Cuisine & Culture the Chinese Family Way
Christmas tree wreath cake! I can’t believe it is almost December which means Christmas is just a few weeks away now! We have been so busy buying presents, wrapping, writing cards and letters to Santa! Also not forgetting busy keeping our Christmas tradition of building a gingerbread house and making chocolate Christmas trees!
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Shopping at Tesco is always a regular choice for me as not only it is a bigger EXTRA store, they also offer a free venue for our Lichfield Mandarin Club every Tuesday from 4.30 pm to 6.30 pm. We have been using their community room since last year December for our Chinese class. This works out great for us as my children go to learn their mother’s tongue and I can also have two hours of child free grocery shopping and have some relaxing cup of tea at the in-store Costa.
Some of you might know that I was born in Singapore and my family never celebrated Christmas while we were growing up. As we live here in the UK though, I want my children to have some of the Christmas spirit as their friends do so they don’t miss out. So since two years ago, we started to make a gingerbread house as part of our Christmas tradition at home!
Last week, during the half term holiday, we spent a lot of time cooking and baking lot of cakes. I had a lot of cox apples left at home. They were quite small and sour hence both children didn’t want to eat it. So I decided to use them to bake apple and cinnamon muffin. This recipe will make you six muffins.
We have never been a big fan of brownies because they tend to be too dense for our taste buds but I decided to experiment with it as I am trying different types of bakes each week. My son and I tried out this recipe together. It is from The Secret of Cookies which I bought it from Singapore. I have changed some of the ingredients for ingredients more widely available in the UK.
This is my first time making a Christmas Yule Log and I am very pleased with the outcome. The log is basically a chocolate roulade or Swiss roll. In this recipe, I have made it flourless. If you prefer it to be more dense, then add the same amount of flour/caster sugar in it.
After watching the last episode of Great British Bake Off 2015, I was quite sad that I won’t have any more fabulous bakes to look forward to each week to inspire and challenge myself. Nevertheless, Taste100 is challenging bloggers to create hen-inspired cakes to be judged by ex-Bake Off contestant, Chetna Makan!
As the more creative the bake is, the better chance of winning a Mason Cash Bakers Set, along with a Cath Kidston set of containers and apron. So thinking outside the box – since Halloween is coming, I decided to mix both hen and ghost spirits together. I bring to you this Halloween Ghost Chicken Cupcake!
Since I had tried to bake coffee cupcakes, I decided I needed to try to bake tea cupcakes next! I am a big fan of green tea. It is very light and fragrant. The best way to achieve a tasty green tea cake is to use the green tea powder rather than brew from the tea leaves. However, I did find it hard to get the green tea powder from our area, but I do know that they can be found easily in London or Chinatown.
Anyway, I have a box of green tea bags, so I decided to use them. I didn’t want to put the leaves into the cake as my children probably won’t like it hence the flavour and colour are not a very strong shade of green.
Have you seen the Walkers’ comeback crisps? Walkers have launched their biggest ever flavour campaign, ‘Bring it Back’ and they have brought back these five flavours for a limited time: Barbecue, Toasted Cheese, Lamb & Mint, Beef & Onion and Cheese & Chive.
Over these last few months, I have been experimenting cheesecake bakes using different types of bases. From Oreos to digestive biscuits, to cheese crackers to chocolate biscuits. In this latest creation, I have used peanut cookie as the base. It requires blind baking for 15 minutes before adding the cheesecake. I didn’t want to detract from the flavour of the base hence I opted for plain cheesecake using soft cheese and mascarpone.
After the long summer break, this week I finally have a bit of time to start baking again! So I decided to bake coffee cupcakes and make use of some mascarpone that had been sitting in my fridge for weeks! This recipe is almost like a Victoria sponge cake recipe. This Coffee & Mascarpone Cupcakes recipe makes 12 cupcakes.
I have been experimenting with baking using vegetables recently and so far it has been fun. Surprisingly, it has all gone down well with the children. Coincidentally, I am delighted to receive this Baking with Vegetables cookbook from Parragon. As the name suggests, there are some fabulous recipes with using vegetables in your bakes and it’s given me even more inspiration to be adventurous.
Recently, I came across the Bake in Black cookbook which was written by a musician and a food journalist in East London. They started started life as a blog from a kitchen and took a song or an album title which then inspired them to create a recipe. It draws influence from the world of rock and heavy metal to create awe-inspiring edible tributes in the kitchen. There are more than 60 sweet indulgences in this cookbook.
After watching the Great British Bake Off last week, I really wanted to bake biscuits so badly! Due to the summer holiday and busy weekend, I decided to make this super easy Oreo biscuit cupcake! This requires only three basic ingredients and Oreos, of course. If you don’t have Oreos, you could also use crackers.
This summer holiday, we have been very busy whisking, mixing and baking! Both of my children love helping me in the kitchen and making a lot of mess! Rarely a day goes where my kitchen is not filled with mess!
After successfully baking the butternut squash muffins and butternut squash & raspberry traybake, this week we have baked the carrot cupcake ice cream cone. This recipe is very simple and as you add in grated carrot into the mixture, you get the hidden benefit of eating some veg! Both my children enjoyed it even thought they knew there was carrot in it. They didn’t taste any difference to any other cake. Another success of hidden vegetables in a cake recipe!
A few months ago, I tried to bake Jamie Oliver’s Butternut Squash Muffins and it was a great success. I am not a big fan of vegetable cakes like carrot cake but I love the idea of hidden vegetables in cake. Ever since I tried the muffins, I’ve loved it. So I decided to make a Butternut Squash & Raspberry traybake for my Lichfield Mandarin Club’s party. This was my first time baking it and all the children and parents loved it. They all couldn’t detect the butternut squash. The only let down was that the raspberries were slightly sour!
Last weekend, I invited a few friends over for a drink and a catch up but unfortunately I was ill. They all turned up but I didn’t get chance to take many photos. I made this super easy cheesecake that does not require baking. All you need to do is mix!
I have used Oreo biscuits for the base and it can get quite sweet. If you prefer less sweet, replace it with digestive biscuits instead. To make the base, I always use these measurements in these proportions: 100g of biscuits mixed with 50g of melted butter. This is what I used for my no bake Chocolate Cheesecake.
