Beetroot Brownies

Since I still have one beetroot sitting in my fridge. I reckon I should get to that recipe which has been "stored" at the back of my mind since forever. Yes...Brownies with beetroot. Sounds really unusual I know, I ever since beetroot has been introduced into cakes in some bakeries (e.g Cedele), I'm pretty intrigued by it. Especially that brilliant magenta just brings so much vibrancy to it. And do you know
Beets are used along with medications in the treatment of liver diseases and fatty liver. They are also used to help lower levels of triglycerides (a type of fat) in the blood, lower blood pressure, and to improve athletic performance. How cool is that! More Beets please!

And that also explains why I did my Beetroot Bread earlier this month. ;) But you know what? This Beetroot brownie was way yummier!

Notice that hint of redness from the brownie? Yeah, it's from that all natural colouring from the beetroot, so love! And taste wise? I am gonna be thick skin and say I am pretty please with it for the first time trial haha. :P Rich, chocolaty and yes with a hint of sour from the root vegetable which surprisingly blending well with the brownie. 

Without further ado, let's check out the components we need:

Ingredients for Beetroot brownie (makes a 8" by 2" square)

250g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

3 large eggs

180g caster sugar
1 tbsp wildflower honey 

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

175g cake flour

1/4 tsp baking powder
200g beetroot, pricked, steamed and peeled

Reese's PB chips (Or you can use chocolate chips)

100g toasted walnuts (optional)

• In a blender container, add in the peeled and steamed beetroot. Blend at high speed till smooth. Set aside for use later.

 

• In another bowl, place over a double boiler with barely simmering water. Add both butter and chocolate chunks in. Stir constantly till the butter and chocolate starts to melt. Mix so it is well combined. Once both has melted completely, remove from heat and set aside to cool slightly which will be used later.

 

• Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and lined with parchment, and grease again a 8" by 8" square baking pan.
• In another mixing bowl, crack in the 3 eggs and salt, whisk well. Slowly drizzled in the chocolate butter mixture. and whisk as you drizzle in.

 

• Once the chocolate mixture has been all added in, sift in the cake flour and baking powder. Mix well to make sure there is no lumps.
• Lastly, add in the blended beetroot. Again mix well till smooth.

 

• Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. And add the toasted walnut and Reese's PB chips on the top.

• Bake in the preheated oven for 25-30 minutes. Once baked, remove from oven and let cool on the rack.

Note: DO NOT over-bake the brownie please. An over-baked brownie is NOT good eats. :P It will tend to be dry and hard. So it is okay that the tester comes out with some cake stain. Best way to enjoy the brownie would be to let cake to rest at room temperature before slicing. It will actually taste better the next day. ;)

I actually love how the cake turn out to be soft and crumbly and yet slightly fudgy in the middle, with the contrast of crunchy walnuts and nutty PB chips.

 Moist, chocolaty and all fudgy in the center! And I even tasted mini bits of beetroot in the cake too... such a pleasant surprise. ;)

 

 Another close up in case you didn't catch the gooey goodness earlier. :) 

If you have beetroot, if you adore chocolate, and you love brownies...what are you waiting for? Perhaps it might need more tweaking, but for now, I am happy with it. 

Have a good day ahead everyone!

Beetroot bread with Apricot and Cream Cheese

Yes guys, you see right. It's Beetroot bread! I actually had this idea of incorporating beetroot into my bread recipe for the longest time, just never really execute it. It comes to no surprise why I want to try it...mainly because of it's vibrant magenta colour of course. Adding it to bakes just makes it look so "catchy", nice I hope and not in any way scary haha! But often too many times I turned away the idea because I was worried about the stain of the root vegetable getting on my kitchen tiles haha! Well, this time I was well prepared! So these lovely (really la) breads were born. ;9

Okay, the colour does look a little unusual on a bread I admit...but still not bad aye? I'm getting quite fond of that sweet pink in case you don't know haha! But in terms of taste, texture and flavor...I have to say I've got it on point. Yes, I may sound a little overrating my own creation here...but I was truly please with my new bread creation, woot! (Omg...what's with the big head? lol)

Recipe for Beetroot bread 

Pre-fermented dough recipe

250g bread flour

160ml water

3g instant dry yeast

1g salt

• Knead everything together till it forms a soft pliable dough. No need to be smooth. Divide dough into 50g or100g portions depending on your needs and let chill in fridge up to 12 hours. Alternatively store in freezer up to 3 months.

