CNY Bakes - Cornflake Cookies with Cranberries

Chinese New Year is just around the corner. I dread the spring cleaning.. as a matter of fact, I have started cleaning since Dec 2012 but I can't seem to complete my cleaning spree! Weekends are always spent with my boys, or me slacking at home catching up on my sleep. I shall start cleaning tonight, starting with arranging the boys cupboard, kitchen cabinet then washing their CNY clothes. Speaking of which, I only gotten myself 2 top from Love, Bonito and a pair of Gap jeans (during Black Friday sale, woohoo!). Still need to get another dress for Grampa's birthday dinner and a bottom to go with another top.

I digress, this post is about CNY bakes. I made it a point to bake more variety and quantity this year, to give away to family and friends. ^_^
Cornflake cookies is one of my many fave cookies and was glad one forumer posted her recipe on Munch Ministry. Thank you Molly Tay for sharing your recipe and giving us tips along the way.
I added cranberries to the cookies for that extra crunch though. You can add other like almonds, macadamia nuts too.


Cornflake cookies (Molly Tay's recipe)

100g unsalted butter, room temperature
100g castor sugar
175g self-raising flour
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract (I added this for that extra oomph)
3/4 cup crushed cornflake
Chopped cranberries

How?
- Using a wooden spoon, cream butter and sugar together.
- Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix well.
- Add flour and mix until just combined (do not overmix as it will cause the cookie to turn hard)
- Add chopped cranberries.
- Round 1 tsp of dough and cover it with crushed cornflake. Flatten it abit using a fork.
- Bake at 170C for 18 - 20 minutes.



Passionfruit Chiffon Cake

Few weeks ago (yes, you read it right..it was few weeks ago) the usual durian stall that I frequent happen to sell passionfruit. I love passionfruit for its juiciness with a tinge of sour in it. Uncle was nice to gave me 500g free of charge!!
I had some leftovers and decided to make chiffon cake out of them using Kevin Chai's recipe. Tweaked them a little bit according to my liking. I doubled the recipe as my tube pan is 20cm and this recipe call for 2 eggs only.

Passionfruit Chiffon Cake (adapted fr Kevin Chai)
Egg yolk batter
4 egg yolks
40ml cooking oil - you can use canola or corn oil.
100g passionfruit - this is approximately 2 passionfruit. Mash them up a bit
30g caster sugar - I reduced this amount because passionfruit is sweet
80g self-raising flour

Egg White mixture
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
40g caster sugar - I did not double the amount of sugar

How?
- In a clean bowl, combine egg yolk, oil, sugar, passionfruit pulp. Fold in sifted flour.
- Mix until it forms batter.
- In a separate clean bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until its frothy.
- Put in sugar gradually when soft peak forms. Beat egg white until a stage before stiff peak.
- Fold in 1/3 of egg white mixture into egg batter. Repeat for remaining egg whites mixture.
- Pour batter into tube pan.
- Bake at preheated oven of 170C for 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and invert cake to cool.
Egg yolk batter




Inverting the cake to cool it down

Ham & Cheese Bread Cup

Post-Christmas..I'm sure many of you would have left-over of turkey and ham. Well, we didn't have turkey but plenty of ham left. Beside having them with my favorite instant noodles, decided to bake ham & cheese bread. Munch Ministry site has been popping with a lot of similar bread but in cups. I bought some pretty cupcake liners from Taobao spree earlier and this is a good chance to put them at use.

I picked a recipe from this book and had my friend helped to translate it to English for me. This book uses tangzhong (a mixture of bread flour with liquid cooked over stove until it is 65C).


Adding tangzhong into bread helps to make it soft & fluffy! Apparently if you get the tz cooked right the bread remain soft for days.

Ham & Cheese bread in cup

Tangzhong
50g bread flour
250g milk/water or 50:50 water & milk

To prepare tangzhong, combine bread flour and milk into a saucepan and cook over low fire. Keep stirring until mixture thicken and trailing lines are formed. Temperature of the mixture should be 65c hence the name 65c tangzhong.

Dough
540g bread flour
86g sugar
8g salt
11g instant yeast
86g egg
59g dairy whipped cream
54g milk
9g milk powder
184g tangzhong
49g unsalted butter

How?
- Using your bread maker (you can still follow these steps if you are using a mixer or hand), add all wet ingredients first - milk, tangzhong,egg, whipped cream.
- Follow by all the dry ingredients - flour, milk powder, sugar, salt & yeast. It's very important to place both salt and yeast to be far apart.
- Knead until dough is form. Using the bread maker it'll take approximately 10 minutes. Add in butter and continue kneading.
- Your bread is ready for proofing when you have achieved the window-pane effect on the dough. Proof the dough for 60 minutes covered with a piece of damp cloth or clingwrap.
- At the end of proofing, your dough should be at least double in size. Punch out air from the dough and gv it a few quick knead.
- Divide the dough into small rounds of 50g - 60g depending on how big is the cupcake liner used. Alternatively, you can shape the dough any way you like, wrapped, twist or rolled.
- Place shaped dough in the cupcake liner and put any topping of your choice. For this, I used honey baked ham with cheese slices.
- Once done, let the shaped dough do its last proofing for 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven at 170C and bake bread for 25 minutes.
- Store in airtight container when bread has completely cooled down.



Baking in progress

Bread in loaf tin

Ham & Cheese bread