A Sweet Ending for Chinese New Year

A very belated post for this Tang Yuan dessert that I made with my girl in February.

 

My younger girl loves this sweet dessert very much. I have cooked it at home using store-bought glutinous rice ball. This year, to mark the end of Lunar New Year in February,  I made the rice balls together with her on the 15th day of the Lunar New Year. We had great fun making and eating the dessert and she has requested me to make it again soon, before the next Chinese New Year.

 

 

 

Tang Yuan (Glutinous Rice Ball Dessert)

Adapted from noobcook.com

 

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

 

• 1 cup glutinous rice flour
• 1/2 cup water (add gradually)
• 1/2 tbsp caster sugar
• food colourings (I used a dash of pink food coloring for pink balls and pandan paste for green balls)
• 1 litres of water
• few slices of ginger
• 2 pandan leaves, tied to a knot
• gula melaka sugar, to taste

 

Instructions

1. Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Gradually add water and knead the dough until soft, smooth, and not sticky to the fingers.
2. Divide the dough into 3 portions. Add pink food colouring to portion A, pandan paste to portion B. Knead the dough until the colour is well distributed. For portion C, I did not add any coloring.
3. Working with one portion of the dough at a time (cover the other 2 with cloth to prevent them from drying), pinch a small amount of dough and shape it into a round marble-sized ball. Repeat the same for the other 2 doughs.
4. Bring a pot of water  to boil. Add the tang yuan into the boiling water and cook until they float to the surface. Transfer them immediately to a bowl of room temperature water until cooled or ready to serve.
5. In another pot, bring 1 litres of water, ginger and pandan leave to a boil. Add gula melaka sugar and stir till sugar melted. Off the fire. Add the tang yuan into the sweet soup. The tang yuan is now ready to serve in individual bowls.

Almond Cookies

This is another cookies that I will bake every year for Chinese New Year - Almond Cookies. They are healthier compared to many other traditional CNY cookies such as pineapple tarts as they are baked with canola oil instead of butter.

 

 

 

 

 

The original recipe is from Alan Ooi's New Year Cookies Cookbook via melspantrykitchen. I have made some variations as below.

 

Almond Cookies

(Made about 50 cookies)

 

Dry Ingredients:

• 100g ground almond
• 20g almond bits
• 150g plain flour
• 30g corn flour
• 80g icing sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda

 

Wet Ingredient:

• 120 ml canola oil

 

For Egg Wash:

• 1 beaten egg yolk

 

Method:

1. Combine the dry ingredients together. Add in the wet ingredient and mix well with your fingers to hold them together to form a dough.
2. Pinch a small piece of the dough and roll it in your two palms to form a small marbled-size ball. Repeat until all the dough is used up.
3. Line the almond balls in a baking tray lined with baking paper. Apply egg wash over all of them.
4. Baked in pre-heated oven at 175 degree C for 20 minutes of until the cookies turned lightly golden.
5. Let them cool down completely before storing in air-tight container.

Pineapple Tarts (2013)

Chinese New Year is just around the corner again! My daughters are so excited over it, because their mummy is going to bake them pineapple tarts again.

I've been baking this Chinese New Year's must-have using the same recipe in the past few years. This year, I tried a different recipe and it yielded equally good result.

I used ready-made pineapple filling. The pastry recipe is from Thelittleteochew but as I only have a short window time frame in the night to do the baking, I halved the recipe as follows which yield one tray of little balls (about 40):

Pineapple Tarts

Ingredients:

• 200g plain flour
• 25g corn flour
• a pinch (original 1/4 tsp) of salt
• 140g cold, unsalted butter (cut into small cubes)
• 1.5 egg yolks, beaten (I scoop out a spoonful from the beaten 2 yolks, and reserve for egg wash)
• 1.5 tbsp cold water
• 2 tbsp icing sugar (reduced from 3 tbsp)
• 1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• For egg wash - the half beaten egg yolk + half tbsp water
• Pineapple fillings - rolled into small balls (slightly smaller than a marble)

Methods:

1. Sift flours, icing sugar and salt. Mix well to combine.
2. Beat the egg yolks, add in cold water and vanilla extra. Mix Well.
3. Add the butter cubes into the flour. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour until it look like fine bread crumbs.
4. Add the egg yolk mixture into the flour mixture.Using your fingers again, gently mix the liquid into the flour and gather them into a loose dough ball. Leave it in a bowl, cover and chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
5. Remove the dough from the fridge, pinch a teaspoonful dough and roll it into small ball with your palms. Flatten it and place a small ball of pineapple filling in the centre. Wrap and roll into a ball so that the filling is hidden inside.
6. Insert a clove into the centre to dress it up like a small mandarin orange. Repeat the same for the rest of the dough.
7. Apply some egg wash over each of the balls. Bake in pre-heated oven at 160 degree C for 18-20 minutes or until the balls turned golden yellow.
8. Remove and let them cool completely before storing them in air-tight container.

Huat Kuih (Pinky Little Steamed Cakes)

I made these cute little pink cakes to satisfy my younger girl's craving for Huat Kuih, her favourite. I am very happy with the results - all the little cakes were smiling at me when I lifted up the lid of the steamer. They made me smile too :)

 

 

 

 

Steamed Huat Kuih (蒸发糕)

Ingredients

(Yield 7 muffin-sized little pink cakes)

• 80g Fine Rice Flour （粘米粉）
• 320g Cake Flour
• 8g Baking Powder
• 210g caster sugar
• 320g water
• 2 tiny drops of pink coloring

 

Methods

1. Combine the sugar and water together, stir till sugar melted.
2. Sieve the flours and baking powder together. Add the liquid and coloring into the dry ingredients. Stir till well combined.
3. Spoon the mixture into muffin cups, till 80% full.
4. Place the cake in steamer and steam over high heat for 12 minutes.
5. Off the fire and let the cakes stay in the steamer for another 8 minutes.

 

 

I am submitting this kuih kuih for Oct 2011's Aspiring Bakers - Make Traditional Kuih.

This pink little cakes are also in support of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month - The Power of Pink Challenge started by Beantownbaker,

Hokkien Steamed Rice Cake & Fried Carrot Cake (without Carrot)

My mother is a Hokkien and her Hokkien Steamed Rice Cake is my favourite since childhood time! Now, my elder girl also likes it very much. It is a savoury cake and we usually dip it with hot chili sauce and it really tastes yummy!

I always wanted to learn making this cake from mum but knowing that she cooks everything without recipe and exact measurement, the only way to pick this up from her is by attending her "tutorial"  and observe her when she makes this cake. However, while she only makes this in the daytime when I am at work, and  I only go to her place on week-nights for dinner, so I've yet to find an opportunity to learn from her.

OK, enough of my excuses, back to the cake. This recipe is extracted from Agnes Chang's cookbook "Delightful Snacks & Dim Sum". Not sure where I went wrong, my rice cake is quite different from my mum's version - which is very Q and tasty. Mine is relatively soft and bland compared to hers.

While I was looking for dipping sauces to go with  this plate of steamed cake, my husband suggested that I could fry it with eggs, just like fried carrot cake. Nowadays,  the cakes used by most hawkers for fried carrot cake are usually steamed rice cake, no longer with  radish/carrot as the main ingredient. I though that was a very good suggestion from him since all in the family like fried carrot cake so much but we hardly eat them as they are usually quite oily.

Without delay, I cut the cake into cubes and stir fried it with eggs, garlic, preserved cai-poh (菜脯）and  it turned out really like the fried carrot cake from hawker centre, less the large amount of oil and salt. We had this for our weekend morning breakfast.  But we liked it so much that we had another plate of fried carrot cake as our afternoon snack on the same day and finished up the entire tray of the steamed cake :)

Recipe for Hokkien Steamed Rice Cake

Ingredients:

• 300g rice flour
• 2 tbsp corn flour
• 1200ml water
• 1 tsp alkaline water
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cooking oil

Steps:

1. Mix the flours with water in a saucepan. Stir well to combine.
2. Add in alkaline water, salt and oil. Stir well.
3. Cook over medium heat. Stir continuously until they are sticky, gluey (half-cooked).
4. Remove from fire and pour the batter into a well greased 9 inch round pan.
5. Steam over high heat for 45 mins.
6. Leave to cool completely before cutting to serve

I am submitting this kuih kuih for Oct 2011's Aspiring Bakers - Make Traditional Kuih.

