a millygram of sugar

chronicling an oven affair

Monday, 18 February 2013

pineapple jam

We are about a week into the Lunar New Year and as tradition dictates, I am down with the flu. There's something about the frenzied activities that just kills your body. Or it could the daily gathering of lots of people in confined spaces that facilitates the spread of germs. Or it could be the "heatiness" from all the LNY goodies, as the older generation would say.

LNY is a time for feasting. Snacks are practically shoved in our faces whenever we enter someone's home (which is rather often, if you've got a big family like mine) with the end result being a lot of grumbling from people about burgeoning waistlines. I generally don't have a problem with weight gain during LNY. Not because I am secretly dieting like most people believe, but because I am just not very fond of LNY snacks. The only exception being Mrs Lim's pineapple tarts. (Mrs Lim is the mother of my binge buddy. How appropriate.)

Having been fortunate enough to get my hands on the recipe a few years back, I've been religiously making my own tarts every LNY. My family and future in-laws love the tarts so much, I have to make 4 large batches to keep everyone happy.

I prefer making the closed kind of pineapple tarts because it has a more favourable pastry to jam ratio for me. But then again, this can vary according to how thin you roll our your pastry and how big a dollop of jam you use. There was one year we tried these closed tarts at my grandparents' which had such an appalling amount of filling we couldn't bring ourselves to finish the thing. "Pineapple bomb", my cousin called it. I suppose it wouldn't have tasted that bad if the pineapple wasn't candied to the extent that it was.

For the past few years, I've been using the store-bought pineapple paste to make my tarts. They work well enough but I've always wanted to try my hand at making my own jam so my tarts would be 100% home-made. So that's what I did this year! And now I can't go back to using store-bought pineapple paste. As my elf puts it: "You don't know what you're missing until you've tried pineapple tarts made with home-made pineapple jam." They make you realise that store-bought pastes just don't taste of pineapple.

Pineapple Jam
(adapted from Table for 2... or more)
Ingredients
2 large pineapples* (mine were about 1.2kg each, 600g after peeling)
[opt: 20ml water (if your pineapples are juicy you can leave this out)]
1¼ cup sugar
1 small cinnamon stick

*note: the sour, fibrous variety of pineapples is preferred.

Directions
Cut out the core of the pineapple, chop it up and and place it in a blender.
Blend until you get a fine puree.
Chop up the rest of the peeled pineapple and place the chunks (and any juice) into a blender.
If your pineapples are not very juicy, add 20ml of water.
Blend to a fine consistency while still maintaining a bit of chunkiness.
Place in a wok or heavy-based pan together with the cinnamon stick, and reduce over medium heat until at least 80% of its fluid content has evaporated.
Add in the sugar. (This will cause the mixture to turn watery again.)
Continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens to a paste.
Increase to high heat and cook until desired colour is achieved.
Remove from wok/pan and leave to cool, which will cause the jam to thicken further.
If the mixture is still too wet, you can either return it to the wok/pan to continue cooking, or strain the syrup out.

**Sorry I can't disclose the recipe for the pineapple tart pastry without permission from Mrs Lim.

Tuesday, 29 January 2013

chocolate truffle swirl cookies

Been feeling rather uninspired and lacklustre of late, which unfortunately has translated into increasingly poor photography. Hopefully I'll snap out of it soon.

In other news, I have been wanting to try out this chocolate chip cookie recipe since I first chanced upon Kathryn's blog. I've been in awe of Heston Blumenthal since watching the first episode of Heston's Feasts. And having been fortunate enough to snag a table at The Fat Duck last June, I'm thoroughly convinced the man is a genius. While I'll definitely never be able to recreate his amazing dishes, this chocolate chip cookie recipe seemed manageable enough. (Though I'm sure his end-result looked and tasted a million times better.)

Technically it's a chocolate chip cookie made with bits of chocolate truffle. Unfortunately, mine turned out to be chocolate swirls rather than chips, hence the re-christening. I guess I should have anticipated the weather might be an issue and chilled the ganache for longer.

The last time I baked cookies was about 2 years(?!) ago so I had some difficulty gauging the doneness. Baked these in 3 batches and every batch turned out different. While you can't possibly use the skewer method like for cupcakes, I've learnt that, like cupcakes, you can tell they are done by the sudden burst of aroma issuing forth from the oven. Pretty intriguing stuff.

