Taiwanese Pineapple Shortcakes 台式凤梨酥

This Taiwanese Pineapple Shortcakes is my first bake after the long summer break. After referring to a few interesting recipes finally I landed on Carol's pineapple shortcake recipe as I'm using store-bought pineapple filling and doesn't want my pastry to be too sweet. 

Carol original recipe is adding pine nut in her pineapple filling as I don't have that I substitute it with crashed pistachio. It tastes good when you can experience different texture in one bite. Love its rich cheesy butter-milk taste of the pastry. I used 2 whole eggs in the pastry recipe. 

Two types of mould was used. I bought my individual rectangular pineapple mould (16 pieces) in Penang. Then bought the long pineapple shortcake mould at Phoon Huat Singapore. Verdict is: I prefer the long pineapple shortcake mould as it is easier to flip the shortcake,  bigger and able to stuff in more filling, personal preference >>> like the square more than the rectangular shape.     

My boy at home very eager wants to hands-on baking his own pineapple shortcakes. 

Recipe for pastry from Carol 
Ingredients:
120g unsalted butter (soften to room temperature)
25g icing sugar
1 whole egg, 1 egg yolk (used 2 whole eggs, lightly beaten)
25g Parmesan cheese powder
20g full cream milk powder
150g pastry flour/ top flour
50g plain flour

300g store bought pineapple filling  + 3 tablespoons crash pistachio (Mixed well)

Method:

1. Sift the pastry flour together with plain flour. Put aside.

2. Cut the soften butter into small cubes, cream it in a mixing bowl using hand whisk until creamy.

3. Add icing sugar, stir well. Add Parmesan cheese powder and milk powder in the bowl and mix well.

4. Add egg in three batches, mix well.

5. Fold in the flour mixture in two batches. Do not over mixing. Form a rough dough and divide the dough into require portions. In my case for square mould is about 30g each. with about 22g of filling each.

6. Flatten the pastry dough between two piece of wrapping cling, stuff the flatten dough into the mould (like building up wall), then place the filling in it, use fingers to lightly press down the filling into each corner. Cover up the top with pastry dough. Press the dough with fingers so to fill up the mould.

7. Place the pineapple shortcake dough in a lined baking tray. Bake at pre-heat oven at 170C for 10-12mins, flip over the other side and bake for another 10 mins or until lightly golden brown.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs Up organised by Bake for Happy Kids and My Little Favourite DIY, and hosted by Diana from the Domestic Goddess Wannabe.

I am also submitting this post to Asian Food Fest #10 Aug 2014 : Taiwan hosted by travelling-foodies.

Homemade Red Rice Wine 红糟米酒

Hi, I'm back from my summer holidays ... still very lazy to move and get back to blogging after two weeks of resting, everything still unfamiliar, Grrr... I missed my friends and the green! I even have to think what is my ID and password when I need to login to blogger, must be the heat here is too bad for me :) 

Ok, today get myself a cup of 3-in-1 chai-latte and here go the engines. I would like to share and record my first homemade red rice wine which I brewed it before I went for my summer break (consulted my mum via Facetime so many time just to make sure the process is correct, anyway I still change some of it as I don't have muslin fabric which used in steaming the rice) So the fermentation took me about 60 days because I'm away for holidays and my mum told me even if I took out the rice wine around 30 days, the rice residue in the rice wine will continue its fermentation until the rice dissolved.  

The end result is a homemade fragrance red rice wine. Thank God it is sweet! In this recipe I used Japanese Sake instead of the common Chinese rice wine just because I couldn't get any Chinese rice wine here. The Sake contents nearly 15% of alcohol. There are two types of dried yeast balls 酒饼, I used the dried yeast balls which can produce sweet taste 甜酒饼。The other type is a spicy dried yeast ball 辣酒饼。The red yeast rice 红曲米 is the main ingredient to turn the rice wine into pinkish red.

In between the fermentation, you will see lots of gas bubble released or trapped between the rice. The bottle of fully pack glutinous rice will gradually loosen out and turned into liquid form. The rice will eventually settled at the bottom. The rice residue left behind can be used for cooking as well.

Note:
1. To get translucent clear rice wine, it is important not to shake or stir the bottle at the final stage. (Haha...top quality and no rice crumble in it)
2. Do not over tighten the lid or cover of the bottle, this is to allow the gas release from the bottle.
3. Place the bottle out of sunlight and in good ventilation room. (I placed it at a corner of my kitchen far away from stove)
4. Every equipment used for the brewing must be free from oil. 
  

This recipe yield around 4 big bottles of red rice wine and about 500g of red rice residue.

1. Soak 3kg glutinous rice and 100g red yeast rice overnight.

2. Drain the water and fill up some water to cover the rice, steam until the rice is cooked. You can test whether the rice is cooked/soft in between. I divided the rice into 3 steaming trays to make sure the rice is thoroughly cooked. Spread out the rice and let it cool down completely. Set aside.

3. Eight dried yeast balls 甜酒饼 was used. You can pound it into powder or crash it by hands. 

4. Get a clean big glass bottle which free of oil. Place the room temperature glutinous rice in it, sprinkle with some rice yeast ball powder, continue to layer with glutinous rice. Pour some sake/ Chinese rice wine in between. Continue the process until all glutinous rice is packed into the bottle and rice yeast ball powder is used up.

Total sake used is around 600ml. 

5. On the third days, the changes in the glass bottle is obvious. The glutinous rice is loosen out, lot of liquid form.

6. This photo was taken on the third week. There is lot of gas bubble trapped or released from the fermentation. Lot of glutinous rice still floating, there is rice crumble settled at the bottom. The liquid is yet translucent. At this stage, some of the time I shake the bottle to help releasing the trapped bubbles. (When I told my mum, she scolded me and insisted I should not shake the bottle)

7. After 60 days of brewing, finally all rice settled at the bottom and no more gas bubbles found. The liquid is translucent clear. Do not shake the bottle at this stage. 

8. From the left Evian small bottle, and the big second bottle are the first red rice wine scoop out from the big glass bottle without filter. The liquid is translucent clear and without rice residue. The liquid in third to fifth bottles has to go through the filter to eliminate the excessive rice residue, initially the liquid was pinkish but after a few days the rice residue settled at the bottom.