ANG KU KUEH ( Purple Sweet potato)

I love all type of Nyonya Kueh . Is not from my heritage. However staying in Asia we do have different mixed of cultural group staying harmony together. Peranakan is another cultural group with full of strong favour taste of food and snack.

Ang Ku Kueh is one of the snack that is our tea moment snack. It has many version and filling. For this snack I love the peanut fillings. Some recipe will iincorporate coconut milk in it. Which will really enhance the fragrance of this kueh and trust me everything that has coconut in it taste the best.

There are so many Ang Ku Kueh recipe in the internet and for this recipe I follow this link -> HoneyBeeSweets.


Purple Sweet potatoes Kueh

Ingredients

100g Purple Sweet potatoes
150g Glutinous Rice Flour
1/2 Tbsp Rice Flour
1 Tbsp Sugar
1.5 Tbsp cooking Oil
100ml Water or Coconut milk ( I used coconut milk)

Method :

1. Place all ingredient expect coconut milk in a large mixing bowl.
2. Slowly add in the coconut milk to the form a soft dough ( not wet). Cover it with cling wrap and rest for 10min.
3. Divide the dough into small portion and gentle press it flat on your palm.
4. Scoop the filling in the center and seal it. Roll it into a ball shape.
5. Press the dough with filling into the mold grease with oil.
6. Knock the kueh out from the mold and place it on top of a banana leafs.
7. Preapare a steamer and steam the kueh for 6-8min. Depend on the size of the kueh.
8. When the color of the kueh turn lighter it indicate the kueh is cooked.
9. Take it out from the steamer and cool it .

Peanut Fillings

Ingredients

350g Peanut ( The peanut I bought is without skin)
60g Caster sugar

Method :

1. Roast the peanut in oven for about 20min in 180C .( You can slowly pan fired the peanut till roasted)
2. Blend the peanut with the caster sugar.
3. Let it cool down before used for fillings.

As I grease the mold with oil , I did not brush oil before steaming the kueh. You can brush the kueh with oil before steaming it will prevent the kueh from sticking together and make the surface look glossy.

The texture of the kueh is soft and the coconut milk add frangance and it taste yum. I simply love the nature purple from the sweet potatoes. It make this kueh more appealing and just good for an afternoon snack .

Curry Chicken Bun

Another bread moment. I am looking at recipe that is easy and with great result. Baking bread is really time consuming. The time used for proofing and roll and wait for another round of proofing. I am a carb person I must admit. I love rice and really learning to cut down as much as I can . And learn to eat healthy grain .

So this time am looking for an easy and healthy bread recipe I come by this one of the food blogger of my favourite is ->SiewHwei's Kitchen.The recipe has portion the time to proof and interestingly it has a proof dough which was proof in the fridge overnight and added in the main dough on the next day. Well it might be a method some of you had known it for awhile, but again as an ametuer this is the first time I baking bread using this method.

Here are the recipe I have followed :

Ingredients :

Overnight dough (中种）

214g Bread Flour
128g Cold Milk
2g Instant Yeast


Method :

1. Mixed all the ingredient till combine and leave in room temperature to proof for 4-5hours OR
    Leave in a bowl cling wrap it refrigerate 14-16 hrs.

I have this prepare overnight and let the dough sit in the fridge for that long .

Main Dough

Ingredients :

42g Bread Flour
50g Wheat Flour
25g  Milk
30g Whole Egg
3g   Instant Yeast
5g   Salt
35g Brown Sugar
12g Milk Powder
30g Unsalted Butter

Method :

1. Tear the overnight dough into pieces and mixed with all the ingredient in main dough except unsalted butter.
2.  Combine all the ingredient well with mixer using bread hook. Add in butter continue to beat till well mixed and the soft dough has formed. ( Pass through window pane test)
3. Let the dough rest for 10 min. Cut the dough into small portion weighing 40g each portion, roll in ball shape and rest for another 10min
4. Flatted the dough, spoon a tablespoon of curry chicken filling in it. Seal up the dough and roll into ball shape.
5. Line the baking tray and have the bread place in the tray and let it proof for another 60min.
6. Preheat oven 170C.
7. Once proofing is done , brush the bread with egg wash and bake the bread for 10-15min.

As for the curry chicken filling please refer to my -> chicken curry puff.

