Easy non bake chocolate pie

I must thank my friend Cindy for sharing her recipe. She posted a picture of a pie sitting in her fridge and it tempted me. She said it is easy and share her recipe and so I went ahead to buy the required ingredients and get my hands on it after my hubby came back from business trip.

The pie is easy for old baker (started baking like 2 yrs ago and an old auntie too lah) but newbie (cos I do not bake that often and never learn from mistakes!) like me. Only four ingredients are required and I do not need to bake it too. Best of all, the pie crust is "broken down" by the help of a machine (my grinder) and it is the first time I use it for this purpose. Why did I use my hand to crush the oreo biscuits when I made my cheese cake the last time round?

Anyway, I lined the pie pan, poured the sandy and moist looking digestive biscuit into it, press the crumbs as evenly as I can with patience and put it into the freezer. Then I cooked the nestle cream and pour it into my chocolate buttons and stir with my hand whisk.

The completed product went into the fridge while the kids crowd around me, what else, but for the chocolate coating around the mixing bowl.

Here's the complete pie and a slice of it. I will get my friend's permission before I post her recipe here. Meanwhile, do enjoy the pictures. Hehehe.

 






Yum! My kids love it and keep asking for it! Now you want to do that for your kids?

After gotten my friend's permission, here's the recipe. She mentioned it is from a Food and Travel Mag. Thank you again, Cindy. Here it is :-

For the crust :

180g digestive biscuits
90g butter, melted

Blitz biscuits into fine sand using food processor. Stir in melted butter. Press mixture into a 24 cm tart tin. Chill in fridge while you prepare the filling.

Filling :

280g dark chocolate, chopped
260g cream

Bring cream to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat and pour over your bowl of chopped chocolate. Stir it until cream and chocolate combined into a smooth and shiny mixture.
Fill tart tin with the chocolate mixture and chill at least for 4 hours.

A quick bead item

My girl came back from school one day to say that her classmates like her bracelet and has ask her to do one for them. So while she is beading for her classmate, I did a quick one too.

This rectangular bead is from a bracelet that is done during one of the beading lessons a few years back. I pair it up with bicone beads. This earring reminds me of a simple chinese lantern.

There, simple enough.

I hope I get more chances to bead and bake in this coming school holiday. Holiday starting soon .... 

Volcanoes

It has been more than two months since I last did any baking. But I still borrows books on baking and beading from the library. Recently I borrowed a book titled "Crave" which has all these recipes using cream cheese. I marked a few to be tried but after 6 weeks (I extended the deadline) I still have no time for them. I quickly did a "photo"copy of the easier recipe by snapping the recipe using my phone camera before I bookdropped it unreluctantly. Did I violate any copyright law?

So now that the exam is over, I decided to give it a try. Not only my skills (if I had any) are dusty, the mixer is also dusty, so I had more preparation work. I wiped the mixer clean, prepare the bowls that I need, weight the ingredients, blah blah blah. It took me 2 hours from preparation till the end products "emerge" from the oven. Luckily I am not cooking dinner.

The little thing I baked this time is called Volcanoes. They look like this (picture taken from the book).



Nice ya? But mine did not look like this at all. The cheese part of my cupcake sank all the way to the bottom. My volcanoes are dormant ones. :-)

The cheese part is pretty easy to mix, all done by hand, and I used icing sugar instead of caster sugar. I am not sure what is superfine caster sugar anyway. I added 10g more of icing sugar because I have understood from a baking class trainer that we can add 10g more if we want to replace caster with icing sugar.

The cake batter part is not that difficult either. However, my batter has this grainy look which I am not sure if that should be the case. It kind of look like the egg is not fully incorporated into the batter. The recipe called for large eggs, but since my eggs are small, I used 1 instead of 1/2 for the cream cheese filling and 2 instead of 1 and half for the batter mixture. Was it the extra egg? Or the shortage of cocoa powder? I tried to make up with flour thou.

Assembly time. The "assembling" instruction says that a cavity should be made with the back of the spoon, but my batter is not of that consistency and the cavity "cave" in rather fast and so I have to be quick. I use one spoon to try make the cavity and the other hand quickly pour the cheese mix in. Actually, the cheese mix still kind of stay at the top. In the end of the assembling process, I have alot of cheese mix left and I have to create little cupcakes of cheese mix with chocolate cake base.

After 35 minutes of baking (5 minutes more than required, kiasi lah), I took them out. They looked puffed up and baked. However upon cooling, I noticed they shrunk. No matter how they looked, they passed the taste test. The cake is very soft and very moist (fudgy a better word?). The kids like it, I like it and now, 2nd day after the volcanoes are baked, they are all gone. I ate at least 5 of them, for taste test and QA (on the 2nd day) etc. However, something puzzles me. On the 2nd day (ie today) I noticed the top of a few cupcakes are glossy, and the cross section shows a layer of frosting lookalike at the top. I hope I have a teacher ready for me to ask these kind of questions.

Here's how my volcanoes look.




