An Egg in my Cheesy Toast

While somedays I want to make something super quick and easy, I wanted to spend a little bit more time and effort today.
A sunny side up egg in a toast topped with cheddar and mozarella.

A well seasoned cast iron skillet is crucial. The egg cooked nicely, and did not stick to the surface. I covered the skillet with a lid while cooking to help cook the top of the egg.

Happy Breakfast, everyone!

 

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Macaroni & Cheese

We’re making the classic child pleaser today. The Macaroni and Cheese.

I made fresh macaroni to make this. All thanks to this handy dandy machine.

It makes fresh noodles, and pasta out of flour, water, and if you fancy, some eggs.

This is how the macaroni looks like. They will all differ in terms of length because they have to each be cut individually.

Add the boiled fresh macaroni, to some milk, cream and eggs, and homemade macaroni and cheese is ready.

Much better than the boxed ones.
Here’s the recipe in Indonesian, where I am from.

Loosely translated:
Ingredients:
Macaroni & Cheese
150 grams Macaroni
2 TBS Butter
4 slices Smoked Beef, diced
50 grams Onion, chopped
100 grams Cheddar Cheese
200 ml Fresh Milk
100ml Cooking Cream
1 TBS Parsley
1/2 TSP Black Pepper

For the tops:
Parmesan and Cheddar
Instructions:

1. Boil the macaroni as according to package instructions.
2. Saute onion with butter till fragrant. Add the smoked beef, parsley and black pepper
3. Add the fresh milk ,the cooking cream, and the cheddar. Stir till the cheddar has fully melted. Turn off the heat, add the boiled macaroni.
4.  Spoon the macaroni into heatproof bowls. Sprinkle some parmesan and cheddar
5. Bake in a 170 degrees celcius preheated oven for about 20 minutes, or till the tops have turned a nice golden brown

Mango Orange Popsicles

Mango Orange Popsicles to cool off super hot summer afternoons!

We made these the night before, froze them overnight, and had them the next day for an afternoon treat.

Mango Orange Popsicle:

1/2 cup of diced, tree ripened, sweet mangoes

1 TBS orange Juice

1 cup Greek Yogurt, mixed with about 2 tbs of honey (or more to taste)

Instructions:
1. Blend mangoes with the OJ and 1/4 cup of Greek Yogurt. Spoon them to the bottom of the popsicle mold. Freeze for about 1/2 hour

2. Top with remaining Greek Yogurt, and freeze overnight

 

 

Build Your Own Pancakes Kinda Day

With the holiday season upon us, I thought it best have a little fun with their meals. Today, I made giant pancakes, with various toppings alongside to choose from.

The children were allowed to choose from the array, and slather/sprinkle as they please

It was messy, but fun.

But most importantly, the children had fun.

 

Whipping Cream Cake

In this recipe, I was trying to use up a carton of whipping cream before it goes off. Because food waste is not cool!

The resultant cake was tender, and moist (sorry for the word “moist”).

 

I’ve topped the cake with some chocolate ganache which used up even more whipping cream.

Whipping Cream Pound Cake

.

2 tsp Baking Powder

1.5 cups heavy cream.

1 tsp vanilla.

2 1/4 cup flour.

3/4 tsp salt.

3 large eggs.

1 cup sugar

.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

.

 In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Sift flour mixture and set aside

.

In a large bowl, (preferably chilled), whip the whipping cream till stiff peaks. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, beat till well combined. Gradually add the sugar.

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Fold in the flour, and pour into a greased bundt pan. Bake for about 25- 30 minutes, or till fully cooked

.

For the Ganache

.

1/4 cup whipping cream. 60 grams of dark chocolate (chopped)

.

Heat the whipping cream till bubbly. Pour the dark chocolate and stir till they melt. Pour ganache over cake. 

Unicorn Toast

Unicorn Toast Without Food Coloring

Dear my Unicorn-crazed child,

It was an exceptionally hard week for you.

Naturally Colored Cream Cheese

Daddy went away on a business trip.

Rainbow Toast

You had an emergency visit to the dentist.

Pastel Colored Cream Cheese

And you had a school workload DOUBLE the normal to make up for the previous week you were down with HFMD.

Unicorn Toast

But the weekend is here. It’s time to rest and play! And a reminder to celebrate every tiny things in life!

Baby Shark and Unicorn Toast

** I tried to keep this healthy by not using any food coloring.

The Colors were made as follows:

Purple: Cream Cheese with Mulberry Jam
Pink: Cream Cheese with Freeze Dried Strawberry
Yellow: Cream Cheese with Freeze Dried Mango
Green: Cream Cheese with Matcha

 

Buffalo Wings

Buffalo Wings. Not because they are made of buffalos, but because they originate from Buffalo, NY! 🙂
For the Breading:
1/2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 tsp Paprika
1/4 tsp salt
10 Chicken Wings
Whisk together the flour, paprika, and salt. Toss the chicken wings in till well coated. Refrigerate for 60 minutes

Heat enough oil for frying. Fry the chicken wings till golden brown.

For the hot sauce:
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup hot sauce (Tabasco)

Combine the hot sauce with the tabasco. Coat the fried wings into the mixture. Serve

 

Gingerbread Men

“What’s that Mami?”, the little one asked.

She was pointing to a page on a book I just purchased the day before.

“It’s gingerbread men. They are cookies.”, i told her.

“Cookies? one, mau (want), one” she said. She was telling me she wanted a cookie.

“You want a gingerbread cookie?”

“Mau! (“want” in Indonesian), she said affirmatively.

Seeing that we absolutely had nothing planned for the day. I led her to the kitchen.

We started mixing the dough. It was a foolproof dough, where no chilling was necessary.

I gave her a piece of dough to work with. She rolled it out.

And started stamping.

It really didn’t take any time at all.

When the gingerbread men were all baked, we went back to her book.

“Same!!!” she exclaimed gleefully, placing the cookies right on the spot on the page where the gingerbreads are.

“Yes, they are the same”, i told her.

“Gingerbread Men”, i prompted her.

“Men!”, she repeated after me, smiling as she took a bite.

Very forgiving Gingerbread Men Cookie

• 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
• 3/4 cup coconut sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger powder
• Directions: Beat together the coconut oil and coconut sugar. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

1. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, and ginger.
2. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
4. On a floured surface, roll the dough out to 1/8-inch thickness, and then cut with gingerbread men cookie cutters.
5. Place the cookies on a parchment/silpat-lined baking sheet. Bake for 8-9 minutes.
6. Allow to cool completely

Wontons!

It’s always nice to have company when you are doing something so long and labourious.

Such is the case, when i made these wonton skins from scratch today.

All i did was just give her some scraps of dough.

And she was happy imitating what i did.

It made the whole cooking process so much lighter, instead of being a chore 🙂

And two hours later, lunch was served. We had chicken and shrimp wontons 🙂

Wonton skin

1/3 cup water

1 egg

2 cups of flour

1/2 tsp salt.

whisk the egg with the water. in another bowl, sift the flour with the salt. Make a well in the centre and pour the egg mixture in. Mix and knead till the dough turns elastic and smooth. Set aside, and leave to rest for 15 minutes

For the filling

150 grams ground chicken,

100 grams ground shrimp

2 tablespoon sago flour

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

2 tablespoon soy sauce

5 shallots, chopped and lightly stir fried

1 tsp sesame oil

20 pieces of wonton wrappers

mix the all ingredients together. Place one tsp of the mixture on top of the wrapper, and wrap it up. Continue to do so, until you have finished using up your wrappers. make sure to dust the surface that you will be laying your wontons to prevent it from sticking. Bring a pot of water to boil, drop in the filled wontons, and cook till they float. Fish wontons out of the water and serve.

2015 Blueberry Cheesecake

When your child is as obsessed about blowing candles as mine, you find every reason to bake a cake and place candles on it.

And when she gives you a pleading face like that,

You cave in and allow her to stick her fingers into the cake.

Happy 2015 to all of you ! I wish you the happiest New Year ahead!

Vanilla bean cheesecake with blueberry jam

For the crust:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tbs corn starch
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 cup sygar
2 large egg yolks
2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F, generously butter the bottom and sides of a 9 inch springfom pan. Wrap the outside with aluminium foil, covering the bottom and extending all the way up the sides.

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on high until creamy. Add the egg yolks and vanilla. Beat until blended. Reduce the speen to low and mix in the flour mixture just until it disappears and a dough forms. Work the dough with your hands until it comes together in a ball. Chhill for about 30 minutes.
Flour your hands and place the dough in the centre of your pan and begin pressing with the heels of your hands from the centre outward toward the edges, working in circular motion around the pan, and up the sides. Keep pressing until the crust is flat on the bottom. Prick the crust in several places with a fork. Bake the crust just until it’s set and golden (about 15 minutes).

For the cheesecake
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean (about 7 inches long), scrapped
900 gram cream cheese
1/4 cup corn starch
1 tbs pure vanilla extract
2 extra large eggs
3/4 cup heavy cream

For the blueberry jam
250 gram blueberries
1/2 – 1 cup sugar
2 tbs lemon juice
Make and bake the cake crust, and leave it in the pan. Keep the oven on.

Put one 225 grams of the cream cheese, 1/3 cup of the granulated sugar, cornstarch and the scraped vanilla beanin a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl several times. increase the mixer speed to mendium and beat in the remaining 1 1/3 cup of sugar. Blend in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after adding each one. Beat in the cream just until completely blended, be careful not to overmix. Gently spoon batter on top of the crust.

Place the cake in a large shallow pan containing hot water that comes about 1 inch up the sides of the springform. Bake until the edges are light golden brown and the top is slightly golden tan (about 75 minutes). Remove the cake from the water bath. transfer to a wire rack and let the cake cool for 2 hours (just walk away!)

LEave the cake in the pan, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until completely cold, preferably overnight or at least 4 hours

Wash and drain blueberries. Over low heat, cook blueberries, with sugar and lemon juice until thick and syrupy.

Spoon over the cheesecake and chill.

Ghost Custard

Boo!

Another kid friendly Halloween special!

These ghost are made of stirred custard. Stirred custards are cooked over the stove top instead of the oven.

It will take you only 5 minutes!

When stirred custard have finished cooking, they will be thick. All you have to do now, is pipe your ghosts and add cacao nibs or chocolate chips for “eyes”.

Yum!

Ghost Custard

125 ml milk
25 sugar
1/4 tsp salt
15 gram arrowroot flour
Cacao Nibs for eyes

Mix all ingredients together. Cook till bubbles appear. Pour custard into pipping bag. Pipe into ghostly figures. Add cacao nibs for eyes

Green FrankenSmoothie

Hi everyone! Just dropping by to post a few healthy halloween snacks before it gets too late!

U can pretty much put in any of your favourite green smoothie here. But my toddler’s favourite green smoothie always involve frozen bananas. I’ve also added cacao nibs on top of the smoothie to create a “hair-like” effect

From the photo, creating the frankenface is pretty self explanatory.

All i did was cut up some black colored paper and stick it to the top of the glass for hair and another smaller piece shaped like stitches. I adhered all the pieces (googly eyes included) with a double tape. Dont worry, they will come right out when you peel the tape out!

Green FrankenSmoothie

1 frozen banana cut into pieces

1/4 cup coconut water

a bunch of kale

Cacao nibs for “hair”

Blend all the frozen banana, coconut water and kale. Top with cacao nibs. And serve onto decorated glass!

Coconut Flour Cookies

These cookies were actually made for my toddler.

But they tasted so good that i find my hand dipping into her little “snack catcher” repeatedly.

If you are a mom, and you didnt know what a snack catcher is, you’ve been seriously missing out.

A snack catcher, is like a bowl. But instead of a tight fitting lid, it comes with these neat plastic flaps that allow your toddler to reach into the snack without having to fuss over how to loosen a lid.  As the name implies, the flaps also act like a “catcher”. They stop the snacks inside the bowl from falling out should your toddler decide to rattle it about.

Anyway, enough about snack catchers. Let’s get back to cookies.

Because these cookies were for the most part healthy, i do not feel all that guilty reaching for an extra cookie or two. What i do feel guilty about is, i am eating HER snack.

I guess, it just means that i would have to go back into the kitchen and whip another batch sooner than i thought.

 

Coconut Flour Cookies

Recipe adapted from detoxinista

 

Ingredients

• 1 cup coconut flour (The original recipe called for 1/3 of a cup, but I used closer to a cup as my coconut flour was very coarsely ground)
• ¼ cup coconut oil, melted
• ¼ cup pure maple syrup
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 whole eggs
• Raisins for decoration

1. Preheat your oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with a parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together all ingredients till you get a dough. * Note: my batter didn’t come together with 1/3 cup of coconut flour that the original recipe asked for. I added more coconut flour so the batter could thicken, and be dough-like.
3. Use a heaping tablespoon to drop the cookie dough onto the lined baking sheet, and use a fork to flatten the cookies. Keep in mind these cookies will NOT spread on their own, so you’ll want to shape them how you’d like them to turn out.
4. Bake at 350F for 12-14 minutes, until the edges are golden brown. Allow to cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

 

 

Candy Crush Saga Cake

Pretty sure this logo needs no further introduction..

This is to encourage those who are obnoxiously “stuck” in certain levels. Do not be disheartened!

Also, to those who do not participate in candy crush activities, i ask for tolerance towards all those pesky “CANDY CRUSH SAGA requests. Do have sympathy to your fellow facebookers who are pulling at their hair trying to “level up”.

Cheers!

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

So here I am, dusting my old blog and making an entry…  There really isn’t any excuse for not posting apart from laziness. While i have been cooking and baking up a storm over the past couple of months, I haven’t been posting them up in here.

Nevertheless, it’s 10.38 pm on a Good Friday evening.  I didn’t want to miss posting a “Hot Cross Buns” recipe. Because as we all know Hot Cross Buns are made to celebrate Good Friday.  And i didn’t want to wait till Good Friday 2015 to post this up!

 

These buns were made using sourdough starter which i’ve been growing in my kitchen for the past couple of months (more on that on a later post). They were studded with raisins and are refined sugar free with the use of coconut sugar.

“Why the sudden health kick???”, u ask… Well, it’s because these buns were made with my toddler’s health in mind. And you know how paranoid mothers can get…  Plus, they are  all not that bad for you!

 

 

So here’s wishing everyone a Good Friday!

Sourdough Hot Cross Buns

250 gram bread flour

120 gram sourdough starter

50 gram coconut sugar

5 gram salt

1 egg yolk

35 grams butter

40ml milk

50 ml water

100 grams raisins

 

For the crosses, i just made a paste out of water and flour.

 

1. Mix the flour, sugar, salt and sourdough starter into a bowl. Make a well in the center, add in the egg yolk, water and milk. Pour the dough onto a kneading table, add the butter and start kneading away till the dough turns elastic and is able to be stretched to thin membrane without tearing. Add the raisins and knead till they are well distributed around the dough

2. Round the dough into a ball and leave it at room temperature, covered, till it doubles in size (about 2 hours, on a hot climate like mine).

3. Gently deflate the dough and cut the dough into balls each weighing 50 grams. Place them on your baking sheet and set aside till it doubles in size again. (about 2 hours)

4. Make a paste with flour and enough water. Pipe crosses across each bun

5. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius. Bake for about 10-15 minutes till the bread turns a nice golden brown.

 

Beer Battered Fish and Onion Rings

A few months ago, we invited some friends over and bought 3 sets of 6 pack beer to share. That’s 18 cans.

Now, without wanting to sound like an elementary school mathematical problem, we finished 14 cans amongst ourselves. There were 4 untouched cans of beer.

Fast forward three months later, there are still 4 cans of beer sitting in the fridge.

The husband wouldn’t touch them because he doesn’t like drinking alone.

And i have been alcohol free for the past two plus years after getting pregnant and currently breastfeeding my toddler.

These beer cans kinda annoy me. They were squatters which i would love to see disappear because they were just taking up precious space in my fridge. And you can say i am pretty possessive when it comes to fridge space because between HUGE watermelons, papaya and cantaloupes, i always find myself running out of refrigerator room.

So in came Aspiring Baker #38 – Boozy-licious. This month, it is hosted by Jasline of the foodie baker and the theme this month is to cook or bake with alcohol (beer included)

Gleefully, i pulled open the tab of a beer can, knowing as i did so, i will be freeing 330ml (yes that’s the volume of a can of beer) of space. This beer is going into the batter for my fish and chips tonight.

Since there were only two of us eating, i only had a few slices of fish prepped. This means i had a whole LOTTA batter leftover. And no, i wasn’t going to refrigerate this batter for later use because as i stressed on earlier, i really really like my fridge space.

A brilliant idea came to mind. I chopped up some onions, used up the remaining of the batter

So that was our meal. It’s more fried stuff than i would have ever approved. So i made a lil’ salad bed.

And of course not forgetting a lil mayo and some ketchup.

Beer Battered Fish and Chips

Recipe HERE by Paula Deen,

Taken from Food Network

Rilakkuma Omurice

I remember seeing someone doing this on the internet a few years ago.

And my first thought was…

“Geez, that’s a lot of work for a meal!!!”

And here I am, a few years later, attempting something i thought was so frivolous.

I must have had a personality transplant or something!

Or rather, the process of ageing does funny things to your brain.

So, if you are old and aged like me, and would like to do frivolous things, here’s a step by step pictorial.

One word of advise though, for the sake of your sanity,, please use the shorter grained Japanese rice for this.

Short grained Japanese rice have a stickier quality, which saves you from tearing your hair out when the balls of rice refuse to ball together.

I learned this the hard way using the regular Chinese (or was it Thai?) long grained rice.

Rilakkuma Omurice:

2 Cups of cooked Japanese Rice

1 TBS of fish sauce

1/2 TBS of soy sauce

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 TBS of oil.

Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

Heat the oil in a wok, Throw in the chopped garlic and cook till fragrant

Throw in the rice and the sauces. Mix well to combine. Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary

Japanese Omelette

2 eggs

1/2 TBS mirin

1/2 tsp soy sauce

Oil to coat the pan

Beat the eggs, mirin and soy sauce together in a bowl.

Coat your frying pan with a bit of oil and pour just enough of the mixed egg to form a thin layer of omelette.

Repeat the process till all the eggs are used.

Assembly:

I am really bad with words, so i think it is easier if you refer to the pictorial. Or if you are a youtuber, please head on over to theKKSshow’s video for her comprehensive steps on how to make the rilakkuma omurice

But do take note that her recipe differs from mine. Hers was done with tomato ketchup. Mine was soy sauce.

Cheers!

Happy Idul Adha

This cake is made to honor the cows to be slaughtered tomorrow.

And to wish all my Muslim Friends Happy Idul Adha.

Happy Holidays everyone!

 

Biscuit with Gravy

When i was making these biscuits this morning. I didn’t think that i was going to write  a blog post about them.

All i wanted was to use up the gravy that i made the day before.

My impression of biscuits was never fantastic. Gone were the days where I would nibble on a piece of tasteless, unsavoury Popeye’s biscuits.

In addition to that, biscuits were never photogenic.

Biscuits doused in pale, white-ish sauce were even less impressive.

However, i decided to weather all the negativity. Because it is of utmost importance that i were to journal this recipe.

The recipe that had the power to erase all the bad judgement i passed on all the biscuits that i ecountered before.

I’m sorry Biscuits, I’ve been harsh on you.

Original recipe makes 6 grand sized biscuits Change Servings

(taken from allrecipes.com)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1/3 cup shortening ( I used butter)
• 1 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Gradually stir in milk until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.
3. Turn out onto a floured surface, and knead 15 to 20 times. Pat or roll dough out to 1 inch thick. Cut biscuits with a large cutter or juice glass dipped in flour. Repeat until all dough is used. Brush off the excess flour, and place biscuits onto an ungreased baking sheet.
4. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges begin to brown.

