Red Velvet Cake

I consider this as my ultimate accomplishment up to date! Why? Because Red Velvet cake is my favorite cake. Before I made this cake, I didn't know that Red Velvet cake is supposed to taste chocolatey because it's basically a chocolate cake with daring red color (from food coloring). All I know is that I fell in love with the velvety red color and heavenly cream cheese white contrast frosting.

Ingredients:

• 125 gr butter, softened
• 300 gr caster sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 tablespoons red food coloring
• 2 tablespoons best quality cocoa powder
• 188 gr plain flour
• 125ml buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1/2 tablespoon vinegar

Icing:

• 200 gr cream cheese
• 350 gr white chocolate
• 250 gr butter, softened

How to make:

• Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celcius. Grease and flour three 20cm tins.
• In a large bowl, cream butter with sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix food coloring with cocoa and add to mixture.
• Add flour alternately with buttermilk. Add vanilla and salt.
• Mix bicarbonate of soda with vinegar, and gently stir into mixture. Be careful not to over mix. Divide cake mixture into three prepared tins. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool.
• To make the White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing: Melt the white chocolate and allow to cool to lukewarm. In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in melted white chocolate and softened butter. Beat until it is the consistency of whipped cream, then use to fill and ice the cake. 

 

Notes:

• When I looked at the original recipe, the amount of sugar is too much for me. So, I only went with half recipe. And after reading some of the reviews, I adjusted some of the ingredients. The recipe above is the half recipe and already adjusted by me.
• Even though the baking time is stated 25 minutes, mine didn't came out baked until 50 minutes. A couple of other reviewers stated the same problem. Maybe it depends on the height of the batter in the pan (because I was using an 18 cm pan and I only divided the batter into 2 batches). So, just make sure you check your cake done-ness by inserting toothpick and check whether it comes out clean.
• If your red food coloring is strong enough to give the red color just with 1 tbsp, I suggest to reduce the amount to 1 tbsp.

To my surprise, this cake is far the best that I have ever tasted (even compare to the store bought). It tastes chocolatey and the velvety red color is amazing. Enjoy!

Source: Allrecipes

Scrambled Mixed Fried Noodles+Rice

Had a small amount of leftover noodles & cabbage after making Mie Jawa, so I decided to mix it with leftover rice from before making Mie Jawa (LOL) and cook nasi-mie goreng. The mixed texture of rice and noodles feels unique in the mouth.

Ingredients:

• Leftovers (white rice & noodle)
• Cabbage
• 1 stick of carrot, diced
• 200gr shrimp
• Sausage, bakso (optional)
• 2-3 sticks of long green onion
• 1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce (kecap asin)
• 2 tbsp fish sauce (kecap ikan)
• Black pepper
• A little bit of white pepper
• Olive oil

Ground together:

• 2 very hot chillies (you can adjust)
• 5 cloves of shallots
• 5 cloves of garlic
• Salt

How to make:

• Heat oil, saute the grounded spices until aromatic. 
• Add shrimp, sausages, and bakso. Add long green onion, stir a while. Add cabbage and diced carrot.
• Mix in the leftover rice and noodle. Add soy sauce and fish sauce. Sprinkle black pepper & white pepper. Continue stirring until everything is mixed well.

Note:

• You can change the vegetable to any vegetables that you like. Suggestion: peas, corn, etc.
• You can add other meat or seafood. Suggestion: squid, chicken.

Dealing with Yeast

I always take it easy (or underestimate) when dealing with yeast. I've made some food with yeast back in Indonesia and there's no problem at all. But in a couple of fine moments in Sydney, I failed big time when making my pizza crust! The batter did not rise at all - bantet. It didn't happen only once. It happened twice! I can't accept that, given that I had no problem at all back in Indonesia. So, I had to find out what's causing it. Is it the yeast? Or the water?

First rule that you must know: if you mix sugar, yeast, and warm water, the mixture MUST form foam. If it doesn't form any foam, then there's something wrong with either your yeast or your water.

