Grace Lee made this delicious Mango Pudding with the guidance from Tanni and Heidy. Heidy brought a Mango Pudding during a Gilmore Community Kitchen potluck and the recipe was shared with other members of the Gilmore community kitchen.

This Mango Pudding is very rich in mango flavour and the addition of whipping cream made it extra rich. If you are watching your diet, you may just substitute the whipping cream with milk or cold water to make it less sinful.

Ingredients

• 500ml whipping cream or water
• 1 can (750ml) mango pulp
• 3 packages (15ml) unflavoured gelatine
• 1 cup hot water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 ripe mango, optional

continue reading "Mango Pudding"

Heidi also made a dessert which is Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake. It is normally known as ‘Poot Jai Gou’ in Cantonese which simply means ‘dessert in a little bowl’. This is because the rice cake is steamed in small bowls. You can use bowl made in clay, porcelain, aluminum, etc. It does not matter, you just need bowls or else you cannot call this ‘Poot Jai Gou’. :-)

The Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake is very easy to make but requires a lot of time in preparing the red bean. The red bean has to be soaked in water at least two hours (preferably overnight) and steamed for at least 40 minutes. This is to make sure they are softened but not mushy. To sweeten the red bean, add 1 oz of granulated sugar after it is softened. The recipe calls for 1/2 cup of red bean.

Steamed Rice Cake is a popular snack Malaysia, found commonly in open air markets. However, those found on Malaysian market they are salty types and with topping made from salted radish. Anyone has a recipe for this?

Heidi made the sweet version of the rice cake. She made two different flavours — which is coconut milk and cane sugar flavour. The photo below is the cane sugar version.

Ingredients

• 320g rice flour
• 300g cane sugar (slab sugar) or 300g of granulated sugar for the coconut milk flavour version
• 960g (4 1/2 cups) water
• 1 tablespoon tapioca starch
• 1 tablespoon wheat starch
• 1 packet of instant coconut cream powder (50g) for the coconut milk flavour version only

continue reading "Steamed Red Bean Rice Cake (Poot Jei Gou)"

Vanessa made two dishes in the South Arm Community Kitchen. She made spaghetti with meat sauce and Dried Bean Curd Egg Swirl Dessert Soup. I will not blog about the spaghetti recipe as I had blogged about it before. Her recipe is slightly different in that she used pork instead of meatballs and she added chopped celery in her sauce.

I love dessert soup. This Dried Bean Curd Egg Swirl Dessert Soup is so simple to make. I like the silky smooth texture of the bean curd and egg swirl.

All it needs is dried bean curd, egg and rock sugar. You can easily made this dessert soup any time provided you have the ingredients in your pantry. The good thing is the dried bean curd and rock sugar can be stored for a long time in your pantry and eggs are usual commodity in the fridge.

To make this dessert soup, just bring a pot of water to a boil. Add in the dried bean curd and stir until the bean curd kind of like dissolved.

Beat a few eggs (Vanessa used five) and dropped the beaten eggs into the boiling water in a stream to form the egg swirl and keep stirring.

Sweetened the dessert soup with rock sugar to your preference. Just that simple. Vanessa, thank you for sharing the recipe.

Julie’s second dish is Taiwanese Tang Yuan, which is Glutinous Rice Balls. The twist from the regular Glutinous Rice Balls which is served in a light syrup is that the Taiwanese version is served in a soup with egg swirls and fermented glutinous rice.

Julie made two types of glutinous rice balls; plain ones and another stuffed with red bean paste. The large ones are the one with filings. Most people preferred the those stuffed ones which are sweeter.

The Taiwanese Tang Yuan has a winery taste in it due to the addition of fermented glutinous rice.

Ingredients

• one packet of glutinous rice flour
• red bean paste
• 4 eggs
• fermented glutinous rice
• water

Fermented glutinous rice can be purchased from Chinese grocery stores. One of the member told us that she made it at home by steaming the glutinous rice and then add yeast to the steamed glutinous rice and let it ferment for a few days.

The fermented glutinous rice is slightly sweet and tastes like wine.

continue reading "Taiwanese Tang Yuan"

The second recipe which Minoo shared with us in the Caring Place community kitchen was Apple Cranberry Crisp. This is a good way to include oats in a recipe. Oat is high in fiber and can help lower bad cholesterol and may reduce the risk of heart disease.

The Apple Cranberry Crisp is best served warm with some vanilla ice-creams. The apple goes really well with the cranberry. You may substitute the apples with peaches or cranberries with rhubarbs.

Ingredients

Crust:

• Approximately 1 1/2 cups oats
• Approximately 1/2 cup flour
• 2 to 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon and nutmeg
• 1/4 cup honey

Fruit mixture:

• a small can of cranberries (or 1/2 cup fresh cranberries, cooked)
• 2 to 3 apples, thinly sliced
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup honey

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 350F.
• Mix all the ingredients for the crust together in a bowl and set them aside.

• Mix the apples, cranberries, honey and spices in another bowl.

• Pour the fruit mixtures into a buttered baking pan. Make sure the fruit mixture covers the whole bottom of the pan and evenly distributed.

