Green Tea Ice Cream

Made a Green Tea Ice Cream for this weekdays dessert. It's simple and no need to use eggs. I also bought canned Longan, Red/Green Bean paste Mochi from Mocha Mochi (they make a very good Mochi in this town) to complement with ice cream.

First time I bought Mocha Mochi because they have a really beautiful packaging for their products, but then their Mochi  also taste very delicious and so soft.

Isn't the packaging beautiful?

 Plain Mochi

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients

• 2 cups Half and Half (or 1 cup whole milk + 1 cup heavy whipping cream)
• 3 Tbsp green tea powder (matcha)
• ½ cup sugar
• Pinch of salt (about 1/16 tsp.)

Instructions

1. Freeze the ice cream bowl for 24 hours.
2. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the half and half, sugar and salt.
3. Start cooking the mixture over medium heat, and add green tea powder. Stir often and cook until the mixture starts to foam and is very hot to the touch but not boiling.
4. Remove from the heat and transfer the mixture to a bowl sitting in an ice bath. When the mixture is cool, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
5. Once the mixture is thoroughly chilled, transfer to a pre-chilled ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacture's instructions (20-25 minutes). Transfer the soft ice cream into an airtight container and freeze for at least 3 hours before serving.

You can see the step by step for making this green tea ice cream from this blog.  Enjoy :D

Red Velvet Cake

My husband had his birthday on last 14 March (it's also the same birthday with my Dad :D). He's not really a big fan of cake if it's not a really good Chocolate or Cheese Cake. One time I bought a Red Velvet Cake from UNION (which I think the best one in town) and he tried it for the first time.. and he likes it.. no, He loves it actually.. couldn't get enough of it. So I made a promise to myself that I'll try to re-create the cake for his birthday.

 The Red

Turns out I didn't have time to do it on his birthday (I bought the usual Chocolate Cake for him) until this weekend I had a chance to make the RVC. Years back when I made my first RVC, the texture was really dense, and I don't really like it. So I browse for another recipe and found this one looks promising, it says that the cake will turns out really moist (as the UNION RVC also have a moist texture). The topping was a combination of Nuts and Crumble. I'm trying to make it on my own recipe, but it seems need more adding this and that to a perfection (which I will think about it again on my next attempt).

So here's the Recipe, taken from this blog (Thank you for sharing the recipe because the cake IS MOIST as promised!)

RED VELVET CAKE
Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 2 Tablespoons unsweetened, cocoa powder
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1-2 oz. red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar
• ½ cup of prepared plain hot coffee (don’t skip this ingredient)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, combine the sugar and vegetable oil.
4. Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and red food coloring until combined.
5. Stir in the coffee and white vinegar.
6. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients a little at time, mixing after each addition, just until combined.
7. Generously grease and flour two round, 9 inch cake pans with shortening and flour.
8. Pour the batter evenly into each pan.
9. Bake in the middle rack for 30-40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not over bake as cake will continue to cook as it cools.
10. Let cool on a cooling rack until the pans are warm to the touch.
11. Slide a knife or offset spatula around the inside of the pans to loosen the cake from the pan.
12. Remove the cakes from the pan and let them cool.
13. Frost the cake with cream cheese frosting when the cakes have cooled completely.

Notes

~TIPS~
Be sure to not overbake! Check the cake at 30 minutes as some ovens run really hot.
Cakes are really moist and you may need to refrigerate them to firm them up before stacking and frosting.
To bake cupcakes, bake for 18-20 minutes, checking at the 18 minute mark.

I'm pretty satisfied with the cake texture, yet I still have to work on that topping to get the right balance taste between the nuts and crumbs. Also the Red coloring need to be more vibrant. Despite on those things, I'm quite happy with overall taste (not too sweet), should have been making it into 4 layers though, so you could really taste the cream cheese frosting. Meanwhile, hubby like it so far.. that what matters most haha *happy* :D

 

Banana Cranberries and Pistachio Nut Bread with Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze

This week dessert theme will be a loaf/bread week. I still have dried cranberries on my fridge and would like to do something with it, so I browse some of recipes using cranberries. I used to had this cranberries bread at Starbucks which I really love, so I might gonna make similar thing like that.

