A Brief Respite from Books

Lectures have ended for this semester and I am giving myself a weekend away from books before starting on my revisions for the exams.

There are lots of stuff that I wanted to make but in the end, I made only a couple of sweets: Coconut Sweet Potato Tarts, Vanilla Sponge and Candied Pomelo Skin.

The original version of tarts from AuntyYochana were made with coconut and durians. As could not find any durians yesterday morning, I substituted with Japanese sweet potatoes instead. I brought them to a birthday party last evening and they were very well received.



Make friends with your neighbourhood minimart owner. They keep these empty pretzels cartons for me to use as cupcakes holder. See how convenient it is to transport the tarts! I just clingwrap them. No mess! No fuss!


Pomeloes are in season now. Do not throw the skin away as you can turn them into Candied Pomelo Skin. When I was a kid, my mum used to buy this candied pomelo skin which comes in little earthened pots. The made in China type is drier and quite 'chewy' from lots of maltose. The candied skins are placed in between layers of rice paper to prevent them from sticking to each other. They no longer comes in earthen jars but are packed in boxes now. It is not easy to come by them but if you are lucky, you may find some at the Yue Hwa Emporium.

As I did not cook mine till the sticky stage, the skin retains some moisture and were slightly juicy. Very nice served chilled.


Made another simple Vanilla Sponge but turned it into a luxurious version by filling them with Hazlenut Praline that has crunchy feulleutine in it. Tasted like a 'naked' Pralet in the end but nevertheless delicious.


And more bakewares to add to the collection: a Victoria Bundt pan from Kitchen Aid some festive silicon bakeware and a Cinderella Waffle Maker. All brought back from USA by my dearest brother, Michael.

Precious Choya Snowskin

My second moonies this year. Snowskin that is flavored with Umeshu Choya, a Japanese liquer that is infused with sour Ume plums.

I could have named them Double-Wine snowskins as the fillings are a Red Wine Cranberry-Lotus Paste. However, I prefer the fancier name of Precious Choya Snowskin as each moonie is topped with a flake of edible gold leaf. It took a lot of hunting on my part before I finally found the gold leaf at the Chinese Medical Hall.

Apparently, these gold leaves have a medicinal value (I do not know what??) and they can also be used on the face to beautify the texture of our complexion.

These moonies are definitely not for the kiddies as I had used quite a lot of the wine in place of the water called for in the recipe. I love how the sourish wine offset the sweetness from the skin and how it enhances the taste of the cranberry paste.

Black Gold

During my trip to Taiwan in April, I bought a mooncake presser from a bakery supplies shop there. I have seen similar plastic presser in Singapore however I was attracted to this particular one at it comes with interchangeable plates for different designs.

It was a breeze making these Chocolate Snowskins as I had only 'stamp' it out. I do not have to be very precise in measuring the weight of each dough covered lotus paste as the presser is able to accomodate as tall a mooncake as you want. Unlike the traditional moulds, each piece of cake has to be of the same weight. Too big and it will overfill the mould. Too small and you will have a very short mooncake. The best part of using this presser is that I did not have to make a ruckus with all the knocking and banging of the mould to dislodge the cakes.

Here are my Chocolate Snowskin Mooncakes, some dusted with edible gold luster dust.




The presser with the interchangeable plates.

Steamed Pumpkin Mee Suah Kueh

This is for LingLing, who requested for the recipe



STEAMED PUMPKIN MEE SUA KUEH
(Recipe adapted from Y3K Magazine)

Ingredients
240g mee suah
300g pumpkin flesh (shredded/grated)
4-5 Chinese mushrooms (soaked & sliced)
50g hae bee (soaked)
5 shallots – sliced
5 garlics – minced
120g minced pork or chicken
700ml water

Seasonings
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp chicken granules
2 tsp light soya sauce

Garnish
1 red chilli, diced
1 stalk spring onions, diced

Method
1) Place mee sua in a sieve or colander, rinse with water, drain and keep aside.
2) Heat 3 tbsp oil in a wok and sauté shallots till golden brown. Reserve for garnishing.
3) Fry minced garlics, mushrooms, hae bee, minced meat and pumpkin shreds.
4) In another clean wok, add in some water to boil and blanch mee sua till water is absorbed. Add in the fried ingredients and seasonings. Stir well and adjust to taste.
5) Press mee sua firmly into a greased 9” tray and steam for 35 minutes
6) Garnish with red chilies, spring onions and fried shallots.

