Trying out something new

Sometimes I get really bored if I don’t have anything to do, especially at home. So this christmas and new year holidays, I took most of my spare time at home trying out some recipes I found on the internet…

My first one (and my really realy first time cooking or making something on my own) was Naan Bread, an Indian thin bread. Got this recipe from AllRecipes.com.
It looks simple with the following ingredients and directions (also available on the site):

Ingredients: 7 g active dry yeast 235 ml warm water 50 g white sugar 45 ml milk 1 egg, beaten 10 g salt 615 g bread flour 6 g minced garlic (optional) 55 g butter, melted

Directions In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes, until frothy. Stir in sugar, milk, egg, salt, and enough flour to make a soft dough. Knead for 6 to 8 minutes on a lightly floured surface, or until smooth. Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with a damp cloth, and set aside to rise. Let it rise 1 hour, until the dough has doubled in volume. Punch down dough, and knead in garlic. Pinch off small handfuls of dough about the size of a golf ball. Roll into balls, and place on a tray. Cover with a towel, and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. During the second rising, preheat grill to high heat. At grill side, roll one ball of dough out into a thin circle. Lightly oil grill. Place dough on grill, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, or until puffy and lightly browned. Brush uncooked side with butter, and turn over. Brush cooked side with butter, and cook until browned, another 2 to 4 minutes. Remove from grill, and continue the process until all the naan has been prepared.

I did something wrong with the yeast (Hey, I’m newbie!), I used instant yeast which doesn’t need to be dissolved in warm water but should be mixed with warm water into the mixture. It caused my dough not to rise properly, so to “fix” this I made it thinner than usual and layered. In the end it was giving pretty much the same result as the real naan.

naan dough naan done

A few days after that, tried to make a no bake cookies, which I thought easy by looking at the recipe and didn’t involve any baking. Got this recipe, again, from AllRecipes.com.

Ingredients: 350 g white sugar 120 ml milk 115 g butter 20 g unsweetened cocoa powder 130 g crunchy peanut butter 245 g quick-cooking oats 5 ml vanilla extract

Directions In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa. Bring to a boil, and cook for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove from heat, and stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened.

See, the recipe looks really simple…but mine was turned out too sweet and couldn’t get hardened properly.

no bake cookies

Probably because lack of quick-cooking oats. In the end, my cookies had to be put it in the fridge to keep it hardened.

As for the third one, I tried to bake a Traditional Gingerbread Cake. I got this recipe from v-recipes.blogspot.com.

Ingredients: 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature + more for pan 1-1/3 cups all purpose flour 1 tsp salt 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp ground cinnamon – kayu manis bubuk 3/4 tsp ground ginger – jahe bubuk 3/4 tsp ground nutmeg – pala bubuk 1/4 tsp ground cloves – cengkeh bubuk 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 4 large eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract Powder sugar for dusting.

Directions Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Butter a 9 by 5 by 3 inch loaf pan, set aside. Into a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves. Set aside. In the bowl of an electric mexer fitted w/ the paddle attachment, cream butter and both sugars on medium speed until light & fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture until just incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center come out clean., 50-55 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust generously with powder sugar.

This cake uses lots of spices, might want to change it with other “flavour” if you don’t like it. Try to use unsalted butter, I used Blue Band margarine (which is salted one) and the cake turned out a little bit salty. Not much of a problem about this one except that my first attempt was using a pan with less height which caused the batter to overflowed all over the oven when baking. The measurements were using US (pan, tablespoon, etc) which need conversion to metrics (grams, ml, etc) because I’m not used to US measurements.
Quite content with my second attempt though
Just need to dust it all over the cake with powder sugar.

fresh ginger bread from the oven

As for my last one, tried this before went back to work in Bali, is my favourite food, Egg Tarts!!
Got this recipe from AllRecipes.com again.

Ingredients: For the Crust 1 cup confectioners’ sugar 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup butter 1 egg, beaten 1 dash vanilla extract for the filling 2/3 cup white sugar 1 1/2 cups water 9 eggs, beaten 1 dash vanilla extract 1 cup canned evaporated milk

Directions In a medium bowl, mix together the confectioners’ sugar and flour. Mix in butter with a fork until it is in small crumbs. Stir in the egg and vanilla until the mixture forms a dough. The texture should be slightly moist. Add more butter if it is too dry, or more flour, if the dough seems greasy. Shape dough into 1 1/2 inch balls, and press the balls into tart molds so that it covers the bottom, and goes up higher than the sides. Use 2 fingers to shape the edge into an A shape. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C). Combine the white sugar and water in a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Cook until the sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Strain the eggs through a sieve, and whisk into the sugar mixture. Stir in the evaporated milk and vanilla. Strain the filling through a sieve, and fill the tart shells. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown, and the filling is puffed up a little bit.

Yatta!

egg tart egg tart

The egg tart recipe was a bit sweet according to the site, so I used less sugar than the one written on the recipe.

Not bad for a beginner huh? I think I’ve found another hobbies in my spare time on holidays. Who knows when I’m through with software I can open my own bakery :LOL: