Oat Cookies

Here's oat cookies for sharing this CNY!

Ingredients:
200g butter (soften)
200g brown sugar
50g corn flour
2 egg yolks
200g plain flour
250g oat (gridded)
100g corn flake (gridded)

Method:
mix thoroughly corn flour, gridded cornflake, oat and plain flour.

Cream butter and brown sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy then add in egg yolks and beat well to combine. Sift the flour into in and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.

Roll the batter into balls about the size of 1 tablespoonful and press the balls down slightly with a folk. Pre-heat over at 180c and bake for 10-20mins.

Cognac Prune Cake

First cognac prune cake accomplished! As CNY is only a week away.

Did you know a steamed fruit cake can stay fresh in the fridge for about a year? I had tried a steamed brandy fruit cake once that took me about 4-5 hours of steaming on a kerosene cooker. It was grandma's old fashioned way of making cakes during the early days and then we did not have an oven. It took a lot of patient nevertheless. Cakes according to grandma turned out better, moist and tender.

Here's an oven bake cognac prune cake, successfully done (well, after a few tips from a friend).

Ingredients:
1 lb (Golden Churn) butter
2 glasses caster sugar
1 glass brown sugar
2 glasses self-rising flour
10 big eggs
1 lb seedless prune (chopped)
1 lb raisins (chopped)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking power
1/2 cup VSOP cognac

Method:

Mix prune and raisins with 1/2 cup of VSOP cognac, leave over night in room temperature.

Melt butter and leave to cool for a minute of two.

Crack 10 eggs into a bowl, stir well (don't beat) then add in caster sugar and brown sugar and continue to stir till dissolve, then add in prune, raisins and cherries, mix.

Slowly add in flour, baking power and bicarbonate of soda.

Lastly add in melted butter and mix thoroughly.

Bake for 1-11/2 hours over 375F (150C) oven temperature.

Apple Custard

I grew up seeing this fruit (apple custard) a lot in the backyard of our neighbour's house but never got to appreciate the fruit.

When I was young we rarely had them at home. It seemed like inedible fruit for us then, whenever our neighbour handed one or two to us, one would definitely go to waste.

The fruit is actually, sweet and pulpy, especially around the seeds. It's known as 'buah nona' in Malay language.

Here in the backyard of the house, the fruit's gone to waste.

Warm Squash

I've been eating out a lot recently, (all the fast food) but I'm not a food critic nor a food review, so I'm not into taking picture of everything I eat outside, except for some particular dishes, perhaps those authentic ones :)

I went to lunch at 'After 4' (Satok) and all I asked for was, bittergourd venison with rice.

The day before I made squash fried rice; cook squash with herbs first until soften.

Use chicken broth, bay leaves, ground cinnamon, dried thyme, pepper and garlic then add in rice into mashed squash and stir well. Serve hot, it's awesome.

Other day, I just heat up the leftovers...

Dong Zhi, Winter Solstice

I drove home for Dong Zhi this afternoon and the song, 'I'll be home for Christmas' was playing in my car when I was about 10mins reaching home. It made me feel blissful that mom's baked stuffed 'ayam kampung' (free range chicken) was waiting for me at home :)

Sweet, juicy and with rich stuffing baked chicken. Simply awesome!

Dong Zhi or Winter Solstice is an important festival in Chinese culture and is a time when families get together to eat 'tang yuan' glutinous rice balls.

The roundness of tang yuan symbolise unity. It is for a family to unite over dinner and to look forward to the coming of a new year.

Have a great Winter Solstice, Dong Zhi everyone!