The bread is soft, however it does stick on my teeth , I wonder is it baking time too short , or this texture will make the bread soft. I guess is healthy to use some wheat flour in the bread. I am looking for wholemeal bread recipe so to have a more healthy version of bread I love to consume.


Give this a try and if you visit the original website for this recipe, you will see she do it all in small batch as tea and snack for her son.

Happy breading again :)

Orange Creamcheese Cake

I make this cake by order. A friend of mine celebrating a beautiful young lady birthday. As I do not have full set of cake to display and for them to choose what cake they can order. Always they will allow me to do my own research and have a theme for me to create/make something that will surprise them .

So the order is simple yet can be tricky. She love cheesecake and orange is her favourite fruit. :) Well I do have one cake that I would love to try out and bake in this theme. I am happy to take up this order and have this cake make for their special occasion.

I have been reading this young lady blog for awhile. I find her really talented. I guess she must have some sort of experience in western pasteries café. The picture and the cake she make was so stunning and above normal standard. The plating was just like fine dining desserts.

This is one of her cake I would love to make. There is a couple of it , I would love to try out in future. I do not have confident to deco the cake like some of hers. It really take time and patience to create cake as such . She is now lodging her first Icook book in Ipad. I have downloaded and it is really great and easy to follow.

Do drop by her blog and the recipe I used for this cake is here ->Yue's Handicrafts

It has few step for each layer. Though the recipe might looks long, however is not difficult to follow. Is quite an easy attempt for cheesecake .I have modify the recipe according to what I can do :)

Make for a 8" round cake ( serve 10-12 pax)

Sponge Cake ( using my Lychee Lime Yogurt Mousse Cake sponge cake )
Half the portion as I only need one layer.

 Ingredients :

40g Cake Flour
1/2 tbsp Corn Flour
13g unsalted butter
18gmilk
100g eggs ( 2 large eggs)
10g egg yolk
30g caster sugar
1 tsp of orange zest (option as this cake should be full of orange smell)

Method :

 1. Preheat oven to 170C degree
2. Place unsalted butter and milk together in a bowl using double boiling method to melt the butter and combine well with the milk.
3.Combine egg and egg yolks with caster sugar in a mixing bowl . Place the mixing bowl on top of a pot of steaming water, avoid the base touch the warm water. Beat the egg mixture with the hand held mixer
4.Continuing beating the egg mixture and be careful not to cook the egg mixture, used your finger to test the temperature of the egg mixture, when is warm take the mixture away from the steaming water.
5. Beat the egg mixture till pale and thick in volume. If you can draw a line with the mixer and the line will not disappear then is done.
6.Fold the flour into the the egg mixture with spatula in 3 separate portions.
7.Take a small portion of the above mixture mix well with the butter milk
8. Pour in the well mixed butter milk and the orange zest into the cake mixture and combine until well incorporate.
9. Pour the cake mixture into a greased 7" round mould. Bake for 15-18min in the preheat oven or until the stick come out clean
10. When done baking , let the cake cool in the mould and take it out, set aside for later use.

Crust Base

Ingredients

140g digestive biscuit
60g unsalted butter ( melted)

Method :

1. Break the biscuit into fine crumb and mix well with the butter.
2. Press evenly into the 8" spring form round mould .
3. Refrigerate at least 30 mins.

Orange Jelly layer ( Top layer)

Ingredients

1.5Tbsp gelatine powder
8Tbsp water
600ml orange juice ( I used bottle orange juice that is pure)
60g sugar ( original recipe 75g)
3tsp of Cointreau ( I do not have so omitted)

Method :

1. Pour water in a bowl, sprinkle gelatine powder on it , let it bloom.  Place the bowl in a bowl of hot water allow the gelatine to melt.
2.Combine 200ml orange juice and sugar in a saucepan, bring it to boil.
3. Remove from the heat , pour in gelatine mixture , stir till smooth
4. Add in the remaining orange juice , stir well.
5. Set 400ml aside for the filling and 60ml for brushing the cake & the remaining for the top layer.

