Double Chocolate Cookies

These cookies are indeed a classic hit ! Just like what it has been described in the magazines.


Originally, these cookies are meant to be Triple Chocolate Cookies. I didn't want to use white chocolate in this mix and so their name has been "downgraded" to "Double Chocolate".

I made these cookies for my son and his little friends on an afternoon tea gathering and I'm happy to see that they were happily feasting these home-baked cookies.

 

Here is the recipe from Super Food Ideas magazine (Apr 2011 issue) 
(with my modification in blue)

Makes 32

185g butter, softened
1/3 cup caster sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 2/3 cup plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (I use baking powder)
100g dark chocolate, cut into 1 cm pieces (I used milk chocolate chips)
100g white chocolate, cut into 1 cm pieces (I replaced this with another 100g milk chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 160°C (fan force). Line 3 baking trays with baking paper.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffly. Add egg. Beat to combine. 

Sift flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda over butter mixture. Stir in chocolate. Roll level tablespoons mixture into balls. Place on prepared trays. Place on prepared trays, 5cm apart. Flatten slightly. 

Bake for 12-15 min or until light golden. Stand on tray for 5 min. Transfer to a wire rack to completely. Serve.

Note: Instead of dividing the cookies into tablespoonfuls, I've made 45 cookies with heap teaspoonfuls of mixture.

Happy Baking.

Lots of Chocolate Chunks Muffins

"I don't like muffins but I like these"...this is my husband's cynical comment about these muffins.

These chocolate muffins were indeed very moist. Being a chocolate lover, the half-melting dark chocolate inside the warm muffins tasted like paradise to me and the baked white chocolate gave the muffins a nice creamy caramel taste. 

These muffins tasted the best when they were freshly baked but we couldn't finish all at one go. Here's a tip to share...we placed our leftover muffins in microwave with high power for 10-15 sec and the warmed muffins were as yummy as the freshly baked one. How do I live in a world without microwave ovens?

I would regard this muffin recipe being one of my best recipes and would love to submit this post to the Aspiring Bakers #7 – Chocolate Delight (May 2011) hosted by DG to pass on this wonderful recipe to all aspiring bakers.

 

 

Check out what's inside these muffins...

I love the half-melting chocolate inside these warm muffins...so yummy.

Here's the recipe from BBC GoodFood 101 Cakes and Bakes (with my modification in blue)

Make 11-12

250g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
2tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (replaced with baking powder)
85g dark chocolate, broken into chunks (I used 70% cocoa solid dark chocolate)
85g white chocolate, broken into chunks
100g milk chocolate, broken into chunks (replaced with 70% cocoa solid dark chocolate)
2 egg, beaten
284ml soured cream (replaced with 320ml thickened cream)
85g light muscovado sugar (replace with brown sugar)
85g butter, melted (replaced with 60g Alfa one Spread, soften - not melted)

Preheat fan forced oven to 180°C.
Grease or line the muffin tin. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and chocolate (I sifted flour, cocoa and baking powder together and add chocolate into the sifted flour mixture). 

In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs, soured cream (thickened cream), sugar and butter (I whisk the sugar and Alfa one spread separately first until the sugar dissolves into the mixture, then I add the cream and egg mixture into the sugar mixture gradually). Add the soured cream mixture (thickened cream mixture) to the flour mixture and stir until just combined and the mixture is fairly stiff, but don't overmix.

Spoon the mixture into the holes to generously fill each muffin cup.

Bake for 20 min until well risen. Leave in the tin for 15 min as the mixture is quite tender. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack.

Happy Baking

Potato Bread

From one of my fellow bloggers, Honey Bee Sweets, I have seen and read about how potato can help to make a bread moist and soft and was curious to see the effect in my bread making.

This recipe was from a book that I bought during my recent holidays in Singapore. During my stay, my auntie and I tried baking these breads. However, we misunderstood the meaning of "mashed potato" in this recipe being potato that was boiled and mashed and our bread dough turned out to be too sticky to handle. To fix this problem, we added another 200g of bread flour into the dough and surprisingly, the bread was actually quite good.

Now that I'm back in Melbourne, I was curious to see how the actual recipe works using instant mashed potato flakes instead of using real potatoes. I'm pretty sure that the potato does help the bread to retain its moisture but the addition of potato has also make the bread denser than usual.

 

The addition of potato has help to retain the bread moisture but has make the bread denser.

Here is the recipe from Bread Code by Wendy Kor (Bilingual edition) 
(with my personal notes in blue)

Ingredients

A
500g bread flour
10g dried yeast

B
100g mashed potato (instant mashed potato flakes)
3g salt
120g sugar
10g milk powder

C
240g water
120g eggs (about 2 eggs)

D
100g butter

Mix A at a slow speed for 1 min. Add B and C and mix for about 5 min or until bread dough is formed even with coarse surfaces.

