Black forest cake III

Another blackforest cake but with a different decoration. This one is for my third aunt's birthday. She requested for this cake after she tried the one I baked for my cousin's baby's full month birthday. This is definitely a popular cake among my relatives.
Chocolate sponge cake and whipped cream recipes are taken from Rose Levy Beranbaum Cake Bible book and the chocolate whipped cream recipe is taken from Pierre Herme Chocolate Desserts book. I love to use fruits to decorate cakes. It's much easier than using cream to pipe borders and patterns on the cake. And fruits are much more appealing and healthier than loads of cream. Maybe that's an excuse as I'm not good at piping yet.

Chinese Reunion Dinner 2011

Bunny hop, hop to the lunar year of the Rabbit. It's feasting time again with my parents and brother, my sister and her family and my family. This year, I decided not to prepare steamboat. Instead, I whipped up a feast. On the menu were coffee pork, my mum's speciality - "ngoh hiang", braised mushroom (got this recipe from my friend Christine) with broccoli, steam pomfret, steam prawns and stir-fried leek with beancurd and button mushroom. Preparation work started the night before and ended just before dinner started. What a long day! But it's all worth it. This is the first time I have cooked so many dishes at one go. Must give myself a pat on the shoulder for a job well done. Haha .....



Coffee Pork

Got this coffee pork recipe from watching the Chinese 三菜一汤 cooking show. It's pretty simple to prepare and yummy ..... 


Braised mushroom with broccoli

What is Chinese New Year feast without abalone and fatt choy? Got this scrumptious recipe from my golfing buddy, Christine. However, I omitted the dried oyster as I don't like the taste. This dish can be cooked earlier as it takes two hours to simmer the braised mushroom, dried scallop and pork belly.


Teochew steam pomfret



Stir fried leek with beancurd and button mushrooms

My mum told me I have to include leek as a dish as eating leek during lunar new year means having lots of money to count that year. I don't eat leek and have never cooked one. So it's a challenge for me. In the end, I decided to just stir fry it with panfried firm beancurd. I happen to have lots of button mushrooms which are going to rot soon if I don't cook it. So I just added them to the dish. This simple dish turned out to be yummy and I love it. Everyone, including my mum, gives me the thumbs up.

My brother, nephew and niece, and my son Ryan

My parents and hubby enjoying the feast



Chinese New Year Baking Adventure

It's Chinese New Year again and I get a little ambitious this year. For the past few years, I just baked the open-faced pineapple tarts and almond cookies for my mum, sister and my family only. I tried baking the closed pineapple tarts (with modifications to the open-faced tarts) last year after all the CNY frenzy frizzled. It turned out to be good (approved by my daughter). Haha .... It has a buttery texture that just melts in the mouth. Are you drooling already? So I decided to bake the closed version this year, with a few open-faced ones for my son. Can guess the number of pineapples I cooked this time? TWENTY EIGHT. Of course, I did not cook all at one go. I think I cooked them over 4 separate sessions. It's real hard work. No wonder homemade pineapple tarts are so expensive. Since I baked more this year, thus have more to give out to friends and relatives.

Next comes the kueh bangkit. This small, white little biscuit is a little temperamental. Not easy to manage. But I still manage to bake two successful batches of these little morsels that melt in the mouth. I tried with both fresh coconut milk bought from the market and the one bought from the supermarket. The verdict : fresh coconut milk won.

What did I do with those that do not have the melt in the mouth texture? Still eat them and treat them like eating biscuits ...........

Almond cookies. This is the easiest one to make and the healthiest. No butter and eggs. Just toasted almonds with skin on ground coarsely, flour, icing sugar and corn oil. Easy. Isn't it?

Here's all that I have.