Hanim Cooks!

Taste bud screams orgasm. Mmhmmm. #food (Taken with Instagram)

Ooey gooey cheesy oysters. (Taken with Instagram)

Sukiyaki. (Taken with Instagram)

Kitchen Essentials. 

Yesterday was my man’s big day - he moved into his own place after renting for years. During his renting days, he hardly ever cook and I don’t recall him having purchased kitchen essentials apart from water boiler and oven toaster. I think.

So in commemoration of this momentous history, I decided to prepare a list of kitchen essentials that he might need before he start cooking up a storm in the kitchen.

P.S. Fire extinguisher optional, though highly advisable. 

You can trust her. I can vouch for it. 

goddessofscrumptiousness:

The Makings of a Perfect Brownie:

1) A perfect brownie should be crunchy on top that the surface cracks the minute you sink your teeth into it.

2) The texture should be chewy and moist and fudge-like that the act of chewing every morsel of it is equally pleasurable as that of having a foodgasm.

3) A perfect brownie should never contain any leavening agents such as bicarbonate of soda or baking powder (unless you want a cake-like brownie, then I believe one should just eat cake instead). Any brownie recipe that includes these sacrilegious additions is well, a sacrilege!

4) The proper mixing of all the brownie ingredients is also a factor. If you just mix all the ingredients together and dump everything into a baking pan, the brownie top won’t be as crunchy, unlike when you separate the egg whites from the yolks, beating the whites with sugar just until thick and frothy, much like a runny meringue before mixing with the rest of the ingredients is the secret to a crunchy top… I promise!

5) And lastly, of course a perfect brownie should taste like it is blessed by a Mayan god cacao connoisseur. It should be ooh-ing and screaming chocolate. So use the best quality chocolate bar or cocoa powder.

Crunchy Top Fudge Brownies

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup good quality cocoa powder (I use a German brand cocoa powder -Heintz, you can use a Dutch-processed cocoa powder… means it is alkalized)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs (medium), separated

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups dark chocolate chips

*2 cups whole walnuts (optional)

Procedure: 

Preheat oven to 350’F. Line a 9”x13” rectangle baking pan with baking parchment.

- Melt butter in a medium sauce pan over low heat. When melted, remove from heat and add cocoa powder, mix until smooth.

- Add brown sugar, salt, vanilla, egg yolks and flour. Set Aside.

- Using a hand mixer/wire whisk/stand mixer, beat egg whites until frothy. Then slowly add the granulated sugar until meringue gets into a soft peak stage.

- Fold the meringue mixture into the chocolate mixture. Then mix in the dark chocolate chips and walnuts (optional).

- Pour into prepared baking pan and bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until when toothpick inserted in the center of the brownie comes out with moist crumbs (not wet brownie batter).

- Cool in pan for 15 minutes, then lift from the baking pan and cut into 24 square pieces. Cool cut brownies on wire racks.

- Store in an air tight container. Laid flat and layers separated by parchment paper.

Makes 2 dozens

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(via bakeitlater)

Deviled Eggs.

Easy hors d’oeuvres. No recipe sheet for this (I shall not insult your intelligence). 

1. Hard boil couple of eggs. Let cool before removing the shell. 
2. Using a very sharp knife, slice each egg in half, lengthwise. 
3. Gently remove egg yolk into a bowl; arrange egg white on a plate.
4. Mash egg yolk with mustard, mayonaisse, tobasco, salt and pepper.
5. Spoon egg yolk into the egg white halves.
6. Sprinkle with paprika.

Peach Pastry.

This dessert will be perfect if I had some slithered almonds and icing sugar in my kitchen pantry for decoration. But I think this is good enough.

I finally got around to translate the recipe in my head into writing - only because someone actually asked for it, gasp! Hope I didn’t screw anything up. 

Simple Custard.

I use this simple recipe as a base for my pastry desserts.

One advice - always stir the custard when it’s on heat so it won’t burn. And do not leave it out of your sight no matter how boring it is staring and waiting for it to thickens; it’ll only take roughly 7 minutes anyway. Ok, that’s two advices. 

Who has the time to make puff pastry from scratch, right? A little bit of help goes a long way.

How to make better cheesecake.

Stumbled upon this handy piece of article; thought I share it with you.

Sunday Lunch: L. Table by Lavender Bakery.

Tried a different eating place over the weekend. Didn’t take much photos because I didn’t think I’ll be posting it here. It was a quick lunch so we can move on to do some household shopping. 

I’m no food critic but to put it in short, food was good, staff were polite (I was there on Sunday during peak hours FYI) and nice ambience. Just don’t be deceived by the madness of queues outside because those people are buying fresh pastries on display at the entrance - once you’re inside the restaurant, the environment is surprisingly calm.

There’s smoking area outside too in case you’re wondering.

I recommend you to have a meal there. 

L. Table by Lavender Bakery
G.213 Ground Floor
One Utama Shopping Centre
+603 7728 6933