Christmas Fruit Cake

Saturday, November 30, 2013

No comments

Hello there :-)

Christmas is coming and I'm very excited for it! To be honest, my family doesn't celebrate the season, we just go to my aunt's place for a simple dinner and gift-exchange but honestly the whole festive atmosphere makes me so happy every time December comes. It's definitely one of my favourite months, together with February.

I feel like something indispensable about festive seasons would be the food and the smell of freshly baked goods. Why turn to scented candles when you can have the real smells coming from your oven? (Well, actually I really love scented candles and won't say no to them but yes -) Christmas isn't even here yet but so far I've already made some iced sugar cookies which you can find here and today, I have another recipe for another Christmas favourite - fruit cake! :-) 

Christmas fruit cake traditionally has some form of liquor in it, but this one is non-alcoholic because I've never really experimented with using booze in my baking. The cake would usually have to be covered in cloth soaked with alcohol for days, even months or years but I've substituted it with orange juice to give it the moist texture is still needs. So here's my take on: 

NON-ALCOHOLIC FRUIT CAKE 

Ingredients: 
1. 200g flour
2. 50g ground almonds (powder form)
3. 1 teaspoon baking powder
4. 1/4 teaspoon salt 
5. 1 orange
6. 115g unsalted butter
7. 100g sugar
8. 3 large eggs
9. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
10. 1/4 teaspoon almond extract 
11. 60ml milk
12. 200g mixed fruits (the preserved candied kinds) 

If you'd like, you can add things like walnuts/ almonds etc. I don't really like nuts in general because of their texture but I still wanted the nutty taste, which is why I have the ground almonds and almond extract in the ingredient list. 

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degree Celsius 
2. Lightly grease the pan to ensure the cake comes out clean later on - just take some oil and wipe it all over the pan with a piece of serviette 


3. Combine your flour, ground almonds, baking powder and salt (first four ingredients) in a bowl and mix them together 


4. Zest the orange peel into the flour mixture and keep the orange


5. Mix in the peel and set the flour mixture aside 

Ooo balding orange in the background!!

6. Cream the butter and sugar together till light and fluffy


Tada!

7. Add your eggs, one by one, beating them in well after each egg is cracked in


8. Once the eggs are incorporated, add your vanilla and almond extracts - the almond extract is really really strong so make sure you put only one quarter of a teaspoon; the measurement for this is vital, unlike the vanilla extract heh there's always room for more vanilla :-) 


9. Add your flour mixture in halves and fold it in 


10. Add your milk gradually as you mix your flour in 


11. Finally, putting the fruit in fruitcake, we have the fruits! Add them in and mix well - if you're adding nuts, add them in at this point too


Okay confession: I added the whole box of mixed fruits (i.e. 300g) and my batter was really overfilling with fruits. I wouldn't recommend doing the same thing as I did, 150-200g of fruits should be more than enough but I was greedy and I like candied fruits so. It won't change the taste of the cake, except that you'll get mouthfuls of fruit in every bite. 

F R U I T S 

12. Pour the batter into the oiled pan


13. Bake the baby for around an hour in the oven - check it periodically. If it gets too brown but is not yet cooked inside, cover it with aluminium foil and continue baking. Check if it's cooked by inserted a toothpick inside the middle of the cake; if it comes out clean, it's done!

14. In the meantime, squeeze the orange for its juices (use the same one you got the zest from)


15. Once the cake is done, take it out and let it cool for 10-20minutes in its pan


16. Pour the orange juice over the top of the cake and watch it soak through it. It's hard, but let the cake rest for a few hours in the fridge (perhaps overnight) or even two days so that it becomes more moist. 

17. When you're ready, run a knife down the sides first before overturning the pan


The moment of truth! 

And there you have it - a lovely lovely fruit cake (with a bit too much fruits but that's perfectly fine with me). I felt like the almond flavour was slightly overpowering but I quite liked it. However, if one doesn't like almonds, the cake wouldn't prove good. Feel free to leave out the almond extract because it's a bit on the artificial side and the ground almonds should provide enough flavour already.

Yay 

I admit I was impatient to slice this up so my slice wasn't very neat for the piece pictured in the above two photos but the one below is a little neater and it has had time to set a bit in the fridge overnight. 


I didn't really try it with tea, but I'm pretty sure it'd go really well with that! Have fun baking and having the beautiful fresh smells fill your house - it's a really cozy and warm feeling. 
Read More

Wang's Sixteenth

Friday, November 29, 2013

No comments

Hello friends :-) 

On Tuesday, it was Wang You's birthday and the Boings have been planning to surprise her for quite a long time now, especially since her special day fell on a holiday and it was more difficult to plan something for her since we didn't have school. Thus, we decided to contact her mum to get permission to spring an attack on her at her home. 

