Crumbs and Cookies

chocolate peanut butter cup cookies.

2012-02-23T21:23:00.000+08:00

It looks like I've hit the dreaded and unavoidable writer's block. Well then, I guess the pictures would have to speak for themselves!

These taste like Reese's peanut butter cup in cookie form, really.

A whole bunch of salty-sweet love packed into a cookie.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
adapted from here

1 1/2 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
6 tbsp Dutch-process cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp coarse salt
3/4 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup + 2tbsp creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
2 cups coarsely chopped peanut butter cups, divided

Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla extract and milk. Blend until smooth. Stir in the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Fold in 1 1/2 cups of the chopped peanut butter cups.

Divide the dough onto the baking sheets, spacing each ball of dough 2 to 3 inches apart. Gently press a few pieces of the reserved peanut butter cups into the top of each. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

matcha macarons.

2012-02-21T15:48:00.000+08:00

mango ginger chocolate muffins.

2012-02-19T16:42:00.000+08:00

I had some frozen mango puree and I was wondering what I could do with it. I didn't want to make just typical mousses and panna cottas so I thought why not use it in muffins? A mango muffin with actual mango puree and not just chunks sounded like a novel idea.

I searched online and I came up with a grand total of 0 mango muffin recipes using mango puree. All of my searches only had mango cubes folded in at the end. I decided to just wing it, taking a banana muffin recipe as a base and adapting it by replacing all the banana puree with mango puree.

I was a little disappointed, that's for sure. After baking, the muffins lacked any mango scent and the mango puree was indiscernible. All that's left was a caramelized sweetness somewhat similar to brown sugar but more complex. It's nice, but its completely different from what you would associate with mango.

On the bright side, the muffins were fluffy and the additions of candied ginger and dark chocolate complemented each other really well. Now there's some food for thought for your next batch of chocolate chip muffins.

Because the recipe didn't quite work out, I shall not post one. However, I bet the original banana muffin recipe will be a great hit!

メロンマカロン melon macarons.

2012-02-18T19:12:00.000+08:00

This one of the rare times I don't refer to a Pierre Herme macaron recipe. Well, technically, the shells are still his recipe but the ganache isn't. It's basically a white chocolate ganache but the white chocolate I used isn't your typical chalk-coloured confection. It's a メロンchocolate I brought back from Japan. It comes in a beautifully pale pastel shade of green and does not taste harshly of artificial flavourings. My only problem with it is that it's too sweet. When turned into a ganache and sandwich between macaron shells that already contain such a high percentage of sugar, it was a little unbearable. The tiny cube of melon mochi I added in the middle became the least sweet component of the macaron. (Mochi is considered sweet.)

Still, I was so happy to be able to churn out beautiful looking shells, inside and out. Before this batch, I encountered a few failures. Pancake-flat. Hollow. Gummy insides. I didn't know what could have gone wrong. I thought I had already conquered the macaron? I was ready to throw in the towel and give the french method a shot.

You see, I was trying to make green macarons to suit the melon theme so I added a few drops to the egg whites that were going to be whipped instead of the one that is just going to be mixed with the almonds and icing sugar. The theory, I reasoned with myself, is that the colouring doesn't get as evenly mixed if I just dump it in the almond-icing sugar bowl. Maybe I should elaborate a little more.

I use the italian meringue method, but I do one thing differently. I don't mix the egg white, almonds and icing sugar together into a paste before folding in the whipped egg whites. I find that in the effort to loosen that stiff paste and integrate the meringue homogeneously, I lose track of the consistency of the batter, resulting in flatter macarons than I would have liked. That's why if I add the colouring to the almond-icing sugar bowl, the colouring won't get mixed in at all until I add in the meringue. And when I finally mix it in, I would have already reached the perfect consistency but there would be streaks of colouring.

So... that's the story.

Anyway, the reason why I failed was because I added the colouring into the egg whites that were going to be whipped. What happened was once I whipped them to soft peaks and poured in the sugar syrup, they deflated like phhhhoooooffffff..... until it became a soupy mess. If you've made an italian meringue before, the sugar syrup wouldn't do that to the egg whites. In fact, it would only make them stronger, thicker and shinier. It wasn't a question about the temperature of the sugar syrup or the stage at which I stopped beating the egg whites before adding the syrup. It was the colouring's fault.

The colouring I used, I later found out, has... vegetable fat. Oh. Em. Freaking. Gee. Yes.

If you add fat to egg whites, they won't beat up into meringues. That's why my italian meringue never formed! It was such a eureka moment!

So, the moral of the story is Don't Ever Ever Ever Add Colouring Into Your Egg Whites That Are Going To Be Beaten. Or DEEEACIYEWTAGTBB for short. Pierre Herme was right all along.

I hope this helps some of you who just can't seem to achieve that successful macaron. Good luck!

cinnamon squares.

2012-02-17T20:56:00.000+08:00

Cinnamon. Coffee. Chocolate. O. M. G. It's the magical Cs!

It's another recipe by Dorie and while I was searching for it, I got the impression that many of those who made the cinnamon squares were not so impressed with it. But haha, I am here to prove that wrong!

I made sure not to overbake it by the slightest bit so that it would remain perfectly moist and I let the cake stand for a day to let the flavours gel and meld before cutting in to it. The first bite, I guarantee you, will be this huge explosion of sweet spices and you'd need to put down your fork for a moment and woah before you continue with your next bite. And the next. And the next.

I did tweak the recipe slightly though. I subbed half the sugar with brown sugar and replaced half the melted butter with applesauce. I discovered that although applesauce is relatively tasteless, it still does give off an apple-ly scent after baking.

And you know what? The cake smelled like a giant apple cinnamon bun~

Cinnamon Squares
adapted from here

Cake:
1 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp + 2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp instant espresso powder (I doubled it)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3/4 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
10 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, or 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Frosting:
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
2 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 4

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and line an 8 inch square baking pan.

Stir the 2 tbsp of sugar, 2 tsp cinnamon and espresso together in a small bowl.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar, baking powder, salt and remaining 1 tbsp cinnamon. In another bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients over the flour mixture and gently whisk until you have a homogenous batter. Now, using the whisk or a rubber spatula, fold in the butter with a light touch, just until the butter is absorbed. You'll have a smooth, shiny batter.

Scrape half the batter into the pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the chocolate over the batter and dust with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Cover with the rest of the batter and smooth the top again.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out mostly clean. Transfer the cake to a cooling rack and let it rest for 15 minutes before unmolding.

To make the frosting, heat the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water just until they melt. Be careful not to overheat the mixture so much that it thins out; the chocolate should be smooth, very shiny, thick and spreadable.

Frost the cake and allow the frosting to set at room temperature. It can keep at room temperature for 2 days, wrapped in plastic.

butterscotch pudding tarts.

2012-02-14T20:35:00.000+08:00

Happy V-day!

I thought I should stray away from the norm and present you with something non-chocolate for this special occasion. Nah, just kidding. I made the tarts two days ago and I just didn't feel like typing up the post until today.

Anyway, these creations are a recipe from Baked. They have a unique oat tart crust which is sort of nutty and crunchy, kinda like a graham cracker crust except more wholesome. The butterscotch pudding... well, I had better that's for sure, but the entire ensemble as a whole is yet another stroke of genius from the guys at Baked.

Butterscotch Pudding Tarts
adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking
makes 8 4-inch tarts

For the oat wheat pie crust:
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup whole milk

Put the rolled oats in a food processor and process for about 30 seconds until ground, but not powdered. Add the flours, brown sugar and salt and pulse until combined. Add the butter and pulse until the butter pieces are small and the dough looks crumbly, like coarse sand. Add the milk and pulse until the dough comes together. Scoop the dough out and form it into a large disk. Wrap tightly in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour and up to 3 hours. (I just divided the dough equally and pressed it into the pans.)

Roll out the dough and fit it into your tart pans. Prick the surfaces with a fork and place them in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Bake at 325F for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. (It took mine a lot longer than 15 minutes though.)

For the butterscotch pudding:
6 large egg yolks
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch, sifted
1 tsp salt
3 cups whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp whiskey

Place the egg yolks in a large heat-proof bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the granulated sugar and 1/4 cup of water and stir gently to moisten. Cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves then increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the mixture begins to turn a dark amber colour. Swirl the pan, if necessary, to create an even colour, but do not stir, Remove from heat, let stand for 1 minute, then stir in the cream. Pour the caramel into a small bowl and set aside.

In another saucepan, combine the brown sugar, cornstarch and salt. Stir in the milk and whisk to combine. Add the vanilla extract. Cook over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat and add the caramel. Whisk together until combined then pour 1/3 of the mixture over the eggs. Whisking constantly, add 1/2 of the remaining milk mixture. Transfer the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the milk mixture and whisking the whole time, bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes, or until very thick.

Remove from heat and add the butter and whiskey. Keep whisking vigorously for about 1 minute to cool the pudding slightly and let it sit for about 15 minutes.

To assemble the tarts: Whisk the pudding again until smooth. Divide it equally among the tart shells and sprinkle some crumbled Butterfinger bar (or toasted walnuts) over. Cover the tarts with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. Tightly covered, they can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.

this is how you should make a sandwich.

2012-02-12T18:38:00.000+08:00

Take two slices of bread, buttering one slice on one side, and the other slice with a half and half of peanut butter and nutella. Slice a banana on the bias, and sandwich them between the slices of bread. Preheat your waffle iron and...

WAFFLE IT.

confetti cookies.

2012-02-11T18:16:00.000+08:00

If rainbow sprinkles could double as a pillow, I'll totally buy one and hug it to sleep every single waking and sleeping moment of the day.

Sprinkles are a food group. Well, to me, anyway.

The first creation I ever bought from Cold Stone Creamery was the Birthday Cake Remix, because it has sprinkles in it. But yeah, and also because I love cake batter anything.

So confetti cookies? I'm so there.

It's a recipe from Momofuku Milk Bar and its a two part process but I'm not complaining because I got to stash away a portion of birthday cake crumbs! for future calorific purposes. The recipe makes huge chewy cookies, but I decided to make just 1 big one for myself and mini-fy the rest to give away. I'm rationing the love.

The recipe calls for an addition of glucose or corn syrup to give the cookies their signature chewiness but because I overbaked my cookies slightly, the centre wasn't as gooey as expected. I didn't mind much- I got super crunchy golden brown edges to compensate!

I thought that these cookies had too much sugar in them, so I cut back on the amount a touch. They were still a little sweet, but still bearable. I really wanted to saturate the dough with sprinkles but I had to tell myself to chill or I would just be eating sugar.

Gonna make confetti cupcakes soon!

Confetti Cookies
makes 15 to 20 huge ones
recipe taken from here

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tbsp glucose or 1 tbsp corn syrup
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
2/3 cup milk powder
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles
birthday cake crumb, recipe follows

Birthday Cake Crumb
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp light brown sugar
6 tbsp cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp rainbow sprinkles
2 tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Make the birthday cake crumb: Heat oven to 300F. Line a sheet pan.

Combine the sugars, flour, baking powder, salt and sprinkles and mix until well combined. Add the oil and vanilla, and stir until the mixture forms small clusters. Spread the clusters on the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes, breaking them up occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly moist to touch; they will dry and harden as they cool.

Let the crumbs cool completely before using. Stored in an airtight container, it can be kept for up to 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.

Make the cookies: Combine the butter, sugar and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream on medium high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and add the eggs and vanilla, beat for 7 to 8 minutes.

On low speed, add the flour, milk powder, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and sprinkles. Mix until just incorporated. Still on low speed, add the birthday cake crumbs and mix just until evenly distributed.

Portion out the dough onto a lined baking sheet and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. The cookies are meant to be taken out to bake while still cold.

Bake for 18 minutes at 350F or until very lightly browned on the edges. The centers will show just the beginning signs of color. (My cookies were ready at the 13, 14 minute mark so do keep your eyes peeled at around this time!)

Cool the cookies completely before storing in an airtight container. They can be kept for 5 days at room temperature, or 1 month in the freezer.

kugelhopf.

2012-02-10T20:32:00.000+08:00

I get attracted to exotic recipes.

I would flip pass a recipe for a chocolate chip cookie and stop at a page that says alfajores, or something like that. There's nothing wrong with the classics but trying new, exciting things is probably one of the most fun aspects of baking.

When I read Dorie's Baking From My Home to Yours a while back, I bookmarked many recipes, including this one for kugelhopf. What really pulled me in was the fact that it had a foreign name, and that it was baked in a kugelhopf pan. Ha.

Kugelhopf, I gather, is basically like a brioche in a not so conventional shape. I did a bit of research on what others had to say about this recipe and my results were a little less than promising. Some said that the kugelhopf did not match up to their expectations, and some even said that it was way too dry. Although, I did find a few who would gladly make this bread (cake?) again and again.

Nevertheless, I stuck to my plan and baked the kugelhopf. It certainly wasn't dry. Even if I did skip the butter and sugar soak after baking. In fact, it was the very opposite. It was soft, moist and so bouncy that it could double as a golden pillow. However, I did find it lacking it sweetness so the icing sugar really helped. And it was also a bit yeasty- probably because I let it rise for too long.

All in all, I wouldn't make it again but it's a pretty decent recipe.

For the full recipe and instructions, please head on over to here.

pierre herme's macarons- frivolite.

2012-02-06T21:15:00.000+08:00

Frivolite- caramel buttercream and apple.

Caramel buttercream is proof that heaven exists in the form of popcorn perfume.

steamed milk cakes.

2012-02-05T17:50:00.000+08:00

I guess you could call these healthy.

No butter, no oil, and they don't taste like diet trash.

I tweaked the original recipe slightly for a milkier taste by replacing some of the milk for condensed milk. Although they had an inviting milky scent, it wasn't so evident in the taste so I would swap in more condensed milk.

I folded in little mochi bits and Japanese candied beans I had on hand for fun and for the sake of appearance but they all sank into the batter. Not exactly what I had in mind but they provided a very nice texture contrast. The mochi bits transformed into a semi-melted state which made them chewier than usual.

I was a little disappointed with how short they turned out though. I thought that they would rise a lot more and be much fluffy. Perhaps I underestimated how much the batter would rise and used larger muffin cups than I was supposed to.

Still, the cakes were moist and had a fine, slightly compact texture which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I was seriously eyeing a second cupcake after I demolished my first one.

Steamed Milk Cakes
makes 7
adapted from here

I think chocolate chips would be a great addition!

140ml milk
2 tbsp condensed milk
55g sugar
120g cake flour
2 tsp baking powder

Whisk the sugar, cake flour and baking powder together. Stir in the milk and condensed milk and mix just until the streaks of flour disappear. The batter will be a little lumpy but that's okay. At this point, you can fold in any additions you might want to add.

Spoon the batter into paper liners and steam at high heat for about 15 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

Best eaten warm!

pierre herme's macarons- arabella and plasir sucre.

2012-02-01T17:12:00.000+08:00

Plasir sucre- chocolate and hazelnut.

Arabella- Milk chocolate, ginger, mango (my switch- supposed to be passionfruit).

I prefer the Arabella.

angel food cake.

2012-01-28T21:54:00.002+08:00

What if one day, you find yourself with a kilo worth of egg whites? Scary thought, huh. There's only so many egg white recipes you can think of.

And guess what, I'm living a nightmare.

Okay fine, not exactly a nightmare. There are plus points. Like... being able to make macarons without having to think up of ways to use up the egg yolks! Or swiss meringue buttercream! Or a white cake...

But I had to use up the egg whites faster somehow, and what better way to do that an angel food cake, the guzzler of egg whites? I heard that it's pretty sweet so I came up with a plan of attack- grilling. Grilling caramelizes the outside so that it becomes crispy while the inside is still nice and fluffy. And it turned out to be a great move too because I underbaked the cake so there was a lot of moisture still trapped inside.

What ever you do, please do not underbake this cake, by accident or not! When I turned mine upside down to cool, the cake actually loosened itself from the pan and plopped onto my cooling rack because it was so heavy from the excess moisture. Naturally it ended up being denser than it was supposed to be and some parts of the cake were still damp and sticky with sugar.

So I sliced and grilled the cake, and the texture was so much better but damn, it was still too sweet for me. It's like eating cotton candy, in terms of both saccharine sweetness and texture. I guess we gotta try french toasting it...

Angel Food Cake
recipe taken from here

1 3/4 cups superfine sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cake flour, sifted
12 egg whites
1/3 cup warm water
1 tsp orange extract, or extract of your choice
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350F.

Add half the sugar to a bowl with the sifted cake flour. In the bowl of your stand mixer, combine the egg whites, water, extract and cream of tartar. Whisk on medium speed until foamy. Slowly add in the remaining half of the sugar, whisking continuously, until medium peaks form. Sift the flour mixture over and fold it in. Be careful not to deflate the batter.

Pour the batter into an ungreased 10 inch tube pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. For this sort of cake, it's better to overbake than underbake.

Cool upside down on a cooling rack until completely cool before removing.

supernatural salted peanut butter brownies.

2012-01-26T21:01:00.002+08:00

I'm not bragging or anything by adding the supernatural to these supernatural salted peanut butter brownies. In fact, some of you may find the title somewhat familiar if you've made Nick Malgieri's supernatural brownie recipe.

I've made some pretty awesome brownies before but they're always of the dense fudgy genre. It took me a while to realize that I actually prefer brownies that are half-cakey half-fudgy with that marvelous sugar crust on top. Nick Malgieri's recipe seemed promising so I decided to give that a shot. And while I'm at it, why not add a salted peanut butter swirl?

I wouldn't say that these brownies were exactly what I was looking for but they are delicious in their own right too. They're not too dense, but they're not cakey enough either. That's probably because I underbaked these more than I should. I guess old habits die hard.

My tastebuds have been spoiled by the cocoa brownies' intense chocolaty-ness so these paled slightly in comparison in terms of flavour. I have to say though, I loved the peanut butter swirl! It's a tad salty and totally reminded me of the middle of a Reese's peanut butter cup. Just a little caution: for some, it might make the brownie seem not sweet enough.

Supernatural Salted Peanut Butter Brownies
makes a 9 x 5 inch pan
brownie portion adapted from here

Note: For the best flavour, bake 1 day before serving.

For the brownies:
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 egg
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup flour

For the peanut butter swirl:
1/4 cup commercial peanut butter
3/8 tsp salt
1 slightly rounded tsp icing sugar
1 tbsp milk

To make the peanut butter swirl, combine everything in a small saucepan and heat on low heat, stirring, until combined and loosened. Add more milk if necessary. Set aside while you get on with the brownie batter.

Butter and line a 9 x 5 inch pan.

Melt the chocolate and butter over a pan of simmering water and let the mixture cool slightly. In a bowl, whisk the egg, sugars, salt and vanilla until foamy and slightly pale and lightened up.

Whisk in the chocolate mixture. Fold in flour until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Randomly top with dollops of the peanut butter mixture then use a knife to swirl it into the batter.

Bake at 350F for 17 to 20 minutes or until shiny and beginning to crack on top. Don't overbake. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes before removing from pan. Let cool completely before cutting.

peanut butter thumbprints.

2012-01-24T00:13:00.000+08:00

I always thought peanut butter and jam goes best with each other but there are some others who go for peanut butter and chocolate instead. Or even peanut butter and nutella.

To test the peanut butter-nutella pairing out, I decided to bake some peanut butter cookies as a vehicle for spoonfuls of that chocolate-hazelnut spread. Just giving myself another way to consume jarfuls of peanut butter and nutella spreads other than shoveling them in with my dessert spoon.

These peanut butter cookies are crunchy through and through. Perhaps they weren't supposed to be like this because I replaced the whole egg with the equivalent amount of egg whites instead but I've always preferred crunchy cookies anyway. I thought they could use a little more peanut butter oomph but as a complement to the nutella, they were acceptable.

