A Sexy One for M

Crimson lips on porcelain skin. Blood-red satin skimming luminous legs. Bold, yet shy. Sexy, yet innocent. Red versus white. Yes, beckoning, and alluring. Call me the open-minded, generous wife, because I brought Sexy back for my dear husband. M was craving for it, and yes, I am not quite a sexy being, but surely I could give him someone something else that fits the bill? It was his birthday, for crying out loud!

We were watching food porn one evening. Sexy filled the bigass screen with her equally voluptuous assets. M got a little hot under the collar, and blurted, ‘Can I have a {Sexy} for my birthday, pleeease?’. Yes I was a little jealous, but the man has his needs and the way to a man’s heart is surely through his………*ahem*.

So I did it. The frumpy ‘housewife’ made Sexy and let the husband do whatever he wanted to it, errrr, I mean her! He certainly was very forward; he ate her and declared that she was one of the best he has ever had. Good-looking, tender, bends to his will, gives, deep, dark, voluptuous, tangy and sweet.

Poor me. I think the girl with the perfect everything actually exists.

Here’s how if you want to make whip up a Sexy. By the way, I was being rude. Even hotties have a name – Red Velvet in this case.

Red Velvet Cake
(adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

For a luscious body:
120g unsalted butter, room temperature
300g caster sugar
2 eggs
20g cocoa powder
40ml red food colouring (only Dr Oetker’s suits her)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
240ml buttermilk
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 quantities cream cheese frosting (see below)

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (fan-assisted). Grease a cake tin (with removable base, 8-inch diameter) with unsalted butter.

2. Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer with paddle attachment till light, pale and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time and beat until everything is well incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, mix cocoa powder, vanilla extract and food colouring to make a thick dark paste. Add this to butter mixture and beat briefly until well-combined. Slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. Repeat this process until the remaining buttermilk and flour have been added. Add salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar at this point and beat the batter until well mixed.

5. Tip mixture into cake tin and bake in preheated oven for 40 min. Turn oven up to 160 degrees Celsius and bake for another 20-22 min. Test if the cake is cooked using the skewer test – it should come out clean. Leave cake to cool slightly in tin before turning it out onto cooling rack to cool completely.

6. Once the cake is completely cooled, cut the cake into three layers.

7. Sandwich the layers with cream cheese frosting, and dress the cake all up in more frosting.

Cream cheese frosting:

300g icing sugar, sifted
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g full-fat cream cheese, cold

1. Beat cream cheese and butter together until well-combined.

2. Add icing sugar and beat till completely incorporated, and that frosting is light and fluffy. Do not overbeat as it can become runny. Add more icing sugar if you like it to be sweeter, or ease up if you prefer it to be less sweet. Do note that the lesser sugar you add, the runnier the frosting will be.

Enjoy her company.

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

 

Japanese Cheesecake with Rose Whipped Cream

Seeing is believing, and in this case, tasting is believing. Here, we have a Japanese Cheesecake. Lighter on the palette and boasting fluffier naughty bits than its Western cousin, it deceives you into thinking that it is good. But no, if you look beneath its angelic exterior, you will find that the cream, the cheese, the fattening bits are all in there; they’ve only been whipped into shape by egg whites. The mere incorporation of air fools us into thinking that the Japanese Cheesecake is healthier….but is it?

*pause for dramatic effect*

OH BUT WHO THE HELL CARES?! Sorry for the outburst but okay, maybe I ain’t sorry, Japanese cheesecakes are just too good to ignore, alright?! I first had one when Fiesta (a Japanese sushi chain in Singapore) churned out all sorts of flavours many moons ago. My favourite was the plain one, and it was impossibly light and creamy. I remember wondering, ‘How does a cheesecake get so light?’. Back then, I was a real noob at baking, and I didn’t know how to make a cheesecake, let alone a Japanese one. It took years for me to figure it out.

Incidentally, I have recently been the worst nightmare of eggs. I dismember them, I turn my nose up at the yolks and I go in for the kill. I whip the egg whites till they beg for me to stop, and then I coerce them into macarons and chiffon cakes. When M’s birthday came around, he requested for a cheesecake; all I could think of was to fashion a Japanese cheesecake out of ‘em poor egg whites. Dictator of eggs or not, I was scared shitless. I had no idea how the cake was going to turn out, I was convinced that it would be a flop, quite literally so. Thanks to a trustworthy recipe, the Japanese cheesecake was anything but. It was light and somehow creamy at the same time. Biting into it is very much akin to pinning a cloud, impossible but so very gratifying when you do so. Think cotton candy, but on a cheesecake. You sink your teeth into a whole chunk, only for it to pull a disappearing act seconds later, and then two days later, you find an even bigger paunch (for those who find a paunch that wasn’t there in the first place, good for you because hey, you don’t have a jelly belly to begin with). That, my dears, is the prestige worthy of Houdini. Just be careful not to suffer a death by Japanese cheesecakes; dangers do lurk in magic, even if it’s light and creamy.

Here are the recipes. The ones in parentheses were the first quantities I tried when I was practising. By following the recipe, and changing it to include the ones in parentheses, you’ll get a creamy, slightly heavier cake with an egg-ier flavour. I preferred the other recipe (turned out to be similar to the original recipe by Alex Goh, it is also the one that I followed for M’s birthday cake), which yields a lighter and less egg-y cheesecake. I also frosted the cake with rose whipped cream; the addition of rosewater masks the otherwise distinct milky taste of whipped cream and gives an understated hint of fruitiness to the creamy cake. You could add rose essence instead of essence of rosewater to give it a more floral kick. I would, if I had rose essence in my pantry.

