Hazelnut shortbread

I rarely bake cookies. The mixing of the dough is easy enough, but the laborious baking and cooling and stacking and storing of the finished product seem so much work. But I was tempted by this hazelnut shortbread recipe because I love hazelnuts and I’m a huge Gordon Ramsay fan. So when the occasion came to make a thank you gift, I mixed and baked these ridiculously addictive cookies. I doubled the recipe and still made it twice as the first batch was gone before I could give it away! The first batch was made following the recipe closely and it yielded a crisp cookie with quite a light crumb. There was the barest scent of toasted hazelnuts. I wanted the taste to come out more strongly so I doubled the quantity of the hazelnut for the second batch. The end result was a denser shortbread textured cookie that had the unmistakable flavor of hazelnut. Some preferred the original, some the denser version. I loved both and ate it everyday, with breakfast, dinner and as a bedtime snack. I was surprised how the same recipe yielded both totally different versions by altering the quantity of the hazelnut. This is the original recipe.

Hazelnut Shortbread

From Gordon Ramsey’s Just Dessets 

Makes about 20  

     

Ingredients

200g plain flour

1/4 tsp sea salt

125g unsalted butter, softened

90g caster sugar

1 large free-range egg, beaten

50g finely ground roasted hazelnuts 

Method

Cream the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.Gradually work in the egg.With the mixer on its slowest setting, add the flour a spoonful at a time, then the nuts.Stop mixing as soon as the dough comes together.Pop into freezer for half hour, then shape into logs. Freeze for 1 hour. Take out ad cut into pieces 5 mm thick. Place on well buttered baking sheet. To bake, preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius.Bake for about 20 minutes until very pale golden.

Mandarin orange pancake-mix muffins

I’m frustrated with this old camera. Firstly, the only light I can take pictures in is daylight, so I have to complete whatever it is I’m making before the sun sets! Then there are days where all the pictures are blurry. Sometimes it works when I toggle with the buttons, sometimes it juct doesnt’t. And the thing that bugs me most are those shadows! I think its time to junk the ancient 3.2 megapixel camera and make way for a new baby. My high tech purchases have been this laptop in May and my 1 day old plasma TV. So perhaps it has to wait. I love the photos in this beautiful post. I wanted to do something citrusy so I flipped through some cookbooks and was fascinated with this recipe which used whole oranges and pancake mix! Who would have thought that pancake mix muffins would have a superior crumb and melt in the mouth texture as these. They were good with tea toasted with marmalade (more citrus, yum). They were good warm with vanilla ice cream too. Hmm, i cant think of a cake/muffin that doesnt taste good with ice cream. I wanted to display the dish towel I bought from pantry magic during my trip with Mama and my sister A at Chip Bee Gardens. I couldn’t bear to pass Phoon Huat without getting anything and in the end spent a bomb on numerous items including 2 vanilla beans at $4.60(!!), these muffin cases, a silicon madeline mould, ground almonds for madelines, 2 springform 3 inch pans because they were cute, ground hazelnuts (I wanna make Gordon Ramsay’s Hazelnut shortbread and coveture chocolate. Oh ya, and I bought a flame gun for my creme brule quest after buying the vanilla bean. Knowing I’m back to work tomorrow (W I know you’re starting ur leave, I hope u managed to study more than I did, hahaha), I really don’t know when I’m gonna be baking. I’m not even home before dark usually. Sigh, the new camera has to come.

Mandarin Orange Muffins

Adapted from Pauline Loh’s Love, Food

 Ingredients

3 large Mandarin oranges (150g each)

250g butter

125g sugar

4 eggs

350g pancake mix

 Method

Boil oranges for 15 mins. Split into half crosswise and remove pips. Blend into rough pulp. Cream butter and sugar till pale and fluffy. Add eggs and beat well. Batter may look curdled, it doesn’t matter. Fold in pancake mix alternating with mandarin pulp. Bake at 180C 20-25 mins.

Sweet glutinous rice cakes

This is the entry that is long overdue. Mel and I went to grandma’s for a lesson in kasui making. Kasui is a traditional Malay dessert which is sweet sticky rice cakes made of palm sugar, tapioca and wheat flour. Its steamed and then rolled in coconut when done. My grandma makes famous ones and with the urgings of in laws, I went to discover the secrets of how its made..

                                                                    

First the moulds are coated with a thin layer of corn oil to prevent it from sticking when its time to peel the finished product out. Then the moulds are arranged in a single layer in the steaming tray.

                                                                    

The batter is then made without much calculation under the deft hand of grandma. The consistency is similar to milk tea. No colouring is added, the brown is from the melted pal sugar. When the cake steams it turns a lovely deep brown color.

                                                                    

This is the steamer that’s many decades old and has been churning out these fantastic chewy nuggets that we love. Thanks nyai for enduring the hurricane we unleashed in your kitchen!

Macadamia chocolate semifreddo

I’ve been planning to make something from the gorgeous book Mel got me for my birthday Donna Hay’s Chocolate. Donna Hay is the Australian Martha Stewart. And a much classier version too. This is my first Donna Hay cookbook and I just adored the photography. I spent most of my time just looking at the pictures. I’ve been dying to make a panna cotta with a melting texture and this looked pretty good too. I had chocolate and cream in the fridge, so this is what came out, adapted from her recipe for triple chocolate semifreddo. Mine had no chocolate chunks but lots of macadamia nuts which are WY’s favourite nut. I saw your blog WY, keep writing! The texture was fantastic, I thought it might turn out icy but the texture was reminiscent of premium ice cream. It reminded me a lot of Ben&Jerry’s New York Choc Chunk. This made me think, perhaps you don’t have to invest in a $659 ice cream machine for home made ice cream. The base is a thick custard that has to be cooked really well till it froths and bubbles. That ita a matter of folding and freezing. I served it to guests the same night and it sat out till completely melted. I popped it back into the fridge and it came out perfect today as a post lunch dessert. Yum! This is the adapted recipe: 

Macadamia chocolate semifreddo 

Ingredients

3 eggs

2 egg yolks

1oog sugar

400 ml whipping cream

250g dark chocolate 

Method

Beat eggs, yolks and sugar for 8-10 mins on a double boiler till thick and pale. Take off heat and whisk for another 5 mins till pale, thick and cool. Melt chocolate and fold into mixture. Whip cream and fold in. Stud top with macadamias. Freeze for 4-5 hours.

A vadai a day keeps the doctor away

I haven’t stepped into the kitchen in he past few weeks, the last thing I cooked was the last entry. Well I did make H cheese on toast this morning. He can eat it every single day, the only thing that changes is the cheese and the bread. Today it was Gruyere on a slice of white sandwich bread. Well, not cooking means not going grocery shopping either so that was the only thing I could dig out of the fridge. This is what I had recently for tea, courtesy of H’s mama who buys this famous Indian savoury doughnut called vadai from her childhood friend in Pasir Ris. I’ve never been to her stall, its near the Pasir Ris Police centre and apparently they sell out by 4 pm and have super long queues. Its chewy, flavoured with nice bits of chopped onion and has a prawn stuck to one of its surfaces. Its seriously good. I think its better than the more famous vadai stalls around. I like Gina’s Vadai at Suntec city next to Carrefour too. I think they’re both rather different. Gina’s is more eggy and doesn’t have much spice in it. I think due to rental costs, its pricier too. It goes really well with a ice vanilla latte from Starbucks with less ice, please!