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.

Mango Yoghurt Cheese Cake

Randal had been requesting for cheesecake, read this recipe in Yum Yum #73, so try it out and serve it for desert after dinner. He said its very nice and he had 2 servings.
I feel the mango taste in this cake is not that obvious so its a choice for people who do not like to much of fruit taste in cheese cakes.

Ingredients:

500g cream cheese
60g caster sugar
170g mango yogurt (org recipe use 150g yogurt but I adjusted to my taste)
1 egg
grated zest of half lemon
juice of half lemon
120g non-dairy whipping cream (org recipe use 100g but I adjusted to my taste)
-( I use nestle canned cream cos cant find dairy or non dairy whipping cream at the supermarket)

Biscuit base:
160g digestive biscuits - use food processor or rolling pin + plastic bag and break it into fine crumbs
80g melted butter
Wrap 8 inch loose base or springform cake tin with aluminum foil.
Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter till well combined. Pour into 8 inch loose base cake tin, spread it evenly then press the crumb firmly with back of spoon or cake presser. Chill for 15 min.

Method:
1. Mix cream cheese with caster sugar until soft. Add mango yogurt, egg and mix well.

2. Add in the remaining ingredients, and mix well. Pour the mixture onto the cake tin lined with biscuit base.

3. Steam bake the cake in a preheated oven at 150 deg C for 1 1/2 hours. Let cake cool in oven with door open for about half hour.

4. Put cake with tin in fridge and chill for about 4-6 hours before serve.

Juicy Pork and Chicken Burger

Made some burger patties for dinner and the left over was ate for breakfast with buns...

Recipe reference from Yum Yum #73

Ingredients:
300g mince pork
300g mince chicken
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 egg
1 tbsp light soy sauce
50 g bread crumbs

oil for frying

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients untill well combined and sticky. Chill in fridge for 30 min before cook.

2. Remove meat mixture from fridge. Form meat mixture into rounds and flatten into patties.

3. Heat up oil, pan fry burger patties over high heat on both sides and lightly brown. Then place in preheated oven of 180 deg C and bake for 10min. Remove from oven, dish and serve.

3 cup Frog Leg

Frog leg is one of Randal's favorite food, so when we came across skinless frogs he will urge me to buy it. This time I tried to do a different version on the frog leg instead of the usual frog leg porriage. He doesn't like too spicy food so kong pao frog leg is out, so I did 3 cup version and luckily my trial turns out good enough for him..LOL

3 frogs - chopped into smaller pieces

a few slice of ginger
2 cloves of garlic - chopped

Marinate:
a few slice ginger
1 tbsp wine
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil

Sauce:
2-3  tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp wine
some water

1 red chilli - sliced
2 stalk of spring onion - cut into long strips

Method:
1. Rinse frog parts, marinate with the marinade for at least 15min to get rid of the fishy smell.

2. Heat wok with some oil, stir fry ginger and spring onion, add in frog parts, stir fry awhile. Add in sauce ingredients, stir fry awhile. Lastly add in chilli slice and spring onion, dish up and serve.

Banana and chocolate bread

I made this bread last weekend using breadnaker (it can be done by hand), its a soft and delicious bread, think the sweetness level will depend on the ripeness of the banana, as the banana I used was not very ripe so the bread turn out not so sweet. It taste like cake than bread ;)

300g ripe banana, weigh with skin on
2 tsp lemon juice
500g bread flour
2 tbsp milk powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp butter
1 1/2tsp fast action dried yeast
200ml water
175g milk chocolate (I use semi sweet chocolate chip)
icing sugar and cocoa powder to decorate (I omit this)

Makes 1 extra large loaf

1. Peel the banana and mash them on a plate with a fork, then work in the lemon juice.

2. Lift the tin out of the bread machine, fit the kneader blade then add the mashed bananas, measured cold water, milk powder and butter. Spoon in the flour then add in salt and sugar, Make a slight dip in the centre of the flour and sprinkle in the yeast.

3. Insert the tin into the bread machine. Shut the lid asn set to basic white/extra large 1kg loaf/ bake and select the preferred crust setting. Press start.

4. Dice the chocolate and add to the tin when the raisin beep sounds.Shut the lid and allow the programme to continue.

5. At the end of the programme, lift the tin out of the machine with oven gloves. Loosen the bread wth spatula and turn out on to a wire rack. Dust with sifted icing sugar and cocoa and leave to cool.

Valarie's Cranberry Orange Cake

Tried made this cake couple of weeks back, I reduced the sugar as I have tried the original taste of the recipe in class and found it too sweet, also did thinner frosting compare to the original recipe just to give the cake a little extra touch.

Dutch apple cake

When I saw this little snack maker which comes with tempreture setting, immediately I bought it thought that it will be good for making small batch of cakes and cookies,

Didn't find time to use it for baking cakes till recently. Tried baking some blueberry muffins and it was quite well done although the height between the heating element and the rack is very low, well.. doing some small cakes should be just fine for me

Baked a batch of apple cake using this tiny oven again, recipe from Rachel Allen. This cake is nice, we like it.