I’d paired figs with hazelnuts before so I was pretty confident the combination would work in a cake form. Then I came across this Bill Granger recipe for fig and hazelnut cake serendipitously. Someone on social media posted a picture of their baking efforts with figs and someone else commented on that they’d used their figs in another way and so it goes.

I left the recipe largely untouched, only minor tweaks to the method because that’s just how I roll, but the end result shouldn’t depart from the original in any noticeable way.

The only other change I’d make to future renditions of this cake is to bake it as an “upside down” cake, so I’d line the figs on the bottom of the cake pan. Just because putting them on top of the batter causes some of them to sink in a little, making the final presentation not as pretty as it could be. But let’s just say that this one has ‘rustic charm’ shall we? Like something straight out of a farmhouse oven ;).

RECIPE – Fig and hazelnut cake

Original recipe from Bill Granger

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter softened
• 150g caster sugar
• 75g self raising flour
• 3 eggs
• 100g hazelnuts ground
• 50g hazelnuts roughly chopped
• 8 fresh figs, halved

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and line a 20cm loose bottom cake tin.
2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one at a time making sure to beat thoroughly between each addition so that the eggs are well incorporated.
4. Fold in flour.
5. Fold in ground hazelnuts, then chopped hazelnuts.
6. Pour cake batter into prepared cake tin and arrange figs cut side up. You don’t need to press the figs into the batter. The weight of the figs will cause them to sink in a bit and the cake will rise above it.
7. Bake for ~55 minutes or until skewer comes out clean when poked into the centre of the cake.

The sweet perfume of the figs baking into the buttery cake is intoxicating. I highly recommend enjoying this cake warm, it’s quite lovely. And even if you leave it a couple of days, this cake retains a moist crumb. Yum.

My discovery of these little treats came just in time for my favourite (read: only) niece’s birthday. So I decided to try them out for her birthday party. I made mine with leftover caramel sauce, but most recipes I’ve seen usually uses a jam in a complementary flavour or just simply with a dusting of cinnamon sugar.

RECIPE – Apple pastry roses (makes 9) Ingredients:

• 2 medium apples
• 3 sheets of puff pastry
• ~180mL caramel sauce
• juice of 1 lemon or lime
• icing sugar for dusting

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Core apples and cut into halves. Thinly slice apples.
3. Place apple slices in a pot of water along with the juice of lemon (or lime) juice. The citrus is there to prevent the apple from discolouring. Bring to boil then turn off heat and allow apples to sit in the hot water for ~5 minutes until softened. Drain and reserve.
4. Cut sheet of pastry into 3 even strips. (Packaged puff pastry in Australia comes in a standard size of 24x24cm.)
5. Spread ~1 tablespoon of caramel sauce along the top half of the pastry strip.
6. Layer apple slices along the pastry strip so that about half of the curve is above the pastry and slices of apple overlap each other.
7. Bring the bottom half of the pastry strip up to fold the pastry in half and roll pastry from one side to the other.
8. Place roses in muffin pan and bake at 180°C fan forced for 35-40 minutes or until inner layers of pastry has cooked through. If the outer layers are getting too golden, cover with aluminum foil for the final ~10 minutes.
9. Dust with icing sugar. Best served warm, with extra caramel sauce and a scoop of ice cream :).

These are quite a delight for your sights. Nothing melts my heart quicker than when a little cherub tells me something I’ve made for them is beautiful!  I’m so happy my darling niece loved the finished product.

…But in the spirit of full disclosure, the little bub did not eat her treat. It was taken up by the adults instead! And maybe she was just smart enough to know that this treat is more about looks than taste. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the taste, and in fact some of the adults really quite liked it, especially those with less of a sweet tooth than me. I made that comment because personally I find the ratio of pastry to filling not quite right for my tastes. I mean compare it to an apple pie or tart tartin; there is far too little apple and sauce to pastry. You need all that pastry as structural support to maintain the shape of the rose, so you end up mostly tasting the pastry instead of the filling. Which makes for a slightly bland treat and why I think it’s best served up with extra caramel sauce and side of ice cream.

