No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

For a change, I tried  using a premix to make these Snow skin mooncakes and for colour opted to go natural and use the Bunga Telang or Blue-pea flower.   Indeed the purple colour from the flowers was very distinct on its own but once mixed with the flour, I was rather disappointed. It turned out to be blue instead of purple.  Well, the consolation is that the colour is natural.   Taste wise, I would still prefer to make the Snow skin from scratch rather than use a premix. Recipe for Bunga Telang ~ Blue-pea Flower Snow Skin Mooncakes Ingredients 250 gm of QQ Snow mooncake premix (1 packet is 500 gm)  14 gm shortening Bunga Telang/Blue pea flower 220 ml water Pandan and Lotus mooncake paste 25 gm melon seeds, lightly toasted to be mixed into the paste Method ( as per instructions on the packet ) Wash the Bunga Telang and boil with 220 ml water, once boiled, discard the flowers and measure out 195 ml.  Dis

The annual Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival which is the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar falls on Thursday, 19th September this year.  Again, around this time of the year, one can see a variety of  mooncake recipes posted  in many food blogs.  Mooncakes make elegant gifts to family and friends at this time of the year and homemade ones are certainly more meaningful and of course much more economical. Recipe for Mixed Fruits and Nuts Mooncake  (adapted from Anncoo Journal but made half the recipe for the filling) Ingredients (A) Dough 150 gm superfine or plain flour 90 ml golden syrup 38 ml vegetable oil 2 ml alkaline water (B)  Filling 40 gm walnuts, lightly toasted, coarsely chopped 40 gm almonds, lightly toasted, corsely chopped 30 gm melon seeds, lightly toasted 60 gm white sesame seeds, lightly toasted 30 gm dried kiwi, chopped 30 gm cranberry, chopped 30 gm raisins, chopped 30 gm dried pineapple, chopp

  This cherry loaf is rather simple, fairly dense but enriched with ground almonds. Turns out nice and moist and keeps well too. One good tip that I picked up from  Nigella Lawson is to rinse the cut glace cherries with water, pat dry and toss in some flour to minimise the cherries from sinking.  What I would normally do is just to cut up the glace cherries and dust them with flour.  It never crossed my mind to rinse them.  As I prefer to have a not too sweet cake, I reduced the sugar and halved the amount of cherries called for in the recipe. Recipe for Cherry Almond Loaf   (adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe with slight modification) Ingredients 225 gm butter 100 gm glace cherries (reduced from 200 gm) 250 gm self-raising flour 100 gm ground almonds/almond meal 3 eggs 140 gm caster sugar (reduced from 175 gm) 1  tsp vanilla 8 Tbsp milk (originally 6 Tbsp) Method Cut up the glace cherries, rinse with water

This not too sweet  tea cake is complimented with a crispy, sweet fruity crust and it tastes wonderful when served warm.  Heat up any leftovers if any,  to regain the warm and crispy crust.  Great for breakfast or something to snack on!  It may taste better with fresh blueberries.       Recipe for Orange Blueberry Tea Cake   (adapted from a Woolworths magazine with modifications) Ingredients 6 oz self-raising flour 3.1/2 oz almond meal/ground almonds 3 oz caster sugar 1 egg 2/3  cup milk 2 oz melted butter 40 gm fresh blueberries (I used dried ones) 1 lemon rind (I used orange) 1/4 cup orange juice 1  Tbsp caster sugar Icing sugar to decorate (optional) Method Prepare a 22cm springform pan, line the base, grease and dust the sides with flour. Sift flour, add in the almond meal, mix well. Using a handheld whisk, whisk the egg and sugar till well blended.  Add in the milk and melted butter, whisk to combine. Fold in t

During my recent holiday in Perth, I was delighted to stumble upon a pair of Black Swans nesting in this Lagoon Park.  I hope you'll enjoy these pictures of the park as well as the pictures of the nesting Black Swans. To All my Muslim readers, ' Selamat Hari Raya' and to Non-Muslim readers, 'Happy Holidays' !

One of my family's favourite dessert is Rum and Raisin ice cream.  However, this flavour is not always readily available in the stores.  So I had to spend some time surfing the internet to hunt for recipes and after taking some tips from here and there, came out with this recipe which was easy to prepare and most importantly, it yielded good result. Recipe for Rum and Raisin Ice Cream Ingredients 3 Tbsp raisins 1/4 cup Rum 1 cup cream 1 cup milk 1/2  tsp vanilla  6 oz. brown sugar 4 egg yolks Method Soak the raisins in Rum, overnight.  Strain, set aside the raisins and Rum. Heat the cream, milk and vanilla on low heat.  Once the milk foams up, remove from heat. Whisk brown sugar and egg yolks till pale and thick, gradually add in the warm milk, whisking continously.  Pour the mixture back into the saucepan, with a wooden spoon cook over low heat, stirring continuously until the mixture coats the back of