Baked Apple French Toast - Eggy Bread #1

This week will be about 2 french toasts and 1 bread pudding.

So, anyone of you with a loaf of sandwich bread but don't know what to do with it, maybe you can try out this week's recipes to clear stock.

Classic Macaroni and Cheese - Pasta week # 2

Recipe created in Aug 2011

My first encounter with Mac and Cheese was at Kenny Rogers Roasters in 1994 at KotaRaya's branch. It was my favourite side dish. Sometimes I will just order Mac and Cheese and nothing else. Each time I go to KL by bus, I will surely dine there at least once just for this. It was only walking distance from Puduraya Bus Station.

Torta Dulce de Las Tres Leches - DDL Week # 1

Recipe tried out in March 2011.

Long fancy name huh, LOL. Simplified, translated it's a 3 milk cake with Dulce De Leche. Refer here if you want to make your own DDL.

I modified the recipe from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. I love the idea of a sponge soaked in milk, muahahahaha! So so sinful. Usually this cake is soaked with evaporated, fresh and condensed milk. But Rose's version ditched the evaporated milk and used cream. I love cream!!!! And I on ther other hand ditched the condensed milk and used DDL. Muahahahahah! I think by now non dairy lovers would have scrammed from my blog.

Chicken in Milk and Cream - Chicken Trio # 3

Recipe done in March 2011

The name itself was interesting. I saw Jamie Oliver made this before on TV.

Steamed Flax Seed Milk Flower Rolls 亚麻子花卷 - Steamed Buns # 3

Flax seeds are nutritious. According to Wikipedia, besides being high in fibre and omega-3 fatty acids, it also helps to lower cholesterol and benefits those who are having breast and prostrate cancer. If you're diabetic, it's also good for you because it helps by stabilizing your blood sugar. But take this with caution if you are on oral medication. It's high fibre content may interrupt with the medication and you must drink lots of water whenever you take flax seeds, if not you may end up with intestinal blockage.

Steamed Banana Buns - Steamed Buns # 1

I love these buns. When they were steaming, they smelled so good. But Mike hated it. Mike only likes Sweet Potato Buns. He even hates my kids’ favourite glorious pumpkin buns. He said this smell like our kids’ s***

Peach Sorbet Vanilla Ice Cream Cake - Stone Fruits # 2

Gosh, I wasted so many peaches when I planned on making this. I bought some, didn't have time as it was CNY. Some grew mould before I had the chance to use it. And I bought more and more peaches, each time telling myself ,"get ur butt moving!!". I finally made it in April this year.

Australian peaches were selling for RM4.99 per fruit that time. Recently I saw in Jusco, American peaches are at RM3.99 per fruit. But you can use canned ones for this, but the taste will be somewhat stronger. But if you like the taste of canned peaches, I don't see why not.

Durian Cream Pancake Rolls - Pancake Quad #3

Don’t u think it’s weird to have durians in April? (I did this in April 2011)

All my life, on this side of the country, durians have always been bountiful mid year and year end. Never has it been in APRIL!!!! With none during those usual times. I had been searching for durians last Dec (2010), with only a speckful of them around town and the quality isn’t there. This didn't happen only last year, but for 2 consecutive years, I haven't been seeing durians coming out the time that it should. Times have changed and it’s a wake up call to us about the changes in weather. The fruit trees are telling you to take note.

Double Boiled Papaya in Milk 木瓜炖鲜奶 - Confinement Month #2

Confinement should be an enjoyable time.
Bonding with a new baby, and getting pampered by the people around you after delivery.
Gastronomically and emotionally. So why not have some dessert!!

My friend, Wai Wai came to visit me on June 4th and told me about this dessert that she encountered during her stay at a confinement house. The cook prepared this dessert to aid her lactation. And coincidently, I encountered this recipe while surfing that night itself. It was perfect since I had 2 slices of papaya in the fridge, leftover from my self labour induction. I wouldn't want to eat them raw since they were almost 6 days old in the fridge, so I made this delicious dessert with it.

