Posted July 21st, 2010 in Food | No Comments »
As I bought lots of banana from a market and they started to turn black already, I decided to finish them up by making a banana drink!
I didn’t have much ingredients to use in the fridge, so I just added milk and honey to taste. With a dash of maccha green tea powder, it turned out to be delicious 
It was little thick, just how I like it.
<Maccha Banana Shake> makes 1 glass
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- 1 monkey banana (or 1/2 normal banana)
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp honey
- 1/2 tsp Maccha powder
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- Place all the ingredients in a blender, and mix until combined.
- Pour into a glass, and dust with extra maccha powder.
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Posted July 14th, 2010 in Food | No Comments »
An apricot tartlet with sweet moist filling. Great accompaniment for a tea time ♪
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<Tartlet Base> 20cm tartlet tin
- 150g plain flour
- 70g unsalted butter (softened)
- 60g icing sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 egg yolk
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<Filling>
- 50g plain flour
- 2 egg yolk
- 40g sugar
- 25g unsalted butter (softened)
- 70ml cream
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 10 apricot (halved, in a tin)
- 2 egg white
- 15g sugar
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* oven 180°
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- For the base: Cream butter in a bowl. Add icing sugar gradually, and mix until pale and fluffy. Add salt, yolk and flour. Mix with spatular. Bring the dough together, and wrap with plastic wrap. Rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
- Take out the dough from the fridge. On the lightly floured working bench, roll out the dough into 2mm thick. Gently press into the tartlet tin and prick with a fork.
- Cut out a 20cm foil and press into the pastry case. Bake for 10 minutes, remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes. Take out from the oven.
- For the filling: Cream the yolk and sugar in a bowl until pale. Add softened butter little by little, and mix well at each addition. Add cream, mix, then add lemon juice and mix.
- Shift in flour, and mix with spatular.
- In another bowl, whisk the egg white and sugar until soft peak. Add 1/2 the meringue into 5, mix, and add another 1/2. Gently fold in.
- On the tartlet, arrange 5 apricots and pour half the meringue mixture. Bake in the 180° oven for 15 minutes. Pour the rest mixture into the case and smooth the surface. Arrange another 5 apricots on top, and bake for about 15 minutes or until golden.
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Posted July 5th, 2010 in Food | 4 Comments »
The contrast of dark cocoa colour and pure white cream… looks cute, aren’t they? No artificial colouring and all natural. These little bite-size cupcakes are great sweet item for afternoon tea, or as a dessert after the meal. You can add dried fruits to the batter, such as strawberries, cherries and orange peel. Enjoy your special flavour
<Chocolate Cupcakes> makes about 10 mini
- 50g unsalted butter (softened)
- 50g sugar
- 1 egg (room temperature)
- 50ml milk
- 85g plain flour
- 15g cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- fresh cream, icing sugar, chocolate to decorate
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* oven 180°
- Cream butter and sugar in a bowl with a whisk until white and fluffy.
- Add egg and milk. Mix well.
- Shift in dry ingredients. (you can add dried fruits or choco chips at this point) Mix.
- Pour the batter into lined mini muffin mould. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until cooked.
Once the cupcakes are cooled down, decorate with whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Dust with icing sugar.
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Posted June 29th, 2010 in Uncategorized | No Comments »
My neighbor left grapefruits outside their house with a memo saying “free grapefruits from the garden!”
I love grapefruits! I thought it was a spring fruit :p It’s refreshing, and great item to eat in the morning - healthy, and rich in vitamin.
I took 3 home, and ate 2 of them as they are. The rest, I made semifreddo with it
Semifreddo is an Italian, meaning “half cold” “half frozen”. As the name indicates, it is eaten as semi-frozen.
<Grapefruit Semifreddo>
for 1 x pound-cake tin
- 1 grapefruit
- 100ml cream
- 2 eggs
- 60g sugar
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- Segment the grapefruit. Cut into pieces. Keep the juice.
- Whip cream with 1/2 sugar until thick, but still able to drop off a spoon.
- In another bowl, place egg white and the rest of sugar, and whisk until fluffy (meringue).
- Add egg yolks, grapefruit pieces and 2 tbs grapefruit juice to the cream. Mix.
- Fold in meringue.
- Line a pound-cake tin with cling wrap. Pour the mixture into the tin and freeze until frozen at the edges. Remove from freezer and stir. Return to freezer and re-freeze overnight. Remove from pan and cut into thick slices.
- Enjoy it while it’s half-frozen.
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Posted June 22nd, 2010 in Food | 6 Comments »
A fluffy pancake sandwich with chunky azuki bean paste….
You may have seen Doraemon, a cat-shaped robot in Japanese cartoon, eating dorayaki. Dorayaki is a Japanese sweet which consists of two small pancakes and a filling of anko (azuki bean paste).
It’s always the best to use an electric grill pan so that cakes turn evenly brown. And, controlling the heat is the another key to make this moist pancake.
The standard dorayaki has a filling of azuki bean paste, but nowadays you can get with custard cream filling, white bean paste (shiro-an), whipped cream, etc in Japan. I spread margarin to the pancakes, but normally you just add azuki bean paste. I thought a filling of grated cheddar and condensed milk would be a nice match too. (like Indonesian Martabak)
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<Dorayaki> makes 4 (small batch)
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- 2 eggs (M~L)
- 4 tbs (60g) sugar
- 2 tbs honey
- 80g plain flour
- 20g baking flour
- 1/2 baking soda
- about 4 tbs milk (to adjust)
- 80g tsubu-an (chunky red bean paste) (recipe here and here)
- margarin to spread (optional)
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- Place egg, sugar, and honey in a bowl and whisk until fluffy.
- Shift in the dry ingredients. Mix using a spatular quickly. (don’t mix too much)
- Add milk gradually. Mix with spatular, but do not stir too much. Move the spatular as if you are cutting the batter.
- Heat an skillet or hot plat, and spray oil lightly. Using a small ladle, pour a scoop of the batter into the skillet and make a small pancake.
- Turn over when bubbles appear on the surface. Repeat this process with remaining batter to make 8 pancakes. Keep pancakes covered while cooking off the batter.
- Spread margarine on one side of pancake, and sandwich a scoop of azuki bean paste.
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* You can place a lid while cooking the pancakes to prevent them from drying out.
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