Mango Pudding

My parents came back from their trip to Hong Kong with cute little milk bottles. It looks like my aunts took them to Milk Top for desserts quite a few time. They tried mango and red bean puddings and I was envious! In turn, I found Sweet Note and tried their milk bottle desserts. They're delicious little treats and I was delighted to learn that we could keep the milk bottles! Well, I guess I have to try my hand at making some pudding then! It's one of my favourite treats and I always try to order one at dim sum.

I made the recipe below three times. The first time, I foolishly let the gelatin and water mixture cool as I was dicing mangoes and basically the solidified gelatin didn't incorporate with the rest. So they didn't set and Howard has been drinking them like shots. Ew.

The second time I found success and brought them over to my parent's house for Christmas dinner. However, the gelatin left surprise chunks in the pudding. I still needed to master a smoother gelatin mix. Third times the charm!

Mango Pudding
(Makes enough for 6 milk bottles)

1 fresh mango
1 package of gelatin (about 2 1/2 to 3 teaspoons)
3/4 cup of water
2/3 cup of mango pulp (or purée)
1/2 cup of evaporated milk
10 ice cubes
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar

1. Cut the mango in half and dice into small cubes. Set aside the other half to eat! Or if you'd like, you can save them to decorate the pudding by placing them on top after it has set.
2. Put the hot water in a small pot and boil, reduce heat to simmer. Stir in the gelatin until dissolved. This step is important!
3. Turn off the stove and remove the pot from the heat. Pour in the mango pulp, evaporated milk, and ice cubes. Stir until the ice has melted.
4. Add in the sugar and the diced mangoes, mix until sugar is dissolved.
5. Pour into the milk bottles or ramekins or molds. Place in the fridge to let it set overnight or for about 2 hours. 
6. Decorate with the other half of the diced mangoes. Or pour a thin layer of mango pulp on top for decoration.

Finally, my best batch yet. Smooth mango pudding with dices of mango throughout.

And these milk bottles, so cute!!!

I'd love to know how to make red bean pudding or green tea pudding. I think flan would also work well in these little bottles. Something to try this week!

No-Bake Mini Cheesecake Blossoms

Beauty! These no-bake mini cheesecake blossoms were so fun to make, mainly because I love desserts that feature some kind of floral decoration. What can I say? I love it when I get flowers!

Now, I've made my fair amount of cheesecakes before, and always found it agonizing when you place it in the oven and cross your fingers that it bakes evenly. Nobody wants cracks to show up on the surface of a perfectly smooth cheesecake. And there's the bain marie (or water bath) that you have to deal with. So if you're on the lookout for a no-bake recipe, this is one to try.

No-Bake Mini Cheesecake Blossoms
Shopping List: cream cheese, sweetened condense milk, icing sugar, vanilla extract, unflavoured gelatin, chocolate sandwich cookies, and fruit.

Let the cream cheese rest in room temperature for about an hour or so. Letting it soften up helps the mixing process a lot!

This is pretty simple and having a stand mixer makes it even easier. You throw in the cream cheese, sweetened condense milk, icing sugar, and vanilla extract and beat it until it's smooth.

In a small bowl, you mix the gelatin with boiling water and stir until it dissolves. Then add the gelatin into the cream cheese mixture.

Fill a piping bag with the batter and pipe cream cheese to cover the bottom of the mini cupcake liners or mini dessert jars. A good friend of ours bought me a set of mini dessert jars for my birthday and I was pretty excited to use them. The glasses are about two inches tall and I was able to fill nine of them. The recipe yields about 24 for mini cupcake liners.

Place one cookie (I used regular sized chocolate sandwich cookies, but use the mini versions if you're going with mini cupcake liners) in each and press it down so that some of the batter comes up on the sides. Pipe on the remaining cheesecake batter to cover the cookies.

Refrigerate for at least three hours or overnight.

I'm deviating a bit here, so if you're up for mango blossoms, read on. If you want other blossom ideas, watch this video to see how easy it is to decorate your cheesecakes with fruit.

