Saturday 15 December 2007

Carrot Cupcake with Creamcheese Frosting

I finally got these paper cups *YAY YAY* I've been looking for them and finally one day when I browsed to "mba yulia's" blog, I was lucky she just posted that she is going to sell them and she was waiting for the cups to arrive. I texted her to order right away. And YES!! I have them now after struggling to pick up the cups. I wanted to get it as soon as possible just to be able to use them for baking beautiful cupcakes as the others *hehehe* To tell you the truth, I snicked out from my office to go to her husband's office to pick the cups *hihihi* I was lucky my boss suddenly have appointment. The minute after he stepped put the office, I quickly ran down and stop a taxy. Anyway, thanks, mba yulia. I'll check out your blog more often, who knows you have more new items coming up *hehehe*


So, today I'm showing off *hahaha* my beautiful carrot cupcakes... Actually I have baked them before but with different recipe. This time I decided to try vania's carrot cake. My friend also recommended her recipe. So, I thought why not of making them in my new paper cups?! So, here you go, they look so pretty I couldn't stop taking photos of them *hihihi* That's why gonna find out the reason that this post taking you ages to download *hahaha*

My comment for this recipe is the creamcheese frosting. It didn't say what kind of vanilla so I used vanilla extract in powder form. The vanilla extract taste bitter and weird in the creamcheese mixture. Next time, I would pass it or shall I use other form vanilla?? *we'll see dech!!*. The bitter taste has ruined my delicious carrot cake. The carrot cake is the moist carrot cake I ever had. It tastes better than the other recipe that I had tried before. And next time, I will definitely stick to this one.




Carrot Cupcake with Creamcheese Frosting
Source: Vania's


5 eggs
2 cups sugar (caster sugar)
2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 cup oil
3.5 cups shredded carrot *500 g of carrot
1/2 cup almonds *I skipped this
Raisins (1 small box – 1.5 oz) *Out of stock :p


1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 13x9 inch cake pan (or two 9 inch round pan), dust with flour. *I prepared 32 paper cups, no need to grease and dusting :)

2. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

3. Sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

4. Fold in the flour mixture until just combined.

5. Fold in the carrots, oil, almonds and raisins until combined.

6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean – about 45 minutes. *Cupcake style takes around 30 minutes*


CREAM CHEESE FROSTING*

Mix together, until smooth:
1 tbsp (20gr) butter
4 oz cream cheese
1 tbsp vanilla * I used vanilla extract like crystals and will not use this again :(
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup icing sugar

*Notes:
I made the recipe with cupcakes style, and the frosting is not enough to frost all 32 cupcakes. So I suggest if you want to do it cupcake style you should double the frosting recipe.

Friday 14 December 2007

Mango Ice Cream and Sorbet

Hi... I'm back!!! It feels like too long to wait to post this Mango Ice Cream and Sorbet. You know why?? Cuz this one really took me ages to enjoy *hahaha* I actually made 'em last week the day after "wedang ronde". It was supposed to be few hours as said in the recipe I got from someone's cooking blog but mine was taking me 2 days *hiks hiks hiks* It took me 1 day to wait just to beat it for 1st time, meanwhile the recipe said need to beat for at least 2 or 3 times to soften the ice cream. Aahhh.... I should've just bought a box from the shop or I should get an ice cream maker :p Lucky the sorbet is quicker, and they are more mangoish than the ice cream.


Any way, it finally done. Why did I choose to make mango flavour? Mango is in season *yay yay* Everywhere you go you see mangos... on the side street, at the supermarket and hip at the local markets everywhere. They are cheap...cheap...cheap... only Rp.5000/kilo. And even our customers send mangos to the office *hihihi*



Mango Ice Cream

Source: someone's cooking blog *sorry... I forgot :p (Modified by: me)

Ingredients:

400 g Mango flesh, cut into small cubes and pureed

500 ml full cream milk
500 ml whip cream
6 egg yolks
200 g sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Whisk egg yolk with 25o ml of milk. Set aside.

2. Heat whip cream, remaining milk and sugar until start to bubbling. Turn off the heat.

3. Add in the egg mixture and salt. Stir thoroughly.

4. Heat again the mixture while keep stirring until it thickened. Turn off the heat.

5. Keep stirring to cool and then add in the mango puree.

6. Keep in freezer until it gets halfly frozen on the side then beat using mixer. Put back again to the freezer. Repeat until 2 or 3 times till you have reach your desired softness. Freeze overnight before serving.



Mango Sorbet
Source: Majalah Femina

Ingredients:

250 ml drinking water
150 g sugar
850 g sweet mango flesh
100 ml lime/lemon juice

Directions:

1. Mix water and sugar, heat until sugar has dissolved. Strain and let cool before put in the fridge.

2. Blend mango, lime/lemon juice and the above sugar syrup until puree. Transfer to a container and cover with plastic wrap.

