Green Tea Cream Puffs

I was left with some heavy cream from Thanksgiving.  So, I needed to use it before it expired and I thought of  making a green tea flavor cream filling for some cream puffs.  Cream puff is very easy to make, I just followed a classic cream puff dough recipe and play with the flavor of cream filling.

Cream puff freezes well and I especially loved how the heavy cream filling tasted after in the freezer.  To me, it tasted so much like ice-cream and making it so good.  You can drizzle the top with melted milk chocolate to make it more presentable for a party or potluck.

Taro Mochi Cake

Showing you pictures of my Taro Mochi Cake.  I am still in the process of experiment as I am not quite happy with the result so I won't be sharing the recipe for now.  It will be a while until I get my hand on some taro again and begin another trial on this mochi cake.  But will post the recipe once I succeeded in accomplishing the texture that I want.  Stay tuned!

It was okay but a bit too soft, so more experiment needed.  I want to do it differently the next time.

Matcha Mochi Cake with Sweet Potatoes/Yam

 

Why green tea you asked?  It's simply because I adore the Redman green tea powder, it's so fragrant and make your baked good vibrant in this beautiful green color.  I made sure I bought some when I went back to Malaysia few months ago. There is no substitution for me!  Not disappointed, my house smelled like green tea when this was baked and this mochi cake really fragrant packed with green tea smell.  If you just want a plain matcha mochi cake, just omit the sweet potatoes.

The texture of this mochi cake is sticky and chewy with the fragrant of green tea and sweetness from the sweet potatoes.  My next experiment will be with taro mochi cake, wait til I get my hands on some taro!

Purple Sweet Potato Mochi Cake

The inspiration of making this mochi cake came from a Korean mom that I talked to.  I never thought of adding sweet potato into a mochi cake until I tasted some that she made.  Hers was different with orange sweet potato and some other things that she added (she didn't give me the recipe though).  Since I LOVE the purple sweet potato because of the color and sweetness, I wanted to recreate her recipe and hence this recipe was born.  I was glad to say that it was a success and we all loved it very much.  On the day it was baked, the crust was crusty and the mochi was chewy with the sweetness from the sweet potato and a little sourness from the raisins, just perfect!  The crust will turn soft on the 2nd day but just as chewy and delicious!  This is definitely my keeper recipe that I want to make all the times.  Next time I want to try it with taro and play with this recipe a little.  Feedback to me if you ever try it!

Seriously it was so hard to stop at just one piece, got to have two!!  Self-control....self-control....

Brownie from Scratch

I used to buy brownie in a box because I liked the fudge liked texture and it was fool proof.  Or because I always thought brownie was hard to make?  But I stopped buying it after I was aware of partially hydrogenated oil, just like a lot of other things that I used to buy.  Anyway, both my girls have been bugging me to make brownie for them.  They loved brownie but I don't buy them in the store so I had to make it for them.  I found an easy recipe with great reviews and decided to try it (recipe link provided in the next page).  It was good and but not very fudge like, not sure whether I over baked it or not.  Nevertheless, my girls loved it!

Would definitely try this recipe again without the chocolate frosting.

Snow Fungus Sweet Soup with Lotus Seeds (雪耳莲子糖水)

Sometimes I feel like making some sweet dessert soup for my family.  After reading about how great the black fungus/ wood ear and white snow fungus for our bodies, I decided to cook it more often.  Since black fungus has more health benefits, I cook it quite often in stir-frying dishes.  But I don't want to neglect the snow fungus as it has a beauty benefit that makes one face looking younger just like bird nest.  But bird nest is expensive and not everybody can drink it often, whereas snow fungus is really affordable.  I read that in order to have that beauty benefit, you have to eat it at least three times a week.  I couldn't possibly cook it that often but when I do make it, I am making sure I am cooking a big pot and have at least three bowls of it. :-)

Picture with ingredient names listed for your convenient.

All these ingredients have health benefits, not just the snow fungus so this sweet soup is really nutritious.  For example, goji berries is high in antioxidant and vitamins, red dates/ jujubes nourishes blood and replenishes Qi, lily buds is cooling, reduce heatiness, treats cough and helps with insomnia, lotus seeds improves digestion, removes heatiness and calms the spirit.

I have a question to ask.  Does adding sugar to cook together with the snow fungus making it soft and gelatinous?   For this, I added the sugar in the end and the resulted snow fungus was crunchy.

