Monday, October 27, 2014

Steamed pumpkin cake


Steamed Pumpkin Cake
via Babe in the city KL

Ingredients :-
4 tbsp oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
6 shallots, chopped
60 g dried prawns, soaked, rinsed and roughly chopped **substitute w anchovy paste

1 pair Chinese sausages, diced **didn't add
200 g minced pork meat ** didn't add
800 g pumpkin, seeded with skin removed will yield about 600 g, coarsely grated
Salt and ground white pepper to taste

Batter (mix them together):
300 g rice flour
60 g tapioca flour
1 litre water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Garnishing:
Spring onion, chopped
Fried shallots

 

Preparation :-
In a fairly large pan or wok, heat oil and fry up chopped garlic and shallots till soft and fragrant. Add dried prawns and continue to stir fry till fragrant. Next add in sausages and minced meat. Stir fry until meat is cooked and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Give the batter a stir before pouring into the stir fried mixture together with the grated pumpkin. Add in salt and pepper. Keep stirring until batter became thick. Taste and adjust seasonings. Turn off the heat.

Pour mixture into a 22 cm square or even round tray. Even the surface with the back of a spoon or spatula. Steam on high heat for about 45 minutes. The surface should be quite firm. Remove and leave to cool completely.

Garnish the cake by scattering chopped spring onion and fried shallots on the surface before slicing. Serve with garlic chilli sauce.

Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake { Meggyes Lepeny }


When you freeze lots of sour cherries during the summer season, you get to make this simple yet delicious cake through out the year! Okay, the frozen sour cherries that I used to make this cake was given by my MIL though :D  As appreciation I made her this cake when she visited last weekend.

In my archive I already have a similar cake, but I find this version more to my liking as I prefer crumbly texture as opposed to the tighter crumb version. Therefore, this will be my go-to sour cherry cake recipe from this day forward.

Hungarian sour cherry cake {Meggyes Lepeny}
via About.com

Ingredients
450gm pitted sour cherries (left whole), fresh or frozen
170gm unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Vanilla sugar
Preparation :-

  1. Heat oven to 190°c / Gas 4. Butter a 10x6-inch rectangular tart pan, or a 9-inch square or a 9-inch round cake pan and dust with bread crumbs.
  2. In a large bowl, cream butter and half the granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and continue creaming until well incorporated. Add the flour and salt, mixing well.
  3. With clean, grease-free beaters, whip egg whites with remaining granulated sugar until stiff. Gently fold whites into cake batter.
  4. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Top with cherries, stem side down. Bake 30 minutes. The batter will partially bubble up and cover the fruit. Cool in pan. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Cut into squares or wedges and serve.


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Basic Choux Pastry



Choux pastry is not just easy but versatile for sweet and savoury fillings. I'm going to experiment more with ways to fill and decorate these delicate and tasty parcels.


Choux Pastry
via GBBO masterclass
Makes: 12 eclaires

Ingredients

50gm butter
150ml water
65gm plain flour
2 eggs, beaten

Method
  1. Pre-heat oven at 200°c / Gas 6
  2. In a sauce pan, bring the water and butter to a full boil. In goes the flour. Beat the mixture until smooth. When it come together into a ball shape, remove from heat. Loosen the dough and add a little of the beaten egg at a time. Combine well.
  3. Prepare piping bag with a 1cm nozzlel. Put the dough into piping bag and pipe out 6” strip on to baking dish lined with grease proof paper. You should get 12 strips. Spray some water on to the dough by using a spray bottle. This will create steam.
  4. Place baking dish in the oven and bake for 10 mins. Then lower to 170°c and bake for another 20 mins. Or until it is light golden colour.

Once fully cooled, fill with desired fillings.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

One-bowl Chocolate fudge cake with chocolate sour cream frosting


In the last minute, I've decided to try out this chocolate cake for a birthday cake since my first bake (another chocolate cake recipe) failed! This cake turned out moist and stable, great with my go-to chocolate sour cream frosting. The left over also freezes well. PERFECT!
I've declared this is going to be go-to chocolate cake recipe from now on. No more fussing about with other recipes :p

Chocolate Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoon granulated coffee

Chocolate sour-cream frosting
adapted from kwanster

100g chocolate, break into pieces
64g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50-64gm confectioners’ sugar, sifted
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
Pinch of salt, sifted
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. sour cream , room temperature **12 or 20% fat
added rum for extra flavour

For the cake:-
1) Pre-heat oven at 180°c.
2) Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt to a large bowl. Whisk through to combine using a hand whisk to stir through flour mixture until combined well. 
3) Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together until well combined. Mix the granulated coffee with  boiling water then pour into the cake batter and mix well combine. 
4) Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans or one cake pan where you can cut horizontally after the cake is baked and cooled down. 
5) Bake for 30-35 minutes if using two pans or 1 hour until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. 
6)Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.


For chocolate frosting :-
1) Melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Set aside to cool until just barely warm.
2) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale.
3) Gradually mix in the sifted confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder and salt, beat until light and fluffy.
4) Beat in the melted and cooled chocolate and then the sour cream.
5) Continue beating until the mixture is smooth and well blended.

Frost cake and decorate as you desire.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Easy shortbread cookies and Easy sugar icing


If  you haven't noticed Groot-shaped cookies are everywhere on the web. This batch of cookies turned out good, taste wise. As for the decoration, well, I think brown coloured icing would've been more successful. That said, I am very satisfied with the shortbread recipe and the easy sugar icing.

Easy shortbread
via citromhab (I halved the recipe)

Ingredients
150gm plain flour, sifted
100gm cold butter
75gm powdered sugar, sifted (including 1 packet of vanilla sugar)
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder

Preparation
1) In a bowl, place the sifted plane flour and salt, work-in the butter by using a fork until crumbly in texture.
2) Next add in the sifted sugar and cinnamon powder. Knead lightly until it just come together, do not over work. Flatten the dough and wrap it with cling film and let it rest in refrigerator for 1 hour.
3) 20 mins. before 1 hour resting time, start pre-heating the oven at 180°c
4) After 1 hour resting time, roll out the dough and cut and shape dough in to desired shapes. Work quickly as the dough melt easily.
5) Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 8-10 mins. until base is brown.


Easy Sugar icing
via Cleverlysimple
Ingredients
1 Cup Powdered Sugar, sifted
4 tsp Milk
Preparation
  1. Mix with fork!
  2. You can customize this recipe by adding powdered sugar to make it thicker. Add more milk to make it a glaze.



Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Home-made Pot stickers / Jiaozi / Gyōza




I've halved the following recipe which yield 20 wrappers

Gyoza Wrapper Recipe
Author: Namiko Chen

Serves: 42-44 wrappers (thin wrappers)

Ingredients
240gm plain flour
½ tsp. salt
120 ml just-boiled water plus more if necessary (should be around 120 - 150 ml)

You will also need:
Potato starch (corn starch) for dusting
3" (8 cm) cookie cutter

While for the filling, I've just followed a rough guide from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8MBX-SXnmg

Monday, October 27, 2014

Steamed pumpkin cake


Steamed Pumpkin Cake
via Babe in the city KL

Ingredients :-
4 tbsp oil
6 cloves garlic, chopped
6 shallots, chopped
60 g dried prawns, soaked, rinsed and roughly chopped **substitute w anchovy paste

1 pair Chinese sausages, diced **didn't add
200 g minced pork meat ** didn't add
800 g pumpkin, seeded with skin removed will yield about 600 g, coarsely grated
Salt and ground white pepper to taste

Batter (mix them together):
300 g rice flour
60 g tapioca flour
1 litre water
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper

Garnishing:
Spring onion, chopped
Fried shallots

 

Preparation :-
In a fairly large pan or wok, heat oil and fry up chopped garlic and shallots till soft and fragrant. Add dried prawns and continue to stir fry till fragrant. Next add in sausages and minced meat. Stir fry until meat is cooked and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Give the batter a stir before pouring into the stir fried mixture together with the grated pumpkin. Add in salt and pepper. Keep stirring until batter became thick. Taste and adjust seasonings. Turn off the heat.

Pour mixture into a 22 cm square or even round tray. Even the surface with the back of a spoon or spatula. Steam on high heat for about 45 minutes. The surface should be quite firm. Remove and leave to cool completely.

Garnish the cake by scattering chopped spring onion and fried shallots on the surface before slicing. Serve with garlic chilli sauce.

Hungarian Sour Cherry Cake { Meggyes Lepeny }


When you freeze lots of sour cherries during the summer season, you get to make this simple yet delicious cake through out the year! Okay, the frozen sour cherries that I used to make this cake was given by my MIL though :D  As appreciation I made her this cake when she visited last weekend.

In my archive I already have a similar cake, but I find this version more to my liking as I prefer crumbly texture as opposed to the tighter crumb version. Therefore, this will be my go-to sour cherry cake recipe from this day forward.

Hungarian sour cherry cake {Meggyes Lepeny}
via About.com

Ingredients
450gm pitted sour cherries (left whole), fresh or frozen
170gm unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
1/4 cup bread crumbs
Vanilla sugar
Preparation :-

  1. Heat oven to 190°c / Gas 4. Butter a 10x6-inch rectangular tart pan, or a 9-inch square or a 9-inch round cake pan and dust with bread crumbs.
  2. In a large bowl, cream butter and half the granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and continue creaming until well incorporated. Add the flour and salt, mixing well.
  3. With clean, grease-free beaters, whip egg whites with remaining granulated sugar until stiff. Gently fold whites into cake batter.
  4. Transfer batter to prepared pan. Top with cherries, stem side down. Bake 30 minutes. The batter will partially bubble up and cover the fruit. Cool in pan. Sprinkle with vanilla sugar. Cut into squares or wedges and serve.


