Nutella Cupcake

Feel like to bake this weekend...
While searching for cake/cookies recipe, I stumbled on lots and lots of websites which featured cupcakes. I thought.. why not. Since usually the recipe is for 12 cupcakes, they are small. There are only 2 people in the house, so I'm not looking forward for a big cake. So cupcake it is! I spent Saturday getting all the ingredients.
Before that, I have to decide on one recipe from all the recipes what I found on the net. For first timer, I thought Nutella cupcake could be the winner. Nutella always taste good.. so I can't go wrong there!

So here is the recipe:

Nutella Frosted Cupcakes
10 tbsp(140 grams) butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cups (200 grams) sifted ap flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
Nutella, approx. 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 325F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners.
Cream together butter and sugar until light, 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don't worry if the batter doesn't look smooth. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.
Using an ice cream scoop, fill each muffin liner with batter. They should be 3/4 full, if you're not using a scoop. Top each cake with 1 1/2 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
Makes 12.

Here is the cupcake! Just spread the top with nutella and sprinkle some multicolor chocolate rice... (The cupcake burnt a bit coz I put on quite high temperature huhuhu)

A dose of Vitamin C

In line with eating healthy, we bought an orange presser machine!
It's easy to use, and easy to clean as well.
It consists of basically 3 parts: the motor, the middle part where the juice flows and the top part where we press the halved orange

Oranges (I bought those sold in netted bag). Cut them into half.

Ready to be used..


Just press down the halved orange and this will start the motor and the top part will turn.


Left only the skiinnn..


Mmm.... a dose of Vitamin C. No sugar added, no preservative..

Grilled Salmon and Salad

Salad?!! yes my friend.. you read it right! I started to eat Salad in hope to live healthy (read: lose weight)
The white thingy in the salad is Feta cheese. Just to give a stronger taste to the salad. The reason I hate salad is because vegetables have this earthy taste.. bleergghh...
But this meal is great and I think healthy hihihi...

Steamed caramel cupcake + Strawberry Chiffon Cake

The last time I did steamed cupcake was the Apam Kukus Pondan, made from a ready-made flour.
This time I made an attempt to make cakes from scratch! I bought some incredible things such as soda bicarbonate, cream of tartar and strawberry essence. Hehehehe..
So I braved myself last Sunday to make not one but TWO types of cakes. One is a steamed-type and another is a oven-baking-type.

Steamed caramel cupcake (Apam Gula Hangus - literally translated: Burnt Sugar Steamed Cupcake)
I started off with this one, because just need to add everything (caramelized sugar, eggs, among other things) and then put the liquid into the paper cupcakes, as seen below.



As my bamboo steamer is medium size, so I need to do them 4 by 4.
Here is the result.... hehehe...





Strawberry Chiffon Cake
While the first batch of steam cupcake is steaming, I started the mixing of chiffon cake. OK this is a very difficult cake to do for first timer. Unless you've made this with someone who is experienced in chiffon cake, do not dream that the chiffon cake will be perfect. However, that didn't deter me from making it hehehee.
For chiffon cake, I need to do 2 different mixing, one mixing is with the egg yolks, flour, etc. And another mixing (in a separate bowl), I need to whip the egg whites to become foam with pointy soft peak, and with the help of cream of tartar.
I didn't take the pictures of the-making-of because I was so psyched about making this cake.
Mind you, I whipped all my cakes by hand.. No machine used!!

I know that somewhere along the way I might have done something un-chiffon. But heck! I need to try this hehehe.. Another un-chiffon thing I did was I didn't use tube pan.. hahahaha.. The reason is that I don't want to waste money on tube pan. I bought aluminium rectangle cake pan.
So here is the result:







Kissing cakes... mmmmm...



The taste is yummy, it has the strawberry taste. I like. It also has the spongy texture, but it should be double the height and has more air inside it.
To give you an idea, this is what the chiffon cake should look like (kekekke)

Rendang, Ketupat and Mini Nasi Impit

Look what I found in my collection of Malaysian foods!
I have all what it takes to make a nice Hari Raya dish hehehe...
I asked my mom to send Nasi Impit instant because for once I like to eat nasi impit without having to impit (packed) the rice in the tupperware.
So my mom sent them to me, and in addition, it is the mini nasi impit!
(note: Nasi means rice, Impit/Himpit means packed)
I never had Mini nasi impit before.
It is like 6 times smaller than the normal Nasi Impit instant.
So here is what the Mini Nasi Impit looks like when it's out from boiling water and the rice is cooked. It took about 60-90 minutes to cook them.



Nasi Impit with the classic side dishes: Beef Rendang, and Serunding Daging (beef floss)


This is what my hubby had. Poissons panés avec des petites boules...

Bolu Kukus Pondan

Don't judge the book by it's cover.. kekekekeke
Weekend is here again... Time to look inside the closet and find what are the things that have been there all these years and at the point of expiring. I found a box of flour for Bolu Kukus. I bought this flour long long time ago at Sanglee in Eindhoven. Finally I found the force to make it. One reason is that I don't know how much this box will make. I'm scared that I will end up with 20 cups of bolu.
A bit about Bolu Kukus:
- this is more of Indonesian cake than Malaysian cake. We do have this kind of cake but I think the name is Apam Kukus.
- Although different nationalities, it has a common name - "kukus". "Kukus" means steam.
- Hence, this is a steamed cake.

These are the ingredients needed. Look! I found some colorings in the closet too! Cool...


I divided the mixture to 3 parts, where I gave them green and red colors. One part is left natural.
Here are the results!!!
Although the taste is good, and the consistent is OK. But the bolu should be fluffier. And the top should opens up (refer the picture on the flour box above). This is a normal failure for an amateur of apam/bolu making. I think it's because I didn't beat the mixture long enough.



This is as much as I get from 1 box. 7 cups of bolu. In the picture there are only 6, coz 1 is in my stomach already hihihihi...

Weng Hoak, Nancy

I ate lunch at this place almost everyday. I don't eat breakfast, so when the clock strikes one, I'll be rushing to Weng Hoak for some comfort food. Great thing about this place is that it is clean, the food is presentable, the people are great. It is like dining in a restaurant, yet the service is fast (it is cafeteria style). I will try to take the picture of the place in the future. But for the moment, I only have some shots of what Shafeez and I ate last Saturday (easter weekend).

This is Vermicelles Sautés (Fried clear noodles), and black chinese mushroom with prawn as the side dish. The prawns used in this dish are small and sweet. The mushrooms are delight.. It looks mushy but it's not.


This is one of the many entrées that you can get at Weng Hoak. These are set of 3 beignets de crevette (Prawn fritters). Very nice, and crispy (of course)


This one is fried rice with prawn in spicy sauce. The prawns used here are different from the one above. These prawns are meatier and as you can see.. bigger.