Remove the skin from the ripe mango and slice all four sides around the mango seed. Next, lay the pieces down thinly slice them so you have many semi-circle pieces. Picking the right mango is crucial as you don't want one that is too firm because it won't bend and might break, and you don't want one that is too ripe for it'll become mushy if you try to curve it.

To create the blossom, take one of the shorter slices of mango and curl it up to form the middle of the bud. Place it in the middle of the cheesecake. Then, take medium slices and wrap it around. You want the curve side facing up and the straight edge on the cheesecake. Keep surrounding the middle piece with mango slices until you reach the edge of your bowl or cupcake liner.

You can probably work the opposite way and go outside in if that's easier. You also don't have to place the bud in the middle! Even if you start on the side, just keeping adding mango slices for a lovely layered look.

You can garnish your cheesecakes with whatever you like, maybe you know some chocolate fans, add some chocolate crisps or chop up your favourite candy. Drizzle on caramel sauce. Add dollops of jam and cream. But guys? Blossoms are pretty and impressive. ;)

Share your no-bake mini cheesecake blossom snapshots with @canadianliving on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram with the hashtag #CLIMadeIt.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by Canadian Living and I received compensation for it. There was no requirement to produce a positive review of this recipe. All opinions are our own.

Fish Stick Tacos

I thought I'd share one of our favourite quick and easy meal ideas. This is perfect at the end of the week or on weekends when you don't need leftovers for lunch the next day. There are so many things to love about fish stick tacos: it takes about half an hour to prepare and it isn't a heavy meal. Plus, Howard and I can usually finish everything, meaning there's no waste or leftovers to pack away.

To start, purchase your favourite breaded or battered fish stick brand and follow the baking instructions. I bake around 5-7 fish sticks depending on how hungry we are. The ones we buy take about thirty minutes in the oven, which gives me time to prepare everything else. We also buy large size tortillas.

Garnish #1
1 medium size tomato
1 medium size onion
1 sprig of cilantro

Dice up the tomato and onion.
Keep 3/4 of the tomato and onion in a bowl.
Put the remaining 1/4 of tomato and onions in a blender. Set aside.
Chop up one sprig of cilantro and mix it into the bowl of tomatoes and onions.

Garnish #2
1 mango

This can be optional, but we love the sweet taste of mango with the fish sticks. Dice up the mangoes and set it aside. If you want more sour notes and crunch, don't use ripe mangoes, use firm ones instead (similar to mango salads).

Garnish #3
2 small-medium sized avocados
1 clove of garlic
1 sprig of cilantro
1/4 of diced tomatoes
1/4 of diced onions
1-2 small limes
Salt and pepper to taste

Add the avocados, garlic, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper into the blender with the chopped tomatoes and onions. Pulse until smooth. See how quick and easy that was? Guacamole in under a minute!

Lettuce is also optional, I think as long as you have garnish #1 and #3, the flavours are there to work with the fish stick. But, if you have a bit more time and ingredients on hand, include the mango and lettuce.

You leave all of the mise en place out and warm up the tortillas. When the fish sticks are ready, everyone grabs a plate and piles on the deliciousness. You can even have wedges of lemon out if people want to squeeze some more citrus over their taco creations.

Enjoy!

Dulce Strawberry, Peach, and Mango Cobbler

We meant to make a Dulce Peach Cobbler dessert for our friend's holiday potluck party on the weekend. It was going to be a nod to one of our favourite dessert at this little barbecue place near their house.

But after searching two grocery stores and not finding the frozen peach, we eventually picked up a bag of frozen strawberry, peaches, and mangoes.

This was fine by us, those are still three of our favourite fruits!

Dulce Strawberry, Peach, and Mango Cobbler
Recipe adapted from Robin Hood® Bake Some Memories™ Recipe Booklet
(Makes 8 servings)

Filling:
1 can (300 mL) of Eagle Brand® Dulce de Leche caramel flavoured sauce
1 bag (600 g) of Europe’s Best® Caribbean Treasure, frozen

Topping:
1 cup (250 mL) of Robin Hood® all-purpose flour
½ cup (125 mL) of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon (5 mL) of baking powder
½ teaspoon of salt
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
¾ cup (175 mL) of unsalted butter
¼ cup (50 mL) of boiling water

Preheat your oven to 190°C (375°F). Grease a deep 9” round dish. Or if you want to make individual servings like us, eight cocottes (notice our red, green, and white ones - keeping it festive) or ramekins.

To make the filling, pour the dulce de leche over the frozen fruits and mix them together in your dish.

To make the topping, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Blend in the butter using your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Stir in the water and mix with a spatula. Scoop out the batter and drop it over the fruit mixture. The topping spreads when it bakes, so don't worry about how neat it looks. If you like, you can sprinkle ⅓ cup of sliced almonds, walnuts, or chopped pecans.

Bake in your preheated oven for about 55-60 minutes or until the topping is golden. You can also insert a toothpick in the centre, if it comes out clean, it's ready!

We like eating these after 15 minutes of cooling. There's something very comforting about eating warm cobbler by the fireplace in the winter.

I like to mix the cobbler up so that I get a bit of everything in each bite. Yum! The cobbler was delicious on its own, but feel free to add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to go with it!

Look! The elusive peach!

Disclaimer: This holiday season, A Baked Creation partnered up with Robin Hood®, who is celebrating the 30th anniversary of their annual Holiday Recipe Collection. They were kind enough to send us a baking package with Robin Hood® all-purpose flour and Eagle Brand® Dulce de Leche caramel flavoured sauce.

Mango Chiffon Cake

I know, this is an odd time for mangoes. However, my dad bought a box of mangoes last week and they are about ripe now. Just in time for his birthday! This one project took a lot of thought: my parents do not have a sweet tooth (Gasp! I know... where did I get mine from?) and do not like buttercream, icing, or anything with too much sugar.

So, I decided to try a delicately light chiffon cake. The Chinese bakeries around here sell them wrapped in paper (also known as paper wrapped cakes - essentially Chinese cupcakes in my books). Despite it being my first attempt at chiffon cakes, that wasn't enough for me, I wanted to incorporate mangoes as well. So I looked through my collection of cookbooks and stumbled upon one (and I had all the ingredients on hand) in The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook: The Original Classics. Except this one was for lemon chiffon cake. No problem! I'll just substitute mangoes for lemons!

My parents really enjoyed the cake. They liked the texture, the taste, and even had two slices! There is about 1/4 of the cake left. But - yes there is a but - they said it was still too sweet. So instead of 3/4 cups of sugar, mom suggested I use 1/2 a cup next time. Also, feel free to add more mango puree or extract if you want a more distinct taste, this was more on the chiffon side.

Happy Birthday Dad! I'm also using my new cake stand, I just bought it from the William Ashley warehouse sale! Well, I can handle the sugar, so I dusted mine with powdered sugar and drizzled some caramel along the edges.

Mango Chiffon Cake

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living's lemon chiffon cake

(mine made one round 8-inch cake about 2-inches high)

3/4 cups of cake flour

1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar

3 large eggs, separated

1/4 cup of canola oil

2 tablespoons of pureed mangoes

1 tablespoon of fresh mango juice

1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar

1/3 cup of water

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cake flour, baking soda, salt, and 3/4 cup of granulated sugar.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together egg yolks, oil, water, mango puree and juice, and vanilla extract.
3. Stir in the medium bowl's dry content into the large bowl's wet content. Mix until smooth.
4. With a mixer, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and then beat on high until soft peaks form (about 1 minute). Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar and beat on high until stiff peaks form (about 2 minutes).
5. Gradually mix the egg-white mixture into the batter. Then pour the batter into a pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean from the center. Remove the cake from the oven and set to cool. (In the book, they say that the cake must be cooled upside down, but I kept it right side up and it turned out fine. I didn't want to ruin the nice light brown top.)
6. Serve with fresh slices of mango. Or in my case, drizzle caramel!

This photo was featured on Photograzing!