Green Tea Butter Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I was craving for something about green tea! What should I do? That was the question kept running into my head and the last answer for myself was "Baking Green Tea Cupcakes". I was surfing internet to see which recipe more attractive to my sense of baking green tea dessert but the end I just used my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe and modified to get my own green tea cupcake :)

I was very happy that I made a right decision coz my cupcakes came up tasty with green tea flavor, moist and fine texture as I like. It was easy for you if you already had your own favorite butter cupcakes recipe or vanilla cupcake recipe. You only need to add green tea powder and sieve with the flour then continuing the baking process as normal. Don't you think it's super easy, hmmm?

For something more special than cupcakes, I made the cream cheese frosting and decorated these cupcakes and finished up the decoration step with a little bit of green tea sprinkle on the frosting. It really go well for both of the green tea cake and cream cheese frosting especially have a cup of hot green tea together. Fabulous!

Cotton Soft Bread

As you see my previous posts which show many of Hokkaido Milk Loaf Breads I baked, also I did mention about how nice HML bread is and it's one of my all time favorite bread. Every time I'm thinking of baking bread I will definitely make HML but now I got another recipe which I fell in love after the first bake.

The recipe had been modified from HML and the person who created this formula is P'Tuk (Cookie Nim is her blog's name in bloggang.com). I'm really appreciated that she's willing to share this superb recipe. I love to use whipping cream to make home-baked bread coz I always have whipping cream in my fridge also the bread produces such a good texture as it's named. This bread is more slightly light in texture than HML but the taste's still nice and of coz it's very yummy :p Love..Love!

Homemade Pizza .... Fast & Easy Pizza

Making my own pizza never really crossed my mind till the day my hubby who always like to eat pizza asked me to order coz he was craving for pizza since we never eaten for long time. It made me thought of "Why not I make for him?" and immediately told him that I can make my own pizza!

That night he drove me to buy some ingredients and I was surfing the internet the whole night. There are so many homemade pizza dough recipes and I was interested in the one in Martha Stewart's website which sounds really easy to make but the dough is too much for only 2 of us to finish in one time and I did not like to keep so much things in the fridge. So I was searching recipe again and came across this blog-oneuponaplaterecipes, it caught my attention seriously coz her topic is showing "Fast PIzza Dough". After looked through the recipe and method, I decided to go for this recipe coz it's super easy to do but with some modifications I got a thicker crust pizza than her. For me my crust is just nice not too thin and not such a thick crust pizza as well. Furthermore the pizza edge was crispy, that what our favorite part! We were enjoyed this homemade pizza a lot even my hubby told me to make this homemade pizza every Sunday :)

Fast & Easy Pizza Dough

All purpose flour 160 g.
ATTA flour 50 g. (You can substitute with whole meal or whole wheat flour as your preference)
Dry yeast 2 1/4 tsp.
Honey 1/2 tsp.
Warm water 3/4 cup
Salt 1/2 tsp.
Olive oil 1 tbsp.
Semolina flour for dusting

1. Pour honey into the warm water stir till combine then dissolve dry yeast in the water
2. Combine two flours with salt in the mixing bowl pour the yeast water to the dry ingredient and knead with dough hook till it forms a dough.
3. Add in olive oil and continue to knead till the dough not so sticky to the bowl *At this state you can add extra flour to the dough just to let the dough not sticky to the side of the bowl probably 2-3 tbsp.
4. Knead for 10-15 mins and don't worry that the dough still sticky not smooth. Just take out the dough from the bowl and put on the greased pizza tray 10" (I used back of 10" square tray). Dust the dough with semolina flour and flatten the dough in to disc form till get the same size of your tray and let the edge of the dough is thicker than the middle
5. Use fork to poke all over the dough surface and lightly spread with pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce except the edge area. Put topping as you like and cheese
6. Bake the pizza in the preheat oven 260C for 10-12 mins *Make sure that your oven is in the temperature before putting in the pizza)

Remarks: If you prefer thin crust, just divide the dough into 2 portion and work each portion for your pizza.

*Adapted from http://onceuponaplaterecipes.blogspot.com/2009/11/fast-thin-and-crispy-crust-pizza.html

English Bread

OMG! I forgot to post this bread .... just looked through my posts and realized that there's no English Bread.

This bread was recommended by my friend (P' Mon-Cooking and Baking with MaeJJ Blog) and I baked it at her house. She got the recipe from Happy Home Baking but modified in her version by using oil not butter. This recipe was a hit in one baking forum which she posted. I found it was great for making sandwich with this kind of bread.

