Carrot Cake Muffin

It's been a while since I baked, and this was made a while back for a gathering with some friends who brought their toddlers along. I know there's a few camps about giving kids sugary stuff beyond or before a certain age. I haven't decide which camp we will be but this cup cakes has the natural sweetness of carrots and raisins, so if you decide to scale back the sugar amount in the recipe, I'm sure it will still be delicious :). Most of the 'sinful' stuff can be blamed on the icing, but this is made from cream cheese which you can lightly sweeten to 'convince it is a dessert', using the words of Jamie Oliver. This recipe is adapted from Alex Goh's Carrot Muffin recipe.

Ingredients

140g margarine

180g sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

40g honey

2 eggs

400g milk

400g plain flour

3 tablespoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

220g grated carrots

100g raisins

115g cream cheese

50g soft butter

150g icing sugar

grated zest of one orange

Steps

1. Cream the margarine, sugar, salt and honey until light and then add in one egg at a time, ensuring it is smooth and light.
2. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon powder well in a bowl first, then add in to the egg mixture alternating with the milk until well-blended.
3. Add in the carrots and raisins towards the end and scoop into individual muffin cups (80%) full. Bake at 190°C for 20-30 minutes.
   
   

   
   

   
   
4. Prepare the icing by beating the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and orange zest together until well mix and smooth. Ice the cup cakes when they have cooled.

Strawberries and Cream Cheesecake from Martha Stewart

Sweden is quite famous for its summer strawberries because they are incredibly sweet (and cheap too during the season). So this is a nice recipe to make dessert with, I especially like the technique of roasting the strawberries because it does intensify the flavor very much unlike any other methods.  This is taken from Martha Stewart's website, but I have adapted the recipe to make a smaller cake and put this out in metrics system instead.

Ingredients

250g fresh strawberries, hulled, you can save a few for decoration

1.5 tablespoons light syrup

1/2 pack digestive biscuits, crushed finely

115g sugar

1.5 tablespoons butter melted

400g cream cheese room temperature

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 large egg

1/2 vanilla bean, scrapped

115g mascarpone cheese, room temperature

Steps

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C, toss the strawberries in the light syrup and line them in a single row on baking paper and bake for 1.5 hours. It will shrink slightly, mash it up with a fork together with the liquid produced and set aside to cool.
   
   

   
   

   
   
   
2. Increase the temperature to 180°C while you mix the melted butter, 1 tablespoon of sugar and crushed digestive biscuit together and press it tightly to the bottom of the cake pan (I use a 20cm one). Bake it for about 10 minutes and let it cool.
3. Reduce the temperature to 160°C, beat the cream cheese with a electric mixer until smooth, then add in the sugar, salt, egg, vanilla bean seeds, mascarpone cheese one at a time ensuring there are no lumps.
   
   
   
   
4. Reserve a third of the cheese mixture and set aside. Use the remaining cheese mixture and combine with the mashed strawberries and mix well, pour into the cake form.
   
   
   
   
5. Dollop the remaining plain cheese mixture over the top and wrap the cake form in tin foil and bake in a large pan filled half way with water for about 1h 10 minutes. Let it cool and set in the fridge for at least 4 hours before serving.
   
   

    

   

Borough Market Brownie

If you have ever been to London and visited the Borough Market, you might have tasted this delicious brownie that's situated right at the end of the area. My friend Sylvia and her hubby are coming to visit us in a couple of weeks' time to take pictures of our son Isac (we are very honored!) and you should definitely check out their Facebook page for Eight Dot Photography and also her blog, Peaches and Donuts which I have mentioned before. She is bringing me some goodies from London that I can't get here in Sweden, unfortunately, no brownies, so I googled and found this recipe from BBC Good Food website and it's a keeper! I halved the recipe so it's enough to make one square pan (20 x 20 x 3 cm) of brownies and also had to adjust some ingredients since I didn't have quite enough dark chocolate in my pantry when I first made it, but it works fine and I've done my version a couple of times now that has always turned out well. Serve it warm with a nice vanilla ice cream....ah the pleasure of life :)

Ingredients
170g dark chocolate (at least 55 per cent cocoa solids)
160g unsalted butter
3 whole eggs
150g caster sugar
25g cocoa powder
40g plain flour

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C while you prepare the batter by first melting the chocolate and butter in a small pot or in a bowl over boiling water. Let it cool slightly.
2. Whisk the sugar and eggs together until pale yellow, then add in the chocolate butter mixture.
   
   
3. Sieve the flour and cocoa powder and fold it into the mixture until well blended. Line the pan with baking paper and pour in the batter and bake for 20 minutes. Let it cool in the pan before enjoying this rich brownie.
   
