Chocolate Flavored Jelly Mooncake

 

Chocolate flavoured jelly mooncake

For this year, I've decided to make my own mooncake and since I love chocolate flavoured food, I want to try making chocolate flavoured jelly mooncake. After making quite a few batches, there are some details to pay attention to in making this mooncake. Castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder dissolve easily in milk type ingredients. However if you mix the chocolate powder, whipping cream and the powder together, it is difficult to dissolve the chocolate powder and also the agar-agar powder and the jelly powder. So the sequence in mixing these ingredients are very important to achieve smooth textured jelly mooncake. This recipe is also inspired by Little Duck's Kitchen.

Chocolate Flavored Jelly Mooncake
Prep Time: 4 hours
Cooking Time: 10 min
Serving Size: 6 in 8 cm diameter mooncake jelly mould 
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
80 grams of chocolate powder
400 mls of water
80 grams of whipping cream
40 grams of castor sugar
2¼ teaspoons of agar-agar powder
1 teaspoon of Konnyaku jelly powder

1. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and the jelly powder in a small bowl.

Ingredients for making the jelly mooncake

2. Pour the water and the whipping cream into a pot. Mix it well.
3. Pour the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder into the pot as well. Mix it well with the water and whipping cream.
4. When everything is well mixed, pour in the chocolate powder and mix it well. 
5. Once it is well mixed, heat up the solution until it started to boil.
6. Fill up the jelly mould partially. 
7. Add in the oreo whipping cream filling.
8. Fully fill the jelly mould with the solution and chill in the fridge.
9. After chilling for 4 hours, remove the jelly from the mould. 

Chocolate flavoured jelly mooncake

Ratings:

Kev ★★★★☆

Bunny ★★★★☆

Butterfly Pea Flower Jelly Mooncake

Butterfly Pea Flower Jelly Mooncake

  

Kev is fascinated with blue and purplish food. Butterfly pea flower is usually used in colouring the rice in Nasi Kerabu. Butterfly pea flower is said to contain antioxidant which can prevents cancer development. I've developed this recipe with the inspiration of this recipe from Little Duck's Recipe. However i did not put more soya into the skin because Kev said that since the filling contained soya already, it will taste too rich if even the skin contained soya as well. I decided to keep the flavour of the skin plain. Kev said that the combination of taste is good and it looked pretty with the flowers in the jelly.

Butterfly Pea Flower Jelly Mooncake
Prep Time: 4 hours
Cook Time: 10 min
Serving Size: 4 in 8cm diameter mooncake jelly mould
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
550mls of water
40 grams of castor sugar
2 teaspoons of agar-agar powder
1 teaspoon of Konnyaku jelly powder
2 tablespoons of butterfly pea dried flower

1. Soak the butterfly pea flower in the water for 15 minutes.

The ingredients

Soak flower in water

2. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder in a bowl.
3. Drain the water and remove the flower from the solution.

Remove the flower from the water after it turned blue after 15 minutes

4. Distribute the flower on the jelly mould. 

Distribute the flower in the jelly mould after removing it from the water

5. Pour the water into a pot. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder in the pot.
6. After it is well mixed, heat up the mixture until it started to boil.
7. Pour part of the mixture into the mould. 
8. Put the soya filling which contained the egg yolk into the mould.
9. Fill up the mould until it is full.

Pour the mixture into the jelly mould with the soya filling into the mould

10. Chill the mixture which is in the mould in the fridge for 4 hours.
11. Remove the jelly mooncake from the mould.

The pretty butterfly pea flower mooncake

Ratings:

Kev ★★★★☆

Bunny ★★★★☆

Jelly Mooncake Whipping Cream Filling

  For those who likes to have a vanilla milk flavored filling, you can try this recipe. This recipe goes really well with chocolate jelly mooncake. The cookie crumbs are optional. The cookie crumbs do not have to be added when  it is not paired with the chocolate skin. Again, this recipe is modified from Little Duck's Kitchen.

Jelly Mooncake Whipping Cream Filling
Prep Time: 4 hours
Cooking Time: 10 min
Serving Size: 6 in 7.5cm diameter cupcake mould
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
300 mls of water
50 grams of whipping cream
3 pairs of Oreo biscuits with the filling
40 grams of castor sugar
1¼ teaspoon of agar-agar powder
½ teaspoon of Konnyaku jelly powder

1. Remove the oreo fillings from the oreo biscuits. Crush the biscuits into crumbs.

The ingredients

2. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and the jelly powder together.
3. Pour the water and whipping cream into a pot. Add the oreo fillings into the pot.
4. Add the powder into the pot.
5. Put the biscuit crumbs into the mould, evenly divided in the 6 moulds. (optional)

Crush the Oreo cookies and put it into the moulds

6. Heat up the pot until the liquid starts boiling. Reduce the temperature while pouring the mixture into the mould.

Mix the whipping cream and the water with the powder together. After mixing it, heat up the mixture.

