Fruit Tarts - Food Exchange Program

I was browsing through the recipe books on Sunday afternoon and even though I still have a block of cheese in the fridge, but the sound of cheese does not turn me on any more.. perhaps a bit of an overdose...of baking, not of eating though :). So, please sue, bake more cheesecake, I will eat them all up haha.

Mmm.. Sunday afternoon at about 4pm. Not much time for too fanciful recipes to experiment on. I have never tried to make tarts before. Was considering either the egg tart or the fruit tart but as I have quite a fair bit of Red Globes grapes, Kiwi fruits and some blueberries in the fridge, I decided to make the Fruit Tarts for the Food Exchange Program.

This recipe is from the Cakes & Pastries Cook Book and the pictures in there is simply mouth watering.


Firstly, the tart shells have to be made. To do this, I needed the following items:-

Ingredients for the Pastry

100g butter
35g icing sugar
1 egg beaten
140g cake flour
35g almond powder (which I didn't have)

Method for the pastry

1. Melt butter under room temperature
2. Add icing sugar and beat mixture until it turns pale yellow
3. Pour in beaten egg and mix well
4. Sift in cake flour and stir in almond powder to form dough
5. Divide into small portions and press each portion into a greased tart mould.
6. Poke holes in dough base with a fork
7. Bake at 170C-180C for 10-12 mins.
8. Remove and cool.

Whilst the tart shells are cooling, I commenced on the fillings.

Ingredients for the fillings

100g white chocolate (I used dark as I had half a block left)
3 egg yolks
65g of sugar
40g cornflour
350ml of fresh milk
A dash of vanilla essence
150g of whipped cream
Various fruits

Method for the filling

1. Heat chocolate indirectly until melted
2. Brush over pastry and cool until chocolate is solidified
3. Combine egg yolks, sugar, cornflour and fresh milk.
4. Stir well and bring to boil
5. Allow mixture to cool and thicken before adding in the vanilla essence
6. When the mixture is cooled completely, add in the whipping cream which has been beaten until 60% fluffy. Stir well to make custard. Allow to cool
7. Fill custard in a pastry bag. Squeeze custard into pastry and top with fruits.

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Woo Tow Koh - Yam Cake - Food Exchange Program

On Sunday afternoon, I was still deciding what to cook for the food exchange program. Actually I have a vague idea of what to make as I already have 2 yams sitting in the kitchen :). I did not want to do anymore cupcakes or muffins as it was getting a little boring (but that did not stop me from making them for the kiddos on Saturday though). I went and hunted down the recipe which I used the last time from Lily Ng. That is really and truly a recipe to keep.

I made absolutely zero alterations to her recipe but I think I may have to reduce the amount of salt the next time. This could be due to the type of soya sauce I used this time. Just recently changed brand from the normal one that I usually used. They have already discontinued that brand of soya sauce.

Ingredients:

250g yam, diced and coat with 1 tsp 5 spice powder
1 cup water

(B) Mix together and sieve:

125g rice flour
20g tapioca flour
1 cup water
1/4 tsp potassium carbonate & sodium bi-carbonate solution(optional)
150 g yam, sliced thin, steam then mashed

Seasoning:

1 tbsp chicken stock granules
1 tsp soya sauce
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sesame oil
Dash of pepper
1 tsp sugar

For garnishing:

100 dried prawns, soaked and chopped coarsely - use the food processor
4 shallots, sliced and mix with 1 tsp oil, microwave on high until crispy
2 stalks spring onions, chopped
2 red chillies, chopped

Chilli sauce :

10 red chillies, (chop or blend in the food processor)
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lemon/lime juice (can be substitue with vinegar)


Method:

Heat 4 tbsp oil and saute dried prawns till fragrant. Remove 3/4 and set aside for garnishing.

Add 2 tbsp oil to the remaining oil in the wok, add diced yam and stir fry well. Mix in water and bring to a boil.

Add in (B) and seasoning and cook till batter is fairly thick.

Pour thick batter into a well-greased 25cm round tray.

Steam till kuih is set and cooked through. Spread the garnishing on top and press lightly. Leave aside to cool.

Serve yam cake with chilli sauce.


