Thanks Constance for sharing this lovely Japanese Cotton Soft Cheesecake. The whole cheesecake turned out so lovely and I am so happy seeing it. Never thot that this cheesecake is so easy to bake. I cut quarter for my neighbour and the rest brought back to Ah Mah’s house. Comments from the cousins.. AK, Faye, Phatboy Joe are good. They love it except for Sis, she prefer the one with the biscuit base. Ooohhh… I don’t quite like those cos it is a heavy type of cheesecake. I still prefer to stick with this recipe … light and soft.

The whole cheesecake is a bit too big unless you want to bake it for a big party. I used a 9 inch spring form pan for this cheesecake. The next round I do I will half the recipe because this is just too big for me.

Ingredients:
140gm icing sugar
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
50gm butter
250gm cream cheese
100mlfresh milk
1 tbsp lemon juice ( I also add in 1/2 lemon rind )
60gm cake flour ( I used self raising flour )
20gm cornflour
1/4 tsp. salt

Method :
1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, cornflour, egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind and mix well.
2. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form.
3. Add the cream cheese mixture to the egg white mixture and mix well. Pour into a 9-inch round springform pan (Lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan with greaseproof baking paper or parchment paper).
4. Bake cheesecake in a water bath for 1 hours 10 minutes or until set and golden brown at 160 DC.

A request from the aunties at home. They asked me to bake a Carrot & Walnuts cake for Mother’s Day celebration at home. I really got no idea how to bake this cake. Googled for the recipe and also searched thru all my recipe books at home and finally found it in Alex Goh’s fruity cakes recipe book. I personally don’t quite like this cake because I hate Cinnamon. I just can’t take it the smell of Cinnamon. Hence, I never appreciate carrot cake but surprisingly the aunties at home love it. Though we are very full that day after eating the porridge steamboat, the whole cake we only ate 1/4 of it. The left over the aunties and cousins tapau back. Aunty SH told me if want to eat just put the cake in the microwave and warm it for a minute, then it will taste like the one sell at Secret Receipe. Hahaha… si bor, so hor chiak meh! Anyway they enjoyed it.

Ingredients :
(A)
3 eggs
150gm milk
300gm sugar ( I only used 250gm )
1/2 tsp salt

(B)
180gm vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla essence

(C)
280gm plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tbsp ground cinnamon

(D)
200gm carrot, shredded
12-gm walnuts, chopped

Topping :
250gm cream cheese
60gm butter
120gm icing sugar
1/2 lemon zest, grated
2 tbsps lemon juice

Method :
Cake :
1. Whip (A) until creamy. Add (B) and whip until well blended.
2. Sieve in (C) and mix until well blended.
3. Add (D) and mix well.
4. Pour the batter into greased and lined baking tray. Bake at 180 DC for 35 - 40 minutes.

Topping:
1. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add butter and beat until well blended. Add sugar and beat until well combined.
2. Add lemon zest and juice. Mix well.

To Assemble : Spread the topping over the carrot cake and decorate with extra walnuts and carrot make from fondant.

Haven’t been baking for quite some time. I am pretty busy lately.  Busy with kid’s homework which can kill me and take most of my time. The Ham Bun which I bake for quite some time ago but I just can’t find time to post it in my this quite blog. Hahaha…  As some of you aware, my kids and Dearie Suki loves bread. I am not a bread lover and never like to eat bread but at least I try to learn how to bake bread for them. I saw the Soft Honey Bun recipe from Sally’s blog. The original recipe are from Happy Home Baking one of the blog I love to frequent everyday.

I decided to give this recipe a try but instead of Honey Bun, I tweak the recipe and added some ham into it because I still have 2 pieces of ham in the fridge.  Hence, this is how this Ham Bun come across my mind and my little girl, Le-Ann kept telling me this bun looks like a mushroom.

Ingredients : (makes 9 buns)
300g bread flour
4g (about 2/3 tsp) salt
4g (1 tsp) instant yeast
1 egg lightly beaten plus enough milk to make 200g
50g honey ( I omit this out and subsitute with 1 tbsp sugar )
30g unsalted butter
2 pieces ham, chopped into small pieces

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, add bread flour, instant yeast, sugar, salt and egg. Beat with the dough hook in the electric mixer till well mixed. This takes about 30 - 40 mins.
2. Then add in the butter and mixed with the dough hook for another 15 mins. Remove dough from mixer and knead the dough on a flat surface for about 10 mins or till smooth.
3. Shape the dough into a smooth round dough and put it in a mixing bowl. cover with a cling wrap and let it rise till double its volume for about 60 - 90 mins.
4. Remove dough and give a few light kneading on a lightly floured work surface. Press out the trapped air as your knead. Divide into 9 equal portions and shape them into rounds. Cover with cling wrap, let the doughs rest for 10mins.
5. Flatten each dough into a round disc and press out the trapped air. Add some chopped ham in the middle and shape and roll into a smooth round ball.
5. Place doughs in a muffin tray (lightly greased with oil or butter or line it with parchment paper). Loosely cover with a damp cloth or cling wrap and let doughs proof for 45 ~ 60 mins or until double in size.
6. When ready to bake, brush the surface of the dough with milk. Bake at preheated oven at 200 degC for about 15 ~ 20 mins until the bread is golden brown all over. Cover the surface with a sheet of aluminum foil if the surface browns too quickly. Remove from oven, unmold immediately and let cool on wire rack.

