Pleased as PIE.

A boy doesn't have to go to war to be a hero; he can say he doesn't like pie when he sees there isn't enough to go around.
Edgar Watson Howe

There's something special about pulling a pie out of the oven.

Nothing can make you feel more deliciously competent and Domestic Goddess-y (or God-y) than pulling a well done pie out of the oven. And the beauty of this is that they're actually quite easy to make.There's not enough work involved for you to scream "AH, F*** IT!", but there's enough so you feel like you've accomplished something worthwhile.
I made this double crust apple pie a few days ago for my mum. Quite frankly, I don't really like apple pie, but my mum ADORES it. It reminds her of when she was studying nursing in England. She eats it the same way she used to all those years ago; a big wodge smothered in Birds custard. Before this, I've made little apple crumble pie-lets, but keeping in the spirit of 2010 I thought it was about time I attempted a double crust pie.

Not to say I was ever scared of making one.
Just...a little wary.

Ok, ok.... I used to be scared stiff.

I mean, you pour a WET fruit filling over a UNBAKED dough and you cover the whole lot with some more UNBAKED dough. Doesn't that just scream soggy and undercooked for you? Not to mention my demon oven (which I love to bits, no doubt) has a nasty habit of burning things.

Now, this is NOT me.I can already hear you thinking "a craftsman shouldn't blame his tools for shoddy work"
But this is NOT my fault.
Seriously.
I've timed things to the very second.
I've shifted the oven racks around to make sure the pan isn't too close to the baking coil.
I've CONSIDERABLY lower the temperature in any recipe I attempt.
My *darling* oven still burns things.
It's because of this 'tendency' that I often can't honestly give timing and temperature values in my recipes. My oven forces me to perform jazz-like improvisations on oven temperatures and timings every time I bake something, be it cake or bread. Often, I've only been able to get away with things because it only burns the top (so I can easily slice off the top and hide it under something.)
But this is different.
A pie needs to be just done top AND bottom.
But what was I to do? It was one of my New Year resolutions to make a double crusted pie, so either way I would at least have to make an attempt. I used Better homes and Gardens Oil pastry and winged the filling on my own. I must say, everything was going fine up till the baking part. I immediately got nervous as to my oven's little arsonistic habit. Not to mention, I'd run out of aluminum foil to cover the top with for the first 10 minutes of baking. So, as usual, I improvised.
~I baked it for 10 minutes with the heat only on the bottom at 220'C.
~Turned the heat down to 170'C and baked for 30 minutes with the heat on top and bottom.
~Bake for another 10 minutes at 170'C with heat only on bottom.

Sure it was a 'little fiddly', but the pie turned out FANTASTIC. Don't be scared away by the oven timing. I'll list the baking time and temperature according to the original recipe because I'm sure that your oven isn't as menopousal as mine. And really, it's a very satisfiying experience. And boys love girls who make them pie. ;-) (same concept applies the other way round of course)




Double-Crust Apple Pie (makes one 9 inch pie)

Oil Pastry
~2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
~ 1/4 tsp salt
~1/2 cup cooking oil
~1/3 cup cold milk.

Filling
~ 1/2 cup loosely packed brown sugar.
~ Juice of 1/2 an orange
~ 1 1/2 tsp allspice
~ pinch of salt
~ 1 tbsp flour
~ 4 cups worth of thinly sliced apples*
~ 1 cup raisins.

~9 inch pie plate

*I used 2 granny smiths and 2 gala apples. Not traditional, but you work with whatcha got.

The pastry is REALLY EASY.
All you have to do is measure out the flour and salt into a large bowl. Then, get your measuring cup, and measure out the oil FIRST. That way, you can measure out the milk in the same cup. Don't mix the liquids together, just pour it all into the bowl with the flour and salt. Mix with your hands, but don't overwork the mixture. When everything is combined, divide the dough into 2 balls, one slightly smaller that the other (that'll be the top of the pie) and put into the fridge to relax while you get on with the filling.

In a smaller bowl, mix everything except the fruit together until well combined. Toss the fruits into the mixture until completely smothered in the spiced liquid. I used jumbo raisins, so i had to chop them up a little, but the regular sized ones will be ok whole.

Preheat your oven to 220'C

Take the bigger ball of dough from the fridge and roll out into a circle slightly larger than the pie plate. The dough is quite soft, so your going to want to roll it out between two sheets of baking paper or plastic. take off the top sheet of paper or plastic and loosely drape the dough over the rolling pin. Unroll the pastry over your pie plate (the side with the other sheet of paper/plastic should be facing up). Remove the paper/plastic and ease the pastry into the pie plate. Cut away the excess. DON'T PRICK THE BOTTOM.

