Busy Bee Cafe

Unlike home… as in Malaysia… if I need to use pandan, I would just go to my mom’s back garden and cut one out.

Here, in the UK, you could use pandan essence or pandan paste or buy a big bag of pandan leaves and keep them in the freezer. I had a bag in the fridge as I didn’t have space in the freezer and for the last two weeks has been figuring out dishes to make with pandan. The more pandan leaves I need to use the better. Not that I am complaining as I love the smell and taste of pandan.

Anyway… I saw a picture of a banana and coconut cake and don’t ask me why as they do not resemble or even taste the same, I suddenly thought of kuih dadar. I haven’t had it for ages and the last time I was in Malaysia it wasn’t even on my food I have to eat list. But I do remember my mom made this for me a long time ago and I remember buying it from the school canteen when I wanted a sugar fix and I remember loving the sweet taste of gula melaka mixed with the smell of pandan… and with all these memories, I had to make it as I wanted a little taste of home.

Ingredients:

5 pandan leaves
50ml water (to blend the leaves with)
120g plain flour
250ml santan (coconut milk)
50ml water
1 egg
100g palm sugar
1 pandan leaf
75ml water
100g desiccated coconut
1tsp corn flour

1. Put the 5 pandan leaves into a blender with 50ml water and blend into a pulp. Strain it through a fine sieve and put it aside.
   
2. Add flour, santan, water, egg and 4 tbsp of the pandan juice into a bowl and mix well.
3. In a saucepan, add the palm sugar, knotted pandan leaf, water and heat over medium heat until the sugar dissolved. Add the desiccated coconut and corn flour and stir for another minute. Set it aside.
4. Heat up a frying pan and lightly grease it with oil. Pour in about 3 tablespoon of the pancake mixture and swirl the pan to form a thin layer of pancake… almost crepe like.
5. When it is cooked, transfer it over to a plate or chopping board and spoon on about 2 teaspoon of the filling mixture on to the pancake and roll it up like a spring roll.

Just another Malaysian flavour that I am happy to share.

Little Bee had a playdate yesterday and we decided to make a cake… well, I thought her playdate mommy would appreciate cake and coffee so it was more for us mommmies than the kids… but Little Bee doesn’t mind as she loves being my good little helper.

I did make this cake before but it was a rush and I didn’t let it cool down properly that it was crumbly when I sliced it up. But it was still lovely… at least I thought so and that’s why I decided to make it again.

The recipe is adapted from the BBC Good Food page here. I don’t have an electric mixer and mix by hand and I didn’t make the icing as I do think that I personally do not need extra calories

Ingredients:

25g poppy seed
185ml warm milk
185g unsalted butter, soften
220g caster sugar
3 eggs
300g self raising flour
1 lemon’s rind, grated

1. Put the poppy seed and milk in a bowl and set aside.
2. Mix the soft butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and continue mixing. Add the flour and poppy seed and milk mix, alternating between the two (I did it three times as in a third of the flour and then a third of the milk and poppy seed, mix and then again until all are mixed together). Add the lemon rind and mix further.
3. Pre heat the oven at 180c or gas mark 4 (I did it now so I won’t waste any gas )
4. Lined the bottom of a 10cm x 20cm loaf pan with baking paper and lightly butter the side. Pour the mixture in and bake on the middle of the oven for 40 minutes. After 40 minutes, cover the cake with tin foil to avoid browning, and bake for another 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let it cool in the tin on a wire rack for about half an hour. Tip it out and let it cool further on the wire rack or just slice it up as it’s nice to have cake when it is nice and warm

I baked it much longer as 40 minutes, which was the recommended time on the original recipe, was not enough in my oven. Your oven might be more high tech than mine so 40 minutes might be enough.

It seems from my posts that I’m having a bubur spree Well, sometimes it happens but the truth is, bubur is the easiest dish that people tend to forget and take it for granted.

Bubur kacang hijau is actually a dessert or pudding rather than a meal itself. However, saying that, it is very filling and probably is a meal by its own right.

