Monday, 20 February 2012

Cottage Pie or Shepherd's Pie?

Alloooo mate, 

Lately, iol macam malas nak masuk dapur masak. Sangat tak teruja nak memasak walaupun keinginan nak masak itu ini meluap-luap *bunyi nafsu serakah sangat khennn... iol guess it is because iol started to get busy with my actual job routine. Tuh yang kepenatan sangat bila fikir nak masak. But, iol cannot demotivate my lovely readers. The reason iol created this blog was to encourage people to cook in tender loving care for their love ones. So, kalau iol bermalas-malasan untuk ke dapur, nanti peminat-peminat fanatik blog nih *dah ramai sangat kerrr peminat???... kecam iol tak beri semangat untuk diorang. 

"We are fans of mrhotmuffins' blog! We love you!"

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Cupcakes for Princess Kate Middleton

Oooh La laaa..

Sedih iol dengar bila my beloved, Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine Elizabeth Middleton aka Kate Middleton terpaksa menyambut Valentine's Day sorang-sorang tanpa Kanda William di sisi kerana tugasan berjuang (bukan berperang yerrr) melawat di Falklands...ala-ala perwira gitewwww. Tapi Kate tak sunyi, kerana beliau membuat kerja amal dengan melawat dan men-support pertubuhan amal seperti di Alder Hey Children's Hospital di Liverpool. Sangat berhati mulia, uolsss*matilaarrr tetiba jadik jurucakap Buckingham Palace.


"Kanda tak der tak aper, baca blog mrhotmuffins untuk
hilang kesunyian. Blog tuh best Dinda!!"

So, iol mulalah selingsing lengan ke dapur untuk mem-baking dengan penuh kasih sayang, sempena V-Day bagi meraikan cinta agung William and Kate. 

"To my Kate, this is for you, love." 
- mrhotmuffins aka Royal Chef at St. James Palace.

Kate's Romantic Vanilla Cupcakes with 
White Chocolate and Butter Cream Frosting

The Ingredients.
 "Baking for Royal kene guna Royal baking powder jugekk."


Step 1
In a jug, macam jug pirex iol nih *jug kedai 2 hengget pun bole gak, mix the sour cream, eggs and vanilla pod/extract. Mix them well.


Step 2
Put the dry ingredients (castor sugar, ground almond, self rising flour and baking power) into a large bowl and make a well in the middle.Whisk to mix the ingredients well. 


Step 3
Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan and let it cool down for a while. Then, add the melted butter into a sour creamy mix and stir them well. Nanti uolss akan dapat mixture macam buat telor dadar.


Step 4
Pour in the wet mixture into dry ingredients and quickly fold in with a spatula. Make sure you do not overwork it. *jangan lak mengacau macam nak mengacau dodol!


Step 5
Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown, risen and springy to touch. The oven must be pre-heated to 190C/gas5.


Step 6
To make the white chocolate and butter frosting, melt the white chocolate in the microwave on high for 1 1/2 minutes, stirring halfway. Leave to cool. Beat the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl until creamy.


Step 7
Then, pour in the melted chocolate into creamy butter mixture and beat it for 30 seconds.

Step 8
When the cakes are cooked, cool for a few minutes, then lift the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely.*Gebunyerr..gebu dan curvy macam mrhotmuffins oppssss.


Step 9
Spread the creamy frosting over the cakes. You can decorate the cakes in your own way. iol tak pandai nak decorate nih. Ini je lah hasilnya. In the end, masuk dalam mulot jugak khennn.



Here is the cupcakes for my lovely Princess Kate, Duchess of Cambridge on Valentine's Day :-).



"Thanks uolsss for the lovely, tasty and devine cupcakes uolss untuk iols.
 Princess Beatrice of York jeling je kat  iols lepas dinner malam tadi
bila dapat bungkusan special.Dengki khenn. muahhhs to uolllss."

Ciao Bella!!!

Saturday, 11 February 2012

Asian Food Feast

Sawatdee Khrab!

Tulen kahhhh???

