Mia Makes: Mochi Stuffed Red Dates [心太软]

 Recently, my aunt gave my mum a huge bag of big-ass dried red dates she has brought from China and my mum, having watched the Channel 8 timeslip periodic/modern drama (My heroine luo ming yi or something) and saw them making these "心太软" treats, asked if I can try recreating them. 

Well, it's just stuffing "mochi" into red dates and steaming them; can't be hard right? 

So let's get over with the ingredients so we can get started! 

To get about 16 HUGE stuffed dates:

16 (DUH!) LARGE dried red dates

110 - 120g glutinous rice flour

30ml BOILING HOT water

50 - 60ml room temperature water

15 to 20g sugar (to taste)

Optional:

You may prepare some sugar syrup to drench your stuffed dates in, but I feel that it's really an overkill. 

To start, soak your dried red dates in hot water for an hour for them to soften. Then, rinse them clean. Using a small knife, slice them open lengthwise to remove the pit. Do not cut the dates fully into half, but leave them open up like a book. Set them aside. 

In a clean bowl, add in 30g of glutinous rice flour and add in 30ml of hot water. Stir to form a goopy paste. This additional step will help your mochi remains soft when they've cooled (left overnight). Otherwise, you may tweak the mochi recipe by substituting a small portion of your glutinous rice flour with corn flour or tapioca starch. These two flours will also give your mochi a softer, more fluid texture. 

To the goopy paste, add in another 80g of the glutinous rice flour and 50ml of water and mix to combine. You should get a ball of soft and very pliable dough that doesn't stick to your hands. Add more flour or water if required. 

If you are slightly OCD like me, weigh your dough batter to know how much each of your mochi balls should weigh (to fit into 16 dates). I've made myself 16 mochi balls of around 14 to 16g each. 

Then, roll the mochi ball in between your palm to form it into an oblong shape before stuffing it into the sliced red dates. Set the stuffed dates on a heat proof plate; making sure that the mochi portion are not touching each other. 

Then, steam (either in a steamer or in a double-boiler over the hob) for 15 minutes, and you're done! 

The red dates, after getting steamed, will develop a tart flavour, which goes really well with the slightly sweet mochi centre. If you absolutely dislike sourness, you may either add more sugar to your mochi dough, or prepare some sugar syrup (cooking some white or brown sugar in water until it thickens) to pour over your steamed dates. 

Best eaten when still slightly warm from the steamer, as the mochi centre will be extremely soft and chewy! 

Till then,

Mia Foo 

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Mia Bakes: Stout Brownies

Fellow beer lovers, fall in!
Oh well, actually it's not really beer, but stout. Believe it or not, despite me being a huge beer/cider lover, I've never ever tried stout before, as everyone around me told me that it's a lot more bitter than beer. So when's a better time to make use of this bitterness, other than to couple it with a decadent, rich chocolate and get some brownies, right? 

So let's get over with the ingredients, so we can get started!

For 9 - 16 squares (9' x 9' square tin):

1 can (323 ml) of Extra Stout 

(I used ABC, but you can always use Guinness)

100g unsalted butter

75g plain yogurt (greek yogurt or strained)

150g finely chopped dark chocolate (I used 60% cacao)

120g castor sugar 

100g plain flour

50g unsweetened cocoa powder

2 eggs

1/4 tsp salt

45 - 50g walnuts, lightly crushed

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp chocolate essence optional

a handful of crushed oreo biscuits as topping, optional

recipe adapted from The MeatMen

First up, empty the entire can of extra stout into a pot and allow the foam to dissipate. Then, place the pot over medium heat and allow it to boil for 10 to 15 minutes until you're left with roughly 250ml of the dark liquid. Then, pour the reduced stout into a bowl and allow to cool. 

Into the same pot, add in your butter and let it melt fully before adding in the chopped dark chocolate. Stir constantly to allow the chocolate to melt and fully combine, and also to prevent burning. You can also do this in a microwave or over a bain marie. Once the chocolate has fully melted, remove the pot from the heat and add in the sugar, mixing until the sugar has fully incorporated. Add in the greek yogurt/strained yogurt (click HERE to find out how to strain your normal plain yogurt!) and give it a good mix to bring down the temperature of the mixture. 

Allow the mixure to cool to a point where it will not cook your eggs, before cracking them in, one by one, making sure to whisk until the mixture is fully incorporated before adding in the second egg. Then, pour in your cooled, reduced stout and mix until well combined. 

Sift in the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder and baking soda) and fold with a spatula until almost combined (just a few streaks of flour here and there), before adding in the crushed walnuts and folding until just combined.

