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This is a recipe sketch, implying that either we haven’t found the right proportion of ingredients, or that we’re too lazy to measure, or that it’s easy (and almost nothing can go wrong!). You’ve been warned! Now enjoy…
 Black forest cake
We just made this black forest cake. Well, actually, we’re not sure whether it can pass as a black forest cake. Hopefully. We used chocolate rum cake as a base, a dense cake with rich chocolate flavour and intense rum and vanilla aroma (we’ll post a recipe for this soon). We also used a chocolate ganache glazing, roughly 1 to 1 scalding heavy cream to chopped milk/dark chocolate ratio. The filling was whipping cream and canned cherries, lined with the ganache. We glazed the side and top of the cake with the ganache, and topped it with whipped cream and cherries. Finally, we sprinkled it with shredded chocolate. Yummy!
This is an extremely, extremely quick pancake recipe utilizing self-raising flour for simplicity. I was totally inspired by Yotsubato manga, where the 5-year old Yotsuba was trying her best to cook her pancakes (with many, many spoilage). Well, obviously I didn’t expect mine to turn out as nice as it did the first time around, but it did! Each pancake looks and tastes awesome. (: Oh, and did I mention that I learned when to flip the pancake from Yotsuba?? Oh, and I like the pancake bottom-side up for some reason, I guess the bubbles were looking really pretty. Ying loves it top-side up, like McD’s breakfast pancakes.
Makes 10 pancakes
- 1 cup self-raising flour
- 1 cup fresh milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- vegetable oil (for frying)
- Pour flour, milk, egg, and sugar together in a bowl and whisk vigorously. The batter should be pretty smooth (with some granules). Leave the batter sitting for 10 to 15 minutes to let the self-raising flour does its wonder.
- Heat a lightly oiled griddle in medium heat.
- Pour about ¼ cup of the batter in the middle of the griddle. Don’t worry about the shape, just pour at one single point, it will roughly turn out to be circular.
- Watch the pancake bubbles. When the bubbles start bursting (and the side looks drier), flip the pancake. The top side should be nicely browned now.
- Cook for another 20 seconds and lift it off the griddle.
- Repeat the last 3 steps until you run out of batter.
It is normal for the first pancake to cook less evenly (and may turn out too dark or too light). So don’t worry about it.
Some toppings suggestions: a spoonful maple syrup or honey, lightly buttered and sprinkled with sugar, blueberry or other fruity jams, chocolate rice, a dollop of ice cream, and, my favourite, whipping cream.
Read more for photos »
This is a pretty quick and dirty cheatsheet for a nice stir-fried glass noodles. Much of the flavour is really up to your own taste, so feel free to adjust the ingredients as much as you want. Love it!
Serves 3-4 people
- 300 g glass noodles
- 6 shallots, minced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 medium potato
- 5 pieces chicken nuggets (or similar product; unprocessed meat is even better, but I’d not be a cheater that way, would I?)
- 4 tbsp light soy sauce or shoyu
- 1 tbsp dark soy sauce
- 1½ tbsp granulated sugar
- 4 tbsp tomato sauce
- a pinch of salt
- lots of ground white pepper
- vegetable oil
- 1½ cup warm water
- Soak the glass noodles in tap water for about 10 to 15 minutes.
- (If you’re using nuggets or processed meats) Fry the chicken nuggets until golden, slice them afterwards.
- Peel and cube the potato and fry them until slightly golden.
- Heat about 3 tbsp of vegetable oil in a wok on high heat. Fry shallots for a minute. Then add garlic and stir-fry for another 15 seconds.
- (If you’re using unprocessed meat) Slice the meat to bite-sized pieces and stir-fry until no longer pink.
- Add both the fried cubed potato and sliced chicken nuggets and stir fry for another 15 seconds.
- Add the glass noodles to the wok and immediately add water. Reduce the heat to medium.
- Add all the sauces (soy sauces and tomato sauce), sugar, and salt. Add lots of ground white pepper. Ground white pepper will add a slightly spicy flavour characteristic of my stir-fried glass noodles, so be generous with it.
- Stir-fry until the water is reduced completely. Taste the noodles and adjust the flavouring as needed.
- Increase the heat to high and stir-fry for another 45 seconds to 1 minute. This step will add a slightly caramelized flavour to the stir-fry so don’t skip the step.
- Serve immediately.
