Sago tongshui

This is one of the first Chinese desserts I learnt to make and which my Mum used to make on a regular basis while we were at school.  It's comfort food for me.  Its simple, quick and delicious hot or cold.  There are many variations to this and you can add sweet potato, mango, mung beans, taro, sweetened corn kernels.  I prefer mine with mung beans and lots and lots of sago.

Sago tong shui

Serves 4-6




Ingredients

• 100g sago
• 150-175g rock sugar (personal preference)
• 2.5 cups water
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 3/4 cup coconut milk

Method

1. Soak the sago in a saucepan of boiling water for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Drain the sago, return it to the saucepan and cover it with water.  Boil until it's almost cooked, stirring occasionally.  While cooking, the sago will go from white to clear.  Take it off the heat when there's only a small white dot in the sago, and drain while rinsing it under tap water -- this will complete the cooking process and make the sago completely clear.   Set sago aside.
3. Boil the 2.5 cups of water in a saucepan over high heat and add the rock sugar.  Cook until it dissolves.  Turn the heat down to medium and add the sago, stirring until it boils again
4. Remove from heat and stir in the evaporated milk and coconut milk.  Serve hot or refrigerate for 6 hours to serve it cold.

If you want to add mung beans, cook the beans or peas for about 15-20 minutes while the sago is soaking and then add it in at the same time as adding the sago in Step 3.

Slice and bake cookies

Afer seeing the recipe for refrigerator cookies on Smitten Kitchen (one of my favourite food blogs), I had an urge to try it myself.  Usually, I give away most of the stuff I make or leave it for someone else to finish, namely my brother, but sometimes there are no other people to give it to and I end up finishing it to avoid it going to waste.  That said, a slice of cake or a couple of cookies in the afternoon after getting back from the hospital can be heavenly.  So these refrigerator cookies, also known as slice and bake cookies are perfect.  It gets shaped into a log, put in the freezer and taken out on a rainy day.  After baking, they are supposed to last 5 days (if they do last that long).

The recipe is perfect and can be adapted in many ways.  I decided on poppyseeds and lemon zest this time but I've also tried adding dried cranberries and some orange zest, earl Grey tea leaves (quite nice!), and swapping some of the flour for almond meal (which made the cookies a bit more crumbly but nutty) or dessicated coconut.  I've also added some chopped pistachios and walnuts which I thought turned out quite well.  They really are a versatile type of cookie!

Slice and bake cookies (with lemon zest and poppyseeds)

Makes 40-50 cookies



Ingredients

• 230 grams unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
• 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
• 2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
• Grated zest of 2 lemons
• 1/4 cup poppy seeds

Method

1. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat at medium speed until it is smooth.  Add the sifted confectioners’ sugar and beat again until the mixture is smooth and silky.
2. Beat in the egg yolks, followed by the salt and any dried fruits, zest, nuts or seeds.  Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour, beating just until it disappears (better to underbeat than overbeat - just blend in whatever remaining flour needs blending with a spoon).
3. Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30 minutes.
4. Working on a smooth surface, form each piece of dough into a log that is about 2.5 to 3.5 cm thick (no need to worry about the length).  Wrap the logs in plastic and chill for 2 hours.  (The dough can be wrapped airtight and kept refrigerated for up to 3 days or stored in the freezer for up to 1 month.)
5. Preheat the oven 180oC.  Line cookie trays.
6. While the oven is preheating, slice each log into cookies about 1cm thick with a sharp knife.  Place the cookies on the lined baking sheets, leaving about 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) space between them.
7. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they are set but not browned.  Cool on wire racks.

Tiramisu

Tiramisu possibly rates as one of my favourite desserts, though one that can only be eaten occasionally and in small amounts.  The best one I've tasted so far, in my opinion of course, is one at Starbucks in Hong Kong.  Funny that.  Even Greco here doesn't do it as well.  I've been having on and off cravings for tiramisu over the past couple of months, and I don't know why I've never actually tried to make it myself to cure those cravings -- preferring to just hold it out until it went away.

Last week was when the tiramisu desire hit, and hit hard.  I set about looking up recipes (probably well over a dozen), I compared them, I read about the difference between using Marsala and Kahlua (which is none - the former is cheaper), how much espresso is good, watched videos of it being made, then settled on one that had gotten some pretty good reviews.  I bought all the stuff - sponge fingers, eggs, mascarpone, cocoa powder, cream and marsala and did everything to the dot.  There was no instant gratification from it as I had to wait the next morning.  When I took off the foil on my dish, it was evident that I'd failed miserably.  For some reason, my mascarpone mixture didn't hold up and the next morning I ended up with a mascarpone, cream and egg yolk slurry with partially saturated lady fingers floating in it.  It looked pretty gross.

I still had half a packet of sponge fingers left, so I went out to get more mascarpone and decided to try again, and with a different recipe.  (Usually when I'm cooking, if one recipe doesn't work out right, I try something else -- I'm a bit impatient with trying to go through it again and figuring out what went wrong.)  And this time it was a success!  The sponge fingers were adequately saturated with the coffee, the mascarpone mixture held up, it had just the right amount of sweet to coffee and best of all, it satisifed my cravings.  Have included the recipe below (credits to Lisa) - it's not the 'traditional' recipe per se but what the heck!  It tasted good!

Tiramisu
Serves 6-8



Ingredients

• 3 eggs, separated
• 250 g mascarpone cheese at room temperature
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• 3/4 cup cold strong black coffee -- I brewed mine in a plunger
• 1/4 cup Kahlua / Marsala.
• 9-12 Italian sponge fingers
• Sifted cocoa powder and grated bittersweet chocolate to decorate.

