Stupid Blogger, the sequal

Bloody Blogger is on the fritz again, and hence I can't post. Grrr. Sequals [mostly] suck, so what's new

June Daring Baker's Challenge

**Through no thanks to Blogger, and because of a brilliant fellow blogger, I managed to post this. GET OFF YOUR ASS, BLOGGER, AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.

Its the holidays, and my incredibly bored sister made all the pictures into montages, so you guys decide if its good or bad news.



I have no love for squiggy food, and the frangipane layer was as squiggy as squiggy comes, so I really can't say I enjoyed this challenge, though it does look rather pretty.



The June Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Jasmine of Confessions of a Cardamom Addict and Annemarie of Ambrosia and Nectar. They chose a Traditional (UK) Bakewell Tart... er... pudding that was inspired by a rich baking history dating back to the 1800's in England.

Stupid blogger

Something is majorly screwed up with blogger, so that tons of people have been unable to upload images, yours truly included. And since blogger MUST be busy with something more important, such as saving the world from monsters or defeating evil, so much so that no one bothered to respond to the flood of complains, there will be no post until blogger gets off its ass. I am truly sorry, because I have a reservoir of pictures and posts dying to get out =(

Peach Squares

These are awesome. I tried it with blueberries, as per the original recipe, and they worked fantastic. It was so good, 2 weeks later I made them with canned peaches, and they were equally good. Just ignore the steps for preparing the blueberries and substitute with peaches.

Recipe here =)

Checkin' in

I'm back from Borneo in one piece, and I have been baking, just not bloggin about it, so, sorry about that =P I'm enjoying, very much, my standard 'slacking' phase of my holidays, where I spend 70% of my days in bed, sleeping/reading/listening to music. Will update when I get over this phase!

May Daring Baker's Challenge

It would seems that, when it comes to strudels, Singaporeans have been living in an alternate universe. All my life, thanks to Ritz Apple Strudel, I've believed that strudels looked like this:
So imagine my surprise when May rolled around, the challenge was revealed, and everyone in the Daring Baker community [and beyond] told me that strudels actually looked like this:

Bear with me for a little while more, and imagine my disappointment when my own strudel turned out like this:

I find myself to be utterly hopeless at all manner of dough stretching/kneading/tossing, as proven by the bread, pizza, and lastly strudel challenge. I suspect this failure can be attributed to using baking paper instead of cloth, but I didn't have a big enough piece of cloth.

However, I [and my family] was extremely pleased with the filling. I filled the pastry with flambe-ed peach halves in rum and butter, and let me tell you, it was AWESOME, and so quick to whip up. Flambe-ing the peaches were a ton of fun too!

The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers.

FLAMBE PEACH HALVES IN RUM AND BUTTER

Ingredients:

1 can peach halves, well drained.

3 tbsp butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup rum

**There's some debate on whether you can flambe on a non-stick pan, so just to be on the safe side, avoid doing that. I don't have a non-stick pan so I just used the most shallow pot I have. Worked great.

1. Melt butter and add sugar to it. Cooked til dissolved and very bubbly.
2. Add peaches to butter mixture and cooked til peaches take on a brown sheen and smells awesome.
3. Remove from heat [****VERY IMPORTANT! DON'T ADD THE ALCOHOL OVER OPEN FIRE****] and add the rum. Stir well.
4. Place back on fire and ignite either with a long matchstick or one of those stove lighter things.
5. Sit back and enjoy the pyrotechnic. The fire will burn down once all the alcohol is burned off.

Vanilla Poached Pear Crumble

I am leaving with my sister for a 2 week backpacking trip in Borneo this coming Tuesday, and I decided it would be in bad form to leave my readers with my last post. I don't want to be [even more] responsible for spewing forth more anger and violence into an already crazy world. So I decided to leave you with this. Vanilla-y, crumbly, sweet, gooey pear crumble.


I forgot to put sugar into the crust, so I compensated by making a thick syrup out of the cooking juices of the pear and drizzling it over the crumble. Worked very nicely, and I'm keeping the left-overs for making vanilla lattes. However, this didn't turn out exactly as I expected, because despite adding a whole vanilla bean to poach with the pear [scrapped with pods thrown in], the vanilla scent was MINIMAL. I have no idea what went wrong, and if you do, please enlighten me.

Vanilla Poached Pear Crumble

Filling:

3 large pears or whatever approximate you deem fit, peeled, sliced and cored

1 vanilla pod

3 tbs sugar

Crust and Crumble:

One recipe of short-crust pastry, made to the crumbly stage. Rubbed in, water added but not kneaded. [refer here]

Handful of walnuts/almonds/pecans/whatever

2 tbs sugar

1 tbs cinnamon

Syrup:

Cooking juices

1/2 cup sugar

1. Poach pear, sugar, split vanilla beans and pod in just enough water to cover. Until tender.
2. Drain pears and leave open to dry out as much as possible.
3. Take 3/4 of short-crust pastry 'crumbs' and press into a pan/pie dish/whatever. Poke full of holes and bake at 180 degree celcius for 15 minutes or until cooked. You'll smell it when its cooked.
4. Mix remaining 'crumbs' with other ingredients.
5. Arrange pear slices over crust, spread crumble evenly over and bake until browned at 180 degree celcius.
6. To make syrup, simply reduce juice with sugar until desired consistency. I find reducing to be best done in a flat pan like a non-stick pan. Water evaporates so much faster!
7. Dig in! =)