Sundays with a Chocolate Cake

If you remember my previous post about Effortless Sundays, you will remember that I wrote it was moot point to say that my Sundays are effortless. And to prove my point, here is a rusty-c (read as rustic) chocolate cake that I made for my daugther for lack of a better alternative to going out. Sunday was a bit rainy and windy in this part of the globe so to make up for a dreary and grim afternoon, all cooped up in our tiny abode, I baked a chocolate cake for her (and for hubby).

Rustic by one of its definition means lacking in social graces or polish, which is definitely what my chocolate cake is. Now I said rusty-c because my skills in baking when it comes to anything chocolate is really rusty, and by one of its definition it means inept and slow through lack of practice. The first times I baked with anything chocolate -- most of it ended up in charity. I had to call our barangay captain to assist in distributing cupcakes and brownies to charity just for my efforts to not get wasted and of course for the food to not be thrown away or get spoiled.

Anyways, as I mentioned, rather than sulking up in the rain and boring musings of a Sunday afternoon, I decided to make use of the last of my flour, the last of my butter, the last of my eggs in the pantry and just DO this chocolate cake.

And it turned out ok! In the words of the Little Einsteins " I caannnooot buh-lieve it!!!". So in my best efforts to capture my elated sense of accomplishment, I am posting my rusty-c chocolate cake and how it is made:

Preset oven to 180 degrees C.

a cup of flour

a tsp of baking powder

half a tsp of baking soda

a dash of salt

half a tsp of chili powder

half a tsp of cinnamon

90 g of butter

1 cup of chocolate bits (chips)

nuts for garnish

1 whole egg

milk

sugar

Melt chocolate ang butter in a saucepan over uber low heat. When both are incorporated, remove from heat. Set aside. Using a separate bowl, blend together all your dry ingredients. Beat in the eggs. Add about 3 tbps of sugar. Beat well. Slowly add a few amounts of milk to soften and even the consistency of your batter. When your choco butter mixture has cooled considerably, whisk this in to your batter. Beat well.

Transfer to a baking tin or to your ramekins. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

I love that my daughter loved the cake...or she probably thought she didnt have any choice in the matter. Anyways, it was really good...hope you like 'em too!!

The Accidental Chocolate Chip Cookies

Accidentally, Kelly street...Remember that song? From what, way back highschool days? Nothing I just found myself singing that chorus when I was baking my chocolate chip cookies. Why were they accidental ? Well let's just say they weren't supposed to look like...what they look like in the picture (hehe...) I wouldn't even bother you with the recipe because I messed it up so bad I couldn't remember what I did wrong or what I did right. But mind you ladies, they still taste yummy!

However, to make up for the goofy mess I did, I asked one pro blogger for her recipe of the famous Blue Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookies and she eagerly shared it with me! Goody! I will write a post about it soon! I am just going to be a bit too busy for the next couple of days to pave the way to my "wish I were a world famous pastry Chef" musings.

So anyways, I hope you love the pic! I am certainly enjoying some burnt, chewy, sweet and nutty cookie crusts in here...heeeheeeheeh!!!

College Days, a Ref Cake, and Nasty Co Interns

I was in my 5th year in College, which was basically, my intern year when I had to travel and live in certain provinces in Luzon where our university has affiliations to clinics offering rehabilitation medicine. It's a basic requirement for all graduating PT's in the Philippines to practice theoretical and clinical applications in standard, controlled and actual environments.

It also means, having to cohabitate and tolerate other interns from other universites. It also means having to tolerate untidy habits like unthrown garbages, the smell of left over beer wafting through the air when you wake up in the morning, having to wait for over 1 hour in line to the bathroom because a couple is sneaking a "quickie" inside. It also means you have to get along with the whims of your classmates like a night out everynight, food trips, unplanned beach hoping, wasted nights and mornings after a drunken tirade and having to kiss ass to our ugly, overbearing, conceited, did i mention ugly...? CS's.

How did this ref cake fit into the picture? I was having a discussion with my one of my barkadas one night and we were talking about what to prepare for a dinner on a Friday night. We agreed that we'll make carbonara, some grilled fish, grilled pork and i offered to make a ref cake. When all of a sudden, this co intern and a board mate (we live in the same boarding house), just blurted out "Ref cake? Eh ang dali lang gawin nyan eh. Kahit sino pwede gumawa nyan" (Ref cake? That's just so easy to do. Anybody can do that), all the while smirking, and grimacing, belittling my effort. Since Im the type of person who will not speak to you if I dont like you, i did not honor her snide comments with anything and basically ignored her existence. She could have dropped dead in front me and I would never have given a damn about it.

