Chocolate Praline Mousse Cake

Made this cake for my XXth wedding anniversary celebration dinner tonight!
I am delighted with the outcome as the cake as a whole has an artistic flair and it looked elegant too. (Blush...blush)
This cake is not too easy to do as you have to do a fair bit of chocolate tempering for the mousse and ganache.
The hazelnut toffee is not easy to handle as well, that's why I'm getting these artistic hazelnut toffee. They were not initially supposed to look like this. The toffee here is my second batch, the first batch got stuck on to my "butter paper" (牛油紙) the cheap ones which I bought from a local baking ingredient shop thinking that it was alike to the Glad Bake which I have been using. When I realised they could not be release from the baking sheet it was too late as I am done with all the toffee. I had to rush out to buy those Glad Bake baking sheet for my second batch of toffee. The second batch of cooled toffee came off without a hitch. The lesson here is "Cheap Cheap No Good Good" and "Good Good No Cheap Cheap" - famous quote from my Thailand tour guide!
From the ingredients you can see that this cake is pretty rich. In order to lessen the burden on our waistlines I did only a modest amount of mousse, you can see this from the sliced cake photo. The guests agreed with me on this as there is no loss of flavour or texture.
Now sit back and enjoy the process.



Better take a photo now or there will only be crumbs left!


Very tiring, so will post recipe another day!

(Recipe posted on 26/08/2005)
Ingredients:
Cake:
4 yolks
30g sugar
1 tbsp Frangelico Hazelnut Liquer/Rum
Pinch of salt
80ml warm water
4 tbsp warm corn oil
75g cake flour
25g hazelnut meal
less than 1/2 tsp baking powder

4 egg whites
35g sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Method:
1. Refer to Green Tea Chiffon Cake or Mango Mousse Cake for the cake base
2. Cut the cake into 2 equal layers of about 2 cm thick and trim the cake to be slightly smaller than the cake pan.

Chocolate Praline:
110g chocolate
90g praline
70g milk + 50g whipping cream
30g sugar
1 tbsp Frangelico Hazelnut Liquer/Rum/Grand Marnier
250g whipping cream (whipped)
10g gelatine sheet

Method:
1. Whip 250g whipping cream till mousse state and chill till ready to use.
2. Soak gelatin sheet in water till soft, remove from water and leave aside.
3. Heat 70g milk and 50g whipping cream till hot but not boiling, stir in sugar and then praline till a smooth paste is formed.
4. While still warm, add in the chopped chocolate pieces and stir till you get a smooth paste. You might need to warm this in a hot water bath, if the chocolate pieces are not dissolved completely. Stir in the gelatin and liquer. Cool the chocolate praline mousse a little.
5. Stir some whipped cream into the slightly warm chocolate praline mousse a few times. Pour chocolate praline into the whipped cream and mix gently till well combined. If the mixture is runny, chill in the refigerator for 2 - 3 minutes.
6. Line the cake pan with a cake board and line the inner ring of the cake pan with pectic sheet or plastic cake wrapper. Put in a layer of the cake.
7. Pour more than 1/3 of the chocolate praline mousse on top of the cake layer and tilt the cake pan left and right so that the mousse will fill up all around the cake layer. Chill for 2 - 3 minutes.
8. Top it with another layer of the cake and then all the mousse and do the tilting to even out the mousse.
9. Chill the cake for about 2 - 3 hours till set.

Chocolate Ganache:
95g chocolate
25g butter
55g skim milk

Method:
1. Warm butter and chopped chocolate over a basin of hot water and stir till a smooth chocolate paste is formed.
2. Stir in milk a third at a time.
3. Stirring the ganache constantly till it is slightly warm, smooth and runny, pour this ganache over the chilled and set cake from above. Tilt pan left and right gently to even out the ganache. Chill till set.

