Pineapple tarts'13

This year I cooked my own pineapple jam or my tarts. Bought 8 pineapples to made the jam and endup with  
lots of left over pineapple jam, made two portions of the pastry for my sisters and my own family. The left over jam will do closed tarts to finish it. I prefer salty to sweet pastry to balance the jam sweet sour taste, so I do not add sugar to the pastry.

Pastry:
250g butter
365g plain flour } sifted together
20g corn flour   }
2 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
egg wash


Method:
1. Cut butter into smaller pieces, rub butter to the sifted plain flour and corn flour and salt mixture until it become like bread crumb.
2. Add in egg yolks and let the flour mixture combine and become a dough. Do not over knead the dough.
Chill the dough for 30min.
3. Roll the dough between two sheets of plastic. Sprinkle a little flour on the surface of the dough, cut out the shape of the tart with cookie cutter. Shape the jam into a ball and place on top of the pastry. Brush the tarts with some egg wash.
4. Bake at 160deg C for 25min. Remove from oven and cool. Store in container when tarts are fully cooled.

Kuih Bangkit

I have a little bit more time this year to make cookies for Chinese New Year, I picked kuih bangkit as one of them. I did two portions of Ms Valarie Kong's recipe that I learned couple of years back and also did one recipe from Alan Ooi's cookie book.

Valarie's Kuih Bangkit

Alan Ooi Kuih Bangkit

Below is the recipe for Alan Ooi's Kuih Bangkit from the book 'New Year Cookies published by y3k"..

Ingredients:

3 egg yolks

120g icing sugar

150g concentrated cocconut milk

400g tapioca flour (stir fry in a wok over very low heat till flour become light, sieve and leave it to cool and store for at least 2-3 days)

Method:

1. Beat the egg yolk and icing sugar with a hand-held electric mixer till consistency is thick and creamy. Add in coconut milk and mix well. Lastly, stir in cooled tapioca flour and knead dough thoroughly by hand till dough is white and has a light-textured touch.

2. Roll out dough between two pieces of plastic sheet. Use cookie cutter and cut out the desire shapes. Place them on lined baking trays. Baked in a preheated oven at 170degC for 15-20min. Cookies should be white and not browned. Cool them.

Tips: (extracted from the book)

1.Tapioca flour must be well fried so it becomes light. The cooling process will enable the flour to absorb in the coconut milk so dough will be soft.

2. Dough must be well kneaded to produce light cookies that can melt-in-the-mouth.

3. Always keep dough covered with a piece of clean kitchen towel to prevent drying out.

4. Its also useful to keep some extra coconut milk aside. Sprinkle a little onto dought when texture is very dry. Knead well to smoothen it.

Closed Pineapple Tarts

My friend S came all the way to my place to pass me a pack of pineapple paste, she wanted me to try as she knows I didn't have time to cook the paste. I have put off the thinking of making pineapple tarts this year but was curious about the taste of the paste and since I have a batch of pastry left, I try it by making some close tart using airfryer. I like the paste, taste like from pineapple with some sourish taste, but my pillow tarts was abit big...LOL..will fine tune the size next time if make.

Pastry:

380g plain flour
20g corn flour
250g salted butter
1 egg

Sift flours in a bowl, rub in butter (cut into small pieces), add egg and form a dough. Chill in fridge for 20min.
Take 10g pastry form into a ball, flatten, wrap with 10g of pineapple paste (roll into ball), form into desire shape. Bake in airfryer at 160degC for 15-20 min till golden color. Remove and cool on rack.

Chi Gu Chips

Chi gu aka as chinese arrow head, its only available at this time of the year near to Chinese Lunar New Year. I'm curious about this chips as many said its nice to eat but to me the price of ready made ones selling outside are expensive, so I read thru a few blogs and the process seems rather easy to do.
I tried with half kg at first to trial the process, the thickness of the vegetable, the oil temperature etc. Then bought another 1.5kg last weekend and finish a batch with help from Kenny..

   Fresh chi gu, bigger better, easier to shred.. 

