Cheesy Pineapple Tarts

Do you want some cheese in your pineapple tarts? Here is the recipe may be you are looking for.

Recipe:

Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
50g  icing sugar
l large egg
*310g plain flour
*20g corn flour
*30g parmesan cheese powder
Note: *ingredients - sift together
1 kg pineapple jam, roll into small balls for later use.

Method:
1) Beat the butter and sugar till light and creamy.
2) Add in the egg and beat well.
3) Add in ingredients * and mix into a soft dough.  Rest the dough for 20 - 30 minutes.
4) Take one small portion of the dough, flatten the dough, place a ball of pineapple jam filling in  the centre of the dough, wrap  and seal, and roll into balls. Place them on the greased baking tray. Brush with egg yolk. Bake in the preheated oven at 175 deg C for 15 - 20 minutes.

Note: I used Chinese tea  leaves to decorate them to look like mini apples.

Oats And Sun flower Seed Cookies

Today I would like to share with you my first attempt of this lightly chewy and  buttery cookies for the Chinese New Year. One of the  main ingredient is sunflower seeds, which is a good source of dietary fibre and Vitamin E, folate and magnesium! A healthier cookie as compared to pineapple tarts and chocolate chip cookies.

Recipe: Source from Cookies, bars & brownies with minor modification

Ingredients:

225 g plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4 tsp salt
250 g salted butter, softened
180 g light brown sugar
200 g castor sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 large eggs
300 g rolled oats
100 g sunflower seeds

Method:

1)  Preheat the oven to 180 deg C. Grease three large baking trays or line with parchment paper..
2)  Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, sift together.
3)  Beat the butter, both sugars and the vanilla in a large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until just blended after each addition.
4)  With the mixer on low speed, beat in the flour mixture, oats, and sunflower seeds.
5)  Drop teaspoons (tablespoon for big biscuits) of the dough onto the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 10 -15 minutes, until golden brown. Rotate the baking tray half-way through for even baking.
6)  Let the cookies cool on the baking  trays until they harden a little, 2-3 minutes.  Transfer to racks and let cool completely. Store in an air-tight container.

Mini Yam Kuih - 芋头巧

First attempt at making this mini Yam Kuih. I brought these kuih along for a gathering.  This is a very good bite-sized snack for a party. Just use a fork to pick up one piece and dip into the chilli sauce and send it straight down your throat. Mmmm... my friends loved it! One of them even packed the remainder home.

Recipe (adapted from Carol 胡涓涓老师)

Ingredients:

- 6 dried mushrooms

- 1 handful of dried shrimps

- 150g yam (without skin)

- 3 red onions, sliced

- 120g glutinous rice flour

- 80g rice flour

- 10g corn flour

- 160cc water

Seasoning:

- 1 tbsp rice wine

- 1 teaspoon light soy sauce

- 1 teaspoon salt

- Sugar to taste

- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Method:

1) Soak mushroom, drain and dice into small cubes.

2) Same for dried shrimps.

3) Cut yam into 1cm cubes.

4) Slice onion shallots.

5) Heat up 1 tbsp oil in wok. Place mushroom, dried shrimps and shallots and fry until fragrant.

6) Add yam cubes and fry for 2-3 mins.

7) Add water and seasoning, cover wok and use low heat for 10 mins. Cut off after that.

8) Place glutinous rice flour, rice flour and corn flour into bowl and mix well.

9) Add the yam mixture  into bowl. Using chopsticks, quickly whip mixture into uniform lumps. Allow mixture to cool to prevent scalding.

10) Wet palms with vegetable oil, shape lumps into palm-sized crescent dough or any patterns to your liking.

11) Line and grease tray, place doughs onto tray and steam for 15 - 20 mins over high heat.

12) Serve with garlic/chilli with soya sauce.

ENJOY!

