Chocolate Banana Brownie with Chocolate Frosting

2 May 2011

I like to store some of the basic baking ingredients so that as and when I am in the mood to bake, or when Jared or Jaden make some cake request, I can quickly whip up a cake for them.

Jaden is a big fan of chocolate cake. He just love chocolate ... During the Labour Day holiday, since Jared and Jaden made American breakfast for us as breakfast, I decided to bake Chocolate Banana Brownie with Chocolate Frosting for them.

Brownie is one of the simplest chocolate cake to bake.

I found this EasyMelt's dark chocolate buttons at Jaya Grocer. It is very convenient as chocolate frosting cause we do not need to buy baking chocolate and whipping cream and mix them. In addition, once we open the box of whipping cream, we must use it within 3 days and I always end up throwing the balance of whipping cream away. This buttons will be a convenient and cheaper option for me.

Melting the chocolate buttons and they melt easily.

Pour on top of brownie as the chocolate frosting. The taste was great.

I like the banana sweetness taste in the rich chocolate. Too much chocolate may cause constipation and the banana balance it.

I served this brownie with vanilla ice-cream and kids just love it. After all, which kids do not like chocolate and ice-cream.

Ingredients:

• All-purpose flour - 1 3/4 cups
• Granulated sugar - 1 1/2 cups (*Note : 1 cup will do if you do not want too sweet)
• Cocoa powder - 3 /4 cup
• Baking soda - 1 1/2 tsp
• Salt - 1/2 teaspoon
• Baking powder - 1 1/2 tsp
• Eggs - 2 large, at room temperature
• Bananas - 4 ripe, mashed (Pisang emas will be a good choice as it's sweet)
• Warm water - 1 cup
• Milk - 1/2 cup (full cream)
• Vegetable oil - 1/2 cup (sunflower or canola)
• Vanilla extract - 1 1/2 teaspoon

Chocolate Frosting Ingredients:

• Semisweet or bittersweet chocolate - 8 ounces (227 grams) cut into small pieces (may add about 1 1/4 cups of chocolate chips)
• Whipping cream - 3/4 cup

In my case, I used EasyMelt's dark chocolate buttons to replace the above chocolate frosting ingredients.

Directions:

1. Cut baking paper, the size of the pans, grease the pans, cover with parchment paper and grease again. Set aside. (1 square tin - 9 inch)
2. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C
3. In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and baking powder together, set aside. Whisk in the sugar.
4. In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, mashed bananas, water, milk, oil and vanilla extract.
5. Add the wet ingredients (egg mixture) to the dry ingredients (flour mixture) and stir or whisk until just combined. To get the best result try stirring on the same direction using a spatula; do not over mix. The batter is going to be quite thin.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Avoid opening the oven door in the first 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes.
7. After the cakes reached the room temperature, remove them from the pans. If you used parchment paper, take it off. If you can't take the cakes off the pans easily, try loosening the edges with a sharp knife.
8. To make the chocolate frosting: Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel or heatproof bowl. Set aside. Heat the cream in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate brownie.
9. Cover brownie with the chocolate frosting

Easter Day and Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

24 April 2011

I promised my nephew that I would bake more cupcakes for him since there weren't enough to go around during the family dinner at my parents' house.

This time round, I baked red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I used beetroot and not coloring for the red colour effect on the cake. The recipe also call for cocoa powder.

Red velvet cupcakes and cheesecake are getting very, very popular. My friend, Audrey said I still bake the best red velvet cake. So happy to hear that.

However, my nephew prefers the butter cupcakes.

It was also my staff, Carmen's birthday. I brought a box of these cupcakes to office for her to share with our colleagues. My colleagues like it but some said its not sweet enough.

I baked for the whole 3 days from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. It was tiring but satisfying.

Need to shelf the baking activities for a while as Jared's mid year exam is just round the corner. I am more worry and stress than Jared for his exam. I don't remember my parents have to worry about my exam during my school time.



