Rosette Cookies / Kuih Rose / Kuih Loyang / 蜂窝饼

I was gifted with the rosette mould last year, tested it and it wasn't successful. For Chinese New Year, I thought I give it a go again and have to say I am getting the hang of how it works. I am happy with the results.

Recipe : https://mykitchen101en.com/how-to-make-thin-and-crispy-honeycomb-cookies-kuih-loyang-rosette-cookies/

Chinese New Year : Peanut filled pockets { Kok chai }

We're 11th day into Chinese New Year but these deep-fried snacks had finished long ago! :D

These turned out as I remembered, crispy with sweet peanut filling. I couldn't stop munching on them.

Kok Chai

Recipe via Malaysian Chinese Kitchen
serves :  32 mini puffs

Ingredients

For dough

300g all-purpose flour 

0.5 tsp salt  

120ml vegetable oil 

160ml water

For Peanut Filling

½ cup (75g) raw peanuts 

2 tbsp (18g) sesame seeds  

¼ cup (53g) sugar

• Instructions
  

  Filling

  1. Toast peanuts in a small fry pan over medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes until lightly brown. Remove and allow peanuts to cool. Coarsely chop or grind peanuts.
  2. Toast sesame seeds in the same pan for 1 to 2 minutes until lightly brown.
  3. Combine peanuts, sesame seeds, and sugar in a medium bowl. Mix well and set aside.

  Dough

  1. Combine all-purpose flour (rice flour, if usinand salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center. Pour vegetable oil into the well. Mix with a spatula. Slowly add water a little at a time to form a soft, non-sticky dough. You may or may not require the full ⅓ cup (80ml) water.
  2. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead on a clean work surface for 3 to 4 minutes. Form dough into a ball and place it back into the bowl. Cover with a towel and allow dough to rest for 10 minutes.
  3. Remove dough from the bowl and shape into a cylinder about 12 inches long. Cut dough into 16 equal size pieces.

  Forming the Mini Puffs

  1. Take a piece of dough and shape it into a circle of about 2½ inches in diameter by rotating and flattening the edges. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center.
  2. Fold the dough into a semi circle. Seal by pressing and pleating the edges together. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

  Frying the Mini Puffs

  1. Heat about an inch of vegetable oil in a wok to fry everything at one go or a small saucepan to fry in batches.
  2. Deep fry mini puffs over medium low heat for 4 to 5 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and allow mini puffs to drain in a metal strainer.
  3. Allow kok chai (mini peanut puffto cool completely before storing in air tight containers for up to 2 weeks.
   

Chinese New Year dishes : Yusheng / Yee Sang / 鱼生

I love this "salad" dish with raw or smoked fish during Chinese New Year. The crispy crunch of the fried wonton, contrast with the fresh fish and vegetable toss in plum sauce is my idea of heaven!

For recipe, please refer to my recipe from last year.

Spiral Mooncake

On mid-autumn festival, it is tradition to share and consume moon cakes for the Chinese and Vietnamese community. Different Chinese provinces have different types of moon cakes. For this year, I am attempting the Teochew spiral/swirl moon cake.

After 2 attempts at this spiral pastry technique, as you can see, it was unsuccessful. My oil dough was crumbly and I wasn't sure how to remedy it. Add more oil to bring it together? I'll definitely have to try to do a better job perfecting this technique by the next mid-autumn festival!

Notes:-

1) I am inserting the exact texts from both links as mentioned below for my own future reference.

2) I have halved the recipe for the dough which makes about 16 medium-size mooncakes

3) I have made the full custard recipe; which is sufficient.

4) To make egg custard filling ahead to let it cool before preparing the dough part.

Spiral moon cake

For the pastry (recipe via House of Annie )

Ingredients:
Water Dough (A)
200g unbleached all-purpose flour
28g icing sugar
pinch of salt
80g cold butter
80g water
Oil Dough (B)
180g unbleached all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
90g oil (I use canola)
½ tsp pandan essence (sub. with almond extract)

Method:
1. For the water dough, sift flour, sugar and salt. Then cut butter into flour mixture using fingertips or pastry blender until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add in water and mix to form a soft, non-sticky dough. If it is sticky, you will need to add a bit more flour to get it to be the right texture. You should be able to form a soft ball that won’t stick to your hands. You don’t have to knead it. Cover and set aside to rest for 20 mins.
2. For the oil dough, sift flour and salt. Then, make a well in the centre of the flour and add in oil and pandan essence. Draw in the flour from the sides and mix to form a soft even coloured dough (same thing here, if it’s too sticky, add more dough till you form a soft ball that doesn’t stick to your hands). Do not over-mix. Cover and set aside for 20 mins.
To assemble and bake:
3. Preheat oven to 185 C or 350 F.
4. Divide A and B into 10 equal balls.
5. Taking one piece of (A), flatten and wrap (B) in it. Pinch to seal edges.
6. With the sealed side facing up, roll into a rectangle.
7. Roll up like a snail to form a ‘cylinder’, turn the cylinder 90 degrees, with the end facing up.
8. Roll again into a long thin strip.
9. Using a sharp knife or a pastry cutter, cut the cylinder in the middle into two pieces.
10. With the cut side facing down, flatten the dough, making the edges slightly thinner than the centre. I tend to leave a little hump in the center so that when the filling is wrapped around the pastry, the dough will be evenly thick all around (looks like a Mexican sombrero).
11. Wrap the filling and pinch to seal. Try not to ‘tug/pull’ too hard, otherwise the layers will tear. Best to flatten the dough larger than smaller so it’s easier to pinch. And when you pinch, you will find that the bottom looks ugly—don’t worry about it.

