Crêpes

Usually we would only buy Häagen-Dazs ice cream when they are on sale, say 3x500g tubs for Cdn$10.  However, when we saw this new Lemon flavour with Half the Fat, we couldn't resist and bought it at regular price ($6.77 for a 500g tub).  To rub it in, the cashier lady told us that they were on sale at $2 a tub yesterday!  "I don't care!  I have to eat it now!" was what I had in mind when I paid.  We were crazy enough to ask for 2 spoons at MacDonald's to eat the ice cream in the car right away.  The taste is well worth the money.  I think it's the most refreshing flavour in the Häagen-Dazs brand.  I was delighted to see there was no single artificial ingredient in this product.  It probably will be the only ice cream which I'll ask for second. 

So, it became part of our breakfast this morning.  Yes, dessert for breakfast!  Fresh Strawberries Crêpe with Lemon Häagen-Dazs ice cream.  I heard Häagen-Dazs ice cream is very expensive in Hong Kong.  I wonder how much they'll charge for this plate.

Then, Ho came up with this chocolate lover's devil crêpe version: Toblerone Crêpe with chocolate syrup.

I also did a salty version with mayo and shredded pork which I didn't take a picture of.  As much as I like all these fillings, I do think the smooth yet light crêpes make a big difference.

Basic Crêpe (Adapted from All Recipes)

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs.  Sieve flour and add to the eggs . Gradually add in the milk, keep stirring. 
2. Once all flour are covered with egg mixture, add water.  Use spatula to stir and press batter against side of bowl until combined.  
3. Add the salt and butter; beat until smooth.  
4. Press batter through sieve while transferring the batter to another bowl.
5. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each crepe. Tilt the pan with a circular motion so that the batter coats the surface evenly.
6. Cook the crêpe for about 2 minutes, until the bottom is light brown. Loosen with a spatula, turn and cook the other side. Serve hot.

Milk Custard with Egg Whites 蛋白燉奶

Just when I was complaining having too much egg yolks in the fridge, I made this Chinese dessert with egg whites only again. My friend posted a picture of the one she made at home, it looks SOOO GOOOOD! Well, mind you, she uses Hokkaido 3.6% milk. While we don’t have that in Toronto, I’ll try with 2%. Less guilty to the body anyway.

It’s very easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 200ml Milk
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 egg whites

Method:

1. Melt sugar in milk with double boiler (or with a heat proof bowl on a pot of simmering water)
2. Whisk whites to foamy stage
3. Pour whites to milk mixture through a sieve to remove bubbles
4. Mix well and pour everything to 2 bowls (you can pour through the sieve one more time)
5. Cover bowls with aluminum foil and place in steamer.
6. Steam with medium heat for 7-8 mins, low heat for 2 more mins.

 Livie actually cried because she did not have enough. I have to double the portion next time.

Introduction to Chocolate (Part I)

After the Art of Cakes – Classic to Modern, I told myself, “I need a break! No more baking class in the next 6 months!" Then Cherry asked me if I wanted to take Introduction to Chocolate with her. Do I really like chocolate? I’m not a chocolate fan, but I do want to use chocolate to decorate my cakes sometimes. I struggled a little bit before asking Ho for his “blessing”. After a series of “please, please, please…”, he asked, “Are you really going to take a break after this class?” I said, “… maybe I can take Cake Decorating next year.” Heehee… we’ll see about that.

So, here I am, taking a professional course at Geroge Brown – Introduction to Chocolate. When I read the syllabus, it gave me a nice surprise. Not only do they temper chocolate to make decorations, they utilize the method to make all sorts of cakes and desserts. I love this course! There are a lot of first timers at GB in this course, Cherry and I, being in the 4th course, should be more experienced comparatively… but no, we failed in the first 2 weeks! Luckily this course is not graded. The chocolate ganache cake and cranberry almond bark were all a mess! The cake fell apart, the bark became a bulk of chocolate and we had to cut them in cubes! Luckily our confidence came back when we did the chocolate dipped biscotti and strawberries, the truffles were successful too, whew! The course is really hard!

Chinese Style Coconut Pudding 棉花椰汁糕

Just found out  that I became a granny again last night.  My niece had her second baby yesterday.  Plus 3 kids from another niece, wow, I have 5 grand-nieces and nephews!  Since I'm an "old" lady now, it sounds appropriate for me to make the old Chinese dim sum - coconut pudding.

Another reason is, an aunt came from Hong Kong for a visit, and she LOVES this dessert.  Since she just had her 70th birthday last month, I promised to make one for her.


