Cranberry Beans & Peanut Soup 珍珠豆花生汤

Lately, I have been doing spring cleaning whenever I have time.  Not that I have much time but there is noone else to do it if I didn't do it. I'm trying to stay away from the computer to get more things done because my computer chair seems to some invisible glue on it.  Once I sit on it, I'm stuck. :P

So, here's a quick post on another soup that my family love. Best of all, it's easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

• 1.8 litre Water
• 250g Pork Ribs
• 150g Cranberry Beans (Zhen Zhu Dou) 珍珠豆
• 120g Raw Peanut
• 6 Red Dates (Hong Zao) 红枣
• A handful Wolfberries (Gou Qi Zi) 枸杞子
• Salt to taste

How to do it:

1. Blanch ribs.
2. Put all ingredients excluding salt in a pot of water.
3. Bring to a boil and reduce a simmer.
4. Remove any scum that surface.
5. Simmer for 2 hours.
6. Add salt to taste.
7. Serve.

Mini Marbled Cupcakes 迷你大理石小蛋糕

Last week, my son's Korean schoolmates received cupcakes from their classmate as birthday favours. They were so kind to share their cakes, so I thought I'll bake some cakes to return their kind gestures.

The marble effect on this cake isn't very obvious as the chocolate I used has a lighter chocolate colour. You can use add a bit of cocoa powder to make your chocolate batter darker if you like or use dark chocolate.

This recipe is very easy and fail proof. You just need to mix all ingredient together but I still prefer to mix the ingredients one at a time.

Ingredients:

• 175g Butter, softened
• 160g Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs
• 175g Self raising Flour
• 2 tablespoon Milk (I used fresh milk)
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence
• 60g Chocolate, melted

How to do it:

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
3. Add one egg at a time and continue beating.
4. Add milk and vanilla essence and combine well.
5. Gradually add in the flour.
6. Beat till mixture is smooth.
7. Divide the mixture into 2 bowls.
8. Add melted chocolate to one bowl.
9. Mix well till well combined.
10. Scoop a spoon each from both batter into paper-case.
11. Use a toothpick to stir a little.
12. Bake for 11 minutes; use toothpick test to check.
13. Cool on rack.

Note:
I'm using 12 hole mini muffin pan. Bakes about 40 mini muffins.