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! =)

Scroll down if you came here for cheesecake and baked goods.

How nice. That time of the semester again when I feel like murdering everyone in sight, especially those on my 'list'. That professor who never did return my grade. That other professor who set an exam paper completely differently from what she told us would come out. The noisy morons who think the library is their own personal cafe. Random assortment of other morons and idiots. Wait a minute, there's no list afterall, all who annoys me qualifies. Can't WAIT for next semester.

April Daring Baker's Challenge

Today's your lucky day, dear readers, because I have 3 more papers snapping at my ass, and not enough time, so you get to see many delicious photos without having to sieve through [much of] my ramblings and rants.

I kept it simple, as my body demanded no nonsense delivery of fats and chocolate to my fried brain cells.

There's a walnut-digestive base, which is simply out-of-this-world, REALLY.

A vanilla cheesecake layer, which is really great, even if I didn't use to be a cheesecake fan.

And finally, the piece de resistance, a layer of caramel dark chocolate ganache. Can I say YUM?!

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.

Thank you, Jenny! This is truly an outstanding recipe and challenge, which bowled over even a non-cheesecake lover!

Also, folks, I've got no time to type out the recipe, so please get it at Jenny's site. Trust me, if you want a cheesecake recipe, this is IT.

Waffles!

I love waffles, and my earliest memories of waffles were those from A&W. Till today, my mom still insists that no other taste better than A&W's, but since the chain no longer operates in Singapore, there's nothing to compare to.

I dislike eating waffles outside, because they almost never taste good. They are either soggy, or taste of baking powder, or too sweet, or just not good, not crisp on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

My own attempts to make waffles have also frequently ended in disaster, but those days are over, because I found a great waffle recipe!

A few tips about waffle-making:

• Pay close attention to the amount of steam coming out of your waffle maker to determine when to remove the waffle. Right at the beginning of the cooking time, loads of steam will be emited. When the steam slows down to a gentle stream, that's when to remove the waffle. It also depends on how brown you like your waffles to be
• Mix with a whisk. Actually, this applies to all things. Whisks mix really well!
• Don't fill the waffle maker to the edges. Drop the batter in the middle, close immediately and tip the waffle maker to spread the batter around instead.
• If you want to try other recipes, always use one where the egg whites are beaten and folded in separately. It's just not the same without =)

My mom made a banana chutney to go with these waffles, but I think they are sooo good, its great to eat just with honey/syrup and butter/margarine!

Also, leftovers make such a great snack [toasted, with some chocolate chips thrown on, a drizzle of honey...], so don't worry if you can't finish one batch!

Recipe from Mr. Breakfast =D

BEST WAFFLE EVER

1 and 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 beaten egg yolks
1 and 3/4 cups milk
1/2 cup vegtable oil

3 egg white, beaten stiffly

1. Mix all the dry ingredients, set aside
2. Combine all the wet ingredients, except for the egg whites. Add vanilla extract if you want, I think it makes the waffle so much better =)
3. Combine dry and wet ingredients. Beat away, no need to be gentle
4. GENTLY fold in the egg whites.
5. Cook in the waffle maker. Done!