my baking diary #38 Agar agar Mooncakes

i had wanted to publish this post on 12 Sep, but alas, was busy over the weekend and Monday... hope its not too late to wish all fellow bloggers and readers a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, 中秋佳节快乐.

though i like baking, the thought of baking my own mooncakes have never strike my mind... guess all along, i thought baking mooncake is a very tedious and long process... but after seeing all the lovely mooncakes, moontarts and snowskin mooncakes, i am looking forward to the mid-autumn festival next year, where i can try my hand on baking my own mooncakes...

i am not a fan of mooncakes actually, will only take a small piece or 2 to try it out every year... but one of my favourite was the walnut moontart by Habourview restaurant (or something like that), and i would get that for my mum ... But since last year, i could not find it in the shopping centres where they have lots of different hotels, bakeries promoting their mooncakes... This year, i bought Carlton's moontart, thinking it should be very similar... Well, its very similar in terms of look (i did not taste it myself but bought it for mum and dear's mum), but the yolk in the moontart was soooooo little compared to the restaturant one which i recalled had a whole yolk in each moontart (which explains the price of almost $6 - $7 each if i did not remember wrongly)...

even though i did not bake any mooncakes, but i am glad agar agar mooncake does qualify for this month's Aspiring Bakers, so i went around looking for mooncake moulds :) Requested my colleagues to lunch at the Kallang Bahru market so i can get the moulds at Kitchen Capers (though i find it rather expensive, i still bought 5 moulds which cost me a total of $10!).

Coconut Milk Agar Agar...

 

Agar Agar with mixed fruits...

Agar Agar Mooncakes

1 pkt agar agar powder (i used swallow globe brand agar agar powder in white)

1 litre water (for coconut milk version - 500ml coconut milk and 500ml of water)

250gms sugar (i usually adjust according to taste as i prefer it less sweet - healthier?)

Colorings of your choice (if you are using white agar agar powder like me)

Mixed fruits

1. Disolve 1 pkt of agar agar powder in 1 litre of water. Add sugar and bring to boil over low heat

2. Pour into mould (i usually cool it down a bit first) and allow it to cool completely before putting it into the fridge

As i usually use white agar agar powder, i will divide the liquid into different batches so i can do up lots of colorful agar agar... I had wanted to try putting in different fillings into the agar agar (like those ang ku kueh agar agar) like cream style corn, blueberry fillings, chocolates etc.. But due to time constraints, i only made coconut milk agar agar and agar agar with mixed fruits...

Here's some more pictures of the agar agar i made... did not have enough mooncake moulds, so i used some of the other moulds i had... Can you spot the Hello Kitty ones?

 

These mould had chinese character on it... But i ran out of the coconut milk liquid to differentiate the characters... I used Hosen mixed fruit can, and used the papaya balls inside as a 'yolk' for these agar agar.. do look quite like a 'mooncake with yolk' huh?

And if you noticed, most agar agar were pink and purple in colour! this is because my niece was sitting in the kitchen while i was doing the agar agar and she asked me to do pink, red and purple colour...

 

Most of the agar agar mooncakes were packed and given away...



I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #11 : Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011) hosted by Happy Home Baking!

my baking diary #37 lavender chiffon cake

it has been a while... a long while actually, since my last post on baking... the last i baked was in May! no choice, due to my (sudden) operation and being down with sickness, i was sort of banned from baking.. so much so that my mum actually moved my oven to another location in the kitchen which makes it more troublesome to bake! if i need to bake, my mum will have to shift stuff here and there, so there is no way i can bake secretly!
i have been feeling loads better but do get tired and restless on occasions after my treatment etc... but had the urge to do some baking! so while i was clearing some stuff (and giving to my colleague for her hari raya baking), i told my mum i wanna bake! but i will keep a simple so maybe just a chiffon cake. surprisingly, no objection from her! so i went ahead and plan to bake on the hari raya holiday as i was scheduled for a medical appointment the next day and did not had to work.

been wanting to do a lavender chiffon after my colleague, S, gave me a packet of lavender flower tea way back in Feb/Mar and seeing Cathy's Osmanthus Chiffon Cake, i was very tempted to do a lavander version of it! but there are just so many nice bakes fellow bloggers are doing, it just got push back in the to-bake list! i also got my hands on a box of earl grey tea recently, so i wanted to see how the lavender chiffon will turn out like before i attempt an earl grey version!

and ta-dah! here's my lavender chiffon!

it rose quite nicely when it was in the oven despite having some crack lines... but think my tube pan is a bit too big...

the ugly side when i unmold it :( seem to have lose some 'baking touch' after resting for so long... my batter was not mixed properly, hence, could still see some yellowish batter (p/s: i added some purple colouring to the original yellow batter coz its meant to be lavender mah...) Was i also too impatient in not waiting for it to be really cooled completely?

the side view... i only tasted a small small portion of this slice coz i am supposed to cut down on sugar intake, and also i am more keen in baking rather than eating it! my mum and bf's feedback was the lavender fragrance is there (rather strong actually) but the cake wasn't sweet enough...






i bought slightly more than 2/3 of the chiffon cake to the office the next day as i had to go back and settle some stuff before being on MC for the rest of the week... guess what? they were a hit with my colleagues! i wonder if they are just being nice, but i was really all smiles when i saw them enjoying the cake and telling me it taste nice! so hopefully soon, i will be able to attempt an earl grey one for them :))

i followed Cathy's Osmanthus Chiffon Cake receipe for this, except that i omitted the wolfberries and replaced osmanthus with lavender instead... the lavender can be reduced to perhaps 1 or 1.5 tbsp if you do not want the fragrance to be too strong...

next up! a trip to the shops to get some mooncake moulds! hope i can get them! *cross fingers*