And in case you were wondering about the gravy, the recipe can be found HERE

Minion Birthday Cake

Just a short post, to flaunt my cake.

There are flaws in this cake. The straps of the goggles were falling off. Parts of the fondant was wrinkled.

But i choose to ignore them all and reach for a nearby banana.

seriously, the song was stuck to my head as i was creating this

“ba ba ba.. ba ba nana, BANANAAAH, Potato- naaahh”

 

Happy Birthday to my nephew Brian who just turned 4!

I hope you liked the cake auntie made for you!

 

And I dont know how Gru creates his minions. But here’s how i created mine:

Popay!!!

 

DIY Rice Noodles in Soy Sauce

Besides being swamped with handling the payroll at work on the first day of every month, I like to do a little what i call “blog event browsing”

It’s the time of the month where i poke my nosey nose at the various blogs that’s hosting some of my favourite blog events.

So, the theme of this month’s Little Thumbs Up is Soya Bean

And since Mich, the host, was kind enough to open this event to dishes with at least 2 tsp of soy sauce. Our breakfast of DIY Rice Noodles automatically qualified as they were practically swimming in soy sauce!

The rice rolls came out so silky soft that i decided that they were fitting for my 14 month toddler with +- 8 teeth.

Her version was drenched with carrots, corn and some bone broth.

So here goes!

Homemade Rice Rolls

Makes about 5 rolls

150ml water

40 grams rice flour

1/2 tbs cornstarch

1/2 tbs wheat starch

1/2 tbs cooking oil

pinch of salt

Sift the rice flour, corn starch, wheat starch and salt into a large bowl

Gradually, while whisking, pour the water into the flour, making sure that there is no lump.

Add the oil and set aside for 30 minutes

Place an oiled tray into a steamer. When the water in the steamer has come to a boil, Give the batter a good stir and ladle a think layer of batter into the oiled tray.

Cover and steam on high heat for 5 minutes.

Remove tray from steamer, let cool.

Using a spatula, carefully lift one edge of the cooked rice roll and roll it up into a cylinder.

Continue to steam the rest of the batter until it is used up.

Soy Sauce dressing

1 TBS oil

4 slices of ginger

2 TBS sugar

50 ml of soy sauce

50 ml water

Heat the oil, ginger and sugar till the sugar turns syrupy. Add the water and the soy sauce. Let the mixture come to a boil

To serve. Place the rice rolls onto a plate and ladle the soy sauce dressing over it.

This post is linked to the event, Little Thumbs up organised by Doreen from my little favourite DIY and Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, hosted by Mich of Piece of Cake at this post.

Indonesian FoodBlogger Challenge- Cassava & Yoghurt

A glance at this photo wouldn’t have you guessing of the crazy that went behind making it.

This donut combines two of the most unfitting ingredients ever thought of in a challenge.

Cassava and Yogurt.

The Indonesian Foodblogger has outdone itself by challenging its members to use these two ingredients in a dish.

And if you think things couldnt get any worse, I’ve further outdone myself by choosing another fermenting component on top of my fermenting milk product (read: yogurt).

Yup, you guessed it, this donut is made from fermenting cassava.

While i would love to go on and on about the benefits of food that has been fermented, this donut is not it.

Because all the goodness in eating live organisms went out the window when i drowned these donuts in a pool of hot oil.

But what about the yogurt, you ask?

Well, the yogurt was sugared, egged and cooked to make pastry cream!

Oh wells, YOLO !

So while this donut may not be the healthiest snack.I am glad I took up the challenge to combine two incomplementary product to make a mind blowing dessert.

Here’s to you, IDFB!

Donut tape Singkong (Recipe in Indonesian)

Taken from Sajian Sedap

Bahan:
300 gram tepung terigu protein tinggi
100 gram tepung terigu protein sedang
6 gram ragi instan
35 gram gula pasir
15 gram susu bubuk  (Saya pake creamer)
1/2 sendok teh baking powder
200 gram tape singkong
1 butir telur
175 ml air es
40 gram margarin
1 sendok teh garam
minyak padat untuk menggoreng

Cara membuat:

1. Campur tepung terigu, ragi instan, gula pasir, susu bubuk, dan baking powder. Aduk rata. Tambahkan tape singkong. Uleni rata.
2. Masukkan telur dan air es sedikit-sedikit sambil diuleni sampai kalis. Masukkan margarin dan garam. Uleni sampai elastis. Diamkan 15 menit.
3. Kempiskan adonan. Timbang masing-masing 35 gram. Bulatkan. Diamkan 10 menit.
4. Pipihkan adonan. Bentuk bulat lagi. Letakkan di loyang yang ditabur tipis tepung terigu. Diamkan 45 menit sampai mengembang.
5. Goreng dalam minyak padat yang sudah dipanaskan di atas api sedang sampai matang. Dinginkan.

Yogurt Pastry Cream

• 2 cups strawberry flavoured yogurt (Heavenly Blush)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1. In a medium saucepan, combine milk, sugar,and salt. Cook over medium heat until mixture comes to a simmer.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg yolks, and cornstarch. Whisking constantly, slowly pour hot-yogurt mixture into the egg-yolk mixture. Pour mixture back into saucepan, and cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until it thickens (about 2 minutes).
3. Add the butter, and stir into the mixture. Let the mixture cool.
4. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly onto the surface of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until chilled. Pour into a pipping bag fitted with the longest pipping tip you can find at home.

To assemble:

Take a piece of the donut. Push the tip of the pastry cream filled pipping bag into the middle. Squeeze gently to fill the donut with the pastry cream

For the garnish, melt some hot chocolate over a double boiler. and dip the donut tops into it.

Penne Alfredo

Ree’s blog at the pionerwoman always gives me the giggles. She’s always so witty in her description.

And when i was vacationing in the US two years ago, I was lucky enough to catch snippets of her cooking show. In fact i made sure i stayed back in the hotel just to catch her show. Imagine, passing the opportunity to sight-see Times Square in New York to catch Ree Drummond!

So when this month’s cook like a star chose Ree to be their featured chef. I was more than willing to pitch in.

Cook like a Star is a montly event organised by Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids, Yen from Eat your heart out and Mich from Piece of Cake.

are my blogging friends that have joined me cooking for this event. Please visit their blogs for more of their 5-stars cooking.  – See more at: http://bakeforhappykids.blogspot.com/#sthash.SR8KK3va.dpuf

So here goes my Penne Alfredo.

I’ve made this dish quite a couple of times. But i’ve never blogged about it because the final pale color of this dish never inspired me enough to pull out my camera. Don’t get me wrong. This dish tastes amah-zing! just that the colors was a bit drab.

Today however was different. I was armed with parsley leaves and tomatoes. They make the perfect garnish.

Enjoy!

Penne Chicken Alfredo

Taken from The pioneerwoman

Prep Time:

5 Minutes

Cook Time:

20 Minutes

Difficulty:

Easy

Servings:

6

Ingredients

• 12 ounces, weight Bowtie Pasta (farfalle)- i used Penne
• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• Salt And Pepper, to taste
• 2 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 3/4 cups Dry White Wine (may Substitute Low-sodium Chicken Broth)
• 1/2 cup Half-and-half
• 3 Tablespoons Heavy Cream
• Low Sodium Chicken Broth, As Needed For Thinning – I used homemade bone broth
• 3/4 cups Parmesan Shavings Or Grated Parmesan
• 2 Tablespoons Fresh Parsley, Minced

Preparation Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions. Drain and set aside.

Salt and pepper both sides of the chicken breasts. Heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken breasts and cook until deep golden brown on both sides and done in the middle. Remove from the skillet, slice into thin strips, and set aside.

Add additional 2 tablespoons of butter to the skillet, followed by the minced garlic. Stir the garlic around the pan to avoid burning, and cook for 1 minute. Pour in wine (or broth), then let it bubble up and reduce for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. Add half-and-half, cream, and extra salt and pepper, whisking constantly until it’s all combined. Allow liquid to heat up and thicken for a few minutes. If it gets too thick, you may thin it with a little chicken broth.

When the sauce looks good, remove it from the heat. Add Parmesan to the pan, then throw the hot pasta right on top of it. Toss it a bit. Add the chicken and continue tossing until it’s all combined. Again, if it gets too gloopy, splash in a little broth (you may return the pan to low heat if it needs it.)

Taste it, adjust seasonings, and top with minced parsley and extra Parmesan. Serve immediately!

 

 

 

Cendol

It’s such a shame if i were to miss this month’s Little Thumbs Up chosen theme of Pandan. Especially since i have an overgrown pandan shrub at my mini garden, outside my house.

I didn’t want to make a pandan chiffon cake. That’s a bit overdone

I wanted to make a cool refreshing cup of cendol, an Indonesian (or is it Malaysian?) dessert of coconut milk sweetened with palm sugar.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs which contrary to our long standing beliefs, regard that coconut milk is good for you. especially when it’s served raw. Ditto for palm sugar in relation to our common out of the mill white sugar.

I didn’t have a problem with those findings. In fact, i am ecstatic. Indonesia is like a coconut depot. i can get a whole coconut for less than USD 50 cents and get:

•  1. coconut water (another superfood),
•  2 coconut milk,
• 3. coconut shavings (which can be ground into coconut flour).

Talk about  making your dollar stretch!

So, back to my cendol adventure. I just had a very tiny, insignificant problem: I didnt have that fancy tool needed to make the cendol strands!

*image taken from alatapa.blogspot.com

right, like i would let that get in the way.

So here i go, showing you a step by step pictorial on making cendol. If you’ve been following this blog, you probably noticed that i almost never do a step by step.

A good reason for that is my kitchen is like a hot mess each time i am in it.

a better reason is that i was always too lazy.

But here i am, laziness cast aside.

First, we snip the pandan leaves like so. Drop them into a blender and…

BLEND!

When all the leaves have been blended to pulp sized, and your water is a nice shade of green, you strain it to catch all the water, and discard the pandan leaves pulp.

Pour the green pandan water into your flour which is made up of hunkwee flour, rice flour, and sago flour. Whisk the mixture till well combined.

Restrain this flour mixture, to get rid of any lumps that might form during whisking.

Next, find the biggest cooking vessel at your home.

For me, it’s my giant chinese wok.

Cook over low heat while whisking till the mixture thickens like so:

If you have that fancy cendol tool, good for you!

If you dont, you just have to be extra creative.

Today i used a pipping bag.

Get out your oven mitt! Because you are gonna squeeze the hot pandan mixture into an awaiting bowl of ice cold water. Do not wait for the mixture to cool or it won’t gel!

Next we go to assembly.

A nice serving of melted palm sugar (gula melaka)

Spoon some of that cendol you just made in…

Okay, without the cendol maker, these may be fatter than your average cendol. That’s ok. No one minds. I’m cool with it. You’re cool with it. We’re cool.

Top with coconut milk, freshly squeezed of course.

All the way to the top! *In my haste to taste the drink, I don’t have a picture of the finished glass of cendol with coconut milk all the way to the top.*

Pandan Water:

50 grams of Pandan Leaves snipped

325 grams of water

Blend the pandan leaves with the water till the leaves are pulped, and the water turns a nice shade of green. Strain the mixture.

The dry ingredients:

25 grams hunkwee flour (Mung Bean flour)

20 grams rice flour

5 grams sago flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 TBS sugar

Whisk the flours together. Add the sugar and salt. Stir to combine.

Pour the pandan water into the flour mixture. Give a good stir. Strain the mixture for any lumps.

Prepare a basin of ice water, ice cubes are welcome. Prepare oven mittens and a pipping bag.

Pour strained mixture into a wok. Cook over low heat till thickened

Pour it into a pipping bag. Using the oven mitts, gently squeeze the cendol into the basin of ice water.

To asemble:

1 L of Freshly squeezed coconut milk, salted with 1tsp of salt.

2 blocks of gula melaka, melted (add water if too thick).

Ladle some of the gula melaka onto an awaiting cup. Ladle some of the cendol, and top the glass with the freshly coconut milk. Enjoy at room temperature or with ice 🙂

I am submitting this post to Little Thumbs Up September – Pandan hosted by Joceline @ Butter, Flour & Me, organized by Zoe@ Bake For Happy Kids and Mui Mui @ My Little Favourites DIY.

Peach Pie

I am taking a break from all the healthy, wholesome cooking to make way for this peach pie.

This pie is a full butter, double crusted, gluten-full pie made from refined white wheat flour.

The peaches came from a can which probably leached BPA.

White refined sugar was added to the peaches.

While the overall goal here is to make healthier, whole foods to feed my family. I’m taking baby steps towards it.

That canned peach? It was something I unwittingly bought a few months ago. I am using it as I am clearing my pantry of the less healthy food items and replacing it with the healthier ones.

Having said that, I don’t think i will go to the extremeties such as completely eliminating a certain food.

I ‘ll still use wheat flour to create gluten-full bread.

I will still dump cupfuls of sugar into my cookies. ( well, maybe I will hold back just a little)

My version of “healthy” is defined in the most universal way. Health ideas that most of us can unanimously agree on. And my first focus would be to buy ingredients as fresh and as less processed as possible.

I really don’t like the idea of reading the ingredient list on  say, a pack of biscuit in the supermarket and not being able to pronounce some of the items listed there, be it preservatives, additives, or even coloring,  So if i were really craving for that pack of biscuit, i would load up my grocery cart with flour, butter, sugar and whatever it takes to make that biscuit.

So wish me luck everyone. *tosses empty can of peach*

Peach Pie

Makes a small pie with a diameter of about 12 cm

80 grams flour

60 grams butter, cubed and frozen

pinch of salt

pinch of sugar

1 to 1.5 tablespoon ice cold water

Filling

1 tbs beaten egg

1 cup of peaches (I used canned peach)

1 tbs flour

25 grams sugar

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of salt

1/2 tbs butter

1. In a food processor, add the flour, salt and sugar and pulse a couple of times.

2. Add the butter, and pulse a few times until the mixture resembles peas.

3. Add ice water and pulse. The dough should start to hold together.

4. Remove dough from the food processor, and place it over your working surface. Form the dough into two discs, cover in pastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

5. Preheat oven to 425 F

6. Take the dough discs and roll it out till it’s at least 18 cm in diameter.

7. Place the rolled dough and arrange it into the pie dish. Brush the pie crust with egg whites so that it doesnt get soggy.

8. In a large bowl, place the sliced peaches. In another bowl, mix the flour, sugar cinnamon,salt and the beaten egg. Pour the mixture over the sliced peaches and mix gently with a wooden spoon.

9. Roll the second disc of dough to make the top crust. Cut small round holes into the disc to let air during baking

10. Spoon peaches onto the pie dish, cover with the second dough, folding the edges under.Dip a fork in the egg wash, and start pressing the edges with the tines of the fork.

11. Bake for 10 mins in a preheated oven. the reduce the heat to 350 F and bake for an additional 30-35 mins.

12. Cool before removing from pie dish,

 

 

Coconut Flour Banana Chiffon Cake

I’ve been observing numerous foodblogs and their abstinence to grains.

A Grain-Free diet, as they call it, is a diet devoid of grains. This includes things like rice, barley, oats, etc.

To summarize, ALL the flours in my pantry, be it rice flour, wheat flour or corn flour unmitigatedly  breach this grain free diet.

“So what the heck are you supposed to bake with?” screamed the baker in me.

Well, take it easy, Because baking is still possible without the above mentioned flours. Days after days of blogstalking activities revealed that almond flour (almond being a nut, not a grain), and coconut flour (coconut is a fruit), are the top favourites amongst the grain-free dieters.

And since i live in the tropics where coconuts are aplenty. I am using coconut flour on this grain free adventure

 

but WHY ???? you ask. Aren’t grains good for you? Aren’t they full of fiber? Don’t they reduce the risk of heart diseases.

Well, i guess there are two sides to every story.

The followers of a grain free diet believe that:

1. Grain are inflammatory food due to its high starch content.
Grains that are refined have higher inflammatory index than unrefined grains. So a white flour is more inflammatory than a whole wheat flour.

2. Grain contain phytic acid which binds minerals and prevent absorbtion.
This pretty much means that you won’t be able to fully and effeciently absorb the minerals that the grains boasts about.

3. Grains are linked to tooth decay.
High starches in grain is a breeding ground for bacterial growth in your mouth.

There are probably a more extensive list of the detrimental effects of grains. But I’ll leave it up to you guys to research into it on your own. My brain is starting to hurt just by highlighting the three points above. I guess i could never look into health advisor as an occupation.

Sugar Free Coconut Flour Chiffon Banana Cake with blueberries

Makes two ramekins

5 grams coconut flour
1 egg yolk (preferable organic)

10 grams coconut oil

10 grams coconut milk

60 grams ripe bananas, mashed

1 egg white

a handful of frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 165 C (330 F).

Mix egg yolk, mashed banana, coconut flour, oil, and milk into a bowl. Stir till you get a smooth batter

Beat egg white till stiff peak.

Fold egg white into banana batter

Transfer batter into ramekins

Drop blueberries on the batter

Bake for +- 20 minutes or till the cake turns a golden brown

 

 

Nigella’s Caramel Croissant Pudding

What strikes me the most about Nigella Lawson is her beauty.

It’s almost a pity that she is hosting a cooking show instead of starring in a blockbuster movie. What a waste of pretty face, me thinks.

After watching numerous episodes of her show, I’ve come to conclude that Nigella’s style of cooking comes with a careless wanton. She is not very rigid on her measurements. It’s always a “drizzle of this” or a “handful of that”. That doesn’t sit well with me. My sense of estimation is tragically useless.

Thankfully, someone was able to convert her recipes into teaspoons, tablespoons and cups. Precise instructions are my bedrock. Without it, I am just a piece of wood drifting about cluelessly in the world of culinary.

So the recipe I’ve chosen for this month’s cook like a star , organised by Bake for Happy Kids, Joyce from Kitchen Flavours and Anuja from Simple Baking –  is Nigella’s Caramel croissant pudding.

 

What made this pudding stand out is the use of croissant instead of the common stale bread. This made a very soft, melt-in-your-mouth pudding texture which you barely have to chew.

So, grab a spoon and dig in!

Recipe taken from Food Network.

Caramel Croissant Pudding

Ingredients

2 stale croissants
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons bourbon
1/2 cup whole milk
2 eggs, beaten

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Tear the croissants into pieces and put in a small gratin dish; I use a cast iron oval with a capacity of about 500ml/ 2 cups for this.

Put the sugar and water into a saucepan, and swirl around to help dissolve the sugar before putting the saucepan on the hob over medium to high heat. Caramelize the sugar and water mixture by letting it bubble away until it all turns a deep amber colour; this will take 3 to 5 minutes. Keep looking but don’t be too timid.

Take the pan off the heat and add the cream – ignoring all spluttering – followed by the bourbon and milk. Whisk to mix, then still whisking add the beaten eggs. Pour this quickly over the croissants and leave to steep for 10 minutes.

Place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes and prepare to swoon.

 

Fast food @ home

I am currently reading a book titled “the super natural home” by Beth Greer. In this book, Beth tells us about the toxins that we unwittingly expose to ourselves daily and what we can do to avoid or rather minimize them.

In a chapter of the book, she mentioned about her daughter coming home having eaten two pieces of McNuggets. She said, and i quote : “the dreaded food made from highly processed reconstituted chicken that is breaded and mixed with toxic additives and preservatives , then deep fried in fat-laden, partially hydrogenated oil.”

Also in the recent news was Jamie Oliver winning his case against McDonald’s over the use of pink slime, Where he pointed out that the meat in the burger patties had been pre-treated with a cocktail of chemicals and thus not fit for human consumption. McDonald’s has since agreed to change its recipe.

