Big Apple Vs Krispy Kreme

I am never a fan of donuts. Only started liking them recently. Tried Dunkin, Big Apple and Krispy Kreme. For me it is BIG APPLE. Krispy Kreme is too sweet for me...it is like eating sugar.

Big Apple

Krispy Kreme

I like The Alien and Duren Duren from Big Apple.

Strawberries in the kitchen

Bought a pot of strawberries last week and the best place for it is on our kitchen counter. The first thing we told Ry was "dont pluck the strawberries they are not edible". Looked so real, right? They are made from clay.

Apple Strudel: May's DB Challenge

Hooray! I made it. The May Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Linda of make life sweeter! and Courtney of Coco Cooks. They chose Apple Strudel from the recipe book Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague by Rick Rodgers. It was indeed quite a challenge. I read the recipe over and over again, I think I have read it like more than 10 times.

Making the dough was the toughest of all. My first dough was too wet. 2nd dough did not spread out easily when I rolled it. I finally got it right the 3rd time. Phew....

This was my first strudel and I have no idea how I was going to place the apples mix and etc. My strudel looked like a gigantic spring roll :) It was so fat that I could not even make a horseshoe shape. A big Thank You to Linda & Courtney for sharing this recipe with us.

Posted by Linda of make life sweeter

Preparation time Total: 2 hours 15 minutes – 3 hours 30 minutes 15-20 min to make dough 30-90 min to let dough rest/to prepare the filling 20-30 min to roll out and stretch dough10 min to fill and roll dough 30 min to bake 30 min to cool

Apple strudelfrom “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

2 tablespoons (30 ml) golden rum 3 tablespoons (45 ml) raisins 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (80 g) sugar 1/2 cup (1 stick / 115 g) unsalted butter, melted, divided 1 1/2 cups (350 ml) fresh bread crumbs strudel dough (recipe below) 1/2 cup (120 ml, about 60 g) coarsely chopped walnuts 2 pounds (900 g) tart cooking apples, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch-thick slices (use apples that hold their shape during baking)

1. Mix the rum and raisins in a bowl. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in another bowl.

2. Heat 3 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high. Add the breadcrumbs and cook whilst stirring until golden and toasted. This will take about 3 minutes. Let it cool completely.

3. Put the rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a large baking sheet with baking paper (parchment paper). Make the strudel dough as described below. Spread about 3 tablespoons of the remaining melted butter over the dough using your hands (a bristle brush could tear the dough, you could use a special feather pastry brush instead of your hands). Sprinkle the buttered dough with the bread crumbs. Spread the walnuts about 3 inches (8 cm) from the short edge of the dough in a 6-inch-(15cm)-wide strip. Mix the apples with the raisins (including the rum), and the cinnamon sugar. Spread the mixture over the walnuts.

4. Fold the short end of the dough onto the filling. Lift the tablecloth at the short end of the dough so that the strudel rolls onto itself. Transfer the strudel to the prepared baking sheet by lifting it. Curve it into a horseshoe to fit. Tuck the ends under the strudel. Brush the top with the remaining melted butter.

5. Bake the strudel for about 30 minutes or until it is deep golden brown. Cool for at least 30 minutes before slicing. Use a serrated knife and serve either warm or at room temperature. It is best on the day it is baked.

Strudel doughfrom “Kaffeehaus – Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Cafés of Vienna, Budapest and Prague” by Rick Rodgers

1 1/3 cups (200 g) unbleached flour 1/8 teaspoon salt7 tablespoons (105 ml) water, plus more if needed 2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil, plus additional for coating the dough1/2 teaspoon cider vinegar

1. Combine the flour and salt in a stand-mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix the water, oil and vinegar in a measuring cup. Add the water/oil mixture to the flour with the mixer on low speed. You will get a soft dough. Make sure it is not too dry, add a little more water if necessary.Take the dough out of the mixer. Change to the dough hook. Put the dough ball back in the mixer. Let the dough knead on medium until you get a soft dough ball with a somewhat rough surface.

2. Take the dough out of the mixer and continue kneading by hand on an unfloured work surface. Knead for about 2 minutes. Pick up the dough and throw it down hard onto your working surface occasionally.Shape the dough into a ball and transfer it to a plate. Oil the top of the dough ball lightly. Cover the ball tightly with plastic wrap. Allow to stand for 30-90 minutes (longer is better).

3. It would be best if you have a work area that you can walk around on all sides like a 36 inch (90 cm) round table or a work surface of 23 x 38 inches (60 x 100 cm). Cover your working area with table cloth, dust it with flour and rub it into the fabric. Put your dough ball in the middle and roll it out as much as you can.Pick the dough up by holding it by an edge. This way the weight of the dough and gravity can help stretching it as it hangs. Using the back of your hands to gently stretch and pull the dough. You can use your forearms to support it.

