Sponge cupcakes

中文菜谱: 海绵纸杯小蛋糕

The recipe is from http://forums.huaren.us/showtopic.aspx?topicid=1699462&forumpage=1, I make a little bit change, and they turn out great.  My thanks to dodorat , the author of this recipe. 

These wonderful little cakes are just like the cakes I used to buy from street vendors when I was a kid. 

Ingredients:

3 eggs
100 g granulated sugar
120 g cake flour
40 g whole milk
30 g vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla exact
1/4 teaspoon salt

Direction;

Preheat oven to 375 F/ 190°C。

Beat the eggs on high speed with stand mixer.  Add sugar little by little. 

My husband bought this mixer as a thanksgiving gift years ago.  It is the perfect gift.  Love it and it is still running great. 

Beat until egg mixture is very light and pale in color, double or triple in volume, around 6 to 9 minutes.

Shift cake flour and salt, and gently fold in with a rubble spatula. 

Combine milk, oil and vanilla exact; whisk together until well combined.  Take a couple scoops of batter, mix with milk mixture, and then add the milk mixture into big bowl of batter.  Fold in gently with a rubber spatula.

Line up the cupcake baking mold with paper cups.  Fill the cups with batter. 

Bake them for 14 to 16 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.  

They look just like the ones I used to buy from Chinese street vendors. 

The texture is great oo.

Cinnamon rolls

中文菜谱: 肉桂红糖面包卷

Who can resist freshly bake cinnamon rolls?  I can’t.  For most the bread, I enjoy the process of making bread more than eating it.  But as for cinnamon rolls, I always enjoy baking and eating it afterwards with a cup of black coffee.

My husband’s company was hosting a potluck party.  I made a big box of cinnamon rolls for him.  The recipe is by Paula Deen from foodnetwork.  The aroma during baking made the whole house smell like Christmas Eve.  Fantastic!

The recipe link：http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/cinnamon-rolls-recipe.html

I followed the recipe exactly except for substituting regular milk for scalded milk, brown sugar for sugar.   

Ingredients

Dough:

¼ ounce package yeast

½ cup warm water

½ cup scalded milk

¼ cup sugar

1/3 cup butter or shortening

1 teaspoon salt

1 egg

3 ½ to 4 cups all-purpose flour

Filling:

½ cup melted butter, plus more for pan

¾ cup sugar, plus more for pan

2 tablespoons gound cinnamon

¾ cup raisins, walnuts, or pecans, optional

Glaze:

4 tablespoons butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 to 6 tablespoons hot water

Piping hot! 

Cinnamon sugar donuts

中文菜谱：肉桂糖霜甜甜圈

I wasn’t planning making donuts when I knead the dough.  And then I just change my mind for no reason at all.  Ha-ha, doesn’t that happen to all the women?

There were two of us, me and my husband, in the kitchen.  Coffee was brewing, music was on, and we worked on the dough together.  That made me feels happy, extremely happy.  

After the second rise, we shaped the dough into donut dough; deep fried them, glazed with icing sugar glaze, and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.  It tasted like heaven!

The best thing to goes with freshly fried donuts would be one pot hot black coffee. 

Ingredients:

For icing sugar glaze:  

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoon milk

In a glass bowl, combine sugar and milk; whisk until all the sugar dissolves, and the glaze is glossy and running smoothly.

For Cinnamon sugar:

5 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 tablespoon ground cinnamon （or to personal preference）

Shift sugar and cinnamon together and transfer into a shaker. 

For the bread:

Sponge：

100 g milk
20 g bread flour

Whisk together milk and flour in a glass bowl.  Microwave the batter on high for 30 seconds.  Whisk again.  Microwave for another 20 seconds, and whisk until batter is smoothy.  And then microwave for another 15 seconds… repeat the process until you can write letters with a spoon on batter surface and those letters do go away.  

Cover up the sponge.  It can be use as soon as it cools down, but you can get better result with one day old sponge. 

