A New 'Member' & An Old Favourite

I had a new addition to my recipe collection lately - Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. When blog-hopping, I had come across several good reviews on her recipes, which made me confident about buying this book. I had not gone to search for it intentionally, but as I was browsing at Harris, I saw two copies sitting prettily on the shelf, as if calling out "Buy me, buy me!". Oh well, buy I did :p

I hadn't quite finished reading through the recipes. But I wanted to try out something simple and quick to make. So I chose a scone recipe and modified it for my post for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging, where the guest host is Anna from Morsels and Musings. If you would like to join this weekly event where bloggers write about herbs, flowers, fruits or plants, don't forget to hop over to Kalyn's Kitchen for more details!




Rosemary is my very favourite herb, I simply love the intoxicating aroma it produces during the baking/cooking process. Some people find the pine-like fragrance a bit pungent, but it suits me just fine, in fact, I tend to add more than the recipes ask for. Rosemary has several health benefits to. This is what WHFoods writes about rosemary - rosemary contains substances that are useful for stimulating the immune system, increasing circulation, and improving digestion. Rosemary also contains anti-inflammatory compounds that may make it useful for reducing the severity of asthma attacks. In addition, rosemary has been shown to increase the blood flow to the head and brain, improving concentration.

However, I just realized that I hadn't actually written a WHB post about it yet. How could I have forgotten to do that?! So my apologies, Miss Rosemary. So here I'm pairing rosemary with cheese in these savoury scones.


If you love buttery scones, these would probably not suite your taste. If you look at the recipe below, the amount of butter is actually pretty low for 250g of flour. But I like it that it's light and soft, with each bite perfumed with the taste of cheese and rosemary.

For a more indulgent treat, serve these warm, with a slab of butter on top.

Rosemary and Cheese Scones(modified)

240g plain flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves(adjust amount according to your taste)
30g cheese*, grated
40g cold butter, cut into cubes
150ml milk
Beaten egg, for glazing

Method:

1) Sift the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar.
2) Using a pastry blender or your fingers, rub in the butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add in the rosemary and cheese and mix well.
3) Add in the milk and use a fork to mix briefly.
4) Turn the mixture out onto a floured surface and knead lightly to form a dough. Dough should not be sticky.
5) Roll out (I just pat the dough using my fingers) to about 1-inch thinkness and cut using a 2.5-inch cutter.
6) Place on a lined or lightly-greased baking tray and egg wash the surface. Bake in a preheated 220 C oven for about 20 mins, or until golden brown and risen.

* Nigella’s recipe suggest to use mature cheddar, I used Parmigiano Reggiano.

Scones are best served on the day of baking, especially when fresh from the oven.

Patchy Blotchy

Hey friends, how how you been? For those who celebrates Chinese New Year, there's still a weekend for 'house visiting' and festivities to go. Hope you are enjoying the gatherings and feastings :p

After all that cookie baking sessions for the past weekends, it's about time I break away from the cookie trays and get back to kneading some breads.

Do you find the above picture interesting? That's the top crust of the bread. This is baked using the Vienna Bread recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, and the top is brushed with a paste made from rice flour and water. During baking, this topping will develope into a patchy coating. This type of breads is also known as Dutch Crunch or Mottled Bread.

Unfortunately, my topping didn't turn out as the way it should be, which should be much more 'dramatic' than in mine. If you have the book you will know what I mean. But a not-so-successful crust aside, this bread is a lovely loaf. The interior is softer, and the crust less chewy than most rustic breads. I love it that it is not as sweet as the usual sweet breads, just a tinge of sweetness, so I spread on some sweet-tangy cloudberry jam. It went well with brie cheese too, I had them just this morning :)

The final piece of crust and crumb.

My Annual Baking Event

Chinese New Year (CNY) falls on this coming Sunday, which is just 3 days away! I just realized that I have not posted my CNY baking this year, even though I've been baking away ferociously for the past 2 weekends. This year I'm not too 'productive', mainly because I don't have the time to bake on weekedays. Almost everything was baked on half of Saturdays and the entire Sundays. Anyway, to cut the long story short, here are this year's CNY cookies:

Hazelnut cookies


Pineapple tarts, I only made the pastry. The jam is store-bought, I only 'processed' it a little - too much work for me to prepare from scratch.


Totally addictive Peanut Cookies, recipe modified from Florence's

Since CNY holiday in Singapore this year stretches from Saturday to next Tuesday, I hope all of you out there enjoy this long break. I will be away for the holiday and back next week. Till then, here's wishing all who celebrates CNY:

恭喜發財, 新年進步

Green with Envy?

