Honey Cinnamon Butter Cookies

These festive December 2016 cookies were baked as a gift. I had run out of all-purpose or pastry flour so I had to fall back on self-rising flour. I hunted around the internet, and came across this recipe.

For fun, I rolled these into coarse sugar so they would have a bit of a crunchy sparkle.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 100 g butter, softened
• 13 g sugar
• 2 tbs (42.5 g) honey
• 150 g self rising flour
• cinnamon (optional)
• pinch of salt

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix butter, sugar, and honey until smooth.
3. Sift in the flour, and add in cinnamon if using.
4. Roll into 16 balls and flatten slightly.
5. Roll into coarse, granulated sugar (optional).
6. Bake 8-10 mins until edges are browned.
7. Cool 10 mins on the pan before moving to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Murder Mystery Carrot Cake

This week, an event that was a collaboration between two societies at the university (cooking and games) occurred. This was a Murder Mystery Dinner! I was asked if I wanted to bake and thus contribute to the dessert spread, and as I was being flooded in schoolwork, I (of course) decided to jump on it!

I wanted to "catch up" on the lack of frosting and layering from the last cake I made for Cooking Society, so I went all out. I made a double batch of carrot cake in a 24 cm springform pan. The next day, I cut it into 2 layers, and made a frosting out of cream cheese, Greek yogurt (to increase the volume), and icing sugar. I spread this between the two layers, and on top of the cake, and piped some dollops with my new silicone piping bag and some piping tips that I never got to use before. Unfortunately, the frosting had warmed considerably at that point, and was not so firm.

To keep up with the theme, I piped "Murder Mystery" with the crossed fork and knife logo of the cooking society, and added a smattering of powdered cinnamon on top.

The baking paper is still visible, as I delivered it in the springform pan covered with a sheet of aluminum foil to keep dust and the like at bay. I decorated the cake during my lunch break, then went to class, while the cake rested in the fridge. I then came back to pick it up, and decided not to risk biking with a cake in my hand.

Carrot Cake

Phew, finally caught up on the backlog! Here is what I baked yesterday: Carrot cake!

The main reason for this was because I had carrots laying around. The other reasons include, but are not limited to: I needed to de-stress, I have never made this before, and "why not?"

The process to make the batter reminded me a lot of banana bread, except that I had grate the carrots instead of simply mashing my bananas. The ingredients used are similar, although I haven't really gone to see if the proportions are the same. Probably not, since bananas have a higher water content than do carrots.

I adapted a recipe from Spice Up The Curry, although I changed some things according to personal preferences, such as cutting down the sugar and changing some sugar types. I made 2 small, pretty tall cakes instead of a larger, flatter one, though to be honest, I did not think it would rise that much even with the amount of leavening agents involved.

The cake was frosted with an improvised cream cheese frosting, namely cream cheese, powdered sugar, and lime. The amounts? I kind of ad-libbed. I put some cream cheese in. Then I squeezed a small section of a lime in, tasted it... "Not sour enough." After a couple more times, it had enough of the citrus zing to it to match my imagined taste, but then I only had a small piece of lime left. "Oh well" preceded my squeezing of the rest of it in. Then I added a little bit more cream cheese because it had gotten pretty watery by then. Powdered/icing sugar was added to round off the sourness, then the whole bowl took an overnight nap in the fridge just because we were too full to eat last night, and I was not going to frost it ahead of time.

For extra texture, I put some crushed walnuts over the top, and gave it all a bit of color with a dusting of cinnamon. This cake was nice and moist, which was very pleasant to eat.

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CARROT CAKE RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 pinches salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 cup + 2 tbs neutral oil
• 1/4 cup golden sugar
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup soymilk
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup grated carrots

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. In a bowl, mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Whisk well.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk sugars and oil. Add in soymilk and water and whisk well.
4. Add in the flour mix in 2 times, mixing well each time.
5. Fold in the carrots.
6. Pour into a prepared pan, and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Spiced Cookies

July 27, 2015

While in China, I traveled a lot to Hong Kong. My cousin and I also met up with a classmate from high school. During our last week there, we decided to meet up once more before our return to Europe. I thought I'd make some cookies to give to that friend.

I had wanted to make Spéculoos, but I was missing some ingredients (namely cassonade, or dark brown sugar). I tried to substitute some yellow sugar that was grated from a block, but the result wasn't exactly the same.

