Easy Granola Bars

I dislike rainy days. What shall I do?
Bake! Cook! My favourite activites when I'm home. I found some ingredients in my pantry that I think I could use them for energy or granola bars? I thought it could be good for me to bring to school to keep away my hunger pangs. Easy peasy job and they are quite good. Try it out!

My pan was too big! 

Smells so good!

Care for a piece?

Easy for me to take them out

Ingredients
3 medium-sized bananas (mashed well)
100g of sunflower seeds
30g of chocolate chips
20g of almond flakes
300g of instant oats
100g of raisins
1 tsp of vanilla extract
butter for greasing

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees.
2. Grease a pan with some butter and place a parchment paper on it.
3. Mashed the bananas in a bowl.
4. Add in instant oats and stir well.
5. Add in sunflower seeds, raisins, almond flakes and vanilla extract. Mix well.
6. Stir in chocolate chips and combine well.
7. Ladle mixture into a greased rectangular or square pan.
8. Press firmly down till mixture is compact and smooth out with a spoon or your hands. 
9. Bake for abt 20-30mins till firm and lightly golden at the edges. 
10. Take out the pan and let it cool down for 15 minutes. 
11. Use a knife and carefully slide out the granola square, lift it out from the pan and let it cool down completely.
12. Cut the granola square into desired shape and size.
13. Wrap with parchment paper and keep individual pieces in an air-tight container or keep in individual packaging bags.
14. Enjoy!

p.s. You can basically use any ingredients that you fancy. Use a mixture of sweet and natural ingredients such as dates, cranberries, cherries, walnuts, pumpkin seeds and etc. The list goes on!

Ice-cream Cake with Chocolate Ganache

It was my MIL's 75th birthday. We had lunch at the restaurant (I was a little lazy to cook up a storm; anteeksi äiti!) but I 'assembled' an ice-cream cake for her. It was a 'short cut cake' as I have used store-bought sponge layered cake and ice-cream. Nothing made from scratch except for the ganache. But nevertheless, it was good and all of us were happy.

Fresh strawberries for decor

A good peek of the cake 

Ingredients

1 tub of 2-litre vanilla ice-cream
30g of crushed almond cookies (something I got from the store here but you can always replace with chocolate flakes, sprinkles, nuts or anything that you can think of)
1 store-bought pack of 3 layers chocolate sponge cake 
Fresh strawberries (for decoration)
50 ml of whipped cream (for crumb coating)
A tsp of icing sugar

Chocolate Ganache
180ml of whipped cream
20g butter
200g of dark chocolate

Method

1. Line your pan with cling wrap (with extra for wrapping the cake later) and put in the first layer of sponge cake.
2. Mix the vanilla ice-cream and crushed almond cookies well and scoop half of the mixture into the pan. 
3. Level the ice-cream well.
4. Put another layer of the sponge cake and press it down firmly and put in the remaining mixture.
5. Top up with the last layer of sponge cake.
6. Wrap it up with the cling wrap and store in the freezer for 5 hours or overnight. (I usually leave it overnight)
7. Whip up the cream till peak first and then take out the cake. Do a thin layer of crumb coat and store in the freezer again for 2 hours. 
8. Then take it out and do a second layer of crumb coat, make sure that the whole cake is covered and store in the freezer again.
9. Crush the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl. Heat up butter and whipped cream in a pot and as it starts to boil, take the pot away from the heat.
10. Gently, pour the mixture into the chocolate and use a spoon to stir well-make sure all the chocolate is melted and the mixture is well-combined. (Try to be gentle as you do not want to have air bubbles trapped in the mixture)
11. Take out the ice-cream cake and place it on a wire rack. 
12. Pour out the chocolate ganache (starting from the middle) and work very quickly with a spoon/spatula and let the ganache spread all over the cake. 
13. Let the ganache settle in for a few minutes and store the cake in the freezer again.
14. Decorate with fresh strawberries and sprinkle some icing sugar just before serving.
15. Enjoy!

Note: You can refer to my oreo ice-cream cake for the setting up of the pan. :)

Fried Curry-Flavoured Chicken

Thumbs up from my princess

I try to fry as little as I could in my kitchen as I dislike the oil-splattering effects but at times when cravings are overwhelming, I give in. A simple fried chicken dish but a huge explosion and cleaning up after that. ;)


Ingredients

Chicken drumsticks or thighs/your favourite cuts
5 tbsps of curry powder (I have used Waugh's curry powder (same as one of my previous posts)
2 tsps of salt
2-4tbps of water
Oil for frying


Method

1. Add the water gradually to the curry powder and salt and stir the mixture to form a paste. 
2. Marinate the chicken pieces in the marinade for 3 hours or overnight.
3. Heat up oil in the frying pan and let the frying party begins! ;)
4. Serve warm.

Banana and Chocolate Teabread

Fluffy and Yummy

When the weather is depressing and school work is suffocating, I indulge in baking to keep myself sane. Let's have a cup of coffee and a slice of my banana and chocolate teabread! 


Ingredients

100g softened butter and some extra for greasing the loaf pan
2 bananas-mashed
2 eggs
60g sugar
200g self-raising flour
20g cocoa powder
1 tsp of baking powder
3 tbsp milk
100g of chocolate chips


Method

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and grease your loaf pan.
2. Mix banana, butter, sugar and eggs together in a mixing bowl. ( I used my KA)
3. Sift in flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.
4. At medium speed, beat the ingredients till smooth and add in the milk gradually, to give a thick consistency.
5. Stir in chocolate chips and spoon the mixture into the loaf pan.
6. Smooth the surface and tap the pan to remove air bubbles.
7. Bake for 50-60 minutes until well-risen and check with a skewer. (inserted into the center of the cake and it comes out clean)
8. Leave to cool for 10mins, then transfer out onto a wire rack and leave to cool completely. 
9. Serve in slices and enjoy!