ayonecan-cook

First of all I wish all my friends from blog land and the real world and my dear blog visitors who celebrate Christmas a Merry Christmas .  This cake was made for N's birthday today and as always most times I end up making a chocolate cake. This is a steamed chocolate cake that I got from  San's Blessed Moments. Chocolate has always been a favourite in this house with everyone and also because ~  " Every time I hear that dirty word exercise I wash my mouth out with chocolate."  Unknown This was a moist and chocolatey cake with the perfect amount of sweetness ...meaning not too sweet at all. I covered it with fresh whipped cream because ... I had taken out the butter from the fridge, looked at it then put it back in. Since we had only cut the cake this evening I could not take a photo of a sliced piece. I hope to take a picture tomorrow. Do take note of the word "hope" though.  The recipe... 200 gm sugar 200 ml evaporated milk 180 gm butter 2 eggs 100 gm plai...

I have tried very hard to like strawberries because they are such pretty little things but I can't. T hat's why you will find few recipes with strawberries on this blog. I always find them tart and not at all sweet. Having said that, they were at the least ..juicy. I bought strawberries with the original intention of making financiers with sliced strawberries on the top like here. I thought they would look very pretty. But that didn't happen. This did. Because I did not want the strawberries to go to rot.  I used the same recipe as Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls but added dried cranberries and fresh strawberries instead. Then I placed the dough into cupcake liners and 3 mini loaf liners, scattered flaked almonds and sugar nibs that Sarah from Siliconemoulds had given me sometime ago on the tops. I made buns. They were very moist because of the sweet potatoes and fruity because of the cranberries and strawberries. Strawberries out.... next time.  The recipe is here . Just a...

Today is sweet potato day. I've just made some sweet potato cinnamon rolls that are the moistest, softest, cushiony-est, sweet potatoe-iest buns I've ever made. This recipe is one that I concocted. There was a lot of vacillating between cake, buns or onde-onde.  But finally ...a decision. And more importantly ....action. And these rolls are here to stay. You just have to make them. Have to make them. Have to make them. I used Japanese Sweet Potatoes....the purple skinned kind. The smooth inside kind,   the yellow inside kind,  the non fibrous kind...yes I did. Things may turn out differently if you were to use a different kind ~  I know you know that ~ I'm just saying ~ :) The large proportion of grated sweet potatoes gave the buns so much flavour, moistness ans richness. I'm so soo pleased. It was a hit at home. You must try. I must declare too that those sweet potatoes were steamed, drained and sat in my fridge for the longest time. Like a week. Or more? I mus...

I'm not much of a drink person. I'm more of an eat person. So spoonfuls of Nestle's Everyday Milk Powder, cod liver oil, Wood's Peppermint Cough Syrup and Milo from the tin/bottle were weird combinations of snacks for my mid-afternoon-after-school indulgences before I resumed frolicking aka wrestling aka as punching matches with my brother or careering down the tarred, bumpy and sandy road on our nailed together four wheeled sled/plank. Those were the muted turquoise, mint and tangerine vintage-coloured years of my childhood. I want it back. NOW. Back to the future........comes Milo Dinosaur. I first heard of this concoction when N the man returned home from Singapore and gushed about it several years ago. I gave a glazed smile and the Milo dinosaur slipped into a small fissure of my brain. Then yesterday H and I found ourselves wandering into a food court like lost and aimless souls. I sashayed over to the drinks counter and my eyes fell upon the printed out price of ...

Here's a fictional bau story and a true recipe. A Bau Story ~ (or skip it) ~ It's hard to picture bau on a plate and Dad on a chair together, face to face. But curry was a different matter altogether. He had to have it everyday. Like water. Especially a fish curry. So if Mom asked (which she would do almost everyday) what she should cook with this or that, accompanied by a plagued and tired look on her face, Dad would simply answer "curry" without flinching, without looking, without thinking. You would think that that would be the end of Mom's problems. But no. That was her problem. Was that why she left him? We often wondered. Because right after she did she abandoned curry and went for bau. Bau this, bau that, it was bau, bau, bau.  Finally, exasperated, Janna asked her one day after school  "What's with the bau Mom? "  "This is the one thing your father hated. Bau. And I hated all that curry. Everyday. To cook, to eat, to cook, to eat. Why d...

