New look Raspberry Almond Friand

A couple of weeks back, we were invited to a friend’s home for dinner. I wanted to bake something to bring along with us but didn’t want to fuss about it too much. I had bought my first silicone bakeware recently, and this was my chance to use them, two 6 hole Heart shaped Muffin trays by Willow.

I was shopping at our local Supa IGA when I saw these cute muffin trays. The nice people at Willow had pledged to raise $100,000 for the Breast Cancer Research in Australia with the sales from their new range of ‘Easy Flex’ Silicone Bakeware. I couldn’t think of a better reason to buy these muffin trays.

Of late, I have realized that even though I enjoy baking, I am less inclined to experiment on laborious looking recipes, lovely as they may look. More and more often, I find myself looking in the pantry for ingredients I already have to whip up something quick, yet presentable and delicious

I always stock egg whites and ground almonds, the basis of Friands , and If you’ve read my original post on Raspberry Almond Friands with white chocolate ganache, you would see how easy they are to prepare. This time around though, I diluted the ganache with extra cream to simply drizzle on the friand.

Melting Moments

For the past three weeks, we have been entertaining one relative or another from Singapore. The house has been busier and noisier than usual, but ‘it’s all good’. My Girls are particularly happy spending time with their pretty 19 year old cousin, ‘Sheryl’ who’s been here for about 3 weeks. She’s leaving to go back to Singapore tomorrow, and she will be missed.

I met Sheryl when she was about 4. I was going out with Ming then, and had visited his family in Singapore. I took an immediate liking for this cheeky 4 year old, who was always trying to melt someone with her pretty smile for a lolly. Being 19, she’s not so fond of lollies anymore, but she had wanted to learn how to make Melting Moments, my ‘Durian Dream Cream Cake’ and Strawberry Tart amongst other things to impress her family ( or was it her boyfriend??.. I forget. Wink-wink.)

We managed to make Melting moments together, but after 4 other relatives arrived, the idea of making the other stuff went out the window. We were just too busy going out, then sometimes coming home to do dinner. I was either too exhausted or fearful of dirty looks being thrown at me for making the whole lot of guests wait while I baked.

Anyhow, this recipe is dedicated to you, Sheryl. I hope you will have fun baking these on your own.

Melting Moments

1 cup butter

4 tbsp sugar

1 cup cornstarch

1 cup plain flour

For the lemon cream filling

¼ cup butter , softened

½ cup icing sugar

2 tsp grated lemon rind

1 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180C . Combine the softened butter and sugar in a bowl and beat only until just mixed. Add the sifted flours and beat, again only until just combined. Fill dough into a piping bag and pipe onto lined trays, spacing them about an inch and a half apart as they will expand. Bake the cookies for about 20 minutes or until they are golden.

Remove and cool totally before filling with the lemon cream. To make the cream filling, combine all ingredients and beat to a smooth consistency.

Makes 12

Little Lemon Meringue Cakes

Hello! fellow bloggers and lurkers! I’ve been M.I.A. for two whole months and am glad to be back. I can’t begin to express how frustrating these two months have been , what with the my laptop charger giving up on me , then realizing that the computer was . contaminated with viruses of sorts after waiting for a new charger to arrive from Melbourne. And now.. (sigh!!) that the computer has been fixed, it’s slower than it’s ever been, I feel like I’ve been ‘Driving Miss Daisy ‘ all morning!

Anyhow, enough whining for now, I think. Today , I’m posting a recipe adapted from Julie Le Clerc’s gorgeous book ‘ Little Café Cakes’. It’s beautiful to look at and tastes absolutely yummy!

Little Lemon Meringue Cakes

1 ½ cups Snowflake self-raising sponge flour

¾ cup caster sugar

150g salted butter, softened

3 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tblsp milk

juice and zest of 2 lemons

lemon curd (below)

meringue (below)

1 Preheat oven to 175C. Prepare 12 paper cases.

2 Place first six ingredients into a bowl and beat until smooth and creamy. Spoon mixture to ¾ fill cases. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove to a rack to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 120C.

3 Once cold enough to handle, cut out a large cavity from the top of each cupcake and discard. Fill cavity with lemon curd. Pipe small mounds of meringue on top of lemon curd. Bake for 10 minutes further to set meringue.

Lemon Curd

75g salted butter

½ cup sugar

Juice and zest of two lemons

2 eggs, beaten

1 Place butter, sugar, lemon juice and zest into a double boiler. Stir over heat until sugar has dissolved. Whisk warm mixture into beaten eggs and return to double boiler. Cook over a low heat until mixture thickens to coat the back of a spoon.

Meringue

2 egg whites

½ cup caster sugar

1. Whisk egg whites until stiff. Add 1 tablespoonful of the sugar and whisk until
incorporated. Whisk in remaining sugar until mixture is glossy.

