Tag: #breakfast

Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Pancakes

In other words, sin.

Pockets of sweet fudge, buttery, mildly sweet batter, the familiar mosaic on each side of a perfectly cooked, risen pancake.

Each forkful is effortless, tender.

Can’t wait any more. I know I have a well-stashed ‘Babbles’ category, but sometimes there’s no time for babbling. Especially with as straightforward and delicious a recipe like this. Stocked the praise in the main post which you can find in the directions below, but I felt the need to dedicate a separate post to this chocolate version. Ugh, stuffed silly with chocolate. You can’t not like chocolate. Or these. On a Sunday, with the birds chirping and the world is glistening.

Directions

Make the pancakes according to the instructions in my previous post for my favourite buttermilk pancakes here, but add 85g (a large handful) of chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli’s or Nestle’s mini milk or semi-sweet chips for this, which make for the perfect little pockets of goo) to the dry mix before adding the wet mix.

And that’s it! Top with maple syrup or whatever you want. I added tahini for a slight savoury, creamy punch. You don’t need much when chocolate’s in the picture.

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Make This Oatmeal Now (updated recipe with a twist)

I thought I had it all figured out, given the number of times I’ve made oatmeal in my life. Overnight, hot, cold, lukewarm (ew), apple-pied, black sesame-ed, peanut buttered, I’ve done it all. I even wrote a post about it here exactly a year ago, yet I only just discovered what I think is the perfect method for making the thickest, creamiest oatmeal ever. Trial and error does pay off sometimes. It’s more reliable, oats coming out perfect every time. Mind you, this method is preferable is you like the super thick and gloopy sort, but even if you don’t, you just have to take your oats out of the microwave a little earlier.

Catch– it involves the microwave. I can hear the disappointed sighs. They’re boring into the screen already, reaching me, slaps in the making.

I get it, I do. I used to think the only way to achieve the perfect, creamy consistency for oats is to do it the proper and old-fashioned stovetop way. The whole process just makes more sense, it wants you to feel like you’re doing it the better way, doesn’t it?

Funnily enough, this microwave method not only yielded the most desirable consistency, it also seemed to enhanced the flavour of mashed banana, the one ingredient I always put in before cooking my oats for added sweetness and creaminess.

No wait. Just do.

Directions 

The night before, mix together a half cup of rolled oats, half cup of water, half a mashed banana, and a half cup of milk of choice (I always use a mix of whole and almond) in a relatively large, microwave-safe bowl (because this mixture will se. Leave this in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, put your bowl in the microwave and microwave on high for 2 minutes. Take a spoon and mix, then put in the microwave for another minute. At this point, your oatmeal should be noticeably more voluminous and thickened, depending on the power setting of your microwave. Microwave in 30-second increments until you have oatmeal that seems to have more than doubled in volume. Just check your oatmeal every 30 seconds, mixing well between each spurt of heating. Err on the side of caution here.

And you’re done! At this point, you can add whatever you want. My standard toppings are more banana, a heaping tablespoon of almond butter (cashew/peanut/almond), blueberries for a nice tang to cut through the sweet goop, and plenty of honey or maple syrup. Once the oatmeal is a little cooler, I also add a dash of cold, whole milk.

BUT. In this case, I highly recommend trying out this kaya and coconut twist. It’s the sort of combination I’ll be coming back to again and again, for the flavours are close to my heart and it’s a nice break from your typical snack of kaya and butter toast!

The Twist

You should now have a thick, creamy, voluminous mass in your hands. Take the other half or a whole banana and slice it down the middle. Butter a hot pan and fry the banana on both sides. Place the caramelised banana on top of the oats, then add a heaping tablespoon each of almond butter and kaya (I love Breadtalk or Yakun, and my grandma makes a mean one too), a generous drizzle of maple syrup, coconut flakes and a dash of whole milk. Mix everything together, admire the glorious mess, then tuck in happily.

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Coffee and Kaya Yeasted Doughnuts

Yeasted doughnuts filled with kaya and drizzled with a strong coffee glaze. 

A tribute to one of my all-time favourite morning traditions.

