aromatic earl grey madeleine

I have fallen in love deeply with Madeleine and also French baking recently.  Apart from the previous Madeleine I made, I found a few other recipes on different flavours Madeleine and I'm going to make Earl Grey flavour Madeleine today.  I found this recipe from Eugenie's Kitchen Blog and I really like her method of making these Madeleine.  Feel free to browse through her blog.

donuts delights

I really do not have any confident in making donuts after a horrible failure long time ago.  I admit that I was still quite timid and fear failure repeats itself again, hence, I bought a packet of premix from supermarket and made them.  Dusted with icing sugar, its a great afternoon snack with a cup of hot green tea.  

pretty madeleine

I always have a missed conception about these beautiful Madeleine and have never ever wanted to make these little one until I suddenly saw the Madeleine Pan from Daiso and I decided to challenge myself in making some of those.

I got my recipe from Joy of Baking and went straight off to get all my ingredients.  So, here we go...

ingredients

- 113g of unsalted butter

- 1 cup of all-purpose flour

- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

- 1/8 teaspoon salt

- 3 large eggs, room temperature

- 2/3 cup granulated white sugar

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

method

- melt the butter and allow it to cool.

- prepare the madeleine cake tin by greasing it with butter and dust with some flour.

- sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.

- in a bowl, beat egg, sugar until volume double and forms a thick ribbon when the whisk is lifted up.

- add in vanilla essence and beat to combine.

- sift in small amount of flour into the egg mixture and fold till well combine.

- sift in the the rest of the flour and make sure not to over-fold the batter.

- whisk a small amount of the batter into the cooled melted butter to lighten it.

- pour in the rest of the cooled melted butter and fold in well.

- dropped spoonful of the batter on madeleine mould.

- baked in pre-heated 190 degree celcius oven for 11-13 minutes.

- remove from oven, and remove the madeleine from the mould and let it cool at cooling rack.

- best eaten on the same day with nice cup of coffee. enjoy...~~

not so adventurous apple pie

I always wanted to make a pie and especially after watching the movie "Waitress", I really hope I can make such delicious pies like what the lead actress made in the show...  But... well, I'm not that adventurous.  I decided to start simple and easy and instead of making my own pie skin, I used frozen short crust pastry found in super market.

I found the apple filling recipes online over at here at taste.com.au, then I realised that I don't have lemon juice at home, hence I omitted it.  I strongly recommend you all to add the lemon juice as it help to lessen the sweetness from the apples and sugar and give the filling a tangy taste.

I don't have much recipe to show here, just cut 2 sheets of short crust pastry to the pan size you are using, one as the base and another one for the top.  You may use the remaining pastry to do some decoration on the pie like what you see here, sis actually made a cross.  Slit the top of the pie so that to allow the steam to escape from the apple fillings while cooking in the oven.  And oh, before you put into the oven, please brush it with some egg wash from 1 beaten egg.

Enjoy...     

attempting baked japanese cheese cake

I have never tried making bake cheese cake before and I happened to got this recipe from a cookery book which sat at my bookshelf for years and when today I suddenly open this book, I decided to challenge myself to make this.

ingredients

- 80g cream cheese

- 60mls fresh milk

- 2 eggs separated

- 80g castor sugar (original recipe called for 90g but it turn out a bit sweet)

- 3 tablespoons plain flour

- 1 & 1/2 tablespoons cornflour

- 1/3 teaspoon cream of tartar

method

- preheat oven to 180 degree celcius.

- sift flour and cornflour together.

- cook milk and cream cheese over low heat till cream cheese melts. set aside.

- beat egg yolks and half of sugar till creamy. fold in cheese mixture and fold in flour and corn flour.

- beat egg white till soft peak, sift in cream of tartar and sugar in 2 separate time while beating.

- beat until stiff peak form. fold in egg whites into batter in serveral times and mix well.

- line cake tin with baking sheet, pour in batter.

-pour water on baking tray until half full.

- place cake tin in tray.

- bake in oven for 20 minutes.

- reduced to 150 degree celcius and bake for another 15 minutes.

- let it stand for 10 minutes before taking out from oven.

- enjoy with a cup of nice hot green tea.~~

baking an apple cake

beautiful, yummy and moist apple cake

cooking the apples with cinnamon, raisin and butter, simple smell so nice

creaming in process

It has been quite a while since I last bake due to the busy work schedule.  I decided to follow a recipe from a book "Fruity Cakes" by Alex Goh and make this yummy Apple Cake.

In the recipe itself, it was made into cupcakes, but you can use loaf tin too.  So with the batter I had, its more than enough to fill up one loaf tin and 1 small round tin which I bought from Daiso.

ingredients

- 300g apples, peeled and diced (E)

- 100g raisins (E)

- 30g raisins (E)

- 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (E)
- 250g unsalted butter (A)

- 220g sugar (A)
- 3 eggs (B)

- 100mls milk (C)

- 300g plain flour (D)

- 1 tablespoon baking soda (D)
- sliced apples (F)

method
- place all (E) in a pot cook until the apples becomes tender. set aside to cool

- cream (A) until light and fluffy, add in (B) one at a time while beating and beat until smooth

- add (C) and (D) gradually and alternatively.  mix well and add in (E) and mix until well incorporated

- pour in greased cake tin and decorate the top with (F)

- bake in 175 degree celsius pre-heated oven and bake for 40-50mins

- cool completely and serve. enjoy ~~

loving you : loysel's toy

my cuppa lovely mocha

egg benedict with bacon

victoria sandwich, fall in love by how neat she look

this is a real beauty, love how moist it is - our favourite flourless chocolate cake

A sunny Sunday late morning, together with sis, we met up with a long lost friend A.T for brunch.  We decided to visit Loysel's Toy at Kampong Bugis as I have always wanting to go there and have a try.

It's a 10 minutes walk from Lavender MRT Station (well depend on how fast you walk), passing by the beautiful Kallang Riverside garden and crossing a small bridge, you can easily spot the bustling cafe located at level one of a building name Ture.

The cafe is crowded with people going there for brunch and some gatherings.  We ended up taking a bar seat beside the music player facing a al fresco area and happened to saw some kids having their birthday party over there.  I like this kind of feeling, sitting in a cafe, chatting with friends and people looking.

For my brunch, I ordered an Egg Benedict with Bacon with a cup of hot mocha.  And follow by Victoria Sandwich and Flourless Chocolate Cake to share.  Sis has got her bad experience with Ice Mocha in one of the cafe we visited previously and she is now using Ice Mocha as a benchmark for different cafes.  Well, she fell in love with Loysel's Toy's Ice Mocha and she has been talking about it since then.  The food portion is just nice and overall, it's a very relaxing place for a lazy Sunday.I hope to drop by soon again... :)

LOYSEL'S TOY

66 Kampong Bugis, Ture, #01-02

http://www.loyselstoy.com/