Chewy Oatmeal Cranberries Cookies

Cereal - one of my many obsessions. I am like a cereal junkie, I can eat cereal for the whole day, for the whole week. Sometimes I like to eat cereal out of the box, other times I like to mix cereal with nuts and dried fruits. I like to use just enough milk to mix with cereal, making sure the cereal is well soaked with liquid without any trace of milk in the bottom of the bowl.

I love all cereal related stuff - oatmeal, granola, muesli.. basically I can always substitue lunch and dinner with breakfast food... probably it is the chewy and crunchy texture that I get addicted to. It may sound bland to most people, but I just love kids' food.

Out of all the cookies breed, chewy oatmeal cookies can be the easiest thing to make on earth. I don't think you really need the exact measurement for all the ingredients, you can always mix and match different elements to customize the flavor.. the failure rate can be as low as 5%, unless you really suck at using the oven or too bad of eye sight to read the scale. There's no reason the homemade cookies are not edible or even doesn't taste good.

This is a classic oatmeal cookies with cranberries recipe. I always convince myself that this is healthy food with lots of fiber and vitamins so that I wouldn't feel guilty of eating the whole batch. I can't stop myself tearing up the irregular shapes or ugly ones hence ended up devouring most of the batch..


what you need:

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 oz unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup dried cranberries

How to proceed:
Preheat the oven to 190c.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar until smooth. Mix in the brown sugar, then the egg, and vanilla.
Stir in the dry ingredients, then the oats and cranberries.
Drop the batter by rounded teaspoons 2-inches apart on the baking sheets and use a fork to gently flatten the dough.
Bake the cookies for 12 minutes.

Chocolate hazelnut bites

Everyone knows I am a big sweet tooth, I can't survive a day without digging into my candy jar four times a day, eating dessert after lunch and dinner, and a midnight dose of sugar. Sugar is therapeutic, kicking up one's energy while consoling one's emotion, unfortunately it comes with a side effect of extra fat.... the amount of sugar intake.. totally depends on self control (which I have none) and how you evaluate the pros and cons (I rather work out fanatically to offset the cons).

I love cookies, bite size snacks, something one can nibble on while getting bored or enjoying a moment at ease. They come in simple ingredients of sugar, butter, and flour for a classic sables; or spice things up with chocolate, nuts, herbs, citrus, for more indulgence. Yesterday I made a batch of chocolate hazelnut cookies based on David Lebovitz's recipe.

what you need:
8oz or 225g bittersweet chocolate (I used half 72% Valrhona Araguani)
1.5oz or 45g butter
2 eggs
1/3 cup granulate sugar
1 cup toasted hazelnut
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of fleur de sel
more granulate sugar and powdered sugar for coating the cookies

how to proceed:
Preheat the oven to 190c.
Chop the chocolates into small pieces. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bain-marie.
Whip the eggs and sugar together until they turn pale and form a ribbon. Stir in the melted chocolate.
In a food processor, pulverize the nuts with the flour, then add the baking powder. Add a pinch of fleur de sel. Stir the ground nut mixture into the chocolate batter.
Chill the batter in the fridge for 1-2 hours.
Roll the chocolate cookie batter into 1 inch balls. Roll each ball first in the granulate sugar, then the powdered sugar.
Bake in oven for 15 minutes, swapping the top and bottom baking sheets about half way through the baking.

The recipe was amazing, crisp on the outside and soft and moist inside, full of intense flavor of chocolate and hazelnut. What else does a chocolate lover ask for if every bite is chocolate. Note that not to take short cut of using hazelnut powder because it is the tiny pieces of hazelnut that gives the essential texture. A little bit of flour and butter just to lighten things up.

Next time I probably would add some coffee powder to accentuate the flavor.. making it mocha hazelnut cookies.. I think it would be awesome!!

Breakfast at J Residence

First question - what is your normal routine for the weekends? sleeping marathon? hardcore workout? midnight karaoke/ mahjong? reading rampage? or bun bun (maid) reincarnated = cleaning nonstop???

The worst possible answer is ... which I learn from many people... "I don't r
eally have anything to do in the weekends.." This is such a waste of time!!

