Chocolate Chip brownies

As requested by a friend, I made these brownies for our gathering yesterday.I seldom made brownies as their calories content are pretty high and I am afraid I ll consume many of them after baking. I am a big fan of brownies and it's hard for me stop once I started the first bite LOL.My brownies were well received and my dear friend ,BB, really enjoyed them. Brownies is her favorite as well.

For this time, I used HHB's Brownies recipe but did minor modifications to the recipe.

Ingredients

-125 grams semi-sweet chocolate
-200 grams caster sugar
-120 grams butter
-3 Eggs (at room temp)
-5ml vanilla extract
-65 grams flour (sifted)
-60 grams cocoa powder(sifted)

Method

1. Melt butter and chocolate in a stainless steel bowl (placed over a sauce pan of simmering water).
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg ,sugar and vanilla extract until it reaches to ribbon like stage.
3. Pour in the butter-choco mixture and mix well using spatula.
4. Fold in the flour/cocoa powder gently.
   
5. Pour the batter into 8"x8" baking tin (greased and lined with parchment paper) and sprinkle some choco-chip on top .Bake for about 30mins in 180 degree preheated oven.
6. Cool it completely in the tray.
7. Cut it into your preference size and ready to serve. Enjoy!
   

Stir Fry Sweet Corn

This is a simple side dish for our dinner this evening. As I came back late from office today, I couldn't manage to prepare a complicated side dish. It was a really busy day for me. As you all know, I normally choose to cook quick and easy side dishes especially during weekdays. Weekends are reserved for baking.

Ok here is the preparation steps. Heat 1 Tbsp cooking oil in frying pan. Add in 1 red onion (coarsely chopped) and fry for about 1 min. Finally, add in 1 cup of frozen sweet corn and 1/2 tsp of salt. Cover with the lid and stir fry for about about another 3 mins. Stir occasionally. Ready to serve. Enjoy!

Green Tea Almond Cookies

This is another overdue post in queue to be published.Now only have time to touch up the photos. During these days, I prefer to bake cookies over cakes. No other special reasons, it was just my mood :D.

I saw these Matcha Cookies in Bless Homemaker's blog in past a few weeks and they look really nice. The green color cookies are just lovely. Since I still have some green tea powder, I used them to make green tea almond cookies. But the color of my cookies didn't turn out so well and all of them turned into brownish color after baking. I wonder how BH managed to maintain the greenish color even after the cookies were baked. It might be due to the "brand" of the matcha powder. Anyway, other than color, the taste was so great! My two sis & hubby really enjoyed them! Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

• All purpose flour 1 cup
• 1/2 cup of ground almond
• 1/4 tsp of baking soda
• 1/4 tsp of salt
• 90 grams of butter (at room temp)
• 1/2 cup of icing sugar + 2Tbps of caster sugar
• 1 Tbsp of egg white
• 1 tsp of green tea powder
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of whole almond (chopped)

Method

1. Mix all the dry ingredients, set aside.
   
2. In electric mixer, beat icing sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract, egg white and beat for another 1 minute.
4. Add in dry ingredient mixture and mix well using spatula and form a dough.
   
5. Separate the dough into two portion and shape them into ~9 inch ,diameter 1 1/2 inch logs
6. Carefully wrap the dough in parchment paper and twist the end. Chill it in the fridge at least one hour or overnight.
7. Slice the dough into 5mm thick wafers and bake them in 180C preheated oven for about 12 mins.
8. Leave in the baking tray for about 5 mins before transferring onto wire rack.
   
9. Let them cool completely on the wire rack and store in air tight container. Ready to serve, Enjoy!
   

Stir Fry Tomatoes with Chili & Balacan

Stir fry tomatoes with chili and balacan is one of the typical side dishes of Burmese cuisine. This is the dish that I must cook at least once or twice a week. It is good to go with a bowl of white rice and chicken curry. Yum.


This evening, my little sis cooked this dish and the taste is even better than my version (even though she seldom cook). Here is her recipe.

