7-up Pastel Steamed Cake

What 7-up steamed cake...you might asked? Yes, I made this cake using the fizzy drink 7-up. You can use Sprite or Cream soda too! To make the cake looked interesting I have layered with different pastel colours. Looks pretty right!



Ingredients:
5 eggs
200g - 220g sugar
150g cake flour
150g plain flour
1.5 teaspoon SP/Ovalette
180g 7-up/Sprite/Cream soda

Colouring:
1 tsp cocoa powder + 1 tsp warm water
1/4 tsp strawberry flavoring/strawberry sauce
1/4 tsp pandan paste

Method:
1. Beat eggs with sugar till pale, add in the SP and beat a further 3 minutes.
2. Sieve the 2 flours together.
3. Fold in half portion of flour followed by half portion of 7-up. Repeat till all the flour and 7-up are used up.
4. Divide batter into 4 portions, each portion should be about 220g.
5. Keep 1 portion of original colour and add in the colorings into the 3 respective portions.
6. Pour 1 portion of batter into a lined pan and steam for 5 - 7 minutes. Repeat till all the batter are used up. Steam the last layer for a total of 10 minutes or till cooked.

What is SP/Ovalette?
SP/Ovalette is a stabiliser used in baking sponge cakes. It helps the eggs to rise rapidly and stiffly. As it is acidic it also helps the beaten eggs to remain stable and not lose the airy and voluminous texture. It makes sponge cake softer and smoother.
You can get this from your local baking stores.

What does the cake taste like?
Tasted like an ordinary steamed chinese sponge cake (Kai Tan Koh) with a tinge of 7-up and it's soft and fluffy. Not a bad choice if you don't feel like baking a cake in the oven!

Sago Crystal Cake

This cake is not difficult to do except you have to control the soaking of sago pearls so that it is not overcooked. If the sago pearls are overcooked during the soaking process, then your cakes will not have the pearly effect, it will just be a smooth blog. The ones you see in my picture are the second batch that I have done. My first batch were just smooth blogs of sago without the pearly effect.

You can use green coloured sago pearls too, they look very pretty with that tinge of greenish colour, just like the pandan colour.



Ingredients:
100g Sago pearls
50g water chestnut powder
75ml water
55g sugar
1 tsp corn oil
50g red bean paste

Method:
1. Soak sago in a covered saucepan with lots of hot boiling water for at least 1 hour. Stirring it occasionally to prevent them sticking together. Then rinse under cold water and drain well.
2. Soak water chestnut powder with 75ml water for 15 minutes. Stir till well blended and strain into a mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar and oil.
3. Mix in the drained sago pearls.
4. Spoon 1 tablespoon of sago pearls mixture into greased tart moulds. Top with with 1 teaspoon of red bean paste and cover it with another tablespoon of sago mixture.
5. Steam on high heat for 4 - 5 minutes or till cooked.

Notes:
If your sago pearls from step (1) is very cooked, you may steam it for 4 minutes then check if it is done, else you can steam it for another minute or so.
If your sago pearls from step (1) have white centres, you should steam your cakes for 8 - 10 minutes or till cooked.
You may like to drain the sago pearls from step (1) after 30 minutes and top it up with a new pot of hot boiling water. This is a good method as the centres will not be too raw.
I used the standard egg tarts moulds to do this and I get about 18 pieces.

Almond Chocolate Biscotti

Love the biscotti from Olio Dome in SG and Pizza Express in HK. So, this is my first trial of this biscotti. I got this recipe from my Italian friend. The aroma from the chocolate is really heavenly. A very tasty treat! I always used Valrhona 70% dark chocolate for all my recipes. I have drastically reduce the amount of sugar by 50% from the original recipe.



Ingredients:
100g cake flour + less than 1/4 tsp baking powder
50g castor sugar
25g dark chocolate(chop into chuncks)
50g whole almonds
1 egg

Method:
1. Toast the whole almonds at 160C for 8 - 10 minutes. Leave to cool.
2. Sieve flour into a big mixing bowl and stir in the sugar using your hands.
3. Add in the chocolate chuncks and cooled whole almonds.
4. Lightly beat the egg and keep 2 teaspoon for use later. Pour the rest into (3).
5. Blend well into a dough. Dough should be very sticky. Flour your hands, knead and shape into a log shape and flatten the top.
6. Glace the dough with the 2 teaspoons of egg from (4).
7. Bake at 180C for 20 - 25 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and leave it to cool. When cooled, cut it into 1 cm thick slices.
9. Toast the cut slices at 150C for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack.
10. Keep in a air-tight container when biscottis are totally cooled.