Decoration:
8 - 12 hazelnuts roasted and skin rubbed off
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
pinch of cream tartar
100ml sweet whipping cream + 1 tbsp cocoa powder (whipped)

Method:
1. Roast whole hazelnuts at 160C for 5 - 6 minutes. Rub off skin and leave aside to cool.
2. Cook sugar, water and a pinch of cream of tartar in a saucepan, sitrring till all sugar dissolved.
Leave it to boil without sitrring till syrup is bubbling and golden in color.
3. Leave syrup to cool till bubbles have settled, dip hazelnuts into the toffee and lie them on a baking sheet to set and cool. You may spoon more toffee onto the pattern formed and create any designs you like on the hazelnuts.
4. Dip a fork into the toffee and do zig zag design on baking sheet. When cooled and set, break them up and these will be the decorations for the side of the cake.
5. If the toffee has thicken, you can warm it up to regain the runny texture.
6. Whip sweet whipping cream with cocoa powder till stiff.
7. Make some rosettes on the chilled cake and top it up with hazelnut toffee.
8. Decorate the side of the cake with the zigzag toffee pieces.

Notes:
I used Valrhona 70% Guanaja in Beans ( Dark Couvertures) dark chocolate all the way through.
I would suggest Valrhona 40% (Milk Couvertures) for the mousse and Valrhona 66% or 70% for the ganache.
Best to use hazelnut liquer for that nutty aroma.

Ang Koo Kuehs

Ang Koo Kuehs! They are popular Nonya Kuehs in South East Asia. Don't know why they are called Ang Koo Kuehs but if you break it up word for word ... Ang means red color; Koo means turtle, yes, turtle as in turtle and Kuehs means cakes. From the photo you can see that the shape of this kueh is like a turtle, maybe that's how they derived the name for this kueh.
The red kueh has red coloring added to it while the yellow kueh is the natural color from the sweet potatoes that I used.
Sally! If you are still following my blog, this is the Ang Koo Kueh recipe that you asked me about. Hope you will like it and have fun doing them.

Red and natural Ang Koo Kuehs.


This is the Ang Koo Kueh mould that I used.


Ingredients: 25 small kuehs
Sweet Potato Skin:
200 g sweet potatoes
300 g glutinous rice flour
2 tbsps oil
160 ml water
Some red coloring (optional)

Mung Bean Filling:
200g yellow split mung beans (soaked until soft)
80g - 100 g castor sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsps oil
1/4 - 1/2 cup diced shallots
Water

Method:

Sweet Potato Skin:
Steam the sweet potatoes until soft. In a bowl, mash the sweet potatoes with a fork. Add glutinous rice, oil and water and mix well to obtain a smooth dough. Cover with a damp cloth and leave aside. You can add a little more water if the dough is too dry.

Mung Bean Filling:
Steam the yellow split mung beans until soft. Mash with a fork. In a non-stick wok, fry the diced onions in oil. Leave aside to cool. In a bowl, mix the mashed split peas, salt, fried onions, oil and enough water to form a soft dough.

Shaping the Ang Koo Kueh:
1. Brush the ang koo kueh mould with a little oil to ease removal of the kueh from the mould.
2. Take a small lump of sweet potato dough and using your palm or a rolling pin, flatten it, into a round shape with the centre thicker than the sides.
3. Spoon some pea filling into the dough, pinch the sides of the dough together, and using the palm of your hand, roll it into a ball.
4. Press the ball into the mould firmly, to obtain the design and shape of the mould. Tap the mould gently on the table to remove the ang koo kueh from the mould.
5. Place the ang koo kueh on a square piece of oiled banana leaf.
6. When all the ang koo kuehs are shaped, steam them in a wok over high fire for 3 minutes covered. After 3 minutes, remove the cover to release steam, then re-cover and steam for another 3 minutes over a medium fire, until the kuehs are cooked. Remove the kuehs from the wok and brush them with a little oil to prevent them from sticking to each other. Serve when cool.

Notes:
If you don't like the mung beans, you can use peanuts or red beans filling.
I used about 26g pastry and 19g filling.

Verdict-Baked Mini Mooncakes

The recipe from Baked Mini Mooncakes posted on 19th August, 2005 is worth a try. Take a look at the photos below, photos were taken this afternoon which is exactly 2 days after they were baked. The oil has set into the mooncakes and they looked supple and glossy.
If you are attempting mooncakes for the coming festival, please try the recipe and see if you like the texture. After the first trial you can make minor adjustments in the oil/syrup proportions to suit your preference.

