Every Little Crumb

Short Update- Busy With School

2012-01-30T02:08:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything. Writing takes a long time, and I've more than enough to do at the moment.

I have posted a few things about my new school though, on my other blog.

If you'd like to know what I've been up to, and give some words of encouragement, do head over! I'd love to hear from you.

I miss baking. I live at the school hostel, and there isn't really any opportunities for making cakes. I'm thinking of looking around for recipes for sweet treats that do not need to be baked. I know I can make cheesecake. Any ideas?

I promise to go around and leave comments on your blogs this weekend. I miss reading and 'meeting' you. Take care and have a good week everybody!

Devil's Food Cake & Some News!

2012-01-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

Why do people have to name such wonderful sweet treats with such weird names?

I shall speak no more on the matter or I'll never stop.

I decided that I'd try a different version of the DFCC that I usually make, and went for this recipe by David Lebovitz (who is apparently a famous food writer. Forgive me for my ignorance).

As usual, I used what ingredients I could afford and had. So this is what I put in and did, and it turned out well. You should visit the link provided for the original recipe.

Chocolate Cake a.k.a. the DFC
Source: David Lebovitz

9 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups cake flour (I used all-purpose flour & replaced (amoun) with cornflour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking power
4 ounces margarine
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 180C.

Grease and line two 7-inch cake pans with baking paper.

Sift cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and baking powder into a bowl.

Beat margarine and sugar (for about 5 minutes if using an electric beater) until smooth and creamy. Add eggs one by one, and mix until well incorporated.

Mix water and milk. Alternately add flour mixture and milk mixture into the margarine+sugar+egg mixture (F-M-F-M). Mix until incorporated.

Divide into the pans prepared. Bake for 25 minutes. Test doneness by inserting a toothpick. Leave for 5 seconds and pull out, if there are no crumbs, the cakes are baked.

Frost using your preferred frosting or follow the original recipe. I used the cream cheese frosting and ganache recipe that I usually use. However, this time I followed a tip I read somewhere and whipped the ganche until it was stiff. This sort of thickened the ganache and made it easier to spread and it wasn't as messy, but the result was a much thicker layer of ganache than usual. Some might like this, but I prefer what I usually do.

See how thick the ganache is?

Anyway, I have some news! I've got my posting results! Insya-Allah I will report to the State Education Department (or JPN) on Monday. I'm going to start my life as a teacher! I can't quite believe it.

Pray for me, and wish me all the best! I may be a bit occupied after this to have time to bake, but I shall try my best to post something. Meanwhile, if you're interested, I also write a blog dedicated to teaching in Life as a Teacher. I'll probably post there a bit more often than here. For one, I'll probably be moving away from home, and I won't have an oven Maybe I'll take photos of my cooking instead? Blergh. Do I even know how to cook? Oh well we'll see.

Take care, everyone ;)

Life is Good with Good Friends

2012-01-04T22:34:00.000-08:00

I went to meet my friend Wawa when I was in KL.

I delivered the apple pie I made her.

Since it was her birthday a few weeks ago, she got the pie pan as a gift. Hehe.

She treated me to lunch. Yahhu! We had lunch at a food court at Times Square. The food court was interesting, it had stalls selling dishes from different Asian countries like Malaysia (of course!), Thailand, Japan, Korea, China and India, I think.

This is what I had. Nasi Goreng Tomyam. There wasn't anything particularly Tomyam-my about it, but whatever. It was free!

Wawa had a Korean lunch. I quite like Kimchi. I don't love it, but I can swallow it. Hehe. The beef was particularly good:

Wawa also got some sushi. I love sushi!

I hope we can go out again Wawa! I'll bring you a cake in exchange for lunch next time!

Of Apple Pies & Carrot Cakes

2012-01-04T21:46:00.000-08:00

This was the day I made 5 apple pies and 3 carrot cakes. All in one day. And I had to catch a bus to KL after that too.

First, let's look at the apple pies. I love making pie pastry, though they never turn out the same each time,. Unpredictable, these people.

First, I made this for mum's cousin. It's quite a scare isn't it? I meant to just cut out holes using an apple-shaped biscuit cutter, but it turned out to look like this:

Should cheer anybody up, that!

Next, I made this for my driving instructor, who unfortunately forgot to come and take it, so we gave it away to somebody else. I'll make her something else next time. It was quite the prettiest pie I made that day, I think, with the apple cutouts all around the edge:

I meant to leave this for the others to eat at home, but they gave it away to Little Brother's teachers, along with the second pie. Little Brother got 9As for PMR, so it was sort of thank-you gift. Congratulations Little Brother, you nailed it!

I also brought 2 with me to KL, one for Big Sister and her housemates, and another for my friend Wawa, for her birthday which was on 15th December. Latecomers, we both are!

I only managed to take a photo of one carrot cake, which Mum gave away to her friend. I rather like this baking and giving away thing, it makes me happy (for getting the chance to bake something) and the people getting the baked stuff happy too!

This is a recipe that I stick to whenever I want a carrot cake because it uses only 5 easy to remember ingredients. The only things that take time is grating the carrots and baking it. I sometimes reduce the amount of sugar, but it's okay to use the actual amount, it's not too sweet.

As usual, this is what I put into my cake, you can visit the link for the original recipe. Jules uses almond flour in her recipe, which she says makes the cake super moist but if you substitute it for all-purpose flour or self-raising flour like it did, it's still pretty good.

I love Stonesoup. Jules recipes are so simple, and so far the ones I've tried have turned out really nicely.

CARROT CAKE

Source: Stonesoup

Ingredients:

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used corn oil)

250g brown sugar

3 large eggs

250g self-raising flour

250g grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Line a baking tin with baking paper and grease the bottom and sides with a little oil.

3. Measure the oil into a large mixing bowl. Add the sugar and whisk together until well-combined.

4. Add the eggs, one by one, until well-combined.

5. Sift in the self-raising flour. Fold in until well-incorporated.

6. Thoroughly fold in grated carrots.

7. Bake in pre-heated oven for about one hour. If the top of the cake browns too quickly, cover it with a piece of aluminium foil until the cake is cooked (do the skewer/toothpick test).

8. Cover with yoghurt cream cheese topping, which is really easy to make:

Yoghurt Cream Cheese Topping

I'm afraid I forgot to measure the amounts. Just whisk together soft, room temperature cream cheese, castor sugar and yoghurt. If you want the topping to be stiffer, use more cream cheese. if you want it to drizzle over the sides, use more yoghurt. Add sugar to taste.

If you like, you can bake the cake in a large, square pan. When its baked, cut the cake into little squares, and pour the topping on top, like a sauce:

This is also useful if you have to cut of the top of the cake to level it. Use the scraps for this, it makes a lovely dessert.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

2011-12-17T02:25:00.000-08:00

I think this is a pretty good photo, don't you?
Well, it's better than the ones I've been posting, haha

Nope, this cake does not have coffee in it. I suppose it's called a 'coffee cake' because it's good to have with coffee, just like a teacake is good with tea? Or good for tea? Anyway, I had three blocks of cream cheese (well, 1 and a half actually) and I wanted to make a cake that uses cream cheese but I did't want anything that uses too much cheese or else I won't have another chance to bake any other cream cheese recipes until we get some more. Get it?

Thankfully, we can now get Tatura cream cheese for almost half the price of a block of Philadelphia cream cheese. I suppose Philadelphia cheese is creamier or more delicious or whatever, but we're not fussy folk and I believe in enjoying what food we can afford. Some people can't even afford a good, square meal per day. We've had a whole family- a mum and her children, (so many of them too!) come asking for some money and water at our house once. Poor kiddies. And mummy.

So should I be overly fussy over getting the best ingredients for baking, when cheaper ones which are good enough are available? I believe not. If I can afford to buy the more expensive stuff one day, Insya-Allah I will, but if I can't, I shouldn't grumble about it. And I won't. So remind me if I do.

This is a pretty good recipe, and one that I'd probably make again. However, I seem to have problems with cakes that need to be baked for over one-hour- the sides always turn out overbaked and black and burnt, just like with the Apple Crumble Teacake I made . I'm not quite sure how to counter this problem, does anybody have any good tips that you ca share with me? I'd be really grateful.

The ingredients & measurements below are what I've used, so visit the link for the original recipe and the metric measurements.

BLUEBERRY CREAM CHEESE COFFEE CAKE
Source: JoyofBaking

The Whats:

Streusel Topping:

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup coarse granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 cup cold butter cut into pieces

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 ounce cream cheese, at room temperature

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 tablespoon all purpose flour

Cake Batter:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup good-quality margarine

1/2 cup soft brown sugar, tightly packed

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla essence

1/3 cup milk

1/2 cup (or more) blueberry filling

The How-Tos:

Preheat oven to 150C (original is 180C).

Grease and line the bottom of an 8x8-inch pan with baking paper (I don't have a springform pan, so I just used a regular one)..

Streusel Topping:

Mix the flour, sugar and cinnamon in one bowl. Cut in the butter using a fork, a bread knife or the tips of your fingers until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Cover and place mixture in the refrigerator (or freezer, which is what I did!) to keep it cold.

Cream Cheese Filling:

Place cream cheese in a bowl and beat using an electric mixer until creamy and smooth. Add the sugar, egg, vanilla and flour and beat until well incorporated. Set aside.

Cake Batter:

Whisk or sift flour and baking powder into a bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat the margarine until smooth and creamy. Add in sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until well incorporated. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk and eat until just combined.

Assemble:

Spread the cake batter onto the bottom of the prepared pan and up the sides (the mixture is quite thick so this shouldn't be too difficult). Pour the cream cheese filling on top of the cake batter. Spread or dollop generous spoonfuls of the blueberry filling on top of the cream cheese filling. Scatter the streusel topping on top.

Bake for about 50 to 60 minutes. Test using a toothpick- poke it into the centre of the cake. Wait for 5 minutes and pull it out, if it comes out clean it is ready. Remove from oven and let cool.

Serve warm or at room temperature. It's good enough on its own, but you can always have it with cream. Yum!

Baker's notes:
1. Using coarse granulated sugar gives the streusel topping a lovely crunch, which Littlest Brother approved of.
2. The cake is best eaten o the day it's made, because the topping will slowly sort of soak the moisture from the cream cheese filling, I think, and will no longer be crumbly. But it's stil definitely good for eating. Definitely.

Lemon Bars

2011-12-11T10:45:00.001-08:00

Lemon bars!

I think lemons are the best-smelling fruits in the world! But then again, I haven't smelled all the fruits that ever existed, so I may be mistaken. I've always wanted to make lemon bars. Ever since I started using lemons in baking, I've loved it. Truly. The flavour. The smell. Heavenly.

LEMON BARS

Source: Joy of Baking (visit the link for metric measurements & a how-to video)

The Whats

Shortbread Crust

1/2 cup unsalted butter - I used margarine & omitted the salt

1/4 cup icing/powdered sugar

1 cup flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

Lemon Filling

1 cup fine granulated white sugar

1 large eggs

1/3 cup lemon juice (from 2-3 lemons) - I only had 2 lemons & got about 1/4 cup juice

1 tablespoons lemon zest (from 2 lemons)

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Some icing/powdered sugar for dusting the top

The How-tos

Shortbread Crust

1. Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

2. Butter and line bottom of 8x8-inch pan with parchment paper. Make sure you butter the sides really well, and if you're up too it, line the sides with parchment paper as well. I'd advice you to do it (which implies that I didn't do it).

3. Beat the margarine and sugar using a handheld mixer until smooth and creamy.

4. Add the flour and salt and mix just until dough comes together.

5. Press the dough onto the bottom of your pan. This might prove a bit tricky. The best way would be to use the base of your palms as the dough won't stick too much to it. Use your pointer and middle fingers to gently press the dough into the corners.

6. Bake dough for about 20 minutes (mine took only 15 minutes) or until the edges are just lightly browned. Don't overbake as it's going to go into the oven again later.

7. Cool the crust while making your lemon filling.

Lemon Filling

1. Beat sugar and eggs using a handheld electric mixer until smooth.

2. Stir in lemon zest and juice.

3. Fold in flour, making sure you beat out any lumps. I like to use a spatula and chase any lumps to the side of the bowl, pressing them against it.

