ITCHYITCHY

My sister got me my icecream maker for my birthday 2 months ago, and I made one batch of coconut icecream and left it packed on top of the refrigerator since. I feel terribly guilty. Problem is, I find using 5 egg yolks in my icecream slightly excessive and to be honest, a little scary. Needless to say I had been rummaging through countless vegan blogs hoping to find something dairy free and egg free. Might have been me being fussy but I didn't want a sorbet and other recipes I found asked for soy cream and fancy soy milk powders but I didn't know where to get them. Frustrated I declared- I GIVE UP!

But you know there is a cookbook about practically everything out there now. A book all about fish, a book all about chocolate (no, make that MANY books all about chocolate) and whatnot and Vice Cream is probably the IT book I needed. =) Decided to just close my eyes and pick out a recipe, I ended up making a 'raw' strawberry ice cream and mmmmmmm, it's pretty darn good. Different from what I expected since there was no sugar that was used instead, pureed dates stood in as a sweetener. Needless to say the icecream tasted like dates and strawberries which somehow made the flavour deeper. The texture was somewhere in between an icecream and a sorbet. Next on my list is peanut butter with chocolate. Gotta be good huh.

Here's the recipe (modified) from Jeff Rogers' Vice Cream, short sweet and simple.

1 vanilla bean
1.5 cups almond milk (I used fat-free soy milk)
1 cup organic pitted dates
1.5 cup packed hulled organic strawberries

1) Place the dates in boiling water to cover and let sit overnight (I chucked mine in the microwave for 4 minutes since I'm not fussed about being 'raw')
2) Remove the skins off the dates if you mind the specks in the final product, else leave it.
3) Blend the dates with the milk and the strawberries and vanilla seeds until silky smooth
4) Chill well before preparing according to ice-cream machine manufacturer's instructions.
5) Serve immediately or freeze and thaw 10 minutes before serving.

stickydate weird pudding

Today's the sort of day that you want to stay indoors- no going out for lunch, no going to get some groceries and definitely no going to the Melbourne Show. Luckily I've already done that on Monday so there, no dreadful 'i-wasted-a-good-day' feeling. =)

I spent the better part of yesterday tossing ideas in my head. I had a baking itch and since I haven't baked for a week or more (I was in Sydney on a girls trip!), I felt slightly guilty I had been neglecting the oven. So was it going to be coconut macaroons or stickydate pudding (more like a cake if you ask me) and I went with the stickydate, just because I had been wanting to bake it for a while now and if you ask me, I much like baking things that take a wee bit more effort. Makes you feel all sorts of happy and contented, none of that 'whip it up in 10 minutes' for me. Besides, my theory is that if you wanna bake, do it properly. So i used this gluten free recipe from Women's Day and was hoping for the best. I was attracted to it because it used such a wide variety of flours and I really wanted to try out the soy flour I had gotten awhile back.

So after I got back from dinner (INDIAN!), I decided to do the first bit which was to cook the dates and water for 5 minutes then add the bicarb soda and let sit for 20. After i did that, I went to get DVDs (Tuesday night special at videoezy) and came home to do the rest. It looked good in the mixing bowl, looked good rising in the oven but taste wise, it was really off.

I might blame it on the fact that I used Melrose instead of butter (I'm trying to be dairy free) or that I added cinnamon instead of nutmeg. Whatever it was, the texture was good, soft and sticky and today it remained moist even though I just left it sitting on the counter top. I don't know about this one...I suppose a large part of the problem MIGHT be that I didn't make the butterscotch toffee sauce to drench it in but hey, shouldn't a cake taste good on it's on without the added fancy schmancies? =( BUGGER. Now I feel like my baking itch hasn't been well satisfied. Oh well, I've got a few more days til school starts so til then, I'll think of something new to bake. =)

Holy...

Holy! It's been a full month since I've blogged. I have good reason for missing out on the world-uni! Oh wells, I haven't stopped baking, if that's what you're wondering. I have just been everywhere at once, just not here =)

Siew and I have embarked on our multimedia project for uni and we had huge plans for it. Started with using Director to make me a cake catalogue, then decided that we should do an aesthetic piece about food and friendship and we ended up with a interactive photo collage thingy. Don't ask. I'm confused myself. Good thing though, I got some nice photos out of it! =) Here's some...

and more...

