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Poppy Seed Cupcakes With Lemon Drizzle

Yet another cupcake from the 500 cupcakes book hahaha... please bear with me ok. There are 500 variations of cupcakes alone from his book alone! Hehehe... this time, the texture of the Poppy Seed Cupcakes With Lemon Drizzle is completely different from the Orange Poppy Seeds Cake which is moist and dense. These cupcakes are light and fluffy; plus I got them out of the oven at a right time even though the top turned just light golden otherwise it would have ended up a tad too dry.

As usual, I've cut down the sugar of this recipe to just 200g, hence the added sugar drizzle does not turn these cupcakes overly sweet. I totally loved the lemon fragrant in the cupcakes and the extra crunch of the poppy seeds in the icing. Would loved to sub the lemon with other citruses ie. lime or maybe kaffir lime huh?

Poppy Seed Cupcakes With Lemon Drizzle

Cupcakes:
225g unsalted butter, soften
225g castor sugar
225g self-raising flour
4 eggs
1stp vanilla essence
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1 tbsp grated lemon zest

For the drizzle:
125g icing sugar, sifted
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 175C and place 18 casings in muffin trays.

Combine butter, sugar, flour, and eggs in a mixing bowl and beat with electric whisk until smooth, about 2-3 mins. (You'll noticed that majority of the recipes have the same ingredients and steps up till here. So you can actually make a few types of cupcakes by using the basic ingredients.)

Stir in vanilla essence, poppy seeds and lemon zest until well combined. Spoon batter into cases and bake for about 20 mins. Remove tins from oven and cool for 5 mins before removing the cupcakes and cool on rack.

To make the drizzle, mix lemon juice into the icing sugar into the consistency of double cream. Stir in poppy seeds and drizzle over cupcakes.

Store in air-tight container for up to 2 days or 3 months in the freezer.

Ref: 500 Cupcakes & Muffins, By Fergal Connolly book (published by PageOne Publishing)

Technorati Tags: cupcake

Long Beans Fried Rice

**Non-Halal**

Juice all dried up for a proper food post. Since I need to live up to my Fried Rice Queen title, here's another simple fried rice dish where I've used long beans, carrots, eggs and diced Chinese waxed sausages to cook up with some rice. Topped with some fried shallots for the extra fragrant taste.

Refer the following posts for method.

Colourful Vegetables Fried Rice
Garlic Fried Rice
Cabbage Fried Rice
Sardine Fried Rice
IMBB#24: Make it in 30 Minutes
Review: Maggi Belacan Fried Rice Mix

Technorati Tags: rice + malaysian food

Gender Survey Results

My sincere thanks to all of you whom had partipate in my gender survey. As anticipated, I have quite a large amount of female readers, 70% or 190 out of 268 responses. The reason I had this survey on was I need to test out Venus Affiliate program. What Venus?? If you're interested to know further, read on...

A little background - I've chanced upon Notes from Venus, an Asia's women blog community, sometime back. There was a similar site for women based in Penang aeons ago before the blogging era but somehow there isn't much support garnered hence it was closed down. Then there is CloveTWO by The Star but it wasn't close enough to fill the empty void left. When I first surfed up on Notes from Venus, boy I was glad! I was glued to what other women have to share whether it's about home front, health, pets, beauty, parenting, relationships, how to glam up and so forth. Current issues such as Selayang Municipal Council's dog catching competition is being highlighted as well.

I did signed up eventually but I didn't share any articles. Sounded very selfish huh??? But at that time I was struggling to even update my own blog as I was away working on a project but later on I got an email from the editor of Notes from Venus prodding me to contribute to the network. It took me some time before I came out my first post, well up till now I'm ashamed to admit that I have only 2 postings up hahaha and those are actually a reproduction of what I've posted in my blog.

The editor was somehow still very supportive and offered me to be one of their tester on their affiliate program. Since I can't say no in support of being a woman, I'm trying it out here so please let me know if you have encountered any problem whilst visiting.

So my dear SISTERS... ermmm sorry to leave the guys out, keep tuning in as there will be more goodies coming your way from the Venus network. Interested sisters, if you're keen to be part of this, watch this space.

Gender Survey

UPDATED 10 Sept 2007

Hi all, I've just closed the poll. Results will come out in the next post. Thank you all for participating.



UPDATED 4 Sept 2007

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

I need to push up this post as I seriously think my readers must have been away for the long holidays and have not seen this request of mine. So far only 85 votes have been casted which I think it's way too low looking at my number of visitors per day or week for that matter. Hence, I'll have this poll run for another week.

So if you could, kindly just perform a simple 2-clicks action at poll over at your left side under Main Menu. Your help is deeply appreciated.

Thank you once again.



----------------------------



Dear all,

I'm trying to get to know the population of my readers, hence I'm conducting a little survey here asking for your gender. Kindly help me out by performing a simple 2-clicks step at the poll I have put up right at my Main Menu on your left.

I know I have a lot of readers who doesn't leave comments which is fine with me but for once could you all please just let me know whether you're a male or female. This poll will be up for the next 7 days.

Thank you so much.

Review: Sin Eng Heong's Mini Kaya Puff from Ipoh

**Non-Halal**

I have to declare this - my hubby is a Power Kaya Puff Girls Fanatic!!!!!

Ho Chak on 8TV featured this place in Ipoh that made kaya puffs some moons back. I looked at the puffs, they looked kinda ordinary and the hosts showed the cross section of the puff which to me is like... so little kaya filling one??? Hubby who was sitting next to me was literally drooling away at those puffs and he said he loved kaya puffs, yeah, as if I don't know after knowing him for 11 years! He ordered asked me to write down the details at the end of that segment. At the end of the show, he said "Let's go to Ipoh next weekend and grab these puffs!!". So tell me, is he a kaya puff fanatic or not???