Japanese Cheesecake with Rose Whipped Cream

Japanese Cheesecake
(adapted from Alex Goh’s Fantastic Cheesecakes)

Ingredients that yield a lighter cake:

160g full-fat cream cheese
25g unsalted butter
100ml full-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
40g plain flour
20g corn flour
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
100g caster sugar

Ingredients that yield a creamier, egg-ier cake:

160g full-fat cream cheese
80ml whipping cream
25g unsalted butter
50ml full-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
40g plain flour
20g corn flour
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
80g caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 140 degrees Celsius (fan). Grease and flour an 8-inch cake tin (with removeable base) generously. Wrap the sides of the cake tin in aluminium foil.

2. Sift flours together and set aside. Beat egg yolks in another bowl and set aside.
3. Melt cream cheese, milk, butter, vanilla paste (and cream, if using) in a double-boiler (over barely simmering water) until smooth. Leave mixture to cool slightly.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar till foamy, then add pinch of salt and caster sugar. Whisk till you get soft peaks.
5. Mix the sifted flours into the cream cheese mixture until relatively smooth. Then, mix in the beaten egg yolks until well-combined.
6. Next, gently fold 1/3 of the meringue from Step 4 into the mixture from Step 5. Gently fold in the remaining meringue until batter is well-combined.
7. Place the cake tin (which has been wrapped with foil) in a deep oven tray, pour batter into the tin, and gently rap it on the tray a few times to get rid of air bubbles.
8. Place the tray with the tin into the oven, and carefully pour boiling water into the tray till water level is about one-inch high. Do not be overzealous with the pouring, in case the tin starts floating and water seeps in.
9. Bake for 35 minutes at 140 degrees Celsius, with a piece of foil loosely covering the top of the cake tin. Remove the foil after 35 minutes (or when cake has risen and threatens to stick to the foil…), and continue to bake for another 20 minutes. Switch off oven and let the cake cool in the oven, with the door left ajar for 1 hour. You might want to do a skewer test before the cooling process, the skewer should not be wet, and should be almost clean.
10. Remove the cake from the oven, and turn it out to a cooling rack to cool further.
11. Frost with rose whipped cream (recipe below).

Rose Whipped Cream
250ml whipping cream, cold
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon essence of rosewater

1. Whisk whipping cream till frothy, add sugar and whip till thick and of piping consistency.
2. Add essence of rosewater and whisk briefly to combine.
3. Frost cooled cheesecake. Plonk some raspberries on the cake. Dust the raspberries with some edible gold lustre, and there you have it, magic!

I have been working on a fundraising event on my blog for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. You can visit this post here to find out more details. I’m pledging a USD100 Amazon gift card to one lucky donor who donates before 31 March 2011, so please, please dig deep and help! – Updated: We have a a winner, and we raised £1510!!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker to see my other featured posts!

Pandan Chiffon Cake…My Best Yet!

Remember the pandan chiffon cake high I was riding on? It was so good a crack that for some insane reason, I went on to create the Lychee Chiffon Cake with Matcha Whipped Cream Frosting. Yes, I am ‘a leetle beet’ crazy. But hey, those days were good. I revelled in the chiffon experiments, gently cradling my mixing bowl as I folded beautifully whipped egg whites into the rest of the cake batter. I also enjoyed inhaling the one-of-a-kind perfume that wafted under my nose as I squatted in front of my humble oven, watching the chiffon rise up, up and away. And my favourite part? Getting swept up in big bear hugs when my pandan-cake-loving husband declared the chiffon a success! Yes, one of the surefire ways to a man’s heart (and big bear hugs) is through his stomach, and I particularly enjoy making M his favourite treats.

It is this love and love alone that made me experiment with yet another pandan chiffon cake recipe. This time, I decided to have a little fun, and combined the very best of both chiffon recipes I tried. You see, with the first pandan chiffon cake I made, the cake was a teeny bit chewy and I wished that it was a little more tender. Then with the lychee chiffon, it was a beautifully soft cake alright, but I didn’t like the way it cringed ever so slightly when I went in with the knife. I was determined to get the chiffon right, and what better way than to be fuelled by M’s insatiable appetite for pandan chiffon?….

……Alright alright, let’s cut the romantic crap. I’m ‘fessing up here. Yes I wanted to perfect the recipe for M, but really, I made my best chiffon yet for a special occasion too. Two dear friends had kindly invited us over to their place for a (REALLY FABULOUS, if I might add) home-cooked meal. As they aren’t Singaporeans or Malaysians, I thought that they might not know what pandan chiffon cake is, and I really, really wanted to induct them into the pandan-loving club. It turned out that one of them have tasted pandan cake before and she was a convert already. That made me pee in my pants a little, because then I was hard-pressed to wow them!

Now, I was really nervous when it was time to cut the chiffon cake at their place. There were two things that I hoped for. I wanted the cake to stand tall and proud even after cutting it, and I wanted the cake to be soft, tender and beautifully light when bitten into. Luckily for me, my pandan chiffon didn’t let the meal down. Phew! My hosts loved it and M was duly impressed. I was most happy with it too, and I definitely think that this recipe is a keeper.

Here’s the recipe:

Pandan Chiffon Cake
(for a 21cm chiffon cake tube pan)

Group A:
70g plain flour
20g corn flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Group B:
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar

Group C:
80ml coconut milk
60ml sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 teaspoon pandan essence
1/2 teaspoon green food colouring

Group D:
5 egg whites
50g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
10g rice flour

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift ingredients in A together, twice. Set aside.
3. Using ingredients in D, beat egg whites till frothy, add cream of tartar and beat to combine until the mixture turns a little more opaque than the frothy state. Meanwhile, combine the caster sugar and rice flour in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of this mixture to the egg white mixture, and beat till you get soft peaks. Then add the remaining caster sugar-rice flour mixture gradually and beat till stiff peaks form. Set aside.
4. Using the ingredients in B, beat the egg yolks and sugar together till volume triples and mixture turns pale. Meanwhile, combine ingredients from C in a bowl. Beat in the combined ingredients from C to the egg yolk mixture. Next, add the flour mixture from Step 2 and beat well to combine.
5. Fold 1/3 of the meringue (from Step 3) to the batter from Step 4. Then gently fold in the remaining meringue until well-incorporated.
6. Pour the batter into the chiffon cake tube pan, use one chopstick to swirl round the batter to get rid of some bubbles. Smooth out the surface with a spatula to remove the ripples created by the chopstick.
7. Bake the cake at 160 degrees Celsius for 16 min, then turn the temperature down to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for 29 min. The times and temperatures may differ, depending on the oven.
8. Remove the cake pan from the oven and invert it immediately. Let stand to cool.
9. Unmould the cake when it is completely cooled, by running a knife along the surfaces that the cake makes contact with the pan (including the tube itself).

