When Mummy is away, Daddy will Play...Choc Orange Cupcakes

This is the final part of the fun I had with the kids - cooking up a storm - while Mummy was away. In the first part of this 'series', I posted about Chocolate Roasted Bananas that we had for dessert. In the second part I shared the main meal which was Scotch Eggs.
This is another dessert that we had after lunch as well as throughout the day. Yes, we certainly did have fun while Mummy was away!

The inspiration from this actually comes from one of the readers of this blog - Angela. She had shared her cupcake recipe with me where the cupcake moulds are half filled with batter, topped with coloured sprinkles and then covered up with more batter. I thought that was rather brilliant and so I decided to make my own version of cupcakes, using my tried and tested Butter Cake recipe but flavoured with some Orange Oil. Then, instead of sprinkles, I put in some delicious Belgioan Dark Chocolate Buttons!
This is what I did.

Ingredients:
230g (8oz) Flour
2 ½ tsp Baking Powder
230g (8oz) Castor Sugar
250g Butter
4 Eggs – lightly beaten
2 tsp Orange Oil
1 Tbsp Honey
4 Tbsp Milk

Method
Cream butter and sugar till light and ivory coloured
Add eggs a little at a time
Fold in flour (sifted twice with baking powder)
Add Milk, Honey and Orange Oil
Quarter fill cupcake moulds. Add in Chocolate Buttons (or any other filling you would like)
Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for 25 mins till golden and done





The chocolate melted and stayed kind of soft and gooey even when the cake was cooled. It was really nice biting into the orange cupcake and finding the dark, luscious chocolate inside. The kids certainly loved it and The Lovely Wife was rather thrilled as well to find cupcakes when she returned home that evening.

While Mummy is away, Daddy will Play... Scotch Eggs

This is the second of 3 parts of How I played while the Lovely Wife was away. Played in the kitchen that is - cooking up a storm for my kids!

We had decided earlier in the morning that I would make them Scotch Eggs. Both the kids love eggs, especially hard boiled eggs. They also love their meatballs so it seemed like a perfect idea to combine the two!

Traditionally, a Scotch Egg is a hard-boiled egg that is wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and then deep-fried. They are also usually eaten cold and often with salad and pickles. Contrary to popular belief, Scotch Eggs have nothing to do with the Scottish and was actually created in a London food shop way back in 1738.


The version I made didn't have Sausage meat in it, wasn't coated in breadcrumbs nor was it deep fried. It certainly wasn't eaten cold either!! I had a lot of meat left over after wrapping the hard boiled eggs so I made meatballs.

This is what I did:

Ingredients
4 eggs
500g Mince Beef
2 slices wholemeal bread
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup tomato sauce

Method
Boil the eggs until hard boiled. Let them cool then shell them and set aside.
Cut crust off break and soak in milk until soft. Mash the bread up till it forms a paste and then mix it together with the mince. Season with salt and pepper and add in the tomato sauce. Mix well.
Flatten some of the mince in your hand and then place the egg on top of the flattened piece. Slowly mould the meat around the egg. Use some water to smoothen out the meat over the egg if needed.
Place the meat covered eggs on a baking sheet and bake for about 20 mins in a 190C preheated oven.


I served these with garlic mushrooms and while the kids had theirs with rice, toghether with mustard and more tomato sauce. I ate mine with some French Bread.



All in all a very tasty and satisfying meal! Stay tuned for the last installment of While Mummy is away...

While Mummy is away, Daddy will Play... Chocolate Roasted Bananas

While Mummy is away, Daddy will Play! Not quite as exciting as it sounds but still a lot of fun! It's nice having the kids to myself and we do a lot of fun stuff together. I take the opportunity to cook extra special stuff for them as well.

The Lovely Wife was away on Friday and was expected back late Saturday evening so early on Saturday morning, we decided what we were going to have for lunch and then headed off to the Supermarket to get the groceries. I went a little overboard with lunch and dessert that day which is why this 'topic' will be covered in three separate posts!

