Another lazy day at home, tried this citrusy muffin recipe from Babe in the City – KL. I don’t have much affinity to muffin, same as bread, those i made usually turn out half good and it is no wonder that muffin is also called quick bread. Didn’t really like this, nonetheless can’t really blame the recipe, as i didn’t zest the orange rind, but instead cut it off with bare knife, thus there is traces of whitish orange skin which can taste bitter, and i “diced” the orange rind, it is not a very fine rind, too rough i guess. Also, i used only orange rind, instead of orange + lime + lemon.

Finished product, still in the fridge…

baked one swiss roll, sold it to colleague for RM8, don’t like selling as can’t earn much baking 1 swiss roll eh.

Krispy Kreme second outlet in Malaysia – Mid Valley Megamall, Malaysia is too saturated with sweet doughnuts, heard Krispy’s is sickening sweet but good texture… gotta try one someday.

Potluck party with primary school mates, surprisingly we remain quite close after such long years, with average 2 activities each year… This time, about 13 of us turn up for potluck by the poolside of a condominium. Decided to make doughnut, above is weighted flour, melting butter(so as it will not be too warm when mixed into liquid mixture), eggs and liquid mixture(milk + water + yeast + sugar etc)

knead it till it have a smooth surface, and leave to rise

after rise(about 3.5 hours, not much difference yeah)… i have not much good experience with bread or anything doughy, it always turn out smelling slightly yeasty/sourish, and this time is no difference… why can i have soft, pillowy bread?!?! i blame it on living in a double storey, and the environment is not warm enough for them to rise properly… and there was slight drizzle yesterday… ahaha

finished product, looks like a lot right? but it is actually mini doughnut, it taste passable when warm, but get tough when cold and smell slightly yeasty and hard.

dish of the day, prepared by our chef friend… wow, taste great, never knew thyme has such strong flavor, btw, it is roast chicken with thyme and lemon, there are roasted pumpkin and potatoes to go with it.

spagetti, taste normal, but aint it look good considering it is prepared by a guy.

croquette-lookalike, but it is actually fried bread stuffed with ham… doesn’t taste good at all

lion’s head, really good, prepared by someone’s one…

curry chicken

spagetti, didn’t try it

fried meehoon, and glutinuos rice

canape which looks so neat, but by the time we eat it, the crackers is soggy wet caused by the cream cheese.

oh-so-good curry puff, it looks normal, and might look too darkish, it taste really good, the pastry is not too thick, the fillings is flavorful although they is no chicken in it, and pastry is not oily and stay crispy even when it is cold, i have to ask her to teach me how to make this.

cake from Depastry chef, Manjalara, Kepong

Tried making this cheese puff which sounds delicious, what could go wrong with egg, milk and grated cheese mix together? Above is the dough which i have cooked on the stove, subsequently mixing in 5 eggs, one at a time. Recipe from Dorie Greenspan. Ingredients include milk, butter, flour, salt, water, egg and coarsely cut cheese.

before

after, puffed up beautifully

look nice right?

however, this snacks is to be served immediately, else it will be deflated as above when it gets cold. Taste wise, it is not bad i quite like it. Wonder whether that i didn’t cook the dough drier, therefore it deflates.

Above using recipe from Tangerine’s Kitchen, it is sealed in kitchen wrap for rising.

After rise, not much different

fried, looks good, but really dense and will probably choke if you don’t take it with some liquid stuff.

Second try using recipe from Allie Food Talk , above pic is before rise.

After dough rested for few hours, looks slightly larger.

supposedly want to make into doughnut shape, but the dough is hard to handle, too sticky, so it become doughnut balls instead. White stuff below are sugar, put too much on it. Taste pretty OK, you know, doughnut… As usual, didn’t follow the recipe exactly, substitute butter with corn oil, substitute water with milk instead as i had no milk powder, maybe that’s why the dough turn out too sticky to be shaped.

