Traditional Kue Lapis Indonesia ~

Ok... I did it!!! 20 layers!!!

I know this is a very challenging cake to do, there are 3 most important ingredients in doing it which is:
1. Patience
2. Patience
3. And lots of patience.

But no worries....when you catch the "feel", its actually pretty simple compare to Macaron in my opinion...

Now, lets be serious, the 3 most important ingredients in making Kue Lapis are:
1. Good quality butter (I used Golden Churn Butter)

2. Rempah Kueh (I seriously not sure the proportion of the spices in it, for us who live in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, you should be able to get it off the shelves.)

3. Big eggs (at least 60g and too bad we only need the yolks and probably you can use the leftover egg whites to make some Macaron).

The recipe below is for my baking pan size 6"x9"x3" (also suitable for 7" square), which I adored because its not too big and its just nice to cut into 2 row of kue lapis. Please apportioned the recipe to your baking pan size.

Kue Lapis 
(6"x9"x3")

Ingredients
425g butter
(melt the leftover butter from Golden Churn butter for brushing between layers)
68g condensed milk
25 egg yolks
150g sugar
77g cake flour
25g milk powder
2tsp rempah kueh (1.5 tsp if you prefer lighter flavor)

Directions
1. Cut the baking paper to fit the bottom of the baking pan.
2. Cold the butter in the fridge while you separate the eggs.
3. Butter Batter: Beat the butter and condensed milk together until pale and fluffy. (Around 10 min)

4. Preheat your oven to 180C (top-bottom mode).
5. Egg Batter: Beat the egg yolks and sugar on high speed until tripled in volume (thick and able to form ribbon).

6. Preheat your baking pan in the oven for at least 10 min (without the baking paper).
7. Pour the egg batter into butter batter and mix at low speed until well mixed. (Do this in 3 batches and not all at one go).
8. In a bowl, mix the cake flour, milk powder and rempah kueh together. Sift them in the mixed batter and fold gently until well incorporated.
9. Remove the pan from the oven and place the baking paper and brush the bottom only with melted butter.
10. Baking First Layer: Weigh 85g of batter in a small bowl and spread evenly over the pan with spatula. Bang the tin twice to remove excess air. Bake in the middle rack for 7-8 min until the top is golden brown.
Tips: Pour them with spatula into 3 area, the left, middle and right so its easier to spread them evenly.
11. Remove the tin from the oven. Change the oven into Grill mode (top heat only).
12. Press the cake layer down slightly with a cake/fondant presser and brush the top slightly with melted butter (not too much else will be too oily).

12. Baking Subsequent Layers: Weigh 55-60g batter in a small bowl. Spread them evenly with spatula and bang the tin slightly to remove excess air. Bake in the oven on upper rack for 3-5min until the top is golden brown. Repeat step 12 and bake subsequent layers until all batter is used up.
Tips: Please monitor closely as it will turn brown very fast once it start browning. Depend on the heat of your oven, the baking time varies, and as when the cake getting taller the baking time will reduce since its nearer to the top heat.
13. Baking Last Layer: Follow the Subsequent Layers step but bake in top bottom mode at 180C and in middle rack for 10 min until the top is golden brown.
Tip: If your cake turn brown too fast, place an aluminium foil and cover the top and continue baking.
14. Remove the cake from the oven and invert it out on a wire rack. The cake will fall out on its own after 10 min. Remove the baking pan and cool the cake completely on the wire rack. Store the cake in a container. The cake can be kept for 1 week or 3 weeks in the fridge.

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Minions Tokyo Banana

After I finished this favorite snack from Tokyo, I searched around for the recipe and realized its quite easy to make. So we don't need to wait for another trip to Tokyo to enjoy this no.1 souvenir.

Yield: 8 Tokyo Banana

Recipe adapted from Ochikeron

Banana Custard Cream

Ingredients
100g Banana (smashed in blender until smooth)

1 Egg

1 Tablespoon of Corn Starch

3 Tablespoon of Granulated Sugar

150ml Milk

A few drops of Vanilla Extract

Directions:

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and strain through a sieve into a saucepan. Cook on low heat, stir constantly, and stop the heat when the cream starts to thicken. Mix well with the remaining heat. If you like, add a few drops of vanilla extract. Leave to cool completely. Transfer the cream into a pastry bag and chill in the fridge.

