Sweet Potato Balls in Coconut Sugar Syrup

In Indonesia, sweet potato is really really easy to find. I believe we have plenty the whole year round. And there are many types of sweet potato, we usually call it by the colors. White sweet potato, yellow (it is actually a bit orangish-peach), purple and by it regions, e.g cilembu.

Now let's talk about sweet potato balls. This sweet dessert is very popular during the holy month of Ramadan. It taste good, sweet and down to earth kinda food. A perfect treat after a day of fasting. 

As per today, you can have a kilogram of yellow sweet potato for less than a dollar! And with a kilogram, you can make 2-3 dessert with sweet potato.

Sweet potato balls, or we usually call it candil or biji salak in Indonesia, is easy to make. If you want to make it even faster, buy the sweet potato a day before. Steamed until soft, mashed it until smooth, and then divide into several  packages and store in airtight container or plastic bags. Put it on the freezer, so whenever you want to make anything with sweet potato, you just need to thaw them. Simple.

What you need :

300gr sweet potato, wash, peeled, and diced
30gr sago flour
pinch of salt

for the sauce :
200 gr coconut sugar, coarsely chopped
2 pandan leaves / screwpine leaves
3 cup of water/750 ml
dissolve 1 full teaspoon of sagoo in 50 ml water

for coconut milk :
100-150 ml coconut milk, made from half coconut + 100 ml water
or you can use instant coconut milk
1 pandan leave
pinch of salt

Sauce : Bring water, coconut sugar, pandan leaves to the boil over medium heat. Strain.

Sweet potato balls : Steamed the diced sweet potato until for tender. Approximately about 20-30 minutes. Transfer into a bowl, mash while still hot. Add sago and salt, knead to a soft dough. If you like you it to be more chewy, add more sago powder. Take a small pinch of the dough and form into balls. Adjust the size of the balls according to your liking. Repeat until the dough is finished. Set aside.

Bring the coconut sugar syrup to boil over medium heat. Put all balls into the coconut sugar syrup. Wait until all balls float. Wait for another 5 minutes. Add sago water and keep stirring until it thickened. Remove from the heat.

Coconut milk: Bring to the boil the coconut milk, continuous stirring needed. Add pandan leaf and salt. Remove from the heat.

Serve sweet potato balls with coconut milk. 

Perfect Chocolate Chips Cookies

If you're looking for a soft, chewy, chocolatey cookie, try this one! They are scrumptious, the kind that you won't wanna miss and you will keep munching it until its gone. Well, at least it happened in my home. I have to hide some of the cookies in a secret-place-only-mom-knows kind of place *grin*. Because I cannot bear the possibilities of watching my kids emptied the cookie jar in a day, haha. 

The only "mad" thing about the cookie is the refrigeration time. Arrrrrghhh its always annoying to do this! Especially when you are so curious about the result. But as the owner of the recipe said that this stage is a MUST, and to do not skip it. I do it. Patiently waiting for 3 hours that feels like forever.

I must admit that the result is worth the wait! It may not as beautiful as mba Elsye and mba Riana's cookie. But it surely taste as good. Many people who tries this cookie asks for the recipe. Well, this bad habit of mine I have to shoo away. I even delayed to take photos and all I got left was cookies that you all see on my photos. That's it. No more.

So, as promised, here is the recipe :

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
source : Mba Riana via Mba Elsye's blog. Adapted from centercutcook.com

330 gr all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 sdt salt
180 gr unsalted butter, melted
200 gr sugar
60 gr brown sugar/palm sugar
1 whole egg
1 yolk
1 tsp vanilla paste
200 gr milk or dark choco chips and more for sprinkles (I use mix of dark n milk chocochips)

DIRECTION :

1. In a large bowl, sift together all-purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 and 1/2 tsp cornstarch, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. 

2. In another bowl, whisk together  brown sugar, granulated sugar and melted butter. Whisk until the sugars have dissolved into the butter. It will look like caramel color. Add in the egg and egg yolk, and whisk. Then add in 1 tablespoon vanilla extract. 

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Use a large wooden spoon to combine the ingredients together. Fold in 1 cup milk chocolate chips. Place the dough in a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or overnight.

4. pre-heat your oven to 180 celcius degrees. Pull the dough out of the fridge and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. The dough is going to be hard, and difficult to work with. Use tablespoon so that you have same size cookies. Adjust the amount of dough that you want. I use about 1 full tablespoon for each cookie. Use your hands to form the dough into balls. Don't smooth the surface, let it look messy with all the wrinkles. Press a few additional chocolate chips onto the top of the dough ball.

Give each cookie a good amount of space on the baking sheets. Bake for 11-12 minutes. The cookies are going to appear under-baked. This is the right one! Allow the cookies to cool for about 10 minutes before transferring them to cooling racks.

Singkong Thailand

This sweet dessert is quite popular in Indonesia. Because cassava is easy to find here. Almost all vegetable seller also sell fresh cassava. And the fact that cassava is really easy to work with, delicious in any ways. Indonesia actually have sooooo many snacks either sweet or savory using cassava. But today I'm going to post the ala thai cassava. Basically it is a very simple kind of sweets. Boiled the cassava with water and sugar, and make the coconut milk sauce. Simple isn't it? 

