Red Bean Buns

Evolution of the red bean bun. Dough has been improved, and pa prefers it without the slits at the side.












Red bean paste has got to be my papa's favourite filling of all buns. So here's what my mom did for him. Thanks to gracekitchencorner.blogspot.com for the recipe!

It's got the thumbs-up from the connoiseur of red bean buns!

From Loaves to Buns

These cheese buns are filled with grated cheddar, brushed with egg wash and drizzled with more grated cheddar cheese.

This loaf had cinnamon sugar swirled inside and baked in a silicon bread pan.
Both are made from the "Basic Dough" recipe from "Bread Code". I substituted 100gm of bread flour with wholemeal flour.

Brownie Cheesecake

Wholemeal Chocolate Bread

Today, I decided to add a twist to the wholemeal recipe - chocolate!

The Quest for the Perfect Square Loaf

The bread season is in!

Here's a chronicle of my journey towards getting a perfect loaf. This didn't just come by a quick shot at bread making. After three tries, I've never felt so satisfied with my efforts. Allow me to be nostalgic - this loaf reminds me of the bread we used to get from Baker's Delight in Melbourne.

It all started with the hot, humid weather we've been getting the last few weeks. The heat seem to beckon some dough that's dying to rise. And so I took out Alex Goh's colourful book, "The World of Bread" and flipped through its pages. What caught my eye was the Cheese Loaf recipe that seemed uncomplicated and well, I had cheese in the fridge, too.


And that was just the beginning.

Then I decided to remove the cheese from the recipe and create a loaf that you could dip curry into. So here is the same loaf, without the cheese. The longer loaf was baked in a silicon bread pan, while the shorter one in a teflon pan.

With this success, I decided to venture into the wholemeal world. I found a simple wholemeal loaf recipe from a blog that i frequently visit and from here my confidence in bread making grew.

Then I dreamed about making square loaves of wholemeal bread. A friend loaned me her pullman tin and to cut the long tedious story short, we had this for breakfast today.

It's Bri's Birthday!

Today, my little girl turns 11. As a proof of that, she has gone out with friends to go bowling, while mom stays at home and posts photos of her cake here. We celebrated with the cast and crew of "My Father's Love" after our rehearsal last night.


She was more interested in having Korean strawberries on the cake than the cake itself. So i chose Cordon Rose Banana Cake (from The Cake Bible) and use the recommended Buttercream Classic Lemon Frosting.

My Brother's Birthday Cake

Blueberry Coffee Cake

Made another attempt to make this recipe. This time, after making a trip to Phoon Huat to buy a 22 cm spring form pan. Oh, well, the recipe says 20 cm, but they didn't have it, so i guess 2 cm more won't hurt.

Another thing, after buying the pan, i realised that though it is a spring form pan, the bottom is attached!

With a smaller surface, the 2 cups of fresh blueberries literally filled the top!





Here's the cinnamon sugar topping ...













... and viola - what a beauty!

p.s. the bottom of the spring form pan did come loose after coming out of the oven. I thought it was attached because I could not dislodge it during washing. Oh well, thank God it did, otherwise I'd have to spoon it out of the pan!

This cake is for my dear friend, Annie - and for each of the band members from Heavenward!

Just Muffins

Mum: Today seemed like a good day to bake. Made a resolution to strictly follow the blueberry muffin recipe that Annie shared with me. The recipe makes 8 large muffins. The last time I made them, I tried to convert the measurements to cater to 12 med muffins and messed it up instead.

And for some strange reason, I am unable to upload any photo on this post :-(

Jaffa Cake

We made this for Ps Vernon's birthday, which is tomorrow. Ma hunted for a recipe that would call for lots of his favourite - rum! It's hard to tell, but this cake has just been generously glazed with orange juice - rum mixture.

It was tricky separating the egg yolks and egg whites for this cake. Ma and I had a couple of mishaps and our hands were too gooey to take any photos.

Stay tuned cos we have yet to coat this cake with a chocolate-coffee glaze tomorrow.

Here it is ... Happy birthday, Pastor Vernon! :-)

P.S. (from Ma) This was supposed to be a surprise birthday cake for Vernon at a dinner tonight, which was postponed due to unforeseen circumstances. So now he gets to share it with Auntie Isabel tomorrow :-)

Special Cakes for Special People

It's Auntie June's birthday on the 24th of this month. We made a carrot cake with cream cheese icing for her.
This was how the carrot cake looked like before we topped it with cream cheese and decorations. The stuff you see on the surface are pineapple bits that were chopped a wee too big :-)

Lasting Impressions

Mum's Observation: When you make a lasting impression on Primary 4 children, it lasts at least for more than a year. This cake is the proof of this observation. Ms Tan was Bri's form teacher last year. On her birthday last year, we made a chocolate cake for her. One year later, though she no longer teaches Bri's class, but they still wanted to give her a birthday cake.

