Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bite Sized Pieces of Love a.k.a. Cornflake Cookies

The last recipe I used to make cornflake cookies wasn't too popular- the results were too sweet and sticky. This recipe uses flour, which helps to make everything nice and crispy when done (I think). Again, the only thing I found tiresome about making these was that everything had to be done in batches, and waiting (45 minutes! compared to 5-7 minutes in the other recipe) was quite a bore. But they taste divine- definitely something I think a lot of people will enjoy. Slurp.

Cornflake Cookies
Lousy image because I took it sneakily with my camera phone. Don't want to look too weird taking pics around the house, lol.

Cornflake Cookies
Ingredients:

500gm butter, softened
8oz castor sugar
20oz plain flour
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 1/2 boxes cornflakes

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius.

Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Add in 2 egg yolks and vanilla essence and continue to mix. Add in the flour and mix, and then add the cornflakes and make sure everything is mixed evenly.

Using a teaspoon, spoon out the cornflake mixture into small cupcake holders, and bake till golden brown and crispy. Approximately 45 minutes.

Cool before keeping in an airtight container.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Cake Lapis!

We made kueh cake lapis (apparently kueh lapis is something very different) today, and it was yummy. I'll probably make some for Chinese New Year for my family.

Cake Lapis
Excuse the lousy pic, I took it using my camera phone

Cake Lapis
Ingredients:

7 egg whites
17 egg yolks
17 oz butter, softened
3 tablespoons condensed milk
8 oz castor sugar
5 oz self raising flour
1 tablespoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon rempah kueh (spice mix)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius.
Cream butter and condensed milk, set aside.
Whisk egg whites till slightly stiff, add sugar bit by bit and continue whisking. Once all the sugar has been added, add the butter, and continue whisking. Add the yolks one at a time till fully incorporated, and then add in the vanilla essence. Add the flour and then finally the rempah kueh. (*note: I need to reconfirm the order of adding in the ingredients.)
Grease and flour a 9x9" square cake tin, and pour enough of the batter to thinly coat the bottom layer. Place in oven with the top heat on, until brown. Remove from the oven, and press the cake down lightly with something flat. Pour some batter on the top, again to thinly coat the bottom, and put in the oven until brown.
Repeat until you finish your batter and are at the last layer. When placing the last layer in the oven, switch the oven back to top and bottom heat, and take out when the top layer is a nice golden brown.
Remove from oven, cool and slice to serve.

..

As you can see in my picture, the top of my cake has blackened because my MIL and I forgot about the kueh cake lapis after putting the last layer in, and was busy preparing (a very late lunch). It tasted really good though, nice and moist and not too sweet. I'm not sure how to convert the measurements from oz to cups though, which is how I normally measure things.

It's a simple cake to make, but tedious as you need to watch the cake to make sure it does not burn. You also have to remember to press each layer down once you take it out from the oven, if you look closely you can actually see at which point I forgot that step (the layer is thicker than the rest). Hehehe.