For another recipe using cassava, try this pretty Steamed Cassava Roll.

Ingredients : 

500 gr cassava, peel the skin, cut into about 5 cm lengthwise

100 gr sugar

water, about 500-700ml, depending on the size of your pot. It should be cover the whole cassava.

2-3 pieces of screwpine leaves

Coconut milk sauce :

200 ml instant coconut milk

pinch of salt

1 tsp of sugar

1 piece of screwpine leave

1 full tsp of corn starch

1 tbsp water

Directions :

1. Bring to the boil the cassava, water, sugar and screwpine leaves. Cook until the cassava is tender.

2. For the sauce, bring to the boil instant coconut milk, sugar, salt, screwpine leave. 

3. Mix together the corn starch and water, pour it to the coconut milk. Let it boil. Turn of the heat.

Moist Banana Chocolate Chip Crumb Cake

From the title above, can you tell or imagine how good it is? 

Here is the thing, I guess some of my reader might know well that I'm into baking banana. But this one, dang! You have to try it! I mean it.

Cinnamon, palm sugar, choco chip and almond streusel. Something wrong with that words? Yes there is, they are the ingredients for the crumbs a.k.a streusel. Not just as sprinkle on top of the cake, but also as a layer. Can you imagine that? The only wrong thing is, we cannot stop eating it. My oh my, I don't dare to look at my scale for a week after. They are soft, moist, delectable, and soooo decadent. I did make some changes to the recipe. The original recipe doesn't required almond powder and I reduced the amount of choco chips. Oh ok, enuff with my bla bla. Go to your kitchen and collect your ingredients to bake this.  

Though my pics doesn't give fair explanation about how good it is, trust me.

INGREDIENTS

source : Sallys baking addiction. Modified by me

1 and 1/2 cups (190g) all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

75g unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 and 1/2 cup mashed bananas, very ripe (about 3 large bananas)

1/4 cup (60g) yogurt

STREUSEL

1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup palm sugar

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup ground almond

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180 C degrees.  Smear with butter an 20cm square pan.

In a medium bowl, toss the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.  Mix until well combined. Set aside.

Using a handheld, beat the butter on high speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl as needed. Switch the mixer to medium speed and beat in the sugar until combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the mashed banana and yogurt and turn the mixer on high and beat until creamy, about 1 minute. Turn the mixer off and pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Turn the mixer on low and slowly beat until combined. Do not overmix.

Make the streusel by combining all of the streusel ingredients into a small bowl. Layer half of the batter into the prepared baking pan. Top with half of the streusel. Repeat with the rest of the batter and streusel. Bake for 40-50 minutes, covering the cake with aluminum foil after 25 minutes to prevent the edges from browning too quickly.  Test  with a toothpick; if it comes out clean, the cake is done.

Allow to slightly cool for ten minutes before cutting and serving.

Banana Muffin with Lemon Glaze

I have this thing about banana muffin. I love to bake it so much. I'm obsessed!  I've tried so many banana muffin recipe, and decided to make a little experiment with my own ingredients. With this recipe, I already make 3 batch in 3 different moments. I guess that's enough to explain how good it is. 

I'm not going to bored you all with my messy writing. I believe those of you who enjoys banana muffin knows that whenever ripe banana and yogurt include on the recipe, it will be super moist and yummy.

 Feel free to make half of the recipe, as one recipe makes 12-14 muffins, depending on your muffin cup size. The key is to use very ripe banana, you know, with lotsa black spots on the skin :)

Here is the recipe :

6 medium size banana, mashed (appx 2 cups)

3/4 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

100 ml plain yoghurt

1 cup of sugar

2 cups of flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla (optional)

Lemon glaze, mix together :

1/3 cup of powder sugar

2-3 tbsp of lemon juice

How to :  

Heat your oven, 180 celsius degree

Mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside

Mix mashed banana and sugar, add oil, then add egg and yoghurt. Mix until well combine

Pour the dry ingredients to wet ingredients, mix until just combined. Do not overmix or your muffin will be tough!

Pour the batter into muffin cups, bake for about 20 minutes.

Lemon glaze : mix together the powder sugar and lemon juice. The consistency should be like shown on the above picture. Wait until the muffin is cool at room temperature before apply the glaze. Sprinkle some lemon zest. 

They are perrrrrfecto! the muffin is soft, moist and a little crumbly. It is not overly sweet, and the glaze combined perfectly with the sweet banana taste. It awakes your senses, sweet with a little sourness from the glaze. Highly recommended!

