Watercress Chrysanthemum Tea

A light and fragrant tea brewed using discarded stem of watercress, together with fragrant dried chrysanthemum flowers and pandan leaf. I have tried brewing Watercress Honey Drink earlier, but found it a bit bland. Hence, I tried adding a few dried chrysanthemum flowers to it, and it really smelled wonderfully 😄

Ingredients

You may change the ingredients and quantities according to your preference :)

The remaining stems of a bunch of 200g watercress
1000ml water
1 blade pandan leaf
1 honey date
1 seedless red date

a few dried chrysanthemum flowers
a few dried wolfberries/goji
some honey rock sugar* to your taste
 * you can replace honey rock sugar by rock sugar and honey

Directions

1. Keep the discarded stems of the watercress. Wash before use.

2. Add watercress stems, pandan leaf, honey date and red date to a pot. Bring to a boil for about 5 minutes.

3. Add some honey rock sugar, dried chrysanthemum flowers, and dried wolf-berries, reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 5 minutes and turn off the heat. Let the content simmer for about 30 to 60 minutes.

4. Strain the tea and serve warm or cold 😊

Four Egg Tarts Recipe

An easy to prepare egg tart recipe for a family of four. You only need slightly more than an hour to prepare. This revised recipe was taken from my previous Rice Cooker Egg Tart recipe. I substituted part of the milk by whipping cream, and used oven toaster to bake instead of rice cooker.

Yield: 4 egg tarts

Ingredients

All ingredients in room temperature
Using 55g Omega 3&6 egg

Tart Shell
30g unsalted butter, softened
15g  icing sugar
1/8 tsp low sodium fine salt *
10g beaten egg
60g all purpose flour

Custard Filling
about 45g beaten egg, i.e. the remaining beaten egg
15g caster sugar
45g milk
10g whipping cream/milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

* this is the low sodium fine salt

Directions

1. Combine softened butter with icing sugar and salt till pale and smooth.

2. Mix in 10g of beaten egg.

3. Fold in the all purpose flour and combine into a smooth dough.

Wrap the dough in a sheet of cling wrap.

And refrigerate it for about 20 minutes.

4. While waiting for the dough, prepare the egg custard filling.
Combine the remaining beaten egg with caster sugar, milk, whipping cream and vanilla extract in a small bowl.

Run the mixture through a sieve into a measuring glass.

I collected about 100ml of custard mixture. Cover and set aside.

5. Divide the dough into 4 portions and roll them into balls.

With the help of the used cling wrap and another tart mould, shape the dough into an even tart shell.

Prick the base of the tart shell with a fork to create some ventilation holes for steam to escape.

6. Place the tart moulds in a baking tray,

and bake in a preheated oven toaster at 170℃ for about 15 minutes, or till the tarts slightly brown.

Or, bake at 180°C for 18 minutes if using oven.

7. Transfer the tart shells out of the oven. Give the custard filling a few stirs, and pour into the 4 hot tart shells.

 8. Reduce the temperature to 160℃ and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes, or till the custard is set. The custard would puff up when it is about ready.  Smaller oven toaster tends to be uneven in heating. So, to ensure even heating, rotate the position of the tarts after about 10 to 12 minutes of heating. 

 9. Let the tarts cool down for about 10 minutes before unmoulding them. I find it easier to remove the tarts from the mould when it is still warm, otherwise the tart will stick to the mould.

Serve warm or cold 😋

Strawberry Yogurt Butter Sponge Cake

Continuing from my craze over strawberry cake, I baked another strawberry yogurt butter sponge cake using similar ingredients as my strawberry yogurt butter cake, but with reduced butter 😋

Yield: one round cake
Pan size: 6x3" round cake pan

Ingredients

40g unsalted butter
60g top/cake flour

30g strawberry yogurt
13g homemade strawberry jam *

3 egg yolks

3 egg whites
pinch of salt
45g fine sugar

A little red food dye, optional
Strawberry cake does not have the same appealing red as the fruit, so a little artificial colour would brighten the cake and make it more attractive 😍

* Click here for recipe of my homemade strawberry jam

Directions

1. Line an 6" round cake pan with parchment paper at the base. Need not grease the wall of the pan. Place a grid iron at the base of a 20cm square pan. Set aside.
I bought the grid iron from Daiso.

2. Combine strawberry yogurt and strawberry jam in a small bowl. Set aside.

3. Melt butter at low temperature till reaching about 65℃ or small bubbles start to form at the bottom of the melted butter.

4. Pour the top/cake flour into the warm butter, mix briefly using a silicone spatula, and remove from the stove. Continue to fold till it becomes a smooth paste.

5. After the flour has fully combined with the butter, mix in the strawberry mixture from Step 2.

6. Next, add in the egg yolks, one at a time, and mix well.

Cover the strawberry batter and set aside.

7. Beat egg whites in a clean, dry and grease-free bowl, till frothy. Add in a pinch of salt,

and first batch of the fine sugar. Continue to beat the egg whites. Slowly add in the remaining fine sugar in two batches.

Stop beating after the meringue has achieved firm peak stage.

8. Transfer about 1/4 of the meringue to combine with the strawberry batter from Step 6. You may add in the red food dye at this step if you are adding.

Pour back the strawberry batter to mix with the remaining meringue into a smooth batter.

9. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bang the cake pan against the work top to level the batter and to get rid of trapped air bubbles.

Place the cake pan into the 20cm square pan, and fill the square pan with about 1cm deep of hot water.

10. Bake at lower rack of a preheated oven at 170℃, turning on only the upper heating element, for about 40 minutes.

After the 40 minutes heating, reduce the temperature to 150℃, turning on both the upper and lower heating elements, for about 18~20 minutes.

11. Remove the cake from the oven.

Drop the cake with the pan from a height of about 10 cm to a kitchen towel thrice.

Let the cake cool down for about 15 minutes in the pan.

When the cake starts to pull away from the wall of the pan,

jiggle to loosen the cake,

and turn it out to a cooling rack.

You may want to dry the cake in a warm oven for about 15 minutes.

Cut and enjoy 😋😋