Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding & Award

It has been awhile since I took the trouble to make something special in the morning for my family on a Sunday. Usually, I would just whip up some pancakes or waffles for them. However last Sunday, I decided to try something a little more special, a little more sinful but worth working out the calories later, lol! *I hope* May I present to you Chocolate Croissant Bread pudding!

Besides being absolutely delicious, this is so easy to whip up! Really! It probably took me like 30 minutes from start to finish, tops. :) Just one important thing to remember when making this pudding is to use non freshly baked croissants, preferably a day or 2 old. But if you can't wait that long (like me), you simply just toast the croissants in the oven at 150C for 10 minutes to dry it out. Also, it best to use shallow heat proof dishes to help it cook quickly.

I got this recipe from Easy Deserts Magazine from the Publisher of Fine Cooking. Here is the recipe, slightly modified to adjust to my taste.

Ingredients for Chocolate Croissant Bread Pudding:
8 oz couple days old croissants (I used 5, bought from NTUC)
2/3 cups semisweet Chocolate Chips
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
6 tbsp caster sugar (I used only 3 tbsp)
2/3 cup half & half (I used 1/3 cup whole milk + 1/3 cup dairy heavy cream)
1 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into tiny bits

Method:

• Preheat the oven to 180C.
  
• Cut/tear the croissants into 1" bite size and arrange half of the pieces in the dish or ramekins for individual serving. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Top with remaining croissant pieces.
• In a medium bowl, whisk the whole egg, egg yolk, sugar and half-and half and pour over the croissants.
• Dot the pudding with the butter bits. Then bake in the oven for 15 minutes until the pudding sets. Serve warm or let stand for an hour to serve at room temperature.
  

Taste? It's crispy and buttery on the outside, creamy and chocolaty on the inside. So good! My kids loved it very much. :) Although I did reduce the sugar to half, I think I can even further reduce it to just 1 tbsp, hahaha! But my kids might start complaining, lol! Anyway, hope you folks will give this recipe a try, it's simply worth the try.

Before I sign off, I would like to thank Esther from X3Baking for awarding me the following award: I am truly honored for receiving this! Many thanks to Esther! This has again motivated me to be a better food blogger and also to keep up with this blogging world. Hopefully I can post up more wonderful recipes for all to share. :)

Have a great week ahead all! Cheers!

Soft Potato Wheat Loaf and Awards

It has been so long, too long in my perspective since I last made fresh bread. I have been waiting, holding back my "urge" to bake a batch that I would make myself contented. :) Why hold back you ask? It wasn't the right time and the right place as yet. Now that I am finally in my new house with my new oven and reunited with my KitchenAid mixer, it's one BIG happy reunion, lol! And alas the wait was all worth it! A few weeks back when my mom called me over for dinner, I knew the opportunity has arrived. :) I had been wanting to make some nice bread for her and been delaying it for so long. So I quickly went with one of my favorite soft bread recipe which I baked before from 孟老师的100道面包 and modified it a little and came up with this Soft Potato Wheat loaf bread.

Okay, this looks like some ordinary looking loaf, but it is so so soft! I knew from my past experience that using potato in the dough will result in the bread being super soft. ;) But of course the handling and kneading of the dough will require extra work since it will be a soft sticky dough. :P

Since this recipe is similar to the one I have posted before, I will not be retyping it out again here in this post. The main difference is I had replace about 40 to 45g of wholemeal flour (Prima brand) from the bread flour in the dough recipe to make it a wee bit more healthy. :) If you are interested to try this out, please kindly refer to my previous post.

See what I mean? See how the slices gently lay on each other, lol! Furthermore, the loaf was well baked, means the crust was there but not thick, and internal was all nicely risen and puffed. :) *thick skin....I mean me, not the bread*

A shot of a slice of the bread....okay I admit I am really happy with this, hahaha! So good to have fresh baked bread in the house again....the toasty smell filling the whole house...an indescribable happiness for me. :D

Besides the loaf, I had some left over dough and I made 3 small pork jerky buns (肉干面包). I brought them over to my mum's and it was gone in minutes, even though everyone already stuffed themselves with my mum's delicious dinner, heehee. :D

A glimpse of my breakfast (half eaten already...sorry) the following morning. Happy? Contented? You bet I am, lol! You can have this too my friend, just get yourself in the kitchen and start baking. ;) No, no bread machine needed, just you and perhaps a good stand mixer (but your hands can do it too~!) will do. Even though it has been a super long wait of 6 months++, I was smiles again after this bake. Do try it out and let me know how it work out for you.
Before I sign off this post, I would like to thank dear DG for passing not 1 but 2 awards to me. ;0 Indeed it was a pleasant surprise! I had seen these awards lately being passed on to several of the fellow bloggers. And because of that, I will accept the awards and skip the passing on part, hope you don't mind DG. ;)
Thanks again to DG for these 2 lovely awards and wish I can be better blogger with much more interesting post in the future. Have a good week ahead to you all! Cheerios!

