15 May 11 (Sun) - Rainbow Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips

My younger niece, Lyn, was asking for cupcakes two weeks ago and I said that I would bake them when I next stay over at her house. Didn't plan to go to my sis's place this weekend but my BIL messaged me early last week to go over so that I could help coach his boy, Ry, on his Principles of Accounts. So went to get a packet of chocolate buttons during the week to be used during the baking session early this morning.

Followed my usual cupcake recipe but this time I tripled the usual portion estimating that it would yield about 15 cupcakes. After I was done mixing the ingredients, added about 100g of chocolate buttons to the mixture and separated the mixture into three portions. Added the red food coloring to one portion and the blue food coloring to another portion. Spooned the original mixture into the 12 silicon muffin cases lined with cupcake cases as well as three aluminum muffin cases lined with cupcake cases and then followed by the pink mixture and blue mixture.

After filling up the 15 cupcake cases, I still had some mixture left and so had to prepared another two more cupcake cases. However, I was down with only one aluminum muffin case and so the other cupcake case was without any mould. Put all of them into the oven and set it to bake at 160 degree celsius for 20 minutes. The cupcakes expanded and those in the silicon muffin cases went out of shapes coz they were placed too closely together and the one without the mould was dripping mixture to the bottom of the oven. Only those in the aluminum muffin cases looked nice. This time the cupcakes didn't cracked as much as my previous few rounds. In fact, this time the surface of the cupcakes was rather smooth and I could have done glace frosting on them if I wanted to.

After the 20 minutes was up, did the satay stick test and it came out clean but I set the cupcakes to bake for another two minutes before bringing them out to cool. Unmolded them before taking some photos of my creations and then did the taste test. The taste was just nice, not too sweet and could taste the semi-dark chocolate chips. My BIL commented that the blue color looked green and hence made the cupcakes seemed mouldy. Well, the surface of the cakes was of brownish tone and so made the blue looked green but the inside of the cake, the blue was obvious and the red was like pink. Perhaps next time I should put the blue color mixture as the base, follows by the pink mixture and tops with the original mixture.

Outside

Inside

8 May 11 (Sun) - Green Curry Chicken and Preserved Raddish with Minced Meat

Bought a packet of green curry paste sometime ago so decided to cook it today. Also missed mum's stir-fry preserved raddish with minced meat in dark soya sauce therefore decided to attempt that as well. Went to the market yesterday morning to get the ingredients such as chicken breast meat, preserved raddish, minced meat and coconut milk. Then prepared the ingredients by cutting and washing them as well as soaking the preserved raddish overnight. So this morning was just taking them out to cook.

Started with the preserved raddish with minced meat. Heated up the oil, added in the shallot, garlic and then the minced meat and kept on stirring and cutting them to prevent them from sticking together. When the meat was half cooked, added the preserved raddish and then poured some dark soya sauce over it. When it was almost done, added the chili padi and some sugar so that the end product wouldn't be too salty. Scoped them up to a big bowl and took a couple of photos.

Next was the green curry chicken. Added water, coconut milk and the paste to a pot and bring to boil. Then added the chicken meat and after the chicken meat was cooked, off the fire and kept the pot covered. Didn't buy things like long beans, eggplants or carrot to go with curry coz it would be too much for me to finish.

Dancing Chef Green Curry Paste - Front View Preserved Raddish with Minced Meat Green Curry Chicken

Dancing Chef Green Curry Paste - Back View Preserved Raddish with Minced Meat - Close up Green Curry Chicken - Close up

2 May 11 (Mon) - Pandan Flavour Rainbow Steamed Sago Cake

Asked my sis to help me get the pandan pearl sago from Giant during her weekly grocery shopping and made the steamed sago cake today using another recipe I found. As I still have the red and blue food coloring so decided to be a bit adventurous. When I tried to take it out of the aluminum tray after it was done and cooled, the bottom of the cake still stuck to the tray despite the fact that I had greased the tray before pouring in the sago. Manged to get the cake out and cut into smaller pieces before coating then with grated coconut. The center of the cake seemed to be firmer than my previous attempt but it didn't have the pearly effect. The effect of the red, blue and green color looked nice though. Tasted my creation and found that it wasn't sweet enough but there was a faint tint of pandan flavour.

Pandan Pearl Sago

Pandan Flavour Rainbow Steamed Sago Cake