Purple Sweet Potato Ang Ku Kueh

Ang Ku kueh is one of the popular Asian Snacks among the Chinese and Peranankan. Ang Ku kueh literally means Red Tortoise Cake. It is moulded to resemble a tortoise shell and is presented resting on a small piece of banana leaf. The Chinese traditionally believe that eating this 'Ang Ku Kueh' would bring longevity to those who are eating it and bring about good fortune and prosperity. But my 'Ang Ku Kueh here is in the shape of a peach shape (add in the Chinese word 'tao' 桃) and the purple colour is from the purple sweet potato.
I've to thank sweet May of 厨苑食谱  for sending me this double sided pretty mould which has the shape of a peach on one side and the word 'shou'  寿 on the other.  These two shapes bearing the 'shou tao' 寿桃 should be made  in red which symbolises a long, healthy life with great fortune for many generations. 

I adapted the recipe from May with slight adjustment. This version is definitely healthier and easier to make compared to the one I  made last time whereby the dough was made with coconut milk and the mung beans fried with shallot oil.  I like this recipe as the dough skin and filling are smooth and soft. But my kueh looks quite transparent due to the thin dough skin. If you want to try this recipe and make a perfect ang ku kueh remember to make a thicker dough skin.  Adjustment will be based on your own ang ku kueh mould.

Purple Sweet Potato Ang Ku Kueh

   

Ingredients: Makes about 14-15 pcs

     Dough skin

     125g Glutinous rice flour

    90g Purple sweet potato

    1/2 tbsp Caster sugar (or a little more sugar if you want a sweeter dough)

    20ml Vegetable oil

    100ml Water (boil 300ml water with 1 piece of pandan leaf for few minutes, leave to cool,
     then measure to 100ml)

     Filling

     150g Spilt mung beans (skinless)

     2 pcs Pandan leaves

     90g Caster sugar

     3 tbsp Vegetable oil

15 small pieces clean banana leaves, cut to the size larger than the cavity of the mould. Grease some oil on the banana leaf before placing the angu ku kueh on top before steaming

     Method:

• Rinse mung beans several times and soak with water in a large bowl (water about 3 inches above mung beans) for 1 1/2 hours, drain well and steam together with 2 pieces of pandan leaves for 15 - 20 minutes or till soft.
• Immediately place cooked mung beans, sugar and vegetable oil in a food processor and blend till fine and smooth and cool down a little.  Roll mung bean mixture into small balls for about 22g each and set aside for later use.
• Cut sweet purple potato  into chunk and steam for about 15 minutes or till soft. Remove skin and mash with sugar till fine.
• In a large bowl mix glutinous rice flour, mashed sweet potato and vegetable oil together and slowly add in the pandan water. Knead dough to smooth, add a little more glutinous rice flour if you find the dough is still sticky.
• Roll dough into small balls, about 23-24g each. Flatten the dough and wrap the filling into it. Roll into ball and dust with some glutinous rice flour. Press firmly into the mould. Knock out the kueh and place it on to the greased banana leaf.
• Heat up the steamer or wok with boiling water, place the kueh on the steaming tray and steam for about 10-12 minutes.Open the lid to let the steam to escape after 3 minutes of steaming and place the lid back on the wok. note: Wrap the lid with a big cheese cloth to prevent the water drips from the lid onto the kueh , this also prevent the kueh pattern faded after steaming.
• The kueh will change to darker a colour and slightly expanded. It will shrunk after cooled.
• Remove the kueh from tray, grease some oil on it and leave to cool.

Hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

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Gourmet Living Magazine Giveaway

I'm so excited and happy to share this piece of news with you. Two of my recipes are being featured on Gourmet Living Magazine (时尚品味）Jun/Jul issue!   Thanks to Gourmet Living for featuring my recipes for the first time in the magazine. I've created one dessert ~ Lime Coconut Jelly with Lychees and Roselle Cupcakes was selected from my blog. 

I'm giving away the Gourmet Living Magazine to four readers (internationally). In order to win this giveaway, all you have to do to is to leave a comment with your name and email address . 
Closing date will be on next Wednesday 19th June 2013, Singapore time 9 pm.

If you're not selected in this giveaway, hopefully you'll get a copy of the Gourmet Living Magazine which is available from today at all newsstands and book stores. 

