Tag: Baking

Baked Eggs with Chorizo & Red Capsicum

Baked Eggs with Chorizo & Red Capsicum

amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! So I actually cooked up these bad boys over the weekend for a lovely Sunday brunch. I honestly did not intentionally make it look like a face – it just so happened that when I pulled them out of the oven and was taking photos of the outcome did I realise it was smiling back at me. A happy Sunday indeed (even though it’s like Thursday already). Also, don’t forget to check out the original recipe on SBS.

Baked Eggs with Chorizo & Red Capsicum Ingredients

PREP TIME 5 MINS | COOKING TIME 20-25 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

  • 250ml tomato passata
  • 4 free range eggs
  • 2 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1 chorizo sausage, sliced
  • 1 brown onion, diced
  • 1 red capsicum, cut into slices
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 2-3 tbsp olive oil
  • Ground sea salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. In a small frypan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and gently sweat the onions and garlic. Add the sliced capsicum and cook for another 4–5 minutes to soften them a bit.
  3. Add the chorizo slices to pan with the vegetables and stir to cook until the capsicum and onions are really soft. Add the bay leaf, passata, and a splash of water. Cook for a further 10-15 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. Transfer the sauce to 4 individual shallow ramekins and crack an egg in each. Bake for about 5–10 minutes, or until the eggs are cooked to your liking. Serve immediately with a side of soldiers.

Baked Eggs with Chorizo & Red Capsicum

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Breakfast Muffins: Prosciutto & Chives

Breakfast Muffins: Prosciutto & Chives

amcarmen2 Comments

Hello Everyone! So as you all probably know by now by mentioning it in previous posts, I am interning at a company know as Hello Social three times a week from 9am-5pm. On top of that, I have two days of classes, both of which start at 9am as well. This means that I really only have my weekends of having the pleasure of snoozing my alarm and enjoying a good sleep in – which is usually 1-2 hours after my alarm goes off. Having 9am starts 5 times a week is starting to get exhausting. Last week I started snoozing for an extra 10 minutes and I actually cannot believe what an impact those 10 minutes have had; basically a domino effect. Getting up 10 minutes later made me found myself debating whether I should still sit down and have a quick breakfast, or just head out immediately to get to uni/work on time. I ALWAYS choose breakfast. Choosing breakfast meant that I would miss the buses that I usually catch, and would have to wait an extra 10 minutes at the bus stop (and even sometimes the buses that do come 10 minutes later are packed that I end up waiting an extra 3-5 minutes for one that is not full). Extra waiting time last week meant that I was either 10 minutes late to class, or that I would have to race through the packed city and pedestrian crossings to get to work on time – practically two things I hate; being late and running.

Sometimes I wish that my Mom was here with me. I miss the days where I would still be able to snooze a few extra minutes, get ready and come down to have a decadent breakfast ready for me, and the same goes for lunch and dinner. Now when I get up in the morning and get ready, I still have to prepare a simple breakfast (usually toast or cereal). I sound like such a princess, but I really do miss having everything ready, and fresh from the stove too!

Breakfast Muffins: Prosciutto & Chives

So how do I solve this issue of needing and wanting breakfast without being late or having to race through the morning? Easy. BREAKFAST MUFFINS ON THE GO. Now, this wasn’t my idea to begin with. On Saturday, while shopping with Jialing and Lydia, Jialing mentioned that she wanted to come over and make breakfast muffins so that she could start either taking them to work or eating them while waiting for the bus – and I thought, what a great idea? I mean, I wasn’t just going to watch her bake muffins at my place knowing that I wouldn’t have a batch for myself, so I decided to make some too and they are so great! I snoozed an extra 10 minutes, got ready, grabbed my muffins and lunch, and got to work with still about 15 minutes to spare (the thing about getting into the city before 9am is that I am either super early, or super late because of the bus schedules and everyone wanting to go into the city at the same time, so obviously super early is the better option). Got to work and still had 15 minutes to eat my muffins. I made a few other interns jealous of the delicious smell circulating the office though!

I might start a series on Breakfast Muffins for this blog for those who think they might find this helpful – I mean, day 1 and I am already finding it super helpful! Since I get off from uni at 12pm on Monday’s, I basically have the whole afternoon to make these muffins to last the working week. So, enough babbling, let’s get on with the recipe! But first, please do check out the original recipe on the kitchn.

