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Apple Cinnamon Souffle with the perfect Hazelnut cookie

dessertsyum — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 13:35:09 +0800

Most of the times, I don't crave for the chewy or chocolatey cookies. I just want a buttery one that is full of flavour. I bookmarked the hazelnut cookie recipe for months already and had been super excited to try it out. They look perfectly delicious and even in the picture alone, I feel like I can smell nicely roasted hazelnuts. Plus I sprinkled salt over it before baking. The slightly sweet, fragrant and salted taste makes the hazelnut cookie super awesome!!

The Apple and cinnamon souffle on the other hand has a very contrasting texture. It is very light and airy, soft yet has a slightly crisp, browned surface. I under-baked it a little but seriously, it was fantastic. I don't have a food processor at home so I ended up spending a lot of time trying to mash the diced apples. In the end, the souffle had pulp bits of apple which actually made the souffle even better! It's a recipe I tested out on my own using a basic apple puree folded into the meringue.

They rose very beautifully in the oven but kinda collapsed while I was taking the photos. Oh well..

Following after this post, I'd be baking pretty often to clear as much of my ingredients as possible, the more expensive ones of course.

If you remember, I mentioned that I'd be studying pastry arts this year in my earlier post. My US student visa application had been approved 2 weeks ago and it'll be less than a month before I fly over to New York.

Honestly, there're still plenty of uncertainties about my decision.. When people asked me if I'm happy, I seriously don't know the answer either. Perhaps not. There are many issues I'm concerned with and the courage I personally have simply feels insufficient.

Are there any NY-ers reading this? Do you know of any studio or bedrooms for rent in Manhattan/Broadway/Brooklyn? Please email me at silverlotus82@yahoo.com.sg if you do :) Thank you in advance!!

I'm nervous about how well I can adapt to the culture and environment over there, but there's a chinese saying that says every beginning is always tough. I'm still looking on the bright side that after my first month in NY, everything will be better. I'll be getting used to school, and going home after that to bake! I'd go to their markets and be very fascinated by their local produce. I'll buy some rhubarb (read my blog line) and make something sweet out of it.

I hope this is how things will turn out eventually. I hope!

My course will last for 6 months and I'm assuring myself that I'll be back home in no time. Time really flies, and for all I know, I might just hate to leave NY 6 months later.

for the recipe ...

Pierre Herme Cocoa & Matcha Macarons filled with White Chocolate ganache

dessertsyum — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:15:26 +0800

It's been a long day and I'm super glad to say my battle with these petit yet challenging french cookies is finally over! Phew..

Needless to say, macarons are one of those cookies that every baker'd want to master. I had my share of failures (many, many of them)!

Feetless macarons, over-mixed macarons, cracked macarons, and comes the most painful experience for me: beautiful macarons that sticked to the parchment paper (!!)

True enough, food bloggers say we pray for good weathers to make these because macarons are so sensitive to moisture in the air. To make macarons, I'd think you really need patience & sufficient sleep.

Furthermore, what makes baking macarons extra challenging here in my home is that (firstly) Singapore is a very humid country. There's plenty of sunlight and rain throughout the year making the air damper than other regions in the west. Adding on to it, the location of my house is pretty much surrounded by trees and vegetation. It is no surprise to see our car parked outside the house covered with dew every morning!

After a recent attempt that gave poor results again, I felt that there was something I really didn't know about macarons well enough - something that might have to do with the local climate.....? I decided to give it another try.

So one week ago, I kept a bowl of egg whites in the fridge. I was ready to wait for them to age for 7 days. For those who don't know yet, aging egg whites remove moisture from it, make it more acidic.

I emailed Aran of Cannelle et Vanille for help - yes, she is the very awesome and gorgeous lady we know in the BIG family of food bloggers =)

I did exactly as she had advised. I spread out my icing sugar and ground almond on a tray and left it in my oven with the lights on (heat off) for a few hours - just to ensure that my ingredients does not accumulate moisture contained in the air too. I also decided to make macarons using the italian meringue method as Aran had told me that the cooked sugar does allow moisture in the egg whites to evaporate.

I wouldn't say my macarons are very successful because eventually, I still find that experience is very important where the time taken for baking is concerned. This is especially so if you do not have the same size of macarons piped for different batches (which is what I like to do, piping big circles on one tray and small circles on another. They are cuter right!) Plus I feel that my macarons' feets are not perfect.

Anyhow, I'd like to thank Aran of Canelle et Vanille again for her help! I'll definitely make macarons again because they are so presentable and delicious! Most of all, the flavours are pretty flexible. I might try coffee or rose macarons on my next attempt! :)

for the recipe...

Flower Pot IceCream Cake with (rose-flavoured) Flower Sugar cookie. They look, taste, and smell like flowers!

dessertsyum — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:50:55 +0800

It's actually a cross between The Pioneer Woman's Flower Pot Dessert and Domestic Goddess's Flower Cookie Cupcake.

Very pretty and cute yup! I made them for my good friend's sister birthday! His sister, D, is turning 12 tomorrow so I thought of making these very adorable 'birthday' cake. It has icecream, oreo crumbs and a sweet sugar cookie. I hope she likes it!

