Easy Chilled Lemon Cheesecake

Jessie, I did chilled lemon cheesecake using Jenny, our aerobics instructor's recipe. This time I top it with canned peaches and strawberries and pineapple jelly to make it prettier and more appetizing.



Ingredients: (18 cm)
Base:
50g Oreo biscuits (remove biscuit cream)
50g Marie biscuits
40g melted butter + 2 tsp warm water

Filling:
225g cream cheese
60g castor sugar
100ml whipping cream + 1 tbsp icing sugar
100ml syrup from canned peaches
2.5 tbsp lemon juice
Grated lemon zest (optional)
1 tbsp gelatin dissolved in 3 tbsp boiling hot water

Jelly topping:
Cook 45g jelly powder (any flavour of your choice that you think will go well with the lemon cheesecake, I used pineapple flavour for this cake) and 8g gelatin powder with 250ml water till jelly dissolved. Set aside to cool.

Method:
1. Mix crushed biscuits and melted butter.
2. Press firmly onto lined cake base. Chill for at least 30 minutes.
3. Whip whipping cream with icing sugar till mousse state.
4. Beat cream cheese with castor sugar till smooth. Stir in the syrup, lemon juice, lemon zest and gelatin solution. Mix well.
5. Stir in whipped cream. Mix well. Pour the mixture into the chilled cake base.
6. Refrigerate for 15 minutes and top with assorted fruits. Put it back in the fridge for another 20 - 30 minutes.
7. Spoon cooled jelly topping solution onto the chilled cheesecake gently.
8. Refrigerate for 2 - 3 hours before serving.

Doughnuts

Always wanted to make doughnuts but never get around to do it 'cos I thought they were really fattening. However, after taking a look at all the recipes in the net, they are not as fattening as what I thought. They are just as fattening as any other bread or bun with fillings.
I do not have a doughnut cutter so I just improvished and used a bottle cap to make a hole in the dough.
I did the dough in my breadmaker machine and this is really easy. What a blessing the bread machine is! I just pour everything into the machine and after 1.5 hours the dough is ready to be shaped.

I used LeeLee's recipe but made some modifications to it.




Ingredients: (about 20 pieces with diameter of about 6cm)
150g bread flour
100g cake flour
10g milk powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
30g sugar
5g salt
1 3/4 tsp yeast
1 egg yolk
70ml cold water
70ml cold milk
25g melted butter

Sugar for coating:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)

Method:
1. Put everything in the bread machine according to what your machine's manual said and start the dough cycle. Once the dough cycle is complete you can start to shape it.
2. On a floured surface and with floured hands divide dough into 23g pieces and shape it into a ball. Pat it flat to about 1.5cm high and make a hole in the middle of the dough.
3. Prove the shaped dough for 30 minutes on a greased tray covered loosely with glad wrap in a warm environment.
4. Fill the wok with oil about 2.5 inches deep and fry the dough for 30 seconds on each side or till lightly golden brown. Drain well and pat dry with absorbent paper towel before coating them in sugar.
5. Serve warm.

Notes for those without bread machine:

Mix all ingredients in a big mixing bowl except butter (do not melt butter but use room temperature butter). Mix well to form a dough.
Add in the butter and knead into a smooth elastic dough. Prove in a covered mixing bowl for 60 minutes. The rest of the process you can follow step (2) from above.

The doughnuts were soft and yummy!
If you like doughnuts, this recipe is worth trying!

Tofu Cheesecake

Had always wanted to try the taste of Tofu Cheesecake. So I made this cheesecake using packet Japanese silken tofu from the supermarket. The tofu taste is quite subtle with a little of cheese taste. The combination of cheese and tofu is quite good as they do not overpower each other. To ensure that the cake will not taste too bland, I have used Brownie as my cake base.

As you can see from the decor of this cake, I have been "experimenting" with chocolates. Tried doing chocolate leaves and curls. The chocolate leaves were OK but the curls are much harder to handle. The curls should be long and curly but mine were broken as I left them in the fridge for too long and they turn brittle before I could remove it. The dining table is a mess after experimenting with chocolates and my nails were filled with liquid chocolate too. What an experience!



Close up of the chocolate leaves and curls


A slice of the cake!


