Happy Holidays!

Starting today I`m officially on my winter break and as one of my "vacation assignments", I have just completed making my RECIPE LIST that I placed under a new page above. I thought it would be nice for me and the readers to have a quick glance on what I`ve been posting/cooking this far without having to check out each category on the side bar. I`m planning to keep updating the list whenever I posted a new dish and hopefully the list will be better and yummier. New Year`s resolution it is!

So, I hope you all are enjoying the holiday season with your loved ones and of course, good food. 

Happy holidays!

p.s. The tiramisu cake above was made using store-bought sponge cake (aha, busted!) and Kahlua coffee liqueur. The basic recipe for the liqueurless filling can be checked out here.

Petite sweethearts and Merry Christmas!

It`s an unbelievably freezing Sunday night at our place here. We were supposed to go outside today, but we cancelled the plan after we saw the snow started falling. Not so much for a willpower, huh. After all, the idea of staying at home with the warmth, plenty of food, and hot drinks leaves us almost no reason to go outside where the freezing air can bite our noses off. 

So, since it`s Christmas today, we`d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas! As a virtual gift, let me share with you these adorable petite cakes snowed with icing sugar on your special day!

The method to make this bite-sized cakes is very similar with making muffins, only the batter is slightly thicker than the muffin batter is. The original recipe of the petite cakes actually comes from my cake mold pack and I have modified few ingredients and steps. Here`s how to make them.

Beat whole egg and sugar until the mixture has turned creamy and pale yellow.

Beat in olive oil (or melted butter, as suggested in the original recipe) to the mixture. 

Stir in raisins. 

Fold in sifted flour and baking powder and your batter is ready.

Well, actually the original recipe suggests to let the batter sit for 15 mins before proceeding to baking. I didn`t actually do this step, but it took me a few minutes to prepare my mold and spooning in the batter. So I guess I somehow did the step half-way.

Grease the molds with olive oil or butter and spoon the batter into them until 3/4 (or 7/8, as the original recipe says) full. I filled each mold with roughly 1/2 teaspoon of batter and boy, was it challenging!

You can see here how messy I am in doing this work. And yet I keep thinking that I will get better someday. *yawn*

Bake them in preheated oven at 180 C for 15 C or until the cakes are nicely puffed up and the surface has turned golden brown. Let the cakes cool down.

Now, how petite they are? This petite. Although I call it as bite-sized cake, I`m positive my husband can eat 3 of them easily in one go.

 It`s snowy outside, and snowy inside. After the cakes are cool enough, dust them with icing sugar.

The amazing thing about this cake is the texture. The surface is soft when the cakes are just taken out of the oven, but it will firm up when it cools down. The result is a tiny cake with the whole surface, including the unbrowned surface, crusted up leaving the inside soft and fluffy.

You know what else you should try with the cakes if you don`t mind the extra calories? Chocolate fondue. Yum!

Print recipe

PETITE SWEETHEARTS

Makes about 40 bite-sized cakes

Ingredients:

1 egg

50 g sugar

50 ml (1/4 cup) olive oil or 50 g melted butter

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbs raisins

Vanilla oil
Icing sugar for dusting

Method:

1. Beat egg and sugar until the mixture turns creamy and pale yellow.

2. Whisk in olive oil and vanilla oil.

3. Throw in raisins and stir to combine.

4. Fold in sifted flour and baking powder.

5. Spoon the batter into oil/butter-greased cake mold until 2/3 full.

6. Bake in preheated oven at 180 C for 15 mins or until the surface has turned golden brown.
7. Let the cakes cool down and dust with icing sugar.

Pretzella

First time I had mini pretzels, I knew that I had to do some makeover with them, only I was completely clueless about what I could do. To me it`s a little too dry and the taste was too plain, although fairly speaking, the only pretzels I`ve ever had were from the store packed in a bag like potato chips and they were sprinkled with salt. 

But that was a story from the past, because pretzel never looks the same to me anymore. It was last month when I stumbled upon an awesome post at Live Love Pasta showing how to make chocolate bark using pretzel and that post really got me excited to start my pretzel project. Next thing I knew, I had my chocolate-drizzled pretzels, which I named Pretzella for their pretty princessy looks, lining up on my kitchen counter.
Last December, I made chocolate bark with assorted nuts and it was undoubtedly good not to mention how extremely easy to make it. But this time, I wanted to bring the chocolate-pretzel goodie to my lab as Christmas gifts, so I thought it was better to prepare it in individual portions. With the bark, however, I imagined it would be difficult to divide it into equal portions without the risk of cracking it (in a bad way). I`m just too clumsy to handle it.

Anyway, I finally came up with the Pretzella, certainly with simple method, and here`s what I used:

 Dark chocolate...

...white chocolate..and milk chocolate (no picture here).

And the last ingredient but with huge impact is....

...this joyous full-of-color decorative sprinkles. I don`t usually use artificial coloring in my cooking, but this time I made an exception. This time, I was much much much happier with it.

Let`s assemble now.

 

Arrange the mini pretzels on a parchment paper or aluminium foil.

Let your wildest and craziest imagination guide you designing your pretzella. For me, this was what I could think of so far and I`d love to see your version!

After arranging the pretzels, prepare the chocolate. Or, do it reversely, especially if the chocolate is quick to set.
Break the chocolate bars into pieces, place them in separate bowls, and melt them in microwave or double boiler. If you use microwave like I do, heat it for 1 min, check if it melts, and reheat if necessary. If you use double boiler, make sure you keep the simmering water even after the chocolate has melted because you may need to reheat the chocolate later.

With a spoon (or whatever suits you), drizzle the melted dark chocolate over the pretzels leaving the center unfilled. The basic idea is using the chocolate to glue the pretzels together into whatever shapes you make.

Now carefully fill the center with the melted white chocolate. I flattened the "peak" of the white chocolate by gently brushing it down with the tip of a fork.

I know, it looks as if a toddler made them. In fact, if only I had kids, I would tell people it was them who did the work.

For the last touch, dress them up with the sprinkles. Make sure that you add the sprinkles quick enough before the chocolate starts to set. The sprinkles will easily come off, or won`t stick at all, if you add them after the chocolate has set.

Bibidi-bobidi-boo! The mini pretzels has turned into pretty pretzella!

This is after I let the pretzella sit at room temperature for 15 mins or probably less. In winter, our room is usually cold because we don`t turn on the heater unless the chill is unbearable. You can keep it in fridge if you want.

And this is the back view. The chocolate enters the holes and spreads a little bit making it stick properly to the pretzel.

 And these are pretzella with milk chocolate in another design. Hair barrette, anyone?

Eye candy, yes. My husband`s face lit up the second he saw them. Crowd pleaser, of course.

After all, you can`t possibly go wrong with pretzel and chocolate, can you?

PRETZELLA

Ingredients:

Dark chocolate

White chocolate

Milk chocolate

Mini pretzels

Decorative sprinkles

Method:

1. Break all chocolate into pieces, place in separate bowls, and melt them in microwave or double boiler.

2. Arrange mini pretzels on parchment paper or aluminium foil.

3. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the pretzels to glue them together.

4. Before the chocolate sets, quickly sprinkle the decorative sprinkles.

5. Let the chocolate set in refrigerator or at room temperature if it is cold enough outside.