A JELLY GIFT

I think this would make a lovely Mother's Day "gift"! A jelly presented with things inside. Namely fruit. It's sweet, it's pretty, it's a "gift". It's healthier than cake. It puts less calories on the hips and what nots.

Jelled orange juice packed with lychees and a few ruby red strawberries for accent. A golden glob of sunshine gift-wrapped.   

Here's Happy Mother's Day to all mothers. :) Trials and tribulations. Love and laughter. Gratefulness and gratification. What a life.

A Mother's Day....it's full of surprises! And then some ~

I used Sarah-Jane's unique silicone moulds from siliconemoulds.com. I have made HAPPY chocolate cake, carrot CAKE cake, Easter egg madeleines, plum financiers, brioche and some milk jellies using Sarah's moulds and each had turned out perfectly moulded every time. But 'gift' moulds are the first I've ever come across. 

The mould comes in a set of two in one. But if you wanted to use only one you could easily cut it in two. Which I didn't. Because it was too pretty in pink to be cut. 

The recipe ~

Agar agar makes an unwobble-ble jelly. I have never used agar agar in powder form before so I had no idea how much powder to put in. I scrutinized the packet and spied "10 gm .......800 ml water." I was only using about 1 1/4 -1 1/2 cups of juice. So I used about 5 1/2 teaspoons of agar agar. It turned out very firm. I would reduce a little next time.  I think I prefer slightly wobble-ble jellies. This jelly reminded me of a very firm mattress.

Gelatine makes a wobbly melt-in-the-mouth jelly. Agar agar would not melt in the warmth of your mouth. You'll have to bite it to get it down. We are texture obsessed..

I do prefer working with agar agar because it doesn't need refrigeration. I know for sure that it will set. And set very firm. So there is no need to be delicate or for your heart to stop when un-moulding it. 

I remember mak ciks (aunties) leaving trays of bright red agar agar on the kitchen table while they went around with their other kitchen chores. Almost immeidately the agar agar would start to set, get firm and solid. Then I would watch and hear them being cut with a scrunch using one of those copper zig-zag-gy knives and the jellies would be served in slabs. Very pretty!

  
Approximately ................

1  cups orange juice
1/2 cup apple juice

Sugar to taste (if juice isn't sweet enough)

about 5 tsp agar agar powder (or slightly less for a less firm jelly)

Some lychees and a few strawberries to fill

Warm juice, sugar and agar agar powder until sugar and agar agar powder dissolves completely. Pour a thin  1/4 inch layer of jelly into the mould and chill for few minutes, about 5 minutes until the jelly just firms up a little. Drop in the fruits gently. If the mould is small you can fill up with fruits to the top and pour in the rest of the jelly liquid. If the mould is larger do a layer of fruit at a time and chill in between for about 10 minutes each time. Take it out, scratch the surface with a fork a little to ensure that the next layer of jelly adheres. arrange another layer of fruit and pour on jelly liquid again and so on and so forth until you reach the top.

SPICY PRAWN-COCONUT FILLING IN SWEET POTATO DOUGH ~ CUCUR BADAK

I craved these Hippo bites so badly that I had forgotten to measure the ingredients before making them. By the time I did I was halfway through.

These are literally called Hippo Bites. Because by Malay standards they are big. Cucur or bites of any kind, sweet or savoury, are usually made in dainty bite-sized pieces so that you could pop the whole thing into your mouth in one go ~ without looking like you have just bitten off a hunky chunk of a hippo. But these are made bigger. So relatively speaking these are hippo bites or cucur badak.

Those bright tumeric-yellow cake cups come from Sarah-Jane siliconemoulds.com Gorgeous yellow no?

I LOVE these and I have an all time craving for them. Freshly grated coconut is sauteed in a mixture of pounded onions, chilly and dried shrimps, diced fresh prawns, sliced lemon grass and some tumeric. The dough is the exact same dough used for the kuih keria or sweet potato doughnuts. And also deep fried. A subtle sweet, chewy crust hiding a spicy coconut shrimp filling inside. Wooooooo...... I LOVE. 

