Puteri Ayu - Pandan Sponge Cake with Shredded Coconut

Nonya kueh is one of my flavour dessert, just give me any type of nonya kueh and I just simply love it. Most of the nonya kueh have a important key ingredients it can't neglect out, that is..... Coconut. Coconut milk or shredded coconut is the most critical parts for kueh making or pairing. And my top love are shredded coconut cook with red sugar and coconut milk with yam. Yum!

I bought this mould at only $1 for 14 mould. This mould is simply cheap and good. The kueh can be remove off easily from the mould but of course I did apply a layer of oil on the mould before I places the shredded coconut and batter inside.

I replace the coconut milk with fresh milk as I didn't have coconut milk on hand and I wanted something healthy too. By the way I think is better stick to coconut milk because the sponge cake is not so fragrant but it taste spongy and the shredded coconut is too salty. I would recommend to reduce the salt and maybe just a pinch of salt will do instead of  ¼ tsp salt as stated. Enjoy the last Sunday of the year folks.

*Recipe source: http://nasilemaklover.blogspot.sg/2012/06/puteri-ayu-steamed-mini-pandan-sponge.html?utm_source=BP_recent

(A) Batter Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 150g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ovalette / cake emulsier
• 120ml coconut milk (blend 4 pcs pandan leaves with coconut milk)
• 1/2tsp salt
• A drop of pandan green food colouring (optional)

(B) Topping Ingredients:

• 60g fresh shredded coconut
• 1/4tsp salt (Reduce if you don't want too salty taste)
• 1 tsp corn flour

Method:
1. Mix the (B) ingredients together and keep aside.
2. Brush the mold with some cooking oil, fill bottom of the mold with shredded coconut.
3. Stack 2 mold together and press till shredded coconut is firmed.
4. Sift flour and baking powder.
5. Beat sugar, eggs and ovalette until fluffy.
6. Add coconut milk and mix well.
7. Slowly add in flour and mix till well combine, add in colouring.
8. Fill the sponge cake mold with batter till full.
9. Prepare steamer, when water boil put in the mini sponge cake, steam for 10 -15mins.
10. When cake turned slightly cool, remove the cake from the mold.

Kueh Bingka Ambon aka Honeycomb Cake

Ambon is one of my flavour nonya kueh. I ate the first ambon is bought at redhill market, there is a stall selling nonya kueh and this stall sell the best ambon I have even eat. So far I still haven't found a better ambon can fight this stall. I like the chewy texture and the fragrant it bring out once you bite and chew on it. I can't stop having once, at least 3 for me. It come in a small rounded shape. Yum!

I decided to try out myself too, I went research and found this recipe with video guide that is really a good help for me who are inexperience.

It has the chewy texture but still lack of some aroma taste that I want. Although the top is slightly burn but it does not have the burn bitter taste at all. My friend like it, she said quite delicious but I still not satisfy with the taste. Maybe I will modify the recipe if I will to bake again.

*Recipe source:

http://kitchentigress.blogspot.sg/2012/09/kuih-bingka-ambon-video.html

Ingredients:

• 85 g sago or tapioca starch
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp instant yeast
• 145 g eggs
• 170 ml freshly squeezed coconut milk, undiluted
• 85 g sugar
• 20 g young, light green pandan leaves 

Method:

1. Mix tapioca starch, salt and dry yeast together. Add in the eggs and whisk till smooth. Set aside.
2. In a small pot, stir the coconut milk and sugar together over medium heat till slightly hotter but not boiling. *pot is too hot to hold but not too hot to touch.
3. Stir the batter and slowly pour in the coconut milk into batter while continue stirring. *So that egg will not be cooked.
4. Wash the pandan leaves and cut into small pieces. Pound the pandan leaves finely or blended and strain to yield 1 tsp pandan juice. Discard the pulp and add the juice into batter and mix.
5. Set the batter at a warm place, covered with a clean towel or wrap with cling-wrap till batter is full of small bubbles about 2½-3 hours.
6. Gently whisk the starch in the bottom of bowl till just evenly mixed in.
7. Preheat oven to 160°C with only bottom heat turned on. Line the cake pan with parchment paper.
8. Pour the batter into cake pan. Bake in the bottom of the oven till batter doesn't jiggle when shake, bake about 35 minutes.
9. After 35 minutes, increase oven temperature to 180°C. Turn on the oven top heat and move the pan to middle of the oven.
10. Continue baking till golden brown, another 15 minutes or lesser. *Have a good check, make sure not to over bake the surface.  
11. Remove the pan from the oven. Unmould by lifting parchment paper. Leave the kueh on a wire rack till cold. Cut into pieces and serve.
    