Somehow I don't see these old fashion dim sum in Chinese restaurants as often as before.  I consider this old fashion because the newer ones I had recently didn't have the same texture.  They're more like plain gelatin pudding.  I call mine "Cottony Coconut Pudding" 棉花椰汁糕 because it is as airy, soft and fluffy as cotton.

Here's what I did...

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp unflavoured gelatin
• 1 3/8 cups water (1/2 cup cold, rest boiling)
• 1 can of coconut milk (400 ml)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 egg whites

Method:

1. Get a 1 litre container ready.  Lightly grease it if you are going to flip out the pudding before serving.  Otherwise, use a container which you can cut the pudding in without scratching the container.
2. In a small microwaveable bowl, dissolve gelatin with 1/2 cup of cold water.  Set aside for 5 mins.
3. Microwave the gelatin mixture for 10-15 seconds. 
4. Transfer to larger bowl, pour remaining boiling water to mix well.  (Step 2 avoid having lumps in gelatin mixture.)
5. Add sugar, once it is dissolved, add coconut milk. Allow to cool to room temperature.
6. Whip egg whites until soft peak.
7. When gelatin is cooled to room temperature, place gelatin bowl in an ice bath.  
8. When mixture begins to set*, fold egg whites into it.
9. Spread in prepared dish and refrigerate until set.

*Note: If you prefer less airy texture, do not let the gelatin set for too long.  The closer to setting stage, the airier it will taste like.

 

Mid-Autumn (Moon Cake) Festival

A long time friend in Hong Kong found me through Facebook a few weeks ago.  Turned out that she's a homebaker too.  I always admire persistence of homebakers in HK.  They have relatively smaller space and small oven, yet they can do whatever we can do here.  Some of her "projects" look really professional.  Yet she'sso humble to say that they're not pretty, not up to the standard.  I think they're just fine.  She even made moon cakes and a Chinese puff pastry with salty egg yolk. Since she said it's easy to do, I gave the puff pastry 豆沙蛋黃酥 a try for Mid-Autumn Festival.
She's right!  It's quite easy to make.  It's very labour intensive though.  I made the dough last night, on my 8th anniversary night.  Haha...  I must be crazy.  One thing I don't like about this recipe is the taste of clarified butter.  It is so strong that it doesn't even smell like a Chinese dessert anymore.  However, this can easily be fixed by replacing it with vegetable shortening.  After making tang zhong toast so many times, I noticed that omega 3 eggs give less colour to baked goods.  This was exactly what happened to my pastry this time.  Unfortunately when I made these at my in-law's place, they only had one omega 3 eg left.  As you can see, they are as white as Chinese steamed buns.  That's ok, overall the project was still a success.  Ho was so happy with the result that he wanted to give them away to his friends right away.  Another excuse for him to go out to see his friends of course.  :-)

I haven't gotten time to translate the recipe yet, but here's the link to the original 蓮蓉蛋黃酥 recipe I followed.

 

Daddy’s Birthday Cake – Chocolate Mousse Cake with Macarons

 

When I asked Ho what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday, he couldn't think of any suggestion.  I know he loves meringue, but I really find it too sweet.  Then I remember he likes macarons too.  So I started searching through internet.

I did it!  I did it!  I finally found the sure win macaron recipe!  Thanks to Not So Humble Pie, I made my first batch of macarons to put on top of a chocolate mousse cake.  The sense of accomplishment overcode everything, we're so happy with the macarons that they became highlight of the cake.  The cake was still good, but the mousse was not smooth enough, texture still has room for improvement.

 

 

 

Tofu Pudding With Dark Syrup 黑糖漿豆腐布丁

Inatei has been our family favourite Japanese restaurant lately.  Their fish are always fresh and you can tell they really care about what they serve.  Ho told me that the restaurant owner’s wife also works there as the dessert chef.  I tried several kinds of their desserts; they are all delicate looking, unique, tasty, but not overly sweet.  Out of all varieties, Ho loves their Tofu Pudding the most.  It’s very smooth and filled with rich soy flavour.  The syrup that comes with it gives a distinct taste that is almost like caramel but lighter.  To me, it’s somewhat close to a smoky flavour.  I was wondering how they made it.  Then I found this recipe from a Chinese blog Oak & Bakes.

It turns out that the special flavour come from a Japanese brown sugar.  The recipe is a very simple one.  However, this Okinara brown sugar (沖繩黑糖) costs Cdn$13 a bag.  I don’t plan to spend this much on an ingredient when I haven’t even tested the recipe before.  Luckily Cherry told me about this Taiwanese brown sugar available at Chinese grocery store.  It’s only $1.99 a bag.  Then I won’t feel as bad even if I fail the recipe.

