The Ultimate Bread Pudding

I am not an advanced chef or baker, but I am quite proud of my bread pudding. I have actually converted a non-bread-pudding-believer once. Bread pudding is just such a great dessert. It's so easy, can be made ahead of time, and you can save it in the fridge and have dessert every night for the rest of the week (depends on how fast you eat it).

I started with this recipe and modified it over the year(s). Here is my version. You can use any fruit toppings really. I have tried quite a few and everything is delicious, except bananas. Do not use bananas ever. They create this inexplicable weird rancid taste.

Do use challah bread! I have tried all kinds of bread (French, sourdough, country-style, brioche). Basically anytime I have stale bread I think, hmm, I don't want them to go to waste so I will make a bread pudding out of them. Nothing tops challah bread.

Ingredients:
1 lb of Challah bread (or a little less depending on if you want your bread pudding to be more bread-y or more custard-y)
1 cup of berries (blueberries and blackberries are excellent; you can even mix a variety of berries)
2 cups of milk
1 cup of heavy cream
3 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/4 cup of bourbon (optional)
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of salt
butter (for pan)

Directions:

• Use day-old Challah bread and tear it into 1" pieces and set them aside in a large bowl.
• Whisk eggs, sugar and salt together.
• Add the milk a little at a time and whisk to combine.
• Gently stir in cream, vanilla, and bourbon.
• Pour the milk mixture over the bread cubes and berries and stir to combine, pressing bread down to get the floaters if neccessary; make sure bread cubes are all covered.
• Cover and refrigerate over night.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9"x9" casserole pan.
• Bake for an hour and let it cool slightly before you serve.
  

Meyer Lemon and Blood Orange Marmalade

Since the Alameda antique fair was canceled because of the rain, I found myself with plenty of time to kill today. We went to grab coffee at Contraband, had brunch at a mom-and-pop diner nearby, cleaned up the aquarium and the house, finished off tax documents, cooked Roast Pork Shoulder (which is still cooking in the oven as I'm blogging) and it's not even dinner time yet. So I decided to catch up with my blog and post this Meyer Lemon and Blood Orange Marmalade that I made about a month ago.

I have never made jams or marmalade before but after having my neighbor's tasty apricot jam, I was compelled to try making it and found that this NYTimes marmalade recipe is easy enough for me to follow. It turned out pretty good although next time I would not use the white part of the orange as it makes the marmalade a bit bitter.


Ingredients:
3 medium Meyer lemons, ends trimmed
1 medium blood orange, ends trimmed
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups Demerara (raw) sugar

Directions:

• Place several small plates or saucers in the freezer.
• Wash the citrus well under warm running water. Cut the lemons and orange in half lengthwise. Cut each half into 1/8-inch segments, lengthwise. Pluck out any exposed membrane and remove the seeds.
• Measure the cut citrus. You should have 2 1/2 cups, but if you have less, use the same volume of water and sugar as you have citrus. (If there are only 2 cups, for example, use 2 cups water and 2 cups sugar.) Place the citrus and the same volume of water into a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook until the peels are very soft and fully cooked, about 20 to 30 minutes.
• Add the sugar to the pot, stir to combine. Turn the heat up to high and bring back to a boil. Lower the heat to medium and let the marmalade simmer until set. It should take about 20 to 30 minutes, but start checking after 15 minutes to see if it is set by spooning a little onto a chilled plate from the freezer. If it looks like jam and not runny syrup, it’s ready. (If you want to use a candy thermometer, you are looking for 222 degrees.)
• Allow marmalade to cool to room temperature before serving. Store leftovers in the refrigerator and use within a month.

Momofuku's Crack Pie

Crack is addicting. That's what we learned from watching Dave Chappelle before he became a underground ghost comedian weaving in and out of small comedy clubs in various cities. So when Vincent challenged me to make a dessert that has "crack" in its name, well, my mouth watered. The only thing that kept me from making it as soon as I looked at the recipe was the fact that the recipe had three parts, and total time adds up to over 10 hours. Oh no.