Ingredients

• 5 cloves of garlic (finely chopped)
  
• Dry shrimps 100 grams
• 1 tsp of Balacan paste
• 4 big tomatoes (dice into very small pieces)
  
• 5 red chili
  
• 3 Tbsp of cooking oil
• 1 tsp of salt
  
• 1/4 seasoning powder
  

Method

1. Heat the cooking oil in a frying pan.
2. Add in garlic and fry till the edges are very light brown in color
3. Add in the rest of the ingredients, 1/4 cup of water and cook for about another 10-15 mins or until the tomatoes become thick paste.
4. Remove from heat, dish out and ready to serve. Enjoy!
   

Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies

Oatmeal cranberry cookies are baked last a few weeks ago and only now, they have a chance to appear in my blog. I still have another a few posts in queue to be published and I just couldn't have enough time to edit my photos. Really need to find time to touch them up a little bit in order to post it here.


In fact, these cookies are not something new. I baked them several times before and detail recipe is here. I did not do any major change but just replaced the mix fruit with cranberry. As usual, cookies are pretty easy to make and you can never go wrong with them. Love it!

Before Baking

After Baking. Leave them to cool on wire rack.

Balacan Asparagus

This is another quick and easy side-dish which could take up to max 15 mins to prepare and yet very delicious! The ingredients used for this dish were slightly different from normal (Chinese style) stir fried asparagus. It taste a little spicy as Balancan (Nga Pi sane in Burmese) and chili were used , but I am sure that our Burmese friends will definitely like this dish.
(Balacan = salted fish paste which is available in most of the supermarkets in SG)




Ingredients

• 1 packet of asparagus ( I think it is about 600 grams)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1 red onion, 1 red chili
• 20 grams of dry shrimps
• 1 Tbsp of cooking oil
• 1 tsp of Balacan paste
• 1tsp of fish sauce

Method

1. Chop asparagus into small pieces , set aside.
   
2. Using blender, blend all the rest of ingredients except oil.
3. Heat the oil in the pan and cook the mixed ingredients for 1-2 mins.
4. Add the chopped asparagus, cover with the lid and cook for about 2mins. Stir occasionally.
   
5. Add in 1/4 cup of water and cook for another 2-3 mins.
6. Dish out and ready to serve. Enjoy!
   

Chocolate rice cookies

I made these cookies for our breakfast and recipe was adapted from Joy of baking. Original recipe called for Cocoa powder but I omit it and chocolate rice were added instead. The dough was prepared since yesterday evening and I left it in the fridge overnight. So, in this morning, I just need to do slicing and baking them in the oven , that's all. Overall result was OK, but I found these cookies are a little too sweet for me. May be it was due to additional Chocolate rice that I added.Next time I should reduce the amount of sugar to the half of original recipe.

Here is the recipe (yield about 40 cookies)

• 1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp of baking soda
• 90 grams of butter (soften, at room temp)
  
• 240 grams of brown sugar (recommend to half the amount if you can't take too sweet stuffs)
• 1 large egg white
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp of salt
  

Method

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together, set aside.
   
2. In a mixer, beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract and egg white and beat for another 1 mins on high speed.
4. Add dry ingredients mixture and mix well using spatula.
5. Separate the dough into two portion and shape them into ~9 inch ,diameter 1 1/2 inch logs
6. Carefully wrap the dough in parchment paper and twist the end. Chill it in the fridge at least one hour or overnight.
7. Slice the dough into 5mm thick wafers and bake them in 180C preheated oven for about 14 mins.
8. Leave in the baking tray for about 5 mins before transferring onto wire rack.
   
9. Let them cool completely on the wire rack and store in air tight container. Ready to serve, Enjoy!
   

Before cutting

Ready to bake!

Let it cool completely on wire rack

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

This is my very first bake which doesn't include any butter or oil. Though I like to bake lots of cakes and pastries ,I am quite hesitate to use big amount of butter as their calories content are pretty high. I know it's hard to avoid as long as baking is concerned. Sometimes I feel very sinful to eat the cake which contains generous amount of cheese, Chocolate and butter.But I have to admit that they are hard to resist lol.

From health conscious point of view, we shouldn't consume cake too often and should replace with more veggie..(I have full of theories, but, as you all know , it's hard to follow :D :D) Anyway, I love to bake and I will still do baking by using healthier alternatives.