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Updated: I have been working on a fundraising project on my blog for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. You can visit this post here to find out more details. I’m pledging a USD100 Amazon gift card to one lucky donor, so please, please dig deep and help!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

Don’t forget to join me on my journey in making the perfect chiffon cake. My first instalment was on the pandan chiffon cake, check it out here! Or hop over to have a look at my lychee chiffon cake!

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker to see my other featured posts!

 

The Pleasure Monger Turns One!

Slightly more than a year ago, I was pessimistic, tired and really quite despondent as things on the PhD front were nothing short of a catastrophe. M, being the thoughtful, optimistic and patient husband he is, constantly told me to put my chin up, to remember that life is more than the lack of results in my research. He reminded me that we were in a good place, experiencing life overseas, seeing, tasting and cooking things that we might never have encountered if not for our time in London. He encouraged me to keep a diary of these things we came across, an online diary that is The Pleasure Monger today. And so I did.

On 14 February 2010, we were at home. We just had a home-cooked dinner and I was brainstorming on the name for my blog. Lots of names came up, including Rubs Tummy, Licks Lips etc. But only one represented the broad number of topics that I would like to write about. After deciding on the name, I whipped out a pen and paper and started doodling the logo. I decided to write about food, fashion & beauty, and marriage, each of which are represented by a cupcake, lipstick and a diamond ring that you see on my blog header today. I scanned it in, photoshopped it (that’s why it looks so horrible, because I’m clueless at graphic design…), and put it up. The Pleasure Monger was born with me sitting in my pyjamas, on the floor at the coffee table, in our tiny flat in London. The rest was history.

I became happier after writing. I had an avenue to turn to when I was feeling bogged down. I found a passion in telling my stories to no one in particular (in fact, there were just 15 visits a day on my blog in the first month), and I started paying attention to the good things that I was somehow blinded to prior to all this. In a way, you could say that I was awoken. Suddenly, I realised that I am in a good place. Suddenly, I realised that the small things can make me happy – walking down the streets, chancing upon a beautiful dress, watching the buskers perform, having a delightful pastry in a quaint tearoom. I paid a teeny bit more attention to how I dressed up and took care of my skin. I shared snippets of my life with M. I moaned and laughed at the silly things that happened during my PhD. I ate, I cooked and I baked. I’ve even started dabbling in very amateur food styling and food photography.

It’s the 16th February 2011 today. I just closed a chapter in my life, well, namely the trying chapter known as the PhD. I started on my first job in a completely new line of work. I feel less like a child, and more like an adult. I could write more about fashion & beauty judging from the arsenal of stuff I’ve accumulated since last year. I am getting better in the kitchen. I met quite a few cool bloggers and fostered friendships with them. I am more in love with M than ever before, and I know that our relationship will continue to grow in so many ways. I have seen so much over the last year. I travelled quite a bit. I had an informal interview with two of the greatest chefs in the world. I am taking nicer food photos and inching my way through the world of food styling. My work here has gained so much more exposure that The Pleasure Monger now receives over 20000 hits a month. It has been an incredible journey and I can’t wait to get to the second birthday. There is just so much to learn.

I don’t know how this year is going to pan out. Maybe people will jump on to other blogs and stop reading mine. Maybe more people will identify with what I write here. Hopefully I’ll make more friends and get to know even more amazing people. But one thing’s for sure, it’s been a blast and I love what I do, so I hope to continue doing this.

There are simply so many things I want to say to everyone. There are so many old entries that I want to revisit with you. I had half a mind to do a round-up post but that would be too much because really, all I want to say is thank you for sticking around to read what I have to say and thank you for sharing your life with me. I have thoroughly enjoyed my email exchanges with some readers who have taken the time out to write to me. And really, The Pleasure Monger wouldn’t have turned ONE two days ago without your support.

I shall leave you with one of my favourite photo shoots from last year for my Red/Matcha Velvet Cupcakes with Adzuki Bean Paste and Matcha/Plain Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting. Yes it’s quite a mouthful, but it represents what the last year has been for me. Colourful, pretty, tasty and pretty much damn awesome.

Red/Matcha Velvet Cupcakes with Adzuki Bean Paste and Matcha/Plain Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

Red/Matcha Velvet Cupcakes with Adzuki Bean Paste

Makes 12 (adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

 

60g unsalted butter, room temperature
150g caster sugar
1 egg
10g cocoa powder (or 10g matcha powder if you want to make Matcha Velvet cupcakes)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
120ml buttermilk
150g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 and 1/2 teaspoon white wine vinegar
12 teaspoons store-bought adzuki bean paste
1 quantity whipped cream cheese frosting (see below)
12-hole cupcake tray lined with muffin paper cases

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

2. Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer with paddle attachment or handheld electric whisk on medium speed till light and fluffy and well mixed.

3. On high speed, slowly add egg and beat until everything is well incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, mix cocoa powder (or matcha powder), and vanilla extract to make a thick dark paste. Add this to butter mixture and mix thoroughly until evenly combined. Turn the mixer down to slow speed and slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. repeat this process until all buttermilk and flour have been added. Turn mixer up to high speed and beat until you have smooth even mixture. On slow speed, add salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. beat until well mixed, turn up speed and beat for couple more minutes.