Bread dough：

360 g bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoon yeast
60 g sugar
10 dried milk powder
90 g milk
60 g egg
4 g salt
2 tablespoon butter, melted
oil (for deep frying)

Directions:

Add sponge, bread flour, yeast, sugar, milk, milk powder, egg and salt to stand mixer’s mixing bowl.  Turn to speed 2, knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.  Add melted butter, knead until the dough can make windowpane.

Cover the dough with greased wrap.  Wait until the dough double in size, punch it down and gently fold into a dough ball.  Let it rest another 10 minutes.    

Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough out into desired thickness, or about half inch thick;  cut into donut shape with two round shape cookie cutters.

Cover and rest the donut dough another 15 minutes.  Deep fry in 375F oil until both sides are golden brown. 

Remove the donuts from oil and drain well on paper tower.  Glaze with icing sugar glaze, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  

Do not waste the donut holes.  Deep fry them and coat evenly with cinnamon sugar too.  They are just awesome! 

Let me forget about calorie count for a moment and indulge in this guilty pleasure.  O(∩_∩)O~  

Homemade Honey Peanut Butter

中文版菜谱：蜂蜜花生酱

I posted before about how to make peanut butter with a coffee grinder, (http://www.yankitchen.com/blog/2014/10/18/-2-1).  Coffee grinder is good for making small amount of peanut butter.   I want to make more this time, so I go with vitamix to grind about 2 pounds of peanuts.

Peanut butter is so widely used in my home cooking that I always have peanuts and peanut butter handy.  It goes great with toasted bread, dessert, and it is also an important ingredient in Asian noodles, and salad dressing. 

Ingredients:

2 pound dry roasted peanuts
4 to 5 tablespoon honey
1 to 2 tablespoon peanut oil (optional)

Direction:

Place all the ingredients in to vitamix container, turn it on, raise the speed gradually to 7 or 8, and grind for about 1 minute.  Use the tamper to press down the peanuts when grinding.   

Plain dry roasted peanut is always my number one choice if I don’t roast them myself. 

Seconds after vitamix is turned on, peanuts are grinded into big pieces. 

And then those pieces become smaller pieces. 

In about 1 minute, wa-lah, we have smooth and creamy peanut butter! (Please be careful when grinding peanut butter.  If you smell anything other than peanut’s aroma, stop the machine!)

Grind a little bit longer if you prefer creamier peanut butter.

Stored in an airtight glass jar, it can last a couple weeks, longer if kept refrigerated.  But I always keep it room temperature.  

The fresher peanut butter, the better it smells and tastes.  

ESSENTIAL TOOLS

Macaroons

Ingredients:

2 large egg whites

110g powder sugar
24g granulated sugar
60g almond flour (available at Meijer)

Direction:

Combine powder sugar and almond flour.  Pour the mixture into food processor.  Run the processor for about 10 seconds.  And then shift the flour mixture.  Discard any big almond pieces.

Beat the egg white with an electronic whisk at medium speed for a couple minutes.  Add sugar when beating, little by little.  Stop beating when the stiff peak forms.

Fold the shifted almond flour mixture into egg whites. Fold it gently until the batter can fall smoothly like a silky ribbon.

Prepare a medium/large size pastry bag and NO. 12 tip.

Line a cookie pan with silicone baking mat.

Fill the pastry bag with almond batter.  Squeeze a dollar coin size batter onto the silicone mat, about a quarter inch in height.   Repeat it until all the batter is finished.  You should be able to get 18 to 22 ones. 

Tap the bottom of the cookie pan when done to smooth the cookie dough tops.

Let the pan sit on countertop until the surface becomes dry to touch.  It might take 30 to 60 minutes depending on the humidity around.

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Bake in the oven for 12 to 14 minutes.  DO NOT open the oven to check cookies when baking.

Let cookies cool down on silicone mat a bit before transferring to a cooling rack.

Use any filling of your choice: jam, chocolate, cheese, nutella……….  Be creative! 

Two other variations:

Chocolate macaroons:  

2 large egg whites
110g powder sugar
24g granulated sugar
54g almond flour
12g unsweetened coco powder

Green tea macaroons:

2 large egg whites
110g powder sugar
24g granulated sugar
55g almond flour
8g unsweetened coco powder