#22 : Chocolate Torte

I did have a bad experience baking cake with no raising agents. Failures. They say that the key was to fold in the batter really carefully. Yet I had never made it successful. So when I saw this recipe, I felt intimidated. But I decided to try it anyway. And I was really happy with the result! :) The cake raised during baking but then it sunk back once it was taken out. The smell of the chocolate was also so GOOD. My sis loved it so much and she said that it was more like a mudcake. It didn't taste sweet. It tasted rich in chocolate. I am so going to make this cake again someday. I got the recipe from Happy Home Baking

I thought why not trying to do some decorations? I gave it a go and it was just ugly :( I needed to learn more about cake decorating. So what I did was I tried to make the ganache out of milk chocolate. It should be dark chocolates but I didn't have it so milk chocolate it was. And it was not enough to cover the whole cake. The cake also had a little cracked on the top. Well HHB said that it was supposed to crack so I didn't mind. I used the wafer sticks to cover the sides. And after I did the ganache I pour some hundreds and thousands.



Ingredients:
(makes 18cm round cake)
- 150g dark chocolate
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 egg whites
- 70g caster sugar
- 30g cake flour (*) = 5g cornflour +25g flour
- 15g cocoa powder

(*) I substitute the cake flour with 5g cornflour and 25g flour

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder and cornflour twice.
3. Melt dark chocolate, add in butter and mix well. Let cool.
4 Whisk egg yolk with 35g sugar until thick, creamy and mustard like.
5. Add in chocolate/butter mixture. Whisk until well combined.
6. Add in sifted flour and fold gently. Set aside.
7. Beat 35g sugar and egg whites until foamy and stiff peaks form.
8. Add egg whites mixture to the egg yolk mixture in three additions. Fold gently.
9. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the skewer comes clean.
10. Remove cake from oven, leave it in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack.

#21 : Corn Fritters (Bakwan Jagung)

I made them upon my sister's request. She's been having this craving for these Indonesian corn fritters. They're simple to make, not as complicated as what I thought they would be. I got the recipe from My Online Recipe but I didn't exactly follow the measurement :



Ingredients :
- 2 sweet corn kernels (I used 2 cans of sweet corns)
- 1 green onion (I used 2 or 3)
- 1 minced garlic (I used 2 or 3 tsp of ready-minced garlic)
- 1 egg
- 6 tbsp flour
- 50 cc water (I omitted this)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- some pepper
- 1/2 tsp baking soda

Ingredients:
1. Mash the corn kernels until it is half-mashed.
2. Mix corn kernels, garlic, egg, green onions until well-mixed. Add in the flour, salt, sugar, pepper.
3. Right before frying, add the baking soda and mix well.
4. Spoon a teaspoon and fry in hot oil until it's golden.

My sister seems to love them very much but for me they're just regular corn fritters.

#20 : Pakne Cupcakes :D

It was my first time making cupcakes from the scratch and I used the recipe from the book that Erika gave to me : "1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats". I used the very first recipe "Iced Fairy Cakes". I was planning to decorate one cupcake with one letter for "Happy Birthday Pakne" so I used the mini muffin tins. The problem was that I didn't have a good consistency in pouring the batter into the tins. Sometimes I filled 2/3 sometimes I almost filled it full. So the shape of some of the cupcakes turned out weird so I needed to trim them using a bread knife. And they also differred in sizes :(

It was also my first time making the icing. If you decide to use food coloring liquid, just add some icing sugar to have the right consistency of the icing.


It was also my first time working with fondant. I used the ready to roll fondant which I bought from supermarket. When I tried to add some color, it got sticky! Then I found out that if I want to give some color to fondant, use food coloring paste instead of the liquid. At that moment I only had food coloring liquid. So I threw away all the ruined fondant.

With the letter, I used the edible decorations that I bought a few months ago. Well I think it was best to use the fondant though because the color of the letter didn't really match with the cupcakes. They were pink but different pinks.



