Lemon fudge bars.

I always have a special liking for lemons. Lemon tarts, lemon crepes, lemon anything. Lemon taste so good, despite people constantly saying that it is really sour. I honestly love lemons. So I finally decided to make lemon bars! I made a lemon loaf before but that turned out horribly, so I didn't dare make another batch. Plus my oven is really bad. So this recipe would be much better.

Also, I've found a replacement for healthier bakes! :) I now use greek yoghurt to replace butter and splenda to replace sugar. Though I'm still trying around about the measurements for the greek yoghurt to replace butter because of the texture. &I always forget to use splenda, so I used sugar instead for this. But I'll definitely make more in the future, so I'm looking forward for the next "healthy" bake!

Recipe for the crust (the bottom):
1/2 cup greek yoghurt
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour

Recipe for lemon fudge (the top layer):
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup flour
4 eggs
2 lemon juiced (I basically bought lemon juice in a bottle and pour it, I didn't measure how much I used, but if you like lemon... ADD MORE!)

Directions:
- Preheat your oven to 175 degrees Celsius
1. Combine greek yoghurt and softened butter together and mixed till it is smooth/creamed
2. Add in the sugar
3. Add in flour by 1/2 cup each time.
I suggest not to use a hand mixer. I used my hands to "kneed" the crust slowly. Probably the longest and most tiring process.
4. Press down the crust into your 9x13 inch pan
I used a much smaller pan because I was too lazy to wash my 9x13, and thus you can see from the picture that the crust & the fudge is actually quite thick. I should have halved my ingredients. You don't have to use baking paper because the crust do not really stick. Try to make it all even, even though it is pretty hard.
5. Put it in the oven for 15-20mins.
I put mine in for a good 20 because my crust was really thick and took longer to cook. While waiting, make your lemon fudge!
6. Combine sugar and flour together and mix it well.
7. Crack all the eggs together and add lemon juice
8. Once your crust is done, pour it over and put it back in the oven for another 20minutes (?)
I questioned mark the time because after 20minutes, mine turned out to be slightly burnt. It may be because of my lousy oven, but do check that it should not be burnt!
9. It will firm up as it cools down.
The edges of mine was pretty nice as as it cools down, it all firmed up. But the center of it was still slightly too watery. And I honestly blame it on my oven.

I'll try this recipe again another day in mind of things to be change:
- Change sugar to splenda
- Add more greek yoghurt instead of butter
- Halved my ingredients if I were to use the same pan for thinner crust & fudge
- Bake 2nd round at 18minutes

Nutella Cookies

Nutella cookies. Probably the simplest cookies you'll ever make and can never go wrong. 

I honestly hate making cookies so much because I never seem to perfect them. Can never seem to find the consistency with the dough. Made one years ago (look at archives) with my sisters, and it came out looking horrendous as well. And I also tried making sugar cookies for valentines and that also didn't turn out too well. Maybe because I substitute butter for margarine and that wasn't the wisest choice I've made. Tasted pretty horrible that I had to half coat it with chocolate to mask up the taste. It looks pretty but looks can be deceiving.

So I was contemplating between Nutella brownies or cookies, and my boyfriend decided on cookies for me. I was preparing myself for another failure of baking cookies. Started looking through google for a few recipes and comparing them and deciding on my quantity and what I should use. (That's how I usually bake, I don't follow specifically a single recipe. I usually scroll through about 5 and decide on the ingredients myself based on previous baking experiences and how I expect them to be.)

So ingredients are basically:

1. A jar of Nutella - I used 200grams

2. 3/4 cups of plain flour

3. 1 egg

+/- hazelnuts or chocolate chips 

I really wanted to add hazelnuts, but I was too lazy to get them. But I'm sure they will taste heavenly. 

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to about 180 degrees celcius 

2. Line your tray with baking paper

3. Mix all your ingredients together until it is smooth and consistent.

(I had some problems with this because I got too tired as they were getting really lumpy, so I added one tablespoon of chocolate milk and everything mixed so much more easily) 

4. Roll them into little balls

5. Use your thumb or a cup to slightly press them down. 

(Make sure you don't make them too thin whereby the edges cracks off and is not in a nice circular shape.)

6. Put in the oven for 5/6mins (most people say 6-8mins, but I feel the cookies usually would be burned by then)

7. Allow them to cool down on the grill until it hardens up. 

(I must say some times it's hard to take them off the baking paper because it's really soft and would break apart)

8. Have it with a glass of chocolate milk

You can always put them back in the Nutella jars. It fits perfectly and looks so presentable as a gift. (: 

I would never ever make any other kind of cookies anymore. (I'm kidding, I'm attempting on making lemon sugar cookies one day.)

Pearl Milk Tea

Holiday is almost over, and I/we have been drowning myself/ourselves in bubble tea everyday when we were down in London. One large cup cost £3.75! So expensive! I am back in the bubble (St Andrews) now, and once again I am deprived of any sort of Asian delights. So I went to Dundee and got myself a pack of pearls and went to Tesco to buy evaporated milk to make my own bubble tea.

