Butter Cake （牛油蛋糕）- (forget Sara Lee!!)

Upon a friend's request, I found a butter cake recipe from someone's blog but I made some small changes to the recipe and experimented it tonight! To my surprise, it worked! It's actually really easy to make, so don't ever buy those frozen Sara Lee cakes again! This one tastes 100x better and has a cake crust that Sara Lee can't do!

Ingredients:

4 eggs

200g butter (2 sticks) at room temperature

2 cups self-raising flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup white sugar

4 tbsp milk

pinch of salt

Method:

• Separate egg yolks and egg whites in separate bowls. Beat egg whites until soft peaks are formed and set aside.
• Beat butter, egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl with electric mixer until creamy and add vanilla extract and pinch of salt.
• While beating the egg batter, slowly add flour and milk until all the flour has been added (the batter will be quite dense and heavy).
• Add the egg whites last and slowly beat into the egg batter (do not mix too long though)
• Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 160C for 1 hour or until the middle of cake is thoroughly cooked (test it by sticking a knife or skewer to the middle of cake)

Moist Carrot Bread

I'm always hungry after workout from my yoga classes and I need something healthy and quick to boost my energy and fill my stomach. I love carrot cake but it's so hard to find a coffee shop that makes good carrot cake without the sugar and the fat. If you like carrot cake and want to be health conscious, you must try the below recipe which I came up and they came out really delicious! I'm not a fan of cream cheese frosting so I'm not going to put it on my recipe.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

2.5 cups of grated carrots

Zest of one lemon

1 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup apple sauce

1/2 cup buttermilk or homo milk

1/2 stick butter (room temperature)

2 cups self-raising flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Method:

• Mix eggs, butter, sugar, apple sauce, lemon zest, grated carrots.
• Add flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg into the wet mixture
• Mix by hand until you cannot see any white flour and mix in buttermilk and continue mixing until the mixture is similar to cake batter consistency (not too runny)
• Add in the walnuts last and pour the batter into a baking tray or loaf pan. Bake for 30-40 mins at 180C.

Mom's best dumpling 餃子 (northern style)

Seriously, no one can beat my mom's dumplings! They are so good and the pictures are proofs! I can eat at least 15 of them each time and I'm never tired of them! They are super healthy and filling, consisting of minced pork, wax beans, ginger, cilandro and a dried salty vegetable (津菜) made from the root of choy sum.

First, finely dice the ginger, cilandro stems, and the beans. Then mix them into the minced pork (1 pound) with an egg and add 1/2 tsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper. Beat the mixture with chopsticks until it becomes sticky and binded together. For the dumpling wraps, my mom buys them fresh from the wet market and if you want to keep them in the fridge for a few days, make sure you have some dry paper towel and keep them in a zip lock bag to prevent drying.

Now, here's the fun part!! I love doing this with my mom as we always compete on who has the best looking dumplings! The pictures below are simple illustrations on how to wrap dumplings properly (takes some practicing but don't worry if you can't make them look the same as they will still taste good)!! Place the wrap on your palm, wet the edge with water, put a small portion of the meat mixture in the middle then fold the edge over to touch in the middle, but do not press all the edges. Put your finger in between the edge and press the excess over and repeat this like below.

Boil the dumplings in a pot of hot water until the dumplings pop up to the surface, and then you can serve them with chicken broth or dip them in vinegar, soy sauce and chili sauce! If you have left overs, reheat them in a frying pan to make pot stickers! They are soooooo good!