The Sugar Bar

There are some things in life that must be enjoyed as a pair (like cookies and cream, bangers and mash, bread and butter, salt and vinegar, etc.). Madeleines fall into that category.

Not to be eaten without a cuppa coffee or tea, it would be almost criminal in my book to eat a madeleine just like that. Moreover, the best and freshest madeleines, according to French food expert Patricia Wells, are dry and have an almost dusty taste when eaten on its own. Its flavours, however, come to life when soaked in tea. I am not sure about how ‘dry’ madeleines are supposed to be but I have always enjoyed madeleines from a local boulangerie which were fairly moist. If they were at all mistaken to be dry (because I don’t think they ever quite were), they were just a tad difficult to swallow from being quite so dense.

Of course, some things are just best savoured in their place of origin. I had some lovely madeleines in Paris and I doubt my own come close but these were wonderfully buttery, fragrant and light. A real treat to the senses, especially with a fresh pot of tea livened up with a dash of milk. Indeed, the taste of a madeleine becomes vivid only when dipped in a cuppa tea, seducing you with its almost caramel/toffee-ish flavour. And is it wrong that I especially love squishing madeleine crumbs soaked in tea between the roof of my mouth and tongue?

These babies make such an awesome and cute tea treat. I’m looking forward to making a few more batches in the weeks to come as gifts for friends. And with the many variations of madeleines, in terms of flavour, out there, I’m truly eager to get going in the kitchen again.

I ain’t a perfectionist and wasn’t looking to recreate the perfect French Madeleine. Hence, I’ve chosen a recipe that includes baking powder. About the buerre noisette, otherwise known as nut or browned butter, I couldn’t be bothered. Don’t judge me, please. But hey, I got ‘em sexy humps didn’t I (see picture above)? My sis C, who wandered into the kitchen at time of baking, commented that it was like cultivating nipples in the oven. Yes it was cute to see them grow and peak, but also slightly weird to observe in the space of 10 minutes 10 portions of eggy batter become miniscule golden brown mountains.

I’ve used a recipe from the very talented Evan via her patisserie blog Bossacafez. I’ve added some tips in my directions below as well.

French Madeleines
(Recipe from Bossacafez, matcha powder omitted)
Ingredients

160g butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
120g cake flour
130g caster sugar
4.5g (about 1 heaped tbs) double acting baking powder
3 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
icing sugar, for dusting (optional)

Preheat oven to 200d Celsius.

Grease madeleine mold with butter, dust with flour and tap out the excess. Freeze the madeleine mold before baking.

Sift together cake flour and baking powder. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar and eggs until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla. Mix well.

Fold flour mixture into egg mixture followed by melted butter. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a rubber spatula to make sure that the butter is mixed in, leaving no oily residue on the sides.

Cover bowl with cling film and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours or overnight.

When ready, pour batter into mold using a pouring cup/jug. You may also use a spoon to fill the mold although a jug is a little less fussy. Fill the mold to fill 2/3 or 3/4 of the shell-shaped fill. Do not spread the batter out in the molds once poured in.

(I kept overfilling mine and this prevents your madeleines from growing a nice proud hump. Some bakers have recommended measuring the exact amount required to fill each shell-shaped mold perfectly but David Lebovitz on his blog here says it’s fine to eyeball it. Practice makes perfect I suppose!)

Bake in preheated oven for 10-13 mins, until puffed and golden around the edges.

After each batch, clean the pan with a kitchen towel then bake the rest. The pan should be fairly greased from the butter in the batter, requiring no second greasing of the pan.

Remove baked madeleines immediately onto a cooling rack. You can tilt them out onto it. I used a pair of chopsticks and gently picked them out of the mold. They slide out and off quite easily if you’ve greased and floured your pans well. They are quite soft and delicate when just out of the oven so I recommend using a cold plate or cooling rack with fine grids as they can leave marks on the shell shapes of your madeleines.

Once cool to handle, dust with icing sugar then eat to your hearts desire but don’t forget to dip (very ladylike, please no dunking they’re not bloody OREOs!) in a cup of tea. Whether you have milk in your tea or not, that shall be left to your own discretion.

In Asia, we have a love affair for things chewy, stretchy, glutinous or as the Taiwanese describe it, QQ. Not surprisingly, Su-yin and I take much delight in things mochi so when she shared me some homemade mochi cakes (recipe here), I was hooked. And after patiently waiting for her recipe to be blogged, I decided it was imperative that I try my hand at making these QQ little treats too to satisfy my recurring cravings and the incessant need to gnaw. And because some things just come as BUY 1 GET 1 FREE, this recipe is flexible and allows you free reign to be fairly creative with your choice of ingredients.

