the sometimes nibbler

HOUSING WANTED: next to Bourke Street Bakery. Surry Hills, Sydney

2011-06-18T09:58:00.015+08:00

I rarely feel compelled to blog about my baking after I finish something. I do a lot of prep work: research other bloggers, go through all my cookbooks looking for other variations, measurement conversions, mise en place, baking...and finally, it takes about 15 minutes for me to polish off every last crumb. By that time, I'm already so over it and back on foodgawker searching for my next sugar high. I don't need an intervention.

But this gem I need to share! A few things about carrot cake: most

carrot cakes are made with cooking oil rather than butter, that's what helps it stay really moist. There are a million variations that you can play around with: walnuts, coconut, pineapple, raisins, dried cranberry, apple sauce, almond meal, etc. Roughly grate the carrots - a lot of the carrot cakes that you can buy use finely ground carrots, personally I prefer the rough and rustic style. Appearance wise, it leaves beautiful strips of bright orange in the cake.

Oh and did I mention I hate carrots? I think they stink. As a vegetarian I try not to discriminate. I can take cooked carrots, but raw is just gross guys. I remember being jealous of my roommates because they'd be able to eat raw baby carrots with hummus as a snack without throwing up. Fortunately carrot cake tastes nothing like raw carrots, especially if it's topped with cream cheese frosting.

What's special about this particular recipe is the crispy meringue top that forms while baking. Similar to the thin crunchy shell that forms over the ever elusive souffle, this recipe incorporates whipped egg whites for an extra lift. It's important not to over mix (frightening flashbacks of my war with macarons) or the egg whites will deflate and won't get a proper rise. Do a good mise en place here, you'll need to work fast for this recipe. See? baking is intense.

Preheat to 200C

Use cooking spray to coat the inside of a 7 inch/18 cm round cake tin. Drop in 2 tablespoons of APFlour and shake it around to coat the bottom and sides of the pan. This is so you aren't left weeping over a perfectly beautiful cake that ends up clinging to the pan.

70g walnuts (I didn't use any)

150 g/1c self-raising flour; I'm not sure if they sell this in Taiwan, but I just measure out 1c of APF, then scoop out two tsp on the flour and add 1.5 tsp of baking powder and .5tsp salt. It's supposed to be the same

1/8 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon - I added more

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

*I also added 1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp salt

2 egg whites

60g sugar for egg whites

1 egg

1 egg yolk

160g sugar for egg yolks

2/3c light olive oil or other light flavored cooking oil

125g peeled and roughly grated carrots

*I added 1/2c shredded coconut as well

Sift the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt
Put egg whites in a very clean DRY bowl otherwise they won't make it to soft peaks
Use an electric mixer with a whisk attachment and beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks start forming. If you want, you can add a pinch of cream of tartar which helps to stabilize meringue. Slooowly pour in the sugar for the egg whites while the motor is still running. Stop mixing when you get to a soft peak stage.
Transfer meringue to another bowl and set aside.
Using the same bowl, add the whole egg, egg yolk and sugar for the yolks. Mix on high speed for 3-4 minutes or until the mixture doubles in volume and is quite airy.
While the mixer is still going, slowly stream in the oil. If the oil is poured in too quickly, the mixture might split or deflate too much.
Remove the bowl from the standing mixer and gently fold in the flour mixture until combined.
Fold in carrots (and any other ingredients you might want to add, like coconut or walnuts)
Quickly and lightly fold in the meringue - don't fold it through completely! You should still be able to see streaks of white meringue through the mix.
Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 1 hr 10 minutes. You can check for doneness by sticking a wooden toothpick through the center of the cake - if it comes out clean or with a few crumbs, then it's done. I don't like over-cooked cake because they end up getting really dry in the center, so as long as the toothpick comes out without wet dough on it, it's pretty safe.
Don't open the oven for the first 40 minutes. The meringue needs time to rise and bake into shape - if you open the oven, it will deflate and you'll have a crumb that is much too dense.
IF after the first 40 minutes, the top of the cake is browning too quickly, you can drop the temperature to 180C and place a piece of foil over the cake.
When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the tin for about 30 minutes before turning it out onto a wire rack to cool.

This cake smells like an autumn day (yes, I am aware it is 35 degrees in Taiwan now) and has the perfect texture - a pillowy, moist crumb surrounded by a thin meringue crust!

Next time I'll add cream cheese frosting.

Serving Size 101 g

Amount Per Serving

Calories

378

Calories from Fat

191

% Daily Value^*

Total Fat

21.2g

33%

Saturated Fat

5.4g

27%

Trans Fat

0.0g

Cholesterol

47mg

16%

Sodium

127mg

Total Carbohydrates

44.3g

15%

Dietary Fiber

1.5g

Sugars

28.7g

Protein

4.1g

Vitamin A 53%	•	Vitamin C 2%
Calcium 2%	•	Iron 7%

Nutrition Grade C

* Based on a 2000 calorie diet

Chinese New Year Box

2011-01-11T16:36:00.003+08:00

When Life Gives You Lemons...

2010-06-24T22:33:00.004+08:00

you make Blueberry Lemon Zest Crumble Bars!

I've been baking quite regularly recently, I can't say the same for my blog updates - but talking about that won't get us anywhere! Along with my baking/cooking, the big boys I mingle with have been mastering the art of starting a fire (their first attempt created a char crusted stove-top and me dizzily gasping for fresh air away from the kitchen/potential carbon-monoxide suicide scene). To their credit, it only took another get-together for them to put a boy scout to shame - what an accomplishment!

So, to accompany their perfectly charred cuts of meat, I tried out my first-ever Lemon Meringue Pie (www.joyofbaking.com). Two days later, I tested my hand again with a new recipe. Unfortunately, this entry is not about those pillowy pies - I kind of just wanted to prove that I had been practicing and not slacking off.

After work this week I've made Blueberry Crumble Bars with a Lemon Zest Twist and a Mango Olive Oil Cake.

The Blue Berry Crumble Bars were made because, well...we had some frozen blueberries (not ideal, I know), a bag of left-over lemons, some empty-bellied guests coming over - and I needed something fast after work.

I had a request from a dear friend Wei for something healthier - a word of warning - this is defiantly not it. A crumble is basically made of a bit of flour and pea-sized pieces of butter mixed with sugar. That's right - it's simple, crazy tasty, and slightly dangerous. Here's the recipe:

I halved the recipe below because Asians tend to eat desserts like fairies(ugh).

Preheat oven to 190C/375F

Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan

1 c white sugar

1 tspn baking powder

3 c all-purpose flour

1 c unsalted butter

1 egg

1 tspn pure vanilla extract

1/2 tspn kosher salt

zest of two lemons

4 c fresh or frozen blueberries

1/2 c white sugar

3 tspn cornstarch

*As with all crumbles or puff pastries, the butter needs to be really cold. I've watched a French youtube clip about making puff pastry and the poor chef took several hours to fold and refrigerate the dough over and over in order achieve the ideal puff and flakiness. Basically, when the butter in the dough is placed in the oven, the butter releases steam and makes the surrounding dough puff up. I'm not too sure why the butter in crumbles need to be ice cold as well - I mostly just follow instructions!! The best way to do it if you don't have hours to spend tri-folding your dough and refrigerating, you can freeze your butter ahead of time (make sure it's the correct amount for your recipe first) and then use a cheese grater to grate the butter into smaller pieces - this ensures that you can get a good dough mixture without having to use your fingers to break down the butter!

In a medium bowl, stir together sugar, flour, salt, lemon zest and baking powder.
In a small bowl, whisk the egg and vanilla together until combined.
Use pastry cutter or your food processor to blend the flour mixture with the butter and egg/vanilla mixture. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of dough into the prepared pan. (If you don't have a pastry cutter or food processor, grate the frozen butter over the flour mixture. Gently cut together with two cold forks. When butter is pretty well coated with the flour, pour over the egg and vanilla mixture - continue to lightly bring together to a loose dough. Press half of dough into the prepared pan as mentioned above)
In another bowl, stir together the sugar and cornstarch. Gently mix in the blueberries. Sprinkle the blueberry mixture evenly over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer.
Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

The Wedding

2010-06-22T22:25:00.004+08:00

And exactly one month later...