4. Pour mixture on top of the crust. (My crust had sort of loosened from the sides of the pan a bit, and I was worried the filling would sink to the bottom of the pan, but thankfully they didn't. Much.)

5. Bake for 15-17 minutes or less or until the filling's set.

6. Dust top with icing sugar. Cut into bars and serrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrveeeee!!!

I forgot about all about the bars after I'd put them into the oven (I was busy browsing for more recipes). When I did remember, the timer was about to go off and the lemon bars were super brown. Uh-huk. I immediately rescued them without checking if the filling had set.

The crust. I overbaked it.

Just out of the oven. I overbaked the whole thing. Darn.

Fortunately icing sugar saved the day! What's important though, is that the flavour was not compromised. I am definitely making these again! Mum thought they're too sweet, but I think they're fine, so I think they should be fine with you sweet-toothed lot.

Oh yeah.. The filling stuck a bit to the sides of the pan, but I used a metal spatula to loosen them. They might turn out a bit wonky, and the filling isn't super solid, but I like them that way:

Click here to read about 10 interesting things about lemons

Super Moist Egg-less Chocolate Cake

2011-12-10T04:42:00.001-08:00

Or Black Beauty. I'd like to call it that. It was wonderfully black in colour.

We were out of eggs. Dad asked, "What do you need eggs for?"

"I was thinking of making cake?"

"Then we're getting eggs tonight!"

Hopeful they will. I was in the mood for baking right then and there though, and decided that I wouldn't wait. I googled 'eggless chocolate cake' and found this recipe. After being used to the DFCC, it was nice to make plain, chocolate cake without any topping. No fuss, no mess. According to the blogger who posted it, the cake was good enough without the need for a topping, so I went with her suggestion.

And it is pretty good. That is, if you like super, dark chocolaty cake. If you'd rather have a topping, then by all means go for it. I like how smooth it looked when it came out of the oven, with just a few tiny cracks on top. And how easy it is to make. You only need one bowl and a hand whisk for mixing. As well as measuring spoons and cups. And a spatula. I can never make cake without my spatula.

This was taken using a flash.
What a huge difference from the first photo!

The texture is spongy and not too crumbly, and the colour really dark. I'm a goon at taking photos, and this cake was extra tricky because of its colour. Oh well. I had three slices before I knew it. And the others aren't even back home yet.

SUPER MOIST EGG-LESS CHOCOLATE CAKE
Sources: Love2Cook & Dapurku Sayang

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon soda
1/2 cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
two tablespoons milk powder
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/4 cup cold water (from the fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
1/2 cup vegetable oil (apparently you can also use melted butter/margarine or cooking oil)
1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar (which I forgot. Whoops)

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
3. Add salt, milk powder and brown sugar into flour mixture. Whisk until well combined.
4. Measure water into measuring cup and add in vanilla extract. Add to dry ingredients and mix using whisk, making sure there aren't any lumps.
5. Add vegetable oil and whisk until well-combined. Apparently you can also use melted margarine or butter (omit salt if you use margarine or salted butter) or cooking oil, but I don't recommend the latter. (I've used cooking oil once for pastry and didn't like the taste.)
6. Add lemon juice/vinegar and mix well. (I forgot this part so I don't know how it affects the cake).
7. Pour into 8x8-inch pan. Or you could use a smaller, round pan if you want a taller cake.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Test for done-ness using a toothpick- poke one until it reaches the bottom of the pan, wait for 5 seconds and pull it out, If it comes out clean, it's done.
9. Slather some topping on top if desired. I didn't bother.

I was... uh-hum... trying to take a photo while holding the camera in one hand.
Not a good strategy.

This is not a cake for wowing people. More of a I-need-a-good-cake-in-45-minutes sort of cake, maybe for serving some guests? It's nice and simple and uncomplicated. you won't have a heart attack making it. Although my whisk did fall out of the bowl two times.

Crime scene!

Washing up!

Apple Crumble Cake

2011-11-30T13:19:00.000-08:00

I'm making up for lost time.

I made this Apple Crumble Cake a while ago and I loved, loved, loved it. In fact, I made it three times. It has entered my 10 top favourite cakes (I don't have an actual list though). Yeah. There are still some apples on the counter and I only refrained from making a fourth for fear my family will throw them at my head (well, they wouldn't do that to food, but I shouldn't bore them with the same thing over and over again anyway).

Aren't they beautiful?
I wish apples grew here in Malaysia. That way I could plant one right outside my bedroom window.

We had some apples browning in the fridge, so I wanted to bake something with apples. You cannot imagine (or perhaps you ca) how mind-boggling it is to choose a recipe! I took two days over it.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is an apple corer.
Useful for, uhm, coring apples.
It's lost. Mum said I may have thrown it away with the apple skins
Somebody please knock some sense into me.

And the apples kept browning. I finally choose this recipe because:

1. It's from The Caked Crusader's blog, hehe, so what's not to love?
2. It was baked and loved by a superhero, so what can an adoring fan do but make one too?
3. It has a crumble topping. I've always wanted to make a crumble cake ever since I found out about them, so this is one thing ticked off my wishlist. The topping also has cinnamon- I love cinnamon! Wait, should that be reason number 4?
4. CC's introductory words about them. I quote: "This could be just about the best cake in the world. It’s more than a cake, sort of a cake/dessert hybrid – and if I haven’t caught your attention with a statement like that, then what are you doing on this site in the first place?"
5. I was attracted to the step which involves whisking the eggs and sugar until it 'soufflés up' to 4 or 5 times its size. I love steps that involve whisking sugar and eggs. It's divine!
6. It involves melted butter. I have no idea why this is a reason, since I didn't even use pure butter. Whoops.

I also took down some notes while making the first cake, so I'll put them here. Hopefully they'll be useful in the future when I make them again.

1. You're supposed to whisk the eggs and sugar using an electric mixer, because it'll take at least 10 minutes for the mixture to get to 4 or 5 times its original volume. I used a handheld electric mixer, and it took me nearly 25 minutes (with 4 or 5 30-second breaks in between). My hand got really stiff, and I was afraid the motor would heat up too much and blow up, but it didn't and the end result was worth it. I was right about reason number 5.

2. After the batter was ready, I started preparing the apples, before which the batter was quite runny, like CC said it would be. When I was ready to pour the batter into the pan, discovered that it had thickened up, and even had bubbles which reminded me of a yeasted (if that is even a word) dough. I'm not sure if this was supposed to happen, but I poured into the pan and arranged the apples on top.
3. (The cake is now out from the oven) I baked the cake at 175C. It's supposed to be baked for about 1.5 hours. At the 30th minute, I thought the top already looked nice and brown, and since I was afraid of burning it and there was still along way to go, I reduced the temperature to 150C. At the 45th minute, the cake looked ready and had even over-browned. I held myself from checking since there was still at least 0.5 hours to go. However, I checked it after another 10 minutes and no crumbs stuck to the knife I inserted. I think it was actually ready at the 40th minute. I wonder why, but after thinking about it, I think it was because the batter that went into the pan wasn't quite runny, and in fact I didn't have any trouble arranging the apples on top or worry that they would sink into the cake. So I suppose a runnier batter calls for a longer cooking time? (shrugs).

I'm looking for a way to make sure the inside gets cooked without overbaking the outer part of the cake.

Serve the cake with some lovely homemade Devonshire cream.

[Click HERE for original recipe]

Thank you CC, for such a lovely recipe! I've yet to produce a truly satisfying cake (which hereby refers to a cake that is both fully cooked inside without being overbaked on the outside- so far I've only managed either one), but so far the ones I've made have been gulped down so fast I wonder I wasn't sick!

Trip to KL Part 2: Convo Day!

2011-10-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

I've been tardy. And lazy. I stopped posting a while back and now I'm trying my best to get the mood back. It. Is. Hard.

This is what I've been up to while I was gone (from here, anyway)

1. Attended an interview. Boy am I glad that's over!

2. Attended two weddings. Two of my best friends are now married. I feel old.

3. Visited my Tok Aji and Tok Hajjah (my grandparents) up north.

4. Baked. A lot.
5. Did some translation work (and got paid for them).
6. Tested for and got my driving license. Alhamdulillah. Yahoo!

7. Getting bald... I mean bored while waiting for posting results.

None of the activities are reason enough to have neglected this blog. Anyway, here's the long due Part 2 on my convocation.

I know not many people read this blog, so I feel rather more comfortable in sharing some extra exciting -now stale- news regarding convocation because I know not many people will read about it. (Weird reason?) I know though, that those who do will be very happy for me.

1. I was awarded Best Student for my programme (Teaching English as a Second Language a.k.a. TESL
2. I was chosen to deliver the valedictorian speech

It was definitely a day to be remembered! I received an email several weeks before convo day explaining that I'd been selected as a candidate for the speech. So I drafted a speech, wen to the selection session (after getting all 'nerved' up for it), received an email informing that I'd been selected, went to a training session, went to collect my robes etc. This involved a lot of trips from Kelantan to KL and back to Kelantan, and mind you, each bus trip took about nine hours. Nine LOOOONNGGG hours. I'm officially (and have been for quite some time, actually) sick of long bus trips. Sick!

Finally the big day came.. and ended. It was a happy, happy day and whenever I think about it, I feel quite dizzy and can't quite believe the rizk Allah gave me. He has been so generous to me, and I feel truly humbled.

People waiting to go into the hall.

I don't have any photos of when we were in the hall, and anyway we weren't allowed to take photos. I got to know a few people, other students who received awards, and Masya-Allah, most of them go two to three awards each! I felt quite small in comparison, but I still felt grateful for the honour I was given.

When it was time for the speech, I walked gingerly up the steps, praying all the way through that I wouldn't stumble.

My friend took this with her phone. Sneaky, hehe.

Alhamdulillah, it went well. At first I stumbled a bit, and when I was supposed to give a nod of acknowledgement to the rector, I did a sort of awkward jerk instead of giving a graceful nod. I supposed my screws were tightened too tight, haha.

It seemed that I managed to make a lot people cry. I remember one of the trainers telling me, "If you can make people cry... well, you'll have made an impact." It was a huge pressure on me. I'm not big on making people cry OR on crying in front of people. Fortunately, I managed not to cry, but when I mentioned my parents, my throat sort of closed up and I had to choke a bit to get my voice through. Whatever happened, I'm glad people like the speech. That was what I prayed for. That the speech would be meaningful, beneficial and would touch people's hearts. Alhamdulillah.

After the ceremony ended, we went for a special lunch. I couldn't eat, I never can when exciting things happen which is a pity.

That's Im, one of the award winners, and her parents

And when we finally went out of the hall, there was a surprise waiting for me!

Thank you Little Siser and Littlest Brother!
That bear is seriously huge! Seriously!

[Sidenote: I wanted to put a picture of Little Sister holding the,m, but she'd kill me. She almost did over the one I put in the last post. Haha.]

They were so excited in planning what to get me that they only had these for lunch:

Iced Milo & sandwiches

Mushroom soup & garlic bread

After that, we took photos. Lots and lots of photos. But I shall only post a few ( and be careful no post any that shows my face too clearly hehe).

Glad I made you happy :)

My beautiful friends

Some of my good friends

I particularly like this photo, for some reason

It was a lovely day. I met so many people, old and new, and believe it or not learned many new things. Alhamdulillah once again.

Trip to KL Part 1: Kelantan-Terengganu

2011-10-27T00:06:00.000-07:00

My laptop is finally... well, usable. It seems that the part which connects the motherboard to the keyboard is damaged, so if I want to get that fixed, I have to get a new motherboard. Which costs around RM200. Gulp. So, for now, I'm using a USB keyboard that Dad bought. It's quite pretty:

(I'll add a photo later]

Thankfully, I didn't lose any of my data, alhamdulillah (praise be to Allah), so even without a camera I can still post a few updates with the hundreds of photos of things I've baked in the past months. However, in honour of the special occasion that took place two or three weeks ago (yeah, stale), I'm going to post some posts unrelated to baking, though perhaps a cake or two will make their appearance I hope that's okay.