The time I baked, we agreed to put ATTA flour half in the recipe so this English Bread was more healthier. I never heard of ATTA flour before and she recommended me it's one kind of bread flour which good to make naan or pita bread. Once I saw the texture of the bread I liked it a lot so before I went back home she gave me a packet of ATTA flour for sample and she guaranteed that I will like to use ATTA flour for my next bread baking.

English Bread

Bread Flour 150 g.
ATTA flour 150 g. (you can use all bread flour)
Instant dry yeast 1 tsp.
Sugar 1 tbsp.
Salt 1 tsp.
Milk 30 ml.
Lukewarm water 180 ml.
Canola oil 10 g.

(Bread Machine Method)
1. Put all the ingredients into the bread maker and set dough program.
2. Bring the dough out and punch down to release the air then divide 2 portions and shape in round balls. Put the doughs in the greased loaf pan cover with damn cloth and let it rise to double in size around 40-60 mins
3. Bake in preheat oven 170-180C for about 20 mins

****Remarks: if using stand mixer, put all the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl then pour wet ingredients and knead with dough hook till the dough is formed and add canola oil knead till the dough is smooth and elastic. Shape the dough to the round ball and put in grease bowl covered with damn cloth. Let it rise for 40-60 mins then continue the process 2 as above.

Blueberry Muffin (Recipe from Kitchenaid Mixer Cookbook)

Don't you think baking blueberry muffin is very simple? Actually it's not so simple as many people think coz there are so many things to concern during the baking process such as "do not over mix the batter" " how to get nice dome on top" "amount of the batter in muffin pan" "temperature" etc.

There are so many recipes of baking blueberry muffins which you just search it by google. For me, I do prefer making the muffins with canola oil coz I feel that oil can help the muffin to keep moisture in muffin texture than the butter. Since I have started making muffins I always use the recipes which has oil in the ingredient lists and never even look at the recipes which have butter until I got this book "Kitchenaid Mixer Cookbook". I had got this book in the same time that my hubby bought me my lovely Pink Kitchenaid on our anniversary last year. It's one of free gifts with the mixer but I had never tried any recipes in this cookbook till last week. Due to I bought 1 packet of fresh blueberries and I felt craving muffin badly I also did not know why... I could be when I think of blueberry, it must be blueberry muffins!

Looked to the recipe in the book made me hesitate. They use butter which is not my muffin type but I also felt like trying to bake something from the book. Of course I made a right decision... Though I omitted some ingredients but the muffins were great! Moist & Nice taste :P My experiment this time I only halved the recipe which really not enough LOL. So if you guys think of baking blueberry muffins, try to use this recipe and you will know...............................!

BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

Blueberries 275 g.
Plain flour 225 g.
Baking powder 2 1/2 tsp.
Salt 1/2 tsp.
Ground nutmeg 1/4 tsp.*
Caster sugar 175 g.
Egg 2
Milk 175 ml.
Unsalted butter 115 g.
Grated rind of 1 orange*
Vanilla essence 1 tsp.
Granulated sugar 50 g.
Ground nutmeg 1/4 tsp.*

*I omitted

According to the book, have to use mixer to do and I only used fork to mix the batter instead of mixer.

1. Preheat oven 190C and line muffin tin with paper cases
2. Mash about 50 g. of the blueberries with fork (or potato masher). Sieve the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg in the bowl then add sugar stir till combine and make well in the middle
3. Stir Milk, Eggs, Melted butter, Orange rind, Vanilla to combine then pour to the sieved flour add in mashed blueberries and the remaining blueberries.
4. Use fork to mix all ingredients for 30 seconds
5. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins almost filling to the top and sprinkle over with granulated sugar
6. Bake for 20-25 mins

Source: The Ultimate Mixer Cookbook by Kitchenaid

Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nuts Cookies

It's time to open the macadamia nuts package which been storing in the fridge and waiting for my baking. I love macadamia nuts and it's my favorite nut though the calories is the most in any kind of nuts. I believe many of you must be agree with me how nice of this high cholesterols nuts, am I right?

The best country to get a good quality of macadamia must be Australia and I bought 0.5 kg. of macadamia from one supplier in Singapore. The shop import many quality nuts & dry ingredients both for baking and cooking from different sources which famous in specific products to sell here. Every time I go down to the shop I always spend a lot of money buying nuts for my baking stuffs and some dried ingredients as well.

