23 Apr 17 (Sun) - Lemon Curd and Trio Egg Spinach

Yesterday's attempt at Japanese Cheesecake was not very successful. So was looking forward to today's attempt at lemon curd and trio egg spinach. Have came across the words "lemon curd" many times, especially when I was browsing western desserts recipes, but never thought of attempting to make it until now. Search the Internet for recipes and finally decided to modify from the two that I had narrowed down: one by theKitchn and another by finecooking.

Used the recipe by finecooking and halved it but adopted the method of cooking from theKitchn. I realized that I had to work really fast towards the end when I had to strain the mixture before stirring in the butter because the mixture was starting to thicken as it cooled. The result was a smooth curd with nice yellow colour. Pour the finished product into a clean jam jar and left it aside to cool.

Then proceeded to cook the trio egg spinach. Had a craving for this dish after seeing it on a TV program recently. So search for a recipe and found one that was published in The New Paper. Followed the recipe but reduced the amount of spinach used. The end result? Think I should have added more chicken stock so that it can cover the spinach.

Done with the two dishes. Felt happy. So decided that it was time to do the taste test for the cheesecake from yesterday. Turned out to be quite nice, just that it didn't look nice. Texture-wise, not as smooth as it should be. Maybe because I substituted cake flour by mixing plain flour and cornflour and also because I did not fold the egg whites properly into the batter. Still, got to say that it was a good first attempt. The lemon curd was nice and tangy, and I ate it with another mini cheesecake. As for the trio egg spinach, it would be better if there was more gravy.

22 Apr 17 (Sat) - Japanese Cheesecake

It had been a stressful few weeks and I really needed some cooking therapy. So researched  on what to cook or bake over this weekend. Saw a friend posted her Japanese cheesecake photos some time back and decided to pluck up my courage to give this cake a try.

Search the Internet for recipes and a few came up. So narrowed down to only three: one is by Dr Leslie Tay of ieat ishoot ipost, one is by Bee of Rasa Malaysia and another one by Nami of Just One Cookbook. Out of three recipes, the first two call for cream of tartar which I do not have. So in the end, I decided to adopt the recipe by Nami and halved the portion. Out of the list of ingredients, I do not have cake flour and heavy whipping cream, so use the substitutes as suggested by Nami.

Followed the steps as closely as possible and all seemed fine... until I was done beating the egg whites. I had underestimated the volume of beaten egg white that I would get with three egg whites. I started to panic and made worse when I was folding the egg whites into the cream cheese mixture. My mixing bowl was full to the brim. Did my best to fold the egg whites in and pour the batter into the cake tin. Alas! The cake tin was not enough to hold all of the batter. In the end, I had to use six cupcake cases to use up the rest of the batter.

Before putting into the oven, I already know that the cakes would not turn out well because I could see that the egg whites was not incorporated well into the mixture. Still, I got to see the whole process through, hence in the oven they went. The cupcake size ones rose nicely in the oven, however, the big one was lope-sided. Sigh...

Did the toothpick test and it came out clean. Left the cakes to cool in the oven as instructed in the recipe and then took them out much later. They all shrink to half the height. The big one had a darker top than the smaller ones. Guessed it was because it was nearer to the heat source. Put them all into the fridge to chill overnight. Too disappointed to do any taste test.