I've Never Cooked My Own Fried Noodles

I have decided today that it is time for me to learn how to fry my own fried noodles. So I've asked Mak to guide me along. This is the simplest way..

Mom's Regular Fried Noodles

5 pips of garlic, blended
1 huge bulb of onion, blended
2 tablespoons chilli paste
1/2 cup of diced boneless chicken
5 fishballs, each cut into 2
10 fresh prawns, shells peeled
1/2 cup of boiled cockles, without the shell of course
2 stalks of mustard leaves, cut into bite size
4 tablespoons cooking oil
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 egg
2 teaspoons salt, adjust to taste
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup of water
1 packet of yellow noodles

Heat oil in a wok. Sautee the garlics and onion until you can smell the aroma. Add on the chilli paste, fry on till the colour turns a bit darker. Stir in the soy sauce. Add in the chicken and let it cook slightly. Then put in the prawns, cockles and fishballs. Pour in the water and adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Add the egg and stir quickly so that the sauce becomes thick. Bring the sauce to boil. Ensure you do not use low fire. Just then, add in the noodles and the mustard leaves. Fry on until everything is well mixed and the sauce dries up to your liking.

Strawberry Layer Cake

Today I was asked to bake cakes for some relative's. Their daughter is getting married. So I made this layer cake after not making it for many, many months. I used to be crazy about baking layer cakes last year, until the moment I fell in love with cupcakes.

Strawberry Layer Cake

Ingredient A

20 egg yolks

6 egg whites

175g granulated sugar

125g Hong Kong pow flour

Beat up eggs and sugar until light and fluffy or until they turn almost white. Fold in the flour in 3 batches, mixing them well after each addition.

Ingredient B

400g butter, softened

1 tablespoon ovalette

4 tablespoons condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Beat all of the above ingredient until butter is slightly fluffy. Combine it good with mixture A. Divide the whole batter equally into 2 portions. Prepare your oven to 180 degree Celcius on grill mode. (Using grill mode is quite necessary in making layer cakes, so if your oven don't have such mode it is quite impossible to succeed. I've tried once, the layers couldn't brown well and the bottom part will be burned once I put on the last layer). Don't forget to line the bottom of your cake pan (for this I use 8 x 8 x 4 cake tin) with parchment paper and grease it proper, base and all around.

Ingredient C

100g ice cream powder

1 tablespoon strawberry paste

1 teaspoon pink food colouring

In one portion of the batter, add in the ice cream powder, strawberry paste and the food colouring.

Now that you have 2 parts of batter, one pink and the other one not, scoop 1 cup of the original batter and even the layer out in the pan. Bake it in the preheated oven for no longer than 3 minutes or until you see the surface has nicely browned. Bring the pan out and scoop the next cup of pink batter and even it out on top of the first layer. Place it back in the oven and wait for the same browning effect. (Yes, it's tedious.I know...)Keep repeating this process, alternating the batter on top of each other until you have used up all the batter. You should get 10 layers in total.

After completing the last layer and the surface has browned nicely, check the doneness of the cake by doing the regular toothpick test. If some batter is still visible on the toothpick, turn the oven off and leave the cake in the heat for another 15 minutes. Let it cool in the pan before transferring it onto plate or box or whatever..

Reminder : You should never leave your baking unattended. Have all your needs and the batters next to you in front of the oven.

P/s : My problem with the cake is that I can't seem to get rid of the air bubbles. They spoil the look of the cake by ending up looking like cheese. I've tried so many remedy but they still make an appearance. But nevertheless, the cake is soft, moist and delicious.