Breakfast Muffins: Prosciutto & Chives

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 30-35 MINS | MAKES 12 MUFFINS

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 large free range eggs
  • 75g prosciutto, roughly chopped
  • 1 cup almond meal (the one I bought from the store had quinoa in it)
  • 1 cup cottage cheese
  • 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
  • 1/4 cup chives, finely chopped
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease the muffin tray with a little bit of butter and line each hole with baking paper (the butter will help it hold in place while you prepare your batter).
  2. Whisk the cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, eggs, and water together in a large bowl. Then add the flour, almond meal with quinoa, baking powder, smoked paprika, and salt. Whisk until no lumps remain.
  3. Fold in the prosciutto and chives, whisking one more time if necessary to break up the clumps of prosciutto.
  4. Then, divide the batter between the muffin cups and bake for about 30 to 35 minutes or until puffed and golden brown. Makes about 12 muffins.
  5. Store any leftovers in the fridge and remember to warm slightly before serving.

Breakfast Muffins: Prosciutto & Chives

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake

amcarmen3 Comments

Hello Everyone and welcome back to reading another blog post! So this recipe was actually made (and consumed) yesterday, but I would like to take this opportunity to tell you all what the cake was for. Basically last week when Jialing and I were having our lava cake bake off session, Lydia asked if I was free next week (which was yesterday), to make a chocolate cake for her birthday (which is today, Sunday). So first off, Happy 21st Birthday once again to my housemate and friend, Lydia! So on Thursday, I was going through chocolate cake recipes to make, and I came across this one on Taste. Chocolate and Salted Caramel – the ultimate flavour sensation! Jialing, and most specifically the birthday girl, were happy with this selection. So Saturday morning, Lydia and I met up with Jialing at Kingsford, had a gigantic lunch, and then headed over to Maroubra Junction to do our grocery shoppings, and also of course cake ingredient shopping. While shopping – may I just point out, we saw a tub of ready made salted caramel. We debated over whether we should just buy one, and I made the call to just make our own caramel – I mean why not? We were already making the cake from scratch!

Got home and immediately started on the cake because we knew it was going to take a while. Of course, Lydia was on dry ingredient duty, Jialing took over the wet, while I helped Lydia with the dry. Popped the mixture in the oven, and then it was onto the salted caramel. Seriously, so many problems with this, but nonetheless, it tasted #amazeballs. Also, while I was working on this, Jialing and Lydia started to prep the frosting for the cake. Also, somewhere in-between all that, Vidhya, our acting supervisor (not really) sat around and watched the chaos unfold in the kitchen – okay she did help a little bit as well before going back to sleep again (after having just woken up from her slumber). It was then more or less time to take the cakes out of the oven, left to cool, and then assemble! We assembled the first two layers and then, disaster struck. Our top layer wasn’t cooked all the way through so we had to pop it back into the oven. Once we got it out of the oven, we still had to wait for it to cool down. While that was happening, we left everything to where it was and headed out to get a take out dinner. We were so engrossed in our cake making session that we totally forgot about dinner! So went to the Indian place nearby and got dinner for 6 – by then Abdullah, Marissa, and Vidhya (when she woke up) joined us.

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake

We then assembled the cake. Once that was done and over with, we had Vidhya distract Lydia so that we could put candles on her cake (which by the way she was not expecting). It was hilarious because whatever Vidhya needed doing was basically a one-man job turned two/three person job just to keep Lydia distracted and away from the dining room for a bit. When she finally walked back into the dining room, she was SO happy and even had a little jump/skip when she saw the candles on her cake. Priceless moment. We then took photos, sang happy birthday, had more housemates join us, ate cake, drank wine, and had a good time. So yes, if you took the time to read all that, thank you! And if you are just here for the recipe, fear not, it begins here…

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake Ingredients

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake Ingredients

PREP TIME 20 MINS | COOKING TIME 30-35 MINS | SERVES 8-10

INGREDIENTS

For the cake

  • 2 cups plain flour
  • 1 & 1/2 cups self-raising flour
  • 1 & 1/2 cups buttermilk
  • 1 & 1/4 cups caster sugar
  • 1/2 cup cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 395g can caramel*
  • 4 free range eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract (or 1 tsp if using concentrated extract)
  • 1 & 1/2 tsp sea salt rocks
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • Sea salt rocks, to decorate (optional)

For the chocolate frosting

  • 400g dark chocolate, melted and cooled
  • 250g unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted
  • 1/4 cocoa powder, sifted

*If you read all of the above before scrolling down to the recipe, I actually made my own salted caramel which I will be uploading the recipe to tomorrow (hopefully), so stay tuned for that!

