October 21, 2006

Kaya

Kaya
Kaya is a coconut custard very popular in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia. It can be used to spread on bread or toast, as filling for pastry or even made as part of a kuih. It is also known as Serikaya in the olden days.
This recipe is based on my mum’s recipe which was roughly 1 part eggs, 2 parts sugar and 2 to 2 1/2 parts thick coconut milk. My mum used to add red colouring to get the reddish hue of the end product. However, I wanted to try the caramel version which does not require the use of the food colouring. Therefore I have adjusted my mum’s recipe to include the caramel. I have also recalculated the quantities used as I recently bought a few cartons of the Kara brand’s 500ml-carton coconut cream, so I adapted it based on that amount coconut milk used. Guess what, the quantities of all the ingredients came to multiples of five, very easy to remember.
Kaya Toast
Kaya Toast - Toast spread with Kaya and thin cold slab of butter which gently melt in your mouth as you bite into it... psss, the amount of butter is for photograhic effect only, I usually don't put that much on ;p

Makes approx. 3 cups (750ml) of kaya.

[Ingredients]
50ml water
500g white granulated sugar
5 eggs (about 250g in total)
500ml thick coconut milk, sieved to get rid of any lumpy bits
5 pandan leaves, knotted
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. To sterilize the glass jars: Prepare 3 jam jars of about 300ml capacity each. Place the jars (without lids) into a deep pot and completely submerged in water. Bring the water to a boil, simmer for 5 minutes. Use a tong to remove the hot jars from the pot and put into a preheated oven at the lowest heat to dry out. Once they are dry, turn off heat but leave the jars in the oven to keep warm while preparing kaya. Also rinse the lids with hot water, set aside to dry.
2. To prepare pots for cooking kaya: Prepare two pots, one slightly smaller than the other so that the smaller pot fits into the bigger pot. The smaller pot should not touch the bottom of the bigger pot, use something such as a small aluminium stand/rack to elevate the smaller pot if necessary. Fill the larger pot with enough hot water so that when the smaller pot sits inside, the water will not spill out (like a bain-marie). The water should come at least halfway up the outside of the smaller pot.
3. To prepare caramel: Put 100g of the sugar into a saucepan (best to use a light-colour pan so you can see the colour of the caramel, don’t use a dark pan). Add 50ml water and cook over low heat to caramelize the sugar. This should take about 15 minutes at low heat. When the syrup turns a light golden brown colour, turn off heat.
The caramel for colouring Kaya
4. To make kaya: While the caramel is cooking, whisk eggs lightly then sieve into the smaller pot, add the remaining 400g sugar. Place the pot inside the larger pot over simmering water and continue whisking until sugar dissolves, about 5 to 10 minutes. Continue whisking while slowly pouring the hot caramel into the egg mixture, don’t worry if a little of the caramel crystallize, it will dissolve as you cook. (If you made the caramel earlier and the caramel is difficult to pour in, quickly heat over low heat until it liquidize.) Add sieved thick coconut milk and pandan leaves. Now use a wooden spoon to stir the mixture in one direction only, either clockwise or anti-clockwise. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens, this takes about 20 to 25 minutes. The kaya should be like the texture of thickened cream at this stage. Remove from heat and discard pandan leaves. Pour hot kaya into the dry sterilized jars. Wait until the kaya is cold before putting on the lid. Store in the refrigerator. Will keep for a few weeks in the refrigerator as long as there’s no moulds developing or rancid smell.
Kaya

[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.

Continue Reading......

October 01, 2006

Strawberry-Stripe Yogurt Cake

Strawberry-Stripe Yogurt Cake
I have to say I have never made any cakes using yogurt before. However there is a basic yogurt cake in one of my English cookbook (translated from a French cookbook) and with a few variations given. Apparently yogurt cake is a very common cake made by the French household.
The recipe is very simple, using the yogurt tub to measure all other ingredients. Basically it is 1 tub of yogurt, 2 tubs of sugar, 3 tubs of plain flour, 1 tub of cooking oil, 3 eggs and 2 teaspoons of baking powder. The problem is there is no mention of how much 1 tub of yogurt is in France! Finally I went and looked it up on the net and discovered that 1 tub of yogurt is 125mL in France. Now here down under, the smallest tub is usually 200mL, therefore if I use the bigger tub to measure the ingredients, it will throw the eggs used out of proportion with the tub-measured ingredients!
And me being me, I also hate to use only part of a tub, leaving the rest to probably just sits in the refrigerator until the use-by date and throw it out. Therefore I have adapted the recipe by increasing the yogurt and proportionally decreased the oil used. At the same time, I also want to experiment with doing the concentric rings effect, so killing two birds with one stone. The cake turned out quite nice I must say, and the ring effect was also good for a first attempt. Because I have reduce the amount of oil, the cake is quite crumbly in texture, like those of teacakes, but really nice to have with a cup of coffee or tea.
Strawberry-Stripe Yogurt Cake

Adapted from the recipe 'Yogurt Cake' in 'Amandine’s Recipes: Cakes, Desserts and Puddings' (originally published as 'Les Recettes d’Amandine' in French), English edition published by Hachette Illustrated UK (Octopus Publishing Group), 2004, ISBN 1-84430-034-X.


[Ingredients]
200g natural yogurt
200g caster sugar
3 eggs, separated
150g plain flour
75g cornflour
2 teaspoons baking powder
60ml canola oil
¼ teaspoon strawberry paste
http://cafeoftheeast.blogspot.com/
[Preparation]
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease a 20cm round cake tin and line base with baking paper. Sift together plain flour, cornflour and baking powder.
2. Beat together egg yolks, half the sugar and yogurt until combined.
3. Beat egg whites until soft peaks, gradually add the remaining sugar and beat until stiff meringue.
4. Fold 1/3 of the meringue into yogurt mixture to lighten the mixture. Then fold in the remaining meringue.
5. Fold the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture in a few batches, sifting them in each time. Finally fold in the oil
6. Divide the batter into two equal portions. Add strawberry paste to one portion and mix in well.
7. Pour or spoon a little of the plain batter into the centre of the prepared tin. Then pour or spoon a little of the strawberry batter into the centre of the tin directly on top of the plain batter in the tin. The amount of batter being poured or spooned into the tin depends on how large or small the concentric rings you want to make, it can be from about 2 tablespoons to about 4 tablespoons at the start and gradually pour less and less as the tin is filled up. Continue to alternate the two batters until all the batters are used up.
Strawberry-Stripe Yogurt Cake batter
8. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until cooked.
Strawberry-Stripe Yogurt Cake

[Note]
1. Please note this recipe uses 1 standard cup of 250ml, 1 tablespoon of 20ml and 1 teaspoon of 5ml.
2. The size of egg used is about 60g (includes shell) unless otherwise stated.

Continue Reading......