IKEA-Inspired Swedish Meatballs

I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of us out there who love those Swedish meatballs at IKEA.  Those meatballs, with the cream gravy and cranberry sauce on the side are just delicious.  So last night, I gave a try at making IKEA-inspired Swedish meatballs with the cream gravy sauce.  Instead of fries, I opted to make mash potatoes and serve with salad.  As for the cranberry sauce, well, I took a quick shortcut by buying a small jar of mix berry conserve.  The jam tasted alright, although it was a bit too sweet for my liking, but it did give that berry-sweetness combination to the meatballs and gravy.  The overall combo: pretty close to the ones in IKEA I think! :)


Meatball recipe from here, gravy recipe from here.

So if you're also a fan of IKEA Swedish Meatballs, do give these recipes a try :) Yummy.

Chocolate Nutella Coconut Cupcakes

I was having some friends over for tea-turn-dinner today.  Earlier this week, while thinking about what to cook, I remembered RC's Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes.  Yes, the sound of chocolate and coconut does sound tasty and different from our usual topping, doesn't it?  I used my favourite chocolate cake recipe by Hershey's.  I learned that there is indeed a difference between using a cupcake recipe and a cake recipe: cupcake recipe usually makes drier texture, while a cake recipe makes moister cupcakes.

And as for the topping, I couldn't resist the thought of spreading Nutella with the dried shredded coconuts (also helped by the fact that I didn't have to do any topping myself, of course) ;)

Make them tiny and make the cute!  Good I tell ya :)

Macarons by Colour Confections

As words spread among friends that my husband makes Macarons, we started to receive two orders end of last week.  Alhamdulillah! We never seriously thought about selling them... until now.  My husband enjoys making them and he's getting better by the batch of macarons he makes!  I, on the other hand, joined in by designing the label, helped to brainstorm some ideas on packaging, and putting up a page for Colour Confections.

So here goes.  Say "Hello!" to Macarons by Colour Confections :) Now open for orders in Melbourne.

If you're in Melbourne, hop on to Colour Confections for further information.

If you're in Malaysia, you'll have to wait until we come back for good... :)

Mapping the Anatomy of a Cupcake

Now isn't this just lovely? I just love it, love it, love it!

via ohcupcakes

Tiny Pink Luxuries

 

I wanted to try make Red Velvet Cupcakes last night, but didn’t have any of the main ingredients like buttermilk, vinegar and red food colouring.  For the record, I’ve never even tasted Red Velvet before - will do, though.  I did, however, have all the other things to make cupcakes, plus pink food colouring, some thick cream and chocolate chips.  So here’s my improvised version of what I call, “Tiny Pink Luxuries”.  They’re made like vanilla cupcakes, but with thick cream, and chocolate chips hidden inside, and topped with butter-cream and chocolate rice.  They turned out to be pretty rich, that one tiny cupcake is already luxurious.

Ingredients:
80g butter, softened
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 cup self-raising flour, sifted (or 1 cup plain flour + 2 teaspoons baking powder)
1/3 cup thick cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder, sifted
1/2 tablespoon pink food colouring
A handful of chocolate chips

Topping:
80 g butter, softenend
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Some chocolate rice

Method:
1. Mix butter and sugar using electric mixer, until light and fluffy.
2. Add in egg and mix well.
3. Add in flour, thick cream, vanilla, cocoa powder and pink colouring.  Beat with mixer until well combined.
4. Add in chocolate chips and stir.
5. Fill a small spoonful of batter into mini cupcake papers.
6. Bake at 160 C for 10-15 minutes until cooked.  Then cool on rack before topping.
7. For topping: Beat butter and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Gradually beat in icing sugar until well combined for 1 minute.  Decorate topping on top of cupcakes as you wish and sprinkle with chocolate rice.

Oh, Macarons!

Mad about macarons? You can get the step-by-step recipe with photos from my tumblr here (courtesy of my husband). Happy trying :)

Jamie Oliver's Lasagne Recipe: Halal Version

The Simplest and Best Lasagne Recipe I’ve Ever Tried!

