Chocolate Walnut Cake

Chocolate Walnut Cake - by Aunty Yochana

Ingredient:

1part
380g butter
50g sugar
1/4 salt

2nd part
200g egg yolks
2tbsp dairy whipped cream - optional
230g cake flour
150g Walnut - chopped
100g chocolate chip/rice
5gm baking powder (double action)

300g egg white
250g sugar

1 tsp coffee emulco/paste - optional

Method:
1) Cream butter, salt and 50g sugar till white and creamy at high speed.
2) Drop in egg yolk into the creaming butter one at a time till finished. Aff in coffee paste.
3) Sift cake flour and baking powder, pour into the above mixture and let it mix till evenly.
4) Whisk egg white with sugar till soft peak. Fold into butter mixture.
5) Fold in chopped walnuts and chocolate chips
6) Pour into two 8" round baking tins
7) Bake at 175C for 45 min or till cooked.
8) Cool on a cooling rack before slicing.


Afternote: If using two tins, 800g of mixture per tin.

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Prune Butter Cake

Prune Butter Cake by Aunty Yochana

Ingredient
250g butter
65g sugar
1/4 tsp salt
125g egg yolks (abt 5 eggs)
1 tsp vanilla essence

Whisk together
200g egg white
80g sugar

175g softasilk flour or Superfine flour/Cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder (double action)
200g chopped prune
1 to 2 tbsp Armagnac or Run or prune juice (optional)

Method:
1) Soak prune in run or armagnac or some prune juice for 20mins. Toss with 1 to 2 tbsp flour
2) Cream butter and 60g sugar till creamy.
3) Add in prune, vanilla essense then egg yolks slowly into the creaming butter.
4) Add in sifted flour and chopped prunes.
5) Whisk eff white with 80g sugar till fluffy, fold into the butter batter and mix till well mixed.
6) Pour into a 8 - 9" cake tin and bake at 175C for about 40-45 min.

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Lapis Speckok

Lapis Speckok by Aunty Yochana



Ingredient

567g butter
20 egg yolks
5 egg whites
260g sugar (divide into 2 parts)
142g plain flour
3 tbsp Brandy / Rum or Orange juice
4 tbsp Condensed Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 tsp Lapis mixed Spice (Bake King)

Method:
1) Cream butter and condensed milk till creamy
2) Add in mixed spice, vanilla essence and brandy/run or Orange juice
3) Fold in flour
4) Whisk egg yolks with 1 part of sugar till lemony in color
5) Whisk egg white with 1 part of sugar till stiff peak
6) Fold all the 3 above together till well combined
7) Bake the batter layer by layer in a 8" square tin, lined with parchment paper.

Procedure of baking:
1) Heat up the pan for 5 min in oven at 175C.
2) spoon about 120g on the 1st layer and bake till almost golden, then turn over to grill mode and bake till cooked.
3) Next layer: Spoon in 110g of batter and grill for about 8 mins till golden and cooked. Continue process till finished.
4) Last layer: half cooked, switch to overn temperature of 175c and bake for another 15 to 20mins.
5) Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 5 min before removing from the tin.
6) Remove onto cooling rack to cool before slicing.

Afternote:
As I am using Tefal Oven so the 175C grill is too strong for the bake. The batter has no time to cook but was grill brown very fast. So i used a foil to cover the top of the tin and left it in the over to cook for 5min. Still at the grill 175C mode. After 5min, I removed the foil and let it brown the top before another layer.

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Today, I make more love letter again. This time round I added Flaxseed meal, white and black sesame to make it a "richer" love letter to consume. Instead of just eating sugar and coconut milk, I added Sesame seed and Flaxseed to make it not so unhealthy.

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Love Letter - by Star Online Kuali.com

I have decided to try out another recipe of love letter for a comprision.

Ingredients
125g rice flour
35g plain flour
155g granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups coconut milk (from 1 coconut)
2 eggs
2 egg yolks

Method
Sift rice and plain flour into a mixing bowl. Add in sugar and slowly add the coconut milk. Stir until smooth then add the eggs and egg yolks. Whisk until well blended. Strain the batter.
2) Lightly grease love letter moulds with a piece of muslin cloth dipped in oil. Heat mould over charcoal fire.
3) When heated, place the moulds open over a bowl of batter and pour a ladelful of batter onto the mould. Close the mould tightly and bake over charcoal fire for about half a minute on each side.
4) When golden in colour, remove and immediately fold into a quarter. Press lightly with a tin cover to level the surface.
5) Cool and store in an air-tight container or tin.(You need love letter moulds to make this beautiful kuih that is served during chinese new year.)