I like my glass noodles shorter, so I typically stir-fry the glass noodles vigorously. The glass noodles will typically break to shorter pieces and, as added benefits, the ingredients will mix really well together. You can choose to stir-fry the noodles more gently to prevent it from breaking, but that requires much more finesse than this way. ;)
If you have some sweet soy sauce, you can replace the dark soy sauce and some sugar with the sweet soy sauce for better, more caramelized flavour.
You can complete the first two steps in a single batch of frying to save time.
This recipe is a simplification of my more complicated semur recipe. Semur uses minced beef as well and not so much of a cheat than a real recipe. However, it takes much longer to cook and sometime I’m just lazy and will opt for this recipe instead. I will be posting the recipe for semur the next time I manage to cook it.
Acknowledgment: This is an original recipe.
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 recipe passed on from a Danish mother to his Danish son, to my Singaporean friend and then to me! There has been some contention whether this is a pie, strudel or crumble. But who cares? It’s amazingly easy and good! It requires almost no measuring, just lots of instincts and calories.
Makes approx. 5 servings
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup butter
- 2 peeled thinly sliced apples
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C.
- Lay the apples at the bottom of the baking dish and cover with sufficient water such that all the apples are just covered.
- Mix the flour, sugar and butter and lay the mixture on the apples. The mixture should be dry and slightly crumbly. If not, add more flour.
- Bake for about 1 hour, stop just before the mixture cease bubbling. The apple flavour should have infused into the crumble.
- It is almost impossible to serve this crumble onto individual plates so just dig in and bond! hygge.
A pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg can be added to the pastry for more flavours
This is also excellent when served with ice cream.
Acknowledgment: Jakob for the recipe and Toh Wen Qiang for the demo!
This is a simple to make moist cake which like our carrot cake, turns out to be more like a kueh, but we still love it! A perfect recipe to use up those forgotten apples at the bottom of your fruit chiller.
Make 1 10″ tube or Bundt cake (12 servings)
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp freshly-grated nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- ½ cup vegetable oil (corn or canola)
- 3 cups peeled, cored and coarsely peeled apples
- 1 10″ tube or Bundt pan, sprayed with vegetable cooking spray or thinly coated with oil/butter
- Set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 350°F (180°C).
- Mix flour, baking soda, spices, and salt together thoroughly. Sift once.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk eggs to break them up. Whisk in the brown sugar, followed by the oil.
- Fold in the half of the grated apples using large rubber or wooden spatula.
- Fold in the flour mixture, followed by the rest of the apples.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
- Bake the cake for 45 to 55 minutes, 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.
For advance preparation, double-wrap the cake in plastic and freeze for up to a month. Bring to room temperature before serving.
It is much easier to grate a whole apple than a sliced up one.
Acknowledgment: This is a slightly simplified recipe from Perfect Light Desserts (Nick Malgieri & David Joachim).
This simple soup is quick to make and delicious. Serve this as a side dish to a main meal. I also like to eat this alone as breakfast. You can prepare the soup in less than 5 minutes if you have dashi stock at hand.
Makes 4 servings
- 3 medium eggs
- 3½ cups dashi stock
- 1 tbsp shoyu
- 1 tbsp mirin
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp potato starch or cornstarch
- Warm the dashi stock in a saucepan. Add the shoyu, mirin, and salt.
- When the dashi stock is almost boiling, mix the potato starch in 1 tablespoon of cold water and set aside. Beat the eggs in a bowl.
- When the dashi stock comes to boil, stir in the potato flour mixture—this will lightly thicken the soup.
- Stir in the eggs and remove from the heat so that the eggs are not overcooked.
- Use a chopstick to immediately stir the egg clockwise 3 or 4 times, then counterclockwise 3 or 4 times. The eggs should break up nicely into small, delicious bits.
- Serve immediately in small bowls.
If you can’t get shoyu (Japanese soy sauce), replace that with scant ½ tbsp chinese light or dark soy sauce. If you choose to use light soy sauce, the colour of the soup may not turn dark enough (I personally find its look a little unappetizing, though the flavour does not change much).
You can use either the powdered dashi stocks sold in Japanese market or make the dashi stock yourself.
The recipe from this lasagna comes from… the back of the San Remo’s lasagna packet! Well actually, only for the cheese sauce. We used our own ragù recipe for the meat sauce. After multiple tries and modifications, this might actually be worth a try. ;) We named this San Remo lasagna in honour of the back-of-the-packaging inspiration though.
