Serradura Pudding

Serradura means sawdust in Portuguese. I ate this dessert at one of the famous "Dumbo" Portugal restaurant in Macao. I felt in love with it as the taste is very homey to me. Very smooth & creamy, not too sweet and the crushed crunchy biscuit added a well balanced contra to this dessert. I made this for my brother and his good friend who visited us a few days ago. This dessert helped me complete a 3-course western set dinner.

The name is easy to remember. When I chanced upon this recipe, I bought all the ingredient the next day. Surprised that little ingredient is needed and it is so easy to prepare. Believe it or not, it took me only 20min to complete. Must share the good finding which require little effort to create. Super simple and I hope you'll add this into your keep sake recipe.


Ingredients

200ml Nestle Can Whipping cream
250gm Condense milk
100 Marie biscuits (crushed)

Method

Crushed Marie Biscuit in plastic bag with rolling pin
Mixed Whipping Cream and Condense Milk and whip till thicken
Layer cup with Marie Biscuit then follow by whipped cream, repeat this step for few time
Chill for 4 hour, sprinkle more Marie Biscuit before serving

Shira's twist:

I layered the bottom tier with rum soaked chocolate cake, You may create you own version of Sawdust Pudding by sprinkle some cocoa powder or add fruit jam on it.

Pineapple Sorbet

Pineapple juice is by product of pineapple tart paste if you plan to make your own...

What a waste to discard it but boring just to drink it... So added a tea spoon of ginger juice, sugar syrup then froze the juice in a tall jar. Use my "mixer Stick" and make this sorbet... A dash of vodka before serving to highlight this simple and refreshing dessert ;>

Baked Alaska for "Daddy" (With Video)

"NEW ADDED VIDEO BELOW"

My husband is not a "cake" person so I was not sure if baking him a cake for father's day was a good idea. I always watch "Chef at Home" by Michael Smith. He showed how to make Baked Alaska once. I am really impressed by the way the dessert is presented. Pour some hard liquor on it and set the "cake" on fire... yeah u heard me right - set it "ON FIRE".

You shouldn't really call it a cake because the center of this dessert is ice cream, topped with flavoured whipped egg white, lightly baked in the oven for, say, 10 min. Then pour some hard liquor on it and set it on fire.

No harm trying it out because I had lots of left over egg white as a result of making so much ice cream. I chose mango ice cream because it is more refreshing compared to other flavour. I also did some special effect of some frozen diced mangos placed in the center.

My hubby was quite troubled and worried by the way I was going to play with the cake as I told him I'd set it on fire in the middle of our dinning table... After some explanation on how I intended to do it and with some fire safety precaution like standing by a few wet kitchen rugs and a bucket of water. We all had fun and he was pleased.

Here I wish all the fathers a "Happy Belated Father's Day".

Home Made Ice Cream

Home made ice cream is one of the recipe that I always want to master. Good quality ice cream cost so much a tub...

Found some good and thick fresh cream from New Zealand (it is good to make cream pasta sauce too) imported by one of the food factories @ Jurong West area. Also there's no better vanilla essence than using the actual vanilla bean pod. So I bought some and froze them in my freezer. It is quite costly if you buy only 1 or 2 pcs but if you buy in bulk (10 pcs per packet), it only cost a dollar a piece and it can make almost a liter vanilla ice-cream. It is also good to use for other pastry.







There's many flavour you can add into the vanilla based ice-cream like adding some freshly cooked mango puree and strawberry puree.

To my satisfaction, it turned out to be smooth and creamy just the way I like it. And the sweetness is controlled by you, also there's no added preservative. Need not watch the consumption amount whenever I crave for a big bowl from now on.

Yet to try out a classic chocolate ice-cream... will see

Ingredient:

a) 250ml Skimmed or full cream milk (I preferred full cream milk coz I still have young kids)

1 Vanilla bean pot

b) 4 egg yolks

75gm sugar

1 tsp corn starch

c) 300ml fresh cream

Method:

a) Slit vanilla bean open and scrap out the seed, cook it in a heavy sauce pan with milk. Bring it to just boiling and off fire and let is simmer for another 15mins.

b) Whisk egg yolks, sugar and corn starch until light and pale. Then pour (a) into the batter. Pour back into heavy sauce pan and cook it in low heat. Do not allow to bring it to boil and stir constantly until the batter coat the back of the wooden spoon. Cool and refrigerate until cold.

c) Whisk fresh cream and fold it into (b) then store in freeze proved container and freeze for 2-3 hours. Used a fork to break the batter until creamy. If you have a food processor pls use it and it'll give you a better/smoother result, (it is fine if you just use fork) freeze again. Repeat this step for 2 - 3 time.

