Raisin tea loaf

From Liliforberg 

Ingredients

200g (approx 1C) raisins

1C (approx 240ml) black tea or substitute with 1C orange juice

⅓ C (70g) brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp mixed spice

1 tsp vanilla

80g butter

250g self-raising flour

½ tsp salt

Method

1. Make 1 cup of tea or use 1 C orange juice. Soak 1 C raisins. (use same coffee mug-sized cup to measure) 

2. Once the mixture is cool, add in the egg.

3. Add and mix the rest of the ingredients. Fold in the flour.

4. To lined loaf tin, pour in the mixture. Bake in a loaf tin on 170deg C for 47 mins (up to 60 mins depending on oven) until skewer comes out clean.

5. Cool completely before cutting otherwise it gets crumbly! Serve with more butter. Can keep outside fridge in cool weather. Toast to reheat and slather with butter!

Claypot glutinous rice

Since my earliest attempts to recreate the claypot effect in a rice cooker,  and then I tried to cook lor mai gai in the IP (and even bought an IP suitable pot to do so), I could never get the texture of the rice just right or get the chicken correctly cooked (neither over nor under cooked).  My suspicion was that the water and oil content exuded from the chicken is a wildcard that is very hard to accurately gauge.

After reading and trying out this method for glutinous rice where the key lay in NOT overly soaking the rice, I decided to try again but this time in a proper upscaled rice cooker. I realised that most recipes that required soaking glutinous rice for 4 hours or even overnight was because they wanted to steam the rice. In a rice cooker, it's immersed in water and boiling in water, so the glutinous rice can easily turn to mush. 

I decided not to include in too many elements and ditched the chicken, just working with lap cheong and mushrooms for flavouring. In addition, my rice cooker has a special pot which apparently can re-create the burnt bottom of a clay pot. It was either the Claypot setting or the Firewood setting and I decided to try the latter setting. Success!

Ingredients

2 cups of glutinous rice, soaked for 1.5 hour only

About a handful of dried shitake mushrooms, soaked

2 tbsp of shrimp skins or rehydrated dried shrimp

1 Chinese rice bowl of water (not all will be used)

1 tbsp light soya sauce

1 tbsp dark soya sauce

2 tsp oyster sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp chicken bullion powder

1 tbsp Chinese rose wine (to give it a special flavour that goes well with pork)

4 links of lap cheong, sliced thinly

4 cloves of garlic, sliced into thin cross-sections

1 stalk of spring onion, chopped and separate white from green parts

2 eggs, beaten

Pinch of salt

1 tsp sesame oil for garnishing

Method

1. Wash and soak the glutinous rice for 1 to 1.5 hours; no more than 1.5 hrs. At the same time, soak the dried mushrooms in the bowl of water. Also soak the dried shrimp now if using.

2. Prepare the mixing sauce, mixing the soya sauces, sugar, and oyster sauce. 

3. Once the mushrooms have softened, remove the stalks and slice if too large. Mince the dried shrimp if using. Reserve the soaking water.

4. Lightly fry the white parts of the chopped spring onion, drained mushrooms, lapcheong and shrimp skins/dried shrimp until fragrant.

5. In the rice cooker, lay the sliced garlic cross-sections at the bottom of the pot. This causes the garlic to go jammy from the pot's heat.

6. Layer on the lapcheong, shrimp skins/shrimp and mushroom slices. Try to keep them in 1 layer.

7. Drain and add the drained rice. Try to flatten into a concave layer (flatten against the ingredients). The aim is to keep the rice as far above the water as possible so that it's steaming rather than boiling. For 2 cups of rice, use 1⅓ C of mushroom soaking water. If there isn't enough liquid, top up with water. (for 3 cups of rice, use 2 C of water). Set to Claypot function. 

8. Once the rice cooker beeps (only beeps when using the Claypot Pot function), drizzle on the mixing sauce but DO NOT mix. Careful, the steam is hot!

9. Meanwhile, make an omelette with the eggs and pinch of salt. Allow to cool then slice into ribbons and set aside.

10. Once the rice is cook, use the Stay Warm function and allow to rest for another 5 to 10 minutes.

11. Mix well. Garnish with the greens of the spring onion, drizzle on sesame seed oil, and top with omelette ribbons. Serve immediately.

Recipe feedback

- Success! The Claypot function worked beautifully and I even had a burnt bottom and jammy sweet garlic slices!