I used to spy these gems at Chinese grocery shops. They were sold amoung many other kinds of biscuits which were stored and displayed in gigantic glass jars with push-down galvanized caps, usually placed strategically at the open end of the shop and were sold by the catty.  Apart form Iced Gems we also had our local 'Oreos', our local Chocolate Bourbons, our local custard creams and our local Jammie Dodgers.....all being delicious legacies left behind by our then colonial masters.  KGB (not the Russian kind) manufactures these biscuits locally today, packs them in large square tins and places them on supermarket shelves. The only thing that's missing in them are Iced Gems and loads of flavour.  So this post was inspired by what I saw at Molliemakes . I now vehemently and officially declare Molliemakes as my number one craft magazine. Trust me ~ However, it wasn't as simple as getting the weighing scale out and dusting off the flour.  I found a (only) recipe for it fr...

  Forgive me for the long silence. Things have been a little hectic. But I'm back and there is no better way to start off a-blogging than with these moist, scrummy and fudgy brownies. These are the most delicious brownies ever! They're chocolatey, fudgy, slightly chewy, with that shiny crackly skin on the top. They are addictive. You can't stop at one. Swear to god. They are even better cold straight from the fridge and I've even had them half frozen from the freezer. I had kept them in the freezer so we would not gorge on them in one sitting but apparently frozen brownies were even more engaging to eat. I don't think these brownies would ever get dry. They were born from a small home business run by a young man who is an engineer by day and brownie baker by night. How more intriguing could that get? And they have crossed the seas to Singapore, Sri Lanka and Brunei. They are baked in a 10 inch by 10 inch tray. Yum!

S eeing that I have only one one rack in my oven a Dobos Torte was not something I was keen to attempt. But I did it. In 4 hours. The sponge layers took only 5 minutes to bake but must be watched and baking those thin layers should never be paired with accidental naps in between. The chocolate frosting made me falter and I almost went for another recipe because 3 raw egg yolks could mean salmonella attacks, hospitalization and doctor's bills en masse. I decided to be brave and went ahead. We are all well, alive and hungering for more Dobos Torte. Thanks be to God. I had cut the last piece of sponge layer into 8 wedges and seperated them a little before pouring the amber caramel over. One thing I learnt was that you only need to cut through the caramel when the caramel has hardened. With a very sharp knife. It is much easier than having sticky caramel globbing up your knife and gooey caramel threads stretching between your fingers endlessly. A Dobos Torte looks much harder to make t...

I thought I could s'nail' this since arts and crafts has always been my forte but these flower or snail buns were quite a challenge. And chignons I have never made. Unlike Terri. So perhaps that explains why I was struggling. I almost didn't post these. Some of them looked ridiculously laughable. These were the best of the worst. N looked at me with a question mark on her face. But I think they taste good. I'll know by sunset. I will have to re-heat them though. These are best eaten warm. I have always loved Chinese steamed buns but especially buns with a spicy curry meat filling. Yes.... you cannot take the Malay out of me but there's always room for Chinese. And chocolate. And ice cream. These would be good soaking up a curry I made last night. Oh. My. Yum.  Terri was spot on with the recipe. I used exactly 200 ml of water and  I didn't need to add a drop more. I kneaded the pau dough in the machine until it didn't stick. I had no sticky problems. The ...

I have never been a fan of bombs. Because of that I have never attempted to make them. Generally speaking I like dainty and pretty food which explains why I like desserts. Or at the least I like making them. I like looking at them. But when they look like 'bombs' and are huge the interest wanes. But when I saw these here on this very practical and interesting blog of Lily Lai Sek Hong's I thought they looked quite appetizing. Although I do think that the name is a little outdated by now. These days their namesakes come in all shapes and sizes. Anything but round I believe. But having said that I can't think of a better name at this moment. So bombs it is. I followed Lily's recipe largely. Particularly the recipe for the dough. It turned out pretty good but I think H was expecting something more chewy. I watched the back of his head from the kitchen while he ate it and waited for that mmmmmm....sedapppp ...but it didn't come. H was, I know, expecting the other ...