Screwpine leaves, or more commonly known as pandan leaves, is a widely used plant in Asian cooking, especially in Thai, Indonesian and Malaysian cuisine. A plant with a floral fragrance, it can be used in savoury dishes such as in curries or nasi lemak (coconut-flavoured rice). Of course, when blended with water, pandan leaves can be used as a natural food colouring, imparting a lovely green hue to cakes, puddings, sweets and jellies.

Pandan leaves are readily available here, and are sold in bunches of about 8 to 10 blades. Some families even grow their own pandan plant!

I always like to use pandan leaves to make chiffon cakes, because pandan chiffon cake is something which I grew up with. So when I learnt to make chiffon cakes, this is the first flavour I attempted. This time I made something different - Pandan Butter Cake.

Pandan Butter Cake

225g cake flour (or Top Flour)
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
85g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
180g sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup(240ml) nonfat unsweetened yogurt
30ml pandan juice*
¼ tsp pandan essence**

Some chopped nuts(optional)

1) Preheat oven to 180C and grease 8”x4” loaf tin (I'm using a bundt pan this time)
2) Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3) Mix together yogurt, pandan juice and pandan essence.
4) Cream the butter for about 1 min to soften. Gradually sugar and beat until light and creamy. Dribble in eggs slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for about 2 mins.
5) On LOW speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined. Beat in ½ of the yogurt. Then beat in 1/2 of the remaining flour mixture, followed by the remaining yogurt. Finally beat in the remaining flour mixture. Fold in the nuts if using .
6) Pour the batter into the prepared tin.
7) Bake for about 35- 45 mins till skewer inserted comes out clean.
8) Cool in pan for 5 mins. Unmold and cool completely.

* Blend about 5 to 6 blades of pandan leaves with some water. Strain using a sieve to obtain juice.
** I used pandan essence as well to impart a deeper green colour to the cake. You can omit it, but the cake will have a very light green hue.

This is a moist and light butter cake, with a distinctive, but not overpowering, pandan flavour. A refreshing change from the usual chiffon cake.

This is my post for this week's Weekend Herb Blogging (though I'm not sure if I can submit in time). Nevertheless, this week WHB returns home to Kalyn's Kitchen, who is the founder of this blog event, which is into it's second year running. Please check out her kitchen for the re-cap of the posts on herbs, fruits, flowers etc submitted by food bloggers around the world!

Add Some Colors to Your Life

Okay, I admit it. I have been thinking about lychees since reading Gattina's absolutely delicious post on Baked Lychee Risotto Pudding. In Singapore, it's easy to get canned lychees, which are available in any supermarket. When the season comes, we can have fresh ones too!

'Stomping' into my neighbourhood supermarket, I was determined to get a can of lychees. I could just open and eat straight from the can (Gattina, see what you've done? :p). But wait, I have a pomengranate sitting in the fridge too. Hmm.... how about a simple fruit salad?

Drain the lychees, throw in some Murcot segments, sprinkle on some red rubies(pomengranate), add a dash of lychee syrup and viola! A refreshingly fruity dessert:

Seeing such a colorful combination really does whet one's appetite. I especially love the red pomengranate dotted all over the bowl.

Say Cheese!!!!!

I’m sure many of you recognize the lovely green herb above. Yes, it’s oregano, and it’s the main ingredient in my post today for Weekend Herb Blogging, this week hosted by Ulrike from Kuchenlatein.

I first came across this recipe from Marieke’s Maison Dorré Trifles. It has never occurred to me that cheese cookies can be so simple to make, yet so wonderfully light and fragrant. I added chopped oregano to lend some aroma to these cookies, but this recipe should be versatile enough for other additions like poppy seeds, or even paprika!

This is my version of these Cheese Cookies:

50 grams cold butter, cut into cubes
50 grams Parmesan cheese*, grated
60 grams all-purpose flour
Freshly grated black pepper
One to two sprigs oregano, chopped
1 egg yolk

Whole oregano leaves for decoration(optional)
1 egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp water - for glazing

1) Whisk together cheese, flour, black pepper and chopped oregano in a bowl
2) Rub butter into flour mixture using your fingertips, two knifes or a pastry blender until mixture resembles small peas.
3) Add in egg yolk to bind the mixture together, and knead gently 3-4 times.
Wrap mixture in cling wrap and refrigerate for 30 mins
4) Lightly flour work surface and rolling pin. Roll out dough to about 0.5 cm and cut into your desired shapes.
5) Place on a lined baking tray. Place one oregano leave on top and egg wash the surface.
6) Bake in a pre-heated 200C for about 15 mins or so, or until light golden brown. Cool and munch away!

*Do use good quality cheese and butter for this recipe. After all, these two are what make up these cookies. I used Parmigiano Reggiano, which imparted a fantastic flavour to the cookies.