Chocolate Crinkles

Some months ago I bought a pack of Chocolate Crinkles from the local bakery. Etienne and I decided we needed a piece each before we drove off. As we bit into it, we both looked at each other and laughed. It was hard as rock! It looked pretty enough, though. Since then I've been meaning make some myself. With a bit of time to spare over the weekend, I set out to make some. This recipe yields a cake-like cookie. Nice and crusty on the outside but cakey on the inside. So now I'm confused – what's a Chocolate Crinkle really supposed to taste like? I had cut down the sugar by half, but I could've done with a bit more sweetness. And more cocoa. Definitely more cocoa.

I know I have another recipe somewhere in my library of cookbooks and will give this another shot. I can see this cookie becoming a favourite – once I get the recipe I like. Still, I will post this recipe. It's perfect for when you need a quick treat. It's a 'dump-in-and-mix' method and the dough, when chilled properly, behaves well in little hands, so the kids can participate in the making.

¼ cup butter, softened

¼ cup cocoa powder (I'd up this to 1/3 cup)

4 tbsp oil

1 cup sugar (I'd up this to 1 ½ cups)

4 eggs

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

3 cups flour

Icing sugar

Dump all the ingredients except icing sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix till well combined and no traces of butter are left. (It's important that the butter be softened. If not, it will take a long time to be incorporated into the dough and prolonged mixing will 'toughen' the flour, resulting in a very dense and chewy cookie). Chill the dough for an hour for easier handling. (Of if temperatures are low, like it is now, you can go right ahead and roll it). Drop spoonfuls into a plate of icing sugar (I used my trusty ice-cream scoop), roll and generously coat with the sugar. Place on a baking tray and bake for 12-15 minutes. Cool for 1-2 minutes before cooling completely on a wire rack. Store in airtight containers.

Another Family Luncheon - Cheat's Fudge

An easy way to make fudge - and fool-proof too!

A week after the last family luncheon, BL decided to make Prawn Noodles or Hokkien Mee. Again, the noddles are plain yellow noodles, but this time in a mildly spicy pork and prawn broth. One can have vermicelli (bee hoon) with the yellow noodles, and is garnished with water convolvus (kangkong), hard boiled egg, cooked prawns, and a generous helping of fried shallots. Once again, yummy!! My contribution this time was a Cream of Mushroom Soup (not canned...) with Garlic Bread (hey, East meets West menu. Like I said the last time, anything edible goes!) and since I was super efficient that morning, I had time to make a Cheat's Fudge.

I had not made this fudge in yonks and had forgotten how it was supposed to turn out. It was good! Nuts, chocolate, sugar – what could possibly go wrong? The original recipe came from the Expat Association of Suzhou's recipe book, submitted by my friend Terri Schutte. I adapted it a little to be less sweet and to use baking chocolate instead of choc chips. Choc chips tend to melt slower and the entire mixture could harden quickly. If you need a sweet treat quick, this one's a winner.

Chocolate Fudge (Cheats version)

Miniature marshmallows 4 cups or 12-14 regular ones (cut the regular sized ones as small as you can. Melting big ones are a pain)
Evaporated milk 2/3 cup
Butter ¼ cup
Sugar 1 cup
Salt ¼ tsp
Chocolate 2 cups, roughly chopped
Vanilla extract 1 tsp
Chopped nuts ¾ cup (optional. Choose any nuts you prefer)

Butter an 8X8 pan. Melt marshmallows, evaporated milk, sugar, salt and butter on medium heat. Stir constantly to avoid milk scorching. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add chocolate and vanilla. Stir till chocolate melts. Stir in nuts and pour into buttered dish. Refrigerate till set. Cut into squares and serve.

Moist Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache, and my first attempt at White Icing

I have been on a roll making cakes for the birthdays of friends' children. Jodi asked me to make little chocolate cupcakes last week for Renee's birthday, which I was glad to do. They were 'bare' as she frosted and decorated them herself. Topped with chocolate frosting and M&M's on the top, they were a chocolate sensation!

