4 Cakes For Mommy !

Durian Cake

Cotton Cheesecake


Carrot Cake

Chocolate Cake


Received a call from Mong Sie a few days ago from KL, re ordering a cake for her Mum's birthday today. I feel so bad for not able to bake for my mum's birthday every year. She wanted something special, few flavours in a box, so I baked her 4 different cakes in miniature 5" size. They looked so cute, I couldn't stand the temptation, baked double portion for all cakes for ourselves but only managed to take a pic of the cotton cheesecake being cut open, the chocolate cake can be viewed here .
Both the carrot & durian cakes are gone before I have the chance to take pics of them.

Lao Shu Fen With Braised Minced Meat

After our morning run, we went for breakfast at the famous Kampung Air wantan noodle stall. Just as we were leaving, I saw that the opposite stall has a picture of Lao Shu Fen with minced meat. I started to recall that when I was a kid, I always had this in soup version with fishball, my siblings & I grew up with this ! Since my girls have never try Lao Shu Fen, I decided it will be our dinner tonight. Went to the mini market near my house to get a packet of Lao Shu Fen, I find it hilarius that the manufacturer call it jelly !

Ingredients :

1 packet Lao Shu Fen
Beansprouts
200g minced meat
Ginger, garlic & shallots, finely chopped
4 dried mushrooms, soaked & sliced, liquid reserved
Soya sauce
Pepper
Sesame oil
Hua Tiao wine
Sugar
Chicken stock or water
Vegetarian black bean sauce *

1. Heat a pan with oil, cook the ginger, garlic & shallots till fragrant, add minced meat, followed by sliced mushrooms. Add chicken stock, soya sauce, pepper, sesame oil, Hua Tiao wine, sugar & the vegetarian black bean sauce to taste. Bring to boil & let simmer for about 20 mins, thicken with cornflour mixture. Blanch the Lao Shu Fen in boiling water to remove the excess oil, place in individual bowl, topped with blanched beansprouts. Pour sauce over the Lao Shu Fen, sprinkle with fried shallots & spring onion before serving.

* I've used this vegetarian black bean sauce that I got from vegetarian supplies shop for many years. Oyster sauce can be used as a substitute even though I don't use it in my cooking, find it too salty & I don't use MSG.

Cheng Tng (清汤）

Dried snow fungus (彰洲雪耳），dried lily bulb, dried longan, barley (生意米）,
pang da hai (胖大海）


osmanthus (桂花） agar agar


Besides Ice Kacang & Bubur Chacha, Cheng Tng can be found at almost all dessert stalls at hawker centres & foodcourts in Singapore. Since my girls are on their summer holiday, I have all the time & no excuse not to make my hubby's favaourite dessert, can't remember when was the last time I made this, lots of preparation work, lazy........

The usual ingredients in this sweet soup are dried snow fungus, dried lily bulb, dried longan, barley, pang da hai, sweet potato, large sago & agar agar cubes/strips. I've used snow fungus from Zhang Zhou (彰州）which is of better quality than the normal white bleached one, this variety appears to be very dirty, took a while to rinse off the dirts. As for the dried longan, this smaller version is better than the almost black type which I think is sweetened. The barley that I used is called 生意米, like the nutty taste as compared to the pearl barley which I think gets too soft after cooking. I only found out last night that pang da hai is called sterculia seeds, soak them in water for about 30mins drain & remove the skin, I've used 8 pcs of this seeds, which is a lot, think Cheng Tng is incomplete without this ! I've used a small orange flesh sweet potato, cut into cubes. Cook the large sago in boiling water until they turn transparent, plunge in cold water & drain, it took 30 mins to cook the large sago. Instead of plain agar agar cubes, I made mine flavoured with osmanthus syrup (桂花酱), cut into cubes & set aside.

Tie 10 pandan leaves into a knot, fill a large pan with water, add pandan leaves, snow fungus, barley,dried longan, bring to boil, add sweet potato & dried lily last as these get mushy if overcooked, add rock sugar to taste. Turn off heat, add pang da hai & cooked sago, when the soup is cooled, add the agar agar cubes. Transfer to container & refrigerate, I like my dessert really cold..........

