White Chocolate Cupcake

I altered the red velvet cupcake recipe a little and make it into white chocolate cupcake. I reduced the amount of sugar by half a cup since white chocolate contains plenty of sugar. I used about 8 ounces of white chocolate, chopped and melted. Food coloring and cocoa powder were eliminated from the recipe. Bake in the preheated oven at 350 degree F for about 18-20 minutes. I used chocolate ganache and shaved white chocolate for the topping and decorating.

To make chocolate ganache:

9 ounces bitter or semi sweet chocolate bar, chopped

1/3 cup white sugar (if you use bitter sweet and would like it a little sweet)

1 cup heavy cream

Pour the heavy cream into a small sauce pan over a medium heat. When it start simmering, put in sugar and mixed well. Bring it to boiled then pour the liquid into a bowl contains chocolate, whisk until texture is smooth. Let the chocolate ganache cool down a little before topping.

Strawberry Panna Cotta

The first time I had panna cotta was at a Japanese restaurant. Though it is an Italian dessert, the one I had was still so good. It had the right balance of creaminess and sweetness but it was still very light. I looked for recipes online and they are very simple and leave you with a lot of rooms to be creative. I started with using heavy cream but I found it was too creamy so I decided to use half & half. The texture was creamy enough and it was much lighter, the way I preferred.

So here is my take on this delicious panna cotta.

Ingredients:

1 small package of tasteless/colorless gelatin
1/4 cup skim milk
2 cups half & half (substitute with heavy cream for creamier texture)
1/4 cup white sugar

1 tbsp condensed milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 package strawberry jello (optional)

Directions:

1. Make a bowl of strawberry jello and pour about 1-2 tablespoons into each ramekins. Refrigerate until they set.

2. In a small bowl, mix gelatin with skim milk and set aside.

3. Combine half & half with sugar in a small size saucepan over a medium heat and bring it to simmer. Add condensed milk and the gelatin mixture, bring it to boil. Make sure to keep stirring or the liquid might flow over when boiled.

4. Turn off the stove and let the mixture cool down a little before mixing in vanilla extract.

5. Pour the liquid into the prepared ramekins. Make sure that the strawberry jello is set, otherwise the strawberry mixture will get mix with the cream mixture. Refrigerate them over night.

6. Serve with fresh fruits or fruit sauce. I had made some raspberry sauce. They are great together.

I'm going to try making a chocolate one next!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

After watching some Food Network shows on red velvet cupcakes, I decided I'd like to try my hand on it. I've never really had a red velvet cupcake before. Though, I had an alternate version of it, chocolate velvet cupcake, which I enjoyed so much. There are many websites that offer the recipe. Here is a recipe from the foodnetwork.com. I decreased the amount of oil and replaced with some butter. And also increased the amount of cocoa because I love chocolate. Then I topped them with cream cheese frosting, some raspberries and curled white chocolate. They are delicious and pretty!

Chocolate & Vanilla Checkerboard Cookies

I have always wanted to make these cookies. They were one of my favorites when I was young. The recipe is quite simple.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter (2 sticks) soften

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened chocolate

Directions:

1. Melt the unsweetened chocolate on a bowl over a pot with hot water. Set aside to cool.

2. Cream the butter in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar, brown sugar, and baking powder into the bowl, beat to combine.

3. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Slowly adding the flour into the mixing bowl (1/4 cup at a time), mix until combined. If the dough gotten too hard to mix with electric mixing, mix with a wooden spoon instead.

4. Divided the dough into half. Set one dough aside and make a well in the other dough. Pour melted chocolate into the well and knead till combined.

5. Shape both doughs into a log about 8 inches long then wrap them in a plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 2 hours or until firm.

6. Cut each log into quarters with a long sharp knife. First, form the bottom half of the log with a piece of vanilla and a piece of chocolate. Alternate the colors to form the top half of the log. Make sure all the pieces stick together in a log, then wrap tightly and refrigerate for 15-30 minutes.

7. Cut the log into 1/4 inches thick slices. Place on the baking sheets and bake for 8 to 10 minutes in a preheated 375 F oven or until the edges are firm and golden brown.

Pumpkin Roll Cake

To stick with the holidays theme and the need to use up the pumpkin puree, I've decided to bake a pumpkin roll cake.

It's delicious, light and not too hard to make. You can find the recipe here. The recipe is good as is so I did not change anything to it. However, rolling the cake can be quite tricky. I had a few tries and still haven't got it quite right.

Here is how I do it:

1. Once the cake is done set it aside. The cake should not be left to cool longer than 5 minutes before the first rolling. Meanwhile, dusted some powered sugar on a clean towel (I use cotton dish towel but some people uses a pillow case). Make sure to dust the towel throughly, this will prevent the cake from sticking to the towel when you have to roll it out.

2. Use a small knife and ran through the edges of the sheet pan then slowly flipping the cake onto the towel.

3. Peel of the baking sheet that was use on the bottom of the cake. Gently roll up the towel with the cake inside.

4. Put the towel rolled cake on a wire rack and leave it out until completely cool.

5. Gently unroll the cake. This part is usually the hardest part for me because the cake would break when I unroll it. But don't worry if your cake breaks. The cream cheese filling will help holding it up when you roll it back.

