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

The annual Mooncake or Lantern festival is fast approaching and this year it falls on 15th September.  These Lotus meat floss mooncakes were made from a wooden mould  which I bought recently.   Personally I find that stamping the mooncakes out from the plastic mould is faster and easier.  These mooncakes are semi savoury because of the meat floss embedded in the lotus paste and having a nice neat cut can be a bit challenging because of the meat floss. Lotus Meat Floss Mooncake  ~    莲蓉肉松月饼 Ingredients for Skin Dough 150 gm superfine flour (may need to add more if too soft to handle) 90 ml golden syrup 38 ml vegetable oil 2 ml alkaline water Egg wash - 1 whole egg + 1 tsp water, mix and strain Filling  - Lotus Paste (store bought)           -  Chicken meat floss Method Mix syrup, oil and alkaline water thoroughly till no oil surface.  Use a ball whisk. Sift in flour, ...

K uih are typical Malaysian cakes served any time of the day  and are more often steamed than baked.   The Malays refer to them as ' kuih ' while the Chinese refer to them as 'gao'.  They are mostly made with rice, rice, tapioca and wheat starch flour, coconut milk and sugar but we do have some that are savoury.   I've heard that the best purple sweet potatoes are those from Indonesia and must admit that I was really taken in by their overwhelming colour.  To me, the Japanese  purple sweet potatoes come in second compared to their Indonesian counterparts.  Purple sweet potatoes have high contents of anthocyanin which is associated with a reduced cancer risk.  There are two categories of sweet potatoes, some are firm and dry like the purple sweet potatoes while some are soft and moist.  Read more about sweet potatoes, it's nutrients, benefits, etc......' here '.

This is my second attempt at baking Pandan Chiffon Cake for I slightly underbaked the first one and it just dropped off from the pan about 10 mins. after I inverted it onto a cooling tray.  So this time I did some homework and found a lot of tips to fine tune the recipe.  As I've never tried whisking the egg yolks and sugar with the ball whisk of a stand mixer, I thought I'd give it a try.  I'm not sure why this time my chiffon cake has more craters than all my previous Chiffon cakes, just wondering whether it could be due to the mixing with the ball whisk which had incorporated more air into the batter.  Nevertheless, I'd prefer to adhere to either beat the egg yolks and sugar with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer or just combine the egg yolks and sugar with a wire whisk which I normally do. Pandan Chiffon Cake ~ 香兰戚风蛋糕  Ingredients (A)                           ...

I adapted a recipe from Christine's Recipes to make these cute little steamed 'woon chai ko' with red bean.  However, I tweaked the recipe a bit by using palm sugar instead of brown sugar.

I took the opportunity to make some buns during this hot spell for I know that the dough will be able to proof very quickly.  I wasn't wrong for the dough doubled up in size within half of the normal time required for the proofing process.   These soft and fluffy buns were made using the 'Gelatinized Method' and you can view the step-by-step instructions 'here'. These plain buns go very well with soup or can be served with just a spread of butter Plain Buns - (Gelatinized method)  ~  普通面包子 Ingredients for Gelatinized dough    100 gm plain flour 70 ml boiling water Method Place flour in a bowl, add boiling water and mix with a wooden spoon or lightly knead to form a dough. Cover with cling wrap, leave to cool and keep refrigerated overnight. Ingredients for Dough 400 gm high protein flour 75 gm caster sugar 20 gm skimmed milk powder 2.1/4 tsp dried yeast 1 tsp salt 170 ml ice cold water 75 gm cold butter, cubed 1 col...

Ipoh, the capital of Perak state in Malaysia is famous for its 'white coffee'.  This 'white coffee' originated from an old coffee shop, 'Sin Yoon Loong' tucked in a corner of Leech Street now known as 'Jalan Bandar Timah' in the old town of Ipoh.  Other than white coffee, 'Kai Dan Kou', steamed sponge cake sandwhiched with a layer of their housebrand 'kaya' ~ coconut jam is also a popular item on their menu.  If you want to take a peep @ this coffee shop, do hop over to this   site   for a short review.

The recipe for this bake is adapted from the Marble Butter Cake that I posted not long ago.  Since I ran out of self-raising flour, I settled for plain flour and added in baking powder.   I was also eager to see the result.  There were no cracks on the surface of the cake.  I didn't invert the cake immediately after removing it from the oven as I wanted to decorate the cake and didn't want the lines of the cooling rack imprinted on the surface.  I just let it cool in the pan.  The cake was moist and soft much to my other half's delight and he promptly ate two pieces with a cup of hot tea! Greentea Matcha Marble Butter Cake  ~  抹茶大理石牛油蛋糕  Ingredients (A)   230 gm butter (unsalted) 150 gm caster sugar 4 egg yolks (I used 67 gm eggs with shell) 200 gm plain flour 2.1/4 tsp baking powder 60 ml milk 2.1/4 tsp Greentea powder 1 tsp vanilla a pinch of salt (B)     4 egg whites      ...

This steamed pork spareribs is readily available in most of  the dim-sum restaurants and it's one item that my children will nod in acknowledgement when the dim-sum carts come rolling by.  It's not too difficult to replicate this at home and in fact you can make adjustments to it to suit your taste.   You can serve this over rice or plain white porridge as a meal like what I'm doing  here! Steamed pork spareribs with black beans   ~     豆豉蒸排骨 Ingredients 250 gm pork spareribs cut into bite size 2 tsp fermented black beans 4 pips of garlic, finely chopped 1 tsp finely chopped ginger 1 Birdeye chilli, chopped 3/4 tsp sugar 1/4 tsp dark soya sauce 1 tsp cornstarch 2 Tbsp water Method Combine all the ingredients into a paste. Marinate the spareribs with the paste for about 2 hours or preferably overnigh. Place the marinated spareribs onto a heat-proof plate. Steam under medium heat for about 15 mins. till the spar...