Homemade Lotus Paste

I had been planning to make some lotus paste for my mooncake baking project this year but I kept dragging my feet. I finally made it last week. I feel that those store-bought paste is very oily. It is so oily to the point that there were oil dripping out. 

I referred to the recipe from here but unfortunately, I wrongly read the amount of vegetable oil as 200g instead of 200ml. When I was weighing the oil, I felt weird as it looks too much to me. In the end, I didn't pour in all the oil. However, I did not weigh the amount of oil I poured in or the leftover oil as I was rushing for time. But I guessed from my judgement, it should be roughly around the region of 200ml. The amount of sugar that I used is also slighly different. I used 180g as I preferred reduced sugar version and the sweetness is just right for us. The lotus seeds that I used were skinned lotus seeds and I rinsed and soaked them for nearly 6 hours before using. As for the method, you may refer to the method from the link above if you like. My slightly modified version is as follows:-

Lotus Paste

Ingredients:

400g skinned lotus seeds

180g sugar

200ml vegetable oil

2 screwpine leaves, knotted

Water as needed

Method:

1. Rinse and soak lotus seeds. Remove its green germ as they taste bitter.

2. Boil lotus seeds till soft in a pot of water slightly more than enough to cover the lotus seeds. If water dries up before the lotus seeds become soft, add more water as needed. 

3. Transfer it to food processor and process into a fine paste. Use the water that is used to boil the lotus seeds for processing, if needed.

4. Take 3 tablespoon of sugar from the 180g sugar and cook into caramel in a wok. Add in lotus puree, the remaining sugar and the knotted screwpine leaves. Cook till the sugar melted. If you use fine sugar, this will just take a short while. Continue stirring to prevent burning or sticking.

5. Add in the oil in few batches. Allows the oil to blend in the paste before adding the next batch.

6. Continue to cook and stir till it thicken.

7. Once done, do not expose to water else the cooked lotus paste will be easily spoilt. 

8. Let cool completely before storing in airtight container in the fridge if not use immediately. It can be stored for up to 2 to 3 weeks in the fridge. You may store it in the freezer if you want to keep it longer.

Backlog #13: Food Art for the Girls and Pumpkin Mantou (6 April 2013)

Although very busy, I was still able to allocate some time to make some food art for the girls. This round, it looks quite amateurish. I don't really like the outcome but at least the girls appreciated it. I used pumpkin "ki ka ku", grapes, purple and orange sweet potatoes, orange, apple, seaweed and some strawberry jam.

I had also made some pumpkin puree in the morning which I later used to make pumpkin mantou that afternoon.

Backlog #12: Baby Chloe (March & April 2013)

These are baby Chloe's photos taken in March and April 2013:-

Backlog #11: My 32nd Birthday (April 2013)

This entry is solely photo-based.

Backlog #9: Chocolate Chips Muffins (25/2/2013)

I made these wonderful buttery muffin with chocolate chips back in February 2013. I planned to blog about the muffins then but I was extremely busy and have no time for blogging at all. Therefore this post had been deferred till now. Although I have all the photos, the downside is that I have already forgotten where I took the recipe from. So, we would only have some sharing of photos and there would be no recipe...

Backlog # 8: Our First Mille Crepe Cake (17/2/2013)

There is a very famous mille crepe cake outlet in Melaka which we have not tried although we have been here for few years. Mille crepe originated from France. 'Mille' means 'a thousand', implying the many layers of crepe. This particular outlet that I  am writing about is the famed Nadeje. I was told that although they have many flavours of mille crepe cake, the nicest is still the original flavour. So we purposely went to Mahkota Parade to try it. We were quite full after having our dinner.  Nevertheless, we still went for a slice of the famous cake. I am not sure whether it was because we were full or what, we feel that the cake taste so-so only....

Backlog #7: Chinese New Year 2013

All the photos from my camera during the few months from Chinese New Year up to Cheryl's and my birthday was gone. I have transferred all the photos to my laptop/ hard disk but now I could not find those photos. I have been searching everywhere and up to today, I still can't find any. Most probably something went wrong during the transfer. I have already deleted all the images from my memory card once I transferred them to the laptop. Argggghhhh!!!!!

Chloe was celebrating her Chinese New Year with us for the first time that year. She was only around 4 months old then. As what we have done for few years in a row, we would be in Malacca on the second day of Chinese New Year where my side of the family would come for a visit. They would normally be here by lunch time and I would already be in Malacca since morning so that I have enough time to prepare lunch for my guests.

These are some photos that I managed to get from my mobile phone and other sources. Some of the photos were taken by my brother-in-law whom I think is very talented in photography. I really hope I would somehow be able to get hold of all the precious photos that I have lost.

This photo was also taken during the Chinese New Year period. It was taken at Mahkota Parade.