元宵节快乐！Red Date Chiffon Cake (红枣戚风蛋糕)

Time sure past real fast! Lunar New Year has finally come to an end. I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a wonderful 元宵节 or also known as "Chap Goh Meh" (15th night). A nice ending to a wonderful NY celebration to all. ;)

Want to share with you all a nice chiffon recipe that I tried out recently. Its Red Date Chiffon, 红枣戚风蛋糕. I first saw it at 孟老師烘焙園地, and I knew I had to try this. ^_^ With similar idea, I modified the recipe so that I have a stronger red date scent in the cake without having to do a prolong soaking process. I made the cake twice and finally settled on a recipe that will work well and with a evident red date taste.

Notice the red date pieces on top kind of make the cake sunk down a little. But those pieces plays a big part in enhancing the red date taste. :) In my first attempt, I didn't place any sweetened red date chunks over the top and I added less red date puree, so the chiffon tasted a little more like plain vanilla. Anyway, here is the improved recipe:

Ingredients for Red Date Chiffon Cake (红枣戚风蛋糕) (fills a 20-21cm tube pan)

60g dried red dates (mine were not pitted, but if yours is, that will be great)

4 large egg yolks (~80g)
26g caster sugar
70ml vegetable oil
40g honey
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
40ml fresh milk
100g superfine cake flour (cake flour is ok too)


5 large egg whites (~180g)
40g caster sugar
10g cornflour

Method:

1. To prepare the red dates, score each of the date with a sharp knife. Then place the red dates along with some water just enough to cover in a heat proof saucepan. Place over the fire and let boil and then lower the heat to simmer. Let the dates simmer for at least 15 mins and keeping an eye over making sure its not dried up or burnt out.
2. When the dates are soft and water has reduced to a thick syrup. Remove and let cool.
3. When cooled, pit the dates if needed. Take about 3 tbsp worth and slices them into big chunks and place in the honey. Heat the honey mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds and let stand till needed.
4. For the rest of the red dates, blend them till puree and set aside for use later.
5. In a large mixing bow, add egg yolks 26g caster sugar, vegetable oil, honey and combine well. Then mix in the the red date puree, milk and vanilla extract and stir to combine.
6. Gently spoon out those date chunks in the honey and place them evenly at the base of the tube cake pan.
7. Finally sift in the cake flour and stir till well mixed in. Preheat the oven to 175C.
8. In a separate mixer bowl, beat the egg white till foamy. Then gradually add in the caster sugar and beat till soft peaks. Add in the cornflour and continue to beat till stiff peaks.
9. In 3 separate portions, add the white to the yolk mixture and stir in gently. Then pour the batter into the prepared tube pan and bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes till tester comes out clean.

What I like about this cake is its healthy and the mildly sweet taste, totally not sinful to munch up two slices or more, heehee. Plus I received pretty good reviews from my family, so I guess it's a pretty successful attempt. :)

The cake was soft and fluffy with bits and chunks of red date in it. A wonderful treat after a meal along side with some tea. Hope you will try this out. Maybe consider serving it during CNY...well next year. :) Well red dates does feels like an auspicious ingredient right, I think. :))

I am happy to submit this recipe to Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY (January 2012) which is hosted by Wen's Delight.

Okay all, have a good week ahead!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节快乐！)；紫地瓜酥饼 (Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes)

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to one and all, young and old! 祝大家:花好月圆人团圆，寄去相思和祝愿，幸福快乐好梦圆！

Hope my well wishes are not too late. Have been so busy the whole day that I didn't get a chance to seat down to blog. I do hope everyone has a nice reunion with their love ones; ate a good amount of mid autumn treats and even get a chance to bring their kids to carry lanterns, heehee. :)

Today I managed to sneak a couple hours out to bake this delicious Purple Sweet Potato Mooncake; 紫地瓜酥饼. This recipe is adapted from Carol 自在生活's 地瓜麻糬酥餅. Instead of using yellow flesh sweet potatoes, I used purple ones in this recipe. I also omitted the mochi filling as well....but regretted a little because I think with mochi will be very yummy too. :)

I did make some slight modification to the dough recipe as well:

Ingredients for Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes (紫地瓜酥饼): (makes about 8)

Purple Sweet Potato Filling:

300g peeled, steamed and mashed

30g confectioner's sugar

30g unsalted butter

While the mashed sweet potato is still warm from the steaming, add in the butter and sugar in. Mix till all incorporated. Set aside to cool before use.