And what occasion is that? My convocation day! After six years of training, I finally made it. My family was quite excited as at first we weren't sure whether they could make it to IIUM, but alhamdulillah with Big Sister's help they could. Littlest Brother was especially excited about going to KL and to IIUM. Little Sister went too, but Little Brother had to take his PMR and therefore had to stay at home. PMR is quite a big deal, and I felt guilty about leaving him at home all alone to face it, but he was very noble about it and said that Mum and Dad should definitely not miss the occasion. Big Sister had a seminar so she couldn't go, but she lent her camera. Yeeehaaa.

We had a good journey, which started at 10 a.m. on 8th October 2011 (my convo was on the 10th). First we went to Dungun, Terengganu to pick up Little Sister. I slept most of the way there because I didn't sleep the night before, preparing some... well, stuff to take and to leave for Little Brother. Watch out for it below.

Terengganu has a lot of beautiful mosques. Below are some pics (sorry they're not great photos). I'm afraid I forgot to note down the names though, I'll do that next time. I've included some explanation on some of the terms for my non-Muslim readers.

My favourite was this. It's so clean and white and beautiful. I love how it stands out against the blue, blue sky.

This is where the men take their wudhu'.
Taking the wuhu' involves a series of steps in cleansing some parts of the body.
It is compulsory before making the prayer.

This is the tower where the mu'azzin makes the azan (call for prayer).
At least that's what they used to do in the old days, I think, so that people can hear you.
I think they use a special room with a microphone and speakers now.
The mu'azzin is the person who makes the call for prayer.

We also got to see The Crystal Mosque, but didn't get to take a very good photo, so here's one I found on the internet:

It's very beautiful, but most importantly I hope a lot of people go there to pray. Mosques (or masjid in Malay) are houses for worship, so people should go there to worship Allah, right?

We finally reached UiTM, the Dungun Campus. My sister is so lucky! They're within walking distance from the beach. It's practically across the road! Imagine being able to look at this everyday:

I'd like to sit on that seat and just look at the sea, every single day...

And here is the reason we have to go all the way to Terengganu before going to KL!

Hello, Little Sister!

We couldn't possibly miss having a picnic by the sea when we're by the sea, so that's what we did. Momsie had packed a meal for us. And I made... cake and cinnamon rolls! The rolls I will write about in another post, but the cake... well, you may remember this monstrosity that I made:

Well, the night before we left I didn't sleep much.I stayed up making the rolls and two DFCCs- one to leave for Little Brother and one to take with us! Unfortunately, a lot of mishaps occurred during the making, which will take too long to talk about, so this is the slightly degraded, disfigured-looking version that we brought along:

Here is Littlest Brother greedily snacking on it:

My family just cannot get enough of this cake. If you say the word "Cake" to their face, I can assure you that this is the cake that they will think of, hehe. We kept snacking on it all the way to KL, and while we were picnicking by the beach, we even drew the attention of two little boys, who, quite unashamedly, came up to us and asked for some. Haha. Here they are, I've forgotten their names:

And here we are digging in:

And don't forget the cake!!

And I will now leave you. To make up for the lack of baking chit-chat, here's a few photos of stalls tat sell keropok losong and all sorts of local snacks and delicacies. These shops or stalls can be found all the way by the roads along the beach in Terengganu:

The shops look more or less the same, don't they?

Bubbye, Terengganu! We enjoyed visiting you!

[If you don't mind, I'd like to make a Part 2 for my convocation report! Hehe...]

p.s. Little Brother managed to finish the whole cake I left for him in three days. All by himself! Well, there was one, tiny slice left, but still...

Apple Pie with Oil Crust and a History of (my) Pie Making

2011-10-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

During my pie making frenzy (which started sometime in August) I made nearly or maybe even over 30 pies up to the last pie. I've lost count! It started with failures especially in the crust department, but I persevered (which is a dignified way of saying sweating and biting my lips to keep myself from saying anything particularly offensive to the pie dough while rolling and re-rolling it) and Alhamdulillah, after a number of attempts my efforts started to produce better and better results. I had never made my crust (or any pie for that matter) on my own, and the last time I'd made them was years and years ago, when I was shorter and skinnier (though most of my friends would disagree) and ahhem with more pimples. Ahhh pimples and acne and whatever you call them. Such wonderful times we had together! (Coughs). Anyhow, I digress. Back to pie talk.

That being said, I did a lot of research and studying (another dignified way of describing enjoying myself while browsing the internet looking at food). I made y first apple pie. Epic failure. I used shortening for the crust, and it would NOT brown. I baked it for so long, the apples dried up. I despaired and gave up on ever making pie again. My second attempt was this lovely pie from the Homesick Texan (which is a lovely, original blog), but though the chocolate part was quite lovely, the crust was a flop. However, it gave me a little spark of hope and I thought that i'd try once again.

Next, I made this lovely Chocolate Marvel Pie. I used the basic pie crust recipe from Betty Crocker's Pie & Pastry Cookbook, but I used butter instead of lard (which we don't take because from my understanding it's made from pig fat) and shortening (which I used in the Epic Fail pie crust and, yes, how did you guess? FAILED.) I'd watch a video by Joy the Baker & Jill Donenfield, looked at some step-by step tutorials (one such being this) and devoured the BCP&P Cookbook, and at the same time, I happened to come across some deep dish thingy in my Mum's kitchen store which I figured I could use to bake a pie. So I did. And though the crust slipped down the slippery slope of the deep dish, leaving barely an inch deepness of a pie crust-ness for me to pour my chocolate filling-ness, it was delicious and most importantly, the pie crust browned quite beautifully (though with lots of air bubbles because I hadn't pricked it enough).

And that, was the beginning of my pie-making frenzy. Some of the pies I wrote about and posted on this blog, but most of them were quickly finished before i could take any photos. There was also, ahhem, the matter of not having a camera until Big Sister lent hers (and it's still in my hand.... laughs an evil and witchy laugh). Below are some of the pies that I remember having made in the last 4 months:

Chocolate Marvel Pie (around 3? Or 4?)

Lemon Chiffon Pie

Vanilla Cream Pie

Peach Pie (2)

Apple Pie (I've lost count of the numbers. Maybe around 10? Or more?)

And that's all I can remember. With practice, my efforts in making the crusts got easier produced better results, and I started experimenting with different types of crusts. In this post, I'll share the Oil Pie crust I made, the recipe taken from the BCP&PC. I won't say it was a complete success (details to follow) but it was another step in my pie making adventure so it was pretty good. I made a 10-inch crust, but as usual here are the measurements for both 8 or 9-inch and 10-inch crusts.

OIL PASTRY

8-INCH OR 9-INCH PIE

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

2-3 tablespoons cold water

10-INCH PIE or 8- or 9-INCH TWO-CRUST PIE

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

3-4 tablespoons cold water

10-INCH TWO-CRUST PIE

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup salad oil (I used corn oil)

4-5 tablespoons cold water

Method:

1. Mix flour and salt in a mixing bowl.

2. Add oil and using a fork, mix until particles are the size of small peas (which takes some time and didn't exactly result in p's in the s of sp's, but I got a crumbly mixture which I think is okay)

3. Sprinkle water over mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time. Mix using fork until flour is thoroughly moistened and dough almost cleans the side of the bowl (you may add 1-2 tbsp oil id needed).

4. Gather dough into hands to form a ball.

5. For one-crust pies, shape dough into a flattened round. For two-crust pies, divide dough in half, place each half cut side down and flatten into a round.

6. Place flattened rounds between two pieces of waxed paper (which I didn't have- i used greaseproof paper and it worked).

7. Wipe table with a damp cloth to prevent the paper from slipping. Roll pastry 2 inches larger than your inverted pie pan. Like so:

8. Peel off top paper:

and transfer the pastry by placing the pastry paper side up in the pan.
9. Peel of the paper and carefully ease the pastry into the pan.

And there you have it. Next, do one of the following steps and bake your oil crust pie:
(a) FOR 2-CRUST FRUIT or MEAT PIE: Fill the pie with your pie chosen filling (for this pie I used the filling from this pie). Roll top crust the same way as bottom crust. Cut slits on top (I punched in a few apple-shaped patterns using a cookie cutter, like so:

Trim pastry and bake according to the recipe for your pie.

(b) FOR BAKED PIE SHELL: Bake pie crust for 12 to 15 minutes at 475F or 245C. (Mine usually takes longer. Like 20-25 minutes).

Now, though the crust was quite easy to handle... until the time came to transfer it into the pie pan. I probably need more practice. The top crust tore a bit, and I patched it up, but basically it looked like this:

(Excuse the chunks of margarine, I forgot to dot the filling with them before putting the top crust on)

I was a bit doubtful, but into the oven it went:

And it stayed there for so long, the filling dripped out of the torn parts of the crust and onto the bottom of the oven. Yikes. The reason? The crust would NOT brown. If it did, it took a very, very long time to do it, nearly 1 1/2 hours I think. I was afraid the filling would dry out, but fortunately it didn't. Instead, it turned out into this thick, gooey caramel-ly goodness. Pheeww!

Mum said it was okay, but that she preferred the usual pie crust I made. The oil recipe resulted in this crumbly, semi-crisp, semi-soft crust. It was quite delicious, and a change from the ordinary butter crust and I liked it. This spoonful says: "Here's to more pies in the future!"

p.s. Yup, the dates on the photos tells you that I made this nearly 3 months ago. Then again, I'm no sure when I'll try making an oil crust again, so here they are. I should probably start cropping my photos and learn to do a bit of editing, bu I'm too lazy!

Short update

2011-10-16T01:12:00.000-07:00

Just a sort note to say that:

- I won't be able to post any updates for a while because my laptop went and gave up on me. Huhu. Need to get it fixed first.
- I haven't posted any updates because I was busy with convocation, but as soon as my laptop is all right I'll post about that. I had a good time- my siblings gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers and a HUGE teddy bear, haha
- I'm giving Big Sister's camera back to her... even though my photos were kind of lousy, I still had pictures to post and that's better than nothing. It won't be as fun posting about my baking adventures without any pictures to accompany the text though.

So tata for now! I feel bad if people come here and find that there's nothing new to read, but at the moment it can't be helped. Thank you though, for all your lovely, lovely comments, I truly appreciate it! I'll make my best effort to still go and visit your blogs- hopefully my laptop will be okay soon! Until then, take care!

Apple Pie(s)

2011-10-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry. It's not a very good picture but I like it anyway.
I'm quite proud of the crust for this pie, it looks lovely and flaky (I think) and it is too.

It's about time I talk about my apple pie. Apple pies, that is. I think out of all the things that I've made so far, apple pies (or most pies for that matter) are the most rewarding. It took me quite some time to learn how to make the pie crust. The first time I made them on my own was such a failure than I chickened out and stopped trying. Then, after a long time, I tried again. This time it browned, at least, but was too crumbly to be called a proper pie crust. Then I tried again. And again. And again.

Each time I made a new pie, things got better. I learned where I made my mistakes, and made sure (or tried to) not to repeat them. I learned how to make sure the dough was not too sticky, nor too tough to roll out. It was a long and hard process, but it was worth it. Now, I just jump at the chance of making pie whenever I have enough ingredients (which, at the moment is not often- I haven't made pie for a few weeks now). I've yet to master the art of pie making, but I revel in the thought that there's so much more to explore about it.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of the uncooked crust, but I think this was the best crust I'd made up to that time (for my 6th or 7th pie, I think)
We don't have a proper working space for rolling out pastry or kneading bread, so I use this round, tin tray of Mum's which works quite well.

Wonky lattice top.
I wish I had one of those crimp cutters or whatever they're called.

Most of the recipes that I used for the pies came from Betty Crocker's Pie & Pastry Cookbook, which is a wonderful book. Ever since I remember- well, ever since we purchased the book (secondhand from a car boot sale at Scotland) I've stared and stared at all the lovely and mouth-watering pictures. I read through the recipes, imagining myself making them. I never did though, until that first disastrous pie. I'm glad I got the courage to try again. It was worth it.

My sifu for pie-making!

I meant to blog about each pie that I made so that I could take note of my improvements and mistakes, but what can I say, I've yet to become a consistent blogger (while I can say that I have 2 other blogs to write in, it's not a good excuse because I don't post updates all that often over there either), so I'm putting photos of apple pies that I've made altogether in this one post. Next time... we'll see...