Instead of just putting the dash of cinnamon I usually use, I decided to go all out. I know the original Spéculoos uses at least 4-5 spices, namely cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and anis. I never have all these on hand, but I thought I'd give a few more spices a try. In this batch, I put some nutmeg and powdered ginger on top of the usual cinnamon.

The cassonade gives off a very fragrant flavor, as well as the usual dark brown color of the cookies. As I did not have this on hand, I ended up with a different type of cookies, which was rich in nutmeg flavor. It was also my first time grating a nutmeg to use, and it was stronger than I expected.

Recipe for Spéculoos can be found here~

Milk Tart (Melktert)

Long ago, I saw a recipe from Cakecrumbs for a milk tart, a cinnamon-flavored South African custard tart. Initially, it was the appearance of it that drew me -- that, and the word "cinnamon." The custard itself, however, required quite a few eggs that I know, from experience, would not work with just egg replacer. Google helped me to find a vegan alternative.

First, I settled with making a shortbread crust, which I put into my mini tart pans, and baked until golden. This time, instead of standing around rubbing the butter into the flour, I attempted to pulse it a few times in a blender with a chopper blade attachment, and finished the rest by cutting with two knives. It made for more dishes to wash, but resulted in a much shorter pastry, and less mess on my own fingers.

Then came the time to make the filling. I looked in my various ingredients and baking equipment boxes, convinced that I had a bag of cinnamon sticks laying around. The one time I wanted to use one, and it turns out I left them at home. Silly me. Cinnamon powder would have to do.

Simmering soy milk with the cinnamon, I added a slurry made with some more soy milk and cornstarch. Once cooled a little, I filled in my tarts, then left them set in the fridge. It actually took two days to stop jiggling. Then the whole surface was dusted in a mix of icing sugar and cinnamon.

Since I had some excess custard, I filled little dessert jars for extra nomming.

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MILK TART RECIPE (for approximately 6 mini tarts)

  Ingredients

     Shorbread Crust

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 150 g (10.5 tbs) butter, diced
• 25 g (2 tbs) unrefined sugar
• 2 tbs cold water
• a pinch of salt

     Custard Filling

• 2.5 cups soymilk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon powder or cinnamon stick
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• sugar, to taste

     Dusting

• 1 tbs icing sugar
• 1 tbs cinnamon powder

  Procedure

     Shortbread Crust

1. Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl.
2. In a blender with chopper blade, pulse flour mix with butter until a breadcrumb consistency is obtained.
3. Add water progressively until the dough comes together into a ball.
4. Refrigerate 30 mins before rolling out.
5. Preheat oven 180°C.
6. Roll out to desired thickness, and line pans with the dough.
7. Using a fork, poke holes all over the surface of the dough.
8. Bake for 15-30 minutes, or until golden.

     Custard Filling

1. In a pot, mix 2 cups of soymilk with cinnamon, and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce to a simmer to infuse cinnamon.
2. Make a slurry out of the cornstarch and the remaining soymilk.
3. Progressively add slurry to the hot soymilk, whisking constantly.
4. Add sugar to taste, and continue cooking until thickened.

     Assembly

1. Pour custard filling into the tart shells.
2. Let cool then refrigerate overnight.
3. Dust with a mix of cinnamon and icing sugar.

  Tips and Comments

• You can use any other milk. I just used soymilk because that is what I had at hand.
• I ran out of cornstarch halfway through, so I subbed the rest with 3 times the volume in wheat flour. This requires longer cooking for it to thicken, however.
• This recipe is for approximately 6 mini tarts, although I am not sure about how much filling it would make. I made 3 mini tarts with 1/2 of the crust recipe, and used about 2 cups of soymilk overall to fill my 3 tarts and two little glass pots.
• If you have leftovers, put them in various recipients (jars, glass pots, etc.), and refrigerate to make little custards.

Apple Cinnamon Cake

My cousin's birthday was yesterday, and I could not find any of my usual baking tools. I did have a couple of things I had brought back from university with me, but I had little ingredients to work with, and little tools. (All my plans for an attempt at doing fancier decorations flew out the window).

I whipped up a vegan cake recipe (easiest, and I usually tend to have the ingredients for it in the kitchen). I added a dash of cinnamon in the batter for extra fragrance. Then I used some of the whipping cream that was sitting in the fridge and made a whipped cream topping. As I was out of idea, I found an apple sitting in the fruit basket, and sliced it, poached it in some sugar syrup, and topped the cake with that.

