Hokkaido Milk Loaf

Recipe source from 'Angie's Recipes'- Hokkaido Milky Loaf.

Soon Kueh (笋糕）

From my previous posted on Soon Kueh, I had readers who tried out the recipe and had faced problem making soon kueh skin. Here, I had tried out the same recipe again and re-posted the recipe with elaborate details. Hope this helps. Wheat starch(澄面粉) was not used in this recipe so the skin is not chewy. It is the usual tradition soon kueh I used to eat when I was young.

Recipe

Ingredients (yield more than 20kuehs)
Skin:
250g rice flour
125g tapioca flour
550-600ml water
2tbsp oil
2tsp sugar
1/2tsp salt

Filling:
600g turnip(shredded and drain away liquid)
100g carrot(shredded)
100g minced meat
50g dried shrimps(soak and chopped)
2cloves garlic(chopped)
4 shallot(chopped)

adequate salt
adequate pepper
adequate light soy sauce

Steps:
Filling:
1. Heat up 3tbsp of oil in a wok, fry chopped garlic and shallot till fragrant.
2. Add in chopped dried shrimp and fry till fragrant.
3. Add in minced meat and carrot and stir fry for a while.
4. Add in turnip and stir fry until slightly dry.
5. Add in seasoning to taste and mix well.
6. Dish out and set aside to cool. (Let filling sit in a sieve or colander to drain away excess liquid.)

Skin:
1. Boil water, salt and sugar together in a pot. (Water must reach boiling point. Remove 50ml of water first.)
2. Add rice flour into boiling hot water, with a wooden spoon quickly mix well.
3. Add in tapioca flour and oil, mix till soft dough and no trace of lump of flour in it. (Add in some more hot water if you find that the dough is dry.)
4. Cover lid and rest for 10mins. (Allow hot steam to cook though the dough so it will turn soft.)
5. Hand knead dough for a minute or two till smooth. (Be careful as dough is still very hot.)
6. Cover dough to prevent dough from drying and turn hard. (I leave dough in pot and cover with lid.)

Wrapping:
1. Grab some dough, knead on your palm and round it to form a round ball.
2. Flatten it on a silicon mat.
3. Roll it out into thin piece. (If you find that it too sticky, flip it over and roll the other side or lightly grease roller with oil. Don't use too much oil as you will face problem seal the opening.)
4. With a 9cm pastry cutter, cut out a round dough.
5. Wrap in filling, pinch edges to seal opening. (You can lightly wet edges when sealing.)
6. Grease steamer rack with oil.
7. Arrange kueh on steamer rack, brush surface with oil.
8. Steam in a preheated steamer over high heat for 10mins.

Marble Castella Cake

Recipe

Ingredients
3 egg
70g caster sugar
75g bread flour
1tbsp honey
1tbsp milk
1tbsp glucose

1tsp chocolate paste

Steps:
1. Double lined a 18cm x 8cm base loaf pan and with excess grease proof paper dangling over the pan, wrap surrounding with foil and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 165C.
3. Sift bread flour twice and set aside.
4. With a hand whisk, whisk eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl over a pot of simmer hot water. (Base of mixing bowl not touching water.)
5. Keep whisking till the egg mixture reach about 40C.
6. Remove from simmering water, pour egg into cake mixer bowl.
7. Whisk at high speed for 5mins till it increase in volume and pale yellow.
8. Reduce speed to medium-low and continue to whisk till it stable where only tiny air bubbles can be seen, it take about 10-15mins or slightly longer.
9. Reduce speed to low and continue to whisk for a minute.
10.Dissolve honey and glucose in warm milk. (I poured them together into a small bowl, warmed it up in microwave oven for 10sec and mix well.)
11.Bring the mixer speed up to medium, pour in lukewarm honey mixture and mix till well blended.
12.Sift bread flour in 3 batches into egg batter and fold in till well blended.
13.Scoop some batter into a small bowl and mix in chocolate paste.
14.Pour chocolate batter into plain batter and briefly stir around.
13.Pour batter into prepared pan.
14.Either tap pan on counter top or use a skewer to stir the batter around to burst any air bubbles.
15.Bake in preheated oven for 45mins.
16.Once it out from the oven, remove cake from pan and remove one piece of the grease proof paper.
17.Place a clean white paper on the surface, fold in grease proof paper which is dangling over the pan.
18.Flip it over resting cake up-side-down on a flat hard board.
19.Put it in a big plastic bag and rest in fridge overnight.
20.Slice cake with sharp knife and serve.

Note: Another alternative to create marble effects: pour some plain batter into pan, spoon 1tsp of chocolate batter over it and stir briefly. Repeat step till all the chocolate batter is used up.

Mexico Buns

Recipe

Ingredients
Bread dough:
40g warm water
1tsp instant yeast
1/2tsp caster sugar
1tsp bread flour

250g bread flour
40g caster sugar
1/4tsp salt
85g milk
30g egg
25g butter

Topping:
40g butter
40g icing sugar
45g plain flour (sift)
30g egg

Steps:
Topping:
1. Cream butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Beat in egg until well combined.
3. Fold in flour until well combined.
4. Spoon batter into piping bag and store in fridge for later use.

