Banoffee Tart

This is an amazing recipe that I borrowed from manggy! Instead of one large tart, I made it into four smaller tarts. Also, I caramelized and flambed the bananas with sugar, butter, and Bacardi Gold instead of putting in regular cut-up bananas. And I added pecans! because I didn't have any peanuts. But it worked out beautifully in terms of taste, texture, and sweetness level.

Ingredients (makes four 4-inch tarts)
1 can (14 oz.) condensed milk
1 1/2 (210g) cups AP flour
1/2 cup (50g) powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick and 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, slightly melted
1 large egg yolk
~ 1/4 cup sugar
~1/4 cup butter
2 large (firm) bananas
1/2 cup dark rum
chopped pecans
heavy cream

First off, the toffee is made out of regular condensed milk!....except you have to submerge the cans in hot boiling water for 3 hours. Then it turns into lovely sweet brown toffee :) 

make sure the cans are always submerged in water. You'll have to check periodically, around every half hour or so.

Ok. The recipe calls for frozen butter. But I accidentally forgot to put the butter in the fridge when I bought it, so it was pretty melty. I was too lazy to wait for the butter to freeze, so I simply added the melted butter into the sieved flour, powdered sugar, and salt. 

Once the pastry blender causes the mixture to resemble small crumbs, go ahead and add an egg yolk! When that's all nicely mixed together, grab a handful and spread the dough towards the corners of the tart pan, making sure not to spread it too thin. I made the edges pretty thick because I like it that way and I'm aware that I get in the habit of making my edges thin :/

Freeze for 30 minutes, longer if you'd like, and preheat your oven to 375 degrees. After that looong wait, cover the tarts with foil and bake for 25 minutes. 

 Take out the foil and bake for another 8 minutes for the dough to brown.  Cool to room temperature and then in the fridge with the tart molds, in case the dough isn't sturdy by itself yet.

 While the dough is cooling, cut your bananas! I used Gordon Ramsay's caramelised bananas recipe as a guideline, but when it came down to it, I didn't measure out the butter and sugar; I just eye-balled it. 

Pour the sugar in a medium-heated pan and wait until it all dissolves. Then slightly turn up the heat to give the sugar a darker color. Once it's an ugly color it's over. and burnt. But when it's still a pretty color, add the knob of butter and wait 'til that dissolves. Then add the bananas and swish them around to coat them into the caramel. Check if bananas are tender with a knife. Now comes the fun part.

 I had never flambed anything before, so this was all new to me. I seriously almost caught myself on fire lol.

Pour the Bacardi Gold (or whichever dark rum you prefer) into a half-cup container. 

I heard you should never pour straight from the bottle in case the flames catch up to the bottle from the pan and...you know. 

I don't if I'll explain this okay, but once I poured in the rum, I slightly tilted the pan's edge toward the stove flames and then the flames caught on to the rum and blew up at me. 

Once the flames subside, add a little water so the caramel won't be too thick. Add chopped pecans and mix them in and turn off the heat.

 Assembly line! 

Add a layer of toffee first.

Then add the bananas and another (thick) layer of toffee.

whip the heavy cream until firm peaks and frost!

For the chocolate sauce, I melted some semisweet chocolate with some heavy cream. Once that melted in a bain-marie, I added a large knob of butter to make it look shiny.

 Dip the edge of a spoon in the chocolate and swish it all over the tart. 

 Yum. It wasn't even overwhelmingly sweet. It was a perfect-sweet. And all the components came together and it was just...amazing.

Mini Caramel Macchiato Cheesecakes

Hi you guys!!! I've been MIA for quite some time because I've been so busy with school application stuff! But I'm almost done! Anyway, I made these amazing mini caramel macchiato cheesecakes and I hope you guys enjoy too :) I don't have step-by-step pictures because I honestly wasn't expecting to post this onto my blog, but I ended up really wanting to share it!

