Classic Fudgy Brownies

Have a friend's birthday coming up and he's got a sweet tooth like myself. So I know I could go all out and bake something rich and sweet for him. He saw a picture of one of my early bakes of a fudgy brownie and commented that it looks really yummy and why have I not baked that for our group of friends? He probably forgotten the casual remark, but I remember! heehee

I remembered I was complaining about how unattractive my bakes look on picture, he told me I could inform him in advance before I bake in the future, so he could come to help snap some pictures (he's into photography and he has got talent in it). Touched!!! Though it has never happened before since I bake at the spur of the moment most of the time, the gesture was much appreciated.

These fudgy brownies are the best I've made so far. Rich, dense and fudgy as the recipe promises. It's also tad chewy as well. Frosted them with a layer of ganache which makes it look even more so tempting and sinful, but it's good without it as well.

Happy Birthday Gabriel!! :)

Classic Fudgy Brownies (adapted from Sur La Table's The Art & Soul of Baking)
Recipe here is basically a conversion into metric measurements

Ingredients
Brownie:
113g semisweet chocolate (up to 56% cacao) (I use Valrhona Equatoriale 55%)
113g unsalted butter
56g unsweetened chocolate
200g sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
70g all purpose flour
pinch of salt

Dark Chocolate Ganache (optional):
88g dark chocolate, finely chopped (up to 60% cacao) (I use Valrhona Equatoriale 55%)
90g whipping cream

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175°C & prepare a 8"x8" square baking tin
2. Melt semisweet and unsweetened chocolate & butter on a double boil
3. Remove chocolate from heat and whisk in sugar
4. Whisk in eggs one at a time, stirring well to incorporate each before adding the next
5. Stir in vanilla extract
6. Whisk in flour and salt and continue to stir until mixture changes from dull looking to smooth and shiny
7. Scrape batter into prepared pan and spread evenly
8. Bake for 35 - 40 mins and transfer to a rack to cool completely
9. For the ganache, place chocolate in a bowl
10. Heat cream in a saucepan until it begins to boil and immediately pour it over the chocolate
11. Let ganache cool for 1h then cover with plastic wrap and set aside to finish cooling at room temperature until it has consistency of frosting, 8 to 10 hours
12. Spread ganache over cooled brownie and proffittt

Cranberry Yogurt Chiffon Cake

Pardon my recent chiffon craze, baking it is pretty addictive haha! Have a tub of yogurt threatening to expire, so had to make good use of it. This recipe carries more egg whites and almost twice the amount of cake flour than my usual one, so hesitated making it initially. But I guess baking is about trial and errors...

As it has much flour, the cake is denser. Though moist enough because of the yogurt, I still prefer my chiffon cake less than airy. I'm not sure how that big air pocket came about and my cranberries all sank to the bottom of the pan. Think I'll just sprinkle them on top of the batter the next time, hopefully the latter has enough time to cook so that the cranberries can scatter more evenly in the batter. The lemon fragrance didn't come out as much either. Booooooooo... I'm sticking to my old chiffon recipe.

Cranberry Yogurt Chiffon Cake (modified from Junko Fukuda's Chiffon Cake Book)

Ingredients:
5 egg yolks
40g caster sugar
61g canola oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
130g plain yogurt
130g cake flour, sifted twice

6 egg whites (weighed mine to be 258g)
90g caster sugar

95g dried cranberries, coated in plain flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Whisk together yolks, caster sugar and canola oil until sugar is completed dissolved and mixture is pale yellow and sticky
3. Add lemon juice and yogurt into yolk mixture and mix well
4. Add flour and combine well. Set aside for later use.
5. Beat egg whites until frothy and gradually add in sugar and whip till stiff peaks
8. Add one third of the meringue into yolk mixture and fold in lightly
9. Pour in rest of the yolk mixture and fold until well combined
10. Add in flour coated cranberries into batter and gently fold until berries are just evenly scattered throughout the batter
11. Pour the batter into a 20-cm chiffon tin and bake for 40 mins
12. Invert the chiffon tin on a wire rack and let it cool for 2h before releasing the cake for serving