In the spirit of trying out new recipes from cooking books that I’ve bought, here we have Jamie Oliver’s Simple Baked Lasagne from his “Jamie’s Dinners: The Essential Family Cookbook”.  I love lasagne, but haven’t cooked any since… hmmm 2006?  That’s like 4 years ago.  The last time I made lasagne, the white sauce recipe was from San Remo’s Dried Lasagne Box (there’s a really good recipe at the back of the box).  The sauce recipe I got from my mom, which is kind of like a thicker version of a bolognaise sauce.

But this time, I wanted to follow JO’s recipe.  I had to leave out some of the ingredients that he used such as panchetta/bacon/pork belly/red wine as I don’t eat any of that.  In a way, I modified his recipe to be suitable for Muslims like me.



You can get the full recipe here.

Mine is the Halal-version. So here goes…

INGREDIENTS FOR LASAGNE:

Fresh Mushrooms, sliced (tin mushrooms would also do if you don’t have fresh ones)
A pinch of cinnamon
1 Onion, finely chopped
1 Carrot, finely chopped
2 cloves of Garlic, finely chopped
Herbs (sage, oregano, rosemary, thyme) - OR Mix Dried Spaghetti Bolognaise Herbs
Olive oil (or vegetable oil)
Minced Beef or Chicken
2 x 400g tins of Diced Tomatoes
Some dried chilli flakes or chilli powder
Salt & Pepper
400g Fresh Lasagne Sheets
400 g Mozarella

INGREDIENTS FOR WHITE SAUCE

1x500ml tub of Thick Cream / creme fraiche
3 anchovies finely chopped OR Anchovies Powder / Serbuk Perasa
2 handful of Parmesan Cheese

METHODS

1. Fry mushroom & cinnamon powder with oil.
2. Add onions, carrots, garlics, herbs and 4 tablespoons of olive oil
3. Mix together, then add in minced beef/chicken
4. Cook for 5 minutes
5. Add in tinned Tomatoes and bring to boil
6. Get greaseproof paper/baking paper, wet it and place it on top of the plan while it simmers and cooked
7. Season sauce with salt, pepper and chilli flakes
8. FOR WHITE SAUCE: in a bowl, mix thick cream, anchovy powder, parmesan, salt & pepper (if mixture is too thick, add some milk)
9. ASSEMBLE: Rub base with olive oil - lasagne sheets - meat sauce - white sauce & sprinkle parmesan - lasagne sheets - meat sauce - white sauce & parmesan - lasagne sheet - white sauce - the very top should be mozarella & parmesan.
10. Bake at 200C oven for 30-35 minutes.

I used minced chicken, instead of beef (coz that’s what I had in the fridge); used mixed spaghetti bolognaise herbs, instead of fresh ones though (sorry JO!); used diced peeled tomatoes in cans instead of plum tomatoes; didn’t use red wine nor add water because there’s liquid from the tomato cans already; didn’t manage to find bay leaves at the supermarket; opted out the butternut squash and coriander seeds; and for the sauce, used light thickened cream and “serbuk perisa ikan bilis” (dried Asian anchovies seasoning) instead of anchovies.  And instead of frying panchetta with cinnamon at the beginning, I used mushrooms instead, because I love mushrooms and I know they give out great flavours in food.

So after everything was seasoned to taste and assembled, I popped in the baking dish in the microwave to cook for 30 minutes.  And then here it is.  I added some poached vegetables with a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper on the side.

The result: what a delicious lasagne! His recipe of not using bechamel sauce and used cream instead makes the lasagne less heavy, and I love the salty-cheesy crispy top.  I think the combination of parmesan and anchovies seasoning in the cream blend in really well with the sauce mixture.  My husband and I both loved it very much and we can’t help to just appreciate how great the lasagne tasted, although with some bits of adjustments.  Thanks JO for such great and truly simple and easy recipe!

Raisin Bread Pudding

 (with chocolate fudge hidden inside!)

