Kha-nom Tan (Toddy Palm Cake)

This is one of my favorite Thai desserts. I have never made them before until I got back from my Thailand trip earlier this year and wondered if I could make them myself. This would absolutely help my craving for Thai desserts. I could buy some Thai desserts here in China Town but they don't taste very good compare to what I had in Thailand, and I have never seen Kha-nom Tan sells here.

The main ingredient of Kha-nom Tan is the toddy palm ("Tan" means toddy palm), which is pretty much impossible to find some fresh ones here. But the same with everything else, I looked for my solution online. And immediately I found a site that sell Thai food products. So I bought a bottle of ready to use toddy palm paste.

Ingredients:

1 cup toddy palm paste

2 1/2 cups rice flour

1/2 teaspoon yeast

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup palm sugar

3 cups coconut milk

1 teaspoon salt

some shredded unsweetened coconuts

Directions:

1. Put coconut milk, white sugar, and palm sugar in a pot. Stir them on a medium heat until sugar dissolved and ingredients combined. Turn off the heat and let it cool.

2. Combine rice flour, yeast, and salt together in a medium bowl and pour into the coconut milk mixtures. Add toddy palm paste into the mixtures, stir until smooth.

3. Damp a clean towel and use it to lightly cover the top of the toddy palm mixtures. Leave it out at the room temperature for about 2-4 hours or until the surface of the toddy palm mixtures bubbled.

4. Spoon the mixtures into a small banana leaf cups. Fill it to about 3/4 of the cup. You can also use small ramekins if you cannot find any banana leaves.

5. Put the cups into the steam with already boiling water then cover the lid. Stream it for 15 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, mix the shredded coconuts with a pitch of salt. Sprinkle the toddy palm cake with the shredded coconuts before serving.

Note: You can refrigerate them and warm them in the microwave before serving.

Marshmallow Fondant

As promised, I'm putting up a recipe for making fondant using marshmallows.

Ingredients:

1 package white marshmallows

1 package (2 lbs) powdered sugar shifted

1 table spoon vanilla extract

3 table spoon water

butter/crisco shorting

food coloring and cocoa powder are optional

Directions:

1. Put a package of marshmallows in a heat-safe bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

2. Add the vanilla extract and water, stir to combined. Put the bowl back into the microwave for another 1-2 minutes. Continue stirring until the marshmallow become smooth and very sticky liquified form. At this stage, you may add some food coloring or cocoa powder to make it into a color you like. However, I like to keep the white color and mix in the coloring before using it.

3. Put a cup of shifted powered sugar into the marshmallow bowl and mix well. Continue putting in a cup of powdered sugar at a time and mix until the marshmallow is starting to become a dough-like form.

4. On a clean countertop, rub the countertop surface with butter or shortening to prevent marshmallow sticking to it. Rub you hand with the butter/shortening as well.

5. Turn the dough onto the countertop and start kneading it with the powered sugar. Knead until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. Save the remaining of the powered sugar for later use.

6. Grease the dough with butter then wrap it with plastic wrapper and put in an air-tight container. Refrigerate it over night before use.

Halloween Themed Pumpkin and Chocolate Cupcakes

Another sweet Halloween treat that is easy to make and perfect for both adults and kids. It's the half chocolate and half pumpkin cupcakes. This is inspired by the Neapolitan cupcakes, which is half chocolate and half vanilla or white chocolate, but instead I make the other half with pumpkin cupcake recipe. You can find the recipe for pumpkin cupcakes here and chocolate cupcakes click here.

Add chopped walnuts in both batches to give it some crunchy texture and because walnuts are so good for you. The original baking time for both cupcakes are around 20-22 minutes at 350F. However it seems that chocolate cupcakes take additional 6-7 minutes to cooked. Insert a toothpick into both sides make sure both sides are cooked perfectly.

Top them with the cream cheese frosting:

1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese

1/4 cup butter (soften)

2 cups of powdered sugar (shifted)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream together cream cheese and butter.

Add vanilla extract, then gradually stir in

powdered sugar.

For the final touch, I decorated it with fondant. I made my own fondant with marshmallows. It tastes better than the store-bought ones.

I'll post on how to make a the marshmallow fondant in a separate post.

Chocolate Truffles

Halloween is just around the corner and most people would probably buy those tiny chocolate bars to give to the kids. For those who aim for a little sophisticated adult Halloween party, you probably would want to opt for something a little different, like chocolate truffles.

Truffles are quite expensive if you buy them from stores. They are however, extremely easy to make and you can decorate them to fit your taste buds.

Many truffles recipes use heavy cream and semi-sweet chocolate or bitter sweet chocolate, some may add fruity flavored liqueurs. I usually like to coat them with semi-sweet chocolate or white chocolate then dip into ground walnuts (you can use any type of nuts), coconut shreds, and sprinkle candies. Dipping truffles straight into unsweeten cocoa powder is great also. Here is a great site for a simple truffle recipe.