This is Nata de Coco


Ingredients: (20cm)
Cake Base
65g butter
35g corn oil
100g dark cooking chocolate
2 eggs
60g castor sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking soda

Filling
220g cream cheese (room temperature)
80g castor sugar
540g tofu
350ml whipping cream
3 tbsp icing sugar
2 tbsp gelatin powder
5 tbsp tepid water
90g Nata de Coco (optional)

Blushing effect:
2g clear glaze powder + 50ml water + 1/2 tsp sugar + 1 drop red colouring
Boil everything together till glaze powder dissolved. Apply the warm glaze to the cooled cake to create blushing patches.

Method:

1. Melt butter, corn oil in the microwave on HIGH for 1 minute. Add in the chocolate pieces and stir till chocolate are all melted.
2. Beat eggs with salt and sugar and stir in the cooled chocolate mixture. Sieve in the flour and mix well.
3. Bake at 180C in a lined pan. Trim cooled cake to be smaller than the cake pan.
4. Cook the tofu in boiling water and drain well otherwise you will have a weeping tofu cheesecake. I drained the tofu for 2 hours.
5. Beat cream cheese with sugar till creamy, add in the mashed tofu. Mix well and put it in the blender to blend till smooth and creamy.
6. Whip the whipping cream with icing sugar till mousse state.
7. Add the dissolved gelatin solution into cheese tofu mixture and mix well. Add in the whipped cream. Add in the Nata De Coco.
8. Put the cake base in the lined cake pan, pour in the cheese mixture. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving.

Steamed Sou Pao

Jeanne taught me how to do this. We did this in March but thought that it might interest some of you so I decided to post this here.



Ingredients: (for 4 pieces of paos)
80g Lam Soon American Roses Special Wheat Flour (南順美玫牌頂級麵粉)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp instant yeast
40ml warm water

Filling:
80g lotus seed paste divided into 20g each
1 salted egg yolk divided into 4 portions (steam salted egg yolk for 2 minutes)

Method:
1. Mix warm water with yeast and let it rest for 5 minutes.
2. Sieve flour and baking powder together into a mixing bowl and stir in sugar till well mixed.
3. Pour yeast solution into flour mixture and knead to form a smooth dough. Cut up the dough and check if there are holes in the dough. If no holes then dough is ready else carry on kneading. 4. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces of 33 - 34g each and wrap with 20g filling and 1/4 egg yolk. Form dough into sou pao shape.
5. Let it prove in a warm place for 20 minutes.
6. Steam on high heat for 8 minutes.
7. Use the back of a knife to impress a line on the steamed paos as in the picture above.
8. Sprinkle some red colouring using toothbrush and a toothpick by dabbing the toothbrush with red coloring and using the toothpick to make zigzag movements on the toothbrush.

Sesame Dumpling

Sesame dumpling is really tasty and honestly a very easy to do snack. This snack can be done with minimal ingredients and skills.



Ingredients:
75g glutinous rice flour
75ml water
25g sugar
sesame seeds

Method:
1. Put water and sugar in a saucepan and cook till sugar dissolved. Leave aside to cool.
2. Pour cooled sugar solution into glutinous rice flour and knead till a piable dough is formed.
3. Divide dough into 8 equal portions of about 20g - 22g each.
4. Damp your palms and shape the dough pieces round and coat it with sesame seeds.
5. Heat a wok with sufficient oil until oil is about 70% hot. Turn off the heat and slide in the dumplings. Once the dumplings start to float, turn on the heat again and flatten the dumplings constantly with a ladle.
6. Deep fry until dumplings are crispy and golden in colour. Drain well and serve hot.

SweetCorn Pudding

At last, I managed to get the right texture required for pudding. I have always wanted to make puddings like those we eat during "yum cha" in the restuarant and this is the one! It is really very smooth and the sweetness is just right.

I have edited the Coconut Red Bean Pudding recipe to be similar to this recipe as the texture for this pudding is much better.



Ingredient:
75g corn starch
200ml coconut milk
200ml milk
15g agar agar strands
1000ml water
125g castor sugar
400g sweet corn in cream sauce (about 1 can)

Method:
1. Mix corn starch, coconut milk and milk together and blend till smooth. You have to strain it if it is not smooth.
2. Boil agar agar strands in 1000ml water till dissolved. Turn off the heat and strain agar agar solution into another saucepan. Turn on the heat and add sugar into agar agar solution till sugar dissolved and the solution is bubbling hot.
3. Turn the heat to low and pour in the corn starch mixture and stirring at the same time till the mixture is thicken.
4. Stir in the sweet corn.
5. Pour the pudding into moulds rinsed with cold drinking water, cool it before sending to chill in the refrigerator.

