Fresh Apricot Jam

Fresh Apricot Jam. Yes. I made this and you might be calling me crazy.

Fresh apricots are so expensive here and buying a jar of this jam seems cheaper. True, very true.

I was lucky to get cheaper apricots the day I met up with Swee San of the Sweet Spot and Angie of Sea Salt with Food. Swee San told me to quickly go grab a few punnets as they were just selling for RM10/punnet of 350gm each. Haha, I bought 3 punnets and Swee San bought 3 too (Swee San , correct me if I'm wrong). Now with so much apricots, the first thing that came to my mind was "jam".

If I'm given a choice of jam, Apricot Jam/Preserves always comes first in queue. Then it's sweet marmalade, then only it's strawberry jam. So, I'm making my favourite jam. Yum Yum.

I have never made jam before, and I'm not much of a bread and jam person, although I do eat it every now and then, but I don't eat bread daily and not even weekly. I only eat bread once in a blue moon and jam is even blue-er. So, this was done out of curiosity. I googled for information and then I came out with this recipe. A bit from here, and bit from there, but basically, it's almost the same as most recipes.

Fresh Apricot Jam

500gm sugar apricots
350gm sugar (if apricots are sour, please use 500gm)
1 Tbsp lemon juice


1. Wash and slice apricots. Put everything into a heavy based pot.
2. Meanwhile, put a plate into the freezer. Boil 2 jam bottles and lids in water for 10 minutes, and your ladle and whatever utensil you intend to use for bottling or scooping the jam later.
3. Cook apricots (lid off) and sugar over medium low heat. It will bubble and bubble, just stir it every 10-15 seconds. I walked in and out of the kitchen during this time.
4. When the bubbling reduces (yes it's obvious), then start stirring it all the time so that it will not burn. The apricots will start to "melt" and you will see only "pasty" stuff, rather than whole bits of fruit.
5. To test whether jam is ready, drop a bit of jam onto the cold saucer that you've put in the freezer earlier. Push the drop of jam. If the upper skin wrinkles, it's ready. Put in lemon juice and let it boil for another minute.
6. Now fish out the bottles and lids (caution: hot), don't touch the inside or the neck of the bottle and the inside of the lids with your hands. Drain the bottles and it'll dry up very fast..
7. Scoop very hot jam into the prepared bottles. Be careful.
8. Then quickly put on the lid, screw tightly and overturn bottle. Remember to wear oven mittens or use a grabbing utensil for this.
9. Let it cool down completely overturned and the bottle will be vacuum sealed. To know whether it's vacuum sealed, just look at the lid. The bulging part of the lid would've gone down.

Do not open jam until you want to consume it, if not, the seal will be broken. Keep jam referigerated once opened.
If you're making this for personal consumption or you have loads of fridge space to spare, just put the jam into dry, clean jars (w/o boiling), no need to vacuum seal.
But if you plan to give these away as gifts or want to keep it in your cupboard, please vacuum seal.

Actually if you ask me, whether this jam smell super with all those apricots, I'd say, not really. It's due to my apricots. I used "sugar apricots" here. They may taste very sweet, but they are not as fragrant as my sour apricots used in the almond tart, galette and stone fruit cake. Next year, I'm going to get those sourish apricots to make jam. But no matter how this jam smells, it still smell like apricots, just not as fantabulous when compared to those sourish ones. Tastewise, very good. It's not that sweet when compared to commercial jams, like Chivers or St Dalfours. And you can spread a thicker layer onto your favourite bread.
My daughters love this jam and it's the fastest dissapearing jam ever in the house (until now)

How much did this 2 bottles of jam cost me? The amount of apricots here cost me RM15, and plus some sugar and some lemon juice, it's not even RM20 for 2 bottles. It's slightly more expensive than the two brands of jams I mentioned, but fruit composition wise.. mine is more. My MIL(yes, she's back) and aunt said, the best is eat with peace of mind. No preservatives and no additives. Please don't ask me how long this jam can keep. I have no idea because this jam was gone in just a week.



See the bread here? It's pumpernickel bread. I'll be posting this 2 days later. Oh yes, I might be trying out making apricot jam using dried apricots. Might only.. don't know when.

Eight Treasures Pumpkin Loaf 八宝南瓜包

I got this recipe from MeishiChina again. The original recipe is shaped into a wreath and the treasures all strewn on top. I put my treasures inside instead and rolled them up like a swiss roll.

You can use any 8 types nuts or seeds or dried fruit. I find that the fruits are a bit dry after baking, and maybe you can brush some water on the dough before you sprinkle the fruits on, this way, it'll hydrate the fruits better, rather than to have it drawing moisture from the bread.