Baked Coconut Cake - Matcha Flavoured ( Kuih Bingka Gandum)

I baked this malay kuih on Sunday evening before I prepared dinner. This is a very easy cake which requires only a few ingredients and simple baking steps.  The original recipe uses Panda juice to create the green color but I can not get panda leaves from the supermarket yesterday. So I used match tea powder instead. It is dense, not too sweet, and with nice coconut milk taste, the presence of matcha is not so obvious though. Probably overwhelmed by the nice and strong fragrance from the coconut milk.

It's supposed to be much taller than what you see here in the picture, the typical nonya/malay kuih's height. However, as I used a slightly bigger baking tray, my kuih actually looked more like a green brownie or bar than kuih. :) LOL. Nonetheless, my daughters and I still like it. My younger girl asked for 2 pieces to be packed for her to bring to school for her recess. Whenever my younger daughter request for "take-away",  I know it much be good, at least to my little angel  :) 

Matcha Flavoured Kuih Bingka Gandum
Adapted from Cherry On A Cake's Pandan Flavoured Kiuh Bingka Gandum with variation

Ingredients:

• 4 Eggs
• 1/2 cups Castor sugar
• 2 cups plain flour
• 2 tsps matcha powder (mixed with 50ml warm water)
• 400 ml coconut milk

Methods:

1. Beat eggs and sugar until fluffy and light.
2. Add in sifted flour and mix to combine.
3. Mix coconut milk with green tea mixture, add in to the flour mixture. Mix to combine well.
4. Pour into a 9X6 inch rectangular baking tray lined with baking paper.
5. Baked at 170 degree C for 30-40 minutes until the top is firm to touch and golden brown.
6. Remove from oven, un-mould from baking tray and leave to cool before cutting.

I am submitting this kuih kuih for Oct 2011's Aspiring Bakers - Make Traditional Kuih.

Honeycomb Cake (Kuih Sarang Semut)

A colleague of mine loves my honeycomb cake very much. When I was pondering what cake to bake on Thursday night to feed my colleagues in the office, I thought of her and I decided on honeycomb cake.

Honeycomb cake is a traditional Malay/Indonesian caramel cake. It is called Kuih Sarang Semut in Malay. It looks like a bee-hive in the inside, is a bit chewy/spongy and has a distinctive taste that set is apart from the typical western baked cake.

I have collected a few recipes for honeycomb cake. All these recipes call for the same standard ingredients like condense milk, sugar, flour and baking soda. There are only difference in the quantity of the ingredients, some call for lesser flour and more eggs, some more water and lesser condense milk,  which means will yield honeycomb cakes that are different in the texture.

 

For the honeycomb cake that I baked this time round. I tried out a recipe found in "Olden Tasty Treats" recipe book which has a good collection of traditional local cakes and other bakeries.

Compared to the last recipe which I used, this recipe gives me a cake that has more holes, softer and less chewy and yet equally tasty.

Honeycomb Cake Recipe

(yield a 9 x 6 x 3 inch loaf cake)

Ingredients

• 250g sugar (I used 190g of raw brown sugar)
• 230g water
• 150g all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 90g condensed milk (I used low-fat version)
• 80g unsalted butter
• 5 eggs

Methods

1. Preheat over to 175 degree C. Grease a 9 x 6 x 3 rectangular loaf pan.
2. Sieve flour and baking soda together. Set aside.
3. Cook half the sugar over low heat till brown. Pour in the water and braise till sugar dissolved. Add in remaining sugar and boil till sugar dissolved.
4. Beat butter and condensed milk at high speed till creamy.
5. In separate bowl, beat the egg until it foams, add them into butter mixture gradually and mix well.
6. Add in the flour mixture and beat at low speed to combine well. Pour in the caramelised sugar syrup and mix well.
7. Pour batter into the loaf pan and bake for 1.5 hours or until a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean. (It took me only 50 minutes of baking time).
8.  Invert the cake on rack to let it cool. 

