:+: Apple Crumbles :+:

Presenting...

Apple Crumbles

Gladys guess it right from the previous post. *sigh* So fast de.

This is something you can make for Father's Day in a tea party or as a dessert.

Here's what you need:

• 5 Apples
• 250g Sugar (You can cut down to 180g, so it won't be too sweet)
• 500g Flour
• 250g Butter (Salted)
• Cinamon powder
• Lemon Juice

Method:

1. Peel the apples and cute them into wedges. Then, slice them (about 0.3cm thick)
2. Arrange them in trays or 'teng kat' (stainless steal containers).
3. Squeeze some lemon juice and sprinkle 1 tablespoon of sugar.
4. Shift the cinamon powder on the apples. (By using a shift, cinamon powder can 'spread' widely easily)

As for the crumbs,

1. The ratio for the butter and flour is 1:2. If you use1 bar of butter (250g), your flour would be 500g.
2. The ratio for the sugar to butter is 1:1. Therefore, your sugar is at the same weight as your butter (250g).
3. Shift the flour and mix with the sugar.
4. Add in the butter and mix gradually, then use your hands to mix them.
5. Don't knead into dough!
6. To get crumbles, rub the mixture in your hands as if rubbing your hands.
   

This makes 2 Mickey Mouse.
Bake at 180 degrees and at 30 minutes or until golden brown.

:+: Recipes for Valentine's Day :+:

Message in Chocolate
Sweeten your valentine’s morning by topping his coffee with love. Spoon a bit of foamed milk on top, and use a squeeze bottle to draw a heart with room-temperature chocolate syrup—store-bought or homemade—just before serving. Make sure foam is dense and syrup is thin. Serve immediately; the image will last only a minute or two. This trick works on cappuccino and latte, or hot chocolate topped with whipped cream.

Valentine's Day Cookie Pops
By Amanda Formaro

Ingredients:

• 20 vanilla wafer cookies
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 6-ounce bag white chocolate chips
• 1 6-ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips
• colored candy sprinkles, red & white
• pink and red gummy or sour patch bears
• cake decorating writer gel in green, pink, red, black, and white
• 1 tube each of white, red, and pink cake decorator frosting with flower tip
• red food coloring
• ice cream or lollipop sticks
• wax paper or paper plates

Instructions:
Spread peanut butter onto the flat side of the cookies. Place an ice cream stick into the peanut butter on half the cookies. Top with another cookie so the stick is sandwiched between the two cookies.

Melt chocolate chips
Before melting, separate the white chips into two bowls. After melting, add a few drops of red food coloring to one of the bowls of white chips to make pink chocolate. Dip cookie pops in the melted chips, covering completely. Roll pops in red and white sprinkles and lay or stand on waxed paper or paper plates. Place in refrigerator to chill.

Fun Variations

• Drizzles -- Alternating between white chocolate, pink chocolate and semi sweet, drizzle melted chocolate over the cookie to create a cool look!
• Writing -- Write fun Valentine shorts on plain pops such as "Love" or "Hug". Add a gummy bear.
• Hearts -- Use the decorator gel to draw on hearts and hearts with arrows.
• Flowers -- Using the flower tip, pipe on pink flowers with cake decorator icing. Use green gel to add stems and leaves to the bouquet.

Note: Another variation is to use vanilla or chocolate frosting instead of peanut butter for the filling. These can also be made without sticks. Use one stick to be able to dip the cookies in chocolate and roll in sprinkles, then remove the stick and put on wax paper or paper plates, then chill.



Valentine's Day Cupcakes
By Amanda Formaro

Ingredients:

• your favorite box cake, any flavor
• red food coloring
• white buttercream icing
• red, pink and green decorator gel
• red, pink and white decorator frosting
• flower decorating tip
• red & white sprinkles cupcake liners

Instructions:
Prepare cake mix as directed. If desired, you can make pink cupcakes with either a flavored mix, such as cherry, or add a few drops of red food coloring to a prepared white cake mix. Put cupcake liners into muffin tins and fill liners as directed on box cake mix. Bake as directed and allow to cool thoroughly before frosting and decorating.