Chocolate Chip Cookies II

Chocolate chip cookie lovers are like promiscuous lovers, they like not only one cookie. You can never count on just one chocolate chip cookie recipe. So here I go heeheee!!! Was inspired to make them after watching this video on one of my most-referred to cookbooks, Ready for Dessert. Looks so gooooooood on the video. Going to digress a little, have to share why I adore him so much! Other than being a great dessert chef, he writes well and has an interesting personality. You gotta read his blog and maybe, his twitter to know what I mean :D

The cookie dough log rolling was tedious for me. The whole chunk of cookie dough was too soft and sloppy due to our warm weather. Looked totally different from what he has in the video. Had difficulty rolling them and made a mess in the kitchen. Got smarter with the 2nd log and decided to shrink wrap the piece of dough and slowly maneuver it into a log.

After cleaning up the kitchen...my lazybones signaled me that I should be more interested to do drop cookies from now on. If you like a cripsy cookie with soft interior coupled with generous serving of (very) gooey chocolate and crunchy nuts, this cookie is for you.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from David Lebovitz's Ready for Dessert)
makes 25 cookies

Ingredients
175g all purpose flour
3/8 tsp baking soda (odd I know, I halved the recipe, that's why xD)
Pinch of salt
110g butter, room temperature
105g light brown sugar
70g brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
110g nuts, toasted and coarsely chopped (I use pecans)
200g semisweet chocolate chunks (I use Valrhona Equatoriale 55%)

Method
1. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt
2. In a separate bowl, beat butter, sugars and vanilla until just smooth
3. Add in beaten egg and mix well
4. Stir in flour mixture to butter mixture, then add in nuts and chocolate
5. On a lightly floured surface, divide the dough into 2 and shaped them into 23cm logs
6. Shrink wrap them and store in fridge for 24h
7. Preheat oven to 175°C
7. Slice dough to 2cm thick and place them on baking sheets
8. Bake for 10 mins and transfer to wire rack to cool

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

After my previous chiffon cake attempt, am really excited to try out new flavors! Did chocolate this time. I like the ratio of cocoa powder to cake flour, I can smell the chocolatey goodness when I eat the cake. Still the same cottony, soft texture, but I'm not sure why it is not as melt-in-your-mouth as my first matcha chiffon. Not sure if it's the ingredients or something I've done differently this time.

Was also careful not to overbeat my meringue this time. The folding in is a bitch though. Still have not mastered it fully as I still see a few white specks here and there if I look really closely. Or maybe I did not beat my egg whites evenly, which I think is most likely the case xD On close inspection of the airholes, the bottom have less air bubbles, wonder if it's supposed to be like that heh heh

Chocolate Chiffon Cake (modified from Keiko Ishida's Okashi)

Ingredients:
50g cake flour
30g cocoa powder
5 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
70g water
60g canola oil

5 egg whites (weighed mine to be 215g)
90g caster sugar (can add more for sweet tooths)
10g corn flour

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Sift flour and cocoa powder twice
3. Beat egg yolks and sugar until well mixed
4. Add water and canola oil to the yolk mixture and blend well
5. Add flour mixture to yolk mixture until the batter becomes sticky
6. Combine sugar and corn flour in a separate bowl
7. Beat egg whites until frothy and add half of the sugar mixture, and continue to beat
8. Slowly add in the rest of the sugar mixture and beat until egg white stiff peaks and is glossy but not dry
9. Add one third of the meringue into yolk mixture and fold in lightly
10. Pour in rest of the yolk mixture and fold until well combined (I did not follow this and pour yolk mixture into meringue for folding instead)
11. Pour the batter into a 20-cm chiffon tin and bake for 40 mins
12. Invert the chiffon tin on a wire rack and let it cool for 2h before releasing the cake for serving

Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

These muffins aren't exactly the best tasting in the world. Kinda lacking in the peanut butter flavor. Would also like it tad sweeter. Peanut butter and banana is an interesting combination though as it smells really lovely when I made the batter. More importantly, the texture is somewhat like chinese steamcakes. Dense and not fluffy. Why?!! Because.............uhh...yea, it's explained below.