Pour the mixture into the mould

7. Leave the mould into the fridge for 4 hours.
8. Remove the whipping cream filling using a toothpick.

Cookie crumb whipping cream filling

Ratings:

Kev ★★★★☆

Bunny ★★★★☆

Jelly Mooncake Soya Filling

  During one of the charity sale, Kev bought a soya flavored mooncake and we enjoyed it a lot. So when I saw that Little Duck's Kitchen made soya filling for her jelly mooncake, I know I just have to try it out. The thing about soy milk is that the powder mixture which made up of castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder tend to dissolve quite quickly in milk based liquid. So even without heating up the soya mixture, the powder will get dissolved in it easily. After the liquid boiled, milk based liquid will get solidify really fast, so it is important to have quick hands to pour it into the mould just before it gets harden. Once it starts to bubble (boils) you can start pouring the liquid into the mould while lowering down the heat. You do not need to turn off the heat as when the temperature is low, the liquid will hardens even faster. The usual ratio of 1:1 of agar-agar powder and jelly powder doesn't really work for milk based liquid either as it will become mushy and too soft to maintain its shape. Usually for milk based liquid, you will need a higher ratio of agar-agar to jelly powder.

Jelly Mooncake Soya Filling

Prep Time: 4 hours

Cooking Time: 10 min

Serving Size: 4 in 7cm diameter cupcake mould

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

150 mls of soy milk

150 mls of water

25 grams of castor sugar

1½ teaspoon of agar-agar powder

1 teaspoon of Konnyaku jelly powder

1. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and the jelly powder together.

The ingredients

2. Pour the soy milk and water into a pot.

3. Pour the powder mixture into the pot and mix well.

4. Heat up the mixture until it boils. Lower down the heat but do not turn off the heat. 

5. Fill up half of the mould with the mixture. Put 1 egg yolk (can be either the orange flavored egg yolk or the carrot flavored egg yolk) into each mould.

6. Fill the rest of the mould fully.

After filling up the mould with the soya jelly and also the egg yolks

7. Chill the mixture and mould in the fridge for at least 4 hours.

8. Remove the jelly from the mould using a toothpick.

The soya filling finally with egg yolk inside

  Kev says it's quite difficult to judge these fillings on its own. Most importantly is the taste when it is combined with the outer layer and also the yolks. I did this in different blog post because you can actually mix and match the different egg yolk and jelly mooncake outer layer flavors. It might just give you a surprise.

Ratings:

Kev ★★★☆☆

Bunny ★★★☆☆

Jelly Mooncake Carrot Flavored Egg Yolk

  There's a healthier alternative to the orange flavored egg yolk which is the carrot flavored egg yolk. Kev love this as he says that it tastes like gula melaka. For me I think the taste of the carrots are a bit too strong. However it goes well with soya filling to make butterfly pea flower jelly mooncake. This recipe is also taken and modified from Little Duck's Kitchen on YouTube.

Jelly Mooncake Carrot Flavored Egg Yolk

Prep Time: 4 hours

Cooking Time: 10 min

Serving Size: 20 egg yolks (3.5cm diameter)

Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:

2 carrots

1½ cups of water

30 grams of castor sugar

1 teaspoon of agar-agar powder

1 teaspoon of  Konnyaku jelly powder

1. Cut the carrots into pieces.

The ingredients 

2. Put the carrots and water into the blender.

Blend the carrot and water in the blender

3. Strain the carrots and water to obtain 300 mls of carrot juice.

Strain the carrot mixture to get 300 mls of carrot juice

4. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder in a bowl.

5. Put the carrot juice and the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder into a pot. Mix them together.

6. Heat up the pot.

7. After the mixture boils, pour the mixture into the egg yolk mould.

Pour the mixture into the mould

8. Chill your mixture in the fridge for 4 hours.
9. Remove your jelly from the mould. 

Carrot flavored egg yolk ready!

