Lydia's 2 tomorrow

It's been almost 2 years since this little bubble of joy came out of my tummy.

I'm so busy these few days preparing for her tea party on Sunday. Making 2 cakes, one for cutting, one for extra servings (1 cake can't feed all), Sushi Sandwich, Sambal Boats, mini Cha Siew Pao, Longan Tofu, Mango Pudding, Mini Fruit Flans, and large cookie sticks for the kids.

My Lydia,
She loves food, sometimes so much until I find it hard to bake and cook in her presense. She'll eat raw dough(if i walk away from the table for a while), she calls it bread!!!! She loves to play and it makes everyone around her laughing their hearts out. Her generous Hellos, Hi's and Byes makes every friend or stranger feels so warm and welcomed. She is a loving sister to Lyanne, a loving daughter to me and Mike that is generous with her kisses and hugs. Lydia loves to sing and dance, loves Barney and Mickey, and she loves to reboot our computers!!!! Urgh, I hate the last one.

Here are some recent pics of her.

She loves to jump when taking pics



She loves pens, pencils, and brushes



She loves to go out for meals, sits quietly and feeds herself


She loves to twang on the piano .. and guitars

Lydia, mommy pray that you will grow up healthy and happy everyday

Chinese Steamed Egg 蒸水蛋

I was asked by my hubby's cousin, Elaine, whether my forte is cakes. Haha! No... It's just that lately I haven't been cooking as much as I did last time(b4 Lyanne's birth), but I still baked, and I can say, even more. Ever since I could make the darned sponge, it made me more adventurous, wanting to try to make almost anything to comes to my mind. But, not only cakes, I still have a big list of things I want to bake. I love to eat cakes and pastries, actually, love to eat almost everything. Haha! A glutton!

So, here is one dish that was saved up for backposting.... since the day of spicy pan fried mackeral.. it was made on the same day. But was wanting to post the other stuff first.

Steamed egg, one of the simplest dishes that is not that easy to make. It’s easy to beat eggs. The tough part is to steam it and get that silky texture. It's the chinese version of Chawan Mushi. You can add in century eggs, salted egg, or even minced meat. But if u're adding in minced meat, make sure u steam it on a higher temperature.

To make a serving for 2..
100ml eggs
200ml water
¼ tsp salt
A lilte bit of oil and sesame oil

Beat eggs with salt and a few drops of sesame oil. Combine with water.
Grease a stainless steel dish with a bit of oil. Pour egg mixture into dish.
Place a steaming rack into wok, fill it with water 1cm below the steaming rack and bring the water to a boil. When water has come to a boil, reduce heat to low. Steam egg with the water barely simmering until centre of egg is no longer watery, as in solidified (not wood hard!). When egg is ready, sprinkle some pepper and a teaspoon of light soy sauce onto it.

Time is variable to your hob's heat,and the pot/wok u use to steam. Mine took me about 20 minutes.

Remember to cover the wok while steaming.

Steamed Sweet Potato Mantou

Mantou or steamed plain buns, are nice to eat. Be it on its own or dipped in gravy. It's good.

I used to make this by guesstimate last time, but now, I made an exact formula for it. This method of shaping was taught by my MIL. She used to make freaking good Sweet Potato Buns, altho I've never tasted them b4, they sold like hot cakes back when she made them for sale. Mike said they(MIL's) were good, very good. Well, this is not her recipe, she's lost hers. Too bad for me!

Steamed Sweet Potato Mantou/Buns Recipe
500gm pau flour
250gm steamed orange sweet potato.
100gm sugar
1 Tbsp double action baking powder
½ tsp salt
40gm shortening, melted
11gm yeast (1sachet)
½ tsp sugar
150ml water

1. Proof yeast with 1/2 tsp sugar and water until it froths.
2. Mix flour, D.A. B/P , sugar and salt together. Knead in steamed sweet potatoes. Flour mixture will look crumbly.
3. Pour in frothy yeast mixture and combine to form a dough. Knead until dough no longer sticky and turns smooth. Add more flour if it's too sticky or more water(by the teaspoon) if it's way too dry. Only add in more water if u cannot gather all the flour into the dough. How much water depends on the moisture content of the sweet potato4. When dough is smooth, knead in melted shortening, until dough no longer feels oily.
5. Leave to proof until double, about an hour.
6. Punch down and knead for another minute. Divide dough into 35gm pieces, and shape as u like. Leave to proof until shaped mantou has doubled.
7. Steam on high heat for 12-15 minutes.


The Method of Shaping Sweet Potato Bun

The bounty.... all doubled up, ready for the steamer


Steamed and yummy, ready for my tummy

Updated 17/4/2013: Video on how to shape the buns

Strawberry Yogurt Cake

Made this cake for my cousin Grace. It was a cleaning the pantry cake.. no la.

