Saturday, May 9, 2015

Biscoff Mug Cake

Biscoff Mug Cake - made April 24, 2015 from Country Cleaver
I should declare this Cookie Butter Week. Or however long it’ll take me to blog the next few recipes in which cookie butter is going to be the star ingredient. Sometimes I have a one-track mind and that track gave way to the cookie butter train.

Although 95% of the stuff I bake I give away, every so often, I make an individual dessert that’s only enough to be consumed by me, me, me. Because let’s face it, sometimes I don’t want to make a big baking production and I just want a bite or two of something. Enter the mug cake.
I’ve tried making a mug cake before but I overestimated the cooking and underestimated the strength of my microwave so I ended up with a mug of overbaked, rubbery cake. It wasn’t pretty. The only thing that got me to try again was seeing this recipe for Biscoff Mug Cake on pinterest.  The beauty of mug cakes is you mix the ingredients in a mug, pop it in the microwave and in a minute or two, you have dessert. All made from scratch and all you have to wash afterwards is the mug, the fork you used to mix the ingredients with and the spoon you used to eat it.
This was no different. Add the ingredients, blend briskly with a fork, pop it in the microwave and then hover to make sure you don’t overcook it again. This took less than 2 minutes to “bake”. I checked it at a minute and a half then popped it back in for 15 more seconds. Take it out, snap a picture and – I can’t lie – top with a spoonful of cookie butter to melt over the hot cake, take more pictures, take a bite. Then swoon.
This was delicious. The cake itself wasn’t super cookie-butter-flavored so it helped to have the cookie butter “frosting” over it. But the texture was nicely cakelike and it’s hard to fuss about warm cake with cookie butter melting over it. The only thing I would caution is this made a sizeable mug cake, enough for 2 servings. It’s best eaten warm so you might want to grab a second spoon and share it with someone. The best thing is if you eat it too fast and it wasn’t enough for the both of you, you can whip up another one and be eating a second mug three minutes later.
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons Biscoff spread

In a large mug, whisk together all ingredients until smooth. Microwave for 2-3 minutes, or until set. Each microwave is different, use your best judgement for your machine.
Let cool until you can handle the mugs, they will be hot. Top with a small dollop of Biscoff spread so it melts or top with whipped cream. Serve while warm.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Restaurant Review: Tong Soon Garden

Tong Soon Garden - dinner on May 1, 2015, 4-star rating on yelp
I met a friend for dinner last week. We always like to try new places either around where we work or live to check out local restaurants. Yelp is an invaluable source when we need suggestions of where to eat.
This time around, we went for Chinese food at Tong Soon Garden. I was caught in traffic and ended up a few minutes late, exacerbated by the fact that I missed the restaurant the first time around because it was literally right on the main street and not tucked away in a strip mall like I had thought so I overshot it and had to double back.
Fortunately it wasn’t that crowded so we already had a table. The menu was a standard Chinese menu, meaning lots of choices. Price points were slightly higher, meaning most main dishes were in the $10-$15 range. Most Chinese restaurants typically have a good selection in the $10 or under price point. However, the higher range was immediately explainable when our orders came out in much larger portions than I’m used to getting at a typical Chinese restaurant. They were definitely on the generous side.
Fried Chicken Wings

