Saturday, December 31, 2011

Parmigiana di melanzane!


A traditional Italian dish Melanzane with Edamame on the side! A yummy two dishes that oddly go very well together for a vegetarian light dinner! 

Love Cooking  

Chocolate Cinnamon Cookies


These are the amazing Chocolate Cinnamon cookies two flavors that love each other! Crunchy and soft everything is perfect in these lovely cookies! I must admit the first batch I switch the yolks with white of the eggs and it turned out so different still yummy though, it was a silly mistake but I really liked experimenting with how different effect each element does to the dough fantastic science :)

Love Bakin

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Chocolate & Blueberry ... Make Wonders!


This is another delicious experience, I didn't quite understand the chocolate syrup on top, it made the muffins a bit soggy, still taste good! I am not sure if I applied them in the wrong way! But it's ok I guess it still my first time doing muffins!
  
Chocolate Blueberry Muffins
Paper liners not only make for easier washing up, but keep the muffins fresher.
Makes 12

Ingredients

115 g / 4 oz/ 1/2 cup butter
30 g / 1 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted 
90 g /3 oz  unsweetened chocolate chopped
200 g /7 oz / 1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
259ml/80 fl oz/ 1 cup buttermilk
10 ml/ 2 tsp vanilla essence
285 g / 10 oz/ 2 cups plain flour
5 ml/ 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
170 g / 6 oz cup fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed


Preheat oven to 190C/375F/ Gas 5  1
In medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and chocolate until smooth, stirring frequently. Remove from heat to cool slightly.

Stir in the sugar, egg, buttermilk and vanilla essence. Gently fold in the flour, bicarbonate of soda until just blended. (Do not overblend: the mixture may be lumpy with some unblended flour.) Fold in the berries.

Spoon batter into a greased or paper-lined 6 cm / 2 1/2in bun tray, filling to the top> Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out with just few crumbs attached. Remove muffins in their paper liners to wire rack immediately (if left in the tin they will go soggy). Drizzle with the melted chocolate and serve warm or cool. 

 Love Bakin

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Orange Delight!


I like it when things come out good! From start to finish this cake is an absolute delicious experience! The fine aroma of fruits while baking this cake is extremely tantalizing! The taste is teasing to the senses, sweet and sour, moist and fluffy... It's a complete "YummmY" experience.

Orange Syrup Cake Recipe:

1 Orange
170g Butter at Room Temperature
140g Caster Sugar
3 eggs
140g Self Raising Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
4 Tablespoon Ground Almond

Syrup:
Finely Grated Zest and Juice of 1 Orange
55g Caster Sugar

Preheat Oven for 190C, Grease round cake pan and line the bottom with greaseproof paper.
Finely grate the organs and set aside, Cut the peel and white pith from the orange, then roughly chop the flesh, removing all seeds Blend the flesh in the food processor, until smooth and set aside.
Beat together butter and sugar until pale and creaming, then beet in the eggs one at a time. Stir in orange Puree and grated zest, then sift the flower and baking social over the bowl and fold in. Then Fold in ground Almond. Pour mixture in the cake pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until risen and golden and the inserted skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.
Syrup: Put the Orange Juice and zest in a small pan with the sugar, warm gently stirring until sugar dissolves, Bring to vigorous boil then remove from the heat, Pour the syrup over the warm cake and leave to stand for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Tip: I served the cake with the syrup aside and each poured some of the syrup on their piece.
 Love Bakin

Friday, December 23, 2011

5 Steps To Perfect Baking!


(Image by Sicha Pongjivanich)

I am a new baker and I've been trying to learn how to perfect my baking! I learned 5 new things from experience and reading which I believe will help me a lot.

  1. Know your oven type:
    1. Convection ovens speed the cooking process, need less baking time cause they have a fan inside that distributes more heated air.
    2. Conventional ovens traditional ovens with no fan.

