Soft & Moist Fruits Pound Cake

It’s getting very cold in the morning….!!  Waking up around 5AM and going for a walk around 6AM has been our (me & Hiro) routine for a while now.  This morning I couldn’t stand without a jacket, and my bare foot was so freezing.  It’s amazing Hiro still could manage to fell himself back to sleep in the cold air.  He fells asleep on a stroller when he hadn’t got enough sleep.

Anyway, yesterday was the last day of the term at play group, and it was mostly cleaning & eating for the whole 2 hours.  In between we did egg hunting as Easter is just around the corner.  All mums were asked to bring one dish to the centre and we shared the yummy food.

I made fruits & walnuts cake because it’s the easiest and quickest to make.  Other mums brought some gorgeous food such as salmon sashimi, takoyaki, chicken nuggets and hot cross buns.  I loved them all.

I made this cake with whatever ingredients I had. Actually I have lots of ingredients in my pantry at the moment because of my bagel business.  Thanks to that, I didn’t need to buy anything extra

The cake turned out moist and soft, just how I like it.  I added walnuts because I like the accent of crunchy texture.  This is the very basic pound cake recipe, but I want to share it with you.

<Fruits Pound Cake>  one standard pound cake mold  /  oven 180℃

• 2 eggs (at room temperature)
• 100g granulated sugar
• 100g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 100g butter (at room temperature)
• 2 tbs mixed dry fruits
• 1 tbs crushed walnuts
• 1 tbs frozen cranberries

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1. Cream the butter with a whisk to just soften up.  Butter goes soft within 1 hour outside the fridge in summer, but in winter I recommend to warm it up over warm water bath or in the microwave to speed up the process.  Butter should be very soft.
2. Add sugar, and beat until fluffy and becomes slightly white colour.
3. Beat eggs in a separate container, and add to the butter mixture gradually.  Mix well at each addition.
4. Shift the flour and baking powder into the mixture.  Drop the fruits and nuts onto the flour then shift in using a spatula.  Try not to over mix.
5. Pour the mixture into a lined pound-cake-mold, and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes or it springs back when you touch the top surface.
6. Place on a wire rack to cool before slicing.

You can add vanilla extract to enhance the sweetness.  You can alternatively use other nuts instead of walnut such as pistachio or pecan nut.

Korean Version of Tongari Corn

I’ve been into this Korean snack that I bought from Spud Shed the other day…  This is exactly what I used to eat in Japan – “tongari corn”!

Actually, when I look at the photos of Japanese tongari corn they look thicker than Korean one, but it tastes about the same.

It got a hole in the bottom, and this is how people eat tongari corn….

Caps? Nail? People sometimes draw a face on it and do a “tongari corn play”.

They can be played as a “stacking corn” game where you stack up the corns and the person who collapse the tower is the loser.

Haha, the Korean snack just reminded me of these silly things I used to do in Japan.

Homemade Martabak

Martabak is a stuffed pancake or pan -fried bread which I first tried in Jakarta, Indonesia, few years ago.  They make and sell martabak in small stalls on the street, and the sweet smell is hyper irresistible.

My husband wanted to make it as it’s pretty expensive to buy here (compared to the price in Indonesia), and we found “martabak mixture” ($3.00) at Yee Seng Oriental Shop in Myaree, so we gave it a try.

D likes “keju” = grated cheese and condensed milk filling where I also love “coklat” (chocolate and crushed peanuts).  We made both

Martabak is very very sweet and buttery.  They use this “special butter ” (?) to boost the richness and butteriness.  (got from Yee Seng at $2.00)

Martabak has two kinds – one is thick (like the one in the photo above www.kaskus.us) and another is thin.  It’s like the pizza base where some people prefer thin crispy base and other like it thick.  It seems the thick ones are more common in Indonesia, but D prefers thin one and that’s what he made.

Sprinkle the toppings…

and close it.

I never thought of the combination of cheese and condensed milk until I went to Jakarta.  The sweetness and saltiness match and it creates interesting flavour.

This made me think of dorayaki.  I think I will make dorayaki next time

Chinese, Indonesian, and Japanese

I’ve been eating Chinese food again. While my in-laws are here in Perth my stomach gets filled with lots of Chinese food and Indonesian food…
These cuisine use lots of oil in cooking, so I really miss Japanese food.  Not those Japanese food that you find in Japanese restaurants here like karaage and tempura, but the real homy food like nimono and nitsuke.

Anyway, my stomach was filled with Chinese/Singapore food tonight at Bamboo in Willetton.  I wasn’t too hungry thanks to 1.5 hotdogs I had at IKEA afternoon, but my in-laws ordered 4 dishes for just 4 of us.  Pan-fried tooth fish, sambal spinach, Thai-style chicken in lemongrass sauce, and 1/2 roasted duck. It was quite a lot of food as in-laws don’t usually eat much.

I went outside to have a short stroll around Hi-Mart (Korean grocery shop) next door, and when I got back to the table two dishes had already been served.
The tooth-fish was great. Crispy fish in buttery sauce did match with plain steamed rice. I found sambal spinach was bit oily, but I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be.

Thai-style chicken was the one they ignite flame underneath the aluminum foil.  Roast duck had the beautiful colored crispy skin.  It’s just what people expect roast duck to be.

We couldn’t finish the food as I expected and ended up taking the roast duck home.  Eating this type of food once in awhile is fine, but now I’m longing for a bowl of simple ochazuke for tomorrow breakfast.

Onigiri Molds

We got these plastic onigiri shaper from Japan, and made some onigiri (rice balls) last week.

They are very simple to use – just fill steamed rice and filling, then dress up the rice balls with nori sheet, sesame seeds, furikake (seasoning powder for rice) or thinly cooked omelet.

When making onigiri by hand the rice sticks to fingers and it gets messy, but using a mold makes all process easier

First, you need to season the steamed rice with salt.  Just a pinch.

Fill the steamed rice to the mold, and make a tiny hole.

Fill the filling, (I used tuna+Japanese mayonnaise … yum!)

and press it with the lid.

Wrap with nori sheet…

remove the plastic mold, and it’s done!

Another one…

You can do this way too.

Or use small cut nori sheet.

Or just sprinkle black sesame

I remember Nippon Food in Subiaco sells onigiri and sushi molds, if you are interested ↓↓

NIPPON FOOD SUBIACO
Shop 26, 180 Rokeby Rd, Subiaco
Mon – Fri 10am – 6pm / Sat 9am – 5pm
Sun 11am – 5pm
Closed on Public Holidays
(08) 9380 6783