I turn these…

into this…

I have no idea why it’s called apple butter and not apple jam…but if you wanna be technical about it, you can safely call it ultra-cooked apples with spices. It’s great as a bread spread, it’s great as an ingredient in cupcakes and cakes, it’s great even to marinate some ribs for grilling.

So, far, I’ve used it as bread spread and it’s damn good. And healthy too!

I made my apple butter without added sugar since I used Fuji apples that are naturally sweet. So, here’s how you make:

Easy Healthy Homemade Apple Butter Recipe

Ingredients

10 – 15 apples, peeled, cored & chopped finely

1 tsp all spice powder

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg powder (optional)

1 – 2 cups brown sugar (optional, I didn’t add any sugar to my apple butter)

Instructions

1. Place all the chopped apples into the crock pot / slow cooker.

2. Set the slow cooker on high for 3 hours.

3. Add the spices and sugar. Stir to combine well.

4. Then set the slow cooker to low and let it do its magic for around 10 hours.

5. Stir the softened apples and leave the lid off.

6. Let the butter cook for several more hours until it is done.

7. Do the saucer test to determine if it is done. The saucer test is simple. Just take a dollop and place it on a saucer. If it starts to become watery, then it’s not done. The apple butter, when done, should be able to stand on a saucer without becoming watery (like the picture above).

8. You can immediately bottle the apple butter (or eat it direct hot from the slow cooker…). It can be stored in the fridge for quite a long time and if you sterilize your bottles and subject your bottled jams to a sterilization method (through hot water bath in a pressure cooker), then it can last unopened for months!

Enjoy and find ways to enjoy your healthy homemade sugar-free apple butter!

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Special guest post from renowned food photographer Lucas Zarebinski:

I have always been influenced by paintings and visual art that incorporates vast number of small objects that make up the final piece. Patterns that emerge from repetition of the same items. I just try to do the same with my  food photography at times, finding cool objects with interesting colors and shapes. I simply then spent time making patterns out of them, building towers or just throwing them onto the background until something catches my attention.

When it came around to do the “Haribo Cola” image – I wanted to do a series of photographs of candy. As part of a test ( not an assignment ) I wanted to explore color and shapes. I set out to find jolly ranches, gummy bears, swedish and rock candy. Playing with different items in the studio I started to see something interesting in placing these white/brown candies really close to each other – like they were going against each other , almost like being at war. I wanted to try a different angle for this picture to have a bit more dimension for the items being photographed – but in the end the direct approach seemed to have the best effect.

After deciding on the angle I spent some time moving lights around and thinking about lighting it in a most interesting way. I wanted to emphasize on the texture on the subject without loosing its interesting color qualities. Once the lights were set in the place ( I believe mostly lit from behind ) and the composition was finalized – I got this quite airy and colorful photograph I love going back to. Its often a method on trial and error before you end up with your finished image. You should always try different options of lighting / angles / composition to explore the subject to the max because in the end you will get rewarded.

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Okay, enough about the festival, let’s get to the main important thing about this festival: traditional Chinese mooncakes. For the longest time, I love these sweet treats. So I started making them several years ago and was quite successful too but then my pictures were grainy and my mooncakes didn’t look so appetizing.

So, here I am posting another mooncake recipe here. This one is definitely easier and simpler too. And here’s the end result…

Enough rambling. Here’s the really easy recipe. And if you stay in Malaysia, you will find that you don’t even need to make the filling as ready made mooncake fillings are easily available at most bakery shops.

Once baked, let it cool and leave it out to air for at least a couple of days for the skin to ‘settle’. Unlike other baked desserts, mooncakes are only best eaten after a few days and NOT hot from the oven!

So, here’s the recipe for the baked mooncake and using ready-made fillings:

Easy Mooncake Recipe

For the skin:
600g flour
450g golden syrup
180ml peanut / vegetable oil
1 tbsp alkaline water

For glazing:
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp water

Instructions

1. Combine the wet ingredients first.
2. Slowly add in the flour bit by bit until fully incorporated and knead till it became a smooth, soft dough.
3. Let the dough ‘rest’ for more than 3 hours.
4. After the waiting period, shape the dough into 30g balls.
5. Shape the filling into 110g balls too.
6. Roll out the dough and wrap it around the filling. Then use the mooncake mould to shape it.
7. Bake the mooncakes for 10 minutes at 170C and then remove from oven. Let it cool.
8. Brush the skin with egg wash and then resume baking for another 10 minutes.

