Rosemary Crescents (迷迭香酥)

Making something for breakfast on Sat morning!

Serving size: 18 pieces (puff pastry of 24cm x 24cm)

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes

Ingredients:      
1 puff pastry (24cm x 24cm or 250g roll into 2mm thickness)
100g softened butter
1 crushed garlic clove
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp dried rosemary (or try other herbs like thyme)
salt & pepper


Steps:

1. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the puff pastry, or just do it directly on your baking tray / cookie sheet.
2. Cut the pastry into long triangular shape. Mine is about 6cm base x 9cm height per piece.
3. In a bowl, mix the softened butter, garlic clove, lemon juice and dried rosemary together until soft. Season with salt and pepper to adjust the taste.
4. Spread the mixture on the surface of each of the pastry. Gently roll each piece of pastry from the triangle base towards the far end of the tip.
5. Arrange the crescents on the baking tray / cookie sheet and leave at least 5cm in between to allow them to increase in size. Chill for 30 minutes.
6. Dampen the baking tray / cookie sheet with cold water to create steamy atmosphere during baking. This can help the crescents to rise.
7. Pre-heat the oven, bake with 200C/400F for 10-15 minutes, until you see the crescents turned into golden and risen.

My Tips:

• Can brush a bit thicker layer of the mixture on the pastry to give more flavor.
• Need to pinch the crescents slightly so the crescents will not unroll during baking.

My comments: I could have add stronger flavor or brush thicker layer of the mixture on the pastry before rolling into crescents. Also I did not pinch the crescents tight, so some of them unrolled a bit when baking.

Palmiers (蝴蝶酥) [modified version]

First time making palmiers, is easy and fun! Second time making the taste is even better!

Serving size: 18 pieces (puff pastry of 24cm x 24cm)

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:      
1 puff pastry (24cm x 24cm)
1/4 cup   Caster sugar (or vanilla sugar)
3 tsp       Melted butter (unsalted)
generous cinnamon powder if want to add variety to original flavor


Steps:

1. Sift or sprinkle half of the caster sugar on your working table surface. 
2. Place the puff pastry on top of the sugar and brush the melted butter on the pastry lightly.
3. Sprinkle the remaining half of the sugar over the pastry.
4. Sprinkle the cinnamon powder if you want to create different flavor.
5. Imagine you need to divide the pastry into 6 equal parts, then start from the left side fold 1/6 towards the center, then fold another 1/6 towards the center, now you should have 3 layers of pastry on the left. Do the same for the right side of the pastry.
6. Then fold the left and right side together and you should have 6 layers of pastry now. Press on the pastry gently, so both sides will stick together.
7. Let the pastry chill in fridge for at least half an hour or in freezer for about 20 minutes.
8. Take out the pastry and cut into strips of 1.25cm each in thickness.
9. Brush the melted butter on both sides of the pastry lightly.
10. Pinch and press both sides of the strip to ensure they stick together, to avoid both sides unroll during baking.
11. Place the strips on baking paper. Leave at least 5cm between each strip, as they will expand during baking.
12. Spread the top part of both sides like a "T"-shape.
13. Preheat oven to 200C/395F or 180C/356F if use fan-forced mode.
14. Place the tray in the middle of the oven. Total bake for 20 minutes, monitor first 10 minutes and bake until sugar has caramelized and pastry turns golden brown. Then turn the pastry to the other side and continue to bake until this side also turns golden brown.
15. Allow palmiers to cool on rack for at least 10 minutes before serving.

My Tips:

• Avoid brushing too much butter, otherwise the palmiers may become too salty. Use unsalted butter can avoid this problem.
• can also sprinkle a bit of sugar on the surface when palmiers just taken out from over to increase the sweetness.

My comments: Singapore weather is too hot, so palmiers may feel a bit sticky when holding in hand.

Basic beauty tips

#6 Nail - Manicure & Pedicure
     
Please change or remove your manicure / pedicure if they are outgrown for more than 2mm!

I always observe people on the train and very often I saw ladies with manicure  or pedicure that serious need to be fixed! If I were them, I prefer not to wear sandals or open toe shoes to show people that they don't maintain their pedicure. 

Manicure or pedicure are suppose to make you look more attractive and special, but lack of maintenance will make the negative effect.


To be honest, I think most of the guys prefer girls with either no manicure or simple ones.

Hong Kong Style Egg Tarts (港式蛋撻) - Cookie base

I haven't found a store in Singapore that sell exactly the same style of egg tarts I used to have in Hong Kong, so today I tried to make this myself at home. I test below recipe and it works. My in-laws also think they are yummy!

