Heart shaped egg and toast

I am tired of eating the typical egg and toast breakfast, so I played a little with my food. Wanted to make my breakfast look somewhat more fun and interesting to eat, so I used a heart-shaped pancake/ cookie cutter to cut my bread into heart shape and toast it. Next, I crack an egg into the heart shape cutter and cook it. So, here it is:

Coeur en forme d'oeuf et pain grillè. Bon apetit! :)

Pâte à choux

I am very saddened by the recent disaster faced by the people in Japan. Even though I know no one in Japan but I totally understand the feeling of losing a loved one. I sincerely hope that the people in Japan can resume back to their normal life soon. I salute to all the heroes who went all the way to look for survivors. Please Pray for Japan.

Today, I made pâte à choux (also known as cream puff). This is a fairly easy bake. I adapted the recipe from Martha Steward. In fact, all cream puffs recipes are 99% the same. Water, butter, salt, sugar, flour and eggs. The steps to prepare are easy to follow. Fret not if you are not a professional baker. I am not too. So, go on, try baking them. You will be proud of yourself once you did it. :)

Oops, I forgot to take photos of the earlier steps. When you keep stirring all the flour into the melted butter, the mixture will pull away from the sides of the saucepan and a film will form on the bottom of the pan as shown above. Transfer the dough to the bowl of the electric mixer.

Add one egg at a time into the batter and mix until incorporated.  The batter should look shiny. Test the batter by lifting the spatula up from the batter to form a string. The batter should look like it is stretched.

When you piped the batter above, you need to flatten the pointed tip with egg wash to avoid the top being burnt.

Coat the top rounds with egg wash.

I am going to fill the insides of my cream puffs with different fillings. Custard filling and ice cream. You can use any fillings you desire.

Picture from the Left: Filled with macadamia nuts ice cream and custard cream

Recipe:
Ingredients--
Makes about 5 dozen
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 large eggs, plus 1 more, lightly beaten, if needed for dough

Directions--

1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Heat 1 cup water, the butter, sugar, and salt in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until butter has melted and mixture is boiling. Remove from heat. Using a wooden spoon, stir in flour. Return to medium heat; cook, stirring constantly, until mixture pulls away from sides and a film forms on bottom of pan, about 4 1/2 minutes.

2.Transfer mixture to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until slightly cooled, about 2 minutes. Raise speed to medium. Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time, mixing until incorporated after each addition. Batter should be shiny. Test batter by touching it with your finger and lifting to form a string. If a string does not form, mix in another egg a little at a time. If a string still doesn't form, add water 1 teaspoon at a time until it does.

3.Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip (such as Ateco #806). Pipe 1-inch rounds onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 1 inch apart. Whisk remaining egg and 1 teaspoon water in a small bowl; brush over tops of rounds

4.Bake until rounds are puffed and pale golden, about 10 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes more. Turn off oven, and prop open oven door with a wooden spoon to release steam; let puffs dry 15 minutes. Using a spatula, transfer to a wire rack; let cool completely. Puffs can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 day or frozen up to 1 month.

For custard cream recipe, I use my own formulation which I think it is best not to post here. It does not taste that great but passable. Hehe :P I believe the custard cream recipe from various food blog site are reliable. However, when I bake cream puffs again, I will definitely follw a recipe accordingly and share with everyone here (only if it tastes good). Bon week-end!

PS. I hope the visual effects of some of the steps of making cream puffs helps. Enjoy! :)

Cinnamon rolls

I decided to bake cinnamon rolls. I baked bread before, but it flopped. Not surprising, for me at least. I picked the cinnamon rolls recipe from 'All Recipes'. Cette recette a plus de sept cent commentaires. And over 19,000 people have saved the recipe. The answer is obvious, use the recipe from All Recipes. I have used a few recipes from this website and I can safely say that their recipes have not failed me yet. :)

The only decent looking cinnamon roll allowed to be seen in public.

