Waffles As Yummylicious Dessert and Wholesome Meals

The mere mention of 'Waffles' conjure many images of a cooked, leavened square or round piece of dough with various patterns and flavour. They are typically served as a sweet dessert or snack and for the American version, it is typically expected to be served with ice cream, cream and a sweet syrup.

For us locals, it is common to find many bakeries serving a green coloured version, the pandan waffles, with assortment of jams to choose to go with it. The fact that there is no shortage of queuing customers in front of these stalls at any time of the day, is a testimony of how much we love them!

Personally, I love them too and had done a post titled "Waffles" back in 2011. At that time, I didn't have my own waffle maker and had to borrow one. I bought one eventually one and a half years ago but didn't get down to using it till recently. Once I start using it, I have never had enough of making waffles, both as dessert and as savory wholesome meals!

Old Fashioned Waffle - Love this, with ice cream and a drizzle of maple syrup.
Can never get enough of this!

Waffle Brunch - If you only had waffle as dessert, think again!
By pairing it with scrambled eggs, sautéed tomatoes and a dash of ketchup,
they make wonderful delicious and wholesome meals. Have it for breakfast with a cup of juice, served it with a salad for lunch or simply as it is for a light and easy dinner.

Here's my recipe to share and inspire you. You can make a bigger batch and store in airtight containers in the fridge, ready for a quick and easy snack or meal anytime. I keep mine for up to 3 days. If  you prefer to make fresh, it's not that difficult, except perhaps whipping up the egg white.

Waffle Recipe
Ingredients (Makes 4 pcs of 7in x ¾in round waffle)
- Plain flour  1 cup
- Corn Flour  1.5 tbsp
- Baking Powder  1.5 tsp
- Baking Soda  ¼ tsp
- Salt  0.5 tsp
- Cinnamon Powder  0.5 tsp or 1 tsp, depending on persoanl preference
- Sunflower Oil or Melted Butter  2 tbsp
- Milk  1 cup
- Vanilla Extract  1 tsp
- Egg Yolk 1 no.
- Egg White  1 no.
- Sugar  1.5 tbsp

Steps:

1. Sieve all dry ingredients, except for sugar, into a bowl

2. Mix egg yolk, oil (or melted butter) and milk into the flour mixture, using a hand whisk till mixture is smooth with no lumps

3. Whisk  egg white with sugar till stiff peak form, using either a hand whisk or handheld electric mixer and fold into the batter in 2 or 3 batches

4. Let batter rest for 30 mins in the fridge, before portioning and cooking in your waffle iron. As a rule of thumb, I set mine to high temperature and cook till there's hardly any steam coming out from the side of the waffle iron.
5. Transfer waffle to a rack (so that steam does not get trapped on the underside of the waffle and make it soggy!) while you finished preparing your accompaniment such as ice cream, tomatoes or eggs. Plate as per your preference and serve!

Enjoy!

Note: For Pandan Waffle, replace the following ingredients:

- milk to coconut milk

- vanilla extract to 2 tsp of pandan essence (optional)

- cinnamon powder to 1 tbsp of thick pandan juice (you may blend a small bunch of pandan leaves with the coconut milk, let it steep for half an hour before sieving with a fine sieve to remove the shredded leaves; the steeping will help to draw out the natural green colouring from the leaves)

P.S: I had bought my waffle maker as it was a good brand at a discounted price. However, in my excitement, I failed to notice the waffle plates are not deep enough to make thick waffles. If you prefer those thicker waffle with deeper impression, you may want to take note of this when shopping for your waffle maker, that is, if you have not buy yours yet.

Buffet Dessert on Tier Cake Stand

I have always wanted a cake tier stand to add to my collection of kitchen and bake wares. However, finding one which is pleasing and yet at the same time affordable has not been easy. Thus, the search continued after a year on... till I received one recently, from a very dear friend and her partner as a belated house warming gift!

