Archive for the ‘K & L’s Kitchen’ Category
My sour cream was about to expire and I had all the other ingredients on stock so I thought I’d bake this easy to make cake. I love making this because it makes my kitchen smell like autumn spice. I really don’t know what autumn spice is supposed to smell like but in my Asian-bred mind, it smells cinnamon and nutty. And that’s exactly what this cake is all about: cinammon, chopped walnuts, light brown sugar and a sprinkle of chocolate chips. Because what’s a cake without a hint of chocolate right?
My cake fresh out of the oven.
And on the cake board. (Sorry for the blurred pic, my camera was finally laid to rest so I’m using my Blackberry)
I saved a slice for you…look at the cinnamon and chocolate filling swirl through the cake. The cake actually came out lighter and a bit fluffy because I used eggs, butter and sour cream at room temperature. You like?
Oh and that’s my kitchen in the background, in case you were curious.
This recipe was adapted from Nick Malgieri’s The Modern Baker.
My colleague in the office brought a bunch of bananas because she wanted me to make her banana bread. And I’m happy to say it turned out quite good…and moist.
I wanted to show you a cross section of the bread. Do you see the strawberry bits?
My office mate was thrilled. She said I made her morning. 
This baking gig is really becoming a joy!
Recipe was adapted from the Amateur Gourmet. Recipe below. I found it in my favorite baker site, Joy The Baker.
6 ounces unsalted butter, melted and browned to just over 1/2 cup of butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup plain yogurt (any fat content) or buttermilk
1 1/4 cup mashed banana (from about 3 medium bananas)
1/2 cup diced strawberries plus 1 strawberry very thinly sliced, for topping
Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Butter will begin to foam and crackle as it melts. When the crackling subsides, the butter will begin to brown. Swirl the pan as the butter cooks. When the butter browns and begins to smell nutty, remove the pan from the flame and transfer the butter to a small bowl. Taking the butter out of the hot saucepan will stop the butter from overcooking and burning. Set aside to cool.
In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon.
In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, vanilla extract, and yogurt or buttermilk. Whisk in the mashed bananas. When butter has cooled, whisk in the browned butter.
Add the wet ingredients, all at once to the dry ingredients. Fold together, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to reveal any hidden pockets of flour. Fold in the diced strawberries. Fold together ingredients, but try not to over stir.
Spoon batter into prepared pan and top with thinly sliced strawberries. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to rest in the pan for 15 minutes, before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Happiness is Dulce de Leche Cupcakes
I know, I know, I need to work on my cake decorating skills. I wasn’t feeling very aesthetic then. But these were delish if I may say so myself. The recipe is from The Gourmet Cookbook but I got it from Joy The Baker (love her!). Check out the recipe here. Try making it and let me know how it goes.
Rainy Days And Tuesdays
Posted on: September 7, 2011
What to do on a rainy evening in the city? Bake!
Lemon and Matcha Green Tea Marble Pound Cake
I had extra green tea batter so I made it into green tea muffins. I personally didn’t like them but my “upstairs neighbors” (read: baked goods guinea pigs) loved them.
And after baking? Share!
The basket of baked goodies for all to partake
Do you spot the almost depleted fudge brownies in there?
I got the recipe from my favorite baking blog. You can get this easy to do recipe here.
If I keep this up, I’m really going to get fat!
Putta – It’s Easy!
Posted on: June 15, 2011
While you were watching old Spidey, my subconscious reminded to me eat noodles to your long life. None of the food prepared on the night of your birthday was anything I really felt like eating so I decided to whip up something easy and light for myself. Puttanesca Bianca. It’s pretty much like the regular except it skips the tomatoes.
Ingredients?
Just all of the above plus minced garlic. Put it over medium heat till it bubbles a bit. And add a pinch of salt if you want more than what’s already in the anchovies.
For some reason I used angel hair pasta instead of spaghetti. And I over cooked it! But it was still pretty enjoyable. Looks good on the plate at least, right?
Got millions more recipes to learn *sigh*.
Welcome to Eataly
Posted on: March 6, 2011
I’ve been meaning to tell you about this place but never got around to doing so until now. Eataly is the brain child of Mario Batali, Oscar Farinetti and a bunch of other world renowned foodies. Basically, Eataly is an epicurean market space of everything Italian. Hence, the name. Amidst this chaotic market is a fine dining restaurant, a pizzeria, a bar and many more attractions. I love stopping by here on my way home from work.
