HOW TO MAKE CHOCOLATE

How to make Granola Bars - Healthy Granola Recipe - Peanut Butter & Banana

How to make granola bars! (healthy and low fat)

How to Make Peanut Butter

Making my mum's Kacang Cake!

A slice of heavenly peanut cream cake! Take this photo at my car poach/garden.

The original peanut cream cake beauty

Finally after almost 27 years, I am making my mummy's kacang cake for the first time. Learn from her once last year and i am happy that i got the chance to make this cake for my friend's bday. Before settling on baking this cake I was helplessly bouncing off ideas in my head on what type of cake to make for her.

You couldnt find cake like this at bakery shop and even if you did they might not taste the same cause it take some work to roast the peanut nicely.

The cake came out beautifully with minor defects. Somehow this cake will sink a little in the middle. I make two of this cake. One is round shape and the other is square shape!

I am so excited! Since small i always pester my mum to make this cake. And when my pestering finally work, my mum always bake this cake for our birthday occasion. Now that i know how to make, I told her that i will be making this cake for her bday and everyone's bday instead! She smile, seem please, took one bite and said that i bake the cake better than hers! Yippy~!

Puff Pastry

Perfect Puff Pastry: Dough, Recipes...

I feel inspired to make Mille-feuille / Napoleon for a long time and this video gives a idea on how to make the puff pastry~!

Clear Water Cake (Sponge Cake) recipe

Clear Water Cake (Sponge Cake)

Ingredient

Post taken directly from The Little Teochew
Recipe
(originally from here and seen at Cook.Bake.Love)

(A)
- 3 egg yolks 蛋黄
- 1 whole egg 全蛋
- 50g corn oil 粟米油

(B)
- 50g low protein flour (cake flour) 低粉（蛋糕粉）

(C)
- 3 egg whites 蛋白

(D)
- 50g castor sugar 细砂糖
- Dash of salt 盐

* Notes from The Little Teochew:
1. I used my vanilla sugar because I wanted a hint of vanilla in my cakes ... people who do not like a strong, eggy smell should add 1/4 tsp vanilla extract;

2. I used Top Flour instead of Cake Flour;

3. I used regular canola oil in place of corn oil ... any neutral-flavoured vegetable oil can be used;

4. I omitted the salt.

1) Beat (A) till well mixed with an egg beater. 用打蛋器打匀(A)。

2) Sift in (B), mix well. 筛入(B)拌匀。

3) Whisk (C) till frothy, add (D) and beat till stiff peaks. 把(C)打至粗泡加入(D)打至干性发泡。

4) Fold in the egg white mixture to egg yolk mixture in 3 additions, mix till well combined. Scoop the batter into paper cups till 60% full. 蛋白霜分3次和蛋黄糊拌匀，用小勺装进纸杯至6分满。

5) Bake in preheated oven at 150C for about 18-20mins. 烤箱预热150度，烤18-20分钟左右。

Hopefully coming project: Strawberry Tart

Got this recipe while thumping through the book 500 Cakes and Bakes by Martha Day. Having watch the anime Yumeiro patissiere, I had really wanted to make their mouth watering strawberry tart! When i saw it in the book it remind me so much of the anime. Hopefully i will be able to make this recipe one day. Hopefully cause I have a lot of dessert and other food making in mind! So here goes nothing....

Strawberry Tart

The tart is best assembled just before serving, but you can bake the pastry case and make the filling ahead.

Serves 6

350g/12oz rough-puff or puff pastry, thawed if frozen

225g/8oz/1cup cream cheese

Grated rind of 1/2 orange

30ml/2 tbsp orange liqueur or orange juice

45-60ml/3-4 tbsp icing (confectioners') sugar, plus extra for dusting (optional)

450g/1 ib/4 cups ripe strawberries, hulled

1. Preheat the oven to 200c/400f/Gas 6. Roll out the pastry to about 3mm or 1/6in thickness and use to line a 28 * 10cm/11 * 4in rectangular flan tin (tart pan). Trim the edges, then chill for 30 minutes.

2. Prick the base of the pastry all over with a fork. Line with foil fill with baking beans and bake for 15minutes. Remove the foil and beans and bake for a further 10 minutes, or until the pastry is browned. Gently press down on the pastry base to deflate, then leave to cool on a wire rack.

3. Best together the cheese, orange rind, liqueur or orange juice and icing sugar to taste. Spread the cheese filling in the pastry case. Halve the strawberries and arrange them on top of the filling. Dust with icing sugar, if you like.

