Thursday, February 15, 2018
Lunar New Year!
No cooking happening this weekend, but there will be lots of food. For now, please enjoy a picture from Sir Christmas!
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
Baking Challenge 2: Brownies from Scratch
Hello friends!
Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a gift for you all!
For Valentine's Day, I decided to try making brownies from scratch! I found a great recipe on the King Arthur Flour Facebook page and also a guide to choosing the right kind of cocoa.
I really love reading their posts. They are incredibly informative and I have not been disappointed by any of their recipes yet!
Anyway, here is the original recipe I followed and the ABCs of cocoa post.
King Arthur Flour Brownie Recipe
King Arthur Flour's ABCs of Cocoa
Basically, I learned that depending on if the recipe calls for baking soda or baking powder, determines if we should use Dutch-processed cocoa powder or natural cocoa powder. It has everything to do with neutralizing the soapy taste that can result in baking with baking soda! Since the brownie recipe I used for this uses baking powder and not baking soda, I didn't need to be concerned about neutralizing the soapy flavor, so Dutch-processed cocoa is used.
Ok, so lets see how I did!
The first step was to grease a 9x13 pan. I, of course, neglected to remember getting some cooking spray (like Pam), so I did the next best thing. Here's a Kitchen Tip!
When you're like me and consistently forget the cooking spray, butter and flour (for baking) are you friends. Grease the baking dish with butter and coat with a light dusting of flour! The cool thing about this method is, it also makes the edges of whatever you're baking have a slight crunch and extra buttery flavor. I enjoy doing this technique, but it's mainly only for baking things like cake and brownies. :3 Either way, if you don't like the crunchy edges, lightly rub the pan with some olive oil. I find this also works pretty well!
Ok, so first things first, I always like to lay out my ingredients so I know I have everything I need before I get super into measuring and combining everything and then finding out I'm missing something.
Next, I measure out everything that can be measured out, such as dry ingredients and wet ingredients, and put them into bowls so I can just dump and keep working without stopping to measure out stuff.
I love using the golden yolk, free range eggs. They look so sunny and pretty, and give a nice color to whatever I'm making. It's probably not necessary, but I'd like to think they're healthier. Lol.
This recipe is interesting because it called for me to melt the butter and combine it with the sugar before adding it to the egg and cocoa mixture. I never had a recipe have me do this before, and for some reason, my brain went to making a double boiler with the butter and sugar for no good reason... I didn't need to do this, I was thinking I would need to melt the chocolate chips into this mixture, but that was not at all the case. Hahaha.
Anyway, I followed the recipe pretty closely, but I used Bensdorp Dutch-process cocoa instead of double-Dutch processed cocoa because I couldn't find double-Dutch processed cocoa.
I wanted a really intense dark chocolate flavor, so I substituted 1 cup
of the semi-sweet chocolate chips with 70% dark chocolate chips. Some recipes say the chocolate chips are optional (and if you do add chocolate chips, the chocolate wafers are probably a better option since they melt better... With the chips, I got chunks of un-melted chips here and there, but I liked the gooey chocolate surprise when biting into the brownies, so it worked for me.), but King Arthur's blog said that if you want that shiny-topped brownie, adding in the chocolate chips will give you that glossy finish. I, of course, want that shiny top!
Ok, so after I combined all the ingredients, here's where I deviated a bit more from the recipe.
One of the reasons I wanted to make it super dark chocolate flavor is because I wanted to add in some butterscotch chips I had made earlier and didn't want the brownies to be too sweet.
These butterscotch chips were originally used to make oatmeal butterscotch cookies, but they kind of melted a lot when making the cookies and the cookies ended up turning into more of a lace cookie than traditional oatmeal cookies... So I figured this would be a better use of the chips!
The recipe for the butterscotch chips can be found here. If you have the time to make these, I definitely recommend it!
I added in about 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips and added a handful to the top of the brownies once I spread the mixture into the pan.
I also added 1/2cup of chopped walnuts. I love nuts in my brownies because of the crunch they give. These are all optional addons, but man... These brownies are soooo good!!!
