Winekaki - 22 October 2011

The winekakis... or shall I say, wine-keteers gathered again last Saturday at our home. We haven't been hosting for a long time since without a domestic helper and this time, we graciously played host to our fellow wineketeers.

No particular food theme, just the usual bring-whateva-you-like pot luck.

 Our fellow wineketeers brought KFC, braised chicken wings, Kajang sate, salad and braised duck feet (not in pic)

I prepared bacon aglio olio and prawn spaghetti for mains and the olive and cheese chunks are for nipping into while sipping wine.

The piece de resistence.... Roast pork

I finally got it right this time. Not blowing my own trumpets but hubs said this roast is the best and the mother of all roasts dished out from our oven. I tried a very simple and fuss free method of blanket-ing the rind with rock salt and roast.  However, X-factor here is to choose a good piece of meat.  I go to the the butcher at Taman Tun Market - Lee Wah Trading for a perfect cut of meat. Belly is the most expensive part of the porcine and I want to make sure I get the best to. Lee Wah's  pork is absolutely fresh, clean and odorless. This piece of has even layers of meat, fat, meat, fat and meat and fat.... simply divine for roasting pork !!!

I made tiramisu in a cup, in perfect serving proportions.  I find digging into a dish of tiramisu totally yucks. The first slice is always nice and the remaining pieces gets sloshy and sloppy. Tiramisu is such a delicate desert and I want my guests to enjoy their servings. I used the little drinking glass I got from Ikea.

I also baked a french almond cake.  

 

The 4 wineketeers who was present.

The selection they had.

Good food, good company and good wine. The wineketeers are already talking of another round to wrap up 2011.  :D

Cookies Specially For Her

I had to plan my baking on times when she's away at school or childminders. Due to her allergy, she's not allowed to tax my cookies like she did before.

Amber comes home, drooling at the jars of cookies on the table and asks for some but it breaks my heart to break her bubble -- you cannot take, you are allergic to butter and eggs.. . . 

BUT !!!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

I promise her... I'd bake some that she can eat : 

Peanut cookies

 

I used canola oil and omitted the egg wash. Very fluffy and melts in the mouth. She has her own style of enjoying the peanut cookies. She'll asks for 3 or 5 cookies, place in a bowl, crumble all of it and scoop up with a spoon  :)

.. she shows enormous joy in munching the festive cookies.

Princess Snow White Tarts

 

 Pineapple tarts with vegetable shortening, egg replacer and I omitted the egg wash. Looks ghastly white and unappetizing. I got disheartened too but luckily I remembered having some really cute red casings with white polka dots I bought a while back stashed somewhere.

The casings made a difference. I told her.. her tarts are very special, specially made for her, white as snow white and only Amber has Princess Snow White tarts for CNY.

She said ..

thank you mummy...

mummy's cookies is the best in the world  :D

hehehehe.. innocent mind like hers is so easy to please. bluff a bit here and there and they are sold.

I felt so good. Not 'perasan' but I felt good because I could tweak the recipes a bit and churn out something for Amber. After all, CNY is all about indulgence :D

Making Gingerbread Man Cookies

We baked some gingerbread man cookies last week. Allergy free recipe. Eggless and substituted butter with margarine.

Both of us had lots of fun, she was especially keen on shaping the cookies and I was responsible to roll the dough and transfer the cookies to baking sheet.

The taste wasn't much different from the usual gingerbread and I decorated it with icing n what nots to be hung on the Christmas tree.. which turns out to be a bad idea.. 

I'll post what happens next.

The Accidental Gingerbreadman

I had in mind a big project this November. A BIG one.. that is.. to put up our very first Christmas tree and also make some of my own decors.. I wanted to hang candy sticks on the tree and homemade gingerbread man. Took me a while to get the gingerbread man mould. Finally I found a gingerbread man cookie cutter at a baking shop in Cheras (after hunting around 5 or 6 baking shops).

