An attempt to eat healthy

It’s been a while since I’ve baked anything.  Grateful for the mid-week public holiday, I was kinda desperate to get busy in the kitchen.  In an attempt to try and eat healthy, I thought of baking granola.  Been seeing loads of pictures by instagrammers and recipes on the www, so I was really tempted to try my hand at making some.

I eventually settled on using this recipe from E over at missus C’s reverie.  I figured that the recipe looked relatively simple and something I could manage.  Well, I was wrong….

Breakfast Granola
adapted from missus C’s reverie

Ingredients:

• 5 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• Handful of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Handful of sliced almonds (I used whole almonds)
• 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
• Handful of dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
• 1-2 tbsp light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C. Line an 18×13-inch baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together maple syrup, vegetable oil, brown sugar, and salt. Fold in rolled oats and nuts (except sliced almonds). Mix until the dry mixture is thoroughly coated.
3. Transfer mixture to prepared baking sheet. Spread evenly to form an even layer.
4. Bake for 45 minutes until mixture is golden brown in color. Stirring every 10-15 minutes. Add in sliced almonds and dried cranberries at the last 5 minutes of baking.
5. Let granola cool completely before storing in an airtight container for up to one month.

While the granola was slowly baking, my kitchen was filled with a lovely maple scent.  I was so excited thinking that ‘I did it! I’m going to make an awesome batch of home-made granola good enough to share with friends!’

Turned out I was wrong.  The nuts that I added into the mix?  Well, some of them got burnt along the baking process.  Despite this baking boo boo, the granola still tasted great (enjoyed with yogurt/ ice-cream or on its own as a snack).  So, I had the burnt nuts removed and kept the rest stored away.

I’m not going let this little mishap stop me.  I’m going to try to whip up another batch of these bites.  This time round, I’m going to keep stirring the granola during baking to prevent the nuts from burning and put the baking tray a little lower from direct hit.

Send some luck along my way, wont’ you?

And E, if you are reading this?  Maybe it really is time for you to send me a batch of your granola to try? ;p  Hehe…

A simple Feast with these easy recipes

Thought I better get round to posting some of these recipes of the dishes that we whipped out during our simple Christmas feast for we will definitely see most of these back on our dining table when entertaining at home.

The starter was these really delicious stuffed portobello mushrooms with chopped mushroom stems, prosciutto ham, onions, parsley, rosemary, thyme and since we didn’t have any bread left at home. The helper crushed some crackers and I threw them into the mix. Pan-fry the ingredients and then stuff them into the mushroom caps. Drizzle a little olive oil and pop them into the oven. After approximately 20 mins, these babies should be done.

Next, we always need a side of veggies to make our meal a little more wholesome. This is simple to put together. We got some pumpkin, broccoli and corn for the roast. All we did was to drizzle the olive oil liberally, add some salt and srigs of rosemary and thyme. Pop them into the oven for about 20 minutes. Remove broccoli and pumpkin from tray, pop the tray with the corn into the oven for about another 10-15 mins and it should be done.

Highlight of our meal has got to be this Truffle Butter Roast Chicken recipe that I got off from Lavishley. Simple yet extremely flavorful! This is definitely making a comeback at our parties!

Last but not the least, the Man’s favorite molten chocolate lava cake with salted caramel ice-cream that I got from Marks and Spencer.

Hope these simple recipes would inspire you to cook more for the coming year. It definitely has inspired us to come up with a New Year menu.

The purple butterflies cake project

If you have been following my misadventures on my recent cake decorating course that I took, you would have known how stressed out I have been over my final cake project. There were only 5 lessons that we had to take in this basic cake decorating course, but it was enough to ‘stress’ me and Germsy out. In between all the cake talk, I guess we bonded even more with a glass of wine in hand. Fun times indeed!

In order to ‘graduate’ from this course, we each had to assemble a two-tier cake and decorate it with fondant. We were told to select a design by the end of lesson 2 and this was the cake that I chose – a gorgeous Anna Sui cake adorned with black fluttering butterflies.

[Image taken from http://www.hannahgracecakes.co.uk

Looks mighty challenging huh? And it was! I was told by my teacher to bake 2 X 6-inch cakes and 2 X 8-inch cakes and have them stacked one on top of the other. I honestly thought I had a 8 inch cake pan at home but it turned out I baked 2 X 7-inch cakes instead. I only realised the error when I stacked the 2 different sized cakes together and they look abit odd. But I was simply too tired to whip up another batch of cake batter and begin the process. So I chose to live with the mistake.

