FRENCH TOAST

I'm going to have a series of breakfast foods now. I'll be putting up at least 4 by the end of this week. I absolutely ADORE "traditional" food. Like when you prepare something and it HAS to look like how's it's arranged on TV. :P



FRENCH TOAST:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 pinch salt
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white sugar
12 thick slices bread



1. Measure flour into a large mixing bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Whisk in the salt, eggs, cinnamon, vanilla extract and sugar until smooth.

2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat.

3. Soak bread slices in mixture until saturated. Cook bread on each side until golden brown. Serve hot.



TIPS:

-You have to constantly stir the mixture because ingredients such as flour tend to drop to the bottom frequently.

-Some people like to sprinkle cinnamon on top of a soaked pieced of bread, and then fry it.



Links:

French toast: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fluffy-french-toast/detail.aspx

CARROT CAKE

Last week my family and friends went camping. I HAD planned on making my "ultimate cake design", but things got in the way so I was only left with a simple cake. Carrot cake is one of those "simple" recipes. I found this new one before and I hadn't make carrot cake for at least 3 years. This one had added ingredients such as pineapple and apple sauce. I don't usually put these "extras" but I was like, "well, hell with it." :P

CARROT CAKE:

4 eggs 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans

Extra Ingredient Tips:
1C white sugar and 1C brown sugar (substitute)
Extra tsp of vanilla
Add one 8oz. can of pineapples (squeezed and blended)
1/4 nutmeg
Extra 1tsp of cinnamon
3/4 C canola oil and 1/2 C apple sauce (substitute)
Any nuts (ex: walnuts, almonds, etc)



1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.

2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, apple sauce, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir in carrots and pineapples. Fold in nuts. Pour into prepared pan.

3.Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

4. To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped nuts. Frost the cooled cake.



Tips:

-I didn't have Canola oil so I simply used normal vegetable oil. Worked out fine.

-Don't over-beat the mixture or it'll become hard.

-I used tinfoil bread pans so they took a little longer to bake. Most people just use round cake pans.

-Of course, the cake goes better with a cream cheese frosting. :)


Links:

Carrot cake: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/carrot-cake-iii/detail.aspx

Scones/Biscuits

This recipe I found online is when buying scones from Tim Hortons was a little too pricy. When I made this, it was SUPER EASY. And its fairly quick. I like to but raisins in my scones, but u can add dried fruits, nuts and cheese.


SCONES

2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening (reviews say that using half butter and half shortening tastes much better)
1 egg
2/3 cup milk


1. In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt. Cut in shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Beat egg with milk; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.

2. Turn onto a well-floured surface; knead 20 times. Roll to 3/4-in. thickness; cut with a floured 2-1/2-in. biscuit cutter. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake at 450 degrees F for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.


TIPS:

-If you don't have the tools to create coarse crumbs, using two butter knives work well too.

-For a golden touch, spread milk on top of the biscuit dough right before putting it in the oven, OR beat an egg with a little bit of water and spread that on the dough instead.



LINKS:

Biscuits: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fluffy-Biscuits/Detail.aspx

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Here is the recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I have found my recipes for this but this one comes out nice and soft and chewy. It simply is better than other ones I have tried. Enjoy. :)


CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.


TIPS:

-make sure to completely cool the cookies to keep them chewy (unless you eat them right away)

-MELT the butter, DON'T FORGET THE EGG YOLK, and DON'T OVER BEAT YOUR EGGS

-if you find the cookies too sticky before putting into the oven, you can refrigerate for an hour.

-I find the cookies a little sweet so I cut back on the sugar by half a cup.



LINKS:

Chocolate chip cookies: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Big-Fat-Chewy-Chocolate-Chip-Cookie/Detail.aspx

CORN MUFFINS

Today my friend is sleeping over so we're going to make corn muffins, raisin scones, and chocolate chip cookies. I will put up the other recipes along with this one. I've tried other corn muffin recipes before but none of them were great. They always turned out stiff or rough. So I now always depend on the corn recipe I got when I took a cooking/baking class in middle school.


