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This amazing cream cheese frosting is a perfect compliment for a carrot cake. Slather over the entire cake or spread on individual slices—tastes heavenly. Of course, you can also choose to eat it with anything you want. Bread? Sure! Pretzels? Go ahead! Bacon? Okay, I haven’t tried this one, but you certainly can. d:
WARNING: This recipe is just for the frosting. If you want to eat it with carrot cake, we have a healthy recipe for that here. We are also posting another, less healthy one that we just tried recently very soon. Wait for it.
Makes enough to make 3 layers of 10″ round
- 12 oz. (336 g) cream cheese, at room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated/superfine sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tbsp grated lime zest
- 1 tbsp lime juice
- 1⅔ cup sour cream, at room temperature
- Put cream cheese, sugar, and salt in a mixer bowl. Beat at medium-high speed with a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until light and fluffy, approximately 7 minutes.
- Fold in the lime zest, lime juice, and sour cream until incorporated.
- Cover and refrigerate until stiff enough to spread, about 30 minutes.
With a carrot cake, this frosting also tastes heavenly with rum-soaked raisins. Get 1 cup raisins and soak in rum for at least 30 minutes (or overnight). Slice the carrot cake horizontally into 3 layers. Divide the frosting into 3 parts. Frost the first two layers and divide the raisins between the two layers. Stack all three layers and frost the top of the cake.
If you don’t own a paddle attachment, you can use the normal beater as well, though you should beat the mixture for shorter time.
To improve the appearance, you can replace up to half tbsp of grated lime zest with longer (half to 1 cm) zest.
Acknowledgment: The recipe is adapted from carrot cake recipe in The Sweet Spot by Pichet Ong. 
This is a favourite cake of ours. Carrot cake simply tastes amazing! And it is also very healthy with no butter or margarine. So go ahead try making one! If you follow this recipe exactly, the cake is likely to be very dense, with a kueh-like consistency.
Make 1 10″ tube or Bundt cake (16 servings)
- 2¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 large eggs
- 2 large egg whites
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
- ½ vegetable oil (corn or canola)
- 1 tbsp finely-grated orange zest (optional)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 cups peeled, grated carrots
- 1 10″ tube or Bundt pan, sprayed with vegetable cooking spray or thinly coated with oil/butter
- Reduced-fat cream cheese (optional)
- Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 350°F (175°C).
- Stir flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt together thoroughly. Sift once.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs and egg whites to break them up. Whisk in the granulated and brown sugar. Then whisk in the applesauce and oil, followed by orange zest and vanilla. Make sure that the applesauce is sufficiently cooled before adding to the eggs to avoid heat denaturation at this stage.
- Fold in the carrots using large rubber or wooden spatula.
- Fold in the flour mixture. Don’t overmix!
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
- Bake the cake for about an hour, or until it is well risen and firm, and a toothpick inserted halfway at the centre of the pan comes out clean.
- Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then unmold it to a rack to cool completely.
- Optionally, spread a slice with cream cheese. For less healthy choice, slather the entire cake with cream cheese.
For advance preparation, double-wrap the cake in plastic and freeze for up to a month. Bring to room temperature before serving.
We have no idea what is a Bundt pan too. We used a disposable aluminium tray and it works too!
To make the apple sauce, cut two large apples into small pieces and place in a saucepan with just enough water to cover. Bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. If the apples get very dry before that, add some water. Use a potato masher or fork to break any large pieces.
Baking powder is DIFFERENT from baking soda. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate, baking powder is sodium bicarbonate with a leavening acid and a filler (usually starch). An interesting experiment would be to try different proportions of the baking soda and baking powder. Do drop us a message if you get any interesting results!
Acknowledgment: This is a slightly simplified recipe from Perfect Light Desserts (Nick Malgieri & David Joachim).
This is a soup great cold for a hot day or hot for a cold day! The mild taste of the pumpkin goes well with spice and buttered toast.
