Pandan Marble Cake

After the first trial and everything turned out good, I confess that am addicted to baking. And since I still have some self raising flour and eggs and all the stuff I need for making marble cake, two days ago I made this pandan marble cake for my friend's birthday. The taste was good but the texture was not as smooth as the first trial. I suspect, the cold egg made the difference. Next time I do making cake again, I better let the egg stands for awhile and reaches room temperature before mixing it with other ingredients.

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 3 drops of pandan essence
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla



In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add pandan essence to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula until color distributed evenly. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the green pandan mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.

Martabak Telor

This week has been a busy week for us, as we are ready to pack everything up and leave by Friday. We are looking forward for a new challenge and big change in our life. Busy packing up means cleaning up and getting rid of what is inside the fridge and freezer. I had to find idea of what to cook with limited choice of ingredients every day for the whole week. Since I still had some ground beef and spring roll skin, I decided to make this yummy martabak telor. I used to have it from street vendor in Jakarta Indonesia. Bianca loves it...she is just like me, she eats it with steam rice.



Ingredients:
- 300gr of ground beef
- 6 green onion, chop thinly
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 4 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly
- 3 egg
- 1tsp of fish sauce
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1/2tsp of curry powder
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- spring roll skins
- salt
- sugar
- oil for frying



In a pan, saute garlic and onion until fragrant. Add the ground beef and stir it while cooking, until change color. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, curry powder and pepper, stir it well. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Continue to cook until the meat tender. Keep it aside and cool it off.
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg with fork. Add the green onion and then the meat. Stir it well until all distributed evenly.
Take one of the spring roll skins and place it on a cutting board or flat plate. Put one spoonful of the filling mixture on it. Roll it up and form an envelope shape. Glue the margin with water. While doing it, prepare the oil by heating it up in a frying pan. Deep fry the envelope in the hot oil under medium high heat until golden brown. Flip it over and wait until the other side turns to golden brown too. Take it out of the oil and drain the oil by placing it on paper towel.
Do it again and again until all done. Serve it warm with fresh chili paddy.

Marble Cake

To be honest with you..this is my very first time doing baking from scratch myself. I'd never baked before, except when I was teaching food processing lab back in 2002-2003, but never in my own kitchen. On Friday I urged myself to start doing it, I wanted to make something delicious yet easy to make with a very little risk of failure. Melanie encouraged me to start doing it with this marble cake, she convinced me that I would never fail to follow this simple recipe. Beside I was also drooling when I saw the picture of it on her page.
Yes, finally I did it and she is right..I can do it! Thank you Mel...My husband loves the cake that he asked me to bake another loaf the next day.

Here is the recipe from her:

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 2 tsp of cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla


In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add cocoa powder to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the cocoa mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.

Sweet and Sour Fish Fillet (Ikan Asam Manis)

This is a typical menu in many Chinese restaurant in Indonesia. I used to have it whenever I dined in there back then. I still had one whole Tilapia in freezer. Last Tuesday early in the morning, I took it out of the freezer, thawed it and started the smelly job-filleting the fish in the afternoon. In the middle of cooking I found out that the tomato paste which I'd kept in fridge was rotten. Thus I chucked it into the garbage and replace it with lime juice and plum sauce. It was a bright idea, the food turned out to be delicious...even my little Bianca surprised me by asking to have some more rice with it.


Ingredients:
To make the fish fillet:
- 1 whole Tilapia, use the fillet, cut into small chunks
- salt
- ground black pepper
- lime juice
- tapioka flour
- oil for frying

In a bowl, put the fish fillet and drizzle some lime juice. Add salt and pepper and mix it well. Cover all the surface of the fish with tapioka flour and then deep fry it in hot oil under medium high heat until golden brown. Place it in a serving bowl.

To make the sauce:
- 2 carrot, peel off the skin and cut into matches shapes
- 1 green bell pepper, discard the seed and cut into thin long shapes
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 4 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly (supposed to be onion, but I did not have it)
- 4cm of ginger, crack it pestle
- 1 tomato, cut into 12 pieces
- 2Tbsp of plum sauce
- 1Tbsp of lime juice
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1Tbsp of fish sauce
- salt
- sugar
- ground white pepper
- water
- 1Tbsp of tapioka flour, mix it with a little bit of water
- oil for saute

In a pan, saute garlic, onion and ginger until fragrant. Add tomato and continue to saute for another 2minutes. Add cut carrots and bell pepper, stir it well and continue to cook for 5minutes. Add plum sauce, lime juice, oyster, fish sauce and water and mix it well. Continue to cook until boiling. Add salt, sugar and pepper to taste. At last pour the tapioka mixture and stir it immediately until thicken.
To serve, pour the sauce on top of the fried fish fillet. Eat it with warm steam rice.

