Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

This is my first baking in 2009… a bit too sweet to my liking, but still edible. LOL!

It is very simple with recipe below, but I would suggest to reduce sugar by half if you don’t like it very sweet…

4 ripe bananas
1/4 cup olive oil
1 cup sugar (reduce if you don’t like it too sweet)
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 cup choc chips (or chopped walnuts, or both!)

• Mash bananas. Add oil and sugar. Mix well.
• Add flour, salt, and baking powder together and add to the banana mixture. Mix until the flour is blended (do not beat).
• Pour into muffin pans and bake at 180°C for 20-25 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Makes 1 Dozen Muffins
[Source: Veg Cooking]

I tend to give my children breads in the morning, and never give that for other meals. Our sandwich is always the boring ones - 2 pcs of bread with different fillings. Breads - either toasted or not. Fillings - cheddar cheese or jam.

Yesterday I went to Tesco and saw some pita breads. I decided to give my kids a change of taste.

This afternoon’s lunch was Pita Sandwich.

I let them choose whether to have Tuna or Mayo Egg as fillings. Both chosed Tuna. I didn’t expect them to like this thing, but it turned out with very good response. Very simple and yummy. They ate this within the shortest time, breaking the records. I didn’t have to remind them to chew and swallow. LOL! I think they just like to see some food that looks like ‘pockets’.

On Christmas Eve, I planned to order pizza and bake a cheese cake for our dinner. I finally found my missing cookbook during the packing for our move!

Our Christmas ‘feast’ became disaster when…
- our pizza was 1 hour late
- my cheese cake is 1 day late

LOL! Long time didn’t bake, I forgot that it needs 2 hours baking time, and needs to be chilled before applying apricot glaze, and needs to be chilled further before consumption. And I started the process at 3pm!! So, it was finally ready for consumption on Christmas day itself.

Anyhow, this is the most successful attempt I have on the Cheese Cake…

It is so rich that actually 1 pc should be shared instead of eaten by 1 person.

Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS
(A)
1 kilo cream cheese
300 grams castor sugar (I reduced to 250g)
4 small eggs
100g double cream
1 lemon rind (grated)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

(B)
120 grams crushed biscuits
120 grams melted butter
(mixed together)

METHOD
1. Cream the cheese and sugar together and slowly add in the eggs. Then add in the grated lemon rind and juice. Finally add in the double cream.
2. Pour the mixture into a lined and floured 9″ round tin with (B) at the bottom.
3. Bake at 150C for 2 hours over a tray of water.
4. When cooked, chill and demould, then glaze the top with apricot glaze.

At first I thought I screwed up the cake. Almost towards the end, the tray of water where my cake tin was inside, has traces of oil. When I took it out, I then realized that there is a hole at the bottom of the aluminium foil - water sipped in!!

I imagined that the cake is smeared at the bottom due to that leak. But it turned out okay. Whew!

Lately, I have been into baking my own cakes, although I am still not good at it. :p

After failing a few times, I found this moist chocolate cake pre-mix, so I made this moist choc cake below:

The pre-mix is just so simple, so I added chopped walnuts in the mixture, and then put some choc chips on top. Woo hoo! It turned out yummy!

And then later, I found this very healthy vegan moist chocolate cake from chowtimes. It is an extremely easy to bake cake, with very little ingredients. I baked one on Sunday, brought a piece to the office for my colleague, she loved it! She is very picky in desserts, and she liked it, so I think I passed the test.

Here is the very easy recipe.