For those uninitiated, takoyaki is a Japanese snack food of octopus balls. These small spheres have a crisp shell, with a custard-like centre, diced octopus, pickled ginger and spring onions, and are then topped with the a sweet sauce, mayonnaise, dried seaweed and dried bonito shavings. With so much going on, deliciousness was always a given, but surprisingly – it’s rather easy to make. The only requirement is having the right pan to cook them in! The batter is a simple standard mixture of flour, egg, seasoning and dashi (a Japanese style fish and seaweed stock). Fillings, on the other hand can vary quite a bit, but most typically include dice octopus (the tako part of takoyaki), spring onion, pickled ginger and tempura scraps. A popular new age version I saw in Osaka was cream cheese takoyaki!

The below recipe is thanks to little japan mama. The many glowing praises for that recipe were more than enough to persuade me. Only change in my version is the omission of pickled ginger in the filling.

I do usually like making my own stock, but in this case, I just used the instant variety. I can’t profess to having any insight on how to brew a good dashi, and it seems a bit overkill to brew my own dashi only for it to be included in a food where I won’t be able to taste the difference. Like the rest of the Japanese ingredients, instant dashi powder can be found at Japanese grocers. It pays to spend a bit of time there to look for a product to suit your dietary requirements. Some products will have lots of flavour enhancers/additives, while others will only use natural extracts and yet others will be vegetarian. The one I bought only has salt, dried sardine, kelp, mushroom and sugar; with 1/2 a sachet being enough to make 600mL of dashi. In case you cannot read the package instructions, generally ~1 teaspoon of dashi powder will brew 500mL of stock for use in the below recipe. If you can’t find any dashi powder, plain water or chicken stock can be substituted but obviously the final product will have a lesser seafood flavour.

RECIPE – TAKOYAKI (makes ~28 large balls)

Original recipe from little japan mama

Ingredients:

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoon corn starch
• 2 eggs
• 500mL dashi
• 3 teaspoons soy sauce
• oil for cooking

Filling:

• 250g octopus (about 1 tentacle)
• 2-3 spring onions, chopped

Toppings:

• Takoyaki sauce (or fruity sweet sauce such as bbq sauce could be substituted)
• Kewpie mayonnaise
• green seaweed flakes
• dried bonito shavings

Method:

1. To cook octopus, bring a medium-large pot of water to boil. Once boiling, submerge whole tentacle in the water and simmer on medium heat for ~4 minutes or until cooked through. Octopus cooks very quickly and you want to avoid overcooking to keep it tender. Rinse in cold water, dice into small pieces then reserve.
2. Prepare batter by mixing ingredients together until you get a thin and smooth consistency.
3. Preheat the takoyaki pan and brush all over with oil.
4. Once the pan is near smoking point, it is ready for use. Pour batter into the takoyaki pan, making sure to overfill the cavities.
5. Evenly distribute octopus pieces and chopped spring onions to ensure each ball will have a bit of everything.
6. Allow batter to cook for a few minutes until a crust has developed. Once a crust has developed, you will be able to use skewers to pull in the excess batter from the pan and turn balls around. Continually turn balls to get them into a spherical shape and ensure they are cooked through before removing.
7. Serve with generous additions of the suggested toppings.

Doesn’t it look so appetising? It actually looks like it’s more work than it is! But my beneficiaries won’t need to know that… When they thank me for slaving away in the kitchen to produce these yummy morsels up, I’m just going to stay quiet and nod in agreement ;).

Being me, this isn’t a 100% pure French recipe for duck l’orange. The recipe has French roots, but I have adapted a couple of minor Chinese influences as well. Not huge things that would change the essence of dish, but small tweaks to enhance the recipe and add a bit of personal flair. Most notably, rubbing the skin with salt and 5 spice powder and drying out the duck skin overnight in the fridge.

Drying out the skin until it feels parched is a technique the Chinese use for Peking duck to ensure the skin crisps up nicely. When I’m time poor, I have been known to dry the duck skin out by blasting it with a hairdryer for ~20 minutes (if you adopt this approach just make sure you do the drying prior to the spice rub! Lest you blow spice all over your kitchen.). The 5 spice? Well the Chinese already serve their 5 spice laced roast duck with a plum sauce, so it’s a natural extension to match 5 spice with an orange sauce. How can you argue with that logic?

