Beignets

How time flew, and over a year has passed since my last post, we are now approaching the end of 2014. On a personal level, it has been a tough year as I have lost my dear Mom unexpectedly in July. May Allah bless her and grant her Jannatul Firdaus. Ameen.

I want to continue sharing recipes because I want to continue her food legacy and how she inspires me with her lovely cooking, and how it has nourished me while I was growing up. Food brings families and friends together, and sharing some of her recipes here hopefully will achieve that.

Anyone who has been to New Orleans must have had the sublime beignets of Cafe Du Monde. Those who plan of going there please do not skip the oportunity to taste these soft, melt in your mouth pillow shaped doughnuts. You can read about them here. Notice even Wikipedia uses Cafe Du Monde's beignet as a reference for with this french dessert.

So I did my search on the net as usual for recipes and tried this one out, I halved the original measurements and an important tip to note is the punching of the dough after it has risen.

Do try this out for a nice morning or afternoon snack, and trust me it is not that hard of an attempt for any amateur cook like me to master. Happy Trying!


Ingredients

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon yeast

 1/4 cup shortening (I use Western Star salted butter)

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup boiling water

1/2 cup evaporated milk

1 egg, beaten

3 3/4 cups flour

1/2 quart vegetable oil for frying

 1 cup confectioners' sugar for dusting

Directions

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt, eggs, evaporated milk, and blend well. Mix in 4 cups of the flour and beat until smooth. Add the shortening, and then the remaining 3 cups of flour. Cover and chill for up to 24 hours.

Take out dough after about 2 hours and punch the dough to give it another chance to rise again. This way the beignet will turn out fluffier.

Roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Cut into 2 1/2 inch squares. Fry in 360 degree F (180 degrees C) hot oil. If beignets do not pop up, oil is not hot enough. Drain onto paper towels.

Shake confectioners' sugar on hot beignets. Serve warm with a cup of black coffee! 

Honey Chicken

Ramadhan came and went, we celebrated Eid more than a week ago. I am knee deep in packing boxes as we prepare for our move in 2 weeks..frantic!

Sabrina turned 19 yesterday, time flies and they grow up too fast. It was only yesterday I stayed up nights watching the Lion King with her because she couldnt sleep, turned out my mum has been letting her have long afternoon naps..lol. No complains from me, I love spending time with my little munchkin.

Ok back to the recipe now. My kids are my inspiration to cook and here is a dish that for a long time I would not attempt despite it being my kids favourite. Only because I get mine cheap and delicious from a Chinese restaurant in town run by a lovely Malaysian lady, unfortunately they had closed down a year ago.

So I am now without a place to get my Honey Chicken fix, until recently a friend on FB posted a simple "how-to-cook-honey-chicken" recipe..so simple I thought I might give this a go.

My first attempt was for Iftar, cooking "blind" without the ability to taste or smell...just followed the recipe to a tee. I was quite nervous, I may ruin the dish, but thanks to a tried and tested recipe, it was a personal triumph! Thanks Maizura Ishak, I am forever indebted to you for this smashing recipe and I hope you dont mind me sharing it on my blog, ( I have adapted the recipe with measurements)

So here we go:

Ingredients:

250 gm chicken breast, diced (1 inch cube) cleaned and drained

1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup all purpose(plain) flour

salt & white pepper to taste.

1 tbsp ginger paste

Oil for frying

Coating:

3 tbsp Honey

1 tbsp oyster sauce

Sesame seeds

Method:

Marinade chicken in salt & pepper & ginger paste for 20 minutes (you can leave this overnight for a stonger flavour)

Mix the 2 flour with water to form a thick batter ( 1/2 to 3/4 water will do the trick), if batter is too runny, just add more plain flour. Add salt & pepper to this mix as well.

