Baked Banana Cake

Not posting till Friday! I’ll be away from home.

After making the steamed banana cake, i decided to make baked ones to make a comparison. Chanced upon a banana cake recipe from Baking Mum and decided to give it a try since i have all the ingredients on hand. (:

The result did not disappoint! I halved the recipe and used less sugar.. the mixing of the batter was straightforward. I replaced the banana essence with vanilla essence and the whole house smelt like vanilla + banana ice cream when it was baking!

The cake turned out so soft and fluffy which is quite a pleasant surprise to me. (: It literally sprung back when i depress it! So fluffy and moist~~

Give it a try if you have the ingredients on hand!

Personally i prefer the baked version to the steamed one.. cakes just taste yummier with butter!

Hakka Niang Tofu

Hakka Niang Toufu is different from the ones sold outside. Instead of the pale white fish paste that goes on most yong tofus, we have minced meat mixed with fishpaste, with bits of water chestnut for that extra crunch and spring onions for bits of green colour. Taste it all in one bite for that interesting texture and taste. (:

Bittergourd is well loved by sis and dad~ but an absolute no-no for b. :p

Brinjal is my favourite!

Made them with ma yesterday. b came to try even though he’s feeling unwell(again..).. take care of yourself ok..

Steamed Banana Cake~

/edit/

A close up of the cake sliced~ I baked it in a loaf pan..

What do you think? Hee.. personally the cake looks kind of pale to me.. maybe it’s because i didn’t use overiped bananas.. also it’s abit dry the next day if it’s not re-steamed.

I steamed it in the rice cooker this morning and had warm and soft banana cake with peanut butter and cinnamon for breakfast! (: Yums.

Steamed banana cake! No butter! :0

I ate a piece right out of the steamer and indeed it’s softt~ like banana chinese steamed cake. It’s very fragrant too~

Here’s the new bento belt in action.

Bringing my first steam cake attempt to the guinea pigs later.. :p

recipe from Amanda’s ‘Held by Love, baked from scratch’~

Mee suah with red eggs~

First time cooking mee suah with b~ Looks quite good? Hee..

Commonly served during birthdays and CNY, mee suah symbolises longevity. Foochows eat Red wine mee suah which is meesuah in a red broth that looked pretty interesting but i’ve not tried it before.

Coupled with 2 red eggs, it makes an auspicious birthday surprise for b’s mummy.

The simple pleasures in life. (:

Baking Disaster Muffins

/edit/Here’s the second batch of ‘happy’ M&ns muffin(with a different flour) to brighten up the mood:

‘Happy’ muffins by a not-so-happy girl..

:p Tomorrow will be a better day(b’s coming back!!!!).

I miss you!

——-

I’ve just made a batch of failure muffins….

and I’ve just found out the reason to why my baking attempts has been weird recently…

it’s because….

the flour mummy brought back from aunt’s house is CORNFLOUR and NOT plain flour!!!!!!!!!!

She kept assuring me that it was plain flour until aunt dropped by today.

I am so disappointed…….. ): A totally failed attempt and worse of all, it isn’t my fault(not ma’s either, it’s the flour’s fault)!

Look at the inside.. it’s totally not for human consumption!(it looks like rubber)

——
Anyway after reading xj’s comment, i wonder if there’re other silent readers?
If you don’t mind, please leave a comment, it’ll make me happy. :D

Anyone~~~

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!

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?

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: