Passion Fruit Sour Cream Cake

Another week is almost over now and again it was very busy one for me. Nowadays I have to plan my time properly in order to have some time off for myself. Not complaining here, I do find some kind of satisfaction at the end of the day seeing everything is done and in order. Take today for example, after chauffeuring my kids to school, I went ahead to do my grocery. I then I come home to cook Spaghetti for my kids' lunch. Before I know it, it was time for me to pick my kids back from school. Back home, I then proceed to make Mango Sago with Pamelo desert so that I can bring to my mum's tomorrow. I then made steam yam kueh for my family's breakfast tomorrow. (At the same time I was doing revision with my girl) Immediately after, I start to prep for dinner. After a couple of hours of boiling and sauteing, dinner was ready by 5pm. Not wasting anytime, I quickly wash and clean up the house, i.e. vacuum and mop up the whole house. *Phew*

I am no super woman, so I wonder how long I can put up with such hectic workload I put myself through. Frankly speaking, doing all these cooking and washing is all a matter of choice but I do enjoy it to some degree if you ask me, lol! Nevertheless I still have to occasionally remind myself to take a breather before I "collapse" someday, lol! *kidding* But now comfortably seating in front of my laptop, and typing out my thoughts is actually such a comfort for me. Nice....

My post today is yet another simple cake that anyone can make at home. Passion Fruit Sour Cream Cake. YUM! Another passion fruit recipe...well because my mother is such a fan of passion fruit, I decided to make another cake with it for her. I actually made this over the weekend since I was gonna meet my parents for lunch.

Love the golden color, doesn't it just cheer you up a little? Made it into 2 small loaves but should be able to fill a 10 cup bundt cake pan. This recipe is actually adapted from my previous passion fruit recipe. ;)

Ingredients for Passion Fruit Sour Cream Cake:
300g plain flour
225g caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda
220g unsalted butter, room temperature
4 eggs
100g low fat sour cream
70ml fresh milk
Juice of 4 passion fruits
pinch of salt

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and line a loaf tin with parchment paper and butter it again. (I used a 7" by 3.5" loaf tin )
  
• In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar together till light and fluffy.
• Add eggs, one at a time till well mixed in.
  
• Add in yogurt and stir till incorporated. Then add in the passion fruit juice and mix well.
• Add in flour, baking powder and salt and stir till just blend in.
• Pour the cake batter into the loaf tin and bake for 40 to 45 mins or till the cake tester comes out clean.
• Cool on rack before slicing.
  

If you have used passion fruit before, you know the smell will perfume your whole house once the bake is one.

The cake turned out nice and buttery soft plus it's very fragrant. It's so simple to whip up, you just need a little over 1hr to get it done. :) A great gift to family and friends with out too much hassle. Not forgetting to make more and enjoy it yourself of course. A good slice and all you need is a cup of your favorite warm beverage to go with it.....mmmm, pure enjoyment. :) My parents enjoyed this cake very much. Note that I have reduce the sugar quite a bit, so feel free to add more to suit your taste.

A shot of the tender golden crumbs. Hope I have moved you to try this recipe out. Be quick about it since the passion fruit season is almost over. But most importantly, have fun baking it!! Cheerio! Have an early happy weekend!

Teochew Peach-Shaped Dumplings (Puen Kueh / Peng Kueh)

Is it just me or is the year swooshing by real fast? It's already the start of October now and soon enough we will be talking about Christmas and New Year! And since this is the final exam month, parents and kids will be pretty busy. I guess as a parent, we usually try our best to physically or mentally support our kids to skid though these tough weeks. Whether you seat down and do revision with them or just giving them encouragement all the way, I am sure they will appreciate it. One of the things I like to do during this time is to make more comfort food, it delights the kids and fills the tummy too. So I finally get to work on this family favorite kueh. It's Puen Kueh, traditionally a Teochew kueh that is usually shaped like a peach and colored in pink. It's usually stuffed with glutinous rice, dried shrimp, mushrooms and boiled peanuts, yum!
I am sure many of you have seen and also eaten this kueh before. It's very fragrant and the chewy texture from the skin and glutinous rice is very satisfying. ;) Believe it or not, I actually plan to make this kueh for a good 3 months and finally got the chance to make it last week. ;) From finding the perfect recipe to getting the mould and ingredients, then finally the time to make it! So you can imagine how happy I am when I finally bite into one of these babies, lol!

