From Tuna Quiche to Egg Tart

Last night, I thought that I still some cans of Tuna fish in my larder and I wanted to make Tuna Quiche for breakfast. I prepared the dough earlier without realizing that I have used up all the cans of tuna fish. So, I ended making giant size egg tarts instead. LOL! I don’t really use exact measurement or fixed type of ingredients when making egg tarts or quiche or in my cooking, just estimate the amount of ingredients to use. This is because I normally have limited time at night to bake these before bed time. My three hungry children would keep on asking, “Can we eat now?’…ha ha ha. Normally they will eat whatever I cook for supper and leave some for breakfast the next morning. The best thing about cooking without a recipe is that you can let your imagination runs wild and even more interesting when you ended up with a completely new dish! For egg tarts recipe, you can refer to my previous post;Egg Tart Recipe. Medium size egg tarts

Giant size egg tart.....

Giant egg tart after baking

Gave these to my back neighbour....

A cut out from the giant egg tart!

Square Tin Marble Cake Recipe - Mmm, sounds like Sponge Bob! LOL!

I am not really into baking because I would need to measure the required ingredients and sometime the cake just doesn’t turn out right. Therefore, I just use cups and spoons for my measure and save all the hassle of bringing out the weighing machine which I rarely use. The batter for this recipe is enough to fill my 8”x8” square aluminium baking tray. Here is the Marble Cake that my daughter and I baked last weekend. She loves cooking and was delighted to be able to help me bake this cake. And of course, she gets to lick clean the leftover cake batter in the mixing bowl! LOL!

Ingredients
Butter, 250gms
Eggs, 5 pcs, beaten slightly
Flour, 4 cups
Baking powder, 1 teaspoon
Milk powder, 2 tablespoons
Shortening, 1 tablespoon
Castor (caster)
Sugar, 2 cups (or 1 ½ cup)
Vanilla Essence, 1 tablespoon
Cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon

Put butter, shortening and castor sugar in a mixing bowl. Mix well until the mixture stick to the bowl and will not drop when you turn the bowl upside down. Add egg and stir the batter thoroughly. Sift flour and put it in slowly to the batter. Pour in the vanilla essence, milk powder and baking powder. Stir until well mixed. Take out around ½ cup of the batter and put the cocoa powder into it. Pour the rest of the batter into the oiled and floured baking tin. Use a spoon to put the cocoa mix in straight lines on top of the base cake batter. Use a tooth pick to drag the desired pattern on the cake. Bake in preheated oven at 200 Deg C for 20 minutes.

Hokkien Mee and A Car for my Wife - Pre Birthday Celebration!

My wife likes Hokkien Mee very much, so today I cooked Peteformation Authentic Penang Hokkien Mee for her. Since I used very little water compared with the amount of prawns, the soup turned out very tasty and sweet. My daughter ate 3 bowls and this is the first time I see her eating so much! LOL!

Made this bowl of Hokkien Mee for my neighbour!

Peteformation Authentic Penang Hokkien Mee Recipe : http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2008/10/authentic-penang-hokkien-mee-prawn-mee.html

Since the kids are busy preparing for their music exam and also school exam; we decided not to eat out today. Then, I thought of baking a cake.......took out the ingredients and started baking! The cake batter

Adding some colours; chocolate and pink

Aiya! I went outside and chit chat with my neighbour, forgot about the cake in the oven, luckily I realised on time but it was already slighty burned!

Now, what to do ahhh? Scraped off the burned part, still doesn't look nice!

Then I sketched out the shape of a car and ‘ta daaaaa’, it turned into a Beemer like the movie Cars! I used strawberries as the wheel! When my little toddler saw the cake he kept on saying, car, car , car; his favourite show! Ha ha ha!

Looks like the happiest person tonight was my little toddler! Peteformation Red and Chocolate Marble Cake Recipe I did not follow any recipe found in the book because I was actually estimating the amount of ingredients to use so that all of it would fit in just nice in to my baking pan. Luckily the cake turned out ok! I used only 1 cup of sugar for 5 cups of flour because my wife likes cakes that are not too sweet. Normally, 2 cups of castor sugar would only be sufficient for 5 cups of flour to make a cake.

Ingredients
Flour, 5 cups
Castor Sugar, 2 cups or less if you don’t want it to be too sweet
Baking powder, 2 teaspoon
Baking soda, ¼ teaspoon
Butter, 250 gms
Vanilla essence, 1 tablespoon
Cocoa powder, 1 table spoon
Red colouring, a few drops
Eggs, 5 pcs

Beat butter and castor sugar mixture until they turned light yellow. When you turn the bowl upside down, the butter and castor sugar mixture should not fall off when they are well mixed. Add vanilla essence and eggs. Mix well. Add baking powder and soda bicarbonate (baking soda) in to the flour. Use a strainer to air the flour. Add the flour into the cake batter. Mix well. Then take out around 5 table spoons of the batter, one into each bowl for the chocolate and red colour. Add in the cocoa powder to the first bowl and red colouring into the next bowl. Pour the rest of the batter into an oiled baking tray. Use a spoon to make a few ‘drains’ on the batter. Then add in the chocolate and red batter into the baking tray. Use a long stick or butter knife to pull some lines on the batter so that there will be lines of different colour in the cake. Bake in preheated oven at 180 Deg C for 35 minutes.