After Google-ing, I found out in a website that some of the cause of dough not rising is that the yeast is old or the water is too hot. My yeast can't be too old, I just bought it for a couple of days. What might be wrong is the temperature of the water. I wanted to check whether it is true. So, I came up with this experiment:

Each cup contains 1/2 tsp of yeast and 2 tbsp of water in different temperature. In scientific term, the water temperature is the variable here (man, I feel like going back to school).

• Top cup: hot water (almost boiling)
• Bottom cup: warm-to-hot water, your finger can stand the temperature for 15-30 seconds until you have to pull it out
• Left cup: room temperature water
• Right cup: just slightly above the temperature of the left cup

From all the cups, only the top cup with hot water didn't form foam. The foam appeared about after 30 secs to 1 minute, but I think it took longer for colder water. The top cup was the mixture that I got when I first made my pizza crust! Ok, so now I realized that the water was too hot for the yeast. And now you too know that foaming the yeast require the right temperature.

Conclusion: even though the yeast will still foam with water around room temperature, it's still very recommended to use warm water.

For other troubleshooting tips for bread yeasting: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/yeast-breads-10-troubleshooting-tips.html.

Strawberry Shortcake

Actually, I found this recipe on YouTube from one of my favorite YouTube-r, ochikeron.

You can view her video how to make this very easy strawberry shortcake on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE8uha6l32M.

Ingredients:

Cake:

• 2 eggs (room temperature)
• 60 gr sugar
• 60 gr flour
• 20 gr melted butter

Syrup:

• 20ml hot water
• 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 tsp rum (optional)

Decoration:

• Fresh strawberries
• 300ml fresh cream
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp rum (optional)

How to make:

• Line cake pan with parchment paper & heat oven to 170 degrees Celcius.
• Beat the eggs, add sugar and mix well. Place the bowl over hot water and melt the sugar.
• Beat the eggs on high speed until white and fluffy. Then beat on low for a mintus to set.
• Sift in flour, then gently mix with wire whisk. Sprinkle the melted butter and mix.
• Pour the batter into a pan. Drop the pan lightly to drop the air bubbles. Bake for 25 minute.
• Let cool in wire rack. After it cools down, wrap with cling wrap and store in refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
• Mix all the syrup ingredients.
• Mix fresh cream, sugar, vanilla extract, and rum. Put the bowl in top of ice water and whisk the mixture until it forms soft peak.
• Slice the cake into 2 layers. Brush the syrup on the sponge side of the cake.
• Spread cream on one of the cake and make the strawberry layer. Put the other layer of cake on top of the strawberry & cream layer. Then coat the rest of the cake with the remaining cream.
• Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before serving.

Wow, the instruction seems so long. I guess it's better to watch the video directly! This shortcake is very yummy and refreshing. I think it's a must to try. Enjoy!

Freezing Spices

My mom was once a housewife who lived abroad as well. She knows how it feels like living with difficulty to find hometown spices. And now she's transferring her knowledge to her daughter who is living a life that she once had.

My freezer is not only filled with meat and frozen treats, but it's also full with frozen spices!

Yes, my mom taught me to keep every fresh spices that could dry or rot in refrigerator to be kept in freezer.

What spices did my mom suggests I keep in my freezer?

KAFFIR LIME LEAVES (DAUN JERUK)

If you don't keep in freezer this will definitely dry out. So, to keep it "fresh", put the lime leaves inside plastic bag and freeze it. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

LEMONGRASS (SEREH)

The first time I was able to find lemongrass was in Sydney's Paddy's Market. And because I was afraid that I couldn't find it someplace else when I ran out of it, I decided to buy 3 bunch (each bunch consists of 7 sticks). Keep it in your freezer, no need to put it in plastic bags. Every time you need to cook with it, just take it out of the freezer and it will defrost in no time.

CHILLIES

I keep a lot of chillies in my freezer. In addition to that, I also keep basic cooking mix made out of red and green chillies. So you can imagine the amount of chillies in my kitchen! Meaning that I can't live without it. For chillies, I prepare cleaned ex-takeaway transparent food containers (or you can use plastic ziplock bags). Clean the chillies under running water and cut off the stem, to make it more effective when packing it. Put the chillies inside the containers and close the lid. If you want to use the chillies you can defrost it about 15 seconds in the microwave.