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease three 9″ round disposable aluminium tins (we didn’t have cake pans to work with so we bought these instead, and since they came in a pack of three, we made a three-layer cake instead).
  2. Sift flours, sugar, cocoa, baking of soda and 1/2 teaspoon of salt into a large bowl. Add in the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract, and 1 cup cold water. Combine using a spatula. Then, using and electrical mixer, beat the mixture over medium speed for 3 to 4 minutes or until the mixture is smooth.
  3. Divide the batter between the tins and bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Stand in pans for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool.
  4. Meanwhile, gather ingredients for your salted caramel while waiting for your cakes to cook (if making from scratch).
  5. Chocolate Frosting: Whisk the cocoa powder and 1/4 cup of warm water in a bowl until the cocoa powder has dissolved. Meanwhile, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the melted chocolate, then cocoa mixture until combined.
  6. Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes. Then, transfer the base of 1 cake to a plate. Spread with 1/3 of the caramel. Top with another cake layer and spread with 1/2 of the remaining caramel. Repeat layering with 1 cake layer and remaining caramel mixture. Top with remaining cake layer. Spread top and sides of cake with chocolate frosting. Serve!

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake

Layered Chocolate & Salted Caramel Cake

You can’t really see the layers of caramel in-between because while we were assembling we realised that the top layer wasn’t cooked all the way through. So while waiting for that to bake away in the oven, on top of getting take out and eating dinner, the caramel that was on the other layers of cake either seeped into the cake or dripped over the sides. Sad times, but still oh so decadent in flavour!

Happy Birthday Lydia

Once again, Happy Birthday Lydia! ❤

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake

amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! Back with another recipe for you! I know right? It’s a weekday and she’s actually uploading a post? If you read yesterday’s post, I mentioned that I had a baking session with my good friend/lover Jialing. What happened was that she was feeling bait down that she couldn’t do the internship that she really wanted due to requirement issues with our University – and so she contacted me and basically wanted to bake a chocolate lava cake to drown her sorrows in. So, we decided to do that! I suggested that we make a red velvet lava cake – drooled instantly as I made that suggestion. So Sunday we met up at the grocers and bought our ingredients for it. While shopping, Jialing decided that she wanted to make a dark chocolate lava cake, and bought ingredients for those too. Lava cake bake-off!

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake

This was my first time trying out this recipe and I don’t particularly like making lava cakes because I always end under either undercooking it, or overcooking it until it’s rock solid and dry. Jialing’s dark chocolate lava cakes were slightly overdone and not very molten, while mine on the other hand were slightly undercooked – the sides were perfect, but the tops (as in when you invert them) weren’t cooked at all, even when they were in the oven for the maximum amount of time they should be in. Nonetheless taste and texture were spot on – and in my opinion made the presentation of the dish more dynamic! Please check out the original recipe on The Dinner Pages. I SO wanted to make the cream cheese ice cream, but I didn’t have an ice cream maker so I mean, store bought Cadbury vanilla ice cream did wonders as well anyway!

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake Ingredients

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 15-18 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup white chocolate buttons
  • 85g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing
  • 1/2 cup plain flour
  • 1/3 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cocoa powder
  • 2 large free range eggs
  • 2 tsp red food colouring
  • pinch of salt

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 200C. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the white chocolate and butter until smooth, at intervals of 20-30 seconds to prevent the mixture from burning (approximately 2 minutes altogether). Grease the moulds with the extra butter.
  2. Add in the cocoa powder and sugar to the white chocolate and butter mixture. Stir until well combined.
  3. Beat the eggs in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add in the chocolate mixture in small amounts, stirring together to allow the eggs to warm slowly (temper) and avoid scrambling. Add in the remaining chocolate batter in small amounts as well and stir until fully combined.
  4. Stir in the red food colouring, flour, and pinch of salt until well combined. Then divide the batter amongst the 4 well greased moulds (should go up to about 3/4 of the way).
  5. Bake for 15 minutes (or as I found that my cakes didn’t quite cook at the top, add an extra 2 minutes, maybe).
  6. Remove from the oven and run a knife around the edges right away. Invert each mould onto an individual serving plate and let sit for 2 minutes, then carefully lift up the mould. Top with vanilla ice cream to serve.

