Egg custard tarts

OK, so the tarts didn't look that 'pretty' BUT.......they tasted GREAT!!!
I think I left them in the oven for too long and the temperature was a bit high, so the egg custard puffed up but when I removed them, the custard 'sort of' deflated, hence, the 'crinkled' look!

EGG CUSTARD TARTS 10 Sept 08

Pastry:
160g plain flour
40g rice flour
100g butter/vegetable shortening
¼ cup icing sugar
1 egg yolk, beaten
¼ cup ice water

Filling:
3 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup (60g) caster sugar
1 ½ cups (375ml) milk
yellow food colouring (optional)
½ tsp vanilla essence (optional)


METHOD

1. Make pastry using the rubbing-in method. Leave to rest.
2. Roll pastry to about 3mm thickness.
3. Cut and fit greased 12-hole (10cm) tart pan.
4. Place filling ingredients into a wide-mouthed jug and beat till smooth.
5. Pour the filling into the pastry-lined tart pan till almost full.
6. Bake for 10min at 210C then 10-15min at 200C, until the custard has set.
7. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.


NB: You can brush the pastry bases with beaten egg white (yolk used in pastry) before pouring in the filling. If you replace part of the milk with cream, say ½ cup of cream, the tarts will ‘become’ Portuguese egg tarts.

Original recipe fm Tok Suan (DPA) for 24 small egg tarts
Pastry:
3 cups (375g) flour
180g lard
5 tablespoons hot water

Made on Tuesday 28 October 2008 using 150g plain flour, 50g rice flour for pastry(no egg yolk; used cold water to bind pastry) and 4 eggs / 500ml (2 cups) milk. Produced 16 tarts. Yummy! Next time, try using half rice / half plain flour.

Mango Galette

(Used leftover pastry from spinach/ricotta/feta quiche to make mango galette. Recipe below )


MANGO GALETTE

Pastry
Brown sugar
Ground almonds
2 ripe Mangoes

Glaze
Apricot jam
Lemon juice

1. Roll pastry out. Place on baking tray. Make decorative ridge around edge of pastry (to retain the filling ingredients)
2. Sprinkle pastry with ground almonds and brown sugar.
3. Place sliced mangoes (cut in halves and sliced just before using) decoratively on top of filling. Press in lightly.
4. Bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes, till pastry is golden and mangoes are soft.
5. Cool and brush with glaze, if desired. (warm jam over stove; remove and add lemon juice. Sieve)

Spinach, ricotta and feta quiche

SPINACH, RICOTTA AND FETA QUICHE (Makes 2 quiches)


Pastry
300g plain flour
150g butter
pinch of salt
ice water

Filling
2 bunches of baby spinach (blanch 1min in boiling water, squeeze out excess water then shred the spinach )
250g ricotta
250g feta
½ cup grated cheddar cheese
5 eggs, beaten
½ cup milk
chopped parsley / spring onions
cayenne pepper
fresh ground black pepper
ground nutmeg


Pastry

1. Make pastry (rubbing-in method) and refrigerate for ½ hour.
2. Roll out and line 2 loose-bottomed flan tins. Refrigerate for another 10mins
3. Bake blind at 200C for 10 min. Cool

Filling

1. Mix all the filling ingredients except nutmeg in a large mixing bowl.
2. Pour into quiche bases, sprinkle with ground nutmeg.
3. Bake at 180C for 35 min or until golden brown. Leave in tin for 5 minutes.
4. Serve hot on its own or with fresh garden salad.

Apple Crumble Slice

Sorry - no recipe for this. I got the idea for the apple crumble slice from one of the blogs on the internet when I was searching for another recipe.

Basically. I made a short crust pastry for the base, then baked that for 10-15min till golden. Then, I 'slapped' on a layer of home made plum jam which one of my friends had given to me. I then topped that with some stewed granny smith apples (stew with a bit of sugar, cinnamon and lemon rind) then finished it all with a crumble made with plain flour and butter, then sprinkled it with almond flakes before baking in a moderate oven for 20-30min till golden. Serve warm with cream or ice cream or custard. Also delicious on its own.

Scones with homemade jam and cream

FORGET the 'best ever scones' recipe that I posted last year!

This recipe is even BETTER! I call it the 'Better than the Best Scones' recipe. Would you believe that after a few decades of using the New Zealand Edmonds cookbook scone recipe where I had to rub butter into the sifted dry ingredients before mixing in the milk, I 'discovered' this wonderful light scone recipe in a very obscure section of a magazine? In fact, I didn't even realise that I had the recipe as it was part of a few pages that I tore out from some magazine at work (errr......they were going to throw out the mag so I thot I should salvage some 'good' stuff from there!)
Anyway, I was thumbing through some of my recipes when I came across this - something light to serve with Lipton's tea for the afternoon, so I gave it a try and.....voila, the rest, as they say,is history, !!!

I tell my friends that they don't have to go out for Devonshire teas anymore as they can make these super scones themselves in a matter of minutes!

