Simple Baked Apple Pudding

Girls get together yesterday evening for Iftar at my place. It was working Monday so we decided to order take away Yamenian food, rice and grilled meat from Sana'a @ Cyberjaya for our main dish.

I arrived home about  90 minutes before time for iftar and managed to bake this super easy apple pudding (no eggs) for dessert and thank god it turn out good and was a hit.:-)



BAKED APPLE PUDDING with vanilla ice cream

Ingredients
3 apples (green or red)
half cup / 110 grams butter
1 cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 teaspoon baking powder
half teaspoon cinnamon powder(optional)
vanilla ice-cream

Methods

1. Heat oven 180 degrees.
2. Peel and cut apples to square bite size.
3. Put cut apples into microwaveable bowl, sprinkle with cinnamon powder. Microwave it for 3-5 minutes.
4. In separate bowl, melt butter ( put in microwave for 10-20 seconds), add sugar and mix with hand whisk/spatula.
5. Add milk and gradually add flour and baking powder. Mix batter to combine. Add apples into batter.
6. Pour batter in baking dish, and bake at middle rack for 35 minutes.
7. Serve warm baked apple pudding with vanilla ice cream. 

Prep time : 15 minutes

Bake time : 35 minutes

It's as easy as ABC, right? (^o^)

Gluten Free Dessert - Sum Sum

Sum Sum (rice pudding with syrup) is one of my favorite traditional Malay dessert also known to be originated from Javanese food.  It's can be served cold or as warm dessert. I prefer it cold...it's soft, coconuty milky, sweet and refreshingly delicious. 

Sum Sum is easy to prepare and also Gluten-Free food and it's way healthier than cheese tart when you eat in moderation..(^o^) It's made from rice flour and coconut milk, serve with some brown sugar or palm sugar syrup.

What is Gluten-Free?

A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten is found in grains such as wheat, barley, and rye. Basically rice flour is gluten-free, but if you're sensitive to gluten or having celiac disease, be sure that you purchase rice flour that has gluten-free mark on the packaging because gluten might get transferred if the same mill was used also used to produce wheat flour. <source: Google>

Basic Sum Sum Recipe

Ingredients

A: for the rice pudding

1 cup of rice flour (white rice flour, if you're using brown rice flour the color will be brownish)

1 cup of coconut milk 

3 cups of water

a pinch of sea salt 

2/3 pandan leaves for fragrance (optional)
you can put a drop of food coloring if you want the pudding with color.

B: for the syrup

half cup brown sugar ( adjust to preference) / I used palm sugar

1 cup water

1 pandan leaves ( optional)

Methods

1) Combine all ingredients in A together into a small pot. 

2) Bring to boil with small heat. Stir continuously.

3) Continue stirring until rice pudding cooked. It becomes silky and thick (image below). This will take around 15- 20 minutes, and you will see it make a small pop. Remove from heat

4) Transfer into baking pan or pudding mould and let it set to cool. 

6) In another small pot, combine B to make sugar syrup. I used palm sugar as it is easily available here and have the coconut fragrance.

7) Refrigerate both pudding and syrup. Scoop pudding into cup and pour syrup to serve.

Cheese Tart ~ Blueberry & Chocolate Cheesetart

Cheese tarts.. they are cute and yummy...
One of Malaysian favorites sweet desserts are Cheese Tart. You can find it easily in bakery, usually sold in 3" diameter size ( about size of a palm) with Blueberry filling,  Blueberry Cheese tart.
Blueberry always match with Cheese, but this cheese tart can have other fillings too. I tried Blueberry, Apple, Kiwi,Strawberry and Chocolate. I personally prefer blueberry & chocolate.

Making it is not difficult, but might be little bit time consuming for first timers. But, trust me the outcome is worth rewarding.

My recipe has been twisted and changed to adapt with my super busy lifestyle. Recipe cheat in making it tastier, easier  and still look great in presentation. 

