Anis Attempt at Lily's Easy Gooey Yummy Brownies

When Anis wanted me to make pizza for her class's end of year, I was looking for excuses not to...and also alternatives. When I read Lily's FB notes on the brownies and there were so many takers who had tried, improvise and commend it, I suggested the same to Anis. Of course, less sugar (only 1.5 cups) and no walnuts coz Anis doesn't like nuts in cake, chocolate or any meals.

So, last Monday night, I took out all the ingredients, guide her on measuring the ingredients and turn on the oven for her. She whoosh my hands away whenever I want to help, so, in the end I left her alone. She called me when the mixture are done and its time to transfer them into the baking tin. Here's the results...in pictorial form:-)

The brownies - few minutes after it came out from the over. The middle portion was not really cooked - it ballooned in the middle (tak sempat ambil the ballooned picture) and then slowly, as it cooled, it dipped in the middle.... I cut it out ... actually I was looking for the gooey parts...

the gooey parts finished faster - Anis loves it, even the uncooked batter got cleaned by her tongue!

It's right in the middle of course -- that's when I gave her lesson # ???? how to test if the cake/brownies are done. But anyhow, after taking it out from the tray, it did look so much better.

Comment:

• Ummi (myself la) : Taste real good. Friends in the office also said so. I love it when it was still warm -- crusty on top and soft down below
  
• Abah: Well, Azlin (Abah) said keras (hard) but changed his mind on the next day - taste better on the 2nd day. Anis responded by saying "Of course la keras sikit (a little bit hard), this is brownies, not cake!"
• Ahmad: Hmm....sedap(delicious). This is definitely not cake. Not creamy enough for a cake but sedap!
• Alif: Ada kacang tak? Takde? Aaa....*ngap!*

She baked the brownies again on Tuesday night - in time for the party on Wednesday, the one baked on Monday night had long gone by Tuesday evening. And this time, the brownies cooked well - no more dip in the middle. No picture taken for the second attempt - this one, no-one in the house got a taste, all for her friends.

NOT an Easy Peasy Breadstick

Tonight I venture into a baking session for cheese pizza (mainly because there's only cheese in fridge) and kids-loved-it breadstick(supposed to be pizza hut style).

I found the breadstick recipe by "Chef Dee" at recipezaar.com(http://www.recipezaar.com/137629) sometime ago. The kids love pizza hut's breadstick so, more to save cost and also allow them to eat to their heart content, I looked for the recipe and try to make ones. Finally, after few trials, I got this recipe that really suit to their taste. Of course, i had to improvise the recipe as I do not own a bread machine.

The dough, after I had cut and placed them on the tray, prior to bake

Here's the recipe (after modification)
Mix all of these together:
4 cups of high protein flour (bread flour)
1 tsp salts
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tsp oregano
3 tbsp milk powder (I love to put extra - 1 "bumbu" tbsp)

Put all these ingredients in your mixer. Use the hook meant for bread. You might want to reduce the proportion to half if you're not using high power mixer (I burnt 3cheapo mixer motors - even one that is supposed to be about 500W. Once all of them had mixed, add on 1 1/3 cups of warm water (you might want to go slower on this, dont put them all at once. Add on about half of the cup and then slowly add the rest of the liquid until you get them all to mix.
Then add 3 tbsp olive oil and let it mix well. Let the mixer knead the dough for about 5 minutes more until the dough becomes smooth. Then put the dough into airtight container and let it rise till double for about 1 hr.

Once the dough had risen, roll them onto a floured surface, into rectangle shape. Cut them out using pizza cutter to the size that you like and transfer them onto greased baking tray.
Let it rise for another 30 - 45 minutes. Then you can use the topping as recommended by the recipezaar or just spoon some original traditional prego (the tomato one) on it and put mozarella shredded cheese on top of it. It'll taste like pizza stick. The original topping was to mix all of these listed ingredients below and shake it onto the breadstick (after you had greased them with olive oil)
2 tsp dry parmesan cheese,1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, 1 tsp oregano. You can place them into a shaker (or re-use the oregano container) and shake on top of the dough. Bake them at 180degreeC for about 15 minutes or until done. The dough is very soft even when it is cold (if you get the dough done correctly la..)

You'd need to place the bread on wire rack to keep the bread fresh

Fruit of labor...:-)

Iftar Menu...Ayam Masak Bijan

Ayam Masak Bijan by Aina Syasya... following recipe kompilasi Masakan Ayam produced by Alaf21. Alhamdulillah, tak payah masak semalam. Presentation by Abah (Azlin)

Sayur pulak camana? Well, Azlin masakkan, so I dont have to cook at all and can focus on finishing Anis's 3rd baju raya:-)

Alamak! Dirtynya tingkap dapur tu...berminyak.

Cookies anyone...

This is the fruit of labor today....Baked 3 types of cookies today. Here's 2 of them Lemon Cheese Nestum

(doesn't look like lemon but smells like it)

Snow Heart Suji (this one without the snow and no heart shape). Alif said that this is Harp shape

This one with the snow - it's actually just milk powder. Still no heart shape ...ada rupa harp ke shape ni?

Chocolate almond cookies...