Recipe ~

Sweet potato dough ~ same as sweet potato doughnuts without the sugar scabs. You might want to double the recipe..

I can't promise that the amount of dough will match the amount of coconut shrimp filling. You might end up with extra filling as I did. Freeze it for making more another time. 

1 1/2 cups of steamed, completely cooled and mashed sweet potatoes ( I used slightly more than 1 1/2)
About 3/4 cup of plain flour or less
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all above ingredients together until it becomes a firm dough.  

Filling ......approximate values ~

3-4 shallots, peeled and sliced

2 garlic
3 slices fresh ginger
2-3 red chillies

3 heaped tablespoons of dried shrimps, re-hydrated

1 tsp tumeric powder or 1/2 inch fresh tumeric 

6-7 prawns, shelled, de-veined and chopped finely

1 large or 2 skinny lemon grass, the white part sliced finely

2 T cooking oil, any vegetable oil

21/4 cups of freshly grated coconut

Pound the onions, garlic and dried shrimps and fresh tumeric if using, in a pestle and mortar, until it becomes a moderately fine mush. 

Heat a pan. Pour in the cooking oil. Saute the pounded ingredients, and powdered tumeric at this point if using, until fragrant and turning lightly brown around the edges.

Add the diced fresh prawns, sliced lemom grass  and stir to mix in and until the prawns just turn pink. Add the grated coconut and mix well over low heat. Add a touch of water if the mixture seems a little dry. The mixture should be moist but NOT wet. add salt and pepper to taste. Leave aside to cool.

Shape the dough into balls the size of ping pong balls or perhaps slightly larger. Make a spacious depression in the centre and fill with the coconut-shrimp filling. At least a heaped teaspoon of it. Cover up and seal. Shape into a ball and then flatten it so that it looks like a fat chubby disc.  Keep on a plate and finish off the rest of the dough and filling. Any extra filling can be frozen and then defrosted to be used when you make more next time.

Heat medium pan. Add cooking oil to about an inch deep. Heat the oil till hot. Fry the cucur badak until a deep golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper to rid of excess oil. Serve warm or at room temperature. I like it at room temperature.

I am submitting this to Malaysian Monday. Sharon from Test With Skewer is hosting the next Malaysian Monday. Find out more about Malaysian Monday here.

MILK JELLY WITH LEMON ORANGE SAUCE

This jelly made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz 2nd May 2011. Thank you to the Foodbuzz community. Happy Buzzday!

Truth is....I was tentative about making jelly. I rarely make jelly. It's like eating air. Almost. It doesn't fill you up, it doesn't provide you with much nutrition, its not ice cream, it's not pudding, it's simply solidified sweet drink in wobbly form. Neither hunkily solid nor refreshingly liquid. Neither here nor there, neither good nor bad, neither right nor wrong.

So I rarely have never made jelly to the memory of my grown children (have I sinned?). Some of them didn't quite know what it was when I did make these pretty things. They asked. And I answered "Jelly".  Cynical faces. Gelatine was foreign to them too (because I never did speak gelatine to them). So I spoke jelly. Again. Never mind. I gave up.

But when I offered some to Z and R they finished it up and announced  "Sedap". R playfully repeated it several times to aggravate me :) Because he knew there wasn't any left. 

Indeed. It was sweet surrender when I yielded peacefully to the simple combination of fresh milk, sugar and of course gelatine. It proved quite delicious or 'sedaaaap'. It tasted............ pretty. As sweetly pretty as Kate Middleton.  And Jelly humoured me by wobbling all the way as I walked it from the refrigerator to the table. Unlike Kate Middleton.

And look at it.  It is indeed truly pretty after having been set and chilled in those pretty pink moulds. 