You never bake before? no worries with detailed instructions below, anyone can whip a whimsically awesome cheese tarts~~ (^o^)

There are 4 steps to make this cheese tart and you can make one step at a time.

To complete from step 1 to 4 in one go, you may need around 2-3 hours, depending on how skillful you are to make the tart shells (^p^). Optional, you can buy ready made tart shells at baking store ( but it won't taste as nice as making it from scratch.)

Cheese Tart 

Tools needed
1) Tarts mould 
2) Small knife
3) Hand mixer
4) Plastic piping bag ( u can use normal plastic bag as well)
5) Microwave or Stove (optional) & Oven of course. :)


Step 1) To make Tart shell  - sweet pasty

Ingredients
125 gram salted butter  - cut to small cubes
70 gram icing sugar
250 gram all purpose flour
1 egg yolks ( Size A-Large)
1 tablespoon of iced cold water
1/2 teaspoon essence vanilla

Methods

1) Mix and sift flour and icing sugar. Use fork to cut butter into sifted flour and sugar until it resemble bread crumb alike.
2 ) Put egg yolks, essence vanilla and cold water.
3) Continue to mix the pastry dough with your hand until well blended.
4) Wrap in plastic and keep in fridge for 30 minutes. ( you can prepare this pastry dough and keep in fridge day ahead)

5) Place the pastry inside the mould. Press pastry with your finger to spread the pastry to mould the shape.
6) Cut the excess pastry with small knife to get a nice clean edges.
7)  Prick some holes with a fork on the pastry shell.
8) Bake at low rack at 180C for 10 -15 minutes until it's golden brown.

Tips 
*  keep baked tart shell in airtight container. 
* if you want to keep it for months, store in airtight container and freeze it in freezer. Reheat in oven for 5 minutes before using it. 

Step 2) To prepare Cheese Filling 

Ingredients ( this recipe is to make fillings for just enough tart crust prepared above)
250 grams Cream Cheese
40   gram butter ( I used Buttercup)
60 grams icing sugar
1 egg ( A Size)
1 teaspoon essence vanilla /lemon juice

Methods
1) Beat cream cheese, butter and icing sugar with mixer until combined for 3 minutes with medium/high speed.
2) Add eggs, lemon juice and essence vanilla. Beat with low speed for 1 minutes.
3) Transfer cream cheese into piping bag.

Step 3) To combine tart shell with cream cheese and fillings

Fillings:

- Blueberry fillings or ( you can make or purchase this from baking store)

- Chocolate fillings ( click for recipe)

Methods

1) Transfer fillings into piping bag. Cut small holes to pipe the filling.

2) Pipe filling into baked tart shell pastry.

3) Pipe cream cheese on top of it until full

4) Bake at low rack in oven at 180C for 10-15 minutes. Do not over bake until the cheese crack.

Step 4) Decorations 

There are many ways to decorate topping for cheese tart. Some create swirl pattern with blueberry jam on top of the cheese tart before baking. But I found it's too time consuming..leceh laaa. Below is my cheat decoration. You can complete it in just few minutes. 

What you need:

~200 grams cooking chocolate

Methods

This is my cheat steps to melt cooking chocolate in small quantity. Instead of using double boiler, I used microwave.

1) Cut cooking chocolate into chunks, put in microwaveable bowl, I used ceramic bowl.

2) Heat in microwave as steps below: 

• Microwave for 10 seconds.
• Microwave 10 seconds again. Take it out and stir with spoon, at this time the chocolate has melted half.
• Put back into microwave for another 10 seconds. Take out and stir. It has already melted. Transfer into piping bag for easy handling.
• After sometimes, the chocolate may get harden in room temperate. When this happened just throw the piping bag with chocolate inside microwave and set for 10 seconds. Ching! it's melted again. 

       

3) You can now decorate  cheese tart top. You can write or draw with chocolate. 