Then I used the remaining sugar syrup mixed with leftover glaze from some old apple tart, and glazed the apples for preservation and shiny-ness. The whole cake was then sprinkled with cinnamon.

Just for kicks, I'll include the cake recipe below. This is my go-to recipe for cake when I don't have much time or ingredients.

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BASIC VEGAN CAKE RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup unsweetened soymilk
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 tbs white or apple cider vinegar

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C. Grease and flour a cake pan. Alternatively, use cupcake liners.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
3. In another bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones.
5. Mix well, ensuring there are no dry pockets of flour.
6. Pour into pan.
7. Bake for 30 mins (for a whole cake) or 20 mins (for normal-sized cupcakes), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let it cool and ice/top it however you want.

See, easy, right? =D

Triple Cheesecakes

Did I mention that I received some new springform pans for Christmas? I got about 4 of them, around 10.5 cm in diameter. Since with these, I now have a total of 8 mini springform pans, I used the opportunity to test some different recipes for cheesecakes, all in one go! As you can see, I made 3 types, and I made 2 of each type. They all have a butter cookie crust (with a tiny bit of almond).

Let me describe them from left to right:

Classic Cheesecake: This is a twist the "classic" recipe I usually use, with cream cheese and Greek yogurt (as sub for sour cream or fromage blanc that I used to use). I flavored this with rose, and topped with a berry sauce and cinnamon whipped cream.

Ricotta Cheesecake: I read somewhere about a cheesecake made out of ricotta, so I wanted to test it, since ricotta is a much lighter cheese than cream cheese. I flavored this one with lemon zest and lemon juice, topped with somewhat candied lemon slices. Although it was indeed lighter, I felt that the slight grittiness due to the ricotta's texture wasn't what I was looking for in cheesecake.

Greek Yogurt Cheesecake: This recipe was pure Greek yogurt, although I added a bit of starch to stabilize the mix. I really enjoyed the creaminess. I left this one vanilla flavored, and topped with a bit of berry sauce, and cinnamon whipped cream.

Served with more cinnamon whipped cream.

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THREE CHEESECAKE RECIPES (filling only)

  Ingredients

     Classic Cheesecake [2 x 12 cm pan]

• 200 g cream cheese
• 125 g Greek yogurt
• 1 1/3 eggs' worth of egg replacer
• 1/3 lemon's juice
• . rose water
• sugar
• topping

     Ricotta Cheesecake [2 x 10.5 cm pan]

• 250 g ricotta
• 2/3 eggs' worth of egg replacer
• 1/6 cup cream
• 1 lemon's zest
• 1/2 lemon's juice
• sugar
• topping

     Greek Yogurt Cheesecake [2 x 10.5 cm pan]

• 285 g Greek yogurt (~2 cups)
• 1 egg's worth of egg replacer
• 1/2 tbs cornstarch
• 1 pack vanilla sugar
• sugar
• topping

  Procedure

1. Mix all ingredients except the topping.
2. Pour into prepared pan (with prepared crust/base).
3. Bake at 180°C for 15 mins.
4. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate overnight.
5. Top as desired, and serve.

  Tips

     Put a pan filled with water on a rack underneath the cheesecakes while baking to provide steam and prevent cracking.

Apple Cake with Whipped Cream and Caramel

On a weekend with guests over, my brother made some homemade pizza while I made a cake. I originally intended to make jam-topped almond butter cookies, but due to time constraints, I settled for egg-free cake with diced apple inside.

Turns out after I baked it and decorated it with whipped cream and caramel sauce (caramel always fails with me...), the inside was not cooked enough. So I had to scrape off the cream and re-bake the cake some more... Just goes to show that I have a lot of failures as an amateur baker...

I also accidentally left all my baking decoration tools at my dorm, so I had to make do with a plastic bag to try and pipe designs on top. As usual, when I use a plastic bag, I cut the hole too large, so it makes for sloppy decorations.

All in all, this cake was a pretty bad failure, though the end result was tasty enough.

Apple Topped Spiced Cake

While planning to visit yet another family friend, my mom said something about buying a tart or cake to bring along. Personally, I felt it was unfair that one family friend got homemade goodies, while another one would get store-bought. So I decided to whip up a quick cake.

