Aspiring Bakers extension dates

Here a little announcement about the NEW extension dates for February and March Aspiring Bakers.

Since the roundup for our previous AB Kue Lapis Classics was a little late, I decide to extend the February theme - Chicken Feast - to 10 March 2013. Roundup will be posted on 11 March 2013.

For this month's theme - Heirloom and Local Dialect Recipes (家传菜/籍贯菜), the closing date is also extended to 4 April 2013 as the host will be away for a short holiday.

As the chicken theme and heirloom/dialect dishes are both cooking themes, you might have some dishes that can be both chicken (Feb theme) and from local dialect or pass down from the older generations (Mar theme) as well. So you are welcome to submit to both events at the same time (if you posted within 1-10 March). First time this is happening!

Old and new friends and bloggers, do continue to support and participate!

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Aspiring Bakers #28: Coca-Cola Chicken

I just realize that all maybe almost all children love soft drinks. At least I know my nephew and nieces do. I tried cooking coca-cola chicken once many years ago. Still remember how delicious it was, the chicken was nicely coated with sweetness that comes from coca-cola! As I don't drink coke nowadays, I hardly cook it again. Since now I know the children love to drink coke, I try to make them happy by telling them I will be adding coke to the chicken. :)

You know there are tonnes of coca-cola chicken recipes on the internet. You try to search you will know. I study a few recipes before attempting to cook again. People cook this in many ways, different marinades, and so on.

To make it simple for me, I come up with the most basic recipe. And then add some variations to the basic recipe.

Coca-Cola Chicken (basic recipe)
This basic recipe is the simplest, super-easy version of Coca-Cola Chicken. There are only 3 ingredients! The coke will tenderize and caramelize the chicken because of the sugar in it. So please used regular coke instead of sugar-free coke.

Ingredients (serves 2-3):

9 pc mid-joint chicken wings
1 can coca-cola (330ml)
1/4 tsp salt

Method:
1. Marinate the chicken wings with salt and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
2. Heat some oil in the frying pan. Pan-fry the chicken wings till both sides lightly brown.
3. Add in half a can of coca-cola (or enough to cover the chicken). Simmer the chicken wings for 20-30 minutes (turn the chicken wings halfway) until the sauce thickens, chicken becomes tender and caramelized. If the sauce dries up during cooking, add more coca-cola or water.

Cost of dish
9 pc mid-joint chicken wings - $3.10 (Fairprice)
1 can coca-cola (330ml) - $0.70 (Fairprice)
Total cost = $3.80+

Coca-Cola Chicken (other variations)
If you think that the basic recipe is too plain and lack of flavours, here are some of the variations that I read about. There are different types of marinades, more ingredients, and more flavours. You can also adjust the recipe yourself based on what you like. Feel-free to experiment!

Ingredients:

Possible marinade ingredients:
salt
pepper
light soy sauce
dark soy sauce
sesame oil
rice wine
ketchup
honey
coca-cola
(yes some marinate with coca-cola, I'm going to try that next time)

Possible main ingredients:
ginger
garlic
spring onion
any parts of chicken/pork ribs
vegetables, like onion, carrot, chilli (if you like it hot)
1 can coca-cola (330ml)

Garnish ingredients:
chilli
spring onion
toasted sesame seeds

Method:
1. Marinate the chicken/pork and leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
2. Heat some oil in the frying pan.
3. Saute ginger, garlic and spring onion until fragrant.
4. Add in and pan-fry the chicken/pork till both sides lightly brown.
5. Add in any vegetables. Then add in half a can of coca-cola (or enough to cover the chicken) and marinade sauce. Simmer the chicken wings for 20-30 minutes (turn the chicken wings halfway) until the sauce thickens, chicken becomes tender and caramelized. If the sauce dries up during cooking, add more coca-cola or water.
5. Garnish the dish and serve!

***
Some recipes from my blogging friends:
http://www.noobcook.com/coca-cola-chicken-wings/
http://en.christinesrecipes.com/2010/04/coco-cola-chicken-wings.html
http://ellenaguan.blogspot.sg/2012/04/coke-pork-ribs-new-version.html

I am submitting this dish to Aspiring Bakers #28: Chicken Feast (February 2013) hosted by SSB of Small Small Baker.

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The Almost Famous Amos and Very Chocolate Cookies

I find that I'm far far behind in my postings. So to speed up a little. Here's comes another 2 types of chocolate cookies which I baked some time in early January.

I call these the Almost Famous Amos cookies. This recipe was taken from a FB group, but I can't remember the person who posted this recipe as I only took a screenshot of the recipe on my phone. I find it not that Famous Amos yet (so rename as almost!) but it is still a hit for the kids. Sharing the recipe here as I got a small discovery later on.

Almost Famous Amos Cookies

Ingredients:

125g butter
50g brown sugar
40g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
180g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
150g bittersweet chocolate, chopped finely
100g walnut, chopped finely (I omitted)

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugars till fluffy.
2. Add vanilla extract and egg, mix well.
3. Fold in sifted cake flour and baking powder,.
4. Add in chopped chocolate and walnut, mix well.
5. Place 1 tsps of cookie doughs on baking tray.
6. Bake at 170 deg C for about 15 minutes till done (adjust time according to the size of the dough).

