Easter Nests

With Easter just round the corner, have you thought of what treats you’ll be making?

I wanted to make some easy no-bake chocolate treats for Dan’s colleagues since bending over to reach the oven has now become quite a challenge for me. So, Easter Nests is it for them!

Ingredients
150g Shreddies cereal (mashed)
200g chocolate, melted
1 pack of mini eggs (I used 48 mini eggs in total)

Method
1. Use your hands or a blender to mash the Shreddies in a large mixing bowl.
2. Melt the chocolate (you can use a microwave or a saucepan)
3. Pour the chocolate into the mashed Shreddies and use a spatula to mix well. Ensure that the Shreddies are well coated in chocolate.
4. Depending in the size of your cupcake moulds, use either a teaspoon or tablespoon to fill each mould with the chocolate coated Shreddies. I used a mini-cupcake mould.
5. Place two to three mini eggs into each cupcake holder. Make sure you push them downwards slightly into the Shreddies.
6. Refrigerate for 2 hours to allow them to set.

I hope you’ll have fun this Easter! We’re so looking forward to the long weekend!

Vanilla Fairy Cupcakes with a Surprise

Our kitchen is tiny and has limited storage space. With a baby on his way, I had to clear a couple of shelves to store some of his essentials. Therefore, I decided to bake Vanilla Fairy Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting.

I adapted the recipe by adding half a teaspoon of Nutella in each of the cupcakes. That’s the surprise by the way. Daniel doesn’t eat Nutella but when he bit into it he thought it was regular chocolate! The cupcakes were so easy to make as BBC Good Food intended to target kids with this recipe. They turned out light and fluffy, just the way a good fairy cupcake should be. No fuss whatsoever.

With some leftover chocolates in the cupboard, I made chocolate frosting using the recipe from Dad’s Chocolate Drop Cakes. The frosting complimented the Vanilla Fairy Cupcakes superbly! It’s bound to be a winner with chocolate lovers out there. Oh, a little frosting goes a long way so don’t go crazy with it!

Since they are fairy cupcakes, I made them pretty by adding colourful sprinkles. Awww… I love how each of them looked – so dainty and graceful!

The usual protocol when it comes to baking is that I’ll keep a couple of slices for ourselves and the rest will be shared with Daniel’s colleagues. I do hope the men in his team won’t find these little fairies too girlish for their liking!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie

Mr Sunshine is out and that makes me as happy as a lark. I’m beginning to think I’m a green plant whose well-being is dependent on natural sunlight. Charged with full gear motivation, like a car refuelled, I kept myself busy in the kitchen from 8am to make some Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie. Unsurprisingly, this tested and tried recipe is found on my favourite BBC Good Food website.

It’s rare to see a brownie baked in a round tin but as I rarely make them, I haven’t got a square or rectangular tin in my inventory. Does the shape really matter? Not, in my opinion.

 
The moist and dense brownie struck a balance between the bitterness of the dark chocolate and the sweetness peanut butter. Although the recipe asked for 280g of brown sugar, I only used 200g. The sight of a mountainous amount of sugar in my pan was shocking so I reduced it. When it comes to this brownie, one should savour the peanut butter and dark chocolate; not sugar.

 
I like my brownie to have a slightly fudgy texture and this was how the Peanut Butter and Chocolate brownie turned out.

Decadently rich and satisfying, this brownie is pure heavenly indulgence for peanut butter and chocolate fanatics out there.

How can I possibly not share this tin of joy with my friends? I’ve set aside the humble slice you see in the picture above to share with Daniel and the rest will be generously shared with others. Bet they’ll hate me when their waistlines expand!

Steamed Double Chocolate Cupcakes

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

I didn't grow up with an oven. It just wasn't popular in Singapore among my parents' generation. They didn't grow up with one either. But that didn't stop us Chinese from having cakes. How did we make cakes then, you might ask. 

We use a steamer. A steamer is an essential kitchen tool in a Chinese family. We use it to steam vegetables, seafood, eggs, buns, dumplings and cakes. I prefer steaming food to frying simply because it usually doesn't involve using oil and it's healthier. 

