doooo-nuts

Man, has it been forever since I was here? I do apologise, because my sister (whose camera I used to take food pictures) started loading the pics onto her computer, which I can't access from here. I'm now using my dad's digital camera, but I'm not complaining.

Short post today, because I really shouldn't be online at all, and should be studying for exams next week. But I think this deserves a post. =)

My mother made doughnuts today; those cinnamon and sugar coated, deep-fried beauties. They came out amazingly soft, and crunchy and fluffy and indescribably fantastic freshly made. I seriously recommend everyone to go home and make some right now. You'll be doing yourself a favour, I promise you.

 These are for the kids at my training today. The glace is just some chocolate spread, not Nutella though.

The recipe for these lovelies comes from Tandaco Dry Yeast booklet, and it's proven to have quite a few good recipes to try.

Doughnuts
Makes 20.

Ingredients:
2 sachets (14g) Tandaco Dry Yeast
4 C plain flour
2 tsp salt
1/4 C sugar
1 1/3 C warm milk
90g melted butter
1 egg, lightly beaten
oil for frying

Method:
1. Mix dry ingredients including yeast in a large bowl. Add milk, butter and egg. Mix well to form a soft dough. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth and elastic.
2. Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover and leave in a warm place to rise until double in volume. Approx 40-45 mins.
3. Knock down the dough (punch fist once into the centre). Knead for 1 minute. Rest dough for 5 minutes.
4. Roll dough to 5mm thickness. Cut circles with an 8cm round cutter and remove centres with a 4cm round cutter. the centers can be kneaded together and rolled out again. Place circles on floured baking trays. Leave in a warm place to rise for 20-25 mins.
5. Deep fry at 190 C for 1-2 minutes on each side until golden.
6. Toss in cinnamon sugar (made of 1/2 C castor sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon). Allow to cool.

I know the whole process seems quite long and tedious, but my mother was done with it in about 4 hours. Try it and you won't regret it!

cookie confusion

I'm a great fan of cookies, believe me. Though I still prefer a slice of cake over a chocolate cookie, I'm not fussed. If it's sweet, chewy and fulfills my cravings for whatever I crave at that moment then I'm satisfied. My ideal cookie would be those from Subway; although I haven't tried many different store-bought biscuits I do love the chewiness and size of those giant cookies. But I can't have many of those in one sitting since they're a little too sugary for me.

Everyone always talks about their perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, or their triple-tested snickerdoodles or peanut butter cookies. I've found that everyone's got a slightly different approach to baking cookies, with their own quirks and tips; and so sometimes one person's recipe will not work for someone else.

I'm hoping that that is the case, or else I'm just not one for baking cookies. I've used a couple different recipes for different biscuits, but they all don't turn out the way I want them to. Or what the pictures look like.

 I used Lovin' From the Oven's recipe for this one; I absolutely love how amazing her cookies turn out, every single time! I needed to add milk to the batter before baking, and I probably should have added more so that they would spread more. 

Now chocolate chip cookies. My favourite type of cookie and a classic. I can't remember which recipe I used for this one because it was a while ago, but I definitely know that they weren't meant to become little chocolate chip rocks. 

I tried again using Bakerella's recipe but even that didn't turn out...right. The texture never ended up the same, even though I thoroughly burnt it. 

And these were peanut butter cookies that were meant to be moist, chewy, giant melt-in-your-mouth wonders. But at the time I didn't actually mind the size because they were still relatively chewy.

I'm sure that there's something very obvious that I've missed, but I'm quite lost about what it is. Anyway I returned to something that I could do relatively well and baked these Mandarin and Orange Squares a few weeks ago. The recipe was originally for lemon, and if I would do it again then I would stick to the recipe. The citrus taste barely came out at all; in fact I would suggest adding more juice than in the recipe. Nonetheless the crust was crumbly and good, and it was a family favourite.

I've lost where I found this recipe, so I'm very sorry if this was originally yours!