Photo taken on the day they were baked, 19/08/2005.


These were the exact 4 mooncakes from Baked Mini Mooncakes posted on 19/08/2005. See! After 2 days when the mooncakes "returned oil", you will find that the Chinese characters becomes clearer, the mooncake surfaces are glossier and the color of the pastry has even out nicely.


These were the lot - 6 minis as stated in the recipe that I baked on 19/08/2005.

Sliced mooncake for you to check out the pastry texture.

Green Tea Chiffon Cake

Green Tea Chiffon Cake is one of the cakes that I always wanted to bake but never get around to doing it. I sort of modify my vanilla chiffon cake recipe to do this green tea chiffon cake. The baked cake is not really a nice greenish color that I expected, it is sort of a yellowish green. Wonder if this has got something to do with the type of green tea powder used 'cos the photos of green tea chiffon cakes from the internet looked so greenish and nice. Do you think any coloring is added to achieve that fresh green color?
Besides all these, the cake is really soft and has a nice green tea aroma.
Actually there's more to it than just nice to eat as green tea has been highly valued for its medical properties which are beneficial to our bodies. So, why not give this a go when you have time!





Ingredients: (20cm tube pan)
(A) 4 egg yolks
30g castor sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp honey
(B) 4 tbsp warm corn oil
80ml warm water + 2 - 3 tsp green tea powder
2- 3 tsp rum
(C) 100g cake flour
3/4 tsp baking powder

(D) 4 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
40g castor sugar

Frosting:
1 cup whipping cream + 1 tbsp icing sugar whipped till stiff
some green tea powder for sprinkling

Method:
1. Cream ingredients (A) with hand whisk till sugar dissolved.
2. Add in ingredients (B) in the respective order and mix well before adding the next item.
3. Sieve in ingredients (C) and mix till no lumps.
4. Beat egg whites with electric beater till frothy, sprinkle in the cream of tartar. Beat till white in colour and add in sugar by thirds. Egg white should be beaten till stiff peaks are formed.
5. Put half portion of egg white into yolk mixture and mix it with a hand whisk in 6 strokes.
6. Pour yolk mixture into the rest of the egg white and mix well with hand whisk.
7. Put batter into a chiffon cake pan, bang the pan on a hard surface several times to release the bubbles and bake at 170C - 180C for 35 -45 minutes or till cooked.
8. When the cake is cooked, remove from oven and give it another bang on a hard surface to loosen the cake texture then invert cooked cake on a wire rack to cool for 15 - 20 minutes. Remove cake from cake pan and leave aside to cool completely.
9. Frost cooled cake with whipped cream and sprinkle some green tea powder on it. You can also serve this cake with some canned Japanese Azuki Beans.

Notes:
This is the green tea powder that I used.


Canned Japanese Azuki Beans

Baked Mini Mooncakes

Today I tried a new recipe for baked mooncakes as my sister said that the mooncake pastry of the other recipe is a little tough. I am not sure what the texture of this pastry is as I have to wait for the baked mooncakes to "return oil" ( 回 油 ) which is about 3 days later before I can tell you which recipe is better.
Anyway, for those who are keen to try I have posted the recipe below.





Ingredient: (6 mini mooncakes and extra for 1 piggy biscuit)
100g plain flour
30g peanut oil
65g golden syrup (Abram Lyles)
1/2 tsp alkaline water

Filling:
180g lotus seed paste
salted egg yolks (optional)
roasted melon seeds (optional)

