Mooncake

Cheesy Shanghai Mooncake

(with pandan lotus paste filling)

Happy Mooncake Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival is just round the corner and during this time would be the Lantern Festival as well. I remember as a kid I would love this time of the year as I would get to play with lanterns (and fire =P) and be treated with moon cakes. 

But as the years went by, we stopped playing with lanterns. Even I eat less moon cakes now. But I think that could be because of how expensive moon cakes have become. So, my mom and I decided that this year we would make on our own. =)

Snow skin "Ping Pi" moon cake

Shanghai custard moon cake

Soybean Milk Cake with kaya filling

Wow, I didn't realise that it's been more than a month since I last posted. May had been a very, very busy month for me. Mainly due to the college workload. But that's all over now! I've just officially began my semester break. Woohoo. 

For today, I shall be posting up a cake I made using soybean milk and lots and lots of egg whites.

Recipe borrowed from 85 Popular Classic Dishes by Seashore Publications. The original recipe actually includes black sesame seed, however, seeing that I didn't have any I omitted it totally from the recipe.

Ingredients

Part A

100ml soybean milk

60ml corn oil

Part B

150g cake flour

60g egg whites (approx. 2-3 eggs)

Part C

300g egg whites (approx. 7-8 eggs)

120g sugar

Method

Preheat oven at 180 Celsius

1. Warm soybean milk and oil in a pot.

2. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. Mix all ingredients in Part B gradually and alternately till well blended. Then, mix in Part A.

4. Beat ingredients in Part C using an electric mixer on high speed until it is firm and white.

5. Pour half of it into mixture of Part A and B. Mix well, and then add in remaining.

6. Pour batter into a greased baking pan, spread evenly.

7. Bake for about 45 minutes or until it is cooked.

8. Optional: When cake is cool, cut it horizontally into two equal pieces. Spread kaya evenly on each piece, put back together and serve by cutting into smaller slices.

Cinnamon Roll

Well hello again. It has been a while, I've just started classes for this semester. Hence, the long breaks between posts.

Anyway, today I made cinnamon rolls! I love anything with cinnamon in them. Especially hot chocolate sprinkled with a little cinnamon. Mmm yum. =D

Note: I know the rolls look a bit er...yucky. But it's only because I put too much of the cinnamon and sugar filling. It kept spilling out when I cut it. So my advice would be to halve the recipe for the filling.

And yeah, I also added chocolate chips =).

Recipe adapted from Clone of a Cinnabon.

Orange Meringue Pie

Hi dear readers, Happy Chinese New Year to you guys! Hope you've had wonderful celebrations and not to mention, 'collections' =P. 


Today I'll be posting up an orange meringue pie which I made the week before the Chinese New Year. It wasn't exactly superb, well at least in my opinion but my parents thought it was rather nice and finished most of it.


I loooove the meringue on top. I think next time I'll try making the classic lemon meringue pie.

You may find the recipe here Seville Orange Meringue Pie. I didn't use Seville oranges, as I had no idea how to distinguish them from others. Or if we even have them here, so I used the regular oranges bought from the market.

Honey Banana Oatmeal Muffins

Well hello again! Sorry for the delayed update, had been busy lately, with Chinese New Year coming round the corner. Anyway, for today's post it'll be the honey banana oatmeal muffins I made a few days ago.

You may find the recipe here Banana Muffins. The recipe does not include honey and oats, I added them in myself =).


Also, my muffins were a little dry because I substituted the butter with 2 tablespoons of shortening + 3 tablespoons of sunflower oil. So my advice is stick to butter instead. Oh, I also added 150ml milk because the batter was too thick.


If you plan to substitute the sugar with honey, make it about 9-10 tablespoons. I only added 6 and it wasn't sweet enough.


Happy baking! =)

Cream Puffs

Mmm...cream puffs. I'm a huge fan of cream puffs. I love how when you bite into the light pastry, the sweet cream inside spills out. Anyway, I made some during the weekend. It was my first time and it didn't turn out to be spectacular....in terms of appearance. But otherwise I think it tasted pretty good. ;)

I got the recipe of the choux pastry from here Choux Pastry. And the custard cream from here Custard Cream.