When finished, separate into two dishes. Add a few drops of red food coloring to one bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed. You should have one bowl of pink icing and one bowl of white.

Decorate
There's really not much to decorating cupcakes, especially in the eyes of your admiring children. Just a dollop of frosting is artistic enough for them! Here are a few simple tips that will help you decorate your holiday cupcakes.

• Piping - Using the flower tip on the decorator frosting, pipe a border around the frosted cupcake. Use contrasting colors -- red piping on white frosting, white piping on pink, etc.
• Sprinkles - The beauty of sprinkles is that there is no perfection involved. SImply drop them and let them ly where they fall. Use contrasting colors, and mix colors when pleasing.
• Shapes - Use the decorator gels to "draw" on heart shapes or to add flowers and leaves to a cupcake. You can also use these to dot around the outside edge of one of the treats. These are also ideal for writing words, such as "love", "be mine" and "kiss".
• Frosting only - Use the two different colored frostings to decorate one cupcake. Spread half of a cupcake with white, and carefully spread the other half with pink. You can also spread a full coat of white on and dot the center with pink. Get creative and try swirls or other shapes by using only frosting.

Be sure to store your cupcakes in a tightly covered container so they do not harden or go stale. That is, if they last that long!

Rich Chocolate Hard Cakes

Serves 4
You will need twelve 3 3/4-inch heart molds or tart pans with removable bottoms to make individual chocolate cakes.

Ingredients:
6 large sprigs fresh rosemary
1 large egg white
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
11 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
5 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Chocolate Rosemary Ganache
Hazelnut Praline (Opetional)

Instructions:

1. Separate rosemary into small bunches. Beat egg white with a drop or two of water until it is very loose. Place superfine sugar in a small, shallow bowl. Lightly brush one sprig of rosemary with the egg white. Sprinkle superfine sugar over the damp bunch of rosemary; shake to remove excess. Transfer rosemary to a cooling rack to dry, at least 1 hour. Repeat until all rosemary is used; set aside sugared rosemary. (It will keep at room temperature for about 24 hours.)
2. Preheat the oven to 275° with two racks centered. In the top of double boiler, or in a heat-proof bowl set over simmering water, melt butter and chocolate together, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Set mixture aside to cool.
3. In a medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolks, and stir them into the cooled chocolate mixture. Add granulated sugar, flour, and baking powder to the chocolate mixture, and stir to combine.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites just until soft peaks form. Stir one-third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten it. Fold the chocolate mixture into the remaining egg whites, just until combined. Spoon the batter into twelve 3 3/4-inch heart molds with removable bottoms. Transfer molds to a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until centers spring back when touched, about 45 minutes. Transfer molds to a wire rack, and let sit 5 minutes. Unmold cakes. (After they have cooled, if not using right away, cover cakes lightly with plastic wrap.)
5. To serve, place a cake on serving plate. Pour warm ganache over it; sprinkle with praline, if using. Top with a second and then a third cake layer, drizzling each with ganache. Repeat to make 3 more servings. Sprinkle cakes with praline if desired, and garnish with sugared rosemary. Serve.

Naked Green Beans

Sweet Green Beans Porridge (Lek Tau Suan) or in Anna's language; Naked Green Beans Soup

I found this recipe in www.kuali.com

Ingredients

• 300g skinned, split green beans
• 1 fresh orange
• 100g rock sugar
  
• 100g castor sugar
  
• 2 litres water
  
• 2 pandan leaves, knotted
• 4 teaspoons water chestnut (ma tai) powder, mixed with some water into a solution Chinese cruisers, sliced thinly

Method
Soak the beans in water for 30 minutes. Drain and steam on high heat for 20 minutes.

