It has been a very long week. A lot of things happened and some of them managed to get my jaw dropped like Ricky Martin turned gay. Now, that was a devastating news. I read it on the news over the weekend last week and to have the news smack me in the face was not a pretty sight.

I would have never thought for once that my hunky Shake-your-Bon-Bons would prefer guys to women. What in the world do the men has that we women is sorely lacking? That question keep popping up in my head like my snooze alarm clock. It is so disappointing to hear my favourite hunky singer turning his back on woman for companionship.

I’m a Muslim at heart and even though my religion is strictly against gays and lesbians, I personally will never intentionally disgrace and insults those who are different from us. To insult them would insult my maker. However, I would pray very hard for those who have strayed from the line, come back to embrace real humanity.

That aside, I am currently wondering what goodies to put into my cookies. I still haven’t decide whether to make cookies or cakes. I have walnuts, almonds, raisins and chocolates in my freezer but I’m not sure what flavour I should make the cookie into. Last time, I had added honey and maple syrup. Both turned out fantastic. But I need a new flavour… I hate thinking of new recipe.

Made muesli breakfast in the morning. Actually I prepared and made it last night and had it just now in the morning. I could have just bought muesli over the counter but the price was quite costly even if it was in the Best Buy section and the ingredients were very small in comparison to home made ones. If you want to make it, you can follow my recipe below.

• 750gm rolled oats
• 1 cup of whole almond
• 1 cup walnuts
• 1 cup of raisins/ sultanas
• a handful of sliced almonds

Now baked all of them nuts and a handful of rolled oats in an over/ toaster for a few minutes until dark brown but careful not to burn them. Then leave it to cool off for a few minutes. Chopped the whole nuts roughly and leave the sliced almonds alone. Take an air tight container or jar and put all of the ingredients in. Close the lid and shake the container until all of the ingredients have been mixed thoroughly.

You could add a few tablespoon of sugar in them while you toss it to make give it a taste but I prefer having mine bland. That way I get to savour the tasted of the roasted almonds and walnuts. If you prefer putting in brans and cornflakes, go ahead. It tastes wonderful.

Once again I have successfully mastered my new recipe, Chocolate Coated Almond Cookies. It’s my first attempt and it’s the best I’ve ever achieved in all of my cookie baking. It is best to make during any festive season.

For those who are are cracking their heads on what to make for Hari Raya, try this out.

Ingredients:-

• 200gm butter (softened at room temperature)
• 200gm castor sugar
• 2 egg
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tbsp coco powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 cups plain flour
• 1 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1 cup raisins
• 200gm cooking chocolate

Note! You can also use unskinned whole almonds. I would prefer that since it gives the cookies a more roasted almond flavor. You can also use white chocolate, dark chocolate, strawberry chocolate; any flavour of your choice for the topping.

1) Bake your almonds in the oven/toaster for a few minutes. You can also bake it on a frying pan on high heat, continuously frying it to avoid it from being badly charred.Then let it to cool off for 20mins.

2) Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and fluffy.

3) Sieve the flour, baking powder and coco powder into the mixture. Using your hands, knead the dough well. Don’t panic if the dough turned tough.

4) Add in your chopped almonds and raisins. Knead it well again.

5) Roll out and cut your dough into the desired shape and size.

6) Preheat your oven for 15mins at 200 Degree Celcius. Bake your cookie at 200 Degree Celcius for 20mins until brown.

7) Once all of your cookies have been baked, put them all in a tray or two and put in your oven that is still heated. Turn off your oven FIRST and after 5mins, then put your cookies back into the oven. This is to make your cookies more crunchier as the heat in the oven will dry all the moisture that is left in your cookie.

You can leave your cookie in the oven overnight or for 2hours.

9) Melt your cooking chocolate. Once that’s done, spread the melted chocolate on top of the cookie and let the chocolate harden by itself. Once all of your cookies have been covered by chocolate, let it rest for an hour of two until the chocolate has harden.

Note! You can store your cookie in an air tight container for a month. It also taste wonderous if you were to pop some in a fridge. It tasted exactly like digestive biscuit with chocolate cream.

I have created this recipe weeks back and it had forgotten to post this. You now do not need to head out to those fancy cake cafeterias to get your own slice of Coffee Cake Walnuts. Just follow the instruction below and I promise you, you’ll not regret it one bit.

Chocolate Coffee Walnut Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 cups all purpose flour ( you can also use self-raising or cake flour)
• 150gm of butter
• 1 cup castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2tbsp of instant coffee (dissolved slightly with warm water)
• 1 cup milk or evaporated milk
• 1 cup of chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup of chocolate chips

NOTE: As I have stated above, you can use self-raising flour or cake flour for this cake. Either one works nicely and tasted great if you add a dollop of cream or a scoop of ice-cream onto the cake. Don’t mind the cracked top since I’ve added a little bit too much of walnuts and chocolate chips for my own taste.

