yummy

Mango Rosette on Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

Korean Strawberry Shortcake with Mascarpone Cream Cheese

Red Bean Citron Matcha Sponge

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Matcha Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

Thai Milk Tea Cupcakes

Banana Muffins

Moist & Dense Cocoa Loaf Cake

Carrot Cake

Matcha Chocolate Twirl Cake

Carrot cake

Chocolate Honey Cake

Hershey's Perfectly chocolate Cake with Matcha frosting

Gudetama Egg Tarts

Gudetama Matcha Egg Tarts

Rudolph Chocolate Honey Cupcakes 

Choc Chip Oatmeal Bars

Durian Puffs

It's that time of the year again. Every year during this period of time my house will be overloaded with durians because my dad goes into the forest (?) nearby my house to pick durian during durian season. In case you do not know, durians is said to be the king of fruits with a strong distinct smell. Its a seasonal fruit, rather popular in south east asia. Most people either like it or hate it. Its flesh is thick and creamy, thus making it really good to be used as fillings for many kinds of pastries. Prickly and unflattering on the outside, but on the inside the bright yellow flesh is something that many love deeply. At home, my dad and grandma love it and can practically eat it everyday without getting sick of it. Personally I am not a huge fan of it though. Another point that I love about the durians that my dad brings home is that it is 'organic'. As it is grown without anyone's care in the wild, there are not pesticides used on them making them much healthier than the imported ones. I believe that those imported ones have chemicals added to them to ensure quality. Whenever I eat those I fall sick easily, but it never happens with those my dad brought home.

Since I have lots of durians at home, I decided to make some pastries with it. First that came to mind is durian puffs! I love those puffs that are filled with durian filling. Extremely satisfying and brings out the authentic taste of the heavenly fruit. Must mention that the puffs are easy to make as well. Probably one of the easiest yet yummiest thing that I can make.

RECIPE for choux pastry
(yields 36 medium sized puffs)

Ingredients
1 cup water
1/2 cup (~115g) butter
1 cup (~130g) plain flour
4 eggs

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 200 deg cel.

2. In a pot, boil water and butter.


3. Sift in flour until mixture forms a ball.



4. Allow the pot to cool slightly (you don't want the eggs to get cooked when you add them in!) Beat in eggs one at a time into the dough. Mix well.


5. Pipe heaps of dough (or you can choose to drop tablespoonfuls) onto a baking sheet.


6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. (Refrain from opening the oven door during the first 10 minutes to ensure that the puffs rise properly.)


FILLINGS
Meawhile while the puffs are being baked you can get started on the fillings. Besides durian flesh as filling, you can opt for custard, chocolate or even savoury fillings like tuna or egg mayo. It's up to you! I used the more ripe durians and scrap the flesh off from the seeds. Depending on your preference, I pipe approximately flesh of 2 seeds of durians into one puff.






Hope you will enjoy making these puffs!
Good luck! :)

Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

Hello everybody~ Merry christmas! Here's another recipe made from tea! I love this recipe because I LOVE EARL GREY TEA. Okay, I think any food that has earl grey tea in it, I love it. That's it. When I came across this recipe online, I knew I had to bake it.



Recipe adapted from Lydia bakes
(Another reason that made me bake it is because of the gorgeous photos of it on Lydia's site. Hop over to see them!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup Flour
1/3 cup Caster Sugar, plus more for dusting
1/2 tsp Vanilla Paste
1 tbsp Earl Grey Tea Leaves
1 tbsp Finely grated orange zest
150g Unsalted Butter, room temperature

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Sift flour into a bowl and add sugar, vanilla paste, Earl Grey leaves and orange zest and mix in together.

3. Grate the butter into the flour mixture then mix with your hands until mixture resembles large crumbs.

4. Press the mixture together firmly on top of a sheet of baking paper on your bench or work surface.

5. Place another piece of baking paper on top and roll out mixture to about 1 cm thick. (I would suggest that you chill it for awhile so that it will be easier to cut when it is firm)

6. Cut into even sized pieces and carefully place on the baking tray.

7. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly golden.



Once cookies are baked, remove from the oven and immediately sprinkle extra caster sugar on top.
Leave cookies to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before placing on a cooling rack to cool completely.

On Lydia's blog she drizzled the cookies with orange glaze, but in my case I omitted it because I do not want it to be too sweet. Perhaps next time I will try it out with the glaze. It makes the cookies look to enticing! :)

Before I even considered it into my CNY baking list, my mum already instructed me to bake these for Chinese New Year. Alright! Earl grey babies, we'll meet again soon! A month more to Chinese New Year!