And you get your very own homemade mooncakes!!!!

I will post up a recipe for ping pi mooncakes or snow skin mooncakes next.

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The taste: It’s thick, very chocolatey and rich. The burst of rich, sweet, to-die-for chocolate in your mouth is simply delicious. It’s something I’d drink again and again. But….

The price: it’s not worth it to spend so much on a chocolate drink.

If it’s priced RM10 less, then it’s ok. Maybe I’d even pay up to RM18 for it but not more than that.

Next…I bought a bar of their chocolates too..

The taste: yes, it’s dark chocolate, so it’s quite rich. It melts in your mouth rather quickly. The praline tastes kinda weird, it’s sweet but that’s just it. Nothing great about it.

The price: it’s definitely NOT worth the price you pay for such a tiny bar of chocolate. I’d say it’s highway robbery!!!! Based on the taste and quality of the chocolate, I’d only pay at most RM8 for that tiny bar of chocolate.

Overall, this so-called chocolatier may be a nice place to hangout while enjoying some drinks and snacks but that’s it. I wouldn’t spend my money here for the chocolates because there’s nothing great about it at all. Nothing to shout about. Seriously. I’d rather spend the money on good couverture chocolate and make my own chocolate pralines which will probably taste WAY better.

Overall Taste: 7/10

Price: $$$$

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I always have loads of spare apples lying around the house (don’t ask…it’s a loooonnnngggg story…) and I am always thinking of new ways to bake it. I know, I know, it is healthier, better, easier, simpler to just eat the apples as it is. I don’t know about you, I feel like a cow chewing, chewing and chewing when biting into the second and third apple…SO. Why not just use it to bake huh? After all, baking is so much more fun especially when my days of mixing, folding, stirring using only elbow grease is gone and it is so much more fun baking with a professional bosch mixer and loads easier too. No more sweating and grunting over the batter and it’s WAY faster too.

Anyway, I have come up with several different recipes to bake the apples so we don’t need to chew, chew and chew some more. If you’ve been through my blog, you will probably find that I quite often like to make apple crumble or apple crisp. While those are great dessert, it can get rather boring, you know? So, I went in search of other apple dessert recipes and in my previous post, I made apple chocolate cake. It was so good, it made me wanna just sit down and gulp down the whole cake. But I digress…let’s get back to this sinfully rich and creamy apple cheesecake recipe I am about to share with you. Before I start, tell me, does it look good?

And it’s not all that hard to bake too! Really. Well, it does involve some work, some stove-top cooking. But hey, it’s well worth the effort,ok? Promise! Just imagine the combination of the tarty flavours of the apples combined with the creamy richness of the cheesecake, it just makes you wanna continue eating and never stop.

A warning to all the health freaks and ‘I am on a diet’ people out there though, this is NOT diet food. While there’s fruit involved, it’s not healthy nor is it low calorie or low fat. Don’t blame me if you find your waist and hips rapidly expanding after baking this. Heck, even looking at it makes my hips expand by at least an inch.

Now, let’s get back to the task of creating this unhealthy, fattening but oh-so-good-it-makes-you-wanna-scream-in-muffled-mouthful-delight creamy delicious apple cheesecake.

What you see above are the main actors needed for this hip-widening, saliva-inducing, better-than-sex (well, that’s what I feel! It may make you fat but it doesn’t give you a squalling bundle after nine months!) dessert. You need apples, a lemon, cream cheese (to reduce the side effect of waist and hip widening, I use fat free cream cheese), graham crackers (otherwise known as digestive biscuits) sugar, eggs, vanilla essence and cinnamon powder (not shown here but it’s definitely in the recipe). Why no flour, you ask…well, you can see that my lemon cheesecake also does not contain any flour.

Next…

You will need to let the cream cheese soften first before you blend it together with the eggs, vanilla, sugar and cooked apples. The good thing about cheesecakes is that you can also make small mini versions on cupcake tins like this:

Then, you’d get cute bite-sized mini cheesecake like this one…

Now, that you’ve seen some of the steps involved…here’s the recipe proper:

Apple Cheesecake Recipe

Ingredients


Cheesecake recipe:

500g cream cheese (fat free if you wanna reduce hip-widening side effects)

3 eggs

1 cup sugar (or use diabetic sugar if you really, really want to make it as healthy as possible but it’s not my fault if it tastes weird)

2 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup cooked apple topping

1/2 cup milk

For the base:

1 packet graham crackers

100g butter

2 tbsp sugar

For the apple topping:

5 medium apples, cored & diced

1 tsp cinnamon power

1 lemon

3 tbsp sugar

Instructions

For the apple topping:

Cook the apples over the stove in medium heat until soft then add sugar, cinnamon power and squeeze out the juice from the lemon into it. Stir and let it simmer for a few more minutes. Add more sugar if you prefer it to be sweeter or opt out the sugar if you like it tart.

