Ban Bo

Teresa was kind enough to share this recipe with me. She said hers turned out very moist and soft in the center. I saw a picture of her creation and really liked the idea of baking it in a bundt pan. It looked very pretty and I was convinced that I had to make this in a bundt pan. Of course I don't own one so I went to Harry and David's for something else but saw this while shopping and just couldn't leave without it. So there's my ban bo in a bundt pan. Don't you think it's too pretty to eat? I think I almost like the shape of it more than the taste itself. Anyhow, now that I have a bundt pan, I'll be making plenty of other goodies that's bad for your health but yummy for your taste buds.

1 can of coconut milk --i would use 1/2 can of coconut milk with 1/2 can of water instead.
400 gram of palm sugar (9 cubes) -- i would use about 7-8 cubes instead.
300 gram of tapioca starch
7 eggs lightly beaten
1 Tbs + 1 tsp baking powder

I would do the preparation one night ahead.

I've altered the recipe a bit. I used 1/2 can of the coconut milk and substitute the other half with water. I also cut down a bit on the palm sugar. I used 7 -8 cubes instead.

1. Pour 1/2 can of coconut milk and 1/2 can of water in a sauce pan over low heat. Add the palm sugar and melt it in the coconut milk. Let cool completely. This coconut-sugar mixture will be added to the batter later. You do not want to add in hot liquid mixture with the batter. So make sure you let it cool completely. I would let it sit over an ice bath.

2. Lightly beat 7 eggs in a bowl. Just lightly so the yolk is mixed well with the whites.

3. In a separate mixing bowl, mix the tapioca starch and baking powder together.

4. Add the eggs to the tapioca starch mixture. Lightly mix the batter by hand.

5. Add and mix the palm sugar to the batter.

6. With another big bowl, use a strainer and pour the batter through the strainer about 2-3 times. Use a strainer with big holes (about a size of a red bean should be good. Any holes smaller will be difficult for the batter mixture to pass through) I would do this about 2-3 times so that the eggs are really broken up with the batter.

7. Let the batter sit overnight.

8. Set oven at 375 degrees.

9. Grease the baking pan. Add batter to the baking pan

10. Bake for about 40-45 minutes until golden brown.

Thit Heo Quay

Jenny introduced me to this website called Hungry Huy http://www.hungryhuy.com/. He has recipes and restaurant reviews. I skimmed through the website and found this BBQ Pork recipe. I thought I should try and see how this will turn out. This takes a long time to finish. It's a two step process. I have to prepare the meat one day in advance, refrigerate overnight and then bake the next day. The baking takes about 1 hr and then there's broiling in between. Luckily, I have help with this. I was all worked up and ready for a good tasting dinner but was a bit disappointing as the meat tasted stale and nothing like what you buy from the store. For all the trouble of making, it's not worthwhile to make. I think I'll just buy like I normally do when I crave this next time. In my opinion, Lien Hoa makes the best BBQ Pork. BTW, don't let the picture fool you, it's rather dry and tasteless :(

Yellow Cupcake with Red Bean Paste Filling & Green Tea Frosting

Originally I was going to make green tea flavored cupcake with green tea frosting.  After seeing how the scones turned out, I didn't want to overdo it with too much green tea.  So I decided to make yellow cake out of a box and add red bean paste for the filling.  I like the idea of having a little surprise in the cupcake.  I saw that some people add chocolate chip cookie dough in the cupcake and thought why couldn't I modify that to match my taste.  The cake part was easy to prepare and make and the frosting took a little more work.  I didn't add as much butter as the recipe called for because i really don't like too much butter, it overpowers the other flavors.   I don't know what it is but I was pretty convinced that I don't like buttercream frosting from my last experience of trying to make it.  But then I had a cupcake at a party with buttercream frosting and it tasted delicious.  I wonder why?! I can't give up yet. I have to keep trying until I find a great recipe that I will absolutely fall in love with. Recipe and picture to follow.

Green Tea Frosting
(adapted from Baked:New Frontiers in Baking)

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
1/6 cup flour
1/2 Tbsp + 1tsp green tea (matcha) powder
3/4 cup milk
1/6 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions

In a saucepan, whisk sugar, flour, green tea (matcha) powder together. Add milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally. Cook until mixture comes to a boil and has thickened.
Using a mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the mixture on high until cooled. On low speed, add butter and mix until incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high until the frosting is light and fluffy.
Add vanilla extract and beat until combined. If frosting is too soft, place in refrigerator until it is firmer.

