Marble Butter Cake

I love marble butter cake. When I was a little child, I used to buy pieces of marble butter cakes from the neighbourhood Indian bread vendor who plied through the neighbourhood with his motorcycle. This cake makes me reminisce about my childhood memories. It brings back the little girl in me. I think everybody have had marbled butter cake at least once at any point of their lives. So there is no reason why you do not know the existence of this cake. I can safely say that this old-fashioned cake brings warmth into our hearts. 

Butter is the main ingredient in a butter cake. Therefore using a good quality butter is of utmost importance. It really shows. Trust me! I used Golden Churn butter for this cake. The taste is so buttery, moist and sinful.

For this marble butter cake, I used the "Mrs Ng SK vanilla butter cake" recipe and twisted it a bit to turn it into a marble butter cake. It is really very good and the cake is completely wiped finished in a day. I adapted this cake from Mrs Ng SK vanilla butter cake from here.


Marble Butter Cake

Ingredients

250g salted butter, soften (cool at 18ºC-20ºC, not glossy)
200g eggs, without shell (4 grade B eggs), egg yolks and whites separated
50g + 150g caster sugar

200g self raising flour, sifted
60ml full cream milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 170ºC. Line the base and grease the sides of an 8 inch square pan.

2. Whip the egg whites till soft peak.Gradually add in 50g sugar and beat till stiff peak.

3. In another bowl, cream butter and 150g sugar till pale and fluffy. Add in vanilla essence and gradually add in egg yolk one after another. Beat well after each addition.

4. Add in half of the flour and mix on low speed till incorporated.

5. Add in milk in two additions and mix till well incorporated.

6. Mix in the remaining flour.

7. Add in half of the egg whites and mix on low speed.

8. Gently fold in the remaining egg whites.

9. Gently scoop out 3 ladleful of the cake batter into a separate bowl. Add in cocoa powder and mix well.

10. Alternate dollops of each batter into the cake pan till all batter is used up.

11. Use a stick or butter knife to lightly swirl the batter for the marble effect. Be careful not to overmix.

12. Gently tap the pan several time to release any trapped air bubble.

13. Bake at 170ºC for 45 minutes till skewer comes out clean. (I reduced the temperature to 150ºC 10 minutes into baking as it seems to brown very fast and I baked my cake for 20 minutes)

Note: Adjust the temperature and baking time according to your oven. Different oven might be different.

Kuih Keria (Sweet Potato Doughnuts)

I still have some sweet potatoes in my pantry. So, I decided to use the sweet potatoes to make a small batch of kuih keria, a type of local kueh. I googled for the recipe and finally settled for this recipe from here. I made some alteration to the recipe. Since I just ran out of tapioca flour, I substituted it with corn flour.

Kuih Keria

Ingredients:

250g boiled sweet potatoes
1 tbsp corn flour
80g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

80g caster sugar
3 tbsp water

Method:

1. Mashed sweet potatoes when it is still hot.

2. Add salt, corn flour and all purpose flour to the mashed potatoes and knead till well mixed and smooth.

3. Divide dough into 8 portions with each portion weighing roughly 41g to 42g.

4. Roll into a ball and flatten into a disk with your palm.

5. Use a chopstick to make a hole on the middle of the disk.

6. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

7. Fry in medium hot oil till golden.

8. Drain on absorbent paper and set aside to let it cool.

9. To prepare the sugar coating, add sugar and water into a wok and cook till the syrup thicken.

10. Pour the fried keria into the wok and coat with the syrup.

11. Stir till the syrup turn stringy and off the heat.

12. Continue to stir till the syrup dried out and all the keria has been coated with sugar.

13. Best served hot.

Playdough for the Girls

The girls requested for playdough so that they can make "food" and "dessert" with it. No matter how daddy tried to changed their minds, they still insists they want this set. Daddy actually prefer them to play with building blocks. They said they want to make yummy food like mummy. Hahaha! So, daddy have no choice but to buy this for them.

Fluffy Pancakes

The girls have been requesting for pancakes for few days before I finally made for them. I normally make the oriental style pancakes that I had as a child, which consists of only flour, water, butter/margarine, sugar and egg. I have always like that version maybe due to the fact that I have been having it since I was little and I like to have it crispy, not fluffy.

