Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake
I have not made unbaked cheesecake for a long time. I think the last time would have been 3-4 years ago. With the continuously hot weather the past couple of weeks, it was time for this cold dessert to make a long overdue appearance.
As it happened, I had to make a cream cheese icing for a cake last week, so I had opened a 250g pack of cream cheese and about 200g was left sitting in my refrigerator. I added another packet to get 450g in total to make this cheesecake, still 50g short of a normal recipe which usually used 500g cream cheese. Bravely I soldiered on by increasing the thickened cream slightly by ¼ cup to make up the shortage of the cream cheese. It turned out beautifully so this recipe will serve me well the next time I only have 450g cream cheese to use.
Adapted from the recipe 'Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake' in Family Circle’s mini cookbook series 'Cheesecakes, Pavlovas and Trifles', published by Murdoch Books, 1994 (2001 reprinted edition).
Serves 8-10.
[Ingredients]
Crust:
250g Marie biscuits
100g butter, melted
Filling:
¼ cup hot water
2 x 10g-sachet gelatine powder (about 6½ teaspoons in total)
450g cream cheese
1/3 cup lemon juice
½ cup caster sugar
1½ cups thickened cream, whipped
250g frozen blueberries
2 tablespoons caster sugar, extra
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[Preparation]
1. Line the base of a 22cm round springform cake tin with baking paper. Blend biscuits in a food processor until finely crushed. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add melted butter; mix until combined. Spoon into prepared tin, press firmly into base. Refrigerate 20 minutes, or until firm.
2. To make Filling: Place hot water in a glass measuring jug. Sprinkle gelatine over water, stir until gelatine is dissolved. If there are still lumpy bits, put the glass jug in the microwave and heat for about 30 seconds to completely dissolve the gelatine. Repeat if necessary. Cool slightly.
3. Using electric beater, beat softened cream cheese until creamy, add lemon juice and sugar, beat until smooth. Gently fold in whipped cream.
4. Place blueberries and extra sugar in food processor. Process until smooth. Fold half the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture. Fold the remaining gelatine into the blueberry mixture.
5. Alternatively spoon both mixtures into prepared tin and swirl with a skewer. Refrigerate 4 hours or until set.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.Labels: Cheesecakes, Coffee Desserts
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Frangipane Apple Pies
I have some leftover bought puff pastry from a couple of months back. It was sitting in my freezer and taking up spaces. Thinking of using them up and not wanting to turn on the oven for too long in the hotter than usual weather we have been experiencing the past two weeks, I flipped through some of my cookbooks and decided to make these cheat’s apple pies.
This is a quick and easy recipe since it also uses apple pie filling that you can buy ready-made in tin which I also have in my pantry. The only thing you need to make is the frangipane, which basically is a dough made from ground almonds, butter, sugar and egg. It only takes 20 minutes to bake and delicious served with ice cream…
Since only half a tin of apple pie filling is used for this recipe, I will do a post for Apple Pie Tea Cake in the near future to use up the remaining apple pie filling.
Adapted from the recipe 'Apple and Berry Lattice Tarts' in Family Circle’s mini cookbook series 'Perfect Pastries', published by Murdoch Books, 1996.
Makes 8 individual pies.
[Ingredients]
4 sheets (750g) ready-made puff pastry, each sheet about 25cm x 25cm
½ x 425g-can apple pie filling, or 1 cup stewed apple, chopped
extra caster sugar, for sprinkling
Frangipane:
50g butter
3 tablespoons caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten (reserve half for glazing)
50g almond meal
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. For the Frangipane: Cream butter and caster sugar, then beat in half the beaten egg (reserving the rest to glaze) and almond meal.
2. Lightly grease a baking tray with melted butter or oil.
3. Cut eight rounds from two of the pastry sheets with an 8cm fluted cutter and place on the baking tray. Place about 2 teaspoons of apple in the centre of each round. Then top with about 2-3 teaspoons of Frangipane. Brush the outer edge of the pastry with egg glaze.