The kids at home especially Leen loves to eat this Hakka kueh we called it Hee Pan. My 6th Kor used to make this kueh, but when I asked for her recipe…adui all also agak-agak. Hence, I decide google for it and finally found it at Aunty Yochana’s blog.  I decided to give it a try but then haven’t had the chance to eat it. I wonder what is Leen’s comment on this kueh because after that didn’t have the chance to ask her before she goes back to Oz. I think I will give it another try and had one for myself.

Ingredients ( A ) for sponge dough:
1 tsp. yeast
150 gm. plain flour
125 ml. water

Ingredients (B) :
150 gm. Plain flour
150 gm. glutinous rice flour
125 gm. sugar
150 gm. water
a few drops of pink colouring

Banana leaves - grease with oil

Method:
1. Mix all the ingredients for sponge dough, cover and keep overnight.
2. Mix all the ingredients (A) and (B) together into a soft dough and proof for another 4 hours.
3. Divide soft dough into 50 gm. each (rub palm with cornoil) and place on top of a greased banana leaf. Leave to proof for another 15 mins.
4. Steam over moderate heat for 15 mins.
5. Remove from steamer and leave to cool.

Longevity peaches cupcakes are for CNY - Pai Ti Kong. I will do something back every year and it is either cupcakes or any other cakes. What I did this year is a orange butter cake. The kids at home told me they still prefer vanilla butter cupcakes cos they mentioned the orange butter cake tasted weird with buttercream. OK, OK noted next time no more orange and will just stick it back to the old fashioned vanilla butter cupcakes.

These colourful cupcakes are for Uncle HH’s 50th Birthday celebration. I did it all alone and phewww… what a big task from him. Hahaha…

I have been pretty slow in updating my this baking blog. Life has been busy with kids. There are so many post about my baking which I can’t find time to blog about it. Here are some of the cupcakes I did during the eve of CNY. Since it is a year of OX, so I did a cow’s face using fondant. Just having fun and playing with fondant. So let’s usher the Ox year with some Ox cupcakes.

Brought back the cupcakes to Ah Mah’s house but too bad I didn’t manage to eat it because I was rushing back to MIL’s house for a second round of reunion dinner. The kids at home love the cupcakes I did for them. Hopefully I can find myself more time to bake more for them.

Baked this cupcakes for my kids children’s day in school some where last year. I was browsing my folder and saw some of this picture waiting for me to post in my blog. Gosh! I really forgot about it. I baked about 80 cupcakes for both Ee-Thern’s class and Le-Ann’s class. The cupcakes are made from butter and choco cupcakes and frost it into the shape of lion and fish using buttercream. I hope the kids love it and have fun at school.

I have been pretty slow in updating my this baking blog. I wonder why am I so busy lately. Busy taking care of my kids, busy teaching them how to read and busy entertaining so much STUPID people in the office. Hahaha… This are the batch of Christmas cupcakes I baked and present it to Uncle HH during the Christmas Party at Ah Mah’s house.

…and this is how I presented the cupcakes to him. So what do you think?

At times I think I am quite stupid. I am actually to do the Zebra Butter Cake but then I really couldn’t visualize how to do that zebra thing even though I read the instruction few times. So you see how stupid am I till I saw in one of the blog on step by step how to do it.

The cake I am supposed to do end up to be a Butter Choco Cake with a layer of Choco layered in between the butter cake batter. So you see how dungu am I. Even Dearie Suki laugh at me and said what sort of Zebra Cake is that. Hahaha… I am trying a few recipes for Butter Cake and so far I am keeping this recipe because it turned out well all the time I do it. The kids love Butter Cake and so does Dearie Suki.

Ingredients:
250gm butter
200gm castor sugar
200gm self raising flour,sifted
6 eggs
4 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method :
1. Cream butter and castor sugar till creamy and fluffy. Add in vanilla essence and beat again.
2. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat till it well blended.
3. Fold in the flour and alternate it with milk.
4. Scoop one bowl of the batter and mix it with cocoa powder.
5. Pour on layer of batter on a greased baking pan and alternate it with the cocoa batter and the top layer will be the butter batter.
6. Bake at 180 DC for 50 minutes or till the cake is done.