Rough-puff Pastry

Cut 175g/6oz/ 3/4cup butter into small pieces. Sift 8oz/225g/2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour into a bowl and add the butter, 5ml/1 tsp salt, 5ml/1 tsp lemon juice and 150ml/ 1/4 pint/ 2/3 cup iced water. Mix together with a knife. Turn on to a work surface and gather it together. Roll into a rectangle. Fold up the bottom third to the centre, fold the top third to meet it and then turn the pastry a quarter turn. Repeat the rolling and folding. Wrap and chill for 20 min (or pop into the freezer for 5 min). Roll, fold and chill twice more.

Sneak peak of how the strawberry tart look like. Picture taken from the book so its a little unclear...

Tea time! Oreo Ice cream with Banana.. Itadakimasu!!

Enjoying my Oreo ice cream with Banana! Kawaii~ so adorable!! Wanted to cut down on sweet stuff but whenever I have an idea its always something to do with sweet dessert!! What can I do about it when I shouldnt eat anymore sweets? Just make it and enjoy lo! Lol looks like i am totally hopeless and a total slave to sweets now~!

Making Chocolate Cake

This is the Chocolate cake that I have learn from Aunty Marie. Tried it with her once and now I tried i again on my own. Outlook wise is beautiful and I think i manage to absorb most of her methods.

A piece of heaven!

For a moment i struggle to decide whether i should start cutting the round cake or square cake. They look so adorable that I had a hard time deciding. My stomach start growling while taking photo and finally decided to take a knife and reach to the nearest cake and cut it.....and the rest is history as I munch down on a delicious choco cake!! Mmmnnn... I am in heaven~~

Homemade Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread Recipe

I took this recipe from Su Good Sweets

I have some hazelnut which is about less than 100g of the nuts. Quantity is less than 1/3 of the recipe but I decided to make it anyway~! I was curious about the part about the hazelnut oil will come out when there is high friction and heat. Was quiet interesting to really see the nut become tiny bits and when I process it further, oil start to seep out of the nut and become hazelnut butter. The smell of Hazelnut spread is amazing. I was influence to make this when my sis made it herself and recommend it! She wanted to buy Nutella from the supermarket. But when she notice that there is high oil content with lesser hazelnut she decided to make her own Nutella. As usual whatever project she has made has always manage to attract my attention. She found that Nutella hazelnut content is about 18% but this recipe has about 47% hazelnut content.

Actually making my own Nutella doesn't come cheap. A 500g packet of raw Hazelnut itself already cost RM22.50 in Ng Ming Huat bakery shop. Although its pricey I still bought it anyway as I wanted to know how the recipe will work out and its always fun to discover how to make things from scratch. Another good reason to make your own Nutella according to Su Good Sweets blog, she mention that, "As much as I love Nutella, today’s commercial version is actually sugar that’s flavored with hazelnuts and cocoa. You can tell because sugar is first in the ingredient list. And there’s lots of added oil to make it spreadable."

As for my spread, the smell is amazing but the mixture come out a little more watery than I would like. I notice a reader who tried the recipe in the author's blog mention that she only need to add about 1 tbsp oil if we mix the hazelnut long enough to produce hazelnut oil. I will follow the reader advice in my second attempt on the new batch of nuts that I bought.

Ingredient

After spinning a few times. Check out how the hazelnut texture has change and oil oozing out of it.

Once the hazelnut has turn into hazelnut butter, I dump in the chocolate, sugar and oil.

My Chocolate-Hazelnut spread in the jar! Cool and fun project!

Taken form the website:


Chocolate-Hazelnut Spread (easy version)
Yield: about 12 ounces (1 1/2 cups)
2 cups whole raw hazelnuts
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
up to 1/4 cup vegetable or nut oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.
2. To get rid of the bitter skins, wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel. Rub until most of the skins come off, but don’t worry if some remain.
3. Process nuts in a food processor, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. First, you will get coarsely chopped nuts, then a fine meal. After a little while, the nuts will form a ball around the blade, and it will seem like you only have a solid mass. Keep processing. The heat and friction will extract the natural oils, and you will get hazelnut butter!
4. When the nuts have liquified, add the sugar, cocoa and vanilla. Slowly drizzle in enough oil to make a spreadable consistency. Since the mixture is warm, it will be more fluid now than at room temperature.
5. Transfer the spread to an airtight container, and store in the refrigerator for 1-2 months. For best results, stir the chocolate-hazelnut spread before using.

Healthy Granola Bar

I got this below post from my amazing sister Shirley who I look up to since she is the queen of DIY at home. She could DIY her own moisturizer, ice cream, nutella chocolate and this round is energy bar. Actually she made this a long time ago and I am posting her recipe now. Hopefully I will be able to find all the ingredients and start on my own soon~!