The only hiccup that I faced last nite was that half way through the steaming process, I ran out of gas :(. Yikes.. and it was at 10pm in the night. Where to get gas delivery at this hour?? Luckily I also have an electric steamer but as it rather small, I had to cut up the half-baked Yam Cake to continue steaming it in batches. Could that have resulted in a saltier cake?? Nah.. it was probably either the soya sauce or my heavy handedness when measuring the 1tsp of salt :).

I didn't realize that Babe will be on leave the entire week as I bought her a portion of the cake. Never mind, I can easily eat it up for lunch later :). So, today's food exchange was only with Sue and wow.. Sue baked some cheesecake and made some yummy sushi (complete with dipping sauce) for me.. wow...this is where I definitely "untung" (gain).

I also managed to pass some of the woo tow kow to some test bunnies. Hope they will like the yam cake, albeit a little too salty :)

Some of these were for the test bunnies

Yummy Sushi from Sue

My favorite baked Cheesecake from Sue also

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Pau Dough

I was chatting with suesue of Cooking Momster-My Kitchen on Friday night on MSN and we were talking of our respect failures in making the perfect bread dough. That was when she recommended that I tried the pau recipe that given inside the box of Blue Key brand of Pau Flour. I wasn't sure if I was confident enough to make paus but then I thought to myself, don't try don't know wor :).

So, on Saturday night (don't know why but I seem to have inspirations to bake after dark. Maybe I was some kind of nocturnal animal in my past life or something) I went to the kitchen armed with the pau recipe to check if I have all the necessary ingredients. Goody, I have but also because it is a very simple recipe, which I reproduced below.

Basic Pau Dough

Blue Key Pau Dough 500g (1/2 a box)
Instant Yeast 6g (1tsp)
Sugar 100g (1/2 cup)
Shortening/Corn Oil 50g (1/4 cup)
Water 250g (1 1/2 cups)

I was too lazy to do this by hand so what I did was to dump everything into the bread machine. The pau dough turned out ok, soft and all. I used the red bean paste that I bought from the bake ware shop last week and I also cooked some meat for the filling for the following day.

The meat fillings

Ingredients for the meat filling

600g of minced meat
4 chopped water chestnuts
2 stalks of chinese parsley (chopped)
1 tsp of chicken stock granules
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbsp of corn starch
1tsp of sesame oil

All the ingredients for the meat filling were mixed together and left overnight in the fridge ready for the paus the following day.

My only complain is my own pau folding technique. These paus are definitely not ready for public consumption yet as they are don't have that commercial look. Suesue advised me to do it often as this technique takes a lot of practice. Okie.. suesue.. will do as you advise and hopefully the next batch of paus will be a improvement to look at :)

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Sardine Puffs

I got a packet of puff pastry one weekend with the intention of making some yummy snacks. But got kind of lazy and didn't do much with it. Opened the packet last Friday to do the potpie and decided to use it for something simple like sardine puffs. Also since I have opened the packet, I didn't want to leave it in the fridge too long.

I tried this brand of puff pastry. It cost RM4:50 from Jusco.

Not too deft with shaping tarts and puffs so I had to make do with very simple designs. The first few sardine rolls were done with using only 1 piece of the puff pastry. Didn't turn out well at all as I must have put too much filling (greedy me) in to the puff that as they wear baking in the oven, the puffs all burst open..looked like they were yawning. Ate them up nevertheless...just so as to dispose off the evidence of "accident case" looking sardine puffs.

For the second batch, I decided to use 2 pieces of pastry to make one puff. They turned out rather flat this time. Could I have put in too little fillings this time?? Oh well, back to the drawing board for me. By the way, the pastry texture is so-so. Will try other brands later, that is when I am to lazy to experiment with making my own puff pastry :).


The Sardine filling is simply a tin of Sardines in Ketchup, 3 shallots sliced with some lime juice added to it and 1 red chillie chopped.

