Pumpkin cheese stick

Black pepper pull-apart buns (savoury)

Peppery, very soft and moist, tasty pull-apart bread.

Yeasted Country Bread with Cornmeal

         Cornmeal, together with lots of whole wheat flour used here makes a very healthy bread.

Quinoa Whole Wheat bread

What a healthy bread, Quinoa and mostly Whole Wheat flour.
The dough may be a little sticky due to the moisture from the cooked quinoa. Barely any kneading to do here, just a little dough folding will do.

Korean Pork Bulgogi (cheater's version)

My son's favourite, he always ends up having two large plates of rice for this. I have to thank my Korean house painter for giving me such a good idea.  It is so simple, great for busy or lazy nights. Only 4 ingredients involved, yet is still a very tasty meal.

Dark brown sugar pumpkin mantou

             A small batch of Mantou for my Shanghainese neighour again, just good for their breakfast.

Beef Pancake ( Bing)

Dark Banana Ginger Cake ( Dan Lepard)

Dan Lepard ( The Guardian)
Ingredients
200g dark muscovado sugar ( I reduced to 170g)
300g riped bananas
125ml sunflower oil
4 medium eggs
75g chopped glace ginger
200g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder



Method
1.  Line the base of a deep 20cm square cake tin with nonstick paper.  In a bowl, mash the bananas and sugar until almost smooth ( odd bits is okay).
2.  Beat in oil, eggs.  Stir in ginger.  Add the flour and baking powder, stir well and pour into the tin.
3.  Bake at preheated oven 170C (150C fan-assisted)/ 335F/ gas mark 3 for 50-60 minutes.  Insert a skewer if it comes out clean, it's done.

Sesame crispy Bing ( baked)

                                                                Simple, tasty "Bing"

Stout, Oat and Honey knots ( Dan Lepard)

I always love the beer flavour in this bread, the soft texture and all of the oats used here, certainly made me full for the whole half day.

Walnut butter cake

                                                            A very quick-mix cake.
                                                            Rich topping, lots of walnuts.                                            

Recipe from Womens' weekly
Ingredient
125g butter, chopped
220g castor sugar ( I reduced to 190g)
3 eggs
150g self-raising flour
35g plain flour
60ml milk
240g chopped walnuts

Rich Chocolate Glace Icing
90g dark chocolate, chopped
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
60ml water
320g icing sugar mixture, approximately

Method
Combine chocolate, oil and water in medium saucepan, stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Gradually beat in enough sifted icing sugar to give a smooth, spreading consistency.

ready to be baked

whipped cream 

rich chocolate glace icing

Method
Grease 23cm square cake pan, cover base with baking paper.
Pre-heat oven to 180C.
Combine butter,sugar, eggs, flours and milk in a bowl.
Beat on low speed until ingredients all combined.
Beat on medium speed until mixture is smooth and changed in colour.
Stir in nuts.
Spread mixture into prepared pan.
Bake for about 40 minutes.
Turn onto wire rack to cool.



Additional extra (optional): 
Split cold cake, fill with whipped cream.
Top with rich Chocolate glace icing.
Sprinkle with extra walnuts.

Fry Bread

                                            

Inside is airy, puffy, moist and light. Outside is crispy. A very tasty bread. The method used here is slightly different from the usual Indian fry breads, I noticed.  A satisfactory experiment for me. 

Bibingka

Binbingka is a type of glutinous rice cake from the Phillippines, traditionally eaten during the Christmas season.  It comes with beautiful flavour of coconut and glutinous rice,  inside is chewy while the outside is crusty. If you like mochi, you will sure like this. Just be sure that you use a premium coconut cream.



I made this for my girl friend's party last night. None of us have eaten Bibingka before, so everyone took one to eat, discussing how interesting and lovely the chewy and crusty texture in their bites..before we knew it, it was all gone in no time and obviously we all liked it :) One thing I noticed is that it is best eaten when it is warm. It tends to become a little harder after it cools down, but I can tell you, it still tasted good.

the crust..

The combination of the mochi like texture and the crackling crust is simply delicious

Recipe from here
Ingredient
2 cups glutinous rice flour
1 tin coconut cream (400ml)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 to 2 eggs

note: I sprinkled some fine dessicated coconut just to give an extra coconut flavour on the top.

