Sweet Corn Custard Pudding

Preparation: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 – 20 minutes

 

This was one of my favorite desserts when I was little.

I guess you can say that it’s a traditional dessert because my mom told me that her mother, who was of course my grandmother, used to make for her when she was little.

And when I posted this photo on my Facebook, a lot of my friends remembered having this when they were little. It was nice to see such a simple dessert can invoke so many memories among my friends!

This is the easiest no-bake sweet corn pudding and you can eat it with whipped cream, ice cream or even on its own.

Here’s how you do it:
1 cup canned sweet corn
1 cup custard powder
3/4 cup sugar
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk
Vanilla essence

- Mix all ingredients in a deep saucepan or a pot. Give it a few good stir
- Place saucepan or pot on medium heat and with a wooden spoon, stir continuously to break up any lumps
- After about 5 – 7 minutes, the mixture should start to thicken and collect at the end of the wooden spoon
- Bring heat to the lowest and continue to stir until all liquid is gone. Mixture should turn into a really thick goo by now
- Turn off heat and stir for a few more minutes to release hot air
- Press into a mold or a serving tray. Leave to set and cool for about 1 -2 hours
- Pudding can either be eaten after it’s cooled or you can choose to refrigerate it overnight. (I love it chilled because it goes well with the whipped cream!)

*The trick to working with custard powder is to continuously stir in one direction. You want to make sure the pudding comes out smooth by pressing any clumps with the back of the spoon while stirring

Simple Sugar Donuts!

Preparation time: 1 hour 30 minutes

 Cooking time: 30 minutes

 

My kids were sleepy because of the lazy weather today.

So while they were napping, I was wondering what to do. I was toying with the idea of making another art project (there’s this quote canvas art that I’ve been wanting to do), finish the quilt pillowcase I’m sewing or make some dessert.

I’m thinking of baking cinnamon rolls but it was not something I want to start doing in the middle of a lazy afternoon. But I did feel like having something sweet (I crave a lot of sweet stuffs and anything with almond with this pregnancy!) so I thought, why not sugar donuts?

It has been a while since I have those simple sugar donuts and not those fancy schmancy donuts with buttercream and glaze and chocolate filling or custard cream and all.

So I made me some sugar donuts today and when my kids woke up from their nap, Eros enjoyed these donuts so much I’m tempted to make them again tomorrow!

Here’s what you’ll need:

500g flour (4cups + 2tbsp)
6g yeast (if one pack of yeast is 11g, you can use half of it)
1 tbsp condensed milk
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup vegetable oil
275ml water (90z)
Icing sugar for dusting

- Mix salt and condensed milk into the water. Stir well until condensed milk is fully dissolved
- Add yeast to flour
- Pour in the oil and rub it into the flour. Make sure all lumps are gone for the finer the flour without lumps, the fluffier your donuts will be
- Add the milk mixture into the flour and knead. The dough will be extremely sticky at this point but don’t worry. Get the excess flour off from your hand with a spoon
- Leave the dough uncovered for about 20minutes*
- Knead the dough and balled up into small portions to the size of a golf ball
- Flatten the balled up dough to about 1/2 inch thickness
- Punch a hole through with a bottle cap (I used a milk scoop for my kids’ formula. I cut the handle off and use the scoop to punch a hole through the dough)
- Cover the donut dough with damp towel and let rise for 30minutes*
- Deep fry the donuts in enough vegetable oil until golden brown
- Roll the donuts in icing sugar to coat it before serving

*I live in a warm country where the weather is humid all year long.

I read in a cookbook once that in colder countries, you may need to let the dough rise for a slightly longer time. I can’t really say how long you need to let it rise for this recipe but I think an extra 5-10minutes wouldn’t hurt?

Homemade sugar donuts – so fluffy and soft you’ll love it!

Graham Crackers Chocolate Cake – No bake, No flour cake!

Preparation time: 10 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

 

My sisters have been asking me to make this cake every time they talk to me.

It’s made from Graham crackers and lots and lots of chocolate and the best thing about this cake is, you don’t have to bake it that it’s almost fool-proof (you gotta get the measurement right or otherwise you’ll be having chocolate pudding instead!).

Here’s how and since I don’t have any of those fancy schmancy camera or gadgets, my photos don’t look like they just came out from a food magazine.

But hey, try this and you’ll love it! It’s especially great for a movie marathon dessert.

You’ll need:

250g / 1 cup butter
2 cups Graham crackers, break into chunks, not too crumbled
4 eggs
6 tbsp (or more if you really love chocolate!) cocoa powder
A can of condensed milk
Vanilla essence

1. Whisk the whole can of condensed milk with the eggs in a large bowl
2. Add in vanilla and stir well
3. Fold in the cocoa powder and whisk until a thick mixture is achieved. Try to break any lumps of cocoa powder as much as possible without overbeating the eggs
4. Melt butter over medium heat
5. Pour in the chocolate mixture and cook with a whisk to ensure no lumps are formed. Keep whisking until mixture thickens
6. Turn off heat and put in the crackers
7. Mix well until chocolate crackers are fully covered in chocolate
8. Pressed into baking tray and refrigerate overnight (size of baking tray depends on how thick you want the cake to be)

Best served chilled!

Polka Dot Muffins – Dots That Drive You Crazy!