Green Tea (Matcha) Scone

I came across this recipe one day and wasn't sure about making it.  Since I bought two bags of matcha powder the other day, I thought I should put it to good use.  My gut feeling tells me this might not turn out just because the recipe is not rated/reviewed and also the measurements for the recipe is in gms and ounces, something I am not used to.   Because I was short on time and might run late for work again, I chose this recipe. The instructions are pretty straight forward and simple.  I didn't use that much butter and the batter seemed a little dry from the get go.  I wanted to see the end result so I kept going with it.  I baked it at 350F for about 22 minutes.  I made a little adjustment by adding 2 tablespoons of matcha rather than 1 tsp.  This scone recipe is a little on the salty side.  I prefer just a tad bit sweeter and I am not sure if green tea for scone is a good flavoring.  I don't think I'll make this again at least not for a while. Recipe and pictures to follow.....

Matcha Scones - The Perfect Tea Party Recipe

Makes 8 Scones

Ingredients

250g cake flour (90z.)
1/3 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
3/5 cup milk
1 egg, separated into yolk and white
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon matcha green tea
70g(2 1/2oz.)butter
Strawberry jam and fresh whipped cream to taste.

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, matcha and sugar.

2. Cut the butter into small pieces. With your fingertips, mix the butter into flour until it becomes dry and flaky.

3. Combine the milk and egg yolk, and pour the mixture into the flour a little at a time. Mix and knead into a moist dough, but not so moist that it becomes sticky.

4. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C (360 degrees C).

5. Place the dough on a floured board and knead slightly until smooth. Roll out to a thickness of 1 inch (2cm)and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter or the rim of a glass.

6. Brush the tops with a little egg white, place on a baking sheet, and bake for 12-15 minutes, until slightly brown.

7. Cut each scone in half and serve with jam and fresh cream.

This recipe is from 'New Tastes in Green Tea', by Mutsuko Tokunaga.

Coconut Flan (Flan de Coco)

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/flan-de-coco-coconut-flan/Detail.aspx

Every time we had a party at work, my director's wife would make us these flans and she usually adds coconut flakes. They are the most delicious homemade flans I have ever had. Her flans are not the smooth and silky kind that you get from the vietnamese store. Hers have some texture and with the coconut flakes are quite rich and more dense. I never thought that I personally would ever be making one of these but I did have coconut milk leftover from making the cake, I thought why let it go to waste. So I found this recipe and thought I might as well. I modified it just a little. I didn't add the 1/2 cup sugar for the flan and sub the evaporated milk with coconut milk. It was delicious but tastes sweeter than I would have liked. For the next time, I will reduce the sugar. Maybe I'll use just 1/2 the sweetened condensed milk next time. The only problem I had with this recipe was that the caramelized sugar on the bottom of the dish stayed crystallized and stuck to the dish after the flan was turned over. It seems like a waste to use so much sugar for the caramel sauce and see like 1/2 of it go to waste like that. Or it could be that I did something wrong?? I'll try to add some water next time for caramelizing the sugar to see if that makes any difference. I'll let you know. By the way, it may not look that appealing in my pictures but let me tell you that it was full of flavor and sweeter than sweet and I ate more than my fair share of these.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cookies

This site is where I got this awesome recipe.

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/cookies/

This is the most simple recipe I have ever come across (there's only 4 ingredients) and it's very delicious. If you have peanut butter and jelly and sugar, you should definitely try these. You won't be disappointed. I brought these to work and everyone enjoyed it. These remind me of the knotts berry farm cookies. I am not generally a fan of peanut butter cookies but I like these. Let's just say I had more cookies than I should have in a day.

Williams-sonoma Pocket Pie Mold, Apple and Lattice

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/search/results.html?words=pocket+pie+mold
I went shopping last month for bridal shower gifts and decided to buy myself some too. How can anyone resist the urge to buy especially if you can justify that there's a need for it. Well, I needed to buy this and finally got to experiment with this pie mold. I am not sure why my dough wasn't cooperating. Perhaps because I chilled it in the freezer (couple of hours) and not the fridge as suggested. It kept shrinking in size after it's cut. This made it difficult to crimp the top and bottom layer together if using the mold. I got tired of doing the extra work of stretching the dough out so that it would line up with the mold so I just used a fork instead a. It turned out just fine only not a perfect and pretty. I thought the crust was too thick and not crispy enough. I have experience making crusts now (watch out) and this recipe is not as good as the previous ones. I am glad that I tried this out but I don't think I'll make this again just because it's too much work and the end result is only mediocre. I modified the filling recipe quite a bit. I didn't use cranberries (not in season), I didn't use that many apples and for the rest of ingredients, I cut in half.

