Getting ready for Chinese New Year-Honey Corn Flakes

Ingredients:

80gm toasted almond flakes

80gm raisins

some red cherries*

some green cherries*
* for decoration

65gm butter

3tbsp honey

1 1/2tsp vanilla essence

200gm corn flakes

Method:

1. Melt butter and honey over low heat or until slightly thick. Remove from fire, add in vanilla essence and corn flakes.

2. Add in raisins and toasted almond flakes.

3. Spoon mixture into small paper cup.

4. Bake in preheated oven at 160C for 12 to 15 minutes.

Getting ready for Chinese New Year-White Almond Cookies

White Almond Cookies (Recipe adapted from Aunty Yochana)
Ingredients:

170 gm. shortening
110 gm. icing sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
200 gm. plain flour
80 gm. cornflour
100 gm. toasted almond flakes
a little cornoil if dough is too dry (I used 10gm)

Method:
(1) Cream shortening with icing sugar till creamy.
(2) Add in plain flour, cornflour then the roasted almond flakes.
(3) Slowly pour in cornoil to form into a dough.
(4) Chill in the fridge for 30 mins. then roll into 1 cm thick, use a round cutter to cut into rounds.
(5) Bake at 170C for about 25 mins. till cooked and lightly brown.
(6) Remove and leave to cool on a wire rack before storing in cookie containers.

Love Macarons for Valentine's Day

This is my first time. The heart shaped chocolate macarons filled with chocolate buttercream. I have wanted to try these heart shaped macarons when I saw it at Moroccan Cuisine Marocaine by Mamatkamal. To pipe the batter, I found that the smaller round tip (0.7cm) is more suitable compare to 1cm round tip I used for round macarons. This is because the smaller the hole, the easier to control the shape of macarons during piping process.

No chocolate, no roses, how about macarons for valentine’s day? =)

Getting ready for Chinese New Year-Hazelnut Rosettes

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. Which means, its time for me to start cookies baking =). These hazelnut cookies are one of my family favorite. The cookies turned out incredibly nutty and crispy.

Ingredients:
120gm butter
50gm sugar
1tsp vanilla essence
30gm hazelnut powder (or almond powder)
120gm plain flour
some chocolate chips for decoration

Steps:
1. Cream butter and sugar until loght and flutty. Add in vanilla essence and mix well.
2. Add in haselnut powder and plain flour till well combined.
3. Put mixture into a piping bagwith fluted tube. Pipe mixture into small paper cases to form flower shape. Top with a chocolate chip as decoration.
4. Bake in a preheated oven at 170C for 20 mins or till lightly brown and firm to touch. Remove and leave to cool before storing.

Cotton Japanese Cheesecake

This cheesecake is very soft and light but there are cracks on the surface. This isn't my first time to bake a cheese cake but I made a silly mistake- I forgot to bake it in a water bath :P.

Ingredients
160gm cream cheese
25gm butter
120g milk

40gm flour
30gm corn flour

4 egg yolks

4 egg whites
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
90gm sugar

Steps:
1. Line the side and base of a 8" round springform baking tin with grease proof paper.
2. Double-boil milk, butter and cream cheese until cream cheese has melted completely. Strain the mixture.
3. Add in flour mixture, stir and mix until well combined. Whisk egg yolk into the cream cheese mixture until well combined.
4. Whisk the egg whites till frothy. Gradually add in the sugar and whisk till soft peaks form.
5. Fold in 1/4 of the meringue into the cream cheese mixture until combined.
6. Then fold in the rest of the meringue lightly in 3 portions until well combined.
7. Pour into pan and bake in water bath at 150c for 80mins or till golden brown
6) Remove cake from the oven. Remove from mould immediately. Set aside to cool.

Apple Flavored Tea Chiffon and Happy 101 Award

Does this look familiar? This is my last minutes bakes for a freind visit, a simple chiffon cake with apple flavored tea. I am totally in love with this new product that recently available here.

i used the recipe same as for the earl grey chiffon. i found that the amount of sugar used can be reduced to 50gm instead of 60gm in the recipe. My friend is an earl grey fan, so glad that she love it =).

I was so excited to receive the Happy 101 Award from the wonderful blog, Barbarabakes. Thank you so much Barbara. I really appreciate it =).

Here are the rules for the award
1. Copy the award image into a post.
2. List 10 things that make you happy.
3. Tag ten bloggers who brighten your day.
4. Put in a link to their blogs.
5. Notify the award receivers.
6. Link back to the sender's blog.

So, ten things that make me happy:
1. my family
2. my friends
3. baking
4. cooking
5. traveling
6. shopping
7. going back to hometown (Kuching, Sarawak)
8. delicious food
9. good books
and lastly, of course
10. Blogging =)

Here are my tagged 10 bloggers who also make me happy:
1. Mamatkamal, Moroccan Cuisine Marocaine
2. Sue Sparks, Munchkin Munchies
3. Dajana ,Baker's corner...somewhere in my kitchen
4. Laura, Little Chef And I
5.NINA, NINA's RECIPE
6. Dhanya, Dhanya's Dazzling Delights
7.Dimitrana S. , Тайната на нашата вечеря
8.Pink Little Cake
9.温馨小屋
10.Cherry potato

Hazelnut Macarons

To make macarons, we always start by grinding almonds and powdered sugar together in a food processor. Since I was thinking to make a batch of hazelnut macarons, I replaced the ground almond with hazelnut. After grinding process I realized that the mixture became an oily paste that can not be sieved at all!! So, i substituted only half of the almonds with hazelnuts for the second attempt. The mixture(almond+hazelnut+powdered sugar)can be sieved easily before fold in the meringue.