Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit!

I'd wanted to continue participating in the Aspiring Bakers challenge on Chinese Year Cookies but I was too busy to submit my post by the closing date of 1 Fen 2011. :P

Chinese New Year cookies has become my yearly to-do event and of course I have my favourite new year cookie, and that is almond cookies! I've never failed to make this every year after I make my first almond cookie years back with Florence's recipe. I had tried other almond cookie recipes and by far this is still my favourite recipe. I believe using toasted almonds really enhances the taste, much more than using ground almonds alone.
This year, I made my own pineapple jam, after reading Wendy's blog which gave really clear instructions on how to make it. Her instructions and tips really helped alot as I found it less intimidating to do as I had thought. The only problem was that my jam was too wet and soft, even though I had cooked it once more the next day and chill it in the fridge. Being too soft, I had such a difficult time wrapping the pastry dough over the jam.

This year, I made kok chai again with my mum's help. I used a bigger drinking glass to mould the shape of circle for the dough, for fear of the dough shrinking but it dodn't this year. Hence my first batches of kok chai were so big that we think it looked like mini curry puffs! LOL

I finally made kueh bangkit again this year after a few years of rest. :D

My favourite almond cookie.

We have just ushered into the year of the Rabbit and I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous year ahead!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Pineapple tarts! How can any chinese family miss out this traditional delicious new year goody? With a doubt this has to be on top of my priority to-bake list for cny. Last year, I made my own pineapple jam and the results was so much better than store-bought jam that I 've told my mom that this year, it has to be home-made jam again. However, work has been so busy for me this year that I was happy to have the time for pineapple tarts. I just had to make do with store-bought because it would be so much convenient for me.

I bought one packet of 1-kg pineapple jam from Phoon Huat (Redman brand) and was planning to make open tart style and the closed version, but the jam was just enough for three tubs of closed version so that was all I made this year. I attempted to measure the weight of the dough and pineapple jam so that each and every tart would be identical. I used 6g or 7g dough vs 6g or 7g jam and Im pretty satisfied with the thin crust I got this year. :)

I used to receive comments that my pineapple tart had too little jam but this year I received other comments such as they prefer more crust than jam. *lol* Well so it all boils down to personal preference. For me, even though I don't really fancy eating a lot of the pineapple jam, I think a thinner crust makes the tarts appear more 'professional looking as there has been effort put in to mould each tart into even shapes and with generous amount of filling (jam). :)

My recipe was from none other than Oi Lin's Delicious Asian Sweet Treats and the tarts were very buttery and melt-in-your mouth. Personally I have tried a couple of pineapple tart recipes before and I would say most are good in their own way. I emphasise using good quality ingredients especially butter since butter is the key ingredient in pineapple tarts.

The clock had struck midnight and it is now 大年初一﹗

祝大家在虎年里身体健康﹐心想是成﹐步步高升﹐恭喜發財﹗

Must Try Peanut Puffs!

The peanuts puffs that mom and I made last week were so good and my dad like it so much that last weekend, we decided to make it again. Two tubs were gone in a week and I had not even let dd try it. So I had to "turn down" others in my "to-bake list" to make way for this golden puffs because time is just so precious for me. I'd save my kueh bangkit/ suji cookie / walnut cookie for next year!

Hands-on experience beats everything even if you read a recipe a thousand times. Probably also because this time, we did it in the day time when our energy is still at its peak so everything went smoothly and I could handle the dough much better and faster. I had more strength to roll and re-roll the dough which gets tougher each time i gathered the left-overs from the cut-out rounds.

The wrapped puffs looked so much nicer because I finally mastered the technique of folding the pleats after a few ugly attempts. Oi Lin's video posted on her blog also helped alot. I learnt to wet the edges of the cut-out rounds with water so that it can be sealed easily.

Mom was camera shy so I'm not allowed to take take a shot of her. :P

I rolled and cut out the shapes in the kitchen while she wrapped the puffs in the living hall where it is much cooler. Altogether, you need to prepare three clean, white cloth - one to cover the dough after mixing because I don't have a large work surface, so I divide the dough into several portions for rolling and cutting; one to cover the little round cut-out shapes and the last one to cover the wrapped puffs before frying. This is to prevent the dough from drying out.