The batter was super thick! I had to spread it into the pan instead of just letting it pour into the baking pan. I was a bit worried they wouldn't cook, and I definitely needed to add about 15 minutes of extra bake time (possibly because of the butterscotch chips), but...
Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a gift for you all!
For Valentine's Day, I decided to try making brownies from scratch! I found a great recipe on the King Arthur Flour Facebook page and also a guide to choosing the right kind of cocoa.
I really love reading their posts. They are incredibly informative and I have not been disappointed by any of their recipes yet!
Anyway, here is the original recipe I followed and the ABCs of cocoa post.
King Arthur Flour Brownie Recipe
King Arthur Flour's ABCs of Cocoa
Basically, I learned that depending on if the recipe calls for baking soda or baking powder, determines if we should use Dutch-processed cocoa powder or natural cocoa powder. It has everything to do with neutralizing the soapy taste that can result in baking with baking soda! Since the brownie recipe I used for this uses baking powder and not baking soda, I didn't need to be concerned about neutralizing the soapy flavor, so Dutch-processed cocoa is used.
Ok, so lets see how I did!
The first step was to grease a 9x13 pan. I, of course, neglected to remember getting some cooking spray (like Pam), so I did the next best thing. Here's a Kitchen Tip!
When you're like me and consistently forget the cooking spray, butter and flour (for baking) are you friends. Grease the baking dish with butter and coat with a light dusting of flour! The cool thing about this method is, it also makes the edges of whatever you're baking have a slight crunch and extra buttery flavor. I enjoy doing this technique, but it's mainly only for baking things like cake and brownies. :3 Either way, if you don't like the crunchy edges, lightly rub the pan with some olive oil. I find this also works pretty well!
Ok, so first things first, I always like to lay out my ingredients so I know I have everything I need before I get super into measuring and combining everything and then finding out I'm missing something.
Next, I measure out everything that can be measured out, such as dry ingredients and wet ingredients, and put them into bowls so I can just dump and keep working without stopping to measure out stuff.
I love using the golden yolk, free range eggs. They look so sunny and pretty, and give a nice color to whatever I'm making. It's probably not necessary, but I'd like to think they're healthier. Lol. 
This recipe is interesting because it called for me to melt the butter and combine it with the sugar before adding it to the egg and cocoa mixture. I never had a recipe have me do this before, and for some reason, my brain went to making a double boiler with the butter and sugar for no good reason... I didn't need to do this, I was thinking I would need to melt the chocolate chips into this mixture, but that was not at all the case. Hahaha.
Anyway, I followed the recipe pretty closely, but I used Bensdorp Dutch-process cocoa instead of double-Dutch processed cocoa because I couldn't find double-Dutch processed cocoa.
Ok, so after I combined all the ingredients, here's where I deviated a bit more from the recipe.
One of the reasons I wanted to make it super dark chocolate flavor is because I wanted to add in some butterscotch chips I had made earlier and didn't want the brownies to be too sweet.
These butterscotch chips were originally used to make oatmeal butterscotch cookies, but they kind of melted a lot when making the cookies and the cookies ended up turning into more of a lace cookie than traditional oatmeal cookies... So I figured this would be a better use of the chips!
The recipe for the butterscotch chips can be found here. If you have the time to make these, I definitely recommend it!
I added in about 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips and added a handful to the top of the brownies once I spread the mixture into the pan.
I also added 1/2cup of chopped walnuts. I love nuts in my brownies because of the crunch they give. These are all optional addons, but man... These brownies are soooo good!!!
The batter was super thick! I had to spread it into the pan instead of just letting it pour into the baking pan. I was a bit worried they wouldn't cook, and I definitely needed to add about 15 minutes of extra bake time (possibly because of the butterscotch chips), but...
Ok, here's the TLDR version for you people who don't have time to deal with my wordiness!
TLDR Version:
- Used Bensdrop Dutch-processed cocoa.
- Used 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips and 1 cup 70% dark chocolate chips (Guittard).
- Added in 1/2 cup homemade butterscotch chips after batter was combined.
- Added in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.
- Adjusted cook time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes.
