Steamed Yam Cake

After such a long time of resting baking, cooking food cum recipe testing, I had a sudden urge to cook steamed yam cake. It has been a long time since I last ate steamed yam cake. Without any recipe for reference, I bought yam from NTUC, thinking that mum surely knows how to cook it. Lol. She guides me along the way.

Recipe of Steamed Yam Cake (Frying the mixture)

Ingredients: 1 Yam (depends on how much you want) 1 packet of rice flour 2 tbsp of starch/ tapioca flour (to thicken the mixture) 1 tsp of salt Mushroom seasoning 7 bowls of water Pepper Sesame Oil Sliced Mushroom Preparations: Slice the mushroom and cut the yam into small cubes. Measure 7 bowls of water and pour into a mixing bowl. Add rice flour, pepper,  salt into the mixing bowl. Fry the mushroom and yam with sesame oil/vegetable oil. After frying the mushroom and yam, pour the mixture (mixing bowl) into the pan and fry. Stir the mixture continuously. Add in starch flour into the pan. Stir the mixture until it becomes sticky texture (looks like glue texture) and transfer it to a baking tin, ready to steam it. Steam for approximate 1 hour and use toothpick to test that nothing sticks on it. Tips: While adding in the seasoning into the mixture, taste it making sure that its not too blend and have a wonderful taste. Finishing: Cut the yam cake into small pieces. Garnish the steamed yam cake with parsley, sliced red chili and fried cabbage and you are ready to serve. Serve the steamed yam cake together with sweet dark soy sauce and chili.

You can use the same recipe for cooking steamed pumpkin cake too.

Checkered Cookies

During one of the company events, they served several types of cookies. One of the cookies caught my eyes and that is checkered cookies. Tasting the hard and delicious cookies, in my mind, it triggered me to bake this cookie. That night, I kept searching for the recipe of the cookie but couldn’t find the correct one until Sophia told me the name of the cookie.

Checkered cookies require to freeze it again and again every steps you make and you have to be very fast before the dough melts and becomes sticky.  The first time I baked checkered cookies, it actually took me 2 weeks to complete it. Haha, because I hadn’t had the time to complete it after freezing during the weekdays. So weekends is the best time for me to complete each step after freezing.  Oh yah, the longer you freeze the cookies, the better.

Checkered Cookies

Recipe of Checkered Cookies

Ingredients: 2 2/3 cup of plain flour ½ tsp baking powder a pinch of salt 225g of butter ½ tbsp vanilla essence 1 egg ¼ cup cocoa powder ¾ or ½ cup of sugar Preparations: Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. In a large mixing bowl, mix the butter, flour mixture, egg, vanilla essence and sugar. (Observation: the dough is sticky and needs to mix using wooden spoon instead of hand. Would be better if you have an electric blender) Once mixing, divide the dough into 2. Half the dough is vanilla flavor, the other half dough is cocoa flavor. Take half the dough in the mixing bowl, put the cocoa powder in. For the vanilla dough, put inside a plastic and spread the dough evenly into the plastic. Clearing away the air in between. Flatten it into the size of the plastic bag (flat rectangle shape – plastic bag like the plastic bag you can find in NTUC to contain the vegetables or fruits). Do the same for the cocoa dough. Put both into the freezer. Freeze it for at least 2 hours. Once the dough has frozen, cut it into a rectangle about 1/3-inch thick and measuring 12 x 6 inches. Stack the vanilla and cocoa properly and wrap into another plastic bag. Wrap it tight, so that an overall square shape of the cookies can be formed. Roll the finished log from side to side to form sharp corners. (Observation: When stacking the vanilla and cocoa, have to be fast because the dough are melting very fast.) Once wrapped, put into the freezer overnight. After that, thaw the “cookies” for 5 mins, cut into pieces and you are ready to bake. (Observation: If the shape formed is not the shape that you want, thaw it a little and squeeze hard to form a better shape. Beware of the little gaps in between each flavor) Before baking, remember to heat up the oven and place baking sheet onto the baking tin. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes – 180°C. Bakes about 50 cookies. Finishing: Pack the cookies in a air-tight bottle or tray. Or pack it in a beautiful plastic bag and present it to your friends.

