Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! Here in the Philippines the tradition of Trick or Treat is just starting to kick in. When I was a kid (oh may god! that seems like a decade ago!), I only see Trick or Treat on movies. Nowadays, kids everywhere are busy having their parents prepare their Trick or Treat costumes.

Since all of us are all grown up, yup even my picky little brother is all grown up (he's like 17!), I haven't yet experience that Trick or Treat buzz that seems to excite both parents and kids alike. I'm anxiously awaiting for a niece or nephew to dote on (well... have the feeling that kid will be spoiled by her/his aunt! Me!) LOL!

In celebration for this holiday, I bought a Wilton Halloween Themed cookie cutter, I'm not so fond of making cut of cookies, but I'm addicted in collecting them! Having a left over dough in the freezer from last month's Daring Baker challenge, I thought I'll make use of that dough and cut out pumpkins! pumpkins! The look so cute and adorable, but I wasn't able to decorate them with royal icing, was planning to actually however, when my brother said it taste bland well didn't want to waste my energy and much less sugar which isn't cheap here in Manila, I opted for the Naked pumpkin look. Hehehehe.....had fun making them, ahem...I mean cutting them out, hopefully next time tell taste great too! :)

Bostini! Bostini!

Bostini? yup that's right that's not a typo its a Bostini Cream Pie. If you are just like me who haven't even heard or seen a Bostini before, much lest made one, well... you're in for a treat.
For the October challenge of the ever growing Daring Baker's, we're making Bostini Cream Pie! they are just like Boston Cream Pie comprise of sponge layer, custard and a chocolate glaze, in a different orientation. In a Bostini, the custard is in the bottom then the sponge layer and the chocolate glaze. While in in a Boston, the custard is sandwiched between two layers sponges and topped with the chocolate glaze.

This month's challenge is hosted by Mary of Alpineberry. When I first read about this challenge, I was excited because I've made Boston cream pie before and I love making it. The new experience for me is the use of orange and chocolate combo. Yes, I've read from many popular pastry chefs that orange and chocolate are always a good combo, never had a chance to try that theory out until today. The orange chiffon cake was a breeze to make but unfortunate I wasn't able to fold in egg whites thoroughly, so I had a soft bouncy chiffon on top and a rubbery bottom, luckily it had a clear definition on where the rubber part stops, I just cut off that part that leave the chiffon behind. whew! that's a relieve! The chiffon smells so orangy and feels so light and fluffy in my hands, I love it! Even my little brother who hates anything citrus in his dessert gobbled it all up, didn't even notice it.
The custard is a breeze to make, I even used my stashed up vanilla bean for this. I love that speckled custard look, yum! I've made a discovery lately that my little brother loves custard too! He kept saying give him a spoon and a bowl of the custard and he can eat it as is!
What I didn't like most about this recipe is the chocolate glaze, I just found it too watery! Though it got thick as it cools, I don't like the way the butter keeps on separating from the chocolate, it feels so greasy! I love chocolate glazed that is thick and gooey! not greasy! Lastly, I hated the fact that I've used so many utensils that after everything is said and done, my sink is full of dirty dishes! But since my family likes this Bostini we'll all I can say is there will be next time :)
Next time I going to make this I'll be using a cream instead of butter for the glaze. :)
Bostini Cream Pie
(from Donna Scala & Kurtis Baguley of Bistro Don Giovanni and Scala's Bistro)
Makes 8 generous servings

INGREDIENTS:

Custard

3/4 cup whole milk
2 3/4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 whole egg, beaten
9 egg yolks, beaten
3 3/4 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 vanilla bean (EDITED: vanilla extract is okay)
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar

Chiffon Cake

1 1/2 cups cake flour
3/4 cup superfine sugar
1 1/3 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup beaten egg yolks (3 to 4 yolks)
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
1 1/2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup egg whites (about 8 large)
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Chocolate Glaze

8 ounces semi or bittersweet chocolate
8 ounces unsalted butter

INSTRUCTIONS

To prepare the custard:

Combine the milk and cornstarch in a bowl; blend until smooth. Whisk in the whole egg and yolks, beating until smooth. Combine the cream, vanilla bean and sugar in a saucepan and carefully bring to a boil. When the mixture just boils, whisk a ladleful into the egg mixture to temper it, then whisk this back into the cream mixture. Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Strain the custard and pour into 8 large custard cups. Refrigerate to chill.

To prepare the chiffon cakes:

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray 8 molds with nonstick cooking spray. You may use 7-ounce custard cups, ovenproof wide mugs or even large foil cups. Whatever you use should be the same size as the custard cups.

Sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Add the oil, egg yolks, orange juice, zest and vanilla. Stir until smooth, but do not overbeat.

Beat the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gently fold the beaten whites into the orange batter. Fill the sprayed molds nearly to the top with the batter.

Bake approximately 25 minutes, until the cakes bounce back when lightly pressed with your fingertip. Do not overbake. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cool, remove the cakes from the molds. Cover the cakes to keep them moist.

To prepare the glaze:

Chop the chocolate into small pieces. Place the butter in a saucepan and heat until it is just about to bubble. Remove from the heat; add the chocolate and stir to melt. Pour through a strainer and keep warm.

To assemble:

Cut a thin slice from the top of each cake to create a flat surface. Place a cake flat-side down on top of each custard. Cover the tops with warm chocolate glaze. Serve immediately.

Cookie Monster

Who doesn't love to eat cookies? I haven't yet met a person who doesn't eat cookies, a non-chocolate lover, I have met, but a cookie hater? none. I think will all the Sesame Street we've watch as we grew up, a wacky character's love for cookies rubbed off in all of us, who's that character? non other than cookie Monster, of course! my favorite character actually!

My favorite cookie favor is non other than a Chocolate Chip Cookies! I used to satisfy my cookie cravings by buying Chips Ahoy or Soft Batch, which frankly speaking sometimes I still do :) I started making my own batch of cookies when during one of my Food TV marathon, when Alton Brown's Good Eats was still on air. He discussed 3 varieties of chocolate chip cookies and showed the difference between them all. Till this day "Three Chips for Sister Marsha" is still one of my favorite episode. You can find the recipes here

He was so convincing that I quickly stocked up my pantry and made them. My favorite of the three is the Puffy. Its a simple recipe, it so simple that I've always made this recipe in DOUBLE BATCH, ALWAYS! Once I did a single batch, my younger brother said that its too few! From then on always double batch, please...

I haven't made cookies for quite sometime now that when my brother saw this last night as I was cooling them on the wire rack his eyes got all round and sparkly and oooohhhh....came out :) Hey, who could resist feeding him samples with reaction like than, right? We're such cookie monsters that, that Tupperware you can see in the picture filled with cookies only last us 3 days, one week maximum. If after one week, there are some left somethings gotta be wrong with them.

As you can see in the picture (on the right) they turn out sort of flattish and big not puffy at all, well...I followedone of Ina Garten's technique here was no harm in trying right? Quite nice but I personally prefer my cookies all plum and puffy. Hmmmm....maybe if I've added walnuts or use chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips it would have made them better, more variety in texture and taste. Next batch get ready....

I'm gonna grab myself a huge mug of warm milk and dive into my huge cookies...delicious! Gig in its a good recipe, give it a try!

Party Cake

Ever since I started to baked it's been a tradition in my family that I'll make the birthday cake (except on my birthday, of course;) ). I've been frantic in finding the perfect cake for mom's birthday. It took me THREE (3) DAYS browsing through my baking books, just to choose ONE! I planned on doing a Marcel Desaulnier's Shoo Fly Cake, or FOOD Magazine's Caramel Cake, however press for time and ingredients for both recipes I scratched that idea. I even though of Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, had everything ready and then to my surprise no CARROTS! I mean, we love eating carrots and when I needed them there aren't any around!

By Saturday night I was in panic! Have to choose one, with the ingredients already in my pantry, of course, don't have the time to go to supermarket to buy ingredients, JUST ONE! How hard could that be ?!?
On my last attempt I brought out the Dorie's heft book Baking From My Home to Yours. There I saw Party Cake hmmmm.......intriguing it looks so WHITE! Seems like easy to do and had tons of egg whites stashed away in the freezer. FINALLY! I have CHOSEN! Gosh Darn it! I finally have chosen! I wanted to start making it as soon as possible but my conscience is telling me no! calm down first you'll mess it up with all that adrenaline pumping!