Brioche

While the chicken soup is cooking, I started browsing through my recipes for tomorrow's breakfast. The cool weather gave me a good excuse to want to indulge in something fattening, haha....... BRIOCHE
The French make their bread either so crusty without fat or so rich & buttery, I'm into both cos" I'm a great carbo fan, hubby will freak out if he knows about the butter content in this bun !

Ingredients :
400g High protein flour
11g Instant dry yeast
60g Sugar
6g Salt
8g Milk powder
200g Eggs (without shell)
70g Cold water
140g Butter, softened

With an electric mixer on dough hook at low speed, blend the dry ingredients for 1 min. Add eggs & water, continue mixing on low speed for another min. Continue mixing on medium speed for 5 mins. Add softened butter & mix for another 10 mins until dough is fully developed.
Let rise in a warm place for 1hr or until dough doubles in bulk.
Divide the dough into 14 pcs at 60g each & another 14 pcs at 10g each. Mould the pcs into smooth round balls, transfer the large balls into brioche moulds. Use your forefingers to make an indentation in the centre of the large balls & immediately place the small balls on top, press the small ball down into the larger ball to secure the pcs together. Prove in a warm place for 30mins.
Brush the tops with beaten egg. Place the moulds on abaking tray & bake in a preheated oven of 190 degrees for 15-20 mins until glossy & golden.

* The original recipe calls for 1 hr of second proving but in our hot weather, 30 mins is enough. I don't have brioche moulds so I've used the normal tart moulds. I turned the oven temperature down to 180 degrees after 7 mins of baking cos' the colour has already started to turn a golden brown & it took 15 mins to bake the buns. The kitchen was filled with the fantastic buttery aroma, can't help it I ate one just 5 mins out of the oven even though I'm supposed to wait for the buns to cool down first ! Ummmm, so soft & fluffy..........

Double Boil Chicken Soup

Dried mushrooms, dried scallops, jing hua ham(金华火腿）, ginger,
hua jiao（花膠）
1 kanpung chicken, blanched & cleaned
All ingredients in the soup pot, ready to be double boiled
The end result, after 7 hrs of double boiling

After my morning run at 6am this morning at Tun Fuad Park, I looked up to the sky, how dark it was, expected today to be a raining day. I was right, it started raining at about 8am. What a cool day today, so I decided to make double boil chicken soup with rice for dinner tonight. All thanks to the weather, the usual hot & humid weather make me tiring & not in the mood to cook us a nice meal ! After going though my deep freezer, I had all the ingredients I want, 1 kampung chicken, dried mushrooms, dried scallops, a 2" pc of jin hua ham & about 9pcs of hua jiao. My mum gave me a few packets of jin hua ham, each packet the size of a slab of butter, so I cut them into 2" pcs & freeze them individually for each use. The hua jiao I don't know how big a pc is because when my mum gave them to me, they were aready cut up into small pcs, I guess she had the dried seafood supplier to cut them into pcs.

After blanching & rinsing the chicken pcs, I put all the ingredients into a soup pot that fits just nice into my slow cooker, with a big chunk of ginger, love that gingery taste in my Chinese style cooking. I can never double boil my stuff over the gas stove, the water in the outer pot dry out very quickly & I'm one big blur 'sotong', almost burnt a pot few weeks ago !

I turn the cooker to high heat at 9am & double boil the chicken soup for 7 hrs, turning the power off at 4pm, the soup is so flavourful just a pinch of salt is all it need !

Honey Sponge Cakes

A friend of mine always order these honey sponge cakes for her children. These are popular with kids, probably because of the honey in them, remind me of those little ji dan gao we had during CNY !

Durian Cake

Sharon ordered this for her boss's birthday today. As usual 3 layers of sponge with 2 layers of durian filling, pure & aromatic ! The two rolls of not so tidy little dots are actually the durian filling that I piped on the cake. Can you imagine the aroma that's going to fill the office when they cut the cake ............