We ordered an appetizer of fried chicken wings, Sweet and Sour Pork Peking Style and Beef Chow Fun. There were only 2 of us but we had enough to feed at least 6 people. The wings were delicious and full of flavor as they also came in some sort of glaze. I was less thrilled with the Sweet and Sour Pork Peking Style. I ordered it Peking style because, based on my experiences in other restaurants, it had more flavor and sweetness than the regular sweet and sour pork. Which was also true in this case but the sauce wasn’t as good as I’ve had elsewhere and the pork pieces were on the skinny side, especially when you factor in the breading. Actually, it had more breading than I expected as I also thought Peking style meant less breading.
Sweet and Sour Pork, Peking Style
The Beef Chow Fun was good but the beef to noodles ratio leaned a bit skimpy on the beef and there were lots of chow fun noodles. I also didn’t like the bean sprouts and would’ve preferred the dish without it. So of the 3 dishes, the fried chicken wings were the best. I also have to give props to the service as they were quick. Our food came out so fast it made me wonder how much was ready-made and just sitting by the kitchen door. Except for the chow fun, the other two dishes had to be fried at the last minute to have crispy exteriors and the mere minutes between ordering and the food arriving didn’t seem like enough time to fry that much food. Yet they were crispy where they should’ve been.
Beef Chow Fun
If you want a nice Chinese restaurant for a large party with fast service, this is a good place to go. Parking in the back isn’t all that plentiful so I suggest car pooling. You can park on the street but since it’s in the main drag with lots of traffic, I don’t recommend it. 

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Baked Banana Streusel French Toast

Baked Banana Streusel French Toast - made April 25, 2015, adapted from Sunset Brunch cookbook
I still had the (overpriced) loaf of brioche I'd bought from Voyageur du Temps in my freezer and decided it was time to put it in use as well as use up some milk before it expired.
I started off with this recipe for baked French toast from a very old cookbook that my mom had from back in the day. I've never made much from it but since it was a brunch cookbook and I needed a French-toast-like recipe, it was a good place to start.
I did add the banana, the streusel and the glaze on my own to make it more bread pudding like instead of plain French toast. For the most part it worked. The streusel was good, nice and crisp-crunchy after it's cooled slightly.

I recommend eating this the same day you make it though as the butter-brown sugar syrup that results from the streusel makes the underside of the bread a bit too sweet the next day.
Good dish for a brunch. If you don't like bananas, you can keep this plain and omit them for a more traditional cinnamon streusel French Toast bake.
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 pound challah, cut into thick slices then cubed

Streusel
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1-2 large bananas, sliced into rounds

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk or until desired consistency
1 teaspoon vanilla

  1. Whisk eggs and milk together in large bowl; add sugar and cinnamon. Add challah cubes and let soak for at least an hour, covering bread completely with mixture.
  2. Make streusel, cutting in cold butter until streusel is coarse crumbs. Squeeze handfuls together to make large clumps.
  3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease 8 x 8 pan or similar size. Arrange soaked bread in even layer. Place sliced bananas evenly on top. Sprinkle with streusel, covering top as evenly as possible.
  4. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until custard is set and streusel is browned. Let cool for 15 minutes.
  5. Whisk together glaze ingredients and drizzle over top of streusel. Serve warm.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Mashed Sweet Potatoes - made April 24, 2015 from Table for Two
I love sweet potatoes. Being a plain eater, it should come as no surprise that my favorite way to eat them is….plain. Boiled, baked or fried, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s just me and the sweet potato.

Once in awhile, I try out a recipe to “add stuff” to them. As is the case with these mashed sweet potatoes. It seemed harmless enough as the ingredients being added and the way the sweet potatoes are prepared was no different than making regular (starchy) white potatoes – add butter and milk and mash the heck out of them. Sweet potatoes are even better than white potatoes (to me) so this should be even better given that treatment, right?
Wrong. This was okay, don’t get me wrong but sweet potatoes already have so much flavor on their own that I felt adding the milk and butter was unnecessary and detracted from the pure sweet potato flavor since now you also tasted the butter while the milk diluted the sweet potato. I have nothing against butter, you know of my love for butter. Just not with my sweet potatoes. 
2 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch cubes
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup half and half or whole milk
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
  1. Bring a pot of water to boil then add the sweet potatoes. Boil until fork tender.
  2. Drain the sweet potatoes then place in a large bowl. Using a potato masher or a fork, mash the potatoes to desired consistency. 
  3. Stir in the butter, half and half or milk and salt and beat until combined. Serve warm.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Banana Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (#15)