In other words– butter, kaya, bread and coffee. It doesn’t get any better, or simpler, than that. Sometimes it’s butter and honey, or butter and jam, but most of the time it’s butter and kaya. It’s really common here in Singapore, where you eat butter-kaya (a pandan-flavoured spread) toast from Yakun or some hawker stall with soft-boiled eggs, all downed with smooth, creamy kopi (local coffee made with condensed milk, AKA the best drink ever alongside teh halia… ok and maybe Coke). Yes, I’m talking processed white toast, pre-cut and plasticky; sometimes I get the fancy sort from the bakery if I feel like it, but usually it’s just that and not much more. The sort of bread you would squeeze and press with glee as a kid because the degree of artificiality pretty much makes it more playdoh than bread, and I know you know what I’m talking about.

Toast.

Let the Nespresso machine kick into gear. Slather two almost-burnt slices toast with salted butter, because I like my toast that way and because salty butter is a must in my morning regime. Anything else and I feel that I’m cheating myself of flavour. Salty and sweet forever, unless I’m baking, in which case I always stick with unsalted butter and add the salt myself.

(Yes, they were spread further away from each other after this shot.)

This recipe represents this magical, true-to-local-taste flavour combination. Doughnut form. I’ve been itching to make yeasted, fried doughnuts for quite a while now, and when I got my hands on Baking Illustrated, with all the recipes tested and compiled by America’s Test Kitchen, I couldn’t wait to try their version of it. After 2 trials, a bit of tearful upsets and a lot of joyous finger-licking, I think I fell in love with the fluff and harmony of the final product. Their recipe advocates the use of vegeetable shortening instead of normal vegetable oil, and although they state that Crisco (veg shortening) yields the best result, I used canola oil in the second trial and couldn’t detect any distinct change in flavour or texture, so I doubt the change would produce a drastic difference if you used either.

This was my first time making fried doughnuts, but definitely not my last. There’s a certain ecstasy involved in replicating something so ubiquitous, yet undeniably delicious. Perhaps I’ll test the recipe again with a different flavour combination, or just anything that involves a delirious sprinkling of icing sugar after everything is done and dusted.

Coffee and Kaya Yeasted Doughnuts (makes around 16 doughnuts, adapted from Bakers Illustrated)

Ingredients

For the doughnuts:

450g (around 3 cups) all-purpose flour

2 1/4 tsp (1 envelope) instant yeast

6 tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

160ml (2/3 cup) whole milk at room temperature

2 eggs, at room temperature

85g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1.1 litres (6 cups) vegetable shortening like Crisco, or vegetable oil

For the filling and glaze:

1 cup (or more) of kaya, homemade or store-bought

4 tbsp freshly brewed espresso

160g icing sugar

Directions

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and instant yeast. Set aside for the time being. In your large mixing bowl fitted with a standard dough hook, mix together the eggs and milk. You could do this in another bowl if you don’t have a stand mixer such as a KitchenAid, just make sure the bowl is larger than the one in which you put the flour, and you will have to knead the dough for a little longer later in the process.

After mixing the milk and eggs, add the flour. Mix on low speed with the dough hook until you see a ball of dough forming. At this point, take your butter and add it in 4-5 additions, mixing well into the dough between each addition. The butter should be soft, not cold and hard, to make the process easier and faster. After all the butter has been added, mix the dough for another 3 minutes. If you’re doing this by hand, knead the dough for around the same time or longer, until you get a soft, plump and pale ball of dough. Have extra flour on hand in case you need more; you should have a soft but firm ball. Not too sticky, but not too firm, either. Shape your ball (remove the slightly stickier bits from the dough hook first) into a ball if it’s not like that already, then place back in the bowl, cover with a towel and let rise until doubled, around 2 hours. It should be visibly voluminous when you come back to check on it later.

After 2 hours, check on the dough– press lightly with a finger, it should feel tender but still quite firm. If not, leave for another 15 minutes. When ready, flour your work surface and tip your ball onto the counter. Take your rolling pin and flour that too, to prevent it sticking to the dough. Roll the dough out until it’s around 3/4 of an inch thick. Take a 3-inch wide circular cutter (or in my case, a scallop-edged one because I was feeling odd) and cut out circles of dough. Take the scraps left over and re-roll, then cut more circles. Place your doughnut circles onto a floured baking sheet and let rise for a half-hour more.

In the meantime, heat up your oil in a deep and wide sauce pan, or large Dutch oven. Prepare another sheet that’s lined with paper towel, so you won’t get an oily counter afterwards. Stick a candy thermometer by the side of the pan and let it heat up until 375F, or 191C. Take your risen doughnut cut-outs and place gently using a spatula or large slotted spoon into the simmering oil, 4 or 5 at a time. Wait 20 seconds for the first side, then flip to fry the other side, which will take another 20 seconds. They will be golden-brown, puffy and all moreish-looking. Place the fried doughnuts onto the paper towel. Repeat until all doughnuts are fried. Let them cool on the paper towels for at least 15 minutes before filling.

