Little Joy Factory

It's end of the year, and company do not allow to carry over any balanced annual leave to next year. So, I decided to take the last 2 weeks of December off and be a SAHM (Stay At Home Mum).  It feels good to spend more time with children, and prepare meals personally for the whole family. On some days, I would "take order" from everyone before meals; On other days, I would just cook based on what I have in the fridge. In-between meals, I would flip my recipe book and do some leisure cooking. I really enjoyed being a SAHM for this 2 weeks. My younger one is a big fan of sausage buns.Whenever we walk into a bakery shop, she would order sausage buns without doubt. As expected, she requested for them again when I asked her what bread she wants me to bake today. I have some cocktail chicken sausages bought from TESCO, JB during our 2D1N trip to Malaysia. These sausages are of premium quality and make perfect for mini sausage buns. ...

Just returned from 2D1N trip to Hello Kitty Town and Legoland in Malaysia.Through this trip, realized my daughters have grown up faster than I thought. Both of them feel the two theme parks sort of "boring". They have no intention for a 2nd visit, especially Hello Kitty Town. Nothing wrong with the two theme parks, it's just that they are designed for younger children, at least for the crowd younger than my two daughters. Overall, it's a memorable family outing as we spent Mayan "doomsday" in theme parks and 5-star hotel rather than the bomb shelter at home. The world is intact, so are we! Though it's a short trip to neighbouring country, we were exhausted due to the heavy jam at the customs. 30 minutes drive from hotel to home turned out to be 3 hours, and reached home at almost 2:00am in the morning. Well, after a good 10hr sleep, woke up and felt fresh again. Still have time for some Christmas cookies. Scottish shortbread is in my ...

December is my favourite month of the year, not only because of Christmas, but also because my birthday falls in this month. One celebration followed by another, and New Year's Day is just around the corner!  Listening to Celine Dion's "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" again and again , can't help asking myself what I have done in 2012? So this is Christmas And what have you done Another year over A new one just begun And so this is Christmas I hope you have fun The near and the dear ones The old and the young ... It's time to reflect the past, and also time to look forward. To me, Christmas fruitcake is a good way of getting into the spirit of Christmas. How about you? Almost one month ago, I have already soaked dried mixed fruits in rum, in preparing for this classic, irresistible cake. After celebrated my birthday, on this rainy Sunday afternoon, I spent one and half hour baked this cake. It's wonderful on a wet day...

Among major Chinese festivals, my love for Mid-Autumn Festival is just next to Lunar New Year. It is all attributed to my madness for mooncakes. Every year, I start to buy mooncakes as long as they appear in the market, even one month before the festival. My mom ever joked that the mooncakes I have eaten over the years should be about the same size as me if they were piled up. This year, the idea of baking my own mooncake popped up for the first time. After some research online, I decided to register for a baking class since it’s just two weeks away from Mid-Autumn Festival. The 4-hr hands-on session turned out to be very fruitful. In the following two weeks, I made 3 types of mooncakes at home: Snow Skin mooncakes , Cantonese style mooncakes and Shanghai walnut mooncakes. Maybe we are too used to the traditional mooncakes, Shanghai Walnut mooncake seems to be the most popular one in my family. Everyone loves it at first bite. Its pastry, which has rich buttery...

My grandpa used to say: "No food is more delicious than dumplings;  n o position is more comfortable than   lying down”. It’s a rhyme if translated into mandarin: “好吃不如饺子，舒服不如倒着”. This is how much we northern china people love dumplings, homemade dumplings. In my family, it’s a tradition to make dumplings on happy occasions like Lunar New Year and family members’ birthdays. We also make dumplings when bid farewell for family members who are travelling away from home. Other than these special moments, dumplings are made whenever we have spare time. Served either as main dish or side dish, dumplings have never failed to satisfy our appetites. Typical northern chinese dumplings are famous for its bigger size, thinner skin with rich and juicy fillings. There are a variety of fillings in chinese dumplings, which we adjust according to our tastes. When making dumplings, the most difficult part is to prepare the skin. It takes years of prac...