Pour the batter into your prepared tin (lined with parchment paper and sprayed with non-stick cooking spray), give the tin a few light taps to allow any air bubbles to come up, before sprinkling a handful of crushed oreo biscuits over the top. Then, bake in your oven that's pre-heated to 170 degrees Celsius for about 23 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle come out relatively clean with just a few moist crumbs. 

Leave it to cool completely before cutting into squares!

There you have it! 

Moist, fudgy, rich and chocolatey brownie with a slight hint of the stout flavour to give the brownie a "dark chocolate" flavour. Replacing part of the butter with yogurt not only helped to reduce the calories, but also added on to the fudginess and made the brownie more moist. I'll say you do not try to reduce the sugar anymore, because this is already a less-sweet recipe. Instead, if you'll prefer a sweeter brownie, go ahead to add more sugar, or throw in a couple handfuls of chocolate chips to oomph up the sweetness. If you're a chocolate/brownie fan, do give this a try, even if you're not a fan of stout!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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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

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Mia Bakes: Oreo White Rabbit Double Chocolate Cookies

It was a random day when I randomly thought, "it's been a long while since I've last baked some chocolate cookies..." and so a casual google search brought me over to cookiemadness.net and before I knew it, I was reading up a recipe for a subway copycat double chocolate cookie. 

But then, I wanted to use up the remaining 1/3 bag of my green banana flour, and the pack of not-very-nice chocolate peanut butter oreo cookies I've picked up from Sheng Shiong supermarket, which has gone stale in the packet. So, what would happen if I were to replace part of the plain flour with green banana flour, I wonder? Let's find out, shall we?

To get 14 to 18 large cookies, you'll need: 

100g plain flour
50g green banana flour 
40g unsweeten cocoa powder
115g unsalted butter, soften
80g brown sugar
50g castor sugar (I used stevia blend)
1 egg    
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
14/ tsp salt
80g white rabbit candy
80g oreo biscuits
20g oreo biscuit crumbs
30g dark chocolate chunks

First up, chop up your white rabbit candies and lightly crush up your oreo cookies with your hands into large chunks (I did 5 to 6 pieces per cookie and realised I could have left them much chunkier). Set the aside. I've used the pre-packaged oreo cookie crumbs for the extra 20g of crumbs, but if you can't find it in stores, you can go ahead and crush up more cookies (no filling!) into fine crumbs, or simply leave them out. 

In a clean bowl, cream the soften butter and sugars together with a wooden spoon or spatula until quite pale and fluffy (you need not go crazy beating in tons of air with a handheld mixer). Then, mix in your egg and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in the dry ingredients (if you're lazy, just sift the cocoa powder like I did) and fold until you're left with a few pockets of dry flours before folding in the candies/cookies chunks and crumbs/chocolate chunks until everything is just combined. 

There's no need to chill the dough as it'll be quite stiff (though still rather sticky), but you can definitely wrap them up in cling wrap and freeze them for up to a few weeks so there's no need to bake them all off at the same time. 

So with slightly oiled hands and a 1/4 cup measuring spoon sprayed down with some non-stick cooking spray, scoop up 1/4 cupfuls of the cookie dough and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. The cookies DO NOT spread much, so make sure that you pat them down flat on the baking sheet and just leave 1.5 to 2 inch of space in between them. 

Then send them to bake in an oven pre-heated to 175 degrees Celsius (lower by 10 if on fan) for about 10 to 12 minutes. 

As you can see, I was expecting the cookies to spread out quite a bit and flatten into "subway copycats", but it didn't happen. 

One even started puking melted white rabbit candy towards the end of 10 minutes.... But I can't deny that they smelled so good when baking!

These cookies turned out thick, crumbly and cakey. But packs a punch of sweet flavours from the chewy white rabbit candy, oreo biscuits and dark chocolate chunks. 

Not exactly gooey (I baked mine for full 12 minutes, so if you prefer a gooey, underbaked centre, do go for just 10 minutes), but definitely yummy!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Cooks: One Pot Seafood Kimchi Stir Fry

And I've finally escaped the suffocating boredom of working from home and returned to my (new, site) office. Having to walk 45 - 50 minutes (to and fro) for lunch aside (actually I quite enjoy it since now I'm still unable to go to gym due to extremely limited vacancies), one thing I misses while working from home is being able to cook my own (healthy) lunches!

So, here's my last #stayhomelunch recipe for now. And it's a super quick and easy, japalang one pot stir fry!