After peel off the skin, leave the top part for easy holding while shredding

Shredded pieces for chi gu waiting to deep fried over medium fire

After fried. Preferred the chips to be slightly darker than pale color as it taste better.

Chinese Peanut Cookies

Lunar New Year is around the corner, as I'm very busy every weekend so those cookie like kuih bungkit which needs abit of time to do I will skip it, went thru some blog and found that Florence's Chinese Peanut Cookies was very popular and well received so attempt double recipes of it, but I omit the coarse peanut. Its indeed melt in the mouth and nice to eat...

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

Happy Mid Autumn Festival to All!
Manage to squeeze out some time to make traditional mooncake and snowskin mooncake.
On saturday morning I've done some snowskin mooncake with pandan paste with some chocolate pearl mixed in the paste.
As the lotus paste I made couple of weeks back was spoil when I need it to make mooncake, thinking that its still more economical to bake mooncake myself, last minute went to buy 2 kg of white lotus paste and did 14 pcs of traditional mooncakes. The mould is not so sharp, thus the goldfishes are not obvious :(...

Snow skin Mooncake with pandan paste & chocolate pearl

I'm submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011)...

Traditional Mooncake with Lotus paste & Macademia nut

Making Mooncake skin,

Ingredients

300g golden syrup (available at baking supply shops)

90g peanut oil

3 tsp alkaline water

400g plain flour

Method:

1. Sieve flour in a big bowl and set a side. Mix golden syrup, peanut oil and alkaline water in together in a bowl. Add syrup mixture into flour and mix together using a spatula till well combined. 

2. Cover the sticky dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 2 hours.

Making of Mooncake

1. Toast preferred nuts or melon seed till golden brown, set aside to cool. 

2. Mix nut into lotus paste and knead till well combined-I use macadamia nuts so I chopped it smaller for better bite. 

3. Weigh the lotus paste and 40g of mooncake pastry inorder to determine the paste weight require for the mould*. Roll paste into a ball and set aside on a tray.

4. Dust hand with some flour, take 40g of mooncake pastry roll into a ball, flaten it on one palm, place on ball of lotus paste on pastry, wrap paste in pastry. Dust mould with flour. Put the wrapped filling in the mould and press it flat. Knock the four sides of the mould to loosen the mooncake, place palm under the wrapped filling and unmould shaped filling onto palm, place it on baking tray. Keep a distance between each piece of mooncake so that it will be fully baked.

5. Place mooncake into preheated 160 deg C oven. Bake for 15min, remove and let it cool. Brush with egg wash then put it back into oven and bake till 15min or till golden brown. 

6. Rest the mooncake for 2 days before eating it.

* There are various mould sizes. Wrap the lotus paste with cling wrap, then press it into the mould. After deduct the weight of the pastry, only the weight of the filling remains. If want to add salted egg yolk, deduct the same weight of paste and replace with yolk.

Chinese New Year Cookies

To me Chinese New Year season should have some cookies and sweets place at home whether its store bought or hand made. Thus will try to find time to make at least one type of cookie for festive season.
Pineapple tarts, kuih bangkit, kuih makmur and my helper did the pork floss roll.

Pineapple is a must that I would do for Chinese New Year. This time tried an old recipe from a friend's mum recipe collections. Saw that Lurpak butter was on offer so bought some and made the tarts, this year didn't have time to cook pineapple paste so use store bought paste and add a little blended pineapple pulp, cook it till dry then add the store bought paste and mix till soft and manageable texture.
 

Pineapple Tarts

Ingredients:
700g plain flour ( I use up the left over top flour)
450g butter
4 egg yolk
2 egg white

Method:
- Rub butter into flour till well combined. Add in eggs to flour mixture to form dough. Put the dough in a plastic bag and chill in fridge for 15min.
-Place a batch of dough between two large plastic sheets or baking paper, roll it about 3-4 mm thick, sprinkle a little flour on the surface and place cutter on it and cut out the shape. Place on baking tray line with baking paper, roll pineapple paste into round ball and place on cut out dough.
- Glaze tart with some beaten egg, and bake in 170-180 deg oven for 20min.