This Honeycomb cake post will be my entry for Oct 2011's Aspiring Bakers - Make Traditional Kuih.

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!

Hakka Abacus Beads (客家算盘子）

I made Abacus Beads this afternoon together with my 2 girls. The two pairs of hands are of great help to me in the preparation of this time-consuming traditional snack of their dialect group - Hakka.

Among the traditional Hakka cuisines which my mother-in-law used to cooked, I like the Abacus Beads and Lei Cha Rice (擂茶饭) the most.

For the Abacus Beads, they are yam-and-tapioca flour dough which are kneaded into bead-like little balls and stir-fried with minced meats, mushrooms, or other vegetables. For more write-ups relating to Hakka Cuisine, you can click on this link.

I am sharing the recipe of this traditional cuisine of the Hakka-nese through Edith's Heritage Food Trail.

Hakka Abacus Beads Recipe

Dough:

• 600g yam (steamed and mashed)
• 300g Tapioca Flour (茨粉)
• 120ml boiling water

(Rules of thumb: 1 part yam + 1/2 part flour + 1/5 part water)

For Stir-frying:

• minced pork / chicken (I used one whole pack bought from supermarket's meat section)
• A handful of dried shrimp, soaked and chopped finely
• Some Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cut into thin slices
• Some Chinese black fungus, soaked and cut into thin slices
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic / shallot

Seasonings:

• pinch of  white pepper
• Light soya sauce, fish sauce, according to your taste
• A few drops of dark soya sauce to add color to the dish 

Cooking Steps:

1. Mixed mashed yam, tapioca flour and water together. Knead into a dough that holds together.
2. With cleaned hands, pinch small amount of the dough and roll into small balls, each about the size of a marble.
3. Use your thumb and index finger; gently press the centre of each bead ball to make indented holes on the top and bottom sides of the ball that assemble abacus beads. Repeat the process for the rest of the dough.
4. Bring a pan of water to boil, gently drop the balls into the boiling water to cook over several batches. Stir to prevent sticking together.
5. When the balls float up to the surface, they are cooked. Scoop them out from the pan and place them in a big pot filled with cold tap water. Set aside until you are ready to stir-fry them.
6. Heat up a wok and saute the garlic/shallot, dried shrimp, Chinese mushroom, black fungus and the minced meat. Stir fry until they are cooked.
7. Drain the cooked abacus beads from the cold water and add the balls into the wok, stir to combine with all other ingredients.
8. Add in seasoning. Continue to stir fry for one or two minutes. Off the fire and dish up.

Hakka Abacus Beads (客家算盘子)

Hakka Abacus Beads (客家算盘子) is one of the well-known traditional cuisines of the Hakka people. Although the preparation of this dish using a dough formed of tapioca flour and yam is rather time-consuming, I made this once every few months as the dish is my family's favorite. It also allows me and my daughters to work together in kneading the little bead-shaded balls.

I made this last month for Mother’s Day pot luck at my mother-in-law’s place. She is a true blue Hakka. Hence, a home-made Hakka Abacus Beads dish is the best dish for her. J

Recipe for Hakka Abacus Beads (客家算盘子)

Ingredients:

• 450g yam
• 225g Tapioca Flour (茨粉)
• 90g boiling water (adjust the amount of water accordingly to the texture of the dough)
• 150g minced pork
• Some Chinese mushrooms, soaked and cut into thin slices
• A handful of dried shrimp, soaked and chopped finely
• Some Chinese black fungus, soaked and cut into thin slices
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic

Seasonings:

• Appropriate quantities of white pepper, light soya sauce, fish sauce, according to your taste
• A few drops of dark soya sauce to add color to the dish 

Cooking Steps:

1. Remove the skin of yam and cut into little cubes.
2. Steam over high heat for 30 minutes or until soften to mash.
3. Mash the soften yam cubes into yam paste.
4. While the paste is still hot but cooled down enough to handle by hands, add in tapioca flour and boiling water and knead into dough. The dough should be towards the dry side but moist enough to hold together to form a big dough ball.
5. With clean hands, pinch small amount of the dough and roll into small balls, about the size of a marble.
6. Use your thumb and index finger; gently press the centre of each bead ball to make an indented hole on two sides of the ball. Now, you can see that the marble has turned into little grey abacus beadJ. Repeat the process for the rest of the dough.
7. To cook the balls, bring a pan of water to boil, gently drop in the balls over several batches (do not place too many balls inside at one go. Otherwise, they will stick together). Stir to prevent sticking together. When the balls float up the surface of the boiling water, they are done. Scoop them up and place them in a big pot of cold tap water until they are ready for stir-frying.
8. To stir fry the balls, heat up a wok and sauté the garlic, dried shrimp, Chinese mushroom, black fungus and the minced pork. Stir fry until they are cooked and lightly brown.
9. Scoop the cooked abacus beads from the cold water and add them into the wok, give them a good stir to combine all ingredients, add in seasonings and some water if necessary so that the content are sticky but not too dry. Continue to stir fry for one or two minutes. Off the fire and dish up.

Tuck in while warm and enjoy!

Chinese Steamed Cake (蒸发糕）

This is a simple steamed cake that I made on Friday night when  alone at home. While on "stand-by" waiting for the girls' call to pick them up from their friend's birthday celebration, I flipped through the cookbook "糕点用蒸的更好吃”，searching for a simple recipe to make  for next morning's breakfast. Finally, I settled  on this Traditional Chinese Steamed Cake (传统粉蒸发糕）which is my younger girl's favourite.

  

Chinese Steamed Cake

Ingredients:

(Yield 4 cakes of muffin cup-size)

• 40g Fine Rice Flour （粘米粉）
• 160g Cake Flour (I used All-Purpose Flour)
• 4g Baking Powder
• 140g caster sugar (I reduced to 120g)
• 160g water
• 1-2 drops coloring

Methods:

1. Combine the sugar and water together, stir till sugar melted.
2. Sieve the flours and baking powder together. Add the liquid and coloring into the dry ingredients. Stir till well combined.
3. Spoon the mixture into muffin cups, till 80% full.
4. Place the cake in steamer and steam over high heat for 12 minutes.
5. Off the fire and  let the cakes stay in the steamer for another 8 minutes.



Honeycomb Cake

This Honeycomb Cake is my childhood favourite though I did not know it was called Honeycomb Cake back then. I only knew it by the dialect name 'Or-Kueh' (黑糕). Dad used to bring back the cake as part of the "中元节＂(aka Ghost Festival) goodies that came in a red pail. I do not remember eating this cake during other parts of the year, other than during this Chinese festive.

This cake remains only as part of my childhood fond memories until I chanced upon it again a few years back in some neighbourhood bakery shops. It goes by the name "Honey Cake". I recognized this long missed cake from its distinctive bee-hive patterns. While the cake looked the same as the Or-Kueh that I missed so much, somehow the taste is not quite the same. I was quite disappointed until I saw a Honeycomb Cake recipe that included a picture of my familiar cake. I wasn't sure if this was the Or-Kueh as I couldn’t find any honey in the ingredient list. Nonetheless I decided to give it a try and bingo! It tasted exactly the same as my favorite Or-Kueh! From then on, I realized that Honeycomb cake gets its name from the honeycomb like patterns, not because it is made with honey.

This is actually a traditional Malaysia cake which has a bouncy texture. It is sweet with a hint of bitterness due to the caramelized sugar.

Since then, I have baked my own Or-Kueh numerous times with the same recipe. Last Thursday evening, I baked the cake again at the request of my elder daughter. As I was too lazy to search for the old recipe, I retrieved from the internet for the recipe from House of Annie which I saw some time back. This recipe that Annie shared is similar to the one that I had.