But once I actually read the recipe again and got the ingredients ready, the process isn't gruesome at all. It's like any dessert, really. Mix the flour, eggs, cream, then bake until the sweet aroma from the oven fills up the kitchen.

Okay, maybe it's a little more complicated than baking a tray of chocolate cookies and more importantly, you do need the patience to wait for it to chill in the fridge for hours. But trust me, the wait is worthwhile! And once the pies are ready, unlike other freshly made desserts that need to consumed within a day or so, crack pies are good for over a week. Whenever you crave something sweet and buttery and gooey, just take out a slice from the fridge and enjoy.

I used this recipe from LA Times, but most recipes you find online don't vary too much.

You can dust the sugar powder in whatever shapes you like. Just make a cutout from a piece of paper and dust the powder on top then remove the paper. Here I did a bunny shape to celebrate Lunar New Year (it's the year of the Hare).

Cookie for crust

Ingredients:
2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 ounces) flour
1/8 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) softened butter
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar
3 tablespoons (1 1/4 ounces) sugar
1 egg
1 cup (3 1/2 ounces) rolled oats

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
• In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer using the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Whisk the egg into the butter mixture until fully incorporated.
• With the mixer running, beat in the flour mixture, a little at a time, until fully combined. Stir in the oats until incorporated.
• Spread the mixture onto a 9-inch-by-13-inch baking sheet and bake until golden brown and set, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to the touch on a rack. Crumble the cooled cookie to use in the crust.

Crust

Ingredients:

Crumbled cookie for crust
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 1/2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce) brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

• Combine the crumbled cookie, butter, brown sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse until evenly combined and blended (a little of the mixture clumped between your fingers should hold together).
  
• Divide the crust between 2 (10-inch) pie tins (smaller pie tins are okay too; you will just end up with a thicker pie).
  
• Press the crust into each shell to form a thin, even layer along the bottom and sides of the tins.
  
• Set the prepared crusts aside while you prepare the filling.

Filling

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
3/4 cup plus a scant 3 tablespoons (7 ounces) light brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (3/4 ounce) milk powder
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, melted
3/4 cup plus a scant 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
8 egg yolks
2 prepared crusts
Powdered sugar, garnish

Directions:

• Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, brown sugar, salt and milk powder. Whisk in the melted butter, then whisk in the heavy cream and vanilla.
• Gently whisk in the egg yolks, being careful not to add too much air.
• Divide the filling evenly between the 2 prepared pie shells.
• Bake the pies for 15 minutes, then reduce the heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is slightly jiggly and golden brown (similar to a pecan pie), about 10 minutes. Remove the pies and cool on a rack.
• Refrigerate the cooled pies until well chilled. The pies are meant to be served cold, and the filling will be gooey. Dust with powdered sugar before serving. Pies are good for up to a week in the fridge.

Cranberry Lemon Scones

Wow... what crazy several months have been for me - dealing with Arthur, Porgy's new health issue, crazy obnoxious neighbors moving in upstairs AND trying to find a new (and better) job. Fortunately, things finally started to settle down in the past week so I decided to restart this cook-and-blog thingy again. And what could be a better way to get back to the swing of things than by making Ina Garten's Cranberry Scones. I've done them before and they turned out really well. This time, I decided to use lemon zest instead of orange zest and doubled the recipe to make 20 large scones because I wanted to give some to Mo-Fo's family.


Ingredients:
nocoupons4 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons baking powder
2 teaspoons kosher salt
zest of 2 lemons
3/4 pound (3 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup cold heavy cream
2 cup dried cranberries
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoonsmilk, for egg wash
1/8 cup raw (turbinado) sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• In the bowl, mix 4 cups of flour, 1/4 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and the zest.
• Add the cold butter and mix with a hand mixer until the butter is the size of peas.
• Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture and mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy and sticky.
• Add the dried cranberries to the dough, and fold in until blended. Careful not to over work the dough.
• Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and knead the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough.
• Roll the dough into a log and cut triangles of dough.
• Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or silpat.
• Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with raw sugar, and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked.
• The scones will be firm to the touch.