Going Bananas

Another frozen ripened fruit that is in abundance (in our freezer) is the good old banana. Tonight, two of them went into this moist banana cake. Mama got this recipe from a friend when we were staying in Melbourne. But ever since she tried this recipe, she never uses any other banana cake recipe. This has got to be the simplest, yummiest banana cake ever.

The recipe calls for an 8 inch round tin -something we don't have at home. So she baked it in this 6 inch Silicon round pan. By now, she knows she should not pour all the batter into a smaller tin. So guess, where the rest of the stuff went?





Here it is ... into one of her heart-shaped silicon pan :-)

Blueberry Strudel Muffins

Last weekend, Mama wanted to give her band a treat for being such a great bunch of musicians. So she took the Apple Strudel Muffin recipe and substituted the apples with blueberries. No particular reason for the substitute - we didn't have apples in the fridge, but we had fresh frozen blueberries in the freezer.
It looks almost like the apple strudel muffin, except for the telltale blueberry peering from the sides. But our friends who tasted this said the Blueberry Coffee Cake (aka Blueberry Slice - see photos below) tastes better.

Just One Inch Smaller

Blueberry Slice is what you get when you attempt to bake a Blueberry cake in a spring form baking pan just one inch larger than what the recipe calls for!

The Fairest of Them All

You gotta agree with me that this has got to be the prettiest looking cinnamon rolls Ma has ever made.

The one on the right is waiting to go into the oven.

You probably won't be able to make any comparisons cos she never takes photos of those that turn out in inferior shapes and forms. As it is with most things, "Practice makes perfect!" applies to making cinnamon rolls, too!

Here's a peek while they are baking inside the oven.

And here they are, fresh from the oven!

If I can do it, so can you!

Ma's been practicing making cinnamon rolls on her own lately. She used to need my father or my cousin to help her bake them. But I realised that she has been doing them single-handedly. So I figured that if she can do it, maybe ... I could? Here's my first cut at rolling out the dough.

First, you have to roll out a round piece of dough into a rectangle. It took me many many tries to get it right, but I finally did!
Then you spread some butter on it so that the cinnamon sugar mixture won't fall off when you start rolling it up.

After that layer of butter, we filled it cinnamon powder and brown sugar mix and a generous heap of chocolate chips.
Here it is now, all rolled up nicely.
And cutting them into 1 and a half inch thick cinnamon rolls. Whew! that was hard work.

Recreating Pineapple Tarts

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, we went to my cousin's place. Mama brought along all the ingredients for making pineapple tarts because there was one more packet of pineapple paste that she had no plans on keeping for 2010.

A few weeks ago we had made some yummy ones and they took a long time to make because we had to decorate each one. This time, she and my cousin were looking for new ideas, and perhaps some creative"short cuts". Papa was ready to give all sorts of suggestions.

First, they snipped bits of the pineapple paste and mixed them into the pastry so that every bite of each pineapple tart would have pineapples!

I am not so sure that was such a good idea. So other than snapping a few pictures here and there, I was not at the scene of the crime. I was happily watching videos and playing games on the computer (which i only get to do during public holidays!) in my cousin's room.

Initially (at least this is what i overheard), Mama just wanted to make "shapeless" balls and put them on macaroon paper cups. But my cousin had other ideas. She wanted to make shiny round tarts. These are smooth, golden pineapple balls!


Wait, I need to show you one more thing they did: sausage- shaped pineapple tarts :-)

Just so you know, normally, this is how pretty our pineapple tarts look like ... (sorry for the poor quality of this last photo)

Assembling the 5 and 0

Here's where it all began ... yes, in a piece of paper that clearly showed Ma how to cut each slab of cake to shape. It seems complicated, but hey, look on the bright side - it's gonna be easier next year when Pa turns "51" :->
This was how it looked when ma assembled the cake (I was at golf training when she did this).


One digit done, one more to go!
Done ;-)

Pa's Birthday

Today, Pa turns 50. We decided to make him a cake with the number "50". Without any idea on where to begin, we sought the help of my engineer cousin who painstakingly drew a model to help ma how to assemble a "50" cake using an 8" square, a 9" round and a 6" round Banana Cake. Here is how it eventually turned out.

Do an eye check first: Can you see where the "Happy Birthday" sign is?

Happy 10th Birthday Bri!

Bri turned 10 on 17th December. While mum baked the cake and slapped the chocolate frosting on it, Bri designed and decorated her own cake. An amazing 10 year old, don't you think?