Ginger Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Crispy, chewy oatmeal cookies with golden raisins, lots of cinnamon, and bits of ginger through out, as well as a slice of candied ginger nestled in the center.

Dark Chocolate Almond Cookie

There were a few surprises to this cookie.  For one, you might bite into a piece that has ginger, while another does not.  I baked this as a very crispy biscotti-like cookie, but it turned soft after a few days.  Weird!  Wonder what it will be in a couple of days?  Crispy again??  In any case, it was really good with a glass of milk or cup of  tea.  

I like using Valrhona 71% cacao dark chocolate.  The 81% is a bit too bitter to leave as chunks in the cookie.  Maybe next time, I will make a cardamon-pistachio-dark chocolate variety.

Dark Chocolate Pistachio Biscotti

My first good looking biscotti!  Yeah, the other times I've made them, they don't look like biscotti at all.  My flour amount was wrong, so the previous ones didn't come out right! :(  I think this is one of the easiest cookies to make, in terms on preparation.  Just mix everything together, bake, slice, and bake again.  No rolling dough into little balls!

Spicy Stilton Walnut Shortbread

Have some! ( ^ - ^ )*

Crispy, crunchy, nutty, spicy!

I'm afraid to make this again, because I'll eat the whole batch!

Almond Cookies

(SHhH! I ate a cookie while taking the photos. ^-^*)

A cup of green tea with one or two cookies- that's how I like to relax in the afternoon.

Banana Bread Love 1

Banana bread with walnuts and cranberries. 

Some people like banana bread plain, with nothing but banana flavor.  I like the difference in texture, flavor, and color.  Soft, sweet, nutty, crunchy, tart, and sweet again.  Each bite is a surprise, and that's what I love.

Chocolate biscotti

Are biscotti the only cookies that are acceptable to eat for breakfast?  Because you can have it with your morning coffee.

This was my first time baking biscotti, and it's kind of a failed one.  Not sure what I did wrong, because I ended up adding a bunch of uncalled for ingredients into the cookie dough.  Maybe that's what's wrong!  Adding additional ingredients and that messed up the ratio between the flour:eggs:oil!

• Do I really want extra dark chocolate chips in mine as well as melted dark chocolate?  YES.
• Do I want to add a bit of butter?  YES, don't be afraid of a little butter!
• How about a little ground almond?  Might as well, so I can wash the container!
• Got some extra walnuts?  Yes, dump that in too.  To clean up the extra odds and ends in my baking cabinet.

By this time, the dough looked nothing like it's supposed to.  But let's pop this in the oven anyway and wonder for an hour if they'll end up being dumped in the trash.

Nah.. they still came out deliciously crunchy and chocolatey in the end.

Maybe next time, I will make ginger-chocolate biscotti!

What's that cake?

This was Cake X!  It's not a mystery cake anymore, but it was one that I contemplated in making for someone's birthday.  The name of this cake is Mille Feuille Crêpes Cake.  Mille Feuille means thousand layers.

The cake is simply layers and layers (21 of them, specifically) of sweet and soft crepe, with sweet vanilla pastry cream sandwiched in between each.  I decided to play with the flavors a bit by adding fresh slices of strawberry between every five layers of crepe.

This was my first time making a crepe cake, so I was quite afraid that it would turn out very badly.  But hey, a cake's a cake.  Julia Child once said, "the grand thing about cooking is you can eat your mistakes."  And I concur.

In NYC, there is a bakery named Lady M, and its signature dessert is a Mille Crepe Cake.  People have swoon over this bakery, and truthfully, I'm very interested in trying it too.  But since I'm not in NYC, and at $40 for a 6" cake, I think my mille feuille crepe cake tasted pretty darn good too, even if I need more practice making it. ^-^  

If you are interested in making this cake too, then here is the recipe.  It is fun and easy to make; however, time consuming.  Try it out if you have time, and the best part is you don't even have to turn on the oven on a hot summer day.  The recipe also called for making the crepe batter and pastry cream the day before serving the cake.  Yay for do-ahead prep work!

So why didn't I go with this cake, instead of the normal sponge cake for the birthday cake?  Because I didn't really know how to frost it to make it nice and grand.  Also, I  didn't really want to frost it because you wouldn't be able to see the layers and layers of crepes.  This is more of a casual cake.

