Cake 26, All Aboard The Sago Train

So I used the train-shaped silicone mold I got for chrimbus... I think this is the strangest thing I've ever made.

Sago Pudding-Cakes Train

I was inspired by a recipe I found on a food blog by a Singaporean teacher living in Mauritius. Very nice, very strange. I love sago.

250g sago/tapioca pearls (I used really small ones, but big ones would be awesome)
water for soaking
3 cups water
1 cup-ish sugar
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can coconut cream (or water, or milk)
whole cloves and cinnamon quills, if you like
dessicated coconut

Soak the sago in water for 2 hours (I actually couldn't be bothered waiting, and since I was using very little pearls I figured they wouldn't take long to cook). Drain well.
Bring water and sugar to the boil in a large saucepan. In a separate bowl, combine coconut cream (if your're using it) and sweetened condensed milk. Pour this into the water/sugar pot once it begins to boil.
Pop the sago and whole spices in, and stir constantly and evenly until the sago becomes translucent, soft, and very sticky.
Pour the mix into silicone molds, or any kind of mold really. Silicone is great because the sago doesn't stick :) You could use a square pan, then slice the sago later. Allow to cool before transferring to the fridge. They're ready once they are solid (maybe 2 hours?). Remove from molds and roll the 'cakes' in dessicated coconut.

I tried to make tracks out of golden syrup...

Cake 12, Hotcakes!

Hotcakes are cakes, right? 

Hotcakes (my own recipe, but probs doesn't differ from any other pan/hot cake recipe)

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wholemeal flour (I wanted to use buckwheat, but couldn't find any in the pantry)

1 tsp baking powder

2 Tb sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg

about 1 cup milk

Sift together flours and baking powder. Stir in sugar and salt. Make a well, and put egg and 1/2 amount of milk in. Mix, adding milk until desired consistency is reached. 

Fry in butter :)

I also made some poachy/sugary pears:

4 pears

3 Tb sugar

1/2 cup water

1 tsp cinnamon

Peel pears, and cut into quarters. Mix sugar and water together and pour into a frying pan (the same one used for the hotcakes). Add the pears and sprinkle over the cinnamon. You may need to add more water as it evaporates, you want the pears half-submerged in liquid. Cook for about 5 minutes, turning over half-way through. They should become soft enough to slice with a spoon. Remove pears from pan, and continue cooking the sugary water until it thickens, then pour over pears and hotcakes.