Water dough:

90g plain flour

10g confectioner's sugar

30g ghee

40ml ice water

Mix everything together till it comes together to form a soft dough. Divide into 8 or 10 equal portions, cover and let rest till needed.

Oil Dough:

90g top flour

40g ghee

Mix everything together till it comes together to form a soft dough. Divide into 8 or 10 equal portions, cover and let rest till needed.

Assembly: (for pictorial guide, please refer to Carol's site for details)

• Wrap each oil dough portion inside a water dough portion and seal nicely. Repeat till all has been wrapped in.
• Then roll each round into a long flat oval. Roll it up like a swiss roll and again repeat for the rest of the doughs.
• Then roll each swiss roll into a long flat oval and again roll it up like a swiss roll. Repeat for all and set aside.
• Preheat oven to 175C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
• Weigh out 8 or 10 portions of 40g of sweet potato filling. Then taking a swiss rolled dough and roll it out into a round and wrap with a sweet potato filling in it, making sure it seals up nicely. Repeat till all is wrapped up.
• Brush all the mooncakes with egg wash and bake in the oven for 20 minutes till the mooncakes are golden brown. Once out of the oven, you can again give it another egg wash coat to make it more shiny.
• Let cool completely then store in air tight containers or freeze them up to a month. Just thaw to room temperature when want to consume.

I just love the flaky light & buttery outer crust with the soft creamy sweet potato filling inside. I ate one up once it cooled down with a nice cup of hot tea, heehee. :D I even added an addition layer of sweetened mashed yam / lotus paste to go with the purple sweet potato to give it more texture and flavor. The cakes were not overly sweet or heavy at all, just the perfect desert to enjoy right after dinner tonight. :) In fact, this delicious cakes should be made even if its not mid autumn, it's good anytime!

P.S.: If you are wondering why there's a rabbit on my mooncake. Well, if you know the story of嫦娥, you will know she has a rabbit with her on the moon. There are so many versions of the story as of why there's this rabbit with her, so I shan't go into much detail. :P But I just thought the idea of having a rabbit chop on the mooncake makes it even more festive, heehee. :D

I am submitting this post to this month's Aspiring Baker's #11 "Mid-Autumn Treats!" hosted by Happy Home Bakers.

Will sign off here, and will try to post up another mid autumn treat soon. Have a good one all!

Fish shaped Mooncakes (小鱼月饼)

I hope everyone is doing well. :) As for me, tied down as usual with kids and the house. Strange that I actually got more busy these few days, even though its the school holidays. But I was still glad that I managed to squeeze out some time to bake mooncakes. And since I didn't want to bake the same old stuff again, I consulted my better half on what he likes best. After his feedback, I decided to try baking traditional mooncakes for once. But hold up, I don't own a single mooncake mold...how in the world will I bake a traditional mooncake? -_-'' Buy? Err...., really out of the way to just go get a mold. :P *sigh* I almost gave up the idea when I happened to come across a fellow blogger's post, 鲸鱼蓝蓝蓝‘s ingenious idea of how she uses a egg mold from DAISO. :)) Without hesitation, I borrowed her idea and these fishes are born:

Yes, it's pure coincidence that I own this mold too! And I have to say it is truly a handy little tool, it was very easy to use and the mooncake dough dislodge easily. Cool! Guess I didn't really need a mooncake mold after all,....well at least for this year. :D

