Chocolate Melting moments... really melted

I must have been away for too long. Away from blogging and baking. There's just so much that had happened over the past 5 months. In short, I'll have to face reality, let go and move on. 2 more days before the end of my 1 month medical leave. My boss just sent me an sms asking when I am going back... :P

Always wanted to try the melting moments recipe from Donna Hay, but was always pushed aside by other recipes. Always thought that they can't be too difficult...oh well, so I thought. Guessed I was proved wrong once again. The cookies could not hold the shape in the oven and collapsed into a mess. The more dough I pipe, the worse it gets. those rounded ones looks as if they had a cookie stamp on them. Plus, they are so crumbly! I had to remove them from the baking sheet using a butter knife and even then, several were not spared from being broken. Surprisingly, the taste was good, with a nice buttery, chocholaty flavour and really melted in my mouth. All was good except for the shape the cookie ended up. Something's not right with the flour quantity. Well, I'll have to find some time to revisit this again. If someone out there has an answer, please let me know... Meanwhile, I'll have to wait for my hubby to be back and polish off those broken ones. :P

Recipe (Adapted from Donna Hay, Melting Moments)
175g butter, softened
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup plain flour, sifted (I replace 25g of it with cocoa powder)
1/4 cup cornflour, sifted
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Place butter, icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl and beat with electric beaters till light and fluffy. Stir in the flours/ chocolate powder till conbined.
2. Place the mixture into a piping bag with nozzle 852. Pipe onto baking trays lined with baking paper or silpat mat. Allow space for spreading, very impt!!! Otherwise, will end up like mine, all connected.
3. Bake for 12-14mins and let it cool in the tray.

Peanut cookies

Yes, they are peanut cookies. Just that I am short of the amount required,:P Ended up adding grounded black sesame. Followed the recipe fromY3K 'New Year Cookies'. Wonder if it's the recipe or the plain flour that I used, but the oil quantity indicated in the recipe is less than what I actually used...

Recipe extracted from Y3K

300 grams of peanuts (roasted, milled)

300 grams of plain flour

1/4 tsp of salt

200g caster sugar

150ml of groundnut oil

Mix all ingredients in a big mixing bowl to form a dough. Roll dough into small balls and glaze with beaten egg yolk. Bake at 170 degrees for 15-20 mins.

Note: I used the proportions above, but the oil was insufficient. I had to add more oil slowly to form the dough. Made 2 portions and made 183 pieces. I used a mini ice cream scoop to do this which is so efficient, better than having to roll all the cookies.The cookies tasted ok, quite a fool proof recipe. ;)

Walnut cookies

Just can't stop baking...hee... but I will have to stop for these few days till Friday night. There's just too much work that's so energy zapping. Need to conserve my energy... For walnut cookies, just use Hong Kong flour, which gives that crunchy texture. Will post the recipe soon...akan datang...

Pineapple tarts

The initial raw material

After the 1st hour, before adding the sugar

Passed!

Voila!

It's the season of baking CNY cookies! There's so much I want to do, but I can't possibly get all of them out. Balancing work and hobby is a tricky thing..tsk tsk. Will be starting a new audit next Monday, that means even less time spent on my baking. This year, I finally tried my hands on pineapple tarts, but that's not without going for a class at Creative Culinaire. Armed with the recipes and the hands-on experience of cooking the pineapple jam, I am ready to go!. Took 2 hours to boil down the pinapple into the correct state. Contrary to what some recipes say, I cooked the pineapple together with the juice. Based on Chef Judy Koh, the sugar in the pineapple juice is a natural preservative, thus if we add that, it helps to preserve the jam better. Also the point of readiness is when the jam coats the back of the wooden spoon. When it sticks to the back of the spoon and needs to be shaken off, it's done. Spread the jam out on a board and cool. I let it cool overnight and used them this morning. If you realise that there is liquid oozing out from the jam, it means that it's not cooked dry enough. Just put it back into the pot and cook them till it's drier. Apologies that I can't reproduce the recipes here as they are very much property of the cooking school. :)

Gula Melaka Kueh Bangkit

It's the time to bake CNY cookies again. After 1 year break from Kueh Bangkit, I am trying my hands on it again.

Followed Aunty Yochana's recipe and switched the sugar to gula melaka. The gula melaka really made it fragrant. Can smell it even when the cookies are still in the oven! This batch is just an experiment, to test the texture and refresh myself with the 'feel' again, esp the feeling of the dough, can't be too dry or too wet. My 1st batch was too dry, resulting in a crispy texture. Only the third and fourth tray really churned out the texture that I was looking for, the melt-in-your-mouth texture. My hubby and MIL, both fussy eaters of Kueh Bangkit, gave the thumbs up! Really glad that this recipe works out.

