Strawberry Cake

Hello internet and the wonderful people on it.

Today I took (without a doubt) the worst biology paper ever. (And mind you, i've had my fair share of bad bio papers) It's crazy how quickly certain periods in our lives pass. One moment you're wondering if you will ever see the end of it and the next moment you're wondering if you'll ever get it back. The good and the bad. Exams have always been fleeting but it's the weeks leading up to it that always take a toll on me.

This cake is amazing, for the lack of a better word. If I can manage to make it amidst the painful and excruciating revision that I had to do, so can you! (sorry about the exclamation mark that came out of nowhere)

There isn't anything complicated about the cake. No whipping to stiff peaks or a quick grocery run to the dairy aisle. No no nothing like that. But the product is nothing short of classy. The strawberries become soft and delicious. The sugar forms a crust of top that shatters when you sink your teeth into it.

The recipe is from Smitten Kitchen and it can be found here. I halved the ingredients to accomodate the glassware from the photo above. I reduced the sugar a little but the sugar that you sprinkle on top is ESSENTIAL. 

 

Wholemeal browned butter double chocolate muffins {visuals}

A comeback

Hi.

It's me again.

My corner of the globe celebrates Chinese New Year and I've been given a break from school which I've decided to use; to meet with old friends. And it has been so so good. The thing with catching up is that the conversation always ends up gravitating towards talk about the future. Maybe it's our subconscious selves trying to mentally-prepare ourselves for change, for what lies ahead. I'm not sure.

I've been thinking about the word "passion" again. Kind of tossing it around and taking nibbles of it here and there in my spare time. It's becoming clearer to me now. What I want.

I'm sorry that that sounds vague but this is all I can muster, at this point. I've hit a dry spell of some sort. Can't seem to wrap my head around anything. Can't seem to churn out anything cohesive. Or inspiring. But these marshmallow bars are the exact opposite of my current state. Anything lined with toasted marshmallows always translate to something good. Right?

This isn't my first encounter with toasted marshmallows and i can say with absolute certainty that this will not be the last. There's just something really satisfying about taking an ingredient and adding a new dimension to it. Not exactly scaling new heights here but right now, i'll take it as it is.

Recipe
(adapted from here and quite frankly- and it's really hard to say this without sounding self-deprecating- it's done so so much better over there. The recipe I'm posting is the much watered-down version but I think i prefer it this way. I implore you to put your own spin on it and see where it gets you.)

Ingredients:

- A sleeve of oreos (around 15-16 ish?)
- A tablespoon of melted butter
- A tablespoon of milk
- Marshmallows (the regular-sized variety)
- Chocolate (milk, dark, personal preference really!)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 F or 180 degrees and line a 9-inch square tin with parchment paper.

Crush the oreos. You can do this in a ziplock bag and beat the living daylights of the cookies or you can save yourself the hassle and use a food processor.

Place the crushed oreos into a bowl and add the melted butter and milk into it. Mix until the crumbs are coated and they can kind of come together.

Press these crumbs onto the base of a 9-inch square tin. Make sure the crumbs are as evenly distributed as possible so that the crust bakes evenly in the oven.

Bake for six minutes.

During this time, and maybe it'll be more prudent to do this before you start baking, cut the marshmallows in half. I do this with a small paring knife and it works well for me. Chop the chocolate or break them into smaller pieces. Remember you are going to scatter the chocolate over the crust so you have to estimate the amount of chocolate you'll be using based on that. I used 2 hershey milk chocolate bars and some chocolate chips to cover the base completely.

Remove the crust from the oven. Scatter the chocolate over the crust and wait. PATIENCE. Wait until the chocolate gets softer and spread it evenly over the crust but try to leave a little space around the edges. Place the marshmallows over the crust, sticky side down, until it is entirely covered with marshmallows.

Return the pan to the oven for four minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven and using a spoon, press the marshmallows down so that they kind of overlap. (This is kind of therapeutic so you're welcome.) This wasn't included in the recipe that I've linked above. It's something I learnt when I tried something with toasted marshmallows from Joy the Baker's new book.

Turn the oven setting to broiler setting and toast the marshmallows until they're brown AND BE VERY CAREFUL BECAUSE THEY BURN VERY EASILY.

Cut the into bars and serve!

