MollyMia Aspire to Inspire before we Expire

Wednesday 23 December 2020

Mia Makes: Potato Cheese Mochi Cakes

Potato, Mochi and Cheese. All mish-mashed into one. Yay or Nay?

 

It's definitely a big YAY for me, so let's get over with the ingredients to get started!

Potato Mochi: 
~400g potatoes, raw. 
110 - 120g glutinous rice flour
4 - 5 tablespoon water (or milk) 
salt & pepper to taste
(I've used 1 tsp salt + 1/2 tsp pepper and it was still pretty bland) 

Filling:
Cheese, or anything else you fancy
(I've used shredded cheddar & mozzarella mix, but I'll highly recommend adding some Parmesan for flavour).

First up, wash and peel your potatoes and cut them into thin slices (such that they'll cook quickly) and steam them until they're fully cooked and soft. It's better to steam than boil, as the latter will introduce a lot of unnecessary moisture to the potato, and you'll end up adding a lot more flour to make up for it. 

Once your potato slices are fully cooked until soft and tender, mash them up using either a fork or a potato masher/ricer. Do it while they're still hot as they'll be easier to mash up while still hot from the steamer. Then, leave it to cool slightly (until you can handle them with your hands) before adding in the glutinous rice flour. 

As different potatoes will have different water content, I'll suggest that you'll start with just 100g of the flour first, along with half the water/milk and move forward from there. Just make sure you're left with a dough ball that's smooth and pliable, and doesn't really stick to your hands, and you're good to go!

Then, portion your dough into equal pieces (I did 40g balls for mine) and keep them under a damp tea towel or cling wrap to prevent them from drying out. Take a piece of the dough ball and flatten it slightly into a disc with your palm. Using your thumb, slowly press out from the centre of the disc and shape the dough ball into a bowl shape. Then add in your choice of filling into the centre of the "bowl" before pressing the edges together to seal. Do make sure you pinch the seams tightly such that your fillings will not leak out while cooking. Then, give the wrapped up dough ball a quick roll in between your palms to smoothen out the crease and flatten it back into a small disc before putting it back under the cling wrap/tea towel while working on the rest of the dough balls. 
Once all the dough balls are filled and shaped, it's time to cook them! 


Spray down your non-stick pan generously with some non-stick cooking spray or simply add about 1 tablespoon of cooking oil to it and put it on medium heat. Once the oil has heated up, put in your mochi cakes and allow to cook on low/medium heat for about 5 minutes on each side, or until the surface is golden brown and the cakes soft and marshmallowy to the touch. You should also be able to smell a lovely fried potato fragrance, another indication that your cakes are done!

Be careful not to overcook these mochi cakes, else your cheese filling might burst out. 

That's what you'll get if you fill your mochi cakes with shredded mozzarella, look at that string of melty cheese! <3

Absolutely love the soft and chewy potato mochi with melty and gooey cheese in the centre. Other than the slight blandness in flavour, this was so good! 

Till then,
Mia Foo



Friday 18 December 2020

Mia Bakes: Boiled Christmas Fruit Cake

 Growing up, our family has never ever celebrated Christmas Day and naturally, I do not join my friends' Christmas parties, nor return the favour should they get me any Christmas presents. To me, Christmas Day has always been just-another-PH on the calender, until very recently I realised that the yummy, dense and boozy "fruit cake" that is ridiculously jam-packed with dried fruits (so much so that there's more fruits than cake), which my paternal grandma used to bake for us from time to time, is actually called a Christmas fruitcake! 

Traditionally, Christmas fruitcakes are baked and aged for up to a month before they're iced/wrapped in marzipan to seal the deal. But I actually believe they taste way better without the marzipan (not a fan), and neither had my grandma ever iced her fruitcakes, so.... nay, skip that!

Disclaimer, the recipe I'm sharing is NOT my grandma's recipe though. I didn't manage to learn any of my grandma's amazing recipes (her legendary fruit cake and pies, and even the CNY snack, honeycomb!)  as back then I was much younger and had no interests whatsoever in anything that happens in the kitchen, but I vaguely remembered that she needs to soak her fruits for (at least?) a week in alcohol before proceeding to make the cake. 
Why wait another week when you can make it on the spot, as and when you want to, right? 