Allrighty, now it's back to working on my presentation! I promise I'll have more brownie photos up soon! =)

A cookie that tastes like a cookie

I know I haven't been updating much, much less talk about the liver detox which, by the way, I'm still trying to follow (whenever possible). Well I threw the detox to the wind last week seeing that it was my LAST *teen which calls for much mourning and therefore, the overload of sweets and salties and ahem, more sweets. The previous post has already addressed the first of my birthday collection of sweets: brownies! And with regards to the birthday cake, it's been made and devoured, and I couldn't find the time to take a photo. Too busy scarfing the lovely moist orange almond cake.

Orange almond cake seems to be th favourite choice for flourless or gluten-free cakes. Everytime I see a gluten-free cake at a cafe or restaurant chances are it's an orange almond cake. Don't get me wrong, i LOVE orange and almond, put them together and you've got me hooked and so when I baked this orange almond cake from Sweet Alternative by Ariana Bundy, I half expected it to be the same dense, dense cake, similiar to the one I had at Cafe Trevi on Lygon street. Somehow it was a whole heap lighter and I'm guessing the Cafe Trevi one, as with the other flourless orange almond cakes around town, are made by creaming butter and sugar, while mine had no butter or oil but tasted more like heaven than anything else really. Reminds me of the orange cake made at The Raffles Hotel which was sensational (coz i got to pick at some while working there) and the method was the same. Immerse an orange in boiling water and simmer for 2 hours, puree and use. =) MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. But let's move onto cookies now.

Baked my birthday cookies yesterday, added a whole ton of chocolate chunks and chips and walnuts and I'm all smiles. Recipe was adapted from here because I needed a cookie that didn't use butter (because I have none and butter makes me feel guilty). I thought to myself that if I didn't use butter, I could add more chocolate and feel less bad. =) The cookies were good, but somehow they puffed up too much, despite me flattening them before baking so I had to flatten them once more while they were in the oven and it created a cool marbled effect from the melted chocolate chunks I added in, but somehow they were still a little too light for my liking. I think I'll add in 1/4 cup almond meal next time and remove the baking powder from the mixture. The recipe isn't vegan anymore because I had to add an egg to bind the ingredients as gluten-free mixtures are usually stickier than wheat flour ones. But I loved the taste and they're a whole heap better than many gluten free cookies I've had so here's the recipe that I used, with my adaptations.

chocolate chunka heaven cookies

1 very generous cup rice flour
3 tbsp tapioca starch flour
1/2 tsp xantham gum
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg
3 tbsp water (or so)
1 tsp vanilla extract
75 g walnuts, chopped
150g dairy-free dark chocolate (or any you prefer), chopped

1) Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius
2) Sift flours, xantham gum, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar together
3) Whisk egg, oil, maple syrup, vanilla extract together in a seperate bowl
4) Add liquid mixture into the flour mixture and stir to combine, adding 1-2 tbsp of water
if mixture is too sticky
5) Stir in nuts and chocolate until well mixed, again, adding 1 tbsp water is needed
6) Drop by huge tablespoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and flatten
7) Bake for 8 minutes or until puffy, then using the back of a spoon, flatten the cookies a little
8) Bake until brown (5 more minutes)
9) Cool completely or eat it while it's warm
10) Makes 20 kinda giant chocolate chunka heaven cookies

it's my party!

There's this weird thing about birthdays, makes you feel that its right that you have brownies for breakfast (lunch and dinner). Makes you feel it's okay to down a fishbowl margarita with 7 of your close mates. Makes you feel pretty darn justified that you should have awesome dinners everyday of the week. Scratch that, make that a fortnight. And really, it makes you feel that desserts should be ordered by the 'menu-ful' meaning: order 3/4 of the desserts available at the restaurant you happen to be at. YEAP, birthdays do that. I don't know about you but they certainly do that to me.