4. Cut eight rounds from the remaining two sheets of pastry with a 10cm fluted cutter. Place each round over the top of filling. Press along the edges then use the prongs of a fork, dipped in flour first, and press down firmly along the edges to seal. Make a cross on top of each pastry with a small knife to create steam hole. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 210°C.
6. Glaze pastries with remaining egg and sprinkle lightly with the extra caster sugar. Bake for 20 minutes, or until puffed and golden.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.
Peanut Cookies 花生酥
What’s a new year without Peanut Cookies? So to celebrate Chinese New Year 2007, Year of the Golden Pig, let’s all munch like little piggies on these delicious little morsels.
Although I have tried a few different recipes for peanut cookies before, I’m going back to the basic this time, no frill, no complication. The basic recipe is 1 catty (600g) flour, 1 catty (600g) peanut, 1 pound (450g) sugar and 1 pound (450g) lard. I reduced the amount and added some sesame seeds for extra fragrance, and used oil instead of lard. Happy New Year everyone!
Makes approx. 50 cookies.
[Ingredients]
200g raw peanuts, preferably smaller types with reddish inner skins
1 tablespoon (15g) white sesame seeds
200g plain flour
150g icing sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
150ml peanut, canola or corn oil, adjust as necessary
extra roasted peanuts, for topping
1 egg, lightly beaten for egg-wash
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Dry roast peanuts (in skins) over moderate heat in a frying pan for 5-8 minutes until fragrant and lightly brown. Cool, then skin the peanuts.
2. Dry roast sesame seeds in the same way for 3-5 minutes until fragrant and lightly brown.
3. Blend or ground the peanuts and sesame seeds into powder. Preheat oven to 180°C.
4. Combine ground peanuts, ground sesame seeds, flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl.
5. Add oil gradually and mix into the dry ingredients until a dough forms. To test, take a piece of dough and roll between your palms into a ball, it should not break up in pieces. If it breaks apart, add a little more oil to the dough.
6. Take a small handful of dough and roll into a sausage shape about 2cm thick. Cut evenly into small pieces just slightly bigger than a marble. Roll each piece into a ball and place onto a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough.
7. Halve the extra roasted peanuts. Place half a peanut on top of each cookie dough, then egg wash using a pastry brush.
8. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until golden.
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.
Pulut Tai Tai
Of all the kuih-muih, I think my most favourite would have to be the glutinous rice based ones, top of the list would have to be Kuih Salat (a.k.a. serimuka), also fighting hard for first place would probably be Pulut Panggang, not far behind would be Pulut Inti.
Then again I may change my mind and list the three differently on a different day, hmmm, decision, decision, decision… Luckily it doesn’t really matter at all whichever order they come, because I love them all.
However I didn’t know about or came across Pulut Tekan when I was growing up. This colourful blue marbled rice kuih seems to be the lesser known of the glutinous rice based kuih-muih family. I first came across the name just a few years ago from cookbooks and recipes on the net. There is also some confusion as to its name. Firstly ‘Pulut Tekan’ which is its Malay name, meaning compressed glutinous rice. No problems there. But then comes its various other names – Pulut Tai Tai, Pulut Tartal, or even Gading Galoh.
Now what’s a man to do with all these names, I ask you? Could I just eat the kuih in peace without all the confusion please… ;) Anyway, from what little I can gather from some quick research, Pulut Tai Tai seems to be its Nyonya name in Penang, and it is served on the side with kaya; Pulut Tartal most probably is its Eurasian (Cristang) name from Malacca and Singapore, and it is served on the side with a white coconut cream sauce; and finally Gading Galoh, this one seems to be another Malay name for it, however the only recipe I found for it is that instead of serving the kaya or coconut sauce on the side like the previous two, a coconut custard is steamed directly on top of the glutinous rice, very similar to Kuih Salat, but distinct with its marbling of the rice using the blue bunga telang (butterfly pea flowers) extract.
Now that’s my takes on the different names with their slightly different serving styles. I don’t know if I’ve got it totally wrong with all these names, but if you do know anything, I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter.