Starting off with the easiest dish that I made that day - Roasted Banana's with Chocolate. I had eaten this many years ago as a student in Australia. What I remember was banana's being halved and then stuffed with chocolate chips before being wrapped in aluminium foil. The foil was then left to 'bake' on the Barbecue while the meat was devoured. Then the foil would be opened up to reveal lovely gooey banana with melted chocolate. It was sinfully delicious.


I did something similar. I peeled two banana's, split then lengthwise and then sandwhiched the two halves with good quality dark chocolate before wrapping them in foil. I put the foil wrapped bananas in a 190C oven for about 20 mins.

I loved the flavours of the melted chocolate and soft banana. I used an almost ripe banana so it wasn't too sweet and didn't get too gooey. The kids loved it and they had great fun opening the foil package to reveal the bananas covered in chocolate.

The only thing I would do differently is maybe not split the banana completely and then stuff the chocolate inside - rather than sandwiching it between two split halves.

A great dessert and so easy to do. Oh, and probably I'd serve it with ice cream and some nuts next time for a baked Banana Split! Now that's an idea worth trying!!



Look out for the next two 'editions' of While Mummy is Away...

Just a small Complaint plus two Awards

One of my biggest grievances with respect to the Blogosphere is the lack of time I have to visit all the food blogs that I would like to. Sure, I have a few favourites but even those don't get the time that they deserve. I've met many new foodies and forged many new friendships on the blogosphere and I just want to tell everyone that although I don't visit your blogs as often as I would like to, I DO wish that I could!

Some of you are pretty darned amazing, blogging about food almost everyday - complete with fantastic photos. What's even more amazing are the number of comments that some of your posts receive. 30, 40 sometimes even more - and this happens regularly on some of your blogs! The only time I get into the 30's is when its Daring Bakers time.

So yeah, there's a whole bunch of blogs out there from all over the world. Some of you I know and some of you I dont. It is indeed quite humbling when you see the amount of sheer talent in some of your blogs. More than the talent though is the willingness to share not only your recipes but a little bit of yourselves - your thoughts, your personalities, your stories - with the rest of us.

That is why, I am greatly honoured to be given the following awards by my fellow
bloggers who have also become good friends.

The first award is from Meeta of Whats for Lunch Honey. Her blog is excellent in my mind so if you've never visited her, I think it't time that you did.



The second award is from my friend over in Canada, Valli who blogs at More Than Burnt Toast. Don't be fooled by the title though. You'll find a whole lot of gourmet food here. Certainly more than toast - and its never, ever burnt!


I'm supposed to pass these awards on now but I think ALL of you food bloggers deserve it because quite simple, in one way or another, you are all Excellent and you all have a Great Purpose in your blogging. So feel free to pick up the award! For those of you with multiple awards or for those who may have received these awards before, there's never any harm in getting an award twice. I mean really, would you turn down an Oscar just because you won it the year before??!!!

Making a right Malaysian Mess!

Contrary to what the title says, I didn’t mess anything up. Well, not in the literal sense anyway. I made a mess of things, sure, but it turned out to be a pretty darned good mess. No mess up at all. Okay, okay, I’ll stop messing with you all!


One afternoon, the Lovely Wife and I were flipping through Jamie Oliver’s Cook with Jamie when we came across his recipe for Eton Mess. Now I had never heard of an Eton Mess before but the picture of cream with berries and meringue looked rather lovely. The Lovely Wife remarked that this would be something that our son would love as he really likes his fruit and cream, not to mention pavlova!

The Eton Mess has its roots in (surprise, surprise!) Eton – that famous school in England and reputed to be the most famous school in the world. I wouldn’t know about that although I can vouch that Victoria Institution is not only the most famous but also the best school in Malaysia!