This Recipe is taken from JOM MAKAN! GOOD FOOD TREK. My first exposure to biscotti is probably in Starbucks where my uni friend-Ice, who is an avid Starbuck fan influence me to it. It usually comes in Almond flavor, chocolate hazelnut etc. It is a healthy and hearthy cookie.

Above is ground almond which is required in this recipe. You can buy it in Cold Storage or Carrefour for RM3.20(60g). Although this list looks daunting, i am pretty much determined to make them, most if not all. I brought it to office and they are 3 orders for it, will “deliver” it next week will sell for RM15 for a box, guess this price is alright. As much as i like experimenting food, selling food is usually not as fun, the “stress” of making them in bulk, and the hygiene… and i don’t know how much the food can store, the need to handle “customer inquiry”… but it is always a dream if i can earn a living by doing what i like, which is basically all matters related to food.

Texture of this biscotti is nice, not as rock hard as my previous attempt using another recipe.

Sugar, egg, vanilla and NO OIL. yep, you heard right, biscotti mostly have no oil as it is usually eaten by dunking it in hot coffee.

beat it

till it becomes frothy as above

sifted flour, ground almond and whole almond

mix the almonds into the floor

mixing process

shape it into log shape, the rightmost is the first i made, which is the better looking one, towards the left, the dough is sticking too much to my hand as i didn’t flour my hand…

finished the first half baking process (biscotti means twice baked cookie, it is baked initially for bout 15 mins, let it cool, then sliced it diagonally, then baked till crisp)

let it cool

sliced it diagonally into long shape

finished product, after baking another 10 minutes

Anyone want to buy can email me at vivien_1223 at yahoo.com

haha, just for fun, don’t really think people will order from me… haha

Recipe taken from More than Words – Oven baked curry puff. Above is 400gm flour with about 120g of cut butter, an egg whisked up and a bowl of ice water.

Here, butter rubbed into flour, resemble breadcrumbs texture

mix in the egg, and just enough ice water to make it into above.

for the fillings: i use all the above except the curry leaves, use just 3 sprigs of curry leaves, bought the whole bunch for RM0.50. I made double amount of chili paste, and insist on not using any curry powder/pre-made curry paste for this curry puff, which is what i usually do when cooking chicken curry…, but it doesn’t work out too well this time… it is always a pain an guessing on how much dried chilies to use. there is about 4 cloves of garlic, three pieces of lemon grass, small pieces of ginger.

Used about 700gm of potatoes and also shown above is the curry puff mould.

all blended up

cook the chili paste in ample of oil

till it become dried up and fragrant as above, shown above is half of the cooked chili paste, i have already scoop up half of it, save it for curries ;P

mixed in the diced potatoes. and you are all set

no rollers? no place to roll out the dough? no prob, place a cling wrap on top of tabletop, and use mug to roll out dough.

place big dollop of filling

all rolled up

cooked puff, it doesn’t look browned and appetising, and if the temperature is too high, they will cracked open. i fire up the temp to more than 150C in an attempt to brown them, but to no avail, partly also due to not enough egg wash

turn them over, it is brown where it touched the pan

cross section, looks not bad eh? but going back to where i said it doesn’t turn up so well is it taste more like chili puff than curry puff, next time should put some chicken curry powder and more salt, that should be it.

the pastry is not crispy as those fried, fried one still taste better, IMHO, but these oven baked is sure a healthy option if you can work yourself up to make them.

Help out in making karipap for christmas lunch, it is kinda fun “project” for me, being one of my dream is to sell karipap, it is probably due to the piping hot delicious karipap which i always buy on monday night pasar malam (night market) during primary school days, watching Mcgyver… yeah, it is kinda of a childhood thing i guess… anyway this time we have to make 200 of them, 3 of us, one rolling out the dough, one putting in fillings and Pelita the one who kneading pattern on  them: 200 of them.

Dough portionised, really to be rolled out.