Brownie Cookies with Peanut Butter Frosting and my first GIVEAWAY

What motivated you to start your blog ?

I started to write my first post on this blog about two years ago. The main reason why I made it was for my food photography. I wanted to submit my food photos to DMBLGiT, an international monthly food photo contest. One of the rules says that I must have a blog where the photos were posted. So, it all began with a simple post and photos. :)

For the last 2 years I've been keeping my works, passion and love through words and photos. From preparing all ingredients, cooking, food styling, photographing, editing and finally I write a post on my blog and share it with you. I enjoy every steps though. But I never say it was easy, writing a post is not easy for me. Now, this blog has become my second home. I keep it neat and clean.

As I promised you on my post on December 2011, I'm celebrating my 2nd blog anniversary. Before you go to the details, please enjoy Donna Hay's Brownie cookies with peanut butter frosting. I did some adjusting in the recipe (I reduced the sugar) and made it not too sweet for my tooth. :D I also stored the cookies in an airtight container in the fridge. It tastes much much better !!

Brownie cookies with peanut butter frosting

Ingredients :

Brownie cookies :
- 175 gr dark chocolate, chopped
- 20 gr butter
- 1 eggs
- 50 gr caster (superfine) sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 13 gr plain (all-purpose) flour, sifted
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, sifted

Peanut butter frosting :
- 60 gr icing (confectioner’s) sugar mixture
- 140 gr smooth peanut butter
- 40 gr butter
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 40 ml single (pouring) cream

How to :

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).

2. Cookies : Place the chocolate and the butter in a small saucepan over low heat and stir until melted and smooth. Set aside.

3. Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk for 15 minutes or until pale and creamy. Stir through the flour, baking powder and chocolate mixture and allow to stand for 30 minutes.

4. Spoon tablespoonfuls of the mixture at a time, onto baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool completely on trays. 

5. Peanut butter frosting : place the sugar, peanut butter, butter and vanilla in an electric mixer and beat for 6  minutes or until light and fluffy.

6. Add the cream and beat for a further 2 minutes. 

7. Spread half the cookies with the peanut butter frosting and sandwich with the remaining cookies.

SECOND BLOG ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY **CLOSED !!

To show my gratitude on my 2nd blog anniversary this year, I'm hosting a BLOG ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY ! A set of porcelain white bowl with a wooden tray as the prize. Looks perfect for your food photography props or you could use it daily on your dining table.

A set of porcelain white bowl with wooden tray

How to enter :

1. Write about "The reason why you started blogging" on your post and mention about this event (and link back to this post). 

2. Leave a comment in this post telling me you have done so, including the link of your post. (can be written in English or Bahasa Indonesia).

Terms and conditions :

1. This giveaway is open internationally.

2. Only one comment per person. (only comment with URL of your post will be counted)

3. This giveaway will run until January 31, 2012 at 11:59 PM. I will announce the winner on February 2, 2012.
4. The winner will randomly  be chosen.

Good luck everyone !

Happy Holidays to you all

Wishing you all "Happy Holidays"

Enjoy the rest of 2011 as if you were eating a cup of chocolate pudding

you will smile after you finish every bit of it !!

Then you are ready for another cup...

"Happy New Year"

Grilled fermented cassava

Can't believe time flies so fast and 2011 will be over soon. December is like a festive month for me, Christmas and New Year. Yes...party, party, party ! I'm very enthusiastic with the upcoming festive season. For you who celebrate Christmas, I'm sure you already chose what you want to serve for your family. Everyone will be serving their best foods !

While I do not celebrate Christmas, but I will post good foods. Like the grilled fermented cassava which is suitable for tea time or late night snack. It's an alternative snack you can munch on new year's eve. :D Perhaps you could serve it to your guests on Christmas as well.

Fermented cassava is made from cooked cassava. The fermentation process is by adding yeast on top of cooked cassava. Store it for 3-5 days in air-tight container before being used. I never make fermented cassava since I can find the sellers easily in traditional market. But hey...it's worth a try to make some with my son for his homeschooling project :D

It's not Christmas yet, but I already got a present ! Remember the Foodography Photo Contest I mentioned on my previous post ? I won the first prize and also deserve a camera locket necklace !!! Check out the announcement here. Talking about gift, I will celebrate my 2nd blog anniversary next month. Wait for the announcement because I have something for you :)

Grilled fermented cassava

Ingredients :
- 250 gr fermented cassava
- 2 tsp margarine
- 1 tbsp sugar
- chocolate sprinkle
- sweet condensed milk (plain)

How to :

1. In a bowl, mix fermented cassava, margarine and sugar until well-blend.
2. Place a non-stick pan over low heat. Take about 3 tablespoons of fermented cassava mixture and grill. Shape into square (the size is up to you) and cook until golden brown on each sides.Remove from heat.
3. Serving : place the grilled fermented cassava on a plate. Pour sweet condensed milk and sprinkle with chocolate sprinkle. (you could also sprinkle grated cheese if you like)

Bahasa Indonesia

Bahan :

- 250 gr tape yang matang , buang bagian tengahnya (ambil dagingnya saja)
- 2 sdt margarin
- 1 sdm gula pasir

- mesis (untuk taburan)

- susu kental manis (untuk coretan)

Cara:

Campur tape,  margarin dan gula pasir sampai rata dan halus.
Lalu dibentuk kotak2 / bebas (kalau saya dibentuk kotak di atas wajan anti lengket tidak usah pakai margarin lagi dan langsung dimasak sampai kecoklatan)
Penyajian, tata tape bakar di atas piring coretn dengan susu kental manis dan taburkan mesis.