Mango Yogurt Chiffon Cake

Have been itching to bake a chiffon cake lately. And seeing other fellow bloggers posting up nice tall chiffon pictures just urged me even more. In fact I did made a Pandan chiffon a couple weeks back, but unfortunately it "flopped" ! Well, I suspect I did not bake it long enough to have the crusty sides to "hold" the cake. :P Anyway, this time round, I was pretty determine to: First: bake a chiffon cake, Second: make sure it's not under-baked again! Third : try a new flavor. :) And since I saved a sweet mango in the fridge for a week now, it seems only appropriate to use it before it goes to waste. ;) So here it is, Mango Yogurt Chiffon Cake!

Yeah, yippee, I did it! Well, that is probably what I wish I could say after baking this chiffon and removed it from the tube pan. It may look alright to you, but it's not half of what you can imagine what's wrong. :(

Arhhh! Yup...that's more like how I reacted after the cake was unmould. :P I admit it, my poor "stirring" skill resulted in this horrific hole in this chiffon cake. Somehow there is this whole gather of mango chunks that assemble themselves at that spot! Why did I stir it well enough? Disastrous! I was almost too ashamed to blog about it. :P But after tasting it, I changed my mind.

Overall the taste and texture of the cake was good, just like how a chiffon should be. Although it may be a bit bias on the sweet side, but I blame it on that super sweet & ripe mango I added in. :P Nevertheless, it was decent, so I thought this will still be a good record to keep for my reference in the future. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients for Mango Yogurt Chiffon Cake (makes about 21 or 22 cm tube pan):
120g cake flour
1/2 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
5 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
40ml vegetable oil
135g mango yogurt
3 tbsp fresh mango puree

5 egg whites
40g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
100g fresh mango chunks (mine's too big, cut smaller)

Method:

• Sift together cake flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.
• In another mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar till light and creamy. Then add vegetable oil, yogurt, mango puree and mix well.
• Stir in the flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture and whisk together till well combined.
• In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with the cream of tartar till foamy. Gradually add in the sugar as you continue to beat the whites until it is glossy & reaches firm peaks.
• In 3 separate portions, gently fold in the whites into the yolk mixture till everything is combined together.
• Preheat the oven to 170. Pour the batter into a 21 / 22cm tube pan and bake in the oven till the tester comes out clean.
• Gently remove the pan from oven and invert to cool on rack completely before unmoulding it.

I realized that the mango chunks are possibly too big. If I ever make this again, I will cut the mango into small bits, rather then chunks...that should also minimize the "loopy" & "full of holes" look of my chiffon. :P Well, if you are not as careless as me, go ahead and give this a try, it should turn out yummy. ;) Good luck!
Before I finish off this post. I would like to thank Bakericious for passing this lovely Sunshine award to me. I would like to dedicate it to one and all that loves to blog, especially food blogging. ;)

May everyone have a wonderful day ahead. Cheers!

Banana Chiffon + When you're happy & you know it

No, it's not pineapple tarts or some Chinese New year goodies. This time is another simple home bake cake for the family to enjoy. I figured I still have this weekend before the "Tiger" arrives, so why not! Okay, I made Banana chiffon, this is my 3rd banana bake in these few weeks. :P But seeing the banana going to waste just not my style, especially knowing that I can turn it into something delicious with a little work. But because I got a little carried away and added too much mashed banana...made my poor chiffon looks like The Colosseum!

I have to thank Happy HomeBaker for this recipe. The cake was moist and light, much to what a good chiffon cake should be. I guess the only thing I would amend next time I make this is to reduce the sugar. Actually I am not sure if it's the over ripe bananas contributing to the sweetness content. Anyway, a good reduction of 2 tbsps of sugar would have be perfect!I have doubled the recipe to make a bigger chiffon cake, plus a few small ones.

Ingredients for Banana Chiffon Cake (make one 20 cm cake & 6 small cupcakes)
6 egg yolks, rm temp
50g caster sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
60ml cooking oil
4 medium ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
110g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

6 egg whites, rm temp
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
100g caster sugar (will reduce it to 85g next time)

Method:

• Sift the flour and baking powder together and set aside for later use. Preheat the oven to 165°C.
• Beat the egg yolks with the 50g of sugar & salt till all the sugar & salt has melted. Gradually pour in the cooking oil and stir the egg yolk mixture consecutively till it's all incorporated.
• Add in the mashed bananas and vanilla extract and stir will till well combined.
• Finally sift in the flour mixture and making sure all flour is incorporated in and no lumps.
• In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar till foamy. Then gradually add the sugar and continue to beat the mixture till it reaches stiff peaks.
• Gently fold the egg whites mixture to the yolk mixture in 3 separate portions and making sure all is mix in well.
• Pour into the ungreased tube pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or when the tester comes out clean.
  