   

    

   

Macarons with Raspberry Jam Filling

My birthday this year was spent in the hospital, but for a good reason since our son arrived just the day before. So for his first month celebration, I decided to try making macarons again. Yes, I have tried making them before but it wasn't very successful. Since my darling hubby got me an expensive macaron making kit (baking sheet with 'built-in circles and a pipping gadget), what better time to give it a try again. I have to say it's not my favourite dessert but it is very pretty when done correctly. So for my friends who wanted to try it out, here's the recipe and you may have to adjust the temperature and timing depending on the type of oven you have. This is adapted from a Swedish baking book 'Macarons, Cupcakes, Cakepops och andra söta bakverk' from Mia Öhrn, also a birthday present :). So I had a really good birthday this year after all!

Ingredients

170g icing sugar

110g grounded almonds without skin

90g egg whites (about three eggs)

2 tablespoons castor sugar

A few drops of food colouring

for the filling

200ml raspberry jam

50ml syrup

Steps

1. If you can only get almonds with their skin on, you would need to do an extra step of soaking them in hot water and peeling the skin off. Otherwise, try to look for those that has no skin and use a food processor to grind it until very fine or as fine as you can. The book recommend a almond grinder which I have not found, but if you can even get almond flour (100% almonds), good for you! This and the following two process of grinding and sieving is the most tedious I find but necessary if you want pretty products in the end. Sieve the ground almond once.
2. Weigh the icing sugar and mix it with the ground almond and sieve it through once more.
3. Whip the egg whites in a clean and dry bowl until foamy, then add in the castor sugar and whip until firm.
4. Fold in the almond/icing sugar mix into the egg white together with the food coloring if using. Do not overmix, the final result should be like flowing lava.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Pipe it into a fancy baking sheet like I have or on normal baking paper. You might find it helpful to draw the circles first before piping if you are not so good at it. Let it rest for 45 minutes. At this point, if your mixture spreads out from the circle you have piped too much, it may mean you have overmix it previously. Try to have more space between each circle in that case to 'save' your work.
   
   
   
   
6. Preheat the oven at 125°C and place your baking tray at the lowest rack and the original time suggested was 20 minutes. I found that to be sufficient for the smaller macarons I made (about 2.5cm in diameter), but about 30 minutes or more for the larger one (4cm in diameter).
   
   
   
   
7. Remove from baking sheet while warm.
   
   
   
   
8. For the filling, I boiled the jam and syrup until it thickens and piped it on accordingly.
   
   
   
   
   
   

Tau Sar Piah 豆沙饼 Mung Bean Paste Biscuit

We welcomed our little one early this month and I must say, motherhood needs some getting used to! This is probably something I won't have time to do for the time being but I have had this craving for the Penang tau sar piah since when I went back to Singapore last July and I finally got some from Sylvia in a yummy package she sent to me with goodies from Malaysia when her hubby went back recently. I could have eaten them all in a day but restrained myself to spread them out over a week. They came to an end eventually and the only thing I could do is to finally try them out, as it was also one of my resolution for this year and good that I tried making them before the little one came along!  I didn't have any recipe of my own and followed the one from My Kitchen Snippets, so all credit to her. However, after making it I came to a few conclusions:

1) It's definitely worth it to pay for those good brands of this biscuit because it takes quite a lot of work.

2) It's not going to be as good as those famous brands but it suffices as a craving when you are overseas and not able to buy it readily.

3) Some people like it freshly baked, but I find it was better after sitting in a container for a day or two.

4) The bean paste filling needs a really good balance of seasoning, otherwise it will just taste strange. Having said that, I hope there is another way to make this filling next time so it doesn't taste as dry, be more savory and doesn't remind one of it being a green bean paste so much.

You can follow her blog which comes with detailed instructions and pictures, the following are my observations while making them. 

Ingredients

Oil Dough

175 gram Flour
100 ml vegetable oil

Oil & Water Dough
345 gram Flour
180 ml vegetable oil
135 ml water
¾ teaspoon vinegar

Mung Bean Paste:

50 ml vegetable oil
2 shallots - thinly sliced
150 gram sugar 

1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
400 gram dried mung beans

Steps

1. Wash the mung beans a few times and let it soak for at least 4 hours or overnight. Drain and steam it for 30 minutes or until soft. (I took about 6-7 tablespoons out to try making tau saun separately this time round)
   
   
   
   
   
2. While steaming, prepare the oil dough and the oil & water dough, cover and let it rest in separate bowls for at least 30 minutes.
   
   
   
3. Let the mung beans cool a bit before blitzing it it briefly in a food processor together with the sugar.
   
   
   
   
4. Heat up the oil in a pan and fry the shallots until slightly brown before adding in the processed mung beans and add the rest of the seasonings, adjusting it where necessary.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Don't fry it too long but you should be able to form firm balls about 9-10g each. If it gets too dry to hold well together, add some water. I formed about 60 balls of fillings.
6. Divide the doughs each into 60 portions. I weigh each dough and divide each weight by 60 so I get a roughly equal amount of dough.
   