Second question - what is your weekend morning routine? most people sleep through the morning to regain their strength. Some like an early dose of weekend paper with a cup of joe. I like to run the horses and jog in lush green surroundings.

One early morning, I woke up at 7am still laying in bed, batting my eyelids, dreaming about how great it would be to have a hot english scone to start off the day. I quickly got up and fetched for a scone recipe from my pastry books, and decided to replicate one that's originated from Oak Wood, a pastry shop located in one small town of Saitama, Japan.

What you need:
300g all purpose flour
15g baking powder
65g unsalted batter
2 eggs
50g granulated sugar
115g milk
35g dried cranberries
1 egg yolk (for glazing)

How to proceed:
Sieve the flour and baking powder together, cut chilled butter into small cubes, beating the flour and butter in a standing mixer under low speed for 15 min.
In a separate bowl, beat up the eggs with sugar, add milk and chill thoroughly in the fridge.
Chop up the dried cranberries and add to the flour mixture, and then add liquid (milk & egg) to the dough, stir until blended.
Gently knead the dough for a bit and chill for 1 hour.
Roll out the dough to 2cm thick, chill for another 1 hour..
Using a 5cm diameter cookie cutter, cut out the scones and transfer to baking sheet. Brush the surface with egg yolk.
Bake for 15-20min at 200c or until golden brown.

It is a japanese recipe so I wouldn't expect it to be dense and rich. I like the english style which you can taste the intense butter flavor and bread like texture. The texture here is pretty light and cakey. I would need to modify it to make it more english and substantial.. and more satisfying..

Unlimited variation exists for scones.. chocolate chips, raisins, lemon zest, blueberries, coffee, cornmeal, pumpkin, gingerbread.. you name it! just need a little bit of your spare time and creativity.. no need to go to four seasons for a nice hot scone. making one at home is as easy as making a trip to central.

It can't be a perfect morning breakfast without a nice cup of espresso. Ristretto it is, full bodied espresso with a strong lingering aftertaste.

So what is your weekend routine?

Cooking for Dad

I need to learn how to blog faster.

Many unfinished entries are sitting in the draft folder and I need to get these out before I send my computer for repair.

In order to celebrate for my 65 yrs old dad's bday, since we had done the up-scale dining with friends and relatives already, the kids decided to keep dad away from the kitchen for once and slaved themselves to make a home cooked meal.

Apparently we were not that good with planning and collaboration... we proposed what we wanted to make, and later on figured we had too much protein on the menu. Oh well... with my limited knowledge of savory items I put aside the nutritious aspect and try to replicate the recipes as much as I could.

The menu includes: herb crusted rack of lamb, clams with aioli, steak with caramelized onions, grilled pacific saury, sautee mushroom and brocolli, and warm chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream.

We got our rack of lamb from woo hing (和興行) which is frozen meat vendor in causeway bay... can you imagine the same item can sell at double the price at citysuper or other upscale grocery stores? what a ripoff to shop there...

Our two massive steaks - one rib eye and one sirloin.

OK, I didn't handle the steaks myself... AM stepped in and used salt and pepper and dried herbs to cook the meat the chef way.. you got to use butter to glaze the surface...

I copied gordon ramsay's recipe of clams with aioli.. this was very good the first time I cooked it.. and it's still good for the second time. As you can see I used a lot of thyme and garlic for seasoning. The mistake for this time around was I was a bit heavyhanded on salt.

A little drama at first with the herb crust... at first I forgot to buy the packaged bread crumbs from grocery store and decided to make my old with stale bread.. that didn't work out well, and then rushed to the grocery store to get the exact product... and figured I used too much bread crumbs and wasted my other seasonings... I need to remind myself next time - Read the recipe and find out the exact measurement for ingredients...

The herb crusted consisted of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and pamarsan cheese. The method is to sear the rack of lamb first to seal in the juice first, and then put into the oven to cook for 10-15 minutes, brush on dijon mustard and then pad on bread crumbs mixed with herbs, and then put back into the oven and cook until done.

Steak made by AM - how beautiful they looked.

Veggie dish made by sis.

Okay.. by now you would think why only 5 of us were eating so much... and that's not all of it...

We had 6 pacific saury to share to finish off our meal. This is super easy to make.... since one would use only salt for seasoning and oven to cook... most important thing was to get the fresh saury from the market.