4. The dough will become too large to hold. Put it on your work surface. Leave the thicker edge of the dough to hang over the edge of the table. Place your hands underneath the dough and stretch and pull the dough thinner using the backs of your hands. Stretch and pull the dough until it's about 2 feet (60 cm) wide and 3 feet (90 cm) long, it will be tissue-thin by this time. Cut away the thick dough around the edges with scissors. The dough is now ready to be filled.

Tips-

1. Ingredients are cheap so we would recommend making a double batch of the dough, that way you can practice the pulling and stretching of the dough with the first batch and if it doesn't come out like it should you can use the second batch to give it another try;-

2. The tablecloth can be cotton or polyster;- Before pulling and stretching the dough, remove your jewelry from hands and wrists, and wear short-sleeves;- To make it easier to pull the dough, you can use your hip to secure the dough against the edge of the table;- Few small holes in the dough is not a problem as the dough will be rolled, making (most of) the holes invisible. Both Courtney and I did a trial run on making the strudel. Below are our notes:

Courtney's notes- She could't get it to stretch to 2 feet by 3 feet, it turned out more like 2 feet by 2 feet. But the dough was tissue thin nevertheless;- She got some serious holes, but after rolling it wasn't noticeable;- She used a large cheese cloth which helped manipulate and stretch the dough more than a heavier cloth would have.

My notes- I made the dough by hand, just mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon. Kneaded it for about 5 min like you would bread dough. This worked as well. Haven't tried using a standmixer so I don't know how it compares.- Instead of cider vinegar I used red wine vinegar;- I used bread flour;- Picking up the dough to let it stretch didn't work well for me, holes appeared pretty much instantly. Instead I stretched the dough while it was lying on the tablecloth by putting my hands underneath and stretching it out further and further;

Edible?

These are fridge magnets :) they look so real and edible. SIL bought these from Bangkok.

I like the dumplings (bak chang) most. The wraps are real bamboo leaves. Cool.

The best Fried Tomyam Bee Hoon is from Creative Catering... mana lagi, PG6 punya cafetaria lah. I am not saying PG6 cafe's food is good. Only the fried tomyam bee hoon is good. Their daily 4 brothers for breakfast suck big time. 4 brothers are fried bee hoon, fried mee, fried koay teow and fried rice. They only serve fried tomyam bee hoon when there is a special order i.e farewell, birthday celebration, lunch meeting, and others. Other than the tomyam bee hoon... nothing is nice.

Baileys & JD

These are my 2 all time favourites. I love JD with coke. It got to be original coke. I tried it with Diet Coke and I nearly puked.

I crave for Thai FOOD @ 130am

Woke up thinking of Tomyam....slurp. All I can think of is Golden Triangle's tomyam soup. I wud say it is the best tomyam soup I have ever tasted, not too thick or too watery. It will be perfect if they were to remove the slices of lemongrass before serving. I got to pick them out one by one which was time consuming.

Got to go back there soon. Golden Triangle (Queensbay Mall) offers set buffet at RM49.90 each with minimum of 2 pax and the bill will come to RM99.90. We went there last month. The atmosphere was cozy too. The setting looks more Balinese.

Prawn Curry. Not a bit of curry taste at all. Well it is Thai curry, what to expect. The eggs made the taste unique. We like the gravy more than the prawns. Thai Spring Roll. Do not under estimate this green drink. It is 'ampla' juice. Gave it a 9/10. I can drink this all night long. Fried soft shell crabs. Yummy.

Fried Garlic Fish. All cripsy outside and soft inside. Love the garlic. Finally, Thap Thim Krop. Not so good. We have tasted better.

UGH-NUT

Someone gave us these “instant” donuts and we thought we try them out… (this was after we had the krispy kreme)

it comes in a pack of 8’s and a sachet of icing sugar.

To prepare, you have to either fry it or bake it. We opted for the non-oily alternative and baked for ~5-6minutes

 

Taste and texture wise, it was like bread in the shape of a doughnut. Not nice fluffy bread but more like leftover bread with hardly any taste. The texture wasn’t really hard but it was not soft either. The donuts in my office canteen taste better.

 

Note to self: Please stop buying/eating those microwave food. Bleh :-P

simple corned-beef sandwich

Step #1:- Toast the bread

Step #2:- Grill the corned beef Step #3:- Slice the onions (1 onion is enough)

3 condiments that I normally use, Mustard, chili sauce and pepper

Step #4:- Putting it all together.

Butter the toast

Layer with chilli sauce on one slice of toast and mustard on the other.

Put the corned beef on the chilli slice.

Sprinkle the pepper on the mustard slice.

Layer the sliced onions on top of the corned beef.