To fill, place the kaya in a piping bag, or into a large ziploc bag and cut off one corner just before filling. If using the piping bag, insert the nozzle into the side of a doughnut, and then pipe until full; the kaya will leak a little around the side if you pipe too much, too fast. If using the ziploc bag, use a knife to make a small incision at the side, before inserting the corner of the bag into the side and piping until full. To make the glaze, mix together the freshly brewed espresso and icing sugar. Dip the tops of the doughnuts into the glaze and let some drizzle down the sides. Sprinkle with chocolate curls before eating immediately, or at least on the same day.

Keep these doughnuts at room temperature for up to 2 days, else they just won’t taste fresh!

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Pineapple Condensed Milk Loaf Cake

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If there’s one thing you make this week, make it this.

A fluffy pineapple condensed milk loaf cake, studded with fine bits of pineapple, topped with fresh pineapple slices and a lemon-pineapple glaze. 

Sometimes my ideas are like branches with dead ends and no coherence. Since this blog is all about delicious, easy bakes, I didn’t want to throw random curveballs, but I didn’t want to overestimate the charms of conformity either. Basic, but not too basic. A degree of subtle complexity, and certainly no plain jane taste.

Scavenging the kitchen left me with some leftover pineapple from last night’s dessert and, well, not much else. Pineapple loaf cake has been done before, upside-down variations galore, and my finding of condensed milk in the fridge led to this mild twist. I must say it was fun to play around with the ratios; it turned out to be the perfect balance of sweet from the condensed milk and tangy from the use of both fresh pineapple and pineapple juice. Here, there’s not much flamboyance, and hardly any finesse. Funnily enough, it’s exactly this lack of properness that provides the right amount of charm.

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{Above: served warm with lemon curd, a drizzle of condensed milk, and coconut chips}

It’s messy, sticky, glorious. A little of the juice from the fresh pineapple layered on top mixes with the lemon-pineapple glaze, and together with the fresh pineapple both on and inside the cake, forms the perfect topping to the fluffy cake base. And goodness is this fluffy. Fork work is no work. The condensed milk, other than its more unorthodox flavour in the cake, provides a satiating density without weighing anything down. Tender is the night crumb.

Ingredients

For the cake:

175g cake flour (or substitute with the same amount of all-purpose and add 2 extra tablespoons, and be sure to whisk the dry mix all the more thoroughly later)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

large pinch fine salt

115g white sugar

110g (around a stick) soft, unsalted butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

150g fresh pineapple, cut into even chunks, around 1cm thick

60ml (1/4 cup) condensed milk

60ml (1/4 cup) pineapple juice (freshly squeezed, or you can buy those cans which state ‘100% pineapple juice’), or substitute with 30ml lemon juice and 30ml water

freshly squeezed juice of one lemon

For the lemon-pineapple glaze:

75g icing sugar

juice of half a lemon (the remaining lemon juice)

1 tsp pineapple juice, or substitute with more lemon juice

Directions

Preheat your oven to 177C (350F) and grease a 9×5-inch loaf tin. Separate your pineapple chunks into two clumps– one that’s 100g (to place at the bottom of your pan) and another that’s 50g. Finely chop this latter clump into small pieces. Sprinkle some white sugar on the bottom of your greased loaf tin, then place the chunks (100g in total; refer to picture above) of pineapple at the bottom. Set aside your loaf tin.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and white sugar for at least 30 seconds. Beat in the egg, vanilla extract and condensed milk. In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. To the butter-sugar mix, add half of the flour mix, then half of the pineapple juice. Use a wooden spoon to mix everything in briefly (streaks of flour are fine), then add the rest of the flour, remaining pineapple juice, half of the lemon juice, and the finely chopped pineapple. Mix everything together until just combined. The mixture should be yellow-ivory with a thick dropping consistency.

Tip batter into the loaf tin and bake for 40-45 minutes; mine took 42. Insert a wooden skewer into the middle of your loaf at the 40-minute mark– leave it for another couple of minutes if the skewer emerges wet and sticky, but take it out if it comes out dry. A few moist crumbs at the tip are fine, for the pineapple chunks at the bottom make it stickier and wetter than the other parts of the cake. While the cake bakes, make the glaze. In a bowl and with a fork or spoon, mix together the lemon juice, pineapple juice (or more lemon juice) and icing sugar. Play around here; you should have an opaque, white glaze. It should easily run when you hold the spoon at a height, but the stream would become reluctant once it starts thinning.