So let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started!
To get a 5" round tin plus a loaf pan sized cakes, you'll need:

180g plain flour
100g almond flour 
100g muscovado brown sugar
250g unsalted butter 
(or you can replace up to half with unsweetened applesauce)
4 eggs 
(mine were about 55g out of the shells)
700 - 750g chopped dried fruits of your choice
(I used a mixture of dried mixed fruits, sultanas, yellow raisins, chopped apricots and red cherries)
100g almond strips/flakes
120ml liqueur of choice, plus more for feeding 
(I typically use either Cognac or Benedictine DOM) 
120ml orange juice
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp ground clove
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg 
(you may omit clove or nutmeg, but cinnamon and mixed spice are a MUST!)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp almond extract (optional)

First up, instead of soaking your dried fruits in the liqueur for 1 week, you... BOIL them. :)
In a fairly large pot over small fire, add in your butter and allow the butter to fully melt. Do stir it to prevent the butter from burning. Once the butter has fully melted, add in the applesauce (if you're using) and sugar, and mix until the sugar has dissolved. Then, add in the liqueur, orange juice and chopped dried fruit and let the mixture come to a weak boil over medium to high heat. Once the mixture starts to boil, turn down the heat and allow it to simmer for another 3 to 5 minutes, constantly stirring to prevent burning, before removing the pot from the hob and allowing it to cool.

Once the mixture has cooled (to a point where it won't scramble your eggs), add in your eggs, one at a time and mix well with a wooden spoon/spatula. Make sure that the egg is fully incorporated before you crack in the next one. 
Then, add in the flours, orange zest, spices and extracts and give it a quick mix until just combined.  

Fill up your prepared moulds (lined with parchment paper and spray down slightly with non-stick cooking spray) with the thick and gooey batter and bang them lightly over the countertop to even out the surface, before sending them to bake in an oven preheated to 170 degrees Celsius (160 if on fan mode) for around 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. 

And once out of the oven, leave them to cool down just slightly for 10 minutes or so before poking holes all over the surface of the cake (leave them in the moulds!) and spooning a tablespoonful of your liqueur directly over the top of the cake. Then, leave the cake to cool completely in the mould, before removing them and wrapping them up tightly in cling wrap, parchment paper and all, and storing them in the fridge for up to a month. 
If you're aging it for a full month, you can choose to feed your cake (with straight up liqueur or you may mix in a little orange juice if you wish) once or twice a week over the 4 weeks. But if you're reducing the aging process to just 2 weeks (like me), you can shorten your feeding intervals to once every 2 to 3 days. It really depends on how moist and boozy you want your cake to be. 


Due to the high alcoholic content, this cake stores really well.... for a LONG LONG time. I'm saying MONTHS and MONTHS in just the chiller (no freezing required!) 
And as for the applesauce+butter vs all butter variation, I would say that the applesauce not only reduce a hefty amount of calories from your cake, but also added a lot of moisture to the cake. In fact, I've fed my previous bake (all butter version) more than this version, but this was significantly softer and more moist. So if you're a fan of a gooey, moist and dense christmas fruitcake, I'll highly recommend that you give applesauce a try! 

Till then,
Mia Foo


Sunday 6 December 2020

Getting Pretty Nails with Move Manicure [Sponsored]

 Love to have impeccably manicured nails, but simply too lazy to head out to the nail salon? 


Fret not, for Move Manicure will move (to) wherever you are, bringing the complete nail salon experience to your home.

Armed with a mobile station of nail polishes, accessory tools and even a foot soak basin, be rest assured that you will always get the best mani/pedi experience in the comfort of your home with Move Manicure. 
But of course, you got to provide the luxurious, comfy couch, pleasantly chilly air-conditioned room and the delightfully warm and clean foot soak water yourselves. HAHA!
But honestly speaking, kudos to the dedication of their manicurists for having to lug the big and heavy trolley of their polishes and tools, and a foot soak basin, to all corners of Singapore just to give you a mani/pedi in your home. 

Instead of the usual big brands, Move Manicure chose to use Nailise gel polishes instead, which is a relatively new line of nail products with a 13-free and vegan formula. No animal testing, yay! 

