Home-made chocolate nut spread

well, not totally 100% home-made as I didn't make the chocolate from scratch! I bought it :P

something like Nutella but I made it with almonds instead of hazelnut

So, I was wanting to eat bread with chocolate spread today, and I don't have Nutella at home, it's not a common item in my home. I had some baking chocolate compound and some overtoasted almonds :P (I overtoasted some almonds last week for my cookies, it was a little on the dark side which will not appeal to the customer but it was not burnt yet. So I keep it for myself)

Well, if you want to do this too, it's very easy, just need some baking chocolate, milk, dark or semi-sweet up to you, some butter, and some ground almonds. Mine were toasted slivered almonds, grind it in a blender to fine crumbs...not fine enough but that'll do. I don't really measure for this one, simply throw it in, eyeing the amount to my liking, but for the sake of posting this, I'll work out some measurements for you:


Ingredients:
1 cup of compound chocolate (milk, dark, semi - I used a mix of Beryls milk compound and the 60% cacao chocolate block from LeBourne)

1 and 1/2 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup of ground almonds

Method:

1. Melt chocolate and butter in double-boiler. I just put a heat-proof bowl on top of a small saucepan quarter-filled with water. Heat with low heat. You can also use microwave to melt your chocolate. (we don't have microwave :P )

2. When the chocolate and butter have fully melted, stir in your ground almonds.

Tadaaaa, finished. Easy. This makes about 1/3 full of the small disposable round container. You can throw away the measurements and just put in the amount of chocolate and ground nuts that you like. Just not too much butter as it will make your spread runny and oily. I would say keep about 1-2 tablespoons of butter for 1 cup of chocolate - maybe.

For the nuts, use any nuts. Nutella is with hazelnuts, that would be good too, but the always-in-stock in my house is almond. You can even make it with peanuts. Notice how the nuts in mine look coarse and chunky? That's probably because I used the dry blender to grind it, if you have food processor it may do the job better. If you like fine, smooth end product, you can even put the mix of chocolate and nuts in your food processor and whirl it smooth. But I love chocolate too much that I won't let even a speck of chocolate waster on the walls and nooks of my blender. Do not waste, especially good stuff like chocolate!

Cool the spread thoroughly first before storing in airtight container and into the fridge. Enjoy!

Chocolate Muffin

This is horribly chocolatey awesome!

I like muffins. I like to try all kinds of muffins. I like muffins more than cakes for it texture is moist and denser than cake. I love that. Chocolate is my favourite flavour for anything! And I think it is the same for the 2/3rd of world population too. And I found this delicious muffin recipe from Allrecipes....as always, it is the first place I go for recipes if I wanna try to bake something or cook something. I like collaboration-style site and review-bility for anything, cooking, education, any how-to sites...because you can try to do something that you have no idea at all on how to do it and the luxury of reading reviews of people who have tried it, whether it works or not, what are the options and changes you can make to get a better outcome, what's new to try out and what flavour you dislike that you can leave out and what the difference will it make........plenty of information prior of your project!

well anyway, I didn't plan to babble a lot on this one so here it is:

• Recipe adapted from Allrecipes' Chocolate Muffin Recipe

and this is my tweaked recipe:

• 2 cups wholemeal flour
• 1/4 cups ground almond
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1/2 cup dark unsweetened baking cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• a pinch of salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup water
• 1/8 cup milk powder
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup raisin

The method is taken from Allrecipes :D In case you didn't click it, here, I copy-pasted it for you.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. 

In another bowl, beat the eggs, sour cream, water, milk, oil and vanilla. 

Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. 

Fold in chocolate chips. 

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full. 

Bake at 160 degrees C for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

Tortilla made into Burritos

Tortillaaaaaaa! For those not in the know, the way to say it is Tor-ti-ya. The first tortilla I knew was tortilla española when I first learn the Spanish language in university as a short elective course way back in 2002. The teacher gave us the recipe of tortilla española to fill in the blanks with 'imperativos'. I tried to make it and it was delicious. My dad loves it as he likes anything with potatoes and eggs. Oh maybe I should make it again and put it in this blog too...

