For The Love Of Baking :: December

December 31, 2006

Idul Adha Morning

Morning of Idul Adha. Prayed in mosque, went back home.

While hubby was sipping his morning coffee, I threw the ribs I fixed up the night before into the slow cooker and let it cook on HIGH until lunch time. Washed the rice, fixed up the spices, and threw them all into the rice cooker.

By lunch time, the ribs were stewing, the cardamom rice was warming in the rice warmer, Pacri Nanas was cooling in the fridge.

Happy Idul Adha to all muslims in the world!
May Allah accept our sacrifice and place us in highest place.

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December 29, 2006

House Sweet House, Literally

I made these Gingerbread Houses because Dewi Anwar encouraged me to. If not by her persistence, I would have not made them at all. Thanks, un

Coincidently, Sugar High Friday #26’s theme is Sugar Art. I’m not sure if this post is qualified, knowing that gingerbread house is very common in western countries. But I sent my entry anyway (hi, Danielle

).
(Update: Check out her wonderful roundup here!)

At first, I almost cracked from the pressure and intimidating thoughts of how hard it would be. Silly, huh? I mean, even kids can do it! Maybe it’s because I tried making it last year and it was a total failure due to the wrong cookie recipe. It crumbled to dust, it didn’t even make it to a wall. So it’s very important to use a good recipe that is not only delicious, but also firm enough to make a sturdy house.

Dewi suggested a recipe from Wilton, and I was soooo satisfied with the result. It’s firm, delicious, and smelled wonderful! The corn syrup’s sugary smell enhanced and locked the aroma of the spices, giving it a long lasting smell that would still be intact days after baking. It’s also important to use good quality spices as they distinguish your gingerbread house from the store-bought mass-products.

Enough for the rambling, now let’s build a house.

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December 23, 2006

Multiple Orgasms

Song: Stay - Dave Matthews Band

Hiya!

Eliza of Notes From My Food Diary sent me these two wonderful magazines, Bon Appetite & Woman’s Day and… Dave Matthews Band The Central Park Concert double DVDs!!

The magazines were so entertaining. Knowing that I fall easily for pretty pictures of food, I carried these babies with me the whole weekend. And surprisingly, checking out Woman’s Day’s website, I realized that it was the site from where I got the design and instruction for the sunflower cake I made a few months ago. I’ve put on an update for that.

Now about that multiple sum’n I mentioned above…

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December 11, 2006

Mountain High Muffins

Song: Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Marvin Gaye

I might not be a master in creating gourmet dessert or haute cuture cuisine, but I may humbly say that I rarely fail in baking mountain high muffins, no matter what recipe I used. I guess it’s a gift? Noooo, no, no, no, no. You can tackle any muffin recipe as long as you grasp the basic principles of muffin baking, ones I would like to share with you on this cloudy monday.

Do not be confused by different methods.
There are two kind of methods I know: the classic method, one that tells you to pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir them just until moistened, creating lumpy batter; and the one you whip with electric mixer while hot, creating a batter similar to pancake’s, I call this Ruri’s method (’coz Ruri introduced this method to me).
Both methods work fine. They’re just slightly different in texture. The first method creates crumbly texture, while the other one creates spongy texture. You just have to try both to decide which ones you like the best.

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December 5, 2006

WBD After Hours Party: Yorkshire Pudding

I’ve been wanting to try Yorkshire Pudding for like years. I know it’s a simple quick bread, what’s so special about that? But I’m always interested on anything European. So when Zorra invited me to the WBD After Hours Party, I thought it’s a great opportunity to finally try it!

The British eats Yorkshire Pudding as an accompaniment to roast beef. It does suit the taste, though. It was puffy, a little bit tasted like choux pastry to me, and better served immediately while hot. It would also fill your kitchen with very nice egg biscuit smell.

Recipe from Tulosh’ blog. Thanks, Tulosh

Note:
To achieve the best puffy-spongy texture, make sure the butter and the oven are already very very hot when you pour the batter into the muffin pan.

Thanks for the invitation, Zorra! I had fun!

Techorati tags: WBD ‘06 After Hours Party, WBD ‘06