The Chocolate Almond Biscotti recipe is adapted from joy of baking . Here is my own version.

Ingredients

• 100 grams semisweet chocolate (coarsely chopped)
• 1 cup of firmly packed light brown sugar
• 250 grams all-purpose flour
• 20grams unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp of instant coffee powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup roasted Almond (coarsely chopped)

Method

1. Using blender or food processor, process chopped chocolate and sugar. Set aside
2. Combine and sift all the dry ingredients except Almond
3. Beat the egg and vanilla extract in the electric mixer for about 30s.( You can use hand whisk as well)
4. Stir in number (1) , (2) and Almond into egg mixture.
5. Shape it into dough in the baking tray (Mine was too soft to be shaped ) and bake for about 35 mins in 180 degree preheated oven.
6. Cool it on wire rack for 10mins.
7. Cut them into 3/4inch thicked slice and bake again in 160 degree preheated oven for another 15 to 20mins.
8. Cool it on wire rack again and ready to serve.Enjoy!

Breakfast

This the breakfast that I prepared for my hubby today..After looking at Baking Mum's blog, I've got an idea of making this. Preparation steps are quite easy. First, cut the cheese slice into 4 small pieces and place it on the bottom bread as below.


Remove the center portion of the top bread and place it on the bottom bread. Place the egg in the middle square and toast it in 180 degree C preheated oven for about 15 minutes (You can adjust the timing for your preference color and crispiness of the bread). Sprinkle with some black pepper and a pinch of salt. Ready to serve. Enjoy!

Lablab beans with crispy fried shallots (pae gyi hnut -in burmese)

Pae Gyi Hnut is one of the well known side dishes of Burma. Pae Gyi refers to lablab beans and Hnut is the style of cooking used for this dish. It is something like simmering the beans with all the ingredients added in. The taste is so delicious and it is good to go with beef or chicken marsala. Cooking steps are pretty simple (just that a little patient is required to remove the skin off :D) and not many ingredients are needed.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup of Lablab beans
• 1 tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp of corn oil
• 1/4 tsp of sugar
• crispy fried shallot to sprinkle (I used ready-made as laziness mode turns on-LOL)
  
• 4 cups of water
• 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder

Method

1. Soak the beans in the water over night and this will help to remove the skin easily off on the next day.
2. Place the beans (skin off) and all the ingredients except crispy fried shallot in a pot.
3. Cover with the lid and simmer for about 50 minutes or till the beans are cooked.
4. Remove from heat and sprinkle with crispy fried shallot. Ready to serve, enjoy!!
   

Marble Cake

Happy new year 2010!! I am posting this marble cake as the very first post for 2010. This is the cake that I baked on New year eve. Every year, I spent my new year eve and counting down at home , of course watching the "live" TV program from channel 5. I am not outgoing person and this is how I usually spend my 31 Dec night. But it is a little bit different for this year. Yeah, I did baking on new year eve , that's awesome. It might sound crazy for those outgoing type ppl and one of my friends ask surprisingly "Baking at home on 31 Dec????" lol Anyway, I love to bake and it is completely fine with me, even happier after seeing my freshly baked cake.


Here is the recipe and it is adapted from little Corner of Mine.


Ingredients:

(A)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup corn oil (or vegetable oil)
1 large egg
1/4 cup milk

(B)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup of cake flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder


(C)
80 grams of baking chocolate


Method:

1. Mix and sift all the ingredients (B) in a bowl. Set aside.
2. Melt the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl (placed over a sauce pan of simmering water)
3. Hand whisk together (A). Add in (B), mix until well blended.
4. Take out 1 cup of the batter and place in another small bowl. Add in melted chocolate and stir with spoon to combine.
5. Marbling effect: Place a scoop of the white batter in the middle of the pan. On top of the white batter, add some of the dark batter in the middle. Then alternate with white and dark until all the batters are finished.
6. Bake for 30 minutes in 180 degree C preheated oven.
7. Cool it completely on wire rack and ready to serve.

Marbling effect:
Before baking