Pour the filling into the pie shell and smooth it out. Repeat the rolling out process with the secound ball of dough and drape that on top of the filling.Cut off the excess and seal the pastry around the edge of the pie, crimping as desired. Cut 8 slits in the top pastry to allow steam to escape.

Cover the edge of the pie with aluminium foil and bake for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, turn temperature down to 175'C and remove foil. Bake for another 30-35 minutes.
Cool on wire rack for an hour, then cut and serve. Mum likes hers with custard, and I like it with fresh cream.

:-)

Daring Bakers Challenge #1

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned joining this community and, well.... I'll just let the pros explain what I've gotten myself into.

As taken from the Daring Kitchen website:

In November 2006, Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice decided to challenge themselves to bake pretzels for the very first time using the same recipe. They each went ahead and posted about it on November 18, 2006.

Having enjoyed that experience tremendously, they decided to try it again the next month, this time choosing to bake biscotti. And to make matters even better, they were joined by a few more food bloggers.

As the months went by, their baking group continued to grow, until it was finally decided that this "little baking group" had to have a name and The Daring Bakers were born!

Today, The Daring Bakers span the world as bakers of all nationalities come together once a month to try something new in the kitchen!

Alright, the official reveal date was actually supposed to be on the 27th of December, but I've been away in India for the past 2 weeks ( a little scary, but fun all the same). Oh well, better late than never right? ;-)

When I first found out about my challenge I was ECSTATIC. I was hoping 'the powers that be' would make us do a gingerbread house since I've always wanted to make one but never found the guts to do it. I really wanted to start immediately, but the challenge was released during SPM, and I don't think the parents would have been too happy with their baby girl building houses out of cookies when she should be cramming for chemistry and physics. So I waited. Impatiently. Newbie that i was, I had big plans to make a grand ol' traditional Malay kampung house complete with window carvings, balcony and STILTS. Yep, you read right. I wanted this baby to be supported by STILTS. In case you've never seen one of these before, youcan see a few here

So, I did my reasearch (maybe I did it during SPM, maybe not) and realized that all the houses I saw had one thing in common. They were all FIRMLY attached to the board. Not a stilt in sight. I was to be the pioneer on making gingerbread houses on stilts. Consultations with other DB members occured (these people are fantastic by the way) and my excitement grew. I started drawing rough sketches (maybe or maybe not on my Chemistry paper) and thinking of support systems (maybe or maybe not during my Physics paper). I figured that could support the bottom with a gingerbread structure and make the stilts out of Rice Krispee treats. All systems were GO and i couldn't see any problems that could possibly arise. I was ready to start building as soon as my last paper ended.

And end it did. But plain and simple, I procrastinated.

Prom was the following week and my India trip 2 days after that. The house was to be given to a lovely friend of mine who was having a Christmas party that I wouldn't be able to attend due to the trip. After my last paper, I hate to say it, but I got LAZY. I was going out, reading books, hardly spending any time in the kitchen. Before I knew it, it was 3 days till the house had to be presented. Despite this, i still tried to forge on wih my original kampung house idea. How hard could it be?

Right?

WRONG.

Eventhough I simplified my design, I still had trouble. My pieces kept shrinking during baking. then again, everyone in the DB forums seemed to be complaining about how their pieces shrank. A LOT. I'm not quite sure what i did wrong, but I'm guessing i worked the dough too much (dough these days.... You can't work em' too much or they shrink on you and bake hard and funny. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting healthcare benefits and paid leave).

My walls also kept breaking. Well, ok not just the walls. The roofs broke too. Infact, they all broke soo many times that I had to keep remaking new walls. If I'm not wrong, I think only one wall from the original batch made it to the complte house. The rest of the pieces (Broken and crumbling) were fed to my very grateful dogs.Eventually, I had 4 passable walls and to somewhat solid roof pieces that could be used. By now, it was evidet that I wouldn't have time to carry out my Grand Kampung house, so i setteled on making a traditional 4 walled strucure instead. Darling brother went out and bought me M&Ms to use as decor. I made a batch of royal icing, and proceeded to build my house.

Boy was THAT a doozy.

The walls kept falling over, regardless of how much royal icing I piped to hold it together and how many glasses I used to support it while it dried. By the time it was ready for the roofs to go on, it was 11 p.m. the night before delivery (Coincidently also the night before prom). Oh, and for all you prospective Gingerbread architects out there, word from the wise.

DON'T throw away your templates.

You might need to make more walls, and if your new walls don't match up, it's gonna be hard putting your roof on. Whenever I tried, the roof would push the walls apart and the whole structure would collapse in on itself. A couple of stressful hours later though, my house looked....passable.

