Lotus seed soup

Sometimes, a very simple dessert can be all that one needs in the middle of a drowsy afternoon. I like light dessert with very little sugar, partly because of health reason, but mainly because that's how I grew up. In fact, my desserts are almost sugarless, but then the taste of the ingredients stand out much better.

Recipe: Lotus seed soup (for 2)

Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons dried cored lotus seeds, soaked overnight to re-hydrate
- 1 tablespoon wild rice
- 0.5 oz dried tofu sheet (about 1 8"x8" sheet)
- 1 tp honey

Procedure
Boil re-hydrated lotus seeds with wild rice in 4 cups of water for 10 minutes. Add tofu sheets. Allow to simmer for 1-2 hours. After 2 hours, the lotus seeds will be soft and powdery, while the wild rice grains have opened up and become chewy. Add honey and serve.

This is such a simple dessert. But I find it's so very comforting.

Baileys cream pudding

Bailey is nice. It is a cream with small amount of alcohol, very flavorful. Sometimes, I like to use it to make dessert. Here is one simple experiment.


Recipe: Bailey cream pudding (make around 4 mini puddings, each 1/8-cup sized)


Ingredients:
- 2 tablespoon (TB) Baileys
- 3 TB evaporated milk
- 2 teaspoons (tp) cocoa powder
- 1 TB sugar
- 3 TB water
- 2 tp gelatin


Procedure:
Dissolve gelatin in water. Place mixture on low heat until simmer. Add sugar and cocoa. Stir until dissolve completely. Add evaporated milk and Baileys. Stir to mix thoroughly. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Then pour into mold and chill for  2 to 4 hours. The pudding should be soft with a creamy jelly-like texture,  and yet it holds together well enough to be picked up by fingers.

Rose water cookies

I am so fascinated by rose water that I'm determined to find ways to enjoy it. So I searched for recipes, and tried out Vera's rose water almond cookies . Her recipe was perfect in the composition of rose water, almond, vanilla and butter. Moreover, I really love the small size of the batch created, not hundreds but just 2 or 3 dozens. Being laid back in my kitchen technology, it took me much more time to get the dough made. I froze the dough after making the cookie balls, then defrosted them in room temperature 30 minutes before baking. The result was a little more chewy than crispy. I'd try letting it defrost longer next time. I love the rose water and almond fragrance so much that I'm journaling it down myself.

Recipe: rose water almond cookies (36 mini cookies)

Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose white flour
- 1/4 cup Trader Joe's almond meal
- 6 tablespoon (TB) unsalted butter at room temperature (3 oz)
- 3/4 cup confectionary sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon (tp) salt
- 1/2 tp pure vanilla extract
- 1 TB Sadaf rose water
- 1 large egg

Procedure:
1. sift white flour and almond meal together.
2. Use electric mixer to cream butter in a deep bowl until it is pale yellow and soft (about 2 minutes). Be careful that butter may spread all over the kitchen.
3. Mix confectionary sugar, salt, vanilla and rose water together into a lumpy paste. Add the sugar paste, in batch, into creamed butter. Beat with a fork to incorporate before adding new batches. After all the sugar paste is added, beat the mixture with the electric mixer until it becomes smooth (< 1 minute). Then add the egg and use a fork to beat until fully incorporated. Watch out not to overbeat if an electric mixer is used to mix the egg, it will take only a few seconds. Then add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. I prefer using a fork, and it only takes a few minutes to do the job. The resultant dough is very soft, but it holds together pretty well.
4. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Dough can be kept refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 1 month.
5. Flour hands. Then pinch off small pieces of dough and roll them into balls of 0.8" diameter. Flour hands whenever dough gets too sticky to work with. I freeze the dough after rolling out into balls. This way makes it easier for me to bake small number of fresh cookies whenever desired.
6. To bake, preheat oven to 350F. Use the middle rack of the oven. Place the dough balls about 1" apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until cookies turn light golden around the edges. Then let cool completely on the sheet. Store in airtight containers for up to 3 days at room temperature.

Pomegranate and pineapple tartlets

All good gifts around us are sent from heaven above.

So thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all His love.

The Lord blessed our new year eve with a nice gathering of friends. We threw a small party and invited some good friends in the neighborhood. At first we were not sure if anyone would show up. The day before new year eve, we learnt that most of those invited would be coming. That really excited us. So I found myself busying for two whole days preparing food for a party of seven. As a treat for myself, I made some fruit tartlets. The tastes of pomegranate and pineapple go very well together as a combination of fruity sweetness, with just a juicy blend of acidity. So I made a cream that is rich and mildly sour to go with the fruity toppings.