For those interested in the granola bar recipe:

To make it HEALTHIER,
1)you can substitute part of butter, i did 3/4 butter replacement
with apple sauce (weight for weight)
2)you can replace butter with good oil if you want
eg,
-grape seed oil
-olive oil may be too strong, but i think my sis in law uses olive oil
3) you can replace white sugar with
-raw sugar
-organic sugar
-honey
corn syrup is not healthy but i heard its tasty and used widely in commercial granolas

you can use any dried fruit, just replace as per portion stated below.
you can replace any nuts.. use your imagination
you can replace wholemeal flour (though this is better) with white flour if wholemeal is not available
if you dont have crisp rice cereal.. perhaps u can add bran or just add more flour

good stuff to add:
flaxseed (grinded ones, cos the ungrinded one may just shoot out of your bowel system without being absorb)
wheatgerm- good for you
peanut.. heaty ler.. eat less.. eat more almond.

Making Indian style Dry Curry Chicken

Dry Curry Chicken Indian style. Learn from my Sifu in Seremban Aunty Marie~!

While in Seremban I manage to learn a new dish thought by Aunty Marie! I was ecstatic as she is a great cook and I am happy to learn a few tricks and dishes from her. During this trip she thought me to make Dry Curry Chicken and Chocolate Cake. I would attempt the chocolate cake on my own and post it soon.

Aunty Marie version while i was cooking with her in Seremban. Looks like I have a long way to go to cook it her way

Serving Aunty Marie dry curry chicken with Panneer rice and vege.

When i learn this dish from her there wasnt any measurement of ingredients. So below is a rough estimate of the ingredient required. On my next attempt I would add in more water and cook the chicken longer at stage C before proceed to dump in the powder and tomato. That way it will shorten the time to cook the curry part and chicken wont burn and dry.

Ingredients:

How to cook Indian style Dry Curry Chicken

A)
Cinnamon - 1
Star anise - 1
Cintan putih - a pinch
Cardammon pods - 3
Clove - 4
2 pandan leaf
2 curry leaf
4-5 medium size onion cut into slices

B)
1 small chicken or half a big chicken. Chop into pieces
3 big potato peeled and cut into cube

C) Dice below with food processor
8 clove garlic
2 inch of ginger
2 small tomato or 1 big tomato

D) This are rough estimate. Season to taste
Meat curry powder - 3 - 4 teaspoon
Tumeric powder - 1 - 2 teaspoon
Cili powder - 1 - 2 teaspoon
Cintan putih in powder form. 1 - 2 teaspoon
Salt season to taste - roughly about 1 teaspoon

E)
2 small tomato or 1 big one cut into cube

F)
A handfull of coriander leaf (I use a type of fragrant leaf in my garden)

1. Stir fry (A) till onion become brown
2. Put in (B) and stir fry for few minutes. Add in (C) and stir fry. Cover the kuali for 5 -10 minutes and let the juice soak into the chicken. Check intermediate and stir fry to make sure it wont burn. (Note to self: Best to make sure the chicken are half cook at this stage as curry powder can burn easily)
3. Stir fry (D) and (E). After a few minutes add in some water otherwise chicken will dry up. Amount of water depends on individual.
4. When potato has soften add in 2/3 of coriander leaf and add in the rest when serving the chicken.

How to cook Panneer Rice
After serving the chicken, there will be some curry juice in the kuali.
Scoop up a few cup of rice and stir fry the rice. I have switch off the gas at this point as the rice is still warm. You will get delicious yummy rice that goes really well with the curry chicken!

Picture for illustration in making the curry chicken

Slicing the onion

After dicing with food processor the tomato, garlic and ginger

3 Russet potato dice and put into water to prevent the potato from changing colour

Onion and tomato

I use half a large chicken

Rempah: Cinnamon, Clove, Cintan putih, Star anise and Cardamon pods

Dumping into kuali and Stir fry A

Cook till onion has brown

Add in the chicken. Stir fry and pour C inside and cont stir fry. Let it cook for about 5-10 mins

Add D and E. Stir fry for few minutes then add some water.

Chocolate overdose week!

This week I really went all out and have been making cake since Wednesday till Monday! So scary when I see the list that I have made 1. Wednesday - All-Chocolate Boston Cream Pie - This project failed. In the end just ate as normal chocolate cake. It failed because my pan was too big so I didn’t manage to put the cream. My parents love them though and finish eating all of them. (Hershey website photo) 2. Thursday/Friday - Tuxedo Torte. Took me 2 days to complete during my work day! 3. Saturday - Chocolate Sour Cream Cake (Hershey website photo). For my fren's sweetheart~! Chocolate Sour Cream Cake! It look so beautiful! This is how it looks like sitting in the fridge after about 2 hours. 4. Sunday - Chocolate-Filled Cream Puffs (Hershey website photo) for my fren's mum bday 13 pcs of Cream puff beautifully assembled! The result better than me and ahma's expectation! Wow the best part. To see how the chocolate look like! 5. Sunday/Monday: Chocolate Fudge-Vanilla Ice cream cake! My own method so no photo for now cause still work in progress...thinking how to finish tis....since i couldnt transport ice cream! Bottom is chocolate brownie cake Top is Vanilla Ice cream Covered in Chocolate cream 6. Valentine day - Chocolate Truffles. I made this with my fren for her sweetheart. (Photo taken from book - Chocolate Food Lovers Delicious Simple Recipes For Everyday Cooking. Aleksandra Malyska) 7: Oreo Ice cream Flower pot surprise! The same one i made for u on ur bday~ the one with daisy stuck in oreo ice cream~

