Raspberry Shortcake

I have a sudden craving for eating raspberry shortcake.  Plus I just finally found the perfect sponge cake recipe that will satiate my cravings.  The moist and fluffy texture of the cake plus the sweet and tart raspberry fluff cream made my day.  I said it made my day, it actually made the kids day.  My two kids ate more than half the cake in one sitting.  The remainder was gone during breakfast.

Instead of the genoise cake recipe, I used a recipe that is more similar to chiffon cake recipe, except melted butter is used instead of vegetable oil.  But the result was really more than my expectation.

My experience with genoise cake is the cake tends to be a little dry.  Syrup and grand marnier are often used to keep the cake moist but I prefer just fluffy, moist cake texture.  So, I am really glad to use this new technique to make this delicious Raspberry Shortcake.

Japanese Pizza

This morning, I made Japanese pizza for the kids.  It is one of their favorite food.  When I first ate it, I never thought that bread spread with mayonnaise with sprinkle of bonito flakes, cheese and green onions can be so tasty.

I recommend it to anyone who had not try this.  The way I see it, it can be considered a complete meal for anytime, though we often have this for breakfast.

Roll Cake with Raspberry Cream fillings

Roll Cake with Raspberry Cream fillings




Roll cake is something I like to have every now and then.  The fluffiness of the sponge cake and the smooth creaminess with a hint of sweet tartness of the raspberry cream can cure any tiredness of the day.  At least that was what it does for me.  Thinking about that, I just couldn't wait to have a taste it.

So, yesterday, I decided to make one.  Good thing about roll cake is that it doesn't take long to make.  It only took me less than half an hour to bake it.  The smell of freshly baked cake gave a euphoric feeling.  It melted any stress within seconds.

After dinner, I whipped up the cream, add a few dollops of homemade raspberry jam and spread it all over the cake and rolled it up.  Then sliced it and served immediately with a dollop of raspberry compote and a cup of freshly brewed earl grey from Mariage.  Now, how can this not remove all the stress of the day?

Kajang Style Satay

Kajang Style Satay

Last week, I suddenly had a craving for satay.  I searched through cookbooks I brought from Malaysia and found Kajang satay.  Immediately I set to work.  Of course, as usual, I was lacking ingredients.  But being used to such situation, I began substituting or skipping all the ingredients that I did not have.

Main ingredient: Chicken (of course the thighs or legs)
Next, I saw lemon grass.  The space between my brows creased.  This is one of the ingredients that is hard to get here.  It is not something that I can just run out and cut a stalk or two from the neighbor's house.  Nor can I run to the nearby store to buy them.  In other words, they are hard to come by here.  Immediately after lemon grass, another ingredient that made my frown worst was galangal.  Galangal is almost non existence here.  Unlike lemon grass, which I can buy in the next town, galangal is not something that I can get hold of easily.

But satay without these two essential ingredients is no longer satay.  I decided, however it turns out, just let it be.  So, I substituted lemon grass with daun limau purut and galangal with ginger.  Luckily, I have the rest of the spices, including assam paste (tamarind).  I ground and mixed all the ingredients together to make the marinade.  The chicken was cut into small chunks thrown into the marinade. and left it overnight.

The next day, I eagerly got myself readied and began working on the sauce.  I skip the peanuts just because peanuts here doesn't taste good.   The usual peanuts brands I can get are Planters or some generic brands.  So, I wanted to come out with something without using peanuts.  And what I made was more of a sambal sauce.  Oh well.  It was not the best but it didn't turn out too bad.

Grilling the meat:
After I skewered all the meat, I heated up the broiler of my oven and turned up heat for the grill pan.  Using these two methods, I began grilling the satay with a splash of oil.  Coconut fat would have been perfect, but that is another thing that is hard to come by.

All in all, the satay didn't turn out too bad, I must say.  I only regret the sauce.  I guess, I will need more experiments to come up with something more acceptable.

Tea Eggs

I love the smell of tea eggs.  I still remembered going to the malls in Malaysia (where I grew up) smelling tea eggs simmering away in one of the stall.  My pace automatically slowed down and my eyes would search for the huge pot with those delicious eggs.  Those are such nostalgic memories from my childhood.

Today, I woke up remembering those eggs.  Immediately after I sent the kids off to school, I ransack my kitchen to see if I have all the ingredients necessary for this scrumptious dish.  Sometimes, I think my motivation is really powered my appetite.  And "yes" I have all the ingredients except dry mandarin orange peel (but I have fresh one---hahaha!):

8 hard boil eggs
2 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
1 dry mandarin orange peel (I usually try to dry some but haven't done so)
tea leaves (I use jasmine just because it is the only chinese tea leaves I have)
1 bag of tea bag (I got from a friend which is black tea with a hint of spice---perfect!)
1/4 cup soy sauce
sugar and salt (if the soy sauce is not salty enough since I use low sodium soy sauce)
water

Anyway, besides the orange peel, which I toasted it slightly before adding into the pot with all ingredients except the eggs.  I had already boiled 8 eggs for this purpose.  While the pot with all my aromatic ingredients are coming to a boil, I cracked the boiled eggs viciously still taking care not to break the apart.  What I wanted was the trademark crackled pattern on the eggs when soaking the eggs into the dark brown ingredients.  The idea was to keep the crack eggs without peeling them all simmering in the aromatic soy sauce base liquid for at least 6 hours so that the color and taste seeped into the eggs coloring the part that was cracked.  I haven't done this for a long long time, I may even cracked the eggs too much...hahaha!

This is definitely one of my favorite dish, but I am not sure if the kids would enjoy them as much as I do.  As I am writing this, the aroma of the spice kept teasing me to check on it.  To me this is one of the smell of home.  But this may not be true for people here in my little country side town, where barberque prevails.  Probably half the population here do not even know how star anise smells.

I think I will go check the eggs, though this dish is really a hands off dish.  But the smells is just to tempting.  It is just like a little kid asking me to give a hug.  I must go to see this little baby one more time.

The eggs while slowly simmering away!

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries are almost to the end of the season.  Not wanting to miss out eating strawberry shortcake, I hurriedly secure myself some strawberries, whipping cream and fresh eggs.  Those are the essential ingredients for a delicious strawberry shortcake.  I made the genoise the night before and left it overnight after slathering the cake with some syrup.  This will keep the cake soft and moist.
The next day, I whipped up the cream with some homemade strawberry jam and layered it in the middle of the cake then whipped up another batch of cream for covering the outside of cake.  My cake was done.  Nothing beats a slice of this sumptuous cake with a cup of mint tea from my garden.

Apricot tarts

There are days when I just wanted to eat some really refreshing tartlets.  And it just so happen I had some frozen apricots, so, I decided to make some apricot tarts.  This is a mix and match recipe.  Basically, it is pie dough for the shell, custard for the fillings and of course half apricot for the topping.  Just put all together and bake in the oven, we have tartlets.  I glazed them with a little strawberry jam for extra shine...hahaha.  Probably better if I use apricot jam, but I didn't have any.
Anyway, it was not as delicious as I have hope it to be, because the apricot was too sour.  I should have cook the apricot in syrup before using it.  I will try it again next time.  But overall, it is not that difficult to make.  Have a try.