Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffins

It's almost midnight, you're already in your pjs and you're craving for Doritos. You go downstairs to your kitchen to look for a snack to satisfy your cheese cravings. You open your pantry. No Doritos in sight, but you see a box of cornmeal. You knew from preparing the club sandwich this afternoon that there is leftover mature cheddar in the fridge. What do you do?

Being the little Masterchef you are, you decide to bake some cheese muffins to munch which could double as breakfast the next morning. Without further ado, you pulled out the Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffin recipe from mum's recipe box.

Red Bean and Banana Sweet Bun

We had three huge bunches of bananas from our garden. What better way to use them than for baking. When it comes to bananas and baking, the first thing that comes to mind is banana cake. Sticking to tried and tested recipe is safe but at the same time being stuck in a rut will stifle creativity and progress. We’ve baked banana cake one to many times when it comes to finishing the bananas before they go bad. Each time we have excess bananas, it was banana cake so it’s about time we try other banana recipes.

I didn’t want to do any conventional banana dessert, so no bannofee pie or banana muffin either. After I discovered that I could churn out wonderful breads (ahem, not bragging), I wanted to do a bread recipe but absolutely not banana bread which, to me, is no different from banana cake.

This is a recipe by Agnes Chang. It’s a hybrid recipe because I’ve used her wholemeal loaf recipe to substitute the sweet bun dough for a healthier wholemeal bread. 

White Loaf (Wu Pao Chun's Champion Toast)

Remember I said that every beginner baker should start by baking a basic butter cake? The other thing that a beginner baker should learn is a basic white loaf. 

When I first started baking, I was baking only cakes because I was so comfortable baking cakes that I could do it without thinking and I didn't want to fail at making other things like bread, pastry, kuih. Eventually I  learnt that one cannot survive on cakes. I wanted to have more simple things like bread, to have with jam or kaya or make a sandwich out of it. That was when I thought to myself, I should learn how to bake bread.

This recipe is also from Nasi Lemak Lover's blog. It's called Wu Pao Chun's Champion Toast. Wu Pao Chun is a famous chef from Taiwan who has won many awards in baking competitions so don't be afraid to try his recipe.

Japanese Condensed Milk Bread

The long weekend is upon us again! 2015 is the year of long weekends. What are your plans? For me, you know it, it's bake, bake, bake! Weekend is the time to hone my culinary skills.

I was looking for some quick inspiration for last week's baking project and I came across this interesting bread recipe from Nasi Lemak Lover's blog. She's such a good cook and baker and her recipes are awesome! I would highly recommend visiting her blog for some really good home cooking ideas.


You'll love this Japanese Condensed Milk Bread if you like sweet and milky bread. The portion of this recipe is not huge and it's good if you don't want to store bread too long in the fridge. It'll probably last a day or two for a family of four, depending on how many big eaters you have.

Spring Onion Bun

Soft and fluffy buns topped with spring onions and sesame seeds

My second bread post! This is really killing two birds with one stone.


Remember the Green Tea Milk Bun which I made? The dough recipe for this Spring Onion Bun is the same dough recipe for the Green Tea Milk Bun. I merely made two different types of bun with the same dough so that we don't get bored of eating the same bun for a week.


Since the Green Tea Milk Bun is a sweet bun, I decided to make something savoury with the other half of the dough.

No mixer or bread maker required - Green Tea Milk Bun

Pillowy soft green tea milk bun with sweet mung beans

This is my first proper bread post. I don't think I've baked bread before and a rookie baker like me obviously have not heard of the tang zhong / water roux method in bread-making. 


This method involves a starter dough whereby you've to stir bread flour and water and simmer under low heat to make the starter dough. This starter dough is then added to the wet ingredients of the bread recipe. 


All bread recipes should be made according to the tang zhong method because it retains moisture in the dough and keeps the bread pillow-soft and fluffy for a long time. Since this method is commonly used in Hokkaido Milk Bread recipe, I'm calling this Green Tea Milk Bun.

Baked Cinnamon Doughnuts - Recipe by Ina Garten

Cinnamon doughnuts topped with crunchy brown sugar and sweet-smelling cinnamon make a scrumptious treat for sharing

I love doughnuts. They are one of the most delicious snacks ever created but I hate the fact that they are deep fried which is why I stay away from Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme. 


I was watching an episode of Barefoot Contessa where Ina Garten made these wonderful cinnamon doughnuts. Best part is the doughnuts are baked not fried which means less oil used. What girl wouldn't want to enjoy delicious doughnuts with lesser fat content. 

Red Bean Paste Pau (Tau Sar Pau)

White fluffy paus with sweet red bean filling

I love having pau especially sweet filling pau with a cup of unsweetened tea for breakfast. Most of the time my family would get pau from chinese kopitiam (coffee shop) which are kept in large portable gas steamer but those pau are not made in house, most are mass-produced in a factory and distributed to various kopitiams in the city.


I was at the baking section of the supermarket and saw some pau flour. My mum has never made pau before even though they are a favourite in the family. Without any idea and recipe on how to make pau, I got a box of pau flour and some organic red beans home.

Red Velvet Parfait

This recipe adds a healthy twist to the much-loved red velvet cake by layering yogurt, chia seeds and crunchy muesli

Remember the Cake Man Raven red velvet which I made with the hole in the middle? I was wondering what to do with the cake crumbs for awhile and I finally made a parfait out of it. This is something you have to make if you're on a diet and want to have dessert. I know diet and dessert shouldn't exist together but if it's any comfort to you, at least you're not gorging a whole piece of red velvet cake. You may choose to share a slice of red velvet with a friend but why do that when you're getting a whole lot more and less calories in this healthy and yummy parfait.

Waffle Saturday

My mum has a really good waffle recipe. Since it was the long Merdeka weekend, we decided to go on mini getaway to Bukit Tinggi. It's cooler there than in the city, especially after it rains, and nothing like enjoying warm waffle with ice cream on a chilly afternoon. 

I was thinking of making pancakes for the weekend but ended up making waffles instead because my mum prefer waffles. I've tried making pancakes from the box mix and the pancakes failed. But this time I did some research and compiled a list of pancake dos and don'ts so I shall save them for another day.

I tried Googling the differences between waffles and pancakes. I couldn't find much differences though. The only difference I could gather was that yeast is used in waffles whilst baking powder in pancakes. They are pretty much the same. Some even say that you can use waffles recipe for pancakes and vice versa.

Super Simple to Make Cute Breakfast

This post is inspired by Aum Napat who owns Napat Closet in Chatuchak Market. I just love her short cooking videos and I wanted to make cute and fun food for breakfast after seeing all the lovely treats from her. After Googling I found these ideas.

First is Banana Peanut Butter Bear Toast

These are super fun and simple to do. All you need are two slices of bread, peanut butter, a banana and 6 chocolate chips/ raisins.

The steps, I think, are self-explanatory.

Dorayaki - adapted from Cooking With Dog

The finished product. Colour of the pancakes is not even but they are still edible.

 Have you come across Cooking with Dog channel on Youtube? It is a great channel for learning how to make Japanese food. Of late I have become quite interested in Japanese food. I feel very inspired from Cooking with Dog videos and the cute and healthy bento box pictures posted by users I am following on Instagram. I am thinking of making bento box lunch next but I will need to shop for bento accessories first. I shall do that today.