For 1 large serving (volume wise, not calories), you'll need:

100g broccoli

80g sliced kimchi

1/4 white/yellow onion (about 50g)

1 king oyster mushroom (about 70 - 80g)

1 medium tomato (about 100 - 120g)

5 peeled shrimps (about 50 - 60g)

60 - 75g white fish fillet 

For the sauce: 

1 tbsp gochujang (korean hot pepper sauce)

1.5 tsp fish sauce (or light soy sauce)

1 tsp sesame oil

water (to thin down the sauce, if required)

optional: a few squirts of sriracha for added spicy kick

First, prepare your sauce by adding everything into a small bowl and stirring until well combined. If the sauce is too thick, add some water to thin it out. Set it aside.

Then, slice the onions and mushroom into thin slices, cut up the tomato into cubes, and chop up the broccoli into small florets. Also, slice your fish fillet and shrimps into smaller bite size and lightly season with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper. Set everything aside while you heat up your pan over medium heat and spray with some cooking spray.

When the pan is hot, throw in your mushroom and "roast" them until fragrant and they're browned to your liking. Doing this at a relatively high heat is important, otherwise the mushrooms will excrete water and they won't brown. Take your browned mushrooms out of the pan and turn down the heat before adding in the onions. Sautéed over low/medium heat until they turn translucent, before adding in the kimchi, broccoli and tomato. Add just a teeny tweeny pinch of salt and give everything a good toss before covering with a lid and steam-cooking the vegetables over low heat for a few minutes. I like my broccoli SOFT, that's why I'm doing this. If you (somehow) prefers crunchy, "undercooked" broccoli then you need not cook the vegetables for so long. 

When the broccoli has slightly soften, add in the shrimps, fish and mushrooms and give everything a quick stir before pouring in the prepared sauce. Give everything a good toss to ensure the sauce is well mixed in before allowing the ingredients to cook until the fish and shrimps are done. 

Then, plate it and serve with your choice of starchy carbs. I chose steamed sweet potatoes! But frankly speaking I think this will taste better with rice. HEH!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Cooks: Healthy Oyako Don

Yes, as if oyako don itself isn't healthy enough (as compared to katsu don). But hey, it wasn't a cheatday and I just wanted to eat cleaner. 

So here's my #eatclean recipe for a healthy oyako don, using chicken breast and brown rice! 

For (relatively normal) 2 servings, you'll need: 

1 skinless & boneless chicken breast (about 200g raw weight) 

1 small/medium white onion (about 100 - 120g)

3 medium/large eggs (about 50-55g each, without shells)

1 tbsp milk

120ml chicken broth (I used Swanson)

30ml light soy sauce

30ml rice wine vinegar (or mirin)

1/2 tsp sugar (if you're using rice wine vinegar instead of mirin)

1 serving of cooked brown rice, or any other type of cooked rice preferred. 

(or even half portion of rice, if you're watching your diet)

Firstly, to get the sauce mix out of the way, it should always be in the 4:1:1 ratio, 4 parts broth to 1 part soy sauce and mirin/rice wine vinegar+sugar. So if you're halving or doubling the recipe, you can do your own maths. But do note that the ratio should be following the number of eggs you're using and not the amount of chicken you're adding. 

To prepare the chicken breast (especially if you're using frozen ones like I did), immerse it in a bowl of salt water and leave to chill in the fridge for 2 to 3 hours. Brining your chicken is very important, especially if you're using frozen chicken, or chicken breast. It not only make the breast meat more tender, but also help to eliminate the "icy frozen meat taste" that tends to be quite distinct in frozen chicken meat. Rinse the brined chicken under running tap for a few seconds and pound the meat slightly using a tenderiser or the back of your knife. Then, cut the meat into bite size chunks.

Wash the white onion and slice it into thin slices (or however thick you prefer). Spread the onions out evenly onto your lightly greased non-stick pan and turn on the heat. Allow the onions to cook until they're slightly translucent (I prefer to "roast" mine over medium to high until they're slightly charred) before adding in the chicken. Then, pour in the sauce mix and cover the pan with a lid and allow the meat to fully cook through on medium heat. 

In a clean bowl, first crack in 2 eggs and beat it with a tablespoon of milk. Add the mixture into the pan evenly and allow to cook until the egg is set. Then, crack in the last egg and just lightly stir it to break the yolk; do not beat the egg into a homogenous mixture. Pour the egg mixture over the set eggs and cook it until the eggs are set to your liking. 

If you're making just 1 serving (with just 2 eggs) in a smaller pan, you can just slide the whole "cake" off the pan and directly onto your bowl of rice and serve with a sprinkle of chopped spring onions. 

But since I was making 2 servings together in the same pan, I had to scoop them out bit by bit. Hence my final product wasn't that IG-worthy. HEH!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: 2 (or 3) Ingredients Healthy Banana Pancakes

Craving for some pancakes, but you can't find flour anywhere? 