5. Spoon mixture into paper cases until 2/3 full, bake in preheated oven for 18 min or until sponge bounces back when touched. Skewer inserted in centre should come out clean. Leave cupcakes to cool slightly in tray before turning them out onto cooling rack to cool completely, then spoon out some crumbs from the top of the cupcake and fill the well with 1 teaspoon of store-bought adzuki bean paste. Frost the cupcakes with whipped cream cheese frosting.

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

300g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter at room temperature
125g cream cheese, cold
1/2 cup whipping cream
10g matcha powder (if making Matcha frosting)
Edible gold/sherry lustre

1. Beat icing sugar and butter together on medium slow speed until mixture comes together and is well mixed.

2. Add cream cheese all at one go and beat till completely incorporated. Turn mixer up to medium high speed and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, for at least 5 minutes. Do not overbeat as it can become runny. Add matcha powder if you would like to make matcha frosting.

3. Whisk whipping cream till light and fluffy in a separate bowl. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture till smooth. Dust with edible lustre if you like.

Enjoy!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

What I Have Been Up To and…My First Guest Post!

I miss you guys, I really do. So here I am, clearing the cobwebs to say……I’m STILL alive and that I hope you haven’t forgotten about me. It’s been a while since I wrote anything here. I’ve got tonnes of comments and emails to reply to (I’m sorry, please give me some time). I have not baked or cooked anything recently. The last thing I made was tau yew bak  (braised pork belly), which took me 4 hours on Chinese New Year’s Eve and that was it. So it must have been a week? And that’s a ridiculous record in my books because it means that I’ve been feeling pent up from the lack of my favourite activities. Nothing remotely interesting happened over the last week. I’ve just been holed up in the study, poring over mountains of journals and books, with a pencil and my laptop fired up to get me to the finishing line. I shan’t say too much here, all shall be revealed by the end of this week. And yes, hopefully, you’ll see me resurrecting my annoying self on Facebook, Twitter and the blog when ‘things are revealed’.

It sounds like I had a sucky week, eh? That was pretty much the case, except for the one thing that I’ve been looking forward to for a month now. You see, I started putting my heart, soul and food (but of course..) out for the world to see on 14 February 2010. As the first birthday of my blog approaches (I’m thinking of making something to celebrate this, any ideas?), I marvel at the journey that I’ve been on for the past year, especially with regards to all the cooking and baking I’ve done. Personal growth as a humble home cook aside, I’ve also had the great fortune of meeting quite a few bloggers through all that writing. One of them is none other than Notabilia, who has invited me to pen my very first guest post. I can’t think of a better way to kick off the birthday celebrations for my blog, so thank you for this party, Notabilia.

For this month’s ‘Cooking With…’ instalment over at Notabilia’s, I created a fusion pastry of sorts, something that is inspired by my home country, Singapore, and my current time in London. Over the years in Europe, I’ve become acquainted with beautifully crafted pastries that have not seen the light of day in Singapore.

One of the pastries that has me eating out of its hand (or feet, you’ll see why) is the French macaron. I became enamoured with these delicate babies when my friend took me for birthday tea at Ladurée in Harrods slightly more than a year ago, and it is an understatement to say that my life was changed after that. A few months later, I took the first bite of Pierre Hermé’s ingenious creations, and I became obsessed, in the most psychotic of ways, with these almond cookies. I endeavoured to make them in my kitchen, the first time without incorporating almonds, and without using the proper method. They were delicious but were without feet. Then I tried making them again, this time using the proper method, and lo and behold, I got lucky. One macaron flavour then paved way for another in my kitchen. I was making them regularly in 2010, constantly thinking of new flavours to try out, and I am always excited to get my hands dirty.

So what are these feet that we’re talking about? You know the ruffle-y bit underneath that smooth surface, the bits that are getting cosy with the filling? That’s the feet. Getting them to appear is a bit of a terrifying, stressful venture that drives bakers nuts, and yes, all macaron aficionados should inspect these cookies for proper anatomy. So we’ve got the appearance sorted. How about the taste? Well, a macaron should have a crispy exterior that yields to a slightly chewy centre, and then the shell should cave to the most luscious cores, such as creams, ganache etc. The difficulties are apparent in making a macaron. We need to master the perfect balance between crisp and chewy textures, and we need a good filling. We also need feet. Such a massive amount of effort goes into making these babies that it’s no wonder bakeries hold these ransom for exorbitant amounts of cash. It is also for this reason, that I have gotten round to making macarons at home.

I’m happy to say that feet are aplenty since my first proper attempt, and I hope they continue to pitter-patter their way through my life or at the very least, take The Pleasure Monger to its second birthday (you see, the business of getting feet or no feet seems to be jinxed and I hope that I didn’t just do my luck in). Enough about macarons and getting all nostalgic on my side, let’s bring you over to my first guest post at Notabilia’s to have a look at the recipe! In the meantime, wait for my return!

If you love macarons, join me on my macaron journey.

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

 

Chinese New Year: Bake, Learn, Laugh and Eat

I’ve had the great fortune of meeting the lovely E of heavenwildfleur in person on a few occasions over the last couple of months and certainly feel very blessed to have made a wonderful and incredibly talented friend like her. When she invited me to her place for a bake day in the weekend leading to Chinese New Year, I couldn’t possibly say no, could I? So I kicked my books aside, packed my baking tools and some ingredients, and barged my way into her very lovely home. The rest was baking history, really.

We searched high and low for reliable recipes for two of the many Chinese New Year goodies that we wanted to snack on, the mandatory pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit, a coconut biscuit that crumbles pleasurably and melts in your mouth. Luckily for us, there are some very trustworthy Singaporean bloggers we can rely on, and we turned to The Little Teochew for pineapple tarts and Lily’s Wai Sek Hong for kueh bangkit.

