When can I start selling tarts for CNY?

They look decent enough but they are still not my ideal melt-in-the-mouth type of pineapple tarts. Baked these with Ivory after a tiring work day. We used ready-made paste as we wanted to try perfecting the crust first. But... our first bite into the baked tarts left us disappointed for the night. It was crunchy and the paste was too sweet. In my opinion, it was a failed product.

But surprisingly, quite a number of people GENUINELY felt the tarts were nice. I guess they like the crunchy type of pineapple tarts. Sadly, I did not have time to try out making the tarts again after this attempt. Feel like giving up on my quest for the melt-in-the-mouth type of pineapple tarts... haha.... Let's see what happens next year!

A Tea Break which was late :P

I intended to make Chicken Pies and Mushroom Soup for a Sunday afternoon Tea break. But somehow, by the time I finished everything, it was already dinner time. Haha... The Chicken Pie was made following the recipe which I learnt in class recently. The crust I made was definitely better than the ones I made before I attended class. But I guess my rolling was uneven. Hence, it came out with uneven crusts and in all sorts of patterns as you can see here...

I love the yummy fillings with generous amount of chicken, potato & mushroom!

The soup was made with a recipe from the Straits Time. Not too bad but I think I shall try mincing some of the mushroom finer in my next attempt. This is to try and get the soup spoon kind of mushroom soup and also, cutting the mushroom in fine bits is very tiring! I guess using a blender will be much easier. Heh heh...

For the benefit of those who are interested to try the mushroom soup, here is the recipe from the Straits Times...

My rolling assistant :D

Yeah... I finally got a proper Rolling Mat. Spotted it in the baking shop near my office and not knowing if it was really good and without doing any research, I got it! An impulse buy which I never regret! Expensive but definitely worth it! :)

Back for Classes! :)

After more than a year, I am back at Creative Culinaire for classes! The class on Day 1 was pretty short and the fillings were all prepared by the school. We had a demo by chef for the fillings but I thought it would be better if we had the chance to do it... I guess the focus is on the puff pastry, not filling... 

Class on day 2 was still about making puff pastry. We used pastry margarine to do it on day 1 but butter sheet on day 2. Again, the curry puff filling and apple strudel filling was prepared for us. We had the chance to do our own pastry cream though. And I love the apple strudel. Yummy! My friend and I were pretty apprehensive about handling the dough these 2 days but fortunately, we still made it!

Overall, I learnt quite abit from the class but somehow, I still have a lot of 'Why's after the class. I shall practise it one of these days and see how it goes...

Subway Cookies :D

This was meant to be my 2nd bake of the day but sadly, it became my only baking product for that day. My oven is breaking down... :( I was supposed to make tiger roll and I happily prepared the outer skin for baking at 200degC. After a while, my oven light started flickering. I thought it was ok as the light previously could not even be lighted. But... I realised the temperature actually rose to 220degC. And before I could rectify the temp, I saw the burnt product. Grr....

Strangely, when I was baking the cookies, my oven became normal again. Hope it is just throwing tantrum and not really breaking down. Anyway, the cookies turned out pretty okay. This was an attempt to make my favourite subway cookies. I like the combination of white chocolate and macademia nuts. But... they were too sweet and not chewy enough. The cookies could be made thinner in my opinion. Surprisingly, I had 3 fans for the cookies... so maybe it is worth sharing the recipe afterall...

The Recipe (adapted from the Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe in the book, Big, Soft, Chewy Cookies by Jill Van Cleave)

Ingredients (makes about 16 cookies)

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar (can cut down)

1/2 cup caster sugar (can cut down)

1 large egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped white chocolate

1/2 cup macademia nuts

Method

1. Heat oven to 190degC. Line baking trays with parchment paper.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and both sugars until smooth. Add the egg, milk and vanilla and blend.

3. In a separate bowl, mix both flours with the baking powder and salt. Add to the creamed mixture. Stir in the white chocolate and macademia nuts.

4. Using either an individual 1/4-cup measure or a 2 ounce ice-cream scoop, scoop level amounts of dough and drop 2 inches apart onto the tray.

5. Bake until cookies are lightly brown and firm to the touch, about 15 minutes. Using a spatula, transfer cookies to a rack and let cool.