Recipe adapted from: FB Baking Wonderland

The new discovery is this Very Chocolate Cookies which I bake for my charity bake sale. While searching for chocolate cookies, I found this Nigella's Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. When copying down the recipe, I find it very very familiar. Then I realize it is actually similar to the "Almost Famous Amos Cookies" above! The main differences are that the chocolate is melted instead of chopped and part of the flour is substituted with cocoa powder. Thus, I combined the 2 recipes and tada... the Very Chocolate Cookies (my version) turn out much better than the almost famous amos. At least I prefer this as it is more crunchy and chocolatey.

Very Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients:

125g butter
50g brown sugar
40g caster sugar
125g bittersweet chocolate, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
150g plain flour
30g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
100g chocolate chips (add or reduce according to your preference)

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugars till fluffy.
2. Add in melted chocolate.
3. Add vanilla extract and egg, mix well.
3. Fold in sifted plain flour, cocoa powder, baking powder soda and salt.
4. Add in chocolate chips.
5. Place 1 tsps of cookie doughs on baking tray.
6. Bake at 170 deg C for about 15 minutes till done (adjust time according to the size of the dough).

Recipe adapted from: Nigella

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.

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More cookies with egg whites

As I was left with some egg whites after my charity bake sale, I found and tried 2 types of new cookies that use only egg whites.

This Almond Cranberry Cookies is taken from 孟老师的100道手工饼干. I substituted shortening with butter. I wonder if it makes the difference. I find that the cookies are not light and crisp (酥) enough. But the toasted almond gives the cookies a very nice fragrance and it tastes good with the slight sweet/sour taste with cranberry.

Almond Cranberry Cookies 杏仁蔓越莓酥饼

Ingredients (about 35 pieces):

35g dried cranberries
35g almond flakes (toasted at 150 deg C till light golden brown)
100g cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
35g icing sugar
15g corn flour
15g ground almond
50g shortening (I use cold butter)
25g egg white

Method:
1. Blend or chop finely dried cranberries and toasted almond together until fine.
2. Sift cake flour, baking powder, icing sugar and corn flour into a bowl. Then add in ground almond.
3. Rub in shortening into the flour mixture till fine crumbs are formed.
4. Add in egg white and the cranberry-almond mixture from step 1. Press to form a soft dough, do not knead.
5. Chill the dough for about 2 hours. Roll out the dough into 0.5cm thickness. Cut out cookies with cookie cutters.
6. Bake at 170 deg C for 20 minutes till light golden brown.

Recipe adapted from: 孟老师的100道手工饼干

The other cookies which I prefer over the above one is this Cat's Tongue Cookies from Carol's 烘焙新手必备的第一本书. When done correctly, the cookies are light and crispy and very hard to stop eating it! The only wrong thing I did was my fault actually. I ran out of piping bags and had to use a disposable type of plastic bag and resulted in horrible piping. My cookies don't look like cat's tongue at all. ;p

Cat's Tongue Cookies 猫舌饼干

Ingredients (about 30 pieces):

60g unsalted butter, softened
35g icing sugar
1/8 tsp salt
60g egg white
60g cake flour
zest from 1 lemon (I omitted)

Method:
1. Whisk butter and icing sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in egg white gradually in 4 separate additions.
3. Add in sifted flour in 2 separate additions.
4. Lastly, add in lemon zest and salt.
5. Fill the batter into piping bag with tip opening of 0.7cm in diameter.
6. Pipe out the batter into lengths of 6cm, leaving some space in between the cookies.
7. Bake at 160 deg C for about 10 minutes till the edges become light golden brown*.

*Note: Make sure the cookies are baked till dry, if not the cookies will turn chewy instead of crispy when cooled. To do that, you can either leave the cookies in the oven to cool in the residual heat after turning off the oven. Or bake the cookies at a lower heat of 120 deg C for another 10 minutes.

Recipe adapted from: 烘焙新手必备的第一本书 by Carol

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover.

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Charity Bake Sale: Thank you for your support! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

A big big thank you to the following friends who have bought my homemade CNY cookies to support my first charity bake sale. I hope you all like the cookies. All the cookies were made by me and only me with no extra help, except my father who helped me to wash and clean up. ;p

I spent about 5 days baking. I made a total of 30 containers of cookies, which exceeded my targeted order of 20. I'm sorry that I had to revise and also reject some orders as there was not much time to make any extra.

As mentioned in my previous post, for every container of cookies sold, I will donate $1 to "Singapore Buddhist Free Clinic" which provides subsidized TCM for the needy and sick elderly, I managed to raise $30 (for 30 containers sold). One of my customers, Mary Ng, had donated another extra $10 in addition to the cookies bought, to support this bake sale. Thank you so much Mary!

So on the first day of the Chinese New Year, I made my first donation in the name of "Small Small Baker" through sggives.org charity donation portal.. The donation is $40 ($30 from my bake sale and $10 from Mary's personal donation). Although it is only a very small amount, I am very happy that I make the first step of helping the less fortunate. Hope I will be able to do more charity bake sales in future.

I wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous Snake Year. 

May all be safe and healthy!!

祝贺大家：新年快乐，出入平安，画蛇添福，蛇来运转!!

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