1) Sift all the flour, baking powder and salt together.

2) Cream the egss, butter, sugar milk and instant coffee mix to make a smooth fluffy batter.

3) Add the flour mix on (1) into the batter. Mix it well.

4) Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour the cake mix into a 22cm cake pan (circle) or a normal medium sized rectangle cake pan.

Chocolate Coffee Walnut Cake mix

5) Bake it at 170 degrees Celcius for about 40mins. Cool before cutting.

Coffee Cheesecake

As promised I’m posting this recipe after re-correcting and re-testing it. The first time I tried making it, the top cracked due to lack of whip cream added to the melted chocolate. But after re-adjusting the ratio of whip cream to the semi-sweet melted chocolate, it turns out marvelous!

Coffee Cheesecake Side view

To make cheesecake it’s quite simple and cheap really. You don’t need to buy Philadelphia cream cheese as its quite costly. Instead, head out to your nearest baking ingredients shop and get them. It’s far cheaper since it’s brandless and the quality of the cheese is the same. I got mine at only RM8.00/ 250gm, while the Philadelphia cream cheese cost around Rm14.00/250gm. I saved almost Rm5!

For the base of the cheesecake, I used the cheapest biscuit crackers around which was Tesco cream crackers, Rm2.99/pkt. You can also use graham or digestive biscuits if you wish. If you prefer to be more experimental like me, I’ve mixed chopped almonds into the crushed crackers to add more flavour. Baking is all about experimenting new boundaries, so don’t be scared to test it out!

Below are the ingredients:-

• 500gm cream cheese (room temp)
• 250gm plain yogurt
• 3tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1 tbsp water
• 1/4 cup melted butter + 3tbsp
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup whip cream
• 100gm semi-sweet cooking chocolate
• 4tbsp cake flour sieved (optional)
• 400gm cream crackers crushed with blender/food processor
• 30gm chopped almonds
• 50gm Almond Flakes

1) Cream sugar, butter, yogurt until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing it well at each interval. Add the cheese and mix well. (note: best to break the cheese into smaller parts to mix it easier.)

2) Add the instant coffee mix and sieved cake flour. Mix it well. (note: the flour is optional as it will give a slightly tougher texture for those who do not like the creamy soft texture of full cheesecake)

3) Melt the chocolate in a water bath. You can refer to the process of melting it here.When the chocolate has melted, in the same bowl itself, mix the whip cream in, gradually adding it abit at a time. Mix it well until it becomes light and fluffy.

4) Add the butter (3thbs) in the crushed cream crackers and mix it thoroughly. If you don’t have a food processor, you can manually crush the crackers with your hands or putting them in a plastic bag and pounding them with your rolling pin.

Once the crackers has turned into breadcrumbs, mix the chopped almonds. Take a spring form cake pan, lined the crushed crackers mix at the base of the pan. Press the mixture down firmly with your hands and cover all the cracks. Then line the top with almond flakes. Put them in the oven at 200 degress celsius for 10mins until golden brown then leave ur oven on to preheat it.

5) Cool the pan first for 10mins or so before adding the cheese batter. Then take the chocolate mix and drop spoonfulls into the cheese batter, however you wish to design it.

6) Put the cheesecake in the oven at 175 degrees Celsius for 1hr in a water bath/ double boil baking. (refer below for double boil) Don’t ever open the oven in the 1st 30mins of baking time to avoid the moisture from escaping and causing the cake to crack. After an hour, let the cake be cooled in the oven for another hour, leaving the door slightly open.

Chill it overnight before serving. Serves best with tea.

**Double Boil: Put a tray of water at the bottom of the oven with the cake on top on another tray/ level.

I’ve readjusted and fine tuned the first experimental recipe I made last week on my Chocolate Layered Cake. I’ve added new flavors and more milk and it turns out fantastic. I’ve also taken a few pictures on how it is layered.

Below are the ingredients:-

• 350gm butter (melted at room temp)
• 350gm castor sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 4 cups of self-raising flour
• 2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2 tbsp coco powder
• 120gm semi sweet cooking chocolate, place at room temp (more if you like)
• 7tbsp milk (can also use evaporated milk)
• 3tbsp instant coffee mixed with 1tbsp of water

1) Melt the chocolate either by water bath or microwave oven if available. If using microwave oven, you can melt it at high temperature at only 1min. If you don’t have a microwave like me, you can follow the steps below.

1.1) Take a large pot, around 12 inch diameter, fill it up with water about half of the pot. Heat the water to a boil. Chop the chocolate and place it in a heat proof bowl (Pyrex or your microwavable porcelain bowl). When the water is boiling, turn to a low heat and place the bowl in the center of the pot. Leave the chocolate to melt by itself and you can occasionally check on it. Remember to always let the melted chocolate to cool for a moment before you put it into your batter.

2) Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla essence, eggs and milk using electric mixer. I would usually use manual whisker but since this will be a heavy batter, it’s best to use an electric mixer for beginners. Mix the batter until fluffy and creamy.

3) Separate the batter into 3 equal parts. You can the other two parts in separate large bowls.

3.1) In the large mixing bowl, add your cocoa powder. Remember to sieve your cocoa powder before adding to avoid clumps in the batter. After mixing it well, add the melted chocolate and mix it again. Take another 7tbsp of milk and add it to the mixture until the batter is once again smooth and creamy.

3.2) In another bowl, add your instant coffee mix. Mix it well.

3.3) Leave the last bowl or part alone.

4) Take a 12″ x 8″ pan, line it up will tracing paper / greaseproof paper and butter the sides of the pan. Take a few healthy spoonfuls of the coffee batter and layer it as the base, making sure it thick and covering the base well. Then layer on top of the coffee batter with the plain white batter and cover the coffee batter. Follow the same procedure for the chocolate batter.

You can add as many layers as you want. In my case, I have place the batter in plastic wrap pipes and pipe the batter out to make patterns. You don’t need to buy expensive plastic wraps for this. If you have a clean unused plastic bags which are usually use to bag your fruits/ vegetables in the supermarket, you can use them.

First Layer

Just pour the batter into the plastic bags, squeeze the air out, making sure that the batter sits at the base of the bag. Then tie the opening. Take a corner end of the bag and cut the edge like how you would cut open a box of milk/cream. Take care when cutting the edge as the batter will pour out from the opening that you have made.

You can also add roasted almond flakes on each layer to make it more tasty.

5) Preheat the oven at 200 degree Celsius for 15mins. Bake the cake for 30mins at 200 degrees Celsius.

The whole week I’ve been happily trying my hands out in baking in what I had previously failed to achieve due to my inexperienced.

I’ve baked the cinnamon rolls according to the youtube.com video which I had watched and worked out like a charm. Although the amount of flour is more than what is stated on the recipe list, which was expected of it, the first batch was fluffy and delicious. I’ve made two batches, experimenting on using evaporated milk and condensed milk.

The batch that I had made using evaporated milk turns out very well while the other, condensed milk turn out quite hard and didn’t raise up as expected of a bread dough. However since I had added chopped baking chocolates into the roll, the rolls turn out as nice as a homemade cookie. the kids love the chocolate condensed milk batch while the adults prefer the fluffy bun.

cinnamon rolls 1

At least this time my cinnamon rolls were much more delicious and successful compared to the first time I did two years back.

Anyway lastnight, I decided to try another baking recipe, puff pastry. Using only the below stated recipe, it took me two hours to let the pastry turn out into the right texture I had wanted.

• 500gm plain flour (more will be used when kneading the dough to become firm)
• a pinch of salt
• 80gm of melted butter
• 200ml of water

I had mixed the butter and butter first and then added the flour into the mixture. Slowly I added the water, little by little while kneading the dough. Don’t use the electrical mixer or it will never work.

If the dough still sticks to your finger, add a palmful of flour and knead it throughly. Continue adding more flour if needed until you are satisfied. careful not to add too much flour.

After 15-20min of kneading the dough, flour out the rolling counter and flatten up your dough. Put 200g-250gm of pastry butter/margarine into the center and fold the edges (pinch them together) of the dough in the sequence of top with bottom and left with right,  like how you would wrap a present.

Make sure that the pastry margarine is totally covered by the dough and pinch the dough together at all openings. Then taking a rolling pin, flatten out the dough slowly into a rectangle like form and fold the dough into two.

(a)Wrapping the dough with a plastic wrap, put the dough into the fridge (not freezer) for 20mins. I’ve tried putting it for 10mins, it didn’t work.

After 20mins and making sure that the dough is cold and has the same texture as your pastry margarine (dry butter), take it out from the fridge and roll it out again and fold it again. This will be your second turn of the kneading process. Keep repeating the process (a) for 6- 8 turns.

After you have repeated the kneading process for 6 turns or so, you can now start using your puff pastry dough. Before using the dough, make sure that you at least rest your dough after you took it out from the fridge for about 5-10mins.

I tried my hand at it and added apple pie filling into. Oh yeah if you were to add those wet fillings, make sure to drain almost completely the liquid of the filling before you put it into the puff pastry.

You can also put your excess dough in the fridge if you have decided that you had enough baking for the day and take it out the next day to continue with your puff pastry making.

Happy trying!

Ayu puff pastry