October 30, 2026. Afternoon. Roasted Buttercup Squash Discovery I discovered this squash earlier in the season when I was shopping for carving pumpkins at my local grocery store. Nestled among all the seasonal cooking pumpkins and squashes were these Buttercup Squashes. I was curious and …
December 11, 2021. Cold autumn day. Best Ever Banana Bread Muffins. Updated March 30, 2023 I wanted to share a fabulous and easy recipe that I have been making again and again for the past few weeks since the guys can’t seems to get enough …
February 6, 2021. Beautiful sunny winter day. Quick & Easy Honey Cakes (with Citrus Zest).
Jump to RecipeThese sticky delicious honey cakes are yummy and bake up in a flash. I wanted to put together something that wasn’t fussy and uses pantry ingredients. So, these cakes are just the thing to make when you want something sweet and quick.
The key to making this delicious treat is using the best honey available. Adding freshly grated lemon or orange rind really gives this a nice pop. I used ground nutmeg and cinnamon for a hint of warmth.
There are really 2 major steps to this. First, putting the batter together and an initial bake. Second, a soaking with more honey and a final bake. These steps ensure the honey really sticks and soaks into the mini cakes, which develop a beautiful sheen and taste fabulous!
Without further ado, let’s get baking.
These items are used for this recipe.
Dry Ingredients
2 cups (240g) All purpose flour
1½ tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon or nutmeg or a mix of both
1 lemon or orange zest from 1 fruit
1/2 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
1/2 cup (113g) cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3/4 cup (184g) milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup (340g) honey, divided
2 tbsp fresh squeezed lemon or orange juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
This recipe requires a regular 12 holes muffin pan, cooking spray to prevent the cakes from sticking, 2 mixing bowls (one for the dry ingredients and the other for the wet), an optional pastry blender to mix the butter into the flour mixture (or just use your fingers and fork) and finally a parchment or silicone lined cookie sheet/pan for the second round of baking.
Let’s start by gathering all the ingredients. Then, preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Next, spray the muffin pan thoroughly with cooking spray and set aside. Prepared the lined baking tray. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk in the citrus (lemon or orange) zest and spices (cinnamon, nutmeg or both) until well combined. Then, add cubed butter and with your fingers or pastry blender rub butter into the flour mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs (or like coarse sand). Set aside.
In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, 3/4 cup honey, citrus juice and vanilla. Gradually add the dry and wet mixture together and combine thoroughly.
When the batter is ready, carefully fill the prepared muffin tin until 3/4 filled. Gently tap the filled pan to settle the batter. Then, pop the filled pan into a preheated oven for about 18 to 20 minutes, until the tops are golden.
When the tops are lightly golden, remove the muffin pan from the oven, and place on a trivet. It will be hot so please be careful when popping out the almost cooked cakes and placing them on the prepared lined baking tray. Using a brush, generously coat the entire cake with the remaining honey. The heat from the cakes will help the honey soak into the cakes. Let them stand for 5 to 8 minutes. When ready, place the honey soaked cakes back into the oven and bake for another 15 to 18 minutes until the tops are golden brown. Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
Your honey cakes are ready!
When I was making this, I was curious about other recipes that use honey to bake. And of course, lo and behold there are a wonderful array to choose from that would delight any baker’s heart. Here’s one collection that I thought was pretty interesting. I hope to check off a few from the list some day, especially the Greek Baklava! =>https://www.allrecipes.com/gallery/honey-desserts/
Recipe inspired by Gobble The Cook and The Ginger Whisk.
Have you every tried a Khachapuri? See how I made them here => How to make Adjaruli Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread)
Have a hankering for a quick crunchy pickle? Try these amazing spicy Korean style cucumber for a change =>How to make Spicy Korean Marinated Cucumber (Oi Muchim)!