Flower pot ice cream surprise!

Give this as a surprise to your love ones! Be it for Valentine day, Birthday or Mothers day! They will immediately think that you are giving them a flower pot which is not that far from truth. Well it is a flower pot. But we add another interesting element by combining flower pot and oreo ice cream! This project is really simple once you have collected all the necessary materials. The idea is so endearing that it will definitely put a smile on people's face.

Well I was wondering whether i should write this post. If my family and friends read this then this surprise will not work anymore. Well in the end couldnt resist the temptation of sharing this to the world. I took the idea from Food Wishes Chef John. In his site he wrote the source of the idea comes from the thepioneerwoman.com. So you would have a few reference and sample to make your own pot of surprises. I skip the part of putting a pound cake into the pot.

I watch the video from Chef John's Food Wishes website but never thought that I would really use the idea until I wanted to surprise people on their birthday! In the end I adapt and change the steps to make this surprise pot.

Tools:
-Pot
-Aluminium foil
-A few chopstick depending on how many flowers you use. Cover it with aluminum foil
-2-3 daisy flower. Cover the stalk with aluminum foil to prevent it in contact with the ice cream.
-Crush about 75g of Oreo cookies with the cream remove

Steps:
Line the pot with aluminum foil. Well I could actually skip the steps for aluminum foil and make the flower pot look even more real. However I find it unappetizing to just stuck the ice cream into the pot as I am not sure whether the pot is meant to be in contact with food directly. So I clean the pot well and line it with aluminum foil before putting in the ice cream.

I choose daisy flower. To me daisy look really colorful and cheerful. As the stalk are too big to fit into a straw, I just stuck a 3-5 chopstick (depending on how many stalk you use) into my ice cream and dump the vanilla ice cream around the chop stick.

Chopstick stick into the middle. Put the ice cream around the chopstick

Fill up the ice cream almost until the top. Keep some space so that the vanilla ice cream will be covered with Crush Oreo.

Refrigerate till the ice cream sets. I freeze it overnight. Took out the chopstick. There will be a hole at the centre, stick in the daisy and fill up the top with crush oreo cookies. Completely covering it. The Oreo cookies act as "soil" to the flower pot.

I remove the cream and use my chopper to crush the cookies. Faster this way. Otherwise you can just crush it in a bowl or put into a plastic and whack it till its all crush. If you didnt remove the cream then the cookies may not look pure black colour.

Making simple Vanilla Chocolate Ice Cream Cake!

Bottom is chocolate brownie cake
Top is Vanilla Ice cream
Covered in Chocolate cream.

The cake turn out beautiful after freezing for few hours!!

How it look like without Chocolate cream covering it. Look beautiful as the color are contrastingly black and white. Strangely sad to cover its beauty with chocolate cream but i thought that ice cream cake wont be complete without being properly decorated with cream.

 I have extra chocolate cake from making Hershey Chocolate Sour Cream Cake. After racking my brain going through a few possibilities of reproduction - Ice cream cake, Hershey Brownie Sundae cheesecake or just dump a dollop of ice cream on the cake. Finally decided on Ice cream cake cos its so easy to make and I have Vanilla ice cream from making another surprise birthday project with ah ma! Once decided, quick as a whip, i search for my 4.5inch round pan with detachable bottom, line it with aluminum foil, cut the cake by pressing the pan on the cake to create a circle line, dump the round cake into the pan bottom, put the ice cream on top completely sealing the top of the pan, covered with aluminum foil and dump into the freezer overnight. I thought of making ice cream cake in the morning. The next minute I know I am done with a beautiful cake covered with aluminum foil sitting in my freezer~!

Vanilla ice cream is store bought. Well I dont have enough time making my own ice cream this time. The chocolate cream comes from CHOCOLATE CREAM FILLING recipe from making chocolate cream puff. I made cream puff with ah ma and there was still plenty extra of cream. So I utilize the cream by covering my ice cream cake.

I am happy how the cake turn out considering i am making this from imagination and not recipe! It helps that I have all the ingredients ready at hand!!