Yonanas Review!!

This is another kitchen gadget that I got to have when I saw the infomercial.  As a health conscious individual this is right up my alley.  We loved ice-cream but the saturated fat content, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oil and the long list of ingredients scared me.  I had been drastically cut down on buying them at the supermarket and wanted an alternative.  Then, I saw this and this was the answer.

The Yonanas machine above priced at $50. Easy to install, easy to use and easy to clean.  Came in 5 pieces, except the base engine, the rest are dish washer safe or just wash with warm soupy water right after use.

Ingredients I used here were 2 frozen bananas (got to be the one with dark spots so that it would be sweeter) and 1 cup of frozen blueberries, thaw for 5-7 minutes.  (There are tons of recipes in the recipe booklet that came with it)

Turn it on and push the fruit down with the plunger and we have this creamy and healthy blueberries banana ice-cream.

Eating a bowl of ice-cream never felt this healthy before.  It's just plain fruit, no cream, milk, sugar, high fructose corn syrup, saturated fat or any artificial ingredients added.  There are more recipes in their website.  This is not a paid review so I am not sharing a link here, but you can easily find the website via search engine.  I just wanted to share this product with my readers who would love a healthier alternative to ice-cream.

One downside is if your fruit is sourish or tart, then the ice-cream would be sourish instead of sweet.  You can add chocolate kisses or top it with homemade chocolate or strawberry syrup, caramel sauce should do the trick.  I top mine with Gula Melaka syrup!  ;)

Disclaimer:  This is not a paid review and I received nothing from Yonana.  Just me sharing a kitchen gadget that I bought recently.

Taro Tapioca Shreds Sweet Soup

I had a taro sago sweet soup as dessert recently at an authentic Chinese restaurant up in Denver with some friends.  I enjoyed it as I loved taro!  Always loved the taro in buburchacha, a popular Malaysian dessert when growing up and until now I still loved it.  I also loved the "or nee", smashed taro cooked in sugar and oil.  Taro is also high in dietary fiber, low in fat, high in vitamin E and rich in potassium and magnesium.

Since I don't have sago at home, I used dried tapioca shreds instead.  You can use either one or both.  This is a lovely dessert but quite fattening because of the high amount of coconut milk used.  Would be nice as an occasional treat!  And one of that occasion would be during Chinese New Year!

I am sharing this dessert with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  Go check out the roundup on Feb 7th.  :-)

Red Dates and Dried Longan Konnyaku Jelly

The idea of making this came from Gina Choong.  She has a blog Taste of Time and a baking supply store in Singapore.  Go visit her and her store if you are in Singapore, she is pretty popular!  Do visit her blog for more information.  I have known her before I started this blog in her Kitchen Capers forum, so back in 2004?  Wow, we go way back and we haven't even met once.  I hope I will get to meet her at her store when I am in Singapore in the future.  I will make an effort to go see her and surprise her!  :)  Actually one of the members in her forum encouraged me to write a food blog and see where I am today?  Without her persistent, I won't even know what is blogging back then.  Thank you!

I saw a picture of this at Gina's FB (well different mold but basically the same thing) and thought it would make such a great Chinese New Year dessert!  I had never tried using Chinese tea in making konnyaku jelly before hence the kick was there (I love to challenge myself in new thing) and that was all the motivation I needed.  I chose this pineapple mold because pineapple "Ong lai" means prosperity in Chinese.  Jujube (red date) means wealth, prosperity and fertility (I don't need this, haha) and longan (龙眼, dragon eye) means many good son (well for the married couples who want a son).  For Chinese, we have an old tale that if you are pregnant and someone older in your family dream of a dragon, you are highly carrying a son.

With that said, I am sharing this dessert with Aspiring Bakers #15: Auspicious Dishes for CNY hosted by Wen's Delight.  Go check out the roundup on Feb 1st.  :-)

Easy Apple Raisin Tart (苹果葡萄干馅饼)

I was in the mood for experiment.  When I was making a pie crust for my sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving, I made an extra pie crust and freeze.  And then Granny Smith (green apple) was on sales for 3 for $1 and I couldn't pass it out so I bought 3.  But I only used 2 for this recipe.  With the ready made defroze pie crust and Granny Smith, I set to work.  It was really easy to put together (see instruction on next page) and when I was finished, it looks kind of blank.  So, I scattered some raisins on top and finally it looked presentable.