A few months ago, I was asked by the more beautiful half of the Cheng couple, Jessica, if I'd like to challenge my amateur dessert making skills for their wedding. The wedding cake would be out of the question. I wasn't about to ruin the first of many "best day

of their lives" by testing my hand with a multi-tiered cake. I could already imagine the humidity-hating buttercream slipping off the sides of the cake into a sad puddle...albeit a delicious one.

Instead, Jess asked if I could possibly do a dessert table. OF COURSE - I only graze over wedding, baby-shower, garden party themed websites ALL day waiting patiently for someone to ask me to tailor-design a dessert table. This was SO meant to be. And so the planning began...

On the menu:

Raspberry Buttercream Macarons

Cheesecake Pops

Decorated Vanilla Cupcakes (topped off with Lavender & Silver pinwheels)

Fortune Cookies

Milk n' Cookie Shots (Vanilla infused Panna Cotta with Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies)

I really didn't want to do the whole cupcake thing, I mean, let's face it - they're all over the place! BUT, the chocolate covered Cheesecake Pops were sweating out of their dark chocolate coats because of the summer heat, so I had to go with a quick fix. It was the first time I decorated cupcakes, and I must say, the blog-grazing finally came in handy when I had to sketch out the designs. I went with some simple and elegant themes and stuck with lavender and a soft cream color.

The fortune cookies were a huge head-ache. I could only make three at a time and each tray had to be baked for 15 minutes. After all the hard work, they ended up getting stale the second they cooled off from the oven. Please transport me to the Sahara now, dear Kitchen God.

I think my favorite by far were the Milk n' Cookie shots - the bride sweetly told me that her amore liked simple American desserts, and what's more American than the timeless combination of a tall glass of milk with a crispy chewy chocolate chip cookie? Personally, I always trade in the glass of cold milk for another cookie - I'm not a fan of milk. This particular dessert looked cute but at the same time was a Oscar-winning version of the boy/girl next door treat.

Finally, I made them a bunch of raspberry infused macarons...those were on me, simply because I like to practice my Mac-skills, and let me tell you - practice does not make perfect with this French sweet.

If anyone wants any of the recipes that I used, let me know in the comments and I'll get back to you!

Enjoy!

A Preview

2010-05-25T01:37:00.002+08:00

2010-04-17T21:12:00.005+08:00

Soooo I've been taking the "sometimes" in thesometimes nibbler quite literally. "Sometimes" like, once every few months. I'm just going to jump right in - if you remember, a little before Christmas, I had two goals. I wanted to make macarons (check!) and bread. Not sure why, but the whole idea of having to bake with something that is, well, ALIVE (don't call PETA yet, I'm just talking about yeast) just scared me. I'm sort of a control freak and I can't really deal with failure. I always imagined each packet of yeast having its own little personality - always erratic of course (yes, I always assume the worst).

Anyway, last weekend I was inspired! I went to visit a Bagel restaurant my friend opened up in Shanghai- EGGHEAD BAGELS. It's warm little establishment, bustling with towering stacks of bagel-wiches (oh, and I won't even BEGIN to get into it's offering of gourmet cupcakes faite par C'est Cupcake). Our table ordered three turkey clubs with extra Swiss Cheese, and the matching-gloved couple next to us opted for a pair of toasted plain bagels with whipped butter. Memories of shuffling across the icy sidewalks, toes freezing because this (half) Taiwanese girl didn't know any better than to buy a pair of non-water-proofed Uggs...even before the sun had a chance to loiter up the edge of Lake Monona, I'd make a pit-stop at Einstein Bros. Bagels on State Street. A toasted cinnamon raisin bagel, crusted to perfection with a healthy lick of salted butter. I think I was able to down that baby before I even got to Memorial Library.

So there I was, inspired in a Bagel Shop in Shanghai, with memories of Madison - that's all it took for me to finally introduce myself to my very first yeast-ed bread.

As with everything else, I watched youtube videos, studied blogs and tried to understand the science of it all. What kind of flour to use and why? Why are bagels boiled? What's the story behind the "cement doughnut"? I'm not going to bore you all with those things here...but basically, there are two types. The Montreal Bagel and the holier than thou New York Bagel. That's right, I'm putting my foot down. I probably never tried a real-deal hard-knock New York-styled bagel before, but after reading about their Canadian frenemy, I'd say they better start worrying - a bagel baked in a wood burning oven MUST have some extra oomph! Just to make things clear, I definitely didn't make any Montreal Bagels - and I can't claim to have conquered the NY ones either (I wouldn't dare). I went with a simple bagel recipe from Thibeault's Table - it was totally perfect because they were mini!

Easy-peasy "you don't scare me" Bagels - (my name)

2 cups warm water

2 packs active dry yeast (I used Instant, one "pack" is 7 grams, so two packs would be 14 grams! So easy!)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 tablespoon salt

Around 5 3/4 cups bread flour (unsifted - finally!)

3 quarts water with 1-2 tablespoons of sugar

Cornmeal (no, I didn't have any)

Vegetable oil (to grease the bowl and baking sheet)

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon of water (this is for the shiny eggwash that gives the bagels a shiny golden coat)

Pour the 2 cups of warm water into a bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface of the water and mix together lightly so all of the yeast particles are coated...I think that's the point of this. Anyway, you're trying to proof the yeast to make sure it's alive and kickin'. Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes.
When you come back, it should have a thick-ish foam on top of the water. Yep, it stinks. If it has foamed, then congratulations, your yeast is alive, and it's probably going to be your friend today.
Stir in the sugar.
In a larger mixing bowl, mix together 4 cups of the flour and the salt. Just a reminder, salt will de-activate the capabilities of the yeast, so no direct contact!
Pour the yeast and sugar mixture over the flour and begin to mix with a wooden spoon. The recipe I looked at called for a standing mixer, but I'm without my KitchenAid here in SH, so I rely on my guns.
Slowly mix in another 1 1/4 cups of flour.
No, sprinkle your work surface with lots of flour and drop your dough onto the counter.
Knead (I recommend watching this on youtube - seriously) - pull up the dough and pressing down with the heel of your hand to form a ball. Do this for around 15 minutes. Feel free to throw it against the table...
Place your ball of dough in a greased bowl and cover with a slightly dampened kitchen towel. Let it rise till it has doubled (40 minutes - 1 hour). The kitchen I was working in was actually quite cool, so I placed the bowl in an oven that was switched off, it sort of trapped the warmth of the dough in the oven? Meh I don't know, I'm not a professional!
After it's doubled, punch down the dough.
Divide into thirds.
Set 2/3 of dough on your floured work surface and cover with some plastic wrap.
With the other 1/3, cut into 16 pieces.
Shape into bagels! youtube this please, but what I did was, ball up the dough in my palms and punched a hole with my forefinger and thumb. Then, I pulled at the sides of the hole to even it up.
Let the raw bagels stand for around 20 minutes.
Set the water and sugar to boil and grease your baking sheet. My sous-chef Jefferson added quite a bit of vegetable on to the baking sheet, this actually helped to crisp the base of the bagel I think!
Preheat the oven now at 204 C or 400 F.
After 20 minutes, turn down the water so it's just simmering, lightly drop 3 bagels at a time into the water.
Cook for 30 seconds on each side. Larger bagels will need to cook for 1 minute on each side. They should be floating at the top while you do the cooking.
Strain the boiled bagels and dry off on a paper towel.
Place bagels onto the baking sheet and brush over with the egg wash. You can sprinkle some sesame, poppy seeds, garlic powder...etc over your bagels now if you'd like!
Bake for around 20 minutes. Mine took about 17 minutes, but every oven will be different.

REAL bagels are actually supposed to "retard" over night in a refrigerator, but I wanted instant gratification - and gratification I got! Give it a go and let me know how your cement doughnuts turn out!!!

Pineapple Tarts - Something Asian...finally

2010-03-02T21:44:00.008+08:00

Call me the failed planner, I won't hold it against you. I had created a wonderful menu of sweet and savory (unbelievable, I know) goodies to give out as gifts to friends and family to celebrate Chinese New Year. They key words here are: "had" (it was planned, never materialized) and "menu" (having a menu does not necessarily equate the actual coming together of ingredients, because that would take...well...time). Let me whip out my virtual legal-pad on my phone and enlighten you all - I had: Pineapple Tarts, Savory Sesame Crisps, Matcha Macarons with Red Bean Paste filling, Orange Zest Fortune Cookies.