So I put the muffins into the oven for baking and turned my back, spotted a lonely egg sitting on top of the kitchen counter. OMGFFFFFFUUUU!!! Realised that I've forgotten to beat in the egg. -_-"

So there we go, an accidental eggless muffin**

Accidental Eggless Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
(makes 6 muffins)

Ingredients:
120g all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
30g salted butter (you can use unsalted butter and add a pinch of salt)
30g peanut butter
60g white granulated sugar (add more for sweetness)
225g bananas, mashed (extra for garnishing)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl
3. Cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer, until pale yellow and creamy
4. Add in peanut butter and blend well
5. Add in flour mixture and mix until just combined
6. Spoon muffin batter into muffin cups
7. Slice extra bananas and place on top of batter
10. Bake for 20-25 mins and transfer to wire rack to cool

** The muffins vanished when I woke up the next morning. Mom took them to her workplace and told me the recipe is a keeper. She thinks it tastes great - moist and refreshing. She said the commercially prepared ones reek of artificial vanilla and she loves how natural this one tastes. Uhh, guess our tastebuds are different.

Matcha Chiffon Cake

First try at making chiffon cake. Bought Keiko Ishida's Okashi and have yet to try out the recipes despite reading it religiously. Have good quality matcha powder that's expiring in September, so I picked this recipe. I didn't know you need to invert the pan for cooling so that the cake wouldn't sink. Was snapping pictures of the cake when I took it out from the oven. Mom saw me and screamed, Invert the pan...NOW!!!! The sinking starts the moment the pan is out from the oven, she says.

Really impressed with the texture. It is soft and cottony, gives the almost-melt-in-your-mouth kind of texture. The right amount of sweetness coupled with green tea fragrance. The only thing I'm disappointed is, I was overzealous in the meringue beating, resulting in curding. Now I know when to stop beating. Thankfully no one notices the extra white specks of meringue in the cake when they eat it, or maybe they're just polite hahahhh

My guinea pigs happened to be a pretty big sample size of aunties including my mom and her work place buddies, bf's mom and her mahjong kakis. Everyone loves it. I guess aunties really like chiffon cakes heehee. Gonna venture and try out all sorts of flavors!

Matcha Chiffon Cake (adapted from Keiko Ishida's Okashi)

Ingredients:
70g cake flour
10g matcha powder
5 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
70g water
60g canola oil

180g egg whites (abt 5 eggs)
90g caster sugar
10g corn flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C
2. Sift flour and matcha powder twice
3. Beat egg yolks and sugar until well mixed
4. Add water and canola oil to the yolk mixture and blend well
5. Add flour mixture to yolk mixture until the batter becomes sticky
6. Combine sugar and corn flour in a separate bowl
7. Beat egg whites until frothy and add half of the sugar mixture, and continue to beat
8. Slowly add in the rest of the sugar mixture and beat until egg white stiff peaks and is glossy but not dry
9. Add one third of the meringue into yolk mixture and fold in lightly
10. Pour in rest of the yolk mixture and fold until well combined (I did not follow this and pour yolk mixture into meringue for folding instead)
11. Pour the batter into a 20-cm chiffon tin and bake for 40-50 mins
12. Invert (NOWW!!) the chiffon tin on a wire rack and let it cool for 2h before releasing the cake for serving

Suzy's Cake

My baking bug bit me and I just have to make something! Bf's family gave me a new oven, how can I not use it hahah. His sister moved into an apartment where the previous owner, left in her ownership, a cool full sized oven and nobody has space to give that baby a home...so I did! huahuahua

Was googling for something simple to make - yet hopefully delicious - came across this recipe. Heard many raves for Pierre Hermes' macaroons and his exquisite desserts, and have never tried them before since they are not available locally, why not try making them? This is recipe is also awfully simple to make, only makes uses of 5 ingredients. I've halved the recipe to make a 6" cake, though his original recipe makes a 9" one.