Afternote:
I find this recipe of love letter is better than the one from ohTaste. The love letter is more "brittle" whereas the other one is more crunchy. One bite and everything seem to break lose. hahahaha. The coconut taste is stronger as no water is added. I added some pandan paste to distingish between the 1st version and the 2nd version.

To conclude I prefer this version of love letter.

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Kueh Bangkits - By OhTaste Magazine

Kueh Bangkits - by OhTaste Magazine

(extracted from ohTaste Jan 09 Magazine)

Ingredients
500g tapioca starch/flour
140g sugar
2 egg yolks,
1 egg white
85ml thick coconut milk
pandan leave

Methods
1) Gently fry tapioca flour with pandan leave over low heat till fragrant and leave to cool.
2) Preheat oven to 160 Degree C
3) Sift tapioca flour and set aside 1 small bowl for later use.
4) Mix sugar and eff till foamy. Add coconut milk and set aside 1/4 cup for later use. Add remaining coconut mixture with sifted tapioca flour and knead well into dough.
5) Dust a baking tray and tabletop with tapioca flour that has set aside eariler on. Roll out dough to 30mm thick, cut into shapes using biscuit cutters and place on baking tray to bake at 160 degree C for 15 - 20 mins
6) For the remaining dough, add 1/4 cup of coconut milk mixture and knead well before using.

Tips for Magazine
The tapioca flour must be fried and cooled thoroughly before mixing with the rest of the ingredients. It will be ideal to cool it for 2 to 3 days before making the kueh bangkits.

Note:
I dun quite understand why there is a need to keep 1/4 of coconut milk mixture. I probably ignore that unless u really have alot of flour left.

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Love Letters

Love Letters

(extracted from OhTaste Jan 09 Magazine)

Ingredients
3 eggs
150g sugar
250ml thick coconut milk
150g rice flour
60g plain flour
30g tapioca flour
120ml water

Method:
1) mix well eggs with sugar, adfd coconut milk and mix further.
2) Sift all type of flour together and combine well with egg mixtures. Mix well with water into batter
3)Brush the mould with oil, heat up then pour in 1 tbsp of batter, Cover the mould and cook till the batter turns golden brown. Remove.
4) whie ti is still hot, fold up or use a small wooden pin to roll the pancake up. Repeat step 3 & 4 till all batter is used up.

Tips for the magazine:
the knack of making love letter is the amount of batter added to the mould, Any lesser will result in an incomplete shape while too much will affect the crispy texture. Rbr to keep the Love letter in a container after you have made abt 10 pcs. This is to prevent them from turning soft.

Afternote:
I have used the recipe to make the love letter and by using the Takada love letter maker machine. It is a very convinence home appliance, and it is none stick too so I dun have to grease the pan at all. The love letter maker will take sometime to make the few rounds of love letter but as times goes I find it quite fast too.

As for the batter, I find it too thick. So I add abt another 100ml of water and 3 more tspoons of sugar. To me, I find that it is not fragrant enough, may be I shld add in more coconut milk instead of water but coconut milk can be quite fattening. I shall let my MIL and mum tried before I conclude again.

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Fried Chicken Wing - Momjj's version.

Fried Chix Wing

Ingredient
Chix Wings (dislocate the mini drum and wings) - 20 pcs
Bake King crispy floor for meat - 1 pkt
1 egg

Seasoning
Oyster sauce - 1 tablespoon
Soya Sauce - 1 1/2 tablespoon
Hua Tiao Wine - 1 tablespoon
Ginger juice - 3 tablespoon
Sugar - 1 tablespoon
Sesame oil - 1/2 tablespoon
Pepper

Method:
1) Clean the chix wings and drip dry.
2) Add all the seasoning and marinate the chix Wings overnite

Before frying:
1) Take out the chix wings 15 min before frying. (cos the chix wings are too cold after fridge overnite, it will make the temperature of the oil drop)
2) Add an egg and mix well.
3) Drip dry the chix wings. (Drip off all the excess marinate so it is easier to coat with frying flour for frying)
4) Place the frying flour in another plate and coat individual chix with the flour. Pat off excess flour
5) Dip into the oil for frying. Take out when it turns golden.

