A Taste of Canada

Hi! I'm BAAAACK!

Yeah... yeah... I've been gone from the Daring Baker event for such a long time that I actually missed it. I'm soooooo glad to be back!

For this exciting new year, our DB challenge is hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. She has chosen 2 amazing recipes that I'm really excited about a Nanaimo Bars and Gluten Free Graham Crackers. The sources for this two are from 101 Cookbooks and nanaimo.ca.

I would have loved to try the Gluten Free Graham Crackers unfortunately I had a hard time finding the ingredients here and some that I found are quite expensive. I had two options either make my own graham crackers the not gluten free version or use a store bought one.

Ahem...ahem..guess which choice I did? I chose the easy route and use the store bought one. *hey don't judge!* they tasted good! really they do!

Now time to concentrate on the star of the month the Nanaimo Bars. In order to prepare for this event, didn't want to foul anything up, I did my research and watch demos on youtube. Once I got the courage to do it, there is no going back. Nanaimo bars here I come!

As regular readers of my blog probably notices a pattern here... that I like taking shortcuts. I mean I love to make things from scratch but if I find a way of making it easier for me in the process, who am I to ignore such convenience? For this challenge, the recipe specified melting and mixing stuff in a double boiler but lazy ol' me did but in the microwave! yup I tell you it works! Once I added the egg part I zap it in the micro in 10 minutes interval until it thickens. Doubtful that the wet ingredients can hold together all the dry ingredients, I patiently kept mixing and mixing while quietly saying to myself "Oh my.. oh my... hope this works" Good thing it did. Phew! ^_^ I used my square loose bottom pan so that I don't have to greased and line my pan, the bars came out smoothly when it was time to remove from the pan.

With the jam packed crust busy chilling in the fridge, it was time to make the yellow filling. I was fortunate enough to have found a custard powder before but have absolutely lost the recipe where I was going to use it. That day finally came! It's amazing to see that with the custard powder it made the butter/sugar mixture more intense in color. Although I really have no idea what the custard powder is for. Anyone care to enlighten me? As a perk of a baker I get to lick the spoon after, I must admit I didn't like the filling in itself, it was too sweet even though I only used half of the amount of sugar it called for and it taste like a buttercream icing, which for the life of me I simply cannot tolerate. It seems as though the filling wasn't enough to cover the entire crust but be patient because it can! just gingerly push the filling from side to side and before you know it the entire crust is covered with the gorgeous yellow filling.

Now it's time for the topping, my favorite! what is it? well... what else but chocolate! I had a problem when I made my chocolate topping. The recipe called for butter and chocolate melted together until smooth and shinny then pour. Mine didn't turn out that way, while I was mixing the chocolate/butter mixture it seems so thick and didn't have enough liquid in it. I was afraid to add more melted butter thinking it might make the topping oily, I opted for few splashes of cream and voila! just like magic the topping became smooth and silky. I quickly poured it on the crust/filling and covered with cling wrap. I put it in the fridge and went to sleep. Or at least a tried too... after a couple of hours of tossing and turning, I finally gave up and got up and went down to the kitchen, got a serrated knife and popped the bars off the pan and cut a small square, alright! a relatively small square in my standard :P Surprisingly, with all the three layers together and with the crust having so much texture, the filling rightly balanced everything with it's smoothness! Yum... yum...

Now I can go to sleep! Goodnight everyone ^_^

The Gastronomer's Shelf Giveaway

Everyday I see to it that I spend hours surfing the net and reading blogs, one of the blogs that I frequently visits is Mark's of No Special Effects. When I visited his blog this morning, he got me thinking. What is the most important book of my life?

Hmm....

Can I have two important books? It's a tie between Yard & Stewart.

The first one that comes into mind is Sherry Yard's The Secret of Baking. I find this book very informative it's full of basic stuff like ganache, truffles, curd, pastry cream and etc. Then when you master the basics you could move to much intermediate stuff and create tangy tarts, dark as night truffle tart. This book is very helpful for me because it teaches the basics and it gave the the freedom to mix and match and create a whole new dessert that is clearly my own. It shows how knowing simple basic ingredients are a great platform for creating extraordinary creations.