Egg glace:
1 yolk + 1 tsp water lightly beaten and strain

Method:
1. Mix peanut oil, golden syrup and alkaline water together in a big cup and sit this cup in a bowl of boiling water. Stir till mixture is well combine. Remove and leave aside to cool till warm state but not cold.
2. Sieve plain flour into a mixing bowl. Make a well in the flour and pour in the warm syrup. Mix till a dough is formed. Cover the mixing bowl with a wet towel and rest the dough for 30 - 45 minutes.
3. Divide dough and filling according to the size of your mould. Shape the dough into a round flat sheet with sides thinner than the centre.
4. Wrap in the filling and mould it into a ball shape. Coat it with flour.
5. Dredge wooden mooncake mould with flour and put the mooncake into the mould. Flatten it with your floured palms and make sure that the mooncake fills up the mould nicely.
6. To dislodge the mooncake, bang the mould on a hard surface with equal force in the north, south, east and west direction.
7. Place mooncakes on a lined pan and spray the mooncakes with some water. Bake at 180C - 190C for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, cool the cakes for 5 - 10 minutes then apply egg glace and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes or till golden brown. As every oven varies, please standby to check on your mooncakes. If you are doing standard size mooncakes, the baking time might be longer.
8. Store cooled mooncakes in an airtight container and serve only after 3 days.

Notes:
Salted egg yolks
I soaked the yolks in 1 tbsp Chinese wine (紹興酒 or 玫瑰露) for 15 minutes.
I used raw yolks but you can bake it at 160C for 2 - 3 minutes.
If you are adding in egg yolk, wrap the yolk in the lotus seed paste.

Melon Seeds
I love to add melon seeds to my paste as it gives it an extra crunch and it occupies space so you use less paste...healthier...maybe!
I roast the melon seed in the oven at 160C and when they start popping, you can remove them from the oven.
Cool them before kneading into your lotus seed paste.

Scale
My mini mooncake mould can hold a total of 55g, so I used 25g pastry and 30g filling.
30g filling means lotus seed paste + melon seeds + salted egg yolk = 30g.
Of course you can use less pastry and more filling or vice versa depending on your preference.

Mooncake moulds differ in sizes, so please adjust weight of pastry and filling according to the size of your mould.

This is a published ratio of pastry to filling for baked mooncakes which I read from somewhere (couldn't remember where) and I have posted it here for your reference:
1st class mooncakes : 1 part pastry to 5 parts filling
2nd class mooncakes : 1 part pastry to 4 parts filling
Standard mooncakes : 1 part pastry to 3 parts filling

After notes (21/08/2005):
I used Abram Lyles Golden Syrup instead of Taikoo Golden Syrup for these mooncakes. I just found out from net friends that if you use this particular golden syrup, the mooncakes will be darker in colour.

Choux Pastry - Cream Puffs

Choux pastry is a light and puffy pastry with a cavity in it. This is a nice snack as you can add filling of your choice in the puff cavities. Creme patisserie and ice-cream are commonly used in these puffs as filling.
I personally think that this is not an easy to do snack. Consistency of batter and temperature control is rather important to get the pastry to rise. A lot of times the pastry will rise in the oven while baking and flop afterwards, making them inedible.
I did one lot last night and one this morning and twice I had success with this recipe and here it is sharing with you all!

Just out of the oven and still holding its height.


My share! The rest were gobbled up before I could do a photo shoot.


Ingredients: (8 puffs)
Choux Pastry:
85ml water
50g butter
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
50g bread flour
20g cake flour
2 eggs (lightly beaten)

Creme Patisserie:
240ml skim milk
5 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg + 2 yolks
2 tbsp cornstarch

Method:
Choux Pastry
1. Cook water, butter, sugar and salt in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Turn the heat to low.
2. Add in the flour mixture in one go and mix with a wooden spoon till a dough is formed.
3. Still on low heat, cook the dough for 1 - 2 minutes till a thin white film is formed at the bottom of the saucepan.
4. Transfer dough to a mixing bowl and beat till it is lukewarm.
5. Add in egg by thirds and mix till well blended and smooth.
6. Place batter into piping bag and pipe it onto a lined pan in rounds of about 5cm in diameter. Spray some water on it.
7. Bake at 200C for 25 minutes then 180C for 8 - 10 minutes or till dry and golden brown in color. Turn off the oven and let it cool in the oven for 30 minutes.

