Christmas is a time for family and friends

Christmas features largely in our annual calendar of celebrations. For our family, it is a busy of the year as we gather at various weekend parties before Christmas.

This year, we decided to organize just one large combined Christmas party for our family and friends instead of segregating the group and having different parties over several days. Also, I felt motivated to add some personal touches to an otherwise outsourced party as we are engaging a caterer to handle the food arrangements for almost a hundred guests.

The Christmas party invites were handmade from cardstock sourced from the craft shop. I decided I did not want a cookie-cutter style and so each invitation card is unique, no two are the same. One side has a shiny-but-slightly-matt surface while the other side sported colourful borders.

For each table group, I made a Christmas Tree centre-piece to add a festive tinge to the room and as a tribute to the season. Chocolate hearts were scattered around its base to bring some colour to the table setting.

The sugar cookies I baked earlier were also left in plates on each table to serve as snacks for those with a penchant for sweet things. The kids loved them and I was so touched that several came up to say how much they liked the cookies.

This is the first time I baked for a large-scale occasion and I was so touched and encouraged when all the shepherd’s pie, fruitcake and brownie squares were polished off. Alas, Hubby and I were so caught up as hosts that we totally forgot to take pictures of the other food once our guests started arriving and we flitted from table to table, chatting and reveling in their company.

After dinner, the kids had fun with a piñata lovingly made by my mother. Using only natural materials, she lent her creative energy to fashion a striking piñata, heavily stuffed with goodies and little knickknacks. My mother truly has a way with kids as she organized the kids program that night and all of them, including the older children, had lots of fun.

It was a really wonderful evening spent with family and friends and a satisfying culmination of weeks’ of preparation, to finally know that it had been one great party.

Fruitcake

The really good chock-full-of-fruits-and-nuts kind of fruitcakes cost a fortune in shops. I love those with minimal flour but simply bursting with aged sultanas. My main gripe is that most fruitcakes sold out there are so much more flour than fruit that naming them fruitcakes is in itself a misnomer.

This year, I was determined to make some at home for Christmas this year. I tried and varied this recipe several times along the way, making adjustments to the balance of ingredients as well as baking time, till I settled on what my family feels is a good enough version.

This is one of the heaviest cake, in the literal sense, that I have baked thus far. More than one kilogram of ingredients have gone into the cake and I was glad I did not stinge. Each bite of the fruit cake yielded a mouthful of fruits and nuts.

Truly, may it herald a year of fruitfulness in 2010!



Fruitcake


Ingredients

200 gm unsalted butter
80 gm light brown sugar
80 gm dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
3 tbsp brandy
1 orange
zest (outer yellow skin) of one lemon
50 gm ground almonds
250 gm assortment of dried and candied fruits
500 gm dried raisins/sultanas
210 gm all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt


Method

1) Squeeze out juice of orange and finely grate the skin. Set aside in refrigerator.

2) Line and grease a 9 x 5 x 3 inch baking pan, extend about 2 inches above the pan. Preheat oven to 150oC.

3) Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

4) Add 2 tbsp of brandy and all the juice and orange and lemon zest. Fold in the ground almond and all the dried and candied fruits and raisins. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder and fold this into the cake batter.

5) Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake in the preheated oven for 45 min.

6) Reduce the oven temperature to 140oC and continue to bake the cake for another 1½ hours or until a long skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

7) Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool completely. With a skewer poke holes in the top surface of the cake and brush it with the remaining brandy .

8) Wrap the cake thoroughly in plastic wrap and aluminum foil and place in a cake tin or plastic bag. Brush the cake once or twice a week with brandy until ready to eat. This cake will keep several weeks or it can be frozen to keep longer.

Reference : Joy of Baking

Sugar Cookies

We will be celebrating Christmas with a party this year. I had a very ambitious plan of preparing some homemade door gifts and googled for some interesting Christmas bakes.

As I tried out some of the recipes, I realized that time is not on my side and the thought of baking a few different offerings as door gifts for a hundred guests proved too daunting. So as a compromise, I decided to make just enough to be eaten at the party itself and gave up the idea of having them as door gifts.

This is one of the recipes that I had fun with – both because of the new experience of using royal icing (something I loved as a young girl) as well as the pretty colours.

Royal icing can be made using egg whites or meringue powder. Due to the risk of salmonella poisoning, I chose to use meringue powder instead. If you difficulty getting your hands on a can of meringue powder, you can search for a recipe using egg whites instead.

