Air-fryer Sesame Balls

I remembered the sesame balls that I used to have in Malaysia while I was young was filled with ground peanut filling.  After I moved to the US, the ones that I had were filled with mung bean paste or red bean paste.  Even to these days, I have not seen one that's filled with peanut filling, and I missed that.

Then, while browsing my Facebook page, I saw a video clip about an air-fryer sesame balls recipe that caught my attention.  An easier way to make this without the oil and heat while deep-frying sounded just perfect for me.  Furthermore,  by making it myself I can fill it with whatever filling I desired.   So, without further hesitation, let's get working.  I made my own peanut filling by grounding some toasted peanuts and sweeten coconut flakes in a food processor and then added some cane sugar and toasted sesame seeds.  Mixed well to be used as filling.  Sorry, no measurement here as I just eye balling with what I had in my pantry.

Ingredients:

1/8 cup + 1 Tbsp. White cane sugar

175ml warm water

200g glutinous flour

Filling of your choice

Sesame seeds, to suit

Method:

1.  In a bowl, dissolved sugar into the warm water.  Set aside.

2.  In another bigger bowl, add in the glutinous rice flour and pour in the sugar water mixture.  Mix and knead until a soft dough is formed.  You can add more water or glutinous flour to adjust the consistency. 

3.  Then, pinch a piece of the dough, shape into ball and flatten it and wrap the filling inside inside and close it.  Coat the balls with sesame seeds completely. 

4.  Place the sesame balls into the deep-fryer and spray with oil.  Air-fry at 370'F for 10 minutes. Open the air-fryer, and flip to the other side, spray with oil and air-fry for another 10 minutes at the same temperature. 

5.  When it is done,  don't open the air-fryer just yet,  let it sit in there for 5 minutes before open.  Otherwise,  it might cracks.  Then, serve warm!

NOTE 1: It got harden when its cold.  So, air-fry leftover at 330'F for 4 minutes.  Serve immediately. 

NOTE 2:  I still prefer it deep-fried.  Texture wise is better.

CNY dessert

Tang Yuan in red bean dessert soup signified "团团圆圆".

 

Steamed radish cake signified "好彩头"

Pan-fried version.  The other version is healthier without the oil.  I actually preferred it without pan-frying as it tasted nicer as it was soft and yummy.

Recipe:  https://belachan2.blogspot.com/2016/06/steamed-radish-cake.html?m=1

I always go back to my own trusted recipe that I have been using years after years. 

Homemade Guilingao

It is very easy to make guilingao at home.  It is a cooling food and I loved to make it when someone in my family is feeling heaty. 

You just need to buy the guilingao powder from the Asian grocery store.  I used 2 Tbsp. Guilingao powder per 550ml water.  Add guilingao powder into the saucepan, then add in the room temperature water and whisk until blended.   Then placed it on to the stove top and heat it until boiling, keep stirring and watching it as not to let it over boiled, around 5 minutes.  Set it aside and scoop out any bubbles.  Let it cool completely.  It will harden.

To serve,

Scoop some into a bowl.  Top with honey or maple syrup and 1 Tbsp. of heavy cream.  Enjoy!

Keep any leftover guilingao in the refrigerator.

Peach Macadamia Milk Jelly

Warm weather lets you crave for something cold.  Instead of grabbing an ice-cream from the freezer, cold jelly would be your other option.  Of course, you can use any milk or any fruit of your choice to create this jelly.  Get inspired from this and play with your own creation!

 

Ingredients:

1 little macadamia milk

10g agar-agar or jelly powder

3/4 cup cane sugar

28oz canned peach, drained and cut into cubes

Methods:

1. In a bowl, add in cane sugar and jelly powder, mixed well with a whisk, set aside.

2. Pour the milk into a large saucepan and turn up the heat.  When heated and before boiling, whisk in the sugar and jelly powder mixture, whisk well until the sugar dissolved.  Turn off the heat and set aside.  Then, add in the cut peach cubes.

3.  Pour into the mold of your choice or just a rectangle pan (like picture shown above) and let it cool on the countertop.  When cooler, put it in the refrigerator for around 2 hours.  Cut and serve as desire.  Enjoy!

Xmas Fruit Cake

Ingredients:

2 bags of candied papaya and pineapple from Dollar Tree, cut into smaller pieces

Equal amount of raisins, peels of any lemon or orange if have

Soak the above with 1/3 cognac and 2/3 apple juice for a week.

1 stick of unsalted butter, soften

3/4 cup of dark brown sugar

1/2 cup olive oil

3 Tbsp. 100% maple syrup

1/2 tsp. salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove

3 eggs

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

Methods:

1.  Preheat oven to 320'F.  Line the 8" square baking pan with parchment paper.

2.  Beat soften butter and brown sugar until fluffy.  Add in olive oil, beat well.  Add in syrup, beat well.  Add in the seasonings and one egg at a time, beat until combine.