Potato Doughnuts (Donat Kentang)

Doughnuts have become my sweet comforting snack since I was a little kid. My mom used to make it for me. Normally I do not like sweet stuff, but doughnut is an exception. Surprisingly enough, I love the very sweet Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts which were introduced to me when I was living in Sydney, Australia. One of these days I came across Widya's kitchen where she made potato doughnuts. I was so impressed with the smooth shapes of the doughnuts. Then I asked her if I can have the recipe. It's so nice of her that she sent me the recipe on email. Thank you Widya...
Two days ago, I decided to make it (after a long waiting coz the cough which I had before..I did not want to make it worse with frying stuff). I started early morning, but still I did not have enough time for I had to rush to go to the dentist on time. So I left the un-kneaded dough on the table. I got back from the dentist only to find very crumbled dough (coz I'd already add the egg yolks but did not have time to knead it). I had to spend extra energy for kneading in order to produce smooth dough. Thankfully, it paid off..the doughnuts were so good, the whole family loved it.
Btw, I used only half of the original recipe, but then I made mistake when adding the egg yolk and milk, it was a bit too much. So the recipe which I am gonna share is what I really really used, including the mistake I did. Still it's good though...


Ingredients:
A:
- 275gr all purpose flour
- 38gr full cream milk powder (I used baby formula)
- 5gr yeast
- 50gr sugar

B:
- 100gr potato, boil, peel off the skin and mash it until smooth, cool off the temperature

C:
- 3 egg yolks
- 80ml fresh milk

D:
- 2Tbsp of margarine
- pinch of salt

Topping/Glaze:
- dark cooking chocolate
- chocolate sprinkle
- icing sugar


Mix well the ingredients A in a mixing bowl. Add the cool mashed potato. Add the ingredient C (this was the point when I had to run to the dentist and left the dough) and then knead it by hand until it is not sticky. Add ingredients D and knead it again until you get a flexible dough. Cover the bowl with a wet cloth and let it stand for 20minutes until you get good overrun. After 20min press the dough to release the trapped air. Take small amount of the dough and make ball with palm hands (coz I do not have doughnuts mold) and place it on a cutting board which was prepared by layer it with a little bit of flour. Do it again and again until all done. Let it stand for another 20minutes. Make a hole in the center with your pointing finger. Deep fry it one by one in a hot oil under medium low heat. While frying, use a chopstick and make circle stirring movement on the center hole. Flip it over and fry until golden brown.
Place it on a plate and cool it off. When it is cool enough, dip it into melted dark cooking chocolate and then add some chocolate sprinkles or just simply dip into icing sugar.

Note: the recipe is good to make 15-20medium sized doughnuts.

Strawberry Foam Pudding with Vanilla Sauce

Summer is just around the corner..meaning cheaper fresh fruits are available on markets. Last week I found a very good deal for strawberry. The price was one third of its winter price...
So I bought 3 big containers of them, and since Bianca loves the pudding I made before, this time I made pudding again with some variation on layers and added vanilla sauce too. The whole family love it..


Ingredients:
To make the pudding:
- 1 package of green color agar powder
- 1 package of clear color agar powder
- 5 egg white
- 1lt of fresh milk
- 1/2lt cold water
- 18Tbsp of sugar
- 12 strawberry, cut into 4 each

In a pot, pour 500ml milk and 250ml water, mix it. Then add the clear color agar powder and stir it well until the agar distribute evenly. Place the pot on a stove and cook until boiling, do not forget to stir it while cooking. Once it is boiling, add 9Tbsp sugar and stir it well until all sugar dissolved.
Meanwhile beat the egg white with a mixer at high speed until foamy and then place it in a square casserole bowl or pudding mold. Pour the boiling agar into it and let the foam float on the surface (if you like it all foamy and stiff, you may stir it gently while pouring the agar). Keep it in a freezer for 10minutes just enough time to let it half-harden. Then add cut strawberries on top of the foam. Put it back to the freezer for another 10minutes.
While waiting, prepare the top layer by well mixing the rest of milk and water with the green color agar powder. Bring it to boil and then add the remaining sugar, stir it well until all sugar dissolved. Remove it from the stove and wait for 2minutes (do not give time for agar to harden). Take out the harden first layer agar and foam from the freezer and carefully pour the green agar on top of it. Put it back to the freezer or fridge until it is harden (remember that using freezer is a way to accelerate the hardening process, but at the end it is better to keep it in a fridge).


To make vanilla sauce/fla:
- 1/3 can of sweetened condensed milk
- 2 egg yolks, beat with 3Tbsp cold water
- 250 ml cold water
- 1Tbsp margarine
- 2Tbsp tapioka flour, mix it with 50ml cold water
- 1tsp vanilla powder

Bring to boil all of the ingredients except tapioka mixture and egg yolks. After boiling, add the tapioka mixture and stir it well. Wait until boiling again. Remove from the stove and quickly add the egg yolks and stir it instantly. Keep it in a fridge until cold enough.

To serve, cut the pudding and place it on a saucer/small plate. Then pour the vanilla sauce on top. Serve it cold.