Mie Jawa

Honestly, I'm running out of cooking ideas even though there are still lots of recipes from Bu Sisca's book that I haven't tried! So, I asked my mom for her yummy Mie Jawa recipe. This recipe will be out of my kitchen first thing before the others (which the picture is already uploaded on my Facebook) because my friend from far Makassar had requested it this morning. 

Hope you enjoy ya Mbak ;)

Ingredients:

Soup:

• 500gr boneless chicken breast
• 2 chicken drumstick
• 2 liters water
• 4 long green onion (daun bawang)
• 8 cloves garlic
• 1 clove red onion
• 1/2 tsp white pepper (merica)
• 1-1 1/2 tsp sweet soy sauce
• 1 tomato
• 2 sticks of celery
• Salt
• Sugar
• Olive oil

 Complements:

• Egg noodles
• Cabbage, chopped and boiled until soft
• Fried shallots (bawang goreng)
• Water-boiled egg (optional)

How to make:

• Boil chicken with salt until chicken is tender. When it's done, take the chicken out and break it into small pieces with hands.
• Ground garlic, red onion, and white pepper together.
• Saute the ground spices and chopped green onion with a bit of oil until aromatic.
• Pour the sauteed mix into the chicken broth.
• Add diced tomato and sweet soy sauce. Stir and bring to boil.
• Add chopped celery. Then, add salt to the desired amount of saltiness and sugar to get the balance of taste.
• In individual bowl, prepare egg noodles, cabbage, and pieces of chicken. Pour the soup and sprinkle fried shallots on top.

Notes:

• You can change the chicken according to your taste (or what you have in your fridge :P). I used drumstick for making the broth and the chicken fillet for more meat.
• Olive oil can be substituted with cooking oil. I used olive oil because it's healthier.
• Anyway, the measures above is my estimation (because my mom never give the exact amount of ingredients). But if you want to enhance the taste, just add more spices, hehehe.
• Most importantly, use ayam kampung any way possible! They taste a lot better than the huge injected chicken in Australia.

Sambal Ijo

The last time I went to Sydney Paddy's Market, I bought a kilo of green chillies. When I got home, I forgot that I still have 1 container of it in the freezer! I had to get rid of it (read: cook), otherwise my newly bought 2 kilo of chillies (green, red, and very hot) won't fit into the freezer. For your information, I buy meat for 1.5 months stock. So you can imagine how full my freezer is. 

I kinda wanted to make those ayam cabe ijo, hmmm... yum yum yum. So, I thought of making a big batch of bumbu dasar ijo (basic green spices)~ I made this up, totally. Now, every time I want to make either fried meat with cabe ijo (green chillies balado) or just sambal cabe ijo (green chillies condiments) I can just scoop a couple spoonful of this ready-to-use spices.

Ingredients:

• 22 sticks of green chillies
• 10 small very hot green chillie (cabe rawit)
• 8-10 garlic cloves
• 8-10 shallot/red onion cloves
• 3-4 kaffir lime leaves (daun jeruk)
• 1-2 tsp salt (you can adjust to your taste)
• 1/2 -1 tsp sugar
• a bit of vetsin
• 100ml cooking oil for frying

How to make:

• Combine all ingredients in food processor and blend
• Heat oil and fry the blended spices until aromatic
• Let it cool, then transfer to a plastic container and keep refrigerated for long use

Notes:

• Very sorry for the approximation of the ingredients because I didn't really pay attention to how much ingredients I poured into the food processor :P
• The small very hot chillies is optional if you wanted to be more spicy 
• To make it healthier, I substituted the cooking oil with olive oil
• Pour the cooking oil enough to flood over the spices

My husband loves this sambal ijo so much to the extent telling me to whip up more even though I still have one container in the fridge! It's not like we're gonna eat sambal ijo everyday, dear, hahaha.