For the base:

Blend the graham crackers until fine and add the butter and sugar. Process till it is fine and press it into the base of the pan. If you are using cupcake tins, line it with cupcake paper and press the graham crackers into the bottom of the base till firm.

For the cheesecake:

Process the cream cheese, eggs and sugar till creamy and smooth.Add in the rest of the ingredients and process till well mixed. Do not overdo it as it may create air pockets in your cheesecake.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and base. Then pop the cake in to preheated oven and bake between 30 and 45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Remember to place the cake pan on top of a water-filled tray so that the cake top will not crack or turn brown.

Once it’s done, take it out and let it cool. Pour the apple topping on top when you want to serve it.

Enjoy!

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Just look at it:

Yep, I couldn’t resist and ate two HUGE slices hot from the oven. Hey, I have good reason to do that, I need to check the taste. That’s what good chefs do. Ahem. Anyway, it’s pretty easy to make. Just cream sugar, eggs, water and butters then add flour, baking soda, vanilla essence, diced or shredded apple, cocoa powder, chocolate chips and bake.

Pour the batter into a loaf pan or even a normal cake pan and bake at 160 degrees Celsius to get the rich, moist chocolate apple cake.

This is how good it looks like, hot from the oven:

And no, combining apples and chocolate is not strange at all. It tastes phenomenal!

Here’s the recipe proper:

Rich Chocolate Apple Cake Recipe

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
3 tbs cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup water
3 eggs
1 1/2 cup soft brown sugar
2 cups finely diced apple (or shredded)
1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Cream the eggs, sugar, water, butter and oil.
2. Add in the cocoa powder, flour, soda and vanilla and combine well.
3. Stir in the apple and chocolate chips.
4. Pour into greased and floured pan and bake at 160 degree Celsius for 45 minutes or until it is baked through.

You can serve it and eat it hot from oven (and risk burning your tongue in the haste of stuffing it in) or wait it to cool before serving it as it is. And one more thing, this cake tastes great without any frosting at all!
Enjoy!!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Yeah, as you well know, I am a real cookie monster and I have this thing for baking all sorts of desserts from cakes to cookies. It’s been awhile since I baked cookies in recent times (due to my cutting calories so that I could fit into a cheongsam I bought for the CNY!) so CNY is as good a reason as any to bake, bake and bake loads of cookies!

I baked the traditional peanut cookies, pineapple rolls and I made meat floss rolls too. These are 3 of my favorites during Chinese New Year so of course, naturally I have to make these! Nothing beats home made cookies.

The traditional peanut cookies are rather easy to make if you have a food processor to help you knead the dough into this smooth, pliable dough:

So that you could shape it into these small little balls and then indent it with an icing tip:

Then you bake it for about 10 minutes to get these:

I simply love, love, LOVE peanut cookies aka fah sang peng aka thor tau pneah. They melt in your mouth into smooth, rich, crumbly peanut buttery taste. Absolutely heavenly.

As for the pineapple rolls, just add flour, baking powder, corn flour and icing sugar together like this:

And rub the butter in too. It will form a smooth dough like this..

Just form balls and wrap it around pineapple jam or pineapple paste(which can be made or bought, whichever floats your boat). Paint it with some egg wash and then, just bake for around 10 minutes or so, you get this…

I love pineapple rolls too because of the crumbly pastry warpped around the sweet and sour filling. Yummy!!!

So who cares about calorie count when there’s yummy goodies like this to eat?!?!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Trust me, it’s as good as it looks. And the best part about it is that it’s so moist and rich, you’d never want to bake regular chocolate cakes ever again. I made these for a friend’s open house party and I didn’t want to go empty handed.

Did I mention that this makes an absolutely sinful and yet quite guilt-free (well, it is quite guilt free because it contains fruit..)breakfast? Who needs toasts when one can bite into these, right? Believe it or not, I don’t have toasters at home so we don’t even eat toasts! I mean, why eat toasts when we can have cake right? Heheh…I know, eating cake for breakfast is just like a big huge no-no to health fanatics but I say, what the heck, we only live once, right? Besides, it’s not like I have cake for breakfast everyday, all the time.