Good luck in baking! :)

Matcha white chocolate chips cookies (version 2)

Hello people, here's the second recipe which I tried in my quest to search for the best matcha cookie. In my opinion, I prefer this version to version 1 (click here) because this has a stronger matcha taste. Anyway, both recipes make yummy cookies, it is really up to your own preference.

Recipe adapted from justonecookbook
(do visit justonecookbook for step-by-step pictures!)

Ingredients
240g all purpose flour
15g green tea powder (matcha)
150g unsalted butter, softened
130g powder sugar
Pinch of salt
2 large egg yolks
1/3 - 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Method
1. Sift the flour and the matcha powder.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar, and salt until soft and light.

3. Add the egg yolks and beat well.

4. Gradually add the flour/matcha powder mixture.

5. Fold in the white chocolate chips.

6. Shape the dough into 2 round logs and wrap them in plastic wrap. Place your wrapped log on a bed of rice to chill to remain its cylindrical shape. Chill in refrigerator for several hours or, better yet, overnight.

Preheat oven to 150C degrees. Remove the dough from plastic wrap and cut the cookie slices to 7mm (1/4 inch) thick. It might be hard to cut due to chocolate chips, so be gentle!

Bake for 20-22 minutes then cool on a rack.


I think this is one of the most photogenic cookies that I have ever baked. Brightly green in colour, surely make a good christmas cookie as well!

I love to stack them up as high as possible! It's so fun!

These cookies serve as great gifts as well! Pack them nicely in a box and they could be the best gift one ever receives this christmas. After all, nothing's better than a box of freshly baked cookies that are made with lots of love? I would definitely love to receive a box of these lovelies.

Not only christmas, I think these are great for chinese new year as well. Hence, I am thinking of baking these for CNY to treat my relatives. Hope they will love it as much as I did.

What about you?

Try it! Good luck! :)

Matcha white chocolate chip cookies (version 1)

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way~
HOHOHO, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Hello everyone, I am definitely getting into the christmas mood nowadays. I really can't wait for christmas! Eager to meet all my friends, and have parties with gift exchanges!

For the festive season, I'm getting into the cookie baking frenzy! Nope, not baking the conventional christmas cut out cookies with icing decorations, but specials ones like matcha flavour. In case you do not know, matcha is japanese green tea. I love the fragrance of it. (yes, currently obsessed over matcha flavoured food as well :P) I experimented with 2 different recipes that gave me 2 completely different result. In the post I will be posting version 1, which is more like the normal kind of white chocolate chip cookie with subtle matcha flavour. Version 2 (click here)is more crunchy and has a more intense matcha flavour. I gave them to a few friends to taste, but the conclusion was both versions are nice! Depends on your own preference though.

Recipe adapted from hilarymakes.com
Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp matcha powder
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
6 oz good quality white chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, matcha powder, baking soda and salt

3. In another larger bowl, mix together the butter with both sugars, until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs. Beat until well mixed.
Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

4. Fold in the white chocolate chunks.

5. Drop heaping tablespoons of the dough on a non-stick baking sheet, or a pan lined with parchment paper. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the centre.

Makes 3 dozen


Pardon me for the lack of skills which resulted in the cookies turning out kind of ugly ): BUT, taste-wise it was really good, no joke! I stacked up my cookies into a pyramid and with my awesome photo editing skills I made a christmas tree out of it. HAHAHA. Looks decent right??

Try it yourself!

Good luck! :)

Healthy banana bread - (Oil-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, egg-free)

The festive season is coming! Are you excited about it? Think about all the gatherings with family and friends, and most importantly, the part which I love the most is FEASTING. Yumz. Can't wait to indulge in all kinds of food especially when now it's school holidays, which makes it a legit reason (in my opinion) to celebrate it with good food!!! *drools*

Alright, since we are most probably going to feast and gobble down all the fattening food and then if you have some self-conscious like me you will feel super guilty while eating, thinking to yourself that it's okay, after eating all these food I will exercise tomorrow. And the next thing you know is, TOMORROW NEVER COMES. There goes, all the fats will be stuck in your body. Congratulations, not.

I am not saying that we can't feast during this festive season, but instead we should eat in moderately. Of course, there will be meals that you really need to feast like a pig ('cos you can't resist all the awesome food) but there will definitely be some times whereby you should eat lesser, and HEALTHIER.

This healthy banana bread is a good option to start off a healthier diet!

