Almond Rocher - Nutty Treats #4

As some of you knew, I won a baking competition recently and one of the gifts was a course voucher at Academy of Pastry Arts. At first, I thought, the voucher will be wasted as I need to travel to KL again to attend it, and time plus distance didn't seem to permit.

Things happened with some twists and turns... I managed to grab a course on a weekend where we happen to be in KL for a wedding. And it was the right course, chocolate class. Of all the things that I can learn by myself, this is the one thing that I truly dare not attempt, Chocolate Tempering. It was an enjoyable 2-day course and I learnt the most important thing of all, how to temper chocolate. Besides that, I took home with me 6 delicious recipes, plus a big box of handmade chocolates!

FYI, that was REAL chocolate. Not the same like the budget friendly compound chocolate that I normally use that can be melted and used as I like it. Couverture chocolate is a bit temperamental to use, but absolutely delicious to eat.

Dried Berries Rocky Road with White Chocolate - Bars Week # 2

I made this for Lydia's Year End School (Kindergarden) Party. Being in a small town, it's something new for everybody, including me that has never eaten anything "rocky road". The teachers told me it was very good  (and special... and you may go nah) and every kid loved it. And the best time to try making such sweet stuff is when you have a large group of kids to feed. *evil grin*

Dried Agar-Agar Candy II

I made this candy this year again.
But I improvised on the recipe.

The first batch that I did, I used 25gm agar strips with 1L water, and the second time around I used 25gm agar strips with only750ml water. The result was........ one less day of sunning. Great news, isn't it?

With 10 days left to CNY, and with this current super sunny weather, you can make it in time. Usually my wet bathroom takes half a day to dry, but these 2 weeks, it dried up after 2 hours of usage.

If you lined the pan with paper, it takes 4-5 days under direct sunlight, but if you didn't line the pan, it'll take 7 days. Like me this time, stupid, idiot, forgot to line the pan. Last year, mine were done in 4 days. Well, you see, the paper is an evaporation tool. It absorbs extra water and moisture from the jelly pieces and helps disperse it into the hot air when the sun hits it.  When I find, how come this year, it took so long to get it done, then only I remembered that I didn't line the drying pan. Luckily I did it early this year.

Dried Agar-Agar Candy II
Fills 3-4 jars of those medium sized red cap cookie containers

100gm agar-agar strips
3L water (12 cups)
800gm rock sugar
600gm sugar
2 tsp of rose flavouring+few drop of pink colouring
2 tsp lemon flavour+few drops of yellow colouring
2 tsp strawberry flavouring+few drops of red colouring
2 tsp pandan emulco

Do not think of reducing the sugar. It is needed for the candy structure to form. And I've never heard of a candy that is not sweet. And this is the mildest in terms of sweetness for dried agar candy that I've ever eaten. It is not meant for you to chow down, but savour slowly piece by piece.
If you just want to try try, cut the recipe by 75%---  25gm agar, 200gm rock sugar, 150gm sugar and 750ml water.


1. Put water and  agar strips into a heavy based pot.
2. Bring to a boil and cover with lid. With low heat, boil until all agar strips have dissolved.
3. Meanwhile prepare 4 baking pans/or any heat proof container. Put flavourings and colour into each pan/container.
4. Put in rock sugar and sugar, cook until everything dissolves. It feels thick, almost like cooked can soup.
5. Divide agar mixture evenly between the four pans.
6. Cut with serrated knife when it has solidified.
7. Arrange cut pieces, serrated side down on a large tray lined with non stick baking paper.
8. Sun dry until a whitish crunchy crust appears. Turn jelly pieces every other day for proper exposure to the sun. Bring into your air-cond room at night for further drying at night.


* Bugs love the lemon flavoured one, just don't know why.
The rose flavoured one lost its colour, dunno why. I used Wilton's pink colouring.

Candied Coconut - White sugar version

I made candied coconut with gula melaka (palm sugar) way back in 2008. I was very very satisfied with the result. So, with another blogger meet-up coming up (I'm the last to blog about it, so I'll not go into the details, you can read about it at Sonia's, Swee San's, Reese's and Pei Lin's), it's a good chance for me to make this again, since making too little is a bit too wasteful and too much for personal comsumption is not a good idea :)
Good things are meant to be shared, HAHAHAHAH!! Don't ever get fat alone, LOL.