Put the sandwich together

and serve…

Chiffon Cake & Me

Chiffon cake and me has come a long way. These are the attempts:

1. Cake was not spongy. It raised. Taste good.
2. Cake still not spongy.
3. Spongy but did not rise well.
4. Cake fell down from tin when it was inverted. It end up in the dustbin.
5. Cracked on the surface and did not rise properly.
6. Deflated after taking out from oven.

I have not given up yet. Picture of attempt # 6.

1/2 boiled eggs and toast

One of my favorite food is eggs.. Fried, boiled omelet-d or best of all, ½ boiled. I love ½ boiled eggs. This is another food I can eat everyday but i know that it would kill me, so its max of 3eggs a week… but then really, who’s counting..? :- ) I have fond memories of my mum and aunt preparing these eggs every Sunday morning for breakfast. I’ve always like dipping the eggs with toasted bread and even with eu-char-koay and roti canai. Anyway, I digress… It was the weekend and we were looking for a quick fix. So elpea took out the trusty yellow ½ boil egg maker, plunked in some eggs, put in the boiling water and then we just waited till it was done..~15minutes I guess Oh yea, in the meantime she also toasted the bread, and buttered the toast. We didn’t have regular bread so it was the orange loaf from continental bakery. Whatever was available..!! Eggs ( 2 or more).. they must not be too runny and the yolk must not to hard as well

Toast, put 2slices of bread into the toaster and wait for them to jump.. our toaster is a bit screwy so you’ll see our toast slightly burnt. After that butter the toast lightly, or heavily, which ever you prefer. Some times I use garlic butter which works quite nice as well.

Finally, add a dash of ground pepper and a few drops of lea & perrins

and … TA DAAAAH.. ready to serve…

Yummy, 1/2 boiled eggs with buttered toast.

krispy kreme galore

So here they are.. Fresh from KL.. the Krispy Kreme Donuts have finally arrived.. The 1st shop is in the Berjaya Times Square mall in KL and I hear they plan to expand to open another 19 more stores all around the country. Well, we’ll see.

Anyway, my sis bought me 2 boxes of Krispy Kreme Donuts.. (God bless her kind heart and I’m sure her place in heaven is booked..) And Yes.. that’s 2 dozen donuts…

And YES..!!!!, that’s 24 donuts..

She got me a dozen assorted

and another dozen of glazed.

There are basically 2 types of doughnuts: The normal yeast raised doughnut and the “cake” doughnut. Both taste excellent but both are SUPER-sweet… and I mean "Diabetes-inducing-SUPA-DUPA-SWEET"..!! and my tolerance level for sugar is quite high. I think the donuts are 90% sugar and 10% dough.. I actually went looking for water after eating donut#2…

The Original glazed was very light and the glaze sort of melts in your mouth. I didn’t really like that. Elpea like it though. But we both agreed that it would be quite nice just plain without any glaze at all. The Glazed chocolate cake was not as heavy as the ones from dunkindonuts. Its much lighter, less crumblier and quite moist. I didn’t quite like it this way though. Overall, i like the Chocolate iced kreme filled the best.

The rest were basically the same donut but with alternate toppings : Glazed cruller, Chocolate sprinkles, Chocolate iced glazed, Chocolate iced cake, Powdered strawberry filled, Almond, Hershey bits, etc..... So whats my verdict? You definitely cannot find a better yeast raised doughnut than the above. Bonus points for the lightness and texture of the doughnut itself. BUT, its just a tad too sweet.

On the other hand, if I had to choose a “cake’ donut, I would still go for the ones at dunkindonuts. This one is just my personal preference.

So sis, the next time you come back, you know what to do laah..

Sandwich Maker

Ed's mum gave us a sandwich maker few years back. We rarely use it. Yesterday was one of those days where we wanted a light dinner and the sandwich maker came into picture. This was our dinner. Simple yet delicious.We had the egg mayo for fillings and Ry had strawberries with choc syrup.

Tried a few variations ... sambal heh bi & peanut butter. Both taste good.

aw, nuts...

My sis sent this picture to me to taunt me. 5more days to go before I get my own dozen.. Yes, DOZEN…… & I’m NOT sharing..!!!! :-) My sis has been given very specific instructions “Come back with donuts or don’t come back at all..” :-D

instant pho

Lp’s boss bought this really nice instant noodle from Vietnam. It’s basically like the local flat noodles (koay teow) but in slightly thinner strips. The noodles come in beef and chicken flavors. I prefer the beef though.

It’s also very easy to prep as well: Take out noodles and put in bowl. Dump in all the soup flavoring, oil, and dried ingredients and pour in ~400ml of boiling water. Cover bowl with plate and let rest for 3minutes. Serve.

I’m hooked. I’ve got 3 more packets left. Will savor them slowly.

 

By the way, the best pho (dry/soup Vietnamese noodle) that I had was in San Diego. We actually did try some before in the Vietnamese restaurant here but it just doesn’t compare. Lp agrees with me as well.