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Quick Oat Cookies

Nothing could be easier than making these Quick Oat Cookies without butter, flour or egg and they are very, very healthy too. While I was surfing on the net for an easy recipe, this "Two Ingredients Cookies" posted by Lauren of The Burlap Bag caught my attention. I was quite doubtful at first using only two main ingredients - Banana and Quick Oats' and with combination of little amount of dried fruits to make them into cookies. Since I've all the ingredients except chocolate chips on my pantry, I just went ahead to make these cookies and  within 15 minutes of baking my freshly baked healthy cookies were out of the oven. I let them rest for about 5 minutes and quickly grabbed one to try. The cookie was perfect to me as I really love the soft texture and chewy dried fruits inside. The sweetness of the cookie comes from the ripe banana. I made them into small bite size and they were almost gone within a day and these quick cookies definitely taste better the next day. Your kids will love them if little chocolate chips are added but remember not to add too many mix-ins as the cookies won't hold together very well. These healthy cookies are great for snack or even for picnics.

Quick Oat Cookies

Ingredients:

     3 Ripe bananas (skinned), about 330g

     150g Quick cooked oats (from PH)

     50g Dried apricots or dried cranberries, cut to smaller pieces

     50g Raisins

     Method:

• Mash the bananas with a fork together with the quick oats.
• Add in dried apricots and raisins and mix well. Add a little more Quick Oats if you find the mixture too runny.
• Spoon the mixture with a spoon and drop it on the greased baking sheet.
• Bake at preheated oven at 180C for about 13-15 minutes.  

Enjoy!

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Mixed Fruit Pastry Cake

I have a habit of buying too many fresh fruits every week and many a time couldn't finish them before they turned bad. Recently there are lot of red plums in the market, needless to say I bought them again together with other fruits as well. Getting little tired of eating the plums, I combined them with canned peaches to bake this beautiful cake. This cake is actually the same as the Fruit Pastry cake that I baked in 2010 (here) only that this time I used less fruits. I'm sure many of you will still remember how popular the cake was amongst many bloggers few years ago. This is still a very addictive cake and you'll definitely love to go for more than a slice.   

Here is another short note.  I wish to thank World Kitchen (Asia Pacific) for sending this complimentary gift, Snapware Eco Flip Glass. World Kitchen (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd markets a wide variety of well-known and trusted kitchenware brands that include Corelle, Corningware, Pyrex, Visions, Ekco, Baker's Secret, Revere and Chicago Cutlery.  Please check on my Snapware@ Cupcake and Cookie Keeper Set for Review.

SNAPWARE Eco Flip is one of the first few glass bottles in the market, and it prides itself for healthy hydration.

Mixed Fruit Pastry Cake

Ingredients:

    100g Butter, soften at room temperature

    150g Caster sugar

    2 tbsp Sour cream/natural yoghurt

    3 Eggs, lightly beaten

    1 tsp Vanilla extract

    1 tbsp Lemon juice & zest from one lemon

    210g Plain flour - sifted

    1 tsp Baking powder

    5-6 Fresh red plums, stoned and slice thickly.

    1 canned Halve peaches, rinses away the syrup and pat dry, slice thickly

     Method:

• Grease a 9 inch round cake pan with butter and flour or non-stick pray and line the base with parchment paper.
• Cream butter, sugar and sour cream till light and fluffy.
• Dribble in the eggs gradually and beat till incorporated in the batter, (The mixture appear slightly curdled)
• Add vanilla extract, lemon juice and zest.
• Dump in the flour and baking powder and use a rubber spatula to stir roughly and continue to cream the batter with mixer until smooth. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth out the top with a spatula.
• Arrange fruits on top, don't press the fruits down into batter. Decorate the fruits as desired.
• Bake in preheated oven at 180 degrees C for 60-70 mins or until skewer comes out clean when inserted into the cake. Cover the top with foil in the last 15 minutes of baking to prevent the top from getting over browned.
• Leave the cake to cool in the pan for about 5-10 minutes. Unmold and transfer to wire rack to cool.
• Dust cake with icing sugar (I used snow powder). 

Enjoy and Have a Wonderful Week Ahead!