I shared my big BIG project with a blogger friend (you know who you are) and she asked if I could make her the gingerbread man for her boys' party the coming weekend instead.  I had only 1 day to try out the gingerbread man. No promises I said. I didn't know how it'll turn out.

And so... the evening was well planned for baking gingerbread man cookies. Decors - dragees, hundreds and thousands, sprinklies and chocolate chip - all set aside, away from Amber's sight. If she knew I was making something so fun and cute, she'll refuse to sleep and stay up all night to fun-along with me.

I had fun. Lots... Exciting and hilarious. The first few gingerbreads I cut didn't work out.. the head fell and broke before while I transfer it to the baking tray and some .. the legs broke.

How ?? I couldn't delivery decapitated a gingerbread man ! and I tried and tried many times before I finally got it right. Gingerbread man in one piece, with a head, 2 hands and 2 legs. Any weird looking ones, such as elongated heads... irregular limbs  - one long and the other short.. .just went back the the dough to be remodelled again.

Such a simple recipe and delight to finally get it right.

Here .... accidental gingerbread mans with my limited decoration skills ;)

 

Not too bad la.. can 'kao for' (delivered).

Now, next project is to make butter free, egg free gingerbread man so I can have some mother-daughter bonding and fun moments with her.

And I forgot to mention .. I hate handling royal icing.. Messy and irregular.. 

Oh well.. maybe I need some practise on that too !

tis the season to be jolly.. fa la la la la .. la la la la.. .....

Bits and Pieces of A Football Night

Last Saturday evening, we invited our friends, Thomas, Joanne and Sharon over for dinner followed by Germany vs Argentina. Since RTM1 and Wah Lai Toi was playing the match, we need not park ourselves at Mamaks :D

Timing had to be good. 8.30pm dinner, 9.00pm desert, wash up and get all comfy and ready for the match.. and with beer in hands, of course.

Bits and pieces of the evening. Hubs took some nice pics w his DSLR.


Sharon had a bad cut on her knees, she went running with her daddy and fell on the tar road. She quickly told her parents 'princess' 'princess plaster'..

Those princess plasters do make kids feel less pain.


Amber also flashed out her set of Disney plasters. Kids are always eager to stick a cartoon plaster, don't they ?

Then I fried some chicken wings when my guests arrived. I have a pot of 'lap mei fan' - waxed meat rice ready. It's football night and I don't want to be wasting too much time in the kitchen, planning is important on such an exciting quarterfinal night.



My 'lap mei fan'. After few rounds, I think I've perfected it. The rice grains, some dark, some light, makes the dish very appealing.



Cucumber on the sides.. healthy vege and fiber option. No need to fry any vege. Recently, my veges are all steamed, boiled or raw. I hardly fry any vege now as I don't think there's much nutriotion left in fried veges but we Chinese are so accustomed to 'chau choy' with full 'wok hei'.

And the unhealthy but most yummylicious part of dinner :

Har Cheong Kai Yik - Fried Shrimp Paste Chicken Wings


And the best side dish for lap mei fan - Fried Salted Fish. I got these pre-cut salted fish from Tanjung Sepat. Very convenient and clean.


And.. no dinner is complete without desert. My very first cheesecake recipe, walnut cheesecake !

This is my second attempt, first attempt failed badly. I realise never to trust recipe books 100%, use instincts and common sense. I mean.. how different is baking for 30 mins and 60 mins ? You tell me la.. I won't name the cookbook but it's by a famous local baker who runs a famous cafe/deli in PJ. You guess la..

The walnut cheesecake tastes as good as it looks :


Firm and cheesy, just the way I like it. I don't fancy those cotton soft cheesecakes. I prefer real cheesecakes, just as I don't like sponge cakes, gimme a real buttercake anytime.



The cheesecake was perfect with blueberries that Joanne brought.

Good food, good friends but alas.. bad game.. Argentina lost to German 0-4. I mean it was a good game but I think it was humiliating for Argentina to lose in such manner, not a single goal against the Germans.