3.  Use a spatula and stir in the dry ingredients.  Lastly add in the soaked fruits along with the juices.  Mix well.

4.  Pour into the prepared pan and cover the top with foil.  Bake in the oven for 2.5 hours.  Take it out and set aside to cool completely.  Wrap it with foil and let it age for a week before serving.  Can be freeze in the freezer to enjoy it later.  Just bring it back to room temperature to serve.  Enjoy!

Gula Melaka Coconut Sago Dessert

One of the Malaysian favorite dessert.  Sago/ tapioca pearls with coconut cream and gula Melaka.

Toasted Coconut Chia Seeds Cake

Coconut toasted coconut cake, so yummilicious.

I had a vision and I made this cake and it was so divine!  When I told my Edda about my vision of this cake, she gave me the look that it was not going to be good, she said I don't like coconut cake.  Oh well, as it turned out she really loved it and had few pieces after it was cooled.  I asked her, this is really good right and she said yes and please don't share it with anyone.  Hahaha....she wanted the whole cake for us!  As usually I would share half of the cake away.  

Super fragrant and super moist coconut chia seeds cake!  The chia seeds gave it a little crunch when biting into the moist cake.

This creation is so unexpectedly delicious that I decided to keep the recipe within my family.  Who knows, I might decide to sell some of my bakes in the future!  As for now, this is priceless!

Matcha Yogurt Cake

I remembered I made yogurt cake before and it was pretty good.  A co-worker gave me a big tub of Brown Cow vanilla yogurt so it gave me an opportunity to make this cake again.  I told her I am going to make a yogurt cake and give it to her.  She didn't know we can use yogurt to make a cake hence just had to let her try it herself I guess.  I decided on the Matcha flavor just because I liked it. This is another one bowl and a whisk recipe that I liked very much.  Easy and not a lot of things to wash later.  This cake is best the next day, a soft and moist cake with vanilla and matcha flavors.

Steamed Layered Sago Kuih

I was in loved with this Malaysian dessert when I first had it in Malaysia many moons ago.  I had no idea this dessert was actually so easy to make as I thought it would be difficult to produce this dessert at home.  I suddenly had a craving for this sago kuih again and went on Google to look for how it was made.  To my utter surprised, it was fairly easy to make and since I have all the ingredients in my pantry, I set up to give this a try!  I would try other flavor next time or other recipe for a different texture? This one is chewy.

I steamed it in my old-time electric steamer and to my total dismay, my 10+ years steamer broke down in the middle of steaming!!!  What a timing for broken down.  So, I had to cover it with foil and finished steaming it in my wok on the stove top.  Today was not a good day for me, one obstacle after another kept on happening to me on the same day!  I wanted to go to the bank to have some document notarize and found out I forgot my cellphone which had my ID card at home ( thus I had to drive home to get it),  then I went to the bank they told me they charged $5 for cashier checks (so I had to go to Walmart), went to Walmart and realized they only took cash or debit card for money order (I didn't have either one so had to drive home), then got a call from school to tell me to come pick up my younger girl because she was not feeling well and had fever (So, had to drive to school), then my steamer broke down half way through steaming (and I had to find alternative way to finish steaming my kuih, I prepared this in the morning before I got a call from the school, supposed to bring it to my friend's house at night.) and because of my girl not feeling well, I had to cancel the plan to have dinner at my friend's house! :-(  Whoa, I didn't expect all these to happen when I had all plan up nicely the night before.  Seriously, life is so unpredictable!  

Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake Revisited

After I visited a Vietnamese Baguette restaurant and they gave me few pieces of honeycomb cake to try, I realized that I haven't been making this cake for a long time.  So, it prompted me to give it a try again.  I got the honeycomb effect and it seem successful, however, I found it on the dry side.  I have no idea why, do you think I baked it for too long?  or I need to add more coconut milk?  Why it is dried?

Red Bean Roti Canai

While shopping at the Asian market one day, I saw this frozen red bean roti canai.  It reminded of the Chinese red bean pancake dessert that I had when I was in Malaysia, so I bought this on impulse.  I just pan-fried this oil free in a non-stick pan and it came out looking like roti canai instead of the Chinese dessert that I thought it was.  It just tasted like roti canai with red bean filling so I was kind of disappointed.  Edda said she didn't like it at all.  Oh well, guess we wouldn't be buying this in the future.

I think the one that I made here long time ago tasted better than this!

Roti Canai with red bean filling.

Swirl Green Tea Vanilla Pound Cake

I have a block of cream cheese sitting in the refrigerator so I had to find a recipe for it.  I remembered I once made a orange cream cheese pound cake that was really good.  I should have follow that recipe with I adapted instead of trying this new recipe at allrecipes.com.  It is still good but it was not as good as it could be as I have tasted better.  I was kind of disappointed.  Next time I will use the recipe in my blog for cream cheese pound cake instead of trying another recipe.

