Saturday, April 10, 2010

Crispy Almond Flakes Cookies

As mentioned in the previous post, I had 10 egg whites left after making Kueh Lapis. So I went online to search for recipes that calls for many egg whites and found many variation of this crispy almond flakes cookies. After looking through the ingredients required and the steps, I decided to use this recipe. I would like to apologize to the owner of this recipe. I forgot to note down your website. If this is your recipe, do drop me a note and I will acknowledge you here.

I made this straight after the Kueh Lapis, which is 13th February, a day before Valentine's Day, I decide to make it into heart shape and gave it to my hubby as Valentine's present, together with the card. The bouquet of roses that served as the backdrop of my Kueh Lapis is from him. Haha. He just gave me the bouquet and nothing else. Typical of him. Unromantic. Haha. Come to think of it, at least I got something from him, though I would prefer something more practical. : )

Crispy Almond Flakes Cookies (makes 15 pcs)

Ingrdients:
2 egg whites

60g castor sugar

50g plain flour
100g almond flakes

25g melted butter


Method:

1. Lightly beat the egg white and sugar till sugar dissolved.

2. Add in flour, almond flakes and melted butter. Mix well.

3. Spoon the mixture on a non-stick baking sheet, and use the bake of spoon to spread the mixture into a heart shape (make as thin as possible)

4. Bake at pre-heated oven for 13-15 minutes at 160oC or until golden brown.



Quite easily done. I think I over beat my egg white which made my batter very thick and hard to spread it out thinly. The cookie is not as crispy as I thought to be. A point to note. Anyway, the taste is good and I love the fragrance of the almond.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Back To 2010 Valentine's Day

Let's rewind back to 13th Feb 2010, Chinese New Year's Eve. I woke up at 5am even though I do not need to work that day. I wanted to make my first Kueh Lapis. I even went to Jia Lei Training Centre to learn how to make Kueh Lapis.

I had everything ready. Once I finish washing up, I started to bake at about 6am. I referred to the recipe closely and measured every ingredient as if I am doing some chemistry experiment. This is because I scared I might fail. I promised my mum to give her Kueh Lapis that evening. Still, there were hiccups here and there. The biggest one is when I first switched to the grilling mode, I burnt the entire layer as the temperature is too high. As I could not adjust the grilling temperature, I reduced the baking time from 3 minutes per layer to 1 minute. Then everything went smoothly till I finished the last layer. I waited it to cool before I unmould it. I was so nervous. I wondered if the layers will be distinct. Finally, the moment arrived. I did it carefully and slowly. I had to trim off the edges before I see the layers. I was quite happy with result as this is my first attempt. The taste is good. Not too sweet and I like the texture. All the edges went into my stomach. Haha. The only thing I am not satisfied is the height of the cake. Cake tin too big so my Kueh Lapis is a bit short. Nonetheless, I was delighted with my creation.

As the recipe was given by the training centre, it wouldn't be nice for me to publish it here. If you are really interested, do keep a look out for the course in their website. The recipe calls for so many egg yolks. What am I going to do with the egg whites? Do keep a look out for the next post.

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Chocolate Sponge Cake

I found out this video from Kitchen Corner. After which, I saw this recipe in many other blogs. Since there is a video to guide me the steps to make a sponge cake, I decided to try it. I charged my laptop the night before. The next day, I bought my laptop to my kitchen and play the video. I paused and played and paused and played... till the cake is ready to be sent into the preheated oven. I prayed hard that it will rise and stay spongy just like what others did.


The cake did rose beautifully. My only mistake is forgetting to line the springform pan with parchment paper at the bottom. It got badly stuck to the base. I used a plate to invert the cake and the beautiful top got stuck to the plate as well, resulting in a botak cake. Nonetheless, the cake is spongy and moist even though I did not add in glucose. I will recommend all the beginners in cake making to try this recipe. I love this Taiwanese auntie's cooking show. She is so cute. I went to youtube to search for more of her video and saved them. Wish to try the rest of the cakes.