Butternut Squash Raisins Bread

Ta-dah! This is the latest gadget in my kitchen: Breville Baker's Oven. A bread maker machine.

And to officiate the bread maker, I made a butternut squash raisins bread loaf, adapted from Fluene's Corner.

Butternut Squash Raisins Bread Loaf

What You'll Need:

20 g milk
30 g butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp milk powder

50 g whipping cream
60 g pumpkin puree
250 g bread flour

50 g brown sugar
1 tsp yeast
100 g raisins

How To:

1. Lift the bread pan out of the bread machine and fit the kneader blade.
2. Add the milk, butter, egg, salt, milk powder, whipping cream, and butternut squash puree in the order listed or as recommended by the bread maker.
3. Spoon in the flour, make a slight dip in the center and add the sugar and yeast.
4. Insert the pan into bread machine. Shut the lid and set to a basic white setting with preferred crust setting. Press start.
5. Add in raisins when the beeper beeps. If your bread machine is fully automated, put the raisins in the designated container.
6. At the end of the program, lift the pan out of the machine using oven gloves. Loosen the bread with a plastic spatula, turn it out on to a wire rack and leave to cool.

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Barney & Thomas the Train Cake

This post is way long overdue. We celebrated the kids' birthday couple of months back; K-girl hit the big ONE, while K-boy turned 3. Nothing too fancy, just an intimate celebration with the family & the cake with their favourite on it.

Initially I wanted to bake K-girl a birthday cake but I didn't have the time as it was just few days after my business trip to Europe. So we ended up with a Barney jelly cake, which we ordered from our favourite supplier in Taman Desa. The jelly cake was homemade, fresh, not overly coloured with food colouring, and it's not too sweet. And of course the little girl was really happy to see it.

As for K-boy, I promised him I will make him a Thomas the train cake. However, I didn't attempt a 3D cake for him. Just googled for some ideas and came up with a 2D design & with the help of a die-cast Thomas train. It was after this session, I understood how tedious 3D cake/figurine modelling could be as I was going dizzy with just 2D design and it took me a good 10 hours to complete the cake from baking to decorating it.

The result of 10 hours labour of love



And we have a very happy birthday boy!

The cake was a moist chocolate cake, layered with whipped vanilla frosting adapted from sweetapolita.com

Whipped Vanilla Frosting Recipe:

 

What You'll Need:

 

2-1/2 cups (5 sticks)(575 grams) unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

5-1/4 cups (600 grams) confectioners’ sugar, sifted

4-1/2 tablespoons (70 mL) milk

1-1/2 tablespoons (23 mL) pure vanilla extract

pinch or two of salt

How To:

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whip butter for about 8 minutes on medium speed. Butter will become very pale & creamy.
2. Add remaining ingredients and mix on low-speed for 1 minute, then on medium speed for 6 minutes. Frosting will be very light, creamy, and fluffy.
3. Best used right away (for ideal spreading consistency), but keeps well once frosted.

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A dish of tummy warming Lontong

It's been a long while since I had Lontong, then I remembered a recipe that given in a cookbook. I tried other dishes recipe from the cookbook and they turned out well so I thought I'd give this recipe a try - well, more of my house helper to try.

"Lontong is a dish made of compressed rice cake in the form of a cylinder wrapped inside a banana leaf, commonly found in Indonesia and Malaysia. The rice rolled inside banana leaf and boiled, then cut into small cakes as staple food replacement of steamed rice. It is commonly called nasi himpit ("pressed rice") in Malaysia.

The term lontong in Malaysia usually refers a dish which consists of rice cakes in a coconut based soup such as sayur lodeh containing shrimp and vegetables like chopped cabbage, turnip and carrots. Additional condiments are added either during cooking or in individual servings. These include things such as fried tempeh, fried tofu, boiled eggs, dried cuttlefish sambal, fried spicy shredded coconut (serunding kelapa), fried chicken etc." (Source: Wikipedia)

My helper did tweak the recipe a bit especially on the condiments part, and it tastes really yummy! Here's the recipe :)

Lontong Recipe

Ingredients A:

1/3 cup coking oil
2 1/2 cups water
2 cup santan (coconut milk),
1 tsp salt or to taste
10 pieces satay ketupat / nasi himpit

Ingredients B:

1 carrot (wedged)
50g long beans (cut into 4 cm lengths)
100g brinjal (sliced)
1 packet Tempe (fermented soya bean cake, sliced)
100g cabbage (cut into squares or long strips)

Ingredients C:

8 shallots
6 cloves garlic
1 heaped tbsp dried prawns
25g fresh tumeric (sliced)
5 stalks dried chilli

Method:

1. Using an electric blender, grind ingredients C until fine
2. Heat wok and add oil & grinded ingredients. Saute for 5-10 mins until fragrant, stirring continuously to prevent burning.
3. Add water and bring gravy too a quick boil, simmer for 2 mins
4. Add in Ingredients B, santan & bring to a quick boil again.
5. Simmer over medium heat for 5 mins or till vegetables are cooked, stirring occasionally.
6. Lastly, add in salt to taste.
7. Serve over cooked ketupat pieces or nasi himpit.

