Baked Cheesecake Attempt!

Ever had cooking/baking blues?  I'm havin' one right now or some benevolent power is telling me that I should stick to 'Chilled Cheesecake'...  or I should just master the use of the newly installed oven :P

Anyway, it still taste good after removing the burnt sides.  You may have better luck than me with the oven.

Baked Cheesecake

Ingredients:

• 1kg Cream Cheese
• 1 1/2 cups Sugar
• 1 tbsp Corn Starch
• 3 tbsp Flour
• 3 pc Lemons
• 1 tsp Vanilla Essence
• 5 Whole Eggs
• 2 Egg Yolks
• 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
• 450g Digestive Biscuits
• 125g Butter

Steps:

1. Butter the spring form tray.
2. Crush the Digestive Biscuits and mix in Butter.

3. Press the mix unto the tray and put aside. Refrigerate 1 hour.

4. Preheat the oven at 350°C.
5. Mix the Sugar, Flour and Corn Starch.
6. Grate the Lemon skin (Zest), and squeeze the lemon.
7. Beat in Cream Cheese, Lemon Zest and 3 tbsp Lemon Juice, and Vanilla Essence until smooth.
8. Mix in the Heavy Cream.
9. Pour mixture into the trays.
10. Lower the heat to 180°C and bake for 1 Hour.

11. Put aside to cool, then refrigerate for at least an hour.

Enjoy :)

Chocolate Oreo Truffles

Have some cravings for chocolate? and you are also an Oreo fan. You can try out this simple and easy recipe.

Chocolate Oreo Truffles

Ingredients:

• 4 tubes of plain Oreo biscuit packs (approx 400g total).
• 250g Cream Cheese
• 250 - 300g Semi-Sweet Cooking Chocolate

Steps:

1. Take the Oreos out of its packaging.  If you bought the ones with cream, just scrap them off.
2. Crush the biscuits finely.  Keep a little aside.

3. Mix the Cream Cheese into the crushed biscuits.

4. Place your Chocolate into a steel bowl.
5. Heat up a pot of boiling water and place your bowl on the boiling water.  Wait till the chocolate completely melts.

6. Pinch a little from the Cream Cheese Oreo and shape them into balls.  You may use a teaspoon as a guide.
7. Dip the balls into the melted chocolate a little at a time and use forks to pick them up and place it on a tray.
8. Sprinkle a little of the crushed biscuits on top of it.
9. Refrigerate the balls for 4 hours.  Best served cold.

Ideas:

• Try chopped almonds to mix in or use it to sprinkle on the top.  Roast it a little first.
• Try using white chocolate / chocolate rice to decorate the balls instead of using Oreos.
• The ball size depends on your choice.

Enjoy ;)

Sekinchan, Kuala Selangor.

 

First time I joined my friends from my previous job for an outing to Sekinchan, Kuala Selangor.  It is located north of Selangor. It was a great and fun-filled experience of eating, photo-taking, eating, talking, eating etc.  I guess you get the idea.  Why would I say that?  It was because there were so many meals involved that we were afraid of the next.  There was the inevitable breakfast, then to our surprise, another breakfast.  Continued with lunch after a couple of hours, then finally dinner.  Mind you, it was all heavy.

 

It was early morning, we headed to the infamous staff car park to gather.  Then for morning 'Wan Tan Mee' at Ming Kee Char Siew in Glenmarie, Shah Alam.  After filling up, we headed to Kuala Selangor via trunk road.  It was a slow journey due to the fact, our guide was on uncle mode driving.  The other 2 cars in the group sped up to meet us.  It kinda took us around 1.5 hours.

 

We first expected to see paddy fields, as Sekinchan was known for its paddy fields.  However, we reached their small fishing village.  Had a hearty breakfast of fishes, one struck me as odd was a super flat fish!  Then we walked to the jetty, saw net fixing, fishermen having their brunch, and boat making.  I guess we were late for the fish sorting.

 

 

After gotten fish-ied, we went to the paddy fields of Sekinchan.  It was as far as the eye can see, and also scorching hot.  I imagine if I were to work the field, I would be unrecognizable as a Chinese by day end :P A friend fell into a dry ditch, she was graceful enough to fall bum first and saving her camera. [she's gonna kill me when she reads this...]

 

Being in heat for awhile, we attacked the nearest ice stand.  They were selling some sort of flavored crushed ice.  Chilled by the stand for awhile, then the discussion of lunch came up.  We were shaking our heads and giving that OMG (oh my God) look.  Someone said crab, most of the group nodded in agreement.  Oh well, round 3.

 

 

I guess I don't need to describe the meal.  Chomp! chomp! chomp!  We then headed for the Melawati Hill.  Had a hot and very short trip up the hill via a train-liked vehicle.  We spotted wild monkeys there and tourist were feeding them beans and bananas.  It's quite commercialized as the vendors there are selling the food for the MONKEYS!  The one thing surprising was that the vendors placed plastic snakes and miniature lion there to scare them away.  I wonder why couldn't they recognize the authenticity of their predators.

 

 

 

After the hill, we headed for Round 4. We had beggar chicken, duck, pork and vege.  It was another chomping session.  Oh my!  Before settling to end the journey, we made a stop for fire-fly watching at the 'Kampung Kelip-kelip'.  The stretch was super long.  We waited about an hour plus, then sat on this rickety sampan, but the man was super good.  No one fell off :P  The sight of the fireflies were like seeing a Christmas tree with super tiny lights.  The man was good at explanation.  He told us, those in the tree are mating, and those flying to another tree are scouts - on the look out for more babes.  Hahaha...  It was like 15-20 minutes.  Never ever go on a school break!  Oh yeah, he did mention for the best times to watch the bugs is during the start of a new lunar month and around 7pm.

 

Finally the trip was all over, we went back happy - stomach-filled, muscles tired, and skins burned :P