Ingredients
14 oz. vanilla wafers
1/2 cup butter
3 packages (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 shots espresso
1 cup sour cream
Caramel


1. Bring 3 packages of cream cheese, 3 eggs, and 1 stick of butter to room temperature.

2. Use a food processor (or anything that will crush vanilla wafers into crumbs) to process 14 oz. of vanilla wafers.

3.Mix the vanilla wafers with 1 stick of room temp. butter until fully incorporated.

4. Distribute crumb mixture into the mini cupcake liners and bake in a 350 degree oven for 6 minutes so the crumbs and butter meld into each other to make a solid crust. Cool and refrigerate when done.

5. Now on to the cheesecake batter!! Beat 3 packages of cream cheese by itself to make a smooth batter. Make sure to beat until smooth to avoid a lumpy cheesecake batter filled with bad, bad cream cheese lumps. bad.

6. Beat into the batter 1 cup of sugar.

7. Now fold in 3 eggs one at a time until just incorporated. Overmixing the eggs can result in a cracked up cheescake.

8. Fold in two shots of Starbucks espresso (or any other kind of espresso you want) and 1 cup of sour cream. You can also add in some (or a lot) of caramel at this point.

9. Take out the cupcake liners with the baked crusts from the fridge and pour in the batter into each liner. Tap the mini cupcake pan so air bubbles can escape and the batter can sit evenly.

[Now, I like baking my cheesecake in lower heat than normal because I've learned that it's better to bake cheesecake in low heat so it won't freak out and crack all over. I also have a pan filled with boiling water at the bottom of the oven so the cheesecake won't have to bake in a dry oven, which could contribute to a cracky cheesecake.]

10. With a pan filled with boiling water at the bottom of the oven, change the temperature of the oven from 350 degrees to 325 and place the cupcake pan in the oven. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until it stops jiggling. 12 minutes was enough time for me.

11. When it's done, take the pan out of the oven but leave the cheesecakes in the pan for a little bit so it gets used to the outside temperature. After a couple minutes, take the cheesecakes out of the pan.

12. Leave them outside until they reach room temp. and then transfer them to the fridge. I leave my cheesecakes in the fridge for a day. I feel like cheesecakes taste better the day after they're baked.

13. Then add a sexxxy layer of caramel on top and enjoy :)

Quiche: The Slightly Healthier Version

Healthy quiche tarts! the filling is full of flavor, even though i used evaporated milk instead of heavy cream. the 100% whole wheat olive oil crust also helped cutting those unnecessary calories!! 

soo i decided to make some quiche because i had alot of veggie leftovers that were pretty much going to go bad soon.. plus i had a whole thing of evaporated milk left over and no heavy cream in my fridge.

whole wheat olive oil crust recipe adapted from both: chocolateandzucchini and cookingwithmykid

easy quiche recipe adapted from: http://eggs.ab.ca/recipes-1/quiches  

this crust only consists of four ingredients!!

first combine whole wheat flour and salt together. then slowly add the olive oil while using the pastry blender to help distribute the oil into the flour. 

 then add 1/2 cup water and knead gently until it forms into a ball. for a little while it might seem like those little flour crumbs won't incorporate with the rest of the flour but it'll come together! then let the dough rest in the fridge for 10-15 minutes so it'll be easy to roll out.

 after the rest, roll that dough out! then cut out a circle that is a little bigger than your tart pan and then place the dough into the pan, pressing against the bottom and sides. 

roll your pin on top of the pan to get rid of the excess dough. 

 soo pretty! i didn't want the shells to shrink while they blind-baked in the oven so i put them in the freezer for an hour until they were hard. 

blind-bake the tarts in a 400 degree oven until golden brown, around 15 minutes. Oh, and don't be dumb like me and forget to fork the bottoms -.-

while that is slightly cooling, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. mix together the eggs, evaporated milk, and any herb seasonings you want to add. i put in basil! i also added some parmesan cheese and salt!!! 

 add the fillings in the tart shells. then pour the egg mixture to fill up the shells. 

 bake for around 20-30 min or until an inserted knife comes out nice and clean. 

 mmm scrumptiously healthy!! seriously though, it tasted pretty bomb despite all the healthy substitutions. and very perfect for random leftover ingredients! plus you can freeze these for a month :) can you say instant breakfast/lunch/dinner/snack/dessert?