I would still prefer the all-time favourite paring of PB and J but these peanut butter nutella thumbprints aren't half as bad especially with an extra sprinkle of sea salt on top.

Peanut Butter Thumbprints
adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking
makes 50

1 3/4 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup creamy salted peanut butter (the commercial kind please)

nutella, jam, etc for filling

Preheat oven to 350F.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth and blended. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well. Add the peanut butter and beat until incorporated. Blend in the dry ingredients just until combined.

Spoon level tablespoons of dough 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Using you thumb or the back of a measuring spoon, make a depression in the center of each cookie about 1 inch in diameter.

Bake for 13 to 16 minutes, or until they are firm and golden brown at the edges but still soft in the center. When the cookies come out of the oven, reinforce the indentations with whatever tool you used before. Cool the cookies completely before filling with your desired filling.

pierre herme's macarons- inca.

2012-01-21T21:22:00.000+08:00

This is the funky macaron flavour I was talking about. Actually, it isn't so out there after all, even if it does contain avocados, bananas and chocolate.

Avocados are pretty tasteless, so these macarons are more like banana and chocolate macarons. Which, when you think about it, is already quite a popular pairing.

avocado gula melaka smoothie.

2012-01-20T11:50:00.000+08:00

There was an Indonesian restaurant I used to frequent in the past that had this amazing avocado dessert. It was like a smoothie of sorts with a mocha fudge sauce rippling though it. I quickly got over the weird fact that it was a dessert made from a vegetable once I took a sip because gawd it was so damn delicious.

Right now, the restaurant is no more so I told myself that I absolutely had to recreate my own version at home. This recipe I sourced out of many slightly differing variations looked promising to me, so I decided on this one.

It's really simple. Just throw everything into a blender and press a button. Mine was quite thick so instead of drinking it, I ate it with a spoon. But you could always thin yours down with some milk if you can't be bothered with utensils. How much condensed milk you choose to put in will depend on how milky you like your drink. Personally, I wouldn't add too much because the smoothie would end up being to rich, given how filling avocados already are in the first place.

I topped my smoothie/pudding off with generous spoonfuls of really easy to make gula melaka syrup, but if you've got the time, I strongly encourage you to try this with mocha fudge sauce. You'll love it.

Avocado Gula Melaka Smoothie
serves 1

1/2 a ripe small avocado
1/2 cup ice
2 tsp ~ 1 tbsp condensed milk

gula melaka syrup, recipe below.

Throw all the ingredients, except the syrup, into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and drizzle over as much gula melaka syrup as you desire.

Gula Melaka Syrup

75g gula melaka, chopped finely
1/4 cup water

In a small pot, combine the gula melaka and water and heat until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture has thickened.

double chocolate loaf with peanut butter cream cheese spread.

2012-01-19T21:08:00.000+08:00

With my obsession with Pierre Herme's recipes lately, the two books I've gushed so much about just a few months back, Baked: New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations, have been left untouched for quite a while. I thought that it was about time I made a reacquaintance.

The double chocolate loaf was a breeze to whip up because it uses the muffin method of stir and dump. I thought that with that much sugar in the recipe, the loaf would turn out really sweet but I was wrong. Still, if I could have cut down the sugar by a bit so the intensity of the chocolate would be stronger.

Although the batter was reasonably thick, most of my chocolate chunks ended up sinking to the bottom. I would advise you to toss them in a bit of flour before folding them in.

The accompanying peanut butter cream cheese spread was one of the main reasons I chose to bake this. What would life be without P.B? Anyway, the spread was more like cream cheese laced with peanut butter instead of PEANUT BUTTER cream cheese, you get what I mean? I would very prefer a 50-50 ratio of peanut butter to cream cheese. But that's the peanut butter fiend in me speaking.

The book recommends using creamy peanut butter but I went with chunky just to add a little crunch to break the monotony of creamy smoothness.

Double Chocolate Loaf
makes a 9 x 5 inch loaf
adapted from Baked Explorations

For the loaf:
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

For the spread:
5 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tbsp peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar

For the loaf: Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan.

Combine brown sugar, sugar, cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs and egg yolk to blend, then add the buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Whisk until combined.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing just until combined. Stir in the chopped chocolate.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out mostly clean but still with crumbs attached. Let the loaf cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the peanut butter cream cheese spread: Cream the cream cheese, peanut butter and sugar together in a bowl until incorporated and lightened up.

pierre herme's macarons- medelice.

2012-01-16T22:50:00.000+08:00

Medelice macarons- macarons that are filled with a sunshine-colored tart lemon cream and have a hazelnut praline pressed in the middle.

I'm not the biggest fan of lemon but the hazelnut praline idea was too good to pass up. So while I loved the praline, I was only neutral to this macaron as a whole. Perhaps citrus lovers would be more inclined to this creation.

Tastes aside, I can finally say that I've conquered the macaron! This batch of macarons had no air spaces in the shell like the previous ones. 100% success! I'm so happy happy happy...

P.S. The next flavour I'm making is going to be exotic...

mozart.

2012-01-14T21:36:00.000+08:00

This is another recipe taken from my much beloved Desserts by Pierre Herme book. It's quite obvious that I tweaked the assembly of the entremet. For one, it's supposed to be a whole cake and I've made them into individual ones. Secondly, I cut down on one of the layers of cinnamon dough. All because I usually can't find anyone else to share the calories with. (The rest of my family consumes only modest amounts of sugar. I, on the other hand...)

Okay, let me give you the breakdown. Originally, it's supposed to go like this: cinnamon tart dough, chocolate-apple mousse, cinnamon tart dough, chocolate-apple mousse, cinnamon tart dough, chocolate shavings, sliced apples, etc for decoration. As you can pretty much imagine, it's a tart lover's dream.

I love crunchy crumbly tart crusts, but I know that too much of a good thing can be boring. Plus, if I'd used three layers of tart dough in my down-scaled cakes, there would hardly be enough room for the mousse. And I find that even after I left out one layer, the crust to mousse ratio is still pretty darn high. I would definitely prefer more mousse.

You must be thinking, won't the middle layer of crust get soggy after sitting in the middle of two layers of mousse? Nope, at least not before 24 hours, which was when I ate my cake. I can't say so for sure for after 2 days though. Anyway, the crust did absorb a bit of moisture, and surprisingly, that extra bit of moisture did wonders for the crust! It wasn't too crunchy and dry, it was... the perfect texture for a tart crust. It's not much to go on, but I don't know how to explain any further.

As a whole though, the entremet wasn't particularly memorable. There are far better recipes in the book. It feels almost cruel to say this but it's true.

savory cheese and chive muffins.

2012-01-13T17:12:00.000+08:00

Hey all, how are the new year resolutions going? Honestly, I don't believe in those I'm gonna eat healthier sort of resolutions- those were made to be broken.

But making these savory muffins doesn't mean my non-existent faith in those resolutions are wavering. I just thought that making something that's not loaded with sugar would be a nice change. Besides, I had tons of cheese in the fridge waiting to be used. Or perhaps a more accurate way to put it is tons of cheese starting to go mouldy.

The muffins were soft and fluffy and loaded with cheese. How cheesy it will taste depends on what kind of cheese you use though. I used a mild cheddar so it wasn't overly cheesy. And I should have added a touch more salt.

The original recipe recommended adding chopped toasted walnuts into the batter but I was too lazy to do that so I left it out. If I could hit the rewind button, I would definitely include those. Oh, and add some chopped sun-dried tomatoes too. Some tart-sweet flavours would be a great addition.

Savory Cheese and Chive Muffins
adapted from here
makes 9

1 3/4 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 to 1 tsp salt, depending on how salty the cheese you're using is
1/4 tsp freshly ground white pepper
3 large eggs
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 generous cup coarsely grated Gruyere, Comte Emmental or cheddar cheese
2 ounces Gruyere, Comte, Emmental or cheddar cut into small cubes
1 bunch chives, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1/3 cup chopped toasted walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Line muffin tin with paper liners.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and pepper in a large mixing bowl.

Whisk the eggs, oil and milk in another bowl.

Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and mix together until moistened then stir in the grated and cubed cheese, chopped chives and optional walnuts to form a thick dough. I recommend adding chopped sun-dried tomatoes too! Don't overmix.

Bake for about 14 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. The muffins will keep for up to 2 days at room temperature.

melody.

2012-01-08T16:12:00.000+08:00

Before I became obsessed with Pierre Herme's macaron book, I was infatuated with his dessert book. Since my supply of ground almonds has temporarily run out, I decided to turn back to making cakes for a while.

I call this Herme's recipe, but I've altered it so much that it's hardly recognizable when compared to the picture in the book. Melody is supposed to comprise of, from bottom up- a cinnamon tart base, genoise, twenty-hour apples, cinnamon-caramel bavarian cream, another tart crust and some finely sliced apples arranged in a concentric circle as decoration. What my version entails is a much simpler one- cinnamon tart base, hot milk sponge, sauteed poached pears and the bavarian cream. The sponge was a leftover from my swiss roll and the pears took only a few minutes rather than the twenty hours needed to prepare the apples.

I believe I let my caramel go darker than it was supposed to. My bavarian cream is a coffee-colored one while the one in the book appears to be custard-colored.

One of the things I like about Herme's recipes is that they don't add unnecessary sugar. So I can eat my dessert without spiraling into a hyperactive craze later on. And that's always a good thing because I eat a lot of desserts.

You know why I chose to use just 1 tart layer instead of the original 2? Because I want to use it in one of his other recipes which I will be making very soon! Stay tuned~

berry surprise cake.

2012-01-06T18:47:00.000+08:00

It's time to take a break from macarons and get my daily dose of sugar in the form of cake!

The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan and once I saw the title, I knew I had to try it. Originally, it's a sponge cake that's been hollowed out and filled with a refreshingly tangy cream cheese mousse and raspberries before being cleverly covered up with a sliced layer of cake and then christened with mounds of freshly whipped cream. Love.

I read about some serious sinkage problems with the sponge post-cooling so I decided to bake it in a chiffon pan to minimize the likelihood of a crater in the middle of the cake. And also because I didn't want to hollow out the cake and waste all that sponge. Baking the cake in a chiffon pan would already provide a convenient hole to pour all that delish cream cheese mousse in.

I realized that my hole was too small and narrow to store all that mousse so I used a 3 inch cutter to get a bigger storage area. I halved the recipe and baked it in a 6 inch chiffon pan, by the way. I took some of the cut out sponge and pressed it in the bottom of the hollow center just to create a base so that the mousse doesn't leak out.

Since we're talking about mousse now, I feel the need to point out that I increased the sugar as recommended by other bloggers. However, I think that's not entirely necessary unless you would prefer the mousse to be more sweet than tangy. I made it a little less guilt-inducing by using low fat cream cheese and swapping the cream that's supposed to be mixed in with the cream cheese for low fat milk. The best part is, it still tastes great!

For decoration, I used slightly less whipped cream than instructed in the recipe since I was only going to top the upper half of the cake and because I had to stuff as much mousse as I could in a limited amount of space, I left out the berries that were supposed to go inside the cake and used them to decorate the top instead. It looks much prettier anyway.

I think I need to cut myself another slice now...

Berry Surprise Cake
recipe taken from here

For the cake:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
4 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the syrup:
1/3 cup water
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp kirsch, chambord, framboise or raspberry syrup (I didn't have so I omitted)

For the filling:
6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (I used low-fat and used it straight from the fridge)
1/2 cup (I subbed with milk) + 2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp sugar (extra tablespoon optional if you prefer it on the sweet side)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the topping:
1 cup cold heavy cream
3 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 to 1 1/2 pints fresh raspberries, for filling and topping (I used a mix of berries)

For the cake: Preheat oven to 350F. Butter and flour the insides of a 8 x 3 inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Place the eggs and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and whisk to blend. Put the bowl over a saucepan with simmering water and continue to whisk until the sugar dissolves completely and the mixture is just warm to touch, about 3 minutes. Remove bowl from heat and whisk in vanilla.

Using the stand mixer, whisk the egg mixture on medium speed until tripled in volume and forms a ribbon that holds its shape for about 10 seconds when the beater is lifted. Switch to a spatula and sift over half the dry ingredients and fold in gently. Fold in the cooled melted butter then sift over the remaining dry ingredients and fold that in too.

Bake for 30 to 33 minutes or until the top is springy to touch and the sides are starting to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let the cake cool for 5 minutes before unmolding and letting it cool completely. The cake will cut more easily if you let it stand overnight, wrapped and kept at room temperature.

For the syrup: Stir the water and sugar together in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour the syrup into a heatproof bowl, stir in liqueur and let syrup come to room temperature.

For the filling: Beat the cream cheese until soft, smooth and fluffy. While beating, gradually add the 1/2 cup cream, sugar and vanilla and continue to beat until the cream is absorbed and the cheese is smooth. Scrape the mixture into a medium bowl. Pour the remaining 2/3 cup cream into the same bowl and whip until it holds form peaks. Stir about one quarter of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture then fold in the rest. There's no need to wash the bowl- you'll be using it for the topping.

For the topping: Just before you are ready to assemble the cake, whip the cream to medium peaks. Add the sugar and vanilla and continue to whip until stiff. Cover the cream and refrigerate.

Assembly: Using a serrated knife, slice off the top 1/2 inch of the cake and set aside. With the knife, cut a circle that's 1/2 inch away from the edges of the cake, stopping between 1/4 and 1/2 inch from the bottom. Carefully pull out the cake within this circle. Transfer the cake to a platter or cardboard round.

Brush the inside of the cake with syrup and spoon a thin layer of filling over the bottom. Toss in 1/2 pint of the berries and cover with the remaining filling. Lift the reserved top layer onto the cake and press it down gently.

Frost the top and sides of the cake with the whipped cream. Finish with some raspberries and refrigerate the cake for at least 1 hour (or for up to 6 hours) before serving.

pierre herme's macarons- tout paris.

2012-01-05T20:54:00.000+08:00

This is my what, third, macaron post in a row already. I'm telling ya, they're addictive.

These tout paris macarons have a chocolate caramel ganache and a chocolaty rice krispie square sandwiched between each pair.

The chocolate caramel ganache was such a pain. After stirring the caramel into the chocolate, it started to seize up and turn grainy. I put more elbow grease in it and horror of horrors, the caramel started to separate from the ganache. I tried to work it in again as best as I could, including reheating the mixture but nope. Nada. Nothing worked. Finally, I thought of using a blender but even that failed me.

The ganache ended up being something more like a chocolate taffy- pliable and shiny. I was seriously doubtful that something that can be used as play dough would taste good. But hey, surprise! It wasn't chewy at all and the caramel gave a nice depth to the ganache. I adored the crunchy chunk of rice krispies in the middle. The only problem is, I had to let the macarons mature longer due to the low moisture content in the ganache, 2 days instead of 1.

And it's worth every minute.

pierre herme's macarons- balsamic.

2012-01-03T21:35:00.000+08:00

I like weird and funky creations because it's always a surprise when you taste them. Like these balsamic macarons. Some of you may wrinkle your nose in disgust and wonder what on earth is it doing inside a macaron but the moment I saw the recipe, it was already bookmarked in my head.

But you need not worry- these macarons aren't the experiment-gone-wrong kind of funky. In fact, I really like them. The pairing of chocolate macaron and white chocolate balsamic ganache is somewhat similar to the dark chocolate and raspberry combination. In other words, delish.

When I made the ganache on day one, I honestly thought that it would be horrible. The balsamic smell was quite strong, and although the book stated that ideally, we should use a special 25 year old one from Modena, I forged on because I'd never get that fancy balsamic vinegar anyway and I really wanted to try this macaron.

Luckily, the overpowering vinegary smell faded the next day, probably because the ganache was chilled. When I bit into it, it was the perfect tartness with a lingering hint of balsamic. This just might vie for first place with the pistachio macarons.

So, ketchup macarons next time?

pierre herme's macarons- vanilla bean and strawberry and vanilla.

2012-01-01T14:15:00.000+08:00

2012 is here! And I made some macarons to celebrate!

There are two kinds but both are using the same shell so it wasn't much of hassle. I even cheated with the strawberry and vanilla macarons. I was supposed to make a strawberry gelee of sorts but because I would have to make such a small quantity, I just used strawberry jam in its stead. But I don't know how it worked out because all of them were gone before I got to one. So I guess the jam replacement worked out well!

Besides the strawberry gelee, the S & V macarons also had a layer of vanilla bean ganache, which is the same as the vanilla bean macarons'. So you see, really no trouble at all making two kinds.

Being such a vanilla junkie, I thought I would worship the vanilla bean macaron but nope, not really. It was good, but vanilla and almonds doesn't go together as well as say... raspberry and almonds.

Still, I'm really happy with the vanilla bean batch because they look beautiful! If you would allow me to say so. I finally figured out the reason why my macarons didn't succeed in the past- temperature. My oven was way too hot even at 150C for these little babies so the temperature that works best is 140C. And I used to follow recipes that said to bake at 160~170C... no wonder they failed.

There's still a bit of air pocket inside the shells but I think that's because I overbeat the egg whites- way to much air. Or maybe because I don't mix the almond meal, icing sugar and first portion of egg whites together first. But the book didn't say to do that! I think... Almost everyone does that too though... Hmm...

Alright! Next batch~ Oh by the way, if you're interested in the shell recipe, there's one here. Just omit the colorings for a plain one.

strawberries and milk verrines.

2011-12-31T11:41:00.000+08:00

Usually, puddings don't appeal enough for me to make them but I wanted to try out the slanted layering pattern. And I happened to have some strawberry puree kicking around. So.

I totally dig the milky layer. It has a good hit of condensed milk flavour and it's so smooth and creamy. The refreshing strawberry layer balanced the milkiness well but because there's lemon juice in there, regular milk will curdle. I didn't think of that when following the original recipe so my strawberry layer ended up with tiny unpleasant curds in it. If you swap out the regular milk for evaporated milk however, I believe it shouldn't curdle so I've reflected that change in the recipe below.

Strawberries and Milk Verrines
fills two 200ml glasses
adapted from here

Pink layer:
75g strawberry puree
18g sugar
3/4 tsp lemon juice
40ml evaporated milk
2g powdered gelatin
1/2 tbsp water

Sprinkle the gelatin over the water. In a saucepan, combine the strawberry puree, sugar, lemon juice and evaporated milk and heat on low until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a simmer and add in the gelatin. Stir until the gelatin dissolves and set aside to cool. Pour into a glass and refrigerate until set.

White layer:
100ml milk
1 tbsp condensed milk
1/2 tbsp sugar
3g powdered gelatin
1 tbsp water
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Sprinkle powdered gelatin over water. Combine the milk, condensed milk and sugar in a saucepan and heat on low until the sugar dissolves. When it comes to a simmer, add in the gelatin and stir to dissolve. Off the heat, add in the vanilla and set aside to cool. When completely cool, pour over the pink layer and refrigerate until set.

Strawberry jelly layer:
3 tbsp strawberry jam
1 tbsp water

Combine both ingredients in a saucepan and heat, stirring, until the jam liquifies. Set aside to cool before spooning into the glasses.

brown sugar white chocolate and macadamia cookies.

2011-12-30T22:05:00.000+08:00

Even though my blog's name is Crumbs and Cookies, you might have noticed that there aren't a lot of cookie recipes around. Cookies, I think, is the most dangerously deceptive creation in the baking repertoire. They are so simple, so unchallenging, that I hardly make them anymore. I've turned into a sadist monster who enjoys assembling component after component just for a single dessert.