   
   
   
7. Flatten the oil & water dough, using it to envelope the oil dough, forming a ball.
8. Using a rolling pin, flatten the mixed dough ball once, then roll it up like a Swiss roll, and flatten it one more time . Roll it up again like a Swiss roll, pinch in the sides and roll it out into a rough round shape to place the prepared filling on (you might get some kind of thin 'skin' at this point of time when you roll out the dough but it's normal and not a mistake).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
9. Beat up one egg and use it to help seal the edges, resting the biscuit on a baking sheet on its sealed edge.
10. Egg wash the top of the biscuits and bake it at 190°C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
    
    
11. Let it cool completely before storing it in an airtight container.
    
    

    
    

Cashew Nut Cookies

 

Ah! It's just two days before Chinese New Year and all I read about on Facebook are my friends doing all they can to prepare for the reunion dinner or getting their nails ready for visiting friends and relatives. I miss such New Year Spirit, as you can guess, it's kinda of scarce here in Sweden. So the only way to warm things up is by using the oven and baking one more Chinese New Year goodie, and this is one I find it a bit hard to stop eating. So double the recipe if you have a feeling you are going to be in the same predicament as me.


The recipe is doubled from the one I used from Small Small Baker which I made about 120 cookies, using the smallest Christmas cookie cutter I can find that still can fit half a piece of cashew nut comfortably. One thing that I think I will do it next time is to increase the amount of ground cashew nuts because I really like deep, nutty taste of cashew nuts in the cookies, but for now, this is a faithful following (only doubled) of her very good recipe.

Ingredients

220g butter
140g castor sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 egg
80g grounded cashew nuts

360g plain flour
40g cornflour
1 teaspoon baking powder 

For the egg wash, separate one egg and prepare enough cashew nuts halves to place on top the cookies. I find it easy if you use a butter knife and apply a light pressure on the curve of the thickest part of the the nut.

Steps

1. Roast the whole cashew nuts in a dry pan over the stove until fragrant before grinding it in the food processor as fine as you can.  I used salted cashew nuts because it's quite hard to find the natural ones, but I think it works out well too.
   
   
   
   
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until well mixed. Add in the grounded nuts first, follow by the vanilla extract and egg. Add in the flours and baking powder until incorporated and coming together as a dough. 
3. Place the dough on a floured surface and knead it to a pliable stage. If it's too soft, you can try putting it in the fridge for half an hour before rolling it out to be about 3/4 cm thickness.
   
   
   
4. Use a cookie cutter to cut out the desire shapes and place on the baking sheet, spacing them equally apart. Lightly beat the egg white so it's easier to brush lightly on each cookie, placing a cashew nut half on each cookie, then brushing it again with the beaten egg yolk to achieve a golden brown tinge after baking.
   
   
   
5. Bake at 180°C for 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let it cool thoroughly before storing (or eating!).
   
   

Finska Pinnar / Finnish Fingers

Before you think otherwise, these Finnish Fingers are actually a traditional cookie my mother-in-law bakes every year for Christmas.  I've got a liking for buttery stuff since Christmas and thought this would be good as a Chinese New Year goodie too since it 1) is buttery and sweet 2) can keep well 3) can be offered to guests like other goodies during Chinese New Year 4) it's very easy to make! The recipe is catered for 50 fingers, but I only produced half the amount because I've cut it too thick. However, I think they will be equally good if you cut them into small, bite-size squares, that way, you can eat more without 'feeling guilty'.  This recipe is from a traditional Swedish baking books called 'Sju Sorters Kakor' - 7 types of cookies/cakes, but it contains much more recipes than that.

Ingredients (makes 50 fingers)

50g sweet almonds

5 pieces of bitter almonds

4.5dl plain flour

1 dl sugar

200g butter

1/2-1 egg white

Pearl Sugar/Nib Sugar

Chopped sweet almonds

Steps

1. Soaked the almonds in hot water for a minute, drain and peel off the skins (if you didn't buy those already peeled). There is a difference between sweet and bitter almonds, the latter being dangerous if consumed in large quantity.  The bitter almonds as shown in the picture on the right side of the blade is flatter and broader than the sweet ones.
   
   
   
2. In a food processor, mix the almonds, butter, sugar and flour until it comes together in a dough.
   
   
   
3. I placed the dough in a bag before flattening it until its about finger thickness before putting it in the chiller on a flat surface to cool for at least half and hour.
   
   
   
4. Remove the dough as one single piece and place it on your baking sheet. Brush the whole surface with lightly whipped egg white before decorating it with the nib sugar and more chopped sweet almonds.
   
   
   
5. Use a cutter and divide them up into thin fingers, bearing in mind they will expand slightly. My ones in this picture was too thick so that can serve as your gauge to 'slim' them down. Bake at 175°C for around 12 minutes or golden brown.  Let it cool before storing. They should hold up quite firmly like cookies.