Old Skool Lunch

So I'm at home, it's lunchtime and I'm wondering what to eat. I decided to go the healthy route and not buy takeout, although I was thisclose to buying some yummy chicken bryiani from Sixth Ave. Good thing the parking there is such a pain in the ass, otherwise I would've totally caved. I do enjoy the briyani from one of the stalls there, and it has been a while since I last had it. Mmm... briyani... drool... Luckily for me laziness prevailed and I headed home empty-handed. But then what to eat? For once the fridge in my house is not overflowing with leftovers (I have issues, everything I cook always seems to be enough to feed an army, instead of just me and my family). I could have instant noodles, but that would have defeated the purpose of me trying to be healthy. A poke around the pantry later, I decided to make an old skool tuna melt. I love me a good, cheesy tuna melt. I can still remember the time I had a really good tuna melt, it was at my friend's place back in my uni days, and he was the one who put on the sun-dried tomatoes before plonking on the cheese and ooh, it made all the difference. Plus, all I needed were some pantry staples, and there's practically no wash-up. Easy peasy!So simple, yet so satisfying.

Old Skool Tuna Melt
Ingredients:
1 can tuna
1 onion, chopped
mayonnaise, to taste
pickles, or sweet relish, which is what I used cos I didn't have pickles
a couple of sun-dried tomatoes, cut into strips or chopped
cheese (I used mozzarella cos that's all I had)
bread

Directions:
Mix together the tuna, onions, mayo and relish/pickles. Pile the tuna mix onto your bread, then top with sun-dried tomatoes. Sprinkle cheese over everything, pop into the toaster oven until cheese is melted and Bob's your uncle.

Pooch Pleaser

I've made this pooch-friendly cake a couple of times now, and it's been good to me thus far. The first time I made it I used a bundt pan as per the recipe, and it actually turned out quite nicely. The second time around I decided to try and make it into cupcakes, which was ok too, except the cake got a bit stuck to the cupcake liners. Today I made the cake again, but this time I used foil cupcake liners instead, and I think the sticking won't be such a problem. I do find that the amount of butter the recipe calls for is quite a lot, so I tend to cut it down a bit. I also like to add just a touch of honey to the batter, in the hopes that it makes it tastier for the pooches. So far it's proven to be a hit with all the dogs its been served too, even pleasing the likes of Mr. Brown, who's a somewhat picky eater. So yay! I like to top these off with some carob chips, which I place on top of the cupcakes the moment they are out of the oven so that they'll melt and I can sorta smooth it out to look like chocolate frosting. For today though I was low on the carob, so the cupcakes are frosting-less. Oh wells. I'm hoping the doggies won't even notice.Sitting pretty, waiting to be scarfed by the doggies!

Ginger & Banana Pooch Cake
Ingredients:
2/3 cup mashed banana (I use 2 bananas)
113g butter
3 eggs
½ cup water
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Beat together banana and butter until creamy. Add eggs and water, and beat well. Stir in the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
3. Spoon batter evenly into an oiled and floured bundt pan, or into cupcake pans (lined with foil liners). Bake bundt cake for 35 minutes, cupcakes for 25 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and cool on rack for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.
A pooch pleasing cupcake.

Cupcake Medley

As a home baker, one of the biggest drawbacks I face is that I can't offer 12 different cupcakes per box like those donut joints and their multi-flavor boxes. Each recipe I have makes at least 12 cupcakes, and unfortunately I don't have a shopfront in which to display the remaining 11 cupcakes per recipe, which when is times 12, comes up to 132 cupcakes. So most people are stuck with just one flavor of cupcake, unless they order several boxes. One way to incorporate variety, I've found, is to use one cupcake base, such as the humble vanilla cupcake, and then finish it off with different toppings. I did just that for a recent order, topping off the vanilla cupcake base with salty caramel and chococlate ganache (they're the ones hiding right at the back), strawberries and vanilla buttercream, blueberry pie and vanilla buttercream and apple pie a la mode. A tooty frooty cupcake medley!

So it's not quite the same as getting 12 different cupcakes in a box, but it works for me, and my client was pretty happy so I'm glad it worked out.

PS. I had some left over sauteed apples, and a couple of spare cupcakes, so I thought, maybe now's a good time to try and caramel apple pie cupcake a la mode! I wasn't quite sure how the apples would go with the salty caramel, but my mom and my friend aka the guinea pigs both gave them the thumbs up. So yay!

