Sarchertorte

Sarchertorte is a chocolate cake, invented by Franz Sacher in 1832 for in Austria, specifically in Vienna. It is one of the most famous Viennese culinary specialties, which is made only in Vienna and Salzburg, according to Wikipedia. So what is so famous about it? Well, it's a chocolate cake of two layers, whee in between is laid with a layer of apricot jam. It is traditionally topped with dark chocolate icing and served with whipped cream, just like below.


I made this Sarchertorte somewhere like 2 years back. Hmm, I didn't manage to take the picture that time, guess I haven't realize how much I value pictures of my own cooking yet LOL (quite unlikely though)

However, I know I used this recipe. Sorry, but I don't remember which website I used already.

Ingredients:
130g butter
130g dark chocolate
100g powdered sugar
6 eggs
80g white sugar
130g flour
apricot marmalade

Icing:
150g chocolate
75g coconut shortening

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180-200°C.
- Melt chocolate and butter in Bain Marie style.
- Remove from heat and let the mass cool.
- Add the powdered sugar and the egg yolks little by little while carefully stirring.
- Beat the egg whites and add the white sugar.
- Mix into the batter and add the flour gradually while constantly stirring.
- Pour batter into a greased spring form pan. Bake at 165°C for 50 to 60 minutes.
- Allow the cake to cool completely before removing from pan and before icing.
- Once cool remove the cake from pan.
- Slice horizontally and fill with the jam in between the layers.

As for the icing,
- Next, melt chocolate and shortening in Bain Marie style.
- Cover the top and sides of the cake with the warm (not hot) icing.

Hope you guys enjoy baking it.

Chiffon Cake

I made a chiffon cake for Shiau Fui's Birthday Party on 18th February 2010.

I reshaped an eventually resize the cake as I tried to remove it from the pan before it is completely cool (and I believe the forgetting of the parchment/foil paper also contributes to its ugly holed sides while trying to force it out of the baking tray.)

Apart from the physical appearance, the rest were just fine. Fully risen, taste is good.

Reshaped and resized with a layer of dark chocolate.

After some simple decorations

I modified the Pandan Chiffon Cake recipe from Little Corner of Mine. Original recipe can be found here. Below is the modified version.

Ingredients:
(A)
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 cup sugar

(B)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup coconut milk

2 drops of banana essence

(C)

6 egg whites

1tsp. vinegar

(D)
3/4 cup sugar

Method:

1. Combine (A) in a bowl, mix them well.

2. Add (B). Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, beat (C) until a moist peak is formed. Gradually add (D), beating until stiff and shiny peaks are formed.

4. Fold in 1/2 of the egg whites into the egg yolks mixture, fold to mix and then add the rest of the egg whites. Fold gently but thoroughly.

5. Pour the batter into baking tray.

6. Bake in preheated oven of 180°C, for about 60 mins or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

7. Invert cake and cool it completely in the pan. When cool, loosen the edges and shake pan to remove cake.

P/S : Make sure you cool it completely before you remove it from the pan and I think it's better if you lay a piece of parchment paper before baking :)
Otherwise you would have to resize & reshape the cake like I do hahahaha

The inner texture of the chiffon cake

By using the same modified recipe, instead of 3/4C coconut milk, I squeezed in 3/4C of fresh orange juice. Hence I baked an orange chiffon cake for Brandon's birthday party(20th Feb 2010). Here is the end result :D

Topped with dark chocolate glaze, oranges and of course the green kiwi.

Almond flakes at the side.

CNY Reunion Dinner 2010

Chinese New Year Eve (除夕夜) is an important day in Chinese culture. It is a day where family membes gather together having dinner, symbolizing the reunion of the family. No matter where you are, what are you doing, every family member will try their very best and rush back home for this meaningful day and for this special Reunion Dinner 团圆饭.

But as time goes by, and migration playing such an important role in our modern days, it is rather difficult for each and everyone of us to be around, sitting together on the round table having a meal together. It is either the son is outstation doing business, or maybe children overseas studying, or perhaps daughter still working in some foreign land. However, on this special day, I believe that all of us will remember ... missing the days we sat together with our family, missing home, missing the taste and smell of our mum's delicious food......