(A)
3 cups of flour
2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoon cocoa powder

(B)
2 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla (I used only 1/2 spoon, coz I don’t like vanilla)
2 tablespoon vinegar (I substituted with lemon juice - required for its acidity to react with baking soda)
8 tablespoon oil (I used olive oil)

Method
Mixed (B) until sugar melted.
Pour mixture (B) into (A), mix well.
Optional: you may add chopped nuts into the mixture, and then topped with choc chips. I love this combination.
Pout into baking pan, baked 35-40 min at 180c

My sister prefers the pre-mixed type as it is less chewy. Yup, this recipe above is a bit more chewy. If you don’t like the chewy type, then this is not for you. Ian LUUUUVVVVS both types. He walloped 3-4 pieces right after I cut them. My choc cake disappears very quickly, unlike the other types.

p/s: my camera is still in repair. will update with photos later, for the recipe above. The cake looks more moist than the one above (pre-mix type).

On Friday, I was on leave. It was DH’s birthday, and it was just an excuse to take leave, really, nothing serious. Though I was on leave, DH is still working and I planned to bake a cake.

That was before I was informed that I lost my job.

After hearing that, cake baking is kind of a good way to distract me a bit too. I realized (at the end), that I really forgot the pain, especially when I was focusing in decorating it!

I’ve been baking cheese cakes in the past without problems, but never made any real birthday cakes, i.e. those with frosting. On Friday, I intended to do so, after seeing 5xMom’s ‘family cake’.

I prepared all material according to this video here.

I hate measuring material. I just don’t know how to get them right. Why the ingredients so leceh? Like 95g lour, 55g corn starch, 45g butter, 190g sugar… Look at my scale below. The smallest mark is in the gap of 25g. I can do 50, 100, 75, 125, but definitely can’t measure anything like those accurately. And I heard that ingredient measurement is the most important part of cake making, and what I do is only agak-agak! :p

Alright, never mind, I finally got all the ingredients ready and started the first step… mixing the egg york and added 2 tablespoon of sugar. After a while, the mixture doesn’t look quite right. While examining the mixer, I stained some on my shirt. Tasted it, I wonder why it was salty because I haven’t added the butter yet…

Just as I was wondering, I suddenly remembered my last failure in baking a chocolate moist cake. I MADE THE SAME MISTAKE!! I USED THE SAME SALT INSTEAD OF SUGAR AGAIN!!!

Look at this. This is a pack of corse salt. I can’t remember why I bought them. Maybe it was used to wash pork belly when I was on my first maternity confinement? It didn’t occur to me that it COULD be something other than sugar, so I didn’t pay attention. There gone, my 8 eggs.

After lunch, I tried again. This time it seems okay. Then baked for 30 min. Poked with a wooden skewer, still have batter on it. Continued another 5 min, still the same. Another 5 min then okay. But my cake became hard and black outside.

After setting it cold, I started decorating. First cut into 3 layers. I was lousy in my knife. First layer very thick. Second layer cut so unevenly, poked a big hole on the 3rd layer. And the 3rd layer was so thin. Some parts were ‘leaked’ :p

I then whipped the whipping cream, but after reading 5xmom that they over beat the first time, I was too careful not to overbeat, stopped exactly 3.5 min. Ended up the whipped cream became too watery. After applying half way, I couldn’t stand it, whipped another 1 min.

Here is my final product. I never know decorating a cake can be so stressed! But good enough to divert my thinking a lot. Right after I put down the pipping bag. I started thinking about my job again!

Did you notice the blue cream, there is a part different from the rest? I started with those first, did 3 then realized they look really like ’shit’ — seriously! I laughed out loud at myself, couldn’t stop it. To cover the ’shit’, I just put another line joining that 3 ’shit’. :p

I chilled it until 9:30pm, and we blew the cake in MIL’s house. I didn’t put much hope in the cake, but still find myself very embarassed when…

IAN SAID IT LOUDLY: “YULK! NOT NICE!”

Okay, my magic charm on Ian is gone. My greatest supporter, Ian, abandoned my ship. Sob, sob, sob!

DH wallopped one piece but said that the whipped cream too watery, and tasted too sweet. He also said that the cake very hard.

Aiyoh, I really don’t know what went wrong. I know the folding part is tough - I could never get it right! And some more, why 30 min still not cook? Should try again next time - just for me to eat alone, so no one will laugh at me. Hahaha!