Steamed Turnip Cake (萝卜糕)

Ingredients:

Rice flour - 2 cups
Tapioca starch or Corn starch - 1/2 cup
Water - 2 and 1/2 cups
Turnip - medium size, about 750 g after peeling
Salt - 1 tsp
White pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
Dried shrimp - 2 TBSP
Dried mushroom - 4-5 medium size
Cantonese style sausage - 2 sticks, diced
Red pearl onion - 1 small, chopped

Steps:

1. Soak dried shrimp and mushroom until they are soft. Dice the mushroom.
2. In a mixing bow, mix rice flour, tapioca starch, and add water.
3. Peel the turnip and use a cheese grater to shred it.

4. In a frying pan, add oil and stir fry onion, shrimp, mushroom, and sausage. Then take them out and put aside.
5. In a frying pan, stir fry the shredded turnip until it is cooked. Then add in the ingredients from last step. Add salt and white pepper powder.

6. Turn off the heat, and stir in the rice flour mixture from step 2.
7. Coat a 9" cake pan with oil, and pour the barter in the pan.

8. Steam at high heat for 40 minutes. Let the cake cool thoroughly before taken out of pan.

You can steam the cake again to serve directly. I prefer to slice it and pan-fried it.

Easter Bunny Cake 2016

Cake: green tea crepe cake
Fence: melted chocolate chips
Dirt : Oreo cookie crumbs
Rabbit, carrot, cabbage: Rolled marshmallow fondant

Valentine 2016 Cake

Sausage 2016 - Sichuan Sausage and Taiwan Sausage

This year, I made some spicy, and some sweet sausages, using the same process as last year with some adjustment on the ingredients. I think the Spicy sausage could have bee more spicy. I need  to find better chili pepper next time, or increase the amount of crushed pepper. The sweet sausage is not as popular as the spicy one, as expected.

Spicy sausage ingredients（川式腊肠)

Pork: 10 lb
Salt - 90g

Crushed pepper - 40g
Cayenne pepper powder - 20g
Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum 花椒) - 35g (grounded with a spice grinder)
White pepper powder - 10g
Liquor- 100ml (Chinese hard liquor or Vodka 白酒)

Rock sugar - 50g (grounded with spice grinder)
Casing : Natural Hog Sausage Casing Casings
Cotton thread to tie the sausage

Taiwan sausage ingredients（台式腊肠）

Pork: 5 lb
Brown sugar - 160g

Salt - 32g

Garlic powder - 1 and 1/2 TBSP

Five spices powder - 1 TBSP

Liquor- 160g (Chinese hard liquor or Vodka 白酒)

Casing : Natural Hog Sausage Casing Casings
Cotton thread to tie the sausage

Chocolate Dipped Cookie

I made those cookies for kid's Valentine's Day party at school. The cookies are the egg free sugar cookies. 

Bake heart shaped cookies first. Let them cool.

Then melt the chocolate chips, and dip half of the heart in.

Do not move the cookies until they are dry thoroughly.

Red Bean Jelly(红豆羊羹)

If you like red bean, you would love this desert.  

Ingredients:

Red bean pastry filling - 300g
Agar Agar Powder - 6 tsp or 1 oz (Depends on the brand, mine said to use 1 oz per cup of water)
Sugar - 1/4 cup (depends on your preference)
Water - 1 cup
Dried Osmanthus - for sprinkle on top

Steps:

1. Add Agar Agar powder and sugar to water and bring to boiling. Turn off heat.
2. Add in red bean paste, and stir to make it fully mixed.
3. Pour the mixture thru a fine mesh sieve into a glass container
4. Let it cool and then cut into shapes.


For variation, you can add dried Osmanthus, cooked chestnut bits, or some diced fresh fruit.

Two Tone Fried Puff Pastry (莲花酥)

Ingredients:

【Skin A】
-  All purpose flour - 2 cup
-  Butter / Lard - 1/2 cup
- Water - 1/2 cup
- Sugar - 1 TBSP
- Wilton food color gel, Red
【Skin B】
- Cake flour - 1.5 cup
- Corn oil - 1/3 cup
【Filling】:
- Red bean pastry filling
【Coating】:
- Egg yolk wash - 1 egg yolk + 1 TBSP water, mix well
- Sesame seeds

Steps:

1. Melt butter in microwave
2. Add all ingredients for Skin A to warm butter. Knead to smooth dough, and let it sit for 20 minutes.
3. Knead ingredients for skin B into a dough, and let it sit for 15 minutes.
4. Split dough A in two, and use food color to dye one dough red.
4. Portion the dough A and dough B into small balls, about 10-11g for skin A, and 6-7 g for skin B.

5. Wrap each dough B into dough A, and round it to a ball. Use a rolling pin and roll the dough into oval shape, then roll into a bundle. Repeat in the other direction.

9. Use rolling pin to make round wrapper. Overlap one white skin A with one red skin A, and then wrap the filling (about 30g) in side.  Use knife to cut through the skin.

10. Fill a pot with oil that can immerse the whole pastry. Fry the pastry over medium heat until the skin puffs up.