(well, actually you should be able to find them now, it's the "smaller things" like yeast and baking powder etc that's missing on the shelves these days)

Fret not, you can actually make yourself come yummy pancakes with just two ingredients (or three), and flour is not one of them! 

And it's some healthy, banana pancakes!

To get 1 serving of 2 to 3 pancakes (depending on the size you make them), you'll need:

1 medium over-ripe (spotty/browned) banana (around 120 - 130g)

1 large egg 

1/4 tsp baking powder
(to make them fluffier, but you may omit to keep to a 2-ingredients recipe)

Optional:

2 tbsp Rolled Oats or Green Banana Flour
(and you should be getting a stack of 4 to 5 pancakes)

First, make sure your banana (or bananas, if they're small and you're using 2) is over-ripen and spotty, if not it'll be hard to mash them up and your pancakes will also end up lacking flavour.
So, in a clean bowl, mash up your banana with a fork until you get a relatively smooth puree. Some small chunks are okay, if you wish to add more dimensions to your pancakes (eg. biting into chunks of bananas). Then, to the mashed banana, crack in an egg and mix until well combined. You may add in the baking powder for it to fluff up slightly while cooking, or just leave the leavening agent out completely.

Grease your heated non-stick frying pan lightly with some butter and use a kitchen towel to remove any excess oil. Pour the batter onto the pan and cook on low to medium heat for 3 to 4 minutes, until you see that the edges are set. Lift the edge to check that the base is nicely browned before attempting to flip. I have to warn you first, that this pancake batter is extremely watery and contains NO flour so flipping them can be a challenge, especially if you make them too big for your spatula, as they'll almost break instantly off the sides of your spatula when you lift them up.
I'll strongly suggest that you make them smaller than usual for an easier time while flipping them.
Cook the pancakes on the other side for another 2 to 3 minutes until they're browned to your liking.

And tadaa~

For more satiety factor, I've chosen to add in some rolled oats to make myself more pancakes. And while I've added 2 tbsp of pancake syrup to my pancake stack (of 4 pancakes), I felt that the pancakes are sweet enough (I've used an extremely spotty and soft Cavendish banana) on their own and the syrup was redundant. The subtle banana flavour of the pancakes go really, really well with peanut butter though. YUMS! 

And the 2nd time I made the pancakes, I decided to replace the rolled oats with green banana flour. 

And this time, the banana flavour came out strong. Initially I thought it's because of the green banana flour adding more banana flavour to the pancakes, but after using the flour for other bakes, I realised that the flour actually does not taste like bananas. So I reckon it's because I've used Malaysian banana instead of Cavendish banana this time, which has a stronger flavour. So yup, your choice of banana for this pancake recipe is very important! 

And as I've mentioned, these pancakes go damn well with peanut butter..... And also just for added moist-ness, I've added 1 tbsp of pancake syrup to my stack of 5 pancakes.

Till then,
Mia Foo 

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Mia Makes: Mee Chiang Kueh (Apam Balik)

Mee Chiang Kueh (面煎粿), anyone? 

Growing up, I love LOVE LURVEEE the idea of having 2 (yes, not 1, but TWO) slices of peanut mee chiang kueh for breakfast. The chewy, yet soft and slightly tender thick pancake that's filled to the brim with overspilling (literally) sugary ground peanut filling is just, YUMS!

Well, that's my go-to breakfast until I learnt more about various food and their calorie count. >.<"

But nothing is out of bounds for cheatday, so let's make some peanut mee chiang kueh! Well, I don't like coconut, so.... only peanut. HEH!

Anyway, let's get over with the ingredients so we can get started. To get 4-5 slices (basically a full happycall pan size), you'll need:

Pancake:

100g plain flour (all purpose flour)

30g rice flour

1/2 tsp instant yeast

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp sugar

1 medium/large egg

160ml lukewarm water

Filling:
Ground Peanuts, Granulated Sugar (2:1 ratio)
I used about 4 tbsps peanuts to 1 tbsp sugar, and left the other 1 tbsp sugar separated. 

Preparing the batter can't get any simpler. Just add all the dry ingredients into a large bowl, crack in the egg and add in the water and just stir with a whisk until everything is well combined and you're left with a thick and runny pancake batter.
Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel (or cling wrap, pan lid etc) and set it aside to rest for 1 to 1.5 hours.

After the batter is rested, heat up your pan and grease it slightly with a non-stick cooking spray or some butter. Make sure your pan is non-stick. I'm using a happycall pan and this recipe fills it up nicely. You might need to cook your batter more than once to get multiple smaller mee chiang kueh, depending on your pan size and your pancake thickness preference.

