Am I A Good Cook?

You Are a Learning Cook

You've got the makings of an excellent cook, and the desire to be one. But right now, you're just lacking the experience. You couldn't be a top chef yet, but you could be an apprentice.

Are You A Good Cook?

Seah's Spices Roast Chicken

I discovered this spice packet at the supermarket. This is suitable for those quick and easy roasting chicken recipe. The spice has a strong fragrance of 5-spice so unless you are a fan of this kind of spice, you may take quite some time getting use to it.

Inside the packet were two smaller packs of the spice. Each smaller pack was enough to season 500 gm of chicken meat.

IK Gathering May 07

This time it was at Linda's house. Thank-you Linda for your hospitality. There were many new faces this time round and of course it was always good to say hello to old friends too. I got to eat Macarons this time round, thanks to Karen who made them herself to share with us. Linda's durian moouse was really good and Edith's cuppies were so pretty and yummy too. At the end of the day, I felt really satiated. Actually there was quite a number of yummies I couldn't eat cos' I was too full LOL.

Linda did her demo on piping the chrysanthemum flowers and many of us also had a hand in piping the flower on the cake. Gladcake was also there to share her skill in moulding sugarpaste. Time was really too short as she had to leave earlier. I feel so blessed at this gathering that these ladies so generously shared what they know with all of us.

Ds J's Birthday Cake

I baked this today to give it to him for photo taking cos' on the actual day, I would be at a gathering. Also, on the actual day his daddy won't be around to celebrate with him due to work commitment. So we had an early mini celebration today. He loves to eat MacDonald's double cheeseburger and so to MacDonald's we went to have lunch with him. I also allowed his friend living in the next block of flats to come and play with him. I have a feeling this friend of his will be coming to the house ....many, many times in the future too.

My ds J's latest favourite cake happen to be the spongecake in a cup shared by hugbear.
I got the taller muffin cups and baked the spongecake in them and then gathered them together to form some semblance of a round cake. I put his favourite football figures on the individual spongecake and decorated it with the flower crafts I did and shared with the pre-school kids on Mothers' Day. He looked at it and said ...."WOW".... and then started playing with the footballer figures....LOL. After taking some photos with his friend and family members, I'm sure he will be eating it for supper tonight. Right now he's still busy at the computer playing with his friend.

Bacon, Mushroom & Cheese Tart

This may be the second time I baked tarts. I remember the first time I baked a chicken pie .... the moulding an unmoulding of the tart shell was a challenge. In the end the chicken pie was good to eat but not good enough to be photographed.

I got this recipe from Tazz's blog a long time ago. It's a simple recipe and dh liked it. The tart shell was made of sweet pastry short crust and the filling was savoury. This time the moulding of the tart shell was manageable but the unmoulding was still a challenge. In the process of unmoulding I had about half the tarts with the edges damaged on one side where the filling boiled up to the edge. Next time when filling up the tart shell I must remember not too fill up too much.

Dun Ji Tang Liao

Yes, it was another round of chicken/meat soup with the Chwee Song herbs. This was stated as ingredients to improve health and relieve tiredness. So I simmered a combination of 500 gm of chicken thighs and lean pork meat for 2 hrs with the herbs to get the resulting soup below. It was a rich soup and the soup was tasty enough to drink without adding any salt into it.

Mothers' Day Flower Craft

I spent the morning on Mothers' Day helping the Pre-school kids in church making this flower for their mothers .... It was easy for an adult to make the flower but definitely not for the kid. In the end the kids just needed to write the I LOVE YOU message and colour the leaf.
What you need for the flower craft....
1 satay stick
2 pieces of muffin casing
2 pieces of masking tape
1 piece of paper leaf

Apple Flaxseed Muffin

Finally the bag of organic flaxseed meal had been completely used up. The recipe here used a larger portion of flaxseed as compared to the previous one. The texture of this muffin was more grainy. Surprisingly my nephews liked them while my own children refused to touch them.


Here is sharing with you the recipe ....

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
1/2 cup plain flour
2 tsp cinnamon powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 no. medium size apple, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped nuts ( pistachio or walnut or pecans)

Wet Ingredients :

1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup orange juice with orange zest
3 nos. medium eggs

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 180 degree C.

Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Pour in the wet ingredients and let the batter stand for abour 10 mins before putting them into muffin cups.

Bake for 15-20 mins or till the toothpick comes out clean.

Sponge Cake in a cup

This was a baked sponge cake and the recipe was shared by hugbear at m4m. The texture was soft and the cupcake can be kept in an air-tight container for a couple of days at room temperature, still retaining it's softness. The sponge cake was a definite winner with the the children in the family.
Click HERE to view the recipe.
I've baked the a couple of times already and I even baked them in muffin cups. Thanks hugbear for sharing the recipe.

Bei Qi Dang Shen Tang

I cooked soup today using the pre-packed herbs from the Chwee Song brand. For the meat, I used 300 gm chicken thighs and 200 gm lean pork meat and simmered them with the herbs for 2 hours covered. This soup is supposedly good for improving health and to get rid of tiredness. It's for dh cos he's been working late for so many weeks already.... sigh!

Mothers' Day ... Happy!

I do hope that all Mothers on this day have a good time with their families :-)

I baked my Mothers' Day cake to share with the extended family in church. It's a Hazelnut Chiffon. I adapted the recipe from Kevin Chai's Chiffon Cake is Done book. I decorated it with pink buttercream and moulded chocolate. It's a simple cake ..... not too sweet nor creamy. The ground hazelnuts gave the characteristic nutty taste to the chiffon.


This was the lovely rose bouquet of flower I received from dh. So sweet of him .... cos' he seldom buys me flowers LOL.

Vanilla pods

This was the first time I was using the seeds of Vanilla pods to bake a butter cake. I realised that the seeds were so very tiny that I needed my reading glasses to take a good look at them. They actually look like tiny specks of black dirt/mould and they were smeared all over the pair of scissors that I used to cut the pods. I was worried that the pods turned mouldy in the fridge.
I called Jo and she assured me that the seeds were like that. Gosh it was a relief ... if not... my poor butter cake batter would had gone down the drain. Actually the lovely smell of vanilla filled the kitchen when the cake was baking and definitely the pods didn't smell bad when I thought that they were mouldy....LOL
However this would be the last time I would be baking a butter cake with the seeds cos' Jo said that it would be better to use the seeds for making cream tarts.

Problem with Blogger ...create post.

I couldn't post anything for the past week or so cos' the create post page wouldn't allow me to type anything on it. On checking the blogger's help forum I also couldn't understand the instructions given to overcome the problem. I sort of voiced out my frustration to my ds B and he asked me to log on to my blog and show him the problem. I did and all he did was to type www2.blogger.com....... and walah .... the usual create page come on.

So those of you who are having this problem ... you just need to put a 2 after the last w when you are in the create post page and then type enter/return button.

Happy creating your posts again!

Banana Walnut Loaf and Mini muffins

I used LeeLee's Banana walnut muffins recipe to bake this today. I've done this before and I doubled the recipe to make a loaf too. The texture of the muffin remained soft even after a day or two. Just need to keep in an air- tight container after cooling them for storage.
The recipe is HERE .