Recipe for Hot oatmeal: 1 serving 
1/3 cup of "quick cook" oats ( can use instant oats too where you only require Hot water to prepare)
120 ml of water
1/2 Mashed banana
1/2 Diced Banana or any other fruit topping
Honey (optional)
Peanut Butter (optional)
Granola or cereal (moderation is important**)

1. Boil water in a saucepan.
2. Add the "quick cook" oats and let it simmer until desired consistency (usually 2-3 mins)
3. In a bowl, mash a banana
4. Pour the oatmeal into the bowl of mashed banana and mix evenly. Add peanut butter spread or honey at this step if you intend to.
5. Top with diced bananas and other toppings. Serve while it is hot.

Recipe for Overnight Rolled Oats: 1 serving
1/3 cup of Low Fat Milk
1/3 cup of yoghurt ( I used non-fat yoghurt)
1/3 cup of rolled oats
A handful grapes ( or any other fruit topping)
3/4 tsp Honey
1. Mix everything together.
2. Pop in the fridge for a night.
3. Eat the next morning, serve while it is cold.

150g Chocolate
40g Mashed Banana
170g Sugar ( I'll reduce further in future attempts)
1.5 tbsp Rum
1/4 tsp Salt 1tbsp Cocoa Powder
2 Large Eggs
2 tbsp Warm water
1 tsp Instant Espresso Powder
80g Cake Flour
1-1.5 Sliced Bananas

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line your 8x8 inch baking tin with parchment paper
2. Mix togeter warm water and instant espresso powder in a small cup and set aside.
3. Whisk together sugar and butter in a large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs, rum and espresso mixture and beat until it is combined.
4. Melt the chocolate and add in the mashed banana and stir well. Add melted chocolate and mashed bananas into the mixture. Mix everything together until its incorporated. Do not overmix.
5. Pour 1/2 the batter into prepared pan. Add sliced bananas and fill the pan with the remaining batter and bake for about 45 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist crumbs but not wet batter. Let it cool completely before cutting them so that it is not as crumbly.

 I finally got to meet my JC friends after a really long time. It has been eons since i met all of them. The guys are going to ORD in about 6 months? That is really quick! I always have the impression that they just went into army. Anyway, i attempted to bake another layered cake for my friend's birthday.  This is my 3rd attempt baking layered cake, but my first for banana chocolate layered cake! I was really excited to see if the cake was successful. Unlike cupcakes or blondies, I have no choice but to patiently wait till we finished celebrating my friend's birthday to try the cake. This recipe yields a really rich and chocolatey cake. The chocolate ganache was good but i think there could be improvement for the mousse in between the cakes. I did not whip my heavy cream long enough. (User problem) Well, i'll try again the next time with the same recipe! Lastly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAUWEI! :>


Ingredients: 

Cake:
45g Cake Flour
10g Cocoa Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
55g Dark Chocolate
100g Butter
60g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Grease baking tin and line bottom with grease proof paper.
2. Measure flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a small bowl  and mix well. Sift the flour mixture.
3. Measure the dark chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl. Melt them by microwaving or over a pot of simmering water.
4. Add the sugar and whisk until dissolve. Let the mixture cool for 10 minutes then add the eggs.
5. Whisk the mixture until well combined and fold in the sifted flour mixture until well incorporated.
6. Transfer the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 20-25 mins or until toothpick inserted into the cake comes our clean. Cool the cake on a wire rack. Slice horizontally into 2 slices and even the top of the cake.

Simple Boozy Syrup
20 grams sugar
50 ml water

1. Place the sugar and water in a small pot.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, swirling the pot to dissolve the sugar crystals. Boil for 2 – 3 minutes on high heat then remove the pot from heat.
3. Let cool to room temperature.

Chocolate Mousse


57g semi sweet chocolate, chopped
62.5 ml heavy cream
1 banana, sliced (use later)

1. Melt the chocolate and let it cool to lukewarm. Whip the cream to soft peaks formed and fold in the melted chocolate.
2. The mousse should be made just before assembling the cake so that it will be soft and liquid-y enough to pour it into the mould.

Dark Chocolate Ganache Glaze

62.5ml Heavy Cream
75g Dark Chocolate, chopped
1/2 Banana, very mashed
1 tbsp Golden Syrup

1. Heat the cream in a microwave for 30 seconds on medium high. Add in the chocolate and microwave at 15 seconds interval, checking the mixture and stirring it at each interval until all the chocolate has melted.
2. Stir in the mashed banana and golden syrup and let it cool for 30 minutes.

Steps: 
1. Place a piece of chocolate cake in your baking tin, apply a layer of simple syrup on the side that is facing the ceiling. Spoon the mousse onto the cake, add sliced banana, cover with mousse again. Apply simple syrup on another piece of cake and put it on the mousse. Give a slight press so that everything is compressed together.
2. Cover with a plastic sheet and freeze it for about 2-3 hours.
3. 30 mins before the cakes are done, make the dark chocolate ganache glaze.
4. Take the cake tin out from the freezer. Dip a knife in hot water and wipe it with paper towels. Run the knife along the sides of cake tin. Unmould the cake tin. (Best to use those removable bottom cake-tin)
5. Pour the chocolate ganache over. Spread out with a spatula and leave it till it stops dripping. Pop them in the fridge. Serve in a couple of hours/next day.
Enjoy (:

 



Week 15: Exam week. But this is also the LAST week of school for Year 1 Semester 1! School has been so busy, especially towards the end of semester. There were endless project presentations and report deadlines to meet. I've been returning to school almost everyday for the past three weeks and i haven have proper time spent with my family for a long time. On the bright side, I am looking forward to FRIDAY (my last paper)!!! After which will be a looooooong SUMMER BREAK for about 2-3 months! Can't wait for summer then i will resume my healthy lifestyle and spending lots of time in the kitchen, trying out the different recipes that i have bookmarked! I've been craving for bananas recently and this explains my sudden consecutive banana posts. HAHAHA. Talking about banana squares, I love those from fourleaves. Craving for them so i decided to bake them myself. I thought the cakes were a little too moist. I used 5 bananas but my bananas weren't exactly very very ripe.