But, I don’t think i will be going to the golden arches for a while now.

So instead, i try to re-create. I’ve even gone a step further by making my own burger buns!

So here i am with my sausage patty burger. Appearance wise, it’s a far cry from the McDonald’s sausage McMuffins. Namely because i’ve used burger buns instead of english muffins and added the lettuce and tomatoes which are absent from the original.

The sausage patty tasted pretty close. I can confidently say that because Mr. Crustabakes who had absolutely no inkling of my copycat attempt pointed out the taste resemblance.

So, do try it out and save yourselves a trip to the drive-thru!

Simple Homemade Sausage Patties

Taken from MarthaStewart.com

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground pork- i used chicken
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon dried sage, crumbled
• 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon dried fennel, crushed
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large egg white
• 2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Directions

1. Step 1

   Mix together the pork, garlic, sage, thyme, fennel, nutmeg, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Add the egg white and combine thoroughly. Cover and chill for at least 15 minutes.

2. Step 2

   To easily form the sausage patties, rinse your hands in cold water. Divide the mixture into eighths and shape each portion into a 2 1/2-inch disk. Patties can be made to this point and refrigerated or frozen until ready to use.

3. Step 3

   Heat a skillet over high heat, and then swirl in the oil. Fry the sausages on both sides until completely cooked through and golden brown, about 4 minutes per side. Drain and serve immediately with pancakes, waffles or eggs. Sausage patties can be fully cooled, wrapped, and frozen for microwave reheating.

 

Beautiful Burger Buns

Taken from King Arthur Flour

1. Volume
2. Ounces
3. Grams

Buns

• 3/4 to 1 cup lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 large egg
• 3 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 tablespoon instant yeast
• *For best results (a smooth, slightly soft dough), use the smaller amount of water in summer (or in a humid environment), the greater amount in winter (or in a dry climate); and something in between the rest of the time.

Topping

• 3 tablespoons melted butter

Directions

1) Mix and knead all of the dough ingredients — by hand, mixer, or bread machine — to make a soft, smooth dough.

2) Cover the dough, and let it rise for 1 to 2 hours, or until it’s nearly doubled in bulk.

3) Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into 8 pieces. Shape each piece into a round ball; flatten to about 3″ across. Place the buns on a lightly greased or parchment-lined baking sheet, cover, and let rise for about an hour, until noticeably puffy.

4) Brush the buns with about half of the melted butter.

5) Bake the buns in a preheated 375°F oven for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden. Remove them from the oven, and brush with the remaining melted butter. This will give the buns a satiny, buttery crust.

6) Cool the buns on a rack.

Yield: 8 large buns.

 

 

 

 

 

Caitlyn’s Sugar Free Cupcakes with Avocado Frosting

I know, i know, majority of you would probably feel repulsed by yet another sugar free, gluten free baby food.

But i feel the need to post this recipe, namely because it’s a recipe I’ve developed myself.

After rounds and rounds of trial error, I’ve finally came up with a cake recipe i really loved.

A cake recipe that’s subtly sweet and soft as can be.

Considering that this is an entirely sugar free (refined/unrefined, synthetic/natural), this is quite a breakthrough. No stevia, no xylitol, or any of that fancy sweeteners was used here.

The goodness came from ripe bananas.

Working with my sugar free constraints, I also wanted to come up with a frosting that’s equally healthy for these cupcakes. For days, I find myself sometimes staring into blank space. I just couldn’t think of something that’s naturally sweet and is thick enough to pipe.

Then the idea hit me. avocadoes! At first I was skeptical, I didnt know whether blended avocadoes would be too watery. I also thought that avocadoes would be too tasteless as a frosting. That’s when i decided to drop in some medjool dates in. And boy, did it work like a charm! and most importanly, baby Caitlyn loves it!

 

Sugar Free, Gluten Free Chiffon cake with Avocado Date Frosting

Makes 3 of the above star shaped cupcakes

15 grams rice flour

5 grams sago flour

1 organic egg yolk

8 grams olive oil

11 grams raw almond milk

60 grams banana, mashed

1 organic egg white

Preheat oven to 170 degree celcius.

In a bowl, mix the yolk, raw almond milk, bananas, and olive oil together. Sift in the flours.

Beat the egg whites till stiff peaks.

Fold the egg whites into the banana mixture.

Pour into mold and bake till golden brown (+- 20 to 25 minutes)

Avocado Frosting

1 avocado

1 medjool date

With a blender, blend the avocado and the date together.

Using a piping bag, pipe onto cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

 

Durian Cream Puff

Mr. Crustabakes is never one to care for diplomacy.

If i made something that didn’t appeal to his delicate taste buds, he’ll express it point blank.

He calls it “being honest”. i call it “tactless”

So when he said “I wish to eat this at least ONE more time in my life”. It was the crowning accomplishment of all my baking history.

I couldn’t believe it came from a cream puff.

DURIAN cream puff to be exact.

I wish it were something more sophisticated, more cosmopolitan. Like a macaron.

But homeboy likes it “domestic” (He grew up in Singapore)

Which is ironic because the durian in the filling came all the way from Thailand. I’ve splurged and bought the premier Monthong Durian which were guaranteed of its sweetness.

If you were wondering why i am making so many durian themed dessert,

It’s because i am entering my second post to July’s Aspiring baker: Tropical Spiky Month, hosted by Charmaine of Mimi Bakery House

Also because i have a durian crazed husband, who loves durian in everything.

Choux Paste Recipe (makes 2)

50 ml water

32 gram butter

38 grams all purpose flour

1 egg

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius

Over the stove, heat the water and butter together till it comes to a rolling boil. Add all the flour and salt, and mix till it comes together in a dough. Set aside to cool.

Add the egg, and beat into the dough. Mix till well combined.

Put dough into pipping bag, and pipe on greased baking paper

Bake for 30 mins or till the choux turn golden brown

Cool completely before filling.

 

Durian Filling

Whipping cream 30 grams

Durian Flesh 90 grams

whip the cream till soft peaks, Add the durian flesh, and mix till well combined.

 

 

Durian Pancakes

This dish is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Neither is it for the faint of nose.

 

I was folding the durian filling into this pancakes when i noticed the onset of a headache.

I thought i was imagining it. But then the hired help made a passing remark (she literally walked passed me and made the remark) “the smell of durian is making me dizzy”.

Geez, i didnt even know HOW that could be possible.

Nevertheless, headache or not, i still scarfed down three of these.

Strangely enough, eating these didn’t give me a headache.

So go figure!

PS: I am entering this to July’s aspiring baker

The theme for this month is : Tropical Spiky Month

hosted by Charmaine of MiMi Bakery House.

Thanks Charmaine for hosting!

Durian Pancake

250 gram all purpose flour

3 eggs

500 ml coconut milk (freshly squeezed)

pinch of salt

Whisk the eggs and coconut milk together. Add in the salt.

Slowly pour the coconut milk mixture into the flour

Cook it on a nonstick pan. I used about one spoon ladle for each layer of pancake.

Durian filling:

Durian flesh (+- 220 grams)

Whipping cream (70 grams)

whip the cream till soft peaks. Add the durian flesh and mix till combined

Spoon the durian flesh onto the durian pancakes and fold it like an envelope.

 

 

 

 

Cinnamon French Toast with Red Berry Sauce

I’ve never really known how to spell “cinnamon”. I always get confused with double ‘N’s or double ‘M’s, or double both.

What i always do is, i type them in and try the different combinations till the red wriggly line, which signify a spelling error is gone. That’s on good days. Sometimes, i don’t even bother. Who cares if i spell “cinammon” wrong? I am pretty sure everyone still knows i am referring to that bark of a spice.

Nevertheless, here’s a cinnamon (Ha! I got it right @ first try) French Toast with Red Berry Sauce. I decided to make this because :

1. I’ve just made a loaf of sandwich bread, which means i could cut them up as thick as desired.

2. I’ve got spare berries lurking about in the fridge

3. I wanted to join the “cook like a star” organised by Zoe of Bake for Happy Kids, Baby Sumo from Eat your heart out and Grace from Life can be simple.

 

The selected star for the month of July is Curtis Stone. I know him from watching snippets of “take home chef” whereby he surprises his guests going into their homes and cooking for them.

So, here’s your “berry” delicious toast Curtis. Enjoy the month of July where everyone will be flocking to your site to join the event. 😉

Serves 4

Ingredients

Red Berry Sauce

1 6-ounce/170g package fresh blueberries
1 6-ounce/170g package fresh raspberries
1 4.4-ounce/125g package fresh blackberries
3/4 cup/180ml sugar

French Toast

6 large eggs
4 1/2-inch-thick slices brioche bread, halved diagonally
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/3 cup crème fraîche
Assorted fresh berries

Method

1. To prepare the red berry sauce: Combine all the berries and sugar in a blender and puree until smooth.
2. Strain the berry puree through a fine sieve, discarding the seeds, and into a small saucepan.
3. Place the saucepan over medium-low heat and simmer for 2 minutes, stirring frequently.
4. Remove from the heat and keep warm while preparing the French toast.
5. To prepare the French toast: Using a fork, beat the eggs in a 13×9 baking dish to blend. Place the slices of brioche in the eggs and let stand for 5 minutes, or until the eggs are absorbed, turning the brioche slices once.
6. Melt the butter on a heavy large griddle pan over medium heat.
7. Add the brioche slices to the hot pan and cook for about 2 minutes per side, or until golden brown on the outside and heated through.
8. Meanwhile, stir the sugar and cinnamon on a large plate; set aside. Immediately place the hot French toast in the cinnamon-sugar and turn to coat completely.
9. Divide the French toast among 4 serving plates.
10. Top with a dollop of crème fraîche. Spoon the berry puree over the French toast.
11. Scatter the fresh berries over and serve immediately.

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Meet the new popstar: Rainbow Pop!

After my mini success with the homemade sprinkles, i was hooked.

Baby Cait is at an impressionable age where her senses and motoric skills are developing and need to be stimulated.

So when Eugenie of Eugenie kitchen came up with her Rainbow Pop, I couldnt be more delighted.

This rainbow pop has got colors that captivate and freezing temperature to excite. And it’s made from 100%fruits with NO sugar, coloring, jello, or any other fancy shmancy.

Healthy food doesn’t have to be boring. All it takes is a little bit of time, effort and creativity.

And here’s a little “Cait comics” I made. It’s her first experience with a popsicle!

Rainbow Pop is made of

Watermelon Juice,

Orange Juice,

Pineapple Juice

Kiwi Juice

and Blueberry Juice

 

 

Homemade Sprinkles

Ever since Baby Caitlyn started her solids, I’ve been really watchful of what she eats.

I go out of my way to ensure that all her meals were homemade and prepared with the freshest ingredients that were free of unecessary toxic chemicals. Yes, i am one of those pesky mothers who insist on organic produce.

I want her food to be healthy, wholesome and nourishing. I don’t want her to grow up mindlessly eating sugar laden cereal for breakfast, fast food burger and fries for lunch and takeaway pizza for dinner.

I want her to respect and enjoy food (and its preparation), the way I’m enjoying myself making meals daily for my family.

Geez, how can all the above sentences start with “I” when it’s all actually about her?

To be fair,  I (there I go again…) also dont want her to be the “weird” kid singled out at school with steamed brusselsprout in her lunch box.  I want Caitlyn to be the “cool” kid with the sprinkled chocolate bread in her lunch box.

Like so:

Made of icing sugar and cornstarch, this sprinkle is free of synthetic dyes, wax and whatever unpronounce-able ingredients that plague the storebought variety.

I used raspberry juice for the pink sprinkles,  and purple sweet potato for the purple one.

I’m really excited about this. I bet i can make the whole spectrum of colors with other fruit juices and vegetables out there.

So come on, bring out the child in you and sprinkle some fun on your food!

Home made Pink sprinkle:

2 tablespoon of icing sugar

1/4 tsp of cornstarch

1 – 2  tsp of raspberry juice (strained of seeds)

Mix the ingredients together to form a thick batter of pipe-able consistency. The consistency of the batter should “sheeting” (batter should fall in sheets when lifted with spatula).

Fill your pipping bag with the batter. Cut ever so small an opening.

Pipe the batter in straight lines across a pre-greased parchment paper.

Let the piped sugar dry. It will harden as it dry

The sprinkle is ready to use.

 

 

Chocolate Bread Recipe:

This is actually a recipe for a doughnut, but instead of frying, i decided to bake it instead.

Recipe taken from Resep donut Ala Jco by Fatmah Bahalwan

A

225 grams bread flour

7 grams instant yeast

150 ml water

0.25 tsp salt

Mix the ingredients together and set aside to proof for 90 mins.

 

B:

50 gr bread flour

30 grams sugar

15 grams milk powder

30 grams shortening

1 egg yolk

Mix ingredients B together, then knead it into ingredients A.

Preheat oven to 170 degree

Continue kneading till the dough is no longer sticky and is elastic.

Set aside to rest for 10 minutes.

Shape the dough into balls and let it proof for another 30 mins

Bake at 170 degree for +- 15 mins.

When the bread is cooked and cooled, dip it into the chocolate and sprinkle the sprinkles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Baby Caitlyn!

On this date last year, I was making breakfast for your dad when i experienced a bout of intense stomach contractions that made me grip the kitchen counter.

“Is this it?”, I thought to myself panicking. I glanced at my unpacked “maternity” luggage a few feet away from the kitchen door. I’m not due until two weeks later.

“Let’s not panic”, I thought to myself. First time mothers usually take up to 15 hours to birth their child, i soothed myself , remembering my doctor’s words.

I finished scrambling my eggs of a breakfast, and fetched my list of “to brings” that the hospital gave me.

I scanned the list. Another wave of panic attack came over me.  “Breast pump”, i whispered aloud. I cursed myself repeatedly for stalling in buying one. A vision of my sister who successfully breastfed her kids till they were two years old each came into my mind. ” You need breast pump. It is very, very,VERY important”.

I pushed that out of my mind, I wondered if I could actually purchase breastpump while IN labor. I went into the shower, and spent a good 15 minutes not doing anything. Just standing under the warm running water (Green activists can hate me for wasting water, but please bear with the panic stricken mother-to-be).

The warm water felt comforting. The contractions didn’t reappear. I composed myself. Maybe it’s just a false alarm. I got dressed and got ready for work, vowing to buy breastpumps later that evening.

On the way to work, another wave of strong contractions made me close my eyes and wince in surrender. I dialled the hospital’s number and made an appointment to see the doctor. It was the smartest thing I’ve ever done, because 14 hours later, a slimy screaming baby was pulled out of me.

“Happy Birthday Baby Caitlyn”. May you be blessed with a wealth of health and love.Mommy can’t even begin to describe how much she loves you.

PS: this is a two tiered cake. The first tier is a sugar free cake for Caitlyn, the second layer is just an average sponge cake for adults.

Sugar Free Sponge Cake with Pear Jam:

For a 10 cm cake

1 egg yolk

2 egg whites

35 ml pear concentrate (made by simmering 105 ml of pear juice till it reduced to third)

15 grams olive oil

25 grams AP flour

5 grams cornflour

Boil olive oil with pear concentrate till the mixture steams. Set aside to warm

Add in egg yolk to the olive oil mixture. Slowly stir in the AP and cornflour.

Beat egg whites till soft peaks. Fold into the flour mixture.

Bake at 170 degree till cooked (+-15 minutes )

Slice the cake halfway, spread the sugar free pear jam and sandwich it with the top layer.

Sugar Free Pear Jam

50ml of homemade pear concentrate (made by simmering 150 ml of pear juice till it reduced to a third)

1/2 tsp arrowroot starch, dissolved in a bit of water.

Stir the arrowroot starch into the pear concentrate.

Simmer till thick and bubbly

Set aside to cool

I am entering this post into the Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, organized by Amy simplysugarandglutenfree. Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays is a very delightful weekly linky which aims at sharing gluten and sugar free recipes. While this recipe is not gluten free, it is still a very healthful sugar free recipe 😉

Food Combining Diet

I am not sure how big “Food Combining” is in the world out there. But here in Indonesia, it’s pretty big.

I’ve read a few publishings and articles regarding Food Combining. And like all diets (raw food, vegan, paleo…), there are a few rules to follow.

One of the most basic rules to follow is that you should only eat fruits, and only fruits, till 12 noon. While at first, this sounded silly, the reasoning behind it does make some sense.

If i didn’t grasp it wrongly, the body is set to rid itself of waste matters between the hours of 4a.m till 12 noon. As such, you do not want to burden your digestives with heavy meals. As fruits mostly consist of sugar and water, they are therefore the most recommended items for you breakfast plate.

So here’s what breakfast looks like:

It’s just shredded rock melon within watermelon juice.

And it’s pretty refreshing!

I’m not sure how long this Food Combining diet will last. I’m not even sure i can last till 12 noon with only fruits. But for now, I’m pretty happy with my drink!

 

 

 

 

 

Pink Macarons

Said relative who recently opened a cafe wanted macarons on her menu. And again, i was tasked to experiment with recipes for both shell and filling…

So here you go!

I’m not exactly an expert on macarons.

But i hope these are good enough to display..

Laduree’s Macarons Framboise 
Raspberry Macarons 
Taken from Not So Humble Pie
Yields approximately 50-60 1″ cookies


Macaron shells 
275g (2 3/4 cups + 1 tbsp) ground almonds (almond flour)
250g (2 cups + 1 tbsp) confectioners (icing) sugar
210g (6 1/2) egg whites (I used fresh egg whites)
210g (1 cup + 1 tbsp) granulated sugar
a few drops red or maroon food coloring gel

To make the macaron cookies. Preheat your oven to 300°F with an oven rack in the lower third (If your cookies tend to burst, move the rack higher. If your cookies tend to brown, move the rack lower).

Combine almond flour and confectioners sugar together in a food processer and blend thoroughly. Sift the mixture through a medium gauge sifter to remove any lumps or large pieces of almond and repeat until fine.

In a large clean dry mixing bowl, beat your egg whites until foamy and then slowly add the granulated sugar beating on medium speed. Once the sugar has disolved, increase speed to medium high and beat until a thick glossy meringue forms. Add the food coloring and beat briefly to combine.

With a large flat rubber spatula, fold one third of your sifted almond/sugar into the egg whites until combined. Repeat, until you’ve added all the almond mixture. How much mixing beyond incorporation is the tricky part to describe.

If you’re used to my most recent macaron recipe, you’ll find that this recipe needs a few strokes more mixing. The batter is thicker and packs a lot of air and if you don’t deflate it during mixing your shells may have nipples or crack.

Pipe your cookies onto parchment or silicone baking mats (I used parchment and a Ateco round #11 tip) and then allow to rest for 10-15 minutes before baking.

Bake one sheet at a time for 15 minutes. To prevent hollows, I recommend snatching one cookie from the oven and breaking it open prior to removing the cookie sheet. If the insides are still overly moist or molten, leave the cookies in the oven for 1-5minutes longer until the insides are set. This will prevent the insides from collapsing during cooling and forming hollows.

Allow the cookies to cool completely on the baking sheet.

Fill the cookies with a small dollop of jam and then arrange in an air tight container. Refrigerate the cookies for a minimum of 24 hours to mature. Then bring to room temperature and serve.

Rainbow Cake

I know, I know, rainbow cakes are ‘so yesterday’…

But truthfully, even at its rage, where every baker, every cake shops, and every blog was speckled with at least one ‘rainbow’ item. I wasn’t tempted at the very least to make one. Mostly because of the amount of work involved. And maybe because of the amount of food coloring that went into it.

Even now, as i sit typing this, the one slice of cake that i cut for the photos remain untouched.

So why make rainbow cake you ask?

