Another thing is that I now have a facebook page called My Kitchen Produce. It is much more updated that the blog, so please do like my page Thanks heaps guys.

If you are thinking of ordering the tumpeng with me in the future but wanting to sample the food or unsure about the taste, this is the time. I will sell a sampler box, menu include:

• Nasi Kuning
• Perkedel Kentang
• Tahu Bacem
• Ayam Panggang Kalasan
• Urap Sayuran
• Sambal Goreng Ati
• Telur Dadar Gulung
• Sambal Terasi
• Lalapan Timun Selada

This is for this coming sunday, 27th November 2011 (Sorry for the late notice). If you are interested, please send me an email at linda.kurniawan@gmail.com.

Thanks all

Husband: What do you think about something geeky, something edible?

Me: Whattt??? (was doing the laundry and barely heard anything)

Husband: What is something geeky, something edible?

Me: What is that? I don’ t get it.

10.45 PM

Silent… I was sitting doing getting ready to watch my Cake Boss.

Husband: How long can you make a cake for me?

Me: What??? (confused because he hates cake and barely ate one)

Then he told me that he want to win this phone (don’t know what brand, can’t remember, not sure). He asked me to bake a cake to look like an android logo. I said the eggs are at the fridge and need time to get them at room temperature.

He said it  need to be green and asked me to bake something simple and green like a chiffon pandan cake (thinking that Pandan is green). I can’t contained my self from laughing. Yeah, after it is baked and ready the top of the cake is going to be yellowish brown and not green. How about slicing the top off.

I said I don’t like to make something that is going to look crap (excuse me) and not planned. Finally, he gave up and said that’s ok. I said you should tell me this afternoon then I am much more prepared.

11.15 PM

Me: What do you think of fondant? How about making the android thing from fondant. It is edible and sure look geeky enough.

Husband: Ok let’s do it.

This is the Android that I made from fondant under 1 hour without the drying process. It is soft and we were struggling to take a decent photograph (the camera is crap anyway). I tried my best

Please GOOGLE let him win, pretty pleaseeeeeeeeee….. This was my hard work and he was kinda pushy LOL and desperate to win this phone.

From July up till now, I did 7 fondant cakes already. I get more comfortable with fondant than before but I still need to learn lots of tricks and how to do lots of stuffs properly. You can check the detail on my “Cakes” pages. Here are some photos line up.

Here are some cupcakes photos that I did for my friend’s child birthday:

These were sweets and treats at Nathan’s 4th Birthday Bash. (Left Rainbow Jellys and Right Macarons tower)

I finally try to make macarons to follow the “NOW” baking trend Actually if it wasn’t for Nathan’s birthday, I might be still haven’t try to bake them yet. My first trial was baking french macarons. The result looks perfect, but it was way to sweet for my liking, however my husband said that after they are sandwich with the buttercream in the middle, they weren’t that sweet (PSsssssttt!!! I reduced the sugar in the buttercream a lot). The trickiest part I found in baking the French macarons is that they stuck to the paper after baking for 30-40 minutes (way too long int the oven). I had to drain the bottom part of the tray and under the baking paper with cold water do that the steam help release the macarons.

Anyway, I tried the Italian Macarons and I loved them. It took them about 15 minutes in the oven and they let go of the baking paper easily. The down part was lots of washing to do due to lots of utensils and pans used I chose to do the macarons with Asian touch. BEN 10 associated with these black, green and yellow colour and I start to work out my flavour using these 3 colour ideas. Black is for Black Sesame Mac with Black Sesame infused White Chocolate Ganache. Green is for Roasted Coconut with Pandan Mac with Pandan infused White Chocolate Ganache. Yellow is my favourite thing, Lemon Mac with Lemon Cream Cheese. I am happy with the flavour, just need to work on my piping pressure for the similar size.

I also did some cakes for Nathan’s teacher’s daughter birthday. It was my first attempt in making chocolate cigars for the border surrounded the cake. It was tricky at first and took me a while to get used to the technique but it was fun although I slept at 4 AM in the morning because of this The cake was huge 30×30 cm, and it need a lot of chocolates cigars.

Lately I got huge orders of tumpeng platters (you can check the photos on my “TUMPENG” page). Thank you for trusting me to make your special day special

Another thing is that I have the My Kitchen Produce page on Facebook. I asked my husband to put the tab in the front page but he hasn’t have the time to do it. Anyway, if you do have facebook, please do check out my page and like them Thanks a lot guys for your support.

I really am sorry. It has been more than 4 months since I last updated the post. I have been busy with kids and catering and cakes order and we are building our home. I am exhausted by the time the kids go to sleep, therefore I had no chance to do my things.