Lemon Squares
Adapted from Martha Steward's Cookies

For the crust:
1 1/2 (3/4 C) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 C plain flour
3/4 C confectioner's sugar
3/4 tsp salt


For the filling:
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/3 C sugar
3 tbsp plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 C lemon juice
1/4 C milk

Preheat oven at 350 F(180 C). Grease a 9-13 inch baking dish before lining with baking paper, including some overhang.
For the crust: Cut the butter into small pieces and set aside. Whisk together flour, confectioner's sugar and salt in a bowl. Add butter and mix until just combined and the mixture looks crumbly. Press mixture firmly into baking dish and cool in fridge for 15 minutes before baking until golden for 16-20 minutes.
For the filling: Whisk together eggs, sugar, flour and salt until smooth. Stir in juice and milk. Pour over the hot baked crust. Reduce the temperature to 325 F(160 C) and bake until filling is set and the edges are slightly golden brown. Let it cool completely on a wire rack before dusting with confectioner's sugar and slicing into squares.
The lemon squares can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge up to 2 days.

birthday and recent foods

It was my sister's 21st birthday and she found this 'Big Fat Chocolate Cake' in one of the cafes while we were in Fremantle. It was the first and last cake that she saw, and it doesnt take much to guess why she picked it. It was essentially a chocolate mud cake, with lashings of milk chocolate icing, and protected by a delicate layer of more chocolate. I don't really like mud cakes because they taste a little too boring and dense for me, and the cake itself wasn't very sweet apart from the icing and surrounding chocolate. But it was a good way to end a fun birthday dinner party.

This was from the nearby Japanese restaurant Yuki's that the family dined at the night before her birthday party. This dessert, I think, was some kind of almond and coffee ice cream, and unfortunately I only remembered after I'd taken a bite that I disliked almond ice cream, just like I disliked marzipan. 

I baked the Aria Chocolate Tart; which featured on Masterchef (of which I'm a hardcore fan of) from this recipe, for my sister's birthday lunch. I had pie dough left over and decided to turn it into some chocolate cookies for the family to nibble on. In the end I ended up nibbling the most of them. 

 My favourite lunch of late: toasted sandwiches. I think I had it about 5 times during the school break, and with the usual characters: cucumber, carrot, chicken and cheese. I'm in love with my mother's sandwich toaster at the moment, and I've tried it on spinach wraps too. Next time I'm putting in a little djon mustard.

Spontaneously I decided to make use of the gluten-free pasta I'd bought a while back. The sauce consists of some regular spaghetti sauce, fried celery, tomato, onion, garlic and pork mince. I just love a chunky pasta sauce.

first and best

Don't you just love starting the day right? Having a good breakfast just sets me on a happy and fulfilling path for the rest of my day. I have all kinds of healthy things for this important meal; fresh fruit and yoghurt, oat porridge with sultanas and honey, boiled or scrambled eggs and a hot cup of black tea. I feel terrible and crabby if I miss this one crucial meal, and it generally results in my stomach protesting loudly through the 2nd, 3rd and 4th session of school.

These would be my third batch of granola, and although the recipes are different, the end result is still satisfactory, no matter what ingredients you put in.

Granola 
Adapted from smitten kitchen

Ingredients:
2 C rolled oats
1 C crushed almonds
3/4 C crushed cashews
1 C shredded coconut -I used dessicated coconut, and used 3/4 C-
1/2 C honey
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/2 C dried fruit of your choice -I used sultanas-

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a shallow baking dish with baking paper. Mix together the rolled oats, almonds, cashews and coconut and spread out on the baking dish, bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned. 
Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and stir in the honey, vanilla and fruits while it's still warm. Spread out mixture into the baking dish again and bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until it's golden brown. Leave to cool for 30 minutes before breaking up and storing into a container.
This can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for several weeks, but to keep its crispness, store granola in the fridge. 

