Angel Food is one of those delectable sounding light as air concoctions that you like just from the sound of the name. Indeed its very light and fluffy and tastes much like how you imagined a cloud to taste like when you were a child. I have made angel food cake before but I bought some lovely cupcake holders on the weekend from DJs. They are by Donna Hay and they’re French pleated cups in a semi transparent stiff glassine-like paper. I have something like 500 cupcake cups in my cupboards so I didn’t really need these but I figured when they’re so chic and they’re 100 for $7.95, what’s an extra 100 or so? The best part was that they fit my cupcake baking tray perfectly and quite honestly, no cupcake cups ever have before.

However beware if you are using these cups, they will discolour slightly when baked so best to pop them in a new cup once you’re ready to ice if you are not storing in the fridge or just before serving. A big downfall is if you store them in the fridge in the second outer cup, the second cup becomes wet and loose and does not hold its shape at all. So ideally you’d make the cupcakes on the day you want to eat them and then slide them in new cups just before icing and serving them. Or you can refrigerate them iced and then before serving pop them in a new cup. They are ridiculously chic though so all is forgiven with the minor fiddlyness.

Angel Food Cake

• 5 egg whites at room temperature
• 1 Tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup pure icing sugar
• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 600ml cream whipped with 1-2 tablespoons of caster sugar
• Silver cachous, butterflies or white chocolate shavings to decorate

1. Lay out cupcake pans in tray

2. Ensure beaters and bowl are very clean. Beat egg whites and lemon juice in a bowl until frothy. Add vanilla and cream of tartar. Beat on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in icing sugar until firm peaks form.

3. Sift flour 3 times. Gently fold flour into egg white mixture until just combined. Spoon mixture into pan using metal spoon and spread top evenly using a spatula. These will not rise so fill them up to where you want the cake to go.

4. Cook in moderate oven 170c for about 15 mins until cooked. Allow to cool in pan.

5. Decorate with sweetened whipped cream, cachous and butterflies/angel wings

If you are a fan of prawn toast (and lets face it, who isn’t?) and you feel like a slight change of pace, Roti Babi is for you. Or if you happen to be firing up the wok to make prawn toasts and want to make a variation to go along with it, this may do you well. Its a beef or chicken mince version of the prawn toast, sans the ginger and its crispily and moreishly good.

Since it is a deep fried item I am not the chef (being mortally fearful of hot oil) so it is my mother who made this (and who usually makes the fried items). I simply participate in its copious consumption.

Roti Babi

Hard to find commercially in Singapore Roti Baba is an old time Nonya specialty still offered at the Coliseum Cafe in Kuala Lumpur. Better than fried bread, that sinful British invention, a meat mixture tops the sliced bread before it is fried!

Ingredients

• 8 slices of stale bread
• 300g (10 oz) minced pork or chicken
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp salt
• Pepper
• 1 tsp cornflour
• oil for deep frying

Mix minced meat together with onion, egg, salt, pepper and cornflour. Trim crusts from bread slices if desired.

Heat wok half full with oil. In the meantime, spread meat mixture evennly on each sliced of the bread. Test if oil is hot enough by frying first a small piece of bread, the oil should sizzle.

Once oil is hot enough, carefully slide in bread, meat side down, into the oil nad fry until golden brown. Turn over to fry the other side till golden brown.

Remove and drain on kitchen paper. Can also serve hot with a classic Hainandese dip of sliced red chillies in Worchestire sauce.

Recipe by Sylvia Tan from Singapore Heritage Food

I love the idea of edible Christmas tree decorations and the fact that I happen to like gingerbread is an added bonus. Last year I bought some chocolate Christmas tree decorations but thought that I’d try my hand at making some gingerbread this year.

I had some major issues with the original recipe, the amount of flour that they specified (2.5 cups) was not enough to make a dough that was kneadable so I had to add more in order to make it so. This recipe is for the crisp, not chewy gingerbread although apparently if you cook it for less time (closer to 7 minutes than 10) then it turns out chewy. It is also a fairly mild tasting gingerbread so you could certainly up the ground ginger content or grate some fresh ginger if a stronger hit is desired.

This is my first foray into using royal icing and I am painfully aware that it shows. Seemingly I have no dexterity when it comes to icing gingerbread despite the fact that I can ice and decorate cupcakes just fine. The amount of royal icing that this makes is quite a lot-enough for you to use to cover the cookies and pipe them in a myriad of shades although I used pre bought cake icing pens as I don’t have any disposable piping bags and they’re much easier to deal with. The recipe didn’t say so but I found the royal icing much easier to use a while after it was made, it was simply too runny otherwise, certainly far too runny to pipe with when first made. Oh and whatever you do, do wait til the icing sets, it does take a while, but any nicks or smudges are hard to get out. Go wild with the colours, the more colours the better I thought and silver cachous are fabulous although I just happened to run out of them much to my chagrin. ..

Gingerbread Christmas baubles

*125g butter, at room temperature
* 100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
* 125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
* 1 egg, separated plus 1 extra egg white
* 3 to 3 1/2 cups plain flour
* 1 tbs ground ginger
* 1 tsp mixed spice
* 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
* Plain flour, to dust
* 300g (2 cups) pure icing sugar, sifted
*Food colouring as desired

Method

1. Line 2 or 3 baking trays with baking paper

2. Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.

3. Meanwhile, place egg whites in a clean, dry bowl. Use an electric beater to beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Divide icing into separate bowls depending on the desired number of icing colours you want including one white just in case. Set aside.

4. Preheat oven to 180°C. Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about 4mm thick. Use cutters to to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.

5. Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool and poke holes in top to loop string through. I used the pointy end of a Japanese chopstick (thinner at the bottom than Chinese chopsticks).

6. Place prepared icings in small plastic bags (or use bought icing pens). Cut a small hole in a corner of each bag. Pipe icing over bauble to decorate.

P.S. These will become soft if the weather is humid which may cause them to fall from the tree. I know this from first hand experience as yesterday was humid

Notes & tips

* Allow 30 minutes resting time.

P.S. If you can’t find golden syrup, you can use a 50/50 combination of treacle and honey or corn syrup and honey

P.P.S. These make the house smell fabulously Christmassy

Source
Adapted from Original recipe from Australian Good Taste - December 2003 , Page 40
Recipe by Nadia French