I had no idea of the huge variety of food colouring that was available till I stepped into Phoon Huat. There were bottles of liquid food colours, tubes of both white and coloured gel pastes. On top of that, there were the various sizes of icing nibs, squeeze bottles, icing bags and icing in ready-to-use disposable tubes.

It was really fun icing the cookies but if you plan not to frost the baked cookies, you may like to sprinkle the unbaked cookies with crystal or sparkling sugar before popping them into the oven.



Sugar Cookies


Ingredients

Sugar Cookie :
3½ cups (or 460 gm) all purpose flour
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp (or 4 gm) baking powder
1 cup (or 227 gm) unsalted butter, room temperature
1½ cups (or 300 gm) granulated white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Royal Icing :
1 cup (or 110 gm) confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
¾ tbsp (or 30 gm) meringue powder
Some warm water
Food Coloring
Hundreds and Thousands decoration


Method

Sugar Cookie :

1) In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

2) Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 to 4 minutes).

3) Add eggs and vanilla extract, and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat until a smooth dough is formed.

4) Divide the dough into smaller portions, wrap each portion in plastic wrap and put into refrigerator. Refrigerate overnight or until firm enough to roll.

5) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or 170o C) and place rack in center of oven.

6) Remove one portion of chilled dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to a thickness of ¼ inch (1 cm).

7) Cut out desired shapes using a lightly floured cookie cutter and transfer cookies to a baking tray, lined with baking sheet. Place the tray of unbaked cookies in the refrigerator for 15 min to chill the dough to prevent the cookies from spreading and losing their shape while baking.

8) Bake cookies for about 10 min (depending on size) or until they are brown around the edges. Remove from oven and leave to cool on baking tray for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling.

9) When cookies are completed cool, frost with royal icing, if desired. Be sure to let the royal icing dry completely before storing in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper or wax paper.


Royal Icing :

1) Beat the confectioners' sugar and meringue powder until combined.

2) Add water a little at a time to get the right consistency and beat on medium to high speed until very glossy and stiff peaks form (5 to 7 minutes).

3) Separate the icing into as many portions as required for different colours and/or consistencies.

For out-lining, the proper consistency should be glossy with stiff peaks.

For covering or 'flooding' the entire surface of the cookie with icing, the proper consistency is when you lift the beater, the ribbon of icing that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before disappearing.

4) Add food colouring to the royal icing to obtain desired colour. Use a toothpick and add minute amounts at a time, a little goes a long way.

6) After frosting, add further decorations if desired.

7) The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.

Reference : Joy of Baking

Restore Soft Biscuits to Crispy Ones

Alas! The batch of cookies I made for a Christmas party this weekend had gone soft. I have been wondering how to restore their crispiness as a layer of royal icing on them complicates matters. Previous times, I just popped them into the oven for a couple of minutes and then let them cool on a wire rack. However, the royal icing on this batch of cookies makes this method unusable. It just will not do for the cookies to be crispy again only to end up with a messed-up blob of watery icing on its top.

So when I chanced upon this method, I was eager to give it a try and…it really works!

This method requires some care to calibrate the amount of microwave time required to warm the biscuits/crisps etc rather than overheat them, but once this has been established, the process is repeatable.

I am told that this same technique works for potato chips and other crispy snacks too. Do note that for items that have fillings or coatings that melt under high heat (such as chocolate or jam biscuits), take extra care to limit the heating such that it does not melt the filling/coating. Instead, more cycles of the process can be applied.


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Method

1. Get several cold ceramic dinner plates by putting them into the refrigerator for a couple of minutes.

2. Put a few of the soft biscuits on a plate and put it in the microwave oven. Give it a blast for just long enough to warm up the biscuits but not cook them.

3. Take the plate out of the oven and transfer the warmed biscuits onto a cold ceramic plate. What happens is the moisture in the biscuits evaporates without boiling and then condenses on the cold surface of the plate.

4. Transfer the biscuits onto another cold plate. Dry the first plate, and repeat the process a few times. After several cycles of the process, the biscuits will be dry and crispy.

Fruit and Yoghurt Parfait

Recently, my brother and sister-in-law have both gone healthy and all in their eating habits. An answered prayer of my mother’s I must say. So in honour of their renewed decision for healthy living, this concoction is dedicated to them.

I have used kiwis, strawberries and mangoes for their mutually contrasting colours but the choice of fruits is of naturally not limited to these. However, in order for the different fruits to stand out, select fruits of different contrasting colours. The portions below are sufficient for 8 huge servings so do make adjustments as necessary.



Fruit and Yoghurt Parfait


Ingredients

4 green kiwis
12 red strawberries
2 ripe mangoes
1 huge tub plain yoghurt


Method

1) Wash and dice all fruits into cubes. Set aside.

