Mini Chive Pancakes with creme fraiche and red onion confit

As we are having a get-together on friday, i really wanted to make some nibbles, but something not very complicated and easy to make within a hour, so that i dont get stuck in the kitchen.
So my hand reached out for my favourite canape book, and i was not disappointed for something new.... quick mini chive pancake with creme fraiche and red onions.
It is what canape should be -  something you can eat with fingers, but just in one mouthful, not too filling but just keep whet your appetite for more.

Makes 20

Ingredients:

Mini Chive pancakes
60g Plain Flour
1/4tspn Baking Powder
1/4tspn Salt
1 egg, beaten
3Tbspn Milk
1Tbspn finely chopped Chives
1Tbspn Sunflower Oil

Creme fraiche and Red Onion Confit
2Tbspn Caster Sugar
1Tbspn Water
1Tbspn Red Wine Vinegar
1 medium Red Onion, finely sliced
Salt
Black Pepper
1Tbspn finely chopped Chives


Method:
Mini Chive Pancakes
1) Sift flour, baking powder and salt together.
2)Make a well in the centre. Add egg and milk to well. Gradually draw in flour and mix to a smooth batter.
3) Stir in chives in the batter
4)Brush a frying pan or griddle with oil. Preheat oveer medium heat.
5)Working in batches, drop heaped teaspoonfuls of mixture into the hot pan. Cook until bubbles appear and underside is golden, 3 minutes.
6)Turn and brown other side, 2 minutes.
7) Brush pan with more oil between each batch of pancakes. Cool pancakes. Serve at room temperature.

Creme Fraiche and Red Onion Confit Topping
1)Put sugar and water in a small pan and stir to dissolve. Bring to boil over medium-low heat and cook to a dark caramel.
2) Remove from heat and add vinegar and onions.
3) Return to medium heat and stir-fry until onions soften, 5 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cool to warm.
4) Top each pancake with 1 teaspoonful each creme fraiche and onions. Garnish with chives. Serve at room temperature.

Tips:
I didnt have any red wine vinegar, so i subsituted with red wine and balsamic vineagar... and worked great!

Can prepare the mini pancakes 2 days in advance, when serve, crisp in the oven at 200C for 3mins.

Happy Cooking!

Griddled Scallops with Sweet Chilli sauce N creme fraiche on Croutes

I saw this fancy little canapes recipe book,  and happen to have some scallops in my freezer, so alongside the mini chive pancakes with red onion confit, i decided to also make this.
I think this is the easiest recipe i have followed, and require minimum amount of cooking, but impress your guest, and one biteful of delight. 

Recipe taken from Canapes by Eric Treuille & Victoria Blashford-Snell.

 Makes 20

Ingredients:

Croutes
5 Medium slices of white/wholemeal bread

Topping
10 Sea Scallops
Salt
Black Pepper
4Tbspn Thai Sweet Chilli Sauce
6Tbspn Creme fraiche
Coriander leaves or Chopped Chives to garnish



Method

Croute
1)Preheat oven to 150C/300F
2) With a fluted pastry cutter, stamp out each slice of bread into 4 rounds.
3) Place on a bakign sheet and abke unti crisp for approx 20-25mins. Cool.

Topping
4) Cut each scallop in half.
5) Preheat grill pan over a high heat. Sear scallops 1 minute per side.
6)Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and toss with chilli sauce.
7)Place 1 scallop half on to each croute.
8)Top with 1 teaspoon creme fraiche.
9)Garnish with coriander leaves or chopped chives. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Happy Cooking!

Healing Chinese Chicken Soup

Have you had a cold/flu and you tried everything.... paracetomol, oranges for vitC, hot honey & lemon with ginger, blackcurrant strepsils, white congee, and even chicken soup..... and although you not feel worse but you dont feel any better?

Well, that was me from christmas day - striken by the bug, then boxing day onwards - it was a great mission to get myself better, but at the same time you think, why is my body not better yet? why is it soo slow?  soo frustrating!

