Mini rainbow cupcakes!(:

These are by far the most awesome things I've made. It's like happiness in a bite sized cupcake. The only thing missing was frosting, but I chose to leave that out this time round because I had to transport these around.

I found a recipe with great reviews from the Australia/NZ version of allrecipes.com. Well, given that I had just gotten back from NZ, that made me just want to use this recipe. I really do miss Welly and all the amazing friends I've made there very much.

The only thing that bothered me was the difference in altitude. I've noticed that recipes don't quite turn out the same in New Zealand and back here in Singapore. Could be the climate, could be the ingredients. Idk. But I didn't want to risk a disastrously flat cupcake, so I modified it a little. Also, the original recipe calls for 4 bottles of food coloring, but yellow and blue makes green. So 3 will suffice.

Here's what you'll need:

• 1/2 cup (125g) caster sugar
• 125g unsalted butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (125g) self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 3 bottles food coloring: red, blue, yellow

1.

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Line a 12 hole mini cupcake tray* (if you can procure mini cupcake liners, which are ridiculously hard to find).

2.

Cream the sugar and butter until pale and fluffy.

3.

Beat the eggs in one at a time, then sift in dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and powder, salt)

4.

Add the milk 1 tablespoon at a time mixing after each addition.

5.

Divide the mixture into 6 bowls:
In Bowl 1 - Add 1/2 a cap of red colouring
In Bowl 2 - Add 1/4 a cap of red and 1/4 a cap of yellow
In Bowl 3 - Add 1/2 a cap of yellow 
In Bowl 4 - Add 1/4 a cap of yellow and 1/4 cap of blue
In Bowl 5 - Add 1/2 a cap of blue
In Bowl 6 - Add 1/2 a cap of blue and 1/2 a cap of red
Mix colouring into each mixture after adding. Adjust color according to your preference of hue. Note that colors will become darker after baking.

6.

Divide the purple mixture between the 12 cases. Repeat with the other mixtures in this order: Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red.

7.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

* do note that if you do go the tiny bite sized cupcake route like I did, you will have to do this three times, which can be quite a hassle. Alternatively, this will make 12 normal sized cupcakes. The reason why I was reluctant to do this recipe is because of how much hassle it is! Most cupcake recipes have you mixing it all up in one big bowl. From there it is into the cupcake tray and then into the oven and you're done. But this recipe requires lots of bowls and lots more patience to slowly spoon the batter color by color so you'll get a nice rainbow. Look at how many bowls I used!

I think it was quite worth it though(: When they came out of the oven and tasted like little bits of bite sized happiness.

Aren't these tiny things just absolutely adorable?(:

Milo Cupcakes with Condensed Milk Frosting

This blog post is super duper delayed, for no reason other than that I like to procrastinate. So here it finally is: how to make yummy milo cupcakes with condensed milk cream cheese frosting.

I scoured the net, but couldn't find a recipe to my satisfaction. Thus I decided to create my own and my improvisation turned out pretty well. 

I particularly like this picture because you can see my dad in the background doing work relatedy thingys. So serious, as opposed to the fluffy happiness of the cupcakes.

Here is what you need for the cupcakes (yields 10-12):

Cupcakes

200g plain flour

50g caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

200g Milo

1 tsp vanilla extract

180g sour cream

200g unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs

Frosting
100g butter
~200g icing sugar, sifted 
100g cream cheese5 tbsp sweetened condensed milk 

Just a note, the addition of sour cream made the cupcakes much more dense than expected. So be prepared for the batter not to rise! It came as a surprise to me. I think the next time I do milo cupcakes, I'll use my usual butter batter (say that five times fast) and experiment with that to get fluffier cupcakes.

Sift dry ingredients together, mix wet ingredients together and then marry them! After which, spoon batter into prepared muffin tray - by prepared I mean lined with muffin cups, but only if you want to of course - and then pop that into a preheated 175°C oven for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, or a toothpick comes out clean.

To make the frosting, beat the room temperature butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Slowly sift in icing sugar until desired consistency is reached. I usually go by trial and error. Adding more icing sugar/condensed milk according to whether I want it thicker or thinner in consistency. A neat tip to firm up the icing before piping it onto the cupcakes is to pop it in the fridge for a bit.

Lastly, I sifted some Milo powder on top of the icing, just because it looks pretty.

Credit for the cupcake recipe goes to Jaxe. Though unfortunately I don't think I'll ever make these again. Some of my friends loved it, but I found the cupcakes too dense for my liking.

Smoked Duck Salad

Those of you who know me very well know that I have an obsession with smoked duck. It was one of the things I craved the most while in New Zealand for the last five months (along with good bubble tea and fried chicken and chicken rice and satay... and this list could go on for a while, so I'll stop here).

