Oreo White Chocolate Mousse Pie.... Our 4th Anniversary Dessert

Time's passing by so fast... and now it's our 4th Anniversary for this year.
I promised myself to make something special when DH's birthday, my BD, Valentine's day & our anniversary.

Recently I was very busy so I looked into some recipes which will not take up time to make and I decided to go for this one from www.kraftrecipes.com Why this recipe became my finalist coz it has our favorite ingredient "white chocolate". Though DH is not oreo fan but he's really enjoyed this dessert so much and me love it too.

This white chocolate mousse is rich and creamy with a taste of oreo made them really compliment each other. For my preference, I added pink coloring to the mousse as you might know I am a pink girl :) and I rather to see my dessert in sweet color than black & white.

Oreo White Chocolate Mousse Pie

Oreo cookies                15.5     oz (1 package divided)
Unsalted butter             6         Tbsp. (melted)
Gelatine powder          1           envelop (estimate 7 g.)
Milk                             1 + 1/4   C
White chocolate chips  11     oz
Whipping cream          2          C

1. Finely crush 24 of the cookies. Mix with melted butter, press firmly onto bottom of 7 inches springform pan then put into the fridge. Coarsely chop 24 of the remaining cookies, set aside.
2. Sprinkle gelatine over milk in a large saucepan, let stand for 1 min. Cook over low heat 3 mins or until the gelatin is completely dissolved, stirring constantly.
3. Add white chocolate chips an cook till completely melted and the mixture is well blended. Place the saucepan in a bowl of iced water and let stand 8-10 mins till it's thickened.
4. Add in chopped oreo cookies and fold in whipped cream.
5. Pour into the chilled crust and smooth the top. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or over night before serving.

Special Thanks: www.kraftrecipes.com for oreo white chocolate mousse cake recipe

Delicious Cream English Scones.... Super Easy Recipe!

I am a scone lover! Since I started baking, I have been trying many scone recipes and the more I bake my skill of making scone is much better than 1st time.

1st time eating scone happened when I visited UK about 8 years ago and I started baking them myself when I moved to Singapore for good. I bake scones a few times a month. DH & I love eating them either for breakfast or afternoon tea.

My previous post about scone, I got the recipe from cookpad.com (this website originated from Japan and I use google translate to help me). There are many variety recipes out there which I'm interested to try and this time I have to get cream scone recipe since I wanted to use my dairy whipping cream. The method of making it's so easy and not many ingredients required. Moreover, the scones came out beautifully with a good taste especially eating them warm with butter and raspberry jam. It's Heaven! I baked cream scone before but the result not as good as this time. Since it's such an easy recipe and give me to taste such a nice scone. I will bake them again when I have dairy whipping cream to use up next time.

Cream English Scones
Yield 5 pcs.

Cake flour           200  g.
Baking powder   1      Tbsp.
Pinch of salt
Sugar                   2      Tbsp.
Milk                     50    g.
Whipping cream  100  g.
*Optional: raisins

1. Sift cake flour, salt & baking powder together then set aside.
2. Mix milk and whipping cream then slowly pour half of the liquid ingredient into the flour mixture and use the spatula try to combine into a dough then add the rest of liquid ingredient.
3. Gather the mixture to become a dough and fold 2-3 times. Rest the dough for 5 mins.
4. Plat the dough into the disc shaped with the thickness of 1 inch. Dip the round cutter in the flour and cut out the dough.
5. Place the dough on the greased tray and brush the top with some milk.
6. Bake in the preheat oven 170C for 20 mins.

Special Thanks: www.cookpad.com

Peach Buttermilk Bundt Cake

I made this bundt cake at the end of November for my mother in law's birthday. Since she doesn't like cake with frosting and she is a butter cake lover, bundt cake seems to be a good choice for her cake on a big day.

This recipe I wanted to try for a long time ago and I was so happy that I did a right thing. The original recipe called Triple Berry Summer Buttermilk Bundt from smittenkitchen.com Though I did not use mix berries and I substituted with peach in syrup but the cake came out beautifully with a good taste even no glaze just the cake itself. Moist and tasty ...these what my family members said and the important thing was my mother in law loved it :) It definitely a good recipe and I will make it again and again with new creation next time.

Sorry I could not manage to get the shot which shows the cake texture because I did not want to disturb the birthday celebration but for sure it's really a good recipe that you should try.

Peach Buttermilk Bundt Cake

All purpose flour          2 1/2 cups + 2 Tbsp.
Baking powder            2        tsp.
Salt                              1        tsp.
Unsalted butter            1        cup
Sugar                           1 3/4  cups
Zest of lemon               1
Eggs                             3
Vanilla                         1/2     tsp.
Buttermilk                    3/4     cup
Peach in syrup             2         cups
*drain and use paper towel whip off the syrup as much as you can then cut into small dice

1. Sift flour, baking power and salt together and set aside.
2. Beat butter, sugar and lemon zest with electric mixer till light and fluffy 3-5 mins. Add egg one at time and mix well. Scraping down the bowl between each addition.
3. Beat in vanilla and add in 1/3 flour follow by half of buttermilk then 1/3 flour beating and the rest of buttermilk. Mix until just combined and the end add in the rest of flour. Mix well.
4. Toss the diced peaches with the remaining 2 Tbsp flour then fold into the batter and pour to greased butter and floured bundt pan. Smooth the top and bake in the preheat oven 180C 55-60 mins till the cake is done.
5. Set the cake pan on the wire rack to cool down for 30 mins before invert the cake and cool down to room temperature before serving.

Special Thanks: www.smittenkitchen.com for sharing a great recipe

Cranberry Yogurt Pai Pau (Bread)

Saw the post "Cranberry Cream Cheese Pai Pau (Bread) from Sonia (nasilemaklover's blog), I was so tempted to try making the bread. As she mentioned in her post, the cream cheese can be substitute with yogurt and someone did it with a pleased result. I decided to make my bread with some leftover strawberry yogurt and hope it will turn out well.

I followed exactly as the recipe except using yogurt instead of cream cheese. Making this bread is very easy because it's a straight method moreover the dough was easy to handle. I was using my pink KA for kneading but I'm sure kneading by hand will be easy too.

My Pai Pau (Bread) when it was in the oven, the smell of the bread came out so aromatic which I guess it might be strawberry yogurt as in one of the ingredient. I even could not resist to try the bread once it's done. The texture is so soft and fluffy and this is the first time I felt so happy of my bun's texture without any exceptions. It is a 2nd day when I'm writing now but the bread still soft. This recipe must be get thumps up and really worth to try if you are a bread lover. I will definitely make this recipe again and again for sure :)

Cranberry Yogurt Pai Pau (Bread)

Bread flour         280   g.
Sugar                    40   g.
Salt                       2.5  g.
Yeast                       1  tsp.
Milk                    120   g.
Egg                       40   g.
Yogurt                  50   g.
Unsalted butter     28   g.
Dry cranberries    40   g.

1. Mix all ingredients except butter and cranberries in the mixing bowl. Start kneading till all the ingredients combined likes a dough.
2. Add in butter and continue kneading till get a smooth and elastic dough then add in cranberries. Mix till incorporated.
3. Gather the dough and make in round shape. Place into the greased bowl then wrap with cling film for 1st proof around 45 mins - 1 hour (till double in size).
4. Take out the dough and press to release the air. Divide the dough in 6 portion equally and round up each one. Rest for 15 mins.
5. Roll the dough into oval shape and roll from the right side to left side likes swiss roll. Place it into the greased square pan 9x9" and repeat this step till finish up all.
6. Rest the dough to proof till double in size. Apply egg wash on top and bake in the preheat oven at 180C for 20 mins.

Special Thanks: Sonia (nasilemaklover.blogspot.com) for sharing such a superb recipe

Rosette Duchess Potato

It had been around 2 years since I got this recipe on hand. The recipe had been introduced when I attended the cooking class which held by Mayer (where I bought my baby pink KA).

The reason made me thinking of this dish when I found 3 russet potatoes in the kitchen. My DH is potato lover and I do like eating potato too. I was glad that I chose the right choice to make this dish because it was a hit by DH. I only ate 1/4 portion from what I cooked and the rest he finished it in one time. He mentioned why I never thought of making this, it was so good! That was enough to make me feel happy when I cooked and he like it :)

From the recipe I got, I just modified the filling on my own. I felt that the potato part it will go well with any types of filling as your preference and in my opinion, you can either eat just plain potato which is very similar too mashed potatoes because it is delicious by itself.

To make my Duchess Potato even more special, I piped roses for decoration but you can just pipe it into a cup or baking sheet. This easy & simple dish will definitely worth to try especially if you are potato lover like us!

Duchess Potato

Potatoes           4 medium
Egg yolks        2
Milk                 2 Tbsp.
Cream              2 Tbsp.
Salted butter     40 g.
White pepper
Salt                  A pinch
*Optional: you can add dried herbs in the mixture to give it aromatic. For me, I added mixed Italian herbs.

