I roasted this whole chicken on last Sunday, first time trying, and it turned out surprisingly very delicious, juicy, and YUMMY!

I was a bit terrified of handling a WHOLE Chicken, and had been thinking it is only for professionals. LOL! Now I AM professional. :p

I had everything in the baking tray, saved a lot of hassles, with all I needed to served all cooked together. The baked potatoes is the carbohydrate, baked veggies are source for fibre. Yat-wok-sook! Very easy, simple, time saving (i.e. you can do other things while the chicken is being cooked in the oven!).

Here I served the chicken leg with the potatoes and veg…

RECIPE FOR LEMON HERB ROAST CHICKEN
Ingredients
1 whole chicken
2 tsp salt
2 tsp pepper
1 tsp Italian herbs
1/2 tsp thyme
1 lemon’s zest
1 whole lemon
1 whole garlic
Some olive oil
5 potatoes
1 red capsicum
1 green capsicum
1 carrot
1 onion
1 Japanese cucumber
(can change the greens with whatever veg you like. I can imagine it would be nice with mushrooms, and will try that next time)

Method
1. Clean chicken thoroughly well. Pat dry completely with kitchen towel.
2. Mix together salt, pepper, Italian herbs, thyme and lemon rinds. Rub the whole chicken with the mixture, including its cavity. Keep in fridge for at least 4 hours or overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 190C.
4. Wash and peel potatoes, cut into golf-ball sized chunks. Boil the potatoes together with the whole lemon and the garlic in boiling water for 12 minutes (this is according to Jamie Oliver, I dunno why that ‘magic number’, haha!)
5. Strain potatoes, remove lemon and garlic. Coat potatoes with some olive oil, some pepper and salt to season (do this when the potatoes is still hot).
6. Stab the hot lemon with knife carefully (the juice will ooze out), for about 10 times. Stuff the whole lemon and the garlic into the cavity of the chicken.
7. Rub the whole chicken with some olive oil, then place in a roasting tray with breast side up, and bake for 45 min.
8. While waiting for chicken to cook, wash and cut the veggies into large chunks.
9. After 45 min remove the chicken onto a plate. Line the roasting tray with the potatoes and veggies, season with some salt and pepper, mix well with the fat drippings from the chicken earlier. Then place the chicken onto them, this time with back side up.
10. Roast for about 30 min. Then turn the chicken breast side up and roast further 10 min. This way you will have the skin crispy all around.
11. Let the chicken set for about 10-15 min before carving.

The original recipe calls for rosemary instead of Italian seasoning. I didn’t have that, so just improvised with whatever I have on hand, turned out very good, so I guess it just doesn’t matter. LOL!

p/s: Just realized that I have never posted a chicken dish here in this blog and have to create a new category for it. Yes, used to reject all sorts of meat apart from Fish, but now I have gave up, just reduce it but not completely rejecting.

On the same day I baked the pumpkin bread, I also baked this quiche for the kids. It smells and tastes so great. We got a big 9″ deep pie pan of this, too much that we saved some for the next day. The basic recipe is very simple and versatile. You can just replace the filling with anything you have: vegetables, chicken, minced beef, or seafood – you name it!

I had it served with freshly fried potato chips and cold broccoli salad (just toss together: 1 1/2c broccoli florets, 3/4c grated cheddar cheese, 1/4c chopped onion – saute, and salad dressing. For salad dressing, mix together 3 tbs mayonnaise, 2 tbs vinegar and 1 tbs sugar.)

YUMMY QUICK QUICHE RECIPE
Ingredients
Base Ingredients
2 cups shredded/grated cheddar cheese
6 eggs, beaten
2 tsp Italian seasoning (or old bay seasoning – just couldn’t find it here)
2 tsp garlic powder
Salt & Pepper to taste
2 tsp hot sauce (I omitted this for my kids)
1 cup mayonnaise
4 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup green onions, chopped & saute

Filling – Can be replaced with whatever you have
1 bunch spinach, boil, drained and chopped (or processed)
6-8 crab sticks, cubed
1 can tuna chunk in water, mashed

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C, grease a 9″ deep pie pan
2. Beat the eggs and add all other ingredients together, mix well
3. Pour mixture into the pie pan, and bake for 1 hour 15 min until set

* Note: you need deep pie pan, or else risk overflowing. Might need to adjust the amount, or put the excess batter into muffin cup and bake shorter timing for those ‘muffins quiche’

I was supposed to share 2 recipes on 2 birthday cakes that I baked recently, but so lazy that I kept delaying (the recipe not quite simple, so very lazy loh).