Red bean snowskin mooncakes

Trying out different skin flavours - blueberry (boiling 1 tbsp of frozen blueberry without water then mashing and using the juice to colour), cocoa, pandan (essence) and red colouring.

Wrapper filling recipe adapted from DessertGirlFirst which uses custard filling with custard powder and egg yolks. While the proportions for this recipe were prefect for 75g mooncake molds, it used condensed milk which I don't have lying around. The previous recipe which was my first trial has a very sturdy skin and also used equal proportions of skin to filling. In this recipe, I try to use less skin to filling. Method is mostly the same.

Ingredients (810g dough makes twenty-three 75g mooncakes)

920g filling 

110g GRF

86g rice flour

49g wheat starch or cornstarch

98g icing sugar

455g milk

44g veg oil

⅓C GRF cooked, for dusting

Method

1. Mix the sugar, milk and oil in a large bowl. Sift in the flour. Mix until no lumps.Optional: if adding colour to the skin, make sure to do it before cooking the dough as there will be no further cooking. Check out the tie-dye doughs here with Emily Lu.

2. Microwave the dough to cook it. Cover the microwave safe bowl. Microwave in several increments (around 1.5 min, 1.5 mins, 1 min, then 30 seconds; total 4.5 mins full power). Mix each time with spatula until no liquid remains. 

5. Allow to cool slightly for 10 to 15 mins then knead with gloves for about 5 mins until oil is fully incorporated. It may be easier to transfer to plastic wrap or bag and work it. If easier, transfer onto a flat surface (not floured!) and knead until dough is smooth and non-stick. The dough is easier to work with when still warm. Cover with clingfilm and chill dough in fridge for between 30 mins to 2 hours. Maximum chill for 4 hours. On a cool day, the dough can also be left on the counter. If the dough is too hard after leaving the fridge, leave it on the counter to come up to room temp so it's easier to work with.

6. While waiting for the dough to rest, portion out the filling into 40g balls. Cover with clingfilm with the plastic touching to prevent drying out and forming a skin. Leave in the fridge for at least 2 hrs to harden or max 2 hrs in the freezer so that it's easier to work with later.

7. Fry the ⅓ C glutinous rice flour until slightly brown for 6 - 7 mins on medium heat. Set aside to cool.

8. Portion out dough into 35g balls. Roll dough balls out into about 3.5 inch diameter (for 3 inch diameter for 50g mould; 4 inch diameter for 100g mould). Either flatten out between 2 pieces of parchment using rolling pin or flatten out between palms. Press around the edge with your finger to thin the edge.

9. Dust the molds well with cooked flour. To really prevent the dough ball from sticking, lightly coat the ball too. (Note that too much flour will blur the pattern). Encase the filling ball in the flattened dough (see videos). 

10. Roll the ball into the cylindrical shape and flatten the top with thumb slightly so it doesn't budge out (see video). Place flattened top into the upturned mould and gently fit the dough ball into the mould without forcing it in. Mould the bottom of the cylinder into the mould gently with a thumb so it doesn't bulge out. Place the mould with dough ball right side up on parchment. 

12. Ensure to firmly press the mould down onto the parchment before pressing the lever down. Press the lever down until you feel resistance. Press for about 15 seconds to establish the shape. Press down several more times gently to really imprint the design. Release the mooncake and dust off excess flour with a pastry brush.

13. Chill for a few hours and keep stored in fridge. Best consumed within 3 days.

Feedback

- This dough is super soft! It doesn't really keep its shape (as u can see all the misshappen ones)

-  35g dough with 40g filling is just enough dough to cover. However, don't roll too thin and leave it thicker in the centre and thinner at the edges. I find using palms to flatten the ball into a pancake, and then using fingers to flatten the edges to be easiest.

- For the red bean, really works best when fridge cold. So I put in the fridge to harden in order to portion, the took out only a few portions each time to wrap, then after wrapping that batch, I immediately imprinted otherwise the filling starts to go soft and the wrapper isn't stiff enough to hold its shape.

- When using odd shape moulds (see pink dragon and cocoa love lock in the front row), stamp down and do not rock. Make sure to dust both mould and mooncake very well with flour. Stamp down several times but do not rock the stamp, straight up and down. My filing got stuck to the stamp because I rocked it and ruined the imprint.

- It is best consumed after 4 hrs in the fridge and good for up to 1 day after. On Day 2, the skin became hard. On Day 3, the filling (?) started to exude water!