Egg Pie

My grandfather loves anything that's custard or flan base like Portuguese egg tart, leche flan and creme caramel. So for this year's Chinese New Year, I made an egg pie for him. This egg pie is a favourite Filipino dessert/snack. The filling is made with eggs, condensed milk and evaporated milk, which makes a very rich and creamy pie. It's so easy to make, yet so delicious.

My grandfather was very happy when I told him I made one for him. He gave me two thumbs up without even tasting it. He was even happier after having a slice. Homemade is definitely better than store-bought.

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte

Daring Bakers' Challenge - October 2010: Doughnuts

I have never been comfortable with making breads at all, and this month's DB challenge got me facing my fear. Our challenge this month - doughnuts! Yes, doughnuts are delicious; one of the best comfort foods ever, but I would rather buy from a shop than make it myself because I'm not confident in the arena of any yeast product.

However, there's a reason why I joined DB. It's to push my boundaries in baking, and face making pastries, desserts or bread that I wouldn't normally do. So here I am... baker!

Blog-checking lines: The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

Since our host provided four recipes to choose from, I've decided to choose Kate Neumann's bomboloni recipe. Bomboloni is a Tuscan version of filled doughnuts, except that the filling is piped on the top of the doughnuts instead of the sides, which we normally see with filled doughnuts.

I've psyched myself for this challenge; I wasn't anxious at all when I was making the dough for the bomboloni. I was also following the recipe down to a tee. I guess even if I was mentally ready to face the doughnut challenge, I was subconsciously nervous. Hence, it showed on my doughnuts. When I bake, I normally use my instinct to see if things are going smoothly, but in this case, I was so glued in with the recipe. I didnt' trust my judgement when I saw that my yeast might not have foamed up the way it should. I just continued following the recipe.

As a result, my doughnut was a flop. I was only able to make half of what the actual yield for the recipe should produce. My doughnuts came out really dense and heavy, but the taste was still good. So I decided to still continue filling and glazing my bombolonis.

So for my bomboloni, I dusted their top with powdered sugar, then filled them with pastry cream. For the glaze, I piped alternate circles of dark chocolate and white chocolate ganache. The taste of the final bomboloni was really really good! The only down side was how heavy the actual doughnut was. I guess practice makes perfect; I would definitely be making another batch at some point. This time, I'll trust myself when I think something is not right before it becomes too late.

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte

Scone

My H has been persistently asking me to make scones like forever! So I have finally gave in. I made a plain scone though because I'm not so much a fan of scones with dried fruits.

Scone is quick bread of Scottish origin, but is now synonymous with the whole of Britain. It is usually eaten at breakfast or afternoon teas served with clotted cream and jam. The shapes of scones may vary from round, square, triangle or diamond. Originally, scones were made with oats and cooked on a griddle, but nowadays it's made with flour and baked in an oven.

For my scones, I used the recipe from joyofbaking. It came out really really good. I just used half of the recipe and I was able to produce four scones.

Now what is scone without clotted cream? I know finding clotted cream here in Korea is impossible, so I didn't even try looking for one. Instead, I decided to make my own. Although, I'm not sure of the quality of Korean creams, I still gave it a go. There's not much variety or shall I say no variety at all of creams in Korea, or at least in the city I live in. They only have whipping cream, and I pretty much use that cream whenever a recipe calls for any sorts of cream. This is when I do miss England where there are single cream, double cream, half and half and the list goes on. Anyway, my clotted cream didn't turn out the way it should have. The color was immensely pale and anemic, and the taste was so sweet. I ended up discarding the clotted cream, and had to settle for butter. 

 my uber pale and sweet clotted cream :(

Despite the mishap, my H and I really enjoyed our scones with a nice cup of tea. Just remember to eat the scones fresh out of the oven! If not, you can always throw the scones back in the oven for like 3 minutes to warm it up, and it would go back to it's soft yummy state!

 my scone with 'clotted cream' and raspberry jam

scone from The Orangery at Kensington Palace with really silky scrumptious clotted cream and blackberry preserves; had this at my bridal afternoon tea last year

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte

Mooncake...Not!

This is a delayed posting because I was on my holiday visiting family and friends in Philippines. I wanted to bake something for my family because I do miss having my family appreciating/criticizing my work! Baking in Korea is different; I only have my H to taste my baking.  At first, I thought of making a fondant cake, but I have hesitations if it would travel well. Should I or shouldn't I go for fondant cake...?

Well, I didn't. Since Mooncake festival was coming up, why not make mooncake?! This is not your ordinary mooncake; it's an apple pie mini mooncake!

