Yeah, I know this is a bit late for this year's Christmas but I reckon it's not too late for next year's! The latest issue of Flavours featured an excellent tips on decorating your Christmas cake - hassle free and dead easy.

• All you need to do is just cut out a stencil of any snowflakes pattern on a reasonably thick paper (yes, make sure it's thick enough to hold on the icing sugar), push a needle through the middle and stick the needle (together with the stencil, obviously) into the centre of the cake.
• For extra precaution, brush the stencil with some water to just slightly moisturise the surface so that the dusted sugar would stick on (instead of falling off onto the cake) when you remove the stencil.
• Using a fine sieve, dust some icing sugar onto the stencil and cake, making sure that the sugar covers the cake and forms clear edges of pattern along the stencil.

What you need:

For the filling:

• 6 shrimps, shelled, deveined, and chopped into small pieces
• 4 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 mengkuang, shredded
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 6 long beans, chopped
• Salt, sugar and white pepper powder to taste
• A dash of soy sauce
• 25-30 frozen (or fresh) spring roll skins
• Oil for deep frying

Sealing paste:

• 2 tbsp corn starch
• 5 tbsp of water

The filling

Directions:

1. Heat some extra virgin olive oil and stir fry the garlic and onion until aromatic.
2. Add in the chopped shrimps, and stir for half a minute.
3. Add in the shredded jicama, shredded carrot and long beans.
4. Season with salt, pepper, sugar and cook for 10 minutes over medium heat.
5. To assemble, lay a popiah skin on a clean cutting board. Put some filling in the middle.
6. Fold in the two sides and roll up the wrapper tightly. Seal with the paste and deep dry over medium heat until golden brown.
7. Drain on paper towels and serve immediately with Thai chili sauce!
   
   
   
   

As I'm currently in my final semester of gestation, this healthy, delicious brew had been a regular in my kitchen twice a week. I find that the supposedly "100% Pure" soy bean milk sold by the hawkers doesn't agree too well with my quesy digestion, what more the chemicals-laden version of Yeo's and Drinkho sold in supermarkets.

Therefore, going homemade is the only way to be! I learned the method of making soy bean milk from my mom... and I found there are many western recipes on the internet that sound so outlandish and weird - what, adding vanilla essense and malt powder into soy bean milk?? No way!

What you need:

• 500g soy bean, soaked overnight
• 4 or more daun pandan (screwpine leaves), shredded lengthwise and knotted
• 250g rock cane sugar
• 4-5 litres of water

Directions:

1. Remove the hulls from soaked soy beans for better extraction.
2. In a blender, blend the soy beans by batches with water until fine.
3. Using a muslin cloth strainer, strain out the milk into a big pot from the bean curd.
4. Cook the pot of milk over slow fire together with the sugar and daun pandan until the daun pandan changed colour (this will take about 45 minutes).

Note: My husband and I love the fragrance of daun pandan, so I usually use much more than 4 leaves; about half a bunch of 45sen daun pandan from Tesco which has 8-12 leaves!

I saw this spanking recipe from Lilian's a few months ago and had been making it twice since. If you love nasi lemak, this is something you should try at home because then you'll realise how much you've been cheated from those you bought outside!

The rice turned out fluffy with the most fragrant aroma from the coconut milk and pandan leaves. I promise you, this is not a nasi lemak that you can get anywhere other than your own kitchen!

What you need:

• 200 ml coconut milk
• 3 cups of rice (ideally, wash and soak the rice in the water for 2 hours before cooking so that it is easier to cook)
• 3 cups water
• 1 tsp fenugreek (biji halba)
• 1 inch of ginger, smashed
• 1 shallot, quartered
• 4 pandan leaves, torn lengthwise into strips and knotted
• 1/2 tsp salt
• A little chicken granules (optional)

Directions:
Just put everything into the rice cooker and cook like you usually cook rice, but do keep an eye on it. What I did was open up the lid and stir the ingredients every once a while to ensure full incorporation of the coconut milk.

Sometimes the rice is still half-cooked after the button popped up - add some water, cook again and keep on checking/stirring the rice. I served my nasi lemak with Yeo's curry chicken and a hard-boiled egg. Absolutely yummy!

The first time I tasted the soup, it reminded me of the delicious ginger tea that swanky spas like Sembunyi, Martha Tilaar and Indrani will serve their clients after and before treatments.

I absolutely adored those ginger tea and was really thrilled that I accidentally duplicated the taste from this Chinese thongsui that is said to be good for pregnant ladies as it get rids of flatulence...and the recipe is drop dead simple too!