However, I made the western style pancakes for the girls this round. It was quite nice and fluffy. This recipe is sourced from here and I made some minor substitution to the recipe.

Fluffy Pancakes

Make: 6-7 pancakes

Ingredients:

3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate
1/2 tsp salt
1 grade A egg
2 tbsp + 1 tsp butter, melted

Method:

1. Combine milk and vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes.

2. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, soda bicarbonate and salt in a large bowl. Mix well.

3. Whisk egg and 2 tbsp melted butter into the sour milk mixture.

4. Pour the dry ingredients (flour mixture) into the wet ingredients and whisk till all the lumps are gone.

5. Heat a pancake skillet or pan and coat with 1 tsp melted butter. Pour a ladleful of batter onto the skillet/pan and cook till bubbles appear on the surface.

6. Flip and brown the other side of the pancake.

Chilli Crabs

It has been quite a while since I last cooked crabs at home. I think the last time I cooked crab was before Cheryl started to eat the same food as daddy and mummy as I find it quite troublesome and inconvenient to serve crabs to kids at such young age. During these period, we only have crabs when we eat out, which is a rare occasion.

When we went for our weekly grocery shopping at Aeon the other day, we decided to buy 2 medium-sized flower crabs to re-establish our connection with these sea creature with pincers. Hahaha! What a funny description. By the way, it costs us about RM12 for the 2 medium-sized crabs.

Initially, I was quite indecisive on whether to give it a more modern feel or cook it the more traditional way. If my memory serves me right, I remembered the last time I made a crab dish, it was butter crabs. So, this round I decided to make a more traditional crab dish with the crabs, which I think is the best. So, chilli crabs it is! Whenever, mum cooked crabs, she always made chilli crab. Even my MIL and grandma also only made chilli crab with crabs. 

Few years back, there was an uproar when Ng Yen Yen, the Malaysia's Tourism Minister claimed that chilli crab among other dishes is Malaysian. Singapore on the other hand claimed that chilli crab is their national dish and that it originated from their island. No matter what is their point of argument, both sides agreed that the dish was introduced in the 1950s. I find it quite hard to establish where it originated from as both countries are closely connected. What I know is that I have been eating chili crab since I was a little girl. Maybe it is not a question of who is copying who and who should claim ownership of the dish. At that point of time, the only sauces widely available to the locals are chilli sauce and tomato sauce. So that was what the locals used in the preparation of the dish. Maybe it is just a co-incidence that both countries came out with this dish. However, every chef or home cook have their own blend of ingredients apart from the main sauces ie the tomato sauce and chilli sauce. So, chilli crabs created by different people have different unique identity. Hmmm on second thought, maybe the dish is Malaysian after all as no matter whether it originated from Malaysia or Singapore, the fact is that Singapore was still part of Malaysia then.

I don't know how Singapore's chilli crab taste like as I have not tasted one yet. This is my version of chilli crab. This round, I didn't add in 1 whole egg. I only used the remaining egg whites that I have from making other thing.

Chilli Crabs

Ingredients:

2 medium-sized flower crabs, cleaned and cut

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 shallots, minced

4 tbsp tomato sauce

1 tbsp chilli sauce

1 tbsp fermented yellow bean paste

1 tsp oyster sauce

1-2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp light soy sauce

Water

1 egg, beaten

Method:

1. Heat oil in a wok. add in garlic and shallots. Saute till aromatic. 

2. Add in fermented yellow bean paste and sugar. Stir for a while before adding in tomato sauce, chilli sauce and oyster sauce.

3. Stir till evenly mixed. Add in water. 

4. Bring gravy to a boil. Add in crabs. Let it simmer for a while till the crabs are cooked. If required, add in the light soy sauce.

5. Whisk in the beaten egg and dish up.

Patterned Swissroll with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

After postponing my plan to make patterned swissroll for few weeks, I had finally made it last Saturday. The craze for patterned swissroll or deco roll actually started few years back. I had wanted to try my hands on making these cuties then but I have no confidence in pulling it through. So I waited and waited till one fine day when my courange manage to crawl back to me. Phew! Finally .