3. Freeze for 2 hours until halfly frozen. Then using a fork to scrap the sorbet. Put back to the freeze for 6-8 hour before serving.

Sunday 2 December 2007

Christmas Cookies

X-mas is around the corner. These are what I picked up yesterday at the mall for An-An, me and my nieces *hihihi* I'm not a big fan of these ginger cookies and will not bake one :) So I better buy few cookies just to smell the christmas sense Hm...... These are from AL'S COOKIES, a stall at EX.

Gloutious Sticky Rice Balls a.k.a Wedang Ronde

The idea came by when having lunch at Plaza Bapindo's food court. I always take a minute or two to stop by at the convenience store there. So, I look around at got few blocks of Ting-Ting nuts on hand when I about to check out at the cashier.


So, I thought why not to try vania's wedang ronde recipe since it is similar to our traditional Onde-Onde made by my granddad for one of the chinese traditional event where all of must at least must eat them at the number according to our age *hihihi* I really don't know does it only im my family or same as the others :) Lucky my granddad made was tiny balls and easily to eat for 29 *hahaha* And my granddad's onde-onde has no filling, it's a plain one with colours.


Wedang Ronde
Taken from: vania's


Ingredients

150 gr sticky rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
150 ml water, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsps "kapur sirih" water * I dont know what is this so I skipped it*
3 drops of red and green colouring
75 gr enting2 (Ting-Ting) coarsely mashed

Ginger Soup

750 ml water
150 gr sugar
3 pandan leaves, cut into 2 or 3 cm length
25 lime leaves
50 gr ginger, roughly mashed


1. Mix flour, salt and water. *and also Kapur Sirih water if you are using*. Mix until the mixture can be formed into small balls. Divide mixture into 3 parts. 1 part left uncoloured as white, 1 part is given red and 1 part is given green.
2. Form into small balls, fill with Ting-Ting. Drop each balls into boilling water and cook until the balls came up to the surface. Drained and let it soak in drinking water to avoid them sticking to each other.
3. The soup: Boil water, sugar, pandan leaves, lime leaves and ginger. Take out the ingredients and left only the water and put back to the heat until boil. Set aside.
4. Serving: put few sticky rice balls into serbing bowl or glass, spoon in the ginger soup. Serve hot. *suit best when the weather is chill...*




Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies

I have creamcheese left over in my fridge and didn't want it spoiled. And I always love cheese, everykind of cheese :p So, I looked through my magic book and found this recipe, Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies, that I have kept for awhile, taken from Anne's kitchen blog. Thanks, Anne. It was turn out surprisingly delicious. Even a picky kind of kid chosen to eat few slices instead of our lunch at the Court Yard in PI :) But mine doesn't look good as Anne's one but the taste is not less than hers *hehehe* You know why?? I made this at night time and silly me to fall asleep while baking :p




Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies
taken from: Anne's Kitchen (originally from: Buku ‘Kue Kering Potong’ oleh Indriani)

150 g dark cooking chocolate, cut into cubes
2 tbsps butter / margarine
125 g flour
½ tsp baking powder
3 eggs
1 ½ tsps vanilla
250 g sugar
75 g walnut/cashew, coarsely chopped
75 g cream cheese, soften at room temperature



Direction :


1. Heat oven to 150 ℃. Butter 20x20x3 cm pan with margarine.


2. Melt chocolate and butter, set aside.


3. Mix all together the flour, baking powder dan ½ tsp of salt.


4. In a mixing bowl, beat 2 eggs and 1 tsp of vanilla. Gradually add 175 g of sugar. Keep beating until thickened and yellow. Add in the dry ingredients mixture to the egg mixture. Mix well. Add in the chocolate mixture, chopped nuts and mix throughly. * I skipped the nuts*


5. Beat cream cheese and remaining sugar until fluffy. Add in the remaining eggs and 1/2 tsp of vanilla.


6. Pour half of the chocolate mixture into prepared pan, top with cream cheese mixture and remaining chocolate mixture. Using a fork or skewer to draw a marble pattern. Oven for 30 minutes. Let cool and slice. * It actually took me 1 hour to bake and still not really done well when I inserted a toothpick, so I decide to turn off the heat and left it for awhile in the oven with the door closed. And that's when I fell asleep :p and get it really crunchy at the top *hehehe* And no one seems to notice how the crunchy part formed. Everyone said it was delicious with crunchy on the top skin and inner chewy alike. It turned out perfect *hihihi**



Saturday 1 December 2007

1 Month's Baby Cookies

I just thought these are cute :) Given by a friend's at his 1 month baby girl and wanna share with all of you :p