Strawberry & Rosewater Gateau

This recipe is from one of the cookbook series that my husband subscribed for me.  We went to IGA to buy some supplies and I saw fresh strawberries and I remember that I had a recipe asking for them so I ended up buying them too. 

Ingredients
175 g butter, softened
175 g caster sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
175 g self-raising flour
3 tbsp Rosewater
150 ml cream
225 g strawberries
icing sugar to dust

Procedure
Cream butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.
Gradually beat in eggs.
Fold in the flour iwht a metal spoon.
Add in 2 tbsp rosewater
Divide the cake batter between two 8 inch baking pan (which were lightly greased)
Bake for 20 minutes in a 190C preheated oven.
Whip cream until it holds its shape.  Fold in the remaining tablespoon of rosewater.
Slice strawberries in half.
Spoon the cream onto one sponge and arrange some strawberries around the edge.  Top with the second sponge and press down lightly.  Decorate with more strawberries and a few mint leaves or leaves of the strawberries. 
Dust with icing sugar.
A comment or two will be appreciated...

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Easy Pan de Coco

Pan de Coco has always been a favourite of many Filipinos.  It brings back a lot of memories to most people.  It's like going back to childhood when you were walking to your school and stop at a small store to buy your baon which would usually be a pan de coco or a simple monay.  Either one would make your tummy filled up just until it's time for you to go home again to eat lunch.

Ingredients
Choose any of the recipe for dough.
beaten egg for glazing
Filling
dessicated coconut
coco jam (Lily's)

Procedure
Divide the dough into balls ( to the size that you prefer).  Roll each ball making sure that the center is thicker than the edges.
Sprinkle the center with dessicated coconut.
Top the coconut with 1 tsp of coco jam.
Sprinkle the coco jam with dessicated coconut.
Gather the edges of the dough and seal together by pinching.
Place them in a lightly greased pan with the sealed side at the bottom.
Make some holes using fork.
Let them rest for 1 hour.
Glaze with beaten egg.
Bake for 15 minutes in a 180C preheated oven.  The length of baking time would depend on the size of your pan de coco.  Remove  from oven when they become shiny golden brown on top.

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Pinoy Polvoron

Who would not love eating polvoron?  When I was still in the Primary School, I would always buy them in a store near the school.  They were always wrapped in colorful plastics.  Flavours could be pinipig and peanuts.  Today, you can even buy them commercially at Goldilocks with flavours like oreos and cashews.  Polvoron is of Spanish origin (wikipedia).  Polvo (pulbo) is a Spanish term for powder.  The original Spanish polvoron is a flaky, soft, rich, shortbread-type cookie made with flour, lard or vegetable shortening, powdered sugar and cinnamon.  The mixture is molded into oval or round shapes with a polvorera (a special mold which allows the formed sweets to be discharged easily without crumbling). Once molded, polvoron is wrapped in cellophane or Japanese paper. Like I said, the ones that we have in the Philippines has so many variations-- thanks to the creative Filipinos!

Ingredients
1 1/2 c powder milk
1 c plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 c butter, melted
1/2 c peanuts or any nuts that you like or you can add crashed oreos (just remove the cream first)

Procedure
Toast the flour in a wok until it becomes light in color.  Keep on stiring so as not to have a burnt flour.
Remove the flour from fire.
While waiting for the flour to cool a bit, sift powder, salt and salt in a big bowl.
Melt the butter in the microwave.
Mix the all the dry ingredients together (including the flour and nuts or oreos).
Put in the butter.
Use your hands in mixing them well.
Use a polvoron molder in molding the polvoron.  If you do not have one, just use your muffin pan or cookie cutter (just make sure that the polvoron is well compact and solid).
Wrap with individual plastics or japanese paper.  You can also just keep them in an airtight container even without wrapping them.
Refrigerate before eating.

A comment or two will be appreciated...

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