Jas's Kitchen

Made Japanese Cotton Sponge Cake today. One of the sponge cake recipe from "Alex Goh cookbook". On the book it already stated this cake is very difficult to prepare and yet I still tries it out. Rather disappointed the sponge cakes I made always had a heavy bottom but the top is okay. I wonder what went wrong, I'm sure I had whisked my egg white stiff enough.

Though I had a heavy bottom cake but the top is okay. The cake is very nice to eat, moist and soft in texture.

Japanese Cotton Sponge Cake

Ingredients:
(A)
60g butter

(B)
80g flour

(C)
80ml evaporated milk

(D)
1 egg
5 egg yolks

(E)
5 egg whites
120g sugar
Pinch of salt

Method:
1. Melt (A) and add into (B) and mix till well blended.
2. Add in (C) and mix well combined.
3. Add in (D) and mix till we blended.
4. Whisk the egg whites from (E) till foamy and add in the sugar and salt. Continue whisk till stiff.
5. Mix egg whites mixture to the egg yolk mixture till well incorporated.
6. Pour mixture onto the swiss roll pan (15 x 10 x ¼ inches) fully lined with paper.
7. Bake at 170C on the middle rack for 25 minutes.
8. Remove the mould immediately when it baked. Set aside to cool
9. Cut into 2 portion and sandwich together with butter cream.

Note:
I did not use swiss pan, cause I don't have the swiss pan. So I use a normal 7" round mould. And the baking time increase by 10 – 15 minutes.

Basic Butter Cream

Basic Butter Cream

(A)
100g butter
25g shortening

(B)
45g icing sugar
Few drops of vanilla essence

Method:
1. Cream butter and shortening till smooth and creamy, then add vanilla essence and icing sugar.                    2. Continue to cream till light and fluffy.

Made Boston Cheesecake today. Why does it name Boston? I don't know. I had followed the recipe from Alex Goh Creative Making Of Cakes. Taste wise ok lah, very moist and soft. But I'm so regretted I did not re-do my sponge base otherwise it going to taste great!

Boston Cheesecake
Prepare a 9" inch round vanilla sponge cake about 20mm thick.

(A)
150ml milk
20g sugar
3 egg yolks
20g corn flour

(B)
250g cream cheese

(C)
Zest of ½ lemon
130ml whipping cream

(D) (Toss)
2 tbsp flour
60g sultanas

(E)
3 egg whites
60g sugar
1 tsp lemon juice

1. Bring 100ml milk from (A) with sugar to boil. Mix remains 50 ml milk, yolks & corn flour in a mixing bowl. Add to the hot milk mixture. Continues to cook till it thickens. Set aside to cool.
2. Beat cream cheese till smooth and light. Add in the cooled (A). Mix till well blended.
3. Add in (C) and mix till evenly blended.
4. Add in (D) and mix ill well combined.
5. Whisk egg whites from (E) till foamy. Add in the sugar and lemon juice. Continue to whisk till stiff, then add it to the cheese mixture and mix well.
6. Line a 9" round mould with paper on the bottom and sides.
7. Place the sponge cake on the bottom, then pour cheese batter onto it.
8. Bake in water bath at 150C for 2 hours or until it done and light golden brown on the surface. Remove cake from oven. Remove from mould immediately. Serve.

Note:
I use a 7" round mould instead of a 9" round mould.
I baked the cheesecake for 2 hours and 20 minutes just in case it wasn't fully cooked.
I didn't remove the mould immediately, cause I afraid the cheesecake might collapse.

Made sponge cake for my Boston Cheesecake base. I guess I had under whisk my batter, my sponge cake wasn't fluffy but 'flat" with strong egg smell.

Sponge Cake

(A)
250g sponge mix flour
4 eggs

(B)
50ml water

(C)
80g melted butter

1. Pour (A) into mixing bowl. Whisk till thick.
2. Add in (B) and mix into batter. Whisk the batter till light and fluffy.
3. Mix in (C) with the batter till well blended.
4. Pour into a 9" round mould. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.

Note:
I saw this from the back of the sponge mix flour it prints "Mix high speed for 10 minutes, and then reduce to medium speed for 3 – 5 minutes".

Made Egg Tarts today. This popular dessert savory can usually be found on one of those pushcarts in a Cantonese "dim sum" restaurant. In a little cupcake of melt-in-your-mouth pastry crust & yellow egg custard.

Egg Tarts
Makes 14.

Ingredients for Pasty:
150g flour
2 tbsp corn flour
1 ½ tbsp icing sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 egg yolk
100g butter

Method: for pastry:
1. Sift flour, salt, icing sugar & corn flour together.
2. Rub butter lightly into sifted flour till mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add egg yolk to form a dough. Chill dough in refrigerator for ½ to 1 hour.
4. Roll dough out thinly and cut to line greased patty tins.
5. Prick pastry with a fork and brush with egg white.
6. Bake in a preheated oven at 180 ºC for 20 minutes or till golden brown.