Method
1. Mix all in a bowl and pour into greased container and bake for about 40 minutes at 180C.
( I used a 20cm cake tin)

2. You may cook in microwave oven for about 15 minutes. Or until cooked and brown the top under the grill.

note: I used method (1), it took me another extra 15 minutes to 20 minutes to get it done.

Dual colour Huajuan (mantou)

                        I made this for my Shanghainese neighbour again, pumpkin Mantou.

Tomato bread

Strong aroma from the tomato sauce and sundried tomato, a tasty bread.

Bo Lo Pao ( Pineapple buns)

I made Matcha Bo Lo Pao awhile ago, using the same recipe but without the matcha powder.
As usual, we make a slit and slot in a slice of salted butter, goes really nice. Just make sure the bun is gently warmed in the oven.

Chinese " Bing "

"Bing" is a wheat-flour based chinese food with a flattened or disk-like shape.  It is usually a casual food eaten for lunch, or also can be incorporated into formal meals.  Bing are commonly cooked on a skillet or baked.

Red bean bread

     I like to have it toasted, what a delightful bread.

Curry bacon bread

Beautiful aroma from the toasted bread, enjoyed this very much.

Matcha red bean bread

Time to run my bread machine! It has been sitting at my counter for some time now...again.

 I have to admit the Bread machine comes in handy especially when you want to laze around and not do anything :)

For this bread, I like it to have a slightly stronger matcha flavour as well as a sharp colour, sugar is enough to balance the bitterness (matcha) here, not to worry.
A flavourful bread.
 
Ingredients
Bread flour  350g
Matcha powder  12g
Dry yeast  5g
Castor sugar  53g
Salt 4g
Lukewarm milk  226g
Egg  36g
Unsalted butter  36g
Sweetened cooked red bean 115g

Spread the beans generously, roll up part by part, slowly.

Stir- fried glutinous rice

     This is one of our favourites whenever we go to Yum Cha at Dim Sum restaurants.
     Hong Kong Cantonese style is usually very light in colour. Being homemade is great as we can
     be generous of the ingredients used. Make lots in one go, wrap them well and store in the freezer
     for emergency run out of food days.
   

    Ingredients:
    2 cups glutinous rice
    5 chinese sausages (lap cheong)-   soak, cut into very small pieces
    5 tablespoons shrimps-   soak,cut into small pieces
    7 dried scallops-  soak,shredded by hand
   10 medium large dried mushrooms-cut into very small pieces
    Spring onions (scallions),  chopped for garnish
    1 egg

    Seasoning
    2 tablespoons light soya sauce
    2 teaspoons dark soya sauce
    2 teaspoon sugar

    Inspiration from here
    Method
    1.  Glutinous rice preparation:
         Soak the glutinous rice for at least 3 hours or overnight.
         Place them on a shallow pan, spread them out thinly. Set up steamer, over high heat, steam for 20 minutes. Set aside for later use.
    2.  Dry ingredients preparation:
         Rinse and clean the ingredients, with just enough water over the surface of the ingredients, soak the shrimps, mushrooms and dry scallops till softened ( on separate bowl for each).  Reserve soaking water from the dry scallops and shrimps for when you needed it in your stirring later.

   3.  Egg preparation:
        Whisk in one tablespoon of water to one egg, season with a pinch of salt. Heat oil in a nonstick pan, spread out the beaten egg. Move around the pan, spread out the egg into a disc. Fry both side until golden. When it is cooled, cut into thin strips (mine is not good enough:))
        

   4.  Using nonstick pan, over medium heat with 2 tablespoons of oil, fry the chinese sausages till fragrant, relying on the excess oil from it continue to fry the shrimps til fragrant, mushrooms and dry scallops in the same manner.  Now, add in the rice and the seasonings.
Start with a tablespoon water ( your soaking water) to add in and soften and unclump the rice. Just make sure you go one tablespoon at a time.  Be very careful for if you pour in too much water at a time, the rice texture would turn soggy or lumpy. 
    
    4.  For my own preference, I use lots of spring onions and toss in the rice after turning off the heat.   It brings out such a wonderful aroma when you actually eat it.  Otherwise, use it to garnish just like the eggs.

TIP: Rice should be soft, not over dry, chewy texture is not right .  Each grain should be cooked through inside, grain separated individually.

the aroma is wonderful

Chocolate chip hot cross buns ( with potato)

 
Hot cross buns sold in the stores tend to be heavy and dense, I had to make sure mine is not.  Gentle warm it up in the microwave is just as good as the first day baked. Mashed potatoes makes it so much lighter here.