Pizzas

After my first home made pizzas I’ve been busy with more this week for the Hay Hay It’s Donna Day challenge hosted by Joey at 80Breakfasts. Great excuse for trying out a variety of ideas.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the best pizzas are the simplest ones. I’ve made some elaborate ones which took forever and left me feeling worn out and grumpy. They were fine, but they tasted just a bit like they were trying too hard. The ones where I just threw a couple of ingredients onto the base and then baked them were the ones that ended up being the most satisfying.

So I’ll be working with them and then hopefully have something to send to her for this challenge.

 

Happy Teacher’s Day!

Wednesday is Teacher’s Day here in Thailand, which means a public holiday for the likes of us!

I decided to bake some sugar cookies to give to my Thai co-teachers as a token of appreciation. We actually never speak, I don’t think any one of them speak much English, and they are mostly in the background while I am teaching, but I have grown fond of these ladies and I hope they will enjoy the cookies.

Yesterday afternoon Alexander and I decorated them and today I will be dropping them off before heading to Banglamphu for an in-the-city getaway.

 

Crunch. Yum-yum. Crunch. Yum. And Brownies!

Here’s what we had for dinner.

Peanut butter curry with sweet potatoes, broccoli, and brown rice noodles. I’m not going to tell you how I made it though because (pick the correct answer):

a) It’s a family secret.

b) I actually have no idea.

c) I’m being selfish.

For dessert we had All-American Brownies (according to the recipe I used) and ice-cream. Usually I leave the task of making brownies to Alexander who is an ace brownie maker (he uses this same recipe that he got from his mom). Today, however, was the first time I made brownies, and because I cannot think of any good reason not to, I will share this recipe.

To make All-American Brownies, Bordeaux style, you will need:

1 quarter stick butter

6 (not 2) pieces of unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped into pieces

1 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

salt (which I forgot to add, so actually don’t bother with it)

2 small Toblerone bars

Make:

Preheat the over to 180C and prepare an oven pan or bread pan, I used a silicone bread pan. Melt the butter and chocolate over medium heat. Let it cool for a couple of minutes and stir in the sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time and mix. Add the flour. When everything is mixed, add some chopped bits of the Toblerone. Pour into the pan. Stick some Toblerone onto the mixture and bake for about 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out… clean! Cool, cut, gobble up.

The original recipe, as you may have guessed did not call for any Toblerone. So now you may ask why oh why do you always have to go and throw Toblerone into just about any sweet thing you ever make? The reason is simple, one can never get enough Toblerone. Never. I have a friend who does not care much for it. But I think she has problems. As for me, I love it.

 

Cupcake Friday

I left work yesterday with the intense desire to bake cupcakes again. I see pictures of pretty cupcakes and then I just want to bake some myself.

Alas, I am not a food decorator or professional baker, so my cupcakes always come out looking a little unstable and even a little drab. Poor things, I doubt they will ever look as pretty as the ones we sometimes bought at Queen of Tarts in Obs.

But, they’re good. Oh yes, they are very good. Now I hear you say, “Come on Bordeaux, you said yourself they look drab, certainly they must taste a bit drab too.”

Not at all. And the reason for this is that there is a surprise hidden in each of them. In a couple there are Toblerone triangles waiting to be discovered and in others, delightful peanut butter balls. And you have no way of knowing which surprise you’ll get because they all look so uniformly plain.

So even though Amy Sedaris might look at them and think they look a lot plainer than hers, I am certain she would enjoy the gooey goodness hidden inside.

 

Almond Date Bread

Dates are fairly pricey here in Bangkok, but this past Friday, a week before payday, I decided to spoil us with a small packet of dates. The dates were so good that I was almost torn between just eating them as is and baking them into a moist and tasty date bread. The bread, of course, won.

And here is how you can make this delicious bread.

Round up:

1/2 cup dates, chopped

3/4 cup hot water

1 and 1/2 tablespoons butter

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 and a 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 egg, beaten

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Make:

Preheat the oven to 180C. Combine the dates, butter and hot water in a bowl and let it stand. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Add the egg, vanilla, and date mixture and mix until moist. Pour into a greased bread pan and bake for 45- 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out, yes you guest it, clean. Let it cool if you have the patience, or enjoy it almost immediately.

Suggestions for Almond Date Bread:

- If you do not like the taste of almond, use vanilla extract instead. This was a bit of a taste experiment and I really liked the hint of almond in the bread.

- Add chopped walnuts if you like. I could not find any, so I went without. Next time I’ll try to have some on hand.

- Enjoy date bread at various times of the day, as often as possible.

 

Messing with Recipes

Why can’t I just stick to a recipe that has been tried and trusted by many? I always feel the urge to tweak a bit and sometimes the results are a bit odd if not downright weird.

I got the urge to bake muffins again on Tuesday and picked up some yogurt and fresh toasted coconut on the way home. I searched around for a new recipe and found on that seemed quick and easy. I was going to make one half of the muffins adding some coconut flakes and the other using blueberry yogurt and poppy seeds. Instead of just sticking to flour I decided to use whole wheat flour. I enjoy the fiber and thought it would work perfectly.

I guess my whole wheat flour is a bit too fibrous, resulting in pretty dense and flat muffins. They still tasted yummy though and are incredibly filling. But I was bothered by their lack of height, so yesterday I baked another half batch.

I still insisted on using some whole wheat flour, but this time I added less than a quarter cup to the rest of the flour and it came out with a bit more body. The second batch was a chocolate chip one. I felt the need to spoil myself after my latest sewing project finally got to me.

I do think I need a proper muffin tray though, these cupcake cups just don’t cut it anymore. And I still need to get mixing bowls. And now I want a springform pan too after I read a terribly decadent cheesecake recipe earlier today.

Here follows the basic simple muffin recipe.

Arrange:

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar (white or brown)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

150ml plain yogurt

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Make:

Preheat the oven to 180C. Mix all the dry ingredients together. Mix all the wet ingredients together. Add the wet to the dry mixture and mix it well. Fill muffin pans to about 2/3 of the pans and put in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Take out of the oven and let them cool. Of course, just following the above recipe might result in fairly bland muffins, so here are some suggestions.

Suggestions for the Simple Muffin Recipe:

- use different kinds of yogurt. I used blueberry yogurt in one batch, coconut yogurt in another and plain in the third.

- add some fun ingredients. I did not have blueberries, so I added some poppy seeds to make that batch a bit more fun and toasted coconut to the coconut ones. For the chocolate chip muffins I added a tablespoon ful of cocoa and generous helpings of chocolate chips. Yum!

- this is a really easy recipe and I think one can really play around with it, I’m definitely going to work on it and will keep you posted

 

New Project

I’m starting on a new project this week. I’ve been stagnating for a while, but that is over now. I’m not telling what it is until it’s finished and I am happy with it. After that I’ll be working on one more bag and then move onto shirts. I made a wildebeest shirt for Alexander’s birthday last year, which, unfortunately we never photographed, but it was a pretty fun shirt. I think I feel ready to take on collars and cuffs again.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for a notebook I could use as a recipe book. I found the perfect retro notebook at the Robinson’s Department Store near Asok this week. It seems like it would fit in perfectly with my grandmother’s old recipe notebooks.

I also tried using a recipe for honey cake to bake cupcakes. They did not exactly come out looking like cupcakes and I think I need to tweak the recipe a bit. Maybe too much baking powder. So I’ll work on that before I post the recipe. They looked fun though.