Chinese New Year Bakes 2012

My baking blog seems to be gathering cobwebs due to several weeks of neglect. Before it continues to fall apart due to lack of maintenance, it is time to do some "Spring Cleaning" and "repair works".

This post was supposed to be up during Chinese New Year period. For this Chinese New Year, I have decided to move away from doing just the usual pineapple tarts. Come to think of it, it is my fourth year doing the all-time festive favourite. Before I could decide if I want to make the pineapple paste from scratch, mum happily handed me two packets of store-bought paste, leaving me with no choice but to use them.

Ever since I had my maiden attempt on making homemade pineapple jam, the bar has been raised. I am no longer satisfied with the one-dimensional plainly sweet pineapple jam. There is far too much sugar in store-bought paste, probably necessary to allow the paste to keep for a long period of time. In addition, store-bought jam is much drier compared to homemade ones, does not taste as fruity and lack the cinnamon taste which gives it the extra oomph.

Next year, I will likely not be doing any pineapple tarts and will be shifting the focus to trying out other CNY cookies instead.

Preparing the pineapple balls and pineapple tart crust.

Store bought pineapple paste. Sweet and sticky.

Pineapple tart pastry made with Lurpak butter.

Besides doing pineapple tarts, I have tried Florence's peanut cookies recipe. These cookies are so fragile that they crumble in the mouth right away, giving the melt-in-the-mouth texture. Personally, I prefer my peanut cookies to be firm and crunchy, but taste-wise there is nothing for me to find fault with, for they are packed with loads of peanut flavour. I will be using caster sugar in place of the icing sugar for this same recipe next CNY to give a crunchy texture instead.

Just a few tubs of CNY goodies I have made.

Peanut cookies and pineapple tarts.  

Peanut Cookies (recipe from Do What I Like by Florence)
Taste and Texture: Strong peanut flavour with melt-in-the-mouth texture.

click on the following link for recipe:
recipe


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Chinese New Year 2011 and Nice Homemade Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year marks the start of a new year in the lunar calendar. When it comes to Chinese New Year, it is a time of reunion with family, relatives and friends. This is one highly-regarded festive occasion that is widely celebrated by all Chinese worldwide. 

On Chinese New Year Eve ( 除夕夜), Chinese families gather for a feasting over dinner which symbolizes reunion. This is known as the reunion dinner. The reunion dinner usually includes a mouth-watering spread of dishes including roasted duck, steamed chicken, steamed fish with gravvy and other restaurant-style delicacies offering lots of meat and expensive seafood such as abalone and scallops. Some families may opt for a steamboat dinner instead which involves less preparation.

It sure was a lot of feasting for me as I had three reunion dinners in total: one at home on the sunday before week of Chinese New Year, one at my elder brother's place during New Year's Eve and the last dinner at my grandma's place (paternal side) following my 2nd reunion dinner. The feastings did not just include the reunion dinners. Since there is always an abundance of food for each reunion dinner, the leftovers are warmed up and taken for lunch or dinner the following day.

Apart from the rich dishes that are present during lunch or dinner, there is also a wide array of tidbits and cookies. There are some goodies which me and my younger brother consider a must-buy for Chinese New Year, namely: Julie's Chocolate Love Letters, Da Fa Fish Strips, Ferrero Rocher, Hello Panda Chocolate-filled Cookies and Pineapple Tarts.

This is the third year that I am making pineapple tarts (closed versions) and I decided to attempt to make the pineapple paste from scratch using Wendy's recipe and method. Her instructions were clear and the proportion of pineapples and sugar were just right. I was absolutely thrilled at how good my homemade paste turned out. However, I had to constantly observe if the bottom of my pan was charring since it was a non heavy based one. Each time the bottom of the pot charred, I had to remove the jam from the pot, wash the pot and scrub the charred spot/s clean. For the final bit, I had to resort to using the mircowave to dry my wet pineapple paste instead of constantly frying to reduce the risk of ending up with burnt pineapple paste.

