Sugar & Spice and everything nice: Homemade Gingerbread Sugar Scrub

Merry Christmas! It's has been a while since my last post. Time flies and it's Christmas again!

I know I promised more Thai Iced Tea recipes in my last post. Apologies as my dad has been sick and going in and out of hospital these past 2 months so this blog has been neglected.

This year, I am into DIY gifts. Took a class in making soy candles and made a few for close friends. I have been wanting to make the homemade sugar scrubs but haven't had the time. This morning, I had the urge to make the sugar scrub and decided to share a simple DIY Christmas gift recipe. Its not for eating but everything in the recipe is edible so do feel free to taste :) I didn't make any gingerbread cookies this year due to the hectic schedule so this will have to make do.

Homemade Gingerbread Sugar

2 cups raw sugar
3/4 cup sweet almond oil (or other carrier oil)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2tsp ground nutmeg

1) Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl

2) Slowly add in the sweet almond oil and mix well

3) Pour into a pretty glass container and tie a ribbon around the bottle for a pretty gift.

Merry Christmas everyone and enjoy your time with family and friends!

Moist Jewish Honey Cake

Hello! It's been almost 2 months since my last post. Been busy as I have returned to the corporate world after a year's break. It took me a while but I finally found a job that allows me work-life balance. I am now 6 weeks into the job and still enjoying it. I have another HR colleague who is into baking and did took his sabbatical to do baking 2 years ago so we have been exchanging tips and ideas. Now I mostly experiment with recipes in the evenings and bring them to my colleagues the next day. Yay! A group of people to help finish the cakes! I still take in orders for cakes and cookies mostly over the weekends.

Back to the cake I am introducing today. This is a Jewish Honey Cake and is typically eaten during the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana. A Jewish colleague of mine baked a cake for us 3 years back and I loved the cake! Being a baker, I asked her what are the ingredients as the cake was moist and full of flavour! She told me there's coffee, orange juice, honey and various spices in the cake. It sounded very interesting. I had always wanted to try baking it but never got round to it. I finally tried it about 2 weeks back and fell in love with it. It was a very easy cake and wonderful for those of us who are busy. Everything gets thrown into one bowl and mixed together. I only have to wash a bowl, a measuring cup and a sieve! Greats news for people like me who hate to wash.

Moist Honey Cake (recipe from here)
31/2 cups plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1/2tsp salt
4tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp ground allspice
1/2tsp ground cloves
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup honey
3 large eggs
1 cup warm coffee
1/2 cup orange juice
1/4 cup whiskey (optional - replace with orange juice for non-alcoholic version)
1tsp vanilla extract

1) Pre-heat oven at 175 deg C
2)Sieve the plain flour, baking powder, baking soda, allspice, cinnamon, cloves together in a mixing bowl.

3) Add in the brown and caster sugar
4) Make a well in the centre and add in the rest of the ingredients.

5) Whisk till everything is well mixed.

6) Pour into a oiled and floured 10" Bundt cake pan

7) Bake at 175 deg C for 60-70 mins.
8) Cool in the pan for 15-20 mins before unmoulding
9) Decorate with icing sugar if desired.

As I am typing, the smell of the baking cake is wafting in from the kitchen. I am baking it this time for a church event tomorrow. I find that spiced cakes usually takes a day for the flavours to develop so it would be good to bake the cake a day in advance. My friends loved the Honey Cake and it reminds me of Christmas! This is certainly a cake I will bake for the Christmas Holidays, easy and delicious. Lovely when served with a cup of coffee or tea.

Happy 2015! Apple sauce for ham

Today marks the last day of 2014. Happy new year! May 2015 brings you good health, peace and happiness.

2014 has been a year of drama, life changes and new experiences. I thank my family and friends for being supportive of my career change and new friends who have given me opportunities to try new things. With the recent Airasia mishap, it again reminds me of how short life can be. Live each day to the fullest and cherish your love ones. Whatever you want to try, do it now and not wait till next time. There may not be a next time. I am glad I made the trips to Europe and Tokyo this year with my family even though I was not earning as much. The time spent with family is priceless.

I was wondering which recipe I should share with you today. I had some recipes which I had tried earlier but haven't had the chance to post yet. However, just as I was shopping for ingredients for dinner tonight, I saw some green apples from Holland which looked delicious. I decided to try making my own applesauce. I had some applesauce from Seasalt Carribean Deli last week with my turkey and have been wanting to try making it. Coincidentally my mum brought over some ham when I invited her for dinner.

Apple sauce
1.5kg green apples
1.5 tbsp butter
2-3 tbsp brown sugar
1- 2 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp rum/whisky (optional)

1.  Slice and core the apples.

2. Melt the butter in a pot, add brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Fry till fragrant
3. Add in the apple slices and 1/2 cup of water. Mix well.

4. Cook the apples over low fire till soft (about 8-10 mins)
5. Taste the apples and add more brown sugar and cinnamon if desired.

6. Remove from heat and put the cooked apples in a blender and blend till smooth.
7. Cool before serving. You may bottle the applesauce and refrigerate the applesauce for a week.

Note: You may use white sugar instead of brown sugar and reduce the cinnamon if you like a lighter colour.

You may serve the applesauce with pork chops, ham or sausages.

Merry Christmas! Simple dessert: Panna Cotta

Merry Christmas! It's a cool 27 deg C in tropical Singapore. Hope you are having a lovely Christmas with your love ones and opening all the presents :) I attended Christmas eve mass with friends whom I have met in Shanghai. It was a lovely reunion.