4)  Let the chocolate harden and it's DONE! Chill this lovely tarts in fridge for better taste. 

* If you  refrigerate in airtight container, cheese tart can last for 1~2 weeks.

Still looks too difficult to make yourself? well you can always order it from WhimsyBake (^o^)
Delivery to pick up area available at Cyberjaya & Puchong area. 

Chocolate Filling/Spread

This is my favorite, super easy basic recipe to make chocolate filling for buns, tarts pie etc.  or chocolate spread for your toasted bread...also suitable as chocolate dip for biscuits.

If you prefer nutty taste like Nutella, you can add hazelnut paste or grind some hazelnut into the mixture.

Chocolate Filling 

Ingredients
A:
400 grams Evaporated milk  / 450 ml full cream milk    [ I used 1 can of  Ideal/Carnation milk)
130 grams sugar
60 grams coco powder
50 gram cornstarch
1 teaspoon essence vanilla
1 teaspoon hazelnut paste ( optional for hazelnut taste)

B:
60 grams butter

Methods
1) Combine A together. ( I used blender to blend it all)
2) Pour into saucepan /small pot.
3) Heat in saucepan with low or medium heat. Continue to stir mixture until it becomes thick.
4) Removed from heat.
5) Put B (butter) into the mixture and continue to stir. Butter will make the chocolate mixture shiny.
6) Let it cool before storing in container. Keep in refrigerator, it could last for weeks.


Notes:
* The longer you cook the chocolate mixture, the thicker it gets 
* Chocolate filling/spread will be thicker when it's cool down/refrigerated.

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Recipe * Resepi * Resep

I started baking when I was 12. At that time one of my favorite past time reading was my mum's recipe book. It was a notebook with dark blue plastic cover. Mum would put side notes and draw on how the recipe would look like when it was done...we had a camera but taking food photo was not something common in those years.  There was no internet, no blog or websites with free recipes.

Recipes was like treasure, inherit from generation to another generation. I remembered during our visits to relatives or friends, mum would politely ask if they can share the recipe of the cookies, cakes etc that was served by our host. Some would be happily share their 'secret' recipe, while some hesitate.... it's a 'secret' anyway.

With an internet evolution and abundance of TV programs with Cooking Show, sharing recipe is become so common. I collected & adjusted some basic recipes for over 20 years. Some was from mum's recipe book and some from recipe book, websites and blogs. Here I will share those recipes in my collection for easy reference for family, friends and myself...well I can't remember it all :).  Recipes that was tested and proven to be one that meet my taste bud and enjoyed by people around me.. Feel free to try it, copy it and share in your blog if you wish to (with your own photo, of course, plagiarist is a No No ya) .. and with reference to where it originate would be nice (^o^)...

Perhentian Island .. a quick gateway

The last time I went to Perhentian was on Apr 2010, for my Open Water Diving license.
12 Apr 2010 to be exact.
After some incident being carried away by strong underwater current while diving in Phuket in 2011, I kinda have little bit of phobia towards sea. I had not touch sea water since then.

Well, now is 2014, hallooo... we have to keep going. What happened in past is past. :)

So for my son's 7th birthday, we off for quick 3 days 2 night stay at Perhentian Island, to celebrate brithday and to overcome some fear towards sea.

This is our first oyako vacation - to mark the beginning of ultimate Mum & Son travel adventure (^^)

Camera : Sony Xperia ZR phone camera ( 2 photos were from GoPro Hero3)
Mode of Travel : by Car, ERL, flight, taxi & speedboat.

