Azuki Matcha Terrine

This recipe is from TasteMade

As I didn't have any heavy cream at home, I had substituted it with coconut cream instead. Let's hope it is not a disaster and I get an interesting flavour with a hint of coconut!

Please head over the TasteMade website on the link above. I love that website as their video presentation is always so easy to understand.

Ingredients

25 grams matcha powder, sifted
200 ml  heavy cream  coconut cream
90 grams white chocolate
30 grams butter
1 egg yolk
1 whole egg
1 tbsp flour, sifted
100 grams prepared sweetened azuki beans  I used can of red bean paste from Asian grocer.

Method

1. Heat heavy cream in a saucepan over low heat until simmering. Turn off the heat. Add the white chocolate and butter to melt. Mix until smooth.
2. Combine flour, matcha powder, whole egg and one egg yolk and mix well.
3. Line a slender pound cake tin with parchment paper. Layer adzuki beans on the bottom, making sure it's nice and flat. Pour in the matcha mixture. Make a water bath and bake for 30 minutes at 150 degrees C. Take out of the oven and let it cool completely. Refrigerate until chilled.
4. Take out of the mold and slice into individual portions. Serve with chipped cream and a sprinkling of matcha powder if desired.

The verdict:

No coconut hint was detected in ref to my using coconut cream instead of heavy cream. It is an extremely rich dessert and this is the one time, I'm actually liking the bitterness of the Matcha because it actually complemented the sweetness of the red bean paste. This dessert is truly outstanding and I don't mean mine, just go make one and you will know what I mean! So yummy!! You should only serve it in one small square as it is very rich and creamy. 

Apple Rosette

The rain brought some relief this weekend after the unusual hot Spring week. Err, so guess what I did on the first cool day that we had this Spring? I had decided to bake.

I had a free weekend and so I thought that I might bake something. I had watched this video on Tips Hero and wanted to give the recipe a try. So basically, it's an apple rosette, slices of cooked apples rolled in pastry to look like roses. It was so pretty!

Watch the video. http://tiphero.com/baked-apple-roses/

I made more than six roses and I mixed up some spiced brown sugar instead of fruit preserves for fillings. So, here is the recipe from the link.

Ingredients:

Here’s what you need to make 6 of your own roses:

-4 apples, cored and halved (leave the skin on)
-Juice from 1/2 lemon
-3 Tbsp fruit preserves ( I used apricot but you can use your favorite fruit)
-2 Tbsp water (plus more for apple soak)
-1 sheet of puff pastry
-Cinnamon, to taste

Instructions:

– Preheat Oven to 375 degrees

– Put apple slices in microwave safe bowl. Fill bowl with water and juice from half a lemon. Use enough water to make sure apple slices are covered by water. Microwave for 3 minutes. This will soften the apple slices and make them more pliable for rolling up.

– Next grab a sheet of puff pastry. Flour your board and roll out the puff pastry enough to make 6 strips at 3 inches wide. I scored and cut mine with a pizza wheel put you can use a knife.

– In a bowl mix your favorite fruit preserves with a couple tablespoons of water. Then spoon out the preserves in the center of the strip of puff pastry.

– Next place the apple slices long ways halfway on the strip. Keep adding slices until you reach the end. Then fold the puff pastry over the bottom of the apple slices.

– Roll up the puff pastry and place in a greased muffin tin.

– Bake the apple roses for 35-45 minutes.

– Pull out of oven and let cool for 5 minutes.

Chocolate cake

My little one is all grown up but he will always be my baby, even if he turns 21 this week. Prior to making his Chocolate cake, I had to get his approval as he is a tad fussy with his foods. I was not allowed to make buttercream frosting, use any fresh cream or god forbid that I put any fruits on it, even if it was choc coated strawberries. I did get an okay for salted caramel sauce. I was not allowed to use thick caramel from cooking sweet condensed milk. Who doesn't like sweet condensed milk? I secretly put this in his Milo and he loves it! Shhhhhh! So my revenge was, going overkill on the chocolate decorations, toppings, heheheh.

The salted caramel was prepared earlier, I always have a batch ready made for any occassion. I learnt to make this at a previous macaron class with FoodIam.