I think this was the very first apple pie I made (on my own, anyway)
Look at my wonky lattice top!

APPLE PIE
makes 1 10-inch pie (with some leftover pastry)

Pie Crust
Pastry for a 2 crust 10-inch pie

Pie Filling
8 cups thinly sliced pared apples (about 7 medium-sized ones)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I put nearly 2 tsp, hehe)
a dash of salt
3 tablespoons margarine/butter

Heat oven to 425F/220C.

Roll out pastry and use to line pie pan.

Stir together sugar, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Mix with apples in a large bowl. Turn filling into pastry-lined pie pan. Dot with butter.

Cover with top crust (with slits or holes on top to allow steam to escape). Seal and flute.

Cover edge with a strip of aluminium foil to prevent excessive browning; remove 15 minutes before end of baking time.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is beautifully browned and juice begins to bubble through the slits/holes in the top crust.

Serve warm, with ice-cream if desired.

p.s. I wouldn't worry too much about getting the measurements right for the filling. Just follow your instincts (and tastebuds, of course!) as well as what you have

Custard Sauce
* This is my own recipe! Hah. Well, I based it on the lemon chiffon filling that I made for the Lemon Chiffon Pie, but this is pretty much my own invention. I'm sorry if it doesn't work if you try it, but it was pretty okay when I made it.

Makes one cup.

1 large egg
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon custard powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
a pinch of salt

Beat egg lightly in a bowl and add milk. Beat mixture until well combined. Add custard powder, sugar and salt. Mix until well combined. Strain into a saucepan. Turn on heat to low or medium-low. Stir constantly until mixture is thickened (shouldn't take long). Pour over your slice of pie and enjoy!

Notes
1. I actually put in two tablespoons of sugar, but I realised that I'd forgotten to strain the egg+milk mixture only after I'd combined all the ingredients, so I strained the whole mixture then, and of course there were bits of granulated sugar left in the strainer. So I think only one tablespoon really went into the custard. It was just sweet enough for me, but you can always increase the amount to two tablespoons. I think the best thing to do would be to strain the sauce after you've combined the egg, milk and custard so that you won't have any eggy or custardy lumps. Then you add the sugar and salt.
2. The sauce shouldn't harden up with just one tablespoon of custard powder, but if it does, just add a little milk to soften it a bit. No biggie.

Some more pictures... yeah I know, I should get rid of the date stamps or cut them out, but I'm too lazy to do that!

Two pies I made for Big Sister to take back to KL.
She wanted two. Two whopping pies!
Being the NICE little sister that I am, I made two. Which one looks better, do you think?

There was too much juice. Though I wish I needn't write 'too much'.
I think this happened because I mixed together the apples and flour+sugar etc. too early.
I put them aside, and when I was ready to use them, they had A LOT of juice.
Being me, I felt that it was a shame to throw the excess juice. Wrong decision.
Look at what happened below.

This picture can either gross people out, or make them drool.
The latter happened to me. Though it spoiled the pie's looks (it'll never get a prize for Most Beautiful Pie), I love the how the juice caramelised through the crack. It's such a pretty colour.

With cake, there is a time when I feel, "Ok, that's it, I've had enough cake for this week!" but so far, it hasn't happened with pie. Should I ask Dad to get some apples on his way home for work? Haha.

Another pie.
Don't ask me why I punctured so many holes on the crust, but I did.
It also happened that I forgot to dot the apples with margarine before covering the filling with the top crust.
So I poked some margarine through the holes.
Some mistakes turn out for the best reasons, huh? (Or not, haha)

Other pies I've made and posted about:
Vanilla Cream Pie
Chocolate Marvel Pie
Lemon Chiffon Pie
Peach Pie

Oh, and just thought I'd share here that my convocation day is on October 10th. Yay! I'm still waiting for a job placement, so preparing for convocation is providing some fun for me. I went to IIUM to get my robe on October 1st, so I got to meet some of my friends, which was really fun.

This is what I'll be wearing! I forgot to take a picture of my own robe (didn't want the bother of having to repack it, anyway) so I took this picture from the website:

Ooohhh!!! It's just 5 days away! I'm nervous. I hope I don't trip myself up on stage. Or have my face freeze when taking the scroll. Or drop the scroll after receiving it. Ahhhh!!! I'm scared!

But I'm still looking forward to it! :D

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake

2011-09-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

What a name! Though I don't really fancy it, the person who posted the recipe (the Kitchen Guardian, whose blog is lovely) asked that we name the cake as it is, so Devil's Food Chocolate Cake it is. I've made this cake two times. The first one looked a total mess that I named it Chocolate Mess Cake, but it tasted lovely. I followed the proper measurements for the cake, but as I only had 100g cream cheese (the recipe calls for 250g) I made some adjustments. The same goes for the chocolate ganache, which I halved but later wish I hadn't. Hehe.

This cake turned out to be even more popular than the red velvet cake. I made it at 12 a.m. and chilled it overnight in the refrigerator. The next day I managed to eat one slice before going for my driving class. When I came back, only a very thin slice remained! I decided that the next time I made it, I'd make two cakes so that the result would be taller- which means that you can cut thinner slices so that everyone can have several goes at eating it instead of just once or twice.

This is the first cake. Just two layers since I only made one cake. I only put 5 tablespoons sugar to the 100g cream cheese so it was a little sour, but I still liked it. I divided the batter into two and baked each layer separately because I didn't want the bother of having to cut the cake in two later. By some fortunate or unfortunate incident, I accidentally baked the first layer at 110C instead of 160C, so it took longer to bake but somehow yielded a lovely, moist texture. (The photo below's not that good, but I think you can see that the top layer is slightly moister).

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 1
You don't want to see the whole cake. You really don't.

Then, Littlest Brother requested that I made the cake for his birthday. So we went to Tesco and got some more cream cheese. Since it was already a few weeks after Raya, they'd restocked most of the supplies and I found quite a number of different brands for cream cheese. As usual, of course, I wanted to find one with an establised and recognised Halal logo, and found two- the KRAFT Philadelphia cream cheese which is what we usually get, and another brand named Tatura, which comes from Australia. The Tature one was much cheaper, 250g for about RM 7.99 while the Philadelphia cheese was priced at nearly RM 12.00. So I bought two of the Tatura cheese. They look like this:

When we got home, I started making the cake. I knew it was about to become one of my nocturnal baking adventures since I planned to make two cakes, wait for them to cool and frost them, etc. This time I followed the recipe exactly, because I planned to use one batch of chocolate ganache and cream cheese frosting for two cakes.

I actualy planned to make four layers out of the two cakes, but I made a mistake when I divided the batter... long story... so instead I ended up with three layers. Which was good anyway since there would not have been enough frosting and ganache! Frosting the cake was messy, I didn't have a proper cake stand, but I had an idea that if I spread the cream cheese and chilled it in the fridge for a while first so that it'd firm up a bit, I wouldn't have so much trouble spreading the ganache on top (like I did with the first cake). It worked, but I think next time I'll make the cake earlier during the day, and do the frosting and layering at night so that I'll have more time for chilling the cake.

Anyway, here is the recipe. I first found it in Kak Rima's blog, who had Kak Edi from Adorable Cupcakes recommend it to her, who in turn took it from the Kitchen Guardian, who took it from a book called Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski. Phewwh! That was long. KG requested that we give the proper credits, which I hope I've done correctly. Shelly Kaldunski, is, by the way a food consultant for Martha Stewart Living. No wonder it's such a good recipe!

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake
links to original recipe: here, here and here

Cake:
(I made 2 cakes)

1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tablespoons (about 65 gram) butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence
1/4 cup buttermilk (or fresh milk with a few drops of lemon juice/distilled vinegar)
1/2 cup warm water (I used 1/4 warm water and 1/4 milk)

Grease and line cake tin with baking paper. (I used a 7-inch cake tin)
Sieve flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate soda, salt in one bowl.
Beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined.
Add dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder etc) alternately with liquid ingredients (buttermilk + warm water) in three portions.
Add vanilla extract/essence. Mix until well combined.
Bake for about 30 minutes at 160C or until just cooked.

Cream Cheese Frosting
250 g cream cheese, room temp (I used Tatura cream cheese)
125 g butter, room temp
3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted (I reduce the amount from 1 cup so that we could taste the cheese)
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
a few drops of lemon juice, optional

Beat cream cheese and butter, just until creamy. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and lemon juice and mix until well combined.

Chocolate Ganache
3/4 cup non-dairy whipping cream (original: 200 ml double cream with at least 30% fat content)
200 g dark chocolate, chopped (original 250g)
a pinch of salt (which I didn't put)

Heat cream until just at boiling point. Add chocolate (and salt) and stir. Remove from heat when chocolate has melted and continue stirring until well mixed. Leave to cool.

Cool cake completely, spread the cream cheese frosting and pour cooled ganache on top. Make sure the ganache is cool but still pourable, if you leave it for too long it'll get really thick and becomes a little difficult to spread.

Chill cake overnight in the refrigerator. This is what I did because we prefer cakes that come out of the fridge nice and cold. I think it also allows some time for the ganache and cheese to be absorbed into the cake for a bit, which helps to make it even moister. Yum!

This is what it looks like from the outside. You can see that I've a lot to improve in my cake frosting skills. The bits of paper that you see underneath was an attempt to utilise this tip I learned which says that you can slip long strips of paper under the cake (about three strips) which you can later remove after you've finished frosting. This will help to reduce the mess, but it didn't work because the paper stuck fast under the cake!

This is what it looks like from the inside. (Oooppss I forgot to remove the baking paper). Three layers! I think this is the best cake I've made yet.

Devil's Food Chocolate Cake version 2
Oh my God, what is that on top of the cake???
Oh. An extra large cake crumb. Thank goodness.

I can't wait to make it again! Maybe when Big Sister comes home for the weekend?

Red Velvet Cake

2011-09-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

Note 1: I think I should start learning how to take better photos. The thing is by the time I finish baking my energy is usually all but spent, so I'm too lazy to arrange things beautifully or think of a nicer way of presenting. So.

Note 2: This entry was composed over a week ago. I'm getting lazy- need to buck up a bit!

Goodness, I've so many pending posts! I'll never get through each and every one of them! The thing is, I'd like to write about everything that I make, since I probably won't have much a chance any more when I start working (if that ever happens, huh). Being me, though, I'd write one post and halfway through writing I'd suddenly remember another recipe that I tries and I'd start writing about that. Fickle-minded, I am, I guess.

One of the things that I've seen all over food blogs (apart from macarons, dulce de leche, rainbow cakes, etc.) are red velvet cakes. So ahem... I'd like to announce that I've made a red velvet cake!

I'm afraid this is the best photo that I managed to take.
I packed one slice for KakYong a.k.a. Big Sister to take back to her uni.
And no, it's not the photo that's upside down, it's the cake. So.

To tell you the truth, I've never actually tasted one, either professionally-made or homemade. So I didn't know what to expect and at first was a teeny weeny little bit disappointed because I'd expect to jump through the roof after tasting it. I've read how delicious and extraordinary it is, but it tasted quiet normal. I think I should have another go at the recipe sometime soon (when oh when will that be?) to see if I missed anything.. Besides, like I said I've never tasted a red velvet cake before so I don't have anything to compare my cake to.

I got the recipe from Kak Rima, whose blog is another that I haunt. She adapted it from another recipe, and her cake turned out such a beautiful red. Mine was a very dark red, pretty enough but not that eye-catching. At first I only made one, but the cake turned out a little too short to cut in two, so I made another one. When I decided to make another one, it was 3 a.m. in the morning, and I had two whoopie pie batters waiting to be dolloped into their pans. It was one crazy night. But since Little Sister was going back to Uni at 6 a.m., and Big Sister suggested that I make something to celebrate Mum's upcoming birthday while everyone was at home, I went through with it. So we ate cake at 5 a.m. in the morning (we were having sahur as we'd decide to fast today). Who eats cake at 5 a.m. in the morning???

Mum thinks the texture should have been finer. The cake was rather dense, I guess. Maybe I should use superfine flour next time?

The cake batter. It's not that red. More like a very dark pink.

Well, here's the recipe for the cake. I followed the recipe mostly, but made two cakes instead of one.

