The Happy Accident: Dorie's Peanuttest Blondies-turned-Cupcakes

Ah how the weekend whizzes by. A little housewarming, some gastric pains, a lot of fussing over Baby and his getting used to staying at home..and it's all gone.

Sigh.

I baked a batch of brownies for boss's housewarming while doubled up in pain - and (I shoulda known this) they came out too dry and crumbly after I fell asleep in the couch and failed to take them out of the oven on time. So housewarming gift making aborted, and I gave E my new (unused) set of pretty waterglasses instead and the brownies to AK.

Nothing like a failed bake to inspire another one.

I was tempted by Dorie Greenspan's Baking: My Home to Yours' Peanuttest Blondies recipe. Peanut butter is one of my most favourite things in the world. And I'm always looking to baking with peanuts more - they cost a fraction of the price of walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts, and only almonds can't be substituted with them, IMHO.

First, roast some peanuts. Spray a handful with some oil, sprinkle a little sea salt. Using your hands, mix everything up and spread on a baking tray. Place in a preheated 170 degC oven for 5-6 minutes and be diligent about watching the oven! I have ended up with little black rocks more often than I'd like to admit.

Next, apologize to Dorie for the corruption that you are about to commit. I believe she meant these to be dense, sweet and, well, blondie/brownie-like. Overcompensating for the lack of baking soda led me to add a touch more baking powder than I intended, resulting in these fluffy little numbers that came with gorgeous crispy crusts - my favourite part of the cupcakes. And, they were so good AK and I ate 3 cupcakes between us as soon as they were cool enough to hold in our greedy hands.

I give my corrupt version here. Next time I'd probably make them the same, except I'd reduce the sugar and butter, and up the PB content for added stickiness. I'd also add a touch more salt.

Peanut Cupcakes

Adapted from Dorie's Peanuttest Blondies

1/2 cup peanut butter (cruchy or chunky)

2 1/2 tbsp butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 large egg

1/2 cup roasted peanuts

1) Start by creaming the butter with the peanut butter until almagated.

2)Then tip in the sugar and stir till you can't see the sugar crystals anymore. Using a handheld mixer this takes less than 10 minutes.

3) Then crack in the egg, stir, add the vanilla, and stir till the mixture stops curdling.

4) Sift the flour, salt and baking powder into the batter (meaning scoop the flour into a sieve, tip in the baking powder then sift into the wet batter).

5) Fold in to combine, then tip in the peanuts (roughly chopped) and fold in again.

6) Spoon into your muffin pan, bake at 170 degC for 20 minutes or until your skewer/knife inserted into the thickest part of the cake (usually the middle) comes out clean.

Something to cool down with

OK, I have to admit - I'm too embarassed to use the name we've given this drink as this post title.

I came up with this concoction in a spirited effort to "cool" AK down, and find a way to get some fruit into him, short of tying him down and force-feeding him or wheedeling him like a mother does a stubborn child. Now one does NOT want to mother her partner, whether she is older than him or not. But that's another story.

Nowadays he sweet-talks me into making this for all the time. I can't remember how we came up with this embarassingly ridiculous and over-the-top name, though.


The weird thing is, the name was actually meant for another drink - longans with ice-cream soda and lots of ice. This is different, less sugar, cooler and healthier. And somehow the name "Scuba Diving Dragon" (hey, the longans are supposed to represent dragon eyes - although their Malay name means Cats Eyes, confusing - in soda water, i.e. swimming, i.e. scuba diving....sorry)



Like I said, it would've been better not to know.

This is a good way to make not-so-palatable, but sadly it's all we can get in this forsaken place, fruit. Bananas, papayas and jackfruit only last a couple of days before turning into compost but apples and pears last for weeks in our fridge. And most of the apples and pears that are reasonably priced enough to buy here make for lousy eating. So here's the recipe we use to get them down:

1 or 2 Chinese pears (or apples should you prefer)
Honey to taste
About 7-8 ice cubes
A little water

Cut the pear into cubes. In a blender, put in your ice 1st, then the pears, then the honey. Whiz it all up and serve this ice-cold slush immediately in a tall glass and a fat straw.