I made two batches of pineapple paste using two different varieties of pineapples - Honey pineapples and S&W sweet pineapples. Honey pineapples are much sweeter and could do with lesser sugar. Over in Malaysia, Honey pineapples are known by their variety name instead. The S&W sweet pineapples were quite costly - $2.90 for each weighing 1.6kg. Even though these pineapples were steeply priced, I would gladly pay for them again since they produce a fragrant fruity sweet-tart pineapple paste as compared to the Honey pineapples. 

I decided to be a little adventurous and tried out a different tart pastry recipe. My efforts paid off and it yielded tarts that crumbled easily with a melt-in-the-mouth experience. Excellent! My pineapple tarts were churned out in two different batches using different homemade pineapple paste. I was extremely pleased with my first batch of tarts for the texture and taste but felt that the second batch could be better improved on. 

For the second batch, the honey pineapple paste was sweeter and a little too fibrous for my liking. Next time, I would process the pineapples longer to break up the fibres. I also made a mistake by measuring my paste and pastry by 1/2 teaspoonfuls instead of going by the teaspoon (I used the same baking time even though my pineapple balls were smaller), something which I only realized afterwards! No wonder I thought my pineapple tarts seemed to be smaller. Foolish me, haha...  As a result, the pastry turned out to be firmer and more crusty.

Pineapple Tarts (pastry recipe adapted from Delicious Nyonya Kuek & Desserts by Patricia Lee)

Serving size: about 70 tarts, fills two small sized CNY cookie containers.

Taste and Texture: Crumbly and moderately melt-in-the mouth texture with sweet-tart fruity pineapple paste filling.

Equipment and Materials:

1) Baking/Cookie pans

2) Flour sieve

3) weighing scale

4) Measuring bowls

5) Measuring spoon set

6) Pastry cutter/ two knives

7) Wire whisk

8) Baking/Parchement paper

9) Clingfilm

Ingredients:

360g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbs icing sugar

2 egg yolks

1 tsp vanilla extract

220g cold butter, cubed

2 1/2 tbs hot water

400g homemade pineapple paste (click on link to reveal recipe and method)

1 or 2 egg yolk/s for egg wash

Making the pastry:

Mix dry ingredients - Sift flour, baking powder, salt and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Whisk well to combine and distribute evenly.

Rub butter into dry ingredients - Tip the cubed butter onto the dry ingredients. Use the pastry cutter to cut the butter into the dry ingredients. Alternatively, use two knives in a scissor-like manner and cut the butter into the flour. Continue the process until the butter and dry ingredient mixture look like bread crumbs with a few large grains. If there is no pastry cutter or knives, you may use your hand to rub the butter into the flour mixture.

Adding yolks and vanilla - Beat egg yolks with 1 tsp vanilla extract. Add it to the butter-flour crumb mixture and stir gently with a folk.

Mix to a dough - Finally, add the hot water and stir gently until the mixture starts to come together. Knead with your hands gently to incoporate loose dough and bring everything together. Once the dough comes together, give it some further gentle kneading so that the dough is evenly coloured (there is presence of egg yolk). The kneading process should be as brief and as gentle as possible. Once the dough is done, wrap the dough with clingfilm and rest the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. 

Making the tarts:  

Portioning the pastry - Scoop out slightly heaped teaspoons of dough and roll into into round balls. Set aside.

Portioning the pineapple paste - Scoop out levelled teaspoons of pineapple paste and roll into into round balls. Set aside

Wrapping the pineapple paste - Flatten a ball of pastry and place a ball of pineapple paste onto the flattened pastry. Wrap the pastry over the pineapple paste evenly to get round pineapple tarts. You may need to add more pastry or remove excess pastry in order to get the desired thickness of pastry around the paste.

Baking the tarts - Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. Arrange wrapped pineapple tarts onto baking sheets spaced evenly. Brush a thin layer of egg yolk over each pineapple tart. Bake tarts for 20 minutes. Allow tarts to cool completely on wire rack before storing in airtight containers.

