There's Something About Strawberries - Strawberry Tart

I just realised that I'm baking, cooking and making things more frequently than I update this site, this is due to the increasing activities that my eldest has to attend, which I have to drive her to; and the earlier bed time routine that I have established. My daughters sleep at 11pm or later. I used to stay up after them to do the things I like to do, but nowadays, I fall asleep together with them.

I made these two weeks ago, and I only have time to post this now. Oh well, better late than never.

In Malaysia, strawberries are considered expensive, and because of this we don't normally make a dessert using strawberries.

Two weeks ago, my neighbour went to Cameron Highlands, so I got her to buy me RM20 worth of strawberries. She delivered 3 big and 5 small punnets to my place when she returned. Imagine the strawberries sold in the supermarket cost about RM15 per punnet, this is like a super cheap sale!

However, the strawberries were extremely sour, and due to the car journey, 80% of the fruits were bruised. So I have to work with two types of strawberries, using the nice whole ones for a strawberry tart (recipe included), and made strawberry jam (recipe in next post) with the bruised and soft ones.

There's something about desserts made with strawberries. They just look so beautiful. It gives such a nice presentation, and always gets the "Oooos" and "Aaaaas" when it's served? Don't you agree?

My girls were sooo attracted by the beautiful tart, they were crowding around me when I was assembling it; before even given a chance to try the tart, my younger one told me cheekily, "Wow, this is nice. You are the best cook in the world, mama."

♥Recipe for Strawberry Tart♥
Make a 22cm tart.

For the Tart Shell
Recipe adapted from Baking by James Peterson

You'll need :

1 cup cake flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup (172g) cold butter, cut into 1/3 inch cubes
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbs additional liquid, or 1 egg white if dough is too dry (I didn't have to use any)
Method :

1) With the paddle attachment, mix both flours, salt and sugar on slow speed for about 30s.

2) Add the butter and combine it with the flour on low to medium speed, for about 1 minute.

3) Add the liquid and mix the dough on low to medium speed for 40s to 2mins, or until it looks like gravel, depending on the temperature of the ingredient. If it is still powdery and looks like grated Parmesan Cheese after 2 mins, pinch a piece to see if it comes together. If it falls apart, add 2 more tbs of liquid; if it holds together in a clump, continue mixing.

4) (optional) If at any point the dough no longer feels cold, put the mixer bowl in the refrigerator or freezer for 15mins. Mix the dough on low to medium speed for 1 to 4 mins

5) The dough will clump together into a cohesive mass when it's ready. Refrigerate if you are not using it right away.

6) Lining the tart pan with the dough : Roll out the dough, making sure it's at least 4 inches wider in diameter than the pan you're using. Fold the dough in half and transfer it to the pan. Press the dough into the corners of the pan and press the dough against the rim of the ring and cut off the excess. If the dough cracks, patch it with another piece.

7) To bake the tart shell blind (or empty) : Preheat oven to 200C. Place a piece of parchment paper or aluminium foil over the dough. Make sure the paper is large enough that it's easy to pick up by the ends when it's time to remove the weights (I didn't do this, and I crack my 1st tart shell when I tried to remove the weights). Use dried beans or rice to keep the shell from puffing up in the oven (You can reuse this but don't try to cook and eat them). Bake for 15mins for the edge of the tart to turn pale brown (when it's time to take out the beans or rice) and another 15mins for the inside of the shell to turn golden brown and look matte instead of shiny.

For the Sweetened Whipped Cream Filling

You'll need :

1 cup of whipping/heavy cream
2 tbs of granulated sugar

Method :

Whip cream and sugar in a small bowl placed in a bigger bowl filled with ice water (to retain the temperature) until stiff peak form. It should take about 5minutes.

Assembling the Strawberry Tart

You'll need :

1 punnet of strawberries
1 baked tart shell
1 sweetened whipped cream

Method :

1) Cut the stem off the strawberries.

2) Use a spatula to spread the sweetened whipped cream over the surface of the tart.

3) Arrange the strawberries around or over the tart.