Creme Patisserie
1. Mix 60ml of milk with the cornstarch till smooth.
2. Add the beaten egg and yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
3. Boil the remaining milk with sugar in a saucepan till bubbling hot. Pour 1/3 of this hot milk into the egg cornstarch mixture. Stirring all the time.
4. Now pour the egg cornstarch mixture through a strainer into the rest of the boiling milk. Stirring constantly till mixture thicken. Do not burn the custard.
5. Cling wrap custard with glad wrap with the wrap touching the surface of the custard (this is to prevent a hard film forming on surface of the custard) and chill till ready to use.

Notes:
Do not open the oven door in the baking process. Open oven door to remove puffs only after the 30 minutes in-oven cooling process.

Wonderfully Soft Bread

Read some pretty good review about this bread from CLLINBABY's blog. Couldn't resist trying out this recipe. This bread is really soft even when the bread is cold. I was surprised to find that the bread is still nice and soft the next day. Take a look at the bread texture photo which is taken the next morning after baking. Doesn't it looked soft to you?
This is the original recipe: CLLINBABY. I did not follow the recipe to the dot but tweaked it a little to suit my preference.
If you like bread, this is a must try recipe.



I liked this the best, the cinnamon is really aromatic


This photo is taken the next morning after baking.


Ingredients:
310g bread flour
60g cake flour
40g Nestle CoffeeMate
115ml skim milk
20g condensed milk
55g castor sugar
3g salt
7g instant yeast
1 egg + 2 egg yolks
40g butter (room temperature)

Egg Glace: 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tsp water

Method:
1. Sieve flour mixture into a large mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the middle of flour mixture and add in all the rest of ingredients except butter.
3. Mix till a dough is formed and knead in the butter till you get a smooth dough.
4. Prove dough for 50 minutes or till double in size.
5. Divide dough into 12 portions of 60g each and shape it or wrap in the filling. Prove for another 50 minutes or till double in size.
6. Brush with egg wash and bake at 190C for 15 minutes or till cooked.

Shaping:
Soft Cup Bread
Shape each dough into 60g pieces and put it in muffin cups of about 5.5cm -6cm in diameter for final proving. Make 3 cuts on the surface of the cup bread with a pair of floured scissors.

Cinnamon Roll
Flatten 260g of bread dough with a rolling pin into a width 20cm and length 25cm rectangular flat dough.
Brush some water on it and sprinkle a mixture of 1 tsp cinnamon powder and 1 tsp castor sugar.
Top it with optional amount of raisins.
Roll it up like a swiss roll and seal the widthwise end.
Trim off the uneven right and left sides of the swiss roll dough.
Cut into 4 equal pieces with a floured knife.
After final proving and before egg glace make an indent in the middle of each piece with a floured chopstick.
Drizzle icing (24g icing sugar + 1 tsp warm water) to cooled cinnamon rolls and sprinkle some almond flake bits on it.

Notes:
I used the dough cycle in my bread machine to do all the work.
I added raisins and cranberries to some of my soft cup bread.
I used warm milk, microwave the milk on HIGH for 30 seconds.

Taiwanese Sun Pastry

Taiwanese Sun Pastry and Taiwanese Fung Li Shu are two of the most popular exports of Taiwan. I used to receive these from friends who had returned from their trips to Taiwan either on business or for leisure. They are only nice if you buy them from the right shop!
This Taiwanese Sun Pastry is a very fragile pastry - the pastry is very flaky with a melt in the mouth texture and the filling is a mildly sweet chewy QQ mass because of the use of maltose.




Ingredients:
Water Dough
50g bread flour
120g cake flour
40g shortening/lard
20g corn oil
65ml water
20g icing sugar
1/8 tsp salt

Oil Dough
105g cake flour
50g shortening/lard

Filling
80g icing sugar (sieved)
20g maltose
1/2 tsp boiling water
20g butter (room temperature)
30g cake flour

Egg wash: 1 egg lightly beaten with 1 tsp water (optional)
The original pastry do not need egg wash!