So actually, yes its true, it affected me more than any other comment or actions Ive experienced in the past. Why? Because ive always known that I love to bake, cook and concoct delicious goodies. That particular memory made me averse to making ref cakes from then on. As if making ref cakes (mango creme pies, banana creme pies) would suddenly poof her in front of me. Needless to say, I hated making creme pies because I remember that night and the snide comments of an untidy, dimbo who's a poor excuse of a food critic.

Until recently when our office sponsored a summit to Boracay and we drank this smoothie in Jonah's called choco banana peanut smoothie. And it was hands down the most delicious, sweetingly tempting, banana smoothie Ive ever had the pleasure of tasting. After that trip a friend of mine (Ross) decided to make a choco banana peanut cake. I saw the picture and it looked so yummy, so asked for the recipe. And she said it was actually a ref cake. OK...a ref cake..Was I ready to let go of the past to satisfy my sweet tooth cravings? well, what the hell I wanted to make one.

So I did! And here it is....

My version of choco banana peanut creme pie

About 7 pieces of Dole banana

2 packs of chocolate cream (nestle)

About 1/2 cup of condensed milk

About 2 tbsp of white sugar

Crushed Graham crackers

About 2 tbsps of brown sugar

About 12 pcs of choc-nut (locally made chocolate with peanuts)

Cut the banana into bite sized pieces about .5 in thick. Set aside and place inside the ref covered.

Beat the chocolate cream, 2 tbsps of white sugar, and condensed milk. Set aside or place in the ref to cool.

Combine the graham crackers and 2 tbsp of brown sugar. Add a few crushed choc nut.

Crush the choc nut with your fingers. Dont forget to lick them off your fingers after doing so! Yum! (wash your hands afterwards of course!)

Now your ready to make your creme pie.

Place a layer of crushed graham crackers at the bottom of your pie dish(you can use the uncrushed whole crackers if that's the beat of your music *wink). Then take out your chilled chocolate cream. Mix in the banana slices. Place a dollop on top of the crackers, then layer with crushed choc-nut. Next layer again with crackers, banana cream, and choc nut until you fill the brim of your dish. For added pizaz, layer in additional slices of banana and uncrushed choc nut.

Place in the chiller or inside the ref and let sit for 4 hours. Serve! With whipped creme and coffee!

Sitting in front of our teli, with a serving of the choco banana peanut cake (creme pie), i couldnt help but remember that co intern. Funny thing is since I never gave her a second look, I coudnt remember what she looked like, much less what her name was (she was named Broomhilda for all I care) and I thought to myself, i am bound to meet people like that along the way. That wouldnt be the end of that. People who dont have anything good to say to others. People who I just cannot bring my self to get along with. Im bound to stumble upon nasty "co interns", even now that I am a mother already. Question is, if i would let myself be affected by their annoying presence.

Yeah, anybody can do a ref cake, but Id bet my bottom dollar, she can't do s**t about anything, she cant make ref cakes as deliciously and awesome as I make 'em. (Or she could probably be the Head Chef of a 5 star restaurant, or a multi-awarded pastry chef..who cares? She aint pretty like me...=P)

Peppered Chicken and Potatoes with Salty Lemon Butter Sauce

My first masterpiece. I wanted to do something this saturday other than my usual mommy duties. I noticed that I still had a kilo of chicken wings stocked in the freezer. My husband M asked what was for dinner (as what husbands usually ask their wives, although im pretty sure its not asked to annoy us, or make them sound like a broken record) and I automatically answered "Sinigang, may natira pa kase kagabi" ("Sinigang, there's some left overs from last night"). He answered "ok" and just when i was turning to look at him, I saw a tiny wee bit smirk from his face. Knowing that my husband would never impose requesting that I cook another dish for tonight (considering that we were both very tired from the day's work), I decided to make use of the chicken wings. We can always eat the left over Sinigang tomorrow lunch.

So I set about preparing the chicken. Firstly, I marinated it in some very simple mix of lemon, salt and pepper. I used only about 1/2 a kilo by the way and to this i added the juice of 2 lemons, their rind, salt and freshly cracked black pepper. I set it aside for about 20 minutes. When you're running low on time, you can use McCormick's lemon pepper chicken mix and it will do wonderfully as well.

Next I washed the potatoes and cut them into halves, skin on.

Next I prep the oven, 200 degress C.

After about 20 minutes, you can place the chicken wings at the bottom of your ramekin or baking pan. Next put the potatoes on top. Then put about 2 cubes of unsalted butter on top then place in your oven and bake for about 40 minutes.

I thought about the greens I will use for this dish and remembered that I only had native spinach in the ref (an all time favorite of my mine by the way since I was little). Since I didnt have anything else at hand to use as a dressing I decided that I will just add in the spinach when Im ready to serve the dish.

