Cinnamon Roll

Ahhhh....The smell of cinnamon roll is good enough, especially when you're hungry. I'm a lover, and will buy this when I'm in KL. So sad that there's no Cinnabon in JB. So, since I had a huge, massive cravings for it, I decided to be brave and make it by myself. In full determination, I tried. It works!!

This is the result. Baked a tray full, so had to keep them in the freezer. When I wanna munch on them, just need to defrost in microwave and it still taste good! This version, I put a bit of choc, like Cinnabon Choc. Yummy and lovely and I don't have to go to KL anymore just to get over my cravings. Recipe below.

• 1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1/3 cup margarine, melted
• 4 1/2 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast

• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup butter, softened

• 1 (3 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Methods:
1.When you're warming up the milk, mix in the margarine and salt together.
2. Mix flour, sugar and yeast together in a bowl. Put the eggs in and start mixing them together. Slowly pour in the milk mixture. Mix it together with your hand(s). If it too soft and sticky, put in a bit of flour. Adjust accordingly but make sure not too much flour. Knead the dough and cover with damp towel or seal with a plastic wrapper. Leave for an hour to rise.
3. After the dough has doubled in size, punch and knead it again. Cover and let it double in size again.
4. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celcius (400 degrees Farenheit). Once the dough is ready, flour a working area lightly and roll it into a big rectangle, 16x21inch. Mix the brown sugar, cinnamon and butter together. Spread the mixture onto the dough. Roll the dough tightly and cut into 12 rolls. Place inside a greased 9x13 inch baking tin or glass dish (the latter works better) and leave it to rise again. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Beat together cream cheese, butter, sugar, vanilla and salt until creamy. Spread over the rolls before serving.

P/S: If you want to make a choc version, melt 125gm of bittersweet choc and mix it with the spread. If you want less sweet, lessen the brown sugar. The rolls can be made earlier and place them in the fridge until you're ready to bake them. As for the icing, it can be made earlier too and put in individual plastics (like lollipops) and put them in the freezer. Defrost the icing before serving.

Instant Chocolate Mousse

I got the recipe from another place. It's Nigella Lawson's recipe. But it is so nice. Notice the white stuff? It's the whip cream, I put in extra for the taste. Lovely! This recipe doesn't require any eggs or sugar. Cheating, but taste just as lovely as other chocolate mousse.

Ingredients:
150 gram mini marshmallows
50 gram soft butter
250 gram chopped dark chocolate
60 ml hot water from recently boiled kettle
284ml double cream ( since I want creamier mousse, I used 2 boxes of 200ml heavy whip cream)
Vanilla essence as much as you like

Methods:
1. Put marshmallows, butter, chocolate and hot water in a heavy based saucepan. Melt the contents, then cool them for a while.

2. Whip the cream with vanilla until thick. Mix into cooled chocolate mix.

3. Pour into ramekins / glasses / small mugs, refrigerate until ready.

You can dust with cocoa powder before serving. Enjoy!!

Tiramisu

This is my first trial in making tiramisu. Love it! Here's the recipe.

Ingredients A
 1 cup of strong espresso
1 tbs sugar

Dissolve the sugar in the coffee when it's still hot. Let it stand at room temperature.

Ingredients B
2 egg yolks
50 gram sugar
225 gram mascarpone cheese (substitute with cream cheese if you can't find this)
1 cup heavy whip cream - whip until fluffy

1. Beat the egg yolks in a heat proof bowl until fluffy. Beat in sugar. Transfer over a pot of simmering water. Whisk until it thickens. It will thicken just before boiling, when small bubble appears. This is call zabaglione.

2. Mash the cheese until creamy. Add the zabaglione into the cheese. Beat to mix well.

3. Fold the whip cream into zabaglione until smooth. Don't beat.

Ingredients C
Approximately 20 ladyfinger cookies (savoiardi)
If you don't have ladyfinger, use sponge cake, cut into 1 cm thick

Assembling:
1. Dip the ladyfinger lightly into the coffee, one at a time. It will absorb the liquid and become soft very fast, so work fast.
2. Arrange the ladyfinger in a loaf pan, then top with the zabaglione mix. (If you are using sponge cake, lay the sponge cake on the bottom of the loaf pan. Brush the coffee mixture all over the sponge cake).
3. Repeat the steps until you get the cream to top it last. I managed to get 3 layers.
4. Dust the top with cocoa powder. Chill for about 3-4 hours. Then dust with a little bit more cocoa powder before serve.

