Longan Red Date Tea

I like to brew this sweet dried fruit tea when the weather is cool and wet. As this tea is more on the "warm" side for it involved mainly dried fruits, and dark brown sugar. It has a nice sweet flavour similar to our popular "Cheng Tng 清汤"  dessert. The reconstituted ingredients like the longan, chinese barley, and winter melon strips can be served with the tea 😋🍹

Servings: 4 persons

Ingredients

1200 ml water

4g fresh pandan leaf

25g candied winter melon strips

12g chinese barley

3g red date

16g honey date

11g dried longan

60g honey rock sugar/rock sugar

30g dark brown sugar

(amount of sugar can be adjusted to your taste)

Directions

1. Rinse Chinese barley, red date, honey date and dried longans.

Add all ingredients, except the honey rock sugar and dark brown sugar, to a heat resistant teapot. Bring to a boil.

2. When the water starts to boil for about 5 minutes, add honey rock sugar and dark brown sugar in. Lower the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes. Let the tea cool down to room temperature in the pot.

3. Enjoy the tea warm or cold with longans and winter melon strips 

Marble Butter Cupcake

 

I love butter cake which is moist but not overwhelm with melted butter. The recipe I have adopted has an almost comparable amount of eggs to butter.The eggs and evaporated milk helped to give the cake a soft, moist  and velvety texture. 

To bake my favourite butter cake in cupcake size was mainly for convenient serving and for my NS son to bring to camp.

Yield: 8  cupcakes

Paper cup size: 7⌀x3.5H cm

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature.

Using 55~59g eggs

80g unsalted butter, softened

60g raw fine sugar

2 eggs, about 119g in total

80g top/cake flour

2g baking powder

1/8 tsp fine salt

10g condensed milk

20g evaporated milk/milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2g cocoa powder

Directions

1. Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk and vanilla extract in a small glass. Set aside.

2. Combine top flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

3. Beat eggs till frothy. Set aside.

4. Cream softened butter with raw fine sugar till the butter cream turns light and fluffy.

5. Gradually combine the beaten egg from Step 3 to the butter cream at Step 4.

If the butter cream separated from the beaten eggs, add about 1 tbsp of flour mixture to the batter and mix.

6. Sieve and fold in half of the flour mixture from Step 2.

8. Add in the milk mixture from Step 1.

Sieve and fold in the remaining flour mixture from Step 2, mix well into a smooth batter.

9. Pour the batter to the paper cake cups, about 52g per cup.

Mix the 2g of cocoa powder to the remaining butter batter in the mixing bowl.

Scoop about 2 tsp of the cocoa batter and add to the top of the butter batter.

Use the narrow end of a teaspoon to stir the batter briefly, about 2 to 3 rounds, to create the swirling pattern.

Place the cake cups over a baking tray.

10. Bake at middle rack of a preheated oven at 160℃ for 35 to 40 minutes, or till an inserted skewer draws out clean.

11. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack to cool down for about 10 minutes.

Cover the warm cake with a cling wrap, and let it cool to room temperature.  
This step is optional.

12. Enjoy 😋

Pandan Sponge Cupcake (traditional version)

 I classified the traditional version of sponge cake as "吃得饱的蛋糕" or more stomach-filling type of cake as it has a higher flour content as compared to lighter chiffon type. In spite of its higher flour content, the cake is still soft. I added fresh pandan paste to give this delicious cake a better flavour 😋

Yield: 7 cupcakes (7⌀x3.5H cm)

Baking temperature: Bake middle rack of a preheated oven at 170℃ for 10 minutes, lower to 150℃ for 20 minutes.

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature

Using 55~57g eggs

2 egg whites, 84g

70g raw cane sugar

pinch of salt

2 egg yolks, 35g

75g top/cake flour

1g baking powder

10g condensed milk

22g fresh pandan paste *

15g coconut oil/mild flavour oil

1 drop green food dye, optional

* blend 20g fresh pandan leaves with 50g of water, collect 22g of the paste without filtering.

Directions

1. In a clean, dry and oil-free mixing bowl, beat egg whites with salt and raw cane sugar,

till reaching firm peak stage.

Mix in the egg yolk, one at a time.

2. Sieve in 1/2 of the top flour with baking powder. Mix briefly using the whisks manually.

3. Mix in the condensed milk, pandan paste and coconut oil.

Blend in the green food dye. This is optional.

4. Fold in the final portion of flour mixture, and mix into a smooth batter.

5. Distribute the batter evenly among 8 paper cake cups. Place over a baking tray.

6. Bake at middle rack of a preheated oven at 170℃ for about 10 minutes, reduce to 150℃ for 20 minutes, or till the cake crust turns golden.

7. Remove from oven and cool over a wire rack.

Enjoy it warm or cool