Mooncake festival also known as Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated every fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar in China, and basically all Chinese community around the globe. It is believed that this time of the year is when the moon shines at its brightess. Legend has it that in the thirteenth century, Chinese used mooncakes as a medium to hide messages to spread the plan of revolt against the Mongolian rulers. There's actually other legends behind the Mooncake festival, but I won't go into it anymore.

molded mooncakes before baking

my cookie stamp mold

Mooncakes are pastries that are as big as a human palm that is filled with sweet dense fillings. Traditional fillings are lotus seed paste with salted yolk on the center, sweet black bean paste, and mixture of pickled melon and nuts. There's also another version of mooncake, which is called snow-skin mooncake. This was created around the 1980's. The snow-skin mooncake has a soft outer cover that is made from glutinous rice. There are now loads of modern versions of mooncakes from durian filled to ice cream filled, basically more choices now to choose from especially in countries like Singapore and Indonesia.

Back to my version, I used pate brisee for my pastry and apple walnut cinnamon for the filling. I don't think the pastry was the right choice though, because it didn't hold the engraving from my cookie stamp. Yes, I used cookie stamp instead of a traditional mooncake mold. I was actually optimistic to find a wooden mooncake mold here in Korea because they have a similar dessert that uses a similar mold. Indeed I found a wooden mooncake mold, but the price made my heart drop! About $90 for a wooden mold! I wasn't prepared to pay that, so I improvised with a $10 cookie stamp instead, and I was lucky to find a stamp that has the Chinese character for lucky engraved on it.  It actually worked really well, for my apple pie mini mooncake project!

filling and molding the mooncakes

I'm really happy how this project turned out. Next Mid-Autumn festival I'll try to use the traditional pastry for a mooncake, and try to hunt down a reasonable priced wooden mold!

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte

Daring Bakers' Challenge - September 2010: Decorated Sugar Cookies

Ay yay yay... Just came home from my holidays; been really busy lately that's why my blog has gone quiet for a couple of weeks, but now I'm back just in time to post my DB challenge.

 Blog-checking lines: The September 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Mandy of "What the Fruitcake?!" Mandy challenged everyone to make Decorated Sugar Cookies based on recipes from Peggy Porschen and The Joy of Baking.

  

The theme for the sugar cookies is 'September'; basically whatever September means to you, be it spring, autumn or back to school. For me, this year's September means friendship; my girl-friends and I are in a long distance friendship. We live in different countries (Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Korea and Philippines) now, so having girls night out or coffee dates are close to none. One of my girls, CT, got married this September, and everyone, including me, made sure we're all complete for the special day... reunion at last!

I was actually thinking of what to bake for the girls as a little something from me. So this challenge was really handy. I gave the girls personalized cookies by piping their initials on the cookies. Piping job is not an easy task at all. I absolutely respect sugar cookie decorators because this job involves a lot of patience, creativity and precision. My first reaction when I saw this challenge was - 'easy'. I was proven completely wrong! I definitely have loads of improvement to do with my piping. Despite the nonidentical pipings, the cookies tasted fabulous. I baked some extra for personal munching!

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte

Rugelach

As I mentioned in one of my previous post, I have quite some supply of cream cheese. Well just two packs actually, but for two people it can stretch to bountiful delights. So far I was able to produce tiramisu, cheesecake, red velvet cupcakes, and hazelnut praline cream cheese ice cream. Now to consume the last remains of the cream cheese, I decided to make rugelach to give to our friends, L&M, as a little something to congratulate them for their new abode.

The word rugelach derives from the Yiddish word rugel, which means royal. Rugelach is a Jewish cookie that is shaped similar to a bite-size croissant. The cookie is made out of a cream cheese cookie dough, and filled with jam, nuts, fruits, poppy seeds, cinnamon, chocolate or raisins.

My rugelach that I filled with chocolate

I learned of this cookie way back when I was a teen. My sister J was the one who shared this delight to me. I was lucky enough that she still got the recipe, so I was able to relive the luscious taste that's been lingering on my taste memory bank for so long. Taste memory bank... umm, is there such thing? Anyway... I seemed to have this impression that the cookie had a distinct cream cheese taste, but I have remembered totally wrong. Guess my taste memory is a little rusty!

A shortbread cookie, that's what rugelach taste similar to. I think that's why my H adored it because he does love his shortbread cookies. Even if I recalled the taste of rugelach wrong, my impression of it hasn't changed. It's definitely a classic treat that anyone would have a hard time resisting to not nibble on.

Bisou bisou,

Charlotte