Egg Tech = Hi Tech

Last Saturday when i was on my way back to my father in-law's house, i saw a lorry with the company's advertisement on the vehicle body. What ?! Egg Tech ? Frozen egg ? What on earth is this ? Eggs are supposed to be eaten fresh and it gets rotten very fast and easily.

How can it be frozen and extend its life span ? OMG ... i was thinking ... all these years i'd been eating cakes and breads made of frozen eggs. Gardenia wholemeal bread was my regular my have in the kitchen and not to forget those fancy restaurants and cafes that serve pretty petit desserts. No wonder our new generations have such a short life span and a list of diseases and sickness.

When i reach home, i quickly googled for the company's product to get in-depth details into what is all this. Hmm... they're the first manufacturer of pasteurized egg products in Malaysia. These are their products :-

(a) Liquid Egg Yolk

 Plain yolk 5% salted egg yolk Description Egg yolks separated from farm fresh eggs, pasteurized, chilled and frozen Ingredients Plain: egg yolk only Application For salted egg yolk ...

(b) Hardcooked Egg

Farm fresh eggs, boiled, peeled and vacuum packed. Ingredients Whole boiled eggs. ..

(c) Liquid Egg Whole

 Product Chilled or frozen liquid whole egg Description Whole egg pulp produced from farm fresh eggs, pasteurised, homogenised, chilled or frozen Ingredients 100% whole egg ....

Shelf Life
Chilled: Use within 7 days of manufacture.

Frozen: Will keep up to 12 months from date of manufacture under frozen storage. After thawing, the product will remain stable for up to 2 days under refrigerated conditions between 1 ° C and 4 ° C.

After reading all this information, i vowed to bake my own cakes and breads as often as i can so as to minimise eating outside. I can't imagine what other stuff is added during the manufacturing process. I seldom buy cakes and breads from night market coz i know that for the price that they're selling, they will have to substitute so many main ingredients for some low cost items which i have no idea what is it, especially those fluffy bread and chiffon, where u won't feel full after eating the whole chiffon by yourself.

 

If only Malaysians are knowledgeable enough, then there will be a market for home made cakes and breads. I was told that in Australia, people are buying home made products from housewives as they believe in the ingredients used rather than manufacturing products that used a lot of China made ingredients.

 

So please be wise in eating and knowing what kind of ingredients used will help to keep a healthy life.

Wholemeal Banana Muffin

Last night i went to Starbucks cafe for coffee and a muffin. It was my first time that i'd try on a traditional dome shaped muffin, a real spill over the muffin case. This mushroom look alike muffin was really different from those asian made muffins which is very small more like a cupcake version. I quickly googled for a recipe but could only found the nearest matching muffin recipe, still far from Starbucks muffin.

Since i'd tried on Starbucks muffin, i'd started to develop some interest in muffin. Well, i would never buy/order muffins outside coz i don't quite like the cake texture. It doesn't taste like a muffin to me.

So, Gordon Ramsay's wholemeal blueberry muffin recipe is quite similar to the muffin that i'm looking for and it's very healthy knowing that we use a lot of wholemeal flour to bake it.

This recipe use fresh blueberries but i omitted it coz its too costly in Malaysia.

Adaptation :- Gordon Ramsay

Makes 12

2 large, very ripe bananas

300g wholemeal flour

One and a half tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Pinch of fine sea salt

100g light muscovado or brown sugar

284ml carton buttermilk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

75g light olive oil (or melted butter)

1 tbsp Demerara sugar  (i'd replaced with brown sugar)

METHOD

Heat the oven to 180°C. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases. Peel the bananas and mash in a bowl, using a fork. Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and brown sugar together in a large mixing bowl.

Make a well in the centre and add the buttermilk, egg, olive oil and bananas. Quickly fold the ingredients together until just incorporated, taking care not to overmix.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cases and sprinkle with the Demerara sugar. The cases will be quite full. Bake in the oven for about 20-25 min until well risen and golden brown on top; a skewer inserted into the centre of the muffin should emerge clean.

Leave to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Mandarin Orange Chiffon cake

Well, this post is a memorable one. First, this will be my first attempt in blogging and to type out the first sentence takes so much effort into it. Second, this is my first successful attempt in baking a cake. I mean....to turn those powders and liquids into a beautiful cake.



My 2nd time in baking chiffon cake and it would also be my 1st successful chiffon cake ! Hooray !!! I brave myself to bake chiffon cake for the 2nd time and never would i thought that it is so successful. I'm proud of myself this time coz it took me such a big courage to beat egg whites ! Hahaha ... to many bakers out there, beating egg white may be a simple task but for me as a novice in cake baking and don't even own a proper stand mixer, i'll shudder at the thought of beating egg whites all the time. Well, practise makes perfect. So here's the recipe to share (courtesy of "My Kitchen Snippets" with a bit of changes).

Ingredients :
(A)
1 3/4 Self Rising Flour
1/8 tsp of salt
(B)
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar
3/4 cup Mandarin orange juice
zest of 1 mandarin orange
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
(C)
6 egg white
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tsp of cream of tartar

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degree F. Sieve all the (A) ingredient in a mixing bowl until well combined.

2. Mix ingredient (B) until well blended and then add in ingredient (A) and mix until smooth. Set it aside.

3. Beat egg whites in mixer until frothy. Add sugar in 3 portions while beating till soft peak. Finally add in cream of tartar and ebat till stiff peak.

It should not fall out when you turn the mixing bowl over. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolks mixture and continue to do so until egg whites is finish.

4. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan and bake for an hour or used a bamboo skewer to test the cake.

5. Transfer the tube pan and let it cool on the rack upside down. When its cool, loosen the edge of the pan and remove cake.