They keep well in an air-tight container in room temperature for a couple of days.

ENJOY!

Hi.

My absence from this blog is inexcusable.
I could blame it on... anything: school, boy problems (or lack there of), life in general.
Mostly it has been because of my sheer inability to fully commit to something.
But all of that is (hopefully) going to change soon because I realized that I don't do much. Like I am incredibly guilty of passive living. Never truly challenging my limits or breaking new grounds.

So

Here's to new adventures.

in the kitchen or otherwise :)

Banana Bread and withdrawal from baking.

 Sigh.

You know when you like eating something (like nutella), because it's just the most delicious thing you've ever had (like nutella) and you don't understand why (like nutella). So you do what any normal human being would do.

You eat the entire jar. Using your bare hands.


(Completely understandable).

That's what happened with me and baking. I loved it too much. So I did it, excessively. Every free time I had, I devoted to an activity pertaining to the notion of baking.And after a while, it just got to me and I felt like I was forcing myself to do it. It was no longer something I enjoyed doing, but rather something I was SUPPOSED to do.

You know?

So, I'm taking a break.

From baking.

Not from making food, per se. But just from baking. For a little while. Until my passion for it returns.

At least you guys can expect more savory meals!! ;)

But anyway,

Let's talk about banana bread.

Banana bread and I, have a history together. Only because it's something i haven't nailed.. yet.

It might also have something to do with the fact that I'm very peculiar about the quality of banana bread. It's texture and flavor that I always look out for when I bite into a fresh slice of banana bread. It has to be of a specific standard.

I sound very looney.

But you don't understand, guys, there are SO many things that can go wrong with banana bread.

To name a few:

 1. The insides could be undercooked and taste gummy/gooey but in a horrible manner.
 2. There could also be uneven baking which is has the highest tendency to happen. It's basically when the top of the bread is moist and yummy but towards the bottom it is disgusting.
 3. The flavor! It can be too sweet or not sweet enough or the butter flavor could overpower the taste of the bananas which is a no-no, obviously.
 4. It could also be too hard on the outside. I really can't stand it when you slice banana bread and you have to apply a small amount of pressure to cut the knife through. LIKE IT TOTES HAVE TO BE SUPER MOIST AND TAKE THE PRESSURE, IT NEEDS TO TAKE THE PRESSURE. ITS ALL ABOUT THE PRESSURE.

I SOUND LIKE A LUNATIC.

But anyway.

Like I said, it needs to be purrr-fect.

Now this banana bread isn't exactly purr-fect.

But it comes pretty damn close. 

I could even compare it to that person you date ,because he has nice hair and a hip ride (did i seriously just say "hip ride"), but you aren't really in love with. He (or she) is not good enough to be called "the one", but memorable.

You know?

So yeah, I guess the reason why it was a slight let-down for me was because of criteria number 2. (refer to the semi-rant on top)


The bottom wasn't as light and fluffy as the top.

But it was VERY moist and the flavor was good...

IM CONFLICTED.

Also, my grandma really liked it.

Like REALLY liked it.

But the woman can polish off a 2 week old bagel, so.. 

Yeah.

Anyway, the recipe can be found HERE

I've actually seen several blogs that have proclaimed this to be THE BEST BANANA BREAD EVER, and I think it's pretty darn good.

But I'm still on the lookout for an incredible recipe.

Do leave a comment if you'd like to recommend any!

ENJOY! :)

"You should be working on being the most awesome you that you wanna be, not the less awesome you that someone else wants you to be."

Note to self.

Very cute boy that sits next to me in the examination hall.

YOU CAN SUCK IT.

Dark. Decadent. Delicious.

Ladies and Gents of the internet,

I present to you, an amazing, scrumptious, DEE-LI-CIOUS

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIE!

YEAP. 

Not chocolate, or chocolate chip, (although i dig that stuff as well.) it's DOUBLE CHOCOLATE!

Okay, I'm starting to become nauseating and slightly unbearable, but guys, this is really really really good. 

It started yesterday, in the afternoon, when it occurred to me that I don't bake for people enough, which is a shame because there are pretty darn amazing people in my life right now. And since I have an impromptu study "date" with two of my favorite people tomorrow, people who i shall not name due to the added dramatic effect that it gives off, their discretion, I decided that I wanted to bring a gorgeous treat to make up for all the times I promised to bake something for them, (i.e Valentine's day) but never brought my lazy bum to actually go through with it.