Ingredients

(perfect for six 4.75 diameter tart pans)

for shell:

2 cups whole wheat flour

couple pinches of salt

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup water

for filling:

2 eggs

6 oz. evaporated milk

dried herb seasoning

some cheese?

any leftovers in the fridge!! 

Babycakes experiment #1: Jumbo Eggettes!

The real reason that motivated me to go to Bed Bath & Beyond and pick up a Babycakes cake pop maker was because i was hoping i could make other things with it besides cake pops. i was thinking of takoyaki, mini croquettes, meatballs, pancake poppers, and other things that would make me feel like buying a cake pop maker would be worth spending the money.

A couple days ago, i was looking for recipes that uses evaporated milk because i bought it a couple days ago, and, no matter how hard i try, i can't remember why i bought it...i know it was for a specific recipe but i totally forgot which recipe it was for...

but anyway, a recipe for eggettes popped up on google images, but i was sad that i didn't have a fancy egg waffle mold, which is soo expensive city. but then i was thinking, holy smokes, my cake pop maker!!!

i used this recipe, which uses less sugar than the original recipe, which i disagree with. i knoow... the first recipe calls for 1/2 cup sugar, which is alot, but it wasn't sweet enough like the eggettes i've had back home. so the next time i make this, i think i'll add about 3/4 cup, maybe a little less than 3/4 cup. 

anyway! this recipe is SUPER easy!! and if you don't have an egg waffle mold or a cake pop maker, you can probably bake it in the oven with a mini muffin pan or something...maybe...at 300 degrees for 10 min-12 min or until golden brown? 

all you need to do is...

add 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon tapioca (or potato) starch into a bowl and whisk it around to combine...

add an egg...

 add some sugar...

some vegetable oil...

vanilla extract...

and then mix that all up until it's a uniformed mixture like this.

then dump in the oil and evaporated milk... and mix! thaat's pretty much it. :)

 i poured the batter onto the middle of the cake pop maker and helped it spread to the ends with my spatula. then i let it cook for 5-6 minutes. 

 mmm so soft and yummy :) 

Ingredients

1/2 cup all purpose flour 

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon tapioca (potato) starch

1 large egg

3/4 cup sugar 

1/2 tablespoon vegetable oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon evaporated milk

1.5 oz. (3 tablespoons) water

Crazy for Red Velvet.

I hate cake pops. i hate them. they're mushy, gooey. every time i bite into one, my mind immediately flashes to an image of a dirty baker mushing up a mixture of cake and uber sweet frosting together with their yucky hands and shaping them into uneven spherical forms. that is the only reason why i haven't tried making cake pops.

but they look so cute! their whole basic concept is just hella adorable.

when i first saw the cake pop maker, i was totally against an electrical appliance that just pops out baked goods without all the hard work. but, come on. how else are you going to make a cake pop from scratch that isn't a mushy mess. so i bought one! and i looove it. the cake pops are just what they are supposed to be: real, moist cake in the shape of lollipops.

the red velvet cake recipe came straight from the babycakes instruction manual and it's the most perfect red velvet cake recipe ever. it doesn't use a buttload of red food coloring and the cake is just perfectly moist. the only change i made was using cake flour instead of the suggested all purpose flour. i love my cakes tender and soft, which cake flour is famous for doing.

the first thing i did was make my own buttermilk. i just added 1 1/2 teaspoons of distilled white vinegar to 1/2 cup of whole milk. i used to stay away from baking with whole milk to spare me the extra calories, but i figured red velvet (and other cakes that are not chocolate flavored) would taste way better with the extra saturated fat that is in the whole milk. and boy, it made these cake pops taste extra amazing. 

let this mixture sit for 5-10 minutes and voila! buttermilk :) 

 meanwhile, sift together the cake flour, cocoa powder, and a pinch of salt twice. this makes the cake flour un-lumpy! 

