Kubiertos

Don’t you just love cookies? I do. I especially love those big crisp ones or those moist crinkles that are simply to die for. I love cookies so much that I always ensure there are store-bought ones available at home for anytime my kids and I feel like munching on one.

You would think that for someone like myself who loves cookies like I love cake would be constantly making them. Unfortunately, I am intimidated by the thought of baking cookies. I tried several times before and have only been slightly successful. My cookies would turn out ok. Not awesome, just ok. Most of the time not even ok. More like burnt. There were other times my dough would even turn out runny that you can imagine what the end result was.

When I first tried my friend’s oatmeal cookies (burnt ones, hehe), I couldn’t stop munching on them. Because my pregnancy made me crave for favorites much more than usual, I figured I must learn how to make them in order to satisfy my constant yearning to sink my teeth into one. I had to conquer my hesitation and frustration on baking cookies. So I decided to go ahead and beat my record of failed burnt cookies. I got myself a copy of 3 oatmeal cookie recipes and did a mix and match of all 3 to come up with my own mix. And voila, the result were cookies even my husband actually appreciated.

Watch how these beautiful batch of cookie batter come out as crisp and tasty oatmeal raisin cookies. Try them using the very simple recipe I would like to share, and feel like a success as I myself did after smelling the first batch come out of the oven. Hmmm. Yum.

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup raisins

Procedures:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets or line with waxed paper.

Beat butter until creamy. Add in sugars and beat until fluffy, for about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs. Add in the vanilla and set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon. Stir in dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix well. Stir in raisins then mix in oats.

Spoon out the dough into the cookie sheet leaving enough space for them to spread out. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until the edges turn brown.

I love to eat it slightly warm but the crisp will come after the cookies have been cooled and stored. Enjoy!

I know very few people who don’t like chocolate. In fact I am fortunate to be surrounded by friends and family who mostly love chocolate. You will actually notice a lot of what I have in this blog talk about some form of chocolate candy, drink or dessert. And my ultimate dream is to be able to perfect my own version of a moist chocolate cake.

I think I have achieved perfection in terms of taste and texture but inconsistent throughout the whole cake. There’s always some part that is either crusty or collapsing especially when I try to put frosting on it.

A while back, I became ambitious and tried my hand at upgrading my usual plain chocolate cake into a layered cake with a creamy chocolate filling. Since I already had a recipe for a chocolate cake, all I needed was a recipe for a great filling. Mind you I am talking about taste here and not much else. I figured if the cake tasted deliciously out of this world, no one would really mind what it looked like (who am I kidding?).

I actually modified this recipe that my boss gave me. It was supposedly a recipe to create chocolate mousse but I loved it so much I matched it with my moist chocolate cake. What do you know, the result was a success! Oh yeah, successful in taste not in presentation. I still have not improved much on my frosting skills and it was obvious by the way the frosting was thin in some places and thick on others. But the chocolatey-ness, the moistness, the yummy-ness was definitely something I could be proud of. So to share my experiment into the world of layered cakes, here is the chocolate mousse filling recipe that I used with my moist chocolate cake.

Ingredients:

8 oz semisweet chocolate
2 tsp honey
2 large eggs
1 cup cream (I used all purpose)
2 tbsp butter

Procedures:

Melt the semisweet in a double broiler. For this recipe though, I used half unsweetened and half milk chocolate as that was what was left in my pantry at the time. Once the chocolate melts, add butter and mix well and set aside. In another bowl, beat cream until bubbly. Set aside. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and honey together. Combine the egg mixture with the cream and fold. Add in the chocolate mixture and fold. Pour into individual ramekins if you want or just keep in a bowl if to be used for filling. Chill for at least an hour or overnight for best results.

Here is what was left after everyone else devoured a slice:

Lately, my taste buds have turned to craving for Asian flavors. I seemed to be always looking for spicy yakisoba, shrimp dumplings, sushi, sashimi, veggies in oyster sauce and orange chicken. Even my snacks have that hint of Asian as I stuff myself with siu bao (Steamed Pork Buns) or some siu mai (Shrimp dumplings) that are abundantly sold in kiosks around the place where I work.

On one such day, I had such a craving for Panda Express’ orange chicken that I went crazy online trying to find myself a recipe. I chanced upon Rasa Malaysia’s famous recipe that uses actual orange juice and orange peel instead of those sticky sweet ones that actually do not use orange in any of its ingredients. However, her recipe was not at all spicy so I decided to change it a bit as I wanted something that was a mixture of sticky sweet and spicy to satisfy my craving. Served with steamed white rice makes this dish doubly awesome. My hubby actually scraped the sauce off the plate so he could mix it with his rice. Hmm yummy!

Ingredients:

1/2 kilo chicken breast fillet
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup flour
1/8 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg
1 tsp cooking oil
pinch of salt

Spicy Orange Sauce:

1/4 cup orange juice
3 tbsp chicken broth
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp Chinese rice wine
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice vinegar
5 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chili sauce
1 tsp cornstarch
salt and pepper to taste

Procedures:

In a bowl, mix together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, oil and salt. Beat in egg. Cover chicken fillets with the batter. Heat oil in a pan or wok and deep fry the chicken until crispy and golden brown. Set aside on a plate covered with paper towels to drain off the excess oil.

In another bowl, mix together all ingredients for spicy orange sauce.

Heat the sesame oil in another pan. Stir fry some minced garlic until they become translucent. Pour in the spicy orange sauce mixture and continue to stir until the sauce has becomes thick. Mix in chicken fillets until completely covered in sauce. Serve hot with rice. Yum!