Offshore again

Sigh so much for the weekend.

Here I am, after more than a year of dry land. And what a new place it is, the previous place that I could once feel my way around with the back of my hand, where we winged it in a tiny office (my back was towards a rack of electrical isolation switches), to my would-be room now (should I have remained) having its own 32-inch LCD TV. Whoo, times have changed. My old room didn't even have enough space for me to sit on the floor.


It's nice though to see the familiar faces, to shake their hands and have them bring me around the new quarters. Yes, you see, the place might be new, but the people, the warmth, the welcome, is warmly, wonderfully, familiar.

Handmade Potstickers

Potstickers, yay!

I have tried making Xiao Long Bao twice, with results that almost drove me to tears. You'd be traumatized too if you've:

- gotten strange looks from your butcher when asking to buy pig skin- scraping the skin to get rid of the residual hairs

- boiling it up with the chicken carcass, pork bones and lots and lots of ginger to kill the smells

- setting it in the fridge, skimming off the fat, giving the dish a good shake and watching it wobbleAll this has to be done at least the day before.
- Hand-mincing the pork for the filling
- The dough, oh, the damned dough for the wrappers. SO MUCH effort to knead and roll and wrap, only to have the set up soup melting into my wrappers because of the hot weather (and unformed gluten)

After all that effort, what a letdown. I still shudder at the amount of sweat and effort that went down the drain.

That was more than a year ago.

Now I feel compelled to try again, but with something a little less ambitious this time. No soup that can seep out or anything like that.

And what results! Happiness is making your own potstickers, skin and all :) truly
Recipe is from this gorgeous blog for the wrappers, and Eileen Leong-Blonder for the filling, a simple, winning combo of hand-minced pork belly (with the fat that melts during the cooking process, thus resulting in a really juicy bite, wilted Napa cabbage, spring onions, seasoned with soy, sesame oil, Shiaoxing wine, a teeny bit of sugar.

Filling recipe:
- 300g pork - lean if you want a good hearty mouthful; pork belly if you want a really juicy bite

- 3 cups Napa cabbage, finely shredded

- 2 tbsp salt

- 1 tbps finely grated ginger

- seasonings - 2 tsp soy, 2 tsps sesame oil, i tbsp Shaoxing wine, pinch of sugar

Mix the cabbage really well with the salt, cover and leave for 15 minutes for the cabbage to wilt. Then rinse off the salt, drain and squeeze out as much water as possible. I still found my cabbage soggy after squeezing, so I spread them out on a platter and directed my stand fan at them for 10 minutes. Mix the cabbage with everything else, leave the filling to marinate for at least half an hour.

Homemade wrappers -sigh, getting it right is such a magnificient feeling. And the eating - "toothsome resiliance" - I cannot find a better way to describe it. All I can say is that it IS worth it. Thanks to this site for the recipe - it's a revelation in itself. A dream to work with, it didn't stick to anything, yet was easy to seal, and I could even make those little pleats you see here. Am definitely going to get me a copy of Fuschia Dunlop's Sichuan Cookery for more tips and inspirations.

Dreaming again...

I'm blogging now because I just completed my Offshore Survival refresher over the past 2 days and all that firefighting, groping my way through a pitch-dark smokehouse, jumping off a platform and swimming in my heavy cotton coveralls has left me with a bit of brain fug today.

So I blog.

Inspired by my friend's wedding registry, I have listed the following as my items of utmost desire (AK I hope you're reading):

1) Le Creuset enamelled cast-iron Dutch Oven. Failing that, an Ikea Favourit enamelled cast-iron pot will do also - gotta start somewhere
2) Le Creuset cast iron grill pan for stovetop grilling
3) A marble slab for rolling pastry, I've tried chilling my wooden cutting board in the fridge before rolling my pastry, with so-so results.
4) A preseasoned cast-iron frying pan (Ikea will do also)
5) A pizza stone
6) As always, a KitchenAid with meat mincer attachment, and a built-in oven from Miele or Gaggenau

