Blackberry and Apple Crumble

I had never tried blackberries before. Maybe in candy or jams but never fresh. When I was strolling in the market and spotted some fresh blackberries with a sign that said "very sweet", I instantly knew I had to try them. So I excitedly bought 2 boxes of these beautiful delicate berries. Eager to find out how fresh blackberries tasted like, I hurried home, washed it under the tap and tasted one. Little did I know, I was in for a rude awakening. They tasted so sour, it was as if I was eating a lemon wedge! Darn that deceitful sign!

Even after my disappointment, I knew I didn't want to let these berries go to waste, so I decided on a crumble. Something that didn't take much time to make. Luckily, I had some apples lying around to give it some texture and body.

When I cooked the filling, the berries bled which dyed each piece of apple with a beautiful deep purple colour. It looked so luxurious, much like a piece of purple velvet. The crumble was buttery and nutty with the addition of the toasted almonds. I devoured it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream to cut the extra tang from the blackberries. Hot crumble and cold vanilla ice cream, need I say more?

Although I had this sour experience with the blackberries, I definitely didn't regret buying them. Or else I'd never try this recipe and share it with you guys. But I'll learn from this experience and be more cautious when a sign says "very sweet".

Rainbow Cake!

Just looking at the rainbow cake we made almost a month ago makes me smile! I for one, love colours, so it's definitely pleasing to my eyes and of course, cake! Who doesn't love cake? Everyone's been asking for the rainbow cake recipe and how to do it ever since we posted our instagram pictures (@weiyens @angelinasaw) and we're happy to say, the wait is over! Believe me we wanted to do this for quite some time, just that we unfortunately left our recipes at home and didn't have much time.We sincerely apologize for neglecting the blog a little due to adjusting to university life here in Melbourne.

Basically, the rainbow cake is just a simple butter cake, in this case it's actually my great grandmother's butter marble cake recipe we were using. It's moist, just the way it should be and it's sweet enough to balance out the little bitterness colouring tends to gives out. When you have a delicious cake that puts a smile on your face (even if just a little) looking at it, that, my friend, is the recipe to happiness.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound flour
• 1 pound sugar
• 1 pound butter
• 10-12 eggs
• 3-4 tsp of vanilla essence
• 1 can evaporated milk
• Colouring (Here we used red, yellow, green and blue; the purple was a mix of red and blue)
• Salt

Velvety cake mix.

Instructions:

1. Separate egg whites from yolk.
2. Sieve salt and flour.
3. Whip egg white until fluffy, this can be done by hand or using a mixer if you like.
4. Cream butter, sugar and add yolks. 
5. Fold in flour into mixture and add the evaporated milk.
6. Add egg whites and finally vanilla essence.
7. Separate the mix into five bowls and add colouring accordingly to each mix, drop by drop until you get your desired colour. 
8. Butter the baking pan and pour mix and cook separately. Ensure that each colour mix has the same amount for even layers. (When put into a 10 inch tray, our mixture was roughly 1-2 inches high)
9. Put each tray of coloured cake mix into an oven of 180 degrees. Cook for 10-20 minutes depending on size and volume of cake mix in each baking tray. 
10. Once they come out of the oven, the top may look a little brown-ish but fret not, this layer can be easily pulled off or you can cut the top using a sharp knife if it rises outward.

Colourful pieces of butter cake which may not look so appetizing at this point but just wait until you're done!

Buttercream icing.
Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp milk
• 3 cups of sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Whip butter and sugar together. add milk, vanilla and salt.
2. Place in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour for a nice consistency and then you're ready to ice the cake!
3. For each layer, put 2.5 to 3 tbsps of icing.
4. The icing of the cake is pretty explanatory through the pictures. There are captions below. 
5. A few note-worthy tips that you should note is that we placed parchment paper below the first layer and pulled it out when we were done so it wouldn't be so messy and give a cleaner finish. We also used a lazy susan so the icing work would be much easier and give a smooth finish.

Place 2.5 to 3 tbsp of icing between each cake layer and spread evenly.

For the top and final layer, put the remaining icing and spread evenly.

Pull out the parchment paper from below and you're done!

You can even put a dainty daisy design on the top.

Beautiful layers of happiness.

Simple Smoked Chicken Pizza

Buongiorno! Sei affamato? (Good day! Are you hungry?) Oh, Italiano! Famous for spaghetti, gelato, wine, wonderful fresh breads and of course, the pizza. In Malaysia and many other countries, ordering a simple pizza from an Italian restaurant could cost (I'm not counting Pizza Hut or Dominos) quite a bit especially if they have the powerful, grand wood-fired ovens. But why not make your own little pizza at home in your humble oven? Make your own fresh dough and kneed it as if you're pizza virtuoso adding on whatever toppings your heart desires and massive amounts of cheese that would pull away stringy with each piece separated from the circular goodness.

