Cakes, Biscuits and Confectionery

The Sugee Cake is the most famous celebratory cake for Eurasians. It is a very rich cake with loads of butter, eggs, almonds, semolina and sugar. This cake also has brandy added to it if it is a wedding cake. Eurasians usually have sugee cake for important occasions.

The most popular confectionery that I frequently get requests for is Coconut Candy. It was not easy to make at first because as with all sweet confectionery like candy, you need to know just when it has cooked enough to take it off the heat and let the dissolved sugar crystalize and harden. Too much sugar and it will be rock hard. Too much milk and butter and it will be too soft and not harden like candy. It took me a while to master this confectionery. I usually make extra for Christmas because there are always people with a sweet tooth who will ask for some coconut candy to take home.

I love Orange and Banana Cake. It is simply a rich butter cake and by adding a few other ingredients to it like orange juice and zest of an orange or mashed bananas, it can be transformed to another cake. You can also add mashed durian flesh and make a durian cake.

I am sure almost everybody loves Chocolate Chip cookies. I have tried many recipes over the years. They were alright. Then I found this oatmeal, chocolate chip cookie recipe and it was so good. This Christmas it was the Chocolate Chip cookies that disappeared so quickly. I had to keep filling up the cake serving tray repeatedly.

Cocoa Jelly will always remind me of my Aunty Myra (father's sister). She made the best cocoa Jelly. It was one of her specialties.

I must have tried numerous Chocolate cake recipes. Some looked good but it lacked the rich chocolate flavour and others, it was too sweet. Finally I decided that you don't have to settle for just one chocolate cake recipe. I keep going back to this one particular chocolate cake recipe so I decided to use it in this book.

Before baking anything, read through your recipe and make sure you have all the ingredients ready before you begin. This will reduce the chance of you accidentally leaving out an ingredient (that may be behind the open cookery book).

Weigh out the correct amount of dry ingredients and liquids. This is half the battle to ensuring you get a sucessful outcome.

Bring your eggs, butter and liquids like milk (or buttermilk) to room temperature.

When whisking egg whites to a stiff meringue, make sure your bowl and beaters are dry and without any oily residue.

Preheat your oven to the correct temperature and use the correct size container to hold the amount of batter, giving thought to cake rising during baking.

Chill your cakes before applying frosting. It makes it easier to coat them.

Chill your cookie dough for 15 minutes if you don't want it spreading out too much during baking. Follow instructions for baking time for cookies. Smaller cookies will require a shorter time and larger cookies will require a longer baking time in the oven.