Bacon Parmesan Cookies

It school holidays now and my niece was at my house over the weekend.. Thought of having some aunty-niece bonding and so I have decided to bake some cookies. A fan of Laura in the Kitchen, I like to use her recipe because it is so easy to follow and so delicious.. yummieh! So I took her recipe on Bacon Parmesan cookies - a savory cookie that I miss eating.. 

My niece had so much fun making them.. Very hassle free and not messy. I must add that this is a kid friendly recipe, something you can do with your kid.. My niece loved the process and wants to bake more with me.. Mission accomplished!

Lil Chef mixing the dough together 

The niece with the cookies ready to be sent to the oven

(Adapted from Laura in the kitchen)
Makes About 2 Dozen
Ingredients: 

• ½ cup of Unsalted Butter at room temperature
• 1 cup of Shredded Parmiggiano Reggiano
• 1 Tbsp of Brown Sugar
• 1 ¼ cups of All Purpose Flour
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp of Freshly Chopped Rosemary
• 10 Slices of Cooked Bacon, crumbled
• ½ tsp of Baking Soda
• ½ Tsp of Baking Powder

The original recipe calls for ½ tablespoon of salt. Baked once following the recipe and it was way tooooooo salty even for someone like me. This time round without the salt, It was still a bit salty, might need to lower the amount of cheese as well. 

1. Preheat the oven to 190C and place some parchment paper on a couple baking sheets, set aside
2. In a small bowl, combine together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside
3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, parmigginao regginano, brown sugar and rosemary. Add the eggs and mix until you have a creamy mixture
4. Add the dry mixture and mix to combine. Fold in the bacon crumbles
5. Using a cookie scoop, drop the cookies on the parchment line baking sheet. Bake for 12 to 14 minute or until golden brown
6. Let them cool completely

Cookies... Yay.. Something I like.. 

Cookie.... with a glass of milk.. 

Baked Sardine Puff - A craving satisfied

While driving home from work, I had a strong craving for sardine puff. Wells.... I am on a diet and having a sardine puff is going to throw my dieting off the scale. As such, I decided to make one myself.

I was amaze how simple this is to make.

Ingredients:

For the puff pastry:

• 150g All purpose Flour
• 50 gram Butter (cold)
• 60ml chilled Water
• 1/3 Teaspoon salt
• Egg wash - 1 Egg Yolk + 1 Tablespoon water

For the sardine filling 

• 1 Can of Ayam Brand Sardine (any brand should be fine just that I like this brand and we need the tomato sauce from the can)
• 8 small red onions or 1 large red onion
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 chili padi
• 1/2 Tablespoon Curry Powder
• l Calamansi lime juice

Directions:

For the puff pastry:

1. Cut the butter into Small chucks
2. Add the flour into the butler and use a knife to cut the butter into smaller pieces. (If you have food processor, that is even better, use it for this step.)
3. Use your fingers to further incorporate the butter into the flour. You should be able to see coarse crumbs
4. Quickly add the chilled water and fold the dough with a spatula. Don't overwork your dough
5. Place the puff pastry into the fridge for at least 15 minutes. 

For the filling (to do after making the puff pastry)

1. De-bone the sardine And smash the sardine
2. Sliced the onion
3. Add all the ingredients And mixed together

Putting everything together

1. Preheat oven to 200C
2. Cut the puff pastry into 25g each. Roll the puff pastry into flat round slightly bigger than the palm
3. Add in the sardine filling into the pastry and fold down the sides
4. Use a fork to poke some holes to allow the air to escape from the puff
5. Apply egg wash onto the surface of the puff
6. Baked the puffs for 20-25 min

Oven toasted Sardine Puff. Not too bad, just a bit toasted on top.. Equally yummy. 

One more photo..

Me having a bite while taking conference call.. Multitasking to the max.. Muahahaha

Vanilla Malt Cupcakes + Hello Kitty Overload Birthday Celebration

Baby G had her 1st birthday and Mama G. asked me to make cupcakes for Baby G. Her request: Any cupcake is good, as long as it is tasty. She just wants a Hello Kitty themed cupcakes. Hah. No Problem..

