Dessert By Candy

So You Think You’re Hungry?

Ever since I brought to life my concept of reimagined in-flight meal, I have been meaning to follow up with my version of TV dinner. The idea has been sitting at the back of my mind for almost a year but I’m pleased to at last unveil Dessert By Candy’s Hungry-Man TV Dinner!

Rather than your run-of-the-mill Salisbury steak or fried chicken or roast turkey, my hearty TV dinner (1lb. of food!! Of course it’s hearty) takes plenty of culinary influence from North Africa. A juicy piece of sesame lamb burger is served with garlicky tahini yogurt sauce and sprinkled with dukkah. It is paired with crushed new potato & pea salad in mustard seed dressing, sour cherries Israeli couscous, and flaxseed sesame lavash. Are you hungry yet?

Celebration Continues

Celebrating lunar new year the Chinese way is a multi-day ordeal. Last night I tried explaining to American Boyfriend how we used to visit family and friends with a scheduling algorithm that assigns priority based on seniority in the family, how close we are, geographical location, and whether we can optimize one visit to meet with as many people as possible. The goal is to meet everyone on the (very long) list within the three statutory holidays though there is some leeway since the new year celebration officially lasts for ten consecutive days. Boyfriend’s head just about to explode before I even got around to explain the etiquette of red pockets.

With all the visiting back and forth, of course the house needs to be stocked with treats for the guests. On Monday I wrote about Split Pea Coconut Pudding 椰汁馬荳糕 and last year I shared with you my recipe for Steamed Turnip Cake 臘味蘿蔔糕. Both are very traditional recipes. Another popular choice is steamed glutinous rice cake, nian gao 年糕. I absolutely love the soft chewy texture reminiscent of Japanese mochi. Unfortunately, the cake hardens up once cooled. My favourite way to enjoy nian gao is pan fry the slices with a thin coating of eggs. It’s totally awesome but can be a greasy treat, not to mention a lot of work. Enter the baked glutinous rice cake. This is a fusion dessert that combines the traditional taste and texture of steamed rice cake with the richness and ease of butter cake. You can simply slice and serve the cake at room temperature yet still enjoy the soft chewy texture of rice cake. I can’t get enough of this!

Go! Go! Go! Lunar New Year

I’m very impressionable when it comes to traditional holidays and festivities. Even though my family has never been too enthusiastic about lunar new year celebrations, traditions and cultures taught me a few mandatory things for this auspicious time of year. Even though I was rather busy last weekend, I did manage to squeeze in enough time to make a couple of new year cakes.

“Cake” is a loose translation of all the savoury and sweet round puddings we eat for new year celebration. In Cantonese, such puddings are called Go which share the same pronunciation as tall or height. They are enjoyed as much for taste as the implied well wishes of promotion in career or children growing taller. Cake is a rather generic term to describe all these round puck puddings. They can be made with rice flour, starch, grated vegetable, agar agar, tapioca, or beans for a range of various texture. Soft, sticky, starchy, delicate, creamy…you can take your pick. I always make a batch of steamed daikon cake 臘味蘿蔔糕 since it is a family favourite. As for the sweet selection, there are quite a few that I like. This year, I went for something less labour intensive. Enter my personal favourite Coconut Pudding with Yellow Split Peas 椰汁馬荳糕.

Classic Butter Cake

I procrastinated on making the classic French butter cake quatre-quarts for this week’s French Fridays with Dorie. This is a close cousin of the North American pound cake relying on equal parts butter, sugar, flour, and eggs. The technique is what sets the two apart though I’ve made both so many times in the past the excitement has left me long ago.

As I reluctantly scaled out my ingredients, I knew that I could not follow the recipe as written. I would be bored and baking without passion does not give me joy. I don’t bake because somebody made me do it. I bake because it makes me happy. So how can the simple quatre-quarts recipe make me happy? Try beurre noisette, brioche molds, and rumtopf.

Charm Of Cherry Cheesecake

A good friend asked me for recommendation of no-bake cheesecake recipe and I drew a blank. My immediate association for this retro dessert is cream cheese flavour jello which is less than appetizing. I dug a little deeper and apparently there are other options to set the cream cheese filling without resorting to gelatine. I took a fancy to Nigella Lawson’s minimalist version using cream cheese, icing sugar, and whipped cream with a bit of lemon juice, vanilla, and salt for taste. It is like a blank canvas inviting the cook to play around with flavours, mix-in, and toppings. This ought to be the perfect jumping point for my friend to create her own unique cheesecakes. The question remained: how good is this recipe?

There were many criteria I considered aside from taste. Texture and appearance obviously play a big role. The cream cheese filling needs to be smooth to contrast with a crunchy graham cracker crust. Each serving of the dessert must look polished and can be quickly plated without too much fuss. How well does the cheesecake hold in the freezer? Will the final result suffer due to freezing and thawing? It is important that the recipe can be made ahead of time.