Orange Cream Cheese Filling

Ingredient

250g creamcheese
4tsp of Cointreau ( I do not have it so omitted)
400ml orange jelly , warm ( from the above step)
300ml Whipping Cream

Method :

1. In a chilled metal bowl, beat the whipping cream till soft peaks. Place in fridge for later mixing
2. In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese till smooth , add in orange jelly in small portion and continue to beat till smooth.
3. Fold the whipping cream into the cream cheese mixture. Till well combine

Assembly :

1. Put the sponge cake onto the prepared spring foam tin ( with the crust base in it)
2. Blush generous amount of orange juice on the sponge cake.
3.Pour in all the creamcheese filling.
4. Refrigerate to set. ( Allow 1hour setting)
5. Lastly carefully pour the orange jelly onto the creamcheese layer.
6. Refrigerate to set ( overnight)
7. Decorate the cake as your liking

When I attempt to make this cake, I was concern while waiting for the creamcheese to set the orange jelly might get solidify. However this will not happen, as the gelatine will not set so fast in the room temperature . If you worry, just stir the orange jelly mixture on off to prevent it to set.

The verdict is satisfied customers. They love the taste of the cake and the orange is strong to the birthday gal liking.

 

 

 

This cake is kind of simple though the step seem long. Give it a try you might impress those who love orange and cream cheese.

 

 

Pandan Coconut Milk Layer Crepe Cake

When I find out that is a pandan baking theme this month. It really excite me. I love anything to do with pandan, palm sugar and coconut milk. I always see this as a blessings from GOD to the SouthEast Asia regions. There is a lot of herbs around the world yet this 3 ingredients can produce varieties of desserts and savoury food . 

I planned to make Kuih Tako. However it seem to happen in such a way when you want something in shop you always can not find it , when you do not want it , it will just keep flashing in front you. I have saw and bough fresh pandan the past few months. When it come to this month, NO ! I just can not find any trace of pandan leave or even the frozen one. This is just upsetting! I have few frozen one in my freezer but is just not enough for me to make Kuih Tako .

So with the spirit of not giving up. I come by this recipe which seem interesting. So I decided to have this modify to Pandan version. The original recipe is from ->My little Favourite  ( which is one of the host for Pandan theme)

So here is my version of Pandan Coconut Crepe Cake.

Ingredients :

Pandan Coconut Milk Crepe
 
1 cup Plain Flour
1/3 cup Caster sugar
1 tsp Pandan essence or 1 1/2 Tbsp Pandan Juice
4 Eggs
350ml Milk
150ml Coconut Milk  ( you can varies to your liking)

Nob of butter for greasing the pan

Method :

1. Whisk eggs , milk and coconut milk in a jug . Combine the pandan juice well in it .
2. Sift the flour and sugar in a big bowl. Make a well in the centre , gradually pour in the egg, milk mixture in it.
3. Stirring gently with a whisk to combine ( do not beat) . As not to incorporate air in it.
4. Heat up a 20cm flat round pan. Grease with nob of butter.
5. Fill a 1/4 cup measure to about 2/3 full with batter. Pour into the centre of the pan and swirl the pan around to evenly cover the base. Cook in medium heat ( depend on your stove heat) about 1min. turn it to low and flip the crepe over to cook further 30 sec.
6. Place in the wire rack to cool once is done.
7. Repeat the process till all batter finished.
8. Stacking the crepe on top of each time nicely each time it has cool down on the rack .

This recipe yield for 20- 25 piece of crepe ( this is how much I have made with a few damage one in between)

Fillings ( I did a Coconut cream to go with the pandan crepe)

Ingredient

200ml Whipping Cream
2 Tbsp of sour cream
1 Tbsp of coconut milk
1 Tbsp of caster sugar

Method :

1. Use a cold metal bowl beat the whipping cream with sugar to soft peak.
2. Mix in Sour cream and beat to combine.
3. Pour in the coconut milk and fold to combine
4. Chilled in fridge before use

Assembly

1. Put a piece of crepe on the flat surface
2. Used the back of the spoon to gently coat the creamy filling in a thing layer over the crepe.
3. Place another crepe on top neatly, continue the process till all finished.
4. Chilled in the fridge in a container , till serving time cut into wedges and enjoy.

Do not chill too long as it will dry out the surface of the crepe cake. I guess I have spread too little cream in between the crepe cake. Next time if I make this again will spread it sparingly. Just thinking out loud maybe I can do a vanila crepe cake with durian cream. It will be a great combination too .