4:15 am  - Drive to Putrajaya Sentral, parked  at the covered parking. ( Cost for 4 days : RM16)
4:50 am  - KLIA Transit to KLIA2 (Cost for 1 adult, 1 child : RM9.20)
6:20 am  - Air Asia Flight to Kota Bahru ( we had some promo ticket for RM250 for 2 of us)
7:30 am  - took airport taxi to Kuala Besut Jetty ( RM78, nice comfy Nissan Sentra cab)
9:20 am  - Speedboat to Perhentian Island (it's RM70 per/pax 2 ways and RM5 for Marine Park fees)
10:00 am - Arrived to Abdul Chalet - Check in time was at 12:30pm, so we decided to leave our bag, took out swimsuit and straight into the water! no time wasted at all.
* price shown here for reference purpose only, to see how much inflation has affected for our next trip. :P

I definitely love this mode of travel compare to long night bus ride from KL to Kuala Besut that I used to had.

Perhentian. It is still a magnificent place.... quite over developed though ( I saw a white big mosque is being built at one part of the island)

This time round we stay at Abdul Chalet, at the big island. Neverbeen to Perhentian Besar or big island of Perhentian. Always read about this chalet at Tripadvisor, ranked at No 1, so why not check it out myself. Quite lucky, still managed to book a Standard Garden View Chalet for RM160/night ( actually I was hoping to book for the Deluxe Seaview room)

The room is at far better quality compare to those at Long Beach. It comes with 24 hours electric, aircond, fan, hot water, fridge and timber floor. Room quality is similar to Shari la resort at Coral Bay, at the small island, but Shari la's room are quite far from beach, you have to walk a bit.

Abdul Chalet's located right on the beach. Although our room is called Garden view room, it is actually just about 10 steps at the back from the Deluxe Seaview room :).

We had a great time with extreme sunburn due to sunblock malfunction!... We saw a turtle, 4 baby sharks and lotsss of colourful coral fishes...

these 2 photos was taken by boatman using GoPro Hero3 during our snorkelling trip.... and this made me so inspired to get one GoPro for myself...hehe

Here's some photos of the room... the bathroom is spacious, you can sleep 4 people comfortably inside the bathroom.. lol.

Night view at the chalet's restaurant. They served BBQ, but not as nice as Shari la's BBQ option. Still, my son enjoyed his BBQ prawn so much that he had that for both dinners. Oh ya their Manggo Lassi is very nice too.

 The beautiful beach right in front of the chalet. You can snorkel to the platform, where there's still  some corals and fishes.

Abundance of fishes under the jetty, next to the chalet. My son, love this spot. He spent most of the time here. He even fed the entire pack of Gardenia bread for these fishes.... and I see a lot of visitor brought along Gardenia bread to fed this fishes... quite worry if the chemicals in the bread might turn these fishes into some sort of mutation... (^p^;). 

 

we got the second floor room, so we can still enjoy see partly seaview from our balcony...with some green roof of the seaview room.

Sunset evening shot. Yes, that is my son in the water. :) He wanted to sleep in the water if possible.

We left Perhentian for 1 night stay at Kota Bahru. The initial plan was to visit the town, to go to Kopitiam Kita for breakfast and try the famous Roti Titab, visit the museum and to see some art performance at the cultural village. But my son had fever from the 3rd day and the weather was extremely hot in Kota Bahru. We stayed at Tune Hotel, KB which is located about 20 steps away from KB Mall. Quite a big shopping mall in Kota Bahru. It has everything. :)

Quickly, we're back into the town people mode and start to shop some stuff at KB Mall and laid on the bed watching TV whole day. :P

Notes to myself for next island vacation with my son.

Essential items to pack for my son:

1) Fever, sea sickness & allergy medicine

2) CoolFever patch (helpful when kid having fever due to exposed to heat for long time)

3) Gamat oil/cream

4) Some heated ointment/oil for body massage..minyak urut :)

5) Water bottle, mark with my son's name.To measure that he drinks enough water.  

6) Good sunblock that is suitaable for our skin.

For myself :

1) Cucumber / Aloevera collagen mask from Skin Recovery. This is reallly good to sooth my skin after a day exposed to the sun.

2) Aloevera gel.

Till the next trip...  :)