Note: I realised the little drum is a bit meaty so I usually face it down when I dip it into the hot oil so the meaty portion get to cook fast and stime u will see blood coming out. So rbr to cook the meaty portion thoroughly.

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Roasted Pork Belly

Roasted pork

Ingredient
Pork belly - 1kg
Organic Salt/ Organic SeaSalt - 1 1/2 tablespoons
White PepperCorn - 1 tablespoon
Five spice powder - 2 teaspons

Seasoning
1) Pound the peppercorn, just crushed it, mixed with salt and five spice powder

Method:
1) Wash the pork belly and pat dry it, if u have time u can hang it to wind-dry it.
2) Use a fork and poke the meat, reason to allow the seasoning to go in.
3) Rub the season thoroughly on the meat and let it marinate overnite.
Next day
4) On the oven to 240 degree C to cook the meat for 30 min in the mid shelf. (some oven will be hotter so must keep monitoring, u can lower the temperature if u find it is going to burn the pork)
5) Switch to 200 Degree C and cook for 1hr - 1.5hr (time vary cos some pork belly is very thick)
6) Finally turn the pork belly and let the skin face up to obtain the crispy effect. Take out - once the skin turn crispy.

Note: I use a metal mesh to roast the pork belly and use another tray to collect the oil at the bottom so the pork belly is not sock in the fats. I am using the baking function that both the top and bottom coil of my oven is heated up and will switch to roast function where only the top coil is heated to create the crispy skin effect. Actually baking function can also obtain the same effect, just that the top coil will be faster.

For Salt and peppercorn, u can vary accordingly. Some like it less salt, some like it less spicy. I'm using Himalaya Mountain Salt now. It claimed to be Organic, I tasted it and find the saltiness is almost the same as the commercial one. Not sure abt the seasalt.

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Kueh Bulo

My MIL loves Kueh Bulo and she is complaining that she couldnt find nice Kueh Bulo now. I hope to try out this and hopefully I can give this to her as CNY goody.

The Recipe was extracted from Aunty Yochana's Blog and shis adapting from Anna Phua's book.

Ingredients:
320 gm. Beaten eggs

• 330 gm. sugar
• 225 gm. Plain
• 1/2 tsp. Vanilla essence
• some chocolate rice

Method:
(1) Dry-fry flour over low heat till light. Leave to cool.
(2) Brush a copper mould with oil and heat in a preheated oven at 180C till hot.
(3) Beat eggs and sugar till thick and fluffy and then add in vanilla essence and mix till well mixed.
(4) Mix 35 gm of fried flour with 110 gm. of egg mixture. Sprinkle some chocolate rice over the batter and lightly spoon mixture into kueh bolu mould. Repeat till mixture finishes.
(5) Unmould kueh bolu and let it cool. Store in an airtight container.

Note: I tried making it and the 1st two batch turn out beautifully but the rest of the batch turned out really ugly. May be the copper mould was not hot enough and i didnt brush it well with oil. There are room for improvement as the taste was great but the texture of the mini-cake was a bit rough.

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Natural Blue Coloring

If u come across Nonya Kueh rice dumpling that was in blue, dun panic. They are dye using this lovely morning glory look alike flower call Bunga Telang (clitoria in English)

I read about it but have no idea what kind of flower was that. One day, while waiting for my cab to my work site, I saw a man picking this small flower along the road. This suddenly strike me and I believe this is the flower that make the food blue.

From Wikipedi

Clitoria is a genus of flowering plants that are insect pollinated. These plants are native to tropical and temperate areas of the Old and New World including southeast Asia, where the flowers are often used as a food dye.
In animal tests the methanolic extract of Clitoria ternatea (Butterfly pea) roots demonstrated nootropic, anxiolytic, antidepressant, anticonvulsant and antistress activity. The active constituent(s) include Tannins, resins, Starch, Taraxerol & Taraxerone. Clitoria ternatea root extracts are capable of curing whooping cough if taken orally. The extract from the white-flowered plant can cure goiter. Its roots are used in the ayurveda system of Indian medicine.



Today, while walked past again, I decided to take a few of the seed pod to grow in my pot.

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