Cheese Baked Rice with Prawns - Seafood Week #4

It’s been long long time since I had mozzarella cheese on my dinners, besides pizza.
Today I’m yearning for some. And the week before, I’ve just bought 500gm of mozzarella.
I was thinking of doing seafood with the rice, but my squids are all frozen in one lump, so I can’t get some out. I only have prawns, that were separated into portions. So, I only used prawns.

Baked rice needs a creamy sauce, and what’s better than béchamel sauce. Bechamel sauce needs milk and I don’t have milk, then I went to the nearby Indian eatery to get some fresh cow’s milk. You can use any milk you like, just that this fresh milk is the only milk available by now within walking distance as all the shops are closed on a Sunday evening. For baked rice, the sauce is not as thick as those used for baked pasta, so, you might find this to be much more liquidy than the original version.

Bechamel Sauce
20gm butter
1 Tbsp flour
350ml milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat butter on medium low heat in a saucepan. With a whisk in hand, put in flour and stir until no lumps are seen. Let it cook for a while then pour in milk and gently whisking all the while. Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside. Stir the sauce once in a while, to prevent a skin from forming on top.

The Rice
Adequate rice for 2 persons

As many prawns as you like n
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 medium sized carrots, finely diced (5mm)
Salt and pepper
Cooking oil
As much sliced spring onions as you like
As much mozzarella cheese as you like

1. Preheat oven at 180/200C.
2. Heat wok on high. Put in 1 Tbsp of oil and put in prawns, spread around in a single layer. Do not toss them around. Let them cook until they start to curl and turn pink, then flip them over to fry the other side. When both sides are cooked and fragrant, dish up and set aside. Wash wok.
3. Heat wok and put in 2 Tbsp of oil. Put in garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly golden.
4. Put in carrots and rice and toss until rice is hot.
5. Push rice aside and put in eggs.
6. Push rice back onto eggs and toss everything until eggs are cooked. Season with salt and pepper, make sure it’s not as salty as your usual fried rice.
7. Place rice into individual baking vessels.
8. Top rice with béchamel sauce. Then arrange prawns on top of sauce. Then sprinkle spring onions and finally the mozzarella cheese, as much as you like.
9. Place the baking pans into a large shallow pan and put into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

See the sauce in there?

I was delighted with the outcome of the rice. The sauce was the right thing to add and the extra step of frying the rice made everything more flavourful. The spring onions were the best addition (never see anyone adding this), as when baked right under the cheese, it imparted a wonderful fragrance to the baked rice.
But let me warn you, if you are on a diet, just put that aside when you savour this rice. Definitely calorie laden, but definitely satisfying (IMPO).

See the stringy mozzarella cheese? Yummm

I wonder if you noticed the different coasters? My girls love to play with them and they always get missing.

Which is why you see mismatched coasters. I can't find matching ones!

Apple Yeasted Sugar Tart -Fruit Week #1

Sick of soup already? I'm going to drown you with fruits this week. *Evil look*

Apples. I bought 2 granny smiths 3 months back (post done in Sept 2010). Yes. And one was still with me after the apple crumble.
Then I saw on technicolour kitchen (again!!!!) , an apple yeasted sugar tart, and it looked so so appealing to me. I knew I will be having some cream after the birthday cakes and oh yes!!! I definitely will make this very soon.

Today I finally used the 3 month old apple, and it still looked fine, just like the way it was when I bought it. Hahah!! The wax really does a good job preserving the apple. Can I use the wax on my face???? Hahaha!!!

My oven is always too hot for breads made with milk. It always browns too fast when baked according to the instructions and I always, always have to do it at 150C, which is far far lower than recommended. And today is no different. How hot you need to bake this with, you really have to gauge it yourself. I gave you the original temperature, so make your own decisions.

