Thursday, October 6, 2011

Chocolate pudding




Thanks my dear friend Meiling for this secret receipe!

Ingredients :
100g 60% - 85% dark chocolate button
100g Unsalted butter (room temperature)
2pcs Egg yolks
2pcs Eggs
50g Sugar (depends on personal flavor)
50g Cake flour (sifted)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven at 180
2. Grease 6 muffin tins
3. Beat egg yolks, eggs and sugar by mixerfor 7 mins
4. Melt butter and chocolate button in another bowl, mix well
5. Fold eggs into chocolate mixture in step 4 , mix well
6. Fold sifted cake flour into the above mixture, mix well
7. Fill 6 muffin tins with well prepared chocolate mixture (70% full)
8. Insert a chocolate button in the middle of mixture in each tin
9. Keep in fridge for 15 mins
10. Bake in the preheated oven at 180 for about 9 mins

While serve, sift icing sugar on top
Eat with ice cream, grapes, strawberry or other fruit
Remember, eat it when it's still warm.

Cream Cheese Filled Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
425g cooked pumpkin
100g cream cheese
sunflower seeds, as garnish (optional)

Instructions

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
Stir the flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl.
Beat the brown sugar and the eggs together with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth.
Add all the vegetable oil and the pumpkin; continue beating until integrated.
Pour the flour mixture into the egg mixture and beat until just incorporated.
Fill the prepared muffin cups about half-full with the batter.
Spoon about 1 teaspoon cream cheese into the center of each muffin cup and poke it down into the middle of the batter with a finger. Sprinkle the sunflower seeds over each muffin.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 25 minutes.
Let cool in pan 5 minutes and remove to a rack to cool completely.
Be extra careful; the cream cheese stays hot for a while!

Strawberry Mousse


Ingredients

12g unflavored gelatin + 50g cool water
150g strawberries purée
50g milk
200g whipped cream
50g powdered sugar
45g Strawberry flavor jelly powder + 1 tsp gelatin 180g water

Method

1 Sprinkle the gelatin powder over the 50g cool water and let sit for 5 minutes.

2 Using an electric mixer, whip 200g whipped cream and 50g powdered sugar. Beat on medium-high speed until medium peaks form.

3. Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold the strawberries purée and milk into the mixture.

4. Stir the gelatin mixture into the cream and strawberries mixture. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

After 1 hour

5. Mix water with Strawberry flavor jelly powder and gelatin powder

6. Add a few slices of strawberries on top of the mosse

7. Pour in jelly mixture

8. Keep in refrigerator for several hours, or even over night (cover with plastic wrap).

Yield: Serves 6-8.

Tiramisu Cupcakes



The classic Italian dessert made into individual cupcakes.

Ingredients

For the cake
1 1/4 cups cake flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup milk
1 vanilla bean pod, or 1 tsp vanilla essence
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 large eggs + 3 egg yolks, at room temp
1 cup sugar

For the coffee-marsala syrup
3/8 cup espresso (or strongly brewed coffee)
1 oz sweet Marsala (I used port)
1/4 cup sugar

For the frosting
1 cup heavy cream
8oz mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup powdered sugar
Unsweetened cocoa powder, for dusting

Preheat oven to 325. Line two muffin pans with paper liners (18 total).
Use nonstick spray or butter to grease the tops of the muffin pan.
Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
Heat in 15 second intervals until butter is melted, add milk, vanilla bean pod halves and seeds
Whisk the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar on high speed.
Whisk mixture until pale, fluffy and thick enough to hold a ribbon on the surface for several seconds when the whisk is lifted.

Remove vanilla pods from the bowl of milk and discard.
Fold in the flour mixture and slowly add the milk mixture, mixing until just combined.
Fill muffin tins 3/4 full.
Bake 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned and a skewer comes out clean.
Let sit in pan until just warm to the touch.
Using a knife, poke 4-5 holes in each cupcake

To make the coffee-Marsala syrup:
Mix coffee, sugar, and Marsala until the sugar has dissolved.
Using a silicon pastry brush, brush the tops of the cupcakes, letting the first round soak in completely before making another pass.
Repeat until all of the syrup has been used.