Notes:

1) The pastry needs to be handled gently and minimally so that it will achieve the crumbly yet melt-in-the-mouth texture. Use a trusted brand of plain flour for the pastry.

2) Do not brush too much egg wash or the pastry will taste eggy. I brushed a lot of egg wash to achieve the golden effect but the taste is slightly compromised.

3) Do not overbake the tarts or the pastry will turn firm and crusty as opposed to being crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth.

4) Tart semi-ripe pineapples are preferred for the paste.

5) Do not discard core from pineapples. Use it making the paste.

6) You can control the wetness of the pineapple paste if it is homemade. Store bought paste tends to be chewy and dry.

7) The tarts will not turn out be yellowish like commercially available ones since there is no yellow colouring used. Instead the colour obtained for the baked tarts is slighlty cream/off-white.

8) Pastry recipe is for closed tarts. It may or may not work well for open tarts.

9) Chilled dough (30 mins chilling time) is relatively easy to handle since it is for closed tarts.

10) Try baking a few tarts as a test batch to get the desired baking time.

11) Use good quality butter for the pastry.

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Chocolate Log Cake 2

This is another chocolate log cake made for my younger brother's party. I was pretty glad that I get to practice on my rolling of swiss roll. This time round, I made sure that the sponge was rolled tightly and it there were no cracks after rolling. However, it turned out to be tightly rolled on one end but not so much on the other end. Nevertheless, it served as a good practice.

After slicing of about one-fifth of the original roll and placing it at the side of the main roll, this is how the log cake should look like before coating with buttercream (coating with chocolate ganache should work too).

There is lesser of a fuss when it comes to doing the frosting for the log cake as compared to that for layer cakes. There is no need for the frosting to be mirror-smooth. After doing the 'tree bark' effect using the tines of a fork, the surface willl look rugged anyway.

To ensure that the buttercream do not make a mess on the cake board, I chucked rectangular slips of baking paper under the log cake. After the frosting is done, the papers are carefully removed and the cake board remained clean.

As depicted in the above picture, the frosting did not make a mess on the cake board, saving the hassle to wipe away any frosting that has stained the board. This trick of using rectangular slips of baking paper picked up from Rose Levy Beranbaum is useful when frosting layers cake too.

Dust the completed log cake with snow powder/ icing sugar to give it a simple snowy feel. Alternatively, decorate it with xmas figurines, white chocolate curls or coloured dragees.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #2: Christmas! (Dec 2010)



Chocolate Log Cake ( Sponge recipe adapted from Elegant Swiss Rolls by Kevin Chai, chocolate buttercream recipe adapted from Chocolate Ephiphany by Francois Payard)

Serving size: 10 slices

Taste and texture: Cake base is soft, moist and *slightly chewy. Chocolate buttercream is smooth and chocolatey.
Equipment and materials:
1) 12 x 12 inch pan or 10 x 14 inch pan
2) Stand electric beater/ handheld electric beater
3) Spatula
4) wire whisk/balloon whisk
5) Mixing bowls
6) Heatproof bowl
7) Wire rack
8) Flour sieve
9) Parchment/baking paper
10) Brush for oiling pan
11) Weighing scale
12) 10 x 10 inch square cake board
13) 10 x 10 inch square cake box

Sponge Cake:
250g whole eggs, room temperature (about five 55-60g eggs)
90g caster sugar
95g plain flour (cake flour will do as well)
20g cocoa powder
70g unsalted butter, melted

Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:
125g egg whites, room temperature
85g granulated sugar
225g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
50g cocoa powder (add more if desired to up the chocolate factor)

Making Cake Base:
Pre-preparation: Line the swiss roll tin with baking/parchment paper. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.

Combine dry ingredients: Mix the flour and cocoa powder together in a large bowl to ensure they are evenly distributed.