Thursday, October 23, 2014

Basic Choux Pastry



Choux pastry is not just easy but versatile for sweet and savoury fillings. I'm going to experiment more with ways to fill and decorate these delicate and tasty parcels.


Choux Pastry
via GBBO masterclass
Makes: 12 eclaires

Ingredients

50gm butter
150ml water
65gm plain flour
2 eggs, beaten

Method
  1. Pre-heat oven at 200°c / Gas 6
  2. In a sauce pan, bring the water and butter to a full boil. In goes the flour. Beat the mixture until smooth. When it come together into a ball shape, remove from heat. Loosen the dough and add a little of the beaten egg at a time. Combine well.
  3. Prepare piping bag with a 1cm nozzlel. Put the dough into piping bag and pipe out 6” strip on to baking dish lined with grease proof paper. You should get 12 strips. Spray some water on to the dough by using a spray bottle. This will create steam.
  4. Place baking dish in the oven and bake for 10 mins. Then lower to 170°c and bake for another 20 mins. Or until it is light golden colour.

Once fully cooled, fill with desired fillings.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

One-bowl Chocolate fudge cake with chocolate sour cream frosting


In the last minute, I've decided to try out this chocolate cake for a birthday cake since my first bake (another chocolate cake recipe) failed! This cake turned out moist and stable, great with my go-to chocolate sour cream frosting. The left over also freezes well. PERFECT!
I've declared this is going to be go-to chocolate cake recipe from now on. No more fussing about with other recipes :p

Chocolate Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
½ cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoon granulated coffee

Chocolate sour-cream frosting
adapted from kwanster

100g chocolate, break into pieces
64g unsalted butter, at room temperature
50-64gm confectioners’ sugar, sifted
3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
Pinch of salt, sifted
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp. sour cream , room temperature **12 or 20% fat
added rum for extra flavour

For the cake:-
1) Pre-heat oven at 180°c.
2) Add flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt to a large bowl. Whisk through to combine using a hand whisk to stir through flour mixture until combined well. 
3) Add milk, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla to flour mixture and mix together until well combined. Mix the granulated coffee with  boiling water then pour into the cake batter and mix well combine. 
4) Distribute cake batter evenly between the two prepared cake pans or one cake pan where you can cut horizontally after the cake is baked and cooled down. 
5) Bake for 30-35 minutes if using two pans or 1 hour until a toothpick or cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. 
6)Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes, remove from the pan and cool completely.


For chocolate frosting :-
1) Melt the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Set aside to cool until just barely warm.
2) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale.
3) Gradually mix in the sifted confectioners’ sugar, cocoa powder and salt, beat until light and fluffy.
4) Beat in the melted and cooled chocolate and then the sour cream.
5) Continue beating until the mixture is smooth and well blended.

Frost cake and decorate as you desire.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Easy shortbread cookies and Easy sugar icing


If  you haven't noticed Groot-shaped cookies are everywhere on the web. This batch of cookies turned out good, taste wise. As for the decoration, well, I think brown coloured icing would've been more successful. That said, I am very satisfied with the shortbread recipe and the easy sugar icing.

Easy shortbread
via citromhab (I halved the recipe)

Ingredients
150gm plain flour, sifted
100gm cold butter
75gm powdered sugar, sifted (including 1 packet of vanilla sugar)
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon powder

Preparation
1) In a bowl, place the sifted plane flour and salt, work-in the butter by using a fork until crumbly in texture.
2) Next add in the sifted sugar and cinnamon powder. Knead lightly until it just come together, do not over work. Flatten the dough and wrap it with cling film and let it rest in refrigerator for 1 hour.
3) 20 mins. before 1 hour resting time, start pre-heating the oven at 180°c
4) After 1 hour resting time, roll out the dough and cut and shape dough in to desired shapes. Work quickly as the dough melt easily.
5) Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 8-10 mins. until base is brown.


Easy Sugar icing
via Cleverlysimple
Ingredients
1 Cup Powdered Sugar, sifted
4 tsp Milk
Preparation
  1. Mix with fork!
  2. You can customize this recipe by adding powdered sugar to make it thicker. Add more milk to make it a glaze.



Wednesday, October 01, 2014

Home-made Pot stickers / Jiaozi / Gyōza




I've halved the following recipe which yield 20 wrappers

Gyoza Wrapper Recipe
Author: Namiko Chen

Serves: 42-44 wrappers (thin wrappers)

Ingredients
240gm plain flour
½ tsp. salt
120 ml just-boiled water plus more if necessary (should be around 120 - 150 ml)

You will also need:
Potato starch (corn starch) for dusting
3" (8 cm) cookie cutter

While for the filling, I've just followed a rough guide from this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8MBX-SXnmg