Happy Chinese Mid Autumn Festival

Hi everybody,

After an absence of a couple of months, I am back to wish you a happy moon festival :).
Please forgive me for neglecting this blog. I'll post some new pictures and recipes soon.

Cupcake-mania

First time making cupcakes.. Made them for my friends birthday (born in the year of the piggy). I'll be honest, they were not that tasty, but damn cute! There were more people taking pictures of them than actually eating them. Good thing I also brought mango loh mai chi.

Doh!... Oh at least I tried..

I watched "The Simpsons: The Movie", and it made me crave for donuts. :-D We don't have dunkin' donuts or crispy creme here, so I wanted to try to make my own donuts. It didn't turn out as a succes, but at least I tried.. The dough turned out to be too solid and not light and soft, but heavy. At least I had fun decorating.


Mine Homer-Simpson-Donut

Sugar Coated

Chocolate with peanut

Anyone with a fool proof recip and would like to share with me?

Konnyaku Jelly a.k.a. Konjac a.k.a. gonyak

In Asia people recognise konnyaku as an health food. They also make noodles of it, which are high in fiber and low in calories. A misunderstanding is that konnyaku is a product from seaweed, but it actually is made of Konnyaku potato's. You can make it will all sorts of fruit and best of all, it's not an animal product, and suitable for vegetarians/vegans.

These jelly's come in different flavours like: lychee, melon, guava, mango or plain natural. Unfortunately it is not sold very often in Asian supermarkets in the Netherlands. I bought mine packages in Oriental Wholesale Supermarket in Amsterdam. I prefer this jelly over gelatine or agar agar jelly. They have a different texture and are firmer, but make sure kids chew it before they swallow it! These don't disolve in your mouth. Hope it will become more popular here!


Like all sort of jelly's, it's a matter of boiling water, disolving powder and sugar, let it cool and you have your refreshing snack. These lychee flavoured jelly hold a lychee inside. Easy to use canned lychee, but you can also use fresh fruits ofcours.


They also make beautiful mango flavoured jelly koi fish!! ^_^

Things I wanted to blog, but didn't had time to do..

Have you been wondering what I was up to? Well, I did continue baking and stuff.. but blogging takes up quite a bit of time. I'm learning Mandarin these days and just started a diet (four letter word) and I have been asked to write recipes in the local Chinese newspaper. I will post some recipes again soon :-).

For the time being, let me show you what I've been making:

Hello Kitty 3D Grape Flavour Jelly Candies

This was my valentine forest berry cheesecake with jelly topping. Very yummy!

Instant Miso soup, we've found in local Japanese supermarket

Home made pizza with mozarella filled crust (YUM!) and mushroom, spinach, cheese toppings

Mini wife cakes (lo poh peng). Flaky crust and chewy filling, very yummy.

Classic chocolate chip cookies! Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. Original Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe.

Pandan Kaya Bread loaf, very fragant

Simpel White Bread Loaf

Nice bouquet

Well I didn't receive this bouquet. I gave it away :).. Still, I love this arrangement. So if you ever have the chance to get me flowers.. I want an exact copy of this!

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

This was the first time I actually had carrot cake and I didn't expect that I would like it so much. Initially I thought of making carrot cakes, because I bought shredded carrots from the supermarket to make eggrolls, but I changed my mind. So what to do with all the carrots? I made little cupcakes and handed them out to my colleagues. The cake was so populair that three of my colleagues asked for the recipe.

Ingredients (makes 12 cupcakes, double ingredients to make one 22cm round cake)

Carrot cake

• Brown Sugar - 140 grams
• Vegetable oil - 90 grams
• Eggs - 2
• Flour - 125 grams
• Baking powder - 2,5 tsp
• Cinnamon powder - 1 tsp ( I used "Speculaaskruiden")
• Ginger powder - o,5 tsp
• Pinch of Salt
• Shredded Carrots - 150 Grams
• Grinded Almonds - 50 Grams (subsitude with Walnuts or Pecannuts)
• Raisins - 50 grams

Cream Cheese frosting

• Cream Cheese - 200 grams
• Icing Sugar or Castor Sugar - 60 grams
• Lemon Juice - 1 tbsp

Preheat oven at 180C and line the muffinpan with paper cups. Beat the oil and sugar in the electric mixer for 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one and mix into a smooth batter. Shift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon powder and ginger powder into the syrup. Add the carrots, nuts and raisins, mix well. Fill the papercups 2/3 with batter and bake for 35 minutes (bake 60 minutes when making the 22cm round cake). Let cakes cool.

Beat all ingredients for the cream cheese frosting till smooth and use it as topping for the carrot cupcakes!

Enjoy!

Happy Chinese New Year - Kong Hey Fat Choi

Majority of the Chinese community in the Netherlands have celibrated New Year with the Western calender. The laisi's and wishes have been given last month, but you'll find activities organised in the Chinatowns (Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam), like performances from Chinese singers, the familiar dragon, lion dance and don't forget the firecrackers.

Sausage buns II

Here they are again :-), but these were better than the ones post earlier. Softer bread and they look prettier ofcours. I used this recipe for the bread.

Instead of sausage buns, you can also make baked-charsiu buns, cocktail buns, red bean paste buns etc. with this bread dough.

Yes the one in the middle had a little too much ketchup. I had to figure out how hard to squeez the bottle of ketchup.

Hong Kong - in a recap

Hong Kong

Shopping

Food

Waiting impatiently for the wonton noodles

Hui Lau Shan (Dessert/Herbal Shop)

Vegetarian dishes

Random