It is the durian season now! MIL bought a lot of durian for us, and we cannot finish them. I took the flesh of one box, make it into this delicious Durian Light Cheesecake. SIL loves it so much. Yummy!

INGREDIENT
1 slice 7″ sponge cake
250g cream cheese
3 egg yolks
150ml fresh milk
150g durian flesh
3 egg whites
50g caster sugar

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Line a 7″ cake tin and put in the sponge cake slice to line the bottom.
3. Beat cream cheese and egg yolks at low speed until well mixed. Add fresh milk and durian flesh. Mix well.
4. In a separate clean bowl, whisk egg whites at high speed till peaked.
5. Mix egg white mixture into the cream cheese mixture in 3 batches. Mix well.
6. Pour onto sponge cake in cake tin.
7. Steam bake at 180C for 20 min. Reduce to 140C and continue baking for another 1.5 hours or until cooked.
8. Leave cake in oven for another 1 hour. Chill in fridge for 4 hours before removing it from tin and serve.

I used to love this biscotti a lot. I can take the whole can of it, keep munching until it is gone. Have been trying to find a recipe to bake this, and didn’t realize I already have the recipe in one of my books!!!

I did a test bake last week. Reduced the sugar, because the only complaint I have about any biscotti sold, is the sweetness level. At first I thought I had a failure, because it didn’t rise in the cake tin, and it produces just so little. But the result was fantastic! The right sweetness for all of us – who just eat it plain. I think if you want to eat this with ‘sweet’ coffee, maybe you can add in more sugar.

INGREDIENTS
4 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
70g caster sugar
120g medium protein flour (sifted)
120g whole almonds
Few drops of vanilla essence

METHOD
1. Beat egg white with cream of tartar till peaked. Gradually add sugar, beating constantly until stiff. Lightly fold in flour, almonds and essence.
2. Bake in a greased tin for 35 min at 180C using a rectangular tray.
3. When cooled, cut loaf into wafer-thin slices and bake in an ungreased baking tray for 10-12 min at 150C.

This is another good way to make children eat carrots (if your kids don’t like it)… But of course, don’t tell them this is a ‘carrot’ cake, and don’t let them see how you make it! Ian and Isabel both saw how I made the cake, they refused to try it – the trick didn’t work. But Ryan didn’t know… his mommy told me that he loves the cake, and ate 2 pieces at one go!!

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs, separated
1.5 cups vegetable oil
120g caster sugar
100g brown sugar
300g carrots, grated

(sift together)
250g low protein flour
2 tsp mixed spices
1.5 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

100g chopped walnuts
100g chocolate chips (optional)

METHOD
1. Beat egg yolks till fluffy, add in oil, sugar, carrot and mix well.
2. Add dry ingredients and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, beat egg white till peaked and fold into cake mix.
4. Pour into a lined and greased 9″ tin and bake at 175C for 45 min.
5. Cool the cake and top with cream cheese frosting (recipe below).

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1. Cream 250g cream cheese with 60g butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in 60g icing sugar and cream till smooth.

Alternatively, another easier method to bake this cake is, to buy the carrot cake pre-mix. Very simple, just pour the pack of powder into a large bowl, add in 4 eggs, mix until smooth. Add in carrot, walnut and choc chips, lastly add in vegetable oil. Tasty and easily made.

BTW, the original recipe calls for raisins instead of chocolate chips. I don’t like raisins, so substituted it with choc chips. :p

The other day when I boiled the Chinese Burdock (Cobo) soup, I used only half of the very large radish. Trying to clear my fridge, I took out whatever ingredients left from previous cooking and made this pot of soup. This can be made vegan if you omit the dried mussels – it tastes equally good (I added because I wanted to eat it!).

Ingredients
1 corn cut into 3 segments
1 medium radish or half a large one, cut into large pieces
1 tomato wedged
2 stalks of celery, cut into chunks
1/2 carrot, cut to chunks
1 pc (150gm) pumpkin sliced
6-8 dried mussels, washed and soaked (can be obmitted to turn this into vegetarian soup)

Method
1. Bring 1.5L water to the boil.
2. Put in all ingredients and bring to the boil again.
3. Turn to low heat and boil for 2 hours.

If you like, you may add some salt to taste, but my family prefers it this way without seasonings. The soup is very tasty with natural sweetness. Again, Isabel gobbled up the corn!

Well, I think most people know how to fry rice, so this post looks like a bit useless to many. :p Anyway, I think the rice is very tasty, so I just wanna share!

