Honeydew Sago Dessert

Tang whipped up good authentic Thai food for us. I thought the least I could do was to make a chilled dessert for everyone's enjoyment after meal. A refreshing cold, creamy honeydew was perfect to compliment Tang's real hot and spicy cooking. I serve approximately 10 people with this recipe, including those I gave away to Rachel's house.

We have the sago, all nicely transparent and round. It was originally pink, hence the colour I guess.

It's really all transparent. I finally master the right way to cook sago without having the ugly white dot at the centre of each pearl. I did it the Yochana way. My previous Rockmelon Sago Dessert stated sago done the Precious Moment way. Here, I would like to say they are both the same. This originated from Aunty Yochana and many people did it. Precious Moment was one of them.


I used a melon baller to scoop these balls. Some ain't that perfect though.


I added in 1kg of ice cream so this is pretty much white colourish rather than greenish.



Slightly twisted by me:

200 gm. sago, cooked the Yochana way
10 tbsp sugar
2 cups hot water
2 cups milk
1 kg of vanilla flavoured ice-cream
700 gm. of Blended Honey Dew (I used about 760g)
Some Honey Dew balls (I used 2 small honeydew)

What happen here is that I scrapped honeydew balls from two melon and scrap the leftover with a spoon into a food processor. I then blend them and end up with 760g of blended honeydew.

I dissolved all the sugar with the 2 cups of hot water. When it is all dissolved, I add in 2 cups of cold milk.

I then combined that milk mixture, blended honeydew, all the hneydew balls, the sago and the ice cream in a large bowl.

I stir till all the ice cream melt away and pop that in the fridge to chill until serving time.

Done!

Happy Birthday Tachanon!

Happy Belated Birthday Tachanon! We celebrated our housemate's birthday on the day of his birthday itself. Hence, this was actually made sometime back but I just can't find the time to post it. Been busy with coursework.

This is actually Steam Chocolate Cake (yes I know, this is the nth time I'm making them!) with leftover durian custard topping from the Durian Custard Puff made two days back.


The steam chocolate cake looked so cute sitting snuggly on a large plate. It is actually only 7 inch in diameter. I half the current recipe I have in my blog. And that recipe was already halved from the original recipe. Hence, this is a quarter of the original recipe. The steaming time was about 25mins.

I spread custard on the cold cake and thought it looked pretty plain for a birthday occasion. I'm not good with piping wordings yet.


I end up taking some vanilla flavoured wafers and arrange them around the cake to form a border. I then drizzle some melted white and dark chocolate using my Bailey's Tim Tam Cheesecake recipe (look at the topping recipe). You just can't go wrong with it.

Happy Birthday Tachanon Watana-A-Mornkiat (yeap, that's his full name, freaking long!)

Durian Custard Puff

This was on my to-do-list long long time back. Finally did this! Unlike others, the filling inside this is custard-like. This does not use any whipping cream.

I did this using the dual temperature method where the first higher temperature was used to let the dough puff up as much as possible to form a cavity at the centre and the later lower temperature used to hold the puff in shape and further dry the inner of the puff.

This was 7mins into baking....


And 12mins into baking....

And 15mins into the baking. This is where I lower the temperature setting. Generally, the end result of the puff would be of this size.

What a beauty they are...all hollow inside. Nice....

After baking and left in oven with door ajar for 30mins!


I didn't snap any photo of the durian custard making process. Instead of slitting the puff in half, I piped the custard into the puffs.


The puffs all waiting to be filled with custard.


Just before I forgot, I got the puff recipe from Stephanie Jaworski. Stephy is such an excellent baker! Her puffs are really a tad different compared to stereotype cream puffs like those I made before. The dual temperature do help a little in getting a dryer puff.

As for the durian custard, I made it myself with guide from the custard powder sachet. They have instructions at the back. So, I made it and twisted it and got this:

2 cups of milk
35g white sugar
350g durian meat

Blend the above together and bring to boil over stove. Be sure to wet the pan first before pouring the mixture in. The milk will sclad in a dry hot pan!

10tsp custard powder (50g)
70ml cold milk

Mix the above two ingredients together.

When durian mixture starts to boil, lower the heat and give the custard mixture a good stir before pouring it into the durian mixture.

Keep whisking to remove any lumps where possible.

When custard thickens to a consistency desired, turn off the heat, and chill it in the fridge, preferably overnight for custard to totally take on the durian taste.

Pipe an hour before serving. General rule of thumb is that we pipe till we feel a pressure pushing back against our hand. But I felt that that was way too much. I would pipe a little less just now.
Also, I'm left with about scant half cup of the custard. But I found a good way to use up the leftover! You'll see what I did with the leftover in my next post!