Then, today I found this very simple recipe, made some modifications and baked it. I let my kids do most of the stuff, except measuring, steaming, and putting in the baking pan/ inserting to oven. It yields 3 loafs of 3×7 breads. It is said that you could freeze the loaves and it can be kept for a couple of months!

Although this is called ‘pumpkin bread’, it is more like between bread’s and cake’s texture. I was worried at first, but the moment after I tried a slice, I feel so reluctant to give a loaf to Aiyu! It is so so so yummy! The sweetness is just right, the texture is great, and the fragrance… wow, very ‘spicy’ as in full of spices! I will make more of it…

PUMPKIN BREAD RECIPE
Ingredients
420g pumpkin flesh, steamed and mashed
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
2 cups brown sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C degree. Grease three 3×7″ loaf pans
2. Mix mashed pumpkin, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended
3. Add in the rest of the dry ingredients and beat until well mixed
4. Pour mixture into the 3 greased loaf pans
5. Bake for 50 min or until skewer comes out clean

My first time baked a cake using gelatin turned out to be a failure. That was when I baked the Strawberry Mousse Delight. The moment gelatin was added to the water, it became lumpy and sticky, I just couldn’t dissolve it properly. Later I found out that there is a technique to dissolve gelatin…

First, pour the water required in a bowl, then sprinkle gelatin powder onto the surface slowly. Let it absorb without stirring with spoon or anything. Once absorbed it will turn into clear color. Continue to sprinkle once turned to clear. See photo below, for the differences between the original (center) light brown color, and the soaked clear color surrounding the light brown.

Once all have absorbed water, put the bowl onto double boiler, meaning a pot of boiling water, to double boil it. Stir with a spoon until all dissolved into clear water-like texture, as if nothing is inside.

Set aside to cool before adding into whatever cake batter you are making.

I have never ever made any chilled cakes (as in non-bake) before. The reason is that, most of the recipes I found, use at least an egg. I just cannot accept eating raw eggs, especially for the kids – salmonella is nothing funny!

Then, one of my friend shared with me this recipe of a Ribena Marble Cheesecake, obtained from this blog called Happy Home Baking. It is a chilled cheesecake, and it doesn’t require any eggs at all. I checked out and immediately love it. I like Ribena. My children like Ribena. And we have lots of Ribena cordial at home. It also uses 1/2 yoghurt and 1/2 cream cheese –> all in all, it looks like very refreshing. And most importantly, it is so pretty!

This is how it looked, before I added the Ribena topping. It is so pretty that makes one feel very sayang to cover it up with the dark Ribena topping, but I just did so lah — the blogger did not cover it and she claimed that it lacks Ribena flavor.

True enough, after covering it with the Ribena topping, the marble effect disappears, but the taste is fantastic! Well, at least it has better Ribena flavor!

[Added in Mar] I made this so many times again and again. With a square pan, it is so much easier to cube and serve in small cups – very convenient for party setting!

RIBENA MARBLE CHEESECAKE RECIPE
Ingredients
Base:
150g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
70g butter, melted

Filling
100ml water
2 tbsp gelatin powder
250g cream cheese
75g caster sugar
250g natural plain yogurt
75ml Ribena cordial

Topping
100ml water
2 tsp gelatin powder
80ml Ribena cordial

Method
1. Use 8″ round loose-base cake tin. She asked us to line the side of the cake tin with parchment paper or plastic sheets — which I used book wraps, which I have plenty.
2. Mix crushed digestive biscuits and melted butter together and press onto the base of the cake tin. Freeze for 1 hour. (OMG, when I am writing, only I realized is to ‘freeze’ not ‘chill’, but mine turned out okay with chilling).
3. Melt gelatin into water on a double boiler. Cool to room temperature.
4. Cream cheese with sugar. Add in the gelatin solution and yogurt, continue to beat till the batter is smooth.
5. Divide mixture into two equal portions. Add 75ml of Ribena into one part, mix well.
6. Pour the 2 parts onto the cake base in alternate blobs. Swirl with a knife or chopstick to create a marble effect. Chill for 2 hours.
7. Topping: Melt gelatin into water on a double boiler. Once well melted, remove from pot and stir in 80ml of Ribena cordial. Set aside to cool. When completely cooled, pour mixture over the cheesecake and chill overnight until set.