Apple Yeasted Sugar Tart
Recipe taken from Technicolor kitchen who sourced from "The Cook's Companion"

245gm all purpose flour
1 Tbsp sugar
Small pinch of salt
1 tsp yeast
120gm warm milk
1 egg, room temperature
28gm softened butter
2-3 eating apples (I used 1 large granny smith, and it was enough)
67gm demerara sugar (I used a mixture of demerara with brown sugar, as I ran out of demerara)
120ml whipping cream (I was left with 100gm of it, just used this)

Method: If you think I'm being too long winded here, please check out Technicolor Kitchen's version. Hers is a lot more "compact"
1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and instant yeast together in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center.
2. Mix milk and egg together and pour into the well.
3. With a spoon, try to bring the flour in gradually and form a dough.
4. When everything has come together, knead in softened butter. Continue to knead (I did this by hand), it is very soft and sticky at the beginning and knead it (by pulling the dough from the bowl and putting it back, and pull it away and put it back cos the dough is the soft tacky type) until it no longer feels sticky, and a smooth dough is formed. *I used only my right hand to knead and kept my left hand clean. I used my left hand to test the dough’s stickiness as the right hand is always covered with the glob of dough. When the dough is ready, you rub the dough off your working hand, touch the dough with your working hand and it should not stick too, but it will still be very soft.
5. Then cover and let it proof for 30 minutes. Meanwhile prepare a loose bottomed 9 inch tart pan. Generously butter the pan.
6. Punch down the dough and give it a 1-2 minutes knead. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes before flattening it into the pan.
7. Let dough in pan proof for another 30 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, peel and cut apple(s). When 30 minutes if up, the dough looks puffy. Press the apples in and sprinkle the demerara sugar onto the apples.
9. Preheat the oven at 200(fan)/220C, the tart will continue to proof until the oven is ready and bake the tart for 10 minutes. (I found this too high for my oven, I think I’ll do it at 180C next time, cos my tart was nicely browned at 8 minutes)
10. Meanwhile beat the whipping cream to soft peaks.
11. Remove tart from oven and spoon the cream over the apples.
12. Return tart back to oven at 180(fan)/200C (I used 150C only) for 20 minutes or until the base of the tart sounds hollow when tapped.
13. Remove from oven and transfer tart to cooling rack, remove mould and let it cool on rack.
14. Slice only when tart turned warm to touch, if not the cream filling will be runny.

Verdict:
Darn it. This tasted so good. The baked cream topping is super!!! I wanted to make another one the next day to bring to my mom, but I ran out of cream. I don’t want to buy another large carton, cos I won’t be around for days.
This is the perfect "bread" for lazy kneaders. Even with the short kneading time, I assure you that you'll get the soft bread fresh from the oven due to the moisture from the apple being baked in the bread. It's best eaten warm, but then, it's still not hard later. Well, not as soft as fresh and warm, but acceptable even to the next day, but please keep air tight.
But for those who are thinking of trying this out, I suggest you mix the topping sugar with some cinnamon or scraped vanilla. That’s the only miss about this yeasted tart, if not it’ll be perfect!!!

Potato Savoy Cabbage Soup - Soup Week #4

I bought this half head of savoy cabbage at Jaya Grocer and I had no idea what to do with it. As always whenever I see something new, I just buy it first, think later.

Savoy cabbages look very pretty, with lacy leaves and it comes nicely green unlike the regular cabbages. Since I’ve never eaten savoy cabbages before, I had no idea how it taste like. So, I better google for a recipe. I don’t want stir fries or salads. Nor do I want to do meat rolls with it, since it’s only a half head, the leaves will not be suitable. Then I saw a recipe on BBC Good Food, savoy cabbage soup with potatoes, sounds yummy and topped with crispy bacon!!!

Here’s my first attempt, cooking with savoy cabbage.
If you’re thinking of serving this as a side dish, maybe you’d like to think twice. It’s so hearty that it can be a meal on its own. This portion is enough to feed 4 adults.