Recipe (original recipe adapted from here)

90g canola or sunflower oil
- 90g castor sugar (which I reduced to 70g)
- 1 large egg, lightly beaten
- 125g flour (plain flour is fine)
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 4 or 5 medium-sized very, very ripe bananas, mashed with a fork
- 25g regular or skimmed milk
- 1 to 1 1/2 tsp rum (enhance the banana flavor)
1. In a large bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Leave some chunks if you want bits of banana in your cake.

2. Add milk, sugar, oil, rum and combine using a small whisk.

3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and baking soda, and give a quick mix.
* Note: I only sifted the baking soda because it tends to be lumpy. Didn't even bother with the flour or baking powder. 

4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk gently to combine (don't whip and introduce air into the batter). As long as no traces of flour remain, you are ready to bake. Yes, 2 bowls, 1 fork, 1 whisk. That's it.

5. Pour into a lined square tin.

6. Bake at 175°C for about 30mins, or until a skewer comes out clean. 

Strong cravings for bananas these days. Made these oatcakes for breakfast. Filling and healthy breakfast to start the day. Lets go!

Ingredients: (makes 4 small oatcakes: 1 serving)

4 tbsp of oats
1 banana, mashed.
1 egg
2 tbsp of olive oil.

Mix the first three ingredients together.
Panfry them.

 

Whats for breakfast on Wednesday? Instead of our usual peanut jam and nutella sandwiches, my family had steamed banana cakes for breakfast. In fact, 1 steamed banana cake has lower calories than 1 serving of our usual peanut jam sandwich. I love steam cakes from four leaves, breadtalk and not forgetting the colourful ones sold at pasar Malam, top with some orange sugar and coconut flakes. I was tryng to make the cake rise into 4 corners at the top (like huat kueh) but I failed. My mum brought some really sweet bananas back from my grandma's kampong. I was contemplating between banana steamed cakes and banana muffins. I was pretty lazy that day so I went with the simpler recipe. It is amazing such an easy recipe can yield such a delicious and moist banana cake. I'll make this again! I slightly edited the recipe to suit my family. I like my banana cake to have chunks of banana in it so i added more bananas than what the original recipe called for and i did leave some chunks of bananas in my mashed banana mixture. Since i added more bananas, i reduced my sugar intake from 100g to 70g. Sweetness was just nice . All you need are a couple of ingredients which you most likely already have on hand. You can always pop them in the fridge and steam them the next morning. That was what I did! Enjoy these hot n fluffy banana cakes.

!

Hot, fluffy and chunky banana cakes ^^

Ingredients: (7-8muffins) [  Original recipe adapted from here ]

2 Eggs
70sugar
3  ripe bananas, mashed with some chunks (300g)
150g Self-raising Flour
1/8 tsp Baking Soda
75g oil (any flavorless oil)

Steps:

1. Sift together self-raising flour and baking soda, set aside.


2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together Eggs and sugar till ribbon stage.


3. Mix in mashed bananas, beat till combine.


4. Gently fold in flour mixture and Oil, taking care not to deflate the eggs and sugar mixture.


5. Pour Batter into muffin pan, lined with muffin cups.


6. Steam over high heat for 15mins or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Call it a Banana muffin? It's a failure. Call it a Chocolate Chip Muffin? Its an absolute success because it's so chcolatey. So, Banana Chocolate Chip Muffin? Uhhh... Not quite. More like Chocolate Chip muffin this time. I guess i added too much Chocolate Chips into the batter. I like Banana Chocolate Chip muffin to havechunksof banana and some small amount of chocolate chips scattered around. I thought my bananas werent too mashed at first. I was expecting some chunks of bananas in the muffins but i guessed they were still too "mashed??' Next time, I am going to up the bananas and throw in some additional sliced and unmashed bananas into the batter. I dont know if i'll achieve my chunky bananas texture but i guess i'll jst give it a go. If anybody knows, please let me know! The muffins were pretty moist even though there's no sourcream/yoghurt/milk in the recipe. The Chocolate chip taste was too overpowering. But the good thing about it was that the chocolate chips were uniformly scattered in the muffin instead of sinking to the bottom. I mix the chocolate chips with a good amount of flour and folded the chocolate chips together with the flour into the rest of batter. I guess this trick works almost everytime.



Ingredients: [ Recipe taken from Laura Vitale] Makes 12 Muffins

½ Cup of Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs
100g of Sugar
3 Mashed Bananas
¼ tsp of Vanilla Extract
200g Cake flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp of Baking Soda
¼ tsp of Salt
¼ tsp of Cinnamon
1 Cup of Chocolate Chips

Steps:

1) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Line a 12 piece muffin tin with muffin liners and set aside.
2) In a small bowl add the chocolate chips and 3 tbsp of flour and mix until all the chocolate chips are coated in the flour. Set aside.
3) In a large bowl add the first 5 ingredients and mix until all combined.
4) Add the flour and baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon, whisk until all combined.
5) Fold in the chocolate chip and flour mixture.
6) Using a large ice cream scoop divide the batter into your muffin pan and bake for about 18 minutes.



I tried to make some streusel toppings on 3 of the muffins. Hmmm i wld say i have to try it again... Nevertheless, you can check out the recipe for the streusel toppings here.