Potato Cheese Cake and Roast Chicken

23 Apr 2011

I wanted to do so much over this Good Friday and Easter Sunday weekends.

Auntie YC invited us to her house for roast chicken dinner. I proposed to make Potato Cheese Cake, a recipe that I learned from Chef Malcolm during Electrolux's mobile truck cooking demo.

This potato cheese cake is different from the usual mash, baked or smashed potato recipes. I used potato, cream cheese, heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, butter, leek, shallot, garlic, egg, flour, salt and pepper.

The taste was good. My family and Aunty YC like it.

Cute tomatoes on the vine. We ate them raw with our salad.

Two different roast chickens ... the spicy and non-spicy types.

Jaden was hungry, especially with the aroma smell of the roast chickens.

He became restless as we were getting ready the dinner.

Good Friday and Butter Cupcakes with Butter Cream

22 Apr 2011

It's Good Friday and I took a day off from work, not that I'm a Christian and celebrate Good Friday.

In the morning, after dropping off Jaden to his kinder and had my nasi lemak breakfast, I baked butter cupcakes. My niece and nephews had been asking me when I was going to bake some for them.

This bottle of vanilla extract is from my sister. She bought it from Singapore for S$9.20. It goes very well with my butter cupcakes and gave a very good aroma and strengthen the taste of the butter cupcakes.

I decided to make more cupcakes this time round. A total of 48 of them! In between while waiting for those cupcakes to be baked, I did Science revision with Jared. His mid term exam is in less than 2 weeks time.

Thereafter, Hubby and I dropped off my car to car service workshop in our neighbourhood for service.

Finally, when I got home, I started to whip butter cream to ice those cupcakes. Since I still had some time, I decided to rush some cupcakes for Jaden's kinder teacher and also some for Jared to bring to school to share with his classmates.

I also shared some cupcakes with our neighbour and Jaden's mandarin teacher. The mandarin teacher was so nice. She shared the 4 cupcakes that I gave to her with all of her students.

It was a fruitful morning, achieved 3 things in the morning ... baked cupcakes, did Jared's revision and car service. I've made appointment for my spa manicure and pedicure. They are having promotion at special price of RM95 for both. I needed pedicure badly, my feet were very dry and they need a good pampering session. The last time that I had my mani and pedi done was just before CNY in Feb 2011.

The manicure and pedicure session was completed at 3.30pm but I was caught in a heavy rain. By the time I reached home, it was already passed 4.30pm. The last thing on my "To Do" list is massage. I took it for granted that I did not make any appointment and they were fully booked for the day. Couldn't complete this last thing on my list. Sigh ... cant tick of the list.

Instead, I had tea time with Hubby at home and he ate 4 of my cupcakes!

I went to my parents house for dinner and brought 16 butter cupcakes along for my parents, niece and nephews. Despite the heavy dinner, most of the cupcakes were eaten and only left 5 for someone to take home, which were obviously not enough to be shared among 3 families.

At night, just before sleeping, Jaden said "Mommy, your cupcakes so nice".

I am happy that small little effort from my end can make so many people happy. After all, it's Good Friday. So, let's make it a real good Friday.

Happy Good Friday! Hope it's a real good one.

Cake Pops, Cake Balls or Tim Tam Truffles?

8 Apr 2011

Jared's Yamaha music school had a concert on Sat, 9 Apr 2011. As usual, we have to bring light food to share with other students and their family. I planned to make cake pops!

I've been admiring cake pops and cake balls (wondering what's the difference between these two?). They are my new love. I was so happy to find Bakerella website. Bakerella is so lovely and talented.

The ingredients

After work, I went down to Jaya Grocers and bought the ingredients for my cake pops.

Crumbled Tim Tam biscuits

After I've crumbled the tim tam biscuits, I added cream cheese to it.

Jared helped to roll the crumbled biscuits.



