Portuguese Egg Tarts

This has been on my "To Do List" for the longest of time -Portuguese Egg Tarts! I do love to eat them! The reason why I took so long if I make 20 tarts at a time, how is Jerome & I going to finish everything on our own when Jerome already said that he doesn't like egg tarts... and of course, the folding of the puff pastry seems to be quite challenging.

Hence, when the everyone's coming for tea last Sunday, I grabbed the opportunity to finally make them. I have my guinea pigs :P And thanks to You Tube, I managed to see exactly how to make the puff pastry.

I used the recipe from Alex Goh's "Irresistible Pastry" and I still had leftover puff pastry.

Portuguese Egg Tarts Hot from the oven...

A closer look at the not too beautiful tarts...

I need more practice...

Caramelized Egg Custard

Flaky Puff Pastry & Soft Egg Custard...

Thinking of having some again :P

I'm glad that the egg tarts tasted better than they looked. Even Jerome changed his mind about egg tarts. He loves them now :) Well, maybe just for Portuguese Egg Tarts. I should be making them again soon...

Preparing for Goh Family Gathering For Tea

Last Sunday, we had the Goh family gathering at our place. This was really a rare occasion when all the family members gathered. The last time was during our wedding 4 years ago. Jerome's younger brother and family returned for a 3 weeks visit from Perth, Australia. He is a lecturer at Curtin University. Jerome's elder sister ,who is an A/Professor at Ohio State University,  returned from Ohio, USA for a month visit.

The family gathering consisted of 9 adults and 5 children. Jerome felt that it would be difficult to manage a proper meal (lunch or dinner) for such a big group. So far the largest I've managed was a dinner for 8 adults during Mother's Day and another dinner for 6 adults and 2 children for my Father-In-Law's birthday.  Our dining table just can't accommodate so many people at one seating. Hence, Jerome decided that we would just have a gathering for tea. He wanted to tabao some curry puffs and other stuff from Old Chang Kee. He didn't want too much trouble and wanted to keep things easy.

But his wife was grabbing this opportunity to try some new recipes... and to do more baking... :P

On Friday afternoon, it was my most productive day.
 I made some choux pastry and baked some puffs and eclairs shells.

Puffs Shells

Eclairs Shells

After that, I baked a jar of double chocolate chips cookies. 

A jar of double chocolate chips cookies

After dinner, I went on to bake some cinnamon buns. 

This is a tested recipe and I know that the children love them.

Soft Cinnamon Rolls hot from the oven...

We spent almost the entire day out on Saturday and returned home only after dinner. I only had time to bake a sponge cake. And I had no idea on how to decorate the cake yet. I had forgotten to buy strawberries and that was the easiest way to decorate any cake...

Sunday morning, I woke up at 7.30am and it seemed mission impossible to get everything ready for tea at 3p.m. At this point in time, only the cinnamon rolls are ready to be served after some heating in the oven. 

First I whipped up some fresh cream and made some vanilla cream and filled up the eclairs. Then I melted some chocolate and covered the top. Item #2, the vanilla cream and chocolate eclairs, on the menu done!

Vanilla Cream & Chocolate Eclairs

And since I had some vanilla cream left over, I decided to use it  on the sponge cake. And in between working on the durian puffs, the logan and lychee fruit cake was born. 

Logan & Lychee Fruit Cake

And shortly after, the durian puffs were also ready.

Durian Cream Puffs

It was 10am and I had the following ready:

1) Cinnamon Rolls

2) Logan & Lychee Fruit Cake

3) Durian Puffs

4) Vanilla Cream & Chocolate Eclairs

5) Chocolate Chips Cookies

And I still had the most important thing that I needed to do... my first attempt at puff pastry for Portuguese Egg Tarts! While I was busy folding my puff pastry, Jerome was involved in a minor accident where he 'smashed' his own feet with the bench while vacuuming the floor. There was a huge swell on his foot and I almost wanted to call for an ambulance. I finally felt the importance of having a license to drive. After 2 ice packs and the swelling has gone down a bit, I finally completed my Portuguese Egg Tarts!

Portugese Egg Tart 

with Flaky Puff Pastry Skin and Caramelized Egg Custard

Everything was new except the cinnamon rolls which were tried and tested...

Anyway, I was ready to serve tea :)

Longan & Lychee Fruit Cake

This was another 'production' for the Goh family gathering for tea on Sunday. Baked a sponge cake on Saturday night and was ready to decorate it with fresh cream and strawberries but I have forgotten to buy the strawberries and I was so busy doing & baking other stuff to make another trip to the supermarket to buy it. So I looked inside the cupboard and found a can of lychees and a can of longans. And I decided to try something new... Longan & Lychee Fruit Cake! Was keeping my fingers crossed as I didn't know how it might eventually taste. 

It didn't look spectacular, really kind of plain. Fortunately, the taste was its saving grace. My mum-in-law was praising it. Jerome said it was the best cake I've made so far. He seemed to be saying this all the time :P Jerome had 2 slices and I wished I had too... 

How to Make a Fruit Jelly Top Cake/ Fruit Flan Cake?

1) Bake a traditional sponge cake. Allow to cool & chill , then cut it horizontally into halves.

2) Whipped up some fresh cream (whipped topping cream).

3) Spread some fresh cream on half the cake. Place cut lychee chunks generously over the fresh cream. Spread more fresh cream to cover the lychees. 

4) Place the other half of the cake on top. Cover the entire cake with fresh cream. Chill.

5) Prepare the jelly mixture. Boil the syrup from the can of logans with additional 100ml of water. Add 20g of instant jelly powder. Stir until solution is clear and remove from heat. Allow to cool, but not solidify.

6) Place an adjustable cake ring around the cake and arrange the longans or other fruits on the cake. 

7) Slowly and gently pour the jelly mixture over the cake and fruits. 

8) Chill in the fridge till the jelly set. Remove the cake ring. 

9) You might want to add baked almond slices around the sides of the cake.

10) Enjoy the cake chilled :)

Chocolate Eclairs

Prepare some choux pastry, use star nozzle and pipe 5cm lengths on the baking sheets.
Bake and cool the shells.
Whipped up some vanilla cream and pipe into the cooled baked puffs.
Coat the top with melted chocolate.
And you'll have chocolate eclairs!

Durian Puffs

Made some durian puffs last Sunday morning for a family gathering for tea break. Tried to make the puffs on Friday just to make sure they worked out.

Durian paste oozing out from the puff...

Best served chilled... Can't seem to have enough...

Choux Pastry Recipe

For Durian Cream:

Just remove the flesh from a few durians and blend them with a food processor. 

Whipped up some fresh cream and mix a little at a time with the durian puree. 

Taste and add more fresh whipped cream as needed.
(You should have more durian than whipped cream!)

Fill the durian cream into a pastry bag fitted with a round nozzle and pipe the filling into the puffs.

And there you have your durian puffs!

Easy? Yes, it was! :)

I had some durian cream left over, so I'm going to make another Durian Durian cake!

Choux Pastry

Was preparing for tea for a family gathering and decided to make some choux pastry to make some durian puffs and chocolate eclairs... Just 1 dough to make 2 different kinds of pastry. Yeah!

choux pastry puffs shells

choux pastry eclairs shell

Durian Puffs

Chocolate Eclair

Recipe for Choux Pastry

(makes about 20 puffs and 30 eclairs)

100g butter

250g water

1 tsp sugar

a pinch of salt

150g flour

3 eggs

1) Bring water to boil. Add butter, sugar and salt. 

2) Stir well until butter has melted. 

3) Add flour and mix to form a smooth paste.

4) Use the electric mixer to beat the smooth paste till it's lukewarm. 

5) Add egg 1 at a time, beating well with each addition. 

6) Place batter into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle (Wilton #21). Pipe desired shapes onto a greased pan. 

7) Bake at 200dc for 20-25 minutes. 

Cinnamon Buns

Just baked these cinnamon buns, preparing them for the family gathering for tea on Sunday :)
This is the 3rd time I'm baking them in 2 weeks. I know the children love them.

Recipe for Cinnamon Buns

(makes 12)

Ingredients:

(A)

125g warm milk (I used warm water instead)

50g sugar

5g dry active yeast

(B)

1 egg, room temperature

35g melted butter

(C) Sift

300g bread flour 

(D) Mix

40g melted butter

60g brown sugar

6g ground cinnamon

chopped pecan nuts (optional)

Method:

1) Dissolve sugar in warm milk/water. Stir in the yeast. Let the mixture stand for 10mins, or till it is foamy.

2) Stir in (B). Add flour. Use dough hooks of beater and mix well till dough ball is formed.
3) Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and give it another good knead for another 5-10 minutes. Add a little more flour as necessary to prevent sticking.

4) Heat oven to 100 degrees & switch off. Place dough in a greased glass bowl. Cover bowl with a moist towel and leave in oven for 1hr or till dough has doubled.

5) Roll dough flat. Trim dough into a rectangular shape. (The trimmed off dough can make another 2-3 buns)
Spread the cinnamon-sugar-butter (D) over the dough and sprinkle chopped pecan nuts all over. 

6) Roll up dough & cut into small pieces. Place rolls on greased pan, leaving space for expansion. Cover & let the dough rise for 30 mins, or double.

7) Bake at 200 degrees in pre-heat oven for 15 mins or till golden brown.

8) Enjoy your cinnamon buns hot & soft. To keep, let them cool & put in air-tight container & keep in the fridge. Just need to reheat before serving.

Enjoy!

Bird Nest Soup

Bird Nest Soup is a delicacy in Chinese cuisine, some called it the 'caviar of the east'.  It is actually the saliva of the swiftlets that are used to make their nests. I remember when I was young, my mother  would be spending hundreds on buying birds nest to cook bird nest soup for the family. It was really a rare treat then. Now, we have them almost every week :P

About 5 years ago, my father got into a swiftlet farming craze. With a kilogramme of the nests costing up to $2000, it's easy to see why swiftlet farming has become very popular. My father decided to buy a plot of land in Malaysia and build a swiftlet farm. The swiftlets came and the bird nests started coming in gradually. He managed to convince Jerome that this is a viable business that can be invested in and it requires minimal monitoring. Basically you just build a multi-storey building, play the calls of the swiftlets using a good sound system, and 'invite' the swiftlets to build nests in your farm. After the baby chicks hatch, grow and leave the nest, you can then collect the nests.

Hence, we decided to buy a 3-storey shophouse and converted 2 levels into a swiftlet farm. Glad to say that we have had our first harvest of about 30 nests in the beginning of the year. It will be a few more years before we can start selling the nests. Now, it's just enough for our own personal consumption. But before we can really enjoy the fruits of our labour, there's a lot of work to be done...

Look at all these feathers, you can't eat them, can you? You can't pull out the feathers now as they're stuck to the harden nests.

So first, we need to soak them in water until the nests are soft.

After about 2 hrs, the nests are soft...

Pour everything into a sieve and wash it under the running tap to get rid of the small bits of egg shells and feathers. This will help to clear up the 'mess' faster...

Using a pair of long tweezers, you can then start removing the fathers bit by bit, feather by feather. 

You will need a few bowls of water to do this. 

After 2 hours, no more feathers!

(Removing the feathers is a time-consuming and almost 'back breaking' process, so you can see that's why the bird nests have been in storage for over 6 months now :P)

Can't see the bird's nest as well?

Here, drain out the water... 

Looks like jelly...

Bird's nest on its own is quite tasteless, you'll need other ingredients...

red dates, pao sheng (American Ginseng slices), rock sugar...

Pour everything + water into a double boiler...

30 minutes later, enjoy your birds' nest soup...

you deserve it... or rather I deserve it :P

I have some leftover... Put in the fridge...

And tomorrow cold bird nest soup!

Benefits of Birds' Nest: High in protein & amino acids, aids in digestion, good for complexion, promotes growth & tissue repairs.