The reason I made it is because Little Bee has a cold. When I have a cold, I usually just boil ginger in water and then make kopi jahe (ginger coffee) but somehow I just don’t think that Little Bee would like ginger juice on its own… I might be wrong as I’ve never tried.

Anyway, I made this pudding because I can still boil in the ginger and it’s sweet and I was hoping that Little Bee would eat it… but it turned out that Little Bee doesn’t like it. Little Bee doesn’t really like pulses so I can’t really say that it’s the fault of the dish… because it’s not. I love it… maybe it’s my fault for reducing the sugar in the recipe but I do find it to be very sweet when I have it in Malaysia so I prefer it with less sugar. In Malaysia, if they serve it hot, I then add ice cubes to it to cool it down and also water it further so it won’t be to sweet.

Well… with Little Bee not wanting it, more for me! So, I’m not complaining

Ingredients:

200g mung beans
750ml water
5cm cinnamon stick
3cm fresh ginger, bruised
4 pandan (screwpine/pandanus) leaves
60g non-refined granulated sugar
250ml coconut milk

1. Rinse and soak the mung beans over night. The next day, drain the beans and put it in a pan and add 750ml water with cinnamon stick, ginger and pandan (tear in half length wise and tied into knot). Bring to boil, reduce the heat and cover and simmer until the beans has soften.
2. Add sugar and coconut milk. Bring it back to a boil. Switch off the heat.

It can be served hot or cold… and trust me it’s yummy! Even if Little Bee doesn’t like it

I asked Little Bee what she wanted for breakfast this morning and she said ‘Pancake‘.

So I made her this:

Usually one pancake with honey was enough for her. But today she wanted another one.

AND I had been offering her dried apricots for days which she rejected… but with them being the ears, she ate them and told me ‘Apricots are my favourite’.

So maybe with me going ‘bento crazy’ on Thursday, ordering a recipe book, sandwich cutters, boiled egg mold, etc will work to get her to enjoy food more. Maybe happy faces will make her eat more vegetables

When I do get my book and accessorize I will then start experimenting. Watch this space

I saw a picture of the cake on Almost Bourdain and was salivating. As it was coming to Christmas and time for celebration, I decided to bake, yet again

Sicilian Orange Cake

Ingredients:

250g lightly salted butter at room temperature
250g unrefined caster sugar
4 eggs
2 orange zest
250g self raising flour
85ml freshly squeezed orange juice
for the icing:
80g unrefined icing sugar
2tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

1. Preheat oven at 170C/gas mark 3. Grease a round cake tin and line it with baking paper.
2. As it is winter at the moment, I soften the butter a bit further in the microwave, medium heat for 30 seconds. Cream the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well each time. Beat in majority of the orange zest, keep about 1 tsp to the side for garnishing. Add all of the flour and mix well. Slowly mix in the orange juice.
3. Spoon in the mixture in the baking tin and bake it in the middle shelf for 50 minutes or until a skewer, inserted in the middle of the cake, comes out clean.
4. Leave the cake to completely cool down in the tin on a wire rack. As the cake is cooling, mix the icing sugar and orange juice. Take the cake out of it’s tin and remove the baking paper. Place it on a plate and pour the icing mix onto the cake, letting it drip down the side. Sprinkle the left over zest on top of the cake and it is now ready to be served!

The pancake recipe is here… but it is really yummy when you top the pancakes up with sweet buttered bananas!

Ingredients:

3 bananas peeled and sliced
1 tbsp margarine/butter
1 tbsp unrefined caster sugar

1. Melt the margarine/butter in a pan. Add the sliced banana and fry for a minute.
2. Add the unrefined caster sugar and fry for another minute.
3. Scoop the banana and some of the buttered sauce on to the pancake. Seriously yummy!

We were watching Big Cook Little Cook on cbeebies and they decided to make some pancake meal for whoever it was that came to their cafe. And I thought, pancakes for tea would be nice. So, that was what we had.