Serves 2-4 people

Gastronomy fever.........

Salam and hello everyone!!

Well, well, well. It has been a terrific week. I got my full rest (for the rest of the week) and today it's my baking day. I made some grilled salmon with steam veges and served them with lemon sauce. For dessert, I made 4 cups of chocolate mousse. For tea, a pizza and some leftover coffee from tiramisu mix. The tiramisu would be post-dinner dessert. YUM!!

So sorry I couldn't post the salmon pics as they all have been marrying wonderfully in my stomach. Hehehehe.. But I will definitely post the pics and recipes for both tiramisu and chocolate mousse.

Cake..cake..pizza..

Hello all.

I managed to bake 2 cakes and 1 pizza yesterday, as promised. The pizza was a hit that I had to make another 2 today. My choc fudge is wonderful. The cheesecake, well, only half left. Here are some pictures of all three dishes that I made:

 The choc fudge cake

Pizza

 New York Cheesecake

Tonight, we managed to 'demolish' 1 pizza. Another 1 is still in the oven, good for school tomorrow (at least I won't go hungry). The cakes will also be in the lunch box :)

Anyone who would like to order the cakes, you can contact me here.

So much so...

Salam.

So today I woke up quite early. I managed to finish marking all books. Now I'm doing the class's duty roster and timetable. Finally I have the time to make these.

The chocolate fudge cake is still warm in the oven. Tomorrow I'm going to pour the ganache on the cake. And tomorrow I'm going to make the New York Cheesecake, with oreo base. The base is already in the freezer. Can't wait till tomorrow.

Chicken Mayo Japanese Style

Today, I managed to make some chicken mayo. It's simple, easy and delicious. Try it.

Ingredients for 2 persons:
4 boneless chicken fillet - cut into bite size
2-3 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
Togarashi (it's a Japanese pepper/spice, sold in Jusco in orange bottle)
Japanese mayonnaise (Kewpie mayonnaise, also sold in Jusco)
Oil for frying

Methods:
1. Fry the chicken but not until golden brown. Make sure they're still juicy and soft. Place on kitchen towel.
2. Discard the oil. Put the chicken back into the pan/wok on medium heat. You can use another pan/wok or wash the one you're using if you don't want the dish to be too oily.
3. Put in the soy sauce, and mix it well with the chicken. We just want the soy sauce to coat the chicken. Turn off the gas.
4. Mix in Togarashi according to taste. It's not that spicy but rather a very mild heat.
5. Then mix in the mayonnaise. Serve warm with rice.

Note: You can use the regular mayonnaise but it will not taste the same. These products that I've mentioned are only available in Jusco and some Carrefour. Good luck!

Newcomers @ home..

Salam.

It has been quite a day. Woke up late, and with flu, darn! So, I spent the day marking some exercise books and cook some crab stick in popia sheets. Served with Japanese mayonnaise and regular mayonnaise. Lovely snacks during the rain.

Later in the evening, my other half came and we went out to Giant, Tesco and Econsave, trying to find Friskies, 7-Up (for bandung), good cheese (for pizza and cheesecake!), and unexpected newcomers at home. 2 dwarf hamsters. Yes, I have 6 cats at home and now 2 hamsters. Hahahaha...Definitely not going to mix them together. So I went to all these malls to find wood shavings for hamster, the food, and the water bottle. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the water bottle, but I managed to get the other two things at IOI Mall, where today is the last day of rabbit exhibition (they sell these stuffs because rabbit uses the same thing too). Here's the pics of those two lil hamsters:

So, I named them after 2 characters in Mousehunt. The one on the left (white one) is Larry and the other one (black) is Ronza. Larry = he, Ronza = she. Both really love to bite. But once inside our hands, they're so cute!

So my plan for tomorrow are:

1. bake the choc fudge cake.

2. some of the batter from the choc fudge will be used as the base for my lovely new york cheesecake.

3. pizza.

4. chicken mayo - Japanese style

Hungry anyone?