Call me lazy, but a simple recipe always the one that attract me first he he. After those browsing I saw this one from Foodgawker that looks really nice: Cranberry Banana Nut Bread (here's the real recipe from). I made a modification with adding a glaze on top of the bread (simply because I saw other recipe that has the glaze then I combine it).



INGREDIENTS
For the Banana Cranberries Bread:

• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2-3 mashed over-ripe bananas > If your banana aren't ripe enough simply cut them in half and just cook them on a non stick pan for awhile (no need oil or anything) until it's softer and easy to mashed them.
• 1 cup coarsely chopped fresh or frozen cranberries > I'm using dried packed cranberries
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped Pistachio Nuts (or whatever nuts you desire)
• 1 tsp. Lemon zest

 Dried Cranberries

 For the Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze:

• 1 cup (120g) confectioners' sugar
• 2-3 Tbs Cream Cheese (room temperature)
• 1-2 Tablespoons lemon juice or from 1 squeezed Lemon

METHODE
For the Banana Cranberries Bread:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease a 21.6 x 11.4 x 6.35 cm loaf tin (I'm using Wilton tin)
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, eggs, and banana. Then add lemon zest.
3. Blend the dry ingredients together and stir them in just to moisten (do not over mix).  Gently mix in the cranberries and pistachio.
4. Bake for an hour until a toothpick comes out clean when poked into the middle.  Let it cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the pan and cooling on a rack.

Fresh Bread from the oven

For the Glaze:
In a small bowl, whisk the confectioners' sugar and lemon juice together. Add Cream cheese one at a time and more lemon juice depending how thick you want the glaze. When finished, drizzle over cooled bread.

Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze

 
NOTE: Unglazed bread stays fresh covered tightly at room temperature for 5 days or in the refrigerator for 6-7 days. Glazed bread must be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. 





The results, this is by far the best combination taste of loaf/bread that I've ever made. The texture is full of fiber, it smells heavenly because of the banana, cinnamon and freshness from Lemon zest. And the combination between sweetness and sour because of the Lemon Cream Cheese Glaze... It's so hard not to eat only one slice. Wanna bet? :D

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

I got these fresh strawberries from my niece who went to a field trip to Bandung last month. She went to this Strawberry farm and hand picked one package fresh strawberries for her aunty. How sweet of her :).

Anyway, I frozen half of the berries just in case I'm gonna do something with it later on. I was thinking about making another Frozen Strawberry Cheesecake in a Jar, but then I saw a recipe on one of my fave blog about this Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream.

Thinking that been a long time not using the little Ice cream machine, so why not using it again this time. I still have stock of Cream Cheese and Whipping Cream in the fridge, better use it before it's expired :D



So here's the recipe, taken from Just One Cook Book
I love this blog because mostly it has a step by step photo.
(my other wish list is to have a tripod for my camera, so I could take a step by step photo too)



Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup Half & Half (a mixture of one part milk to one part cream)
• 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 4 oz. cream cheese > turns out I'm using 230gr of Cream Cheese hihiii
• 3 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup sugar > I'm using icing sugar
• About 6 large strawberries (you will need 3/4 cup strawberry puree)
• About 3-4 large strawberries (you will need 1/2 cup chopped strawberries)
• 4 honey graham crackers, crushed into small bits. > I'm using Ritz Cheese Crackers
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract > I didn't use this

Instructions:

1. In a small saucepan bring the half-and-half and heavy whipping cream to a scalding point on medium low heat. “Scalding” means gently heating without allowing to reach boiling point. Immediately remove from heat. 
2. In a bowl (or stand mixer), whisk cream cheese, egg yolks and sugar till they turn light in color and fluffy.  
3. Once the egg yolks mixture is done, gradually pour and mix the scalding half-and-half & heavy whipping cream mixture in batches. Keep whisking constantly to avoid the eggs from curdling. 
4. Now place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, keep stirring continuously with a spoon until it starts to thicken up. Once the consistency is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, the custard is ready. Immediately remove the bowl from the heat and stir it for few minutes to help it to cool down a bit.  
5. Meanwhile, make strawberry puree and chop up strawberries and crush the honey graham crackers.> Don't worry if you don't have a food processor. I chopped the strawberries with knife and smashed them :P And for the crackers put them inside a plastic sealed bag then crush it with spoon (or something that's heavy). It works :D
6. Now add the vanilla essence and strawberry puree and stir well one last time. > Didn't use vanilla essence straight by pouring the puree and stir.
7. Cover the custard and let it chill in the refrigerator for few hours before making the ice cream. 
8. Once you're ready to make the ice cream, transfer the chilled custard to the chilled container of your ice cream machine and process according to the manufacture's instruction. 
9. During the last 5 minutes of ice cream churning in the machine, add the chopped strawberries and graham crackers.  
10. Transfer the ice cream to a container and let it sit in the freezer to set, about 3-4 hours. Serve Chilled.

