Teddy Chocolate Swiss Roll & Curry Chicken Pie

The one week school break is finally here. But even though there's no school, life seems a little more hectic for me. I tend to get less things done when my kids are at home....no surprise there. But at least there's less stress during this period of time which I always welcome. (^_^) I made a simple treat for my kids yesterday, a Teddy Bear Swiss Roll with Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

My kids love Swiss roll cakes and it never fail to amuse them when I "dress it up" with some cute designs on the sponge cake. Although the teddies are not as nicely done as I hoped, it was still decent enough for me to blog about it, lol! My young one even asked me if the design are brown cats....o well. (-_-)"

This is the usual vanilla sponge recipe which I used previously using the egg separation method (分蛋式海绵蛋). Since I have already posted it several time, please just refer to here for details.

Instead of using brown food coloring, I used melted chocolate to color the bears. As for the eyes and cheeks I used edible maker pens to draw it. Personally, I feel the rosy cheeks on the teddies makes them a little more cheerful, hee. :D

The cake is as usual, soft and spongy which was still tender when straight out of the fridge. Excellent recipe from 孟老师的美味蛋糕卷 cookbook. Hope you enjoy this post as much as I had fun baking it up plus posting it to share. ;)

Another recipe that I'm posting today is kinda of an experimental one since I only saw it once on a Chinese recipe book and roughly copied it down months ago. It ain't chicken pie nor curry puff but Curry Chicken pie, lol! The moment I read about it, I knew it was gonna be delicious! Especially if you like both the earlier mentioned dishes, this is a sure win for you. ;)

Just imagine: flaky, buttery pie crust encasing creamy curry chicken filling with soft potatoes and tender carrots....how good does that sound to you?! I was really happy it turned out great as my family loved it very much, even my kids whom are not too fond of spicy food, both had 2 servings each! Interested? Check out my recipe:

Ingredients for Curry chicken pie: (makes an 10" pie)

Pie Crust:

250g plain flour
80g wholewheat flour

115g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
3 tbsp Ghee

4g salt

30-40ml ice water

• In a mixing bowl, sift the salt and flour in. Add the cubed butter and knead in using your finger tips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs. Add in water and knead till it just comes together into a soft pliable dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Egg Cream Mixture:

100ml evaporated milk

100ml fresh milk

2 whole eggs

30g curry paste (adjust as per personal preference, some curry paste tends to be more spicy)
Alternatively you can use Japanese curry cubes (I added 2 cubes)

Curry filling:

150g cooked roast chicken

80g green peas

100g boiled, peeled and cubed carrots

100g boiled, peeled and cubed potatoes

2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and slice into wedges

• Remove the pie dough from fridge and roll out to about the circumference of your greased pie dish. Then gently place the rolled out dough into the pie dish and press in to even out the layer.
• In a mixing bowl, mix all the ingredients for the egg cream mixture. Make sure the curry paste is mixed in properly with no lumps.
• Preheat the oven to 190C.
• Place all the curry filling ingredients evenly distributed at the base of the pie dish over the pie dough.
• Then pour the cream mixture over the curry filling, making sure the filling doesn't over flow.
• Bake in the oven for 35 to 40 minutes until the filling is set and golden brown. Let pie cool for15 minutes before slicing. Enjoy!

Note that the curry paste used is up to personal preference, if you like it more spicy, adjust as needed. I used a Japanese curry paste which my kids love. This "east meets west" recipe surely can be easily accepted and enjoy by many, so why not give it a try? Have fun baking and eating it!

Okay all, have a great week ahead!