Heaven's fingers and my fourth Daring Bakers' challenge - caramel cake

Someone's idea of a snowman with an identity crisis? This was taken earlier this week at the lake park in Cham.




Fingers of God or rays from heaven -- call them what you will, there's no denying that shafts of sunlight breaking through clouds and slipping between trees are one of Nature's quiet wonders.

Here are two pictures were taken by my other half on Zugerberg (Mount Zug), several kilometers from where we live, a couple of weeks ago. By now, there's some week-old snow on the ground in the lowlands but the mountains seen from afar seem to be freshly dusted with white every few days or so.



OK, who took a bite out of my cupcake?!



As for my fourth Daring Bakers' challenge, it was an exercise in reducing amounts of sugar. My other half does not like his cakes very sweet and frosting doesn't rock his boat. Me? I will tell you innocently I don't like very sweet things either, but then I happily finished the leftover browned butter frosting on crackers and such over the following couple of days.

Making the caramel itself was a scary thing. The sugar and water were heated till they turned amber (very hot!), and then cold water was added to stop the caramelization process. (That's when it spits and sputters.) So, following someone's tip, I placed a piece of foil with a hole in the centre over the caramel pot and poured in the cold water. That prevented me from jumping back.


CREDITS: This month’s challenge was courtesy of the author Shuna Fish Lydon’s recipe (http://blogs.kqed.org/bayareabites/2006 … he-recipe/)

Hosts this month are Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com/), Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/) and Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/). Thank you!

Gallivanting around St Gallen and Mrs HBT's egg tarts

In May, my elder sisters came from Malaysia to visit with us for a couple of weeks. One of the places we went to was St Gallen in the northerly part of Switzerland. It's famous for its pretty decorated window frames (designated a World Heritage feature) in its old town.



One thing that I've noticed all over the little towns in Switzerland and Germany is the old-fashioned wrought iron hanging signs for businesses. They are lovely and detailed, diligently kept new and shiny with coats of gold and black paint.



While I'm awaiting pictures of sailing off the coast of Croatia in the Adriatic Sea, I'll post the simple but tasty egg tart recipe I've adapted from Mrs HBT's 'Hip Food' blog (her link is in the column at right).

Easy Egg Tarts

2 eggs
200ml milk (low-fat or full cream)
1/4 cup fine-milled raw sugar (or castor sugar)
1/2 sachet vanilla sugar (or 1/2 tsp vanilla essence)
1 packet of frozen pie dough
20g butter, half melted

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Beat the first four ingredients together. Generously butter two six-cup muffin pans with a brush. Roll out the dough to 3mm thin (or just unroll a pre-rolled one). Cut rounds of dough to fit halfway up the muffin cups.
Through a strainer, pour the egg mixture into each dough-lined cup, leaving 4mm of rim. (You'd be in Sticky City if it overflows.) Bake for 15 minutes. Turn up heat to 175 degrees for the lower part of the oven. Bake for another 5 minutes. Remove muffin pans. Let cool for a few minutes before gently loosening tarts with a small blunt knife. Cool tarts on a wire rack.


These easy egg tarts go quicker than Michael Schumacher before he retired. I can eat four in a row - easy! Thank you, dear Mrs HBT.

For the Love of a Cosmic Travelling Dog + Berry Rustic Pear Cake

This post is dedicated to our lovely, lovable and loving dog-ward of five weeks, Tigi. Her 'mum' and I met through the English Forum of Switzerland. She said she needed a dog-sitter for a few weeks and I offered a trial weekend with the dog.

Tigi giving the Argus look (above right).


She knows better than to pee on art (right).

All went well, and Tigi came to stay with us for five weeks. During the twice or thrice daily walks, we got to know some neighbourhood dogs, the most notable of which are a giant-sized Malamute, a black and white Great Dane (whom we dubbed 'Horse Dog'), and a neighbour's cocker spaniel, whose 'hairstyle' was messed up by Tigi's wagging tail.

The funniest thing is that I was quite convinced Tigi is a reincarnation of my late beloved dog, Argus. (See the very first post of this blog named after her.) Tigi's face and front paws look so much like Argus'. The expression on her mug is exactly the same, not so much her colouring and waviness of fur.

One day, I looked deeply into her warm brown eyes and said, "Argus? Is that really you in there somewhere, Argus?" Tigi merely gave me a look that almost said, "Are you mad? For gnawing's sake, whom are you talking to?"

So much for clairvoyance and astral travelling. Sigh.

Whatever the case, at least Tigi appreciated my boiling her meaty bones with rice, which supplemented her premium dry dogfood diet every evening.

The mute swans like to hiss loudly at her -- in case she wants to get too close.