PS: We used a loaner Nikon D80 SLR digital camera to take this picture and the quality is so much better than our Canon point and shoot camera.

Maple-Oatmeal Scones

It's Porgy's birthday this coming Thursday so I decided to be nice and make him some maple scones for mid-morning snack today and some to freeze so we can have them for breakfast each day this week. He used to buy them from Starbucks almost every day but I thought that fresh home-made ones would be so much better, specially since I used Ina's Maple-Oatmeal Scones recipe. After reading some of the reviews, I added 1 tablespoon sugar to make them a bit sweeter and I used heavy whipping cream instead because I did not have any buttermilk. The scones are super moist and buttery... I am so excited to have them for breakfast this week!

Before icing them...


The final result...


Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup quick-cooking (or old fashioned) oats
2 tablespoons baking powder
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 pound cold unsalted butter, diced
1/2 cup cold heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
4 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk or water, for egg wash

For the glaze:
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the flours, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt. Blend the cold butter in at the lowest speed and mix until the butter is in pea-size pieces.
• Combine the heavy cream, maple syrup and eggs and add quickly to the flour-and-butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will be pretty sticky and there should be lumps of butter in the dough.
  
• Dump the dough out onto a well-floured surface and be sure it is combined. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 3/4 to 1 inch thick. Cut into 3-inch rounds with a plain or fluted cutter (I just use a small glass) and place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
• Brush the tops with egg wash. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are crisp and the insides are done.
• To make the glaze, combine the confectioners' sugar, maple syrup and vanilla. When the scones are done, cool for 10 minutes and drizzle each scone with the glaze. The warmer the scones are when you glaze them, the thinner the glaze will be.

Dynamo Donuts

This morning ShunBun surprised Mo-Fo and I by bringing these delicious Dynamo donuts to our early morning coffee ritual at Blue Bottle Coffee. I have always been wanting to try them out since it first opened because of their interesting flavor combination and the hype surrounding its maple glazed bacon apple donut. After having my share of the donut, I was hooked and kept reaching over Mo-Fo to get the bacon bits that fell off from the donut. I also went nuts over the Spiced Chocolate donut because the chipotle dredge totally compliment the chocolate flavor in a nice way. It was a great way to start a week-day morning!


Lemon Thyme (donut made with lemon zest and fresh thyme and has a lemon honey glaze) and Maple Glazed Bacon Apple (studded with bacon and apple sauted in bacon fat maple glaze and crispy bacon):


Vanilla Bean (vanilla and orange zest donut with a vanilla bean glaze) and Spiced Chocolate (chocolate donut with cinnamon, sugar and chipotle dredge):

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yes, I was quite a busy bee in the kitchen this weekend. I even baked some chocolate chip cookies because Porgy was craving for something chocolaty ever since he saw Alex Guarnaschelli's Chocolate Pots de Creme episode on Food Network. I used my Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe and improvised a little bit by adding some Dutch cocoa powder and a little bit of chili powder.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened (at room temperature)
1 cup light brown sugar
3 tablespoons white sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup Dutch cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground coffee
8 oz of chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven at 300F
• Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, chili pepper, cinnamon, ground coffee)
• Cream butter and sugar until fluffy
• Beat in egg and vanilla extract
• Add the dry ingredients into the butter mixture in 2 phases
• Mix all together at slow speed
• Add in chocolate chips and mix with spatula
• Bake for 16 mins for more moist (chewier) cookies or 18 mins for crunchier ones

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies

What to do if you're craving for 2 types of cookies? Combine them together! I have been craving both Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip cookies so I decided to make this Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies. I used Smitten Kitchen's Oatmeal Raisin Cookie recipe for the base and substitute the chopped walnut with chocolate chips. Both Porgy and I really enjoyed the end product – the bitter sweet chocolate taste mixed with the chewiness of the oatmeal and the tart of the raisins... yum!


Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 oz) butter, softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
• In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and chocolate chips.
• Per Smitten Kitchen's suggestion, I chilled the dough for 30 minutes or so in the fridge to help the cookies maintain their 'thickness' and then scoop the cookies onto a baking sheet.
• Bake them for 12 minutes or so until they are golden brown at the edges but still soft on top. Let them sit on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Car Bomb Cupcakes

In the past few weeks, I have been craving for cupcakes... specially those from Kara's Cupcakes. Although they were super duper delicious, I started to wonder if it made sense to spend $3 per cupcake – so I decided to make some myself. Since both Porgy and I are self-professed alcohol lovers, I used this Chocolate Whiskey and Beer Cupcakes from Smitten Kitchen - it's an intepretation of the Car Bomb drink in a cupcake form. It was my first time EVER making cupcakes and I am not much of a baker so I followed her direction to the T.

However, if I ever make this again, I would cut the Ganache filling in half to avoid having too much leftover at the end or maybe substitute it with some Salted Caramel filling to cut the richness and add some saltiness. I also had some difficulties with the Bailey's Buttercream icing. Who knew that making icing was that hard... I think my mistake was that I didn't let the butter warmed up enough to the room temperature. And since I sucked big time with the piping works, I used a couple of small spoons to drop a dollop of icing on top of each cupcakes. I think they still look pretty darn cute, don't they?


Ingredients:

The Guinness chocolate cupcakes:
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache filling:
(already cut to half the amount in the original recipe)
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (I like it strong)

Baileys frosting:
3 to 4 cups confections sugar (I used almost 3.5 cups)
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 tablespoons Baileys

Directions:

Follow the direction at Smitten Kitchen since she's the pro.

Raisin Pineapple Ginger Scones

I took yesterday off to chill, take care of Arthur and do some quick errands around the house. Interestingly enough I was already bored by 1pm because I did all of my errands already and Arthur could not play too much because he was still recovering from his procedure. After rummaging my kitchen cabinet, I decided to make Raisin Pineapple Ginger Scones by following my Cranberry Orange Scone recipe – substituting the cranberry with half cup of raisin and half cup of sugared pineapple and adding some ginger powder to the dry ingredients. The scone texture was not good as my previous scones because I used whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour so I still have to figure out how to work with whole wheat flour correctly.


Ingredients:
2 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 cup sugar
3 teaspoons of ginger powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoons kosher salt
zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
3/8 pound (1.5 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced
2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup cold heavy cream
1/2 cup of raisins
1/2 cup of chopped sugared pinneaple
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk, for egg wash
1/8 cup sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• Mix 2 cups of flour, 1/8 cup sugar, ginger powder, baking powder, salt and the zest in a food processor.
• Add the cold butter and quickly pulse until the butter is the size of peas.
• Combine the eggs and heavy cream in a small bowl and slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture in the food processor and mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy, sticky and form a ball.
• Combine the raisins, diced pineapple and 1/8 cup of flour, add to the dough, and fold in using a spatula until blended.
• Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and knead the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough.
• Roll the dough into a log and cut triangles of dough.
• Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or silpat.
• Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with sugar, and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked.
• The scones will be firm to the touch.
• Allow the scones to cool for a couple minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

Lemon, Orange and Thyme Olive Oil Cake

What do you think I would make if I have plenty of lemons? First, I will make a couple glasses of Lemon Drops (the cocktail drink of course, NOT the candy) and, then after getting some buzz of it, I would attempt to make some kind of lemony desserts. I received a few lemons from AMV last week so I decided to make a variation of this yummy looking Lemon Cake - adding in extra lemon and orange zest and using thyme instead of lavender.

Side note: I used Whole Wheat Flour from Trader's Joe so the cake texture turned out to be a bit grainy (accordingly to Mo-Fo, it's corn-cake like). I guess I still need to figure out when and how to substitute all-purpose flour with whole-wheat flour correctly. Any recommendations?


