Go Green

In continuation of the pantry cleaning story, I also found a small delicately decorated jar of green tea, Matcha powder which i bought when I was in Japan few years ago. I have no idea what i want to do with it at the time, and I can't really appreciate the strong and bitter matcha serve to me during the tea ceremony, but i bought it anyway because it the packaging is too pretty. In fact, all the food packaging are super pretty and delicate and make fantastic homecoming gifts. However, I could not make up my mind when surrounded with all these pretty packages I ended up buying packages of mochi, biscuits, polka and other oh too pretty Japanese sweets that can't fit into my luggage bag. I still remember we're desperately trying to get a extra box ( so they dun get squash as some of the packaging is quite delicate ) to pack them, and not a lot of Japanese understand us in Takayama, but we later learnt a new word: Box = Haku in Japanese, and very soon, we're giving a medium size box to pack our shoppings!




In the recent cold and wet weather, my original intention was to bake something richer and comforting but I ran out of milk, yoghurts and cream, all the essential ingredients to bake a cake or something warming. There is no way I'm going out to the shop when the rain was pouring outside, so I have my eyes fixed on the delicate jar of matcha powder and make the easiest green tea cookies ever. In fact, so easy that the method would only consits of 1 sentence. You'll see.



Green tea Cookies

Ingredients:

• 80g butter, soften
• 40g sugar with extra
• 1/2 tsp matcha powder
• 2 egg yolks
• 140g plain flour

Method:

1. Combine everything together until it forms a dough, chilled it in the fridge for 15 mins, rolled out and cut with cookie cutter, sprinkle with extra caster sugar, bake in preheated oven (160 degree Celsius, lesser if fan force ) for 15mins.( depending on the thickness too! )
2. While still hot and soft, sprinkle more caster sugar on top and cool on wire rack, it'll become crispy and firm up while cooled, enjoy it before serving to anyone, or else you'll surely missed out as they taste like manna from heaven!
   

OK, so it's more than 1 sentence, but still, it's really easy cookie with a big taste!

A taste from the outback

We have been doing a lot of cleaning and clearing at the moment, though my house seems tidy over all, we were still amazed at the amount of junks hiding in the cupboard, under the bed, behind the sofas....some of these things are brand new unwanted gifts, some of them were the result of impulse buying, and most of them were just junk that we thought it will be useful so we kept them at the time, but we've never really needed them. Even though husband and I are no haorders, some of the junks were difficult to get rid off, especially those that hold sentimental values, like my engagement and wedding flower bouquet. They have been drying quite nicely, and been sitting on the shelf beside my wedding photos, but even dead and dried flowers have their used by date, and lately they have been deteriorate quite rapidly, and the dried patels began to turn into fine, powdery " ash". Husband have been asking me, no, begging me to get rid of the pile of patel ash, and finally, I had but no choice to put them ( unwillingly ) into the big black plastic bag together with other junks.

My pantry is another place with a lot of hidden junks, and gems. I'm absolutely delighted when I found a jar of wattlseeds sitting nicely behind the many other cans of food inside the pantry. I remember searching high and low for it after I read about these particular spice from a cooking book, and finally bought it from the Essential Ingredients, alas, never used it after!! I was so relieved to find that the use by date is still one long year away, and I swear to myself that I'll use it in my next baking. Wattleseeds are Australia native spice, they are edible seeds from wattle plants dried, and ground. They have very nutty, chocolaty and coffee flavours. It was used by the aboriginals for cooking and making bread and has become quite a popular spice lately because of their distinctive flavour, and can be found quite easily from gourmet food store. Because of their nuttiness, i decided to pair them with the coffee and almond crunch recipe, adapted from the October 2008 issue of Australian Good Food Magazines.


Bush Coffee Crunch Cake

Ingredients for the cake

• 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 170g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tsp coffee essence
• 100g almond meal
• 1/4 cup strong coffee
• 2/3 cup SR flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp wattleseedes

Ingredients from the crunch topping:

• 60g plain flour
• 40g demerara sugar
• 1/3 cup pecan nuts ( optional )
  
• 40g cold butter, cubed

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius. Line a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper.
2. To make the topping, mix flour and sugar in a bowl, and rub in cold butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Put in the fridge while making the cake.
   
3. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, one at a time until all combine. Add in the vanilla and coffee essence. Fold in the almond meal, alternating with half of the the strong coffee.
   
4. Sift the SR flour, wattle seeds and baking powder together, gently fold the flour into the egg mixture, and add the other half of the strong coffee.
   
5. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Scatter the topping and pecan nuts on top of the cake batter, and bake in the pre heated oven for about 1 hour.
   
6. Remove from oven once cooked, and cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
   

The cake is loaded with heavenly coffee aroma and is very moist with a crunchy nutty toppings. The addition of wattleseeds is wonderful, and gives another layer of nuttiness and mocha flavours to the coffee aroma. It's not overly sweet, and I serve it warm with a dollop of chocolate custard ( ice-cream would have been perfect too! ).



After galloping 2 huge slices of the cake almost all at once, the husband put on a big smile, comforted me and promise me that I can always have fresh bouquet of flowers whenever i like on his credit card, at the same time, he took bags after bags of trash out to the bins. Suddenly, my house is less cluster, and I can see much clearer; it's the man that's should matter, not the moulding wedding flower!!

Mother's Maple Cheesecake

Mother's day was never a big event in our family when I was young. Growing up in a church, it's merely just another event of the many events. Also, my mother was such a practical mum that she never encourage us to buy anythings or do anything special on these days ( or any other days ). I still remember on some occasion, she used to buy our shampoo which were running low, and ask us to wrap it up and give it to her during the sunday school presentation as the sunday school teacher ask each kids to give a present to thank our mother during Mother's day!!! I seldom show my gratitude and appreciation towards her, and always took her for granted.

It was when I leave home to study aboard, and trying to live independently then i truly appreciate my mother. My first year was particularly a hard one, trying so hard to fit in and adapt the new culture, living with a foreign relatives, have to juggle my heavy uni workload, and trying to cook my own meals ( which i never did before!! ) How easy it was when I was living with mum that my only worries was to pass my exam. She would thoughtfully prepare many delicious and nutritious meals which according to her, is good for the brain . My mum is great in kitchen, so much so that we're never have to dirty our hands to cook. I must admit that I never touch any kitchen utensil other than the spoon and the fork ( if that's consider a kitchen utensil at all! ) After many years of living aboard, I've develop a closer relationship with the kitchen utensils, and cooking is not merely just for survival now, but a great enjoyment, and i often found my mum inside me when I'm preparing meals. I tend to do it just like she used to do it, it's a strange thing!! I guess the love of preparing food genes do runs in the family, from my grandmother, to my mother and to me.

I would love to bake my mother this cheesecakes when the parental visit next month. They love cheesecakes as they can't desired anything too sweet, and a good cheesecake is hard to find in Malaysia. I've never baked a whole cheesecakes before, so i decided to do a little experiments and practice well before their arrival. In addition, I can also take this opportunity to treats all those homesick overseas students in my church with my experimental cheesecake, it's very rich and good for the soul, the best we can make do during Mother's day, without our mothers!!



It's not hard to decide which cheesecake to experiment, the autumn wind is chilling, and there were falling maple leaves everywhere, perfect season for a rich, maple cheesecake!


Maple Cheesecake
Ingredients for the crust:

• 8 digestive biscuits
• 1/3 cups pecan nuts
• 85g butter, melted

Ingredients for the cake:

• 600g cream cheese
• 50g caster sugar
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 125ml maple syrup, plus more for later
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius, or 160 degree if fan force.
2. Grease and line a 20cm round spring foam cake tin with baking paper.
3. Process biscuits and pecan nuts in the food processor until finely crushed.
4. Add butter, combined well, and press the biscuit mixture firmly onto the base of the cake tin. Chilled in the refrigerator while making the cake filling.
5. With a electric beater, beat the cream cheese until they are smooth, gradually beat in sugar, corn flour, maple syrup, eggs and lemon juice until well combine. Do not over beat or else it may cracks, or develop bubbles ( like mine :( ).
6. Pour the cake fillings into the cake tin with the biscuit base. Wrap 2 layers of al foil around the cake tin to prevent water from sipping in from the water bath.
7. Put the cake tin into a large baking tray, and pour boiling hot water around the cake tin. ( your cake tin should sit in the middle of the baking tray, with hot water around it )
8. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour and 3o mins. i check the cake every 10 mins after the 1st hour. When the cake is set but still a bit wobbly in the middle, it is done.
9. Switch off the oven temperature, and cool the cheesecake in the oven with the door ajar, and then take it out and cool it to room temperature before leave it in the fridge overnight.
10. Pour extra maple syrup over the cheesecake before serving. Best serve cold.

Because of my over beating, my cheesecake develop some bubble on the surface, but it's not a fatal one, and I'm overall very satisfied with the taste and texture of the cheesecake. This recipe is adapted from NQN, and she was very kind to give me a few tips and hints for baking this cheesecake as I'm very unsure about the water bath thing. Apparently, the most important thing with baking cheesecake is not to "shock" the cake, ie: the cake dun get shock when first entered the hot oven by baking it gently with the water bath, and the cake dun get shock when comes out of the oven by cooling it in the oven first and then room temp, and then fridge. If the cake is shock, it'll cracks, very much behave like us don't you think?!!!

I think it'll be the perfect welcoming cheesecake for my mum, and hopefully the first bite would shock her taste bud and she'll cracks a big smile!!

Yum Cha Egg Tarts

I was sick on Friday, so when I was asked to make something for the church fate I wasn't very keen, but as I was feeling better on the Saturday, I decided to make something less fussy and easy. A few years ago, a friend of mine, Jenny, make me a batch of these heavenly egg tarts. The custard is glossy, soft and sweet, and the pastry is particularly wonderful. Later when she kindly give me the recipe, i realised the secret ingredient of the pastry : cream cheese! Yeap, it's very yummy and they taste just like those egg tarts from the yum cha trolleys!!



Hong Kong Egg Tarts ( makes about 30 egg tart with a very thin layer of pastry, or make about 14 egg tart with a nice thick crust )

Ingredients for the pastry:

• 125g cream cheese, soften
  
• 125 g butter, slightly salted, cubed
  
• 11/2 cups AP flour

Methods:

1. Rub the butter into the flour and cream cheese until combine.
   
2. Do not add water because the moisture from the cream cheese would be enough to bind the dough. It may appear a bit crumbly in the beginning, but it would be OK.
3. Divided the dough into 2 portion, and wrap with cling wrap. Store in the fridge for about 30 mins.
   

Ingredients for the custard:

• 3 eggs, lightly whisked
• 1/3 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven at 180 degree Celsius.
   
2. Combine everything in a big mixing bowl, whisk until sugar dissolved.
   
3. Pour the custard mixture over a fine sieve into a jug.
   
4. Roll out the pastry, divided the pastry into 30 small equal portion, and press them onto the muffin pan ( which you'll then have 14 egg tarts ), or petty aluminium cases ( which you'll then have about 30 egg tarts ).
5. Bake the pastry in the oven for about 15 mins.
   
6. When the pastry is golden, take them out of the oven, and pour the custard mixture onto each pastry cases. Bake the tarts in the oven for a further 30 mins, until the custard is set.
   
7. Cool on tray, but best serve them warm.
   

Of course, you can skip the blind baking part and just pour the custard onto the unbaked pastry and bake in pre heated oven for 30 mins, but because I'm making very thin pastry layer, I don't want my pastry to go soggy with the custard. But if you're making a thicker pastry layer, by all means, skip the blind baking part.

These egg tarts were very silky, smooth and sweet and the tart is very crunchy from the blind baking. They are best eaten warm! Unfortunately, I have to sell them cold during the church fete, but they're still delicious!