Happy Mooncake Festival 2012 to ALL

Wow, time really pass by so fast....it's Mooncake Festival again!! It seems like its just not too long ago I was  baking and molding mooncake, and now its here again, hehe.
Anyway, Mooncake Festival is a time where family members gather for a reunion dinner and then for a 'mooncake' feast under the bright moonlight with a pot of Chinese brewed tea, chit-chatting about the old times and laughing about it. As for the younger generations, they will lite up their lanterns and walk around the neighborhood on a group. That's how we celebrate it every year too, and to keep this tradition from dying off, I made sure I have homemade mooncakes, colorful lanterns and a pot of green tea or 'Teik Kwan Ying' ready for the sighting of the beautiful full moon with my family.

Therefore, this year I made a varieties, I really meant 'varieties' hehe for this celebration, since there were so many 'outrageous' designs and flavors postings in the blogging community, you just can't resist the temptations, but to make it too, LOL

Thanks to ANNCOO's Journal , I have some cute fat piggies for the kids to enjoy their mooncake this year with a little difference, hahaha, thanks Ann! *wink*

Then, of course I made the all time favourite, Snowskin Mooncakes of different fillings flavor from my previous last year recipe that I still find it to be the best one so far :)

However, the older generations still prefers the "traditional baked mooncakes" and of course, I wouldn't miss that. This time for the baked mooncakes, I tried Anncoo's recipe that is the one used on the piggies, and I liked it instantly, as the baked mooncakes turned out very nice, and the patterns are still very distinctive and clear after baking. you might want to give it a try  :)

And so, this year's Mooncake Festival will be of varieties and I'm glad I managed to post it in time before it ended, ahahaha, where I normally did.

Here's wishing all my fellow followers and bloggers, "Happy Mooncake Festival and have a happy and joyful family reunion".

Durian Tarts

Its been awhile, I felt lazy updating my blog, as I guess I just have so many things to say, and it's kinda hard for me to put them in words to share it with you.  However,I owe it you guys who are a loyal follower of my blogs.......and to compensate it all, here's a really good recipe that I recently tried , which I plucked it out from one of the old cookbook owned by my MiL, hehe

Durian Tarts
Tart crust ingredients:-
240gm plain flour
50gm castor sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
125gm butter, cold and cut into cubes
1 egg

Filling ingredients:-
150ml evaporated milk
4 'Grade A' eggs
140gm durian flesh
100gm caster sugar
250ml water
10gm instant custard powder

To prepare the crust:-

1. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.
2. Add in the cold cubed butter and rub with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Add in the egg and mix until it becomes a ball of dough.
4. Press the dough into a tart mould, trimming off the edges and the excess with a knife.
5. Blind bake with some beans on a preheated oven of 180 degree Celsius for about 10-12 minutes.
6. Remove from the oven and put on a wire rack to cool , remove the beans.

To prepare the filling :-

1. Combine the durian flesh with castor sugar, custard powder, water and evaporated milk, whisk until well blended. 
2. Add in eggs, using an electric blender, just pulse the mixture to allow the durian flesh to be pureed, do not blend too long as lots of air bubbles will appear on the tart surface later when baking.
3. Transfer the mixture to a jar and fill each tart casing with 3/4 full.
4. Bake on a preheated oven at 200 degree Celsius for 20 minutes or until the durian egg mixture looks set. 
5. Let cool on the wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning the tarts out of the mould.

Hope you like this, as my family loves it so much, the tarts actually disappear so fast, I had to hide a few for photo taking, LOL....Oh yes, the picture below is the second batch that I made the day after, and this time I made the tarts slightly smaller in size......perfect for a bite-size :)

Till then, enjoy and see you soon!