grub ft. Lalarhs

Lalarhs came over to my house today. There's like really nothing to do at my house...so I guess she was kinda bored after a while. Today we used the base recipe from one of my previous recipes which can be found here.

So I made 3 different types of cake.

• lemon and coconut
• chocolate chip
• blueberry

Bwahaha, I don't want to cut the cake...but I'm going to give some to my friends tomorrow...So I'm going to cut it sooner or later...

Lalarhs bought Hana Yori Dango (Japanese version) over, so I started to watch it. Hahaha it's a pretty good drama. XD So far my favourite character is Hanazawa Rui :D, Domyoji's sister and Okami-san. Okami-san is SO RANDOM it's funny. Lalarhs and I were also bagging how useless and helpless Sakurako was...but we all know she is EVIL!!!

plain pancakes

Woke up at 6 AM today to make pancakes for breakfast. Just wanted to eat pancakes, that's all.

***

plain pancakes

ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 3 Tb of caster sugar
• 150 mL milk
• 2 1/2 heaped Tb of margarine
• dash of vanilla essence
• 150 grams self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

method:

1. Beat the egg lightly using a whisk.

2. Add the sugar and whisk until mixture is frothy.

3. Melt the margarine in the microwave in a bowl covered with a lid.

NOTE: Careful when removing from the microwave, as it is very hot!

4. Add in the vanilla essence, milk and melted margarine. Whisk to combine.

5. Sift in the plain flour. Whisk to combine. 

6. Heat a fry pan. Drizzle oil. When oil starts to bubble turn heat to medium - low.

7. Scoop 1/4 cup of the mixture into the frypan.

8. Wait till bubbles surface and flip.

9. Cook the pancake until both sides are browned.

ninja stars

Sugar-topped puff pastry served with custard

Strawberry jam and kaya (coconut jam) ninja stars

From today onwards, or when I can be bothered to, there will be a photo with most steps for better understanding.

Hrm, I used to buy these from school on a Wednesday from the VCAL cafe until I learnt how to make them. HAHA they lost one customer.

***

ninja stars

ingredients:
makes around 9 - 12 for 1 sheet of puff pastry

• packaged frozen puff pastry (semi-defrosted)
• jam of your choice
• 1 small egg, beaten
• oil / melted butter or margarine for greasing baking paper

oven:
180 degrees Celsius
fan forced

method:

1. Cut pre-rolled puff pastry into square pieces. (If you have small pieces left over you can use them later :D)

2. From the edges, cut a 1 -1.5 cm diagonal line towards the centre.

3. Place a teaspoon of your favourite jam in the centre.


4. Fold the edges inwards like a pinwheel.

5. Put the pastry pinwheels on a greased tray lined with baking paper.

6. Glaze pastry with a beaten egg.

7. If you had spare pieces of pastry left from step 1, sprinkle sugar on top.

8. Bake for about 10 minutes or until pastry is golden brown.

walnut marble cake

I don't know why, but I just felt like baking a cake today. Initially I wasn't going to bake a cake since I was already exhausted from work...but mangaged to bake this delicious cake.

I used a recipe from the Australian Gourmet Traveller cookbook series. The book was dedicated to chocolate recipes. Most of the recipes had to use an ingredient called dutch process cocoa, but I had none of that so I just skipped those recipes. Instead I chose a recipe called "Chocolate and orange marble cake". However I had to substitute the ingredients since I didn't have any oranges since they were all used up in Qing Ming. Hence my "walnut marble cake"!