6. Spread the cream cheese frosting evenly onto the cake and roll the cake back but this time without the towel.

7. Wrap it in a plastic or aluminum foil wrap and put it in an air-tight container and refrigerate until serve.

Kha-nom Tan (Toddy Palm Cake)

This is one of my favorite Thai desserts. I have never made them before until I got back from my Thailand trip earlier this year and wondered if I could make them myself. This would absolutely help my craving for Thai desserts. I could buy some Thai desserts here in China Town but they don't taste very good compare to what I had in Thailand, and I have never seen Kha-nom Tan sells here.

The main ingredient of Kha-nom Tan is the toddy palm ("Tan" means toddy palm), which is pretty much impossible to find some fresh ones here. But the same with everything else, I looked for my solution online. And immediately I found a site that sell Thai food products. So I bought a bottle of ready to use toddy palm paste.

Ingredients:

1 cup toddy palm paste

2 1/2 cups rice flour

1/2 teaspoon yeast

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup palm sugar

3 cups coconut milk

1 teaspoon salt

some shredded unsweetened coconuts

Directions:

1. Put coconut milk, white sugar, and palm sugar in a pot. Stir them on a medium heat until sugar dissolved and ingredients combined. Turn off the heat and let it cool.

2. Combine rice flour, yeast, and salt together in a medium bowl and pour into the coconut milk mixtures. Add toddy palm paste into the mixtures, stir until smooth.

3. Damp a clean towel and use it to lightly cover the top of the toddy palm mixtures. Leave it out at the room temperature for about 2-4 hours or until the surface of the toddy palm mixtures bubbled.

4. Spoon the mixtures into a small banana leaf cups. Fill it to about 3/4 of the cup. You can also use small ramekins if you cannot find any banana leaves.

5. Put the cups into the steam with already boiling water then cover the lid. Stream it for 15 minutes.

6. Meanwhile, mix the shredded coconuts with a pitch of salt. Sprinkle the toddy palm cake with the shredded coconuts before serving.

Note: You can refrigerate them and warm them in the microwave before serving.

Marshmallow Fondant

As promised, I'm putting up a recipe for making fondant using marshmallows.

Ingredients:

1 package white marshmallows

1 package (2 lbs) powdered sugar shifted

1 table spoon vanilla extract

3 table spoon water

butter/crisco shorting

food coloring and cocoa powder are optional

Directions:

1. Put a package of marshmallows in a heat-safe bowl and microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

2. Add the vanilla extract and water, stir to combined. Put the bowl back into the microwave for another 1-2 minutes. Continue stirring until the marshmallow become smooth and very sticky liquified form. At this stage, you may add some food coloring or cocoa powder to make it into a color you like. However, I like to keep the white color and mix in the coloring before using it.

3. Put a cup of shifted powered sugar into the marshmallow bowl and mix well. Continue putting in a cup of powdered sugar at a time and mix until the marshmallow is starting to become a dough-like form.

4. On a clean countertop, rub the countertop surface with butter or shortening to prevent marshmallow sticking to it. Rub you hand with the butter/shortening as well.

5. Turn the dough onto the countertop and start kneading it with the powered sugar. Knead until the dough is smooth and no longer sticky. Save the remaining of the powered sugar for later use.

6. Grease the dough with butter then wrap it with plastic wrapper and put in an air-tight container. Refrigerate it over night before use.

Halloween Themed Pumpkin and Chocolate Cupcakes

Another sweet Halloween treat that is easy to make and perfect for both adults and kids. It's the half chocolate and half pumpkin cupcakes. This is inspired by the Neapolitan cupcakes, which is half chocolate and half vanilla or white chocolate, but instead I make the other half with pumpkin cupcake recipe. You can find the recipe for pumpkin cupcakes here and chocolate cupcakes click here.

Add chopped walnuts in both batches to give it some crunchy texture and because walnuts are so good for you. The original baking time for both cupcakes are around 20-22 minutes at 350F. However it seems that chocolate cupcakes take additional 6-7 minutes to cooked. Insert a toothpick into both sides make sure both sides are cooked perfectly.

Top them with the cream cheese frosting:

1 (8 oz) package of cream cheese

1/4 cup butter (soften)

2 cups of powdered sugar (shifted)

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream together cream cheese and butter.

Add vanilla extract, then gradually stir in

powdered sugar.

For the final touch, I decorated it with fondant. I made my own fondant with marshmallows. It tastes better than the store-bought ones.

I'll post on how to make a the marshmallow fondant in a separate post.

Chocolate Truffles

Halloween is just around the corner and most people would probably buy those tiny chocolate bars to give to the kids. For those who aim for a little sophisticated adult Halloween party, you probably would want to opt for something a little different, like chocolate truffles.

Truffles are quite expensive if you buy them from stores. They are however, extremely easy to make and you can decorate them to fit your taste buds.

Many truffles recipes use heavy cream and semi-sweet chocolate or bitter sweet chocolate, some may add fruity flavored liqueurs. I usually like to coat them with semi-sweet chocolate or white chocolate then dip into ground walnuts (you can use any type of nuts), coconut shreds, and sprinkle candies. Dipping truffles straight into unsweeten cocoa powder is great also. Here is a great site for a simple truffle recipe.