These amazing small bread spiral muffins are a compact meal-in-one loaded with bold Spanish inspired flavors! Check them out here => How to Make Spanish Inspired Ham & Cheese Spiral Bread Muffin
Ever wonder how to make tortillas from scratch? This is a pantry staple that is so easy (and delicious) to make, you’ll wonder why you haven’t tried making it at home before! => Back to Basics: How to Make Delicious Soft Flour Tortillas
November 12, 2020. Rainy and grey. Fabulous Gluten-Free Chocolate Muffins. The weather was so gloomy I wanted to make something sweet to brighten up the day. I was searching on Pinterest for ideas and came across this recipe from officiallyglutenfree.com and this is definitely a …
October 29, 2020. Rainy and grey. Savory Pesto Cheese Brioche Wreath. I came up with this bold flavored savory brioche wreath recipe in early June this year. By that time, I was baking daily and really enjoy making and eating brioche bread. My family appreciates …
October 8, 2020. Sunny. Fun Pouffy Balloon Popovers.
Jump to RecipeI adore making these popovers. This is one of those easy-peasy recipes that is a joy to make with kids.
Before the pandemic, my son and I made these pouffy baked delights during a play-date with his pals. These are fun to make and eat, and the boys had a blast measuring, blending and baking! Yup, you just put the ingredients into a blender and voila! The batter is ready. After that, pop in the oven for 30 minutes and it’s done!
A bit more about this recipe. It’s like making mini Yorkshire pudding. I used to fret and fuss about the right recipe to make this since we would invariably have roast beef (served with Yorkshire Pudding, of course) when our extended family visited for the holidays. After mucking around with different versions, lo and behold this one appeared while baking with my daughter.
At that time I was encouraging my daughter to bake and bought the Sur La Table’s cookbook Baking Kids Love by Cindy Mushet. I was blown away by how simple and easy this was, and it tastes and looks wonderful! In the last 10 years, I made over a hundred of these popovers/mini yorkshire puddings. With a few tweaks to the original recipe, now this is one of my all time favorites! It’s quick, easy and delicious! What’s there not to like?
Let’s get baking!
This recipe is super simple. You need a blender and a regular 12-hole muffin pan plus the following ingredients.
1¼ cup whole milk
3 eggs
2 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all purpose flour
½ tsp salt
Let’s start by gathering all the ingredients. Then, preheat oven to 425°F. Next, coat the muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.
Then, place the liquid ingredients – milk, eggs, butter and vanilla – into the blender. Next, close the lid and blend on high for 1 minute. Stop blender and add flour and salt. Replace lid and blend on high for one more minute. When done, check to make sure no flour is sticking to the sides. If so, scrape down the flour and replace lid and blend for another 20 seconds.
Next, distribute the blended batter evenly into the prepared muffin pan, covering approx ⅔ of each cup.
Then, pop into preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. Do not open the oven door during the baking or the popovers will deflate. When ready, remove pan from oven and transfer to trivet.
Finally, let them cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pan. Your popovers are ready. Let’s eat!
Popovers are best eaten warm, immediately after baking. Uneaten popovers will lose crispiness. They can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
Popovers are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The hollow center is perfect to fill with butter and jam, whipped cream, or even roast beef and other cold cuts.
Here are some examples on how to serve popovers:
When I was searching for ideas on how to present the Popovers and Yorkshire Pudding, I came across this fun article on 10 weird and wonderful ways to eat this baked delight. => https://www.yorkshirelife.co.uk/food-drink/10-weird-and-wonderful-ways-to-eat-a-yorkshire-pudding
Recipe adapted from Page 73 of Cindy Mushet’s Baking Kids Love from Sur La Table, published by Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2009.
Check out this unique and original Butterfly Braid Bread I created on a whim in August. It’s beautiful and yummy => Beautiful Butterfly Braid Bread: How to Make it at Home!
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These treats will never win any beauty contests, but we simply love the taste of these Quick and “Bursting with Blueberries” Scones. My family calls it our favorite Lumpy Blueberry Scones. The generous amount of blueberries packed into each scone makes them lusciously lumpy! The …
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This popular and tasty Malaysian Roti Jala, literally translates to roti=bread, and jala = net. Malaysian Roti Jala is a lacy thin pancake crepe that is delicious eaten unadorned, or yummy served with stew or a savory spicy curry, especially Kari Ayam (Chicken Curry).