Method

1. Brew coffee.
2. In a bowl, beat egg yolks and sugar until the yolks turn more pale and the mixture is fluffy (aim for it to double in size, and it will).  Mix in the mascarpone and beat until evenly combined (2-3 minutes).
3. In a separate bowl (and also after cleaning your beaters), beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.  Fold in the egg whites into the mascarpone mixture
4. Spread a spoonful of the mixture in the bottom of a serving dish / bowl evenly.
5. Mix together the coffee and Kahlua/Marsala in a shallow dish. Dip one sponge fingers into the mixture, turn it quickly so that it's saturated but does not disintegrate.  Place on top of the mascarpone mixture in the bowl.  Add additional sponge fingers this way placing side by side.
6. (Optional) Sift cocoa powder on top of sponge finger layer
7. Spoon about half of the remaining mixture on top of the sponge fingers and spread it out evenly.  Make another layer with sponge fingers, and then another with mascarpone (it doesn't really matter how many layers you make as long as you finish up with mascarpone.
8. Level surface and sift the cocoa powder on top.
9. Cover with foil and chill overnight.
10. Sift more cooca powder and sprinkle grated chocolate on top before serving the next day.

Carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting

I read a number of food blogs, and when all of them post up a recipe, there is always a story behind the creation - let it be a memory that particular recipe reminds them of, or it's the first recipe they've been successful at, what inspired them to make it that day ... etc.  Unfortunately, if I were to do that - it would be very boring indeed.  I bake for a couple of reasons - because I'm bored, stressed, wanting to try out a new recipe, have things to use up in my pantry ... and at any one time it would be all of them, or just one of them.

For the carrot muffins I made the other day, I really wanted to test out a much-raved about recipe, and the half jar of applesauce sitting in the fridge needed to be used up before mould started growing.  They turned out amazing!  I got a lot of comments about how delicious they were from unexpected people, and even person telling me that I had gotten into the wrong career.  In case this blog somehow finds its way in the prying eyes of my parents, I assure you (and them) I have no intentions of quitting med as yet - to bake on a commercial scale seems to defeat the purpose of home-based baking.

Carrot muffins with cream cheese frosting

Makes 18 muffins or 1 cake




Ingredients

Carrot muffins

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup unsweetend applesauce
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3 cups shredded carrots (3-4 medium carrots)
• 1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans, and extra to top

Cream cheese frosting

• 115g unsalted butter, softened
• 225g light cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 cups icing sugar, sifted

Method

For the carrot muffins

1. Preheat oven to 175oC.  Grease and flour muffin pan and line with muffin papers (if preferred)
   
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, applesauce, brown and white sugars and vanilla until well combined.
   
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon in another bowl.  Stir in carrots and pecans.  All the wet ingredients and stir until just combined.  Pour into muffin tins - filling them to about 3/4 full.
   
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into comes out clean.  Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.  Alternatively bake in a cake tin for 50-55 minutes. 

For the cream cheese frosting

1. Beat butter and cream cheese on low speed for 5-7 minutes or until there are no lumps.  With mixer still running, slowly add sifted icing sugar and beat until mixture is light and creamy.  
2. Pipe or spread onto cooled muffins and top with the extra chopped toasted pecans.

One bowl chocolate chip cookies

While every chocolate chip recipe that I come across, it is always prefaced with 'perfect', or 'the best', regardless whether it's the Toll House , the NY Times, The Neiman Marcus, The Martha Stewart, David Lebowitz's, the ones on the back of packets of choc-chip pieces, America's Test Kitchen, Alton Brown's, and the list goes on.  It seems, therefore, that every chocolate chip recipe is the perfect one.  I can't disagree, after all, everyone has their own preferences when it comes to their perfect choc-chip cookie.  I, for instance, like mine soft, chewy, not too flat nor too thick, without an overpowering sweetness, and with discernible chocolate chunks or chips in them.  I've tried many recipes from cookbooks, magazine cutouts, and some of the aforementioned places.  Soon, when I can remember to make the cookie dough 36 hours before I want to bake, I might try the NY times cookie.

On my hunt to find my perfect chocolate-chip cookie, I came across this one.  I've made them twice already and both times I have made them (for other people), I have returned with an empty box.  So I guess it is also a (very) good chocolate-chip cookie.  It fits everything that I want as I have listed above -- my only gripe with it is that it's slightly a bit too sweet for my Asian tastebuds (but nothing that can't be solved).  What's more, there's only one bowl (and a wooden spoon) to wash afterwards.  I don't know whether it can get any better than this.

A one-bowl chocolate chip cookie

Makes 25-30

Ingredients

• 120g unsalted butter, softened
  
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups good quality chocolate chunks (I would suggest nothing more than 70% cocoa)

Method

1. Melt butter in a large mixing bowl.  Beat both sugars into melted butter.  Let the mixture cool to room temp and then beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk.
2. When mixture is well blended, beat in baking soda and salt making sure that the baking soda is evenly distributed.
3. Add flour and stir just until it is mixed in. Add chocolate chips.
4. Chill dough for 1 hour or until pretty firm.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment.
6. Scoop up tablespoonfuls of dough and drop onto a lined baking tray or cookie sheets spacing them about 5cm apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until cookies appear done and lightly browned around edges.  To get that chewy cookie, do not overbake!  It's hard to say how long they should be in the oven for, it depends on the oven -- in one oven, these were done in 10 minutes, in another it was 13.  My general rule of thumb is that they are 'done' when they get a bit golden brown on the outside.
7. Cool on sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to finish cooling.