Notes:
You can use hazelnuts instead of almonds.
You can omit chocolate if you like.
The next time I do this again, I will add 1 teaspoon of almond powder to enhance the flavour of this biscotti.

Coconut Kueh Lapis

前兩日做了椰汁紅豆糕還剩下一點椰汁，所以今天就用它來做了一個超迷你的椰汁九層糕。好迷你啊！大概只有一個飯碗的大小 - 12 cm。

這糕點是我小時候最愛吃的， 一邊吃一邊把那九層糕一片片的撕下，太好玩了！



材料 (19 X 29 cm 長方型糕)
木薯粉 250g (Tapioca Starch)
粘米粉 90g (Rice Flour)
椰汁 400ml (Coconut milk)
砂糖 200g (Sugar)
暖水 200ml (Warm water)
班蘭汁 1/2茶匙 (Pandan Essence/paste)
紅色素少許 (Red Colouring)

做法:
1. 將全部材料混合攪勻， 分開 3 份糊槳。每一份大約是 320ml 。
Mix all ingredients together and divide batter into 3 equal portion of about 320ml each.

2. 一份加入班蘭汁，另一份加入紅色素。
Add pandan essence to one portion and red coloring to another portion.

3. 糕盤放入蒸鍋，倒 入一層糊槳 (約 100 - 110 ml) 蒸 3 - 4 分鐘 (不可超過 4 分鐘。) 重覆 3 種糊槳至蒸完，總共有 九 層。
Pour 1 layer of batter (about 100 - 110ml) into mould and steam on high heat for 3 - 4 minutes. Alternate the different colours till you finish all the batter.

4. 最後一層蒸 5 分鐘後熄火。
Steam the last layer for at least 5 minutes.

5. 待涼後，用保鮮紙包着一把膠刀切成小塊即可進食。
When the cake is cool, cut it with a plastic knife that is wrapped with glad wrap.

*** 如果你也想做一個迷你版的，只要把所有材料的份量 x 0.4 就可以了！ 每一層大約是 40- 45 ml 左右。 迷你版也夠一家四口吃哦！

Water Chestnut Pudding

My friend, Christine made this cake for us a few days ago. It tasted really "QQ" and crunchy because she added lots of water chestnut. So, I thought I'll give it a shot myself and this is it!

Ingredients:
250g water chestnut flour (廣洲冸塘馬碲粉)
500ml water
600g fresh water chestnut
750ml water
300g - 400g rock sugar/golden rock sugar

Method:
1. Wash fresh water chestnut thoroughlly and cut or crush them into your desired size.
2. Mix water chestnut flour with 500ml water and strain for use later.
3. Cook rock sugar with 750ml water till sugar dissolve. Add in the crushed chestnut pieces.
4. Pour water chestnut mixture into rock sugar solution and keep stirring until thicken.
5. Pour the thicken chestnut mixture into a well greased 8 inch pan.
6. Steam on high heat for 30 minutes.

Notes:
1. I have put sugar amount as 300g - 400g to cater to people with different level of sweet tooth.
So, please do the sweetness test yourself. If you use golden rock sugar, your cake will have a tinge of golden colour.
2. For variation you can replace 250ml of water from the 750ml water with coconut milk and make it into coconut milk water chestnut cake.
This cake tastes good either cold or pan fried. You can pan fried it just by itself or make a crispy batter of equal amount of flour to rice flour and water to get crispy battered water chestnut cake(酥脆炸馬碲條).

Coconut Red Bean Pudding

Made this traditional HK dessert Coconut Milk Red Bean Pudding(椰汁紅豆糕).



Ingredients:
250g cooked red beans
75g corn starch
250ml coconut milk
75ml milk
275ml red bean water/water
850ml water
100g -120g sugar
15g agar agar stripes (大菜絲)

Method:
1. Cook red beans in hot water till the texture you desired. (Some prefer it to be crisp while others prefer it to be soft, so you have to check the texture yourself).
2. Strain red bean for use later. You can keep the red water for use later.
3. Mix coconut milk, milk and corn starch well.
4. In a big saucepan boil agar agar and sugar with 850ml water and 275ml red bean water or if you do not have the red bean water, just use 1125ml water. Cook till agar agar dissolved. Strain the agar agar mixture into another saucepan.
5. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the agar agar solution and keep stirring till it starts to thicken. Turn off the heat and stir in the red beans.
6. Pour mixture into moulds which has been rinsed with cold water and chill for 2 hours.