We started off at about 11.30am with the pineapple tarts and soon I found myself bringing the tart dough together whilst E got on with cooking the tapioca flour for the kueh bangkit. It was a lot of fun, and very eye-opening too as it is the first time that I’ve baked with someone (so talented and knowledgeable to boot), so it was incredible (for me, not sure if it was the case for E….) to banter over bakes and cakes. I learnt a lot during this session and realised the value of discussing recipes. Most of the time, I bake on my own, mutter to myself when something goes wrong and try to rectify mistakes alone. Talking the recipes (and life) out with E really helped and lent a new dimension to the bits and bobs of baking! It was also very fun to think out of the box and brainstorm ways to shape the pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit without proper moulds. If you would like to know, we used standard cookie cutters for the tarts and made a depression in the middle for the pineapple jam using the end of a rolling pin. As for the kueh bangkit, we made gnocchi-like shapes, round ones, rectangle ones, curry puff-like ones (don’t ask) before settling on moulding the dough into ‘windmills’ and making the indents with tines of a fork. In a way, we took ‘hand-made’ to the next level with these goodies.

You would think that with all the discussion, two pairs of hands, one talented brain (E’s) and one puny putrefying lump of neurons (mine), we would have triumphed over the recipes and emerged with perfect trays of pineapple tarts and kueh bangkit. I kid you not but it took us 3 trays of tarts and 2 trays of kueh bangkit before we mastered the baking times and temperatures. My lump of neurons must have let E’s brain and the recipes down. Numerous attempts, tonnes of squatting down in front of the oven, lots of laughs and a bak kut teh lunch later, we dusted our hands at about 5pm with 100 pineapple tarts and 90 pieces of kueh bangkit. The sun had set by then and though two of us whipped out our ginormous DSLRs to capture our deeds (what did you expect when you put two food bloggers together?), I didn’t manage to get nice pictures of the trays of goodies laid out in their naked glory (E, post your pictures please….), so I packed some home for the shoot on the next day.

If you swung by to eavesdrop on how the recipes went, I can tell you that they were pretty reliable! The goodies didn’t taste like how we would have liked them to be on the day they were baked, but having let them ‘rest’, they were way better on the next day. We think they are probably like macarons, since they taste better after being rested. We have no idea why but are happy that our efforts didn’t go to waste. We did make some changes to (or would tweak) the recipes to make them work better in our hands. I had to add one more egg yolk to the pineapple tart dough to bring the crumbs together before letting the dough rest. E found that it might be better to remove the pandan leaves after the third round of cooking so they don’t burn and overpower the coconut flavour in the kueh bangkit. We also had to adjust the oven temperatures and baking times. As promised, the pastry for the pineapple tarts was crumbly and flaky (although I did think that it could do with a more buttery flavour) and the kueh bangkit had a pleasant texture to it, slightly crunchy on the outside and melt-in-the-mouth on the inside. These recipes are good templates to work on with future attempts. I think they are keepers, alongside with that for my clementine macarons, and I would certainly revisit them when I bake for Chinese New Year again!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

 

 

Happy Chinese New Year

As Chinese New Year approaches, you’ll see a flurry of activities in every Chinese household. We spring clean to rid of ill-fortune and welcome good luck. We deck our homes in red and gold, both auspicious colours for the Chinese, to celebrate the most important traditional Chinese festival. We cook, we bake, we feast and we grow fat with our dear family and friends, all in the name of the new year. It is a time to gather with loved ones, particularly so on the eve of the Chinese New Year when we have reunion dinners with our families. It is a time when we say, out with the old, in with the new. This spring festival lasts for fifteen days, and is so important that even those away from home will endeavour to keep to the traditions of preparing ourselves for a blessed year ahead. Like us.

As we bid farewell to the Year of the Tiger and give a warm welcome to the Rabbit, we find ourselves somewhat wedged in no man’s land for Chinese New Year. This is the 4th year that we’re spending the festival overseas without our families. Nobody kicks up a big fuss over Chinese New Year in London, you don’t feel the excitement in the air, in fact, you wouldn’t even realise that the Chinese are celebrating it unless you set foot into Chinatown. That is where you will see families huddled into crowded supermarkets, peering into baskets and baskets of goodies, filling their trolleys up with groceries and cartons of mandarin oranges, and yes, you might even catch the occasional Chinese New Year song. But once outside of Chinatown, everyone is oblivious to the festival. The only way you’ll experience it is if you step into a Chinese home, such as ours.

Although our home severely lacks decorations, we are on our way to putting up three miserable couplets that we bought years ago. I haven’t managed to get a bunch of pussy willow, and doubt I will have the time to do it. I even contemplated putting up red packets (known as ang baos) on my Christmas tree, which I’ve only taken down last week. We haven’t bought any groceries appropriate for the new year. The only things that hint at the festival are a couple of red packets that we received from our parents, and a heap of oranges and clementines in our fruit basket. Traditionally, tangerines are a symbol of good luck and oranges are that of wealth. You will find that many food items we consume or exchange with family and friends are a symbol of either, or that of good health, happiness etc. These items are chosen as such because their names sound like the respective blesssings in Chinese. We couldn’t get tangerines, but all the same, clementines are a type of mandarin oranges, so that’s good enough for us.

During Chinese New Year, we visit our family and friends to wish them a blessed new year, and to catch up on our lives. No one shows up empty-handed and it’s important to bear gifts as a show of goodwill. These gifts are typically returned in other forms, depending on what the host family has purchased, really. Of these, the most important ones are oranges or tangerines. These are given in pairs, and for the more superstitious host families, never show up four oranges as four sounds like death in the Chinese language. The host families will return the oranges from their own stash to you, and this means that they give their blessings to you too. As you can see, oranges are a staple during the new year, and this, my dears, is the source of my inspiration for the Year of the Rabbit.