It is actually quite simple to make this roll. It is not as hard as I imagined it would be. There are basically a few ways to make this roll. Whatever the method is, it involved letting the pattern set before pouring over the rest of the cake batter. The first method would be by piping the pattern and let it set in the freezer before pouring in the cake batter. The other method which I am using is by piping the pattern and pop it into the oven for 2 minutes for it to set and then only pouring in the rest of the batter. I guessed this method is better in our hot tropical weather.

I did not prepare a different paste/batter for the deco/pattern as what most people do. I just scooped out few tablespoons of my base cake batter and tint it with the colours that I need. As I don't use artificial colouring, I sticked to using the only natural tint that I have on hand; cocoa powder and red yeast rice powder. Considering that this is my first attempt, I think I fare quite well, haven't I?

Swissroll Sponge Cake Base & Deco

Ingredients:

60g corn oil

60g full cream milk

24g caster sugar

102g low protein flour

4 egg whites (grade A)

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

70g caster sugar

Method:

1. Whisk egg whites and cream of tartar till foamy.

2. Add in caster sugar and whisk till stiff peak.

3. In another bowl, cream egg yolk with sugar till pale.

4. Add in corn oil and milk. Stir well to combine.

5. Fold in flour.

6. Gently fold in 1/3 of the egg white mixture. Lightly fold in the rest of the egg white mixture till just combined.

7. Scoop out 3 tablespoon of the batter into a clean bowl. Add 1 tsp of red yeast rice powder into the batter. Lightly mix well.

8. Pipe the round shape using the pink batter onto the lined 16" x 13" tray.

9. Add in 1/2 tsp of cocoa powder to the remaining pink batter and mix well. Pipe the stick onto the lined tray using the cocoa batter.

10. Pop the tray into the preheated oven for 2 minutes at 150ºC.

11. Remove from oven and spread the rest of the cake batter over the piped pattern.

12. Gently tap the tray on a hard surface a couple of times.

13. Pop it back into the oven for another 25 minutes at 150ºC to 160ºC.

14. Remove from oven and turn it onto a new piece of baking/parchment paper.

15. Slowly peel off the attached baking paper from the cake. Place another sheet of baking paper over the cake and slowly invert the cake again. The pattern should be at the bottom now.

16. Loosely pre-roll the cake to stretch it.

For the filling, I prepared Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which I adapted from here and halve it. I don't fancy buttercream as it is too sweet to my liking. Therefore I tried my hands at making Swiss Meringue Buttercream as I thought it would't be so sweet. It is not as sweet as the normal buttercream but is still too sweet for my palate. I wonder whether I can reduce the amount of sugar used? Would it affect its texture?

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Ingredients:

50g egg whites

82g caster sugar

112g unsalted butter at room temperature

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

Method:

1. Add egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl, placed over a saucepan of simmering water. Make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water.

2. Whisk constantly till it reached 70ºC.

3. Transfer the egg mixture into mixer bowl.

4. Using the whisk attachment, whisk on high speed to stiff peak (stiff and glossy).

5.Switch to paddle attachment and add the cubes of butter  piece by piece on medium speed. Beat well in each addition. Once all butter are added, beat on high speed till it become fluffy and silky.

6. Add vanilla essence and beat again to incorporate.

To assemble:

1. Spread the Swiss Meringue Buttercream evenly over the cake.

2. Roll it up tightly and wrap with clean parchment paper/cling wrap.

3. Chill in the fridge before serving. 

Orange Curd

I have some oranges sitting in the fridge and I was thinking of making something with them. Making fruit curd would be a good idea since the girls can have breads with orange curd spread. Fruit curd is very versatile. It can be used as frosting, topping, filling or as spreads. Fruit curd is different from fruit jam in the sense that the former has more intense flavour and it is thicker in consistency. 

After having this orange curd, I have definitely fall in love with it. I think this will be a "staple" in our household. 