Serving size: 16 tarts (each tart is 7 cm diameter x 2 cm height)

Preparation time: 45 minutes (most time spend on spreading the dough on each tin)
Cooking time: 25 minutes

Ingredients of custard:
2 eggs      
75ml        Evaporated milk
150g        Hot water
70g          Caster sugar
1/2 tsp    Vanilla extract

Ingredients of crust:
200g        All-purpose / plain flour
25g          Cake flour
125g        Butter
55g          Caster sugar
1 egg       Lightly whisked
A dash vanilla extract


Steps to make the custard fillings:

1. Add sugar into hot water, mix until completely dissolved. Let it cool.
2. Whisk the egg with evaporated milk. Pour in the sugar water and vanilla extract. Mix well.
3. Sift the egg mixture to get rid of any foam into a measuring cup or a tea pot. This make the later pouring into the tart shell easy. Set aside.

Steps to make the crusts:

1. Place butter at room temperature until softened. Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer over medium speed until the mixture is smooth, fluffy and light in colour.
2. Add the whisked egg, half at a time. Beat at low speed. Add vanilla extract, mix well.
3. Sift in the 2 type of flours in two batches, scraping down the sides of the bowl between additions with a spatula. Make sure all ingredients are combined well. Knead into a dough.
4. Roll out the dough into 0.5 cm in thickness. Cut the dough with a tart tin or a cookie cutter which is just a bit smaller than your tin size.
5. Line dough in the middle of the tart tin, one by one. Lightly press the dough with your thumbs, starting from the bottom then up to the sides in circular motions to make an even tart shell. Trim away any excess dough.
6. Preheat oven to 200C / 395F. 
7. Pour the fillings into each tart shell carefully. Place the rack in the lowest level of the oven. Placing the tarts on the lower rack in oven can help to bake the crust bottom properly before the custard gets heat up too quickly. Bake the tarts for about 10-15 minutes until the shell edges are lightly brown.
8. Reduce the heat to 180C / 356F. Observe the tarts and once you see the filling puffing up a bit, open the oven door and leave about 2-3 inches gap. This is to avoid the custard from becoming puffed too high. Otherwise, the custard will collapse once it cools down. Bake for another 10-15 minutes until the custard is set.
9. Check the custard by inserting a toothpick. If it can stand on its own, it is cooked.

My Tips:

• Since this is my first time, I divided the ingredients by half to make 8 tarts instead of 16 this round.
• If cake flour is not available, can replace with plain flour, which total 225g.
• Use your thumb to feel the dough thickness in the tart tin. Avoid making it too thick or over cooked.

My comments: Singapore weather is too hot, so my dough was too soft, which I need to spend extra time to have them set in the tart tin.

1st Book Recommendation

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

This book is easy and fun to read! I appreciate Gretchen's honesty and sharing at her personal level on her challenges and struggles. I also found the topics of each month is very relevant to my current and future situation. 

For example, January is about boost energy, which reminds me of resuming my regular exercise regime after giving birth to my child. May is about be serious about play, this reminds me of "work hard, play hard", seems I forgot to play hard for few years already. June is about make time for friends, then I set one of my resolutions is to initiate message to one friend each week to see how are they doing, especially after I moved to Singapore about 1.5 years ago and leaving my family and friends in Hong Kong.

Overall, I found her sharing is inspiring and encouraging. I have prepared my own 2017 resolutions after reading this book. One of my resolutions is to start my own blog by February which I did! :)

Click here to check this out!

Natural Yogurt Face Scrub

This is a step 1 before the honey yogurt mask that I introduced some time ago. I tried this natural face scrub many times and still find it very effective.

It is all natural and very economical! All you need is just plain yogurt! I can't think of a reason you will be reluctant to try this out...

Steps:
1) Make sure your face is dry.
2) Take about 1 teaspoon of yogurt.
3) Apply evenly on your face but avoid eye areas.
4) Gently rub the yogurt on your face with fingers in circular motions.
5) Rub for about few minutes then start to tap on your face gently. After tapping evenly all over your face for about few minutes, you should start to feel the yogurt become a bit sticky and dry on your fingers.
6) Gently rub your face, you will start to see tiny white colour stripes dropping off, just like you are rubbing with an eraser.
7) Rinse your face thoroughly, then you can do the honey yogurt mask or continue with your usual skin care steps.

Frequency:
Suggest to do once or twice a week  

Basic beauty tips

#5 Hair & Colouring - Strategize your colouring style
     
Before I go to salon to colour my hair, I always have below considerations:

Q: How am I going to maintain this new colour?

• How often and when will be the next round I want to colour my hair either to cover the awkward roots?
• Am I willing to spend another round of money and few hours at the salon every 2 months?
• Too frequent colouring may cause more hair loss and hair damage...
• Am I willing to spend another budget to buy the professional colour protecting shampoo? Or just stick with my current shampoo and conditioner?

My strategy to balance above considerations is always go for highlights! I realise highlight is a good strategy to delay the need to have too frequent colouring to cover the awkward roots growing out. As highlights won't give a very distinct separation between your dyed hair and natural hair colour at the roots. But of course if you bleached your hair until too big contrast, then nobody can help...

In terms of colours, I always go for purple base with red highlights, then when the colours faded out, hair will still look brown and won't look awkward.

Examples with awkward roots growing out:

Example that new roots are not that obvious if do highlight: