Star Pastry Snack

Looking for an easy last minutes snack for a party? Or a simple Christmas treats idea? I have a good recipe for you. Star pastry snack. It is cute, simple, easy to make, and delicious. As long as you have ready to use puff pastry, egg, and sugar, you can make it anytime you want.

I got this idea about few days before my son's Christmas party at school. It's very common in here that the children will have a Christmas dinner together at school to celebrate Christmas every year. Basically, every children will gather together and have dinner together at school along with the teacher and their classmate. They get to use a nice clothing, such as a dress or suit, and sit around the nicely decorated table. There will be a candles and cute set of cutlery (of course it's plastic) as well. The party itself is a potluck. Each (parents of the) children have to bring one kind of food (preferable finger food). For a smaller children, they do not have dinner but they will have Christmas breakfast.

My son is still 2.5 years old and he's still in peuterspeelzaal (playgroup). He was going to have a Christmas breakfast at his school and I could bring some snack for the children. Hmm... Making a snack for 2-4 y.o children is not as easy as making snack for 8-9 y.o children. They're more picky and can not accept all kind of food. I suddenly remember couple months ago when I made pastry snack using some leftover puff pastry from making custard cream horns. There were a lot of small slices and cut puff pastry that could not be used to make custard horns. Instead of threw them away into garbage bin, I brushed them all with egg wash, sprinkle some crystal sugar on the top, and baked them by following the instruction as the usual. Based on the same method, I think I could make a good snack for his Christmas party at school. Beside, I know my son likes it.

I made about 30 stars, put them in a plastic bag and wrap it nicely complete with a ribbon. It could be a good idea for Christmas gift as well. Just stick a small Christmas card on it, and it's ready to cheers up someone else's day. Merry Christmas everybody ^^

Ingredients : (for making 20 stars)

• 5 sheets ready to use puff pastry (I'm using 20x20 cm ready to use puff pastry)
• 1 egg, beaten
• about 150 grams white granulated sugar 

Preparation :

1. Thaw the puff pastry for about 10 minutes to make it easier to cut
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven for 200 C (392 F)
3. Prepare a baking sheet and line it up with baking paper. Set aside.
4. Using a star cookie cutter, cut 1 sheet the puff pastry into 4 stars
5. Place them on the prepared baking sheet.
6. Repeat the process for all those puff pastry sheet. 
7. Brush all the surface of the cut puff pastry with egg wash.
8. Sprinkle granulated sugar on top generously.
9. Put the pastry inside the preheated oven and bake it for 10-12 minutes or until they become golden brown. (Tip : take the pastry out of the oven once they become golden brown. the smaller the pastry cut, the shorter baking time that needed. It's really depend on the size of you pastry. But it is important to make sure that all the pastry have roughly the same size)
10. Take the pastry out an let them cool completely. 

Tip : This snack is not meant to be stored for a long time. They could get soggy fast if it's not stored properly inside airtight container or not be eaten as soon as possible. If it's happening, put the pastry on the baking sheet and pop it into preheated 180 C oven for about 10 minutes. 

Read More

Minion Birthday Cake

Last month, one of my daughter's friend was celebrating a birthday. And it just happened that she loves minions. I and her mother were just chatting around, and she asked me if maybe I could make a cute minion cake for her daughter's birthday party. I said yes without thinking! Few hours after the deal was made, it seems that my nervous thought was just awake and started to question my ability to make it. Will I be able to make it? How if I ruined the cake? That's mean that I would ruin a girl's birthday. I don't want that to happen. I almost never make a sculpted cake before. Well, I've made some before. But those cake were not  meant for selling purpose.

Calm down and be positive. It's  great challenge. This could be a good opportunity to start what I've been dreaming lately which is turn my hobby into a business. I've made a Pirate Boat Cake before. So, basically I know how to carve a cake. Beside, there's a lot of tutorial on the internet. How hard could it be. (Maybe if her mother knows this she would not order the cake from me. Thanks to her for putting such a big faith in me.^^ ) 

Well, I'm so glad I decided to go on and trust my skill. Voila!! I'm so happy with the result. 

I'm not saying it was perfect. But it's not bad for first attempt. I was not saying it was easy either. But well, I made it. :) This is the rough sketch of the cake that I wanted to make. Sitting minion with banana cupcake (But later I changed the cupcake with a small round cake with candle on top).