Well you see, a close relative of mine has just opened up a cafe. She wanted rainbow cake on the menu and I was to experiment with a few recipes and decorating options.

The cake had to be pretty enough to sit on her display chiller. So I decided to pipe rainbow roses around and on the cake.

It’s a lot of work, a lot of piping bags, and a lot of bowls. But i came up with a good solution on how to minimize them. First, I tinted a good amount of buttercream YELLOW. I took my first pipping bag, and piped yellow roses on where it should be. Then i divided ALL yellow buttercream into two. Onto one bowl of my yellow buttercream, and added a few drops of red to make ORANGE. In a way, you can say that i am recycling my yellow buttercream to make orange. And when i am done with my orange roses, i added even more red coloring to make my RED buttercream.

To the second batch of yellow butter, I added drops of blue to make GREEN buttercream. Leftover green buttercream were added with more blue coloring to make BLUE buttercream. And when i am done, I took leftover RED buttercream, mix with BLUE buttercream and my final color, which is PURPLE buttercream.
Which pretty much means that instead of ending up with all 6 colors of buttercream, I was left with only leftover purple buttercream.

Geez, I hope i dont confuse you.

Whatever the case, I hope my relative’s pastry chef has the patience of a Saint. Because if making this rainbow cake daily was one of the job descriptions, I would tender my resignation.

Rainbow Cake Recipe:

Taken from NCC Rainbows Week
SPONGE CAKE
by Hera
A:
16 egg yolks
8 egg whites
200 gram sugar
B:
160 gram AP flour
20  gr milk powder
20 gr cornflour
C
200 gr butter,melted

Red, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Green, Purple colorings

How To:
1) Beat eggs and sugar till ribbon stage
2) Sift ingredients B into a bowl. Slowly fold ingredients B onto the whisked eggs.
3) Fold in the melted butter.
4) Divide batter into 6, and add colorings into each one of them.

5) Pour each of the colored batter onto a tin measuring 20 cm in diameter.
7) Bake for 18-20 minute @ 175 °C  or till cakes are fully cooked (You can do a skewer test here)
8) When the cake layers are cool, layer each cake with the cream cheese frosting

Frosting Cream Cheese:
Bahan:
350 ml Whipping cream

250 gr Cream Cheese
110 gr icing75 gr butter unsalted
Cara:

Whip the whipping cream, set aside in the refrigerator.
Beat Cream Cheese, butter n sugar
Add Whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture and beat till well mixed.

For the buttercream frosting, i used Martha Stewart’s Swiss meringue buttercream.

Recipe can be found here

Happy Father’s Day

Having a baby automatically adds three extra celebrations to your household. There’s the baby’s birthday, which is due next month. There is Mother’s day, which was spent unceremoniously in the mall, cause Mr. Crustabakes didn’t have a clue it was Mother’s day. And there is Father’s day.

I am thrilled to have these three additional celebrations. I baked a cake for the occasion because I didn’t want to let the opportunity to celebrate ( and bake a cake) slide.

This was truly a “play it by the ear” cake. No planning was made for the cake. I just visualized Mr Crustabakes’ face and kind of go with the flow. While the eyes, nose and pink cheeks were inspired by Mr. Pringles. The blue collared shirt, spiky hair, and the day old beard are signature of Mr. Crustabakes.

Happy Father’s day, Tong!

In case you were wondering, it’s a two tiered red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, Both tier were full fondant, with crushed oreo for “beard”

For the red velvet cake recipe:

Taken from Oprah.Com

Servings: Serves 12–16

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter , at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs , at room temperature
• 2 Tbsp. liquid red food coloring
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract | Get the recipe!
• 1 cup buttermilk , at room temperature
• 2 tsp. distilled white vinegar
• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 2 packages (8 ounces apiece) cream cheese , at room temperature
• 8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter , at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar , sifted
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract | Get the recipe!
• Pinch of salt

Directions

To make cake: Preheat oven to 350°. Grease two 9″ x 2″ round cake pans. Line bottoms with parchment paper; grease.

Sift flour, cocoa, and salt into a bowl.

In stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat butter at low speed until creamy. Add sugar; blend on medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally, until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, mixing well after each. Scrape bowl; add food coloring and vanilla. On low speed, beat in flour mixture in thirds, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. In small bowl, stir together vinegar and baking soda. Stir into batter. Divide batter between prepared pans; spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges and turn layers out onto racks. Remove paper and flip cakes; cool completely. Freeze for 30 minutes.

To make frosting: In stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Blend on low speed for 30 seconds; beat on medium-high until fluffy.

To assemble: Cut layers in half horizontally with a serrated knife. Place 1 layer, cut side up, on a serving plate; spread with 1/2 cup frosting. Repeat twice. Add last layer, top side up. Ice cake thinly with 3/4 cup frosting to crumb-coat. Refrigerate 20 minutes; finish frosting.

 

 

 

 

 

Gyudon – Japanese Beef Rice Bowl

I was walking in the beef section of the supermarket when i came across a display of thinly sliced beef. They were all pre-packed, and unlabelled.

I remember asking Nami, of Just one Cookbook, what was the best type of beef for Yoshinoya’s kind of beef bowl. She answered that they were just cheap scraps of beef, also known as komagire.

I took one pack of the beef in my hand, and discovered that they had strings of fats at the sides of each slice, which is just the way Yoshinoya’s beef was. At Rp.18000/100grams (about $2),these packs were also considerably cheaper than the shabu beefs, which were placed just a few metres away.

I purchased a pack, and went ahead with my Gyudon adventure.

 

And, so here it is,

These beef slices were slightly chewier and tougher than Yoshinoya’s. I guess it’s because they weren’t as thinly sliced.

Following Nami’s recipe, but omitting the egg, the flavour of this dish come pretty close to Yoshinoya’s.

Whoopee! Another Just One Cookbook recipe that’s becoming a staple in our household.

Gyudon Recipe

Taken from Just One Cookbook

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 2 green onions
• 3/4 lb thinly sliced beef (Shabu Shabu beef or Komagire beef)
• 1 Tbsp. oil
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 2 Tbsp. sake
• 2 Tbsp. mirin
• 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
• 3 eggs (omitted)
• pickled ginger (Kizami Shoga) for garnish (omitted)

 

Instructions:

1. Slice the onion and green onion thinly, and cut the meat into small pieces.

1. Heat the skillet over medium high heat and add the oil. Stir-fry the onions until wilted.

1. Add the beef and sprinkle sugar and cook until browned.

1. Add sake, mirin, and soy sauce and mix together.

1. Reduce the heat and simmer until most of the liquid is gone.

1. Pour the beaten egg all over the meat and cover quickly. Cook until the eggs are almost cooked. Add the green onion right before you remove from the heat. (I omitted this step)

1. Serve over steamed rice and drizzle the sauce over. Top with pickled ginger if you like.

Enjoy!

Sourdough Sandwich Bread

After all the sourdough recipes you had to put up with, I am glad to say that the sourdough adventure is almost coming to an end.

You see, my previous recipes were all recipes that didn’t require the lifting powers of the yeast thriving in the sourdough starter. Items such as brownies, muffins,  pancakes, waffles all had either baking powder or baking soda in them that did the lifting. The sourdough starter was superfluous at the very best. It’s just there to add flavour, or as a means to use up all the sourdough discard that came with each sourdough feeding.

Last night however, i put my sourdough starter to its ultimate test. I baked a bread with it.

Unlike instant yeast which probably takes two hours to proof, i had to let it sit for about three hours for its first proofing, and another 5 hours for its final proofing.

Nevertheless, I am pretty happy with the result. The bread came out sufficiently soft with that sour twang that trademark sour twang that comes with sourdough bread!  I can’t believe i just baked a bread with yeast that i grew in my own kitchen!

Yay Me!

Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Slightly modified from “Rahasia Membuat Roti Sehat & Lezat Ragi Alami” by Sangjin Ko

375 grams Bread Flour

180 grams sourdough starter

7 grams salt

37 grams sugar

165 grams water

30 ml milk

45 grams butter

In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar and sourdough starter. Make a hole in the middle and pour the water and milk into it. Mix well. Transfer the batter onto a table top that has been dusted with flour. Add the butter, and knead till is elastic and stops being sticky.

Shape the dough into a bowl. Cover and let to proof at room temperature till it doubles in size (3 hours).

Punch the dough down to let out excess air. Divide dough into 2. Cover with plastic and let rest for another 30 minutes.

Grease you S\sandwich tin with butter. Preheat oven to 200 degree celcius.

Take one of the dough, flatten it and roll it up like a swill roll. Place the dough onto the sandwich tin.

Let the dough proof for another 2 hours (i left mine to proof for 5 hours).

Bake the dough at 180 degree clecius, for about 30 minutes till the tops get crusty and golden brown.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chicken Katsu Curry

I am not exactly proud of my contribution to this month’s Little Thumbs Up event. Hosted by Miss B of Everyone Eats Well in Flanders , and organized by  Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids and Doreen from my little favourite D.I.Y, the selected ingredient for this month is curry.

While most curry dishes require long and engaging cooking activities, mine was pretty much instant with the use of Japanese instant curry blocks.

All i had to do was just to brown some onions and cook some carrots and potatoes. At this point, you could choose to add in some meat into your pot of vegetables too. But i decided to go an extra mile by breading and frying my chicken.

I guess it’s my way of making up, since i was already using instant Japanese curry paste.

Chicken Katsu Curry

(Serves 1)

1 piece of chicken thigh (deboned)

Salt & Pepper

2 tbs flour

Egg

Panko Crumbs

1/2 potato

1./2 caroot

1.2 onion

a cup of water

1 Tbs oil

Curry Block (I used S&B brand)

For the chicken katsu

Pat dry the chicken thigh, and season with salt and pepper.

Coat the thigh in flour, dredge it in the beaten egg, den re-coat it again in the panko crumbs

Fry till cooked and golden brown

For the curry

Brown the onion in the oil. Add carrots and potatoes. Add  a cup of water and let the mixture boil till carrots and potatoes are tender.

When the water has reduced to about half a cup, add the curry block in and stir till dissolved. Keep cooking until bubbles appear.

Serve curry over white rice. Add the chicken katsu.

 

Sourdough batter Onion Rings

 

 

 

Yet another sourdough recipe. This time, sourdough discard was used to make the batter to dip these onion rings. Looks like there is no end to the wonders of sourdough!

Sourdough Onion Rings

taken from Williams Sonoma

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sourdough starter
• 1/2 cup cold sparkling water
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt, plus more, to taste
• 3 large onions, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch
  slices
• 1 cup all-purpose white bread flour
• Peanut or canola oil for deep-frying

Directions:

Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Preheat an oven to 225°F

Fill a large bowl with ice cubes and place a medium bowl on top of the ice. In the medium bowl, combine the sourdough starter, sparkling water and the 1/2 tsp. salt and stir to mix. Separate the onions into rings, leaving the centers intact. Place the flour in a shallow bowl and toss the onions in the flour to coat.

In a deep fryer, pour in the oil and heat to 370°F on a deep-frying thermometer. Dip the flour-coated onion rings, one at a time, into the sourdough starter mixture, then drop them into the hot oil. Fry in a single layer, turning if necessary, until they are golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the onion rings to the baking sheet and season with salt. Place the baking sheet in the oven and fry the next batch. Be sure the oil returns to 370ºF before adding the onions or they will be greasy.

Sourdough Brownies

Not bringing anything much to the table today. Just another sourdough discard recipe.

*hangs head in shame*

I wasnt expecting anything extraordinary from this recipe. To me, it was just another recipe to help me save my daily sourdough discard.

But i must say, i am pleasantly surprised at how they turned out. Dense, fudgy, and very chocolatey.

Just like how good brownies should be!

Sourdough Brownies

Taken from the Wild Yeast

Yield: 24 brownies (9 x 13-inch pan)

Time:

• Mix: 10 minutes
• Bake: 40 minutes

Final Dough Ingredients:

• 300 g 72% cocoa (bittersweet) chocolate, chopped
• 226 g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 200 g sugar
• 6 g (1 teaspoon) salt
• 8.4 g (2 teaspoons) vanilla extract
• 160 g (3 whole) eggs, at room temperature
• 40 g cocoa powder
• 220 g mature 100%-hydration sourdough starter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 325F.
2. Butter a 9 x 13-inch metal baking pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment, and butter the parchment.
3. In the microwave, melt together the chocolate and the butter. Check it frequently to make sure it doesn’t burn.
4. Whisk in the sugar, salt, and vanilla.
5. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking to combine after each addition.
6. Sift the cocoa powder over the chocolate mixture and stir to combine.
7. Add the starter and stir gently until it is completely incorporated.
8. Turn the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 40 minutes, until a bamboo skewer inserted in the center come out clean.
9. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then loosen the edges with a knife, invert onto parchment paper, and re-invert onto a cooling rack.
10. When completely cool, cut into squares.

 

Sourdough Chocolate Chip Muffins

Please bear with me as i yet again put up another sourdough recipe.

This time, i used my sourdough discard to make chocolate chip muffins.

The sourdough here acts as an acidic base for the baking soda, which made the muffins get an extra “oomph” while rising in the oven.

As always with muffins, i was extra generous with my chocolate chips. I loved picking the chips with my fingers when i eat my muffins.

Taste wise, i couldnt really taste the sour twang of the sourdough starter. Neither did Mr.Crustabakes… I know this because he didn’t complain. You see, Mr. Crustabakes isn’t a big fan of sourdough related items. He thinks they are stinky and rotting. Little did he know that he just scarfed a whole muffin of sourdough. Ha!

Sourdough chocolate chips muffins

Yields about 8 muffins

Adapted from Sourdoughhome.com

• 1 C “discarded” sourdough starter
• 1 C All Purpose flour (sift flour prior to measuring)
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 C oil
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ~1/2 C chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 425F.

Combine dry ingredients in small bowl. Stir in chocolate chips. Combine wet ingredients in medium bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet ones.

Line your muffin tins with cupcake wrappers. Mix the wet and dry ingredients quickly and spoon into your muffin cups.

Bake at 425 for about 20 minutes.

 

 

Sourdough Discard Crackers

Help. I cant stop eating these!

It may not look appetizing, but boy, does it keep you munching away!

Made from sourdough discard (I did warn you to be prepared for an avalanche of sourdough recipes ahead), seasoned just with garlic powder, cheddar cheese and salt, these nuggets really keep you coming for more!

If you had to know, these were the pretty much the only things i ate today.

Yep, I ate them for lunch, and i had them for dinner.

And i still want more!

In fact, i have some baking away in the oven as i am writing this down…. The new batch is flavored differently…. I used the leftover seasonings i had from a packet of instant noodles. So i bet they would taste good!

Sourdough Crackers

1 cup of sourdough discard, unfed

1/2 to 1 cup flour

1/4 cup oil

Seasonings of your choice (I used 1/4 tsp garlic powder)

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

 

Mix the oil with the sourdough discard.

Add the flour to form a stiff dough

Set aside for 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius

Sift the baking soda into salt, the cheddar cheese and your choice of seasoning. Mix well

Knead the baking soda into the dough

Roll it into 1/8 inch thick, and cut into bite sized pieces

Bake for 15 minutes  or till they turn a pretty golden brown.

Sourdough Discard Waffles

U know those little packets of living organisms that you use to make breads? The one that spring to action when it is watered? The one responsible for making your bread expand and rise?

Well, i’ve been trying to grow my own packet of them.

Yup, I’ve been trying to grow my own natural yeast.

I’ve prowled all over internet sites and books.

I’ve joined a facebook group called the “natural homemade bread” club. I’ve asked for opinions, advise, guides from the experts in that group. And I must genuinely thank these people for offering me needed instructions and solutions to caring for my yeast.

So, a little bit about natural yeast, from my short lived “research”….

Natural yeast is a tiny organism. It exists around us. You can find them clinging on the surfaces of fruits, or even on the surface of flour particles.

By soaking your fruits/flour in water, you are giving a media for these little yeast to grow. These yeast feed on starch molecules. Be it the flour or sugar.

So like a pet, you are supposed to feed and water them at intervals to make sure they have enough water and food to thrive.

However, before you feed them, you  are supposed to throw away a good portion of it to make sure the yeast population is controlled, and there is enough food and water for the remaining yeast that you did not discard.

The thought of discarding this yeast bothers me. They were afterall good yeast, which I had cared, fed and looked after.

So again, I prowled the internet for recipes which use discard yeast.

So here I am with my first post on a waffle recipe using discarded yeast.

 

A sourdough waffle.

One of the most flavorful waffle I’ve ever tasted.

Like its name would suggest, these waffles have a slight twang of sourness to it. Just like how sourdough breads are.

These waffles were so good, I didnt really need any kind of topping to eat them with. Maybe just a slight dusting of icing sugar

 

It really depends on personal preference though.

Mr. Crustabakes on the other hand wasn’t too crazy over these sourdough waffle.

But with maple syrup, he managed to scarf down two slices without any complaints though.

With this yeast project in hand, I foresee myself posting more discard yeast recipes. I wish I could interest everyone into growing their own yeast. Because not only is it healthier, but it is also easier on the digestive system…

But if all these yeasty things arent  your thing, please do bear with me…

For instructions on how to grow your own yeast, you can refer to King Arthur Flour’s website HERE

Sourdough discard Waffles

Recipe taken from King Arthur Flour

Overnight sponge

• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk (I used 2 cups of milk mixed with 2 cups of lemon juice)
• 1 cup sourdough starter, unfed

Waffle or pancake batter

• all of the overnight sponge
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil or melted butter
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

1) To make the overnight sponge, stir down your refrigerated starter, and remove 1 cup.

2) In a large mixing bowl, stir together the 1 cup starter, flour, sugar, and buttermilk.

3) Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.

4) In a small bowl or mixing cup, beat together the eggs, and oil or butter. Add to the overnight sponge.

5) Add the salt and baking soda, stirring to combine. The batter will bubble.

6) Pour batter onto your preheated, greased waffle iron, and bake according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

7) Serve waffles immediately, to ensure crispness. Or hold in a warm oven till ready to serve.

Singapore Hokkien Mee

Hokkien Mee, which translates to “Fujian Noodle” was something I grew up with in Singapore.

Fujian is a province in China. So I suppose this dish probably could trace its origins there.

I grew up in Singapore without my parents, but with a hired “nanny” to watch over us (me and my siblings). At times, this hired “nanny” would take a break from cooking. She would assign us some money, to settle lunch on our own.

I looked forward to these occasions, because back then, I didn’t like home cooking. She wasn’t the world’s best cook. And it was always the same few dishes that came out of her kitchen.

So Hokkien Mee was something i liked to order when we had the chance to eat out. I remember the stall owner would fire up his stove, make a hell lot of noise stirring his metal spatula against his giant wok. Minutes later, a plate of steaming hot, soggy noodles would appear.

I especially loved it when the noodles are extra soggy. Because it means, extra broth. This broth is the highlight of this dish. It is bursting with all the flavors from hours of simmering stock.

As a kid, I couldn’t pinpoint as to what made the broth so delicious. It was only after reading the recipes for this dish that i discovered that the stock was made of pork, chicken and prawns.

Yup, that’s three types of meat, combined to make one stock. Can i justify further?