A lot of prep work was needed in order to make this cake. Besides covering our 2 cakes with fondant, I had to make the fondant butterflies a couple of days before, make sure they harden and bring them into class for the final decoration.

I made a total of 20 big butterflies and 14 small ones. 10 odd or more butterflies were broken in the process. Total time taken kneading of fondant plus making of the butterflies: close to 3 hours.

After settling the fondant butterflies, the next step was to cover our chocolate cakes with the fondant of your choice. Since mine was a purple-based cake, I had to tint my fondant which took me 1 hour to tint 1kg of white fondant. This was really getting to be quite time-consuming. Thereafter, I had to transport my cakes to Germsy’s place to have my fondant rolled out and covered there. Thankfully, Germsy’s daughter was a whizz at rolling and covering the cakes with fondant. So the sweet gal helped us with all our cakes with us taking a supporting role. Total time taken to cover 6 cakes : approximately 2.5 hours. Of course it’s not all work and no play, the wonderful host poured out some drinks while we worked.

Covering the cake with fondant is truly no easy feat. You have to make sure that fondant is rolled out to the desired thickness before laying it on the cake and slowly covering the gaps without breaking the fragile sugar piece. Well, didn’t have much luck in that department for a part of my fondant cracked really badly while covering the cake. So in order to ‘rescue’ the cake, I cut out a piece of fondant and covered the cracked part. This became a joke in the class for my cake looked like it had a stamp over it. I guess that’s my signature then.

Okay, now to the very last part – assembling the cake.

At our last lesson, we were taught how to stack our cakes and making sure that it had the right support without collapsing.

Next, we were given about 2.5 hours to put the finishing touches and decorate our cake.

The mother-and-daughter team doing a far better job than me in their cake decorating.

This was me, initially, working on my cake.

Towards the end, the rest of the gals chipped in and helped add the sparkles to my black fondant butterflies, simply because I added way too much cornstarch and the white specks couldn’t be removed. Yikes! But I guess it was good fun!

And just like that we’ve ‘graduated’ from cake decorating course 1! Don’t you think the pals’ cakes are also very lovely? I absolutely adore Germsy’s white cake with neon pink bows! Classy and funky all rolled into one!

And here’s a shot of us gals with our teacher.

My Anna Sui Butterflies fondant cake – it ain’t pretty but I guess I’m really proud of the cake that I’ve put together.

Of course, there’s room for improvement and hopefully if I ever do get the chance to make one of these cakes again, I hope to do a much better job at it.

Till then, we will be eating loads of choc cake here at the loft!

This has certainly been one pretty ‘mammoth’ and fun project that I’m glad to have done with friends on my career break. Doing this project has also opened my eyes for I’ll never look at any fondant cake the same way again.

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Recipe: Molten Choc Cake

The Man, he’s not a desserts type of guy. But there is only ONE particular type of dessert that will win him over and that would be the Molten Chocolate Cake. Even if he is stuffed, he will always find room in his tummy for a good Molten Chocolate Cake! To him a GOOD Molten Chocolate Cake is the type when the gooey chocolate flows out when you cut the cake into half.

It’s been a while since I made him his fave dessert, so I decided that this will be the perfect ending for our stay-in dinner on a Saturday evening.

As I happily shared the pics of a rather successful Molten Choc Cake on twitter and Instagram, Crystal from Expat Bostanions asked for the recipe, so here I am now sharing it all with you all.

Molten Chocolate Cake
(Serves 2 – 4 depending on size of ramekins)

Ingredients:
- Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate: 56.5 g (or 2 ounce)
- Butter: 56.5g (or 2 ounce) plus a little more to grease ramekins [bring butter to room temperature]
- 1 egg
- Caster Sugar: 37.5g
- All-purpose flour: 20g

Method:
1) Pre-heat oven at 180 degrees Celsius.
2) In a double-boiler, melt the Semi-sweet Baking Chocolate. Once chocolate is melted, it will give off a shiny sheen. Remove bowl from heat and add in the butter. Mix well until butter melts fully and set aside mixture to cool.
3) In a medium mixing bowl, beat the egg and sugar until light and fluffy (for about 3 mins by electric mixer). Add in choc-butter mixture, all-purpose flour and mix till flour and choc-mix is well-incorporated into the batter.
3) Butter bottom and sides of ramekins and pour in batter until it’s 3/4 filled.
4) Bake in pre-heated oven for about 10 to 15 minutes. Shorter baking time if you like the inside to be goey and longer baking time if you prefer the inside to be a little harder.
5) Remove cake from ramekins.
6) Serve immediately with a little icing sugar dusted on top OR with a scoop of your fave ice-cream.