Red Velvet Chocolate Lava Cake

I mean, look at that gloss on the lava! So much loves!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! Back again with another lip-smacking recipe that will definitely fill your tummies (I am so full right now that I keep burping out loud, and my burps taste of garlic oops!). I love buffalo wings, just as much as I practically love every other chicken wing dishes out there. Now the easy option would just be to go to Coles and buy a pre-packed marinated bag of buffalo chicken wings and simply throw it on the grill and voilà! I mean, yes I have done that multiple times, at barbecue parties because it’s a quick and easy solution to getting ready-marinated meats on the day. But no, not today; I always have to take the long route, which I think is worthwhile especially if you’re learning how to cook. Taking shortcuts won’t allow me to get creative in the kitchen and experiment with recipes. It definitely won’t allow me to expand my abilities in the kitchen as well. I’ve been wanting to tackle this recipe for a while now, but never got around to until today.

Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip Ingredients

So today I posted these two images on Instagram. If you have an account, please look up @amcarmenskitchen and give me a follow. I usually post teaser images of the ingredients that I will be using for the recipe that will be posted on the blog later in the evening. I also always ask my followers to guess what dish I will be making based on the pictured ingredients. I try to make my Instagram feed as interactive as possible with my followers. Today I posted a blurred image and asked them to guess the 8 ingredients for today’s dip to go with these succulent buffalo wings. Didn’t quite get many responses but thank you to my girl Mel Barrass for guessing an ingredient right! I then posted the other image and got a response from my twin Pamela about how curious she is to know what I’ll be making from these ingredients.

For this, I looked at two recipes from the Food Network and tweaked the method a bit. But please do check out the original recipes as linked:

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

PREP TIME 10 MINS* | COOKING TIME 35 MINS | SERVES 3-4

*Add an extra 4-5 hours waiting time for chicken to marinate

INGREDIENTS

For the buffalo wings

  • 15 chicken mid-wings, washed and cleaned
  • 85g unsalted butter
  • 1/3 cup sriracha hot sauce
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tsp salt

For the blue cheese-yoghurt dip

  • 3/4 cup greek yoghurt
  • 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
  • 2 tbsp mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp milk
  • 1 clove garlic, minced
  • Juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • Ground salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

  1. Place the wings into a pot of boiling, salted water. Cover and reduce the heat to medium. Parboil the wings for 6-8 minutes. Remove the wings and carefully pat dry. Lay the wings out on baking dish lined with paper towels.
  2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan along with the garlic. Add the hot sauce and salt and stir to combine. Remove the paper towels and pour the hot sauce mixture over the wings and toss. Cover the dish with cling wrap and leave in the fridge to marinate for at least 4-5 hours before cooking.
  3. Meanwhile, combine the yogurt, blue cheese, mayonnaise, garlic, milk and lemon juice in a medium-szied bowl and whisk together until combined but still chunky. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
  4. Preheat oven to 220C. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and place the wings skin side up onto the tray. Roast on the middle rack of the oven for 35 minutes, or until cooked through.
  5. Serve with blue cheese-yoghurt dip and a salad of your choice. In this case, I had a 4 leaf mix with a french dressing, and homemade roasted sweet potato fries. A great combination!

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

Baked Buffalo Wings with Blue Cheese-Yoghurt Dip

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Basic Scones Picnic

Basic Scones

amcarmen3 Comments

Hello Everyone! So from yesterday’s a post, I mentioned that I had a tea and scones party. I decided to hold one when I made strawberry jam a few days ago. I wanted to have some scones with them, but I didn’t want to eat everything for myself – and so I decided to share the love! It was an afternoon/night of fun and laughter, and meeting new people over homemade goodness. When I say meeting new people, I mean my friends from different places (uni, housemates, etc.) meeting my other friends, and becoming mutual friends.