I always thought making pizza dough would be extremely long and tiring but we've found out that it isn't very draggy at all (of course you can't expect a 5 star pizza crust) Here's a little step by step to making a simple 3 cheese smoked chicken pizza topped with water crest. This recipe makes two 9-inch pan thin crust pizzas. If you want a thicker crust, use the same amount for one regular 12-inch pan pizza.

Ingredients (Pizza dough)

• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp lukewarm water
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (You will need at least an additional 1/2 cup of flour to work the dough later)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Instructions (Pizza dough)

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water and let it sit until the yeast has worked. (About ten minutes) In that case, you can see slight bubbles on the surface of the water.
2. Stir the flour and salt together in a large bowl and form a well in the centre.
3. Add the yeast mixture in the well.
4. Use a fork to gradually mix the ingredients together until a dough forms.
5. Dust some dough on your working surface. Work the dough gently for 10 minutes by kneading it on your working surface which has been lightly dusted with flour.
6. Pour 1 tbsp of oil into a bowl. After kneading the dough for 10 minutes, the ball of dough should be elastic and should have a little bounce. Shape it into a ball and place it into the bowl.
7. Cling wrap the bowl and allow to sit for 2 hours. While waiting, you can prepare your pizza sauce and toppings. The dough will expand up to double in size.
8. After two hours, gently knead the dough for a few minutes and take a half of the dough (for two 9-inch pan pizzas), rolling and pulling it gently to fit the shape the pan. Dust the pan with some flour and stretch the dough to cover the pan. You can also use a baking tray.

Work the dough by using the heel of your hand and pressing it into the dough forward.

Allow the dough to rest for 2 hours. 

It's definitely fun making pizza at home simply because you get to choose your toppings, you could even add pineapples, beef, well pretty much anything you want. It's always fun to try and combine new things! However, here are the ingredients that we used for our pizza toppings which is nice and simple, cheesy topped with a fresh element from the water crest.


Ingredients (Pizza toppings)

• Tomatoes
• Onions
• Mozarella 
• Parmesan (Remember not to put too much parmesan as the taste might overpower the rest of the ingredients)
• Cheddar
• Smoked chicken slices (Marinade half a chicken breast in some hickory smoke and garlic, pan fry the chicken and cut into slices) 
• Simple pizza sauce (instructions below)
• Water crest s

Ingredients (Pizza sauce)

• Tomato paste
• 3 cloves of garlic (Finely chopped)
• 1 small onion (Finely chopped)
• Prawn stock (Saute some prawn shells in some olive oil and add about 200 ml of water and simmer)
• Dried or fresh oregano and basil (a few pinches will do)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions (Pizza sauce)

1. Saute the onions and garlic till the onion is translucent.
2. Add the tomato paste and prawn stock. Allow it to simmer for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the herbs and season the sauce.

Spread the tomato paste onto the dough and top with your desired ingredients and of course, lots of cheese.

Bake the pizza in the oven at 180 ºC for about 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Top with some watercress shoots for some extra greens.

A simple 3 cheese smoked chicken pizza topped with fresh water crest shoots.

Great Grandaunt's Marble Cake

Nothing better than having a slice of moist marble cake to go with your morning coffee or milk to start the day! Baked this marble cake on New Year's Eve in less than an hour. Scrambling to bake two cakes before the clock strike twelve; oh, the life of a food blogger! Ah, I'm just kidding. My grandmother, Mama who is one to have many cravings (a very strong trait in our family) was craving her aunt's marble butter cake that week and as grandchildren, of course we had to fulfill that craving! Trust me, once she craves something, she won't stop until she gets it. Thank goodness it was just a marble cake this time and not a sugee cake!

Ingredients:

• 6 eggs
• 230 g butter
• 170g castor sugar
• 170g all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Separate the egg yolks and egg whites. Whisk the egg whites till it reaches the soft peak stage.
2. Beat the castor sugar and the butter till light and turns to a pale yellow.
3. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time.
4. Fold in the egg whites.
5. Add the vanilla extract and mix well.
6. Separate the cake batter into two. In one bowl, sift the cocoa powder into the batter and mix till incorporated well.
7. Pour the batter into a buttered cake tin or a non-stick cake tin.
8. Use a toothpick to create swirls of vanilla and chocolate batter.

Bake in the oven for 45 minutes in a 180 degree oven. The top of the cake should be a golden brown.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee or some milk! :)

Simple Bread Pudding

Hello everyone! I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas and stuffed yourselves with enough turkey to last until the next Thanksgiving or Christmas and even if you didn't get any gifts, I hope you had wonderful family and friends surrounding you through a jolly Christmas! (:

Just the other day after buying too many loafs of baguette for a barbecue and having a little harder than desired crust, we do what we always do, make bread pudding! That's what happens to any bread that's about to expire or turn a little stale in this household. And, it's easy to make as well!

300 ml of milk.

I think baguette's are perfect for making bread pudding cause there's a lot more tough crust and thus doesn't soak up too much milk, preventing it from turning too soggy and wet. Soggy bread pudding is just horrible when it gets so wet that it feels like it isn't cooked. Also, always remember not to put too much milk into your bread pudding! (We had to learn that the hard way) For this simple bread pudding we used 300 ml of milk and one loaf of baguette.