Potato and Savoy Cabbage Soup
Recipe loosely adapted from BBC Good Food

150gm leeks (Try not to use China leeks)
200gm onions (I used yellow ones)
600gm floury potatoes (russet)
75gm carrots
500gm savoy cabbage
2 Tbsp olive oil
100gm bacon (bacon chips does it well, no need to splurge on rashers)
½ French loaf
Some butter (I used 2 heaped Tbsp initially, adding more as I toast the cubes on the pan)

1. Peel and thinly slice leeks, onions, potatoes and carrots
2. Heat up a pot and put in olive oil. Put in onions and leeks and cook until it softens and takes on a little bit of goldenness.
3. Put in sliced potatoes and carrots, stir and put in 8 cups of water.
4. Let it simmer for 15 minutes or until carrots are tender. Season with salt or throw in a chicken bouillon cube or 2.
5. Let it cool down for a while and whizz with a immersion blender until fine and smooth. (if using a regular blender, please leave it to cool down until slightly warm.
6. While waiting, prepare your croutons. Cube French loaf and heat a pan. Put in some butter and when it has melted, put in your cubed bread and toss it around to coat well. Put in more butter if you find it not sufficient. Slowly toast them on your pan until very golden and crispy.
7. Prepare bacon chips by frying in a little bit of oilon medium low heat until golden and crispy, dish up and drain off the oil on absorbent papers.
8. When it’s almost time to serve, reboil soup and put in sliced savoy cabbage and simmer for 5 minutes.
9. Ladle soup into bowl and top with crispy bacon chips and croutons.


Verdict:
Gosh , this soup is very delicious. Do not be fooled by how it looks, yellow and dirty looking. The bacon can be skipped, but don’t forget the croutons. Maybe I’m used to drinking western soups laced with loads of cream and when this one doesn’t, the butter from the croutons adds the “milky” smell that I will usually relate with western soups. My hubby and kids loved this and all were full from just having the soup.

Steamed Pumpkin Muffins

For mothers out there, pregnancy is a wonderful experience. The changes that one goes thru thoughout the pregnancy is sometimes weird and unanticipated.

I've heard of people eating toothpaste, eating shoe polish or some find clay to be tasty. Disgusting, right? But I've only heard about such incidences where those people actually consume a limited diet, and they might be malnourished in some way and the body makes then comsume something that in nature contains the nutrient that the mother so needed. I've never heard of funny stories from people who lived in town, or consumes a veriety of food and never impoverished.

In one of the schools I worked in before, the school cleaner once chatted with me, about how she survived all her pregnancies craving for toothpaste, consuming only cream crackers with chilli paste and drinking only tap water for 9 months!! The rest are all, yucks to her. And she was the one who told me stories about people who eat funny stuff, and those people are relatives of hers.  Hard to believe? But I guess it could be true. Just that we are too privileged to be in contact with people who are never deprived of proper food.

When I was pregs with Lydia, from week 5 onwards, I was binging. Eating meals, not snacks every 3 hours. I gained 4 kg in just 2 weeks. Mike looked at me in horror, to see the way that I'm eating.I told him, I can't help it, my tummy is growling furiously.  But when week 7 came by, my appetite dropped drastically. I could eat nothing except fruits. Food made from rice were the worse. From congee to vermicelli, they all smell yucks! I could look at a burger, just look. I don't feel like picking it up. And if I pick it up, I won't feel like biting. And if I finally bit into it, I don't feel like chewing. After chewing, I don't want to swallow it. The whole eating process is just a torture to me. But if I see fruits, I can eat and eat. I dropped 7 kg throughout this difficult period. Which was 3 kg less compared to pre pregnancy. If I wasn't binging during early pregnancy, I'd lose even more.

Actually that time, my hormones were all crazy and I was having bad constipation. Constipation during pregnancy is due to the increment of progesterone. It's the way that my body reacted and helped me to overcome the problem that I was facing by rejected all foods except fruits. Taking in whatever that is needed to help the mother. When the constipation stopped at week 14, my appetite came back, in a snap! Even now, I totally believe in listening to my body. Eat when it tells u to, and don't eat when it doesn't tell u to. So, if I crave, there's no excuse for not eating. That's one pretty good excuse. Hahahaha!