Heat oil in a deep wok until smoky ( I used coconut oil because it has a high heat point, so its the best oil for deep frying). Dip 1 chicken piece in batter and drop slowly into the hot oil, repeat until your enough pieces fit in your wok with oil covering all pieces. You dont want to end up with too many chicken pieces and too little oil.

Turn once and fry until golden brown. Put aside on absorbent paper and start on the glazing.

Add honey and oyster sauce in a clean pan and heat on medium heat until mix becomes bubbly. Add the chicken pieces and take off the heat. Sprinkle sesame seed and serve with rice.

Bismillah and enjoy!

Easy Butter Cake Recipe 

An easy butter cake recipe is good to have not only for the no-fuss, easy way to make it but for the versality of this recipe. It can be adapted to make cupcakes or just add lemon or orange zest and you will have an amazingly fluffy and buttery cake for tea.

On any given day, you will more often than not have these basic ingredients in the pantry, for those not wanting to use sugar, replace the 1 cup of sugar with 3/4 cup natvia or any sugar substitute of your choice (natvia is the best tasting and its 100% natural non aspartame product)


Ingredients:

2 eggs
125 butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 cups self raising flour
*2/3 (150 ml)cups milk
1tsp vanilla

Method:

Preheat oven to 170-180 C
Grease and line base of a 9 in (20cm) pan with greaseproof paper
Combine all in a bowl of your electric mixer
Mix on low until all ingredients are blended well and then on high for 3 minutes
Bake for 35-40 minutes

*Note: when mixing for an orange cake, replace 1/3 cup milk with juice from an orange and fold in orange zest just before pouring mix in the pan.

You can vary this cake with lemon zest/juice and ice with icing of your choice. Also can be used for cupcake recipes, for medium cupcakes (12 cup tin) bake at 200C for 15 mins.

No Egg Easy Chocolate Cake

My quest for an easy chocolate cake may be over when I stumbled on this no egg, no butter recipe! Alhamdulillah! The recipe is easy and the result did not disappoint, the cake is moist. I did reduce the sugar from 2 cups to 1.5 cups only because I dont like overly sweet desserts and I was planning on adding bananas on my slice, so that will lend the required amount of sweetnes. And best of all there is no need to use the electric mixer, just a bit of elbow grease will do the trick :)

I am happy to share this with those who may have allergies to eggs or dairy. This recipe calls for vegetable oil but I ended using my favourite; coconut oil. You may experiment with oilve oil too, that should work as I have baked with oilve oil and it does not influence the taste at all. 

Apparently the coffee granules enhances the chocolate flavour and no, the coffee taste is not recflected in the final product, not that it would be a bad thing in my book.

Chocolate Cake
Adapted from Cuisine at Home

3 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 cups sugar or 2 cups if you like it sweet
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt
2 cups hot water
3/4 cup coconut oil or ant vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons white vinegar
1 Tablespoon instant coffee granules
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract


Preheat oven to 350^o F with rack in the center.  Spray two 8" round cake pans with nonstick spray.  MIx dry ingredients (except the coffee) together in a mixing bowl, sifting everything to remove lumps.

Combine water, oil, vinegar, instant coffee and vanilla in a large measuring cup.  Add to the dry ingredients and whisk just until combined - a few lumps are okay.  Divide batter among pans (3 cups in each), then bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 30-35 minutes.

Remove and leave to cool on a cooling rack for 20 minutes while you work on the ganache.

You will need:

4 oz semi sweet chocolate (by weight)

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Warm the cream in a saucepan and while thats heating, add the choc chips in a glass bowl. When the cream is heated through add to the bowl and mix until all the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Allow to thicken and cool. (Note: you can whip this mixture and use for a filling or frosting) . You dont need to add bananas or any fruit when you assemble the cake, but if you did, make sure you slice your bananas about the same size.

Spread the ganache on top of the first layer and top the second cake on. Top with more ganache and let run on the sides. Allow to set in the fridge for 30 minutes. If your ganache is too runny, you can add a tbs of icing sugar at a time until the texture is more manageable.