But I digress, let’s get down to how these mouth-watering treats are made..

You need dates, preferably moist ones and plenty of them, 30 to be exact. You will need to remove the seeds and sorta mash it up a bit.

The other ingredients you will need are eggs, sugar, flour, cocoa powder and of course, chocolate. You boil a pan of water, add the dates and boil it till softened. Once the dates are soft, mushy and cooked, remove it from heat and leave it to cool. Then you mix in the sugar, eggs, cocoa and chocolate. Blend it well before adding the flour and incorporating it all until well combined. While you can manually mix these ingredients, I’d recommend you use a mixer or food processor. It definitely saves time. If you don’t have a food processor or even a stand mixer, I’d suggest that you go get one from Russell Hobbs, they have really good quality processors that could last you for years! I used to do all the mixing with good old elbow power but it just takes up too much time so I went ahead and got a processor and a hand mixer to save me time whenever I cook or bake.I digress again, let’s continue…

You then pour the mixture into muffin pans, I used a mini muffin pan too as I wanted to make bite-size mini cupcakes. Sprinkle some chocolate chips on top if you like to add more chocolate flavour to it.

Then we are all set. Just pop it into the oven and bake. Here’s the recipe proper:

Rich Moist Chocolate Dates Cupcakes

Ingredients

10 dates, seeded n chopped
3/4 cup water

4 tbs flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla essence
A pinch of salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup cocoa powder
50 g chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup soft brown sugar
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, optional

Instructions

1. Heat up the water in a pan till boiling. Add the seeded dates and let it cook for a few minutes over medium heat until soft and mushy. Remove from heat and leave to cool.
2. Place the chopped chocolate in a bowl and microwave it for about 30 seconds to a minute to melt it. Or place in a double boiler over the stove and melt it. Make sure not to burn it. And then leave to cool.
3. In a food processor, combine the eggs and sugar until smooth. Then add the melted chocolate, cooked dates (and the water it’s cooked in too), cocoa powder, vanilla, baking powder and salt. Process till well combined.
4. Add in the flour and process agains until the mixture is smooth and not lumpy.
5. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (Celsius).
6. Pour the batter into greased muffin pans. Sprinkle the mini chocolate chips on top if you like and then pop it into the oven. Bake between 15 – 18 minutes. The cupcakes are done when you insert a cake tester into the middle and it comes out clean.

To serve it, just place on plates and sprinkle some icing sugar on top and it’s ready to wow your guests or if it’s for yourself, just eat it hot from the oven, be careful you don’t burn yourself in the haste of scarfing it down.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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Here’ what I made for my daughter’s first birthday:

Yep, it’s my very first time making a princess/ doll cake and it’s loads of fun too. Best of all, it sure did impress quite a lot of our guests. (I baked a plain pound cake for the base, so I have time for the decoration.) Heheh..

Anyway, my wedding anniversary is coming up and I wanted to make something simple and nice. I have this thing for Angry Birds (the popular iPhone/iPad game) so I thought, hey, why not give it a try….and here’s what I got:

It’s our 7th anniversary and no, my husband is not into Angry Birds but heck, I AM into Angry Birds so why not? Of course this can’t beat the Angry Birds cake by Anya Richardson but it’s a start. Actually the pigs are rather easy to make, the birds are more difficult.

These are mini cheesecakes since my husband is not a really dessert person but he sorta likes cheesecake and in small portions. It’s an apple cheesecake and I will post up the recipe next post.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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You just need peanut butter, chocolate chips, cocoa powder, Nutella, chopped almonds (optional), an egg and yogurt. Yep, you do not need to add sugar as the peanut butter and Nutella are sweet enough. Just mixed it all up, drop onto the lined baking tray and bake!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Yogurt Cookies / mini muffin

3 tbs peanut butter
2 tbs chocolate chips
2 tbs cocoa powder
1 tbs Nutella
1 tbs chopped almonds
1 egg
2 tbs plain yogurt

Instructions

1. Mix all the ingredients together until well-combined.
2. Drop tablespoonful of dough, it will be watery, onto a lined baking tray. Or pour into non-stick mini muffin pan.
3. Bake for around 15 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius.
4. Eat it hot from the oven!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

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