Simple sponge cake

Light, soft and fine texture, that’s what I like about Sponge cake. It’s the very first cake I tried baking when I got my oven.

Looking back…it’s not an easy cake to begin the journey into the world baking as compared to the traditional butter cake. Strangely enough, I was not deterred by the difficulty. I kept trying to improve and kept reading up on the tips.

And, so… my lovely supportive family had to endure the 3 sponge-cake-sessions a week! Feeling guilty, I added different flavours to create varieties!

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Quick Tiramisu

You would have read and probably tried many versions of Tiramisu, the Italian dessert...the Classic, the Traditional, the Authentic...if you like coffee, chilled creamy dessert with a hint liquer...you'll like Tiramisu. 


(For those who may know about Tiramisu, you can check it out in the Wikipedia about its origin, history and the actual preparation).


I actually hesitated posting Tiramisu (not another one!), though I've made it a number of times over the years. This is my easy and quick version, without raw-eggs and can be prepared ahead and kept chilled in the fridge, till ready to serve.

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Claypot Bak-ku-teh (BKT)

I made this some time back and got the thumbs up from the little one. I think it is very nice, not too over-powering with herbs and just the right flavour with pork ribs.

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Snow Fungus Tong-sui

Chinese, especially Cantonese love sweet soup or tong-sui.

This is a simple recipe with lots of nutritional benefits. It only needs 5 ingredients, nothing too complicated.

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Pork Ribs Curry with Kaffir Lime Leaves

Spicy and tender pork ribs in fragrant kaffir lime leaves curry gravy…appetizing!

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Drunken Prawns

Drunken prawn soup, gingery, laced with brandy with a hint of fragrant angelica root (dang-gui)

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School Term-Break

I’ve neglected my blogs and I am now trying to ease back in slowly and gathering some long-lost momentum!

Too much has happened and I thank my family and friends for their prayers, support and help.

Christmas 2011 has been spent in the hospital with the little guy hospitalised a few days during the Christmas holidays for a very nasty bug. He had very high fever, averaging 39.5 - 40°C, vomiting and severe headache with initial diagnosis of suspected meningitis or dengue fever. There’re IV drip, a tube into his thin wrist, suppositories, needles…and talk of possibility of CT Scan or MRI.

Thank God, after some blood tests, meningitis and dengue were ruled out and doctors could only say it was very nasty viral infection. Anyway, we are glad it’s over, a fortnight of worries and sleepless nights could be put aside.

when Max was much better and could sit up, he immediately asked for his Lego blocks

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Dong Zhi Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Balls)

Happy Winter Solstice (Dong Zhi 冬至) everybody.


I got up early this morning to make some tang yuan (湯圓) which is enjoyed by many Chinese families, normally celebrated around 22 December.

Together with Hubby and the little one, we made some. To me they all turned out beautifully, does not matter that they are different or odd sizes but made as a family.


This is a simple recipe, made enough for three of us, please double, triple, quadruple...the recipe to fit your family. 

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Santa's Fruitcake

A Christmas fruitcake

I have a 20 year-old recipe shared by an elderly aunt. I've been making this fruitcake for the last 6 years for Christmas and Chinese New Year too.

It's not complicated, not too sweet or oily but flavourful and colourful. Don't worry if you don't have rum, I used brandy here. 

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Hello December 2011

Should be "Hello Christmas"… which is more like it! 

I’ve just got back my laptop after having it being classified “Requires Hospitalisation” for some major repairs. I wish I'm smarter then all I needed to do would be to hook it to a life-support machine, cut it open, change some organs, prescribed some antidote...run some tests and voila! 2 follow-up checks and everything will be fine...no more amnesia!

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Muffins...muffins again

Chocolate Chip Cranberries Nut Muffins and
Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins


Using the same recipe here, I made more muffins with dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries and chopped almond (almond nibs).


Chocolate Chip Cranberries Nut Muffins

Same recipe
Substitute strawberries with
1/4 cup dried cranberries (chopped)
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips and another 1/4 cup for sprinkling on top
1/3 cup toasted almond nibs or chopped almond


I stirred in dark chocolate chips, dried cranberries and nuts into the dry ingredients before pouring in the wet ingredients.


Sprinkle with more chocolate chips on top before popping into the oven to bake.

These muffins are really good, soft and fluffy and have subtle crunchy nuts.


Another, variation : Chocolate Chip Walnut Muffins
Substitute Almond Nibs with toasted chopped walnuts

It's time to get some nuts into your child's diet... and not just for children but good for adults too. :-)

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Funny #1 - Husband Day Care Center

Feeling Monday blues? :-)


This is a very different posting. Nothing to do with food but I found something just too funny! 

I saw these pics and knew I just gotta share with you. You may have come across these. :-D

Wife on retail therapy mission does not need to feel guilty about abandoning hubbies at home or drag them along on shopping sprees, or to carry the shopping bags. Hubbies can happily spend time with their drinking buddies in the pub/bar. What a great marketing concept too! Seen around Ireland, Hawaii, Philippines, Thailand… :-D

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Have a good laugh and a great week ahead! :-)

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Cooling Chinese Sugar Cane Drink

As the weather is not easing up with hot dry spells and occasionally granted some scattered rain in the afternoons and some hazy days, my good neighbour, Popo J gave us some Sugar Cane (In Cantonese, “Chook-Cheh”) from her garden to boil to cool down our bodies.

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Homemade Beef Pepper Rice Teppanyaki-like Style

We have been visiting Pepper Lunch for their Beef Pepper Rice once too often. It's really yummy and pretty addictive!… I’m embarrassed to admit, it’s something like 2-4 times in a month in the last few months …sigh!... Max’s favourite (at the moment!)

So, Daddy decided to make Daddy’s Homemade Beef Pepper Rice, his own version! :-D

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Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Sori, this posting is a little late... :-(

Wishing all a very 

Happy Mid-Autumn and Lantern Festival.

I’ll bet most of you had a wonderful family-friends reunion with lots of good food with mooncakes, water caltrops, baby yams to the accompaniments of softly-lit Chinese lanterns and children chatter-laughters as I did at my Mom’s place.

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Strawberry Muffins

Breakfast and school snack box gets more interesting this week with these fluffy muffins. I tried these muffins after having read the good reviews and adapted slightly. Daily snack of bread with jam spread, peanut butter, nutella, ham-eggs is getting boring and "uncool" as I was duly informed by the little one…sigh!...oh, the fussy one :-)

As strawberries are his favourite and his Dad's, I decided to make some Strawberry Muffins.

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Chicken Thigh with Dang-gui

Quick dish

Chinese sometimes incorporate herbs into their cooking for their nutritional benefits as well as enhancing the flavour.  Here, I’ve chosen to use dang-gui (a powerful blood tonic) together with chicken thigh.

The chicken being steamed wrapped in aluminium foil, where the flavour produced is fully-contained within, resulting in chicken essence gravy, lightly salted with bitter-sweet-acrid taste of aromatic dang-gui and slightly sweet wolfberry.

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Okra with bacon

Quick dish
I seem to be positing lots of easy, quick dishes, especially for working moms. :-) I hope this is helpful...

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Nutella Swirl Pound Cake

I made this some months ago when some friends came over for coffee. Being too busy at that time I forgot completely later about posting it.

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Oven-grilled Chicken Wings

We had some nice chicken wings last week. These yummy snacks were so popular, we had to wait 40mins for just 3 BBQ wings at the local hawkers center! There's a long queue for these in most places.

So, I decided to make our own… and it’s not too difficult. 

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