CORN MUFFINS:

- 1 1/2 C flour
- 3/4 C cornmeal
- 1C sugar
- 1 tbp & 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla
- dash of lemon zest (1/2 tsp)
- 1 C milk
- 1 egg, slightly beaten
- 1/4 C oil
- 2 tbp sugar (for garnish)
- 1 C fresh or frozen berries (optional)


1. Sift dry ingredients into large mixer bowl.

2. Whisk together milk, vanilla and lemon zest.

3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

4. Fold wet ingredients (including egg) into dry ingredients. (OPTIONAL)Gently fold in berries until all dry ingredients look moistened.

5. Line muffin pan with paper cups until 3/4 full. Pour batter into cups and sprinkle with a dash of sugar.

6. Place in oven for 18-20 minutes.


TIPS:

-DO NOT MIX THE INGREDIENTS TOGETHER FOR TOO LONG. Doing so may thicken the batter too much and the muffins will become hard.

RAINBOW JELLY

Yesterday I made Rainbow Jelly with my cousins and my family friends. Well, actually the real recipe for Rainbow Jelly is with 8 different layers of jelly in one cup. Since doing that would take hours to do, I stuck with 2 different layers. I don't like jelly, but when I make it with JUICE, it comes out so good. :)


Rainbow Jelly:

• Packets of flavored jelly or non-flavored jelly (assorted to match the taste of the juice)
• 1C water (for each packet of jelly)
• 1C juice (for each packet of jelly), and as many different juices as you want with each layer. (thicker and/or deeper juices like orange or grape are best)
• Clear cups (to show off the colors)
• 
  

(These instructions may also be written on the jello box.)

1. Pour 1C of water into a pot and wait until boiling.
2. Take your first jello packet and pour it all into the water; mix until fully dissolved.
3. Turn off the heat then pour the 1C of juice in (the one that matches the jelly flavor).
4. Cool it until lukewarm then begin to divide the mix into cups (if you want to use the flavor again for another layer, make sure to save at least half).
5. Refrigerate at least 1hr or until the jelly layer if firm enough (poke it with your finger).
6. After firm, take it out and repeat steps 1-5 again. Do these steps for every layer you put until satisfied.
7. Serve fresh after every layer is firm, or leave overnight. Garnish and serve.

TIPS

• You can add different fresh fruits into the jelly layers. Cut into small pieces and add to the jelly mixture. I used raspberries, but other common ones are blueberries, strawberries, grapes, canned peaches, etc.
• Garnishing includes whipped cream, mint leaves, flavored syrup, etc.
• Make sure each layer if FIRM ENOUGH before putting another layer. If it isn't, it can mix with the bottom layer (that has happened to me and it tasted bad).

COMING SOON

THIS IS A COMING SOON DESIGN. My friend's birthday is coming up in August in 2 weeks and my little cousins birthday is also in the same 2 weeks. And also my friend is moving to a new house half hr away from her old house (which is 5 min by car from my house). To celebrate all this, I decided I wanted to bake a cake.

It's been a LONG time since I've baked something other than pie. And the design is a bit complicated so it's a new challenge for me too. This will probably be a little costly and I hope my mom can put up with the payments. I'll finally be buying permanent icing bags and more tips and, obviously, along with more food coloring.

I'll be making the cake in about 2 weeks. Since I started baking in the past few years, the taste of my delicacies are now always delicious. Now I want to focus on making my treats look PRETTY. Of course that means more Youtube baking tutorials and more baking tools. For the cake I've learned how to make different types of icing flowers off of Youtube. You all should check them out too, there are TONS of videos to help you. :)

IMPROVED CURRY

So I was reading this manga (Japanese comic book) called Addicted to Curry. It has A LOT of curry recipes that I want to try out in the future. We had curry for dinner and I used the book's list of "improving" ingredients.