These were my first attempt, of different shapes and sizes! Nonetheless they were still so good. ;)

I hope I am still not too late to share this recipe because this is just soooo good! If you still have a bit of time to spare, do do try this! The crust has this flaky texture that is crispy and it just crumbles in the mouth. Ok, enough said, here's the recipe. :)

560g plain flour (original recipe uses Hong Kong flour but plain flour works just as good in my first attempt so I'm gonna stick with it)

17 tbsp peanut oil

14 tbsp water

150g ground peanuts or peanut powder

100g caster sugar

Peanut oil for frying

(1 litre of oil is needed for this recipe, inclusive of the above 17 tbsp oil)

1. Mix ground peanuts with caster sugar and stir well. Set aside.
2. Add peanut oil to flour and mix. Add water gradually until a dough is formed. At first, the water may seemed too much and the dough is very wet. Just continue kneading and eventually all the water will be absorbed and dough will become smooth and non-sticky.
3. Roll the dough thinly with a rolling pin. Just roll it as thin as you can without tearing and you are still able to wrap it without tearing, about 2mm.
4. Cut out round shape with a cookie cutter. (or use a glass like I do!)
5. Spoon a small amount of peanut filling onto the centre. Dab the edges with water. Close up to form a semi-circle. Using your thumb and index finger, flatten the edge. Then pinch to form a pattern. I strongly recommend you to watch the video here. It helps alot.
6. Set aside in a covered container to prevent puffs from drying out.
7. Heat peanut oil in a wok. The oil should be medium hot and depth of at least 4cm. Deep-fry the puffs till golden brown.
8. Place the fried puffs on paper towels to soak up excess oil.
9. Let the puffs cool completely befoe storing in an airtight container.

The recipe is based on Oi Lin's "Delicious Asian Sweet Treats" with my own modifications. I have doubled the recipe and yields about 110 to 120 pieces.

Chinese Almond Cookies

14 days to Chinese New Year. Have you started your cny baking? :) I just completed a batch of peanut puffs, aka kok chai last night when everyone should have been in slumberland. kok chai is another chinese festive snack not to be missed, especially if you are a peanut lover. Since I was young, we would always be expecting my auntie, who makes great kok chai to give us some (if she makes enough). Otherwise, we would rely on store bought which is usually not as good as homemade ones.

My mum had always wanted to learn how to make but never had the chance to learn from my auntie. This year, I decided to rope in my mum to make kok chai together. I'm only good with the oven, but if you ask me to handle woks and deep-frying stuffs, I had better do it with my expert mum by my side. ;)

Making kok chai really needs lots of patience because you need to wrap each individual puff with peanuts, seal it and make jagged patterns with your fingers. If you filled with too much peanuts that touches the outer corners of the skin, the skin would become non-sticky and difficult to seal it tightly. As we were approaching midnight, both mum and I were already tired that our productivity and patience really goes down. We just wanted to finish up all the dough, so the puffs gets uglier and bigger. *LOL* But it was all worth it because the kok chai, despite having a slightly thicker skin, were very crunchy and delicious! This is our first attempt and we considered ourselves to be successful ;)

Lesson learnt here is that never try to bake and make anything in the night time unless you are a night owl who's exceptionally energetic at night. Thanks to my great, noble mummy who stayed up with me till late!I'm sorry that I digressed so much because the recipe for this post is not kok chai but chinese almond cookies. I had drafted this post earlier with the recipe ready but I am now so eager to relate my kok chai-making experience so I decided to just go ahead and talk about it now. usually when the excitement dies down, I would not have the mood to post it again. :)

This year, due to my hectic work schedule, I had reduced much of my to-do new year bakes list as compared to previous year. As much as I wish I could bake new year goodies of all sorts, I just have to be realistic. I tried out a new recipe for chinese almond cookie but it was not this recipe. This is the kind of recipe that is similar to the chinese walnut cookie that you sometimes get when you go hong kong. It is very crispy and usually comes in bigger size. I made this because I wanted to use up the shortening left in my fridge. It is a very unhealthy cookie because of the use of lard/ shortening but it is this ingredient that gives it its unique crispiness but everyone raves about it so I think it is alright since I am sharing good stuffs with many people. ;)

This photo shot was not a freshly baked one as I managed to get this photo shot with the last one and a half piece left after a few days later. I find that this type of cookies is not commonly sold during chinese new year. So why not bake this for new year to serve your guest? :)