Merasa tetiba cakap bahasa Thai. Sesekali ubah dasar pandang ke Asia Tenggara apa salahnyerr. Walaupun iol kerap di cela sebagai penjajah, atau kerap kompang pasal negara Union Jack, iol tetap tak lupa masakan dan makanan dari negara uolsss di Asia *matilaaa nanti dikecam tak sedar diri...yang full of wonderful mix flavors.

To be honest, iol not good at cooking Asian food especially Malay food. Not that iol hebat masak western food, but at least, when iol read western recipe, it is so much easy to follow, prepare and cook. Dapur tak rasa kotor and tak risau pasal rempah naik bau ke tak, bila nak masuk santan or pecah minyak ke tak. However, Malay food has an exquisite taste that often never failed to impress the eater. In Malay cuisine, fresh aromatic herbs and roots are always used. The spices or rempah are always be the key ingredient in Malay cooking that brings up the flavor to the maximum *ayoooo dah macam host rancangan memasak..who knows in the future kann..mode verangan ON!.. Sebab tu kalau mat saleh makan masakan Melayu, macam iol selalu bawak my international affairs..ehh?? to Malay Restaurant, they always love and enjoy the food although some of the food might be spicy to them. 

iol was watching one of the programme on Astro's Asian Food Channel (AFC) called Best Wan!..iol very sure uolss know who the chef is in the programme.Tak yah laa nak glamerkan dia lagi kannn. One thing I was very impressed to say, the programme is really up to an international cooking programme standard and more important, it made me wanted to try the recipes!!! So, iol googled the website and found the recipes. I called some of my "a friend in need is a friend indeed" friends (ye lahhh, takkan nak panggil musuh pulak khenn) to try my cooking and had night in together. I chose two recipes from the programme as a backbone of the dinner. Let's see how they look like.


Grilled Calamari and Young Green Mango Salad with 
Fresh Lime Juice and Palm Sugar Dressing 

Technically, this is not a Malay food but originally from Thai. The famous Thai salad that always serve perfectly on the table with Tomyum when you crave for Thai food. Dalam bahasa senang, kalu tergeliat lidah nak sebut, kerabu sotong dan mangga. Sangat mudah untuk disediakan. However, the hardest part would be to peel the mangoes and cut in julianne manner. iol sure that you already knew the taste but this one is more tasty than one iol had in restaurants because the calamari was grilled instead of blanching it. Tak caya, try!!!

Spicy Grilled Chicken with Thick Coconut Sauce

Another recipe iol took from the programme and never tried it before is Spicy Grilled Chicken aka Ayam Percik. Pada uolss mungkin biasa and selalu makan dan nampak orang bakar ayam percik ni kat pasar malam atau lebih famous waktu bulan Ramadhan. Masa tu berebut-rebut orang beratur nak beli macam esok nak Tsunami ..oppsss nauzubillah. iol was very fascinated by they way this chicken was prepared and the herbs that  were used to marinate the chicken. Of course, it will be more authentic if the chicken was grilled on a charcoal grill but if you do not have one, like iols, just grilled the chicken in the oven. *merasa lepas tuh jenuh nak menyental, cuci the oven...the best part is the thickened sauce for the chicken is from the remaining  marinated mixture for the chicken. Just splash the mixture before you grill the chicken, and cook the remaining mixture in a pan to make a sauce and serve together with the chicken. Smashing!!!!

Baked Barramundi with Lemon and Fresh Aromatic Herbs

This fish dish was not from the programme. iol wants to share this dish with you because iols love seabass. iols cooked seabass a lot when iols lived abroad *tetap tak lupa nak mention hihihi..because it is juicy and easy to cook. What iol normally do was to put the seabass in an aluminium foil, squeeze some lemon juice, drizzle some olive oil, season with salt and paper and wrap the foil, make like a bag and bake in the oven for 12 minutes. When it is cooked, just eat it straight away. Love it!!! 
For this recipe, iol guna barramundi, an asian seabass that is easily found in any major supermarket. Nak guna ikan siakap pun boleh. With the same method above, but i put the fish in the oven dish and tip in some aromatic herbs like lemongrass, ginger, garlic and onion as well as carrots and tomatoes. Then wrap the top of the oven dish with a foil.