Ok, so it's not my best effort, far from it even. I feel a little guilty actually, seeing as this is my first challenge and all. But I did the best I could given my time constraints. At any rate, Su (my friend) seemed to like it, and at the end of the day, it was gonna be eaten right? ;-D

I used Y's Scandinavean gingerbread recipe:

Scandinavian Gingerbread (Pepparkakstuga)
from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas http://astore.amazon.com/thedarkit-20/detail/0816634963

1 cup butter, room temperature [226g]
1 cup brown sugar, well packed [220g]
2 tablespoons cinnamon
4 teaspoons ground ginger
3 teaspoons ground cloves
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ cup boiling water
5 cups all-purpose flour [875g]

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until blended. Add the cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Mix the baking soda with the boiling water and add to the dough along with the flour. Mix to make a stiff dough. If necessary add more water, a tablespoon at a time. Chill 2 hours or overnight.

2. Cut patterns for the house, making patterns for the roof, front walls, gabled walls, chimney and door out of cardboard.

3. Roll the dough out on a large, ungreased baking sheet and place the patterns on the dough. Mark off the various pieces with a knife, but leave the pieces in place.

4. [I rolled out the dough on a floured bench, roughly 1/8 inch thick (which allows for fact that the dough puffs a little when baked), cut required shapes and transferred these to the baking sheet. Any scraps I saved and rerolled at the end.]

5. Preheat the oven to 375'F (190'C). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until the cookie dough feels firm. After baking, again place the pattern on top of the gingerbread and trim the shapes, cutting the edges with a straight-edged knife. Leave to cool on the baking sheet.

I decreased the cloves to 2 teaspoons and the flour to 625g, as suggested by some fellow DBs. I rolled the leftover dough out nice and thin and baked it. That tasted really good, kinda like the spice biscuits we used to get from IKEA.

And thus ended my first challenge.This is something I'm gonna be making into a annual tradition for sure. I wonder what my next challenge is going to be?

Oh, and by the way:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Je t'adore

The sizing is a little off, it's not quite even yet and there's too much filling.
But right now,
I'm DEFINITELY in love.
<3

Big Bad Wolf Books

~

I love these people. I want to MARRY whoever it is who thought of this FANTASTIC idea. I don't know how they manage to sell HARD COVER books, BRAND SPANKIN' NEW to boot for RM8. It's sureal. It's incredible. It's...just.....WOW. I never liked the Big Bad Wolf as a kid (that bloody flea infested fur bag scared the SH** out of me I tell you. I grew up thinking he'd make a LOVELY fur coat one day) but I sure as HELL love him now.
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So since Saturday, Ampcorp has been FLOODED with people coming to buy books. I'm so serious, it's being held in the old cinema and there are people walking around with HUGE cardboard boxes just josteling one another and collecting books. It's so magical... there are books EVERYWHERE! On the floor, on tables, on racks, in little nooks and crannies, like something out of the pagemaster. And the best part is, all the people there GET IT. You know what I mean? It's like, they don't look at you like your some kind of freakish nerd whose head is going to pop off and start rotating if you walk up to the counter with welts on your arms from carrying books. Chances are, they'll recommend a few more to you!! And when you're walking around the mall with your very own Big bad Wolf bag, and another Big Bad Wolf bag carrier sees you, they give you this secret little smile. Like the both of you know something the rest of the world doesn't. It's so totally RADICAL!!!


Ok, so i went a little crazy..... but 26 books isn't really that much is it? Ok, so thats alot of books, BUT THEY WERE CHEAP!! It's not like I bought stupid stuff like...socks or something. I went nuts buying books!! Ahhhhhh...they're so beautiful. I love just staring at the unread pile.

















I bought :
~Simple Essentials, Chocolate (Donna Hay)
~2x Waitrose Food Illustrated
~Foreign Body (Robin Cooke)
~World Without End (Ken Follet)
~Inkheart (Cornelia Funke)
~Inkspell (Cornelia Funke)
~Inkdeath (Cornelia Funke)
~Vanity Drive (Yvonne Lee)
~Belly Dancing for Beginners (Liz Byrski)
~Breathing is Colour (Clare Jay)
~The Greedy Bastard Diary (Eric Idle)
~The Jamie Oliver Effect (Gilly Smith)
~Hook, Line and Homicide (Mark Richard Zubro)
~The Promise Land (David Hewson)
~Endgame (Andy Secombe)
~The Enchantress of Florence (Salman Rushdie)
~Hidden epths (Ann Cleeves)
~The Black Book of Secrets (F.E. Higgins)
~The Time Travellers Wife (Audrey Niffeneger)
~WAS (Geoff Ryman)
~Embryo Culture (Beth Kohl)
~Talking with My Mouth Full (Bonny Wolf)
~The Bones of Makaidos (Bryan Davis)
~Cast Not the Day (Paul Waters)

Not Pictured (they were for presents)
~Princess Diaries (Meg Cabot)
~Jane Blonde (Lord knows who)

My friends part 1 (The stephie)

One day, I was asked by a friend, 'If I was a cupcake, what would i be?' It got me thinking, this question. And so, I've decided to come up with a series of desserts (I'd love to do all cupcakes, but unfortunately, I'm not that creative. ^.^) inspired by my friends. And to kick off, I begin with 'The Stephie'.