Chinese Almond Cookies

Ingredients:

210g plain flour

3/4 tsp ammonium bicarbonate (I replace with 1/4 tsp baking soda)

50g ground almonds

100g lard (I used shortening)

100g unsalted butter, chilled

200g fine sugar (I reduced to 170g) (do not use caster sugar)

2 egg yolks

1 1/2 tsp almond extract (I used 1 tsp vanilla essence and 1/2 tsp almond essence for some who do not like the too strong almond taste)

3/4 tsp salt

1 egg yolk beaten with 2 tbsp water, for glazing whole blanched almonds, for decoration

Method:

1. Sift flour and ammonium bicarbonate together in a bowl. Add ground almonds and whisk until thoroughly mixed together. Set aside.
2. Combine lard, butter, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl and cream until well blended. (sugar will not dissolve thoroughly, this is fine). Best in egg yolks one at a time, then add vanilla and almond extract and beat to incorporate.
3. Add flour mixture and stir until dough comes together in a ball. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least 45 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 180°C.
5. Prepare baking sheets lined with baking parchment.
6. Divide dough into 24 portions (about 30g each). - This would yield a very large cookie. I used 15g per portion and the diameter was about 6cm
7. Roll each portion into a ball, spacing about 5 cm apart.
8. Brush lightly with yolk and press a whole almond into each one, flattening each ball slightly. (I omitted this)
9. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until deep golden brown. Cookies will flatten out during baking.
10. Let cookies cool on baking sheet until they are firm enough to remove, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.
11. Store in airtight container as soon as they are cool.

Recipe Source: Food & Travel - Jan 2010 Issue

I will post more pictures of other chinese new year goodies when I have the time. ;)

X'mas bakes & Happy 2010!!!

Like many bloggers out there, I've had a long list of X'mas bakings planned long ahead to do this year. See my calendar and you'll know... it's not only outings in my schedule but baking "appointments" I've scheduled. :) Unfortunately most did not materialise, for you can't have the best of both worlds. For me, it's either I stay at home most of the weekend to feel the christmasy mood and enjoy the baking therapy, or immerse in the X'mas mood with gal's all-time favourite shopping therapy and meeting up my buddies and pals. So I choose the latter, cos' it's only the once in a year when most of us can try to take time out to meet up with one another.

I still managed to bake something new this year, though I didn't fulfill the entire list.

These are cranberry shortbreads. The dough gets soft very fast so for some of them, I had to make snowball type cookies.

I attended a cookie workshop at Sugar Inc some time back and learnt the techniques of making royal icing using meringue powder. I did tried this on my own before but after attending this workshop, I'm able to do it much better. :) So I gotto try it out on my x'mas cookies this year. My friends were delighted when they saw these cute decorated cookies!

Another new item i baked this year was christmas stollen. Used the recipe from my trusted 孟老师的100道面包. You can find the recipe in Elyn's blog as well. :)

Brandy mixed with orange juice-soaked dried fruits. I used mainly cranberries, raisins and currants.

I love to eat these toasted almonds on its own!

Made two loaves dusted with icing sugar

I find these bread rather oily because quite a high amount of butter is used. They were a tad too moist as well. I later realised I need to pat-dry the soaked berries well, which I didn't. :P Overall, it's a very delicious bread with the generous helping of berries.

Wanna wish everyone a HAPPY 2010!! May all have a good year ahead! :D

CNY Baking 收工了！

Last Thursday was the day I officially 收工 for all my CNY bakes! I deliberately took half a day off just to finish up the baking, not forgetting some late night bakings. I had to finish it early cos' I'm still not done with my spring cleaning. My desk, pc and personal belongings were all in a mess and I had to do it up by today, i.e. 除夕夜。Thankfully all were done and thus I had a little time to do some blogging now ;)

These are what I've baked this year.


I had been wanting to make my own pineapple jam for years and this year I finally did it. Haha, the Nike Slogan does make sense. Before I call it off due to my constant hesitation, I already asked my dad to help my buy 4 pineapples. So, I just had to do it anyway since I already bought it.

I would say making pineapple jam wasn't that difficult but you got to have the patience to do it. Some people blend the pineapples in a blender but I choose to grate it.