So after pouring all the batter into the pan, I kept the lid closed and cooked it over low heat for around 9 to 10 minutes before checking on it. By this time the pancake base is pretty much set, but hardly browned (since I cooked over the lowest heat possible). So I sprinkled the separate 1 tbsp of sugar evenly over the top of the pancake and cover the lid back on, cranking up the heat slightly to medium such that the pancake can brown. Cook for another 3 to 5 minutes until the pancake is browned to your liking. Then, sprinkle the ground peanut filling evenly over the top of the pancake and flip it over into half and take it off the heat.

Leave the entire slab of mee chiang kueh over a wire rack to cool before slicing them up.

As compared to the other recipes using only plain (wheat) flour, the addition of rice flour gives the pancake a softer, more tender bite. The store-bought ground peanuts were a disappointment though, for they were seriously lacking in fragrance and flavour. My grandma has already warned me previously that store-bought ground peanuts are "useless" (tasteless), and that we cannot try to cut corners when making stuff using ground peanuts, need to roast our own peanuts and grind them. But, too much work lah! xp
I think I would be better off using some Skippy's peanut butter as the filling instead.

Till then,
Mia Foo

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Mia Makes: 2 Ingredient Yogurt Bread & Cabbage Hashbrown

With the  Circuit Breaker measure ongoing here in SG, it seems like everyone has turned into a social media baking/cooking guru. HAHAHA! >.<

While the flours are flying off the shelves and everyone is trying to make themselves muah chee, breads and... I don't know, tapioca boba pearls (??), I've (somehow) went the other way and tried to find quick and easy recipes with as little ingredients as possible (and preferably lower calories/healthier alternatives). 

And so here's two of the recipes I've found on the internet that is super quick and easy to make, which turned out really well!

The first one is the 2-ingredient dough that was supposedly trending on IG, which I read about on Buzzfeed. 

The ingredients are really simple, just greek yogurt and self raising flour. If you do not have self-raising flour, you can make yourself some by adding baking powder and salt to plain flour, but that won't be "two-ingredients" anymore. 

So, to get yourself 1 serving of this quick bread, you'll need:

1/4 cup self raising flour

1/4 cup Greek (or drained) plain yogurt.

An additional pinch of salt (optional, for more flavour) 

First up, make sure your yogurt is GREEK YOGURT, the thicker the better, for the 1:1 volumetric ratio of this recipe to work. Otherwise, you can use normal plain yogurt, but reduce the amount of yogurt (start with just adding 2 tbsp first and slowly adding more if the dough is too dry) to get a workable consistency. 

Depending on what exactly you want to get out of the dough (bagel, pizza, bread bun etc), tweak the amount of yogurt to add to get the best dough consistency. For example, if you are planning to make a pizza out of the dough, you'll be better with a dough that's still soft but definitely not sticky at all. The lower hydration of the dough also meant that your "bread" will be less soft and fluffy. 

But for me, as I was just making a "English muffin" lookalike bread on the hob out of it, which needs minimal shaping and handling, I could get away with a much more sticky dough, as I could easily just dump the lump of wet dough directly onto my hot pan from the bowl of I wanted to. 

But I didn't, I chose to dust some flour over the wet dough and briefly shaped it into a round muffin shape before cooking it over a non-stick pan on low heat over the hob, with lid on, for around 5 to 6 minutes on each side, until the bread is browned to your liking and when pressed down with a finger, it springs back up.

And yes, I prefer my bread more evenly browned and "toasty".

I used about 3 tbsp normal plain yogurt to 1/4 cup flour and got really soft and fluffy bread. I also added a generous pinch of salt, which gave my bread a delicious salty flavour. YUMS!

And the other recipe I've tried for this meal is a healthier alternative to hashbrown, the cabbage-hash. I first saw this recipe from Erwan Heussaff's video, in which he actually used about 2 eggs to 1 cup of shredded cabbage & white onions. But I found that the overall dish didn't really work that well. Basically the egg and cabbage are pretty separated, and even with my effort to squish them together into a patty while they cooked, the final consistency of this "hashbrown" still tasted more like cabbage stir-fried in eggs to me. 

As you can see, the shredded cabbage and eggs aren't really together. 

So here's my tweaked recipe for the cabbage-hash:

180g - 200g shredded cabbage 

(you can sub part of the cabbage with white onions if you fancy them)

2 medium eggs

1-2 tbsp corn flour or plain flour

(corn flour will make it crispier)

Seasoning of your choice 

(I used garlic salt and the good old black pepper)

Just dump everything into a large bowl and mix until well combined. So simple!

For me, I prefer to beat the eggs and add in my seasonings first, before adding the egg mixture into the shredded cabbage and tossing them around for abit to get all the cabbage coated with the egg mixture before stirring in the flour to thicken the mixture. 