To realize that sketch, my first step, is to make all the details of the minion such as the Gru symbol, his overall button, the goggle, and the hair. I made it about 5 days before final assembly. Thanks to Ann Reardon from How to cook that for sharing a nice tutorial how to make minion cake. From her video I could learn how to make the big and nice silver goggle and all those tiny minion hairs. 

This minion cake is built from vanilla cake with vanilla butter cream. I've made 1 + 1/4 recipe of vanilla cake and bake it in a 15 cm round cake pan. I don't have 15 cm round cake pan, so I made a disposable cake pan by myself using a cardboard and aluminium foil. Well, I guess I miscalculated the size of the cake. I made the cake too much. The order were a cake for 15-20 people. But I think the amount of the cake that I baked could feed about 20-25 people. 

After the cake is done, the real work is begin. Cutting, stacking, sculpting, and shaping. 

After about 30 minutes, I managed to sculpt and shape my cake from the left picture into the right picture. Not bad, right?  The height of my minion cake to be is about 23 cm (the cake only) with 13 cm diameter.  

I coat the cake with vanilla butter cream twice. First, I coat it with a thin layer of butter cream and put it into the fridge until it firm up. This first layer will catch the crumb cake that fall from the cake so it wont get mixed with the the next layer of butter cream. After I finished with second coating, I put the cake again into the fridge before move to the next step.

Now, it's time to cover the cake with yellow fondant. It turned out, covering a big cake with fondant is not as easy as I imagined. I accidentally tear the fondant and had to re-roll it again. Too bad I didn't have fondant smoother as well. Making the hand was not easy either. I had to use small ramekins to prop the hand and prevent it being broken. After the yellow part is done, actually I had to make a pants for my minion. But I was a bit nervous so I decided to do it later and put the eye and black goggle strap. 

For the pants, I made a simple template using a paper and cut the fondant by following those template. It was quite hard to make it without a template. I always made it too big and had to redo it again and again. After the pants is done, its time to put all the small detail on my minion such as his tiny little feet, the pocket with Gru's symbol, the buttons for the pants, his hands. goggle, hairs, and finishing the detail for the small round cake. And the banana of course! ^^

By making this cake, I got a lot of leftover cake crumbs. I can eat it just like that. But it was too much and most of the crumbs were really crumbly and I couldn't even poke it with a fork. Well, it just happened that I had white chocolate bar and leftover heavy cream. So, it was possible to make a cake pop out of it. Remember my "failed" cake pop? Using the same recipe, but with white chocolate instead of dark chocolate, I could make about 20 cake pop out of my leftover cake crumbs.

Make an oval shaped cake pop and put it into fridge to make it nice and firm.  After all the cake pop are nice and firm, first dip half part of it into blue melted chocolate. Before the blue chocolate became dry, insert cake pop stick into the cake pop and put 2 mini chocolate M&M's or choco chips for the minion shoes. Once the blue part is dry, dip the other half into melted yellow chocolate and stick the eye and the hair of the minion. I was using chocolate sprinkle for its hair and edible eye for its eyes. But maybe I should use another kind of white candy because my daughter said that the eye did not taste good. Well, next time better.

Tip : If your melted chocolate is too thick, add some vegetable shortening (I'm using Crisco), pop it into microwave for a few sec, stir it well until all the shortening are melted and mixed with the chocolate. Put it back into microwave and reheat it again if needed or if there is still lump on the chocolate mixture. 

It was only needed a few minutes to make all the chocolate dry. After that,  I start to make all the detail. I put leftover yellow and blue chocolate into zip lock bag, melted some pure chocolate candy and put it into another zip lock bag as well. I used it to draw all the detail such as minion's hands, goggle straps, and their pullover. It was not easy as I imagined. I could not make it as smooth as I wanted. Besides, I had some problems with chocolate and Crisco lump that clogged the tip of my pipping bag. But hey!! The result is not that bad. I even think that they are quite cute. Don't you think so?  ^^

Read More

Homemade Cheesy Almond Crispy

It has been months after my last post. I've been busy since my last summer holiday (or lazy. Only God knows the truth ^^). I had a great summer holiday in Indonesia. It was amazing. I met all my family, my parents, my lovely sister, and all those people who I've never seen for years during my stay in Netherlands. The weather was amazing (including the heavy tropical rain,  but I still hate the mosquitoes and the flood), the foods were amazing too. I really miss the original taste of Indonesian food.

