Jam-filled butter cookies recipe

I tried making some meringue biscuits the other day, unsuccessfully (cause I did not know I must leave them in the oven overnight and all) so I was left with a lot of egg yolks. Me being me feels that throwing them away is a waste when I can reuse them. However, eating so much egg yolks on my own feels a lil unhealthy too so I searched around for some recipes online for some inspiration and decided to do a jam-filled cookies reason being I have all the ingredients on hand. :D

My hopeful looking meringue biscuits which ended up a disappointment :(

I am posting this recipe as my own as I modified most of the recipe I obtained into my own to fit all my current available ingredients and ended up with pretty short and crumbly cookies which IMO are nyummy albeit a little impossible to pipe unlike if you follow the online recipes. I think... :P

Ingredients:

1) 200g butter (I just use salted ones)

2) 5 small egg yolks

3) A pinch of double acting baking powder (Just baking powder will be fine)

4) 1/2 cup sugar (Using cup now cos I just got a new measuring cup!)

5) 2 cups all purpose flour

6) Chivers strawberry jam

7) A dash of vanilla essence

Method:

1) Heat up oven to 180 degree Celsius. 

2) Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3) Add the yolks and vanilla until incorporated.

4) Add in sifted flour and baking powder until you get a rather pliable dough. 

5) Using your hands, scoop out about small grab of dough and roll them into long fat sticks before using a spoon just portioned them out and roll into balls. Place all the balls onto baking trays and using your finger, poke a indention onto all of them in the middle. It's so so easy. I don't see the need to chill the dough before doing this part as advised by a lot of recipes if you have to work with the dough using hand. 

6) Fill up the indent with jam (Not too much as they will overflow in the oven). I put in the jam and baked them together with the cookies because the Chivers jam is rather liquidish IMO and not dried like some of the jam you can do yourself. I would love to put in my homemade pineapple jam which is a lot dryer but I am lazy to do so and this way, I would save up a lot more time. :P I think you can fill in the jam after you bake the cookies but I just like having my jam slightly browned on top :P

7) Anyway, moving on...Just bake for about 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the cookies until golden brown.

Before

After

Tadaaa!

Variation:
~A few spots of green colouring
~A generous splash of peppermint essence

I actually separated like 1/3 of the dough and turned them into peppermint cookies. They are actually pretty good as well but I eyeballed the extra ingredients.
1) Just stir in the extra ingredients into the dough and make little balls like above but instead of a thumb-print, I used a fork to give them a different design and also cos I'm not putting any jam in them as well.

Before

After...pardon the rough looking sugar..I used a new brand super coarse sugar cos I couldn't find my usual and they look this way after...surprisingly the jam filled one didnt show :S

Kuih Seri Muka (Kuih Sala) Recipe

This green coloured kuih has been a familiar delicacy to my family since when I was very small, mainly because my sister really loves it and is a must-buy everytime we buy any kuih. I decided to have a go making it the other day and they turned out great except that they are so hard to cut. I ended up killing them with my butchering! Haha! The green custard layer I made was a lil soft IMO even though I surveyed the recipes online and everyone roughly used the same amount of flour. I would definitely double the amount next time.


Ingredients:
Bottom layer:
150g glutinous rice
2 tbsp grated coconut
Pinch of salt
200ml santan
50ml water
Knotted screw pine leaves (pandan leaves)
Some blue bunga telang (optional)

1. Soak glutinous rice overnight or a minimum of 4 hours. Actually this step is optional if you are short of time but soaking allows faster steaming.
2. Put everything on a steaming plate and steam on medium high for about 15-20 minutes. Remember to leave the pandan leaves on top of the rice while steaming.
3. Use hot water to rinse the blue bunga telang and then leave the hot water to soak the flowers for about 30 minutes. Squeeze out the flower and remove them.
4. When the rice is done, drizzle the blue water obtained in spots over the rice. Give the rice a quick stir to get a marbled effect. Flatten the rice in the dish again. This step is optional but is the vital step in distinguishing between nyonya style and non-nyonya style seri muka.

Drizzling my blue bunga telang coloring

Custard layer:
250ml thick santan
20 stalks screw pine leaves cut into 1 inch length
100ml water
2 small/medium eggs
40g all purpose flour
2 tbsp corn flour
A pinch of Salt
80g sugar

1) Blend the screw pine leaves with about 100ml water and strain. You can leave them in the fridge until you wanna use them. By then, some of the chlorophyll would have sunk. Slowly tilt and throw the excess water as we only wan the essence. This step can be omitted and replace with pandan paste/essence.
2) Mix the corn flour, all purpose flour and sugar together with the eggs. Add in the santan slowly to make sure there are no lumps and stir followed by the pandan essence you made.
3) On medium heat, simmer them all until they thickens. Quickly remove from heat and using a strainer, strain all the custard liquid onto the glutinous rice layer. Use a knife to smoothen out the surface a little but if you used a strainer, the surface should be pretty good-looking already ;P
4) Steam on low-medium heat for 15-20 minutes or until custard is hard.

