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.

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 =)

 

 

 

 

 

12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies, Week #11 – Santa’s Hats Cookies

Christmas is hitting upon us like a bullet train. I cant believe that this is already week 11 of 12 WOCC!

One more week to go. Sigh, i am definitely gonna miss this. I’ve been looking forward to Fridays ever since 12 WOCC started, just because i can watch the panel of thumbnail shots of what other bloggers did. The panel will start with just a few entries, and as the day progresses, so will the number of thumbnails. I love hitting the ‘refresh’ button after every few hours or so to check out for new entries. Yes, i am definitely gonna miss that.

And having said that, i would like to thank Abby for organizing such a wonderful event!

Anyhoo, for week #11, i made these Santa’s hats

I have been visualizing this for quite a number of weeks, but i wasn’t sure whether it would work. These hats are made of red, cone shaped choux pastry. And i was really doubting on whether it was even possible to make red, cone shaped choux pastry. There are too many unaddressed technicalities, like whether the choux pastry will puff, the way they usually do and lose that cone shape. Or whether the dough will slide down the wafer cone i used as the pastry was baking. Confused yet?

Let me do a brief run on what i visualized, which fortunately did materialize. LOl

As mentioned, the santa’s hats are actually made of red choux pastry dough, which i have piped around a wafer cone.

I got these wafer cones from a local baking supply shop. They are meant to pipe buttercream roses on.  Basically, you are supposed to pipe roses on them and transfer the whole thing (wafer+rose) onto your cakes. They are just tasteless edible wafer which come in multi colour.

So anyways, once piped, i sent them to bake and got these:

Yes! it worked! Although the dough did puff somewhat, they did manage to retain its shape, and nope, the dough didn’t slide down the wafer cones as it was baking. In fact it stuck to the wafer cone quite a bit, so u have to gently kinda ease the cones out of the choux shells.

Okays, now that the difficult part is done, so what of these crispy shells now?

We pipe them with white chocolate mousse of course! The same mousse i piped on those chocolate cups last week. U can just pipe into the hollow, or you can pipe into the hollow AND the sides. Piping around the mouth of the choux pastry shell will give u that extra ruffle in the eventual cookies.

Next, comes the base

I needed an untainted white base for these hats, and what better recipe to follow than that tapioca floured cookie recipe i used for my Albino Gingerbread men? 🙂

We then attach the filled and piped cookies onto that pristine white bases

Oh, a word of advise, fill, pipe cookies and attach them to their designated bases just before serving though. Both cookie base and the choux pastry will get soggy quite quickly. But having said that, you can definitely make the cookies and the mousse in advance,  and refrigerate and assemble them when they are ready to be eaten.

Oh, and don’t forget to pipe that mini fluff of a ball on the tips of these cookies

Santa’s Hat Cookies all good to go!

Choux Pastry Recipe

(Taken from an Indonesian cookbook, please bear the pathetic translation!)

100 gram butter

200 ml water

1/4 tsp salt

125 grams AP flour

180 grams egg, beaten lightly

A few drops of red colouring

1. Heat the butter, water, red colouring and salt till they come to a rolling boil.

2. Remove from heat and immediately dump in all the flour. Mix well and return to fire still mixing till the dough dries out. Remove from heat and let cool

3. Beat the eggs into the dough gradually, mix till they are well combined.

4. Spoon dough into a pipping bag, and pipe around the wafer cones.

5. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, or till they are dry.

Chocolate Mousse Recipe

For the white chocolate mousse:

150 gr white chocolate

150 gr heavy cream

1. In a double boiler, melt white chocolate till smooth, set aside to cool to room temp.

2. In another larger bowl, beat heavy cream till soft peaks. Drizzle in melted white chocolate and beat till you have a thick, pipping consistency.

White Cookie Base Recipe:

Recipe adapted from Little Corner of Mine (Thanks for sharing!)

Ingredients:

-2 1/2 cups tapioca flour/tapioca starch
-1 Tbp. butter, melted
-1 egg yolk (from large egg)
-1 cup icing sugar
-120ml thick coconut milk (or coconut cream)

Method:

1. Place a paper towel on a microwave safed bowl, add the tapioca flour and microwave for 1 minute. Set aside and let it cool. (You can fry the flour in the wok if you don’t have a microwave.)