My dream kitchen will look like this:

- Gleaming glossy white cabinets
- White Solid surfacing (Corian or Samsung) countertops extending to the wall-mounted cabinets for easy maintenance
- 2 huge ceramic lab sinks
- Extendable hose taps thingy
- Dishwasher and dryer
- Teracotta pots filled with mint, basil, rosemary, coriander and chillies
- Plasma-Silver-Ion-nanotech fridge with icemaker- Ice-Cream maker- A Convection Oven, Steam-Convection-Microwave Oven, Salamander, Hot stone grill and a smoker
- Air conditioning- White flourescent lighting
- Magimix food processor
- Gas and induction hobs
- Electric deep-fryer
- Ipod docking station for playing music
- A view of the TV
- A breakfast/bar counter, solid surfaced, with its own little sink and a shelf above it holding wine/waterglasses, drawers for storing cutlery and little saucers and at least 2 electrical points for plugging in a blender/electric kettle. With 3 bar stools.

Oh, it's gonna be gorgeous!

On Me, NOW

- I work day and night with men, and I best most of them on the job. Sorry, gotta say it.
- I'm a huge fan of Taylor Swift
- I listen to the lyrics more than the music
- I love mostly Rock, and Country songs. Sweet Child of Mine, after all these years still gets me on my feet
- I love U2 too
- I'm still gaga over Jason Castro, the 3rd Runner Up in American Idol. I doubt I can be such a huge fan of any other AI contestant anymore
- But David Cook's music on AI was da best. Jason just had me at "Hallelujah"
- When I listen to a song that whets my musical appetite, I whip up my cheapo Paris Hilton mobile and key in the lyrics as I hear them. I then Google those lyrics, get the song title and then I Ares the song :)
- I sometimes dream of imaginery statuses on for my Facebook profile - e.g. Deborah is deciding between the sand dunes of Oman and the Ice floes of Sakhalin, or Deborah baked Nutella cupcakes today, or Deborah is in Bali, ChiangMai, climbing Kinabalu, diving off Sipadan, "diamond solitaire or Le Creuset Dutch Oven, or better still, KitchenAid". Or Deborah gave her boss a good piece of her mind". I really need to get a life.
- I'm a closet exhibitionist (hah! now that's an oxymoron)
- I pretend as much as possible to stay cool, calm and collected. But truthfully, I suffer from verbal diarrhoea more often than I'd like to admit. Sigh.
- I really wanna show off by sharing my baking produce with my collegueas, but I'm afraid of being known as the Muffin Girl, or worse, Brownie Bimbo
- I really wanna wear my black shift to work but am afraid to
- I really am afraid of a lot of things
- I enjoy being alone most of the time. In fact, truthfully, I'd rather be alone than with company I feel so-so about
- The only friends I really miss are my schoolmates
- I miss my family so much sometimes it hurts. Reading an email from my dad makes me break out in tears sometimes.
- I have a deep, fierce love for my younger brothers and would do anything for them. I hope they chase after their craziest, wildest dreams no matter what and not settle like their sister did
- I was diagnosed as having under-active thyroid glands, which make me - put on weight easily, and cold all the time. I hate being cold so much more than feeling hot, and would pick Nigeria over Russia if I was presented with the choice
- I have a love-hate relationship with Miri. I love the lack of traffic jams, the general kindness of the people, the fact that my house is 2 minutes away from work and all this enables me to pursue things like baking and investing. I hate the lousy service, the wacko/sleepy/totally unaware drivers and the lousy car parks. I am grateful that there really is nowhere to spend my money on, but resent all the things I cannot buy.
- I love babies and little kids but the thought of having my own scares the hell out of me so much.
- I love Kevin Spacey for being so cool in The Negotiator and LA Confidential, and Colin Farrel when I saw his bad-boy, just got out bed look on E! Channel
- Watching Gray's Anatomy makes me regretful that I did not pursue my first love of medicine. But being offshore, and some elements of what I do now actually gives me plenty of satisfaction

Try and catch me now....

