Double Chocolate Muffin

Still in the chocolate mood and some left over ganache on hand, I modified Sarah's Moulton Secret Mix In Muffin's recipe from foodnetwork.com to create this sinful muffins :).

1 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsulted butter, melted
1 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

1 cup small choco chips or left over ganache (about 50-100 gr)

1. On a bowl, mix butter with sour cream, egg and vanilla, beat lightly until well incorporated
2. Then pour in to the dry ingredients and fold lightly until all incorporated
3. Fold in choco chips/ganache until evenly spread
4. Pour equally to 12pc muffin pan
5. Baked on 400F for about 20 min

Served: warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream on the side

** Tips: if you're using ganache, make sure you watch the oven to prevent your muffin to explode :)

Chocolate Fudge Cake with Ganache Icing

I was craving for something chocolatey this weekend. So I'm came across 1 recipe from the text book for Le Cordon Bleu which I found very easy to do and the result was satisfying.

Fudge Cake

160 gr Unsweetened chocolate

160 gr butter

200 gr eggs

200 gr sugar

40 gr bread flour

1. Melt chocolate and butter, set aside

2. Beat egg and sugar in high speed until light and fluffy

3. Add in melted chocolate and fold in 1 directin with spatula

4. Add in flour, fold until well mix

5. Baked in 175C for 20-30 minutes

6. Set it to cool on the cooling rack for icing

Ganache icing

100 gr heavy cream

20 gr sugar

20 gr glucose

100 gr dark chocolate

1. Heat the cream, sugar and glucose to the point of boiling and take it off from the stove

2. Stir in chocolate until all melt and well blended

To set: pour the ganache over the cake and smooth it over with pallate knife

** Tips: store the left over ganache for chocolate muffin

Chicken 'Noodle' Soup

I've been craving for chicken noodle soup from QFC (people might say what the...? but it's one my comfort food couple years back, eaten together with corn bread will make you full for the rest of the day). Alas, I can't make the corn bread since I can't find any place that sell cornmeal flour in Singapore. But, at least I still can make the soup, I sub the 'noodle' with elbow pasta.

500 gr chicken breast, cubed (I like boneless and skinless, but you might want to buy the ones with skin to make the soup more 'hearthy' -- the nice way to say fatty)

1/2 bunch of celery, cubed

350 gr carrot, cubed

1 big onion, cubed

Olive oil

Seasoning: bay leaf, marjoram, thyme, pepper, sugar, salt

Elbow pasta, boiled and drenched

Sauté onion with olive oil in the big soup pan in medium high until soft. Add celery, carot and seasoning and cook it until half done.

Pour in about 1L to 1.25L water and bring to boil. Let it simmer for about another 20 minutes and add the chicken. Simmer in low heat for another 20 minutes.

To serve, place elbow pasta on the soup bowl and pour down the soup

Fried Wonton

This weekend I thought of making something fried for a change and the first thing that I come up is Fried Wonton, so Fried Wonton indeed.

Ingredients:
Filling:
2 bunch vermicelli, soaked and chopped
250 gr minced chicken
1 bunch spring onion, small chopped
1 pack wonton skin (about 40-50 pc)
2 tbsp corn flour
Seasoning: pepper, salt, sugar, dried chili

1 egg for egg wash
5 cloves garlic
Fish sauce

In a bowl, mix chicken and corn flour until well mixed, then add pepper, salt, sugar and dried chili, mix well.
In a pan, sauté garlic until fragrant and add chicken (make sure the chicken turn to small pieces by chop it up w/ spatula – careful not to break your pan), then add in vermicelli and spring onion. Add fish sauce and bit more seasoning to taste. Cook until all well done. Set aside to cool.
For egg wash, beat the egg in the small bowl and add about 2 tbsp of water.
Place wonton skin on your palm and take about 1.5 tsp of the filling in the center and seal sides w/ egg wash. Repeat the process.
Deep fry the wontons in medium high heat.
Serve hot with chili sauce (any kinds, but I find sweet Thai chili sauce do the job well).

Bird Nest Soup

I purposely purchased a slow cooker to make this soup (you can also call it a dessert, either way is fine). Bird nest is a delicacy. I like it because it tastes good. After cooked, it’ll look like lumps of transparent chewy gel, and it’ll just slip and melt directly to your throat. It’s presumed to have lots of health benefit, but the ones that I believe it’s true is that by consuming it regularly, you’ll see your skin will look more radiant and you’ll stay healthy till your old age (I have seen the evidences). I like the one that I had when I was in HK 3 years ago. They added Gingko Nuts and Dried Longan. So, I try out my version and here it is:

2 pc medium bird nest (soak 4-5 hours in water)
1 pack Gingko nuts
2 bar honey brown sugar
10 slice US ginseng (if you have the thinner slices, use more)
500 ml water

In the slow cooker bowl, put in bird nest, Gingko nuts brown sugar follow by water and bring to boil on the stove (you can use slow cooker directly but it’ll take 2 hours to boil) then transfer the bowl to the slow cooker and add in the ginseng. Let it stand for about 2.5 hours.
Best served cold, although it’s soothing to eat it warm.

You also can add on Honey dates on top of Gingko nuts but you must reduce the honey brown sugar in return and add more ginseng will add deeper flavor in your soup.

Vanilla Blueberry Crumb Cake

I made this cake yesterday and the result is quite nice, the only downside is that mine was a bit bloated for what they call it crumble. But, nevertheless, it tastes good with soft texture (I like this kind of outcome) and it's not so sweet. The recipe itself is from 'Chocolate & Vanilla' by Gale Gand. So here's the recipe copied over from the book:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 tsp pur vanilla extract
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 pint blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 9’ square cake pan or line it with parchment paper and set it aside.

In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1 ½ cups of the flour, the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter on low speed until the mixture is blended and starts to forms clumps. Set aside 1 cup of the mixture to use for the crumb topping.
In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream egg, vanilla, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until combined. Stir in the remaining ½ cup flour, then scrape this mixture into the mixer and beat on medium speed until it forms a smooth batter. Spread it into the prepared cake pan. Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter, press them down a little and then sprinkle with the reserved crumb topping.

Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is form to the touch and a skewer or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan set on the cooling rack.