When baked evenly through (i.e. golden brown), these cookies are nice and crisp. Kind of like the Famous Amos sort. I preferred my cookie to be slightly undercooked (i.e. a little pale in the middle), such that it's crisp around the edges but soft and chewy in the middle. I liked that the little swirls of truffle gave the cookies a pleasant hint of bitterness (I used 70% dark chocolate).

Chocolate Truffle Swirl Cookies -- makes ~35 (6cm-diameter) cookies
(adapted from Kathryn's Heston's Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Chocolate Truffles:
Ingredients
10g light corn syrup
70g whipping cream
65g dark chocolate (I used 70% cocoa)
pinch of salt

Directions

Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl and melt over a saucepan of simmering water. Set aside.
In a separate saucepan, pour in whipping cream and corn syrup and bring to a boil.
Take off the heat, add salt, and pour cream mixture into the melted chocolate, 1/3 at a time, stirring well.
Leave to cool to room temperature then pour onto a tray/baking sheet lined with baking paper
Freeze for 4h (or overnight if you're from my sunny island).
Remove from freezer and and cut into small pieces. Put back into the freezer until required.

Cookies:
Ingredients
220g plain flour, sifted
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
5g salt
¼ tsp instant coffee
115g unsalted butter, cubed and kept cold
250g caster sugar
1 egg
1 vanilla pod (scrape out the seeds and discard the pod)

Directions

Preheat oven to 190˚C.
Using a whisk attachment, cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Add in the egg and vanilla seeds and continue whisking
Change to paddle attachment, add in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and coffee and mix well.
Gently stir in the frozen chocolate chips with a spatula/wooden spoon until well distributed.
Using a melon ball scoop, place small balls of dough onto a baking tray lined with baking paper. The balls of dough should be spaced well apart (leave a radius of at least twice the diameter of the dough).
Bake for about 15min until edges are golden brown (or until all the pale cookie bits turn golden brown, if you like them more cooked)
Leave to cool on the baking tray. The cookies should start to harden as they cool.

Thursday, 10 January 2013

spicy red pepper bread

Sometime during the festive week we finally went on a picnic. I say finally because we had actually been intending to go on one approximately 9 months ago and had been constantly postponing it because, well, the weather here just makes staying indoors a much better option. But the temperature cooled considerably with the December rain so we filled up the lovely picnic basket he bought 9 months ago, and went in search of a nice patch of grass to set up camp.

I don't know about you, but at every picnic I've been to, we usually end up with a huge amount of leftover food. Thankfully, this time round our calculations weren't too far off and we only ended up leaving with an unopened bag of chips and a small tub of spicy red pepper dip. We bought the dip from the supermarket and it tasted pretty good so I was quite reluctant to see that go to waste. The elf mentioned that it would taste superb on bread and I thought, "why not put it in bread?"

So that's what I did! Naturally, I used the Japanese milk bread tangzhong method again, having been so impressed with the results. To be honest, I don't think I can go back to making bread any other way. Perhaps one day when my palate and masticatory muscles have developed well enough for me to start appreciating the tough, chewy, funky-looking kind of bread so highly favoured by my parents.

The thing about using pastes which you don't make yourself is that you have no idea what went in it. I got a bit nervous when my dough turn a lurid orange hue and even more so when it did not seem capable of rising. I was fervently hoping it was due to the lower ambient temperature brought about by the torrential downpour that started just as I was about to proof the dough, and not some secret antifungal in the dip that killed my yeast. Come to think of it, the same thing happened the last time I made my olive herb loaf. I assume it must be the rain because that's the only common variable? So after the skies cleared I quickly brought my dough out to sunbathe and it eventually rose. Lesson learnt: avoid baking bread during the monsoon season.

The bread is sufficiently tasty on its own but I prefer to eat it warm--either fresh from the oven or toasted--and with a generous chunk of salted butter.

Spicy Red Pepper Bread (makes two 21cm x 11cm x 5.5cm loaves)
Ingredients
295g bread flour
40g caster sugar
4g salt
5g full cream milk powder
6g instant dried yeast
1 tsp garlic powder
1 egg beaten (and 1 more egg, for eggwash)
30g whipping cream
27g milk
92g tangzhong (instructions here)
25g melted salted butter (cooled to room temperature)
100g spicy red pepper dip (I bought mine from Cold Storage's deli section)

Directions

Add bread flour, sugar, salt, milk powder, yeast and garlic powder into mixing bowl.
Pour in the egg, whipping cream, milk and tangzhong.
Knead using a dough hook attachment on speed 2.
When ingredients start to come together, add the melted butter.
Add in the spicy red pepper dip and continue kneading for ~20min until dough is smooth and elastic. (You can add more flour if the dough appears too wet. This varies according to the consistency of the dip you use.)
Place a damp towel over the mixing bowl and leave to proof in a warm place until dough doubles in volume (mine took about 1h).
Transfer dough to a clean, floured surface and punch it down.
Divide dough into portions weighing ~70g.
Shape it as instructed here.
Leave to proof again.
Preheat oven to 180˚C.
Brush tops of risen dough with eggwash.
Bake for ~20min or until golden brown.