After removing the tin from the oven, leave the cake to cool on a cooling rack for an hour or so before removing. To remove, wear heatproof gloves and tip out your loaf cake, setting it down on your counter the way you put it in the oven (pineapple side down). Using a serrated knife, cut off the top of the cake, so both the top and bottom are flat (tip: the bits you cut off are wonderful, crusty and perfect with marmalade and tea). Flip the loaf cake so the pineapple side is on the top this time. Drizzle with the lemon-pineapple glaze.

Serve warm with lemon curd and more condensed milk. Store the rest in an airtight container and place in the fridge for up to a week.

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Chocolate Truffle Maple Syrup Cake

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Describe the taste of maple syrup.

Research informed me that it depends on the degree of roasting flavour. Typical notes are coffee, chocolate and chicory, and for the strong roasting flavour, you get hints of burnt sugar and smoke. Whatever the degree, there’s something incredibly enticing about this ingredient in particular. I use it several times a week without fail, almost always on toast and always on the occasional Sunday pancake session, yet it only recently occurred to me how deeply embedded it is in my kitchen system. It sits there day after day, use after use, so giving, so heartwarming. I love maple syrup, and there are few things I like more than chocolate and maple syrup. The sophistication of a rich, dark truffle stuck in honey-coloured, maple-flavoured fluffy cake is a welcome picture.

With so many truffles lying around the house, I thought I might as well put them to good use. The sort I use here are 60% cocoa; your standard, powdered, melt-at-room-temperature truffles. My hands were an absolute mess working with them, but the mess only enhanced the pleasure of the whole process, even as I witnessed some smaller bits melt a little into the batter before anything even hit the heat of the oven.

Your fork dives in. Zero resistance as it goes right through the pale, tender, moist body, and then maybe just a little once you hit a pocket of slightly stiffened chocolate goo. Break the cake apart. It’s a mess of black and white, a welcome juxtaposition of soft, fluffy crumbs and dangerous dark hotpockets. Sin trapped in something all too normal, all done before. No truffles? That’s ok, just use broken up bits of your dark chocolate bar. The effect won’t quite be the same with the whimsical shape irregularities and molten middles, but I would think it would be almost as delicious.

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Chocolate Truffle Maple Syrup Cake (makes 16 squares, heavily adapted from my cinnamon coffee cake)

Ingredients

165g all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

55g (less than 1/4 cup) white sugar

115g unsalted butter at room temperature (or microwave cold butter in 15-second increments until it’s a little warmer and soft to touch)

120ml (1/2 cup) buttermilk, or make your own by putting half a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar into your measuring cup or jug and filling it up to the mark with whole milk (let this mix sit for 5 minutes at room temperature before using).

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

100ml (1/4 cup and 1 tablespoon) maple syrup, and more for drizzling

9-11 medium-sized (around 2 inches wide) chocolate truffles, a few broken up into smaller pieces, or if you don’t have truffles, just broken up bits of a good quality dark chocolate bar.

Directions

Preheat your oven to 177C (350F), and butter and line an 8×8-inch square baking pan. What I like to do is butter the pan liberally, before placing down a piece of parchment that has 2 sides which are 8 inches, and the other 2 slightly longer so that it’s easy to pull out the bars once cool. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt) except for the sugar in a medium bowl.

Beat together the butter, maple syrup and sugar in a separate bowl. In a smaller bowl (yes there are 3 bowls here, but the washing up is not much pain, promise), whisk or beat together the egg, buttermilk and vanilla extract. Add half of the dry ingredient mix and half of the egg-buttermilk mix to the butter and maple syrup mix, and then beat to mix. Then add the rest and gently mix everything together, starting with a wooden spoon, and then switching to a rubber spatula to make the job easier.

Into your buttered and lined pan, add half of the batter, which should be smooth and slightly thick, and then dot the batter with chocolate truffles. Add the rest of the batter on top and smooth it out. Bake in the preheated oven for 33-35 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted into the centre emerges clean. The top should be slightly darker than when you first put it in, and brown around the edges. Enjoy this with vanilla ice cream or whipped and sweetened mascarpone (as in the pictures above) and a drizzle more of pure maple syrup.

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