Thanks to Sarah-Jane of siliconemoulds.com. Sarah-Jane designs the most pretty moulds ever. The moulds and the jelly were truly and sweetly satisfying. Happy sigh.......and long live the Jelly!

And the silicone moulds too. I practically pushed the jelly out. So easy peasy. Check here if you'd like to see the lovely range of silicone moulds available.

The recipe ~

Yield : Four 170 ml moulds of jelly

2 1/2 cups fresh milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tsp powdered gelatine
3 small egg yolks

Sauce ~


grated peel of 1 lemon
juice if 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 orange
1/3 cup sugar or to taste


Put milk, sugar and gelatine in a small pot and place over low heat. Bring almost to boiling point and stir to dissolve gelatine.. Once gelatine has dissolved remoe from heat. Set aside.


Beat egg yolks in a medium bowl. Pour hot milk mixture over gradually stirring all the time to mix. Pour into small moulds or a 3 3/4 cup mould. leave aside to cool and place in refrigerator to set firmly for several hours or overnight.


Sauce ~


Place grated zest of lemon and juice of lemon and orange and sugar in a small pot. Place over low heat and stir until the sauce thickens into a light syrup. Leave to cool. Pour around jellies/jelly to serve.

BRIOCHE ~ PRONOUNCED BRIYOSH

These Brioche made the Top 9 on Foodbuzz today 30th April 2011. Thank you to the Foodbuzz community! Happy Buzzday :)

I used Sarah-Jane's brioche moulds from siliconemoulds.com. to make the brioche. They came out adorable with little buns on their heads. I thought it was quite funny when I picked one up and the little bun-head rolled off almost immediately. But it was only the one.  How comic it would have been if all of them had rolled off.

These were the silicone moulds from siliconemoulds.com that Sarah had mailed me. As always nothing could be easier than un-moulding from a  silicone mould.  Effortless. 

A tip I had learnt so that the tops are perfectly middle when they finished baking was to depress the base dough in the middle right to the bottom with your thumb before brushing egg yolk and placing the bun-head on top. Generally, it worked except for a few. But lopsided or not they were delicious, soft, buttery and adorable. What more does one need in a bun.

They photograph well too. But breads always do.

So do milk bottles ~

And then buns. And their bun-heads ~

I wish I had something more to say ~

But I don't. So here's the recipe ~ adapted from Lemons and Anchovies

The brioche dough is usually kept in the refrigerator overnight retarding the dough to develop the flavour and stiffen the rich, buttery and soft dough for easier handling....Wikipedia

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 package dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)
• 3 eggs beaten plus one more, beaten, for glazing
• 3 tablespoons room temperature milk
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, diced

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl; stir in sugar and yeast. Make a well in the center of the mixture and add the eggs and milk.
 

Beat the eggs and milk together and gradually incorporate the dry ingredients, making a soft dough.  Transfer the dough onto a lightly-floured surface and knead well for about five minutes, until it is smooth and elastic.  I had floured my hands rather than sprinkled flour onto the board when it was sticky.

Add a few pieces of room temperature butter to the dough and continue to knead until the butter is incorporated.  About 2 minutes of kneading for each addition of butter.  Continue this process until you have added all the butter.  I kneaded a few more minutes after the butter has been added until I stopped seeing chunks of butter in the dough.  

I wrapped in plastic wrap anyway and chilled for about 2 hours.

I did not bother greasing the brioche moulds. Take a golf ball size of douh and shape into a ball. Place seam side down into the mould.  Fill up the rest of the moulds similarly and let it rise until double in size. I can't rememebr how many minutes it took. Maybe 30 - 40minutes. Meanwhile shape smaller balls of dough into small rounds for the bun-heads. Keep aside. Press your thumb inot the middle of a risen  risen dough. brush the top with egg yolk and stick a bun-head on the top.  Do the same for the rest.

Cover the balls and allow them to rest for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.  Preheat oven to 400ºF. Before baking brush all buns with beaten eg. Bake until golden and puffed. About 12-15 minutes.