White or Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla or Raspberry Buttercream Frosting

Mmm. Cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes. White and dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla or raspberry buttercream frosting. You can never go wrong with that.

I found a cheap pastry decorating kit at Carrefour (only $4.95, with 6 different nozzles!) and had lots of fun making proper cupcake icing for the cakes I made for Peishan’s book club last Sunday. They were a hit with the girls. Yay!

For the recipe, I basically used the one for the Magnolia Chocolate cupcakes. For the white choc ones, I replaced the dark choc with Cadbury white chocolate and cut down the sugar by half a cup.

As for the buttercream frosting, here’s the recipe:

Basil Pork Noodles with Sliced Red Peppers

I’ve realised that so far none of the recipes I’ve posted here are actually really chinchai, so I thought I’d share one of my simple ones today. Today I made a variation of Chubby Hubby’s Simple Pork Noodles (which itself was a variation of dan dan mian). By adding basil and red peppers, I gave the dish a nice sweet and fragrant kick, as well as something crunchy as a counterpoint to the soft udon and tasty chewy pork.

Prok!

The best thing about this recipe is that it’s really easy and fast. It probably took me 15 minutes from prep to plating, so it’s perfect when you’re tired from a long day at work and just want a quick and nice meal. Why eat instant noodles when you can make something healthier like this for just a bit more effort and time?

Chocolate Ferrero Rocher Cake with Nutella Ganache

“Why do you always bake cupcakes?” grumbled A the other day, when I told him about plans for a fourth batch of cupcakes. I had been obsessing over them for the past week – I was thinking of vanilla with a chocolate filling and crunchy chocolate frosting, but no matter how I thought about it, somehow it didn’t sound aesthetically pleasing (it’d look too much like a white cupcake with a big brown turd sitting on top).

A was right. It was time to diversify my baking repertoire. Fuck the diet, and fuck aesthetics, I thought, this time I’m going to go the whole hog and create the most awesome chocolate creation that would bring any chocolate fan to her knees. And what better ingredients to use in the creation of this weapon of mass destruction than everyone’s favourite chocolate-hazelnut snacks, Ferrero Rocher and Nutella?

From L to R: the cake, smugly basking in the glow of its chocolate perfection; and a close-up of its cross-section.

After much research, I decided on a recipe culled from blogs, the New York Times and Food Network for this sinful treat. It’s basically a layer cake with a milk chocolate and Ferrero Rocher filling, covered with a blend of Nutella and cream. It’s a wee bit mafan (troublesome in Mandarin) but if you have about two to three hours to spare and want to create something delicious for dessert or teatime, then this is it.

This cake gets quite hard when it’s chilled, and it’s at its best when it’s at (Singaporean) room temperature. That’s when the chocolate from both the frosting and the filling is so gooey, it’s like drinking from the chocolate river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. A was a veritable Augustus Gloop when he tried it. He took a bite, and his eyebrows shot up into his auburn hair. “It’s amazing!” he declared, before vacuuming up every single crumb of the cake.

Recipe after the jump!

Scrumptious Cottage Pie

You know you’ve made a damn good cottage pie when an Englishman swoons over it. My boyfriend A was ecstatic during tonight’s dinner, and making orgiastic noises while gobbling up two huge scoops. At the end he solemnly took my hand in his and kissed it. “Thank you,” he said, emotionally. “Good. Now do the dishes,” I commanded. He nodded meekly and scuttled off to the kitchen with our licked-clean plates.

You would think that he loves it because it’s a taste of home, but actually this is a ‘fusion pie’. Instead of cooking it the traditional way (read: boring), I used all kinds of sauces normally found in Asian cooking, and even coriander. Why settle for salt for seasoning when you can use soya sauce, which has a much more complex taste?

That said, eating the pie tonight brought back really fond memories of my time in Bristol. I loved making cottage pie when I was an undergrad in England back in the early ’00s. It was easy, simple, and really comforting to eat in the winter while stretched out on my couch, watching a Channel 4 documentary or Jonathan Ross on Beeb 2. Those were the days…

(recipe after the jump):

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

L to R: Closeup of cupcake; and my rejected decoration designs, one of which is Nippletastic!

I first encountered red velvet cupcakes at Johanna’s 30th birthday party in New York two years ago. Instead of a birthday cake, she opted for red velvet cupcakes from a famous bakery (I forget which one, but it wasn’t Magnolia). One bite and I was hooked!

Mmm, orgastastic!

As its name suggests, the red velvet cupcake has a lovely deep red colour which you can see better in this cross-section picture. It was a bit scary making the batter, which reminded me of Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Marsyas (which in turn was inspired by flayed skin. Eee.).

That aside, the cupcakes turned out well, with a rich velvety, unbelievably soft texture that’s not oily at all. One thing I like about them is that they’re not too sweet, which is made up for by the frosting.

Recipe after the jump!

Got Buttermilk?

Here in Singapore, buttermilk is a foreign concept and usually found in atas (‘high class’) supermarkets. Luckily, there’s always a quick, easy and chin chai way to make buttermilk – just add lemon juice!

Today whilst making red velvet cupcakes (post to come soon), I added the juice of half a large lemon to 1 1/2 cups of semi-skimmed milk, as per instructions from dubdew. Cue panic when I tasted it – it was curdly and lemony! Luckily after a frantic phone call to dubdew, I learned that:

- the lemony taste will dissipate after letting the milk stand for a while in room temperature.

- it is best to use full fat milk (although I used skimmed milk and it was fine).

- the acid in the lemon juice will react with other ingredients (the baking soda?) to create carbon dioxide.

About that last point: this means that buttermilk is important because it helps the batter rise better and creates lightness in the cupcakes. I used to think that buttermilk was basically half and half; but since it needs to be acidic, I guess I was wrong.

Half and half, by the way, is a milk product popular in North America and Canada (I think). It’s a very light cream, kind of in between milk and cream, and usually put into coffee. I remember when I bought half and half accidentally when I was studying in New York; I poured it over my cereal, ate a spoonful and nearly choked. I could feel the butter-fat coating my tongue and back of my throat – fattalicious, but also so strange!

So the question is: what would happen if you used half and half in a cupcake recipe? Would the finished product be indeed denser?

Magnolia Chocolate and Cedele Carrot-Walnut Cupcakes

I just love cupcakes – their size, their cuteness, their pretty-ness, their lethal ability to send you into a sugar-induced swoon. And since I got my new oven, I’ve been going on cupcake baking sprees!

I made these about two weeks ago. The chocolate ones with white frosting were made according to a Magnolia Bakery (NY) recipe, while the carrot-walnut ones with pink frosting taste just like the Cedele carrot-walnut cake.

The chocolate ones were heavenly, but the carrot ones were just a wee bit dense. Next time I make them, I’ll add a bit more baking soda and egg.

Anyhoo, here are the recipes. Enjoy!

The Chin Chai Chef Is Born

Hello, my name is Tessa and I like to cook and bake chin chai-stylee.

I started this blog not because I want to be a food writer, but because I just wanted to have an online database of all my recipes, as well as share my favourite dishes with the rest of the world. And yeah lah, also to show off :p

For those wondering about the name, chin chai is a Singaporean term for being laissez-faire, artless, slapdash, or as we like to put it, ‘just anyhow’. I’m not an artisanal cook and I sadly can’t afford fancy cookware nor expensive ingredients. I am also a lazy scatterbrain who likes cooking no-fuss dishes with a lot of agar-ation (another local term which means ‘rough estimation’). I hope you enjoy my recipes; feedback is welcomed!