Sweet Potato & Sesame Chiffon Cake

Recently while blog hopping around, I saw a few of my favour food blogs will into chiffon cake making. So I thought maybe I would also like to join in the fun of chiffon cake making. After much selection I decided to settle on this Sweet Potato & Sesame Chiffon Cake rather than our usual local Pandan Chiffon Cake.

Wholemeal Pumpkin Mantou

This is a busy weekend for me as I suddenly have the urge to conquer a few recipes in my to-do-list. While waiting for my son to finish his Saturday enrichment class, I managed to stomp upon this Organic Wholemeal Flour from one of the local supermarket. It has a finer and right texture compare to another brand that I used to buy so I decided to get a packet to test out my new Steam Pumpkin Mantou recipe which I modify from the previous recipe that I made.

I modify the recipe a bit which made this rather simple and easy compare to previous one. And this Steam Mantou is full of texture when biting because of the use of the Wholemeal flour, Sesame seeds, Raisin and Wolfberries.

Ingredients:
230g Pumpkin, skin removed
250g Wholemeal Flour
1 Teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
1 Teaspoon of Baking Powder
5 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Black Sesame Seeds
1 Tablespoon White Sesame Seeds
2 Tablespoons Wolfberries, cut into halves
2 Tablespoons Golden Raisin, chopped
20 - 40ml water
1 Tablespoon of Vegetable Oil

Method:
1. Cut the pumpkin into small cubes, rinse it with water then place them into a microwave safe bowl and cook in Microwave High for about 5 - 6 minutes with a cup of water.(Stop 2 minutes in between to give a stir to the cubes to cook them evenly)
2. When the cubes became soft, mashed them using a fork and set side to cool to lukewarm temperature before adding to the flour to form a dough.
3. Sift the flour, baking powder and yeast together then add in the sugar and stir till combine.
4. Next slowly add in the mashed pumpkin and stir using a pair of chopstick till combine, you might need to add some water in order to form a dough.
5. Moist your hand with some oil and give the dough a few knead to combine it then set it aside in a lightly flour/oil bowl to proof for about 20 - 30 minutes until double it size.
6. Divide the dough into 2 or 3 portions then on a lightly floured work surface, flatten each portion into a rectangular shape shown like that picture shown above, sprinkle some chopped wolfberries, golden raisin and sesame seeds then roll it up lengthwise into an oblong shape then cut them into equal portion.
7. Place each shaped portion on a piece of greaseproof paper, top with some extra wolfberries and sesame seeds then arrange on the steamer rack and steam over medium heat for about 8 - 10 minutes depend on the size.
8. Repeat for the rest of the portion of dough and steam accordingly. (I made about 12 Mantou with the size of about 2.5" before steaming)

Notes:
a) You might need to cook the pumpkin for about 3 - 5 minutes more before it will be soften depend on the power of your microwave.
b) You can also replace the brown sugar with caster sugar instead.
c) This is best to serve within the same day, if not you can keep in the freezer for a few weeks, and reheat it before serving.

Banana & Orange Cinnamon Jam

Remember the Banana and Passion fruit Jam that I posted in April? My mum really love the taste and fragrant of that jam so since she gave me some banana on Friday I decided to try out another type of Banana Jam. This round I use the combination of Banana and Orange together with a touch of Cinnamon Powder. So you can imagine the sweetness of banana, tangerine fragrant from the orange and a touch of Cinnamon spice................


As usual, you don't really need any fancy ingredients. All you required is about 2 medium size banana, 1 big orange and some cinnamon powder. And don't forget to get two glass jar for your jam. (you can use re-cycle jam bottle for this)

Ingredients:
2 Ripe Medium Banana, about 200g
1 Large Orange, without peel about 100g
Grated Rind of 1 Orange
Juice of Half Orange, 50ml
1/4 Teaspoon Cinnamon Powder
200g Caster Sugar
2 Small Jam Bottles

Method:
1. Weight and pour the sugar into a small heavy duty saucepan, then add in the grated orange rind. (Washed, clean dry the orange and grate the rind)
2. Cut the orange into half, juice half of it to get about 50ml of juice then cut off the outer peel of the other half of the orange, remove the pith and membrane.
3. For each section, cut between the fruit and membrane on each side. Lift out each segment and drop it into the saucepan together with the sugar.
4. Next weight and mash the banana with a fork then add it into the saucepan together with the orange juice and cinnamon powder.
5. Stir all the mixture over medium low heat for about 10 - 15 minutes.
6. When the mixture begin to boil a lot of forms will form, do skim away those form and continue to cook until the mixture is clear and thicken.(refer to the above picture for details, the jam will continue to thicken further after it is cool to room temperature)
7. Pour the cooked jam into the sterilize glass bottle, covered and let it cool to room temperature before storing it in the fridge.

Note:
a) Bring a pot of water with jam bottle in it to a boil and boil them for 10 minutes or so to sterilize them, removed and invert for them to dry. (you can do this while cooking the jam)

Related Post:
1) Homemade Banana & Passion Fruit Jam
2) Homemade Mango Jam
3) Homemade Plum Jam
4) Homemade Strawberry Jam

Singapore Blog Awards - Best Food Blog

Dear Readers,

I am so excited to share with you that with your nomination, my blog "Cuisine Paradise" has been shortlisted as one of the 10 Finalist for the category under Singapore Blog Awards - Best Food Blog.Voting is open to public from 15 June 2009 till 31 July 2009. You can vote only ONCE a day.

So if you like my blogs and recipes please help to cast your valuable vote for me, ok :) But in order for me to receive your vote, you need to register an account as a member with the blog award organiser (OMY.sg). If it is not troublesome for you to help, you can find the online registration form here (click here to register).



Upon successful registration as a memeber, please click on the above VOTE ME icons and you will be directed to the Voting Page where you can see the Top 3 Leading Finalists of each categories. Next click on this green Voting link on the right side of your screen and click on the Best Food Blog(最佳饮食部落格) category shown below to cast your vote.



You will see a RED label VOTE on the top right corner of my avatar To cast your vote, you need to click on the word VOTE instead of the picture which will be direct you back into my foodblog URL.

You will see this confirmation box for you to verified your voting. Click on the word "Confirm" and upon successful voting,you will see a Yellow label showing VOTED on the avatar.


Thank you everyone for your all support! Because of each of your valuable vote and time, Cuisine Paradise is able to be listed in the top 10 finalists.