Method:
1. Water dough - Sieve all the flours into a big mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle and add in all the rest of the ingredients for the water dough. Mix till a dough is formed and knead this dough till it is smooth and shiny. Cling wrap dough and rest it for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 10 pieces of 30g each.
2. Oil dough - Mix all ingredients together till a piable dough is formed. Cling wrap dough and rest it for 30 minutes. Divide dough into 10 pieces of 15g each.
3. Filling - Dilute maltose with 1/2 tsp boiling water, add this to icing sugar and mix well. Knead in the butter then the sieved flour till a smooth dough is formed. Divide filling into 10 pieces of 15g each.
4. Wrap oil dough with water dough.
5. Flatten it with a rolling pin into a long rectangular shape. Roll it up like a swiss roll.
6. Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat step (5).
7. Shape it into a round ball and flatten it, wrap in the filling.
8. Flatten the sun pastry into a 9 - 10cm flat circular shape and poke some holes on top of the pastry with a fork. Do not poke right through the bottom layer of pastry otherwise the filling will leak from the back.
9. Bake in a lined tray at 180C for 25 minutes or till lightly brown.

Notes:
I have adjusted all sugar amount, so there is no need to reduce any more sugar.
I used Crisco all vegetable shortening instead of lard, hence there will be a difference in term of the quality of pastry.



Guide to shaping the dough

This step-by-step guide will show you how to get the swirl effect on the pastry. However, if you are doing it for the first time ignore Picture 7 -8 but follow the directions as in Step 7 - Step 8 in the Method section. Don't forget to poke some holes on the surface of the pastry otherwise the filling will start to ooze out in all directions in the process of baking. Have fun!

Chilled Mooncakes 2

Still practising and trying out ingredients combination for chilled mooncake skins.
This is today's product Macha Red Bean Chilled Mooncakes and also the black sesame chilled mooncakes.
I have posted this recipe for you all to try and you can compare the difference between this chilled skin to the Chilled Mooncakes 1's recipe.
However, I must stressed that this is not a commercial recipe so we may not get the skin texture or taste to be like those commercial products.
I will not be trying out any more recipes till September, so in the meantime if you have a better recipe maybe you can share with me. :)
Happy trying!

*** I personally prefered the recipe from Chilled Mooncakes 1







Ingredients:
85g glutinous rice flour
30g rice flour
40g ungluten wheat starch (澄麵)
2.5 tbsp castor sugar
100ml boiling water
125ml skim milk or milk
60ml coconut milk
1 tsp corn oil

Koh Fun or Pudding Flour (Cooked glutinous rice flour)

For METHOD, please refer to Chilled Mooncakes 1

To get the Macha flavouring and color I added the following to 250g of the raw batter:
1/3 tsp green tea essence oil
1/2 tsp green tea paste (I dissolve 1/2 tsp green tea powder in 2 tsp boiling water to get this paste)

Black Sesame Lotus Paste:
150g of unsweeten black sesame powder is kneaded into 450g of lotus paste.

Chilled Mooncakes 1

Chilled mooncakes are my kids' favourites. They only liked those ones with mung bean and salted egg yolk fillings.
There are many chilled mooncakes skin recipe floating in the net and which are good or which are not so good, honestly I don't know. I will selectively try a few and for today's chilled mooncakes I am trying Teresa Wong's recipe as there have been good reviews about it.
I will chilled the mooncakes for a couple of days to see if the skin is still good for consumption before I post the recipe. Therefore, keep a lookout!




Sliced chilled mooncakes with mung bean salted egg yolk filling.


Pooh Chilled Mooncake for KR!


This is the mould that I used to make today's chilled mooncakes.
Friends bought this mooncake mould for me yesterday and after treating it with oil bath for 24 hours I couldn't wait but started to use it to make chilled mooncakes this afternoon.


For those friends who are interested in the pooh mould that I used to make the Pooh Chilled Mooncake, this is it!


The cookie mould comes in a pack of 2 and it costs HK$38.


Think I will post the recipe now, so that you all can do and experiment at the same time with me. You can also decide which one is to your liking. Please also let me know how it turn out for you so that we can work towards a better recipe together.