I made the molten chocolate cake to finish our meal - the quickest warm dessert to make on earth. The most exciting part is to see the melted chocolate flooding out once you break the shell. Combing with vanilla ice cream, it's the most whole-hearted comfort dessert that everyone should make their own at home.

We had our all time favorite Lynch Bages 2001 to go with our meal.

Admittedly we made way too much food and meat that night... and surprisingly we were managed to finish everything! just that we didn't want to have any left over sitting in our fridge. Next time I need to better manage the balance of nutrition, make smaller portion, and have more variety of food on the menu.

Mascarpone

It is always nice to have something quick and easy and delicious and sweet after each meal. It doesn't necessary to be a fancy fluffy cake or dainty pastries, just a simple panna cotta can do the trick.

I am having fun coming up variations for a pot of cooked cream. This morning I found some leftover mascarpone cheese and whipping cream in the fridge with a flash of light I decided to combine the two to make something fabulous. Because mascarpone can be a bit rich I added in lemon juice and zest to lighten the flavor, and vanilla beans for the creaminess and distinct smell.

I also marinated blueberries with balsamic vinegar and honey and topped that onto the mascarpone panna cotta.. at first the two are repulsive of each other but one will become addictive after a few bites. Too bad I don't have mint leaves in fridge, mints can freshen up the marinated blueberries massively.



See the difference between the pictures from above and below? I got a new toy that cost more than my computer.. but totally worth it after seeing the difference of picture quality. It is a much more powerful lens that produce much sharper images. I was so handicapped from my last stupid kit lens I wouldn't have any excuse for crappy images in the future... =P

I actually have done a lot of sweets over the past month...

Cupcakes full of hearts.......

Carrot cakes in the making...

Overwhelmingly rave review for the last creme brulee. Is a rosemary flavor with pears, very delicious and addictive, thanks CCHW for such a good idea!
Another variation for panna cotta unfortunately I don't have the picture of the final result. The bug-like stuff inside is lavender. The perfect topping is ice cream and honey... just lavender panna cotta may be a bit bland.

Cupcakes

I felt that even though my work schedule was getting more hectic, I had the urge to generate more output from the oven rather than from my computer... what does that mean? am i starting to hate work now?

What make a sunday morning more like a sunday morning? a decadent cupcake that's too pretty to eat. This is my first attempt making cupcakes... not that big of a fan in the past bc the icing is usually too sweet to my taste. Ironically the cupcakes in HK are much better and innovative than the ones in US... babycakes and sift make some adjustments according to the asian tastebuds so not as sugary than the ones in the states.

I used the renown magnolia recipe to make the cupcake base, but added baking powder to puff it up.

I have to admit that my piping skill is not up to par.. I tried piping out pedals to resemable florals.. unfortunately they don't like that much like florals after sitting in room temperature for too long.. gosh i just blame it on hk warm weather.

For coloring instead of using food coloring, I made the icing with pistachio praline to enhance the flavor... what can possbily go wrong with pistachio!

The ingredients are quite scary to some of my friends.. yes, is mainly butter and sugar.. well just one occasionally wouldn't hurt.. but as a baker I probably have eaten two per days to finish the whole batch. I really need to pass on more fat to my beloved friends...

My next project is to top the cakes with chocolate ganache.. think it would be much more popular than just sugary icing.

Cookies fantasia

I suddenly had the urge to make cookies in the recent weeks. Cookies just like muffins are very easy to make, making the dough is just a matter of combination of ingredients. The basic of butter, flavor, egg yolk, and sugar, with an added twist to spice up the characters. It doesn't really require much techniques to produce decent products, with additional care and creativity, you can create something personal and exceptional.

Three kinds of cookies in one day, from left to right, almond chocolate, hazelnut, and chocolate mix with vanilla flavor.

I tried something different yesterday, mixing green tea flavor with chocolate. surprisingly it tastes better than the plain one.. simply because the green tea dissolves the greasiness of butter and goes well with chocolate. It is easy to eat a dozen of them because of the lightness... perfect for the weekend afternoon with your own cup of black coffee.