Basic Scones

I decided to go with very basic scones because I wanted the berry-flavoured jams and lemon curd to shine. The original recipe for these basic scones can be found at Taste. When baking them, the kitchen and hallway filled with amazing buttery aromas. You could tell that these were going to be really tasty; crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I think we (my friend Jialing & I; we made two batches so she worked on one while I worked on the other) may have underestimated how high the scones would rise so some rose a bit too much and collapsed – but still tasty nonetheless. This recipe is for one batch, which should make about 16 scones (probably only 10-12 if you made them too big like we did :P)

Basic Scones

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 20-25 MINS | MAKES 16 SCONES

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 cups self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
  • 80g chilled unsalted butter, cubed
  • 1 cup milk

Only 3 basic must-have pantry ingredients! How convenient!

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 200C.
  2. Sift the self-raising flour into a large bowl and add the cubed butter. Rub the butter into flour using your fingertips until the mixture resembles a breadcrumb texture.
  3. Make a well in the centre and add the milk. Mix with a flat-bladed knife until the mixture forms a soft dough. If the mixture is a bit dry and crumbly, add more milk if required. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently until smooth (don’t knead the dough too much though or your scones will be quite tough).
  4. Pat the dough into a 2cm-thick round, and using a circular cutter (about a 5cm diameter, or to whatever size/shape you want), cut out rounds. Press the dough together and cut out the remaining rounds.
  5. Place scones onto a tray lined with baking paper, 1cm apart from each other. Lightly sprinkle the tops with a little flour and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden and well risen. Serve warm with cream, assorted jams, and lemon curd (for the cream, we just bought a tub of thickened cream and whisked it until it thickened to a spreadable consistency).

Basic Scones

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Peach Crumble

Peach Crumble

amcarmen1 Comment

For my 21st Birthday (which was like a year and a half ago), one of my friend’s from church, Tom, got me a set of 4 mini-cocottes with an accompanying cookbook. It was probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received – a lot of people back then knew that I am a foodie and that I love to cook. The mistake they always make is that they get me food, such as chocolates and even gingerbread cookies (since my birthday was towards the end of the year, they thought they’d give me a birthday and Christmas gift too). I never really liked receiving food as gifts as I always say “I’m just gonna poop it out later anyway”, but cookware or even tableware? Best.

Note, I’m actually not a very big fan of chocolate. Moist, warm, oozy, chocolate cake: Yes. Chocolate bars, candies: No.

Peach Crumble

From this cookbook, I’ve only actually made two recipes, Shepard’s Pie and of course today’s post, Peach Crumble – which I have made numerous times because I just love it! Even my friends love it! It’s also simple and requires no more than 10 ingredients. I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit in terms of lessening the amount of sugar (I don’t really like my desserts too sweet and sometimes when I see ‘1 cup of sugar’ it scares me a bit). I also used less peaches than what the recipe calls for, and discarded the juice of lemon – in the past I have found the lemon too overpowering, making the dessert very sour. I think the zest adds enough lemony flavour to the crumble.

This is usually a dessert I pull out during the summer as peaches are in season then here in Australia. To my surprise, when I went shopping a few days ago at Coles, I found peaches! At first I was a bit skeptical knowing that they weren’t in season, and then I realised they had been imported from the US. I bought them anyway despite it being a tad bit more expensive than the local peaches during the summertime, because I needed peach crumble in my life right now and I couldn’t sit around and wait for summer to come along. But a warm peach crumble dessert fits perfectly with the cold weather don’t you think?

Peach Crumble Ingredients

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 20 MINS | SERVES 4

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 large ripe peaches
  • 100g cold unsalted butter, cut into little cubes
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 2/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1/3 cup crumbed walnuts
  • 1/3 tsp ground cinnamon
  • Zest of one lemon

Peach Crumble

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly butter 4 mini-cocottes.
  2. Bring a saucepan on water to a boil and plunge the peaches in one by one for 2 minutes. Remove using a slotted spoon and transfer to a deep dish to cool. Once cool, the skin should easily peel off. Cut into generous chunks or slices and mix with the lemon zest, cinnamon, and half of the sugar. Set aside.
  3. Mix the remaining sugar together with the butter, flour, and walnuts in a bowl. With your fingertips, quickly mix the ingredients together until looks like rough bread crumbs. If your mixture is too warm, put the bowl into the refrigerator for 15 minutes and start again when it has chilled.
  4. Fill each mini-cocottes with the peaches and top with the crumble mixture. Place any remain peach slices on the top.
  5. Place the cocottes on a baking tray lined with aluminium foil. This is to catch any juices that may overflow from the cocottes; saves having to clean the tray later. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, uncovered.
  6. Serve hot out of the oven or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream (optional).