With this in mind, I thought it might be interesting to put a twist in the traditional Chinese New Year snacks. Instead of pineapple tarts, kueh bangkit, love letters and what-not, I decided to make some clementine macarons to welcome the new year. In a way, it is a perfect {fusion} representation of our circumstance as we are celebrating Chinese New Year in London. I put a dash of grated clementine zest in the macaron shells and made them a beautiful sunset shade of orange with the wonderful bottle of food colouring that Dad gave me in December last year. I also filled the shells with an orange buttercream that has been infused with orange zest and orange and lemon juice for the citrusy fragrance and tartness. The flavours worked beautifully (although they turned out a little sweet because my oranges were unusually sweet) and I think they make rather pretty gifts. So if you would like to present something different to your loved ones this year, why don’t you make a box of these clementine macarons instead? The possibilities are endless, really. You can make the buttercream however sweet or tart you want, and you could even make pineapple macarons in place of pineapple tarts.

I’m really happy with these macarons and wish I could box them up and give them to our families. But everyone’s 6000 miles away and besides, M and I might just finish the whole stash before our friends come over tomorrow night…..Oh well, there’s always next year, and the year after…..

For now, the plateful of clementine macarons do well to brighten up our currently un-festive home. That, and a bunch of oranges and a couple of red packets. Oh, and the couplets too. Happy Chinese New Year, everyone! I wish you prosperity, good health and happiness for years to come. Have a good one, and eat loads on our behalf!

Here’s the recipe:

Clementine Macarons with Orange Buttercream

For the macaron shells:
(adapted from heavenwildfleur)
Makes 34 shells

66g egg white, aged
2g egg white powder
60g caster sugar
90g almond flour
110g icing sugar
1/3 teaspoon grated clementine zest
A few drops of orange food colouring

1. Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius.

2. Blitz almond flour, icing sugar and grated orange zest to combine and make the meal as fine as possible. Sift blitzed ingredients together in a bowl.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites and egg white powder till soft peaks are formed. Whisk in caster sugar until stiff peaks form.

4. To the egg white mixture, fold in dry ingredients from Step 2 in 1/3 portions to combine. Add colouring, then fold in the mixture more vigorously. Test the consistency from time to time by lifting a generous dollop of macaron paste and dropping it into the mixing bowl. If the macaron paste does not settle smoothly after 30 seconds, continue folding the paste. If the macaron paste smooths out too quickly, you’ve gone too far.

5. Pipe out the shells onto a baking sheet lined with parchment and leave them to rest for 25 minutes before baking.

6. When a crust is formed, turn temperature on oven down to 140 degrees Celsius and bake for 15 minutes, turning the tray halfway through baking.

7. Cool parchment of baked shells on cooling rack. Unmould when the shells are completely cool.

For the Orange Buttercream:

100g unsalted butter
250g icing sugar
2 teaspoons lemon juice (adjust levels according depending on personal taste)
3 teaspoons orange juice (adjust levels according depending on personal taste)
2/3 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 tablespoons orange-infused milk (leave 1 tablespoon orange zest in 2 tablespoons of milk in fridge, overnight)

1. Beat butter and icing sugar together till creamy.

2. Add juices and zest and beat till smooth.

3. Add milk and beat till combined. If this is too runny, chill buttercream before piping onto shells.

4. Fill cooled macaron shells with buttercream and sandwich.

Enjoy!

If you love macarons, join me on my macaron journey.

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

 

Lychee Chiffon Cake with Matcha Whipped Cream Frosting

We were browsing the market one of the weekends when we spotted cartons and cartons of lychees on sale. We looked at each other with eyes the size of tennis balls, and right about 1.23 seconds later, we went ballistic and jumped straight into the pile of lychees like how a rockstar would dive into the mosh pit grabbed a full carton of ‘em blushing babies. That’s about 2kg for only £3.50! Sweeeet-tah!

As we drove back home, I started rattling on and on about the number of things I could bake with them, whilst M licked his lips and wondered how many lychees he could consume in one sitting. By the time we were in the hood, I was still clueless, so of course I turned to some of the recipe books on my bookshelf.

I was obsessed about chiffon cakes then, and true to my psychotic self, I buried my nose in my spanking new recipe book, Okashi by Keiko Ishida, for the next hour. I emerged enlightened, amused and annoyingly eager over the magic that my lychees could become. Before I knew it, I was scribbling notes on scraps of paper, tweaking the basic chiffon cake recipe in the Okashi book as I made sense of it. I declared to no one in particular that I was going to make a lychee chiffon cake with matcha whipped cream frosting.

Bizarre? Yes, I thought so too. I spent a few good hours asking myself if these flavours would work. I mean lychees are beautiful in cakes and pastries (hop over here to have a look at my Lychee Mascarpone & Emperor’s Seven Treasures Macarons), and my love for matcha has not gone unnoticed (Matcha & Adzuki Bean Macarons, anyone?), but to marry the two together? I might as well oversee a nasty divorce before they even say ‘I do’. But I was dead curious and I knew I just had to try. After all, the best recipes always slip right under your nose, when you least expect it.

So I peeled ‘em lychees off their blushing skins, snuck in a fruit or two as I juiced them. I got my elbows deep in cake batter, whipped the lazy egg whites into submission and basically hoped for the best.