Here's a photo to show you what a traditional, old-fashion Chinese steamer looks like. This is the upper layer. It's 28cm wide which is a good size since I can fit my largest bowl in it when I need to. 

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

As I'm feeling a little guilty for the lack of exercise today, I'm going to share with you a non-traditional, but healthy double chocolate steamed cupcake recipe! The basic recipe is similar to making traditional chinese steamed cakes. Are you ready for it?

Ingredients

• 75g all-purpose flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 3.5 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 4 tbsp chocolate chips

Instructions (Makes 6 cupcakes)

1. Fill a steamer with water and bring it to boil.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, sugar, milk and vegetable oil together.
4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix them together well.
5. Add the chocolate chips to the mixture and mix well.
6. Fill each cupcake holder half-way. (I used silicon cupcake holders. Do not use paper ones!)
7. Place the cupcake holders in the steamer. Cover it and steam for 10 minutes.
8. The cupcakes are cooked when a skewer comes out clean.
9. Serve when cupcakes are warm or at room temperature. 

Tips

I find steaming cakes a lot more hassle free and easier than baking. But a huge pull factor is that I don't have to use that much butter and sugar that a traditional chocolate cupcake would usually call for.

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As you can see, the cupcake is really moist, fluffy and light. The cupcakes weren't too sweet so if you have a sweet tooth, you might want to double the sugar needed. I personally like it as it is and would prefer to taste the actual chocolate chips instead. I am really interested to make variations of steamed cupcakes since this was such a success. What other flavours do you reckon you'll experiment with?

Midsummer Swedish Kladdkaka Cake

Happy Midsummer everyone!

Actually I’m not sure what people say to each other on this day. Midsummer is celebrated in Europe (particularly in the Scandinavian countries) and it takes place around the same time as summer solstice. As Singapore is a tropical island located near the equator, we have pretty much quite the same number of daylight hours throughout the year. In Europe, summer solstice occurs on the day when we have the longest daylight hours.

Source: Robert Nyman’s website

Before living in Europe, it was hard to imagine that it would still be bright at 10pm in England. I thought Daniel was trying to impress me (who knows why this would be impressive?) when he told me this fact years ago. But I don’t remember him telling me about the long, dark winters. CHEATER BUG!!!

Here’s a BBC picture of the Brits mark summer solstice at Stonehenge.

 

Source: BBC News 

And since I love the summers in Germany (on days that actually feel like summer) I looked up online on how to bake Kladdkaka which is a Swedish chocolate cake with a gooey centre. I baked it today and I must say it is officially my favourite chocolate cake. It’s soft in the centre which melts in your mouth when it’s warm.

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

If it’s your first time baking this cake you might wonder if it’s actually cooked through. Unlike most cakes, if you poke a stick through its centre it will NEVER and SHOULD NOT come out clean. It is meant to be gooey, sticky... NOT DRY.

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

Here is the brilliant recipe from it from All Recipes. 

Ingredients

• 60g all-purpose flour
• 20 g unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1g sale
• 2 eggs
• 240g white sugar
• 15ml vanilla extract
• 115g butter, melted

Instructions (Baking time - 35 to 40 minutes)

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Lightly grease an 8 inch tin.
2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Set it aside. 
3. Stir the eggs into the sugar until smooth. 
4. Add the flour mixture, and stir just until combined. 
5. Pour in the vanilla extract and butter. Stir until it is well combined.
6. Pour mixture into tin.
7. Bake in the lower tray of the oven for 35 to 40 minutes until the center has slight set.
8. Allow cake to cool before serving.  

Tips
This recipe has been tested by many and received a high rating overall. I followed the recipe exactly (word for word) and it worked out really well for me. The only thing I might change on hindsight perhaps is to reduce the amount of sugar used since I sprinkled icing sugar on the cake before serving.

Don't worry if this cake doesn't rise just like other ordinary cakes. It is meant to be a little flat and dense. But I assure you, it is DELICIOUS. 

Copyright Yoyo's Kitchen Adventures

So, here we are wishing everyone a good week ahead and Happy Midsummer!