Add D and continue to mix for 15-20 min or until dough is springy. Allow dough to prove for 40min (I did mine for 1hr)

Divide dough into 30g balls, let them rest for 15 min. Roll each dough into balls and place them on greased baking tray and allow them to prove for 40 min or double in size.

Brush a layer of egg wash (I use just milk) on the bread and bake at 180°C for 15-20 min or until golden brown.

Note: 

I've made 10 mini buns with half of this recipe.

The original recipe uses 50g instant custard powder and 130g water to make into a custard mix. This mix is to be piped into a cross on each bun. I prepared the custard mix as accordingly but I find that it was too runny to be used and I have decided to omit this step.

Happy Baking

Nigella's Baklava Muffins

When I was a student, I used to rent and live in Brunswick, a northern suburb just above University of Melbourne. Living in Brunswick allows me to explore Lebanese food especially their pastries...Baklava. These muffins do not contain any Baklava... but they did have a combined crunch of nuts, sugar and honey which has a taste of Baklave but in a cake form.

Like what Nigella described in her book, these muffins are truly gooey, crunchy, soft and delicious, just as good as they can be.

Here's the recipe from the book, How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson 

(with my modification in blue)

Make 12

Filling
100g walnuts, chopped
75g demerara sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
45g butter, melted

Muffins
210g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (replaced with baking powder)
75g caster sugar
1 large egg
45g unsalted butter, melted
250ml buttermilk (replaced with 175g yogurt and 75g milk)

Topping
125ml runny honey

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan forced. Mix all the filling ingredients together in a small bowl, set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar. Mix the egg, melted butter and buttermilk (yogurt and milk). Make a well in the dry ingredients and add gently mix in the wet ingredients.
Fill 12 muffin cups 1/3 full, add a tablespoonful of filling, cover with muffin mixture until 2/3 full. Sprinkle any remaining filling on top of the muffins. Bake for 15 minutes. Put the muffins onto a rack to cool and drizzle with warmed honey.

Happy Baking

Caramelised Onion, Anchovies and Thyme Focaccia

Hi everyone! I'm back from the busy streets of Hong Kong and Singapore. Our holidays are fantastic but I do miss my baking hobby and my blog.

This focaccia was made with an intention to celebrate mother's day. This idea came from one of my colleagues when she told me once that she loves homemade focaccia especially the ones that her mum made with sea salt and anchovies as toppings. 


With similar idea, I've made this caramelized onion and thyme focaccia with anchovies as extra topping and this focaccia is superb! The baked anchovies literally melt into our mouths and the bread texture is so fresh and yummy. For my son, I've chopped and diced the onions and garlic finely instead slicing them so that he wouldn't know that the onion and garlic exist on this bread. He was happily chomping without being fussy with this bread. This shows that mum's cooking is always the best...*wink*

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

 

Here's the recipe from Super Food Ideas Magazine, May 2011 issue 
(with my minor modification in blue)

Ingredients

2 cup plain flour (I use bread flour)
2 tsp sea salt
7g dried yeast
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp fresh thyme sprigs (Nice to know that they are freshly harvested from our garden)

Caramelized onion
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large brown onion, thinly sliced (I use red onion and roughly diced)
1 garlic cloves, thinly sliced (finely chopped)
2 tbsp brown sugar
1tbsp red wine vinegar (balsamic vinegar)

Extras
1 jar of 80g anchovies in oil, well drained

Grease 20 cm x 30 cm pan. Combine flour, half the salt, yeast and Parmesan in a bowl in a bowl. Make a well. Add 1 cup warm water and 2 tbsp oil. Stir until a soft sticky dough forms.
Turn onto floured surface. knead for 5-7 min or until dough spring back when pressed, adding extra flour if necessary. Roll out until large enough to line prepared pan. press into pan. cover with lightly oiled plastic wrap. Set aside in a warm place for 1 hr or until doubled in size.

(I use breadmaker with pizza dough setting for this step which consists of 20 min kneading and 30 min proving.)

Meanwhile, make caramelized onion. Heat oil in a frying pan over medium low heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook stirring occasionally for 8 min or until onion softened. Add sugar and vinegar. Cook and stir for 1 min until sugar dissolved and mixture thicken. Set aside. Preheat oven to 180ºC fan forced.

Remove plastic wrap from dough. Drizzle top of dough with remaining oil. Arrange onion mixture over dough. Sprinkle with thyme and remaining salt (and anchovies). (I didn't use the remaining salt because the added anchovies are very salty) Season with pepper. Bake for 15 min or until top is golden. Reduced temperature to 160ºC fan forced. Bake for 10-15 min or until top of focaccia sounds hollow when tapped. Set aside for 15 min. Serve warm.

I've made this focaccia using 2/3 of the recipe and used 20cm x 20cm pan.

Happy Baking