Maple chocolate chips & chunks cookies

I've been keeping this recipe I spotted on a blog and this afternoon I managed to try it. It's a keeper, as the cookies are yummy, crispy on the outside and soft inside. Parents and S think they are nice too :) even Cinnamon and Bob showed some interest.

Scones

Yesterday was my first time making scones, as I always thought it would be difficult doing the rubbing in method for the butter into the flour. After trying it, it wasn't that tough, but it did take some time with a soup spoon in one hand and a knife in the other to coat the chilled butter with the dry mixture and cut into smaller pieces. I thought the scones taste quite nice, but my family don't think they are great.

Cheese yogurt muffin

Since I made a batch of Greek yogurt recently, I surfed for a recipe which uses yogurt, shredded cheese (a packet expiring in oct) and lemon (I like lemon zest). I found one that requires the 1st 2 items, so I just added lemon zest and chocolate chips as a variation. I like the end product, but family isn't too keen on the hint of yogurt. Oh well, I'll finish most of the muffins myself with some help from S :)

Dense chocolate cake

On the spur of moment, on Fri night, I wanted to bake something and I decided on Nigella Lawson's dense chocolate cake. If you were to goggle, there are a number of blogs and links on her recipe. I made 2 mistakes when starting out to make the cake. I used the microwave to soften the hard butter and ended up melting it. Again with the microwave, I burnt the mini choc chip (supposed to melt them) and caused smoke emitting from the back of the microwave :) Luckily after melting another batch of choc chips over a water bath in the saucepan, the rest of the steps went smoothly. My family and S like the cake. But there is room for improvement, so next time, I will soften the butter by leaving it out of the fridge earlier and I will use a good chocolate bar :)

Soft buns at last!

This afternoon I tried my hands again at kneading and baking bread using the "Tangzhong" method. The recipe says to knead for about 10mins depending on how fast and hard one kneads. I took more than 30mins and the dough was still quite sticky but I could see a round hole forming when I stretched a piece of dough. So I just left the sticky dough to double before putting in fillings like cheese, choc chips and cranberries. I was happy with the taste of the cheese bun I shared with Sis. Subtly sweet and soft. I declare the bun to be nicer than the SQ flight bun and sis declared that it is nicer than most of the other stuff I have baked :)

Baking double chocolate muffins

I really like the chocolate muffins from Choc N Spice at Shunfu Mart, so I have been trying to find a good recipe that will give me nice soft muffins. There were a few I shortlisted and this afternoon I chose one recipe to bake these nice looking muffins. The only variation I did was to put walnuts or cranberries on top. I think it's quite chocolatey but somehow it's still not as soft as I like. I shall see what my family says tomorrow when they eat them.

Baking therapy: lemon buttermilk cake

It felt good to keep my mind and hands busy on Sat. My family doesn't really like the taste of the cake though. They prefer the buttery to the buttermilk taste. Oh well, at least it's edible :)

Turning 34 yesterday

I have given myself a big present earlier, received birthday wishes from friends and colleagues, played with the thoughtful gift from S, spent the day with my loved ones and baked coffee butter cake and cinnamon cookies :)

Unsuccessful cinnamon cookies

I have been trying recipes that don't require the dough to be chilled and sliced, but it seems inevitable as the cookies from 3 recipes didn't turn out well. They are either too hard, taste too healthy or have no cinnamon kick. I'm not daunted and shall try chill/slice recipe in my next experiment :)

Home cooked dinner on Saturday

Parents usually don't cook dinner on weekends. However, sometimes we get sick of eating outside or asking Dad to buy take-away home. Today was such a day and mom prepared the peanut soup and stir fried zucchini with prawns while I baked shepherd pie.

Pretty burnt cinnamon cookies & yummy couscous

What I was busy with on Sun late morning and afternoon :)

Baking bread using Tangzhong method

After hearing a friend mentioning that this method will give a soft bread, I googled and found a number of blogs raving about this method and showing the photos of the yummy looking bread. Today I decided to try making them. The Tangzhong mixture that was mixed with the wet yeast mixture and dry ingredients is the secret to the soft bread. I thought using the electric mixture's dough hooks would help to make my life easier but I had to keep scrapping down the dough climbing up the hooks frequently, I made the dough manually instead. It's quite a tedious process but I am happy that the bread buns are quite yummy :) I did cheese, nutella and peanut butter buns.

Choc chip, cheese or cranberry buns

I haven't attempted to bake bread for a long time as it's time consuming and I ended up with hard and dry bread. However, this recipe (http://farmchickskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/06/quick-easy-bun-recipe.html) looks promising, so I gave it a shot just now. It's easier than the other recipes as I don't have to wait for the dough to rise but I still had to keep adding more flour to the sticky dough and my fingers until I can divide the dough into smaller
buns and add chocolate chips or shredded cheese or cranberries into them. I'm quite happy with the taste and smell of the buns. Hope my family will like them too :)

3rd attempt @ baking nutella cake

This time I added cranberries to 3 of them as mom and I like them. However, I still can't get the baking time right. The recipe said 11-12 mins for mini cupcakes while for my giant cupcakes, 45 mins is not enough and 55 mins made the bottom of the cakes a bit dry. Sis, my greatest critic, said my cake is not bad at all :)

Bob, my baking assistant?

Bob was curious when I was starting to mix my nutella cake batter. After taking these photos, Mom quickly got him to move away from the table, so the cake definitely has none of Bob's fur :)

Feasting & baking with friends

SP invited FR and I over to her place to bake gingerbread men yesterday afternoon. We had a feast of SP's potato salad and grilled cheese mushrooms and FR's "Frankenstein"'s chicken (Indian style mint chicken). The warm apple juice with spices was lovely too. We made some premix sugar cookies while waiting for the gingerbread dough to harden in the fridge. It was a pity after our efforts, the gingerbread didn't turn out very well but we enjoyed ourselves :)