Strawberry Haw Flakes Layer Cake ?????????

The bun is still in the oven... not wanting to follow the sister's footsteps to be out early. The exact due date is tomorrow, doc's dateline to induce is 29th, coming monday. Keeping my fingers crossed that I need not be induced.. The pain is rather unbearable when being induced, I don't even have time to breathe. *sigh*

Ok, so, here's the last of the three layers cakes I made.

Out of the three cakes, and the favourite ratings are:
Horlicks: 35%
Kaya: 10%
Strawberry Haw flakes: 55%
This is just an approximate value of the responses I got.
Not that the kaya one is not tasty... it's just "favourite".
I personally like Horlicks best, then kaya then haw flakes being last.

I might be trying out Milo, Prunes, or even nutella in the future...

Here's the recipe for Strawberry Haw Flakes Layer Cake. I incorporated the strawberry jam because I wanted to have some pink layers in it. And being pink with no flavour is so.... fake to me. So, to be pink, there must be some justification to it.

Ingredients (A)
225gm butter
50gm sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
170gm Strawberry jam (warmed to liquify it a bit)
170gm sweetened condensed milk (1/3 medium can)
150gm Marie biscuits (finely ground into powder form)
Few drops red colouring

Ingredients (B)
225gm butter
50gm sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
340gm sweetened condensed milk (2/3 medium can)
150gm Marie biscuits (finely ground into powder form)
Haw flakes � as many as u want

Method:
Ingredients (A)
1. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one. Beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in strawberry jam and condensed milk
4. Add marie biscuits crumbs to batter and mix well.
5. If colouring is added, add in last and mix well

Ingredients (B)
1. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one. Beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in condensed milk
4. Add marie biscuits crumbs to batter and mix well.

Baking:
1. Preheat Oven in grill mode at 220C.
2. Line the base of a 9X9 inch baking pan and grease the sides. Preheat the pan over a pot of hot water or in the preheating oven
3. Place one ladle of (A) in the hot pan.
4. Spread batter evenly. Tilt pan left and right to level batter.
5. Grill for 7 minutes or until cake layer turns golden.
6. Remove cake pan from oven and press cake layer to release air.
7. Put in a ladle of (B) and repeat step 4,5 and 6. Arrange haw flakes on top of layer (B) after step 4.
8. Continue baking cake layers alternating batter (A) and (B) until all batter is used up.




There are less layers this time, as I used more batter for each layer, adding in 3 more minutes to grill than the other cakes. And it looks better with more prominently visible layers. It's up to you to have as many layers and as thick as u want it to be.


Top layer haw flakes were hard after baking, so they cracked when I layed the knife on them. Keep the cake wrapped for 2-3 days and the hawflakes will turn soft again.


The earlier 2 Layer Cakes:
Horlicks Layer Cake
Kaya Layer Cake

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Kaya Layer Cake ??????

Kaya is coconut egg jam. Taste really good with bread, and taste good too when incorporated into this cake.

Ingredients (A)
225gm butter
160gm soft brown sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
200gm Original flavour kaya (1 cup Gardenia Auntie Rosie kaya)
2 Tbsp milk powder
120gm cake flour/superfine

Ingredients (B)
225gm butter
160gm soft brown sugar
5 medium eggs, grade C
200gm Pandan flavour kaya (1 cup Gardenia Auntie Rosie pandan kaya)
2 Tbsp milk powder
120gm cake flour/superfine
1 tsp green colouring /pandan emulco

Method:
Ingredients (A)
1. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one. Beating well after each addition.
3. Mix in kaya and milk powder.
4. Sift flour over batter and mix well.

Ingredients (B)
Same method as ingredients (A). Mix in colouring/emulco at the end.

Baking:
1. Preheat Oven in grill mode at 220C.
2. Line the base of a 9X9 inch baking pan and grease the sides. Preheat the pan over a pot of hot water or in the preheating oven
3. Place one ladle of (A) in the hot pan.
4. Spread batter evenly. Tilt pan left and right to level batter.
5. Grill for 7 minutes or until cake layer turns golden.
6. Remove cake pan from oven and press cake layer to release air.
7. Put in a ladle of (B) and repeat step 4,5 and 6.
8. Continue baking cake layers alternating batter (A) and (B) until all batter is used up.


Previous Layer Cake: Horlicks Layer Cake
Next Layer Cake: Haw Flakes Strawberry Layer Cake

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Horlicks Layer Cake ???????

I'm going to post 3 layer cakes.... but am posting it one per week.
Made these as christmas gifts.

