Green-Tea Cream Puffs

The original recipe comes from Evan's Macha Eclairs. But instead of making an Eclairs which I am not good a piping the pastry. I had change the recipe slightly a bit to make these cute little Cream Puffs. And most important it's easier for Reyon to eat and more addictive to pop one puff at time.


You can refer the Eclairs recipe from Evan's blog. But this cream puff recipe that I used is different from her Eclair, if you prefer you can also use this recipe to pip the Eclair. As for the Green-Tea Creme Patissiere(just follow the creme recipe and add 1/2 - 1 teaspoon of green-tea powder as your preference), I follow what is given by Evan's on her blog.

Overall this Green-Tea Cream Puff/Macha Eclairs has a very special and unique taste. It's very fragrant because of the green-tea powder and the cream is smooth just having the right texture. If you do like cream puff or eclair, give this recipe a try. You can even change the cream to Mocha, chocolate, mango or etc depend on what you prefer.

Ingredients For Choux Pastry:
120g Butter
120g Flour
185ml Water
3 - 4 Eggs

Methods:
1. Chop the butter and put in a pan with the water. Stir over low heat until melted, then bring to the boil.
2. Immediately remove the pan from the heat and add the flour all at once, beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.
3. Return to the heat and continue to beat for about 2 minutes until the mixture forms a mass, thicken and leaves the side of the pan.
4. Remove from the heat and transfer to the bowl of electric beater; leave to cool for about 5 minutes.
5. Add one egg at a time, beat well between each addition at medium speed until the mixture form a thick, smooth and glossy paste. You may not need to add the egg.(for this recipe i used 3 1/2 eggs, each egg about 55g)
6. Spoon 2 heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the tray at 5cm interval.
7. Sprinkle with water and bake at a preheat 210 degree oven for 10 minutes, reduce the heat to 180 degree and bake for another 12 - 15 minutes or until the dough is puffed and golden brown.
8. Remove from the oven, cut a slit in the base of each puff and leave it to cool to room temperature before filling it with creme.
9. Spoon the green-tea creme into the piping bag and cut off 1 cm from the end and fill the puff.

Fondant Glaze:
4 Tablespoons Of Icing Sugar
Dash Of Green-Tea Powder
1/2 - 1 Tablespoon Of Water
1 Teaspoon Of Lemon Juice

Methods:
1. Mix the icing sugar, green-tea powder(add more if u want a darker colour) and lemon juice together then slowly stir in the water until you get a thick and spreading consistency.(you may want to add more lemon juice if you don't prefer a too sweet glaze.

Evan's Assorted Macaron

I guess by now a a lot of people or blogger know what is a Macaron. It is actually a french cookies which is light and elegant. The cookies part of a French macaron is slightly domed with thin top crust that is fragile like eggshell and an internal that is sandwich with different assorted cream.

You can get macaron from a few branded bakery in Singapore or you can pay a homemade price at about $1.40 each from Evan at Bossacafez. Her macaron as just as good as those sold in the store. You can click on the link to check for more other assorted favour.

Oreo Butter Cake

First saw this cake from My Kitchen:My Laboratory a few months back and I had KIV this recipe for further experiment. Until recently, when I saw a few blogger trying out this recipe. I also have the urge to do it. At first I wanted to try out like what MyCoffee had did, which is baked the cake in smaller size like muffins. But then I was too greedy on the portion and it ends up all the batter overflows from the muffins cup :(


But on the next day when I get hold of more ingredients, I decided to follow what Angie did to make a 7" cake and finally I managed to get everything right. This cake is moist and with good texture of the cookies. For my preference I add in 2 Teaspoons extra of the Coffee Liquor(Kahula) for that mocha fragrant. But in this cake, the butter content is less so it won't be having those strong buttery cake fragrant.

Citrus Poppy Seed Syrup Cake

It had be a very long time since I wanted to try making this Citrus Poppy Seed Syrup Cake. It's a very common cake found in western country where they have different varieties of recipe on making this.

The seeds of the poppy are widely used as the popular "poppy seed" found in and on many food items such as bagels, muffins and cakes. The seeds can be pressed to form poppy seed oil, which can be used in cooking. The sales of poppy seeds is banned in Singapore due to the morphine content. Although the drug opium is produced by "milking" latex from the unripe fruits rather than from the seeds, all parts of the plant can contain or carry the opium alkaloids, especially morphine and codeine. This means that eating foods (e.g. muffins) that contain poppy seeds can result in a false positive for opiates in a drug test.


I got these Poppy Seeds from my best pal Tracy who bought it from one of the spice shop in Malaysia. Thank Tracy or else I won't be able to try out this wonderful cake. Although the adding of poppy seeds doesn't seems to make any different to me but those who tried this cake all said that it's very nice so I guess it might be due to the content of the seeds...... :)

For those who wish to try this cake but cannot find the poppy seeds in Singapore. I also encourage that you can go ahead trying without adding it. Because the citrus favour without the Poppy Seeds will also make this a very good and moist afternoon Tea Time Cake. The combination of the citrus syrup with the cake really make it sweet, sour and fragrant.

Ingredients:
250g Butter, chopped
3/4 Cup Castor Sugar
3 Eggs
1 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla Essence
1 1/2 Cups Self-Raising Flour
3/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Poppy Seeds
1/4 Cup(60ml) Fresh Milk
2 Tablespoons Mixed Citrus Juice
1 Tablespoons Grated Lemon & Orange Rinds

Methods:
1. Cream butter and sugar together on medium speed in a large bowl until light and fluffy.(about 5 - 8 mins)
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla essence/orange liqueur.
3. Sift flour and baking powder together, fold into creamed mixture with poppy seeds, milk, juice and rind.
4. Pour the mixture into a prepared 8" kugelhopf tin or round baking tin and smooth the top.
5. Bake in a moderate 180 degree oven for 50 - 55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre and comes out clean and dry.
6. Pierce cake in several places with a skewer, spoon over half the syrup.
7. Allow to cool, remove cake from tin, transfer to a wire rack over a tray.
8. Pour over the remaining syrup and serve warm or cold with cream and fresh fruits of choice.

Citrus Syrup:
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup(60ml) Orange Juice
1/4 Cup(60ml) Lemon Juice

Methods:
1. Combine sugar and juices in a small saucepan.
2. Bring to the boil, stirring to dissolve sugar.
3. Reduce heat and simmer without stirring for 3 minutes.
4. Remove from stove and set aside.

Notes:
a) I replace the Vanilla Essence with 2 Teaspoons Grand Mariner(orange liqueur) because I want it to have more citrus favour.
b) You can add in more citrus juice if the final batter is too dry.
c) I mixed about 1 1/2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to 5 tablespoons of batter some citrus juice to form a cocoa batter to do the swirl effect on this cake.(optional)
d) You can prepared the juice 5 - 10 mins before the cake is ready from the oven.