Priscilla’s Favourite Recipes

We love moist cakes and when my elder boy asked me to bake cupcakes for him to bring to school. I thought I might as well try to improvise this moist chocolate cake which I bake occasionally.

And since we were learning about owls and reading a storybook on owls. We decided to use the idea one homeschooling mum here sharing about making owl cupcakes and owl cookies. I just try out the owl cupcakes.

Here’s the recipe for the cupcakes without frosting and designs on them,

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Raw sugar
1 3/4 cups Self-raising flour
3/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder
2 Eggs
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 cup Canola Oil
1 cup Milk
2 tsp Vanilla essence
1 tbsp Coffee mixed with 1 cup of boiling water.

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celius.

2. Mix all ingredient except the coffee mixture into a mixing bowl. Combine well.

3. Gradually add in the coffee while continuing mixing till mixture is smooth and running.

4. Scoop into cup till 75% full.

5. Bake in preheated oven for 18 to 20 minutes. Check with a skewer, skewer should come out clean.

Chocolate Frosting Cream Ingredients:
125g Butter (room temperature)
125g Icing Sugar
115g Dark Bitter Chocolate
2 tbsp Dutch cocoa powder

Method:

1. Double-boil chocolate to melt and let it cool.

2. Beat the butter with icing sugare till fluffy. Then add in the cocoa powder and melted chocolate, beat till well mixed and very fluffy. And it is ready to use.

3. You can either use a spoon to spread or use a piping bag. I only make a couple of cupcakes so too lazy to pipe them, I just spoon the frosting onto the cake.

Sugar Paste Ingredient:
3 tbsp Icing sugar
1 tbsp Water

Method:
1. Add water slowly to icing sugar and stir till mixture is thick and sticky.

How to assemble the owl cupcakes:

Ingredients:
Chocolate Frosting Cream
Sugar paste (add as glue to paste M&M to the Oreo Cookies with cream side)
Oreo Cookies (Depending on how many you are making- 2 cream side as a pair of eyes for a cupcake, one no cream side for wings)
M&M chocolate

Method:

1. Remove the oreo cookies carefully by using a butter-spread knife to help you separate them.

2. Cut the other part of the Oreo Cookie without cream into half.

3. Spread the cream on the cupcake either using spoon or piping.

4. Place the two Oreo Cookies with cream onto the cupcake.

5. Place the half pieces of Oreo Cookies under the ones with cream after a part spreadout.

6. Spread the sugar paste on the M&M chocolates and then paste onto the Oreo Cookies with cream.

7. Spread some Chocolate frosting cream onto the wing of the owl. And everything is done.

My dear hubby and my boys’ favourite buns.

Ingredients
350g Flour
55g Raw sugar
1/4 tsp Salt
1 Egg
125ml Milk
120g Water dough (See recipe here)
1 sachet Yeast
30g Butter (room temperature)

I make 10 sausage buns but left with 6 after cooling. The remaining of the dough I made into pretzels.

Method:
1. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl.

2. Combine all the wet ingredients – milk, egg and water dough and mix well.

3. Pour the wet mixture into the flour mixture by creating a well in the flour mixture.

4. Hand knead or machine knead till gluten develops. Then add in the butter and knead till dough is elastic in texture.

5. Knead dough into a ball and transfer to a greased bowl and cover with a warm wet towel or clingwrap. Proofing it at 28 degree Celius for about 40 minutes or till it double in size.

6. Deflate the dough and transfer to a clean floured surface. Divide the dough and knead into ball shapes. Cover with clingwrap and let it rest for 15 minutes.

7. Knead each part into a long tube and roll to enclose sausage with seal facing down when placing them on baking tray lined with parchment paper. Covered with clingwrap and leave it to proof for 2nd time about 45 minutes to an hour or till double in size.

8. Brush with whisked egg on surface of rolls. Bake in preheated oven of 180 degree Celius for about 35minutes or until golden brown. Transfer onto wire rack to let them cool completely.

In order to make the bread softer, we have to make sure the bread is able to retain more moisture and I learnt this method through reading a couple of bread recipe books and found this Japanese method very interesting and give it a try. And true enough, the buns and bread using this method was soft and yummy.

So here’s the water dough,

Ingredients:
50g Flour
250ml Water

Mix flour with water.

Keep stirring while heating over medium heat, till lines are formed and you can form a ribbon.

Method:
1. Mix and combine the flour and water in a pot till no lump.
2. Heat it over medium fire till when you stir, you can see lines when it is thicken.
3. It is ready and when you draw a ribbon, it disappear slowly.
4. Transfer it to a container and clingwrap it for it to cool down.
5. Keep in the fridge when not in use.

NB: clingwrap is to prevent water lost to vaporisation.
Can keep for a couple of days.

My dear husband and I love pineapple tarts and it is a must have for CNY. He loves the closed up one and I loved the opened one so what to do but to make both. And my elder boy was telling me, it is the year of the rabbit, let’s make the rabbit ones as well after seeing some photos on the web with rabbit pineapple tarts.

We do not like outside tarts as the pineapples paste are too sweet and without the spices taste and all of us enjoy those that melt in the mouth. And it was rather nice to stay in the kitchen to cook my pineapple paste and think about how we used to make this tart back home in the past with my aunt and my mum.

So we have different pineapple tarts this year by the requests of the man and boy of the house.

And what is CNY when one cannot enjoy the yummy bak kwa (Pork Jerky)? My elder boy again asked me whether I were going to make bak kwa. He kept telling me, during CNY, must eat bak kwa. So when I asked him one morning whether he preferred me to bake Kueh Bangkit or Bak Kwa, he told me straight, Bak Kwa though he enjoyed Kueh Bangkit very much too. So we made our Bak Kwa again this year, since being away, I have been making my own Bak Kwa for the fourth year this time.

My bak kwa recipe can be found here.