 cream the butter until soft. add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. then add an egg and vanilla and beat this until the egg makes the mixture a pale yellow.. i just leave my stand-up mixer on high for a straight minute or two. 

 when that's done, add 1 tablespoon of red food coloring into the buttermilk. i loove that this recipe only uses just one tablespoon rather than the whole 1 oz. bottle like other recipes. gross. 

 alternately,  fold the flour mixture and the red buttermilk into the butter/sugar/egg mixture, starting and ending with the flour mixture. 

after, mix together 1/2 teaspoon of vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and let them react together!! then fold this into the batter. then bake in the babycakes cake pop maker for 4 minutes!! 

while the cake balls were cooling, i made cream cheese frosting because...i just can't make red velvet without making cream cheese frosting. they just fit together so so well. this is the same recipe i used for my mini mini red velvet cupcakes and it's perfect!! soo light and fluffy. 

beat the butter and cream cheese together until they are fully incorporated and fluffy. i just leave my mixer on for a minute or two... then i added the powdered sugar and vanilla and let my mixer stay on high while i do some of the dishes.. i just like leaving it on because i feel like the frosting gets lighter and fluffier.. but that's just me. 

 i transferred the yummy frosting into a squeezy bottle and stuck them into the cake balls and filled them!  then i stuck the sticks in the same place i squeezed in the frosting and left these in the freezer while i melted my chocolate for the glaze. 

 i melted the white chocolate with a double boiler and added royal blue gel food coloring. 

 i took the cake pops out of the freezer (they were in there for a good half hour) dipped them in the chocolate, shook off the excess, and added cute candy pearls! they made them look sophisticated! 

 ....then i ran out of white chocolate. all i had left was dark chocolate chips in my fridge so i melted that in the microwave and started dipping and shaking away. 

 ooh, so shiny.

 thennn i realized i had soo much cream cheese frosting left.. so i hurredly made another batch of red velvet for cupcakes! 

i baked them at 325 degrees for 20 minutes. 

i was having such a great time baking, until i glanced over my sink and cried a little. 

poop. 

i went a little crazy, making red velvet three different ways...but it was necessary!! i hate wasting food. 

happy 4th of july everyone!! i had fun :) 

Ingredients

(makes about 35 cake pops and 10 cupcakes)

1 1/4 cup cake flour 

1 tablespoon cocoa powder 

pinch of salt 

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup whole milk mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar)

1 tablespoon liquid red food coloring

1/4 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla 

1/2 teaspoon vinegar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Frosting:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/4 cup butter 

1 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

glaze:

white chocolate

dark chocolate

Healthy Pancake Poppers

Healthy pancake poppers! these are cute, yummy, and easy to eat! i used my new cake pop maker that i bought last weekend to make these cute bad boys. yeah..i bought a cake pop maker... i'll explain that more in detail once i make my cake pops. i also made this in a hurry because i was soo hungry, which explains why half my pictures are of empty mixing bowls. 

these poppers aren't sweet since i didn't add any sugar, so if you're into that sweet stuff, add as much as you like :)

in one bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients together. the whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and almonds! 

in a separate bowl, mix together all the wet ingredients, including the banana. so the soy milk, egg, vegetable oil, vanilla, and the mashed banana go in there. mix well! THEN, make a well in the center of the dry mixture and pour in the wet mixture. Fold them together until just combined, when there are no more pockets of flour. 

the cake pop maker :) so lovely. fill this with the batter; cook for four minutes anddd voila! 

serve with some maple syrup and they are good to go!! and they're about 20 calories a pop so you won't have to feel guilty about that syrup :) 

Ingredients 

1/2 cup whole wheat flour 

1 tsp baking powder 

pinch of salt

dash of cinnamon (however much you want!)

1/2 banana (preferably very ripe. more flavor!)

1 egg

1/2 cup light vanilla silk soy milk

1 tsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp almonds (or however much you want!)