Yam Cake aka 芋头糕

 

Any food that make with yam I will certainly welcome. My top flavour chinese dessert are Orn Nee aka Yam Paste (芋泥). I will always looking forward to the dessert during the wedding dinner and I will pray that the last dish will be yam paste topped with pumpkin instead of ginkgo nut. Although I knew that ginkgo nut is much pricey than pumpkin but to me yam with pumpkin is a perfect combination dessert. I can wolf at least 3 to 4 bowl of that dessert.

 

I came across this blogger who share her home-make yam cake that look so attractive and make my saliva drooling. So the few days before I was so excited and looking forward to the weekend to prepare the dish. I told my mum that I wanted to make yam cake on the weekend and she help me to bought the ingredient such as dry prawn and dry chinese mushroom even though I didn't told her to buy. So thoughtful of her.   

 

According to the advise given, choose the light weight yam to achieve the soft, fluffy and powdery texture. The day I went to the wet market and trust my own hand feeling to choose the most light weight yam. I bought 2 small yam and cut into cubes, I didn't weight the yam according to the recipe given and I used it all that resulted a hard yam cake due to overloaded of yam. After all I find the yam cake taste pretty decent with lots of yam cube.

 

I didn't want to keep left over yam because yam is difficult to preserve or store over a periods of time. I thought more is good but not that actually. A lesson to learn from that not to overload the ingredients.

 

The frying and cooking is done by my mum, I only do the cutting and preparing of the ingredient. But I will and want to do the frying and cooking by myself for the next attempt. ;p

By the way I make some adjustment on the ingredient by my own preference.

 

*Recipe source:

http://www.maameemoomoo.com/blog/2010/10/20/yam-cake-aka-wu-tao-gou/

 

Ingredient:

• 300g rice flour – soak in 800ml water (300ml chicken stock + 150ml scrimp water + 150ml mushrooms water + 200ml plain water) for 30 minutes before cooking
• 700g yam – shave off skin, dice into 1 cm cube and soak in a basin of water
• 1 chinese sausage – skinned, steamed and diced finely
• 8 pieces of dried chinese mushrooms – soak in 150ml of water until soft, wash thoroughly and slice thinly
• 8 tbsp dried prawns – washed, soak in 150ml of water till soft 
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil + 3 tbsp sesame oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Garnish

• Fried shallots
• Spring onion, cut finely
• 1 tbsp white sesame seed (toasted)

Method:

1. In a wok, stir fry dried prawns in one tbsp of vegetable oil till lightly golden, add diced chinese sausage and mushrooms fry for another 2 mins and add in the 3 tbsp sesame oil fry for another 1 mins.  
2. Drain diced yam and add to the fried ingredients and fry.
3. Fry well for 2-3 mins till yam changes colour.
4. Stir rice water mixture till well blended and pour into wok.
5. Combine all ingredients and stir vigorously to prevent clumping at the base.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
7. When batter start to thicken, turn off heat.
8. Transfer batter into a round or rectangular for steaming.
9. Steam for 40 mins or till inserted skewer comes out clean.
10. Remove yam cake to a wire rack to cool down, sprinkle garnishing and cut into desired size for serving.

Onde Onde

This one of my flavour nonya dessert, Onde Onde (Glutinous Rice Balls). I prefer the fillings, filled with gula melaka syrup. Pop one onde onde into your month and bite, the syrup will blast in your month. That how I like it with the sweet gula melaka. But some onde onde fillings, filled with the shredded coconut which I don't find it taste that shiok.

There is a store in Chinatown, located at maxwell market selling onde onde and tapioca cake (木薯糕). I really fall in love with their tapioca cake, is the BEST tapioca cake I have even ate. Even my parent also like it very much, especially my dad. As for the onde onde is also one of the fabulous selling, it has the standard which I mention the kind of explosion when u serve the onde onde into your mouth. I was quite disappointed with my onde onde, the skin was rather thick and it doesn't have the kind of explosion. I should have make the dough skin slightly more thinner but I was worry that it might break and all the filling will flow out. My mum told me one of her friend child like it and the child have one and continue the serving for 3 in total. I was quite surprise that the child like it so much. ^^

The portion yield more than 20 pieces and of course I could not finish all by alone plus there are nobody at home that day when I make this onde onde. So I gave some to my friends and my mum friends too. Luckily I manage to share out all the onde onde because it cannot left overnight due to the coconut. I did not manage to used up all the shredded coconut so I kept the remaining in the fridge. The following day my mum took out the shredded coconut from the fridge and she told me the coconut is spoil, the smell turn sour. Indeed fresh shredded coconut cannot be left overnight.