Anyway, enough with my excuses, here what I promised 4 months ago, a recipe for the Perfect Party Cake by Dorie Greenspan. This cake was trully delish and if you are a fan of all lemony things like me, you will love this cake.Enjoy this recipe and meanwhile I will update you with lots of pictures of what I have been doing for the 4 months on the next post.

Ingredients for The Cake

Recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan: Baking from My Homes to Yours p.250-252

• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 tbsp baking flour
• 1/2 tsp salt (I omit this)
• 1 1/4 whole milk or buttermilk (I used buttermilk)
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 1 stick or 114 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 tsp pure lemon extract
• 2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves, stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable (I added few drops of water and stirred until smooth), for finishing
• about 1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut, for finishing (I omit this)

Ingredients for The Buttercream

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites
• 3 sticks or 340 gr unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Instructions for The Cake

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Happy birthday to you…

Happy birthday to you…

Happy birthday my dear blog…

Happy birthday to you…

Hip Hip HOORAY!!!

Hip Hip HOORAY!!!

Hip Hip HOORAY!!!

I know that it is 6 days too late I am posting this, but “Happy Birthday My Kitchen Produce”. I have been trying to make the cake and the post but my boys were having cold, fever and diarrhea. A great combination which made my life so complete

Anyway…

It has been 2 years since I started this blog. It has been a journey ever since and I am looking forward to many adventurous kitchen experiment ahead. With the existence of this blog, I always feel so challenged to try new recipes and improve my cooking and baking skills. Spending my spare “me” time browsing through some amazing foodie blogs to search for recipe trials and inspirations.

Now let’s start with statistic…

The visitors in this second year rise more then three folds of last year one. WOW!! Thank you guys, I didn’t expect that it will be this much. There were 14,352 to be exact, coming from over 120 countries. The most visited recipe is always “Kue Lapis Sagu“. It hasn’t been defeated by any other recipes yet and always makes me wonder why Lately my daily visitor could reach more than 100 a day, and that is just icing on the cake. The numbers encourage me to cook, bake and post more recipes.

Here comes the cake…

It seems simple and plain but looks can be deceiving The truth is I don’t have any idea to decorate it with. It was midnight when I finished frosting it and I couldn’t wait till morning to cut the cake. I wouldn’t be bothered going to Coles to buy some fresh raspberries. However, some fresh raspberries on top would make a huge appearance difference.

Few reasons that made me want to make this cake as the 2nd birthday cake. First, the title intrigues me, Perfect Party Cake. Second, it was Dorie’s Greenspan’s recipe (If you notice, I was making Dorie’s Devils Food White Out Cake). Apparently, the one genuine real baking book that I have is only Dorie’s. Internet and google has made recipe searching so much easier thus you don’t need to own a book Third, the unique technique involving in the mixing process. It requires egg whites (no yolks) and they are mixed with buttermilk before added to the butter mixture. I was curious with the texture of the cake. Lastly, we went to the citrus farm last week and bought 16 kg of citrus (10 kg mandarins, 5 kg satsuma, and a kg mix of kaffir limes and lemons). This recipe requires lemons, so it is perfect fresh from the farm.

I will post the recipe ASAP, because this cake is to die for. If you loves lemon, you will definitely adores this cake. Layers of lemon scented cake stack in between raspberry jam and covered in lemon swiss meringue buttercream. Originally, they are also covered with sweetened dessicated coconut, but I am not a big fan of coconut and my husband hates coconut. He will not eat it if he sees those coconut. I don’t want to feel guilty on gobbling 3 sticks of butter from the cake and buttercream alone

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Now, two months after that, I thought I have to do something with the meat. It has been a long nap and they had to get out of the freezer. They did take a lot of space to store. I had been thinking to make this Dendeng Balado for quite sometime now but I always think about the hefty amount of work involved in making this dish. Now I convince myself and it is worth the effort.

Dendeng Balado is a traditional Indonesian dish. It comes from West Sumatra, Padang. West Sumatran cuisine is rich with its spice especially chilli and coconut. My family background (my grandmother) was born and brought up there, and she was the one who look after me when I was a kid. I was literally brought up eating the spicy and rich Padang cuisines and I absolutely love it.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg gravy beef
• 1/2 tbsp whole coriander seeds, press them using the tip of knife
• 2 tsp salt
• water just enough to cover
• 500 gr red chilli, set aside 5 chillies for cutting
• about 5-10 small red chillies, depending on your preference of spiciness
• 20 gr shallot, 3-4 pcs extra depending on the size, for slicing
• 4 cloves garlic
• oil for deep frying and stir frying
• lime juice
• salt and sugar to taste