The cake is rich, dense, creamy and sinfully fudgy. The silky chocolate literally melts in your mouth. I'm sure part of the reason is due to the block of Valrhona chocolate I've just opened ceremony. I could tell the difference in the quality of the chocolate versus supermarket brands like Cadbury, or even Lindt, when I sliced the chocolate block...so creamy and smooth! I'm a total Valrhona convert now! Remember to serve it at room temperature though. Bf and I couldn't wait for the cake to come to room temperature after taking it out from the fridge, and it tasted like fudgy brownies hurhur.

Suzy's Cake (modified from Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts)

makes 6" cake

Ingredients:
125g dark chocolate
125g butter
100g sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
35g all purpose flour

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Melt chocolate over double boil, leave it aside to cool
3. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed for about 4 mins
4. Beat in egg one at a time for 1 min
5. Reduce speed to low, pour in melted chocolate and mix until incorporated
6. Add in flour and use a spatula to fold in until just combined (Recipe says you can use a hand mixer for this step at low speed, but I prefer to do it manually in case of over mixing)
7. Pour batter into greased and sprinkled flour cake tin to bake for 26-29 mins
8. Cool cake on wire rack before transferring to fridge for 1-2h
9. Unmold cake and proffffiitttt! Serve it in room temperature.

Molten Chocolate Cakes

Mom and bf both expressed interest in eating molten chocolate cakes so I really wanna try this recipe out! After watching a couple of Nigella Lawson's videos and reading up her recipes, I have to conclude that she's not exactly the most health conscious cook around, but her recipes are so easy to make.

...After making this recipe and spooning a mouthful of the chocolate cake into my mouth, I know where she got her awesome breasts from. HAHAAH! I once read a random comment online that she has to maintain her humongous assets by adding extra fat and sugar into her recipes. And I have to agree -_-

The chocolate is so sinfully rich. I've reduced some sugar from the recipe, knowing her style, but 70% cocoa chocolate is too dense for my family's tastebuds. Think I'll opt for milk chocolate the next time.

Molten Chocolate Cakes (modified from Nigella Lawson's Molten Chocolate Babycakes)
makes 4 cakes

Ingredients:
175g dark chocolate
60g caster sugar
25g unsalted butter
2 large eggs, beaten with pinch of salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
25g all purpose flour
Icing sugar for sprinkling

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 200°C
2. Grease muffin tins and cut out baking parchment paper in round shapes, placing them on the muffin trays
3. Melt chocolate over double boil
4. Cream butter and sugar
5. Gradually beat in eggs
6. Add in vanilla extract and mix well
7. Add in flour and blend until smooth
8. Pour batter into muffin tins and bake for 10 mins
9. Tip them over as soon as you take them out of the oven...sprinkle some icing sugar and noommmmsssss

Peanut Butter Cookies

Tried out David Lebovitz's Peanut Butter Cookies from his cookbook, Ready for Dessert. My previous attempts at peanut butter cookies ain't so successful because it's so tough playing with peanut butter! It either ends up too dry or if you incorporate more butter to tackle the dryness, it ends up lacking of the nutty taste. His recipe counter-ed the problem by using melted instead of room temperature butter. Omg so smart lol

He also suggested rolling the cookie dough on granulated sugar before baking. The result is a crunchy cookie with chewy centre. Love the occasional crunch I get from the freshly rolled on sugar before baking. I thought that that is really ingenious. There's so much punch in each cookie that it literally feels like eating peanut butter in a cookie form. Great for peanut butter lovers. But I'm not so crazy over peanut butter, this is just one of the to-do items in my baking list =p

The only thing is the recipe states that it yields 30 cookies and despite following the instructions closely to make 1 inch-ed size dough for each cookie. I ended up with a 75-strong army of peanut butter cookies. No harm having more though haaaa! Am also kinda happy that my cookies look pretty to similar to what he has posted on his facebook heehee!!