Since I'm back, and have access to my absolute favorite smoked duck again (sorry Jess, I know you love ducklings and abhor that I eat ducks), I thought I'd make a smoked duck salad.

So here's the smoked duck breast I got from Cold Storage at $6.95.

I decided to take Joanna's mom's advice to wrap the meat in foil, leaving the skin exposed as such.

Then I popped the whole thing in my toaster oven at 200°C for roughly 20 minutes. I say roughly because I put it in, turned the timer and then promptly forgot about it because I'm easily distracted.

This was how it looked like when it came out of the oven, a far cry from the pale poultry that made it in ~20 minutes ago. The skin was crisp, and it was swimming in a bath of its own fat. *drool*

I then sliced it up. You can slice it thinly or thickly, anything you like(: I prefer mine sliced a tad thick so there's more bite to it.

Look at the skin on this! yum!

Chopped up some Romaine lettuce and mandolined some carrots

Here's how it looks like after assembled in a bowl. I added some of my favorite Brie as well.

For the dressing, I just added lemon juice and pulp. I like my salads plain.

This was a really good lunch.

Lemon Cheesecake

So my best friend requested that I bake a lemon cheesecake for her, and here was the result. I honestly feel I've outdone myself this time. This cheesecake is the perfect creamy texture, not too dense or too light and is sandwiched between a sour cream topping and digestive biscuit base. 

The adjustments I made to the original recipe were to increase the amount of lemon juice used in the filling and in the glaze by one or two tablespoons (mainly because I like lemon juice) and used a little less sugar for the cheesecake (because 1 1/3 cups is ALOT of sugar). 

I also left out the 1/4 cup sugar as called for in the crust, and sprinkled in a pinch of salt instead. I don't know what brand of digestive biscuits you'd be using though, so it's always safe to do a taste test and decide if you would like your biscuit base to be saltier or sweeter. I always prefer mine to have just a hint of salt so that it contrasts nicely with the sweetness of the cheesecake.

And I skipped the vanilla extract because for the life of me I couldn't find proper vanilla extract at Phoon Huat or Cold Storage. The ingredients for one Redman bottle actually had the audacity to read: genuine imitation flavor. That's great, but doesn't tell me what's inside that bottle. If you do have the good stuff, go ahead and use it. If you don't, don't sweat it. This cheesecake will still taste absolutely divine.

Personally, I didn't quite like the glaze. It tasted good, giving a tart touch to the cake, but it looked strange. I wouldn't use this glaze again, so I recommend you give it a miss. I think what makes the glaze a turn off is how opaque it is. If it were clear, or yellow, it would look appetizing. As such, it kindaaa looks like glue. If desired, you could try adding yellow food paste and let me know how that works out.

I also don't have an electric mixture, so I beat everything by hand. It's tiring, but hey, you get a workout while you bake. So that's pretty cool. This reminds me of that terrible joke though:

Why are cooks cruel?
Because they beat the eggs and whip the cream.

Note of caution though, the recipe below was more than enough for me to bake two thin cakes - one 9 inch round springform pan and one 7 inch square springform pan. Either use the 11 to 12 inch pan as called for in the original recipe, or adjust your baking times accordingly!

Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

For the Crust:
• 2 1/4 cups digestive biscuit crumbs (about 25 biscuits, crushed)
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
For the Filling:
• 3 8·ounce packages cream cheese, softened
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind
For the Sour Cream Topping
• 1 pint sour cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
For the (very very optional) Glaze:
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon cornstarch
• 1/2 cup water 
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

PREPARATION

Prepare the Crust:
1. Combine biscuit crumbs, and melted butter. Press into bottom of an 11 to 12 inch springform pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 5 minutes. Cool before adding filling.
Make the Cheesecake:
2. Beat cream cheese until completely smooth.
3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth after each addition.
4. Continue to beat, gradually adding 1 1/3 cups sugar, then lemon juice and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
5. Stir in lemon rind.
6. Pour into cooled crust and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.
7. Blend sour cream topping ingredients.
8. Remove cake from oven. Gently spread sour cream over top of cake. Return to oven and bake about 12 minutes.
9. Cool on metal rack for 30 minutes. Refrigerate until topping is cool but not completely chilled.
10. Make glaze if you want to by combining sugar and cornstarch, blending in water and lemon juice until smooth. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly, until thickened. Cook 3 minutes. Chill until cool but not set.
11. Spread top of cheesecake with lemon glaze. Chill several hours or over­night. May also be frozen.

Credit goes to Creative Culinary for posting the recipe.