I really like granola mixes because they are so versatile, so it's impossible for me to choose a favourite. These ingredients were just the ones I had lying around, but I really want to try using sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, peanuts and all sorts of different dried fruits. Maybe I'll have this stuff sprinkled generously over some homemade natural yoghurt (I made it from Easiyo... anyone else know of it?), with a little dollop of honey to sweeten it up and garnished with some blueberries and strawberries? Oh gosh, I can't wait until tomorrow morning's breakfast.

batch of tastiness

I had forgotten about blogging for quite some time. It's been a little bit of a bumpy journey for me and things have yet to settle down but I'm trying my best to put everything back to normal. Life is so unpredictable at times; it feels like I'm living monotonously one day and the next everything has changed. I'm sure I don't have to remind anyone of this, because we've all got our own struggles and achievements.

I don't think I can put many words down today. I guess it's just one of those days where you're not sure of anything enough to make a definite decision. But I wanted to review the food experiences since the last post, because there is quite a bit and I think it deserves mentioning.

 This is the Chinese New Year feast at my aunt's house in which all the separate families contributed their personal signature dishes. As you can see, it was a celebration of colours, textures, smells and tastes that we all devoured happily. 

This was my aunt's special Chinese New Year biscuit platter, which consists of shortbreads, peanut cookies, pineapple cookies and pineapple tarts in the center. 

My yoghurt cake which I'd forgotten to include baking powder. The result was a dense soya-like cake loaf; not so popular with the household. Nevertheless it was finished within the week. 

That month I also made an orange chiffon pie with uncooked egg whites. It gave it a fluffy and light texture, but left an eggy aftertaste. I don't think we managed to finish this one before it went off.

Dinner one night: fried pork dumplings I think.

Banana cake with cream cheese frosting. The cupcakes went to my friend who needed some cheering up.

Results from my cooking class. :)

For a friend's 21st; the dress theme was animals and she was the glamorous butterfly.

a Summer dinner party

A while ago, since the family came back from Canada my sister and I had been planning to have a special occasion in which we were to cook and serve the food and entertain a couple of our closest friends for one night. My mother was given specific instructions not to assist us and to act like a guest; leaving us free to pick whatever we wanted to make. There was no special occasion for this party, but we figured that we'd try it and if it turned out well it could become a yearly tradition :). And in this case, I really hope it does because it was all so much fun~

The dishes chosen were quite simple and Western-style foods, which made it double the fun since we rarely get to make non-Asian foods. It was a new experience for us, and I'm sure, for everyone at the table. Here's the menu:

Drinks: Homemade Citrusade

Soup: Seafood Chowder with a French Loaf

Main Course: Honey Garlic Chicken, Pork and Water Chestnut Rissoles and Broccoli Salad

Desert: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries with Ice Cream

We spent about 3 days in total for the entire cooking process, including buying all the ingredients, juicing the numerous oranges and grapefruits for the citrusade and slow cooking the honey garlic chicken the night before. The party was on a Friday and so I used my flexi time and came straight home to cook. And in the end we were nearly late, and managed to plate up the food before the guests arrived. 

Even with many of the guests unfamiliar with each other, I think they all got along quite well. There were many laughs and jokes, some solemn moments to enjoy the food, and only a few silences during the entire night. Unfortunately I don't have many good pictures of the dishes, since we were in such a hurry. ;P

These were our formal invitations to each guest. 

The homemade citrusade, made out of thick, orange and grapefruit goodness and a whole lot of juicing. 

We assigned ourselves 3 dishes between us; I had the broccoli salad, honey garlic chicken and chocolate strawberries. Since I'd done the chicken the night before, and the strawberries were done in 30 minutes, most of the time was used getting the rissoles (which turned into meatballs slightly burnt by my failure at deep frying) and chowder finished. It was worth it though, especially the chowder which came out really thick and wholesome. :)

Dipping strawberries ended up being quite difficult, since the berries I had were very ripe and a bit soft and the chocolate just kept running of the surface. I realised that I had to wait until the chocolate thickened a bit more before I could coat them, which was when I was halfway done anyway. Despite this, the crowd quite liked this desert, as with everything else.