I enjoy making my own stock, so it is by no exception that I made duck stock for the sauce. Homemade stock just taste better and is simply better for you. Plus, I wouldn’t know where to begin looking for packaged duck stock. Do they even sell it in stores…? I get my duck carcasses from a local Chinese roasting house, cover a couple of them in a pot of simmering water and just steep the flavour over 2-3hours. (Fyi Chinese roast ducks tend to be stuffed with shallots, spices and other good stuff, I leave these remnants in the carcasses and just strain them out later to get a full bodied and clear stock.)  If you can’t access duck carcasses and/or are time poor, chicken stock would be a reasonable substitute.

RECIPE – Duck l’orange (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• 1 whole roasting duck
• 1 1/2 tablespoon 5 spice powder
• 1/2 tablespoon salt
• strips of zest from 1 orange
• 2 gloves garlic, bruised
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 2 shallots, quartered

Sauce:

• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or white white vinegar)
• 1 cup fresh orange juice
• 3/4 cup duck stock
• 2 shallots, roughly chopped
• zest of 1 orange
• 25g butter
• starch slurry comprising equal parts corn or potato starch dissolved in water (I use about 1 1/2 tablespoon of each, but you may use more or less depending your preference for sauce consistency)
• salt to taste (optional – I don’t add any salt to my sauce as the duck stock adds enough savory notes)

Method:

1. Rub 5 spice powder and salt all over the duck. Place duck on roasting rack and refrigerate overnight uncovered – this is to dry out the duck skin. Putting it on a rack allows air to circulate all around the duck, making the drying, and later cooking, process more even.
2. The next day preheat oven to 200°C. Return duck to room temperature and stuff its cavity with strips of orange zest, garlic, thyme and shallots.
3. Roast duck breast side up for 1 hour in 200°C fan forced oven. Reduce temperature to 180°C fan forced and cook for the final 30-40 minutes until cooked through and skin is crisp. Rest for ~20 minutes before carving.
4. Prepare sauce by caramelising sugar and water in a saucepan until a deep amber colour has developed. Add in vinegar, orange juice, duck stock and shallots. Bring to a boil then simmer for ~15 minutes.
5. Strain sauce and discard shallots. Return sauce to pan and bring to a simmer. Add butter and season to taste. Once butter has melted add in starch slurry. Mix well to ensure the sauce thickens to a uniform consistency of your preference.
6. Serve carved duck with orange sauce. Garnish with a sprig of thyme and slice of orange. I also plated mine up with mash and garlicky butter beans :).

This is a great dish for our current autumn weather. It strikes a good balance of being comforting without being too heavy. The warming nature of the roast game offset by the tart fruity notes from the citrus sauce. Bon appétit!

Ingredients:

Popcorn milk

• 1 cup unsalted popcorn
• 300mL milk

Caramel sauce

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup (or 60mL) water
• 3/4 cup (or 180mL) thickened cream
• 50g unsalted butter

Ice cream:

• 300mL popcorn milk
• 300mL thickened cream
• 85g sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 1/2 cup unsalted popcorn
• 40mL caramel sauce
• 1/2 cup of unsalted popcorn

Method:

Preparations

1. To make popcorn milk, soak popcorn in milk. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Strain and discard the pulp. Reserve milk.
2. To make the caramel sauce, heat sugar and water in a saucepan on medium heat until dissolved into an amber liquid. Turn the heat down to low and as soon as the liquid takes on a dark shade of amber, remove from heat add butter. Once butter has melted, return pan to low heat and stir in thickened cream until it comes to a boil. The caramel will thicken into a gooey consistency once it cools. Allow to cool completely before storing/using. (As I mentioned earlier, the sauce should be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator. The caramel sauce will solidify a little in the fridge, so you will need to warm it up for use.)

Ice cream

1. Combine popcorn milk, thickened cream, sugar and vanilla bean paste in a saucepan and heat gently until just simmering. Remove from heat.
2. Whisk egg yolks together and continue whisking as you slowly pour in the warmed milk mixture.
3. Transfer mixture back into the saucepan and return to low/medium heat. Continue stirring custard mixture as it is gently heating for ~10 minutes. The custard will thicken a little, but not enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon.
4. Cover custard with cling wrap, making sure the cling wrap touches the surface of the custard (this is to prevent the custard from developing a skin). Chill overnight in refrigerator.
5. Once the custard has chilled through, churn it in your ice cream maker according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. A 15-20 minute churn should be sufficient for this amount of custard using most domestic grade ice cream maker models.
6. Swirl in 40mL of caramel sauce and scatter popcorn pieces through the ice cream.
7. Place ice cream into an airtight container and freeze for at least 3 hours prior to serving. Garnish with popcorn and extra caramel sauce.

