Bar craze

So this post is not about something I've made recently. It's about this craze I'm on right now - BARS! and it's not those bars that we go get drunk and silly at. It's a much healthier addiction. I'm talking about fruit and nut bars, granola bars, health bars.. chewy or crunchy, it's my new favorite snack.

So here's my mission - go out and find / try as many different bars I can get my hands on in the Bay Area. They have to be healthy, little saturated fat and (wishful thinking) almost all natural ingredients. So far I'm eating these: Nature Valley Sweet and Salty Nut, the crunchy Nature Valley ones in brown sugar maple, peanut butter and honey oats, Odwalla Chewy Nut bars and the Luna bars. I also tried this other one from New Zealand (which I forgot what theyre called) that my cousins gave me on their second round-the-world mega trip.

It's interesting to note that in the US, we use a lot of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup in the bars, but in Australia and New Zealand they use rice syrup instead. Which one's better, I have no clue. I'm just looking at fat content! hahhahaa.. well, we'll see how long this craze will last.. maybe I'll just go back to homemade granola and yogurt.

I'm done hibernating...

So it's finally Spring and I've been on this hiatus for so long that it seems like I've been hibernating for the Winter. Things have been different lately. I've become a caterer and my cookie shop has been slightly busy. I've also been baking more at home for my sweetie, and with all the fresh berries that have been popping up at my local grocery store, I've been inspired to bake something with yummy berries.

I found this fruity blueberry tart on the cover of this month's Martha Stewart Living and I just had to try it. The crust is a cornmeal pate brisee, which is a just a French version of a classic pie or tart crust. I love the cornmeal in the crust as it gives the tart a little more crunch. The crust is topped with some boysenberry jam and then packed with blueberries and blackberries and sprinkled with almond slivers and then baked. I probably should have used dry toasted unsalted sliced almonds but I didnt have any on hand. This tart is so versatile that you can use any kind of jam and your favorite berries.

The cornmeal crust is fantabulous and baking the berries in the oven for an additional couple minutes brings out the sugars in them and makes it even sweeter. serve warm!

Tis the season for baking (pt2)

Christmas day.. I worked.. well, it felt like I worked. I woke up early to finish an order for my Etsy shop - 4 dozen freshly baked cookies, wrapped and to be delivered by noon. Meanwhile, I'm waiting for my cream cheese and butter to get to room temp so I can make a cream cheese frosting for a carrot cake that would be dessert at the family's Christmas dinner. Good thing Christmas lunch was cancelled this year! Actually no, I was rather disappointed there wasnt going to be lunch, but it did give me time to finish my carrot cake.

It took a lot longer than I anticipated, knowing that I only had one 8 inch round when I was going to make 2 to layer them with my cream cheese frosting in between. The batter itself took a while, fresh finely grated carrots, chopped up drained pineapples and loads of chopped up walnuts. I had to double the recipe since all the reviews said I should. It didnt take too long to bake each layer but I had to wait for it to cool down completely before frosting and covering them with walnuts. My husband actually helped me with covering the cake with walnuts, which was really nice. It took all afternoon to finish the cake, just in time to be picked up by the parents to go to the uncle's house. By that time, I was completely pooped.

What a relief to find out that it was delicious and my husband even rated it just about the best carrot cake he's had. Well, next to the carrot cake he remembered having at Just Desserts. The cake itself is very moist, light and a little nutty (tons of walnuts!). I didn't put too much cream cheese frosting, although maybe a little more would have been good. I ran out.

We left the party with only a quarter left to ourselves and I'm now wishing I had more.

Tis the season for baking (pt1)

So I've been baking away this holiday season but the reason I haven't posted anything is because I keep forgetting to take pictures of my finished products. Sometimes I wish I had a camera hung around my neck at all times like a fobby tourist. (actually not really)

First family Christmas party I made a Raspberry Napoleon. YUMMM! A napoleon is a pastry also called Mille-Feuilles meaning a thousand layers in French. It is made with layers of puff pastry filled with some kind of cream and fruit. I used puff pastry that has been pressed down during the baking process so that the layers are thin and not too airy but still has all that flakyness and crisp. I layered my napoleon with freshly whipped cream flavored with pure vanilla extract and fresh bright red raspberries, super festive! Even the powdered sugar dusted on the top of the napoleon looks like snow... The tartness of the raspberries goes great with the sweet whipped cream and is perfect with the buttery flaky puff pastry making each bite a bit of sweet, tart and crisp. It's a wonderful dessert that is simple enough to put together and it'll look like you got it from an expensive pattisserie. Unfortunately when I made it, I didnt think it would be such a hit that I didnt make a bigger one. Next time, I'd be sure to make a bigger one and maybe flavor the whipped cream with almond or maybe orange blossom.

I'm finally on Etsy!

It's been a while since I blogged. I've been so busy trying new recipes and getting all creative baking cookies for my new Etsy store. I figured I'd try sharing / selling my cookies and treats with people other than my immediate circle of friends and family. So far it's been good, I've been on Etsy for about a week and a half although competition is kinda tough! There's so many other great stuff on there, edible and non-edible.

Anyway, here's a sampler of the cookies I have on there. From top to bottom: Lime Cornmeal, Cocoa Pistachio, Chocolate Chip, Earl Grey and Apricot Pistachio. They're all shortbread-like cookies, great with afternoon tea or coffee and all very buttery and yummy.