To Make the mascarpone frosting:
Whisk the cream on high until stiff peaks just form.
Add the mascarpone, powdered sugar, and vanilla and whisk on medium-high for 1-2 minutes.
Frost cupcakes when they have completely cooled.
Garnish with a dusting of cocoa powdered and coffee beans.

Notes
Yields: 18 cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Focaccia



Traditional Italian hearth bread.

200ml water
75 ml olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
450g strong flour
2 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast
Olive oil to glaze


  1. Pour the water and olive oil into the bread maker bucket 
  2. Add sugar and salt
  3. Add sifted flour and sprinkle over the yeast
  4. Fit the bucket in the brad maker and set to dough Programme
  5. Once complete, turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth
  6. Roll the dough, cut it with ring shape mold
  7. Place on oiled baking sheet 
  8. Cover with a clean tea towel 
  9. Leave to prove until double in size
  10. Using your fingertips, dimple the top of the dough tobgive the distinctive focaccia appearance.




Monday, October 3, 2011

Yogurt Cupcake




Ingredients:

Milk 30ml
Yogurt 70g
Egg 1 pcs
Olive oil 80g

Cake flour 130g
Sugar 70g
Baking powder 4 g

Sift cake flour and baking powder.
Separate egg white
Whisk egg white for 5 mins high speed, add sugar and whisk for another 1 mins
Add egg yolk, yogurt, milk and olive oil, mix well.
Add dry ingredients to wet one, stir until smooth.

Fill each paper liner with batter 3/4 full.
Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool completely.

Makes about half dozen 4cm cupcakes.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Lady finger and Charlotte Russe




Adapted from http://cilantropist.blogspot.com/2010/11/homemade-ladyfingers-and-pomegranate.html

Homemade Ladyfingers
3 eggs, separated
6 tbsp sugar
3/4 cup cake flour
about 1/2 cup powdered sugar

  1. Whisk the egg whites on high speed until they form soft peaks. (Use very clean bowl, no water, no egg yolk)
  2. Add sugar gradually, one tablespoon at a time, and continue beating until the whites hold stiff glossy peaks.
  3. Lightly beat the egg yolks. Gently fold the yolks into the whites. (not to deflate the batter)

When the yolks are completely incorporated, the batter will be fluffy and a pale golden yellow color.

  1. Sift the cake flour to the batter all at once.
  2. Carefully fold the mixture together once more,

The batter will still be slightly lumpy and will have ‘pockets’ of air.

Pipe out the ladyfingers:

  1. Prepare a parchment lined baking sheet
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  3. Transfer the batter to a pastry bag
  4. Pipe out ladyfingers that are ¾ inch wide and any length you like.

The ladyfingers can be piped into any shape; to make the charlotte dessert, pipe out at least one ladyfinger disc that is just about ½ inch smaller than the diameter of your charlotte mold.


  1. Sift a light layer of confectioners sugar over the ladyfingers.
  2. Wait 10 minutes, then sift the confectioners sugar a second time;
  3. Wait another 5 minutes, and then put the ladyfingers into the oven and bake for 15 minutes.

After baking, cool the ladyfingers on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, then move to the cooling rack to cool completely.

Blueberry Charlotte
Ladyfingers to fit your mold of choice: using recipe above, make enough traditional ladyfingers to go around the ring of your mold, and make at least one disc using my instructions above.

  1. Whipped Cream, approximately 1 1/2 cups depending on your charlotte size
  2. Blueberry for the topping

Start out by preparing your charlotte mold.  fitted the inside with parchment paper.

Next take your ladyfinger disc and place it inside the ring mold, allowing space around the outside to fit the additional ladyfingers.

Take the traditional ladyfingers, and align them so the tops are even; using a sharp knife, cut off the bottoms so that they one flat edge and all the ladyfingers are the same height.

One at a time, add the ladyfingers into the mold, the cut edge towards the bottom, until they completely form a border around the disc at the bottom.

Mousse filling

  1. combine 1 cup of whipped cream with blueberry curd
  2. Spoon this into the center of the charlotte mold, and fill almost completely. (you can fill halfway, and add another ladyfinger disc, or a layer of curd alone, and then fill the remainder with mousse.)
  3. Put the charlotte into the refrigerator for at least 3-4 hours to let the mousse set.

Before serve, add the remaining whipped cream to the top of the charlotte, and smooth out. Top the whipped cream with blackberries.