I have used the recipe that Anncoo has posted recently, thanks Ann! :) Considering the first time, I'm pretty please with the result, heehee *thick skin*. :D

Ingredients for traditional mooncakes : (makes 12 mini fish shaped mooncakes)

225g Hong Kong flour (sifted)

134g golden syrup

4.5g Alkaline water
56g vegetable oil

120g Lotus paste

120g Red Bean Paste

Method:

• Measure out the golden syrup, alkaline water and vegetable oil in a small bowl and mix well.
• In a large bowl, add sifted Hong Kong flour, make a well and add in the golden syrup mixture. Stir well and gradually will form a soft pliable dough. Cover and let rest for 20 mins.
• Lightly dust some Hong Kong flour on table. Then divide the dough equally into 12 portions of 34g.
• Also measure out six 36g of red bean paste portion and six 36g of lotus paste filling.
• Wrap each filling portion inside a dough portion and lightly dust the ball with some flour and place it into the mold. Gently and carefully press the mold to form the desired shape.
• To dislodge the mooncake, gently push out the unbaked mooncake on the lined baking tray.
• Baked in preheated oven 180C for 5 mins and rest to cool down (about 10 mins) before egg wash mooncake with a soft brush and bake for another 10 mins at 175C.

I will be submitting this to this month's Aspiring Baker's #11 "Mid-Autumn Treats!" hosted by Happy Home Bakers. Thanks for hosting HHB!


Okay folks, its getting late, signing off now. Cheers!

Pandan Kaya Twist Loaf & Belated Easter Party!

Yes, another bread post. I bake bread faithfully at least once a week. But if time permits, twice or more times would be great! Some how it is quite therapeutic for me, not that I still do the kneading by hand anymore. But the whole process of baking bread takes me to a peaceful zone. And of course the best part is to enjoy the delicious end product! So I am always, seriously always looking for good bread recipes. The "addiction" never seems to go away, heehee! I guess it's not a bad one, so no harm in that right? So you can imagine, if I haven't thought about how boring it would be to my readers, I probably be posting bread recipes almost every post, lol! No worries, I still love cakes and cookies....

Today's bread post is sort of a "reborn" of the Pandan Kaya Loaf that I baked awhile back. This time round, I have used the 17hr pre-fermented dough recipe. This method has got me hooked and swear by it. The end product speaks for itself, so I am still very much baking bread using this method every time now...well until I find a even better recipe of course, lol!

If you have tried the previous Pandan Kaya Loaf recipe from me and liked it, then you should definitely try this new version. No regrets guaranteed, because you are gonna love it!

Ingredients for Pandan Kaya Twist Loaf (makes 2 of 8"X4.5"X5" loaves)

Pre-fermented Dough:

459g bread flour
262ml water
13g fresh yeast (I used 11g instant active dry yeast)
13g skim milk powder

Mix everything together and knead till forms a soft dough. Cover dough in cling wrap or large sip lock bag and chill in fridge to let it prove for 17 hrs.

Main Dough:

197g bread flour

20g skim milk powder

7g sea salt

98g sugar

26g beaten egg

105ml pandan juice (3 pine screw leaves blended with 120ml water and sieved)

56ml coconut milk (I used boxed version)

7g fresh yeast (I used 6g instant active dry yeast)

52g unsalted butter, room temperature

Filling:

Kaya spread

Method:

• Cut the pre-fermented dough into small pieces.
• Knead all the ingredients of main dough together except for the butter. Add pre-fermented dough one by one piece. Knead after each addition until soft and smooth. Finally add in the butter and continue to knead until it reaches window stage.
• Put the dough into a big bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it proof for about 30 to 45 minutes,
• Once proved, punch out the air in the dough. divide the dough into 6 equal portions. (in my case, I divided it into 9 portions and made into 3 smaller size loaves.) Roll each portion round and cover to rest for another 20 minutes before shaping.
• Flatten the dough to drive out the air. Roll each portion of dough into a rectangular with a rolling pin . After rolling out 3 portions into 3 almost equal sized rectangular, spread a layer of kaya on two of the rectangular. Then spread a layer of salted butter on the remaining rectangular surface. Place the buttered side facing down to one of the kaya spread rectangular. On the back side of the rectangular, spread some more butter and top if off with the last rectangular with the kaya spread. Seal the edges and cut it into 3 strips. Sealing one end of the 3 strips together, pleat the 3 strips and then sealing the other end.
• Gently place this pleated dough into a greased loaf tin to have its 2nd proofing. Repeat with the other dough portions till all is used.
• Let proof for a good 30 minutes or till the tin is 90% filled. Brush with egg wash.
• Bake in a preheated oven of 170 to 180C for about 25 to 30 minutes till golden brown.

I cannot say enough how yummy this loaf is, you probably need to bake one yourself to be fully convinced this is a truly delicious bread method. Even for the following day, the loaf stays soft and fluffy, definitely a plus over other recipes.

I would usually store my bread in the fridge on the 3rd day if there's still any left over. But trust me, it is still very good on the 3rd day, perhaps just needs to heat it up a little but I usually don't do it. :) Try it folks...its yum!

Before I end this post, I got an invitation for an Easter Party from Edith of Precious Moments. Really appreciate her inviting me. :) However I think Easter is already over and thus its probably a belated one? Anyways, just to join in the fun, here is the 5 food contributions from me for the party:

Pandan Chicken Wings

Chendol Agar Agar

Mung Bean, Yam & Peanut Ang Gu Kuehs

All American Chocolate Cake

Puen Kueh

Have a good week ahead all!

Mini Genoise Cakes with Dark Chocolate Ganache

No, there's no triple layer chocolate cake with luscious cream filling nor there's any heart-shaped creamy cheesecake with elaborate decorations. I guess it has something to do with the over eating during Chinese New Year that had tone down the baking mood. But I didn't want to let this special day pass by without making a little something special for my 3 Valentines at home. :P So I decided to do something not too elaborate but yet presentable as a nice desert to serve. I went with one of the simpler recipes in Rose's heavenly cakes cook book, i.e. Chocolate Bull's-Eye Cakes. And since I have this silicon heart shaped cake mould, I made this:

If you have that book, you probably think the cake look kinda different, I don't blame you, it is! Besides the different cake mould used, I did skip a few steps in Rose's recipe as I think it's not necessary for my taste buds. :)) Her recipe actually soaked the genoise with syrup (sugar and water mixture) and then brushed the mini cakes with apricot glaze. I think you can imagine as I was worried it'll be too sweet...:P Also, I made simple chocolate ganache verses Rose's Chocolate cream filling which involves adding egg yolk to it.

Fortunately, the cakes still turned out heavenly! I vowed that I will use this sponge cake recipe from now on. :)) It's tender soft and yet doesn't deflate much after it's out from the oven. :) Anyway, without further ado, here is the recipe:

Genoise Cake Batter:
43g clarified butter (I used unsalted butter)
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs + 1 egg yolk (100g + 18g)
66g suferfine sugar
66g Wondra flour( I used 33g cake flour + 33g corn flour)

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 175C.
• To prepare the butter, in a microwavable bowl, warm the butter until hot. Stir in the vanilla extract, cover and keep warm.
• To prepare the egg mixture; in the bowl of a stand mixer set over a pan of simmering water, heat the eggs, yolk, and sugar until just lukewarm to the touch, stirring constantly with a long handled whisk to prevent curdling.
• Immediately remove the bowl to the stand mixer and attach the whick beater. Beat on high speed for a minimum of 5 minutes. It will more than quadruple in volume and very thick and airy.
• Remove almost 1/2 cup of the beaten egg mixture and whisk it thoroughly into the melted butter.
• Sift about half of the flour over the remaining egg mixture, fold it in gently but rapidly until almost all the flour has disappeared. Repeat with the remaining flour until all traces of the flour have disappeared.
• Fold in the butter mixture until just incorporated. Make sure you reach into the bottom of the pan to be sure to moisten all the flour.
• Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans. Bake for about 15 to 20 minutes (mine took 15 minutes), or until golden brown anf the cakes start to shrink slightly from the sides of the pan mould.
• Note: To prevent the collapse of its delicate foam structure, while still hot, the genoise must be unmould as soon as it is baked. (this is new to me!)

