Steam Carrot Cake (萝卜糕)

I had another go of this carrot cake recipe which was originally shared by Honey Bee Sweet. This time, I added more of everything - radish, mushroom, dried scrimp, chinese sausage (腊肠), but forgotten I had to increase the liquid and flour and as a result it was more 'densed' with ingredients! Nevertheless, it still tasted good... we love it steamed than fried. Healthier choice and less cleaning to do without the frying (",)

Ingredients/ Method
(Adapted and modified from Honey Bee Sweet's Dim Sum Fried Carrot Cake)

Set A:
650g white carrot / turnip, peeled and shredded
340ml water

Set B:
5 shallots, peeled and chopped fine
3 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked and cut into smaller bits
7 dried mushroom, soaked in water till soft, then cut into small chunks
3 Chinese sausage, casing removed and cut into small chunks
3 tbsp vegetable cooking oil

Set C:
155g rice flour
15g corn flour
15g wheat starch powder
340ml chicken stock (or use 340ml water + 1 chicken bouillon cube)

1. In a large pot, add shredded carrot and water and start boiling mixture. Cook for about 5 to 8 minutes till the vegetables are slightly cooked. Do not throw about the water, leave the whole mixture together and set aside till needed.
2. In a saute pan, add vegetable oil at medium heat and stir fry the shallots till fragrant. Then add in Chinese sausage, mushrooms and dried shrimp. Cook mixture for a couple minutes then add the carrot water mixture in. Let it stew for about 8 to 10 minutes and then off the fire. Set aside till needed.
3. In the meantime, prepare the steamer with boiling water and grease a 8" round steam pan lined with parchment paper.
4. In a large mixing bowl, add rice flour, corn flour and wheat starch. Pour in the chicken stock and mix well. Then pour the carrot mixture into the flour mixture and stir well. The mixture will be lumpy and thick.
5. Pour it into the prepared steamer pan and let steam on medium heat for about 40 minutes till cooked.
6. Remove from steamer and let cool completely before cutting into it.

Note:
a) Remember to increase the liquid and flour to have more kueh than ingredients!
b) More shallots to be added as requested by T.
c) I did not use parchment paper, instead I oiled the pan so that it will not stick.

As I made this on Saturday afternoon, I re-heated the the carrot cake by steaming them again for about 5 mins this morning. Slice and serve for our simple breakfast today!

Strawberry macarons

Love In The Air ....
Happy Valentine's Day

With my success with the chocolate macarons, I'm gearing myself to try out other flavours and colours of these lovely macarons.

However, without proper planning and research, it spelt trouble and failure! My attempt to replace the cocoa powder with cranberry sauce only produced flat meringue, not macarons. I first blended the almond powder and icing sugar, set aside, and followed by blending the cranberry sauce. Few mistakes, (a) cranberry sauce is not blended fine enough (there are still bits of cranberry), (b) blending almond power mixture and cranberry sauce produced very gluey batter, which make it very difficult to fold into the egg white without deflating all the bubbles, (c) continue to pipe and bake even though the batter look very unpromising.

I then proceeded to read more blog posts about macarons, and came out with the Strawberry Macarons. I was not very hopeful initially, but the outcome turned out acceptable. The only complaint that I have is the faint colour of red, and the not-so-smooth dome. Anyway, Love is not always smooth, there are ups & downs. More trials & errors in macarons, and practice make perfect!

Strawberry Macarons

Ingredients/ Method:
(Makes about 36 pieces or 18 sandwiches)

50g icing sugar
37.5g almond powder
1 large egg white, room temperature (about 36g each)
32.5g caster sugar
2 -3 drops of strawberry emulco

1) Preheat oven to 150 deg C.
2) Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip (about 1 cm) ready.
3) Grind together icing sugar with almond powder so there are no lumps, using blender or food processor.
4) In a bowl of standing electric mixer, beat the egg white until they are foamy. Add sugar in 3 batches and whip egg white until very stiff and firm.

5) Add in strawberry emulco to the egg white mixture and beat until colour evenly blended, about 5 seconds.
6) Carefully fold in the dry ingredients in two batches into the egg whites mixture using the mixer on low-medium speed, about 5-10 seconds . When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop mixing and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
7) Pipe the batter like a v-shape on the parchment-lined baking sheets. Evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
8) Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

Filling can be anything, I'd used nutella and peanut butter this round.

Note:
1) Smooth the piped batter if rapping the baking sheet did not give a smooth dome/ surface.

2) There's no need to rest the macarons before baking. I put them straight into the oven after they are being piped.
3) So far I use Glad's baking paper for most of my baking and these macarons can be easily removed using them too.

4) Add more colouring or emulco to have more pretty/ obvious colour.

I'm submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #4: Love In The Air which is hosted by Ellena of Cuisine Paradise for this month's theme.

