Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Sugary Cinnamon Blueberry and Pineapple Breakfast Mini Muffins


Muffins:
(for 24 cup mini muffin pan)
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 -1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup melted butter 
  • Blueberry or/and pineapple chunks
Glaze:
  • 5 tbs butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 2/3 teaspoon cinnamon
Bake at 375 degrees for 10 - 13 minutes.


Rosy Mini Apple Tarts with Creamy Vanilla Custard







Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Very Strawberry Custard Tart


Ingredients:
Makes 2 7-inch tarts

Pie crust:
  • 100 grams flour
  • 2 grams salt
  • 70 grams butter
  • 35 - 40 ml cold water

Custard:
  • 24 grams flour
  • 60 grams sugar
  • 3 egg yolk
  • 300 ml milk
  • 1.5 tsp vanilla extract or 1 vanilla stick
(*This should make about 250 gram custard. Add the following into the 250 gram custard.)
  • 80 ml whipped cream + 2 tbs powder sugar
  • 3.5 grams gelatin, dissolved in 24.5 ml water (for soft custard, add a little more than half)
Strawberries:
  • About 2- 3 regular packages of strawberries for 2 tarts
Nappage (cake glaze):
  • 15 ml water
  • 8 grams sugar
  • 1 grams gelatin + 7 ml water
Preparation: Wash strawberries well and cut each half. Let them dry on a paper towel.

How to make pie crust:
  1. Combine flour, salt, butter in a food processor. 
  2. When the mixture is mixed like coarse meal, with small size pieces of butter, add water gradually.
  3. Stop adding water when the dough holds together. (adding too much water makes the crust tough.)
  4. Take dough out of the machine and cover it with plastic wrap.
  5. Refrigerate about 30 minutes to 1 hour or longer.
  6. Take it out from the refrigerator and roll out with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface to about 10 inch circle.
  7. Place the dough onto a 7-inch pie pan and trim the dough to within a half inch of the edge of the pie dish.
  8. Pre-bake the dough with pie weight at 370 °F for 10 minutes and bake without pie weights at 355°F for another 7-10 minutes. (line the pie crust with parchment paper and fill it with pie weights till about 2/3 height of the pie pan)
How to make custard:
  1. Put flour, sugar and egg yolk in a bowl and add a little bit of milk (about 2 tbs from 300 milk) into the bowl and mix all together.
  2. Heat the rest of the milk and bring to a boil.
  3. Add the milk SLOWLY into the egg mixture in a bowl and mix it all together.
  4. Return to the pot or a put it into a double boiler, stir gently and slowly with a spatula until it thickens, over a low heat for a regular pot/a medium high for a double boiler (I use a double boiler, which makes it a lot easier to make smooth custard).
  5. Transfer the custard into a bowl and cool it by putting the bowl of custard in a ice water in a separate bowl. 
  6. Cover the surface of the custard with plastic wrap. When it's ready and cool, the plastic wrap will come off clean.
Finishing:
  1. Pour the cooled custard into the baked, cooled pie crust and let it stay for for about 3-5 minutes (in fridge if the custard isn't still too soft).
  2. Make nappage (see below) and let it cool a little bit and decorate the pie with strawberries.
  3. Brush the strawberries with nappage and enjoy!

How to make nappage (make this right when decorating the pie with strawberries):
  1. Dissolve gelatin in water.
  2. Microwave water and sugar for about 15- 20 seconds and add the gelatin, stirring until dissolved.
  3. Let nappage cool down a little bit. When nappage is just warm not hot or cold is the best time to brush the fruit with it (if it's hot, it won't stay on fruit but if it's cold, it'll get too hard to brush). If nappage gets cold and hard, microwave it again to the right temperature.

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Kiwifruit and Green Tea Smoothie

 

Ingredients:
2 kiwifruit
1 banana
About 1/4 cup yogurt (about 60 ml)
About 1/4 cup milk
About 70 ml green tea, cold
5 small ice cubes
1 - 2 tbs honey to your preference