Sweet Grated Cheese Bread

Picked out this recipe from ‘Majalah Anis’. I have all other ingredients except cheese. I sprinkled it with sugar, so mine is just soft and sweet bread minus the cheese.

Grated Cheese Bread

500 g high-protein flour (I used plain flour)

1 tsp salt

100 g castor sugar

1 egg – beaten

30 g margarine – melted

200 ml milk

50 g castor sugar

8 g instant dry yeast (2 ¼ tsp)

1 tbsp warm water

Enough grated cheddar cheese

Method:

Mix together milk, 50 g castor sugar, dry yeast and warm water in a bowl. Leave aside.

Reserve ½ cup of flour. Sift remaining flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Add in 150 g castor sugar, beaten egg and melted margarine. Mix everything well, then add in liquid yeast mixture.  Add reserved flour, a tbsp at a time until a soft and smooth dough is formed. Add just enough flour and dough comes away from bowl and doesn’t stick to your finger. Knead for about 10 – 15 minutes. Cover and leave to proof for 40 mins to 1 hour.

Divide dough into 9 – 10 balls. Shape them into buns and arrange them into a greased square or round baking tray about ½ cm apart. I divided my dough into 9 equal length strips and braided them into pleats.

Brush with beaten egg and sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese. Leave to rise again for another 30 minutes. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 deg Celcius for 20 minutes.

(Tips: If your bread is still not done when the top is already browned, cover with aluminium foil and continue to bake. Check at 5 minutes interval until bread is done.)

Keema

This is a very simple dish yet very satisfying. The dish can be serve with bread, chappati, rice or even spaghetti. I like to prepare my keema in thick gravy. So I would always add some milk (I used evaporated milk.. I always have a can on the shelf).

Ingredients:

500 g mince meat

2 large onion (diced)

1 packet meat curry powder (abt 4 tbsp)

2 cinnamon

2 star anise

3 cloves

3 cardamon

3 cloves of garlic and 1 cm ginger (grind to a paste)

4 potatoes (diced)

2 tomatoes (diced)

½ cup green peas

1 cup milk

Juice from 1 lime

Salt to taste

Method:

Heat a little oil in a deep pan. Throw in all spices, cinnamon, star anise, clove and cardamon and stir for a while. Add in diced onion and ginger and garlic paste. Stir until fragrant. Then add in curry powder and mince meat. Cook until meat is browned. Add a little water. Then add in potatoes and tomatoes. Add a little water and cook until potatoes have softened.

Add in milk and lime juice. Season with salt.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cake

I have been longing to try out something using oats. I have this recipe I got thru my mail which claims it’s a recipe of Famous Amos cookies. Whether it’s true or not, I can’t be sure BUT it has oatmeal in its ingredients. I haven’t tried it out yet. Not so much in a mood to bake cookies. But I just think it might turn out scrumptious because  this chocolate oatmeal cake which I tried turned out superb.

This chocolate oatmeal cake from Allrecipes is soft, not dry, just nice. I made few changes in the ingredients. And I only soak half of the oats and topped the cake with chopped walnuts. It tastes great and the best thing is, you know it’s wholesome. Here’s how I made my cake.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cake

1 cup all-purpose flour (I used cake flour)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ cup quick-cooking oatmeal

4 tbsp cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

½ cup boiling water

½ cup milk (I used evaporated milk)

½ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/3 cup chopped walnut

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease and lined one 8×8 inch pan.
2. Put half of the oats into a large bowl.  Pour ½ cup boiling water into the oats and set aside to cool.
3. When oats mixture is cooled, add in milk, vege oil, eggs and vanilla essence. Mix well.
4. In another bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa. Add in sugar and remaining dry oats.
5. Add to wet ingredients and mix well. Spread into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts.
6. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool, and remove from pan.

Chicken Rendang

This is the first time we did not “balik kampung”  for hariraya.  Previously, we would solat raya at our place, then “balik kampung” later in the afternoon. (which is only 40 minutes from our place). But this  year, we decided to celebrate in Bukit Sentosa as we had spent the whole week earlier at both (umi/walid) atok’s house.

So to get that “raya feel”, umi cooks chicken rendang and nasi impit. Thought of making kuah lodeh as well, but it seems I made the decision quite late. Pasar is closed, nearby shops are closed and hubby is lazy to go to supermarket in Rawang. So it’s just nasi impit and rendang only after solat raya. But no worry.. There were sup daging qurban and kari kambing at the surau.

(Clockwise from top: Mutton curry, chicken rendang and nasi impit)

Here’s the recipe for chicken rendang.