But, if I finally get down to making a batch of cookies and nibble on one barely minutes out of the oven, I'll find myself residing temporarily in some sugar nirvana. Which, I should add, sometimes cannot achieved by some of the labour intensive desserts I make. As the cookie in my hand disappear to mere crumbs and a heavenly aroma on my fingertips, I reach for another one. They're so uncomplicated, yet able to reduce the willpower of a person to shreds of nothingness.

I must admit, sadly, that I don't really anticipate the baking of cookies anymore. If there's one word I can use to sum up the process of me making them- uninterested. I eye the ingredient list and quickly memorize the quantities. I mix up the dough with an expressionless face and shut the door of the fridge in its face. The next day, I portion out small mounds of dough and freeze them for a little while because the dough would have warmed up some. While its sitting in the freezer I preheat the oven, and when the oven beeps, I send the tray of unbaked cookies in without a second look. I'm almost embarrassed that I assemble these cookies like a heartless robot. There's such a lack of passion and interest which is why I hardly bake them anymore.

Although, something in me awakened when I smelled these cookies which were nearing done. That homely comforting aroma made me glad that I'd gotten down to making them. I would have never attempted these if not for a request by a white chocolate macadamia cookie fanatic. I think I just might be making another batch of cookies sometime soon.

These cookies taste amazing. Instead of a mix of white and brown sugar, the only sugar they contain is brown. Unfortunately, I'm still unable to replicate that elusive Famous Amos cookie, but I love these all the same. I added tons of macadamias and white chocolate so that the dough wouldn't spread much and at the same time, add crunch because they're made with only brown sugar so they're unable to get really crisp.

I think the Famous Amos cookies contain a lot of butter, which makes them really crisp crunchy. They definitely contain a mix of white and brown sugar, I just know it. They have a shortbread kind of texture so I'm going to try something similar to a shortbread recipe next time. More cookies- and I'm finally excited about it!

Brown Sugar White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies
makes 30 small cookies
adapted from here

56g butter, at room temperature
60g brown sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 egg
88g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup white chocolate chunks
1/3~ 1/2 cup chopped macadamias

Cream the brown sugar and butter until slightly pale. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt together. Beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture until just combined. Mix in the white chocolate chunks and chopped macadamias just until uniformly mixed. Transfer the dough into a smaller bowl and chill until firm, at least 2 hours.

Line a baking sheet with parchment. Portion out the cookies dough onto the baking sheet and freeze while the oven is preheating. Bake at 180C for 15-18 minutes until very brown for crunchy cookies, about 10 minutes for soft ones.

黒豆ロールケーキ kuromame swiss roll.

2011-12-29T11:40:00.000+08:00

Another swiss roll! Which nearly managed to roll perfectly if I had not made those slits at the end. It's true that some shallow slashing can help the initial rolling but I guess I made it too deep by accident so a bit of the cake broke off completely. I'm going to stop making slits and trust the recipe next time.

The sponge I chose was a hot milk sponge cake. It has a lot more flavour from your average sponge recipe and much moister too. But I still think it needs help from some form of moisture because if you stick your fork in it, it will crumble. The good news is, it disappears with a slight pressure from your tongue, leaving behind a milky buttery flavour.

Because I had some more kuromame in the fridge, I decided to add them to the sponge. Unfortunately, I forgot about them until the moment I placed the pan in the oven so I had to scramble to drop those little black beans one by one onto the batter. They sank, as expected, but they didn't sink all the way to the bottom. That's why some of them appear to be half-hidden. I initially wanted to arrange the beans on the pan before pouring the batter on top of them so that they would show up nicely but...

Instead of just filling the roll with whipped cream, I made a milk jelly too to be nestled in the center of the swiss roll. The block of milk jelly turned out to be too large for the cake so it didn't roll up nicely, even smooshing out some of the minimal whipped cream I'd applied first. If I had to choose, I would rather stick with only whipped cream because like I said, the cake needs more moisture and the jelly will hardly help in that area. Plus, I kind of regretted making the jelly. It's my take on the green tea milk jelly I found here and because I left out the matcha and didn't add any other flavorings, it turned out a little bland. It wasn't sweet enough too.

And the texture didn't really sit right either. It was way too creamy and stiff, probably because there's cornstarch and gelatin. If it was made without the cornstarch, the jelly would retain a bit of wobble and be less compact, which would be ideal.

Kuromame Swiss Roll

I've made changes to what I think will be a better milk jelly in the recipe below.

For the cake:
1/2 + 1/6 cup cake flour
1/2 + 1/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 1/2 eggs
3/8 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175C and line a 7 x 11 inch baking pan.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt twice. Combine the butter and milk in a saucepan and heat just until the butter has melted. Leave the saucepan on the stove, you will need to heat it up again later.

Whisk the eggs and vanilla extract in your mixer until frothy. Slowly add in the the sugar and keep whisking until the eggs have tripled in volume.

Sift one third of the flour mixture into the eggs and fold it in with a spatula. Repeat with the remaining flour mixture in 2 additions.

Reheat the milk mixture until it comes to just under a boil. Pour into the batter and fold it in.

Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for about 15 minutes or until the cake springs back when lightly touched. Loosen the sides of the cake from the tin and invert it on another piece of parchment paper. Remove the other piece of parchment used to line the tin and roll up the cake tightly from the short side. Let it cool before filling.

For the filling:
100ml whipping cream, whipped

For the milk jelly:
1/2 tbsp gelatin softened over 1 tbsp of water
40ml milk
25ml whipping cream
10g sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Put the milk, whipping cream and sugar in a saucepan. On low heat, whisk until the sugar dissolves. Heat the mixture until it comes to a simmer and add the softened gelatin and vanilla. Stir until the gelatin dissolves and pour into a small rectangular and refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours.

pierre herme's macarons- pistachio and mosaic.

2011-12-28T19:41:00.001+08:00

I recently got myself the english version of Pierre Herme's macaron book and I couldn't wait to try out the recipes! The first four tries were flops. The feet always ended up being frills and after a bit of research, I realized that my oven temperature was too high. So I brought it down and ta-daah~ beautiful-looking macarons! The green ones, that is.

I had to punctuate my excitement when I found out that the shells were hollow. I wanted to scream and tear my eyes out because after 5 batches of macarons in 4 days and not a single one turned out completely successful, well how can you not? I attribute the hollowness to a temperature that's too low but if I raise the temperature, the foot will splay out again! I'm really in a fix here...

pistachio- mmmm....

I couldn't bear to throw the failed batches away so I filled the better looking ones anyway. The most perfect looking ones- the green- got a pistachio white chocolate ganache and the white ones were supposed to be filled with a pistachio cinnamon ganache and a kirsch cherry. Unfortunately, I completely forgot about the cherry until I'd pressed the two halves together so I guess I would have take a bite of the macaron, then a cherry. Aargh! How much do I want to ruin this for myself?

The pink ones, which look like frisbees to me, had a dollop of strawberry jam as the filling. I'd always preferred fruity fillings with macarons rather than ganache because macarons are mostly made of almonds and almonds go well with bright clean tastes. And also because I couldn't be bothered to fork out so much effort for failed macarons.

mosaic

Oh guess what. I left the pink ones in the fridge for too long so now they're all soft and soggy. Bleh. I totally forgot that jam-filled macarons mature a lot faster.

Right now, I'm baking at a temperature of 135C so I'm going to try to up the temperature to 150C to see if that hollow problem goes away. Wish me luck!

kolaches.

2011-12-27T17:30:00.002+08:00

I was flipping through The Pastry Queen the other day, and then I knew why there was such a following for it (Project Pastry Queen, anyone?). The recipes were innovative and interesting- I'd unconsciously bookmarked several of them as I turned the pages.

One of them was kolaches. When I saw the picture of lined-up pillows of dough dimpled with peach filling, I was intrigued. I wondered how bread with such a foreign sounding name would turn out, so the recipe anchored itself at the top of the to-bake list. At the end of the recipe, there were a few variations given. Most of them were typical bread fillings but there was one that caught me eye- egg.

The egg would be poured into the cavity of the dough and baked until set. It was described as a superior of Mc D's Egg Mcmuffin. I gave it my own twist by adding a small cube of cheddar cheese in the middle, and dolloping a huge glop of ketchup once the egg has set but a few minutes shy of being done.

The other version I did had a milk filling which I used before in my kuromame milk buns here.

As expected, the kolaches turned out to be appropriately Texan-sized, even after I'd scaled it down. I didn't make the whole recipe- that would be quite insane, frankly. I did an eighth of it, which is supposed to yield 2 large kolaches. Instead of portioning 2 balls of dough, I did 3, and as you can see, they are still huge!

Unfortunately, the saying bigger is better is not always true. The buns weren't as soft as I would like and tends to be dry at some places. To me, this is the sort of recipe that scores for its novelty factor rather for its taste.

Kolaches
adapted from The Pastry Queen
makes 16-18 huge ones

For the dough:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 cup water, warmed to 110-115F
1 cup milk, warmed to 110-115F
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
8 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:
anything you fancy, from jams to the egg variation (instructions below)

For the streusel topping: (I omitted)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 stick butter, cut into small pieces

1 egg, for egg wash

Sprinkle the yeast over warm water in the bowl of your stand mixer until it foams up. Turn the mixer to low and add the milk, melted butter, eggs and sugar until mixed. Whisk together the salt and flour and add to the mixer in two batches, mixing only until just combined. The dough should be wet and sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rest for 1 to 2 hours, or until doubled in size. Punch down the dough and refrigerate covered overnight or for at least 4 hours.

Divide the dough and place the portions on a lined or greased baking sheet. Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. Using your fingers, make an impression in the centre of the ball and stretch out into a round, creating a well to hold your filling.

Pulse the flour, sugar, and butter in your food processor until crumbly. Refrigerate until ready to use.

If making egg kolaches, crack an egg for each kolache into a bowl and whisk to break up the yolk before pouring into the indention of the dough. You can also choose to add other ingredients like ham, red peppers, anything you fancy. If using other fillings, place a heaping spoonful into the centre of each dough ball. Cover and let rest for 20 minutes while preheating the oven to 375F.

Sprinkle the streusel topping over the kolaches. Whisk the remaining egg with a tablespoon of water and brush over the sides of the kolaches.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until browned. Let the kolaches cool for 20 minutes before serving. Leftovers can be kept tightly wrapped in the fridge for 3-4 days.

crunchy pork rinds.

2011-12-26T19:06:00.001+08:00

Pork rinds that I made from scratch (meaning from pig skin- no pre-packed chicharrons where I live) and gave a healthy twist by baking instead of frying. Then, it gets glazed with a healthy measure of honey, along with the usual sidekicks salt and pepper. Thrown back into the oven to caramelize the honey till golden brown and sticky, and popped into the mouth while warm with a telltale craaacckk...

c is for christmas and cookies.

2011-12-25T22:27:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

It's not my tradition to bake cookies for Christmas but my cousin practically demanded for them, and not just those easy drop cookies, but checkerboard cookies. Since it's Christmas, I decided to push myself a little and I make a whole variety of shapes out of a same dough.

I got the dough recipe from Sweetapolita because she claims that it's her favourite reliable sugar cookie dough. The only changes I made were to sub half the sugar for brown sugar and omit the lemon extract, adding almond extract instead.

Brown sugar definitely made a more flavorful cookie and although the cookie dough was redolent of almond before baking, it disappeared after. Perhaps I should have added more but I was afraid of making it taste too artificially of almond.

As great as it tasted, the dough was finicky to roll. It would start turning sticky within minutes of rolling. It may not be the recipe's fault because I live in an incredibly hot and humid climate, even if it's cooler this time of the year. That's why my candy canes turned out so horribly- because the slim cylinders of dough were melting in my hands despite freezing them before handling. That candy cane you see there is probably the best one I made, out of the five I made myself persist through before slapping the remains together in defeat.

The dresses were the most frustrating ones. They nearly convinced me to never make roll-out cookies again. But I shall see about that.

The checkerboard cookies were weird. The green and yellow parts managed to alternate themselves but the red remained in one straight line. I did rotate the strips, naturally, which is why this remains as a mystery to me...

I had alot of fun making these cookies. I might attempt more shapes next time. Definitely with a more stable dough.

chocolate cherry chocolate chunk muffins.

2011-12-24T18:46:00.000+08:00

I trust Dorie's recipes 100% but myself less than an hour after waking? Zero. Nada. Zilch. I don't know what was I thinking that convinced myself that I could pull off a third of a recipe with drowsy movements and a growling stomach. I always make some kind of slip-up when baking in the morning. And yup, the record continues...

I miscalculated the amount of cocoa powder and put in way too little. Such a pity because this muffin would have been intense and chocolaty. Besides that unintentional blunder, I swapped half the melted butter for applesauce, giving the muffins a lighter fluffier texture. I'd intended to cut down some calories, not really caring about what the applesauce would do to the muffin but I have to say that I do prefer fluffy muffins so I have no regrets.

A word of warning: these muffins are a lot less sweet than the usual ones so if you have a sweet tooth, you should up the sugar. But I find that the intensity of chocolate comes through better if you show some restraint with the sugar so I wouldn't increase it. And if you love rivers of melted chocolate ribboning through a muffin, you would have to add more chunks of chocolate too.

I hid a dark cherry in the middle for a nice surprise although skipping that and applying cherry jam to a split muffin would be nice too.

Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Muffins
makes 12
adapted from Dorie Greenspan

6 tbsp unsalted butter (I replaced half with applesauce)
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375F. Divide cupcake liners in a 12 hole muffin pan.

Melt the butter and half the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, egg and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients and the butter mixture over the dry mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for about 20 minutes (about 15 if you've used applesauce) or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out mostly clean with moist crumbs attached. Transfer the pan to a rack to cool for 5 minutes before unmolding the muffins.

strawberry sakura clear water sponge cupcakes.

2011-12-23T13:45:00.000+08:00

I think sakura is one of the most prettiest flowers in the world. I've always wanted to see them for real but the timing is never right. And after seeing some bloggers like she who eats bake with them, I wanted to make a cake, cookie, whatever with sakura too. So I had to get my hands on some sakura, and I managed to find a small pink packet while browsing through a supermarket in Japan.

They came salted, preserved. I had to wash off the salt with boiling water before I used them for anything. Once they hit the hot water, it turned a light pink. And then I dried them on a paper towel, I could smell them. Slightly floral and something else. I couldn't define it.

I wondered what I should bake with them. I didn't know what went well with sakura. So I used the colour scheme as a starting point and paired the flower with a strawberry cream as a frosting. But frosting must come with cake, no matter how redundant it may seem at times.

No dainty delicate flower could be associated with something like deep dark chocolate so I decided to go the lighter route- with a sponge cake. I'd chanced upon a pretty promising recipe a few months ago and it would be the perfect opportunity to test it out.

I baked the cupcakes, cooled them, hid a small teaspoonful of strawberry jam in the middle, swirled frosting over and around it, then arranged a petal of sakura on top. It's the very kind of cupcake you would hold in one hand, paper liner halfway peeled down, while pinching off tiny bites with delicate fingers. You would be reclining in a chair, feet up, licking the fruity cream off the tips of your fingernails.

I loved the sponge cake. It wasn't just a vehicle for the cream and sakura. It was part of the whole ensemble. Soft, fluffy, spongey- like a marshmallow in cake form. It's a little eggy so if you can't stand that sort of taste, add a bit of vanilla extract to the batter. By the way, the cake will fall after it comes out of the oven but don't worry, it's supposed to be that way.

I didn't make the cream, I kinda poached it from my mum and it complemented the cake nicely. Surprisingly, the sakura was still a tad salty. I should have soaked it longer. It didn't have much taste but it smelled nice. A bit of a disappointment, sadly. Ah well, it makes for a nice decoration.

Clear Water Sponge Cupcakes
recipe adapted from The Little Teochew

(A)
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
50ml corn oil

(B)
50g cake flour

(C)
3 egg whites

(D)
50g sugar
pinch salt

Beat (A) till combined. Sift in (B) and mix just until the flour has dissolved.

Whisk (C) until frothy, add in (D) and beat till stiff peaks.

Fold the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture in 3 additions until well combined. Be careful not to deflate any air. Spoon the batter into paper cups until 60% full.

Bake in a preheated oven at 150C for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the cakes spring back when lightly pressed.

cocoa marshmallows.

2011-12-22T18:11:00.000+08:00

Usually, we have hot chocolate with white cloud-like marshmallows. But how about a reverse? Milk with dark chocolaty marshmallows.

These marshmallows aren't as sweet as their pale cousins because of the amount of cocoa in there and they're also springy and fluffy. The kind that you wish you had a life-size version of so that you can hug it to sleep. Or pillow fight with it. Or jump on like a trampoline.

Oh and they melt really quick too so you have to be fast to catch them in that half molten half fluffy state once you plop them on your hot milk. If you're a bit too slow, that's okay. At least now you have chocolate milk!

P.S I used these cocoa marshmallows to top off my hazelnut milk instead of just using regular milk. Can someone say Nutella milk?

Cocoa Marshmallows
recipe adapted from Not So Humble Pie
yields a 7 x 11 x 1 inch pan

For the cocoa slurry:
1/2 cup natural unsweetened cocoa
1 tbsp instant espresso powder
2/3 cup boiling water

For the base:
1/2 cup water
1 1/4 cup corn syrup (I actually got away with half because I had that much left)
1 1/2 cup sugar
pinch salt

For the bloom:
4 tbsp unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1 tsp vanilla extract

For coating:
cocoa powder

Prepare a 7 x 11 inch pan with a little oil or nonstick spray. Wipe out the pan to remove the excess.

Prepare the cocoa slurry by combining all the ingredients in a medium bowl and whisking until no lumps remain.

Prepare the base by placing all the ingredients into a medium saucepan and heat to 260F without stirring over medium heat. While the base is cooking, prepare the bloom. Combine the water and vanilla in a bowl. Sprinkle the gelatin evenly over the surface and set aside.

Once the temperature of the base reaches 260F, remover from heat and gently stir in the lump of gelatin. The mixture will foam up a bit. Add the cocoa mixture and stir until smooth before pouring the mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer with the whisk attachment.

Gradually bring the mixture to high speed because it will splatter. Beat the mixture on high speed until light and fluffy, like marshmallow cream, about 18 minutes. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, smooth the top with an offset spatula and allow to stand at room temperature for at least 4 hours or overnight.

Cut and coat the marshmallow with the cocoa powder. Store marshmallows for up to 2 weeks in an air-tight container.

bento #14.

2011-12-21T17:45:00.000+08:00

mango mayo sushi, more mango cubes (sweet!), salt and pepper shrimp, assorted vegetables in mentsuyu sauce

Because mango and shrimp totally go together and we can't leave mayo behind.

sticky chocolate cake.

2011-12-20T09:27:00.000+08:00

Sticky. Chocolate. Cake. Now that's some attention grabber.

You know what's that secret ingredient for guaranteed stickiness? It's prunes. Yeah. But there's no need to make a face like one. You can hardly taste the ones that are blended into the batter. But some are left in bite-sized pieces to be dispersed throughout the batter so if you really can't stand them, sub in chopped chocolate chunks because chocolate is healthy too. To defend this shriveled fruit, it's packed with fiber so it's good for your, erm, digestive tract.

Oh have I mentioned this- this recipe has no added oil or butter. Talk about good-for-you! Now go ahead and have two. Like me.

I sadistically upped the calorie count for my serving by stacking two cupcakes on top of each other, glued together with whipped chocolate ganache. You should really frost this with ganache. There's actually quite a small amount in the cakes themselves that they need some serious chocolate boost.

P.S. Please don't pull my hair out if your skinny jeans don't fit after that.

I cannot be more sure that piping bags and me don't jive. Even ganache got stuck in the tip and blocked up the passageway like the mucus does to your nasal airway during a bout of flu. And you know why? Because some chunks of chocolate didn't melt completely! I'm gonna slap myself.