Anyway, back to Eton and the mess attributed to it! The Eton Mess is a dessert consisting of a mixture of strawberries, pieces of meringue and cream. It is traditionally served at Eton College's annual prize-giving celebration picnic on the Fourth of June. Apparently however, these days it is celebrated on the last Wednesday in May. Don’t ask me why that is so but I think it just goes to show how Messed up Eton really is…

You can see I’m having fun with this whole ‘Mess’ thing!

I decided to do a variation of the Eton Mess and use a whole bunch of different fruits. I used Kiwis, Bananas, Watermelon, Papaya and Pears. I also decided to flavour my meringue with cocoa – just for a bit of a change. Granted that Kiwis and Pears are not really Malaysian fruits but Watermelon, Papaya and Bananas certainly are. So that's why I call it a Malaysian Mess!

The meringue whipped up nicely and baked even better to a nice crisp. The cocoa meringue gave it a nice twist as it wasn't as sweet as a regular meringue. It was kind of fun breaking the meringue up into pieces and I wish I had got the kids involved in it. Reason I didnt was because I wanted to surprise them with the dessert.

My Kenwood makes whipping cream really easy now using the whisk attachment although you still have to watch that you don't overbeat the cream and end up with a separated mess (ha! There's that word again!!). I flavoured the cream with lots of vanilla and a little icing sugar and it was really quite delicious.

I took a leaf out of Jamie's book and served the Mess in glasses.



The kids simply Loved this dessert and asked for more, and then for more again! The good thing about this dessert is that their dose of fruit - although in all fairness, its never a problem getting them to eat their fruit.

I guess this is really similar to a Pavlova, but somehow serving it in a glass makes a difference. Also, I think my meringue making skills have improved as the meringue stayed crispy for quite a while, even when sitting with all the cream over it.

Or maybe its not my skills that have improved but rather my Kenwood that makes the difference...

Baked Cod Oriental Style

One weekend, we were too busy lazing and around with the kids that by the time we got ourselves into gear and went to the market, most of the fish had been sold. There was however some Cod available. Now Cod is rather expensive in this part of the world but sometimes its nice to indulge.


The Lovely Wife absolutely adores Cod as do the kids. In fact, when the kids were just starting to eat solid food, we used to feed them a little mashed Cod as it is believed that Cod is good Brain food. And all along I thought it was my Genes…

So with the purchase of Cod, I now had to decide what make. I don’t have a lot of experience in cooking fish but I am slowly learning to enjoy cooking it. My favourite method has to be experimenting with throwing a whole lot of seasoning together with the fish, wrapping it in foil and then baking it. Not only is this relatively easy, it is also very healthy. The best part though is that you get to enjoy the flavour of the fish itself without having it doused in too much spice or seasoning.

The Lovely Wife was just happy to have fresh fish rather than the Frozen Dory Fish that I usually like to make. The fact that it was Cod was an added bonus of course!

In trying to figure out what to do, I remembered, that in recent times, Chinese Restaurants have started to serve Steamed Cod doused in soy sauce and ginger. I decided to follow a similar route but use just a tinge of soy sauce. I also thought I would add some mushrooms to the fish.

This is what I did.

450g Cod Fish, cut into steaks
4 cloves garlic – chopped
½ inch ginger – chopped
200 g swiss brown mushrooms - quartered
2 tbsp Sesame Oil
1 tbsp light soy sauce (or more to taste)
Black Pepper

Method
Heat Sesame Oil and fry garlic and mushrooms. Set aside. Mix together ginger and soy sauce. Rub the fish with the mix. Arrange the fish steaks in a pan lined with foil. Make sure there is enough foil to cover the fish and form a package.
Mix the the remaining ginger and soy sauce with the garlic mushrooms and spread over fish. Sprinkle with Black Pepper. Fold the foil over to make a package, folding over the edges to seal. Bake in a preheated 200C oven for about 20 mins.


Part of the fun in baking in foil is serving it as it is on a platter and then opening up the package to reveal the goodness inside!



The cod turned out very nice baked like this. The flesh was firm and juicy with just enough sauce created by the fish oils and juices from the mushrooms. Very tasty indeed! The kids couldn't get enough of the Cod while the Lovely Wife gave it full marks. Looks like I'm getting the hang of cooking fish...!

