Ugh. I ate a lot of onde-onde today. I'm so not going to make it in few weeks or even months. I managed to get the texture right but not the 'bursting' effect when you put a piece into your mouth. That is the frustrating part. I even got the right amount of gula melaka [palm sugar] to insert into the onde-onde. The texture is much better than the first batch because I used Japanese sweet potato. It gives the balls a dull golden colour which is nice because it saved me work in getting green colouring and I don't like using colouring though I could use natural green from pandan leaves, but it would only drives me nuts to exhaust me before I could enjoy my labour fruits. No way.

I made 27 balls to share out with my mother. Each of us is supposed to eat at least 13 balls but I ended up eating 22 balls because my mum's blood test result indicated high cholestrol level when she came back from the clinic. Damn. Luckily, the palm sugar was not that sweet. If not, I would get nausea. And so... there would be a break from making onde-onde. That's a bless in disguise too, I guess. It will make me move on to other recipe: Ma Lai Koe. Oh another yum yum Chinese steamed cake.

So what is onde-onde? Have a look here: Onde-onde - Malaysian Food Guide

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A Hungarian recipe! Looks and sounds yum!

12 thin pancakes
175g apricot jam
50g chocolate, grated
100g melted stick butter
100 gm ground walnuts
250gm cottage cheese
2 egg yolks
50g raisins
3 egg whites, well beaten
250g sugar
Vanilla for dusting

1. Use an ovenproof dish, well buttered. At the bottom, place a pancake.

2. Spread it with apricot jam. Place another pancake over it an spread some of the grated chocolate over it, and baste with some of the melted stick butter.

3. Cover again with another pancake [the third], and spread walnuts mixed with a little sugar over it.

4. Add the fourth pancake, and spread it with a mixture of cottage cheese, egg yolks, raisins and a little sugar.

5. Continue the layering of all the pancake in this manner until all the ingredients are consumed by this usage, except for the top layeer of pancake, which should be left plain.

6. Bake this layered cake in a moderate oven for 10 minutes.

7. Whilst the baking is in process, make a meringue of beaten egg whites with 100g of sugar.

8. Remove the came from the oven and evenly spread the mixture of meringue over the top of the cake.

9. Baken it again for another 10 minutes ot until the top of the cake turns brown.

10. Dust it with the vanilla sugar. Cut into desired number of wedges, just like a cake, and serve warm.

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125g butter, chopped
3/4 cup castor sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup canned apples
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup apricot jam, warm and sieved
1 red apple, peeled and cored, halved and thinly sliced

1. Grease a 20cm ring cake pan. Line base with baking paper.

2. Combine the butter, sugar, eggs, flours and milk in a bowl. Beat with an eletric mixer on low speed until just combined. Then beat on high speed until mixture is smooth.

3. Spread two-thirds of the mixture into the pan. Top with combined canned apples, cinnamon and 1 tbsp jam. Then spread the remaining cake mixture. Arrange apple slices around top of cake.

4. Cook in a 180 C oven for 40 minutes. Brush top of cake with remaining jam. Stand in pan for 5 minutes, then cool on wire rack.

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I started reading a new a manga called Rabbit Doubt. If you like the Saw and Cube movie, you will like this manga because it's a marriage of these two movies. I'm pretty shocked myself and the characters are very similar the Cube.

Let me tell you what the Cube is all about since this is a very unheard movie. It's about 6 people trapped in a room. Before that, these 6 were scattered in the rooms but they manage to find each other. There was an autistic kid, a math whiz kid, a doctor, the most wanted robber on earth, a policeman and a normal acocuntant [I think]. So they have to cooperate to find a way out. They were actually not in a room but a huge cube that comprises lots of rooms with traps, but each room is equipped with an astronomical number. They first thought they were lucky to have a robber who knows about traps but somehow his old-fashioned detecting tricks didn't work and he died in one of the rooms. And somehow as the story progresses, you would see the true colours of each character. So who do you think will come out alive off the cube? Pick a guess.

Back to the manga. The only difference with the manga and the Cube is it has the same beginning as the Saw movie. Haha. And there are many more characters in the manga. So interesting to see many characters hugging together to die. Hmm... I never understand is it a Japanese culture for the guy to say "I will protect you" to the girl. Because I thought it was pretty unappropriate to say in this kind life and death situation. Should not it be "I WILL MAKE SURE U WILL SURVIVE"? To be frank, I think I remember hearing the accountant guy telling the whiz kid "I will protect you no matter what" in the Cube given in she's just 12. Oh well, let's just say I don't like seeing girls been portrayed as weakling.

I'm going to finish Volume 1 of Rabbit Doubt. No doubt the setting is not original but it's as thrilling as the Saw and the Cube movie. Make your move to read this manga now!

Don't forget to guess who came out alive from the Cube.

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100g butter
80g cream cheese
150g castor sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp chocolate emulco
2 tbsp plain yoghurt
3 eggs
45g white chocolate chips
45g milk chocolate chips
20g almonds

Sift:

180g self-raising flour
1/8 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 180C, and line patty tins with paper cases.

2. Cream butter, cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla essence, chocolate emulco and yoghurt. (If mixture curdles, add a little of the flour).

3. Fold in sifted dry ingredients and white and milk chocolate chips until combined. Spoon batter into each paper case and fill to three-quarters full. Sprinkle with almond nibs and extra chips on top.

4. Bake for about 25 minutes until well risen or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

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I stayed at home all day.

I tried making onde-onde but it was quite a failure: put too little of gula melaka and the flour is a little too tough. But it's still edible. Trying to make another batch within this week. But at least my onde-onde balls didn't 'break' like my friends encountered: the ball just loosen up and the gula melaka inside the ball leaked.

Now watching CJ7 starring Stephen Chow.

Happy Chinese New Year folks!

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