So I started searching for recipe. I knew this cupcake will end up very sweet. I anticipated lots of fondant for the hello kitty, so I wanted something with a simple taste.. Nothing too complex in terms of texture. But I did not want just plain Vanilla cupcake. I searched the web and found Cupcake Project's Vanilla Malt Cupcake. It was perfect, a simple texture yet something different from your normal type of cupcake.


For the recipe:
Makes 16:

¾ cup sugar
½ cup malted milk powder (I used Ovaltine)
1 ¾ cups cake flour, not self-rising
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
¾ cup whole milk

Instructions:

1. Preheat Oven to 180 degree C. and line your cupcake tray with liners. 
2. In a bowl, mixed in the flour, baking powder, soda, salt and malt powder. Set Aside. 
3. Using your stand alone mixer (with paddler attachment) or handheld mixer, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and light. Add in the vanilla extract.
4. Add in the eggs into the butter mixture and mixed till smooth 
5. To the mixture, slowly add in the dry ingredients and milk. (I used half flour --> half milk, continue until all in mixed) Ensure you do not over mix your batter, else you will have a hard bread like texture. 
6. Bake the cupcake for 20 minutes or till your toothpick comes out clean when you insert it in the middle. 

For the frosting, I decided to go all Vanilla as well. I decided to use Vanilla paste frosting. I thought it will turn out too sweet but surprisingly the taste is something that even for a person like me who do not like anything sweet to actually say it was okay. Amazing. Again, I adapted the recipe from Cupcake Project's Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting Recipe. Wells, some recipe calls to use the actual bean but I prefer to use paste. 

For the recipe: 

Enough for 12 cupcakes

1 1/2 cup icing sugar, sifted (add more until it reaches your preferred consistency)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste (add more to taste)

1 tablespoon of milk (I did not add it on my recipe - Singapore weather too hot. Milk will turn bad plus frosting melts more readily with our temperature)

Steps: 

1. In your standalone mixer or handheld electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy
2. Add in the vanilla bean paste and until well mixed. Mix for a minute or so. 
3. Add the sifted icing sugar 1/2 a cup at a time. Be careful the mixer is at low speed
4. You may want to add milk if you find the consistency too thick. 

Note: I used SCS butter, not because they paid me to say so but because I realise that other butter that is sold in Singapore tends to melt faster than SCS and given our weather they melting process is accelerated exponentially. 

My masterpiece.. I think it looks like clouds.. So fluffy and light. Smells delicious too.. 

Vanilla Malt Cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Buttercream frosting. So Yummy~~~

Clouds in my kitchen 

How course, the first batch was just to test water. Could not wait till the actual baking day to try a new recipe. So of course I used the first batch to try ways to include a Hello Kitty theme to my cupcakes. First thought was to make a Hello Kitty fondant something like this:

Picture from Solid Recipe

But I did not have black & yellow colouring so I improvised and it became this:

Fusion Pink Hello Kitty. 

Mama G saw this and say too fusion pink! Haha. I also say.. So weird right. Complete Failure. Plus the fondant melted after 24 hours. It just looked horrible and it was too sweet. The fondant is OMG sweet to the max. This is not the standard Drama Mama B. has. NG!

Was about to give up doing something hello kitty and resorting to just using paper cupcake toppers that Mama G. bought:

But CANNOT! 过不了自己那一关. Ha. Meaning I cannot let myself go for such sub-standard cupcakes. 

So I decided to bake cookies - Hello Kitty Cookies. At least there is some Hello Kitty stuff that I can proudly say I made by hand.  I must be crazy, but I think I baked like 70 of them. 

Hello Kitty Sugar Cookies

I will have another blog on my Hello Kitty Cookies. Please stay tune for that :) The flooding of the royal icing nearly killed me to the max. 

Final Product

Cupcake with Hello Kitty Cookie on top. I coloured the frosting pink. The whole theme was pink. 

The end product with the hello kitty 2-tiered cake that Mama G. ordered. 

Happy Birthday Baby G!

Finally.. I decided to start blogging

Decided to start blogging on my baking... I have so many recipes but I have yet to properly arrange it. Friends have been asking me to blog for the longest time.. wahaha.. Finally I decided to do so..

SO.. Watch out for more great bakes from Drama Mama B.

Wells.. What is a blog without photos. Self-obsessed me..