Curry Potato Prata

Hubby was complaining that I had been trying out on a lot of cakes, ice cream even scone recipes but not on any of his favourite food. One of which is curry puff. So since I was free in the afternoon so i quickly went and took out all the ingredients required for this Curry Potato Puff.

I take the easy route where I got my maid to cook the ingredient since I dun really know how to cook curry ha ha.. So after she had cooked the ingredient which I watch and learn so that I can cook up the ingredient myself next time, I just did put the ingredient in the dough and bake it. Baking just took around 30 mins of the time.

Hubby say it was a good try and should be named potato prata instead of curry potato prata coz it was not spicy enough for him. I did put chicken into the recipe but coz the potato was more so I named it curry potato prata. I thought the shape was not so fanstantic but hubby say it was nice wrapped up and he save money rathered than going out for tea.

English Scone for breakfast

Recently had start to enjoy the so called "English Scone" for tea and it seem tat my son like it too. But the price for a good scone here is around B$1.60 which is quite expensive (equivalent to a loaf of bread) ha ha.. so when i saw the recipe from Happy Home Baker, I decide to give it a try.

It was quite simple to made and you just need few ingredient to made such a delicious scone. The scone look hard on the outside but was very soft in the inside. And it taste just like the scone that I always have in Fleur dyn lys. Hubby who was not a fan of scone also think that it was nice when we have it the next day for breakfast. So a very thank you to Happy Home Baker for the kind contribution of her scone recipe. I have attached the ingredients as below if you would like to try. It is a definite keeper for me and will made more of this lovely scones for breakfast or even tea again.

Ingredients:
(makes 7)

250g cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
one pinch of salt
50g cold unsalted butter (cut into small pieces)
30g caster sugar
1 egg plus enough fresh milk to make up 140ml

Method:


1. Lightly beat the egg and add enough fresh milk to make up 140ml of liquid.

2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Add in salt and sugar and whisk the dry ingredients together. With finger tips rub the COLD butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (It is important that the butter be cold so when it is cut into the flour mixture it becomes small, flour-coated crumbs. Due to our hot weather and my warm hands, I use a fork to work the butter into the dry ingredients. If the butter starts to melt away during this process, stop and place the mixture in the freezer for 10-15mins to prevent the butter from melting further. Continue the process when the mixture is well chilled.)

3. Keep the mixing bowl (with the flour-butter mixture) in the fridge for at least 30 mins.

4. Remove bowl from fridge. Add the egg & milk mixture and stir until just combined. The mixture will be sticky, moist and lumpy. Gather up the mixture and place it on a lightly floured surface and give it a few light kneading (not more than 10 seconds) so that it comes together to form a dough. Do Not over work the dough. (Only mix the dough until it comes together. Too much kneading will cause gluten to develop, and the resulting biscuits will turn hard and chewy. Mix only until the ingredients come together into a combined mass.)

5. Place dough in a plastic bag or cover it with cling wrap. Keep dough in fridge for about 30mins. (The objective here is to keep the dough cold to prevent the butter from melting so that there will be little bits of dispersed butter in the dough. During baking, the heat will cause these tiny bits of butter to melt into the dough and leaves pockets and layers in the biscuits for them to rise nicely. If the butter melts or softens before baking, the resulting biscuits will be hard and flat.)

6. On a lightly floured surface, dust your hands and the dough with some flour and pat out into 1 inch thickness (avoid using too much flour). Cut out the dough with a lightly floured 2.5-inch biscuit cutter (I use a drinking glass instead). In order for the biscuits to rise evenly, press the cutter directly down and lift it straight up without twisting. Dip the cutter into some flour after each cut. Gather scraps together and repeat until all the dough is used.

7. Place cut biscuits on baking sheet (lined with parchment paper). For soft-sided biscuits, place them close together on the baking sheet so that the sides are touching. For crisp-sided ones, place them 1 inch apart, these will not rise as high as biscuits that are baked close together. Brush the tops with some milk.

8. Bake at preheated oven at 200degC for about 13 - 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center of the biscuit comes out clean. The texture of the interior should be light and soft. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack. Serve warm.