OK, now with the names aside, let’s delve into the kuih itself. The basis of the kuih is the compressed glutinous rice which is marbled with deep blue or indigo colour from the bunga telang extract. Bunga Telang is butterfly pea flower (Latin name Clitoria ternatea) and it is used by the Nyonya and Malay to naturally colour the rice blue in the olden days, such as for making this and other kuih-muih, Nyonya dumplings and also Nasi Kerabu, a specialty of east coast peninsula Malaysia. Nowadays, from what I’ve read, the blue colouring used in commercially produced kuih-muih or Nasi Kerabu is mostly artificial colouring as to extract bunga telang is rather a time consuming task and a lot of petals are needed just to get a small amount of the blue dye. I’ve not been able to get my hand on this flower as yet, but I would love to try my hand in extracting its blue colour one of these days.
Closeup of bunga telang, or butterfly pea flower (Clitoria ternatea)
Photo courtesy of TopTropicals.com
There are various techniques in extracting the blue colouring from the flower. With fresh flowers, you just pound the clean flower petals (lots and lots of it) in a mortar and pestle into a paste and squeeze through a piece of muslin to extract the deep blue juice. With dry flowers, boil or soak them in hot water, then squeeze to get the blue dye.
As I didn’t have access to the real deal, I have resorted to artificial blue food colouring to make my Pulut Tekan. I served it with my recently made Nyonya Kaya, so it is now called Pulut Tai Tai… (BTW, anyone know what Tai Tai means?)
Makes one 20cm square compressed rice.
[Ingredients]
300g (1½ cups) glutinous rice, soaked at least 3 hours or preferably overnight
250ml thin coconut milk
50ml thick coconut milk
2 teaspoons sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
5 pandan leaves, tore along the length into 3-4 strips then knotted together
blue food colouring or blue colour extract from bunga telang, adjust amount to get desired blue colouring
kaya, for serving
banana leaf, blanched in hot water to soften
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Add sugar and salt to thin coconut milk, stir to dissolve then set aside.
2. Drain soaked rice in a colander. Lay a piece of softened banana leaf on the base of a 20cm square tin. Put in drained rice and level the rice, add seasoned thin coconut milk and knotted pandan leaves. With the handle of a wooden spoon, poke through the rice in a few places to make steam holes.
3. Place tin into hot steamer and steam for 10 minutes. Remove from steamer and fluff up to loosen the rice with a fork. Return to steamer and steam another 10 minutes. Repeat the procedure once again and steam for another 10 minutes. Remove pandan leaves.
4. Add thick coconut milk and steam 5 more minutes.
5. Remove from steamer, transfer hot rice to a large glass or metal mixing bowl, leaving banana leaf lining in tin. Drizzle drops of blue colouring randomly on the rice. Fork through the rice to create a marbling effect. (Alternatively, remove one-third of the rice and colour this portion blue then combined with the white rice to create a marbling effect.) Once the marbling is to your liking, return the marbled rice to the tin. Put another piece of banana leaf on top of the rice and press down evenly to compress the rice.
6. Place another tin right-side up (or a small flat plate) on top of the rice and put something heavy (such as a pestle and mortar, or some large tins of canned food) on top of it to weigh down the rice to further compact it while cooling.
7. Let cool completely, about 3-4 hours.
8. When cold, cut into slices and serve with kaya.
[Note]
Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.Labels: Kuih-Muih, Teatime Treats
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Nyonya Kaya
Alright, I know I’ve been neglecting this blog, hehehe, but with the hot then cold, cold then hot summer weather we have been experiencing the past couple of months, I just haven’t been doing much experimenting of recipes. Although I had tried out some new recipes during this time, I did follow the original recipes quite closely, so have no desire to blog about them since I usually only write about recipes which I’ve modified or adapted, or those that need to be preserved, in this blog.
However a few days ago, I did something new, I made Nyonya-Style Kaya for the first time in my life. Even though it is a recipe from Mrs Leong Yee Soo’s book, I’ve decided to write it up, firstly, because it is an old type of Malaysian/Singaporean recipe which needs to be preserved, and secondly to make a contrast to the soft and creamy Kaya recipe I posted earlier.