The pastry for mine didn't turn out very nice and I couldn't pump in the filling for most of them. So instead I folded it over to form a crescent.

Waffles

I love waffles! I mean who doesn't? It can be eaten with almost any toppings you desire and is very easy to make! My family and friends absolutely love the waffles I make. Try this and be star in the kitchen!

Ingredients


Flour
Baking powder
Egg
Milk


Method
1. Pour some flour into a mixing bowl (I usually just measure by sight, depending on the amount I wanna make.)
2. Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder.
3. Beat an egg in the flour and baking powder mixture.
4. Pour some milk until it becomes a thick batter.
5. Spoon over into a heated waffle iron and let cook until timer blinks/rings.
6. Serve hot with your favourite topping (eg. jam, peanut butter, butter, cheese).


Tip: Do not have the batter too thin, or else the waffle will not be crispy.

Dried Strawberry Hand Pies

So, recently I went to Cameron Highlands (came back today actually) and I think most of you know that strawberries are sold everywhere there. However, I'm not really a huge fan of strawberries especially fresh ones 'coz they're usually sour.


Anyway, I discovered dried strawberries and I liked them because they were sweet compared to fresh ones. So we bought about a kilogram home and I thought maybe I could use some in my baking.


I found a recipe which uses dried strawberries here Sun-Dried-Strawberry Hand Pies. But I modified the recipe to make it simpler to accommodate to the limited availability of certain ingredients in my kitchen.

Ingredients


Pastry
384g all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
110g butter (room temperature)
150g sugar
1 egg
milk


Filling
220g dried strawberries
150ml water


Glaze
1 egg


Method


Preheat oven to 190 celsius.


Pastry
1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. Mix in butter and sugar.
3. Beat in the egg.
4. Add some milk until it forms a dough.
5. Place in the fridge for 20 - 30 minutes.


Filling
1. Cut the dried strawberries into smaller pieces.
2. Place the strawberries into a saucepan and add the water.
3. Heat it with a medium fire until it begins to boil.
4. Reduce fire and let it simmer until most of the water is absorbed.


Tip: Do not let it dry up completely, the strawberry filling should be moist but not watery.


Baking
1. Remove dough from the fridge and roll it out with a rolling pin to a sufficient thickness (preferably 1/8 inch).
2. Use a round cutter with a diameter of 2.5 inches to 4 inches (it is up to you, I wanted it to be smaller so I used 2.5 inches).
3. After you have cut out the rounds, use the rolling pin to flatten and stretch the rounds a little more before spooning the filling in.
4. Fold in half and use a fork to press down on the edges.
5. Brush over with egg wash.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Crumpet

A crumpet is a sort of pancake eaten in the United Kingdom. It is also usually made in a particular circular shape using crumpet rings. However, I do not own any so I used an egg ring instead. 


Crumpets can be eaten with butter, honey, jam, marmalade, fruits...basically any topping that you desire. I think crumpets make excellent breakfasts or tea snacks.

This makes up to about 7-8 crumpets, each of approximately 2.5 inches in diameter.


Ingredients


175g all-purpose flour
350ml warm milk
1 teaspoon yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
pinch of salt


Cooking method


1. Mix all the ingredients to form a thick batter. 
2. Grease the crumpet/egg ring.
3. Heat up an oiled pan or skillet.
4. Place the crumpet/egg ring on the pan.
5. Spoon batter into to the ring till it fills up to about half of its depth.
6. Once holes are beginning to form on the top, remove the ring and flip the crumpet over.
7. Serve hot with your favourite topping.

Apple Pie

Name one person who doesn't like apple pies and I'll give him or her a slice for free. =D Anyway, apple pies to me are one of the best comfort foods to eat especially during rainy and gloomy days. 

For the recipe, please go here Grandma Ople's Apple Pie. For the pie crust pastry, you can just Google search and choose what best suits you. However, if you want the exact same recipe that I use, feel free to contact me at nikkifok@gmail.com.