Ingredients:
For the crust:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. granulated sugar
16 Tbs. (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice
6 to 8 Tbs. ice water

For the apple-cranberry filling:
1 1/2 lb. Pink Lady or McIntosh apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch dice
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp. cornstarch
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
5 oz. fresh cranberries
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbs. water

1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tsp. water
Granulated sugar for sprinkling
Directions:
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat together the flour, salt and the 2 Tbs. granulated sugar on low speed until combined, about 10 seconds. Add the butter and beat for 30 seconds, then increase the speed to medium-low and beat until the mixture resembles coarse meal, about 1 1/2 minutes more. Add the 6 Tbs. ice water, reduce the speed to low and beat for 20 seconds. The dough should hold together when squeezed with your fingers but should not be sticky. If it is crumbly, add more water, 1 tsp. at a time, beating for 5 seconds after each addition. Turn the dough out onto a work surface. Divide the dough in half, wrap with plastic wrap and shape each into a disk. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to overnight.

To make the apple-cranberry filling, in a large bowl, stir together the apples, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and cornstarch. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the apple mixture, cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples are just tender but not mushy, 16 to 18 minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the lemon juice and let cool for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the cranberries, granulated sugar and water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries have broken down slightly and the liquid has thickened to the consistency of a loose jam, about 14 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool for 30 minutes. Add the cranberry mixture to the apple mixture and stir to combine.

Let the dough stand at room temperature for 5 minutes. On a floured surface, roll out 1 dough disk into a round 3/16 inch thick. Brush off the excess flour. Using an apple pocket pie mold, cut out 8 of each shape (4 solid and 4 with the decorative cutout). Reroll the dough scraps, if necessary, and cut out more shapes. Repeat with the remaining dough disk.

Place a solid dough shape in the bottom half of the cutter and gently press the dough into the mold. Fill the center with 2 Tbs. apple-cranberry filling and brush the edges of the dough with some of the egg wash. Top with a shape with a decorative cutout. Press the top half of the cutter down to seal and crimp the edges of the pie. Remove the pie from the mold and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. Freeze the pies for 30 minutes.

Preheat an oven to 400°F.

Brush the top of the pies with egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Bake until the crust is golden brown and the filling is gently bubbling, 22 to 24 minutes. Transfer the pies to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before serving. Makes 8 pocket pies.

Williams-Sonoma Kitchen.

Haupia Cake

So I heard about haupia cake for the first time at work through a coworker, who said that is cake is to die for. I became curious and wondered if I could find this recipe online and I did. I saw a couple of recipes and both were almost exactly the same so I just went with one. Recently I bought round cake pans from Sur La Table just in case I might decide to make a layer cake one of these days for a birthday or something. We celebrate birthdays at work and every month there's at least one birthday. Sure enough we have one this month and I thought I'd go ahead and try this out. I have to make this in three steps, first bake the cake from a box. Then prepare the coconut flavored filling, then make the whipped cream topping. There's a lot of cooling and chilling in between so it took about two hours plus to have this completed. Since this was my first time ever to bake a layer cake, I had no idea how the finished cake was going to look like. I really tried my best to make it look smooth and tried to make it look nice by doing a little decorating but it still needs work as you'll see in the picture. I was quite pleased with the taste, not overly sweet and the cake was moist. Although, next time I might modify the recipe a little. Maybe use fresh coconut juice instead of the canned? I did forget to add coconut flakes to the cake for the finishing touch. I just couldn't believe how forgetful I am becoming even with it laid out on the counter top. Here's the recipe I used: http://www.recipezaar.com/recipe/Haupia-Cake-162911

Apple Pie

I have become much more comfortable with making pie crusts these days. So what's left to do? Of course I have to make an apple pie! I've always wanted to make a pie from scratch, the crust and all. But I have been sort of avoiding this because the thought of flouring the counter, rolling the dough out and getting messy turns me away. Sometimes it's just not worth it to go through all that cleaning afterward. But then again what fun would it be without a little mess right? After debating back and forth, I decided to go ahead with it. I actually had a good reason this time for making the pie. The hubby had a meeting and we promised to provide dessert. This was the first apple pie made solely by me. Well, I did get some help with peeling and slicing the apples and that really helped out because again I was running late to work. Don't want to lose my job over this baking obsession. I used a recipe found from allrecipe for making the crust and followed Martha Stewart's recipe for the filling. For baking instructions, I went with the one on allrecipe. I didn't have that much time, so I used the shortest baking time possible. It still turned out really well. This was one delicious pie, nothing tastes better than a fresh baked pie with some vanilla ice cream. YUM!