Peach Crumble

Peach Crumble

Additionally, you can use any stone fruit besides peaches, such as apricots and plums – anything that is ripe, available locally, and in season. Reserve and leftover crumble by freezing it in a small ziplock bag.

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Oatmeal Shortbread with Raspberry Compote

Oatmeal Shortbread with Raspberry Compote

amcarmenLeave a comment

Mother's Day 2014“We laugh, we cry, we make time fly. We are best friends, my Mom and I.” – (The photo above was taken back in December during our family trip to Thailand at the Chiang Mai Zoo, it was the most recent one I could find of the both us where we actually looked decent).

Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers and moms-to-be out there in the world, especially to a woman so dear to me, Mama G. Thank you for always being there for me. I should tell you how much a love you every single day, but I don’t. So here it is: I LOVE YOU.

So for today’s recipe, I decided to make oatmeal shortbread with a raspberry compote to commemorate Mother’s Day. If you have read my previous post last week on my Mother’s Birthday, you’ll know that a) she’s actually in another country, 2 hours behind, and b) she’s a diabetic. So today’s recipe is diabetic-friendly, and again she won’t be here to actually eat it, but maybe next year when I’m definitely back home for her birthday and Mother’s Day, I’ll whip it up for her again. For now, she’ll just have to enjoy looking at the pictures.

Note, I followed Martha Stewart’s Oatmeal Shortbread recipe for this so please check out the original on Yummly. The original recipe uses confectioners sugar, and I went online to see if there are any substitutes for this and I came across this website: Fitday. Basically you mix an artificial sweetener, such as Equal or Splenda, and cornstarch, and grind it in a blender.

PREP TIME 5 MINS | COOKING TIME 30-35 MINS | SERVES 3-4

INGREDIENTS

For the Oatmeal Shortbread

  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp extra old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
  • 3/4 cup plain flour, levelled
  • 1/3 cup confectioners sugar substitute (see above)
  • 1/2 tsp ground salt
  • 120g unsalted butter, cubed

For the Raspberry Compote

  • 1 punnet (125g) fresh raspberries
  • 1 tbsp granulated sugar substitute (I used Equal in this case)
  • 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1/4 tsp cornstarch

METHOD

  1. Meanwhile, combine all the raspberry compote ingredients in a small saucepan. Simmer for 10 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Once the raspberries fall apart and the sauce is thickened, remove from heat. Allow it to cool down to room temperature before serving.
  2. Combine the flour, sugar, salt, and 1/2 cup of the cooled oats in a food processor. Process for about 1 minute or until finely ground. Then add in the butter. Pulse until the mixture’s consistency is of a coarse meal. Transfer to an 8-inch square baking pan and press firmly into bottom. Sprinkle remaining oats on top, and press gently.
  3. Bake for about 30-35 minutes until firm and lightly browned. Using a paring knife, immediately score shortbread into squares, and then score each square diagonally into 2 triangles. Place the baking pan on a wire rack and allow to cool on a wire rack. Gently invert, and break along scored lines. Serve with the raspberry compote.

Oatmeal Shortbread with Raspberry Compote

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Diabetic-friendly Chocolate Lava Cake

Diabetic-friendly Chocolate Lava Cake

amcarmenLeave a comment

Happy Birthday Mom!
Here’s to another year. Happy Birthday to the strongest woman I know; my chef, my role model, my bestfriend, my queen, Mama G. Thank you for making me into the person that I am today. Thank you for supporting me in my decisions. Thank you for being kind and generous to my sisters and myself. Thank you for feeding me and most of all thank you for teaching me how to cook! Thank you for everything. I love you ❤

Today (May 1st) as you can see, is my mother’s birthday. Unfortunately for the past four years, I have not been able to celebrate with her and the family back home being away for university. But today I decided to bake her a cake, a chocolate lava cake. A diabetic-friendly chocolate lava cake. For her birthday. Even though she’s not here to eat it.

