Snow Skin Chocolate Mooncakes

"Chiller, chiller in the kitchen,
What is soft outside,
Chocky inside,
With a hint of alcohol??"

"Your Highness,
Snow Skin Chocolate Rum Mooncakes,
Is what you desire.
White lotus paste,
Wrapped in Chocolate,
Mixed with Rum & Pine Nuts,
Inside white snow skin!"

I also made Snow Skin Green Tea Mooncakes earlier this week.

These were some mooncakes from my mum. They are from Malaysia and taste pretty good too! The Mickey & Minnie Mooncake Cookies were from my colleague. :)

Times Warehouse Sales

I went to the Times Warehouse Sales this afternoon at Singapore Expo. Bought myself quite a number of baking & cooking books. Quite satisfied with the buys, although I would prefer another laundry list of books... ;p

Coffee Buns

For a long long time, I've always wanted to bake coffee buns, but other recipes just got in the way of the coffee buns. :p Finally this morning, since I was on leave, waiting for the appointment for my daughter, I thought I might as well bake the long-awaited coffee buns. It was pretty easy to bake. I halved the recipe I extracted from Aunt Yochana's web. :)

Recipe:
Bread Dough:
250g Bread flour
15g Milk Powder
5g Instant Yeast
25g Sugar
1 egg
110g Water
35g Unsalted butter
1/2tsp Salt

Filling:
Shredded Cheese

Toppings:
35g Butter
50g Icing sugar
1tbsp Coffee
1/2 beaten egg
42g Plain flour
10g Milk Powder
1/2tsp Coffee Paste

Method:
(1) Put all the bread dough ingredients (except butter) into a mixer or bread machine and beat for about 10 mins till a dough is formed.
(2) Add in butter and continue kneading till a smooth pliable dough is formed.
(3) Roll into a ball , cover and rest for 1 hour.
(4) For toppings: Stir the butter and icing sugar till creamy. Gradually pour in beaten egg and stir till smooth. Pour in the rest of the ingredients and stir till smooth. Fill into a piping bag.
(5) Divide the dough equally into 10 portions. Roll into balls and let it rest for 10 mins.
(6) Wrap dough with the shredded cheese and seal the ends tightly.
(7) Prove for 45-60 mins or till doubled in size.
(8) Pipe topping on top of each buns in a coiling motion.
(9) Bake at 180C for about 10-12 mins. till buns are crispy on top.
(10) Cool on cooling rack.

Post-Mortem (6 Sep 08)
This is how my coffee bun turns out to be. It's still quite soft the next day. Very happy with this bun. :)

Mooncakes, mooncakes and more mooncakes

Every year, during this period, I will spend quite a lot of money buying different flavours of mooncakes, either to give away, or for own consumption. For the past few years, it's either Tung Lok or Four Seasons or Raffles Hotel. These are my usual few favourites.

Actually, when I started trying to bake mooncakes, I thought I might stop buying them. However, I was lured by the discounts from my corporate sales, and the beautiful packing of the mooncakes on sales. The discounts range from 10% to 30% and it's usually very much better than credit card discounts! In the end, I bought two boxes- Baked white lotus mooncakes with single yolk from Meritus Mandarin for S$30nett and Mini Snow Skin with Champagnue, Bailey's, Cherry Brandy & Perppermint Tuffles from Tung Lok for S$32.10nett. Heehee... isn't that a good deal?!!? How to resist??

Meritus Mandarin Box


See how thin the skin is?

Tung Lok Mini Snow Skin

Orange Madeleines

I've always love anything that is of chocolate or orange. Somehow, I will try recipes with these two ingredients if it comes to my knowledge. Since I started baking madeleines last week, I was thinking of baking orange or chocolate madeleines already. I found one recipe on Orange Madeleines, and decided to try it.



Recipe
Ingredients
100g Unsalted butter
115g Caster sugar
3 Eggs
125g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
Zest and juice of a half an orange
1/2 tsp Orange extract
pinch of salt

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Brush Madeleine moulds with butter and lightly dust with flour.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale.
3. Add the eggs and beat until combined. If mixture curdles, don’t worry.
4. Sift in flour and baking powder and mix until the flour is incorporated.
5. Mix in the orange zest and juice, orange extract and salt.
6. Place a tablespoon of mixture in each mould.
7. Bake for 12-15mins (using Daiso moulds).
8. Remove from moulds by carefully tapping the underside.
9. Cool to room temperature on a wire rack and serve immediately.

Makes at least 25pcs.

Steam Radish Cake

Last week I tried the steam radish/carrot cake but it wasn't tasty enough. So I tried it today again. I added chicken stock, so I think it should be much tastier and nicer now. I steamed on a 9" round pan this time.


I followed the same recipe as previously.

Post-Mortem (5 Sep 08):
I pan fried the Radish Cakes, and added dark sweet sauce to it. It tasted great! :)