what I have got.

The bread does not have a nice uniform shaped top. Could it be due to the size of bread (using only 250g of flour). After slicing it up, I still think the crust is a little thick. The green colour is not nice, and not much of pandan smell (unlike the bonjour brand pandan bread). See! Anyway I forgot to add in the pandan essence.

The bread texture looks good in the picture right? The bread is ok, but it just doesn't taste like the gardenia bread, or bonjour bread, or even sunshine bread. Those commercial bread are soft and when you tear a slice, you feel like tearing cotton wool, doesn't require much effort. However when I try tearing this homemade one, it is like tearing cheese .. you will feel some pull (if you understand what I mean). Nevertheless, the bread is still soft and fluffy. I wonder how it will taste tomorrow morning. As for the taste test, this bread only passes my girl's. My boy says yucky and the daddy finds that it somehow a slight hint of sourish. I think I need to change the brand of yeast.

Now that I finally tried making bread , I think I gonna find more of such simple bread machine recipes, like chocolate, nutella (from happyhomebaking website) flavour etc.

我終於烘焙麵包啦。成品不是很理想。可能是麵包太小了（才用250克粉）外觀有些怪異 。皮也厚了點。用了椰奶和班蘭汁取代牛奶，但口感對我而言还不錯，當然不能比美外面賣的。期待下次的嘗試。

Much awaiting Pandan Cake

I have finally baked the pandan cake, with the help of my new baby KitchenAid mixer. Here is the new baby.

I only use it to beat my egg white. Quite happy using it, and most importantly, the sound from the mixer is quite soothing and not too loud.

I used the same recipe again (this is my 4th try) and I take note to save some for cupcakes since my pan is smaller. I can't remember if I should mix the egg white into the egg yolk mixture or other way, but since the mixer's bowl is bigger, I mix the yolk mixture with the egg white mixture. Not quite used to such a big bowl, so I took quite a long time to mix both mixture together. As I blend, I see bubbles popping away.

After the cake went into oven, it rose very high roughly after 5-10 minutes, then as the time goes by, it rose and it started to crack. The final product after 45minutes is a pandan cake with a very explosive top. As usual, I use the lowest shelf and tent the top. I had to go out after the cake and the cupcakes are baked, so I troubled my mother to unmould for me when the cake is cooled, so I did not see the whole cake but the pieces that she already cut. This is how it looks.

As it rose so high, the condensed part at the bottom is expected. This time the pandan cake has bigger holes than the 2nd try (I did not have any cross section picture taken in the 3rd try). I find the cake very moist, unlike those sold in NTUC, but hubby say he like this better as those sold in NTUC are pretty dry.

This time the top is not evenly browned. It seemed to have a "vacuum" at the bottom of the pan, that is why the top seems to have sunk. This also happens to all my pandan cupcakes. Their bottoms are concave. I have 3 more packets of coconut milk. I hope to try again real soon.

買了個新攪拌器，用它做了pandan 蛋糕。 我还得一段時間才能習慣那又大又深的mixer bowl.

在烘爐里，蛋糕發得很厲害，蛋糕頂嚴重“破裂”， 但 裡頭其他部份，那些小洞洞，还真像外邊賣的。期待第五次的製作。

A disastrous pandan chiffon cake

This is actually the third try on pandan chiffon cake. First time
on a square tray ended with malay kueh. 2nd time is a happy 
"sort of successful" pandan chiffon baked on a tube pan, and
today, its so sad .......

I used the full recipe(and even the pandan paste is not omited),
intending to make the remainders into cupcakes since mine is
not a 9 inch tube pan.

Happy churning out the egg yoke mixture, then follow by
beating the egg whites. This part is known to be very difficult
esp for newbies like me. I stopped the mixer so many times,
chking if its the right state. In the end, I stopped when I see
that the beaten egg whites are somewhat quite stiff.

I fold a little of the beaten egg whites into the egg yolk mixture
first, then a little again, then I pour the remain of the egg white
mixture and start trying to blend them while folding gently.

I filled the tube pan up to about two third full then pop it into
the oven. Half way through the baking, the top starts to crack.
I prepared the aluminium foil and tent it so that the top will
notget burnt.

It rose beautifully and after ard an hour and 10 minutes, I
finally took it out. The satay stick did not come out clean
after 45 minutes, so I carry on baking even after the stated
baking time.

