Little Joy Factory

This chocolate cake is baked to award my two daughters. They helped in cleaning the house by tidying up their study room.  It feels good to spruce up and clean up the house to welcome New Year. 2013 has come to an end.   On one hand,  I am  full of anticipation for what New Year has to offer.  On the other hand,  I feel nostalgic as I reflect the past year.  I guess it's common for adults to have mixed feelings about New Year. As for kids, they are always so happy. A piece of simple homemade chocolate cake can put big smiles on their faces. I am not a big fan of chocolate cake. That's why I have never blogged about a chocolate cake before.   I chose this cake to get started as it's so easy.  Just like baking a butter cake, all the ingredients can be processed in a electric mixing bowl.  No extra step such as melt...

Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all my lovely readers!  Hope you are enjoying the holiday season! Today is Boxing Day, a day for us to spend with family and friends and eating up the leftovers :).  I have 200g mixed fruits, left from baking two Christmas fruit cakes last week (one for my family, one for my colleagues. It was a hit in the office, everyone loved it). Have you tried flavorful Korean rice cake bars?  Korean rice cake bars have wonderful coconut milk and fruity flavour. They are crispy on the outside, and chewy  gooey inside. Trust me, they are perfect party starters! I love this recipe, it's so simple and the filling can be adapted to any choice of nuts and dried fruits. You can adjust the amount of sugar depends on the sweetness you desire. For me, I did not add sugar at all. The flavor came from the moist and juicy fruits!  KOREAN MIXED FRUITS RICE CAKE BARS Ingredients ...

Cheesecake is the most popular dessert in my family.  When we have cravings,  these individual mini cheesecakes are all we need to feel satisfied. Topped with fruit jam, they look elegant, and taste fabulous. I always use my 6 cup muffin pan to prepare these mini cheesecakes.  With one pack of 250g cream cheese, they are just the right portion sizes for my family.  Use crushed Oreo biscuits and butter as the base.  Top with cream cheese mixture.  Bake for 25-30 minutes at 160°C .  Cool and refrigerate for a few hours.  When ready to serve, top with fruit jam.  It's quick and easy. B on appétit ! MINI BLUEBERRY CHEESECAKE (Adapted from Christine's recipe ) Ingredients For crust 120g Oreo biscuits, crushed into fine crumbs 2 tablespoons melted butter (30g) For filling 250g cream cheese, softened 50g granulated sugar ½ teaspoon pure vanilla ...

One more week to Christmas. Can't believe it's end of the year again. Driving on the road, saw some cars decorated with reindeer antlers. They certainly make everyone smile while zooming around the city.  The famous reindeer decoration is invented by Sue Valeri shortly after 9/11 happened. She envisioned the car flags , which were used on car windows to show patriotism, could be antlers at Christmas time, bat wings for Halloween and bunny ears for Easter.  These delightful decorations have since then gained popularity during holiday seasons all over the world. The reindeer antlers are sold out in many supermarkets here. It's a bit too late to transform my car into a reindeer sleigh this year, but it's never too late to bake my favourite Christmas Cake. Indeed, I always bake this cake a few weeks before Christmas.  Soak the mixed fruit in rum for a week before baking, and sprinkle a tablesp...

Do you know the coldest temperature ever recorded in Singapore? It's 20.6 deg C on 2 Dec 1964. That's amazing for a place situated near equator!   Though it happened almost 50 years ago, it's generally cooler in December with average highest temperature of 29.9 deg C.   On a cold rainy day like today, enjoy a steaming bowl of homemade soup, it not only warms the body, but also the soul.   After almost 3 months since I noted down creamy pumpkin soup recipe, I finally made it last Saturday.  I was surprised and delighted how inexpensive and savoury this creamy soup was. The wonderful thing is , it did not take too much time as I thought. I used microwave to cook the pumpkin. Chop it roughly, put into a container with some water. Heat up for 10 minutes. The pumpkin chunks are cooked through and can be peeled easily. In a saucepan, fry onion and garlic with olive oil until fragrant. Add store-bought chicken broth ...

