Mixed Fruits with Lime Mint Pineapple Yogurt

Quick and easy dessert that is effortless to do and delicious to eat. Best last minute dessert.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup   Greek style yogurt
1    tbsp. Chopped mint
1    tsp.   Grated lime zest
Juice of 1/2 lime
2    tsp.   Pineapple jam
4    pcs.  Crushed plain sweet cookies
Grapes, strawberry, papaya, canned pineapple and blueberry

How to do it?

Mix well the yogurt with mint, lime zest, lime juice and pineapple jam.

Place half in a wine glass topped with crushed cookies. Place a layer of fruits on top of the cookies crumbs the top again with the remaining yogurt. Add more fruits on top.

Serve :)

Kenny's No-Bake Lemon Cheesecake

This classic no-bake cheesecake will blown everyone away. No one will ever know that it is so easy to make. Impress your guests with this and believe me they will ask for more.

Ingredients:

200 grams  Plain sweet biscuits, crushed into crumbs
130 grams  Melted butter
500 grams  Cream Cheese
500 grams  Sweetened condensed Milk
1/2  cup       Fresh lemon juice
2     tbsp.     Lemon zest

How to do it?

In a mixing bowl, combine biscuit crumbs and melted butter. Stir until it become wet sand consistency that when you press against the side of the bowl, the biscuit crumbs hold together.

Transfer  the biscuit crumbs mixture into a 9" spring foam tin press the mixture with a flat bottom glass until you have a firm biscuits base. Chill in the fridge.

In the meantime,  put cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl. Using a electric mixer, mix everything together until you have a thick smooth filing. Fold in the lemon zest.

Transfer the cream cheese filing onto the chilled biscuits base and put into the fridge to set overnight.

Enjoy :)

Lemon Meringue Pie

This is a lovely sharp lemony custard filing pie in a short-crust pastry top with soft pillowy meringue. It took me three attempts to perfect this recipes. Now it has become my favourite. You should try it. It may took a little practise but trust me you will gonna love it. I usually make the filing one day  ahead.

Ingredients:

Short-crust pastry

1 1/2 cups    Plain flour
3       tsp.      Icing sugar
140   grams  Cold unsalted butter, diced
1                   Egg yolk
2       tbsp.    Cold water

Lemon Custard Filing

1/2    cup      Corn flour
1       cup      Castor sugar
1/2    cup      Lemon juice
1 1/4 cup      Water
1       tbsp.    Grated lemon zest
3                   Egg yolks
60     grams  Unsalted butter

Meringue

1/2 cup Castor sugar
4           Egg whites

How to do it?

In a saucepan, add in corn flour, caster sugar, lemon juice and water. Stir constantly over a medium heat until the sugar dissolve and the mixture thickens up to a glue like consistency. Take it off from heat. Add in unsalted butter, egg yolks and lemon zest, stir quickly until all combine. You should have a nice shiny yellow filling as below. Set aside allow to cool then transfer into a container, cover and put it inside the fridge to chill overnight.

To make the crust, sift the flour and icing sugar together. Rub in cold butter until the flour comes together. Add in the egg yolks and cold water, 1 tsp. at a time not too much water, until it brings everything to a smooth dough. Wrap the dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes in the fridge.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Roll the dough out about 2 inches larger than the pie tin with a rolling pin. Roll the dough onto the rolling pin then transfer to the pie tin, trim off any excess. Prick some hole with a fork on the pastry dough then cover with a piece of baking paper and weigh it down with some uncooked rice or beans and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, take the baking paper and the weigh off then put it in the oven for another 10 minutes until the crust is golden brown and start to pull away from the pie tin. Take it out from the oven and let it cool completely.

Once the crust is cool completely, prepare the meringue by beating the egg whites until frothy then gradually add sugar and beat it until stiff peaks formed.

Pour the chilled lemon custard on top of the crust, level it with a rubber spatula. Spoon over the meringue and bake in the preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 6 - 8 minutes until the meringue brown.

Enjoy.

Notes:

Never over-bake in the final steps as the filling will be watery which will makes your pie soggy.

Rose Mascarpone Cheese with Spice Red Wine Syrup and Strawberry

As I made the Spiced Red Wine Poached Pear which I shared previously in this blog, I have some leftover red wine syrup which I kept in the fridge. So I decided to use up the remaining syrup by turning them into another simple yet delicious dessert. This also comes in handy when you have leftover red wine. Enjoy :)

Ingredients:

1     cup      Spiced red wine syrup (see below)
1/2  cup      Strawberry, hulled and roughly chopped
250 grams  Mascarpone cheese
2     tbsp.    Rose water / essence
2     tbsp.    Icing sugar
1/4  cup      Pine nuts
5                 Cape gooseberry to decorate (optional)

How to do it?

In a container, soak the chopped strawberry in the wine syrup for 40 minutes before serving.

