Kueh Bangkit - 3rd Time

We made another batch of Kueh Bangkit requested by our grandmother.
Batch 1 was successful but Batch 2 turn out to be not crispy. My father suggested to reheat the Batch 2 Kueh Bangkit and it really works. Now the it is very crispy and nice to eat. Yeah!! Now both batches are successful.

2 Batches of Kueh Bangkit 

Batch 1

• 150g tapioca flour
• 1 tsp of pandan essence
• 40g margarine
• 120g icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 125ml coconut milk

Batch 2 

• 150g tapioca flour
• 1 tsp of pandan essence
• 30g margarine
• 140g icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 125ml coconut milk

Method

1. Place a paper towel on a microwave safed bowl, add the tapioca flour and microwave for 1 minute. Set aside and let it cool. Microwave extra tapioca flour to flour the surface and kneading purpose. Fill the microwave safed bowl to about 1/3 or 1/2 each time. (If you do not have microwave, you can fry the flour)
2. Sift tapioca flour and icing sugar in a big bowl. 
3. Beat the butter and egg 
4. Add in the flour, icing sugar and coconut milk
5. Knead until the dough is pliable. (If the dough is wet or soft, add more tapioca flour, 1 Tbp. at a time and knead until it becomes a harder dough. Likewise, if it's too dry, add more coconut milk).
6. Roll dough on a floured table to about 3mm thickness. 
7. Use cookie cutters to cut the dough 
8. Bake on lined tray in preheated oven at about 150°C for about 10 to 15 mins depending on the thickness of the dough. (It will puff when baked)
9. Remove to cool completely before storing.

Note:

Make sure the dough is not too wet, if it can't hold the shape. When you rolled it out and cut it with a cookie cutter and placed it on the baking tray, the shape disappeared before your eyes. If this happen, add a little more tapioca flour and knead it again. But if the shape hold, you are fine to go.

Troubleshoot:
If cookie turns out to be soft and not crispy, can try reheat them again.

Recipe adapted from: Little Corner of Mine

Kueh Bangkit!! - 2nd Attempt

Kueh Bangkit!!
This time the kuah bangkit is more crispy and taste better than previous one. And the dough is not as cracky and is easier to cut.

Ingredients

• 375g tapioca flour
• 1 tsp of pandan essence
• 30g margarine
• 160g icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 150ml coconut milk
  

Method

1. Place a paper towel on a microwave safed bowl, add the tapioca flour and microwave for 1 minute. Set aside and let it cool. Microwave extra tapioca flour to flour the surface and kneading purpose. Fill the microwave safed bowl to about 1/3 or 1/2 each time. (If you do not have microwave, you can fry the flour)
2. Sift tapioca flour and icing sugar in a big bowl. 
3. Add melted butter, yolk & coconut milk. 
4. Knead until the dough is pliable. (If the dough is wet or soft, add more tapioca flour, 1 Tbp. at a time and knead until it becomes a harder dough. Likewise, if it's too dry, add more coconut milk).
5. Roll dough on a floured table to about 3mm thickness. 
6. Use cookie cutters to cut the dough 
7. Bake on lined tray in preheated oven at about 150°C for about 10 to 15 mins depending on the thickness of the dough. (It will puff when baked)
8. Remove to cool completely before storing.

Note:

Make sure the dough is not too wet, if it can't hold the shape. When you rolled it out and cut it with a cookie cutter and placed it on the baking tray, the shape disappeared before your eyes. If this happen, add a little more tapioca flour and knead it again. But if the shape hold, you are fine to go.

Recipe adapted from: Little Corner of Mine

 

Restocking of baking supplies from Phoon Huat and Daiso

Finally got our new digital weighing machine, old cui weighing machine can retire already. Yeah!!!

And many many other baking stuff we bought.

Kueh Bangkit

Kueh Bangkit!!
As the Japanese cheesecake needs to baked for 1hour 10min, we used that baking time to prepare kueh bangkit. Melt in the mouth cookies. Yummy!!!

Ingredients

• 225g tapioca flour
• 1 tsp of pandan essence
• 30g margarine
• 65g icing sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 75ml – 90ml coconut milk
  

Method

1. Place a paper towel on a microwave safed bowl, add the tapioca flour and microwave for 1 minute. Set aside and let it cool. Microwave extra tapioca flour to flour the surface and kneading purpose. Fill the microwave safed bowl to about 1/3 or 1/2 each time. (If you do not have microwave, you can fry the flour)
2. Sift the tapioca flour and icing sugar in a big bowl
3. Cream margarine with sugar and yolk till sugar dissolves.
4. Add in 75ml coconut milk and mix well.
5. Add flour to mix till a non-sticky dough is formed. (If the dough is wet or soft, add more tapioca flour, 1 Tbp. at a time and knead until it becomes a harder dough. If it is too dry, add more coconut milk, 1 tsp at a time)
6. Leave dough to rest covered with a damp cloth.(Dough is slightly cracky)
7. Take a quarter of the dough and roll dough on a floured table to about 3mm thickness. 
8. Use cookie cutters to cut the dough 
9. Bake on lined tray in preheated oven at about 150°C for about 10 to 15 mins depending on the thickness of the dough. (It will puff when baked)
10. Remove to cool completely before storing.