Ingredients:

• 300ml milk
• 5 tbsp brown sugar 
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 tsp cinammon
• Raisins
• Butter
• 2 tbsp cognac/whiskey (optional)

Instructions:

1. Cut baguette into slices or smaller pieces if you'd like as seen below.
2. Soak raisins in a bowl of 10 ml milk to soften.
3. Pour 290 ml of milk into a fairly large bowl and add 3 eggs, 6 tbsp brown sugar and cinnamon into the bowl. Beat the eggs and mix well.
4. (Optional) Add a little whiskey/cognac to the mix for a little kick.
5. Soak the baguette pieces into the bowl of mixture soak until plump. (Make sure it is not too wet that it'll fall apart. Ensure that it still holds it's shape)
6. Butter the bottom of the pyrex bowl/microwaveable bowl. Layer the baguette in a separate bowl and add raisins randomly but evenly for each layer.
7. Once done, add a few slabs of butter on top and sprinkle some brown sugar on the top to get a crisp exterior.

Add 3 eggs to milk and 5 tbsp of brown sugar.

Add a little whiskey or cognac to the mix for a little kick.

I'm sorry there isn't a better picture of this! But hey, just layer the soaked baguette layer by layer.

Put some slabs of butter on top before baking in an oven at 180 degrees Celsius. 

Enjoy with ice-cream or custard sauce!

Happy Holidays!

As posted on Sweet as Sugar Cookies' Sweets for A Saturday:

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Christmas Cookies

Christmas is a time when everyone puts on a few pounds and hey, it's the holidays right, so why not? Why not bake those butter cookies and make them as pretty as can be with colourful icing or chocolate! Christmas is just 2 days away! Boy, does time fly or what! We actually wanted to try our hand at Royal Icing for these butter cookies but unfortunately, the stores (we went to three) have seem to run out of meringue powder so we couldn't make that happen. But see how we thought of another way instead of Royal Icing to get our cookies done in time!

Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

• 370g all-purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 225g butter
• 180g sugar (If you're not going to ice your cookies put 200g)
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp milk

Instructions: 

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
2. Whisk the butter and sugar till a pale yellow.
3. Add the egg and milk. Combine well.
4. Put the mixer on low and add the flour slowly. The mixture should pull away from the bowl.
5. Divide the dough in half and wrap in cling film and refrigerate for 2 hours.
6. Dust a clean surface and your rolling pin with flour. And roll away.
7. Cut the cookies with cute cookie cutters and place them on a baking tray.
8. Bake for 5 to 8 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) at 190 degrees. Do watch the cookies cause baking times may vary with different ovens. So if the sides of your cookies are starting to turn brown, they should be done.
9. Let them cool on a cooling rack and put them in air tight containers to make sure they stay crisp.

Like I said above, we couldn't make Royal Icing due to missing meringue powder but after much thinking (after two days), we decided to decorate the cookies using white chocolate and try adding colouring to it to make it more fun. If you don't have time to do the baking and decorating all in a day, you can always bake the cookies a few days in advance and then decorate them another day.

Chocolate Icing
What you need:

1. White chocolate compound.
2. Food colouring (Red,Yellow, Blue, Green)
3. Piping bags- or plastic bags and cut a hole at the end.
4. To be creative! It doesn't have to be perfect!

We used Beryl's white chocolate compound which we bought from the bakery, but any other white chocolate compound will do. The Beryl's chocolate was a little sweet so if you know that your chocolate is very sweet then by all means, cut down the sugar on your cookie dough recipe so you won't give everyone a sugar rush or diabetes!

1. Chop the chocolate into pieces (the smaller,the better) and put into a bowl over a double boiler.
2. Allow the chocolate to melt until half of the chocolate is melted while constantly stirring with spoon.
3. Take bowl off double boiler and continue to stir allowing the rest of the chocolate to melt. The point of taking the bowl off when only half the chocolate is melted is so that the chocolate doesn't separate.
4. Pour the melted chocolate into separate bowls to mix colour in. Remember to add colouring drop by drop, a little at a time. Mix, and add more colouring only if you want a more concentrated colour. Mix evenly.
5. Pour coloured chocolate into pipping bags (or plastic bags with tips cut).
6. Outline the cookie shape and then fill the inner part of the cookie.
7. Have fun, there aren't any other rules to decorating!
8. Allow for the chocolate to cool on the cookie and it should harden. 

Bowls of coloured chocolate!

Put the colouring in respective pipping bags or plastic bags with a cut tip.

Start by outlining the cookie first. Then, fill the inner part of the cookie to ensure that the chocolate doesn't spill off the cookie.

Package with christmas cards or little christmas tree ornaments! 

Cookies for Santa! And of course for family and friends (;

Enjoy making your colourful Christmas cookies with family, friends especially the little ones!

Merry Christmas!

Posted on Sweet As Sugar Cookies' Sweet for A Saturday:

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