Buttermilk Waffles

I have to declare - it's a total conincidence that I'm making buttermilk waffles, right after buttermilk pancakes (and there's the corn muffins in between that i've yet to blog about). 

What makes a good waffle? I don't really have the answer to it, and I reckon everyone has differing opinions. My favourite waffle hails from Gelare, even though their ice-cream is nothing to shout about. I would think a good waffle will taste good on its own, without the need of slapping thick slabs of butter and pouring heaps of maple syrup. I could eat Gelare's waffles on its own, it's that good.

Peanut butter, maple syrup, butter - Which one is your favourite topping?

Mixing the wet and dry ingredients together

Thick batter

This recipe gives a very thick batter, thicker than my past 2 tries with making waffles. It tasted better than the previous pandan waffle recipe as well. More fragrant and softer. I'm still looking for the Gelare's waffle recipe though.

Added chocolate chips on a whim to my last batch, and i utterly regret not adding earlier! It gave an awesome sweet taste to it!

Daddy: "Aiyo, supper again." Well, you know you want it.

Buttermilk Waffles (original recipe from here)

Makes about 9 square waffles

• 1 3/4 cup all-purpouse flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (i used 110g salted butter)
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat your waffle maker.
2. Melt butter using microwave oven.
3. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a large bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, butter, and buttermilk.
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry mixture and mix with as few strokes as possible. Rest the batter for 30 minutes.
6. Add your dough to the waffle maker and cook until done. My waffle maker needed about 1/4 cup of dough to fill it properly and each batch took 12 minutes.

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes

It was National Day yesterday, and that translated to a public holiday for all of us. Of course I wouldn't miss this opportunity to bake and I actually managed to make pancakes in the morning for my parents as breakfast before moving on to corn muffins ala Kenny Roger's style. I'm amazed by how I managed to wrap up my operations by 10am.

Pancakes for breakfast!

I tried out a new recipe for the pancakes, after reading how it was touted as "restaurant-quality pancakes". And boy was I surprised! My pancakes turned out real fluffy, and it really tasted like the pancakes outside! I tried to buy buttermilk but it was out of stock at the one and only location I knew was selling buttermilk. Lucky for me, google saved the world and I realized I could substitute one cup of buttermilk with 1/4 milk and 3/4 of plain yogurt. Nobody could guess yogurt went into the pancakes!

Before it went to the skillet.

Using happycall!

Final product! 

I'm very pleased by this recipe, so much i'm going to throw away all the other (nonsense) recipes!

Fluffy Buttermilk Pancakes (modified slightly, original recipe from 8 Days)

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour

2 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup milk + 3/4 cup yogurt (original recipe calls for 1 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk)

2 large eggs

2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

Method:

1) Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a mixing bowl.

2) In a separate bowl, blend the buttermilk, eggs and melted butter.

3) Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the buttermilk mixture into it.

4) Stir by hand, just until the batter is evenly moistened. Don't fret if your batter is a little lumpy.

5) Drop the batter onto the skillet and turn when it's browned.

White Lotus Snowskin Mooncakes

It's been quite some time since I paid this web space a visit, but that's because I've been busy with work (okay, not really), performing my duty as a gf (definitely), and baking! It's almost as if I've been bitten by a baking/cooking bug; I just can't stop making food. Which I suppose nobody is complaining, except that everyone's puzzled by my sudden obsession with this new found hobby.

In any case, I've decided to merry in the Mooncake Festival way too early this year, which started off with me browsing catalogues of mooncakes discounts in renowned hotels. One thing led to another, and I found myself surfing the web for mooncakes recipes. And then the rest is history, with me lugging home two bags full of ingredients and choosing an auspicious night to begin my journey.

"It tasted surprisingly like mooncakes sold in bakeries!"

Yes, that's the most common response I got from people who tried the mooncakes. Well, I take that as a compliment!

I wanted to halve the recipe, because my family members are actually on a low-sugar diet (but nobody can tell, at the frequency i'm baking) and I don't think we can actually polish off 40 mooncakes (!), whether or not with external help. But being the usual scatterbrained me, I remembered to halve the weight of the flour, but forgot about the shortening. It was only when I started to knead in the shortening into the flour that I sensed something was wrong - it was too lumpy! With the damage done, all I could do was to pour the remaining flour into the mixing bowl and prep myself on a long arduous journey.

I chose red food colouring, to make girly mooncakes!

It was indeed nothing but hard work. I actually got bored (read: very bored) at rolling the never ending dough meant to make 40 mini mooncakes, and not forgetting the thick and semi-oily white lotus paste as well! The worse thing was that I can't tell if they are successful - it's best served chilled for a few hours. 

20g of dough

30g of lotus paste with melon seeds

That neglected ugly duckling was my first product!