So the little voice in my head, which by the way talks like one of the curiously famous starlettes on The Hills kept saying, "Chinese New Year holiday lasts, like, totally long, its like, 10 days or whatever, and like, when I did the Christmas box it was so much work, it was a complete and utter travesty for my skin - to quote Cher from clueless". But in my defense, I DID end up making the Pineapple Tarts as well as the Matcha Macarons.

There are actually quite a lot of bloggers out there that make CNY-themed pastries to celebrate the season - the most popular recipe being Pineapple Tarts. These aren't the traditional Taiwanese type that we remember hauling back to the mid-west during our college years (not applicable to those that are in NYC or California). These are a Malay/Singaporean version that uses various spices (cloves, star of anise, cinnamon) in the pineapple jam, and a crumbly pastry that doesn't usually end up completely encasing the jam.

My recipe is a combination of what I learned from the wonderful Angie at Sea Salt with Food as well as Billy Law at A Table for Two. I absolutely loved the idea of shaping the tarts into mini pineapples with cloves on top. I must admit, for being such a crafty little lady, the spikes on the "pineapples" were quite difficult to maneuver with my clumsy kitchen scissors. Check out the other blogs, they did a great job of showing how to make them. I just took photos of the final product - are you beginning to question my baking-credibility?

Pineapple Jam

3 baby pineapples or 2 cans shredded pineapples

200 grams granulated sugar

1 clove

1 cinnamon stick

1 star anise

150 grams liquid glucose. this is so low fat you have no IDEA

2 tbsp all purpose flour

Finely shred the pineapple till fine. This took me ages...my dad managed to take our dog out for a walk and when he came home, I was still on pineapple two. What can I say, perfectionista I am.
Strain the pineapple till dry. Now that I think of it, I should have kept it for juice or something. So, do that - live and learn right? Save your pineapple juice, the lessons of life.
Simmer the pineapple in a pan till the rest of the juice dries up.
Add sugar and spices. Is that part of a country song perhaps?
Keep stirring. Focus on those arm muscles. We'll all be body builders soon.
When the mixture starts getting dry, add liquid glucose
Stirrr till the jam is thick and sticky icky icky - and sort of dry
Add the flour.
Continue to stir until the jam is almost completely dry - it should take around 10 minutes.
Let the jam cool off a bit and then shape into small ovals, around the shape of the first joint of your thumb. Is that even usable as a measuring device?

Pastry

180C

350 grams all purpose flour

50 grams corn flour (okay, I used corn starch, am I completely wrong? maybe. but they turned out all KINDS of fabulous)

250 grams unsalted butter at room temperature

50 grams icing sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg yolk for glazing

Sift together all purpose flour, corn flour and salt
Cream together the butter and the icing sugar with a mixer until it gets light.
Beat in egg yolks one at a time.
Add in the vanilla extract.
Fold in the dry ingredients. Mix everything together until it forms a dough. It should still be light and crumbly though.
Scoop out around a tablespoonful of dough, roll it into an oval, use your thumb to create a little well that big enough to fit the ball of pineapple jam.
Place the ball of jam into the well and wrap the surrounding dough around the visible part of the jam to cover it completely.
When you finish doing this with all of your dough and jam, you're actually ready to slip them in the oven already. BUT if you want to make them look like pineapples, click on the links above - you basically cut "v" shapes with a pair of scissors across the length of the dough and stick a clove on one of the ends!
When you're done decorating...or whatever, brush the rolls with the beaten egg yolk.
Bake for around 20 minutes or until they come out golden brown.

Puff Piece: Cream Puffs

2010-03-01T23:13:00.006+08:00

Shall I re-introduce myself perhaps? Unfortunately, I have yet to proclaim "I have a reader comment that isn't from a family member/friend!!" like the wonderful Julie - so I'll go straight into it.

Jess bought me a beautiful cookbook for Christmas - Baking At Home with The Culinary Institute of America and flipping through it, I just completely consumed! Kinda like the Brioches grew legs and walked into my kitchen, took off their little top hats...let the buttery steam out...mmm..

There aren't as many photos as I wish there were, but it's really elegantly done. Tons of tips and techniques as well! I'm considering one day applying to the wonderful school...would the accept a vegetarian? I think they have a pastries and baking program (yes, I've already looking into it. I'm searching for sponsors...anyone? really) which probably wouldn't involve too much non-vegetarian things. So anyway, I decided to try out the Cream Puffs! As usual, I also did some research off other blogs and I found someone that tried to replicate the Beard Papa Chocolate-topped cream puffs, and omigosh - its so simple!!! I'm tempted to not share this...but alas, I'm a giving person. Ha!

SO, Pāte á Choux and Pastry Cream from the CIA cookbook, Chocolate topping from the uber cute Wendy at mybutteryfingers. There are quite a few components to this, at least for me - but I'll do it step by step here...

Pāte á Choux - you can actually make these ahead of time if you're living in a pretty dry area. The idea here is to get some volume in the center of the puff (err...hence the name) so the CIA recommends starting at a high temperature (to get the rise) and then lowering the temperature to dry the puffs out. Look at all these things I'm learning already! They better accept me when I apply. Here's what you need

1 c. whole or low-fat milk. come on - whole!!!

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, diced

2 tbsp granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 c. bread flour, sifted

3 large eggs

1 large egg white

Preheat to 190C/375F, baking sheet lined with parchment or Silpat ♡ Also, you'll need a pastry bag with a round tip - or, like the macarons, just cut a corner off of a zip lock bag.

Combine the milk, butter, sugar and salt into a saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the sifted flour all at once
Stir well
Gross right?
Cook the grossness while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Before you know it, the grossness will pull away from the sides of the pan, takes around 5 minutes.
Transfer to your standing mixer (paddle attachment) and beat on medium speed until it's cooled to body temperature.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula after each egg.
Beat in the egg white. It should be the consistency of cake-batter right now...if I did it correctly!
Transfer the dough into a pastry bag.
Pipe the dough into golf-ball sized balls onto the baking sheet.
If you want, see below on how to Beard-Papa-ize these guys. If you want these puffs beard free, keep going...
Brush the unbaked puffs lightly with egg wash (1 large egg whisked with 2 tbsp cold milk).
Bake until the pastries are puffy and lightly browned (around 20 minutes)
Lower the oven temperature to 162C/325F until they're a rich golden brown (another 20-25 minutes). SO MUCH WAITING.
Remove from the oven and puncture a small hole in the side of each of the puffs. I learned this from another blog...you need a little hole on the side of the puff to help the steam release from the center. It's a big no-no to have moist-centered puffs, and that happens when the steam is trapped.

Chocolate Topping

40g cake flour

10g cocoa powder

50g unsalted butter

50g granulated sugar

Cream together the butter and sugar. I know...we're always creaming.
Fold in the flour and cocoa powder.
Put the dough on a piece of plastic wrap and press together to form a log - kind of like the icebox cookies that we made before...
Chill the logs for at least 30 minutes or until the dough is stiff.
Slice into around 20 portions, or however many puffs you are planning on baking.
Place one chocolate slice on each of the (unbaked) puffs.

Pastry Cream - an OH MAN is this good. If you have any left over, you will most likely feel the urge to use it to dip, spread, baste, marinate....yes - that good. I made this more than a month ago and I can still smell the creamy vanilla.