Notes:
My kuih seri muka turns out fine but the custard layer is a little soft. I prefer mine slightly harder so IMO there should have been more all purpose flour. I would suggest double the amount used. Also, the eggs give a slightly eggy kaya-like smell to my custard layer. I think the next time I do this I would either omit the eggs altogether or just use 1 egg. I couldn't imagine what some other people's custard tasted like since they use 4 large eggs with pretty similar amount of flour, sugar and pandan essence like mine.

The final result! Before I uglified it by cutting it up

The sorry looking seri muka :P

Angku Kueh Recipe

This is my second attempt at angku kueh. It is definitely more successful than my previous attempt. I tweaked the recipe a little this time around. Orange ones are edited from previous recipe posted here.

Sweet Bean Paste:
Ingredients:
150g dried split green beans
100g sugar
80ml water
2-3 pandan leaves


1.  Wash and soak green beans overnight.
2.  Drain beans and place in a heat-safe plate to steam. Add pandan leaves and steam over high heat for until beans are 'cracked' open or soft.
3.  Blend the beans. Add a little water to blend. Lesser water is best, just put enough so they can be blended.
4.  Boil sugar with 80ml water till sugar dissolves. Add in the ground beans and continue to cook over slow fire, stirring constantly, until dry and rollable. Leave to cool before using. (This takes me another one hour more).


Ingredients:
300g glutinuous rice flour
7 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp red colouring
200ml coconut milk
a pinch of salt

1. Mix salt and coconut milk.
2. Cook 50g glutinous rice flour with 50ml water till form a thick paste.
3. Sift 250g glutinous rice flour onto table, adding sugar and colouring and mix well. Slowly add in coconut milk.Mix and knead well. Add in cooked dough and continue kneading. Add oil slowly (add-knead-add-knead) until dough is smooth. Rest dough for 30 minutes.
4. Clean banana leaves and cut into pieces slightly bigger than the mould because the leaves will shrink when steamed.
6. Flatten each piece of dough to form a thin skin and wrap with a ball of past. Roll back into balls.
7. Flour the angku mould before putting the balls inside to form the design. This helps in getting them out.
8. Use the cut banana leaves and place them over the mould before hitting the angku out.

 7. Steam angku kueh over medium heat for 8-10 minutes. Remove the steamer lid to let out excess steam in between steaming time so that the water do not flood the poor angkus. (NOT NECESSARY). When cooked, remove and brush with a little oil to prevent sticking.

The final result!

Tokyo Itinery - Day 1

About a month ago, I went to Tokyo with my boyfriend and I had been postponing the blogging part of it until now. IMO, food there is mostly nyum at least where Japanese food is concerned and if you love ramen, soba, the rice bowls, and so on...but in terms of variety...I would say Malaysia still offers the best choices money can buy! I mean we have Chinese, Indian, Malay, Italian, Japanese, Korean and what-so-ever at much more affordable prices and they are easy-to-come-by at all hours. You are hungry and it's past midnight, so you just head to the nearest Mamak for a quick fix be it nasi campur, roti canai or even Maggi goreng! Plus a hot steaming cup of teh tarik. Or you can choose from the many fast food chains which are open 24-hour like McD, KFC, etc. In Tokyo, of course you have their 7-11 with a complete selection of all sorta Japanese snacks and "lunch boxes" where you can heat it up in their readily available microwave. Maybe it's just me but give me hot steaming roti canai any time! LOL. The first few days are heavenly for a Japanese-food lover. But a few days into munching your way through countless plates of sushi, ramen and soba...and also their Japanese rice sets where you have fish/pork/beef/prawns on rice etc I was pretty ready to get my dose of Malaysian food. Hahaha!

Of course, shopping is fun, but expensive. I even managed to find packets and packets of my fave fishy snacks from there! Walking and going around is...tiring...albeit confusing despite their fame for the excellent public transportation system...

At the Airport

Day 1 (1 July 2012)

Reach Haneda International Airport - Hotel (Hotel Horidome Villa)

As simple as it may sound, we were lost for an hour plus in the middle of the night on our first night in Tokyo. Yeap, we decided to forgo the initial plan of his (which he planned to the dot before our trip) to use a seemingly shorter way to reach the hotel as advised by a very *ahem* so-called native of Tokyo from the information kiosk. My advice is, check the operating times of the trains before you embark on the advice of some very helpful people and stick to the pre-made plans (cos the initial plan he made does consider the time of operation for the lines we were supposed to take).

NOTE: certain train lines operate until midnight only on weekends.

