Fast Track Palmier (速成蝴蝶酥)

This is probably the easiest way to claim "I made that!".

Ingredients 

Puff Pastry Sheet
Sugar

Steps 

 1. Defrost the puff pastry sheets and brush both sides of the sheets with sugar.
2. Fold the sheet

3. Cut to 1/2" slices and then lay on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

4. Preheat oven to 400°F, and then bake for 20 minutes, or until the cookie turns golden.

Spiral Cookies (猪耳朵饼)

The Spiral Cookies look like spiral on the seashell. It is more well known as "Pig's Ear Cookie" because it look like pig's ears. I can still remember my father making them simply with flour, brown sugar, and oil. Nowadays, you can make fancier version by mixing in Coco powder, or black sesame. I prefer the more traditional taste.

Ingredients:

Dough A:
Bread flour - 1 and 1/3 cup (160g)
Water - 1/4 - 1/3 cup (60ml+)
Salt - 1/4 tsp

Dough B:
All purpose flour -  2 cups (240g)
Clarified butter - 2 TBSP + 1 tsp (35ml)
Brown sugar - 45 g (this is light, you can add more sugar if you want sweeter)
Water - 1/4 cup

Steps:

1. Mix all ingredients for dough A and knead into round dough. Set aside covered.
2. Boiling water, and add brown sugar. When the sugar is all melted. Cool down the sugar water.
3. Mix all ingredient for dough B and knead into round dough. Cover and set aside for 30 minutes.

4. Use rolling pin to flatten two dough into similar size skin. Set the brown skin on top of the white skin, then roll it up tightly. (Some recipe calls for brushing water between two layers so that they can bind better, I did not.)

5. Wrap the roll in shrink wrap and put in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
6. Slice the roll into thin pieces. If you cannot slice it very thin, you can roll it flatter after slicing. The thinner the slice, the crispier it will be.

7. Fry in hot oil at medium heat until the cookie color darkens.

Mango Mousse Cake(芒果慕斯蛋糕)

Mangoes may very well be the king of all fruits. They fight cancer, alkalize the body, aid in weight loss, regulate diabetes, help digestion, clean your skin, and aid concentration and memory. Everything aside, it simply is one of my favorite fruits. So I choose to make a mango mousse cake for my birthday. It is the same step as the strawberry mousse cake, except the mousse part.

PART A: Make Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:

Egg - 6 Large
Cake flour - 102g
Oil - 48g
Milk - 48g
Sugar - 72g for egg white
Sugar - 36g for egg yolk

Steps:

1. Follow the same steps in Chiffon Cake to bake two 9" cakes.  Adjust baking to 340°F, 25 minutes
Note: If you like to have less cake and more mousse, you can reduce the eggs to 5, and proportionally reduce other ingredients.
2. After cakes are cool, trim the browned edge.

PART B: Make Sugar Water

1. Boiling 75g water and 38g sugar until the sugar is fully melt. Set aside to let it cool.
2. Mix in 1 TBSP Brandy or Rum

PART C: Make Egg Yolk Cream

Ingredients:

Egg yolk - 94g (about 6 large egg yolks)
Sugar - 126g
Milk - 172g
Gelatin - 2 packs (~ 15g)
Brandy or Rum - 1 TBSP (~14g)

Steps:

1. In a mixing bowl, add egg yolk and sugar, use a mixer to beat it.

2. Pour milk in a sauce pan, add gelatin powder, mix and cook the mixture over low heat .

3. Pour half of the milk mixture to the mixing bowl, mix well, and then pour all content of the mixing bowl into the sauce pan.
4. Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens. It should leave a path on the back of a spoon. Don't let the mixture boil.

5. Take the mixture out and let it cool. Then add Brandy or Rum.

PART D: Make Mango Mousse

Ingredients:

Fresh mango - 560g

Heavy whipping cream - 2 cups (I made extra whipped cream in this step and will save some for final decoration. if you do not need the extra cream, you can use 1 and 1/2 cup (~336g) )
Powdered sugar - 4 TBSP or to your preference
Egg yolk cream - from previous step

Steps:

1. Puree fresh mango pieces with blender.

2. Add the egg yolk cream slowly and mix well.

3. Beat the heavy whipped cream and powdered sugar into whipped cream.
4. Save 1/4 whipped cream in piping bag for final decoration.
5. Fold the mango mixture to the rest of whipped cream.

PART E: Assembly and Chill

1. Set cake ring to 9" size on top of a cake board.
2. Put first cake inside mousse ring. brush the cake with sugar water.