1/4c. cornstarch

3/4c. sugar (divided use)

2c. while milk (divided use)

4 large egg yolks, lightly beaten (use the egg-whites for you macarons, dolls! PS. I made some Matcha and Red Bean Paste macarons yesterday)

1 pinch salt

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp unsalted butter

Combine the cornstarch with 1/4 cup sugar in a mixing bowl, then stir in 1/2 cup of the milk.
Blend the yolks into the cornstarch mixture.
Stir with a wooden spoon until completely smooth
Prepare an ice bath (dishes that are rich in eggs need ice bathes because it helps speed the cooling process to prevent scrambled eggs from happening). Use a large bowl, but make sure it can fit the mixing bowl your mixture is in. Add ice and then enough cold water to come halfway up the side of the mixing bowl that you'll want to cool down.
Combine the remaining 1 1/2 cups milk with the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and the salt in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a boil.
Temper the egg mixture by gradually adding about one third of the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly.
Add the remaining milk mixture into the eggs.
Return the mixture to the saucepan (is this confusing? time to get organized!!!)
Continue cooking over medium heat while stirring vigorously with a whisk until it comes to a boil and the whisk leaves a trail in the pastry cream (5-7 minutes).
When you get to that point, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and the butter
Transfer to the ice bath
Stir occasionally until the cream is cool
Spoon into a piping bag and fill the puffs!!

Blogging is a full time job isn't it...

Birthday Strawberry Shortcakes

2010-01-26T10:03:00.003+08:00

We've always had cakes for birthdays, which is entirely fine - except my stomach seems to celebrate birthdays a lot more passionately than the birthday-persons. I prefer to skip the meal and go straight for my slice of cake (plus the left overs - which usually is more than half the cake - which I gracefully eat with my fingers the next morning, it's a little like the walk of shame when I leave the kitchen)
Anyway, after Chocolate cake after lunch, my dad requested a light Strawberry Shortcake for his birthday dessert. "Real butter or fake?" my sister asked. REAL. "Real cream or low fat *gasp". REAL. "Real shortcake? Or the cake-type?" What? Had I been eating faux strawberry shortcakes my entire life? Aren't they layers upon layers of fresh whipped cream, fluffy vanilla sponge cake and strawberries?
Let me educate. Real strawberry shortcakes are actually sweet butter biscuits baked, cut in half, and layered with fresh whipped cream and macerated strawberries - I added blueberries for my dad's big Five-Five, you know, anti-oxidants and all.
These were so simple and I'll definitely do this again for a small dinner party.

From The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook

Fruit
2 quarts strawberries, hulled (you can hull the berries with one of those spiky edged piping tips)
6 tablespoons sugar

Shortcakes
2 cups all-purpose flour
5 tablespoons sugar
1tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter
2/3 cup half-and-half
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 large egg white, lightly beaten

Whipped Cream
Whipping cream 1 cup
Sugar 1 tablespoon
Vanilla tiny splash

Crush 1/3 of the strawberries with a fork or a potato masher. Slice the rest of the berries. Sprinkle sugar all over the berries and lightly mix the berries until sugar is mixed in. Let it sit at room temperature - watch the berries start to release all it's juices. You can squeeze some lemon juice on top if tartness is what suits your palette...The "maceration" will take around half an hour, but you can let it sit for longer, they won't complain.
Preheat the oven to 218C or 425F.
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. The cookbook recommends pulsing the ingredients together with a food processor, but I don't have one so I just sifted. I'm thinking the pulsing part has more to do with the next step though...
You're supposed to scatter cut-up pieces of butter and then process until the mixture looks like a coarse cornmeal - BUT, because I don't own the machinery, Jess (my sister) suggested that I just use a coarse cheese grater and great the cold butter. It worked beautifully!! Remember, it's butter but can easily be mistaken for grated cheese if you're cooking on an empty stomach. It's not cheese. After grating the butter into the flour, sort of toss the bowl around so that the butter pieces get coated in the flour and leave it alone while you mix together the next part..
Blend together the half and half with the whole egg and pour into the bowl with the flour/butter.
Stir everything together lightly with a rubber spatula until large clumps form.
Turn the mixture onto a lightly floured counter and knead lightly.
I formed my own circles and placed them onto a baking tray, covered, and refrigerated until dessert time. It's good to get the butter really cold again before you bake them so it bakes into a fluffier biscuit and doesn't just sink into itself.
You're supposed to brush the tops with the beaten egg white and then sprinkle with the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar but...umm...forgot.
Bake the shortcakes until golden brown (12-14 min).
While you're waiting for them to cool, whip up the cream. Whip together the cream, sugar and vanilla in a chilled bowl with an electric mixer on low speed until frothy and the sugar has dissolved (1 min.) Increase the speed to high and continue to whip until doubled in volume and soft peaks form.
Assemble by cutting biscuits in half - generously fill with strawberries, then a healthy dollop of whipped cream, and cap it with the top of the biscuit.

Macarons: So many feet, time to buy some shoes!

2010-01-20T23:04:00.008+08:00

OUI! I did it!!! I finally succeeded in making a batch of Macarons. Let me start by telling you kids about these little snooty French beauties I've been obsessing over for the past several months - they caused me to go into a deep blog-depression wherein a dire stalemate reared its ugly head. I don't even know how many batches I made, and I really should have taken the time to record my failures so I could report back, but guess what - HA! Failure is not someone I like to call my friend. In fact, I like to sweep failure under the Persian carpet any time possible. If you're curious, this is what under-baked failure looks like. I've censored out the actual decapitation. Taiwanese interpretation of a macaron being sold at a night market. How precious. Ms. Antoinette would weep.

Macarons:

No, I haven't been spelling it wrong. Macaroons are the coconut flake cookies that are chewy...Macarons on the other hand, I cannot pronounce, but I do know that they are delicate little French cookies that sandwich a swirl of vanilla butter-cream, chocolate ganache, matcha cream...the possibilities are endless.
Ingredients are super simple: egg whites, powdered sugar (preferably without starch), granulated sugar, finely ground almonds.
Meringue + Sugar and Almond + mad mixing skills that would scare the Wranglers off SamRonson (aka macaronage) + an intimate relationship with your oven (don't underestimate the power of oven lovin', my friends) = macarons
You want feet. Feet. FEEEEEEEEETSS! Feet are the frilly lacy bottoms that you see surrounding the bottom of each Macaron cap. If you've successfully mixed together the batter, at around 4-5 minutes in the oven, you'll begin to see the glossy cap rise up to reveal the feet. Now, to be clear, I've had feet since my very first batch - unfortunately, the caps would end up sinking in the center, or the feet would be brutally decapitated when I tried to lift the cookies off the sheet. No need for a guillotine in my kitchen...An example of perfect feet, made by Junglefrog:
Do as much reading as possible before you begin. Syrup and Tang was wonderfully detailed, many people recommend David Lebovitz though I personally didn't find him all that helpful - maybe he was too professional-sounding? I bought a book called I "heart" Macarons written by Hisako Ogita. Complete and utter eye candy. Was it helpful? No. But that might be due to my very minimal macaron Chinese lexicon.
Watch videos. One of the crucial parts of macaron making is the "macaronage" part. That involves mixing together the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture together with the meringue. There is a technique, so it helps a great deal if you can watch a professional do it on youtube or something. Some suggestions: FrenchfoodTV, Chefnini78
There are two basic methods and the part that varies is in the meringue. The basic recipe is with a regular whipped egg-white meringue. The more stable recipe (with which I ended up succeeding with!!!) uses an Italian meringue. This is made by pouring in boiling sugar syrup into the plain meringue while it is still mixing in the mixer - more on this later.
Sift, oh my gosh sift like there is no tomorrow. These are very unforgiving desserts.

I guess I should get on with the recipe...there are a million other tips I can be offering at this point but most importantly - become obsessed. But let's be honest...I'd take a Chocolate Chip Cookie over a bedazzled macaron any day.

Basic Proportions for a macarons au sucre cuit (Italian meringue method):

Ingredient	Amount	Example	(with eggwhite=50 gm)
Almond meal	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm
Icing sugar	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm

Sugar	1.35 x eggwhite	1.35 x 50 =	67 gm
Water	0.33 x eggwhite	0.33 x 50 =	16 gm

Egg white			50 gm

The great thing about this is, you can alter the measurements according to how much egg white you happen to have.

Measure out all of the ingredients. ALWAYS use an electronic scale to make the measurements.
Use a food processor to grind together the almond meal and powdered sugar. Don't get too crazy with it - if you mix for too long, you'll most likely end up with Almond butter, which isn't all that bad!
Sift two to three times and then place the powder mixture into a large bowl.
Measure half of the egg white and set aside. The other half should go into another CLEAN mixing bowl. Whenever you make meringue, it is essential to have a plastic or brushed metal bowl that is completely oil-free and water free, otherwise the meringue won't be able to get going.
You'll need a candy thermometer for this next part. Simmer the water and granulated sugar for a few minutes. Try not to stir the syrup, once or twice is fine.
As the syrup is making it up to 118C, swivel around to your egg whites in the mixing bowl and begin to beat the life out of it. Some recipes suggest that you start out slow to break up the connecting parts of the egg white, and then move up to high. By the time you have "stiff peaks", your syrup should be at around 118C.
Turn the speed of the mixer down to low and slowly pour the syrup down the side of the mixing bowl into the meringue. Yay! Scrambled egg whites! That's what I thought I would get...and there just might be some tiny scrambled egg pieces in my final product...Anyway, as soon as all of the syrup is in the meringue, turn the mixer back up to high speed. Mix for a few minutes until the meringue is warm to touch. You should have a glossy mixture now. If you want to add color, now would be the time.
Pour the other half of the egg white that you had set aside into the dry mixture. Don't worry, I really did just tell you to do that. I'm really not too sure why those were the instructions, but when it comes to macarons, I bow my head and obey.
Use a plastic spatula to spoon the meringue into the dry mixture.
Show me your macaronage magic (watch videos for tips on mixing)
It is so important that you don't over mix or under mix. It's tough, but you want to get it so the batter flows like magma.
If you have a piping bag, fill it up with the batter. If not, cut a small hole in the corner of a plastic ziplock bag and use that as your piping bag! For easy batter-filling, try placing the bag in a tall drinking glass. It will hold up the bag for you while you spoon in the batter. Keeps things clean and simple.
Pipe 2-3 cm circles. I'm a bit of a perfectionist so I drew circles on the bottom side of the parchment paper so I could get similar sized macarons.
Time to wait...after you pipe macarons, it is best to let them sit for 20 min - 2 hours. A shell will form during this time, this helps with keeping the macarons crack-free (haha) as well as shiny. You can gently touch the tops of the batter to test the dryness.
While waiting, pre-heat the oven (regular, not convection) to 160C.
Place macarons in the oven for 13-14 minutes. Unlike all other cookies, they shouldn't have to brown for you to tell that the are done!! After around 4-5 minutes of bake time, you'll begin to see the feet! This is really the best part. Try hard not to open the oven at all - I found that as soon as I opened the oven door, cool air was pushed into the oven and the feet that had gained a lot of height ended up deflating.

What's with the empty macaron shells you ask? I will fill them soon after I finally set my heart on a luscious filling. And the "nipple" (yes, really) on top? Still trying to perfect the smooth finish. Not mixed enough to a magma-like consistancy is my best Dr. House diagnosis.

Thumb Print Cookies

2010-01-07T17:59:00.004+08:00

I realize it's already way past Christmas, but I've been celebrating and spending time with family! We took a semi-family (we were missing my beautiful sister Jessica, she will be arriving in a few days!) trip down to central Taiwan. I even took a mochi-making class while I was down there! And of course, during my six hour train ride, I took the opportunity to plan the many posts that will be coming up. These "Thumb Print Cookies" are the first of a series...all explaining exactly what went into that lil Christmas box of love that I sent out to my loved ones a few days before the big day. When deciding what I'd put in these boxes, I had tons of ideas...bf helped me out quite a bit! My list changed several times:
~~Decorated Sugar Cookies~~
~~Jelly Sandwich Cookies~~
Thumb-Print Cookies
~~Dipped Shortbread~~
Rum Balls
~~Spiced Oatmeal Raisin Cookies~~
Raspberry Oatmeal Squares
Peppermint Brownies

Today, I'll start off with the Thumb-Print Cookies. I made these two days before the box deliveries - they were made first because cookies tend to be more resilient when it comes to baking ahead. Because of the water-logged air in Taiwan, I was still pretty nervous about baking them ahead of time, but again, Press-and-Seal proved to work wonders and kept the cookies tasting fresh! Another thing about these cookies, don't drop the dollop of jelly until the day you serve them as it will be absorbed into the cookie and make them a bit soggy. Trials and tribulations....I've been experiencing this for the past several weeks (remember those egg whites for the macarons...let's just say I'm STILL trying) and it all began with these Thumb Prints. I wanted to coat the cookies in coconut, and for some reason I read that it was better to toast the coconut beforehand to release the aroma of the ingredient - similar to how you would toast almonds or pecans before using them. I perched eagerly by the oven (usual position, I will make a sketch one day if you're lucky), tossing and watching for browning. You just want to get the coconut so it has a bit of a golden color, and MAN it smelled great. You'll know when it's working. Okay, well everything was going smoothly up until then. There I was in the kitchen, cookie dough in one bowl, plate full of toasted coconut in another, feeling oh-so-prepared to create a wonderfully delicate looking cookie (shredded coconut is so much prettier than chopped nuts, no?). A few minutes into the oven, aforementioned toasted coconut was getting the Lindsay Lohan treatment. A few more minutes after that, most of the coconut shreds had pulled a reverse Michael Jackson on me. Yes, I read gossip blogs every morning when I wake-up, I need to stay informed so I can make umm...colorful descriptions and analogies on my cooking blog. In a word: FAILED. This will be the first of many other failures that I will illustrate to you on this fine blog of truth. Ended up toasting some pecans, chopping them up, and rolling the cookie dough in the nuts. Boo. No fun.
177C

1/2 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 large egg -separate whites and yolk (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup toasted pecans (chopped finely)
1/2 cup jam

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes).
Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until combined. Is this getting repetitive?
In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and salt. By now I trust you all have become loyal sifters like myself?
Add the flour mixture to the batter and beat just until combined.
If the batter too soft to roll into balls, refrigerate for about 30 minutes. I hate waiting.
Time to prepare your work area! You will now begin the process of spooning, rolling, dipping, rolling, pressing. Just to clarify...in a small bowl, whisk the egg white until frothy. Place the chopped nuts on a plate. Roll the dough into 1 inch (2.54 cm) balls. Taking one ball of dough dip first into the egg white and then roll in the nuts. So much fun!
Space each cookie 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Using your thumb make a indentation into the center of each cookie and fill with about 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of jam. If you're baking ahead, skip adding the jam and wait until the day you serve to fill up those lil wells.
Bake for about 13-15 minutes, or until cookies are set and the nuts have nicely browned.

Shortbread: You can have Scotch, I'll take the shortbread

2009-12-27T11:54:00.008+08:00

ooo It's been so long (that was a squeal)! I'm sure the seasoned bloggers would glare with disapproving-cyber-eyes at me for skipping so many days...or is it weeks? Apologies! I have SO many new things to share - Santa brought me something that will be my new bf from now on, can you guess?... but I'm going to try to maintain a bit of excitement by only blogging a bit about my adventures in baking each time. I do feel really sad that Christmas over so I will begin to make up random holidays and reasons for baking. Is it really another year away?
I had a full week of planning and baking (I made gift boxes for some of my best friends as well as family friends!!) - I honestly lost sleep from the whole thing! But it ended up being really fun and it was great being able to gift my loved ones with something I spent a lot of time on. Made with love...aww... I'll blog ALL about that excitement soon, but FIRST - before I left for home, I made a batch of shortbread cookies that I dipped in dark chocolate. They came out looking really fantastic, with the chocolate hardening/drying very smoothly. That might be the key to professional-looking cookies, stuff like "dipped chocolate" or a dust of confectioners sugar. So I passed on the shortbread to my regular test subjects, and they were sort of rejected = ( but at least I have learned that Asians don't really like that sort of consistency or flavor. Or perhaps the butter I regularly use just isn't pure or fragrant enough? Maybe I should invest in a few moo-cows and begin churning my own butter in my cozy munchkin kitchen - actually I have churned my own butter before, in fifth grade, we were learning about the colonists and dipped our own candle sticks, made butter, learned simple embroidery.