Sorry for missing last week's post. My sister's slipped disc was acting up and I was shuttling around to bring her to physio and doc. Thank God she is now feeling better and can at least walk about without much pain though she still can't sit for long. My laptop also decided to act up end of last week and had to see the "doc" too :) In the midst of the busy schedule, I am thankful to family and friends who helped out.

I made this lovely Panna Cotta 2 weeks ago. Never knew it was so easy. I was introduced to Panna Cotta about 10 years back at Pasta Brava. I loved it ever since but never thought about making it. It was a spur of the moment that I decided to make it at 9pm in the evening 2 weeks ago.

Panna Cotta (Makes 5 martini glass)
2 cups of thick cream
50g caster sugar
1 Vanilla bean/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp gelatin
3 tbsp cold water

1) Heat up the thick cream and caster sugar either in microwave or over the stove. Once the sugar melts, remove from heat and stir in the vanilla. If using vanilla bean, let it infuse for 30 minutes and reheat the mixture.
2) Mix the gelatin with the cold water and let it stand for 5-10 minutes
3) Pour the warm cream mixture into the gelatin and mix till the gelatin has completely dissolved.
4) Divide the panna cotta into the martini glasses and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

* In the top photos, I have added 1 tbsp of Kahlua to half the mixture to make coffee flavoured Panna Cotta.

I have served the vanilla Panna Cotta with some blueberry pie filling for a refreshing taste. You may also greased some ramekins and pour the panna cotta mixture and mould them for serving.

Hope you would try making the dessert. It's a simple dessert to make for a party or gathering.

Roast Chicken with Tom Yum herbs

Hello! It's good to be back after 2 weeks away! I was in Tokyo for a holiday in mid September and was so busy with baking before and after my trip that I didn't get a chance to write a post.

This was my first trip to the Land of the Rising Sun and like friends predicted, I love the place! The shopping, food and culture was amazing. I had the freshest sushi for breakfast at Tsukiji Fish market, spent around 2 hours in Kappabashi looking for baking tins that are not available in Singapore, saw the beauty of Mt Fuji......... I could go on and on.... Here are some of the pictures from my trip. I would love to return to Japan in the near future.

 Today I thought I would share with you on my favourite dish to make when I am entertaining guests.  Usually when I am entertaining guests at home, I love to make roast chicken as I can make it in advance and there's not much to clean up and I can be all dressed up in time to meet my guests when they arrive. I just have to prepare a salad, bread and a dessert for the sides and I am all ready!

Roast Chicken with Tom Yum herbs

1 chicken (half kg)
2-3 stalks lemongrass
a handful of kaffer lime leaves
1 inch thick galangal
salt and pepper
3 tbsp soften butter
2-3 russet potatoes
2 carrots
1 white onions

1) Wash and cut the lemongrass and galangal into smaller pieces. Put them and lime leaves and the soften butter into a food processor or mini chopper. Mix and chop them up into a paste.

2) Rub some salt and pepper all over the chicken. Rub the paste all over the chicken, under the skin and stuff some paste into the cavity of the chicken and put the remainder on top of the chicken. Leave the chicken in the fridge for at least half hour to marinate. You can make this the night before if you like.

3) Cut the potatoes, carrots and white onions into chunks. Lay them on a baking tray. Take the chicken out of the fridge and put it on top of the vegetables. Cover with foil and pre-heat the oven at 200 deg C.

4) Roast the chicken for about 40 minutes, turn the chicken over after 20 mins. Remove the foil and baked at 220 deg C for another 20 - 30 mins so that the chicken can brown nicely. Use a skewer/chopstick to prick the chicken, if there are no pink juices , the chicken is cooked.

5) Serve with a salad and some bread for a full meal.

Schokoladen-Brote: Chocolate Crackle Cookies

I was away over the weekend visiting a friend and exploring a different side of Penang. We had a good time looking for the murals and eating our way around.  Finally bought my cake stand for RM29.90! It was such a steal! Many thanks to my host for driving me to the 2nd Tesco to get the stand (it sold out when I finally made up my mind to buy). I wanted to buy the cupcake stand too but thought better of it. I will post a picture of the stand when I bake a cake to display :)

I was in Penang when the World Cup finals were played. We were way too tired after the whole day of walking to stay up to watch the game but there were fireworks going on at 4 plus in the morning when Germany won. Congratulations to Germany! As promised to my friend, Ben, I would post a German recipe when Germany wins.

I got the below recipe from my German boss when I was working for a bank. She actually gave me a photocopy of the recipe which is in German and only translated the ingredients in English so I have to guess the method myself.

Chocolate Crackle Cookies

200g dark Chocolate
90g Butter
115g caster Sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla essence
215g all purpose Flour
25g Cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Baking powder
A pinch of Salt
175g icing sugar

1) Pre-heat the oven at 160 deg C
2) Melt chocolate and butter together using a double boiler method
3) Remove the melted chocolate and butter from heat, add the caster sugar and stir till melted.
4) Add the eggs one at a time, stiring till well mixed
5) Add vanilla essence.
6) Sieve the flour, cocoa powder,salt and baking powder together.
7) Add the sieved flour into the melted chocolate mixture.
8) Chill in the fridge for an hour.
9) Shape the cookie dough into small balls. Coat the cookie balls with icing sugar.
10) Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes. Cool before storing.