(Rendang ayam – sori, gambar tak cantek)

Ingredients:

1 chicken (about 1.5 kg, cut into 8 parts)

3 cups thick santan (coconut milk)

2 pcs asam keping (dried tamarind)

1 tbsp kerisek (dry-fry grated coconut in a kuali till it turns brown, then grind fine)

Salt to taste

A – Grind together:

10 shallots

5 garlics

1.5 in ginger

2 in galangale

5 lemongrass

15 dried chillies

10 chilli padi (bird’s eye chillies)

B – Dry-fry/roast on a pan for a while, then grind fine:

2 buah keras (candlenuts)

½ tsp jintan manis (fennel)

½ tsp jintan putih (cumin)

½ tsp ketumbar (coriander seeds)

Methods:

Heat kuali and put in santan and grounded ingredients A. Stir till mixture boils. Then add in grounded ingredients B. Stir until it starts to boil again, then put in chicken and tamarind.

Stir occasionally until chicken is almost cooked, then add in kerisek. Add in salt to taste and continue to cook until chicken is done.

Muffins! Muffins!

Quick and easy! Made them twice last week. Blueberry muffins, then, apricot muffins. Oops! I won’t call it muffins cos’ I dump it into 2 small loaf pan. So the second is apricot loaf. But both uses the same recipe. Basic muffin recipe from joyofbaking.

Basic Muffin recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

¾ cup sugar

1 cup milk

1 egg

¼ cup vegetable oil

Variations:

1 cup of blueberry fillings / chopped dates / raisins etc.

Preheat oven 180 – 200 deg C.

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Add in sugar and stir well. In a separate bowl, mix together milk, egg and vegetable oil. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the liquids. Stir until ‘just mixed’. Add in blueberry filling or any other fillings of your choice. Do not overmix. Spoon into muffin cases not more than 2/3 or if you’re just lazy to wait on the muffins like me.. hu..hu, just dump everything into a loaf pan. Though you won’t get more crust this way.

Bake 20 – 25 minutes or the top has turned golden brown. Sedap! Sedap! SedaPPPP!!!!!!

Kuih Lapis Again!!

The kuih lapis is so easy to make, I don’t really have to think twice when I have all the ingredients in hand. This time with 3 coloured layer. Plain, yellow with a tinge of red colouring which makes it turn slightly orangy in colour and red. Then the final layer a much darker red.

It’s the same recipe which I posted before but this time, I doubled the recipe and used a 26cm round tin and got a 5 inch kuih. I found that if you boil the syrup longer or that means a thicker syrup, the kuih will be much firmer and have a cleaner cut. I also did not wait for the syrup to cool down as I running short of time to attend a class after maghrib prayer.

Passed a small portion to Naterah and the rest was laid to rest in the tummy of 6 monsters in two days… Alhamdulillah.

Ingredients:

2 cups rice flour
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 cup thick santan
a pinch of salt
red and yellow colouring

Boil until sugar dissolves, then leave to cool:
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 cups of water
2 screwpine leaves(knotted)

Prepare steamer. Leave water to boil on low while preparing kuih lapis mixture. Discard screwpine leaves from syrup.

Sift together rice flour, plain flour, tapioca flour and salt into a bowl. Add in cooled syrup. Mix well until all lumps disappear. Add in santan. Strain this mixture and divide into 2 separate bowls. (You can use multiple colours) Add red colouring into one and leave the other plain. Steam layer by layer, alternate color, 5 – 8 minutes for each layer.

I had used an 8 inch round tin and measured 1 cup of mixture for each layer. Add a little bit more coloring to the final layer to get a darker color for the top.

Leave to cool for 5 – 6 hours before slicing.

Moist Chocolate Cake (Steamed)

Have tried this chocolate cake from NoorMasri some time back. Came out very nice and moist. But tried again this time with slight addition. Sedapp!!

Ingredients A :

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (sift)

1 cup sugar

1 cup evaporated milk

1 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

½ cup condensed milk

Ingredients B (Sift together) :

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tsp instant coffee granules (dilute with ½ tbsp hot water)

1 tsp coffee emulco

Method:

1. Heat water in steamer. Lined and greased a 11 inch round baking tin.
2. Put in all ingredients A into a non-stick pan and cook on a small flame until sugar dissolves and all ingredients are well mixed.
3. Remove from flame and leave until it becomes just slightly warm.
4. Beat eggs until fluffy then add in the slightly warm cocoa mixture.
5. Drip in the vanilla essence, instant coffee mixture and coffee emulco.
6. Add in sifted flour and mix well.
7. Pour into baking tin. Cover with aluminium foil and make sure the foil are secured at the rims of baking tin.
8. Steam for 1 ½ hours. When done, remove from baking tin and leave to cool before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting:

250 g cooking chocolate

1 tbsp butter

130 g whipping cream

Melt chocolate using a double-boil method. When all chocolate have melted, remove from fire and add in whipping cream and butter. Mix well. Pour onto cake.