Chocolate Ganache:
50ml heavy cream + 75g semi sweet chocolate, chopped (I used 65% cocoa Valrohnoa)

• Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan till almost bubbling. Remove from fire and add in the chopped chocolate and let stand covered and unstirred for a good 10 minutes. After 10minutes, stir the mixture well till combined nicely. Use when needed.
• I scooped about 1/2 tsp amount to the cavity of the cake top. You can chill the cake to let the chocolate ganache harden a little, but I like mine room temperature.

See the fine bubbles in the sponge cake? I like this recipe as it doesn't involve using too many ingredients...e.g glucose. Try it for yourself and you'll see. :)

These mini cakes are such a delight to snack on. :) I think I will double the recipe next time to make more to share. :D My 3 Valentines loved them and said its the best Valentine's day gift, hahaha!

I am also submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #4: Love In The Air (Feb 2011) hosted by Cuisine Paradise.

Lastly, before I sign off, I would like to wish all a Sweet Valentine's Day! Cheers!

Post Full of New Year Cookies!

My my , I have never deliberately neglected my blog for such a long duration of time before! I am not idling and wasting my time away, mind you. It's just that this year's pre- CNY bake has been a real busy one! Now, finally, I get some time to post it, please be warned of this LONG POST, since its a consolidation of all those cookies I baked for the past 2 weeks. :P

It all started with this idea in my mind; to make the pineapple tarts into golden nugget shapes! Sounds fantastic, but it's quite time consuming to make the shape. ^_^" But since it was so well received and several orders came in., I went ahead with it. It practically took up all of my free time, not to mention having to perform my daily duties on top of it. Although there are still requests coming in, I have to turn them down as I have already over stretched my limits...meaning I actually fell ill because of over working or over baking?! :P So lesson learn here, don't be too ambitious and remember to mark up the price to make more worthwhile, lol! Without further ado, here it is, my pineapple golden nuggets!

The recipe is actually quite similar to the one I used last year, I made minor adjustment to it. Furthermore, I was too tight down that I don't have time to make my own pineapple jam, thus store bought ones. Luckily I was still able to find one that is not so sweet and a slight tartness to it. Furthermore my customers were pleased with them, so no complains there. :)

Taste? It's light, almost melt in the mouth, except for the chewiness from the pineapple jam, you really won't feel 'heavy' or full after popping 3 or 4 of these in your mouth! I also made some flower shaped pineapple tarts for my husband's co worker. :)

Besides all these traditional pineapple tarts, I too baked several other cookies this year, namely cornflake cookies, almond cookies (my favorite), peanut cookies, rabbit shaped butter cookies and lastly Orange scented Strawberry jam Almond Swirl cookies. A little much right, hahaha!

The cornflake cookies is actually a special request from my husband's work place, so I just did it as a favor. Besides I make a little more for my kids to try to, heehee. I actually adapt the recipe from Jodelibakery. For more details on the recipe, please refer to the link.

The recipe is simple and easy to make. I added 2 different 'topping' to the cookies, one os dried cranberries and the other semisweet chocolate chips. The crunch and flavor from the cornflakes is very satisfying, not too sweet and a nice snack that you don't normally find selling in stores even during CNY. The down side however is that these cookies need to be store in air tight containers, else it turns slightly chewy after awhile.