Honeycomb Cake Recipe

Adapted from House of Annie

Ingredients:

• 210g sugar (I used 160g raw sugar)
• 240g water
• 80g butter
• 6 eggs
• 160g condensed milk (I used 130g)
• 180g all-purpose flour
• 2½ tsp baking sodas

Method:

1. In a saucepan over low heat, caramelize the sugar until it turns a dark golden brown.
2. Carefully pour the water into the caramel. (The caramel will be very hot!) Stir until the caramel is dissolved in the water and it becomes thin syrup. Remove from heat.
3. Add the butter and set the pan aside to cool.
4. Preheat oven to 175 degree C.
5. Mix together the egg and condensed milk in a bowl.
6. Sift the flour and baking soda together into the egg and milk. Mix well.
7. Pour the caramel butter sauce into the batter and mix well.
8. Pour the batter into a greased, 9-inch round cake pan. Let it sit for 5 minutes for the bubbles to begin developing.
9. Bake at 175 degree C for about 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Hakka Abacus Beads 客家算盘子

Cooked this traditional Hakka's snack 算盘子 yesterday for lunch. This snack gets its name as the little yam balls are intentionally indented with the fingers to resemble small little abacus beads. Look at the picture below, they do look like little abacus beads that little kids used in 珠算 class, agree? :)

Hubby is from the Hakka dialect group and MIL used to make this as a snack years back. I missed the snack ever since she stopped making it due to old age as it is a time consuming process to make it. Although on and off, I still come across some hawker stalls that sell this snack but some how they do not taste as good as home-made. Hence, about 1.5 years ago, I started searching for recipes to make this snacks by my own. Besides being able to eat it as a home-cooked snack as and when I crave for it, it is also a mean to  preserve some traditional custom of my hubby and daughters' Hakka root.

The 2 girls love this snack very much and will pester me to make it for them on and off. I also remember the first time when I brought the snack to my MIL's place for a family gathering, my MIL was impressed with it and praised the look and taste of my abacus beads. FYI, my MIL is one who does not praise her DIL's cookings. Hence, I can still remember that in that particular evening, I was in cloud nine :P

As usual, Reann loves to render her assistance to me whenever she can. Hence, she was so excited when I told her I am making Abacuses. She helped me to make all the indentations with her little fingers after I rolled them into small balls. She also helped me to drops the raw abacus beads into the boiling water to pre-cook them. before I further cook them with black fungus (黑木耳）and minced pork.

Other than this Hakka Abacus Beads, there is also another traditional Hakka snack that my MIL used to make them, that is, 客家菜板. I have attempted once but did not manage to do it well yet. I will definitely try again so that my daughters get to eat this authentic Hakka's snack.

My Favorite CNY Cookie - Almond Cookies

This was the 3rd (or was this #4? I have lost count) batch of Almond Cookies that I baked within a week.

Feeling encouraged by the very positive response from family and colleagues who have tried the cookies, I garnered enough courage to submit this post to Aspiring Bakers #3: My Favorite CNY Cookie (Jan 2011). This shall be my maiden submission :)

The recipe is adapted from the host of this Aspiring Bakers #3, j3sskitch3n. Thanks Jess for sharing this wonderful recipe!

I gave some of these cookies to my colleague, Karen. She and her kids liked them so much and did a "thank you posting" in her facebook yesterday. See below for the photo she has posted. Isn't sweet?! :)

Besides several batches of almond cookies, over the last weekend, I have also baked 2 batches of cornflakes, and spent 3 hours baking kueh bangkit in various shapes (bunny, playboy aka rabbit head, and flowers). It was fun but tiring too, with aching shoulders and neck whole day while at work. Went for 30 minutes quick massage after dinner for a quick fix :(

Although I have promised younger daughter Reann that I'll bake another batch of pineapple tarts tonight, I decided to take a break from baking but make something simple and not so straining to my shoulder and neck - steam 发糕 Huat Kueh. They turned out nice and yummy. Daughters love them so much and will be having them for breakfast tomorrow :)

Below is a line-up of all the CNY cookies that I have baked over the last weekend. Enjoy!