Peanut Butter Cookies (adapted from David Lebovitz's Peanut Butter Cookies)

Ingredients:
175g all purpose flour
115g unsalted butter, melted
260g creamy peanut butter
100g white sugar, more for rolling before baking
120g brown sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt
2. Cream white and brown sugar, melted butter and peanut butter in hand mixer until smooth
3. Beat in egg and mix well
4. Add flour mixture to wet mixture and mix until dough just comes together
5. Chill cookie dough overnight
7. Let dough come to room temperature
8. Preheat oven to 175°C
9. Pinch dough to make 1 inch sized balls and roll in granulated sugar before flattening it with a fork to make criss cross pattern
10. Bake for 9-10 mins and transfer to wire rack to cool...and profittttt!!! xD

Blueberry Buckle

It's the season of blueberries!!! They are going for $3.99 for 2 boxes at NTUC. The auntie spirit in me told myself that I shouldn't give up this great deal. Looted 4 boxes from the supermarket. Was thinking hard what I can make with them. Blueberry muffins sounds good but I don't wanna be making muffins again since I've made them recently. Googled for some inspiration and found Anna Olson's recipe. Since she is one of my favorite chefs, I must try the recipe!

Honestly I've never eaten a Blueberry Buckle before so I don't know what to expect. It tastes like blueberries sandwiched between vanilla cake and crispy streusel bits. Kinda like the cakes you would eat with your Starbucks latte. Pretty good stuff to make for a picnic as you do not need the fridge to keep the cake intact.

Blueberry Buckle (modified from Anna Olson's Blueberry Buckle)

Ingredients:
Cake -
280g all purpose flour
115g butter
100g sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
250g blueberries

Streusel Topping -
65g sugar
45g all purpose flour
40g butter, cold
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl
3. Cream butter and sugar with a hand mixer, until pale yellow and creamy
4. Add in vanilla, follow by egg and mix well
5. Add in flour mixture, alternate with milk until incorporated
6. Pour batter onto 8" cake tin and start preparing your streusel topping
7. Mix sugar, flour and cinnamon powder in a separate bowl
8. Rub cold butter into the mixture until crumbly
9. Sprinkle blueberries, followed by streusel topping on cake batter
10. Bake for 45-50 mins and transfer to wire rack to cool

Butter Cookies with Chocolate Royal Icing

Had a birthday celebration last night. Pretty tough job making something for the birthday girl who is very (I'm-not-kidding-you) picky about food. Peanut butter? Nope. Almonds? Nope, she does not eat nuts at all. Fruit bars/squares? Too adventurous. White chocolate? Maybe too sweet. Chocolate chip cookie? Nah, I've made it for another 2 friends from the same group just recently.

Had to settle for butter cookies, a pretty safe (I think) snack which most people will eat. Butter cookie recipe is from Happy Home Baking. Not sure why the cookies look great on her blog but quite trashy on mine. Must be my inconsistent oven temperature hahha Kinda regretted using my bunny cookie cutter, of all cutters I own. The ears were flimsy and threatened to fall off any moment when I peel them off the shrink wrap to transfer to the baking tray. The tips of the ears also browned faster than the rest. Decorated the cookies with some facial expressions and chocolate royal icing for the bunny nose, which will hopefully entice her into eating them lol

Made royal icing for the first time and made a mess in the kitchen. Was dead beat from work in the morning and the mess I made in the kitchen from making the icing. Washed my dishes halfway and went to my room, plonk-ed onto the bed and asked my bf if he could help me with the dishes. And he did so with no hesitation. I must be the luckiest girl. :]

Chocolate Royal Icing

Ingredients:
150g icing sugar
25g cocoa powder
1 egg white

Method:
1. Sift icing sugar & cocoa powder
2. Beat egg until slightly frothy, gradually add in sugar mixture and beat the shit out of it