Homemade Golden Syrup

Lately, I had to admit that I was a bit lax in blogging again. I used to update my blog during weekends. However since I signed up to participate in the Penang Bridge International Marathon on November 17th, weekends were never the same any more. With a full time job, weekend was the only time for long distance running training. After the long run training, what’s left in my mind was only to get my body lying down on the cosy sofa and turned myself into a couch potato doing nothing for the rest of the day .

This post was supposed to be published last month coinciding with the mid autumn festival theme but I was too worn out to blog it until now. Following the series of moon cake recipes covering from the basics of making moon cake dough to moon cake fillings like Yam/taro, Red bean and Mung Bean,  now is time to learn to make another key ingredient – the Golden syrup.

Instead of buying ready-made golden syrup, I opted to make my own with recipe adapted from Agnes Chang’s moon cake series. This completes the recipe for making 100% homemade moon cake. I started making this syrup 2 weeks before mid- autumn festival. However, it is even better if you can start making the syrup a few months ahead as the syrup can easily last a year or more.

This golden syrup is good for use in any baking or cooking that calls for golden syrup in place of the commercial ones.



Initially, I did not have a good start in the syrup making. I was not attentive enough during the cooking stage and got the syrup overcooked. On top of that, I was fooled by the consistency of the syrup when it was still hot. The syrup looked runny but when it cooled down, it became really sticky and as hard as caramel candy!

Nevertheless, after some online research, I cross referred to Christine Golden Syrup recipe to save the failed syrup which I thought was a waste. Following her advice, I added more water and lemon juice and re-boiled the syrup again to eventually get the right fluid consistency for the golden syrup.   

The moon cakes that I made using my homemade golden syrup.

The moon cakes which I couriered back to my dad.

Easy-to-make Snow Skin Mooncake

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival

Mid-Autumn Festival is just around the corner on 19^th September 2013. Are you busy looking for some simple recipe for mooncake? Well, try this really simple Snow Skin Mooncake recipe! Snow skin mooncake tastes similar to Japanese Mochi.

 As a follow up to my previous blog post featuring traditional Snow Skin Mooncake recipe obtained from my good friend Helen, here’s another variety adopted from Y3K cookbook which is so easy and the result is so presentable that a novice cook can easily impress!  
Only 4 major ingredients are needed for this recipe - cooked glutinous rice flour (Gao Fen), icing sugar, shortening and water. In addition, don’t forget to get one cute little mooncake mould to make your favourite shape. This year, I bought myself another small mini square mooncake mould.

However Auntie Lan commented that it was best to use round-shaped mould, so as to symbolize reunion/unity, as in the case of the big round full moon in this mid autumn evening “月圆人团圆”



 If you wish to have a more authentic version of the homemade mooncake, you can also try to make your own fillings such as Taru/Yam paste, mung bean paste, red bean paste which I introduced before. Click on the links to get to the old blog posts for the recipe.

Coconut Milk Mung Bean paste filling

I had shared these mini mooncakes with my colleagues in the office.

Muah Chee ( Glutinous/Sticky Rice snack with Peanut) 花生芝麻糍粑

This year, August the 14th was my late mother-in-law’s 5th passing anniversary or jìrì (忌日) in Chinese. As usual Auntie Lan would remind hubby of this occasion. Every year, without fail Auntie Lan would prepare mother-in-law’s favourite dishes to serve as prayer offering. This year, instead of the usual Teo Chew Cai Kuih that she used to make, hubby asked her to make Muah Chee. I had posted this snack recipe back in 2010 before when I resided in Auckland, with the steaming method from Agnes Chang’s Hawkers’ Delights cook book. This time I would like to introduce another traditional method of making Muah Chee. Shared below is not just the way of making sticky rice dough for Muah Chee, also how to make fine powdery ground peanut.   Shown below were the offering dishes we made for late Mother-in- law. As usual, I was responsible for my signature Crispy Roasted Pork Belly. Hubby did an awesome job in food cutting and food presentation, didn’t he?
Crispy Roasted Pork Belly  

Herbal Napier Grass drinks 马草凉茶

Let’s try a glass of Herbal Drink?
This plant was planted by my neighbour next to my Bunga Kantan. Initially I wanted to clear it, thinking it was weed. Then, my neighbour quickly came to me and told me it was one type of herbal plant used as a great detoxing supplements and consumed as a herbal drink. She later showed me its health benefits as illustrated in a Chinese Herbs magazine. The Chinese name of this plant is 马草, literally translated as “horse grass”.
She said this plant was once very popular and widely sought after in Taiwan. It was even made into commercial skin caring juice, with advertisement claiming its effect in treating acne problems.