So I boiled about a cup of water. When water is boiling, turn off flame and add in the spinach to the pot of boiling water. After about a minute or two, drain the pot and put blanched spinach onto a bowl of cold water to stop it from cooking further.

After 40 minutes of baking take out your baking tray or ramekin and see how the chicken is cooking. Sometimes, it will not brown as quickly or nicely as you expect. So you can put the dish back in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes more.

After this you can be sure that the chicken is already tender, the juices have come out nicely and the potatoes are baked to a firm and chewy texture. Transfer the chicken and potatoes into a serving tray. Arrange nicely not forgetting to include your blanched spinach.

The tray still has ample juice from the chicken left and I used it as the gravy for this dish. Ijust put in a little bit of flour and cooked it over low heat until it thickened.

M certainly did not have a smirking face when dinner was set. I asked him if it was true that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and as an answer, he looked at me and gave me a sweet nice kiss on the lips.

Kalamansi Cupcakes

Inspired by the kalamansi muffins at the Real Coffee in Boracay. I experimented on my own recipe and a recipe I got from the lemon bars. Before doing so however, a few notes. Although recipes state a specific temperature and cooking time you have to know that ovens are unique and different from each other. You have to really know your oven in order to bake these goodies and for them to turn out nice and decadent. I use US Tradition electric oven and it never disappointed me but I had to be extra watchful because I noticed that the batches at the back tend to cook and brown so much quicker than the ones in front. Secondly, it tends to overheat so there's a point in my baking time that I have to lower the temp down to a manageable level to cook and bake deliciously. This was not realized in a day (Rome wasnt build in a day right?). I experienced a lot of mishaps, thrown away batches and sadness at first but in the end me and my oven got on good terms and now I am happily baking when I wish to (well, truthfully -- when i have the time).
So here it is:
1 - 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 stick of butter + 1 tbsp (usalted and at room temp)
2 eggs
1/4 kilo of kalamansi (thereabouts) - grate a few for the rind (choose the really green and firm ones)
1/2 cup of white sugar
4 tbsps of white sugar
1 yogurt (unflavored or any flavor will do except buko pandan - im thinking it will really alter the taste of your cupcake)
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda (there was this blogger who said to use fresh not dead baking soda...and the baking soda i used had been sitting in my pantry for over 4 months now and my cupcakes turned out still good -- so wonder what he meant by that)
1/2 tsp salt
about 1/2 tbsp kalamansi rind
Preheat oven to 180 C. Take out everything you need from the fridge at least 1 hour before baking so that everyting is at room temperature as this makes all the difference in the fluffiness of the cake.
In a bowl, combine all your dry ingredients. Flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt plus the lemon rind. Leave about 1/2 cup of flour aside in case you need to thicken your batter (squeezing out the kalamansi yields different volumes of kalamansi juice). There's no sifting of dry ingredients in my world.
In another bowl - cream the butter and 1/2 cup sugar until light in color. Add the yogurt. Set aside.
In yet another bowl - beat the 2 eggs and add the juice of your 1/4 K Kalamansi. Add the 4 tbsps of sugar. Beat until smooth. Set aside.
Fold in the butter mixture into your flour mixture. Next add the egg mixture slowly and bit by bit all the while mixing your batter until you reach a smooth, even texture. If you find that your batter is too thin add the remaining 1/2 cup of flour bit by bit until you reach your desired consistency. (when you try and laddle the batter it should drop with a "plop" sound). By this time you would have made a sweet yet tangy batter.
Next pour the batter into your muffin pans. For this recipe I got 12 cupcakes.
Put in the oven and bake for about 15-18 min. Using my electric oven, I keep turning the pan every once in awhile so the heat gets distributed evenly to all the cupcakes. Again, its how me and my oven works. You dont necessarily have to do that if you got your own professional reliable oven (hehe).
You will notice that the cupcakes have a thick compact texture to it. It's done (really) when a toothpic inserted comes out clean.

You can use any of these recipes for your icing:

1. Candied kalamansi rind
about 1 tbsp of kalamansi rind
maple syrup or sugar syrup
Heat the maple syrup in a pan on medium heat. Stir in the rind. Let the sauce baubble and thicken (about a min or two). Pour over your cupcakes.

2. Kalamansi Icing (the one I used)
egg white from one egg
about 3/4 cup icing sugar (keep some in case you still need to add)
about 2 tbsp of kalamansi juice

Mix everthing and pour over your cupcakes. I used some on the cupcakes i made but decided that the cupcakes were delish enough on their own so I didnt dollop on them anymore. Just kept it in the freezer. In case I suddenly crave for a kalamansi icing on top
So there you go folks. Hope you like 'em when you bake 'em!