Well, to begin with, after making this Nyonya Kaya (imaging after 2 hours of steaming), it actually gave me quite a mild shock to find the texture to be quite firm, as opposed to the soft, smooth and creamy Kaya (Hainanese-Style Kaya?) I’ve loved and eaten all my life. Although I shouldn’t be because I’ve seen the picture of the Nyonya Kaya in Mrs Leong’s cookbook so often, which is every time I flip through the book, and it is shown cut up like a kuih (see picture below). It is called ‘Seray-Kaya’ in the book, which I think is a mis-spelling of ‘Serikaya’, and this brings me to another point. Does ‘Serikaya’ only refer to Nyonya-Style Kaya, and when it is called simply ‘Kaya’ it refers to the soft creamy type, anyone can clarify?
The Nyonya Kaya I made, it is firm enough to form into a ball and can be cut up.
The photo of Nyonya Kaya in Mrs Leong Yee Soo’s ‘The Best of Singapore Cooking’.
The Nyonya Kaya is different from the soft creamy type because it uses more eggs in proportion to the coconut cream, more a firm eggy custard, and needs to be steamed as the final stage of cooking. The soft creamy type in contrast uses more coconut cream in proportion to eggs, so it is more of a coconut custard.
This Nyonya Kaya also has an eggy smell, which isn’t surprising since so little coconut cream is used, even the pandan fragrant from the pandan leaves used cannot hide it. It is also firm with a soft texture, I can only describe it as very similar to the texture of soft bean paste filling. Only now I begin to understand how this firm type of Kaya can be used to make, for example, Kaya Puffs, or as custard filling (which basically is firm coconut custard) in Steamed Custard Buns. As I have often wondered previously how it is possible to wrap the soft kaya inside any pastry without it spilling out.
The still spreadable firm Nyonya Kaya for making Kaya Toast.
The recipe below makes about one jam jar amount as it was my first try, so I did only a small amount. But since it takes more than two hours to make the kaya, I would recommend at least doubling the amount, which is worthier for the amount of time spent in making it. I used canned coconut milk to make this, just make sure if you're also going to use canned coconut milk to choose a good brand.
Adapted from the recipe 'Seray-Kaya' in 'The Best of Singapore Cooking' by Mrs Leong Yee Soo, published by Times Books International, 2003 reprint edition (first published in 1988).
Makes approx. 300ml.
[Ingredients]
4 eggs
225g (1 cup) granulated sugar
150ml thick coconut milk
5 pandan leaves, tore along the length into 3-4 strips then knotted together
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[Preparation]
1. If you own a double-boiler, use that to prepare the kaya. If you don’t have a double-boiler, use this method as I have done: Prepare two pots, one slightly smaller than the other so that the smaller pot fits into the bigger pot (or alternatively, use a small pot placed inside a wok). The smaller pot should not touch the bottom of the bigger pot (or wok), use something such as a small aluminium stand/rack to elevate the smaller pot if necessary. Fill the larger pot (or wok) with enough hot water so that when the smaller pot sits inside, the water should come at least one-third or halfway up the outside of the smaller pot (like a bain-marie). Ideally the smaller pot should also be the heavy-bottomed type so that it can sit stable in the simmering water without it wobbling about during the cooking process.
2. Beat the eggs lightly, then strain into the smaller pot. Add sugar and knotted pandan leaves. Stir over simmering water until sugar dissolves, about 5-10 minutes.
3. Strain thick coconut milk into the egg mixture. Now use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture in one direction only, either clockwise or anti-clockwise. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens and coats the back of spoon like custard, this takes about 10 to 15 minutes.
4. Pour the custard into a clean glass jar (at least 350ml capacity, or use two smaller jars). Do not fill too full to the rim of the jar, because during the steaming process, the custard will puff/rise up.
5. Cover the jar with a piece of aluminium foil, secure it loosely around the rim of the jar with a piece of string. Prick a few tiny holes in the foil with a fork to allow steam to escape.
6. Place the jar into a steamer with simmering water about 2cm below the jar. Steam for about 2 hours. Wipe the underlid of the steamer cover from time to time to prevent water droplets falling onto the kaya (through the holes in foil).
[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.
