Dumplings galore and kaya (碱水粽, 娘惹粽, 咖椰）

It's Dumpling Festival again this Wednesday. Nowadays, there are dumplings with a variety of flavours with some really exotic ones. I have never tried those innovative creations and still prefer the traditional type. As my dad is a Baba, I would consider myself a half nonya. From young, I have grown up eating nonya dumplings made by my mum and somehow or other, I cannot accustomed myself to accept other types of dumplings. But I like the teochew style dumplings which my maternal grandmother used to make. The teochew dumplings encase ingredients like pork, chestnuts, mushrooms and most importantly, tau sar. However, ever since my grandmother passed away many years back, I rarely have the chance to savour the teochew dumplings again.

One other must have in my family is 'kee chang'. It is healthier and does not contain any traces of oil. For me, 'kee chang' goes really well with kaya and I cannot do without kaya if I were to eat 'kee chang'. Without kaya, I would rather not eat 'kee chang' at all! That's how fussy I am with my affair with 'kee chang'. I must confess that I do not know how to make nonya dumplings and kee chang. It was always my mum who does the frying of ingredients, preparation and wrapping. I am just her assistant for such occasions, helping with washing of leaves and cutting ingredients. I started learning the wrapping skill about 3 years back. Now, I have been promoted (by myself) from just helping with the cutting to wrapping the dumplings. So knowing that my mum will be making the dumplings this weekend, I decided to make my kaya to accompany my kee chang. Making kaya is a tedious task which requires patience, stamina (to keep stirring constantly for an hour or more) and the sheer love of it. The irony is, I am not a great fan of kaya. The only time I can't do without it is when eating 'kee chang'. Weird, isn't it?

These are the 'kee changs'

And nonya dumplings

Mantou

Mantou is just like plain bao without any filling. Like bread, it tastes good if you spread jam or peanut butter on it. But I like it just plain so that I can taste the aroma of fermented dough. These mantous are made using the same recipe as the one I used for making the porcupine baos some time back.

Hamburger buns, brown sugar plain loaf and.... whoof.... whoof....

I am getting a little lazy in posting these few days but still enthusiastically engaged in my baking rituals. So what have I baked? As usual, I cannot get by without baking breads. I have just bought a bottle of peanut butter spread and thus decided that I should bake something simple and plain so as to make good use of the peanut butter. These humdrum hamburgers may look unenticing but they surely will taste different with a generous spread of peanut butter sandwiched between. The brown sugar plain bread alike... yummy!

And then there are these cute little doggy cookies that I simply had to have my hands on making them. They are just so adorable and tasty!

Ingredients:

180g butter
80g horlicks
200g plain flour
25g corn flour
25g milk powder
some chocolate rice, chocolate chips and Koko Krunch

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 140deg C. Sieve flour, corn flour and milk powder.
Cream butter and Horlicks for about three minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
Mix in flour, cornflour and milk powder to form dough.
Divide dough into 10g each and roll into balls.
Use two pieces of Koko Krunch to form the 'ears', chocolate rice for the "eyes", and a chocolate chip in the centre for the 'nose'. Bake at 140 deg C for about 25 minutes.

ABCDEFG......

I had wanted to make these alphabet biscuits for a very long time. Finally, I decided to procrastinate no more and set out to use my newly bought alphabet cutters with enthusiasm. After I mixed the dough, I thought to myself: this must be quite an easy task and I should be able to complete by mid morning. Alas! I was totally wrong! After chilling the dough for 30 mins, I took it out and started to imprint the cutters onto the dough. To my dismay, the dough kept sticking to the cutters and I had a hard time trying to release the dough out. Dusting the cutters did not help much either. In the end, I decided to chill the dough for another 1 hour. This time, it became too hard and started to break once I cut it. Errrgh!!! What I thought was a no mean feat task turned out to be something messy and unmanageable. I then dusted my working surface, the cutters as well as the dough with more copious amount of flour. Still some of the alphabets refused to co-operate with me. After I managed to use up all the dough, I was already dead beaten. I wonder if I would still have the fortitude to use these menacing cutters again.....

Long overdue

sandwich loaf


turtle bao with lotus paste

plain red turtle bao

ang ku kueh

wa ko kueh

steamed egg cake

green bean cookies

mochi bread

rolled oats loaf