It recently came to my attention that there was a Kansho Matsuri in Japan, translation: a Sweet Potato Festival; what goes on there I do not know so enlighten me if you do. Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that the Japanese are cute and meticulous with their food, and how dedicated they are to such a humble ingredient! My pessimistic soulmate Y (now sharing a dirty flat with his younger bro in Tokyo and hating it) will correct me, say I’m being ridiculous and declare all Japanese people mad. I wonder why we get along so well like maple syrup and pancakes. Call it coincidence, fate or whatevs, we are going through a similar sweet potato phase in my house and the little voice in my head was suggesting we go in the direction of baked sweet potatoes. But that on its own, although delicious with honey and coconut milk, is a tad boring and might not hold your attention for long.

I’ve used Japanese sweet potatoes here, purple-skinned and of the yellow flesh which has a lovely sweet, buttery and chestnut-like flavour. I thought this might be better for a mochi-based cake since the regular Western sweet potato (orange-fleshed) tends to be a lot wetter/watery and sometimes less sweet. And you know me, after the colour green (hence the matcha), I’m drawn to purple like a kiwi bird is to shiny things so purple-skinned spuds for the win!

A very basic and popular way of eating sweet potatoes is to steam them after washing, leave to cool a little and then break them in half to share and eat with friends and family. Some other ways it is served is to have it steamed, skinned, soaked in syrup and coconut milk – another type of sweet yam, the tapioca, is served this way in my country and is so delicious and fragrant you almost feel drugged on a couple of mouthfuls; or cooked in sweet soups, savoury soups, desserts, etc. The variations are countless. A favourite bakery of mine also makes these very light and delicate steamed white cakes – it’s like eating a cloud for goodness sake – and it has little bits of steamed sweet potatoes in it. You can say that’s probably what inspired these cakes.

We all know the health properties of matcha already, that it is vit C-packed and so forth so I won’t bother to expound on that. But of course, FYI, when subjected to high heat like when baking or scalded by boiling water, matcha loses all of its amazing properties. Therefore, a word of advice is to use regular cooking grade matcha for baked goods and save the real ceremony-grade stuff for drinking. With regards to sweet potatoes, you’ll be pleased to know that they are pretty resilient babies. They aren’t just vitamin-packed and easy to cook or scrummy in anything. Sweet potatoes are rich in dietary fibre and because they contain loads of anthocyanoside, is good for bringing down high blood pressure, effects of constipation and is apparently great for the skin (not surprised, its vit C eh!). Plus, they are cheap and great at staving off hunger.

So maybe what I’m trying to say here is that my main ingredients aren’t too naughty? Does that make my mochi cakes less sinful? You decide.

So how did these turn out?

Because the steamed sweet potatoes added a bit more moisture to the cake, I had to bake them a little bit longer. I was half tempted to let these cakes dry out more in the oven, seeing as I’m not used to baking with mochiko (rather than boiling/steaming/grilling) it. These cakes upon pulling apart looked like muffins, with a similar consistency and lovely fluffiness but it is thoroughly deceiving because the cake is stretchy, chewy and almost glistens with its glutinous content. Delicious, moist and very different to the regular cupcake/muffin (might take some getting used to for mochi virgins). That chewy bite, soft but with a little resistance, is also satisfying and slightly more-ish. The taste was pretty good and that surely is the work of evaporated milk but one thing I would never ever use again, and all of it going down the drain right now, is vanilla essence! I hate that stuff and do not know why there are still bottles of that stuff in my house.

The smell of it reeks and I might have used a tad too much for these cakes in my desperation for a teaspoon of vanilla. Mistake.

Vanilla essence fail. Ignore that, and these QQ mochi cakes are still rocking it.

Matcha & Sweet Potato Mochi Cakes
(Recipe adapted from Lemonpi, inspired by Suyin from BreadetButter)
Ingredients

225g mochiko (mochi flour)
85g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
about 1 1/2 cup of steamed kansho (Japanese sweet potatoes), cut into small pieces
175g caster sugar
187g evaporated/Carnation milk
2 eggs, at room temperature
3 tsp matcha
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Wash and gently scrub the sweet potatoes being careful not to scrub off its precious skin. If your potatoes are fairly large and bulbous, you might want to pierce a few holes on it with a fork before steaming. Bring some water to boil in a steamer. Steam potatoes until they are just cooked through and not too mushy. Let cool on a place and set aside for later. When it is cool to handle, cut them up into small cubes or pieces.

Preheat the oven to 175d Celsius. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan or line with muffin papers.

Sift the mochiko, baking powder and matcha together in a bowl.
In another bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs together with an electric mixer on high speed until light and fluffy.

