Queijadas

A reader asked if I will soon be baking a Filipino cheese bread that doesn't have any cheese in it and I said I've never heard of this bread. But I have come across the phrase "no cheese in the dough" and mistakenly looked for it in one of my Spanish cookbooks, but later found it in FLAVORS OF PORTUGAL by Tania Gomes. The custard tartlets are called queijadas (cheese tarts) but they don't contain any cheese. The recipe is short and simple with very few ingredients. The tarts have a creamy consistency and very satisfying as a dessert or snack.

Queijadas
adapted from FLAVORS OF PORTUGAL by Tania Gomes

3 whole eggs
1 cup sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2¼ cups milk
soft butter to grease muffin pans

• Preheat oven to 400°F.
  
• Generously grease shallow non-stick muffin cups with butter. (Do not line muffin cups with paper)
  
• In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar together until very light and lemon colored. Whisk together flour and baking powder and blend into the egg mixture. Stir in vanilla extract and milk. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Remove from pan and let cool on a wire rack. Store/serve on paper muffin liners.
  

Peanut Sans Rival

peanut sans rival

This semi-frozen sans rival has tons of peanuts and a little chocolate, peanut lovers will surely love it. I made the peanut meringue layers thicker than the regular sans rival but crunchy, the filling/frosting has peanut butter buttercream then sprinkled with a little chopped semi-sweet chocolate, and the top is garnished with chopped Choc*Nut. Sooo delicious and peanut-y.

Sans Rival recipe is here.

the ultimate peanut sans rival for peanut lovers

Sweet Red Bean Paste

I love the smoky flavor of sweet red bean paste and regularly buy the canned Japanese ones but lately I find them overly sweet. I decided to make the paste from scratch mainly to reduce the sugar content. It's not a very difficult process and 2 cups of dried beans make a large batch of sweet paste, about 5 cups, that can fill a lot of pao (steamed buns), baked buns, and hopiang hapon (Japanese-style Filipino-Chinese cakes). I've made the super flaky Filipino Chinese hopia which is a tad complicated and thought making hopiang hapon would be easier because the dough I remember was not as flaky and greasy as the regular hopia, probably closer to moon cake dough.

There aren't many recipes for Filipino hopiang hapon and I adapted the dough from the only one I could find. I underbaked the hopia and they came out pale; and although they don't look like the ones from the Philippines, they taste almost identical. The dough is soft and not sweet at all and I can't stop eating them, they're that good. I'll use a moon cake dough recipe next time I make these.

mini sweet red bean pao

baked sweet buns

hopiang hapon

Sweet Red Bean Paste
2 cups small red beans (azuki)
4 cups water + more to cover
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light olive oil

• Clean, rinse, and soak beans overnight in 4 cups water. The next day, drain beans and place in a large non-stick sauce pan; add fresh water to cover and cook over medium heat until tender. Drain, add sugar and oil, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often until soft and mixture appears dry. For coarse consistency, mash with a potato masher or blend in a blender if fine consistency is preferred. The paste should hold its shape but still moist. Let cool to room temperature, transfer into a container, wrap tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until needed.

The recipe for steamed pao dough is here.

Hopiang Hapon

dough
1½ cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
¼ cup cubed cold butter
¼ cup light olive oil
¼ cup water
1 whole egg

filling
1½ x ½-inch sweet red bean paste disks

egg wash
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon water

• Whisk together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut in cold butter with fingertips. Stir in the rest of the ingredients until combined. Knead lightly just until a smooth dough is formed. Divide into 2 equal pieces and form into logs. Refrigerate for 1 hour. Slice each log into 8 pieces. Flatten each piece into 1/8 inch thick circles. Place a disk on the center and gather the edges. Pinch together and place on a sheet pan, seam side down. Brush with egg wash and bake in a preheated 375°F oven until golden.

Bonus info: The Japanese use ground azuki beans as a facial exfoliating agent. A fellow shopper, a Japanese woman, told me while we were at The Body Shop that her secret to a smooth unblemished facial skin is ground azuki which the store was selling at the time. The grounds came in a tiny box with holes at the top. You wet a small amount on your palm and massage the paste in a circular motion all over your cheeks, forehead, and chin. I used the ground beans on my face for many years but the store discontinued the product. It really works great in removing dead skin making my face smooth as a baby's. I should probably grind some.;-)

Food Friday: Cookies and Candies

paciencia (patience), very crunchy 1-inch macaron-like cookies but without nuts

Filipino candies

Paciencia cookies, which are of Spanish origin, look like the French macarons complete with tiny feet but they are made with just flour, egg whites, sugar, and vanilla extract. The ones from La Pacita bakery have egg yolks, though, but I like that they are very very crunchy and addicting...you can't stop eating once you start popping one in your mouth. And I just had to grab a packet of Mangorind, combination mango and tamarind, when I saw it at the store. They are sweet and tart and I love its chewy texture similar to fruit leather or pate de fruits. The packet of hard mints with soft chocolate centers was a gift from an online Filipino grocery store. The candies taste a lot better than the ubiquitous Halls mentholyptus (menthol + eucalyptus) candies and perfect as after-dinner mints. I keep several pieces in my handbag so I have something to "eat" when I get hungry while shopping.