Anyway, we managed to find our hotel by 2am I think with the help of a part-time policeman. :S This hotel is definitely hard to find if you have to walk around cos all the buildings there look alike to me. @@ and with the rain, it is definitely not a very pleasant experience. :P

Just started walking, hence the grins :P

The hotel

Supper! (from 7-11)

Nyonya Udang Masak Lemak Recipe

Ingredients:

1) 200g red chillies
2) 10 small shallots
3) 2 -3 stalks lemongrass
4) 4 cloves garlic
5) 5 pieces of limau purut leaves 
6) 3 x 3 cm belacan
7) 250ml coconut milk
8) 500g prawns
9) 1 small pineapple (cubed)
10) 100ml assam (tamarind) water
11) Sugar and salt to taste

Method:

1) Chop ingredients 1 to 4 and blend until they form a fine paste.
2) Using a little oil, fry the paste + belacan until fragrant.
3) Add in pineapple and fry for a while until they are all nicely combined.
4) Put the limau purut leaves and assam water and stir for a while.
5) Add in the prawns and then coconut milk.
6) Put sugar and salt to taste.
7) Simmer for a few minutes until prawns are nearly cooked and remove from stove. *They will continue to cook in the broth so once the prawns are pink, quickly remove them*

Note: This recipe is definitely on the not-spicy side. I would recommend adding 2-4 chilli padi to the paste OR some good chilli powder for more heat.

PS: photo was taken halfway through eating. :S forgot about taking pictures.

Savoury Beef Tartlets/Tarts

Next one up is my savoury beef tarts. I wanted to make pies at first but on second thoughts, that might be a little too much.

Ingredients:
Fillings:
300g good quality minced beef
6 button mushrooms
1 small onion
A small dollop of butter
Oregano
2 tbsp Worchester Sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
2 slices of processed cheese
4 tbsp of tomato sauce

Pastry:
120g butter
160g all purpose flour/wheat flour
4 tbsp of ice water

* Marinate beef with Worchester sauce, salt and pepper and leave in the chiller*

1) Do the pastry first. Crumb the butter and flour together (I prefer hand but you can use food processor for a speedier way). Add in the ice water bit by bit i.e. tablespoon by tablespoon and you can adjust the amount accordingly. The consistency you are looking for is the dough-like smooth texture. Do be careful not to work the dough too much.
2) Keep in fridge until you wanted to roll them out. Keep chilled for at least an hour.
3) Roll into about 1/2 inches thick and cut them out in circles before tapping them into greased 9-hole muffin tin. Mine is about 4" in diameter and I get about 11 tart pastries when I'm done.
4) Poke holes into the bottom of the pastries when you're done before you bake them. If you don't plan on eating them yet, just leave them in the tin and keep them back in d fridge. :)
5) Bake for about 15 minutes or until brown at 200 degree Celsius. Pat them down using a spoon or fork in the middle of baking so the tarts maintain their shape.

6) Chop the onions finely.
7) Cube the button mushrooms.
8) Heat the skillet and drop in the butter.
9) Fry the onion until fragrant before adding in the mushrooms and continue stirring.
10) Add the beef and add the tomato sauce when the beef is browned.
11) Add in the oregano.
12) Switch off the fire and stir in the processed cheese.
13) Scoop about a tablespoon of filling for each tart and distribute the remaining amongst them.

Raisins Scones Recipe

Today I decided to do a sorta English tea spread, the kind usually served in three tiers in restaurants with scones, cakes, cookies or biscuits, pies/tarts, sandwiches and fresh fruits accompanied by the usual English Tea which will be either Earl Grey, Darjeeling or English Breakfast Tea. The more creative cafes now have like fusion flower tea with different taste and flavours like one in Penang, the Suffolk House serves a very very commendable version of English Tea spread :)

Anyway, I for one do not know how my family will be able to finish everything if I'm to do everything so I decided to stick with the classic cucumber sandwiches, scones and little savoury tarts (beef) - recipe here

For scones, I planned to shape them like the classic english scones at first, but in the end just decided to forgo the effort and drop them off straight off the ladle. :P
This said, my scones do not have the classic golden brown top and bottom and whitish belt in the middle. However, they tasted fine and crisp on the outside and fluffy in the inside. Yay!

My Version of SCONES! with raisins of course.

Ingredients:
220g self raising flour
1 tsp double action baking powder
40g butter
40g sugar
2 small eggs
120ml milk ( I used HL milk but it gave a nice vanilla-ish smell to my scones)
1 tsp vanilla essence

Methods: 

(before starting, heat oven to 200 degree Celsius)

 1) Mix the flour, baking powder, and sugar together and add in the cold butter. Crumb them until you get breadcrumbs-like texture. Due to the low amount of butter, you will basically get back a mixture which looks like flour with the butter inside...somewhere...LOL (as opposed to those of tarts HERE)
2) Stir in the eggs and vanilla essence.
3) Add in the milk gradually until you get a rather sticky-ish mixture. I keep mine a little sticky but you can add in more flour or lessen the milk so you can shape it with sharp round biscuit/cookie cutter (This way you get the classic scones shape)
Do keep in mind that sticky batter=fluffier scones/softer in the inside...the more you dry them up with more flour, the easier they are to shape but they will be slightly harder...
4) Dollop onto greased baking pan (like me) or cut with cookie cutter as per mentioned.
*Remember to lightly dust the cutter with flour first*
5) I baked mine till golden brown about 20-25 mins (estimated).