Italian Cream Cake Trifle

Okay last post of the day.

I have been wanting to use these glasses to make a layered dessert for a while now and this recipe gave me the opportunity to do so: http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2013/06/individual-italian-cream-cake-trifles/

The cake itself is delicious so if you don't want to make a trifle, I recommend you just making the cake and possibly the frosting as well.

Beautiful. Tasty too.

Ma Ti Gao (Water Chestnut Cake)

You can usually find this dessert at dim sum restaurants and they pan-sear it before serving. I didn't think the extra oil was necessary so I just served them after they were steamed.

You can find the recipe here: http://en.christinesrecipes.com/2013/01/water-chestnut-cake.html

I used canned chestnuts and one small can had about 16 chestnuts so I ended up making 3 batches!

Note: the tan/brown color comes from the sugar used

Bo Luo Bao (Pineapple buns)

This bread is one of my favorites. The best ones are fresh and hot out of the oven, with a slab of butter sandwiched in the bread, called bo luo yau. Mmmmmm...so tasty, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I used the recipe found here: http://www.morethanbread.net/2010/11/bo-lo-bao-pineapple-bun.html

If you don't have shortening, you can use butter instead, which is what I did.

Remember that the buns double in size when you let the dough rise so shape the buns accordingly, unless you want to make huge buns like I did...

Melopita (Greek Honey Cheesecake)

Hmmm...I'm not such a big fan of this cake in all honestly. It makes for a pretty cake but taste-wise, it's not my favorite.

You can find the recipe here: http://cookmegreek.blogspot.gr/2012/12/melopita-honey-pie-from-sifnos-island.html

For the glaze on top, I mixed 2 Tbsp honey and 1 Tbsp lemon juice together.

Can you tell I've been baking with a lot of honey lately...

Artisan Bread

I really love fresh bread, especially the artisan breads available in markets like Whole Foods or Central Market. My family bought an Italian White loaf bread from Central Market one day and we devoured it in one meal. Delicious.

It seems difficult to recreate at home but in reality, it's very simple!

The recipe can be found here: http://www.simplysogood.com/2013/03/artisan-no-knead-bread.html

The only change I made was that I used 1 tsp of yeast instead of the 1/2 teaspoon stated in the recipe.

Here's the result:

I actually let this loaf rise three times and kneaded it a little so that the bread was chewier.

Here's another variation:

I didn't flour the surface of this loaf and added orange zest and toasted walnuts to the bread.

Strawberry Crêpes

I found a lot of different crêpe recipes online and some used 6 eggs while others used 2, some used butter while others used olive oil, some used water and milk while others used milk, etc. etc. etc. 

After looking through the recipes, I made my own adaptation: 

Strawberry Crêpes

-makes 4 medium sized crêpes 

Crêpe:

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup whole milk

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 egg

1 Tbsp butter (melted) 

1/2 vanilla extract 

Note: You can add 1 tsp sugar or salt to make the batter sweet or salty depending on if you want to make sweet or savory crêpes. Olive oil can also be used instead of butter to make olive oil crêpes. 

1. Blend all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth. 

2. Pour about 1/3 cup of the batter onto a non-stick pan and swirl the batter around to make a circle. 

3. Cook until the edges are cooked and bubbles form in the crêpe.

4. Flip and cook the other side until done. 

Filling: 

Strawberry jam 

Fresh strawberries, cut into bite-sized pieces

To assemble, spread the jam over the entire crêpe and add strawberries to half of the crêpe. Fold in half and in half again. Voilà! 

If you don't like strawberries, you can substitute other fruit or make savory crêpes instead. 

Medovik (Russian Honey Cake)

This cake requires some time and effort to make but it is definitely worth your time. You can find the recipe here: http://www.grabandgorecipes.com/cake-rijik/

For the topping, I sprinkled some cocoa powder and crushed cookie (I just rolled out the remaining dough, baked, and crushed it). 

After you let the cake sit in the refrigerator for some time, the cookie layers get soft and has a cake-like consistency, but still kind of maintains a cookie-like texture. Does that make sense? 

Well, try it out and you'll see what I mean. 

Look how beautiful the cake is when you cut into it:

I'll definitely double the recipe and make more layers next time. 

Honey Mini-Cheesecakes

So here comes the affluence of posts since I put off blogging until now.

Let's start out with honey mini-cheesecakes. I didn't have any graham crackers available to make a crust and I wanted to try something other than the walnut crust I made last time for these apple rose tarts:

I found an oatmeal crust as I browsed cheesecake recipes and here's my variation:

Honey Mini-Cheesecakes: 

Oatmeal crust:

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup oatmeal (I used instant but old-fashioned should work as well)

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Combine all the ingredients and press into the bottoms of a cupcake pan. (Or if you want to make cleaning and taking out the cheesecakes easier, use cupcake liners.)
3. Bake for 12 minutes.