It was really funny because a few days before her birthday, Wang kept asking us if we could go out with her on Tuesday but all of us told her that we were busy with work. I think she was getting quite worried that we'd forget her birthday and started saying really weird stuff and dropping hints related to the topic of birthdays. It was so entertaining watching her try but we knew that her misery would end soon once she realized that she wouldn't be spending her birthday alone. 


On the day itself, we gathered outside Wang's "house" - well, technically it's a school so it was a little awkward but yes and waited for her mum to pick us up because we didn't know how to walk to her house and weren't allowed to anyway. 

The carepanda I got for Wang :-) Waiting patiently for its new owner! 

Wang's mum leading us to her house! She is really cute and kind and she was telling us how Wang was watching television at home and trying to bake her own cake and we all started laughing really hard because the thought of Wang attempting to make her own birthday cake was awfully hilarious. 

A "classico chocolate" cake and her favourite hotcakes breakfast from Macs!


We waited patiently at the lobby while Wang's mum called Wang You down to "collect something" from her "mum's friend" and we surprised her there and then with colourful poppers and the cake. 

Elation written all over her face. 

Happiness all over the floor (we apologize to the aunty who had to clean up after us!) 

And of course, we took a few photos (family portrait style)! :-) Also, Shermaine was unable to be with us that day as she had work and that was really unfortunate. 

YAY

(heh Wang and Swan's face didn't change a bit in the two photos) 

Then, we headed upstairs to her house where we gobbled down the cake and witness Wang's failure to gobble down her hot cakes which was extremely disappointing HAHA she claimed she would finish them later but I doubt she did. 

Happy girl 97!!!

Wang's unfinished hotcakes. 

Wang with Swan! :-) 

Wang with Priya! :-) 

Wang with her new favourite panda (it'd better be) 

Of course, Wang with her favourite friend (HAHAHAHA) 

Wang with Phion! :-)

And Wang with Sarah! :-) 

Phionna's and my present to Wang hanging out together - they were already making new friends! 

Afterwards, we decided to watching Catching Fire at Kallang Leisure Park and truth be told, the movie exceeded my expectations by a great deal. I went in without any expectations and came out of the cinema really quite happy. I've actually read all three books from The Hunger Games trilogy and although I liked the first book the most, I still enjoyed the themes of the other books on a whole and I was really glad that they did manage to capture most of the book on screen. I think it plays a part that Suzanne Collins, the author of the series, was a television writer and her writing style suits screens more than on paper, so they were able to portray the essence of the book quite well through the movie. Overall, I wasn't disappointed and it takes a lot to convince me on things like that because I usually find most movies a waste of time.  

With the movie poster! :-)

And after the movie, we had lunch at Pastamania! :-) Here's Priya with her food heh. 

Me and my food (which was one of the worst food orders I've made in my life)!

This was my food - a turkey bacon aglio olio. Please do not order this unless you want your tongue to be burnt and your stomach churning like mad. I can usually take spicy food and my threshold level, though not comparable to Priya or Swan, is quite high. But this dish, unlike its plain white exterior, is a chilli padi in itself and one can taste nothing but spiciness without depth, and that ruins everything. 

Wang and Sarah posing with the keychains Swan got us from Korea!

With Swan :-)

We then took a blast back to our childhoods afterwards with kiddy rides and surprisingly we could still fit on them. We didn't want to take a risk putting money in the machines though, especially after what happened to Sarah and myself the other time so we just took photos.

HORSE. 

I actually can't believe these two could actually still fit inside this helicopter thing because it was so small (I didn't even try getting in; I'd probably get stuck if I even managed to get in) 


And we ended our little outing at Burger King with a Hershey's Sundae pie which was really really really good :') Actually it probably wasn't that great, but it tasted wonderful when we ate it. Thinking back, I feel like I can make something like that myself (yes it's terrible but I always think like that whenever I look at food) because it's really just a chocolate Graham cracker base, with ice cream layers and a whipped cream and chocolate topping on top. 


It was a good day anyway, and I do hope it was enjoyable especially for Wang You herself because she basically wasted her birthday on a bunch of retards like us but I'm so glad she did :')

Thank you Wang for everything - I'm grateful to have you in my life and I've written all the mushy cheesy stuff in your card already. Just know that I am lucky to have you as a friend and I'm proud that you're finally sixteen now! 

Read More