So, you must be wondering, where did I get my coconut flesh.
From the wet market!!

*
Long ago(20 yrs ago), we could only buy grated coconut from the market.
*
Sometime back then (about 15 yrs ago) , we could buy freshly squeezed coconut milk from the market, and it's made with coconuts that were halved and grated by holding the coconut halves against the electric grater, then the grated coconut is poured into a machine to get the milk out.
*
The latest : You won't find the electric grater with a sharp ball and a upright basin at the wet market.
What you will see is a grater that works like a paper shredder. Put the whole pieces of flesh in the upright feeding hole, and what comes out is finely grated coconut. Then the grated coconut is then poured into the extrator and milk comes out :) The latest method is a lot lot faster!
*

So, what does this has to do with where to get the coconut flesh pieces???
The answer is, get your coconut flesh pieces from the coconut milk vendor before they turn it into grated coconut. LOL. Sorry just being a bad joker here.



This time, I made 2 versions, the old palm sugar version and I tried out the old fashioned white sugar version.

Recipe is pretty easy

Just keep the ratio of sugar to coconut, 1: 2 and you'll be fine. Means, if you used 1kg coconut flesh, use 500gm sugar. And I mean cleaned peeled coconut. Not the initial weight that you bought from the market. Last time I used the weight I bought and ended up with too much sugar in the pot, a bit wasted.

So, here's how

Cook on medium heat until the whole pot of coconut looks watery and reduce to low heat to cook until totally dry. Stir and toss with chopsticks not spoon. Stirring is only needed occasionally until it looks almost dry, then it has to be all the time.

So, here's how the white one looks like immediately after cooking. Pretty dry right? And nope, the base is not burnt.

Not too difficult right?


And one thing, I want to share with you.
If you think that you want to buy the purest and best gula melaka to make this snack, DO NOT DO THAT!

The one above is the latest and the one below was done in 2008

Can you see the difference of my latest attempt with the old one?
One looks dry and one looks clumpy with sugar.
Last time, I used those light coloured palm sugar (light brown not Thai milky coloured ones), which are a lot less pure(made with added white sugar) and are harder.
Pure ones are soft and moist, crumbly when pressed and definately needs refrigeration, if not it'll sweat.
Using pure ones is a bad decision.
I forgot that raw sugars like this are acidic, and when it's acidic, the sugar won't dry properly and stayed in clumps. So in times like these, better buy the less pure stuff so that you can have dry dry coconut, not clumpy ones.


And if you're wondering what am I wearing in that pic? Looks frumpy... Well, it's a maternity dress.
Yes, I am almost 4 month preggers now and the baby's due early June.
I haven't been cooking or baking since early October (unless I have no choice), up until 2 days before the lastest blogger meet (just last week), and yeah, the blog is running with no baking and cooking in my kitchen and it could still run with daily posts until March, yes it's that crazy.
Baking and cooking mojo has been on super low gear during the 1st trimester and I'm glad it's back now.

But I won't be on high gear til very much later, I'm busy busy busy now, and hopefully by Jan, I'll be moving into my new house with a new oven and a few more new toys.

Dried Agar-agar (Jelly) Candy

The sky’s so blue…. Rare.

Not a cloud in sight, the whole afternoon.

It’s so so sunny these days.. that I could wash do 4 rounds of laundry and they all dried up by the end of the day. Usually if it’s sunny at noon, by late afternoon, it’ll rain. But it’s hot and drier than usual. If one round of laundry can dry up in less than 2 hours…. Why not I make some dried jelly?? I’ve never made these before, but I love them.

This is one of the stuff that my brothers and I will rumage for whenever my dad brings back Eid goodies from his Moslem friends. But those that I ate when I was a kid really tasted like candy, lots of sugar. But as I grew up, the candies tasted less sugary and more jelly like. It tastes better this way, less sweet.They are usually made by Malays for Eid ul-Adha and Eid ul-Fitr , never have I seen a Chinese doing this. It’s one of the ‘must’ goodie for Eid. There are lots of blur recipes online in Malay language, but most of them just state "one packet of agar-agar strips". Hello!!! There are many packing sizes.. 10gm, 25gm, 28gm and 32gm. So, how much is one packet???