And this is my favourite picture of the night; when the dinner was done. The group voted the salad and rissoles the best, but unanimously agreed that each one was great. I probably wouldn't make the chicken dish again, since it ended up a bit boring and average, but it did smell absolutely amazing while cooking :). I'll provide the recipes so you can try for yourself:

Homemade Citrusade

From Taste.com.au, Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (375mL) fresh orange juice

1 1/2 cups (375mL) fresh pink grapefruit juice

1/2 cup (125mL) fresh lemon juice

2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

1L mineral water

mint leaves, orange and grapefruit slices and ice to serve

Method:

1. Stir fruit juices and sugar together in a large jug until sugar dissolves.
2. Add ice, mint, and orange and lemon slices, then top with mineral water.

Notes: I omitted the mint leaves because I don't think it really suited the taste of the drink.

 

Seafood Chowder

From Taste.com.au, Serves 6

Ingredients: 

1 medium carrot, finely chopped

1 stick celery, finely chopped

3 (750g) potatoes, peeled, roughly chopped

4 cups (1 litre) chicken stock

2 corn cobs

500g gourmet marinara mix

200ml thickened cream

Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tbs chopped fresh chives

2 tbs chopped fresh parsley

Crusty French bread

Method:
1. Place carrot, celery, potatoes and stock in a large pan. Cover and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Process mixture until smooth. Return to pan.
2. Cut kernels from corn cobs and add to soup. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until corn is tender.
3. Reduce heat and add marinara mix and cream. Stir, without boiling for about 3 minutes or until seafood is cooked and chowder is hot. Season to taste.
4. Stir through chives and parsley. Serve immediately with bread.

Honey Garlic Chicken
From Allrecipes.com, Serves 10
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
10 boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup lite soy sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger root
1 (20 ounce) can pineapple tidbits, drained with juice reserved
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Method:
1. Heat oil in a skillet over medium heat, and cook chicken thighs just until evenly browned on all sides. Place thighs in a slow cooker.
2. In a bowl, mix honey, soy sauce, ketchup, garlic, ginger, and reserved pineapple juice. Pour into the slow cooker.
3. Cover, and cook 4 hours on High. Stir in pineapple tidbits just before serving.
4. Mix the cornstarch and water in a small bowl. Remove thighs from slow cooker. Blend the cornstarch mixture into remaining sauce in the slow cooker to thicken. Serve sauce over the chicken.

Pork and Water Chestnut Rissoles  
From Taste.com.au, Serves 4
Ingredients:
750g lean pork mince
227g can water chestnuts, drained, finely chopped
2 tablespoons salt-reduced soy sauce
1 tablespoon Maesri sweet chilli sauce
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
Asian salad leaves, steamed rice and sweet chilli sauce, to serve

Method:
1. Combine mince, water chestnuts, soy sauce, sweet chilli sauce, egg and garlic in a large bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Using clean, damp hands, mix well to combine. Using 1/4 cup mixture at a time, shape into 12 rissoles. Using fingers, flatten slightly.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large, non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat. Cook rissoles, in batches, for 5 to 6 minutes each side or until cooked through, adding more oil if necessary.
3. Serve rissoles with salad leaves, steamed rice and sweet chilli sauce.

Notes: I deep fried them instead since we were running out of time.

Broccoli Salad
From Allrecipes.com, Serves 2
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups fresh broccoli florets
3/4 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
4 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 tablespoons mayonaise
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar

Method:
In a bowl, combine the broccoli, cheese, bacon and onion. In another bowl, whisk the mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar. Pour over broccoli mixture and toss to coat. cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving.

Notes: I par-boiled the broccoli for a few minutes, so that it wasn't so hard in the salad. I added some cherry tomatoes too :).