Preparation: 1 hour (including decorating)
Cooking time: 15 – 20 minutes/batch

 

It was an early day for me today.

I woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. So I figured that I should do something productive since The Tummy and my back isn’t hurting as much as they do on other days. It was either I cook something or bake something because I was really feeling up to it.

After thinking and browsing for recipes on-line and from my mom’s cookbook, I figured I tried this one local delicacy – polka dot muffins.

The ingredients are basic enough and it’s technically foolproof. The only thing that can go wrong is when the muffin is baked, it can go out of shape since it’s in a papercup and instead of baking it, it is actually steamed.

Here’s how to get those polka dot muffins in no time!

Ingredients:
275g plain flour
230g fine / caster sugar
3tsp baking powder
3 large eggs
150ml fresh milk / evaporated milk
Vanilla essence
Food coloring

Beat egg whites until foamy.

1. Beat the egg whites until foamy. Make sure it doesn’t form stiff peaks

Beat in egg yolks and vanilla essence.

2. Add in the egg yolks, one at a time and vanilla essence. Beat until creamy.

3. Add in the sugar.

Add in flour one spoonful at a time. Alternate with fresh milk / evaporated milk.

4. Sieve or mix the flour together with the baking powder. Add flour one spoonful at a time and beat. Alternate with milk / evaporated milk.

Separate the batter according to desired colors.

5. Once the batter is smooth and creamy, you can separate them into smaller portions according to desired colors. I did four batches of different colors. And as you can see, my sisters and I went a tad crazy with the colors. You can opt for a more conventional and pastel colors.

Fill up half of the paper cup to allow expansion during steaming.

6. When filling up the paper cups, make sure that you only fill half of the cup. This is to allow the muffin to expand when being steamed later.

Important: when placed in a baking tin, space out the papercups evenly. Too near the muffins will be squashed and came out looking like pieces of jigsaw puzzle and if too far, it will expand to too large a size, looking like flat pans instead. Dot the colors in with toothpick or chop sticks, to have varying polka dot sizes. You can use different or clashing or complimenting shades to match the batter in the cup.

7. Steam over medium fire for about 15minutes.

These muffins are great for any festive seasons because of the playful colors. I’m thinking of having some orange in black paper cups for Halloween soon! And I’m already thinking of making some for my friends for Christmas. Maybe some green and red in silver cups will look great.

Play around with the colors (and designs!) as it is fun as it is simple. My sisters drew flowers and geometric designs on some of the muffins but they didn’t turn out too great. When the muffins expand, the details of the designs will too. So you may want to keep in mind that simple designs with less details will work best. And of course, the safest design would be, you guessed it, polka dots!

Have fun trying!

Polka dot muffins are playful and fun to make!

*Some of the polka dot muffins done by bloggers that I follow:

Photo courtesy of MamaFami’s Spice n Splendour

Photo courtesy of Ratuhati

La table pour deux, s’il vous plaît

I don’t know what it is but there is just something about French cooking that makes my spine tingle and my lips flutter.

I love cooking. And don’t take this too seriously but I think I have that natural flair where I can guess what’s in a dish and then cook the same thing (or at least 85% close to the real deal) when I get home. This is pretty much why I don’t have that many cookbooks because all I have to do is remember how the food taste like and voila, I can have it on the table in about 30 minutes. Or however long it takes to cook a particular dish, if you follow my drift.

For certain type of dish that require exact measurement or otherwise it will be a disaster, like a cake or… A cake is all I can think of. For those, I have recipe book because I want to get the batter at right consistency and wouldn’t want my cake to form a dome at the highest temperature and sink to a bottomless pit the moment it’s out of the oven. Other than that, I usually don’t have a recipe book. Once in long while, I jot down new things I come across (usually from the travel channel) and try it out.

Now, I am at the phase where I crave for French cooking. I mean, I am probably as French as Delifrance is but I like how complicated some of the recipes are or how sexy the name of a dish is. Like boeuf bourguignon (pronounced buf boreynong) is the your ol’ plain beef stew. Or how cute amuse-bouche (ahmush bush) sounds to fit those petite little appetizers.

Haddock amuse-bouche

The only thing is most of the ingredients needed are bloody expensive. I won’t even try to purchase escargot eggs or ris de veau, which is calf’s pancreas to us layman or boudin noir (blood sausage) because trust me, there are some pretty weird (not to mention almost nasty) ingredients used in French cooking.

The only reason I love French cooking is because it will be like a personal achievement for me if I can make French cuisine and decently serve it to my dinner guests. Other than love having a small dinner party every once in a while because I love playing hostess, I love to prepare something that you think you can only get at a fancy restaurant but in fact, I can cook up a storm right under your nose.

Sea snail stew

Therefore I will prevail.

I will master (or at least decently learn how to cook French food because after all, French cooking is an art and I don’t think it’s an art you can master in matter of months even if you are naturally talented like Remy) whatever it takes to perfect my French cooking so that my dinner guests can stomach and actually like French cooking.

It wouldn’t be easy what with the fancy ingredients, complicated cooking techniques and methods but I know I can do this.

Eros will be proud to have a mom who can cook gratin dauphinois. Which is the fancy way of telling his friends that I can make potatoes melt with cheese.

It's all about style and presentation when it comes to French cooking