I couldn't't hide my joy of delight as I carefully unwrapped and opened the gift in front of her, at her insistent that I opened it immediately. Yes, it is beautiful, classic looking and of the colour I had wanted! It may not be of expensive high quality porcelain or bone china, nor is it branded. But because it was from two very dear friends who took time and effort in searching what my heart desire, it is all the more precious than ever.

So I told her, one day I would like to bake an assortment of pastries and present them on their gift, and we would have afternoon tea together, just like what hotels or high end cafes do! Well, one and a half month have gone since I got this precious gift and I have yet to invite them for tea. But I had a chance to present it to another group of dear friends last Saturday, when we had a gathering over at my place. I specially made three different dessert for the occasions and served them buffet style.

My precious 3 tier cake stand, a gift from two very dear friends.

Black Sesame Ice Cream, one of my favourite ice cream flavour.



Durian Mousse Cakes and Chocolate Slices. The latter is dairy, gluten and egg free - the same cake which I made for the Angels while the durian mousse is an improved version of my earlier attempt - richer and more texture as I kept the pulp instead of pureed them.



Ginkgo Barley Beancurd Dessert

Finally, I had satisfied my craving for this dessert, which I had such a long longing ever since I left my internship at the Chinese restaurant more than a year plus back. Those bought outside just did not make my mark. There are many variations to it's name, depending on which ingredients is listed first, though ginkgo tends to be listed first usually. Perhaps because it is the most expensive and hardest to prepare among the three.

Ginkgo Barley Beancurd Dessert, "白果薏米腐竹糖水". I guess what make's the restaurant version special is the addition of soya milk, which makes the broth richer and more fragrant, the extra oomph, especially for those who love soya like me.

It is actually a very easy dessert, just wash and boil, with the exception of ginkgo nuts, if you are preparing from scratch. It took me almost 4 hours for a half kilo bag, from cracking shells, peeling skin, removing the bitter piths and sugaring them in boiling syrup. As mentioned in my earlier post "Qing Tang", I do not fancy ready bought.



Ginkgo Barley Beancurd Dessert - The way I love it, with lots of ginkgo nuts and a rich fragrant soya broth.


It will be some time away before my craving for this dessert comes again, but I am all prepared for it already, with a stash of sweetened, ready prepared ginkgo nuts in my freezer!

Steam Egg Custard in Pumpkin

I remember first having this dessert during my very first visit to Bangkok many years ago and fell in love with it ever since. Over the years, I tried creating it but with varying degree of success, mainly due to the custard not able to set properly while the pumpkin is already way too soft.

Much to my delight, I had a module on Thai dessert making during my course and we were given a copy of the recipe from our Thai chef instructor. The Thai uses palm sugar and coconut milk. For my version, I like to use gula melaka for its stronger flavour, and coconut cream to reduce the liquid content.

Sieve the egg mixture through a cheese cloth to get a smooth texture. I don't have one at my new place and had used a fine sieve, hence, resulting in air bubbles in the custard. There is no exact cookin time as it is dependent on size of pumpkin and level of heat. After 45min, check periodically at 15min intervals. The top of the custard will set first and may give a false impression that the whole custard is cooked. As a guide, tap the top of the custard lightly. If it jiggles, it is an indication that the custard is not yet cooked through.

Generally, it takes an hour plus for the custard to set, and the pumpkin is usually pretty soft by then. Hence, let it cool down before cutting to retain the pumpkin shape and to get nice wedge cuts. This dessert may also be served cold.



Sung Ka-yaa Fug Thong - Steam Egg Custard in Pumpkin



Homemade Ice Cream

One of the things I learned at the restaurant and fell in love with is homemade ice cream. It enabled me to use all natural ingredients, adjust my preferred choice of sweetness and also create my own flavours! Making it at the restaurant and at home, however, produce very different results due to differnt machine used. At the work place, we use paco jet, a high end machine which churns out fine soft texture under 2 mins. At home, I use a small home base version, which is a blessing bestowed on me as the Angels' mum has allowed me to adopt it from them.