Peel the orange and reserve flesh for some other use. Slice the orange peel.

Bring the rock sugar, castor sugar, water and pandan leaves to a boil. Add the beans, orange peel and water chestnut solution. Cook until the soup thickens slightly and has a translucent look.

Serve with the thinly sliced Chinese crullers.

What's for dinner?

What's for dinner?

hmmmmzzzz...

.

.

.

.

Tadaaa...

Anna's Salad Cream

Ingredients:

Methods:

1. Mix 1 tablespoon of condensed milk with 2 tablespoon of Mayonnaise. Mix well.
2. Add in lemon juice to your own like.
3. Add in salad spice, or you can subtitute it with black pepper or mixed herbs or oregano.

There you go.. A nice simple salad cream to go with any desired dishes.

Anna's Special Chicken Wings

Anna's Special Chicken Wings

Ingredients:
1. 6 Chicken Wings
2. Black Pepper
3. Mixed Herbs
4. Onion Salt
5. Rosemary
6. 1/2 Lemon juice
7. Salt
8. Fresh Lettuce

Method:

1. First, cut the chicken wings into halves.

2. Put in black pepper, mixed herbs, onion salt, rosemary, lemon juice and salt. Mix well.

3. Leave in the fridge for a few hours or overnight.

4. Place the chicken wings into a tray and arrange, so that they don't overlap each other.

5. Put into the convection oven (I'm using this) or at 175ºc or 375ºF for 15 minutes.

6. After 15 minutes, turn the chicken wings and leave for another 10 minutes, or until golden brown.

7. Arrange lettuce and placed the chicken wings on it.

8. Serve with your favourite sauce and you can also add in some lemon juice.

8. Enjoy.

Stingray vs. Slipper Fish

We were having a drink at Point One, BDC. Sadly, there's no fruit juice and food there, due to Gawai and they even have the next door restaurant's menu. Lionel ordered Hockien Mee Hoon which looked very dry and tasteless. Angel and I went to the coffeeshop near Point One to hunt for some Stingrays.

There's a BBQ stall and Mr. StingrayGuy insist that we take the big piece of stingray which is like 700g. That is so much, too much for the two of us. We requested that he cut that into half, but he refused and said we can finish it. Grrr.. Mr. StingrayGuy then took a smaller piece but it didn't look fresh so we rejected it. After a short consideration, we told him we'll come back later.

We headed to another seafood stall, called BBQ Seafood (something like that). There's no stingray. There were some fishes and three squids displayed. They were two black & white fish (Oh Pek Hu), some call it slipper fish aka Flounder (I think it's called Flounder). Found some information describes this sorta fish.

My definition: It is called black and white because the bottom side of the fish is white and the top is black.
Google's definition: Flounder keep near the bottom, swimming on one side, and the two eyes are both on the side that is uppermost.

Now at the market, it is RM11 per kilo. Here, it is sold RM3 for 100g, RM30 per kilo. See how people nowadays make money?

Well, I didn't take a picture before eating the fish, but I took a picture of it after we ate it. hehe...

Anyway, I managed to find the simple recipe of Ikan Panggang over the internet. Those of you who are interested, you can try them.

IKAN PANGGANG (Grilled Fish)

All over Malaysia and Indonesia, Ikan Panggang is a common and popular dish you will find, particularly in coastal and riverine areas. Good things come in small packets and using banana leaves is an easy way (and environmentally friendly) for the locals to wrap their fish and grill it. Using banana leaves, which you can find frozen at Asian grocers, semi-steams the fish and retains all the juices. It also allows you to add things to the package, like sauces, and not have them dripping all over your barbeque.

Ingredients:

1 medium sized firm fleshed fish (2 1/2 lb) such as flounder, mackeral, snapper, mullet or bream.

1 rectangular piece of banana leaf, large enough to fold over the fish and have extra room available.