Main Dough recipe
200g pre-fermented dough (above for recipe)
150 beetroot, pierced, steamed l, peeled and blend (~200g with skin before steam)
300g bread flour
100ml water
20g milk powder
5 g instant active yeast
3 g salt
50g caster sugar
30g unsalted butter room temp
1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

• Rinse the beetroot clean, then pierce with a sharp knife so it will steam up easier. Then place the whole root vegetable into the steamer over medium high fire. Steam for a good 15minutes or till a toothpick can pierce into it easily. 
• Remove from steamer and let cool before working on it. 
• Please wear cloths before handling the beetroot...unless you don't mind having pink hand for the next day or two! Peel the beetroot, cut into large chunks.

 

• Place the beetroot chunks into the blender and blend till puree. Need about a good minute on that.
• Then in the mixer, add in pre-fermented dough, beetroot puree, bread flour, caster sugar, salt, instant active yeast, milk powder and water. 

• Starts kneading till the dough comes together. It might be sticky at first, but DO NOT be tempted to add in more flour. Give it time to knead through 8-10minutes, break 2 minutes, knead another 8-10 minutes till the dough pulls away from the mixer bowl completely.

•  Just look at the vibrant pink! No edit at all, this is the true natural colours of beetroot bread dough. Love much aye?
•  Once the dough pulls away from the bowl, add in the unsalted butter and continue to knead. It should take at most another 4-5 minutes for the dough to knead through and pull away from the mixing bowl or reaches window panel.

•  Okay I have to admit guys, it's hard to stretch the dough to thin window panel in one hand while the other is holding that heavy DSLR trying to snap a good picture. So pardon me if this picture didn't really show the window panel clearly, but you get the idea ya?
• Place dough in a greased bowl and let proof covered for 1.5hrs or till the dough doubled in size.
• In the meantime, make your apricot and cream cheese filling.

Ingredients for Cream cheese filling
150g cream cheese 
30g confectioners sugar
20g unsalted butter
100g dried apricot 

• In the blender, add in all the ingredients except the apricots. Zap at high speed till the mixture is smooth and creamy. Scoop out and set aside for use later.

• Next you cut the apricots into smaller chunks.

• By now the dough should have already doubled. Check out the big pink ball!

• Punch out the air and divide out dough portions of 520g and 80g. The remaining dough can be shaped into a flower bun like what I did. Where each ball is about 50g.
• Roll out the 520g into a flat rectangle of 35cm by 25cm. Then spread the cream cheese mixture over the rectangle dough surface, leaving about 1 inch of allowance on the sides.

 

•  Next you sprinkle the cut up apricot chunks over the surface as seen above. Distributing the dried fruit evenly over the surface.
• Then from the shorter end, roll it up like a swiss roll.

• Once you rolled all the way to the end, seal up the sides by pinching in the dough.

• Once sealed, gently place the whole rolled up dough into a greased loaf pan.
• Next you can make some patterns using the remaining 90g dough; divide into 3 equal portions of 30g. Roll into long logs about slightly longer then the length of the loaf pan. Pleat into a ponytail and place over the loaf in the pan.

• Shaping the flower buns is easy. just divide the dough into 7 equal portions. Take one of the portion and add in 1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder and knead in. The colour will become slightly darker. The rest of the 6 dough just roll round and seal necessary edges. Place the dark brown dough in the center and the rest of the six buns around it. I have chose to leave these buns plain without filling. Feel free to fill them with anything you fancy.

• Let the shaped out doughs proof. It should take no longer then 45minutes. Preheat the oven to 175C in the meantime. (My oven is slightly on the high side) Mama Mia...look at the colour! I swear I didn't add filters!
• Once the dough in the loaf pan proof and filled till rim of the pan, it's ready to be baked. Bake in the preheated oven. 20-23 minutes for the flower buns while 28-30 minutes for the loaf.

The dough did becomes a little toasty brown on the surface after baking, but it still look awesome. ;) And if you follow me on Instagram, you would have seen how I have torn up my bread in that little "bread porn" video to demonstrate the fluffiness and softness of the bread. Yes go watch and don't get too excited about it please haha!

A look at the sliced interior...since I ain't uploading any video here haha. Ahh...so loving the well proofed interior! Though the cream cheese filling did weigh down a little but it was so delicious, I regret not adding it in at all! :9 

Of course the bread is delicious on it's own. But with a little more butter and wildflower honey, it gonna taste amazing, yummy! So happy that my first attempt of this beetroot bread turned out successful! Gonna attempt more exciting flavors real soooon! Why? Because I love bread and I love baking it even more!

Have a great day ahead all!

Fresh Spinach Pasta (Pasta Verde)

A refresh post from my previous one. Newly updated to bring you a better recipe. Enjoy!

