Tag Archives: Sweets

Teacup Shortcakes

Dessert, Snacks, Sweets 19 Comments

Hiyaaaa…Rabbit is burying herself in the kitchen and doing weekend baking.

Got this nice tea cup silicon mold as early birthday gift from a friend (thank you Ms. IG for supporting my new passion of baking). Upon browsing for recipe I stumble upon a video from Ochikeron  which happen to share  cupcake/shortcake recipe using the same silicon teacup mold.

Sillicon cupcakes set  Ochikeron

Details of recipe and how to, please click the  above link  to Ochikeron’s video.

I am still struggling with my whipped cream and can’t replicate those nice flower shape from Ochikeron 😦

Strawberry cupcake

Anyone joining me for afternoon tea for four?

Chocolate Mille Crepes

Dessert, Snacks, Sweets 8 Comments

Another Mille Crepes and this time I use chocolate sauce and whipped cream for each other layers to see if I can get a better texture.

Learning from the previous experience, this time I really let all crepes cool down to the same temperature before stacking them and also ensure my whipped cream had reach the soft peak form before I stop whipping them. And the result was better.

Also I divided the 36 crepes into 2 so I get 2 piece of 18 layers crepes instead of 1 with high stack unlike my previous Vanilla mille crepes.

Chocolate Mille Crepe   Choco Mille Crepe

And yes, since some of you had been asking for the recipe , below is the simple crepe recipe :

Serves : 36 crepes (12 cm size)

  • 100 gr cake flour + 1/2 tea spoon  baking powder
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 table spoon  sugar (I prefer the crepe to be not too sweet because the cream and chocolate filling already sweet enough)
  • 2 table spoon melted butter
  • 250 ml milk
  • few drops of vanilla essence (optional)

Shift flour and baking powder , add sugar and eggs and whisked until sugar is melted. Add half of the milk and melted butter, mix well. Shift to remove lumps and add the remaining milk and mix well. Let the batter stand in room temperature for 30 minutes.Then start to make crepe using non sticky pan.

I noticed some cake shop prefer to have  browning texture on the crepe so this time I also copy the method by making some browner and crispier layer and somehow the combination of the texture did enhance the taste.

Bento # 134 – Early Christmas Pancake

Bento, Breakfast, Non meat, Others, Snacks 14 Comments

I woke up by the sounds of loud thunder this morning , it was 6 ish  a.m and the sky looks as if its gonna rain cats and dogs.

Since I can’t go back to sleep I decided to start the day early with proper breakfast and whip myself pancakes.  As usual I can’t resist the temptation not turning them into something cute.

So rather than cutting cheese and other ingredients to beautify them I took the shortcut and decorate them with the Christmas icing that I bought from baking supplies store and tada…. super cute Christmas pancake 🙂

Bento # 134 -Christmas pancake

Bento # 134 -Christmas pancake

Counting days for the coming Christmas and Holidays…..

Bubur Ketan Hitam (Black Glutoniuos Rice Dessert)

Chinese food, Indonesian food, Non meat, Snacks, Sweets 12 Comments

My mum always make sweet dessert as  our snacks on the weekend and I grow up liking and associate them as my comfort food. Today I am sharing one of my fave sweet dessert, bubur ketan hitam.

Bubur ketan hitam   is the Indonesia name for Black Glutinous Rice Deesert , literally is translated as : Black Glutinous porridge. And this type of sweet dessert can be find easily in many South East Asia countries, it have several different names and cooked in a rather similar way.

Ingredients :

  • 250 gr black glutinous rice
  • 2 liter water
  • 100 g sugar (to taste)
  • pinch of salt
  • pandan leaves , tied into a knot
  • Coconut milk : 150 ml coconut milk + some pandan leaves  ,cooked with with 1/4 tsp salt until simmer, set aside to cool.

Steps :

  1. Rinse the black glutinous rice until the water is clear.
  2. Boil water with pandan leaves  a pinch of salt  over high heat and when the water starts steaming, add glutinous rice.
  3. Lower the heat to medium heat and cook for about 60 – 90  minutes uncovered until the grains started to break and water started to thicken. You may add water from time to time to adjust the thickness of the mixture (different heat can resulted to different result of mixture thickness).
  4. Remove the pandan leaves and add sugar to taste, simmer for another 15 minutes.
  5. Remove from heat and let cool.
  6. Serve warm with coconut milk.