Recipe: Pomegranate and pineapple tartlets (make 12)


Ingredients:
- 5 oz flaky pie dough (about 1/8 portion size of using Julia Child's recipe)
- 3 TB low-fat cream cheese
- 3 TB heavy whipping cream
- 1 TB white sugar
- 3 TB fresh pomegranate seeds
- 3 TB fresh pineapple, cut to 1/2" pieces


Procedure:
1. Roll out the flaky pie dough to about 1/4" thick and line the holes of a mini-muffin pan that has been greased and dusted with flour. Bake in oven at 350F for 5-10 minutes. Once the aroma of pastry diffuses into the air, it's done. Remove tartlet crust from pan, and let cool on a cookie rack. Set aside at room temperature for use. The tartlet crust will remain very crispy for several hours. 
1. Soften cream cheese by stirring with a fork until it becomes a paste. Add whipping cream and sugar. Mix and stir vigorously to form a smooth paste. The paste will have a sweet but slightly sour feel.
2. Fill the tartlet crust with the creamy paste. Then top with pineapple and pomegranate seeds. Serve right away. 

In another experiment, I decided to use heavy whipping cream alone as the cream filling. That's quite an experience. Since I was beating less than one cup of cream, the electric beater became really clumsy. So I resorted to hand beating with a fork. It was really quite a bit of work. But I really liked the result. There's something about seeing the cream form that made the whipped cream feel so tasty in the mouth. With hand and fork, it took me more than 10 minutes to get the foam started. Then I changed to a bigger bowl for more vigorous beating. The cream thickened slowly, and then progressively faster. Then all of a sudden, it became really firm. That's the moment of exuberant joy, and relief to my arm.

Ma lai go (1st attempt)

In Hong Kong style dim sum restaurants, there is a dessert called Ma Lai Go,  (马拉糕), literally meaning Malaysian cake, though I've never seen it in Malaysia or Singapore (perhaps ma lai go is related to "pandan cake"). Ma lai go is basically a type of steamed sponge cake and is not too sweet. Since I'd been investigating sponge cakes lately, I decided to check it out at wiki.

Recipe: Hong Kong ma lai go


Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup cake flour  (50g)
- 1/2 teaspoon (tp) baking powder
- 2 tp custard powder or vanilla pudding mix (10g)
- 1 egg
- 1.76 oz brown sugar (50g)
- 1 tablespoon (TB) butter (15g)
- 2 TB evaporated milk


Procedure:
1. Melt butter and set aside.
2. Sieve brown sugar to remove crumbs. Then beat with egg using electrical egg beater, until mixture foams and double to triple its volume. I use power switch 1 and it takes 30 minutes.

3. Mix flour, baking powder, custard powder or pudding mix thoroughly. Then fold in to egg mixture. Then add milk and butter.
4. Steam in bamboo steamer for 30-40 minutes.

I did some study on custard powder and found out that it's basically a mixture of cornstarch, sugar and flavoring. So I'm going to replace the custard powder with cornstarch next time.

Petite creme and red bean gelatin

When it comes to candies and desserts, I like the mildly sweet ones, not those overloaded with so much sugar that you can't taste any other tastes in the food. In order to fully savor the pleasure of a sweet, I like to serve it along with a cup of light tea or some bitter drinks that help heighten the flavor of the sweet. One fine day, I just had an insatiable craving for sweets. So I decided to make my own gelatin of creme and red bean paste using a mini-muffin mold. Each hole in the mold is about 1/8 cup by volume. I made 6 little cups. I used butter to coat the mold because its texture and flavor go really well with the creamy taste of the milk. A variation is to use the combination of rum cream and dark coffee; or evaporated milk and bailey+cocoa. Fun!

Recipe: Creme and red bean gelatin (make six gelatins of 1/8-cup size)

Ingredients:

- 5 tablespoon (TB) red bean paste 

- 2 teaspoons (tp) sugar (to taste)

- dash of salt

- 4 fl oz evaporated milk

- 2 tp gelatin powder

Procedure:

1. Thinly coat 6 holes of a min-muffin baking pan with unsalted butter. 

2. Mix 1 tp of gelatin powder with 2 TB cold water. Heat to melt gelatin powder. Then blend in 3 TB evaporated milk. Pour into the mold to fill the 6 buttered holes by one-third full. 

3. Mix red bean paste with sugar and a dash of salt. Note the sweetness of food tends to be dampened when chilled, so if the paste tastes just sweet enough at this point, then add a little more sugar to make sure it tastes sweet after chilling. Let the mold sit in fridge for 1/2 hour or until gelatin is set. 

4. Mix 1 tp of gelatin powder with 2 TB of cold water. Heat to melt, then blend in the 5 TB of sweetened red bean paste. Mix thoroughly and let it cool to room temperature. Then pour into the mold, on top of the milk layer. Note that though the volume used in recipe adds up to 12 TB, water may evaporate during heating. So the cups may not be filled to top. Let chill for 1 hour or until set. 