I admire the cake for a very short while then invert it. Perhaps
its a small batter, so the cake did not rise beyond the centre
tube. After a while, I went to check on the cake and I saw the
ugly centre. The cake has sunk drastically in the centre.
Could it be due to egg whites not beaten enough?
Could it be due to too much folding?
Could it be due to sifting of flour (I only sift into the mixture,
meaning only one sift)?
Could it be the knock on top of the oven (I dropped my whisk
there)?
After reading through the recipe's owner's QnA (comments),
I think any of the above could have contributed to the sunken
centre. Could also be that my cake is not really cook through.

Anyway, will try it again since I love chiffon cake. My kids
enjoy the cake this time, and I think its not difficult to finish
the remaining quarter of the cake tomorrow. 

Now, I have to be contented with the beautiful skin of my 
sunken pandan chiffon cake.




chiffon 蛋糕模买了只用了一次，所以今天又买齐材料动工。
第一次，我用四方模，不成功。第二次用chiffon 蛋糕模，算还
可以。这次又不行了。蛋糕的中间陷了下去。这问题的原因可
有几个。 可能蛋白打不好，或蛋糕没熟透，又或。。。。
不过味道依然很好，现在那蛋糕只剩几片，明天就会没啦。
我会再尝试。。。。。。

My 2nd attempt on Pandan Chiffon Cake

Its only yesterday that I bake the cake but i realised I hv forgotten if 
there are any impt notes that i shd take down. Was very happy when 
I see the cake rises in the tube pan, but still unsure why the cake 
rises above the tube.
It keeps rising and rising happily till almost reaches the top of the oven.
I know its gog to get burnt on top.  Shd not hv so greedy buy such a big pan. Its a 21 cm pan.




Tested at 30 minutes cos the cake is so sky high.
Got crumbs stick to stick, so allow it to cook to stated time. At 45 minutes, test, still got crumbs, but mum
 says its dry crumbs, so I just took it out, invert it. I hv prepared 
for it to sink since it rise so high.

Boy, it took so long to cool down. Anyway its dinner time.
Rush through dinner preparation, feel so bad that i bake
and neglected dinner (I anyhow cook the dinner).
After dinner, cut the cake and taste it. Hmm heavenly.
So soft inside, besides the compressed part. 
Taste just right as I mentioned in my previous post.



So I am still wondering the part on how come the cake rise so high ..
could it be due to too much batter? 
I forgot that the recipe is for 9 inch pan and and i used the full recipe! Could it be due to the reason that I forgot to add 
cream of tartar when i beat egg whites ?

Notes : Not sure if I hv over beaten the egg white by little
bits, cos when folding into the yolk mixture, I can see some of
them separates into little balls of beaten egg white. Hv difficulty
blending them into the yolk mixture.

Pandan chiffon cake turn malay kueh

Tried making a pandan chiffon cake today. I know it is a difficult cake and i am not
overestimating myself, just that my family is sick of chocolate cakes 
and my fussy little  eaters like pandan cake.

I hv coconut milk in fridge so I thought I give Aunty Yochana's Pandan chiffon cake a try.
Thank you Aunty Yochana for sharing the recipe.

How embarassing. The cake is a total failure. Mixing the egg yolk part is quite a breeze (I wouldn't know if it has gone wrong anyway). There isnt anyone around to confirm my "beating the egg white (which is a first to me)" is correct. Anyway I folded ard 1/3 of beaten egg white  into the egg yolk mixture first then the rest of it. There is still streaks of white thou.

On the cooking portion. The recipe calls for 40 - 45 minutes, but at abt 20 - 25 minutes (but i did half the recipe), I saw the cake rise , dome shape, and cracks in the centre. I even witness a crack starting from the centre, working its way to the side of the cake (like ice cracking in ice age movie). According to baking book, the dome shape is the symptom of temperature too hot. A pity my oven thermometer is not at a correct angle for me to chk properly.

As I can see the inside through the crack, I think it looks cooked, so I tested it. The satay stick comes out clean. I declare its cooked and took it out of the oven. While testing, 
the dome has already sank back to be levelled with the rest of the 
cake, so I thot it will not sink any further and so did not follow
 what the recipe says abt cooling it inverted. 
After a minute, or maybe less, the cake collapsed further. Look at this sorry sight.

 
I did not wait for it to cool too long cos i wanted to taste the cake. This is the look of the inside.
I can imagine how it will look if it has not collasped.

Hubby tried and say not bad, taste like malay kueh. I also find the taste very pleasing, not too sweet, just nice. 
Infact I think I love the taste. Got to try this again soon.

Some minor changes i want to note here.
- Half the recipe is used
- Only 65ml coconut in the packet, so 10ml if HL milk is added to make up the liquid content
- 8 inch square pan is used instead of tube pan (now considering shd i go buy a tube pan instead)
- I lined the pan, bottom and sides (not sure if this affects the rising of the cake)