Finally, the next time I make the custard, I would probably make just 3/4 of the recipe or just halve it.

Okay, good night people!

Mars Bar Cheesecake

As promised, this is Rachel's second birthday cake. Not much of a surprise because everyone expected this already. Sad to say, I screw up with the taste. The looks of it was pretty promising too. Waiters in Sofia's, they were very impressed but jokingly called me pirating their version of Mars Cake, haha! Mine is a cheesecake. Got this recipe from Woman's Weekly Magazine ages back.

You could easily google it but I'm not gonna make this again because I really don't think this tasted as awesome as it was mentioned in the magazine and many other blogs. The butterscotch barely taste like butterscotch and was not thick enough for spreading even after chilling. And I double the recipe for the butterscotch stated to make sure I have enough to fill in between and cover the top of the cake as well.

I smear the sides of the cake badly. Hence, the vanilla love letters are there for a reason. To cover up the unevenness of the sides. I always try to stock up love letters, sponge fingers and, dessicated coconut and chocolate rice whenever possible. These are good to use for cake sides if you happen to ripped the ganache and badly need to impress. These are way more convenient than using almond flakes and other crushed nuts.

Only lotsa pictures if you don't mind :=) . This cake is loaded with mars, butterscotch sauce and chocolate sauce. These are sandwiched between the cheesecake layers and also at the top of the cake.


I guess I could never go wrong with messy swirls like that. They are meant to look messy and the more uneven it is, the better it is.

I then arranged chopped Mars Bars on top of them nicely.


Maybe this picture looks clearer?


I end it with a drizzle of chocolate sauce to cover the whole cake. Just a light drizzle will do.

The cake really wasn't that bad, neither was it impressive as well. It was just okay, like plain alright. I cut down the sugar a little too. Some like it, some dislike it, I could see. Oh well, just can't please everyone!


Happy Birthday Rachel!

Durian Custard Filling with Chocolate Snowskin Mooncake

My first mooncake! I thought I should start off with something easy before venturing into something tougher like baked mooncake. I'll however make the baked mooncake when Mid-Autumn Festival is nearer! Just made the golden syrup a month back. Let it mellow for as long as possible. It would also be less sticky and easier to handle if we leave it for a long time according to Aunty Yochana!

Anyway, I used Aunty Yochana's Bird's Nest Custard Filling Snowskin Mooncake as a guide.

I used the same skin and added in 2 tbsp cocoa powder along with the dry ingredients.

As for the fillling, I added in 300g of fresh durian meat and stir it into the mixture before cooking it over stove and towards later, steaming it. I chilled it in the fridge overnight and easily form it into 30g balls.


Same goes to the skin too. I formed them into 30g balls too. They were quite sticky at the beginning but gets easier to work with as time goes by.
I wrapped the filling into the skin and roll them into round balls before pressing them into the mould Aunty Yochana got me. Yes, you heard me right. Aunty Yochana took all the trouble to post it to me all the way to the land of Kangaroos from Singapore. Somemore refuse to accept my money and ask me to treat it as a gift from her. But of course I'm too shy to take it for free and I paid her 10dollars for the postage and the moulds. 3 of them altogether. Thanks again Aunty Yochana!
I didn't do a good job. You could see that the filling were pretty uneven at the bottom of the mooncake. I press them into the mould and pinch out the excess. Hence the filling sorta got pinch off as well.

Also, I didn't use Crisco shortening. God knows why it is so hard to find shortening in Australia. I substituted with vegetable oil. I read somewhere it is okay to do so. The skin was pretty tasty and not oily at all while we were eating the chilled well mooncakes.

Also, if you see the impression for the mooncakes above and below this line, you notice the impression is not that clear. Maybe cuz I didn't use steamed cake flour as suggested by Aunty Yochana to dust the mould and mooncakes. I used the same Kao Fen to do it. Also, could it be because of the mould? Plastic moulds don't give impression as good as wooden does? I really don't know. Plastic moulds are probably better for jelly mooncakes

All in all, it was a good first try for me. A lot of work though. I better be more prepared next time when I'm making the baked mooncakes next time.

I have a little durian left from making durian custard puff and a kilo of yogurt. Planning to make durian yogurt muffins or maybe yogurt durian jelly mooncakes!

We'll see how it goes if I could find some time!

Rachel's Birthday Cuppies

That's Rachel's Birthday cuppies that I made on Sunday night. It uses mini steam banana muffin as the cake base and just simple ganache as the topping. I then proceed to pipe the wordings on using the leftover Royal Icing from the chocolate moist cake.