Filling: 

8 oz cream cheese (softened)
1 egg
2 Tbsp whole milk
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Keep oven at 350°F.
2. Beat the ingredients together until combined and pour onto the crusts.
3. Bake for 25 minutes.
4. Let cool.

Cinnamon Honey Glaze: 

1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp honey
Walnuts (I used a small handful because I only wanted a few to garnish the cheesecakes but you can use as many as you like)

1. In a small pan, heat the cinnamon and honey until warm.
2. Place the walnuts in the glaze and toss to coat.
3. Garnish each cheesecake with a few walnuts and glaze.

The finished product:

Pumpkin Layered Cake

A few days ago, I made a mini-coffee Swiss roll cake for my uncle and since then, I've tried to make 2 more roll cakes and I still have not found a recipe that will yield a perfect, regular-sized roll cake. You would think that if rolling a mini-sized roll cake is easy, then a regular-sized one wouldn't be much more difficult. Wrong. The past two cakes have cracked when I rolled the cake, even when I rolled it when the cake was warm... Oh well, one of these days I'll find a recipe or figure out the secret to assembling a Swiss roll... Since the roll was unsuccessful, I just stacked the cakes to make a layered cake. Here's the recipe to the pumpkin roll cake I mentioned in the previous post: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pumpkin-roulade-with-ginger-buttercream-recipe/index.html 

And here's a picture of my pumpkin layered cake: 

The cake itself is very good though, fluffy and moist. I just whipped up some heavy cream with sugar for the filling/topping instead of making the filling in the original recipe. Since the spices are so strong in the cake already, I thought a simple cream would be a nice touch. But of course, it all depends on your tastes! 

Pumpkin Bread

Okay, last post of the day: I made pumpkin bread and pumpkin cake today. Somehow, my family amassed 5 small/medium-sized pumpkins randomly. We were supposedly going to make pumpkin soup with them but that plan never worked out and in the end, I was given the task of using them before they began to rot. I just cut the pumpkins into small pieces/wedges and roasted them without any seasoning in a 350°F oven for around 45 minutes. When I could use a fork to mash the pumpkin, I took them out and puréed all of it in a food processor. The result: pure pumpkin purée. I used about 2 cups of the purée to slather on top of cooked pizza dough to make a pumpkin "pizza" and that was dinner for one night. Today, I used the rest of the purée and the recipe for the pumpkin bread can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pumpkin-bread-recipe/index.html

I cut the original recipe in half to make one loaf and used about 1 cup of sugar instead of the original 1 1/2 cups. In addition, I used 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp ginger powder in place of the spices used in the recipe. The resulting pumpkin bread had a flavor similar to pumpkin pie so I was quite satisfied.

More on the pumpkin cake will be posted tomorrow or later! 

Pecan and Blueberry Coffee Cake

In addition to eating bánh mì, I made pecan and blueberry coffee cake. The recipe can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/blueberry-coffee-cake-recipe/index.html

These were a big hit among my family! The cake was perfect in terms of sweetness for my tastes although to some it may not be sweet enough. My favorite part was the pecan and sugar topping: it gave a slightly crunchy crust on the cake.

If you wanted to make a slight variation to the cake, I would definitely add a streusal topping. Maybe not the healthiest option since it will require some butter but I think a crunchier addition to the cake would be worth exercising a bit more for.

Bánh Mì

Now these sandwiches I did not make. My family bought them for dinner yesterday and they were quite delicious. Everything was really fresh and I definitely want more in the future. Here's a photo to make you drool and crave a bánh mì:

Do you want one now? Because I do...

Coconut and Peanut Tapioca/Mochi Bread

So here's another variation of the tapioca bread I talked about in my last post. The version with just coconut will be posted soon when I stop making these variations and go back to the "basics". Anyways, did you know that peanuts and coconut go really well together? Well, if not, you do now. I just used the same recipe for sesame tapioca bread and filled each tin/cup of the cupcake tin a quarter full, so not even halfway full. Then added a tablespoon of a peanut, coconut, and sugar mixture and poured the rest of the batter to cover the filling. The end result is a bread that's not only delicious but incredibly fragrant. You can omit the sesame seeds and just add in the filling but I liked the extra fragrance the sesame seeds provided. I kind of eyed the amount of mixture to use but here are my estimates for the filling (keep in mind that these measurements are not in any way exact):

8 Tbsps ground roasted peanut*
6 Tbsps sweetened shredded coconut
3 Tbsps sugar (add more or less to your taste)

*I just used a food processor to grind them until they resembled course breadcrumbs. And you can buy peanuts that are already roasted or you can roast them yourself: just put them in a 350°F oven for a few minutes. Be careful not to let them burn!)