Ungluten Wheat Starch Ingredients:
85g glutinous rice flour
70g ungluten wheat starch (澄麵)
1 tbsp rice flour
2.5 tbsp castor sugar
100ml boiling water
125ml skim milk or milk
60ml coconut milk
1 tsp corn oil

Koh Fun or Puddling Flour (Cooked glutinous rice flour)

Method:
1. Dissolve sugar in the boiling water and leave aside to cool.
2. Sieve the flour mixture into a large mixing bowl. Add in the milk, coconut milk and lastly the cooled syrup. Mix till you get a smooth batter, otherwise strain the mixture till smooth.
3. Pour this batter into a greased bowl and steam on high heat for 25 minutes.
4. When the dough is cooked, leave it to cool for a while and while still warm knead in the corn oil till you get a smooth dough.
5. Wrap the dough up with glad wrap and chill it in the refrigerator overnight or till the dough is very cold before using it.

Making of Koh Fun or Pudding Flour:
Put 50g -100g glutinous rice flour on a tray and bake it in the oven at 160C for 25 - 30 minutes, stirring the flour every 10 minutes.

Shaping your mooncake:
Every mooncake mould differs in size, in this case all weights will be based upon the wooden mooncake mould you see above. Each cell in my mould is about 53 - 55g in weight, the slight difference in weight is due to the complexity of the chinese character that is engraved.

For my chilled mooncake I use 25g chilled mooncake dough and 30g filling.

Method:
1. Cut a piece of chilled mooncake dough about 25g in weight, pat both sides with koh fun and put the dough in between 2 pieces of glad wrap (I use freezer bag), press the dough firmly into a flat round shape and wrap in the filling. Coat it with koh fun (very important).
2. Dredge the mould with koh fun, remove any excess by knocking. Insert the coated dough into the mould. Press until a flat surface is attained, removing any slight excess in the dough. It might get sticky, so do this with the help of koh fun.
3. Knock out the shaped mooncake from the mould by knocking the mould once in the South direction, then once in the West and finally once in the East. While doing this have the other hand ready at all time to catch the dislodged mooncake. The mooncake might be dislodged at any time. Handle the dislodged mooncake carefully as they are fragile.
4. Chill the mooncakes in an airtight container.
5. Best eaten within 3 days as no preservatives are used.

Steamed Chocolate Swirl Mantou

My youngest was urging me to do this chocolate swirl steamed mantou last week but I was too busy doing something else. Finally she got me to do it after lunch today. She had a good time kneading and shaping the dough. She even used the cut outs and made it into a marble mantou.
Lots of fun! Try doing this with your kids, I'm sure they will enjoy doing the kneading as the dough size is small and easy for them to handle. If you like a heartier portion you can double up on the ingredients for both doughs.



My DD's work - Marble Man Tous


Ingredients:
Plain dough
80g low gluten flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp yeast
40ml - 50ml warm water
1/4 tsp corn oil

Chocolate dough
75g low gluten flour
5 - 8g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
more than 1 tbsp castor sugar
1/2 tsp yeast
40ml -50ml warm water
1/4 tsp corn oil

Method:
1. Mix yeast with 40ml warm water and leave aside to rest for 5 minutes.
2. Sieve flour with baking powder and for chocolate dough with cocoa powder. Stir in castor sugar and mix well.
3. Pour yeast solution into flour mixture and knead till a dough is formed. Add in the 1/4 tsp oil and knead till a smooth dough is formed. If dough is still too dry, add in warm water by 1/2 tsp portion till a smooth dough can be formed.
4. Prove dough in a warm place for 30 minutes. Dough will not double in size as we are using low gluten flour.
5. Shape the plain dough and chocolate dough into rectangular shape of the same size. Place chocolate dough on a smooth surface and pat it with wet palms. Stick the plain dough on top of chocolate dough. You can do it the other way round.
6. Roll dough like a swiss roll and cut into desired size pieces.
7. Prove the shaped and cut dough for 10 - 15 minutes.
8. Steam over medium heat for 7 - 8 minutes.
9. Serve warm. For that added touch you can serve with condensed milk for dipping.

Notes:
Low gluten flour: you can use Nissin Low Gluten Flour, Lam Soon American Roses Flour, HK Flour or Steamed Pau Flour.