So here is the simpole recipe which I followed from Taste.com. There are loads of recipe there but I am sticking to the classic simple recipe for the fusspot ;)
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/20016/classic+chocolate+cake?ref=collections,top-10-chocolate-cake-recipes

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups (200g) plain flour
• 2 tablespoons cocoa ( I used Organics Greens Cocoa, they are the best I know) 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped
• 225g unsalted butter, softened, chopped 
• 1 cup (220g) caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup (125ml) milk
• Chocolates for decorations
• 1 tsp of glucose (I add this instead of butter to ganache for shine)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Grease and line a 24cm round springform cake pan.

2. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl. Set aside.

3. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water (don't let bowl touch water). Cool slightly.

4. Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. With beaters on medium speed, add vanilla, then add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour in cooled chocolate and beat until well combined. Beat in a third of sifted ingredients, followed by a third of the milk. Repeat until all ingredients are incorporated, beating until smooth.

5. Pour mixture into the pan and bake for 45-55 minutes until risen and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack to cool completely.

6. To serve, spread the ganache over the top and sides of the cake using a hot palette knife, then decorate with chocolates.

7. To make chocolate ganache: Melt 150g chopped good-quality dark chocolate with 125ml heavy double cream. I heat my cream, stop prior to boiling point and pour over chocolate melts and leave it for few minutes to melt. I then stir them up and added a teaspoon of glucose to make it super glossy. I have heard that you can also add butter. 

And there you have it! A chocolate cake! I even got a huge smile from the boy! Best pressie ever!

Making Kimchi

My local Asian store sells Kimchi by the tubs, it's a small margarine container for $5, don't you think that, that's pretty expensive? Or maybe I am just a cheapskate! I bought it once out of desperation when I couldn't get the ingredients. Today, I had found some ingredients and wanted to make some for myself.

It was hard to get the Korean chilli powder. I had wanted genuine Korean chilli powder, not ones from China peppers or anywhere else. Lucky for me, there was a packet staring back at me and it was a whole 1kg bag. Thank You Lord!!

I'm making this Kimchi from a recipe in SBS Foods. I do like this version because the instructions were pretty easy to follow and it came with a video presentation as well. Plus the recipe is from a Korean person ;) so it's all good, sounds pretty authentic! Getting the right ingredients was the tricky part. I am missing Korean watercress, and Daikon (turnip) but that is not going to stop me from making this today.

Here are some of my photos from my Instagram today. I didn't really planned on this post, hence the lack of photos :) only from my IG feeds. Sorry about that. The recipe is on the SBS link above. Please click on the link to their website if you are interested in making these.

Matcha Aisu (green tea icecream)

Happy New Year all, celebrating the new year with a home made ice cream recipe. If you like green tea, you'll want to bookmark this simple recipe.

For those of who do not know what a Matcha is, it's powdered green tea leaves that has been dried and processed to powder form. It is more concentrated than Sencha. Sencha is just green tea in its normal form, you add it to hot water and drink it like hot tea.

With Matcha, you can drink it, cook it, bake it, it's very user friendly and there are so many recipes on the Internet that you can try and have fun with if you have some Matcha.

After just returning from Japan, more than anything, I am craving Matcha ice cream. It's terrible having to leave that place. I am already planning my next trip but it won't be for some time yet so for today, I am hoping to replicate that wonderful Japanese ice cream.

Recipe below is for 2-4 people or in my case, one :) Alright, I'll share, if I really have to..

Ingredients
• 2 Tbsp Matcha Green Tea Powder
• 2/3 cup Granulated Sugar
• 3 Egg Yolks
• 3/4 cup Milk
• 3/4 cup Double Cream

Method

1. A = Mix 2 Tbsp of sugar with the Matcha powder 
2. B = Mix remainder sugar with yolks
3. Heat milk (do not let boil) 
4. Remove from heat, add A+B to warm milk, mix well till smooth paste.
5. Return to heat, ( do not let boil) mix well to keep smooth
6. Remove from heat, strain mix and leave to cool in fridge
7. Start whipping cream for folding to Matcha mix.
8. Fold whipped cream to Matcha mix when the mix is cold enough.
9. Put in your chilled ice cream bowl container and leave in freezer. No need to churn with ice cream maker. 