This post is also an entry for IFP (Indonesian Food Party).

Enjoy.....

Simple eggnog

When my son suddenly came rushing into my room and said, "I want to make eggnog !", I was really surprised. What is eggnog anyway ? And how did he know about it ? So, I just answered him with "Okay". Google is always be my hero in that situation. All I need to do is only type the right keywords, and voila.... :)

Eggnog is egg-based drink with milk/cream, sugar, liquor and a sprinkling of ground cinnamon and nutmeg. In US and Canada, eggnog is popular and associated to Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. Since it consists raw eggs, I search for the simplest and not using too much eggs. Some recipes using only egg yolks, so I just have to skip that (I don't want to waste too much egg whites).

Simple eggnog
(adapted from http://www.savvyhomemade.com/homemade-eggnog.html)

Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 5 tablespoons sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 4 cups milk
- 2 tablespoons brandy (I don't use this)

How to :

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar together in a large bowl until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Whisk in the vanilla extract, half of the nutmeg, milk and brandy.
3. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill.
4. When you're ready to serve, pour the eggnog into glasses and sprinkle a little nutmeg across the top to serve.


Enjoy......

Cendol, a guest post from Marvie @Lekkericious

I proudly present to you, the first guest post on my blog ! Let's say it's an exchange post. After my guest post on her blog few months ago, and now it's her turn to write something on my blog. :D Marvie Yap from Lekkericious is a dear Filipino friend who has a lot of activities. From Software QA Engineer, make-up artist, cook, cat rescuer and food blogger. I can imagine she is extremely busy. :) Though we never met, but we still can be best friend. This is one of the reason what makes me happy for having friends from around the world.

Once Marvie told me that she loves cendol on my photo of cendol on Flickr but she couldn't find the seller near the neighborhood. So, I appreciate that she finally tried to make it. Nothing can beat homemade ! Without further ado, I welcome Marvie to show her cendol feast.

*************************************************************************************

I first learned about cendol in Holland, during my summer visit in 2009. It was funny to have the first taste of this asian delicacy in a western country, when I have lived all my life in Asia. Es Cendol is a green, worm-like jellies made from rice flour, tapioca flour and mung bean flour served with coco palm sugar syrup, coconut milk and shaved ice, topped with jackfruit - a very popular drink/dessert in Indonesia. Cendol was a love at first taste experience. I was in constant search for it here in Manila, but unfortunately, it's not available anywhere. I find it odd that I could never find it in any of my favourite Asian restaurants around the city when it is super popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, our neighboring countries.

So I did a little research how to make it for myself and for my husband who also loves this Indonesian delicacy.

Finding the right ingredients was a bit of a challenge for me though - gula jawa and mung bean flour in particular. I scoured all specialty Asian shops for these and didn't have any success. Nevertheless, I found coco sugar, the closest alternative I can get for gula jawa, although in my opinion, gula jawa's sweetness complexity still is the best. I gave up on mung bean flour and settled for the rice flour and tapioca flour combo - which ended up in a disaster. My cendol just melted a few minutes after it's submerged in the ice water. Although most Indonesian cendol recipe say it's just rice and tapioca flour, for some reason I couldn't succeed. So I thought the mung bean flour was the only key, and I don't have it.  After numerous attempts with rice flour and tapioca flour in different proportions, I finally called it off and decided to wait on my cendol dreams. But thanks to Tika, she revived my cendol hopes and sent me that precious mung bean flour. I finally made my first successful cendol!

Cendol

In this recipe, I only used mung bean flour

Ingredients:

Cendol Jellies
- 80g mung bean flour
- 500ml water
- green food coloring
- pandan leaves (or pandan flavor)
- 3 tbsp white sugar
- iced water in a bowl
- colander

Coconut Milk
- Kara Coconut Cream (or better, fresh coconut and get the "kakang gata" or the first milk)
- pandan leaves
- salt

Syrup
- 250 coco sugar, or coco palm sugar
- 250ml water
- Pandan leaves

Cendol Jellies Preparation :
1. Dissolve the mung bean flour in 500ml water.
2. Add few drops of green food coloring until you reach the color of electric green. You may also use pandan leaves to make the color natural.(To do this, put pandan and 500ml of water in a blender. Sieve and
take the liquid extract and use that to dissolve the mung bean flour).
3. Add sugar and 1 tbsp of pandan flavor, stir until dissolve.
4. Set your stove in low heat and begin stirring the mixture in a pot. Continuously stir until it thickens.
5. When it's paste like and super thick turn off the heat and get ready to mold!
6. Put the colander on top of the iced water.
7. Pour the cendol thick mixture on the colander and start scraping back and forth with a use of a spatula. The holes in the colander will serve as your mold to make that little green worms. DO NOT WAIT TOO
LONG, otherwise when it gets cold it will be hard to mold.
8. When done, set aside.

Syrup Preparation :
1. Combine coco sugar and 250ml water in a pot, in low heat.
2. Stir until sugar's dissolve.
3. Make a knot out of about 4 pandan leaves and simmer it together
with the sugar. If you don't have pandan leaves, just add 1 tbsp of
pandan flavor.

Coconut Milk Preparation :
1. Heat the coconut cream (kakang gata) in a pot using low-heat.
2. Add about 2 tbsp. pandan flavor, or make a knot out of pandan
leaves and put it in the milk.
3. Add a dash of salt.
4. Turn of the stove when it starts to bubble.

To serve:
In a glass or bowl, layer it with coco sugar syrup, cendol jellies,
crushed ice, and coconut milk. You can top it with fruits like langka
(jackfruit) or banana. Add more cendol jellies on top if you wish.