Creamy with a hint of popcorn flavour, sticky swirls of caramel and textural contrast from the popcorn pieces. I would say this experimental recipe of mine has worked out rather well. In fact, it has rocketed up to a house favourite. That aside, I’ve satisfied my inner child, which was the most important goal!

I’ve blogged previously about how I make chicken stock; basically just gently simmer cleaned chicken carcasses in water for a number of hours. I make stock on a regular basis and freeze portions, which means making my so called chicken rice isn’t a very intensive affair and can easily be whipped up for a week night dinner. That’s another reason why I do this version rather than the classic Hainanese style. Hope you like this recipe.

RECIPE – Honey soy chicken with chicken rice (serves 4) Roast chicken:

• 1 small-medium chicken, jointed

• 1 tablespoon coriander seeds, ground
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 tablespoon soy
• 1/2 tablespoon dark soy
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon 5 spice powder
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons oil

Chicken rice:

• 2 cups jasmine rice, washed and drained
• ~3cm piece of ginger, minced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 spring onion (white bit only), chopped
• 1 1/2 tablespoons oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• a few pinches ground turmeric (optional extra that turns the rice a beautiful sunshine yellow)
• ~ 3 1/4 cups chicken stock (I eyeball the water to rice ratio, hence the approximation here)
• 2 pandan leaves knotted (double the quantity if using frozen pandan leaves)
• deep fried shallots for garnish

Chicken broth:

• 1L clear chicken stock
• salt and pepper to taste
• handful chopped spring onions and coriander leaves

Method:

1. To joint chicken, remove backbone then cut down the breast bone to halve the chook. Pull legs away from body and feel for the joint between thigh and body. Push your knife hard against the joint to cut through. Separate drumstick from thigh using the same technique. Repeat to separate the wing from the body. I also like to cut the breast in half so that the pieces are roughly similar sized. Do the same to the other half and you should end up with 10 chicken pieces.
2. Reheat oven to 180°C.
3. Mix together ingredients for honey soy marinade. Marinade chicken for at least 30mins.
4. Place chicken pieces skin side up on a lined baking tray and bake at 180ºC fan forced for ~25 mins or until cooked through.
5. While chicken is cooking prepare chicken rice by heating 1 1/2 tablespoon of oil in a wok on medium heat. Fry minced garlic, ginger and chopped spring onion until fragrant. Turn heat on high then add in washed and dried raw rice. Season generously (salt helps bring out the chicken flavour) and add in a couple of sprinkles of turmeric powder. Toss to mix well then remove from heat.
6. Place fried raw rice into a rice cooker or medium sized pot along with pandan leaves and chicken stock to cook.  If cooking on a stove, bring pot to the boil then reduce heat down to a gentle simmer until all the stock as been absorbed and rice is tender.
7. Prepare chicken broth by heating chicken stock with seasoning and chopped spring onions/coriander. (The greens sink to the bottom if you add it during the heating process. If you prefer the greens to sit on top of the broth, add them after you’ve ladled it into bowls.)
8. Plate up chicken rice with a couple of pieces chicken and serve alongside a bowl of hot chicken broth (I also served up a side of steam veggies). Best eaten immediately.

That is a hug on a plate if there ever is one. It may not be traditional, but the Hainanese side of the family has always been more than happy to wolf this down. That should speak for itself :).

This following recipe is based on the one from Kitchen Tigress‘, because just as she took the time to explain the subtleties of the variations in recipes for kaya, she has experimented with a few recipe variations for this steamed tapioca cake before she settled on this one. And it’s a damn good one too! I’ve applied her ratio of ingredients and have just adjusted it by 1.5x to fit my 20cm x 20cm square pan. The other two variations are mostly cosmetic, I’ve used green instead of blue and I’ve used a different pattern of layering. Also I don’t bother lining my pan with parchment paper because I have a non-stick pan. The cake itself is inherently oily from the coconut milk and I haven’t had problems with it sticking even when I didn’t use a non-stick pan.