What you need:

• 1 sweet potato, cut into chunks
• A big piece of ginger, crushed
• A fistful (or more) of cane sugar
• 2 pandan leaves, torn lengtwise into strips then knotted
• 1 litre of water

Directions:

Before going to bed, just dump everything into a slow cooker and and you'll have a delicious ginger tea (with sweet potatoes, hehehe) ala 5-star spas in the morning! You can adjust the taste to your preference. If you prefer thick broth with pungent aroma of the ginger, use less water and more crushed ginger.

The pictures don't look as appetising as the ones I saw in thebakerwhocooks.blogspot.com because I baked my cupcakes for too long in an oven that was too hot! Hope to bake another batch real soon that looks exactly just like in Cheryl's post . (I love the "watery" look of Nutella even though the cake looks a bit pale)

I didn't use Nutella though, I used another brand of chocolate spread called JW Milk that tasted just as good.

What you need:

• 140 g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 200 g sifted all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Nutella, approx. 1/3 cup

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 160deg Celcius. Line 12-hole muffin tins with papercups.
2. Cream together butter and sugar until light for about 2 minutes.
3. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don't worry if the batter doesn't look smooth.
4. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.
5. Using an ice cream scoop, fill each papercup with batter.
6. Top each cake with 1 1/2 tsp Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.Remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 12.

This cheesecake is very dense and heavy; I really prefer the earlier cheesecake that I blogged. However, the effect of alternating the chocolate and regular batter for this recipe is really ingenius!

The top of my cheesecake didn't turn out as it was intended to be (check out the original version and recipe of Bulls Eye Cheesecake here). My slightly altered recipe used sweetened creamer instead of condensed milk because I happened to have a can of it stored in my pantry!

What you need:

For the base:

• 250g crushed digestive biscuit crumbs
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 120g butter, melted

For the cheese filling:

• 500g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 can sweetened creamer or condensed milk
• 3 eggs
• 125g cooking chocolate, melted
• Juice of 1 lemon (or a few drops of vanilla essense if you prefer)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 170deg Celcius. Combine crumbs, sugar and butter; press firmly on bottom of 9-inch springform or loose bottom pan.
2. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn down the oven to 150deg Celcius.
3. Beat cream cheese in large bowl until fluffy.
4. Spoon half the batter into melted chocolate, blend well.
5. Add in the lemon juice to the other half of the batter, blend well.
6. Pour alternately the chocolate and lemon batter into the middle of prepared crust.
7. Bake for 50 - 55 minutes or until centre is slightly jiggly but perimeter is set.
8. Cool for 1 hour and chill at least 4 hours to allow flavours develop.

Yeah, my first attempt in waffle making which turned out to be 67.952% satisfactory I would say. Couldn't resist not making this since I have the waffle making plate in the 4-in-1 Snack Maker Machine from Cosway. I googled for "crispy waffle" and this was the first result I got.

I followed the exact recipe but you might want to reduce the yeast a little since I found the smell was pretty overpowering.

What you need:

• 1 tsp. instant yeast (Not to be confused with active dry yeast. Make sure it says "Instant")
• 2-1/4 cups flour
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 stick (that's 2 oz. or 113.5g to be exact) butter, melted, then cooled
• 2 cups warm whole milk
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, separated

Directions:

1. Stir together the dry ingredients: flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Stir the melted butter into the dry ingredients. Stir in the warm milk and vanilla until combined.
2. Cover with plastic wrap. Leave overnight out on the counter.
3. The next morning, the batter should look frothy. Heat and grease waffle iron.
4. Add the egg yolks to the batter. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold carefully into the batter. This batter will rise a little more than usual, so test out a waffle or two before you really get started.

Note: For really crispy waffle, don't pour too much batter into the iron and serve immediately with whatever trimmings that you fancy!

I was looking for a muffin recipe that doesn't require any cooking oil or too much butter and I found Blueberry Muffin in Kuali.com. However, I used raspberry filling and chocolate chips instead. Due to the low fat content, the muffins were not very fluffy and they're best finished eaten on the day itself!

What you need:

• 175g plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 50g butter, melted
• 170ml UHT milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• Dollops of raspberry filling
• Chocolate chips, as much as you like
  

Directions:

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper cups. Preheat oven to 200 ºC.
2. Whisk eggs until blended, then add the melted butter, essence and milk. Stir well into combine.
3. Make a well in the centre of the sifted ingredients and pour in the egg mixture. Use a large metal spoon to stir until the flour is moistened and not lumpy or until the mixture becomes smooth.
4. Spoon half the batter into 6 muffin cups, then drop a dollop of raspberry filling into each. Use a skewer to swirl the raspberry into the batter.
5. For the second half of the batter, mix well the chocolate chips into it. Spoon into the remaining muffin cups.
6. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins spring back when they are pressed lightly. Again, best eaten on the day of baking itself!