And now, here is the recipe. (Makes 12 cupcakes)

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Filling

Cream cheese 115g (4oz)
Caster (superfine) sugar 70g(2 and half oz)
Vanilla Essence 1/4 tsp
Egg 1/2 large, lightly beaten

Fudgy Chocolate Cupcake batter (Now then I realise cupcake is of fudgy nature)

Cake flour 100g (3 and 1/2 oz)
Cocoa powder 5 and 3/4 Tbsp
Baking powder 3/4 tsp
Salt 1/3 tsp
Butter 100g
Castor (superfine) sugar 70g
Light brown sugar 70g
Vanilla essence 2/3 tsp
Eggs 1 and 1/2 large, lightly beaten
Milk 140ml

Method

Prepare cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and creamy. Gradually add egg, beating until smooth. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 180 degree Celcius. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with paper cups.

Prepare cupcake batter. In a medium bowl, stir together cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt until well blended. Set aside.

Wtih an eclectric mixer, cream butter, castor sugar and light brown sugar at medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Gradually blend in vanilla essence and eggs until well incorporated.

Lowe speed and add flour mixture and milk in 3 separate additions, starting and ending with flour mixture. Make sure each addition is fully incorporated into batter before adding the next.

Divide batter evenly among paper cups, Create a cavity in the centre of each cupcake with the back of a spoon. Fill cavities with cream cheese filling.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until tops are lightly browned and spring back when gently pressed. Leave to cool in tin for 10 minutes.

Remove cupcakes form bing and leave to cool completely on a wire rack before serving. The cupcakes can be stored, covered, at room temperature for up to 3 days, or in the regfrigerator for up to 1 week.

Now you may want to have a go at it.

p/s : I used another editor and do not know how to have the recipe type out in proper spacing. Sorry.
p/s : Since I have so much of the cheese filling left, I think I should have added more to each cupcake and then the cheese mixture will not sink down?

Beading works

I still have 45mins before battery of the laptop goes flat. I shall do a quick update on my beading hobby.

The challenge that me and my friend started up has stopped midway .. the previous/last challenge is to create something antique, as decided by my friend. The only item I have that fits the antique theme is the antique looking butterfly charm. I paired it up with a black square bead to make this simple earring.

I seriously think this is quite a nice pair, at least the design is not copied from somewhere. But then again, simple designs are everywhere, so I am sure someone else would have already made this design before. Still, I think this is a lovely pair. I made it all by my own mah. Even the twisted wire above the black bead is handmade.

Besides this "black beauty", I have another pair of earring that "majors" in black. The design is inspired by the lightings used in store (I think in Jurong Point). Simple, but that is what I like.

Enough of black yet? Black is one of my favourite colour. I like that it has slimming effect. So if you do not need the slimming effect, then go colourful. I made a bracelet (cannot remember where the inspiration came from) with bicones in the few colours I have. Yet another simple piece, and I hopes it can go with many different outfits.

I love making jewelries, but I usually do not wear them .. I hope one day these pieces I made will find someone who will be able to appreciate them.

Nigella's Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

I can't believe I told Small Small Baker that I will bake Nigella's Chocolate Chocolate Chip muffin when I get hold of the bicar and baking powder then forgot all about it (because I did not diligently update my to-do-list). I chanced upon it again when I got hold of the bicar few days ago. How coincident.

I love making muffins because of its easy preparation. Furthermore, this recipes uses a number of regular ingredients that most bakers will have -- cocao powder, milk, chocolate chips, plain flour. Not sure if my observation is correct, but usually bakes without whipping egg whites , without creaming butter and sugar, or without whipping full eggs uses bicar and baking powder ... I should be right to say they are raising agents ... but it seems their combined pressence are common to bakes not done with those 3 method mentioned.

I have used this recipe 3 times for the past 1 week. I made a trial batch because I wanted to use this recipe for Teachers' Day gift, then the batch for actual gifts and the last batch is for own consumption plus Teachers' Day gift to the yamaha teacher.

I finally got hold of the pretty ikea paper cases that I first see in HHB's blog and I can't wait to use it. Not sure why, the paper cases did not fit my waxed cases very well and the paper cases folded up at some places, resulted in cases "eating" into muffins.

And look at this :

the "burnt" chocolate chip

The chocolate chips inside the muffins are all darker in color then the ones at the top (can see the comparison side by side?). This "burnt" chocolate chip also happens in my Double Chocolate Cupcakes.

I have tried using different brands. For the 1st and 2nd batch I used Hersley minis while the last batch Phoon Huat's housebrand. All the same result. So it is not the chips problem, then why? Perhaps the timing? I baked longer than what the recipe called for. No choice, the muffins are not baked at the required time. I extended the time by 10 minutes.