THE TEA HOUSE ON LOS RIOS

Has anyone ever been to this tea house? It is quite a setting, let me tell ya. It was the perfect place to host a bridal shower and I was delighted to have been invited to this party. It's a really charming cottage-like tea house located in Los Rios Historic District across the train tracks at the San Juan Capistrano Train Station. We were seated outside on the porch surrounded by the garden. We didn't notice but there was a hummingbird nest right over our table as pointed out to us by the server. People say it's good luck when you have a bird's nest in your house. Our server very informative, gave us a history of the place and she was also super friendly. There's plenty to do on this street, antique shops, petting zoo and playground for children but I didn't get to see anything else besides this tea house. If you wanted to, I think you can take the metrolink there. We had two different types of teas: Chamomile and gunpowder (green tea). I thought both were excellent. I think the mission tea is what we had. It was a whole lot of food for an afternoon function. I ate EVERYTHING..Yep. It was all very tasty. I really like the currant scone and I'd like to make a scone like this someday. Think maybe I can find this secret recipe online..?? Dream on right??

The Mission Tea
garden fresh salad, assorted Finger Sandwiches, freshly baked currant scone with our own Famous Early California Cream & preserves, fresh fruit accompanied by cream and brown sugar. Your choice of one of our handmade delectable desserts. Your selection of tea.

http://www.theteahouseonlosrios.com/

Apple Tart and Rice Krispies Treats

Here's a relatively healthier alternative to some previous recipes. I didn't have a tart pan so I made it free form as recommended by Krystin. Making the dough is always a little scary for me because I don't know if it's going to be too sticky or flaky or if it's going to fall apart when I handle it too much. So when making this I was very careful and followed directions exactly as written. The dough was very easy to work with and I was quite surprised by my own abilities. Next time, I'd like to make a pie crust from scratch. Stay tuned for more!

Oh and I also made rice krispies Treats which is a family favorite snack. I was going to have some fun with this by cutting into different shapes with cookie cutters but ran out of time.



http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/11/simplest-apple-tart/

Lemon Bars

I didn't know how long this would take to make so I sort of procrastinated until last thursday. Since I was going to be late to work anyway from going to the airport, I thought what the heck. I was really amazeda at how easy this was to put together. While this was baking in the oven, I ate my lunch. Once I was done eating, dessert was ready. This was an amazing treat. I'd make it again. Everyone who had a taste really liked it. Thanks again Kristyn for sharing. Next will be apple tart.


Lemon Bars
Part: 1
1 cup butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 cups flour
1 pinch of salt


Mix above ingredients and pat into a 9x12 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.


Part II
4 beaten eggs
5 tbsp flour
6 tbsp lemon juice (meyer lemons if you can get them, they're sweeter. But always use fresh lemons!)
2 cups sugar
grated rind of one lemon


Mix above ingredients and pour over Part I. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

Snickerdoodles and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tommorrow is Chance's end of the school year party and I get to bring in baked goods. I am always so thrilled about making something for the class. I wanted to make something more interesting but not sure about the kids food allergies so I decided to stick to the basic stuff. Snickerdoodles are fairly easy to make and chocolate chips without the nuts is quite simple too. I had all morning so I went ahead and make both. I ended up with so much cookies that I had to bring some in to work to share. I don't think Chance's class can finish them all. The entire house smells like cookies once I got through baking. I just love the smell of fresh baked goods.

More Sugar Cookies Fun on Saturday at Teresa's Palace

So last saturday, Teresa and I decided to test out different sugar cookies recipes to find the best one for an upcoming baby shower. We also wanted to play around with the marshmallow fondant as well. Teresa forwarded a new sugar cookie and icing recipe prior to our get-together. I made the dough 1 day ahead and brought it over to her house. When I got there, she had already baked some cookies using another recipe. I had one of her cookies and thought the marshmallow was really really soft. Much softer than when I made mine. I was curious how hers came out different than mine eventhough we used the same recipe. Come to find out, she used more powdered sugar than I did. I measured mine out tablespoon by tablespoon and only add when I really needed to for kneading. My dough was very soft and was rather hard to work with. We couldn't figure out why it was so soft. We thought maybe because she's on a hill,the altitute might have something to do with it??? who knows?? Took a little while before we got used to handling the really soft dough. Once we got the hang of it, it went fairly smoothly. Then it was dinner time and we got caught up with preparing dinner. Guess what happened, we completely forgot about the last few cookies still baking in the oven. Boy, you should have seen the smoke coming out of that oven. I did smell something burnt but ignored it because I am used to smelling burnt bread crumbs at home so didn't think anything of it. Oh well, I guess that's what happens when you are too distracted. Dinner was delicious, we had gourmet hot dogs and homemade pizzas. I'll have to tell you all about the pizza next time if and when I decide to make it on my own.