Remember a few weeks back, when I made some baked red bean buns. After I wrote that post, I started flipping through my Alex Goh “World of Bread” book again just to see if there was something else there that I could bake. And of course, there were several that I wanted to try.
What was I thinking?!
It all started when one of my friends emailed me the link to the Pear Recipe Challenge at Santana Row. Basically, people enter a recipe using pears, and 5 of them would be chosen to present their recipes before a panel of judges (one of the judges is going to be FoodGal, Carolyn Jung) at the Pear Festival at Santana Row on October 19. The winner would get a cookbook, a restaurant gift card, a shopping spree, and their name in lights, (well, okay, their name on the SR website…close enough). It got me thinking because I recalled seeing this amazing picture of a poached pear in "Working the Plate" by Christopher Styler and wanting to do a poached pear myself.
Continue reading Evolution of Dessert: Sake-Poached Asian Pears with Ume and Li Hing Sauce
If you’ve ever visited an Asian bakery, you’d have noticed that the tables are predominantly covered with bread-y pastries.
Some are savory and others sweet. Most of the fillings are very common to Asians, like red bean paste, lotus paste, and custard for sweet buns or charsiew, curry chicken, pork/meat floss, and sausage for savory buns. I especially enjoy things that have red bean filling in it.
I’ve been trying to recall when I had scones for the first time. For some reason, I don’t recall being very fond of scones while living in Malaysia (which is strange being that we were a British colony at one time and scones should be something I’m familiar with). And when I got to the US, the scones I got at most eateries/bakeries didn’t leave me wanting more—they were always very big, dry and tasted like sawdust in the mouth. I guess I just preferred cakes and cookies then.
Then one day, I read an article in my Fine Cooking magazine on a multi-purpose baking mix and one of the things you could do with it was make scones. I tried it and it was lovely and more cake-like. I made it for several parties and gatherings and it got very good reviews. But this is not the recipe I’m going to share today…that will be another post. Why? Because, believe it or not, I found an EVEN BETTER recipe.