A nut cracking session

A nut cracking session?? Do we need a session on cracking nuts? Yes I did, for these real "extra large" mixed nuts.This large packet of nuts caught our (hubby and I) eyes when we were at NTUC Fairprice. It is a large packet, with a height as tall as 30cm, but all the nuts were huge, in their original shells. So, there weren't many actually. But unless you don't mind spending some time and effort to crack these nuts, then I won't recommend you to buy. :P

I love love nuts, all kinds of nuts, and with the fine print "guarantee fresh" i was won over. Don't they all look lovely in their original shells? :) Oh so natural! I shall now give you a lesson on the names of these nuts, if you have not seen the real thing in its shells. ;) Starting from the left, we have almonds, filbert (i googled and realised filberts are also referred to hazelnuts), brazil nut, pecan, walnut (in front of pecan), followed by almond and lastly walnut again.

After attempts to crack it with our hands, teeth and a pair of plier to no avail, hubby decided on a hammer. And... it works, almost instantaneously :)

There you go... freshly cracked atural almond.

This is pecan.

Brazil nut in its shell....

Brazil nut breaks open...

Filbert/hazelnut

Walnuts.... I have read that eating walnuts is good for the brain... and interestingly i think it does resemble a brain...?

That was our nut cracking session.... a most indigenious way of eating nuts. I enjoyed the session, hammering while we peeled open the shell and eat it straight away.

A word of caution. Do remember to place a piece of mat or thick cloth on the floor beneath a stack of newspaper. The newspaper is for easy cleaning and the mat is to protect your floor. I'm sure you wouldn't want to damage your floor tiles. :)

Cranberry Almond Butter Cake

Looking at this messy cake, it may probably not attract one to want to have a try at a piece. But... i can guarantee you that you will regret if you do not try it, especially if you love nuts or anything nutty.

As the name suggest, this cake uses almond meal. I made my own almond meal by grinding whole almonds (with skin) in a blender, hence the almond meal containes traces of the skin in brown which makes the cake prettier and more rustic.

The original recipe uses candied orange but I replaced with cranberries, since I still have a packet of it. My mum don't usually like to eat dried fruit but she like this cake, to my surprise! Because it's full of almonds and cranberries, it crumbles easily and is difficult to get a perfect slice.

This is the top but I flipped it upside down to get a more even top.

There, you see all the almonds and cranberries!

Cranberry Almond Butter Cake

Ingredients:

Blanched almond slivers/chopped whole almonds

60g cranberries

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

85g ground almond (almond meal)

90g icing sugar

25g cake flour, sifted

35g melted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Lightly grease cake pan with a little softened butter.
2. Spread almonds at the base of the pan in an even layer.
3. Combine eggs and egg yolk and beat lightly. In a separate bowl, combine ground almonds and icing sugar and stir lightly. Add 1/3 of egg mixture to almond mixture and beat with an electric mixer. Repeat with remaining eggs until mixture is light, fluffy and pale. Do not over-beat.
4. Add flour and cramberries to the egg-almond mixture and fold in well.
5. Add melted butter and fold in thoroughly.
6. Pour batter into prepared cake pan (18-cm round pan) and bake for about 40 minutes.
7. When done, remove cake from cake pan and cool on wire rack.

Recipe adapted from: "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida

This is a no fuss recipe and in fact you don't require a mixer. All you need is just to bear the mixture thoroughyl but not over-beat. Would you like to make your own? :)

I shall stop here as I'm taking some precious time to blog. Time to bed for me. I'm always hoping for sweet dreams of cakes, desserts, pastries.... ;)

Wedding DIY Card

These four days of Chinese New Year break is really a good time for me to recharge myself and sleep late to do whatever that I like. I don't get this kind of break when I apply for vacation leave or going for holidays because work is still ongoing in the office which means I've got to clear my work before and after my vacation leave and that's a great deal of stress for me as well! I know this doesn't happen to all workplace but it does for my office culture.