Makes 12

Luk Yu Tea House

In one of my previous posts entitled 'Mango Pudding' , I mentioned tasting the best Dim Sum I've ever had when I was on holiday in Kuala Lumpur. I'm featuring the Tea House, today, namely Luk Yu Tea House , situated at the very trendy Starhill Gallery in Bukit Bintang.
As I said, we were brought there by my aunt, Julie Kim, an entrepreneur with a taste for the finer things in life. I can always count on her to know the best places for anything and everything. Aunt Julie owns and operates an oriental style antique and objet d'art store in 1 Utama Shopping Centre, Damansara and busy as she is , she always takes time out to entertain us 5 star style.
Anyway, before I continue, I must tell you that the words 'Dim Sum' should actually spell 'Tim Sum' meaning 'to touch the heart' in Cantonese. And never say "Let's have Yum Cha" because the words 'Yum Cha' means ' to drink tea'. The correct way to say it is, "Let's have Tim Sum" ie 'food that touches the heart'. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, we can continue.
Luk Yu's decor is reminiscent of the 50's Chinese Coffee shop and they serve everything you've ever had at a Tim Sum Tea House and much more. To start off, they have approximately 15 different if not more, varieties of Chinese teas to choose from ranging from RM 3 to RM 10 per serve. Then, you look around and you see waiters dressed in traditional 'Sam Fu' , white mandarin collared shirts and black baggy pants , one or two carrying large kettles of hot water ready to refill your teapot.Luk Yu has an open kitchen concept and food is made to order, you won't see push trolleys with bain -maries anywhere. As you can imagine, the food is served piping hot fresh, and believe me when I say the Tim Sum is very refined and delicate, nothing like the stuff we get here. I guess you will only know the difference when you make a taste comparison. It's like they say, ' there's no substitute for quality.

Spicy Lemongrass and Curry Leaf Tiger Prawns

One of the most memorable dinners we had during our vacation in Singapore was at the home of our dear friend Jeffrey Lim aka "Ah Lau" to his childhood friends. I was told by Ming that the nickname "Ah Lau" meaning 'old man' stuck because Jeffrey had a tendency to whinge a lot as a kid.The funny thing was, the nickname was given to him by his own mother, the brilliant lady that cooked us that awesome dinner.
Of all the dishes Mrs.Lim served us, I was especially impressed with this dish. She generously shared her recipe with me and now I'm sharing it with you.

You will need..

• 1/2 kg Large Tiger Prawns, cleaned, shell intact
• 1/3 cup chopped lemongrass
• 3 stems of curry leaves, stems removed
• 1 birdseye chilli, sliced finely
• 3 shallots, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1tsp sugar
• 2tsp chicken powder
• 1/3 cup full cream fresh milk
• 11/2 tbsp vegetable oil for stirfrying
• 4tbsp vegetable oil for shallow frying

How to..

• Heat the 4tbsp of oil and shallow fry the prawns on both sides. Remove and set aside.
• Remove some oil leaving only about 1 1/2 tbsp in the wok. Put the shallots, garlic, chilli, lemongrass and curry leaves into the hot wok and stir till fragrant.
• Add friend prawns, sugar and chicken powder and stir for about ten seconds before adding the milk
• Add in the milk and stir until most of the milk has been absorbed. Remove and serve immediately
  

Pressie Show and Tell

On a recent business trip to Indonesia, My sister Jacq came across these gorgeous food covers at a trendy up market homeware store called 'Anteak'. We've been looking around for food covers for the longest time and the ones we found were mostly tacky to say the least. Anyway, she carted 6 home, three for me and three for herself. Thanks Jacq!xo

Pandanus Chiffon Cake

We had a quiet day at home on Australia Day, Ming went to run a quick errand for my Dad who's away in Kuala Lumpur while the kids and I stayed home .I finished off the book covering 'chore' for the girls and then we put the Butter pecan ice cream mixture we prepared the day before into my smart looking 'Krups' ice cream maker. We watched in anticipation as the 'krups' started churning. 20 minutes later we had an unmemorable tasting butter pecan ice cream. It was too oily, and lacking in flavour. The abandoned ice cream took its place in the bin and the disinterested children and their father went to do their own thing. The Family project was over. I cleaned up the ice cream stuff and thought to myself, 'how uneventful, I have no Australia Day ice cream to post'.
So, I looked in my fridge and pantry to see what I could whip up , and there sitting in the corner of the pantry was the new Pandanus essence I brought back from Singapore. Why not? After all, Australia is a multi cultural country, I can make an Australia Day Pandanus Chiffon Cake. Objections, anybody? I thought so.
This recipe was given to me by my friend, Erica Usher, the mother of the young connoisseur I was telling you about a couple of posts ago. I used 1 teaspoon of pandanus essence instead of the required 1 tablespoon because I had not tried the essence before and since my previous attempt with another brand was a disaster ( I had to bin it) , I thought that the worst that could happen was that I'd end up with a less flavoursome cake. Anyhow, It turned out ok, so maybe I will use 1 tablespoon of pandanus essence next time. You can decide for yourself.

You will need...

• 5 eggs, separated
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g 'Snowflake Sponge Self Raising Flour
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tbsp pandanus essence (I use Indonesian brand 'Koepoe-Koepoe')
• 100ml coconut milk
• 120ml vegetable oil

How to...

• Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until stiff, leave aside
• beat egg yolks with sugar until thick, add flour, oil, coconut milk and pandanus essence. Fold into egg whites
• Pour into 'pandan cake tin' ( angel cake tin ) Do not grease tin
• Bake in a 150 degrees celsius fan forced oven for 35 minutes
• As soon as you take the cake out, invert the tin and allow the cake to cool completely inverted.