Mooncakes galore! :)

Happy Mid-Autumn Moon Festival!

This year I made my usual snowskin mooncakes with taro lotus, green tea lotus and mung bean fillings, baked red bean mooncakes and matcha and durian ice cream mochi mooncakes!

This ube flavouring gives such a nice smell and colour! Love it! But I seriously am desperate in finding taro flavour or powder still! :( This is the 5th year of making snowskin mooncakes (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012), my 2nd year of baking mooncakes and the first time making mochi icecream mooncakes! Hehe. I'm kinda getting sick of my mooncake designs now though.. I really need to look for different ones.

Before baking

Baked then eggwash applied.

And the end result? (I stole this off C's instagram :P)

Anyway, getting back to the mochi icecream mooncakes or daifuku as the Japanese call it. :)
A few weeks back, I made matcha and durian ice creams.

Durian icecream
Makes about 700ml

5 pieces of durian flesh (each seed)
350ml milk (I used Physical No Fat, as I couldn't be bothered going out to buy normal milk)
300ml cream
4 Tbsp sugar
4 egg yolks

Blend durian into a paste.
In a saucepan, heat up milk, cream and sugar until dissolved. Heat till near boiling and stir in durian.
Turn heat down.
Add egg yolks and mix until combined.
Refrigerate.
Use icecream machine as per instructions.
Place into a container, cover with cling wrap and close lid.
Freeze overnight.

And.... I can't remember my quantities for the matcha icecream anymore :( (I seriously feel like I'm getting dementia). There were no eggs involved in the icecream.

Anyway, back to making the mochi ice cream mooncakes. What you need to do is scoop the icecream and set it first. I used 2 scoops of icecream (combined into one ball) per mooncake. Must work quickly to prevent melting and freeze these overnight.

For the mochi skin:
Makes enough skin for about 4-6

100g glutinous rice flour
120g sugar
200ml water
(matcha powder or durian flavouring)

lots of corn/wheat starch (~100-150g)

*I halved the quantity of each ingredient for each flavour.

Cover a baking tray with baking paper and lots of corn/wheat starch.
Mix all other ingredients until combined. Cover lightly with cling wrap.
Microwave for about 2mins. (I did 1.5min each)
The mixture should be cooked. Mix it again.
Cover lightly with cling wrap again.
Microwave for another 30 secs.
Mix again until smooth.

Place onto baking tray. Cover with more corn/wheat starch.
Push the mochi out into a rectangular shape.
Refrigerate for 30mins to an hour.
Cut mochi into about 4 sections (I ruined mine by stretching out a bit too much in some points, so only managed to get 2 usuable pieces per flavour)
Get a pieces of cling wrap.
Dust off excess corn/wheat starch from the mochi piece, place onto cling wrap.
Place ice cream ball on top, and gently wrap. Twist cling wrap tightly and freeze immediately.

Once hardened, carefully push into a mooncake mould.

Wrap into cling wrap and freeze until ready to eat.
Enjoy. Remember to drink lots of yummy tea with your mooncakes! :)

Happy Lunar New Year!

It's Lunar New Year tomorrow!

This year, I'm at home and was able to make things! Yey~

I started off making kueh bangkit.. which turned out as a bit of a fail because I ran out of tapioca starch. So instead of my usual little men, this was all I made:


Pineapple tarts again:


Agar goldfish, using the fish mould I got 1.5years ago in Singapore :)


And my attempt at Zumbo's macarons. I didn't realise his recipe was in bulk.. so I made a bit too many. I made pandan macarons with white pandan chocolate ganache/pandan custard! :) I used pandan paste, that's why they're that colour. I don't really like it though. I should've made them more green.. :/


Oh. And I also made some ice creams (not really Lunar New Year related). Yam and green tea. :D


Anywho, this will pretty much be the last amount of baking/cooking I'd be doing for a while.. (apart from M's cupcakes which I'll make tomorrow night). Then I'm off to HK and South Korea! Weee~ Hello Winter #1 of 2012! Glad to escape the burning sun for 3 weeks. :) And can't can't wait to get to Korea! :D

Snow me

It's December. The festive month. Time sure does fly by..


