Peanut Cookies

I was looking through this cookbook a friend got me before I left for the UK. It's called Betty Saw's Kitchen Secrets and I was browsing through the recipes looking for something to make this Chinese New Year. The peanut cookie (Fah Sang Peng) recipe seemed pretty straightforward so I tried it! I'm proud to say that everyone who has tried the cookies liked it :)

So here it is for you guys to recreate it on your own.

Ingredients:
350g shelled roasted peanuts
270g (1 1/4 cups) caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
350g (3 1/4 cups) plain flour, sifted
250ml (1 cup) good quality groundnut oil
Glace cherries, cut into 1/4 cm pieces, for decoration
Egg wash: 2 egg yolks + 2 tsp milk, beaten together

Method:

1) Preheat oven to 325-350F/175C/ Gas 3-4.
2) Blend roasted peanuts in electric blender until fine and crumbly
3) In a large mixing bowl, combine peanuts, sugar, vanilla essence and flour.
4) Make a well in the centre and pour in the groundnut oil.
5) Mix well with a wooden spoon.
6) Lightly run through the mixture with fingers to bind into a crumbly dough.
7) Shape into balls about the size of a cherry and lay out on baking sheet.
8) Make a dent into each ball with the pointed end of a chopstick. Place a piece of cherry into each dent. If not using cherries, just use a straw to make a circle pattern instead of a dent.
9) Brush cookies with egg wash.
10) Bake in oven for 20-25 mins or until golden.

When I was making this, Sara was using pretty much the same recipe to make almond cookies. All you need to do is substitute the peanuts for roasted almonds. She also reduced the amount of sugar slightly since almonds don't have as strong a flavour as peanuts. You could always taste and tweak the measurements as you go about making them.

Enjoy!

*Sorry no picture. When I made this, I had not replaced my stolen camera yet :( *

Currant Scones

I found this recipe on Chef John's Food Wishes website. It looked so good yet easy to make that Mich and I had a 'bake date' to try it out. It was a success! :D Buttery, fluffy and yet substantial... and it doesn't crumble when you break into it!

However, we used the British version of measurements and I'm not sure if that changed anything but it still tastes good. So if you're using British measurements, then just follow the recipe provided. If not, you could use the one given at Chef John's website when you click on the link below.

So here is the video.

Makes 8 medium scones.
Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups (190g) plain flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup (57g) granulated sugar
1/8 tsp (a pinch) salt
5 tbsp (75g) unsalted butter, ice-cold (freeze them before cutting into cubes)
1/3 cup (50g) dried currants
1/2 cup (120ml) milk (full fat ok YMW)
1/4 cup (60ml) soured cream
1 egg + 1 tbsp milk for egg wash

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 400F / 200C / Gas 6.
2) Put the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix with whisk.
3) Add the ice-cold butter in. Break up the butter into small chunks using the whisk (or fork). 2 important things to remember: the butter must be very cold and you should stop mixing once you get a crumbly mixture.
4) Add the dried currants, milk and soured cream. Using a fork, roughly mix until just combined. Don't overmix!!
5) Using hands that have been coated in flour, roll the batter into ice-cream scoop size balls and place on baking sheet.
6) Put a coat of egg wash and spinkle with sugar for each ball. This makes the scones a shiny golden brown when cooked.
7) Bake in over for 15 mins or until golden brown. Chill for 10-15 mins before eating.

It's so easy! We probably took less than an hour from start to finish!

Enjoy!

blueberry cheesecake (and chocolate chip cookies)

blueberry cheesecake! actually you can probably find the recipe for this online anywhere (which is what i did, oops) but here's proof that it actually works! justin and i made this for jas's birthday and it was unanimously deemed a success. and then we used the remaining ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies which was also a success, but i'm not sure i can put the recipe up here because we added in random amounts of flour to our liking, but heck maybe i will anyway, so you get two (boring and easy to find) recipes in one! they're really easy recipes anyway


blueberry cheesecake

ingredients

• 100g digestive biscuits
• 30g butter (or more if you feel like it)
• 100g caster sugar
• 4teaspoon (20ml) cornflour
• 300g soft cheese (the original recipe said 'light' but i used full fat)
• 1 egg
• 150ml sour cream
• 250g blueberries (or maybe less since i had quite a lot)
• 40g caster sugar (yes again, for the topping)

recipe

1. preheat oven to 180degC/350degF/gas mark 4
2. grease cake tin with butter
3. crush biscuits
4. melt butter
5. stir butter into biscuit crumbs
6. press crumbs into base of cake tin, make sure you press hard and dam nicely
7. chill the cake tin with the crumb base in the fridge
8. mix cornflour and sugar
9. add cheese and mix
10. add egg and mix
11. add cream and mix
12. pour mixture into the cake tin above the base and spread evenly
13. pop in oven for 30ish minutes, after that take out and chill in fridge
    