Pour the strawberry coulis and extra crackers on top of the ice cream before you eat it.
Heaven!

Frozen Strawberry Cheese Cake

It's been a productive week at work, so many deadlines and it's horrible! Beside making the Strawberry crumble before, I need another dessert that could indulge me (and my family) for this long weekend. Something sweet and sour and also fresh. So I decided to make a Frozen Strawberry Cheese Cake.



Been a long time since my first trial making  frozen strawberry & blueberry cheese cake couple years ago, it's basically same ingredients. I'm using this recipe from Nigela website with a bit of adjustment.

Strawberry Cream Cheese - Ingredients

• 125 grams digestive biscuits- I'm using Ritz Cheese Crackers
• 75 grams butter (soft)
• 300 grams cream cheese- I use 250 gr Cream cheese & 50 gr Sour cream
• 60 grams sugar- I use only 50 grams
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract- I omit this one because I don't have this at the moment
• 250 ml double cream
• strawberry jam (2 pots)
• strawberries (fresh, a few to decorate or strawberry sauce to drizzle - optional) - I made a raspberry coulis instead.
• Grated Lemon Zest

Method

1. Crush the digestive biscuits in a bowl (just use your fingers).
2. Melt the butter and then pour into the bowl of crushed biscuits and stir well. Find a container or flat bowl and press the biscuit mixture on the bottom evenly. Use a metal tablespoon/ teaspoon to spoon out jam and spread it evenly over the layer of biscuit, (make sure the spoon is wet to stop the jam from sticking)
3. In a separate large bowl beat together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract until smooth. In another bowl or a processor, whip the double cream, and then pour and fold it into the cream cheese mixture. 
4. I divided the cheese mixture into half. First half mixed it with 2 Tbs of strawberry jam with a mixer combine them together.
5. Carefully spoon the strawberry cheesecake mixture first onto the biscuit and strawberry base then continue with the other mixture on top of it. Using another wet metal tablespoon/teaspoon smooth the surface.
6. Decorate with strawberries.
7. Leave in the fridge overnight or for 3-5 hours.

 

Raspberry Coulis (optional)

• 1 Cup of frozen Raspberry
• 2 Tbsp Sugar to taste

Method

1. Tip all of the coulis ingredients into a frying pan and heat until the raspberries start to break down. Using a mesh strainer, strain mixture into a bowl then continue pushing residue of mixture through. Discard seeds. Set aside until ready to serve.

To Serve: Cut a slice with a wet hot knife, add strawberry on top.

 

 

 

Pour some Raspberry Coulis to add some sweet and sour taste.

 

 

Then, Enjoy!

 

 

This is one of heavenly dessert that I love. It's creamy, cheesy but yet it's fresh because of the strawberries. My son had his first cheese cake because he's curious when I made this and he said it tasted just like strawberry ice cream :D

 

 

 

Strawberry Crumble

Another easy and simple dessert to make. After couple times made an Apple crumble, this time I wanna try using different fruits: Strawberry!

Ingredients

for the filling:

• 500 grams strawberries (hulled)
• 50 grams caster sugar + brown sugar

 for the topping:

• 100 grams plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 75 grams cold butter (diced)
• 100 grams muesli
• 75 grams sugar+ brow sugar
• double cream/ice cream (to serve)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6/400ºF. Put the hulled strawberries into your pie dish, I'm using a small soup bowl or you can use ramkin and sprinkle over them the sugar. Give the dish a good shake or two to mix the ingredients.
2. Now for the crumble topping: put the flour, muesli, sugar and rub in the cold, diced butter between thumb and fingers. When you’ve finished, it should resemble rough, pale oatmeal.
3. Tip this over the strawberry mixture, covering the strawberries in an even layer and giving a bit of a press in at the edges of the dish. Set the dish on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, by which time the crumble topping will have darkened to a pale gold and some pink-red juices will be seeping and bubbling out at the edges.
4. Leave to stand for 10 minutes before serving with double cream or ice cream.