 

Singapore Hokkien Mee

Recipe taken from Rasa Malaysia

Singapore Hokkien Mee Recipe

Ingredients:

250g Yellow Noodle
250g White thick rice vermicelli (I used dried rice vermicelli)
400g Prawn
350g Squid (Sotong) (omitted, added sliced fishcakes instead)
200g Pork Belly (omitted)
40g Green chives
750ml Chicken stock
3 Eggs
5g Chopped garlic

Seasoning:

1/2 tbsp Fish sauce
1 dash Pepper
1 dash Sesame oil

Method:

1. Peel the prawn head.  In a hot wok, add a tbsp oil and fry the prawn head until fragrant. Add fried prawn head into chicken stock and boil for 30mins to 1 hour. (I usually reserve the uncooked prawn shells and prawn heads from other dishes and keep them frozen in the freezer)
2. Add the pork belly into the stock and boil for 45mins. Take out the pork belly and cool. Cut pork belly into strips. ( I omitted this step)
3. Blanch dried vermicelli, fishcake and prawns in boiling water. Drain and set aside
4. Into a hot wok, add 1 tbsp of oil, fry the garlic until fragrant. Add in egg and scramble.
5. Add in yellow noodle and blanched rice vermicelli. Fry for a few minutes until noodles just begin to sear. (Use high heat)
6. Add 1/3 of prawn stock and seasoning. Fry until stock is almost dry. Add another 1/3 of prawn stock. Cover wok to braise the noodles on medium low heat. (5 to 7 mins) * Note: I had to add a bit of water as my stock wasn’t quite enough
7. Lastly add in prawn, squid, chives and fry together. Add remaining stock, fry for 1 min and plate. Serve with sambal chilli and lime.

 

 

Braised Pork Belly& Mushrooms in Soy Sauce

I didnt grow up with this dish, but apparently Mr. Crustabakes did.

This is a chinese dish of braised pork belly in soy sauce, or also known as the “tau yew bak”.

I’ve added dried shitake mushrooms, a hard boiled egg and some beancurd puffs. Apparently, these three are the common accompaniment to this dish.

I’ve also been bloghopping to find a recipe for this. But i couldn’t settle on one.

Some required the pork to be browned in a skillet, some don’t. Some add light soy sauce, in lieu of salt.

So I’ve decided to come up with my own recipe.

A recipe scaled for one serving.

Oh, i am also linking this post to Joyce of Kitchen flavours

She happened to be hosting this month’s Little Thumbs Up event

Little Thumbs Up, is an event organized by Zoe from Bake For Happy Kids and Doreen from my little favourite D.I.Y.

And since this month’s event happens to be “Mushrooms”, so here i go!

Tau Yew Bak

Serves one.

1 egg, hardboiled

2 Tofu puffs, cut diagonally

125 grams pork belly

2 dried shitake mushrooms

Light soy sauce

Dark soy sauce

sugar

half of a whole garlic

half a star anise

1 clove

1/8 tsp five spice powder

500 ml of water

1. Using a little oil, brown the pork belly on all sides. Rub some dark soy sauce over the browned pork belly

2. Bring the water to boil. Add garlic, 5 spice powder, clove and anise seed

3. Add the pork belly, and the shitake mushrooms, let it simmer for 1 hour, or till the meat turns tender.

4. Add the light soy sauce and sugar to taste, and the dark soy sauce for color

4. Add the egg, tofu puffs, simmer for another 15 minutes.

5. Serve with white rice

Sugar Free Raisin Banana Bread

Lots of cakes out there claim to be sugar free.

But they are laden with synthetic sugar.

I’ve seen cakes that claim to be refined sugar free.

But they are laden with a whole party of unrefined sugar.

This cake however is wholly Sugar Free.

It relies wholly on bananas and raisins to its sweetness.

Perfect for my 10 month old baby Crusta.

Yup, she is still not allowed sugar. Refined, or not refined.

My poor baby.

So till you hit your 12 month mark,

and are finally allowed a moderate amount of sugar

here is something to tide you over.

Sugar Free Banana Bread with Raisins

Makes 2 large muffins

20 grams organic raisins, chopped

40 grams boiling water

40 grams whole wheat flour

12 grams All purpose flour

1/4 tsp organic/natural baking powder

28 grams olive oil

125 grams (about 1) banana

1 egg yolk

Pour the boiling water onto the chopped raisins, set aside for half hour

preheat oven to 180 degree celcius, Grease and line the muffin tins.

Sift whole wheat, all purpose flour with the baking powder.

Drain the raisins, reserving the liquid.

Put the olive oil, banana and 12 grams of the steeped raisin water in a food processor. Process till smooth.

Pour the processed banana mixture onto the flour mixture and mix till well combined.

Add the chopped raisins and pour the batter onto awaiting muffin tins.

Egg benedict and Bacon Sandwich

It’s an Egg-citing day for me today,

Because i successly:

1. Poached an egg

2. Made hollandaise sauce.

Yay Me!

For tips and instructions to make these two, i refer to KitchenRiffs, here

Steamed Strawberry Cupcake

As mentioned in my previous post, i am attempting to employ my gas stove more instead of my power draining oven.

This cupcake here, is a strawberry fanta flavoured steamed cupcake.

As with butter cakes, the surface of this cake is supposed to “break open”, indicating that the cake has fully risen.

And if you are wondering what the black stuff on it is, they were shredded chocolate.

I love how the strawberry fanta imparts the pretty pink colour.

Not to mention a slightly strawberry flavour.

Fanta Steamed Cupcakes

2 eggs

200 grams sugar

275 grams AP flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

175ml Fanta

50 grams thick coconut milk

Some shredded chocolate

 

 

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl, set aside

Beat eggs till pale and fluffy (about 10 mins)

Fold in the sifted flour alternately with the fanta and coconut milk

Pour onto cupcake molds which have been prelined.

Sprinkle chocolate over the cupcakes

Lower cupcakes into a pre-heated steamer, and heat with high heat for about 10 minutes.

 

 

Another type of cheesecake

This cake…

I don’t even know how to title it.

It has cream cheese in it.

It has white chocolate,

It has butter.

Yet it’s not exactly a cheesecake,

nor is it a buttercake,

and definitely not a blondie.

Oh, and did i mention that it was steamed, not baked?

But if i were to have a go at this cake,

I would say this is a cake between a sponge and a butter cake.

It’s light and soft, yet it’s “bulky”.

It’s sweet, but not sponge-cake sweet.

Its rich, but not buttery cake rich.

Oh well, whatever the case, i think it’s a pretty good cake, considering that it’s steamed.

Which brings me to another point.

Admist rising electrical bills (Having a baby really jacks up your bills!), and a full force electrical oven which drains 2200 watts each time i fire it, I decided that i should steam more often and bake less.

So here it is!

Steamed cheesecake with white chocolate

Taken from Cake Kukus (Sedap)

(Makes 5 cupcake size)

38 grams cream cheese (double boiled till melted)

4 egg yolks

2 egg whites

63 grams sugar

1/8 tsp salt

63 gram AP flour

10 gram milk powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

50 grams butter, melted

38 grams white chocolate (melted with butter)

Beat eggs, sugar and salt till light and fluffy. Add melted cream cheese, mix till well combined.

Fold in flour, milk powder and baking powder

Add melted butter and white chocolate slowly, and fold till evenly mixed

Pour into cupcake tins that have been lined with greased baking paper.

Steam for 30 minutes or till cooked.

Singapore Rojak

“Rojak” which is Malay for “mixture”, is a salad dish of vegetables and fruits.

It seems to me that some countries have their own versions of “Rojak”. . I’ve heard of the Singapore Rojak, the Indian Rojak and the Indonesian Rujak (Notice the different spelling here?)

While being completely ignorant about the Indian Rojak, I do think there is a fair resemblance between the Singapore and the Indonesian Rujak i both grew up with.

Both of them came served with a thick, dark, sweet sauce which looks like this:

The sauce for the singapore rojak however, is more pungent. The indonesian rujak sauce is milder, sweeter, and spicier.

The three main ingredients in both rojaks are the same. Shrimp paste, palm sugar, and tamarind and sometimes chilli.

I guess you can play around with the proportions and come up with your own recipe that suit to your personal taste.

Sauces aside, we come to the “bulk” of the rojak

You can pretty much use every “dry” fruit, such as green apples, rose apples, jicama, under ripe mangoes … etc

But unlike the Indonesian rujak which use only fruits, its singapore cousin likes to add a bit of fried beancurd and youtiao in it. Nothing to complain about. It’s great!

Not forgetting the ground peanuts, which again, the Indonesian rujak lack of.

Toss your choice of fruits, fried stuff, peanuts in a bowl, with your sauce, and your rojak is ready to serve.

And dont forget your skewers !

Singapore Rojak

The bulk:

Here are the list of choices you can choose to add form

Jicama (Mangkuang)

Cucumber

Rose Apples

Green Apples

Pineapple

Tau pok

You tiao

Kangkung

Bean sprout

Dried Cuttlefish

The sauce:

1 tsp of shrimp paste (belacan)

2 tbs tamarind (mixed with a bit of water to “dissolve the flesh”, discard seed)

one block of palm sugar

Mix all ingredients for the sauce, and bring it to a boil over low heat. Keep stirring till it gets syrupy. Off heat, set aside to cool, and drizzle over the “bulk”

 

 

 

Indonesian Layered Cake

I’ve recently joined a facebook group called the “Indonesian Foodblogger”

Like most groups you see on the internet, this group aims to bring together Indonesian foodbloggers around the world. It is a place where you can share or question anything food related.

To further engange its members, the Indonesian Foodblogger (IFDB) puts forward a challenge each month. And for the month of May, the theme is “layered cake”.

However, there is a catch.

The challenge does not accept cakes that are baked, and then LAYERED with buttercream, ganache and the likes.

It accepts cakes which are layered WHILE they (the cake) is cooking..

Which pretty much means you gotta stand around, fiddling your thumbs while you pour your cake batter and watch it cook layer by layer. It involves a great deal of time.

So, i set aside an evening for it.

I carried baby Crustabakes on my hip as i started weighing my ingredients.It’s crazy, but I have developed some kind of superpower whereby i can balance baby Crustabakes on my left hip and still be completely functional with my right arm.

Like a good trade off, this cake is fairly simple to execute. A time consuming, but minimal labor kinda cake.

All you need is a simple whisk, and a lot of bowls.

Three bowls, for the three different colours on the cake.

I’ve chosen pink and green for this cake.

Because those are the colours stated in the recipe.

Also because those were the only food colorings i had at home. Yes, unfortunately, i used food coloring for this cake.

I may be functional with my right arm, but i am not THAT functional to be pounding at leaves or fruits to get natural food dye.

So off i go, steaming this cake, layer by layer.

8 minutes per layer.

Alternating the layers between white, green, then pink and repeating the sequence over and over again till the batter gets used up.It took a total of about 2 hours.

By the end of it, i had put baby C to sleep, took a shower, brushed my teeth and got ready for bed.

All while cooking a cake.

Talk about multi-tasking!

Lapis Beras

Loosely translated from 52 Resep Kue Berlapis

1.5 Litres coconut milk, squeezed from 2 heads of coconuts

3 blades of pandan leaves

1 tsp salt

300 gram rice flour

85 gram sago flour

300 grams granulated sugar

6 drops green food coloring

6 drops red food coloring

1. Bring to boil coconut milk, pandan leaves and salt, all the while stirring. Strain, and discard the pandan leaves. Set aside to cool.

2. Sift the rice flour, sago flour and the sugar.Slowly whisk warm (not hot) coconut milk into the flour mixture.

3. Divide the batter into 3 bowls. Drop green food coloring into one bowl. Drop red food coloring into another bowl and leave the third one white.

4.Pour 100 ml of white batter onto a greased square tin (18cm x 18cm x 7 cm). Steam for 8 minutes.

5. Pour 100 ml of green batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes

6. Pour 100 ml of red batter over the white batter, steam for 8 minutes.

7. Repeat the sequence of white, green and red, till all the batter gets used up.

8. For the last layer, steam for a final 30 minutes. Let cool before serving.

 

My very first Fondant Cake

The reason why you’ve never seen a full fledged fondant cake on Crustabakes, is because i have a mortal fear of fondant.

I’ve heard all about it being sticky, and uncooperative to work with.

It cracks, it sweats, it tears, and the list of troubles goes on and on.

I’ve also never cared about its taste.

And the fact that everyone just tears out the decorative fondant after they’ve sung the birthday song and blown the candles didn’t help either. Imagine, all those endless hours shaping the fondant defunct in just a split second.

But something spurred me.

Baby Crustabake’s first birthday.

Her birthday is just in a little over more than two months.

And I would love to make something “passable” to celebrate that special day.

So today, i start practicing.

My very first full fledged fondant cake.

A simple cake with a bow of pastel colors.

The fondant did sweat, and it has fine “wrinkles”

I need to troubleshoot on that. It’s really a long, arduous journey ahead.

Me vs fondant.

Bread Pudding with Brown Sugar Crumbles

Using yesterday’s swirled sweet potato sandwich bread, i made this bread pudding, with brown sugar crumbles.

It’s a recipe re-visited, from HERE

Happy Friday everybuddy!

Another potato bread, this time, swirled.

I know I just posted a purple sweet potato bread yesterday. But the truth is, the bread was made last week. And we finished it.

And I just had to make another one.

This time however, i used two types of sweet potatoes. The regular orange skinned, white flesh sweet potatoes and the purple ones.

Then i swirled them together.

It takes a little bit more effort making this, I had to divide everything into two. Which means double the dirty bowls, double the kneading process, double almost pretty much everything.

But I wanted to see how it would swirl so badly, that i decided to go ahead and did double duty on this bread.

So here it is, the bread swirled.

And here it is, as a ham sandwich. Whoopee!

Swirled Sweet Potato Loaf
(adapted and modified from Jess of J3ss Kitch3n)

Recipe


Starter Dough Ingredients
200g bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
65 cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)

65 cooked white sweet potato (mashed)
Water

• Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed PURPLE sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• In another bowl, Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed WHITE sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.

Main Dough Ingredients
15g bread flour
25g all purpose flour
33g cooked PURPLE sweet potato (mashed)
10g sugar
20g olive oil

15g bread flour
25g all purpose flour
33g cooked WhITE sweet potato (mashed)
10g sugar
20g olive oil

• Combine all of the PURPLE Main Dough Ingredients with the PURPLE starter dough ingredients in your bread maker machine or stand mixer and knead till the window pane stage, cover with cling wrap or wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• In a separate bowl, do the same for the White main dough and white starter dough ingredients.
• Punch out the air from the proofed dough and divide the dough into 2 equal parts, cover and rest the doughs for 15mins.
• Punch out the air from the rested dough, wrap the white dough in the purple dough, roll it up swiss roll stylea nd shape into rounds, place into bread tin and prove for 1hr.
• Bake in preheated oven of 170C for 38mins or till golden brown, remove bread from tin immediately once done and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.

Purple Sweet Potato Bread

Some of you are probably sick of the babyfood posts that i’ve been putting up lately.

Today, I shall suspend baby-related activities and return to regular Crustabake-y kinda post.

“Back to basics” as everyone would say.

Basics, in Crustabakes, would probably be baked goods.

While still on a “healthy” strike,

I bring you this Purple potatoes sandwich swirled bread.

No, its not gluten free, and yes, there is sugar involved in making this.

But it’s low gluten, due to the potatoes.

And no artificial coloring was used to get this beautiful hue.

It’s all natural from the pureed purple sweet potatoes.

Purrty ain’t it?

Sweet Potato Loaf
(adapted and modified from Jess of J3ss Kitch3n)

Recipe


Starter Dough Ingredients
200g bread flour
1/2 tsp instant yeast
130g cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)
Water

• Combine bread flour, instant yeast and mashed sweet potato in a mixing bowl, add in sufficient water to form a soft pliable dough, cover with cling wrap or a wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.

Main Dough Ingredients
All of Starter Dough
30g bread flour
50g all purpose flour
65g cooked purple sweet potato (mashed)
20g sugar
40g olive oil

• Combine all of the Main Dough Ingredients in your bread maker machine or stand mixer and knead till the window pane stage, cover with cling wrap or wet cloth and prove for 1hr or until double in size.
• Punch out the air from the proofed dough and divide the dough into 2 equal parts, cover and rest the doughs for 15mins.
• Punch out the air from the rested doughs and shape into rounds, place into bread tin and prove for 1hr.
• Bake in preheated oven of 170C for 38mins or till golden brown, remove bread from tin immediately once done and cool completely on a cooling rack before slicing.

Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Banana Chiffon Cake

Before you click this window shut due to its unappetizing title, let me just say that this was purely experimental.

I wanted to know whether i could beat egg whites to its “soft peak” stage (as required in chiffon making), without the use of sugar.

And if the egg white was successfully beaten till soft peaks, would it stay that way during the baking time in the oven? Would it aerate my chiffon the way it should when it is accompanied by its sugar sidekick.

So, to put it shortly,

Is sugar indispensable in chiffon making?

The answer is,

Nope!

And i’ve got proof,

Here’s a banana chiffon cake, made completely without sugar. It rose VERY well,in fact i must say, it rose better than some of the sugared chiffons i made.

So, to everyone out there who are opting the sugar-free ( to whom i offer the utmost respect and admiration ), and gluten free life

and to baby Crustabakes,

This gluten free, sugar free, chiffon cake is dedicated to you!

PS: this cake does not taste as horrible as i would have thought! In fact it’s so light, i managed to scarf down both cakes in one serving.

Sugar Free, Gluten Free Banana Chiffon Cake:

Makes 2 Cupcake size (Sorry about that, told you it was experimental)

15 gram rice flour

5 gram corn starch

5 gram oil

30 gram overripe bananas (mashed)

1 egg white

1 egg yolk

Sift the flour and the starch together.

In another bowl, mix oil and mashed bananas

Dump flour and starch onto the banana bowl, add egg yolk and mix till well combined

Beat the egg white till soft peaks (without sugar it wont be glossy, but it’s ok, it will still work)

Slowly fold in egg white to the egg yolk batter

Pour onto two cupcake cases,

Bake at 170 degree celcius for 30 mins or till fully cooked.

 

 

Minnie Mouse Themed Cake

My sister texted me :

“Can you make a birthday cake for my friend?”

“She’s a very girly kind of girl”

“She likes pink”

“And Minnie Mouse”

 

Wokeh sista, considered it,

“done”

“done”

“done”

and, “done”!

So, dear a friend of my sister, whoever you are, I hope you like the cake i made for you!

 

 

 

Baby Pineapple Tart

A sugar free, gluten free homemade pineapple tart for Baby Crustabakes!

Pastry
140 gr gluten free flour
95 gram unsalted butter (cold)
1 egg yolk (free range)

Rub butter with flour till crumblike, add yolk, mix till well combined. Set aside to chill in refrigerator
Pineapple Jam
1 pineapple (get the small, ripe ones)

Cinammon stick
Cloves

Peel Pineapple, get rid of its “eyes”
Blitz  pineapple with a food processor along with its core (do not discard core as it gives the jam the fiber it needs).

Cook pureed pineapple, cinammon stick and cloves over stove till it thickens and has a jam like consistency. Discard clove and cinammon stick

Set aside to cool. Roll into balls.

Wrap pineapple jam in pastry.

Bake at 180 degree for 20 mins.

Cream of Mushroom Soup for everyone

“The standard of breakfast has dropped, it seems” joked Mr Crustabakes yesterday.

I looked up from where i was sitting, onto the plate of storebought blueberry puff pastry which Mr. Crustabakes was having for breakfast.

I turned my gaze over to Baby Crustabakes. She was squishing a piece of dragonfruit. And on her highchair tray, there was a homemade, sugar free, and gluten free fruit tart. Topped with pureed avocado and freshly diced cantaloupe and dragonfruit

The standard of breakfast for Mr.Crustabakes has sure dropped, but it didn’t land anywhere far. It merely shifted to Baby Crustabakes breakfast.

I admit, i have been spending ridiculous amounts searching the web on what to feed and what not to feed baby Crustabakes at her age.

Lots of adjustments were needed to convert a standard adult recipe to her babified version. At her age, baby Crustabakes still has lots of restrictions in her diet. Starting from gluten, sugar, salt, dairy, eggs, etc etc.