Because I still care about gluten and dairy and all that, I decided to bake myself my own birthday cake, birthday brownies, birthday tart and birthday cookies. So far I've only accomplished birthday brownies but that being said, because I have officially declared that birthdays oughta last for a MONTH, I still have a month to bake the rest. heh heh heh. The recipe for the brownies are from my Sweet Alternative book, which I am absolutely smitten with and needless to say, the brownies turned out fantastic, seriously un-gluten-free tasting and honestly, they tasted better than 'normal' brownies. When I took them out of the oven, I immediately plunged them into a cold water bath just to stop the cooking so it'd remain moist and fudgey. Gluten free baking can be tricky especially with KEEPING the product in it's 'original' condition (moist, fudgey etc.). Surprisingly, when I so easily and guiltlessly helped myself to the brownies this morning (duh! birthday breakfast!!!), they were still insanely moist and fudgey.


The brownies aren't dense, and certainly slightly more cake-like in texture compared to my favourite brownie recipe however, it was actually a nice change. It's got a lighter crumb but because of the ounces and ounces of chocolate and walnuts that I stirred in, it ups the chunky, dense and chocolate factor which if you don't know by now, absolutely fine with me. So right now, I'm relishing every bit of what's left. I might bake myself another batch veryVERY soon but then again, I've got that cake, tart and cookie to keep my birthdayself happy. Until then, I'm going to think of a way to FUDGE and DENSE this brownie up and hopefully come up with an exact replica of said favourite brownie.

Amaretti

Finally I got round to bake Amaretti and I had no problem deciding on using Cream Puff's treasured recipe because it looked so promising and seriously, no one can say no to a family secret recipe. Her recipe is designed to yield 50-70 cookies and rightly so since they are absolutely delicious morsels of delight but seeing that I'm about the only one who's gonna be eating them, I cut the recipe in 4 and ended up with 25! =) I suppose I made them a little smaller than intended.

Here's the recipe in 1/4
170g ground almonds
1/2 cup granulated sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
1 tsp almond extract
raw whole almonds
extra 1/2 cup raw sugar

1) Mix ground almonds, cocoa and sugar together
2) Add in egg and almond extract, mix well
3) My mixture looked a little crumbly but held together when I rolled them into little balls
4) Roll the balls in the 1/2 cup of extra sugar
4) Line them up on parchment paper and press an almond into each cookie
5) Bake at the bottom rack of the oven at 180 degrees celcius for 10 minutes, then move to middle rack and bake for further 5 minutes. Let cool and serve! =)

One birthday cake down, one to go...

I think a common trait that all people who cook share is that they are opportunists. Whenever anyone has a birthday or a gathering or a night in, they offer to take care of the food (HAH! I know you're guilty). And being as gluten-free and dairy-free as I can tolerate lately, I quite missed the feeling of baking with butter and wheat flour, what can I say, they do make cakes pretty darn good. So on Fred's birthday I appointed myself official birthday cake maker and decided I wanted to go all out, with the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, cream, chocolate, layers, frostings... and here's what I ended up with.

Burnt sugar cake with layers of milk and dark chocolate ganache and kahlua spiked cream topped with a rich buttery caramel frosting.

Notes for the cake:
I had to make the burnt sugar syrup 3 times because the first time I overlooked the part where I had to add in HOT water, and added in tepid water which make the caramel harden. Second time I cooked it for a tad too long and it became bitter. Third time lucky. =). I notices my syrup wasn't VERY dark brown but more like a rich hazel color.

Notes for the ganache:
I used this simple recipe of 1/4 cup cream: 125g chocolate. The top layer is a milk chocolate ganache while the bottom is a dark chocolate ganache. I did that because I ran out of dark choc. =P no other reason.

Notes for soaking syrup for cake:
Mix 1/2 cup water with 2 tbsp of instant coffee powder and 1/3 cup kahlua. Brush cooled cake layers with syrup after assembling. i.e. place the cake layer in place on top of the cake board and brush first layer, and then top with ganache and place second layer on top before brushing with syrup. Repeat.

Notes for kahlua spiked cream:
Simply whip 200ml of thickened cream until soft peaks form, add in 1/2 of icing sugar and 3 tbsp of kahlua, whip a little more until stiff, chill before spreading on 2nd layer.

Notes for the caramel frosting:
I followed recipe exactly except I reduced the icing sugar and used 2 tbsp of cream at the end to thin it out. It set pretty quickly.