I've tried writing this topic for umptenth times today and keep on getting error. Finally! I'm in. Had to clear all the temp files and cookies, then only it works. Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I went back to Aina's baju raya..am getting closer to finishing the chiffon lined jubah. Just as I was gaining more motivation to finish up the baju, Alif called - twice before he finally called with crying voice "Umi, naiklah sekarang!" compared to "Umi, bila nak naik, dah lama Alif tunggu", few minutes before. Well...I since I am in my room, I might as well come back to this post - not until I had given Alif his ritual full body massage before sleep!
OK, I've been looking for guaranteed sedap biskut nestum recipe with no success so, I am now resigned to use the best look good recipe that I can find - thought Lemon Cheese Nestum looked good. But somehow I got sidetracked and tried this chocolate almond pulak. This one need to be refrigerated first so, I thought, I would just prepared the dough first on Friday night and then cut and bake on Sat morning. But having bad headache on Friday night doesn't really help. A small nap became dead sleep - only woke up at 4:30am the next morning and the butter was left on the kitchen counter overnight - so, I had to work on the cookie dough right away! Well, after I had completed the sahur course laa..

It was not complicated to make. Real easy actually.

Just mix the following:
250gm butter with 185g icing sugar -- beat till mix just nice, then add
1 egg, 1/2 tsp coffee paste (1 used mocha paste instead, couldn't find coffee paste), 1tsp chocholate paste (again, had to improvise -use choc emulco instead). Cream them - just a little bit - no need to make it light. Then
sieve together 400gm cookie flour (plain flour also can), 1/2 tsp baking powder, 15 gm chocolate powder and add them into the mixture. Add and mix manually. Finally add in the 180gm almond flake (I only have 100gm - pun dah cukup actually).

Once all mixed up nicely, press it into square tin lined with grease paper or cookie paper so that you can take it out easily. Then refrigerate overnight or until firm. I didn't really wait overnight. The dough was done around 6am and I started cutting them out in the afternoon. Once firm, take out and cut them into long rectangle - about 1.5"x8" and then cut thinly to get small square or rectangle shape. Place the cut cookie onto greased baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 mins at 170C. I used shortening to grease coz the tips given said that if use butter to grease, the cookie might become more brown than it should at the bottom. And if use dark baking sheet, it should be done at about 15mins (that's what I use) but if aluminum it'll take a bit longer, probably 20 -25 mins. Let it cool on wire rack so that it'll stay crispy longer coz all side of the cookie steamed off equally (that's another tip).

The cookie is very crunchy - most refrigerated cookies are. Alif loves it so much - he took one bowl of it and ate in front of TV and really finished them all!

Here's the final look - in the cookie jar - recipe from Alex Goh's Joy of Baking Cookies Book

Bubur Lambuk oh Bubur Lambuk

I was longing for bubur lambuk. Bubur lambuk was one of the special dish during puasa time when I was young. Che' (my mom) makes the best bubur lambuk. Our bubur lambuk is not the same like any other that you can find in Selangor. Like my neighbour said, it is unique with all the leaves and vegetable inside it.

Last weekend, I was so happy that the needed ingredients were available at Sect 6 Market. So that Sunday evening I set to make my favourite bubur lambuk while busy sewing Anis's baju raya and teaching my friend, Lela how to make her daughter's baju kurung. I checked back with Che' on the recipe. I thought I had written it somewhere in my book - turns out I didn't. I asked Kak Su (my helper) to pound black pepper and the roasted fish (ikan kembung). I just told her 1 tablespoon since Che' said for 2 pots, we can put in 1 spoon. When I put in the pounded stuffs into the porridge, it looked like there were too much black pepper. But once I put in all the vegetables and ulam and coconut milk, and more water, it looks ok-lah, I guess. By the time I put in the last ingredient, Budu, the porridge smells so good and looks so nice.... well, it may turn out ok. I returned my neighbor's bowl with the bubur and send 2 more containers to my opposite neighbor and another neighbor who is Kelantanese.

So with high expectancy, we buka puasa with the bubur lambuk plus other dishes - we have more dishes when Kak Lin (my neighbor) gave us 2 more dishes to add on to what we have. Alahai...tak terbalas pinggan mangkuk dia:-) Back to the porridge - when I ate it, I felt so down. The taste was too overwhelmed with black pepper. It tasted good but there was a bit of bitter after taste because of pepper. Azlin add rice into it and said it tasted better. I just couldnt stomach it down coz I dont like black pepper much. I told my helper that the black pepper is really too much but she said, it's good to have extra black pepper, "lebih pedas, jadi ubat kok, lada hitam". But then, you cannot believe someone who did not even eat the food!

Anyway, we had the modified porridge - I added more rice porridge to tune down the black pepper tast - for the next 2 days. My in-laws are here today coz baby Aisya (Nini's baby) is down with diarrhea and is hospitalized and they helped us to finished off the modified porridge.

The recipe

Ikan kembung - dipanggang (roasted?), the amount depend on how much rice and the size of fish, maybe 2 atau 3 ekor
Rice - cooked till it becomes porridge like (pecah nasi) - i used 2 full cups since I was planning to give to neighbors

Pucuk paku merah
Daun Kesum
Daun pucuk kayu (dont know what others call it here)
Pucuk manis
Coconut milk (about 1 bowl)
Shallots and young ginger - sliced thinly (ginger - you can sliced into thin long strips)
Budu - satu senduk

How to make it -- pound black pepper (just a bit) with the roasted fish. Add the pounded stuffs into the rice once it has become porridge. Then add all the vegetables, if you like more vege, put a whole lot of it - there's no actual measurement but I put a lot of pucuk paku merah and daun pucuk manis and daun kayu. A little bit of daun kesum for the smell. Throw in the coconut milk and the sliced stuffs. Finally put in one full senduk (ladle?) of budu. Dont use the red budu. Find budu cap ketereh, brownish one. Put salt to taste.

Here's how it looks like -- this one taken without flash...