Once again, Thanks to Aunty Lucy!

Sesame soda biscuits

Followed Aunty Yochana's recipe to churn out biscuits in lightning speed! haa..Made these for my hubby who's going away on a business trip. He liked them alot. Only thing I changed is the shortening to butter as I had no shortening on hand. Thanks Lucy!

Cranberry Shortbread Bar

Red Jewels

Fresh cranberries are a rare find in Singapore and when I saw them at the local supermarkets sold at a reasonable price, I immediately grabbed 2 bags and stashed them into the freezer. Cranberries is a must for Christmas, but I did not manage to use it for the X'mas. Instead, I used it to mark the last day of 2008. Lovely jewels, these darlings, and when they are cooked, the skins just burst and the lovely juice coloured the whole pot red. Brillant. My recipe came from here. Once again, another recipe for keeps. Only complaint is that my shortbread did not get golden brown after 30mins at 190C. Maybe it's my oven, but I ended up baking for another 30mins, with 20mins at 200C. At the end of it, the top is still not golden brown and I am running out of time, I did a naughty thing... grilled it for 3mins, and voila! A nicely browned shortbread. Don't worry about the sugar content in the cranberry syrup, it's necessary, otherwise, it's just too sour to eat it fresh. Trust me, I did not believe and tried it right from the packaging. Urksss... really really sour. The wakening effect is better than any espresso!

Breakfast bread..again

Same recipe as the earlier post, but changed the yogurt to coconut milk, simply because I had a pack in the fridge which need is expiring soon! :P Even added 2tbsps of Milo in it to add more flavour. But I can't really taste the coconut or Milo when I ate them. The bread smelled of coconut though... W liked it alot..oh well, his tatebuds are never fussy but that also mean he don't even know I added coconut milk! Oh yes, my mum liked it too, as the texture is pretty soft, unlike some breadmachine breads which may harden after sitting out in the open for a while.

Nigella's Chocolate Fudge

Made chocolate fudge for Xmas presents for my colleagues. Decided to do this after watching Nigella's Christmas. I managed to find the recipe on her website. Not a fan of pistachios, so just switched to silvered almonds instead. I can't seem to find a 23cm disposable square pan as required in the recipe, so I ended up using my springform pan instead. Thought there should not be any difference since no baking is required. :P

Oh well, there's no difference untill the unmoulding part. It's not possible to remove the entire fudge from the pan and cut it on a clean board. With a disposable aluminium pan, you just need to tear away the sides and the fudge will come off. And.. the humidity here does not help at all... After every 15mins, I have to pop the whole tray back into the fridge to harden the fudge again, so that it does not smudge the bags.
Taste wise, the fudge really tasted quite good, not too sweet, just nice for me. Process wise is really pretty idiot proof and if you stick to the disposable pan, you will be pretty safe.. hee.. I packed 4 pieces in each bag, and manage to get about 18 packs. Pack them into your freezer till ready to distribute. :)

Breakfast...Fast

Making breakfast can be a chore, or a superb way to start the day! I am out of breakfast this morning and was planning to do something if I can find a quick and easy way to make something, you know, those mix and bake sort of stuff. Found one yesterday at http://www.ytower.com/. This is the link to the article and recipe. I modified a little but the bread turns out to be pretty good. So if you happen to wake up an hour earlier, try your hands on this, not a bad way to start the day! I intend to attempt this recipe again with other combinations, wholemeal flour, oats, choc chips, or even shredded carrot and peas!.

Ingredients:
200g all purpose flour ( I used 100g of bread and cake flour each)
13g of sugar (I used eye power to estimate)
8g of baking powder (again...eye power, no way am I going to use my manual scale and see the needle tip and stop at 8g at 630am in the morning...keke)
pinch of salt
150g of Paul's low fat yogurt
1 egg
dried cranberries, almond flakes, walnuts, whatever you have in your pantry and need to be used up.
Sift the flour and the baking powder into a mixng bowl. Add the salt, sugar, egg and yogurt and mix well with a whisk. If the batter seems dry, which mine was, add another tablespoon of yogurt. The yogurt was a 200g bottle, so I ended up adding all of it. Add in the cranberries at this point, mixing just enough to get the fruits through the batter.
If you are using a non-stick muffin tin, there's no need to flour or butter it. Good news right? no need to get your hands oily and messy in the morning. Clean and easy..:P or maybe...just lazy. Spoon the batter into the 6 hole muffin tin. Without the tin, just spoon it onto a lined baking tray and spread it roughly with the back of the spoon. The size of the pastry is up to you to decide then, which of couse affects the baking time.
Sprinkle the almond flakes over the batter. The original recipe had the nuts mixed in sugar syrup before placing them onto the batter. I have no time for this in the morning..hee, so it's just almond flakes. You can easily replace this with any corsely chopped nuts, no need to be roasted, since it's going into the oven anyway.
Preheat the oven to 220 degress C. Bake it for about 25 minutes and test with a wooden skewer. It's done when the skewer comes out clean.
Verdict: Well, my husband liked it, nice combi with almonds and dried cranberries. Not really bread like texture, as there is no yeast and no kneading. Easy to make, and not too heavy for breakfast or even afternoon snack.