For the mini steam banana, the steaming time was about 5-7 mins. I doubled the original recipe from Amanda's and made about 60 mini muffins. I used exactly one recipe of the simple ganache.

The eating part was a little messy though cuz I added too much cream to the chocolates. I just hate measuring sometimes!

I really love the 'COS' !


It actually says 'Rachel is 22 cos the cupcakes say so' but the tray couldn't fit 50muffins so I resorted to this. It took Rachel a while to figure out what's on the cake, poor her.

This is what we did with the leftover cuppies!

The moral of the story is to wait for the ganache to cool down before pouring over the muffins. I kinda made a mess and I didn't get the effect I expected. I'll probably just pipe them on next time.

Rachel's birthday is actually this Sunday, August 17. This is her surprise birthday cuppies. I'll make another one for her this weekend when we celebrate her birthday in Sofia this coming Sunday. She herself was generous enough to get us an ice cream cake from Wendy's. Rachel is probably the luckiest girl on earth to have 3 birthday cakes in a week!

Happy Birthday Rachel. Can't wait for this Sunday's big feast in Sofia!

Steam Banana Muffins

I finally made Amanda's steam banana muffins. She received huge compliments for this that I couldn't resist myself from trying. I halved her recipe and made 6 medium sized muffins with it for tea break. It finished so quickly!

Even after adding a little more bananas, it still remain so fluffy and soft.

It looked so good and I love it cuz it's got no brown surface like those we baked. It's white and and you could see the banana fibre all over the muffins surface.

This is how much I've made. Definitely not enough to go around.

I especially love how the top of each domed muffin look. I think they're very beautiful.

Enjoy!

Portion A (beat with fork until reaches ribbony stage)
1 egg
40g sugar

Then, fold in:
1 ripe banana, mashed well (mine was 136gm instead of 100gm)

Followed by:
Portion C (mix and sifted)
75g self raising flour
Just a pinch of baking soda

Lastly, add in: 35g sunflower oil

Blend into submission and steam on HIGH HEAT, 15MINS.

Mini Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Peanut butter was so cheap in Coles the last 2 weeks. My friend got 2 large tubs for 9bucks. What to do with so much peanut butter? I couldn't possibly finish eating them all.

Hence I made mini peanut butter cuppies with it using Aunty May's super good quality mini muffin liner. They're those made of foil with another paper lining the inside of it. You know those commonly used for cheeescake tartlets?

It tasted rather plain actually probably cuz I reduced the sugar a little too much. I did a large batch and made them into 4 types. I topped banana chips onto a quarter of them.


I sprinkled honeycomb cookies coated with chocolate on another quarter. I piped peanut butter icing on another quarter that I've left plain (this was the best among all 4 and is the one you see in the first pic of this post!)

And finally, the plain ones you see on the right are those added with sultanas into the batter before baking. I added in one little box of this:

Equivalent to 40gm

The plain ones ready to be piped. Not much of a difference with the raisins one actually which is why I accidentally piped peanut butter frosting onto some of those with raisins. They reckon it tasted weird, haha!


The honeycomb ones were not too bad. I think they tasted very chocolatey and honeycomb-y.

The last batch waiting to be out of the oven....


Recipe time (Yield approximately 60 mini muffins):

Portion A
100g peanut butter (I used the smooth one instead of the chunky type)
40g butter
1/4 cup of white sugar (I reduced this a little)
1/4 cup of packed brown sugar (I reduced this a little too)

Portion B
3/4 cup buttermilk (I used full cream milk)
3 tbsp oil (I used sunflower oil)
1 tsp vanilla essence

Portion C (Mixed, sifted)
1/2 tso baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup (170g) plain flour


Preheat oven to 175°C.

Cream Portion A until creamy.
Add in one large egg.
Add in Portion B into the previous mixture and blend well.
Finally, add in Portion C into mixture and mix to a smooth batter.
Spoon them into mini muffin caes, 3/4 full.
Sprinkle some with honeycomb chocolate, leave some plain and topped some with banana chips.
Add 40gm sultanas to the last quarter before baking.

Pipe the peanut butter icing onto the plain cuppies. I got the recipe from Allrecipes. This is a real winner. So peanut buttery and not greasy like.

30 g butter, softened
65 g creamy peanut butter
2 tsp milk, or as needed
65 g confectioners' sugar, sifted well

The way I do it is a little different compare to the method given.
This is what I did:

In no sequence, mix all of the above ingredient together until you get a smooth paste.
Spread on cuppies or pipe them out just like I did if you desire.