Oolong Lychee jelly cup烏龍茶荔枝凍. Extremely easy dessert with only 5 ingredients: Oolong tea, water, sugar, Lychee meat, and Agar Agar powder. (Optional: Served with evaporated milk )
Ingredients:
6 Oolong Tea bags
750 L + 200L Water
2 tsp Agar agar Powder
100g sugar
evaporated milk (Optional)
Directions:
Bring 750L water to boil, immerse oolong tea bags to water. Turn off heat and immerse for 5-7 minutes.
Squeeze water out from tea bags. Set aside.
Use another saucepan, combine agar agar powder with 200L cold water.
Stir and turn on heat to high.
Take it to full boil and keep stirring for about 5 minutes.
Keep boiling until all agar agar dissolved. Pour tea into boiling agar agar water.
Add sugar and stir until all sugar dissolved.
Pour tea jelly liquid to mold or container. Cut Lychee into small pieces.
Add some lychee meats into jelly cup.
Store at room temperature and the jelly will settle.
Serve directly from container or serve with evaporated milk.
Cheesecake and warm Apple Crumble pie are my faviourite desert especially in cold winter time. Fall passed and winter came. Cold breeze outside and strong wind blew. This made me think of having some warm served dessert for my dearest dinner party friends at Ahmami Cafe. Combining Apple crumble and cheesecake is double the delicious. And this can served with ice cream that everyone will love it. Can't wait to try!
Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C. For oatmeal cookie crust:
In a small bowl, combine all crust ingredients.
Press into the bottom of a greased 8-inch springform pan.
Bake for 5 minutes
For cheesecake:
In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until creamy.
Add brown sugar, vanilla extract and cornstarch, beating until combined.
Pour cheesecake batter over crust.
In a medium bowl, combine apples, cinnamon, and white sugar, tossing to coat.
Carefully layer the apple slices over the cheesecake batter, working from the edges to the center - it will keep the batter from raising higher at the edges. Work from the edges toward the middle.
For streusel:
In a small bowl, combine oats, flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
Sprinkle it evenly over the apple layer, working from the edges to the center.
Apple crisp or apple crumble is a dessert consisting of baked chopped apples, topped with a crisp streusel crust. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and often oats and brown sugar, ginger, and/or nutmeg.Wikipedia
Most elementary kids will learn or will make this at school here in Canada. My girls both learned to make this at school in their early elementary school years. I think I only did this once or twice before as my dinner dessert. I always want to make something extraordinary or special kind of desserts for my guests. But I know apple crumble/crisp is still a favourite dessert for some of my friends. They always love to serve it with ice cream. Since I have a chocolate cake in my freezer, I decided to use it together with Apple Crisp and serve it in cups. I placed chocolate cake at bottom of the cup and then scoop the apple crisp (warmed) on top. And of course it is served with ice cream! There is no better way to serve warm apple crisp with ice cream! For chocolate cake recipe, please refer to my Chocolate Cake recipe in my other blog post.
Ingredients
Topping
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, diced into small cubes
Apple filling
2 lbs Granny Smith apples (at room temperature), peeled, sliced thin and diced
2 2/3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted*
2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
1/4 cup light-brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 pinch salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl whisk together 1/2 cup flour, the oats, 1/2 cup brown sugar, the baking powder, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp salt for 30 seconds. Add diced butter and using clean fingertips, rub butter into dry mixture until it comes together into small crumbles. Transfer to refrigerator to chill while preparing filling.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter and flour until well blended, then mix in water, lemon juice and vanilla bean paste. Stir in 1/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, the nutmeg and pinch of salt. Pour butter mixture over apples and toss to evenly coat, then pour apple mixture into a buttered 8 by 8-inch baking dish and spread into an even layer. Remove topping from refrigerator and sprinkle into crumbles evenly over top of apples. Bake in preheated oven (I baked it in lower half of the oven to ensure the apples cooked through and so the top didn't become too browned) until top is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a toothpick, about 35 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to rest 10 minutes before serving (I let mine cool longer than 10 since I was serving in glass cups so they weren't all steamy). Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.
*I know this is a random amount, it's simply the amount that's left after using 1/3 cup butter in the crisp topping - just wanted to use that full stick of butter :).
A churro is a fried-dough pastry—predominantly choux—based snack. Churros are popular in Spain, Portugal, France, the Philippines, Ibero-America and the Southwestern United States. In Spain, churros can either be thin or long and thick. (Wiki)
Churro is my favourite snack when we are going to PNE or some theme parks and carnivals. And I always want to do it at home. Unfortunately, I don't like deep frying at all. I personally try to avoid deep frying at home. I don't like the after smell and also it is not a heathy way of cooking. Since we have some leftover deep frying oil from our thanksgiving party, I think it is the right time to try this recipe with around 2 cups of leftover oils. I personally think it is not hard to make compare to cream puffs. And I love the cinnamon sugar that coated on freshly made Churros. I made this for dessert/snack for a dinner gathering at my friend's house. And they were just gone in blink of an eye!
Churros
Ingredients:
1½ quarts canola oil for frying
1 cup water
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions:
Mix sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl. Set aside.
Heat oil in a medium sauce saucepan until it reaches 370 degrees.
Meanwhile, combine water, butter, brown sugar and vanilla in saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil.
Turn heat to low and add flour, stirring with a wooden spoon consistently for about a minute.
Remove from heat and add eggs one at a time just until combined, not longer. Let the dough rest for about fifteen minutes before spooning into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip.
Carefully pipe out 5-inch-long strips directly into hot oil. (I squeeze with one hand and cut the dough off with scissors with the other).
Fry until golden brown, about 2-3 minutes per side. Remove from hot oil to drain on paper towels. While still warm, toss in cinnamon sugar mixture until coated.
Matcha White Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients:
¼ cup + 3 tablespoons heavy cream
5 ½ ounces white chocolate chips
¼ teaspoon green tea powder
Directions:
Heat cream over stove or in microwave until bubbles start to form around the sides and cream is about to boil.
Add white chocolate chips and green tea powder. Let sit for 2 minutes, then whisk all ingredients until smooth.
Another dessert beside Gingerbread Pumpkin Trifle and Creme Brulee Cheesecake squares for my Thanksgiving party, I also made this Thanksgiving theme Kabocha Mont Blanc Cupcakes. Kabocha is known as Japanese Pumpkin. It is also kind of winter squash. It is sweet and it is perfect for dessert as well. This is also a make ahead dessert.
Ingredients:
- Kabocha squash 1/8 (about 250g) - Heavy cream 1/2 package (100ml) - Sugar 2 1/2 tablespoons - Cupcakes (store-bought is ok) - Powdered sugar to taste
Directions:
Bake the cupcakes by referring to my earlier Hello Kitty Cupcakes Recipe. You can also use store-bought cupcakes.
Remove the stringy insides and seeds from the kabocha, cut into large bite-sized pieces, and place into a microwave-safe bowl. Add in 1 tablespoon water, and cover with plastic wrap or a steamer lid.
Microwave at 500W for 5-6 minutes (or steam it for 20 minutes), and heat them until you can stick a toothpick through. Put 2 tablespoons of sugar and 50ml of heavy cream into a food processor along with the kabocha, and blend until smooth.
Add 1/2 tablespoon sugar to the remaining heavy cream, and whip.
Cut the top of Cupcakes to make it flattened. Squeeze the cream on top of the cupcakes, and squeeze out the kabocha paste using a Mont Blanc pastry bag. After squeezing a large swirl on top, squeeze it across and vertically.
Sprinkle with powdered sugar, and it is done! Chill in the fridge, and enjoy!
