One bowl Triple Choc Brownies

Brownies.

I LOVE Brownies.

It's easy to make, and is less fussy than making a cake. You don't have to bother about creaming the butter and the sugar to the right 'fluffiness'. You don't even need a mixer for it. Just the good old wooden spatula will do, or in my case, a hand whisk. I've tried making brownies before, and the recipes are good, but the taste are not what I wanted. Till I found this recipe from Joy of Baking. I love this website. It has so many recipes that you can try, and the best thing is, some of them, even have video demos so that you can see the process of baking itself.  Anyway, I love, love, love the texture of this brownies, fudgey and chocolatey. YUMMY!

Triple Choc Brownies adapted from Joy of Baking
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 40 minutes
Difficulty level: Easy

Ingredients:
200 g dark chocolate
115 g unsalted butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100 g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
95 g all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
50 g chocolate chips
50 g almond nibs or any other nuts (Optional)
Enough chocolate ganache for the topping (Optional)

Methods:
1. Preheat oven and line an 9" square pan
2. Melt the dark chocolate and butter using double boiler method

3. Remove the melted chocolate mixture from the heat, and let it cool for 5 minutes. Then add the cocoa powder, sugar and vanilla essence and mix well using a spatula. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well with every addition. Make sure the eggs are well incorporated.

4. Add the flour and salt and mix well. Make sure you do not over beat the batter, or it will turn up dry.

5. Lastly, add in the chopped chocolates/ chocolate chips and nuts (if any) and mix well.

6. Pour into the baking pan and bake for about 20 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE to retain the brownie texture, otherwise you'll end up with a dense cakey-texture, yucks :(

7. After the brownies are baked, let it cool down, and then cover the top with chocolate ganache., and eat! YUMMEHHHHH......

Happy trying,

El

p/s: try it with vanilla ice cream, HEAVENLY......

Red Velvet Cake Balls

I've been meaning to try making cake balls/cake pops for a long time now, but don't seem to have any cake leftovers. Recently i baked some red/pink velvet for my office's pot luck, and managed to have some cake leftovers, and decided to freeze them purposely for this project. :)

Red Velvet Cake Balls inspired by Bakerella
Preparation time: 30 minutes (minus the chilling time)
Baking time : None :)
Yields: almost 100 small balls (I used a 1/2 tsp measuring spoon to measure the cake balls)

All you need is a recipe of red velvet cake, a recipe of cream cheese frosting and chocolates for cover. Easy Peasy recipe. Lets start!

First, crush the cake into fine crumbles. If you have a mixer, just blitz it for a few minutes. I just used my hands (which are covered with plastic gloves. IMPORTANT).

Next, add the chilled cream cheese frosting into the cake crumbles, and mix well.

Then, roll the cake mixture into balls, size is according to your liking.

Next, chill the cake balls for at least 2 hours.

For the outer cover, melt dark/milk chocolate bars using double boiler method. Dip the balls into the melted chocolates, and decorate with tiny hearts or sprinkles. Chill again at least for 2 hours.

Taddaa!!. Ready for consuming :)

Taste: I used milk choc to cover the cake balls, so it turn up to be a bit too sweet for me. Next time, I'll use dark choc. Otherwise, it's goooood :)

Pink Velvet Cuppies

 Selamat Hari Raya!

I'm in still in my raya mood, eventhough I had to get back to work on the 6th day of Raya..Booo. Well. at least I had a great time celebrating Eid with my family. Hope it was great for everyone else too :)
Anyway, it has been a week after my Eid holidays, and my office planned a Pot Luck for Eid. I'm not much of a cook, so I opted to bring desserts.

I used the same recipe as the Red Velvet Cake, but since I'm out of red food colouring, I used pink food colouring instead, hence the name, Pink Velvet cuppies. I doubled the recipe and managed to get about 35 pcs of medium size cuppies (2.5" souffle cups)

Since the the recipe for the cake you can get it from here, I just want to share the recipe for the frosting. It claims to be a pipeable cream cheese frosting and it is easy to make.

Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from ThePinkWhisk

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yields enough frosting to cover about 32 cupcakes

Ingredients:
70 g of butter,soften
250 g cream cheese, cold
200 g icing sugar, sifted (use less if you don't like it too sweet)

Steps:
1. Cream butter and a tablespoon of icing sugar until fluffy and light.

2. Add the cold cream cheese, and mix well. Make sure you don't overbeat the cream cheese, since it will turn runny if beaten too long.

3. Tadaaaaa!

I personally love this recipe, and planned to make swirls as topping for the cuppies, but since my piping skills are crappy, i just spread the frosting with a spatula and decorate with sugar hearts. 

Pack and ready to go!

Here are a few photos from the pot luck. I had fun, and am very very full afterward. 

Food Galore!

Pink Velvet in action! These were gone in a jiffy :P

Me and my colleagues

Till next time,
Happy trying!

Love,
eL

Sardine Puffs

 Salam,
I know I've been lacking in updating this blog, some things came up, and I couldn't find the time to bake anything.

Anyway, we are going into the last week of Ramadhan. Oh my, time sure do fly really fast. I managed to break fast a few times back home in Kota Seriemas, and at my FMIL's house in Kulim. This weekend is actually the first weekend I spend in Kg Wai for Ramadhan.

I've been meaning to bake chocolate tarts today, however, I'm out of flour, so I'll end up making these sardine puffs. This recipe is my own, and I used a ready made puff pastry. It is so easy, and so fast to make too :)

Sardine Puffs

Difficulty level: Super Easy
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 20 minutes
Yields : 10 puffs

Ingredients:

1 whole large onion - chopped
1 clove of garlic - chooped
1 red chilli (put more if you like it spicier) - chopped
2 can of Sardines
1 tbsp lime juice
salt to season
1 packet of ready made puff pastry

Steps:
1. Saute the chopped onion, garlic and red chilli until it turned soft and brown.

2. Add in the sardine fillet, without the tomato sauce. Mashed the sardine fillet with the back of a spoon of a fork.

3. Add in lime juice. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Assembling the puffs
1. Take a piece of puff pastry

2. Spoon in the fillings in the middle

3. Brush the edge of the pastry with egg white
4. Fold into triangle, and pinch the edge together. Take a fork, and press into the edge

5. Transfer into baking tray, and brush the top with egg yolk.

6. Bake at 160C for 20 minutes

Taste: Crispy! However, I think the pastry add some saltiness to the whole puff, so make sure the fillings is not so salty. :)

Happy trying

Love,
eL

Double Choc Chip Muffin

I bake these muffins a few weeks back, but only got around to blog it today, since I'm on medical leave for the week. I love muffins and I love chocolate. Combined the two together, and I'm in bliss :)
This recipe was adapted from Nigella Lawson's choc chip recipe here


Double Choc Muffin
Difficulty level: Easy 
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 25 minutes

Yields: 18 pieces of medium muffins

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cocoa powder
3/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1 cup milk
90 ml vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

Steps:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients together (Flour+baking powder+baking soda+cocoa powder+choc chip)

2. Mix all the wet ingredients together (Oil+milk+egg+vanilla essence)

3. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture and stir until combine. DO NOT over-mixed the batter as it will make the muffin dry.

4. Pour into muffin cases and decorate the top with extra chocolate chips and bake for 25 minutes at 160C.

 

5. Tadaaaa!

Taste: Yummy, but I think, next time, I'll substitute the oil with melted butter. I think everything is nicer with butter. hihihihi :D

p/s: I froze my muffins for a week, and it still taste the same. Thaw it out first, then bake for 10 minutes.

Happy trying!

Love,
el