Simple Shortbread Dipped in Dark Chocolate (...when I rediscovered my extreme impatience for butter, it takes light-years to soften)

1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks)
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1 large ziplock bag

Pre-heat to 149C

Wait for the butter to soften if you're like me and didn't plan ahead to bake.
Steps to soften: cut into pieces cut into smaller pieces, mash and smoosh with a knife - fork - aaaaanything you can get your hands on. At this point, if you're like me, you're wishing you were an X-Man so you would use your eyes to will the butter to soften to a point at which it will cream well with the sugar - oh, did I forget to mention? That's the goal. To cream the two ladies. My last resort = placing the metal bowl on my lap -> hoping that my 5th grade science knowledge is correct -> heat rises -> my thighs are warm -> warmth from thighs rise to the butter -> A+
Pat yourself on the back, that was hard work. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar.
When creamed, add in vanilla. Continue to mix.
How does is smell? Like love?
In another bowl, sift together flour and salt.
Mix flour mixture into the Love (butter & sugar)
This part is cool, take the dough and place it in a plastic ziplock bag. Push the dough into the corners of the bag, lifting the plastic occasionally to make sure there are no creases. Press around so the dough forms the shape of the baggie and it is around 1 cm in thickness
Place in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
After around 10-15 minutes of waiting, during which you have dutifully washed up all the dirty dishes (a clean kitchen is a happy kitchen, kids!), take the dough out and cut the dough out of the baggie. Was that magic? Do you now have a perfectly rectangular piece of shortbread dough that you didn't even have to measure? My my my, I think you do!
Place on cookie sheet and mark off squares or rectangles just on the surface of the dough. Use a fork to poke pretty holes so you can look professional and impress your test subjects.
Place in oven for around 40 minutes or until slightly browned
Cut the cookies into the squares/rectangles you marked when they are still warm and soft
While waiting for them to cool off, melt some dark chocolate in a microwave safe bowl with 30 second intervals, stirring between each 30 second time period. Dip Dip Dip!

P.S. currently I have a bowl of eggs aging on the counter. It's all kinds of grossness (the French might be immune to germs) but after exhaustive research on the art of Macaron making - and by exhaustive, I mean it: I watched 3-4 French youtube videos (oui) to observe the are of the folding as well as the consistency the batter should hold before piping onto the sheet...etc. AND then I read a whole bunch of other wonderful blogs, which I will cite, that recorded their adventures and misadventures - I will just follow the yellow brick road that has been paved by many other courageous bloggers before me and report back to all of you after wards. Macarons and bread-making are two things I WILL conquer. That was a long P.S.

"Bacon Goes with Everything" - says the vegetarian

2009-12-16T16:02:00.009+08:00

What do you give to a sports-loving, uber-manly (I'm talkin' pitchers of beer and steaks the size of my head - preferably for breakfast), food-blog lovin' man on his 26th birthday? Perhaps...some Peanut Butter BACON cookies? I know that J. really likes his red velvet cake (mascarpone cheese frosting?!!) and I really wanted to make it for him, but as you all know, my shoe box of an oven just can't take the height of a cake - of course I could continue to "experiment" but I'd likely end up with a third thigh, and with the holidays rollin' up next week, I don't have much room for that sort of dilly dallying.

Anyway, I went for Peanut Butter Bacon cookies, which I had been dying to make for a really long time. The cookie really has his name written all over it. As for the whole idea of savory and sweet, sorry to all the slow-food folks, but McDonalds did a wonderful job at mass producing McGriddles (at one point I was calling them McGirdles - sexy eh? In my defense, I had jet-lag and had been up for hours watching Cantonese gang-films). Griddle cakes with tiny (or not so tiny) pockets of warm maple syrup that pop and mix together with the greasy juices of the sausage. I obviously wasn't a vege-head at that point in my life.

Some notes on this recipe, the ingredients are so simple, I had to check the article quite a few times, I couldn't believe there was no BUTTER or FLOUR involved...insane, I know. I didn't want to trust it. But, I soldiered on, browning and crisping the bacon (I almost threw up...apologies - the "aroma" was too intense for my oh-so-delicate nose, which is used to the floral fragrance of steamed...spinach. *sigh).

I also folded in a quarter of a stick of cream cheese, which I chopped into teeny-tiny cubes so there would be creamy surprises snuggled up with the bacon.

I used Joy the Baker's recipe.

Preheat to 177C

6 slices of bacon (maple infused bacon would be quite lovely too)

1 cup peanut butter, either smooth or it's chunkier cousin are fine for this

1 cup sugar (half brown sugar, half granulated white sugar)

1 egg

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 block of cream cheese - tiny cubes (optional)

Cook the bacon slices until they are crispy.
Cool on a paper towel until it's cool enough to handle. If you have scissors you use for cooking, cut up the bacon into tiny squares, like bacon-bits! If not...like myself...grab a chair and hunker down, the cutting takes a bit of time. All I can say is, good thing I'm not a meat eater, or there wouldn't be much bacon left after the half hour of strenuous square cutting.
Mix together the peanut butter and the sugars until they are well combined. No need to sift here! This is a man-ly cowboy cookie aiiiite?
Add egg and baking soda and mix for around 2 minutes.
Fold in bacon pieces (this is when I added the cubed cream cheese).
Roll the dough into walnut-sized balls and press down on them with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern. The original recipe gives the option of rolling the balls in granulated sugar before criss-crossing them, but really...more sugar? At this point I have my dentist on speed dial.
Bake for around 10 minutes or until they start to brown a bit.
As usual, the hardest part: wait for them to cool (five minutes should be enough right?) These end up being a bit crumbly, so handle with care - especially when gifting!

Icebox Cookies w. Candied Ginger

2009-12-14T22:02:00.008+08:00

I've discovered icebox cookies and omigosh I am going to be the best hostess EVER from now on. Anytime someone stops by my humble abode, I will sweetly offer some freshly baked cookies - just call me Martha. Basically, icebox cookies are cookies that you can keep frozen for a couple of months, and you just slice and bake whatever you need - it only takes around 10 minutes to bake, so your guests will be completely blown away by yo craay-zay kitchen skills. I'm totally going to be Betty from Mad Men, all I need now is to sleep with my make-up on and invest in a floral apron. Christmas gift idea?

There are millions of icebox cookie recipes and the ingredients are all pretty much the same. White sugar, butter, flour...etc (I realize last week I was all about making shortbread cookies, which are actually very similar to icebox cookies except they use confectioners sugar - I will get to the shortbread, I promise!) I can't over emphasize the umm...simplicity of these cookies, but it's one of those beautifully simple things, you know? The way a nice sugar and butter cookies crumbles and melts in your mouth...BUT of course, simple was too boring for me, especially when I had a container filled with homemade candied ginger. I just HAD to incorporate it. I went with the Butterscotch Icebox Cookies by Pam Uribarri (her grandmother's recipe, I'll make anything by anyone's grandmother. That's the ultimate seal of approval). I halved the recipe since I don't have that many cookie-eaters around...also, instead of pecans, I folded in candied ginger at the very end....

1 cup un-salted butter

2 cups packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chopped pecans (I used around 1/4 cup candied ginger for my halved recipe in the place of the pecans)

Pre-heat 200C

Cut the butter into cubes and drop the creamy yellow goodness into a mixing bowl.
Cream the cubes of butter and then add in the sugar slowly. Cream together well - around 2 minutes.
Beat in the eggs.
Slowly mix in the sifted dry ingredients.
After the salty lemon cookies, I was a changed woman, I now sift! It's annoying - I always make a mess.
Mix in the vanilla
When the dough is well mixed, fold in nuts (I used candied ginger)
Shape the dough into rolls. Wrap in wax paper and the freeze until firm - around half an hour.
Slice and place around an inch apart on cookie sheet.
Bake for around 12 minutes.

Oh the Possibilities!

2009-12-09T00:37:00.013+08:00

9:00 pm and I was itching to start making something - anything! I already decided on the shortbread cookies (sorry D, I know you don't like them) and I'm planning on dipping them in chocolate and somehow incorporating candied orange peels. Good combo right? Not sure where the candied orange peels would get incorporated - baked with the cookies? Tiny citrus gems mixed in with the dipping chocolate? The planner in me decided to go ahead and make the candied orange-peels tonight. Ahead of time you ask? So out of character I know, but I needed to do something.

Anyway, no oranges at home of course (I usually only have apples or guavas, I eat them errrryday) and I wasn't about to risk venturing out in the cold only to find the fruit store closed. I was very close to throw my hands up and give in to zoning out to re-runs of E.R. when I discovered a half-used, shriveled looking root sitting in the corner of my kitchen. So it wasn't such a pitiful scene, but really, ginger isn't the most attractive thing out there. Why not beautify it by candy-ing it right? And BOY did I candy it up tonight!!

