Sweet Glutenous Rice Cakes

Rice Cakes - Wajik
Glutenous rice is used for this sweet rice cake.  It is based on Javanese cake  'Wajik'.  There are two flavours, one is sweetened with white cane sugar added with pink colouring, and the other one is sweetened with palm sugar/coconut sugar (gula Jawa)

I prepared both of them, but personally, I love wajik with the palm sugar better.

Wajik
1 cup glutenous rice, soaked in 1 cup water for two hours
250 g palm sugar-grated, add extra if you wish to have sweeter cakes
1 cup and a half water
1 cup desiccated coconuts.
A pinch of salt
1 tablespoon oil
Desiccated coconut,  extra

A heavy based pot to cook
Baking paper, and plastic glad wrap.

Method
Place the soaked rice (including the water if still any) in the pot, add in the 11/2 cup water and the desiccated coconuts.
Cook over medium hot heat (don't cover the pot) until the water is almost absorbed
Add in the grated sugar and salt, stir, keep on cooking for about 2 minutes,  let the sugar melt and mix with the rice (the colour of the rice should be brownish colours.
Cover the pot now, reduce the heat to very low and continue cooking for ten minutes.
Open the pot add in the oil, and stir properly.  Now the sweet rice is ready to shape, traditionally wajik has a diamond shape.

Shaping

Put the rice on a plate, spread the warm sweet rice to 1 cm thickness (line your hand with the plastic glad wrap or simply wet your fingers so the rice won't stick onto your hands.
Cool on a room temperature
Slice into a small diamond shapes
It makes twelve or more.




This time the Wajik that I prepared has a half moon shape.  What I did was, I rolled the rice, added some desiccated coconuts and sliced into a round and cut in half.  I thought it is easier to do.

The Preparation

Sweet glutenous rice with palm sugar, rolled and added with desiccated coconut, wrapped in a log, when it is cold, slice into small rounds and cut into two.  Roll the slices on the desiccated coconut once more.

Put a piece of baking paper on a working bench, place the plastic glad wrap on in, put the sweet glutenous rice on top, spread and roll.

Add the desssicated coconut on the rice roll

Roll the rice and wrap in a log

 To serve sweet glutenous cakes
Slice the rolls into small rounds and cut into two.  Roll the slices on the desiccated coconut once more.

I like both flavours, the pink one looks pretty, but both are delicious to serve with tea.  I am pleased that my friends had a taste and they loved it.

Glutenous rice is available at the Supermarkets, and you could get the sugar from Asian grocery stores.

Give the recipe a go, it is easy enough.  Happy cooking!



I prepared the Wajik and was thinking of Bapak (my dad), he loved the cakes as I remember it. 

Thinking of your father, eight years ago today, to rejoin with mother in God's care. 



Until Next Post
Susy

Late March In The Garden

It is the first month of Autumn, and flowers and plants are there in the garden, they are beautiful and celebrate the Season.  We need more rains, my garden is slightly dry, but the colourful roses lift up the dullness of the ground, and also do other flowers such as geranium and pelargonium.

Geranium with a beautiful orange colour and deep red pelargonium-a flamboyant colour

Gallipoli Heath

Peace Roses which I transplanted last year are growing well, and the flower is so beautiful, yellow always make the place brighter.

The day it's in full bloom ----------------A few days later.

The day before a budding peace rose ------------The bud is open.   beautiful yellow roses

A few days after,  the colour of the Peace Rose is changed

Another yellow rose is Graham Thomas, David Austin's Rose

The red variegated roses and red floribunda standards are there still and also the pink and white Iceberg, and all give extra colours; however, the Autumn garden can be a little sad at times.

The pictures look so beautiful, maybe better than the real flowers in my garden.  

Autumn always has a touch of sadness in the garden because the grass is not as green as at Springtime, soon the leaves are falling from trees.  But there are beautiful things too.

The whitebark so stands out, and lovely foliages this time of the year are so fabulous, that is the beauty about Autumn.

I am sure in the public gardens, and parks, we could find a lot more colours from the tree, the leaves and the flowers.  Autumn, Glorious Autumn.

Beautiful White Trunks

Beautiful foliage, It is good to look at the beautiful shades of colours.

Pleasant Surprise from my orchids collections, the Australian dendrobiums speciousum which I repotted last year is in flower, yes it is only a stem and short but telling me that the plant is alive and well.  It sits under the Eaves, and it gets enough morning sun. Also, one of the cymbidiums is spiking, and there are three of them, it is important now to put some slag baits to protect the young spikes.

Red Cymbidium with three new spikes and they are so small to be noticed.

The Twin Geisha Girls

The herbs are getting ready to have their rest, they all look so tired, but they suffice enough for what I need at the moment.

From thyme with purple flowers, red nasturtium to the mint leaves that I could not go without, most of my cooking is using fresh herbs, from the leaves to flowers.

Nasturtiums are coming back, they are not hard to care for, and are suitable for adding colours in the garden and also on salads.



This month the garden looks alright, and the weather is going to stay warm a little longer, I am sure more growths are happening in there.




Until Next Post
Thanks for visiting
Susy

Harvest 2014

Now it is mid-March, the harvest from our garden is not a lot but good enough.  We had harvested some fruits; one of them was nectarines, they were not many but well consumed.

We enjoy them fresh, and also we like cakes.  I baked mini and jumbo muffins, and they were soft and delicious.  I am so pleased that we managed to share the nectarines with friends too.

I did not plant a new seedling in the vegetable patch this year, but the herbs have been growing well there.  Once a week at least I pick the fresh herbs for my cooking.   Harvesting the herbs seems ongoing throughout the year.  Two self-seeds potted tomatoes did not do badly.  The Roma tomatoes yield about a kilogram and the yellow cherry tomato is still going even though there are not a lot of fruits on it.

The spaghetti squash, asparagus that I have in the backyard don't do any good, I harvested about ten asparagus and a few baby asparagus for special cooking, and only two harvested squash and they were so small.

Pastry baking with a new flavour, cheese and baby asparagus on the pastry to make a plate for serving another vegetarian dish.  It was an experiment with an excellent result.

Potted figs never let us down, the harvest was not a lot, but the fruits are there for us, mind you that we have to be vigilant with the birds.  One time they picked one of the fruits which I intended to harvest, but the bird got it first.  No, not any more, and this is what I did to the potted fig, I covered the plants with cloth (old curtain) since then the fruits are well protected from the birds.  It does sound very selfish, but there are about two dozen also out of the two plants.  No, I am not willing to share.

So far, I harvested about eight, and I am so proud to serve this fruit for my family.

Fresh fig from the backyard for the meringue topping.

The fig is not ready at the same time, in a way, it is good that we can extend the enjoyment of harvesting the fruits.

Strawberry

The strawberry has a different story, the plants are there, and I use them as ground covers now.  If they are fruiting, I shall be happy to use them.  This morning I found about 16 red strawberries.  I shared the vine with friends, and they thrive well at their garden, and they have good harvests when it is in season they can pick them and enjoy the fruits for breakfast.  Unfortunately, there is no regular harvest at our place.  The potted strawberry plants don't do any good either.

Rayner just told me then that he wanted to harvest the apples, but the fruits practically were no longer there, the birds had collected before him.  The fault was that he did not cover the tree to protect from the birds.  Now you can tell that both of us are not farmers, true!!!.  I started gardening seriously in later life, I did try, though when the children were small, but it was not good.  Now  I enjoy gardening and am keeping on learning.

I could not rely on my harvest, and sometimes I go to Farmers Market to get vegetables and fruit, the last time I bought some vegetables and the cabbage was one of them.  The cabbage was so hard, I suppose because we had not enough rains.  The cabbage salad was not very crispy and tough, not enjoyable to eat. It's only one of those things, but usually harvests from the Farmers Markets are always fresh.

It may be not the best year in my garden, but I am so lucky to be able to have shared harvests from friends.  Last time we got blood plum from Geoff, fresh basil, squash from Anne and Max, freshly harvested tomatoes from Irene and Oliver, also zucchini from Liz.  Thank you all.

Now the weather is cooling down, I may be able to start planting lettuces, I love salads, and almost every day the mixture is there on the table.

The coming winter we will harvest the citrus, lemon, lime and pomelo, not the mandarins as the tree is having a rest this year.

I am sorry now that I did not take some of Sheila's cumquots harvest, I remember she shared boxes of cumquats with the club last time.  I don't make marmalade, but I could have preserved them in brandy.  Maybe next time, thank you.  

I hope we will have a better harvest from our garden next time.

Thanks For Visiting

Until Next Post

Susy