Notes:
The total amount of liquid used in this recipe is 1450ml. 850ml water is needed to cook the agar agar stripes and the rest of the 600ml liquid can be your variation of coconut milk, whipping cream, fresh milk and red bean water.

好介紹
如果你覺得自已煮紅豆太費時，可以到超市買一罐 540g 的「燕山牌紅豆水」來用就可以了。將紅豆濾乾水份就可以用了，不要把紅豆水給棄了哦！用 275ml 的紅豆水來煮這個糕點成品會比較香。但是別忘記糖份要從 120g 減至 8 tablespoons 左右，請自己調較甜度。

Baked Mooncake Series

I know there is still a couple more months before Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋節) well, to be exact 5 more months. Thought I'll post some mooncakes photos to remind you all to get prepared for the festival. That is to buy mooncake moulds or to get engraved mooncake moulds.
I got my surname engraved on this wooden mould which I liked very much. The crafter did a good job with the engraving but it cost me HK$220 to get this done! The shop where I bought this mould is in Shanghai Street (上海街) in YauMaTi (油麻地 ).

Treatment of new wooden mould:
1. First wash wooden mould with water. Dry it with a towel.
2. Use 2 toothpicks to block the holes inside the mould, fill it up with cooking oil. Cooking oil should be filled to the brim.
3. Leave the oil laden mould in a shady place for up to 1 week.
4. Discard the oil after one week and wash the mould with mild warm soapy water.
5. Dry the mould with a towel and leave in a shady area to dry naturally. Do not dry the mould under the sun.
6. Wrap mould with some kitchen paper towel for storage until you are ready to use it.
7. Wash with warm soapy water and store mould only after the last bake of the festival.
8. Oil the mould again 1 week before the mooncake baking festival.

These were the first mooncakes that I ever baked.


These were the moon cake pastry cookies (豬仔餅) shaped via my pooh bear cookie cutters.



These were the Teochew Spiral Yam Mooncakes

Black Forest Cake

Black Forest Cake is one of my favourite cakes. For this cake, I used Alex Goh's chocolate chiffon cake as the cake base but I have made my own modifications to this recipe. The modifications were made based on my observations from cooking programme and advices from experienced bakers.

This is the cake base:


This is the finished product for my dd's birthday:


Ingredients:
(A)
4 egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp rum or kirsch
40g castor sugar
(B)
25g cocoa powder
85ml warm corn oil
(C)
135ml warm water

(D)

125g cake flour

1/2 baking soda

1/2 baking powder

(E)

4 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
50g castor sugar

Filling
15 fresh cherries pitted and halved (dried with paper towel)
25 canned pitted sour cherries halved drain well
500ml whipping cream whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar
100g shaved Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate
10 - 12 Fresh whole cherries with stems for decoration/maraschino cherries with stems

Method :
1. Mix ingredients (A) well with a hand whisk.
2. Stir cocoa powder in warmed oil until dissolved and pour into yolk mixture.
3. Stir (C) into yolk mixture.
4. Sieve ingredient (D) and stir it into yolk mixture.
5. Whip egg whites in a clean mixing bowl until big bubbles are formed. Add in the cream of tartar and whip until white in colour. Add in sugar over 3 times and whip until egg whites is stiff. 6. Pour 1/2 white into yolk mixture and blend well.
7. Pour yolk mixture into the remaining egg white mixture and blend well.
8. Pour batter into clean baking pan and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until cooked.
9. Invert cake and leave to cool. Then cut cooled cake into 2 or 3 layers.
10. Whip the cream with icing sugar until stiff.
11. Add pitted fresh and sour cherries into half portion of the whipped cream.
12. Sandwich the cake with (11).
13. Frost the cake with the remaining half portion of whipped cream and decorate as appropriate with chocolate shavings and fresh whole cherries.

Notes:
Baking soda is alkaline in nature. It is used in most chocolate cakes to act as a leavening and to neutralize acidic nature of chocolate/cocoa powder and to give the cake a darker colour.

Chocolate cakes will give you a sourish taste if you do not use baking soda.

Remember to line the base of your cake pan with baking paper.

Chwee Kueh

This is one of my favourite breakfast foods when I was a kid. We used to eat these at the hawker stall in the wet market. What makes the kueh so delicious is the chai por topping on top of each little piece of white kueh. As you grow older you start to eat it with chilli or hae bee hiam and the taste is even better.