And obviously, gorgeous=chocolate. For me, anyway.

And these bad boys, were so good. After pulling the last tray out from the oven, I couldn't resist but sneak one right away and do a little taste test. (Mind you, i take my taste tests VERY seriously.) I just melted right there and then because they were just so darn rich and so satisfying to my palate. Then, i quickly sprinted to my phone and immediately told them (my friends) about what was waiting for them tomorrow.

Ahh!

So, I couldn't possibly talk about cookies without mentioning their texture. They were perfect, honestly. A gentle crunch that enveloped the soft, velvety, ominous cocoa centre. And the white chocolate chunks was the icing on the cake.  It provided such a sweet contrast to the slightly bitter cookie base.

I DEMAND YOU TO MAKE THESE COOKIES NOW!

Seriously, because you deserve nothing less than perfection. Starting with these cookies.

Recipe

from Design, Bake, Run here

{Also guys, I'm going to start posting recipes on my blog now, only because I always found that traveling for one website to another can be quite a pain when you aren't in the mood for it, so for all you lazy bums out there, here you go! I've actually rephrased the instructions quite abit and I hope I didn't violate/aggravate anybody by doing this, so I apologize in advance. Although, I still think that you should still check out the link above, because I reckon the photos there might be more enticing that mine!}

Ingredients

-1 cup of all-purpose flour

-1/3 cup of cocoa powder

-1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

-5 tablespoons of softened unsalted butter (I used 65 grams)

-1 cup of sugar (Because I'm really weird and was NOT prepared for a sugar shortage in my house, I had to use a blend of light muscavado, light brown and white sugar! I don't know if it particularly affects the quality of the cookie... but i DO know that adding more brown sugar than white sugar into any baked good, increases its chewiness, so I think you guys can try that out as well.)

-1 tsp of sea salt (I omitted but if you have sea salt readily available mail it to me add it in!)

-1 egg

-1/2 tsp of vanilla extract (I added a WHOLE teaspoon because I didn't read the instructions carefully. hur hur)

-As much white chocolate chunks as you like. But not like a suffocating amount. The right amount, you know?

Instructions!! 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F (or) 175-180 degrees 

(OMYGOSH, I WAS ON STEP 5 WHEN I REALIZED THAT I MISSED A STEP. And because I can't be bothered with fitting the step in and rearranging the sequence, I'm just going to tell you,

In a bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking soda together and set aside. I consider this quite an IMPORTANT step because cocoa powder tends to clump together after some time and adding it directly to the batter as it is, could really ruin what you're making and you DON'T want that. Trust me. All that sweat would have been for NOTHING.)

2. Prepare the pan that you're going to use for baking with a baking sheet. (I used a lamington pan. Don't ask me why I have a lamington pan)

3. Place the softened butter into a large bowl and using a mixer (or a whisk if you're like super buff like the Rock) beat the butter for about a minute.

4. Then, add the sugar and beat until light and FLUFFY. (about 3-5 minutes)

5. In a smaller bowl, whisk the egg and vanilla extract vigorously. 

6. Slowly, stream the egg mixture into the butter and sugar while still beating the batter.

7. Then, incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet batter in two batches. (DO NOT have the electric whisk on "HIGH" at this point. Unless you want brown snow.)

8. Using a spatula, fold in the white chocolate chunks and sprinkle in the sea salt.

At this point your batter is ready. Now you CAN absolutely bake it immediately, but I've always chugged any cookie batter I make into the fridge, covered with cling wrap, for at least half an hour before baking it. If you choose to do this, you have the option of preheating your oven AFTER making the batter, which is what I did.

9. Using two spoons, (to make things so much easier for you), drop the cookie dough onto the baking sheet, a small space a part from each other because these little things WILL SPREAD. And you don't want them to kiss because they're too good for that!

KIDDING.

10. Bake for 8-9 minutes. (DON'T LET IT GO BEYOND THAT OR THEY'RE GONNA BE HARD AND UNDESIRABLE.)

11. After baking, let them cool completely before eating. (Or you could be a badass and eat them while they're piping hot, using like heat-resistant gloves.)

ENJOY!! :D