Fold in melted butter, then the evaporated milk and vanilla. Fold in the flour mixture and the sweet potato pieces until just incorporated.

Pour cake mixture into muffin tin, filling it up to 3/4 full. Place in oven to bake for 20-25 mins. I found my muffins a little wet and baked it for another 5 mins. Cool on rack completely then store in an airtight container.

‘Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.’ ~Saki

Some of us want to be doctors when we grow up (or already are), some want to be astronauts, pilots, firefighters, teachers, photographers, journalists, film directors, café owners, advertisers, etc. The list goes on and quite often, as our parents like to encourage us in our youthful choices, these options are motivated by the potential for financial success. After I had very begrudgingly put aside one dream of mine (to be a fashion designer), I hopped off to my next love in life – words and literature. I want to be a writer. I want to tell stories. I want to blind you with fiction and make you think it’s all real and then not and then so muddied up with truth and lies that it becomes the best story ever told.

Every aspiring (and sometimes starving) writer I’ve come across has never failed to have had the write-whilst-drunk experience. And that always works. But flippin’ heck, how can one deal with all the editting the day after and with a foul hangover to boot? Inspiration comes and goes, and sometimes strike at random (or inconvenient) moments. So I seek for a bit of calmness and serenity whenever I wish to write and that never goes without the one other thing that helps create such a mood – TEA. But enough about my drink tea and tell stories motto, this post is actually about a GIVEAWAY for a Complete Tea Diva Set from JINGTea.com! And because the peeps at JINGTea.com are so wonderfully generous, I’m also making public a discount code for 10% off all Tea Diva sets.

JINGTea, if you don’t already know, is one of the UK’s premium tea company run by Edward Eisler and his team of tea-lovers. A bit of an introduction from their website and online retail store:

“JING sells tea and tea ware directly to customers through our website but also offers full creation of tea service concepts for the world’s best hotels, restaurants and retailers, whether in English or modern-oriental style. JING also provides detailed training to ensure perfect execution because the way tea is served is key to attaining the highest customer experience.

JING is served and sold in the world’s outstanding restaurants, hotels, shops and airlines including Harrods, Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck restaurant, Gordon Ramsay restaurants, Tate Galleries, The Lanesborough and Brown’s hotels, and Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Lounges.”

Rosebud Tea (玫瑰花)- my absolute FAVOURITE!

Organic White Peony Tea (白牧丹)- grown in Fuding, China

Ali Shan Oolong Tea (烏龍茶)- a prized leaf from A li Shan, Taiwan

Not surprisingly, lots of my teas are purchased from JING Tea and with more specialty leaves collected from my travels, gifted by friends from all over the globe, etc. JING Tea is even stocked in shops I visit such as Bea’s of Bloomsbury café on 44 Theobalds Road and in my massage therapy centre Chi Yu Wellness Centre. I am always pleased with the quality of their leaves, their efficient and friendly service and readiness to offer advice on what leaves could suit your personal tastes or how to brew and infuse their selected tea leaves. And if their website and service doesn’t already make you feel quite so taken care of, you can feel extra glamorous because your tea leaves come in a packet or tin of the colour of royalty – GOLD. This 90s loving fool who loves a bit of black and gold definitely finds this one a great plus point.

A flowering tea (茉莉花茶) sometimes called Dragon Eye in English has Jasmine flowers, Silver Needle tea and Globe Amaranth flowers handsewn into a pearl/bulb. Best infused, drunk and displayed in a glass teapot

A very special tea which JING Tea stocks are flowering teas as seen from the picture above. This one was bought in Taiwan when I visited Jiu Fen mountain but is also available on JING here. It is both light and fragrant and aesthetically pleasing, like fireworks in your teapot. If you want to know how these teas came about, or at least the story of how these pearls were invented, you can check it out here (hit the link, the story’s in Chinese though).

JING Tea has now added a Tea Diva set to its GIFTS section and it comprises a flowering tea and a gorgeous but practical glass tea-iere for you to best experience this blossoming beauty. There are three Divas to choose from: Osmanthus, Amaranth or the Jasmine and Lily. Or the Complete Diva includes 50g of each type. If you fancied a Diva or two, head over to JING Tea.com and you can purchase them at 10% off using this discount code – Diva211010.

(**this code will expire 1 month from the publication date of this post)

JING Tea ships internationally at reasonable shipping rates so go ahead and pamper yourself. The discount will also apply to other products you’re purchasing, as long as you’ve got a Tea Diva added to your shopping basket.

Flowering Dragon Eye

Flowering Osmanthus

Flowering Jasmine & Lily