F1 Foods: Malaysia Roundup and the next challenge

There were twice as many entries for Formula 1 Foods this time - the challenge is still in its infancy so it would be great to get a few more people linking up! You can make anything you like that comes from, represents or is otherwise inspired by the country hosting each Formula 1 Grand Prix.

On the weekend of April 11 and 12 it is the turn of China, so add your Chinese recipes to the linkup below!

Last time it was Malaysia, and it was great to see some dishes I'd never heard of before.

Suelle at Mainly Baking sent in this Tropicana Banana Cake - the tropical fruits (banana, coconut, pineapple, mango, papaya and orange) reminded her of Malaysia and she said the cake had a light, but moist, tender crumb.

A savoury dish now from Christian at Cooking Around The World, who runs similar challenges himself. He made a chicken rendang, which I don't think I've ever eaten but it sounds like a real explosion of flavours and something I would be keen to try!

I made these pineapple cookies which were quite tricky and I didn't quite get them right but they did taste nice! These are from a traditional Malaysian recipe.

Jane at Onions and Paper made gado gado, which I'd never come across before. It's a salad made with a mixture of raw and cooked vegetables and usually eaten as a side dish; Jane had it as part of a huge Malaysian meal which sounds like fun!

 

Finally a late entry from Ros at The More Than Occasional Baker; she revisted an old post where she made a pandan chiffon cake. Pandan is a tropical plant used frequently in south east Asian cooking. The cake looks amazingly light and fluffy!

 

 

Enter your dishes and bakes for the China challenge here - ends Tues April 14


Malaysian Pineapple Cookies

This weekend's Formula 1 Grand Prix is taking place in Malaysia. I thought about making a savoury dish for my challenge Formula 1 Foods - when I went to Kuala Lumpur in 2013 I had a nice chicken and noodle dish. But I wanted to find something sweet, so turned to the internet and came across a website called Rasa Malaysia, with a recipe for  the best ever pineapple cookies. Mine did turn out rather different to the picture though!

For one thing, this recipe gives quantities to make 100, which sounded at least five times more than I wanted! It was difficult to divide the recipe that much though (eg it uses two egg yolks) and I also got a bit confused by the quantity of pineapple needed; two whole pineapples should be 3.5kg, meaning one is 1,750 grams - but after I sliced up one whole pineapple I only had about 800g. But in the end I had a lot of pineapple left over!

I halved the quantity of the dough but found it really didn't go far. My pineapple was still quite moist and not a sticky ball like in the picture, so I needed quite a lot of cookie dough to go around it. So I ended up with about a dozen large cookies when according to the recipe I should have had about 50!



I also found it quite hard to get the pineapple to stay inside as it was so moist and I ended up making a few cookies thumbprint style with the pineapple on top, which worked quite well.

The cookie dough wasn't particularly sweet and had quite a milky flavour, from the condensed milk; it went well with the sweet yet sharp pineapple in the middle but I'm afraid to say I'd rather have a chocolate chip cookie any day! Still, this was an interesting experiment - I enjoy making dishes from different cultures. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who has made this recipe or eaten Malaysian pineapple cookies before!


I'm entering this into Formula 1 Foods, the blog challenge I host related to the Grand Prix races as this weekend it is taking place in Malaysia.

I'm also sharing this with Tea Time Treats, hosted by Janie at the Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage, as their theme this month is biscuits and cookies.