14. mix the additional 40g of sugar with 50ml of water in a pot and bring to boil til the sugar dissolves
15. add blueberries in
16. cover and simmer until you like the way it looks: i stopped mine once all the blueberries were soft and dark and the water looked like blueberry juice
17. chill the topping in the fridge
18. pour/spread on top of the cake just before serving

YAY. kevin loved the crumb base so much that he made another base just to eat, with no cake on top. -.-

okay next


chocolate chip cookies

ingredients

1. 125g butter
2. 100g granulated sugar
3. 75g soft brown sugar
4. 1 egg
5. 2 teaspoon vanilla extract (i may have zhnged more than 2 teaspoons..)
6. 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
7. pinch of salt
   
8. >200-250g plain flour (i have NO idea)
9. 100g chocolate chips

recipe

1. preheat oven to 190degC/375degF/gas mark 5
2. grease base of cookie tray with butter
3. mix sugars together
4. melt butter
5. mix butter + sugars
6. + egg + vanilla extract + baking powder + salt
7. slowly add in sifted flour til the dough is shapable. the original recipe said 150g but it was clearly not enough so we just kept adding until it was more or less shapable into little balls, not too hard though
8. mix in chocolate chips, as much as you want la
   
9. plop them as little balls on the cookie tray, not too close together
10. pop the tray in the oven for 10mins-ish, or until the fork won't go through the surface that easily
11. take out and cool and eat (=

YAY. yichung(law) ate these with cognac in the other hand

Caramel Croissant Pudding

This is a recipe by the Goddess herself (video).
I've fed this to the housemates twice now and they have assured me it's good enough to grace this blog.

Serves 2-3

You need:

2 croissants
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp water
125ml double cream
125ml full fat milk (yes teh FULLFAT)
2 tbsp bourbon/whisky (first time, I did it without the alcohol and I don't think it made that much difference, sadly enough)
2 eggs, beaten


And then....
1. Preheat the oven 180C
2. Tear the croissants into pieces and put in a dish (Nigella used a gratin dish. I used a Corningware dish about 15cmx15cm)
3. Put the caster sugar and water in a saucepan and swirl to help dissolve the sugar. Then turn on the hob to high heat
4. Caramelize the sugar - let it bubble til it's deep amber (DON'T STIR!). It should take about 3-5min.
5. Turn the heat down to low and add the cream, milk and bourbon, whisking all the while. It seems to work well enough for Nigella but I ended up with a huge lump of toffee. Don't panic. Keep whisking over low heat and it should dissolve eventually.
6. Take it off the heat and whisk in the beaten eggs.
7. Pour the caramel custard over the croissants and let it sit for about 10min to soak up the goodness.
8. Put in the oven for 20min and it's done!

Tastes awesome with more double cream/ice cream.

Banoffee Pie

Got this off the back of the Carnation Condensed Milk tin. I prefer to use more biscuit than instructed to get a thicker base and so I can cover the sides properly. I also like to subsitute the cocoa powder for cinammon, but use less probably because it's quite a kick in the face otherwise. Make sure you caramelise the condensed milk properly, because the first time I did it I took it off the heat too quickly and it wouldn't firm up!

Serves 8-10
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Chilling time: 1½ hours

Use an 8" loose-bottomed cake tin

Ingredients:

Base
100g (3½oz) butter, melted
250g (9oz) digestive biscuits

Filling
100g (3½oz) butter
100g (3½oz) dark brown soft sugar
397g can Carnation Condensed Milk

Topping
4 small bananas
284ml carton double cream, lightly whipped
cocoa powder, for dusting

Method:

1. To make the base, seal biscuits in a zip-lock bag and beat with heavy object until you get fine crumbs, then tip into a bowl. Alternatively, use food processer. Stir in the melted butter. Press the mixture into the base and up the sides of the tin. Chill the base while you make the filling.

2. To make the filling, place the butter and sugar into a non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Burnt sugar tastes yuck so don't do that. Add the condensed milk and bring gently to the boil, stirring continuously to make the caramel. As soon as it thickens and becomes a nice brown, remove from the heat. Spread the filling over the biscuit base, cool, and then leave to chill for about 1 hour, until firm.

3. To serve, slice the bananas; fold half of them into the softly whipped cream and spoon over the toffee base. Decorate with the remaining bananas and dust liberally with the cocoa.

*Picture on the way! Still in camera*