***

walnut marble cake
adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller - Chocolate (recipe book)
recipe adapted was "Chocolate and orange marble cake"
later edited by me

ingredients:
serves 8-10 (that's what the book said)
I made a 20 x 20 cm square cake
I got 9 pieces of cake

• 150 grams margarine, softened
  (I don't use margarine from the fridge, but I beat it up with the mixer to make it soft)
• 200 grams caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• 300 grams self-raising flour, sifted
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicabonate soda
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 cup milk + 2 Tb extra
• 100 grams cooking dark chocolate, melted
  (the original used 80 grams dark chocolate, I used 80 grams of dark chocolate and 20 grams of milk chocolate. I don't think it makes a difference.)
• handful of unsalted walnuts, broken up (optional)

oven:170 -175 degrees Celsius
fan forced
method:

1. Cream the margarine and sugar in a electric mixer until it turns pale yellow.
2. Add beaten eggs and vanilla essence gradually and mix until combined after each addition.
3. Sift flour, baking powder, bicarbonate soda and cream of tartar together.
4. Fold in flour and 1/2 cup of milk alternately with a plastic spatula.
5. Divide mixture into two portions.
   - Stir in melted chocolate to one portion.
   - Stir in the extra 2 Tb of milk to the other portion.
6. Lightly grease a baking tin with oil. Line the tin with grease-proof paper and lightly grease the paper.
7. Spoon heaped spoonfuls of mixture into the tin. (I did random blobs of vanilla and chocolate.)
8. Smooth the surface with the spatula. Sprinkle crushed walnuts on top if desired.
9. Bake for 40 minutes or until cake comes out clean when poked with a skewer.

***

You can see my cake has lots of holes because I poked it too much.
Heehee~ the pretty pattern. Looks more like stripes to me though.

This cake recipe is DEFINETELY a keeper. The texture of this cake is extremely soft and the walnuts on top gave it a crunchy texture. Hrmm, I wonder what it will taste like tommorow. I have 1/3 of the cake left.
Hrmm, I thought this cake would fail because I suck at making marble cake. I tried a few months back and it was horrible, but wanted to self-improve at the failed recipes. I also thought I put too much raising agents which will make the cake sink and I thought I mixed the chocolate mixture too much. ><
I'm really glad it turned out all right and so delicious tasting!!! ^_____^

baked tuna pasta

AHAHAHA, the school holidays officially start today. YAY!!! When I came home I went to the kitchen straight away. Started to boil water to make an "おんせん卵" (onsen tamago - hot spring egg) and a pasta bake for dinner. I didn't take a picture of the egg since I was hungry and ate it when it was done. HAHAHA~ Well the recipe for bake tuna pasta is below. Enjoy!

P.S The baking dish is not completely filled because my oven broke down temporarily so I had to microwave that part T_T. Luckily the oven worked again! ^_______^ Baking the pasta is WAY better than the microwaved version!

***

baked tuna pasta


ingredients:
serves 2-4

• 150 grams dried pasta (I used the corkscrew type)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp chicken powder (optional)
• 3/4 cup frozen mixed vegetables, washed and drained
• 185 grams can of spring water tuna, drained (other flavours can be used too)
• 1/3 cup grated mozzarella cheese + extra for topping
• 3/4 can cream of corn
• salt and pepper (optional for seasoning)

oven:
175 degrees Celsius
fan forced

method:

1. Fill a saucepan 3/4 way with cold water. Bring to a boil.
2. While waiting for the water to boil, prepare the other ingredients.
3. When water boils, add the salt, chicken powder and pasta.
4. Boil pasta for at least 12 minutes or until al-dente.
5. In the last 2 minutes, add in the mixed vegetables.
6. Drain the water off. Put the pasta and vegetables into a medium sized mixing bowl.
7. Stir tuna, cheese, creamed corn and seasoning into the pasta.
8. Put the pasta into a large baking dish. Sprinkle a layer of grated cheese on top.
9. Bake for about 20 minutes on the bottom shelf.

***

I didn't add salt and pepper to my pasta bake because I forgot. But the taste turned out all right, the cheese and creamed corn gave it's flavour. But my mum suggested I put seasoning in it next time.

I wonder how my friend's baked pasta turned out. We kinda exchanged advice and he says he's not adding in cream corn because it's disgusting, instead he'll be using carbonara or white sauce. He's substituting tuna with chicken and avocado and he's not adding that much cheese because he's on a diet.

Well, I think the creamed corn tasted good with pasta. :) We'll just have to see because I hate avocado.