The brownies came out amazingly well. :D Not to toot my own horn, but these might be some of the best brownies I have ever had! The edges were slightly crunchy, while the inside was still moist, and even though it probably isn't desirable to have the half-melted chocolate chips in there, they added an extra level of gooey goodness akin to a molten lava cake, but inside the brownies. Happy surprise!
I hope these brownies inspire your Valentine's day cooking adventures of your own! Again, if there is anything you want to ask, recommendations, etc, please feel free to leave a comment! Happy baking!
Monday, February 12, 2018
Baking Challenge 1: Almond Spritz Cookies
Greetings friends!
Happy Valentines and happy lunar new year!
I love holidays! Gives me an excuse to be creative with little goodies for the people around me and also to challenge myself. This week is pretty interesting since we have Valentines Day on Wednesday and Chinese New Year on Friday!
Back in Hawaii, almond cookies are a popular way to celebrate Chinese New Years, so I knew I kind of wanted to do something almond. Anyway, while on a trip a few weeks ago and my mom found chewy cinnamon heart candies. These reminded me of the almond spritz cookies my mom would make during Christmas. She used the cinnamon candies to accent her wreath cookies, so why not use those candies and make some spritz cookies for Valentines Day? And I could also finally bust out the OXO cookie press I got during Christmas!
So I looked up a few recipes and decided to try out these two from Taste of Home and Genius Kitchen.
Taste of Home Almond Spritz Cookie Recipe
Genius Kitchen's Almond Spritz Cookie Recipe
The Taste of Home recipe interested me because it uses brown sugar. The base is very similar to a chocolate chip cookie base more than a traditional spritz. Anyway, lets get to the nitty-gritty of baking these cookies!
Ok, it's time for me to give a KITCHEN TIP!
I had to bust open a new bag of flour. Of course, it's a pain to store it after and deal with the little rectangular bag and opening and closing it is a mess and hard to get measurements straight from it, so I thought to myself... I have this huge empty container from my protein shakes, I should use that! So I did! Wide lid, can store quite a bit, even comes with a scoop! GENIUS!
Lol, ok... So after I did this and was quite proud of what I did here, I went on to cream my butter.
Recipe tips and adjustments: Recipes usually say to cream the butter and sugar together. I like to cream the butter first and then cream it with the sugar. This allows the butter to get fluffier and lighter before adding in the sugar and making a huge mess all over the kitchen counters!
In addition to creaming the butter separately, I doubled the amount of salt from 1/4tsp to 1/2tsp. I often find baked goods don't have enough flavor because they are lacking salt. I also use salted butter. I KNOW EVERYONE SAYS NOT TO, BUT IT USUALLY TASTES OILY IF I DON'T!!! D:
I also doubled up on the amount of almond extract. 8D
The dough was a little darker in color because of the brown sugar, so when I added the food coloring, it wasn't as vibrant as I was hoping.
My first batch onto the cookie sheet turned out pretty well! I would later stick the dough in the refrigerator, which would've been fine for a few minutes, but I left it in there too long, so I had a hard time with the dough after that. I recommend the dough being slightly cooler than room temperature when pressing the cookies. The OXO cookie press otherwise worked like a DREAM! Oh I am in love with this cookie press!
Anyway, that was it for the first recipe. They can burn very easily, so make sure to take them out pretty much right as they start to brown on the edges. This was right at 7 minutes for me. The taste is good, but I feel like the brown sugar flavor masks the taste of the almond. I decided to run out to the market to try the second recipe after eating about a dozen of the ones I burnt. :3
Ok, after eating all those cookies, and after eating a lot of chocolate the day before... And knowing that I would be eating more cookies later... I decided I desperately needed a gym break!
Ok, went to the market and got some shortening for the next recipe!
So, I don't usually like to use shortening in my baking, but there are recipes that call for it and supposedly, it's best in pie crusts, but I also found out they sell lard and I really would like to test between shortening, butter, and lard for crusts. Perhaps during the summer! But I digress!
I actually chose this recipe because it uses shortening. I looked at some recipes for Hawaii-style almond cookies and the most popular also used shortening, so I thought this recipe might be similar to those cookies.
Anyway, here's how that went!