Ingredients:
1.5 cups all purpose flour
1 cup + 1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup olive oil
5 teaspoon lemon zest
5 teaspoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon orange zest
2 teaspoon freshly minced thyme leaves

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix the flour, 1 cup of sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
• In a medium bowl, mix the eggs, milk, olive oil, 4 teaspoon of the lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of the orange zest and the thyme leaves.
• Add in the wet mixture to the dry ingredients in the large bowl and stir with a wooden spatula to combine. The batter will be on the wet-side.
• Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8.5"x4.5" loaf pan and bake for 55-60 minutes, until a wooden skewer comes out clean.
• A few minutes before the cake is ready, start making the glaze by heating 1/2 cup of sugar and the lemon juice in a small pot until the sugar becomes a syrup.
  
• When the cake is done, remove it from the oven and, while it's still in the pan, poke holes about 1" apart from the top of the cake all the way to the bottom using a long wooden skewer.
  
• Pour half of the glaze over the cake (while it's in the pan), let the cake soak the syrup and rest for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan to a platter.
• Add in the rest of the lemon zest (1 teaspoon) and orange zest (1 teaspoon) into the pot and cook over a low heat for 5 minutes or so until thicken. Be careful not to burn the syrup.
• Remove the syrup from the heat and wait for 30 seconds before pouring the thicken syrup over the cake.
• Let the cake cool for 30 minutes or so before serving.
  

Slanted Door

Last Friday, my "best friends" at work took me to Slanted Door, Charles Phan's Vietnamese restaurant at the Ferry Building, for lunch to celebrate my birthday the day before. It has been awhile since the last time I went there.

We started our lunch by sharing Daikon Rice Cakes with shiitake mushrooms and shallots and Spring Rolls with shrimp, pork, mint and peanut sauce. I really enjoyed the flavor and texture of the Daikon rice cakes, it's not like the typical daikon rice cake that I usually find at dim sum restaurants. And the sauce... I couldn't tell what in the sauce but it totally complimented the rice cake well.


Interestingly enough, all of us ordered noodles for our main courses: Crispy Egg Noodles with prawns, scallops, squid, carrots, broccoli, and shiitake mushrooms, Stir-fried Rice Noodle with chicken, shiitake mushrooms, brocolli, bean sprouts and egg, and Grilled Chicken Breast over rice noodle with imperial rool, cucumber and mint. Since Crispy Egg Noodle and Grilled Chicken Breast are staple Chinese Vietnamese food, they are good as usual. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the Stir-fried Rice Noodle. Although it looked bland (color-wise), we all agreed that it was really delicious and tasty. I guess the saying "we should not judge a book by its cover" also applies for food.


When we got back at the office, we enjoyed some yummy Sprinkles cupcakes (red velvet, chocolate, vanilla and carrot cake). I was super stuffed by the end of the day because all these goodies. Thank you my "best friends at work" for a wonderful and scrumptious birthday lunch.

Gingerbread Boys

We ate a lot of cookies and sweets this holiday season but somehow I was still itching to bake cookies so I could decorate them. So this weekend, I decided to make Gingerbread Boys using a NYTimes recipe because their Gingerbread Boy picture was so cute.


We had so much fun decorating them though now we need to figure out what to do with those 50+ cookies. Hopefully people at the office are still up for some more sweets this week.

Ingredients:
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup molasses
1 cup butter
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
4 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, more for rolling dough
confectioners' sugar
lemon juice

Directions:

• In a saucepan, combine brown sugar, molasses and butter. Place over medium-low heat and stir until the mixture is just melted and smooth. Remove from heat and mix in baking soda and 1/4 cup cold water. Set aside and allow to cool to room temperature.
• Transfer the mixture into a bigger bowl and add egg, salt, baking powder, ginger and cinnamon; stir to mix well. Add 4 cups of flour and mix well, adding up to 1/2 cup more if the dough seems sticky. Shape into a ball, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, up to 24 hours.
• Preheat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
• On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4-inch thickness, and cut into gingerbread boy shapes using a cookie cutter. Arrange on baking sheets 1-inch apart, and bake until risen and no longer shiny, around 9 to 10 minutes.
• Remove from heat and allow cookies to cool. And then the fun begins... decorate the cookies with icing.
  
• Mix in 1 cup of confectioners' sugar with approximately 2 tablespoons of lemon juice (or water) to create a thick icing paste and use a Ziplock bag with a small cut on the tip as the piping bag.
  