It turned out great too!  We all liked the flaky crispy crust with the sweet apple filling.  Keep any leftover in an air-tight container and toast it in a toaster oven for 5 minutes to crisp it up.

White Fungus Mung Bean Sweet Dessert Soup (银耳绿豆甜品汤)

White fungus or white wood ear fungus (白木耳) or snow fungus (雪耳) or silver ear fungus (银耳), whatever you called it is a species of fungus that grows on dead tree.  This fungus is white with a gelatinous fruit bodies and said to have medicinal benefits.  In Chinese cuisine, we mostly cook it in sweet soup or herbal savory soup.  You can even stir-fry with it.

I wanted to make split mung bean soup because it was quick and easy as it cooked really fast without  much prior soaking required.  Then, I remembered I made a nagaimo mung bean soup before which made me think what else could I used instead of nagaimo that I had at home.  Which came out to be white fungus.  I thought the crunchy white fungus would go well with my mung bean soup and hence this soup was created.  Got to say, it was good!  What a great way to trick my girls into eating the white fungus.

Oh, I had lots of broken bits of white fungus in my packet and thus that was what I used for this soup.  If your white fungus are in pieces, just take one and soften it in water and then cut it into smaller pieces.

No Bake Cheesecake Cookie Cup

I made baked cheesecake cups before back in the old days.  Today I wanted to try the no bake version.  I had some ginger snaps in my pantry and it worked well as a base for my cheesecake cookie cups.  I used a fat free blueberry nonfat yogurt which I was hoping for a light tint of blue hue for this cheesecake cup, but guess not.  The yogurt itself was fairly white in color and when mixed with the cream cheese mixture, well as you can see, the end color result of this cheesecake cookie cup.

This recipe yields 9 cheesecake cups and feel free to decorate the top with fresh blueberry or blueberry preserved for colors contrast.  This is one easy dessert to make and kids friendly too.

Brown Sugar Glutinous Rice Cake (Kuih Pulut Gula Hitam)

I made this Malaysian cake or kuih to bring to a friend's house.  I won't be sharing the recipe because I didn't make a good job of it.  The glutinous rice turned out too soft and I think I picked the wrong method to do this.  Since I made this without measurement, just estimation, I also found it not sweet enough.  Since lots of people know how to make this, I won't be telling you how.  Just that I added brown sugar and sweeten coconut flakes into the coconut fragrant glutinous rice before putting it into a container to shape.

Surprisingly my hubby liked it and I thought he hardly eat any Malaysian cake.  I would definitely try this again and this time with another method of doing it.  This cake is best eaten on the same day.  It is not recommended to put it in the refrigerator as this will harden the glutinous rice.

I tried to arrange it like a snowflake, haha... does it look like a snowflake?  :-P

BoBoChaCha 2

I made BoBoChaCha before but this time with the added tapioca strips.  I steamed the cubed yam for 25 minutes and set aside.  Then, I cooked the cubed sweet potatoes in a large pot with water.  Boil in low heat for 20 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are soft.  Then, I add in the Chinese bar shape brown sugar or you can use Gula Melaka or gula Jawa.  Dissolve those sugar to taste.  Lastly, stir in the cooked sago pearls/tapioca pearls, cooked tapioca strips, cooked yam and stir to mix well.  Add in some coconut cream to increase the overall fragrant of this dish.

In the next page, I will show you what the dried tapioca trips package looks like.  You should be able to buy this in any Asian or Vietnamese market store.  Instruction to cook this will be provided as well.

Green Tea Pudding without Eggs

I called this green tea pudding without eggs because this pudding was not made with eggs and baked in a water bath.  I used gelatin to harden it.  I got the inspiration from Nasi Lemak Lover's Soymilk Pudding and a commercial I watched on youtube.  That commercial featured vanilla pudding, coffee pudding and green tea pudding and it just caught my eyes.  Since I have one last packet of powder gelatin to use and all other ingredients at home, I set to work.  I revised the recipe using my Reduced Fat Panna Cotta that I made earlier.  The difference was no heavy cream was used in this pudding.

