grape jam

Couple days ago I went home in Tainan and my Mom gave me two bunches of grapes. I ate one of them, however grapes are easily ripe. When I was thinking about how to prevent wasting the rest bunch, which was stayed in the fridge for a long time, suddenly I recalled the scene that my younger sister and I had toast and jam for dessert in our childhood. These grapes were too ripe to eat directly so there is no difference between being discarded straightly and being discarded after becoming a bowl of terrible jam. Thinking of it, I decided to buy sugar happily.

I was a little bit afraid of it for it’s my first time making jam. Therefore, I surfed the Internet ahead and chose several of recipes. I found that actually it’s not as difficult as I thought before.


In my opinion, this recipe is the easiest and most efficient one to those people who don’t have so much time and a good pan.


I photographed these pictures by my cellphone. I'm sorry for the poor quality.








First, wash the grapes and cut them half. I cube a small amount of apple into it for there is almost no pectin in grapes. If there’s no pectin, your jam will look like liquid instead of jelly.


And then add sugar, the ratio of grape to sugar is 4:1. Nevertheless, you don’t have to worry too much or measure them accurately for you still can add sugar later. Put them in an airtight food container and set it in a fridge for one day.







After one day, you can see that in the picture, there will be some water came out from grapes.

Put all of them into a pan and heat it on medium flame and once it boils, turn down the stove to low flame. Keep stew the jam until you satisfy with the consistency.

Cool it at the room temperature and then seal it in a bottle (made by glass is recommended) in a fridge.

It’s really easy and you only have to pay attention to the process of stew the jam.
The product is much better, safer and healthier than most of jams sold in supermarkets and stores.

steamed custard stuffed bun

Actually I have a problem translating the name of this dessert for it’s a Chinese dish. You can see this dessert in many Hong Kong restaurants and we often call it “奶皇包” in Chinese. Traditional recipe is very troublesome and has high Calories for the stuffing always contains lots of unnecessary fat and sugar.

In this recipe I still use waffle/pancake powder as one of the articles before which introduced the approach to dorayaki. (The pancake powder is really very very very convenient.) Besides, formal bun’s stuffing is usually made of egg yolk, whipped cream, and sometimes even green bean paste. I choose the custard I made before to substitute for the traditional one so that we can save more time and reduce the possibility of failure.

This time I want to make “dough” so I add water (you can replace it with milk or soymilk as you like, and the smell will change with your liquid) slowly while kneading the powder (about 150 ml). You can see the powder becomes dough gradually. Don’t add all of the water at a time, this step needs you to be patient and tender.

Wrap the dough with food wrap and place it aside for 20 minutes. However, it won’t inflate for there’s no yeast. Because of baking powder and flour, the dough will be much brighter and softer.

Make the dough a strip and divide it into four equal parts. Knead each part to the shape of ball and then roll them into slices, but remember the depth of the middle should be thicker than the rest of the circle.

Put cooled custard in the middle of the slice and wrap it. After four buns are formed, steam them on high flame for ten minutes.

It the best time to eat them when they just come out from the pan. Pay attention to the delicious and hot stuffing! (However, this is one of the joyfulness of eating it.)

Dorayaki

Dorayaki is a household dessert which comes from Japan. Although the appearance is very plain, its simple flavor is not only everyone’s memory in childhood but also the reason why it can be handed down generation to generation. However, it’s greatly easy to make this dessert. Let me introduce the recipe to you and then you can surprise your friends!


The traditional stuffing is red bean paste but you can change the stuffing freely. I want to make a good use of the custard I made last time so I’ll replace paste with it.



In formal recipe, we have to mix the paste by ourselves out of many kinds of materials. Nevertheless, in order to save time and decrease the percentage of failing, I choose to use ready-made waffle/pancake powder. You can buy it from lots of supermarkets and even convenience stores.




Add some milk into it and keep it thick so the shape of your finished dessert will be much more circular.
Besides, thick paste is easy to control when you fry it. If you want the cake smell good and look bright, add an egg and a spoon of honey is a good choice.