Lastly, add whatever flavour you wanted. Like raisin soaked with rum... chopped chocolate. Such a sinful indulgent... at least it is a economical and healthier one.

Mango Smoothie

My girls have been nagging me to make mango smoothie for them, so here comes a refreshing and healthy mango dessert!

I always make smoothie or milk shake at home - economical and lots of rooms to create your very own smoothie by varying different kinds of ingredient like strawberry, avocado or other tropical fruits eg. papaya... I guarantee you'll be satisfied with this healthy smoothie with minimum efforts...

Ingredient:

Mango 1 (Dice)

Milk 500ml (use ice cube box and froze)

Honey 2 tsps

Mango juice (30-50ml)

Mango and Peach Yogurt 1/2 cup (Optional)

Method:

Keep 1/3 diced mango for decoration. Haul everything into blender and mix till smooth and thick. Pour out and serve with Valina ice cream and diced mango.

Mango and Banana Mochi

Although I felt sad over my bread making failure, this feeling drove me to make some successful desserts to cheer myself up. I know Florence's recipe (http://wlteef.blogspot.com/)is always good.

I read her blog on Thurs nite (1st May) and decided to make this the next day because I can share with my friends. According to her blog, the mochi skin is soft and nice even when it is chilled. It took me 2 hours to make 40 of them - including steaming for 30 mins and some time to cool the batter and to wrap the mochi. So once again thanks to Florence for sharing the recipe.

P.S. The mango I bought was not ripe so I switched to banana. Taste not bad though. If you can't get a good mango, I suggest you rather not do it, cox the filling has to be sweet and tasty.

Honey Lemon Aloe Vera

My friend once told me Singapore has 3 seasons: Hot, hotter and hottest. So I guess now is in the hottest season. Typical tropical weather: very sunny and warm in the morning, cloudy, humid in the afternoon, then followed by thunder storm and heavy rain.

So really needs something light and refreshing to keep you cool! Also my girls are down with flu now. Honey lemon drink with aloe vera would be great to soothe their sore throats.

Aloe Vera is rich in vitamin E. Lemon is refreshing, and honey is soothing. They're the best mix. It is easy to do. It only takes half an hour to get it done. My eldest girl took 2 glasses the moment it was done...

Ingredient:

600 gm Aloe Vera
2 Ltr Water
Rock Sugar (2 pcs medium size)
Honey 3 - 4 table spoon
Lemon (2 - 3 slices)

Clean and dice Aloe Vera (see photo). You may need to change water a few time in order to get rid of the slime. Drain and set aside.
Boil water in the pot with rock sugar. When rock sugar dissolved, plunge in aloe vera. Switch off the fire when it reaches boiling point.

Squeeze lemon juice and rind till you can see the zest spraying out. Best do it while the solution still hot and let it infused in the solution. Add honey but remember hot water will dissolve some of the nutrients in honey, so only add in when it becomes warm.

Variation:

You may add in lemon grass if you fancy the unique flavour when boiling the water, remove them before adding aloe Vera. However, I'll omit honey in this case, cox it overwhelms the lemon grass flavour.


P.S.

Oh, don't throw away the aloe vera skin. Keep them for your facial or rub on the hair. It helps nourish your hair. My helper has black and healthy hair. She says she has been doing this since young. One more magic with aloe vera: when my girls hurt their lips and swell badly, I use the aloe vera skin to rub gently on the wound and it soothes the lips. The red and full lips will soon return to normal. Thanks to the rich vitamin E.

Mango Pudding

I like to make mango pudding during weekends so that my girls will get to enjoy this special treats if they're behaving well. Chinese believe mango is a kind of "heaty" fruit though, but this is really tempting in a hot sunny day.


Ingredients:

Mango 1pc (Dice)
Mango Flavor jelly (1 box)
Gelatin 2 tbs
Mango Puree (2 Tbsp, I used Phoon Huat's unsweetened mango puree)
Fresh Milk (3/4 cup)
Water (225ml, I usually use a water mug to measure)
Egg Yolk (2 Pcs)
Sugar (Optional, also depending on the mango sweetness)


Method:

Dissolved Mango jelly and gelatin with 225ml hot water in a pot*, beat egg yolk in large mixing bowl. Pour the dissolved mango jelly into the egg yolk, whisk repeatedly to prevent egg yolk curdles (sift it if there’s egg white or egg yolk curdles). Add fresh milk and mango puree, lastly diced mango. Pour the finishing into a big plastic mould or a smaller jelly cups. Chill for 3 hours before serving. You may serve it with fresh cream.

*Try out your mango to see if it is sweet or sour, then add sugar at this point if the mango is sour or you prefer a sweeter pudding.