My ex colleague introduced me to Sarawak Layer cakes, or Kek Lapis Sarawak. I used to think only the Indonesians make layer cakes, I didn�t know that Sarawakians bake these too..and make it to be part of their culture.

The Sarawak version makes paterns with the cakes, to me it looks like their traditional woven cloth, pua kumbu. But I�m not going to go thru that (I�m lazy)� taste is what that matters. And I don�t like it to be a mixture of everything, Horlicks, kaya, peanut butter or whatever u can think of�. I prefer each cake to take on one flavour only.

The original Sarawak Layer cakes use 30 egg yolks in each cake, but I'm not going to do that. Luckily I found a recipe that uses 10 whole eggs *Phew*
Then I made other Layer cakes based on the 10 eggs recipe I found. This is a good site http://rozzan.blogspot.com/search/label/KEK-KEK%20LAPIS for kek lapis, but it's in Malay. Tried and tested recipes.

In Malaysia, the size of canned condensed milk is approximately 510gm each, so I adjusted the recipe to finish up one can of it. Lessened the sugar, added up the milk�

450gm butter
140gm sugar
10 medium eggs, grade C
510gm canned condensed milk
240gm superfine/cake flour
200gm Horlicks powder

1. Preheat oven on grill setting. (My oven has either 230C or 250C setting, so I used 230C)
2. Use a 9x9 inch square pan. Line bottom and grease sides. Heat up pan for step 8.
3. Beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
4. Add in eggs, one by one. Beating well after each addition.
5. Mix in condensed milk
6. Sift flour and Horlicks together.
7. Fold (6) into batter.
8. Spread a ladle of batter evenly onto hot pan.
9. Tilt pan left and right to level batter. Grill for 7 minutes or until golden.
10. Remove from oven and press cake layer to remove excess air. Spread another ladle of batter over the cooked layer, and repeat step 9.
11. Repeat step 10 until all batter is used up.

****
Pan needs to be heated up at step 2 for even distribution of batter. You can either heat up in the preheating oven or over a pot of hot water.

Switch off oven fan when u do this cake, if not, the bottom will burn at the end of the baking. If the fan cannot be turned off, like my oven, even on grill mode, bake this cake in a shallow water bath to prevent the base from over browning� I over browned at my first attempt.. the bottom was very brown and dry but after keeping the cake overnight in a tupperware, luckily the dry bottom moistened up. Not too bad, but doesn�t look nice.

Left : Layer Cake press , the one I used to press the layers.

Right: Flat bottomed whiskey glass, can be used as well

Next Layer Cake : Kaya Layer Cake, Haw Flakes Strawberry Layer Cake

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Cekodok ???

#25/6/2019 Updated: New Video below recipe

Cekodok is Malay banana fritters. Or some call it Jemput-jemput pisang. Jemput-jemput means fritters, but it can be type of jemput-jemput.
This is a nice tea time snack.
I like this, and not many that makes this to sell makes it nice. They put in too much flour. Flour is cheap...

It�s only nice when u eat homemade ones.
And my malay friends can never tell me the exact proportion of ingredients, they just say, lots of bananas, little bit of flour, sugar and a pinch of salt. Well, u know, when it�s a traditional recipe, most of them make it by just guesstimate, and they just know it when they mix it, they know the right consistency by experience. So, for me, I�ll just have to find the right proportion of ingredients.

The best bananas to use, Pisang Emas, it�s a Malaysian name which means golden banana, a small banana, sweet and fragrant. It� s a quarter the size of a Cavendish. If u�re from elsewhere, u can use other bananas, just make sure it�s really ripe and sweet.

And I found the proportion that I like, this time� just right�

300gm bananas (mashed with a fork)
90gm all purpose flour
1/4tsp baking soda
60gm sugar
Small pinch of salt
Oil for frying

1. Sift flour with baking soda. Mix with bananas, sugar and salt.
2. Drop teaspoonful of batter into hot oil.
3. Fry until brown, nicely caramelized colour.
4. Drain excess oil off fritters on kitchen towels.

******
U can try adding in freshly grated coconut into the batter. My malay colleague tells me it�s nice.
If u want to make the sugar optional to certain members of ur family, omit the sugar in the batter, and roll hot fritters in the sugar to coat it like a donut.

Chilling the batter before frying will make create a crispier crust.

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Patin Masak Pedas (Silver Catfish in Hot Gravy)

One good thing about moving to Kuala Kangsar is � Abundant fresh river catches at very reasonable prices.

Every Saturday morning there is this Pasar Tani (Farmer�s Market) nearby where I stay. There�re 2 stalls that sell live river fish� still alive and swimming around. If u can�t stand the sight of the fish mongers killing them by banging them on the head�..don�t look. It does look brutal.