Recipe tips and adjustments: Treated the shortening like I do regular butter. I was worried it would taste oily, though, and decided to add in a little bit of salt (about 1/4tsp) to the shortening. I'm glad I did, because it did taste kind of oily and not quite as lush as the first recipe.
I also used 1/2tsp salt instead of 1/8tsp, and added in 1/2tsp vanilla extract.
The dough was really crumbly, much like pie crust dough, so I was a bit concerned that the cookies would just fall apart after baking.
After putting in the food coloring, I rolled it into a ball by hand and placed it in the cookie press. It was mostly ok, but didn't come out of the cookie press as nicely as the first dough and would kinda of come out in flaky clumps.
Eventually, I got it to work out ok. The colors came out a lot more vibrantly since there was no brown sugar to dull them, but the consistency in the texture wasn't as nice. These cookies also burn pretty quickly. 6 minutes was perfect for me.
The cookies held up surprisingly well. It was harder to get it out of the cookie press properly and it's not as flavorful as the first recipe, though the almond flavor is more pronounced. I would probably use the same recipe and replace the shortening for butter in this recipe if I had to chose between the two to do it again. I also might add in a little extra sugar. Aside from that, they are still good cookies and their texture is good. My opinion on shortening versus butter has not changed by this recipe, however. Lol.
Overall, both cookies came out successfully. I would like to try to put my own spin on these, but this was my first test run and trying to document the process. It was a lot of fun! Also, I need to find out why one recipe uses baking powder and the other baking soda. I know I read about it once, but of course, I have forgot the reason.
Through this experiment, I also decided to retire one of my cookie sheets.
Here's another KITCHEN TIP! Don't buy cheap cookie sheets! My sister got me a set of copper bake-ware and I get really nice cookies from that baking sheet, but in my haste and cheapness, I decided to buy a second, cheap baking sheet before Christmas. My cookies burn and cook quite unevenly on this cookie sheet. I can't rely on it, so it has gotta go! D: I would like to invest in the nice Williams Sanoma baking set one of these days. I spent the holidays using those to bake cookies back in Hawaii and they were amazingly consistent.
Anyway! I will be baking some brownies as my official Valentines Day gift for my work team tomorrow, so please look forward to that! And if there are any tips, questions, or recommendations on what to do next, please feel free to comment!
Thanks for reading and happy baking! :D
Happy Valentines and happy lunar new year!
I love holidays! Gives me an excuse to be creative with little goodies for the people around me and also to challenge myself. This week is pretty interesting since we have Valentines Day on Wednesday and Chinese New Year on Friday!
Back in Hawaii, almond cookies are a popular way to celebrate Chinese New Years, so I knew I kind of wanted to do something almond. Anyway, while on a trip a few weeks ago and my mom found chewy cinnamon heart candies. These reminded me of the almond spritz cookies my mom would make during Christmas. She used the cinnamon candies to accent her wreath cookies, so why not use those candies and make some spritz cookies for Valentines Day? And I could also finally bust out the OXO cookie press I got during Christmas!
So I looked up a few recipes and decided to try out these two from Taste of Home and Genius Kitchen.
Taste of Home Almond Spritz Cookie Recipe
Genius Kitchen's Almond Spritz Cookie Recipe
The Taste of Home recipe interested me because it uses brown sugar. The base is very similar to a chocolate chip cookie base more than a traditional spritz. Anyway, lets get to the nitty-gritty of baking these cookies!
 |
| The OXO cookie press! I was so excited to try it out! |
 |
| Gathering my ingredients and measuring out the dry before starting on the actual dough. |
 | ||
| Cinnamon heart candies! These are sweet and provide a nice burst of flavor for the cookies. |
Ok, it's time for me to give a KITCHEN TIP!
Lol, ok... So after I did this and was quite proud of what I did here, I went on to cream my butter.
Recipe tips and adjustments: Recipes usually say to cream the butter and sugar together. I like to cream the butter first and then cream it with the sugar. This allows the butter to get fluffier and lighter before adding in the sugar and making a huge mess all over the kitchen counters!
