Orange Yogurt Cake

I saw members from my favourite Facebook group making yogurt cake and I was intrigued! Cake made from yogurt? The fact that it's healthier is secondary. More importantly was how they rave about how delicious and light it tasted and I knew that one day I had to try it. So yesterday at the supermarket, inspiration hit me and I bought a tub of yogurt home.

I looked for a simple recipe online and found this. It's like a muffin recipe. Dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in the other, fold them together and bake. Simple! Don't even need to bring out the mixer. Just a whisk from the drawer! BEST...

The cake looks like a rich butter cake but it actually taste lighter. It does have a light tangy flavour but not too much to say it's sour. Even my picky kids love it! It is a perfect tea break snack and goes beautifully with a hot cup of coffee. I made some minor adjustments and still it turned out great. So I think this cake would be great for beginners or when you don't want to waste too much effort on satisfying a cake craving. Next time I will tweak it to change the flavour!

Ingredients

vegetable oil and flour for dusting

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
3/4 cup full fat yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Coat a standard bundt cake pan with vegetable oil. Dust with flour; tap out excess. 
2. Whisk all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. 
3. Using your fingers or a spoon, rub sugar with finely grated orange zest in a large bowl until sugar is moist. Add yogurt, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract; whisk to blend. 
4. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients by three separate parts until just incorporated. 
5. Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until top of cake is golden brown and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes. 

6. Let cake cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert onto rack; let cool completely.

*Can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.*

Pandan Raisin Buns

My Dad used to own a bakery store when I was a teenager and as a bread lover, that was the best part time job I could ever have. One of the perks of the job was that I can eat anything I want in the store. The warm cheese bread, the sugar donuts fresh from the fryer, the fluffy cakes, and yes, the raisin buns. My Dad would make a whole load of them and I LOVE eating them warm from the oven, the sugary top sweet and sticky. Till now I still love them, so I decided to hunt down a similar recipe and recreate my favourite raisin buns.

To be honest, I'm terrible at kneading bread dough. I could never get the hang of it, so I always use my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer to do the job for me. They say you have to knead with your hand, but hey, so far the mixer has been doing a great job. Just make sure you give it more time to knead and proof the dough properly! Never make bread if you don't have time. Plan ahead! Like last night I mixed everything together 1st and put my kid to bed while the dough proofs. When I'm out the dough is ready for me!

The original recipe used a bread maker, so I tweaked it and wrote down instructions for using a kitchen mixer.

Ingredients:

240g bread flour
60g wholewheat flour
50g castor sugar
2 tsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp pandan paste *
1 egg
150g slightly warm milk
20g unsalted butter
5 g salt
1/4 cup raisins

Sugar syrup (melt 1 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp water)

1. Soak raisins in warm water. 
2. Using a kitchen mixer, mix warm milk, castor sugar and yeast together and wait 5 minutes till bubbly. 
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients except for butter. Using a hook attachment, knead until a dough ball is formed and the bowl is clean of all flour. Add in butter and knead until butter is mixed in and dough is elastic and smooth. 
4. Gather dough to form a ball. Oil the mixing bowl, put the dough back in and cover bowl with cling wrap. Let it rest for about 50-60 mins or double in size. 
5. Divide dough into portions of 60 gm each. Shape into balls and put into muffin pan lined with papercups. Let it proof for another 50-60 mins or until dough has doubled in size. 
6. Apply milk on dough and bake at 180-190ºC for about 12 mins or till lightly brown.
7. Immediately after taking the buns out of the oven, brush buns with sugar syrup.

* On hindsight, this is the 1st time I used pandan paste and although it is very fragrant, I would cut down the portion a little next time. The bread is WAY too green and the flavour a little too strong. Maybe use natural pandan next time?

The bread is soft and fluffy but not to the point of sticking to your teeth. I love it! Will definitely do it again.

The muffin cups gives the buns a nice shape! Would definitely try this with different flavours next time.

Got some spare dough so tried my braiding skills. Nice? :)

786 Sabira Indian Muslim Food

It's Sunday again! And it's date day for Hubby and I to spend some time alone while the grandparents watch the kids. For dinner, Cobby decided to bring me to one of his lunch hangouts, 786 Sabira Muslim Food Shenton Way Mee Goreng. I don't know if that's a full name or not, but it sure is long! Driving there, Cobby suddenly said, "there it is" and pointed. What? Where? I only see HDB blocks and a ESSO petrol station where he pointed. He must have been mistaken! But once he turned the car around the corner into the carpark, there it was! A S11 coffeeshop, nestled in the middle of HDB blocks, hidden away from view from the main road. I was thinking, if you don't live or work around here, there's no way you would know there's a coffeeshop here!

Check out my beautiful beautiful dinner!

I love Indian food, and Cobby is someone who LOVES Kambing Soup (mutton soup). But he is ALWAYS complaining that all mutton soup is not as good as the one near his old house at Toa Payoh. And he's always whining why the Indian uncle has to retire! So when this guy said that this Kambing Soup is really good, it got my attention.

I must say, it IS delicious! The soup is flavourful, spicy, peppery and best of all, rich and slightly gooey, like all good Kambing soup should be. The gooey texture came from cooking mutton bones for so long till the cartilage melts into the soup. The mutton pieces inside the soup is also delicious and tender. I can imagine this bowl of awesomeness would be perfect on a cold and rainy day! Well, it wasn't raining, but it's still delicious and makes you all warm inside after we polished it off!

The bee hoon goreng is good too, but honestly I've had better. The Indian rojak is quite good too! The sweet sauce is perfect with the crispy rojak. Next time I've got a craving for Indian food, this would be a great place to go to. Maybe next time I'll try the prata!

Oh by the way, if you are there, the ice lemon tea is highly recommended. They brew it themselves and it's delicious!

787A Choa Chu Kang Drive s680787 (Choa Chu Kang)

Long Bean Omelette 豆角煎蛋

When I was little I was a vege hater. I hate the fresh vegetable smell and it's crunchy texture. The only way to make me eat vegetable was if they were cooked down till it soft and mushy. So you can imagine my distaste for this dish. Beans omelette! Eww!

Thankfully I grew out of that phase and now I love most vegetables. And I grew to really like this dish! The firm texture of the beans is a nice contrast to the fluffy omelette. And I love it that it's so good for you! If you aren't familiar with long beans, this is what it looks like.

My kids eat them, (thank goodness) but they prefer the beans to be a little softer. So I cooked the beans a little before adding the eggs. Doing that also cuts down the raw vegetable "smell" of the beans. So it's more tasty.

If you want to add more vegetables to your diet but not a big fan of it, this dish is a good place to start!

2 eggs
2-3 string beans
1/2 tsp sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tsp chicken powder *
a few tablespoon of water

1. Beat the eggs till they are fluffy. 
2. Trim both ends off the beans and cut into small cubes. 
3. With a little oil, fry the beans in sugar, salt and chicken powder. Add in the water, cover and let it cook till it dries off. 
4. Spread out the beans and pour in the eggs slowly. 
5. Flip the eggs over and cook till slightly golden brown. 
6. Serve with rice.

*you can replace chicken powder and water with a little chicken stock. Or you can use soya sauce with a little water.*