Scones with preserved seedless plums
It’s East meets West in so many ways. Scones are very English. Scones often accompany the traditional afternoon tea, a beverage brought to England from China. The scones I baked early this morning, based on a recipe for cranberry orange scones, were made with preserved seedless plums, a traditional Chinese food famous in Hong Kong. Scones with Chinese preserved fruit. If they sell something like this in Hong Kong, I’m sure it would be a hit. 
Continue reading 'Scones with preserved seedless plums' »
Corn bread
I baked a pan of corn bread based on a recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook. I said “based on” because I made one substitution. The original recipe uses frozen corn; I used fresh sweet yellow corn. I cut off the kernels from the cobs myself just like I did when I baked a batch of corn muffins a la Kenny Rogers. The second page in the corn muffins entry has a very illustrative photo on how to cut corn kernels off the cob.
Continue reading 'Corn bread' »
Baking, Crisco and Splenda
This is not an ad for Crisco or Splenda. It hurts that I have to buy them. It hurts even more that I am writing about them. They are screaming Artificial!!! right at my face but it’s substituting Crisco for butter and Splenda for sugar or no baking cakes and cookies at all. Hard to argue with one’s blood sugar, you know. The heartening thing is that it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s a matter of getting used to, both in taste and in baking techniques, but I’m learning. And the learning process sometimes yield pleasant surprises.
Continue reading 'Baking, Crisco and Splenda' »
Chocolate and mango tart
The filling is rich, velvety and chewy after a little bit of chilling. The bright yellow balls of mango provide a wonderful contrast to the boring and monotonous chocolate brown. The lightly salted flaky crust adds a surprising twist in texture and gives a good balance to the sweetness of the filling and the mangoes.
The recipe that inspired this had pears instead of mangoes. The pears were cooked in water, sugar and rum before they were arranged on top of the gateau-like chocolate tart filling. My kids don’t like the smell nor taste of alcohol in their dessert. And I don’t like pears. Hence, substitution and modification were in order. Mangoes, instead of pears. And no alcohol.
Continue reading 'Chocolate and mango tart' »
Salmon, cheese and cabbage quiche
In the 1985 James Bond film A View To A Kill, Bond offers to make dinner while staying in the mansion of Stacey Sutton. He takes a baked dish out of the oven, the clueless American heiress asks what it is and Bond replies that it is a quiche. The term is unfamiliar to her and Bond explains that it is an omelet. Personally, I’d describe a quiche as a cross between an omelet and a pie.
Continue reading 'Salmon, cheese and cabbage quiche' »
Valentine’s Day cheesecake
Because my kids have fallen in love with streusel topping (see the blueberry streusel cupcakes and strawberry streusel cake entries), I wondered if I could create a cheesecake crust with a similar feel and taste. Of course, it would have to be more dense and compact, not light and crumbly. I also wondered if cream cheese and mascarpone are the only varieties of cheese that can be used for French-type cheesecakes. I did a little experiment and this cheesecake was the result.
Continue reading 'Valentine’s Day cheesecake' »
Blueberry streusel cupcakes
When I asked my husband to buy frozen blueberries, I was half expecting that he’d come home with a pack of “Baguio-grown” blueberries. Wishful thinking, I guess, because there were only packs of imported blueberries in the supermarket. We grow blueberries at Trinidad Valley in Benguet but we never seem to be able to find them in local markets.
Continue reading 'Blueberry streusel cupcakes' »
Strawberry streusel cake
According to Wikipedia, the term streusel (a German word meaning “something scattered or sprinkled”, from the verb streuen, akin to the English verb ’strew’) refers to a crumb topping of butter, flour, and sugar (traditional German) that is baked on top of muffins, breads, and cakes. The original recipe used fresh blueberries; I substituted strawberries.
Continue reading 'Strawberry streusel cake' »