For the Angels, I came up with the soya range, after some research from the internet. This range tends to be more icy and sorbet like, without the milk fats from the milk and cream. However, they taste just as good and I even have comments that they are better than some regular ice cream. In terms of texture, the soya range also tends to be harder and very difficult to scoop without defrosting. For this reason, I like to make them as popsicles. They do not melt as fast, compared to the dairy range, which is richer and softer in texture.

Soya chocolate ice cream. A copy of the recipe is posted in an earlier post, "Little Hall of Fame".

Most chocolate manufacturer would without fail, manufacture milk and white chocolate which uses dairy ingredients in the same plant. Hence, extra care has to be taken when buying dark chocolate for non dairy recipes. Always, check the ingredient list and buy from a reputable brand.

Durian and soya strawberry ice cream popsicles. I love this popsicle making set which has cute teddy faces for the handles. The sticks however seems a little flimsy and I worry whether they will break any time soon, especially when we all love to bite into them when eating.  



Qing Tang Dessert

I had craving for ginkgo barley dessert today, which used to be prepared at the Chinese restaurant at which I was attached. I specially met my mum for breakfast at the mall, then bough some fresh ginkgo and a pack of soya milk. It is a tedious process to prepare the fresh ginkgo, which had to be cracked, boiled, peeled, bitter stems removed and then boiled again in sugar syrup till soft and sweet. Though time consuming, I prefer these fresh ones than those pre-cooked ones than comes in vacuum packs. Somehow, I think they contain chemical, even if not stated on the packaging. Otherwise, how can they be kept for such a long time, furthermore, without refrigeration?


While the ginkgo nuts were boiling in the sugar syrup, I went to dig out the other ingredients from my pantry. To my dismay, I couldn't find the dried bean curd sheets, which I couldn't remember finishing them before.Not contend with not having my dessert, I dug out other ingredients, to make Qing Tang instead.

The thing about cooking your own is, you get more ingredients than sugared water. Plus, you can add or replace anything you fancy. In this instant, I had to replace sweet potato with pumpkin and the big sago pearls with small ones, since I was using what I had at the time. The end result is more than satisfying, with it's assortment of ingredients. Only thing is, I  missed the chewy big sago pearls, which the small ones could never replace.

One thing to note when preparing this dessert, most ingredients have to be boiled separately as they require different cooking time. For the sago pearls, the residue water is starchy and thus has to be separated. The only two ingredients which do not require cooking are lily bulb and peng da hai  (澎大海). The latter is a seed, which is washed and soaked in water for it to release a thread like membrane. The key to getting a clear soup is to boiled the longans and red dates together, then the soup sweetened according to taste, before mixing in all other cooked ingredients.


Qing Tang, a supposedly cooling dessert, with barley, dried longans, red dates, ginkgo, sago pearls, white fungus, lily bulbs, pumpkin cubes and peng da hai.



Red Bean Paste Dessert

I have never really like red bean paste dessert, probably a result of food that uses mass produced, ready-made red bean paste from which are more often than not, overly too sweet and with no bean taste in them. These are usually not pure bean paste, but a mix of red bean paste and other cheaper ingredients, usually root vegetables such as potato which gives a similar paste like texture.

While preparing sweetened red beans for the restaurant’s la chendol dessert the other day, I found myself with a large bowl of beans left at the bottom of the pot that was too soft for my purpose. I decided to keep them and make a red bean paste dessert the next day.

Upon Aunty D's suggestion, I bought lily bulb, lotus seeds and white fungus. These ingredients needed to be washed, and the latter two, soaked and boiled in sweetened sugar syrup. Once cooked till softened, I drained them out and kept the syrup aside.

The red beans are then blended to a smooth paste, adding the syrup set aside earlier. All the ingredients are then put together with more water added to achieve a thick soup consistency. This is then brought to a boil, with extra sugar added to achieve a mild sweetness.

The end result? A hot Chinese dessert which I absolutely fell in love! This red bean paste dessert is called '莲生贵子', a play on the ingredients' name. A popular dessert often served at wedding banquets due to its auspicious annotation.




The red bean paste soup, with cooked sago, lotus seeds, white fungus and lilly bulbs.



