baking and love

When life gives you stale breads .....

dessertsyum — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 23:13:41 -0800

... make a hearty Apple Bread Pudding w Chocolate Chips out of it! :D I declare it one of my favourite recipes in this foodblog!!!

My first encounter with bread pudding was at Fullerton Hotel's chocolate buffet few years ago. (YES CHOCOLATE BUFFET LOL) I fell in love with it immediately, helping myself to portion after portion of bread pudding. I later baked one myself at home which was barely satisfying.. But there came my second baking encounter with it - the restaurant I previously worked at.

We served White chocolate bread pudding which was soooo good! BUT STILL, I liked the Fullerton's one more. The overall taste was balanced, it had the perfect amount of sweetness for me.

Today, I made my Apple Bread Pudding w Chocolate chips after studying many different recipes online that claimed to be make the "Best" bread pudding. I adapted the recipe from Food&Wine's Raisin-Studded Apple Bread Pudding. I was exceptionally sure to try it because in this recipe, the yolks and whites are whipped separately to their maximum volume.

Other recipes (including the one I used in my restaurant), only require the eggs to be whisked together without incorporating maximum amount of air into it, I felt that this is likely to be the lighter version of bread pudding I was looking for! Many people may enjoy the denser bread pudding, but definetely not me. I like them firm, yet soft like how a pudding is :) If you like this kind of bread pudding, try this recipe, I am very sure that you will like it. Serving them warm with a scoop of chocolate icecream would be a bonus!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Bars

dessertsyum — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:42:00 -0800

American and the Northern food culture is one of my greatest takeaway ever since I set up my food blog & visited various food galleries. I never like peanut butter until I baked, until I saw one of those best stuffs in Tastespotting / Foodgawker contained PEANUT BUTTER!

Seriously..... don't you love peanut butter?!?! LOL.

These bars' surface were nicely formed :D My only mistake was to overbaked it! Arghs, that seems to be the problem of most cakes especially bars like brownies. It happens to me too often =\

Creamy, Luscious, New York Cheesecake

dessertsyum — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:44:00 -0800

I love having blocks of butter and cream cheese at home. I love the I-need-to-clear-my-butters-so-I'm-baking! feeling whenever I open the fridge and see them arranged on top of one another. Its like a reflection of my passion for baking!

I don't know if that's the same for you, but they certainly are the fastest-moving yet most expensive ingredients I use.

Cakes, cookies, pies, tarts, bars...... I can hardly escape from opening sticks after sticks of butter. Especially when baking becomes a little more intensive, like how I've been baking almost every day for the past one week, I've finish almost 4 cups of butter!

Last night, I was really tempted to 'clear' my cream cheese again. LOL. It'd be the best chance for me to finish my remaining sour cream from the superlicious Blueberry Crumb Cake too! After much consideration on what cheesecake I should I bake, I decided on New York Cheesecake!

The recipe was from a book bought by one of my best boyfriend in Taiwan. Although the entire book was written in CHINESE..... (Okay, I'm a Chinese, but I really dislike reading chinese words!) I still wanted to use its recipe because I'm actually very appreciative to get his support for my interest! I adjusted the recipe a little as I was a bit disturbed by one of the ingredient "butter" in the cream cheese filling. I substitute it with milk instead =)

The result was really great. I love how the surface of the cheesecake is slightly brown. The best part was that it didn't cracked, it didn't sink in the center, and it wasn't over-baked!

See. Still nice and creamy, one of the best cheesecake texture I'd made!

Blueberry Crumb Cake. Or is it PIE?!

dessertsyum — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 00:25:18 -0800

GOOOOOD DAY BAKERS!

I made a dessert using the recipe I bookmarked very recently, Blueberry Crumb Cake, at FoodNetwork.com! I was simply craving for something sweet and fruity but I didn't want to play with strawberries because the supermarket does not have the reddest and prettiest strawberries at this time of the year. I will be waiting for summer to arrive in the North patiently :)

Anyhow, the Blueberry Crumb Cake I baked today was really fantastic. Soft, tender cake topped with browned crumbly streusel. Exactly what I was looking for in a g-r-e-a-t crumb cake! It is so delicious, I'm sure I have to make this again :)

Now, watch me make the most satisfying Blueberry Crumb Cake, step-by-step!!

Rainbow (white) Cake with Oreo Cream Cheese Frosting

dessertsyum — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:06:01 -0800

As a child, I was always fascinated by colours :)

I still do and even now that I'm already a teen, any objects of my favourite colours draw my attention to them. I would eat vegetables & salads because I love green! I would buy Hello Kitty accessories because I like pink! & I'd tan myself nicely brown just to match beautiful white dresses :)

Yeah, colours are very happy stuffs and they do magic to little things in life. Hence, I baked this cake for my teammate's birthday, Z. She is definitely the most outstanding player in our basketball team who had contributed a lot during competitions. We play the same position and I'd always feel safe during the game with her around!

Although the graduation from high school meant that we were all going separate ways, she's one of those I still meet up with very very often :) Basketball is our language and I'm glad this common interest has glued us pretty well!

I rushed home immediately after school to get this done, AND more importantly, to take enough shots before the sky turns dark! I don't have photoshop and I cannot do much to edit the pictures =\

This Rainbow Cake sponge (bottom) is strongly reccommended if you are looking for a white cake recipe. It is extremely soft, crumbly and moist, very very tender even if you used plain flour instead of cake flour! The only thing you might want to take note is that the cake is quite fragile, so please be gentle when you lift each layer.

I spread nutella over the cake, followed whipped cream in between every layer. Finally when it is chilled, I frosted the cake with Cream cheese and pressed oreo crumbs on it gently :)