Banana Sheet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting - made April 19. 2015 from Simply Recipes
After my last two baking debacles (Snickerdoodle AppleCobbler and Snipdoodles), I needed an easy win to offer the baking gods that I couldn’t fail three times in a row. And nothing’s easier than a sheet cake or had a high probability of being a winner than a banana sheet cake with cream cheese frosting. Plus it’s been awhile since I made yet another attempt to try and duplicate the banana cake from Icing on the Cake. This is attempt #15 in case anyone’s lost count.
I didn’t expect this would be a lot like Icing on theCake’s texture since it didn’t have what I’d consider some progress in my previous 16 attempts to replicate their banana cake texture, namely cake flour for a softer crumb. But still, it turned out to be a pretty good cake nonetheless and soothed my baking ego that I wasn’t a total loser just because my previous two baking attempts were semi (or wholly) failures.
This was good and a bit standard, meaning not sure I’ll remember it a few months from now or feel the urge to make it again, but if you need a quick, easy and tasty banana cake to feed a crowd, this will do nicely. As always, make sure you’re using overripe bananas and don’t overbake it.
2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup white granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • The scraped insides of one vanilla bean or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1 cup of mashed ripe bananas (2 large or 3 medium bananas)
  • 1/2 cup full fat sour cream

Frosting
  • 6 ounces cream cheese, room temp
  • 4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, room temp
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) . In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
  2. Beat together in a mixer the butter and sugars. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and mashed bananas.
  3. Mix in half of the flour mixture, then the sour cream, then the other half of the flour mixture.
  4. Spread batter evenly in a greased 10x15 baking pan. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes, or until nicely browned and the surface bounces back when you press it with your finger. Cool completely before frosting.
  5. To make the frosting, mix all of the ingredients together with an electric mixer. If too stiff to spread, add a teaspoon or two of water. Spread the frosting evenly over the cake and slice to serve.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Snipdoodles

Snipdoodles - made April 18, 2015 from The Dessert Bible by Christopher Kimball
This is another one of those “not my finest moment” sort of post. It’s actually a continuation of the Snickerdoodle Apple Cobbler I attempted because it’s the same sugar cookie recipe on that post. When I made the dough for the cobbler, I thought it was a bit too soft and I was sure it would spread, even if I had frozen the dough and baked it later.
So I thought I would be all clever and bake the remaining dough as a bar cookie. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about the spread. Because the flavor of the cookie as baked on top of the cobbler was actually pretty good so I thought it would do well as a bar cookie. Ha. Color me wrong, Batman.
Actually, it might’ve worked but for one thing – I baked the remaining dough in too small of a pan, only an 8” square baking pan. I would’ve been better off baking in at least a 9” pan or larger. Why? Because baking in a smaller pan means the bar cookie was too thick and needed a longer baking time. By the time the middle was done, the whole thing was rather dry. I’m not sure it would’ve worked well as a bar cookie anyway but the thickness in a small pan didn’t help. As it is, the flavor wasn’t as good in bar cookie form, probably because of being a bit overbaked.

If I had been thinking, I should’ve held back some of the dough and portioned it into dough balls to bake later as the cookies they were meant to be. Then I could’ve given this recipe a fair review. Alas, I wasn’t thinking. So if you make this recipe, make it as real cookies like the recipe lists below, not a bar cookie. Maybe you’ll have a better outcome than I did.
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened but still firm
1 ½ cups plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cinnamon
  1. Beat the butter and 1 ½ cups of the sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer or with a wooden spoon until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes.
  2. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated.
  3. Add the milk and stir to incorporate. 
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the next 5 ingredients (flour through nutmeg) and then stir into the butter-sugar mixture. Chill dough for 2 hours. 
  5. Heat oven to 350 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Shape dough into large, walnut-size balls, about 1 ¼ inches in diameter.   
  6. Mix together the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Dip tops of dough balls in sugar-cinnamon mixture.  Place balls 3 inches apart on lined baking sheet. 
  7. Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet after 6 minutes. Cookies will appear undercooked when removed from the oven; the centers will still be very moist and light.  Remove cookies to a rack; as they cool, they will firm up.  Repeat with a new sheet of parchment paper until all the dough is baked.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Snickerdoodle Apple Cobbler