Instructions

1. Slice the gravy beef into 5 mm in thickness. Lightly salt and mix until combined.
2. Put the sliced beef in a pot and cover with just enough water (barely covering the top of the meat). Throw the coriander seeds on the pot. Bring them to boil and then turn the heat to medium low until the meat is tenderized.
3. Meanwhile, puree red chillies, shallot, and garlic in a food processor until fine. No need to achieve a perfect puree. Set aside.
4. Slice the shallot and cut the chillies into long strips. Set aside.
5. When the beef slices are cooked, take them out and reserve the juice.
6. Get the frying pan ready and heat the oil for deep frying. When the oil is hot, throw in the meat slices and browned for few seconds. The idea of deep frying is to brown the surface and dry them off slightly. Set them aside.
7. Get the wok ready and heat generous amount of oil for stir frying. Add the chilli mixture puree to the wok and turn the heat to medium low. Keep stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
8. Add the sliced shallot and chillies, stir to combine.
9. Add salt, sugar and lime juice to taste. Add them a little at the time and keep tasting. They should have a balance between sweet, salty and sour.
10. Add the beef and stir to combine.
11. Add about 1/2 cup of reserve juice. Depending on how wet you want them to be, or you could ignore the juice totally.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Ingredients

• Ready rolled puff pastry (I used Pampas brand)
• Ham
• Milk to brush

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven 180 C.
2. Divide the pastry into 4 long strips with approximately 5 cm in width.
3. Cut the round ham in half and arrange 3 pieces of halves ham in each pastry strip.
4. Fold the pastry in half to enclose the ham and twist them.
5. Brush milk on top and bake until golden.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

I follows the recipe as it is, except the amount of sugar and sour cream. I don’t want to get a “diabetes attack” as usually most cupcakes recipe does have a lot sugar in them, I used 2 cup of sugar instead. As for the sour cream, I bought 300 gr pack sour cream, so I just dumped everything in.

This recipe yields about 36 cupcakes. My husband was so curious that he asked me whether we were having a special gathering or something. There were a lot of cupcakes. I shared some of them with friend and families and packed the rest into an airtight container without frosting. I didn’t bother to store them in the freezer as I know for sure that my husband would devour them. He is a chocolate addict.

If you check Martha Steward website, you will notice that her cupcake colour is really dark. I couldn’t get mine as dark as her. I don’t know, it was probably because of the type of cocoa powder used. Another tricky thing is to get those chocolate curls. I tried few attempts like heating the chocolate block by waving them on the fire then grated them or melting the chocolates onto the stone bench top and curling them using a sharp knife. I failed miserably I gave up and just sprinkled some shaved chocolates on top. I will keep you posted on my attempts to conquer these chocolate curls.

PS. Totally ignore the water bottle. I don’t have a clue how it got there. I was rushing to have a photography moment, as usual, and didn’t pay attention to the surrounding.

The ganache recipe probably yield double size of the cupcakes recipe. I couldn’t imagine on baking another batch of these cupcakes, so I whipped the ganache and piped a generous amount of frosting on top of each cupcake. My husband laughed when he saw the piping style. He said they look like a pile of poo. HAHAHAHA When I look at them now, they do in fact have a resemblance.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

To satisfy his craving, I tried to make the chilli myself. I remembered my mom used to make this when she was visiting few years ago. The recipe is pretty simple anyway. So far, he loves it. When I made this chilli relish, I put it in the jar and store it in the fridge They could last for few weeks, but they never last that long in our fridge

Ingredients

• Grilled Chicken/Fried Chicken
• 1 small to medium size onion, peel
• 250 gr red chillies
• 20-30 small red chillies (more or less depending on your preference)
• 30 gr garlic, peel
• 60 gr shallot, peel
• 3 small to medium size tomatoes
• 25 gr terasi (shrimp block, you can get from Indonesian groceries), grilled on the pan for few minutes until the colour changed
• lime leaves
• lime juice
• sugar to taste
• salt to taste
• 2 tbsp oil

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok.
2. Do not cut or dice anything. Add onion, chillies, garlic, shallots, tomatoes to the wok. Stir fry them until they soften and changed in colours for about 15 minutes or so.
3. Using a hand held blender, blend everything plus the terasi until puree.
4. Then add sugar, salt and lime juices. Add them a little at the time and adjust the taste.
5. Cut the lime leaves into tiny pieces straight into the puree mixture.

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

My tips to this dish:

• Soak the satay sticks in the cold water for at least 30 minutes to prevent the stick from burning.
• Reserve the chicken oil whenever you cook the marinade chicken, so you can use it for grilling satay. You can freeze the oil too.
• It is best to marinade the chicken overnight.
• When you sticks the chicken onto the skewers, try to alternate the meat with the fat.