In addition to creaming the butter separately, I doubled the amount of salt from 1/4tsp to 1/2tsp. I often find baked goods don't have enough flavor because they are lacking salt. I also use salted butter. I KNOW EVERYONE SAYS NOT TO, BUT IT USUALLY TASTES OILY IF I DON'T!!! D:
I also doubled up on the amount of almond extract. 8D
The dough was a little darker in color because of the brown sugar, so when I added the food coloring, it wasn't as vibrant as I was hoping.
My first batch onto the cookie sheet turned out pretty well! I would later stick the dough in the refrigerator, which would've been fine for a few minutes, but I left it in there too long, so I had a hard time with the dough after that. I recommend the dough being slightly cooler than room temperature when pressing the cookies. The OXO cookie press otherwise worked like a DREAM! Oh I am in love with this cookie press!
Anyway, that was it for the first recipe. They can burn very easily, so make sure to take them out pretty much right as they start to brown on the edges. This was right at 7 minutes for me. The taste is good, but I feel like the brown sugar flavor masks the taste of the almond. I decided to run out to the market to try the second recipe after eating about a dozen of the ones I burnt. :3
TLDR Version:
- Salt adjusted to 1/2tsp from original recipe.
- Doubled amount of almond extract.
- Salted butter.
- Don't refrigerate the dough for too long. Just slightly cooler than room temperature is perfect!
Ok, after eating all those cookies, and after eating a lot of chocolate the day before... And knowing that I would be eating more cookies later... I decided I desperately needed a gym break!
 |
| 100 minutes of cardio, baby! Over 1200calories burned! AWRIGHT! Also, GO CANADA! Yeah, I'm originally from the US, but Canada is, overall, such a sweet country. I support your athletes! <3 |
Ok, went to the market and got some shortening for the next recipe!
So, I don't usually like to use shortening in my baking, but there are recipes that call for it and supposedly, it's best in pie crusts, but I also found out they sell lard and I really would like to test between shortening, butter, and lard for crusts. Perhaps during the summer! But I digress!
I actually chose this recipe because it uses shortening. I looked at some recipes for Hawaii-style almond cookies and the most popular also used shortening, so I thought this recipe might be similar to those cookies.
Anyway, here's how that went!
Recipe tips and adjustments: Treated the shortening like I do regular butter. I was worried it would taste oily, though, and decided to add in a little bit of salt (about 1/4tsp) to the shortening. I'm glad I did, because it did taste kind of oily and not quite as lush as the first recipe.
I also used 1/2tsp salt instead of 1/8tsp, and added in 1/2tsp vanilla extract.
The dough was really crumbly, much like pie crust dough, so I was a bit concerned that the cookies would just fall apart after baking.
After putting in the food coloring, I rolled it into a ball by hand and placed it in the cookie press. It was mostly ok, but didn't come out of the cookie press as nicely as the first dough and would kinda of come out in flaky clumps.
Eventually, I got it to work out ok. The colors came out a lot more vibrantly since there was no brown sugar to dull them, but the consistency in the texture wasn't as nice. These cookies also burn pretty quickly. 6 minutes was perfect for me.
The cookies held up surprisingly well. It was harder to get it out of the cookie press properly and it's not as flavorful as the first recipe, though the almond flavor is more pronounced. I would probably use the same recipe and replace the shortening for butter in this recipe if I had to chose between the two to do it again. I also might add in a little extra sugar. Aside from that, they are still good cookies and their texture is good. My opinion on shortening versus butter has not changed by this recipe, however. Lol.
TLDR version:
- Added 1/4tsp salt to shortening while creaming.
- Increased salt from 1/8tsp to 1/2tsp from original recipe.
- Added 1/2tsp vanilla extract.
Overall, both cookies came out successfully. I would like to try to put my own spin on these, but this was my first test run and trying to document the process. It was a lot of fun! Also, I need to find out why one recipe uses baking powder and the other baking soda. I know I read about it once, but of course, I have forgot the reason.
Through this experiment, I also decided to retire one of my cookie sheets.