This time, the pregnancy affected not my appetite, but my kitchen mojo. It hit me so bad that I don't want to wash my cup. I didn't want to touch the sink, didn't want to cook anything at all. I didn't bake anything out of fun, but only out of neccesity. I was craving for something with coconut milk, so I made and oil-less pandan chiffon. It was Mike's birthday and  I made him Chocolate Enigma Cake. With the extra cream from the cake, I baked another cake (I'll post that within this week) And I did a sponsored post with a health product that I've promised way before my pregnancy. I didn't cook a proper meal for almost 4 months!! We were eating out daily. Now that I'm at week 22, I'm pretty much the old me now. Not all there, but almost. Still not cooking 3 dishes 1 soup, but one plate meals mostly, like noodles, pasta, fried rice, and congee mostly. Won't call them one pot meals as cooking rice uses one pot and frying uses another wok. LOL.

Funny right? Hard to believe? I was still posting daily, right? hahaha! What you are seeing were usually posts so stale that they were made months ago. Haha! I still have lots of back logs to last me til I move in March.

So now, if you think that this bun in me is a sausage roll, which explained the different pregnancy experience, nah!!! Even Lydia and Lyanne weren't the same. Being pregs with Lyanne was a breeze. I loved food, especially white plain rice during the first 3 months, whereas I hated rice when I had Lydia. Both were burgers, and yet, different. Even now, both girls are very different. One is lingustic, the other technical and artistic. Haha.

Enough pregs talk, let's food talk.
This is the first thing I made, right after I got back my mojo at week 16. And I attempted this recipe twice.

First attempt flopped bad time. Simply because I read in one of the comments that aunty Yochana said the baking powder has to be double action baking powder, whereas the recipe itself called for only baking powder. My first attempt used DABP and weirdly the muffin was super dense and tasted sourish. I’ve encountered this when I simply substituted regular baking powder with DABP and my baking results were always less than acceptable.

So, with some pumpkin left, immediately I did my 2nd attempt with just regular baking powder. The results were wonderful, all smiling happily and they were all soft and fluffy. I’m now wondering how the taste will be with coconut milk… maybe next time.

Steamed Pumpkin Muffins

Adapted from Aunty Yochana

Yields12 steamed muffins (I used egg tart pans)

125gm steamed pumpkin flesh

1 egg

120gm sugar

100gm evaporated milk or coconut milk

30gm corn oil

180gm cake flour

20gm rice flour

1.5tsp baking powder

1. Prepare your steamer and bring the water to a boil

2. Put steamed pumpkin flesh, egg, sugar, milk and oil in blender and whizz for 30 seconds.

3. Sift cake flour, rice flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.

4. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the blended ingredients into the well. Mix until well combined.

5. Spoon into lined steaming cups and steam on high heat for 15 minutes. It will bloom by itself, no need to make a cross with oil.

Verdict:

I love this. My kids love this. My hubby the pumpkin hater said nothing. But please don't ask me if this taste like Fatt Gou, I have no idea. I've never eaten a proper fatt gou in my life, except once, a very very dry yucky one. The muffin stays soft the next day, not as soft as fresh from the steamer, but acceptable even when cold.

See Lydia's thumb????

LOL

Oreo Chiffon Cake

I wanted to try out this new pan that I’ve got. I didn’t know what this pan was for, but the curved base attracted me to buy this. So, the day before I made this, I looked and looked at the pan, wondering if I can invert it after baking, the removable base was small and in the middle only and with a curved base, I can scrape the sides of the cake if I can’t get it out, and with a removable base, there won’t be condensation problems…

Hmm.. so what chiffon flavours can I try out this time? I lazy to get out and buy stuff.. Yeah!!! I remember I saw an Oreo Chiffon cake before in Cherry Potato’s blog, yeah!!! That’ll be it. And I have a tube of oreo at home. Perfect!!!

True enough, yup, the chiffon cake stayed put, and here’s how it looked like after I got it out from the pan. There’s an indentation there, but hey, that’s ok… compared to having a hole in the middle.. when one uses a tube pan. But I need to practice taking it out from the pan.