IMPROVED CURRY:

-Curry block or powder (you can find at like ANY Asian supermarket, and if you get the block, make sure to chop finely)
-A pot
-Meat (pork, beef, or chicken is preferred, cut into chunks. If you don't eat meat, leave this out)
-Carrots (roughly chopped into big pieces)
-Potatoes (roughly chopped into big pieces)
-Onions (roughly chopped into big pieces)
-3-4 C of water (depending on how thick you like your curry)
-salt and pepper for seasoning

"Improving" ingredients:
A bit of each depending on your own taste. They DO sound weird, and I thought so too. But trust me, the ending result is DELICIOUS.

-ketchup
-hot sauce (especially those ones from the Chinese markets w/ the rooster on it)
-soy sauce
-milk
-sugar
-red wine
-coffee
-chocolate
-butter
-tomatoes
-ginger
-fresh garlic
-PLAIN yogurt
-PARMESAN cheese
-Coconut milk
-cream
-cashews (if you are allergic to nuts, do NOT use this)
-crush soft apple (soak in salt water to make is soft before crushing it into mush)
-mango (crush it into mush. Riper ones are softer)
-banana (crush it into mush. Riper ones are softer)
-mango jam


1. Finish preparing the basic ingredients. Put the chopped potatoes, carrots and onions in oil in your pot first. After they have gotten ALMOST soft, add the meat and add salt and pepper to the pot. You may use other spices too.

2. Add the water to the pot and wait for it to become hot (but not boiling). Add the curry block or powder. As it dissolves add some milk, ketchup, soy sauce, ANYTHING of liquid. Do not add too much, but also not too little that it wouldn't make a difference.

3. As the liquid ingredients get mixed in, start adding the sold ingredients. Make sure you prepare them the way told above. Mix thoroughly.

4. You may add more of any ingredients to match to your taste, and serve fresh.



TIPS

-I only had these extra ingredients in my house to use in the curry: milk, ketchup, soy sauce, flour, hot sauce, butter, tomatoes, and red wine. The curry came out fine.

-Since I have younger kids in my house (my cousins), the curry was too spicy for them. To make it a little better, I added more milk. If you add in soy sauce or anything salty, it can make your curry too salty. I didn't have cream or yogurt, but they would have helped better than milk.

-If you prefer thicker curry and it is already salty enough (so don't add anymore curry blocks or powder), then use flour. A lot of people use flour to thicken their curry, so don't worry.

-If you prefer thinner curry, either add more water, or any liquid ingredients (if your curry is salty enough, don't add salty liquids). I like using milk or red wine.

-Make sure all the vegetables are soft enough before serving. Usually people do not enjoy hard carrots and potatoes in their curry.

NOT JUST BAKING

Hey, just a heads up, I wanted to say this blog is not ONLY on baking. It may have cooking as well. It's just I don't usually look up on cooking recipes. But sometimes I will. I know I'm going to be making guacamole, so I'll definitely put that up. :)

SUGAR COOKIES

Hello there! This time, I'm going to be making sugar cookies for the adorable kids at the elementary school I volunteer for. This recipe comes out with soft cookies rather than hard. Again, this recipe is from www.allrecipes.com.

*View photo gallery here>>>http://sweet-patissiere.blogspot.com/p/photo-gallery.html*

SUGAR COOKIES:

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Extra ingredients tips:

Use 1 1/2 tsp of vanilla instead of 1.


1. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

3. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.



Tips:

-If the dough is still sticky when you begin to roll it out, spread LOTS of flour on the table, your hands, and the rolling pin.

-Another tip for sticky dough is to roll it on parchment paper and peel away extra dough from cookies cutters. That way, the cookies wont stick to the table.

-For lots of fun, you can split the dough and add food colouring. For example, for Christmas I dyed the dough green, blue, and pink for fun.

-You can use different shaped cookie cutters for additional fun. Small-sized cutters are nice for quick snacks.



Links:

Sugar Cookies: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/The-Best-Rolled-Sugar-Cookies/Detail.aspx