The other day I was craving comfort food and this immediately came to mind. Roti Jala is easy to make (hello blender!) and cooks up in a jiffy! In other words, if you know how to make pancakes, this will be a cinch.
The ingredients are pantry items – flour, eggs, milk and coconut milk. The gorgeous golden yellow color comes from turmeric powder. Simply put all ingredients into a blender and mix. The batter is then filled into a bottle and drizzled continuously onto a hot pan in circles, creating a gorgeous lacy net-like structure that is perfect to sop up all the delicious curry sauce from your plate!
The roti jala maker is a plastic condiment squeeze bottle with 3 nozzles. I bought one online and it looks like this.
You can also make your own roti jala maker with a clean dry plastic soda bottle. I like using a small (16oz) soda bottle since it’s easier to handle. Just puncture 3 little holes in the plastic soda cap, and that’s it!
P.S. It’s a good idea to check to make sure no small plastic bits are sticking to the cap before pouring in the batter.
To start, let’s gather all the ingredients to make the roti jala batter. We will be putting everything into a blender to make this simple batter.
We will need :
3 cups All Purpose Flour, sifted
2 cups Water
1 cup Coconut Milk, or regular Milk
1 Egg
1½ tsp Turmeric Powder
1 tsp Salt
3 Tbs Coconut oil, and more for the pan
First, add all ingredients into blender. Then, secure the lid and blend well for 1 minute or until well combined.
Next, scrape down the side to make sure the flour is well incorporated into the mixture and no lumps can be seen. The batter should look like melted vanilla ice cream. Then, set aside.
Second, heat a large non stick pan using low to medium heat. Lightly oil the pan. To test if the pan is ready, put a few drops of batter into the pan. If the batter sizzles, it is ready.
Next, pour the batter into the plastic squeeze bottle/roti jala maker. Secure the cap firmly.
Gently squeeze the filled bottle to drizzle the batter in circles on the pan, in a slow and steady stream.
The roti cooks up quickly so watch the batter closely and adjust heat as necessary.
Since the roti is fairly thin, you’ll only need to cook it on one side. It is ready when the edges starts to turn lightly brown.
Then, remove promptly from the pan into a large plate, or working space.
Have a test run to get comfortable using the bottle and have a feel for the flow of the batter. Just like making crepes or pancakes, the first (and second!) piece of roti is always the cook’s test piece – to gauge how quickly the roti cooks.
Have fun creating different and unique lacy patterns!
There are really 2 popular ways to serve Malaysian Roti Jala. One is a simple fan shaped wedge, and it’ll look like this:
The roti is soft and pliable when warm. It is best to fold it into the desired presentation shape right out of the pan.
To make a fan shaped wedge, all you do is remove the cooked roti from pan to a working space. Then, quickly fold the roti in half, and fold it one more time, into a quarter. And it is done. It is that simple and straightforward.
For the pictures above, I folded the roti directly on the pan. Once you feel comfortable with the folding process, you can try folding the cooked roti directly on the pan before transferring to plate.
I personally prefer this fan shape roti jala because you can see the interesting lacy patterns. Also, I think it looks prettier on a plate, like the picture here.
The other popular shape is a log shaped style. It requires a few more steps and could look really cool when stacked and presented on a platter.
Here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to fold into a log shape:
In conclusion, practice a few more times making this Tasty Malaysian Roti Jala and you’ll be folding them up like a pro! Have fun!
How about pairing Tasty Malaysian Roti Jala with a curry? Check out my post on how to put together a rich and flavorful lamb curry here => Jacques Pepin’s Amazing Spicy Lamb Curry with Apples and Potatoes
Have you ever tried Eggplant Parmesan, Hasselback style? This is my post on the fan shaped dish=>How to make Fan-Shaped Eggplant Parmesan. It’s a fun dish to put together.
For a fun dessert, check out this French Apple Tart => Fun French Apple Tart – Taking up Sara Moulton’s Challenge! I wrote about how I learned a new technique to slice the apples for quick assembly.
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This recipe was adapted from one of my favorite sites, Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/roti-jala-malaysian-pancake-recipe.html as well as from my good friend Saiful Alimin.