The entire process was quite fast and easy. I like the sugar cookie recipe I used (adapted from Sweet Melissa Sunday's bakers!) I added more sugar since they reviewed the recipe to be a little bland. I also used rose extract instead of vanilla to the cookie dough so that they not only look but also taste and smell like flowers.

I filled the pots strawberry icecream and pink icing for the cookie based on her favourite flavour and colour :) Happy Birthday to D in advance!!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie. This is how awesomeness is spelled.

dessertsyum — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:21:06 +0800

That's The Cookbook Chronicles' Chocolate Chip Cookie for you :) Indeed a perfect cookie created by Lorna!

To be honest, I've never made a cookie with the cookie dough looking promising. I'd think that the combination of various sugar played an important role in producing such a wonderful result and giving the nice brown surface! The cookie is soft, chewy and really crisp on the edges.

This is a very good recipe and I particularly like the little sprinkle of salt over the cookies before baking! Although I'm not really a sweet-and-chewy cookie kinda person, (I prefer those bland biscuits like Petit Beurre!) this chocolate chip cookie sure made my day.

Furthermore there's just this craze over Subway Cookies in Singapore LOL. I honestly think these are even better so I'll be sharing them with my aunty and cousin later! :D

If you don't have dark brown sugar, you can make them using 1 cup granulated sugar + 1/4 cup molasses.

The only chewy cookie recipe you'll ever need. I bet with you on my spatula! (:

{It's my second post using my new Macro lens. I'm still trying to get used to it =\ I don't know is it the change of lens or the sunlight, my pictures are pretty 'orange-y' today T_T}

Petit Beurre - Finding my way back to childhood :)

dessertsyum — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:18:55 +0800

Ever since work started for me, I find myself leading a quieter but (probably) better lifestyle. Working honestly isn't tiring, but oddly, there's this part of me feeling 'mentally-tired' to go out. I'm too tired to catch a movie, too tired to meet my friends, and too tired to leave my home (to the extent that I've been cooking instant noodles for lunch). It's a first kind of experience..

True enough, the long hours of standing was never an issue for me, it's the stress I put on myself that made me mentally-drained. I fear acts of carelessness, making blunders and most of all, doing the things that I've done before wrongly.

It's been a few weeks at the restaurant, so this makes me feel that underperforming is not accepted anymore. Plus when the service time gets crazy, when all the dessert orders 'fire' together, when the two timers next to the oven start counting, or sometimes when the head chef walks over, the competition between time and me (us) unknowingly makes me stress.

That's life out there. Being in school rarely give me such reflections, but I have to say I really treasure this a lot.

In fact it's not something I notice until now, as I write this. Because all of a sudden, I realise I stopped catching up with my friends as frequently, going for movies once a week..... all I want to do after/before work is bake.

It was the same for Saturday too... I woke up a few times in the morning, convincing myself to sleep a little longer until I finally gave up. It was 9.30am. I wanted to bake biscuits, by that I do not mean Irish Buttermilk Scones (although I wouldn't mind too ^^). I want to make my childhood biscuits, something that can bring me away :)

I took quite a long time finding the recipe because I only knew them as "biscuits" at home. Their actual name is "Petit Beurre" which means little butter in French. I'd still prefer to call them biscuits though. It sounds so simple, child-like and its afterall what I grew up calling them! I work on the dough immediately, roll them, chill them, cut them and kept it away into the freezer.

I baked them this morning and tray after tray of biscuits that went into the oven looked promising. When the first batch finally cool down, I took my first bite excitedly (and anxiously).

It was really the biscuit I was looking for. The biscuit I used to eat every afternoon after kindergarten and dipping them into a cup of hot Milo. It sure brings back a lot of fond memories =)Although many things have changed over the years, I still have to say that I went through a really happy childhood. It was simple, playing cookery, hide&seek, and eating Ribena Ice-pops with my brothers!

On a pretty random note, my brother was actually asking me

"why are you taking pictures of something not even made by you"

Omg, I felt super flattered. The biscuits look identical so my brother thought I bought them LOL! :D

I'm providing step-by-step pictures of my entire baking process, I truly hope that you'll bake it someday and find your childhood happiness again too =))

Matcha Almond Biscotti & 2 baking tips!

dessertsyum — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 12:46:31 +0800

I've never thought that one day I'd have the enthusiasm to bake biscotti. The bakery I bought my first biscotti from had baked them too hard and dry. It gave me an entirely wrong impression of how biscotti should taste like!

But here in the restaurant I'm working at, we serve almond biscotti with tea & coffee after the meals are served. The biscotti are really beautiful, almost perfect with the green pistachios and cut into very very thin pieces. Without a close observation, I might even assume that all biscotti are exactly identical. Long, thin and narrow.

They were really inspiring, and since these biscotti are usually pre-baked, I've not been lucky enough to witness the process. (soon I hope!) I decided to try at home then. My first attempt failed and I tried again last night.

