No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

  This time, I experimented with Chai Tea to act as a flavour for the dough skin of this 'Bing Pi',  冰皮 mooncake.  These non-baked snowskin mooncakes are soft, slightly chewy and can be referred to as mochi mooncake too.  Nowadays snowskin mooncakes are gaining popularity and like their baked counterparts, they can house different flavours of lotus paste as well. Chai Tea Snowskin mini Mooncake 2020  ~  柴茶冰皮月饼    Ingredients 65 gm Kao Fun (fried glutinous rice flour) 18 gm wheat starch 18 gm superfine flour 50 gm icing sugar 25 gm Crisco shortening 60 gm water 1 Tbsp Chai Tea 240 gm lotus paste for filling Method Mix wheat starch and superfine flour thoroughly, steam on medium heat for 3 minutes.  Let cool.  Sift into a mixing bowl. Sift in kao fun and mix well.   Steep Chai Tea bag in about 1/4 cup hot water. In a pot, boil water with shortening and icing sugar.  Once shortening and icing sugar have melted, pour this into the flour mixture.  Add in a tablespoon of Chai Tea.  U

  These mini  mooncakes are made with white lotus paste, supposedly there is less sugar in this lotus paste.   For pure lotus paste, I was told that the sugar is cooked longer, thus the paste is more brown but for white lotus paste, the sugar content is lesser and the sugar is not cooked so long, hence the colour is lighter.  As these are 50 gm mini ones, I only managed to add in a quarter of salted egg yolk.  Nonetheless  they do taste good especially paired with a cup of piping hot Chinese tea of your choice. White Lotus Paste with egg yolks mini mooncakes ~ 2020  ( 白莲蓉蛋黄小月饼 ) Ingredients for dough 150 gm superfine flour 90 ml golden syrup 38 ml vegetable oil 2 gm lye water Egg wash - 1 whole egg + 1 tsp water, mix and strain Ingredients for lotus filling 280 gm white lotus paste 4 salted egg yolks, steamed and cut into quarters Method for dough Mix syrup, oil and lye water thoroughly with a handwhisk. Sift in flour, mix well with spatula and let rest for 2 hours or more, till it doe

The Mid-Autumn Mooncake Festival is here again and it falls on 1st October, a Thursday this year.  But I have seen some mooncakes already on sale, maybe they want to catch up on sales during this Recovey Movement Control Order.  I have shared quite a few mooncake recipes on my blog and this time I'm sharing with you this Purple Sweet Potato Mooncakes.  Give it a try if you prefer something different from the norm. Purple Sweet Potato Mooncake 2020  ~   紫薯月饼  (adapted from 'here' ) Ingredients 700 gm purple sweet potatoes (only 500 gm required) 5 Tbsp honey 65 ml oil 440 gm lotus paste Koh fun (fried glutinous flour) Method Steam the sweet potatoes, remove the skin and weigh out 500 gm to mash till fine.  (You can use the food processor or with a fork), I used the food chopper. Add in honey, oil and blend till fine, knead lightly. Divide into 25 gm dough, roll into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for about 30 mins. Meanwhile, prepare the f

I have seen winter melon double boiled soup and I was surfing the internet looking for recipes to experiment with.  Steaming food in a pumpkin to use it as a serving bowl looks interesting and since I have some glutinous rice, why not let it mingle with pumpkin and see how it would turn out.  It's quite a straight forward dish, just like serving rice in a steamed pumpkin rather than on a plate and I do like the presentation. Steamed Pumpkin Glutinous Rice   ~    蒸南瓜糯米饭    Ingredients 1 kg Japanese pumpkin 180 gm glutinous rice (washed, soaked overnight) 80 gm pork, diced 10 gm dried shrimps 3 Shitake mushrooms, hydrated, stemmed and diced 1 tsp oyster sauce 2 tsp light soy sauce 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce 1 tsp chopped garlic 1 tsp sesame oil Salt to taste Method Wash the pumpkin, place on a plate and steam on medium heat for about 15 mins. to soften.  Then carefully cut a lid opening about 8 cm diameter around the stem with a sharp knife.  Keep the li

I adapted the recipe for this Sakura Chiffon Cake from my previous Coffee Chiffon with Cocoa layering   but tweaked it a bit by adding Cointreau and orange zest and placing the Sakura flowers at the base of the chiffon pan.  This chiffon cake is soft and moist with a subtle taste of Cointreau and a nice fragrance of orange. Sakura Chiffon Cake  ~樱花戚风蛋糕 (adapted from 'here' ) Ingredients (A) 70 gm plain flour 5 large egg yolks 20 gm caster sugar 60 ml water 2 tsp Cointreau 70 ml vegetable oil 1.1/2 tsp orange zest 8 to 10 pickled Sakura flowers (B) 5 large egg whites 80 gm caster sugar  )  Mix well 10 gm cornflour      )    Method Rinse the pickled Sakura flowers to remove the salt and soak them for about 45 to 60 mins.  Gently pat dry the flowers with kitchen paper.  Line the flowers on the base of an ungreased 23 cm chiffon cake pan. Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar, add in the oil, water, Cointreau and orange zest, mix well.