Daily Tiffin - Outshining Mommy

Being a Dad is never easy. Kids always seem to prefer their Mom. I suppose I can understand that in some ways. After all, I’m the one that is the disciplinarian. I’m the one that does all the nasty things like pointing to the corner and telling them to go stand there. How many of you remember the old cartoon series Wait till your father gets home? Yeah, some things never change. My Lovely Wife, although playing a large role in disciplining the kids, still leaves the bulk of it to me and the phrase “Shall I tell Daddy what you did?” is often the trick in getting the children to behave.

There is one thing however where I will always outshine Mommy. And it's NOT cooking coz the Lovely Wife is a fabulous cook too. Too see what it is that I do best, read my article over at The Daily Tiffin!

Peace Cake

A friend of mine celebrated her 30th Birthday recently and she asked if I could bake the cake for her. She wanted the cake decorated with a Peace Symbol and she also mentioned that her favourite flavours are chocolate and orange.

I contemplated making an orange cake covered in chocolate icing – something along the lines of the Bostini Cream Pie – minus the cream of course. The one issue I had however, was time. The birthday party was being held midweek and that meant I would have to make the cake on a weekday – after work!

With that in mind, I decided to stick to something that I was sure would work. Well, I wasn't really SURE it would work but I reckoned I couldn't go too wrong by modifying my usual chocolate cake.   For the orange flavour, I added in some orange marmalade, a little Cointreau and some orange essence. For the icing, I melted some belgian chocolate and whisked that together with icing sugar, cocoa and butter. A little cointreau was added into the icing as well as a dash of orange essence.

For the peace symbol, I pressed a round bowl to leave an imprint of a circle on the chocolate icing. I then piped stars to form the circle and the two lines. For those that may be interested, the Peace Symbol was actually designed in 1958 and adopted as the badge for the Committee for Nuclear Disarmament. It eventually became the international symbol for the anti war movement in the 1960’s. The meaning of the symbol is Nuclear Disarmament as the symbol represents the semaphoric signals for the letter D (the straight line) and the letter N (the inverted ‘V’ shape at the bottom)

I guess I'll need to explain Semaphoric too now...! Semaphoric is the visual system for sending information by means of two flags that are held - one in each hand. It uses an alphabetic code based on the position of the signaler's arms. So for the D, the signaller would hold one flag up and one down, forming a vertical line. While for the N, the signaller would hold the flags downwards, making roughly a 45 degree angle.

I made an extra bit of cake in a small loaf pan too - just so that we could taste it. I liked the subtle orange flavour that nicely complemented the dark chocolate. The Lovely Wife like the orangey chocolate flavours too.

I had wanted to go a little overboard and further decorate the cake with sugar paste flowers but after piping on the peace sign and the birthday greeting, there wasn't much space left - and I thought it may have looked to crowded and busy. It didnt matter though as I didnt have the time to make my planned sugar paste flowers!



My friend loved the design anyway and it seems the cake went down really well at the party. So it looks like I've 'discovered' a great variation for my chocolate cake!

Stir Fried Snow Peas

One of the things I like most about Chinese food is the vegetables. They are always still crunchy and just lightly flavoured, allowing you to taste the true flavour of the veges. Granted, some vege dishes are doused in sauce but not this one. The other thing that is really great about making Chinese Vege dishes is how easy they are and how quick they are to whip up!

Snow Peas with Garlic is absolutely simple and quick to make. It doesnt require a recipe coz its simply tossing in a bit of this and a bit of that. Well, actually, a load of garlic and a dash of Oyster Sauce. Thats it!

Cut or chop the garlic and fry it with a little sesame oil or vegetable oil/corn oil/peanut oil. Add in the snow peas and quickly stir fry before tossing in some Oyster sauce. Add some salt and pepper too if you like.
Try not to overcook the snow peas or they could become a little limp.



See? What could be more simple!