The plain one that you see in the picture about is filled with only chopped raisins because my kids don't like nuts and seeds.

350gm bread flour
80gm sugar
1 tsp instant yeast
1/3 tsp salt
1 large egg
180gm pumpkin puree
50gm butter
1 ½ cup mixed fruits and nuts (6 types: golden raisins, black raisins, bing cherries, cranberries, almonds, pistachios), coarsely chopped
½ cup mix seeds (2 types: pumpkin and sunflower), placed in a tray big enough for the loaves

1. Mix bread flour, sugar, yeast and salt together. Make a well in the center.

2. Combine pumpkin puree with egg. Pour pumpkin mitxure into the well. Combine and form a dough.

3. Knead until smooth, add in butter and knead until stretchy. (the whole kneading process by hand will take about 30 minutes or more)
4. Put dough covered (with a small opening) in a warm place (I just put the whole basin I knead my bread with into my cool oven) and let it proof for 1 hour until double in size.
5. Punch down and give it a good knead for another 2 minutes.
6. Divide dough into 2 loaves.
7. Take one piece of dough and roll it into a rectangle. Spread half the mixed fruit and nuts onto rolled out dough. Roll dough up (from the shorter side), and pinch the ends to seal.
8. Brush loaf with water and roll it in the seed mix.
9. Repeat with the other piece of dough.
10. Proof loaves for another 45 minutes.
11. Bake in a preheated oven at 170/180C for 20 minutes or until loaf sounds hollow when tapped at the bottom of tray (Put a small tray of boiling water at the lower rack of oven while you bake the bread)

Apricot Blueberry Rolled Up Cobbler

This cobbler looked so cute. Anything spiral always catches my eye. Anything that looks out of the ordinary shouts “Try me”. And I made this cos I have a lot of apricots left from making my jam. I used blueberries and some cherries for colour, and colour always brightens up my day.

You might think, apricot and blueberries are almost at the end of the season now. Actually you can do this with other fruits, such as plums, softened apples, pineapples, or even bananas. Or just wait for southern summer fruits end of the year of you don’t want to wait for next year. As always I omitted the cinnamon and used vanilla. You can refer to my recipe source for the amount of cinnamon to be used. I also reduced half the sugar, cos my apricots are so, so sweet, and I believe 100gm is sufficient. Indeed it is. And I added some freezing steps in the instructions, so that rolling and cutting is a breeze.

You might hesitate about pouring the syrup over a shortcrust pastry and bake it swimming in the pan…. Wondering if it’ll turn soggy. I was very scared too. But I trusted Peabody’s recipe. And it didn’t turn into a nightmare!!! The top was crunchy, middle was cakey and a short layer on the base tasted like pie filling. The experience is phenomenal. It’s like eating fluffy cookie, cake and pie at the same time!!!! See the pic below.

A true true keeper and I’ll try this with bananas next time. I’m sure it’ll be super!!! I wish I could use cinnamon with the bananas… Or I’ll just ask Mike to skip it and I’ll have it all to myself, hahaha!!!!

Apricot Blueberry Rolled Up Cobbler

adapted from Peabody

Syrup

250ml water

1 empty vanilla pod

100gm sugar (1/2 cup)

Dough

180gm self raising flour (1 ½ cups)

1 tsp vanilla extract or seeds from 1 vanilla

60gm cold butter (1/4 cup)

80ml milk (1/3 cup)

60gm melted butter (1/4 cup)

2 Tbsp soft brown sugar

Fillings (It called for 3 cups of berries, but I just used less than 3 cups, anyway, just be generous and make sure the rolled out dough was spread well with fruits, with no empty spots )

250gm apricots

50gm blueberry

A few dark cherries

1. Prepare syrup. Bring water, empty vanilla pod and sugar to a boil. Turn off the heat and let it steep until time of use. This step can be done ahead of time.

2. Prepare dough.Combine cold butter, and flour. Rub until it look like crumbs.

3. Put in milk and press it lightly to become a ball of dough ball.

4. Put dough between 2 sheets of plastic or baking paper and roll out to become a rectangle (11X9 inch, I just rolled it out the size of my plastic cutting board)

5. Put rolled out dough into freezer.

6. Meanwhile, prepare fruits, rinse and cut small.

7. Take dough out from freezer. Peel upper sheet and place it back on. Flip dough to have the upper sheet of plastic facing down now. Peel lower sheet (now on top) and scatter fruits around, leaving 1 inch from both long sides.

8. Hold lower sheet of plastic and roll up like a swiss roll. Wrap the plastic sheet around like a swiss roll for sale in the bakery.