Then, pour the mixture onto a well greased pan and cook over medium heat until browned to your liking. I cooked my entire bowl of mixture into one huge "pancake" that's the size of my happycall pan, but I'll advise that you make smaller individual hashbrown sizes for easier cooking and flipping. 

Cooking time and heat also varies according to how you'll prefer your "hashbrown" to turn out. Do you prefer your cabbage softer or crunchy? The longer you cook over lower heat, the softer your cabbage will get. 

So just trial and error and get this low-calorie, low-carb "hashbrown" to your best liking! 

And yes, I repeat. DO NOT attempt to cook the entire batter into 1 huge pancake unless you have a happycall pan like I do. I just flipped the entire pan over to cook on the other side. HAHA!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Osmanthus Rice Cake

I vaguely remembered my very first taste of the Osmanthus flavour that wasn't just purely sugar in disguise in the form of some green tea, was a good 8 years ago during my visit to Suzhou/Hangzhou, China when I had a taste of 桂花糕 (osmanthus cake). 

-credits to guilinholiday-

Not to be confused with the jelly version, the traditional osmanthus cakes are made with a mixture of rice and glutinous rice flour, osmanthus flower and sugar, and then steamed over boiling water till set/cooked. When eaten warm, they're soft and slightly chewy with a distinctive osmanthus scent and a very mild and subtle sweetness. When cooled, they'll actually turn pretty hard and dry, like a crumbly, powdery biscuit. 

This type of traditional 桂花糕 is nearly impossible to find in Singapore, so I guess the only way for me to taste it again is to make them myself! And when's a better time than now to do it, when everyone is snatching plain/bread/cake flours for baking and tapioca starch for boba pearls? 

To get 8 servings of 桂花糕, you'll need:

100g rice flour

25g glutinous rice flour

60ml brewed osmanthus tea 

(I used 2 tsp dried osmanthus flower and 1 tsp sugar in a cup of hot water and left it to steep until cooled) 

6 deglet noor dates, pitted and chopped

45g brown sugar 

(you may omit the dates and use more sugar)

Mould(s) of your choice

recipe adapted from Amanda Tastes

I used a silicon cake mould, but I will advise against it as it's too wobbly on its own and will cause the cake to crack when you are putting it into the steamer. You can also make smaller versions in a muffin tin. :) 

It's actually pretty simple to make these osmanthus cake. In a clean bowl, add in the rice flour and glutinous rice flour and give it a quick stir with a balloon whisk to combine. Then, slowly trickle in the osmanthus tea as you continue stirring the flours. It will slowly form small lumps, and you may need a little bit more tea, depending on the hydration level of your flours, so always make sure you have more than just 60ml of the liquid on hand. Add enough water such that there's no pockets of dry flour and you can get the flour to stick together into a piece of dough by just pressing them in your hands. And at the same time, with the slightest pressure of your fingers, you can crumble the big piece of dough back into its powdery form. Drain out the osmanthus flower from the rest of the tea, pat them as dry as you can and set them aside. 

You can check out Amanda's video (link above under ingredient list) to better understand the flour condition you should get.

After the flour mixture is hydrated, comes the hardest part. Sifting!

With a good amount of patience, slowly press the hydrated flour mixture through a sieve and into a large bowl. You'll eventually get back a bowl of fluffy flour mixture and then it's time to start assembling the cake!

Spray down your choice of mould with some non-stick cooking spray (or grease it with butter) amd spoon half the amount of flour mix into the mould LIGHTLY. Do not try to pack the flour down, but leave it light and fluffed. If you're left with an uneven surface, use a fork to even out the surface lightly without applying any form of pressure onto the flour. 

Then sprinkle the chopped dates and brown sugar evenly on top, making sure to cover up the whole surface, even the corners. If not you'll be left with corner pieces of the rice cake with no fillings in between. Take half of your drained osmanthus flower and sprinkle them over the sugar filling, before topping the mould up with the remaining half of the flour mixture. 

Even out the surface lightly with a fork before sprinkling the rest of the drained osmanthus flower over the top. 

Place the assembled cake into the steamer or over a double boiler on the hob and steam for 15 to 20 minutes until cooked. The cake is done when it's firm to the touch when you press down on the surface. 

The cake might be too delicate to handle when just hot out of the steamer, hence do leave it to cool down for a bit before trying to unmould and slicing it. 

My top flour layer was a little too thin, hence the cracks. T.T

When warm, this rice cake is soft and slightly chewy with a yummy sweetness from the chopped dates and brown sugar filling and a pleasant Osmanthus scent. If it weren't for the calories, I would have easily eaten all 8 slices at one go. 