Luckily these days you can turn to the world wide web for answers - to which i found this recipe
'A Healing Soup to Ward off Cold & Flu', which was a very interesting article - and giving the mythical remedy of chicken soup bit of a boost with some scientific backing based on Chinese medici.

Anyway, I didnt want to sit around and mope, and looked at the recipe i had most of the ingredients, and it didnt look too complicated, so i thought i give it a go.... but i made adaptation in adding egg noodles, so it become our evening meal.  We both really enjoyed it, and i certainly felt the heat after gulping down the soup, which works great when the day have been wintery cold!

Afterwards - hmm.... i dont think alone it had magically healed me, but with the combination of all my preventative measure i did feel better the next day - so will bookmark it for future - just one thing left to heal - the damn tickly cough! lol

Serves 4
Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 red chilies, finely sliced, OR substitute 1/2 to 3/4 tsp. dried crushed chili
• 2 ” of ginger root, finely chopped
• 1/2 lb of boneless, skinless chicken, chopped into 1/2″ slices
• 5 cups chicken stock
• 3 Tbsp soy sauce
• A pinch of Tumeric
• 1/2 cup of sweet potato, cut into 1/4″ dice
• A head of broccoli, separated into florets
• 3 green onions, chopped finely
• Any of the Chinese herbs - Ju hua (Chrysanthamum Flowers), Yu Jin (Tumeric), Huang qi (Astragalus)

Method:

1)Heat the sesame oil in a pan and fry the garlic, chili peppers and ginger over a low heat until they become soft and fragrant. Be careful not to burn them.
2) Add the chicken pieces and stir as you seal the outside of the meat.
3) Add in the stock, soy sauce, tumeric and sweet potato and bring to the boil. Add any Chinese herbs if you are using them.
4) Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
5)Add broccoli and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
6)Add chopped green onions and serve.

Get well soon and happy cooking!

Nutella Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip

 If you are a lover of Nutella like me, then this cupcake would be worthy to go with your Cappucino. For me i would choose a Hazelnut flavoured caffe latte.  I was very proud of what i have baked that i was pleased to put on my cake stand and welcome some friends  to help me sample it. 

 This Nutella cupcake recipe taken from Cuisine Paradise. I have double up the ingredients so can make 12, and added some chopped hazelnuts, and instead of buying choc chip, i had a bar of milk chocolate, so its like chunky choc inside the cake.  

Makes 12
Preparations 10-15mins
Cooking 20mins

Ingredients

140g Plain Flour
60g Self-Raising Flour
140g Unsalted Butter, soften
140g Caster Sugar
4 eggs, 60g each
1/2tspn Vanilla Extract
1 tspn Baking Powder
1/2 cup Mini Choc Chip
Pinch of Salt
Some Nutella Spread

Method:

1)Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2 minutes on medium speed)
2)Add egg one at a time and beat till no trace of egg mixture
3)Next add vanilla and stire inflour mixutre until flours are fully mixed together before toss in the chocolate chips and mix well.
4)Fill each cup with 1/4 batter, add in 1 teaspoon of Nutella each, scatter a pinch of hazelnuts, add 3/4 of batter to cover up the nutella.
5)Give the mixture a quick swirl using a toothpick and bake in preheated oven at 180C/160C fan for approx 20 mins or until skewer/toothpick insert and comes out clean.
6) Leave to cool at wire rack before storing in a airtight container.

Happy Baking!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Toffee Cream Frosting

I have been itching to bake for a while, and this was meant to be my early December bake for the festive season, but as always, the christmas rush, parties..... so its left to today where i dont need to go to work and happy to bake for a family gathering we are hosting on friday.

This recipe is taken for the Goodfoodchannel.co.uk, with the smell of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg its very hard not to think of warm comfy christmas,  then to finish the cupcake with toffee cream frosting it makes it absolutely irresistable to reach out to taste this little morsel.

For me it was really fun to play in my kitchen, then see happy faces around the coffee table.