Enjoy!!

Bejewelled bites

Got busy in the kitchen again.  Not mine, but I hopped over to my cousin’s place one afternoon to teach her how to make macarons.  While I realised that it can be rather challenging to make macarons in Singapore given the high humidity that our tiny island has but I also picked up a couple of new things from my genius-of-a-cook cousin.

Thanks to my cousin, we were blessed with a little ‘beginner’s luck’ when I taught her to make her very first batch of macarons.  They actually had feet!!  She had just made some lemon curd with lavender so we used that as a filling.  For the shells, we went for a very basic shell in a pretty shade of Tiffany Blue.

Looks like I’m getting the groove back on baking in the kitchen.  Missing the peeps and my lil’ Style Princess from Geneva though, I know that they would love to have these.

Related articles

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Chasing those blues..

Whipped this batch of macarons for pals and realised they looked like blue treats for Smurfs instead of humans.  Kinda exotic but fun I guess and that put a smile on my face.

When friends saw these gems, they kinda squealed too.  Blue macarons?  Who makes blue macarons?  Well, me I guess.  Just wanted something fun in every bite.

Hazelnut Macarons with Black Truffle & White Chocolate Ganache
Makes about 14-16 filled bite-sized macarons

For Macaron Batter

• 1 egg white (preferably aged for 3 days) brought to room temperature
• 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar powder
• 38g icing sugar
• 36g powdered almonds
• 30g granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of gel-based blue colouring
• 1 tbsp powdered hazelnuts (for topping)

Method:

1. Line baking tray with 2 pieces of parchment paper.
2. Sift powdered sugar with the almond powder to ensure that there are no lumps.
3. In a large mixing bowl, add cream of tartar and beat the egg white until they begin to foam. At this stage, add granulated sugar gradually.  Continue beating until very stiff and firm. When you invert the bowl, the egg white batter has to stay put. That’s the time you know when you should stop.  I decided to play it safe and whisked the egg white batter for about 5 minutes before stiff peaks were formed.  Add colouring.  Continue to beat the egg whites on high for another 1-2 minutes.
4. Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in 3 batches, into the beaten egg whites with a flexible rubber spatula (ideally).  Stop folding when the mixture is smooth and there are no streaks of egg white.  Test the consistency from time to time by lifting a dollop of macaron paste and dropping it into the mixing bowl. If the macaron paste does not settle smoothly after 30 seconds, continue folding the paste. If the macaron paste smooths out too quickly, you’ve gone too far. [Note: Sometimes I use up to about 40 strokes in order to achieve this consistency.]
5. Scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
6. Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch circles, evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
7. Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons and to remove the air-bubbles in the macarons.
8. Leave the macarons out in the open for at least 30 minutes to an hour. This step is important to allow the top of the macaron shell to dry up so that you get a smooth surface for the macarons.  You will know when to pop the macarons into the oven when you touch the macarons and the batter does not stick to your fingers. Be careful not to leave them out too much for it will give you crunchy macarons and you don’t want that. This step is important and if you skip it, your macarons might flatten .  While waiting, preheat oven to 140 degrees C.
9. Bake for 15 mins and let cool completely before removing from baking sheet.

For Black Truffle & White Chocolate Ganache:

• 70g White chocolate
• 40ml double cream
• 1/3 teaspoon salt
• 1.5 teaspoon chopped black truffles (I used dried black truffles)

1. Hydrate dried black truffles by placing them in the cream overnight.
2. Heat the cream in a small saucepan until just boiling.
3. Pour the cream over the white chocolate and leave to stand for two minutes. This will give the chocolate time to soften.
4. Stir the ganache until smooth. If the white chocolate has not yet melted then place the bowl in the microwave and heat for 30 seconds. Remove and stir until smooth.
5. Leave the white chocolate ganache to cool until it reaches the desired consistency.
6. Refrigerate ganache till it sets to a pipe-able state and fill/spoon over the cooled macaron shells.

Assembling macarons:

1. Spread the black truffle white chocolate ganache on the macaron shell.
2. Sandwich and you are done!

It’s recommended that you let the flavours sit inside the macaron for 1 day before having them.

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I’ve been busy in the kitchen… Click here to check out my baking adventures in Geneva.

Just the way I like it..

Macarons.  They are often said to be too sweet.  But truth be told, we’ve tasted those heavenly macarons from Pierre Hermé and Luxemburgerli (macarons) from Sprüngli and the verdict?  I say a match made in heaven with flavours from the filling and the shell complimenting one another and tantilizing the taste-buds further.