This recipe omits the use of rice flour, because KT’s post explains, the addition of rice flour results in a firmer set cake and should only be made with thinner layers. As a lover of chewy textured things, I am totally in love with this tapioca starch only recipe. It’s perfection. I can even report that I’ve made a batch for my mum’s birthday and she LOVED it; which is saying something because my mother can be rather hard to please!

I’ve even gone and done the maths for you if you want to achieve 9 perfect layers. If you follow my recipe portions for a 20x20cm square pan, the following recipe will yield approx. 1250mL of batter. Divided by 9, each layer should be about 140mL (this figure has been rounded up for those of you checking my sums). 5 layers of green means 695mL of green batter and 555mL of white batter and once complete you will have a steamed cake with a height of about 25mm. I also love how this recipe brings out the maths geek in me.

A couple of quick rules to achieve this excellent layering effect:

1. Only add on new layers once the lower layer has been set. You can test this by poking the layer with a chopstick. The layer should be firm in the centre.
2. You need to add new layers on quickly. The top of the base layer needs to be hot in order for the next layer to stick on. So after you open your steamer, you need to quickly pour in the new layer. Don’t pour in the new layer after you’ve spent 10 seconds checking on whether the layer is complete or not. If you must check if the layer is done, make sure you re-steam it so that the top of the layer can get warm again before adding in the next layer.

Just a couple of more notes before I get to the recipe, fresh pandan leaves can usually be found at selected Asian markets. I get mine from Footscray’s Saigon Market, but if you don’t have any luck tracking it down, the frozen variety can be found at many Asian grocers. The coconut milk I’ve used in the recipe contains 70% coconut extract with the remainder being water. Using a coconut milk with a higher or lower concentration of coconut extract will alter the richness and potentially the density of the resultant steamed cake. Tapioca starch and pandan paste can found in Asian grocers and I believe even some mainstream supermarkets carry these products now as well, though these items are probably cheaper to get it from the Asian stores.

RECIPE – Steamed tapioca layer cake (makes 20x20cm square)

Adapted from recipe by Kitchen Tigress

Ingredients:

• 600mL coconut milk (70% coconut extract)
• 300g tapioca starch
• 278g sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• a couple of drops of pandan paste

• 4 fresh pandan leaves (8 if using the frozen variety)
• 260mL water

Method:

1. Prepare steamer.
2. To make pandan water, cut pandan leaves into ~10cm lengths and place into a medium sized pot with 260mL of water. Allow to simmer for at least 5 minutes to extract fragrance and flavour or pandan. Strain 240mL of pandan water and discard pandan leaves. (If you don’t have 240mL of water, just top up with tap water.)
3. Return 240mL pandan water back into pot, then add in sugar and salt to dissolve over low heat. Turn off heat.
4. Add in coconut milk and stir until uniform then add tapioca starch. Stir well to combine into a smooth batter. Strain batter to ensure no lumps. If there are any clumped up bits of tapioca starch, just push them through the strainer and mix well.
5. Pour out 695mL of batter into a separate bowl. Into the 695mL of batter, add in a few drops of pandan paste and mix well until the desired colour has been reached.
6. Pour ~140mL of green batter into the pan and steam on hight heat for ~5 minutes or until cooked through. Pour 140mL of white batter over the cooked green layer and steam for 5 minutes. Keep alternating 140mL of batter until all the batter is used up. You should give the batter a gentle stirring before each pouring to ensure the tapioca starch doesn’t sink.
7. Once the final layer has been poured, steam for ~10 mins until cooked through (the top should be firm if you poke it with a chopstick).
8. Remove pan from steamer and allow to cool to room temperature before cutting into individual pieces.
9. To cut the tapioca cake, use a knife (or in my case, a cleaver!) larger than the cake and push in a single downward motion. Do not saw the cake because that will give you ugly edges.
10. Store in an airtight container. If you live in a cooler climate environment, you will be able to get away with leaving it out on the counter in a cool location away from sunlight. If you live in a warmer climate, you should refrigerate these. Putting these in the fridge will alter the texture (making it harder), but they can be softened again with a gentle steaming. They will keep for a few days.

Diamond and triangular shapes of this little steamed cake is probably the most classic look. But it’s easier for me to demonstrate my layers in photographs in square pieces :). It is a little bit of a labour of love having to sit around in the kitchen cooking each layer individually, but it really is worth it. Hope you enjoy this treat from SE Asia as much as I do.