When I baked the Chocolate Chips Cheesecake the other day, I had 100g left over Sour Cream, so have decided to bake a cake that uses just 100g of that. This Orange Mascarpone Cheesecake recipe comes in handy.

Here is the recipe.

Okay, I know it looks pretty much like an ordinary cheesecake, but it tastes refreshing, perhaps with the orange and the sour cream. Many who tried it said it is very nice. But they have not tried the previous chocolate chips cake, so… hehehe, ok maybe this is my 2nd favorite then, putting the cost aside.

Orange Mascarpone Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients
200g digestive biscuits, finely crushed
50g melted butter
250g cream cheese
250g Mascarpone cheese
110g sugar
30g flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Zest from 1 orange
Juice from 1/2 orange
100g sour cream

Method
1. Mix digestive biscuit with butter and press onto an 8″ cake tin base.
2. Preheat oven to 160C.
3. Cream cream cheese with sugar and flour until creamy. Add mascarpone cheese and continue to cream further.
4. Add eggs one at a time and mix well.
5. Add vanilla essence, orange juice and zest one by one while mixing well.
6. Finally add the sour cream and mix well.
7. Pour the mixture onto the cake tin.
8. Steam bake at 160C for about 60 minutes or until center is set.
9. Remove cake, and after it is cooled, chill in the fridge for at least 5 hours before served.

I have been using Philadelphia cream cheese all the time, bought from cake ingredient shops. They usually cut from 1kg size into 250g or 500g portions upon requests, and this is much cheaper than buying the 250g packs from supermarkets. However, when I saw Tatura cream cheese from Tesco, I was so delighted, because 250g is even cheaper than those I used to get! And Tesco also have sour cream and costs not much different from the shop I frequented. So I bought the ingredients I needed, and baked this Chocolate Chips Cheesecake.

Next morning, after chilled enough, I sliced the cake and took a photo of it. Not pretty, all smeared up, and I suspect that my recipe book sliced the cake before making the deco! It looks awful, BUT…

The taste is so yummy! This, is by far, the most delicious cheesecake I’ve ever made, I think!

It is rich, but refreshing! Can’t relate both together right? But it is true! It uses 500g cream cheese, so should be a very jelak cheesecake. But, it also uses sour cream as topping, plus orange zest and orange juice in the cream cheese. This has caused the cake to be so refreshing!!

CHOCOLATE CHIPS CHEESECAKE RECIPE
Ingredients
200g Oreo biscuits, crushed
50g butter, melted
500g cream cheese
120g caster sugar
20g flour
2 eggs
Zest from 1 orange
Juice from 1/2 orange
200g UHT whipping cream
100g chocolate chips
400g sour cream
2 tbsp caster sugar
Chocolate chips for topping/deco

Method
1. Mix Oreo biscuit with melted butter well, and press onto an 8″ cake tin base.
2. Preheat oven at 160C.
3. Cream cheese with 120g sugar and flour until fluffy. Add eggs and continue to cream until smooth.
4. Add in orange juice, zest and whipping cream one by one, cream until well mixed. Finally stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Steam bake at 160C for approx 60 min and the center is set.
6. When cake is almost ready, mix well sour cream and 2 tbsp sugar. When cake is ready, remove the cake from oven, pour the sour cream mixture onto the cheesecake. Continue to steam bake for another 10 minutes.
7. Remove the cake from the oven, and sprinkle the chocolate chips on top immediately, when it is still hot. Cover the whole surface with chocolate chips.
8. Chill for at least 5 hours before served.

I’m not sure whether the brands of cheesecake make any difference or not, but this cake is definitely my most liked cake. The texture is very smooth, taste is so rich but refreshing… yummy!