There were some left over dough from the pineapple tarts, thus I wrap it with ground peanut and form into kuih makmur...

This year did Valarie's kuih bangkit again, as last minute didn't manage to find fresh coconut milk, store bought one still works out fine.

Kuih Bangkit

Roast Turkey and Logcake

My sisters and their families came to my place for gathering during Christmas day. Each brought some food, which includes honey baked ham, roast pork, macaroni cheese, I did a roast turkey and some other simple dishes. Try my luck on a logcake too but my skill of doing the swiss roll sucks, end up the cake looks alittle collapse.
Thanks fellow blogger friend C for the beautiful Christmas card, all say the card it's a nice gift for the festival.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival

This year manage to do 16 pieces of traditional mooncakes with Florence's mooncake recipe(mooncake skin), and 22 pandan snowskin mooncakes as the kids's favourite is pandan flavour, the pandan paste was bought from phoon huat.
Glad that my family like the mooncakes;)

Pineapple tarts

These tarts are the last batch of cookies that I made for this coming chinese new year, this time I adjust an old recipe for the pastry...

Pastry:
250g butter (I prefer to use goldencurn for its rich butter fragrant)
400g flour
1 egg + 1 yolk

Method:
1. Leave butter at room temperature for half hour, cut into smaller pieces and place in flour, use finger tip to rub butter with flour till it resemble bread crumbs.
2. Add in the eggs and mix till it form a dough(do not over mix), chill in fridge for 30min.
3. Take a portion of dough and roll between two plastic sheets, dust with little flour, use cookie cutter and cut out desire shapes, place on baking tray thats lined with pachment paper, form the pineapple paste into a ball and place on top of pastry. Apply glaze to the tarts.
4. Bake at preheated 170degC oven for 20mins.

Valerie's Sugee Cookie

Learned this cookie at Ms Valerie's class, its so easy to do, the recipe is also not very sweet compare to others, my family like this cookie...will sure do it again.

Valerie's Kuih Bangkit

I have never succeed in making kuih bangkit after many attempt, so have to attend class to learn. Was very delighted that this batch of cookies turn out nice, fragrant and of course it does melt-in-the-mouth.

Happy Mid Autumn Festival! (中秋节快乐）

This year I'm quite lazy, didn't make my own lotus paste, and also didn't do much mooncakes too, just do enough for mum and own consumption...

White Lotus with Single Yolk Traditional Mooncake

Pandan Snowskin Mooncake
(I tried yochana's recipe and we like it. Thanks Yochana for sharing)

Stir fry nian gao

Mum-in-laws had told me that the dish stir fry nian gao is a must do during chinese new year for the family as Kenny's grandpa was from Shanghai, and he had made a point to pass down the traditional dishes in the family. I have been learning to do stir fry nian gao from a few years ago and trying to improve it. Kenny gave thumb up for this nian gao that I did couple of weeks back.

Ingredients: (All are my rough estimation)

-half pack of dried nian gao (bought it from yu hua guo huo) - soak overnite

-a few tbsp of dried shrimps - soaked and chopped fine

-200g mince pork - marinate with some pepper, cooking wine and light soy suace
-2 leaves of chinese cabbage - sliced
-a few chinese mushrooms - soaked and sliced
-quarter piece of carrot - slice thinly
-1 tbsp oyster sauce
-1/2tsp chicken sesoning powder
-a few table spoon of water
Method:
Stir fry dried shrimps till fragrant, add in mince pork, stir and break up the pork into smaller pieces and fully cooked. Add in mushroom, nian gao, stir for a while. Add the vegetables and continue to stir fry. Add in oyster sauce, chicken seasoning powder and a little water, stir till well combined, simmer a while till nian gao is soft like kuih.