• Sprinkle the crust mixtures over the fruit covering it as best as you can. It’s okay if some of the fruit shows through.

• Bake at 350F for 30 to 40 minutes or until the crust turns brown. Let cool and serve warm.

This recipe is good for after school snack or dessert. Minoo, thank you for sharing again.

Longan is Arkensen’s favourite fruit. He prefers those from the can with syrup than the fresh ones. It seems that the canned ones are more meaty.

This Longan Jelly is another recipe from the Delicious and Fragrant Local Cakes recipe book. Some of the recipes which I had blogged before from this recipe book are Glutinous Rice Cake and Steamed Rice Cake.

Ingredients

• 1 can longans
• 20g agar-agar
• 300g sugar
• 1 litre water
• sufficient food colouring

Agar in an unbranched polysacharide obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae or seaweed.

Agar-agar is a Malay word for jelly. Agar-agar will dissolve in hot water and when cooled, it becomes gelatinous. It is often used as a vegetarian substitute to gelatin, in jellies, ice-cream and as a thickener for soup.

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Longan Jelly"

Cassava Cake is another dessert cake commonly found in the morning market in Malaysia. I’ve been searching for the recipe and found a few variations which some involve steaming the cake first before baking them. Then I remembered my friend Jessica who brought the Cassava Cake for last year’s Chinese New Year gathering. So I got this recipe from her which is the simplest Cassava Cake recipe of all.

Cassava Cake is soft and chewy and fragrance. Ben loves this dessert.

Ingredients

• 1 tin coconut milk (398ml)
• 2 packets grated cassava (you may find this in stores which carry Phillipines products)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Cassava Cake (Kuih Ubi Kayu)"

This Glutinous Rice Cakes is another recipe from the Malaysian recipe book Ben gave me as a “present”. It is the photo of this recipe on the cover of the book. The picture on the recipe looked much more enticing. This one did not turn out the way I wanted it.

The Glutinous Rice Cakes is slightly chewy and its tinge of saltiness goes very well with the kaya (egg/coconut custard). You can find kaya in many Chinese groceries stores in Greater Vancouver like T&T, Smart and Save, Big Crazy, etc.

It is supposed to have a consistent light bluish patches. For this one, the blues did not dissolve the way it should be. I am a bit disappointed at how it looked.

Ingredients

• 500g glutinous rice
• 1 can coconut milk (398ml)
• 3 screwpine leaves (pandan), knotted
• 1 teaspoon salt
• sufficient blue food colouring

Click on the below for the instructions.

continue reading "Glutinous Rice Cakes"

I know Ben. When he was in Malaysia he, without fail, will go look for recipe books to bring home … and for me to COOK! He always does that and I hate that because it adds so much pressure to me to make them. He thinks that I can make anything … oh yeah! oh sure!

So, I had no choice because he had been placing his “present” for me on my bedside table. I know it’s his subtle way to let me know that it’s there. So, I am forced to make just one item just to placate him. I made the Pak Thong Koh (Steamed Rice Cake). This is quite common in Chinatown and chinese bakeries like T&T and Maxim’s.

Pak Thong Koh is a sweet rice cake with a tangy flavour from the yeast action. It has a very unique springy texture. It is not overly sweet, just a hint of sweetness. Great for kids too because it does not leave a mess at all.

Making this is quite easy with very simple steps. However, it takes a lot of time because it takes 6-8 hours waiting for the yeast to make it rise.

The Pak Thong Koh turned out OK taste wise but I just could not make it as white as snow. The ones that I bought from the bakeries is really white. Do you have a tip on how to make it that white?

Ingredients

(1) Syrup

• 300g sugar
• 300ml water
• 3 screwpine leaves (Pandan)

For the Batter:

(2)

• 300g rice flour
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 250ml water

(3)

• 1 teaspoon instant yeast
• 1/8 teaspoon lye water (alkaline)

Click on the link below for the instructions.

continue reading "Steamed Rice Cakes (Pak Thong Koh)"

I made a Baked Custard for the Gilmore Park Church potluck. I got this from one of the recipes I had been collecting over the past few years. Most of the recipes in my collection had never been used before. I just enjoyed collecting them. They are so handy especially when I want to look for new stuff to try with the existing ingredients I have at hand.

I like this recipe because of the simplicity of the name. “Bake” is good because it is convenient and the least messy to make. “Custard” in any form is good and the very name itself is exactly what I wanted … something sweet.

This Baked Custard is flavoured with ginger and vanilla. It is a very simple and quick dessert. Preparation time is only a few minutes.

This recipe requires only 6 ingredients.

• 1 tin sweetened condensed milk
• 3/4 cup evaporated milk
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon grated ginger

To make the custard, first preheat the oven to 350F. Beat the eggs in a medium bowl and combine with the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Pour the mixture in a round glass dish and bake until golden brown on top, about 30 minutes.

Cut into slices and serve.

You may substitute the fresh grated ginger with 1 teaspoon of ground ginger if you do not fresh ginger on hand. If you have the ingredients right now in your pantry, make it now … you will be enjoying this with your family in less than 1 hour max.