I was really good about the photo-taking this time, documenting each step (the process of the water evaporating and leaving the ginger syrup is really exciting to watch!) so I can present my mid-night journey with you guys. I went through a ton of recipes as usual, and I didn't end up following anything. They all called for, like a pound or more of ginger...all I had was one lonely chunk, roughly the size of the palm of my hand. Really not much, but it doesn't matter how much ginger or orange peel you're using, as long as the ratio of ginger to water to sugar is set...it's a fairly easy process in terms of making candy according to David Lebovitz.

Ginger

Sugar

Water

More sugar

Use a sharp knife to carefully remove the skin of the ginger. Try not to cut too deep into the ginger, you don't want to end up with a tiny dinky piece of ginger, thats not much to work with!
Cut the ginger into whatever type of candy-shape you want. I made long skinny strips, but you can do round slices or even squares. The thicker the pieces, the longer you'll have to cook it for, so if you're low on time, just go with the thin slices.
Put the ginger into a pan and add water, just enough to cover the ginger. Boil for one minute and remove from heat. Quickly rinse the ginger in cold water and then drain out the water. Repeat this one more time, but after this second boil, don't throw out the ginger-water! It'll really help to enhance the flavor of the ginger syrup that you end up with. It should also be noted that if you do decide to have bigger chunks, you might need to repeat the boil-cold water process one extra time.
So now you have a bowl of ginger-water, blanched ginger pieces, and a ton of sugar waiting to be candied. Pour a bit of water into the pan, around 1-2 cm of liquid from the base of the pan, then add sugar into the water until you start to see the swirls of sugar when you stir (this is really subtle, but if you want a measurement, for my ginger, I used around 3/4 cups of sugar).
Add the ginger into the sugar water mixture, all of the pieces should be completely immersed in the liquid.
Turn the heat down so it's on a slow simmer.
Simmer until it is thick and syrupy and the ginger pieces come up really soft when you try to lift them from the pan with a fork or chopsticks. I simmered my pieces for about half an hour, if your chunks of larger, you'll need more time on the stove (hour to 75 min), but just be aware that the liquid should not become BROWN.It should be yellowish golden...not brown. You don't want it to caramelize! There is a time and a place for caramelization, and as lovely as it is, now is not it. If the ginger pieces aren't soft yet and you're running low on liquid, add more of the ginger-water and stir in more sugar.
When the pieces are soft, remove from the syrup with a fork. Let the excess syrup drip off the ginger when it's still on your fork - don't be too ambitious (*sigh, I know it's hard), so don't try and do too many pieces at once.
I put half of my candied ginger in a foil pan filled with white sugar, and the other half I separated with chopsticks while they were still hot onto a piece of foil.
Let them rest for a few hours - they need time to dry.
Cook down the remaining syrup for another 1-2 minutes and then pour into a clean jar or bowl. I'm not sure what I'll use the syrup for, but I think it would be nice in some tea? oooh the glee of coming up with THREE different things with one recipe!

Chocolate Crinkles for the Holiday Season

2009-12-07T15:31:00.011+08:00

To be honest, they only stay powdered-sugar snow-crinkled for about half an hour. I'm not sure why, but even in December the moisture level here has the ability to make those beautiful pebbles of chocolate drown into...well, baked blobs of chocolate - equally yummy of course. Oh! and the horror of desperately trying all different methods with many subsequent failed attempts to completely dry out trays of potentially perfect little meringue kisses... I was letting them get a little R&R so I left the house for a hop and a skip, and when I got home, they were sweating up a storm, more on that in a later entry.

I tried Chocolate Crinkles last year for the first time, probably around holiday season after seeing them on a number of blogs. I started out by using regular baking chocolate, SO regular I feel bad revealing the brand (no offense at all to regular chocolate dearies, I think I even bought an extra pack "just in case" I messed up. I didn't mess up and the pack of chocolate was there so... you know the story).

The first batch came out waaaay too buttery, they almost had a fried consistency - still consumed by the devoted test subjects nonetheless (if I recall correctly, they were quite drunk). The second time I made it, I held back a bit of the butter and broke out with the Godiva dark which I chopped into little pieces before melting. I'm not a professional cook by any means, so I'm not too sure if it is a sin in the world of baking to use random chocolate for cooking, but they came out beautifully. The cinnamon in the cookies is such an unexpected, wonderful, and warm kick - not that these need too much convincing when the baking aroma begins to take hostage of your house!

There are so so so many recipes out there, but I used sugercrafter's for this one.

8 ounces chocolate pieces (dark or semisweet, I think both are okay...or a mixture?! be adventurous, if you mess up, you will be punished with having to eat allllll that chocolate boohoo)

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup regular white granulated sugar

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs at room temperature

1 1/2 cups flour (I used whole wheat all purpose flour)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Edible SNOW! powdered sugar of course...

Chop up the chocolate pieces, it'll make the melting process faster and easier. You can do the same for the butter if you want!
Put the chocolate and the butter in a double boiler to melt them together. I know I know, it already sounds like bad news. It'll only get worse I tell ya!
Beat the eggs together with the 1/2 cup sugar until it's all fluffy. It won't get stiff like egg whites of course.
Beat in the vanilla.
Spoon in the chocolate mixture and stir together.
Leave chocolate on the spoon so you can lick it (not optional)
In another bowl, sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking powder. Mix so it's all even.
Add the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture.
Refrigerate for 3-4 hours or more so it gets firm enough to form into balls. Here is when I went really really wrong. Sugarcrafter suggested microwaving the bowl if you leave it in over night so it's easier to work with. WELL, I refrigerated the mixture in a metal bowl, which is not okay to microwave...I had to warm it up with my hands which took much too long. If you're smart enough, which I know you are, you'll refrigerate in a glass or plastic bowl and you can microwave for about 15 seconds, you don't want to get it TOO soft!!
Preheat to 162C/325F
Fill a bowl with the powdered sugar and begin rolling balls of dough around a tablespoon size. This is a bit too decadent for the 1/4 cup per cookie measurement.
Roll the lil guys in the powdered sugar until they're all covered.
Place on lined baking sheet making sure that their is about 1 1/2 inches between them since they'll spread a bit.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. Please don't bake them for too long because they're super good when they're a bit fudgy!!

Ginger cookies or Shortbread cookies this week?

Exploring: A Shanghai Wet-Market

2009-11-28T23:09:00.005+08:00

For any readers living in North American, Europe, Australia….I am extremely jealous. Each time I cook a meal or bake something, I end up spending a great deal of money on ingredients, especially on things like meat (ha!) , butter, cheese. I can’t even imagine EXPERIMENTING! To waste those precious ingredients!!! I have to admit though, ruined recipes still end up in my eager belly…it would just be rude to subject your loved ones to the failed attempt ; )

One thing we do have here in the East are the wonderfully stinky wet-markets. They carry the freshest produce, seafood, meat - all at the best prices. And what would be better than to be able to talk to the person who owns the farm your tomatoes are coming from? Any of you living close to a Farmers Market would know what I’m talking about. The pride and sense of ownership for each hand-picked food gives it so much more value when you’re cooking with it. What I absolutely can’t stand is that they smell AWFUL. All the orphaned bits of seafood, meat, rotten fruits and vegetables end up carpeting the weathered tiles.

Until last week when S. visited, I did everything possible to avoid entering wet-markets. It might have been the horror I saw as a little girl when I watched them pinch, choose, and pluck (also, dare I say, keeeeell aka kill) Chicken Little flanked by stalls with curtains of hanging Miss Piggys and Betsy the Cows. Luckily I had a terrible cold and wasn’t able to breathe through my nose, so I was able to follow S. to the wet-market for a little photo session.