Pineapple tarts

Was very busy between work and preparing for Chinese New Year that I have no free time to do some update here. Have been making pineapple tarts for Chinese New Year for the past few years, I like to try different recipes, this time I tried Zurynee's recipe and the verdict was very good. As for the jam, from past experience I still prefer to cook my own jam, but I did short cut the process instead of grate the pineapples I use food processor to blend it and it yield more jam than expected. Due to the amount of jam, this year I did alot of tarts, think should be the most tarts that I've ever made.

Merry Christmas To All!

Have not made logcake for a long time, the thought of making it have been lingering in my mind these few day. So finally did a simple chocolate logcake this afternoon for my family...

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 egg

2 egg yolk

50g icing sugar

2 egg white

40g caster sugar/fine sugar

40g cake flour

10g cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp corn oil

some chopped walnut

Cream:

50g chocolate coverture

200g whipping cream (whipped till peak)

Method:

Cream:

Melt chocolate coverture over double boil. Add melted chocolate into whipped whipping cream, mix till well combined. Place in fridge till later use.

Cake:

1. Sift icing sugar. Mix cocoa powder and cake flour, sift 2 to 3 times, set aside.

2. Beat whole egg, egg yolk and icing sugar till pale yellow color. Mix oil and vanilla essence, add into egg yolk mixture.

3. Beat egg white till form, add in caster sugar in 3 portion, beat till stiff peak form.

4. Mix flour mixture into egg yolk mixture, mix well.

5. Add half portion of egg white into 4) mix lightly till well combine, pour the mixture back into the balance portion of egg white and mix well.

6. Lined pan (24x28cm) with baking paper. Pour batter into pan and bake at 200 deg C for 12-15min.

7. Remove cake from oven, place it on a cooling rack and let it cool down completely.

8. Remove the baking paper, place the cake on another shit of baking paper larger than size of the cake. Spread some chocolate cream on it, sprinkle some chopped walnut. Roll the cake using the baking paper. Spread more cream on the cake, then use a fork to create the lines on the cake. Decorate as desired.

Rainbow Tangyuan

Sunday was dong zhi (冬至）, the kids had requested to make multi color tang yuan and Trenyce requested to add nutella into her tang yuan. Trenyce help me to form half of the tang yuan balls, I didn't teach her how to do and to my surprise her tang yuan was quite well done. I did 2 type of simple soup base, one was using canned peanut, the other was clear soup with brown sugar for the kids.

Ingredients (tang yuan):

400g glutinous rice flour

330ml warm water (approx.)

edible coloring (optional)

Method:

1) Place glutinous rice flour into a big mixing bowl, add water a little at a time till it form a dough, knead the dough for about 15min. Cover with dough with cling wrap or cloth for 15min.

2) Split the dough into portion and add a little color into each portion and knead the dough till the color is evenly distributed.

3) Roll the dough into a long rod, take a small portion and form into balls by rolling it between two palms.

4) Boil a pot of water, add sugar to taste, add in tang yuan into the boiling water. When the tang yuan floats, its done. Serve warm.

Mid Autumn Festival (中秋节）

This year I made mooncakes at very last minute over the weekend, take some pictures today as it nicer to be eaten at least two days after baking it.

These are single yolk traditional mooncake. I prefer to do the lotus paste from scratch as its less sweet than those bought from store. Kenny helped to do the glaze on all the mooncakes as he's better at it...LOL.

There were lots of mooncake pastry left over, so Kenny suggest to use it to wrap the mango paste that I bought couple of weeks back. He helped to add some walnut into the paste, surprisingly the mooncakes taste quite pleasant.

Orange with Walnut Snowskin Mooncake

Came across some fruity taste paste and thought that it will be nice to made into snowskin mooncake. For the filling, I mixed the orange paste with some chopped walnut. As for the skin, I use the snowskin mooncake recipe from my friend and add in some sunquick orange syrup and orange emulco into the ice water. This mooncake is not sweet and taste rather refreshing.

Flaky Yam Mooncake

I have ever tried making such mooncake last year but not very successful. This year I did it again, still the result was not satisfactory, only manage to get nice spiral pattern from 2 pcs out of the whole batch. Recipe from Yochana's blog...