Carrot Cupcakes with Yoghurt Cream Cheese Frosting

An usual home-made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting will be about 400kcal (need about 40 minutes of walking on the treadmill at 5km/h speed to burn it off). Glutton me made some changes so that I can still eat them but workout a lot less in the gym! Each cupcake made with the recipe is about 200kcal =]!

Modification 1 is to cut down the sugar used. Each gram of sugar provides the body with 4kcal. It not only contributes to empty calories, it also spikes insulin secretion the body, leading to fat deposition especially around the tummy area. I've replaced half the sugar needed for the cake with Splenda, that has  Sucralose as sweetener. 

**Do not bake with Equal as the sweetener, Aspartame, cannot withstand heat and will lose its sweetness during baking.

Modification 2 is to cut down the fats by replacing butter required for the cream cheese frosting to yoghurt. Each gram of fat (butter and any type of oil) provides 9kcal. I also used Kraft low fat cream cheese, which further reduces calories of the cupcake. You wouldn't be able to pipe the frosting as the modification will make frosting that are more runny (but saves you the calories!).

Dry Mixture
- 1½ cup wholemeal flour (might need to buy it from larger supermarkets)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1½ tsp cinnamon powder
- ¼ tsp nutmeg powder
- ¼ tsp ginger powder
- 50g sugar
- 8g (8 sachets) Splenda (1g replaces about 8g of sugar in terms of sweetness)


Oil/Egg Mixture
- 1 whole egg
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- ½ cup skim (non-fat) milk
- 2 tsp vanilla essence


Others
- 2 cups carrots, grated (about 2 medium carrots)
- ½ cup raisin
- ½ cup nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc), chopped [optional]


Yoghurt Cream Cheese Frosting
- 125g cream cheese
- 25g yoghurt
- 30g icing sugar
- zest of half an orange/lemon

Step 1:
Pre-heat oven to 170⁰C.
Grate carrots and squeeze out excess carrot juice using hands.

Excess carrot juice will cause the cake to be too moist and dense after baking.

Step 2:
Mix all the dry ingredients together.

Step 3:
Whisk egg, oil, milk and vanilla essence together (oil/egg mixture).

Step 4:
Add the oil/egg mixture to the grated carrots, mix well. (wet mixture)

The wet mixture

Step 5:
Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, fold until just combine.

Just combine = don't have any unmixed dry ingredients. Excessive mixing will cause the cake to be tough and dense.

Step 6:
Fill the cupcake cases and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, middle rack.

Step 7:
Let the carrot cupcakes cool before adding the frosting.

Step 8:
Mix the cream cheese, yoghurt, icing sugar and zest to make the frosting. Top it on the cake and serve!

*makes about 16 cupcakes

original recipe from http://www.food.com/recipe/low-fat-carrot-cake-muffins-that-dont-taste-low-fat-181385

Ayam Ponteh

Ayam Ponteh = Chicken Braised in Soybean Paste

This was the dish that I practised and made for a project back in my poly days. Our group needs to prepare a meal for a Peranakan family and this was the dish I'm assigned to cook. This is a repost as I want to consolidate all the different recipes I've tried (and posted in different blogs) here.

I'm not too sure if Babi (pork) Ponteh is the authentic version but some recipes does include pork belly in Ayam (chicken) Ponteh as well. My recipe below only uses chicken.

I did a quick scan via Google for some background info on this dish. Basically, this is a traditional Peranakan dish that has a sweet-savoury taste. Like many other Peranakan dishes, one key step a "rempah". Rempah = a spice paste, formed by pounding various ingredients together using mortar and pestle. My recipe is modified so that it contains less sodium (taucheo used is reduced) and less fats & oil (skin and fats of chicken is trimmed and less oil is used during frying).

01) 1/4 cup cooking oil

02) 30 shallots, peeled and finely pounded

03) 15 cloves garlic, peeled and finely pounded

04) 6 tbsp preserved soy bean paste (tau cheong)

05) 1kg chicken thigh, skin removed

06) 10 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked in water for 2 hours

07) 1 litre (4 cups) water

08) 3 large potatoes, peeled and quartered

09) 2 tsp thick soy sauce

10) 50g (1/4 cup) sugar

11) spring onion/ coriander leaves as garnish

Step 1:

Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters. Parboil the potatoes for 10 minutes. Refresh the parboiled potatoes, drain and set aside. (Refresh = rinse hot food in cold liquid - for various reasons such as stopping the cooking process, retain the colour, etc) 

Parboil = Partially cooking food using boiling water

Step 2:

Finely pound the garlic and shallots, set aside

Step 3:

Remove the skin on the chicken thigh and trim off visible fats

Step 4:

In a wok, heat up 1/4 cup of cooking oil. Add in the pounded garlic and shallot until fragrance. Then, add in the preserved soy bean paste (Tau Cheong) and fry the mixture until oil surfaces.

