Three Color Pavlova

When I was told that I was in charge of dessert for the Christmas dinner, I asked sister what I should be making.  If it was in Japan, I would be making simple strawberry cake with vanilla sponge and fresh cream, but I didn’t know if Australian (in-laws) would like it.  Sister said that Australian traditional Christmas dessert is either pavlova, or trifle.  As sister finished her sentence with “trifle may be bit heavy”, I decided to make pavlova.

It was actually my first time to make pavlova.  Umm, actually I may have made it before at TAFE, but I think it would have been a small, individual size.  

I made family size pavlova with three colors: white, pink and chocolate.  Looked like Napoleon ice cream :p  I decorated with whipped cream, some fresh fruits and roasted nuts.  It was pretty good. 

<Pavlova>

• 6 egg white
• 1+1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tbs corn flour
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• tiny drop of red coloring
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 200ml whipping cream
• 1 tbs condensed milk
• cherry, kiwi, peach
• roasted nuts ( I used Almond praline)

1. Preheat oven to 200°C.  Line baking paper on an oven tray, and dust 1tsp of corn flour.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Add sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating constantly until thick and glossy. Add remaining 3 teaspoons cornflour with the last tablespoon of sugar. Fold through vanilla and vinegar.
3. Take 2~3 tbs of meringue into another bowl. Shift in cocoa powder and mix through.  Take another 2~3 tbs meringue into another bowl and add tiny drop of red coloring, mix through.
4. Spoon half of white meringue onto baking paper, shaping into about 24cm (diameter) circle.  Pour pink and brown meringue into the white meringue bowl.  Do not mix.
5. Spoon the three colors meringue on top of white meringue on oven tray.  Gently spread into circle shape, with a slightly higher edge and a low centre. Make three colors marbled.
6. Reduce oven to 100°C.   Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours or until dry and crisp. 
7. Turn off oven and open oven door. Cool completely in oven (pavlova may sink during cooling).

    

Please be careful when you are moving the pavlova into a serving plate.  Gently slide the pavlova onto a plate, or it will be like this … (T_T)  ↓↓↓

• Crush Almond, and roast in a pan (without oil).  Be careful not to burn.
• Place whipping cream and condensed milk in a bowl and whip until soft peak.  
• Spread cream on top of pavlova, and arrange cut fruits and sprinkle roasted nuts.

    

  

  

Vanilla Ice Cream with Hot Orange Sauce

Although I’m not a big fan of citrus fruits, I push myself to buy them and eat regularly. I don’t mean I don’t like them, I just prefer other fruits. The reason for trying eating citrus fruits is that they are high in vitamins. Especially when I’m sick I eat oranges/grape fruits, or squeeze out lemon juice and drink it with water.

Vitamin C, contained in citrus fruits, works on your skin and bones (helps absorption of collagen, decrease melanin on your skin, etc), lower stress level, helps increasing immunity against virus, and much more.

This hot orange sauce gives a great refreshing taste and it matches with rich vanilla ice cream. Pour the sauce while hot and serve immediately.

<Ice Cream with Hot Orange Sauce> 2 serves

• 1/2 orange
• 100ml orange juice
• sugar
• 1tbs Cointreau
• 2 serves vanilla ice cream

With Pancakes!

I love eating pancakes in the morning!  The soft and sweet pancakes with maple syrup and butter…  I’m sure lots of girls will be happy when her boyfriend or husband makes a sweet pancake for her in the morning.  Or even some guys like pancakes as breakfast.  It’s easy to make pancakes using pancake mix packets, or if you want to make them from scratch here is how.

Now, what do you usually eat pancakes with?? 

The typical accompaniments are maple syrup, butter, freshly whipped cream, honey, ice cream… and some fruits!  I usually make fruits sauce for pancake and eat with maple syrup and whipped cream (and sometimes vanilla ice cream).  I know it’s high in calories, but that’s why I eat it in the morning.  It’s always best to consume “carb” and “fat” in the morning rather than at night.  

The fruit sauce is very easy to make!  I use frozen berries.  

1. Place berries in a micro-safe bowl or a cup.  Sprinkle vanilla sugar (how to make: keep sugar in an air-tight container with split vanilla pod) and heat up in the microwave. (appx 1 ~ 1.5 minutes)   If you don’t have vanilla sugar you can sprinkle normal sugar and a drop of vanilla essence.
2. Once the sugar dissolved, stir with a tea spoon.