There’s a chocolate festival going on right now and when I was there the other night I felt like I was 7 years old again who’s dream to go to the Goya Fun Factory finally came true!
With the hoards of people and the unlimited selection of just EVERYTHING, it’s so easy to pass hours of your day (or night) here. Would love to take you when you come.
Photo credits: With the heavy traffic, it was impossible for me to take pics, so i grabbed these from various food blogs.
Bread Pudding
Posted on: January 26, 2011
Inspired by your recent baking efforts, I thought I’d get my hands a little dirty as well.
Enter a family favorite… bread pudding (with that sauce that has a kick, of course). It’s really easy to make and you don’t need to fumble with electric mixers of any kind.
Here’s how it went.
You need to chop up the bread – in this case, whole wheat sliced bread. And let it have a nice long swim in milk.
While that’s soaking, mix together all these ingredients…
… in a separate bowl. The consistency will be granular. Apparently, that’s ok.
When that’s done, grease a bowl (giant ramekin) with melted butter.
Hopefully by this time, your bread-milk mixture us a homogenized mush. If it isn’t and you’re impatient as I was, get a a fork or your fingers and mash away.
So you should have three bowls now.
Pour the granular mixture into the bread mush. Mix well. Then pour all of that into the greased bowl. Mix well so the butter gets incorporated into the mixture.
And that’s pretty much it!!
Pop that sucker in oven for about 2 hours – until set and golden brown on the outside.
Now for ze sauce…
Beat eggs till lemon yellow in color then slowly add in the sugar.
Don’t dump it in all at once. You’re going for sprinkle-beat-sprinkle-beat till all the sugar’s used up and it looks like this:
Then add in some piping hot butter but do NOT beat. Mix slowly. (Don’t ask me why, that’s what the index card said hahaha). Here’s the sauce with the butter. See the streaks of yellow?
Now’s the fun part. Bring in a good friend.
You need at least 4 tablespoons for that kick
And when all is said and done – indulge!
Clap, clap, clap. It turned out beautifully. Just the way it’s supposed to taste.
Faker Baker: Cocoa Banana Muffins
Posted on: January 9, 2011
I thought I’d put my new 7 speed mixer from Cuisinart to good use by baking Cocoa Banana Muffins!
This is a simple recipe which was easy and quick to do. To get the full flavor of banana, make sure that the bananas are overripe. Don’t I sound like pro? Woohoo!
You need:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 medium sized banas mashed to make 1 1/2 cup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 light brown sugar
3 large eggs
I started by mashing the overripe bananas and stirring in the non-fat sour cream.
Mixed all the dry ingredients together – flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt
Combined the butter, sugar and brown sugar and mixed it with the mixer on medium speed.
Beat in the eggs one at a time making sure the consistency is smooth after each addition.
Add half the flour mixture.
Then beat in the banana mixture. After the batter has absorbed the bananas, add the remaining flour mixture half.
Pour the batter in a muffin pan, pop it in the oven for 30 minutes and….tada!
I had leftover batter so I poured it into a loaf pan and baked it to make a Cocoa Banana Loaf. This is going with me to the office tomorrow. I have bananas coming out of my ears!
I think I’m getting better at this
And so my winter project begins. Here is one of the many I will attempt to bake (and hopefully perfect). I chose this for its aromatic spices. No, not really. I chose this because it looked easy enough for a beginner like me to do. So may I present to you Chocolate Spice Bread.
What do you need?
All purpose flour, Baking powder
Salt, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar
2 eggs, unsalted butter, sour cream
Cocoa, fresh grated nutmeg, cinnamon powder and ginger powder
What do you do? Just mix em all together with a whisk
Cocoa, flour, baking powder, salt and spices
Eggs, sugar, butter and sour cream
Combine to make a thick and yummy batter
And Voila!
Ok fine! Mine didn’t turn out looking that nice. Here is my version…
Sunog! Hahahaha! Ok just the top but other than that, it was moist and flavorful. I think I put the rack too high up in the oven hence the burned part. My next try should turn out flawless!
I paired it with plum preserves and turned out quite good!
I should learn to art direct these photos better…til the next one!
Credits: The Modern Baker by Nick Malgieri