Turn on the stove to low flame. Remember to add a little bit oil to the pan if you don’t have a stainless one. Just utilize a bigger ladle, spoon the paste into the pan, and you don’t have to worry about how to make it a circle for it will spread itself. It’s time to turn it over when there are lots of bubbles on the surface. After seconds, one pancake is perfectly made.


Before you fry another one, remember to take the pan away from stove or pancakes will easily burn for the pan is too hot.



After being cool, spread the custard on one of them and cover another when they’re still tepid for the pancakes will closer to each other.

It’s really easy!

custard

Before someone taught me this recipe, I considered custard as something expensive and high-class for it always appears in costly desserts such as puff, pie, and Japanese wheel cake. When I could rarely get one dessert with custard, I was happy and ate it as slow as possible. In my opinion, certain kinds of desserts like cookies, breads, and pies become more delicious and valuable after adding custard.

As a result, after I knew how to make custard (although it’s a simple version) by myself, I felt like I was cheated for years. It’s really a complex feeling for confusion and joyfulness mixed at the same time.

Take a bowl and put an egg yolk in it. Add two spoons of granulated sugar (about 30 ml) and blend them together. Sieve a spoon of cornstarch while adding into the bowl. You can replace cornstarch with flour. After stirring well, put the bowl away and the first step is done.

Measure 100 ml milk and heat it on low flame. I only want the milk be hot so DON’T boil it.

Add milk into the bowl slowly and keep stirring.

When all the ingredients mix together well, pour it in the pan and heat it on medium flame. When there are some lumps in the bottom, it’s the time to turn the stove to low flame. The liquid will become thicker and thicker. The most important thing is that you have to keep stirring during the whole process.

I didn’t add whipped cream as other desserts shops so the finished product is much lighter and wide-accepted. This recipe is very interesting and useful for you can change the flavor of the custard. For example, divide 10 ml sugar from which should be added in egg yolk and make them caramel. The rest steps are the same as before and the finished custard will become caramel flavor. If you want coffee flavor, add instant coffee powder in milk. You can adjust the ingredients and the amount of sugar as you like.

The simple approach and changeable flavor are the reasons why I like the recipe (and custard) a lot.

milk caramel

There are lots of people are under the impression that cooking is difficult. Especially dessert, it needs serious recipes, many special utensils and ingredients, patience, and concentration. As a result, I want to introduce a easy way to make milk caramels. This way is really simple, time-saving, and without preparing many materials.


In the begining, I doubted that such a simple recipe and procedures work. However, because of the easiness and my curiosity, I went to a hypermarket to buy those ingredients and decided to try it immediately. (Thank Linda for riding me there.) Except the whipping cream, other ingredients are very cheap and easy to find.


milk: 200ml
whipping cream: 100ml
white granulated sugar: 40g
cooking paper (recommended)






The first step is to add milk, whipping cream, and granulated sugar into a small saucepan and stir them. If you like the taste and smell of honey, you can add some and remember to reduce the quantity of sugar. Besides, I like to add some salt for they match a lot! Make sure that they are well mixed or the color and taste of the finished product will be influenced.


(I'm sorry for the pale yellow light in the kitchen which makes the colors strange.)





Heat it by medium flame. When there are bubbles appear on the edge and the liquid is going to boil, turn to low flame and keep stirring. Don't let it boil because milk will produce a membrane; once the membrane appears, it won't disappear anymore. (The warning comes from my frustrating experience.) If there are some fluid adhere to the saucepan, use a scraping cutter or spoon to scrape it down. (Scaping cutter is more convenient but you have to choose a heat-resistant one.)


Gradually, the liquid becomes gooey and it decides whether the finished product is soft or hard. The gooeyier you cook, the harder the candy is. The timing of turning off the stove depends on what kind of the extent you like.



This is the finished product and I use cooking paper to wrap them up. Although they're plain, the taste is just like the milk caramel I ate in my childhood, which is full of the smell of milk and a little bit salty. The salt makes the finished product attractive and differs from the common Azuki(森永) caramel we know. Nevertheless, there's an important thing you have to pay attention to that this kind of caramel is easy to melt. Remember keep the caramel in the fridge and enjoy them quickly when they leave the fridge.