Orange Curd

Ingredients:

6 grade A egg yolks

3/4 cup caster sugar

1/3 cup fresh orange juice (roughly 2 oranges)

Orange zest (from 2 oranges), finely grated

Lime juice from 1 calamansi lime

120g cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 cubes

Method:

1. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a bowl till smooth. 

2. Add in orange juice, lime juice and orange zest and continue to whisk till combined and smooth.

3. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water and stir. (the bowl should be able to fit and rest over the pot without touching the simmering water) 

4. Continue to stir the mixture till it thicken and scrape the sides and bottom of bowl to prevent it  from sticking as you go along.

5. The curd is ready to be taken off the heat once its consistency reach the stage where it can coat the back of a spoon.

6. Take it off the heat and whisk in cubes of butter, one at a time. Wait till each cube is almost completely melted before adding in the next one.

7. Store in a clean dry glass jar and let it cool down before storing in the fridge.

Note:

1. The water in the pot should be around 1 inch high.

Egg Tofu

Dearest hubby bought so many tubes of egg tofu that I was trying to clear them off the fridge. He had previously bought 3 tubes and it was still sitting in the fridge when he bought another 3 tubes. This is what happened when the person who does grocery shopping doesn't know what else is still in the fridge. 

Most of the time, I would be making sizzling tofu with this kind of egg tofu. However, as hubby and me have very late dinner, by the time we eat, I feel that the tofu is no longer as nice as the gravy would have been non-existent, being soaked up by the tofu and egg. The dishes would normally be ready by 6 or 7pm. So when we have our dinner  around 9.30pm, it would have been left sitting on the dinner table too long. So, this round, I am making a similar but improved version that would remain nice longer. I have also removed some key ingredients which are the egg and mushrooms and minced pork. This is my sizzling tofu without the sizzling hotplate. Since it would be misleading to call this a sizzling tofu, I omitted the word sizzling and I am just naming it egg tofu. ;-O

Egg Tofu

Ingredients:

2 tubes egg tofu, cut into 1 cm thickness
2 inch carrot, diced
6-7 shrimps, cleaned and remove shells
1 stick fishcake, sliced thinly
3 cloves garlic, minced
Dark soy sauce
Light soy sauce
Oyster sauce
Sesame oil
Pepper
Salt
Sugar
Water
Cornflour

Method:

1. Marinade shrimps with sesame oil, light soy sauce and some cornflour. Set aside.

2. Coat the tofu with corn flour and fry till golden. Set aside.

3. Heat 1/2 tbsp oil and add in minced garlic. Saute till aromatic.

4. Add in fishcake slices, shrimps and carrot, followed by few drops of light soy sauce. Stir-fry a while before adding in water, dark soy sauce and oyster sauce.

5. Season with salt, sugar and light soy sauce.

6. If required, blend in thickening (water+cornflour)

7. Once it comes to a boil, add in tofu.

8. Dish up and serve.

Apple Pie

I love McDonald's apple pie. I was actually planning to make apple pie a' la McDonald's but changed my mind at the last minute. I suddenly felt very lazy to do any frying. That was why I end up baking these apple pies. 

When you are lazy, you will sure wants to simplify things. So, instead of making my own pie crust, I used those frozen puff pastry for this. This is really easy. Just prepare the fillings, assemble everything together and then bake. Easy isn't it? As easy as ABC. 

Here I would like to quote what Bill Gates says, "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job ... because  he will find an easy way to do it". I just saw this from Facebook yesterday. Hmmm, this is interesting. I however, don't agree with him. I won't choose a lazy person for difficult task as they will create a lot of mess for you to clear later on and clearing those mess would be more difficult than the original task itself.

Simple Steamed Tofu with Salted Eggs

This is a very simple and easy tofu dish thst I prepared the other day. When you do not feel like cooking or when you are damn tired but you still need to dish out something so that your loved ones have something decent to eat, this could be your solution. This is not something fancy but just a humble country food that I came out with that doesn't require much effort in the kitchen. The inspiration for this dish came from a tofu dish that I tasted from a restaurant some time ago. They used silken tofu arranged on top of shrimps and beaten eggs were poured over it with some sprinkle of salted egg yolk on top. Mine is slightly different. I used egg tofu as that was the only tofu I have on that day. I did not put anything underneath the tofu layer and I arranged thin slices of fishballs on top of the tofu. I used my homemade salted eggs for this recipe where the aroma of spices has been infused into the eggs during brining process. 