Ingredients
- 115g butter
- 115g caster sugar
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 115g self-raising flour
Icing
- 200g icing sugar
- 2tbsp warm water
- a few drops of food coloring (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190C. Line and grease the muffin tins.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in eggs.
3. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Icing : mix the icing sugar with the warm water and add some food coloring - spread the icing over the cupcakes and decorate as desired.

#19 : Corn, Egg and Bacon Tarts

I always love breakfast, especially with those sunny side egg. Tempting. So when I saw the recipe, I knew I had to make them. I planned to make two of them but instead I made six because the muffin hole was too small. Recipe is from Taste.com.au.



Ingredients

• olive oil cooking spray
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 4 shortcut bacon rashers, chopped
• 310g can corn kernels, drained
• 4 sheets filo pastry
• 4 free-range eggs
• 60g mixed salad leaves, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Spray four 3/4 -cup capacity Texas muffin holes with oil. Heat oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add green onions and bacon. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until bacon is light golden. Remove from heat. Stir in corn. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Place 1 pastry sheet on workbench. Spray with oil. Fold in half crossways. Spray top with oil and cut in half crossways. Use pastry squares to line base and sides of 1 muffin hole, allowing a 2cm overhang. Repeat with remaining pastry and oil.
3. Divide corn mixture between tart cases. Break 1 egg into each tart case (keep yolk intact). Bake for 20 minutes or until egg is just set. Season with pepper. Serve with salad leaves.

#18 : Blueberry Cream Muffins

One and a half box of sour cream was going to expire soon. Such a waste to throw them away so I looked for some recipes. I googled "sour cream recipe" and most of the results were blueberry muffins. So I baked them. Recipe was from AllRecipes.com and has great reviews. The thing is that I only had 360g sour cream, 100gr short from the recipe so I reduced the amount of the flour to 400g. I didn't weigh the blueberries too, I just used a box of blueberries from Woolworths.

The muffins taste good. Not too sweet and not sour. Just right. This recipe is definitely a keeper :)


Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 400g white sugar
- 235 vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 500g plain flour (I used 420g)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 460g sour cream (I used 360g)
- 290 blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffins liners.
2. Beat eggs, gradually add egg sugar while beating. Continue beating while pouring in oil. Stir in vanilla.
3. Sift all dry ingredients and add them into the egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries.
4. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
5. Bake for 20 minutes.

#17 : Klepon (Sweet Coconut Rice Balls)

Klepon is indeed really easy to make. Yet it made the most mess in my kitchen. Well it's not Klepon's fault. It was mine. I didn't know why but everything seemed to be crazy. I tried to open the packet of grated coconut and when I did it, the grated coconut was flying everywhere because I tore the packet too hard. And the worst part was the grated coconut was accidentally poured into the dough. OMG I just wanted to shoot myself at that time. But I managed to clean the mess though so it was okay.

Also when I boiled the balls, some of them were torn so the sugar leaked in the boiling water :( But most of them were good so it was okay. And most importantly, they tasted great although the color of the sugar was not brown.

The recipe was taken from here :

Ingredients :
- 1 1/2 cups glutinous rice powder
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water (I used coconut milk)
- 8 tsp grated dark Java sugar (I used palm sugar)
- 1 cup grated coconut mixed with 1/2 tsp salt
- green food coloring

Directions:
1. Mix glutinous rice powder and coconut milk. Add some green food coloring. Mix until the dough is firm yet flexible.
2. Pull one teaspoon of the dough and make a ball out of it with the palms of your hands (I just made the balls without using teaspoon - you can make any size you want).
3. Push a finger on the center of the ball to make a hole and put approximately 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar in it. (Again, I just estimate the sugar, I didn't use any teaspoon). Prepare all the balls and set them aside. (I found that the longer you take for making the balls, the sugar leaked from some of the balls which were ready to be boiled).
4. Prepare a pot filled with water and bring to boil.
5. Drop the balls into the boiling water. Remove the balls from pot once they float to the surface.
6. Roll the balls on the grated coconut. Serve at room temperature.

#16 : Indonesian Curry Chicken

I cooked this chicken curry for my sister last night for her lunch. I used the Bamboe instant curry mix so there was less thrill in cooking the dish. Well no thrill actually. But I had fun trying to do the garnish :)