I got a few white chocolate macadamia nuts cookies recipes in my baking bible and I selected this recipe coz it uses only brown sugar which I always feel that cookie dough with only brown sugar give a nice color and more rustic look. I decided to substitute white chocolate by using more dark chocolate which I have more in my store also I did a few modifications on my own preferences as follow:

Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nuts Cookies

Salted butter 95 g.
(I always use Golden Churn Butter from Australia which provides such a rich creamy butter)
Shortening 18 g.
(My 1st baking teacher in high school told me about the shortening can produce the crispy cookie and helpful for keeping the crispness longer but I just put a little amount only coz I still prefer buttery taste in the cookies)
Brown sugar 3/4 cup
Egg 1
Vanilla 1 tsp.
All purpose flour 1 1/3 cups
Baking powder 1/2 tsp.
Baking soda 1/2 tsp.
Salt 1/16 tsp. (you can add more till 1/8 tsp.)
Dark chocolate 100 g. (I chopped my Lindt Dark Chocolate into chunks)
Macadamia nuts 1 cup (toasted in the oven at 150C for 10 mins)

1. Sieve flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together set aside
2. Combine butter and brown sugar in the mixing bowl. Beat till combine (don't have to beat till light and fluffy) then add egg and vanilla continue beating till incorporate (this process takes around 3-4 minutes.
3. Reduce to low speed and add flour then mix just combined. Stir in chopped macadamia nuts & dark chocolate chunks
4. Refrigerate the cookie dough for 30 mins and use ice cream scoop to get the even size of the dough to place on the baking tray lined with parchment paper
5. Bake in preheat oven 175C for 12-15 mins

Remarks:
The cookies are crispy but not that hard cookie with the right amount of sweetness. If you prefer soft cookie just substitute shortening with butter and bake only 10 mins.

*Special Thank to my inspiration recipe by Khun Pat Nga Khao from bloggang

Deliciously Rich Dark Chocolate Cheese Cake

Last month, it was my birthday and I had the intention to bake my own birthday cake. Unfortunately, I was very busy before my birthday so I could not get myself to do anything much. My hubby wanted to buy me my favorite cake but I denied coz since I can bake many things myself I never felt like buying those bakeries again.

This Rich Dark Chocolate Cheese Cake is the one I wanted to bake and I just got a chance to bake early this month... Never mind it still can be my late birthday cake anyway... LOL! Normally, I'm not really fancy cheese cake coz I always think of the calories but I had to omit this recipe. Also another reason was..I bought LINDT DARK CHOCOLATE from Bangkok which is 2.5 Kg.! I could not find LINDT CHOCOLATE in Singapore so I had to buy big package to store for my baking things and this was first time I used it.

I got the recipe from Thai forum and it did not make me disappointed about the result :) When you try these Rich Chocolate Cheese Cake, you will absolutely agree with me that it's great! The top part, it likes brownie and the flavor is rich with dark chocolate taste and not too sweet. Further more you can taste the cream cheese flavor together with chocolate. It's really a good combination in this recipe. By the way, I will not bake cheese cake so often unless I'm thinking of chocolate and cheese, I will definitely bake these again.

Orange Sponge Cake with Light Orange Custard Filling

Due to I had promised my mother in law to bake something for her sister and I postponed her many times coz I had no idea what to bake for her then I decided to do the experiment of this orange sponge cake with light orange custard filling. Oh ... I was really in a big risk. Why?... this sponge recipe is amazing in texture and taste. It's very popular in one cooking & baking forum but many people who tried to bake also faced with problems, they could not get a great result of this cake even someone gave up this recipe since they tried many times. You will not believe me that I bought those special ingredients for this recipe for more than 3 months!... and I was so scared to bake it coz I had an idea if the result come out not desired then it gonna effect my confident of baking a lot. This time I told myself that "If I don't try when will I know"

Luckily, I was reading many posts about people who got in troubles with this cake also some people recommended what to do to get it successfully. When I started baking I felt like I was doing an exam and all information related was running around my head till I put the batter in the oven. I sat down in front of the oven and kept looking at my batter was raising up. At this point, my mind was telling me that it seem to be fine left only the last part which about the texture.

Waiting for the cake to cool down, I prepared the orange filling. Actually this filling can also put over the top of the cake but I just wanted to let them try with only filling first and wait for the feedback if they like next time I could do the full version. I only kept 1 piece for myself to try and the rest was packed to my mother in law's sister in the same day. Now I'm still waiting for the feedback coz I have to wait till my mother in law come back from her oversea trip then she can ask her sister for me. Anyway I got 2 guaranteed persons for this recipe. One is me and another is my hubby who love everything about orange :)