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

The texture of these baked mini doughnuts is different from the normal deep fried doughnuts.  These taste more like cake and best consumed within the day they're baked.  A wonderful tea-time treat! Baked Mini Doughnuts ~  香烤迷你甜甜圈    (adapted from 'here' with slight modification) Ingredients 105 gm plain flour 25 gm caster sugar 1/2  tsp baking powder 1 egg 80 ml fresh milk 2 sachets of Lipton black tea 40 ml corn oil or melted butter (I used canola) 1.1/2 Tbsp honey Topping 60 gm semi-sweet chocolate (melted) Lightly toasted nibbed almonds (optional) Method Lightly simmer the milk with  2 sachets of Lipton black tea, let cool, set aside. Grease the mini doughnut pan with melted butter or oil. In a large mixing bowl, sift the plain flour, baking powder, mix well. Add in sugar and whisk with a ball whisk till well combined. Add in the beaten egg, milk tea, oil and honey and whisk till the batter is smooth.  Do not overmix. Slow

This is a very simple Grapefruit marmalade recipe.  It has a 'zingy' flavour, not too sweet and it's delicious with toasts, buns and in this case, I chose to spread it on my crackers.  This marmalade is full of fruit, flavourful but not overpowering. Recipe for Grapefruit Marmalade  ~    柚子 果 酱 Ingredients 4 Grapefruits about 2.1/2 lbs 2 cups water 300 gm caster sugar Method Put a few plates in the freezer to chill. Wash the grapefruits and put them in a large bowl.  Pour boiling water on them for a few seconds to get rid of the wax on the peel.  Then wipe them clean. Use a peeler to peel off the zest from the grapefruits, set aside. Cut the grapefruit into 8 wedges and remove the white pith from the grapefruit.   (Discard the white pith for it's bitter).   Remove the seeds and membranes from the grapefruit and place them into a cotton cloth bag.  Add water, zest and sugar into a heavy bottom pot and boil the mixture on medium heat.  

This Japanese Black Pearl Chiffon Cake has been baked by many bloggers and all of them gave the thumbs up for this recipe.  So, how can I give this a miss it and not try it out myself.   I was so pleased with the result and the cake stayed moist and soft even after being kept refrigerated for a couple of days.  Definitely a keeper recipe!   Recipe for Japanese Black Pearl Chiffon Cake ~  (adapted from   'here' ) 日式黑珍珠戚风蛋糕 Ingredients  (A)                                          5 egg yolks 60 ml corn/canola oil 100 ml milk 130 gm dark cooking chocolate 55 gm plain flour 25 gm cocoa powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder Snow powder and choc chips for decoration (optional) (B) 5 egg whites 80 gm caster sugar 1/2 tsp lemon juice 1/4 tsp salt Method Melt cooking chocolate in a double boiler, set aside. Sift plain flour, twice and on the third time, sift together with the baking soda and baking powder.  Sift in the

I came across this recipe while surfing the internet and the method of making these cupcakes caught my eye.   The recipe called for black tea but I tweaked it a bit and used Clear Green Tea from Lipton. I also added a bag of infused tea leaves to the batter and this gave extra oomph to the cupcakes.  Texture was soft, moist and not too sweet as I've reduced the amount of sugar.   These cupcakes are best served accompanied by a steaming pot of Green tea. Recipe for Lipton Green tea cupcakes  ~  绿茶 杯子蛋糕   (adapted from   'here'  with slight modification) Ingredients 225 gm butter 160 ml milk 3 Green tea bags (I used Lipton) 3 large eggs 1.1/2 tsp vanilla 210 gm plain flour 1.1/2 tsp baking powder 120 gm caster sugar (reduced from 160 gm) 200 gm icing sugar for buttercream Pinch of salt Buttercream 50 to 75 ml butter, milk and tea mixture (from the above) 150 to 200 gm icing sugar, sifted Method

Saturday, being a public holiday, we took the opportunity to  have brunch at Li Yuan Dim Sum restaurant.  There are quite a number of  dim sum restaurants in Ipoh  and I've passed by this shop a couple of times but only decided to give this a try at the recommendation of my neighbour.  The shop is not very spacious and as it was close to lunch time, we were lucky to find a table for the two of us. Pan-fried Carrot Cake - Rm 4.00.  Very tasty especially with their 'homebrand' chilli sauce. These fish balls were delicious, tasted a bit different from what I've tasted at other dim sum joints. Steamed Pork Dumpling with Fish fillet - Rm4.80. This was the chef's recommendation for he concocted the bunga kantan/ginger flower sauce, only available here in this restaurant.  Yummy! Steamed Beancurd Rolls with BBQ sauce  - Rm4.00 Steamed Coco flavoured buns with Salted Egg - Rm5.00 for 3 pcs  (Lau  Sar Pau) But these two were com

I've tasted this Acar fish, long, long ago and I remember that my dad loved it. Traditionally, if I can recall, the sliced garlic, turmeric and ginger need to be dried under the sun before frying.  I didn't adopt this method, just patted them dry with paper towel and let them air dry at room temperature. As for the fish, I pat them dry with paper towel before seasoning them with some salt and setting them aside for a few hours before deep frying them.  This dish is truly very appetising and I'm sure you can't resist having a second helping of rice when this dish is served. Recipe for Acar Fish Pickle  ~    啊 杂 鱼 Ingredients 300 gm silver mullet  300 gm mackerel fillet 50 gm young ginger, cut into matchsticks 50 gm fresh turmeric, peeled and  sliced thinly 2 bulbs of garlic, sliced thinly 5 red and green chillies, sliced 5 birdeye chillies Lightly toasted sesame see