Ratings:

Kev ★★★☆☆

Bunny ★★★☆☆

Jelly Mooncake Orange Flavored Egg Yolk

Orange flavored egg yolks

Mid autumn festival is just round the corner. There are quite a few types of mooncakes. For me, I like eating jelly mooncake though Kev will say it is filled with sugar, water and some jelly powder. This year I want to try making it as well. To imitate the usual mooncake with an egg yolk in the middle, we will have to start off by making the orange yolk. There are 2 types of yolk. One is the orange flavored yolk and another one is the carrot flavored yolk. For this post I will explain the steps for the orange flavored yolk. For most of my jelly mooncake recipes, I got it from Little Duck's Kitchen and of course as usual, I will modify the recipe to suit my taste and try to make it a little healthier for my family. Surprisingly for this egg yolk recipe, I did not even make the slightest change to it because Kev and I love the consistency and taste.

Jelly Mooncake Orange Flavored Egg Yolk
Prep Time: 4 hours
Cooking Time: 5 min
Serving Size: 20 egg yolks (3.5cm diameter)
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
300 mls of Tropicana Twister Orange Juicy Burst 
30 grams of castor sugar
1 teaspoon of agar-agar powder
1 teaspoon of Konnyaku jelly powder
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Mix the castor sugar, agar-agar powder and the jelly powder together. 

Ingredients

2. Pour the orange juice and lemon juice into the pot.

Mix the orange juice and lemon juice into the pot

3. Pour in the mixture of castor sugar, agar-agar powder and jelly powder into the pot. Mix the sugar and powder with the juices.
4. Heat up the pot.
5. When the mixture starts to boil, pour into the egg yolk mould.

Pour the mixture into the mould. 

6. Wait for the mixture to cool then put into the fridge for 4 hours.
7. Remove the egg yolks from the mould.

The egg yolks are ready

  For the mould, you will probably have to source it from the local bakery or get it online. The mould can also be used to make round ice cubes which is kinda cool to serve it in your drink.

Ratings:

Kev ★★★☆☆

Carol ★★★★☆

Beef Stock

Beef Stock

Kev used to use a lot of chicken stock. However I'm more of a natural type of person. Although I do enjoy KFC and fried steak, I prefer to cook food without artificial flavoring eg chicken stock or Ajinamoto. Since Kev has hypertension, he is now all ears when talking about cooking and he agrees to go my way. All cheers to my favourite good food eg salmon but nay to to pork belly and stuff. But I believe I still get to get them sometimes of course without Kev. And also because of the wedding. I will need to get my bikini bod ready. So it's good for me to go all healthy as well. There are quite lots of uses for the beef stock. The leftover cooked beef, I give it to Snow and Fattie (both are Kev and my dogs). Then for the stock, we use it to cook soup or during stir frying the vegetables or when cooking any savoury dish. It adds the taste to it. My reference recipe will be from here.

Beef Stock
Prep time: 20 min
Cooking time: 5 hours
Serving size: 2 Litres
Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients:
1.5 kg of Australian beef bone with meat
2 carrots
1 stalk of fresh parsley
1 stalk of leek
1 big onion
1 red onion
1 garlic
10 grams of peppercorn
5 pieces of bay leaves
5 grams of salt
Enough olive oil to brush the beef
Enough water to cover the other ingredients

1. Preheat the oven at 210 degrees Celcius.
2. Get the beef onto a tray. Brush the beef with olive oil.

Brush beef bones with olive oil

3. Cut the parsley, carrots, onions, garlic, leek and celery into pieces. Put the cut parsley, carrots, onions, leek, celery, peppercorn, salt and bay leaves onto the tray. Spread it out evenly.

The rest of the ingredients

Put all the ingredients into one tray

4. Roast your ingredients in the oven for 40 minutes.

Roasting time

5. After the 40 minutes is up, put all your ingredients (including the juicy saps and also the marrows on the tray) into the slow cooker. 

Roasting time up!

6. Fill up the slow cooker with water just enough to cover the ingredients that you put into the pot. 

Filling up the slow cooker

6. Boil your ingredients for at least 6 hours or overnight. 

After 6 hours of cooking

7. Strain the beef stock onto a bowl.

Straining all the stock from the ingredients

Fresh stock with the layer of fat still on the surface

8. Leave the beef stock in the fridge until the fat on the surface solidifies.

9. Remove the fat layer using a big broad spoon.

Removing the layer that can cause atherosclerosis. Yucks!

  To store the stock, you can leave the stock with the layer of fat on top and remove it just before you use it. It can protects the stock underneath and prevent it from getting spoil. Make sure to leave your stock in the freezer if you plan to keep it for a long time or in the fridge will be suffice. Mine lasts for about a month. 

Ratings:

Kev ★★★★☆

Carol ★★★★★