Later, I did some research and discovered the English common name for this plant was Napier Grass. Scientifically its species is Pennisetum and it belongs to Poaceae family. You can find more information on this page.

According to the Chinese wiki, this plant is rich in vitamin C and is claimed to contain the anti-oxidant and even the anti-cancer effects. It is good for treating swelling and easing stomach-ache. After knowing the goodness of the plant, instead of disposing it, I helped her to water the plants regularly.

The normal way to consume the plant is to blend the leaves and extract its juice to drink fresh without heating to prevent oxidization. It is also not advised to blend at higher than 900 rpm or above 50 ℃, as it will destroy its chlorophyll and vitamins.

However, instead of blending into juice which may taste a bit too raw to us, another way to consume it is to boil the grass along with its stalks and added with rock sugar to make into delicious herbal drink! The taste of the drink is very much similar to drinking Bamboo Sugar Cane, really tasty!

Beer anyone?

No, this is the Chinese Herbal Napier Grass drink,

served in a beer mug 马草凉茶

 If you happen to find this plant growing wildly somewhere, do try to take some back and try out. It is such a great refreshing and cooling drink especially if you have symptoms of a “heaty” body such as sore throat and acne. Every now and then, I will pluck some to make herbal beverages for my family.

DIY Wristlet Purse

Making your own limited edition

It has been a while since I last worked on any new sewing project. With the long Raya break at home, I reckoned it’s best to occupy the time to stock up my homemade gift buffer stock. I was hoping to make something useful other than household items.

Nowadays, wristlet purse is getting trendier. It is super versatile because you can use it as a replacement for bulky handbag which may not be so convenient to carry around to run short errands, office lunch outing at crowded eatery shops or even those disco nights where dancing is the prime agenda rather than keeping an eye of your oversized handbag. The wristlet can easily fit basic necessities, including ID, mobile phone, credit cards, lip gloss and cash and is small enough to use as a wallet in bigger handbags.

I seldom carry handbags to work. I used to have one self-made wristlet to take out during lunch hour which was big enough to store my wallet, hand phone, tissue, lipstick and car keys. Once, during a lunch outing with my boss, he saw the wristlet I carried and acknowledged it was much safer to carry such tiny handbag with short strap around hand than a big handbag. He later shared his wife’s unpleasant bag snatching theft experience and wanted to recommend his wife to get one too. This suggestion has prompted me to make more to share with my lady friends and relatives.

Shared below are some of the works I finished during the first 2 days of Raya break. Coach wristlet too expensive? Why not making your own ?

Not only cost saving but most important limited edition!

 

Do you like these Bow Clutch Wristlets ? You can get the free DIY tutorial here.

To add some variation to the bow clutch, I added a cloth rosette to it. I learnt to make these rosette via YouTube.

Transform placemat into a trendy clutch wristlet with magnetic button

Simple lining zipper wristlet

I spent longer time in making this little half circle purse because I hand sewn the zipper. You can get this free tutorial here

This wristlet adapted from Garden Party Wristlet - Designed by Keyka Lou. I couldn’t locate any free pattern online, so I spent hours in trial and error to get this up.

No Bake Chocolate Ganache Cheesecake 免烤巧克力芝士蛋糕

My boy turned 9!

14^th July 2013

I just can’t believe my darling boy has turned 9!  Last month, he attended one of his classmates’ birthday party and his classmates had asked him to organize the same for his birthday too. He came back with this request. I was happy to support his suggestion and even promised to make him a birthday cake. However, his dad was reluctant with the idea of kids running around our house and the hassle of tidying up the aftermath. He later suggested throwing a small water splashes party at our golf/swimming club which was just 5 minutes away from our house instead. This win-win idea turned out to be a blast. Ray invited 4 of his close school buddies over and at the end of the birthday party; all of them rated this event as one of the best birthday parties they had ever attended. They gave a big thumb up for the great fun at the pool and the water guns we bought for each boy.

Frankly speaking, compared with bread baking, I was still pretty amateur in cake baking. But not to disappoint my boy, I needed to try my best and honour my word.  Knowing Ray loved chocolate and ice cream, I opted for the easy “no bake” cheesecake instead. I wrote to my good friend, Helen in Auckland for help.  She was the master that had taught me baking when I resided in Auckland. Her recipes were mostly idiot proof. Do check out the recipes that I attempted before, Lemon Cheesecake, Tiramisu and Moon Cake. I was thankful to her; she came back promptly to my request as she just did the same birthday cake for her daughter a month ago.