Black Glutinous rice dessert

Glutionous rice dessert with coconut milk

This is actually my 2nd attempt in making them,and the recipe above had been modified to get the result as shown at the photos.

The first time I fail because I use the wrong type of black rice  and did not add more water , resulted to glutinous sticky rice instead of the smooth porridge like shown at the photo.

Tau Suan (aka Split Green Bean Sweet Soup)

Breakfast, Chinese food, Dessert, Non meat, Snacks, Sweets 4 Comments

Living in tropical country we only have two seasons, the hot and the rainy. And starting this week we are officially into rainy season .

One of my favourite thing to do during this cool and cloudy day is eating warm and sweet dessert .  For my comfort food today I made “Tau Suan” aka “Split green bean  sweet soup.”

It is a popular Chinese sweet dessert and can be easily found across Asia and it taste very good to goes with “You Tiao/ You Char Kway/ Fried dough fritters), one can eat it as breakfast, dessert, noon snacks or even supper.  In Indonesia some vendor sell it with a little of coconut milk  as additional topping.

This is the first time I made this Tau Suan (get the recipe from mum) and was quite surprised that it is quite easy to cook .

  

Ingredients :

  • 150 – 200 gr of split green bean/mug bean
  • 2-3 pieces of pandan leaves, washed and tied to a knot
  • 50 gr sugar (mum suggest to use rock sugar for better taste, but since I don’t have rock sugar then I use normal white sugar instead)
  • 500 ml water
  • Thickener : 50 gr sweet potato flour mixed with ½ cup of water
  • 1 fried You Tiao (split the set into 2 and cut with scissor into 0.5 cm width)
  • Coconut milk (optional)  : cook 20 ml coconut milk + 30 ml water +  pinch of salt

Steps :

  1. Soak the  bean in water until expand, about 1 hour, drain, rinse with cooked water and drain again.
  2. Steam the beans until they are  cooked/soft but not mushy.
  3. In a pot, cook the water and pandan leaves , add rock sugar when water start to boil and stir until  sugar dissolved.
  4. Reduce the heat and add the steamed beans, stir for about 2 minutes.
  5. Stir  in thickener slowly until the mixture reach the thickeness according to your liking , let it simmer for a while and turn off the heat.
  6. Serve with fried you tiao or drizzle coconut milk into the soup (I forgot to buy you tiao, therefore  my version only have Tau Suan with coconut milk).

Thai Candied Cassava (aka Man-ted Chuame)

Non meat, Sweets, Thai food Leave a comment

There was a Thai festival in the nearby mall last weekend and it had  all about Thailand theme with various range of vendors and activities . The one that attracted me the most of course will be the food section, they have some  famous Thai restaurant putting booths and sell foods and those booths were swamps by dozens of people which eventually discouraged me to participate and buy (I don’t really like to squeeze in a crowd or wait for a long time to be serve) 😦

Anyway to cut it short, because of the festival I develop a sudden crave of Thai Candied Cassava so I decided to make my own. Upon browsing for recipe, I found that most of blog post the same cooking time for the cassava which is approx 2 hours. Hmmm … could it be the real case or probably the recipe was origin from just one source? Anyway no harm to try and I happen to be able to found the supermarket selling Cassava (though I don’t know what is the right criteria in choosing good cassava) , so Cassava, coconut milk and sugar, that’s all I need, everything is set.

I decided to try the recipe from Appon’s Thai Food , she have many range of Thai recipe in her blog.

And below were the photos of my cooking result  (personally I love and can’t resist sweets with coconut milk) so I add the coconut milk cream from other recipe. I also found that after cooking for 1 hour the water start to dry while cassava still quite firm and not candied enough so I add another 1 /2 cup of water and 100 gr sugar on top of the origin recipe from Appon.

This is the final result… Yum…

Thai Candied Cassava with Coconut milk

Below please find the copy paste of recipe and how to from Appon’s blog.

Ingredients  for 4 People

500 gms Cassava
300 gms Sugar ( I add another 100 gr of sugar )
250 ml Water ( I add another 1/2 cup of water)

Preparation
1. Mix sugar with water in a sauce pan, heat until the sugar dissolves.
2. Peel the cassava and chop it into 4cm pieces.
3. Add the cassava into the pan with boiling sugar and cook on a low heat until the sugar just begins to caramelize. Approximately 2 hours.
4. If the cassava has not been properly candied, add more water and continue cooking.