Since young, I like to play with dough. It's very satisfactory for me to knead a messy sticky dough into a smooth elastic ball. The best part is proofing. Watching a dough growing like a self inflatable balloon, isn't it interesting? Thanks to the tropical weather in this "red dot", the proofing process takes less than an hour under room temperature! That reminds me of those old days back in my hometown, especially during winter time. To make those buns, we had to cover the dough with thick cotton quilt, and put it near the heater for 3-4 hours... Okay, let's come back to our beautiful day today. It's a Sunny Saturday morning. After a late breakfast, I decided to bake something for high tea. In my refrigerator, some spring onions, eggs, ham and cheese lying around quietly. "How about Cheese & Ham buns or Spring onion & Ham buns ?" The idea just crossed my mind, and the next moment, I have already flipped my recipe book to Soft...

Yam Paste with Ginkgo Nuts is often seen in an exquisite 10 course Chinese dinner menu. Garnished with coconut milk, it has a creamy consistency with rich coconut milk flavor. It's so delicious that whenever I attend a wedding dinner, I can easily finish 2 servings of this dessert even though it is served at mid-night! To relieve cravings for such high calorie food,  the only way is to make it a slighly healthy version myself. After much reserach and several trials,  I developed my own simple, healthy,  yummy yam paste recipe. Share with you, let's enjoy together. YAM PASTE WITH GINKGO NUTS INGREDIENTS - Yam (~800g-1kg ) - ½ cup of olive oil (replace pork lard, I did not fry shallot in oil as it tastes the same to me) - ½ cup of sugar (reduced sugar) - ½ cup of water (optional, depends on your liking of texture) - ½ cup coconut milk GARNISH - Ginkgo nuts - Coconut milk DIRECTIONS Remove yam skin and cut into ...

  During my confinement days, my mom’s friend brought me a jar of homemade fermented rice. It has a sweet taste with light alcoholic smell. She said it helps to stimulate the production of breastmilk. Can eat by the spoon, or make popular Chinese desserts by adding it to boiled egg soup (酒酿鸡蛋）or rice balls soup (酒酿圆子). There is no added sugar in fermented rice, the sweetness is purely from the glutinous rice itself during fermentation. I am fascinated by fermented rice not only because of its unique taste, but also its attractive benefits.  Chinese believe fermented rice helps promote blood circulation and is great for prolonging young and smooth skin. Ever since then, sweet fermented rice soup has become my "secret" beauty dessert. FERMENTED RICE INGREDIENTS - 500g glutinous rice - Rice yeast (~10-15g), crushed to powder (I get it from YUE HWA )                      ...

Vegetables are some of the healthiest foods, but many children including my two don’t like them at all. As parents, we are getting more and more creative in preparing food. In my family, other than dumplings , in which we can put all kinds of vegetables and still my children love them. Another alternative is Vegetable Pancake. Unlike dumplings , vegetable pancake is easy to prepare, and yet mouth-watering. I usually whip up this healthy tasty pancake within half an hour. Sounds attractive?   VEGETABLE PANCAKE (makes 5-6 servings) Batter - 2 cups all-purpose flour - 2 teaspoons baking powder - 3 eggs, lightly beaten - 2 cups water Seasonings - 1 tablespoon vegetable oil - 1 teaspoon salt - 1 teaspoon 5-spices powder 五香粉 - 1 teaspoon black pepper powder - 1 teaspoon Turmeric Powder 黄姜粉 (optional) Vegetables - 1 medium carrot, coarsely grated - 5 scallions (green tops cut into 3 inches,   sliced lengthwise) - 3 large green cabbage l...