And it’s really straining, if not impossible for me to prepare two full fledged, very different breakfast for the two most important people in my life.

But i was determined, to do it, and so i came up with this.

Cream of Mushroom soup.

Breakfast for the two champions.

Jackpot.

What a time saver, this killing two birds with one stone recipe.
It saves me so much time that i was even able to decorate and snap pics. Hola!

Cream of Mushroom Soup

taken from allrecipes.com

• 115 g sliced fresh mushrooms
• 120 ml chicken broth
• 25 g chopped onion
• 0.1 g dried thyme
• 15 g butter

• 8 g all-purpose flour / 1/2 tsp Tapioca flour for babe
• 0.5 g salt (no salt for babe)
• 0.2 g ground black pepper (exclude for babe)
• 80 ml half-and-half/ 100 ml coconut milk for babe
• 5 ml sherry (exclude for both)

Directions

1. In a large heavy saucepan, cook mushrooms in the broth with onion and thyme until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes.
2. In blender or food processor, puree the mixture , leaving some chunks of vegetable in it. Set aside.
3. In the saucepan, melt the butter, whisk in the flour until smooth. Add the salt, pepper, half and half and vegetable puree. Stirring constantly, bring soup to a boil and cook until thickened. Adjust seasonings to taste, and add sherry.
4. For the baby version, pour coconut milk in saucepan, add pureed mushrooms, thicken with tapioca starch mixed with a bit of water

Salmon Fried Rice with Shisamo

I woke up this morning in a foggy daze, totally clueless as to what i was to serve for breakfast for Mr. Crustabakes, who would be up within the next hour.

As with what i always do when i  am spaced out, i facebook.

And there it is. A stroke of luck.

Nami of Just one Cookbook posted her newest entry of the Salmon Fried Rice.

To which I have all the ingredients on hands.

Whoopee!!

Except of course, i didnt have the salted salmon.

But she did say you can make shortcut your salted salmon!

Double Whoopee!!

Head over HERE for recipe!

Cait’s Fruit Cup

I can’t resist whipping out my camera to capture the beautiful colours of these tropical fruits.

It’s Baby Crustabakes breakfast fruit cup.

And it’s also her first time eating cut fruits.

 

Bye bye Puree!

Cut fruits are:

Avocadoes,

Dragonfruit,

Papaya

Pigs chillin in Mud Cake

So i have seen quite a few versions of this cake dotting the food blogsphere. While i have no clue to the imaginative genius who came up with it, i must say that it’s absolutely adorable and cute.

And i absolutely have to make it.

So off we go with my version.  🙂

 

 

oink !

Baby Crustabakes starts Solids

I know some of you are probably gonna click this post away, because baby food isn’t an area of your concern.

While Crustabakes is mostly about baking, and a bit of savoury cooking. I must add a third category “baby food” as part of its routinal posting. This is mostly for my own journal purposes. I need something to record the things i made for baby Crustabakes, so that i could come back to it when i need to re-create.

While baby food doesn’t make the most tasty and flavoursome meals, I would have to say, they are genuinely healthy. And when i say  genuine, i am talking about the extremes.

Here, we exclude sugar and salt (whaatt?), gluten (not until baby reaches 12 months anyway), and we use all-natural, organic products.

So if you feel like turning up your nose at such movement, feel free to click away, but please do come back when normal crustabakes activities of brownies, cupcakes, and cookies come back. Because, i promise you, they will.

So off we go with the healthy:

1. Banana Oat Cookies (8+ month)

Unsalted butter 60 gram
Rice Flour 115gram
Banana 80 gram (mashed)
oatmeal 30 gram
1 egg  yolk
Beat butter till light and fluffy. Add egg yolk and mashed banana. Beat till well combined.

Add rice flour, mix till well combined

Roll cookie dough, shape with cookie cutters.

Bake at 160 degree celcius till lightly brown

 

 

2. Baby Chawanmushi (8+ months)

1 egg yolk

60 ml homemade chicken stock

Shredded steamed salmon for topping

Lightly beat egg yolk with chicken stock. Steam at low heat tilll cooked. Sprinkle steamed salmon

 

 

Crusty Brownies

I wanted instant gratification today. I wanted to make something which is quick, fast, and doesn’t need pages of instructions to execute.

Hence,

Brownies.

With just a lil bit of melting and mixing, brownies are usually ready to go.

Butter & chocolate melted over fire, sugar stirred in, flour folded in and voila! Very foolproof.

That’s where i was wrong.

Because the way you melt butter and chocolate, the way sugar is stirred in, affect the way your brownie turn out.

Let me try breaking it down.

Brownie recipes usually start with

Here’s an extract of the recipe I worked with

1. Place butter and chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over (but not touching) simmering water; stir frequently until chocolate and butter are melted, about 7 minutes. Remove bowl from heat; let cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Stir sugar into cooled chocolate mixture until combined. Whisk in eggs one at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Whisk in vanilla. Gently fold in flour and salt.

See the instructions in red?

That’s where this recipe deviates. Because as far as i know it, brownie recipes usually ask for the sugar to be stirred into the hot butter chocolate mixture to let it dissolve, and to create that papery thin shiny skin in brownies.

But then again, this is a Martha Stewart recipe.

She’s Martha Stewart. I am me.

Who am i to point out something Martha Stewart surely, surely can’t miss.

So, off i go, proceeding with the recipe as written.

But just as I suspected, the resultant brownie was just… meh…

Instead of the shiny papery crust, i got a dull cookie like crust that seemed to form a dome above the cookie. I think the crust must have risen in the oven while the rest of the brownies stayed. This dome cracks when i slice through the brownies.

Also, all that undissolved sugar also seemed to settle at the base of the brownies, thus forming another sugary crust.

So unless i must have somehow mis-understood, or mis-executed the recipe. I guess this is not the brownie i would fall back on.

So, Martha Stewart, while your recipes usually rock my world, this one, unfortunately barely caused a tremor.

Still a big fan though.

XOXO

Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

Taken from Marthastewart.com

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for pan
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan or heatproof glass dish. Line pan with parchment paper, leaving a 1-inch overhang on 2 sides. Set aside. Place butter and chocolate in a large heatproof bowl set over (but not touching) simmering water; stir frequently until chocolate and butter are melted, about 7 minutes. Remove bowl from heat; let cool to room temperature, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Stir sugar into cooled chocolate mixture until combined. Whisk in eggs one at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Whisk in vanilla. Gently fold in flour and salt.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan, and smooth top with an offset spatula. Bake until cake tester inserted in the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, 40 to 45 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
4. Run a knife or offset spatula around the edges of the pan. Using parchment, lift brownies out of pan and onto the rack. Transfer to a cutting board; cut into 2-inch squares.

 

 

 

9 Layer Cake

So I have been baking too many cheesecakes.

No one complained, but I decided to give my oven a break and work the stove once in a while.

So, here i go, returning to my south east asian roots, with a steamed 9 layer cake.

Why 9 layers u ask?

Well, I am sure there must be some pretty interesting story behind it.

I tried googling, expecting to be mesmerized by some folk story explaining the layers of the cake. But nothing came up.

So i guess no one would get all tight up about the fact that my cake only had 8 layers.(OOps!).

After all, 8 is considered a lucky number amongst us, Chinese.

So here goes

This cake is mildly sweet. It relies more on the richness of the coconut milk for taste. The texture of this cake is springy (think mochi). And like mochi, it is rather sticky too.

The texture of the cake makes it possible for us to peel it layer by layer before popping it into our mouths.

Which is what I used to do as a kid.

Or as an adult.

I’ve used daun suji for the green colour batter of this cake. As for the red, i had to rely on red color food dye as i didnt believe beet juice would have given such a vibrant red.

9 Layer Cake

Adapted from Nasi Lemak Lover

400ml water
70g coarse sugar (I would increase this next time as i found the cake not sweet enough)
5 pandan leaves, knotted
400ml coconut milk ( squeezed from one shredded coconut)

180g rice flour
120g tapioca flour

Daun Suji water (achieved by pounding daun suji with water and then straining it)
Method

1. Simmer water with pandan leaves for about 5 minutes, add sugar. Stir in the coconut milk
2. Add in rice flour and tapioca flour, stir to mix well. Strain the batter.
3. Grease a 7″ steam pan with a little oil. Place the pan in a steamer and steam until hot.
4. Divide batter into 2 portions.

5. Add the daun suji water into one of the portions, leaving the other portion white.

6. Take 126 grams of the white batter, and add a few drops of red coloring
5. Pour 1st layer with green batter into steam pan, and steam for 5mins over medium heat.
6. Pour 2nd layer with white batter into steam pan, and steam for 5mins.
7. Repeat until all 7 layers set. End the layer with the red batter

Another Cheesy Post

After the Oreo Cheesecake and the Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake earlier this year, you might think that i am done with cheesecake for now. After all, it’s only the beginning of March.

But nope, i went ahead and baked two more cheesecake. Even though it’s only the beginning of March.

So that makes it four cheesecakes in less than three months.

I am such an over-achiever sometimes.

So, let’s review my achievements shall we?

First up,

The good old plain cheesecake with fruit toppings.

Oh, so you noticed the “Happy Birthday” sign!;)

Yup, this cake is made for my dearest, dearest friend, Jeffy.

She was my bridesmaid the day i got married.

She woke up at the ungodly hour of 3.30 A.M that day.

She broke her back picking after my crazy train of a wedding gown.

She held my bouquet, wiped my sweat, fetched me water and food.

Yes, i owed this cake to her.

So, Happy Birthday Jeff!

xoxo.

Okayyyss. so there goes one, let’s move on to the other.

The Coffee Chocolate Cheesecake

uh-huh, uh-huh. It’s cheesecake again, with coffee and chocolate this time.

\And topped with chocolate rubbles.

“Why did you make another cheesecake?” you ask?

Well, no particular reason.

I just wanted a coffee cheesecake with chocolate rubbles on it.

Geez. what a cheesy post. Sorry guys, you see It’s 5.47am, and i just fed my daughter. I am going back to bed now (PS: no judging. it’s Saturday!!). nite nite peeps!

Recipe taken from Use Real Butter
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake

crust
2 cups / 180g plain cookies
4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp / 24g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

plain cheesecake
24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup / 210g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

chocolate espresso cheesecake
24 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup / 210g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz. heavy cream
4.5 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, melted
1 tbsp espresso powder
1 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp Kahlua or coffee liqueur

Preheat oven to 350°F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan.

Set crust aside. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.[For chocolate-espresso: combine boiling water with espresso powder. Add cream, chocolate, espresso, vanilla, and Kahlua to the cream cheese batter and mix until smooth and creamy.]

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface

Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water. Bake 45 to 55 minuteuntil it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, unmold and serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

This cake would have been the perfect Valentine’s day Cake. But Valentine’s day this year didn’t fall on a weekend. It fell on a Thursday.

I couldn’t make a cheesecake on a weekday.

Not with the long baking hour involved.

So, I thought I would get my act together in the weekend (dates 16-17 Feb) to make this post Valentine day cake.

But nope, I waited another week. And made this cake today (23 Feb).

So here goes my post-post Valentine Day Cake.

Hope everyone had a blast celebrating it.

Recipe taken from Use Real Butter
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake

crust
2 cups / 180g oreo cookies without the filling
4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp / 24g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

strawberry swirl cheesecake
24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup / 210g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp Grand Marnier
1 cup strawberries, puréed
2 tbsps sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan.

Set crust aside. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface

For strawberry swirl: mix the sugar and the strawberry purée together then top the cheesecake batter with the mixture and create the swirl design by running a toothpick through the surface.

Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water. Bake 45 to 55 minuteuntil it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, unmold and serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Sis!

It feels G-R-E-A-T to be back to normal life. The great flood has made me appreciate things i have taken for granted in my life. Little things like clean running water, electricity, and the internet.

Water rose up to my knees in my home during the flood. Electricity was cut off. Our water tanks were contaminated with filthy flood water.

I evacuated my home on day#2 of the flood. Water level stayed stagnant for up to a week. And i know of some people and friends who didn’t evacuate their homes and stayed in their water logged homes for the entire week. I declare them as heroes.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings, Here is what i have for you today.

A pink Ombre Cake.

A cake with piped roses of colours that gradually get darker.

Or so it was supposed to be.

Halfway pipping, i realized that i probably had too much white. Another layer of pink would have been nice.

Oh, in case you were wondering what the “happy birthday” was for, it’s for my sister.

Happy Birthday Sis!

 

Ombre Cake

Taken from Sajian Sedap

Recipe in Indonesian

Bahan-bahan/bumbu-bumbu:
15 kuning telur
9 putih telur
225 gram gula pasir halus
1/4 sendok teh garam
1/2 sendok makan emulsifier (sp/tbm)
185 gram tepung terigu protein rendah
30 gram maizena
40 gram susu bubuk
3/4 sendok teh baking powder
150 gram mentega tawar, lelehkan
75 gram white cooking chocolate, lelehkan

Pewarna Ungu

Bahan Filling:
200 gram cream cheese
100 gram mentega tawar dingin
50 gram gula tepung
175 gram white cooking chocolate, lelehkan
125 gram krim kocok

Bahan Olesan:
250 gram butter cream putih
75 gram butter cream biarkan putih
75 gram butter cream, tambahkan 3 tetes pewarna ungu 3 tetes, aduk rata
75 gram butter cream, tambahkan 7 tetes pewarna ungu
75 gram butter cream, tambahkan 15 tetes pewarna ungu
75 gram butter cream, tambahkan 1/8 sendok teh pewarna ungu
Cara membuat:

1. Kocok kuning telur sampai kental. Sisihkan.
2. Kocok putih telur dan garam sampai setengah mengembang. Tambahkan gula pasir halus sedikit-sedikit sambil dikocok sampai mengembang.
3. Masukkan kocokan kuning telur dan emulsifier. Kocok hingga mengembang kembali.
4. Tambahkan tepung terigu, susu bubuk, maizena, dan baking powder sambil diayak dan diaduk rata.
5. Masukkan margarin leleh dan white cooking chocolate leleh sedikit-sedikit sambil diaduk perlahan.
6. Bagi adonan 5 bagian. Adonan 1 ditambahkan 1/2 sendok makan pewarna ungu. Adonan 2 ditambahkan 3/4 sendok teh pewarna ungu. Adonan 3 ditambahkan 1/8 sendok teh pewarna ungu. Adonan 4 ditambahkan 15 tetes pewarna ungu. Adonan 5 biarkan putih.
7. Tuang masing-masing adonan ke dalam loyang bulat diameter 20 cm tinggi 3 cm yang dioles margarin dan dialas kertas roti.
8. Oven dengan api bawah suhu 190 derajat Celsius 20 menit sampai matang.
9. Filling, campur cream cheese dan mentega tawar. Kocok hingga lembut. Tambahkan gula tepung dan white cooking chocolate leleh. Kocok rata. Masukkan krim sedikit-sedikit sambil dikocok perlahan. Aduk rata.
10. Ambil selembar cake. Oleskan filling. Tumpuk dengan cake lainnya. Lakukan hal yang sama sampai habis dengan urutan warna yang paling gelap di bagian bawah.
11. Olesan, kocok butter cream sampai lembut.
12. Bagi 6 bagian adonan. Satu bagian biarkan putih. Sisanya ditambahkan pewarna ungu dengan warna bergradasi seperti warna cake.
13. Tutup seluruh permukaan cake dengan butter cream putih. Semprotkan warna yang paling gelap di bagian paling bawah, bergradasi dengan warna paling muda di atasnya. (Kn)

 

 

 

 

 

Drowning sorrows in Oreo Cheesecake

I am writing this post from a very sad sad place.

Here’s what it looks like

I am sure news of the great Jakarta Flood has reached international news. Trust me, it’s happening and it’s real.

I was supposed to go to work in the morning and have friends over for dinner tonight. I even baked a cheesecake for it.

That didn’t happen.

Yup, i am flooded in.

Oh wait,

work and dinner didn’t happen.

Cheesecake did.

So while i wait for things to get back to normal.

I’ll just keep calm and eat a cheesecake.

Recipe taken from Use Real Butter
Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake

crust
2 cups / 180g oreo cookies without the filling
4 oz butter, melted
2 tbsp / 24g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

plain cheesecake
24 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup / 210g sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup / 8 oz heavy cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

Preheat oven to 350°F. Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan.

Set crust aside. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface

Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water. Bake 45 to 55 minuteuntil it is almost done – this can be hard to judge, but you’re looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don’t want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won’t crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, unmold and serve.

*note: I added crushed oreos into the batter before baking.

 

 

 

Semi Rainbow Steamed Cake

Remember the lapis legit cake that used up 857239875023745 egg yolks? Well, someone’s gotta use up the egg whites too. So here’s what i did.

This cake is the perfect antipode to the lapis legit. Not only it is all egg white, it also uses minimal fats. I didnt say that this is a healthy cake though. Because what it lacks for in richness, it makes up for in sugar.

Also, this cake is steamed as opposed to baked. It only has three layers, which makes it less time and labor intensive than its multiple layered cousin.

Well, they did say to eat a balanced diet after all. What better ways to observe that advice by eating foods that are of polar ends of each other?

Recipe Adapted from NCC, Here

*note: I changed the coffee essence to vanilla

*note: I changed the mocha and chocolate paste to food colourings of yellow, red and green

Kue Lapis Legit

I have always shy-ed away from making kue lapis legit simply because there’s just too much on the line.

This cake is not only labour intensive, but it is also time AND capital intensive.

Why do I say so ?

The lapis legit, or the rich layer cake, is made by baking each layer individually. This means that you have to stand in front of your oven and top your baking tin with new cake batter each time the previous layer gets cooked.

It also means that you can’t pop it into the oven and run to feed your baby. You can however, bring the baby to the oven and hope she doesn’t get too cranky from hunger when her mom is hawking over the oven for her layers to bake.

Capital intensive, because it involves lots of butter and egg yolks. A 20 x 20 cm sized cake can use up to 40 egg yolks! Talk about “eggspensive”!

But when the Aspiring Bakers announced their 27th theme as Through Thick and Thin – Kue Lapis Classics. I decided to jump on the bandwagon because I know that if i let this chance slip, i might never never attempt to bake kue lapis !

So let’s take a stroll through my adventure.

Or should i call it my misadventure?

As you can see, this is not a great looking lapis legit.

1.The layers are uneven and the cake is reallly shorrttt..

I guess i only have myself to blame. I halved a recipe i found on the net thinking that i would compensate by using a smaller baking tin. Well, the tin wasn’t that small. I should have used 75% of the recipe instead.

2.The surface is all crinkly.

Can anyone help me troubleshoot this? My only guess is that i have my oven turned up too high.

Nevertheless, a lapis legit IS a lapis legit. I mean with that much amount of butter and egg yolks, i don’t think it can ever taste bad. This cake is really sinfully rich and delicious despite it’s appearance.

I would definitely try making this cake again, this time with more batter and lower temperature. Wish me luck !

This post is submitted to Aspiring Bakers #27 – Through Thick and Thin – Kue Lapis Classics. Do head over to Sweet Samsations to learn about it and join the layerings!

Kue Lapis Legit

by Fatmah Bahalwan

recipe HERE

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Tree Waffles

I wish I could say this is my bright idea. but it wasn’t. I saw this on Pinterest a while ago, but somehow couldn’t find the link back to the person who came up with this.

But at least, i managed to replicate it.

I used pandan flavoured waffles for this.

And topped it off with a starfruit.

Happy Christmas everybuddy!