The result? A sinfully soft cake, very subtly perfumed with the unmistakeable sweet fragrance of lychees, and enrobed in the lightest, creamiest, bittersweet matcha frosting. It was wonderful. So delightful on the tongue, albeit imperfect because a lot of the lychee flavour was lost during its time in the oven, but still positively pretty in pink and jade-green, and really quite delish. There’s something captivating and terribly addictive about the bittersweet matcha frosting cutting into the sweet lychee chiffon with every pillow-soft bite. I would however, try and use lychee essence on my next attempt to amp up the flavour. As a 1:1 ratio of yolks to whites was used in this recipe, there’s also a more egg-y flavour coming through the cake. Whilst yummy, I think I would reduce the number of yolks the next time I try making this, just so the eggs wouldn’t mask the lychee flavour as much. Still, it was a wonderfully tender cake, so tender that the cake springs back lesser when cut. The problem of getting the perfect balance between texture and structure of a chiffon cake ensues (check out my first instalment on getting the pandan chiffon cake right), but I’m not complaining. M and I finished the whole cake, pink crumb and jade cream alike, in just two days. We’re fat, but oh, we were so very happy.

Here’s the recipe:

Lychee Chiffon Cake with Matcha Whipped Cream Frosting
(adapted from Keiko Ishida’s Green Tea Chiffon Cake in the Okashi cookbook)

1. Lychee Chiffon Cake:
For a 22cm chiffon cake tube pan

(a) For cake batter:
60g plain flour
10g corn flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
50g caster sugar
5 egg yolks
70g freshly squeezed lychee juice (weighed, didn’t measure volume)
60g sunflower oil (again, weighed)
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/4 teaspoon red food colouring (depends on how pink you want cake to be)

(b) For meringue:
5 egg whites
60g caster sugar
10g rice flour
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift flours and baking powder twice, set aside.
3. Beat egg yolks and 50g caster sugar (from Cake Batter list) till volume triples and mixture turns pale.
4. In a separate bowl, mix lychee juice, sunflower oil, vanilla and colouring to combine. Add this to the egg yolk mixture and beat lightly to combine.
5. Add sifted flour mixture to egg mixture and mix to incorporate. Set aside.
6. In a separate metallic bowl, beat egg whites till frothy and add cream of tartar. Beat till you get soft peaks.
7. In a separate bowl, combine 60g caster sugar (from the Meringue list) and rice flour, and add this mixture to the egg whites gradually. Beat till the egg whites form stiff peaks.
8. Gently fold 1/3 of the meringue into the egg yolk mixture until incorporated and continue to fold in the rest of the meringue.
9. Pour the batter into an ungreased 22cm chiffon cake tube pan and bake for 40min.
10. Remove cake from oven and invert immediately to cool.
11. Once cake is completely cooled, unmould by running a knife round the edges of the cake (i.e. where the cake comes into contact with the pan, including the central tube).
12. Frost with matcha whipped cream frosting.

2. Matcha Whipped Cream:

250g whipping cream
7g matcha powder
1 and 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar

1. Chill a metallic bowl in the freezer.
2. Add whipping cream, matcha and sugar into the chilled bowl and beat till stiff peaks form.
3. Frost cake with this cream.

Enjoy!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

Don’t forget to join me on my journey in making the perfect chiffon cake. My first instalment was on the pandan chiffon cake, check it out here!

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Pandan Chiffon Cake – The First of More to Come

I have been going looooony over chiffon cakes. I buy them when I am feeling generous. I cut myself a slice. I close my eyes as I savour  it, and then before I know it, my hands are reaching out for another slice. I blame my husband, M, for this. His love for chiffon cakes has been rather infectious. Because of him, I have cultivated an insatiable appetite for these pillow soft cakes, and I am not about to stop going on a rampage.

One of our favourite chiffon cakes has got to be the pandan-flavoured ones. Pandan is a tropical plant that yields leaves commonly used in Southeast Asian cooking. It has a characteristic fragrance that is hard to describe, one that is beautifully lifted and accentuated by coconut milk. You can’t substitute this flavour with anything else, and I suggest you try a pandan cake to see what I mean. You will love it!

Unfortunately for us, pandan chiffon cakes are rather pricey in London. We often stare longingly at the cakes on the shelves in Oriental marts, hover over them for a minute or two, pick them up only to convince ourselves, as we get to the till, that we don’t need to have the cake. Thankfully, pandan (otherwise known as screwpine) leaves can be easily found in London and they cost nothing more than a pound for a generous bunch. It seems to make incredible sense to make my own pandan chiffon cakes at home, except that…..

…I am terrified of making them. You see, there are some things that I fear in my kitchen. Xiao long bao, macarons, soufflés, pastries and most definitely, chiffon cakes. Of these, I have managed to master the science of making macarons, thank goodness for that or my deflating ego will have to suffer a most terrible death after being rudely trampled on by my losing battle with xiao long bao. I am planning to learn the art of making an erect soufflé and buttery pastries, but for now, I tackle the chiffon cake.

Perhaps I fear them because I don’t understand this whole thing about being a chiffon cake. How can a cake be so soft, delicate, airy and moist, yet stand tall and brave in the face of predatory consumers? I did a lot of research online before I even prowled around for a recipe and found some answers.

The secret to making a successful chiffon cake is in the use of certain ingredients and techniques. Instead of butter, oil is used to create the moist texture of chiffons. A proud meringue has to be made and incorporated into the batter for the cake to rise and acquire the weightlessness that makes it a chiffon. And then, there comes the golden numbers. How about egg whites should I use for that many egg yolks? How much oil should I use? How many minutes should I bake the cake at, and at what temperature? It was after all the reading that I realised chiffons are very much like macarons. They are finicky, temperamental and can go very wrong when things get out of hand. So I approached the recipes like research. I made notes, I tweaked the steps, I measured things down to the last gram. That way, I was in control and well on my way in making the perfect chiffon cake.

For this first instalment, I tweaked ieatishootipost’s recipe (this site has a very good exposition on the components that make a pandan chiffon cake too) slightly for my tin and oven. Much to my delight, the recipe yielded a soft and slightly chewy pandan chiffon cake. The flavours were perfect, so no complaints there. But I did wish that it was a little less chewy, a little more delicate and that the cake would hold its structure better when cut. It was still a really good pandan chiffon cake, nonetheless, and M and I finished every crumb within two days. Without further ado, I invite you on my journey of creating the perfect chiffon cake. Watch this space!