So since I couldn't pipe, I had to frost with a spatula. Halfway through, my mom stole my spatula so I had to frost with a butter knife. A butter knife. The fact that the cupcakes didn't have smooth surfaces to begin with made things a lot more challenging. My stack of cupcakes became a mini leaning tower of Pisa and bumps frequently peeked through the frosting. Without the glaze on top, this would be an ugly stump of a cake.

But ultimately, the cakes tasted good, and that's what that really matters.

Sticky Chocolate Cake
makes 6 cupcakes
adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini

For the cake:

110g plump dried prunes, pitted
40ml brandy such as Cognac or Armagnac
60ml buttermilk or plain yogurt
1/2 egg, lightly beaten
3 tbsp light brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp maple syrup or treacle
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
75g bittersweet chocolate (I left this out and frosted with whipped chocolate ganache)

For the syrup:

25g brown sugar
40ml water

Preheat oven to 350F. Insert paper liners into a 6-hole muffin tin.

Take half of the prunes and chop it into tiny bite-size pieces. Place the chopped up pieces in a saucepan with the brandy and heat until just slightly warm. Set aside to plump up.

Put the remaining prunes and buttermilk in a food processor and process until smooth. Pour into a large mixing bowl. Whisk in the egg, brown sugar and maple syrup, beating well between each addition.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cocoa powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Don't overmix. Fold in the chopped chocolate. Fish the prunes from the brandy (reserve the brandy) and fold them in too.

Divide the batter among the cupcake liners and level the batter. The batter will be stiff and would not spread out on it's own. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

While the cupcakes are baking, prepare the syrup. Add the brown sugar and water to the brandy in the pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat immediately.

When the cupcakes come out of the oven, poke a few holes and brush with the warm syrup with a pastry brush until saturated. Let cool slightly before transferring the cupcakes to a cooling rack.

there's more than tastespotting.

2011-12-19T11:12:00.000+08:00

Let's face it. I'm not that good a photographer. More often than not, the pictures I submit are brutally rejected by Tastespotting.

"composition"...

"lighting issues"...

"blurry/unsharp picture"...

I would say that only 50% or less of my pictures actually make it out there for everyone to view. Sure, everytime a picture appears in the "declined" page, it stings. But I can totally understand. Okay, maybe just sometimes. Tastespotting's got standards to uphold. I can't deny that Tastespotting has good quality photos, something that really makes me enjoy browsing through.

But what if you try and try and try but still can't get that picture through? Well, here are your answers. I found this incredibly useful page with links to other foodie websites to which you can try uploading your photos to. I've not tried but they should have the bar set lower than Tastespotting's or Foodgawker's. Kudos go to Cook and Be Merry for creating this list!

1. Kitchen Artistry
2. Tasteologie
3. Dishfolio
4. Dessert Stalking
5. Food and Fizz
6. YumGallery
7. eRecipeCards
8. Finding Vegan
9. Refrigerator Soup
10. Liqurious
11. Tasty Days
12. Savory Sights
13. TasteFix
14. Opensource Food
15. Foodieview
16. Knapkins
17. Foodepix
18. Photograzing
19. Tasty Kitchen
20. TasteStopping (nope, this is not Tastespotting with a spelling error)
21. Food Porn Daily

And of course, there's Foodgawker too.

I don't mean for this post to have any negative connotations on Tastespotting but I would just like for everyone to have some alternatives. Many of us have innovative recipes to share but may not have the photography skills to post it on sites which place much emphasis on the image. Hopefully, more great ideas will be floating around with other sites to turn to!

黒豆ミルククリームパン kuromame milk pan.

2011-12-18T19:43:00.001+08:00

If there's anything that I love more than cakes, it's bread. And I mean yeasted ones, not those loaf-shape cakes masquerading as bread. I adore anything from those rustic chewy loaves to sweet pillowy buns but I happen to be more biased towards the latter because I have a not-so-secret sweet tooth and I ate more of those as a teeny tot.

I've made lots of bread before I started blogging. There were some truly memorable ones- super fluffy and soft but they hardly compared to this one. These buns managed to stay soft not just for the few hours after baking but also way longer than that. This is what sets this recipe apart from the other ones I've tried. I bet the buns could have been even softer if I'd baked them for 8 to 10 minutes instead of the 12 instructed. Basically, you don't want them to colour or you'll have that hard crust.

I filled these buns with a milk cream and topped them off with japanese black beans which are mildly sweet. This combination is inspired by my recent trip to Japan where I bought a bun with the same description. If you're wondering how black beans and milk can go together, it really does! You have to try it to know it. Plus, there's a bakery here in Singapore that does a mean ミルクパン that I absolutely love so I was pretty darn excited about these buns.

I think this is my favourite amongst the buns I've made so far. The milk filling could have been a little richer just like the bakery's but there's no harm done. I should have found a way to cram more black beans on top. Yumm-eh. Next time, I'll cut down on the baking time to get some truly super soft buns.

This has become my favourite basic (not sweet) bun dough recipe. I hope that you give this a try too!

Basic Bun Dough
slightly adapted from Kokken69
makes about 480g of dough

Water Roux:

50g bread flour
75g boiling water

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl. Cover with clingwrap and store in the fridge for at least 12 hours.

Bread dough:

6g active dry yeast
160g bread flour, plus extra flour if needed
40g plain flour
20g sugar
2g salt
50g lukewarm water
1 egg
40g unsalted butter, room temperature

Milk cream filling, below
Some sweetened black beans

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and set aside for 5 minutes or until it begins to foam up.

In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, add the flour, sugar, egg and yeast with water. Start mixing at slow speed for 2 minutes. Add salt and continue to mix until the a ball of dough is beginning to form.

Add the water roux and continue to mix for 3 minutes. Add the butter and increase the speed. Continue kneading for about 15 minutes until the dough is no longer sticky and is able to pass the window pane test. Place dough in a separate bowl, cover with clingwrap and allow to proof in a warm area until doubled in size.

Divide the dough into six 80g portions and set aside on 2 lined baking trays (I used a silicone mat to avoid a hard crust on the bottom) for 10 minutes for the dough to relax.

Flatten a piece of dough and spoon about 2 tbsp of milk filling in the centre. Seal the edges tightly and replace it back on the baking tray. Repeat for the remaining balls of dough. Brush the surfaces of the dough balls with an egg white and press some sweetened black beans in. Press down lightly with the lightly-oiled bottom of another baking sheet and leave it like this while the buns proof again until doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 160C. Transfer the buns with the baking sheets still pressed on them into the oven and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes.

Milk Cream Filling

20g cake flour
25g sugar
1 tbsp skim milk powder
170ml whole milk
15g unsalted butter
a few drops of vanilla extract

Whisk the cake flour, sugar and skim milk powder together in a bowl.

In a small saucepan, heat the whole milk until simmering and pour into the dry ingredients. Whisk until the dry ingredients have dissolved then pour it back into the saucepan. Bring to a boil and cook for until the mixture has thickened. Pull the saucepan off the heat and stir in the unsalted butter and vanilla extract. Set aside to cool before refrigerating until set, at least 2 hours.

bento #13.

2011-12-17T12:22:00.000+08:00

I have a strange fondness of coleslaw-soggified bread...

eggless vanilla cupcakes.

2011-12-16T17:37:00.000+08:00

I've not quite found my go-to vanilla cake recipe yet, but I made one very near perfection before. What I'm looking for is a recipe that has a clear vanilla flavour. To achieve that, there must be no egg yolks or butter. The cake must not be yellow, in a sense. Because if it is, it's a yellow cake, not a vanilla cake. Ha ha.

This recipe being vegan, naturally has no eggs nor butter in it. It fits my criteria for what I think would be the ultimate vanilla cake, so I gave it a go.

I divided the recipe by 4, since I only wanted to try it out. That left me with 20ml of oil to add in. When I first saw the recipe, I thought of substituting half of it with applesauce but because 20ml is such a small amount, I subbed in the full amount with applesauce instead. There was a faint apple-y hint which I didn't quite mind since the vanilla scent was way stronger than that but I was more concerned that my substitution could have altered the structure of the cake.

See, my cupcakes rose beautifully in the oven, spreading out instead of up which would give me a nice wide surface to pile on the frosting(!). But when I took them out, they sank. Not much, but noticeable. My heart on the other hand, sank like the titanic. It wasn't just because the cupcakes turned out somewhat deflated, but also because I could tell the insides were a bit gummy when I inserted a skewer.

Usually, I like a little gumminess, especially in muffins but this was way too much. It was very gummy and dense. The worst part is, I could hardly taste the vanilla. I could smell it, but my tastebuds couldn't detect it. Which is such a pity because there was tons of vanilla in there. The good news is it wasn't too sweet and thank god for that because the frosting definitely fulfilled that department! The frosting was much sweeter than I could handle, and I have a pretty high tolerance of sugar. Maybe it's because I've not made the classic icing-sugar-and-butter buttercream in a while.

I was really hoping that this cupcake would be the one but I guess not.

Eggless Vanilla Cupcakes
makes 12
slightly adapted from Love and Olive Oil

Perhaps doubling the amount of baking powder would yield better results?

1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a 12-hole muffin tin or two 6-hole ones. Line with paper liners for easy removal.

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk the buttermilk, sugar, oil and vanilla extract in another bowl. Add the wet mixture into the dry and mix until just combined. Divide among the paper liners. Bake for 20-22 min or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Whipped Rum Frosting
adapted from Sweetapolita

1 stick + 2 tsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sifted icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp rum

Using an electric mixer, whip the butter for 8 minutes on medium speed using the paddle attachment. It will become very pale and creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients and cream on low speed for 1 minute before increasing the speed to medium, beating for 6 minutes. The frosting will become very light, creamy and fluffy. The frosting is best used right away.

bento #12.

2011-12-15T10:25:00.000+08:00

Healthy baked tempura prawns donburi sauce and a side of coleslaw. The coleslaw rocks my socks off as always but sometimes there's no substitution for the fried stuff.

KFC Copycat Coleslaw
adapted from here

Personally, this is way better than the stuff in the KFC plastic cup.

8 cups finely shredded cabbage
1/4 cup shredded carrot
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 1/2 tbsp white vinegar
2 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Combine the vegetables in a large bowl. Combine the remaining ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Pour over the vegetable mixture and mix thoroughly. Cover bowl and refrigerate for several hours or overnight before serving.

chocolate chestnut swiss roll.

2011-12-14T12:02:00.000+08:00

I wanted to use up my chestnut pastry cream and marron glaces (sort of) from my mont blancs so I made a swiss roll. And since chocolate goes so well with chestnuts, it's only logical to make a chocolate one.

Swiss rolls are quite prone to failure. Horrible cracks that streak across the surface like fissures. Edible, but not too pretty to look at. It's that infuriating fear that ironically, compelled me to take another swing at it. I made a swiss roll before, and it nearly broke cleanly into two halves.

This time, I succeeded in not having the swiss roll crack but I didn't feel 100% victorious. It looked really flattened and squashed instead of the circular shape I was hoping to achieve. Then again, it is a flourless cake so it wouldn't be as structurally sound as one with flour. But, I don't know if it is supposed to be so spineless. At the very least, this one was easy to roll.

Being a flourless swiss roll, it had some amazing qualities to it. The sponge was spongy (ha!), soft, moist and ethereally light all at once. The chocolate flavour isn't as strong as regular cakes, say my favourite chocolate cake, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's stronger than regular chocolate swiss roll sponges.

I think I'm ready for another shot at swiss roll. Swiss roll, I'm taking you down.

Chocolate Chestnut Swiss Roll
cake recipe adapted from The Cake Bible

For the cake:
1/9 cup (1tbsp + 2 1/3 tsp) unsifted cocoa powder and 1 more tsp for dusting
20ml boiling water
1/3 tsp vanilla
2 tsp unsalted butter, softened
33g + 11g sugar
2 large eggs, separated
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and line a 11 x 7 inch baking pan.

In a small bowl, stir together the 1/9 cup of cocoa powder with the boiling water until the cocoa has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the butter until it has melted and then the vanilla. Set aside to cool.

In a mixing bowl, combine the 2 egg yolks with 33g sugar and beat using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate mixture and beat until incorporated.

In another mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks begin to form. Add the remaining sugar bit by bit and beat until stiff peaks form.

Fold 1/3 of the beaten whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it up. I find using a whisk much easier than using a spatula at this point. Fold in the remaining egg whites gently until the batter is homogenous.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 10 to 12 minutes. The cake will have faded in colour and lost its shine. The surface should also spring back when lightly pressed.

Take the cake out of the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Sprinkle the remaining teaspoon of cocoa powder evenly over the cake and cover with a damp dish towel. Allow to cool completely.

For the chestnut cream:

1/4 recipe of chestnut pastry cream
1/2 cup cream, whipped

Fold the whipped cream into the chestnut pastry cream. You may have a little extra leftover but that's okay. Just grab a spoon and attack.

Assembly: Invert the cake on a large piece of parchment paper. Peel the old piece of parchment paper off the cake. Make three shallow slits near the ends of the short side of the cake. This will make it much easier to roll it up. Spread the filling evenly on the cake, leaving at 1 inch border from the sides. I advise you to leave a larger border towards the opposite end of the cake, the side which would be the seam after rolling it up, just in case that there's too much filling in the middle. Sprinkle some chopped candied chestnuts if desired. Roll up the cake. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours for the filling to firm up.

If you have extra pastry cream, you can use it to pipe decorations on top. Garnish with marron glaces if you like.

bento #11.

2011-12-13T09:42:00.000+08:00

I felt so inspired to make more bentos after getting another new bento box! This time, I have a star-shaped 1 egg tamagoyaki, eggplant pickles and creamy mushroom croquettes in one compartment, and plain white rice in the other. The mushroom croquettes were something I conjured up based on a creamy crab croquette recipe from a book. And they're healthy! 100% no oil involved because they're baked. Score! They just needed an extra kiss of salt.

mont blanc.

2011-12-12T11:52:00.000+08:00

Mont blanc ranks waaay up there on my list of favourite cakes. There's something about the nutty, milky sweetness of chestnut puree and the way it is piped spiraling up to procure a messy but somewhat artistic-looking mountain. An edible delicious mountain. Plus, mont blancs usually come with a crumbly tart base!

Unfortunately, I find that mont blancs are usually quite expensive. I mean the cake, not the pen. Well, I suppose the pen is too. I think it's because the chestnut puree is pretty pricey. I saw a can going for ten bucks before. But whole chestnuts themselves are very much more affordable so it would be easier on the pocket to make my own chestnut puree. And since I could make my own puree I should make my own mont blancs. Which brings us to here, with a mont blanc and a fork. And then just the fork.

Most of the components came together without a hitch. I used my ever reliable sweet tart dough, some leftover almond sponge from my previous entremet which I froze, chantilly cream, chocolate-coated candied chestnuts and chestnut pastry cream. The chestnut for garnishing is just a candied chestnut, the same as the one inside the cake but without the creamy chocolate shell.

The candied chestnuts were the huge pain in the butt. I followed a recipe for marron glaces and I stirred the chestnuts while they were boiling in the syrup. Which is what I'm not supposed to do. To be a little less harsh on myself, the directions didn't mention anything about not stirring. But in the end, I still got hard sugar-encrusted chestnuts instead creamy sweet ones. I decided to just heck with it, and reheated the crystallized chestnuts until the sugar has melted again and heat it until it has turned to caramel. It was as if I had intended to just dip the chestnuts in caramel which hardened when left to dry on a baking sheet. They looked much better, and I felt much better, until I found that when refrigerated, the caramel liquified and dripped off the chestnuts.

And it's not just the appearance either. The unsuccessful layer of caramel on the outside became tough and chewy. So much work for nothing, hmph. If you're making those marron glaces, please please please remember not to stir when they're boiling!

The second problem, although a much milder one, is the piping of the chestnut pastry cream. The holes of the piping tip that I used were tiny! I really feel that bigger holes would pipe a prettier mont blanc. But it's not just the looks. Because the holes were so small, little pieces of chestnuts which I didn't manage to strain out from my puree got stuck behind them, constantly jamming the flow of the pastry cream. I managed the scrape by by inserting a toothpick up the holes to get it going again. Thank goodness messy mont blancs still look good!

Despite the little boo-boos here and there, I loved my final product! The chestnut pastry cream wasn't too sweet or too bland. Those chestnut spaghetti strands always make or break a mont blanc. So does the tart base, which was wonderful as always. After coating the chestnuts with chocolate, I could almost forgive them for their slight chewiness. I love chestnuts with chocolate, don't you?

Mont Blanc

sweetened whipped cream, amount depending on how much you're making (portion about 3 tbsp per mont blanc)

marron glaces recipe here, coat with chocolate if you like

Sweet Tart Dough (makes twelve 2-inch circles)

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick + 1 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1 large egg

Pulse the flour, sugar and salt together in a food processor. Scatter the butter cubes over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in. Crack the egg in a separate bowl and beat it up with a fork just to break it up. Add it a little at a time, pulsing after each addition. When the all the egg has been added, keep pulsing until you get a cohesive dough.

At this point, you can chill, roll and cut out 2 inch circles of dough or you can skip the chilling and divide the dough into 12 equal portions and press each portion into a 2 inch cutter. Transfer the circles of dough onto a baking sheet and chill until firm. Freeze, if you're short of time.

Bake at 190C for about 15 minutes or until nicely browned. I like to bake mine until they're a toasty brown to get more flavour.

Almond Sponge
*You may have leftover sponge, depending on how many mont blancs you/re making. Freeze the extra or use any other leftover sponge you have previously.

1 large egg white, at room temperature
1 tsp sugar
1/3 cup ground blanched almonds
1/3 cup icing sugar, sifted
1 large egg
1 tbsp + 1 tsp all purpose flour
1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Preheat the oven to 425F. Line a 9 inch square pan.

Beat the egg white until it forms soft peaks. Add the sugar and beat until stiff peaks. In a separate bowl, beat the almonds, icing sugar and egg until pale and fluffy. Fold in the flour gently until just combined. Fold the meringue into the almond mixture and then fold in the melted butter.

Pour the batter into the pan and bake until just lightly browned, about 5 to 9 minutes. Immediately loosen the sides of the cake from the pan, lift it out by the sides of the parchment paper and peel it off. Let the cake cool completely before cutting out 1 inch circles.

Roasted Chestnut Puree

200g cooked chestnuts
2 1/2 cups milk
1/2 vanilla bean
1/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp rum (optional, but good)

Place the chestnuts, 2 cups of milk and vanilla bean in saucepan and heat until simmering. Simmer until all the liquid has evaporated and chestnuts are tender. Add the last 1/2 cup of milk and sugar and heat to dissolve the sugar but try not to let too much milk evaporate. Pour the mixture into a blender or food processor. Add the rum and blend. Pass the mixture through a sieve to obtain a smooth puree.

Chestnut Pastry Cream

1 1/3 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 tsp vanilla extract
all of the chestnut puree above

Heat the milk with the sugar until the sugar has dissolved. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and the cornstarch together until the cornstarch has fully dissolved. Slowly pour in the warm milk mixture into the egg mixture, whisking constantly. Pour everything back into the saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. Keep cooking until the mixture has thickened and let it boil for a minute more to cook off the floury taste. Stir in the vanilla extract and strain into a bowl. Add the chestnut puree and mix to combine. Cover with plastic wrap that is touching the surface of the pastry cream and refrigerate until completely chilled.

Assembly: Place a circle of sponge on a tart base. Top with a small mound of whipped cream. Press a marron glace into the middle and top with another small mound of whipped cream. Use a spatula to smooth down the sides so that the chestnut is completely covered and you have a shape of a mini mountain. Spoon the pastry cream in a piping bag already with a tip with multiple holes. Pipe the pastry cream from the bottom, spiraling upwards or in any fashion you desire. Top with another marron glace. Chill the mont blanc for at least 30 minutes before serving. I advise you not to dust any icing sugar over it because it would just dissolve.

individual kabocha casserole.