Ingredients:

125g self raising flour
1/2tsp cinnamon powder
2tbsp unrefined caster sugar
1 egg
150ml milk
Corn oil

1. In a bowl, sift together the flour and cinnamon. Add the caster sugar, mix and make a whole in the middle.
2. In another bowl, beat together the egg and milk. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry bowl and whisk lightly and quickly to make a batter with thick cream consistency.
3. Heat a frying pan on a medium heal and pour a little oil in it. I used a paper towel to spread the oil evenly. Drop a ladle full of batter into the pan and use the back of the ladle to evenly distribute the batter into a circle.
4. Cook the pancake for 1-2 minutes until bubbles rise to the surface and burst, and turn the pancake over and cook for another 1-2minutes. Remove from pan and repeat until you finish the batter.
5. The pancake is ready to be served and I just drizzled some chocolate syrup all over it to the delight of Little Bee.

My colleague brought back some Reeves Peanut Butter Cups when she was in the USofA. As usual, I started to think ‘How hard can it be?’

So, I started to look for the recipe and again, referred to the Joy of Baking site. I, however, omitted the milk chocolate as I prefer tasting the cocoa rather than sugar. This is what I ended up with.

Ingredients:

125g creamy peanut butter
28g unsalted butter
1/8tsp salt
20g unrefined icing sugar
400g dark chocolate
10g shortening

1. In a microwavable bowl, add the peanut butter, unsalted butter and salt. Put it in the microwave for 30 seconds (soft not melted). Stir it the icing sugar.
2. Over a simmering water, melt the chocolate and shortening in a heatproof bowl.
3. Line about 30 petit four cups on a baking tray.
4. Drop a teaspoon of melted chocolate into each cups. Add a teaspoon of peanut butter mixture into the middle of each cups and top each cup with another teaspoon with melted chocolate.
5. Refrigerate until set.

A few weeks ago, there was an ice cream van parked outside work offering free ice cream. Unfortunately it wasn’t the weather for ice cream and the ice cream itself is not that amazing that I would run out to get one.

It’s not like the ice cream you get in Italy. It was just a normal Mr Whippy ice cream, the 99p ice cream with flake… only it was in a cup and without the flake.

I told my colleague homemade ice cream must taste better than what we get in the shops.

So, here’s my weekend effort. Why ‘effort’? Because I don’t have an ice cream maker and won’t have one. I just don’t want another gadget in the house… plus, I have able hands and arms, so, I can stir no problem. The ice cream might not turn up as smooth but hey… it’s made with love

Ingredients:

3 very ripe bananas
400ml milk
50g unrefined caster sugar
2tsps vanilla extract

So how do you make ice cream without an ice cream machine?

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz until it’s smooth. Pour the mixture into a wide bowl, cover and put it in the fridge for an hour.

Remove from the fridge and transfer it into the freezer for 40 minutes. Take the bowl out. It should have started to freeze at the edges and still soft in the middle. Beat the mixture well and making it smooth again.

Place the bowl back in the freezer for another 40 minutes and repeat the above again. Repeat this about 4 or 5 times or more if you have the patience.

Once the mixture is nice and frozen, your ice cream is ready!

OK… this is the first time I made it and the texture is more like a sorbet than a smooth ice cream. I just need more practice, which won’t be a problem as I have something yummy waiting for me in the end

What can you do with over ripe bananas?

Make jemput-jemput pisang or also known as cucur pisang or I guess if you translate it to English mashed banana fritters… I’m not sure about that though… maybe banana balls describes it better.

Anyway, it has Bubba Bee’s seal of approval… but I have to warn you that this is deep fried stuff so very oily! It’s best if you seriously drain in on a few kitchen towels!

Ingredients:

Corn oil for deep frying
4 very ripe bananas
4 tbsp (heaps) self raising flour
1 egg

• > Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan.
• > Mash the bananas and mix it well with the other ingredients. It should make a thick paste. If it is still runny, just add more flour.
• > Scoop a table spoon of the paste and drop it in the hot oil. Repeat until you think there are enough banana balls in the wok and you can still easily turn them over.
• > Fry each side for about a minute or until it turns golden brown.
• > Drain in on lots of kitchen towel and it’s ready to be served… hot or cold.

NB: Although I chose the baby/toddler safe category… I do not recommend it to babies under one.