Banana Chocolate Muffins

Muffins are one of the easiest foods to bake. All we need are flour, leavening, salt, butter, sugar, eggs and milk. You may add such ingredients like banana, cranberry, blueberry, carrot, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. These ingredients are just mixed together and then baked. The resultant muffins will be sweet. However, muffins can also be savoury. By using vegetables like spinach, corn, zucchini, spring onion, peppers, etc with cheese you will be able to bake savoury muffins.

Ingredient:

• 4 ripe bananas, weighing about 100 g each (I use only Pisang Berangan.)
• 250 g all-purpose flour
• 115 g sugar (You may reduce if your bananas are very ripe and sweet. I usually half the amount of sugar if my bananas are very ripe.)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 115 g melted butter
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 eggs
• Chocolate chips, the amount is up to you.

Method:

• Preheat oven to 175 degree C.

• Line a 12-hole muffin pan with muffin liners. (If you do not have muffin liners, you may use cupcake liners.

• Mash the bananas. Then set aside.

• Add the dry ingredients - all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and baking soda - into a mixing bowl. Stir to combine all the ingredients evenly.

• Add the wet ingredients - banana, melted butter, vanilla essence and eggs into another bowl. Stir to combine these ingredients.

• Then add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir until both are well-combined.

• Add chocolate chips to the batter and mix them up.

• Scoop the batter into the muffin liners.

• Bake in preheated oven for 18-20 minutes.

• When done, remove the muffins from the muffin tin and let them cool down on a metal rack.

Cheesy Garlic Butter Prawns

I love prawns and so do my second daughter and son. It has always been cereal prawns, soy sauce prawns, steamed prawns with egg, steamed prawns on glass noodles, prawns in tamarind juice or black pepper prawns. For a change, I cooked the Cheesy Garlic Butter Prawns for us as we love cheese too besides the prawns.


Ingredients:

• 8 pieces of large white prawns
• 4 tbsp butter
• 6 cloves garlic
• 100 ml milk
• 3 tbsp grated cheese (any kind)
• Cooking oil

Method:

• Wash and de-vein the prawns.

• Heat up enough cooking oil in a kuali to deep fry the prawns.

• When the oil is hot, put in the prawns. Fry till the prawns are just cooked. If they are deep fried too long, the meat will be hard.

• Remove the prawns and set aside.

• Remove most of the oil from the kuali, leaving about 1 tablespoon behind.

• Add butter to the kuali and let it melt.

• Saute the garlic till fragrant but not brown.

• Add the milk and let it boil slightly.

• Add cheese and stir till it melts.

• Turn off the fire.

• Add the prawns back to the kuali and stir till they are covered with the cheese sauce.

• Ladle up and serve.

Chicken Cocktail Sausages Buns

I do not usually make the same bread or buns for my family. I have always vary the ingredients of my bread and bun dough as I go along while making them. This is to ensure that the taste would be different all the time. While most of the time, I made plain buns, I did add some fillings sometime. I also vary the fillings for different bakes. As the saying goes, variety is definitely the spice of life. But whatever it is, the bread and buns usually turned out soft and fluffy. 




Ingredients:

Yeast Activation:
75 g/ml warm water
10 g sugar
1 tsp yeast

Dough:

325 g bread flour
20 g sugar
1 tsp salt
75 g/ml milk
1 egg
45 g butter

10 pc chicken cocktail sausages

Egh:g Was
1 egg + 1 tbsp milk
                                     
Chicken cocktail

sausages:

Method:

• Activate the yeast. Add 10 g of sugar to 75 g/ml of the lukewarm water, stirring the water to dissolve the sugar and then sprinkle the yeast onto it.

• Once bubbles have formed (after approximately 10 minutes), the yeast mixture is ready to be used.

• Add flour to the bowl of your stand mixer.

• Add in sugar and salt.

• Start the mixer on low speed to mix up the flour, sugar and salt.

• Add the yeast mixture into the mixing bowl.

• Add milk to the mixing bowl.

• Break the egg into a small bowl (not directly so as to prevent any rotten egg being added) and then add the egg to the mixing bowl.

• Knead until a dough ball is formed. Once that is achieved, add in the butter.

• Continue to knead until the butter is incorporated into the dough.

• Continue to knead until the dough passes the window pane test.

• Grease a clean bowl.

