Minted Pea Soup

Ingredients:

Olive oil
1 leek, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 baby cos lettuce, thoroughly washed & roughly chopped
400-500g frozen peas
Pinch sugar
1.5 cups vegetable stock
0.5 bunch mint
Salt & pepper
Spoonful cream, to serve

Method:

1. Saute leek & garlic until soft.
2. Add shredded lettuce & peas to the pan with sugar and a little of the stock.
3. When lettuce and peas are soft, remove to a food processor and puree until smooth, adding mint and as much stock as needed for a smooth mixture.
4. Return mixture to pan and gradually add the remainder of the stock until the soup is the thickness you like and season to taste.
5. To serve, add a spoonful of cream to the base of each bowl, then add the soup and swirl cream through.

Coffee Chiffon Cake

Baking chiffon cake can be quite addictive. I have plenty of reasons to explain:

First of all, it is a fun weekend activity (especially when you have a kid who likes to learn). Also, the entire baking process can be joyous and relaxing for a hard worker like me. Often, I take it (baking a perfect chiffon) as a good challenge as it surely requires a great deal of skills to get the fluffy texture right. Therefore, it exercises my patience and I feel on top of the world if I succeed in it. Of course, most importantly, it tastes brilliant - it is soft, light, fluffy and healthy as oppose to most dense and heavy cakes like mudcake and butter cake. Hence, Alex can enjoy his after dinner dessert in a more healthy way (well, at least I know what have I included in the recipe).

Enjoy baking a chiffon!



I must admit this chiffon cake is not perfect - it broke into two parts as I flipped it over onto a plate. However, the texture is so fluffy and soft that I just couldn't help feeding one slice after another.

Coffee Chiffon Cake

Apparatus:

Chiffon cake tin
Electric mixer
2 large mixing bowls

Ingredients:

(A)
6 extra large egg whites
1/3 cup cane sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

(B)
6 extra large egg yolks
1/2 cup lactose-free milk
1/4 sunflower oil
1 tsp coffee essense
1/4 cup cane sugar
2/3 self raising flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder

Methods:

1 Preheat oven to 170C.

(A)
2 Using an electrix mixer, beat egg whites until foamy. This may take between 10 to 15 minutes. Gradually add in cane sugar, cream of tartar and coffee essense, then continue to beat for another 5 minutes until stiff peak forms. Set aside.

(B)
3 Whisk egg yolks, lactose-free milk and sunflower oil in a separate mixing bowl with an electric mixer. Gradually whisk in cane sugar. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder then mix them all together.

4 Fold in 1/3 of egg whites into the batter. Gently mix in all ingredients. Repeat the step with the remaining egg whites.

5 Transfer mixture to cake mould. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Remove chiffon from the oven and invert the mould immediately. Cool the cake on a rack or rubber mat.