Speaking about food, when I was in Bandung, my sister in law got a box of snack named Almond crispy cheese. I think it's a new brand of snack because I never found it years ago. After one bite, I have to say that those thing is good. It was delicious and I would love to have another box. But too bad this snack was not available in Bandung because her friend bought from another city.

After the holiday end and I back to the Netherlands, I tried to find the recipe. I was not hoping I would find it but it turned out there are some people who already made and share the basic recipe. And  it is surprisingly easy to made.

From one recipe I could bake two times full of my baking sheets, but only half of them survived and could get inside my container. My daughter loved it. She ate most of the crackers by herself even before I took them off from the baking sheet.


Ingredients :

• 75 grams egg white  (Tip : 1 large egg contain about 30 grams egg white. So you will need 2-3 eggs to get 75 grams egg white.)
• 60 grams white granulated sugar
• 50 grams cake flour (or All purpose flour)
• 70 grams almond flakes
• 70 grams grated cheddar cheese
• 25 grams butter, melted
• some grated cheddar cheese for sprinkle

Preparation :

1. In a bowl, with a wire whisk, beat together egg white and sugar until bubbly. (Tip : For making this almond crispy, you don't need to beat the egg white until soft peak formed. There're no even a peak. Only bubbles)
2. Add flour and melted butter into the bowl and mix them together with bubbly egg whites.
3. Add almond flakes and grated cheese into the mixture and mix again.
4. Scrap the side of the bowl to prevent sticky egg white mixture on it.
5. Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
6. Meanwhile, preheat the oven for 150 C (300 F) and layer a baking sheet with baking paper. 
7. Take the almond mixture out from the fridge and fold and stir it once more with a spoon or spatula.
8. Take about 1 tbs of mixture and put it on the prepared baking sheet. Spread it very very thinly and evenly. (Tip :  You can make it round, or rectangle, or unshaped, or anything, but the most important thing is spread it thinly (2-3 mm thin) and as even as possible to make it evenly cooked and crispy.)
9. Repeat it with all the batter left. 
10. Sprinkle on top with some of grated cheddar cheese.
11. Put the baking sheet into preheated oven and bake it for about 10 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet and bake it again for another 5-6 minutes.
12. Take it out from the oven and let it cool completely before removing all the almond crispy from the baking paper.
13. Store it in a air tight container. Be careful not to press it too hard. 

Read More

Blueberry Cake

Last week, when I was trying to find cake recipe on the internet, I stumble on a nice picture of a blue cake. That cake was soooo blue and looks awesome. After I read it further, it says that it's a blue velvet cake. I found that the cake was using some blue berry for its ingredients and quite a lot of blue dye. I really want to make it because it looks so blue and pretty. But I don't really want to use that much of blue dye. Well, I've made red velvet cake using raspberry concentrate. And it happened that I have a box of blueberry in my fridge. Maybe I could make a blue velvet cake with blueberry concentrate or something similar. Or maybe I could even throw in some blueberry inside the cake to increase the blueberry taste.

First, I made the blueberry jam. I had to admit that I let too much liquid evaporated but it doesn't matter. Meanwhile waiting for the jam become cool, I started to make the cake batter. After the batter was done, I pour all the jam into the batter and mix it manually. The result was not like I was expected because the batter turned out purple and not blue!! I added few drop of blue dye and hoping that the color would turn like the one on the internet. But after drops of blue dye, I couldn't get royal blue color like the picture. To be honest, I started to regret my decision to add some blue dye. Why didn't I add purple dye instead to make a purple cake instead of blue cake. Well, what's done is done. Can't be undone. I pour my blueish batter into the pan, and put it into the oven. 15 minutes inside the oven, I just realize that I made another mistake!! I totally forgot to add some fresh blueberry into the batter. Oh well...

After the cake was done and completely cool, I cover it with butter cream cheese frosting and decorate it with some fresh blueberry. (Forgive me for a bad and plain decoration. I was not in a mood to decorate a cake) Like as usual, I made a small round blueberry cake and few of mini cupcake. The cake taste good and even better with butter cream cheese frosting on it.