Recipe Adapted from "Delightful Snacks & Dim Sum' by Agnes Chang
Ingredients for Puen Kueh (makes 22-25):


Ingredients for filling
550 g glutinous rice, soaked overnight and drained

3 tbsp fried shallot oil
1 tsp chicken powder
8 shallots, peeled and chopped
100 g dried prawns, soaked, drained and roughly chopped
8-10 dried mushrooms, soaked, drained and diced
70g peanuts, soaked and boiled with a touch of salt or used canned ones is fine


Seasoning:
2 tsp sugar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tsp salt

Ingredients for Skin
550 g rice flour 
120 g tapioca flour 
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

760 ml boiling water

3 tbsp fried shallot oil or cooking oil
1/4 tsp of red food colouring gel

Method For Filling:

• Prepare the steamer over medium fire. Then steam the pre soaked glutinous rice with a knotted pandan leaf (optional). Steam for a good 40-45 mins. Note that I added about 100 ml of water into the rice to steam together. And continue to drizzle 25 ml water over the rice every 10 minutes. This ensures the rice to cook more evenly. Make sure you give it a taste test before stopping the fire.
• Now we prepare the other ingredients for the filling. In a wok, add 3 tbsp cooking oil over medium low fire. Add in chopped shallots, cook till slightly brown and aromatic. Add mushrooms and roughly chopped dried shrimp. When the whole mixture is aromatic, add in the steamed rice and seasoning. Give it a good toss to make sure everything is well combined.
• Lastly add in the peanuts. I add them last because I didn't want them squished when tossing. 
• Once everything is uniformly mixed in. Set the filling aside and prepare your kueh skin.

Method for Dough Skin

• I usually use the stand mixer to do the kueh dough mixing. As there is usually boiling water involve and needs to be rapidly combined, the mixer will do a better job then a spatular or hand. It's too hot!
• So in a large mixing bowl, add in both flours, sugar and salt, give it a quick mix to combine. Then get ready your boiling water while the mixing blade is still turning at its lowest speed. Ever so carefully drizzle in the hot water in while the mixer is on, don't pour all at a go! The dough will slowly come together. Once all the hot water has been added, add in the 3 tbsp of oil and the food colouring. Continue to mix till the dough becomes one inform pink shade. You might need to scoop the dough around to get it to mix well since it is kind of sticky. But don't worry, it will be less sticky when it cools down a little.
• Cover the skin dough with a moist towel and proceed to set up your wrapping area. You will need extra oil to grease the mould and the steaming plate where you place the kuehs. Have your steamer ready on medium low while you are wrapping.
• I can't really give you the amount of dough skin you need to wrap one kueh, as I myself got it through trial and error. You can start off using 50-60g, gradually add or remove as you need. 
• Flatten the dough skin to 1/4cm thickness. then spoon about 2 tbsp of glutinous rice filling in the middle. Carefully wrap up and seal any openings. Place it in the greased puen kueh mould and press gently to let it take the mould's shape. Knock on the edge to release the kueh out. Repeat till all the skin or filling is used up.
• Steam the kuehs for 10-15 minutes. You are essentially steaming to cook the skin only since the filling was already pre-cooked. Repeat till all the kuehs are steamed. Brush a little cooking oil or shallot oil on the surface of the steamed kueh to prevent it from sticking.

I have been using this old school mould for years. It only costed me $2? It's not a fancy mould but it has been doing it's job well. 

The result was quite satisfactory. :) The texture of the skin was just right and the flavour of filling was good too.When it was freshly steamed, my kids and I happily enjoyed a couple of them together, just plain with no sweet sauce or chili. Yup, it's that good ok, haha.

I tinted the skin dough to pink so as to take on the traditional Peng kueh look.  If you opt not to add any food colouring, be prepared to have white puen kueh!

I have made this recipe for countless times and passed it to many of my friends and family to try. Most of them have enjoyed it very much. It's an old school treat that will always bring back fond memories of childhood! I am glad I am creating it for my kids now. :)

2 days after I made these Puen Kueh, I cut the remaining pieces and fried them up. All crispy and golden....super yum! ;D As expected, my kids love this more then the steam version....including my hubby of course. Even when we buy these peng kueh from stalls outside, we usually pan fried them till  all crunchy on the outside before eating them. Yes its better fried....most of the time. :P 

Guess I will have to be making this again pretty soon. Thanks for reading!