An Auspicious Steamed Cake To Celebrate My Blog Anniversary–Pandan Huat Kuih (香兰发糕）

INTRODUCTION

Today is an auspicious day for the blog. It is the day It the anniversary of this blog.

In fact this is not the exact day but it should be very near to 30-4-2013. I started my blog using a Tumblr account. Even until today, the blog is still there but I did not really update the post there. Instead, whatever I posted in WordPress (https://kwgls.wordpress.com), a summary will be send to my Tumblr blog (http://kwgls.tumblr.com/)

Around this time last year, I have decided to shift all by my blog entries from Tumblr to WordPress and  the transfer process have messed up my date of entries.  Therefore, I have chosen today to be my blog anniversary. The actual date should not be 7 days more than this date.

I have no intention to celebrate this special day, no giveaways and etc. Instead, I have prepared a type of  “huat Kuih” or “Fa Gow” to commemorate this day. Why Huat Kuih or Fa Gow? Actually, for the last blogging year, my first post of Huat Kuih prepared using rice flour have attracted a lot of readerships… and I will share my top 20 posts of my last blogging year in a day of two.

As contrasted to the Huat Kuih post that I issued last year, this Huat Kuih is prepared using wheat flour and not rice flour. There are many versions of huat kuih in the internet and I thought it might be good for me to try a Huat Kuih prepared using normal flour. When I goggled for the recipe, I stumbled  across this simple recipe  : 香味扑鼻的班兰小发糕. I looked at the picture and it really attracted me.  So I have decided to prepare this today hopefully it will bring some luck to me in my second year of blogging.

I am very pleased with this cake. It is definitely edible. It had eggs and butter in the ingredients and it is a very fragrant cake. However, for religion praying purposes, you will have to decide whether it fits your praying criteria since eggs and butter were used. If you would like to read more about the history of Huat Kuih, you can refer to my first post.

---

WHAT IS REQUIRED

Recipe adapted from: 香味扑鼻的班兰小发糕.

Servings: Prepare 6 Huat Kuihs

• 250 grams of self raising flour （自发面粉）
• 150 grams of castor sugar （白砂糖）
• 1 teaspoon of double acting baking powder or baking powder (双重发粉或发粉）
• 1 egg (鸡蛋）
• 200 grams of plain water （白水）
• 50 grams of melted butter （牛油）
• 6 pieces of pandan leaves （香兰叶）

---

STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Get ready a steamer with water capable of steaming the Kuih for at least 20 minutes.

• Blend the pandan leaves with the water. Sieve the pandan juice to a pan. Pour in the sugar. Heat the pandan juice and sugar until all the sugar have dissolved. There is no need to bring the juices to boiling point. As long as the sugar have dissolved, off the heat and set aside the pandan syrup for later use.

• Heat up the butter in a microwave for about 30 seconds. When cool, add in the eggs and stir lightly until well combined. Set aside..
• In another big mixing bowl, sift the self raising flour and double acting baking powder. Make a well in the centre. Add the Pandan juice followed by the egg butter mixture. Use a hand mixer and whisk until well mixed.

• Transfer it to some cupcake cups and fill the cups with the batter until at least 95% full. Steam in the steamer for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre come out clean. It is best that the cupcakes cups be pre-steamed before filling of the batter. You shall use high heat in the entire process of steaming. Best served hot as a snack .

---

CONCLUSION

I am very happy as the cakes turns out very well, “laughing” happily in the steamer. Not only that the cakes are pretty, the cakes are extremely tasty. It is a blend of pandan, egg and buttery aroma. In addition, it is soft and fluffy. Hopefully, this will mark an auspicious start for the second year of blogging career. 

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

---

For more recipes, you can refer to my RECIPE INDEX (updated as at 21 March 2014)  here and you can follow me at PINTEREST or visit this blog’s FACEBOOK PAGE .  

If you are a Pinterest user and you are interested to have more recipes, you can join or follow this Pinterest Board set up by me  where there are more than 1800 recipes worldwide and pinned by various bloggers: FOOD BLOGGERS AND FOODIES UNITED PINTEREST BOARD.

You can also join the Food Bloggers and Foodies United Group Facebook Group to see more recipes. Currently there are about 4500 members sharing various food photos . I would be more than happy if you can  post in Groups for the recipes that you tried from Guaishushu’s blog.

---