Mia Bakes: Nian Gao Portuguese Egg Tart

Hello lovely readers, CNY 2018 has just ended, which means... It's time for some nian gao bakes again! If you still have no idea what's nian gao, or how does it look like, you can drop by my last year's recipe for Nian Gao Mochi Balls HERE. 

Anyway, this time I've decided to challenge myself and make TWO nian gao snacks at once, and so let's start off with some Nian Gao Portuguese Egg Tarts, an idea I've shamelessly copied from Yum Cha. It was a, "Oh yeah, why hasn't anybody thought of adding nian gao into egg tart?" moment when I saw all those influencers' posts on their mini nian gao egg tarts on instagram and I decided to further oomph it up by switching it from a Chinese (HK) egg tart recipe to a flaky, Portuguese egg tart recipe!

So here's where you need for 6 standard muffin tin sized tarts:

recipe adapted from peggy lee on freefoodrecipe24.blogspot.com

1 frozen pre-rolled sheet of puff pastry (I used Borg's)

(if you wish to abuse yourself as make your own puff pastry, go ahead!)

60ml heavy cream

100ml whole milk (do not use skim milk)

1 large egg yolk (at least 15g)

1/2 tbsp corn flour

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

20g sugar 

a pinch of salt

sliced nian gao 

(according to your preference, so long it fits into the base of the tart, but thinner slices are better)

Do note that the thicker your nian gao is, the less egg custard you shall have, and the less sugar you should add into your egg custard because the nian gao is darn sweet on its own!

First up, cut your thawed pre-rolled puff pastry into half and stack the two pieces on top of each other and rolling it tightly into a log on the shorter side. Wrap this up with cling wrap and put it back into the freezer for a few hours or overnight. 

While the puff pastry log is still frozen, slice it into 6 equal pieces using a sharp knife and pop them into a lightly greased muffin pan and set them aside for 15 to 20 minutes for them to thaw out while you prepare the custard.

In a small pot, add in your heavy cream, whole milk and sugar and heat them up over small fire until all the sugar has dissolved. 

Take the pot off the heat and whisk in vanilla extract and corn flour until smooth before whisking in the egg yolk. Then, bring the mixture back onto low heat and cook until the mixture begins to thicken (coats the back of your spoon). 

Bring the entire pot off the hob and set it aside in cold water to cool down the mixture. 

When your puff pastry is thawed, press it in slowly into the muffin cups with WET FINGERS. 

Learnt this trick from Cupcake Jemma, so you might want to check out exactly how it's down HERE. 

Be very gentle and slow with this as you do not want to tear your pastry skin. I do so by first pressing it down right at the centre with my thumb, and then give the base a few good presses along the sides of the base to thin out the pastry, before using the tip of my forefinger to slowly drag the pastry up on the sides of the muffin tin. If you have really long fingernails, this step will be a total b*tch, so I'll highly advise that you trim your nails short before attempting this step. 

Otherwise, you might want to try first rolling it out into a disc first (but seriously rolling out a circular disk takes MORE skills, no?) and then fit the circular sheets into the muffin tin by making minor adjustments here and there.

When all your muffin cups are now fitted with the pastry skin, pop a piece of sliced nian gao into the base of each tart and fill it up to 80 - 90% full with the egg custard. 

Pop your tarts into a pre-heated oven at 250 degree Celsius to bake for about 20 minutes. 

Can you see my 2nd nian gao snack in the background? 

(find out what is it HERE)

These tarts are best enjoyed while they're still warm, as the nian gao will be extremely soft and gooey. As you can see, I've very unskillfully sliced my nian gao a little too thick, hence I've ended up with equal ratio (or slightly more) of nian gao than egg custard layer. =.="

I guess an idea ratio will be 4:6? >.<

Do try out this recipe and let me know if you like it!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Tofu Chocolate Bread Loaf (BM Recipe)

Haha, yet another baking post up for the week! The thought to bake with tofu started after I came across a youtube video on tofu banana baked doughnuts. And I did ended up trying a variation of it without the banana HERE. 

Then I wondered if it's possible to have tofu replacing something in our everyday bread loaf, mainly to lower the calories per slice. Well, one fine day I was bored and hence decided to calculate the calories per slice of my usual homemade wholegrain bread, and was horrible shocked to know that my homebaked version is 2x the calories of the store bought loaves. 

No wonder my weight loss has plateau off

And due to denser loaves from wholegrain flour, I usually only manage to cut 9 slices per loaf and that gives me about 176 kcals per slice! 

Okay, calories talk aside, let's first get over the ingredients so we can get the BM started.

For a 500g loaf, you'll need:

125g wholemeal flour

115g all purpose flour

10g unsweeten cocoa powder

1 tbsp vital wheat gluten

10g sugar 

(I used 5g sugarless sugar & 5ml raw honey)

150g soft silken tofu

3g salt (about 1/2 tsp)

1 tsp instant yeast

1/4 tsp ceylon cinnamon

80ml milk

First, soak your wholemeal flour in the milk for about 20 minutes before adding in the rest of your ingredients and let the dough knead on your mix dough function

Due to lower percentage of wholegrain flour in this recipe, I got slightly higher loaf (perhaps switching to bread flour will give me an even higher loaf) and managed to cut 11 slices out of this loaf. That gives me about 92 kcals per slice, almost 50% of my usual sunflower seeds & raisin loaf. 

