Chinese New Year - Pineapple Tarts

Chinese New Year is here again! It is the period of eating, eating and eating!

2 weeks ago, we had our Reunion Dinner session 1 with my aunt's family. Then there was another session with my own family, and another session with dear's family.

On the second day of CNY, my family went out for a good lunch, almost bursting our stomachs. Straight after that, we travelled for about 30-40 minutes to my cousin's place, and ate like silly again. That was early dinner for me...and about 10pm, dear and I went out for supper...my favourite cheese and mushroom prata.

Of all the CNY snacks, I usually have these few - kueh bangkit (MUST be melt in your mouth type), pineapple tarts (homemade from my aunt), peanut puffs (homemade from my other aunt). Kueh Bangkit and peanut puffs shall be my trial items next year.

This year, I made peanut cookies and pineapple tarts. Up to the week of CNY, I had been making these 2 items for consecutive evenings. They never seemed enough. I had a list of people I want to give them to. It was over ambitious again, because my oven could not handle that much. As I baked, dear ate and ate. To his dismay, I had to tell him not to eat any, otherwise I would never be making enough...and he had to eat the "rejected" pineapple tarts, those which failed my QC and did not look nice enough to be put into jars to be given away.

For pineapple tarts, as I made them over and over again, I got better and faster. Some people leave the tops empty, and some use a tiny cookie cutter to make some cutout like flower shape etc.....but they all look kind of naked to me. As far as I remember, the pineapple tarts I have been eating from young (made by my aunt) always have these handmade crosses. Moreover, I like the imperfect look (some bigger, some smaller) of homemade stuff, it smells of home....rather than factory made tarts which weigh and look all the same for every piece. Haha, that's an excuse for myself for not being able to make every tart look the same. :P

Since this is the first year I make pineapple tarts, I decided to use store-bought jam. I do not want to waste time cooking the jam and then end up with failing in making the crust. There are many many recipes out there for pineapple tarts. Some use milk powder (I do not quite like the smell of milk powder), some use cornflour, some use rubbing in method, some use creaming method...The first recipe I tried was too flaky. I then tried this second recipe which did not use milk powder or cornflour but turned out very good, so I am sticking to it till I find a better one. Now that I have found a good recipe for the crust, I can try making the jam next time.

My First Award!

Ann from A Delighted Foodie has graciously honoured me with the Butterfly Award to me and I am totally ecstatic! I am speechless, but I am really happy.

Thanks Ann!

I am passing this award to...Florence of Do What I Like and Happy Home Baker!

Baking for Christmas

Ok, I had been feeling lazy to write about what I have done, but it doesn't mean that the lazy spell has gotten into me for a long time!

In fact, the weeks before Christmas, I was busy like a dog. I took part in a charity bake for mentally handicapped children, which a fellow visitor to my blog has informed me about. It took me quite a while to think of what to bake, considering my (limited) resources in terms of oven size and time, not forgetting that the stuff must be able to keep for some time since I have to bake a few days in advance. But it was the first time I was doing something meaningful with my skill and it gave me immense satisfaction.

Finally, I decided to make my Christmas cookies again, yes, the same ones I made last year for Christmas. How boring....and when I decided on it, I can't help but realise that it was 12 months ago that I last made them!!

My little oven can only handle 6 big-sized cookies in each tray. For consecutive nights, after I return from work each day, ate dinner and showered, I would be baking, decorating, washing and packing them individually. In fact, I was so hyper I could not sleep, and I woke up early next morning to continue. I made 60 cookies and passed them to the lady who is so supportive of my blog. It feels funny at first for me, to meet up with a person whom I had only knew online, but the meetup was very pleasant.

At the same time, I had to finish making some more peanut cookies and pineapple tarts, for a colleague who was leaving the company.

Not forgetting that I had great plans for Christmas. I had planned to make eclairs, log cakes and baked chicken for christmas lunch when my friends come over. In the end, eclairs were left out of the menu, but I made 3 log cakes - one for my parents, one for dear's mum, and one for our christmas lunch. I like the log cakes. I think most local bakeries have swiss rolls covered with cream and decorated into a log cake. Mine was not from a sponge cake recipe, it is more dense and chocolatey. I had tried the recipe on its own a few weeks back just to make sure that I find a nice recipe for the log. I am sure there are many great ones out there, but I used this one and I hope you like it too! I have added it to my collection of recipes in my recipe blog.

We also had chicken wrapped in bacon for lunch and everyone was polite enough to finish everything on their plate whether it was nice or not. Frankly, it was the first time I cooked for 6 persons, and I was really excited about it. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.

Macarons Part II - Another failed attempt

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The holidays and 2-day workweeks sure left me feeling lazy. I had to drag myself to turn on the laptop otherwise my overdue posts will just grow more and more.

The past year has been a very fruitful year for me, especially with my baking skills. I have learnt a lot, improved a lot, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who drops by this little blog of mine. I have had a lot of encouragement, and I cannot stress enough, how much I have learnt through this blog. I have to thank all my guinea pigs who try everything I bake and give me feedback. Without them, I would not even have baked much if I do not know where to throw my baked stuff to. In the next 12 months, I hope to go even further, to try lots more new recipes and to step into boundaries I have never, or was afraid to step in before. Macarons is one of them.

Ok, so I have been trying to make macarons since last year! Sounds like a long time doesn't it! No, it was only from the end of December till now. So how is my second attempt at macarons?

This time, the batter seems like it was going to work. When I piped them out, they formed round circles and I made left a tray of them to set, while I tried adding colours to the rest of the batter. It was a wrong move. Adding the colours at the end made me meddle more with the batter and it soon became too liquid.

To make the story short, here is what I gathered out of this attempt:

1) The macrons still cracked, though a lot less. There were 2 totally without cracks.

2) After my first attempt, I am glad I will never waste time drawing circles on the parchment paper again.

3) There was still no feet!!

4) Leaving the trays to aside for at least 30 minutes before baking seem to help, though many bloggers have tested and said it made no effect. I need to experiment more.

At least this attempt resulted in edible macarons, with a crispy shell and a light and hollow inside, just like how a macaron should taste like (unlike my chewy maca-wrongs from my first attempt).

It was still disappointing though, because I could not make anything else in time as christmas gifts for my colleagues. So, I got them simple, small gifts at the very last minute.

Now, let's take the egg whites I have collected and start again....