Here are some photos from some of the steps.

There you have it, you chill it in the freezer for few hours and voila! Your very own Matcha ice cream ;) I'm going to serve mine in a Japanese bowl with some azuki (red beans). Oishi!  

Folding Wontons

Easter Sunday 31 March 2013, the day I decided to conquer my fear of folding wontons.

There is a story to this fear. As I recalled, the last time I folded one, was in my teen years in my Mum's kitchen and I had failed miserably with all contents falling out from a torn wrapper. I was devastated. For me, it was a validation that I am more like a Malay than a Chinese person! This does not helped me at all, with my not liking to eat pork already and Mum always teasing me that I am not Chinese.

Obviously, I am not Malay, I just prefer to eat spicy Malaysian dishes more, to the mild boring plain old Chinese meals. Given a choice of Laksa or Sweet and sour pork, I would grabbed the Laksa. And this is why I never learnt to cook proper Chinese meals and hence why I failed to fold a wonton! What Chinese child does not know how to fold a wonton?? It is a disgrace, at least in my eyes!!! Hahhahahahaha, needless to say I have never tried again till this day.

So why? Why put myself in this situation again? To face yet another failure? Was I up to this challenge? No, I was scared shitless...BUT I was BORED!!

So here goes nothing. I didn't really have much to lose.

[And so I laughed at you, "you stupid little tiny wrappers! I am not scared of you.. I shall succeed and if not, Meh!!! There's Tassie.... he'll like the mince meat for dinner.. (the furkid in the house)"]

Crazy much? Absolutely.. This is what happens, when I get stuck in the that same level in Candy Crush... Argh!!

For my wonton fillings, I used these below.

Ingredients

Chicken Mince
Chives
Chopped scallions
Salt and Pepper
I teaspoon Minced garlic
1 TBspoon Soy sauce
I packet wonton wrappers
Water for sealing the wrappers

Method: I followed a youtube video. I found this instruction to be the easiest to understand.

You can deep fry these for an afternoon snack, or served as an appetiser with hot chilli oil sauce or you can add these wontons to soups or noodles. So many great things to use it with. I am so glad that I attempted this again, many years later.

So there... in my mouth, yo!

Strawberry Icecream

Hi all, sobs.....Summer is here and she has been a scorcher, with her unwelcome heatwave. I must admit, I am not a summer person, I detest the heat and the humidity and I would hibernate if I could. Every summer I would curse and swear, that I would move to Antartica but it never happens. Maybe I should learn to ski and go hide in the snow somewhere.

But enough whining, here is one of my survival tip for summer. Eat lots of icecream. Invest in an ice cream machine, you can make sorbets, gelatos, yoghurt, and icecream and even slushies if you want. It is the perfect treats for those hot summer days and nights. However, for this post, I am going to share a very basic icecream recipe for the beginners.

Recipe for Homemade Strawberry Ice cream.  

It is very important that you read the manual of your ice cream maker. Please put the freezer bowl in your freezer overnight prior to making ice cream. You need to do this before the day of making your icecream. The bowl needs to be freezing cold, when it is churning your mix.

Ingredients

•         I to 2 small punnet of fresh ripe strawberries, stemmed and sliced, reserve a few for garnish.

•         1 freshly squeezed orange or mandarin. You may use 2 teaspoon of lemon juice as an alternative.

•         150 gram of caster sugar

•         600 ml of thickened cream (double cream) also known as cooking cream.

Method

•         Reserve a few strawberries for garnishes.

•         Chop up the rest of the strawberries with added caster sugar, put it in a blender to process. Once this is done, put the content into a mixer, pulse the strawberry with the heavy cream until it mixes in. Use a hand mixer if you haven’t got a standalone.

•         Transfer the mixture into the freezer bowl, turn on the ice cream maker and let it mix until thickened, about 20 to 25 minutes.

•         Five minutes before mixing is completed, add some chopped up strawberries and let it mix in completely. This is for the fruity bits in the ice cream. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture but not runny. If you prefer your ice cream a  little firmer, transfer the ice cream to place in freezer for about half hours. Remove from freezer about 15 minutes, garnish before serving.

And that is all. Stay cool and don't forget to slip, slop and slap if you go out in the sun!