31 Oct 17 - Halloween Bento! Sort of...

Well... had some leftover blue water which I didn't make into honey water yesterday and used that to cook rice. My oh my, the result was stunning! Cooked some celery, a capsicum egg and opened a can of chili tuna which I added some mixed peas. What a colourful combination to end the Halloween festival. Yay! Will be looking forward to Christmas next. Woohoo!

Cooking the rice using the blue pea flower water gives a uniform colour to the cooked rice.

Since a couple of my colleagues have no idea what blue pea flowers are so packed some to share with them tomorrow. Hope they will have fun playing with those as I did.

30 Oct 17 (Mon) - Eyeball Blue Pea Flower & Osmanthus Flower Jelly

It has been a crazy year so far and an insane two months. In the blink of an eye, October arrived and one of my favourite festivals is here! Halloween! Been some time since I made osmanthus jelly and to celebrate the festival as well as a treat to my colleagues at work, I decided to make some just in time for 31 October. I have made eyeball osmanthus jelly before back in mid-Oct 2014 and I remember my colleagues were not  in the mood to enjoy because we were still in the midst of a busy period.

So this year, I got smarter and planned my telecommute day very carefully at the beginning of the month just so that I can bring the jelly on the actual (Halloween) day. Wanted to do something slightly different this year so had been brain-storming for ideas. Saw some gardening friends posted their blue pea flower drinks on Facebook and an idea came to me. Why not turn the jelly into blue colour using blue pea flowers? It should add some spooky effect on top of the gory eyeballs.

So I asked for some blue pea flowers from one of my gardening friends and she happily gave me a handful last Tuesday. Tried using a few of the dried flowers to make drink and had a fun time playing with it. Do you know that the blue colour will turn into purple after you have added some lemon juice? Yep, I felt like Harry Potter in front of my colleague. Haha...

Finally came the day to make the jelly. Started off by making the eyeballs using canned longan, lingonberry jam and blueberries. Then went on to make the blue water using about 80 dried flowers to 2 liter of water. The result was an Electric Blue colour which I didn't think will work because the eyeballs won't be visible enough. So had to dilute it to get a lighter blue. And what do I do with the extra blue water? I used it to make honey drink. Yum!

Next was adding the osmanthus flowers and two slices of licorice root to the blue water, then boiled for a few minutes to let the flavour out. Once done, strained the liquid to remove the flowers and root. Then cook the jelly using the usual method. As I stirred the liquid, it slowly turned into greenish colour. Fascinating... Finally, assembled the eyeballs and jelly in the 3¼ oz plastic cups I bought from SKP. It was kind of plain so I added some chia seeds to the jelly at the very last minute. It was really exciting to see the final product take shape. Had to control myself not to tell my colleagues what I have prepared for them. Hopefully they will appreciate the jelly.

What are you looking at?

Oops! I dropped my eyeball!

Saw Ellena Guan of Cuisine Paradise posting her Halloween-theme spooky seafood bee hoon on Facebook and thought "How about blue colour rice?". Hahaha... Being lazy, I didn't prepare the blue water beforehand. I merely threw a few dried flowers into the rice cooker while it cooked the rice. The result wasn't as stunning as the bee hoon that Ellena has. Oh well... Maybe next time.

Happy Halloween!!!

Ingredients (Makes 35 cups):
35 longans
35 blueberries
some lingonberry jam*
5 tsp dried osmanthus flowers
2 slices licorice root
1900ml blue pea flower water^
20g konnyaku jelly power
420g sugar
1 tsp chia seeds, soaked
50 dried blue pea flowers
2 liter water

Method:
1.  Fill longan with some jam before inserting a blueberry into the opening (scrape off excess jam, if any) and set aside
2.  Bring 2 liter of water to a boil in a pot, lower heat, add blue pea flowers, stir and simmer for a few minutes to get the blue colour
3.  Strain the blue liquid, measure 1900ml of the liquid into a pot and bring it to a boil
4.  Add osmanthus flowers and licorice root, then simmer for roughly 5mins before removing from heat
5.  Strain the liquid, bring it to a boil then lower the heat
6.  Add konnyaku jelly powder and sugar. Stir until powder and sugar are fully dissolved then off the flame
7.  Place one "eyeball" into one plastic cup, spoon some chia seeds in then pour enough jelly solution to cover the eyeball
8.  Let the jelly cool down a bit in room temperature and chill in fridge till the jelly is set

* You can use any jam that is red in color
^ Make using 50 dried blue pea flowers with 2 liter of water

---------------- Edited on 31 Oct 2017 ----------------

Brought 34 cups of jelly to office. Man, they were heavy. Fortunately, feedback was good and a few were spooked by the eyeballs. Had a colleague who asked if the flavour was sour plum. Hrm... wonder if it was due to the blue pea flowers in large quantity that affected the osmanthus flowers taste. All in, glad that they enjoyed the jelly and a good laugh. Mission Spooky accomplished!