Happiness and Nutella

I am ashamed to say, I dream up recipes and get my inspirations very often at work. While marking up PDF documents of Reciprocating Pump General Arrangement Drawings and Process Engineering Flow Schemes, snippets of cocoa, butter, and peanuts appear. Not suddenly, more like they were lying dormant in my head and decided to rear up at a mouse click.

This is one of them. It's actually an adaptation of the almost greaseless Hot Milk sponge cake, devilled up with cocoa, coffee, more grease (it really does make it better, and that is the truth) and a Nutella filling.

I have Nutella in little single serving packets, courtesy of a work trip to the UK, where every morning I'd sneak in two or three from my breakfast buffet to eat later in the evening for supper. Well, that was before I met sticky toffee pudding at room service, and that became my daily supper. The packets of Nutella were tossed aside daily, and at the end of my trip I dumped them all into my luggage and lugged them back halfway across the world, and they have been lying in my fridge since then (I mean November last year). I tried spreading some on white milk bread, but found the chocolate taste too little and the sweetness too much. I don't know if it's the cold weather in the UK that makes everything not sweet enough, suffice to say I had to do something creative with my stash as I wasn't going to finish my Nutella neat. Hence the daydreaming at work.

Back to the cupcakes. I reckon about a quarter cup of Nutella was used, cut into little chunks and chilled so that they don't melt too fast during the baking.

I used oil in leau of butter, of course butter is better, but let me assure you, this was not half bad - after all, after a homemade dinner, we each downed 2 cupcakes, biting into the spongy cake and melted, gooey filling filling the mouth with spongy, bittersweet cake (made so with coffee and cocoa, and less sugar than normal sponge) and gooey melted Nutella. Now this will finish up the stash in no time.

I actually brewed the coffee by boiling up the milk for the cakes and then pouring the hot milk into a coffee press with my grounds, but that was because I needed to conserve my Nescafe and needed to find a use for my coffee grounds anyways. I, Nescafe convert since I was 11 and will be till the day I die, believe that 2 teaspoons of these crystals will do the trick - simpler and less cleanup after.


Cocoa Sponge Cakes with a Nutella filling
1 cup minus 3 tbsp AP flour
3 tbsp cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/c cup milk
2 teaspoons instant coffee or 1 batch coffee grounds
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons oil or melted butter
1/4 cup Nutella, cut into pieces and chilled

Preheat oven to 16o degC.
Beat egg yolks and sugar till pale, almagated and the mixer/whisk, when lifted up, trails ribbons on the batter.
Meanwhile, put the milk in a clean saucepan with the
Sift the dry ingredients together and fold into the egg mixture.
+nutella in a small saucepan on low heat, stirring occasionaly to prevent the nutella sticking to the bottom and to mix it all up.
Sift the dry ingredients.When bubbles start to appear in the milk, turn off the heat and add the coffee.
Slowly, whisking all the time, pour the hot milk mixture into the batter.
Grease and flour your cupcake pan.
Fill each cup halfway up with the batter, then add the Nutella chunks in a single layer. Fill the rest with batter, leaving a half-centimetre gap for the cupcakes to rise.
Bake for 20 minutes.

Walking the Tightrope - My New Schedule

There are days when I wish I was Molly of Orangette, who has so wonderfully, successfully merged her two loves - food and writing. She suffueses family, memories, friends, adventure(!) into her cooking and then spills over into her writing. Or Joycelyn of Kuidaore, who at the very least is Nigella-esque in describing her food, but so much more elegantly so. These are my food lit idols, along with Nigella, of course.

I tend to lurch in between the two in terms of my own blogging, and normally end up with some dry description of some pathetic looking concoction.

But most days I love it. I loved it when I made ice cream for the first time, loved it when I fried my first (and still last) lor bak, loved it when I baked my 1st batch of brownies or when I stayed up till 5 in the morning baking batch after batch of meringue cookies at low heat.