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How To Get A Perfect Top Cake

All these years, I think I've only achieved an almost even flat top cake on 2 or 3 times. My cakes usually peaks and if I'm lucky enough, there would be no cracks.

I've been searching for the answers as to why the cake peaks and cracks, to which the answer are either:

• the oven temperature is too hot, causing the outside of the cake to bake and form a crust too quickly. As the mixture in the center of the cake continued to cook and rise, it burst up through the top of the cake,
• over mixing,
• too much flour,
• too little liquid, OR
• incorrect position of rack in oven.

And only recently I stumbled into this product by Wilton - Bake Even Strips. This strip is used to achieve a perfect level of cake.


Wilton's Bake Even Strips

How does this work?

Simply dampen the strips and wrap around the pan before baking. The moisture in the strips keeps the edges of the pan cooler for perfectly level cake.

Sadly to say, Wilton's products are not widely available in Malaysia. Even if it is, it's going to be very costly. Again, I googled for alternatives to the bake even strips and voila! I found this tip - using an old towel in replace of the Wilton strips will do just almost the same trick.

Now here comes the exciting part. I looked for an old hand towel which is long enough to wrap around my 8" pan. Then I cut it into half along the long edge, folded 3 times, wet it (squeeze out the excessive water), wrapped it around the pan and secure it with 2 pins. Pour in the batter and into the oven it went.



Outcome of the cake with the towel wrapped around the pan





An almost perfect flat top cake!


I did this with 2 pans, and while the first came out with an almost perfect flat top cake, the other still had a little peak. But at least this is a lot better than having to cut a lot of the cake to get a flat top cake for decorating purposes. And the best part, this tool is almost absolutely free!!

Give yourself a try today! Happy baking! :)

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Vanilla Butter Cake

Ever since venturing into fondant decorating, I kept finding myself looking for excuses to bake and decorate a cake. But I can't be possibly decorating all the cakes which are meant for only normal consumption right? So I offered to bake a cake for my cousin's ROM. Not only she accepted but in return she commissioned for a cake for her friend's wedding too! I have to be frank, pressure is on. Even more so for my hubby! Hehe.. because he knows if I can't get a good recipe, then my mood swings faster than a F1 car!

The cake flavour that was requested was a vanilla cake. I googled for some recipes and decided to try out the recipe posted by Joy of Baking. Recipe was easy and I must say it's indeed yummy and moist even after 3 days! So yes, this recipe is going into the KEEP box!

Moist Vanilla Cake

Vanilla Cake
as seen and adapted from Joy of Baking

What You'll Need:

345 grams sifted all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

226 grams unsalted butter, room temperature

315 grams granulated white sugar (I have reduced the sugar by 35 grams)

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

240 ml room temperature milk

How To:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F / 180 C. Grease and line two 9-inch cake pans.

2. In a bowl, sift or whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the paddle attachment, (or with a hand mixer) beat the butter until soft and creamy (about 1-2 minutes).

4. Gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 3-5 minutes).

5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

6. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

7. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture (in three additions) and milk (in two additions), beginning and ending with the flour.

8. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans, smoothing the tops with the back of a spoon or an offset spatula.

9. Bake 27 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in center.

10. Place the cakes on a wire rack to cool, in their pans, for about 10 minutes. Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack. Remove the parchment or wax paper and re-invert cakes so that tops are right side up. Cool completely before frosting.


Oh yeah, this is the outcome of the decorated cake. And I'm glad the newly weds and their guests loved it as much as I do! :)

So, happy baking!

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He's now a pre-schooler

In a blink of an eye, K-boy is already 30 months old. We've been trying to get him a spot in a playschool near my work place since early this year but we had to be in the waiting list. It's not that the school is that famous till it has a long waiting list, but it's because we weren't sure if we wanted to send him to one at all when the schools were busy with their registration of new student intake.

Early this month we received a call saying that there's an empty spot, and that we could bring K-boy for a 2-day trial run, If everything goes well, he could just continue on with the program instead of waiting for the next month.

We started prepping him for playschool - telling him the activities he would be doing there and all, but being a first timer, what does he know about going to school? All he could give in response was just to nod his head whenever we asked him if he would like to go to school... I guess he must be thinking that going to school is like what he had seen in Barney.

All ready and set for school

On the first day of trial, he did get some 'culture shock' with so many kids, teachers and rules to follow. He was clinging to me most of the time, until it was time to play with the slides and all. He didn't even bother to look for me, and was enjoying himself and started mingling with other kids. Then the teacher suggested that I sneak away, which I did and ended up feeling awfully terrible for doing so. As I was driving away, I could imagine how he must have felt being abandoned by me. True enough, when I returned to pick him up, he cried like the floodgate went burst! Even more guilty! So, note to self and hubby, never ever do that again although he's going to cry when we leave.