 

 

No Bake Chocolate Ganache Cheesecake 免烤巧克力芝士蛋糕

As you could see, the cake was not perfectly done. I had 2 failed attempts in the process of making this cake.  This was my first trial in making ganache.  I was hoping to have a smooth silky ganache but the cake ended up with bubbled surface and the ganache was not set enough to firm even after more than 3 hours of freezing in the fridge.



Ganache

Later, I did some checking and realized that part of the reasons why the ganache did not firm up was possibly due to the un-boiled fresh cream. I should bring the cream to boil for a minute or more to help reduce the water content in the cream and to break up the protein strands. Emulsified sauces combine better when the amount of water is reduced. I then recalled that I was pouring cold cream into melted chocolate instead of boiling the cream before adding it to chopped chocolate.  That was the first failed attempt.

 

Chocolate transfer sheet walls

 The second failed attempt the use of chocolate transfer sheets to decorate the edge of the cake.  Again, I failed to get the chocolate to firm up to tear the plastic sheet out from the chocolate coating. Not to ruin the cake presentation and for the sake of photo taking, I left the plastic sheet around the cake and only removed it when we wanted to cut the cake. However, I was relieved the cake was not completely a failure. Hubby did a great job in piping words onto the cake and we got the cake nicely decorated with Ray’s name.

 

Initially, I was really disappointed with the cake, but when my boy told me the cake was what he liked most out of all the food served that evening. I was over the moon! With that statement I rated the event “Mission Accomplished”! :-)

They say “don’t judge a book by its cover”.  This seems describe well this occasion.  The frozen cheesecake did taste really yummy despite my poor cake decoration skill!

Delicious Chocolate Cheesecake

Calamansi Sour Plum Juice 桔子酸梅汁

Let’s squeeze and Zest up!

Calamansi or Calamondin or Limau Kasturi (in Malay) or 桔子(in Chinese) is a hybrid of lime and orange belonging to the citrus family. Its size is much smaller than lime. Calamansi is best grown in warm weather and is widely found in Southeast Asia, especially in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

One and a half year ago, at only RM5, I bought this Calamansi tree in a small pot from a nearby garden nursery and planted it in my vegetable garden. It grew healthily in the garden since then. However, it seemed like ages to see it flower and bear fruits. At the beginning of this year, my neighbour helped me to fertilise the plant with fertiliser that was supposed to encourage plants to flower. After this application, the plant still did not flower as much as we anticipated. It only produced a few flowers and I only managed to harvest one fruit at the end. L

I was kind of disappointed but nevertheless I continued watering it and twice a month applied normal poultry manure fertiliser. Finally, a month ago, we were overwhelmed to see it flowered and produced abundant fruits!  

Calamansi Tree life cycle

 While writing this post I did some research on Calamansi tree. Then only I realised Calamansi tree typically takes 2 years after planting to fruit. This fact, matched exactly with the timing of my tree, which has been nearly 2 years since I planted it.  It’s the time for it to flower and fruit.

 

Calamansi is one of the most common citrus used in Southeast Asian cuisines. In Malaysia, Calamansi (Limau Kasturi) juice is one of the key ingredients added in Sambal belacan and used in Nyonya Food. Other than using its acidity as a natural preservative additive to food, it is also great for making drinks.

Calamansi juice, as a drink, makes one of the best thirst-quenchers. It is best to consume during a heat wave. Even though Calamansi juice tastes acidic and sour but when consumed, they are alkalizing to the stomach, which helps in weight loss and detoxification.  Similar to its citrus family members, Calamansi is rich in vitamin C too and is great for skin whitening.

 Seeing the abundant fruits on the tree, I couldn’t wait to harvest them to make one of my favourite fruit juices which I often order when we dine out.  It’s called Calamansi sour plum juice.

Calamansi juice is one of the popular beverages that is easily available in Malaysia eatery shop.  It is very soothing to the throat, quench thirst and a great remedy for sore throat. This drink also helps digestion and is known for relieving the symptoms of gout.  So, if you happen to get them at your local veggie shop, do give them a squeeze and drink up! It’s a great substitute for lemonade!  

Calamansi Sour Plum Juice 桔子酸梅汁