Luckily, we also had good food to remember the night by. :D

Cake, Cupcakes and Loaves

I baked some durian cake for the in laws recently. MIL gave me a tub of durian, she has in abundance, frozen durians in her freezer, the helper has her own durian orchard and always gives MIL tubs after tubs and she'll pass some to me and the other siblings.

I'm not really keen on durian. I do like but I just hate the after effects, heatiness, headiness and smelly mouth. If I take durian, I'll make sure it's top quality ones, not worth to take some ordinary grade ones and still suffer the same after effect, hai mai ?

With the tub of frozen durian, I churned out some lovely cakes for them. I did try durian cake with cake pans, loaf pans and cupcake pans. Aitelyu, the results are unpredictable, depending on the durian moisture content, some are so watery, the cake sinks, so it's all really trial and error for me.

I tried baking with a 9 inch tin and it took longer than 45 mins baking time, the cake wobbled a bit when I removed in from the oven.

Then I tried the loaf pan.. 2 pans equivalent to one 9 inch cake tin. Left to bake for same time, 45 mins, big mistake, cake turned out dry and dense.

This time, I tried both..loaf pans and cupcake tins. Results :

See the difference ?


Cracks and cake sank a little



Cupcakes.. rise nicely.. and cute too

Recipe for both cakes are same.. Follow the strict rule of cake baking - of never filling the pan more than half it's height.

Cupcakes.. rise to the occasion !

Potato Cookies

Another attempt to bake an allergy free cookie for Amber.

I came across some 'premium margarine' from the baking supply shop. I was told it tastes great and it's very similiar to butter.


I was keen to try out a new cookie, very popular @ Tampin during Chinese New Year.
'Potato cookies'. I couldn't get these cookies in KL and so, what could be better than baking my own.

Couldn't find any potato cookie recipe online, I *agak agak* a bit here and there and got these little gems :

Do you see some missing cookies ? and those.. .went to my tummy, I couldn't even wait for the cookies to cool down.

Surprise ! The cookies turned out well and Amber loves it.

We're just in the month of June and I'm baking CNY cookies already.

AND ..... I could shoot myself for not writing down the recipe. I'd thought it'll be a failure and I just mixed butter, sugar, taste .. add sugar again. . add flour.. fold and bake !!!

Shiats ! Who would have guessed accidental recipes sometimes turns out well too ?

Kek Lapis Revisited

I started baking kek lapis again. Recipe is available at my previous post on kek lapis.

Now, I'm smarter, after all the effort of waiting for each layer to brown, I make a BIGGER cake. Almost the same amount of effort but you get 1.5 times more. Better deal, trust me, it is worth it.

And I got myself a new handheld mixer. If you follow the recipe closely, you'll know how annoying it is to mix egg yolk, egg white and butter , each separately. Now with a handheld mixer, I can mix them separately in separate bowls. Thank heavens for the handheld.




Then assemble the ingredients neatly :

A tray of eggs. YES ! 30 EGGS !!! This is by far the artery clogging cake.


a 12 x 12 inch pan

one bowl for the whites

another for the butter and a separate one for yolks

Then spread each layer thinly..

Final layer..

Cut and admire the layers...

Everyone likes this cake. It's worth the effort.

p/s

forgot

to

also

note

that

the

following

was

used :

3 BLOCKS of pure BUTTER !!

So darn fattening and artery clogging ! Muahahahahaha..

Now, would anyone still want samples ???

Nigella's Chocolate FruitCake

I got this recipe from Cold Storage Christmas catalogue and been wanting to make this for a long long time. Have some leftover mixed fruit and peels from CNY and here I am, baking another fruitcake way way before Christmas.. Can't resist, I love fruit cakes too much..


All ingredients, boiled over low fire



Bubbling and smells 'heavenly'.



Fold in flour, cocoa powder and baking soda



Tadaaa....

Foolproof recipe, fruit won't sink ! Here's the recipe :

Tho' it's not very chocolatey, I like it. Hubs didn't like it. I had to give away 3/4 of the cake to friends and family.