Puto Cheese Nga!

After 5 long years I made it! My husband was grinning at me this afternoon after tasting it. He had to endure, 5 years of my failed puto attempts after all. He was more surprised than me that I got it right this time.

All these years, all I've been missing is the egg white! That's the secret to the soft and delicate puto.

For more of the drama surrounding this recipe, please proceed to my travel blog "Cat's walks".

Puto Cheese

3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
8 egg whites
1 1/2 cups water + 2 tbsps water or milk
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp cream of tartar
cheese (cut into strips or grated)

1. Mix all ingredients except the egg whites and the cream of tartar until smooth.
2. Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer until soft peaks stage at maximum speed. Remember to add the cream of tartar when the bubbles are already even before the whites reach the soft peaks stage.
3. Fold the egg whites into the batter.
4. Spoon into muffin pans lined with paper. Top with cheese.
5. Bake in a baño maria (put the pan inside a pan with about an inch of water inside an oven; make sure your fire is only at the bottom otherwise cover the big pan containing the puto with aluminum foil to protect the puto from being cooked from the top) for 15 minutes at 180 C.

If you want to make puto pao, just put asado or Filling 1 of my siopao recipe in the middle of the puto.

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Fluffy Pancakes

Due to the absence of hotcake (pancake) mixes in Switzerland 4 years ago, I was forced to invent my own pancake recipe. When I arrived, there were only 2 groceries feeding the whole Swiss population of 8,000,000, Coop and Migros. Thanks to the EU, Switzerland was forced to open it's doors to new groceries and new kinds of foods, like the American pancake (vs the french crepe which is paper thin)!. Now, it is possible to find pancake mixes in Coop and Migros but I don't need it anymore because I have found the perfect pancake recipe.

Pancakes are made from flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, salt and butter. When you prepare pancakes using a pancake mix, you would need to add eggs, milk and butter. This means that when you buy a ready-mix, all you are buying actually is flour, salt, baking powder and the recipe!

Injected by the Americans into Filipino cuisine, pancakes have become a big Filipino favorite!

Pancake

11/2 cup flour
3 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla
2 tbsps oil
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk

1 tbps oil for frying

1. Beat all ingredients together with an electric mixer (or by hand if you want) until smooth.
2. Heat non-stick frying pan add 1 tbsp oil.
3. Using a tissue paper spread the oil evenly into the pan (also remove excess oil).
4. Cook about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake.

Technorati tags: pancake hotcake pancake+recipe hotcake+recipe Filipino+food