There's hardly any tofu taste and the bread still turned out pretty soft and chewy in spite of the high wholegrain content. Pretty sure that tofu shall be one of the main ingredients for my weekly bread making from now on!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Bakes: Wholemeal Rye Bread (Mayer Bread Machine Recipe)

I've recently purchased Bob's Mill dark rye flour and buckwheat flour off iHerb (again!) to try out more variation of wholegrain bread loaves. 

However, it was really disappointing to find that the results were less than acceptable, for my bread turned out extremely short, dense and crumbly-cakey, like they've hardly risen at all. 

My wholemeal-dark rye-buckwheat loaf was made with the flour ratio of 2:1:1 (2 parts wholemeal) and with NatureGlory's organic Bonsoy and though extremely tasty with the distinctive nutty flavour from the addition of dark rye flour, the texture was just.... mehh. 

And then I realised, I might need a change of yeast.

And so, chucking Saf-Instant, I returned to Bake King's Instant Yeast and decided to give my dark rye flour another try. 

Well, I read somewhere saying that rye flour and bread machine doesn't do well together as a rye dough might be too heavy and tough for the bread machine to knead, but... let's just give it another shot!

So for my wholemeal rye bread, you'll need:

150g wholemeal AP flour

75g low-carbs flour

25g dark rye flour 

190ml milk 

3tsp vital wheat gluten

1 tsp ceylon cinnamon powder

21g raw honey

30g unsalted butter

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/4 small mayer tsp instant yeast (about 5g)

On my Mayer BM, I first added the wholemeal flour to the milk and let it sit for 20 minutes before adding in the rest of the dry ingredients and honey and starting the mix dough function, which will mix and knead the dough for 25 minutes. 

After which, I restarted the machine on multigrain setting and added in my butter cubes. And then about 75g of raisins and a few handful of chopped almonds at feeding point (which I regretted). 

Probably due to the dark rye flour, which made the dough heavier than denser than it would have been as just a wholemeal dough, the BM was unable to knead in the raisins at feeding point and I ended up with tons of raisins left behind in the bread pan and just a few of them sticking onto the surface of the bread. 

The chopped almond did get kneaded a little more into the dough, though still pretty much at the outer rim of the loaf. 

Although still denser and heavier than a refined white loaf, this time round my wholegrain loaf turned out much softer and chewier with the new yeast as compared to my previous bake(s). 

Just a reminder to self, is to add in the raisins during initial mixing whenever I add in dark rye flour to prevent high raisin wastage. 

Do you have a go-to recipe for a yummy wholegrain loaf? Do share them with me!

To get the wholegrain and low-carb flour I've used for this recipe, hop over to iHerb right now! 

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Recipe: Cinnamon Wholemeal Oatmeal Bread

If you didn't know, it's been almost 2 months since I embarked on an #eatclean diet (read about it HERE) and I've been avoiding refined carbohydrates ever since, apart from my cheat days. 

And so, I've thrown out all of my white flours (well, actually they expired in my cupboard) and replaced them with organic wholemeal flour and low-carb flour mix (mixture of wholegrain flours) and following the usual bread recipe and bread-making procedures using white flour, these were what I got.

Even though the bread loaf were still relatively soft, they were extremely short (as if my yeast weren't activated), dense and crumbly, like an over-mixed cake. 

After reading up on google, it turned out I either have to adopt the tedious overnight sponge dough method, or add in another ingredient to my recipe, the vital wheat gluten. 

And of course, being the lazy me, I chose the 2nd option. 

And so, here's my recipe for a yummy Cinnamon Wholemeal Oatmeal bread! 

Finally, I got my pretty dome shaped bread instead of the previous flat-tops. The loaf still turned out pretty short as I'm baking a <500g loaf with a 500g/750g bread loaf pan (Mayer Bread Machine). 

The ingredients you'll need are:

240g wholemeal flour

200ml milk

30ml honey 

35g oatmeal (I used quick-cook)

35g unsalted butter

3 tsp vital wheat gluten

(add 1.5 tsp for every cup of wholemeal flour)

1 tsp ceylon cinnamon

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/4 small mayer tsp instant yeast

(should be around 4.5g) 

First up, I added all the wholemeal flour and milk into the bread pan first, stir slightly and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes. 

After which, I added in honey, yeast, salt, and vital wheat gluten and let it sit for another 10 minutes before I start the machine on mix dough function, which will mix and knead the dough for 25 minutes. 

After kneading, start the machine on wholegrain function (if you're using Mayer 12) and add in soften butter, oatmeal and cinnamon. 

Check the dough after everything is well mixed and add more liquid or flour by the teaspoons if required. 

Compared to a white loaf, a 100% wholemeal loaf is still much denser and heavier, but that's what you should expect from a 100% wholemeal bread. The loaf has a slight cinnamon-honey sweetness to it and if you're a fan of cinnamon, you should totally try this out!

To get the wholegrain flour and ceylon cinnamon I've used for this recipe, hop over to iHerb right now!

Till then,
Mia Foo

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