Taipei food porn

All these food are just the a tiny bit of the glorious food in Taipei. Not to forget all the night markets! Enjoy the food porn!:D

Banana Yogurt Cake or bread???

Into bananas recently, not becos I want to, but more of like, what I am suppose to do with all these bananas? After the 10km run on Sunday for the Terry Fox run, the helpers generously gave my husband a bunch of bananas... haaa, think we must have looked desperately in need of food.
After my last attempt on the banana walnut cake, I concluded that milk is needed to make a moist banana cake. But I did not want to buy a carton of milk just for 2 tbsp, so I decided to use yogurt instead.
I used this recipe to start off my banana cake, with some modifications though. I omitted the lemon juice and rind, and reduce the butter to 5 oz. What I have added are a handful of walnuts, oatmeal, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and 200g of low fat yogurt. Bake as indicated in the recipe and voila! A moist banana cake, with just the right sweetness. Could do with a bit more of cinnamon though. A recipe for keeps. ;)

Banana and Walnut bread

Mee Suah Kueh

Peanut and Black Sesame Cookies

黑糖麻糬

Pao De Quejio

This is a type of Brazilian cheese bread popular in the streets of Brazil. Why I made this? It all started with me looking for mochi bread premix in Taiwan. As I searched through the websites, I saw discussion and comparison between the mochi bread and this Pao de Quejio. Surprisingly, this Brazil cheese bread uses tapioca flour, cheese, oil and eggs, which is rather different from the mochi bread.

So I decided to have a go at it, since I have tapioca flour and parmesan cheese on standby. There are alot of recipes on the web and varies slightly between each of them. Decided to use the recipe from here. I did half a portion and followed the recipe closely. Instead of milk, I used unsweeteened soya milk. When you add the egg and cheese, put on the a disposable glove and knead the mixture well using your knuckles. I had one which has uncooked tapioca flour in the middle! Apparently, I did not knead it well enough.

Well, the dough will expand during the baking process but once it's taken out of the oven, it starts to flatten a bit. It's a savoury bread, nice with coffee. Can do with an additional small pinch of salt if the cheese is not strong enough. A little chewy, similar to mochi bread, but I guess if we want to a sweet version, can always add sugar and some chocolate chips in. Black sesame will be a good idea too!

Polo Bao - Round 2

Finally... I have time to do my 'documentation'...haaa. 3 weeks in Taiwan was an experience, having encountered 2 typhoons during this period. Came back last friday and went to the cooking class at Creative Culinaire on Monday for their dim sum class! Super on...:P The main attraction of the class..for me..was the polo bun of course. Two other dim sum were taught too, Xiao Long Bao and the Seafood Salad Roll. All three were fantastic and I already have plans to make them soon during this period in SG, though I am still very apprehensive towards making Xiao Long Bao! The chef was fantastic, Kudos to him. I have never met a chef who is so willing to teach, and give so selflessly. At the end of the class, there were some leftover pastry topping and gravy for the po lo bao, so the students took some. I took some and made another batch last night.
I must say, looking is easy, but when it comes to hands-on and doing the dough from scratch, it's a total different thing. It's hard work, but when I see all thess buns disappear with smiles on my friend's faces, the effort is really worth it. :)
If you are interested in the classes, go to this website www.creativeculinaire.com for more information.

Cooking class at Creative Cullinaire

Pandan Chiffon Cake

On annual leave this week, so had the chance to try out the recipes on my 'To-Do' list! Decided to do the pandan chiffon cake based on the recipe from Little Corner of Mine.
I used freshly squeezed coconut milk. If you are buying shaved coconut from the market, you would need about 400g. I also replaced some of the white sugar with brown sugar to cut down the sweetness.
The cake was fantastic! But I did not have the patience long enough to wait for the cake to cool completely..hee, thus you see half of the skin is off the cake! :P
Will do this cake again, maybe with fresh pandan juice by blending pandan leaves and change of flour. My MIL mentioned that her recipe uses optima flour and/or softassilk flour. But oh well, the cake is gone now! :)