Terrific, once again, I received good comments for my cookies. Even my brother is enjoying the cookies despite its ugly shape/appearance.  Hahaha. Christmas is coming, hoping I can get a perfect shape and give my friends and colleagues as Christmas presents.

Oh right, the success of my first checkered cookies, probably I should thank my cousin who bought Godiva Cocoa powder back from Shanghai for my mum. The cookies really taste well with the high class cocoa powder. Hehe.

Original recipe is from:

1. http://www.bakingobsession.com/2008/10/21/checkerboard-cookies/#more-532
   
2. http://www.angryasiancreations.com/2008/11/baking-for-amie-checkered-cookies.html

Superb Creamy Mushroom Soup

This mushroom soup is the authentic mushroom you can taste it at Roma Deli, Simple Food, etc that serves mushroom soup. This is a different recipe from my previous mushroom soup. Felt excited when I find the real ingredients used by these stores.  The main ingredient of the soup is cream and mushrooms.

Most of the websites will put sour cream but its not suitable for vegetarian. So I recommend vegetarians to use Nestle Cream.

Successful creamy mushroom soup with nice smelling oregano herbs

Recipe of Creamy Mushroom Soup

Ingredients: Fresh White Button Mushroom Button Mushroom Margarine Cream Water (depends on how much you wanna cook) Mushroom seasoning Pepper Oregano herbs Starch flour/ Tapioca flour/ corn flour (Purpose of the flour is to thicken the soup) Preparations: Slice the fresh white button mushroom and button mushroom. Fry the mushrooms with margarine. Put the mushrooms into the blender until its coarsely chopped. Boil the water in a pot. Add in the mushrooms. When the water has boiled, pour in the cream (depends on how creamy you want the soup to be). Add in all mushroom seasonings, a pinch of pepper and oregano herbs. Make sure it is well-mixed. Add in the starch flour. Continue stirring until the soup has thickened. Finishing: Scoop out a bowl of the creamy mushroom soup. Garnish it with somemore herbs. Serve it together with toasted bread (optional).

Finally good try! Had cooked it several times for my family. They love it alot. I loved it too. Been quite sometime since I last heard good comments about my cookings. (Not becos my cookings had always been lousy but it has been a very long time since I’m enthusiastic about cooking.) =)

Singapore Grand Prix

First time seeing a real Formula 1 car. Vrrrooommmm!! The car travels so fast that you can’t blink otherwise you will miss it.

Andy has 2 free tickets to Singapore Grand Prix from his boss. Hehe, thanks nD’s boss, otherwise, we won’t have the chance to see real F1 car and listen to the loud vrrroommm sound.

When we reach Cityhall, it is very crowded. Even Raffles City’s entrance is packed with alot of people, hardly movable.

Tight security and the lanyard symbolise different places you can go.

Clothes that costs $100, dun bear to buy it.

Avocado Juice @ Alexandra Village

Alexandra Village is the best place to have avocado juice. Whenever someone sees me drinking avocado, they will tell me where is the best avocado in Singapore. Everyone’s answer is Alexandra Village (AV). Its the stall with a big avocado as a decoration for the stall. There are 2 avocado stalls side by side, so look out for the stall with a big avocado. If I remember correctly, the name of the shop is called “Avocado” too. Lol.

What’s the difference between this stall’s avocado and the others?

Compared to what I had drank before:

Color:The color of the avocado from AV are greener, darker as compared to the others. The ones that I usually drink are lighter green and near to white color. I guess alot of milk had been added, which explains the white color avocado juice.

Taste: It has a stronger taste of avocado while the lighter color of other stalls had more milk taste.

Price: $2 each for a big cup from Avocado, but $2 too from other stalls but smaller cup.

Next time, if you want to drink avocado juice, remember to visit Avocado @ Alexandra village.