Sponge Cake 
(You can use half of the following ingredients if you prefer thinner sponge cake, in this way you can cut the cake into 4 sqaure and then into 2 thin slices)

Ingredients
6 egg yolks

40g granulated sugar

80ml cooking oil

80ml milk

120g cake flour

6 egg whites

80g granulated sugar

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C. 

2. Separate the eggs and place the whites in a large bowl and keep in the refrigerator for easy to whip up.

3. In another bowl, place egg yolks and sugar and beat them with an electric mixer until white like mayonnaise. Add cooking oil and milk, then mix well with an electric mixer. Sift in cake flour and mix well with a whisk.

4. For the Meringue, take out the egg whites from the fridge (add few drops of lemon juice if you have any. Whip egg whites and half of the granulated sugar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Then add the rest of the granulated sugar and whip them until firm peaks form.

5. Add 1/3 Meringue into the Egg Yolk Batter and blend well with a whisk. Then add the rest of the Meringue 1/2 at a time and mix well with a spatula. 

6. Bake in two 30cm square cake pan at 170 degree for 16-18min.

Assembly

1. Cut the 30cm square sponge cake into 4 square.

2. Place the cake on plastic wrap (with the brown side up), pipe out the Banana Custard Cream, roll, and securely twist the ends like a candy.

3. Store in the refrigerator to set the shape.

Optional (to make Minions design)
Inspired by the movie trailer from Minions where the Minions keep saying "Banana...Banana...", I was playful to turn my Tokyo banana to Minions Banana.

For you who want to add more fun into your dessert making... You need the following:

Food coloring (Blue and Black)

White Chocolate 

Honey

1. I used brush to paint the blue clothes (mix 1-2 tsp of honey with blue food coloring).

2. Melt white chocolate in microwave for 10 seconds and stir, repeat until you get smooth consistency. Draw minions eyes with white chocolate.

3. Used the leftover white chocolate and mix with black coloring to get nice grey and draw the circle for the eyes. 

4. Paint the mouth, hair and eyes band with brush (mix 1 tsp of honey with black food coloring)

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Baa Baa White Sheep ~ German Cookie (Deutsche Kekse)

I did these cute cookies after seeing many bakers doing it for upcoming Chinese New Year which happened to be a Goat Year. Hopefully these fatty Baa Baa White Sheep will bring me lots of fortune, luck and happiness and same to you who is reading this blog.

If you never taste a German Cookie before, it actually taste like the Wang Wang biscuit and it melts in mouth.

The recipe below is adapted from Small Small baker.

Ingredients (makes 32 pieces)

125g butter
40g icing sugar, sifted
125g potato starch
80g plain flour 

Decoration
Black Sesame Seeds
Chocolate Chips

Direction

1. Beat butter and icing sugar till fluffy and light in colour.

2. Sift in potato starch and flour, mix to form a soft dough.
Don't worry about the softness of the dough as you can chill in the fridge for 30-45min to make it easier for shaping.

3. Roll into a 12g balls and 2 tiny balls for each sheep. Place the 2 tiny balls on top of the head and gently make a line using toothpick. Add the black sesame for the eyes and chocolate chips for the ears.

4. Bake in preheated oven at 160 deg C for 25 mins, upper rack with top and bottom heat.

5. Store in air-tight container and consume within a week. I believe you dont need to wait for one week to finish them.
Bon Appetit!!!

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Mie Sop Medan

This is a very famous street food all over Indonesia and especially from Medan. I used to eat them quite often when I was a kid so its a sweet memory food. When I am not in Indonesia and miss the food, I can only prepared them in my kitchen and of cos its not as convenient as when you can just order from the street. Some effort is required especially getting all the spices when you are not in Asian but I can tell you its all worth it. Like me I failed to get the red and white tapioca cracker as shown below so I replaced with emping cracker.

For this dish you can always prepare the noodles right before serving time and everything else in advance. ♥

Serves: 4-6 pax

Ingredients

Grind the following into spice paste
4 cloves garlic
6  shallots
3  candlenuts
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbsp sea salt
1 inch ginger

Spices for broth
2 star anise
5 cm length cinnamon stick
4 pieces cloves
1/2 nutmeg
2 whole cardamoms

Noodles
Egg Noodle or kwe tiau or yellow noodle or bee hoon or vermicelli (Choose one or mixture of two)

Other ingredients
2.5 L water for broth
800-1kg chicken leg-thighs (you can add more chicken bones to have deeper chicken taste)
chicken/beef meat balls
50 g Chinese celery (divide into two, chopped finely for condiments and the other half for broth)
2 green onions (same as above)
2  tomatoes (quartered)
few carrots (cut into small pieces)