I'm still coming up with other flavorings and mix-ins to my cookie base and so far the Earl Grey is the big favorite. I have so many others in my mind but I can really only eat so many cookies before I burst out of my seams. So I think I'll take a break from the cookies for a weekend to make other yummy things. I have a huge craving for cupcakes and been wanting to use my pastry bag to pipe beautiful flowers and all kinds of things with a delicious buttercream frosting or a swiss meringue frosting. Maybe I'll do a coconut again or a red velvet or a strawberry...

Time for tea...

... and cookies!

I love going to MarthaStewart.com for inspiring and cute ideas for favors and entertaining. She has so many great ideas for everything and I like how all her magazines are all on the same website. It's kinda like a one-stop shop for entertaining ideas, decorating, recipes, crafts, wedding stuff and even gardening how-to's.

Anyway I'm always looking for cute and yummy things to share with my family and friends especially during the holiday season or anytime there's a special occasion. I used to give out Christmas presents or B'day presents but now I just make something or bake for my friends, just because I think it's more meaningful but then again, sometimes it can be for selfish reasons. I get to try out new recipes and well eat them for myself too!

This past week I made 2 kinds of tea cookies, both were very yum with my mid morning / afternoon tea. Just to clarify, not all tea cookies have tea in them, they're just cookies you can eat while having tea or coffee, kinda the same idea as tea cakes or coffee cakes. The first one was the Earl Grey tea cookies that I gave away as favors, wrapped up in cellophane bags, blue ribbon and tag. I was never a big Earl Grey fan, but I wanted to try this recipe I found on MarthaStewart.com. It just looked too cute and very fitting for a afternoon tea shower. The cookie is an icebox cookie meaning that the dough needs to be chilled or frozen before you can cut them up in 1/4 inch slices and baked. This recipe uses about 2 tbsp ground up Earl Grey tea leaves which you can just get from tea bags and grounded using a mortar and pestle or just a coffee / spice grinder. The ground up leaves gives the cookie a very delicate subtle flavor and the cute little flecks. The cookie is also flavored with some orange zest, although might be interesting if I had some form of bergamot to put in. The cookie also has a great crisp to it. Next time I'll try a different kind of tea maybe even matcha, my favorite kind of tea.

The other tea cookie I made was Orange Sable cookies, another recipe I found from MarthaStewart.com. Sable cookies are French butter cookies that are kinda sandy. The texture is a little softer and a bit crumbly like sand. These are also icebox cookies, chilled for about 3 hours before cutting and baking. They have a very nice orange-y flavor and the flecks you see are from the ground up almonds. In this case, I used almond meal I got from Trader Joes. The only thing about this cookie that I don't particularly like is that the orange flavor overpowers the almond flavor, so I suppose I can sub the almonds for something else.

I packaged them 2 different ways for 2 different people (and I dont know why the pic wouldn't rotate anticlockwise). I should get one of those things that can seal plastic so the cookies stay fresher and last longer especially for when I mail cookies across the world.

Next time I'll try other shortbread / icebox tea cookie recipes. They last a couple days in an airtight container but usually they're just gone within a short while. You can also make the dough ahead of time, roll them up into whatever shape you like and freeze them until you're ready for them. And just in case you're not into tea, it goes great with coffee or just by itself.

A little less humidity please...

So I tried making meringues last week, twice! There are different kinds of meringues, some you find are crunchy, and kinda look like little cookies, and some you find are the cloudy soft white foam that's piled high on top of lemon meringue pies. The ones I made were the former, little crunchy cookies that almost melts in your mouth.

Meringues are hard to make as it really all depends on the weather and the humidity. They say you should make meringues on a dry day, not a wet day and definitely not a humid day and boy do they make a BIG difference! I wonder how hard and frustrating it would be to make meringues in Malaysia or Thailand when it's super humid all year round.

The first batch I made were almond flavored, sprinkled with crushed almonds and baked on a not super humid night. The flavor was spot on delicious but the texture - a little on the chewier side - kinda turned out like a soft nougat. Nonetheless, we gobbled them up because we love almonds and we happen to like chewy stuff.

The second time I made them, which was the very next day ended up hugely different! It was a hotter more drier daytime day. They came out airy, crunchy and they were coffee flavored. Vietnamese coffee flavored actually. I didnt have a pastry bag either times but the first time, they turned out flatter and more round and the second time, they sticked to their more peak-like shape. I guess it was because the first time round the egg whites werent stiff enough and the humidity just made the whites fall and become more dense. Both ways tasted yummy and delicious, but I have yet to make the perfect meringue with almond flavoring.

The temperature of the oven when baking also makes a difference. Some recipes say 200 F, and some say 300 F. When using 200 F, it takes about 2 hours for all the moisture to be released and again if the air is humid leave it in the oven for longer. but watch it so it doesnt burn! When baking at 300 F, it takes about half an hour. And then in both cases leave in turned off oven to dry with the door propped slightly open with a kitchen glove or a wooden spoon. This takes about another hour or so, making meringues can be very time consuming!

I think it's time to buy a pastry bag. I'm always finding new things to buy for my baking whether it'd be pastry bags or cake pans or loaf pans. And I'm always looking for new ways to package my goodies as gifts - boxes, cellophane bags, ribbons, metal tins etc. I think this hobby is getting to be quite pricey but still cheaper than say.. mountain biking..