Taro Sponge Cake

It's taro season! After seeing many huge, delicious-looking taro at the supermarket, I knew I needed to get one! I made 2 easy regular sponge cake, cut them in half, then layered with taro paste. I haven't made a sponge cake for a while so I accidentally over-baked it. The cake turned out to be a little dry :(

BUT the taro part was delicious!

Ingredients

Sponge cake:
Cake Flour- 100g sifted
Eggs- 3 whole eggs
Sugar- 100g
Unsalted Butter- 10g melted
Milk- 10g

Taro Paste:
Taro-500g
Sugar- 60g
Butter-10g
Cream- around 100g













Steps:
1. Mix eggs in a large bowl over heating water bath, add the sugar then continue to mix.
2. Heat the egg mixture to around 40degrees over waterbath while mixing, then take the bowl off the heat.
3. Mix until you can write an "8" with the beater
4. Pour the flour inside the egg+sugar mixter evenly. Mix with spatula gently.
5. Mix until there are no dry flour visible.
6. Mix the melted flour with milk, then pour it into the batter.
7. Use the spatula to mix the cake batter until it is shiny looking.
8. Pour the batter into 9inch cake pan ( buttered).
9. Bake for 25 mins at 170degrees. ( I baked for 35mins by accident)
10. Stick a toothpick in the middle of the cake, if it came out dry, the cake is ready.
11. When the cake is cooled, cut it horizontally into 2 pieces.
12. Layer the cake with taro paste and decorate with whip cream! yum!

Taro Paste
1. Steam the taro until they are completly softened.
2. Add in the sugar and butter while hot.
3. Using a potato masher to mash the taro until fluffy.
4. Pour in the cream slowly, continue to stir the taro mixture. The amount of cream needed depends on the your own preference. If you wanted to be smoother+ milkier, add more cream.

Whip Cream:
Whipping Cream- 300g
Sugar- 30g
Mix until thickens.


Enjoy!

Cranberry-White Chocolate Scone

Hi everybody! If you've never liked scones, I'm here to convert you!

I hated scones before because they are often dry and flavourless. I wasn't a fan until I tried Thomas Haas' cranberry-orange scones ( soo delicious..). The perfect scone should have a crusty layer with a moist middle.

I added white chocolate, my latest obsession, to balance the tartness of the cranberries in this recipe. You can make your own flavour by adding orange peels, raisens, chocolate chips etc.

p.s instead of the plain yogurt I added, you can substitute it with sour cream or different flavours of yogurt.

Ingredients:

( make 16)

- 3.5 cups of flour

- 1/3 cup of sugar

- 25g of baking powder

- 1/4 tsp of salt

- 125g of butter

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- 1 cup of milk

- 1/2 cup of plain yogurt

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- 1/2 cup of craisins

- 1/3 cup of white chocolate

egg wash:

- 1 egg

- 1 tbsp of milk

I'm so impressed with the butter I bought from States, they come little sticks! Perfect for baking, doesn't require much measurement.

Steps:

1) Sift and combine all dry ingredients

2) Cut in the butter and combine with the dry ingredients with blender or your hand

3) Mix milk with yogurt in a cup, then add it to the butter/flour bowl

4) Add in the white chocoalte, crasins; blend in with the spatula until there are no dry ingredients left at the bottom

5) Make the dough in your desired sizes, don't put them too closely with each other, they will rise.

6) Brush on the egg wash

7) Bake at 350 about 15 to 20 mins until top and bottom and slightly golden.

Pulled Pork with Root Beer

If you like pork, you must try this recipe! It's super tasty, it's got a sweet chilli flavour. Perfect for summer BBQs! I prepared this dish with root beer, which makes the pork extra tender. Surprisingly, the root beer doesn't make it too sweet, I actuaylly added extra honey in the end.

This recipe, again, is very easy. It does, however, takes a long time to cook.

I didn't use a slow cooker, if you have one at home, it is even easier. Just put the ingredients in and let it cook by itself for around 6 hours. I cooked mine around 4 with a stove.

You can eat this with burger buns, sandwich bread, or even on rice!

Ingredients:

- Pork shoulder ( boston butt) with bone.. forgot how much I bought! 2 to 3 pounds?

- A can or bottled root beer

- 1 1/5 tbsp of paprika

- 1 tbsp of caynne pepper

- 2 tbsp of garlic powder

- 1 large yellow onion

- 1 tbsp of salt

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- 2 tbsp of honey

- 2 tbsp of ketchup

- 2 tbsp of vinegar

- about 1 tbsp of worcestershire sauce

- salt/ pepper to taste

Steps:

1) Mix caynne pepper, garlic powder, paprika together, cover the mixture on the pork

2) Brown the onion a little bit

3) Put in the pork, cover it with a can of root beer, just let it cook

4) It should be ready when the liquid evaporates, if not, add a little bit more root beer

5) When the pork is tender and soft enought to be teared apart by a fork, it is ready! Remember to scoop out all the fat/ oil before seasoning.

6) Add in honey, ketchup, vinegar, worcestershre sauce and salt& pepper to taste. ( if you don't have these ingredients, you can try your BBQ sauce at home.)