"Verde" means green in Italian/Spanish, and Pasta Verde simply translate as green pasta. And The green here comes from Popeye's favorite vegetable, spinach. :) I don't exactly remember how many times, but I do remember it's more then my fingers plus my toes combined together. I'm talking about the number of times I've made fresh pasta at home. I believe anyone whom had tried it and tasted it before will know why go through the hassle to make it your own. It's different from your grocery bought, packaged fresh noodles. Making it at home is the real deal, it's doesn't get fresher then that, trust me. And the tender noodles tossed in your favorite sauce or gravy will totally knock your socks off, guaranteed.

Here I made a version of Garlic Lemon Cream Sauce tossed with the Pasta Verde. With crab meat and pan seared Salmon steak...a wonderful complete meal. Well your vegetables are already in the pasta haha! :P

Look on to see how I did it:

Ingredients for Fresh Spinach Pasta: (enough for 2-3 adults)
3/4 package fresh spinach, using leaves only, wash and rinse dry.
-after I cooked it, it yields about 80g
180g all purpose flour (plus more for dusting and shaping)
1 large eggs

Lemon Garlic Cream Sauce
3 garlic minced
3 tbsp unsalted butter
juice of 1/2 lemon
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp all purpose flour
300ml milk + 100ml heavy cooking cream
1/2 tsp salt
freshly ground pepper
2 tsp sugar

1 salmon steak, seasoned with salt and pepper and sauteed till golden brown.

Method:

• In a large saute pan, heat it up 1 tbsp of water, add in the spinach leaves and saute for a couple minutes. It will slowly wilt down. Remove from pan and let cool. Squeeze out the excess liquid and weigh out about 80g of it and set aside
• In a large mixing bowl, add in the flour, the egg and the spinach. (Note that I doubled my recipe this there are two eggs in the picture) 
• Mix well until it comes together. Place it on a lightly floured work surface and knead it to form a soft dough. Might be a little sticky, add a little flour and knead till not sticky.
  
  
• Cover the dough in a moist towel and let rest for 10 minutes before shaping it. If you have a pasta maker, it'll be a good time to bring it out and set it up right now. Else a lightly floured work surface and a trusty rolling pin will do too.
• Divide the dough into 4 smaller equal portions. Take a portion, lightly dust it with flour and let it pass through the pasta roller at the highest number, meaning thickest.

• Gradually decrease the number knob to 1 or 2 depending the kind of pasta you want to make and let the pasta roll through a couple times on each number. It will come out into a nice smooth sheet of pasta.
• Carefully placed the pasta sheets on a lightly floured baking tray and cover with moist towel. Repeat with the rest of the pasta dough portions till all has been rolled out.
• At this point, get ready a pot of boiling water going at medium high heat. Then change the pasta maker setting so that it will turn the roller on for cutting it into the shape you want. This time I am making linguine. If you do not have the pasta maker, just use a pizza cutter or a knife to slice the sheets into thin strips.

• Meanwhile, heat up a tsp of olive oil and place the minced garlic in. Saute till lightly browned and fragrant. Add in 3 tbsp of butter and cook till just melted.
• Add in the 1 tbsp of flour and quickly stir in to cook the flour. Once thicken, add in the milk and cream mixture, lemon juice and lower the fire to smallest. 
• Stirring constantly till the sauce is smooth. Add in the lemon zest, salt, pepper and sugar. Stir well till everything is well combined. Set aside.
• Boil the pasta in the water for a few minutes, I would say 3 to 4 minutes since fresh pasta cooks really fast. Scoop it out and toss it in the lemon garlic sauce sauce and add the crab meat..

The pasta is really smooth and delicious. If you are not really a fan of spinach, you can simply omit the vegetables and make plain egg pasta. Reduce the flour to 150g instead. But I am always try to find ways to incorporate more greens into my kids menu, so this is one of the most effective "camouflage" method, lol! Of course the kids knew about the vegetables been made into the pasta, but they didn't taste it, so it's all good. ;P 

 Below is an old picture of my previous post which I made the spinach pasta into sheets and using them as lasagna pasta. Cool right! I should do that again soon. :9

Again, I felt that it's a much better choose over the box version. But of course, the box pasta always comes in handy when you are on the run. ;) Enough said, I do hope you all will try making fresh pasta at home, it's truly a gourmet meal you can share with you love ones. But do note that you should get your sauces ready first before making the fresh pasta. Once the pasta is made, you just have to toss the noodles in your favorite sauce, simple as that. Enjoy everyone!