I added green tea powder for the middle layer.  Next time I probably make it all green tea flavor as this high quality matcha powder is really fragrant.  I took half to my work place and they all loved it. It felt great to share your food to someones who appreciated it.  :)

Marmalade No-churn Ice-cream

After I learned about this easy self-made no-churn ice-cream, I just loved to play around with new flavors!  This is one flavor that I tried after the green tea flavor.  I had some marmalade that I made in the refrigerator, so I thought why not I tried putting preserves into the mix and hence here it is!  Next time I would love to try the mocha flavor that I loved.  Creativity is endless and so does the flavors, just play with it as you will create your own kind of flavor that none in this world!  Enjoy and have fun experimenting!

Coconut Mochi Cake

I have some sweeten coconut flakes in the refrigerator and making a coconut mochi cake just strike me as an excellent idea.  It couldn't be yummier and the crust was crispy in the day it was baked and turned soft the next day.  Nevertheless it was still delicious!  If you like all things coconut, you might want to give this recipe a try!  Least to say it was super duper easy to make as well.  Enjoy!

No-churn Green Tea/ Matcha Ice-cream

Yay!  I don't have to pay more for green tea ice-cream anymore!  Creamy and delicious green tea ice-cream can be easily made at home.  Since I learned the method for no-churn ice-cream, I have been making my own ice-cream with the flavor that I loved!  With the basic no-churn ice-cream recipe, you can create any flavor ice-cream that you could think of! If you can think it, you can make it!  I would definitely experiment more flavors in the future.

My Pullman tin finally came into good use!  The ice-cream fit nicely in this tin plus it came with a cover.  So convenient and so lovely!

Caramel Hoen Kwe Water Chestnut Kuih

This Hoen Kwe kuih is refreshing and so easy to make.  This kuih is supposed to be white in color but due to my inexperience or first time cooking using this hoen kwe flour, I sorted caramelized the sugar and resulted in this caramel color kuih.  Tastewise, it was actually a plus because this kuih was fragrant with caramel and soft with the crunch from the water chestnut.  The original recipe from the back of the Hoen Kwe flour tub was too sweet, so I cut the sugar down to 1 cup.  A bit similar to water chestnut kuih but the texture is different.

Pour into a glass container, let cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before slicing.

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars

I saw this recipe while flipping through my old Penzeys Spices magazine.  As you know, I am attracted to easy and healthy recipe, even though I couldn't really say this recipe is healthy but hey it has oats and dried cranberries in it!  Hahaha....  Anyway, what got me in the end is this one bowl and a hand whisk preparation method.  I don't like to see a sink full of things to wash in the end, so I always favor this type of recipe.

I liked this recipe, the cranberry oatmeal bars turned out very fragrant and delicious.  Next time I can make this for teacher treat or party.  My girls took this as their school snacks and ate it as after school snack.  Easy to make, less thing to wash and delicious to eat, what more can you ask for? *wink*

Avocado Chocholate Chips No Churn Ice-Cream

I first saw this recipe in a video shared by a friend via Facebook.  The easy recipe caught my eyes, I was like I could make ice-cream at home without an ice-cream maker?  Furthermore, it was so easy to make and the vibrant green color no-churn avocado ice-cream really tempted me to give it a try.

Hence, viola!  Frankly that vibrant green color was impossible to achieve, I am wondering whether they added green coloring for the video!  The picture provided by the Food Network recipe was the same as mine, more whitish in color instead of the vibrant green.  Only 1/2 an avocado used and we had to mix it in with 2 cups of whipped cream, that green color would be long diluted.

I added mini chocolate chips morsels as my girls and I loved chocolate, nothing would go wrong with this combination unless you dislike chocolate chips.  And my verdict for this ice-cream, it was good and creamy!

Yummy home-made no churn ice-cream!  As easy as 1-2-3!  Try it!  The only downside is lots of cleaning afterward, that was the least fun part of it. 

Green Bean, Barley and Sago Dessert Soup

I saw a green bean and barley Chinese sweet dessert soup on Facebook not too long ago and thought what a great idea as I have never try adding barley into my green bean soup.  Since I have some barley at home so I set up to give this combination a try.  I also added sago pearls just because my girls and I loved sago a lot.

What a surprise and we really loved it as barley added some chewy bite into the mix and it was so delicious.  Since both barley and green bean are cooling food, it is good if someone in your family is coughing or has heaty body.

Keep the leftover in the refrigerator and just eat it cold.  Enjoy!

Pear Puff Pastry

I have some pears in the refrigerator and some frozen roti canai or roti pratha in the freezer, so this dessert came into my mind again.  Using my old recipe here to recreate this.  Very simple and very easy, just peeled and sliced the pear thinly and arranged it on top of the roti canai and sprinkled the top with some cinnamon and brown sugar, fold up and baked in 400'F toaster oven for 25 minutes. You can certainly preheat your oven to 375'F and baked it for 25 minutes if you don't have a toaster oven.  Cut and enjoy with a dollop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream or as is, whatever to your fancy! Enjoy!