INGREDIENTS
2 cups of rice, washed and steamed with 4 cups of water. Set aside for frying later.
1 cup of corns
1 cup of chopped vegetarian Charsiu
1 bowl of finely chopped onion (about 2-3 onions)
Some oil for frying
3-4 eggs, lightly beat with some soy sauce for seasoning
2 tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
Some salt for seasoning
[If you want, can add 1 cup of chopped carrots too]

METHOD
1. Heat oil in wok.
2. Saute onion until fragrant and transparent.
3. Add in rice, corn and charsiu, fry until rice loosen up and heated up.
4. Add in soy sauce and mix well.
5. With high-heat, slowly pour in egg mixture while keep on stir frying.
6. The rice will be sticky, keep stir frying until the wok finally become light and no longer sticky (it will have very nice fragrance).
7. Season with salt and serve hot.

Actually this version of baked macaroni is just so similar to the non-vegetarian type. What I do is just substitude the meats in the original baked macaroni cheese with sliced button mushrooms.

Ah! Also, in this version, I added some grated cheddar cheese as well. I think this gives the topping a better texture compared to purely mozarella cheese.

I love banana cakes, and I have been wanting to try this Banana Custard Cheesecake for a very long time. Finally, I bought some bananas from Jusco last week and baked this cake:

I reduced the sugar from 100g to 80g, because of a bad experience before –> banana itself is already so sweet, the banana cakes were just too sweet that even my Indonesian maid couldn’t take!

INGREDIENTS
(A)
500g cream cheese
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp custard powder melt in 50g milk
3 bananas, mashed and mixed with 1tbsp lemon juice

(B)
3 egg whites
80g caster sugar

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Line an 8″ cake tin.
2. Mix cream cheese, egg yolks and custard milk until well combined.
3. Add bananas and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk egg white and sugar until peaked.
5. Pour into cream cheese mixture in 3 batches and mix well.
6. Pour into cake tin and steam-bake at 200C for 15 min.
7. Reduce oven heat to 150C and continue baking for another 50 min or until cooked.
8. Leave cake to cool in oven for 1 hour with door ajar.
9. Chill cake in refrigerator for 4 hours before removing from cake tin.
Served chilled.

I had some leftover banana which I don’t think we can eat any more, so I’ve decided to turn this into a banana cake improvising some butter cake recipes.

This cake turned out to be quite moist, and the walnuts added more fragrant, also making the cake has something to chew!

INGREDIENTS
250g self-raising flour
250g butter
150g sugar (I reduced sugar because banana and choc chips are sweet)
4 eggs
80ml milk
4 bananas, mashed
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy and whitish.
3. Add in eggs and flour alternatively.
4. Add in milk, mashed banana, chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. Mix well.
5. Pour batter into 8″ cake tin or rectangular tin.
6. Bake at 180C for 45-50 min or until cooked.

I read about Burdock somewhere, that it is a ‘heath’ food for Chinese, used to remove toxins from body as well as to prevent cancer. I finally saw it in Tesco, and apparently it is widely sold in the market. I just didn’t pay any attention to it before.

I used it, together with some coriander, pumpkin and carrots, and made this soup. This is a vegan recipe. For more savory or ‘meaty’ result, you may add in chicken or beef chunks.

INGREDIENTS
1/2 stalk burdock (roughly 250g)
4 stalks coriander
600g pumpkin
1 large carrots (or 2 medium)
1 tbsp QiZi (杞子)
4 red dates

METHOD
1. Wash burdock, peel and cut into chunks.
2. wash and drain coriander.
3. Remove pumpkin skin and pith. Cut into chunks.
4. Peel carrot and cut into chunks.
5. Rinse red dates and core. Rinse QiZi.
6. Boil 1.5L water. Put in all ingredients. Boil over high heat for 30 min. Reduce to low heat and continue cooking for 1 hour. Season with salt and serve.

This is my 2nd attempt trying to bake a marble cake. It turn out very nice, quite similar to what we bought from stores. But I don’t think I will bake again, coz I notice that my children only want the choc part –> THEY DIG the dark ones to eat only!!! I better bake a choc cake instead.

Anyway, here is the recipe for Marble Cake. Very easy to make.

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs
250g butter
250g self raising flour
150g castor sugar (can adjust if you prefer sweeter, I want less sweet, so this is just right for us)
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tbsp cocoa powder

METHOD
1. Line a 9″ cake tin and preheat oven to 180C.
2. Mix cocoa powder with half of the milk and set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar at high speed until fluffy (like turned whitish).
4. Fold in flour and eggs a bit at a time, alternatively.
5. Separate 1/3 of the mixture in another bowl.
6. Add cocoa milk mixture into the 1/3 portion, mix well.
7. Add the rest of the milk and vanilla essence into the 2/3 portion, mix well.
8. Pout the 2 parts into cake tin alternatively. Swirl with a chopstick to form marble pattern.
9. Bake at 180C for 45min or until cook (skewer goes in and comes out clean).