Note:
Although original recipe calls for 700ml water, I suggest you use 500ml boiled water first and then adjust accordingly to prevent mee sua from turning too soft and mushy.
I use Maicar brand of mee sua which is not salty and the strands are thicker. Each pack is about 280g (slightly more than the original recipe). I use the whole packet without changing the amount of water.

Ensaymada

The other day, Elaine, my Filipino colleague brought back some Ensaymada from her hometown.

That was my first encounter with this cake-like bread. Actually, I am not sure if it is a cake or a bread. Anyway it was really delicious. It was covered entirely with grated cheese and it came in four flavors – original cheese, Ube (purple yam), Macopuno (young coconut) and Chocolate.

I googled for the recipe and found one which I tried today.

Mine turned out more like a very soft and fluffy bread and not dense like the one which Elaine brought back. It was nevertheless delicious with it’s rich butter taste and the generous shavings of cheddar cheese. I had made three flavours. Cheese, Angle Coconut Flakes and Chocolate.

The fillings were rolled inside the flattened dough and then coiled into a snail shape before baking. After that, they were slathered with softened butter, topped with cheese and good sprinkling of sugar.

If I had not been successful in creating anything close to an Ensaymada, I had definitely found myself a recipe for soft fluffy bread that is a keeper for sure.

Proofing the bread.


Ensaymada ~ Plain Cheese, Chocolate, Angel Coconut


Another shot of the bread.


Inside, very soft and fluffy. This is plain, sans fillings sans topping.

Chocoholic Anonymous

I am almost dying of cold turkey from not making a cake or a muffin. I have not been baking for quite a few weeks now. So I took the opportunity last weekend to bake a blueberry chocolate cake for my niece's housewarming. As it looks too plain without any decorations, I decided to whip up a devillishly sinful bitter-chocolate garnache to top off the cake. A slice of this cake can send your heart racing as it is so..ooo rich in chocolate. I christened the cake Chocoholic Anonymous.




Over the National Day holidays, I attempted doughnuts. I had great ambitions. My thoughts actually went wild with all sorts of toppings and fillings:- strawberry glaze, creamcheese filling, sour cream & onion, orange curd and almond-chocolate toppings. Alas, it was not meant to be. The dough was quite soft to handle and I lost patience as I could not get a nice doughnut shape. The frying part also put me on wits ends as it browned too fast even after I have lowered the flame.

In the end, I just made some odd looking shapes and tossed most of it in a simple cinnamon-sugar or have them chocolate-dipped with a sprinkling of almonds bits and angle coconut flakes. Oh yes, I made some cute little hundreds & thousands sprinkled hearts for the little girl next door. The doughtnuts tasted good but I guess I just lost patience in making them.





With so much oil left in the fryer, dinner was Vegetarian Pork Cutlets. Boy these were good! You just sandwich two pieces of mock ham with cheese, batter them and coat them with breadcrumbs before frying. It was real good served with mayonnaise, cold tomatoes and lettuce.

Here Comes the Bride (& Groom)

The last two weeks were a blur of activities at work and schoolfront. As the last time I attended lectures was 6 years ago, it was rather difficult to re-start my 'engine'. Mine! What a difference these 6-years made. I was struggling to stay alert during classes and was trying my best to 'save' the theories and concepts to the rundown CPU in my head! My notes taking skills had also deterioriated tremendously as before I could finished jotting down a point, I would have forgotten what the lecturer just said! Ah! That is but a sign of old age!

Anyway, as the course had just started, I could still squeeze in a little bit of time to do some baking. As promised to my niece Audrey a couple of months back, I made some 'Thank You' wedding cookies to be given to her guests at the solemisation of her marriage to Marvin at the Masonic Club today.

The sugar cookies were baked in a cascading size, tiered and decorated to look like minature tiered-wedding cakes. Individually packed, these were presented to her 50+ guests at the lunch reception after the couple's 'I Do'.






Blushing Bride and Dashing Groom


Isn't this bouquet of Purple Callas lovely? They are quite difficult to come by in Singapore and Audrey had these specially flown in from Holland.


The Masonic Club is really a queer old place. Stepping inside the club, I feel as though I have been transported back to the Medieval times. I was half expecting a Knight to come charging through the heavy doors on a horse any moment. On every available inch of the wall, there were these framed up old pictures, maps and something-something(like Coat of Arms??) which gives the place a very cosy and antiquated atmosphere. In the member's area, there is even a soldier all garbed up in a very fine suit of armour!