I had some left-over raisin breads and have always wanted to try make a bread pudding.  But, I could only make do with what I have in the kitchen.  Since the ingredients that I have like eggs, caster sugar, milk and butter seem to be the main ingredients in a bread pudding recipe, theoretically, I could still bake a bread pudding.

Here’s how I made my raisin bread pudding:

1. Cut bread into little squares
2. In a bowl, whisk 3 eggs, 3 tablespoons of caster sugar, a cup of warm milk and a dollop of butter.
3. Soak bread squares into the egg mix.
4. Arrange soaked bread squares into a baking dish.
5. I have some left-over chocolate fudge, so I drizzled some choc fudge in between the layers of the breads.
6. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.
7. Serve warm, with more choc fudge drizzled on top :)

Scones for Sunday Breakfast

I've always wanted to try to make scones (apparently most people pronounce "scone" to be rhymed with "john" instead of "scone rhyming with bone").  Scone is very simple bread or biscuit, and what I like about it is the floury-milky taste.  Scones are best eaten with jam and cream, but I'm thinking of trying to eat them with some spicy filling like 'sambal tumis ikan bilis' maybe one day!

Image | Scones, raspberry jam and coffee for Sunday breakfast

Camera | iPhone 3GS, diptic and instagram's early bird

The Recipe: (sourced from one of those free catalogs from Woolworths)

Ingredients:
4 cups self-raising flour
2 tablespoon butter
pinch of salt
2 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 cups milk

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 210C
2. Sift flour, sugar and salt into a large mixing bowl.  Mix in butter using your fingertips.  Pour in milk and stir lightly to create a stiff dough.
3. Turn onto floured bench top and knead lightly to create a smooth dough.  Roll out to a 2cm thickness and cut into rounds using a 7cm scone cutter. »> (i didn’t have the scone cutter so i just made them into little balls and flattened them a bit to about 2cm thickness)
4. Place onto floured baking tray and brush with milk.  Bake for about 15 minutes until golden on top.
5. Serve scones hot with your favourite jam and cream.

Verdict:  Not bad lah... maybe I could have left it in the oven a bit longer, and should have rolled it and cut them to shape manually so that they'd have a more even top.  Very easy and very quick to make.

Cook Books

For someone who likes buying books, cookbooks are definitely in the list.  Although books that have amazing photos and styles of food are very much alluring, I find that what closes the deal between browsing and purchasing is actually the recipes themselves.  If I find that the recipes in the book are 'do-able', if the ingredients that are used are easily available, if the food in the book are those that I like or would love to try, and if the price of the book is not ridiculously expensive, then there's definitely a potential purchase.  It is no doubt that you can find almost a recipe for anything on the internet nowadays, but having a cookbook adds a bit more of that seriousness in cooking or baking, or at least for amateurs like me (not that cooking or baking ever have to be serious though).  When following recipes, I like to have them in front of me on the kitchen counter, looking at them step by step, measure by measure.  And I still love the idea of having a physical hard-copy of recipes just like our moms have it.

Cupcake Recipe Book | purchased at one of those bargain stash at the mall

Jamie Oliver | bought at the Sunday Market for more than half of the original price (in new condition)

Turqoise A4 Notebook | My own collection of hand-written/copied recipes

(Not in photo | RASA Magazine I bought from Malaysia)

Photo | Olympus PEN, desaturated edit

Recipe: Apple Crumble with Walnuts

Image | Apple Crumble with Walnuts

Photos | Apples & Finished Crumble: Olympus PEN

Other Ingredients: Compact Camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS3) - Edited Auto-Levels, Contrast

Layout | iPhoto Book Layout

It was my first time making Apple Crumble.  Apple and cinnamon taste really nice together, and I thought adding walnuts would give some crunch to the filling.  The original recipe is from Jamie Oliver, and I added the cinnamon and walnut for personalization.  It's very easy to prepare, and would probably taste fabulous with a dollop of ice cream on top when served.

My version of the recipe can be downloaded here.