This week it's Keane and Zern's birthday. They're friends with Etienne, and their mom YP is a good friend of mine. They're chocolate lovers and so Chocolate Cake it was. This time I simply poured a chocolate ganache over and let it drip down the sides. The combination of the two was chocolate heaven.

I knew I wanted to dress the cake up with more than just sprinkles. So I decided to attempt white icing. I had always felt intimidated by white icing, thinking it would be hard to do, and had to be very careful when handling it. Temperatures had to be right or it would be too soft, too dry or too hard. So with cornstarch in hand, I tackled a pack of ready made white icing, and simply cut the shapes out. Not knowing how they'd feel, I thought I'd keep it simple this time. It was surprisingly easy. Felt like the paper clay projects I used to make way back when. I feel brave enough now to attempt other shapes and figurines. For Keane and Zern, I had just stamped their initials out with a cookie cutter and set them on a circle. KZ looked like it was short for 'Kazam!' and that prompted me to add lighting bolts for that 'superhero' feel.

I am very pleased with the way the entire cake turned out. The cake was just the right chocolatey sweetness, and the ganache simply highlighted that flavour. Dark and delicious. The colours of the white icing stood out against the chocolate. The white icing was merely for show and we peeled it off before eating.

Prior to this I wanted to (and still do) learn more about white icing. I tried to look for information but could not find the answer to my question. What's the difference between fondant, sugarpaste and white icing? Is it the same thing by a different name? If not, what's the difference and how should it be treated? When modelling figurines, must I use only sugar glue or will water do? What's the best type of food colour to use? Answers very much appreciated. Thanks.

Chocolate Cake (adapted from Betty Yew's Kitchen Secrets)

Makes 1X8” square cake

Butter 180g
Sugar 360g
Eggs 3 large
Instant coffee 1 tsp
Hot water 1 tbsp
Vanilla 1 tsp
Water 1 cup
Plain flour 240g
Cocoa powder 75g
Baking powder 1 tsp
Baking soda 1 tsp
Salt ½ tsp

Grease and line an 8” square cake pan. Sift the dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Dissolve coffee in 1 tbsp water. Stir in vanilla and add the remaining cup of water. Fold in the coffee mixture alternately with the dry ingredients in 3 batches, starting with the flour. Blend well and pour into the tin. Bake in preheated 175C oven for 55 minutes. Test with a skewer. Leave to cool in pan for 20 minutes and then turn onto rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache

Chocolate 200g, broken into pieces
Whipping cream 150ml

Place both ingredients into a bowl and set it over a pot of simmering water (double boiler style) do not allow the water to touch the bowl. Allow the chocolate to melt. Stir till the mixture is smooth and shiny. Remove from heat and allow to cool a little. When slightly thickened, pour over the cake allowing the ganache to drip over the sides.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Ginger Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Cupcake with Ginger Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting for my 40th birthday

Tea-time spread

It's my birthday!! The big 4-0. Yup, I'm a grown up. Grown up as in the people who were my parents' friends when I was 7 years old. The 'Uncles' and 'Aunties' who were the parents of my friends. The grown ups who seemed worldly. I'm one of them now. A grown up. Can't believe it though – I still feel like I'm 20-something. I don't feel any wiser. I feel more stressed, but not wiser. Strange feeling....

The posse of friends – and I dare say the best gals I'll ever encounter, helped me celebrate with a lunch at Dream Herb, a Taiwanese style restaurant. It was a joint birthday celebration with YP, whose birthday falls in early July. Since we'll all be away for the summer holidays then, we decided to do this together.

Dream Herb grows their own herbs and uses them in their dishes. My favourite is the Chilli Chicken with Lavender. Annie, the Manager always serves us their wonderful pot of herbal tea. A tad bit minty today but still very good. We then, as usual, adjurned to someone's house for what we call tea break laughs. You can identify the house from the shrieks, squeals and outright booming laughter.

