Soft Pretzels

I baked these chewy and soft pretzels on Sunday for our afternoon tea time. It has been a long while since I made pretzels. Hubby and the daughters missed them so much, especially  my elder girl. Her comment after taking her first bite was "This is the taste!"

This pretzel recipe uses cooking oil instead of butter. Thus, a healthier version that I always go to for soft pretzels.

 

I doubled the recipe and yield 14 pretzels.
  
Soft Pretzels
(Adapted from Sugarlaws)

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 1/4 tsp Pinch of sugar
• 2/3 cup warm water
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp caster sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp canola oil

• 3 tbsp baking soda
• 1 cup hot water (around 60 degree C)

• 1 tbsp unsalted butter (melted)
• Cinnamon Sugar (1 tbsp caster sugar mixed with 1 tsp ground cinnamon)

Directions:

1. Dissolve yeast into water with a pinch of sugar, let stand 10 minutes, until the mixture is creamy colored.
2. Mix flour, sugar, salt in a mixing bowl. Add canola oil and yeast mixture. Knead until combined (about 5-10 minutes).  Let the dough rise in a greased bowl until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C.  When the dough has risen, pinch into small 14 balls with hand and roll each of the balls into a long strand.  Set aside.  Repeat with the rest of the dough.
4. Next, pick up the first one and pull to stretch it longer (the gluten will have relaxed at this point and thus allow it elastic to stretch longer).
5. Twist each of the stretched strand dough into a pretzel shape and place it on a baking tray lined with baking paper.
6. Dissolve baking soda into hot water and stir until dissolved.  Quickly dip each rolled pretzel into the mixture and place it back on the baking sheet.  Bake for about 8 minutes, until pretzels have browned.
7. Once they are taken out from the over, brush the top of the hot pretzels with the melted butter, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar on top.

Best enjoy while warm or reheat in microwave oven again if serving later. Serve with caramel sauce for dipping.

Steamed Sponge Cake - Ma La Gao (马拉糕)

Ma-La-Gao (马拉糕) - I grew up eating these steamed sponge cakes made by my grandma and mummy. I remember how much I enjoyed helping them to whip the egg and sugar batter with a hand whisk. Today, with modern kitchen equipment, the egg batter can be effortlessly whipped up to light and creamy stage in a few minutes using a mixer. This is my first attempt making this. Daughters and hubby love the moist and spongy texture of the cake. I will make another one soon for my mummy who has not make this for many years as she doesn't owe a mixer.

Ma-La-Gao (马拉糕) Recipe

(adapted from Mykitchensnippets)

Ingredients:

(A) 5 eggs, 140 g Castor sugar (reduced from 200g)

(B) 100ml canola oil, 130 ml milk

(C) 280g plain flour, 4 tbsp Horlick powder (instead of custard powder), 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt

Method:

1. Sieve together the dry ingredients in (C) in a bowl and set aside.
2. Using a electric mixer on medium / high speed, whisk (A) until light and creamy.
3. Fold in (B) and then (C), mix on low speed until well combined.
4. Pour cake batter into a well greased 8" round pan and steam it on high heat for 30 mins or until skewer comes out clean when tested. (mine needed an extra 10 min  before the centre part of the cake was fully cooked).

Simple and yummy!

Puff Pastry Egg Tarts

When I woke up from my afternoon nap last weekend (my favourite weekend activity :)), my elder daughter said that she has a craving for egg tarts. As she is preparing for her PSLE exam which is coming up in 2 weeks' time, I will try to cook / bake her any request that she makes. This is the best support I can give her since I can't sit for the exam on her behalf :P

Since it is already near evening, I couldn't effort the time to prepare the tart shells from scratch. Hence, I turn to store-bought puff pastry sheet, prepared the egg custard using my favorite egg tarts recipe and baked these quick and nice puff pastry egg tarts. My daughter loved them!

Steamed Green Tea Cupcakes with Azuki Beans

I like to try out the various kind of steam cake recipes as most (not all) of them do not require oil or butter. Hence, they are much healthier and lighter, compared to the usual oven-baked cakes.

Few days ago, I found this recipe in a magazine I picked up from the bookstore, I bookmarked it immediately and got these little green cakes whipped up the next day.

 

This Green Tea Cupcakes recipe came from the husband and wife team - Sam and Forest Leong's latest cookbook titled "Home Cooking with Same and Forest". Their original recipe which is featured in the  magazine is without Azuki beans. To complete the Japanese theme of these cakes, I added cooked red bean (Azuki Bean for the Japanese). As the azuki bean paste is already sweetened, I cut down on the sugar amount to 150g which in my opinion, could be further reduced for those without a sweet-tooth, like me. However, if without the azuki beans added, 150g of sugar should suffice.

The cake is very soft and spongy. Yummy!

Steamed Green Tea Cupcakes with Azuki Beans

Ingredients:

• 260g cake flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tbsp green tea powder
• 2 eggs
• 220g castor sugar (I reduced to 150g)
• 3/4 tbsp sponge cake stabiliser (Ovalette)
• 125ml evaporated milk (I used low fat milk)
• 1 tsp lime juice (I used lemon juice)
• 150ml water
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 150g canned azuki beans

Methods:

1. Sift flour, baking powder, and green tea powder together in a large bowl.
2. In another bowl, beat eggs, sugar and sponge cake stabilizer until light and fluffy.
3. Add milk, lime juice, vanilla extract and half the water. Beat until smooth.
4. Add flour mixture and the remaining water. Mix well.
5. Stir in the azuki beans and mix to combine.
6. Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases and steam over low to medium heat for 20 minutes.