Carrot cake

Been wanting to do this since I ever tasted the wonderful carrot cake from Suntec city near Giant after my gym session. Somehow they got the portion of walnuts, raisins and carrots so right!!! But I added pineapple into mine for 'flavour' and moisture. Turns out just as good ;). I was worried that it may be bitter coz of the walnuts but somehow it was ok when the cream adds in.

Well, mine turned out slightly abit more dense and moist than theirs since I used oil as opposed to creaming the butter with sugar slowly and dribbling the egg in which will take more time.

The cream cheese topping was spot on.

Half the cake gone :). Super happy Weeeee~~

Recipe courtesy from joyofbaking.com. Check out the original post as it's got a video clip too!

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Crustless Salmon Spinach Quiche!

Yes she is back! Since there is an oven in the Kitchen once more....previous one had to go just because I think I 'over cleaned' it to the point that rust was forming =(. Always use an oven spray peeps! Not attempt natural ingredients like baking soda. Either that I think it needs to be washed and dried cleanly

Anyway I was craving for quiche so I made this (as well as was planning for lunch and dinner ahead)

Packed with goodness of protein, yuuummm

Savouries are somehow the easiest to bake/cook than the desserts due to the fact that sugar is not in it! There is a whole new ball game to sugar and science so I pretty much whipped this dish in less than an hour.

Makes one 8" dish minus the crust

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Mochi Green Tea

First Attempt! And it took less time than I thought...

Bit deflated...quite tricky in this tropical conditions 

And it was through an easy recipe I found (see bottom of post) =) 

This is such an interesting way of making mochi as most of the time the nonya or conventional asian way is to  wrap the fillings before steaming them. This process however steams the dough before using it to wrap whatever we want and the texture was fun to play with (i.e. not sticky, more rubbery and smooth).

I was inspired by my recent trip to Hokkaido as we tasted the best ever Strawberry flavoured mochi in Japan. We tried the traditional method and it was hard! Check out this clip where proper skillful mochi makers work:

Wished the climate here wasn't too warm as I had to work really fast with the ice cream...and I think it's best to keep those mochi moulds once you buy and have eaten the mochi from the supermarket.

(Courtesy of Japanese Ice Cream's post and TofuGuru's video clip and I took the wheat starch idea from 'making mochi in 30 minutes'.)

Makes about 7 mochi base on a rice bowl cut shape

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11 Cupcake Project Creations

This is such a cool website! THanks to my dear who stumbled acrossed it. A source of inspiration =)

Scroll down for more ideas =)

For the full website, click here

Pineapple Tarts

Hokai, this was my first time making them and I so can't be bothered with the shape etc etc but I do bother with the filling!!

Soooo....

I literally made TarTs...in cupcake trays so that it holds more filling!!

Ok so I didn't have enough mini muffin trays...I made normal cookies instead =P

I tried to make a ball shape but the batter was a bit crumbly (it does boil down to the butter used) and the crust was abit harder than normal (better off for large base tarts) so the next time I make it I'm gona see if semi soft butter and icing sugar will help soften the base abit =)

What inspired this crazy spontaneous move? Leftover batter from my previous post! I realise that I won't have many eating tarts so thought I'd make cookies and distribute it around instead (Well, I gave everything to my sister haha). She loved the pineapple bit since it doesn't stick in between the teeth (I didn't cook it too long).

Before....and after say half an hour at medium flame

Anyway, it's Chinese New Year, so it's not worth the festival without attempting to try and make cny cookies! And to those of you out there, wishing you a great prosperous and wonderful new year to come. May the water dragon brings us joy in what we do! Gong Xi Fa Chai!

Courtesy of Nonyafood & Recipes and Rasa Malaysia's posts)

Makes about 18 tarts

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Fruit Tart round 2!

Heh, I've done this before in my previous post but I didn't write down the details of the recipe. And since I was planning to make 2 tarts, I got carried away in making my version of pineapple tarts with the extra cookie batter leftover.

This time I did poke holes on the base of the tart to prevent it from expanding but I didn't roll the first one deep enough. Ah well, you can't complain when you have a thick base anyway?

As for the custard bit, I relied on one recipe to make it...but in fact there are other ways to make it but it does depend on what desert one plans to make. If the custard is merely for pouring, I suggest  adding double cream to the recipe taken from these 2 posts: traditional english custard or Making egg custard without curdling

Mine had a 2 step and only used normal milk for the first step. Second step is just mixing the custard with whip cream to get the texture I want. But I made it twice coz the first one curdled >.<. After searching on reasons why mine didn't thicken (no double cream that's why) I decided to make it again...

It so nice to have more time since it's the cny break to myself....as well as the whole kitchen too hehe.

(Courtesy of Organic Tuscany's post)

Makes 4 x 2" fruit tarts and tart has a shelf life of 4 days refrigerated

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