Plated Dessert at the Restaurant

Friends have been asking me what kind of desserts do I make at the restaurant where I work? After much delay, I finally have gotten these nice photos to show, courtesy of my Chef, who is also the owner of the restaurant.

I have to clarify here that not all of these dessert are my own creations. The first three desserts listed were already on our menu before I worked there. For those of which ideas originated from me, I had a lot of pointers from my Chef on plating, which is a very new skill to me, and also taste pairing. To which I would like to take this opportunity to thank him. THANKS Chef M!, for giving me a chance to work with you and to learn new things.

So here are the delicious sweet treats, beautifully presented :)

Chendol Cream - Chef's creation and one of restaurant's signatures.

  

Sago Melaka - a traditional dessert at the restaurant. What makes ours special is the thick, fragrant, caramelised gula melaka syrup which one can never have enough of, including myself!

Banana Caramel Pudding - steam banana cake served with vanilla ice cream is a all time favourite for the old and young. Am proud to help make the cake softer and more fluffy.

La Chendol - I love the traditional chendol dessert and felt the need to serve our own version in the restaurant, on top of our modern one - Chendol Cream, and it MUST come complete with the green jelly, red beans and attap seeds. Thus, I created a new ice cream, chendol, which is a concentrated version of the traditoanl shaved ice with it's syrup mix. It turned out to be another of our popular dessert and as for myself, I can just eat the ice cream on its own, over and over again, ever day if I can have it!

Frozen Durian Soup - another of my favourite, with a big dollop of pure durian puree on top of a scoop of delicious D24 durian ice cream and crunchy feuilletine in a special concocted syrup.

Jackfruit Log with Raspberries - simply love this combination of sweet, tangy jackfruit icecream with coconut sable, roasted coconut and sour raspberries!

Jackfruit Fritters with Coconut Ice Cream - love this dessert and it's presentation, which is very fine dining style. Takes a fair bit of time to prepare but stunning and delicious outcome!  

Spiced Pumpkin Ice Cream - this is an all pumpkin dessert that includes ice cream, soup and caramelised cubes within. A definite hit for pumpkin lovers including myself! 

Banana Fritters - a different take on our local goreng pisang and my very first fried dessert, which sometimes gives me heart attacks as the chilli batter falls off before the banana goes onto the plate.

Chocolate Parcels - this is another of my favourite presentation which is also the hardest to prepare. Chocolate ganache wrapped in spring roll skin, tied with vanilla pod skin and fried till crispy. With each bite, molten chocolate oozes out, paired with vanilla ice cream, it is a match made in heaven!

Cheesecake? - named by Chef because it taste like one and looks like one. This is actually a Grand Marnie panna cotta paired with raspberry jelly and crumble on top. I created this for the white and red colour layers for the Christmas holiday season.

Chocolate Tarts Trio - original, rum & raisins and curacao with candied ginger. This set was created specially for Christmas take-aways.

Bombe Alaska - a dessert that I never thought possible in our small set up but am proud that I made it! 3 layers of luscious ice cream (banana, chocolate, chestnut) covered with meringue and drizzled with warm rum. Unfortunately, we are unable to serve it flaming like the photo here, which is done here purely for photo effect.

 

Little Hall of Fame

One day, I received a call from one of my favourite magazine, Food &Travel, asking for a photo of myself. It is to be published together with a recipe I had sent it to them for a recipe swap contest few months back. How excited I was! Having my very own recipe published in a food magazine!

To much waiting, that issue finally came out, without me realising it, even though I had been waiting all those while. A friend had alerted me through text messaging, saying that my photo was a full page. I had a big laugh when I finally saw it myself. Nope, it was not the photo of me that was printed in full page, much to my relief actually. It was a photo of the ice cream which the editorial team had made, based on my recipe.

I had created that ice cream recipe for my friend's two angels, one whom had multiple food allergies, dairy being the main group of food. The full story of this is printed as a short intro to the recipe. The success of this recipe is a great encouragement for me to search, modify and to create more wonderful treats for the angels, and also to all who have similar diet concerns.

The full page photo and the recipe as printed in the magazine.