I forgotten to take photos of the final products. The above photo was taken by my niece, Jaselyn. She loved these cake pops and found them pretty and snapped the photo.

At the end, I did not bring these cake pops to Jared's Yamaha school concert as I do not have small plastic to individually wrapped these cake pops.

Lotus Root ... the natural healing for Nose Bleeding?

11 Apr 2011

Jared has a sensitive nose. His nose will bleed every now and then, especially at night just before his bed time. This has caused much inconvenience and disturbance to his sleep.

I used to have nose bleeding too, especially during my pregnancy period in 2006/2007, which is common for pregnant women. However, I still had my nose bleeding after given birth to Jaden. It was very scary to see blood flow from the nose and all the tissue papers full with blood.

My sister in-law, Jaydie recommended me to drink lotus root juice. I tried and the taste was awful. The miracle is my nose bleed stopped. I hardly have nose bleeding now, except when I was in Hangzhou during spring time where the air was dry. I had since forgotten about nose bleeding and lotus root juice.

When we went back to Segamat for Cheng Meng, Jared stayed overnight at Jaydie's house. Jared had nose bleeding again. Jaydie advised me, again, to let Jared drinks lotus root juice. I remembered the awful taste of the juice and worry that Jared may not drink it. Jaydie advised me to add honey to give some sweet taste to the juice.

On Monday, after dinner, we blended lotus root and added honey to the milky look juice. I explained to Jared that the lotus root will stop his nose bleeding. He obediently drank the one third glass of the lotus root juice and didn't complain much about the taste of the juice, except for the funny face look after he drank it.

It has been five days now and so far so good, there's no nose bleeding from Jared.

Is it a broom? Is it a stick? It's Electrolux Ergorapido

3 Mar 2011

In Mar last year, when my friends and I were having holiday in Kuantan, I told them the beauty of Electrolux Ergorapido and how it will replace our brooms at home. My friends made joke out of how many brooms they could buy with the price of Ergorapido. I wish our product manager was with me then.

During last year CNY, I had the same group of friends at home for dinner and there were mess from children surrounding the children table. My friends were thinking I'm going to take out a broom and dust pan, or bend down to wipe and clean up the mess.

I stylishly use Ergorapido to suck away the mess, without any sweat. All of my friends stopped their eating and chatting, totally impressed and asked me what it was. I told them that's the new era broom replacement. My friends love it very much.

Yesterday, my best friend Michelle called me at work and told me that she has bought Electrolux's latest Ergorapido Plus and love the product. It is very convenient for her to vacuum her house especially the staircase. She doesn't need to drag heavy vacuum and no electricity plug and wire required.

She has another 2 vacuums at home but she just love to use the Ergorapido and the Electrolux vacuum that I bought for her as house warming gift. Her husband saw how much she loves the Ergorapido and decided to buy another Ergorapido for her so that she can keep one upstairs and another one at downstairs.

Michelle called to thank me for introducing Ergorapido to her.

I decided to share the good news with our Marketing and Product Managers. And ... they were happy to hear that and thank me for sharing the innovative product with friends. The email was copied to the regional boss and with pleasant surprise I received this short, sweet note from him:

"Lovely story ... and even sweeter when it comes from controller".

This made my day especially when I least expect it.

Personally, I have 2 Ergorapido at home. This red Ergorapido is the very first Ergorapido that Electrolux produced and I use it in our room.

Jaden helping us to vacuum the floor ... underneath the TV cabinet.

Vacuum his closet.

I like this picture very much. Jaden is so focus in vacuuming our room.

And he rocks with the Ergorapido too.

His new toy ... using some imagination, he pretends this Ergorapido stick is an electric guitar.

The 2nd edition of Ergorapido with better suction power and battery life, which we use it downstairs.

When I saw Jaden using Ergorapido as his toy to vacuum, I have a wild idea of TV commercial of how a 4 years old boy can help out in house chore.

And who said Accountant is square?