Steamed Fruit Cake

This is a must for Hariraya. One for my mom in-law and another for deareast mak. I used to have a different recipe, used since I made my first fruit cake after SPM. But lost it when we moved house some years after. I’ve been using this recipe from Koleksi Resepi Pilihan Diana for a couple of years now. It’s moist and lovely. Try it. I halved the recipe and used a 7 by 7 inch tin.

Ingredients:
1/2 tin or 250g Golden Churn butter or pure butter
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs (large)

1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp orange essence

300 g all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda

200 g mixed fruit
baking paper
aluminium foil

Caramel:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water

Method:
1. Prepare steamer. Heat some water on low while preparing the cake. Coat mixed fruit evenly with 1 or 2 tbsp of the 300g flour. This is to help prevent the fruits from sinking to the bottom.
2. Sift together remaining flour with baking soda.
3. Using a hand whisk, beat together butter and sugar in a deep mixing bowl until well blended. Do not use a plastic bowl. It would be better if it is ceramic. Add in vanilla and orange essence.
4. Add in eggs, one at a time until just blended. Do not over mix or you might end up with a dry cake.
5. Add in flour and mix evenly until just blended. Set aside.
6. Prepare caramel. Put in 1 cup of sugar in a non-stick pan or a kuali. Heat sugar. Use a wooden spatula to stir and cook until all sugar dissolves and begin to caramelize. Let it turn to slightly dark brown but NOT burnt. Then add in water. Be very careful and watch your hands when adding in the water. The caramel will poof off hot vapours.  Stir until caramel and water are quite blended. Turn off heat.
7. While still hot, pour in the caramel into the set aside mixture of butter and sugar.Mix evenly then add in mixed fruits. Mix until fruits are just evenly distributed. Do not overmix.
8. Line and grease your baking tin. Pour in mixture and cover the top of baking tin with aluminium foil. Make sure the foil are secured at the rim of the baking tin.
9. Steamed for 2 hours on a rapidly boiling water and another 2 hour on a reduced flame. Top with hot water when water reduces. It’s good to check the water after 1 hour as rapidly boiling water evaporates very quickly.

This cake will taste even better after a few days. I’m not sure how long is the shelf life but some say it can last for 6 months. (With or without regrigeration?!!)

Kuih Lapis

Ingredients:

2 cups rice flour
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
1 cup thick santan
a pinch of salt
red colouring

Boil until sugar dissolves, then leave to cool.
1 1/4 cup sugar(I had cut down 1/4 cup from the original recipe, 1 1/2 cup)
3 cups of water
2 screwpine leaves(knotted)

Prepare steamer. Leave water to boil on low while preparing kuih lapis mixture. Discard screwpine leaves from syrup.

Sift together rice flour, plain flour, tapioca flour and salt into a bowl. Add in cooled syrup. Mix well until all lumps disappear. Add in santan. Strain this mixture and divide into 2 separate bowls. (You can use multiple colours) Add red colouring into one and leave the other plain. Steam layer by layer, alternate color, 5 – 8 minutes for each layer.

I had used an 8 inch round tin and measured 1 cup of mixture for each layer. Add a little bit more coloring to the final layer to get a darker color for the top.

Leave to cool for 5 – 6 hours before slicing.

Kuih Kesui

Ingredients:

250 g flour

¼ cup corn flour

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp kapur paste

300 ml santan (coconut milk)

200 g gula melaka or 1 block gula kabung (palm sugar)

100 g brown sugar (I used plain white sugar)

450 ml water

2 screwpine leaves (knotted)

Mix together:

Grated coconut (white part only)

Pinch of salt

Method:

Sift flour, corn flour and salt into a deep bowl. Set aside.

Boil palm sugar, sugar, screwpine leaves and water until all sugar dissolves and syrup becomes thick. Strain and discard the leaves. Leave to cool.

Make a well in the centre of the flour and pour in cooled syrup. Mix well until mixture is free from lumps. Strain.

Mix well kapur with 1 tbsp of santan in a cup. This is to make sure there are no lumps of kapur in the kuih. Mix in back to the rest of santan.

Pour santan into flour and syrup mixture and mix well.

Pour into small Chinese tea cups or baking pans. Steam for 15 to 20 minutes or 10 minutes for the tea cups. Wipe water from the cover in between steaming time to make sure water doesn’t drip onto the kuih. When set, take out the kuih from the steamer and leave to cool before cutting.

Serve with grated white coconut.