So...Let me introduce you to Stephanie Boey, Assunta's resident Marilyn Monroe. A firm believer of partying hard, looking good and not letting people know how smart you really are, don't wanna fighten anyone off do we? A sarcastically witty street walker, she'll 'break your face' if you piss her off. The spunky lass may be Phillipino Chinese by birth, but anyone in the know knows that she's pure, passionate Indian. I've known Stephie for a really long time, about 6 years now I think. She's the kind of person you'd want with you if you got mugged in a dark alley. In exchange for 'protection', I ply her with baked goods. ;-)

Ladies and Gentlemen it's my pleasure to present,

THE RED VELVET BOEY

The epitome of a Stephanie.
Moist chocolate cake, dyed a deep maroon topped of with a good wallop of cream cheese icing ( One of her vices CHEESE ) and a pair of gumpaste lips.
I chose this cupcake for Steph based on a number of reasons.
Let's take a look at Marilyn Monroe, THE sex symbol of her time. A curvy, gorgeous young woman who played a starring role in every man's (married or single) fantasy. Marilyn was always given the 'dumb blonde' roles, but, atleast I think, she was a really sharp woman. She knew how to get what she wanted, and she played the game just right.
Same concepts apply to Stephie.

She KNOWS things this little minx. Her street smarts and wit are bound to take her far. She'll wheedle her way to get what she wants, and nobody will have even noticed she wheedled. A loyal friend to have who'll make you laugh and will willingly beat up anyone who even attempts hurting you.
If you're wondering about the lips, check out her blog here
So Steph,
here's to you.

*If you're interested in the recipe, please check back soon. I've lost mine (BAD FOOD BLOGGER!! BAD, BAD FOOD BLOGGER!) But I WILL find it and post it up. *determined*

It won't be long now......

2 days down...... I don't even wanna know how many more till freedom.

By the way, this post is dedicated to a special friend of mine Wen 'Penguin' Yuin, who told me in school today that my blog was dead. ;-) Anyways, SPM has been really sapping me dry, and quite frankly, I can't wait for it all to be over. In the meantime however, I still have to slog at subjects I can't say I really like*coughmoralcough*. But I'm allowing myself a bit of blogging time today, so here's a recipe that I used a while ago and have been meaning to share.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

~200 g semi sweet chocolate
~2/3 cups sugar
~6 eggs
~100 g butter, softened
~pinch of salt
~1/2 cup cream, whipped to stiff peaks.

1) melt chocolate over a bow of simmering water and let cool.
2) beat together butter and sugar and salt till light and fluffy.
3)beat in eggs one at a time, the mixture should thicken by the time all the eggs are beaten in.
4)GENTLY fold in the whipped cream.
5) pour into an 8-inch round cake pan, that has been buttered and lined or floured. Cover this with a sheet of aluminium foil 6) put the set up into another bigger pan that will still fit in your oven. 7)carry the lot and place in a 160'C oven. 8) pour hot water into the 2nd pan till it fills up halfway.
9) bake for 1-1 1/2 hours.
10) when you take it out, the middle of the cake will be a wee bit jiggly, don't worry about that. Take the cake pan (the one with the cake in it) out and wipe the bottom dry. Let it cool on a wire rack.
11) chill for 3hours-overnight.
12) Turn out onto serving plate, and go straight to heaven. :-D

I know the purple part seems a bit fiddly, but don't worry, it's actually REALLY simple. You're basically just putting your cake pan, into ANOTHER cake pan filled with water. This helps everything cook evenly. And OH MY CUPCAKE is it worth it.

I took one bite out of this baby and I...oh.....I mean I......aaaahhh......I actually......oh yeeeesss..... I.....nearly......GOD....

Let's just say I had to have a moment alone after the first bite. ;-)
Happy baking!

So sorry...

Ok, this isn't an update, atleast not a proper one. Just wanted to let you all know that SPM will be over and done with soon, so I'll be back uploading recipes, just like old times ;-)
*chanting*
*Dec8thDec8thDec8th*
Also, I've just joined 'The Daring Kitchen'
http://thedaringkitchen.com/
and am waiting approval. Basically, it's a group of people all over the world who come together via the internet and bake/cook (depending if you're a 'daring baker' or a 'daring cook') using a particular recipe.
I'M SOOOO EXCITED!!
I think I'll be approved in December, so I bet it'll be Christmas themed!!
CAN'T WAIT!