4) Refrigerate before serving

When you serve, just sit back and enjoy the "Oooos" and the "Aaaaas"; anybody who's not visually challenged would have loved the presentation of this dessert.

My girls who didn't like the sourness of the strawberries, removed the strawberries, and just have the sweetened whippped cream tart.

Steamed Sago and Coconut Kuih

In the spirit of Ramadan Month, i.e. the fasting month of Muslims all over the world, I thought I'll try to make kuih (Malay : bite-sized snack or dessert) just for fun.

(To set the record right, although I do not eat pork, and you won't see any pork recipe here, I'm not Muslim.)

We were in the book shop over the weekend, and I flipped through this recipe book on Malaysian kuih. I'd forgotten the name of the book, or the name of the kuih, but I remember the recipe. The following day, as it was marketting day (going to the wet market to get our supplies for the week), I bought the ingredients and tried to make them at home.

I'm sure the kuih has a Malay sounding name, but I'll just call mine Steamed Sago and Coconut Kuih (If you happen to know the name of the kuih, do drop me a comment here).

(I got my eldest to help me cut strips of pandan leaf)

♥Recipe for Sago and Coconut Kuih♥
Make 10 kuihs.

You'll need :

1 big banana leaf
100g grated coconut
100g sago
1 pandan leaf cut into strips (optional)
3 Tbs brown sugar*
4 Tbs mascovado sugar*
2 Tbs of coconut milk/santan (if you are using dried dessicated coconut, you may want to increase the coconut milk/santan and make sure the coconut is wet through)

(*I use brown and mascovado sugar because this is what we have at home.You can substitude brown with white sugar, and gula malaka with mascovado sugar if you like.)

Method :

1) Rinse the sago once or twice and then soak the sago for about 1.5~2hrs. Drain the water when the sago is soft.

2) Cut the banana leaf into 10 pieces of 15cm squares, remove the hard stem in the centre. Boil the leaf in a pot of water for about 8mins to soften it (to make wrapping easier).

3) Mix coconut, coconut milk, sago and sugar together.

(My eldest, who saw me mixing the coconut and the sago together, was in shock. She asked me, "Are you cooking styrofoam??!!" She thought those sago pearls were styrofoam)

4) To wrap the kuih, put a strip of pandan leaf (optional, I just did it to make the kuih more fragrant) in the centre of the banana leaf, scoop a table spoon of sago and coconut mixture and place it on top of the pandan leaf, over lap the ends of the leaf until a cylinder is formed.

Staple one end of the cylinder (the better choice is to use tooth pick to seal up the ends, I have no time for that). Fill up the banana leaf cylinder with more coconut and sago mixture until 2/3 full, then staple the other end as well.

5) Repeat the step until all coconut and sago mixture is used up.

(You can see I'm a first timer, the sizes of the kuihs are uneven. :P)

6) Steam the wrapped kuihs for 20minutes.

I don't have photographic memory, so I may have skipped an ingredient or two (from the book), but using the above recipe, the kuih turned out to be rather delicious, with the right texture.

Not too difficult to make, and it's very yummy, if you like sago that is.

Just For Fun - Decorated Biscuit / Cookies

When making my first batch of decorated biscuits, although it was a lot of work, I kind of enjoy doing it, it also gave me a lot of (personal) satisfaction looking at the end product.

Last weekend, I thought I'll try making another batch, and my 2 daugthers who were very keen in 'helping', also got a couple to decorate just for fun.

These were what I made.

Yellow swirls.

Flower Power.

Heart Cookies which can be given away on Valentine's Day?

My daugthers said, they are Queen of Hearts Cookies though (At the present, Alice In Wonderland the movie is one of their favourite show).

My favourite, the snowmen. Anybody want to order this for Christmas? This round, I distributed them to my family members since I was seeing all of them during the weekend; I also packed some up in 4s, and gave them out to neighbours.

It especially brightened my day when my 5yrs old niece kept asking for more, and I think she ate at leat 5 of them during the weekend in my presence. :)

Blueberry Crumble Cake

My sister in law went to Shanghai recently to visit the Shanghai Expo, it was a trip organised by MCA. Besides visiting the Shanghai Expo, some sightseeing and shopping are also squeezed in .