Green Tea Ice Cream

I am a Ice cream lover and have always thought of wanting to made my own ice cream as the nice ice cream is always very expensive. SO recently i came across a ice cream book which seem very easy and simple to made. This book was by this lady call Kelly Tang and her book name is "The Cold Tempation dessert".

SO last friday I put up the effort to try out this 'Green Tea Ice Cream' since i still got a lot of the non-dairy whip cream leftover in the fridge. The recipe is very simple and straightforward and one good thing abt it is that you don't need a ice cream maker. I do have one but have not use it since I failed to made ice cream with it. And I always thought making ice cream is very difficult and you must have a ice cream maker to made ice cream at home. Now I can made ice cream at home with only a hand mixer. ha ha..

It took me less than an hour to get everything done and got the ice cream ready to freeze overnight in the freezer. On Saturday afternoon, I try the ice cream. My comment with this recipe is that the texture is smooth but I find that the recipe is too sweet for my liking and it's too creamy for me. Eventhough the recipe didn't turn out as wat I would like but i think I have more confident in making ice cream at home. The recipe will need more altering meaning I will be making more of this ice cream at home till I get it to fit my taste. So dear husband of mine, pls get ready to have more tasting of the Green tea Ice Cream and thanks dear for helping to take the nice picture of the Ice Cream I made.. ha ha..

Prata Sausage for Lunch

Lately we had not been eating lunch at home so it had become a norm no that lunch will be prepared. Today, Hubby suddenly call up asking whether there is anything to eat at home as he was very hungry. The only quick and easy thing to cook up was the prata sausage and instant mushroom soup.

I'm not a frequent cook so a lot of times the ingredient required to cook the food that I know how to cook is not there. So without hesitation I just informed Hubby that i'll prepared the Prata sausage for lunch. By the time hubby got home which is 45 min from when he call, everything was ready. The Prata sausage was very crispy on the outside and soft in the inside. So that's the quick and simple yet nice lunch we had today.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Yesterday after work, decided to made a Pandan Chiffon cake for today's breakfast. I have previously try a lot of recipes for this chiffon cake but a lot of time the taste of the pandan does not come out eventhough i used a lot of pandan leave. I was also finding it quite hard to squeeze out the juice from the pandan.


However with the recipe I got from Wen's baking, the cake's pandan smell was very nice and very natural. I only need to add pandan paste to get the pandan fragrant out. The texture of the cake was also nice and fluffy.. Really melt in your mouth. Hubby was say the cake was very nice he he.. So it's definitely a keeper for me to use this recipe.

Mango Cheese Cake

I had made mango cheese cake last week but have no time to upload the picture therefore did not post anything up. Thought I'll just write some thing here first and remind me to load the picture. ha ha..

Since there was some over ripe mango in the fridge I decide to go for a mango cheese cake. I got the recipe from Momster's cuppie corner. The recipe was easy and since i only have 250gm of cream cheese at hand therefore i only used that and not the 300gm as recommended in the recipe. But the cake still turn out nice only thing is mayb not so much of the cream cheese in there. Since my husband is not a really great fan of cheese cake and cheese, so the recipe was quite ok. But with regards to the sugar side, I think mayb next time i'll try to reduce a bit if my mango is very sweet. coz the cheese cake was a bit on the sweet side.

But overall the recipe was nice and the mango smell of the cheese cake was very tempting for me ha ha.. will try to made it again when there are tons of mango in the fridge ha ha..

Banana Chiffon Cake

As I'm off today decided to try baking a Banana Chiffon Cake since got some banana around. Had try previous time already how the texture either very rough or the cake did not rise up. SO after finding a good recommended Banana Chiffon Cake recipe so decide to give it a try. The Cake recipe actually seen from the Small Small Baker recipe adopted from Kevin Chai.

The recipe actually is for a 20 cm chiffon cake but i got a 23cm / 8" chiffon cake mould so i adjusted the recipe to fit my cake mould. The result as expected - the cake's texture was very soft and fluffy... a bit like it would melt in ur mouth ha ha.. The smell of the banana was very significant unlike all the previous banana chiffon recipe i try which there was no smell of the banana. Another thing abt this cake, it rose quite high and the cake did not fall down. So this recipe is sure a keeper for me...