No-Bake Durian Cheesecake

Durians are in season now! Bought a pound of Golden Pillow from Park 'n' Shop this morning. I chose the soft and very ripen ones for this cheesecake so that when you puree it there will not be too much fibers.



Ingredients:
Biscuit base
110g digestive biscuits crushed
40g melted butter

Durian Filling
160g cream cheese
80g castor sugar
4 eggs
200g sweet whipping cream (whipped)
25g gelatine powder dissolved in 120ml hot water
180g durian puree

Jelly Topping
8g gelatine powder
45g mango jelly powder
240ml boiling water

Method:

1. Mix biscuit crumbs with melted butter and press it firmly onto the base of a springform cake pan and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
2. Whip the sweet whipping cream till mousse state and chill in the fridge.
3. Melt the gelatine powder with 120ml water in hot water bath and leave to cool for use later.
4. Beat cream cheese with sugar till soft and smooth.
5. Add in the eggs one at a time, beat well after each addition.
6. Blend in the durian puree then whipped cream.
7. Stir in the cooled gelatine solution.
8. Pour cheese mixture onto cake base and chill for 30 minutes.
9. Remove from fridge and pour the jelly topping over the chilled cheesecake.
10. Chill in the refrigerator overnight so that all the durian aroma will be "infused" into the cake.
11. To remove chilled cake from the cake pan, wrap a hot towel around the pan and the cake will dislodge itself easily.

Striped Banana Cake

Saw Jo's zebra striped sponge cake, it was so pretty and the stripes were so nicely done. I had to give it a go myself. As you can see from the photograph, I have not been too successful. I did not do a sponge cake but I did a banana cake because I had a bunch of totally ripen bananas sitting in my fruit basket. Anyway, though the stripes were not too successful, the cake was really aromatic. In this thread, I will post only the recipe for the banana cake and will not write about how to do the stripes till I have better result on my next trial.



Ingredients:
200g cake flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
50g butter at room temperature
25ml corn oil
80g - 100g sugar
2 eggs lightly beaten
210g banana puree with 10ml lemon juice
60ml milk
60g walnuts (optional)

Method:
1. Cream butter, corn oil and sugar till smooth and creamy.
2. Add in the lightly beaten eggs 1/4 at a time till well blended.
3. Add in the banana puree and the sieved powdery ingredients.
4. Beating at high speed add in the milk.
5. Stir in the walnuts if you have any.
6. Bake in a lined loaf pan at 180C for 45 - 60 minutes.

Claypot Pudding

Claypot puddings are popular HK street side treats however, they are not found in abundance these days.
Anyway, you can try to make them yourself. Not a bad snack at all.


Ingredients:
100g rice flour (粘米粉)
1/2 tbsp glutinous rice flour (糯米粉)
75g ungluten flour (澄麵粉)
80g brown slab sugar (片糖)
500ml water
100g cooked red beans or as much as you like

Method:
1. Sieve all the 3 flours into a mixing bowl and add in 125ml water. Mix well till a thick paste is formed.
2. Put the remaining 375ml water into a saucepan, add in the slab sugar. Cook till sugar dissolved and it is bubbling hot.
3. Pour this hot sugar solution into (1) stirring it at the same time till a smooth and thick batter is formed.
4. Spoon batter into greased clay-pots/moulds about 90% full and add in the red beans.
5. Steam on high heat for 20 minutes. Unmould when it is a little cooled.

Notes:
I have tried making this several times and each time the consistency of the batter is different. On good times, I get a smooth thick batter but on other occasions my batter is more on the runny side. Do note the followings:
1. If batter is thick, you can add the red beans in and it will not sink to the bottom of the clay-pots.
2. If batter is more on the runny/watery side, steam the pudding for 30 - 45 seconds then add in the red beans.

Variations:
For coconut milk flavour:
(1) replace brown slab sugar with castor sugar
(2) replace 250ml water with coconut milk