At least my little nieces and nephews got to enjoy a test run of someone's b-day cake!  ^o^

Stinky Heart Crackers

Salty blue cheese crackers!  

These were so smelly when they're in the oven baking!!  Maybe I'll try another version- with Stilton and walnuts next time.  This time, it's just blue cheese, garlic powder, and black pepper.

Rice Cooker Banana Cake

You've heard of people baking bread, chocolate cake, brownies, etc. in the rice cooker, right? I've been really intrigued with this method for a while now, so I decided to test it out. I actually baked this banana cake in a rice cooker.

This is just a regular whole wheat banana bread recipe that I like, but I adjusted it by adding some yogurt to make it more moist. To be honest, this experiment was not entirely successful for me. I have 2 rice cookers in the kitchen currently, one for cooking brown rice (for myself who likes brown rice) and one for cooking white rice (for others who likes eating white rice) ^_^. One of the rice cooker is more modern, with a timer that you can set to cook congee or other things for an extended period of time, and the other rice cooker has only a switch for cooking and keeping warm.

Anyway, since the batter I made was way too much for rice cooker baking (the recipe was for regular baking in a loaf pan in the oven), I decided to divide the batter in half, one for each cooker, so that it'll bake faster.

This successful cake picture is from the modern rice cooker. And the one from the other cooker? Well, it was burnt (badly)! It was my fault actually. The switch from that rice cooker flipped from "cook" to "keep warm" after just 7 minutes! I didn't believe the cake was actually cooked, so to "override" the control button, I held down the switch by plugging in some paper towels. Very high tech. After a little while when I was cleaning up the kitchen mess, I smelled smoke... Wha??

Ahh, my burnt cake! :(

If you're wondering how I got the cake to be nicely caramelized like that in a rice cooker, it's because I put it under the broiler for 3-5 minutes after the baking. I think this saves more energy, because you're cooking in a smaller enclosed space, as opposed to heating up a big oven. Though, turning on the oven to bake on a cold winter day does make the house feel nice and cozy.

Sticky Rice Cake- Baby Banana Filling

This cake is called 'banh tet' and you have it with tea during the Vietnamese New Year (Tet). However, I felt like drinking chai, so I made a REALLY spicy chai to have with the sticky rice cake. Even though I used regular Tazo chai mix, the brewing, the milk, and the ginger made it into a great drink. The sticky cake had a banana/tea flavor on the outside, and had freshly grated coconut and black beans mixed into the sticky rice part. Baby bananas made up the filling, and it became red from braising for hours.

This is one of my favorite things about Vietnamese New Year- making AND eating sticky rice cake. I prefer this sweet banana filling to the dense savory filling of mung beans and pork.

Though, the savory version is also very good when pan-fried up and served with pickled shallots, thai chili peppers, and pickled crunchy cauliflower. Mmm!

Critusy Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This wasn't a cake I set out to make. I just happened to have a large amount of fresh pineapple at home. Never having a pineapple upside-down cake before, I don't really know which recipes are good and which are not. I found one on the Epicurious website that look pretty good. And what's exxtrrraa good about it is that Smitten Kitchen also did the same thing. I can see how other people like it then.

I know I don't like the cake very sweet, so I reduced the amount from one cup to a half cup, and it was really perfect for me. And since I don't have any cardamon on hand, I substituted it a teaspoon of cinnamon. It was silly of me, because after mixing in the cinnamon and being busy with other things, I saw brown specks in my flour and wonder what they are. Cinnamon!

However, I figured, cinnamon alone might be a bit boring. Hence, I added the zest of an orange and it really made this cake flavorful and fresh.

The pineapple pieces are caramelized in a pan with some sugar and a teeny bit of water separately before arranging in the cake pan. That's why it's more of a golden color, and this also avoided using lots of butter too. Sweet and sour, and so good. ^-^

Oh yeah, no rum in this cake. (-___-)Booooo. The kids have to eat too.

Meringue Cookies

These may be the best cookies ever for me. They are light, airy, and SO easy to make. If you want to impress someone and bake him or her cookies, definitely make meringue cookies.

All you need to do is whip up egg whites with a bit of cream of tartar and powdered sugar until stiffed. That's it! Then you can add any flavoring you want. Here's a recipe that tells you about the basic technique of making meringue cookies. Most recipes call for 1/4 cup of sugar for each egg white, but I find that to be a bit too sweet. Maybe it's just with the additional chocolate chips that I mixed in. Experiment and see what you like.

