Japanese Cheesecake and Sunday

I love Sundays because i get my weekly dose of sunshine and most importantly- good company! (:

Did towing with the gang today, twohand chin tow, extended chin tow, ‘armpit’ tow(haha!), tow-2-at-1-go tow, handinhand tow.. makes me miss friday nights so much..

/ I love the natural ‘blush’ i get after swimming under the sun! :

Anyway, felt like baking a cake today~ This is my first cake attempt which involves beating eggwhites. I’ve been wanting to try it for the longest time, but many people’s failed attempts at eggwhite whisking shoo-ed me from doing so..

I brought the cake to granny’s house and everyone likes it. (: IUnlike the american cheesecake which is dense and cheesey, this one’s lighter and fluffier. But but but.. my cake’s top is really ugly! It’s rough and unevenly browned.. ): I wonder why? Is it the oven’s fault? (the healting element refused to turn red again)

Look at the texture! It’s so smooth! Soft with a melt-in-your-mouth feel.

The recipe!

Beans on Toast

I love beans and I love toast. Inspired by this, i embarked on a mission to create a beans on toast breakfast.

Beans on toast, a comfort food to many, ranks among the finiest example of British cuisine.

According to the BoT experts, Heinz baked beans, perferably made in Uk, are strongly recommended for beans on toast.

Upon tasting this ‘delicacy’, my comment is that the beans taste like beans and the toast tastes like toast(-_-!). I have expected the two to combine and create some magic on my tastebuds but that was not the case.

However, when i reached the end of the first toast, i realise that I’m craving for more. Maybe it’s because how interesting and cute it looks. It makes you want to eat it, beckoning to you, saying ‘eat me, eat me!!! now!!’. Eventually, you to give in just to sense the satisfaction of feeling it disintegrate in your mouth again..

A new creation – toast beneath beans

/ I have a weird habit when eating toast. I hate flattened toast, which sometimes happen when you bite hard into it(mostly bread with lots of fillings – especially sandwiches). I like to eat bread while maintaining it’s thickness. Bread must never be chewy.. Soft, soggy or crispy.. never chewy. Fortunately this hardly happens unless it’s white bread.

The next time i make this, i’ll just lightly toast the bread, so that it becomes soggy from the beans(: Overly toasted bread makes the toast half crispy half soggy, which makes it rather tough to chew. :/

Shall try it with scrambled eggs too.

Satsuma-imo cake failure!

Satsumaimo(japanese sweet potatoes) has mildly sweet and mashy flesh with a hint of chestnuts’ lovely taste. Being wholesome and nutritious as well, it is another one of my loves. (:

A miserable attempt at replicating the sweet potato cake i bought at the hokkaido fair last year partly due to the crazy oven screwing up at home.. Those cakes were sitting in the oven for half an hour, but somehow the heating element is not turning red and doesn’t seem to be warming up. In fact, the batter shows no sign of being cooked at all!

Feeling that something was amiss, I restarted the oven and set the temperature 5 degrees higher(i wonder why i did that??).. but i never expect that within 5 minutes, i smelt a slight ‘burnt’ smell. Ah!!!!!!!!

My ‘cake’ turned out looking like flat crabcakes. ):

I couldn’t get the ‘cake’ out of the oven nicely, the bottom part was abit burnt too(but i ate them up all the same)..

The saving grace was the inside.. it remained soft and moist and retained the lovely sweet potato taste.. i ate one straight out of the oven. (:

This is how i made it:

These are japanese sweet potatoes, the kind which i love best. (:

Firstly, they are deskinned(ouch) and mashed.. To make deskinning a more enjoyable process, you can eat up the skins while you do it and secretly steal a few bites of the warm potato. (:

Then, add milk, brown sugar and butter to the batter. Mix mix and it’s ready to bake! (:

A complete failure this time round, but I’ll definitely try it again!!! Must achieve the soft, custardly, gooey, fabulous sensation….. hmmmMm.. ..

/ This is not really a typical cake like chiffons or spongcakes. Instead it taste like the filling of sweet potato pie and has the texture of smooth mashed potato though it tastes nothing like it. (:

I got the recipe here!

Here’s a sucessful attempt by Shari ! It’s so beautiful!

The oven is screwing up my bakes with temperatures soaring high at times and the heating element shutting down automatically at times!!! ):

Zzzz…… …

Wholemeal Pikelets

After procrastinating for such a long time, i finally get to enjoy the bliss of a leisurely breakfast of healthy homemade pikelets. (:

Brother was my guinea pig :p The pikelets above were custom-made for him, thin with slightly crispy edges.