I then decided to mask its ugliness by giving it some makeup. Slather on some foundation and dabble on lots of powder, tadah!!!! Pretty leh!!!!

Oreo Chiffon Cake Recipe

Adapted from CherryPotato

(A)
65gm oreo (half a regular tube), lightly pulverized together with cream


(B)
5 egg yolks
50gm sugar
60gm milk
60gm corn oil
100gm cake flour, sifted


(C )
5 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar or 1 tsp lemon/lime juice
60gm sugar

1. Preheat oven at 160/180C.
2. Mix yolks and sugar together. Then put in the oil and milk. Then the sifted flour. Combine with a whisk until smooth. (Do not whisk or beat but just combine)
3. Beat egg whites until frothy, put in cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks. Put in sugar gradually and beat until stiff.
4. Fold ¼ of egg whites into (2) and then another ¼ of egg whites.
5. Pour egg yolk batter into the remaining egg whites and fold (no need to be too thorough).
6. Put in pulverized oreos and fold until well combined.
7. Pour into a clean ungreased tube pan (22 or 25cm will be fine) and bake for 45 minutes.
8. Invert immediately upon removal from oven. Wait for it to cool down totally before removing cake from pan.

Oh..... this is very delicious!!! Thanks Cherry Potato!!!!

Peach Oatmeal Griddle Cookies

I was looking at some peaches, held one close to my nose for a whiff.
Lydia wanted to smell too. I let her hold one, but her finger nails went through the soft skin.
Sigh, I had to buy that fruit at RM4.59.

I kept the peach in the fridge for a week or two before I remembered Anna Olson’s recipe that I have bookmarked quite a while ago. Then while browsing through my favourites, I saw it and ah-ha. Alas, no milk at home. Had to wait until the birthday cakes are all over before I have some space for milk.
I finally made this (after 4 weeks of purchase) and Lyanne simply loved this. Lydia was ok and was trying to pick out the fruits and leave the cookie behind. That’s her usual antic.

Peach Oatmeal Griddle Cookies
Recipe adapted from Anna Olson
150gm milk
50gm oats
15gm butter
50m honey (or use 30-40gm sugar)
1 egg
20gm all purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
Small pinch salt (1/8 tsp)
½ cup diced peaches

1. Put oats into a small mixing bowl (a big noodle soup bowl). Put in butter
2. Bring milk to a gentle boil and pour over oats. Let it sit for 15 minutes.
3. In another bowl, combine baking powder, salt and flour.
4. Put (3) into the oats and mix.
5. Put in egg and honey mix.
6. Put in diced peaches and mix.
7. Heat a pan and lightly grease it.
8. Put in 2 tbsp of batter onto pan. When you see bubbles and the edges are no longer sticky, flip the ‘cookie’ and cook until golden. Be careful the ‘cookie’ browns very quickly due to its honey content.

If you think this tasted like cookies... then you'd be greatly dissapointed. It's pancakes!!
Wonder why did Anna Olsen called these cookies.

Fried Milk with Cream Cheese 炸牛奶

Bet you thought they were fries....



I found this fried milk thing while searching for other stuff. I do believe that sometimes we find what we did not intend to search for, and it takes us away from our goal.

There is a Italian version called Crème Fritta, meaning cream fritters, usually a custard, coated in bread crumbs and deep fried. The Chinese version is just a milk pudding coated with a batter. I saw another crème fritta, with cream cheese , but it’s just cream cheese and cream, a bit too heavy think. Why not I combine both recipes??? Fried Milk with Cream Cheese!!!