15 Oct 17 (Sun) - Matcha Pound (Birthday) Cake

Tried to bake a matcha sponge cake earlier this month as a birthday cake for a friend. The cake didn't rise enough but I still went ahead to frost and decorate it with fresh strawberries. For the rest of the day, I was contemplating whether I should give the cake because obviously it was a failure, even though it was still edible. However, I got cold feet at the very last minute and didn't give the cake to her, just whatsapp her a photo of that cake.

For the rest of the day/month, she reminded me about the cake whenever she has the chance and I felt bad about it. So decided to make another matcha-flavoured cake for her since, at the same time, I needed some baking therapy as well after a crazy two weeks. Searched the Internet for a good recipe and an idea struck. Since I wasn't confident enough to attempt another sponge cake, I thought why not try a pound cake instead. Shouldn't be too far off from the butter cake that I'm quite good at baking now.

So searched and searched, read a few matcha pound cake recipes and decided to use the one by Japanese Cooking 101. Reduced the recipe amount to that of using one egg. Initially, I was still thinking if I could skip that extra yolk in the recipe but in the end, I still went ahead to follow the recipe. And because I didn't have cake flour, I had to DIY my own using a cake substitute guide I found on The Gracious Wife. And since this was a make or break attempt, I added a pinch of baking soda to make sure the cake would rise.

Put in a lot of effort by making sure that I got every step right, not cutting corners and so on. Underestimated the amount of batter that I would have before I started the process and went to prepare a 4" baking tin instead of the 5" one. So in the end, I used a 4" round cake tin and a small loaf pan for all the batter. The one in the loaf pan was baked through after 20 minutes, but the round cake tin one had to bake for 40 minutes.

The round cake managed to rise to an acceptable height so I went on to modified an old buttercream frosting that I had used before into a matcha-flavoured one while waiting for the cake to cool. It took me another 20-30 minutes to frost the cake and still it wasn't as smooth as those sold commercially. Sigh... Next was to decorate the cake and because I had a few ideas tucked away during the sponge cake attempt, I didn't have to spend a lot of time cracking my brain over it. As I had some frosting left, I half the other cake and sandwich it with the leftover frosting.

All in all, the cake looked nice and I probably give it a 51/100 mark. Taste-wise, I will have to wait for my friend to give me the feedback after she has eaten it. Packed the round cake into a proper box with a proper base and the other cake into a clear plastic box before putting everything into the fridge.

Match Pound Cake (adapted from Japanese Cooking 101)

Ingredients:

1 egg, room temperature 1 yolk, room temperature 75g butter, room temperature 84g caster sugar

1 tbsp water                    1 tbsp matcha powder                     67g cake flour*                     pinch of salt

* 58g plain flour + 9g corn flour

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius.

2.  Grease and line a 4.5" x 2.5" loaf pan and a 4" round cake tin.

3.  Mix egg, yolk and water in a bowl.

4.  Sift cake flour, Matcha powder and salt together in another bowl.

5.  Beat butter for 2 minutes then slowly add sugar in 3 batches while beating, until the mixture become light and fluffy.

6.  Slowly add in the egg mixture in 3 batches while mixing and until well combined.

7.  Fold in the flour mixture in 3 batches until well combined.

8.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tin, smoothen the surface and bake for 20 minutes and 40 minutes respectively.

9.  Cool slightly and remove the cakes from the pan and tin.

10.  Cool the cakes completely on a cooling rack.

Matcha Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

30g butter, room temperature 50g icing sugar

3/4 tsp water                    2 tsp matcha powder

Method:

1.  Whisk all ingredients till smooth and creamy.

--------------- Edited on 16 Oct 2017 ----------------

Gave the cake to my friend and she was very happy. She even took a photo of herself (her hand) cutting the cake. Asked her to take a photo of the inside of the cake because I was curious. Hrm... the cake looked crumbly, wonder if the texture was supposed to be like that or because I substituted the cake flour and added baking soda. Taste-wise, her feedback was that the matcha taste was just nice, not to the extend of being bitter and she liked the brownie-like texture of the cake.