We celebrated our third marriage anniversary nearly two weeks ago.

It has been three most wonderful years of sharing our love, joy and happiness together. May our beautiful blissful life continues for many more years to come.

I made sotong goreng tepung (crispy deep fried squid) with chevre cheese and sweet chilli sauce for appetizer.

I used the similar flour combination as oven fried chicken but omitted the marinating part with cream. The squid was dried, dipped into the flour and fried until they turned golden. Sotong goreng tepung has always been our favourite, we just couldn’t get enough of it every time

For main menu, I prepared this country chicken and deep fried king prawn with creamed spinach.

I fell in love with Whitney Miller’s country chicken and creamed spinach, the menus that brought a total change of her life for winning Masterchef USA. But I couldn’t find the recipe anywhere on the internet

So again, I used the oven fried chicken recipe but pan fried the chicken with some olive oil 4-5 mins on each side. Use chicken breast for this recipe and make sure it is not too thick. For creamed spinach, I used the recipe here. I was happy that eventually both turned out very well

I made butterfly cut on the back of the prawns, seasoned them with some black pepper, garlic powder and salt. Then I deep fried for 2-3 minutes before serving them hot with the chicken, spinach and pomegranate (buah delima).

I also made this vanilla slice for the dessert using a recipe from Masterchef Australia‘s webpage.

I may have made some mistake as my slice was not as good as shown, but rather thick with pastry and kind of heavy too. The custard was otherwise good

We successfully had a beautiful candle light dinner with table for three. We loved it

May The Love That We Share Last Our Lifetime Through. Happy anniversary my sweetheart.

♥I love you with all my heart ♥

Crispy Oven Fried Chicken Recipe

• 4-5 chicken drumstick (or other parts)
• For chicken marinate
• 1/2 cup heavy cream (I used 15%)
• some black pepper
• some cayenne pepper
• some white pepper
• some chilli/paprika powder
• some garlic powder
• some salt (not so much as there is more salt in flour coating)
• For flour coating
• 1 cup corn flour/glutinous flour (or mix 1:1 ratio)
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika/chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt to taste
• some chicken bouillon powder (optional)

*you may add or reduce the amount of spices according to your like

This few weeks, I just craze for pumpkin!

These are my favourites: The chubby one (left) and the notty one (right)

I made Sweet Caramel Pumpkin simply by baking the pumpkin,

200 C for 40-50 mins and separately prepared the caramel.

I like Hokkaido type the best.

But it’s so difficult to find it here. They have several types but most are for decoration

More pumpkins, I later made this pie. Incredibly easy recipe with great taste

Really really like this pie. But I would reduce the amount of the spices to half next time.

For a crunchier bottom, I used digestive biscuits + butter instead of ready made pie crust.

Perfect Pumpkin Pie Recipe serves 8

By: Allrecipe.com

• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin – about 1.8 cups
• 1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk – (I used diff. brand, 1.7 cups)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I would reduce each spice amount to half next time)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• For the crust: 80 g digestive biscuits + 30 g melted butter) OR ready made pie crust
• *I used bread loaf baking dish for this amount of crust. Double it for bigger dish size.

1. Preheat oven to 210 C.
2. Prepare the crust: mix biscuits and melted butter. Press crumb mixture over bottom of prepared pie dish. Bake crust until lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Keep aside.
3. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust. Bake 15 minutes.
4. Reduce oven temperature to 170 C and continue baking 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1 inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.

*I prepared half of the ingredients and used bread loaf baking dish for my pie.

Made this long name peanut butter pie on my birthday.

Not really a birthday treat, more for iftar purposes

Suddenly felt like eating peanut butter (PB)…

I started googling for recipe and found THIS. Great rating with good comments, I decided to give it a try.

Since I don’t have too much PB left in jar, I had to divide the recipe to 1/3

It didn’t have as much as a pie look, but the taste was phenomenal.

My husband said this might be one of the best desserts I made this year. hahaha

So, I’m keeping the edited recipe here for my future reference. ‘My regular customer’ doesn’t want me to change anything about it.

Please go the link below for full recipe

Black-Bottom Peanut Butter Mousse Bar Recipe

Original recipe from: Epicurious

25 cm x 11 cm baking mould (bread loaf size)

80g ground digestive biscuits
30g unsalted butter, melted

1/3 cups bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips/dark chocolate
1/4 cup whipping cream
2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup + 1/3 cup chilled whipping cream, divided
2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 180 C. Spray 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish with nonstick spray. Mix the ground digestive biscuits with melted butter. Press crumb mixture over bottom of prepared pie dish. Bake crust until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine chocolate chips/dark chocolate, 1/4 cup cream, honey, and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on medium heat until chocolate softens, about 3 minutes. Whisk until melted and smooth. Spread chocolate mixture over bottom of crust. Freeze 10 minutes.

Whip peanut butter with sugar until creamy. In a different bowl, whip also 1/4 cup cream until soft peak is formed. Add the whipped cream into the peanut butter-sugar mixture. Mix well. Beat remaining 1/3 cup cream in medium bowl until very thick but not yet holding peaks; fold into peanut butter mixture. Spoon mousse over chocolate layer. Chill at least 1 hour and up to 1 day.

For a pretty presentation, drizzle with melted chocolate and sprinkle with chopped peanuts.

Clafoutis is one of my favourite dessert for its simplicity and great taste.

You can use whichever fruit of your choice, strawberry, cherry or like this one, frozen raspberry.

I made half of the batter, fit nicely to those two cute ramekins

This is just perfect for the lovely lovely summer…

I like it so much with lots of vanilla cream or a scoop of ice cream.

