Almost-Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

Famous Amos cookies has been a favourite among cookie lovers, who doesn't? But the price to pay for it can be steep, especially if you have a big appetite for cookies. That's why, you will only get free smells from Famous Amos outlets and no free samples. I've been trying to get their recipe from the net, if there's any leak but the closest one that I can get is from another blogger,  Ampin, without mentioning which cookie type it is in the recipe. Nonetheless, I guess it's the taste that matters the most. I bumped into another one self-proclaimed recipe  from Fad Mom, an easier version and here's the recipe. I shall reserved Ampin recipe for now.

INGREDIENTS
Part A

150gm unsalted butter
100gm granulated sugar
50gm brown sugar

1 medium egg - an extra yolk makes it richer

1 tsp vanilla essence 

Part B

250gm plain flour

20gm corn flour

1 tsp baking soda

30 gm cocoa powder

Part C

100gm toasted walnuts (coarsely chopped)
80gm chocolate chips

METHOD

1. Sift part B ingredients in a bowl, mix well and keep aside.
2. Cream butter with both sugar until light and fluffy. You will get a pale brownish color due to the brown sugar. If you're using a hand-mixer like I do, try to use a big bowl.

 3. Add egg and vanilla essence. Beat on medium speed until well mixed.
4. Using the lowest speed of the mixer, mix in the flour mixture until fully incorporate. I find my hands are better than the mixer for this step though.
5. Finally, add in the chopped nuts and chocolate chips. You may replace walnuts with any other type of nuts of your preference (pecans, macadamias, almond, cashew, etc). Combine well and you will get a dough structure.

6. Scoop the dough using a spoon or fingers and shape them into bite-size onto your baking pan, that has been lined with baking paper.
7. Bake the cookies in a pre-heated oven at 180 Celcius for about 20mins. You may notice some cracks on the cookies, which is perfectly normal.

8. Cool cookies on wire rack and enjoy!
 

TIPS

Besides good chocolate chips, try to use quality cocoa powder as the results may varies. My cookies are a bit dark as compared to Fad Mum. Probably, I should have use dutch-processed cocoa powder instead.

New York Style - Cheese Cake

I'm having a pool side BBQ tomorrow and here's my very first cheese cake, baking it overnight, pheww. Since my friends requested for it, so I made it. That's what friends are for, right! 
However, I still prefer the Japanese soft cheese cake more since its more spongy and not too rich.

(Recipe adapted from Diana Desserts,  a whole range of cheese cake)

INGREDIENTS

Crust

• 10-12 digestive biscuits, crushed
• 30g butter, melted

 Filling

• 3 x 250g cream cheese, softened (I use Philadelphia, Kraft)
• 150g granulated sugar
• 50ml milk
• 3 large eggs
• 200ml sour cream or light sour cream
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 30g all-purpose flour

METHODS

1. Preheat oven to 180 Celsius. Line a 7-inch square pan with foil, extended for easy lifting-up later.
2. In a medium bowl, mix digestive crumbs with melted butter. Press onto bottom of the square pan and keep aside.

Mix crumbs with butter

Press crumbs onto pan

3. Using an electric mixer, mix cream cheese with sugar until smooth. Blend in milk, sour cream, vanilla and flour until smooth. Then mix in the eggs one at a time, just enough to incorporate.

4. Pour filling into prepared crust and bake cheesecake in preheated oven for 45 minutes.

5. Let the cheesecake cool in oven with the door closed for 1 to 2 hours to prevent cracking. Basically, just leave the cake to cool down together with the oven. It's still cooking actually while it cools!

6. Chill in refrigerator at least 4 hours or until ready to serve.

Yummy.. served with Starbucks Coffee

TIPS 
Get your cream cheese at nearby bakery shop, its much cheaper (I got mine RM12.90 for 500g) than even the hypermarket (RM9.99 for 250g).. You do the maths!

For more tips on cheese cake, go to Diana's Dessert

Stripping the Zebra

My mum used to make this zebra cake back at hometown. Been searching a while for the right recipe from the web but most of the them turns out to be crumble and dry. Finally I got back to my mum for the recipe.

ZEBRA CAKE RECIPE

(mum's recipe - dun ask me who's the creator)

INGREDIENTS
Makes one 8" round cake

• 10 whites + 2 egg yolks OR 6 whole eggs
• 120g castor sugar
• 150g cake flour or low protein flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tbsp emulsifier / Ovalett
• 100g butter, melted
• 30g condensed milk
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp chocolate emulco
• Corn/Almond nibs for sprinkling (optional)
 

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 170 Celsius. Prepare and grease a 8 inch round cake pan.
2. Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Beat eggs, flour mixture, castor sugar and emulsifier (ovalett) on high speed for 10 minutes until batter turns light and creamy, i.e. thick ribbon state.

 

4. Next step is to pour in the melted butter, condensed milk and vanilla essence. Mix at slow speed to minimize bubble or air into the batter.

5. Divide batter into 2 portions (1st portion = 1/3, 2nd portion = 2/3)

6. Fold in chocolate emulco and cocoa powder into the 1st batter.
7. Using a small ladle, scoop 3 times of the original batter into the center of the greased cake pan. Then, scoop 3 times of chocolate batter onto the center of the plain batter you just scooped into the pan. Repeat until you have finished about half of the batter. Reduce to 2 scoops each now and continue layering. Reduce the amount of batter gradually until you only pour 1 scoop of each batter finally. The circles will become smaller and smaller.

(Greedy, I used 3 small bake pan)

(Baking in progress)

8. Sprinkle almond nibs to cake (I omitted this).
9. Bake at 170c for 30-40 minutes or until the skewer insert comes out clean.
10. Let cake cools down on a wire wrack and enjoy.

Here We Go

After years of procrastination, here's my first post despite having yet to get myself a new laptop, digital camera and mobile phone to complement my endeavor here. I hope its not too much to ask for but isn't that the best part of it, so much to discover in life and spontaneously sharing it via FB, Tweeter, Blog or whatever..
Two "L"s and One "T", that's the theme for my blog. Anything more than that, I'm gonna go hay-wired.

Life - Life is short and i'm taking it to the max to do what I want and like. We only live once, right!
Love - It can means a whole lot of things, be it people, things you like or enjoy doing. But do learn to love yourself before loving others.
Travel - I like to explore and see the world out there, reaching out beyond my boundaries and sharing them altogether