Gingerbread Men

Hohoho!! I'll be in singapore for 2 weeks so i wont be able to update the blog (i think) so here's another recipe for the holiday season. Today i'll be giving you a easy, simple, classic recipe to making gingerbread men !!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup (113g approx) unsalted butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon finely ground pepper
• 1/2 teasppon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon all spice
• 1/2teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup molasses

First you sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder into a large bowl and then set them aside. Put butter and brown sugar in an electric mixer mix on medium speed until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture and mix them until everything's combined. Take a plastic wrap to wrap the dough and then put it in the fridge for 1hour.

After an hour take the dough out of the refrigerator roll it out and then use cookie cutter to cut them into various shapes. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius , and then bake the cookies for 13-15 mins.

 For decorating the gingerbread we need royal icing which could be made by fluffing 2 egg white with a teaspoon of vanilla essence and then add in 3 cups of powdered sugar and mix it until it becomes stiff. Add in various colors for different color icing. If you don't have the time just go to a mart and just buy those on the rack cookie icing , they are very easily found.

 Now i'm not an expert at cookie decorating and stuff but mostly people will do the outline first and then fill the center with any colors you like...well this part is for you yourself to figure it out XD if you really dont have the time use some sugar and stick MnM's on the gingerbread men for its eyes and buttons or you could just skip the decorating part haha..

Chocolate Mint Ganache Sandwiched Cookie

 Hi it's been a long time since i last post, well it's the holidays been sleeping for everyday... And since my favourite time of the year - CHRISTMAS is near, I decided to make some holiday cookies ^O^
So the first holiday cookie i'm making is Chocolate Mint Ganache Sandwich Biscuit.

Ingredients For The Biscuit/ Cookies :

• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg

First whisk together cocoa powder and flour in a bowl.

 

Put butter and sugar into the electric mixer, mix them on medium-high speed until fluffy. Then mix in egg. Reduce speed and add flour - cocoa mixture , mix them till combine.

Divide dough in half, and shape each half into a disk; wrap in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour .

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius. Transfer dough to a work surface lightly dusted with confectioners' sugar (Powdered Sugar) . Roll out dough to 1/8 inch (3mm) thick. Cut out cookies using a 2-inch round cookie cutter. Bake cookies until firm, rotating sheets halfway through, 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.

 

 Now the biscuit is finish making, we need to make the ganache.

Ingredients for ganache:

• 1/4 cup heavy cream (whipping cream)
• 170g semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 to 2 teaspoon pure peppermint extract

 
 To make the ganache, Bring cream to a boil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add chocolate. Cook, stirring constantly until chocolate is smooth. Stir in peppermint extract. Let cool slightly, 10 to 15 minutes.

If you want more peppermint taste, chopped some peppermint leaves and cook them with the ganache.  (*if you want your ganache in green colour, use white chocolate instead , and then add in a few drops of green color food coloring in it*) Spoon 1 teaspoon ganache onto 1 cookie, sandwich with another cookie. Repeat with remaining cookies and ganache. Refrigerate until firm, about 10 minutes.

 Now for the glaze it's really simple. The easiest step. First melt 170g chocolate on heatproof bowl over simmering water. Let it cool .Take out the refrigerated cookie sandwich , dip one face of the cookie sandwich into the melted chocolate and then shook off the rest. Put the chocolate coated cookie sandwich back into the fridge for 15mins and there you go a chocolate mint ganache cookie sandwich !

Apple Crumble Pie

Okay during a previous post I made some Pie Crust . So in this post I'm using the crust to make an apple crumble pie.

Ingredients for the Crumble:

• 200g of plain flour
• 175g of brown/white sugar
• 120g of unsalted butter

 Making the crumble is really easy. All you have to do is combine all ingredients into a bowl and then use your hands to knead it till it become chunks or similar to breadcrumbs. Once it's done just put it in the fridge while we prepare the filling.

 For the apple filling just combine everything into a pot and cook it under low heat. Cook the apples until it is soft/mush and then drain any excess water. Leave it aside for 10 mins to cool.




Ingredients for apple filling:

• 4-5 chopped green apples
• 150g of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 Now preheat your oven to 180 C. Buttered your baking dish and the place your pie crust in it ( for how to make the pie crust please press the following word Pie Crust or picture below.)

 After the Pie Crust is in the baking dish, fill it with the apples. and then covered it with the crumble made earlier.

 Place the covered pie into the oven and bake it for 35-40 mins, once done baking leave it aside for 15mins to cool before taking it out so that it wont break.