I was planning on baking all things festive in the lead up to Christmas.. but I won't be home 2 weeks before Christmas anymore. (ie. in a week's time). No, I'm not going on holiday yet. I wish I was though. Ahh... only 7 weeks until I go to Korea/HK! :D Can't wait!

I made some Christmas pudding/fruit cake yesterday. Crumbled it up and mixed it with some vanilla ice-cream. Mmm.. Christmas pudding ice-cream. I made about 3L of it.. :S And I have half a chunk of cake left. -__- Sigh.

Since I had some condensed milk opened from the other day (A bit of Choya Umeshu, a spoon of condensed milk, then topped with fresh milk = a nice cocktail :P), I also made some quick coconut macaroons. Of course, I had to make them cute. Haha.

Meet my snow-self. Fill my heart in! :P


They're really simple to make. Just add some condensed milk to some dessicated coconut. Mix until they hold shape. Then roll them into balls and bake in a preheated 160C oven for 15-20mins. Allow to cool, then decorate with icing. Simple as. :D



Meet my snow-friends.


:)

I only have this week left to bake festively. My to do list: gingerbread men, Christmas cupcakes, snowmen cakes!

Frozen yoghurt

The other day, Jalna Yoghurt was on sale. Being thick and creamy, it's especially good for making frozen yoghurt.


Having some frozen cherries on hand also, I threw them together into my ice-cream machine and made vanilla cherry frozen yoghurt!


Very simple to make, and healthier than ice-cream! I love those frozen cherries!

Vanilla and cherry frozen yoghurt
Makes 1.5L or so.

1kg Jalna Premium Vanilla Yoghurt
300g frozen pitted cherries (I used the Creative Gourmet ones)

Freeze ice-cream canister over night or as per your ice-cream machine instructions.

Mix cherries into yoghurt.

Pour into ice-cream machine.
Churn until frozen or as specified by your machine.

Freeze overnight in a freezer safe container.

When injeolmi met matcha icecream

Asian fusion dessert; a fusion of Korean, Japanese and Chinese tastes!

Home made green tea ice cream and Korean rice cakes (injeolmi). I've always known that rice cakes and icecream can be friends. Yummy friends. Haha :P


Green tea icecream
Makes about 800ml

250ml cream
240ml milk
2/3 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
2 tsp matcha (green tea powder)

Prepare ice-cream maker. (ie. Freeze the cannister 24hrs in advance).
In a saucepan on low heat, heat cream, milk and sugar until combined. Do not let it boil.
Cool the mixture for about 15mins.
Whisk into egg yolks and matcha.
Set aside and allow to cool completely before refrigerating until chilled.
Then follow ice cream maker instructions to create your ice cream!
Either serve immediately or place in airtight container and freeze until needed.


Ingeolmi (Korean rice cakes)
Makes.. a lot? Say, about 60?

500gm glutinous rice flour
1 3/4 cup water

1/3 cup soybean powder (plus extra if needed)
3 tbsp sugar
1/3 cup black sesame powder (plus extra if needed)
3 tbsp sugar

Boil a large pot of water.
Mix glutinous rice flour and water until a dough is formed. It should not be too wet nor too dry. So it shouldn't be sticky or crumbly to handle.
When the water is boiled, drop little balls of dough (~1.5cm in diameter) into the pot. They will rise to the top when cooked. Allow them to float at the top for a while before removing them into a bowl of cold water.

In a different dry bowl, mix soybean powder and sugar.
Drain your rice cakes and roll into soybean powder while still warm.
Set aside.
Repeat remaining rice cakes with black sesame powder if you wish.


Serve as is, or with ice cream!


I find that the soybean rice cakes taste good by themselves as the Koreans like to do. The black sesame one isn't traditionally Korean. I just wanted to try it, and the fact is, it wasn't that great by itself. Add some vanilla icecream and it'll taste much much better! Next time, I'll just stick to the traditional soybean ones! :P