My cookies tin is empty now. The classic chocolate cookies I baked a few days ago went really fast.  Need to fill the cookies tin again.  Otherwise, Santa would  have nothing to snack on when he drops by my house on Christmas Eve :).  These blueberry jam sandwich cookes are so adorable. Dust with icing sugar,  they remind me of  beautiful, glimmering snowflakes swaying to the ground on an icy day.  I start missing winter already... Even though Santa loves chocolate cookies more, I am sure he would be delighted with these crumbly cookies as well. With a glass of warm milk, it would be a delectable treat on a moonlit night! BLUEBERRY JAM SANDWICH COOKIES (Recipe adapted from William-Sonoma ) Ingredients: 2 1/4 cups (360 g) all-purpose flour 1/4 cup (30 g) cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 sticks (227 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature 1 1/2 teaspoon grated ...

It's said that on Christmas eve, children in the United States and Canada leave cookies and milk by the chimney for Santa Claus as he may get hungry while delivering all those presents. How sweet!  Wondering what is Santa's favorite cookies? Has his taste changed over the years? During this jolly festival season,  no matter what our religious beliefs, we enjoy meeting friends with delicious food and gift-giving.  Cookies are perfect as a gift or as a snack to serve at gatherings.  To fill my cookies tins, I baked Shortbread cookies last week. This week,  I chose classic chocolate chip cookies made with butter and brown sugar.  Simple and flavorful. Could these cookies be Santa's favorite?  I am not sure, but my daughters, who are huge fans of  homemade Famous Amos Cookies , finished one batch of  them, hot freshly from the oven ! If you find it hard to get into the joy of the holiday,  ma...

Try this oven-baked matchstick potatoes. It's fast and fabulous!  I baked them this morning before preparing our Sunday brunch.  It's a great snack and a much healthier choice as compared to traditional french fries. With olive oil, you don't have to worry about the calories. Healthy and delicious! I used 800g Holland potatoes bought from supermarket, peeled and sliced.  Tossed with olive oil and salt.  Baked for 30 minutes, added 2 sprigs fresh rosemary. Continued for another 5-10 minutes. Rosemary gives off herbal and subtly menthol fragrance, smells so fresh! Research said the smell could boost your memory and enhance the ability to remember events and to complete tasks at particular times. No wonder I texted a group of friends for the upcoming Christmas gathering, in the midst of baking these lovely matchstick potatoes! The memories of those days working in the training field kept flashing in my mind this morn...

If you like shortbread, this recipe is the one!  Compared to  Scottish shortbread I made last year for Christmas, I had doubts these would be any good with only four ingredients. However, these cookies are just incredible. They taste like Chessmen cookies from Pepperidge Farm. You've got to use really good quality ingredients, like SCS unsalted butter and real vanilla extract. Otherwise, the flavor maybe ruined.  I’d say these shortbread cookies are fantastic, but I have a confession to make. I inadvertently made a major change to the recipe. The recipe calls for 1 cup of butter. That means two sticks  (227g) of butter. For some reason, though, I was thinking it was one stick of butter. So I only used ~120g of butter. The cookies were still very, very good and were well received.  If you want a reduced fat version, try making it with just one stick of butter.  The dough is dry and crumbly, which made it easy to cut out with...

Pâte à Choux (Cream Puff) is a luxury dessert that can be easily made at home.  Since I have seven egg yolks left after making "beauty" dessert , I decided to use them to make custard filling for Pâte à Choux (cream puff).   There is nothing like homemade creamy, milky and buttery custard to go with choux puff - it's so nice!      I like to use microwave to make custard, very convenient and can save a lot of time.  Within 10 minutes, smooth and creamy custard is ready (see recipe below).  As for Pâte à Choux,  you will never go wrong with  Michael Rulman 's recipe. He blogged about Pâte à Choux twice in 2009, and the entries were posted in his cooking books, one of which is  Elements of Cooking .  He applies his famous ratio into this recipe: equal parts water and egg, half as much flour and butter. That's it.  For those who are not...

Yesterday, we watched two movies in a roll. One is The Hunger Game: Catching Fire , chosen by my elder daughter. Another one is Frozen , chosen by my younger one. Initially, I tried to convince them to watch only one of the movies. However, they both preferred the one they chose, and did not want to give in. Since it's school holiday now, I decided to watch both movies, and really glad we did that. "Fire" and "Frozen" are equally fantastic and entertaining! No wonder they set worldwide box office record.   Speaking of entertaining,    I Heart Cooking Clubs also set Easy Entertaining as the theme of the week.  It's to cook a dish that is perfect for serving to guests but, easy to prepare.   Coconut and Prawn Soup recipe from Donna Hay's website caught my attention as it calls for red curry paste. I bought a jar of red curry paste and cooked Thai Red Curry Fish not long ago.  Thought of cooking the same dish again ...