Optional coconut milk cream – from http://www.cookasianfood.com/thailand/thai-dessert-candied-cassava-root/

1/2 Cup Coconut Milk
1/4 Tsp Salt

Put the coconut cream and salt into a small pan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Remove from the heat and pour a little over the Candied Cassava

Food Review : A quest for best rainbow cake in town

Review Leave a comment

Another rising star in cake shops in town, the “rainbow” cake.

The appearance looks attractive with 6 bright colorful layers (for a moment just don’t think of how much amount of food coloring in one piece) and if you don’t eat them that often, should be okay I guess. After the last Red Velvet cake review I try to cut down eating cake so it took me quite a while to compile samples from few shops.

Below please find my finding (personal comment and not sponsored by any brand).

              

   

  

1) Rainbow Cake by Michel’s patisserie

Price / slice : IDR  25,000 (approx USD $ 2.3/ slice) compare to previous  Red Velvet cake review, IDR had been weakening against USD from 1 USD = IDR 9,250 to IDR 9,500.

Same verdict as their Red Velvet. The 6 layered  cake  topped with creamy cheese cream was rather plain to my liking, just cake and cream cheese with no element of surprise. Did not able to finish the piece  and I think I can sense the hint of the food coloring smell in the cake. Anyway compare to the other shops, the price is value for money and might taste better with tea/coffee.

2) Groovy Checkered Cake by Kitchenette

Price / slice : IDR 35,000 (approx USD $ 3.6/slice).

I love the unusual outlook of the cake,  bit different from the standard rainbow cake and I love the  fact that the waitress did not forget to  include the colorful sugar sprinkle (pack separately) for the takeaway. The sugar sprinkle enhance the not too  sweet and light cheese cream while the cake itself is moist and light.

I finish the whole piece by myself, munching all the way while watching my fave TV series.

3) Rainbow cake by Dante / Miki Ojisan

Price per slice : IDR 35,000 (approx USD $ 3.6/slice).

I bought this cake at Dante coffee shop, and for sure it was not produced by the store. Earlier when I sipped my coffee, I kind of spotted a waitress brought in few transparent shopping bags with Miki-Ojisan cheesecake brand (one of the japanese cheesecake pioneer in town).  Nevertheless since I like Miki Ojisan cheese cake, I decided to bought a piece of the rainbow cake for take away and review. And to confirm my suspicion, few days later I spotted the same rainbow cake at Miki-Ojisan outlet. Back to the cake itself, I love the fact that they don’t use too much food coloring compare to other brand.  One bite, you can sense the signature of Miki Ojisan cake, soft and light cake texture blend perfectly with the creamy cheese cream.

4) Rainbow cake by Shokupan

Price per slice : IDR 12,500 (approx USD $1.3/slice).

Unlike the other cake shop/cafe who display the rainbow cake in chiller, this cake from Shokupan  (Japanese bakery) was in plastic wrap and display among other sponge cake and breads. The cheapest rainbow cake in town but don’t let the economic price mislead you. The taste of this rainbow cake is really good, like the common Japanese sponge cake, the texture is soft and light and you can smell a hint of lemon in the cake. I love the thin layer of sweet cheese cream which compliment the cake and also the fact that of light using of food coloring.

5) Rainbow cake from Liberica

Price / slice : IDR 55,000 (approx USD $ 5.8)

They come in 2 version, the standard vanilla  version and the chocolate version. Never seen the chocolate rainbow cake version before so I decided to bought  both piece to try. The cake size was not as big as the other brands considering the price were the most expensive one. The chocolate version was  a little shorter than the vanilla version,despite they have same 6 layers, the chocolate cake was thinner (could it because of the chocolate cream was heavier and press down the thickness of the cake ?).

Despite the size the overall cake outlook were okay, I like the confetti topping on the chocolate and the colorful chocolate flakes on the vanilla, however  I will say that I kind of disappointed that the price did not represent the taste of the cake. Both cake texture were dry and rough despite I eat them immediately after I reach home and took the picture (which was approx 15 minutes them out from the store’s chiller), seems that the cake had been stored in the chiller for more than 2 days. The cake itself have hint of fruity smell, probably the food coloring contain some fruit essence . The chocolate cream (taste a bit like thick choco mouse)  was actually good , if only it was compliment with soft and moist cake texture.  While  on the vanilla version the thin cream cheese just can’t improve anything of the cake. I just took a bite of each and the rest of them goes direct to the trash bin, I think the store need to improve their QC and should implement daily fresh cake policy considering they are a quite establish coffee shop chain in town.

 

Well that’s all for the part 1 review.

Just a question to ponder : Why all those rainbow cake must have 6 layers or 6 colors? And all this time I thought rainbow got 7 colors?

Taiyaki (Japanases fish shape cake)

Japanese food, Non meat, Snacks, Sweets 20 Comments

I love eating Taiyaki, the hot waffle- like pastry stuffed with various ingredients such as azuki read bean paste,chocolate, cheese, or others. Been wanting to try making taiyaki ever since I saw a tutorial from Youtube,  but the challenge is to find the pan because using other similar pan in different shape  will lose the meaning of the name and won’t feel like Taiyaki, so when I spotted the fish shape pan at the least expected place, which is hardware store, I immediately add it to my cart.,

So today Taiyaki  was based on the recipe and how to from cookingwithdog. I always love the recipe from cookingwithdog, because the portion is just right for 1-2 person and the how to make video was really good quality and with clear cooking details.

Japanese Taiyaki

I substitute the red/white beans  filling with Kaya and peanut butter sauce and made my own cake flour (referred to information from internet )

Useful tips from my experience  :

  1. not to put too much filling into the batter, I try to put as much as the one I saw in the video, but the filling leaked out and ruin the fish shape (guess that my taiyaki pan might be in smaller size than the cookingwithdog).
  2. to make 1 cup cake flour : measure 1 cup all purpose flour then take out 2 tablespoon flour. Replace the 2 tablespoon flour  with  2 table spoon  cornstarch flour. Shift the flour and cornstarch together.

Below please find the copy paste of the recipe from cookingwithdog Youtube

Taiyaki batter :

  • 100 g cake flour
  • 2/3 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tbsp Sugar
  • 1/2 egg (30g)
  • 100 ml water

Other details, please check the link above. Thanks.

Bento # 73 – Monkey Bento

Bento, Non meat, Others, Snacks Leave a comment

Many of my non-bento making friends had been expressing their liking for my bento (those that I posted on my BB picture profile every other day) and they had been showing those photos to their kids, resulted kids asking the mum to make for them. But then read again the earlier statement “non-bento making friends” means mummy  don’t make bento but will ask the nice auntie for one 🙂

So since few weekends ago it had becoming a habit of me making pancake bento for friend’s kids whenever they are meeting me on weekend.  And this week Monkeys bento went to Marvel (5) and Jennifer (2).

Bento # 73 – Monkeys Bento

The pancake were decorated with milk cheese and cheddar cheese, this time I try not to use nori to decorate the faces so when I made the pancake , I also made few small drops of the batter to get the small round shape for eyes and ears. For the mouth I cut them from other piece of pancake.  Separately I made 2 pieces of Rilakkuma pancake for Jennifer , did not  take any picture as I was rushing for the meeting and Rilakkuma was not a new theme and had been posted before. I was smiling from ear to ear like the monkey when Marvel call me on the phone expressing his liking for the cute pancake.

Friends who live in Jakarta and  follow me on this blog, now  you know better when to set up brunch or lunch appointment with me 🙂

Cheers.

i

Spicy Maple Corn Fritters

Appetizers, Non meat, Others, Snacks, Sweets 6 Comments

Today dish is Spicy Maple Corn Fritters, I saw this recipe from fellow blogger friend, Jen from http://www.savorysimple.net.

I was curious to try because all this time the corn fritters that I ever taste and cook were savory type , never try any sweet fritters so the name of this dish really intrigue me.

Here is the result of my Spicy Maple Corn Fritters, they are yummy.

Spicy Maple Corn fritters

And here is the copy paste of the recipe from http://www.savorysimple.net/spicy-maple-corn-fritters/

Spicy Maple Corn Fritters

Active Time: 15 minutes

Inactive Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 25 minutes

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • 4 cups fresh or frozen corn
  • A neutral, high heat oil such as vegetable or canola
  • Powdered sugar for garnish

Method

  1. Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cayenne pepper.
  2. Whisk in the eggs, milk, and maple syrup.
  3. Fold in the corn.
  4. Heat the oil to 365 degrees F in a deep fryer or large pot.
  5. Gently drop in small spoonfuls of the batter and allow to cook on each side until golden brown.
  6. Allow to drain on paper towels.
  7. Serve immediately. Sift powdered sugar on top before serving.

Notes