• Transfer the dough into the greased bowl, cover the bowl with a cling wrap and put a wet towel over the cling wrap. Let the dough proof until it is doubled in size.

• Slightly flour the table top.

• Transfer the dough onto the table top.

• Roll the dough out into a long rectangular shape (horizontally).

• Fold the dough into 3 by bringing the right part onto the centre part followed by the left.

• Then roll the dough out again into a long rectangular shape (vertically) and fold into 3 again.

• Do this process at least 6 times (alternating between vertical and horizontal roll-outs).

• Once this is done, cut the dough into 10 pieces of about 61 g each.

• Roll these pieces into little balls and cover them with cling wrap.

• Take a dough ball and use a rolling pin to flatten it.

• Put a piece of chicken cocktail in the centre.

• Pick up the dough, go round and seal it up.

• Roll it on the table top into a smooth ball and place the ball onto an oiled cake liner.

• Put the cake liner with the dough ball onto a baking tray.

• Repeat this until all the dough balls have been embedded with the chicken cocktail, rolled up and placed on the baking tray.

• Cover the baking tray with a towel and let the dough balls proof till double in size.

• Pre-heat oven to 175 deg C.

• Beat 1 egg with 1 tablespoon of milk to form the egg wash. Brush the dough balls with the egg wash just before baking.

• Bake the dough balls for 20 minutes. (If your oven is very hot and the balls brown too fast, tent them with a piece of aluminium foil.)

• When done, remove the buns to cool down on a metal rack.

• Store them when they are completely cooled down.

Sambal Tofu & Egg

We love tofu, steamed, fried with other ingredients, deep fried or cooked in soup. It can be steamed with minced meat (with or without salted fish). Tofu is also delicious if fried with vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and carrot. We sometimes just deep fry them and eat them with chili sauce. We also cooked them in fish soup or vegetable soup with potato, carrots and tomatoes. 

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 pieces of square tofu
• 4 tbsp sambal, https://al-luckylady.blogspot.com/2018/02/sambal.html
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Cooking oil for frying

Method:

• Heat up some cooking oil in the kuali.

• Fry the eggs, break them up, then remove them from the kuali and set aside.

• Cut each piece of tofu into 9 cubes.

• Fry the tofu, remove them from the kuali and set aside. (You can either fry them slightly or fry them till they are light brown.)

• Remove the oil from the kuali (as the oil used to fry tofu would have become watery).

• Add about 5 tbsp of cooking oil to the kuali.

• Add the sambal to the kuali and stir fry till the oil separates from the chili paste (pecah minyak).

• Add sugar, light soy sauce and salt to the chili paste and fry till all are well mixed and the sugar has dissolved.

• Add the egg and tofu back to the kuali.

• Stir till they are coated with the chili paste.

• Remove the egg and tofu from the kuali and serve with white rice.

Pandan Pancake

A pancake is a flat cake simply made up of flour, egg and milk. It can be easily whipped up in the morning for breakfast or in the afternoon for tea. We can add various types of  ingredients to make different types of pancakes. Basically these ingredients add aroma and make the pancakes tastier. My mother used to make plain ones very often for us to eat in the morning before going to school and to pack them to school for recess time.


Ingredients:

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of white or brown sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup of whole milk
• 1 cup of pandan juice (blend 10 pandan leaves with water)
• 1/2 cup of melted butter
• 2 eggs.

Method:

• Sieve flour with baking powder into a mixing bowl.

• Add sugar and salt to the bowl.

• Stir to mix these dry ingredients evenly.

• In another bowl, add whole milk, pandan juice, melted butter and eggs.

• Stir these wet ingredients till they are well-combined.

• Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

• Use a whisk to mix them up to get a smooth batter.

• Sieve the batter IF there are too much lumps.

• Heat up a pan with some melted butter (or cooking oil). It is preferable to use a kitchen towel to dip into the butter or oil to grease the pan.

• Scoop the batter using a 1/3-cup measuring cup onto the centre of the pan and let the batter flow out in a circular manner.

• Cover the pan and let the batter cook (over low heat) for about 3 minutes or until it is slightly browned.

• Open the cover and flip over the other side to let it cooked.

• Remove the pancake to be cooled down on a metal rack otherwise vapour will be formed on the underside.

• Once cooled, remove the pancakes onto a serving plate.