Thursday, April 9, 2009

Nonya Kuihs and Vanilla Chiffon cake

Remember I was saying I made plans to meet up with my girlfriends in mid week to do some cooking together? Well, that's today! It was so great to meet up again to have some cooking fun. This time round, we decided to make some Nonya Kuihs! Yummy yummy! However due to the time limit, we only managed to make 3 kinds of kuihs; Pulut Tai Tai, Onde Onde and Kuih Talam. If some of these sound totally new to you, you're not alone. When I saw my friend making that Pulut Tai Tai, I have no clue what it was, haha. *Need to eat more nonya kuihs!*

So after watching my friend made this Pulut Tai Tai and finally get to taste it with some delicious kaya.....mmmmm, so good! And the unique part of this kuih is the blue color, which comes from a flower call Bunga Telang pea flower. These flowers are used as natural food dye and its usually used for tinting rice or gultinous rice to make that nice blue color.
Okay if you wonder why the Pulut Tai Tai's blue looks kind of pale here? Well I figured my dear friend has soaked the glutinous rice in normal water overnight rather then the blue Bunga Telang water. The bunga telang water was only added right before we were gonna steam the rice, and hence the very slight blue. :-) But you know what, blue or no blue, it still taste great! Thanks Marianne!
Next up is Onde Onde, which I was in charge of making. Strange enough the recipe includes sweet potatoes, but all my girlfriends were totally surprise that I have that in my kuih dough, haha! And indeed the texture of the skin was slightly softer and not chewy enough. I guess the proportion of glutinous rice flour was not enough....but overall there was no bursting or oozing of the gula melaka and taste wise was good. :) Okay, why is it orange & not green? Heehee, because I could not find white sweet potato that day in the market, so I just opt for the orange flesh type.
Oh my goodness, this is such a good shot....if I do say so myself, hahaha! The yummy sweet gula melaka flowing out....makes me want to go pop another one in my mouth!

Last but not least, Kuih Talam from another friend of mine. The recipe and the kuih looks simple enough but in fact it is not at all that simple to make. According to my friend, it seems like the texture of this kuih talam was rather hard to make right. This was in fact not her first time making it, so we trust her on that! ;) Nevertheless, she has bravely agreed to make another attempt with us. Thanks Ee peng!

After much waiting and anticipation while the kuih talam was steaming away, we finally get to taste it after 2 hrs. And since we were in such a hurry to go when the kuih was out (picking up my daughters from school), we did not gave it ample time to cool and harden! So again the texture was not as expected. But I have to say the taste was still good. But knowing my friend, she will eventually make a batch of this kuih talam to perfection...just you wait and see! I know if I make it myself, it probably won't taste nice at all!

Anyway, I sincerely thank my dear girlfriends for taking the trouble to make these kuihs with me. Such fun! Not forgetting June whom also helped out in molding the onde onde with me and Susan opening the house to us and letting us mess it up (again, heehee). ;) Such a great combo the 5 of us, everyone playing their part, haha!

Note that I will not be posting any of the kuih recipes online.

Besides all these Kuihs, I have made a Vanilla Bean Chiffon cake for my girlfriends to have for breakfast. But I guess after all that nasi lemak, and cranberry muffins, everyone was not too keen on it! *sigh* Haha, sounds like there's a lot of food! Anyway, I have opt to make vanilla rather then pandan because I figured there's already so much coconut and pandan in our nonya kuihs.

Overall the cake was okay, but the taste somehow reminds me of "鸡蛋糕"...but of course the texture is much lighter. If you look closely, you can even see the tiny black specks of the vanilla bean seeds in the cake.
Anyway I might attempt to make chocolate chiffon cake next time. :)


Ingredient for Vanilla Bean Chiffon Cake:
Egg yolk mixture:
5 egg yolks
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

150ml fresh milk

4 tbsp Corn oil
1 vanilla bean, cut open and scraped out the seeds

140g cake flour
1/4 tsp. salt
80g caster sugar
Egg white mixture:
5 egg whites
1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
90 gm. caster sugar
Method:
  • In a large mixing bowl, add all the ingredients for egg white mixture and beat till sugar is mostly blended in.
  • In another large mixing bowl, add the egg whites and beat till frothy. Add cream of tartar and sugar and continue to beat for another 4 to 5 minutes at high speed till the mixture is shiny and firm peaks. (Lift your beater to check, if the egg white stands when the beater is lifted upside down, it's good)
  • Preheat the oven to 170°C.
  • Gently fold in the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture in 3 separate portions.
  • Pour the batter into a 9" tube pan and bake in the oven for 40 to 45 mins.
  • Immediately invert the whole tube pan with the cake once out of the oven and let cool.
  • Only when the cake is completely cool then remove it from the tube pan. Cut and serve.
Enjoy!

2 comments:

Elyse said...

Wow, everything looks delicious--especially that chiffon. So glad you had an amazing time with your friends! Baking with friends is the best!

Honey Bee Sweets said...

Thanks Elyse. You are right, I wish I have more time with my friends every time our gathering ends...because it some how ends so fast. :)