 

 

Pandan Waffles

Recipe taken from Cuisine Paradise

Ingredients:
125g All-purpose Plain Flour
50g Caster Sugar
1.5 Teaspoon Cornflour
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Egg, yolk and white separate
100ml Coconut Milk
80ml Drinking Water
1/2 – 3/4 Teaspoon Pandan Paste
30ml Salad/Vegetable Oil

Method:-

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk in coconut milk, pandan water(pandan paste mix with 80ml drinking water), oil and egg yolk till well-combined.

2. Using another bowl, sieve in all dry ingredients such as flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cornflour.

3. Next using a whisk, stir in wet ingredients into the flour mixtures till the batter is slightly lumpy and thick.(do not over mix at this stage)

4. Whisk Egg White with pinch of cream of tartar on medium speed using electric whisk till stiff peaks.(done is about 3 – 5 minutes. To test overturn the bowl and the white should remains without falling)

5. Gently fold white into the flour better till incorporate.

6. Preheat waffle iron and ladle 1 to 1.5 scoop(depending on the size of the scoop) of batter onto hot waffle iron. Cook according to the machine instruction manual until golden brown.

7. Serve hot with honey, jam, kaya, chocolate and etc.

Horlicks Doggie Cookies

I know it’s a long long way to go before baby Crustabakes starts eating cookies. But i guess, it’s never too early to experiment! So here goes!

 

There is no sugar involved in the making of these cookies. Instead it uses milk powder and Horlicks (a malted drink powder) for taste and flavour.

To further add sweetness to these otherwise rather bland cookies, we wrap chocolate chip cookies in the malted cookie dough

 

Then, we stuck two cocoa crunch for “ears”, chocolate rice for eyes and a chocolate chip for nose.

And there it is!

Horlicks Doggie Cookies

Taken From Happy Home Baking

Ingredients:
(makes about 48 cookies)

180g butter, soften at room temperature
80g Horlicks (original flavour)
200g top flour or cake flour
25g corn flour
25g milk powder
100g chocolate chips
some chocolate rice
some Koko Krunch

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 140deg C. Line baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
2. Sieve top flour, corn flour and milk powder.
3. Cream butter and Horlicks for about three minutes at low speed. Do not overbeat.
4. Put in top flour, cornflour and milk powder and beat for about one minute to form dough.
5. Divide dough into 10g each. Put three chocolate chips into each piece of dough and roll into balls.
6. Insert two pieces of Koko Krunch to form the ‘ears’, chocolate rice for the “eyes”, and a chocolate chip in the centre for the ‘nose’.
7. Bake at 140 deg C for about 25 minutes. Depending on your oven, it may take another 5 to 10 minutes more for the cookies to be ready.
8. Leave to cool on wire rack before storing in an airtight container.

 

Steamed Cupcakes

I got the recipe for these steamed cupcakes from a forum i recently joined. This forum focuses on feeding your kids healthy, homemade meals. Which is why you don’t see baking powder and baking soda in the recipe.

To abide by the “heathy” context. I blended green suji leaves (A leaf usually used for food colouring) to give the cakes a bit of a green tinge.

The success of this steamed cake is judged from its surface. If the surface breaks and looks like a volcanic site. It means you did well.

I am glad for my mini volcanoes. Cause it means i did pretty okays! 😉

 

Christmas is here! (almost)

So i had a mini pre-christmas gathering yesterday. It was for a party of 10.

I would have loved to cook and bake myself silly. But i decided to abandon that over-ambitious idea. I decided it was almost impossible to be running back and forth from kitchen to baby’s room while food was cooking, or burning on the stove.

So i decided to bake. I decided it was less of a fire hazard for things to be baking in the oven rather than cooking on an open flame..

So here’s what we had.

1. A log cake

 

I have no inkling to the relationship between Christmas and log cakes. Why do people bake log cakes at Christmas?

I would have googled it, but really, i am too stoned right now to do anything productive.

Nevertheless, i followed cue. So, there was a log cake for my party.

2. Rudolph and Frosty

Now,at least,  i know about these. Rudolph, Santa’s red nosed reindeer. And of course Frosty, the snowman.

While these are not the best looking pictures around, and i am seriously contemplating not putting any post about them up. I am glad i did it. Cause I’m sure, it will be something i would love to look at down the road =)

 

 

 

 

 

Poached Egg

The initial plan was to have poached egg with hollandaise sauce this morning.

But while i scored at poaching the egg, i bombed on the hollandaise.

I guess you can’t win them all.

For the step by step, i followed smitten kitchen’s method of creating a vinegared whirlpool.

And what do you  know? It worked 🙂

 

 

Tamago and crab stick sushi

A sushi is like a sandwich to me. You can pretty much add whatever you fancy into it.

Or whatever you happen to have in your fridge.

I am running low on supplies.

So, it’s imitation crab sticks, tamago omelette, and lettuce for me.

Not the fanciest items around. But they still work like a charm.

Oiishiiii!

Mango Yogurt Muffins

Let’s welcome the Mango Season with these mango Yogurt muffins!

 
Mango Yogurt muffin*makes 12 muffins

Taken from Nasi Lemak Lover
(printable recipe)
125g unsalted butter
150g cake flour
110g sugar
200g chopped fresh mango
100g yogurt (natural flavour)
2 eggs (medium)
1tsp baking powder
1/2tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt

1. Beat butter, salt and sugar till pale and creamy.
2. Add egg one at a time, mix well.
3. Sift in flour, baking powder and baking soda, add in yogurt, combine well
4. Add in chopped mango, and lightly mix well.
5. Spoon batter into a muffin pan, sprinkle some chopped mango on top.
6. Bake at preheated oven 180c for 25mins or till golden brown.

Okonomiyaki

Can i tell you how grateful i am for baby carriers?

Baby Crustabakes seems to want to be carried all day. She wails whenever i put her down.

I have to “wear” Baby Crustabakes to get anything done.

ANY-thing.

Which includes cooking this okonomiyaki.

A savoury Japanese Pancake of seafood and cabbage.

I really dont mind carrying my baby all day. I kiss the top of her head a million times a day as she is snuggly strapped against my chest. It’s a wonderful, intoxicating feeling.

I just worry for her safety as i move around the kitchen to get breakfast served.

Is this a phase that babies go through?

Super mommies out there, can i get advice/solution or any form of insight on the situation?

 

Okonomiyaki

Taken from zencancook

• • 1 cup flour
  • 2/3 cup dashi
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 cups chopped cabbage
  • 2 scallions chopped
  • 1/2 lb pork belly, sliced
  • 1 cup octopus tentacles, chopped
  • okonomi sauce
  • kewpie mayonnaise
  • bonito flakes
  • ao-nori or furikake
  • canola oil

• • For the okonomiyaki:

  • Mix the flour and dashi together. Add to the chopped cabbage and scallions and add the eggs. Mix well. Add the chopped octopus, if using.
  • Heat some oil on a griddle or a large pan. Make four mounts of the cabbage mixture (work in batches) and shape them like pancakes. Top with slices of pork belly.
  • Cook on medium heat until golden brown and flip over, about 7 or 8 minutes per side.
  • Top with okonomi sauce, kewpie mayonnaise, bonito flakes and ao-nori or furikake.
  • Serve hot

  Note:

  I made my own Okonomi Sauce by heating the following ingredients:

  – 1 TBS ketchup

  – 1 TBS worchestershire sauce

  – 1/2 TBS soy sauce

  – 1//2 tsp sugar

   

 

.

Miso Udon Soup

Before Baby Crustabakes, supermarket trips were often and regular.

With her arrival, these visits however, became sporadic and infrequent.

So when i did get to a supermarket last weekend, i felt the urge to buy the store out. I stuffed our cart with things that are usually not in my grocery list.

Things that include fresh udon noodles.

I combined the fresh udon noodles with things that are in my usual grocery list.

Prawns,

Corn,

Crabsticks, and

Egg

I poured some miso broth over the whole party. And thus, was my miso udon.

Miso Udon

• 2 packets of udon
• 3 fresh prawns
• 2 Imitation Crabsticks
• 1 egg – hard boiled
• Boiled corn
• Dried seaweed

For soup:

• 1cup water
• 1 stalk spring onion – chopped
• 1 tbs (or more) miso paste
• 1/4 tsp Hon-dashi seafood flavour seasoning
• 1/2 tbs mirin

Directions:

• Bring the cup of water and dried seaweed to boil.
• Mix in the miso paste the hondashi and the mirin
• Turn the heat off (I used the residual heat to cook the rest of the items on the list) and add the prawn and the imitation crab stick

• In another pot, boil the fresh udon. Drain and place into a bowl.
• Pour miso soup over udon.
• Garnish with spring onion.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Who could resist a muffin with a name like that?

One moment, I was in bed reading a blog post off the Food Librarian,

And the next thing i knew, I was in the kitchen taking butter out of my fridge.

Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
From: Joy the Baker Cookbook (Via the Food Librarian)
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
5 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chunks (I used Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (I used 96 grams of Nestle white chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a muffin pan. Joy’s recipe says it yields 12 muffins, but I must have made mine a bit smaller and got 16 muffins.

Create a double boiler (place some water in a saucepan and bring to a simmer) and place the butter (chopped into about 8 pieces) and 5 ounces of chocolate into a heatproof bowl over the simmering water. Don’t let the bowl touch the water. Melt the butter and chocolate together, stirring together. Once melted, remove and set aside to cool a bit while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, salt.

Whisk the brown sugar into the chocolate mixture. Follow with the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla. Add the flour mixture all at once and fold together. Don’t overmix. Add the chocolate chunks.

Dish into muffin tin. Bake for 18-20 minutes – until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan after 5 minutes and place muffins on wire rack to cool completely.

When the muffins are cool (or as long as you can wait), melt the white chocolate like you did the semi-sweet chocolate. Note that white chocolate melts at a lower temperature. Once melted, have fun drizzling it over the muffins.

 

 

 

Of Pancakes and Waffles

I was feeding Baby Crustabakes last Sunday morning, when i received a phone call from my dad.

“Make pancake batter” he said. ” I am going over.”

Assuming he was coming over for breakfast, i did as i was told. And soon enough he arrived. He had a huge brown box in his arms.

The box had the words “waffle maker”.

I narrowed my eyes with suspicion. “Waffle maker?” I inquired. “I thought we were making pancakes!”

“Oh, they are from the same batter” he said simply.

Feeling highly doubtful of his “same batter” theory, but knowing better than to argue, i busied myself with cleaning the huge contraption called the “waffle maker”.

We decided to skip reading the instruction manual and proceeded to lowering MY pancake batter onto it. We fiddled with some knobs and switches, and used whatever common sense we had.

And what do you know! A Waffle was made!

From A PANCAKE batter indeed!

So if i were to have a lesson learnt from this. I guess that maybe, just maybe, life shouldn’t be that complicated after all. So toss that instruction manual. Use your common sense, sit back, relax and enjoy the some waffles!

 

Fluffy American pancakes (Or waffles)

Taken from Junglefrog Cooking

 

 

Ingredients:

135 gr plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp caster sugar

130ml milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 tbsp of melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

Directions:

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.

Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it’s melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if you frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time) It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1 cm thick.

Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out of the pan.

Serve with lashings of maple syrup and extra butter if you like.

 

Indonesian Steamed Cakes (Bolu Kukus)

I remember i didnt like this kind of steamed cakes growing up.

Their subtle sweetness just didn’t cut it for my then junk-food trained tongue. I crave for soft baked chocolate chip cookies, or fudgy thick brownies.

I am not saying i dont crave for such rich, sinful dessert now. I just learnt to accept food that are milder in flavour…Grown up food.

Because life is not all about Ben and Jerry’s or McDs. There are other stuffs too. Like Broccoli, and delicate Indonesian steamed cakes.

 

 

Garlic Cream Cheese Sandwich Bread in Bacon

Here’s a peak of breakfast at the Crustabakes household

There’s baked beans, scrambled egg, and…. what in the world is that?!

Those, my dear readers, are garlic cream cheese sandwich breads rolled in bacon?

Ok, that’s a pretty long name. Let me try to break it up.

I chopped some garlic and mixed it with cream cheese right?

Then, i spread this garlic cream cheese mixture onto a sandwich bread.

I halved the bread, took a piece of bacon and rolled it around the bread halves.

Then i popped them in the mini toaster to let the bacon cook.

And there you have it. I believe i just wrote a recipe.

Dorayaki

My curiosity for the Dorayaki started from years upon years of reading the Doraemon comics. Growing up, i had volumes of the comics strewn all over my house, be it in the living room, kitchen, dining room, etc.

To me, they provided mini reliefs from mundane everyday tasks. I could just conveniently pick them up while waiting for the commercial to be over on the TV. Or while waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave.

If you are familiar with the comics. you would know of Doraemon’s love affair with Dorayaki. Having a dorayaki in your hands is like a golden ticket. Because you can pretty much bribe Doraemon to cater to your whims and fancy with the dorayaki.

While in the Crustabakes household dorayakis dont have that kind of influential power, it does have the power to fill our bellies andkickstart our mornings with its sugar rush!

Dorayaki

Taken from Just One Cookbook

(I halved the recipe)

• 2 eggs
• 70g  sugar
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 80g all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 Tbsp. water
• Some Sweetened Red bean Paste

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, and honey and whisk well until the mixture gets fluffy.
2. Sift flour and baking powder into the bowl and mix. Keep in the fridge to rest for 15 minutes.
3. Stir in ½ Tbsp of water at a time to get the right consistency. It should be a little bit thicker than pancake batter. If the batter is too thin, Dorayaki buns will be too flat and not fluffy.
4. Heat a large non-stick frying pan on medium-low to medium heat. Dip the paper towel in oil and coat the bottom of the pan with the oil. The pan should be slightly oiled but shouldn’t be visible. That’s the secret to get nice texture on the surface of Dorayaki. With a ladle, drop the batter from 1 foot above the pan to create 3 inch diameter “pancake”. When you see the surface of batter starts to bubble, flip over and cook the other side. Transfer to a plate and cover up with damp towel to prevent from drying. Continue making pancakes.
5. Make sandwich with red bean paste. Put more red bean paste in the center so the shape of Dorayaki will be curved (middle part should be higher). Quickly wrap them with saran wrap until you ready to serve.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’ve always had an attitude towards muffins. It’s not a good one.

To me, muffins are just effortless, dry, tasteless mini cakes.

But when you’ve had a baby and your world goes crazy, effortless doesnt sound like such a bad idea after all. Plus i could always overdose on the chocolate chips. There is almost nothing that an overdose of chocolate chips couldn’t right. Not even effortless, dry, tasteless mini cakes.

So early this morning, my fingers were manouvering the familiar set of measuring cups and spoons while my toes were crossed in the hope that Baby Crustabakes doesn’t wake up. Not before the batter goes into the oven anyway.

And that’s the beauty of muffins. It is THAT quick together.

And another beauty?

Definitely the “Muffin Method” of barely mixing wet and dry ingredients. No need for the racuous handheld mixer to startle the baby!

So, here’s a toast to muffins!

Chocolate Chip Muffins

Taken from My Baking Addiction

 

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or spray the wells of the pan with non-stick cooking spray.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. In medium bowl, whisk together melted butter, eggs, milk, and vanilla, mixing until well combined.

4. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the liquid ingredients into the well. Stir until ingredients are just combined – do not over mix the batter. Fold in the chocolate chips.

5. Evenly divide the batter into the prepared muffin pan wells. Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.

6. Remove muffins to a wire rack and cool for at least 5 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature

Chicken Teriyak Burger

I can’t believe I am finally dusting this old blog of mine from its inch deep of dust.

I apologize for the lack of activity around here. But hey, I think i might have a good excuse for it.

Over the past few months, I have had a baby!

Yes, my very own little bundle of Joy. And i couldn’t be any happier!

And i guess I am not like the SuperMoms out there who are able to juggle their babies in one hand while flipping pancakes with the other.

I am a Total mess.

and I am awful with time management.

Between feeding my baby girl (Yes, it’s a girl!) and burping her. I barely have enough time to wipe the spit up across my shoulder before my little one wails out for another request. Be it a diaper change, or a soothing hug. I am not complaining. I am more than happy to attend to her needs.

It just means that i won’t be posting as often.

And i will have to make do with lackluster blog posts and photos like so:

This is really a raw picture. I didn’t have time to take out my lights or assemble my props the way i usually did way back when.

Nevertheless, I am happy i was able to put up this post. Even when i had to stop about four times doing so. 🙂

Chicken Teriyaki Burger

(Recipe taken from To Food with Love)

Ingredients

5 chicken thighs with skin-on, deboned

Teriyaki sauce:

1/2 cup Kikkoman soy sauce

1/2 cup sake

2/3 cup mirin

3 tbsp sugar

Method

Place ingredients for sauce in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the sugar and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until the sauce is reduced to less than half. Transfer to a bowl and let it cool. It will continue to thicken a little during cooling.

Season chicken thigh fillets with black pepper and pour about 4 tbsp of the teriyaki sauce onto the chicken. Mix well and leave in the fridge to marinate for 1 hour. Reserve the rest for later.

Preheat oven to 210C (400F). Place the chicken in a baking dish or a tray lined with foil. Bake on the upper rack of the oven for 25-30 minutes, turning the chicken once halfway and baste with remaining marinade. When cooked, remove and transfer to a chopping board. Slice into 3/4 inch strips.

* To serve, I seared burger buns facedown in a pan with a bit of garlic butter.

I assembled the lettuce and tomatoes on the seared buns and placed the teriyaki chicken in between.

Chocolate Mochi Brownies

If you ever had mochi before, I am sure you will be no stranger its chewy texture.

So when i first came across these “Chocolate Mochi Brownies”, i was like “whaaa…t?”

Chewy brownies? Really?

Naturally curiousity got the better of me, and here i am,

True to its promise, these brownies were indeed chewy.

If anything, they remind me of the Chinese “nian gao” or rice cakes that are so popular during the Lunar New Year.

But they still retained the dark, fudgy characteristics of a good brownie. So it’s like eating a really rich, dark, chocolatey brownie. But with extra jaw work out.

I am not saying that i prefer these to the traditional dark, fudgy brownies, but they are definitely definitely worth a try.

And they fulfill both my chocolate craving and my curiosity.

Chocolate Mochi Brownies

Taken from Just Jenn

Ingredients:
1 cup mochiko (sweet rice flour)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg
1/2 cup chocolate chips

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8×8 pan with parchment and butter it. This will make your life way easier when you go to take these out.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the butter and chocolate chips and stir to combine. Set aside and let cool for a bit.

In a bowl whisk together the mochiko, sugar, baking soda and salt.

Add the melted chocolate mixture, evaporated milk, vanilla and the egg. Mix until combined.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the batter, then bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until the center is done, it’s hard to tell since the mochi does give these a little more ‘spring’ than the average brownie, but you can kind of tell when it’s cooked through.

Let cool in the pan for about 10-15 minutes, then using the overlapping parchment, pull the brownies out of the pan and let cool on a wire rack. Cut the brownies into squares and you are good to go!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scalloped Potatoes, SPAM and Cheese

I am glad the lazy bug who’s been sprinkling lazy dust all over me took off. I’m not sure how long will his leave of absence be, but he was definitely away this morning as i got myself busy with scalloping potatoes, cubing SPAM and grating Cheese.

Yup, you must have guessed that’s the ingredients I am gonna use for today.

Potatoes, SPAM and Cheese. That sounds like the start of something hearty and filling.

Layers of scalloped potatoes are sprinkled with bits of SPAM & cheese, then drowned in a slightly peppered mixture. Ahh.. Yumms..

That’s carbs, with some protein and definitely some fats.  A comfort meal fitting to feed the cold and the hungry.  Not that i am ever cold in this oven hot-climate of Indonesia, but i am certainly hungry.