One swimming Patin goes for RM8/kg. I know it�s more expensive than Tesco (less than RM4/kg)..but hey, this is alive and it�s from Perak River� not ikan lombong (mining pool fish).. very nice and sweet.

I was introduced to this dish when I was in Selancar, Pahang, by Pak Yob.. the canteen man of my first school (as a teacher)

Ingredients:-

500 gm ikan patin

A)
3 pieces asam keping (tamarind fruit pieces) or more, depending on the maturity of the fruit, the younger, the more u'll need
� tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 bunga kantan- halved (ginger flower)

B)
2 hot red chilies or more
3 shallots
2 cloves garlic
2 cm ginger
1 cup of water

Method:
1. Blend (B) in a blender.
2. Pour into a wok and bring to a boil.
3. Add (A) and fish.
4. Cook for 10 minutes or until fish is cooked.
5. Dish up.

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Bubur Cha Cha ????

This is the unofficial favourite dessert of many Malaysians.

Funny name, Bubur Cha Cha
Bubur means porridge in Malay, Cha Cha is...hmmm... no idea..
Will I do the Cha Cha dance after eating this dessert.... hehe.. maybe I will.
The cantonese pronunciation for this dessert is even funnier.. Mo Mo Cha Cha (touch touch, grasp grasp)

There are many variants of it, some with bananas, some with cassava or tapioca, some w/o the black eyed peas, some with those wriggly worm like multicolour rice flour bits, and I even heard a version with kuih bakul.

Some people find this dessert very time consuming to prepare, they say it's because one has to dice most of the main ingredients. I find that to be not much of a problem if one doesn't use a ruler to measure every cut the knife goes down on. The time consuming part is cooking the black eyed peas, that's the real problem, 3 hours and that's after soaking for another 3 hours!!!

This is a version commonly made by the Chinese in central Perak, with black eyed peas, taro (mistakenly refered as yam in msia), two types of sweet potatoes, fresh coconut milk, and sago pearls. And we (majority of central perakians) dun favour a salty bubur chacha, unlike our northern friends.



There is a missing ingredient... I dunno what it's called.. but I know it's made with tapioca starch, dyed red and made into squiggly chewy gummy jelly. I have no idea how it's made. The last time I had this gummy jelly in my bubur chacha was.. say.. 20 years back, made by my neighbour.

I make quite a big batch of this, cos I love to keep it in the fridge and eat it for days... it's really yummy.

Bubur Cha Cha recipe

Ingredients:
3/4 rice bowl of black eyed peas (mei dau, soaked for minimum 3 hours)
4 leaves of pandan (shredded and tied into a knot)
1.5 L water (about 6 rice bowls)

2.5L water (about 10 rice bowls)
1.5 rice bowl taro (cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl yellow sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1.5 rice bowl orange sweet potato(cut into 1cm cubes)
1/3 rice bowl fish eye sago pearls
1 1/2 Tbsp fish egg sago pearls

350 gm rock sugar or normal white sugar
150 gm gula melaka (palm sugar)

fresh coconut milk from 2 coconuts (about 4ooml undiluted)
1/2 tsp salt (to prevent the coconut milk from going bad fast, but not enough to turn the whole thing salty)

** Conversion: 1 rice bowl is approximately 1 cup 250ml

Method:
1. Boil 1.5L water, simmer black eyed peas and pandan knot on low fire for 2-3 hours or until peas are soft.
2. When peas are almost soft, put in fish eye sago pearls (Do not presoak them). Let them simmer together.
3. Cut taro, sweet potatoes and put them in together with 2.5L of water after peas are soft. Bring to a boil and lower down fire to simmer for 15 minutes.
4. Take out pandan knot. Sprinkle in fish egg sago pearls. Put in rock sugar and palm sugar. Simmer for another 10 minutes.
5. Turn off the fire, and leave pot uncovered for 5 minutes.
6. Pour in coconut milk and salt. Stir to combine. Wait for 15 minutes before putting lid back onto the pot. This is to prevent the coconut milk to turn oily.

** If you put in coconut milk too soon after turning off fire, it will curdle. If you put in too late, the whole thing will turn bad faster(hmm.. in 1-2 days, eventhough it's in the fridge) due to the coconut milk being `uncooked'. With properly cooked uncurdled coconut milk in the bubur chacha, I kept them in the fridge up to 5 days, and it tasted alright.

** I do not recommend purple sweet potatoes in this dessert. It makes the whole thing purple!!! A little overpowering on the colour. This is my personal opinion.

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