2) Form a bottom layer with strawberries, put 3 tablespoons of yoghurt over them. Form the middle layer of kiwis followed with 3 tablespoons of yoghurt. Repeat for the top layer of mangoes.

3) Leave in refrigerator to chill before serving.

Sweet and Sour Pork

The past few weeks have been spent busy perfecting some Christmas recipes for cakes and cookies and other preparations for our Christmas parties. I had hardly any time left to spend experimenting new dishes for dinner.

My father loves sweet and sour pork and sometime ago, I had promised to cook that for him. So I guess, this long weekend was as good a time as any to make good on that promise.

I had noticed that NTUC Fairprice sells cubed pork sold in trays and neatly labeled as sweet and sour pork. And so for convenience, I decided to get this and since it was already all cut to size, I only had to trim off some fatty bits. (NTUC Fairprice has, in recent years, proven themselves to be widely-stocked with a wide-range of fresh produce. With a large branch located nearby, it has been a pretty useful place to run to for any item left out from the family’s weekly market trip.)

The pork cubes were prepared and left to marinate for 5 hours. Each bite yielded tender meat and most importantly, no ‘porky’ smell. We found the dish a little too sweet for our liking and so I have reflected a reduced amount of sugar in the reproduced recipe below. Other than that, the family gave it a thumbs up and every single morsel was polished off.

This recipe is a keeper!



Sweet and Sour Pork


Ingredients

500 gm lean pork (shoulder part), cut into cube-sized
1 green bell pepper, cut into small pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
3 wedges of honey pineapple, cut into small pieces
1 medium onion, cut into small pieces
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Some cornflour

Marinate:
3 tbsp light soy sauce
1½ tsp of Hua Diao Jiu (花雕酒)
1 large egg

Sauce:
12 tbsp of tomato sauce
3 tbsp of sugar (reduced amount)
8 tbsp water
2 tsp of white vinegar
Pinch of salt


Method

1. Season pork cubes with light soy sauce and Hua Diao Jiu. Add in egg and combine well. Keep in the refrigerator and leave to marinate for at least 1 hour.

2. Add all sauce ingredients in a separate bowl. Stir to mix well and set aside.

3. When ready to cook, coat marinated pork cubes with cornflour. Make sure all sides of pork cubes are well covered with thick flour.

4. Heat wok with oil over high heat or use deep-fryer. Deep-fry pork for 5 min, or until crisp and golden brown. Remove from wok and drain on kitchen towel.

5. Clean wok. Heat wok with 1 teaspoon of oil, stir-fry chopped garlic till fragrant. Add bell peppers and pineapples, stir-fry for 3 min.

6. Return fried pork cubes to the wok and pour in sauce mixture. Stir-fry to combine well. Fry all ingredients briefly over high heat for 1 min and dish onto serving plate.


Reference : My Wok Life

Book Review : Fame

Most people tend to view Christian literature as well…boring, dry and functions best as a sleep-inducing tool. Reading has always a favourite hobby of mine, as far back as I can remember, and I enjoy books of various genres. The one thing that I had always wondered is why there is an absence of books written for a widely secular audience but yet loaded with Christian values and presented in a manner that paints Christianity in a positive and appealing light. It would be a perfect way of sharing Christ and His values in a most non-threatening manner.

Over the years, I had concluded that it is probably a case of sensibility – dollars and cents just do not marry seemingly lofty heavenly morals. It would be hard to create a riveting storyline with God lurking between the lines, most people would have turned away. Thus, most Christian authors of secular fiction books will just mention God in their foreword or acknowledgment page.

Imagine my delight when I found Karen Kingsbury’s series of books. If you have not read any of her books, you would have missed out on powerful stories beautifully crafted to illustrate God’s blessings and ways in the lives of ordinary families and people. It is totally refreshing to see how ordinary people struggle with and live out kingdom values. Her stories touch on themes of love, loss, death, forgiveness, fame, acceptance, loyalty, trust, etc. Kingsbury effectively portrays Christianity not as a religion but for what it is – real relationship with God.

God comes through so strongly through her books that as I followed the story, I found myself tearing at times and stopping now and then to pray for myself or my family. You know it is a good Christian book when you feel motivated to do something for God. But you know it is a fantastic Christian book when you are compelled to immediately stop reading to respond to the message God is bringing you through the book. And only after you have responded then you are able to pick the book up to continue reading.

God bless Kingsbury for being a literary agent of God’s message to the world. She is also involved in various ministries ministering to different groups!

Verdict : 10/10. I love all her books!