I have given it a PuTongHua name - 水粿, it is a direct translation from the Hokkien word, "Chwee Kueh" meaning "water cake". Don't know what is the correct name in chinese writing though but it's a kind of salty rice pudding!

Last year when I was in Singapore I ate chwee kuehs from Tiong Bahru Market and they were so good.

Just to curb the cravings, I bought 2 precious packets of chai por back to HK so that I could make this kueh.

This is the chwee kueh that I made:


This is wheat starch/ungluten flour.


Recipe is from Gina of KC but I changed the ratio of the 2 waters used to reduce the floury taste.

Ingredients:
350 g rice flour
50 g tapioca flour
10 g wheat starch/ungluten flour
400ml water(room temp)
950 ml boiling water
1 tsp salt

Method:
1. Mix all dry ingredients with room temperature water. Mix evenly.
2. Add salt to boiling water. Boil till bubbly hot. Pour this boiling water into flour mixture and stirring constantly. If mixture is watery, boil it on stove stirring all the time once it shows signs of thickening immediately remove from stove and keep stirring for 1 minute.
3. Brush metal cup or bowls with oil.
4. Stir before pouring flour mixture into each cup/bowl.
5. Steam over high heat for 10 mins.
6. Remove from metal cups/bowls and garnish with chai por topping

Chai Por Topping(蘿蔔乾):
1 packet chai por
3 garlic and 1 shallot(chopped finely)
1 tsp light soya sauce
3.5 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp cooking oil

Method:
1. In a wok, add oil to stir fry garlic
2. Add chai por and rest of seasonings.
3. Fry till dark brown in colour.

This is a "nice to eat" recipe and worth trying as it is not difficult to do.

Pandan Kaya

Had a new toy - my Kenwood BM300 Breadmaker.


The first thing I made with my breadmaker is not bread but kaya. I made Pandan Kaya using the Jam function of my breadmaker.


I did not have fresh pandan leaves so I used Pandan Castor Sugar which I bought from Great Supermarket last year. This is what the packet of sugar looked like.


The recipe that I used is from KC but I tweaked the recipe and also reduced the amount of sugar used.

Ingredients:
8 eggs
400ml canned coconut milk
250g pandan castor sugar *
80g castor sugar

Method:
1. Lightly beat eggs in a large mixing bowl.
2. Stir sugars with coconut milk.
3. Mix (1) and (2) together.
4. Sieve the mixture before pouring into the bread pan.
5. Set breadmaker to JAM function.

The whole process took about 80 minutes. The finished product was quite lumpy and I had to use a blender to blend the kaya into a smooth paste.

Notes:

* If you do not have pandan castor sugar, you can use 300g of castor sugar.
In this case, you may want to blender the pandan leaves with coconut milk to get pandan coconut milk for the nice green colour.

Orange Chiffon Cake

Today is 1st April, 2005 and it's supposed to be April Fool Day but I am not fooling you. I'm gonna post my "best selling" chiffon cake recipe - Orange Chiffon Cake.

My sister, Karen loves Orange Chiffon Cake and she used to order her cakes from Rose, another home baker in her neighbourhood. She reckons that Rose's OCC tasted better than those from Bengawan Solo. When she visited me last November, I told her that I can do a OCC better than Rose or BS, she didn't believe me. So, I baked one for her instantly. Gosh! From then on, this is her must bake item every week.


Ingredients:
115g Cake Flour
3/4 tsp Baking powder

85ml Warm orange juice (I used packet 100% OJ and put it in hot water bath)
Finely grated zest of 1.5 large orange

5 egg yolks + 30g castor sugar + Salt 1/4 tsp
5 egg whites + 50g castor sugar + 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

60ml Corn oil
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence or 2 tsp Rum

Method:
1. Sieve flour and baking powder.
2. Use hand whisk to whisk egg yolk until creamy and light in colour.
Add in corn oil then warm orange juice and rum.
3. Add in flour mixture into yolk mixture lightly. Add in orange zest.
4. Beat egg white with electric beater until big bubbles formed.
Sprinkle in cream of tartar and beat until it is white in colour.
Add in 50g sugar 3 times (a little at a time) and beat until stiff perks
formed. About 8 - 10 minutes for 150w egg beater.
5. Pour 1/2 egg white into flour mixture in (3) and blend well.
6. Pour flour mixture into the rest of the egg white and blend well.
7. Bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until cooked.
8. Invert the cooked cake during cooling process.