Just in the Nick of Time

I'm a huge fan of celebrity chefs specially pastry chefs.

Yes...I know I got sucked in by all that Food Network chefs the glamor, book deals and awesome show. I'm so into those, their marketing people sure do know how to work their stuff.

Most of the time I don't buy locally published baking book written by local chefs, not for the reason that you probably think. It's not about being snobbish or anything it's just that I found it lacking in the instructions department and most of the time the book itself is poorly constructed the paper used is bad or there are so few pictures that I have no idea what the outcome should look like. And if the quality of the book itself improves, it cost a lot just like imported books, probably because it was not published locally. Which I think is weird being that we have printing press here in Manila, so why source it out? Right??? Any way, that's another story.

Chocolate Cup Cupcake

I'm embarrassed to admit it but quite recently I've been a cookie monster, baking and eating batches of cookies one after another, of course my favorite kind of cookies are chocolate chip cookies. Baked freshly out of the oven, accompanied by tall glass of milk. Delicious! ^_^ This must be the side effect of hoarding Callebaut soft baked chocolate chips. This week I promised myself that no more, I have to try something new. Well... Guess what I made?

A Piece of Pie

As regular readers of this blog, you probably noticed that I hardly if ever make a pie. I can make cake, brownies, cookies and bars, however pies are my downfall. Pies are well... for a lack of better word for it difficult and temperamental, for me anyway.

Homemade Vanilla Extract...Uh Oh....

I've been searching high and low for vanilla beans here, ever since my stash of vanilla beans was washed away by flood. That was such a waste! I've been saving them up because I can rarely find vanilla beans here in Manila, I got my stashed from my godmother who hand carried it from the States. Yeah, I know I'm kind of weird, when my godmother ask what I want for 'pasalubong' (a.k.a souvenir/gift from states) my answer is always something food related.^_^

Chocolate Mudslides

It's time for Magazine Mondays people! For this week, I chose Chocolate Mudslides still from the Martha Stewart Holiday 2005 magazine. What are Mudslides you ask? These are almost flour less chocolate cookies loaded with chocolate chunks. What's not to like? ^_^ Right? Well..I'm 50-50 in this thing, I'm not sure if there is something wrong with recipe or something but I found it too sticky when scooping it out and shaping it. I tried making it into small cookies because of all the chocolate I was afraid it might get too overwhelmingly sweet. And it turns out that I was right. It was too sweet specially with the semi sweet chocolate chunks the I used instead of the milk chocolate the recipe called for which I can only imagine would be much too sweet.

Sweets for your Sweetie

My good friend A asked me to make something with Butterfinger for her partner K. I don't normally do something special for the V-day however being such a romantic I couldn't say no to such a sweet request.

Having made brownies many times with different recipes from several sources. I decided to adapt my favorite brownie recipe to make this delectable Butterfinger Brownies. My favorite brownies was adapted from Buttercup Bakes at Home. What I love about this recipe in particular is the fact that it's chock full of chocolate both bittersweet and unsweetened chocolates. A great treat especially for chocoholics like me! And look I FINALLY got that crackly top the looks so professional and appetizing. Another added bonus in my book is that it's easy clean up, being a 2 bowl method thing, one for the melting the chocolate the other is for the mixing of the other ingredients. Absolutely no need to put out the heavy mixer.

What's with the hearts? Well...its Valentines Day! Of course, I got to have a heart shaped brownies to make it more special. I honestly didn't plan on picking up another cookie cutter when I went to the baking supply store, however when I saw Wilton's new valentine cookie cutter collection, it came in such a pretty romantic colors, I just knew I got to have it.