Don't regret regret

I came across a speech “Don’t regret regret” by Kathryn Schulz. She is a journalist, author, and public speaker. Her speech had a direct effect on me and made me stop procrastinating attempting to make a dessert which I had put off because of fear of failure.

To start I had this paper in my recipe folder for ages....

Please note milk is missing in the note below. Use 2/3 cup low fat milk.

It was given to me by my Quay Lo and I kept it in my drawer for quite some time. Usually, I am quite excited about new recipes and it isn't very long before I try it. However, this time I put off attempting the recipe for a long time. I had tried making pudding cakes from other recipes several times in the past and I always regretted it when I did. I never seemed to get it right and the outcomes were disappointing. So was I regretting regret through my procrastination? Let me answer by saying how much I am thankful for hearing Kathryn's speech. 

She said, “We need to love the flawed and imperfect things that we create and forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret does not remind us that we did badly. It reminds us to know that we can do better.” 

It sounds almost unbelievable but immediately after hearing her talk I got that piece of paper out of my drawer and went into my kitchen to make the pudding cake. To my surprise, although I judged that it did not come out perfect, the taste and texture were better than I had expected, and it was actually quite good. Not only that, but the attempt helped me to identify ways to improve the recipe to get to a more perfect result. I was happy that I learned an important lesson today and that is not to regret regret.  It interferes with our learning.

My Blog is 1 year old and I am having hell of a rolling time.

Before I share with you my disappoinment, let me share with you my joy! My blog is one year old yesterday. I am amazed myself for being able to sustain one year blogging because I could not imagine I will have readers to want to read my posts. Like I have said before, I don't write good English nor I have any writing style, but I know I will always write from my heart. I am not shy to share my joy and my disappointments with you and be sincere in what I share. I am sure Quay Po Cooks is still here today because of all the encouraging words from you all.  Each and every comment and visit means a lot to me. I know many visited me but did not comment but I know you are there. Thanks for dropping by. I appreciate the love and support from all of you.  THANK YOU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!  HUGZZ and LOVE to you all. 


My disappointment is self inflicted. It is the result of being stubborn not wanting to use the sponge cake recipe to make swiss roll. 

I had a lot of egg whites in my fridge and also some berries which I wanted to use up. I thought I could use them to make the swiss roll.  So, I found this meringue swill roll recipe and give it a try. The meringue sheet came out nice but then, the moment I roll it, it breaks.  Yes, another failure and I ended up with a wrapped meringue cake instead of swiss roll. My Quay Lo did not like the taste of this cake because he said it is too “eggy” for him and it is too heart"achy" for me because I failed again! My maid likes it and said it tasted good so I gave the whole cake to her after I photographed it. 

I am running out of time to send in my entry for the Apsiring Baker #9.  Tomorrow, I will give one more try and this time I HAVE to use the sponge cake recipe and keep all my fingers crossed! Looks like I am having hell of a rolling time this July trying to roll out a REAL swiss roll. Quay Po, don't give up, read this quote:

"You must do the things you think you cannot do."

by Eleanor Roosevelt

Meringue wrapped cake

Adapted from taste.com.au with modification

Ingredients:

5 egg whites, at room temperature

2/3 cup caster sugar

3 teaspoons cornflour

150g fresh blue berries

150g fresh strawberries

2/3 cup mascarpone cheese

2/3 cup thickened cream

Method:

Preheat oven to 190°C. Grease a 2cm-deep, 25cm x 38cm (base) baking tray. Line with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Add 1/2 cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition until dissolved. Sift corn flour over egg mixture. Using a large metal spoon or spatula, fold corn flour into egg mixture to combine. Spread meringue over prepared tray. Bake for 12 minutes or until just firm and pale golden. Meanwhile, place a 40cm piece of baking paper on workbench. Sprinkle with remaining sugar. Carefully turn meringue onto paper. Remove lining from meringue. Allow meringue to cool.Place one-third of the berries in a bowl. Using a fork, roughly mash. Set aside. Whisk mascarpone and cream in a bowl until soft peaks form. Add mashed berries. Gently swirl through cream mixture. Spread berry mixture over meringue, leaving a 1cm border on all sides. Wrap the berry mixture with the meringue. Wrap baking paper around the cake and place, seam side down, on a tray. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until well chilled. Remove baking paper from cake. Torch the top of cake and top with berries. Slice and serve.

Mad grape cake lived up to its name

This recipe was sitting in my “not posted” folder for a long time and I had completely forgotten about it. When I was doing housekeeping on my laptop this morning, I found it. Tell 
me this is not a sign of old age. LOL!

The grapes used in this recipe were part of a gracious fruit basket gift from Reese of Reese Kitchen when she came to lunch at my home a few months ago. (Do drop by her blog to see all her mouth-watering bakes). A few days after the lunch meet, the grapes had begun to look unnoticed as just Mum & I were home. I began to look at grape recipes in the hope to find one that I could use up all the grapes in one go. BINGO!! I found this cake recipe submitted by Sharlene. This is the most simple cake to bake that uses lots of grapes. Yes, LOTS! 500gm! The only tedious thing to do is to remove the skin from each grape. I googled on what is the best way to peel the skin. I found a method to do so. Click here if you are interested to know. After a boring half hour peeling off the skin from each grape (YAWN), it was painfully accomplished. The rest that needed to be done was a no brainer. What I like about this recipe is, there is no oil, shortening or butter used and and it also featured much less sugar than many other cake recipes. One might expect the cake to be dry and dense without any fat used but surprisingly it came out moist and tasty. This is one healthy cake to bake if you want one that is low in sugar and calories. Equally surprising was that my mum loved it. I will definitely make this for her again because I know why she enjoyed this cake so much. She does not take any butter or any food with butter as an ingredient. So 
this one is her kind of cake

Adapted from Sharlene’s recipe

Ingredients:

2 eggs

3/4 cup castor sugar

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 lemon - rind and juice

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

500 grams grapes (seedless and remove skin)

Method:
Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla essence, lemon rind and juice until thick. Add sifted flour. Stir until evenly mixed. Gently stir in grapes. Put in a greased and floured 23cm round tin. Reduce oven to 180 deg C and cook approximately 30-40 minutes. Leave for 3 minutes before turning out. Dust with sifted icing sugar.

Note: For those who do not mind the calories, serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

How I salvage a burnt top, half baked center cake

My cake got a burnt top and a half baked center. I did everything right so what happen? I am guessing that there is something wrong with my oven. This sounds like a bad carpenter blaming his tools. Short of pulling my hair, I was frustrated with the outcome. My first thought was to throw away the cake but I could not bring myself to do it because I was raised not to waste food. I thought of a way to salvage it.  I cut off the burn top and the half baked center and retained the baked part. I cut them into big slices and served them with vanilla ice cream.  Having packed with spices, this cake is buttery, fluffy and crunchy at the same time. No one complains about the odd shape slices that were served. They did not care, they ate them all and went for a second helping. The taste of this cake has definitely compensated for its look and that saves my bacon!

Cinnamon Pear Cake

Ingredients:

250gm butter

220gm  castor sugar

4 eggs

150gm  self raising flour

35gm plain flour

120gm  sour cream

1 Large Chinese pear – peeled, thinly sliced

1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch of ground clove

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:


Arrange sliced pear in the cake pan. Beat butter and sugar with mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg one at a time. Fold in shifted flour and sour cream. Pour mixture over pear in the cake pan.  Bake at 180 degrees C or 375 degrees F for about 60 mins.