Here's another KITCHEN TIP! Don't buy cheap cookie sheets! My sister got me a set of copper bake-ware and I get really nice cookies from that baking sheet, but in my haste and cheapness, I decided to buy a second, cheap baking sheet before Christmas. My cookies burn and cook quite unevenly on this cookie sheet. I can't rely on it, so it has gotta go! D: I would like to invest in the nice Williams Sanoma baking set one of these days. I spent the holidays using those to bake cookies back in Hawaii and they were amazingly consistent.
Anyway! I will be baking some brownies as my official Valentines Day gift for my work team tomorrow, so please look forward to that! And if there are any tips, questions, or recommendations on what to do next, please feel free to comment!
Thanks for reading and happy baking! :D
Sunday, February 11, 2018
The Foodie Adventure Begins
Greetings friends and—possibly?— new readers!
First off, I would like to introduce this blog's little mascot. This little pineapple, I mean, corgi, is named Sir Imomotaro—a play on the Japanese word and "imo" for potato and folk hero "Momotaro" the peach boy—Christmas.
I hope you will come to love this guy, as he will be flooding this page with adorableness as I teach myself how to cook and bake, and hopefully teach you all in the process as well!
I decided to create this page so that I could document my experiments mainly in baking, but also in cooking while I live in Vancouver. Also, I love food in general, so from time to time, I will post about the unique and delicious foods I encounter!
I'm not a professional, by far, but I've always been interested in the science of food. I've dabbled in baking artisan breads, including trying to create a sourdough bread from scratch (It tasted like beer and was a pretty awful failure), and a variety of flavored breads using herbs grown in my garden in Hawaii. I want to learn how to create fluffy and light cakes, flavorful baked goods, and amazing, professional-quality cuisine.
I'll also be exploring those nerdy cookbooks and recipes from time to time, as I love trying to make up themed foods based on my many fandoms!
If you know me personally, you know that last year I went through a crazy transformation. I lost over 100lbs and work hard to keep this weight off, but I'm finding that I now need to balance my diet so that I am a happier version of myself. Some of these cooking experiments come from a desire to try to balance my cooking to be healthier, but still flavorful. However, this does not mean everything I make on here will be healthy. Hahaha.
Additionally, I'm hoping to get feedback and will be asking for challenges and advice from my readers. If there's something you'd like me to experiment with, or had questions about, or want to task me with coming up with a recipe or pairing for some random ingredients, I'm all for it! Lets have fun with this!
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my antics in the kitchen and I hope that we can learn from each other! Happy cooking and even happier eating!
First off, I would like to introduce this blog's little mascot. This little pineapple, I mean, corgi, is named Sir Imomotaro—a play on the Japanese word and "imo" for potato and folk hero "Momotaro" the peach boy—Christmas.
I hope you will come to love this guy, as he will be flooding this page with adorableness as I teach myself how to cook and bake, and hopefully teach you all in the process as well!
I decided to create this page so that I could document my experiments mainly in baking, but also in cooking while I live in Vancouver. Also, I love food in general, so from time to time, I will post about the unique and delicious foods I encounter!
I'm not a professional, by far, but I've always been interested in the science of food. I've dabbled in baking artisan breads, including trying to create a sourdough bread from scratch (It tasted like beer and was a pretty awful failure), and a variety of flavored breads using herbs grown in my garden in Hawaii. I want to learn how to create fluffy and light cakes, flavorful baked goods, and amazing, professional-quality cuisine.
I'll also be exploring those nerdy cookbooks and recipes from time to time, as I love trying to make up themed foods based on my many fandoms!
If you know me personally, you know that last year I went through a crazy transformation. I lost over 100lbs and work hard to keep this weight off, but I'm finding that I now need to balance my diet so that I am a happier version of myself. Some of these cooking experiments come from a desire to try to balance my cooking to be healthier, but still flavorful. However, this does not mean everything I make on here will be healthy. Hahaha.
Additionally, I'm hoping to get feedback and will be asking for challenges and advice from my readers. If there's something you'd like me to experiment with, or had questions about, or want to task me with coming up with a recipe or pairing for some random ingredients, I'm all for it! Lets have fun with this!
Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my antics in the kitchen and I hope that we can learn from each other! Happy cooking and even happier eating!
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