When left to cool completely (overnight) the cake will significantly harden up to give a dry and crumbly texture, but still sweet and delicious!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Burnt Basque Cheesecake

Yes, after contemplating about it for so so so long (I first came across a youtube video of this cake waayyy before it started appearing in our local cafes/bakeries, and had wanted to try it back then) I finally tried it. 

The (once very) trendy Burnt Basque Cheesecake, which ended up being more golden then burnt. 

But anyway, let's get over with the ingredients to get started!

To get 1 small 5' - 6' cake, you'll need:

227g cream cheese, soften

(I used Cowhead, if you're using Philadelphia then 250g is fine too) 

45g sugar 

(I mixed 15g stevia and 15g icing sugar) 

1 tbsp honey

100ml whipping cream

2 medium eggs

10g all purpose flour

First up, pre-heat your oven to 220 degree Celsius. It's very important that you pre-heat your oven first because of the higher than usual temperature you need to get, plus it takes literally just minutes to put your cake batter together. If you're quick enough, you might even finish the batter before your oven is pre-heated! >.<
Anyway, after getting the oven out of the way, line your cake pan with a piece of parchment paper. There's no need to line it to size, but just roughly push a square/rectangular sheet of parchment into your pan and let the edges fold onto itself at the sides of the cakepan.

Do keep around 3' of overhang upright (shown in picture)  to 'catch' the cake as it rises in the oven during baking.

Now, making this cheesecake can't get any easier, and you can easily make it in 1 bowl.
First up, beat your soften cream cheese in a large bowl to loosen it up before beating in the sugar until well combined. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the mixture is well combined.
To the mixture, add in the honey and whipping cream and mix again before finally adding in the flour and mixing until you get a homogeneous mixture.
Pour the mixture into your lined cake pan and let it bake in the oven at 220 degree Celsius for 10 minutes, before reducing the temperature to around 200 degree Celsius and bake until the surface of the cake is browned/burnt to your liking.

After the cake is done, leave the door of your oven ajar and allow the cake to cool completely before letting it chill in the fridge overnight (or at least 4 hours) for the cake to set.
Do take the cake out from the fridge and allow it to come up to room temperature before eating though. 

Tadaa~ 

Rich and creamy with a slightly caramelised taste at the "burnt" edges, it's no wonder there's so much hype for this cake! 

If you're after the molten, lava centre effect, perhaps you can tuck into the cake once it's cooled and without chilling in the fridge, but don't quote me for this as I've not tried it. 

And I don't really understand why would you want a molten centre for this cake either, this is no cheese tart nor chocolate cake. 

edit: I've made a lower calorie version (and added biscuit base) using Ricotta HERE

Till then,

Mia Foo

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#cheatday breakfast recipes

Well, actually I can't even decide if I can call these recipes; perhaps just "procedures of assembly" will be a better phrase? 

Anyway, here's my current top 3 (+1 bonus) #cheatday breakfasts that I've been craving for these past few weeks/ months. 

#cheatdayeats breakfast, let's go!

First up, this black, shapeless.... thing. 

Which actually, is a peanut butter-ovolmatine chocolate chip baked oatmeal. Sorry, I could have chosen a mould of another colour but I don't have one. >.<

Preparation for this breakfast can't get any simpler, just grab a bowl and dump everything (listed  under ingredient list below) in, stir until well combined and transfer into your desired mould and bake at 190 degree Celsius for about 25-30 minutes (until it has dried up into a "cake").

I've also tried cooking it "pancake style" without a mould on a non-stick pan over the hob, on small to medium fire, and it works too, taking a shorter time of around just 20 minutes in total to get done, but you'll end up with pieces of torn up "pancakes" because they do not flip well. 

Doesn't matter if you're not making breakfast for The Gram, right? 

ingredient list

45g rolled oats

60g unsweeten applesauce

 1 tsp pyure (baking stevia blend)

1 tbsp creamy peanut butter

1 tbsp ovolmatine spread 

1 tbsp unsweeten cocoa powder

~2 tbsp milk 

(add more if oat-batter is too dry)

a pinch of salt

a handful (or more) chocolate chips

adapted from chocolatecoveredkatie

You can use other sweeteners like honey or maple syrup, but do adjust the amount of milk to get the correct pastey consistent of the oat-batter. 

And I always eat this topped with MORE ovolmatine spread or peanut butter (or BOTH!) which is why I'm taking it easier on the added sweetener, if you're planning to eat this as it is, perhaps you would want to increase the amount of sweetener too!

EDITED:

And so I deducted 5g of rolled oats (using only 40g) and added a tbsp of chocolate whey protein powder + 1 tbsp of wholemeal flour to the batter and they turned out so much easier to flip as flapjacks/pancakes! 