This cake is not cheap! :p
The amount of cheese it uses, the Oreo biscuits, and the good quality dark chocolate… But worthy! I’m sure it is still cheaper to bake your own than to buy this outside. Furthermore, I don’t recall having seen this sold anywhere. Try this Oreo Cheesecake recipe:

OREO CHEESECAKE RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
Cake Base
200g Oreo Biscuits, finely crushed
50g butter, melted

Cake Filling
750g cream cheese
100g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
200g UHT whipping cream
15 pieces Oreo biscuits (cut into 4 quarters each)

METHOD
1. Mix Oreo biscuit crump and melted butter well. Press onto a 8″ loose-based cake tin. Bake at 160C for 10 min and set aside to cool.
2. Cream the cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy.
3. Add in vanilla essence and the eggs, mix well.
4. Add UHT whipping cream, mix well.
5. Fold in the quartered Oreo biscuits.
6. Pour mixture onto the Oreo biscuit base. Bake at 160C for 1.5 hours or until center is set. Turn off the oven, leave the cake inside for a further 1 hour.
7. Remove from oven, run a sharp knife around the rim of the cake tin to separate the cake (to avoid the cake to crack during cooling process).
8. After cooled, chilled in fridge over night.
9. Decorate with some chocolate topping and chill until it is set. Served chilled.

Chocolate Topping
For chocolate topping, warm up 120g UHT whipping cream, add in 200g dark chocolate and 1 tbsp butter. Mix well. Wait till it cools slightly before spreading on top of the cake.

I have been eying for this cake for more than a year, yet didn’t have the courage to bake it — mainly because of a previous failure on cheese tart. Just as I was planning on things to bake, Ian requested for me to bake this, so here you have my first trial and successful cheese cupcake.

This recipe is actually quite good in terms of the amount of sugar used. I like to reduce the sugar content in most recipes. Naturally I reduced the original 30g sugar down to 20g. All who have sampled this cake agree that I should have kept to the original amount – what I had was a little less sweet enough. So, please keep to 30g, and if you have a strong sweet tooth, you should increase.

This recipe uses 4″ diameter paper cups, and although it says it yields 9 cups, I only got 6 in total. I guess we could use smaller paper cups, so that we can share it with more people.

BLUEBERRY CHEESE CUPCAKES RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
Cake Base
3 pieces digestive biscuits, crushed into crumbs (similar size to the nibbed almonds)
50g nibbed almonds, toasted

Cake Filling
250g cream cheese
3 eggs, separate yolk and white
100ml milk
20g flour
30g caster sugar
3 tbsp blueberry jam, and additional for decoration

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C
2. Put biscuit crumbs and nibbed almonds onto the six 4″ paper cups

3. Cream cheese with yolks until smooth. Add in milk and flour, mix well.
4. On a clean bowl, whisk egg white with sugar until peak.
5. Fold egg white into cream cheese mixture in batches. Mix well.
6. Spoon the mixture onto the cups, reserve approx 5 spoons.
7. Add the blueberry jam into the reserved mixture. Mix well, now you have purple color batter.
8. Spoon the purple batter into the cups, stir with chopstick to form marble patterns.
9. Steam bake (by placing a bowl of water into the oven together) at 180C for 25 minutes or until cooked. Turn off oven, leave cake to cool in it for 1 hour.
10. Served warm and fresh.

Recently Ian asked me to bake something nutritious, and I just flipped my recipe book to this page –> Pumpkin Cheesecake, so decided to give it a try. Never tried or seen a pumpkin cheesecake before!

The ingredient is very special, it only uses very little 20g of brown sugar for the base, and none for the cake itself. It is sweetened by the honey and the pumpkin. At least my mom can eat this cake, after so long!

BAKED PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE RECIPE
INGREDIENTS
Crust Base
200g digestive biscuits
20g brown sugar
100g butter
Filling
500g cream cheese
100g honey
25g cornflour
1 tsp nutmeg powder
3 eggs
230ml UHT whipping cream
500g pumpkin flesh
Topping
Some nutmeg powder

METHOD
1. Crush the biscuit until fine
2. Melt butter on low heat, remove when melted. Mix butter with brown sugar and crushed biscuits.
3. Press the biscuit mixture onto a 9″ loose-base cake tin. Refrigerate until set.
4. While waiting for the base to get ready, steam the pumpkin until soft and mash it with fork.
5. Preheat oven at 150C degree.
6. Cream cheese with honey, add cornflour and nutmeg powder. Mix well.
7. Add in whipping cream and eggs, and lastly add in pumpkin flesh.
8. Mix well and pour onto the biscuit base.
9. Steam bake at 150C for 1.5 hour and until firm to the touch. Turn off the oven, but leave the cake in oven for another 30 min with door closed.
10. Remove from oven, when it is cool enough, keep in oven for at least 6 hours.
11. Remove cake from tin, dust with nutmeg powder and served chilled.