Beating whole eggs: In a mixing bowl, beat whole eggs with 90g caster sugar on medium speed untill eggs are well aerated and have expanded about 4-6 times in volume. The beaten eggs should be thick and fluffy. When the beater is lifted, the falling batter leaves a ribbon-like trail that does not level with the rest of the batter immediately (takes about 20 seconds before levelling with the bulk of the mixture). This is know as the 'ribbon stage'. Continue to beat the foamed eggs on low speed for abother 2-3 minutes. This is to stabilize the egg mixture.

Folding dry ingredients into beaten eggs: Sift one-third of the dry ingredients into beaten eggs. Fold using a balloon whisk, gently and gradually, untill the dry ingredients are incorporated. Repeat the same for the remaining two-thirds of the dry ingredients. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a flexible spatula every now and then to incorporate flour that is stuck to the sides and that which have sunk to the bottom. We want the beaten eggs to deflate as little as possible in the folding process.

Adding the butter: Scoop a small portion of the flour-egg batter and mix it with the melted butter in a medium bowl until smooth. This makes it easier to fold the butter into the main flour-egg batter. Add this butter mixture back to the main bulk of the flour-egg batter. Fold gently to obtain a evenly mixed foamy batter.

Baking the cake: Pour cake batter into lined tin and bake at 200 degrees C for 8 to 12 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted at the middle comes out clean. The top skin of the cake should be springy when pressed and moist and sticky to the feel. Once done, remove cake tin from oven and place on a wire rack. Cover the surface with a sheet of aluminuim foil or baking paper to maintain the moistness. Take care not to overbake the cake. It will turn dry if slightly overbaked.

Preparing the Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:
Dissolve sugar in egg whites: Place 125 egg whites and 85g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved (no gritty feel when rubbed with your fingers) and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting a finger). Take care not to scramble/cook the egg mixture.

Beating egg whites: Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.

Adding butter and cocoa: Beat in 225g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incoporated before adding the next. The mixture will be watery at one point in time. Just continue beating and the mixture will become sturdy, creamy and fluffy. Lastly, sift in 50g cocoa powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth chocolate buttercream.

Assembly:
Turning the cake out: Turn the baked sheet cake onto a piece of baking/parchment paper. Slowly peel off the attached baking/parchment paper from the cake.

Rolling the cake: Apply half the prepared buttercream over the surface of the sheet cake. With the shorter side/breadth facing you (if using 10 x 14 inch pan), roll the cake up tightly to form a swiss roll.

Covering cake with buttercream: Place swiss roll on a 10 x 10 inch square cake board. Slice one-fifth of the log and position this sliced portion at the side of the main roll. This is to give the log cake a branched shape. Chuck rectangular slips of baking paper under the log cake.

Apply a thin layer of chocolate buttercream over the log to seal in the crumbs. Cover the entire log evenly with chocolate buttercream. There is not need for the buttercream to be very smooth. Use the tines of a fork to scratch along the surface of the buttercream to give a 'tree bark' effect. Dust with snow powder/icing sugar and decorate as desired. Carefully remove the rectangular slips of paper.

Notes:
1) Store completed log cake in the refrigerator in a 10 x 10 inch cake box (with 10 x 10 inch square cake board). Allow it to soften at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.  
2) Decorate the log cake with xmas ornaments like santa claus, reindeers and snowman figurines; green/silver/golden mini christmas trees; red and green mini dragees/sprinkles, gold and silver mini/normal dragees; white chocolate curls etc. Most of these can be obtained from baking supply stores (Phoon Huat, Sun Lik etc).
3) I have reduced the amount of sugar by a lot. Do not be tempted to further reduce the sugar.
4) Use good quality cocoa powder like Valrhona for the best results.
5) Chocolate ganache may be used to cover the log cake instead. Alternatively, plain whipped cream may also be used.
6) 200 Degrees C ensures that the sponge sheet is baked at a short time while less water content is evaporated, keeping the cake moist. If sponge cake is overbaked and turns out dry, brush it with a simple syrup to moisten it. A simple syrup consists of equal mass of water and sugar.