I must feel ashame cos' I can only bake but when it comes to cooking, things were in total flop. :P Firstly, I need my dad to help me core the pineapples. The way he saw me doing it and he just couldn't help but took over the knife and helped me with it. He was saying" by the time I done it, the leftover pineapples would be so small!" haha! Heh know why, cos' my slicing was really bad that I almost chopped off a whole big slice instead of just slicing away the skin and "eye". Then comes the grating of pineapples. My mum also took over and showed me how to grate it when she saw me doing so "inefficiently". I think if she had not shown me, I would not be able to finish cooking my jam by day break (I did it at night). While cooking the jam. I acted with caution by cooking over "low heat". My mum said this wouldn't be done by day break if I continue doing so. So she adjusted the heat for my and kept stirring it. We had to watch over it more closely to prevent it from getting burnt. The crucial part is during the time the jam is semi-dry. You got to add in the sugar and keep stirring.

I took about 2 hours in total to cook the jam. Actually I wasn't sure if it was the right consistency. It was still quite soft the next day during baking but I was worried it would be too dry after chilling overnight. I think next year if I'm gonna make it again, I would cook a little drier before removing from the heat. Also, I felt that the jam was not pureed fine enough and there were still some tiny chunks of pineapple. :P

Anyway, homemade jam is really so much better than store bought. The sweetness is just right and it's definitely not dry and moist. Only thing is you must have the patience to do it. ;) You can refer to Oilin's blog for more detailed steps to make pineapple jam.
This year, I made the wrapped version as well as the open-style version pineapple tarts. For the wrapped version, I used Mandy's recipe. This yielded a very soft melt-in-your mouth tarts. The soft crust almost burst into powdery form and melt in your mouth the moment you bite into it in your mouth. My dad felt it was too dry But I think it's good in my opinion. There are just too many preferences for pineapple tarts. :) But I think my wrapping skills is still very unprofessional cos despite feeling that I used the minimum amount of dough I can to wrap the jam, the resulting crust was still too rhick. I guess also probably my homemade jam was too soft, Thus I had more diffuculty wrapping up the jam.

For the open-style version, I used Aunty Yochana's recipe again (same as last year). As hers used a whole egg instead of 2 egg yolks, I reckon it would have a little more "structure" which is what I'm looking for in open-style version. Only thing was this year, I ran out of milk powder thus I replaced with corn flour. Both recipes were equally good and definitely a keeper!

Last year, I wanted to make this green pea cookies but I didn't have the time. I bought from Bangawan Solo but I did not like the too soft and melt-in-your mouth texture. I preferred it to be a little crunchy. Aunty Yochana' had two recipes of this green pea cookies (this and this). I used the first one, and brushed with egg wash (not stated in the recipe) but mine turned out a little hard. Maybe I should add more oil or I might try the other recipe if I'm going to make again.

This year, I also baked a batch of cornflake cookies. I love the crunch of these cornflake cookies. But for the first batch (the above photo), I overbaked a little. The second batch was fine. :) But in future, I would drop smaller teaspoons as I prefer the pop-in-your mouth crunch instead of this bigger cookie. My dd recently bought for me the 孟老师的道手功饼干 . This recipe was modified from the book and Amanda' cornflake cookie recipe.

Ok I got to rush to prepare for tonight's 团元饭 reunion dinner! Also wanna DIY manicure and pedicure. ;) Please drop me a comment if you want this cornflake cookie recipe ;)

Oh just to also make a note that I failed for my second batch of Kueh Bangkit :( I MUST remember not to add too much coconut milk and I used 2 egg yolks when I should have used only 1.5. cos' I x1.5 times the recipe. So my kueh bangkit turned out crispy on some parts instead of melt-in-your mouth. :( A kueh bangkit dough must never be too perfect. It must be a little dry. Heh I must remember this so I won't repeat the same mistake again.

I forgot to take pictures of the almond cookies that I'd also made. It's the same recipe as previous year and I'm not gonna switch to other almond cookie recipe again cos' this is really good! (Florence's blog). Do remember to toast the almond nibs. The first tub I did, I forgotten about it and it does make a whole lot of difference to the taste!

Here's wishing everyone a really good year in the Ox Year! Happy Lunar New Year and hope evryone enjoy your CNY break! I'd be going to Malacca/Genting with my family for a short trip on 大年初三. It's been ages we went for a holiday together。:D