I’m not sure if you can cut this dish up and present it nicely. For me, i just used the largest spoon nearby and spooned it out into my mouth, which i learnt is not such a good idea when it’s pipping hot.

So, please take the time to find a stray dish to save your tongue ( I learnt this the hard way…)

And when you are done with your mini heap, you can always go back for more!

🙂

 

Scalloped Potatoes, SPAM and Cheese

Taken from The Pioneer Woman

• 3 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes, Washed Thoroughly
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 whole Yellow Onion, Diced
• 3 cups Diced Ham (*subbed with SPAM)
• 1-1/2 cup Half-and-half
• 1-1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 1/4 cup Flour
• Black Pepper To Taste
• 1 cup Grated Cheddar Cheese
• 1 cup Grated Monterey Jack Cheese
• Chopped Parsley (optional)

 

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a large casserole dish.

Heat butter in a large skillet. Add onions and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until they start to turn translucent. Add ham and cook for 3 to 4 minutes until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat and set aside.

Combine half-and-half and cream in a microwave-safe container and nuke for a minute or so, until no longer cold. Whisk in flour and black pepper until totally combined. Set aside. (You may add salt, but cheese and ham are salty, so add sparingly.)

Combine the two grated cheeses. Set aside.

Using a mandoline or slicer, slice potatoes into 1/8-inch slices (very thin.) Layer 1/3 of the potato slices in the buttered casserole dish. Sprinkle on 1/3 of the ham/onion mixture, then 1/3 of the cheese, then pour on 1/3 of the cream mixture.

Repeat this twice more, ending with a sprinkling of cheese and a pouring on of the rest of the cream mixture. Cover dish with foil and bake for 40 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes at least, or until bubbly and hot.

Cut into squares and serve. Sprinkle on chopped parsley if you’d like!

(Note: To speed along the process a bit, you may boil sliced potatoes for 3 to 5 minutes before assembling the casserole. Just drain and slightly cool before assembling.)

 

 

 

 

 

Pao de Queijo (Brazilian Cheese Bread)

 

I haven’t been baking much recently. These couple of weeks, instead of over-zealously waking up at dawn to preheat my oven, i found myself relying more on more on my mini toaster.

I find myself buying  less of fresh baking ingredients.  No more filling up my cart with  butter, flour and eggs. Instead, i just grab a pair of tongs at the bakery section of the supermarket and fill my tray with cinnamon rolls, buns, croissant and even cakes.

I guess i just got lazy…  But it’s just so tempting to lie longer in bed… Not to mention how much more cost efficient it is to power up a mini toaster as opposed to heating up a full sized oven.

I was quite happy in my lull of baking inactivity.  Then a batch of Brazillian Cheese breads from Evan’s blog caught my attention. They sparked me and re-ignited my dormant oven.

Don’t let appearance deceive  you. Because plain looking as they are, these mini buns  are cheesier than my uncle’s jokes  (Don’t worry, he is not reading this).

Although they are called “bread”, i think they are more akin to choux pastry in terms of appearance. They puff up when baked, and form these little balls with webbed interiors.

They are also as chewy as can be. And by this, i don’t mean bread-like chewy. They are more like mochi-chewy.

I baked these up in a mini muffin pan. They came out looking like gorgeous balls of golden brown.

They are bite-sized and i find myself popping one after another in succession! They are as good as snacks as they are for breakfast! or maybe even appetizers!

Ps: I stored them in the refrigerator and popped them into my mini oven to eat two days later, and they are still as good as freshly baked! 🙂

 Brazillian Cheese Bread 

Recipe taken from Evan’s kitchen Ramblings

 

ingredients (makes 24-28 mini cheese buns) :

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup milk

3/4 tsp table salt or 1 tsp kosher salt

2 cups tapioca flour or gluten-free tapioca starch

2 tsps minced garlic

heaping 2/3 cup grated Parmesan, Romano, or aged Asiago cheese

2 large eggs, lightly beaten
directions :

1. lightly grease a couple of baking sheets or mini muffin pans; or line baking sheets with parchment. put the butter, water, milk, and salt in a saucepan, and heat till the butter has melted and the mixture has come to a full boil. while the mixture is heating, put 2 cups of tapioca flour into a mixing bowl.

2. pour the boiling butter mixture over the tapioca flour, beating to combine. beat at high speed till the mixture becomes smooth and elastic-looking; this will happen very quickly.

3. beat the garlic and cheese into the dough till well combined.

4. stick your finger into the dough. if it’s uncomfortably hot, let it sit for a couple of minutes to cool a bit; you don’t want to cook the eggs when you beat them in. if it seems hot but not burning hot, continue with the next step.

5. with the mixer going, gradually dribble in the beaten eggs, beating till well combined and smooth.

6. drop the mixture in 2-tablespoon balls (about the size of a golf ball) onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 1 1/2″ apart. A level tablespoon cookie scoop works well here. or pour mixture almost to the rim into the muffin tins.

7. bake the rolls for about 20 minutes in a preheated oven of 375F (190C) till they have a freckled appearance (from the browning cheese), and they’re beginning to color a bit. remove them from the oven, and serve hot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chocolate Sheet Cake & Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

I have never been one to abide the mise en place (everything in place) rule when it comes to baking. For me, it’s just a matter of jotting down the list of ingredients on odd pieces of scrap paper, then making a mad dash for the kitchen to get started.

So it is no surprise that I only discovered that this chocolate sheet cake recipe was eggless when my arms were elbow deep in chocolate cake batter.

I was somewhat disappointed.

I love eggs.

They are almost always a part of whatever i am baking. In fact, i was doubtful that any baking could be done without eggs.

But hey, I might be old, but i am no old dog. And with all the vegan movements around, I am definitely open to new tricks.
So here I am, with my first eggless chocolate cake.

And my skepticism towards anything eggless evaporated.

Because this turned out to be moist, soft, flavorful and oh-so chocolatey!

And i suppose i could have made this vegan and all.

But i just have this natural flair to mess things up.

I used sour cream for the chocolate frosting.

I’m sorry.

But i am not regretting.

Because never would i have expected that something so good could come out of just chopped up chocolate and sour cream (U read it right, just these two ingredients!)

These two ingredients that infuse and firm up so well that frosting was a piece of cake!

Not to mention absolutely delicious!

I am glad for the new tricks I learnt today. I guess somehow being a slop, and not following the rules have its own plus points!

Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting

Taken from Hungrymouse (with adjustments)

3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup olive oil or canola oil
2 Tbls. white vinegar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups water
spray oil to grease the pan

*I used 2 pans sized 8×8

Directions

Lightly spray both baking pans with oil and line the bottom with parchment paper. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl).

In another bowl, mix the wet ingredients together (oil, vinegar, vanilla, water).

Slowly , pour the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, (bit by bit to avoid clumps) whisking till just combined. Do not overmix as you might toughen the cake.

Divide batters into prepared pans, and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or till the cake springs back when lightly pressed.

Set aside to cool.

Once cooled, take one piece of the cake, spread the chocolate frosting.

Top with the other cake, and frost all around.

For Dercorations:

Grate some white chocolate, and place a couple of maraschino cherries. VOILA!

Sour Cream Chocolate Frosting Directions

10 0z. chopped chocolate

1 C sour cream

Directions:

Double boil the chocolate to melt.

Tip the sour cream into melted chocolate and watch magic appears ! (Frosting immediately becomes thick and frost-able!)

And now cakes aside, its postcards time again.

More of my favourite vintages! 🙂

A White Bread vintage ad from Angel again! THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH! *love love love vintage ad esp when it’s related to baking*!!

Another vintage from Magnolia in Canada 🙂

And a last postcard depicting life in Austria between the years of 1905- 1910 of a little girl with a horoscope newspaper salesman from Pelra. How lovely!

Green Tea and Vanilla Beans Macarons

I haven’t baked Macarons in ages!

I remember once upon a time, when the macaron craze was at its peak, every other blogger was concocting macarons of every color and flavor.

I sat at the sidelines and gawked. Too chicken to join  in the dance of the Macaron-A. I’ve heard of great tales and failures, and i wasnt too eager to put myself up for disappointment.

I can’t recall what eventually got me in. But if i were to guess, it should have been some leftover egg whites i had.

And really, once u got your feet wet in the dance, there is no turning back. I was sucked in the art of making macarons even as i turned in batches after batches of cracked, feetless, hard macaron shells.

After each failure, i would manically google for answers, and i blamed every possible elements for my demise, be it bad weather, or instability of my oven temperature (which of course werent the case).

Then finally one day, i was met with success. Or at least, my macarons had feet even though they were somewhat lopsided. I was the happiest camper!! It was at least a step up from my previous attempts.

Fast foward today, the theme for the Aspiring Bakers for the month of March is none other than Macarons. I’ve decided to dance along with my version of green tea and vanilla beans macarons.

And i am quite glad that after months upon months of absence from making macarons, my macarons shells still look somewhat acceptable and i didnt have to eat cookies that looked like mini earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Aaaaaaaaaay Macarena to me!

simple vanilla macarons
ingredients

Taken from the baker chick
110 grams blanched slivered almonds or ground almond flour
200 grams confectioners sugar
100 grams egg whites (from 3 eggs, separated 24 hours in advance)
1/4 tsp vanilla paste or extract
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise
50 grams granulated sugar
vanilla buttercream

instructions
Pulse the almonds/almond flour and confectioner’s sugar several times in your food processor until thoroughly mixed. Place egg whites in a clean bowl and beat using mixers (or whisk) until soft peaks form. Split and scrape the vanilla pod and add the beans and extract to the egg whites. Add the sugar and turn the mixer to high, whisking until you have a glossy meringue with stiff peaks.

Fold the dry ingredients into the egg whites gently, briskly at first to break up the meringue a bit, until thoroughly mixed. It’s important you don’t over mix the batter, but it should be well combined and is supposed to “ribbon” off the the spatula when lifted from the bowl.

Transfer the batter to a piping bag fitted with a large round tip and pipe rounds of 1.5 inches along two parchment or silicon-lined baking sheets (leaving space between each.) Let sit one hour at room temperature to develop a shell.

Heat oven to 300. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely and remove from the pan.

To fill, match up like sized cookies and pipe with buttercream or other filling of choice

Ps: For the green tea version, I just added one TBS of green tea powder into the icing sugar and almond flour mix!

Ps: if you are looking to join the fun with the Aspiring bakers, pls head to Alan of travelling foodies by clicking here!

Aspiring Bakers #17 – March Macaron Madness! (Mar 2012) hosted by Alan of Travellingfoodies

 

Oh, and on a side note, I have also taken up this new hobby of exchanging postcards. Basically, u send a postcard somewhere to somebody, and someone else will direct a postcard right back at you. It’s pretty easy, not to mention a lot of fun!

You can read about it from Postcrossing.com

And here are the two cards i have received !

This pretty postcard came from Japan. I love how girly and pink this cupcake postcard is! Thanks Noriko! 🙂

 

This is a vintage ad of an extra dry “Rheigold” beer from Taiwan. I am so very much drawn to vintage ads. They have a special look and feel! The sender has been kind enough to comply with my wish of a vintage ad and sent me this! Thanks so much Angel! 🙂

Nutella Bottomed Cake

I made a boo-boo with this one.

 

Instead of having a Nutella Swirl Cake, I ended up with a Nutella BOTTOMED cake.

Seemed like all the Nutella sank while baking.

I could only think of one reason for this. Homemade Nutella (Yes!I made Nutella from scratch!)

My homemade Nutella was probably denser  than the commercial ones as i have decided to altogether skip a “drizzle hot milk to thin” instruction on the recipe.

I guess the cake batter wasn’t able to put up with all that weight and gave way as the homemade Nutella made its royal descent to the bottom of the pan.

But waitt!! Please don’t give up on it yet!

Although this cake is not picture perfect, i didn’t say it wasn’t delicious. Because it damn well is!

The Nutella formed a very thick, fudgy texture when baked.

It’s like eating a butter cake, with fudge topping.

Just that the fudge TOPPING, happened to be fudge BOTTOMS.

Really, It’s just a matter of the order of the two layers.

No biggie!

Nutella-Swirl Pound Cake

• Contributed by Lauren Chattman

Ingredients

1. 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2. 4 large eggs, at room temperature
3. 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4. 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
5. 1/4 teaspoon salt
6. 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
7. 1 1/4 cups sugar
8. One 13-ounce jar Nutella

1. Preheat the oven to 325°. Lightly grease and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, tapping out any excess flour. In a glass measuring cup, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla. In a medium bowl, whisk the 1 1/2 cups of flour with the baking powder and salt.
2. In a large bowl, using a handheld mixer, beat the butter with the sugar at medium-high speed until fluffy, about 3 minutes. With the mixer at medium-low speed, gradually beat in the egg mixture until fully incorporated. Add the flour mixture in 3 batches, beating at low speed between additions until just incorporated. Continue to beat for 30 seconds longer.
3. Spread one-third of the batter in the prepared pan, then spread half of the Nutella on top. Repeat with another third of the batter and the remaining Nutella. Top with the remaining batter. Lightly swirl the Nutella into the batter with a butter knife. Do not overmix.
4. Bake the cake for about 1 hour and 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto a wire rack, turn it right side up and let cool completely, about 2 hours. Cut the cake into slices and serve.

 

 

 

Banana Caramel Cream Pies

While banana cream pies are many and aplenty, banana CARAMEL cream pies are  not. And while a large banana cream pie is to be sliced and shared, my banana caramel cream pies came in mini sizes.

 

I have not exactly mastered the art of making caramel. Some days my caramel curdle, and the milk solids would separate away (does anyone have any insight on this???).

But fortunately, there is no need to that stress inducing scenario today. Because instead of dumping cream into burning sugar, we add chopped bananas. And don’t worry about bananas and hot hot cooking sugar. They wont separate on you.

The recipe for this is a multi steps process. First we blind bake the crust.

 

Then the banana custard goes into it. The banana custard gets cooked twice. Once over the stove, and once in the oven. The custard would already be fully cooked over the stove. The second oven time is just to further caramelize the custard for a deeper flavour. oh yeah.

Top it off with whipped cream, shaved chocolate and toasted almonds,

And we’re good to go!

 

Banana Caramel Cream Pie

Taken from Daily Delicious

Sweet Shortcrust pastry
125g …………………………. Plain flour
25g …………………………… Icing sugar
…………………………………. A pinch of salt
75g …………………………… Unsalted butter, cold but pliable
1 ………………………………. Egg yolk
1-2 tsp …………………….. Iced water
Banana caramel filling
75g …………………………… Caster sugar
25ml ………………………… Water
350g ………………………… Bananas, peeled and chopped into pieces
25g …………………………… Unsalted butter
50ml ………………………… Milk
1 1/2tbsp …………………. Cornflour (cornstarch)
150g …………………………. Whipping cream
Topping
250g …………………………. Whipping cream
30g …………………………… Caster sugar
1tbsp ………………………… Rum
1 ……………………………….. Banana
………………………………….. Sliced almond, toasted
………………………………….. Dark chocolate, shaved

Mix flour, icing sugar and salt together in a bowl, add the butter and rub until combine.
Add  the egg yolk and water, mix until the dough come together.Take the dough out of the bowl and knead until smooth.
Pat into a block, warp and chill for at least 30 minutes before using.Preheat the oven to 150°C.
Roll the pastry out thinly and line 18cm-round round tart pan.
Line the pastry with aluminium foil, and blind bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and beans and cook until a pale golden brown, 10-15 minutes.
Increase the oven temperature to 180°C.Heat the sugar in a saucepan with 25ml water and boil over high heat until the sugar turns into a caramel. Add the banana pieces and butter, and simmering gently until the banana is soft. In a bowl beat the milk and cornflour until smooth, then take the pan out of the heat, beat the milk and cornflour mixture into the saucepan with the whipping cream.
Return to the heat, cook until boiling.Pour into the pastry case, bake for 10-15 minutes until golden.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool.Whip the cream with sugar, and rum until soft peaks formed.
Spoon the whipped cream over the top with banana slices, dark chocolate, almond and drizzle with the caramel sauce.

Fluffy American Pancakes

As big as I am on making breakfasts, i have never (gasp!) made pancakes before.

Something about the controlling of a fire on a stove with the simultaneous flippping of runny batter distress me.

But let’s not under estimate the power of lust. I was lusting after a stack of warm pancakes with a pat of butter and a drizzle of caramel, and perhaps some caramelized apples.

And against general belief, lust can be a good thing. Because lust brought out courage. I confronted my fears and conquered.

And as of today, I am a damsel freed of pancake making distress.

And i didn’t need a man to rescue me from it!

Ps: I have been trying my hands at some DIY postcards and came out with this recipe card. It’s my first attempt, and i have come to realize that there are so many wonderful features and “magic tricks” in photoshop that i feel ashamed for under-using them the programme after all these years. I look forward to exploring more with it!

FLUFFY AMERICAN PANCAKES (Taken from junglefrog-cooking and BBC Good Food website)

Ingredients

135 gr plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp caster sugar

130ml milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 tbsp of melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.

Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it’s melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if you frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time) It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1 cm thick.

Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out of the pan.

Serve with lashings of maple syrup and extra butter if you like. *

* I served mine with homemade caramel sauce and caramelized apples.

Swiss Roll With Mixed Berry Jam

Beside the New Year’s Day, we Chinese also celebrate another occasion known as the Lunar New Year. The exact date for this celebration is not fixed.

I haven’t got the slightest clue how or what the date calculation is based upon, but it usually lapses from the conventional new year just by a couple of weeks.This year, the Chinese New Year was observed on 22 January 2012.

Which means on top of Christmas and New Year, our holiday season is somewhat extended. Of course, this also means the holiday bulge from the festive eating usually lingers a while longer with us.

Anyways,

Back to Chinese New Year.

It is a common practice for families and friends to send hampers of foodstuff amongst each other during this season. It’s almost like gift exchanging at Christmas.

Usually wrapped in transparent decorative plastic, we are able to see through into the goodies and treats that lay inside each hamper. As a kid, I used to gawk at the goodies neatly assembled within, and however tempted, I never dared to rip any one open without the consent of my parents.

My eyes would “lock” on the items that suited my fancy, and when the day came for the hamper to be unwrapped, I would go straight for these items.

So fast forward to twenty years later, I was visiting my parents’ home this January for Chinese New Year when my eyes locked on fancy jar of jam within a hamper that they had received.

A tall jar of “All natural”, “100% fruit”, “no sugar added” jam.

And like so many years, i still couldn’t bring myself to help myself to it without first asking for permission. Feeling like the kid i was years and years ago, i expressed my longing toward the said jam. And my parents, being the generous souls that they are (bless them!) pushed the entire basket of treats my way, and proclaimed me as its new owner.

I reached home that night, grabbed a spoon from the kitchen and did a taste test. I thought it tasted pretty good. I reversed the spoon, and using its handle (No double dipping!) scooped a tiny amount and popped it into the husband’s mouth.

And what other people valued “no sugar added”, he considered “sour”.

And the “100% fruit”?, he dismissed as “gritty with all the berry seeds”.

Convinced that it was a bad jar of jam, I chucked it to the side door shelf of the refrigerator, where it took up residence for the next one month.

Finally this morning, i decided to act upon it.

I baked a cottony, soft, chiffon swiss roll, and spread the controversial jam into it.

Good enough to eat on its own, the jam was just supplemental. And if you were as fussy as the husband, you could do exactly what he did and scrape away all the jam and worked just on the cake.

I brought the Swiss roll to work. And it seemed like the good and mature people at work were kinder to the jam.

No one made any unfavourable remark.

Because in all fairness, the jam is NOT bad at all,

It’s just that i happen to live with a man with a rather under-developed, child-like palate.

Chiffon Swiss Roll with Mixed Berry Jam

* Recipe to follow