The Solemisation Ceremony was held in this lovely garden behind the Club


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Earlier in the week, I managed to squeeze in a brownie order for a friend and a tirimisu for a colleague returning from the USA for a home visit.

I just had to call these Supernatural brownies as they are so devillishly chocolately, fudgy and well, supernatural. I had a chocolate high just looking the batter being poured into the baking tin.

Packed

And ready to go


Oh no! Not another picture of a Tirimisu! This could well be the sixth or seventh Tirimisu in my blog!

Semi Retired from Blogging

Going forward, I guess I will have lesser time to bake and blog as I will be fully occupied with my studies for the next 18-months. Time will be tight as I will still be holding on to my fulltime job in an extremely fast-paced organization. I hope to be able to bake at least once every other week, more if time permits. Guess I will just go with the flow.

These are some of the stuff which I made the past week. I have been rather slack and was too lazy to take pictures of the Fruit Pastry and Morello Cherry Chocolate
Cupcakes which I made. Lazy me only managed to take photos of these which were made from whatever ingredients I could find in the kitchen.
Strawberry Yoghurt Cheesecake. This was made for my colleague's husband who is celebrating his birthday.


Almond Biscotti.


Panfried Glutinous Rice Packets.

Class of 77 Reunion

How time flies! In a wink of an eye, it has been 30 years since we graduated from Fairfield Methodist Girls School.

The Class of 77 Reunion tea party was mooted as a result of invitations to attend an Alumni Dinner in celebration of our school's 119 Founder's Day in August. As I know I will be busy during that period, I suggested for some of the girls to come over to my house for a gathering instead. It was quite tough rounding up the old girls as many of us have not been in contact since graduation. I must thanks Angeline (Yuet Yong) for making contact with some of the girls whom I have not met since 1977. We did managed to contact quite a number of them but due to work, prior personal commitments etc, some of them could not attend.

Anyway I am really happy for those who turned up. Thanks Angeline, Carolyne (Cheng Sim), Gina (Chay-Ling), Isabelle, Jenny (Wei Tin), Lay Khim, Linda (Lai Chan), Mary (Mui Eng)and Prudence (Mun Yee) for making the party a success. I truly enjoyed catching up with all you. It was really fun talking about the good ole days, the pranks and 'bullying' we did to each other and how some of us literally 'sucked the blood dry' of our Maths teacher Ms Lau.

Since we graduated, our school had gone through numerous changes. In 1983, the school was relocated to her present site in Dover Road from Neil Road, and in the same year, FMGS broke away from a 94-year tradition, it was the first Methodist School in Singapore to go co-educational.

We Fairsians are proud of our 119-year heritage and we are indeed grateful for the fantastic allround education we received from our teachers who are so dedicated in their profession.

And how could we forget the Fairfield School Song it has such meaningful lyrics and an upbeat tempo. Here is the final chorus: (Note: the original lyrics of the school song has been changed slightly in 1983 to reflect the co-ed status):

Here's to Fairfield, to Fairfield
To every student here
To every happy Fairsian
And to every teacher dear.
Oh! It's Fairfield, at Fairfield
Where all our hearts are light
Where love is in the sunshine
And all the world is bright.

Let's make time for a gathering again and the next time round, lets pray for more girls to join us in reminiscing the good old times.

Yearbook from our graduating year, ELDDS performance and class outng pictures.

The centrepiece, Class of 77 Tirimisu Cake. This is our original FMGS school badge. It has since been changed to FMSS. The badge, school uniform and letters are made from a combination of sugarpaste and marshmallow fondant.


Whipped up all these food myself. Hey, I was not a distinction Home Economics student for nothing you know! I have Ms Viswalingam to thank for this. Issuing her instructions in a military-style way, she taught us all we need to know about whisking, folding, creaming and baking. She was so strict with us that none of us dare as much as to whimper during her lessons. Those were the days when we had to manually beat in teaspoon full of eggs into our choux pastry till our palms developed blisters.
Class of 77 Tirimisu, Baileys Cheesecake, Strawberry Buttermilk Cake, Mango Mousse Cake, Fudgy Chocolate Blueberry Cake, Durian Swissrolls, Cupcakes with Creamcheese Frosting, Almond & Cranberry Chocolate Clusters, Chicken Curry, Fried Vermicelli & Chilled Cucumber Pork Rolls. The steamed Glutinous Rice is compliments of my mother-in-law.



One for the album, group photos (yours truly in the brown top)