Salt to rub over fish.

Method:

1. Clean fish, make diagonal cuts on each side.

2. Rub a little salt over the fish and into the cuts. This is optional and need not be done if you are using a saucewith a lot of salt in it.

3. Wrap fish in banana leaf, folding it over on three sides and and securing the banana leaf with toothpicks.

4. Grill or barbeque until cooked, turning several times to avoid the banana leaf burning. With a small trout approximately 4-5 minutes on each side.

5. Unwrap and serve with a sauce such as Sambal Assam, or on its own.

cheezy weeezy

PRESENTING ANNA'S SPECIAL:

CHEEZY WEEZY SUPPER

My cheezy weezy supper..

All you need is 3 tomatoes, 2 sausages, 1 slice of cheese, toaster and alluminium foil.

All you need to do:

1. Wash the tomatoes.. XD Then, cut.. err.. cut le.. KNIFE DOWN!! XD like the pic below:
2. Spread the alluminium foil and fold it like a small try. Place the tomatoes into the newly made tray.
3. Peng the tomatoes and the sausages for 5 minutes.
4. Cut the cheese into small pieces. When the top of the tomatoes eventually spread open, put cheese on it. Let it melt... Let it melt...
5. Next, knife down the sausages and put cheese in it. Throw back into the toaster and peng for another 30 secs.

When you see the cheese melting till oozing.. You can place them on the plate. My suggested sauce to go along are tobasco and mustard. *slurps

Tang Yuan Festival

Tang Yuan are round balls of glutinous rice (sticky rice), sometimes rolled around a filling of sesame, peanuts, vegetable, or meat. Some are sweet and some are not.Tang Yuan are often cooked in red-bean or other kinds of soup. The round shape symbolizes wholeness and unity.

I went through many websites about Tang Yuan. There are all talking about tang yuan is one of the dish during the winter and connected to the Lantern Festival. hmm.. Weird ne..

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I came across an article from The Star. Check it out below:

‘Tang yuan’ to welcome winter

BY ONG YEE TING

PENANG: Today, the Chinese celebrate Dong Zhi or the Winter Solstice Festival, marking “the arrival of winter”.

FAMILY EFFORT: Ong B Chen (left) and her sister B Bee making the ‘tang yuan’ in Georgetown Wednesday.

One of the must-haves for the festival is the marble-shaped tang yuan, or glutinous rice ball.

The name of the traditional dessert carries much meaning for the Chinese as it sounds like tuan yuan (reunion).

Yuan, which means “round” or “a circle”, is also an auspicious word that suggests yuan man (perfection).

As such, said tang yuan-seller Ng Suan Kooi, families would gather together on Dong Zhi in the old days and make the glutinous rice balls to remind themselves that they were a family unit.

“But now modern families are too busy to make the effort to prepare the dough, cook the syrup and make the tang yuan themselves. This is where we come in to do the job for them,” she said.

Ng, 50, who has been selling tang yuan for 12 years at Pulau Tikus here, said the sweet dessert was especially popular during the festival.

“It’s more convenient for people to buy ready-to-eat ones instead of going through the hassle of making them.

“During the festival itself, I have to use 60kg to 70kg of dough to cater to the huge demand compared with 1kg on a normal day,” she added.

She said the dessert had grown even more popular these days.

“Instead of eating it once a year, you can now get tang yuan any time,” she added.

In the Chinese calendar, the festival falls six weeks before Chinese New Year. A popular expression among the older Chinese to refer to the end of a year and the coming of the next one is: “Chi tang yuan, da yi nian (Eat tang yuan and grow older by a year).”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For this year's Tang Yuan Festival, I made some tang yuans too.

First, mix the glutinous rice flour and water.

Roll the 'dough' into small little balls.

Boil the little balls. After that, mix with peanut powder and sugar, or just add sugar into the soup.

For dinner, we had steambot at home with family members. My grandparents, aunty and her boyfriend joined us. Yum Yum~~ Cook what you want to eat. Eat as much as you want. *slurps**slurps*

Chocolate Cherry Cookies with no Cherry

So lazy want to wake up this morning. I forced myself up. I've planned to bake cookies eversince last last month. Today's the day to do it. If not, I'll never gonna do it.

After my shower, I went to the kitchen. Took out all the ingredients needed for the cookie recipe.

The recipe:

Chocolate Cherry Cookies

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ cup unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa powder

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

¼ tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 egg

1 ½ tsp. vanilla

48 maraschino cherries

glaze (recipe below)

Combine flour and cocoa powder; set aside. In a mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until softened. Add sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Gradually beat in the flour mixture.

Shape dough into one-inch balls. This can be done easily by dipping up small amounts of dough with a cookie scoop; then roll into balls with your hands. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Press down the center of each ball with thumb. Drain maraschino cherries, reserving juice. Place a cherry in the center of each cookie. (If cherries are large, you may wish to cut them in half, placing cut side down.)

Bake in a 350 degree oven about 10 minutes or until edges are set. Cool on cookie sheet for 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Spoon about 1 tsp. glaze over each cherry, spreading to cover the cherry.

(An alternate method I tried was to spoon on glaze and then add a cherry on top of each cookie before icing sets up, instead of placing them on the cookies before baking. This makes them more colorful for Christmas.)

Glaze:

1 (1-oz.) square unsweetened chocolate (or 3 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder)

2 tbsp. butter (if using cocoa powder, increase amount of butter to 3 tbsp.)

3 tbsp. milk

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1 or 2 tbsp. reserved cherry juice

Stir chocolate (or cocoa), butter, and milk in saucepan over low heat until all is melted. Take off heat and stir in powdered sugar until smooth. Add enough cherry juice to make it of the desired spreading consistency.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've got all the ingredients except the cherries. So, I'll just make chocolate cherry cookie with no cherry. XD!! ok also le..

I mixed all the ingredient into a dough and get the place ready to shape the dough into small little balls. I asked my brother to help me. Hiak hiaks..

He do the rolling, I do the forking.

It took us about 1 hour or so to complete baking. And the result can be seen below...

Cookies... John said it looked like Cookie Monster's cookies. XD

Fresh from the oven.. *slurps slurps* *crisp crisp* *BITES*

Waffles on Monday

I woke at bout 11am today. After 10 days of holidays and living in the world of my own, I have to get my ass back to reality. >"<>

New semester has started... TODAY.. thank GoD I got no class on Monday. XD Going back to college tommorow. What a nightmare. First class, Macroeconomics. HmpH..! Amanda Chen (real name Amanda Ting). Chiek named her Amanda Chen. We kinda made fun out of it. Meanie meanie us. XD... Well, those were the days. Chiek left Kuching and moved to KL studying at Taylor. Haihzz.. *sigh* Really miss her presence here in IBMS. Her Jokes, Her Laugh, the way she teases and make fun of Amanda, her loudness... etc...

To 'celebrate' the opening of the new semester, I have made 15 waffles today. :) Looks good and tastes real GOOD too. *kembang hidung*

I'll post the recipe here, incase you guys wanna try it out. ^^V cheers.

golden brown waffle

250g Butter
75g Sugar
a few drops of vanilla essence (i usually put 1 teaspoon)
pinch of salt
10 eggs
500g flour
2tsp baking powder
500ml milk (can put more if the mixture is to thick)

1. Cream butter, sugar, salt, vanilla essence and eggs until fluffy.
2. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder.
3. Pour in milk and mix to a smooth batter.
4. Heat the waffle iron, brushing the wells with a little butter.
5. Pour mixture into the iron and bake waffles for 4-5 minutes untill golden brown.

Makes up to 15 pieces.

waffle maker

waffle iron

waffle maker's well

From this you will get this >>