Then again there are days when I feel like I want to be Andy Grove, or Warren Buffet. These are the days when I stalk the corridors of my office like a tiger in prowl, when I speak up at meetings and get involved in making strategic decisions, when I make a difference in the business and want to continue doing so. I feel like flying up the (corporate) ladder, working at a frenzied pace till late hours then come back, exercise (like the well-rounded, ever so disciplined person I intend to be) then read some Ben Graham and watch Bloomberg.

Now seems to be one of those times. Work is picking up and I;m starting to get that all-too-familiar feeling of more responsibilities. I see it as something really positive and am truly grateful for it - am starting to attend a lot more meetings and people are actually asking my opinion and getting me in the loop in the very important decisions. Cool.

But I still want to cook and bake and potter about the kitchen with my mixing bowls and spatulas, cursing my (free) oven and spilling flour into all the tile crevices. I still think I don't make enough money and want my money to work harder for me. I still wanna be thin.

So I've worked out a schedule for myself:

5.45 am - Wake up, make extra-strong coffee. Turn on Bloomberg/CNBC and catch the US markets summary and what President Obama is going to do next
6.10 am - Get on the elliptical for half an hour, followed by 25 crunches on the stability ball and stretches. TV on all the time.
6.45 am - Take a bath, wash and dry hair. Drive to work (2 minutes, haha)
7.15 am - Work. Prioritize tasks, attend meetings. Resolve things sooner by calling people up intead of emailing too much. Clear as much of my Inbox as possible. 10 minutes before wrapping up the day, write down a list of things to do tomorrow.
5.30 pm~6 pm - Go home. Prepare dinner, watch American Idol, Bake. Read Ben Graham in between takes. Take photos of food. Think of better ways to describe them.
10 pm - 10.30 or 11 pm - Read Ben Graham in bed till fall asleep.

Yes, I have to wake up early, I have to make my coffee at home instead of sipping it slowly in the office while my PC starts up. I have to wash my hair in the morning and blowdry it. I have to use my own coffee stash instead of the company's (yes I'm cheap) and I use a lot more leave-in conditioner to avoid my hair going brittle with all the blowdrying. On the plus side I look really groomed nowadays with my coiffured hair :) And I feel like a really zen, disciplined, mature person somehow with this schedule.

Pumpkin Puffins

Pumpkin Puffins

In these times of economic gloom and doom, living below our means has been a major factor in all my domestic choices. I cook chicken and sotong instead of beef and prawns, eggs and tofu instead of fancy cheese and imported stuff.

And when it comes to baking, I've been trying to do it without butter, which costs 10 bucks(!) a stick here.

I've been baking up a frenzy, making my coconut hot milk sponge and a coffee-scented one previously. Then I came across the recipe that inspired this one, the Banana Wacky Cake by Saffron Trail.

I had to try it, but since I was reluctant to buy a bunch of bananas when the recipe only called for one, and I like this flavour better, I made a pumpkin version. I also wanted to up its protein content as I intended to take these to work for breakfast, so I used milk and peanuts. I added some grated ginger too, and I think some cinnamon and nutmeg would be nice as well. These babies came out moist, dense and filling, with a texture like a bread-and-butter pudding more like a pudding-like muffin than a cake, hence the name, a cross between pudding and muffin and all in all, one hearty breakfast.

Debbie's Pumpkin Puffins

1 cup flour
1/2 c cup ground peanuts (whiz in the food processor)
About 2 1/2 cup-sized chunks of pumpkin, microwaved 10 minutes on high with a sprinke of water then peel of the skin2 tbsps oil
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar plus 2 tablespoons
1/2 cup milk1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 170 degC
In the food processor/blender, whiz the soft pumpkin chunks with the milk.
Sift the flour+baking powder into a bowl.Add sugar, stir to combine.Add the pumpkin+milk+oil, stir to combine (just so).
Stir in the roasted peanuts (salted ones give a nice flavour contrast)
Pile into muffin trays (they don't rise much, so you can pile 'em high)
Bake for 30 minutes until the tops are golden brown and the insides are not sticky anymore.

On Baking and the Recession

Can it really be done? A cake made without butter?

These, friends, are times of hardship. Or at least for 70% of the world's population (my guesstimate). And when butter costs 10 bucks a stick, one is forced to find other means of doing the things one loves - baking.

Most people have magazine/newspaper clip outs of recipes they intend to try. I archive them by Recipezaar and shamelessly copying off people's blogs.

I wanted a cake recipe I could whip up in no time, with storecupboard ingredients, and I can make this anytime I feel like having a mouthful of fluffy sugary crubly cake. I switched it upa wee bit - used half brown sugar, half white for a toffee-ish flavour and coconut milk instead of regular. To be honest I couldn't taste the coconut at all, but I could picture adding some dessicated coconut to the batter for a more distinct taste, if I could.

I'm sorry, I have to gloat. Photography is a continuous process for me, and I have just purchased my 3rd point-and-shoot in half the number of years. I lost the first two, and right now I'm (kinda) glad I did, because the third time really is the charm. You can almost see my reflection in the caramel topping here.



Hot Coconut Milk Sponge Cake
Adapted from http://www.recipezaar.com/Hot-Milk-Sponge-Cake-58603



1 cup flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup milk/coconut milk
1 tbsp oil/butter (I used coconut oil)
1 cup sugar (I used half brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Warm the milk and oil/butter in a heavy based pan, slowly till a few bubbles start appearing. Meanwhile, beat eggs, vanilla and sugar till creamy and sugar has dissolved.
Add the hot milk mixture (slowly) into the eggs+sugar mixture, stirring all the time.
Fold in the flour and baking powder, till combined.
Bake at 190 deg C preheated oven for half an hour.





For the condensed milk caramel, simply stand the can of milk in a pot of water and boil for one and a half hours. Let it cool, then decant into an airtight container and store in the fridge.

Dinner@Home - Squid, Spinach & Dhal

One of the things I am happiest about this year is the fact that I travel much less than the previous year, which means escaping the office a 5 and having the evening to yourself. No late night arrivals from the airport, no half-dead weekends spent recovering from the hectic week before, and, best of all, no living out of a suitcase ( I hate packing and unpacking).


Less travel has also allowed me to cook more often, especially on weekends. Nowadays my routine after work often involves a stop at the market nearby, picking up whatever caught my eye and then going home to prepare dinner.

Last week it was the fresh squid that caught my eye, and I decided on oven roasting them two ways - one with a ginger-shallot paste and tumeric, chilli powder and coriander seeds, and the other, simply in a combination of Maggie Seasoning, black pepper and a little sugar. I also added some cornflour to help crispen the squid and absorb the liquids.



The squid was wonderful, fresh and tasty, and crispy from the oven. We ate this with white rice, spinach simply stir fried with garlic and dried squid.

We also finished out leftover dhal from our Indian dinner on Sunday, recipe from Ruta Kahate's 5 Spices, 50 dishes, a truly wonderful (but by no means complete) introduction to simple Indian cooking.

I added carrots to the dhal, and curry leaves crispened in the tadka that topped the simple stock+lentils mixture.

Home Made Milk Bread

This is a really simple recipe from the zaar site again. As always, I wish I had a better oven, but we make do with what we have.

There's something about breadmaking, that I find the pleasure of doing it different from other forms of cooking. It's like playing - the simple make-up of flour, water, yeast (and a few little extras). The arm-burning stirring, then the kneading, feeling of cool play-doh in between my fingers as I bash the dough into submission. I enjoy watching the yeast bubble and froth, watching the dough rise and balloon like crazy, and my mounds of sticky dough into even stickier, delicate little mounds filled with tiny air holes. There's just a wonderful rusticity to it all, a kind of ancient alchemy at work, with living cultures breathing life into simple grain and water.

Enough rhetoric. The tip with working with such a lousy oven is to shape the dough into as small buns as possible, as well as to try and help the oven distribute the heat as evenly as possible by using multiple rays, pieces of foil, ceramic dishes, etc.

But I loved the process and the results, anyways so was happy in the end with my rather heavy buns ;p. They made great toast, which AK and I ate with homemade pandan kaya for breakfast, and later with homemade pork burger patties.