RED VELVET CAKE
Credits to: Kak Rima and hersite

A. Sift these together and set aside
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

B. Combine these in one bowl
1 tablespoon red food colouring
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
A few drops of water, in case the paste is too sticky

C. Combine these in one bowl
1/2 teaspoon vinegar (I used HPA apple vinegar)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

D. Beat these using an electric mixer until light and fluffy
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence/extract
1/2 cup buttermilk (which I did not have, so substituted with 1/2 cup milk + 1/2 teaspoon apple vinegar)

1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Grease and line two 8-inch cake tins (I only had one. Kak Rima used a 6-inch pan) with baking paper.
3. Add the egg to D mixture and beat until well combined.
4. Add vanilla and B mixture and mix well combined.
5. Add A and buttermilk alternately, starting with A (flour mixture) and ending with A. So A-B-A-B-A. Ababa. It's a word! Stir with a spatula until well blended. (I used the electric mixture. Did that affect the texture?)
6. Pour into pans and bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
7. Cool completely. Slice the top off one cake and spread with cream cheese filling. Top with the second cake. Cover cake with the rest of the cream cheese frosting. Decorate. Uh-huh.
8. Chill in the refrigerator for several hours. It tastes better after doing that.

We couldn't find whipping cream that has a 'Halal' logo on it, but Big Sister found this Non-Dairy Whipping Topping that has one. I wonder if I can use it as a substitute for recipes that calls for double cream or dairy whipping cream. It's so difficult to find any that is certified Halal. Besides, if I can use NDWT as a substitute, it'll be useful if I ever meet a person who's allergic to dairy products and want to serve them cake or dessert! (Cewwah.)

So here's the recipe. I made one or two changes.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 cup Non-Dairy Whipping Cream Topping, whipped until stiff
125 cream cheese
50g butter
60g powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese and butter until well mixed.
Add sugar and beat until well combined.
Fold in the whipped topping.
Use to frost cake.

Next time I'll either reduce the sugar to 2 or 3 tablespoons or omit it altogether! The frosting was a little too sweet, maybe because the NDWCT already contains a little sugar. (But Abuya a.k.a. Dad likes it. Of course. Dia kata macam kek beli. Cewwahhh!)
I'd also increase the amount of cream cheese.
The butter caused the mixture to have a pale, yellowish colour. At first I didn't like it, but it turned paler after some time. So.

Just out of the oven.

*I read this one book a while back, and there was a character who liked to talk and end her sentences with 'so'. For example, "Red Velvet cake is red in colour. So." And this often leaves her son wondering what is supposed to come after the so. This fascinated me, which is why you see me using it here and there. So.

My blog need more recipes. So. (Guess what's supposed to come after).

Oh. And tomorrow Big Sister is returning to KL. So another day of baking. So.

Okay I'm overdoing it. I'll stop now. So. Hehe.

Update: I think I've changed my mind. The cake is very good. Evidence: I finished an enormous slice (the last bits) all by myself. Dad loved it and has reminded me to make some more soon, and my brothers want me to make one for their Raya celebration at school. So.

Dulce de Leche

2011-08-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

I feel so happy about being able to write this.

I made homemade Dulce de Leche!

I began to read about this caramel sauce as I read and browsed through blogs. It seems that it's popular in South America (correct me if I'm wrong) and there are several ways of doing it. Most methods seem to require the use of condensed milk. The thing is, in Malaysia we usually have sweetened creamer (which is made from palm oil) rather than the dairy type, and people say the latter is better for making Dulce de Leche.

However, I came across a recipe in Joy of Baking (one of my favourite baking sites) that provides a recipe using regular milk, with several other ingredients. It seemed simple enough, so I bookmarked the recipe waited for a time when we'd have enough extra milk to make it.

This morning, I made some Dulce de Leche as we all rushed to prepare for leaving home. I had just over an hour and the sauce required around 40 to 60 minutes of cooking time. I was a little apprehensive at first, and was afraid that I'd burn the whole thing, but I had to use the milk or it's go bad while we weren't at home.

And lo and behold I did it! It wasn't so hard. Thankfully, I'd seen the video provided by Stephanie in the Joy of Baking, which is really helpful. I watched it many times before, which helped. It wasn't as fussy a process as I though it would be- even though it required me to stay by the pot, watching and stirring the sauce constantly, I was still able to clear up the mess in the kitchen, wash the dishes etc. I just made sure to check the sauce every 30 seconds to 1 minutes. I managed to burn the bottom a little bit by the end of the cooking time because I forgot to turn down the heat, but it didn't do too much damage and I just strained the sauce before pouring it into a container. I can't wait to find some use for it when we get home!

You can read the original recipe here. Watch the video- it's really interesting!

These are the ingredients I used:

1 litre/4 cups fresh milk
3/4 cup (150g) caster sugar
2 tablespoons golden syrup (in place of corn syrup)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon fine salt

This is what I did:

Stirred together all the ingredients on low heat, increasing the heat to medium and lowering it again when I found it necessary. It took around 1 hour to achieve the nice, caramel colour. Probably would have taken less time if I'd bring the mixture to boil more quickly. But it worked anyway.

10 minutes into cooking

30 minutes (I think) into cooking

Hah! You can see bits of the burnt caramel.
Hakuna matata. Just strain the sauce and you'll be fine.

I didn't quite believe it when Stephanie said she could simply lick the dulce de leche of a spoon. Well... I ended up cleaning up the leftovers in the pot. Delicious!

Another goal in baking/cooking achieved. What's next?

I'm beginning to develop a philosophy in baking- you needn't be afraid of making something that you want to make! Don't be afraid. Go ahead and try that recipe that you've eyed for a long, long time. If it doesn't work out, well then try again. I should tell myself this many, many times. For this particular recipe, it worked.

The dulce de leche can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a month.

I love the beautiful brownish-golden colour.
What should I do with this?
Any suggestions?

I enjoyed entering the three blogging events for August, so I think I'll be brave and enter more events when I get the chance. I'm entering this for Jac's September Bookmarked Recipes, but I'll provide the links later. For now I need to sleep!

p.s. We reached Kedah safely at around 7pm. Today was the last day of Ramadhan. Tomorrow is the day of Eidul Fitr. Selamat Hari Raya/Happy Eidul Fitr to all Muslims!

p.s.2 Ooppss! I forgot to include the Bookmarked Recipes event logo. Here it is:

The event is hosted monthly by Jac of Tinned Tomatoes, and was originally created by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. Do take a look at the September round-up, and don't forget to join the next round-up for October!

15 Hours of Baking... huh

2011-08-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm rather tired. I started baking at 9am today, and turned off the oven at about 2am just now. Well, I did take some breaks in between, but most of my time today was spent in the kitchen. What an achievement!

Let's see. I made some cookies:
1. Vanilla Custard Kisses (still haven't made the filling)
2. Afghan Biscuits
3. Surprise Cookies (something my Dad named, and my favourite out of today's bakings)
4. Chocolate Chip Whoopie Pies
5. Hazelnut Cookies

I'll post entries about them later. I also baked a few more goodies in the last few days:
1. Bright-eyed Susans
2. Tate's Chocolate Chip Cookies
3. Mocha-Crescent Thingies

I can't imagine how people who take orders for Eid manage! I love baking, but doing it non-stop can be a little tiring. Thankfully KakYong. Aiman, Ummi & adik helped. Dad and Abang helped by eating! Haha.

We're setting off for Kedah at around 9am. If we manage to leave by then. If I have time, I shall post some recipes before we do, but if I don't I'll do it when we get there- provided I have time to copy down the recipes! There's still so much to do, but we're all looking forward to meeting everyone for Eid. It'll be fun. And a little sad too, with Tok (my paternal grandmother) who no longer recognises anybody.

The kitchen is a mess.

Looking forward to Raya Bakes!!!

2011-08-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

Abuya a.ka. is an absolute dear when it comes to fulfilling his children's wishes. He went and bought all these baking ingredients for me and I couldn't wait to start when I saw them! I've already made some cookies, and hopefully I'll be able to share them with here soon.

I'd just though I'd showcase photos of some of the ingredients here. Though they may seem normal for most bakers, I'm still excited because baking ingredients are quite expensive and we rarely spend a lot on them. I love seeing how much I have on hand to experiment and have fun with!

Three different kinds of chocolate chips.
Butterscotch, chocolate and uhm... black and white?
I love choc chips.
The three different kinds remind me of a recipe I saw at Bakerella's... hmm...

Baking chocolate, but this isn't the bitter kind. There's a hint of sugar in it.
I prefer the last kind that I bought. That you could eat on its own.

Dessicated coconut- been sitting on the shelf for quite a long time. I should get to work and use them.
Cornflakes- though I'd prefer Kellogg's, using these for baking should be fine.

Ever since we moved to Kelantan, I buy most of my baking stuff at Barang Kita.
It's a bakery store and it has quite a lot of interesting and of course useful stuff.

Yes, halal gelatine!
Please visit their website for more information.

Brown sugar!
I love working with brown sugar.
Recipes that use them somehow tend to produce better results! (I think)
And Ummi says they're a lot healthier than plain old granulated white sugar.

And an assortment of flavourings, colourings and whatnot.

Hehe... messy. I should get around to arranging them.

In the future I plan to share some stories about the ingredients that I use and where I purchase them. I'd like to write about my search for Halal certified products too. I hope the information will be useful for Muslims who (happen to, if they ever do, stumble upon and) read this blog. I also hope it will help non-Muslims understand better about why eating halal food is important to Muslims. You may have some Muslim friends, and you want to make something for them to eat. Well, I hope I can help you in my own small ways.

Veggie/Fruit a Month: Peaches - Peach Pie

2011-08-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

I've always loved peaches. The wonderful smell, the bright, beautiful colours of both the skin and the flesh and the flavours... and it had always been one of my biggest dreams (I have a lot of those, by the way) to make a Peach Pie.

And here it is, a Peach Pie, to celebrate the gathering of all 7 members of my family! We're all home, and it was lovely to have ifthar together. We joked, shared stories, poked fun at each other and just enjoyed being together as a family.

This the fourth time I've made pie using BC's Pie and Pastry Cookbook, and I'm afraid I'm still struggling with the pastry. I cheated several times (such as cutting the rolled-out pastry in half and placing the halves one after another before pinching them together in the pan... hehe) but it turned out okay. I was afraid they wouldn't brown, that the peaches would taste weird, blablabla... but it was okay. It turned out fine.

So here it is, my most (I think, anyway) successful pie yet. My youngest brother says it's nice warm, but KakYong and Abang think it's be good cold. Abuya gave me the thumbs-up sign, so I guess it went well. I took over an hour preparing the pie with some help from KakYong, and went it finally went into the oven I felt relieved. Well, perhaps not truly relieved because I was worried the pie wouldn't cook... blablabla again. I'm happy to say I'm no longer so afraid of making pastry!

So enough said, let's go to our pie, shall we? I'm including measurements for three pie sizes (8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch) but I made a 10-inch one. Once again I've not included the recipe for the crust because like I said, I'm still struggling with it, though I know it's a good recipe because it works better than any other so far!

My final say: This peach pie is a peach!!!

PEACH PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

8-INCH PIE
Pastry for 8-inch Two Crust Pie
4 cups sliced peaches (about 6 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

9-INCH PIE

Pastry for 9-inch Two Crust Pie
5 cups sliced peaches (about 8 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon butter or margarine

10-INCH PIE

Pastry for 10-inch Two Crust Pie
6 cups sliced peaches (about 10 medium)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoon butter or margarine

Heat oven to 425F/210C.

Prepare pastry.

Toss peaches and lemon juice. Stir together sugar, flour and cinnamon; mix lightly with peaches. Turn into pastry-lined pie pan; dot with butter.

Cover with top crust (with slits, or you can a lattice top, which I did); seal and flute. Cover edge with 2- to 3-inch strip of aluminium foil to prevent excessive browning; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking.

Bake 8- and 9-inch pies 35 to 45 minutes, 10-inch pie 40 to 50 minutes or until crust is nicely browned and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust. Serve with lemon sauce (recipe below).