Serves 6 bowls
- ½ local (Singapore) pumpkin
- 800 mL chicken stock
- salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 1 carrot
- 2 onions, diced
- 1 potato, cubed
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 garlic cloves, diced
- Chop the pumpkin into 3 inch cubes and place skin up on a baking dish. Peel and chop up the carrot. Drizzle with oil. Bake at 180 °C for 40 mins.
- Scrap the flesh off the pumpkin smash it with the carrot.
- Heat 2 tbps of oil and fry the onions and garlic till soft.
- Fry the potatoes till soft.
- Add in the smashed pumpkin and carrot.
- Add in the chicken stock and bring to a boil.
- Leave to cool and blend in a food processor or use a hand held food processor.
- Serve with freshly ground black pepper.
Make your own chicken stock or simply use a UHT packaged version but skim off the fat/oil before use.
This soup can be frozen for up to 6 months. Do not worry if the soup separates upon thawing. Just warm it up and its as good as fresh!
This is a very versatile soup which can be used as a mushroom sauce too. Though healthy sounding, this original recipe is not easy on the arteries so do go easy on it. For a much healthier version which does not compromise on taste, see cooking tip #4.
Serves 6 bowls
- 500 g fresh swiss brown mushroom
- 600 mL chicken stock
- 200 mL water
- salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 80 g butter
- 2 onions, diced
- 1 clove garlic, squashed
- 2 onions, diced
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 3 tbsp cream
- Wash the mushrooms quickly but thoroughly and dry with paper towel.
- Cut the mushrooms into very small pieces. This will take some time but do not be lazy.
- Melt the butter in a big pot, add the onions and garlic before the butter turns brown.
- When the onions are soft but not browned, add the mushrooms.
- After 3 mins, sprinkle the flour evenly overly the mushrooms and mix well.
- Add the chicken stock and water, bring to a boil.
- Let the soup cool, then blend in a food processer till the desired consistency is reached. Some of the soup can be left unblended for a chunkier soup. Return the blended soup into the pot.
- Bring the soup to a boil again and stir in the cream. Season with salt and pepper.
Make your own chicken stock or simply use a UHT packaged version but skim off the fat/oil before use.
Make sure that the soup is cool before blending to avoid accidents. A handheld blender will be easier to use than the container type.
This soup can be frozen for up to 6 months. Do not worry if the soup separates upon thawing. Just warm it up and its as good as fresh!
For a healthier alternative, peel and cube a large potato and add into the pan with the mushrooms. This will thicken up the soup beautifully so that the cream can be eliminated. If you boiled some potatoes for some other dish, save the cooking liquid and add it to the soup together with the chicken stock. Reduce the amount of chicken stock and water according to the amount of potato stock added.
This is a very simple omelette that is perfectly suited for your breakfast. You can vary the fillings by adding hams or other dried meat with or without cheese, varying the type of cheeses used (Cheddar, Monterey Jack, and Mozzarella top the list), or adding herbs into the egg mixtures.
Serves 1 omelette
- 2 eggs
- a drop of fresh milk
- salt and freshly-ground black pepper
- 1 tbsp butter
- a handful of grated cheeses (Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Mozzarella, or a combination of them)
- Whisk 2 eggs lightly with a drop of fresh milk. Season with pepper and salt to taste.
- Heat a small frying pan. When hot add the butter. The butter should start melting and foam, at this point you might want to turn the fire down to medium if the butter starts to brown.
- When the butter is fully melted and foaming, pour in the egg mixture. Scrape the edge of the omelette away from the side of the frying pan towards the centre, letting the uncooked mixture runs to the edge. Keep doing this until most of the egg set (it should take about half a minute). The egg should still be soft and not fully cooked in the middle although the residual heat will continue cooking the omelette after you finish frying.
- Sprinkle the grated cheese on the omelette, wait for a few seconds, and fold half of the omelette on top of the other half.
- Slide into a plate and serve immediately.
The drop of milk is important as it allows the egg to have a fluffy texture by producing bubbles of water vapor trapped within the cooked egg. It makes the omelette light and fluffy. An alternative would be to add a small amount of cream or water. See Wikipedia.
Acknowledgment: This is an omelette recipe adapted from the perfect omelette recipe in The Illustrated Quick Cook recipe book.
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