I might be the first. First, maybe as a non Malay to blog about dried jelly or dried agar-agar. I’m just assuming cos I can’t google any. I adapted this recipe from HomeKreation. I was lazy to keep the balance of 50gm rock sugar, so I dumped the whole pack in. Actually with more rock sugar, there'll be less of a crust. If u want ur jelly candy to have a crunchy crust, replace some of the rock sugar with granulated sugar, of which ur jelly will be slightly sweeter but you'll have a better crust. Do not reduce the sugar instead, cos it will not give u the structure u will need. Oh yes, do not use real fruit juice to make this. The acid from the fruit juice will not make u a dry candy.

Dried Agar-agar Candy /Dried Jelly Candy Recipe

25gm agar-agar strips

1L water

250gm rock sugar

100gm sugar

1 tsp rose flavouring

½ tsp pink/red colouring

1. Boil agar strips on medium heat (pot covered) until fully melted.

2. Put in rock sugar and sugar. Cook until all the sugars are dissolved.

3. Remove from heat and put in flavourings and colouring.

4. Pour into prepared moulds or in a 9 inch square pan.

5. When set, cut into preferred shapes or remove from moulds and lay them on a tray lined with non stick baking paper or muslin.

6. Sun dry until surface of jelly is dry. Flip pieces of jelly ever few hours so that the drying will be even. I made mine in almost a week. It can take up to weeks, if weather is not good. (picture taken outdoors so that the real crust can be seen)

**At night I bring the jellies into my room, so that the air-cond can dehydrate them.

See how much they've shrunk??------------------>

It's not like a gummy jelly, not sticky at all.

It's got a crunchy crust, a slightly chewy and springy interior.

One word, delightful.

Lastly with these red sweet hearts,

I wish everybody

a Happy Valentine's day.

I love u all, please visit me more often

:)

I'm hoping I'll get that new Sony panaromic camera.... Mike, Mike????

Candied Coconut - gula melaka 椰糖椰干

When I was in primary school, the canteen man sold candied coconut for 10sen a small pack.

Many years, I never came across this again.

Then, when I was in uni, I saw it in Petaling Street, wow , it’s turned into something pricey. Still bought it, cos I like it.

2 months after my daughter was born, I saw this again in SS2 pasar malam. And they don’t only have the regular white candied coconut, they even have a gula melaka version, which is palm sugar. This stall also sells candied ginger, lotus roots, and water chestnut.
And they are going for RM3.50 for small pack of 150gm. RM10 for 3 packs, but RM13.50 for 4 packs, weird way of marketing huh?? I bought 3 packs.

I saw in pwmf’s site on how to make candied coconut. But didn’t think that I’d make my own one day, cos it seemed too troublesome to remove the coconut flesh from the hard shell. Then I saw in Kuala Kangsar wet market’s coconut milk stall, there’s coconut flesh for sale. Yahooo!!! Bought 1 kg of it. I want to make it the night itself, substituting the white sugar that pwmf uses with gula melaka, adding in some pandan leaves for extra aroma. I was worried about the pot burning, but luckily it didn’t. Pwmf uses medium high heat until water evaporates, but I used low fire all the while… Scared ma!!!


Candied Coconut Recipe

1kg coconut flesh (without shell)
500 gm gula melaka (pounded or chopped)
Few blades of pandan leaves, shredded.

Trim coconut flesh to remove all brown skins, wash and slice into desired thickness,
Mix coconut flesh with pounded gula melaka, and let it bleed for a while.
Put everything into a heavy bottomed pot and cook until a thin layer of sugar powder coats the coconut.
Place coconut shreds onto a flat tray and let it cool down before putting it into an air tight container.

***
By using low heat all the time, it took me 1.5 hours, pot uncovered.

I find the amount of sugar a bit too much, as there were a lot of sugar dust on the bottom of the pot, so, the next time I’ll make this, I’ll just use 330gm. I used up the remaining sugar in the pot by making egg drop agar-agar.