Ingredients :

• 192 grams (3/4 cup) AP flour
• 1/2 tsp cacao powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 30 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
• 92 grams white granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 120 ml (about 1/4 cup) milk
• 1/8 tsp salt
• Royal blue coloring agent
• For blueberry jam : 150 grams fresh blueberry + 30 grams white granulated sugar + 50 ml water

Preparation :
First, lets make the blueberry jam

1. In a pot, boil together blueberry, sugar and water until the blueberry start to break down.
2. Stir until almost all of the liquid are evaporated.
3. Transfer it into a bowl and let it cool completely.
   

Now, lets make the cake. 

1. Preheat oven for 180 C (350 F)
2. Prepare a cake pan, grease with butter, and line it with baking paper. Set aside. (Tip :  you can always use a muffin tin instead)
3. In a bowl, mix together flour, cacao powder, baking powder, and salt.
4. In another big bowl, with a electric or hand mixer, beat the butter until creamy.
5. Add granulated sugar into the creamy butter and beat again on high speed until light and fluffy.
6. Add egg and vanilla extract into the butter mixture and beat again.
7. Add about 1/3 of flour mixture alternately with about 1/3 of milk. Mix well before adding another 1/3 of flour mixture and milk.
8. Add blueberry jam into the batter and fold it manually with a spatula. 
9. At this point, once the blueberry jam is well mixed with the batter, you should get a purple batter.
10. Add few drop of blue coloring into the batter (if you want to make a blueish cake) and mix well.
11. Pour the batter into prepared cake pan or muffin tin.
12. Put it into preheated oven and bake for about 30-35 minutes or until skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
13. Take it out from the oven and let it cool completely before cutting or adding buttercream on it.

Read More

Choco Almond Cookies

Choco chip cookies is one of the most famous cookies that ever existed. Who doesn't like this delicious cookies. It is crunchy outside and chewy inside with half melted chocolate chips on all around the cookies. I like it. It's perfect to be served with hot tea, coffee, or even ice cream. This chocolate chips cookies is originated from United States which was traditionally made from a dough contained butter, brown sugar, white sugar, and chocolate chips. Nowadays, this choco chip cookies have been improved and modified a lot. There are a lot of variants besides chocolate chips such as choco-macademia, choco-dried cranberry, white chocolate chips, or even M&M's. 

Few weeks ago, using a basic chocolate chip cookies that I have, I wanted to combine it with sliced almond. I still had some sliced almond left on my kitchen. I think it's a good combination.  For my cookies, i would not use any chocolate chips but I will use chopped chocolate easter eggs instead. I still have plenty of easter chocolate and no one eat it anymore. So, why don't make them useful.

It's very easy to make. Even my son  helped me to sprinkle some almond on the top of the cake. (Some of it disappeared on his mouth) When i put the dough into the oven my house smelled like a bakery. It smells so good. And when it's done, my kids could not wait to dig it in. They kept peeking into the oven to watch the dough slowly melted and spreading because of the heat during the baking process. Definitely would make this cookie again next time.

Ingredients :

• 225 grams All purpose flour
• 150 grams room temperature unsalted butter
• 70 grams brown sugar
• 60 grams white granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 120 grams chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips
• 120 grams sliced almond
• 30 grams sliced almond for additional sprinkles (optional)

(Tip :  Feel free to increase the amount of chocolate chip up to 200 grams if you want to have cookies with a lot of chocolate on it. )

Preparation :

1. Preheat oven for 190 C (374 F)
2. Prepare a baking sheet and line it with baking paper. Set aside.
3. In a big bowl, mix together butter, brown sugar, and white sugar.
4. Beat them together until creamy.
5. Add egg and vanilla extract and beat them again.
6. Add flour, baking powder, and salt into the mixture and beat them together.
7. Add chocolate chip and sliced almond into the dough, and mix fold them with a spatula until all the chocolate and almond are evenly distributed.
8. Take about 1- 1 1/2 tsp of dough, with 2 spoon form it into a ball, and drop it on the prepared baking sheet. Leave enough space between each dough ball to allow the cookies spreading during the baking.
9. Sprinkle some more sliced almond on the top of the dough. 
10. Put the dough into the preheated oven and bake them for about 15 minutes or until the cookies become golden brown (Tip : increase the baking time about 3-5 minutes of you want to get more crispy and crunchy cookies).
11. Take the baking sheet out of the oven and transfer the cookies into the cooling rack.
12. Let them cool completely.

Read More