2011-12-10T21:16:00.000+08:00

It's funny, huh. How us human beings manage to take something as healthy as pumpkin and turn it into a giant calorific mess. A.k.a. kabocha casseroles.

It's starts off deceptively innocent- roasting it until soft and poke-able.

And then oh-oh. Here comes the sugar.

Oh, nuts. No really.

Whoops, how did those marshmallows sneak in?

Who cares, really?

Tell yourself that at least these are 50% healthy. Just like candy apples.

Individual Kabocha Casserole
makes 1
adapted from Tokyo Terrace

I combined the sugar, cinnamon and flour with a bit of water to make a paste so that it's easier to cover the entire exposed surface of the kabocha. I find that this is also a good way to reduce sweetness since the water dilutes it and you can stretch it way further than just sprinkling on sugar. Try to get a kabocha with less flesh or the ratio of topping to pumpkin flesh will be too little.

Half a small kabocha or any pumpkin
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp flour
2 tsp water
2 tbsp walnuts or pecans
marshmallows, snipped into half or mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 425F.

Place the kabocha half cut side down on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and bake until soft enough to pierce with a fork, about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, flour and water in a bowl.

Turn the kabocha cut side up and slather the paste all over it. Return it back into the oven for another 5 minutes or until the filling is beginning to bubble slightly. Be careful not to burn it!

Top with the marshmallows and broil for a minute or two until they turn a toasty brown.

Eat as soon as possible without burning your tongue!

half baked cheesecake.

2011-12-09T20:23:00.000+08:00

I got this recipe from a french desserts book which is in chinese. Basically, there's a layer of creme brulee at the bottom and then a Japanese souffle cheesecake baked on top. I guess it's called "half baked" because the creme brulee has a custardy texture similar to unbaked batter? Or perhaps because it's half-creme brulee, half-cheesecake.

I got suckered in by the novelty and cute factor (the picture showed them baked in little espresso-cup-like molds) and the fact that I had a gagillion, okay fine, four, egg yolks to use up. I like creme brulee and souffle cheesecakes separately but together, I'm not so sure. It's not because they taste bad as a whole, but rather as the slightly tangy cheesecake overwhelms the much mellower creme brulee. Plus, there was only a 1/2 inch thick layer of creme brulee so when eaten together with the cheesecake, you can't really discern it out. Maybe if I'd increased the ratio of custard to cake to an even 50-50, the overall dessert would be much more balanced.

Oh and please never try using cottage cheese in place of cream cheese in a souffle cheesecake. I did that just to finish up the last few spoonfuls and because the curds didn't smooth out, the final cheesecake was lumpy and awkward.

I'm not going to include a recipe but you can still try it out by your own reliable creme brulee and Japanese souffle cheesecake recipe. Prepare the creme brulee first, dividing the custard amongst small ramekins or even jars like I did. I would advise you to fill them up to a point where after baking the cheesecake on top, you would get an even ratio of creme brulee to cheesecake. After baking, let them cool. You can prepare this a day ahead.

Next, prepare the cheesecake batter, pour on top of the creme brulee and bake. When they're done, cool completely before refrigerating until completely chilled, a few hours or preferably overnight. Before serving, top with fresh fruit if you like.

stuffed butternut squash.

2011-11-30T10:28:00.000+08:00

Once upon a time, there was this butternut squash.

It was feeling lonely so it decided to house some bread, chives, cheese, mushrooms and cream. Just then, salt and pepper began to pour, soon to be followed by a colossal heatwave. An hour later, another tragedy struck.

My spoon.

Stuffed Butternut Squash
adapted from Dorie's Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good
serves 1

I made this quite healthy by using milk instead of cream and subbing half the amount of cheese for cottage cheese. If you've had the original version with cream, you might notice the difference in richness but I haven't, and I think my "lite" version is pretty darn decadent too.

1 half of a butternut squash, slightly more than half a pound
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 slice of stale bread, cut into 1/2 inch squares
30g cheese, such as Gruyere, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 portobello mushroom, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 tbsp finely sliced chives
a handful of walnuts (or even pine nuts)
about 1/3 cup heavy cream or milk
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet.

Remove the seeds from the squash with a spoon and season with salt and pepper. Place the squash on the baking sheet. Toss the bread, cheese, mushroom and chives in a bowl. Season with pepper and a bit of salt if your cheese isn't salty. Pack the mixture into the cavity of the squash. If you have too much filling, use a knife to carve more space. The extra squash can be roasted along with the stuffed one.

Stir the cream with the nutmeg and more salt and pepper. Pour on top of the stuffing. Make sure the ingredients are nicely moistened, but not overly so. If you think you need more cream, pour more in. Use your judgement.

Cover the squash with tin foil and bake for 45 minutes. If the squash isn't tender enough to be easily pierced with fork, you need to add a few more minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an extra 5 minutes just for a bit of colour.

Serve immediately.

cookies and cream cornettos.

2011-11-29T13:00:00.000+08:00

Another cornetto! But it's an easy one this time. Just crushed oreo cookies packed at the tapered end of the cone, a no-churn vanilla ice cream and then topped off with an oreo half.

As convenient as this "ice cream" may seem, I prefer the old-fashioned ice cream recipes because as this starts to melt, there is this oily mouthfeel you get from eating melted whipped cream. Which, obviously, isn't very pleasant. However, this ice cream is 100% non-icy and has a milky taste from the condensed milk which I rather like. Plus, it's low maintenance! Just whip, fold and freeze!

Finally, I've finished up all my ice cream cones. If you want to check out the rest of my cornettos, click here and here.

Cookies and Cream Cornettos
makes 4
inspiration from here

2 oreo cookies, crushed
80g condensed milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
90ml whipping cream
2 oreo cookies, twisted apart to get 4 halves in total
4 ice cream cones

Divide the oreo cookie crumbs among the 4 ice cream cones. Make sure they are tightly packed.

In a medium bowl, combine the condensed milk and vanilla extract. Separately whip the cream to medium-stiff peaks and fold gently into the condensed milk mixture until well-combined but don't lose the air! Divide the mixture amongst the 4 cones and freeze until firm, about 2 hours.

Top the cones with an oreo half and consume immediately, or return to the freezer. It's best to eat the cornettos as soon as possible as they may become soggy.

birthday chocolate entremet.

2011-11-28T13:21:00.000+08:00

I made these little entremets for my mum's birthday a few days ago.

I realized how much I missed making labour-intensive, multi-component desserts. It's a real pain but if you have a lot of time to spare, it's really quite satisfying to see (and eat!) the end product. I really feel like making more but I need some inspiration. Anyone has any ideas?

almond sponge, hazelnut feuilletine, chocolate mousse, honey-vanilla sauteed pear, chocolate mousse, lacquer glaze, valrhona chocolate pearls and tempered chocolate decorations

The lacquer glaze is amazing! It's so shiny I can almost see my reflection in it.

Happy birthday, Mummy!

banana split cheesecake.

2011-11-27T16:32:00.000+08:00

*Stupid stupid stupid me deleted some of the photos of this cheesecake in my camera, having forgotten that I've not downloaded them. There were supposed to be 3 more photos for this post. Arrgh!*

I'm confused.

Why is it called banana split cheesecake? I get the banana part, because there's banana in the batter. And there's chocolate too- in the swirl and the oreo cookie crust. The strawberry sauce that was supposed to be served on the side got switched out for strawberry jam because it's so much easier to scoop something out of the jar than to get the blender out.

So. Banana, strawberry and chocolate. Does that equal banana split? I thought a banana split didn't have any fixed flavours. As long there's ice cream served with bananas, it's pretty much a banana split. I can have cookies and cream ice cream and butter pecan ice cream with a sliced banana. Isn't that a banana split too?

I think this cheesecake should be called banana neapolitan cheesecake. Makes more sense to me.

You may recall that I don't like cheese if you've been following this blog. You can hold a dagger to my throat, thrust a fork into my hand and command me to start shoveling but I still wouldn't. But things changed a little ever since I made this hidden berry cheese torte. Made of a 50-50 mix of cream cheese and cottage cheese, it didn't have that hideous tang that I abhor in cheesecakes, nor was it overly cheesy. I even kinda like that cheese torte. Miracles do happen.

As much as I don't like cheese, and cheesecakes, banana split cheesecake sounded too good to give it up. Which is why I took the idea of using equal amounts of cream cheese and cottage cheese instead of all cream cheese. I even used low fat cream cheese so that it would have less of a tang.

It worked! I finished my portion of the cheesecake and liked it. The banana flavour was really distinct for my first bite but you wouldn't notice it after a while. And the chocolate swirl was just perfect- not too chocolaty that it would overwhelm the banana batter, nor to the point of just being there for the color contrast. Which surprised me considering that there was so little chocolate in there! And I loved the crust. Who wouldn't? I just wished that I could have taken the time to make that strawberry sauce. Jam just didn't fit in too well.

I'm gonna be quite harsh and say that this cheesecake looks atrocious. It wasn't supposed to be like this, with the darkened spots and mini fissure. I know I set the oven at 300F but when I turned my back and checked back 20 minutes later, the oven temperature was mysteriously set at 425F. 425F! Of course the batter would balloon up like crazy and permanently resemble some mountain valley if I didn't quickly adjust the temperature back down again. But the damage was done and even though the top layer settled flattened out again, the smooth surface was marred.

Thankfully, the cheesecake's texture was fairly undamaged. Apart from the uppermost layer which was a little rubbery, the insides were smooth like they should be. You know what, from this time onwards, I'm gonna pull up a chair beside my oven and keep watch. I've got my eyes on you, temperature knob.

Banana Split Cheesecake
slightly adapted from Love and Olive Oil
makes 1 8-inch or 2 6-inch cheesecakes

I used a mix of low-fat cottage cheese and cream cheese which resulted in a runnier batter. Hence, the banana and chocolate batter will mix too easily when you swirl it in. My advice is to pour the chocolate batter in a swirly pattern and forget the knife for later.

24 oreos, crushed finely
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
250g cream cheese, low-fat or full-fat
250g cottage cheese
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup mashed ripe banana
1/4 cup sour cream
2 tbsp all purpose flour
4 eggs
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted

2 cups fresh strawberries
3 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 300F. Grease an 8 inch round pan or 2 6-inch round pans. Line bottoms with parchment paper if desired; butter parchment.

Combine the oreo crumbs and melted butter until evenly mixed and dump the mixture into the prepared pan, pressing down to distribute and compact the crumbs.

To make the filling, place the cottage cheese, cream cheese, 2/3 cup sugar, banana, sour cream and flour in a food processor and pulse to form a smooth paste. With the machine on, add in the eggs one by one. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and pulse again briefly to ensure that all the ingredients are incorporated.

Measure out 1 1/4 cups of the filling and set aside. Pour the remaining filling into the crust. Combine 1 cup of the filling that was set aside with the melted chocolate. Drizzle the chocolate filling in an abstract ribbon pattern over the top of the plain filling in the pan. Drizzle the remaining 1/4 cup filling in the same manner. If you want, you can use a knife to further swirl the two batters together but be careful not to overmix.

Bake in the center of the oven for 45 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven when the center is still slightly jiggly. Run a knife all the way around the edges to release the cake and crust. Return it to the turned off oven and let stand without opening the door for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it cool on a rack until cooled to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, overnight is best.

To make the strawberry sauce, place the strawberries and remaining 3 tbsp sugar in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth.

broken glass jello.

2011-11-26T16:55:00.000+08:00

Oh look! That square of jello has a heart shape in it. How cute.

You know, I always thought jello should be pretty darn easy to make. I mean, how hard can dissolving and pouring be? But of course something always goes wrong when I have to unmold stuff. What is wrong with me? Argh.

You see, I made the colored jello first and tried to unmold and cut them into tiny little squares. Before I could even attempt some knife action, the huge block of jello decided to tear on me because it stuck to the pan. So I got a really uneven bottom. Okay... I carried on cutting them into squares, dumping them into a bowl as I went and all went well for a while. I dumped the bowl of red and green cubes into the fridge and said goodnight.

The next day, I had to empty the bowl of jello cubes into a pan for the actual making of broken glass jello. I reached out to grab a square... and retrieved a jagged half. Holy poo! All the squares jelled together overnight! I tried to peel them away from each other carefully but the bottom layer (the base of the bowl) was beyond repair. In the end, I just ripped the jello apart into small pieces. So much for cutting them.

I guess they looked okay and almost artistic, sitting in that sheet pan but I didn't think so after I poured in the condensed milk layer and sliced the final jello. Oh man... it's freakin' jello! It shouldn't be this hard to make!

The most disappointing part is that it didn't taste fantastic. Sure, there was condensed milk in the stuff but it was rather... ordinary. If only mine could have turned out as pretty as The Food Librarian's, I would feel like the time I spent on it was justified. Oh well...

tres leches cake.

2011-11-25T13:29:00.000+08:00

Cake. Baked in a Jar. Soaked in a mixture of milks (including condensed milk!). Topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Are you kidding me? Of course you have to make it now!

And better yet, I baked it in a jar. Now it's adorable and delicious. You know what, I plan to sleep with a jar next to my pillow tonight so I can wake up to the sight of cake. Oh yes, very convenient too. The best part is, you have the whole jar to yourself. No sharing. Sharing is not in my cake vocabulary.

I think it's a texture thing. After the sponge sucks up all the milk mixture, it adopts a super moist, almost pudding-like texture. At some parts where I went a little too poke-happy, it was kinda mushy, but not baby food mushy. But I bet I really liked my baby food when I was a crying, screaming pooping infant.

I took pioneer woman's recipe and divided it by 5 to get three jars worth of cake. Although there was very little batter in each jar, it still took pretty long to bake. I noticed stuff baked in jars always take longer than usual.

I had a lot of fun stabbing the cakes. I might be sadistic. The good thing about this recipe is that you don't have to worry about leaving holes in the cake when you insert a skewer to test for its doneness. You'll have to make a hundred more later anyway.

Pouring the milk in was pretty darn fun too. You can see how the milk travels from the top down the million holes you poked.

What are you still reading for? Go make the cake now! Oh right, the recipe.

Tres Leches Cake

adapted from The Pioneer Woman

makes 12 servings

If you decide to bake this in little jars, butter the insides first and place the jars on a baking sheet. Take note that they will take longer than the average cupcake even if it's the same amount of batter. And you may or may not use up all the milk mixture.

1 cup plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

5 whole eggs, separated

1 cup sugar, divided

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup milk

1 can evaporated milk

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/4 cup heavy cream or regular milk

For the icing:

1 pint heavy cream

3 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan.

Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.

Beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until the yolks are pale yellow. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined. The idea here is to not deflate the air out of the egg yolks.

Beat the egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 sugar while beating and beat until the egg whites are stiff but not dry.

Fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture gently until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan and spread and smooth the surface.

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out on a rimmed platter and allow to cool slightly.

Combine the condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream or regular milk. Pierce the cake with a fork several times. It doesn't matter if the cake is still warm. I feel that a warm cake would absorb the milk mixture better due to the difference in temperatures. Drizzle the milk mixture on the cake- don't neglect the edges!

Allow the cake to stand for at least 30 minutes. I let mine absorb the milk mixture overnight.

Before serving, whip the 1 pint of heavy cream with the sugar until thick and spreadable. Frost the cake, cut, and serve.

cold oven pound cake.

2011-11-24T15:26:00.000+08:00

Sometimes you want a light and fluffy cake. Sometimes you want a cake so dense and heavy it sits in your satisfied stomach like a brick. Brick. Cake. Sounds like pound cake to me.

I definitely think pound cakes should have a compact crumb and melt in your mouth texture. Airy pound cakes? Go make yourself a yellow cake, seriously.

I thought a cold oven pound cake would be a good way to make myself a pound heavier. It makes sense- how starting of a cake in a non-preheated oven would result in a denser cake. Remember those times you made muffins at a lower temperature than specified? I betcha got flat wide tops instead of mini mountains.

So la la la la la... I was mixing up my batter and I realized that it was really loose for a pound cake. Did I mess up the quantity of ingredients? Nope, I was positively sure. In the end, I sent my cake batter into the oven, seriously doubtful.

Let's fast forward 16 hours later. I let my cake cool and stand overnight, wrapped tightly, because this sort of cake usually benefits from some resting. But I couldn't help unwrapping it from time to time just to inhale the buttery aroma. Ooh...

I sliced the cake, and I was right. The crumb wasn't as fine as a really good pound cake. The bottom was compact but the top was airy and holey. I'm sorry America's Test Kitchen, but this recipe still needs some tweaking. But still, it was still good sliced and grilled. I highly highly recommend you try the cake this way!

Cold Oven Pound Cake
adapted from America's Test Kitchen

3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, room temperature

Place an oven rack in a the lower third of the oven. Grease and flour a 16 cup bundt pan.

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in medium bowl. In another small bowl, whisk the milk and vanilla together.

Beat the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 to 6 minutes. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time until well combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by 1/2 of the milk mixture. Repeat with half of the remaining flour mixture and the remaining milk mixture. Beat in the remaining flour mixture until just combined.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Place the pan in the oven and heat the oven to 325F and bake the cake until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 70 to 80 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.

Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes before unmolding the cake onto a wire rack. Let it cool completely, about 2 hours, before serving.

baked banana oatmeal.

2011-11-23T10:25:00.000+08:00

I customized Heidi's baked oatmeal recipe to come up with this- baked banana oatmeal for one! And that's not all. Because I scaled it down so much, I wasn't willing to crack open an egg to use just 1/3 of it. Big. Mistake. Yes, note the capital M. I've not had baked oatmeal before but I guess the uniqueness of it is how the oats don't go soggy and mushy when cooked. Instead, it takes on a sort of soft oatmeal bar texture. As I left out the binder, the egg, my oats remained soggy and mushy. Not that I didn't like it. I happen to like those textures, strangely enough.

Another thing I did was to leave out the butter. I did it because I was lazy to melt 10g of butter. And of course, I used only bananas instead of bananas and blueberries. I topped it off with some walnuts too.

Next time, I would use a shallower dish so that there would be more exposed surface area to get a nice crunch. P.S. Broil it to get it extra crunchy. This is really delicious for something that's so wholesome!

ever heard of a heart-shaped egg?

2011-11-22T09:43:00.000+08:00

I picked up this little mold at Daiso the other day. I've got another star-shaped one too. At first I was afraid that the egg may split open when I closed the mold but of course it didn't. Trust the Japanese to come up with such an ingenious idea!

snickerdoodles.

2011-11-21T08:37:00.000+08:00

I've never had a snickerdoodle before.

I don't know why there's a snicker in snickerdoodle.

I don't know why there's doodle in snickerdoodle.

I don't know why it's even called snickerdoodle.

All I know is if all snickerdoodles are as delicious as this, I won't ask any more questions. Because my mouth is too full to utter a intelligible sentence. Or word.

I realise that this recipe is not the average snickerdoodle. From what I commonly see, snickerdoodles are usually quite flat and chewy. This one, however, is fat, puffy and cakey.

When I followed the recipe from How Sweet Eats, I omitted the milk because without it, my dough came together nicely into a non-sticky ball. I knew then that the cookies were going to be fluffy and delicious. But I did change one thing, which was to reduce the 1 cup of sugar for the cookies to 3/4 cup. I think it can be slashed even more because the additional coating of cinnamon-sugar does its job perfectly.

oreo cupcakes.

2011-11-05T16:40:00.000+08:00

Many things I say are understatements.

Like I don't like to exercise or I hate cheese or this cupcake is friggin-finger-lickin-delicious.

