The other day my Sister gave me a big plastic bag of her home grown organic Roselle. The buds is so pretty!  So ang-ang (red)!  The best way to bring out the shot is by having a white background.  This is how i do it.

Lay a piece of white paper as the background.  Use a white ceramic bowl.  Switch on your flash and viola!  You get white background and a shadow.  Unlikecropping of the background which will make your subject look so fake.

Now that I’ve got the shot taken, it’s time for cooking.  The taste of Roselle drink is very close to Ribena  minus the colouring and artificial flavouring.

Peel the petals.  Discard the seed. Boiled the petals in water for 30 minutes and sweetened the drink with rock sugar.

This Daddy hor, he is very weird wan.  I asked him to get me a packet of rock sugar.  He always come back with 2 packets of sugar anything!  Now that remaining one packet of rock sugar is taking up space in my fridge. *blueh!*

Chilled Roselle in the fridge.  Do not discard the buds as they are consumable. Another flash photography on the drinks.

I will skip the cupcake recipe and go straight to the fondant.  But before I do that, I die-die also want to post up my double chocolate cupcake.  The fresh bake makes my kitchen smells heavenly!

The cracks on the cake tells that they are a bit dry.

Pre-made fondant can be purchase from bakery shops but they are so easy to made that you can save money by making it yourself and keep the bragging rights of having made it all from scratch, right?  There are many different type of fondant you can google from internet.  So I just pick one that is the simplest.

Ingredients:
15g powdered gelatin
60ml water
10ml liquid glucose or corn syrup
1tbsp glycerin
500gm icing sugar

Method:

Sprinkle gelatin in the bowl of water and let it soak for 2 minutes. Use double boiler to dissolve it for about 2 minutes.  Use a wooden spoon instead of a metal spoon cos the metal spoon will make your fondant turn black (not really black but your fondant’s colour won’t be snowy white).  Remove gelatin and add a tablespoon of glycerin.  Some recipe said it is optional but I think it’s a must if you want your fondant to be smooth.  Make a well on the icing sugar.   Pour gelatin in it and stir them into a dough.  Jeng, jeng, jeng, it’s showtime!

You need plenty of icing sugar for dusting as they are very very sticky and make sure you have a clean work top.  Knead your dough for few more minute.  Tips:  prepare the dough the night before so that they will be less sticky and easier to work on the next day.  Leave them in a zipper bag.  I did a mistake by keeping them in the fridge.  The next day, they are as hard as stone.  I have to cut them into pieces before heating up in the microwave again.  And they are so sticky I almost gave up!

You just need some creativity with the fondant.  I get this fondant mat from Michael’s (U.S.).  They produces very nice vines to your fondant.

And the process goes on for about 2.5 hours before I get this result.

My first ever attempt in fondant, ok.

Of course can’t beat the work of professional.

Promise you won’t laugh, ok?

Jeng, jeng, jeng:

High School Musical cupcakes!

Someone’s birthday is around the corner *rolling eye*.

p/s:  Smells good.  Looks good.  But I never say they taste good.  wakakaka

In chinese, alkaline dumpling is also known as kan sui jong (cantonese) or kijang (hockkien). They are not savory like bak chang. Usually alkaline dumpling is dipped into caramelized palm sugar or kaya. They are easier to make too. This is how you do it:

Ingredients:

500gm Glutinous rice
3 teaspoons Alkaline water (air abu/kan sui)
Small Bamboo leaves
Another 2 teaspoons of Alkaline water

Method:

If possible, buy the glutinous rice from sundry shop and not the one like I used above as those branded packaging is not so pure. They added some rice into it which will later resulted a harder dumplings. Wash throughly glutinous rice. Soak them in clean water with 3 teaspoons of alkaline water added. I soak mine for 6 hours (9am to 2pm). The colour will change yellowish instantly.

As usual, wash the bamboo leaves and the string. Discard water from glutinous rice and you can start to wrap the dumplings. Place 2 bamboo leaves back to back. Shape them into a funnel using one third of the length and work your way up.

Cut away the hard stem on the glutinous rice. You know making dumplings takes a great deal of skills, patience and free time but of course practise makes perfect too. Filled up a big pot of water enough to cover the dumplings. Bring water to boiled. Add another 3 teaspoons of alkaline water into the boiling water before adding your dumplings.

Cook for about 3 hours. Add more water if the liquid drop below the dumplings level. Once done, hang to dry.

For the caramelized palm sugar syrup:

Ingredients:

450gm Palm sugar
200ml or 1 packet of Coconut milk
2 leaves of pandan (screwpine)

Method:

Put a little water in sauce pot. Cut coarsely palm sugar so that they will dissolve faster. Cook under low fire all the time.

Once sugar dissolve, add in coconut milk. Cook till sugar thicken. That took me a good 1 hour!

I can eat 3 dumplings in a go. They are so lip-smacking good especially the palm sugar.

You can try cooking kaya too if you have the time. Seriously I don’t that is why i resorted to palm sugar instead.

The actual day for Duan Wu Jie falls on 7th June 2008. Early Happy Duan Wu Jie to all since I won’t be around that day.