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Steamed Meat Bao with Preserved Vegetables

'Bao' or Bun is the theme for Aspiring Bakers for the month of May and I just can't find an excuse for not joining even though tomorrow is the last day for submission, simply because I love to eat Bao. I've adapted this bao recipe from 孟老师的中式面食. This is a rather easy recipe as you can follow 孟老师's step by step video (below). As my preference is savoury Bao, , so for the filling I mixed minced pork with preserved vegetables (sweet and salted preserved vegetables - 甜梅菜/咸梅菜). After steaming the meat baos, I had two in a go... hahaa, really like the filling and the dough is also not bad but a little dry upon cooling down. Maybe I didn't knead the dough long enough. Anyway we finished the buns in one day sharing with friends. 

Steamed Meat Bao  With Preserved Vegetables 

梅菜肉包子 

Ingredients: makes 15 

    Filling 
    60g Preserved (salty) vegetables (咸梅菜)
    50g Preserved (sweet) vegetables (甜梅菜)
    300-320g Minced pork
    1 tbsp Light soya sauce
    1/2 tbsp Sugar
    1/2 tbsp Cooking wine
    a dash of pepper
    1/2 tbsp Corn flour
    2 tbsp Cooking oil
   1 tbsp Sesame seeds (toasted)

    Bao dough (recipe adapted from 茄子, in Chinese version）
    135g Plain water
    1 tsp Instant dry yeast
    250g Plain flour (I used Hong Kong flour)
    15g Caster sugar
    1 tsp Oil

     Method:

     Filling

• Rinse preserved salted and sweet vegetables several times. Then soak them in a bowl of water for  45 minutes. Rinse and squeeze dry, chop to pieces.
• Heat wok with oil and fry the preserved salted and sweet vegetables for a while and add mince pork into and fry till meat separated. Add in all the seasoning and stir fry till meat is cooked. Lastly add toasted seseme seeds, stir well. Dish up and side aside for later use.

     Bao dough

• Mix all bao dough ingredients together (as shown in the video) and knead to smooth, dust some flour if you find the dough sticky (I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes). Cover and rest the dough for 5 minutes. 
• Roll the dough into cylinder shape and cut into 15 pieces, about 35g each.
• Flatten each dough into a small flat disc with a rolling pin, make the edges thinner and centre portion thicker.
• Wrap the dough with filling, sprinkle with some toasted sesame seeds on top and place on a small square of parchment paper. Then place the dough bao into the steamer with water below (not boiled yet), cover and proof for 15 minutes.
• Bring water to boil and steam the buns for 12 minutes.
• Off  heat, leave the lid slightly open for 3-5 minutes before removing the whole cover. 
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I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #31: Bao Ho-Chiak 包好吃 (May 2013) 

hosted by Miss B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders.

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Orange Ogura Cake

Recently, there have been many posts on Ogura Cake by the baking bloggers. I'm not sure about the meaning of Ogura in Japanese but in Chinese it's known as xiang Si dan Gao (相思蛋糕), literally means Pining4U or Lovesick Cake. This cake is actually a plain cake but the texture is like a chiffon cake, cottony, light and soft but baked in a normal cake pan. I was very much inspired by many talented bakers who have created Ogura Cakes of different flavours. The most recent ones were posted by Jane and Helena. Jane made the cake with coffee flavour and Helena made hers with rose water and cranberry. I just can't wait to jump on the bandwagon and made this Orange Ogura Cake. It is no surprise that this cake is a big hit, I just fell in love with it at the first bite. Would you like to join in on this bandwagon too?

Orange Ogura Cake

Ingredients:

     70g Orange juice
     40g Vegetable oil
     1/4 tsp Salt
     55g Hong Kong Flour/Plain flour or Cake flour
     zest from 2 oranges
     4 Egg yolks + 1 whole egg (60g each)
     150g Egg white
     1/4 tsp Cream of tartar
     60g Sugar

     Method:

• Line baking sheet at the bottom of an ungreased 7 inch square pan and preheat the oven to 160C with a tray of boiling water on the most bottom rack.
• Whisk egg yolks,and vegetable oil until frothy and add orange juice, mix well. Sift in flour and orange zest, mix well set aside.
• Using an electric mixer, whisk egg white, cream of tartar and castor sugar till peak form (not stiff).
• Mix 1/3 of meringue with yolk batter with a rubber spatula. Then pour in balance of meringue. Fold gently to mix well.
• Pour batter into pan and tap pan lightly to remove air bubbles.
• Steam bake for 40 minutes at 160°C and bake for another 20 minutes at lower temperature 140°C.
• Remove cake immediately after baked and invert cake on wire rack to cool.

                                    Enjoy!

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