Simple Steamed Tofu with Salted Eggs

Ingredients:

2 tubes egg tofu

2 salted duck eggs

5 fishballs

Sesame oil

Pepper

Light soy sauce

Method:

1. Slice tofu into 1/2cm thickness. Arrange them in the steaming plate.

2. Crack 2 salted eggs into a bowl. Separate the whites and the yolks.

3. Transfer the egg yolks into another plate and steam them for 2 minutes, then mash.

4. Beat the salted egg whites and pour it over the tofu. 

5. Top with fishball slices. 

6. Season with light soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil.

7. Sprinkle the salted egg yolks on top and steam on medium-low heat over boiling water for 10 minutes till the egg sets.

See how nice is the egg yolks colour - bright orange

Weekend in Klang

We went back to Klang last weekend. Dad wanted to cook lunch for us but we had made plans earlier to eat at this place called Teppanyaki Grill in the newly renovated Klang Parade. It has been quite a long while since I last stepped foot  into Klang Parade. This newly refurbished place has finally got the much needed facelift. The transformation is really great. It looks like an entirely different place, in a good sense that is. We didn't really stroll around the mall as our purpose is to spend more time with the people we love. Walking around the mall would be nice but the time spent at home would be cut short. So after lunch, we did some grocery shopping and went straight back home. Dad, mum and Hong didn't join us for the grocery shopping but instead headed back home after the lunch.

Here are some of the food that we ordered:-

Supposed to have 5 but 1 goes into someone's tummy before I manage to take a pic, lol

When I reached home, I asked dad whether he wants some kaya or coconut jam. Since I bought a packet of coconut milk from my grocery shopping trip earlier, I can make some kaya for them. I think that was the smoothest kaya that I have made so far and it also took the longest time.

For dinner, dad prepared few dishes and they are so delicious. While cooking his soy sauce chicken, we had some small chat. Dad said grandma made the nicest soy sauce chicken. He love grandma's soy sauce chicken very much. I can't remember whether I had it before or not. It has been too long since grandma left us. I still think of her once in a while even till now.

These were cooked by dad ...

Sardine Buns

I made these sardine buns, I think roughly a week ago but I have no time to post it up till now. These buns were made using water roux method. I have made breads using water roux or tangzhong method few times before. The recipe for this starter dough can be found in this post. If you prefer to have the exact weight of the ingredients that I used to yield exactly the starter dough that is used in these buns, please see the followings:-

Water roux starter dough's ingredients list:

25g high protein flour

125ml water.

You may refer to the method to make this starter dough from the post that I mentioned above.

Make 12

Sardine Buns

Ingredients:

120g water roux starter

110ml water

350g high protein flour

7g milk powder

55g sugar

5g salt

6g yeast

30g butter

Method:

1. Add all the ingredients according to the order listed above except for butter in the breadmaker.

2. Operate breadmaker following manufacturer's instructions.

3. Once dough is formed, add butter.

4. Once dough is ready, remove from breadmaker and deflate it.

5. Divide dough into 12 portions and let it rest for 10 minutes.

Fillings:

Ingredients:

1 can sardine in tomato sauce

1 onion, thinly sliced into rings

1 tbsp tomato sauce

1/2 tbsp chilli sauce

1/2 tbsp rice vinegar

Method:

1. Mash sardine with a fork.

2. Heat up a wok and saute onion till soft and aromatic. 

3. Add in mashed sardine, tomato sauce, chilli sauce and vinegar.

4. Dish out  and set aside to cool.

To assemble the buns:

1. Take a piece of dough and flatten it into a triangular shape. 

2. Spoon a heaped tablespoon of filling onto the dough and roll it up.

3. Place the rolled-up dough on a paper case.

4. Repeat with the rest of dough.

5. Let it rest for approximately 1 hour.

6. Brush some egg wash on the surface of the dough and sprinkle with some cheddar cheese.

7. Bake in preheated oven at 170ºC for 15 to 20  minutes.