Makes 12
Prep time: 35mins
Cook time: 25mins

Ingredients

Cupcake:
150g Butter, room temp
150g Soft Brown sugar
3 eggs
150g Self-raising flour
1tspn Ground ginger
1/2tspn Ground Cinnamon
Pinch of Ground Nutmeg
1Tbspn Milk


Frosting:
200g Butter, room temp
50g soft Brown sugar
3Tbspn Milk
200g Icing Sugar
Pinch of ground cinnamon

Method:


1) Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3)Sift flour toghether with the spices.
4)Gradually mix the eggs into the creamed butter and sugar alternating he flour to stop the mix from curdling. Finally, stir throught the milk. 
5) Place 12 paper cupcakes cases into a tin and divid the mixture between them
6)Bake for 15-20mins until golden and springy to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Frosting
7) While the cupcakes are cooking place 50grams of the butter in a pan with the brown sugar and cook over a low heat until melted. Add 2 tablespoons of the milk and stir to form a thick glossy toffee sauce. Leave to one side to cool to room temperature. 
8)In a large mixing bowl beat the butter until smooth, then start to sift in the icing sugar, stirring regularly. Add the toffee sauce and stir until thoroughly incorporated. Add a splash more of milk if the mixture seems too thick - the frosting should be light and creamy. 
9) Put the frosting in a piping bag and pipe onto the cupcakes. Sprinkle with ground cinnamon before serving. 


Note:
My frosting seem abit too sloppy to hold the creamy swirl, i put the frosting in the fridge for 30mins. 
Instead sprinkling cinnamon - i used crushed gingerbread biscuit crumbs from one of my gingerbread man. 
 
Happy Baking!

Gingerbread Man

Gingerbread man is one fun little biscuit, an all time classic, easy to make and bring alot of fun especially with the children.  I recollect that my first experience in making gingerbread man was at primary school.... i would be sooo proud of myself to show my mummy MY gingerbread man.

So for this jolly festive season, even though munching away with my colleague on some ginger nut, i decided i bake some long-forgotten gingerbread men. 
After i baked it, me & mr C have started a little debate - what makes a good gingerbread men?  the one thats crumbly or one thats crispy?  I like the crispy, and he like the soft crumbly lol.


Here the easy to make recipe taken from Cookie Magic by Kate Shirazi.

Makes 1 batch

Ingredients

350g/12oz Plain Flour
1tspn Bicarbonate of Soda
2tspn Ground ginger
100g/4oz Butter
175g/6oz Soft Brown Sugar
1 Large free range egg
4Tbspn Golden Syrup

Method:

1) Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger into a large bowl.  Add the butter and rub it in with your fingertips until you have a mixture resembling fine breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and give it a good mix.
2)In another bowl, beat the egg and golden syrup together. I find a whisk works wonders here. Tip it over the flour mix and stir well. You may find it easier to get your hands in at this point. Sometimes the dough cab be a bit on the sticky side. Keep sprinkling over flour and working it in until you have a lovely smooth dough.
3)Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge for at least 30mins, but an hour would be better.
4) Preheat the oven to 190C/375F and line 2 baking sheets with silicone liners (or grease the baking sheets with some butter.)
5) Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of about 4mm/1/4inch. Cut out the required shapes, place them slightly apart on your lined baking sheets and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden. Leave to cool slightly on the baking sheets before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Note:
After cool down, you can be a little more creative and get all your icing out to decorate the gingerbread man... why stop the fun, when its only just the start.

Happy Baking!

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas!!  Its that time of year again where i love having my family over at our home, and prepare a good dinner for everyone to share.
This year, despite a developing cold, it was a fantastic day! I was well stocked in my fridge this year. This year i made roast pork and roast duck again with seafood stir-fry with mangetout & choi sum,  However, my uncle & auntie were very generous and brought food over so had a roast chicken and a chinese style roast duck, and Mr C mum also brought rice ball tofu sweet soup for dessert, so it was plenty with lots of leftovers.   I really enjoyed seeing my family chatting, laughing, fighting to share the food.... and seeing that make me love Christmas even more :) Make all my planning and effort more worthwhile.

Hope everyone had a great christmas like i have!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! May everyone in this jolly festive season be filled with lots of happiness, good health & lots of love and laughter.