As cheesy as this may sound the other important book in my life is Martha Stewarts Baking Handbook. I'm not being biased or anything, it's just that this book is a gorgeous book full of gorgeous pictures and excellent recipes from simple cookies to show stopper cakes to die for flakey pies. It's greatly illustrated each basic step has pictures so you wouldn't be lost as to thinking what's the difference between a finely chopped nuts to coarsely chopped. There isn't a second though because it's there you can plainly see in the picture what the outcome should be. It's simple and direct to the point, though sometimes Martha's recipe can be a bit excessive there's always a reason. Kind of like why make something that is good when you can make something great.

I can't choose between these two because whenever I'm stuck at something these are always my go to books. I know you are probably wondering why I'm telling you this? Well...generous Mark & Duncan is throwing a book giveaway of Momofuku by David Chang. To know more about this drop by the Gastronomer's Bookshelf. I've heard so much good stuff about this book that hopefully they picks me. This would be an excellent addition to my collection. Moreover, I'm very much intrigue why people love this book, I heard that David Chang is very innovative. Wish me luck people! ^_^

Magazine Mondays: Cream Cheese Cookies

Magazine Mondays is here. It's created by my favorite blogger Ivonne of Cream Puff in Venice. Its actually a great idea because through Magazine Mondays events, I would be force to dig up my old magazines and finally make some of the recipes that I have marked way way back. I have stacks and stacks of food magazines both local in my room. My mom even noted that my room looks like a library with all the books and the magazines everywhere. Ever since the tragic storm that destroyed all my cookbooks, I've been storing everything in my room. ^_^ With so many choices to choose from I didn't know where to start.

For my first Magazine Mondays event, I chose a recipe from Martha Stewart Holiday 2005. Foreign food magazines tend to me expensive here, so I usually get mine from a used bookstore for only 1/4 its price, although its now a back issue when I do get it. I love the thrill of hunting for issues that I like. I bought this copy off ebay months ago, now as I was browsing through it I realized something. This recipes in this magazine is exactly like the recipes in the Martha Stewart Cookies book! I'm so glad that means I don't need to buy this book again! hahaha...although some recipe found in the book might not be in the magazine, I don't seem to care :)

I chose this cookie because I was intrigue because the main ingredient is cream cheese. I have lots of leftover cream cheese from all the holiday baking I did but didn't get to use all. And another plus is that it uses walnuts. I love walnuts, this is one of my favorite nuts. It's a slice and bake recipe meaning after mixing everything together. The cookie dough is shaped into a log and put in the fridge until it's cold so it's easier to slice.

To be honest I have trouble with the slice and bake method, I can't seem to cut them evenly! It's driving me crazy! I'm such an OC person and when I see those crooked cookies, they seems to be taunting me! hahaha.... I know I weird ^_^

But seriously, they taste good, like a shortbread but softer and they taste very rich.

Taste of the Tropics

I love weekends! Specially Sundays when I'm off from work and I get to bake till my legs get tired. I even plan what I'm going to be baking next week, right after I just finish baking! I'm that addicted to baking.

Having spent so much already for new baking books. There were sale everywhere including 3 of my favorite local bookstores! For now my wallet is on recovery stage, I'm self confining myself at home and no more malling for me for at least 2 months! I do hope I get to fulfill this pack (I'm keeping my fingers crossed).

For now I'm often at home and you could see me pouring over the new books that I got, first thing I got to try is the White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies from The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook. I have seen quite a lot of this white chocolate and macadamia nut rendition I just don't make it since macadamia nut has the highest fat content in all the nuts however after reading this book, for some reason I just have to try this. I think one of the things that made this more special is that it has some coconut mixed within the batter. I don't really care for coconut but I believe that in America and other western country coconut based desserts are big, so why not give it a shot, I've got nothing to lose right? It's actually a good thing that I did, the coconut added a nice texture to the cookie.