Note:

Make sure the dough is not too wet, if it can't hold the shape. When you rolled it out and cut it with a cookie cutter and placed it on the baking tray, the shape disappeared before your eyes. If this happen, add a little more tapioca flour and knead it again. But if the shape hold, you are fine to go.

Recipe adapted from: Lily's Wai Sek Hong

 

Japanese Cheesecake

Japanese Cheesecake!!

As we have succeeded a number of times when baking with our new oven, we've decided to challenge ourself by trying this Japanese cheesecake. Not really sure whether the texture of our cheesecake is correct, but it taste really good!

Ingredients

• 140g fine granulated sugar
• 6 egg whites
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 50g butter
• 250g cream cheese
• 100ml fresh milk
• 60g plain flour (can also use cake flour)
• 20g corn flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Method

1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, the cornflour, salt, egg yolks and mix well.
2. Sieve the cream cheese mixture with wire mesh sieve to have a smooth and lump-free batter. (Must sieve before folding in the beaten egg whites)
3. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form. (Use electric beater, beat on high until it start to stiffen and switch to low during the last 3 to 4 minutes)
4. Add the egg whites to the cheese mixture and fold well. 
5. Setup a waterbath in the oven. (Water Bath: Place 4 tart moulds that are filled with water in the four corners of the oven. Place a wire rack on the tart moulds and the cake tin goes on the wire rack.)
6. Preheat the oven at 160°C.
7. Lining the cake tin. Line the bottom and sides of your cake tin. Make sure the baking paper extends higher than the cake tin by about 1.5 inches. If you prepare the batter correctly, you will notice that it rises very well during baking. You need that extra height from the baking paper to prevent possible spillage.
8. Pour batter into the cake tins (lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan with greaseproof baking paper or parchment paper). (Wrap the base of your cake tin with aluminium foil, to prevent seepage but we didnt do it and did not seeped)
9. Tenting with a foil. Use a sheet of aluminium foil and place it over the tin.Remove foil in the last 1 to 2 mins of baking time, just for it to brown (not burn).
10. Bake cheesecake in a water bath for 1 hour 10 mins or until set and golden brown at 160°C.
11. Leave to cool in oven with door ajar, about 30mins to 1 hour. Sudden changes in temperature may cause the cake to cool too quickly and collapse.

Recipe adapted from: The Little Teochew, Diana's Desserts

Golden Pillow Pineapple Tarts 2

 

Pineapple Tarts - 2nd Attempt

Our 2nd attempt to make bite size pineapple tarts. This time the pineapple tarts is half the size of previous one. Yeah!! Really bite size. From the last photo, we have a box of slightly burnt pineapple tarts bcos of the wrong temperature used for baking. Mistake learnt: Make sure the oven is at 180°C!!!

Ingredients (for more than 100)

•     227g unsalted butter, at room temperature
•     1 tsp pure vanilla extract
•     2 egg yolks
•     375g plain flour
•     2 tbsp corn flour
•     1/4 tsp salt
•     50g icing sugar
•     2 egg yolk, for egg wash
•     600g pineapple paste (Bake King)

Bite sized: 7g paste, 7g tart skin

Method
Same method as previous post.

Note:
Sprinkle water to the pineapple paste to make sure it is moist. (Dont put water in tray bcos pineapple balls become too wet and hard to roll into the dough.)
Dough must be placed in the fridge at least 30mins if not will be too sticky and tears easily.

Recipe adapted from: Fresh from the Oven and Happy Home Baking

Success!! ◕ ‿ ◕

Restocking of Baking Supplies

Restocking of baking supplies from NTUC Fairprice.
Yeah!! We can bake this weekend!

Items Bought:-

• SIS Fine Grain White Sugar (for everyday use) 1kg - $1.65
• Prima Plain Flour 1kg - $2.25
• Hershey's Semi-Sweet Chocolate (Mini Chips) 340g (2 Cups) - $4.95
• Bake King Pineapple Paste 1kg - $4.75
• Magnolia Fresh Milk 500ml - $2.30
• Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese 250g - $5.30
• SCS Unsalted Butter 277g x 2 - $7.35
• Bake King Cream of Tartar - $3.00

Irresistible, running low on supply.

Time to bake another batch of yummilicious pineapple tarts!! They are just too tempting and we couldn't stop craving for more.