While doing some housekeeping of my photos, I saw these photos of the invitation cards which I made for my wedding solemnisation at Sentosa. They were just simple invitation cards that I printed for my friends with some embellishments of flowers and ribbons. They weren't really neccessary but I made it for some fun and rememberance :)
I bought the envelopes from Popular Bookstore and made designs using a heart-shape hole puncher. The wordings were stickers from Popular Bookstore as well.

By the way, I've finally uploaded my wedding photos taken at Sentosa by my freelance photographer on Photobuket and linked its slideshow at the right hand side bar of my blog. Feel free to click on the slideshow to view the photos ;) The photographer had taken over 400 photos and I've picked about 200 of them for the slideshow. I love how the photos turned out and they were what hubby and I wished for in a beach wedding. :D

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Two days of Chinese New Year have passed. This shall be the last year that I can receive Ang Baos because according to Chinese tradition, I'm not yet married as we have not gone through the customary wedding. I will certainly miss being a young "girl" receiving ang baos :P

Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit!

I'd wanted to continue participating in the Aspiring Bakers challenge on Chinese Year Cookies but I was too busy to submit my post by the closing date of 1 Fen 2011. :P

Chinese New Year cookies has become my yearly to-do event and of course I have my favourite new year cookie, and that is almond cookies! I've never failed to make this every year after I make my first almond cookie years back with Florence's recipe. I had tried other almond cookie recipes and by far this is still my favourite recipe. I believe using toasted almonds really enhances the taste, much more than using ground almonds alone.
This year, I made my own pineapple jam, after reading Wendy's blog which gave really clear instructions on how to make it. Her instructions and tips really helped alot as I found it less intimidating to do as I had thought. The only problem was that my jam was too wet and soft, even though I had cooked it once more the next day and chill it in the fridge. Being too soft, I had such a difficult time wrapping the pastry dough over the jam.

This year, I made kok chai again with my mum's help. I used a bigger drinking glass to mould the shape of circle for the dough, for fear of the dough shrinking but it dodn't this year. Hence my first batches of kok chai were so big that we think it looked like mini curry puffs! LOL

I finally made kueh bangkit again this year after a few years of rest. :D

My favourite almond cookie.

We have just ushered into the year of the Rabbit and I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous year ahead!

Steam black sesame cake

I was trying to find ways to finish the bottle of black sesame paste which I first bought to make a black sesame chiffon cake.

I began googling for recipes using black sesame... and that brought me Florence's blog who's also in my blog list. Black sesame steamed cupcakes-- oohh that's perfect! Just what I'm looking for, a simple recipe that can be done without much hassle. I spent much time though trying to smash the black sesame paste which had turned dry at the bottom after storing in the fridge for a months.

The cake turned out great! It was not too sweet, with a subtle black sesame taste. Somehow steam cake is a hit with older generations. Hubby's parents and my parents love it, despite the unattractive colour. I thought they would not be receptive to new flavours (their favourite would be those good'o steamed egg sponge cakes!) :) Do take note that steam sponge cakes doesn't keep well, probably due to the moisture from the steaming so it's best to finish it within two days. ;)

Have you starting your CNY cookie baking? Well, I'm planning to start this weekend. Enjoy!

Updates on our Happy Future Planning

I just wished my hubby a Happy 3 months to our marriage today. :D

It has been three months since the day we solemnised and this is the first time I remember our 3rd month of marriage on the exact day. I always remembered it either a few days before the 10th or after that. Since I can't remember myself, I can't blame hubby too. But of course, come the next 10 Oct, we certainty won't forget. :)

Some people have been asking me how's marriage life but I told them I couldn't feel much difference because we are still living apart with our own parents, besides the calling of each other "laogong" and "laopo" occassionally. But I do feel a sense of a status change especially now that I know I'm no longer single, with that wedding band on my finger that I faithfully wear 24 hours a day (except when I'm baking / washing up) until it already gets scratches in just 3 months... *heart pain* LOL

For the past few months we've been busy planning for our new home renovation, sourcing for banquet locations and choosing of a date for our customary wedding. I'm so happy that we have finally fixed our customary in Jan 2012, and we have booked the banquet location at Orchard Hotel at the Wedding Fair last Saturday. It will be an 8-course Chinese sit-down lunch. Reviews from the Chinese Hua Ting Restaurant in Orchard Hotel has been good so far and hopefully they'd remain the standard and we love the ballrooms! :)

Yeah... finally one item settled and we are on our way to concentrate on our renovation planning, before the keys come in March.