I don't remember exactly when I started baking pineapple tarts. All I know is, it becomes top in my baking list for Chinese New Year. My motivation for baking pineapple tarts is very simple: I cannot resist these rich, buttery and melt-in-the-mouth cookies. Also, I feel the pineapple tarts from commercial bakeries are usually too sweet for me. Baking them myself, I am able to control the sweetness and the texture of the pineapple tarts as well as the quality of the ingredients used.     I obtained my precious recipe from a friend in Malaysia. Her mom is good at baking all kinds of traditional festival cookies. In addition to pineapple tarts, I also learned peanut cookies from her mom. My recipes have been testified by my friend:). She says the taste is very close to her mom's version. PINEAPPLE TARTS (CLOSED- VERSION) INGREDIENTS Pastry 400g plain flour 250g butter, softened 2 egg yolks a pinch of salt (1/4 tsp, omit if butter is sa...

  A friend of mine was thinking of buying a breadmaker years ago. I remember the price she mentioned was around $800. "Oh, my God, with $800, we can buy loads of breads every day for months!" In my impression, a “toy“ machine at this price, should be able to do everything from kneading, proofing and shaping. We only need to pour in all the ingredients, press a few buttons, and the doughs would be ready for baking. Well, if the breadmaker does not do wonders, let our bear hands do then! The recipe I share with you here is the simplest one, which does not require much kneading, yet the bread is one of my favorites. The texture is in-between soft and chewy, and it smells wonderful. Usually I make 2 loaves of this bread, and they will be gone within a day or two . Making bread gives me a lot more satisfaction than making cakes, really.  Don't believe me?  Try it yourself ! RAISIN LOAF (makes two loaves) INGREDIENTS -...

I am a born lover for cheese, butter and milk, though I am a typical Chinese from northeastern part of China. That's a place where most of us love dumplings , buns ( 馒头, with no sugar, no butter)  and plain rice, of course. My mom told me she had no breastmilk for me when I was born. I was fed with milk powder as a baby. Maybe that explains? Anyway, I fell in love with cheesecake at first bite of it, and started baking when I was in U.S several years ago. It's so easy to bake a cheesecake there because you can simply grab a ready-made crust from the supermarket at the cost of less than $2?  I baked almost every week with the same recipe and shared with friends. Until now, I always keep a few packs of cream cheese in my fridge. Whenever anyone in my family misses cheesecake, I bake one within an hour. We have never been tired of it. Recently, I shared this recipe with a friend who has almost zero baking experienc...

 Several years ago, I made some "pizza" with soft bread. Everyone loved it, but ... "Can you make the thick crust as those selling in the market? It would be the real Pizza then!" . They commented while gulped down my "pizzas". At that time, I was fascinated by different type of cakes, never thought of making doughs. It seemed beyond my reach. After shifted  my focus from cake to bread, one night,  I looked at a Pizza crust recipe for the first time. I can't believe I never thought of making Pizza crust myself ! Maybe it's what Chinese says "难者不会，会者不难"？ I made two fantastic REAL thick crust pizzas the next day. Everyone said my pizzas tasted just like those selling in the restaurant!  "You should have done it earlier !"  THICK CRUST PIZZA       Recipe adapted from Happy Home Baking   INGREDIENTS (makes two 9'' or 10'' thick pizza crust) - 250g bread flour - 50g plain flour - 1/2...

Lately, have been craving for blueberry muffins. I recalled those big muffins sold at Cosco. One box of 6 muffins for USD5.99. Usually, quite difficult for me to finish them within one day. So, they often became my breakfast for the next few days. Tried to bake muffins in the past, not sure why the muffins always  turned out to be dense. Since they were not popular, most of the time, I had to finish them myself. It happened a few times, I thought I was not good at muffin baking, and stopped for sometime until a few days ago. This time, I decided to try a different recipe with step-by-step guide and pictures. The batter was so much thicker than the previous ones, that was the first impression I had with this new recipe! 10 minutes into baking,  I saw the muffins rise like big mushrooms!  Though it's almost 9pm, I finshed one freshly from the oven. It brought back good memories of U.S Cosco muffins! BLUEBERRY MUFFINS   INGREDIENTS (makes 8-10 mu...