And so it came to be that I buried my sorrows in a spate of cake baking. And eating, of course. Here's another recipe I adapted from Rohani Jelani's (she's a chef and cooking teacher in Kuala Lumpur):

Rustic Pear & Berry Cake

80g butter
5 or 6 tbs raw sugar (depending on how sweet your tooth is)
2 eggs
50ml buttermilk or yoghurt
150g flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
one big ripe pear, sliced about 1.5x1cm and 3mm thick
1/2 cup thawed raspberries, blackberries, etc



Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Cream butter with sugar till fluffy. Add egg, mixing well before the next one. Add buttermilk or yoghurt and stir.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and soda and salt. Mix this gently into the butter mixture. Add the fruit. Do not overmix.

Line a deep longish loaf pan with baking paper. Scoop in the cake batter. Smooth down the surface. Bake for around 35 minutes (till a small clean and dry knife inserted into the middle comes out 'clean'). Let cool in pan for 5 minutes before placing cake on wire rack.


Eating it while it's still warm is heavenly. The next day, cut a slice and heat on low in the microwave for 13 seconds.

A jolly good 2008 to you!

Hope the new year has begun well for you. We were near Munich over the new year and went walking up Wallberg as the queue for the sleds and chairlifts was too long.

The collected snow between branches and twigs reminded me of the Malaysian ice-kacang, one of my favourite desserts.


The night before, we went with friends to the heart of Munich. I experienced for the first time the lighting of many, many fireworks by private individuals at Odeonplatz. It amazed me that people would spend so much on pyrotechnics. It was also a bit scary as 'rockets' whooshed past quite nearby, and there were lots of broken bottles in the
Marienplatz after the fireworks. 'Collective irresponsibility' I called it, as normally people would not break glass in the streets or leave so much litter for the street cleaners the next day.



Here's a toast to a year in which we achieve more than we felt we could. May your days be full of love, discernment and peace.

May everything you do and say be measured if not positively spontaneous. Be true to yourself!


P.S. There is still no snow on the ground in Cham, Switzerland, where we live. Is it going to snow in February or March?! It's six degrees Celsius today - so 'warm' for winter, no?



For lovers of Pannacotta, that smooth and creamy but not-so-calorie-laden Italian dessert, here's a recipe I adapted from German chef Schubeck:

400ml milk (can be low-fat)
4 leaves of gelatine
1 tsp of vanilla sugar with bits of real vanilla in it
4 tbs sugar
100ml cream

Soak the gelatine leaves in cold water. Gently heat the milk with the vanilla and sugar till simmering. Remove from heat. Stir in the softened gelatine leaves till dissolved. Leave to cool.

Whip the cream till thick but not too stiff. When milk-gelatine mixture is cool and starting to gel, stir the whipped cream into it. Scoop into 6 bowls. Place in refrigerator to cool and completely gel for an hour or more.

Note: You can increase the milk amount by 80ml without adding more gel leaves. Lessen the sugar if you prefer Pannacotta less sweet.


For topping, choose your fav: caramelised sugar syrup, poached peaches, rhubarb in sweet ginger sauce, thawed blueberries or raspberries.

You can also vary the flavour of the Pannacotta. I've substituted the vanilla flavour with ginger, stirring in a packet of ginger tea granules. Adding half a teaspoon of fresh ginger juice would strengthen the 'heat' deliciously. This reminded me of my late mum's steamed egg custard flavoured with ginger. Mmm...



:)

One of Bread's Best Playmates

My best memory of kaya making is of my late mother. When I was a youngster, she would double-boil the kaya (Malaysian coconut cream & egg jam) for hours with a bunch of pandan leaves tied together (no instant essence in those days). After she decided to discard the leaves, I'd take them over and carefully lick them for the lovely kaya clinging to them.

Why 'kaya off the pandan leaves' tasted better than kaya from the jar is a question that beats me. ^_^

Other than butter, kaya is my favourite spread on bread. My previous post featured two bread recipes, and here's the simplest kaya recipe which I made recently:


Express Kaya

1 cup of egg (4 or 5, depending on the size)
1 cup of coconut cream
almost 1 cup of sugar
half teaspoon pandan essence


To get your cup of egg, break eggs into a cup till it fills up (tip - if you can put in only half an egg to fill up the last bit, choose the yolk rather than the white - for a lovely coloured kaya). Stir the first three ingredients in a heavy bottomed non-stick saucepan over low heat. Keep stirring for 18 minutes. Add pandan essence. Stir for another 5 minutes. If you like the texture of your kaya, take it off the heat -- it is ready.


(above) A sharper pic of the kaya nestling with a bit of better butter on homemade bread. The white cow is a milk dispenser I bought in Copenhagen many years ago. She spits milk into my coffee!

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