Chocolate Strawberries
From Allrecipes.com, makes 15
Ingredients:
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 pint fresh strawberries with leaves

Method:
In a microwave-safe bowl, or in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, cook chocolate until melted. Stir occasionally until chocolate is smooth. Holding berries by the stem, dip each one in molten chocolate, about three-quarters of the way to the stem. Place, stem side down, on wire rack and chill in refrigerator until hardened.

Notes: I used the double-boiling method instead of microwaving, and used white chocolate instead of dark.

 And this was my modest birthday cake bought from The Cheesecake Shop. Turning 16 doesn't seem half as interesting as everyone made it out as, but we'll see. It's only the beginning isn't it? :)

Northbridge Bakery Tour

There is a place in the city which I believe all cities have; an area populated mainly by Asians. I tend to go there quite often, considering how I am Chinese, but only to hang out with friends and get bubble tea (aka. super asian drinks). However I disregarded the fact that Northbridge also held lots of small shops selling oriental style cakes, buns and desserts, and before that day I had been to lazy to investigate. How wrong was I.

Only when my sister's friend from Brisbane came over for a long awaited visit did my sister and I get up off our computer chairs and take her to the city. She also had a soft spot for asian sweets so that is where we took her. See, it's not only me who is obsessed with this stuff, right?

I will try remember all the places we went to in order, which began with a visit to Regent Cakes.

This was a sneaky picture I took of the bread and bun display they had. Considering how I didn't feel any confused looks in my direction, I would think that they were used to fanatic food bloggers coming to their store. I've yet to try all the buns from this shop but I'm sure I will if I keep coming back at this rate. This time I didn't buy anything but our Brisbane friend bought one of the lovely cake slices on display at the counter. 

Mmm... you're pretty... <3

After walking a bit more we went to find Corica Pastries but it was closed, typical of when we go there. Nevertheless they have the most amazing apple strudel... my mother used to bring it back from work and we'd all feast on large slices of it.

For a treat we took said friend to Icey Ice where they sell the smoothest, fluffiest snowy ice desserts. You'd think that eating shaved ice was boring, but in fact I find the process of eating almost as fun as the consuming part. 

 

Here we have strawberry at the back, milk with chocolate sauce and green tea at the front. Our friend was hooked at the first mouthful and constantly raved about it our entire trip. The next day we succumbed to temptation and visited again. :)

After the little break we went to Esther's Cake Shop and drooled looked at the selection of breads and cakes. 

 

 

Is that actually all covered in mango...? *__*

Getting a bit peckish again (which is completely inevitable on a food tour) we went into another bakery along the same street as Esther's (by the way, all the these bakeries are around the same area, since we walked all the way up the road to each one). Stupidly I'd forgotten to note the name of the shop, probably because I was staring at the cakes in the display again. We all sat down and ate the cakes our friend and I bought.

Oh no the name has deserted me again... I think it was a strawberry cheesecake of some sort? This one was mine and it was lovely, with the cheesecake complimenting the sweet strawberry jam swirls nicely.

This was our friend's, and from the look on her face I'd say she enjoyed it too, except that it was a little too sweet for her taste. 

After our afternoon tea we continued walking through Northbridge until it was about time for dinner. Since we were already in the city we decided to dine at a popular Korean place, Took Begi Restaurant. Unfortunately it ended up being more popular than we first anticipated and we had to wait outside for a while. When we got a seat it was at the window, which allowed the people waiting in line to stare in at our meal and press their faces so close to the glass that it was an invasion of personal space. But nonetheless the food was great, and that was what really mattered anyway.

 

  

This was my sister's meal, which was half-frozen noodles in soup. I kept staring at it the entire time, but she reassured me that it was delicious. I guess I'll have to trust her on that because it certainly looks interesting. 

The three of us returned home exhausted and very well fed from a day surrounded by food. I'd suggest to anyone who's maybe in the neighborhood or is deciding to come down to Perth (the isolated city) to visit these places and more. And if anyone has any information on the bakeries or products that I didn't reference please inform me, thanks. :)