However, after graduation, I was trying to not let my spanish go rusty and make friends with some Spanish speakers on the net via a language chat. They tried to learn English and I tried to learn Spanish. (well guess what, they were successful in English but my Spanish is still the same hahahahahaha! ah well...)....Most, if not all Spanish speakers that I found that time are Mexican and not Spaniards...thus my fondness towards Mexico and Mexican food and culture instead of Spanish....hehe

Anyway, this tortilla in this posting is Mexican tortilla and nothing like the Spanish omelette (tortilla española) but more like Indian chapati. Yes, it is just a simple flat bread, very simple that you just basically need water, flour and oil to make it :P But well, as always, I did research before making something and so I tried this recipe from Allrecipes.com called Tortillas-II.

Of course the original tortilla in Mexico used a special corn flour (no not the corn starch we have in here) called masa harina and I believe they will taste better and more corn-nish with that flour. Maybe I should try to get my mexican friends to give me some the next time they post stuff to me hehehehehe.

Ok so here's the recipe: 

Tortillas II

taken from: http://allrecipes.com/

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon shortening
• 1/2 cup water

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine together flour, salt and baking powder. Cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.
2. Add the water and mix until the dough can be gathered together. If necessary, add more water (1 teaspoon at a time) until the dough comes together. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 15 minutes.
3. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll into rounds. On a lightly floured surface, use a rolling pin to flatten and stretch each round into a circle 7 inches across.
4. Cook on an ungreased skillet over medium high heat until brown spots begin to appear on the tortillas. Keep covered with a clean, dry towel until ready to serve.

OK, so that was obviously copy-and-pasted from allrecipes page but well I will try, in this blog, to share some personal touch or changes that I made during making the recipes that I will post here in this blog. But frankly, as I mentioned in my earlier post, I am not a true cook and usually I followed recipe I found to the T :P and in this case too, as I haven't made any tortilla before, I followed it exactly. but I'll try to point out if I did something different or add certain gesture or stuff, ok? Now, let me see...this tortilla was made on December 26, 2009 (no I did not remembered that in my head, I got the dates in my facebook :P), so now I have to make a crazy reflection way back to 2009...haha..ah well, I'll try my best. I follow the directions as in recipe...even use a ruler to measure the 7 inchess diameter lol! It's true! haha

here in this picture is the only round tortilla I got that time. For first timer, don't worry about getting a circle. This one was just luck...my other pieces was really in variety of shapes and my Mexican friends said even she didn't get the circle often...only her abuelo(granny) or mama got it round. In other words, only old people will get their tortillas round..hahahahahhaha!

and so while u roll this, you should already have your skillet or pan heated pretty hot coz we want the tortilla to cook nicely. When I made this, mine got 'hard' and chewy pretty fast and it was not nice to bite into (it's not crispy but 'hard-and-chewy' so my mexican friend's mom said, I just need to flip it once when it bubbles or it will go hard (like mine).  

What she meant is this, first after rolling, put your flat dough on the properly heated skillet, then wait for it to 'bubble'...the dough will be inflated in some areas. (those who are expert or used to making chapatti will know this, it's the same science!). When u see the sign, flip it to the other side and it will want to inflate again...then you take off your tortilla off the heat.

While rolling and cooking other pieces, put the cook ones under a dry kitchen towel so it will stay warm and soft...

This was the nice round one that I showed earlier...it became superstar for my photography coz it's the only one that looked ok...

And so that's just the flat bread called tortilla...Mexican use this as we Malaysian eat rice. Eat it with anything. Cut it up to smaller pieces and put it in the oven until dry to make nachos and eat it with guacamole, wrap some beef and whatever with it to make Frajitas or Burritos. I don't know the differences, lol, don't ask me...but my friend said what I made here, with that kind of wrap style is called Burritos.

Now how do you make it into Burritos? Let's assemble it!!

For the meat, no specific recipe that I followed...I simply sauteed some onions and garlic, dash some oregano and rosemary in, seasoned it with ground black pepper, add in the minced beef and finally mixed vege...and oh yeah, salt to taste. 

That's how it looked like...mmmmmmm.....

1. lay your tortilla....

2. Put some salad and tomatoes like this....

3. Put some of the beef filling that you made

u see that? No? ok try this:

 4. Wrap it up. I used a toothpick to secure the join. 

 And here you go...Burritos...