Copyright Material of Peteformation Foodie Adventure

Spending Quality Time with my Daughter on a Saturday Afternoon – UFO Chocolate Cake?

Last Saturday, I went out early in the morning to attend a talk on Investment Software. Normally I would go out later in the afternoon to see my clients but since I could not get any appointments, I went home after the talk. By the time I reached home, I found that my daughter has already finished doing her homework and was loitering around the house looking for things to do! She was delighted when I told her that she can bake a cake together with me. She was even more excited when I told her that we were going to bake a chocolate cake. Instead of using a round flat mold for the cake, we used a metal bowl. Actually I was trying to make a UFO shaped chocolate cake but unfortunately, the bottom layer diameter was too small and the shape turns out to be a dome instead of a UFO. We spread some chocolate cream icing and chocolate flakes on the cake. To add a little more effect, we sprinkled a little icing sugar on it and then decorated the top with a bright red cherry. It was a good quality time spent with my daughter and she will remember this moment for the rest of her life! We then shared some of the cake with our nice neighbor. Here is the end result! The 'UFO' Chocolate cake......................................and shaving the chocolate bar to make flakes

For chocolate cake recipe you can check out my post, Peteformation Chocolate Cake Recipe

Eggs Tarts (Than Dak) Recipe – Taiwanese Style

I bought some egg tarts baking trays from Tesco when they tag these goods as offer items. So, I got to try to make some egg tarts using these baking trays. The first batch of egg tarts turned out very nice but I burned the second batch when I set the timer too long and went to take my bath....oh oh! Luckily I still have the first batch that is nicely done and tasty too, especially when they are hot out from the oven.

Pastry
Flour, 4 cups
Butter, 125gms
Milk powder, 3 table spoons
Castor sugar, ½ cup 1 egg, slightly beaten
Baking soda, ½ teaspoon
Vanilla Essence, 1 teaspoon
Iced cold water

Mix the flour, vanilla essence, baking soda and butter. Knead the mixture until it turned into granules form. Add milk powder, castor sugar and egg. Continue to knead the dough until they are evenly mixed. Add a little cold water to the dough. Mix well and then put the whole dough in the fridge for 10 minutes Fillings Eggs, 3pcs Castor Sugar, ½ cup Salt, a pinch Custard flour, 1 teaspoon Fresh Milk, 1 cup Mix all the ingredients and stir until the sugar dissolves. Take dough, the size of a ping pong ball and use a rolling pin to flatten it. Press the flatten dough into the baking tray and cut away excess dough. Bake in preheated oven at 180 Deg C for 10 minutes. Take out the tray from the oven. Then pour the filling mixture into the pastry. Bake in preheated oven for another 10 minutes. The egg tarts are ready to eat!

Peteformation Chocolate Cake Recipe

This is the way to melt and cook the chocolate toppings I like chocolate cake very much and happened to come across blocks of chocolates being sold at Tesco Mutiara shelf at the baking section. I am not good at baking but since I have successfully bake butter cake, I guess I can modify the recipe a little bit to make chocolate cake. What I am trying to do is to make chocolate cake from using basic ingredients and not using fancy ingredients. This is not a moist type, but the cake turns out quite ok! I did not put too much sugar in it because my wife doesn’t like cake that is too sweet! Next time around I will try to insert some frozen chocolate chips into the cake to see how it will turn out. Here is my recipe for chocolate cake.

Cake

220 gms Self Raising Flour 4 cups,

sifted Castor Sugar, 80gms (more if you want it to be sweeter)

Baking powder, 1 teaspoon

Eggs, 4pcs

Vanilla Essence, 1 teaspoon

Cocoa powder, 7 table spoons

Chocolate Cream Toppings

Cooking Chocolate, 1 block

Butter, 4 table spoons

Sugar to taste

Vanilla Essence, 1 teaspoon

Beat butter and castor sugar mixture until they are soft and fluffy. Slowly pour in the eggs, baking powder and shifted flour while beating the mixture at the same time. Add vanilla essence and cocoa powder to the batter. Pour batter in baking tray and bake in preheated oven at 180 Deg C for 20 minutes. To make the chocolate cream dressing, use a wok and put some water in it. Then put a metal bowl in the water and add in the chocolate block. When the chocolate melt, add butter, sugar and vanilla essence. Let the mixture cool down a little bit and apply them on the cake before it hardened.