Microwave extra tapioca flour for standby (to flour the surface) and kneading purposes.

2. Sift tapioca flour and icing sugar in a big bowl. Add melted butter, yolk & coconut milk. Knead until the dough is pliable. (If the dough is wet or soft, add more tapioca flour, 1 Tbp. at a time and knead until it becomes a harder dough. Likewise, if it’s too dry, add more coconut milk).

3. Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface to about 3mm thickness. Cut into shapes with a cookie cutter*. Arrange on lined baking tray and bake at 350′F for 15 minutes. It will puff when baked.

*Note: i used a circular cookie cutter.

12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies, Week #6 Popcorn Christmas Tree

We are definitely inching slowly but steadily to Christmas. It’s just a month away! Boy, am i giddy with excitement! To celebrate our crossing into November, and for week #6 of 12  Weeks of Christmas Cookies,

i present these popcorn Christmas trees.

The idea to make these just popped (no pun intended) into my mind as i was making caramel popcorns.

After all that chiffon cake episode, i wanted a break from anything sensitive and collapsible. No bread, or cakes or pies, or even pastries for all that matter. I wanted something fool-proof,  quick and easy, and i guess pop corn is it.

And i must say, there is something deeply satisfying hearing all that corn kernels pop. I am really digging it. It’s like listening to raindrops tapping against the window.

And i am really amazed at how science works. How corn kernels transform into something so different, how something so hard and inedible can turn into something so light and crunchy.

And how they can be further manipulated to form something so festive. 🙂

Okay, that’s not really a lot to be amazed about. Maybe i am just in a weird mood.

Truth is, i wanted to make mini versions of these Christmas trees. But time wasn’t really on my side ( I made them in the morning before rushing off to work). And the truth is, i wanted to make some pretty yellow star shaped icing, but again, due to time constraint, i didnt really have much time to locate my nozzle, or fit my yellow frosting into my pipping bag.

And of course u can go crazy creative with these, I am thinking M&M’s, chocolate chips, pretzel sticks, nuts into the popcorn! Whatever that rocks your boat.

Sadly, i didn’t have all these on hands, but at least i had sprinkles! So that will have to do..

So these Popcorn Christmas trees aren’t the most perfect things, and i shouldn’t really gotten ahead of myself,

But i am pretty satisfied with how they turned out.

So let’s get poppin’ !

Recipe from Ezra Pound Cakes ( who adapted from Damgoodsweets ) THANKS so much for sharing!!

• 1 (3.5-ounce) package plain microwave popcorn (or 3.5 ounces of popping corn)
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup light corn syrup
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup lightly salted peanuts, roughly chopped

1. Heat the oven to 250 degrees F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside,

2. Pop the popcorn according to the package instructions. Coat a large mixing bowl with nonstick cooking spray, and transfer the popcorn from the bag to the bowl. Set aside.

3. In a small saucepan, whisk the sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt and 2 tablespoons of water, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, stirring often, until the mixture reaches 250 degrees F on a candy thermometer, 3 to 4 minutes.

4. Turn off the heat, and whisk in the vanilla and baking soda. Immediately pour the hot mixture over the popcorn. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn until all of the popcorn is coated.

5. Gently stir in the peanuts, and transfer the mixture to the prepared baking sheet.

6. Bake for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn. Serve immediately, or store in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

*Note: I used a gingerbread cookie as the base.

To make the popcorns green, i substituted the white sugar for the brown sugar in the recipe, and stirred in green colouring after the baking soda went in.

I then shaped the popcorns into its conical shape (BE careful, they are really HOTT!) and placed them on a baked gingerbread cookie.The semi molten sugar will adhere itself to the base.

I sprinkled the trees with sprinkles first before popping them into the oven to dry out. If you sprinkle after the oven time, the sprinkles wont stick as the sugar has already dried.

Once again, i thank the host abbeysweets for letting me participate on such a fun event!