Quay Po Cooks: Very Good Recipe

Showing posts with label Very Good Recipe. Show all posts

Monday, December 5, 2011

Join the White Christmas Challenge by Very Good Recipes

Get into the Christmas mood and join in the fun of the White Christmas Challenge organised by Very Good Recipes. I am one of the 10 judges.

Alex from Food 4 Thought

Anne from Les Recettes du Panier

Han Ker from Hankerie

Kristina from Knuckle Salad

Quay Po from Quay Po Cooks

Rachel from Blissfully Scrumptious

Russell from London Eats

Suzy from Suzy Eats

Vanessa from Vane Valentine

This month's theme is: White Christmas.

Theme

There is always a magic feel in the air when snow is falling on Chritmas Eve. Not eveyone lives in a region where snow is usual during winter, but everyone can try to recreate this magic in the kitchen!

What dish do you think of when you hear "White Christmas"? You can of course cook with white ingredients such as white fish, white chocolate, white asparagus, white truffles, white vegetables, chicken, cream, coconut milk etc. But your recipe does not have to be all white! It needs to be festive and have a "snowy" feel. You can be creative and imagine a snowy presentation, for instance sprinkling snow crystals (drops of cream, petals of white edible flowers, and a lot of other ingredients) or trying to create a snow-covered landscape one can eat!

Participating

The challenge is open to everyone, whether you have a food blog or not.

In order to participate, you need to enter a recipe on the theme of "White Christmas".

If you have a food blog registered on Very Good Recipes, you just need to publish your recipe on your blog with a link to the challenge page http://verygoodrecipes.com/white-christmas-challenge in the text of your recipe. It will then be automatically listed on this page. (if you don't see it after 30 minutes, please email stephane@verygoodrecipes.com)

If you have a food blog (or a blog with a recipe category or label) but are not yet registered on Very Good Recipes, you can register in 30 seconds.

If you do not have a blog, you can participate by sending an email to stephane@verygoodrecipes.com with your recipe and one or more pictures. He will publish your recipe on Very Good Recipe's blog so that it can be displayed on the challenge page.

Rules:

There must be at least one picture in your recipe, and both the recipe and picture need to be your own. If your recipe is inspired by another, please mention it in your recipe.

You cannot use an already published recipe to participate in the challenge, you need to publish a new recipe (otherwise there's no challenge!)

You can participate from Monday December 5th 2011 until Monday December 26th included.

Please put a footnote in your post that you are participating the challenge via Quay Po Cooks and stand a chance to win a prize from Quay Po. Winners of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th prize who participated via Quay Po Cooks will receive a ROSEVELT's (my son's band) album on top of the prizes from the Sponsors.

Click on this Album pic to listen to one of their songs - Moment

Check out the attractive prizes from the Sponsors by clicking on the badge. I look forward to see your entries, the more the merrier!

To launch the Challenge, each judge will have to publish a recipe in line with the White Christmas and here is mine.

White Chocolate White X'mas Cupcakes

Adapted from Baking Bites with modification

Make 18 medium size cupcakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

4-oz white chocolate, chopped

1 vanilla pod

1 cup plus 1 tbsp milk (low fat is fine)

Method:

Preheat oven to 325F. Line muffin pans with 18 cupcake liners. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In a small, microwave-safe bowl, melt the chopped white chocolate by heating it in 30 second intervals in the microwave. Stir well with a fork between each interval and cook only until the chocolate is smooth when stirred. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by melted white chocolate and vanilla extract. Working in two or three additions, alternate adding in some of the milk and some of the flour mixture, ending with a final addition of flour. Mix until just incorporated and no streaks of flour remain. Divide batter evenly into prepared muffin cups.

Bake at 160C or 325F for 20-23 minutes until a tester comes out clean or the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a fingertip. Cool on a wire rack. Use your own choice of frosting and exercise your own creativity to decorate the cupcakes for the appropriate occasion. I used plain butter cream frosting.

Plain Butter cream frosting

Please click on the photo to get the recipe.

Note: I am submitting this to

Aspiring Bakers #14: Creative Christmas Bakes (December 2011) hosted by Hankerie

and

I am submitting this to the Christmas Giveaway in The Sweet Spot

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.