Give it a try and tell me what you think! So far, I have had rave reviews from everyone who tried the recipe (the bakers as well as the tasters)

BETTER THAN THE BEST SCONES

Ingredients:
3 cups self-raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 cup milk
¾ cup cream



Method:

1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl
2. Make a well in the centre, then pour in combined milk and cream, mixing quickly with a butter knife to form a soft, sticky dough.
3. Turn the dough onto a floured bench and, using your hand, press out evenly to 3cm thickness.
4. Cut dough into 5cm rounds and place close together on a greased baking tray.
5. Bake for about 13 min at 200C/180C (fan forced oven) or until browned lightly. Tap scones underneath to check done-ness (hollow sound)
6. Cool on cake rack. Best eaten warm with whipped cream (beat 300ml cream till doubled in volume. Add 1 tsp sugar) and home-made raspberry jam. Scrumptilicious!!

ONDEH-ONDEH KELEDEK

'Keledek' is Malay for 'sweet potato'

This recipe was one of many that I saved from Domestic Science (Home Economics) class back in my secondary school days. I used 1.2kg of sweet potato (quadrupled the recipe) when I made the ondeh2 on 18 Oct. Yielded 66 ondeh2. The only problem with making them on your own is that you can't make the sweet potato balls and boil them at the same time. (Could do that when we were in S'pore and I had a fantastic Filipina domestic helper. The ondeh2 were perfect then!) Anyway, this time, I made the balls first, placing them on floured plates before boiling which resulted in some of the gula melaka melting before cooking and oozing through the green dough. Tasted great all the same, though! No complaints from the tasters. (I think I gobbled down at least a dozen of them - probably a lot more!)

ONDEH ONDEH KELEDEK

½ kati (300g) white sweet potatoes ½ tbsp tapioca flour
1 tbsp flour ¼ piece gula melaka
½ tbsp gran. Sugar 1/6 coconut (grated white)
1-2 tbsp thick pandan juice pinch of salt
1. Scrub the sweet potatoes and clean and boil or steam them in their jackets till cooked.
2. Chop up the gula melaka and mix it with sugar
3. Mix the coconut with a little salt.
4. Skin and mash the cooked potato and mix in the sieved flour to get a pliable dough.
5. Add the pandan juice to get a good green colour
6. Turn the dough out on to a floured board and divide it into small pieces the size of small marbles.
7. Make a hole in each piece and put in some sugar
8. Shape into balls and boil in boiling water till they float to the surface of the water.
9. Drain them well and toss them in the coconut
10. Serve ondeh-ondeh in little baskets made from banana leaves or on a clean plate.

WALNUT 'N DATE CAKE

Recipe for the walnut and date cake with lemon cream cheese icing will be published at a later date. Have yet to type the recipe!


TUESDAY 28th Oct 2008

OK ...I've got the recipe typed up so here it is.........

WALNUT & DATE CAKE
Ingredients
• ½ cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup chopped dates
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp golden syrup
• ¾ cup boiling water
• 200g butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
Icing
• ½ cup cream cheese
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 8 walnut halves

Method
1. Preheat the oven (not fan-forced) to 180°C. Grease a 23cm square cake pan and line.
2. Combine walnuts and dates in bowl with baking soda, golden syrup and boiling water. Stir well.
3. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and creamy.
4. Beat in eggs one at a time.
5. Sift in flour, baking powder and salt. Stir well.
6. Combine with warm walnut and date mixture.
7. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60min until top springs back when lightly pressed.
8. Icing: Beat cream cheese until soft. Sift in icing sugar, beat well. Add lemon juice. Spread on to cake, decorate with walnut halves.

* Recipe fm Tina Soh circa 1979

ROAST PORK 'N CHAR SIEW

TIRAMISU

TIRAMISU
4 egg yolks
½ cup brandy or coffee liqueur (Kahlua / Tia Maria)
500g mascarpone or cream cheese
4 egg whites
½ cup sugar
1 large packet finger biscuits (Saviordi)
2 cups strong coffee - cooled
21 oz semi sweet chocolate, grated OR cocoa
1. Blend egg yolks, liqueur and cream cheese well.
2. Beat egg whites till stiff. Add sugar a little at a time & beat until stiff.
3. Fold egg whites into cheese mixture.
4. Dip ½ the biscuits in the coffee (count to 6). Line tin.
5. Spread half the blended cheese mixture over the cookies. Sprinkle with grated chocolate or cocoa.
6. Repeat with other half of biscuits and cream mixture.
7. Refrigerate overnight.

DATE SQUARES

YUMMY DATE SQUARES!!

Ingredients:
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed *
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt
• .
• Date Filling:
• 250-300g chopped dates *
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda +
• ½ teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Preparation:
Combine filling ingredients in saucepan; simmer for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until mixture is thick. Set aside to cool.
Mix flour, oats, sugar, butter, soda, and salt; press about half of mixture in a greased and floured 9 X 13-inch pan. Spread filling over the oat layer. Add remaining oat mixture and press well.
Bake at 180C for 20 min, till golden

NB: Made on 30/9/08. Verdict: - Good!
* Measurements have been changed / reduced
+ added