And there you go a scrumptious dessert is made.. You can enjoy it with ice cream too. :) Have fun making it ^^

Japanese Curry with Fried Pork Cutlet

So while waiting for my pie crust to settle in the fridge i decided to cook dinner! For today's dinner i'm making a very easy Japanese Curry with Fried Pork Cutlet.

Ingredients for Japanese Curry :

• 4 potatoes
• 3 onions 
• 2 carrots
• 1 small box of Japanese Curry (in every box theres two small boxes which each consists 6 cubes)

A small box is like in the picture below.

There's always a simple instruction behind the box follow it and you can make it , im just putting pictures to every step there is. So firstly cut the onions, carrots & potatoes into cubes and put it into 700ml of water and bring them to boil.

Once the potatoes are soft enough for a forks to pass through lower the heat and add in the curry cubes.

Stir the curry until it starts to thickens. Off the stove and the curry is done.

For the Fried Pork Cutlet im doing it my style since i dont have any Panko Breadcrumbs used for making Pork Katsu. My Pork Cutlet is really easy to make.



Ingredients for Pork Cutlet (the amount may vary, you can put any amount you like.):

• Flour
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Italian Herbs 
• Egg

 First cut the pork into thin pieces, sprinkle some salt & pepper on both sides of the meat.

 Next dip the meat into the egg.

 Next prepare a bowl, pour some flour and itallian herbs in it. Mix them well and take the meat covered with egg and dip it into the flour mixture . Make sure to cover every part of the meat nicely.

Next pour some oil into the pan and then fry the meat until it becomes golden-brown.

Finally cut the pork cutlet into strips. Take a bowl filled with rice put the pork strips on top of it and then cover it with curry and you'll have something simillar to what you usually have in Japanese Restaurant a Pork Katsu Curry Don.

PS: Dont worry about the ingredients, nowadays it's very easy to find Japanese curry , you can find them at most big groceries store.

Pie Crust

 I watched astro food channel today and saw them making pies, and that made me wanna do the same! So i decided to make an easy pie dough today.

        Ingredients:

• 190g of all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 115g ( 1 stick) butter
• 4 tablespoon ice water

First Combine the flour, salt, sugar in a large bowl and stir them briefly.

Next using a small knife, cut the butter into small pieces and mix it into the bowl.

  

Slowly pour in the ice water until the dough comes together , if it doesnt comes together add another tablespoon of ice water but dont overwork the dough or it'll become tough and hard to manage. 

 

Flatten the dough and the using a plastic wrap cover it and put it in the fridge for at least 30mins before using it.

Easy Way To Make Pak Tong Koh

Today i try making my favourite kuih which is chinese honeycomb cake or mostly known as Pak Tong Koh. This kuih usually takes up a lot of time making it, but i found a recipe from http://kristygourmet.blogspot.com/ which takes half the time usually needed, i tried the recipe and it turn out OK, though not as good as the one that need more than 6hrs but it still has the taste and texture like those Pak Tong Koh that are sold outside just not that good.


 For this kuih the ingredients are separated into 3 parts so it would be easier to prepare.

        Ingredients:

        Part (A) 

       1 tspn yeast 

       2tbsp warm water 

       Part (B)

       300ml water

      260gm brown sugar (if using white sugar cut the

      amount down to 230g )

      2 pandan leaves (optional)

      Part (C)

      280gm rice flour

      1/2 tspn salt

      1/2 tbsp corn oil/olive oil

      300ml water

 So for the ingredients in part (A) you mix them in a small saucer, cover it and leave it aside for arnd 10 minutes.

 

Next combine all the ingredients in (B) and boil them over low heat until the sugar is melt. For the ingredients in part (C) mix them well in a big bowl. Stir them well until it is smooth.

After all (A), (B),(C) is mixed. Pour them all into a big bowl. There leave the mixture to poof for 1-2 hours. (if you like you can cover the mixture with a plastic wrap)

After waiting for an hour or so coat a tray with cooking oil and preheat it with the steamer. Preheat them for around 10 minutes will do. Then pour the mixture into the tray. Then steam it for 25-30 minutes. After steaming leave it aside to cool. When cutting the kuih remember to coat your knife with a layer of oil so that the kuih won't stick to it.

This is the result of my Pak Tong Koh (i know the honeycombs aren't that nice) . The recipe i found actually uses 280g of brown sugar i used 250g of white sugar but it is still a bit too sweet so for the recipe i cut it down to 250g which i think would be sweet enough. The kuih might turn out a little bit stickier than what you get outside but for the least time spent this is considered quite good. My mom tried another recipe before that one really taste like the ones sold outside but it takes up to 10 hours making it which lazy me don't like haha XD.