Above is a green tea meringue cookies that I made, though you can't really see the green matcha tint. A few of them I topped with sesame seeds and nuts, and some I topped with raspberry jam. The jam was a bad idea! It deflated the meringues as it melted down into a puddle. :( See why the cookies are flat?!

Below is my meringue with chocolate chips and nuts. These were very good, my favorite out of the two. My nephew loved both and asked for more the next day, even though I hated the green tea version. ^_^ I just mixed chopped chocolate chips and nuts into the meringue after it's been whipped up. My most important tip for you is not to pipe out the meringues with the nuts. The nuts got stuck in the nozzle and it was a pain in the ass to take out. :( It will be much easier and faster if you scoop out the meringue and put dollops of it on the baking tray (non-stick Reynolds). Topped with some more chocolates and nuts. Yay- a free form look!

There are two ways of baking meringue cookies if you search around on the net. One is baking them at a high temperature for a short time, and the other is baking for a long time at a low temperature. I prefer baking them at 225F for about 1 3/4 hrs- 2 hrs. You don't have to worry about them burning! The cookies will be dry, crispy and airy. This is a good cookie to make to warm up your kitchen on a cold day.

Extra Banana-ey Banana Walnut Bread

I used 6 ripe bananas in this bread! These look like big loaves in the picture, but it's actually one batter divided into 3 mini loaves. Cooking time is quicker, and each being mini, it is cuter too! I love it!

This is actually a good and healthy banana bread recipe that I adjusted, using only 1/3 cup of olive oil and no butter. I added in 2/3 cup non-fat yogurt, because it would prevent the bread from drying out. Yogurt or apple sauce is a good substitute for fat in baked goods. I just prefer yogurt... because I don't like apple sauce! :D Instead of regular white flour, I used whole wheat flour (either white or traditional brown is good). Also, don't add a lot of sugar. IMO, I think 1/2 a cup of brown sugar is perfect. You get lots of sweetness from the ripe bananas, and you want to taste the banana flavor too.

After adjusting all the ingredients to make a healthier banana bread, it may seem like it doesn't taste good anymore, but I assure you, it does. Extra banana-ey, extra good, and healthy! (Don't mind the sesame seeds on my b'nana bread, I like the extra crunch.)

Just find your favorite banana bread recipe and tweak it to your liking!

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

Sometimes I just have an urge to bake something... Maybe I'm stressed out, maybe I'm sad, or just plain bored. Two weekends ago, it was a combination of all three. :-( In the mood for some sweets, I thought cookies were the easiest to bake.

Cookies then! Soft, crunchy, chewy, chocolatey, nutty... Everything I like, I will put in a cookie!

This is not a recipe from any master chef. I just made it up, approximating the amount of each ingredient to my liking. (Another way of saying it is, I was too lazy too look up recipes.) ^_^

Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

A:
1 banana (well mashed)
1 egg (well beaten)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda + 1 tsp baking powder
1/4-1/3 cup peanut butter (I think I used 4 big scoops of a soup spoon. Whatever, it's just pb.)

B: 2 cups rolled oats (oatmeal) + 2 TBS whole wheat flour

C:
1/3 cup chopped chocolates or chocolate chips (dark chocolate is best)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Optional: Smarties or M&Ms

1. Combine ingredients of A together well first, then add B.
2. Mix in chocolate chips and walnuts (from C).
3. Roll out the cookies into 1.5" balls and flatten them out a bit. Press a Smartie candy in the center.
4. Bake 350F for 12-14 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozens, depending on how big you want your cookies.

p.s. You don't really taste any banana in these cookies at the end. Only the peanut butter. The banana is only there as a binder (like the egg) for the dry ingredients. It also keeps the cookies soft on the inside, and adds a natural sweetness, so you don't have to use as much sugar.

Smarties Cookies

Smarties cookies, with some almond pieces (for crunch). I also used almond meal too, to make a softer cookie, rather than just flour.

I will need to experiment more with this! Maybe add rolled oats? Additional dark chocolates? Hmm...

Afternoon Tea in Bed

The best afternoon tea of all... ^_^ Hehe