Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Chocolate & Baking

250g butter

160g brown sugar

2 eggs

1teaspoon vanilla essence

175g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

300g milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180 celcius. Lightly butter baking pans.
2. Cream butter,sugar & vanilla essence.
3. Add one egg at a time,stirring in between. Fold flour & bicarbonate of soda into the mixture.
4. Finally add chocolate chips,give a good stir making sure the dough is well mixed with the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop dough using a tablespoon onto the well lined baking pan.
6. Bake for 15-20minutes until golden brown.

Scones with clotted cream & mixed fruit jam

It's so good to be back after 4months of final year papers. Being in Malaysia for barely 48hours I have already made durian layer cake,chocolate chip cookies & scones with clotted cream &mixed fruit jam. The durian layer cake was a little strange,not too sure why but I wouldn't do again. I wasted half a carton of whipping cream for the so called durian mousse. Anyway, I made the scones perfectly this time after getting flat ones before.

Adapted from Australian Women's Weekly-Sweet Old Fashioned Favourites

450g self raising flour

A pinch of salt

1 teaspoon icing sugar

60g butter,chilled

approximately 400ml buttermilk

Milk to brush on scones

Method

1. Grease pan.Preheat oven at a very hot temperature.
2. Sift dry ingredients into large bowl, rub in butter with fingers.
3. Slowly stir in buttermilk just enough to form sticky and soft dough.
4. Turn dough onto well floured surface, and knead gently until dough is smooth.
5. Gently roll out dough to 2cm thickness and using a scone cutter gently cut the dough.Don't twist after gently pressing the cutter into the dough as it will not rise.
6. Brush milk on scones and bake for 15minutes. Make sure the oven is very hot to make the scones rise quickly.

Old Fashion chocolate cake

"I tried so hard to hide parts where I pinch the cake but I couldn't, hence the distorted rectangular chocolate cake of mine."

250g butter,softened

180g caster sugar

4 large eggs, separated

120g plain flour

150g chocolate

1tsp baking powder

50g cocoa powder

3tbsp milk,room temperature

100g chocolate, to pour cake

1. Preheat oven at 180 C. Butter baking pan and cover with flour.
2. Cream butter until pale, add caster sugar and continue to cream butter until fluffy.
3. Add egg yolks.
4. Melt chocolate using double boiler method.Let it cool.
5. Fold in plain flour, baking powder and cocoa into mixture.
6. Add melted chocolate & milk into batter.
7. Whisk egg whites until stiff peaks.
8. Fold in egg whites.
9. Pour cake batter into baking pan and bake for 40-55 minutes until cake tester inserted comes out clean.
10. While letting cake to cool, prepare chocolate topping by melting chocolate, again using the double boiler method.Leave it to cool slightly before pouring over cake.

Home-made curry mee

This was one helluva tedious meal to make but I had fun making it. A silly dish to make in Malaysia when you can find curry mee where corner especially in Ipoh but you don't find such good curry mee anymore in Malaysia. This is definitely quite traditional or I would say an Authentic curry mee.

Adapted from Agnes Chang's Hawkers' Delight

Curry Gravy

5tbsp oil

Pounded spices (mixed)

20 shallots,10pips garlic

10 dried chillies

10 red chillies. 5 chilli api (bird's eye chillies)

5tsp toasted belacan (shrimp paste), 3tbsp dried prawns,soaked

6 candlenuts (buah keras) **

3tbsp curry powder

** you can use macadamia nuts if you can't find candlenuts.

A

3 stalks lemon grass, bruised, 3 sprig curry leaves

1litre chicken stock ***

1litre thick coconut milk from 2 coconuts

1 cube chicken stock

salt to taste

Accompaniments

200g taufoo pok, cut into halves

100g shelled cockles

300g bean sprouts,blanched

2 pieces fried fish cake,sliced

10-16 fish balls

chicken meat from the bones for making stock

10 large prawns, shelled, shells and head kept for stock

***Making stock from scratch

Bones from 1 1/2 chickens

2litres water

Shells and head of large prawns

Method

Make chicken stock:

1. Place bones,water & heads and shells of prawns in a pot and let it simmer over low-medium heat for 3-4hours.
2. Remove shells and head of prawns from the pot and continue to boil for another half hour.
3. Remove chicken bones and debone chicken bones for later. ( it may sound weird but there are still some meat left on the carcass of the chicken after the butcher debones the chicken)
4. Place chicken bones and shells and heads of prawns back into the stock and continue to boil for another hour.

Curry gravy:

1. Heat up oil,saute pounded spices and A until fragrant.Add chicken stock and bring to boil. Lower fire and leave to simmer for about 10-15minutes. Add thick coconut milk,chicken stock cube,salt and bring to boil again, stirring all the time to prevent it from curdling.
2. Add tau foo pok and bring to boil.Taste.

To serve:

1. Divide fresh yellow mee and bean sprouts into individual bowls,arrange other accompaniments on top, pour curry gravy and taufoo pok over and serve immediately.

Cheese Tart

Adapted from Nigella Lawson-Kitchen

250g cream cheese

2/3cup lemon curd

12-Store bought baked mini tart cases

1. In the food processor,wizz cream cheese and lemon curd together until smooth and combined.
2. Transfer cheese mixture into a jar and chill overnight.
3. Fill tart cases with cheese and place half a slice of strawberry on top.
4. Dust vanilla sugar on top of tart.
   

Brioche Loaf

Not having my recipe books with me,I looked for a good brioche recipe and I found Pierre Hermé's brioche recipe from Paris Pastry. From my previous post I said I just purchased an ice cream maker, well I purchased a food processor too- Breville BFP 800. I previously had a food processor but mum never made used of it and somehow when I wanted to use it, it wasn't working, then again the equipment is almost 15 years. I had to test this equipment out too before shipping it back to Malaysia in November.Not sure what to expect from this recipe as I halved the recipe.Not giving the recipe because it turned out to be a disaster. Not too sure what went wrong. I halved the recipe when it stated it will not work when if halved. I could understand why not because when the measurement is divided into 2, all the measurements was difficult to measure exactly, for example 585g plain flour and so on.

Mixed Berry Sorbet

I finally got an ice cream maker!!After shopping around for one for almost a year, I decided to go with the cheaper model of Cuisinart since Cuisinart was recommended by David Lebovitz in his blog and it was around 70 dollars at Victoria Basement, I had to get it.

the beginning of the churning

The end result.The manual said about 20minutes. My sorbet was done in 15minutes, I reckon

What do I think of the ice cream? Amaziiiiing. Very affordable equipment but yet does the job efficiently.

Adapted from my ice cream maker's manual.

Ingredients:

1cup(250ml) water

1/2cup(110g) caster sugar

600g frozen mixed berries,thawed

1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice

1. Place the water and sugar in a small saucepan.
2. Stir over a low heat until the sugar dissolves. Add frozen mixed berries and bring to boil and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool at room temperature.
3. Place the mixed berries mixture in a food processor and puree until smooth, mix the lemon juice and chill overnight.
4. Churn sorbet as directed in your ice cream maker manual booklet.
5. Transfer mixture to an airtight container and freeze until firm.