I didn't know she was going, or I would have some asked her to pick up some books and DVDs for me. Chinse books are so cheap, most of them RM10~RM20 including cook books (with lots of photos). I'm lucky I came from a generation where tradional Chinese was taught in school and later picked up simplified Chinese, because that's what it's used nowadays in Malaysia, so I could read both, which expand the type of the books or websites I could read.

Now, back to my SIL and her Shanghai trip. She bought some organic fresh blueberries on her trip and gave us 2 punnets. I didn't like them fresh, they were a bit on the sourish side, so I decided to bake a cake using whatever that was left (after hubs have chomped down almost a punnet having them with his cereals).

I thought I'll give Annie Belle a second chance when I saw her Cherry Crumble Cake recipe. I once used her recipe to make scones, and they didn't turn out quite the way I like it, what kind of recipe would tell you to 'add milk (quantity not specified) until you find the dough is the right texture'? Luckily I'd made scones before and knew what kind of texture is 'right', but maybe I didn't know the 'right' texture as well since the scones didn't turn out nice.

When I was making the crumble, following her ingredients, the crumble came out a bit on the wet side, so I added ~2tbs extra flour. Besides this, the cake turned out exceptionally delicious. The cake bit was soft and buttery, matched with the tartness of the blueberries and the crumbly top, it was delicious.

♥Blueberry Crumble Cake♥
Adapted from Annie Belle's Gorgeous Cakes
(The fruit used in the original recipe was actually cherries)
Make a 20cm cake

You'll Need
For the cake :
100g unsalted butter, diced
100g caster sugar
1 egg
90ml milk
125g self raising flor, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder, sifted
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
200g Fresh Blueberries
For the Crumble :

90g plain flour + 2tbs extra
50g caster sugar
1/2tsp ground cinnamon
90g unsalted butter, chilled and diced
25g organic porridge oats

Method :
1) Preheat the oven to 180C and prepare a 20cm cake tin 9cm deep with a removable base.

2) To make the crumble, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon and butter in a food processor and whizz until the mixture just starts to form large crumbs (or do this by hand). Transfer the mixture from food processor to a bowl and stir in the oats. Refridgerate until ready to use.

3) To make the cake, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, then incorporate the milk, flour, baking powder and lemon zest.

4) Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and smooth the surface.

5) Scatter the blueberries over the surface of the cake (I made them in rows of circle). Top with crumble mixture, and bake for 55~60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

6) The cake can be served warm, about 30minutes out of the oven, or at room temparature.

Homemade Chicken Essence

Today, the mark in our kitchen, a dark ring on the kitchen top, still reminds us of her, DAILY, even though my youngest is already three and the half.

When my neighbour started making chicken essence and told me how it has helped her to feel more energised, I thought I'll start to 'pou' (補/get nourished) again as well.

Here is the way the eldest taught us how to make Chicken Essence.

Recipe for Chicken Essence
Make ~3 rice bowl of essence.

You'll need :
1 kampung or free range chicken
1/4 cup of D.O.M Benedictine (optional)

Method :
1) Cut and skin chicken (the chicken seller can help you with this)

2) Cut off pieces of fat that's still clinging on the chicken

3) Pound the chicken pieces with a pestle or the back of a clever.

4) Arange your double boiler. I didn't have one so what I did was put a smaller bowl over turned bowl in another bigger bowl (make sure the bowls are heat proof or it may crack during your boiling).

If you are using D.O.M, pour in the D.O.M into the bigger bowl before you put in the over turned bowl.

5) Arrange the (pounded) chicken pieces on top of the smaller bowl.

6) Cover your double boiler. In my case, I used a flat plate to cover the top of the bigger bowl, and place the bigger bowl in a wok 1/3 filled with water. Cover the wok. Double boil for 3 hrs.

7) The juice or the essence of the chicken will drip into the smaller bowl. You can remove the layer of oil/fat on the surface of the essence and served when it's warm.

If this is too much trouble for you, then you can always switch to the chicken essence sold in a bottle, but it doesn't taste as nice as the one you make at home, or as nutritious.