I haven’t include the peanut sauce recipe yet, simply because I never measure them every time I cook them. In fact, I rarely measures when I cook (don’t rely to much on my measurement ) Here are the step for making my peanut sauce (without measurement):

1. Using a wok, roasted peanut with skin on with low heat. It could take up to 30 minutes, depending on how much you have.
2. Peel the skin off the peanut. Try to rub them with your finger. The skin should fall pretty easily.
3. Puree the peanuts. You could leave some of them crush not puree.
4. Puree the bumbu (garlic, shallot, chilli).
5. Heat pan with oil. Fried the bumbu, lemon grass, lime leaves, bay leaves until fragrant.
6. Add the peanut and water (add as you need).
7. Add tamarind (diluted in hot water) and palm sugar and salt.
8. From this stage, you adjust the taste as you go along. They should be sweet and spicy with a slight saltiness and sourness.

Ingredients

• 500 gr chicken thigh fillets, cut into small pieces
• 5 cloves garlic
• 3 pcs shallot
• about 1 tbsp grated ginger
• 5 pcs candlenut, roasted
• salt
• chicken oil for brushing
• sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) for brushing
• satay sticks (to prevent the sticks from burning, soak them in cold water for 30 minutes or so)
• peanut sauce

Instructions

1. Using a blender, pureed garlic, shallot, ginger, and candlenut.
2. Marinate the chicken pieces with the pureed mixture overnight. Stick the chicken pieces into satay sticks.
3. It is best to use the charcoal BBQ,but you can still use the oven (like me). Grill the chicken at 200 C. Brush them once in a while alternately with chicken oil and sweet soy sauce.
4. Serve them with peanut sauce and cucumber or rice cakes (ketupat lontong).

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

This cake was Ok , but not great. It tasted like pound cake, quite heavy and make you feel like one slice is enough. In terms of the amount of eggs used i.e. 8 eggs, I feel it was a bit over. Imagine what you can do with 8 eggs to make cupcakes, you will produce dozens of cuppies. But I guess because this is Indonesian’s recipe, the egg used is still few compared to Lapis Surabaya (about 30 yolks for 19 by 19 cm square tin) or Lapis Legit (about 40 yolks for 19 by 19 square tin).

Can you see my melting buttercream? I was so sleepy and couldn’t wait to frost them. I thought I might don’t have time next day when my kids were awake. I waited for half an hour or so, but they still melted If I knew than that I would be the only mom who brought the cake to school, I wouldn’t bother making this cake. It turned out that I didn’t read the invitation clearly. It didn’t state that “we have to bring a plate of food to share” as usual. Furthermore, I hate being in the spotlight, where I was being the only one who brought something to the school gathering (or I think to much )

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion: Cake Pandan Tabur Keju

• 150 gr plain flour
• 50 gr corn flour
• 100 gr unsalted butter, melted
• 200 gr caster sugar
• 8 eggs
• 1 tsp emulsifier
• 1 tbsp pandan paste
• Cheese Buttercream
• grated cheddar cheese
• glazed cherries for decoration

Instructions

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

For some of you who are not familiar with Pandan, here is a brief information. Pandan leaf also known as screwpine leaf is staple in Asian culinary. It is used for both sweets and savouries. It is used to wrap chicken, to cook rice, to give a distinct fragrance to sweet and dessert. In some dishes, it is best to be cook with coconut milk.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Don’t be fool with the word Nutella cupcakes because the Nutella was only added to the frosting. These Nutella cupcake wasn’t my cup of tea. The cupcake itself was tasteless and quite dense. The frosting was way way way too sweet for me. I guessed the cupcake and the frosting were quite a good combination because of the plain cupcake taste and the sweetness of the frosting. For me, I wouldn’t make it again. However, I would still like to share this recipe for the Nutella lover out there.

I had some left over chocolate ganache in the fridge, so I just did a quick whip with a hand held mixer and voila. I prefer the one with the ganache, they were not as sweet as the nutella ones.

Ingredients for the cupcake

Recipe adapted from Handle the Heat: Nutella Cupcakes

• 2 cups cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt (I omit this)
• 150 gr butter, softened (I used unsalted butter)
• 1 cup sugar (I used 3/4 cup sugar)
• 3 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolks
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup whole milk (I think it is best to use the milk at room temperature)

Ingredients for the frosting

• 3/4 cup butter, softened (I used unsalted butter)
• 1/2 cup Nutella
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp milk
• 1 cup icing sugar (I used 1/2 cup)

Instructions for the cupcake

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

If I have to compare them with the previous Chocolate Cupcakes that I posted, they taste pretty similar. In fact, I can’t remember the difference, maybe because I don’t have them at the same time. Well, I don’t know, but this recipe only requires 1 egg.

Ingredients for the cupcake

Recipe adapted from Julie Hasson’s Best Cupcake Recipe: Best Chocolate Cupcakes

• 160 gr plain flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Ducth-process cocoa powder (I used Cadbury cocoa)
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt (I didn’t use this)
• 201 gr sugar (I used 150 gr)
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used Canola oil)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I didn’t use this)
• Chocolate Ganache

Instructions for the cupcake

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!