Jodi prepared a wonderful spread of brownies, fruit salad and ice cream and Blian made Konnyaku jelly. And it being my birthday, I made Chocolate Cupcakes with Ginger Lemon Cream Cheese frosting, the recipes I got from Cupcake Bakeshop. If you haven't been to her site, you should! It's a gorgeous menu of tried and tested cupcakes with every frosting imaginable to suit every occasion. I've been baking 'kid' cakes and cookies for a few weeks and was so ready for an 'adult' dessert. Cupcake – adult, and very stylish. Ever since Carrie Bradshaw and Miranda Hobbs bit into one, it's been the iconic dessert for women. So, very suitable for a gathering of my best lady friends.

I used Cupcake Bakeshop's Devil's Food cupcake with Ginger Lime Cream Cheese Frosting. I didn't have lime and so substituted with lemon. I didn't use as much icing sugar either as I was afraid it might be too sweet. The icing was very soft, and I used for swirling. Sadly, the hot and humid weather was unforgiving, and even though I refrigerated them when I got to my destination, it melted. Fortunately everything was contained within the cup. Next time I shall add the full amount of sugar and only, ONLY try this when I don't have to transport the cupcakes, or during low temperatures. Still, I'm so glad I tried it out. The cupcake was moist and dark. On its own, I have to say I've tasted better chocolate cake. But the combination with the Ginger Lemon frosting was divine. I am happy with this combination, just have to work on the consistency of the frosting.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Chocolate & Macadamia Nut Spread

I seem to be making a lot of spreads these days. I guess today I was just moved to make this mock Nutella, and as luck would have it - I had all the ingredients on hand. It's been on the 'want to try' list for a while, but just could not find hazelnuts. Even our favourite nut seller at the Nan Men market didn't have them. (Actually, I was pleasantly surprised by the variety of nuts at that market, opening up just endless baking options).

What I did have on hand was macadamia nuts. So I decided to substitute the hazelnuts with macadamias.

I was extremely happy with the end result - for a first try. The consistency and the sweetness was just right. However, the aroma of the macadamias did not come through as I imagine hazelnuts would have. It produced a handsome quantity - enough to fill a large jar. Definitely more ecomonical to make your own than buying. Well, at least in Suzhou.

Macadamia nuts 2/3 cup
Condensed milk 1 tin 370g
Chocolate chips 1 cup
Honey 4 tbsp

Process the macadamia nuts till pasty. (If you can get the nuts to liquefy, this will result in a smoother spread). Set aside. Put the condensed milk, chocolate chips and honey in a large bowl and sit it on a pot of simmering water. (Double boiler would work great). Stir occassionally till the chocolate melts. Pour the chocolate mixture into the hazelnuts and blitz till the mixture is smooth. Transfer into an airtight container, cool. Enjoy!

Chocolate Fudge Easter Cupcakes

Easter is not a big celebration for us. It's pretty much another day. But I couldn't just let it pass without even the smallest chocolate treat! So I baked these absolutely yummy Chocolate Fudge Easter Cakes that I found at the The Goddess's Kitchen. It's a simple recipe, where all the cake ingredients are mixed in one go, and you can decorate the cupcakes anyway you like. I believe in the original recipe the cupcakes were made smaller, but I had Easter design paper liners, which were regular size, so I used them instead. With this size, I baked them for 25 minutes. I don't have golden caster sugar, so used regular caster sugar, and reduced the amount a little. I used hundreds and thousands to sprinkle and topped them with a small chocolate egg, which I got at the bi-monthly Farmer's Market.

You can find the original recipe here.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Soft butter 140g
Caster sugar 130g
Eggs 3 medium
Self raising flour 100g
Cocoa 25g sifted

For the frosting:
Baking chocolate 85g, broken
Soft butter 85g
Icing sugar 130g, sifted
Hundred and thousands
Chocolate Eggs

Heat oven to 190C/fan 170C/gas 5 and line a muffin pan with paper liners. Tip all the ingredients for the cake into a mixing bowl and beat for 2 mins with an electric hand-whisk until smooth. Divide between the cases so they are two-thirds filled, then bake for 12-25 mins until risen, depending on size. Cool on a wire rack.
For the frosting, microwave the chocolate on high for 1 min. Cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the melted chocolate. Spread on the cakes and decorate.