These green tea biscotti are extremely fragrant. The sugar balances off the slight bitter taste of matcha and I love the texture, nicely crunchy but not hard to bite. I also like this recipe as it does not contains butter. Biscotti baked using butter turn stale faster and usually taste better only on the day they are made. They are great to go along with coffee&tea too!

I would think that this batch is way better and from my mistakes, I've baking tips that might help you on your first attempt at biscotti.

1) I reckon you've heard of "it's important to know your oven" a thousand times. I assume that all biscotti recipes will tell you to pre-bake the biscotti dough at 350degreeF. However, if your oven is usually hotter, you must lower the temperature. What happened to my first batch of biscotti was that the side have become too dry and hard when the center are just ready to be cut. This will cause the 'head and tail' of your long biscotti to crack when you cut it to bake the second time.

2) The second thing to take note is that if your recipe yields a large amount of biscotti dough, you must divide them into half before rolling them into log shapes. If the entire dough are baked together as one, the center will still be soft and wet after the first baking period. This causes the dough to clump and REALLY stick together when you cut them. There will not be holes in the biscotti after baking them the second time, making them ugly! (but still delicious... HAHA)

3) Try to cut your biscotti or equal thinness as much as possible so that when you bake them, some do not become incredibly hard while others are just right.

Yes. So you hear the bakers telling you biscotti are the easiest thing to make; but not really. I still think it involves a lot of practical experience before you can do it right and beautiful! It's currently my favourite cookie and I am so sure I will make it again, another flavour though! :)

The Farewell Cookie Box

dessertsyum — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:07:33 +0800

Hello everyone!

Sorry I've abandoned my blog for more than 3weeks. I guess that's what most food bloggers'd have experienced because it really isn't easy to maintain a food blog! From the baking to the photography to the editing of pics to the posting...... Yeah, you know what I mean!

For me, it's not an issue about my passion for baking But, the lack of diligence to carry my DSLR again! In fact, I've baked S'mores, Chocolate Cherry Pie, Peanut Butter Tart, Chocolate Souffle and Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake over the past few weeks! Oh and S'mores did live up to their name, I baked them TWICE because they were that good :D

Milk Chocolate Chunk Cookies

dessertsyum — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:15:15 +0800

Adapted from Martha Stewart's Chocolate Chunk Cookies
(I prefer baking in grams, and I decreased the amount of sugar because I used milk chocolates instead of semisweet chocolates)

click for recipe ....

Daring Bakers Challenge: Happiest Gingerbread House

dessertsyum — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 23:33:29 +0800

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

Tomorrow will be Christmas Day! Merry X'mas to all the bakers and foodies! ^o^ I believe most of you are in the festive mood of this special occasion! For me, though, I might admit Christmas day was only considered another 'date' in my childhood. My family never celebrated it and I grew up knowing Santa Claus does not exist. But maybe because I don't have much impression or any opinions towards Christmas, I actually don't feel that 'I have missed out a damn lot of things' either! Hey, I suspect I haven't even eaten a roasted/baked turkey before. LOL.

Until I celebrated my first Christmas Countdown with my basketball teammates (I was already 14 by the way), I realised that Christmas is a beautiful and extremely lively festival. (a bit slow right) That was certainly a wonderful experience for me but if you ask me, I think I'd still prefer to avoid every area that is heavy in human-traffic. Haha. I believe I am somebody who treasure peace a lot!

Staying at home to bake or just drinking under the tree with my small group of buddies suit me more :) We can still have our christmas countdown happily! You know, the extent of my displeasure for noise includes the noise sound of my mixer at speed 10! That is also why I decided that my husband-to-be should not be over-ly talkative....! LOL

Chocolate Chip Cookie

dessertsyum — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 23:12:00 +0800

It has been another hectic week for the beginning of this December! There're so many things I want to do with the very little time before and after work. No worries though, I can sacrifice my sleep time (am doing so now LOL). I really wish to update my food blog twice a week :)

Anyway, two days ago was the craziest day of my life. My kitchen chefs & I were having a farewell 'party' for F who'll be leaving us for good (he's going back to Philipines). I hate to see him leave because he's a nice guy. I mean it! Yeah and you know this farewell party began after the kitchen closed (at 10.15pm) It lasted for 45 minutes (long enough to make the kitchen stink and anybody present to feel naseous LOL)

We actually threw lots of thrash at each other like: sage oil, milk+flour+breadcrumbs batter, leftover food from customers, eggs (chef gave us 2 trays to enjoy ourselves), squid INK, garlic butter. Well, it's anything you name in the kitchen were all regarded as weapons for the night. It was the worse farewell party at the kitchen according to them, and since this wasn't the first time such a crazy thing took place, we covered every corner of the kitchen shelves and switches with trash bags + cling wrap before the game started!!

Oh and the game started really funnily - we were told that we should take picture of ourselves clean first. Obviously I believed!! But 2 seconds after I stood next to all the chefs..... They had their eggs in their hands smashing on my hair already. HAHAHAH. Eventually our weapons ran out and the only way for us to survive in the mess was to pick up more GROSS stuffs on the floor or, to simply grab the trash in the dustbin to throw at each other. Ok, very good bonding. LOL.