The 2nd batch were dressed up by the kids for their teachers. I used the white cups because I wanted the kids to write the message on the cups .... but since I baked it in the night ( have to involve the boy who is in PM session), the kids have to go to bed before the muffins are totally cooled so the notes are written separately when the muffins are cooling. I even wanted to include an ingredient list so that the teachers will know what is used (incase teachers are allergic to any ingredients), but I could not find an appropriate way to include it. I also purposely asked the kids not to mention names of teachers in the message so that they will not squash the other

muffins while trying to find the right one for the right teacher. Just fish out and give.

Having baked two batches, I find that it is rather plain to have chocolates over choclates, look all dark dark ... thus the third batch, I sprinkled strawberry flavoured chocolate chips instead. The strawberry choc chips did not go very well. They deformed a little from the high heat. This time I used the ikea paper cases and got 9 muffins again. Guess what ... two are wrapped for teacher and the kids finish the rest of the 6 (I ate 1 for testing) on that very day! There is nothing left for the next day.

So, I made the chocolate chip oat meal muffin on the next day. I now end this post at 3.50am and the picture of yesterday's bake. I just ate one. Yummy.

p/s 1 : It seems that only the white pokka dot cases seemed to be too big but the red ones fit nicely.

p/s 2: That night I forgot to add that the Nigella's recipe muffin has a taste similar to 發糕，those brownish coloured ones. Maybe I should bake for other people to try, and also to try others to see if they taste similar.

Chocolate Hazelnut Bread (2nd trial)

It has been a long long time since I use the bread machine. So, since there is no bread tomorrow, and it is a saturday the next day, I decided to stay up and start the bread machine at 3am, so that I can have fresh bread at 7am.

This is the first time I stayed up and start baking at middle of the night. I always wanted to try, especially when my hubby is not in town, cos I would not have to worry about waking him up .. but that very day, they slept in air con room, so I just close the kitchen door and start working. But I was still concious about the noise I made when I gathered and measured the ingredients, so the preparation work took quite some time.

I initially though that I would be able to sleep once I set the machine working .. but I forgot that I must put in the ground hazelnut and chocolate chips at the beep after 2nd kneading cycle .. so I had to stay awake for a little while more.

Finally after I poured in the hazelnut bits and chips, I went to sleep and woke up after 3 hours to turn off the maker. We finally ate the bread around 9am.

The top of the bread is still not smooth looking. I cut the bread into thick slices, hoping to finish it sooner hahaha.

This time round, the bread is soft but very dense. Eating it is like eating bao skin. There is no mention about the inside of the bread being dense in my previous try. Anyway, I did not like the bread this time round, and my boy did not give it the thumbs up (but my 饞嘴猫 girl did). My hubby did not taste the bits this time but he also did not like the bread as much. So I think this is the last time I am doing this bread. I got to find more breadmaker recipe.

Here are how they look after I sliced them into thick slices.

The thick crust, swirly insides and all.

Sliced cheese cheesecake

I am very happy to be able to fulfil my wish of trying out this recipe from Blessed Homemaker. It is a baked cheesecake recipe using NOT philly cheese but sliced cheese. I am sure parents with kids will always have sliced cheese in their fridge.

I read about her try on this recipe for a few times, even the comments, and finally 鼓起勇氣, have it done last friday afternoon when the boy is not having school (due to PSLE oral). Blessed Homemaker doesn't have problem in getting the cheesecake done in a short time, but I almost took an hour, from measuring all the ingredient to putting the final product into oven, that includes whisking the 4 egg whites with my hand whisk. *sigh* really regret not using the mixer... 4 egg whites! So tiring, but I manage to have medium hard peaks (but egg whites did not fall when I turn mixer bowl upside down) after like 10 - 15 minutes with lots of short rest in between. My arm ache for 3 days after that, and I even have problem brushing my teeth. (goes to show how much exercise I lack)

I have to note, when sifting the flour inside the egg, milk, cheese, butter mixture, I can see specks of flour floating around, so I do worry about getting balls of flour in the end product, but luckily, no, no trace of flour. :-)

Blessed Homemaker advise me to lengthen the baking time since I am using a 8 inch pan. As I see dark patches forming, I did not follow the recipe's 20 minutes 170 degree Celsius. I only bake 15 minutes and turn it down to 140 degree Celsius and further bake the standard 40 + my extra 15 minutes.

The cake rose beautifully in the oven after 30 minutes. See this.

Finally, I off the oven and wait for it to cool inside ... and also to see it shrinking from the sides, sinking as well and ended up like this.

So sad ... I am already expecting Kueh, not cheesecake, but after I cut, hmm still look reasonable ok, and very tasty. As expected, the cake has a dense layer at the bottom (caused by the sinking) and that layer taste saltish, but my kids say it is still tasty. My hubby even volunteer to share the last piece with me cos he feels that it is tasty. The cake is all eaten up on the 2nd day. I think I have to try again, using the KA to beat the whites. However, I still feel that my skill of folding the whites into the batter needs lots of practicing. But I like the idea of using balloon whisk to fold in the whites. Let's hope I get the time to try again.

Sharing with you how the "cheesecake kueh" looks like.

Do not be deceived, the cake is still very soft.