Pumpkin Wholewheat Blueberry cake with Oatmeal Streusel

Feeling a little motivated to blog tonight, so I immediately got myself to work on it before the feeling fades away, haha! Been baking and cooking as often as I usually am, just lacking that "umph" to get me to seat down to type out all these. Anyways, tonight shall be an exception, at least I get this post up before the year 2013 ends. No worries, I will be blogging still, but taking my time and posting selective recipes. :)

Without further ado, here is the healthy cake which I concocted after reading several cookbooks over the last couple days. Pumpkin wholewheat blueberry cake topped with Oatmeal streusel. Frankly speaking, I am a sucker for anything with streusel, haha! Crunchy sweet and buttery altogether, what's not to like seriously! But mixing oatmeal into it....oh that's like goodness in a whole new level.:9 And I just love adding healthy stuff like pumpkin and wholewheat to my bakes. ;)

Ingredients: (Makes 9"x 12" rectangular pan, I chose to bake in mini loaf pans)
Streusel Topping:
150g all purpose flour
80g instant oat 
150g light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
1/2 tsp salt
150g unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

Pumpkin wholewheat blueberry cake:
100g cake flour
100g wholewheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
100g caster sugar
4 tbsp vegetable oil
125ml fresh milk 
125g peeled, steamed pumpkin and blended/mashed till smooth
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries(tossed in 1 tbsp flour)

• Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line with parchment the baking pan. 
• To make the Streusel: In a large bowl, mix together the flour, instant oat, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt together. Add in the cubed butter and rub in till well combined. Work the mixture with your fingertips to press into nice karge crumbs, set aside.
• To make the cake: Heat up the milk to almost bubble. Remove from heat, add in the pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil and mix well. Add in the egg, vanilla and stir well.
• Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture and combine well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and scatter with the blueberries that has been tossed in flour (prevent sticking) over the top of the batter.
• Then sprinkle evenly the streusel crumb evenly over the blueberries and cake batter. It will completely cover the whole top of the cake, it ok!
•  
• Bake and rotating at mid time through the baking time until the tester comes out clean and the streusel topping is golden brown, about 45 minutes.
• Remove from the oven to a cooling rack and let cool completely before removing from the pan.

So loving the golden pumpkin cake and I can't taste the wholewheat in it too! The juicy blueberries giving the cake a even more moist mouth feel. Plus the ever so yummy streusel oatmeal topping to complete the whole cake, too good! I am super please with the outcome of this cake, definitely a keeper. ;)
If you do try this out, do let me know by dropping me a comment or tag me in Instagram @ig_honeybeesweets . ;)

Have a good night guys! Gonna catch some Zzzz before the start of another busy day. ;)

Roasted Lemongrass Chicken (Gai Ob Ta Khai) -AFF featuring Thailand

Posting a quick one in support of this month's AFF featuring Thailand. This time I made something simple; Roasted Lemongrass Chicken (Gai Ob Ta Khai). The key to making this dish a successful one is the long hours of marination. So it is best to make this ahead and let it chill in the fridge marinating. :) But the cooking part was really a no fuss easy oven baked dish!

Check out the glisten on that chicken wing haha! I guess to every meat we enjoy, we wish its tender, succulent and flavorful. Well this dish pretty much covers all these criteria! So let's check out what you need to get this on your dinner table. ;) I adapted this recipe from "Cooking Classics Thailand" by Forest Leong.

Ingredients for Roasted Lemongrass Chicken Wings (Serves 3-4)
8 chicken wings, trimmed of fat, wash and pat dry
3 lemongrass stalks
2 Tbsp olive oil

Marinate
2 lemongrass stalks, ends trimmed and bruised
1 tbsp dark soy
1 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp sugar
125 ml water 

Method:

• Prepare the marinate 3-4 hours ahead. Chop the lemongrass finely. Heat the saucepan on medium fire and add in the lemongrass in. Then add in all the rest of the marinate ingredients and bring to a boil. Then remove from fire, cover and let cool completely.
• Once the marinate is cooled, pour into a big mixing bowl. Then add in the chicken wings, coat the chicken wings well with the marinate sauce. Leave the chicken to absorb the marinate in the fridge for 3-4hrs.
• Preheat the oven to 200C
• Take chicken wings out from the fridge. Arrange chicken pieces on an aluminum foil lined baking tray. 
• Using the bruised lemongrass stalk, dip in cooking oil and use it as a brush and brush the chicken wings well. This step will help crisp up the skin / surface and prevent burning.
• Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or till the juice runs clear.
• Remove from oven and place on serving plate and serve immediately. Garnish with lemongrass if desired. 

The skin was crisp and super flavorful. So delicious with a bowl of steam rice! Loving the savory, lemon twist in this dish. If you like lemongrass like I do, you should definitely give this a try. :)

I am submitting this to Asian Food Fest ( Thailand ) November Month hosted by frozen wings