1. Peel & cut the potatoes into chunks. Place potatoes in a large pot of boiling salted water for about 15-20 mins, then reduce the heat to medium, simmer till tender (when pierced with a fork).
2. Remove from the heat & drain. Return potatoes to pot & stir over medium heat until moisture evaporates about 1 min. Remove from the heat.
3. Mash potatoes with masher or fork. Mix in the milk, cream, egg yolks, butter, salt and pepper. Stir till in corporate and smooth.
4. Spoon the potato mixture into pastry bag which fits a star nozzle. Pipping into the cup (with filling or without filling) or on the greased baking sheet.
5. Bake in the preheat oven 250C for 5 mins or until the potato is golden brown.

Mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival 2012

My home-baked mini mooncakes with 3 types of filling (Durian & Salted Egg Yolk, Custard, Durian & Custard)

1st time learning how to make mooncakes

First of all, I would like to say "Happy Mid-Autumn Festival" to everyone. This year, the date falls on September 30 and I had a chance to make my own traditional mooncakes for my family earlier to celebrate this festival.

This was not the first time I made mooncakes myself, I made mini snow skin mooncakes first year when I moved here for good and that was the only one time for my attempt till early September this year. One of my good friend invited me to try baking traditional mooncakes at her place, I was so excited to learn from her. During we were making, I got so much knowledge from her which were the recipe, shaping, moulding, baking, etc. I was appreciated that she invited me to learn unless I will not really want to try making the traditional mooncakes myself since I always thought it's difficult to do. 

By right, I was totally wrong about my ideal because it's not too difficult to make our own mooncakes and it's so much fun making them also you can eat the freshly baked mooncakes with a good qualities ingredients as your preference. Although you might have to be patient enough to eat them after you finish baking for 2-3 days or when the mooncake skin is getting softer but it's really worth for waiting. After I practiced at my friend's place, I made my own again last Friday. My mooncakes have 3 types of filling which are durian filling with salted egg yolk, durian & custard filling and custard filling. The custard filling was leftover since I made custard buns. 

My family's so happy about these home-baked mooncakes thought I find my mooncakes was not as good as I expected. But all experiences I learnt this time, I hope to get a perfect mooncakes for the next attempt.

Mini Traditional Mooncakes

*Skin*

Hong Kong flour (1)      400  g.

Canola oil                       200  g.

Lyles golden syrup         425  g.

Alkaline water                 1     Tbsp.

Hong Kong flour (2)      300  g.

*Filling*

Durian paste divided into round shape each 30 g.

Custard filling divided into round shape each 30 g.

1. Mix canola oil, golden syrup and alkaline water together. Stir till incorporate.

2. Sift flour(1) into to the syrup mixture and use wooden spoon to stir till well mixed. Wrap with cling film and rest for at least 1 hour.

3. Sift in flour (2) to the mixture and knead till get the smooth dough. Wrap with cling film and rest for 10 mins.

4. Divide the dough to 20 g. for each portion and shape it likes a ball. Flatten each dough and place the filling to the middle and wrap up likes a ball then press it into the mould (dust with some flour) and press the dough out on the greased baking tray.

5. Bake in the preheat oven at 200C for 10-15 mins. and take out from the oven. Brush with egg yolk then put into the oven again to bake for another 10 mins.

Special Thanks: P'Mon MaeJJ for teaching me how to make mooncake and Khun Tonaoi for sharing a great mooncake recipe

Lemon Apricot Yogurt Cake

I've been busy these few weeks and no time to bake or cook anything much as often. Since I got 2 lemons in my fridge and could not think of what to use them for, I suddenly got an idea to bake something with them. There were 2 items in my mind "Lemon Blueberry Yogurt Cake" or "Blueberry Lemon Buttermilk Bundt Cake"and I went for yogurt cake because I wanted to use up my strawberry yogurt too.

The original recipe I got it from smitten kitchen as in this link http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2008/04/lemon-yogurt-anything-cake/ but I rather wanted to bake my cake in square pan than loaf pan also I had to modify the recipe according to what I had on hand. Here is my version:

Lemon Apricot Yogurt cake

All purpose flour               1 1/2 cup
Baking powder                 2       tsp.
Salt                                    1/2    tsp.
Strawberry yogurt             1       cup
Sugar                                1       cup
Eggs (large)                      3
Lemon zest                       2       tsp.
Vanilla                             1/2     tsp.
Melted butter                   1/2     cup
Dried apricot                    1       cup (chopped into small pieces & coated with 1 Tbsp all purpose flour)
Lemon juice                    1/3     cup + sugar 1 Tbsp.