Meet S...eating black rice steamed cake

I was surprised by how organized, and dare I say CLEAN the market was. D., my Shanghainese-Fujian-American-Philippino friend informed me that not too long ago, the city moved all of the wet-markets into covered buildings to further push the modernization of the city. On one side were the vegetable stalls, in another aisle was the seafood, and further down there was meat. At the far end of the building were dried goods like Chinese medicine ingredients for soups, dried mushrooms, nuts and beans. I didn’t buy anything that day (too busy with work recently to be able to cook anything), but I will definitely be doing my fresh-produce shopping there in the future – maybe…if S. is around to hold my hand as I walk by the caged chickens… and if my nose is stuffed to 90% breathe-ability.

By the way, this year was the first time I didn’t get to celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey dinner and more importantly, getting together with my family. The clan was scattered around the globe making a get-together pretty much impossible (Skype Thanksgiving dinner?) – oh and also, I was working. I still have a lot to be thankful for though – something I thought about while I worked on a really sad and empty stomach. Already planning Christmas Dinner – proposed menu will be posted, and more likely changed quite frequently between now and C-Day. Any suggestions?

I'm a Vegetarian - seriously

2009-11-25T09:09:00.007+08:00

We're going to settle this issue once and for all. I am a vegetarian and I really really enjoy it. If it wasn't for the fact that I would most likely alienate my family and friends, I'd probably even go for the raw vegan movement. My thoughts and reasons about being a vegetarian have really evolved since it first began - which I will now explain because I absolutely hate being asked! I find that most people ask me about my reasons because they want to prove me wrong, rather than just accept it as a lifestyle choice, but anyway...

I've been extremely lucky all my life - growing up with a wonderful family of two completely different cultures, being able to travel all over the world, taste different foods, attend wonderful schools etc... I decided a few years ago that I wanted to cut something out of my diet as a daily challenge, I wasn't going to do desserts because then life wouldn't be worth living (Sorry), so it ended up being meat and fish. I made my decision on a whim, so I schedule enough time to have a last meat-filled meal. A steak or lamb chops would have been nice...maybe even pork dumplings (if I can recall, that was what I wanted that day for lunch, but we ended up going to a vegetarian Indian buffet - obviously I didn't think too much about it!)

My vegetarianism has evolved, now its not simply about reminding myself of all that I have or even facing the challenge of saying no to meat/fish every day. I'm not actively trying to find more reasons to help me stay on track, but I frequently come more and more reasons for supporting this lifestyle, whether it is for animals or for the environment.

I apologize for that kind of long and undoubtedly boring explanation - just to make things clear, I will never preach about vegetarianism nor do I reject the idea of cooking meat (though it IS very difficult, I can't tell how it tastes or whether or not it is over-done, not fully cooked...). I'm doing this for my own reasons and I don't expect anyone else to feel the same way. Umm...also, I vow to never blab about this sort of stuff again!!

My bf on the other hand - he eats enough meat for three vegetarians. I'm not particularly proud of this, but I'm not going to deny that watching him cook and talk about meat adds more dimension to my understanding of food, I really have forgotten about the flavor and texture of meats but I can be sure that neither seitan nor oyster mushrooms are anywhere close!

Once a week, we visit this Japanese style BBQ place. I find the name of the restaurant really unappetizingly descriptive, "Black Hair and Cow" - black hair referring to a certain breed of cow I'm guessing - I've never asked the staff.

I finally brought the camera this time!!! Bf always allocates half to a quarter of the grilling space to me depending on his mood. Be warned, the following photos are the antithesis of vegetarianism, but seriously, look at the marbled meat...it really is beautiful, no?

They also have this delicious (yes, there ARE things at the restaurant without heads or hearts or moms - how ever it is you choose to define the foods I stay away from) minced green onion, yellow leek, garlic, and ponzu mixture that can be eaten with the grilled meat or mixed in with a bowl of steaming white rice - which omg is SO gorgeous I want to make a necklace and earring set out of the tiny, slightly translucent grains, the necklace would need to be steaming though. That's possible right?

This post is dedicated to the aging Allen Fang, who has a love hate relationship with vegetarians.

1/4 Cup-sized Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - not a health food

2009-11-23T17:07:00.007+08:00

This morning I awoke to the sad cries of the Chocolate Cake sitting in my refrigerator - only a quarter of it eaten by myself and my dear friend Sherri - with very very strict plans to end up in the trash sometime between my morning cup of Earl Grey and sliced apple....if only I had the strength.

I live alone, and anyone who knows me would understand that it is complete madness to leave me alone with chocolate cake, no one is getting out alive, not a single crumb, things are pretty much over. On Saturday morning I was woken by little Miss Holland, my sweet as pie canine. I had been dreaming about eating four cakes, with my hands, all at the same time. Needless to say, I was upset, woke my bf up with cries of despair, begging whoever would listen to let me go back to sleep. It didn't happen, so I rolled around the bed trying to recall every last detail to bf. So anyway, when I got home later in the day, I was greeted with the aforementioned talking Cake brought to me in the arms of my loving bf.

So thats how it happened, thats how I discovered cakes actually talk. It wouldn't shut up so I had to eat it.

I figure this Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe (definitely wolf in sheep's clothing, albeit a tight fitting one..teeheee! too much buttaaaahhhh) would help balance out the chocolate-morning.

I went through tons of recipes and this is a pretty good combo of ingredients - chewy, buttery (duh), raisin-y...food writing encourages the creation of new words.

177C / Baking Sheet

3/4 unsalted butter (room temperature)

1 cup brown sugar - packed

1 egg (room temperature)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup all purpose flour (I use whole wheat flour)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3 cups old fashioned rolled oats

AND OF COURSE

1 cup raisins/chocolate chips/dried cranberries...anything!

Cream together butter and brown sugar for 2-3 minutes until smooth.
Add egg and vanilla extract to mixture, beat to combine. This is when it begins to smell like the sweet fragrance of danger!!
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.
Slowly add dry ingredients into mixture.
Stir in rolled oats and raisins
For large cookies, use 1/4 cup batter/ice cream scoop (it might sound daunting but it really is the perfect size! I promise you'll be wishing they were 1/2 cup cookies)
Place 5 cm apart and flatten slightly so they are around 1/2 inch thick.
Bake 12-13 minutes or until golden brown around the edges, the center should still be a bit wet.

Each time I make these cookies, it takes me around 3 hours...my oven is SO tiny I can only bake 3 at a time - I refuse to compromise the size of the cookies.

mmm lemon cookies

2009-11-20T00:42:00.008+08:00

I posted this on nibbledish a few months ago, but for some reason recently my recipes with photoshopped images have been rejected! I didn't have that many on there to begin with (okay...5...FIVE - the number looks much bigger when I spell out the word?) but when I wrote in to get an explanation for my REJECTIONS, none of them would go through....so alas, I have arrived in the feared and web-blocked (I currently live in a country that *sigh...blocks most blog-based sites, but thanks to my techy bf, I have wormed my way through. HA! I laugh in the face of whomever is keeping me from reading foodie blogs...) land of blogger.

I made these cookies a while back, but I wanted to start off by posting something, anything...unfortunately my hobbit-sized oven fails miserably when it comes to baking cakes (or any baked-goods that are ambitious enough to rise higher than 3 cm). Let's stop now with the complaints and get on with the lemon cookies!

All you need is:

2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 cup butter, softened (if your butter has been in the refrigerator, cut into cubes, that will help the butter soften faster)
1 1/2 cups White Sugar
1 Egg (room temperature)
1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1 - 1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract (I used lemon juice...so it wasn't as fragrant as the lemon extract would be)
1 tablespoon lemon peel
And to make them pretty...
2 tablespoon lemon peel
1 tablespoon sugar

Preheat oven to 175C. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
Using a mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth and very fluffy.
Beat in egg, vanilla extract, lemon extract/juice and lemon peel.
Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls. Place on lined cookie sheets about 1 1/2 inches apart. Mix together the 2 tbsp of lemon peel and sugar and press a tiny bit of the mixture onto the top of each cookie.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes in the oven or until lightly browned.
Let stand on cookie sheet a few minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

Notes:

I used Kosher Salt and I don't think I mixed it that well with the dry ingredients, so some of them came out a bit salty - not to the point of being unbearable, it was actually kind of good that way, and yes, i ate enough of them to be able to make comparisons between cookies of the same batch. No shame, no shame ( I have no one to donate my goods to).

Try these, they're simple, buttery, lemony, but may possibly send you straight to the dentist.