  2. Creating the Mixture: Creaming methods “in this methods butter is mixed with sugar to form a mixture, then eggs are added one at a time, then you add the dry ingredients”. The flour must be added to the “sugar/butter/eggs” mixture first then liquid, it’s important to stir in flour as little as possible while combining ingredients. By doing that you will prevent gluten developed which will give you a softer cake.
  3. Do not rush creaming process; you need to ensure natural air pockets are produced during the mixing process. The air pockets cause the cake to naturally rise. So when mixing the dry ingredients does it slowly in batches.
  4. Beating the eggs in early in the mixture allows even more air pockets to be produced.
  5. Cake cracks caused by too much oven heat, the cake rises too quickly, perfecting the temperature is important. (Know your oven point number [1])
Love Baking

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Opssss! I burnt my heart!!!



Still trying to figure out what happened but I bakes it for 30 minutes and it got burnt! I am in the process of making another one will post picture once it's done! I can't understand why a recipe says bake for 1hour on 180C and it burns after sitting 30 minutes in the oven!!! I think every oven is different but 30 minutes difference is way too much!



I tried again, lowered the oven's temperature to 160C, it baked for 30 minutes till perfect, I loved this recipe the cake comes out soft, crunchy top and delicious flavor.



Love Baking

Monday, December 19, 2011

Chocolate Chips Cookies!


I baked today 44 chocolate chip cookies, they are so delicious I just adore making biscuits...

Love Baking

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Meet My Ginger Cookies!


Meet the ginger cookies I made, with the help of my sister and my friend (Who is a professional Chef) I successfully baked 22 cookies.

decorating them was the fun part! This is an Arabic Dressed Ginger Bread Boy!! :) it's really nice to use your creativity to make unique designs! These are the things you'll remember!

Again I insist that the most important thing is oven baking timing! The cookies too exact 8 minutes!

Recipe Taken from " Joy of Baking "
Love Baking


Friday, December 16, 2011

Awesome Chocolate Cake




I over baked this one, but it turned out good! for next time I will only put it on oven for 30 minutes although the book says and hour!! Oven is the tricky thing in baking, I still have lots to figure out!

What made this cake is the icing! it's also tricky the making and applying of it! Anyhow all turned out perfect chocolate evening :)...

Love Baking



Spinach Pinwheels with a Twist!


Yup! these are spinach pinwheels, but with an add on, my sister suggested we adding dried tomatoes and feta cheese which ended up to be mouth-watering experience!!! It's always nice to have company in the kitchen! Thanks "D" it was your idea after all xx.

Oh I admit the spreading of the filling was not all that perfect, add all the filling on one edge is not the best way, but it's a learning experiences. It's better to spread the filling all over the pastry evenly then roll it.

This is for you Ala':

Ingredients:

250g Frozen Spinach Thawed
100g Feta Cheese Crumbled
1\2 Cup Finely grated Parmesan Cheese
2 Sheets Puff Pastry
1 Egg

Preheat oven to 220C Fan forced
Oil tray and line with baking paper
Squeeze excess moisture from Spinach, chop spinach coarsely (The one I bring is already chopped) pat it dry with kitchen paper
Sprinkle spinach and combined cheeses over the pastry sheets roll tightly to enclose filling.
Cut each roll into 12 slices
Place wheels cute-side up on tray/s brush with little egg. Bake about 15 minutes or until browned lightly.

Love Baking


Thursday, December 15, 2011

My Famous Chocolate Crisps!



My Famous chocolate crisps!! a yummy crunching chocolaty experience!

Love Baking

Family Chocolate Cake!

A Successful experiences indeed! The Family Chocolate Cake was extremely successful, I hosted a tea afternoon for my closest friends, who objected over adding topping cream on the cake, so I suggesed we put the cream aside for those who can afford to eat, everyone ended eating.

This cake was very special it was fluffy moist and heavenly delicious!

As I am blogging I am baking another chocolate experience, "The Chocolate Peppermint Cake" will post pics soon.

Love Baking

My Baking Mistake #1!!




I started off my baking marathon 2 weeks ago, I baked nice things and whoever tasted my cakes loved them. I must admit I bake good but that doesn't mean I didn't do mistake, the mistake I did in this recipe is I added the chocolate layer and candy on the dough before baking where I should have done it the other way round! I promise myself I will not do this mistake again! Baking is a really sensitive task you must be extremely alert when you are baking!!

Love Baking
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