The recipe for the cake itself is the same as this one, but without the fruits, and with more milk and oil (215 g and 111 g respectively). I topped it with hand-whipped whipped cream (whipping cream and some icing sugar).

I cooked apple slices (thicker than the ones I use for apple tarts) in some brown sugar syrup, before laying them on top of the whipped cream. Then I dusted the whole thing in cinnamon, and glazed the apples with a bit of leftover apple glaze that I had from one of the last times I made apple tarts, which I flavored with a dash of rosewater.

Mango Rose Cheesecake

Since my mom brought a cake yesterday for my birthday party, we didn't use the one I baked. So I thought I would provide it for hallway dinner today!

The crust is made of spéculoos cookies with some melted butter. The filling is cream cheese and greek yogurt with a hint of cinnamon and some lemon (no rose flavor, the appellation comes from the shape). Topped with mango, strawberries, and whipped cream.

The whole cheesecake:

And rose details:

Triple Dessert

Another friends' gathering dinner. I think it'll be a regular thing from now on on Saturday nights.

One of my friends made a 5-spice stew to eat with rice, which was delicious. Another friend provided some steamed vegetables. I opted for dessert, since that's what I enjoy making most.

I made three small desserts for each of us. First, I did something very simple, which was to make pudding out of a pudding packet (mix with sugar, add to hot soymilk, pour into containers, refrigerate). Next, I took a few kiwis that were getting very ripe. I cooked them up with some brown sugar and lime juice, and topped them with a crumble mix (mix of flour, butter, and sugar, pan-fried to create a crumbled cookie mixture). Last of all, I made a mug cake, with cinnamon and more brown sugar as flavoring.

You can tell it was originally a mug cake, but due to the depth of the mug, it was very hard to take good pictures. So I decided to take the cake out of the mug.

Apple cinnamon cake

December 3, 2013
I was staying at my uncle's house for about a week, and there were a lot of apples going old in the fridge. So I decided to make a cake out of them. Sorry, I forgot where I got the recipe from...

Prince (Apple-Cinnamon) Cheesecake

It all began with a journal posted by *claremanson on DeviantArt. She was hosting a baking contest! I thought it was awesome, and decided that I wanted to take part in it.

Because the theme was an Oreo cheesecake based on *claremanson's recipe, I had a bit of trouble visualizing what I would do. Why? Well, because there are no Oreos to be found in the vicinity of my normal shopping area. I wasn't too keen on going around different stores to try and find those cookies, or some knock-off brand, so I took the closest thing I could find at Colruyt: Mini Prince vanilla-filled cookies.

After finding these cookies at the store, I thought I would start with a couple of test runs to test the flavors I had in mind. Because this is a no-bake cheesecake, it is much easier to do a couple of tiny practice cheesecakes. The one on the left was a test of the cinnamon flavored cheesecake, and the one on the right has plain vanilla cheesecake. They are topped with applesauce, lightly roasted apple slices, and 1/4 of a cookie each.

I wanted to stay away from the heavy cream, so I also tested to see how well it would set with yogurt instead. Worked wonderfully.

Now that I had the flavors in mind, and a rough idea for the presentation, I did a couple of concept sketches (in Paper). I varied from the recipe on these points:

• No Oreos.
• Vanilla is boring, so I used a cinnamon flavor.
• Used yogurt instead of heavy cream.
• Made it fruity for the summer with apples, to match with cinnamon (we all know I love the apple and cinnamon combo).

Then got to work on the final product. I had issues with the sugar mix not wanting to become caramel, and the burning me after it did... I started by trying to make a small batch of this microwave caramel sauce recipe, which didn't caramelize (maybe because I didn't have corn syrup so tried it out with honey instead...). I ended up using this recipe (I made a quarter batch), which turned out deliciously addicting. It took me around a whole afternoon, plus the time to finish up the decoration to finish it all.

I borrowed my dad's professional Canon camera to take these sunny pictures, so that the shots would be better quality than if taken with my Canon Powershot. (Which caused a whole issue with the fact that my dad had lost his Compact Flash card reader, and I had to get the pictures through cord... and the camera not being recognized by Windows 7, etc...)

I also made a bunch of smaller ones (4 the size of the test runs, and 3 in larger coffee cups), but they were mostly used as rough drafts for the decoration components, and therefore not fit for photography.

The contest winners were announced today. I didn't win anything, but got an honorable mention ^^