No doubt, I miss home. I miss my parents, my siblings. I know that they are always there for us supporting us, loving us, caring for us still. How I miss the firecrackers, the CNY songs that is sounding in the air, the festive season in my hometown. But still I have my semester to finish, my studies to do. Thus, here I am still, in Ukraine.

Fortunately, here in this strange and foreign ex-Soviet country, we have our "family". Our family that supports each of us through. For 6 years, sweet, sour, bitter, salty, spicy, even umami, we have been through. We have gone through the thicks and thins, weather the hurricane (hmm, which event is hurricane enough??? :P) We endured the thick snow of the winter, admired the beautiful flowers of spring, enjoyed the summer breeze, walked the golden leaves of autumn...Are we not a family?

Each year we have our Reunion Dinner. And so have we this year. Just to share with my fellow readers, these were what we had.

~~~ LAO SHENG 捞生 ~~~
(Brandon Teo)
After sprinkling of the sesame and pouring of the sauce


~~~ROASTED GOOSE 烧鸸 ~~~
(Khiu Fu Lung)
~~~ VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLLS 越南春卷 ~~~
(Justin & SeeYee)

~~~ RIBS 红烧排骨 ~~~
(KokTian & CyokNoy)
~~~ LUO HAN ZHAI 罗汉斋 ~~~
(AnnFeng)

~~~ KOU ROU BAO & MUTTON ~~~
扣肉包 与 洋羊得意KouRou - WeiMin & SyihYing
Bao - Me
Mutton - Izman


~~~ SWEET SOUR FISH 年年有余 ~~~
(Brandon Teo)

~~~ TANG YUAN 汤圆 ~~~

(YanLee)

Hmm, we had double desserts that day. The other one is Tauhu Fa (豆腐花) by Jeffrey but I guess we are just too anxious to eat it, hence we have forgotten to take the picture hehehe. But trust me, his Tauhu Fa taste even better than those we can find in Malaysia. It is so silky smooth, that you will definitely be craving for a second portion.

No matter what dishes we had, it is nothing more important than to know that we have each other. I am sure we all miss our families back home in Malaysia. And I appreciate every friends of mine who are with me, going through the highs & lows of my life. We have shared our happiness and sadness. We quarreled, we fight, we cried and laugh. And these has make up my sweet memories here in Ukraine. May we continue to nurture this invaluable friendship that has been built through the years and may its root grow deeper ... ...

Happy Chinese New Year

&
~ FRIENDSHIP FOREVER ~

Steam Pao & BahKua

Today is Chinese New Year's Eve, so tonight I am having Tuan Yuan Fan ( 团圆饭 @ Reunion Dinner ). As we are all foreign students away from our home land, almost all of us have a reunion dinner with our group members, or close friends.

Our group is of course not excluded from this "tradition". So as usual, almost each of us prepared a dish for the night. And this time I chose to make Pao ( 包 ) to match with WeiMin & SyihYing's Kou Rou( 扣肉 ). Thus we have Kou Rou Bao ( 扣肉包 ). For those who don't know what I am talking about, or need a recipe of homemade Kou Rou, kindly click here.

Before & After : Yeast

Prepare papers while waiting for the first rising of the dough.

Before & After : Dough first rising

Before & After : Pao second rising

After steaming

Oh my! Oh my! How can we not have BahKua ( 肉干 ) in CNY!!! Erm, well, I don't have it for 5 years in a row at least. But this year, I won't want to miss it.

Marinated minced pork

So after all I will have time while waiting for the dough to rise. I prepared my ingredients for my homemade BahKua based on LilyWai's recipe. Well, I did modify the recipe, as usual. As I don't have all the ingredients. I substituted the rose wine with my own wine (the wine bought from airport --- DOM), the white pepper to black. I omitted the fish sauce, kamcho powder, red colouring and of course the MSG. The smell was similar, however the taste lacks the saltiness And then only did I noticed that the recipe doesn't consist any bit of salt except soy sauce.