You can decorate the pancake with a scoop or vanilla ice cream, berry sauce, icing sugar, mint leaves and a drizzle of maple syrup (or honey).  If you love chocolate you can drizzle chocolate sauce over the pancake.  Why don’t you try making pancakes for your loved one this weekend?

Pumpkin Doughnuts

I used to make many kinds of doughnuts when I was back in Japan, such as sweet potato doughnuts, carrot doughnuts,  kinako (soy bean powder) coated doughnuts, doughnuts with vanilla ice cream and azuki an (chunky azuki paste), etc.  I love doughnuts with carrot, sweet potato or pumpkin as they are not too sweet and high in nutrition.  Good for kids

• 100 g pumpkin
• 150 g plain flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 50 g sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• vanilla essence 

  

1. Cut pumpkin and peel the skin off.  Steam or microwave until it’s soft.  Drain well, an  mash up until smooth.
2. In a bowl, place mashed pumpkin, egg yolk, sugar and few drops of vanilla essence.  Mix with a wooden spoon or a spatula.  
3. Shift in flour and baking powder and mix well.  (* at this point add 1 tbs of water into the dough if the mixture is too tough.  If the dough is already soft, there is no need to add water.)
4. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and rest for 20 mins in the fridge.
5. Heat up oil to 160~170 ℃.  Using two table spoons, slowly drop half table spoon of dough into oil, one at a time, and deep-fry until it’s golden.
6. Drain, and serve on a plate.  Dust with icing sugar.

  

As I mentioned earlier this doughnut is not too sweet, so if you want to add more sweetness you can either:

drop into a tray of cinnamon sugar while it’s hot.  

or,

you can dip into melted chocolate,

or,

enjoy with some icing.  :)

  

You can also make them in different shapes such as rings and sticks.

  

 

Ring : cut baking paper into appx 10cm square, and pipe out the mixture into ring shape onto the baking paper.  Slowly drop the paper (with the mixture on) into 160~170 ℃ oil, facing the doughnuts side down, and deep-fry.  The paper will come off itself.

 

Stick : Drop a tiny amount of oil on your hands, and shape the dough into a stick, then quickly drop into heated oil.  Be careful not to burn yourself!

Now, if you excuse me I need to go back to the kitchen and finish up my doughnut while it’s hot.  

 

  

Home Made Asian Sweets

My mother-in-law (M) cooks everyday.  She sometimes cook Indonesian sweets for us and they are really nice.  Since the parents came to Perth I haven’t cooked any food at home. :p   She is always in the kitchen doing something, so there is no space for me!

Here are some of Indonesian sweets she made…

<Ketan Hitam>

Ketan = glutinous rice, hitam = black in Indonesian (according to M)

If you browse on internet you’ll see various forms of this dish, but M always make like this ↓↓↓

Like porridge.

On the photo it looks like azuki beans, but the texture is totally different.  This black rice is very chewy and juicy.  I love the texture!

• 400g black glutinous rice
• 1300ml water
• 2 pandan leaves
• 125ml palm sugar syrup (dissolve palm sugar with hot water)

You can buy a small packet of black glutinous rice from Asian grocery shops.

1. Wash rice.  Soak the rice in water for few hours (to soften up).
2. Place rice in a sauce pan with water and pandan leaves.  Bring to boil, then reduce the heat to low.  Cook for about 40 minutes.  You’ll need to stir constantly.
3. Add palm sugar syrup, and stir until the liquid almost evaporates.  Add a pinch of salt.
4. Remove from the heat and let it cool down.

They usually eat this Ketan Hitam with coconut milk.

<Biji Salak>

This is also a chewy sweet ♪

• sweet potatoes
• tapioca flour
• palm sugar syrup

1. Steam (or microwave) sweet potatoes.  (as much as you like)  Mash up.
2. Add tapioca flour, 1 tbs at a time, and mix well.  Continue until you can roll up the mixture into a long stick shape.  Chop up  into 2~3 cm length.
3. Boil water in a sauce pan, and add the sweet potato dumplings.  (not too much at a time)  Once the dumplings float to the surface, scoop them out.
4. Serve with palm sugar syrup.  (and coconut milk)

They are very easy to make, but to me they are “foreign food”.  In Japan we don’t eat coconut milk/cream (now maybe they do) as well as palm sugar, tapioca flour etc.  These food are all foreign things in Japan, and the food contained these ingredients are called “Asian food”.  Japanese food is pretty different from other “Asian” food.  :)