Baker's Notes
1. If you can't get fresh peaches, you can use canned ones. I got two cans of peach halves for a good price at Mydin (around RM 5.00+ for each can) and only used one and a half cans (around 13 peach halves). Drain the peach halves or slices (keep the juice for another recipe) and decrease the sugar to half of the required quantity.

2. We increased the quantity of cinnamon in our pie- I love cinnamon!

3. I baked my pie for 1 hour at 240C. It came out a nice, golden-brown colour and when the timer went off, some caramelised sugar/juice was beginning to seep out of the top crust.

OLD-FASHIONED LEMON SAUCE

Makes 1 1/3 cups.

*According to the book, this sauce is good for blueberry and mincemeat pies. It worked really well with the peach pie.

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup water
1 egg, well beaten
3/4 teaspoon grated lemon peel
3 tablespoons lemon juice

In saucepan combine all ingredients. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Serve warm or cool. Store sauce in covered container in refrigerator.

Baker's Notes
1. We had 3/4 of a lemon left, so we put all of that in instead of just 3 tablespoons.
2. I decreased the sugar to 1/3 cup.
3. The sauce firmed up a little too much while it was sitting in the fridge, so we just added a little hot water and it worked fine.

I'm submitting this recipe for the Veggie/Fruit a Month, an event created by Priya of Mharo Rajasthan's Recipes. The event is hosted monthly by a different person/blog with a different fruit or veggie, and this month the host is Susan from the Well-Seasoned Cook and the theme is Peaches! (I hope I've put all the links properly- still trying to get used to this!)

I'm also submitting this to the August Bookmarked Recipes hosted by Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes. The event was originally created by Ruth from Ruth's Kitchen Experiments. (I meant to join last month but didn't quite have the nerve). I've bookmarked this recipe ever since I started reading the book, so I hope it counts!

p.s. Uploading photos takes ages! Pheww!!!

Batik Cake a.k.a. Hedgehog Slice

2011-08-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I need to work on the presentation. Next time, huh?

I've made this cake twice. Once for ifthar at home. The second was when I went to KakYong's (two or three days ago). I'd promised to take some baked goodies for her, but I didn't have time to make any so hopefully this Batik Cake made up for it.

I've known and eaten this cake ever since I was five and I've always loved it. We used to make the crunchy sort though- no eggs. The biscuit and chocolate always got stuck to your teeth and brushing them was a lot of work! I discovered that people have become more creative and instead of just dumping the whole lot of biscuit pieces into the chocolate mixture, you arrange them, layer by layer, and the cake turns out really pretty when cut. I forgot to take a picture of the second cake (which turned out nicer than the first one).

The fun thing about this recipe is that you use everything up in one go (well, perhaps not the biscuits). The cake is sweet and really chocolaty. There are several versions of the recipe (some also include cocoa) but I just followed the one with the fewest ingredients.

The following recipe is based on the second cake I made at KakYong's, but the photo is from the first one. I'm too lazy to go and check the recipe at Wendy's, so this is what I remember putting in and doing:

BATIK CAKE a.k.a. HEDGEHOG SLICES
Sources: Wendy and Kak Hana

*Note: Wendy provided a really useful step-by-step tutorial. Thanks!

1 regular-sized can condensed milk
1 200g packet Milo (or your favourite malted chocolate drink)
4 eggs, lightly beaten
150g or 2/3 cup butter (cut in cubes)
1 packet Marie biscuits
1 tsp vanilla ( optional-I didn't put it in)

In a saucepan, stir together condensed milk and Milo until well combined.

Stir in eggs and mix until well combined.

Put saucepan on stove and put in butter cubes and turn on heat to medium low. Cook custard until thickened, then turn to low heat. Cook until mixture becomes think and grainy. Turn of heat.

Hah, this is where I get lazy. Go to Wendy's blog and look at her step-to-step tutorial. I should have told you to do that in the first place. Apologies... getting a little sleepy. Next time I'll try to include photos of my own step-by-step attempts, haha.

Thinking of making this when we go back to Kedah for Eid (there'll be a stove at the homestay so yay!)

Banana Bread Pudding

2011-08-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

[This post was created ages ago, way, way before Ramadhan, about a week or two after my baking craze started]

It's another episode of Let's Go Bananas.

Let's Go Bananas Episode 2

I didn't plan this. It's the bananas. They made me do it! They screamed at my face, saying, "Why aren't you doing something to us! We're supposed to be eaten, not left on the counter to ripen!"

I stared back. I was the one who had asked Mum or Dad to get the bananas. I was in the mood for eaten fresh, ripe bananas. I put out a hand to pluck one banana off.

"No!" They screamed. "If we're gonna be eaten, let us do it gracefully! Dress us up! Drown us in custard! Sprinkle cinnamon sugar on our flesh!"

Is it me or is it the bananas who have gone bananas?

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Ramblings

Joy the Baker is a lovely site, filled with great recipes and beautiful pictures. I'd stumble across her blog quite some time ago but only started subscribing a few weeks ago. My favourite entries from her recipes are the Bake sessions, I love seeing her and Jill Donenfield baking and having fun together.

Ever since I saw the video and the recipe for this pudding, I'd wanted to make it. I love puddings, I love bread puddings, I love bananas and I love cinnamon! It looked easy enough (gulp)... so I suppose things can't go that wrong, huh?

Since I didn't have a pan the size of that which Joy used, I just used the regular 8 x 8 inch pan that I've always used. I suppose it meant that I'f have to adjust the temperature or something, but I'm not good at that so I just followed what Joy had put.

I didn't reduce the amount of sugar this time, but I did add more bananas because I didn't have banana extract. I also omitted the bourbon since we don't drink alcohol (it's prohibited for Muslims, actually, but I'll write about that in another entry).

Did it work?

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THE Recipe

[Click HERE to view the original recipe]

Ingredients

10 slices of white bread

(toasted, buttered and sliced diagonally)

3 eggs

2 cups of milk

(I used bottled fresh milk)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3 large bananas, sliced

1 tablespoon icing sugar (for topping)

1/2 tablespoon ground cinnamon (for topping)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C (170C for my oven).

2. Butter 8 x 8 inch pan (or whatever size works for you) and set aside.

3. Heat milk and sugar in a saucepan just until all the sugar is dissolved.

4. Whip the eggs in a bowl and pour in the milk mixture while continuously whisking the eggs.

5. Arrange the bread triangles in the baking pan.

6. Sieve the custard into the pan, over the bread.

7. Slip the slices of bananas in between the bread and deep into the custard.

8. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the custard is set. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar on top.

9. Eat it. It's good hot!

Just bear in mind that your tongue might fall off if it's TOO hot. Know your tongue.

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Newsflash

TUMPAT, 18th July 2011: About fifteen slices of bananas voiced their dissatisfaction for topping the charts- or rather, topping the top part of a pan of bread pudding. Due to this, they were burnt until black and crisp, unlike their other hundred hundred or so friends who enjoyed themselves as they were cooked deep in the custard below.

"This is truly unfair!" said one particular slice, which happened to be the end part of one banana. "Being rounder on one side makes it even more displeasing! My rounder part ended up being on top and the effect created became a joke among the clan!"

The baker, while apologising profusely for her lack of judgement, looked grim. "It was that or ending up as plain bananas and not making it into the custard, which they didn't want! Really, these bananas- anyone would go bananas listening to them!"

Readers are advised to make sure that the bananas are slipped deep into the custard, should they think of making banana bread pudding. If they have no such thoughts, beware if there are some beautiful, ripe bananas sitting on their counter. Anything can happen with bananas.

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The Verdict

I'm afraid I misjudged the time chosen to make this. Everybody's still busily going about with their business, so the pudding is sitting patiently in the oven, waiting. For a first timer, it was quite good (of course I tasted it, just a few minutes after it came out of the oven, in fact!), so I'll try to make this again next time I have enough ingredients.

However..... it was delicious! I love the crispy top. The bananas I used gave a slightly sourish taste, which I was nice and contrasted the sweetness of the custard.

Cook.Eat.Delicious- Desserts: Lemon Chiffon Pie

2011-08-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've edited this entry a little because I'm submitting this recipe for my first ever event! Which also means that this blog is going public! I feel nervous which is probably silly, haha. Anyway, I hope to get to know more food bloggers through this blog. Hope this is a good first-public-post!

This event is hosted by Raven at Cook.Eat.Delicious and it's called Cook.Eat.Delicious-Desserts! The first theme is lemons, yum!

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It's been a pie of a week!

Well, I made three kinds in one week. Yeah, I went from brownie-blondie craze to pie craze. I also bought two tins of peach slices. They're waiting for KakYong and KakCik to come home, haha.

I think lemons are lovely! Though maybe because the ones I got were rather cheap, the colour wasn't a lovely yellow like I hoped it to be. They still smelled great anyway. I think lemons are the the stars in the citrus world!

This recipe is another one taken from Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook. Here's a picture:

It's a lovely book! I look forward to trying more recipes from it. We got it from a carboot sale when we lived in Scotland.

And here is my one and only decent photo of the pie. We made sure to eat the other half first- because I burnt the crust, haha. I made a 9-inch crust pie, but I provided the recipe for 8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch. I haven't included the recipe for the pie shell though because I'm still struggling with it, so just choose your favourite pie crust and make the filling!

Lemon Chiffon Pie

LEMON CHIFFON PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

8-INCH PIE

8-inch Baked Pie Shell

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1/3 cup sugar

2 tsp unflavoured gelatine

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup lemon juice

2 tsp grated lemon peel

3 egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/3 cup sugar

9-INCH PIE

9-inch Baked Pie Shell

4 egg yolks, slightly beaten

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp unflavoured gelatine

2/3 cup water

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 tbsp grated lemon peel

4 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

10-INCH PIE

10-inch Baked Pie Shell

5 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2/3 cup sugar

4 tsp unflavoured gelatine

3/4 cup water

1/2 cup lemon juice

4 tsp grated lemon peel

5 egg whites

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan blend yolks, sugar (using quantity first stated), the gelatin water and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat. stirring constantly, just until mixture boils. Stir in lemon peel. Place pan in bowl of ice and water or chill in refrigerator, stirring occasionally, until mixture mounds when dropped from a spoon.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until frothy. Beat in 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time; continue beating until stiff and glossy. Do not underbeat. Fold in lemon mixture; pile into pie shell.

Chill several hours until set.

Note: I substituted the powdered gelatine with jelly powder because we didn't have the former. Though I'm not sure what difference it made since I'd never made chiffon pie before. It turned out okay though, but the filling could have been firmer I guess. Delicious, all the same!

Chocolate Marvel Pie

2011-08-16T12:36:00.000-07:00

Arrrggghh!!!!

I already posted this recipe and accidentally deleted it! Both this and the post on the first Chocolate Pie I made! Allow me to scream again!

Oh well. I'll just re-post the recipe for Chocolate Marvel Pie, but no lengthy descriptions about my blunders this time (fuming).

Anyway, this was my first successful attempt at a good pie crust, and the filling was very good too! Dad has requested that I make it again! Kakyong and Iman will also definitely love this too, the filling has a mousse-like texture that's really delicious.

No photos though; there was an incident but I'm too lazy to re-describe it. Huh.

CHOCOLATE MARVEL PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie and Pastry Cookbook

9-inch Baked Pie Shell

6 ounces semisweet chocolate pieces

2 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp milk

4 eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan, heat chocolate pieces, sugar and milk over low heat, stirring until chocolate is all melted. Cool. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in vanilla.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until stiff. Fold in chocolate mixture. Pour into baked pie shell.

Refrigerate several hours or overnight. (which I did for 8 hours)

If desired, garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle with diced almonds.

Serve and enjoy!

Note to Kakyong: Be sure to ask me about The Incident Involving a Slice of Pie and a Container of Rice. Hehe.

Vanilla Cream Pie

2011-08-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

Dad asked me to make the Chocolate Marvel Pie again sometime soon. He only had one slice- and with a pie like that, you have to have at least two. If possible, three. I'm serious- no kidding! When KakYong And Aiman come home, I'll have to make a 10-inch one.