Next up is almond cookies....my favorite! This is the first time I attempted to make this myself. Why wait so long? Well, My standard is so high, I worry I might just disappoint myself, lol! Anyway, here it is, my almond cookies:

Not too shabby huh? For this recipe, I adapted J3ss's version, but replaced portion of the vegetable oil with ghee since I like the buttery scent from the clarified butter. :) Overall the texture and sweetness was really good, melt in the mouth but with bits of almond crunch in it, which is what I like. :)

However there is just one mistake I made....adding almond essence to the it. Somehow that 1/4 tsp of essence just made the cookie taste a little artificial. :P I swear the next time I make these, I am not gonna add any essence to it....natural is good. :) I just have to toast those almonds real good to get it's natural flavor out.
Next is peanut cookies. Since I love peanut, so I always make a point to make some every year. Here they are!

I love peanut cookies, it's almost a must for me in CNY. However, the dreading part I believe for most of us is to roast, de-skin and ground the peanuts. Although it only took me 3 hours to perform that task, I still didn't enjoy it any bit. But store bought ones are also not an option, so I guess I just have to suck it up and do it, lol!

Taste? It's almost melt in your mouth of course! I adapted the recipe from Wendy but I made some changes to it; i.e less the powder sugar by 10% (but still too sweet for me) and used ghee in place of 50% of the vegetable oil needed in the recipe (Plus 3 tbsp more). A wonderful recipe, but I will remember to reduce the sugar by 15 or 20% next time.
This year I made butter cookies mainly because it was actually a special request from a neighbor. So I decided to cut them out into rabbit shape to make them a little more festive, heehee!

Sorry, forgotten to snap a few photos of the cookies before I bottled them up. :P There are 4 different rabbit shapes in there. :) This recipe is the same butter cookies as the one I made before.
Last of them cookies I made this year would be Orange Scented Strawberry Jam Almond Swirl cookies which I got from 孟老師的下午茶 which I borrowed from the library. :) My kid loves jam cookies, so whenever I see any new recipes, I would jump to try it out. ;)

The addition of almond flour in this recipe makes it really special and delicious. ;) My girl loved it so much that she brought it to school for a consecutive 4 days!

However due to the presence of moisture in the jam, the cookies turned kind of soft after a couple of days. :P But the flavor is still good, so it was all eaten up as well. :D Here is the recipe for this delicious cookie:

Ingredients for Orange scented Jam Almond Swirl cookies (makes about 15 to 20)
Set A:
80g unsalted butter
50g ground almond
50g powdered sugar
1/4 tsp salt
25g egg white
Finely grated orange peel of 1 orange (without the white part)
100g cake flour

Set B:
Fruit Jam (I used strawberry jam)
Method:

• In a mixing bowl, cream the butter, sifted ground almond flour and powered sugar together till well combined.
• Add in egg white and orange peel to the butter mixture and again mix well.
• Preheat oven to 170C and line a baking tray with parchment paper.
  
• Add cake flour in directly and stir gently but not over mixing it. Scoop batter into piping bag with a large flower tip.
• Pipe out the cookies in circular discs, leaving about 3 cm apart from other cookies. Repeat till all the batter is piped out.
• Bake the cookies in the oven for 15 minutes, then remove from oven and place about 1/4 tsp of jam in the center of each cookie. Put the half baked cookies back into the oven to continue to bake for another 10 minutes.
• Once the cookies a slight golden brown, remove from oven and let cool completely before storing them in air tight containers.
  

After all this, I shan't forget to do this before I sign off. That is to submit this to Aspiring Bakers #3 : My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011) hosted by Jess of i3ss kitch3n. Hope I am not too late for that! :D

Just in case I don't get the chance to post something up before the arrival of the Lunar New Year, I want to take this opportunity to wish one and all:

富貴滿堂, 万事如意,

身体健康, 新年快乐!

Cheers all! Happy Rabbit Year!!