When I started making macarons, I was worried that it would turn out all too sweet.  But along my macaron journey and under the guidance of many other macaron- bloggers out there (namely R from The Pleasure Monger), I started experimenting with different flavours for the macaron shells and the fillings.  R once told me that you can’t really reduce the quantity of the sugar for the macaron shells for it needs the exact amount of sugar for the macaron shells to be firm but you can control the amount of sugar you put in for the filling.  Sound advice from the Macaron guru herself. 

My macaron journey started some 9 months ago when we moved to Geneva.  I had no strong desire to learn French but didn’t know how to fill my days so I started to read up on how to make macarons.  After days of reading, it kinda felt like I was studying for a big macaron exam.  I finally summoned enough ‘courage’ to attempt baking macarons in the kitchen.  It took up half my day baking these tiny ones.  As the final product emerged and popped off almost perfectly from the baking sheet, I was over-joyed and the macaron madness began.  Haven’t looked back since I had friends plus the Style Princess who were only all to happy to taste what I whipped up.

As I close this chapter of my macron adventures in Geneva, I thought I’ll share one of my favourite macaron combo – Popcorn Macarons with Salted Caramel Buttercream.  This combo has been really special to me and with every bite, a blend of sweet and salty flavours emerge to tease the taste-buds further.  This is how I really enjoy eating macarons, so even when choosing which flavours to buy, the sea-salt caramel flavour would always be my top choice.

Also, I’m going to give it another go and participate in this month’s challenge – ‘Macaron Day‘ over at MacTweets.  I don’t know if I will start picking up the electric whisk to make more macarons when we return back to Singapore.  But if you are willing to taste what I have to bake, I’ll be happy to start baking again. 

If you’ve been following my macaron adventures, thanks very much for reading.  And if you’ve tried any of my recipes, a big thank you to you too! I hope you found success in making these macarons.  Following one of the suggestions by Vivian to post a step-by-step guide on how to make macarons, I forgot and only managed to take one picture during the macaron baking process.  But the next time I bake macarons, I’ll remember to document the process.

Salted Buttered Popcorn Macarons with Salted Caramel
Makes about 10 filled bite-sized macarons

For Macaron Batter

• 1 egg white (preferably aged for 3 days) brought to room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon of Cream of Tartar
• 38g icing sugar
• 36g powdered almonds
• 30g granulated sugar
• Crushed salted buttered popcorn

Method:

1. Line baking tray with 2 pieces of parchment paper.
2. Sift powdered sugar with the almond powder to ensure that there are no lumps
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg white until they begin to foam. At this stage, add the cream of tartar and the granulated sugar gradually. Continue beating until very stiff and firm. When you invert the bowl, the egg white batter has to stay put. That’s the time you know when you should stop. I decided to play it safe and whisked the egg white batter for about 5 minutes before stiff peaks were formed.
4. Carefully fold the dry ingredients, in 3 batches, into the beaten egg whites with a flexible rubber spatula (ideally). Stop folding when the mixture is smooth and there are no streaks of egg white. I used about 40 strokes to incorporate the dry mixture into the egg whites. Scrape the batter into the pastry bag (standing the bag in a tall glass helps if you’re alone).
5. Pipe the batter on the parchment-lined baking sheets in 1-inch circles, evenly spaced one-inch (3 cm) apart.
6. Rap the baking sheet a few times firmly on the counter top to flatten the macarons and to remove the air-bubbles in the macarons.
7. Sprinkle on top of macarons crushed popcorn.
8. Leave the macarons out in the open for at least 30 minutes to an hour. This step is important to allow the top of the macaron shell to dry up so that you get a smooth surface for the macarons. You will know when to pop the macarons into the oven when you touch the macarons and the batter does not stick to your fingers. Be careful not to leave them out too much for it will give you crunchy macarons and you don’t want that. This step is important and if you skip it, your macarons might flatten . While waiting, preheat oven to 140 degrees C.
9. Bake for 15 mins and let cool completely before removing from baking sheet.

To make Salted Caramel Buttercream:

Whisk 3 tbsp of butter (room temperature) for about 1 – 2 minutes until the butter becomes light and fluffy.  Add 2 tbsp of heavy cream and whisk further for 1 minute. Add 2 tbsp of icing sugar and continue until they are thoroughly mixed. Lastly, add approximately 2 tbsp of salted caramel, mix thoroughly.

Assembling macarons:

Simply spoon Salted Caramel Buttercream on the macaron shell. Sandwich and you are done!

It’s recommended that you let the flavours sit inside the macaron for 1 day before having them.

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I’ve been busy in the kitchen… Click here to check out my baking adventures in Geneva.