For Egg Custard filling (via MaomaoMom)
3 extra large egg yolks,
½ cup sugar (105g)
1/3 cup+1 tbsp milk (88g)
3 tbsp all purpose flour (34g)
(B)
2.5 tbsp dry milk powder (14g)
2.5 tbsp butter (35g)

1) Place all ingredients (A) in a medium size microwave safe bowl, whisk well with a fork-
2) Add in the same bowl, all ingredients (B)
3) Place the bowl in the microwave , heat on high for 40 seconds. Stir the content and then heat for 30 seconds, reheat with 20 second intervals until fully cooked. Let it cool then divide into 12 equal portions. Form into balls with both palms then set aside and continue to start the mooncake dough

Homemade Yee Sang / Yusheng 鱼生

To understand what this is all about , please visit wiki
Homemade Yee Sang / Yusheng
Ingredients
carrots, julienned
daikon, julienned (I've used local white radish)
cucumber, julienned
pomelo segments then into pieces (I've substitute with grapefruits) 
+ and other crispy vegetables to your liking
raw salmon (I've used smoked)
friend wonton skin (I've homemade based on this recipe by kitchen simplicity  )
Garnish
pinch of 5-spice powder
pince of white pepper

pickled Japanese ginger (I've made my own by shred ginger finely+water+brown sugar+salt+vinegar)
Salad dressing
Plum sauce (I've used apricot jam)
sesame oil
1 lime juice
pickling juice from ginger
Methods :-
1) Prep. the ingredients the vegetables and fruit. Put the prepped veg., pomelo, fried wonton skin and salmon in a bowl or arrange nicely on a plate. Sprinkle on the seasoning. Mix all the salad dressing ingredients together. Drizzle salad dressing all over the bowl/plate. Check seasoning, adjust if need to. Mix well and serve.

Baked spring rolls

On Chinese New Year, my family would make spring rolls; a favourite of mine because I love fried foods. Chinese spring rolls as far as my knowledge goes, is deep fried. The spring roll wrappers could be bought at the wet market or the frozen section of the super/hyper market. These wrappers are moist and must be kept moist until ready to use unlike the dry rice wrappers for the Vietnamese spring rolls.
For this occasion, since the Chinese spring roll wrappers are not available to me, I've used the Vietnamese dried type. Filling for spring rolls for me growing up only consisted of carrots,jicama, dried shrimp stir fried. I've noticed many add mince meat but. that is completely up to you. Just make sure the fillings are not too wet.
Once stir fried vegetable and meat have been cooled. Pre-heat oven at 180°c.
Soak Vietnamese spring roll wrapper one wrapper at a time in cold water, lay flat and fill it up with filling. wrap. brush with cooking oil. place on baking tray with parchment paper. Repeat process until fillings is finish. Once wrapping done, sprinkle sesame seeds on top of each spring roll. Place in oven and bake for 15 mins. check if the skin is crispy. if it is, then it is done. Otherwise, keep baking until skin is crisp.
serve hot with any Asian dipping sauce of your choice.

Pineapple Tarts II

These melt-in-the-mouth tarts are a must during the Chinese New Year; which falls on Feb 19, this year. To make this recipe even easier, I've replaced fresh pineapple with canned ones.

Pineapple Tarts

via IndochineKitchen

Yield 700 g cookies

Ingredients:

For pineapple jam 2 kg pineapple, roughly 4 medium sized pineapples 600 g sugar 3 cloves 5 cm cinnamon stick For cookies 200 g butter 50 g confectioners' sugar 40 g powdered milk 280 g flour, low gluten or all purpose 20 g cornflour 2 egg yolks For egg wash 3 egg yolks 1/4 tsp condensed milk

Directions:

For pineapple jam Puree pineapple in an electric blender till smooth. Combine puree with sugar, cloves and cinnamon stick in a pot. Cook over low heat for 3-4 hours, stirring continually. When it thickens and can be piped or rolled, remove from heat. The jam will thicken during cooling. Prepare this one day in advance. You will end up with 500-600 g pineapple jam, enough for one batch. For cookies Preheat oven to 150 degree Celsius Sift flour, powdered milk and corn flour twice. In a mixer bowl, combine butter and sugar. Cream till light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes, over high speed. Add egg yolk, one at a time. Beating well. Add flour mixture into the bowl and beat over low speed using paddle attachment. Do this for 4-5 minutes, until everything is mixed well. Work with 50 g of dough one at a time. Roll dough between plastic sheet to 0.2 cm thickness. Pipe pineapple jam on top of the dough. Roll the dough to cover up the jam completely. Use a pair of scissors to cut them up into 4cm log and arrange on greased pan. Brush with egg wash mixture twice using small pastry brush. Bake in preheated oven till golden, 15-20 minutes. Let cool and store in airtight container.

Mixed nuts mookcake 月饼

Pardon the indelicate looking mooncakes :D If you couldn't tell, they were supposed to be rose shape! For a while, it looked great until I egg-washed it and return it to the oven for the second bake.
Never mind the shape, because I am very happy with the results seeing that this is my first ever batch of baked mooncakes :) As highlighted in the title, after baking these need to sit for two days in a container before the date of serving.
As per usual, I've combined 2 recipes for this bake. Here are the links and I suggest you go direct to the links for detailed tutorials as the texts below are mainly for my future reference.
 
Mixed Nuts Mooncake
Ingredients
For the pastry
via Kirbie's Cravings
100 grams all purpose flour
60 grams golden syrup (I used Honey)
1/2 tsp alkaline water (forgotten to get this at the store, so I've mix a little water with baking soda)
28 grams vegetable oil
1 egg (for eggwash)
 
1. In a large bowl, mix the golden syrup, alkaline water and oil. Sift in the flour and stir until all ingredients mixed. Gently knead the dough with hands until it comes together. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 40 minutes. *Note : 20 mins. into resting time, start pre-heating the oven at 180°c/350°F/Gas4.
2. Take 35 grams of dough, roll into a ball, then flatten with a rolling pin. Roll until dough is very thin and big enough to wrap around the 65 gram of filling. Take 65 gram of filling, make into a ball and put in the center of the dough. Wrap dough around the filling until it is a thin layer covering the entire filling, and seal dough around filling. You may need to roll and maneuver the dough a little to completely cover the filling. One side of your dough ball will be somewhat lumpy from connecting the ends together. The other side should be smooth.
3. Place mooncakes on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silpat mat, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 20-25 minutes. About five minutes before mooncakes are ready, remove and quickly brush the mooncake tops with egg wash. Place back in oven and bake until golden brown, about 5-10 minutes.
4. Let mooncakes cool. Place in container and let sit for about 2 days. This will allow the mooncake skin to soften and become darker and developer a shiny exterior from the oils being released.

For the filling
via youtube  Helena's Recipes
Ingredients (makes 4x200g cakes; or 10x100g, or 8x150g cakes)
*For the filling*
150g mixed nuts, roughly chopped
100g candied lime peel, roughly chopped
100g candied orange peel, roughly chopped
50g ginger jam
150g Chinese sausages, fat rendered and diced
4 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp sesame oil
3 tbsp cooked glutinous rice flour
3 tbsp simple/corn syrup
Since I couldn't exactly find all items listed in the filling above, mine consist of these :-

Shanghai Mooncake 上海月饼

Tomorrow, September 19, Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese celebrate the the Mid-Autumn Festival . Traditionally the day is to celebrate the end of autumn harvest. You can read the legend of the festival from the link given and why moon cake is serve on the day.
There are many variations of moon cakes ; however, for a more manageable bake, I've chosen to try the Shanghai Moon cake. The traditional filling of lotus or bean paste has been replaced with poppy seed paste ; of which I think works well with the pastry. Give it a try!

Shanghai Mooncake
via :Simply Hanushi
Ingredients (Makes 4)
20 g icing sugar
6 g egg, lightly beaten
40 g butter, cubed
60 g plain flour
10 g custard powder (sub. with milk powder)
Some black sesame seeds / pumpkin seeds / melon seeds, for sprinkling
Filling
130 g ground poppy seed (traditionally it is lotus paste, but I couldn't make it in time)
 a little bit of milk
vanilla sugar, to taste
icing sugar, to taste
lemon zest
Method
1. Filling: Heat enough milk to turn ground poppy seed into paste, be careful not too wet. Once heated pour into ground poppy seed, mix in sugars and lemon zest. Mix well and divide into 4 portions and form into balls
2. Sift plain flour and custard powder together. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, sift icing sugar and add in egg and butter. Beat well till well-combined.
4. Add in the flour mixture slowly and knead into a soft dough. Divide into 4 portions of around 35 g.
5. Flatten a piece of dough into a round shape and wrap in a filling. Seal the edges to form into a ball.
6. Place the sealed ends facing downwards on a baking tray. Brush egg wash on the surface and sprinkle with some black sesame seeds / pumpkin seeds / melon seeds on top.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.