Chocolate Chip Cup Cake

 

Wow! What an amazing alliterated title! haha

This is an easy I-gotta-eat-cake-now recipe.  No need to take out your electric beater.  Just one pot, one hand whisk and a plastic scraper to scrap off every last bit of batter.

Chocolate Chip Cup Cake (makes 8 )

185 g or about 1.5 stick butter (unsalted)

150 g sugar

3 eggs

175 g plain flour

3 Tbsp flax seed meal (optional)

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Melt butter in a medium or large pot.  Leave till cool. Add in everything except chocolate chips and mix with a hand whisk till combined. Fold in chocolate chips.  Leave for about up to 30 min for the flour to absorb the liquid before baking.

Bake in a lined muffin pan, in a preheated oven of about 180c. Bake between 20-25 min or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

It’s buttery, moist, not too sweet.

 

 

 

Kueh Kueh

We love a certain nonya kueh known to us as Rainbow Kueh or 9-layer kueh or steamed kueh lapis.  Top layer is always a bright red, bottom layer is always white and in between we have beautiful rainbow colors. It is patiently steamed layer by layer until there are 9 layers.  To enjoy it, we peel off layer by layer and savor it one layer at a time.

We love it coz it’s chewy, sticky, sweet, coconuty (not unlike mochi in texture).  However, it’s usually full of artificial coloring.  Every layer is a different color.  We have to limit *sob our intake coz DD has eczema and we suspect artificial coloring and preservatives to be one of the main culprits.

OR! I could make it myself, leaving out all the bad but pretty coloring.  And put in some flax seed meal to boost up the nutritive value.    The result is not pretty.  But never mind the lack of rainbow colors, as long as it tastes good coz  we can always close our eyes when we eat! lol. Anyhow, DD gave it 2 thumbs up.  “It’s soooo yummmmy!” Her words, not mine. 8D

 

No-Coloring  9-Layer Kueh with Flax Seed Meal

180 g tapioca starch

20 g rice flour

1/4 cup flax seed meal

400 ml coconut milk

160 ml water

1/4 tsp salt

200 g sugar

pandan leaves

Boil pandan leaves with water for a few minutes, then discard leaves.  Stir in sugar, coconut milk, and the rest of the ingredients.

Grease an 8″square pan with coconut oil.  Prepare the steamer.  Heat up the pan in the steamer.  When steamer is ready, stir batter, spoon in about 100 ml of batter and steam 5 min.  Spoon in another 100 ml of batter on top of the 1st layer and steam another 5 min.   Remember to stir batter each time before using. Repeat this till all batter is used up. Steam 10 min for the last layer.  Remove from steamer and leave to cool.

There is a trick to removing it from the pan.  Use a piece of cling wrap and place it on top of the kueh.  Flip the pan upside down.  Now you are holding the kueh in your hand. Gently pry the kueh away from the sides of the pan.  The whole thing should come off easily and plop onto your hand. Viola!

Now, about slicing it.  It’s a sticky situation (pun intended, heheh).  There’s also a trick to slicing.  Using a large knife, position and press it down.  No sawing motions, please.  Just press down and it’s done.  If you don’t want to end up with a sticky knife, you may even put a piece of cling wrap on top and press your knife down.  It won’t cut through the cling wrap but will cut through your kueh. Viola again!

Remember to peel off each and every layer and savor it layer by layer.

Store leftovers in the fridge.  It’ll still be soft the next day.

 

Egg-less Coconut Waffles

My friend, Sherin, has a little girl who is allergic to eggs.  They were over today and I thought to make egg-less waffles for them.  It’s just an egg-less variation of my Coconut Waffles recipe.  It’s a bit chewy and the richness comes from the coconut milk and coconut oil.  It has its charm.  I like it.  In fact, I feel that it resembles closely to our local cake shop waffles which we all love. I added in some flax seed meal to boost up the nutritive value of the waffles.  That’s optional, of course.

 

Egg-less Coconut Waffles (makes about 4)

125 g plain flour

50-75g sugar

2 tbsp flax seed meal (optional)

1 tsp instant yeast

pinch of salt

250 ml coconut milk

3 tbsp virgin coconut oil

Mix all together and leave to proof in a warm place for about 1/2 hour.  Cook in waffle maker.

 

 

 

Felt Donuts

My kids and I made lots of donuts recently.  They were very high in fiber but not a single one was edible 😉

If you are interested in a “high fibre diet” as well, this is how we made them:

Ingredients:

Brown felt for donuts, colored felt for frosting, buttons for eyes, polyester stuffing, needles, thread, pins.

“Cooking” time: about 2 hours (excluding cutting time)

Method:

Cut 2 donut rings and a piece for frosting.  Sew or glue on eyes and mouth.

Stitch or glue the frosting piece onto one piece of brown felt, as shown in the pic. Use either running stitches or blanket stitches.

If you had chosen to sew instead of glue, now sew the outer rim of the frosting, as shown in the pic.

 

Get the 2nd piece of brown felt and place it underneath. Stitch the inner rim of the 2 pieces of brown felt together, as shown in the pic. Use either blanket stitches or overcasting stitch.

Now, stitch the outer rim of the donut, as shown in pic.  Donut (pun intended heheh) sew it all the way.  Leave a gap about 1″ for stuffing.   Stuff it well coz we like fat donuts.  Then sew up the gap. Glue felt sprinkles on them. Done!

Just a heads up on sewing with children, things to watch out for apart from poking themselves.  The problems I encounter mostly involve the thread and needle.  One, they find it challenging to tie knots, be it at the start or at the end.  Two, the thread tends to slip out of the needle because when they pull the needle out of the fabric when sewing, they don’t know when to stop pulling.  You can either make it double strand for them or tie simple knot at the needle’s eye.  Three, the thread tends to get tangled up during sewing if they use too long a piece.  Usually I would tell them to get thread that is about the length of their arm.  Also, use higher quality thread.  I feel that cheap thread tends to get tangled easily, even for me.

Happy sewing!

 

 

 

Chocolate Waffles

Like there was any doubt that I would come up with a chocolate version.

This is a variation of our local soft  Coconut Waffles.  Chocolate and coconut is a good combination. It smells wonderfully of coconut and chocolate, and it tastes chocolatey as well!  Definitely a win-win!

 

 

Chocolate Coconut Waffles (makes about 5)

125 g plain flour

75 g sugar

1 tsp yeast

1 Tbsp cocoa powder

pinch of salt

1 egg

200 ml coconut milk

3 Tbsp coconut oil

Mix everything together and leave to proof in a warm place for about 30-45 min.  Cook in a waffle maker.

Serve it with butter or ice cream. Or not, as it’s already good on its own.

Coconut Waffles

This is no Belgian waffle.  It is not crisp and high.  Our local cake shop waffle is a bit flat, soft, a bit chewy and full of wonderful coconut flavor.  It comes with an option of plain, peanut butter spread, melted cheese, chocolate spread and blueberry spread.  Some offer more options.  Usually I’ll just have the plain one as I love the coconut flavor and don’t want anything to mask it.

This is my version.  Warning: not a low fat food.

Coconut Waffles (makes about 4)

125g plain flour

50 g sugar

1 tsp yeast

pinch of salt

1 egg

200 ml coconut milk

3 Tbsp virgin coconut oil

Mix them together and leave in a warm place to proof for about 30-45 min. Cook in a waffle maker.

Enjoy it with butter or honey.  But seriously, it doesn’t need any of those.

 

 

1 Yr Old!

*crochet Pokemons courtesy of my DD.