Flourless Spiced Apple and Almond Tea Cake

A couple weeks ago I came across Flourless Apple and Almond Tea Cake at Citrus and Candy. The recipe seemed simple enough to follow and would be a perfect mid-day snack when I'm needing an energy boost.

In order to cut cost (since I bought most of my ingredients at Whole Foods), I decided to make my own almond meal by grinding the almonds in the food processor. It turned out delicious, but unfortunately was on the crumbly side because I couldn't grind the almond meal small enough. Next time I'll make it easy on myself and buy the almond flour, hopefully then it will turn out better. Lesson learned... In baking, just follow the recipe and not improvise like in cooking.


Here's the recipe according to Citrus and Candy, with the changes that I made:

Ingredients:
3 small apples - cored and cut into 8 wedges
30g (1.06 oz) unsalted butter
4 cloves (the original recipe only calls for 2)
4 cardamom (my addition)
50g (1.76 oz) raw caster sugar (I use powdered sugar, a mistake here. Maybe using regular sugar will be better?)
75g (2.65 oz or 1/2 cup) raisins

260g (9.17 oz) almond meal
220g (7.76 oz) almond
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons ground ginger (the original recipe only calls for 2)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (my addition)
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (my addition)
4 eggs
230g (8.11 oz) raw caster sugar (I used regular sugar)
125ml (1/2 cup) maple syrup

Apple and Almond Topping
2 red gala or granny smith apples - cored and thinly sliced
50g (1.76 oz) almonds, roughly chopped
20g (0.70 oz) unsalted butter - melted and slightly cooled
sprinkles of raw turbinado sugar

Directions:

• In a pan large enough to fit the apples in a single layer, melt the butter over medium heat and add the apples, cloves, cardamoms and sugar and mix to coat.
• Cook for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until apples are starting to color and softened.
• Remove the cloves and cardamoms, and add raisins and stir for a minute or two until raisins have softened.
• Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
• Preheat the oven to 160C (325F) and grease and line a 10-inch springform tin with baking paper.
• In a food processor, pulse the almond meal, almonds, baking powder, ground ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon until roughly chopped. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and maple syrup until thick, pale and fluffy - at least 5 minutes with an electric mixer. Note: After 5 minutes, mine still looked a bit watery and didn't get thicken up.
• Add the almond nut mixture and gently fold to combine.
• Add the apple mixture and gently fold to incorporate. Pour into a cake tin.
• Arrange the apple slices on top of the cake batter, overlapping a little to make a decorative circular pattern. Sprinkle the nuts over, drizzle with melted butter and scatter with sugars.
• Bake in the oven for 60-75 minutes (mine was closer to 75 minutes) until skewer comes out clean of cake batter.
• Remove from the oven and let cool completely in the cake pan before slicing and serving.

Carrot Cake for My 100th Post

Yeah... it's my 100th post, I'm so excited! After thinking carefully, I decided to celebrate this occasion by baking a Carrot Cake. Since I have never baked a cake before, I used Pastry Pal's recipe because she always has great step-by-step instructions and useful tips.

One cake done, another to go


Stacking the cake layers together


Smothering the cake with some frosting


Completely frosted. Voila!


Tomorrow is my sister's birthday so I'm dedicating this cake for her. Although she doesn't live nearby, I thought it would be a nice to send her some pictures of the cake so she can salivate over them. Happy Birthday, Irene!

Raisin Scones

This past weekend, I decided to try out a scone recipe from Pastry Pal because it called for 2 cups of heavy whipping cream. The other scone recipe that I tried before never called for that much cream. I pretty much followed her recipe and directions, except that I added zest from 1 lemon. I finally bought a dough cutter per her suggestion to mix the butter and flour and found that it's so much easier than using a wire whisk. Thanks Irina.

We have been enjoying these moist and crumbly scones with daily espresso and lattes from our new Saeco coffee machine (we call her Sophia) every morning. Yum yum!


Ingredients:
4 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, cut up into small pieces (i put mine in freezer after cutting to keep it cold)
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup golden raisins
zest of 1 lemon
1 egg
1 tablespoon milk
turbinado sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400F.
• Toss the raisins and lemon zest with 1 tablespoon of the flour in a small bowl.
  
• Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
• Mix the butter cubes into the flour mix with a dough cutter.
  
• Pour in the heavy cream and mix a little bit (but do not over mix).
• Add in the raisins and lemon zest and mix with a wooden spoon (or spatula) carefully.
• Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1.5" thickness.
• Cut the dough in 12 equal pieces (mine was kind of free-from cuts, instead of nice and neat like hers).
• In a small bowl, mix the egg with the milk for egg wash.
• Brush the top of each scone with the egg wash and sprinkle with the turbinado sugar.
• Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.
• Cool for 5 minutes or so on the pan before transferring them on a cooling rack.
• Enjoy!
  

Caramel Chocolate Mousse

I made a Chocolate Mousse last Saturday for my Mad Men party on Sunday. I had been thinking about this recipe since I saw it on Pastry Pal a couple weeks ago. The idea of having creamy caramel chocolate mousse and sipping champagne while watching Mad Men Season 3 Premiere sounded really good to me.

I really appreciated Pastry Pal's instruction on how to make caramel and the step-by-step pictures. I used a bit more chocolate than her recipe and increased the quantity by about 15% so my mousse was not as airy and light looking as hers. It tasted really rich and creamy. I think I will stick to her measurement ratio next time.


Ingredients (adjusted to 10 servings):
4.2 oz sugar
5 tablespoons butter
2.5 cup heavy whipping cream
8 oz high quality dark (or milk) chocolate

Directions:

• Follow the directions at Pastry Pal - it's as clear, simple and good as it gets!

Kara's Cupcakes

I had been thinking about cupcakes ever since Mo-Fo told me last week that she would have some cupcakes at her party this coming weekend so I decided to do a quick walk to Kara's Cupcakes at Ghirardelli Square to get a few.

From the top: Kara's Karrot (moist carrot cupcake with a silky soft cream cheese frosting), Java (chocolate cupcake with a rich espresso buttercream), and Fleur De Sel (chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, ganache frosting and fleur de sel).

Blueberry Scones

Since the blueberry season is ending soon, I decided to make Blueberry Scones over the weekend. I used my Cranberry Orange Scones recipe as the base recipe, substituting dried cranberries with fresh blueberries and eliminating the orange glaze. I really loved the result — the plump and sweet blueberries bursting in every bite of the scones.


Ingredients:
nocoupons2 cups plus 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 cup sugar
1 tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoons kosher salt
zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
3/8 pound (1.5 stick) cold unsalted butter, diced
2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup cold heavy cream
1 cup fresh blueberries
1 egg beaten with 2 tablespoons water or milk, for egg wash
1/8 cup raw (turbinado sugar) for sprinkling

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
• In the bowl, mix 2 cups of flour, 1/8 cup sugar, the baking powder, salt and half of the zest.
• Add the cold butter and mix with a hand mixer until the butter is the size of peas.
• Combine the eggs and heavy cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture and mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy and sticky.
• Combine the blueberries, the rest of the zest and 1/8 cup of flour, add to the dough, and fold in until blended.
• Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and knead the dough 3/4-inch thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough.
• Roll the dough into a log and cut triangles of dough.
• Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper or silpat.
• Brush the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with raw sugar, and bake for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked.
• The scones will be firm to the touch.
• Allow the scones to cool for a couple minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Porgy was craving for some Peanut Butter Cookies so he forwarded me this recipe from his coworker. The cookies turned out good although the dough was pretty crumbly so it was hard to work with.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter at room temperature (I used the freshly ground peanut butter from Whole Foods)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup peanut butter chips (Didn't used any since I didn't have any)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy
• Add the sugars and beat until smooth
• Add the egg and mix well
• Add the milk and the vanilla extract
• In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt
• Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly
• Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar and cover, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion
• Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisss-cross pattern, but do not overly flatten cookies (I didn't not do much of this because the dough was pretty crumbly)
• Bake for 9 to 10 minutes for chewier texture
• Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely