Papaya Cupcakes!

I wanted to make mango cupcakes today but I realised my family ate all the mangoes. Luckily, I had some fresh organic papayas, ripe from my backyard garden.

Funny enough, for a person who has 4 papaya trees, I don't really fancy them. I don't really like the smell of fresh papaya. Fresh papaya ripe from the tree has a different fragrance from the store bought ones that are ripen at the store. Those whole luv papaya says the fragrance is ambrosia, but not me.

Having said that, amazingly, papaya cupcakes do not have a strong fragrance.

Here's the simply delicious recipe.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Dry ingredients (mix and shift)
1 1/2 cups self raising flour (or 1 1/2 cups regular flour and 2 teaspoon of baking powder)
1/2 teaspoon salt
a pinch of cardamon powder (I recommend making fresh powder. Take 1 cardamon pod, and pound it inside a pestle and mortar. Remove the outer hard green shell. Take the black seeds and pound into powder.


Wet ingredients
1 1/2 cups papaya puree
1/3 oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the wet and dry ingredients quickly, making sure everything is thoroughly mixed. However, do not over stir the mixture.

Then, taste. Get a 1/3 cup granulated sugar and add in half the sugar first. Mix and see if it's sweet enough for you. If it's not sweet enough, add more until you are happy with the sweetness. You see, the sweetness of fruits vary, so you have to adjust the amount of sugar.

Quickly, put the cupcake batter into the cupcake liners and bake for about 25 minutes. Take a toothpick, stick it into the cupcake. If the toothpick comes clean, it's cooked.

The batter makes 12 medium sized cupcakes.

17 Jan 2010 Sunday

Tempeh is fermented soy beans.
This is how tempeh looks like in a raw form.

It's 12.28am and I'm snacking on Sugar Tempeh, fresh papaya and the Australian Yoplait yogurt.

For tomorrow morning, I have started the slow cooker and making soup for Ethan. The soup calls for 3/4 of chicken bones, 1 tomato, 1/2 carrots chopped up into small cubes and a few slices of onions. I didn't put in too much onions because Ethan is not used to strong flavors.

Here's my Sugar Tempeh recipe

She fry some sliced onions, garlic and red chilli. When it's fragrant, she add in some water, a pinch of salt to taste and about a generous tablespoon of sugar (the dish is sweet and spicy). Let it cook down until it's almost dry and looks like a thick caramel. Then, she adds in the tempeh (that was previously sliced into long strips and deep fried until crunchy). She stirs the whole thing until the mixture is dry. Serve up! So easy. The only thing is you need to adjust the salt and sugar to your taste. My mum doesn't like it too sweet, but I like it sweeter. Ah well!