I didn't have exactly 500 grams of strawberries so it's a bit less taste of strawberry, but still yummy.
Will do it again with more strawberries next time.

 

#SundayCooking: Burgers

One of our favorite menu for Lunch/Dinner is Burger!. A homemade patty is really simple to make and it tastes even more delicious than the one that ready to buy.
You could also decide how thick the beef patty is, depends on how you like it.

There are lots of recipe from books/internet to make beef patty, I usually use this recipe:

3 small Red Onion
2 small Garlic
1/2 of small Onion
All slices and cook them with Olive Oil until half cooked

300 gr Minced Beef - less fat is more juicy
Herbs and spices (Rosemary/Italian Herbs Mix, Black Pepper, Garlic Powder)
Worchestersheir Sauce & BBQ Sauce
Breadcrumbs (instead of using breadcrumbs, I use a Wholegrain bread, toast and then crush them into pieces) 
Salt
Olive Oil
4 Burger Buns

How to:
Combine half cooked union/garlic to the beef, add herbs, add 1 Tbs Sauce Worchestersheir & BBQ Sauce, crushed wholegrain bread to the beef and then mixed them all with your hand.
Divide the mixture into 4 equal portions shape each portion with your hands into a patty.

Place the patties onto a tray lined with- greaseproof paper. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to rest. Chilling the patties will help them hold together when cooked. This also allows the flavours in the patties to blend and develop. If you chill the patties for any longer, increase the cooking time slightly.

Heat half the olive oil in a large, non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat and cook half the patties for about 4 minutes on each side or until browned and cooked through. It is important to cook mince right through because it has a larger ratio of surface area to volume than whole pieces of meat, and is therefore at greater risk of contamination by bacteria in the air. Transfer the patties to a plate, set aside and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining oil and patties.

For the buns, preheat grill on high. Place the hamburger buns, cut-side up, under the preheated grill and toast for 1 minute or until golden. 

To Serve, Spread mayonnaise on the buns add beef patty and sauted garlic & mushroom on top of it. You could also add shredded lettuce and tomato first or Cheese before.

Served with side dish, mixed veggies and french fries.

Enjoy your Burger with a homemade beef patty!

NYE Family Dinner - Steak Party

It's time to be Thankful for what we had in 2013 and to cherish the a new excitement on 2014.

We didn't go anywhere to Celebrate New Year's Eve, so I made a Family Dinner for 4 of us. Oh yes, we're expecting another baby this 2014 that's why we're very blessed and so excited.

We planned to have Steaks night complete with salad (minus dessert).

Start with Fruit Salad: Mixed of Grapes, Apples, Pineapples and Strawberries. Mixed with dressing: mayonnaise, lemon zest, a bit of milk (sweetened) and grated cheese.









Mixed Veggies from Asparagus, Baby Carrots, Baby Potatoes. Baked them with drizzled of Olive oil, rosemary, black pepper and sea salts.

Main Course: Rib Eye Steak and Sirloin Steak. Somehow I pan fried them a bit too long so it's too well done. Oh well, since I only cannot eat rare/medium steak so it's fine. I only marinated them with garlic powder, black pepper, italian herbs, sea salts and butter for only half an hour. And then cook in a pan with a bit of Olive oil.

Also made French Fries for the big boy.

I made a wasabi mashed potato. It's just a usual mashed potato with added wasabi on it. Not too much though.. only to get the taste of it. Surprisingly Wasabi goes really well with mashed potato.

Since I didn't make a dessert, so I made a refreshing drink to complete the after taste, a fresh Lemonade with Soda.

Totally full and happy tummy! And now we're waiting for the count down.

3..2..1.. Happy New Year!

Goodbye 2013, You've been awesome to us and Hello 2014
We're excited to see you :D

Easy Breakfast: Bread, Eggs and Asparagus

I love making an easy breakfast for me (and my family) and I try to do different menus everyday. Somehow it challenged me to be more creative each day.

No need a fancy ingredients.. sometimes you only need a bread or eggs that's already enough. I will try to post many variations of what breakfast that I usually make.

Let's have breakfast!