How can you look at a picture of an oreo cupcake like this and not make it? Duh, you can't! That's why I did it.

I took my favourite chocolate cake recipe and added coarsely chopped oreos that were tossed in a bit of flour, at the bottom of each paper liner. Each cupcake should have 1 oreo's worth of chunks. I did the extra step of tossing the oreos in flour even though some other bloggers may not have done so is because my recipe's batter is fairly thin, being an oil-based one, so the oreos are prone to sinking. It's not foolproof though, majority of the chunks still remained at the bottom.

I finally attempted a duo tone frosting! I swear others make it seem a lot easier than it looks. I followed the method of filling two separate piping bags with two different frostings then placing the two piping bags in another piping bag with a largish tip. I struggled the entire way through.

Firstly, it was a pain trying to insert two piping bags into one tip. Secondly, I couldn't get the frostings to come out at the same time so sometimes a swirl would have more chocolate frosting than cream cheese frosting. Ooh... speaking of cream cheese frosting, that was delish although I did have that same problem of it being too soft- I had to stick it in the fridge for a while to firm up.

I think an easier method would be just simply filling one piping bag with the two frostings side by side. I wish I'd tried that first. But the end result is kinda worth it, don't you think?

Oreo Cupcakes
makes 6

For the chocolate cupcakes:
1/4 of this chocolate cake recipe
6 oreos, coarsely chopped

Make the cupcake batter as directed and before filling each paper liner with the batter, add 1 oreo's worth of chunks into each one. You may wish to toss the oreos with a bit of flour beforehand.

For the chocolate frosting:
2 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
7 tbsp icing sugar, sifted
2 + 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk

In a mixing bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Gradually beat in the icing sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla until incorporated. Beat in the milk until the frosting reaches spreading consistency. This frosting tends to be a bit grainy so I like to make it a day in advance, two would be better, so that the icing sugar and cocoa powder have a chance to dissolve completely.

For the cream cheese frosting:
2 ounces cream cheese, cold
1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat the cream cheese and vanilla until blended. Add the sugar one third at a time and beat just until smooth and of desired consistency. Do not over beat as it can cause the frosting to become too soft.

bacon cornettos.

2011-11-02T20:59:00.000+08:00

Just last week I made cornettos with coffee dulce de leche ice cream. This time, I made dulce de leche ice cream wait for it... with bacon and graham cracker chunks! Unlike a typical cornetto, I chose to forgo the chocolate at the bottom of each cone for a graham cracker pie crust which I crumbled and packed firmly in.

I made these cornettos with bacon ice cream in mind but since I had some extra dulce de leche waiting to be used, I swapped the original brown sugar base for a dulce de leche one. I reasoned that it shouldn't be a problem since what we're after is a contrast of salty bacon with a sweet ice cream. I threw in some crumbled pie crust just because.

The last time I made cornettos, there was a slight problem with soggy cones. If you've noticed, a regular cone has two layers overlapping each other. When I ate my last cornetto, the inside layer was noticeably limp but the outside, thankfully, retained its crisp texture. I knew that the outside layer would also become soggy on day 2, so I came up with ways on how to improve on that.

Firstly, you could coat the entire inside of the cones with chocolate but frankly, it's an extra step and can be troublesome. The second idea I had was to thicken the ice cream base. With less fluidity, the ice cream would freeze without seeping into the cones too much. So to achieve that, I used a bit of flour and cooked it into a mixture of milk and dulce de leche.

It worked! Although I don't know how long this method would prevent the cones form going soggy, but 30 hours after freezing, even the inner layer of the cone had a bit of crunch to it.

Now that all four cornettos are gone and swimming in my (and my family's) gastric juices, what flavour should I make with my last four cones?

Bacon Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
inspired by David Lebovitz, loosely adapted from the previous recipe
makes enough to fill 4 cones

1/4 cup dulce de leche
1/2 cup milk (low-fat is fine)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cornstarch + 1 tbsp milk

1 slice of bacon, cooked till crispy and crumbled
graham cracker pie crust (recipe below)

whipped cream and extra bacon, to decorate

In a sauce pan over medium heat, heat the dulce de leche and milk together until the dulce de leche has dissolved completely. Be sure to stir it from time to time because the dulce de leche may burn. Stir together the cornstarch and 1 tbsp of milk in a small separate bowl until the cornstarch dissolves then stir this mixture into the dulce de leche mixture. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture has thickened considerably. It should be like the consistency of thick pastry cream. Transfer the mixture to a bowl to cool and stir in the vanilla extract. Chill the mixture and make the ice cream according to your ice cream machine's manufacturer's instructions.

After the churning is completed, fold in the crumbled bacon and graham cracker pie crust until they are evenly dispersed before dividing the ice cream equally among the four cones.

Graham Cracker Pie Crust

1/4 cup crushed graham crackers
1 tbsp melted butter
11g brown sugar
a pinch of cinnamon

Combine all of the above in a bowl. Take a third of the mixture and pack it down on a lined baking sheet so that it's compact and will bake as a sort of free form tart crust. Spread the rest of the mixture on the baking sheet. Bake in a 375F oven for about 7 minutes until golden brown. Let the crust cool.

For the crumbs, take about 2 teaspoons for each cone and spoon it in. Use the back of a spoon to make sure that the crumbs are compact. For the crust, crush it into fairly large pieces to fold into your ice cream.

almond green tea cupcakes.

2011-10-29T21:28:00.007+08:00

I've gone a little wacky with frosting today. I used a closed star tip to pipe roses and swirls on the mini cupcakes, and I also did a basket-weave for the regular sized ones. I realized I had extra frosting so I did a rose on top of the basket-weave. I even piped little star squirts on the borders of a cupcake but I decided that looked hideous so I stopped.

I was worried at first that using the basket-weave technique, there would only be a thin layer of frosting on top and would not be enough to complement the cupcake. Turns out that the cupcake was so good on its own that the frosting wasn't necessary! But even if I knew that I would still make the frosting- I love piping~ I'm planning to do a duo tone frosting for my next cupcake. The thing is, I'm thinking a chocolate and vanilla one and I have different favourite recipes for both. I heard duo tone frostings are tricky because both frostings have to be of the same consistency which wouldn't be a problem if you're adapting the same recipe but..

I did tweak the cupcake recipe a bit by doubling the amount of almond extract. Seriously, 1/4 tsp almond extract for 24 cupcakes?! No way that almond is going to show up. True, there was ground almonds included too but I'd rather not risk a non-existent-almond almond cupcake. The raw batter had an almost overpowering artificial scent of almond but it toned down lots after baking so not to worry.

The cupcake was light and fluffy with a nice hint of almond. The extract did not make it taste too artificial. I think the success of this recipe comes from the extra step of whisking up egg white separately and folding them in. It's fussy, I admit, and I was tempted to skip it because I scaled down my recipe and whisking 1/2 an egg white looked really stupid, but I'm glad I didn't. The egg whites made a significant difference in the batter- you can tell when you fold them in.

The frosting was okay, nothing to shout about. Personally, I feel the pleasant bitterness of matcha can be brought out better in other ways.

I'm sorry if this post is overly analytical (well, more than usual). I find that that way is the only way for me to get words typed out. Hopefully I'll get some inspiration soon...

Almond Green Tea Cupcakes
adapted from Baked
makes 24

I made a few changes (not reflected here) to the recipe. For the cupcake, I used all butter because I didn't have any shortening and I doubled the almond extract. For the frosting, I reduced the sugar by a third, omitted the cream and cut the butter back by a quarter as well because I don't like the buttery taste made with the full amount of butter.

For the Almond Cupcake:
1/2 cup sliced almonds
2 cups cake flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. pure almond extract
1 large egg
1 cup ice cold water
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

For the Green Tea Frosting:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. unsweetened matcha powder
1 1/2 cups milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into small pieces
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Make the almond cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two 12-cup cupcake pans with paper liners.

In the bowl of a food processor, pulse the almonds until they are a find powder. Put the powdered almonds in a small bowl and set aside.

Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in to a large bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and shortening together on medium speed until creamy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the sugar, vanilla, and almond extract and beat on medium speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the bowl, add the egg, and beat until just combined. Turn the mixer to low. Add the flour mixture, alternating with the ice water, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the bowl, then mix on low speed for a few more seconds.

In a clean bowl, whisk the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Do not overbeat. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. Fold in the powdered almonds.

Fill the cupcake liners about three quarters full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and place them on the rack to cool completely.

Make the green tea frosting: In a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar, flour, and matcha powder together. Add the milk and cream and cook over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until the mixture comes to a boil and has thickened, about 20 minutes.

Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on high speed until cool. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter; mix until thoroughly incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Add the vanilla and continue beating until combined. If the frosting is too soft, put it in the refrigerator to chill slightly, then mix it again until it is the proper consistency. If the frosting is too firm, set the bowl over a pot of simmering water and mix again.

Assemble the cupcakes: There are many ways to frost a cupcake. If you have a pastry bag, simply fit the bag with the largest tip, fill the bag with frosting, and pipe enough frosting to cover the cupcake. If you do not have a pastry bag, use an ice cream scoop with a release mechanism to scoop the frosting and dispense it onto the top of the cupcake. You can also use an offset spatula to frost the cupcakes.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday.

homemade cornetto cones.

2011-10-28T22:01:00.007+08:00

Personally, no ice cream treat is complete without a cone. I love having ice cream on a cone so much that I even judge an ice cream parlor by the quality of its cones. For some, it's like having ice cream on a warm fudgy brownie- it's a must. You get me?

I believe this manic obsession with cones has something to do with Cornetto. Back when I was still an ignorant child, with absolutely no experience with gourmet ice creams (not even ben & jerry's!), Cornetto was one of the few ice cream brands that I knew. And it was my favourite too, because at each pointy bottom, there would be an inch of pure chocolate. The problem with Cornetto is that most of the time, the cones were soft and soggy. I think this is because the ice cream was manufactured quite some time ago, and even stashing it in the deep freeze would cause the cones to lose its crispness over time.

I guess that was the reason that made me a little cranky, and I decided to make my own. I used store bought waffle cones and created a little stand for them using a mini chiffon pan and a sheet of cling wrap. I intended to use aluminum foil but I was short of it. The concept is really simple- just wrap a sheet of foil over the top of the pan nice and tight and then just pierce the ends of the cone in as deep as you can to secure it. You know what? I should ever never subbed foil for cling wrap. Cling wrap isn't as sturdy as foil and it only caused my cones to topple at the slightest shake. Lesson learnt: use foil.

Like a classic Cornetto, I started off by filling the cones with a teaspoon or so of melted chocolate. Such a simple task, but I messed it up. Oh boy. When I melted the chocolate, some water got into it and the whole ramekin's worth seized up. I couldn't bear to throw it away so I got more cold chocolate and stirred it in, letting the heat from the warm chocolate melt the cold one. Chunk after chunk of cold chocolate, the seized up mixture started to loosen and become more fluid. Even though it wasn't as smooth as regular melted chocolate, it was good enough for me to spoon and fill those cones. Disaster averted!

I made sure to set aside some chocolate for rolling the tops of the cones in. Not very Cornetto, but I thought some sprinkles would look lovely as well as add some crunch. After this filling and coating of the cones with chocolate, I stuck them in the freezer for a while to set.

P.S. Honestly, I wished I could have rolled the entire cone in chocolate.

I filled these up with a homemade coffee dulce de leche ice cream. The inspiration struck when I came across an adapted version of David Lebovtiz's recipe for Vietnamese coffee ice cream. The recipe is really simple- just strong coffee, milk and sweetened condensed milk. I had some dulce de leche in the fridge, which is technically pure caramelized condensed milk, and coffee and caramel just jive together so coffee dulce de leche ice cream was born! It may be a bit too sweet, so I've provided directions in the recipe below on how to modify it to make it less so.

So basically, I took the frozen cones, chocolate-filled and all, and poured in the ice cream which should be soft. For those with ice cream makers, if you're making the ice cream fresh, you could start filling these cones once the machine is done churning. For ice-cream-machineless people like me, the ice cream can be used after the final churning. Then, return the filled cones to the freezer to fully freeze, at least 3 hours, and start brain-storming for how you want to top the cones.

I went with sweetened whipped cream, because that's the easiest way to get some height out of these flat-topped cones. But before I piped it on, I snuck in 3 reese's pieces on the top of each cone. I mean, it's pretty obvious that coffee + caramel + peanut butter= awesome.

You could go even further and top each mound of whipped cream with chocolate sauce, chopped nuts and more but I think they look perfect just the way they are.

It's a super fun project- I would totally do it again! And since I still have some unused cones... I wonder what kind of ice cream should I make next time? Chocolate chip cookie dough? Bacon? I would love to see you try making your own Cornetto with innovative flavours and toppings!

Coffee Dulce de Leche Ice Cream
slightly adapted from Cafe Fernando
makes enough to fill 4 small cones

If you're worried that the ice cream may be too sweet, cut the dulce de leche by 1 tbsp and add another 1 tbsp of milk instead.

1/4 cup dulce de leche
1/4 cup very strongly brewed coffee
1 tbsp + 1 tsp milk

Whisk together all the ingredients and chill the mixture thoroughly. Freeze in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday.

mille crepe cake.

2011-10-26T10:35:00.004+08:00

This could be the most epic cake I've ever made.

20 layers of browned-butter crepes, slathered with vanilla bean pastry cream which is lightened with whipped cream between layers, as well as dulce de leche for the last few crepes, then topped with a last layer of crepe that has been sprinkled with coarse brown sugar then broiled until crunchy and caramelized. If this doesn't at least make you stop and stare for a while, well I'm sorry but you are weird.

I had a few slip ups while making this. As usual, the first few crepes are the chef's fodder. My first one actually ripped apart while I was trying to flip it. The second one was slightly better- the edges tore but it was save-able. But after those two, I got the hang of it and finished the batter in a breeze. I got so bored waiting the 30 seconds each crepe takes to cook that I ended up playing with my dulce de leche. I got 20 crepes in total, 21 if you're counting the one that disappeared down my throat, exactly the amount the recipe is supposed to yield.

My second mistake was misreading the recipe and whipping up only half the amount of cream specified. I halved the recipe, so I was supposed to use 1 cup of heavy cream but I used only a 1/2 cup. The good news is that that is more or less my favourite ratio of pastry cream to whipped cream. The bad news is that there wasn't enough filling to go around, hence the dulce de leche for the topmost layers.

Even if I had more filling, I would strongly advise you to go easy on it. I know a few miserly tablespoons for each layer would look barely enough but it will be after you repeat that 19 more times. Also, the layers have a tendency to slide because the filling is still fluid. You really need to refrigerate it as soon as possible for it to firm up so that you don't end up with the leaning tower of cake.

For the dulce de leche layers, I knew that it was quite sweet so I spread just a teaspoon of it on each crepe. What really puzzled me was how that small amount of filling could leak out. Plus, dulce de leche is pretty thick. I think some moisture must have gotten into it while it was in the fridge which loosened it up to a sauce consistency. So beware if you're going to use dulce de leche too! Actually, you should give it a go with the pastry cream- I found that they really work well together.

step 1: prepare crepes

step 2: dollop filling

step 3: spread filling and keep stacking

emergency- ran out of pastry cream!

My favourite way to eat this is layer by layer. Reeaaaaaal slow, even for my standards and trust me, I can take an hour and a half to finish a slice of cake. I usually eat at the rate a tortoise crawls, and I prefer it that way. How are you supposed to enjoy anything when you gobble your food down? One of my pet peeves is seeing someone take big bites of a cake/cookie/tart I offered and finish hours worth of work in a matter of seconds. I hold back my comments but I secretly fume on the inside. Oh and I hate it when people rush me when I'm eating. Can't a girl have her meal in peace? Seriously.

i wasn't kidding when I said my cake was leaking

Anyway, digressions aside, this cake is loads of fun to make. I would do it again, maybe with an Asian flair. And one more thing, this cake is best eaten the day its made because crepes have very little fat in them and long periods of refrigeration dries it out. The top few layers in particular. The bottom layers are mostly safe because the moisture from the pastry cream protects them but in doing so, the filling loses its velvety texture.

For the full recipe, please head over to the New York Times page. I'm way too lazy to type it out. Have fun!

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

banana dutch baby.

2011-10-25T17:41:00.000+08:00

Is it really a dutch baby, or a german pancake? Oh what do I care.

The batter poofs up like a souffle and collapses like one out of the oven, only way more dramatically. I tried to rush the tin to the table for picture taking as quick as I could but the pancake beat me to it. It rose to as tall as the tin before deflating, and this is a scaled down recipe using 1 egg. Can you imagine if I made a full recipe? I bet it would look like a mountain range.

This recipe was fun and all, but it was seriously lacking in the flavour department. There was no sugar but there was vanilla. So you could say it was having an identity crisis- sweet or savory? Luckily I'd sauteed some bananas in brown sugar beforehand to add on to the dutch baby just because. I'd also thrown in a few slices of banana in with the batter to cook but I feel that sautéing them separately would bring out their sweet, banana-y caramel-ly goodness better. The bananas embedded in the dutch baby sort of blended in with it and weren't as good as the sauteed ones.

The texture was nice though- soft and almost custardy on the inside while being crisp on the outside. It's a pity that I didn't think to add sugar to the batter in the first place, otherwise it would have been a really scrumptious breakfast.

Dutch Baby
makes 1 5 inch serving
adapted from here

I thought it was a little bland so I would add some sugar to the batter. I didn't include it below but you can add in 1 tsp to 1 tbsp, depending on how sweet you want it to be, together with the egg and milk.

1 egg, room temperature
40 ml milk
1/6 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
23g flour
10g butter, melted

Powdered sugar, to serve

Heat the oven to 450F. Butter a 5 inch round tin.

Whisk the egg, milk, vanilla and salt together. Make sure that the mixture gets really frothy and bubbly because that's how the dutch baby gets its lift. Sift in the flour and whisk to combine thoroughly. I still had a few lumps left, but I guess that's okay. Stir in the melted butter.

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown. Meanwhile, you can saute some bananas in brown sugar to go with the dutch baby or you could sprinkle some berries on top of the batter before sending it into the oven.

Dust with the powdered sugar and serve at once. Believe me, if you want to snap a picture you gotta be quick because it deflates seconds out of the oven.

dulce de leche.

2011-10-24T14:43:00.008+08:00

Dulce de leche is basically caramel, and depending on which method you choose, it's really easy. There are mainly two ways of making it- from scratch with tons of milk and sugar that requires constant stirring or simply heating a can of condensed milk. I chose the method using condensed milk. Like duh.

In fact, I chose the second fastest way to make dulce de leche- in the pressure cooker. It just may be the most dangerous method, but it only requires 20 minutes as opposed to 8 hours (in the slow cooker). The quickest way is to use a microwave but I don't have one. You can click here for a whole list of ways to make dulce de leche with a can of condensed milk.

Because I've read how when using the pressure cooker method, the can can actually explode (!), I made sure to leave the lid on for 2 hours after the dulce de leche was done cooking. After which I fished out the can and left it on the counter top to cool overnight. It's important not to hasten the cooling process because that can also cause the can to explode if you immerse it in cold water while it's still hot, for example. It takes ages to cool (after 5 hours it was still warm!) so I suggest you get it out of your sight especially if you're impatient.

I think it's sort of magical how the only work you need to do is to boil water and you can get this gorgeous thick caramel. Makes me wonder why I ever bother with making caramel from scratch in the first place. With this method, all you need is one pot and one ingredient. Simple.

Dulce de Leche
adapted from Savory Sweet Life

You must have enough water covering the can. If you find that your pot doesn't allow you to add that much water, you can turn the can on its side so that you don't need as much water to cover as it would require standing up. It's really easy to multiply this recipe, just boil more cans! And it doesn't call for any extra effort since they all cook together. It's pretty rich and I'm not sure I could finish a few cans so I just cooked one to try.