Ingredients for custard:
2 eggs
1 tbsp of condensed milk
Pinch of salt
100ml of evaporated milk
200ml of water
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp of vanilla essence

Method for custard:
1. Beat eggs, condensed milk and salt lightly in a bowl.
2. Heat evaporated milk with water and sugar. Set aside to cool.
3. Pour gradually into the egg mix.
4. Add vanilla essence and strain.
5. Slowly spoon egg mixture into patty tins

Made this today, should I name it Mooncake or Daifuku?? See the red color thing in-between the filling? It strawberry! I got the idea from hugbear's Daifuku. Taste wise not bad cause strawberries are slightly sour it reduces the sweetness of the red bean paste

Bought these huge strawberries from Giant good bargain it only $1.95!

Snow Skin Dough.

Made Siew Mai yesterday, not as nice as Josh and Hugbear one. I guess my Siew Mai is feeling hot in the steamer and they refuse to put on their wanton clothing properly. LOL

I had made some Green Tea, Black Sesame And Durian Snow Skin Mooncake. I bought the Durian Paste from Phoon Huat $11.10/ KG very nice and nice aroma too.

For the Durian snow skin I had add some yellow coloring and some durian essences for better aroma.

For Black Sesame snow skin I had add and knead in some instant "Black Sesame Gruel" you can buy it at any supermarket.

For Green Tea snow skin I had add some Green Tea Powder in it. you can buy it from Phoon Huat too.

I'm back! Been MIA a couple of days and I'm back with a lot of Mooncakes like Durian, Red Bean, Lotus and White Lotus filling. I'm so tempt to make my own "Pandan Lotus Filling but didn't. *Sulk*

Started to make snow skin mooncake last week and this week baked mooncake using Florence's recipe, it my first time baking mooncake. It worth trying, very easy just make sure you don't over-bake them and they are great!

In Florence's recipe it asks for "Plain Flour" but I'm trying to act smart I use "HK Flour" end up having runny batter as dough. I had ask Florence for help, she is fast she reply me within few minutes. She explains and shares the tips on making mooncake.

I re-do the dough, this time I make sure I follow Florence's recipe. Yes, the dough is much easy to handle than the previous dough. Lucky I didn't carry on using the runny dough as I bring a small dough to baked and it turns out as hard as rock. *Sulk*

Note:
I think the dough is much easy to handle after 1 hour "Resting".
For darker "look" just add few drops of dark soy sauce.

For glazing, I had use this "Super Glaze" to glaze the mooncakes. I bought this from Phoon Huat.

Made Green Tea Snow Skin Mooncake just now. Using Zu’s Snow Skin recipe. For the filling I use lotus seed paste which I bought from PH. I guess I had use too much strength to roll the lotus seed paste into balls as you can see the yolk in the lotus seed paste got “crushed”. Notice Josh (gan55) & Zu shares about the same recipe and Josh (gan55) had condensed milk in it. I omit the condensed milk cause I didn’t want to open the whole tin of condensed milk LOL.

It my first time making mooncake, mom said I had too much filling ain’t mooncake are like that? And now she had asked for the durian filling. I’ll be start baking the baked mooncake tomorrow I wonder how it turns out. Wish me luck ^^.

Closer Look.

I had made some plain mooncakes, I didn’t not that the photo. Suppose to add some melon seed in it. I had forgotten to buy when I’m at Phoon Huat yesterday then I though of adding pumpkin seed but too lazy to going downstairs buy.

I had make 2 of the big mooncakes too, it suppose to be the small mooncakes. When I bring it to mould I find it too big for the small mooncake mould so I end up using the big one. Finally result?  2 flat mooncakes LOL.

Snow Skin Flavour Mooncakes
Makes: 9 large ones (12og filling + 60g snow skin)
Or 20 small ones (60g filling + 30g snow skin)

Ingredients:
150g cooked/fried glutinous rice flour
200g icing sugar
65g shortening
150g cold drinking water

Method:
1. Sieve flour & icing sugar.
2. Add shortening.
3. Add water. Mix well till it forms a soft dough.
4. Set dough aside for about 20 mins.
5. Divide dough into small portions of about 30g each.
6. Flatten dough to wrap up 60g fillings.
7. Seal up dough to enclose filling completely. Press into mould & remove.

Note:

For green tea flavor, add ¾ tbsp green tea powder to the flour and sieve. 

Made this Teriyaki Fish, using Jewels's (member of KC) Teriyaki Chicken recipe. Previously I had tried this recipe using chicken and it turn out to be very nice. This time I'm using dory fish and it turns out great too! I'm surprise by the ingredients needed for making teriyaki sauce; all you need is Japanese Soya sauce (I use the regular Soya sauce), Mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine) and Sugar. Simple right!

Teriyaki Chicken / Fish

Ingredients:

230g chicken breast or chicken thigh, de-boned with skin on

Marinate:

1 tbsp sake

1 tbsp soy sauce

½ tbsp ginger juice

Teriyaki sauce:

1 tbsp mirin (Japanese sweet cooking wine)

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp soy sauce

Sesame seeds, toasted

Method:

Using a fork, prick over the skin of chicken. Then marinate for 30 minutes, turning once.

Heat oil in frying pan, drained the chicken and sauté until lightly browned.

Reduce heat and add teriyaki sauce. Cover and cook for about 5 – 7 minutes.

When chicken is cooked, removed chicken. Turn up the heat to thicken sauce. Slice the chicken and pour sauce over it.

Note:

You might want to use chicken thigh meat, as it taste better than breast meat.

Teriyaki sauce is good for grilling too.