I initially looked at this recipe by theurbanbaker but changed the portions slightly to make 2 chocolate lava cakes (I had to eat them all in the end since my Mom isn’t actually here to eat it with me, and 4 seemed a bit too much to handle for me).

Diabetic-friendly Chocolate Lava Cake

PREP TIME 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 6-7 MINS | MAKES 2 CAKES

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 tbsp unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the ramekins
  • 50g Nestlé 70% cocoa dark chocolate for cooking, chopped
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tbsp granulated sugar substitute (in this case I used Equal)
  • 1 tsp plain flour
  • Unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 230C. Grease the ramekins with room temperature butter and light dust with sifted cocoa powder.
  2. Add the chocolate and butter to a small bowl. Melt in the microwave for about a minute. Stir until smooth.
  3. In a medium bowl beat the egg, egg yolk and sugar substitute together until lightened in colour and thickened. Add the chocolate mix and stir until smooth and combined. Stir in the flour and divide between the ramekins.
  4. Bake for about 6-7 minutes. The sides will be cooked but the centre will be soft.
  5. Invert onto a plate and wait 10 seconds before sliding the ramekin off. The cake will fall into place. Light dust with confectioners sugar, garnish with a strawberry and serve with a glass of chilled St. Andrew’s Pink Moscato (optional).

Diabetic-friendly Chocolate Lava Cake

BON APPÉTIT!

– Ally xx

myTaste.com

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16 ESV)

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Happy Easter everyone! I spent my day eating, shopping, walking, and eating some more with my food buddy Jialing and her boyfriend Zargham. It started off with lunch at the newly opened Roadside Café in Kingsford, then we made our way to the city to do some unnecessary shopping. Most of the stores in Pitt Street and the Westfield were closed because of the Easter holidays but as you walked towards Market City, stores were opened and busy with insane sales. We made this conclusion: “Asians” not that we were being racist being Asians ourselves, just pointing out the obvious stereotypes.

Anyway, on our shopping trip, we stopped by a store called General Pants Co. along George Street. I met a saleslady and her name was Shannon (apologies if this isn’t how you spell your name). We talked about what we’re up to for the Easter long weekend, and she mentioned that she was wanting to do some baking today. I mentioned to her that I recently started a food blog and gave her my link. Shannon, if you’re reading this, hope you enjoy my blog! Feel free to share with your family and friends 🙂

We ended the night having dinner at Chinese Noodle House, and about $80 poorer from food and shopping today.

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

I wanted to make something special for Easter but I didn’t get around to being out all day. So nevertheless, I pulled out an old recipe as requested by one of my friends, Miss Yvonne Wang. She has had these cookies many times and always gave it a big thumbs up. So just for her, and of course everyone else, today’s recipe as titled: Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

I originally followed this recipe and tweaked it a bit, so please do check out the original as well by the BBC GoodFood

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

PREP TIME 1 HOUR 10 MINS | COOKING TIME 12-15 MINS |
MAKES 2 DOZEN COOKIES

INGREDIENTS

For the cookie dough

  • 175g unsalted butter, cut into chucks
  • 1/3 cup caster sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup plain flour
  • 1/3 cup pistachios, roughly chopped
  • 1/3 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped

For the pistachio paste

  • 1/4 cup pistachios
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar
  • 3 tbsp cold water

METHOD

  1. Combine the pistachio paste ingredients in a blender and blend until pistachios are roughly chopped and combined (does not have to be smooth in texture). Set aside until needed.
  2. Toss the butter, sugar and vanilla extract with a spoon. Add the flour, pistachios and cranberries into the mix and stir – you might need to use your hands at this stage to bring the mix together as a crumble mix. Add in the pistachio paste and stir it in to combine as a dough.
  3. Half the dough and shape each half into a log. Cover in cling wrap and chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of 1 hour before baking, or alternatively, the dough can be kept in the freezer for up to 3 months.
  4. Preheat the oven to 180C. Slice the logs into about 1cm thick rounds and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely on the tray.

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

Cranberry & Pistachio Cookies

BON APPÉTIT!

– Ally xx

myTaste.com