Friday, 28 December 2012

swiss meringue buttercream

Been so busy baking for our charity project I haven't had time to update this space! I actually have loads of recipes lined up, waiting to be tested, but until I find the time to carry out my ambitious plans, we'll just have to make do with this basic Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMBC) recipe.

2 factors I like about SMBC are its stability and its versatility. I've tried the standard buttercream before but it was just too unstable in our sweltering heat. SMBC tends to hold up a bit better, which is a blessing when you've got a staggering number of cupcakes to frost and deliver. Plus, it's so easy to flavour! You can add in chocolate, fruit purees or salted caramel like I did--the possibilities are endless, really.

The thing to take note while making SMBC is that during the mixing stage, the mixture goes through different phases. It starts out looking watery and 'soupy', then it turns into a curdled-looking mess (that got me panicky the first time I made it), and eventually it morphs into a thick, luscious, smooth buttercream. Despite having made the stuff many times in the past month, witnessing this transition never fails to amaze me.

Other important things I've learnt:

1. ALWAYS use fresh eggs. In addition to giving you peace of mind (and GI tract), fresh eggs are easier to separate.

2. When making the meringue, some recipes indicate heating the egg white-sugar mixture to a temperature of 140-150˚F. While I've tried 140˚F before and escaped unscathed, the recommended minimum cooking temperature for eggs is actually 160˚F (or ~71˚C) so you might want to go with that instead.

Basic Swiss Meringue Buttercream -- makes enough to frost ~30 cupcakes
Ingredients
4 egg whites
120g caster sugar
168g unsalted butter, softened

Directions

Pour egg whites and sugar into a clean, heatproof bowl
Heat egg white + sugar over a saucepan of simmering water, whisking constantly, until the mixture reaches 71˚C. I use a digital probe thermometer to check.
Transfer to mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment
Whisk until stiff peaks form and meringue cools to room temperature
Switch to paddle attachment and add in the butter
Mix until thick, smooth buttercream is formed
Add flavouring as desired (for chocolate buttercream, I add about 100g melted good quality dark chocolate)
Frost cupcakes/cakes!

Monday, 10 December 2012

berry tart

When I visited the UK a few months back, I was delighted to find strawberries and blueberries going for about £1 a punnet. It was my first purchase upon touching down on English soil and they tasted absolutely amazing after starving for 14h on the plane. Sadly, the berries we get here in Singapore are not only hideously expensive but are often horribly sour/tasteless. I try to avoid buying them unless they're on sale at the supermarket.

I was planning to make a mixed berry tart with strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and raspberries but the eye-popping price tags on the berries made me decide on a 2-berry tart instead. Might have gone with a plain blueberry (my favourite berry!) tart if weren't for the irresistible lure of the strawberries' vibrant hue. Just seeing all the bright colours in this post makes me so happy.

The blueberries were surprisingly sweet and the strawberries weren't too bad either. Sadly, I think I'd overworked my pastry this time round so it was a bit tough intially. But a night in the fridge helped it to soak up a bit of moisture from the crème pâtissière and it was just right when we ate it the next day. As you can see from the photos, I went a bit overboard with the crème pâtissière on the larger tart but it was soooo good I couldn't resist flooding the tart with it. Can you tell it's my favourite thing at the moment?

I got the recipe for the pâte sucrée from Michel Roux's Pastry: Savoury of Sweet. I strongly encourage you to get the book if you haven't already done so. It's well worth the money! (Not that you have to fork out all that much for it anyway.)

For the filling I used a mixture of whipped cream and crème pâtissière. I did some guesstimation when it came to proportions so I can't give you the exact measurements but it's approximately a 1:1 ratio in weight.

Sorry for the sketchy recipe this time round! That's the problem with leaving it too late to blog a recipe (and failing to record it down in the first place)--you forget everything! I'll be sure to update this post the next time the berries go on sale at the supermarket.

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