Recipe
Pearls
8 tablespoons of Evaporated Milk (depending on how milky you want it to be)
2 sachets of English Breakfast Tea (or any kind of tea you want)
3 tablespoons of Sugar (depending on how sweet you want it to be)

a) To make the pearls
1. Proportion of pearls to water should always be 1:10
2. Add boiling hot water to pearls in a pot
3. Boil pearls for about 3-5 minutes till pearls float
4. Drain the cooked pearls and soak in cold water for 20 minutes

b) To make the milk tea
1. Pour 3 cups of boiling hot water into a pot and soak the sachets of tea
2. Pour enough boiling hot water into the cup of sugar, allowing sugar to dissolve and obtain sugar water
3. Add sugar water into the pot of tea
4. Remove sachets of tea
5. Add evaporated milk

c) To make pearl milk tea
1. Combine both

Tada. :)

Strawberry layered cake

So I finally decided to make a cake. I have never ever made a cake before. And I dreamt the night before that I was making a strawberry shortcake, so I woke up this morning insistent on making one despite the lack of any knowledge. I tried my friend's mum's strawberry layered cake before and it tasted amazing, and I really wanted to replicate that. Although it didn't turn out to be the same as her's, but mine was still pretty satisfying. :D

Recipe: 

For sponge cake

4 eggs

1/2 cup & slightly more of flour

1/2 cup & slightly more of sugar

1. Pre heat oven at 170 degrees celsius

2. Whip eggs and sugar together until it becomes creamy (it should increase 3 times in volume)

3. Fold in the flour

4. Pour it in a tin (I use a rectangle tin)

5. Bake it for about 17-20mins, or until your toothpick comes out clean

6. Use a knife and divide the sponge cake into 3 (or more if you wish)

7. Cool it on a cooling rag

For strawberry puree

10 strawberries 

8. Place it your food processor and blend it

For frosting

1/4 cup of sugar

150g of cream cheese

1/2 cup of whipping cream

9. Whip the cream cheese and sugar together until smooth

10. Add whipping cream until it becomes fluffy

The layers should be (from top to bottom): Cake, strawberry puree, cream, cake, strawberry, cream, cake. If you have more cream frosting (like me), just put it around it. Decorate your cake with strawberries, if you wish.

Chocolate Fudgey Brownies

I always think that there are a few types of brownies. One being the soft spongy type, which I don't really like. And the other being the super compact fudgey brownies. So I decided to find a recipe that does that. I've made quite a few changes to the online recipe to suit to my taste. Not really the most appealing looking brownies (no idea what the lightings did to the colour, but it doesn't look that red in real life)

Recipe:
150g plain chocolate (I personally like dark chocolate, but my sister likes the milk chocolate)
4 tablespoons butter (do not need to be melted)
3 eggs
225g castor sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
120g plain flour (If you want it to be less fudgey, you can add more flour)
25g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven at 160degrees (celcius)
2. Break the chocolate into a bowl and melt over a pan of hot water
3. Add butter to the melted chocolate and mix it
4. In a large bowl, whisk the egg with caster sugar and vanilla extract until creamy and slightly thickened
5. Add plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and melted chocolate into the mixture
6. Mix gently
7. Pour it into a square tin and bake it for 25-40mins (I just estimated how long by looking at the top)
8. Leave it out to cool before cutting into squares (I'd say leave it out for 1-2hrs for best results)

Pancakes day

Recipe:
2 Cups of flour
1.5 Cups of milk
4 Tablespoon of sugar
4 Tablespoon of melted butter
2 Eggs
1 Teaspoon of salt

Top with golden syrup (fake maple syrup), strawberries and blueberries. :)

<3

KL, Malaysia Day 1.

A little getaway trip with the yens to KL, Malaysia! As lazy pigs, we had to wake up at 7am to start packing our luggage. We only managed to set off late morning as we ate breakfast in Singapore first. Surprising tons of traffic for a Tuesday at the causeway point, but I am guessing it's due to June holidays. Dulcy's the driver! While daffy just slept the entire car ride up! Hahaha!

OOTD? Haha!

Stopped by at Seremban for lunch. My parents told us that they are famous for their siew bao, and that many tourists stop by here on the way to Kuala Lumpar to have lunch.

Siew bao! It's really yummy!

Can't believe these are so huge! It's chicken curry bao! Really wanted to try, but I doubt we could finish it. Maybe one day! Mum said that there are some in Singapore too!

Coconut juice. Honestly love this drink so much, but Singapore sells it really expensive. The juice of the coconut is so sweet and nice, and I always can't wait to finish the drink so that I can start eating the white part (I call it the coconut "meat"), heehee.

Malaysia local hokkien mee. Different from the Singapore's hokkien mee. But it's still so yummy.

Steam prawns!

Clams, aka in local terminology - lala. :D

This was my favourite! Salted egg squid!

Reached KL, and nice of Aunty Nellie to let us stay in her house for this trip! It's located above Publika, a new mall that is upcoming. Very very nice apartment, with 2 bed rooms.

Tired face! Just reached the apartment!

Went for dinner with Aunty Nellie and Uncle Raymond at the same Chinese restaurant we ate the previous time. I forgot to take down the address and name of the restaurant! :(

3 different ways of cooking lobster. So yums!

Sharkfin soup in coconut.

Roasted pork with mushrooms!

One of the freshest cod fish I've ever eaten, and it was so appetizing and refreshing because of the orange jest!

Once again, Malaysia local hokkien mee.

PIGGY BAOS! SO CUTE! Inside had salted egg with lan yong.

Oinks!

Dessert was durian crepe! Super yummy, and the durian was so fresh!

End of day one! Travelling practically took up half the day, and everyone was tired!