Coffee Spare Pork Ribs

Recipe:

Ingredients:

500 g spare ribs, chopped about 3 cm long

Marinade:

 1/2 tbsp oyster sauce

1/2  tsp sugar

1/2  tsp salt

1/2 tsp sesame oil

1/2 egg

1 tbsp plain flour

1/2 tbsp custard powder

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

50 ml water

60 g ~80 g corn flour

Sauce:

2 tbsp maltose

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp sugar

1 tsp instant coffee powder

50 ml water

Method:

1) Wash and dry ribs.  Combine spare pork ribs with marinade ingredients and mix well.  Marinate at least  for 3 hours.

2)  Mix and toss corn flour till ribs are well coated. Deep-fry over moderately hot oil till light brown. Dish up and drain. Reheat oil,  re-fry ribs till cooked and golden brown . Dish  and drain.

3)  Pour sauce into a clean wok and cook till thickened.  Add ribs. Toss till well coated. Serve.

QQ Glutinous Rice Dumplings

Happy  DongZhi to all of you.

Tomorrow is Chinese Winter Solstice Festival or called  "DongZhi" （冬至）which symbolises reunion and a year older by eating the tang yuan.

The main ingredient for the tang yuan that you normally have is glutinous rice flour and water only, just combine and knead into a dough.  But this year I give it a change.  I add bean curd and fruit jam into glutinous rice flour .  Very curious and interested to know the result of the end products? So do I!.So I without any hesitation, gathered all the ingredients to start it off.

The texture of the tang yuan is very smooth and fine, and  bouncy. Nice, nice. I like.

Recipe:

You can make many colourful tan yuan from the natural colouring  of vegetable and fresh fruits. It is a good news for those people who do not like artificial colouring. The method is very easy, just combine the ingredients and knead into  a smooth and fine dough.  Divide into small portion, roll round, cook them in a pot of boiling water.  When they are afloat on the surface, dish up and serve with sweet soup or syrup water.

Strawberry tang yuan: 
 30 g glutinous rice flour
10 ~ 15 g bean curd ,( eg. unicurd brand)
20 g strawberry jam

Mango tang yuan:
30 g glutinous rice flour
10 ~ 20g bean curd
20 g mango jam

Pumpkin tang yuan:
30 g glutinous rice flour
25 ~30 g bean curd
25 g pumpkin puree
5 g fine sugar

Black sesame tang yuan:
30 g glutinous rice flour
30 ~ 40g bean curd
1/2 teaspoon black sesame paste (from supermart)

Green Tea tang yuan:
30 g glutinous rice flour
30 ~ 35 g bean curd
1/4 green tea powder (dissolved with 1/2 tsp hot water)

And many others, you can go and modify yourself.

Serve tang yuan in sweet soup.

I adapted the recipe from this book.

Christmas Tree Bread 2013

Merry Christmas!

When I saw Veronica's ( Minty's Kitchen) beautiful Christmas tree bread, that inspired me I must give it a
try.  I adapted the Carrot Bread recipe from Carol (胡涓涓老师).

Here, I would like to wish all the food bloggers and my friends a Merry X'mas and a Happy New year

Chiffon cake - Why do I use more egg white than egg yolk?

Not too long ago, a reader posed this question to me - why do my Chiffon cake recipes mention using a larger proportion of egg white than egg yolk?

Ah hah, that is a really good question!

I am not an expert in Chiffon cake so may I humbly share that in my experience of baking cakes, there is no right or wrong to use different proportion of egg white to egg yolk. It is also common to find recipes that use the same amount of egg white and egg yolks. However, my personal preference is to use more egg white than egg yolk, for the reason that the cake will turn out more fluffy and 'springy'.

Why? This is because when egg whites are baked at high heat, they tend to expand/rise/increase in volume better than egg yolks. That said, egg yolks also have their benefit too; it will solidify faster and hence 'hold' the cake ingredients together. 

In summary, it is up to your preference the percentage of egg white to egg yolk for your cake recipes. For more explanation, please refer to the details I have attached below :)