Raspberry Clafoutis Recipe

Adapted from a book (I don’t remember the name)

2 large eggs
75g caster sugar
40g plain flour
100ml double cream/creme fraiche
100ml milk
butter for greasing
225g rapberries

1. Whisk eggs and sugar.
2. Sift over flour and whisk well before adding the cream and milk. Mix well. Leave for 10 min.
3. Lightly butter baking dishes and sprinkle sugar to coat. Scatter raspberries and pour over the batter.
4. Bake 30-35 min at 180C.
5. Good to be served with vanilla cream

It has been over a year since I started thinking about baking it myself. But i guess the passion was never too strong that it happened only 2 days ago

My first trial didn’t show too much success for me and my macarons. My macarons turned out with small ‘horn’ and the surface was just not fair enough

But… I’m still so very happy with the macarons. I took so many pictures, and here they are… representing me and my excitement

I tried the recipe from the well-known, award-winner blogger, Cannelle-Vanille recipe that she made for Martha Steward’s Wedding. I just loved her and her writing and her every pictures. They are always always so inspiring

I used white chocolate buttercream for the filling, which i got the recipe from The British Larder. I really liked it (of course I’m a fan of white choc too ). But the cream started to melt after some time at room temperature. I had to keep my macarons in the fridge not to make them messy with the filling.

Well, that’s all my happy story about macarons… bytheway, here is the recipe for the macaron shells. Many thanks to Aran for the lovely recipe that made my day

Macaron Shells Recipe

By: Cannelle-Vanille

180 grams almond flour
240 grams powdered sugar
140 grams egg whites
3 grams egg white powder
2 grams of finely ground sea salt
80 grams granulated sugar
Few drops of food coloring

In a large bowl, sift together the almond flour, powdered sugar, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add the egg white and the egg white powder. Whip on medium speed until egg whites start to increase in volume.

When the egg whites are almost fully whipped and very fluffy, slowly start sprinkling in the sugar. After all the sugar is incorporated, whip the meringue on high speed until stiff peaks have formed. Then add the food coloring.

Add the dry ingredients to the meringue and, with a spatula, fold the meringue into the dry ingredients. This is called “macaroner.” It is better to fold slowly and test a couple of macarons because it is possible to over fold this mixture. You want a shiny mass. For this amount of ingredients, I would say that it will only take about 10 to 15 strokes. But again, it is better to check for consistency. You are looking for a mass that spreads a little but not too much, otherwise the macarons will be flat.

Pipe the mass onto half sheet pans lined with silpats. Let them sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes to dry. You want the tops not to stick to your finger when you touch them. This will ensure a crack-free macaron.

Have your oven preheated at 350 degrees. Bake one sheet pan at a time positioning it in a middle rack. Turn oven to 300 degrees. Bake for about 8 minutes and rotate sheet pan to ensure even baking. It should take about 14 minutes, but that depends on the oven. You want to be able to pick up the macaroon without it falling apart, but you don’t want to over bake it either. It is better to bake it slowly so no browning occurs.

Remove them from the oven and slide the silpat onto a cold surface. Let them cool on the silpat.

I love eating chocolate and I wish I could eat it everyday.

But as we know, eating too much of chocolate will make our body not healthy.

Quite much but I am pretty sure we could finish it in just one or two days.

By the way, this chocolate pudding pie is sooo good! The chocolate pudding is so soft and kind of melt in your mouth. It is easy to prepare and you don’t need lot of ingredients.

Thanks very much to Rebecca for sharing the recipe adapted from Williams-Sonoma’s Pie & Tart Book.

Chocolate Pudding Pie Recipe

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma’s “Pie & Tart” Makes one 9-inch pie (8 servings)

• 1 Chocolate Cookie Crust (see below)

Filling:

• 2 1/2 cups whole milk
• 5 ounces (155 g) chopped semisweet chocolate (or chocolate chips)
• 4 large egg yolks
• 3/4 cup (185 g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Topping:

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Garnish: chocolate curls

1. For the Filling: In a heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, warm the milk and chocolate. Whisk them occasionally until the chocolate is melted.

2. In a large bowl, combine the egg yolks and sugar, whisking them until pale yellow. Add cornstarch, salt and vanilla.

3. Slowly pour the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture, whisking them well.

4. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat until it thickens and begins to bubble slowly, about 7 minutes. Remove the saucepan from the heat, and stir the mixture until it’s smooth, about 1 minute.

5. Pour the chocolate filling into the cookie crust, and smooth it with a spatula. Cover it with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface, and refrigerate it for 2 hours.

6. For the Chocolate Curls: Microwave a medium-size chunk of chocolate on low for about 5 seconds. Using a vegetable peeler, slowly and evenly scrape the edge of the chunk until curls form. (If it’s too cold, the peeler will make ragged shavings instead of curls, so repeat warming the chocolate as necessary.) Refrigerate the curls until ready to use.

7. For the Topping: Using an electric mixer fitted with a whisk (whip) attachment, beat the cream, sugar and vanilla on medium-high until stiff peaks form.

8. Spoon the whipped cream onto the pie, and use a spatula to spread it evenly, being careful not to disturb the chocolate pudding underneath.

9. Decorate with chocolate curls. 10. Refrigerate the pie until ready to serve, but let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving. 4. Bake for 5 minutes.

Chocolate Cookie Crust

• 1 1/4 cups (4 ounces) cookie crumbs from chocolate wafers (pulverized in the food processor)- I used digestive biscuits
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a bowl, combine the cookie crumbs, butter and sugar.

3. Pat the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan.

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