9. Put roll into freezer and freeze for 10-15 minutes, to firm up and ease cutting later.

10. Meanwhile preheat oven to 160/180C.

11. Melt butter and put into baking dish (9 inch pie dish, but I used 9X6 baking dish).

12. Bring roll out from freezer and slice into 1 inch thick slices and arrange onto baking dish. (I cut 12pcs)

13. Fish out vanilla pod and pour syrup over the dough and bake for 45 minutes or until lightly golden.

14. Remove cobbler from oven and sprinkle 2 Tbsp of brown sugar and bake again for another 10-15 minutes until cobbler turns golden.

15. Serve warm.

Red Velvet Cake Experiment with Roselle

I have always wished to make a Red Velvet Cake, but very very hesitant due to the amount of red colouring used.

So, I experimented with Roselle, a natural source of red pigment.
I boiled 20 pieces of roselle's calyces with water, reduced the infusion and got this, a super concentrated reddish paste.

The pot was still left with lots of pigments and so I rinsed the pot with
1. Evaporated milk (left)
2. Yogurt. (right)
This is to melt the dried pigments on the walls of the pot, it's still a lot of colour, so don't waste it.

No, I didn't rinse the same pot twice. But I did it twice, cos the first cake became a dark grey cake. I was laughing at the cake when I saw it out from the oven.

If you noticed, the left pic that has the excess pigment melted in evaporated milk, more bluish than the one on the right, which was yogurt. Anthocyanin, the pigment present in Roselle, reacts and changes colour according to Ph. If it is exposed to alkaline conditions, it turns blue, and in acid, red. Just like the Ph indicator back in your chemistry classes. Milk is a weak acid (pH 6.4-6.8) and yogurt is more acidic(pH 4-5). Same goes for blueberries, if you add lemon juice to your blueberry ice cream, be sure to get magenta coloured ice cream, the more lemon juice you add, the "reddish" it becomes but if no lemon juice is used, it stays blue blue blue. Same goes for red cabbage.

Ok, stop talking about anthocyanins. But look at my results, adapted from Tartelette's 1st cake

First cake,

The surface looked dark grey and the cake is brownish grey. But taste wise, fabulous!! My brother in law finished up the cake and inititated to learn from me. I laughed at it, cos it was a failed experiment.
I thought, maybe the batter wasn't acidic enough for it to stay red, because initially I thought the roselles are pretty sour, so with the acid in it, should be enough to react with the baking soda used, so I didn't bother to use buttermilk/yogurt. The batter actually turned blue before the cocoa powder was added in, which was why I knew it's not acidic enough. Not even the vinegar could help me. I was hoping for a bluish cake, but hahaha, a grey cake came out.

The 2nd cake,

I used yogurt this time for the batter to be acidic, and the result was disastrous. It looked redder than the 1st cake, but roselle is just not strong enough to overcome the cocoa powder. It was very magenta-ish before the cocoa powder was added in, but once the brown powder went it...... it no longer stayed pretty.
And taste wise, it was really horrible. It sticks.. not to the finger, but the palate. Found it hard to swallow. I guess with roselle concentrate, yogurt and vinegar, it became too acidic and maybe that's why it is so dry and crumbly and sticky in the mouth. Threw the whole cake away, it was inedible.

I guess my quest for a roselle coloured Red Velvet Cake shall end here. The natural pigment is just no contender with the little bit of cocoa powder. It just can't overcome it. I've tried baking with Roselles before and the colour came out nice and pretty, but it just don't work together with cocoa powder. I might just come up with a magenta coloured cake... but not Red Velvet Cake.

BTW, please don't suggest beetroot to me. I'm keeping red velvet cake away from me forever.

Corn Custard Cream Puffs

An order from neighbour Maria

The custard don't look smooth becos of the creamed corn in it. Mouthfeel is fine.

Corn Custard Cream Puff

Choux balls

Refer here

Corn Custard filling
200ml evaporated milk
200ml water
200gm creamed corn
70gm sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 Tbsp custard powder

1. Beat sugar and eggs together. Mix in custard powder and flour. Combine to be a smooth paste.
2. Bring evaporated milk and water to a boil in a saucepan. Pour hot milk mixture over eggs mixture, slowly, stirring at the same time.
3. Return the mixture to the saucepan and on low heat, cook until it thickens.
4. Pour in creamed corn and mix. Let it come to a boil, on low heat, stirring all the time.
5. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl, cover with cling film and chill.


These choux balls are waiting to be filled

Filled and packed

Excuse me that I use some of them for posing

and here's how it looks inside