Garnish
Sweet Soy Sauce (kecap manis)
Tomato Sauce
fried shallot flakes
red and white tapioca crackers (fried till fluffy)
slices of lime (optional)
sambal chilies (optional)

Directions

1. Ia a pan, place the spices for the broth and cook until fragrant, about 2-3 min.
2. Heat oil in a soup pot and fry the spice paste until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add water, tomatoes, and spices for the broth. Bring to a boil.
4. Add chicken  and carrots and bring to a boil. Cover the lid, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes until the chicken is tender and fully cooked.
5. Remove chicken from the soup, fry until golden brown, and tear the meat. Set aside.

Noodles

1. Boil the noodle of your choice according to the packaging. Drain and set aside. Toss with a little bit of cooking oil to prevent from sticking.

To serve

1. Place some noodles in a bowl, add chicken, meat balls and chopped celery and spring onions on top. Pour the boiling broth on top of the noodles. Add one tablespoon of sweet soy sauce and one teaspoon of tomato sauce. Sprinkle some shallot flakes and crackers. Serve with sambal chilli and lime wedges.

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Kueh Bangkit

Chinese New Year is around the corner... Soon we will say good bye to the Horse and welcome the Goat... But I will stick my love to Doraemon the Cat and never say good bye... ok enough of my lame joke...

I was inspired by the movie Stand By Me to do kueh bangkit out of their normal shape ... which is Doraemon... I thought I will fail but I did it although they are not perfectly shape... Anyway you can do any shape with any available mold that you have..

The mold that I used is the Doraemon Jelly Mold shown below. You can also used cookie cutter.

In this blog I will talk more on molding part as I believe everybody should have their own favorite kueh bangkit recipe passed down from grandma era that has been fully proved hehehe... Lets make this tradition of making kueh bangkit during chinese new year a lasting one by creating your own desired shape.

First of all you need to prepare the dry and cook flours as follow, one day in advance is advised so as we have a complete cool down flour:

Ingredients
500g tapioca flour
165g sago flour
5-6 pcs of pandan leaves cut into 5cm

Direction
1. Stir fry both flours in a wok over low heat for 10 min and then add the pandan leaves and continue to stir fry for another 10-20 min until the flour is light and slightly turned yellow.
2. Once the pandan leaves become dried and crinkled, remove them out of the flour else once they break you will have hard time to remove them later.
3. Leave to cool completely and sift and then finally store in air tight container.

Kueh Bangkit

Ingredients
420g cooked flour
2 egg yolks
200g icing sugar
240g coconut cream ~ prepare more and used if the dough gets too dry while molding
(I prefer to cook the coconut with pandan leaves and a pinch of salt to have stronger flavor cookie, this is optional and ensure they are completely cool down)

Direction
1. Combine coconut cream with 100g sugar and mix well.

2. In another bowl, whisk egg yolks with hands with the remaining 100g sugar for 5 min and gradually stir in the coconut cream mixture and whisk until well combined.

3. Pour in the sifted flour and knead to get a soft dough. Cover the dough with a damp cloth.

4. Shape the cookie to your desired shape.

If you are using mold, either the plastic or wooden
~ Dust the mold with the extra cooked flour every time before you mold.
 (my mom taught me to put the flour in a thin cloth and tie it with rubber and you will get your own duster)
~ Take a pinch of dough and press them hard into the mold. Trim excess by using knife. Tap Gently on hard surface to remove the kueh. If you are using plastic mold like me, you can gently tap and then press out. Repeat this step.

If you are using cookie cutter
~ Dust the working surface with the extra cooked flour.
~ Roll out the dough into 3-5mm thickness.
~ Dust the cookie cutter and cut out the desired pattern. Repeat this step.

In both situation add a little coconut milk when the dough turned too dry.

5. Bake in preheated oven (top-bottom heat) at 160C for 20-25min until they slightly turned yellow.

6. Remove from oven and leave it to completely cool before storage. At this stage you can use food coloring and paint brush to add some color to your biscuit. They have to be stored in air-tight container.

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Chocolate Log Cake House

This year Christmas I thought of making something fun in the kitchen, Logcake House using basic recipe like sponge cake, butter cream and all kind of decoration goodies that you like. If you have lots of kids coming to your party, they will be delighted as they can pull out their favorite snacks from the cake, some may like like chocolate, others may prefer wafer or cookies. Why not try it out?