2nd day was almost similar, but slightly better. And by the third day, he started to have adjusted himself more at the playschool. So we decided to go ahead and enroll him into the school. And by the end of the week, he only gave a fake-cry when we picked him up from school.

And now, after 3 weeks down the road, he's enjoying himself at school and becoming more independent and learning a lot of new vocabs too! Seeing him getting to learn something while having fun made me feel I've done the right decision in sending him to a playschool  even before the age of 3. :)

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Bananas and Constipation

All these years we’ve been told by our grandparents/parents/elders that if you have constipation, take bananas or prunes. This remained as a rule of thumb for me, until when I was told that bananas can actually cause constipation in babies / kids. So, when I shared this info with my elders, they went “Really? But we’ve never come across such situations before.”

I’ve got to admit, when I shared this info with my family, I didn’t really do much research on it myself as I’ve got this piece of info from my friends –who are a mom themselves, who does extensive research when it comes to diets for children, and also because I was lazy. So I did look a bit like a fool without much evidence or solid reasons and facts to back me up.

I did some research on my own finally since I had some leisure time yesterday, and there are some interesting information that I’ve gathered.

Let me begin with some facts of bananas.

Photo from healthmetz.com

o   Bananas are rich in minerals – potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, calcium and some other minerals in small amounts.

o   Bananas are rich in vitamins – Folate, Niacin, Vitamin K, C, B6, E and some other vitamins in small amounts.

o   One medium banana contains 1.29 grams of protein, 105 calories and 3.1 grams of dietary fiber.

o   Bananas are high in soluble fiber that helps bowel movement

o   The potassium in ripe bananas helps to alleviate diarrhea since it replaces needed electrolytes

o   Fructooligosaccharide are found in bananas; an enzyme producing compound that assists in natural digestion and hinders the fermentation of bananas once inside the intestinal tract; this helps to prevent constipation in some cases

o   The ripeness of a banana will determine whether or not it will make you constipated when it is consumed.

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2664942, http://www.healthalternatives2000.com/fruit-nutrition-chart.html

Ok, now it seems like banana plays both role of causing and aiding constipation.  An article in http://www.buzzle.com further explains the dual role that banana plays.

“Bananas Alleviating Constipation:

Bananas are one of the best-selling fruits across the globe. Cherished for their nutrient value these fruits are available in several sizes and colors. Loaded with ample amounts of potassium, calcium, zinc, copper and other vitamins and minerals, bananas are also high in fiber content. Dietary fiber is in the form of pectin, which increases the bulk of the bowels, so as to conduce to proper bowel movement. One banana furnishes the body with fifteen percent of the body's daily fiber requirement. Thus, consuming bananas helps furnish the body with adequate amounts of dietary fiber, thereby facilitating good bowel movement and preventing constipation issues.

Bananas Conducing to Constipation:

So if bananas actually alleviate constipation by furnishing the body with dietary fiber, how then can it be responsible for triggering constipation? The truth here is that though ripe bananas relieve constipation, the unripe bananas spearhead constipation. Unripe or green bananas are difficult for the body's digestive system to digest. Moreover, the pieces of unripe bananas block the digestive tract, thereby leading to uneasiness along with constipation. The high starch content also contributes to the constipation. “

The article also mentioned that in order to maintain a healthy bowel movement, it is important to not have more than one to two bananas in a day. As bananas have starch contents, hence having more bananas will only bind the stools together and absorb water from the digestive tract instead which then leads to constipation.

Having that said, ripe yellow bananas with brown spots don’t stop diarrhea but enhance it instead. This is due to the high fiber content in ripe bananas. So, in the event of diarrhea, take only raw bananas as it will bind the loose stool together and replenish the lost electrolytes.

Photo from ucanr.org
1- Green: unripe, 4 - Yellow with Green Tips: partially ripe and can be used for broiling, baking or frying, 6 - All yellow: ripe and can be eaten raw. Great for pudding, cakes and pies, 7 - Yellow with brown flecks: completely ripe and perfect for salads, bread and eating raw (http://www.everydaycook.com/recipebox/tipbox/food/ripebananas.htm)

Now this has made me understand bananas’ roles better. So, does this mean we can safely feed one banana a day to our babies? Then again, the site did mention that usually doctors do not recommend giving bananas to babies if they are having constipation. Hmm...

Every adult has different reaction to food, and it’s the same with babies. I guess the best way is to start at a small scale when introducing them to babies, say a quarter of a very ripe banana? Now, this is strictly my personal guesstimate and same as other type of food to be introduced, it takes trial and error before knowing what food and amount reacts best to our little ones. Happy experimenting! :)

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