Dragon Fruits - The Experiment

Driving along the trunk roads in the East Coast of the Malay Peninsular is a pleasurable experience. Besides the view of the coastal line, there are also heaps of stuff to buy by the roadside. The variety is just mind boggling....from young coconut juice to sugarcane juice to palm toddy to dragon fruits to mangoes to watermelons to lemang (glutinous rice cooked in bamboo) to bananas to jackfruits to breadfruit fritters....I could go on and on and on....

So just stop and buy what you really fancy. Also, don't forget to bargain because that's the Malaysian way of buying stuffs. For example, when we stopped to buy dragon fruits from a 12-year old lass, Mama unashamedly bargained. Well, we did buy a lot so the young lady still made some profit. Then Dad has to ask, "Why did you buy so much?" Mama's answer: "Coz I like the fruit. Anyway, I'll think of something. Experiment in the kitchen."

We brought back heaps of these beauties from the East Coast. Gave some to Mak Long, some to Dad's relatives, still have heaps at home....

And thus, we experimented. Of course, since rediscovering her baking mojo, Mama decided to make dragon fruit cupcakes. "See if we can get a nice red colour like the famous red velvet cake, eh," she said.

Here's the recipe. It's basically a tweaked blended orange cake recipe.

Dragon fruit cake

1 dragon fruit (red skin + red flesh)

1 cup cooking oil

1 cup soft brown sugar

3 eggs

1/2 cup full cream milk

2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

Cut dragon fruit, discard skin and chop coarsely. Blend with oil, sugar, eggs and milk until fine. Pour into bowl. Mix in sieved flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt bit by bit. Pour into muffin cases. Bake at 190oC for 20 minutes. Makes 12 muffin-sized cakes.

Prior to putting in the oven. We were excited over the pink-coloured concoction...natural colouring of the fruit.

Piping hot....fresh from the oven. Unsure of cake colour though....

Cooled and then put in a container. Cracks on top but can be covered with cream cheese icing, Mama said.

A closer look...can you see those black dots? Those are the dragon fruit seeds...looks like poppy seeds too.

Ready for eating.....

....tara! Where has the nice pink colour gone? Somehow, the colour disappeared. However, the cake tastes good, with nice texture...and moist. Maybe we'll put in some food colouring next time.

Nicole's 2-cent: Oh, we baked the cakes because it's a special occasion today. It's Michael and Nikki's birthday!!!!! They were born on 29 August 2004. That makes them...hmmmm...seven years old. My babies.... Rejoice with us.
For more information about the dragon fruits, click here. It's very cheap at the East Coast, at just RM5 - RM8 per kg for the red skin + red flesh variety, as opposed to about RM8 - RM14 per kg in Kuala Lumpur. purrrr *giggles*

Cravings on World Cat Day

What do you do when you have cravings for apple crumbles on World Cat Day and the only fruits to be found in the house is a bunch of bananas?  So we end up with Banana Crumb Muffins.....teeheehee...simple! This is akin to the lemon philosophy, my Mama said...when life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Mama took leave from work so she could be at home with us on World Cat Day. So sweet of her, eh? Without further ado, here are the photographs of our handiwork.

You should be in our kitchen while we baked today. The aroma of banana and cinnamon was just....hmmmmm....indescribable....

Instead of eating the crumble with ice cream or custard sauce, we ate it with moist orange cake in a muffin case......sweeeeettt...

Recipe? Who needs a recipe? It was just mash, plonk and buzzzz..... OK OK here it is.

Banana Crumb Muffin a la Nicole (makes 12)
Dry ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Wet ingredients:
3 bananas, mashed
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup corn oil

Crumb:
1/3 cup soft brown sugar
2 tbsp flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp butter

Method:
Preheat oven 190oC (374oF).
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in big bowl.
Mix banana, sugar, egg and oil. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture until just moistened, lumpy is fine. Spoon into muffin cups.
In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resemble coarse cornmeal. Sprinkle topping over muffins.
Bake 18-20 mins.

We copied the recipe for the orange cake from Lady of Leisure....with some variations and instead of one big cake, we used muffin cases. 

Blended Orange Cake (makes 12)

1 orange (Navel, Sunkist, Valencia....anything)
1 cup cooking oil (we used corn oil)
2 cups caster sugar (we used 1 1/2 cups soft brown sugar)
3 eggs
1/2 cup full cream milk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
1/2 cup 100s and 1000s

Method:
Wash orange, cut, discard pits and white thingy in the middle. Chop finely, with skin. Blend with oil, sugar, milk and eggs until fine. Pour into bowl. Mix in sieved flour and baking powder, bit by bit. Spoon into muffin cases. Sprinkle with 100s and 1000s. Bake at 190oC for 20mins.

Nicole's 2-cent: Told you these are easy to make. We made many extras and gave some to my Mama's elder sister, Dad's sister and some friends. It was a yummylicious World Cat Day. burp.... purrrr *giggles*