Animal Baos and MJ's Flourless Chocolate

My supposed to look like "Piggies" baos

Seems like I have abandoned this blog. Tried to put in more effort to update regularly, but my studies have indeed taken quite a toll of my time. Not baking though (HEHE), nothing can ever substitute the time for baking. At least for the present time and current condition.

These baos were made two months ago after i was struck by a picture (which i couldn't remember where now) online. I tried to imitate some funny animal shapes, but for a first timer, they didn't do the justice. Oh well, at least they had this smooth silky skin which proved my kneading effort!

Mice?

So what's for breakfast?

The pigs are 'char siu' which the mice are 'tao sar'. My hub got a bit excited one night after finding a good place for 'sweet and sour fish' (now who's the big fan of sweet and sour again?:-P), and being so satisfied, he decided to take away bbq duck, roast pork, char siu, and beef slices (apart from chicken, i believe it was nearly all kinds) as he was making payments at the counter near where they usually hang their 'roasties'. Yeah, we had the bbqs straight for a week, until eventually I decided to make use of the char siu. Hence the reborn char siu pig baos and some flaky pastries which i will post later.

My hub turned ** a week ago; the very next day I returned from a field camp at Dookie. I only had a few hours in the morning to bake him a nice birthday cake, thus this easy flourless dark chocolate cake. The cake itself was light and moist but I coated with chocolate cream cheese as icing hence the whole thing became too rich for my liking. I would drop the icing the next time i make this cake.

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Very simple deco due to time constraints, but i'm glad Hubby dear likes it. Blessed Birthday and many blessing always! :-)

My Homemade Paus

Now that i'm back into blogging business, it's time to write about food and baking! Haven't got the chance to try out the kitchen here in Singapore, but seems like our landlady is pretty well equipped. If i'm not wrong, there are two Kitchen Aid heavy duty mixers hiding in the cupboard, and the big 'supposed-to-be' built-in oven tells me that it's just sooner or later. Not forgetting there are adorable kids here! The most blessed thing is, i'm allowed to use everything!! :-) God is super gracious, isn't He?! That is my Jehovah Jireh!

For the past couple of months, i've been baking and trying out many new goodies in BJ, just to make sure that i've learnt all i could while i was 'free'. I was a bit upset when they blocked blogspot in May (think it had sth to do with the Xinjiang incident), and was not then keen to take photographs of everything i've made. Most of them were chiffon cakes as they were considered the healthiest version but i guess the most significant reason was that everybody was trying to keep 'fit'. So ranging from this weird flavour to the other, i think i've baked more than 50 chiffon cakes in the past six months. Scary huh? Not to mention, the amount of butter and cream cheese i've used for the past year, freaks me out when i think of it, and suprisingly, i couldn't remember how they were all consumed!

One of my significant homemade items worth blogging is pau! Yes, I can make paus now, ranging from red bean filling, char sao, vegetarian and pork with egg. Probably not as good as those from KK (KK-ers, be proud u have the best food in the world, if not best, second best!), but definitely much better than those in BJ (the char sao pau there is terrible!) or Singapore (as far as those i've eaten). I think part of the reason is because i use good and original ingredients, instead of coloring, MSG, ammonia or whatever they use in the shops to make sure their paus look as good as possible or taste ok at the lowest capital cost.

Don't have to guess, the primary reason why i decided to go all the trouble to knead that dough and cook the fillings was due to my 'addiction' or favouritism towards 'char sao pau'. I miss my childhood pau and the paus that served as my breakfast every morning. When i think of it, i feel silly, it took me so long to actually make one myself! Which means i have been eating red colorings, ammonia and MSGS all the while!

The fillings weren't as hard as i had thought. Managed to get hook of the exact taste i like during my constant trials of baked 'siew bao'. As for the pork with egg filling, just add the necessary seasonings into some fresh minced pork, boil some eggs and a good pork pau is on the way.

Like i said, i didn't snap exactly each pau, but here are some which Hubby has shot for me:

Red bean Oval Pau

Pork Bao (Zhu Rou Bao)

Mixed Paus

Can't wait to make zhu yuk pao for my dad!

Favourite Spot for Dim Sum?

Do you know where is the best place to eat dim sum in town? It’s none other than Foo Phing, in Hiltop. When I was a toddler, and Foo Phing wasn’t in existence yet, Nam Hing used to be KKers' old time favourite place for dim sum. And i remember clearly that Dad would bring me and mom there every Sunday after church (at that time, there was only me) for breakfast. He would make sure there were enough ‘shao mais’ for me (like normal kids, i used to love shao mais a lot!). At one time when mom was expecting June, she would crave for their ‘pai kut’ and would have lots of them. Wang Di Lou was also a famous spot for dim sum at that time (diminishing today). And that was where mom and dad used to ta pao for me as 'lunch box' on the way to school. Those were the old times, and i'm really a blessed girl. :-)

As I grew older, Nam Hing’s quality went down, and so was the business ( I think the owner died and his offsprings weren’t capable enough to keep the business alive). And then a restaurant at Wisma Sabah emerged in the mid to late 90s. Calling themselves 'Jaws', this place was always crowded during the weekends. I think somewhere in the late 90s they closed down and subsequently moved to Bukit Padang. Today they're referred as Kampung Nelayan but am not so sure if they still sell dim sum.

If you observe carefully, there are actually many places to dine for dim sum in KK. Apart from those i mentioned previously, the several others are:

1. Shangri-La Hotel in the City

2. SeaView Park in Luyang (sorry if i got the name wrong)

3. Warisan Square (the La Mian Shop)

4. Towering

Hmmm..well, to be honest, i don't really remember the names of the shops that sell dim sum (i have bad memory for names), unless it's a very famous one like Foo Phing. Seriously, i don't understand why it was so well liked that this place is crowded almost everyday!! Especially if you go during the weekends or public holidays, you will have a hard time looking for a decent table and seat. Mr Manager thinks that their dim sums are pretty normal...not too extravagant like those in Hong Kongs...but i guess this is probably the best of KK?

Like usual, when we frequent the shop, i would be the first to order Char Sao Bao. Lately they serve the Hong Kong type in addition to their normal Foo Phing Bao which has a long nose or sharp point in the middle. In fact the Chinese refer the below bao as smilling bao due to the crack and this type of bao is my most most favourite. Not very easy to find this type nowadays, because most places that produce their own specialised baos like Chakitiam, or Kepayan are non-cracked while shops that don't make their own baos normally sell Foo Phing's baos (FYI, Foo Phing baos are all over Sabah). To be honest, i still prefer Wang Di Lou's once upon a time's smiling Char Sao Bao. Today they don't taste as good as previously di, which i couldn't understand why. In addition, I think there's another producer for this type of bao, coz they're sold in some shops like May Sandwich house and they taste the same regardless of which shop i bought them from!

The Smiling Char Sao Bao

Some other types of dim sum in Foo Phing are:

I don't know the name for this, but it costs RM5.50

Cheong Fun, my sissies' favourite!

Har Gao, Mr M's favourite.

I would say Foo Phing's Har Gao (Xia Jiao) is good. Not only are they big (king-size), the whole filling is only prawn which means they didn't gam liao! (HEHE)

Foo Chuk Ken