 But texture wise it's definitely slightly different as compared to the original baked oatmeal, as you can get tiny portions of "cakey" bits here and there in between the oats now. 

Next up on the list, FRENCH TOAST!

Did I mention that I LOVE breads?

There's many different variation to how I like my french toasts. Sometimes I sandwich some ham and cheese in between and turn it into a Croque Monsieur, sometimes I slather a thick layer of nutella/peanut butter/ovolmatine spread in between. sometimes I have them "plain" with some maple-flavoured syrup and butter. 

But now I'm showing you my most zhng-up (made fancy) version till date, niangao peanut cornflake-crusted french toast. 

This is two slices of thick wholemeal french toast with crushed cornflake crust, with slices of niangao (brown/coconut sugar glutinous rice cake) sandwiched in between, and then further topped with a layer of peanut butter AND ground peanuts on top. 

So first up, crush up some cornflakes, either with your bare hands or with a rolling pin, and set them aside in a plate that's big enough for your bread to fit in. Then, prepare your egg custard mixture as per usual (I usually do 1 medium egg to 1 tbsp milk, with a dash of ground cinnamon), and preferably do not sweeten your egg mixture as the nian gao will add ALOT of sweetness. 

First, dip your bread in the egg custard mixture until both sides are generously coated/soaked in the egg custard mixture and then plopped them onto the crushed cornflakes to coat. You'll have to get your hands a little messy here to make sure the breads are well coated. Pat the surface lightly to get the crushed cornflakes to stick better. 

In a non-stick pan, heat up a tablespoon of butter over low/medium heat and fry (one side of) both slices of your prepared breads at the same time. When the cooked side has turned golden brown, first flip just ONE of the two slices and lay your sliced nian gao over the cooked side, then pick up your other slice of unflipped bread and place it, COOKED SIDE DOWN, over the nian gao. 

Cover your pan with a lid and cook for however long it took you to cook the other side. Then, flip the entire sandwich over, cover the lid and cook for the same amount of time, and VIOLA~

Remove your french toast sandwich from the pan and slather on a thick (or thin, if you prefer) of peanut butter before topping it with some ground roasted peanuts. 

ingredient list

2 slices of your favourite (preferably) thick bread

(wholemeal, white, multigrain, whatever)

1 medium egg

1 tbsp milk

sliced nian gao 

(thickness according to your own preference)

crusted cornflakes 

(enough to coat both sides of your breads)

a dash of ground cinnamon

peanut butter

ground peanuts

salted butter (for cooking)

Next up, the final #cheatday breakfast on my list has to be PANCAKES (or hotcakes)!

Usually I'll make my own quick and super fluffy pancakes (recipe HERE), I just so happened to see this at Daiso recently.

credits to pinterest

Yes, Daiso now carries their own hotcake (Japanese style pancakes that's slightly thicker and with a sweeter taste) mix and I need to give it a try!
Making this can't be any simpler, just follow the instructions at the back of the package. HAHA!
They even give you the egg and no-egg versions. I followed the no-egg version as 1 egg is for the entire pack of 2 servings. I'm only making 1 serving at a time and I didn't want to use half-egg, so.... no egg it shall be!

The trick to getting that beautifully, evenly browned hotcake surface is to use as little oil as possible. So you heat up your oil in the pan and then literally go in and wipe off all visible streaks of oil on your pan, effectively you're just greasing your pan, not oiling it.

But I'm too lazy to do that extra step and butter shall NOT be wasted like that so I'll rather not have IG-worthy looking hotcake stack for breakfast. 

But of course, it's cheatday and I NEED to zhng-up my hotcakes too!

So I actually added two tablespoons of Nestum Multigrain cereal (and more milk to tweak the consistency) to my batter and a handful of chocolate chips into the batter for two of my 3 hotcakes. 

Without adding Nestum, half a pack should only yield 2 hotcakes instead of 3. 

ingredient list

daiso hotcake mix

2 tbsp nestum multigrain

milk

chocolate chips

salted butter (for cooking)

Last but not least, a bonus recipe from the talented Japanese youtuber, Ochikeron.
Tofu Brownies!

And of course, I zhng it up for cheatday by slicing it in half and slathering a thick layer of peanut butter and ovolmatine over it. 

I mean, sorry but these are diet-friendly healthy tofu brownies (~100 kcals per slice), even on non-cheatday I eat them with ice cream!

ingredient list

100g silken tofu

100g flour 

(I used wholemeal)

100ml milk

3 tbsp unsweeten cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2.5 tbsp pyure (baking stevia blend)
30g chocolate chips
adapted from createeathappy
(watch Ochikeron's video recipe on how to make it)

Till then,
Mia Foo

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