And that marked the end of my first attempt at making snowskin mooncakes! Well, the challenge of making snowskin mooncakes definitely comes from the wrapping of the skin around the much heavier and bigger filling. Nevertheless, the end product was a success! It was a tad hard when i first took it out from the fridge, but after letting it sit for awhile at room temperature, the snowskin mooncake became soft, and indeed, it tastes like snowskin mooncakes! Now my bf is interested to make durian snowskin mooncakes!

White Lotus Snowskin Mooncake Recipe (original recipe from here)

Snow Skin Mooncake Recipe
(this recipe makes 40 mini Snow Skin Mooncakes)

For Snow Skin Dough
500g REDMAN Snow Skin Pre-Mix
200ml iced water
100g shortening
1 1/2 tsp banana essence
A few drops of food colouring (into the water, stop at a desirable colour)

For Mooncake paste
1kg White Lotus paste/Lotus paste/Green tea lotus paste
50g melon seeds, lightly toasted (optional)

Directions
1. Pour in the Snow Skin Pre-Mix into a large mixing bowl. Knead in shortening till an even mixture is formed and there are no more lumps.
2. Add in essence and colouring into the water but you may not need to use up all the water. Stop when you get nice soft dough.
3. Cover the mixing bowl with a wet cloth, making sure it does not touch the dough. Leave the dough aside to rest for 30-45 minutes in a cool, dry place, or place it in the fridge.
4. Toast the melon seeds for 10 mins at 180 degree C.
5. Fill the mould with the dough and knock it out. Weigh the amount of dough. For mine, it's 50g. Since the so called golden ratio of snowskin to filling is 2:3, divide the white lotus into portions of about 30g each. Knead each portion a little to form a ball.
6. Divide the rested dough into portions of about 20g each. Knead each portion a little to form a ball.
7. Flatten a snow skin dough on your palm to be a 2-inch circle. Place a ball of paste in the middle and slowly wrap it up using the snow skin dough to form a mooncake ball.
8. Lightly cover the mooncake ball with glutinous rice flour, before pushing it into the mould, making sure that the edges are pressed evenly into the mould.
9. Knock out the shaped mooncake from the mould by lightly knocking in all directions with one hand and using the other hand to catch the dislodged mooncake.
10. Immediately chill the mooncakes in an airtight container.

Baked Mini Donuts

Mini Donuts!

Right after I realized that one of the interchangeable plates of the Morries 3-in-1 Sandwich Maker is a donut plate, I wasted no time in researching for a donut recipe that does not require any frying nor yeast. And I found it. One that requires the most basic ingredients together with simplest steps, so easy that I decided to embark on the baking process again after a late weekday night. 

8 mini donuts at one go!

My first batch of donuts came out just nice, despite not knowing how much batter to pour as well as the time required to bake till done. Ironically, my 2nd batch were not as good, as it consisted of small puny donuts (yes, even smaller than what's it's supposed to be!) instead. After a few more batches, I concluded that 1 tbsp of batter is enought for each donut hole and it took around 8 minutes to bake till golden brown. There's a problem though - the undersides turned brown much faster than the top layer, which I suspect it was because the batter did not rise enough to meet the upper plate, hence not browning fast enough. I will need to find a way to get around this.

Rolled in castor sugar

Gone in a jiffy!

I would say these non-fry donuts tasted more like pancakes than the usual deep fried donuts we eat at bakeries. In fact, they tasted like the baked donuts being sold at Sapporo Petit Doughnut located Takashimaya, a shop selling mini baked donuts with different fillings. 

These baked donuts go well with castor sugar, or with different jams. I tried it with peanut butter, and it tasted awesome!

Baked Mini Donuts 

(from http://auntyyochana.blogspot.sg/2007/01/mini-doughnut.html)

Ingredients:

75 gm. Plain flour
50 gm. sugar
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
75 ml. fresh milk
1 large egg
30 gm. or 2 tbsp. melted butter or vegetable oil50 gm. caster sugar for coating

Method:

Preheat doughnut maker for 5 mins.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl.

Add the milk, egg and oil and stir till well mixed and smooth.

Fill each hole with 1 tbsp of batter

Close the lid and lock the latch.

Bake for 8 mins or till golden brown

Remove cooked donuts and toss in the caster sugar.

Serve.

Betty Crocker Pancake Premix Waffles

Ever since I bought the Morries 3-in-1 Sandwich Maker, it was constantly on my mind, like a present I can't wait to unwrap. So even though I was out late on a Monday night and only reached home at 9pm, I decided that it's time to start experimenting with my new toy!

Lucky for me I had some Betty Crocker Pancake Premix leftover at home, hence allowing an even shorter preparation time since the instructions at the back of the box indicated for me to beat 1 egg, 2 tbp of vegetable oil and water into 2 cups of premix so as to get the waffle batter. The wonders of convenience food! But I definitely won't stop at this. Recipes for pandan waffles are already bookmarked, lined up in my 'To Bake List'.