5. When serving, use a sharp plastic bendable toothpick to loosen the gelatin from the side and bottom of the mold. Invert the mold to let the gelatin fall out.

I actually prepared the red bean paste from scratch. The Chinese make their red bean paste by prolonged boiling of the bean (down to complete dissolution in the liquid), then by filtering with a cloth. But I like to eat the skin of the red bean because it has fiber. So here is what I do.

Procedure of making red bean paste:

1. Soak 1/2 cup of red beans in 1.5 cup water for 3 days. Replace water each day. Beans will double in volume after soaking.

2. Boil red beans in 2 cups of water. In the first hour use med-high heat. Then use med-low heat for another 1-2 hours. Add water to keep the beans covered by liquid. The beans are ready when they flake easily with a fork. At this point, the liquid should also be red and a little thick. The ratio of liquid to bean is about 1:1. 

3. Take out beans and save the liquid. Use a mortar and pestle or fork to ground the beans into a coarse mixture of flakes and bean skins. Then add back the liquid to form a coarse paste that slides thickly when scooped up by a spoon. Use a blender to blend the mixture into a smooth paste. Let sit for 20-30 minutes. The mixture should remain uniform in texture. If the mixture starts to separate into water and bean, then it's too thin, remove the liquid on top. 

4. For storage, heat the mixture on med-low heat until it boils, stirring often to prevent sticking. Then save in jar to chill, or tupperware to freeze.

The plain red bean paste always gives me a hint of coffee taste when it first enters the mouth. Perhaps it's just the illusion of my own senses.

A fresh imagination from the oven

The Sicilians have a sweet called the cannoli. It is a roll of pastry, stuffed with chilled creme and other flavors. In Italy, they keep the pastry and the creme separate, and put them together at the point of purchase, so that the cannoli remains crispy. What I reminisce about the cannoli is its mix of a crispy crust and chilled sweetness in one bite. So I decide to try making a sweet of such personality, not a cannoli, just a tart of my own imaginations.


Recipe: Sweet ricotta tart on a flaky crust (for one)


Ingredients:
- 1 oz of flake pie dough from recipe in "Baking with Julia"
- 3 tablespoon (TB) ricotta cheese fat-free
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- dash of confectioner's sugar
- 1 drop of vanilla extract
- dash of cardamom
- 1 sweetened cranberry


Procedure:
Roll out dough to 1/8" thick, and cover the bottom of a small tart tray (about 4TB big). Bake at 350F until golden brown (about 5-10 minutes). Crust will bubble a little while baking. When done, the crust will alert you by its inviting smell. Meanwhile, mix 3 TB ricotta cheese, 1/2 tp sugar and vanilla extract into a smooth paste. Don't over stir. Keep it chilled. When the crust is done, take it out from oven and let cool for 5 minutes or until your mouth can handle it. Fill with the cheese mix. Sprinkle a dash of cardamom, and a dash of confectioner's sugar. Top with a sweetened cranberry, which goes very well with cardamom. Serve right away.

Ever since I learnt to bake the flaky pie crust, my imaginations have grown wings! It only takes a few dough balls in the fridge to make a crust at anytime for anything. It's said that "if you could have only one pie dough in your repertoire, it would have to be [the flaky pie dough]".

Upside down egg tart

Not every cooking experiment is a first-time success. Behind every successful dish, there are at least a handful of failures. Why should the failures be hidden from light, especially when they make life so fun! 


I wanted to try baking sweets. So I got a recipe from a friend for graham cracker crust that looked like this:


Recipe of a Graham cracker crust for 9-inch pie


Ingredients:
- 1+1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
- 1/3 cup butter melted
- 3 tablespoon sugar


Procedure:
Mix all ingredients. Press mixture firmly against bottom and side of pie plate of 9"x1+1/4". Bake at 350F for 10 minutes or as directed.


I thought that was simple, except that the portion size was too big. I decided to bake only part of the mixture with a mini baking dish. Then, I beat an egg with a little milk and sugar, poured it onto the crust and let it bake at 350F. After 5 minutes, the tart looked done. I couldn't wait to try a bite. As it turned out, the crumbs had floated on top of the egg mixture, and formed an upside-down crust covering the custard!

Even then, it tasted really good. So I had a great laugh eating away the upside-down egg tart while musing on what happened. Perhaps I did not press the crumbs firmly enough. Or perhaps the crust should be baked separately. The tough part of my learning from recipes alone is that I lack "common sense". How big are the "crumbs"? How "mixed" is mixed? How "firm" is firm? Do I bake it with filling or without? The second time was better. The egg mixture blended in somewhat with the crust, but the crust stayed to the bottom. 

Still have a long way to go. But success won't be too far away. A 1-person tart is much easier to experiment than a 9" pie.