Chinese Steam cakes for kids II

This is a very similar steam cake, the only difference is the recipe:

Palm Sugar            125g
Self-raising flour   200g
Milk                      150g
Water                      50ml

My child love the process of chopping up palm sugar, which came in a small cylindrical block.
What I have decided to do, was to do a fine chop, add the water and melt it slowly. The amount
of water was right and the texture of the batter came out OK.

As shown, the blossom worked for some of the cakes, only two of them were well rounded, not a hint of any smile, they are green and red. Due to the amount of milk used, it was quite heavy and moist, not the typical of what my girl likes!

This recipe, using the self-raising flour, the blossoming effect was more pronounced, however, the
cake was heavier. No action like drawing an X was used.

My child is a little like me, love to play with unusual new types of ingredients, but finicky with food
and won't eat anything she doesn't fancy. I realized that baking together really gives us something to
make and bond over, usually me agreeing to her riot of colors and her photography ideas. Well, as a team we must get used to listening and accepting inputs that we do not necessarily agree to. Accepting other view points is part of getting along and understanding each other.

Chinese Steam cakes for Kids

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Recipe

Water                   300ml
Brown Sugar       150g
Rice flour             250g
Eno fruits Salts    2 tbsp

The children simply enjoyed spooning the batter into their assorted cupcake cases. They love to paint the batter into bright rainbow hues. Like making a magic potion, adding a small tea spoon of Eno salts into each cupcake, the bubbling starts to act. Put these into the steam, and in 15-20 minutes, its done!

The blooming like a flower effect is dependent on a number of factors:

• The amount of Eno added
• The height/width ratio of the cupcake, the higher, the better

This has been an interesting series of experiments for me.

I have been reading about a couple of theories regarding how to make this particular cake smile. For the Chinese, its called Fa Gao or Huat Kueh. It must blossom up like a flower to get the meaning of prosperity. However a cake that does not blossom, is edible too! Apparently there are so many versions of it, some are made with Pandan leaves extract, which can be very natural green colour. The Malays love to make this cake too, however they are not too concerned with the blooming effect.

There are some theories on how to make it bloom:

• amount of raising agent
• height of container must be taller than the width
• cutting action of a knife aids the blooming
• amount of batter must be filled to the brim of the container 

To conduct this experiment, we are using the same batter. We are varying the type of containers used, using three types of containers: aluminium cups, 2 different sizes of paper cups. We are using varying amounts of batter and varying amounts of  raising agent. No cutting action was used in this experiment.

Observation of the experiments leads to the following discoveries:
The container shape, cutting action is not a critical factor for blooming.
The blooming will still happen even if the batter did not reach the brim of the container.

The factors affecting the blooming are more likely to be:
the amount of raising agent used and the pressure on the batter.
The green cake has an unusual shape on the smile, as the cake is squashed between other cakes.
When the cake raises to the top of the container, when there is uniform pressure on the cake, it blooms beautifully like the yellow cake and the orange one next to it.

We have to get the proportion of raising and timing of putting the raising agent right. if the duration of starting to steam the cake after putting the raising agent too long, the cake might be dense as the bubbling action is over before the cake is steamed. This results in a flat cake. To get a rounded cake, the raising agent must be doing its work while in the steamer.

Good luck to anyone trying to make this cake. Leave me some comments and pictures if yours turned out well!

Flower bouquet

This is an original creation that looks more like a something you will find on top of a fruit cake. These are typical of the fruits that my kids love.

Three Little Friends

I have been reading a lot about food art mainly from this wonderful site by Samantha Lee http://instagram.com/leesamantha# I liked it for its simple materials that could be found in the fridge.

I am so inspired by the artwork and the amount of details that goes into these little creations.
What I have done here is to cut out the outlines of the animals using a cutter and filled in the eyes with chocolate and mouth with red icing.

Piggy in the Sun

 

My children love a little artwork, it keeps their creativity juices flowing and motivates them up eat up their cute ideas. For this activity we used the following ingredients:

Orange, strawberries, blueberries, cheese, cherry tomatoes, pancake, sliced cheese red icing.

My daughter has some great ideas how to add a little detailing like put little pig nostrils using red icing, sticking the blue berries on using a little icing.

Do you know the Muffin Man

This is what Ying Yue come up with when I left her alone with some melted chocolate, pink icing, blueberries, and premix muffins.

The light brown chocolate comes from mixing dark chocolate with white chocolate.
I have never made white chocolate curls, she learnt it from youtube.

What great ideas kids can learn from watching youtube!

Fruity Oatmeal

We were given  a packet of oatmeal by grandmother. Ying Yue was so enthusiastic about having some oatmeal that we decided to try making it. There is an art in making oatmeal. Not well cooked, it is very hard and tasteless. Watery oatmeal is also not very appetizing. After some experimentation, we have come up with something that we like very much.

Ingredients
Oatmeal
Water
Sugar
Fruits
Raisins

Bring the oatmeal to a boil. Ying Yue had fun stirring it with a whisk, which helps in the cooking process. This process reminds me of breaking rice grains for Cantonese style porridge. This helps to create a thick creamy texture. The thickness of the oatmeal is also dependent on the amount of water added. I never enjoyed my oatmeal breakfast as a child and wonder why she wanted to make this particular dish. While we were busy with this mother and child bonding session, she mentioned that she had this for breakfast in the childcare. I suppose adding some sugar helps to make it more palatable.



Ying Yue came up with something that really reminded me of the little Chang Jing in the very popular Korean drama series. As we were thinking about how to add some fruits, I was thinking her favorite strawberries which was not available at the moment. We found some raisins, orange and blackberries. She came up with different combinations of the fruits for each member of the family.


For Me Chen with extra raisins

For Ying Yue with orange segments



For Daddy with extra blackberries

For Mummy with orange segments



This breakfast worked out for Ying Yue as she loves hands on activities. Ying Yue loves setting up the table for each family, getting everyone spoons. She enjoys partaking in any food she has thoughtfully made and gets to understand why I tell her that making a meal is creating a gift for someone. Sometimes we wonder why the kids didn't like or are lukewarm about the meal we have prepared. However if she has taken part in the making of it, she was so eager having every bit of the food.