What made me chose this over the other waffle machines is definitely the interchangeable plates! 

Still trying to get the hang of using the machine. 

While the preparation of ingredients was done in a moment, waiting for the machine to be heated up and ready for the first pour of batter took me ages. I believed I waited for at least 20 minutes before both the red light actually went off, a signal that it was ready. My first batch of waffles was done rather nicely, no overflowing or holes (the above was my 2nd batch), but I threw them away as they were the first bake on my brand new plates. For my 2nd batch however, I poured a tad too much batter, and the machine started hissing with steam and droplets of batter could be seen seeping through the sides of the machine. My dad, who was hovering around me like a curious hawk, thought it was the kettle calling.

With icing sugar and blueberries

Cooking time took 7 minutes

A slightly crisp version, which took me 9 minutes

The whole process took me around 2 hours to finish making around 8 waffles in 4 batches. I'm still trying to find out the different timings required for different version of waffles (crisp versus soft and fluffy) and also the right amount of batter so as to make a pretty (& hole-less!) waffle. As for the taste, it was fragrant with the right tinge of buttery smell and goes well with butter and maple syrup. However, my satisfaction falls short as i did not start from scratch. Pandan waffles and belgian waffles up next!

It's best to eat these waffles hot from the machine, as refrigerating them overnight and heating them up in the morning certainly did not taste as nice. 

The Epicurean Journey Begins

It's been quite awhile since I've last blogged. My relationship with blogging goes a long way back; I first began blogging back in secondary school, the pubescent stage where everyone around me were blogging about their various little troubles. I continued blogging all the way to university, before I stopped totally with the start of another milestone in my life - joining the rat race. Recently, my boyfriend and I touched on the topic of blogging randomly, and I began to revisit my old blogs, bringing back waves of nostalgia at the same time. That was when I realised how glad I was to have recorded all these memories. As i browsed through posts over posts, I saw myself changed over the years. I could go on and on, but that's not the purpose of my post today.

I've decided to start a food diary simply because I've been eating a tad too much recently, and taking a tad too many photos of food that deserve a better place for display rather than sitting neglected amidst the many other photos in the memory card. I also got struck by the baking bug rcently, even though I've always loved baking since my first baked brownies back in secondary scool, but I've stopped for quite a long time since I've started working.

This weekend has been once fruitful one, in terms of my personal production line.

After seeing my grandmother, aunts and cousins buying Happycall one by one, my mum couldn't resist buying.

My mum bought a HappyCall recently, jumping onto the bandwagon of HappyCall users. Except that she did not make any attempt to cook anything in it after buying it for 1 month. Finally I couldn't resist it and decided that I shall be the first honourable user last weekend and made pancakes with it. It was quite a success, since I've always gotten uneven golden brown pancakes using a normal non-stick pan. But with Happycall, I've managed to create nice golden brown pancakes.

Pancakes with apricots and cherries on a Saturday morning for breakfast!

Back to this weekend. I started Saturday morning with a grocery shopping before rushing home to cook mee jian kueh with peanut filling using Happycall!

 

The recipe cautioned that the batter may be too much to cook all at once, so I took  note to pour only half of the batter so as to prevent making too thick a mee chiam kueh.

I prefer fluffy kind though. I think I cooked it for too long that it became slightly crispy.

With grounded peanut + castor sugar. I only eat peanut filled mee jian kueh.

Mee Jian Kueh!

I would say my heart still belongs to the fluffy thick kind of mee jian kueh as compared to this version. I also find that the kueh was not fragrant enough. Then again, I'm comparing this to the ones i often eat at Pancake King, conveniently located opposite my office. Nevertheless, my testers gave the thumbs up for this! =D

I was not kidding when I said it was a fruitful production this weekend, as I moved on to cooking bacon-wrapped enoki mushroom for lunch!

Really easy to prepare!

The recipe did not call for any marinating, but perhaps I've bought the wrong 'bacon'. I bought pork belly, thinking it's bacon! In the end my dad insisted that I add some teriyaki sauce.

Done!

On Sunday night, I decided to make some fruit crepes for dessert after dinner!

I cheated and used a Crepe premix which required adding of water, eggs and butter.

With my crepe machine!

Fruit toppings!

Sometimes I think food itself is an art.

Again, I've made these crepes to be the crispy kind, simply because my crepe machine somehow doesn't seem to allow a softer version. The crepe itself does not have much taste as well, all we tasted was the chocolate sauce and maple syrup, other than the fruits overload.

I bought a new toy to join my crepe making machine - Morries 3 in 1 toaster machine! It has interchangeable plates between sandwich, WAFFLES and doughnuts! I can't wait to try it!