I started my baking Sunday after lunch when I'm fed and satisfied :) Its actually a very easy and fast recipe, so it was a breeze to make. As I was making it still wondering how the heck would I get that white cake look! And was a bit concerned with the fact that the batter is so thin! its the thinnest batter that I have ever made, so even if the recipe said 30 minutes, by 20 minutes I was already checking for doneness. I was even quite surprise to see that the cake turn out so pale, even though I know its suppose to be like that duh! My problem only came when, one of may cake layer turns out crooked! Needless to say instead of a 4 layer cake it turned into a 3 layer cake. The frosting is easy to do as well, though my right arm would protest with all that whisking it did :) Love doing the assembly part and decorating part, because it means I'm actually about to finished and get to eat it later!

We celebrated my mom's birthday last night, we ate at Emerald Garden, one of her favorite Chinese restaurant for their fabulous seafood. Didn't get to bring the cake because it was pouring outside. Darn ..... hey at least I had a fabulous time doing it! Happy Birthday Ma!

Good news is mom LOVE it! Of course when she asked me how much butter it took to bake the cake didn't say a word ;) I would definitely make this cake again!

Oh Goey....

It's that time of the month again (no....I'm not talking about my period, eeew! that's gross!) The oober popular Daring Bakers challenge! Every month I'm like a kid in Christmas morning, eagerly waiting to open her presents.
This month the challenge was hosted by Marce of Pip in the City (get the recipe here) and our challenge are Sticky Buns and Cinnamon Rolls. Our favorite (my sister and mine)! I don't often get the chance to bake this because my sister already moved out and got married, my brothers and parents don't care for it much, however, the Daring Bakers calls and buns it is!

We used the recipe of Peter Reinhart from his book The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I've always wanted to buy this book, been reading good reviews about it actually, but haven't really tired any of his recipes yet so I'm a bit hesitant to buy it, books aren't cheap here in Manila you know, far from they are quite expensive really, I really would like to have a local library where I can borrow cookbooks to try it out first, but sadly that's non-existent here. Anyway, back to the buns...
Ever since I found out what the challenge would be for September, I've been eager to get starting, however, as life happens my schedule got hectic on weekends we kept getting invited to some party or another that I didn't get to do this challenge until the last minute, really like last night!
I love this recipe its easy to do though I bet my Kitchenaid would disagree, she seems like having a hard time in doing this. Its a lovely dough very soft and supple. I made mine Saturday night and had the dough in the ref and brought it out in the morning, was suppose to start the fermenting process around 6 am however, couldn't make myself wake up after having a late night. I started around 10 am, it seems like yesterday isn't my lucky day, our ever so humid Philippine weather suddenly turn into a cool, rainy day!!! My mind is already on panic! "Oh my crap! my dough might not rise!" I put the dough in the oven (turned off, of course) and left it there for several hours. when to have lunch with the family to commemorate our parent's wedding anniversary. When I got back Lo and behold the dough doubled! Yehey! what I like specially about this dough is that when being shaped its very manageable and the dough isn't fighting. lovely to shape and such a breeze.

I just don't get it why the sugars in the sticky buns didn't melt. I'm expecting a sauce consistency not a sweet grainy mass. The Sticky buns are baked through but the caramel glaze is not, got any ideas as to why?

One of the funny instance in this experience is when my younger brother who is my official tester asked me "Why is it hot?"

I'm like "Huh? do you mean hot? of course its just newly baked from the oven" since he often interchange the Chinese word for hot with spicy I thought that's what he meant.

"No..Hot as in spicy" says my brother

I'm like puzzled "Spicy?!?" I took a bite out of his cinnamon bun and "hmmm..its not spicy its sweet" kept chewing after few seconds "oh my gosh! its spicy!"

Now I know why my cinnamon powder DIDNOT smell and feel like cinnamon when I started making the cinnamon sugar, but since I have a stuffy nose I thought I just can't smell it.

You'll neve guess what I grabbed, its PAPRIKA!!!!

I made Sweet-Spicy Buns! Taste weird!

Oh my!!! This is definetely a fun experience, I would definetely remake this recipe this time with cinnamons instead of paprika.