Sunday, May 16, 2010

Maple leaf Pancakes



Aren't these the cutest! So we randomly have a maple leaf pancake stencil that I decided to use today, it has this little handle so you can flip it over pretty easily.
Pancakes are another one of those things that you just can't go wrong with, and always taste so yummy, so heres a recipe;

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups of flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
3/1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of milk
2-3 tbsp oil

Method
1. Mix together all the dry ingredients, and then add the milk, eggs and oil.
2. Mix together well till you get a flowy batter
3. Cook on medium heat till nice and golden!
- And don't forget the maple syrup if you wanna do it right.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Sweet like a Ladoo


Ladoo's have to be one of my favourite indian sweets, sharing the list with Gulab jamuns, halwa and rasgulla.
We got a box of Ladoos today, and I think this was the first time I had one in about 5 years...they were so good.
Im not entirely sure what ladoo's are made up of apart from the sugar, so I searched it up and found a recipe, most of the ingredients may probably only be found in an Indian grocerry store (If you are ever at an indian grocerry store though, just buy a ready made ladoo)
http://www.indianfoodforever.com/desserts/boondi-ka-laddoo.html

Apple Pie


So I decided to make Apple pie today, since there had been a pie crust sitting in the fridge for a couple of days. Apples and pineapples I think have to be my fav fruit. Anyways so my romanian housemate had once given me this amazing apple pie that her mum made, and so I asked her for the recipe, but me obviously having no patience at all searched up a recipe online that claimed to be Romanian style apple pie, and I bought my self a bag of apples.
So according to the recipe I had to grate 8-10 apples..this is actually a really really long task.
Wash, cut, peel, grate x 8...not that fun at all.
So I used a tenderflake pie crust, stuffed it all in and baked it for about 30mins.
Got it out of the oven, the pie crust was cracking in a few places, in not a very nice way, and was slightly undercooked. So left it in the oven for a bit more, didn't get any better so I took it out hoping the inside would be better.
Cut it up and I wasn't rewarded. The apples were not cooked properly, they weren't mushy enough.
So all in all that didnt go well. I want to blame it on the pie crust, I feel like I should have just made my own and maybe things would have gone better.
But anyways I will have another go at this whole apple pie thing once I get an actual recipe from my friend

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Meringues


So, I thought I'd start off with Meringues, one of my favorite sweet snacks. They're super easy to make and oh so yummy!

Ingredients
4 eggs at room temperature
1 cup of caster sugar
2tsp cornflour
1tsp white vinegar
food coloring/sprinkles (if you want)

1.
Preheat oven to 210°F and grease a baking tray

2. Separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, place the whites in a dry bowl. You can either throw away the yolks or use 'em for something else (I'm usually hungry after all of the baking so I make an omelette with them, with a little bit of milk to compensate for the whites)

3. Use and electric beater to whisk the whites till soft peaks form

4. Start adding the sugar gradually in small amounts (4 or 5 additions) until the mixture is thick and glossy, and all the sugar is dissolved. You should get long trailing peaks when you lift your beater out of the mixture.

5. Now add the cornflour and the vinegar and whisk just till combined

6. You can either make little swirly shaped meringues (in the picture) or you can use a teaspoon to drop them onto the baking tray. For the swirly meringues put the mixture in a pipping bag fitted with a star shaped nozzle. Pipe little rounds and lift the nozzle gently for the tips.
Now if you choose to make different coloured meringues you can add a few drops of food colouring to the mixture before you pipe them out and then afterwards you may add some sprinkles.
You can make the meringues as big as a one dollar coin, they don't have to be spaced too far apart since they don't expand

7. Bake the meringues for approximately 130mins. For the ones I made they only needed little less than 110mins since they were quite small. The more time you bake them the more crisp, and the less time you bake them the more chewier.

Tips: Try to avoid making meringues on hot humid days as the mixture doesn't really turn out that great.
- When that happened to me, they look more like flat cookies that meringues, they still tasted as good, but no one wanted to eat them.