Exactly one more year to go... though I can forsee it wouldn't feel that long cos' this year's gonna be a really busy year for both of us but we are enjoying every moment of it. I'm looking forward to building our nest and the bridal photoshots a few months later. :D :D Will try to update as much as I can. ;)

Rum & raisin cream swiss roll

HAPPY 2011! I am sorry that this came rather late but for those who have not pop by my blog, or those who comes in later, I sincerely wish everyone good health and have had a great start for the new year.

I just wrote my resolutions a few days ago, there were like about ten of them. I would say the long-winded me has been repeating these every year. I am proud to say I have achieved something for each resolution I make, probably 30-50% of what I've resolve to do / change in 2010, so I hope I can achieve 100%, or 80% this year. ;) To resolve to do / change / have something is a slow process, so make it small, and detailed in achieveable steps, so you won't feel disappointed at the end.

I wish everyone would have a positive mindset, this rules everything. Easier said than done, but I believe it's possible. :)

I made this swiss roll just before the christmas in 2010. I was expecting a gritty buttercream frosting because that was what I got whenever I made simple buttercream frosting using butter and icing sugar. This recipe by 孟老師的美味蛋糕卷 was amazing because the end result was a smooth buttercream without the gritty, coarse texture of icing sugar at all. I did take quite some time to cream it as the recipe requires you to slowly add in milk/liquid a little at a time, while beating it buttercream mixture with an electric beater. The sponge cake recipe, using the chiffon method was very soft and bouncy and hubby could immediately tell that it was those chiffon cake texture! He is picking up some knowledge on cakes! You are great, hubby Fong! :D

I added some rum into the cream and spread some raisins on it.

Just after rolling......

More swiss roll recipes on the way, stay tuned. Meanwhile, here's the recipe which you mau like to try before the CNY baking. ;)

Simple Rum & Raisin Buttercream Recipe

Ingredients:

80g unsalted butter

20g icing sugar

40g milk cooled at room temperature

10g rum

Method:

1. When unsalted butter has softened, add icing sugar and mix with the butter using a spoon or a spatula.
2. Using an electric beater, beat the mixture (starting from slow speed and progressing to high speed) until soft and fluffy. The colour should be pale white. You may have to scrape the bowl often with a spatula.
3. Add in milk and rum a little bit at a time, and continue beating with low speed until all the liquid is used up. (You can replace the milk with 50g of whipping cream. According to 孟老師, the flavour would be great).

Swiss Roll Cake Recipe

Ingredients:

85g egg yolks (about 4.5)

25g castor sugar

45g canola/any vegetable oil

45g milk

85g cake flour

170g egg whites (about 4.5)

85g castor sugar

Method:

1. Beat egg yolks and 25g of sugar with an egg whisk until sugar has melted and mixture is even.
2. Add in oil and mix well, followed by milk and mix everything well with the egg mixture.
3. Add in the flour (sifted) all at once into the mixture and mix well with the egg whisk to form an egg yolk batter. Set aside.
4. Make meringue. Place egg whites into a clean bowl and beat until foamy. Add 85g of the castor sugar in three or four additions, and beat until egg whites are glossy and stiff peaks form.
5. Add egg whites (meringue) into the egg yolk batter in three additions, folding after each addition gentle with a spatula, until they are well incopororated.
6. Pour batter into prepared swiss roll pan, and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180°C for about 12 minutes.
7. When done, unmould the cake and let it cool on a wire rack.
8. When cooled, spread buttercream on the cake and roll it gently to form a swiss roll. Chill it in the fridge for about half an hour before serving.

Recipe adapted from: 孟老師的美味蛋糕卷