Chocolate macarons

With all the CNY baking, I've got so many egg whites left. For the past few years, these egg whites will be thrown away (*heart-ache*) cos I don't how else I can do with them. This time, I've put them in good use, in fact, I'm very happy with the outcome!! Macarons!! However, I did failed on the first attempt using another recipe and I was like, "...well, these egg whites would have gone to waste anyway ;( " I've read of many failed stories, and that macarons are not the easiest to bake. I agree and disagree. Why? Depends on the recipe, I would say.

My first failed attempt! No feet & the macarons cannot be

removed from the parchment paper. Only "empty" shells left.

Through my sis's close buddy, whom we got closer because of our baking interest, she recommended me an almost fail-proof chocolate macaron recipe by David Lebovitz. I would recommend to anyone who wants to try out macarons! When the macarons came out from the oven, I can see the nice little feets, shiny & firm dome! Happy!

Whilst filling up the macarons, Zakris took one and said it's nice. Returned to the kitchen and took another 2 more, followed by saying it's very nice! Even T commented that it's nice too! Very happy! I've to add that Zakris has tried more macarons than us, but I think he's basically attracted to the arrays of colour and these super-sweet biscuits. I'm not as sweet-toothed though.

Chocolate Macarons

Ingredients/ Method:
100g icing sugar

50g almond powder

25g unsweetend Dutch-process cocoa powder

2 large egg whites, room temperature (about 36g each)

65g caster sugar

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg C.

2) Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and have a pastry bag with a plain tip (about 1/2 inch - 2cm) ready.

3) Grind together icing sugar with almond powder and cocoa power so there are no lumps, using blender or food processor.
4) In a bowl of standing electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they are foamy. Add sugar in 4 batches and whip egg whites until very stiff and firm.
5) Carefully fold in the dry ingredients in two batches into the egg whites mixture with a rubber spatula. When the mixture is just smooth and there are no streaks of egg white, stop folding and scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
6) Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch (3 cm) circles (about 1 tablespoon each of batter), evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
7) Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons, then bake them for 15-18 minutes. Let cool completely then remove from baking sheet.

Filling

1 portion of Nutella

1/3rd portion of cranberry sauce

1) Mix well and spread on the macarons.

Note:

1) I use Van Houten cocoa powder instead as this is what I had in my kitchen.

2) I bake the macarons at 150 deg C.

3) There's no need to rest the macarons before baking. I put them straight into the oven after they are being piped.

4) As I have problem using the spatula, I used my electric mixer - balloon whisk - to mix the dry ingredients with the egg whites. This takes about 5 seconds on low-medium speed.

5) So far I use Glad's baking paper for most of my baking and these macarons can be easily removed using them too.

6) My piping tip is rather small (less than 0.5cm) and they works well.

7) I piped the batter about 1.5cm as I think small macarons are more cute.

Cranberry butter cake

Using my home-made cranberry sauce, I made a cranberry butter cake. This was baked on the late night of 2nd day of CNY as we were initially expecting guests to our humble home on the 3rd day of CNY. However, there was a last minute change and we adjourned to our aunt A & uncle D house instead, and we brought the cake along. Everyone loves this cake!

Cranberry Butter Cake

Ingredients/ Method:
225g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
85g unsalted butter
150g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup non-fat unsweetened yogurt
1 tsp vanilla essence
90g cranberry sauce

1) Preheat oven to 180 deg and lined a 8 inch round tin.
2) Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3) Cream the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Dribble the eggs slowly about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for about 2 mins.
4) On LOW speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined. Beat in 1/2 of the yogurt. Then beat in 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture, followed by the remaining yogurt, and vanilla essence. Finally beat in the remaining flour mixture.
5) In a separate bowl, scoop about 1/4th of the batter and mix well with cranberry sauce.

6) Pour remaining batter into prepared tin. Add dollop of cranberry batter into main batter and create swirls using knife.

7) Bake for about 40-50 mins till skewer inserted comes out clean.
8) Cool in pan for 5 mins. Unmould and cool completely.

Note:
1) I will probably add another 30g more of cranberry sauce the next time.
2) I will pour half of the remaining batter and add dollop of cranberry sauce, and then pour the balance batter and add cranberry sauce again to have a more even distribution of cranberry sauce in the cake.

Cranberry sauce

I've bought a punnet of fresh cranberries thinking of adding them to my fruits yogurt, but these are way too sour. I recalled seeing an easy cranberry sauce recipe before and decided that I would make them in order to "salvage" these cranberries. The fresh cranberries were put in the freezer and after more than 2 weeks, they still look "fresh"!

The steps are really easy but the results are not compromised. I'm very happy with how the sauce turn out so pretty & yummy, and I'm already thinking of making other jam using blueberries (as these are much cheaper than cranberries ...kekeke).

Ingredients/ Method:

(Recipe is halved as I've got only 170g cranberries)

100g caster sugar

130ml water

170g fresh cranberries

1. Bring water and sugar to a boil in a saucepan.
2. Add cranberries and return to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat and boil gently for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, till the cranberries have burst.
4. Let stand to cool completely at room temperature. The mixture will thicken as it cools. Store sauce in refrigerator for up to a week.

Stay tuned to see what I've done with these pretty cranberry sauce!