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Bakertan's Christmas Goodies - Chocolate Log Cake 1

I was in quite a hurry to get this log cake done and was rushing off to my first Christmas dinner of the month. Pardon me for the shabbily-taken pictures. Next time, I will take more pictures of the process if time permits and perhaps add some decorations to my plain looking log cake.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, making log cake is easier than you would imagine. Choose your favourite swiss roll recipe. It need not be a chocolate swiss roll. Blackforest, strawberry, matcha and coffee swiss rolls will also do the job. Roll the sheet cake tightly into a log as you would for a swiss roll. Nevermind if it breaks. Simply cover it with whipped cream or buttercream according to your preference and use the tines of a fork to 'scratch' the surface of the frosting along the length to get the 'tree bark' effect. There you have, a rustic homemade log cake.

For this log cake, I chose my chocolate swiss roll recipe and increased the amount of buttercream (reduced sugar as well) so that there is enough frosting to cover the swiss roll. The log cake may be glazed with ganache instead of buttercream.

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Bakertan's Christmas Goodies 1 - Two Cookies and a Log Cake

Whew, last weekend was a tiring one! For the entire saturday afternoon, I was busy shopping for ingredients at Phoon Huat, Cold Storage and Ntuc. The ingredients I lugged back home weighed almost close to 7kg - flour, butter, cream cheese, mascarpone cheese, whipping cream etc... Luckily I brought my backpack along. 

After taking a short rest, I went to battle armed with my oven, mixer and my arsenal of firepower - flour, nuts, peanut butter, raisins, cornflakes and chocolate chips.  The entire battle lasted 7 hours in total before a truce was called. The battle trophies? 90 chunky peanut, chocolate chip and cinnamon cookies and 60 cornflakes raisins chocolate chip cookies. I have never made this much cookies in a single day in my life! Imagine having to shape all these cookies. Very tedious!

The battle continued on sunday and the battle trophy this time round was a chocolate log cake. I didn't do a good job with the rolling of the swiss roll and it cracked horribly after rolling. Nevertheless, I took it as a log cake practice and slathered chocolate buttercream over the cracked swiss roll. It covered up really well and I was rather pleased with my first log cake.

All the above bakes were meant for my first christmas gathering on sunday evening. It may sound a bit early, but we had no choice since most of us won't be around when it draws close to Christmas. Apart from serving its cause as an aftermeal dessert, the log cake also doubled up as a birthday cake (in advance) for one of my friends. Happy Birthday Queen!

After cutting the cake, the interior didn't look like it was badly cracked. I remember one blogger mentioning that log cakes are very forgiving. They are indeed!  

I would like to take this opportunity to dedicate this log cake to my blogger friends Eelin and Sheryl since they are dec babies too. Happy Birthday ladies!

Unlike the same Christmas gathering from previous years, there is quite a bit of sweets and baked goodies going around this time. They are:

• peppermint candy canes
• chocolate almonds (made with valrhona, good stuff!)
• chocolate cream cheese brownies (my friend made it from my cookie book. I'm going to make this one day.)
• chunky peanut, chocolate chip and cinnamon cookies and cornflakes raisins chocolate chip cookies which I prepared.
• Christmas tree butter cookie

Christmas sure is a good chance and the perfect excuse to bake. I can already forsee that I will be making christmas goodies for at least 3 other occasions. Its going to be a bakeful month and more cookies, log cakes and perhaps brownies. I think I will probably do 6-8 different types of cookies for this festive season.  

The recipes for the two cookies and log cake will be featured in upcoming posts. Stay tuned...

Bakertan Makes Snowskin Mooncakes

When I was still a kid, I enjoyed eating snowskin mooncakes. I love the idea of how this sweet pastry is snowy white and chewy in texture. The best part about eating them is they are served chilled. Apart from having a sweet tooth, another eating habit of mine is taking drinks and desserts served well-chilled whenever possible. This applies to drinks or desserts that are usually served warm, for instance: coffee and red bean soup.

