~ Black Bottom Cupcakes

Modified from:

Allrecipe

Description:
Rich and gooey chocolate cream cheese cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1 package (250g) cream cheese
1 egg
1/4 C white sugar
1 C mini chocolate chips
1 1/2 C flour
3/4 C white sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 C warm water
1/3 C vegetable oil
1 tbps distilled vinegar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 160 deg. Line muffin tins with paper cups.
2. Beat cream cheese, egg, 1/4C sugar and 1/8tsp vanilla until light and fluffy. Do not overmix, stop when there are no more lumps. Stir in chocolate chips and set aside.
3. Mix wet ingredients (water, 3/4C sugar, distilled vinegar, vanilla and oil) together.
4. Whisk dry ingredients (flour, cocoa and baking soda) in a separate bowl. Make a well in the centre and stir in the pre-mixed wet ingredients till well-blended.
5. Fill muffin tins 1/3 full with the batter and top with a dollop of the cream cheese mixture in 2.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 30min till lightly browned, and cool on wire rack.

Remarks:
Batter produces good soft chocolate cupcake that rises well. Chocolate chips account partly for the gooey-ness, can be omitted. Cream cheese mixture is slightly too sweet, and its amount is too much. Perhaps to reduce sugar to 1 tbsp and reduce cream cheese and egg by half. The cupcake turned soggy after a day or two due to the cream cheese mixture, should try to reduce cream cheese portion.

~ Persimmon Bread

Modified from:
Allrecipes

Description:
Moist spice bread made with ripe persimmons.

Ingredients:
5/6 C persimmon pulp

1 tsp baking soda
1 C brown sugar
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 tsp cinnmon
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 C flour
Chopped almonds

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 175 deg. Grease and flour 9X12" baking pan.
2. Stir pulp and baking soda together and let it stand for 5 min to thicken it.
3. Cream eggs with sugar and oil. Add in spices and salt. Mix in pulp and flour alternately till well blended. Pour into prepared pan and sprinkle generously with chopped almonds over the batter.
4. Bake for 1 hour in oven, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 min before removing to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Remarks
Soft on the exterior while moist in the center, should reduce temperature and bake for longer time. Sugar can be reduced to 3/4C as persimmons are sweet already. Can't really taste the persimmons though.

~ Kueh Lapis

Modified from:
Florence's

Description:
Colourful chewy nyonya nine-layered kueh. The favourite of kids!

Ingredients:
125 g tapioca flour
45 g rice flour
200 ml coconut milk
100 g sugar
140 ml warm water
1 tsp pandan essence
Red colouring

Directions:
1. Mix tapioca flour and rice flour together.
2. Dissolve sugar in warm water, and add in coconut milk.
3. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Stir in essence, and divide batter into 3 portions.
4. Add varying quantities of red colouring to suitable colours (red and pink) for two portions of batter.
5. Pour first layer of red batter into greased 4"X5" tray and steam for 10min. Do the same for the rest, alternating each colour till all is used up.
6. Cool completely before slicing with plastic knife.

Remarks:
Soft and chewy with appropriate sweetness. Pandan taste was overwhelming, could just add 1/4 tsp to one of the coloured portions instead of adding to all the portions.

~ Tang Yuan

Taken from:
Tiff's! :)

Description:
Springy glutinous rice balls immersed in sweet ginger broth; a festive dessert for Dong Zhi (the Winter Solstice)~

Ingredients:
2 C glutinous rice flour
5/8 C boiled and cooled water
1/2 tsp pandan essence (optional)
Red colouring
1/2 C rock sugar
1 knob ginger
Bunch of pandan leaves
900ml water

Directions:
1. Mix flour, 5/8 C water and essence to form dough. Adjust with 1 tbsp of water/flour accordingly.
2. Separate into two bowls, and tint one of the dough with red colouring. Knead the white dough first for 8-10min and roll into 1.5cm balls. Do the same for the pink dough.
3. Boil together pandan leaves, ginger and sugar in 900ml water to make the broth. Prepare a basin of cold water.
4. Cook balls in the broth till they float. Plunge the cooked balls into the basin of cold water for awhile to stop the cooking process. Serve hot with broth.

Remarks:
QQ and yummy! Topped up with some water for the broth as some of the water evaporated during boiling. Added pandan essence discreetly to the dough to mask the strong glutinous rice taste =x

~ Wanton Dumplings

Taken from:
Mum's

Description:
Tantalising concoction of minced meat (fish, prawn, pork), fungus, veggies, chestnuts wrapped in wanton wrappers~ Deep-fried or boiled in Caixin soup~

Ingredients:

-

Directions:
-

Remarks:
Filling was made by Mum, I only did the wrapping :p As always, the dumplings turned out lip-smacking good!