In a mixing bowl, mix Mascarpone cheese, rose water and icing sugar until well incorporated. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Divide the mixture into 5 ice cream glasses. Spoon over the wine syrup and sprinkle some pine nuts. Top each glass with a cape goose berry.

Serve chill.

Notes:

2    cups   Red wine
1/2 cup    Sugar
1              Whole star anise
2               Whole cloves
2               Cinnamon sticks
1               Vanilla bean, split

Combine all the ingredients above in a saucepan over medium heat until sugar dissolve. Bring it to a boil then let it simmer until the syrup is thickens. Leave to cool completely then chill in fridge until you are ready to use it.

Spiced Red Wine Poached Pears

This recipe comes to rescue your left over wine. The red wine and the spice just go so well together and the pear is juicy and tender. What else do you want more? I just have to share this recipe and hope you will enjoy it too.

Ingredients:

4               Pear (I use Packham Pear), just ripe, peeled
2    cups   Red wine
1/2 cup    Sugar
1              Whole star anise
2               Whole cloves
2               Cinnamon sticks
1               Vanilla bean, split
1 packet    Mascarpone cheese (200 grams)
2 tbsp       Icing sugar
2 tsp         Vanilla extract

How to do it?

Cut off the bottom of the pear a little so it could sit straight.

Combine the wine, sugar and the spices in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook for few minutes until the sugar dissolve.   

Add in the pear and cover the saucepan. Make sure the pear covered in wine. If needed add some more wine. Bring it to a boil. Once boiled, reduce the heat and poached the pear for another 40 min - 1 hours or until the pear is tender all the way through when pierced with a knife.

Remove the pear. Continue boil the liquid until it thickens and turn into syrup consistency. Leave it to cool.

In a mixing bowl, mix well mascarpone cheese, icing sugar and vanilla extract.

To serve, place the mascarpone cheese mixture on a serving plate. Top the mixture with the poached pear and drizzle over with the syrup.

Enjoy :)

Notes:

The cooking duration depends on the ripeness of you pear. I choose pear that are just ripe. If you have the really ripe pear, you should reduce the cooking time.

If you want non-alcoholic version, use fruit juice instead. I have made the same recipe using Roselle juice and it turns out just as delicious. Perfect if you serve it to the kids.

Banana Walnut Raisins Cake

Banana cake is my all time favourite. The soft, moist and packed with flavour cake with nutty texture is simple irresistible. This is a really moist cake and very good with a cup of tea or coffee in the afternoon.Serve with some fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream, you will be in heaven.

Ingredients:

375   grams Plain flour
350   grams Castor sugar
1       tsp      Baking soda
1       tsp      Ground cinnamon
1       tsp      Salt
300   grams Mashed banana
1       cup     Vegetable oil (I use corn oil)
1 1/2 tsp      Vanilla extract
3                  Large eggs
1       cup     Raisins
1/2    cup     Walnut chopped
1/2    cup     Milk  

How to do it?

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add in sugar and mix well with a whisk.

Make a well in the centre of flour mixture. To the flour, add in oil, eggs,vanilla, milk and mashed banana. Mix to incorporate everything together. Fold in the raisins and walnut.

Pour the batter into a 10" tube pan. Bake in the oven for roughly 1 1/2 hour or until it is done. Cool on the rack before remove from the pan.

Pressed Butter Cookies

Classic butter cookies. A very versatile cookies that you can literally do all sorts of variety of butter cookies with this recipe. You can make the dough ahead and roll it into log shape and put it into freezer it can last for months, make cut-out cookie when you desire. Also you can add in nuts or chocolate chips on to of the cookies before baking or put some icing on top or even dip it in the chocolate to make chocolate butter cookies. These buttery cookies are perfect for afternoon tea and as a gift on special a occasions.

Ingredients:

227 grams Unsalted butter, softened
135 grams Castor sugar
296 grams Plain flour
1                Large egg
1     tsp      Vanilla extract
1/2  tsp      Orange zest
1/2  tsp      Lemon zest    
1/4  tsp      Salt
Hundred and thousands for decoration

How to do it?

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Beat in egg, orange zest, lemon zest and vanilla extract.

In another mixing bowl, sift together flour and salt. Gradually, add the flour to the butter mixture and beat well to incorporate. Divide the dough in four and turn it into log shape. Put it in the fridge to chill for 40 minutes. If you are doing ahead, just put it in the freezer at this point.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Line two baking sheet with some parchment paper.

Take it out from the fridge. Insert the cookie dough into the cookie press and press the cookie on a baking sheet. Spacing about 2 inch between the cookies. Prepare on egg wash by add 1 teaspoon of water to 1 egg white. Brush the top of the cookies and sprinkle over hundred and thousands.

Bake in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes or until the edge of the cookies are golden brown. Let it rest on the baking sheet for about 10 minutes and then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Store the cookies in the air-tight container. It can last for several weeks.