Can't stop at 1 always and resulted in a empty container soon! Time to bake, time to bake!! (⌒-⌒; )

this is before......

Egg White Cookies (Forgotten Cookies) - Failed

Our very first failure from the new oven.

It was a impromptu decision to use the remaining 4 eggs white that was left over after the making of the pineapple tarts. We just didn't want to waste the egg whites, so we went to google for any recipe that uses egg white and chanced upon this recipe that uses all the ingredients we had in our house.

Sadly, we didn't read it more than once and started preparing everything until after the folding of the chocolate chips then we realised that the whole method of baking this cookie seems really strange and dubious.

Alot alot alot of our chocolates were wasted for this.
But is a good lesson learnt, always read more than once and find other similar recipes to compare and improvise accordingly.

Ingredients 

• 4 egg whites 
• 4/3 custard sugar 
• 340g. chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.
2. Beat egg whites until stiff. 
3. Gradually add sugar. Beat until stiff. 
4. Add chocolate.
5. Drop by spoonfuls on greased cookie sheet. 
6. Turn oven off and place cookies in. Leave oven unopened for 2 hours or overnight.

Recipe adapted from: Cooks.com

Failed!! ╥﹏╥

Golden Pillow Pineapple Tarts

Pineapple Tarts for CNY - our First Attempt!!
After christmas, followed by new year and soon it will be chinese new year. 23 days to be exact.
It is time to start trying out some of our favourite cny goodies that we were craving for the past 1year.

We always remember how yummy it is to eat this pillow type pineapple tarts that we received from our grandmother every year during cny period. They always taste so yummy and addictive, but the waiting of the arrival of the tarts is a torture! Oink will be the one that keeps asking when will we get it or questioning if there will be any for this year!

We always thought our grandmother made them herself until last year then we realised it's actually bought from somewhere (i can't remember and donno where). Moreover, our dad prefers the chinese or local kind of pastry than the ang moh type. hahaha :)
So this sets us on to the making of our all time favourite chinese new year pineapple tarts!

The whole baking process took us really long, almost 5 hours even though we didnt have to make the pineapple fillings. Thank god we bought the pre-made fillings, if not we really dont need to sleep for that night already. The toughest part will be the rolling of pineapple jam, keeping them moist and wrapping them with the dough. Once you get the hang of it, it will be faster and easier though. Just have to find the way that suits you best.

Our pineapple tarts were all slightly cracked (therefore, please do not worry if yours cracked too) but they tasted really delicious and melts in the mouth!

From this baking experience, we finally solved the issue of inconsistent heating of our oven.
Through the past baking, we noticed that the right side of the oven bakes faster than the left and we thought we could do nothing about it. And because we got really bad experience from our ex-oven, we really thought this new one is super alot better already and we could make do with that little flaw it had. But all thanks to our dad for noticing the blowing of the fan inside! We turned the fan off and the heating became consistent through out! Yayyyyy~~!! The feel of chinese new year is early this year with our precious pineapple tarts sitting on our coffee table in the living room.

Ingredients (for about 70)

•     220g unsalted butter, at room temperature
•     1 tsp pure vanilla extract
•     2 egg yolks
•     375g plain flour
•     2 tbsp corn flour
•     1/4 tsp salt
•     50g icing sugar
•     1 egg yolk, for egg wash
•     600g pineapple paste (Bake King)

Method

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter till light in color and fluffy
2. Add in the vanilla essence to the butter and mix well
3. Add in egg yolks slowly until well combined
4. Sieve in the plain flour, corn flour, salt and icing sugar slowly into the mixture
5. Mix the mixture with hand. Use hand to knead it for a few minutes until the dough comes together.
   Do not over-knead it.
6. Wrap the dough with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for about 30mins.
   (This will prevent the dough from spreading, and makes it easier to handle.)
7. Mean while, roll pineapple jam into small balls.
   (To prevent the ready-made jam from drying out during baking, roll the jam with wet hands. Wet your hands when they become dry after some rolling. Place the pineapple balls on a plate/tray filled with some water, just enough for the base of the balls to touch the water. This will allow the jam to soften and soak up some moisture.)
8. Remove dough from fridge.
   (To prevent dough from sticking, place a plastic sheet on the board.)
9. Roll the dough into small rounds. Flatten the rounds and use it to cover the prepared pineapple filling.
10. Brush the unbaked rolls with egg wash.
11. Bake at the middle rack in a preheated oven at 180°C for 10 to 15 minutes or till golden brown.
12. Leave to cool on baking tray for a few minutes before transferring to wire rack. Let cool before storing in air-tight containers.

Note: Please bake the rolls as soon as possible.

Recipe adapted from: Fresh from the Oven and Happy Home Baking

Success!! ◕ ‿ ◕