Bread dough:
1. Mix warm water, yeast, 1tsp bread flour and 1tsp caster sugar together, cover and set aside to prove for 10-15mins.
2. Combine bread flour, sugar and salt in a mixer and mix well at low speed.
3. Add yeast dough from step no.1, milk and egg into the dry ingredients.
4. Knead at medium speed until it form a dough.
5. Add in butter, continue to beat until it form a smooth and elastic dough.
6. Cover dough and let it prove for 50mins.
7. Knock down proved dough, hand knead on a lightly floured surface for a while.
8. Divide dough into 11 equal portions, shape each dough into round ball.
9. Arrange it on a greased tray.
10.Cover and leave it to proof for 45mins until it doubled in size.
11.Preheat oven to 190C.
12.Pipe topping on proved doughs.
13.Scatter chocolate chips or raisins on the surface.
14.Bake in a preheated oven for 10mins until buns is slightly brown.
15.Remove bread from tray and cool it on a wire rack.

Orange Cheesecake

I'm really craving for cheesecake. It been some time I didn't bake cheesecake. So I bake a small cheesecake to pamper myself. I have this for breakfast and afternoon tea, very...contented. :)

Recipe

Ingredients
Biscuit base:
140g digestive biscuits (finely crushed)
60g butter (melted)

Cheese layer:
250g cream cheese
65g caster sugar
1 1/2tbsp corn flour
2 egg
40g orange juice
1 orange zest
60g whipping cream

Glazing:
3tbsp deco gel/piping gel
1/4tsp orange essence
a drop of orange food colouring

Steps:
Biscuit base:
1. Mix both crushed biscuit and melted butter together till well blended.
2. Lined a 7inches loose base round tin with grease proof paper.
3. Press biscuit onto base and chill in fridge for 1/2hour or till firm.

Cheese layer:
1. Preheat oven at 160C.
2. Use a food processor, mix cream cheese, sugar and corn flour till blended.
3. Slowly pour in beaten egg and blend till well mix.
4. Follow by orange juice, zest and whipping cream and blend till well mix.
5. Wrap the base and side of the cake tin with aluminum foil.
6. Pour the cream cheese batter onto the biscuits base.
7. With a toothpick poke all the air bubbles floating on the surface of the cream cheese batter.
8. Steam bake in the preheated oven for 45-55mins.
9. Leave cheesecake to cool in the oven for 1hr with the door ajar.
10.Chill cheesecake in fridge for 2-4hr till set.

Assemble cake:
1. Mix orange essence and colouring into deco gel.
2. If you find it too thick add 1/2tsp of hot water and mix well.
3. Pour orange deco gel onto cheesecake and spread it out evenly.
4. Return to fridge and chill till the gel is set.
5. Remove cheesecake from tin, sliced and serve.

Note: You may like to choice any of this steam bake/water bath method.
- I usually placed cheesecake cake tin into a bigger cake tin then I place it into water bath. (lower shelf)
- This time I placed a tray of hot water at the lower shelf, place a steaming rack in it and put the cake tin on the steaming rack without touching the water at all.
- I read from other blogs, they placed a cup of hot water at each corner in the oven then placed the cake tin on the oven rack.

Orange Flavour Teriyaki Chicken

Recipe

Ingredients
3 chicken thigh (boneless)
1 white onion (sliced)

Homemade teriyaki sauce:
1/3cup Japanese soy sauce (I used KIKKOMAN brand however I find that it too salty and the colour is too dark.)
1/3cup mirin
1tbsp plain flour
3tbsp sugar
3slices ginger
juice of 1 orange
zest of 1 orange

Steps:
1. Mix all the ingredients for teriyaki sauce together.
2. Simmer over medium low heat till sauce thicken.
3. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
4. Use 1/2 to 3/4 portion of the orange teriyaki sauce to marinade chicken thigh for 2 to 4hours or overnight. (Pour balance sauce in an airtight bottle and store it in fridge.)
5. Heat up a non-stick pan.
6. Place marinaded chicken into pan and scatter onion on the chicken.
7. Pour marinaded chicken sauce over chicken.
8. Cover lid, reduce to medium-low heat and simmer for 8mins.
9. Turn the chicken over, cover lid and continue to simmer till sauce thicken and chicken is cook though.
10.Dish out and serve.

Note: For original teriyaki sauce, omit orange juice, zest and ginger. You can replace it with 1/4cup of water if you find the sauce is too salty.

Green Tea Castella Cake

Recipe source from 'Angie's Recipes'- Matcha Spelt Castella.

Castella Cake

Recipe source from 'The Fresh Loaf'- Kasutera (Castella) cake.

Castella cake crazy filled around blogs sphere and here I am joining in too. Yesterday, I baked two Castella cakes in a day. One is this honey flavour whereas the other is green tea flavour. Both using difference methods. And I must said both taste fantastic. :)

Sigh!!! This Castella cake will be perfect if I didn't make a silly mistake. I think readers should have notice that there were lot of winkles on the cake crust. For Castella cake, cake has to invert up-side-down during the resting process whereas Green Tea Castella cake has to rest right-side-up. I had both the steps mixed up. When I realized it, OMG it too late! The surface creased and lot of winkles on it. ;(