Basically you need to make sponge cake and cut into the size of your choice and decorate with biscuits, chocolates or candies with your imagination.

This is what I did:

20cm square chocolate sponge cake

Ingredients
Group A
4 eggs
150g granulated sugar
60g milk
20g sponge gel (The addition of sponge gel strengthens the cake batter)

Group B
100g self cake flour
40g cocoa powder
20g milk powder (I prefer to use coffee powder as it will bring out the chocolate flavor more)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

Group C 
180g melted butter and cooled

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C.

2. Melt butter in microwave for 40 seconds or more and set aside to cool

3. Using electric mixer on high speed, whip group A ingredients or around 5 min until fluffy and voluminous.

4. Add Group B and mix for 1 min and lastly the melted butter for 30s until they are well mixed.

5. Pour into 20cm square pan and bake for 35-40 min until cooked. (Toothpick inserted into the  centre comes out clean). Cool in wire rack before cutting them.

Butter Cream
150g margarine
150g butter
120g icing sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Whisk the margarine and butter until pale. Add icing sugar and continue to whisk. Lastly add the cocoa powder and mix well. At this point your butter cream should be stiff enough to use.

Building the Log Cake House
Loacker waffle as the roof
Redondo waffle stick as the walls
Meiji Chocolate as the door
M&M chocolate as the door knob
Christmas candies to add colour to the house
Chocolate bar as chimney
(cut them into 2 pcs and then cut 45 degree on one side so they can stick to the roof)
Melted chocolate as glue
(microwave 1-2 tbsp chocolate chips for 30s and follow by 10s until all melted)

You can use any brand of your choice and let your imagination run wild in decorating them.

 

Direction
1. Cut your chocolate sponge cake into 2of 8cmx20cm and 1of 4cmx20cm width.
2. Stack the sponge cake in this order 8cm, 8cm and 4cm. Cream with butter cream prepared in between them and all the 4 sides of the house.
3. Just stick the waffle on the roof and walls and finally the front door with meiji chocolate bar.
4. Stick the chocolate bar on the roof with melted chocolate.
5. Decorate the house with candie and M&M. You can always use the melted chocolate to glue them into the house.

Finally you can place them in the fridge to set.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=680209858763621&set=vb.176023055848973&type=2&theater

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Reindeer Cake Pop

Chocolate Cake Pops
Yield: 24 using the Nordic Cake Pop Mould

Ingredients:
130g dark chocolate chips (at least 65% if you prefer less sweet) 
100g butter
100g caster sugar
22g cocoa powder
2 eggs
96g all purpose flour (or 96g cake flour + 1 tsp. baking powder)
1/4 tsp. salt

Decoration:
340g chocolate coating (not chocolate chips, for easy decoration as it does not melt so easily)
M&M (reds only for the nose)
Pretzel for the reindeer horn (break them into half)
Wilton Confetti Sprinkles in white (any decoration sugar that is white is ok)
Edible marker (to draw the eye ball)
Cake Pop Stick
Styrofoam box

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 170C (338F). Grease and flour pan.
2. In medium saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips and butter together. (Stop the heat when the butter starts to melt and mix with residual heat with patience. Otherwise the mixture will be separated.) Stir until smooth. Then pour into medium bowl.
3. Add sugar and mix until blended. Add egg one at a time and mix well.
4. Sift in flour and salt. Stir until blended.
5. Spoon the batter into bottom half of pan (without holes) filling each well so it mounds over the top of the pan. 
6. Place top half of pan on top and secure with keys. Bake for 15-18 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
7. Cool 5 minutes in pan, then remove cake pops from pan to cool completely. Trim the edges of cake pops, if needed.

Decoration:
1. Melt chocolate coating in a silicone dish in interval of 20 seconds. Mix them well for each interval and stop when they are totally melt.
2. Dip cake pop stick into melted chocolate and insert into cake. Repeat with all cakes. Allow chocolate to cool to secure stick in place. 
3. Dip cake pop in melted chocolate, spinning to let excess chocolate drip off. Make them stand in Styrofoam box i you have else you can just put on a dish like the one below.
4. When the chocolate coating is almost dry, attach the eyes the nose and horn on the cake pop. Repeat for all the cake pop. 
5. Store in refrigerator.           

                   

I would like to take this chance to wish you who celebrate a Merry Christmas and everyone a Happy New Year!!!

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