Homemade Egg Tofu using Black Soy Beans Milk

If you ask me if I have ever made tofu before a year ago from now, I would probably laugh it off and claim its really silly and quite a waste of time. Well I can't exactly rule out the latter completely since it does take time to make it as compared to just grabbing a ready made box in the grocer. I still remember when I first saw Wendy posting up her recipe, I was amazed. For something you can get for less then a buck...seriously? But I have to admit, somewhere inside, I was curious and eager to know how to do it...especially if I can do it myself, lol! After 2 attempts, I finally conclude that, it ain't really that silly and it was worth doing it from scratch....well sometimes, lol!

A simple healthy fried egg tofu served over some stir fried greens. In my household, we serve tofu at least twice a week, be it steamed, stewed or fried. We love tofu! In fact I will be posting up a some of the tofu dishes that I serve at home in the coming weeks.

Of course, prior to having homemade tofu, you gonna churn out some homemade soy milk! I make soy milk quite often at home, in fact I love serving it warm with you tiao or Ham Chim Peng on a weekend morning, yum! This time round, I have opted to try out black soy beans for this recipe. Taste and texture wise, no difference, just a slight grayish shade that's all.

Recipe of Homemade Egg Tofu (adapted from Wendy's)

500ml fresh unsweetened black soy milk

6 large eggs

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp of corn flour mixed with 1 tbsp water

• Crack all six eggs in a large bowl, add salt and beat it up lightly. Pour in the soy milk and stir gently yo blend well.
• Add in the cornflour mix and stir well. Strain the whole mixture and set aside for use later.
• Get ready the steamer. Line a heat proof cling wrap on your steaming container. Pour the soy milk mixture in carefully. Then cover it with another cling wrap which will prevent the steam water from dripping over the tofu.
• Steam at low fire for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before removing and cutting it.

Note that the key to making a smoother tofu is the straining of the mixture and steaming it at low fire.

Well, that's about it. It is not that complicated to make it right? But please don't get the impression that I am so darn free as to make tofu whenever I need it, lol!

I reserved half of the egg tofu to make this Basil Chicken and Tofu (similar to Three Cups Chicken) the following day. I added some store bought tou gua (pressed tofu) plus the ones I made. Not trying to boast, but the homemade ones are definitely so much more tastier and flavorful!

I am glad I tried making some tofu and will probably make it again when I get the mood (plus free time). 

Before I end this post, just want to share something with everyone that made me so so happy! My hubby gave me an early birthday surprise, something that I have been wanting for awhile....check it out:

Obviously, I have much to learn about this new toy. Hopefully will produce more quality photos on my blogs in future. ;) Gonna leave you all on this happy note and hope everyone has a wonderful and restful long weekend! Cheers!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween; A day you get to dress up and pretend to be someone else....fun. A day you can roam around the neighborhood and knock on them doors and yell "Trick or Treat!". A day you have all the excuse to stay up late. And of course a day you and your kids get to load up tons of candy and forget about cavity for once. So seriously speaking, what's not fun about Halloween?! None! I sure miss Halloween. It's never the same when I came back to Singapore....simply because its not a tradition to celebrate it here. The way the Americans celebrate this day, you will see how serious they are about it. And I simply love the enthusiasm they have!

And not wanting to loose "touch" with it completely, I made something fun today. Something that will cheer up any young or old. :) A pumpkin bread "monster". (^_^) *heehee*

It took me awhile to come up with what I wanted to make. The initial plan was to bake some decorated cupcakes like what I did a couple years back. But since I made cupcakes for my kids a few days ago, I forgo the idea. Then I thought of baking a nice decorative Swiss Roll, but again that was way too much work! Then I happen to stumble upon this Chinese blog and fell in love with the idea of baking a pumpkin shaped bread!

So I went ahead and used my 4 cup mini bundt pan for this instead of the usual 12 cup version....will be way too big if used the latter. For the recipe, I opted for the all trusty 17hr pre-fermentation method Pumpkin bread. And since I only have one mini bundt pan that is closely shaped like a pumpkin, I had to do the top and bottom baking separately. :P Good thing the color turned out the same...*phew*

As always, the bread turned out soft and delicious. And if you wonder why the bread appears much more orange in colour, that's because I added some edible orange food coloring to enhance the pumpkin look. ;)

Since with just the bread itself, it looked kind of plain...not too Halloween if you ask me. So I decided to pull out my fondant stuff and add a little creativity and fun to it, heehee! It was fun! Just like the past occasion Halloween bakes! ;) My kids were amused too and kept asking if they can eat the fondant with the bread, lol!

I'm happy to submit this to Halloween Party Event hosted by Hankerie

The night is still young guys....hope you all will get in the Halloween mood and have some "scary" fun tonight! Happy Halloween Everyone!