These days, there is a myriad of flavour combinations for these chilled pastries. Snowskin mooncakes are no longer limited to their snow or green coloured skins with plain lotus paste fillings. Among these emerging flavours, you can find craneberry, matcha, red wine, chocolate and ice cream (haagen daaz and swensons) snowskin mooncakes.

With some leftover white lotus paste and an unused packet of green tea lotus paste from Phoon Huat, the options were obvious - white lotus snowskin and matcha snowskin mooncakes. The white lotus paste has a smooth texture and it isn't coyingly sweet nor oily, all thanks to my fellow blogger friend - Shirley for her wonderful recommendation.

Previously, when me and my mooncake kakis had our first mooncake making session, one of my them tried making the snowskin pastry. Sadly, it failed terribly on the first attempt. There were too much icing sugar and too little flour. On the second try, the pastry worked but the taste of the overcooked flour was overpowering. My kaki had cooked the flour in a pan over a flame and it turned biege in colour, giving off a strong burnt smell that quickly filled the kitchen and living room.

Armed with some experience amassed from our last mooncake session, we were ready for snowskin mooncakes. This time round, we spreaded the flour evenly on a baking sheet and cooked it at 180 degrees C in the oven for 30 minutes. No more unpleasant burnt smell or undesirable biege colour. So, the making of white lotus snowskin mooncakes went smoothly as planned.

Next was the matcha snowskin mooncakes. Based on my intuition, I added 2 teaspoons of matcha powder to the recipe to give the pastry skin a pale greenish colour and a light matcha taste. The effect turned out well and the skin contrasted very nicely with the dark forest green matcha lotus paste filling.

For both the recipes, the ratio of icing sugar to flour used is about 1 : 1, which is quite a common ratio amongst many recipes I come cross. After tasting the mooncakes, I felt that the skin tasted a bit floury and is not as soft and chewy. My kakis and family members agreed on this too. Wonder if any fellow bakers out there have the same issue regarding the floury taste (I used glutinous rice flour). I will need to work on improving the texture and reduce the floury taste of the snowskin pastry in future.

After fiddling with my sony P&S camera for some time, I finally got an inkling of how to create a lens blur effect with it. Am pretty excited about it and at the same time amazed that a P&S camera is capable of pulling off such a trick. Well, it definitely cannot be compared to the more poweful DSLR camera though where the lens blur effect is more pronounced.

In the morning on the very same day, I embarked on another cake project - birthday cake for my elder brother, a chocolate buttercream cake. Stay tuned for updates on the coming post...

Bakertan's Maiden Mooncake Baking Lesson

Sorry folks, I have been rather tied up with project work lately. Hence, I will be blogging and baking at a slower pace. This post comes as a rather late one, especially when the Mid-Autumn Festival has passed by for more than a week.

This is my maiden attempt at making mooncakes. A few weeks before the Mid-Autumn Festival, I saw mooncake books lying around in Popular bookstore. The book covers caught my attention and the idea of making mooncakes immediately glued to my mind. Initially, I was all hyped up with enthusiasm. Little did I know that there were many underlying challenges behind the making of mooncakes. I shall share my mooncake making experience with greater details.

My pineapple tart kakis gathered at my place the day before Mid Autumn. We had planned to make both the traditional and snowskin mooncakes on the same day. Well, I guess we were too ambitious and things certainly did not turn out as planned.

Making the traditional mooncake pastry was pretty straight forward. But when it came to wrapping the dough over the fillings and moulding the mooncakes, we were in for some serious challenges. The recipe (from one of the mooncake books I caught hold from Popular) asked for 30g mooncake pastry skin and 140g lotus paste filling. The proportion of pastry was far too little to wrap around the fillings. We increased the amount to about 45g and it worked out to be much better. However, it takes a lot of skills to ensure the skin is evenly distributed around the filling. As shown in the picture above, some parts of the pastry skin were too thin and the lotus filling can be seen.