Today I made pie again for ifthar- only I made it too late and it'd only been in the fridge for 1 1/2 hours, so it wasn't quite set. I made vanilla cream pie. Adik liked it, but I think Abang prefers the chocolate pie. I personally think it tasted a little- and I mean a little bit like cough medicine, haha. I think it was because of the vanilla essence. I have to say, even though I use vanilla essence instead of vanilla extract due to several reasons (which I will explain in another post), I don't think I'll use it again for custards because it rather spoils the taste.

On the other hand, Abang managed to snap a picture or two of the whole pie, but I've yet to take one of one piece. The thing is, the custard didn't 'set' actually- instead, it stayed soft and custardy. When you slice through the crust, the filling pours out like custard sauce. Since there was no picture of this particular pie from the book, I hoped this was the way it was to be. After all, the only thickener it used was cornstarch. Or maybe I need to cook it longer. Anyway, next time I'll substitute that with custard powder and see if it makes a difference.

The book offers measurements for three pie sizes- 8-inch, 9-inch and 10-inch. I've included all versions so that you can find the best that suits you. I made a 9-inch pie, and once again the crust slid down the slippery slop of the bowl. Tomorrow I'm going to hunt for a nice pie pan. And buy one if I can afford it.

VANILLA CREAM PIE

Source: Betty Crocker's Pie & Pastry Cookbook

*still too lazy to post the recipe yet, just use your favourite pie crust recipe

8-INCH PIE
8-inch Baked Pie Shell
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 tbsp butter or margarine, softened
Sweetened whipped cream

9-INCH PIE

9-inch Baked Pie Shell
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk
4 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tbsp butter or margarine, softened
Sweetened whipped cream

10-INCH PIE

10-inch Baked Pie Shell
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk
4 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tbsp butter or margarine, softened
Sweetened whipped cream

Bake pie shell.

In saucepan, blend sugar, cornstarch and salt.

Stir milk into egg yolks. Stir egg mixture into dry ingredients. Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat; blend in butter and vanilla.

Immediately pour into baked pie shell; press plastic wrap onto filling. Chill pie thoroughly (2 hours or longer).

Just before serving, remove plastic wrap from filling and top it with sweetened whipped cream

Serve and enjoy!

Congo Bars

2011-08-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

[I typed this entry last week, but forgot to post it.]

Dad remarked a few days ago that he thought I'd broken the record for the number of recipes attempted in one day.

Of course that's not true, as I know there are thousands of other people who have done a lot more, but as far as my own record goes, I have to say I'd broken it too. After making Tate's Chocolate Chips, a second batch of Butterbeer blondies and that second batch of not-really-good-but-still-edible butterscotch blondies (all of which I'd fail in getting any photos), I gave myself a break and stopped baking for a bit (the truth was I'd run out of some ingredients, hehe).

Anyway, today I went to get a pair of shoes in preparation for my driving lessons, and I took the chance to use what little money I had to stock up on chocolate & butterscotch chips and brown sugar. I also got a bottle of chocolate emulco and one bottle of coffee emulco. Oh, and one pack of high protein flour for bread making. I cannot wait.

To get back into the mood, I made a batch of congo bars after seeing them on Kak Rima's blog. Kak Rima's blog is gorgeous, with lovely pictures of professional baked stuff which leaves anybody looking at them drooling without realising it, not to mention her super cute daughter Sonia.

Congo bars are actually blondies, I suppose, since the ingredients are more or less the same as what the blondie recipes that I've used called for. It seems that all I'm baking at the mo' are blondies and brownies... oh well, maybe I'll turn out an expert at them? Haha. I'm planning to make some egg tarts tomorrow (I didn't get to take photos of the last batch I made, and anyway they weren't 100% successful although the tupperware container was empty by next morning) so hopefully that'll be a change.

Anyway, the Congo bars are still cooling on the counter but being the impatient person that I am, I've already cut them into squares and even packed a few slices to take to the workshop tomorrow. It'll be a 5-hour ordeal I'm afraid, so some sweets would definitely help! I'm glad I finally get to start though, it seems like I'm about the only person who has't got her license yet! (The bright side is I might be the first among my sibling to get one, haha!)

Packed for tomorrow

Congo bars, you are good! Though I've yet to find a rival for my much beloved Butterbeer recipe. They are still my favourite so far!

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Congo Bars

taken and adapted from Bisous a' Toui, the Kitchen Guardian and Bakerella

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup butter (I still only have money to spend on good margarine, sobsob)

300 g brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence or extract

1 cup chocolate chips (or more if you like)

Method

1. Sift flour and baking powder into one bowl. Add salt.

2. Beat butter around in one bowl until it has softened a bit, and add in brown sugar. Mix until all the sugar has been incorporated into the butter.

3. Add the eggs, one by one, and mix until well incorporated.

4. Add in vanilla essence and chocolate chips. Stir just until combined.

5. Fold in flour and stir until just until combined.

6. Pour into an 9 x 13 inch pan and bake in a preheated oven at 170C (16o for mine).

7. Cool for 15 minutes before cutting into bars.

8. Take pictures or whatever it is that you usually do after you've finished baking.

9. Stare at the pile of bowls, measuring cups and what-not that's sitting in your sink. Well, maybe not, if you were wise and washed them as soon as you've finished using one item. Like I did (smug).

Note: Feel free to ignore number 8 and 9. These bars are GOOD. I meant to have them a little fudgy but they were more cakey, which is still good anyway. It's quite an easy recipe, so even I managed not to get anything wrong.

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I suppose by the time I come home from the workshop, the bars will all be gone. If I look at things in a positive light, it means a chance to bake more stuff!

Mum's sure the bill will be 'electrifying' when it comes. Oh well. At least our tummies are full!

Definitely delicious!

***************************************************************
Verdict:

This recipe is a keeper! I'll definitely make these again!

Tate's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-07-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

It's a red day.

My body was scrunched up into a ball. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the pain away. Beautiful blondies to be made, cookie recipes to try, cakes to drool over... I fell asleep.

Some eight hours later I was back in the kitchen, thinking of what to make. Mum made some kuah durian- how do I translate that to English... durian gravy I suppose, which you can eat with slices of bread or roti jala, a nice sort-of-pancake that's yellow in colour. I'll try to get Mum to write an estimation of the ingredients needed for the recipe and post it here (she usually just bungs in the amount she thinks is needed and they always turn out lovely).

Meanwhile, I sat watching Mum cook. Then I stared at the oven. It stared back. I decided to make Tate's Chocolate Chip cookies, a recipe I took from Gwyneth Paltrow's lovely site called Goop. I'm on this search for really nice crispy and crunchy chocolate chip cookies because that's how Mum and my younger brother likes them. So far I haven't had much success but maybe I haven't tried enough.

I posted my version of the recipe, but I think it's best if you go with the original version. After cutting down on the sugar (it has become a habit now), the cookies were still quite sweet but you could also taste the baking soda a little, which is a no-no. I'm still thinking of how I can cut down on the sugar but avoid the bitter taste.

I also only had a small amount of chocolate chips left, so I put a measly amount of 1/2 cup into the batter. The original recipe called for 2 cups! I know, I know. Mean! But I had a craving for something else with chocolate chips so I wanted to save some for that.

I also used soft brown sugar instead of dark brown sugar, which is why the colour didn't turn out as dark as shown in Goop.

The cookies really spread so be sure to space them far, far away from each other. Two inches, to be exact. Next time I'll add some nuts.

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Tate's Chocolate Chip Cookies

taken and adapted from Gwyneth Paltrows's site, Goop

[click HERE for original recipe]

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature (I used margarine)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup soft brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tsp water

1 tsp vanilla

2 large eggs, beaten

1/2 cup chocolate chips (next time I'll definitely put more)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease or line baking sheet with baking paper.

2. Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt in one bowl.

3. Use a wooden spoon to beat the butter around a bit and then add the sugar. Mix well.

4. Add water and vanilla and eggs. Mix well.

5. Add flour and mixed until just combined.

6. Add chocolate chips and your favourite nuts, if desired (highly recommended). Mix until incorporated.

7. Drop teaspoonfuls of batter onto prepared baking sheet (but of course you can choose how big you want your cookies to be)

8. Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are nice and brown.

9. Cool on a rack before lifting the cookies off and storing in an airtight container.

For Aiman With Love... Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies

2011-07-24T07:02:00.000-07:00

This is all that was left when I had the chance to take a photo.

One again I lament the fact that I never bought that digital camera that I'd wanted for so long. What can I say? Money just wont stay with me. I'm not a crazy shopper, so I have no idea where it all goes. I'll have to fix that phone of mine and then make do with the photos that it can take. If the light is good, my old Sony Ericsson phone is not too bad, but Dad's phone... huhu. At least it can take photos, I guess.

I went crazy and baked three things in one day. Aiman was going back to Terengganu the day after, so I wanted to (take the chance to) make her something to take back. She wanted Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies which I made last year, I think, which she remembers fondly as having been very moist which she likes.

So I Googled the recipe (when I made them last, I referred to Martha's book, which I loved but has now returned to its rightful place at the Kelantan Public Library) and made them.

Let me say that they were the best brownies I ever baked! They were just nicely done, without being over or underbaked (which happens a lot to most things I make), and oh so chocolaty. I wish I hadn't reduced the sugar but they were still good.

I hope my little sister (who is actually a lot taller - and bigger, hehe- than me) enjoyed them!

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Martha's Double Chocolate Brownies

taken and adapted from Martha Stewart

[Click here to see original recipe]

Ingredients

1/2 cup margarine or butter

6 ounces dark chocolate

1 cup castor sugar

3 large eggs

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup plus 2tbsp all purpose flour, sifted

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Line an 8 x 8 inch pan with baking paper.

3. Melt margarine (or butter) and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Stir until smooth.

4. Remove from heat and add in sugar, whisking until combined.

5. Whisk in eggs, one by one.

Allow the mixture to cool a little before doing this or you'll have bits of cooked egg white swimming around your batter. Not good.

6. Fold in flour and mix until just combined.

7. Pour batter into pan.

8. Bake for about 35 to 40 minutes. Check using a toothpick, if it comes with with some crumbs it's done.

9. Cool before cutting into squares.

Chocolate Chip Whoopsie Pies with Marshmallow Feeling

2011-07-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

I fell in love.

It was like being on a cloud- but of course I've never been on one before. If you could eat melted clouds like you eat melted chocolate, it would taste like this marshmallow filling that I made using Jac's recipe (more about the filling and my feelings later). Jac has a wonderful blog called Tinned Tomatoes, and I have for a long time wandered from recipe to recipe, waiting for the right moment to try one.

Lo and behold I came upon a recipe for chocolate chip whoopie pies, which I'd never tasted let alone made. They looked like little flat cakes with filling, which they are. I was quite excited about trying them, but was rather dubious because I didn't have buttermilk (and have yet to meet a real live version in a supermarket) and because I didn't have a whoopie pie tin. However, Jac said they'd turn out fine without the tins, and since they included chocolate chips, for which I have recently discovered a love for, I decided I'd (try and) make them anyway.

By the way, nope, there was no typo on the title. You really did read "Chocolate Chip Whoopsie Pies" because that's what they are. And that was really "Marshmallow Feeling" because I put a lot of feeling into making them. And licking them. Yeah.

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I am also (nervous, nervous, nervous!!!! because I am) entering this for Bookmarked Recipes which is hosted Jac. The deadline is 30th July and since this recipe if from Jac's blog, I think it passes for a vegetarian one! I have never, ever entered a food event before, and I'm not sure I'll qualify, but I'll try anyway and hope people won't mind if it's a bit sloppy!

Read more about the event here.

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Chocolate Chip Whoopsie Pies with Marshmallow Feeling

taken and adapted from Jacqueline of Tinned Tomatoes

[click HERE for original Whoopie Pies recipe]

[click HERE for original Marshmallow filling recipe]

(i) Whoopsie Pies

Ingredients

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

125g margarine or butter

1/3 cup castor sugar

1/3 cup soft brown sugar

1 large egg

1/2 cup buttermilk (I used 1/2 cup milk + 1/1 tsp apple vinegar)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C (170 for mine).

2. Grease tin or line baking sheet with baking paper.

3. Sift flour, baking powder and baking soda into a bowl. Add salt.

4. Beat butter, castor sugar and brown sugar together until light and fluffy.

5. Add egg and beat until well mixed.

6. Add buttermilk and vanilla, and mix until smooth.

7. Fold in flour mixture, mixing just until well incorporated.

8. Fold in chocolate chips.

9. Scoop dessert spoonfuls into prepared tin.

10. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown and dome-shaped.