I guess the "collapse" of one side of the cake is partly because I added fairly large chunks of bananas into the batter...making the cake rather hard to "rise to the occasion". :P
But overall I actually like the chunky bananas in it, very intense flavor but not over powering...definitely a treat for those banana lovers. :)My daughter had actually asked me where are the chocolate chips?! Hahaha...I told her next time. :P
You all must be wondering why my post title has that song name in it. No no...not that I want to sing to you...just that a couple days back I got a pleasant surprise from DG whom has nominated me to receive this Happy 101 award. Thanks DG! Isn't it just great to know that there is someone out there feels that you give them a little sunshine, a little happiness? The thought of it already makes me happy...very happy. :)

I think I will spare the other bloggers from the "pain" of having to come up with 10 happy things and 10 other blogs to be nominated. Furthermore, most of the blog I can think of has probably have receive this award! As much as I am honored to receive this, I kind of feel this is a "chain award" thingy...seems endless! Just make this a "Happy Ending" yeah?

Lastly...thanks for staying and reading again. Have a good weekend all!

Rewarded

Frankly speaking, I am even more surprise receiving this award then the previous one, haha! Wow, Best Blog Award, ....geeze I am truly amazed! Anyway, enough with the babbling....I feel like those celebs that receive Oscar and standing in front of thousands of audience, brain freeze, speechless or just mumbling nonsense, haha!

So first I like to thank traciMoo (A.K.A Bitter Sweet Flavors) for passing this lovely award to me, very sweet of her to think of me, thank you for the encouragment and support!

The rules for these awards are:
~To accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his/her blog link.
~Pass the award to 5 other blogs that you've discovered and think are great!
~Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award

I'm kind of relieved that I need not talk about myself upon receiving this award, haha! But still having to search for 5 bloggers to pass this award to is no easy peasy stuff! But still I managed...so drum roll please! Here they are in no particular order or preference!

• Joy of Baking - By Stephanie whose site has such a wide collection of great recipes to share and always comprehensive enough for the novice bakers.
• Daily Delicious : By Pook; whom has the most amazing blog with 3 languages (i.e. Thai, Jap & Eng) with lovely and mouth watering recipes posts.
  
• Zen Cupcakes - A blog that exhibits the most amazing collection of cupcakes all over the world. My Hello Kitty fondant cupcakes were posted by her too!
• Piggy's Cooking Journal - A lovely blog by Grace which displays great recipes and pictures.
• Smitten Kitchen -By Deb from New York City. Love reading her posts (great writer) and her recipes.

Thanks again traciMoo for passing the award to me...really appreciate it. :)

A pleasent surprise

Wow...I am speechless...literally, haha! My first award, i.e. Kreativ Blogger Award! Of course I have to thank Small Small Baker for passing this award to me, very nice of her to think of my humble little blog. :)

The Kreativ Blogger Award comes with some rules:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.

2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting.

5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers.

6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on which of the blogs to let them know they have been nominated

Okay, 7 things about me, geeze...I bet some of you readers are already closing the browser, haha! I always find it sooo hard to come up with things about myself! (Talk about knowing yourself well!) Nevertheless, I will follow the "rules"and expose a little information about me. :)

1. Born Singaporean but have left that lovely island and reside overseas for more then 10 years now. (Of course I do visit as often as I can)
2. Loves to drive, especially along the coast.
3. Favorite comfort food are bread & nonya laksa.
4. Had the most delicious meal in a French restaurant call French Laundry in Sonoma County, California.
5. Enjoys French pastry desert the most.
6. Is a big fan of the works of Hayao Miyazaki. (e.g. Totoro, Ki Ki Delivery Service etc)
7. Dreams of becoming a food critic in the future, heehee. ;)

The seven other food blogger that I would like to nominate are as follows:

• loving baking; A pretty and freshly graduated student whom loves to bake.
• Cafe Corner; One of my favorite sites to go to, with detail descriptions of steps and recipe.
• ieatishootipost; A great blog especially for people like me (being away for so long) to find out where to eat the best food in Singapore.
• foodbeam; A French pastry chef with great works in baking and photography.
• My Home Kitchen; Being a "secret" follower on this nice blog.
  
• ReeseKitchen; A great friend and a good cook, fortunate to come to know her.
• Joy The Baker; One of my inspirations, never a dull moment when I visit her blog!
  

It has been 9 months since I started blogging and there is no looking back since then. But it has been fun! I wish there will be more readers visiting my blog and leaving supporting comments for me. Thanks again Small Small baker for this special award, really appreciate it. I am glad I got the chance to do it. ;) Cheers all!