To prevent hardening, wrap each cookie individually in plastic wrap and store at room temperature for up to three days.

A Wedding Gift

I saw a recipe in the book, 'Essentials of Baking' by Williams-Sonoma and I've been wanting to try it... and I found a perfect occasion to bake these lovely cookies.... and so I tried....

These were simply butter cookies, cut out with cookies cutter and filled with jam. Don't they look lovely? But... I did not succeed in making them. This is only a picture of the book illustration. The dough turned out to be too soft & impossible to work with. Difficulties working with a dough again... Grr...

In the end, I settled for a simple chocolate chip cookies from my most trusted blogger, Happy Homebaker. And fortunately, they taste quite good... or at least my sisters thought so. Have not heard from the wedding couple yet.

This was what went inside the lovely container...

And the recipe which was adapted from Happy homebaker (Original source: The Cookie & Biscuit Bible) is as follow:

Ingredients (makes about 28 cookies)
115g butter, softened
115g caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175g plain flour
110g semisweet chocolate chips
65g chopped hazelnut (toasted)

Method
Preheat oven to 180degC. Line baking trays with parchment paper.

With a wooden spoon or electric mixer, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until the mixture turns pale and fluffy.

Beat in the egg gradually. Mix well after each addition. Add in vanilla extract, mix well.

Sift the flour over the mixture, fold in with wooden spoon or a spatula. Fold in the chocolate chips & hazelnuts.

Drop tablespoonfuls of the cookie dough onto the prepared baking tray. Leave some space between the cookies to allow for spreading. Flatten each cookie dough slightly with the back of a fork, keeping the shape as even as possible.

Bake for 10 mins or until golden (My oven took 20 mins). Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Home cooked Chicken Rice

I seriously think I can follow recipes and cook better than I bake.... Cooked these for my family and they taste quite good.

Of course, I did not cook these from scratch. We had a premix from our CNY hamper and it was expiring at the end of this yr.... so... decided to use it.

The instruction was pretty easy to follow. And the packed seasoning made cooking much easier too... what's more, it came with yummy chilli sauce, dark soya sauce & ginger sauce!

Chicken was soft, tender & juicy. Rice was a little weird in taste though... not as nice as the chicken rice sold outside. Maybe because it was a 'healthier choice' product afterall...

I don't think you would even want a bite of this. Haha...Blur me somehow made a blunder of the ingredients again. This always happens when I am reducing the recipe. Grr.... First, the cupcake itself was way too sweet and crumbly. Then, the cream topping was too watery.. probably because I whipped for too long. I absolutely cannot see myself baking cupcakes again anytime soon. Haha....

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

With one big packet of buttermilk in my fridge which was going to expire soon, I had to bake something and this was it. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins. A recipe which I copied down from some website donkey years ago.

I baked these before and the colour was much darker and nicer. Guess what happened? I put in the wrong quantity of chocolate! Haha... I think the colour of these muffins look like 'huat kueh'. Fortunately, they still taste quite good... just that the texture is not really like a muffin.

When will I ever be able to have a perfect bake?

On a side note, I threw away one big bag of flour and other miscellaneous ingredients a few weeks back. I need to stop myself from buying things unless I have time to bake. My baking cupboard is so full that I can hardly squeeze in more things. Stealing space from my mum slowly... Lol... No more lunch time shopping at the baking shop!

Jap Food again!

I was cheated into cooking this meal. Sis said we shall cook together on Sunday so that my mum can rest. Ended up... she only helped with the vegetables.

I wanted to cook Oyaku Don from the Jap Recipe book initially but mum said she has pork chop so I decided to make do with it and made Katsu Don. I took the recipe for the Japanese Pork Cutlet and used the sauce for Oyaku Don. And tada... I have.....

The end product was a bit too dry... I cooked the "egg sauce" for too long... But overall, it still taste good. Could have seasoned the pork more too. Along with this, I made tofu teriyaki again. Oya, n I cooked the rice using the same process... but... my mum recently used the rice cooker to cook it and I must say it tastes the same. Shall ask her how she does it to save my time the next time. Haha...

Loving the golden brown fried pork cutlets here! :D