1. Sift flour, baking powder & salt together into the mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.
2. Combine eggs, yogurt, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest & melted buter together till incorporate and pour the mixture into dry ingredient. Mix well with spatula and add in dried apricots, fold well.
3. Pour the batter into the greased 8"square pan lined with parchment paper at the bottom. Smooth up the top nicely.
4. Bake in the preheat oven 175C for 30-35 mins
5. When baking the cake, mix lemon juice with sugar and bring to boil till the sugar dissolved and the mixture becomes transparency then set aside.
6. Once the cake is done, leave it the cool down on the rack for 10 mins. Flip out the cake and use the pastry brush to put the lemon syrup on top of the cake and let it to be completely cool down to room temperature.

The cake texture had a great scent of lemon syrup and lemon zest moreover strawberry meat & apricot in the cake adding some special texture as well. For best taste with the moist texture, keeping it overnight will be a great idea before consuming the cake.

Sandwich Loaf Bread

There are many recipes from Cookpad Japan which I'm keeping in my baking lists and this time I selected "Hard Crunchy Bread" to try. From the original recipe, this bread has to bake in high temperature likes 200-210C but I did not want my loaf too much brown at the outer part since I will toast it for making sandwich so I adjusted the temperature lower and it came out with a perfect color.

As usual, I like to substitute 20 g of bread flour with organic wholemeal flour, other than that I followed the original recipe. Though my bread is not crunchy at the outer part like the original one but the taste wise is great with soft and light texture. It is really perfect for toasting and spread butter, peanut butter, jam or good for making sandwich as well.

Sandwich Loaf Bread

Bread flour        300 g. (I used bread flour 280 g + organic wholemeal flour 20 g)
Sugar                 15  g.
Salt                    5    g.
Yeast                 4    g.
Warm water      200 g.
Unsalted butter 15   g.

1. Mix all dry ingredients except the butter together in the mixing bowl.
2. Pour warm water into the dry ingredients and start kneading with low speed till incorporate.
3. Use medium speed to knead the dough till become a ball and add in soft butter. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.
4. Use cling film to wrap up the bowl and proof the dough for 45 mins to 1 hour (double in size).
5. Punch down the dough to release the air and divide into 3 portions equally. Shape each dough in round-shaped and cover with cling film to proof the dough for 20 mins.
6. Roll out each portion into rectangular and roll up like swiss roll then place it into the greased loaf pan. Cover with cling film and proof the dough for 45 mins to 1 hour.
7. Bake in preheat oven at 190-200C for 30 mins.

Remarks: if you prefer hard crunchy bread, you need to bake the loaf at 200-210C and bake it longer another 5 mins.

Brownie Cake with Honey Almond Crust

It's been a month which I never turned my oven on since I went for oversea trip. Just happened to start my baking again yesterday since I was hungry for some sweets.

This is another one of my baking items which has been requested from family members quite often. I decided to make this and wanted to try making it more special than last time. I found "Honey Almond Crust" from nasilemaklover.blogspot.sg and it looks interesting. I immediately noted down the recipe and got an ideal to put on my brownie cake.

The recipe for this brownie cake or I called it as cakey brownie, I posted previously here http://thesweetmaison.blogspot.sg/2011/05/cakey-brownies-or-brownies-in-butter.html Also with the experiment by topping with honey almond crust, it's even more yummy! Thought I did not follow the original recipe because I used chopped raw almond (the original recipe uses sliced almond) but the topping turned out good too. 

I'm so glad that I baked it with this new combination and the topping really made my brownie looks fantastic and gives more crunchy texture when you are eating. I do like this topping so much and will try it with other food next time for sure.

Cakey Brownie or Brownie in Butter Cake Style

Unsalted butter            200  g.
Icing                           200  g.
Cake flour                   120  g.
Baking powder             2     g.
Salt                             2     g.
Cocoa powder             20    g.
Eggs                           4
Vanilla                       1/2-1 tsp.

Honey Almond Crust

Chopped raw almonds   90  g.
Honey                          50  g.
Butter                          30  g.

1. Sift flour, baking powder, salt & cocoa powder then set aside.
2. Beat butter and icing till smooth and fluffy then gradually add egg once at time (I always beat eggs and vanilla together before slowly pour into the mixing bowl to prevent the butter and egg separated).
3. Divide flour into 2 portions and add each portion to the batter and mix well. Pour the batter into greased 8 inches square pan lined with parchment paper then smooth the top.
4. Bake in preheat oven at 160C for 20-25 mins (Check by using toothpick insert out and there's no sticky batter).
5. Mix chopped almonds, honey and butter in a small saucepan then heat to melt the butter and honey. Stir over to make sure that all almonds well coated with honey butter.
6. Top the honey almond crust on the brownie and bake in the oven at 180C for 8-10 mins till almonds are roasted and turn to be golden brown color.
7. Wait for the brownie to cool down to room temperature before unmold.

Special Thanks: nasilemaklover.blogspot.sg for sharing a great topping recipe