I do not have a bread maker machine, so the baking process was tiring. I was perspiring quite a bit kneading the dough. It was a good workout! Seeing my bread double in size after proofing thrilled me. It means I may succeed in making cinnamon rolls. Maybe is better than never. Luckily, all went well in a way. My CR was soft and fluffy. The brown sugar+powdered cinnamon+margarine as the filling is awesome!! I should remind myself not to pack too many CR dough in a baking tray. The cut dough continued to proof in the baking tray. My CR doesn't look pretty like the ones sold in shop. Obviously, hahaha... However, I was not discouraged. My mum told me the taste is more important than the outlook. Taste and presentation are both equally important to me. And thankfully, I have my loving family and good friends to try my bakes so that I can
improve. This recipe is a keeper, seriously. However, my mum feedbacked that I should make the filling less sweet. Point taken.

 Enjoy!!

Happy International Women's Day! Cheers to all the women who made wonderous contribution to the society. Yes, you, you and you. Only applicable to women, please. Hehehe... To my mum, you rock!! :)

PS: the pointed cinnamon roll was the last cut piece which has to be baked on its own. Hence, the shape. :)

Recipe from All Recipes:

Ingredients
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup margarine, softened
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 (.25 ounce) package instant yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup water
1 egg
1 cup brown sugar, packed (I used 3/4 cup)
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup margarine, softened 1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Directions

Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in margarine; stir until melted. Let cool until lukewarm.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 1/4 cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt; mix well. Add water, egg and the milk mixture; beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.

Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, softened margarine.

Roll out dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. Spread dough with margarine/sugar mixture. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Roll up dough and pinch seam to seal. Cut into 12 equal size rolls and place cut side up in 12 lightly greased muffin cups. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until browned. Remove from muffin cups to cool. Serve warm.

Four tier chocolate layer cake

Recently, I was hooked on 'Junior Masterchef' program on tv. The contestants are kids aged between 8- 12 years old. Their culinary skills are superb! The show is very entertaining and less stressful compared to those adult cooking show. No screaming and drama scenes or sparring of angry words between the contestants. Of course not, they are just a group of innocent yet very talented kids.

In the recent episode, the kids were to bake Donna Hay's four tier chocolate layer cake. Seeing them bake made me want to bake DH's cake right away. Simple yet elegant in presentation. So, today I will bake four tier chocolate layer cake using Donna Hay's recipe. Yay!!!

Had a crisis baking the chocolate batter. I used two 10cm round baking tin instead of 12 cm ones. I filled the tin almost to the rim with the batter. I guess most of you would have guessed what happened next. Yes, my batter overflowed during the baking process. It was like a minor eruption... lava-like molten chocolate oozed out from the baking tin. I should have known but I told myself maybe it won't happen. And it did. I wanted to bake again but I had no butter left at home. I wanted to save the cake. I really do. I used a knife and removed the 'ballooned' top portion of the half-baked cake and continued baking. Voila! My cakes are saved. They don't look pretty, at the very least I managed to cut 4 layers. I did damage control by placing blueberries on the top of the cake. I tried the some of the ruined cake, they tasted awesome. Donna Hay is simply awesome and her recipe is definitely a keeper!!!

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay:

Ingredients:-
1/2 cup (125ml) water
60g butter, chopped
2 tablespoons cocoa, sifted
1 cup (150g) plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, sifted
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup (60ml) buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

chocolate cream cheese frosting

50g butter, softened
250g cream cheese
1 cup (160g) icing sugar mixture, sifted
1/4 cup (25g) cocoa, sifted

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 150'C fan-forced.


2. Place the water, butter and cocoa in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the butter has melted. Place the flour, bicarbonate of soda and sugar in a bowl, add the cocoa mixture and whisk to combine. Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla and whisk to combine. Divide mixture between 2 lightly greased 12cm round cake tins lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Allow to cool in the tins for 5 minutes. Turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.
3. While the cake is baking, make the cream cheese frosting. Place the butter and cheese in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat for 6–8 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar and cocoa and beat for a further 6–8 minutes or until light and fluffy.
4. To assemble, slice the cakes in half horizontally. Place one cake layer on a plate and spread with one quarter of the frosting. Repeat with remaining layers and frosting. Decorate as desired.