Related post

1) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2008/09/simple-recipe-muara-cawang-indonesian.html

2) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/peteformation-marble-cake-recipe.html

3) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/nice-apple-pie-for-light-and-easy.html

Peteformation Marble Cake Recipe

Before baking...................................................................and after baking! I tried to make a marble cake with the pattern in the picture after I saw a cooking demonstration in Kepong Jusco a few months back. This is the first time I make a marble cake and I did not use the exact measurement for it. (Just ‘agak-agak’ estimate, cause lazy to take out the weighing machine. No wonder sometimes my cake turns out ok, sometime not ok! LOL) I guess the ingredients for batter should be the same as butter cake and to make the marble patterns I used some cocoa powder. Luckily the cake turns out ok! Ingredients Butter, 225 gms Self Raising Flour130gms, sifted Castor Sugar, 80gms Baking powder, 1 teaspoon Eggs, 4pcs Vanilla Essence, 1 teaspoon Cocoa powder, 2 table spoons Mix butter with castor sugar and beat the mixture until creamy. Add eggs and beat until even and fluffy. Put in the vanilla essence and then add the sifted self raising flour and baking powder a little at a time while stirring the mixture. Scoop up around half a cup of the batter and add it with the cocoa powder. Pour the rest of the mixture in the baking tin. Slowly pour the cocoa batter mixture in circle over the white batter. Then use a tooth pick or a bamboo stick to make on in and one out line all over the circle. You will get the pattern as in the picture. Bake the cake in preheated oven at 180deg C for half and hour. Related Post 1) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/peteformation-chocolate-cake-recipe.html 2) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2008/09/simple-recipe-muara-cawang-indonesian.html 3) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/nice-apple-pie-for-light-and-easy.html

Makcik Fried Kuih Stall, Outside Pasar Raya Grand Union, Bandar Sri Damansara

Tea time! Tea time! This is one of my tea time pit stop to buy some hot Malay style fried kuih (local delicacies fried in flour batter). This stall is located right in front of Pasaraya (minimarket) Grand Union. I normally buy the crispy fried popiah (spring rolls), RM1 for 3 pieces. The popiah is nice and crispy but the chilly sauce is a bit bland for me. I have asked the makcik (aunty, in Bahasa Malaysia) to make the chilly a little bit more spicy. Other kuih available, that are fried in flour batter are sweet potato, tapioca, tapioca balls, yam and chempedak (Artocarpus Integer, a seasonal fruit that are related to jackfruit but more pungent in smell). This hardworking makcik operates her stall daily from 11am to 5pm. Do drop by if you are in this area.

Frying popiah in hot oil...........................................Draining away excess oil.

Fried tapioca balls......................................................Fried yam and fried sweet potato

Makcik Fried Malay Kuih, Outside Grand Union Supermarket Jalan Tanjung SD13/1, Bandar Sri Damansara, 52200, KL Map of Bandar Sri Damansara

A Simple Quiet Birthday with the Family

It was my wife’s birthday and I decided to bake a simple butter cake for her instead of buying a cake from the bakery this year. My little daughter helped me to bake this cake. She gets to eat the leftover batter. Daddy joined her in cleaning up the leftover batter too, yummy! Ha ha ha. The cake turned out nice but a bit thin because I used too little flour.

Anyway, the kids finished (sapu habis) all the cake within minutes, right after I have taken it out from the hot oven and my wife had to call for pizza as a backup.

Then, I cooked her favourite food, curry chicken for dinner. I did not use coconut milk for this curry and it turned out as tasty as the one with coconut milk. I tried to make some eggrolls stuffed with vegetables and my kids love it. We had a simple dinner accompanied by some roast duck and salted vegetable soup (Ham Choy Thong).

Simple Recipe - Muara Cawang Indonesian Pandan Cake

My maid taught my daughter to make this Muara Cawang Indonesian Pandan Cake. I named the cake after her village, Muara Cawang in Sumatera, Indonesia. Since it is kampung(village) style cooking there is no exact measurement of the ingredients. The cake tasted a bit like Bak Chien Kuih (Chinese Pancakes) and it is different from our normal pandan cake. I think if we add a bit of kaya on the top the type will be very nice. Ingredients Flour, 1 bowl Castor Sugar, ¾ bowl (Add more sugar if you want it to be sweeter) Eggs, 4 Soda Bicarbonate, ½ teaspoon Butter, 2”x2”x 2” Pandan(screw pine) leaves, 7 pcs Put sugar and butter into a big bowl and beat it until the batter turns white and fluffy. Add egg and continue to beat the batter. Slowly add the flour and soda bicarbonate; beat well. Blend pandan leaves using a blender and squeeze out the juice. Heat up the pandan juice and bring to a boil. Pour the boiling hot pandan juice into the batter mixture so that bubbles will form to make the cake fluffy (The Indonesians are good at using alternative ways to make the cake fluffy instead of using baking powder). Put mixture in baking pan (greased with butter and sprinkled with a little flour so that the cake will not stick). Bake in oven 150 Deg C for 40 minutes. Related Post 1)http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/peteformation-chocolate-cake-recipe.html 2)http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/peteformation-marble-cake-recipe.html 3) http://peteformation.blogspot.com/2009/07/eggs-tarts-than-dak-recipe-taiwanese.html