Penang Hawker's Fare

The famed Penang Hawker's Fare at York Hotel is something I look forward to every time it hits town. It happens every once in a while at York Hotel for a few weeks' at a time, and although my family says I don't eat enough for it to be worth my while, I can't help it I just have to go. Why? I friggin' love the peanut pancake stuff they have there. Well... that and I really like Penang food. I love the spicy prawn mee, the fishball kuay teow soup, the rojak... and being able to indulge in it all without having to fly to Penang, in cool airconditioned comfort, I say it's well worth the $23.80++ price tag!
This is Penang rojak, which is a melange of fresh fruit like pineapple, mango, jambu (rose apple) and guava, together with cucumber and turnip (jicama), all tossed with a thick and viscous dressing made up of sugar, chilli, lime juice and super pungent hae ko (dark prawn paste) and topped off with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts. Yums!Next up we have Lor Bak, which actually refers to meat rolls that are wrapped in beancurd skin and deep fried, kinda like our Chinese Ngor Heong. It also comes with some deep fried beancurd, deep fried sweet potato and deep fried prawn fritters. Mmm mmm deep fried goodness. It's served with chilli sauce and a starchy sauce flavored with five-spice powder and eggs.This here is Cuttlefish Kangkong, which is pretty self-explanatory. Thick slices of cuttlefish, cooked kangkong (also known as water morning glory or water spinach) and bean sprouts are tossed in a thick, sweet and spicy sauce and topped with chopped peanuts. It's good stuff!
One to the serious eats! This dish looks oh so simple, but it is oh so damn tasty! It's Fishball Kuay Teow Soup and it's just about the most delicious and flavourful soup ever. I kid you not. It looks so clear and so boring, but don't let its looks deceive you. It's really really yummy. Slices of fish cake and fishballs (yes I know, it sounds weird, but these are just little balls made of fish meat and starch, and it's really common for us Chinese) and shredded chicken meat together with super smooth kuay teow (a flat rice noodle) get along swimmingly in the fragrant broth, seasoned with spring onions, cilantro and fried garlic. I am drooling just thinking about it. This is Penang Char Kuay Teow, literally translated means Penang fried rice noodles. It's got flat rice noodles, bean sprouts, prawns, cockles, egg, Chinese chives and chilli paste, all fried over super high heat for that added oomph. Yes it's fatty, but you don't have to eat it everyday. All in moderation, I say!This is another sinfully fatty dish, called Orh Chien, or Orh Luak. It's a Hokkien dish in which oysters are fried with batter, eggs, chilli and spices. Basically your normal fried omelette, but spiked with fresh oysters and starchy pieces. I'm not such a huge fan of this, simply cos I'm not a huge fan of oysters, but I do like picking out the starchy bits.This is Assam Laksa, which is rice noodles accompanied by a thick, tangy, spicy and sour fish broth gravy that contains meshed fish meat. Very different from our local laksa, which has a coconut milk-curry soup base. It's garnished with chopped cucumber, fresh onions, mint leaves and pink pickled ginger. I find that this is quite an acquired taste, you either love it or hate it. Given all the other food options available, I usually pass on this. This is another of my personal faves, the Penang Hokkien Prawn Mee. It differs from the local prawn mee in that the broth is usually much more spicy and packs a real punch. To the prawn-based broth you get a mix of mee (yellow egg noodles) and bee hoon (vermicelli), with pork slices, prawns, kangkong and bean sprouts, topped off with pieces of fried lard and fried shallots. So so so good! I love this stuff. Finally, we have my lovely Min Jiang Kueh, my crispy pueanut pancakes! I'm super fussy about these, and I only like the ultra crispy types, not the thick and soft kinds I find that most hawkers in town sell. So naturally despite having stuffed myself full of all the other goodies, I have to have at least five of thses. Inside the crisp pastry shell is a mixture of chopped peanuts, sugar and Planta (a somewhat unhealthy brand of margarine type product, but heck, this stuff's so good I eat it anyways). With each bite you get the salty-sweet combination of the peanuts and sugar, all mixed in with melted buttery goodness. Oooh how I wish I had me some of this right now.

There's also Ice Kachang and Chendol for dessert, but I didn't take photos of these cos I was just too full and too lazy, about to slip into a big fat food coma. Ice Kachang is basically finely shaved ice on top of a mix of red beans, grass jelly, sweetcorn, attap chee (don't ask me what this is in English, I haven't a clue) and a bunch of other stuff (different hawkers may have different ingredients), drenched in sticky sweet multi-coloured syrups or gula melaka (palm sugar syrup) and evaporated milk. Chendol is somewhat similar, but there's coconut milk involved as well. It's got the shaved ice, red beans, and this funny worm-like starch noodles that they colour a bright green. I don't like it too much. I'd much rather gorge myself on those peanut pancakes. *drool*

And there you have it.

Oh Fudge!