These are such fun and easy cookies to make, I just mixed up a batch put it in the fridge on Saturday night and went to sleep. Come Sunday afternoon took it out of the fridge, when it became soft enough, I used an ice cream scoop to portion them out. I had to squish them a little bit before baking to get that big cookie look. As I was busy loading them in the oven, a nagging thought popped in my mind.

Uh oh...have no idea what they are suppose to look like! (I'm on panic mode here) Uhmmm...Oh no!

I mean the cookie batter looks so yellowish and didn't think that they look appetizing at all. When they were starting to brown nicely, I was so glad. Phew! and here I thought those expensive macadamia nuts will just go to waste. I just could not believe how expensive macadamia nuts are at Php 1,200 per kilo (approximately around $26). I think they are worth it not being to sweet and it has this nice texture from the coconut a nice crunch from the nuts and a sweet nugget of white chocolate.

I'm doomed! These are one expensive and deadly cookies! Literally and figuratively. Yum ^_^

Chocolate Overload

The year 2010 has barely started and I have spent so much already, I think I need help! I usually buy baking supplies and baking books that is kind of hard for my pocket being the fact that those items tend to be quite expensive specially the books. Having said that I have a confession to make, I've been hording callebaut chocolate chips like crazy! My favorite kitchen supply store is trying to get rid off old batches of chocolates, now they are on sale at 40% off per kilo. Wow! I already bought 4 kilos of those, but don't worry they aren't a bad batch or anything it's just that the expiration date is near like in July 2010. While doing my monthly aisle shopping in the supermarket, I spotted on some Nestle Chocolate Chunks! For those of you who regularly gets it in your supermarket, it's nothing to get all excited about. But for bakers like me who lives in the south east asia, we don't get products like that often. Years ago I even spotted on some peanut butter chips and butterscotch chips but now I cannot absolutely find them anywhere :( Now that all that chocolate hording is over, I got my work cut out for me. Ha ha... like it's hard to figure out what to do with chocolate!My first stop is the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies! I've made this recipe many times before (see here) but they are just so darn good that they are worth repeating over and over again. Everythime I make these I feel so wicked for indulging on such a delicious creation. It's like a chocolate with bits of cookies in it! That's how chocolately it should be. For non chocaholics or people who are allergic to chocolate out there so sorry this cookies are not meant for you.

Streusel Cake for the New Year

New Year is the time for new beginnings and time to eat more sensibly, compare to what I have been eating since my Christmas break from work. I must admit that I know better and shouldn't have ate most of the stuff that I ate, but in my defense it the Holidays! :D First it was Christmas then its New Year and in my family this season is food, food and more food. This being my favorite holiday not only because I get to have long break from work, the weather is awesome no snow (we don't get that here) but it's cool and breezy. People tend to be more cheerful during this season too! More importantly, I love going to family reunions, high school friends reunion and etc.

But now that New Year have past, with everything going back to normal (you wouldn't believe the New Year and Christmas frenzy here), sad to say but it's time to go back to my diet and my threadmill *sob* I know I know, I'm not so happy about it either, but Summer is fast approaching and it's gonna be hot! (Summer season starts early here in Manila, usually around March till May). I have to at least look good and not too flabby in my swinsuit.

What a better way to start a new healthier year but with a Banana Streusel Cake. I got this version off Flo Braker's Baking for All Occasions. I'm ashamed to admit it but I have been ogling at this book ever since I got it months ago, I just got distracted and wasn't able to try any recipe from this book until now. It amazes me to see that the last time I made banana bread was around 3 years and 9 months ago! My favorite go to recipe is Nigella Lawson's however since my book of hers was ruined, I settled on trying something new. Braker's recipe won by a long shot because of the streusel topping, I'm a huge sucker for streusel toppings. Its sweet and crunchy and cinnamony! Love it. It smelled awesome too! Didn't realized that cinnamon goes well with bananas, although still don't like eating banana cake/bread. But my family does so it won't go to waste.