The first attempt to mould the mooncakes ended up in total disaster with a mooncake being stucked in the mould. I had to scrape the unbaked mooncake out but there were still lotus paste stuck in the carvings. As a result, I had to use a hose and spray at high pressure. Learning from this little nasty episode, we ensured that the mould and mooncakes were dusted generously with flour before we did the unmoulding. Thankfully, subsequent unmoulding of mooncakes turned out smoothly. We even found a way to get the unmould mooncakes without banging the wooden mould. Simply overturn the mould and start flicking the mooncake/s out. The air pressure will slowly release the mooncake/s.

As compared to the first few batches of mooncakes, the final batch browned to a nice golden colour (see picture above). However, it is still a far cry from the desired colour of a traditional mooncakes, which is that of a deep-brown tone (my mooncakes were quite pale).

Where traditional mooncakes are concerned, the type of golden syrup used is important. I used Lyle's golden syrup ( golden amber in colour) here instead of homemade golden syrup. When homemade golden syrup ages, it darkens to deep amber. Using aged homemade syrup would give mooncakes a much deeper brown skin tone. One would require advance planning when making homemade syrup as it takes a least 6 months for the syrup to age to a desirable colour. Another crucial element in getting the desirable skin tone would be the egg wash which contributes to a certain degree of browning of the mooncake skin.

mooncake with durian paste

Overall,  I felt it was more of a mooncake baking lesson which I have attended at home. There is still lots of room for improvement when it comes to me making mooncakes. After visiting blogs of fellow bake bloggers, I learnt that baked mooncakes should be left to sit for 3 days before consumption, something unheard of prior to this baking lesson. Allowing the mooncakes to sit for 3 days would allow the oil to seep out and the mooncakes will darken to a deeper shade of brown. Apart from that, the other advantage of letting the mooncakes sit over the 3-day period is to allow the skin to soften.

After making the traditional mooncakes, there were still some storebought lotus paste left. I will be attempting to make snowskin mooncakes with the rest of the paste. Wish me lots of luck on that...

Learning points for Bakertan in future mooncake making lessons:

1) Find a good balance between the ratio of the skin and filling.

2) Ensure that mooncake skin is uniform in thickness.

3) Dust mould genorously with flour when unmoulding mooncakes.

4) Prepare homemade golden syrup and allow sufficient time for it to age.

5) Add sugar/syrup to egg wash.

6) Allow mooncakes to sit for 3 days before consuming.

Backlog- CNY Pineapple Tarts

For CNY i baked a total of 5 tins of pineapple tarts. Whew! it sure was a tiring task having to roll all the pastry skin and the pineapple fillings into balls. Luckily, mum and younger bro decided to help me since the whole family is mad about pineapple tarts. We ate a total of 7 tins this year, and i estimate that i would need to bake 5 to 7 tins next year for CNY.

Baking pineapple tarts is a very time consuming, tedious yet fulfilling process. It only cost me 10bucks to bake 3 tins of tarts whereas 1
tin of handmade pineapple tart can sell for 10bucks or more on the market. On the other hand, homemade pineapple tarts can cater to personal taste and with some practice they easily turn out to be a delicious treat.

I was inspired to bake these tarts after reading youfei's blog. I followed her recipe and baked my first batch of tarts. It turned out decent, however my pastry skin was a little too thick. The 2nd time i tried baking i used a recipe featured in the sunday times. The outcome were tarts that were soft and give a melt-in-the-mouth feel. However, the skin seems to peel and the tarts seem to stick to the mouth after eating.

The best results i had were tarts baked on my 3rd attempt. This time round i altered youfei's recipe and used 50g butter less. The tarts gave a crumbly feel which suited our preference. I am so going to use this recipe for CNY next year. However, i think i wont be doing my own pineapple jam next year like this time round as it is too time consuming to me. Storebought Phoon Huat or Bake King brand pineapple paste seemed good enough.