Those are mine, abit thicker and fluffier, topped with my favourite St. Dalfour jam and peanut better with a generous sprinkle of cinnamon and walnuts. The combo of honey and peanut butter dusted with cinnamon is delightful as well. (: Add a cup of hot tea to that and you’re nice to go.

Those little round pikelets tasted really wholesome but it was abit dry, shall have it with a fresh squeeze of lemon next time like what Infaredherring suggested.

This is actually my first time attempting pancakes/pikelets on my own. Despite the batter being easily whipped up in a couple of minutes, I’m not sure if I’ve got the right consistency. It was quite thick, making it hard for me to achieve evenly rounded and sized pikelets. Perhaps i should have used a larger egg? Or should i have used full cream milk instead of evaporated milk?

Scones (and waffles)

There are some things in life which you love so much that the sight, sound and smell of it never fails to excite you and ignite your senses..

It is like how clownfishes are attracted to anemone, how monkeys are ‘bribed’ by bananas, how bulls are married to red cloths.. or..

how I’m attracted to scones.

I find myself helplessly eyeing the display counters of cafes as I walk pass them, snapping a mental image of those lovely treats in my mind..

Scones holds a special place in my heart. Imagine a breakfast of freshly baked scones with a cup of tea.. The familiar and comforting taste of the crumbly mash of milky warmth melting in my mouth sends endophrins swimming all over me.. pair it with some homemade strawberry jam and that’s something absolutely divine. The rough and dry texture of the scone paints a picture of a laid-back, relaxing scene of a countryside.. I find this image wandering in my mind every now and then, but in actual fact, i haven’t eaten a truely authuentic scone before.

In fact, I’ve only eaten scones from 2 places, one is the buttermilk biscuit from Popeyes, the other, a vanilla scone from Four Seasons’ Hotel at baby’s sister’s ROM. Although I prefer the former, but both experiences craved a deep impression in my mind.

To me, the perfect scone should taste neither like biscuit nor cake. It should not be chewy like some breads. Scones are scones and they are unique in it’s own special way.. it is crumbly and calms the soul with it’s buttery, milky taste and aroma. Although they may look messy and comes in imperfect shapes, but that’s what i love about it. It makes them look like such easy-going, fun and careless darlings unlike those fancy donuts which are perfected to every little detail..

Should i try baking some scones?

/sidetracking/ I still love my waffles but bakery waffles are failing my standards lately.. ): too chewy and elastic.. and tastes like rubberbands in shades of artificial green.. i miss the waffle near my school.

Should i get a waffle maker?

School

Went back to school today to collect my certificate.

Nothing much changed, and it seems like yesterday that i was walking along the linkway, climbing the stairs that are all over the school, painting in the art room, queuing up to buy cai fan, dreading cca..

Strangly, the only thing i really miss is the art room and the times spent there after school, which i hated so much during those days.

Chocolate cookie

Cookie making upon waking!

The cookie batter gave me alot of problems! First they were too watery and expanded like mad in the oven, turning out even flatter than pancakes. They were chocolate crisps instead of cookies! :p However, the crisps managed to be REALLY crispy and chocolatey..

Added some more flour to thicken the batter, and it turned out more cookie-like..

Guess i need more experimenting!

My camera’s going to hongkong for 9 days so shall have to make do with handphone pictures.. i hate how it can’t focus well and take macro close up shots! D:

Cedele!

It’s 12:05AM and I’m supposed to be in bed but I’m feeling terribly distracted and excited and my thoughts are running wild and my mind is saturated with.. with…..

Breakfast in a precious box given by a dear dear boy. Hehe~~ I’ve been waiting to try this for ages!!!

:D I can’t wait to wake up!

8:32am AHHHHHH I’meatingitnowandit’ssodelicious!!!!

Carrot walnut cake! (:

Full of carrot shreds and coated with plentiful of fresh crunchy walnuts, the cake itself is light on the tastebuds and is wonderfully delicious when paired with the cream cheese which is rich but not sickening-ly sweet or cheesey. Instead, it tastes really refreshing with the hint of spices! Yum! The cheese was abit too rich for me towards the end, but it’s just me as I’m not really a cheese person. :p

There’s black walnuts(rather exotic) in the cake as well! What a great start to the day..

I had mini assorted cakes, vanilla scone with strawberry jam and waffles with maple syrup, chocolate and walnuts on the same day too.. and i also witnessed the sweet marriage of one who shares the same name with me. (:

laughing out loud

Had a crazy time at the airport last night..

Taking crazy pictures of fingers and ourselves(censored haha)..

and learning the art of flipping eyelids.