Thursday, 27 November 2014

Viennese Fingers

These Viennese Fingers just melt into your mouth.... You can sandwich them using a thin layer of raspberry jam or just eat them as they are.  Absolutely yummy!  My little one loves them :-)




Ingredients:

Unsalted Butter (softened)           100g
2 large Egg Yolks                      
Caster Sugar                                 40g
Vanilla Bean Paste                       1 tbsp
Plain Flour                                    125g
Some good quality dark chocolate (for decorating purpose)

Method:


1.  Preheat oven to 180C.
2.  Put the softened butter in a medium bowl.  Use an electric mixer to beat it until light & fluffy.
3.  Add in caster sugar, continue beating.
4.  Add the egg yolks and vanilla bean paste into the mixture, continue beating until they're mixed well.
5.  Add flour and keep beating until smooth.
6.  Put the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a wavy piping nozzel.
7.  Pipe out the mixture into whatever shape you like on an oven tray with baking paper.
8   Bake for about 12 minutes.
9.  Set aside to cool down.
10.  Melt some good quality dark chocolate using double boiler.  Using a spoon, drizzle some of the chocolate onto the cookies.

Ice Skin Moon Cake

I made these mini moon cakes as gifts for friends to celebrate the moon cake festival :-)

Aren't they nice?  They were very yummy too.





The following recipe is from my sister and a video in You-Tube.

Moon Cake Skin:

Milk   250g
Glutinous Rice Flour (糯米粉)  70g  
Rice Flour (粘米粉)50g  
Flour  20g  
Vegetable Oil  10g
Caster sugar     50g
Condensed milk  40g

Method:

1. Sift all the flour together into a large bowl.
2. Add in the sugar and mix well.
3. Add in the milk little by little, use a spatula to mix until smooth.
4. Add the condensed milk into the mixture, mix well and then followed by adding the oil.
5. Gentle stir until all ingredients are mixed well.
6. Pour the mixture into a shallow heat proof bowl and steam it with high heat for 30 mins.
7. After 30 mins, the mixture should become solid with stretchy kind of texture.  
8. When the dough cools down, take it out from the bowl.  Put it on a clean kitchen bench (I put them on a piece of marble).  With food-grade gloves on, use your hands to knead the dough until it becomes shinny.
9.  Then roll the dough into a long log, wrap it with cling wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.

Tips:
* To make sure the mixture is lump free, pour the mixture into the bowl through a fine sieve.
* To prevent the steam water from getting into the mixture, wrap the bowl with foil before steaming.
* If you would like to colour the mixture, put the liquid or paste food colouring in the milk.  Warm the milk up first and then put the colouring in, mix well.  Set aside to cool before use.

Red Bean Fillings:

Red Beans  (wash and leave in water to soak overnight)   160g
Vegetable Oil    10g
Sugar 40g
Coconut cream   60g
Wheat starch flour  (澄面粉)10g

Method:

1. Put the softened red beans, vegetable oil, coconut cream & wheat starch flour into a food processor to make it as a thick puree.  
2. Transfer the mixture out from the food processor to a medium-sized pan on the stove.
3. Turn the stove on low heat.
4. Using a spatula, stir the mixture on the pan continuously until most of the liquid evaporates and the mixture becomes a thick paste.
5.  Set aside to cool down when it's done.
6.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Assembling:

To assemble, you'll need to have a moon cake mould.  I used a mould which can make a 50g moon cake one at a time. There're lots of different kinds & sizes of mould.  Below is a picture of the kind that I used.  *To assemble the moon cake mould, simply push the pattern part inside the mould will do.  The side with the pattern should be facing up.


1. Cut out 23g of Red Bean Fillings, put it into palm and mould it into a nice round ball.  Set aside for use.
2. Cut out 27g of Moon Cake Skin dough.  Using a small rolling pin, roll the dough out as a circle evenly.  Do not roll it too thin, roll it into a size that is just enough to cover the round "Red Bean ball" (done from step 1).
3. Wrap the Red Bean Ball with the round-shaped Moon Cake Skin.
4.  Roll the ball in a small bowl with some plain flour so that it's covered by flour evenly and not sticky anymore.  Shake off excess flour if necessary.
5.  Put the ball in the centre of the moon cake mould.  Press it all the way down to the pattern and that the mould is filled evenly (especially the sides).  Don't be afraid to press it hard, or else you won't get the nice pattern.
6.  When it's ready, simply push the handle down to eject the dough out.  And there you go, you should see a nicely shaped moon cake in front of you :-)

Enjoy........