I decided to try this recipe for fudge ball cupcakes from Elinor Klivans' Cupcakes! book, as they were described as "mini-fudge brownie cupcakes" which sounds pretty damn good to me. I already have a go-to recipe for cocoa brownies, as well as decadent brownie cupcakes, but still, I wanted to try something new. I deviated from the recipe by using a chocolate ganache (I had some left over sitting in the fridge) instead of her recommended chocolate coating, and I dipped the tops of the cupcakes instead of the bottoms, which I thought made more sense. But whatever floats your boat, you should do whatever makes you happy is what I always say.My fudge mini babycakes are just waiting to be dipped. Look how shiny the ganache is! You can actually see my camera in the reflection!

Fudge Ball Cupcakes
Ingredients:
½ cup butter, cut into small pieces
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 large eggs
1¼ cups sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
¾ cup flour

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Line 2 mini-muffin tins that have 12 cups each with mini paper liners. Spray the paper liners with nonstick spray.
2. Put the butter and the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over, but not touching, a saucepan of barely simmering water, or simply use a double boiler. Stir th butter and chocolate until melted and smooth. Remove from the water and set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and salt to blend them thoroughly, about 1 minute. Whisk in the slightly cooled chocolate mixture and vanilla to incorporate them. Whisk in the flour just until no white streaks remain.
4. Fill each paper liner with about 1½ tablespoons of batter, to just below the top of the liner. Bake just until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it, about 24 minutes. (Mine were really tiny, I baked mine for only about 22 minutes.) Cool the cupcakes for 10 minutes in the pans on wire racks.

This is where I deviate from the recipe, I just dipped the tops of the cupcakes in chocolate ganache to keep things simple.

I Love Me Some Pie

I came up with the idea of making apple pie cupcakes, but didn't really want to have the apples baked into the cake itself. So I figured I'd saute the apples in some butter, sugar and cinnamon till it got all nice and caramel-y but not too soft, and top the cupcake off with it, and finish everything off with vanilla buttercream. And so the apple pie a la mode cupcake was born.
Apple Pie a la Mode Cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the cake:
3 cups sifted cake flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
1½ tsp vanilla
1 cup milk
4 eggs
(This recipe makes quite a number of cupcakes, I have scaled it down to half before with equally good results.)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Cut butter into 1-inch pieces. Soften on low speed. Cream until light in colour.
4. Add sugar, 1 tbsp at a time, taking 8 to 10 minutes to blend it in well.
5. Add eggs one at a time at 1-minute intervals.
6. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk, dividing flour mixture into 4 parts and milk into 3 parts.
7. Spoon batter into cupcake papers (about 1/3 full, so there is space for the apple pie filling after the cake is baked) and bake for 18 to 22 minutes, until golden brown in colour.
8. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.

For the apple pie filling:
diced and peeled green apples
butter
cinnamon
brown sugar
(I usually just eyeball the amount of spice and sugar used, depending on how much filling I need.)

Directions:
1. Melt butter in pan, and add cinnamon and brown sugar. Let it cook a little, before adding in apples. Cook for a few minutes, stirring well. Don't overcook the apples, just a few minutes should do the trick. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

For the vanilla buttercream:
4 oz. butter
2½ cups icing sugar, sifted
½ tsp salt
1 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice

Directions:
1. Cream butter and salt for 30 seconds, then add ½ the icing sugar and milk to the butter. Beat until combined. Add remaining icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and beat well.
2. Beat on high speed for 5 to 6 minutes until frosting is fluffy.

To assemble:
Spoon apple pie filling on top of baked and cooled cupcakes, and then top off with vanilla buttercream.

Classic Carrot Cake in Cupcakes!

There was a time when the thought of making carrot cake would make me freak out, having had some less than stellar results with previous carrot cake recipes. But now I can safely say I have found the recipe that works for me. I have made this recipe several times over, and have yet to stuff it up. I got it from here, which is one of my fave stops for recipes and awesome pics. I especially like this recipe cos the cake is super moist. Also, even though the recipe calls for nuts, I always leave them out cos I hate carrot cake with nuts. But if you must, add 1 cup of chopped walnuts. Another thing, I try to cut down on the oil, and substitute half of it with unsweetened applesauce, and it's worked just fine.
Good Ol' Carrot Cake
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
1½ tsp ground cinnamon
1½ tsp fresh nutmeg
4 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1¼ cups firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup canola oil
¼ cup milk
1 tbsp vanilla
2 tbsp finely chopped crystallised ginger
3 cups firmly packed shredded carrots

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices into a bowl. Whisk together.
3. Beat eggs and sugars together until well combined, about 2 minutes. At low speed, add the oil, melted butter, milk, vanilla and ginger and mix until blended. Add the flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing until just blended. Add the carrots (and walnuts, if using) and fold into the batter. Pour batter into prepared cake pans or cupcake papers.
4. Bake cupcakes for about 23 minutes, until they are dark golden brown. Mini babycakes take about 15 minutes.
5. Cool cakes on rack, and then frost with your fave cream cheese frosting.