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Pak Tong Ko

Thanks to Babe, I managed to successfully do a Pak Tong Ko (Chinese Sugar Sponge Cake). My first attempt was a total disaster and my brother could have been scarred far life now..haha.. coz he has always love to eat Pak Tong Ko .. until he met my first attempt at it. I shan't even mention where I got that other recipe form. I do believe that it could have been a wonderful recipe for Glue :)

My second attempt was retrieving the recipe off Babe's post and as she recommended, I put in the whole 150g of sugar. It turned out looking like Pak Tong Ko, smelling and evening tasting like Pak Tong Ko. As the recipe didn't really produce a lot of the Ko, I ate some and gave what little left to some neighbours. I can't wait to do it again this coming week to show my brother that I can make successful Pak Tong Ko .... if I followed a the right recipe :).

I have reproduced the recipe here which Babe posted. Credits must be given to Florence of Do What I Like for sharing with us her marvelous recipe.

Ingredients:
A) 170g sieved rice flour
130 - 150g castor sugar
360ml water
B) 3/4 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp warm water

Method:
1. Mix (B) and leave aside for 10 minutes for use later
2. Mix (A) together well and cook over slow heat stirring all the time till a little thicken (this process should not be more than 5 minutes otherwise the mixture will have sago pearls forming). Sieve this mixture into a big mixing bowl and cooled it in a basin of water.
3. Mix (1) and (2) together and blend well. Cover the mixture with glad wrap and prove in a warm place for 1 - 2 hours. When the mixture show signs of bubbles all over the surface then it is ready for steaming.
4. Pour the ready batter into a 19.5cm x 19.5 cm greased pan and steam on high heat for 20 -25 minutes.
5. Cut into serving pieces when cool.

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Radish Cake/Lobak Ko

Sometime last month, I managed to make a yummy Yam Cake (Woo Tau Koh) following the recipe from Lily's blog. I followed it to the letter and it came out wonderful. Anyways, yesterday, I was clearing the vegetable compartment of the fridge and I realize that I still have a radish in there (I think I must have gotten it to make soup or something but didn't get around to it). I remember that Lily also has a recipe for Radish Cake and with full confidence, I downloaded and printed the recipe and got down to work.


I had some for supper last night and some for this morning's breakfast. Again, I would like to say thanks to Lily for sharing such a yummy recipe :)

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Agar-Agar (Jelly)

Agar-agar (Jelly) making is actually child's play and and the hardest bit is selecting the mold haha.. This time, I decided to put it into fish molds that I got from the marketplace. A couple of weeks ago, I made some with longans (from a can). But there is no way I could stuff the longans inside these fish molds. So, I decided to make some sago agar-agar instead. The adults felt that they were a little too pretty to eat... but the kids...they don't really care... jelly is meant to eaten..no two ways about it :)




Ingredients

2 packets of konnyaku jelly (or 20gm of any jelly powder)
1200ml of water
320g of fine sugar
3 pandan leaves
100gm of sago pearls (soaked for 2 hours and washed and drained)
250ml of thick santan (coconut milk)
Permitted coloring as desired

Method :

1. Cooked the soaked sago under low heat until they turn transparent. Rinse it thoroughly under the tap (cold water) so that they do not stick together.
2. Divide the sago into 6 portions and add coloring to each portion. A portion or two can also be left uncolored as this also forms a "color" by itself
3. Mix the jelly powder with the sugar well before adding it to the boiling water. Dissolve the jelly powder and sugar in slow heat. Add in the pandan leaves.
4. Once the jelly powder and sugar has totally dissolved, add in the coconut milk. Bring to a boil and then turn down the flame. This is to ensure the jelly does not coagulate whilst preparing the jelly to be poured into the molds.
5. Select whatever shaped type of jelly molds you like.
   
6. Take a cupful or two of the jelly mixture and add it to one portion of the color sago. Stir well so that the sago pearls are freely floating in the jelly mixture. (Leave the rest of the jelly mixture in the simmering pot to prevent it from setting before you are reading to pour it into the molds)
   
7. You can fill the entire jelly mold with one color or you can fill it with different color layers.
8. To do different layers, you will need only put in a tablespoonful of the mixture into the mold and wait for it to set (coagulate). When the jelly is set, scratch the surface with a fork. This is to ensure that when you pour in the next layer, the two layers will bind together. Or else, the layers will slide off each other when the jelly sets.
9. Repeat step 6 for different colored portions of the jelly mixture.
   
10. Place in the fridge and serve cold.

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