Mid Autumn Festival

Time flies pretty fast. Last month we just celebrated Hari Raya and this month we are celebrating Chinese Mid Autumn Festival. We can see the lantern these days are more in plastic form operated with batteries. There is little chance to see paper lantern with small little candles hang around the house. Moreover, I can’t find any neighbors’ kids play the lantern and walking around the housing area with the lantern just like what we did when we were young. One of the factors might due to our country have too much criminal case and we are scared of being one of the victim.

Anyway, I still play the paper lanterns at the car porch with my kid. You can see the lantern is in old fashion. Yes, I kept it since 5 years ago. Some of them have burnt bottom. :P

I made the snow skin mooncakes for the first time and did not try after this. My family members dislike eating mooncakes. So, I stopped making mooncake then.

The recipe is modified from Alan Ooi’s 花前月下.

Snow Skin Mooncakes

Mould: 50g Mooncake mould

Yield: 15 Mooncakes

Ingredients:

(A)

100g    Cooked Glutinous Rice Flour (Koh Fun)

130g    Icing Sugar

(B)

26g      Shortening

(C)

97g      Cold Water

Fillings

375g    Lotus Seed Paste

Method:

1. Snow Skin: Sift ingredients (A), add ingredient (B) and mix well. Add ingredient (C), mix into dough. Divide into 25g each. Roll into balls.
2. Fillings: Divide lotus seed paste into 23g each. Roll into balls. Set aside.
3. Flatten snow skin, and wrap the filling with snow skin. Press it into a mooncake mould. Tap lightly to let the mooncake comes out from the mould. 

Kasutera

My friend recently went to Shanghai and bought me a Kasutera wooden mould. Thanks to my friend who sincerely brought the mould back here even though her luggage had overloaded. A million thanks to her.

My first ever Kasutera was just nicely baked and it melted in your mouth when you have a bite.

I followed Jane’s Kasutera recipe and it is easy to follow.

Let me translate it into English version.

Baking Time: 50 – 60 minutes

Oven Temperature: 160C

Mould: Wooden mould: 20cm x 11cm Kasutera Wooden Mould

Ingredients:

(A)

250g    Egg (approximately 4 big eggs)

80g      Castor Sugar

50g      Honey

¼ tsp   Salt

(B)

75g      Warm Milk

10g      Ovalette

(C) Sifted

55g      High Protein Flour

90g      Low Protein Flour

(D)

10g      Mirin (you can get this from Japanese shop)

50g      Butter (Melted)

Methods:

1. Wrap the bottom of the wooden mould with aluminium foil. Put baking paper in the mould and add one more layer baking paper as its base. Place the ready mould on a bigger metal mould.
2. In a bowl, dissolved ovalette in warm milk. Add in honey, castor sugar, and mix well.
3. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the wet ingredients at lowest speed (KA at speed 1) till well combine.
4. Add in sifted flour one spoon at a time till all ingredients well combined.
5. Beat the ingredients at highest speed. (KA at speed 6). You may stop it awhile to scrap the bottom of the batter up. Continue to beat.
6. Beat the batter till it becomes creamy and fluffy. You may try to write an “O” and the letter will not disappear within few seconds. That means it is ready now.
7. Change the speed to the lowest speed again (KA at speed 1), add in mirin and melted butter. Mix well.
8. Pour the batter into the mould. Shake the mould a bit to release some bubbles out from the batter.
9. Bake at preheated oven at 160C for 50 – 60 minutes or until insert skew into the cake and comes out clean. (I used 60 minutes to bake the cake).
10. Put a piece of baking paper on the cake and turn over the cake upside down.
11. Turn the cake back when it is cool. Take out the mould and let it cools down totally. Cut the cake into slices.

Muesli Bars

A healthy home-made breakfast bars are very easy to make. We just need 30 minutes to do the preparation and bake it.

I made 2 versions of the bars; the first one was too soft and oily and the later one was much better which the texture was much more like our local peanut candy.

I modified the recipe from Australianfood with my own ingredients.

Baking Time: 15 minutes

Oven Temperature: 180C

Mould Size: 30cm x 20 cm Rectangular Mould

Ingredients:

(A)

1 ½ cup            Wholegrain (Roasted)

1 cup                Rolled Oats (Roasted)

½ cup               Sunflower Seeds (Roasted)

½ cup               Melon Seeds (Roasted)

¼ cup               Sesame Seeds (Roasted)

½ cup               Raisins

½ cup               Dried Cranberries

(B)

50ml                 Sunflower Oil or Melted Butter

(the more you put, the softer your bar will be)

½ cup               Honey

1/8 cup            Brown Sugar

Methods:

1. Grease and line a baking mould with baking paper.
2. In a big metal bowl, mix well ingredients (A).
3. Cook ingredients (B) in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir constantly for 3 to 4 minutes or until sugar has dissolved.
4. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat to low heat. Simmer, without stirring for 5 minutes. Add butter mixture to dry ingredients. Stir well until combined.
5. Spoon the mixture into the tin. Use a large metal spoon to press the mixture down firmly and evenly.
6. Bake at preheated oven at 180C for 15 minutes.
7. Take out the pan and immediately use a large metal spoon to press the mixture down firmly and evenly again.
8. Cut them into square and rectangular when it is cool.
9. Keep the bars in the fridge and it will become more harden and chewy. 

Wholegrain Milk Buns

Wholegrain is good for our health but the taste is not so attractive. I have one pack of wholegrain which until now I still do not know how to finish the whole package. Well, I am going to make some buns with this and maybe the leftover wholegrain will be used to make our breakfast bar later.

I modified the recipe from 歐風面包100款 (page 85).

Baking Time: 15-20 minutes

Oven Temperature: 180C

Yield: 9 Buns (each at 60g)

Ingredients:

250g    High Protein Flour

5g        Instant Yeast Powder

4g        Salt

10g      Sugar

75g      Wholegrain

100g    Fresh Milk

100ml   Cold Water

15g      Butter

Filling:

Some Raisins

Topping:

Wholegrain

Methods:

1.                  Sift high protein flour into the mixing bowl. Add in salt, sugar, wholegrain and yeast. Pour in water and milk.

2.                  Use the mixer to knead the mixture.

3.                  Add in butter when the dough is formed. Continue to knead the dough till it becomes smooth and elastic. 

4.                  Rest the dough in a container or cover with cling foil. Let it fermented for 2 hours or until the dough becomes double of the original size.

5.                  Knead the dough to let the air comes out. Rest the dough in the container again for 1 hour.

6.                  Divide the dough into 60g each and shape it. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes.

7.                  Put some raisins into the small dough and wrap firmly.

8.                  Sprinkle some water on top of the small dough; roll the dough with some wholegrain.

9.                  Arrange the buns on the tray nicely. Set aside to rest for 1 hour or till it becomes double in size.

10.               Bake in the preheated oven at 180C for 15-20 minutes.