3. Pour in mousse to fill the gap around the cake, and make a thick layer on top of cake.

4. Place the other cake on top, brush the cake with sugar water.
5. Pour in the rest of the mousse. Flatten the cake surface.

6. Put in refrigerator overnight, or at least 3 hours.

PART F: Final Decoration

1. Release the cake ring, and take the cake out. Clean the edge around cake.

2. Take 4 large ripe mangoes( I prefer the Ataulfo Mangos) , skin it with a knife or peeler.

3. Using a sharp knife, cut through the flesh on either side of the central seed (stone). This way, you get two big haves of a mango fruit and a stone portion. Slice the mango halves into thin slices that can be easily rolled up.

4. Roll the slices into roses on top of cake.

5. Use the whipped cream saved in earlier step to pipe the boarder and fill in some space.

Water Roux Bread (TangZhong, 汤种面包)

Water Roux (TangZhong, 汤种) is a method used in bread making to make bread/buns springy. This roux, along with usually, eggs and milk, makes a uniquely soft textured bread. I first learned this from Ivy. It seems to be an very old method that is originated in Asia for a softer and fluffy bread. The most amazing part is, the bread made with this method stays soft and fluffy even after a few days. Simply reheat the slice in the microwave for 10 to 15 seconds, you’ll have a warm, soft and fluffy bun on hand, just like it’s fresh out of the oven. The method is to mix 1 part of bread flour with 5 parts of water (by weight) at 65°C (149 °F) to form a paste. At 65°C, the gluten in the bread flour and water mixture would absorb the moisture and become leavened. Thus, when the starter is added into other ingredients of a bread dough, it will be heightened and produce fluffier bread.

Part A: Prepare Water Roux Starter

Ingredients:

Bread Flour - 1/3 cup
Water - 1 cup
To convert normal recipe to water roux method:
Usually take out about 11-12 percent from the original recipe bread flour recipe to make starter and add water ratio of 1:5

Steps

1. In a sauce pan, whisk together the water and the flour until the mixture is well blended and lump free. Put sauce pan on stove with medium heat (to reach 65°C/150°F). Continue whisking until the mixture starts to thicken up and remove immediately from the heat.

3. Transfer to a bowl and keep covered in the fridge for at least 1 hour. Store the remaining starter in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours.Before use the starter, let it warm to room temperature.

Part B: Make Bread

I am using Hamilton Beach 2-lb Bread Machine. If you are using a stand mixer or by hand, just make sure you dough passes the window pane test. This quantity here is the maximum my bread machine can make, you can cut the ingredients by half if you just want to try it.

Ingredients:

Bread flour - 750 g
Gluten flour - 100 g (Substitute with bread flour if you do not have it)

Egg - 2 (Substitute with 1/2 cup yogurt for egg-less)

Milk - 3/4 cup

Active dry yeast - 4 tsp

Salt - 1 tsp

Sugar - 1/3 cup

Unsalted butter - 1/2 cup ( 1 stick)

Optional : Coconut powder - 3 TBSP

Optional: Egg wash: 1 egg yolk + 1 TBSP water
Variation
a. Mix in raisin, dried cranberry, or other dried fruits and nuts.
b. Wrap in red bean paste in dough after fermentation.
c. If you want to make coconut bread, you can prepare the coconut filling by mixing 1 pack fine shredded dry coconut (4oz), 1 egg,  2 TBSP butter. The wrap the filling in dough after fermentation.

Steps:

1. Warm up milk in microwave for about 40 seconds, and pour in bread machine. Add yeast, salt, sugar to bread machine. Stir to make sure yeast is resolved in milk.

2. Add egg (or yogurt) to bread machine.

3. Add bread flour, gluten flour to bread machine. Optionally, add coconut powder.

4. Add water roux starter to bread machine.

5. Start the bread machine with "Dough" program. Observe the dough and if it is too dry, you may want to add more milk/water. Stop the cycle when the kneading section is finished (machine goes quite). The dough should be a little bit sticky.

6. Melt the butter with microwave and let it cool for a couple of minutes, then add it to bread machine.It is also time to pour in dried fruits and nuts if you choose to. Start bread machine with "dough" cycle again, and this time let it finish fermentation in the machine. The dough should rise over the container.

7. Take dough out of bread machine, and put it into the shape your like.

8. Preheat oven to 170°F, and put a tray of hot water on the bottom shelf.  Turn off oven, and put in the tray of bread dough for about 30-40 minutes, or when the dough rise about 1.5-2 times.

9. Preheat oven to 350°F. 

10. Optional: brush the dough with egg wash.

11. Put dough in oven and bake 15 minutes, or when you stick a toothpick in, the tooth pick comes out clean.