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up September Pandan Hosted by Joceline@ Butter, Flour & Me, organised by Zoe@ Bake for Happy Kids and Mui Mui @ My Little Favourites DIY

Am excited to see so many pandan dishes and creation . Thanks for organising this ladies.

Hopefully you like what I have "created" . Have a great pandan experience.

Jelly MoonCake - Palm Sugar with Red Bean Paste

I really wanted to try make some Jelly mooncake this year. This is one of the mooncake we have in Malaysia , it started few years back and it has become a trend. Instead of getting the traditional mooncake , people are getting the colourful mooncake for the celebration. I can understand the reason of it, first, in hot weather , chilling stuff is always welcome. It is also something different from the traditional style and we can have more variety in jelly mooncake . The mooncake is pretty and is seem lighter to many as well.

I do not have the jelly mooncake mould. However I do want to have a try on this new style of mooncake for one of my Mid Autumn festival celebration dinner. So I use my other cake mould to have this cute little jelly mooncake in a more cartoon design.

Thanks for one of the friend , who went back to HK early the year and grab me this little cute mould . The effect is good and I am sure nobody has any objection in having some cartoon style mooncake :)

The recipe I used was in this blogger ->Frozen Wings

I mixed her 2 recipe to make my jelly mooncake. One for the skin and another one by the fillings (Red Bean)

Ingredients :

For the Fillings :

150g red beans paste ( cook the red bean and mashed/blend  it)
350ml water
80g caster sugar (original recipe 100g)
2tsps agar agar powder
1/2tsp instant jelly ( I do not have instant jelly so I omitted this)
1 blade pandan leaves (knotted)

100ml coconut milk
1tbsp cornflour, dash of salt
( have coconut milk with corn flour and salt mix together )

Method :
1. Combine all the ingredient except the coconut milk mixture together.
2. Bring the red bean mixture to a boil and add in coconut milk mixture.Let it come to another boil.
3. Turn heat to low, cook for further 2 mins. Turn off heat, remove pandan leaves.
4. Pour the jelly mixture into the  smaller moulds till almost full . Leave it cool and set , this can chilled in the fridge and prepare one day before.

Dislodge the fillings before proceed to make the skin.

For the Skin :

Palm Sugar mooncake skin  ( I choose this as the color is more towards traditional mooncake)

60g gula melaka ( chopped small )
20g caster sugar ( original recipe is 60g)
4tsps agar agar powder ( depend on the strength of the agar agar powder , I reckon read the instruction and adjust accordingly)
400ml water
250ml thick coconut milk

Method :

1. Put everything in the pot and bring it boil.

Assemble of Jelly Mooncake

1. Pour a little of the skin mixture in the mould and let it half set.
2. Put in the red bean fillings that have already set earlier
3.Pour balance of the skin mixture into the mould till the brim
4.Let it set and chill in fridge .

To unmould the mooncake, soak the mooncake in the mould with some warm water this make it easy to unmould.

I guess the contrast of my mooncake color is not that great as both filling and skin is both dark color. Next round I would definitely try other colourful Jelly mooncake. I hope I will have the right mould next year :)

Happy Moon Cake Festival.

Piglet mooncake and Happy Mid Autumn Festival

 
I did my first batch mooncake last year. However I did not manage to blog about it. Too many things happened and I am not sure have I done it right and I did not do a lot . One of the fail is the Shanghai Mooncake I tried last year. Too much of parmesan cheese and I find it too strong the smell and I can not eat it myself.

I did the filling last year with purple sweet potatoes and taro paste. However I do not think I have cooked them long enough hence the paste seem to be watery and my mooncake does not last too long. Well is all a learning process.

This year I decided to buy some lotus filling and have it started early . So the moon cake has enough time to "breath" to become moisture and oily. 

I did not make the snowskin mooncake this year, as I realised snowskin is not so much of my fancy, (rather I did not get the skin texture right).However I did the Jelly Mooncake and the Piglet mooncake. Of course the Piglet Mooncake is none but Anncoo style. It was so so cute. When I first looking for recipes , I saw her blog ,however for some reason my Ipad can not seem to load the slide show. I can not figure out the whole process of the making. So I make my own style . HaHa not too bad for a total novice :)

When I finally got to my PC and reload the page - there was the step of this cute little piglet mooncake. It seem to have create a fad of making this among the blogger. My piglet is a bit dark. Ya I sort of bake it too high and maybe a little over baked. My dear has been asking me during the baking session, " It seem burning! " , " Do you want to have a look ." "I think is time to let it out" . My respond is " Oh ya, is fine " ," No worries" . Ok that is the consequences of being err lazy !!