If you loved green tea, you would love this.  Just make sure you use a good quality green tea powder or matcha so that the color will come out green and the taste of green tea will be strong.  It does makes a difference so don't buy a cheap green tea powder for baking or making dessert (I had learned my lesson).  I recommend Redman's green tea powder for baking if you live in Malaysia.

This pudding is delicious and all of us loved it.

Pumpkin Sweet Potatoes Sago Dessert

What to do with extra pumpkin on hand?  Make this!  This idea was suggested by one of my readers and I couldn't agree with her more, so easy to make and so tasty especially with lots of tapioca pearls or sago pearls.

You have to use fresh pumpkin for this.  Just cut it into small pieces along with the sweet potatoes.  You can either steam to soften and cook it or just boil them together in a pot for 20-30 minutes.  Add Chinese brown sugar pieces to taste, add in cooked tapioca pearls and lastly coconut cream.  Stir to mix well.

Good either serve warm or cold.  My hubby loved it cold with crushed ice.  Keep any leftover in the refrigerator and enjoy it cold straight out of the fridge.  This method of cooking is just like BoBoChaCha actually.  So, of course you can add in yam or tapioca strips or plantain or red bean or whatever you think is suitable.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

 

I wanted to try a pumpkin cheesecake ever since I tried it few years ago.  It was a store bought frozen kind and it was so good, the memory just stick with me.  I actually prefer the duo version where there was part white and part pumpkin cheesecake.  However, it sort of ended out this way.

You can use graham crackers instead of ginger snap cookies if you like.  Omit the nuts if you prefer. 

Look at my crack cheesecake!!!  This was my first cheesecake and it cracked badly.  Note to self, never offer to bring a whole cheesecake for a party or potluck because you never know how it would turn out.  If you have great tips on baking a non-crack cheesecake, feel free to share with this cheesecake amateur here.  :-)

Pumpkin Tang Yuan or Pumpkin Glutinous Rice Balls

Happy Solstice or Dong Zhi “冬至节”everyone!  Today is the first day of winter and in tradition, Chinese eat Tang Yuan and reunion meal on this day.  This year I made a pumpkin tang yuan or pumpkin glutinous rice balls.  I used the leftover dough from making the Chinese Pumpkin Sesame Cakes to make this.  I will show some before and after pictures in the next page.

At first I thought of serving it in a thick sweet syrup but later changed my mind and served this in my Red Bean and Black Glutinous Rice Sweet Soup.  Just have to make it sweeter as the tang yuan is plain. 

Nagaimo Mung Bean Dessert

Nagaimo is also called 山药 or 淮山 in Chinese.  It is a type of yam that can be consume raw.  It has long been traditionally used as Chinese medicine and herbology.  They cut it and dried it in pieces for cooking Chinese herbal soup.  It's the white color herb that we called it 淮山.  I just learned that it has other name which is 山药 from my Chinese friends.  I learned this dessert from them as they gave me a container to try.  It was my first time tasting fresh Nagaimo, frankly I didn't like it as they cut it into big chunks.  It was similar to potato in taste but full of potassium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin B1, and more.  It is also low in calories and a high protein tuber.  I saw a Chinese cooking show, where they put cubed and blanched Nagaimo and Pumpkin into heated milk and serve it as breakfast.  Usually you can cook it like what you would normally cook a potato dish.

You can read more about Nagaimo here. And more about the nutritional facts here.

In this dessert, I diced the Nagaimo into small cubes so that it was easier for me.  Since I cooked it in a slow cooker, some of the Nagaimo was blended into the soup when stirring.  It still have pieces of Nagaimo but quite pleasant since it was not in big chunks.  Definitely a dessert I will be cooking if I buy Nagaimo again.

Water Chestnut Jelly Cake

If you have been reading my blog, you probably aware that I did this before but the plain version.   With the yellow rock sugar that I used, my water chestnut cake turned out white, not the result that I was looking for.  So, this time I played with the recipe and used Malaysia's Gula Melaka and added the chopped water chestnuts.  It turned out so much better, love the fragrant of Gula Melaka that I could taste with each bite as well as the added crunch from the water chestnuts.  It is really refreshing eaten it cold straight from the refrigerator.  I prefer this instead of pan-frying it with batter, less grease thus healthier.

This will be the way I am making this in the future until I am out of the Gula Melaka, then the other substitute that I could think of will be the Chinese brown sugar in bar shape.  That would give me the color that I want but with different fragrant.