Desserts – Page 7 – The Occasional Cook

Cakes and Cookies, Desserts, Malay, Singapore

Durian fritters

February 20, 2014March 3, 2021 7shasha7

An easy tea time staple in Malay homes will be the jemput–jemput pisang or banana fritters. I remember an aunt who married an American and then moved to Wyoming. She told me she made these for her neighbours and they loved them. They were also tickled by the literal translated name. Jemput means invite and so she’d tell them ‘banana invite-invite.’ When I got older, I learnt that jemput also means to take a small amount of something. So basically it means small amounts of batter.

That afternoon I decided to make a variation using durian. The Southeast Asian king of fruits so despised by Westerners (and some locals too!)

I took the flesh out from its seed and added some plain flour, a tiny bit of brown sugar and a pinch of salt. Then fry small amounts of the batter in hot oil. It was a success!

Cakes and Cookies, Desserts

Chocolate chip cranberry cookies

February 2, 2014February 2, 2014 7shasha7

I decided to make cookies one day. Following not very closely the Hershey’s recipe at the back of the pack. I prefer using all town sugar rather than the mix of castor sugar and brown sugar. The result was not a sweet cookie-perfect for us since we all don’t have a sweet tooth.

The recipe

21/4 plain flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
250g butter
3/4 x 2 brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
Cranberries
Almonds and hazelnuts
Chocolate chips (2 packs)

Bread and Batter, breakfast, Desserts, Snack

Lemony Scones

January 19, 2014March 3, 2021 7shasha7

This morning for breakfast I made scones. This time I tweaked a recipe from the Web, so essentially they are not copyrighted hahaha. Apparently if you change three measurements or ingredients from the original, it’s yours.

So here’s mine recipe:

350 g self raising flour
A teaspoon of baking powder
100 g butter
1 tbsp caster sugar
180 ml skim milk
1tsp vanilla essence
1grated lemon zest
Juice from one lemon

In a bowl I grated the butter into the flour and baking powder mix and used the rubbing in method. Then I added the sugar. The milk I warmed it up a bit and then added the vanilla essence, lemon zest and lemon juice. Or scones you have to work vey quickly and if you live in a hot and humid country like me you’ve got to make sure that all this is done in less than 5 min. I brushed milk onto the unbaked scones. And then bake it a hot 220 oven.

The result was soft lemony buttery scones. 🙂

breakfast, Desserts, food

Introducing cooking to the kids

January 5, 2014 7shasha7

During the December school hols, I wanted something fun and educational for the Little Girl. So I got her this book from Kino.

A few days after, Little Girl wanted to make this badly for dessert. It was supposed to look like this.

What she served me was this.

In all fairness, she did follow the recipe to the T but let’s just say she still needs more practice in the kitchen. 😉

Here’s the recipe if you have Little Girls and/or Little Boys.

breakfast, Cakes and Cookies, Desserts, Sides

Super soft buttery buttermilk biscuits

January 5, 2014January 5, 2014 7shasha7

This morning I wanted to use some leftover buttermilk. So I made biscuits. This time round I was determined to make them like KFCs or Texas chicken.

In a bowl I added 2.5 cups of self raising flour then grated 100g of French butter and rubbed the mixture in. For good measure, I added a bit more butter to the crumbly mixture. Then quickly I stirred in the fridge cold buttermilk. Do not over stir. The mixture was wet but just nice to be scooped with my ice cream spoon. Drop them onto greased trays and pop into a hot oven (190 degrees).

I made two kinds. After the first tray, I added shredded cheddar and black pepper to the remaining mix.

The result was super moist biscuits. Even after six hours, they were still soft and not dry. Of course, it’s best to pop them in the toaster first. Drizzle with honey or eat with butter and jam. Yum!