Festive seasons

It's so quiet during the holiday season and work has whined down a lot and started to clear my vacation days.. after the complaints by my mom that i rarely spend time in the kitchen nowadays, i decided to go on a mission to slave myself in the baking section during the idle time.

For my friend's christmas party, we made a festive buche de noel together the night before.
The "sophisticated" look *wink does give people the delusion that it is a time consuming cake... but actually quiet the opposite. I started off preparing the meringue mushrooms which are hassel free decoration, just whip up the meringue and pipe out the shapes and let them sit in the oven for 2 hr. Baking and making the log and decoration only took us for less than 3 hours.

The fluffy chocolate flavor cake wrapped around hazelnut praline flavor buttercream, with chocolate buttercream as coating, exclusive for the chocoholics. I was very happy with the result and it was actually nice to look at.

I've made another cake for the winter festival earlier. It is an apple caramel mousse cake that i recited from multiple cookbooks. As I am practicing more now, I find that it is actually easier not to follow every steps and recipes meticulously, the trick to reduce chances of failure is to recite the successful attempts in the past, combining the experience and invent something on our own. cookbooks can give me the inspiration and teach me how to decorate a cake... but the recipes are oftentime too complicated and hard to follow.

Blueberry muffins for bb chu. Not the american kind of muffins that are dense, solid, heavy and pack with multiple ingredients, sometimes you don't know whether you are eating a cake or loaf of bread... Mine is simple, crunchy in surface, soft inside, milky creamy muffin with slightest sweetiness. bb chu loves blueberry, we are training him to have a meticulous and sensitive taste buds.

Poached pear tart. I should have glaze it with napage beforehand. I loaded the tart with poached pears which were nicely done with dry white wine and vanilla beans... added almond cream on a almond flavor tart base. just right as a winter time dessert... 

For our family gathering christmas dinner, sis ordered a buche de noel from la maison du chocolat (my most favorite chocolate store). I had my frist crush when I had my last day in paris after a 5 weeks backpacking trip in EU, I bumped into a chocolate store that looked like an extravagent jewelry shop and I bought my first bar of cuana. the experience was mindblowing bc the chocolate was nothing that i have tried before. I still declare this the best after many years of chocolate experience.

Caviar

I am back to reality now again..

Everybody is so curious about Russia, not that many people have visited the place before even though it is the largest country on earth. Moscow and St Petersburg are full of colors with a mix of golden hues and magnificent architecture, the view of Neva River with lines of baroque facades truly present some romantic moments, the old-fashioned street corners give no traces of modernization. Everybody asked me how's the food in Russia.... I know that culinary adventure is an integral part of exploring one country, but we really shouldn't expect much from this place where alcohol and potatoes are the main consumables.

One exception is the caviar, the deluxe food that's produced in limited quantity now. You can't find the beluga kind everywhere anymore, the local stores will only put out salmon caviar but hiding the beluga caviar behind the counter. There's no trick in choosing caviar, always go for the premium which guarantee a heavenly experience. The lower grade caviar has some fishy taste to it and oftentimes too salty and hence not good for your taste buds.

Back to HK, recreated what I had in Russia, a combination of caviar, crepe and champagne, a truly amazing and delightful combination which sends you to a Russian palace.

We also dined at the most famous restaurant in St. Petersburg called Old Custom House. This is not the authentic Russian cuisine but more like European fusion. Although not on the creative side but food is really good, and they surely know how to feed people since the portions are really substantial.

Panna Cotta

Panna cotta is one of the easiest dessert on earth. It comes with thousands of variations, and the most common one is vanilla flavor.

This time around, I made a slight twist to my favorite vanilla panna cotta, adding a top layer of orange jelly on top to create a combination of yin and yang.

With the combination of jacob chocolate crackers

My first time visiting moon gei at sai kung.

Mango pancakes - to be honest, I really like the pancake but not the filling. The skin is soft and smooth and very eggy, it almost feels like a soft pillow that you want to sink your head in. You would have thought that moon gei brand reputation should resemble impeccable preparation of all ingredients... I suspect they don't make the cream themselves but using the low-end packaged whipped cream instead. The mango is nice, but they just put too much cream inside and ruin everything..
Yeung zi gum lo with tofu fa - hum... interesting combination.. but I wouldn't order it twice.