Step 5:

Add the chicken and mushrooms. Stir-fry until well mixed. Add in water and then bring mixture to a boil.

Step 6:

Add in the potatoes and sugar to the boiled liquid and allow mixture to simmer for about 5 minutes, before adding the dark soya sauce.

Step 7:

Simmer for another 5 to 10 minutes after the addition of dark soya sauce (this allows the chicken and the potatoes to pick up the colour of the gravy). Dish is done when the potatoes are soft but still retains its structure.

Step 8:

Garnish and serve with plain rice.

*This recipe serves 6.

Yoghurt Cheesecake (Japanese)

The difference between Japanese cheesecake and the other cheesecakes (e.g. New York) is the addition of flour and the use of water bath during baking. Japanese cheesecake thus have a lighter and more airy texture.

01) 250g cream cheese, softened

02) 50g skimmed milk

03) 50g castor sugar

04) 100g unsalted butter, softened

05) 150g plain non-fat yoghurt (unsweetened)

06) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

07) 40g all purpose flour, sifted

08) 80g corn flour, sifted

09) 4 egg yolks

10) 4 egg whites

11) 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar

12) 100g castor sugar

Step 1:
Combine ingredients 1 - 5 (cream cheese, yoghurt, butter, sugar and milk) in a saucepan. Melt all the ingredients by double boiling and form a smooth mixture. Allow to mixture to cool before carrying out step 2.
Tip: place the saucepan in a basin of iced water to speed up the cooling process and waiting time.

* Double boiling = heating using boiling water and not over direct flame. Ingredients that burnt easily (e.g. chocolate, butter, cheese) need this method to heat up without burning them.

The frying pan to holds the water and the metal rack suspense the saucepan, preventing the base from touching the frying pan. 

Step 2:
Add in egg yolks to the cooled melted cheese-butter mixture prepared in Step 1 and mix well. Then, fold in the all-purpose and corn flour blend to form a batter. 

Tip: sieve the batter if it is lumpy to get a smooth mixture

Step 3:
Pre-heat oven to 150 deg C.

Step 4:
Whisk the egg white with cream of tartar till foamy (about 30 sec to 1 min). Add in 100g of sugar. Continue to whisk at medium speed till stiff peak is reached. 

Test for stiff peak by tilting the mixing bowl. The foam should not slide from the mixing bowl.

Step 5:
Gently fold in the egg white foam into the mixture prepared in step 2. Add the egg white foam in 3 batches so that the folding in can be more even.

Step 6:
Fill the baking tin (about 7" diameter) or cupcake cases (can fill about 24) with the cheesecake batter. The batter should fill about 80% of the tin/case as the batter will expand during baking.

Step 7:
Place the baking tin/ cupcake cases on a baking tray and fill the tray with at least 1cm of hot water. (This is the water bath and the use of hot water shortens cooking time since time taken to boil water in the oven during baking is saved.) 

Tip: to prevent water from spilling when moving the baking tray into the oven, place the baking tray in the oven first, then fill the tray with hot water.

Step 8:
Bake for about 40 - 50 minutes for cheesecake baked in baking tin and about 20 minutes for cupcakes.

Tip: use the lowest rack to bake to prevent cracking of the surface.

Step 9:
Check if the cake is ready by inserting a skewer/ toothpick. If the skewer/ toothpick comes out clean, the cheesecake is ready. 

Tip: if the surface browned sufficiently but the cake is not done yet, cover the surface with aluminium foil to prevent the surface from being burnt.

Time to put things into actions!

I have been procrastinating to set up this. I have a lot of ideas on what to post but I need to do up some archive that allows me to categories my different posts. This is not just another blog that shares recipes or on cooking, I also want to blog about things that interest me. Food science, culinary skills and term (especially those French terms!), some nutrition and diet stuff. 

With all this different posts around, I want to make my blog easy to navigate. My readers can just zoom into what they want to read about from all the posts I will be posting in time to come. So how to do the archive thing? No clue but shall just start posting first. Problem with navigation should only comes in when I have quite some posts =)

Stay tune! =^-^=