Fried Milk with Cream Cheese Recipe

500ml full cream milk
250gm cream cheese
100gm sugar
100gm cornstarch

1. Bring cream cheese to room temperature. Beat until it it smooth and free of lumps.
2. Mix cornstarch with 125ml milk, set aside and bring the rest of the milk to a boil with the sugar.
3. Pour some of the boiling milk into cream cheese. Stir. Add milk gradually to the cheese and mix till smooth.
4. Pour cornstarch mixture into(3). Mix.
5. Put milk mixture back into the saucepan/pot, on low heat cook until it thickens. Stir all the time to ensure bottom of pan doesn’t burn.
6. When milk mixture has thickened to a thick paste, pour into a very lightly greased (pour 1 tsp oil onto pan and swipe with a paper kitchen towel all around.) 9X9 square pan. You may use 8X8, just that it’ll be thicker. Both will work well.
7. Leave to cool down. It will harden to be a firm pudding. Chill in fridge until time of use.
*If your milk pudding is not smooth, don’t worry, just whack it with a pot blender.

Frying
~ the Batter (This is enough to fry half the pudding, if you intend to save the other half for tea the next day)

100gm rice flour
25gm all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
185ml water (3/4 cup)

1. Combine everything together to form a batter.
2. Cut milk pudding into strips, or squares, as preferred.
3. Heat few cups of oil and dip each milk pudding into batter and deep fry until golden. Do this one at a time, cos the pudding is quite fragile.
4. Serve hot. You can serve this with a sprinkling of icing sugar or just plain like that.


Verdict: It’s good, that is if you’re a milk lover. Although the cream cheese taste is not that prominent, but it sure lent a creamy end to the fried milk.

Suggestion: I f you want to try this out, maybe try adding in some finely grated parmesan to the milk pudding. It has a stronger cheese taste and smell. I also think that I should put in some salt to the milk.

Take a guess whose hand is that?? Lydia or Lyanne's???

These puffier looking ones were made with a second batch of batter using more baking powder than the 1st. Those fried with 1st batch batter were the first 4 pics. The recipe I gave here is my 2nd batch recipe.

Blueberry Flaugnarde

The batter is the same as cherry clafoutis, but when it’s not made with cherries, it goes by the name flaugnarde. Just like Chinese noodles, any noodles made from wheat are called “mein/mian/ 麵” and any noodles made from rice is called “fun/fen /粉”.

Clafouti/ Clafoutis is specific for cherries, so there could not be any plum clafouti or peach clafoutis. I’m sorry if you have one in your blog, but I’m saying it with reference to Wikipedia.

“The clafoutis comes from the Limousin region of France and while black cherries are the traditional there are numerous variations using other fruits including red cherries, plums, prunes, apples, cranberries or blackberries. When other kinds of fruit are used instead of cherries, the dish is called a flaugnarde”


From Wikipedia regarding flaugnarde :
"This is a flan-like baked French dessert with fruit arranged in a buttered dish and covered with a thick flan-like batter. Similar to a Clafoutis which is made with black cherries, a Flaugnarde is made with apples, peaches, pears, plums, prunes or other fruits. Resembling a large pancake the dish dusted with confectioner's sugar and can be served either warm or cold"

So, here I present to you, blueberry flaugnarde, a variation with the same batter recipe, in a small baking dish (1 cup capacity)

65ml whipping cream
35ml fresh milk
½ empty vanilla pod or 2 drops of vanilla extract
1 ½ tbsp sugar
1 egg
3 Tbsp all purpose flour
1 tsp Grand Marnier/ rum (optional), I omitted this this time
Handful of blueberries, about 50gm
Icing sugar for dusting.

1. Preheat oven to 160/180C. (I used only 150C)
2. Bring milk, cream and vanilla to boil on low heat, put in sugar to dissolve. Turn off the heat and let it sit for 5 minutes.
3. Lightly whisk egg and put in flour to mix.
4. Fish out vanilla pod, and pour slowly while slowly whisking into the batter. Add liquer if using. Do not incorporate to much air.
5. Pour batter into a buttered dish, throw in the blueberries (no need to arrange, they'll self arrange) and bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and set.
6. Dust with icing sugar.

If you'd ask me, with the same batter as the cherry clafoutis, which taste better?
Definately this one, I'd say. And also according to Lydia's nanny. I gave her some of both clafoutis and this flaugnarde.