Well of course, it didn't happened the next weekend with this busy schedule. The following weekend, MIL went to BIL's place in Ipoh and hubby was secretly hoping that they will grab him some puffs as I've messaged his nephew asking about them. When his mother came back, he see no puffs LOL... very disappointed.

Many weekends came and gone... finally he need to travel up north on boiboi's birthday. Happily he told me that he will definitely stop by Ipoh to get his dose of kaya puffs. He sms me right after he got his puffs, hmmm very happy indeed.

When he reached home, I saw many boxes of kaya puffs, kwai far goe (a type of glutinous cake with red bean or lotus paste fillings) and hiong pheng. Nearly fainted haha but luckily hubby told me most of them are to be given away. We kept 2 boxes of kaya puffs and one box of kwai far goe.

One box contained 10 mini kaya puffs which cost RM4.50, I've placed a Chinese soup spoon next to one just to gauge the size.

After one piece, I'm completely blown away! These jewels are sooo crispy and fluffy even it was eaten the next day!!! The flaky pastry is made with lard hence the fluffy texture. As for the kaya, even though it wasn't filled to the brim but it's enough to bask in the same glory as the delicious pastry. Smooth and very fragrant indeed... it's a star on it's own. The best part was... my boiboi who never liked kaya puff kept on asking for more after one bite!!!

The fresh kwai far goe is absolutely lovely. I haven't had one in Kuala Lumpur that tasted this good for a long while. The one at Chinatown is no longer "edible". This is soft yet chewy (not tough) with light pandan fragrance (not fake essence) and contained reasonable amount of fillings. My boiboi simply adores them!

Technorati Tags: ipoh + pastry + malaysian food

Review: Calabria Cafe & Restaurant

Updated 3 November 2011

Has since closed but replaced with an Italian cafe.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I decided to post this up today after reading Joe's post on Milwaukee Steak Corner. This is not on the same restaurant but the one just next to it called Calabria Cafe & Restaurant. I got acquainted with Calabria via a makan kaki whom posted about this place in Friedchillies few years back. At that time they were located in Bandar Sungai Long before shifting to the current location. Calabria is basically an Italian cafe serving the usual pizza and pasta but a look into their current menu, the list had expanded serving steaks as well.

This time round, hubby ordered a Seafood Soup (RM9.80) which came as a lightly herbed tomato based soup laden with seafood; from prawns, calamari, fish fillets, clams and mussels. A light soup with just the right balance of tomato taste of not too soury that my boiboi was enjoying it too.

I'm not sure since when hubby had a thing with risotto but it seems of late he has been ordering that if he sees them on the menu. This time no difference and he asked for a Beef Risotto (RM15.80), where the rice is cooked in a vegetable stock that came with sauteed striploin. We were disappointed though as Calabria did not use Arborio rice. We suspected they have used Calrose rice instead. The taste was alright but seriously the texture is totally out. So don't order risotto here.

We ordered pizza and spaghetti as options for my boiboi since we weren't sure how was his appetite that evening. Hubby picked a Pizza Quattro (RM13.30) that have four sections of different ingredients namely, chicken pepperoni, beef salami, roasted chunky chicken and tuna with tomato paste topped with mozzarella. My boiboi had 1 slice of the chicken chunks and said it was good *roll eyes* so much so that he asked for a second slice which is a good sign. I had one slice and find the crust a bit too thick. Could have been better if it's thinner by half.

After reading the menu that baked eggs & capsicum, onion, mushroom and chicken with tasty cheese and parmesan in a herbed tomato sauce spaghetti which sounded kinda interesting and delicious, hence I opted for that. This is supposedly to be Spaghetti Spanish Style (RM11.80) and the thought of baked eggs made my mouth waters in anticipation. When it arrives, hubby and I stared at it, asked ourselves what it is??? Hello, did we order egg omelette??? Hahaha... I flipped over the omelette and saw strands of spaghetti coated in thick tomato paste. Oklah it wasn't baked as claimed but nevertheless I still enjoyed this pasta. The omelette is tasty enough with the said ingredients in it. The spaghetti is cooked to perfection with the thick tomato paste clung onto them, the way I liked them. Boiboi had a few bites of the spaghetti before he gave up hahaha... overloaded by now!

That cheeky little fella did not stopped at the spaghetti even though he declared he was full. He asked for a slice of cake for dessert, well its more like hubby asked if he wanted any dessert. Checking with the staff, they only have Tiramisu (RM8.00) and so we have one to satisfy the small fart! I had a few small bites ("someone" was guarding with his watchful eyes!!! Eventhugh he was generous to share with us but we were told to take small bites only hehehe...) and it was kinda good. The sponge fingers are not soggy nor dry, lightly fragrant with coffee. The mascaporne cheese portion is not heavy at all and was best combined with the sponge fingers but of course nothing beat FBB's version. Order here!!!

Hubby had Affogato (RM6.20) and we were all given drinking water (no charge!!! yay!). Bill came to a total RM71.40 after adding in 5% government tax and another 5% service charge. Service here is pretty smooth and attentive as compared to its chaotic neighbour, well maybe because they're not packed to the brim which we liked, can eat in peace!

Silly me, I did not check if they're halal or not but it's pork free for sure and they have several Malay wait staff. I guess that says it all huh.

Calabria Cafe & Restaurant
11G Jalan Kasturi 1,
Plaza Kasturi,
Off Jalan Balakong,
43200 Cheras, Balakong
Tel: (603) 9080 3004

Technorati Tags: balakong + italian