Well, she requested that I make something for her, if I have the time. And I planned to visit her, and I'm not going to Ipoh, so I can only make with whatever is in my fridge. She wanted the Jap Strawberry Shortcake, but I don't have enough strawberries for that. So I made her this Strawberry Yogurt Cake

Hope Grace, Amanda, Marc, Chloe, Paul, Ah Bak and Bak Leong, oh yes, also Seh the maid enjoyed this cake.

Ingredients:
Sponge Cake: (U may substitute this with sponge mix. Bake according to manufacturer's instructions)
5 eggs
150 sugar

100gm flour
25gm cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking powder
50ml milk + 1 tsp vanilla extract

50gm butter, melted

Beat eggs and sugar over hot water until mixture is thick, and pale for about 5 mins on high until Ribbon stage. The bubbles should be very very fine. Sift flour, cornstarch and baking powder together. Fold in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with milk.
Lastly, put some batter into the melted butter, and combine. Put the buttered batter back into the main batter and fold to combine. Pour batter into a 8 or 9 inch round pan (bottom lined). Bake in a preheated oven of 170/180C for 30-35 minutes. Overturn cake for 2 mins after removal from oven and turn it upright again. Loosen sides from pan and remove from pan for total cooling. Slice cake into 2 layers and freeze until it's time to add filling.


Filling:500gm good strawberry yogurt
100gm whipped topping cream (coolwhip, or any other non dairy topping. If it's in unwhipped conditions, whip it until soft peaks)
1 1/2 Tbsp gelatine + 60 ml water (soak for 1 minute and microwave at High for 30 secs. Make sure gelatine has dissolved. If not give it another 10-15 secs on high. Leave aside to cool.)

Mix yogurt with whipped topping cream. Put in dissolved gelatine and mix to combine. Prepare a 9inch cake ring and line it with either cling wrap/ alu foil or plastic cake seperator linings. Remove cake from freezer. Put 1 slice of the cake into the ring. Put half the filling onto the slice of the cake in ring, level the filling and top with another slice. Pour the other half of filling onto the cake. Chill for 3 hours or until gelatine is set. Decorate with some cream rosettes and fresh strawberries.

Citrus Cream Cheese Pound Cake

I’ve got to admit here. I’ve got a lot of backlogs!!! Say…. Just by posting them one per week, will take me months to finish. But I can’t be posting so many at one go, as it take up my time. With the writings and editing of pics…. Esp those with picture instructions, Eg: pulut panggang and orange chiffon cake. I’ve got an infant,a toddler and I cook dinner and I do housework…. Bla bla bla…..

Sorry.. so, I’ll try to post as often as I can.

Why so many backlogs..? Cos when MIL was around(she came back for Lyanne’s birth, and she went back to US 6 weeks back), I was baking and cooking a lot. Well, I need people to eat my food… and she really does make me happy cooking and baking. No.. no.. she’s no glutton, just that, when people appreciate what u do, u just seem to enjoy doing it, and doing it more. And I was trying to save the posts.. just in case after she left.. I don’t cook or bake something that I feel like posting, and I have backups to prevent my blog from getting dry. But … it didn’t happen… I still baked and cooked.. just not that often, but enough to blog.

This post has been chased after by Amy… Oh Amy, sorry for being so late. I’m glad u liked this cake so much.

Recipe adapted from Simply Anne’s. You can go to her blog from my links. Thanks Anne. Hers used mango and calamansi, but I wanted to make it full citrus. Orange, lemon and lime….. I love citrus.

The recipe I adapted it from used only 180gm cream cheese… I don’t like half used cream cheeses in my fridge, so I jacked up the whole recipe. I made a lot of cakes!!! 2 mini loaves (3X6inch), and 30 mini muffins and 20 medium muffins (egg tart size)

167gm butter
250gm cream cheese
280gm sugar
3 tsp baking powder
300gm cake flour
6 large eggs
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1 Tbsp orange zest
60ml orange juice

1½ cups icing sugar
1 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp lime juice
Lime zest for garnish

1. Preheat oven at 170/180C
2. Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Beat in eggs, one by one. Make sure batter is well combined with each addition. Put in orange juice. Mix well.
4. Sift cake flour and baking powder. Mix with orange and lemon zest.
5. Add (3) into (2), in 3 additions. Mix until no more flour is seen and batter is smooth. Do not overmix.
6. Spoon batter into muffin cups (bake at 170/180C for 17-20 mins) or into mini loaf pans(170/180C for 25 mins)
7. To prepare glaze, put icing sugar into a bowl. Make a well in the center and put in lemon juice and lime juice. Mix until well combined. If consistency is not thin enough, add in more juices of preference. Pour glaze onto warm cakes.