I never felt blueberries having a very nice flavour and fragrance, just another berry with a nice blue colour. But with this flaugnarde, it totally changed my mind. When I baked this one, I could smell, "Gosh, how come it smells so nice ??". Even after the baking, I kept part of the flaugnarde in the oven, and whenever I walk past that cold oven, I could smell it 3 meters away. That good!!!! 

So, if you let me choose, to make only one with the same batter, I'll definately rather have this than cherry clafoutis. Well, you may ask me, this one tasted batter maybe because you mixed it differently this time??? No it can't be, cos it's the same batter, I split the batter into 2, one pan for clafoutis one pan for the flaugnarde, so there couldn't be any variations on the mixing that made this superior over the clafoutis.

Cherry Clafoutis

 A not too stale post, did this less than 10 days back. haha.

I’ve never thought of making clafoutis until I saw on Gourmet Baking . Her clafoutis looked so good. So, I googled for more recipe, but still I went back to hers cos it has cream and less flour, something that I prefer. One blogger, Ju just made a cherry clafoutis, posted it yesterday, but she didn't like it, but she used another recipe of which lost to this recipe during decision making time, simply because the recipe she used used only milk and this one uses cream and heck lot of it. Intuition tells me cream taste better than milk, and better not risk wasting those precious cherries. And custards with less flour always taste better than more, I'd rather have softly set custard than hard custard. So, I made the choice to use this recipe, and am glad I did not use JoyofBaking's after reading her post.

Although traditional clafouti/clafoutis will require the cherries to be left unpitted, so that the seeds will release flavor into it, I chose to remove the seeds. I have 2 toddlers, you see and they’ll be definitely eating this. I don’t have a seed pitter (you can easily get this at crockery shops, ask for those things used to remove red date seeds, they are the same as a chery pitter), so I used chopsticks to poke out the seed w/o damaging the whole fruit.

To pit the cherry using a chopstick, first, make a small incision (with a knife) at the bottom of the cherry, directly the other side from the stem. Poke the chop stick in, you’ll feel something hard. Push it firmly but gently, so that you won’t squash the fruit. Then remove the chopstick and push from where the stem was. Finally go back to the bottom of the fruit and push the seed out. Perfect pitted cherries using common household utensil!!!!!

I reduce the recipe to only 1/3 and I could fill up my small heart shaped baking pan (from Daiso)


65gm whipping cream
35gm milk
½ empty vanilla pod (I always keep the scraped pods for times where only a little bit of vanilla is needed), or use 1/8 of a unscraped pod
17gm or 1 ½ Tbsp sugar
1 egg
23gm or 3 Tbsp all purpose flour (sift before measure)
1 tsp Grand Marnier or Kirsch(optional)
A few fresh cherries, pitted or unpitted.
Icing sugar for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 160/180C
2. Heat milk, cream and empty vanilla pod into a small saucepan and bring to boil on the lowest heat. Put in sugar to melt. Set it aside to cool down.
3. Meanwhile, beat the egg in a bowl.
4. Fish out the vanilla pods and pour the cream mixture into the egg. Whisk to combine.
5. Put in flour and whisk to combine.
6. Put in liquer and stir.
7. Pour into a shallow baking dish. (no need to grease, it comes off nicely)
8. Put in pitted cherries and bake for 30 minutes until surface of the clafoutis is golden.
9. Dust with icing sugar.

How does a clafoutis taste like???? Kuih bakar/bengkang, western version with fruits and milk. Haha!!!!
Well, it is similiar, look at the ingredients, what was coconut milk was replaced with milk and cream. What has been pandan was replaced with vanilla, the rest, was pretty much the same, method is also the same. But because this recipe contains less flour, it has the tendency to puff before it even browns. I did this twice and the 2nd time around, I tried not to incorporate too much air in, but it still became a balloon. Nevermind, as long as the taste is good, who cares if its got wrinkly skin.

Actually I quite like it. Will try a blueberry version, but that will not be a clafoutis.