Yammy Yams

I had yam overdose today when I was home.

I had my yam mooncake for breakfast. The crispy skin with the soft centre was really pleasant to the palate.

Then for lunch, I pan fried my steam yam cake. I made the yam cake last week when I was home attending to my children. I thought I could make some for them to eat. However, my twins can't eat as taking yam when they have blisters will cause them to itch even more. My mum gave me this piece of good advice. Prevention is better than cure right? Therefore, there was a lot of leftovers. Okay, I'm not complaining about it. I'm more than happy to have them all by myself. I love to fry them with sweet sauce and lots of eggs. See the amount of eggs I added?

As I had some yam paste left over from making my yam mooncake, I decided to try Shirley's Teochew Yam Paste (Or Nee). However, I didn't follow her last step to push it through the sieve. So I can say, it's not as smooth as hers, but the taste is pretty good. I also didn't add gingko nuts. After taking the Or Nee, I told myself, enough yam for the day!

Steamed Yam Cake

Some weeks back, my dear friend Doris recommended me to try a Radish Cake recipe. I've been wanting to make some radish cake, gotten ready with all the ingredients, including rice flour. Then, I totally forgotten about the radish cake when I was planning for my workshops. Last week, when I went groccery shopping at the market, I saw this huge yam. I couldn't resist, and bought one, in anticipation that I will be making yam cake.

Finally, after keeping the yam for one week, I decided to make it yesterday, not wanting to let the yam go to waste. I prepared a lot more ingredients than required. I used the steamed yam cake recipe from Jo's Deli.  Somehow I didn't read the instructions carefully. Instead of switching off the heat after boiling the water, I added the batter mixture directly into the boiling water. Gosh! The batter mixture cooked and turned lumpy! I was panicked. Undecided whether to discard the whole the mixture or to salvage it.

I tried to add slightly more water to the batter...mixed them and see if it would turn smooth. Alas! It didn't! I added more water again, and tried my luck. Still it was lumpy! Alamak! Then, desperately trying the last method by using a handheld blender to blend the batter. Whoosh! After a few rounds, the mixture was as smooth as Hazeline Snow! *Phew* I sigh with relief! That ain't going to waste. Pleased with myself, I added in the remaining ingredients and proceeded as instructed.

I replaced the tung min flour with tapioca flour since I didn't have tung min flour. I also added more water than desired. My colleagues tried it today and they commented that the yam cake tasted really good! There were a lot of ingredients in the cake and was very flavourful! It was a case of kitchen-mishap-turned-lucky! I was glad I tried to salvage the batter, if not, I would probably have given up on making the yam cake!

How much can you achieve in a day?

How much can you achieve in a day, assuming you don't have to do housework? I wonder what do employers do when their maids are taking their day off on a Sunday. It was my helper's day off today. She was really kind to help me to settle the children's basic needs (like preparing breakfast and bathing them) before going out. That left me enough time to do my Yam Cake in the morning. I had some frozen yams from PH previously and thought I might as well use it for my yam cake. I didn't really follow the recipe exactly, and so, I think the yam cake didn't turned out that well. Fortunately, it's is edible!



While the yam cake was steaming, I spent time with my twins to do some fondant moulding. Quizzine has very kindly did a step-by-step guide for Grace and myself on moulding bumble bees. So I thought I might as well do it with my children. As the more we mould, we ventured into moulding other stuff - fruits and pizza. Finally, here was what we did.




After lunch, we went to Kitchen Capers to buy some stuff. Gina was there, preparing for her demo class at KC. Then we came back for my children to rest as my daughter was not feeling well. While they were on their "independant" mode, I had the chance to do some bakings. No prize on guessing what I baked! It was pound cakes again. This time, I decided to add chopped almonds to the pound.



After baking, I prepare ingredients for dinner. When my helper is not around, I'd prefer to cook very simple dish - fried noodles. It's good and it's easy. My hubby and myself are great fans of noodles!


When I was taking my dinner, then I realised how tired my feet was! It just feel so good to be seated and resting!!

Yam Cream Swiss Rolls

With some leftover yam cream after frosting the Yam Layered Cream Cake, I've decided to make swiss rolls so as to use up the yam cream quickly! Otherwise, I know it'll stay in the fridge till I throw them away! Using the usual emulsified cake sponge recipe, I made my Yam Cream Swiss Rolls. Fortunately, the yam cream was just enough to cover the whole swiss rolls! :)

Yam Layered Cream Cake

After baking cookies and other CNY related goodies, time to start on my cake baking again. It'll be my mum's chinese birthday on this coming Tuesday. We usually celebrate in advance when we have the opportunity. This time, I made Yam Layered Cream Cake for her. As I don't know how I should decorate the cake, I just made my own "lace" design. I also added some violet colouring to give it a nice violet colour, although I would have love to leave it plain (grey). Somehow, I love the final design of the cake, though it could have been better.

Happy Birthday to my dearest mummy!



Update on 1 Feb 09:

You can make reference to Jo's Deli on the Yam Cream Cake. I baked the cake from Delicious Cake, while reference the cream to Jo's Deli.

I have also updated the recipe for French and Flourless Cake. Do try it!