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. :)

Chocolate Almond Torte

One of the greatest feeling in life is to do something and your partner loves every single bit of the delicacy... 那種感覺, 我想,就叫做'幸福'吧. One of my best baking resources is Joy of Baking. The recipe is found here. Alright, I admit that the actual thing looks abit 'off' when compared to the picture, but believe me, the taste is just gorgeous. The product must be good, cos it disappeared within 4 days. ;)

Chocolate Cupcakes

Realised by now that the top 3 ingredients you need for a cake/ dessert/cookie are: 1) good quality chocolate (i mean at least >60%), 2) unsalted butter, 3) raw/brown sugar.
Had the above ingredients at home and decided to whip up some cup cakes.
Recipe? Sorry.... I did not use any form of measurement this time round.... I am serious. Lazy to take out my scale and beaters, so decided to do everything by estimation. :P Don't anyone of you out there has such feelings once in a while? When you see Nigella Lawson just scooping flour from the container and says that's 2 cups of flour when you CAN'T tell at all and you are just amazed/ wondering how she manage to guage? hahaha...
But... steps wise, here's how I do it.
1. Combine the softened and cut butter, 64% choc pieces and brown sugar in a mixing bowl over simming water. Its about 80g of choc and 100g of butter. Sugar... about 2 1/2 tbsp.
2. Use a plastic spatula to mix it during the melting process. When it's done, let it cool about 5 min.
3. Sift in this combination: 2 tbsp wholemeal flour, 1tbsp cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp of baking soda, 2 tbsp of almond meal. I sift this directly into the choc mixture.
4. At this point, use a whisk to combine everything together.
5. I added an egg to the mixture, which bounded everything together... So, I added approx 1/4 cup of whipping cream to loosen the mixture abit.
6. Added some brandy soaked raisins for flavour. I guess you could add anything at this point... chopped walnuts, dates, prunes, choc chips.... whatever you have in your pantry. :) Sounds fun right?
7. Pop them into a 180C pre-heated oven for 20 mins. Check for doneness with a wooden skewer. Depending on your oven temp, might need a little while more. I had mine inside for additional 3 mins.
Made 6 cupcakes.

They are on the office table now, for my colleagues breakfast. :)
Have fun experimenting, be daring and try out... think about it? what's the worse that can happen? Overcooked cake, I suppose? :)

Chocolate cake in a bowl

CHOCOLATE! Really thankful to the person who invented chocolate for cooking...One of the best creations on earth.
Haven't been baking for a while and I really can't stand it. But I was so busy that I just don't have that 2 hrs to spend in the kitchen!
So when I saw th recipe on Su's website, I was really eager to have a go at it. What's more, W is in town to share my guilt. haahaa...:P
Followed the recipe, a bit apprehensive at first, cos I nvr baked using a microwave oven. Used Carefour's 64% baking chocolate for this recipe. Other modifications include using wholemeal flour, raw sugar, and 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence.
Result? OK... I know it looks damn gross in the pic...but it really really REALLYy taste damn good! Even W applaud it. Only thing is that the cake can't hold its shape, thus the mess on the plate.
This is a recipe that can be easily doubled and baked in individual ramekins for small dinners. Don't omit the fruits and whipping cream to serve. They are very impt and accompany the chocolate cake/pudding very well.
As I am writing, W is eating... a peep into the bowl shows only 1/4 left...haha...maybe I should do another one before i leave for TW tomorrow, keep him company for 2 days maybe...if it can last that long... ;)

Shermay's Cooking School - Chocolate Making Class

Chocolate scone at Dao Palo

Chocolate cups
Truffles

My first chocolate making class! I had it at Shermay's Cooking School in Holland Village. Had a yoga lesson in the morning and spend some time having lunch at Dao Palo... great food there. The chocolate scone does not have the floury after taste that most scones have. Wait till W is back, and we will have our lunch there. Just looking at the stuffed mushrooms, eggplants and pizza make me drool... although the items are abit pricey... :P

Anyway... chocolates.... the class was packed. The instructor was Frances Wong, a chef from The Patissier, along with Terence, a Temasek Poly student on attachment.

Frances is very clear in her teaching on the basics on chocolate making, tempering etc. I volunteered for the marbling and the dipping process, which was so enlightening...haha... Only Valhorna chocolate is used...so I did not waste the chocolate that was given to us for dipping. After all the ganache was dipped, the remaining chocolate was put into small little cases and dressed with almonds, chocolate pearls and stuff.

The class gave me alot of ideas for Christmas gifts which can be delivered easily. Well, apparently this is the last class of the year... Friends, if you like to attend, you have to wait till next year. This is the website, where you can find the schedule for the rest of the year... ;)

Spiral cookies

Hee, did I say I will stop at 1 cookie? I made 2! And yes, I skipped yoga class yesterday just to rush home to make all these cookies so that I can still sleep b4 12! hahaha...

There's tis website I adored for the food recipes and all related information. It's a Taiwan website and has a lot of information. Of course, its in Chinese. http://www.ytower.com.tw/

The recipe can be found here.

According to the recipe, the butter and the icing sugar has to be beaten till fluffy white. For info sake, below is my version of the butter and sugar connoction.

This is the output... Forgot that I don't have green tea powder, so I used cocoa powder instead. Let it sit in the fridge longer after you roll the pastry. The harder it is, the easier it is to cut. I left it inside the fridge for abt 2 hours. In between, I was preparing my chocolate biscotti and having dinner. :)

And the biscuits are ready to be given to my colleagues! Hope they like it... ;)

Chocolate Walnut Biscotti

Did I say I was soooo excited that I was able to be back in the kitchen??!! :D Am I glad to be back home and see all my famiiar kitchen tools again.
What's more exciting is that I found a reason to bake again! My colleagues from Thailand had came over to the SG office for a 2 day training. What's a better gift other than my own handmade cookies?
Searched a couple of blogs yesterday and came across this recipe and decided to give it a try...

First time doing biscotti, think not very successful, as u can see from the pictures...the shapes are not very uniformed. Also, I think I let the biscuit rest for too long before I cut them... they became too firm to cut properly, that's y in the end, the sides are not sharp... In fact some pieces even fell off when i cut them, as u can see from the pic below... :(

Taste wise, not bad. Instead of chocolate chips mentioned in the recipe, I took a bar of Meiji 86% dark chocolate, used the rolling pin to break into small pieces and added them in. Saved me the $ on buying choc chips... ;)

oh well, i am definitely going to try this again. Think ve to do a bit of research before rushing into it... Told W that I will prepare a new batch for him when he is back from his China trip.