Japanese Cheesecake ( trial 1)

I've been hesitating if I should blog this one because it didn't rise like I wished it would, BUT it does taste delicious. Definitly going to try making this again. I got this recipe from an asian website, the cake should rise up like a souffle, and you need precise measurements.

Japanese Cheesecakes taste a lot lighter and fluffier than NY cheesecake, it requires less cream cheese ( less fat!) . It is so much more difficult and time consuming to make! It was definitly worth it though.

p.s Ignore the sour cream in the picture, I didn't end up using it.

Ingredients:

- 200g of cream cheese

- 128g of milk

- 26g of flour

- 14g of corn starch

- 43g of melted butter

- 4 eggs (seperate the yolks and the whites, the whites cannot touch any water/oil)

- 1/4 tsp of cream of tar tar

- 1/4 tsp of lemon juice

- 86g of sugar

Steps:

1) Preheat then oven at 170degrees

2) Cut the cream cheese in little pieces and drain them in milk for half an hour

3) Melt the cream cheese, milk with a heating water bath until the mixture is smooth, sift the mixture to take out the cheese lumps ( important!)

4) Mix in the butter

5) Mix in the flour, corn starch

6) Add in egg yolks and lemon, make sure the mix is super smooth, sift the mixture if necessary

7) In a seperate bowl, whip the egg white with tar tar for about 20 sec on mixer.

8) Add in the sugar slowly in 3 diff. times on high speed, until the egg whites becomes shiny and pointy ( as pictured)

9) Scoop the egg white mixture into the cream cheese bowl gently, fold it in until evenly mixed.

10) Pour the mixture in 8" cake pan, bake on top of a water bath! ( so almost like steaming it)

11) Bake at 170degrees for 20 mins, 40 mins at 150degrees

Chicken Parmesan

I got inspired to make chicken parmesan when I saw some amazing-looking cherry tomatoes. I totally recommend cooking with seasonal veges, since the meat products are rarely not in season. I also find that when chicken breasts are prepared this way, they tend to stay very juicy on the inside. Again, this is very easy to make who doesn't like fried chicken?

Ingredients:


Tomato sauce-
- handful of cherry tomatoes
- 1tbsp of tomato paste
- 1 shallot
- 1clove of garlic
- basil leaves

Chicken-

- flour ( enough to coat)
- chicken breast
- a mixture consist of 1/2 tempure powder, 1/2 potato flour
- salt& pepper
- thyme
- 1 egg
*tempure powder can be found in most grocery stores with asian food selections.

Steps:

1) scramble the egg

2) cut the chicken breast in the middle, and open it up and flatten it out, make it easier to cook through

3) prepare the 1/2 tempure, 1/2 potato flour mix, season with thyme and salt&pepper

4) coat the chicken in flour

5) dip it in the egg, then coat it again in the mixture with 1/2 tempure mix, 1/2 potato flour

6) fry in in a pan until brown on each side

7) prepare tomato sauce: fry garlic and shallots

- put in the tomatoes, stir fry until soft

- stir in the tomato paste

8) put the tomato sauce on top of chicken, top it with mozzarella cheese and bake it for 7 mins.

Mint Chocolate Souffle

Happy Easter everyone!

I was bored to death on a friday long weekend (sad, I know) then I decided to bake myself some cake.
There are many ways to make a souffle, they are all fairly simple. The hardest part is to make the souffle lift. It also requires a lot of beating of the eggs.

The tip to beating the egg white is that it cannot have contact with ANY water and fat, or else it won't set.
Eat it while it's hot! even better, with ice-cream!

Ingredients:

- 1tbsp on cocoa powder

- butter ( enough to

- 2 eggs ( seperate your yolk and white)

- 80g of mint chocolate chopped (or your choice of chocolate)

- pinch of cream of tar tar

- 100mL of milk

- 75g of white sugar

- 10g of corn flour

Steps:

preheat oven at 180

1) On medium heat, simmer the milk, add corn flour, until thickens

2) add in your chopped mint chocolate

3) in a seperate bowl, beat the 2 egg whites with cream of tartar, slowly add in the sugar, you will know it is ready when you lift the beater and the egg white is ..pointy

4) add the egg yolks one by one into the chocolate mixture, mix it ( make sure the mixture is chilled when you add in the yolks)

5) Add 1/3 of the egg whites in the chocolate mixture and fold it in slowly ( repeat with the rest of the whites)

6) butter the souffle containers generously, then sprinkle with cocoa power+sugar, make sure the containers are covered in the cocoa.

7) put in your mixture and bake for 6 mins!

Ramsay's Sticky Lemon Chicken

You know how sometimes things just don't turn out as you saw on the food channel when you actually make it yourself? I tried Ramsay's lemon chicken today!

I didn't know how to cut the top off the chicken thighs like he did, despite the fact that he did is so effortlessly. He was right though, the chicken neede to be cooked a lot longer than he did (35mins~)

I only used chicken thighs, the sauce turned out to be a lot more lemony than I expected, but the chicken itself got just the right about of tangy-ness. Overall, it was a success! thanx Gordon!

I made a platter of veges too.

I sauteed the carrots in butter& sugar& salt, roasted potatoes, zucchini in e.v.o.o.& salt& pepper, cherry tomatos& avacado and roasted garlic salad.