Before & After

The minced pork is to be spreaded to as thin a sheet as possible. And it is spreaded widely. However, after baking, it shrunk so much, about 50%. See the difference from the pictures above? So now I think I knew why BahKua is sold so expensively in Malaysia. Hehe

So here I have my very own BahKua, I am still very satisfied with the taste :)

Hmm, wanna know how the reunion dinner was??? Sure, next post will be about it :)

2010 Chinese New Year Cookies

This month of February, every weekend is filled with activities. CNY reunion dinner, Chap Goh Meh gathering, "Chap Goh Meh Banquet", those February babies ... ...

Maybe it is the last CNY we gather together here as student in Ukraine, everyone is planning something. Especially in my hostel, my floor where almost each of us is doing something --- in the kitchen ( I don't think we are as hardworking if we were in Malaysia though :P )

Every evening, as you passed by this floor, you will notice that in the kitchen, there will be someone, or rather a few someones --- baking CNY goodies till late night. Even before you reach this floor, you could smell the fragrance of some familiar CNY cookies. Peanut cookies, pineapple tarts, bakua, cornflake cookies ... ... It definitely makes one missing those good old days back home in Malaysia, celebrating this wonderful, joyous occasion.

My neighbour, even hold on to the tradition, hanging those red clothes on the door, putting up CNY decorations and MeiHua. Not forgetting his marvelous skills in baking and cooking, you will definitely see bottles of cookies that keeps you drooling. Each time he enters the kitchen to cook for dinner, he definitely will blast his speaker --- online MyFM live from Malaysia. And especially around this time, you will miss those CNY songs!

For this festive season this year, I couldn't resist the temptation too. My floormates baking day and night have indeed successfully influence me, into preparing my own CNY cookies. Just couldn't keep myself away from the kitchen.

I haven't found the consistency that I have been looking forward to tasting in the peanut cookies from my friends who gave me. Not that they weren't delicious. (I have to admit, that some of them tasted good.) Just that I want those that can melt the instant it is in the mouth. So, yesterday I baked my own peanut cookies based on this. And fortunately, I got it!!! YES!!! However, some are burnt *blush* But I am satisfied :)

~ Peanut Cookies ~

Cooling the Peanut Cookies

Up close of the Peanut Cookies in tupperware

Then from the neighbour I mentioned (the one who decorated his room absolutely like you were in Malaysia), I found my long-sought flourless cornflake cookies. I have been craving for it for so so long. And I have not managed to find it on web. Finally, I saw them on his rack. How badly I wanted the recipe, and here they are...TA-DA

~ My long-sought Flourless Cornflake Cookies ~

Storing them up :P

The tedious of all is none but the pineapple tarts. Not only is the pineapple filling time-consuming, even the process of making the dough for the tart, the cutting and the egg wash is eating up hours of mine. Patience, patience, patience... ... But the result is very satisfying. But definitely heaty as you will be staying in the kitchen with the heating oven for hours. The recipe for this tart is here.

Pineapple filling preparation

Ready-to-be-used pineapple filling

Unbaked tarts, even without egg-wash still

My favourite pineapple tarts

Up-close of these CNY pineapple tarts

So, finally, out of these 6 years celebrating CNY in foreign land, I have my CNY goodies. That makes me feel like 50% in hometown, hehehe.

~~~ HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR ~~~

* The Lost Treasure *

"The greatest treasures are not gold, nor jewels, nor work of art. They cannot be held in your hands. They are held within your heart. For worldly things will fade away as seasons come and go. But the treasure of true friendship will never lose its glow... ..."

~ Tinker Bell And The Lost Treasure ~

What a meaningful ending! Although this movie is a little bit childish with those fairies, magical dust... Nevertheless, I've enjoyed it a lot. I love those tiny little creatures, those songs that keep the mind young and pure, the beautiful fairies that make your imagination run wild, far and wide...

And most important of all, it reflects ourselves. We are always in denial, refusing to admit that we need help, refusing to acknowledge that we are wrong and in the end we are the ones to make things worse. It is a story for the kids, but in fact, it is a story for young and old, to remind us that we are constantly surrounded by people who love ourselves, who trust us, who see us as who we are. Yet, we often fail to realize this.

Life is a short journey that glows with love and care. Are we not ready to take a step further to appreciate whatever we have in hand and whoever that are around us? Love and appreciate, be brave enough to make amends for any wrongs that we have done, for the opportunity doesn't often come twice, especially for the true friendship, true love and your family :)