For the Mooncake Recipe I follow ->Christine Recipe . It works well for me and easy to follow . I did not put egg yolk in my mooncake and I bought the Lotus filling from the store.


Ingredients : ( I have double the portion )

200g Plaim Flour
120g Golden Syrup ( Store bought , it was sell in Coles in Aus)
1 tsp Alkaline water ( Lye Water)
56g Vegetable Oil

Fillings :
840g Lotus Paste

Egg Wash :
1 egg yolk and 2 Tbsp of egg white

Method :

1. In a large bowl , mix in golden syrup, alkaline water and oil well to combine.
2. Sift in the flour , using a spatula to combine all ingredient. Be careful not to over mix. . Knead the mixture into a soft dough. Cover with film wrap and let it sit for 40 - 60min.
3. Divide the dough into equal portion ( as per your mold size) . There is various of ratio you would like to follow to your own liking. ( See note below )
4. Divide the filling paste into equal portion as per the dough divided portion. Roll into ball shape.
5. Preheat the oven to 170C .
6. Roll each dough portion to a thin disc on top of a plastic film wrap. This is to prevent the dough on sticking on any surface. Place the filling into the dough paste and wrap it nicely and shape into a ball.
7. Oil the mooncake mould, gently place the stuff mooncake in the mould, press it with firm pressure to ensure the print is moulded to the mooncake.
8. I tab the side of the mooncake mould and remove mooncake from the mould . Place it on the baking tray.
9. Repeat the step till all the dough has finished with nice print.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 min . Brush the mooncake with egg wash, let it rest for 10 - 15 mins. Return to the oven and make for another 10-15 min with 160 C .

Once the mooncake has finished baking, it does not look right or good. It seem to be cracking and dry. Do not panic, this is normal. The mooncake need to be kept in air tight container for 4-5 days , to let it "breed" ( this is what I called) in order for the oil and the moist to release and you will have a nice coated golden brown mooncake to enjoy.

This process is important , as it make the pastry soften, fluffy and moist to enjoy .

Step of making the piglet. You can follow the link in Anncoo ( Snowskin version).

Ratio of the mooncake :
Dough : Fillings

1. For the small mould my ratio is 15g : 35g
2. For the bigger mould my ratio is 30g : 150g
3. For the piglet mooncake my ratio is 20g : 50g

I have a few different filling for my mooncake this round Lotus, Red Bean and Chestnut. Love the taste of chestnut and is best to get those less sugar . If you read on the calories of each mooncake , at time it really stop you from eating.

I will post my Jelly mooncake in another post.  Wish everyone a Happy Mid Autumn Festival.

Blueberry Mirror Cake & Strawberry Mirror Cake

The birthday moment. I knew blueberry is my friend's favourite. I always love to celebrate other birthday as a family. Though I only knew this couple when they move to Australia. However I believe there is no meeting by co-incident. GOD always bring forth people to bless us or share our blessings to another. So this time I created this mirror cake by using my friend favourite fruits - Blueberry. The effect is not bad, as you can see from the picture, it does have the shining effect of the mirror and good enough to reflect the image of the candle light.

Thiis cake is quite a small size , it will be just nice for a group of six people. But we only have 4 adults and 1 little gal to enjoy :) As always the birthday gal got to bring back the rest of the cake to enjoy it.

On the same week I make a larger Strawberry Mirror Cake by order. The recipe I used is the same as my last recipe ->Strawberry Mirror Cake. This is a birthday cake for some sisters in my group. I suppose pink always suit the gals better and I knew one of the gal love strawberry ( too bad she was not there that week). I decorated the cake with some raspberry instead of strawberry , it does cause some confuse as everyone thought this is a raspberry cake! Raspberry can be very expensive at time, to use the amount of raspberry to make this cake I guess it can be quite expensive.

The verdict? The cake is very yum and very welcome by everyone , we have children come and ask for a piece of cake from our group during the celebration. Of course we can not reject the children, but we do try to cut it as slim as possible so everyone has a slice of it. The lightness and the berry taste just so refresh and is a good a dessert after a full meal lunch.