1 can of condensed milk, label removed

Place the can in a pressure cooker and cover with water at least 1.5 inches above the top of the can. Seal your lid on and bring to a boil on high heat. When your pressure cooker indicates you have a seal, reduce the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes. Start timing only when the pressure cooker indicator pops up. Allow the pot to cool completely before removing the lid.

Remove the can from the cooker and let it cool completely, unopened.

Store in a sealed container in the refrigerator.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

personal bake sale: chocolate cupcakes with seven minute frosting.

2011-10-23T20:25:00.000+08:00

Click here for the kick-ass recipe.

nutella tart.

2011-10-22T08:44:00.000+08:00

More nutella! Rejoice!

This tart basically has a graham cracker tart shell, huge dollop of nutella at the bottom then topped up with a chocolate ganache. Almost like this warm chocolate tart I made, sans nutella, because it's the same creator Pierre Herme! Oh how I wish I could get more of his books, especially PH10. But too bad I can't understand french and that price tag is just O.M.G.

When I was deciding on which recipe to make, I had two choices. This and another one from the Flour cookbook. The difference is that Flour's is a chilled tart and the nutella filling is made from scratch. I wish I had given Flour's a shot because I found myself wanting more nutella than chocolate in my tart. In fact, pure nutella would be best. Although, Flour's version wouldn't have the ooze like this one.

I think I over-baked it a little today so I didn't have as much of a molten-like filling as before but it's still good. Especially with some banana slices on the side.

Nutella Tart
recipe adapted from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme

1 fully baked 22 cm (8 3/4 inch) tart shell (I used a graham cracker crust)

2/3 cup or 200g nutella, at spreadable consistency
140g bittersweet chocolate
7 tbsp or 98g unsalted butter
1 large egg + 3 large egg yolks, at room temperature, stirred with a fork
2 tbsp sugar
1 cup or 140g hazelnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 375F.

Melt the chocolate and butter separately and allow each one to cool to 40C (140F).

Spread the nutella at the bottom of the tart shell.

Mix the egg into the cooled down chocolate, stirring gently to avoid incorporating air. Add the yolks, little by little, and then the sugar. Finally, stir in the melted butter and keep stirring until you get a smooth, shiny creamy ganache. Pour on top of the nutella and sprinkle with the toasted hazelnuts.

Bake for 11 minutes. The sides of the tart should be set but the centre wobbly. The tart will also lose its sheen and appear dull on top. Let it cool to room temperature before serving, about 20 minutes. Any remaining tart can be stored in the fridge and eaten cold the next day.

alsatian onion tart.

2011-10-21T09:41:00.001+08:00

There is no reason not to make this tart.

First of all, there's buttery puff pastry. Secondly, sweet simmered onions finished in cream. And thirdly, there's bacon.

I admit that I'm not the biggest buddy of bacon. The fact that I'm a sucker for all-butter puff pastry motivated me to make this tart rather than that prized porky-ness. But when everything came together in the end, every single element of the tart made this tart as fantastic as it was- you cannot leave anything out and no part (even the bacon or in my case, puff pastry) is any less important than others. I was tempted to leave out the bacon at first but I'm so glad I didn't.

Because I made this in the morning, and let's face it, I'm not ready to face a stove yet. Especially to fry bacon. The smell of bacon on my clothes and in my hair at 9 am disgusts me. Okay, the smell disgusts me anytime of the day. Sorry peeps, that's the truth.

So what I did was to skip the frying step and just plonk cut up pieces of bacon (with scissors, Nigella style!) on top of the onions and let the oven heat do the cooking. Of course, because the tart is baked on the lower rack, the bacon didn't get golden brown. To remedy that, I shifted the tart to the upper rack and broiled it for 2 to 3 minutes to give it a nice color.

I really encourage you to try this recipe, as simple as it seems, and I advise you to not make these two mistakes I made.

One, quartering the recipe. And two, sharing.

Because after you had your first bite, you'd wish you didn't.

Alsatian Onion Tart
slightly adapted from Baking with Julia

Puff pastry, enough to roll out to a 10 to 12 inch circle or rectangle, whichever is easier
4 large onions, diced
1 cup chicken broth
3 tbsp cream
1/4 pound bacon, cut into small (but reasonably sized) pieces
salt and pepper, to taste

Prepare your puff pastry. Roll it out to an 1/8 inch thick and cut into a 10 to 12 inch circle. Whatever shape you want is fine really. Place on a lined baking sheet, prick the dough all over with a fork and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to several hours.

In a medium saucepan, combine the onions and chicken broth. Cover and bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until the onions are very tender, about 30 minutes. Uncover the saucepan and turn the heat back on high to let the excess liquid evaporate. When there is none left, take it off the heat and let cool. When its cool, stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper. At this point, you can let it cool completely, transfer to a bowl, wrap it up tightly and store it in the fridge if you're making this ahead.

Preheat oven to 350F, placing a rack in the lower third of the oven.

Retrieve the puff pastry from the fridge and spread the onions all over it in a single layer, spreading all the way to the edges. Top with the pieces of bacon. Bake for 30 minutes on the lower rack of the oven until lightly golden. Transfer the tart to the top rack and broil for 2 to 3 minutes until the bacon gets a nice colour. This step is completely optional but why not.

Cut a huge slice for yourself and serve immediately.

mitarashi dango.

2011-10-20T09:05:00.000+08:00

I've been wanting to make this for the longest time because the last time I went to Kyoto, I had a dango from a roadside stall that blew my mind away. My version definitely doesn't compare to it.

I didn't make my own dango from scratch- I used frozen ones I got from the supermarket. Recently, I managed to get my hands on some mochi, so I decided to do a mitarashi mochi as well. For the frozen dumplings, I just cooked them according to the packet's instructions, boiling. I planned to skewer them after boiling, ladle on the mitarashi sauce then grill the skewers but somehow, those grill marks didn't want to form and most of the sauce stuck to the griddle.

For the mochi, I grilled them on medium heat until they start to puff up and almost double in size. This way, they got the beautiful char marks. I knew the sauce would stick to the griddle if I coated them with sauce and grilled them again, so I just placed the mochi in a bowl and spooned it over.

This sauce recipe I followed was a bit saltier than I would have liked so I would recommend cutting down on the soy sauce by half if you like your sauce sweeter like me. Also, mitarashi dango tastes good with nori too! Try it!

Mitarashi Dango
adapted from Just Hungry

Store-bought dumplings or made-from-scratch ones, cooked

Mitarashi Sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup water, with 1 tbsp cornstarch dissolved in it
2 tbsp soy sauce (I would use 1 tbsp)
1 tbsp mirin
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar

Combine all the ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook until thickened and let it cool. The more it cools, the more viscous it will get.

Ladle over your dango.

1 year.

2011-10-19T09:39:00.000+08:00

Today marks the 1 year anniversary ever since my first post back in 2010, October 19. Wow, time passes so fast. I still remember myself deliberating if I should start my own blog 365 days ago, and I'm so glad I did. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. It's through this blog that I've gained so much exposure to other wonderful bakers, motivating me to sharpen my baking skills. And my photography as well. Yeah, my photos now aren't exactly wow but it's a huge improvement from my initial posts'. I cringe whenever I see those! Haha.

I thought a good way to commemorate this special occasion is by showing you my favourite bakes from the past year. The earlier pictures really don't do the recipes justice but enjoy~

Alton Brown's Pancakes

My Dreamy Cream Hot Cocoa

Pumpkin Muffins With Cream Cheese Filling

Shao Bing

I made more variations too.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Onion Jam

Vanilla Mousse, Coffee Caramel and Cocoa Brownie Entremet

I tried Alice Medrich's Cocoa Brownie recipe the first time here and it has been my go-to recipe ever since!

Souffle Cheesecake and White Chocolate Passionfruit Mousse Entremet

My favourite entremet.

Malted Crisp Tart

Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Balsamic Strawberry Shortcakes

Mini Donut Muffins

The Best Chocolate Cake

Yes, I'm quite convinced it is. Unless you have something better to show me!

Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes

I'm not that much of a fan of the blueberry frosting but the cake is outta this world!

Hidden (Straw)Berry Cream Cheese Torte

I never knew I could like cheesecake... until this.

Best Coleslaw Ever

How often does something savoury pop up in my favourite things to eat? You have to try this coleslaw!

Bostock

Pesto Rolls

Vanilla Bean Gelato

If you love vanilla, you'll worship this!

Thai Sweet Chili Sauce

Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream

Caramel Gelato

Coffee Banana Caramel Smoothie

Sablés

Swedish Visiting Cake

Sticky Prune Pudding

Philadelphia Almond Cake

Vanilla Sprinkle Cupcakes

nutella scones.

2011-10-18T18:27:00.000+08:00

Nutella.

Drool...

Whoops, sorry. Couldn't help it. I've not had nutella in such a long while, I almost forgot how heavenly it tastes. I nearly died when I spooned some warmed nutella into my mouth. Mmm...

And what better way to pay tribute to this spread-from-the-chocolate-gods by making nutella scones? It's definitely not a new thing- it has been made gazillions of times by other bakers (Google it!) and who can blame them? Just about everyone would weaken at the sight of nutella-anything.

I had really high hopes for this recipe, partly because it's from Baked Explorations, one of my favourite cookbooks. The smell of freshly baked nutella scones was so intoxicating that I felt like slapping on some sliced banana on one and devour on the spot. At that time I also wondered why there is no such thing as banana jam in the market. Because I would totally buy it to shorten the time between that scone sitting there and that scone in my mouth. It's strange how I always scoff banana and nutella? Boring! but once that smell assailed my nostrils, I knew that they went together and I had to have them together. And after this whole drama, I realized that I didn't have any bananas hanging around. Pity.

So there was lots of anticipation and drool, but when I finally got to taste it, it was bitterly disappointing. The scone was dry and crumbly and there was barely enough chocolaty-ness. I sort of predicted that would be the case. In conclusion, scones should be left untouched in their plain, buttery glory. Don't mess with them. But I did like the little rivers of pure nutella running through the scone. It added moistness and much needed flavour, which the scone was sorely lacking.

Most bloggers had a problem with the dough being too dry so they modified the original recipe to include an extra cup of cream. I went with the original amount first and I found that the dough came together nicely so I didn't add any extra. And I thought that the baking time specified was kinda off. My scones didn't take 18-20 minutes, much less in fact. And my oven was at the right temperature. So I suggest checking on them at 12 minutes, just to be safe.

Personally, I felt that these scones weren't the best way to showcase nutella but I'll thank them for re-igniting my love for nutella.

Nutella Scones
adapted from Baked Explorations
makes 6 to 8

2 cups plain flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder (like Valrhona)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 large egg
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup Nutella, divided

Preheat oven to 375F and place a rack in the center. Line a baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Add the butter to the flour mixture and using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until the butter is pea sized and the mixture is coarse.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and cream. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until the mixture comes together. Gently and briefly knead the dough with your hands but don't overdo it! Add the toasted hazelnuts and knead gently to incorporate them. Flatten the dough into a rectangle approximately 6 by 12 inches long (no need to be precise) and spread 1/4 cup of nutella in a criss cross pattern. (I did away with the pattern and just slathered it on.) Roll up the dough and make a cylinder about 6 inches long, turn it on its end, and gently flatten into a disk about 1 3/4 inches high. Do not overwork the dough.

Cut the dough into 6 or 8 wedges and place them on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating halfway through, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center of a scone comes out clean. Do not overbake.

Transfer the scones to a wire rack to cool completely. Trust me, the scones probably won't get a chance to cool halfway. Place the baking sheet under the wire rack. Heat the remaining 1/4 cup Nutella in a microwave until pourable, about 10 seconds on high. Pierce the tops of the scones a few times with a fork. Use a spoon (or two spoons- one to scoop, one to scrape) to drizzle the warm Nutella onto the scones. Transfer to the fridge to set for 5 minutes, then serve immediately. I didn't bother with the chilling. I like warm nutella, thank you.

Best eaten the same day as baked, although these would last till day two provided that you wrap them tightly. Store at room temperature.

blue-spotted swiss roll.

2011-10-15T21:28:00.008+08:00

I've seen some lovely pictures of patterned swiss rolls around the blogosphere lately and that got me inspired to make my own funky pattern. Well, as funky as blue spots can be anyway. I think I over-blued on the spots, dont'cha think so? And I should have used a piping bag to pipe those spots. They're more like ovals now...

But before that, I made sure I got a recipe that sounded really reliable. I managed to find one, and it still failed for me but it's not the recipe's fault that my swiss roll cracked. I narrowed it down to a few possibilities: My sponge was too thick which made it hard to roll and I didn't roll it while it was hot. Then again, some bloggers managed to skip that first rolling step and still emerge with crack-free swiss rolls. I don't think I over baked the cake so it must be the thickness... I think. Maybe next time I should also try rolling while it's hot apart from making a thinner sponge. And I read somewhere that making a few shallow slits at the side that you're going to start rolling up from will make the swiss roll more manageable.

Apart from the huge fissure in the side of the cake, I really loved the texture. This is not the typical whisk-whole-eggs sort of recipe. This one utilizes the chiffon method which makes the cake less likely to crack when rolling. Instead of large porous holes you usually get from regular sponges, the chiffon method yields an even-textured moist sponge. The vanilla was spot on too- it masked the egginess without being too overpowering.

I filled my swiss roll with a lightened vanilla pastry cream. Basically pastry cream with the addition of whipped cream. I used a vanilla bean! Oh yeah! It was delicious but its fluidity made it hard to roll up in the swiss roll so not only did some spill out from the sides, the centre didn't get much cream either. And because my sponge was so thick, the ratio of cream to cake wasn't quite right.

So, not a total success but it was fun!

Blue-Spotted Swiss Roll

For the vanilla sponge, I used a half recipe from here and baked it in a 7 inch square pan but please please please use a 8 inch pan for easier rolling.

Lightened Vanilla Bean Pastry Cream

125ml milk (I got away with skim since I was going to fold in heavy cream later)
1/4 vanilla bean, seeds scraped out and pod reserved
1 and 1/2 egg yolk
10g cornstarch
30g sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract ( I find that using vanilla bean alone doesn't give enough vanilla flavour)
1/3 cup heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks (This can be adjusted to how "light" you like your final product)

In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, vanilla seeds and pod until it comes to a simmer. Cut the heat and let the vanilla infuse for 10 minutes. You can let it be for more than 10 minutes if that's more convenient for you.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, cornstarch and sugar. Bring the milk back to a simmer and slowly whisk it into the egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the entire mixture back into the saucepan over medium heat, whisking constantly until the mixture has come to a boil and thickened considerably.

Strain the mixture and discard the vanilla pod. Stir in the vanilla extract and leave to cool completely. You can choose to refrigerate it or not, but I prefer to chill it first. Press a sheet of cling wrap on the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming before refrigerating it.

Fold in the whipped cream. The pastry cream is now ready to use. After filling and rolling up the sponge, let the swiss roll chill in the fridge for at least an hour before tucking in.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

waffled cake donuts.

2011-10-10T21:32:00.000+08:00

We have fried raised donuts, fried cake donuts, baked raised donuts, fried cake donuts, mini donuts, huge-ass donuts, chocolate donuts...

but I betcha never tried a waffled donut!

I took a basic cake donut recipe that was meant to be fried and baked it partially in the oven. Then, I finished it off in the waffle iron to get that signature checkered pattern and a nice crunchy crust. I did it this way because if I baked it only using the waffle iron, chances are that the outside would cook way faster than the inside and leave me with a gummy donut. Also, it would result in a denser donut. Of course, by waffling the donut in the end, we have compressed it as well but not all parts of the donut would be dense. That's great because we wouldn't want to end up eating a brick.

i just twisted the dough together to make the last donut

It's very important not to overbake these because there's so little fat in them. You want to err on the side of underdone rather than over because to remedy that, all you need to do is allow the donut to spend a longer time in the waffle iron. But once they're too dry, nothing can repair that. A good way to tell if a donut is nearly done is by the colour. A raw donut would have a darker shade while a cooked donut would be paler. Or, you could just stick a cake tester in just to be sure. There should be moist crumbs attached to it.

I replaced the traditional white sugar with brown to give it extra flavour. I think the nutmeg here is spot on. These donuts really taste like those donuts I can buy outside, only grease-free and much more unique!

Waffled Cake Donuts
adapted from here
makes 6 donuts + 6 donut holes

1 cup + 1/2 cup plain flour, divided
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsp butter, melted
1 egg
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Whisk together 1 cup of flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg, sugar and vanilla until the mixture begins to thicken slightly. In another small bowl, combine the melted butter and milk. Have the milk at room temperature too so that the melted butter won't solidify. Alternately add the flour mixture and milk mixture to the egg mixture, beginning and ending with the flour, beating well after each addition. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup of flour until just incorporated. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.

Roll out the dough to a 1/2 inch thickness on a lightly floured surface and cut your circles with a floured cutter. Bake in a 425F oven for 6 to 7 minutes until nearly done. Then, proceed to waffle in your preheated waffle iron for 30 seconds or until the squares show. You may only be able to fit one donut at a time so you gotta be patient. You will need to press down on the lid to fit the donut.

Serve warm.

vanilla sprinkle cupcakes.

2011-10-09T13:37:00.006+08:00

It's no secret that I'm a vanilla kind of girl and I've been searching for that perfect vanilla cake recipe. So when I chanced upon this post at Sweetapolita who is also a vanilla-holic herself, I knew I hit the jackpot. She said that Fluffy Vanilla Cake was her favourite recipe and if someone who has made about 9 different vanilla cake recipes can conclude that, it must be pretty promising.

After many headaches and experimenting, I found that cakes with certain ingredients potentially do well. Firstly, the cake must use only egg whites instead of whole eggs. Whole eggs will mask the taste of vanilla. Secondly, buttermilk. Buttermilk gives a tenderness to cakes like you would not believe acidic milk can. I learnt that in this post when making Dorie's Perfect Party Cake. Basically, what we're looking for is a blank canvas, which is a white cake, and then adding extra vanilla love to it.

Of course, lightness and fluffiness is also very important. This cake recipe definitely delivers that. It uses the reverse creaming method which gives a melt-in-your-mouth crumb. I've tried this technique before here using The Cake Bible's white velvet butter cake recipe. To date, the white velvet butter cake recipe has the best crumb out of all the cakes I've made because it literally takes a nudge of the tongue for the cake to dissolve. However, it's not a very fluffy cake. Sweetapolita's recipe, on the other hand, bakes up airy cakes. You know how you know a cupcake will be fluffy and light if you pick it up and it weighs close to nothing? Yep, that applies to these.

Having said that, I still somewhat prefer Dorie's Perfect Party Cake recipe because of its more tender crumb. It's sort of a cross between The Cake Bible's and Sweetapolita's. It's not as fluffy as Sweetapolita's and not as dense as The Cake Bible's. Plus, its crumb is not as fine as The Cake Bible's while definitely more tender than Sweetapolita's. I would hazard a guess and say it's the magic of buttermilk, so perhaps I would try this recipe again with buttermilk, just to see if it will be more tender. Because if it does, it will be my ultimate vanilla cake recipe. At least for now.

I scaled down the original recipe to yield a few cupcakes because I wanted to practice my piping skills. I'm quite happy with these. They actually look like roses. There's hope in my piping ability! Well actually, I was about to finish piping my second cupcake when the piping bag burst so I had to salvage whatever that's left and frost the last cupcake with a spatula. Boo... That's no fun.

