Ah Por's Birthday Cake

I never knew Ah Por's birthday falls on which day... We have been celebrating Ah Kong's birthday every year... Without Fail... As mentioned in my earlier post... I baked my 1st birthday cake for Ah Kong... Before mummy left for Koala Land, she reminded me to give an ang pow to Ah Por on her behalf... and it dawned on me that I have not baked a birthday cake for Ah Por too... Ah Por and I had a casual onversation yesterday and she told me that she will help her children while she is able and alive... No point for old folks like them to keep all the money as it will be wasted... I remembered all her words... and I felt that on my part, I should do whatever I can for my grandparents while they are alive and healthy... After all, they are already 80 years old... Ah Por is such a selfless person... Always people before herself... So I think it's time we do something for her...

Ah Por loves to eat my fresh fruit cake... I decided to make it a little different this time... make it into little cakes :-D I'm glad Ah Por loved it... I placed a little red candle for her... Though she kept saying "no need for cake", "no need for candle", "let the workers eat"... But I could see that she was happy and touched...

I am happy that she is happy :-D

Coffee Choc-Chip Loaf

I have been baking bread for the past few days... But baking bread requires alot of time and patience... You will need at least 2 hours to proof the dough twice... So I will only do it when I have a little more time on my hands... Based on the recipe from 'Home Bread', nescafe is added to the bread flour and the dough will turn brownish... To cut the story short, I added choc chips to the nicely proofed dough and rolled it up like a swiss roll... It is then left in the Pullman Tin and proofed again... it came out nicely baked...

I should have waited for it to cool totally before cutting... However, the impatient ME cut a slice off the loaf and it turned out messy... The bread was nice, airy and soft... But the choc chips has already melted and it stucked onto the knife.. So while the knife went down... it made the slice look messy... Nevertheless, I am still satisfied with the end result... The bread remained soft the next day...

Great job...

Kopi Bun

I did not know what to bake... Chiffons have been presented to my tasters for the past few weeks... maybe I should make some bread again... But the success rate was about 70%... So I was deliberating... Should I just try it? Or find something easier to bake since I am spending my precious free time and I did not want to fail... I decided to bake Polo Bun... but since I have not come across any "nice" recipes... online or in my books.. I decided to try this recipe called 'Mexico Bun'... Not knowing how this name came about... I added Coffee Emulco to the topping so that the bread would not be so plain...

Anyway I had fun squeezing the paste out in circular motion... I had probably sqeezed too much on each bread and so when it melted in the oven, it flowed down the sides of the bread and onto the tray...

Nevertheless, the bread came out nice and fragrant... with a whiff of coffee aroma... Great with a hot coffee...

Cinnamon roll... buns actually...

My hands were itching to bake and was getting a little bored making doughnuts... though hubby was asking if I could make some doughnuts every other day, I did not fulfill his request as I was afraid he would 'overdose' on it and also because he was getting "tubbier" by the day... looking just like a doughnut... Round and big... haha...

But since I was satisfied with the texture of the doughnut... I wanted to "transfer" the dough into making other kinds of bread... then cinnamon bun came to mind... Eventually, i dod not use the same doughnut recipe... I used the recipe in one of my books... while it was in the mixer, I was already afraid that this would be a failure... the dough was too soft and sticky... I kept adding flour to it, hoping that it would not become tough after baking... When the dough was done... I rolled it in cinnamon-sugar-butter paste... it was a mess... Instead of being a "Roll"... it became a bun... nevertheless the final product was soft and fluffy... slightly tough after being left overnight in an airtight container but still good enough to eat on its own without the need to heat it up...good try...

Melting Moments

Recently, I have just started a course and this has taken up 4 days of my time... Together with some other commitments, it has been a challenge to bake... I was only free last Thursday evening... So I took the opportunity to bake something simple... Since I have quite alot of butter left in my chiller, I decided to bake some cookies - Melting Moments... I have tried this recipe some time ago... This time, I followed the recipe to a 'T'... and it turned out nice as usual but too sweet and buttery to my liking... Then it dawned on me that I felt the same the last time I baked it and told myself I should reduce the amount of sugar... I totally forgotten about this... But the texture was really 'melt in your mouth'... For my husband who is a chocolate lover, he liked this too... The tasters loved it... and found that the sweetness level was acceptable... Gosh... I will still cut down on the sugar the next time i do it... I wanna try the 'chocolate version' of melting moments... My husband is so looking forward to it...

Doughnuts

I have always wanted to try making doughnuts... But the thing holding me back was the amount of oil that was going to be used to deep-fry them and also some previous failures in bread making... I did not want to prepare the dough, let proof for an hour, fry it in an obscene amount of oil (which might be wasted if I don't use it for other purposes) and then yield a dry tough doughnut...

I looked through some of my books and one recipe caught my eye... it was simple enough for me to want to try it on a boring afternoon... In the end, it took about 3 hours of dough preparation before I could fry the doughnuts... and it certainly did NOT disappoint me... So soft, fluffy and yummy! I brought all of it down to my tasters and all of them devoured it within minutes... I made 2 batches more after this 1st successful try and it turned out great each time... I kept some until the next day to test if it would become tough... NO, it did not... and it was still as soft as before...

My husband has been asking me to make doughnuts these days... and put lotsa chocolate on it... His favourite snack at the moment...

I have

Chiffons - Improved version

Since I have my last box of eggs sitting on the kitchen top, I decided to continue baking chiffons... My last batch of chiffons was a success,but a little too 'short' compared to the chiffons sold at the bakeries... I increased all the ingredients and it yield a nice tall chiffon...

The earl grey one was good as usual... it certainly did not disappoint me... the pandan one certainly improved from the previous time I baked it.. But I know there are areas for improvements... The proportion of pandan, coconut and sugar has not been perfected... Well, I'm gonna try again... But I do pity the tasters coz they have been eating the same cakes... oh gosh...