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Last time back home in 2019 summer, my mom drove me to the airport before departure. At the back of the car, she surprised me with a box of 2 pastries, which were meat floss mochi mini cake 鮑師傅的肉鬆小貝, the brand that invented this new trendy dessert/pastry. They were so soft, both sweet and savory. Just that one time bite left great impression, maybe the rarity, the fact that I am thousands away from China and cannot have original, local meat floss mini cake made me crave for this even more. Finally got the ingredients to try making it! It is not very hard, just longer process~
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First time making taro pastry = total disaster, exploding filling and no layers whatsoever.. After retrying traditional taro pastry (just purple color and no mochi in filling) and succeeded in having the nice swirl on top, I challenged myself to make the rainbow color taro pastry with mochi! Overall process is similar, just the step of making multiple colors was time consuming and can go wrong easily if color is not expected. I have provided photo references, ingredients for both traditional taro pastry and for rainbow color taro pastry.
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Got a request to make a cake with either coffee or taro flavor, thought it would be a fun experiment to combine these two flavors together in the same cake, so I decided to try a taro coffee cake. Trying a new way to decorate cake, other than piping whipped cream patterns, I went for MIRROR CAKE! I would rate this cake for a 5/10 success for mirror glaze, 9/10 success for new flavor innovation! I also included mirror glaze mistake demo at the end!
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Work has been busy lately, which surge my urge to bake even stronger. A friend’s birthday arrives right on time and now I am branching out to bake a cake for her birthday — chocolate coconut cake! Would love to share what I did well and did badly for my first cake as future tips!
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The procedure to make mooncake does not seem complicated, but inverted sugar syrup preparation is need a night before; lye water also needs substitute by boiling baking soda in water. The art of mooncake, besides the filling, I think lies in making it into mold, brush with egg and bake multiple times to achieve (1) ideal color, (2) clear pattern as first started, and (3) consistent shape without puffing up, which I failed all three this time. I have included detailed “lab report” and troubleshoot discussion for next try with red bean paste!
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Wife Cake 老婆餅 is one of signature, representative Cantonese sweets. Even I do not have craving for it and have not had one for years, I still miss it’s flaky texture, sweet but not too sweet filling with a hint of coconut. The filling of Wife Cake did not unveil until I looked up YouTube videos… In my memory, it’s a mixture of solid and chew, soft ingredients. It turns out that the main ingredient is wintermelon! I never thought a “veggie” will be filling for sweets! And the solid texture comes from sesame, the soft, slightly chewiness, stickiness come from glutinous rice flour, and of course, there is some shredded coconut to add the flavors.
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I had a few bananas left and have been using them for dessert throughout the week. Made banana chiffon cake this time~ It’s my first time making chiffon cake and used a wet ingredient banana on top of normal chiffon cake ingredients. Cake was very soft and fluff, but inside was more wet than I expected and not as spongy. I summarized a few points that might lead to such results here.
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My second time making croissants and I think there are a few possible errors I might have made: 1-kneaded dough too long to form gluten 2-lamination was too complex and formed more layers than my current technical skills 3-baking temperature was not right for the dough ingredients/lamination methods; followed too many recipes 太貪心啦!
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First time I had it was at a Thailand street booth. Smoke from frying and scent from banana traveled through the crowd and hunted for next buyer. The thin, crispy pancake skin and strong, sweet banana taste is one of the many food memories of my two Thailand trips. “Indian Flying Pancake”, turns out to be an India-influenced, roti-like pancake popular in South Asia, and we can add any type of filling of choice! Next time I want to make DURIAN flavor!
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QUICK TAKEAWAYS dough should be medium softness/hardness 軟硬適中 last proofing after bun forming without lid to let folds remain do not take away the lid after steaming, otherwise the bun might collapse as air cools down too fast RECIPE For 8 buns Dough Ingredients: 150g warm water at 30-40C 1.5g yeast 1-2g sugar (optional, to […]