This recipe makes cakes that are quite sweet so I would cut down on the sugar. I say try reducing it by a third. I think having cakes that are not too sweet are important not just because you may not be able to handle such saccharine stuff and get sick of it, but also as having less sugar allows the flavour of the cake to shine. If you're really worried about dessert not really being dessert, don't sweat it. Because, we have frosting!

I chose to made a vanilla bean frosting, using a flour frosting recipe. I love such frostings because they are extremely creamy and have a milky taste. The milkiness sort of hides the taste of butter which I'm grateful for. I don't really like buttercreams because of the taste of cold raw butter puts me off. In fact, I like to tweak the ratio of milk paste to butter such that I can barely taste the butter. And I also cut down on the sugar in the frosting because based on past experience, this sort of frosting tends to be overly sweet.

Although frostings are best eaten at room temperature, I would like to urge you to try this one cold too. Sure, the frosting won't taste especially flavorful but the texture is almost like a truffle. The outside is firm while the inside is smooth and creamy. To have the best of both worlds, take your time to enjoy your cupcake! At first it will be cold and as you slowly nibble your way through, the frosting will slowly warm up and then you can taste how wonderful vanilla beans can be.

Fluffy Vanilla Cupcakes

I divided the recipe by 6 and got 3 cupcakes. In other words, the full recipe makes 18. I would reduce the sugar by a third but try a quarter first if you like your cupcakes sweeter. I also think replacing the milk with buttermilk will yield an even more tender crumb.

click here for the recipe

Vanilla Bean Frosting
makes enough for 20 cupcakes, supposedly

1 cup milk
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup plain flour
1 1/2 vanilla beans, seeds scraped out and reserving pods
3/4 cup softened butter, cut into cubes

In a saucepan, combine 1/4 cup of milk, sugar, flour and vanilla seeds and pods. Whisk to form a thick paste and until there are no lumps. Over medium heat, slowly add the remaining milk while whisking constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Reduce heat to low and continue whisking until the mixture starts to thicken slightly. Immediately remove the pan from heat and keep whisking. It will continue to thicken as it cools. Let the mixture cool to room temperature then strain to get rid of any lumps and the vanilla pods. It is important that the milk mixture be completely cool before continuing because we don't want the butter to melt in the next step. In fact, you can do this step in advance and refrigerate it overnight.

Using a whisk attachment, whisk the milk mixture until light and fluffy. Add in the cubed butter gradually, incorporating each addition before adding the next. The frosting should look light and fluffy. Now you can frost your cupcakes!

If you're going to sprinkle-fy them, do it before refrigerating the cupcakes because the frosting will turn hard and the sprinkles won't stick.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

whole wheat peanut butter oatmeal cookies.

2011-10-06T21:18:00.000+08:00

Remember that I mentioned that I wanted to use my whole wheat flour to make peanut butter cookies? Well here they are! They were f-a-a-abulous! The extra step of toasting the flour and oats really made a difference. These smelled fantastically nutty after being baked. The cookies are sort of sweet and salty and the peanut butter takes a backseat but it slowly creeps up on you and hits you right in the face. The flavours of the whole wheat flour and oats are more prominent, which is really rare in a peanut butter cookie, methinks.

My only complaint is that the cookies crumble easily. I guess this is because of the lack of egg in the recipe. I only managed to salvage 3 out of my 6 when transferring from the cookie sheet to cooling rack... only to destroy 2 out of 3 remaining intact ones when transferring from rack to container. However, because they were so crumbly, their texture was fantastic! They practically melted in my mouth unlike any cookie I've ever had. Even shortbread.

But you might have to end up eating these with a spoon.

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
adapted from The Flour Sack
makes 24

I used normal whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour that the original recipe called for. I guess that's why my cookies were so crumbly. But I have no regrets though.

1 cup rolled oats
1 cup and 2 tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

Toast the oats and whole wheat flour in a 350F oven for about 7 minutes until golden and smell nutty. Remove from the oven, transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool. When cooled, add the baking soda and salt and whisk to combine.

Combine the butter, peanut butter and sugars in a stand mixer and mix on medium speed until combined. Add the cooled flour mixture and mix just until incorporated.

Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thick and chill the dough. When completely chilled and firm, half an hour or so, cut out 2 inch rounds and set the cookies on a baking sheet.

Bake in a 350F oven for 10 minutes until golden, rotating halfway through baking time. Let the cookies cool completely. I found that the cookies that got more browned were firmer and did not crumble as easily.

custard bao.

2011-10-04T21:44:00.000+08:00

Custard bao is a dim sum item I have a particular weakness for. The salted egg yolk version as well. I've always wanted to try making some for myself. It sounds pretty simple- the dough is almost like making bread and the custard can be viewed as making pastry cream. Two things that I have done many times before, so how difficult can custard bao get?

Wrong.

Turns out that there are secrets that lie enclosed within its white exterior. (Actually, this dough isn't very white but I'll explain later.) My baos like they have been run over by a truck. They aren't like those perfectly semi-spherical ones that I can get from a shop. Yeah, I know that those who sell them are somewhat professionals and I cannot compare my first-time results with them but I wasn't expecting something as mutated as this! I don't take failure very well, so I began my mad search for the cause of the problem.

Although what I found weren't very specific, I gathered that the reason for my flattened baos was having too soft a dough. This is a major difference from bread dough. When making bread, I always err on the side of having a very soft and pliable dough rather than a firm one so that it would remain moist after baking. It doesn't work for bao here because the dough would be too soft to retain its shape and slump rather sadly.

I thought that the baos were also quite moist and dense, almost gummy when hot out of the steamer. Again, this could be due to the moisture of the dough. I didn't think that a soft dough would be so detrimental to the final result. When I'd finished kneading it, the first thought that came to mind was, this is the best dough I've ever worked with. The flour I used, Hong Kong flour or also known as pao flour, is probably the main reason. It has an extremely low gluten content which yields soft baos. You know when a dough is described to be "like a baby's butt", its extremely soft and smooth. Well let me tell ya, this dough is softer than a baby's butt.

This dough recipe is quite untraditional in the way that it uses milk and butter, very western ingredients. Water was supposed to be in place of the milk, and shortening instead of the butter. Apparently, milk is supposed to result in a softer fluffier texture. The butter is a preference of the blogger whom I got the recipe from. She said she preferred the fragrance of the dough with it but the dough would not be as white. To achieve that traditional snowy colour, just use shortening and a bit of vinegar. I'm not sure about the actual amount of vinegar to add, but it shouldn't be more than 1 tablespoon for each full quantity of dough. The vinegar helps to make the dough even whiter.

The custard wasn't very outstanding either. It tasted too milky and sweet. I don't have full confidence in both components of the bao so I shall not post the recipes here. However, I'll include the links so that if you're interested, you can check it out. I think the dough recipe should have been good, it was a mistake on my part that resulted in an unsatisfactory texture. Pao dough here, and custard here.

strawberry oreo truffles.

2011-10-02T23:00:00.000+08:00

I know I said that my chocolate capacity has been more than satisfied but I had to make just one more chocolate thing. You may not believe me, but I made these truffles more out of a need to use up the scraggly amounts of leftover ingredients rather than a want to eat them.

I had probably 9 oreo cookies bordering on losing their crispness (I ran out of airtight containers) and a few tablespoons of cream cheese. I knew that oreo truffles was the most convenient choice. No other extra ingredients were needed other than the two and exact measurements aren't a must. All you have to do is finely crush the oreos, fillings and all, and add enough cream cheese for the mixture to form an ebony malleable ball.

I thought the strawberry element was quite unique. Anyone who has eaten an oreo cookie would know that oreos are actually quite rich. If you grind a few up, add in extra richness in the form of cream cheese, and then compress the mixture into a tiny sphere, let's just say that one oreo truffle is enough to satisfy even the most hardcore chocoholics. So the strawberry here helps in cutting through the monotonous chocolaty-ness.

Other than the degree of richness, the texture of the truffle also surprised me. I thought that the cookies would still retain a bit of crunch but they didn't at all. In fact, the truffles were almost a bit chewy. I didn't dip mine in chocolate because I thought they were sweet enough and okay, I was lazy, but I think they would have benefitted from a good dunk as the outer coating would provide a textural contrast.

I imagine using chocolate-cream-filled oreos would really pack a punch. Hmm... it is quite a scary thought...

chocolate sorbet pops.

2011-10-01T23:25:00.005+08:00

It seems like there has been too much chocolate these few days. First, warm chocolate and raspberry tarts, then whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, and now chocolate sorbet pops! Well, even golden pearl brownie cake I made before the tarts was half chocolate. That should take care of my chocolate cravings for the rest of the year. But I was contemplating on making some chocolate donuts sometime soon...

These chocolate sorbet pops are an Alice Medrich recipe in handheld form. I also added some raspberries and white chocolate chips to balance the richness and bitterness of the cocoa. Or at least, I thought it would be bitter. Turns out that these pops are pretty sweet and I would consider cutting down the sugar by half the next time. Of course, sugar is essential for keeping ice cream and sorbets scoop-able and if you're not going to make it in icy-popsicle form, it's best that you try reducing the sugar by small amounts each time to avoid an overly crystalized texture.

Making popsicles are adorable but I find that after I take them out to thaw for a bit to remove them for a first time, putting them back in the freezer again can only spell trouble. The next time I try to extract a popsicle from the mold, the stick would come out without the ice cream. And after a bit of forceful prodding about, the ice cream or sorbet would come out semi-melted because by the time that prodding technique actually works, the pops would already have spent a good 10 minutes in the open. Which is pretty long given the temperate climate of where I live.

I quartered the recipe and got two pops with an extra 2 tablespoons worth so I froze the extra in a tiny silicon cup and I must say, it was a pretty good move! I didn't have to unmold it and I could eat it straight from the freezer, preventing any messy melting problems like I mentioned above. Plus, its small size makes it convenient when you want a little of something sweet after dinner without reaching for a full sized pop.

Chocolate Sorbet
adapted from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich

I would recommend making this with less sugar for the not-so-sweet-toothed. I also omitted the vanilla since I thought such a small amount would be insignificant. Plus, I left out the rum/vodka because I was making popsicles and I didn't want them to become too soft to unmold. The flavour of this sorbet is quite rich so you may want to substitute half of the water for milk to tone it down.

1 cup cocoa
Scant 1 cup sugar
2 tiny pinches salt
2 cups boiling water
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tbsp rum of vodka (optional)

Combine cocoa, sugar and salt in a saucepan and whisk in 1/2 cup of boiling water to make a thick paste. Add the remaining water. Stir over medium heat just until tiny bubbles form at the edges of the pan. Don't cook any longer, as heat can damage the flavour of cocoa.

Take the mixture off the heat and add the vanilla. Refrigerate until cold, at least 4 hours. Add the rum or vodka, if using. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Alternatively, freeze directly in your popsicle molds until completely frozen.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

whole wheat chocolate chip cookies.

2011-09-30T18:07:00.000+08:00

I've been kinda busy these few days hence the drop in posts, and even when I do post, I have to keep it short so please pardon my silence. It's going to be like this for at least two weeks.

I recently bought a pack of whole wheat flour for baking bread but I was wondering what else I could do with it. I thought that since whole wheat flour has a natural nuttiness to it, it would go really well in cookies. I did a search and popular versions, I found, were chocolate chip and peanut butter. I decided on one recipe of each but I made the chocolate chip first since the recipe was more straightforward.

The recipe called for whole wheat pastry flour but what I had was the regular, more gritty kind, so I used half whole wheat and half plain flour instead. I let the dough sit in the fridge for a day even though I could have just baked it straight away. I've not tested the theory of The New York Times, making comparisons between 4-hour, 12-hour, 36-hour doughs and whatnot- I made the cookie dough ahead just to save some time on the actual day I felt like eating the cookies.

I thought the idea of whole wheat cookies is really a winner. Without having to brown any butter, the cookies had a really nice depth of flavour and they didn't give me that sinful feeling. Although, that can be negotiable... However, because the whole wheat flour I used was coarser, the texture was a little rough. Like stone-ground cornmeal in corn muffins. I think it would be good to invest in some whole wheat pastry flour. I can see myself using that for future cookies instead of white.

I felt that the cookies were a little on the sweet side so you might want to cut down the sugar by 1/4. Also, sprinkling a bit of salt right after they've emerged from the oven would not be such a bad idea too.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Good to the Grain, by Kim Boyce
makes about 20

The cold butter keeps the dough cool and less likely to spread in the oven, omitting a chilling step. You can still make the dough ahead, for more, apparently, flavorful cookies.

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour, or a 50-50 mixture of regular whole wheat flour and plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes
1 cup light brown sugar (I would cut down on the amount of sugar for both kinds)
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 oz bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped or bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and whisk to blend.

Put the butter and sugars in a bowl of a stand mixer and mix on low speed until just blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Add in the chocolate, and mix on low speed until evenly combined.

Portion out the dough about 3 tablespoons in size each onto the baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each cookie.

Bake for 16 to 20 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the cookies are evenly browned. Leave to cool. I find that by giving the cookies a chance to cool, the wheat flavour is more noticeable.

warm chocolate and raspberry tart.

2011-09-27T18:35:00.006+08:00

If you like molten chocolate cakes...

You'll love these.

They are like molten chocolate cakes with crunch and a sprinkle of antioxidants.

A ganache is poured into a pre-baked tart shell, and sent into the oven just until the edges are set and the centre is still jiggly. Sounds familiar? So when you stab the poor thing that's about to be devoured in seconds, the chocolate will ooze out like a river. A mini one, because tarts are shallower.

Hmm... I want a waterfall.

Perhaps I would suggest making these in deeper tart shells? The kind used for egg tarts, if you can picture them.

I like the fact that the raspberries were baked with the tart instead of being used as a garnish. Heat does wonderful magical things to berries. They become so much sweeter and juicier.

Of course, although the recipe says to serve them warm, they will be pretty awesome chilled too. I mean, how bad can cold ganache be?

Warm Chocolate and Raspberry Tart
recipe adapted from Desserts by Pierre Herme

1 10 inch sweet tart crust, fully baked and cooled

4 3/4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1 stick unsalted butter
1 large egg and 3 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 tbsp sugar

1/2 cup raspberries

Preheat oven the 375F.

Melt the chocolate and butter in separate bowls and let them cool until they reach a temperature of 109F. This is crucial for the creaminess of the ganache.

Stir the eggs and sugar together in a bowl, trying not to incorporate too much air. Stir in the chocolate slowly in circles, and then the butter in the same manner. The final mixture should look very thick and creamy. The ganache must be used immediately.

Pour the ganache into your tart shell and top with the raspberries. Bake for exactly 11 minutes for a 10 inch tart, less if baking mini ones. The edges of the tart should look dry and dull but the centre should be shiny and jiggly.

Let the tart cool for a few minutes just to firm up and serve warm. Or you could refrigerate it for a different kind of texture.

Linked to Tuesday Talent Show, Crazy Sweet Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday, These Chicks Cooked, Sweet Treats Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Tooth Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Sweets for a Saturday, Strut Your Stuff Saturday and Sweet Indulgences Sunday.

golden pearl brownie cake.

2011-09-25T18:01:00.000+08:00

Could it be? The first time a PH recipe (half) lets me down?

I had pretty high hopes for this one. I mean come on- vanilla bean sort-of-mousse layer, a dense chocolate brownie studded with tons of toasty pecans and plenty of plump raisins in between. I think raisins don't just go with peanut butter, they work really well with chocolate too! Think cranberries and chocolate, but a sweeter version. I was sold the moment I read the description.

I think both the vanilla and chocolate layers are lacking in their respective flavours. The vanilla layer is actually a vanilla bean pastry cream lightened with whipped cream, but the ratio is of pastry cream to whipped cream is way too low, I feel. The vanilla didn't come through very strongly because of that and the overall texture is very airy, like extremely over-churned ice cream. Perhaps that was intended, but I'm not exactly digging it.

On the other end of the colour spectrum, the brownie wasn't chocolaty enough. The whole recipe called for only 2 1/2 ounces of chocolate. Surely anyone who bakes a brownie often enough knows that that measly amount can only churn out a few squares if you want it to be decently decadent. Again, maybe it was done on purpose so as to not overwhelm the vanilla layer.

Oh, by the way, this isn't exactly how the overall cake is supposed to be. The recipe instructed for the raisins to be incorporated into the vanilla layer but I forgot about them so I decided to mix them in with the brownie too. I like the way it turned out- the brownie being punctured with bits of nuttiness and juiciness, but it may not be a good thing for some because you may feel like eating nuts and raisins held together by brownie batter. Believe me, the ratio of add-ins to brownie is quite high, even without the raisins.

There won't be any recipe typed out, but you can check out other people's attempts at this too!

bento #10.

2011-09-23T18:33:00.000+08:00

Well whaddya know, it's my tenth bento already! This week, I had french beans with miso and pine nuts (again), a vegetable tian and a savory carrot muffin. I thought that the muffin was just agreeable- the carrot flavour didn't stand out enough, probably because the salt covered it up. This was even after I had switched out some oil and yogurt for extra carrot puree. I also added a pinch of baking soda since there was yogurt involved so that the muffin would be fluffier.

shanghai scallion pancakes.

2011-09-20T21:41:00.000+08:00

You can call this a fusion of glorious nutritionally nada carbs and somewhat good-for-you spring onions. I love spring onions, I can't live without flour... need I say more?

If I tell you that spring onions are (one of) my favourite vegetables, don't laugh, because it's so true it's almost embarrassing. I can eat a whole plateful of it with a bowl of porridge when they are usually sprinkled on top more for aesthetic reasons. I ask for extra spring onions on the side with my fried rice. I think the ratio of rice grains to spring onions may be 1:1. As you can imagine, I had to restrain myself from adding too much to the dough or they would all fall out.

These pancakes are not the American light and fluffy batter pancakes. They are made from dough, salt and just enough water for the right consistency. They also have a very different texture. Think roti prata, if you know what it is- crispy on the outside and fluffy layered insides. It's a bit like puff pastry, but without the puff.

I was actually wondering why not use butter instead of oil? The oil here helps to separate the layers after rolling the dough up. Since fat is what we're after, I thought butter might do the trick too, and with extra flavour to boot. Granted, it won't be very Chinese, but it's a good idea!

Shanghai Scallion Pancakes
recipe just slightly tweaked from Almost Bourdain
Makes 2 (large ones)

You may need more water than the amount specified below. Just add a little at a time until a pliable, non-sticky dough is formed. Also, I included the step of "crushing" the pancake after cooking. Don't be alarmed, I don't have anger management issues. This step helps to separate the layers in the pancake, creating a light and flaky texture. You can skip it if you want, but give it a try if you feel like having a bit of fun. Just be careful though, it's hot!

250g plain flour, plus extra for dusting
1/2 tsp salt
110 ml warm water
20g spring onions, green parts only, chopped
3 tbsp vegetable oil or lard

Sift flour and salt into a big bowl and stir to combine. Make a well in the middle and add the warm water. Using your hand, slowly mix to form a dough.

Cover the dough with cling wrap and let it rest for 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Working with one portion at a time, place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll it out to a circle. Try to roll it out as thinly as you can to achieve more layers in your pancake, resulting in a flakier one.

Brush the surface generously with oil or lard and sprinkle with half of the chopped spring onion.

Starting with the edge closest to you, roll up the dough like a swiss roll and pinch the ends to seal. Lightly flatten the roll, then roll it up again from one end to form a snail, pinch the ends together. Press the dough down with the palm of your hand. Roll it out to a circle. I find it easier to roll out after resting for a while so why not get started on your other piece of dough while waiting?

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat with some oil/lard. Fry pancake for 3-4 minutes on each side, turning once, until the pancake is a light golden brown and crisp.

Remove from the pan and onto a clean chopping board. Let it cool for a few moments then smash it up like scrunching a piece of paper but without picking it up. You should see some layers separate. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.