My review, well the tortilla was just a simple flat bread, nothing special...as for me as Malaysian, I like chapatti texture more, it is softer and more pliable with Atta flour I guess...but that could due to my bad technique in making tortilla. Well, in making chapatti, you have to knead the flour which forms the gluten to make it pliable, no kneading here...that could be it too? Whatever it is, tried it at least once I would say...no harm done, and feel Mexican along the way...Adios!

The Clone of a Cinnabon - A Cinnamon Roll recipe that works!

As per title, the recipe was called that, the clone of a cinnabon. Those who are not familiar, it is one of those brands in shopping malls, selling cinnamon rolls. I'm gonna let out a secret. I've never ever tasted Cinnabon the cinnamon roll...until today. Yes, never ever...Do you believe me? It's true!

Yeah yeah, I'm a 'kedekut'..cheapskate I guess :P Or at that time when I passed by the stall I was broke or just don't wanna spend for that because I think I can make it and I can make it better. hahahahah! Well ok, perhaps I can't make better rolls on my own but with the help of people contributing great recipes on the internet - YES I CAN!

And you can too!

This was my first time making cinnamon roll and it was successful....except for the cream cheese icing hehehehe...as you can see in the picture, the butter and cream cheese were separated thus giving me runny yellow liquid on my rolls...but well, I think the taste of the rolls is compensated the failure of the icing.

ah well, soon I will post another attempt of mine to make cinnamon rolls in a much faster way. Yes, this clone of a cinnabon took me almost 4 hours before I could taste it...but I have tried another one that took just 90 minutes....but you have to wait :D

BEFORE COOK:

THE COOK ROLLS:

RECIPE LINK:

Clone of a Cinnabon

*I added some raisins and almonds before the rolling, just after sprinkling the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Cream Cheese Frosting

*From my observation or rather just my opinion based on my family, Malaysian generally couldn't stand the too-sweet-icings-cakes-and-cookies from the American recipes. I almost always reduce quite a lot of sugar originally called for in American recipes to suit my taste and my family's taste. You may reduce them or not, suiting your liking. 

Good luck!

Homemade Pizza

Yeshh! This was my first attempt to make pizza back in 2009! wow, I still remembered the exhiliration to make this and how well it turn out for a first timer! My mom, a really critical food critique likes it and that really made me feel awesome! lol. It was a simple recipe I got of allrecipes.com. However, I mess up some measurements during the dough making coz my measuring cup was not accurate and the water was too much, I ended up kneading with much more flour (can't recall how much I added extra now). But I thought that was what made it so fluffy and soft (the pizza bread). I love how it turns out and I think you will too. do try it!

The recipe link: 

Pizza Crust:

Jay's Signature Pizza Crust

Sauce:

Easy Pizza Sauce

Topping:

Any stuff that you like on your pizza but here's link to an article I read before I made mine.

How to Top and Bake Pizza

Good luck!

Halfway through 2012

Wow! 2012 is already at its midst? So fast...too fast!! And what have I achieved this year? Nothing...NOTHING....ughh...I've been feeling useless and soulless this year. I literally did nothing. Yeah, nothing....lol.

Ok, but I told myself not to whine...so now, I guess I gonna start little by little. I gonna revive and resuscitate this blog to its lively, breathing state again...

But since I have nothing, lol yes, I have nothing....so I gonna take all the stuff I've been experimenting and making in the past and post it here. Luckily, I recorded them in my Facebook so at least I have some healthy collection of my baking experiments...and other types of cooking.

For those real cook and baker and pattissier (or however it is spelled) just to let you know that I'm none of you and I'm really a trial-and-error type of person when it comes to cooking and no matter how many times I make something, I still need to look at the recipe...even my own chocolate chip cookies that I sell over in my other blog, Kakicookie...yes, believe it or not, I still need to look at the recipe everytime I make it...hahahhahaa....lousy me, huh? So you got the idea of what type of cook I am...lol. so, please don't hit, bombard, bomb, kick me on all sort of stuff like "what you did is so wrong!" "no pastry school will teach you that!!" ...lol...I think you got what I mean.

well, so, soon you will find this blog filled with some recipes and pictures of stuff that I made for the past 2 or 3 years....maybe...I hope you like it...and do try it. I myself got most of the recipes from the net so I gonna put the links for you guys on each of the posts.

Thanks for reading!