The original recipe is in Chinese.  Here’s my translation with little changes from me:

Ingredients:

Pudding

650 ml  Unsweetened homemade soya milk *

10g      Gelatin powder

30g      Granulated sugar

Syrup

70g      Okinara Brown Sugar (or Taiwanese)

30g      Maltose

50ml     Water

Method:

1. Sprinkle gelatin on 50 ml of soya milk.  Let it dissolve.

2. Heat remaining 600ml of soya milk in saucepan until warm enough to just before boiling.

3. Add sugar to heated soya milk.

4. Put (1) in microwave for 15-20 seconds to until gelatin is melted.

5. Stir in (4) to (3).

6. Spoon to moulds and let them cool off before putting them in refrigerator for 3 hours.

7. Mix all syrup ingredients in saucepan and bring it to boil.  Simmer to consistency similar to maple syrup.  About 1 minute.  Don’t overdo it, otherwise you’ll get caramel.

* Store bought soya milk is fine too but you have to pick one that is rich in soy flavour.  Some just taste like water with cream colour.

Inatei also serve their pudding with red bean.  I did it too.  It is good in either way!

Strawberry Tart

Ever since I picked up this hobby of baking, Ho likes to bring dessert to all parties at friends' place.  I enjoy making dessert for him too.  Then I get to practise more and won't get stuck with the calories.  :-)

I combined George Brown pastry dough recipe and custard from Food Network Ina Garten's Strawberry Tart recipe to make this tart.  Unfortunately I forgot to remove the tart pan before taking the pictures.  Well, the tart still look good in it!

Some people put pie beans on the dough when baking.  It's not necessary as long as you poke enough holes at the bottom with fork.

Don't be alarmed if you see the dough raised at time of baking.  It will fall back down.  That's what happened to mine.

Another thing I forgot was to take a picture before I pour the custard in.  I brushed a layer of coating chocolate on top of the crust to separate it from the custard.  This will avoid the crust from getting soggy from moisture.

The strawberries are so fresh and sweet now.  There is no better choice of ingredient for dessert in this season.

I found a lot of recipes mixing pistachios with strawberries.  I sprinkled a few on the tart.  The colour of this dessert was brightened up a lot because of the green colour nuts.  One small tip: this tart has to be cut with a serragated knife in sawing motion.  Otherwise the crust will crumble.

I had extra dough left for 7 more individual tarts.

The strawberry tarts family!

Mango Coconut Tapioca Drink (芒椰奶西)

At dinner time, Ho asked me, "Is it hard to make 芒椰奶西 Mango coconut tapioca?"  Jennifer and Francis were with us at the time, we all think that it shouldn't be that hard.  Basically the name of the dessert says it all.  So we paid a visit to grocery store to pick up the ingredients for our experiement.  As you can see from the pictures, it was a success.

Ingredients (serves 6):

1/4 cup tapioca

1 1/2 cup water

8 oz mango puree

10 oz coconut milk

1 cup icecubes

sugar to taste

Method:

1. Bring water to boil.
2. Pour in tapioca, boil for 5 mins.  Turn off heat and leave tapioca in hot water for 20 mins until the colour is clear.
3. Rinse them in sieve under cold water.  Set aside.
4. Mix mango puree, coconut milk and ice with blender.
5. Taste, if necessary, add sugar and blend a few more seconds.
6. Put one scoop of reserved tapioca in glass, pour mango mixture in and stir.
7. Add a few mango cubes and drizzle extra coconut milk on top as garnishing.

It can easily turn  into 楊枝甘露 if you mix in pomelo bits.

Mango Bavarian Cream

I wasn't going to make anything tonight but found this Indian Alphonso Mango Pulp in a can when I picked up grocery at a store.  Couldn't help it so I made the mango version of Bavarian Cream.  I think this pulp is too watery.  somehow the pulp keep sinking to the bottom.  It affected the chilling process which made the cream broke when I flipped it out.  I may try putting the puree in earlier or adding more gelatin next time.  I also agree with Cherry that it does taste a little salty.  It wasn't as noticeable when we made it with the chocolate at GB.  Maybe because I reduced the sugar to compensate the sweet mango puree.  I'll reduce the salt next time too.  Well, other than that, it still tastes sinfully good.

You can see the mango puree at the top.

This is the alphonso mango pulp I bought from Chinese grocery store today.  $3.49 each.

Creme Caramel – Baking Art Week #5

It was too fast when we did the creme caramel so I didn't take any pictures.  We even burnt the caramel once.
After following exactly the same steps as taught in class, still couldn't release the creme caramel nicely.  Really need to practise more.