Serves 6 as a main course
For the cheese sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 65 g shredded cheddar
- 65 g shredded mozzarella
- 2 cups whole milk
- 2 tbs plain flour
- Prepare either of the meat sauce recipe.
- When the meat sauce is almost done, start preparing the cheese sauce: Melt butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour; fry for 3 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in the milk.
- Return to heat and stir over medium fire for about 15 minutes. Its okay not to stir it continuously.
- Add in the cheese and stir the mixture till all the cheese melts.
- Preheat the oven to 180 degree celcius.
- Assemble the lasagna in a 12″ x 12″ baking dish. The base layer will be the meat sauce. Followed by a layer of lasagna sheet, meet sauce and cheese sauce. Repeat the three layers to make about 3 to 4 layers in total. Remember to always end with the cheese sauce layer.
- Grate the additional cheese over the lasagna and bake for 40 minutes.
The pasta sheets will expand when cooked, so there is no need to ensure that the sheet covers the whole layer. You can of course also overlap the lasagna sheets to cover the baking dish if you like pasta.
The difficulty in the recipe is adjusting the moisture level of the ragù such that the pasta sheets can be properly rehydrated and cooked without becoming soggy. This will depend on the shape of your baking dish ,the number of layers you have and the exact temperature of your oven, to name a few. Have fun experimenting!.
For the cheese sauce, you can also use cheddar only or mozzarella only (or any combination of the two cheese to make up 130 g).
Acknowledgment: San Remo instant lasagna packaging for the cheese sauce recipe.
This is our improvisation over the mushroom-flavoured beef ragù recipe that we posted before. The story begins one fine morning when we realized that we had half a pumpkin left over from the pumpkin soup we made a week earlier. While Ying Ying decided to make pumpkin soup, I decided against it later on. Too bad the pumpkin and carrot were already baked. I remembered reading Jamie Oliver using pumpkin in one of his lasagna recipe. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the recipe with us. Oh well, what better than to improvise ourselves! Surprisingly, the lasagna turns out really good. Here is the ragù with pumpkin recipe. (Oh, and did I tell you that we only had 300 g of beef?)
Makes approx. 900 g
- 300 g minced beef
- 200 g minced pork
- 1 heaping cup (~250 g) Prego fresh mushroom flavoured sauce
- 1½ white onion, chopped roughly
- 2 shallots, smashed and minced
- 3 cloves garlic, smashed and minced
- 1 fresh tomato, diced
- Tomato sauce (to taste)
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 2-3 tbsp margarine
- 1 tsp freshly-ground nutmeg
- White and black pepper (to taste)
- Salt (to taste)
- 2 cups warm water
For the baked pumpkin
- ½ medium pumpkin
- 1 large carrot
- vegetable oil
- First prepare the baked pumpkin and carrots. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Chop the pumpkin and carrots into large pieces (approximately 3 cm x 3 cm). Smear the baking tray with some oil and place the pumpkin (with the skin side up) and carrots on a baking tray. Bake for 35 minutes.
- When the pumpkin is done, remove the skins gently. Dice the carrots into small cubes.
- Heat the margarine in a large wok until bubbling but not brown and fry the onion. When the onions are turning soft, add garlic and shallots and fry for another 30 seconds.
- Add the minced beef and pork and fry until they are no longer pink, ensuring that there is no big lump of meat.
- Mix in the Prego sauce. Stir in tomato sauce, salt, both peppers, nutmeg and sugar. Mix thoroughly and fry for 3-4 minutes.
- Mix in 2 cups of warm water and the diced tomato.
- When the meat sauce starts to simmer, mix in chopped pumpkin and diced carrots.
- Cover the wok and stir occasionally until the water is reduced to half the volume (but still wet). Taste the ragù and adjust the seasonings as necessary. The ragù should taste a little sweet due to the pumpkin.
- Continue simmering until most of the water has been reduced, stirring more often to prevent the ragù from burning.
We find this ragù a very good match as lasagna sauce. The saltiness from the cheese sauce perfectly balance the additional sweetness from the pumpkin, while the pumpkin also provides a much better consistency for the lasagna.
Acknowledgment: This is an improvisation over our original beef ragù recipe with the pumpkin inspiration from Jamie Oliver.
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).
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