Here’s the recipe:

Pandan chiffon cake
(adapted from ieatishootipost)

For a 23-cm chiffon cake tube pan

3 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
60ml sunflower oil
70ml coconut milk
95g plain flour
5g cornflour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pandan juice
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 teaspoon pandan essence
1/2 teaspoon green colouring

4 egg whites
50g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Ensure the wire rack is on the lowest level in the oven. Sift flours, baking powder and salt together twice and set aside.
2. In a clean, oil-free metallic bowl, whisk the egg whites till foamy, add the cream of tartar and whisk briefly. Add 50g caster sugar gradually and continue to beat till you get stiff peaks. Set this aside.
3. In another bowl, cream yolks and sugar till the volume triples and mixture looks pale. Add the oil, coconut milk, pandan juice, vanilla paste, pandan essence, and colouring and whisk till combined. Mix in the flour mixture from Step 1 until combined.
4. Fold 1/3 portion of the meringue (from step 2) into the egg yolk mixture (from step 3). It is imperative to do this very gently. Then fold in the rest of the meringue, again very gently until well-incorporated.
5. Pour the batter slowly into the chiffon cake tube pan and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for about 20 minutes. At this point, the cake would have risen and mine started to crack, so lower the temperature to 160 degrees Celsius and bake for another 10 minutes. Lower the temperature again to 150 degrees Celsius and bake for another 15 minutes.
6. Remove the cake from the oven and quickly turn the pan upside down and leave the cake to cool in the pan. This will prevent the cake from collapsing.
7. When the cake is completely cooled, carefully unmould the cake by running a knife round the edges of the cake (at the sides and in the centre where the ‘tube’ is). Serve the cake. To keep the cake soft, place a piece of bread over the cake. You will find that the bread hardens, and the cake should remain soft with time. Be careful not to use stale bread, you don’t want to get any tummy aches…!!

Enjoy!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

Check out my next instalment on perfecting the chiffon cake – this time…lychee chiffon!

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

The Lil’ Nubbins I Call Cream Puffs

I had an insatiable craving for cream puffs, particularly the ones from Beard Papa. If you haven’t tried their cream puffs, I’m talking perfect flaky crowns of golden happiness giving way to an atomic explosion of weightless vanilla cream. Ahhhh…

So I thought I might try making cream puffs at home, having had a series of successes with goodies that came out of my oven. I wasn’t all complacent of course, I was just quite encouraged that I may somehow, succeed at making flaky cream puffs but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t approach the recipe with a bagful of nerves. After all, having made cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes and macarons, I’ve come to recognise that pastry-making is a different dynasty of its own. Pastries freak me out,  I mean on the baking front of course; as a result, my personal encounters with pastries have been far and few between in the kitchen.

When I was a kid, I tried to make croissants with my dad. We were experimenting at home, and Dad made it work. Needless to say, I didn’t understand any bit of the technique, and I forgot everything except that layers and an obscene amount of rolling were involved. I was happy to just.eat.

Umpteen years later, I was dating M and I truly wanted to impress, so I foolishly attempted to make chocolate-filled doughnuts. Choux pastry was needed and I did all I could. I certainly didn’t impress and chucked the whole lot away. This attempt left me less than enamoured with pastry-making. When I learnt that choux pastry was once again required to make cream puffs, I felt deflated to say the least, but like I said, I was high on the baking luck I was running on for the past few months. I decided to give it a go. Will fortune favour the brave?

If we’re talking about flaky Beard Papa-esque cream puffs, no, fortune was downright cruel and delivered a sucker punch to my face. But if we’re talking about the slightly chewy, airy sort that are sold in most bakeries everywhere else, then I guess I hit the jackpot. I filled these little ugly nubbins with a simple and light crème Chantilly, dressed them up in a little bit of icing sugar so they won’t seem so naked and rude, and enjoyed them the minute they were clothed. Sad to say, they weren’t very delightful after refrigeration. When I feel like making cream puffs again, I’ll look into recipes that work well with refrigeration.

Here’s the recipe:

Cream puffs filled with crème Chantilly
(adapted from Ina Garten’s profiteroles recipe)

Makes 12

For the puffs:
125ml semi-skim milk
1/2 cup plain flour
60g unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 medium eggs

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius and line a baking tray with baking parchment.
2. Place butter, milk and salt in a saucepan on medium heat, bring to boil and remove saucepan from heat immediately.
3. Stir in flour and mix till incorporated, put the saucepan back on the heat and stir continuously for 5-6 minutes until mixture turns dry (stops sticking to pan).
4. Place the dough into a food processor, and adding 1 egg at a time, pulse to form a soft but very, very thick paste. If you can achieve this with just 1 egg, you don’t have to add the other egg. The paste shouldn’t stick to your fingers when you touch it.
5. Pipe the paste when it is still hot (essential to help it rise) and bake immediately. I piped the paste in swirls with a 2cm nozzle onto a lined tray, and pushed the tips (that will be left behind when you stop piping) in with a wet finger. Bake at 180 degrees Celsius in a preheated oven for about 15 minutes. Switch off the oven and leave the puffs in the closed oven for another 5 minutes.
6. Remove the puffs from the oven and make a small slit at the side of each puff to allow the steam to escape. Cool the puffs on a cooling rack and fill with crème Chantilly. Finish off with a dusting of icing sugar and serve immediately.

For the crème Chantilly:
125ml double cream, chilled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
15g icing sugar

1. Beat the cream and vanilla till frothy and add sugar.
2. Continue to beat mixture till cream thickens and forms stiff peaks. Fill the puffs with the cream when puffs are cooled.

I hope you enjoy making these!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker. Check out my profile on Foodgawker to see my other featured posts!