Milo and Oreo Pudding

Like any other pudding, this one is my boys' favorite. Well, as long as milo involved in the recipe, its almost impossible for them to reject it. And oreo? To be honest, long time ago, I'm not a fan of oreo. Don't even like it! its too sweet for my tongue. I even not letting my eldest to try this biscuit. But my hubby, who is a big fan of oreo, sometimes accidentally eat the oreo when my son is passing through. He doesn't make any responds, but after 2 or 3 times, he did asked his dad what that was. And then he try it. And he screams because its too sweet. Then he try again, again n again. And he loves it. He was 5 years old that time.  
There were times when he wants oreo as his snack, but thank God it is now history. He is now 8 years old and full of conscience *big grin*. At least everything that I told him, actually remains in his mind. He knows that he couldn't get as much oreo as he wants, he doesn't want to get his tooth-ache, and he wants to stay healthy. Attaboy!

Ooh and my hubby the big fan? he also heals from his addiction. Now,in our home, oreo is an additional happiness. Just an extra for our muffin, a variation. We do enjoy our oreo sometimes, but in an appropriate and decent way (is there any decent way of eating oreo? mind your "black" teeth after you eat it :D)

So when many blogger friends, including mba Hesti work of art and Teh Ayu Momylicious, make this pudding, I'm feeling curious and interested to try too. I have bookmarked the page for so long, and finally got the chance (and time) to make it. Special thanks to diligent fellow bloggers! As for the taste, in my opinion, they are not too bad, not my favorite either. I prefer soft pudding. So if you're a fan of soft n smooth pudding, add egg yolk to the batter, it will help to make the pudding's texture softer. But don't worry, despite my so so feeling to this pudding, my boys looove it. So I guess there will be the second or third batch of this pudding. 

INGREDIENTS :

Original recipe from HomeKreation, modified by me

1 pack ( 10g Agar-Agar Powder)
800 ml water
120 gr sugar
1 can (400g) Evaporated Milk
2/3 cup Milo Powder
1 full table spoon of chocolate powder
1 table spoon maizena
1 pack (137g) Oreo Cookies - break into small pieces but keep the sandwich together 

HOW TO

1. Place agar powder and water in a pan/pot cook until all powder is dissolved.
Add in sugar, cook until sugar is dissolved.
Add in milk, stir well. 
Get about 2-3 tablespoon of mixture, pour it to a bowl. Add in the maizena, mix until well combine, then pour it to the stove. Turn off fire once boiled.

2. Separate 2 cups of the mixture into another cooking pot add in Milo and chocolate powder
Stir well until milo is dissolved.

3. Pour 1cup of Milo mixture into a pudding/jelly mold and let the remaining half warm up on smallest fire.
wait until there is thin skin on the surface.

Pour the milk mixture on top, then sprinkle the oreo cookies. Let the surface set.

Pour the remaining milo mixture.

4. Let it set completely at room temperature. Put it in a fridge. Serve cold.

Soto Bandung

My mother comes from West Java, Bandung to be precise. So in our home, my mom used to make lotsa sundanese style food. They are amazing! You know, if javanese food is famous for the sweet taste, sundanese food is mostly savory and a bit spicy. And this clear soup is one of my family's favorite. No hassle. You don't even need to grind the ingredients. All you gotta do is smash the ginger, garlic etc with the side of your knife or smash it a little with pestle. Simple isn't it? Yet the taste is sooo good. Light and full of flavour.

Btw, Indonesia as an archipelago country, it has so many different cultures, tribes, and of course food. Including soto, it will easily recognize by the name mentioned after soto. For example, Soto Bandung. Of course its origin is from Bandung. Soto Betawi, comes from Betawi, Betawi/Batavia known as Jakarta now. Coto Makasar comes from Makasar, Soto Padang comes from Padang, West Sumatra, and so on.

Do give this Soto Bandung a try. This recipe is from my beloved mother. 


Ingredients :

500 gr shank beef, cut into 3x3 cm or according to your liking.
2,25 L water
8 cloves of garlic, mashed
3-4 cm of fresh ginger, mashed
4 cm galangal, mashed
2 lemongrass, mashed
3 bay leaves
2-3 tbsp of vegetable oil
2-3 tsp of salt
3/4 tsp ground pepper 
300 gr daikon, cut into about 0,5 cm circle


boiled chili sauce, boiled the following and the blend until smooth. 
-4 red cayenne chilies
-2 bird eye chilies
- juice from 1 lime
- salt 
- a pinch of sugar
- about 70-100ml of water

Garnish and accompaniments :

2 handfuls of soybean. Soaked into water about 30-45 minutes until it skin looks chipped. Drain with paper towel and deep fry until golden brown. Use low heat as they got dark easily, make sure the oil is hot.

1 bunch of scallion, thinly slice
1 bunch of chinese celery, thinly slice

sweet soy sauce (optional, I never use soy sauce for this soto, but some prefer adding a tsp or two of sweet soy sauce. Its your call)

HOW TO :
1. Bring to the boil the shank beef, and simmer for about 1 hour until the beef tender. Or else use pressure cooker to finish faster. 

2. Heat the oil in a frying pan, sautee the mashed garlic, ginger, galangal, lemongrass and bay leaves until fragrant. Transfer to beef soup.

3. Season the soup with salt and pepper.

4. Add the sliced daikon, bring to the boil and turn off the heat.

5. Serve with fried soybean, sliced celery, sliced scallion, sweet soy sauce and boiled chilies.