And this is the part of having a classic manicure that I always do not enjoy, getting my cuticles pushed back and excess overhang snipped off. There're times when some (less skillful?) manicurists got too obsessed with all the pushing and snipping that it starts to sting (or even bleed! T.T). But my manicurist with Move Manicure was both quick and light handed, yet thorough and meticulous.

And as one of my guy pal, R always say, "Out of all the females I know, you always have very unique looking nails (art design)." 
When I get my nails done, I'll always love to give my manicurist a good drawing challenge. But this time round, I have only myself to blame for a double-booking booboo and could only squeeze out 1 hour for the manicure. So there's definitely no time to attempt anything fancy and I was okay with just a solid coat of pink gel nails, but they were nice enough to offer doing at least something simple, in spite of me giving them only 1 hour. 
-credits to thepronails-

And so I thought, how about a glam up French nails with golden tip? 
But unfortunately, there wasn't any solid gold colour available in their stash of gel polishes, and I wasn't that keen on chrome or trying to achieve a clean tip with glitter polish, so I opted for glitter ombre instead. 

Really like how my manicurist was quick and yet thorough with her work, always double-checking and comparing the intensity of the glitter ombre from nail to nail to ensure the consistency. 
But she's also the first manicurist I've encountered, who looked totally at lost for what to do when I handed her my mobile phone and asked if she could help me take a picture (of my nails). 
It was a rather funny moment when she thought I wanted her to take a photo of ME. HAHA! 


Apart from the usual nail spa and mani/pedi, Move Manicure also provides mani/pedi packages catered for men and children. Apparently, they also provide nail services to elderly and may even offer discounted prices on a case-by-case basis. 

For more information on Move Manicure's services & pricelist or to book your appointment, visit their website or facebook page

Till then,
Mia Foo







Tuesday 1 December 2020

Getting my Cosmo Prime® Air Purifier + 3-in-1 HEPA filter with Liquid Gateway! [Sponsored]

 As a Danish proverb goes, fresh air keeps the doctor poor. 
And when is a better time to ensure that we're having fresh, clean air at home every single day, than now? 


So glad to be able to try out the Cosmo Prime® Air Purifier, which is rated as one of the best 8 air purifier in Singapore for cleaner indoor air by Best In Singapore for 2020. 

At a height of barely 50cm and a width/length of around 30cm, the Cosmo Prime® Air Purifier uses trademarked technology and smart design to provide a long-lasting, silent and powerful air purifier. 


Equipped with SilentMotor-VX, the Cosmo Air Purifier functions at a noise level of merely 20dB (soft whisper) with a coverage area of up to 80 square-metre. The air purifier uses medical grade H13 HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter that is specially engineered to have pores that are up to 20 times finer than the average HEPA filters, which filters off 99.97% of all airborne particles of up to 0.1 microns, giving us cleaner indoor air. 

Not only that, but the air purifier's carbon filter layer is fitted with an anti-microbial agent unqiue to Cosmo, called Pet Guardian™. This feature works in tandem with the activated charcoal to effectively neutralise organic matter that causes foul odours from pets. 


Love the sleek and smooth design that fits into literally any home décor theme (or lack thereof). The small and compacted design also allows the gadget to fit easily into tight corners, hence saving up a lot of space in our small BTO flats these days. The negligible noise level of merely 20dB also means that there's no worry of any form of sleep disruption due to unwelcomed noises from the gadget. Our (old) air-conditioner makes a lot more noise than this air purifier! 

Even though I've started on online-shopping pretty early in the trend and has been buying literally everything off the internet since the pandemic, I'm still quite skeptical on the security when it comes to direct payment on the e-shop's platform using my credit card. Hence, I'm so glad to know that Cosmo relies on Liquid Gateway, which is rated as one of the 10 best online payment gateways in Singapore, to ensure that their customers' cards information is safe from potential attacks and frauds. 
Now I can shop freely with a peace of mind! 

For more information on Cosmo Prime® Air Purifier and their No Risk 20 Days Trial, visit their website HERE
Also, do check out BestInSingapore for more lists of the best of what Singapore has got to offer! 
All product styling photos credit to Cosmo

Till then,
Mia Foo