Steamed Pak Choy with Garlic and Oyster Sauce

Kalau makan tanpa sayur tak bestkann. So instead of frying or cooking vegetables in coconut milk, iol steamed the pak choy, then drizzle with oyster sauce mixed with chopped garlic. Senang kann! All of these dishes are incomplete without steamed rice ya. So, jangan lupa :-).

Macam serve kat hotel tak???
So, who says *tetiba lagu Selena Gomez terngiang-ngiang..ehh.. iol cannot cook Malay food hihihih. I enjoy cooking these dishes and will do it again. Walaupun penat laa jugak menyediakan bahan2 tuh especially to marinate and grilled the chicken, my friends enjoyed it and impressed with my Malay culinary skills. More important, no matter how good your food is, food that has been prepared with tender loving care, always tastes better. That's what I believe in!

"Babe, nanti uolss masakkan untuk iol rendang macam rendang daging Mak uolss
dengan lemang skali yer. iol suka rendang  tuh." *matilaarrr raya tahun ni!

Ciao Bella!!!

Thursday, 9 February 2012

Mulberry Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake

Hola, 
Semakin hari semakin ramai yang membaca blog nih *ayooooo PERASAN sgtss...lihat sajer the number of people visited this blog has increased dramatically since it was first launched. Thank you all for reading my blog. Follower pun makin ramai bertambah. This shows that what I shared here has inspired people to start cooking or baking (I very much hope so yehhh) or maybe pembaca blog nih kaki langot and suka jer buang masa kat tempat kerja jadi pembaca blog yang setia hihihihih...ok jer kann dari tengok benda yang tak berfaedah :-)

"Iol follow blog uolss tapi tak nak mengaku, voleh??
 Takut peminat iol tahu nanti diorg tak follow twitter iol tapi follow your blog."
Ok..cukuplaa iol memuji diri sendiri khennn...jijik pulak orang membacanya hihihihi. For this entry, I wanted to share with you one of my favorite cake that I baked almost every month since I came back dari negara Union Jack terchenta ..*matilaaa pembaca iol menyampah statement nih..masa Raya pun mesti kene buat cake nih..tapi sejak dua-menjak, dah lama tak buat sebab banyak recipe cake lain yang iol kene cuba. So, let's scroll down.

Mulberry Hazelnut and Chocolate Cake 

The Ingredients

Step 1
Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Kalu tak der Kitchen Aid, beat pakai tangan dengan spatula kayu pun boleh tapi jangan beat sampai jadi kuih bahulu lak.

Step 2
Then, add the eggs, one at a time, beating well followed by vanilla pod. If you do not have vanilla pod, you can substitute with vanilla extract or essence. Vanilla pod tuh mahal. Kat kedai bakery satu aje dah RM9. But if you go to Indonesia, you can buy a handful of vanilla pod sebab tersangat laa murahnye. Tak bubuh vanilla pun tak per tapi tak de laa jiran sebelah dapat bau yang uolss tengah baking cake yang sedap *matilaaa riak

Step 3
Mix the flour and ground hazelnut. Tip in the mixture into the bowl. Whisk slowly until all the ingredients combine well. Kalu nak guna ground almond pun boleh. Tapi kacang tanah is a no no yehh.

Step 4
Pour the cake mixture into greased and lined baking paper cake tin. Spread the mixture evenly with spatula.

Step 5
Scatter the almond blanched over the top of the cake mixture. Put it in the pre-heated 160C/300F oven and bake for 45minutes.

Step 6
When the cake is cooked, let the cake cool down for 15minutes. Take out the cake from the tin and serve on the plate.

Step 7
Melt the milk chocolate in the microwave for 2 minutes and drizzle the melted chocolate on the top of the cake.

Okay tak???

Ciao Bella!!!