11. Cool and jam two pies together with marshmallow feeling.

(ii) Marshmallow Feeling (filling)

Ingredients

2 egg whites

1/2 cup icing sugar

1 tbsp golden syrup

Method

1. Put all ingredients in a heatproof bowl and whisk for about ten minutes over a simmering pot of water.

Make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water (I wonder why).

The mixture will be a sort of golden-yellowish and thickens as you whisk it.

2. Remove bowl from the heat and whisk using an electric mixer until it becomes really thick, and has stiff peaks like a meringue.

3. Put all forms of shyness and embarrassment aside and embrace your new feelings. Love it, lick it. It's delicious.

Oh. And don't forget to save some for jamming the whoopsies together. They want some marshmallow love too.

I hope this is what the filling's supposed to look like:

I love this! I'd like to use it on everything!

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Teacher's Notes

1. I may not have a whoopie tin, but I have two tart tins! It didn't work as well as a real whoopie tin, I guess, but they did help in forming the shape of the base of the pies- although of course some never made it even with all that help and turned out wonky and misshapen!

2. When I had put all the ingredients for the marshmallow feeling into the bowl, I took my giant hand whisk and whisked the ingredients together before putting them on the heat. Disaster struck. Three HUGE drops of water fell into the bowl. I had not properly dried the handle. I was dumbstruck. I was afraid the egg whites wouldn't froth up like meringues. They worked out fine though. It was lovely seeing the mixture turn all thick and gooey and marshmallow-y. The colour was so pretty too, opaque white- pure and clean. Lesson: Trust in yourself and don't waste egg whites when you think it won't work out!

Oh, and even though I cut down the amount of ingredients from the original recipe, I still had plenty of filling left over. I don't normally hold much for licking fillings, but who can deny marshmallow feelings?

3. When the recipe says to use a dessert spoon 'scoop desert spoonfuls' of the batter into the tin, then it means 'dessert spoonfuls'. Don't doubt the recipe and dump a Giant's dessert spoonful' of batter into the tin, because you'll get whoppie pies big enough for a Giant (well, not really but they were a bit thick for jamming together).

Which is why I made whoopsie pies instead of whoopie pies. But they taste great, so who cares?

My wonky whoopsie pies

The tart tin I used as a substitute for the whoopie pie pan.
Not sure it worked out too well, but it was okay.

I noticed this cheeky little fella...

So I gave 'im eyes to complete the look!
He's happy and so am I!

Brownie Day Part 2: Banana Brownies

2011-07-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

Let's Go Bananas!!!

Pisang/Bananas

I love bananas. When I was little, I used to be scared of eating raw bananas because the flesh seemed so soft that if they were too ripe, I felt that there would be little maggots in them. Yuck. Let's stop there.

I have thankfully grownup and am no longer that silly little girl. I love bananas (that's the second time I said that!) I am sometimes overwhelmed by the many different types of bananas that we have in Malaysia. Pisang kebatu, pisang emas, pisang susu, pisang awak, pisang tanduk, pisang raja and many more.

We had some overripe bananas in the fridge. Pisang kebatu, I think. We fried bananas dipped in batter and had them the day before, but there some left and Mum popped them into the fridge. I looked for recipes for which I could use them, and found this one. I'd just put the peanut butter chocolate brownies into the oven, but I was feeling all hyped up and I felt like baking something else.

Two kinds of brownies in one day? Fantastic! We could compare the flavour and texture (yeah, yeah) and see which worked better for our tastebuds. Most importantly, there'd be more to eat!

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Ramblings on the Recipe

You can see the banana chunks. Oh yum.

It's wonderful what you can discover on the internet. Sometimes, whenever I get frustrated because I didn't have a particular ingredient needed for a particular recipe, I'd Google and then goggle at the vast amount of recipes available on the internet.

Since we had a lot of chocolate in the house at the moment, I decided to go with this recipe. However, we only had one pack of butter left in the fridge, and I wanted to save that for something special. So I substituted the butter with margarine. I have read that margarine contains more water than butter, and whatnot, but I've grown up with margarine- we used to spread margarine on slices of bread and scatter the top with sugar. It's a lot cheaper than butter too. I also love the smell. If you don't like margarine, go ahead and use butter. No worries.

The recipe called for 4 bananas, but it didn't say how big they should be, so I dunk in all the leftover bananas that we had (about 5 1/2 medium to small bananas).

And... as usual I reduced the amount of sugar. All that chocolate and bananas would contribute a lot to the sweetness, I thought, and I didn't the taste to be overwhelmed bu sugary-sweetness.

I also used a bigger pan. The recipe suggested an 8 x 8 inch pan, but I used a much bigger one, about . I lowered the temperature to 170C to suit our oven, and started with 50 minutes so that I could decide how lone they needed to be baked. I'm prone to overbaking stuff, which usually results in burnt tops, hoho, so I had to be extra careful.

*****************************************************

THE Recipe

[Click HERE for original recipe]

Ingredients:

350g dark chocolate (or whatever works for you)

250g margarine or butter

4 eggs

5 1/2 medium sized bananas (about 1 1/2 to 2 cups i think)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup castor sugar

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp baking powder

Method:

1. Preheat over to 180C (170C for my oven). Line a baking pan using baking paper or foil.

2.Melt margarine (or butter) and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a simmering pot of water.

3. While waiting for the chocolate to melt, mash the bananas and the eggs in a large bowl.

-I whisked the eggs for a bit before putting in the bananas. I used the whisk to mash the bananas.

At first I thought of whizzing the batter in the blender to really crush the bananas, but I liked the look of the banana bits floating around in the egg batter, and felt that it'd lend texture and more flavour if I left it just like that.

So I did.

4. Add the flour, sugar, cocoa powder and baking powder into the egg mixture and mix until well incorporated. It'd be a good idea to sift the dry ingredients first (which I didn't do).

5. Pour in the chocolate-and-margarine-or-butter mixture into the batter and mix well.

6. Pop the pan into the oven and bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the size of your pan, your oven and how much you want the brownies to be cooked.

I set the oven at 50 minutes, and decided to stop there.

7. What are you waiting for? Eat! (or take photos first, whatever works for you)

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The RESULT

This is what it looks like, just out of the oven.

I truly love this recipe! At first it seemed that there was too much batter, so I instead of using an 8 x 8 inch pan I used one that was around 11 x 11 inch. However, it worked quite well and the most important thing is that we had more space to cut, which means more pieces of brownies!

I may have underestimated the amount of bananas. I thought I'd put quite a lot in, but maybe the bananas in the original recipe were large sized. You can still taste the bananas though, but if you want more flavour I suggest adding even more bananas.

The margarine worked really well, I think. Next time I'll try using butter to test the difference.

The texture was crumbly and soft and just a little fudgy, which I liked. It was definitely different from the peanut butter chocolate brownies! I'm definitely making this again, hopefully when my sisters come home.

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Go crazy. Please.

Therefore I suggest you go crazy and make two kinds of brownies like I did- only to see how different the two are. Honest. If you feel like you'll have too much brownies on hand, you can always put them on a nice plate and give some to your neighbours (which I planned to do at first but never did because we had just enough for the 5 of us!)

When Dad saw the two batches of brownies, he said, "those brownies are going to SK Mulong (the name of his school) tomorrow!" So I packed some of each kind of brownies together with a piece of the victoria sponge (the whole family fasted the day after I baked the sponge so there was still quite a big piece left). Then, I did the same for Abang and Adik, who love taking baked stuff to school to show off to their friends (and share, I suppose, haha).

So go crazy, if you can, and please the people who love you and you love. If they truly love you, they will eat the brownies whatever they taste like, but they will definitely love you because this recipe really works!

Brownie Day Part 1: Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

2011-07-18T03:12:00.000-07:00

Ramblings

Stonesoup is owned by Jules.

I love Stonesoup. And I love Jules. She has such a simple philosophy of keeping things simple and fuss-free. She has lots and lots of recipes that uses only 5 ingredients, or even less. For someone who cannot, at the moment, afford to spend a lot of money on buying baking ingredients, Jules's recipes are nearly exactly what I need.

Nearly because so far I haven't had much hand in preparing the main meals in my house. I only make things fit for dessert (unless you eat cake for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper...).

And nearly because some of her recipes (or at least the ones that I'd like to try) uses whipping cream. I have recently discovered that many supermarkets in Malaysia (or at least the ones that I have been to) such as Tesco and Giant sell whipping cream in the dairy section, but my oh my how expensive they are. 1 litre for arounr RM 18.00 to RM 26.00! Gulp. I'm afraid I'll have to wait 'til I've started working before I can even think of buying them.

Other than that, I just love reading what Jules has to say on her site. She writes about incredibly interesting stuff. Actually, it's just better if you head over to her site and see for yourself. But I would like to say that I think she's a wonderful person because it seems that she just loves sharing knowledge without asking for much in return. Her free e-Books are delightful. Truly.

What are you waiting for? Hope over to StoneSoup and have a good time reading the recipes and everything else besides!

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Ramblings on the Recipe

Peanut butter brownies

Today, I made two kinds of brownies. The first was made using one of Jules's recipes. If you like brownies that are really, really fudgy and squidgy, then this recipe is for you!

I modified the recipe a bit to suit my taste and also to suit whatever ingredients that I had at the moment. There happened to be a jar of peanut butter which had, I noticed, been sitting all alone on the counter. When I opened it, I discovered that there was about a third of the contents left. The whole thing, including the plastic jar, weighed 150g, which is the amount of peanut butter needed for the recipe. What the heck? I thought. Whatever works, Mayah!

Jules noted that all-purpose flour would work just as well, but since we had rice flour I decided to follow the recipe on this. I think rice flour gives the extra squidgy-ness to the texture? I don't know. Next time I'll try using all-purpose flour and see what happens.

I also reduced the amount of sugar because I have, out of a lot of experience, found that most recipes use too much sugar for my liking. I don't know how this affects the overall product, but like I said, whatever works!

I was also happy because Mum had just bough a new batch of eggs, and man are they large!

Note: Please check the original recipe for the temperature setting. I often reduce the temperature for my oven because it tends to get too hot. You know your oven. Hoho.

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More Ramblings on the Recipe

This recipe uses Halal ingredients.

It is also gluten and dairy-free.

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THE Recipe

Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownies

[Click HERE to see the original recipe]

Ingredients:

130-150g smooth peanut butter

200g brown sugar

2 eggs

50g cocoa powder

75g rice flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 150C. Grease and line baking pan ( I used a 8x8 inch pan) with baking paper (which I forgot to do).

2. Beats eggs. Add sugar. Beat. Add the peanut butter. Beat until well mixed.

3. Fold in flour and cocoa powder. Mix until just incorporated.

4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer or toothpick, if it comes out slightly moist then it's ready.

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The Ugly but nonetheless Delicious Truth

Even after setting my oven to a lower temperature and baking the brownies for exactly 30 minutes, I seemed to have overbaked them (which is something I often do). Or not.

The truth is whenever I bake something chocolaty or brown-in-colour, I am often confused because I don't know whether the cake/brownies/cookies are properly and thoroughly cooked because I can't see it by the colour! Which is funny because most of the things I've baked so far involve chocolate or cocoa powder. Oh well.

Anyway, even though they were a little around the edges, the brownies were perfectly sticky, squidgy and fudgy. The funny thing is that it was so difficult to pry the brownies from the edge of the pan, and quite as difficult to pry them off the bottom, but once they cleared the pan, they truly cleared the pan! I expected to see a lot of crumbs on the pan but there wasn't much.

Verdict: It's a lovely recipe, and my youngest brother loves it. However, I personally would be able to finish only one slice at one seating. Maybe it's because it takes some effort (for me anyway) to chew it. The taste is good enough, but maybe other people would like a more peanut buttery flavour? Next time I'm going to use chunky peanut butter. I wanted to add some crushed peanuts actually, to add to the texture, but we didn't have them. Maybe next time. Sprinkling them on top of the batter would be great. Yeah.

Thank, Jules! My brothers give your brownies 9 out of 10!