Ingredient:

• 90gm glutinous rice flour
• 35gm tapioca flour
• 200ml pandan juice
• 50gm shredded white coconut (I didn't measure the weight, I pour 3/4 of shredded coconut from the packet)
• Pinch of salt
• 125gm palm sugar (I didn't measure the weight too for this)
• A few drop of pandan paste food colouring (Optional)

Method:

1. Pour a few drop of pandan paste into the pandan juice and stir to combine.  
2. Pour the salt into the shredded coconut and steam for 5 minutes.
3. In a large mixing bowl, place in glutinous rice flour and tapioca flour (sift both together), add pandan juice little by little and knead well till form smooth pliable dough.
4. Pinch a small amount of dough and roll it in your palm to form a smooth ball. Make a small well in the centre of the dough and fill it with chopped palm sugar. Pinch dough to seal, roll into balls again.
5. In a pot of boiling water, drop the balls in the simmering pot and when it floats, remove them with a slotted spoon and allow excess water to drip off.
6. Drop the balls gently on the shredded coconut and coat it evenly, than transfer to a plate to serve. 

Kueh Puteri Sarlat

Actually i plan to make this Glutinous Rice Sarlat on last Monday as I need the pandan leave but i forgot that market are off on every monday. Too bad, so i change to yesterday and make my first kueh. 

The weather keep raining on and off during this season. Yesterday the rain is horrible heavy and weather is very dark, the photo i took is really bad even though after edited. How i wish i own an DSLR camera. *So greedy =p

The day before i told my mum that i want to make this kueh on the next day morning and she ask me about the ingredient. On the book, the recipe they use for the top layer (kaya layer) is rice flour and my mum said no, don't use rice flour because the top layer will be very hard. So alright i ask her what about tapioca flour and she said yes, tapioca flour is better and the top layer will not be so hard.

I glad that i listen to her, choosing tapioca flour instead of rice flour. (Listen to mama is right)
The top layer is soft and this is the texture we wanted to make. And for the rice is not soft enough to me, even though i have already soaked the rice overnight. 

My mum mahjong kaki friend said the kueh is marvelous (I so happy when people enjoy the food i make but also quite bashful >.<  when they praise me.. hehehe..) and they ate alot. Weeee.. and this time my mum said the kueh is yummy too! Anyway she also got help me out with the kueh making.

Guess what I nearly burn the kitchen as i forgotten to add water to the pot when the kueh is still steaming and my mum smell something chao ta and i got a scolding from her. Thanks to my mum if not the kueh will become chao ta kueh. Hahaha..

Recipe from With love from the Little Nyonya Book
*I half the portion
Bottom Layer:

• 250gm Glutinous rice (soaked for 2 hours)
• 75ml coconut milk
• 200ml water
• 1/4 tsp salt

Top Layer:

• 3 Eggs
• 250ml coconut milk
• 100gm sugar
• 25ml pandan juice (About 10 to 15 pandan leave)
• 25gm rice flour or tapioca flour
• 1 tsp corn flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

Method:

1. Bottom layer: Drain glutinous rice, add coconut milk, water, salt and stir. Place it in a cake tin with a bed of pandan leaves. 
2. Steam it for 45 minutes till cooked. Allow to cool slightly, then press the warm glutinous rice using a banana leaf to make it compacts. (I omit this step)

How to extract the pandan juice from the leave? I found a blogger who explain in step and easy to read.
http://wendyinkk.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-get-concentrated-pandan-juice.html

1. Top layer: In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar till dissolved. 
2. Add the coconut milk, pandan juice and continue to whisk, gradually add the rice flour and corn flour bit by bit till completely well mixed. Add salt.
3. Pour the mixture by sifting on the warm steamed cooked glutinous rice.
4. Steam it for 25 to 30 minutes till set.
5. Leave to cool completely before cutting into pieces.