Cheesy Spring Rolls (Popia Cheese)

Well now, here's another easy peasey recipe for all of you. Cheese spring rolls! That's right. I first came across the idea of deep-fried cheese at Swenson's, where they coat cheese (Mozarella, I am thinking) in something, maybe a thin bread layer, then cover in breadcrumbs and deepfry. Mmm-mmm! Soon after that, we had some cheese spring rolls at NurWanita restaurant, which used a saltier cheese, probably Cheddar, and were much more tasty because of that. Not only were they more tasty, they're much easier to do too! So, here we go!

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Custard Marshmallow Pudding

Good morning everyone! Hope your Ramadhan is going well. =) To kick things off, I have here a quickie recipe which Ibu made for a family event during the first day of fasting. Here we go!

What you need:
One plain un-iced cake, flavour of your choice
Custard - for an easy custard, use one tablespoon of custard powder per cup of milk
Vanilla marshmallows
Half a bar of Crunchie chocolate, crumbled into small pieces

What you do:

1.  Cut the cake into small pieces, roughly 2-inches square maybe. Place in a single layer in a serving dish/bowl. We had enough to make two bowls.
2. Make the custard and pour over the cake pieces. While still hot, place some marshmallows over the top so that they melt with the heat. Sprinkle over the chocolate pieces.
3. Refrigerate for a few hours until custard is cold. Serve chilled.

Easy, no? =) You can, of course, use a home-baked cake, but its far easier to just buy from the supermarket. We used a pandan chiffon cake, and that was good, but imagine how much better it would have been if we had used a chocolate cake instead. Mmmmm~

This is quite similar to a trifle, I guess, only that instead of jelly, marshmallows are used. =) They both have the same function, to impart some flavour into the dish. So feel free to modify as you like and add your favorite toppings. To make it even richer, you could even whip some cream and spoon over the custard. Yum!

Quote of the day: You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Happy Ramadhan to all Muslim readers! =)

I had it in mind to try out what blondies taste like, when my cousins said that they had made some but, alas! I was not in time to try theirs out. Very popular, it seems. So I decided to try and make my own. =) It also helped that a friend also wanted me to try out a blondies recipe, so that will work out just fine. As for the recipe, I find that Smitten Kitchen is always a good place to find some new delectable treats, and sure enough, I found a recipe for basic blondies. Here we go!

What you need:

8 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

A pinch of salt

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup chocolate chips (modify as you like - the original recipe had a list of additions you can add to the basic recipe.)

What you do:

1. Grease a 8x8 baking pan.
2. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in the egg, then the vanilla.
3. Add the salt and stir in the flour. Add in the chocolate chips.
4. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake at 190C for 20-25 minutes, or until set in the middle. Underbake slightly for a gooey-er texture. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.
   

Hmmm, as you can see, the thickness of my blondies are not quite the same as the thickness as the ones in the original recipe. Am pretty sure that that is because she doubled the recipe and used a 9x13 pan, which is not quite the same as using a 8x8 pan on a single batch, I would think. Ah well, not much harm done except that I should have adjusted the baking time to make up for this. Or maybe I will try the doubled recipe sometime soon.

I had actually wanted a gooey blondie, but as you can see, mine are far from gooey, haha. One good thing though was that the texture stayed dense and chewy, which is (apparently) how a blondie should be. =) Which is great! In fact, it was kind of like a really soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie, very nice! I had wanted to make it slightly more fancy (gotta admit, it looks kind of plain) and tried spreading Nutella on the top, but found it too sweet.

In fact, most everyone preferred it plain. It got a really good reaction from the family. Mostly because of the texture. And the chocolate chips. The friend who had requested for a blondies post also had a chance to try it and she liked it, so that's also great. =)

I do want to make this again, sometime soon. Am thinking on what other additions to make besides chocolate chips, but I can't seem to think of any which would be more popular than chocolate, haha. I will try doubling the recipe next time, I think. I might also use dark brown sugar instead of light brown, which I had used in this batch. That would enhance the flavour, which is always good~ =) This is a very easy recipe to do, so I'm not really tempted to find a new one. If the next batch works out, I might make another post to update you all.

In the meantime, happy fasting! Remember not to overeat, lest you regret it come Aidilfitri.;)

Quote of the day: Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

Pepperoni Pizzeta Squares

 

Apologies for the serious lack of posting these days. We shall have to address that soon, what with Ramadhan coming up and all. I shall (hopefully!) be posting lots of tasty treats for you all to drool over then. In fact, the motivation for this particular recipe comes from wanting to find something that would be an ideal light meal for breaking your fast, and maybe even suitable for finger food for Raya. We shall see. A lot of kinks have to be straightened out, it seems. Here we go!

What you need:

1 sheet ready-rolled sheet of  puff pastry

Roughly 10 sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil

About 25 pieces of beef pepperoni, more or less depending on the size of your pastry sheet

A sprinkling of cheese, of your choice

What you do:

1.  Place the sheet of pastry on a square of baking paper, and place on a baking sheet. Preheat oven to 180 C.
2. Meanwhile, drain the sun-dried tomatoes and process using a blender/food processor into a rough paste. Spread this paste evenly over the surface of the pastry.
3. Arrange the pepperoni slices (in a single layer, and in orderly rows) over the tomato paste. I got 25 slices in. Scatter the cheese over the pepperoni.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20-30 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden and the cheese melted. Allow to stand for a minute before cutting into squares, with a pepperoni slice in each square. Serve immediately.
   

  

A very simple recipe, as you can see. Feel free to modify any of the ingredients to suit your taste. I wanted to use up the last bits of sun-dried tomatoes I had still in the jar, and thought that having a circle to pepperoni on each square of pastry would be cute, haha. Treat it like a pizza, if you will. Possible toppings inlude - onions, mushrooms maybe, even little shredded bits of meat.

Unlike a pizza, however, do not go overboard with the cheese. You don't want to overwhelm the pastry with the cheese and you don't want it too soggy because of the cheese either. We used Cheddar cheese, but it seems that it was a bit too oily. Add to that I had underbaked the pastry (by accident) slightly, the end result was a bit too soft for my liking. Some squares, especially around the edges, were crisp though and those were delicious!

 

Apart from that, I quite liked the topping. Babah, in particular, liked how the sour tomato sauce contrasted with the slightly spicy pepperoni. And of course, the cheese. I would have preferred a mature Cheddar, I think, for this one, but we only had some "normal" Cheddar cheese, common in Brunei. Perhaps even Kraft's processed Cheddar would do, that one is wonderfully salty, haha.

I think that this recipe could be a keeper, just need to tweak it a little. I had thought the pastry was done as it was beautifully puffed up, but alas! the bottom was actually undercooked as I had used the wrong mode for the oven. It deflated quickly once it was out of the heat. Shall not make that mistake again! Then there's the problem of which cheese to use. If you like it, I would highly suggest Parmesan. But since we don't, I'll have to experiment and see which ones give the best result.

Anyway, that's it from me for now! Hopefully, the next post won't be too long in coming. :)

Quote of the day: My idea of feng shui is to have them arrange the pepperoni in a circle on my pizza