Snickerdoodle Apple Cobbler - made April 18, 2015, originally "Snipdoodles" in The Dessert Bible by Christopher Kimball
I got the idea of this dessert from pinterest but wandered off the beaten path to try and do something pseudo-original. First, I thought I’d start with a regular sugar cookie recipe, parbake the bottom layer of an individual size ramekin with the sugar cookie dough, layer the apple slices rolled in cinnamon sugar over the parbaked layer, take globs of cookie dough rolled in more cinnamon sugar, drop as a “crust” on top of the apples and let it bake into a snickerdoodle apple cobbler. It sounded like such a good idea. Unfortunately, the scrumptious creation in my head didn’t quite materialize in reality. I hate when that happens.

Things I could have done better with this idea:
  • Parbake the bottom layer longer. I was so afraid of baking it too much and having the sugar cookie layer on the bottom overbaked and hard that I took it out too soon before I layered the apples over it. Which meant I got a raw, mushy bottom layer. Ugh.
  • Use fewer apple slices and slice them more thinly so they’ll bake faster. I’m so used to apples baking down that I piled these up in the ramekin a little too optimistically. Apples do bake down if you bake them long enough but I miscalculated the time between when the top layer of sugar cookie dough would bake and brown and when the apples would be soft enough. So the apples came out a bit more firm than they should have been by the time I felt I had to take it out because the top layer of cookie had baked enough. Ugh v2.
So pretty much the main bright spot in this attempt was the top layer of golden brown sugar cookie dough was pretty good. A bit crispy-crunchy since I baked it as long as I dared to bake the apples enough but the taste was pretty good. This definitely can’t be called one of my successes but that’s also why I had to blog it. Not everything works out. I own up to the mistakes, learn from them, think about how I could make this better next time and move on. And I'm documenting here in case anyone else wants to learn from my mistakes and make this better.
Sugar cookie recipe below
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
  1. Make sugar cookie dough as directed below. In a small ramekin, pat in an even layer of dough, about 1/8" to 1/4" thick (your preference). Parbake in 350-degree oven until lightly browned at the edges but not completely baked, 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
  2. Toss apple slices in cinnamon sugar mixture. It's okay if you don't use it all, you'll need the rest for the topping. Layer over parbaked sugar cookie layer.
  3. Portion small pieces of dough and flatten. Coat both sides of each piece in the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture and place randomly over apples. Don't worry about covering completely; this will be "rustic" looking.
  4. Return to the oven and bake until top is light golden brown and apples are soft when poked with a toothpick. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream if desired.
  5. Bake any remaining dough as regular sugar cookies.
Sugar Cookie Dough (full recipe - you can make less if you don't want extra cookies)
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened but still firm
1 ½ cups plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon cinnamon
  1. Beat the butter and 1 ½ cups of the sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer or with a wooden spoon until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes.  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated.  Add the milk and stir to incorporate.  
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the next 5 ingredients (flour through nutmeg) and then stir into the butter-sugar mixture.  Dough is ready for use for cobbler.
  3. If you want to bake the rest into normal cookies: Chill dough for 2 hours.  Heat oven to 350 F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  4. Shape dough into large, walnut-size balls, about 1 ¼ inches in diameter.  Mix together the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  Dip tops of dough balls in sugar-cinnamon mixture.  
  5. Place balls 3 inches apart on lined baking sheet.  Bake for about 12 minutes, rotating the baking sheet after 6 minutes.  Cookies will appear undercooked when removed from the oven; the centers will still be very moist and light.  Remove cookies to a rack; as they cool, they will firm up.  Repeat with a new sheet of parchment paper until all the dough is baked.