Coconut Panna Cotta

Had guests from Singapore and this is the dessert I made for them! It will be low carb if you use stevia drops. 

Ingredients

• 400ml can coconut milk
• 300ml thickened cream
• 80 gms caster sugar
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 tablespoon gelatine
• 250g fresh strawberries, hulled, quartered
• 150g fresh blueberries
• 200g fresh raspberries

Method

1. Place coconut milk, cream and 3/4 cup of sugar into a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes or until sugar dissolves (do not boil). Remove from heat.
2. Place hot water into a small bowl. Sprinkle over gelatine. Whisk with a fork until dissolved. Add to coconut milk mixture. Whisk well to combine.
3. Rinse 8 x 1/2-cup capacity dishes or moulds. Shake out excess water. Pour in coconut mixture. Cover. Refrigerate for 5 hours, or overnight if time permits, until set.
4. Place strawberries, blueberries and raspberries into a bowl. Sprinkle with remaining sugar. Cover. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
5. Turn panna cotta onto plates. Serve with berries and any juice/coulis

Fruit coulis

If you want to make a coulis, you can either use frozen or fresh fruit. Add the berries into a pan, add some icing sugar and let it boil till berries are soft. Then transfer to a sieve and put the juice through.

Black sesame seed paste icecream - eggless

 Ingredients:

2 cups cream - 1 used low fat

1/2 - 3/4 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup black sesame seeds

Method:

1. Combine 1 cup of the cream, the sugar, and salt in a large bowl and whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved.

2. Stir in the remaining 1 cup  cream, the milk, and vanilla extract.

3. Grind the sesame seeds in a clean spice grinder for about 5 seconds until they turn into a coarse powder. Don’t grind for too long as the seeds will turn into a paste.

4. Pour the mixture into your ice cream maker and slowly pour in the ground black sesame. Churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the ice cream to a freezersafe container and freeze for at least four hours or overnight.

Note: The ice cream will be rock hard, but remove it about 30 - 45 mins before you want to eat it, and it will soften enough to scoop.

For those without an ice cream maker, here's how:
If you don’t have an ice-cream maker, you can still make ice-cream. After you have made up your mixture, transfer it to a lidded plastic box (a shallow one enables the freezing to happen more quickly and also makes whisking easier as the beater can go down straight into the box) and put it in the coldest part of the freezer for two hours, or until the contents become firm at the edges. At this stage, empty out the box into a mixing bowl and whisk the ice cream with an electric hand whisk to break down the ice crystals. Return the box to the freezer and freeze for another two hours, then repeat the whisking process. Refreeze the ice-cream ( if making a sorbet that contains a generous quantity of alcohol, freeze overnight ) until 30-45 minutes before you want to serve it, at which time you should transfer it into the fridge to soften. Incidentally, it’s a good idea to arm yourself with a digital kitchen timer to remind you to remove the ice cream and whip it at various stages

Heritage Food Trail - Apom Bokwa

Heritage Food Trail - Apom Bokwa
I am late in submitting this but anyways, here it is.

This is a Peranakan dessert called Apom Bokwa. It is not very well known so I thought it would be good to post this dessert to tell people about it.

I have copied this recipe from Kuali.com - Amy Beh. My mum has her own recipe and I did not have time to get it from her, hence from Kuali. The recipe is ok, although on cooling the apom gets a bit hard, so when I do get the recipe from my mum, I will make it again and know that it will be as soft as I remember it to be.

When I was about to start making it on Saturday, there was a bit of a panic as I knew my mum had bought 2 apom bokwa pans but I searched high and low and could not find them, but luckily remembered where I put them.

Ingredients
(A) - Mix these ingredients together and leave aside to soak for 10 minutes:

500g rice flour
25g glutinous rice
300ml coconut water
(B) - Mix these ingredients, leave aside for 15 minutes. Cook over low flame until it turns gluey to make "Ebu":

50g rice flour
150ml water
(C) - Mix these ingredients and leave aside to froth:

1/4 cup lukewarm water
1/4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp instant yeast
(D):

160ml pati santan
Sauce: (A):

75g brown sugar
50g gula melaka
175ml water
3 pandan leaves
(B) - Mix these ingredients together and allow the rice to expand:

2 tbsp glutinous rice flour
25ml water
(C):

50ml pati santan
1/4 tsp salt
Method
Blend ingredients (a) and (b) together. Mixin 1/2 tsp salt and stir well with a hand whisk. Add in (c) and set aside for 30 minutes. Cover with a damp cloth for it to rise to double its size. Blend in (d) and proof for another 50 minutes. Heat a brass apom mould and grease lightly with corn oil.

Pour in enough batter to fill the mould three-quarters full and cook over medium heat. Cook till bubbles appear. Cover mould with a lid till the top part of the apom is cooked. Touch centre of apom with finger - if it is firm and not sticky, the apom is ready.

To make sauce: Bring (a) to a boil, strain the hot syrup into (b). Stir well and transfer to a saucepan and cook over medium low flame. Add in (c) and stir well till sauce thickens. Pour sauce into a small bowl and serve with apom bokwa.
Note 1: I made half the batter and got around 18 apoms.
Note 2: I added sliced bananas to the sauce as this is what my mum used to do.

I am submitting this post to Heritage Food Trail hosted by Edith of Precious Moments

Thanks Edith for giving us a chance to learn about each other's food cultures.

Pancake Day

Pancake day was yesterday but because I caught a cold and was tired from work as well, so Pancake day was moved to today!

Pancakes

Tau Huay
Was craving to eat tau huay, so soaked some soy beans overnight and today made my tau huay.

Mango Pudding

Ingredients:
200 gm blended mango (puree)
200 gm mango cubes
150 ml whipping cream
20 gm gelatine
80 gm sugar
150 ml water
150ml mango juice
170ml evaporated milk

Method:
1. Mix water, sugar and gelatine in pan. Boil over slow fire until sugar and gelatine dissolve.
2. Leave the mixture to cool. When cool, add mango puree, mango cubes, whip cream, mango juice and evaporated milk.
3. Pour into small cups or 1 big tray and leave in fridge to set.