Recipe adapted from herfelicity

Ingredients:
3 large sized ripe bananas
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon powder

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degree C.
2. Mash and blend the bananas.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda and baking powder before folding into blended banana mixture.
4. Pour the batter into a lined tin.
5. Bake at 180 degree C for 30-40 minutes or till a skewer comes out clean.

For nut lovers, you can add in chopped walnuts! :) I did and the result was lovely!


AND VIOLA~ Out of the oven comes your healthy banana bread. I love how light the bread is, and super adore it for the fact that it is oil free.

Matcha (Green Tea) pound cake

Apologies for the long hiatus from blogging again! Had been busy juggling school and social life these days, I just cleared several mid term tests few days ago. Can finally take a breather, and do things that make me happy. That is... Baking! :D Since I had some time to spare today, I decided to bake a loaf cake! Very glad that I finally bought a loaf pan! Been seeing many recipes that use loaf pan to bake, and the cakes really turned out good! After contemplating for months, I finally decided to invest in one. So, cheers to more loaf cakes in future! Can't wait!

So for my maiden attempt baking a loaf, a matcha cake was baked! Matcha, also known as green tea, is an awesome product. There are tonnes of health benefits such as increasing the metabolism and anti-depressant... Go google to find out more! Benefits aside, I love the subtle aroma of green tea. It's such a delightful flavour, a good alternative to heavy flavours like chocolate and coffee. I will definitely explore more recipes with my newly bought matcha powder. Matcha cookies, matcha chiffon cake, matcha macarons.... *imagines more matcha products* Anyway, this matcha cake that I baked was delish! Only downside is probably it is not sweet enough for my sweet tooth! I altered the recipe and reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup thinking that it would suit my health conscious family more. Yes, my parents accepted it well, but for the sweet tooth of mine, nope! Another thing I like about this recipe is that it is super fast and easy! Just mix everything together, and pop it into the oven. I took about 15 minutes, one of the fastest baking sessions I have ever done.

Recipe adapted from appetiteforchina
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons green tea powder
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs, beaten

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and green tea powder.
3. In another bowl, using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs. Add the sifted flour mixture and mix until well-combined.
4. Pour the batter into a buttered loaf pan (I used a 9"x5" pan). Bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pan.

Jelly Hearts

Made some jelly hearts with my friend the other day, and even though it is very time consuming, but the jelly hearts are such a delight to eat! Love how the different layers complement one another! We also made a blueberry version with blackcurrant jelly, and it tasted just as good as well.




Shall not post the recipe here because StoryOfBing.com has great pictorial guide! So head over to that website to have a look! :D

Good Luck!

Blackcurrant Cheese Tarts

Hello everyone, in case you might be wondering if I made a mistake in the title, that I typed blackcurrant instead of blueberry (blueberry cheese tarts are the more commonly found ones). Nope, I did not! Reason why I tweaked this recipe from blueberry to blackcurrant is because I only have blackcurrant jam at home! :P Thus, you can do the same too if you do not have blueberry/blackcurrant jam. Just use whatever jam that you like! Hopefully it turns out as nice as mine :D


Adapted from ReeseKitchen.

(This recipe yields about 16 middle sized tarts)

Pastry:
125g butter
60g fine granulated sugar
250g all purpose flour (plain flour)
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp COLD water (may need more than that)

Method:
1. Sift flour and sugar into mixing bowl
2. Rub butter into flour until resembles coarse crumbs (rubbing method)

this method is similar to pineapple tarts!3. Add in egg yolk, vanilla and water
4. Shape dough into ball and refrigerate (20-30 minutes) before using
** (before using, take out fr fridge, wait for awhile until dough soften)
5. Place dough onto tart shells, and poke the base with fork (this is to let the air comes out while baking)
6. Bake at 160-170'C for 10-15 minutes or until brown

Filling:
250g cream cheese
20g butter
60g fine granulated sugar
1 egg

Method:
1. Beat cheese, butter and sugar together until fluffy
2. Add in egg and beat till well mix
3. Spoon some jam on the baked tart shells then fill it up with cream cheese mixture. Use toothpick or fork to create swirl effect!
4. Bake at 170-180'C for 10 minutes


Used a diabetic-friendly jam!

The inside of my tart and look at my cute minion nails! :D :D
Additional notes:
- Of course, I reduced the amount of sugar in both tart and filling! Reduced each by about 20g.
- I extended both baking durations by 10 min (not sure if it is the problem of my oven or what)